ArleyM.com

Double Marriage

May 21st, 2011 | Comment | Personal

Last weekend Kristi and I went to a wedding. I leaned over and said to her “You know, if we get married again let’s memorize our vows! How cool would that be?!“. She didn’t look like she thought it was cool. I suspected that she was getting hung up on the inference that it would mean something untoward had happened to our current marriage. I set the record clear:

“I mean I think we should get double-married.”

I love my wife, and I would gladly take double-vows! I started exploring what multiple marriages would be like.

It would be a chance to try different kinds of weddings! Destination weddings, eloping, one of those weddings where dishes are constantly destroyed in the name of love. Awesome! Before I got too carried away in my brainstorm Kristi pointed out she would want a ring every time. I relented to this point, but said it made it less likely we would die anything more than deca-married.

The whole premise sounds more like a movie plot really. Like maybe the greedy-groom would be expecting gifts every time (we obviously would ask for best-wishes only). I also began to imagine the hilarious dialoge of a visibly shaken marriage official who is obviously going through his well used routine:

Official “…so the two are becoming one… err…. right, second marriage. Um.. the two are becoming four?… no”
Groom: “The one become half right? Because we’re already one from the first marriage, and it’s always halved.”
Wife: “I think it works in whole numbers, and the original one is indivisible.”

Obviously in this script the wife is talking like a nerdy nuclear engineer.

Invention: Unsurance

April 22nd, 2011 | 1 Comment | Personal

When properly motivated people can accomplish anything – this is the basic foundation of my latest invention unsurance.

Unsurance is basically a lot like insurance. For instance, you can take out a policy with me (your unsurance-broker) on your house for a million dollars. In the event your house burns to the ground, you owe me a million dollars. Simple!

Unsurance essentially gives you an added motivation to let nothing happen to your belongings. Insurance can’t give you this kind of personal and internal commitment.

Let me know when you’d like to set up your account!

Friday Mixtape

April 14th, 2011 | Comment | Music

Another mixtape to help pass the Friday. This collection of summer ditties is only meant to be listened to; at first blush some of the videos seemed terrible.

Technologically Content

April 11th, 2011 | Comment | Personal

I’ve spent the better part of my nerd life waiting for the next big thing. In hardware it would be better video cards, better monitors, more RAM, smarter computers. In software cravings would include new features, easier processes and better integration of favourite apps, and for the Internet I’ve had a lot of wishes that have mostly revolved around Internet Explorer’s CSS support.

I can honestly say now that I am content with everything the way it is.

Seriously, you inventors and revolutionizers can stop now.

I haven’t fully absorbed the “new” HTML5 and CSS3 information that’s come out in the last couple years, and already people are starting to speculate about HTML6′s spec. FireFox 4 launched in the last few weeks with the promise of several new versions by the end of the year. I still feel like Google’s Chrome browser is brand new, yet somehow version 11 is launching immanently!

I’m starting to feel like a curmudgeony old man right now. Now sooner had HD Televisions begun to gain popularity than Japan announced it had the worlds first Super-HD camera and screens. New insane mobile phones are being announced faster than the average adult can read. And, by the time you finish reading this sentence twelve new browsers will likely launch and as a web designer I’ll have to support and test on all of them.

The future is here to stay, and I find it hard to keep up. As nerds we need to expand how much we care, or narrow our focus to some obscure niche.

The good news is creativity is no longer hindered by technology. The bad news is there is no sign of innovation slowing down any time soon!

DOODLE

January 25th, 2011 | Comment | Personal

Since seeing an amazing interview with Charles Schultz as a child I have been a doodler. I have long thought that it made me a better listener, but have given it up as a professional until recently.

A growing frustration with my waning illustration skill and a desire to focus more in meetings made me pick up my fineliner again. On two occasions I’ve actually informed my PMs and others in the meeting that I was going to be doodling and I’d still be listening. No one disputed this – but is it true?

This amazing 5 minute presentation totally validates what I was saying and more. I had no idea it would be so good for the brain.

On top of all this A List Apart has posted two thought provoking posts on the subject today.

The Miseducation of the Doodle
Sketching: the Visual Thinking Power Tool

New Years Resolution

January 13th, 2011 | Comment | Personal

A lot of people I see on the interwebs often make the familiar promise every January to tweet, update, and blog more.

This year I’m going to zag. I’ve decided to write less. I’ll be spending more time with the family! That’s not to say I’ll never write; but it won’t be the priority it once was.

