So I skimmed through my resolutions from last year, as I do every year.

I seemed to have been at peace then. Wanting a clean slate, again, but accepting that I probably wouldn't get one. I'm there again today, wanting a clean slate, but maybe a mite bit less at peace with having seemingly even less of a clean slate this year compared to the slate I had at the end of the last one...

Emails still wait in my inbox. PMs await. Project folders line my desktop. I have dues left on my calendar - though I've plowed through a bundle the last week. My room's cluttered. My back's a mess. My life too, yes! But life does run on regardless.

Last year's dose of New Year-related enlightenment - in each day being as new a phase of time as each New Year - and in any stretch of time being as new as we make it, and just as equal and good an opportunity to get things done - rings true now too.

The thing that differs this year, maybe, is that I took a bath today. And helped out with dinner, since mom hadn't prepared anything special for the night, and of course you must have something at least a little bit extraordinaire in food to fare for a New Year. So I arranged some chanterelles with butter pepper and salt, some spicy spinach stew with cream, vegetarian siracha and lemon filets, sauce and drink and she a tray of baked root vegetables with honey and Rosemary. We had a good meal after all, though all this took an unexpected chunk of time out of the evening.

At midnight we'll cheer with a bubbly beverage, the snow's blowing in right now, and during a brisk walk earlier they were already shooting up fireworks! Which shows promise for tonight.

Though midnight here is a mere half an hour away as I type this and I haven't even done my yearly doodle yet, so I'll have to rush this resolutions post a bit. As per the point I was trying to get to above. Time seems in sparser supply this year, and I am thus probably a bit less at peace.

You can read last year's post here though (same link as above).

It's still relevant. I still have the same phone too. I still love it. I still ponder the same things all the same. And mom's getting alarmingly forgetful, which distracts. And then there's my back, which is also a notable distraction. That post's still relevant too...

Did I accomplish my goals though?

(more…)

In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were personally interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercial pages that overcrowded everything else. All the personalized websites are hidden among a pile of commercial pages. Google isn't great at finding them, its focus is on finding answers to technical questions, and it works well; but finding things you didn't know you wanted to know, which was the real joy of web surfing, no longer happens. In addition, many pages today are created using bloated scripts that add slick cosmetic features in order to mask the lack of content available on them. Those pages contribute to the blandness of today's web.

The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. In addition, Wiby helps vintage computers to continue browsing the web, as pages indexed are more suitable for their performance.

That's taken straight from their about page, I lack the energy to write up something about it myself tonight. :)

But check it out! It sure brings me back. To the days when the Net was free, a creative free-speech decree, and not so under attack...

They've got some nice buttons if you wish to link to them too.

Also. <- Just like the old days!

Well this is a mood ain't it! Partying with others all day... don't mind if it goes on like this.

This was a while back! This December they've been giving out 'golden chairs' at the main cinema franchise over here, for the first time ever! It's a marketing gig designed to get more people to the movies again, and I sure hope it's working. One 'Golden Chair' = FREE CINEMA VISITS FOR LIFE!

So I've been to the cinema a few times this month. No golden chair yet alas. Saw the final flick today, and tonight we cheer in a New Year...

But this really was a pretty cool initiative.

(more…)

...have been posted on this blog up to this date!!!

Ain't that a bit crazy.

It didn't even take the full decade this time. ;) And I apparently sped up a bit since the halfway point too - less than five years since then.

Woo! Here's to the next few hundred, thousand, and then some...

There's one more thing you can emulate via browser now. :) Pretty cool.

I've never actually made anything with VB in my life, as far as I can recall, but I definitely recognize the name. Now seems as good a time as any to get properly introduced... go check it out if you're feelin' nostalgic!

Or intrigued, by iconic languages of the PC programming heyday way way back in the day day (this particular version - the final - came out 1998).