tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74693272009-12-23T10:33:28.414-05:00Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-74069132582463262992008-06-05T07:24:00.004-04:002008-06-05T07:54:35.440-04:00

I installed the OS X 10.5.3 update over the weekend. This was a bit of a hassle. Most of it was my fault, as I only had about a gig of free space on my laptop's hard disk. Not cool! I had purchased an external disk, so I had someplace to move things, but still I had to do it.The other problem wasn't my fault. When I would ask the Updater to install the update, it would give me a permissions error

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-72221174942655437372008-05-05T16:10:00.002-04:002008-05-05T16:12:11.047-04:00

Found these videos today on YouTube, and wanted to post the links somewhere where I wouldn't lose them. This is a great video of a whole Husker Du show, with excellent sound and video.Part One: New Day Rising, It's Not Funny Any More, Everything Falls Apart, The Girl Who Lives On Heaven HillPart Two: I Apologize, If I Told You, Folklore, Every Everything Part Three: Makes No Sense At All, Keep

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-41853542739647166832008-02-28T08:44:00.005-05:002008-02-28T08:49:24.639-05:00

Regarding this:Dubious Luxury, Feb 22: Pic by Dan Nugent.I offer the following guide:In the future, doing anything is indistinguishable from checking your email.Edit: This is of course a necessary consequence of building Universal Turing Machines.

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-36992203827198831272008-02-22T07:55:00.002-05:002008-02-22T08:25:24.350-05:00

Pagosa Springs and the San Juan RiverMore travel photos, but this one is much more current. I took a trip to New Mexico a couple weeks ago, to visit my good friends Miya and Andrew. We did some skiing in the area, including an overnight trip up to Colorado, where we skiied at Wolf Creek and stayed at the Pagosa Springs Resort.I like Pagosa Springs a lot. The town strikes an interesting balance;

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-54008124886453165182008-02-08T09:18:00.000-05:002008-02-08T10:51:52.220-05:00

Eiffel Tower from BelowHolly and I took a trip to Paris and Belgium last summer. We visited the Eiffel Tower at the end of a long exhausting day, but it was a worthwhile time to be there. The tower in the fading daylight was quite magical.Travel photography is challenging. Good habits like patience and tripods fall by the wayside when you're trying to get a photo in the midst of milling tourists.

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-18084499762108197632008-02-07T07:44:00.000-05:002008-02-07T07:57:27.253-05:00

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth."George Orwell, 1984This statement by Mark Penn (campaign adviser for Hillary Clinton) is the best argument I've seen yet why I should vote for Barack Obama. Essentially he's saying that Obama is the Establishment Candidate. And this is, I guess, based on

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-33106268996467229492008-01-20T17:31:00.000-05:002008-01-20T17:45:20.996-05:00

Falls on Rock Bridge BranchA much more recent photo, this was taken on New Year's Eve. We'd taken a trip to Red River Gorge for a long weekend, and taken some short hikes to see notable features in the area. This little falls, about 300 yards from Rock Bridge, provide a beautiful highlight of the stratified sandstone ridge.The composition provides an interesting challenge, at least in the winter.

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-27652275708173606012008-01-16T10:45:00.000-05:002008-01-16T11:29:31.909-05:00

Several new things were announced at Macworld yesterday. Here's my brief, uninformed take on each.MacBook Air: New ultralight laptop. The message boards are pretty negative on this one, but I think it mostly misses the boat. This is not designed for a tech-head or intensive user. Frankly, it's designed for people who could use the vanilla MacBook but want something cooler. I don't think they'll

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-43630846948259976672008-01-16T07:29:00.000-05:002008-01-16T07:58:07.557-05:00

This is a Unclassical Piano, a 14-year-old kid who's uploading video to YouTube. Well, "video" -- it's really just him playing piano, so the major point is the audio. The pieces (he has 16 online) are all covers of classic rock tunes. And, uh, they're pretty good. He's not working from sheet music. He's listening to the songs and working out the arrangements himself. That's incredibly cool, and

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-77248185498457367082008-01-15T08:51:00.000-05:002008-01-15T09:12:48.624-05:00

It's now exactly a week after the New Hampshire primary. So I suppose I'm completely too late to comment on the results. However, they're not as interesting to me as the fact that Clinton's win was very much unpredicted by the polling. Much has been written about this and I don't have any particular insight into why the polling was wrong. What's more interesting to me is whether polls are all

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-34104911326283072592008-01-11T07:35:00.000-05:002008-01-11T08:25:11.129-05:00

Dunes at SunriseAnother shot from my big Rockies trip in 2006. This is taken at Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. The sand dunes are formed in a pocket of the Sangre de Cristo range. Winds pick up sand as they cross the wide San Luis valley, dropping it as they funnel into the mountains. The dune field actually seems small in some ways. It's about 8 miles long, which isn't tiny

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-48592549968522869202008-01-09T07:24:00.001-05:002008-01-09T07:41:22.144-05:00

Apple introduced new Mac Pros yesterday. They look like reasonably useful upgrades to the previous machines, based on the new Penryn processors and including some tidy upgrades like bumping the front side bus from 1333 MHz to 1600 MHz. I've been considering a Mac Pro purchase for my Photoshop needs, and this would seem like a step in the right direction.The interesting thing though is the timing,

