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Stuff + nonsense. Updated daily. So far. Pretty much. Overwrought by Scott Knaster.
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Thursday, November 10, 2005
Test 2
Hello
Test
Green to green
Red to red
Yellow to yellow in the light.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Do not read this.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Deb's BookBlog
Whatzis?
Monday, May 10, 2004
Nothing to see here.
Move along.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
*ahem* **whffff**
Is this thing on?
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Get out!
This blog moved -- like, last November, dude. Come join us here.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
NY Times: "Some have said that Republicans were violating a presidential promise not to use the campaign against terrorism for political gain." (from Dave Winer)
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Moving out
This blog is on the move to http://foodisworse.typepad.com/this. I realize this fractures my already-scant readership, but it's time to go. See you over there.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
test
test
test
test
test
Joe Shmo Show ends
Joe Schmo, basically what would happen if Truman Burbank went on a reality show, finished last night when the lead character found out what was going on. It was fun.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Weight & eating blog
There's a bunch of fresh posts in my new blog about weight and eating. Joe Bob says check 'em out. Plus, I'm trying TypePad. It's cool! It has comments built-in! They seem to actually work, so leave a comment!
NFL game for free
The terrible wildfires in San Diego forced the NFL to move its Monday night game to Tempe, Arizona at the last minute. This led to some interesting stories.
Andy Griffith statue
There's going to be a statue of Andy Griffith and Ron Howard (actually, Sheriff Andy and Opie) in Raleigh, North Carolina. As Gomer might say, "Goll-ee!".
Monday, October 27, 2003
Eating and weight
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I'm spending time right now on a writing project about my experiences with gaining and losing weight. I started a blog here for posts and links about that.
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Alternate universe World Series: games 6 and 7
Here. Occasionally brilliant. READ ALL THE WAY TO THE END. Favorite sentence:Meanwhile, with both teams one victory from a world championship, Lucifer kicked Uday and Qusay Hussein out of Hell to relieve the massive overcrowding that has resulted from the glaciers advancing into the farthest reaches of the underworld.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Rip City
The recent iTunes/iPod activity has inspired me to resume my CD-ripping project. I'm now up to 1140 CDs and 11,800 songs ripped. iTunes continues to perform OK. I'm sure there are folks with many tens of thousands of songs in their iTunes databases, but I wonder what the limit is.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
The Other World Series
In an alternate universe (thanks, Gardner Fox), the Cubs and Red Sox are playing the World Series. ESPN.com is there. See part one and part two. I can't wait to see how it ends!
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Guster Meow Mix
The poppy Boston band Guster has released a version of its latest album with all the vocals wiped and replaced by somebody saying "meow" over and over, in the proper melody. It's pretty amusing. Check it out here (requires free iTunes).
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Nobody in Boston is watching
As explained here.
Who am I? Why am I here?
Now that the work of handling my mom's estate is winding down, I'm taking the next few weeks to write down a bunch of words about something I've done a lot of: gaining and losing weight. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time. Once I'm done writing, I'll try to figure out what to do with what I've written ;-) .
Monday, October 20, 2003
Judge writes rap in Eminem decision
Here.
Voight-Kampff Test for SF Mayoral Candidates
The Wave magazine used a technique from Blade Runner to find out if the San Francisco candidates for mayor are human or replicants. It's brilliant. Too bad these guys weren't around for the goober recall election. However, there's plenty of time left for the presidential election!
World Series, yawn
I love baseball, and I'm trying to watch the World Series, but sorry, the thrill is gone. It's Yankees vs. Marlins: the boring rich guys who have it all against the boring spoiled kids and their 10,000 fans. There are a few intriguing subplots, like 72-year-old Jack McKeon, but when it comes to actually rooting for one of these teams, I just can't do it.
iTunes Linkmaker
One of the little-mentioned but cool new features in iTunes is the ability to copy and paste (or drag and drop) a link to an item in the iTunes Music Store. Here's something related: use iTunes Linkmaker to create a URL, or even a web badge, that links to a music store item.
Friday, October 17, 2003
iTunes for Windows
Apple announced and shipped iTunes for Windows yesterday. It's remarkably like the terrific Mac version, including support for the iTunes Music Store. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't leave out a feature or two, just to remind folks to use Macs instead of Windows. Maybe in the future, new features will come to the Mac version first. Or maybe Apple is so into selling iPods now that they're willing to have application parity on Windows and Macs. Also, it plays nice with the Macs on my 802.11 network, letting me share music across platforms effortlessly. And it knows about my account at the Music Store, even warning me when I'm about to buy a song that I already bought on a Mac.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
No joy in Cubdom
Once again I refer you to Jayson Stark for the explanation.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
These are the Cubs, masters of the unthinkable
The Billy Goat Curse is real. I know, because I watched it happen on TV last night. Last night's Cubs-Marlins game was going as expected -- the Cubs were on their way to their first pennant in 58 years, leading 3-0 in the 8th -- when the game suddenly moved into the Twilight Zone, or maybe the Curse script kicked in. Cubs left fielder Moises Alou (son of Giants manager Felipe) was prevented from catching a foul fly in the first row of the stands when a fan deflected the ball -- a Cubs fan. That's when thousands of Cubs followers knew it was all going wacky. Soon thereafter, the Cubs shortstop, Alex Gonzalez -- probably their best defensive player -- saw his glove turn to iron as an easy ground ball clanked off it for an error. Next, Cubs starter Mark Prior, who was almost unhittable before that, turned into toast. In minutes, the Marlins had scored 8 runs and the incredible (but inevitable?) had happened. Cubs fans, I feel for you. Hang in there. You have another chance today.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Goodbye to Pacific Bell Park
Bleh.
Good weight news
Some rare positive news about overweight in the U.S.
Flyby
Yikes.
In Dusty We Trusty
I ordered my In Dusty We Trust t-shirt yesterday, because I like the man and the team. I hope it gets here before the Cubs are done. ;-)
Monday, October 13, 2003
Lots more Americans are getting really fat
The number of obese Americans doubled from 1986 to 200 -- but the number of extremely obese Americans was up 500%. The whole story is here.
Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction
In case you missed it over the weekend, radio guy Rush Limbaugh came out as a drug addict on Friday. Here's an opinion on this announcement.
Saturday, October 11, 2003
Boston Brawl
The Red Sox - Yankees series took an ugly turn today: the Yankees won. Oh, and also, weird bad stuff happened.
Cubs and red ivy
Jayson Stark writes about it here. More about red ivy here.
Friday, October 10, 2003
Customers as thieves, enhanced
A maker of really lame copy protection for audio CDs is suing a college student who pointed out just how lame their copy protection is (so lame that you can defeat it by holding down the shift key when you insert the CD, or turning off auto-run, or simply putting the CD into a Mac). The doublespeak coming from the company is breathtaking. This is wrong in so many ways, but no more so than in disrespecting customers in the first place by copy-protecting an audio CD.
iTunes for Windows
Is Apple going to release iTunes for Windows next week? Maybe.
Big Thunder Mountain info
Chuq points to new information about the Big Thunder Mountain crash.
Jumpers
Here is a sad, fascinating story about the Golden Gate Bridge and suicide.
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Pat Robertson favors terrorism
Pat Robertson has suggested blowing up the U.S. State Department with a nuclear bomb.
Walking Directions: Bag End to Mount Doom
Here. (Thanks to Adam.)
Would you like to super-size that coffin?
Swanson now has "Hungry Man XXL" frozen dinners, featuring around 1000 calories and 40 grams of fat or more (note to those unclear: THAT'S TOO MUCH FOR ONE MEAL). There's even a grotesque "Hungry Man All-Day Breakfast" with over 1000 calories and 231% of your daily requirement of cholesterol! For breakfast! Mark Morford in the SF Chronicle rants about this trash food and its relationship to a new growth industry, enormous caskets.
Curse of the Billy Goat
Cubs fans are still trying to get rid of their curse. That was me on KFOG this morning (6:15 AM -- you were listening, weren't you?) explaining this curse to the KFOG Morning Show.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Shoot Britney Spears
The wife of Maryland's governor said she would like to do that. Eh?
Another instant classic
We baseball fans have been blessed by great playoff games this year (the Giants' performance notwithstanding), and last night was another one. Jayson Stark does his usual terrific job of writing about it as a reporter, fan, and baseball nerd.
Gov. Schwarzenegger
Hi, I live in a state that just recalled its governor and elected a man with little relevant experience. Talk about out of touch: I cannot figure this out. Why did so many people vote for Schwarzenegger? I assume they have figured out something I haven't about the guy. I hope he does a great job of making the state a better place.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Angry Moroccan teacher throws pupils out of window
Here.
Don't try this
The most disturbing Google search in my referrer log: root canal airplane. Hmmm.
Punch a chad
It's election day, and soon I'll go vote against the recall. Why? Because it's the worst, most cynical example of partisan politics I've ever seen. For Darrell Issa and the recall mongers, this is not about what Davis did wrong -- it's all about getting a Republican in office. The reason elected officials have terms in office is so they're not constantly running for re-election. If this recall succeeds, good luck to whichever sucker replaces him.
Let's go, Oakland
The A's are finished, incredibly. They have played 9 games over four years in which they could have won a playoff series; they have lost all 9. I'm not sure why I root against the A's. Probably the 1989 World Series is a big part of it. And, I like the Red Sox. But for me, the A's losing takes the edge off the Giants losing.
Monday, October 06, 2003
Another perspective on baseball fan pain
You can skip the top 2/3rds of this and just read the list at the bottom.
Another take on Cubs & Sox
Funny.
Is that all there is?
The Giants season is over too soon, following two remarkable games in Miami. This series has proven to me that baseball is unanalyzable. Were the Marlins simply the better team? How does the best defensive Giants team in history make 7 errors in 4 games? I dunno. Random thoughts about that series and some of the other amazing games in the division series:What's going on with all the errors, dropped fly balls, hit batsmen, weird plays in the division series? I have a theory: they've changed the baseball. The worst part of baseball is after a disappointing end to the season, the gutless wonders and naysayers crawl out. For example, Ann Killion has uncovered communication problems in the Giants clubhouse. Where was she all season? And Larry Krueger, the guy KNBR keeps around to piss off Giants fans, announces that they had too many pitchers on the roster. Why didn't he say that a week ago? Here's another thing: this stupid macho bit about "playing hurt". If you're too injured to play, it hurts your team, not helps. Another bright guy: immediately after the game, Bobby Valentine popped up on ESPN to criticize the Giants for not using Jose Cruz Jr. as a pinch-runner and putting in Andres Galarraga to play first base. Only problem: both those players were already out of the game. No wonder Valentine is a grinning idiot on TV instead of still managing. Anybody see the end of game 3 and think that Pudge Rodriguez interfered after scoring the go-ahead run? He was exulting with his arms in the air and Torrealba had to go through him to get the ball while the winning run scored. Giants baseball of the past: this series provided strange echoes of 2000 (losing 3-1 to the wild card), 1997 (losing to the Marlins, two 1-run losses in Miami), and even 1912 (dropped fly ball in extra innings helps blow lead). The Giants finally wised up and figured out how to sell tickets by lottery, instead of browser reload hell. They were planning to do that for World Series seats. Maybe next year. The Sox-A's game 3 was the weirdest baseball game I ever saw. Jerome Williams pitching game 4 was the right call.
Friday, October 03, 2003
Zoom!
These guys flew right overhead as we were standing on the BART platform Wednesday. It was like getting a pitchfork to the eardrums.
Somebody's keeping score
If you want to know what I'm usually doing at a baseball game, check this out.
