chrismetcalf.net » 2004 » December

New Site Theme

chris — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 03:54:01 +0000

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve completely redesigned my site. Sometimes you just need to change things up.

If you have problems or things don’t render correctly, please contact me and let me know what’s broken.

Merry Christmas to All

chris — Sat, 25 Dec 2004 06:10:47 +0000

… and to all a good night.

Words to live by

chris — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:08:45 +0000

Ever notice that “liver” backwards without the “r” is “evil”?

Only in Detroit

chris — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 23:37:29 +0000

I thought I’d relate a story about something that happened to me today that I don’t think you’d find it outside a culture like metro Detroit (which has the largest Muslim population in the US).

Today when I was getting my hair cut, the 20-something man to my right was getting his hair done because he was having an impromptu wedding this weekend. He was getting married early because he was being shipped off to Iraq on the 27th of December. He was enlisted as a medic in an Army engineering regiment and was looking forward to his assignment.

The woman cutting his hair was born in Iraq, and grew up in Mosul. He was asking her questions about what to expect when he got over there, and she was telling him stories about what it was like growing up in Iraq under Saddam’s rule.

The woman cutting my hair was Jordanian, and was telling me about her Chaldean husband who worked construction. Chaldeans in Iraq were heavily persecuted for their Catholic faith under the Ba’ath party and many of them fled to the west to escape. Her husband was thinking about returning to Iraq to work on its reconstruction. Apparently you can make $100,000 US for a six-month tour as a construction worker - more than enough to buy a house in Detroit.

On my way out I wished him the best of luck and told him to take care of himself. I don’t think there was a soul in the room that wasn’t proud to have him there.

My 8 points of fame

chris — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 23:22:17 +0000

You may or may not have heard, but a few days ago the Mozilla Foundation ran a full page advertisement for Firefox 1.0 in the New York Times. They collected donations from thousands of users, including myself.

So I got my name in the New York Times, in glorious 8-point type. Can I say I’m famous now?

Home for the Holidays

chris — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 23:13:20 +0000

Class is done, finals are over, and I’m back home in Detroit.

So hopefully I’ll be able to blog some more. We’ll see how that works out.

Gmail not the first Gmail?

chris — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:30:48 +0000

I was doing some googling looking for a Gmail applet for Gnome, and found the project page of the (probably dead) application “Gmail” (short for “Gnome Mail”):

Gmail is an experiment in a sql vfolder based email system. It implements sql vfolders, incoming POP3, outgoing SMTP and more.

Hmm… SQL based VFolders. Sounds a lot like “labels” in Google’s Gmail to me…

Interesting.

More Gmail invites to give out

chris — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:26:03 +0000

I’m probably asking for another title wave of invite requests, but I need to get rid of these things somehow.

I just started using Gmail again recently and I’ve got 5 invites sitting around doing anything. If you’ve somehow escaped getting a Gmail invite, leave me a convincing comment describing why you need a Gmail account.

However, do not email me asking me for an invite. I’m training Gmail to recognize emails begging for invites as spam. If you want an invite, comment, don’t email.