http://www.aetherial.net/weblog Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:33:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2012/03/gop-primary-day-2012/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2012/03/gop-primary-day-2012/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:26:50 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=182 the Chicago Tribune’s endorsements for the rest of the races. When I got to my polling place, I asked the poll workers how turnout had been. I arrived at around 12:30pm and was informed that I was the 26th (!) voter there that day. The poll workers declined to share any specific information about the relative turnout by party, but I was told that the precinct was (unsurprisingly) a largely Democratic area.]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2012/03/gop-primary-day-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2011/01/2011-ambitions/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2011/01/2011-ambitions/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:56:26 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=176 Resume my H.P. Lovecraft research. From 2005-2008, I had a great time putting in the legwork and investigation needed to compile "The Black Seas of Copyright" and say my piece about the copyright status of the Lovecraft fiction. Given that the investigation is sufficiently complete to my liking, I haven't done much original scholarship lately related to the Gentleman of Providence. In 2011, I'm beginning a new project to compile a comprehensive geospatial database on the locations and places found in Lovecraft's stories. This database will be distributed in the form of mobile apps that serve as a reference resource as well as let you play a SCVNGER-like game to revisit the locales found in the early Cthulhu mythos. Become proficient at squash. Since graduating college, I've struggled to find a nice consistent way to exercise and keep in shape. I've had good points where I went to the gym regularly, and I've had bad points where I didn't. My main problem seemed to be that how I was exercising didn't really have an end goal other than get in shape and it was extremely tedious to workout for workout's sake. Back in March, I joined the University Club of Chicago as a networking tool and as a means to put some business infrastructure in place. I've enjoyed my membership there, but I faced the same problems with respect to keeping in shape. Fortunately, the University Club is nuts about the sport squash, and I started learning how to play and practicing last month. I've had a blast doing it and the game's sufficiently complex to keep me interested on an intellectual level as well. I've been practicing several times a week in the mornings, and these sessions just go by so quickly. I feel that I've finally found a good way to get in shape and burn calories. So, my goal with respect to my physical health is to continue my squash practices for the next couple of months (so I don't kill myself of or someone else in a real match), and start competing in the club starting sometime around April. The club maintains an internal ranking system, and my (tentative) goal is to get enough squash in this year to break into the top 50th percentile of players in the club. Starting from scratch won't make it easy, but given that I have a tremendous amount of control over how much time and effort I can throw to this, I feel good about my chances. Find a new place to live. Holly and I are on the market for a place of our own (we currently rent from her parents) and I would like to see this process finished by the end of 2011. There are a lot of good properties out there, so this should be a fairly straightforward goal to accomplish. Mature my business. 2010 was an interesting year for Audacious Software. I would say that it ended 2010 in a somewhat adolescent state in that I learned a lot about running a business last year, and I've been implementing the changes that will set it up as a more serious and sustainable enterprise. I would like to have the business perform a bit better than it did in 2010 - which was a pretty heavy "investment" period - and I think I have the pieces and know-how to make this happen. Some changes on the agenda:

• Less effort spent on coming up with new "large" ideas and launching the associated businesses. In 2011, I'll have my hands full continuing to launch Shion Online, and that project will constitute the bulk of Audacious Software's non-consulting efforts. I do have plans to start relaunching the Books software using a service model in 2011, but this will be a much less involved process where I can leverage the skills and resources created for Shion Online (online billing, account signups, etc.) Relaunching Books will be my last "big" project for a while, and I'm looking forward to filling the gaps between Shion & Books with smaller and more tractable efforts such as the recent comic app I built.
• Slow down the pace of hardware and platform investments. In 2010, I spent a significant amount of time and resources getting a good development setup and testing lab for creating Android and iPhone apps. I'd like to spend 2011 realizing the fruits of those investments before jumping into too many more platforms. While I could spend similar amounts of resource getting into Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, WebOS, Bada, and other mobile platforms, it's likely that I'll only add Windows Phone 7 to iOS, Android and Qt/Symbian as Audacious Software's list of supported platforms.
• I've communicated to existing clients and new clients that my consulting rates will go up in 2011. This was the business's major structural problem - I was not charging enough to projects to build the resources to expand the business in terms of personnel and a safety net for times when billable project work becomes sparse.

