aetas

aetas : an age, stage, period of life, time, era.

our lives, our experiences... the good times and the bad, with friends and family... coworkers, aquaintainces, random people that enter and exit our lives without even an introduction...

you start to wonder, with new life brought into this world every day and sudden or eventual life leaving this world daily... how are you going to maximize your time here to it's greatest potential?

Do you do the same thing you did yesterday? Do you try something new? When you say you like doing something, that means you've done it before... you're trying to get better or more efficient at doing that.. or maybe you're just trying to get a grasp on the concept of what you're doing..

live every day as if it were you're last? do you really believe that?
Maybe that would mean, don't pay your bills, skip work if you feel like it, call everyone you know and care about, enjoy someplace special....

live every day as if it were youre first... with that same excitement and wonder, to take advantage of what's out there.. carpe diem.

kaizen

continuous improvement

Nobody is perfect, but that doesn't stop us from trying to become better people. Some people are ok with letting the days slip by, doing what's required or asked of us, and carrying on. Others look for weakness' within themselves, their lives, their organizations, their company's and do everything within their power to continuously improve. Kaizen is a philosophy which has really struck a chord with how I try to give purpose to my time here on earth. As days and years quickly fall through the hourglass of our life, we must take each day and try to improve our life, the lives of others, and the world around us for generations to come...

working late...

Well these last two weeks at work have been pretty busy. My code is being tested thoroughly but I guess when your software is going to handle the incoming loan requests over the web, it needs to be rock-solid. I've spent many a day well past sunset, but the sun setting over the city is usually a good time for a small late break....



To the far left is the buildings of Back Bay Boston, midway is the famous Fenway Citgo signs glow, and to the right you see the Charles River and the Mass. Ave bridge that goes to MIT in Cambridge....

Take Off!!!

What a great weekend :) I'll write about it when I have a chance.

software engineering

About 4 months ago I started a new job as a software engineer for American Student Assistance. My whole professional and academic life I've been hesitant to join the ranks of the programmers for a few reasons:
1) Theres always a new programming language to learn, slightly better than the last, but still not as intuitive as us as humans would like when instructing a computer how to react... I thought that I would wait until the day where I could in plain english describe to the computer what I'd like to happen and it would do the work behind the scenes... Well that day isn't coming soon enough... but it is still coming....

2) Trends in outsourcing, with more and more companies looking into outsourcing and/or offshore development of their code.. I personally saw the job market inside the US possibly diminishing in the future... but it seemed that management of the software engineers would tend to stay here on US soil so that company stakeholders would keep control of the development and process/progress..

Despite these few reasons I decided to make the switch, the increased pay scale and potential had nothing to do with my decision :) The reason I made the switch was to learn more about the process of software engineering, to understand how to someday manage software engineers, and to get a gauge to understand the time/effort required to complete specified functionality... With hopes and dreams of someday managing my own corporation, most likely in a technical field, I knew at some point in my career I had to experience the software development life cycle first hand.

Loon Mountain

So i've been ripping it up all winter long at Loon(25 days so far!). I got a Threedom pass which gives me unlimited use to Loon, Waterville, and Cranmore... Checked out Waterville once, it was pretty good... I hear Cranmore is a small hill in North Conway and I haven't got around to treking out those ways yet for that...

I rented out a condo alongside the base of Loon's south mountain, with waterfront views of the Pemi river... At first it was a lot of money, and wasn't sure if I'd end up getting the full use out of the place.. But everyone I've brought up there seems to have a great time, and I've been pretty much living out of the place on weekends...

Here's a picture of me with my youngest brother and sister on their first day of snowboarding!!

Surfing Bunnies (going after carrots)

by artist Aaron Leighton, visit: www.aaronleighton.com/


click below to view my comments on this piece:

Sunray by Sun Microsystems

Back in the dot com hay-day I had a chance to work for Sun Microsystems. Over the course of my time with Sun, one of the most fascinating devices I came across was the Sunray device.

Pictured here:


So, what is it? and why is it so cool?

It's an ideal desktop machine for work, or even companies which want to give their employees a device so that they can work from home... Now this isn't a full fledged computer.. there is no hard-disk inside to store all you're data... but the desktop experience is pretty much just as if you were sitting there behind a computer.

Let me get to the cool part... Since none of your data/desktop is really on this little box (it's out there somewhere on the network), you are given the flexibility of mobility... Theres a slot on the front of these devices for a smartcard... Plug in your smartcard and up pops your desktop. Done working for the day? but need to maybe finish up a bit of work when you get home? Take out your smartcard, head on home... and plug your card into your Sunray at home, poof.. right where you left off...

