blur

i was supposed to leave for college today. that is a story in and of itself. but since it was the last day, we needed to take care of business. i need new glasses, and, since i had already had an eye exam, it would be about equal to throwing money away if i didn’t get new glasses. the saga begins.

we hit sears optical. it’s pretty busy. they have a good deal going: any frames under $150 plus lenses for $97. good deal. definitely. i pick out new frames. under $150. i take a seat. the lady comes over. i say “I need glasses. Here are the frames, here is my prescription.” she asks if i know what kind of lenses i have. i have no idea. she takes them, goes to check, and comes back. she’s not for sure, but she’s pretty sure they are something. i can’t remember the word, i’ll just call it $x. the lenses are $x (that’s the material they’re made of. some type of plastic, i think.) ok, fine. but she wants to be sure. so she finds out that the glasses that i currently have were also bought at sears optical. the records are at the mall of america sears optical. she goes, calls, and finds out. sure enough, they are $x. so, she looks up the price. $x + transitional + anti-glare + frame = the price of a very nice pci-x video card: right under $400. i look at my mom. my mom looks at me. mom says: “are you sure?” yup. sure enough. just under $400. how about no transition lenses? $270. no transition and no anti-glare? a bit under $200. no kidding? no kidding. what about the $97 deal? oh, i can’t get those because $y. $y = i need $x + a very high/unusual prescription. ok, i can’t get the $97 deal. $400 is a bit too much. i honestly was about to walk out. then things started clicking.

mom: “oh, we have a coverage plan.” she pulls out a card. oh! ok, sure. the price starts dropping. $99 frames are now $49. she starts looking up the reduced lens price. something like $200, i think. total. well, that’s 50% off… not bad. but we can do better . we never recall getting a warrenty, but it turns out the glasses i have are under a 2 year warrenty that has about 5.5 months left. i had asked earlier about getting lenses put into the frames i have. my prescription hadn’t changed much, but the big problem was my lenses were all scratched up. it would have been $60 to put in new lenses (no scratches) into my current frames, but only if we were under warrenty and only under the old prescription. then this lady really starts pulling strings. we mention that i’m leaving for college today. that really gets her going. she says, “oh, i have a son who went through college, i know what that’s like”, etc. first, she suggested we could put new lenses in a new frame, but we’d have to break the old ones so the warrenty would cover it. mom: “you can do that?” lady: “well, i can do a lot of things…”

turns out, i get to keep my old glasses. no need to break them. and the $400 glasses? $60. new frame. transitional, anti-glare, $x material lenses: $60. hey, we can live with that…

i went to the library today. not the ratty, run down libraries in the okc area (ok, the one off nw 63rd is pretty nice, but bethany and belle isle make me shudder), but the beautiful galaxy library about 1.5 miles from my house. remarkably, it has gotten even better since i left. they took out the row of television sets and replaced them with about 24 computers that can be used for web browsing (if you can’t get on their new wifi). i assume the computers are probably running xp pro, although it didn’t really interest me, and they probably have them locked down enough so that if i tried figuring out what os they were running, i would most likely have run amock of some obscure law. wouldn’t surprise me. but anyway, i did notice a few more changes, mostly superficial. the web based dakota county interface, while nothing exceptional, makes the okc area one look very childish, unprofessional, etc. (i was doing better work when i was… 17.)

but, back to the library. i did actually go there to get books. i didn’t find any of the ones i was looking for (For the Glory of God, The Oath, or This Present Darkness.) actually, i was able to find This Present Darkness but wasn’t able to check it out in the self-checkout and didn’t want to wait in the other line. i only have a little over 24 hours to read them since i’m leaving for college tuesday around 5pm and i figured 3 books would be enough. so what did i get?

• C.S Lewis: The Screwtape Letters Also includes “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”.
• Paul Graham: Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age.
• Biz Stone: Who Let the Blogs Out?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs.

now, a look at the two “geek” books. first, Hackers & Painters, from the inside cover:

“Paul Graham’s provocative take on big ideas can bump your opinions right out of their rut.” -David Weinberger, coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto [my note: assuming no relation to the hacker's manifesto ]

We live in the computer age, a world increasingly shaped by programmers. Who are they, what motivates them, and what impact will they have on the rest of us?

Consider these facts. Everything around us is becoming computerized. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV and VCR will be compontents in a computer network. Your car has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet. What’s next?

Hackers & Painters examines the world of hackers and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Paul Hraham takes readers on a fast-moving tour of what he calls “an intellectual Wild West.”

Why do kids who can’t master high school [note: nuts, not me...] end up as some of the most powerful people in the world? What makes a startup succeed? Will technology create a gap between those who understand it and those who don’t? Will Microsoft take over the Internet? What to do about spam? Hackers & Painters examines these issues that we’ve all wondered about.

If you want to understand what hackers are up to, this book will tell you. And if you are a hacker, you’ll probably recognize in it a portrait of yourself.

The author was the creator of Yahoo! Store and his technique for spam filtering inspired most current filters. (spamassasin?)

(um, i’m tired of typing so Who Let the Blogs Out? will be featured later today.)

so, off i go to read. wish me luck… actually, i need speed, not luck.