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-21937705306817626512008-01-08T07:30:00.001-05:002008-01-08T08:02:29.858-05:00

Oh, I so really don't plan to make a regular habit of this. But it is the Tuesday of the New Hampshire primary, making the second major milepost of the nomination process. And despite my earlier whining, I really am excited about the election. There is a very good chance that in November we'll elect a much better president than the one we have now, and that can only be a good thing.I am however a

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-60776742845793806462008-01-07T07:14:00.000-05:002008-01-07T08:13:05.662-05:00

I'm wary of starting into a political blog topic, because it can be both painful and addicting... kind of like habañero sauce. But I will anyway. I guess it's Monday and I'm surrendering to Cranky Old Guy inside my head. Though in reality, this is more of a media post than a political post.It stems from my usual Monday morning frustration with Cokie Roberts. She is always annoying, but at least

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-24710358777210741642008-01-04T09:48:00.000-05:002008-01-04T09:55:53.189-05:00

I think I'll use Fridays to show one of my photos. That said, today's photo wasn't taken my me at all.In September of 2006, I took a three-week driving trip west, spending my time in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. In New Mexico I stayed with my good friends Miya and Andrew in Dixon, and we did a few hikes in the area. This hike is to an area called Valle Vista, which gives a great overlook into

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-69414079976362196452008-01-03T07:29:00.000-05:002008-01-03T08:50:31.649-05:00

Tons of coverage recently of the RIAA decision to sue music owners for ripping CDs that they already own. It's a completely brain-dead idea, and it's interesting to see a Motely Fool column that argues this is a good reason to sell your music company stocks -- not because they're, you know, evil, but because they're going to start losing money by doing stupid stuff like this. Contrast this with

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-56001990534945327832008-01-02T08:06:00.000-05:002008-01-03T07:30:15.451-05:00

I haven't had a sitcom that I enjoy watching since Friends ended. Obviously I'm not asking a lot out of my light comedy entertainment. And yet I do need a little something. Unique and enjoyable characters, less-than-obvious choices, and maybe a few funny moments along the way. But most sitcoms violate all three of these. Characters are unloaded directly from the stereotype warehouse. The

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-46738109819234177372008-01-01T15:10:00.000-05:002008-01-01T15:17:15.894-05:00

We went to Red River Gorge (in Kentucky) to stay at a rented cabin with friends for the weekend. It was quite a blast -- I had a bunch of fun and feel relaxed to boot. Fantastic.On the way back we passed through Frankfort. A sign on the highway said "The Kentucky Capital". Now, I would have taken that for poor word choice. But as it turns out, "capitol" is only appropriate for the building, while

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-69684843392632443392007-10-02T17:21:00.001-04:002007-10-02T17:21:45.693-04:00

I think I'm going to start using this site again.

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1142192815754070602006-03-12T14:46:00.000-05:002006-03-12T14:46:55.786-05:00

20060220-01d27 Originally uploaded by cisko. Picture of my nephews, throwing rocks into a lake. Hey, it's what boys do. Really just testing the Flickr blogpost functionality.

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1121817357474153082005-07-19T18:23:00.000-05:002005-07-19T20:52:23.376-05:00

So I've been watching Pardon The Interruption for a while now. I've seen it off and on for some time, but started Tivoing it a few months ago. It's not rocket science, but generally I've enjoyed it.But I've grown annoyed. As Wilbon and Kornheiser have taken their vacations, they've been let down by their subs, particularly the grating and uninteresting Mariotti. (I could forgive a lot, if I could

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1120652712374442712005-07-06T07:02:00.000-05:002005-07-06T07:25:12.386-05:00

Now back from Arizona. A few impressions.It's sooooo easy to mock when I say, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity." But try flying from Indianapolis ( 91°F, 93% humidity) to Phoenix ( 112°F, 18% humidity). I wouldn't want to spend all day outside in either place... but for just moving around, Phoenix was surprisingly comfortable. Just beware any wide stretch of asphalt. Prescott is quite a nice

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1119875073113095582005-06-27T07:04:00.000-05:002005-06-27T07:24:33.760-05:00

I want to post more often, rilly I do. Just seemed to have nothing to say this weekend.But then I realized that I had nothing to say because I spent my intarweb time reading someone else's stuff. That would be Waiter Rant. Funny and interesting stuff if you're prone to patronize decent restaurants. It's very good for that. But his stories about the staff and patrons become more than that, as he

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1119322219432325192005-06-20T21:07:00.000-05:002005-06-20T21:50:19.440-05:00

It's time to play finger pointing games.FIA is calling the seven Michelin teams to account, asking them to report to a hearing on 29 June.Of course, teams are turning around and blaming Max Mosley, the president of FIA.And the newsies are predicting the demise of F1, trying to read the tea leaves on the politics behind it all.It would seem that nobody is denying that Michelin failed to bring a

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7469327.post-1119270075025572542005-06-20T07:18:00.000-05:002005-06-20T07:21:15.126-05:00

What a travesty. Farcical... that's a good word.My parents and I were three of the 150,000 watching. Dad buys tickets for the family every year. We had read online stories about the tire problems; BBC had covered some of the controversy (something the US news outlets missed or downplayed). There were also fans around us discussing the possibility of a cancellation. But even so, we were fairly

Dave Ciskowskinoreply@blogger.com0