Double-header, guest entry
The baseball gods laid it out for us: both the Giants and A's had home playoff games on Wednesday. Hmmm, could I go to both games? Hey -- the starting times are 6 hours apart! This can be done! And so, I asked urban adventurer Mark "the Red" Harlan to join me, and...well, I'll let Mark tell the story (with a few of my own comments):when scott "special k" knaster mentioned he was interested in seeing 2 major league ballgames in the same day, i immediately thought "i wonder if you could do 'em both for $25?" when he followed it with the fact that it wasn't even possible to do this (in one geography, that is) until just a couple of years ago, i became intrigued. scott was playing to my ego ... the reason he was talking to me in the first place was because i have a reputation for getting good deals on tickets, but scott was worried because the giants were sold out ... it took him 2 full sentences before he asked if i was interested in joining him. of course. of course i'm interested in joing him, because i feel exactly like anyone my age without kids feels ... life is nothing more than a set of disjoint adventures, and the the time in between? nothing more than planning, resting, studying, or earning time for those adventures.[Scott:]Mark and I have somewhat different perspectives on this. I'm a big Giants fan, and a baseball fan. I MUST get in to the Giants and see the whole game. I'm not an A's fan, and I won't spend a lot for tickets there. Plus, I need to see Mark's legendary ticket-acquisition skills in action.the a's won't be a problem. for some reason the world, the bay area and the san jose mercury news in particular, either hate or ignore the a's. face value there will probably get you seats on the owners' lap. the tickets might be a problem for the giants, though, because these are the playoffs and the game is sold out. of course the world series was sold out and that didn't keep me from getting a *free* ticket. (something that particularly bugs bryan "stearno" stearns, although i don't know why; naturally i bring it up at every possible opportunity.) *** special k shows up promptly at 10:00. of course i'm not ready, but I get there in a matter of minutes ... he drops the key piece of information which is craigslist is showing more sellers than buyers ... this looks good for the kutrate koncert klub (kkk), a spiritual organization of the mind made up of mark "solid" goldstein (weirdly, a shirttail cousin of special k's -- not too surprising since they're both jewish and from denver, but still spooky) and myself.[Scott:]Officially, Mark G. and I are 4th cousins, on my mother's side.the idea is to park at millbrae (using my caltrain parking pass that i normally abusively use for free long term parking when i fly out of town [i'm also not eligible to own the pass, but that's another story]), take caltrain to pacbell park, bart to oakland, and then bart back to millbrae. we get to the s.f. train station around noon, an hour before game time, and i hit a scalper immediately. "what is the face value of your ticket and how much do you want?" he shows me a $31 ticket. "40." great. this is the high end of the spectrum. buying from a train station scalper is like paying sticker price for a car. only the stupid, the rich, and those not spending their own money are so foolhardy. so i definitely WILL be getting in ... it's just a question of when and for how much. i set a mental price of $20 or half price, whichever is cheaper. no "standing room only" tickets and i'd prefer seats to bleachers because i like the back support. special k and his i've-grown-into-a-monster son already have tickets. i only need 1. this will be a snap.[Scott:]I managed to acquire 2 decent tickets at face value when I was at the game the day before.we get to the ballpark, i get some cash, search a little for paper to make a sign and get to work. the sign is very important because it: 1. keeps you from having to walk around everywhere and lets people come to you. 2. indicates immediately if you're a buyer or a seller. 3. subconsciously establishes that you are NOT a scalper, because scalpers never use signs. (the kkk almost never deals with scalpers and vice versa.) 4. gives people a level of assurance. when you walk around saying "i need 1 ticket," or holding a finger up, it makes people uncomfortable ... "does he want a ticket or is he going to rob me?" that's always in the backs of people's minds. it's worse after dark, but it's always the case. but wording is important here. it's still 45 minutes to game time and most people will be expecting face value or more for their tickets. some will get it from dopes that aren't thinking things through, or those that are simply not willing to ask their fellow man to share the financial burden of the ticket; but most will not. you need something small, succinct. need 1 cheap perfect.[Scott:]Later, in Oakland, a scalper will summon Mark by hollering "Hey, Mr. Cheap!".i chat to special k while i hold my sign up, rotating it slowly once, and it takes about 90 seconds to get a response. "i've got a reserved. $40." "what's the face value?" "$40." "I'll give you 20." he looks incredulous. i've seen this exact look 1000 times in my life. in the early days of the kkk it used to bother me -- now i just think it's funny. he shakes his head and walks away. another seconds later. "i have bleachers." "what's the face value?" "$25." "i'll give you 10." he just walks away.[Scott:]During this whole process, while we're standing in Willie Mays Plaza, the few cops walking around pretty much ignore this illegal ticket market.another immediately. "i've got one for $40. that's what i paid." "i'll give you 20." "20?! dude, you insult me!" can't have angry citizens here ... he could cause a ruckus for other customers, and there's always an outside chance he'll still sell. most people would disengage at this point, but that couldn't be more wrong. i start up, "i have $23 on me," which is true, but i also have $280 in the *other* pocket, "i need money to get home. i'm out of work right now," which is not exactly right, i'm working, i'm just not getting paid AND i'm paying others, "i guarantee that you made more money this week than i did." i'm staring at the spider web he has tatooted on his hand as i say this. he looks a bit like ceasar rosas from los lobos, only even more pockmarked in the face, as hard as that is to imagine. he stops and considers. i can tell this was exactly the right thing to say. he shakes his head, but is muttering in a conspiratory way now, "no dude, i lost a lot of money this week." but it's said in the you're-forgiven tone of voice. it wouldn't surprise me if he came back. i look at scott and he's looking a little embarrassed. like the way the *other* person looks at a restaurant when one person of the couple launches on a waitress. no time to calm him. the next possibility is immediate: a thin, older white guy. he looks at my sign before speaking. "do you just want a ticket to get in the stadium, or do you want a good seat?" "i'm just trying to get in." he hands me a ticket, "i'll sell you this one for $15." it's got a face value of $31. i look at it and hand it to special k, "does this look right to you?" before he can even answer, the guy just nods, "yeah, it's good. i'll walk in with you if you want." i've bought, probably 100 tickets this way in my life. i know in the very pit of my soul he's right. this is where solid g and i differ. solid would counter offer here, but this is well within my tolerance AND i'll get in before the game starts ... not always a certainty with the kkk. "sure." the deal's done. from sign complete to ticket in hand it was about 3 minutes, tops. i turn to scott, "let's go in," and look up to see him quasi-stunned. he considers then speaks, "my third eye has just opened. i've been going to sporting events my whole life ... and now ... now i feel like a whole new world has been opened up to me." right.[Scott:]Yup. Most of my experience is going with Barbara and our kids, and we need more certainty that we're going to get in. Watching Mark was like entering a parallel dimension.the seat itself is amazing. it's section 336, row 11, seat 12. it is, literally, half way up the topmost section, immediately in front of the 3rd base foul pole, and on the very end of the section. if i look to my left, i see a 4 story direct drop. i love it. if there's an earthquake, i am THE very first to die. to my left is mccovey cove, almost straight left is the scoreboard (still readable) and below and behind me is coca cola slide, in front of that, the mini kid baseball diamond where they occasionally whack whiffle balls out of the tiny park. it's a foggy day, with patches of sun. almost cold, but not too windy. in other words, a great day for half priced baseball. at this very moment, the giants are down 9 to 5 at the bottom of the 8th. my double header day, in the baseball sense, is almost half over. and i couldn't be happier. giants lose and it makes no difference ...[Scott:]There's that difference of philosophy I mentioned... ;-)we make our way to the bart station, stopping by a chinese deli as part of the journey. the bart train is crowded to the point of uncomfortable and once we get to the station it's a steady stream. we get to the oakland stadium 75 minutes before gametime. the traditional oakland scalpers are working the bridge in their overly aggressive style ... we set up a sign and start working it. and nothing. and nothing. and nothing. we're still about an hour from the game but it's become clear that, weirdly, tickets are going to be harder to get here ... even though they still have some for sale. solid g shows up and we decide to try for single tickets instead of a block of three. we score a $20 ticket for 10 almost immediately and then go cold. the game starts, jets scream overhead and we still don't have our quota. one inning passes, then another ... i finally cajole g and k into buying the $15 mount davis seats and going in ...[Scott:]These are the football seats 500 feet from home plate that are only opened when the rest of the park is sold out. And as a bonus, you can't see the deep half of the outfield from there.we play musical seats for an inning and a half, trying to better our nosebleed seats and finally settle in a row above the cheapie press seats. we get a full eagle eye view from above home plate, and by watching the tv monitors in the press seats we're able to see both the live broadcast and instant replays of the game. i eat pretzels, special k eats his diet cowpie cookies and solid peels red grapes. it's now top of the 8th, the home team is losing 3 to 4 and the world is very very good.[Scott:]The A's tied things up in the last of the 9th, and as the contest wore on toward midnight, we wondered what would happen if the game was still going on past BART's midnight closing time. We had a brief discussion and unanimously agreed that we we NOT going to leave the game early. That's just wrong. As it happened, the game ended at 11:47, so the urban crisis didn't happen. We got back to Millbrae at 1:00 AM after an awesome day featuring 21 innings and 8 hours of baseball. Seeing that no more games were scheduled at that time, we headed home.
Fish fry part 2
...in which the Fish fry the Giants, 9-5. In a grotesque bullpen/defense implosion, the Marlins evened the series at 1-1. The interesting and maddening thing about these best-of-5 series is that they can turn with every game. The Giants are in some trouble now, but if they win today, the Marlins are on the brink of elimination.
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Fish fry part 1
The Giants squeaked past the Marlins yesterday 2-0 in an amazing pitchers' duel that had only 6 base hits, and only two of those hit to the outfield. You can read all about it here. Other stuff:
- I wonder if Marlins manager Jack "I'll walk him every time" McKeon realizes how much Barry Bonds is in his head. Worrying about him affected Josh Beckett's pitching to Rich Aurilia in the fateful 4th inning.
- Another absolutely gorgeous day at Pacific Bell Park. The fans were too riveted and nervous to get into big chants and cheers.
- Aside from three terrible misplays (two by the Giants), the defense was impressive. Naturally, the game turned on the Marlins' one error.
- Barry Bonds, frustrated at being walked and aching to contribute, was picked off in the 8th inning when the Derrek Lee bobbled Chad Fox's low throw, allowing Bonds to get to 2nd base. Of course, Bonds then scored, so misplays led to both of the games' runs.
- Felipe Alou is priming the second-guessers by pitching Sidney Ponson today instead of Kirk Rueter. Alou has usually been right about those things this year.
- The Giants are advertising the hell out of their "I See Orange People" t-shirts, but they're sold out. BOO! I did score a very cool post-season media guide, which includes recaps of every 2003 Giants game and box scores of all Giants post-season games ever.
- Whole teams introduced on the foul lines, flyby, fireworks, bunting, Huey Lewis and the News singing the anthem: I love the playoffs.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Fish fry today
The Giants start the National League Division Series today at home. Thanks to CJ, I have a ticket! Most of the "experts" are picking the Giants to win. Ahhh, whadda they know. Oft-forgotten factor: the current Marlins owner used to own the Expos, and he lamely fired Giants manager Felipe Alou a couple of years ago. Felipe didn't like that, although he downplays it now.
Drive-by eating
Ah, the drive-thru fast food experience. You sit in your car and yell at a billboard, then get nasty food thrown at you by someone who usually doesn't even look at you. Here is an industry magazine report that ranks the joints.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Springsteen exorcises Bambino?
It takes one Boss to triumph another. Ceej, could this be the year?
The Man Who Saved Baseball
Giants fans, don't miss this interview with head honcho Peter Magowan, one of the coolest owners ever and the reason there are no Tampa Bay Giants.
There we go again
If this poll (which gives results that are very different from other polls) is right, California is about to void an election and install a glib, inexperienced mega-rich guy as governor who usually doesn't even bother to vote, to replace our boring, experienced kinda rich guy. We'll either get 3 years of reducing state problems to movie sound bites, or else recall after recall. Hmm, I wonder what other states I could run away to.
Google News
I use Google News all the time and it's great. But why, when I search for a story that's been picked up by a bunch of different sites, do I get page after page listing all 47 million copies of the exact same story? Google, please fix. Thank you. That is all.
Antici-pation
We went the the last Giants game of the regular season yesterday, and it was a great tune-up as the G's whacked the hell out of the Dodgies, 12-3. After early fog, it turned out to be another perfect day at Pacific Bell Park, where the wind stops when you enter, the Cha-Cha Bowls are delicious, and all the children are above average. The Giants ended up conceding the best record to Atlanta so that they wouldn't have to fly cross-country and back on the eve of their playoff opener. I hope that turns out to be a good decision. I'm cautiously (no woofing here) excited about the Giants chances this year. This time, they're entering the playoffs with a great team, high expectations, and the pang of unfinished business from last year. That's a formula that worked great for the A's in 1989.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Playmakers
I've been watching the drama series Playmakers on ESPN and I'm hooked by its writing, acting, and verisimilitude. It's an over-the-top portrayal of an NFL team and some of the shenanigans that go on in its orbit, including drugs, sex, and violence. Some NFL players think this is unfair, because the show exaggerates the bad stuff. Dear NFL players: this is FICTION. That means it's MADE UP, like ER and NYPD Blue. I like the theme song, which you can download here. Another catchy tune used in the show is Get Busy by Sean Paul (thanks to my son for identifying that one).
Friday, September 26, 2003
Bye, music
I decided to check out BuyMusic.com, the music-for-sale site that makes fun of Apple's iTunes Music Store ads and only works with Windows. There is stuff that Apple doesn't have, such as Radiohead's "Kid A", although it does cost an absurd $16.69. I decided to buy a track for .79, "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow. Searching wasn't bad, and signing up for an account was only a little annoying. Unlike Apple's store, there's no one-click to buy, so you have to "check out". When I did, I was informed that BuyMusic would have to do further checking on my credit card before allowing me to download my song -- "for my protection", of course. This process would probably take about one day, it said! I would be notified by e-mail when it was done. Three and a half days later, I got the e-mail saying my purchase was ready. I went back to BuyMusic and downloaded the track, which came in Windows Media Audio protected format. When I tried to play the track, Windows Media Player informed me that I needed to download a license for the track first. So I went through another step -- does this happen every time you buy a song? Finally, I played the track. All in all, it was a lousy customer experience. I have always appreciated Apple's ability to making things easy, but I have a new appreciation for the way the iTunes Music Store hides the details, including one-click purchase, credit card authorization, and digital rights management. Bow wow! Lots of other folks seem to have issues with BuyMusic.com.
Rare feat
Carlos Delgado of Toronto hit four home runs in one game yesterday. That's one of baseball's classic records. How rare is it? Delgado is only the 15th player in the 128-year history of Major League Baseball to do it.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Wrong number
The RIAA sued a 65-year-old woman for sharing music via KaZaA. But she has a Mac, which doesn't run KaZaA. What happened? Bad IP snitching by Comcast? Did dynamic IP addressing screw up the identification?
