Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Even Cowgirls Should Get The Geek Blues

In this post I'm going to discuss something that most of you true male geeks know ... we are great catches. I know this sounds a bit self-serving but I am prepared to back it up with a little conjecture (facts being scarce).

When I was in junior high school/early high school, I was lucky to get a girl to talk to me, much less date me. I dreamed of the day when I could get my first kiss. I thought it would have to be the best day of my life. When I started dating I was just darn happy that a women would agree to be around me that often. This brings me to my most important point, true geeks are grateful when members of the opposite sex show interest. I think this makes us more thoughtful and hard working boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives.

See, I'm going to let you in on a secret well known amongst my friends and colleagues, my wife is too good for me. She is prettier, smarter and more vivacious than I could possibly deserve. I know this and that is why I won't stray and I will try hard to make our relationship wonderful. It all comes down to appreciating what, in your heart of hearts, you feel you don't deserve. If we all had that attitude perhaps the 60% divorce rate in this country would not be so high. Then again, I'm probably crazy.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The Star Runner - Chapter 4 Section 3

The next section of my story can be found at the following link. I know it's been a while. Sorry:

http://www.writely.com/View.aspx?docid=badxrfdgbtphb

Monday, January 16, 2006

The More You Tighten Your Grip

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." These words were spoken in the 70s in a little movie called Star Wars. They also happen to remind me of the situation the consumer finds themselves in with regards to the RIAA and MPAA. These "evil empires" are dinosaurs of a previous age in which the power rested in the arms of the distributors. With the evolution of the Internet where the contents of a CD can be transfered for a few pennies and a movie can be tranferred for just a few more pennies their power is ever more threatened.

I think we can all agree that when a entity begins suing its customers, they are suing themselves out of existence. Like a T-Rex in its death throes the recording and motion picture industries will kill some of its customers. This will not save them from death. Like the dinosaurs, the story is one of adapt or die. Sometimes adaptations have been forced down these industries throats and when this happens they inevitably make more money. Like a big dumb animal though they fail to apply the lessons of the past to save their future.

RIAA/MPAA we hardly knew you. Rest in peace.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Spreadsheet::WriteExcel

I often find myself needing to compile reports for management in Excel. In cases where there is a lot of data massaging I have found it easiest to to massage with Perl and export to a text file. I then take the text file into Excel using a standard text file import. This is clunky for reports that you do over and over again. It would be great to automate this process. Now you can with the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel module. Using this module you can write Perl data directly to files readable to Excel including formatting and formulas. Woohoo!