Update 12: Merry Christmas!

Reply-To: david@weekly.org
From: update@david.weekly.org
Subject: Merry Christmas!
To: update@david.weekly.org

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<david.weekly.org> Update #12
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Merry Christmas, everyone! This is just to tell you that I'm
alive. ;) I haven't been updating my webpage or sending out
emails for a bit, but I have been thinking about things. I'm
in the middle of reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" as well
as Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon." My brother (and soon-
to-be sister-in-law) gave me some great reading as well; more
on it when I get to it! =) Dad gave me a Win98 programming
book: good stuff! All I need now is a little bit of time...

I'm putting together an interesting little realtime news system,
but more on that when it's in a more useable form. The first
version worked, but was so horribly inefficient that by the
time it finished scooping out new news articles (once every 10
minutes!) the next scoop had begun, creating a pileup of
programs on my system that brought the server to a sreetching
halt. Ack. So I'm working on a new, more efficient version...

I tried for my license shortly before break, but unfortunately,
it seems that California has some rather nasty laws regarding
bike lanes...hrmph. Better luck this next time, I hope. Too bad
for me I can't practice at home in Massachusetts -- state law
requires a *Massachussetts* priving permit. =p

Had fun playing various video games with friends on my brother's
Playstation; FIFA 99 is an *incredible* soccer game. Very
realistic, very fun to play -- hurrah! My thumbs are sore.

As mentioned earlier, I reserved the domain CodecReview.com
and I don't plan to just sit on it -- if you've done some
work comparing and/or contrasting any of the audio, video,
or speech compression algorithms out there, please contact
me right away: I'd like to start putting up your content.
The site will be 100% banner-free and will not be run for
profit. (nothing's there now; just a redirect to my
somewhat dated comparisons between WMA, MP3, and RealAudio)

Tomorrow I leave for California to go skiing with my girlfriend's
family -- what fun that will be! =) Have a merry Christmas, you
all, and have a wonderful New Year's!