People are gonna come from all over
Major League Baseball players, organized by state or country of birth here. 1698 from California, 8 from Alaska. 5 from Italy, but none since 1962.
Tracking baseball online
You can watch baseball play-by-play on ESPN, Fox, MLB, and Yahoo (others too?). They're all OK. ESPN's is unreliable with Safari, and Yahoo's seems to switch among games most quickly. It would be cool to be able to set up audio alerts when something happens, like a run scoring (in games you really care about) or the lead changing hands. Much work remains to be done on game trackers.
Giants fan diary
Another day, another slightly important game. This one was a 2-1 loss to Houston. The most important fact about this game is that Sidney Ponson pitched very well, but just well enough to lose, unfortunately. The regulars had the day off, although Barry Bonds pinch hit and struck out against Billy Wagner. Off day today, then four more of these bleh games against the Dodgers until the PLAYOFFS.
New administration
The West Wing started up again last night, with a whole new creative team. It's still good, but different, more dramatic, more melodramatic, less nerdy. I myself, being a nerd, don't like it as much so far.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Good day!
You can listen to Paul Harvey whenever you want!
Ten-Run Field
The Giants kicked Astros 10-3 last night, scoring all 10 runs in the second inning thanks to some timely hitting, lousy pitching, shaky defense, and those wacky Crawford Boxes. Jason Schmidt and the bullpen pitched well for the G's. Over in Oakland, the A's did exactly what the Giants did last Wednesday: won their game, then waited for good news from Southern California before clinching the division title. Eerily similar, except, why were there only 23,000 people in Oakland for this game?
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Neil, Neil, Neal
Three of my favorites, Neil Young, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, all releasing new work at about the same time. Coincidence?
Something's up with Barry
...Bonds, that is. He looked mortal last night in taking an 0-fer, grounding into a double play with the bases loaded and breaking a 58-game on-base streak. In the past, a visit from his dad would fix him right up. Now, I dunno. In other Giants news, Pedro Feliz and Ray Durham unloaded 9th-inning homers on practically untouchable Houston closer Billy Wagner as the G's topped the Astros 6-3. Playoffs, please start soon!
A cooler day around the bay
I'm sitting here enjoying a lovely cool breeze wafting the scent of Gilroy garlic in through my window. Nice!
Monday, September 22, 2003
Last week of the regular season
The Giants took two of three from the Dodgies at their place over the weekend, dropping Sunday's game in which they had a 5-2 lead and started only one regular. Kevin Correia gave up 3 straight home runs in the game's notable meltdown. We listened to much of this game on the Dodgers station. The Dodgers broadcast, led by Vin Scully, is unique and highly stylized. All Dodgers broadcasters must say the team nickname the same way, the Vin way, roughly "Dodyers" (very light on the "g"), and with a lilt in the first syllable. Vin tells little anecdotes about each player, and his ad libs are precious and sometimes brilliant. Here's what we learned:And when Todd Linden homered with two men on, Vin ad-libbed: "If I remember my German, 'Linden' means 'tree', and Todd Linden just hit a 'tree-run homer'". Fun.
- Andres Galarraga was once known as "El Gordito".
- Nobody calls Eric "E.Y." Young by his given name, except his mother, when she's mad.
- Pedro Feliz went to spring training two years ago and got his wisdom teeth pulled, "so he wasn't eating any steak".
- Neifi Perez's brothers and sisters are physicians, but of course, "you think any of them is making $4 million a year, like Neifi?"
Friday, September 19, 2003
Dost thee want an iPod?
Maybe you haven't heard about the Silicon Valley-Amish connection.
Inspirational and incredible
Neil Parry is a football player for San Jose State who suffered a horrific injury 3 years ago that led to the amputation of part of his leg. Yesterday he played in a major college football game for the first time since that happened. Way to go, Neil!
Shut your mouth
Here is the story of a man who was singing along with the radio while driving, got a bee in his mouth, and crashed his car. The lesson here is obvious: it's unhealthy to eat while you drive.
Hung over
The Giants played the first of nearly two weeks of sorta-meaningless games yesterday, losing 7-3 to San Diego. Sidney Ponson had another mediocre-bad game. He seemed unmotivated, and he had a lot of second-stringers behind him. I hope he knows how to turn it on for the playoffs. Playoff tickets go on sale this morning at 10:00. It's reload city -- wish me luck!
Not letting it be
There's going to be a new version of Let it Be by The Beatles. This one will be stripped of the Phil Spector production and will reveal "the noise we made in the studio", according to Paul McCartney.
Baseball in a hurricane
Do you think baseball games are stopped when the weather gets bad? Not always.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Foregone conclusion is concluded
On a lovely San Francisco night, everything went as planned and the good guys won the National League Western Division. The weather was supposed to be chilly, but it was in the 70s with no wind all night. We managed to get terrific seats halfway up the view level right behind home plate. As we found our seats, we took in the fabulous view of China Basin, the bay beyond, and the sunlight glinting gold off the windows and buildings of the East Bay. Giants ace Jason Schmidt started without his usual fastball and was hammered, batting-practice-like, for 3 runs in the first two innings. He suddenly found his stride in the 3rd and became Jason Schmidt, while Andres Galarraga woke up the rest of the team and the crowd with a 2-run homer. When Marquis Grissom's 2-run shot in the gave the Giants the lead, there was no looking back. Meanwhile, the Dodgers' bats were sleeping in LA, as Arizona held onto a 2-0 lead. As the Giants wrapped up their 8-3 win, the Dodgers were just coming to bat in the last of the 9th. The usual big Pac Bell crowd and the Giants put celebration on hold as the video screen came to life with the Dodger broadcast, complete with the venerable Vin Scully calling the action. In an increasingly fabulous and surreal scene, we saw the Dodgies go down meekly, as Vin announced that we were watching "in San Diego". (OK, Vin is awsome: when 85 years old you are, broadcast this well, you will not!) Then, with 2 outs, the Dodger broadcast put up a shot of the crowd in San Francisco. So, we were at the ballpark in SF, watching the Dodgers game from LA, which showed us in SF watching ourselves watching the Dodgers. Only the Dodgers' lack of offense prevented an infinite loop from trapping the ballpark forever. When the Dodgers finished losing, our place went nuts. Fireworks shot from the scoreboard, players started jumping around and doing the champagne bath thing, and the fans hollered and slapped hands. The train home was a festive blast. Praise Peter Magowan, the Giants now have a couple of weeks to get everything just right for the Division Series. Playoffs, yippee!
Big storm
Hurricane Isabel comes ashore. Good luck to you if you're dealing with that. I wonder what would happen if we could predict earthquakes a few days ahead of time.
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
A cleaner, smoother win
The Giants looked a bit better in smacking the Padres 4-1 last night. They managed a single run on a bases-loaded-none-out in the first, two more on a 2-out rally in the fourth featuring hits by Cruz, Durham, and Grissom, and the last on another Barry Bonds homer, his 656th. Jerome Williams pitched himself into the playoff rotation, allowing just four hits and one run, a Khalil Greene homer in the 7th (and how cool is it to have a shortstop named Khalil?). The magic number is now 2. I'll be there tonight. Go D-Backs!
Not nice...
...but really funny.
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do
The Giants slogged through another mess of a win last night, 8-7 over San Diego. Sketchy pitching, sloppy defense, and a lack of clutch hitting led to a 7-5 deficit in the 8th inning, when some even crappier play by the Padres helped the Giants to a 3-run rally. The "highlights" included Gary Matthews Jr. forgetting how many outs there were, and the go-ahead run scoring on a wild pitch. Two earlier Giants runs scored on a bungled sac bunt. Still, it's the Giants at Pacific Bell Park, so they found a way to win. And good things happened: Bonds homered (#655), Rueter pitched well, Worrell got the save, Snow homered and reached base 5 times. Clinching the division (magic number is now 4) can't come soon enough. The team itself seems sluggish and impatient, and I feel that way, too. This September is turning into a long month for Giants fans. I only hope October is long, too! This must be what it feels like to be a Braves fan. ;-)
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
Last night I read the first two issues of this new 8-issue Neil Gaiman mini-series. This comic revives the old concept of reconstructing the Marvel Universe in a different time, but instead of 2099, the year is 1602, a very Gaiman-esque choice. Don't expect Sandman when you read Marvel 1602 -- this is much lighter-weight stuff, and a very pleasant read. The plot is coming together nicely, and most of the fun so far has been in recognizing Marvel folks in slightly unfamiliar guises. It's usually not hard: Carlos Javier is a guy with a school for talented youngsters, Sir Nicholas Fury is the queen's intelligence agent, his assistant Peter Parquah is fascinated by spiders, and so on. Matthew Murdoch, Dr. Stephen Strange, and plenty of others are in there too. But there are some twists and mysteries: why is Master John Grey so effeminate? Why is Virginia Dare on her way from the colonies? Who is the Grand Inquisitor? Gaiman has fun fitting his new Marvel Universe in with historical fact and speculation. Oh, and the Andy Kubert art is lovely to look at.
Monday, September 15, 2003
Diary of a Giants fan
The Giants won another slightly odd game against the hapless Brewers yesterday. Starter Kevin Correia couldn't find his control and was yanked in the 3rd inning after a walk-and-hit-batsmen fest. The game plodded to a 3-3 tie in the 8th when Barry Bonds was ejected for arguing balls and strikes from the dugout, at which point he charged out and went cap-to-cap with the home plate umpire. Because Bonds was already out of the game, it didn't really matter, but, weird. Things looked grim when the Brews took the lead in the 9th, but the Giants tied it with 2 outs in the bottom of the inning on a triple by Pedro Feliz that was almost a game-winning homer. Then, in the 11th, rookie Todd Linden won the game with a timely base hit. Magic number: 5! Andres Galarraga is a little pouty because he was removed for a pinch-hitter. I predict he'll get over it. In other baseball news, Tony Larussa is getting cranky as the Cardinals drop out of sight.
Whiny whine
I've had a PowerBook G4 for about six months now, ever since I switched back from Windows. The fan basically runs all the time the computer is awake. In my quiet office, the sound is annoying. After some Googling research, and asking some friends, this seems to be normal and expected behavior. Yuck. Apple has always been bipolar about quiet computers. I've had computers from Apple that were dead silent (yay) and I've had and heard others than scream, such as the famous "wind tunnel" G4s.
Friday, September 12, 2003
It's hot
How hot is it? According to KFOG radio, it's so hot, the Goths on Haight Street are spontaneously combusting. More "it's so hot" jokes here. These are supposed to be about Arizona. They know from heat.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
What I remember
The first news I heard was after the first crash but before the second one. I was mad at the radio news guy for sensationalizing when he speculated that it was probably a terrorist attack. The first reports I heard said a small plane had crashed into the tower. Of course, it was a jumbo jet. I wonder if this mistake was because the towers were so large that they made a big plane look small, or that people couldn't comprehend what had actually happened. When I saw the towers burning on TV, I thought "man, it's going to be a lot of work to fix those." I never imagined they would fall. Who did? I watched the first tower fall on TV and heard a reporter describe it, but it didn't penetrate into my brain until several minutes later. In the days following, I expected everybody to be more open and friendly, like they were after the big earthquake in 1989. But I was disappointed when most people I saw in public avoided making eye contact. An all-sports radio station ran talk shows 24/7 for several days, and the hosts were remarkably intelligent and comforting. I imagined a scenario in which, if another big attack took place within a few days, when we were still raw, public order in our country would collapse. There was a big benefit concert that was on every channel a few days later -- even many cable channels, like HBO. The atmosphere was eerie, with no audience, no narration, no subtitled credits. The concert was at a secret location. I wondered if everything was going to be like that from then on. There were no commercials on radio or TV for many days. It was very exciting when, a couple of days later, planes returned to the skies.
9/10/01
Today I'm remembering 9/10/01, a great day. I was visiting my mother on the eve of her knee replacement surgery. We had a wonderful time driving all over town, joyriding and visiting old haunts, having a couple of good meals. We finished the day by watching the first Monday night football game of the season and going to sleep early so I could get her to the hospital for her surgery the next morning. Her doctors had tremendous powers of concentration, and the surgery was a success.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Elite Computers -- mystery solved
Courtesy of Wolf, here.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
3733t?
What's up with Elite Computers in Cupertino, across the street from Apple? The store was closed, then reopened as a Computerware or something, then closed again. Now the OPEN sign is on again and the sign says "G5 in stock". Is it back? Is it a joke?
Monday, September 08, 2003
Call me the curse (baseball)
The family and I went to the Giants-Diamondbacks game yesterday, courtesy of CJ. An ugly bullpen performance led to a 9-6 Giants defeat. In a year in which the Giants have the best home record in baseball, I have seen 3 grotesque losses at Pacific Bell Park. I am probably not allowed to attend any more games.
His ride's here
Warren Zevon is dead. He was a fabulous songwriter, and he handled his illness and death with grace.
