Chet Haase's Blog

Tagged

I got tagged - does that mean I'm IT? I've been waiting my whole life for this...

I only found out what blog tagging was last Friday, so imagine my surprise when I realized that Romain tagged me a week ago.

Now that I know what tagging is, I'm not sure I'm happy about it. I agree with Chris that it's like a blog version of chain mail, which I've made a point of not propagating my whole life (which, come to think of it, could explain my luck). But, like Chris, I also cave to pressure. And when the pressure is getting me to talk more about Chet, well, I don't have to be pushed off that cliff.

And heck, maybe tagging is a good thing. The web is far too useful with so little junk content out there, right?

First, some clarification. It's a bit tough to come up with five things that people don't generally know about me already.  It's not like I'm shy. So I'll reinterpret this goal and aim my blog at this subject instead:

Five things about me that aren't patently obvious to people meeting me for the first time

1. Book: I'm writing a book with Romain Guy, entitled Filthy Rich Clients. We are (pleaseopleaseopleaseoplease) nearly done with the draft and are in the process of sending it out for reviews.  Expect to see the book or our corpses (or possibly both) at JavaOne 2007. I'll try to post an outline here soon to whet your appetite.
2. Comedy: I just can't pack enough geek jokes into a tech article to satisfy the beast in me, so I've been trying my hand at pure humor lately. This has come out in the form of both writing (see my personal blog at http://chetchat.blogspot.com) and (oddly) stand-up. The stand-up attempt is on a bit of a breather, however; my wife gave me the choice of two out of three non-work activities for the winter:  (1) finish the book (see #1 above), (2) stand-up, and (3) marriage. It was a difficult decision, but my wife's way too scary for me to cross willingly, so stand-up drew the short straw.
3. Out of the Loop: I know what you're thinking; you're thinking "Chet's so hip; he must be on the top of the Web Wave." Well, perhaps not, but you might assume that anyone with two blogs must know something about the blogosphere.  You'd be wrong. I didn't even know what tagging was until I bumped into Chris posting his response last week. I feel like such a web dinosaur, you're lucky I don't post my blogs IN ALL CAPS.
4. Output-Only Device: Again with the blogs; you might assume that with a couple of regularly-updated blogs of my own, I must read a lot of blogs myself. Nope. Not at all.  It's not a hard and fast rule; I do sometimes find myself reading a blog.  But I generally just don't have the time for it. I sincerely hope that people still keep reading my tech blog. And my other blog. And I'll sincerely try to make both worthwhile. But that comes at the cost of not getting around to reading other blogs in the meantime. In the finite amount of time in life, some things just gotta go (see #2 above). I made a similar point at a dinner party one time, where the guests were all either leads from various web technologies or bloggers or (a position I still don't get) blog aggregators. I said "Is anyone out there actually reading all of these blogs?" The room went silent, you could almost hear the needle scratching the album as everyone turned to look at me like I had slugs coming out of my nose. Then they resumed their conversations like I hadn't said a word. Which, come to think of it, was kind of the point I was making about blogs; everyone's talking, is anyone listening?
5. Color Theory: I was once an expert in 'color theory' (or at least I got an advanced degree in it). Terms like 'tristimulus values' and 'realistic image synthesis' and 'green' would come bounding out of my mouth like my dog afer the mailman. Now it's takes a supreme effort to bother using more than a single color in any demo application I write.  It's all about the performance with me now, and my days and nights running 24-hour renderings to produce color-correct static images just didn't cut it for my inner Graphics Geek.

Well, I caved completely and came up with my five things. I feel so soiled. But the chain mail stops here; no more derefs to others. Maybe I have no friends. Maybe I have friends, but can't afford to lose any. Maybe I'm hypocritically sticking to my principles after completely giving in and writing this posting. But for whatever reason, you'll have to search elsewhere to find more victims.

Comments

• hi chet,

  maybe, you could have tagged someone who's already tagged! (well, you can feign ignorance) .

  that way, you're NOT really continuing the chain!

  BR,
  ~A

  Posted by: anjanb2 on January 08, 2007 at 09:07 PM

• For the 'realistic image synthesis', do you mean that you have been spent some time on 'photorealistic image synthesis', 'Phong shading', 'Gouraud shading', 'Lighing model', 'Ray tracing' etc. research?

  Posted by: ylzhao on January 10, 2007 at 05:12 PM

• Hi Chet,
  Iam eagerly waiting for the relaese of the book Filthy Rich Clients.Will that book be also an electronic edition.If so is it a free download.
  cheers,
  Dhilshuk Reddy

  Posted by: dhilshuk on January 10, 2007 at 08:10 PM

• 
  ylzhao: Yes, I spent time on all of those things, although I was referring specifically to the tedious process of rendering we used in my thesis and related ACM paper: "Modeling Pigmented Materials for Realistic Image Synthesis," a gripping tale of using real-world paints in 3D renderings.

  
  dhilshuk: Strangely enough, the publisher wants to make a buck or two on the book, so don't look for a free download. I don't believe there are any plans for an electronic version at present, but I'm just heads-down trying to finish the thing.
  

  Posted by: chet on January 10, 2007 at 08:15 PM

• Chet,

  Time is limited - that is why I have no time to blog, but I do READ (or at least scan) many tech blogs because as an implementor, it is an effective way of keeping up to date and provides leads and ideas for self-training. It's easy to decide on which blogs are are worth keeping or deleting in my agregator, so my advice as a READer is not to blog just for the sake of it...there is some real cr@p out there. In the same way that people feel the need to have a website, they also feel they have a need for a blog....often both are simply a waste of storage media. So far, I have really not felt the need to have either myself.

  Posted by: tallsandwich on February 27, 2007 at 02:16 AM

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