Happy new year.

My Book About Babies!

January 4th, 2011 | Comment | Personal

I’m thinking about writing a book all about raising your first child. It’s going to be for all those fathers who don’t know what to expect; just some simple universal truths about children.

Here’s an excerpt I’d like to share from the chapter about making your baby smile and laugh:

If there’s one thing babies love it’s loud noises coupled with sudden movements. Try the following as a fun way to get baby giggling.

Step one: Lay baby on a bed or the floor. Stand very still for a prolonged period of time until baby stops looking at you and seems totally uninterested in what you’re doing.

Step two: In one swift movement pounce upon them coming within inches of their faces and roar. I find it’s really effective to make your hands smash down a few inches from their ears for increased dramatic noise. Don’t do this playfully, make a scary sound that would make older people and animals uncomfortable.

Step three: Enjoy the gales of laughter and happy flails your baby makes, and repeat!

Friends and family aren’t as confident that this is universal; but I plan on proving them wrong. It can’t just be my kid being strange.

Happiness

December 4th, 2010 | 3 Comments | Personal

Joy and Happiness are great aren’t they!? I have been blessed with a permanent smile most of my life; and I’ve often wondered why. Is this demeanour something I was raised to cultivate, or is it a product of my genes? I am so thankful for it; especially when I think about the big picture of global happiness.

Here’s a thought provoking quote on the subject.

A PARADOX
Happiness, it seems, eludes us. And it has little to do with our current economic woes. For despite the global financial crisis, we enjoy social, technological and economic conditions that would have been considered utopian less than a century ago. Yet unhappiness and even depression are at record levels.

In an impressively researched book, The Progress Paradox, New Republic senior editor Gregg Easterbrook observes that, by every measure of well-being, our generation is better off than any of our forebears. We enjoy more leisure time with better health, less air pollution, higher levels of education, higher per-capita income, and greater personal and civil liberties than at any other time in history.

Even compared to the halcyon 1950s, our generation has it better in terms of real income and home and car ownership, not to mention morbidity, mortality, education, environmental quality, and the fair treatment of minorities. Whereas, in the past, these benefits were limited to the rich and privileged, today they are realized by a wide spectrum of society. For example, in 1960, 22 percent of Americans lived under the poverty line, compared to 11.7 percent in 2001.

All these material measures should add up to an increased sense of well-being. But they don’t. Theologian David Wells notes that by 1990 there were two psychotherapists for every dentist and more counselors than librarians. And today, the incidence of depression is over 10 times that of the Halcyon Decade.

Gloominess in an age of unprecedented progress is a paradox in need of an explanation.

Source: Regis Nicoll - Why we are so unhappy

Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work (TED)

November 25th, 2010 | Comment | Personal

Jason Fried examines the accepted paradigm of “going to work”. Thought provoking.

Freshly baked video card

November 21st, 2010 | 4 Comments | Personal

Update 2: The failing of my computer that led me to believing my card was dead was in fact the second card dying! Its GPU was fried. In fact, my computer is running like a dream – only with the baked card!

UPDATE 1: One week later the card is dead. No regrets! Maybe I’ll try deep frying it now and see if that helps.

My desktop PC is a beast.

At three years old it still rivals the average current machine in a box store. About two weeks ago one of the two video cards started flaking out – random lines would start appearing on the screen and the machine would freeze up. Nothing lasts forever, so when my trial and error proved  that one of my Nvidia 8800 GTS cards was to blame, I mentally wrote it off.

Nvidia 8800 GTS

As a part of my farewell autopsy I did a Google search with the error my device manager showed and found an insane post. Essentially it suggested I cook the hardware. For a lark I decided to give it a shot; I had nothing to lose!

This afternoon my engineer wife and I completely disassembled the device; we removed the outer shell, the heavy duty heat sync and GPU casing. Then we tossed it into the oven at 385 degrees Fahrenheit for 9 minutes.

The card is elevated off of a cookie sheet with aluminum foil cubes

After letting it cool for an hour we put it back together and put it back into the PC without much hope. After running through the bios Windows booted – lo and behold it actually WORKED.

I feel like anything this card gives me now is bonus. If I end up buying a new card before it dies again I may just end this saga with a bake sale.

UPDATE: Also, if you try this I’m not responsible for anything untoward that happens to your electronics. I advise that you only try it when you have accepted that the card is dead and that there’s nothing to lose… the baked card will also stink, so maybe avoid this in small or poorly ventilated apartments!