Sunday, September 07, 2003
Movie night
I watched two pretty good movies last night: The Time Machine and Panic Room. I was skeptical about The Time Machine, especially because I really like the classic George Pal version, but I was pleasantly surprised. I like Guy Pearce, and the lightweight love story was sweet. The Machine itself is wonderfully to look at. The scenery, set in various times over a span of 800,000 years, is nifty. The special effects were very cool -- I replayed the first extended time travel scene for my son and then for my wife, and I enjoyed it all three times. The movie bogged down during the opening, in the library in 2030, and during the uber-Morlock exposition-plus-fight scene near the end. But overall, it was a fun 103 minutes of my life. Panic Room was good suspense and lots of neat camera effects. I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a Jodi Foster movie.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
Reentering my life
After six weeks away from home and dealing with tragedy, I'm trying to remember stuff, such as, when do I get up in the morning? What do I do all day? Etc. It's coming back to me a little at a time. Soon I hope to resume almost-daily updates here.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Shirley Knaster, 1929-2003
My mom passed away a few days ago. It already feels like ages since she was alive. Although she was sick with lung cancer, she had just finished a successful treatment and her death was devastating and very unexpected. My brother and I spend her last days with her in at Rose Medical Center in Denver, where she received wonderful care. When the inevitable outcome became apparent, the doctors and nurses there worked to make her comfortable and to dignify her death. She was born and grew up in the wonderful immigrant Jewish community of Denver's West Side. She lived her whole life in Denver and leaves family and a wide circle of friends. Here's what I read at her funeral:What can we say about mom in just a few minutes? When I was 6 years old, trying to figure out the world rationally, I remember thinking: My dad goes to work every day. But what does mom do? Not much, I thought. I pondered this as I put on my clean clothes – the ones she bought and picked out – ate breakfast that she made for me, walked through the spotless house that she kept running, and had her drive me to school, camp, the swimming pool, the doctor, or anywhere else I needed or wanted to go. It wasn’t until years later, after Kenny and I were grown and we had moved far away, that I became a parent myself and I began to understand what my mom and dad had done for us. But her work wasn’t finished after she raised us. She cared for and comforted our grandfather, then our dad, and finally our grandmother, as each of them grew ill and passed away. Each time she suffered a terrible loss, we worried about how she would continue. But she surprised us: with the help of family and friends, she grew stronger, not weaker, as the years passed. She truly believed, and we agreed, that the best part of her life was the last part. She was independent and strong. In recent years we often heard her say “I like my life.” She traveled, saw movies and plays, went out with friends and family. We joked that she was more active than many people half her age – such as her children. She loved to drive herself around town, although she was not fond of driving on the highway. I remember the day two years ago when she asked me to find her a way to drive to Park Meadows without using the highway – so we did. She liked that so much that we then proceeded to drive to Flatirons Crossing – without getting on the highway. Last year her adventures reached the pinnacle when, at age 73, she got her first computer, took classes, and joined the Internet generation. We loved to e-mail and chat with her, and she greatly enjoyed exploring this new hobby as long as she was able. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year, she faced it head on. She confronted the grueling treatments with incredible courage and dignity. We were never prouder of her than when she was going to the clinic every day, often driving herself, or being taken by beloved family and friends who were such a comfort to her and to us. The family and friends who were there for her provided an awesome expression of the continuing power of the West Side. Her doctors were the best and were optimistic, but it wasn’t to be. She was not ready to go, and we were not ready to lose her, but we’ll go on, and we will try to gain strength from the experience, as she would. So I recall my age-6 thoughts: what did mom do? Not much, really. Just everything her family needed or wanted, everything her life offered, and more than she ever imagined she could.Rest in peace, mom.
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Nerds take over baseball
I bought Moneyball on a whim at San Francisco airport and I was hooked on it until I finished it. A great read, highly recommended. The book details how the Oakland A's management, led by GM Billy Beane, outsmarts richer teams. At the very least, it's proof of the absurdity of Bud Selig's "small-market" baloney. As a Giants fan, though, I still can't like the A's. ;-)
Rocky
Well, I unexpectedly find myself in Denver, visiting my mom who is very sick. A trivial side effect of this fact is that my blogging activities will be greatly reduced for some days.
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
California, here I am
I'm back home after a lovely two-week vacation in Pennsylvania. Every few years, we pick a state that's filled with history, baseball, and roller coasters, then spend a couple of weeks driving around and seeing stuff. This time I planned to blog the whole trip, but our hotels' Internet access was so lousy and we were so busy, we ended up with a paper log (plog?) instead of a weblog. So watch for little bits of the vacation to appear here in the coming days -- sort of a TiVo-delayed weblog.
Friday, July 25, 2003
The Bong Bong Hotel
We're staying at the Holiday Inn Independence Mall in Philadelphia. The elevators here have an interesting bug. The "going up" and "going down" chimes sound on every floor as the elevators pass, whether they're stopping at that floor or not. And the chimes are very loud. And our room is not far from the elevators. So, when two of us wake in the night and hear the chime, we echo "bong" (if it's going up) or "bong bong" (if it's going down). It's funny, but you have to be there. Then you fall back to sleep.
Sunday, July 20, 2003
Aglow
We avoid the turnpike and main roads whenever possible. While driving down Pennsylvania State Route 441 outside Harrisburg yesterday, on our way to the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Barbara spotted several large conical familiar-looking buildings nearby. "Where's Three Mile Island?" she asked. None of us knew. Jess was using the hiptop to Google it when I drove right past one of the buildings and a sign: Three Mile Island Power Generating Facility. "Roll up the windows, kids!"
Saturday, July 19, 2003
I yet live
Hello. I am not dead. I am in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Much more to come about: Baltimore, Gettysburg, Flight 93, Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob, Pittsburgh, Hershey, and more. Thank you for your patience.
Friday, July 11, 2003
A nearby sausage also went down
One of the most endearing and wacky promotions in sports is the sausage race held between innings at Milwaukee Brewers home games. In this bizarre event, people dress up as hot dogs, Italian sausages, bratwurst, and the like, and run around the track at the edge of the field. The scene got even more surreal a couple of nights ago when a visiting player, Randall Simon of the Pittsburgh Pirates, smacked the Italian sausage with a baseball bat, knocking her down and causing a two-meat pileup near the Pirates dugout. Watch the video by clicking the link under "Trouble is brewing" on the right side of the page.
Thursday, July 10, 2003
no more Luftwaffe
I saw a plane at San Jose Airport recently that said Luftwaffe on it. I guess this is why.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Dodger Dog debate
Here. I have always thought Dodger Dogs were lousy. Of course, I'm a Giants fan, but still. It's all show, and no go...how very L.A.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
I'm caught up in the hype for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which opens this Friday. The movie is based on an awesome Alan Moore comic book (hmm, "awesome Alan Moore comic" -- isn't that redundant?) and the trailers look really cool. The movie has a soundtrack that includes two new songs by Ladysmith Black Mambazo (also awesome). You can only buy the soundtrack from the iTunes Music Store -- there are no physical CDs for sale.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Throw strikes: Babe Ruth is dead
This annual survey of baseball players contains some fascinating info. Tony LaRussa is on both the best and worst managers lists. Tampa Bay has the best visiting locker room. Safeco Field and Pacific Bell Park are the favorite ballparks. And my favorite stat, 1.5% of players who responded think Babe Ruth is the "greatest living player". Uh. Not since 1948, dudes.
Like an Inca
Did the Inca use binary-encoded knotted strings to store information? That's what a new book says. Binary states in the strings are expressed by choices including the type of material in the strings, spin and ply direction, and direction (forward or reversed) of the knot.
Monday, July 07, 2003
Kobe Bryant
Lakers star Kobe Bryant has been accused of felony sexual assault in Colorado. After an investigation that included a review of physical evidence, a judge ordered Bryant arrested. He turned himself in and charges might be filed. Few professional athletes have better reputations than Bryant. Lakers General Manager said "These allegations are completely out of character of the Kobe Bryant we know". Other statements of support will likely appear today. Obviously, I have no idea what happened with Kobe Bryant in Colorado. But ever since the destruction of the Kirby Puckett myth, I'm highly skeptical whenever I hear about the public reputation of any famous person.
Saturday, July 05, 2003
Radiohead on DirecTV
DirecTV is showing a Radiohead concert on channel 103 (that's in the pay-channel range, but this is one of their "freeview" concerts). It's flashing lights, small club, high energy -- looks pretty cool. It also includes (kinda tedious) interviews about the new CD, Hail to the Thief.
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Hacking a telemarketer
It's a lot of trouble to go to, but it was effective.
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Quixotic dreams
Two adjacent stories in today's San Francisco Chronicle tell about big longshot ideas: turning the former U.S. Mint into a museum, and saving San Mateo's Bay Meadows racetrack. Go, dreamers! I hope you succeed!
Hollywood sign
The world-famous Hollywood sign has a web site, just like everybody else. Here are the webcams. You can even send an e-mail -- excuse me, a fan letter -- to the sign. Okey doke.
A Fire Upon The Deep
A recent pair of long airplane rides led me to seek out a long SF book to read in the air. Numerous cow-orkers pointed me at A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. It was a great read, a story of the far future and the collision between various remnants of a human civilization, a hive-mind race of doglike creatures, and a sort of uber-computer-virus that enslaves and destroys. Other fun elements are a race of sentient plantlike creatures that live connected to smart scooters and laws of physics that permit greater speed (faster than light) and computing power as you get farther out from the center of the galaxy. Recommended (and I'll even send my copy to the first person who asks). In a bit of galactic surreality, while reading the book I found myself sitting next to Gordon Garb, who is listed in the book's acknowledgments.
Worst picture ever of Bill Gates
This is the most incredibly unflattering picture of Bill Gates ever. I know he's gained a little weight, but really now.
Friday, June 27, 2003
Hotter than Cuba
So hot in the Bay Area! We usually get one or two of these heat waves every year. After 3 days, the fog comes in and everybody enjoys the cooling relief. My iTunes random playlist commemorated the weather by choosing to play a song by Hot Hot Heat.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Slumber party at Pacific Bell Park
The Giants let fans sleep on the field at the ballpark last night for $300 a head. It's a pretty cool idea, if a bit pricey. They showed Field of Dreams on the Jumbotron, provided bounce houses and pitching machines, and brought in Hall-of-Famer Orlando Cepeda to serve breakfast. The party got off to a stinky start as the Giants lost the final game of their series to the Dodgers. But early reports indicate that nobody slept much and fans had a great time at this unusual event.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
MacHack stops
It turns out that it's only this year's MacHack that was unstoppable. Next year is a leap into the unknown, because the conference is changing names (ADHOC: Advanced Developers Hands-on Conference) and one of its guiding lights, Hack Show producer Scott Boyd, will no longer be involved. However, lots of incredibly capable folks are working hard to ensure the future of the conference, so I'm optimistic. After all, Apple has been going out of business for about 20 years now, and it hasn't gotten there yet, so why should MacHack be any different?
Friday, June 20, 2003
MacHack is unlikely
I love MacHack, probably the unlikeliest conference ever invented. People stay up all night hacking, storytelling, eating, and drinking. Keynotes start at midnight and go for hours and hours. Maids are instructed not to knock on doors lest they awaken people sleeping until noon. This year, MacHack was challenged by Apple's WWDC, but MacHack proved to be unstoppable and it has prevailed!
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Orrin Hatch is off his nut
He thinks people who download music should have their computers destroyed.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Soldier Field
In Chicago, Solder Field is being remodeled by adding glass and steel to the original neo-Classical building. Even though the stadium is a historical landmark, its character is being drastically changed by this rebuild. Lots of folks are complaining. From the pictures, it looks like the complainers have a point.
Monday, June 16, 2003
Crime: flying while David Nelson
This story shows what can happen when secret justice gets out of hand. Yes, law enforcement agencies sometimes need tools for concealment and secrecy, but they also must be accountable when innocent people are stepped on. The scariest part are the 1984-esque quotes from the TSA guy.
Friday, June 13, 2003
President Bush falls off a Segway
Yep, I thought it was a joke, too, until I saw the pictures.
Commencement
Yesterday my son Jess graduated from high school. This, of course, is impossible, as he was just born recently some time (the exact year escapes me), and I'm clearly far too young to be the parent of a high school graduate. Some of you out there might even remember when Jess was born, so you'll agree with me on this. Seriously, congratulations, Jess! You did it!
T-Mobile Sidekick Wins
The T-Mobile Sidekick, which just keeps getting incredibly good press, has won PC World's Product of the Year award.
Missing Seattle
Last night I was watching the Mariners-Expos baseball game from Seattle's Safeco Field, one of my favorite ballparks. In my previous life, I visited Seattle (well, Redmond, anyway) for two days and a night every month, and I never stopped enjoying it. I had the easiest flying commute in history. I got up early in the morning and Barbara dropped me off at San Jose International (aka Dinky Airport), a 15-minute drive from our house. My flight always left from gate C-15, an old part of the airport that has a security check for just 2 gates, so there was never a line. I could leave my house 30 minutes before a flight and still make it. Once in Seattle (about an hour and a half flight), I rented a car, which at Seattle's airport is still on-site, and drove to campus in Redmond. There I got to spend two full days meeting with cool folks learning what was going on (instead of doing any work) and having dinner with my friends before returning home on the evening of the second day. Those monthly visits were definitely the best part of working at Microsoft, and I miss them. Well, the food at Cafe 9 was lousy, so I don't miss that. ;-)
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Radio mystery
In the U.S., call letters of radio stations in the east start with "W", and those in the west start with "K". But why those letters? Who thought them up and who assigned them? Why not one letter for the whole country? (To avoid name collisions?) If you know, add a comment or send me mail.