I don't particularly regret how I ran Audacious Software in 2010, and how aggressive I was in extending the breadth of the company's platforms and services. However, I would like to focus in 2011 on shoring up those competencies in a sane and sustainable manner. I currently have enough projects on the books to keep me completely busy, so my challenge will be to be more selective when picking new ones to add to the mix. Get back into the city. For the past two years, I've been very internally focused making the transition from the safety of a salaried job and graduate school to becoming an independent and self-sustaining actor in the local economy. In this transition, I have stopped enjoying elements of the city that I enjoy. In 2011, I want to get back in touch with Chicago in the form of resuming my long walks through the city, taking advantage of more cultural opportunities and getting out in general. There's a lot to enjoy that I've been ignoring for some time. Wrapup So, these are my major five goals or projects for 2011. While 2010 was a tough year (in a good way), I'm looking forward to using 2011 as a period for refining and polishing myself on a personal and professional level that will put me in a good position to tackle the new decade.]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2011/01/2011-ambitions/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/10/on-my-second-trip-to-the-dark-tower/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/10/on-my-second-trip-to-the-dark-tower/#comments Sat, 23 Oct 2010 05:26:36 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=162 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/10/on-my-second-trip-to-the-dark-tower/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/07/one-year-in/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/07/one-year-in/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:01:15 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=156 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2010/07/one-year-in/feed/ 1 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/10/what-i-miss-from-academia/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/10/what-i-miss-from-academia/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:13:10 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=149 described why I was leaving graduate school to strike out on my own. In the post, I promised a followup that looked at the things I missed from academia in order to be somewhat balanced in my description of the situation. Here's that list. 1. Most of all, I miss the weekly routine that I was able to keep while in school. This is largely an artifact of taking weekly classes, but having a regular rhythm was nice. In my current role as a self-employed developer/consultant, it's been hard to impossible to get a routine going. Weekends? What are those? 2. One of the headaches that I deal with now is getting payment from clients in a predictable manner. When at the university, that stipend was deposited in my bank account on the last day of the month, rain or shine. Now, when I get paychecks is an extremely variable affair. I have a couple of clients that pay quickly and on time, but I also have some clients who are a bit overdue on their checks. Ironically, the worst offender is the same organization that used to deposit my stipends in such a timely manner. :-P 3. I miss the socialization with my former fellow graduate students. I was smart to find another group to share office space with, so I haven't become an antisocial freak quite yet. However, I do find myself missing out on the frequent lunches that I used to share with colleagues. I'm sure that there are more things that I'm leaving off, but those are the major three. My transition back into the workforce has been a good one (and the right choice), but it hasn't been without its costs.]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/10/what-i-miss-from-academia/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/08/macross-frontier/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/08/macross-frontier/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:27:11 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=143 I'm a big fan of stories and storytelling and during my life, I have consumed a ton of fiction in the forms of books, television, movies, and video games. If I were forced to pick the one that has most influenced who I am, the answer would probably be "Macross". Some of my earliest memories are getting home from kindergarden at my grandmother's house in time to watch the "Robotech" adaptation that aired beginning in 1985. I have always loved the Macross saga, and I'd sooner purge memory of mainstream staples like "Star Wars", "Transformers", and "Lord of the Rings" than give up Macross. Over the years, a variety of sequels have been produced that follow the original 1982 story. Some have been pretty good ("Macross Plus"), others have been mediocre (everything in the Robotech universe post-Macross), while some sequels have been atrocious (Macross II"). It was against this backdrop (great original story, mixed sequels), that I began watching the latest series, "Macross Frontier".]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/08/macross-frontier/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/its-like-harry-potter-meets-philip-marlowe/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/its-like-harry-potter-meets-philip-marlowe/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:44:25 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=132 "Dark Tower" series and I'm eagerly awaiting the final book of Katherine Kerr's Deverry cycle. Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to discover Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files". I had seen the television series on Sci-Fi some time ago and I was interested to check out the books. In short, I started out with "Storm Front" on my Sony Reader and proceeded to read the rest of the books in a span of about three months on the Kindle. It's a fun series and one that I highly recommend.]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/its-like-harry-potter-meets-philip-marlowe/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/one-month-into-my-new-life/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/one-month-into-my-new-life/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:45:40 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=126 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/07/one-month-into-my-new-life/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/06/kindle-books/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/06/kindle-books/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:13:37 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=123 The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad (Michael Cusumano) Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (Jim Butcher) Eric Sink on the Business of Software (Eric Sink) Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur (Pamela Slim) Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (Jim Butcher) Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (Jim Butcher) iPhone SDK Development (Adamson & Dudney) Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Dan Ariely) Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big (Bo Burlingham) Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (Jim Butcher) Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid (Denis Leary) If we use March 1 as the Kindle start date, roughly fourteen weeks have elapsed since I acquired it. In that time, I've read eleven books, averaging 78% of a book read per week. And this doesn't count the books that I've been reading in print or via Audible. If we factored those in, I'm probably averaging over a book a week in total. Wow.]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/06/kindle-books/feed/ 0 http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/04/9-reasons-why-i-am-quitting-twitter/ http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/04/9-reasons-why-i-am-quitting-twitter/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:38:41 +0000 Chris http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/?p=120 I posted the message above two days ago and I wanted to post a few reasons why my Twitter account is going away: 1. Twitter and Facebook status messages serve the same basic purpose. Facebook has the advantage in that it more completely covers the social network with whom I'd like to share my updates. 2. For people outside of my Facebook network, I'd prefer that they follow my work instead of me personally. It's for this reason that I'm keeping @pwproject and @audaciouscode around. 3. A recent episode of TWIT reminded me how much the whole "Internet personality" thing annoyed me, and keeping a Twitter account around for strangers to follow is a bit too close to that line for me. 4. Twitter has a spam problem and I'm tired of looking into incoming followers to see if they are sapient beings or just SEO/social media marketing droids. 5. I currently feel overexposed online and removing the temptation to tweet about personal stuff helps me regain a bit of opacity. 6. All of the current methods for monitoring Twitter on my desktop fail. They have nice interfaces, but I'd like the rest of my screen back. Chumby + Facebook = WIN. 7. I don't need to be plugged into the online equivalent of the neighborhood party line while everyone worries about the pig flu, grouses about tea bags, or whatever the bored-at-work meme of the week is. (I'm not completely innocent from participating in this kind of behavior, BTW.) 8. My OCD won't let me quit halfway. 9. Blogging is the new retro-kitsch. ;-)]]> http://www.aetherial.net/weblog/2009/04/9-reasons-why-i-am-quitting-twitter/feed/ 0