Tyler Weir » Personal

RIP Jeff Healey

Tyler — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:20:55 +0000

I was sad to find out that Jeff Healey lost his battle with cancer today at age 41.

The death of Jeff Healey on Sunday left Canada without one of its strongest champions of blues and jazz, said musicians who paid tribute to the late guitarist Monday.
Healey helped popularize “the kind of music that’s always kind of been under the wire,” said Colin James, a fellow traveller in the blues/jazz circuit. “It’s always good when there’s someone leading the charge.”
Healey died of cancer in Toronto at 41, leaving behind his wife, Cristie, and their two children, aged 13 and three.

I’ve always liked his stuff, and just bought his 1999 Live at Montreax.

Second Cup Green Tea Latte, not so much.

Tyler — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:56:33 +0000

I take my coffee and tea black, so venturing out into the world to fancy-pants drinks I was apprehensive.

The Green Tea Latte I had was horribly sweet. I’ll be back to black coffee and leave these lattes to those with better resolve.

New Authors – Laura and Randy.

Tyler — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:33:48 +0000

I have ~~tricked~~ convinced Laura and Randy to start blogging here.

I expect that Laura will write about movies, cute things and her amazingly awesome husband.

I expect that Randy will write entries that will shame my own in terms of quality.

Now they just need to start writing.

How we Write, Think and Learn

Tyler — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:18:28 +0000

Michael A. Covington of the Artificial Intelligence Center at the University of Georgia has published a presentation named “How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily.”

I have read it over two times now and I’ve plucked out a few notable ideas. I’ve never been an excellent writer, I typically err on the side on concision and terseness. This can be less than desirable in a couple of situations, a) the shortness is interpreted as hostility and b) a lack of detail leads to people having to fill in the details.

The ideas that stuck out to me are:

The unselfish perspective
Good writing is partly a matter of character.
Instead of doing whats easy for you,
do whats easy for your reader.

My terseness is due to laziness, I take the easy way out often because I don’t particularly like writing.

If you cant envision the audience, try using yourself as a sample.

At work I keep this in mind when writing every email now. I’m finding that with the addition of four or five words I can increase the clarity of the email and I’m doing both the recipient and myself a favour. If the email is more clear they can act more quickly and I don’t have to write a follow-up email clarifying my previous email, win-win.

Ads – we have some.

Tyler — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:28:41 +0000

I added an Ad banner as an experiment. We’ll see how it goes.

New Palette

Tyler — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:13:25 +0000

5 on the block | me

Vim blogging plugin

Tyler — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:28:32 +0000

I’ve switched to vimpress as my blogging utility.

I like it more than the web interface of wordpress. Plus is one more thing that I can do from the comfort of Vim. Beautiful vim.

Tweets on 2008-01-16

Tyler — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Seriously thinking about getting a Time Capsule #

Tweets on 2008-01-14

Tyler — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Rereading Art of the Start… again… http://tinyurl.com/nyoto #
I had to warn Laura and tomorrow she will get a lot of "OMG want to buy!" msgs because of MacWorld. #

Tweets on 2008-01-13

Tyler — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Sickness beat programming today. Walking haze… #
just loved Cat Power – Blue http://hypem.com/track/462990 #
just loved Cat Power – Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again http://hypem.com/track/433168 #
just loved Cat Power – House of the Rising Sun (Live KCRW 9-12-2006) http://hypem.com/track/433154 #

Tweets on 2008-01-12

Tyler — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

just loved Menomena – Wet And Rusting http://hypem.com/track/457504 #
just loved Menomena – Boyscout’n http://hypem.com/track/442437 #

Tweets on 2008-01-11

Tyler — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

just loved Jackson 5 – I Want You Back (Rogerseventytwo and the Walk Remix) http://hypem.com/track/460626 #
just loved Daft Punk – Digital Love (Boris Dlugosh Re http://hypem.com/track/461222 #
just loved The Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else But You http://hypem.com/track/460986 #
just loved Groove Armada – Hands of Time http://hypem.com/track/414551 #

Tweets on 2008-01-09

Tyler — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Wow, jPod on CBC is a trainwreck. #
I wish I had more time in the day… so much to do. #
wishing I writing webapps.. #

Tweets on 2008-01-08

Tyler — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

@dpp – congrats on 0.4 #

Tweets on 2008-01-07

Tyler — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Watching American Gladiators. What, is this 1989? #
OMG American Gladiators is super lame. #
I think American Gladiators is fake. Why? They need to just bring Ninja Warrior over from Japan. #

Tweets on 2008-01-06

Tyler — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

@stevej – tell me more about your lift work. #
Working through a slow, distracted coding day. Just not feeling it today. #

Tweets on 2008-01-05

Tyler — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Watching laura’s ringette game. #

Tweets on 2008-01-04

Tyler — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Penny Arcade should podcast all the time. In fact, I want a live 24 hour stream of them talking. #

Tweets on 2008-01-02

Tyler — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

/lift/ + jQuery Datepicker… working but ugly. #
@dpp – it’s your birthday no? #
@dpp – cheers sir, happy birthday! #

Tweets on 2008-01-01

Tyler — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:59:59 +0000

My effing satellite decides now is a good time to die, but Arsenal is about to play! Damn you weather! #
Theo Walcott needs a bit of weight on him. Going to be an amazing player soon. #
@dpp – Can’t believe i missed the "Empty" Can for the ForeignKey thing, thanks. #

Tweets on 2007-12-30

Tyler — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:59:59 +0000

@dpp – I agree, the community is great, I’ll email you.. #
@dpp – posted to the lift mailing list #
just loved WHY? – The Hollows http://hypem.com/track/432014 #
just loved WHY? – Broken Crow (a cover by Nick T.) http://hypem.com/track/435622 #
just loved Why? – Good Friday(remix by boards of canada) http://hypem.com/track/432670 #
just loved Why? – Yoyo Bye Bye (Cover By Xiu Xiu) http://hypem.com/track/429329 #
just loved Battles – Race In http://hypem.com/track/453413 #
Progress with /lift/, thankfully… #
Still a ways today, but better than yesterday for sure… #

Tweets on 2007-12-29

Tyler — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 04:59:59 +0000

Finally cleaned up my SVN repos and vim config. That was a long time coming. #
And by "cleaned up" I mean "accidentally checked in a bunch of .class files" Dammits. #
Questioning my knowledge of /lift/ – it’s going to take a while to get to the same speed as grails. #

Christmas Loot: Nikon 55-200mm VR lens

Tyler — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:05:37 +0000

Laura surprised me with a Nikon 55-200mm VR for our SLR.

This lens is white hot, I need to take a wack of pics and upload them soon.

Tweets on 2007-12-27

Tyler — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:59:59 +0000

just loved Cajun Dance Party – Amylase http://hypem.com/track/417461 #
Christmas has allowed a lot of progress on my Lift app… hopefully done tomorrow, but we’ll see. #

Tweets on 2007-12-26

Tyler — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:59:59 +0000

IIHF Junior Tournament starts today, awesome! Pierre McGuire talking? Not awesome. #
just loved 05 My Love [Paul Oakenfold Rem http://hypem.com/track/449490 #