ReplayTV becomes even less relevant
The latest owners of ReplayTV have announced that the next version will drop the commercial-skip and send-show features that got them sued. Brilliant move, guys! You've managed to remove the only reasons anybody had for buying your product instead of the competition.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Bob Dylan quiz answers
Five songs that mention Bob Dylan in the lyrics:1. The Who, The Seeker ("I asked Bobby Dylan...") 2. Jesus Jones, Right Here Right Now ("Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about") 3. John Lennon, Give Peace a Chance ("Tommy smothers, Bob Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Tayor") 4. Billy Joel, We Didn't Start the Fire ("Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion") 5. Counting Crows, Mr. Jones ("I want to be Bob Dylan")Here are a whole bunch more.
Monday, June 09, 2003
System of a Down name origin
Where does the band name name System of a Down come from? Here's a little (very little) insight. (See The Name Game about halfway down the page.)
Bob Dylan quiz
Can you name five songs with Bob Dylan's name in the lyrics? This morning KFOG radio had a quiz that featured tiny sound clips from five such tunes. I'll post KFOG's list of songs tomorrow.
Fish, plankton, sea greens...protein from the sea!
This is the time of year when classes of preschoolers, kindergartners, etc., take CalTrain from San Jose to Palo Alto, spend a few hours at a park, then ride back. Almost every morning for the past few weeks, my train has included a carload full of excited little kids taking their first train ride. Today as I was walking through the tunnel to the platform, 40 or 50 kids swarmed around me, giddy with life. I felt like Peter Ustinov at the end of Logan's Run.
Friday, June 06, 2003
More Sosa
Baseball checked 76 bats found in his locker, and they were untainted. Big deal...they didn't seize the bats until an hour after the incident, giving somebody ample time to remove any corkers. The Hall of Fame X-rayed 5 Sosa bats they have, and they were clean, too. Does that convince you of his innocence? OK, imagine you're Sammy, and you just hit homer #60 with a corked bat. The Hall of Fame asks for the bat. You gonna give 'em the doctored stick, or substitute a legal one? During home run record chases, Baseball puts authentication stickers on the balls, because fans end up with those, but they have no way (as far as I know) to make sure the bats players give them are what they claim to be. Baseball is taking a long time to figure out Sosa's punishment. I wonder if there's disagreement about just what should be done, or if they're somehow investigating further to see how long he's been cheating. UPDATE: He's suspended for 8 games, which he will appeal. That's a fair sentence, in line with precedent established by other corked bat incidents. Meanwhile, this guy clearly has a personal vendetta against Sosa.
MacHack
I get to give midnight keynote #2 at MacHack 2003, an incredibly great conference you should attend if you're any kind of cool geek at all. Hey, non-Mac nerds: come see how awesome a geekcon can be! Get your company to pay for it! My speech will be my hack. Any suggestions on what I should talk about or do? Send 'em along.
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Sammy, how could you?
Any way you look at it, Sammy Sosa screwed up majorly by using a corked bat yesterday. He says he didn't realize it was corked. I find that hard to believe. One of the reasons you cork a bat is to make it lighter. How could Sosa pick up the bat and not realize it was different? But then, why would a guy who can hit the ball as far and hard as Sosa need a corked bat to begin with? Maybe his confidence needed a boost after all the troubles he's had this season. I don't think this taints his records. Hitting 500 homers is an incredible feat: corking a bat doesn't help you that much. But if he did it on purpose, it does taint his humanity.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
New Blue
Blue Man Group has a new CD entitled The Complex. It's a departure for them, because most of the songs feature guest vocals, some from famous folks like Dave Matthews. Still, the music is the familiar and catchy Blue Man stuff with lots of percussion and invented instruments. I say: two blue thumbs up.
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Technology vs. umpires
Baseball is messing around with the strike zone by imposing technological masters on home plate umpires. Sounds like it's not working perfectly just yet. Dan Patrick comments about this.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Ruben Rivera's stupid baserunning
Rivera missed second base twice on a play that included 2 errors by Arizona. On the radio, Jon Miller called it "the worst baserunning in the history of the game." See here.
Home openers rock
Minor league baseball is really cool. In some ways, it's even better than the big leagues: cheap seats and food, wacky promotions between innings, and relaxing atmosphere. Even if you don't like baseball, you can have a blast at a minor league game, because most folks are there just for fun and don't get as caught up in whether the home team wins or not. If you live in Silicon Valley, check out the San Jose Giants.
SARS Instant Message smileys
From Boing Boing.
Jacko goes Spidey
I don't usually get into the Michael Jackson frenzy, but this one is just too wacky to pass up. P.S. I've been to Solvang -- it's a big fake.
Friday, May 23, 2003
List #4: order of streets in Palo Alto from Middlefield west This is from memory (I just went for a walk).Middlefield Webster Tasso Cowper Kipling Waverley Florence Bryant Ramona Emerson High Alma
If dogs were people...
...they might enjoy this sign too.
Annika Sorenstam shot-by-shot
Follow her progress here. Go Annika!
Thursday, May 22, 2003
List #3: restaurants I have lunched at in downtown Palo Alto
While working in downtown PA for the past 10 weeks, I have eaten lunch at:1. Darbar 2. Caffe Verona 3. Andale 4. Jing Jing 5. Taxi's 6. Peninsula Creamery 7. Pluto's 8. Rangoon 9. Bamboo 10. N.Y. Pizza 11. Royal Thai 12. the other Thai place, on Lytton 13. Fratelli Deli 14. Mango Cafe 15. Rose & Crown 16. Cafe Renaissance 17. the Korean barbecue place 18. Zibibbo 19. Il FornaioI've probably forgotten a few, too.
Something new
Welcome to the planet, Bella Golda Cooperman! What, were you born yesterday? (Yes, she was.)
Endangered languages
The Foundation for Endangered Languages is cool. Some languages are only spoken by one human being.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Oi! Vay! Let's go!
In the late '70s, you couldn't get much more counter-culture than The Ramones. And now, there's a commercial for AT&T cell phones that features the classic Ramones tune "Blitzkrieg Bop". This is how rebellious youth moves to the mainstream over time.
Monday, May 19, 2003
NFL in LA
Nearly a decade after the NFL fled Los Angeles, folks are still trying to figure out how to get a team back there. Probably, taxpayers will end paying for some rich guy's stadium, which is the way it usually works.
Napster's coming back
Roxio owns the name "Napster" and is acquiring Pressplay, one of the stinky online music services. Roxio is expected to rename the service Napster and relaunch it, hopefully with new and better features. Let's see if they can make it any more interesting than the previous owners did.
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Bay to Breakers vs. Cousin Marshall
Today is the big, fun Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. It's also the day I'm meeting my cousin Marshall at the Giants game. Yow, and I told him there wouldn't be any traffic coming into town. I hope he gets in late enough that that's true.
Friday, May 16, 2003
The Matrix Reloaded
If Morpheus were asked to review The Matrix Reloaded (the Morpheus of this movie, not the original), he might say something like "It is as good a movie as it is, because that is what it is supposed to be." Well, it didn't suck, and it's not stunning or genre-defining. This time, the element of surprise provided by all the goodies in the original movie is lost, and really, that was bound to happen. The fights, explosions, flying, and other special effects are fun to watch, but they sometimes go on too long. The philosophizing is endless and devoid of the minimalist pop magic and mysticism the first movie provided. Some of the dialog is bad, bad, bad. Councilors pontificate, Morpheus makes an embarrassing speech in Zion, and the movie absolutely screeches to a halt during a ponderous scene with the Matrix's architect. During that scene, I watched people in the theater shift in their seats and check their watches. There's too much going on here, too many little subplots. Few of these pay off, as they're apparently just setups for The Matrix Revolutions. They had too much money, spent too much time trying to live up to expectations. The Matrix was clever and original, but now it's a franchise. The non-ending is a title reading "TO BE CONCLUDED", but even without that predictable disappointment, the movie is good but unsatisfying. It's "merely" a really good action/science-fiction blockbuster with awesome effects, which isn't really so bad, but the experience doesn't come close to The Matrix. This LA Times review comes pretty close to describing how I feel.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
There is no spoon
Gonna watch The Matrix tonight with friends: the original, in preparation for seeing Matrix Reloaded tomorrow night.Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.Geeks rule!
Weird play in Giants-Expos game
It was a dark and windy night at Pacific Bell Park. With bases loaded and one out, Barry Bonds popped up between the mound and home. The umpires immediately and clearly called the infield fly rule, rendering Bonds out. Three Expos tracked the wind-blown popup, which eventually fell untouched on the infield. Then, brain cramps broke out all around. Baserunner Neifi Perez was about halfway home from third base, trying to figure out what to do, when the genius Expos decided to pick up the ball and step on home for a force out. Of course, with the batter out on the infield fly, there was no force. As the 'spos congratulated themselves for this difficult feat of baseballing, Perez hilariously and nonchalantly snuck in behind them, puffed his cheeks as if in resignation, then stuck his foot on the plate, looking at the umpire for confirmation that he had scored. The umpire stayed with the play all the way and made the "safe" call. The Expos briefly argued, but they were wrong: on an infield fly, runners can advance, as Perez did. If the Expos had simply taken a few steps and tagged Perez, he would have been out. This one goes in my mental collection of weird baseball plays, along with the infield fly triple play and other fun.
RIAA apologizes for erroneous letters
The RIAA sent cease-and-desist letters to folks who apparently were doing nothing wrong. It later apologized for the letters.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Ronald McDonald captures kid
Here is the story of a 4-year-old kid who climbed up on a statue of Ronald McDonald and got his head stuck between Ronald's legs. The interesting thing about the story is the unstated subtext of the irresponsible parent, and a part of the story that seems to have vanished. Throughout the story, the reporter's writing paints the parent as taking no responsibility for what happened. In the printed version, I remember reading that the reporter asked the parent point-blank whether he was responsible at all, and he said no. Curiously, this exchange is missing from the web version. That's too bad, because it was the best part of the story, as the reporter smelled what the parent was saying and went in for the kill. I e-mailed the reporter to ask why they edited that part out on the web. I'll let you know what he says.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Carol Channing gets married
This is pretty cool: 82-year-old Carol Channing married her junior high school sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, over the weekend. They hadn't seen each other for decades until earlier this year when a friend of Harry's noticed that Carol had mentioned him in her autobiography. At the time, Harry said "I thought she was dead."
Saturday, May 10, 2003
The Matrix: comedy?
Last night I watched some of The Matrix on FOX TV (commercials -- whoa). I had forgotten some of the really funny stuff in there, such as the sprinklers coming on and drenching the agents during the building assault scene, and the two agents looking at each other, then running away rather than face Neo near the end. Also, I love the funny/ultracool lines, like this:Neo: Do you know how to fly a helicopter? Trinity: Not yet.Next week will be fun: watching The Matrix (off DVD, no commercials, thank you) with friends on Wednesday night, then seeing Matrix Reloaded with friends on Thursday. There is no spoon.
Friday, May 09, 2003
Old Man of New Hampshire
The giant rock face that has come to symbolize New Hampshire and is one of its most popular attractions has collapsed into rubble. They're thinking of restoring the thing, but it seems like that would be just wrong. It was made by nature, and nature has taken it back, so let it be. This is very serious business in New Hampshire. Here's what Daniel Webster said about the Old Man:Men hang out signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; watchmakers a monster watch. But up in the mountain of New Hampshire, God Almighty Himself has hung a sign to show that here in New Hampshire, He makes men.I wonder what John Linnell thinks of this?
Thursday, May 08, 2003
A great mystery solved
I have always been vague on what constitues being a "removed" cousin, as in "first cousin, once removed". Thanks to this site, now I know. So, Marshall, welcome to California: you are my second cousin once removed. (My grandfather and his great-grandmother were brother and sister.)
Speaking of the TiVo...
We have a TiVo, which is actually an UltimateTV, but TiVo is such a better word, and it's much easier to verb. Due to us being insanely busy lately, the TiVo is full to bursting. If we don't watch some shows soon, I think it will start emitting smoke and hollering at us.
Ali G
I heard some of this guy on the radio, and it's hilarious. Looks like it's going to be on one more time, next Sunday, and then not for awhile. Gotta clear some space on the bulging TiVo to record it.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Doors
I have really bad door karma. I always have trouble with doors. Our house went through three different front doors, and all of them were sticky, or scraped, or squeaked, or had locks that were hard to operate. Last year's remodel moved the location of the door by about 10 feet, and we carefully selected a nice new front door. At first, it swung freely and quietly, but now, it has succumbed to bad door karma: the lock and the door are both getting annoying. Also, we have a window with a sliding mechanism breaks easily. I guess that's probably related. Most of our interior doors are troubled, too. And my car door handles have a habit of coming loose every couple of years or so, eventually coming off in my hand. Maybe in a past life I was really mean to a door, and now the doors are getting even. Or now that I think of it, it could be because I kicked a hole in a closet door during a tantrum I had when I was 8 years old.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
comments, anyone?
I added the ability to leave comments, so let the flaming begin. I had about 14 seconds to do it, so I lucked into a super-easy service called Enetation. I'm going to give them money.
Batmobile
Here are some cool photos of the original Batmobile. When I was about 12 years old I had a Batmobile HO slot car. It was slow and fishtailed like crazy, but it looked great.