Cool? Yes. Practical and Plug 'n' Play for the masses? not quite yet. but soon...
After all, the future is now...

san diego trip

Ah New England... we look forward to warm summer days during the winter freezes and when we're melting walking down the summer streets we wish for the cool breeze of fall and early winter.... Well, this winter, aside from spending a lot of time up at Loon mtn snowboarding, I decided to get away for some time...... and am I glad I did.....



So waking up this morning, I decided to go for a bike ride down to Sunset Cliffs in San Diego....

What a great start to the day, and my week vacation in San Diego.

myth tv - computers in the living room?

2005, back in 1970s when people were working on the room size mainframes the crazy ones probably pictured us flying around in hovercrafts and spacesuits... Well, even though we aren't quite there yet... we have come to the day where people are considering putting an additional pc in the living room... The age of the media center PC. Your best audio and video equipment is in the living room... You may have seen Tivo or other computer based program recorders out there.... Perhaps you already have converted your whole CD audio collection to a computer format like MP3... You would like to view pictures from your last vacation taken with your digital camera on your largescreen tv while your favorite songs play as background music. Perhaps you'd prefer to view the news, weather or email from the comfort of your own couch... This is the current state of living room computing... While most people are happy with a laptop and wireless connection, us geeks like to take it one notch further.... Living room centric computing.

Now, i'll go further into my home setup... along with some of the other options currently available.

let it snow....

Today Boston got hit with it's 3rd significant snow of the season. Most people are complaining about how slushy and nasty it is out, but I just absolutely love it... Why? because a few years ago I came to the logical conclusion that if I'm going to stay around Boston, I need to pick up a winter sport.. Back in my younger years I always played Basketball during the winter, and from a large family so it wasn't very economical for us all to pick up skiing or other mtn sports. So during my college years I tried my hand at Skiing and then Snowboarding... It was fun. I was of course a bit fast and out of control... My scientific pythagorous brain was so used to thinking the 'shortest distance between two points' and that would tend to be the path I chose for going down the mountain... Result: Me flying down the hill at speeds way faster than any novice should be travelling... After a few near tree experiences (maybe a few collisions with kids half my size as well) I realized that speed was really something you mastered after you have complete control of your ski's/board. Well, last winter I bought my first snowboard,
165 cm K2 Nemesis, a big, light, fast board... but a lot of fun.

let the fun begin....

good, intro's over... lets cut to the chase.

if you have a pretty good mp3 collection, but want to listen to it in other places of your home besides your computer room, you need to check out this software from Slim Devices This software allows you to stream music to any other laptop/computer in the house, preferably one in your living room hooked up to your stereo system... Ok, so you're not as geeky and don't really want a PC in your living room... you shell out some bucks for one of these



So it looks a lot cooler, comes with a remote, and is money and you know it... It's on the top of my 'I really want but have no reason to buy' list...

It get's better... using this software allows you to have access to your music collection from *anywhere*... allright, I mean anywhere with decent internet... A few things complicate the picture, but are easily overcome... First it requires going into your router's configuration and allowing a few ports forwarded to the SlimServer. Next you realize that your ip isn't static, and next time your router's IP changes, you won't know how to access your songs from the outside world... This is where a service/program on your computer from good ole no-ip.com comes in handy. They have services/daemons that will run and update a DNS table each time your IP changes (translate: you can have a name to remember that always corresponds to your current IP address at home)

I'll probably post a follow up with more detail, if you'd like --

Internal struggle over quality of content

I consider myself a jack of most trades and a master of few. So if this sentence isn’t structured properly, or I continue to run on, sue me… I didn’t pay attention during the sentence diagramming portion of 7th grade English class. No, but really what I’m getting at here is criticism. My own self criticism of my art, writing, music compositions and recordings, has been the bane of my willingness to share my creativity with the world… They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when I’m the first eyes to see it, and think it’s no good… well, why would I want to share it with you then? Well this blog says those days are over, sure the things I may write or share may not be my finest piece… but at least it will be authentic. I don’t plan to put lots of time into this weblog, but I really do want to expose some of my creativity to the people who care to see it.

So thanks for reading, and if you do happen to like something I share, please let me know…

why blog?

why blog? what is the point of blog.telaetas.com?

2005. Another chapter.

I'd like to start the blog with a song:

g michael amante - telaetas

telaetas

Pronunciation: tel-aye-tas
Etymology:
[latin] tela -ae f.
a web in weaving; a warp; a spider's web; a loom; a design.
[latin] aetas -atis f. [age]:
of human life , either a lifetime or time of life, age,
time, a period of time, epoch.

G.(erald)
Pronunciation: Jeh-rald, G, Jer-ry
Etymology: spear warrior

Michael
Pronunciation: Mike, Michael
Etymology: like the Lord

Amante
Pronunciation: Ah-mahn-tey
Etymology: noun, lover, adj. loving