Monday, May 05, 2003
Subversive Cheerios
Here at work we have an enormous industrial sized box of Cheerios. Imprinted on the Cheerios box is the following:The real pleasure is not in doing nothing, but in having lots to do and not doing it.O what is the world coming to, when even our cherished breakfast cereals espouse the slacker ethic?
Friday, May 02, 2003
Steve Jobs in Time magazine
Here is an interview with Steve Jobs about Apple's new music stuff. He likes it! Some high-bandwidth RDF manages to seep through, even in the printed word.
Coke pulls swastika robots
In Hong Kong, Coca-Cola has stopped distributing toys with swastika-like symbols. Oops. It was likely an innocent, trans-cultural, non-Nazi-related mistake. No sign of them on eBay yet.
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Incredibly, the worms survived
See here.
They Might Be Giants
This week I got to see my favorite band, They Might Be Giants, perform twice. The were in fine form, the best I've ever seen them. Last night they had a great vibe going with the audience, and they really seemed to feed off it. They blew the doors off "Why Does The Sun Shine?", "Man, It's So Loud In Here", and "Birdhouse In Your Soul". They're awesome as a tightly rehearsed band, but their improvisations are amazing. For part of the show, John Flansburgh hooks up an FM radio to the speakers, twirls the dial, then the band goofs on what they hear. Last night that led to an improvised bit of The Beatles' "Tax Man", which led Them to play the next song, "Particle Man", with the "Tax Man" bass line behind it all. It worked beautifully. They are perhaps the most misunderstood, hard-to-describe band I've ever loved. They're nerds who rock, and they know they're nerds and also that they rock, so they don't take themselves too seriously, except that they know they are serious. I'm hoping the new documentary, Gigantic, will explain what they're all about to the rest of the world.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Video games in the potty
In the great tradition of "sink the cigarette", here is a game men can play while peeing.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
No Timmy Thomas; otherwise, good start
Apple's music store is pretty much right on. No subscriptions, focus on downloading rather than streaming, and of course, it's nice to look at and darn easy to use. Reasonable restrictions: unlimited CD burns, songs can travel to up to 3 Macs. Free 30 second previews are addictively cool. Apparently, they helped keep the service practically inaccessible on the first day because they were so popular. Searching is a little broken: the main search function returns a maximum of 100 songs, so you might get the impression there's less music than you think. For example, if you search for Johnny Cash, you only see 4 CDs and 100 songs. But if you use the big eyeball Browse button and dive into Country, then Johnny Cash, you see 28 CDs and 236 songs for the man in black. That's confusing -- they gotta fix it. As for the catalog, it's a start, but it's far from the selection of the free services. It's hit or miss: no Led Zep, Beatles, Stones; plenty of Elton John, Paul Simon, Alan Parsons Project; a little Elvis Costello and They Might Be Giants. Limited new hits. Lots of artists have their b-stuff only. Lacks old obscure or wacky stuff I looked for (no Left Banke, Dave & Ansil Collins, Crazy World of Arthur Brown). I guess a lot of artists and companies are testing the waters, and if it works, they'll sign up later. That's crucial. But basically, Apple got it right!
Monday, April 28, 2003
Giants: ugh
Yesterday was the fourth time I've seen or heard the Giants get no hit: Mike "Scuffy" Scott in '86 (which clinched the division for Houston), Terry Mulholland (former Giant), Kevin Gross, and Kevin Brown (major nemesis and nearly a perfect game) were the others. Yuck. I hate when that happens. On the other hand, I've never seen the Giants no-hit anybody else, because their last no-hitter was in 1976, before I started following the team. No-hitters are scarce -- most years, there are only a couple. Yesterday's by Kevin Millwood was a 1-0 loss, which is the worst kind to lose. Hmm, it's the the third time the Giants have been no-hit by a Kevin in recent years. Coincidence? Why, yes!
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Apple's music service
Just in case Apple's music service, probably to be announced Monday, is exactly what I want it to be -- no subscription, emphasis on downloads rather than streaming, pay per download, free of DRM hassles that prevent me from moving music among my computers and devices -- I just want to point out I ranted it here first. The first song I'm looking for is Timmy Thomas's Why Can't We Live Together.
Friday, April 25, 2003
Radio Cluefree
Yesterday I heard a commercial for Radio Shack on the, er, radio. The premise was that a smart customer was being punished for going into the wrong store (that is, NOT Radio Shack) and having to deal with idiots working there. The customer asked for a "USB hub for wireless networking", and the store employee just repeated it back at her. So, head on over to Radio Shack and get your USB hubs for wireless networking! P.S. When I was 16 I worked at Radio Shack for a couple months. I had to take a lie detector test as part of the interview process. My manager left the store for an hour every day to smoke pot and was fired after he was caught robbing his own store in the middle of the night.
Thursday, April 24, 2003
The Producers: it sucked
...because we never got in the door. Yesterday Barbara and I went to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco to see Jason Alexander and Martin Short in The Producers. We were part of a group of 47 drama kids and parents from our son's high school. When we got to the theatre, we discovered that the theatre had resold our tickets, despite the fact that they (a) apparently charged the drama teacher's credit card and (b) assured him on the phone the day before that the tickets were waiting at will call. Apparently the theatre management has decided to apply Max Bialystock's plan in the real world. A woman representing the theatre was apologetic and accommodating, offering tickets to any other show (The Producers closes in SF on Saturday and it's sold out). She ended up getting the group free tickets to a bay cruise, and arranging dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. As our drama teacher says, "They're not done accommodating us yet."
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
The Producers
Today Barbara and I are going to see The Producers with our son's drama class. These final performances in San Francisco star Jason Alexander and Martin Short (guess which one plays which role) as a tuneup for their run in LA. I hope the stars don't take the matinee off!
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Just Born
Peeps, those disgusting and/or fabulously wonderful little blobs of sugar shaped like chicks, are made by the Just Born candy company. Is the company name a cute play on the faux life form it sells? Nope. It's named for company founder Sam Born, of course.
Monday, April 21, 2003
Lucky to be alive
Sammy Sosa was hit in the head (or helmet) by a pitch yesterday. This is the most remarkable baseball picture I've ever seen. If the picture alone doesn't help you understand why batters wear helmets, read the unfortunate story of Carl Mays, who played in the pre-helmet era.
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Soldiers find $650,000,000 in cash
That's six hundred fifty million dollars, U.S., in metal boxes, in Iraq. That is an absolutely incredible amount of cash. If somebody left this behind, imagine how much they got away with.
Friday, April 18, 2003
Soggy day at the ballpark
Our family went to the see the Giants play the Astros on Wednesday. The game was scheduled for 4:05, but a steady rain delayed the start until about 5:15. We sat out in the rain and watched the Giants take a 5-0 lead, only to see them blow it in a big hurry and lose 8-5 in 9 wet innings. Still, we had a great time, as we got goofy from the rain and enjoyed the general ambience of the beautiful ballpark. And after all, the team is 13-2 -- hard to complain about that. Tonight: the Dodgies!
Disney tribute
This site has a ton of cool stuff all about Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride, not the new movie). Hours of fun time-wasting!
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Dictionary edict
Another eating-related item: can we please kill the obsolete word "fattening"? It's imprecise and confusing. Weight comes from calories in and calories out. Foods can be calorically dense, you can crave them or tend to overeat them, they can cause you to eat more or less of other foods, but please: no more "fattening".
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
The consequences of overweight
Because of soaring rates of overweight and obesity, today's children could become the first generation to die before their parents.
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
More floppy origami
Got more floppies you want to destroy/make into art? Check out this link to see how to turn old floppy disks into other kinds of fictional alien spacecraft.
Monday, April 14, 2003
The smells of Palo Alto
On Page Mill Road this morning was the proverbial dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinkin' to high heaven. Walking to my office, a thoughtful cigar smoker had marked the tunnel under the CalTrain tracks with his scent. On University Avenue, an unfortunate fellow with a shopping cart was in need of a bath.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Music corner
Yesterday while I was working, my iPod decided to play Subdivisions by Rush for me. I hadn't heard that song in awhile, and I really love it. I started rocking out (silently, of course -- we're in close quarters at Danger). When it comes to the Jewish Canadian nerd rock genre, there's nobody better than Rush.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Old catch phrases never die
This is strangely surreal, funny, scary, and moving.
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Great debate
If your company provides morning goodies -- bagels, donuts, pastries -- at work one day a week, which is the right day? Monday, to ease the blow of returning to work? Friday, to start that weekend feeling a little early? Or Wednesday, to get over the mid-week hump? I vote for Wednesday, although I try hard to avoid eating this stuff.
It's so P.A.
The Palo Alto city council is considering rules that apparently would ask its members not to use facial expressions or roll their eyes to express disagreement. Reading this story made me shake my head -- OOPS!
Brave Iraqi lawyer
Here is a great account of the Iraqi man who helped the US armed forces rescue prisoner of war Jessica Lynch. For a more surreal and darkly funny view of the war, check out this story about Iraqi minister of information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the man who tells reporters daily that there are no Americans in Baghdad.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Those darn programmers
A programmer for Disney's sports teams has resigned after he eBayed the World Series ring the Angels gave out to employees. Smooth move, dude. Kudos to the Angels, though -- I'm not sure I've ever heard of a sports champion giving rings to the mere mortals who work in the office.
Monday, April 07, 2003
Listing to one side
I have about half an hour every day to work on this blog, so I never get time to add the features I really want. When I don't have time to do something fun, I find that the next best thing is to make a list or a plan. Then I can pretend I might actually do it someday. So here's the list of features I want to add or at least check out:- comments (YACCS) - search (Atomz, Google) - bookmarklets.com - bloggerbot (AIM) - ISSN - blogrolling.com - upsaid.com - footer - use more blogger features - $blog variables - e-mail subscription - blog by mail - current local weatherAhh, I feel much better now.
Fold, spindle, mutilate
This looks pretty cool: instructions on how to origami an old floppy disk into a model of the Starship Enterprise. I haven't tried it yet myself.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Theater review: "Humpty Dumpty"
Yesterday Barbara and I saw Humpty Dumpty at the San Jose Rep. It's a play by Eric Bogosian about two despicable big-city couples who are vacationing in rural upstate New York when the power (and cell networks) fail. Scary hilarity ensues. It's sort of like Lord of the Flies without the decapitations. The premise is cool and the characters are well-defined, but the script is sloppy, the whole thing runs out of steam in the second act, and the ending is abrupt. As always, the Rep itself shines, with its fabulous building, set, and actors.
Friday, April 04, 2003
All your base are the terrorists have already won
Don't try to be geek-funny in our country right now.
Talk talk
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the first cellular phone call. Like many great technologies, it sort of happened accidentally. Here's a little interview with the "father of the cell phone". He seems to be a cool guy with a great perspective who's still curious and active at 74.
Thursday, April 03, 2003
L'idiot
The madness continues as French's Mustard feels compelled to issue a press release reminding us that "there is nothing more American than French's Mustard". This is hardly the first time our country has gone nuts in this particular way. In the '50s, fear of communism (and secret communists -- they could be your neighbors!) drove the Cincinnati Reds to rename themselves "Redlegs" until reason prevailed. And during World War II, sauerkraut became "victory cabbage". So I guess we have a long tradition of this stuff. Still, it would be nice to outgrow it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Semi-foolish
I didn't see very many great April Fool's hacks this year. Maybe it's the war, or the economy. This one is excellent, and this rocks too. Those wacky cutups at Sun usually do something bizarre to Scott McNealy, like putting his car in the middle of a pond, but I can't find any info about what happened this year, if anything. My morning radio station is usually good for something, but this year only had a weak goof about part of San Francisco seceding from the rest. As with most April Fool's pranks, I'm amazed people fell for that. One women called up and ranted for a good two minutes about what a stupid, racist plan it was.
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Synecdoche
Synecdoche is a cool language concept in which you use part of something to refer to the whole. For example, when you say "the suits are ruining our cool company", you're using synecdoche by saying "the suits" when you mean "the uncool people who wear suits". Synecdoche is even more wacky: it also works in reverse, when you use the whole to mean part of something. So when you say "San Francisco beat San Diego in the opener yesterday", you're talking about baseball teams, not whole cities. Here's a list of some common uses of synecdoche. Send me more!1. A capital = its government: "Washington says the war is going well." 2. The court = a judge. 3. The bar = the profession of law. 4. All hands = all people in a group. 5. Lend a hand = help. 6. Lend an ear = listen. 7. The best minds = smart people. 8. The White House = the presidential administration. 9. Pilot calling "the tower" = air traffic control. 10. The crown = the royal family.How many languages use synecdoche?
Hooray, it's April Fool's Day
Have fun! Don't be fooled -- unless you want to be.
Monday, March 31, 2003
Play ball!
It's one of the finest days of the year: Opening Day for Major League Baseball! Everybody is tied for first place.
Sunday, March 30, 2003
List #2: Why I like living in California
1. Silicon Valley: geek homeland. 2. Great weather. 3. Still, everybody wants to live here. 4. You can be weird. 5. San Francisco. 6. Los Angeles. 7. It has its own element. 8. Disneyland. 9. It's enormous, varied, and beautiful. 10. People from all over the world live here. 11. Most people are tolerant of others.
Friday, March 28, 2003
Wacky San Francisco
Everybody knows San Francisco is weird -- just ask your mom -- but this article in The Wave Magazine lists a few of the more bizarre yet obscure attractions in everybody's favorite city. Favorites include the Defenestration Building, the world's weirdest sushi joint, and Dave Eggers' independent pirate supply store. Have fun!
Thursday, March 27, 2003
This is not a headline
This is not a post.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Radiohead alert
There's a new Radiohead record coming out in June. Woohoo! Time to (a) preorder it, and (b) prelisten to it.
The hack must go on
MacHack is a supercool conference for mostly Mac programmers. At MacHack, the keynote starts at midnight and goes most of the night, every attendee is encouraged to create a hack and enter it in the Hack Contest, and there's other weird geek wackiness. The nerdy cameraderie is unsurpassed. This year, in a stunningly shortsighted move, Apple decided to move its Worldwide Developer Conference to the day after MacHack. The good folks who run MacHack have decided not to succumb to this threat and are going on with the show. Even though the conference bills itself as being for advanced programmers, beginners can learn from the great people and sessions. If you like to mess around with programming, whether on a Mac or not, or you would like to start, you should consider going to MacHack. There really is no other conference like it.
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Struck out
Major League Baseball has a cool new service this year: super-quality live video streams of some games. It's not free, of course. But I gladly pay $15 every year to get streamed radio broadcasts of every single game, and I would pay for TV of some games, too. But I won't. That's because of the standard insanely stupid blackout rules that every major sport enforces. Check it out:Local Market Restrictions: Clicking on a live MLB.TV link will perform and trigger a number of checks to make sure that you are located outside of the local Major League Baseball team's home telecast market and outside of Japan, as the scheduled live webcasts of each MLB team's games will be blacked out in its home telecast market and in Japan. In addition, at present, due to the national exclusivity of ESPN and FOX, there will be no games available during Saturday day (as of June 1, 2003 and continuing for remaining Saturdays until 7:00 PM EST during the regular season), Sunday night (for games that begin after 5:00 PM EST) and Wednesday night (for games that begin after 5:00 PM EST). Due to these blackout restrictions, you may be required to log in to each webcast (both for free and subscription fee webcasts) with a valid major credit card for address verification. In such a case, a temporary $1.00 authorization hold will be placed on your credit card, which will subsequently expire. You will not incur a charge for this authorization hold. The MLB.com Website Terms of Use governs your use of the MLB.TV service. Programming is subject to availability and change. If you attempt to circumvent or circumvent any blackout restriction: your subscription will be subject to immediate termination and a charge of one hundred dollars ($100) for early termination; you may be subject to legal action; and MLBAM reserves the right to report such misconduct to appropriate law enforcement authorities. If you have any questions or problems, or feel that you may have been gated in error, please call the toll-free MLB.com Customer Service Hotline at 1-866-800-1275.Yaaaah! In simple English, this means two things: 1. If you're a Giants fan in the SF Bay area, you can't watch the Giants. Or the A's. Ever. Home or away, sold out or not, whether they're on TV or not. Why? Because Fox Sports Bay Area and KTVU paid big bucks for the right to show games, and they'll be damned if you, a mere fan, are going to get to watch games at your office just because you want to. (This is true no matter what your local team is, of course. I just picked the Giants/A's as an example.) 2. If you try to get clever and watch your team anyway, Emperor Bud will fine you $100 and then call the cops on you. 3. On Saturday afternoon and Wednesday night, no games for anybody. Must watch Fox or ESPN. 4. When you read the above paragraph, your head will explode, and therefore you won't be able to subscribe. Now that's fan-friendly! A clever solution might be to figure out a way to funnel some of the $$$ from streaming over the the TV networks that hold the rights. But wait -- this is baseball. They don't do smart stuff like that.
I haven't been there for them
I've never seen an episode of Friends. I'm not an anti-TV snob, but I don't watch many network series, and I pretty much never just turn on the TV and stare at something at random. But I really love the theme song, I'll Be There For You. Hmm, maybe if I watched Friends all the time, I would have become numb to the song.
Monday, March 24, 2003
Pictures = 1000 words
Here you can find actual U.S. government pictures from the scary-bad Ready site, with alternate interpretations.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
More adventures in AirPort building
The next stage in my new 802.11 network was adding a second AirPort Extreme Base Station with wireless bridging (Apple calls this wireless distribution system, or WDS, a most un-Apple-like name). I did this to enliven a couple of dead spots that have too many walls between them and the main base station. Problems and glitches cost me a couple of troubleshooting hours. Here are the main problems I ran into and the solutions:When you add the second base station, it seems to pick up some of the first base station's settings by default. In my case, this included turning on NAT/DHCP on the second base, which is NOT what you want. This resulted in both base stations ending up with 10.0.1.1 and the endless confoozion you get when two devices have the same IP. Once I changed this, wireless bridging worked great, except... My Dell Latitude with a Cisco Aironet 340 card couldn't connect. A quick search in Apple's Knowledge Base found the answer: many non-Apple 802.11b cards require the "compatibility mode 802.11b only" setting in the base station. That's an easy change once you know about. It let my Dell play on the network again.
So what did I learn from this exercise?The feature in the AirPort Admin Utility that creates bridges is very un-Mac-like and could be even better. It's easy to get confused as you're choosing different settings for different base stations. You have to locate and enter the 12-digit hex MAC addresses of both base stations, choose the same password, channel, and network name in two different places, and remember to turn off NAT for the second base. If you fail to do any of these things, it won't work, and you won't know why -- in fact, you won't even be sure for awhile whether it's working or not. You should be able to simply select the two (or more) base stations, say "create bridged network", fill out a dialog asking relevent questions like which is the main station, and you're done. Windows XP has a network bridging feature that basically works like this right now. The part of the manual that tells you how to create a wireless bridge is incomplete: it doesn't say to use the same network name or to turn off NAT. If you follow the instructions in the manual, your network won't work. The person who wrote it clearly never actually created a wireless bridge -- I'm guessing the feature wasn't working when the manual was written. After I fixed everything, I found a knowledge base article that lists all the steps you need, including the crucial ones the manual leaves out. I hope Apple manages to update the manual soon. My dead spots are dead and I'm now living the wireless dream all over my house. That's really nice!
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Lists #1: U.S. states I have visited1. Alaska 2. Arizona 3. California 4. Colorado 5. Connecticut 6. Delaware 7. Florida 8. Georgia 9. Illinois 10. Indiana 11. Iowa 12. Kansas 13. Kentucky 14. Maryland 15. Massachusetts 16. Michigan 17. Missouri 18. Montana 19. Nebraska 20. Nevada 21. New Hampshire 22. New Jersey 23. New Mexico 24. New York 25. Ohio 26. Oregon 27. Rhode Island 28. Texas 29. Utah 30. Vermont 31. Virginia 32. Washington 33. Wyoming
How many have you been to?
Friday, March 21, 2003
Caution! Airport construction
Yesterday was upgrade day for our home 802.11 network. We have been running an original Apple AirPort Base Station (ABS) for several years. The broadband comes in upstairs in the office, then goes into a small hub, and from there to three places: the ABS, an ancient and super-reliable LaserWriter 320, and a little-used cat 5 cable for those times when some poor wired machine needs a connection. The AirPort feeds three laptops in the upstairs office and the kids' two iMacs downstairs. It mostly works great The network is dandy except when I take a laptop into the TV room downstairs, which is down 14 stairs and on the other side of several walls from the base station. In that room, reception is iffy, especially on the antenna-challenged PowerBook G4. So to fix the problem, I decided to invest in a new AirPort Extreme Basestation and external antenna. Setting it up was a breeze. I simply installed the new AirPort software, replaced the old base station with the new one (which looks subtly cooler than the old, although I miss the multi-color LEDs), and ran the AirPort Admin Utility. I was pleasantly surprised to find the new base station automagically picked up the old one's settings flawlessly. And the new station + antenna improved signal reception everywhere, although I still get dropouts in the TV room, so I will have to play with base station placement. I might even consider a second base station for downstairs so I can use wireless bridging, which lets you create a roamable multi-base network. There's always a catch The only spanner in the cogs came when I tried to print: the venerable LaserWriter, hooked to the hub via a Localtalk-to-Ethernet adapter, was nowhere to be seen from any machine. While thinking about the problem, I suddenly remembered the new base station has two Ethernet ports, unlike my old one. So I tried plugging the printer into the base station instead of the hub. That worked! The printer magically appeared on the network, and all was happy again in the peaceful kingdom.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Calling all geeks! Cool new tech! FREE!
The Danger hiptop software development kit shipped yesterday! Get it while it's fresh and hot. During my vast 11 days of employment at Danger I contributed to this SDK by writing approximately 4 pages of documentation. So proud! If you like this sort of thing, please check it out. It's very cool, and it will only get cooler.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Poetry corner
Check out this haiku periodic table.Writing random crap Sending bits into ether Does anyone care?I declare it's International Blog Self-Referential Haiku Day! Write a haiku describing your blog today.
Howling at the moon
There's going to be a statue of legendary DJ/TV & movie star Wolfman Jack in Del Rio, Texas. The Wolfman was one of the great radio heroes of all time. Getting your own statue is pretty cool.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
It was 20 years ago today...
I hopped on a plane to the Bay. On March 19, 1983, I immigrated to Silicon Valley from my native home. So what. Big deal. Nature provides me with a reminder of one big reason why I moved.
Monday, March 17, 2003
Snow crystal photographs
Check out this page for incredible high-resolution pictures of snow crystals. No, these photos were not taken in my freezer.
Cold as ice
Yesterday I opened my freezer and found a winter wonderland. Flakes of "snow" were all over the place, and cold freezer smoke wafted out the door like the condensed breath of frozen dinners and ice cream. What happened was that earlier that day, the freezer cooling fan had gone on the fritz, then been repaired. So there was some melting in the freezer, enough to produce a little water everywhere. Then, when the freezer became strong again, that water froze and produced the wintry scene.
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Converting OS 9 alert sounds to OS X
Yesterday my brother asked me to convert his beloved and venerable alert sound (James Brown saying "Unhh!") from Mac OS 9 to X. With tons of help from the really smart people on the SmartFriends list, here's how I did it:1. I used ResEdit (in Classic) to figure out that the old sound file had an 'snd ' resource in it. I think pre-OS X alert sounds could also be in the data forks of files. I'm not sure how these steps might be different for data-fork sounds. 2. Smart people told me (and Google knows too) that OS X alert sounds live in Macintosh HD/Library/Sounds/ (change Macintosh HD to whatever you have renamed your hard disk). I didn't have a /Library/Sounds/ folder, so I created one in the Finder, then used File --> Get Info to make sure its permissions were set to read/write for everybody, just in case. The same smart people also told me that OS X wants its alert sounds to be AIFF format.
By the way: after you do this, don't forget to change your iTunes importing preference back to MP3 before you rip any more CDs.3. When I double-clicked the file, I was surprised to find out that iTunes knew how to play it! What's more, iTunes knows how to convert to AIFF. I went to iTunes --> Preferences, Importing tab, and chose Import Using AIFF Encoder, then clicked OK. 4. Still in iTunes, I selected the sound file and chose Advanced --> Convert Selection to AIFF. This created a new Unhh entry in the iTunes library right next to the first one. I right-clicked (you can also control-click) on the new entry and chose Show Song File to find Unhh.aif. 5. I copied Unhh.aif to /Library/Sounds/ 6. I quit System Preferences and started it again. There was Unhh. I clicked on Unhh and I heard from James! Yippee!
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Notable Mac OS X feature #1
Mac OS X lets you set your desktop picture to change by itself periodically. That's great -- I like gratuitous random choices. But the wacky thing is that you can make the picture change every 5 seconds!. Just for fun, I tried that out. It's very distracting -- almost hypnotic -- if any of your desktop is showing. The cool part is that it crossfades the pictures, so if they're similar at all, it's kind of subtle. I guess it's a like a screen saver that live behind your windows.
Friday, March 14, 2003
This guy saved my life
...even though I never met William Dement. In 1991 I was having weird problems with sleepiness. I started falling asleep in meetings, at dinner, and during the opening credits of movies just from being in a darkened theater. At Disneyland I fell asleep on the darkened lift hill inside the Matterhorn. I could fall asleep anywhere, any time, on demand, in seconds. At night I snored so loudly that I drove my wife to the couch. I went to see my doctor and he told me I had "stress fatigue". He suggested I try relaxation techniques. That didn't seem right. The next day I was browsing the health section at a bookstore and found Dement's book The Sleepwatchers. I had heard about something called sleep apnea and I wanted to find out more. While leafing through Dement's book, I found a remarkable sentence: If you are a male, in your 30s or older, overweight, a very loud snorer, and you find yourself frequently falling asleep inappropriately during the day, you almost certainly have sleep apnea. (I'm paraphrasing.) Wow! What a bold statement. And in my case, in turned out to be exactly right. After spending a night at the Stanford Sleep Clinic (founded by Dement) wired up like a sleep-deprived Christmas tree, I learned I had severe obstructive sleep apnea. I had an average of 59 apneas per hour: all night long, every minute, I stopped breathing. Then I started choking, gagging, and kicking until I woke up, started breathing again, then fell back asleep. All night. Every minute. And in the morning, I had no memory of any of this, but I was sleepy all the time. Here's a picture of me at the time. I'm the guy with the beard. See how my eyes are half-closed? That's because I had to struggle to keep them open. After I was diagnosed, I received a machine to keep my airway open while I slept. This device, affectionately known in our house as Edna (after the hurricane), consisted of a small compressor connect to a mask I wore over my nose. It allowed me to sleep peacefully and vastly improved the quality of my life. When I was diagnosed, I weighed close to 300 pounds. The doctor told me I might get rid of the apnea if I lost a lot of weight. Sure enough, years later I lost 100 pounds, and the apnea vanished as well. I haven't seen it since. Our society jokes a lot about snoring, but sleep apnea is deadly serious. It messes up your life and can cause high blood pressure and possibly heart problems. If you think you or your bed partner has sleep apnea, find out more.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Seasoning accumulation
Here's the story you've been waiting for all your life. Of course, I'm referring to the one about the giant Chee-to. "This giant Chee-to could be a boon to our local economy," said Tom Straub, owner of Algona's Sister Sarah's Bar. Who can disagree?
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Second-class
Editing this blog on a Mac sucks. If I use Internet Explorer, I don't get all the cool tools, such as the hyperlink button that lets me select text, type a URL, and automagically turn it into a properly formatted href tag. If I use NetNewsWire's weblog editor, I can't enter a title, because the Blogger API won't allow it. If I try to use Safari, Blogger refuses and tells me to upgrade my browser. Are these all Blogger's fault? I think the API one is, and it seems like the hyperlink button could work. Safari, I don't know. Hey Blogger guys, how about looking at your Mac support?
Hangin with the homies
The next big buzzword: embedded reporters. These are journalists who are basically going to be non-fighting soldiers, living with American troops in Iraq and getting uncensored access to the war, including the front lines. This story, written by one of the embeddees, describes the unprecedented process in matter-of-fact detail. This seems like a good thing: reporters getting to tell the world about the horrors of war. But I'm puzzled how the administration will twist and spin the news that writers and photographers are witnessing firsthand. I guess we'll see what really happens.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
What goes around
Last month I wrote about the wonderful Flash Mind Reader. Lots of forums and bulletin boards linked to my explanation, and it has been getting a couple hundred hits a day since then. But yesterday I learned the Flash Mind Reader phenomenon has reached new heights: my mother knows about it. She forwarded a mail to me about it -- one of those lovely multi-level AOL forwards, where every previous message is a recursive enclosure. My mother is 73 years old and using her first computer. She's about as far outside the nerd mainstream as you can get. Of course, she had no idea I had written an explanation when she forwarded the mail to me. So now I know how big the web really is.
Monday, March 10, 2003
Ode to dentistry
I have to get a crown this morning, the inevitable followup to my recent adventure in root canal. Wish me luck.
West of the story
Barbara and I are catching up on Tivo'd West Wing episodes. Last night we watched the two-part "Inauguration", and it was excellent. Some great funny moments. The wacky gang was having trouble finding a bible for the President's swearing-in, which led to the following (paraphrased): Josh: You know, the president doesn't have to be sworn in on a bible. Pres. Bartlett: He doesn't? Josh: Nah. You could use the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Pres. Bartlett: Think that's a good idea? Josh: Nope. And like that.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
I am sort of not working at Microsoft any more (Epilog)
In which I am terminated:
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Wintry
Hey, looks like it snowed on my buddies in Sammamish, just outside Redmond. Looks like fun! I grew up in Colorado. I used to love waking up and noticing the subtle brightness in the room, a sign of fresh snow outside. I loved looking at the clean white canvas the snow created. I loved walking around in the snow. And I hate hate hated shoveling it, cleaning off my car, and driving through that nonsense.
Friday, March 07, 2003
Driving yourself crazy
This story tells about "extreme commuters", people who drive hundreds of miles each day to and from the SF Bay Area for their jobs. The Bay Area has traditionally consisted of 9 counties, a pretty big chunk of real estate, but now the "greater" Bay Area includes an additional 7 counties. These folks who drive 2+ hours each day sure help me put my new 45-minute commute in perspective. I don't think there's another metropolitan area in the U.S. that's laid out like the Bay Area. Rather than one big city surrounded by suburbs, we have 3 of the biggest cities in the country. The most populous (San Jose) is the tech business center. Another (San Francisco) is the cultural and tourism center. The third (Oakland) offers a lot but lives in the shadow of SF and a bad reputation. All the in-between places have their own personalities too. Commute patterns are all over the place. A large number of people now live in SF but commute to jobs in other cities, which never happened back in the day when SF was the center of the universe around here.
Thursday, March 06, 2003
When the name of the company is Danger, all puns have already been used
I started working at Danger in Palo Alto yesterday. Here's a little of what happened. I managed to make two wrong turns on my way there in the morning before finally parking at the CalTrain station. I'm going to experiment with the commute, driving different routes and also trying the train. When I got there, I was thrust into startup chaos at full velocity. It was exactly like playing Myst. I was dropped into a strange place and I had to figure out what was going on, including the object of the game. Nobody remembered I was coming. My job description was vague. There was no computer, desk, or cubic footage allocated to my corpus. The harried recruiter/hr/facilities guy (everybody at a startup has a bunch of jobs) scrambled and found me a space and a desk. I had my laptop, naturally, so I was OK. My first acquisition was a cat 5 cable. Then I found the bathroom. Then I needed to get a cardkey to go from floor to floor. But the guy with the cardkeys was on a different floor. I had no phone. I didn't know his e-mail address, or even his name. So if I went to see him and he wasn't there, I would be trapped. Luckily, I ran into somebody I knew, who took me to the cardkey guy, who warned me the cardkey machine was being flaky, but then made one for me. Finally, I found another familiar face, who spent time helping me figure out (a) my job, and (b) stuff I need to know to do my job. I have determined there is approximately 57 jillion tons of stuff for me to learn. Danger's offices are the coolest I have ever worked in. The building is old and jammed into downtown Palo Alto. I think it's actually several buildings spliced together. The interior is filled with funky touches like skylights and sliding glass doors. Offices are everywhere: behind doors, behind glass, in the middle of twisty little passages (all different). The decor is Red Lectroid: ancient Mac 12-inch monitor, stack of FedEx forms, pair of kneepads, car battery, various graffiti and cartoons, box of broken plastic cases, giant button on wall with obligatory "don't push" sign. The people are incredible. Many of them helped me on my first day's adventure. Many more will help me get my job done. I will try hard to remember their names. Right now I'm operating on about 20% overall info retention. Many times I saw Ceej and did a pantomime for her in which my head inflated to an unmanageable size (as if by acquiring knowledge) and then exploded. This is going to be a blast.
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
LazyBay
This is kind of an interesting idea. But doesn't this take the fun out of it?
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
It was a great neighborhood
Mr. Rogers got his philosophy from his grandfather, who said to him: "You know, you made this day a really special day. Just by being yourself. There's only one person in the world like you. And I happen to like you just the way you are." What a cool thing to tell kids, or any other human beings.
Seismic shift
It's the end of a long day during which I cleaned out a ton of old junk and prepared for switching my life to a new PowerBook (the 15" titanium). You're soaking in it! Tomorrow will be another day of rebooting my life, and after that, I promise less navel-gazing and more cool, useless stuff, just like the old days.
Monday, March 03, 2003
Come on baby, let's go downtown
University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto is my new work neighborhood. Here's an article about how things are OK there, even during these dark times.
Sunday, March 02, 2003
I am sort of not working at Microsoft any more (Part 2)
See Part I. When our small San Jose group, which made Mac IE, Outlook Express, and Java, was absorbed into the Redmond-based Macintosh Business Unit, the folks who created Mac Office, some folks took the opportunity to advance their Microsoft ambitions by moving to Redmond. Seven people left on a single day, and many of them now have prominent roles inside the company. Although relocating to Redmond and getting the authentic Microsoft experience was intriguing for a corporate culture geek like me, I stuck around, mainly because my family would have disowned me if we moved. I knew that Mac opportunites at Microsoft for a writer guy like me were limited, especially in Silicon Valley, and that eventually I would probably end up working on Windows. In November 1999, my friend Hillel Cooperman (one of the "Redmond seven"), managed to get me a job writing user interface guidelines for a cool experimental version of Windows. It was incredibly exciting. However, the whole project was based in Redmond, except for me. To get this relationship to work, we would have to cross new frontiers in telecommuting, which is not Microsoft's strongest area. Two weeks after I accepted the job, the project was re-orged out of existence. Again with Hillel's help, I managed to get a job as a sort of internal freelancer, writing mostly in-house documents on the Windows and MSN teams for two years. I liked the challenge of having many different projects, but the work was really out of the mainstream. I spent two days every month in Redmond, during which I would meet with as many people as possible, walk around trying to soak up hallway conversations and random culture, and have fun catching up with friends. For the past year, I have been working on a more focused (and very mainstream) task: writing an ambitious new edition of the book Microsoft Windows User Experience Guidelines for the next version of Windows. This is a massive undertaking. I have to talk to everyone building features for Windows, a cast of hundreds. I committed to finishing this book even though I realized I had strayed from the more technical stuff I like better. But as the project progressed, my managers and I started to see that if I spent more time in Redmond, the book would get better. Eventually, my managers pressed me to be in Redmond more, and I resisted. And a few weeks ago, we reached the point of no return: I decided to leave the project, and try freelance writing, which is how I started at Microsoft way back when. Once I decided to quit, I became incredibly curious about everything going on in the nerd universe of Silicon Valley. I have had a lot of fun renewing old connections and learning about new stuff. So, yesterday was my last day at Microsoft. Except, technically, it wasn't, because somebody screwed up and forgot to officially terminate me. That means my e-mail didn't go poof, my badge didn't stop working, and I didn't get my vacation pay cashed out. So for every day my vacation pay is delayed, I'm going to use my still-working badge to get into my old building and steal a ream of paper to cover the interest. (NOTE: THAT IS A JOKE.) What am I doing next? Back to the geeky stuff! I have a technical writing contract at Danger that should be very cool, and I'm looking for ways to get back into the Mac universe. I'm sure I'll write more about all that later.
Saturday, March 01, 2003
I am sort of not working at Microsoft any more (Part 1)
This is the story of how I visited a secret Microsoft office for an hour and ended up staying for seven years. Way, way back, before the bust, before the boom, in 1996, I wanted a new job. I was working at General Magic, a really fun company that wasn't doing much with the Web -- and I was in love with the Web. I had been at Magic for 5 years, so I was a little burned out and bored anyway. But the Web was so darn cool that I really wanted to find a job that let me learn and play there. Naturally, the first place I went to interview was Netscape, the unofficial World Headquarters of the Web. The place was startup-style chaos, and the writing manager was swamped. We sat down and she rattled off a list of 8 different projects she needed writers for. The only sour note came when I said I was a Mac guy. She rolled her eyes in a "you really don't get the Web, do you?" kind of way and told me they did cross-platform development that included Mac versions shipping at the same time as the other platforms. Still, I left excited that I was probably going to work there. After our meeting, which was on a Monday, the writing manager promised to call with an offer within 2 days. Those 2 days passed, with no call. The rest of the week went by, too. The following Monday, I called her back, and she recited her reasons for not calling, most of them having to do with how swamped she was. She assured me she really wanted to hire me and that the offer would be ready, again, in 2 days. As another week went by with no contact, I wondered whether she was trying to blow me off but wasn't able to do it directly, or she and the company were too busy to get the offer together. Neither of those was good! So I decided to return a Microsoft recruiter's call. She told me she called a lot of Mac people, but few bothered to call back. She told me there was a small group of Mac fans working in San Jose on Internet Explorer. I had tried Mac IE, after hearing about it from Dave Winer, and it was good. Unlike the bloated cross-platform Netscape browser, Mac IE was Mac-only, and it showed. I decided to go there for an interview and I found a whole gang of Mac folks from places like Apple, Claris, and Radius. How weird was this? The big, evil company had a skunkworks doing the really cool Mac browser. The beloved upstart had the cross-platform Windows port that crashed all the time. This, like, blew my mind, man. So I signed up. For the next 3 years, I worked on a bunch of fun tasks. I wrote docs for various projects, including the late and loathed ActiveX for Macintosh, and pitched in on several versions of IE and Outlook Express. Because the mothership in Redmond didn't really grok the Mac, I got to do lots of demos, trade shows, and press interviews. Working for Microsoft and showing up at Macworld in 1997, in the dark days of Word 6, was...interesting. I had a guy ask for a bunch of IE CDs because he wanted to destroy them in his microwave. Once while I was being interviewed by a radio reporter, Macworld attendees stood behind me and flipped me off, intiating the radio reporter into the whole Mac vs. Windows thing. But I really loved it. We were doing great things, including IE, Outlook Express, and Office 98. Eventually, people saw that Microsoft had figured out how to do good Mac software rather than grotesque Windows ports. And I was there for the surreal moment in Boston in 1997 when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates announced Microsoft's $150 million investment in Apple. Eventually, the huge success of Office 98 led to the end of our little IE skunkworks in San Jose, as we were folded into the Mac Business Unit, the group that created Office. That was the end of my personal public relations department, as the pros in Redmond took over. But I still got to show our stuff at Macworld Expo. I also tried out a new job as Program Manager, helping ship a version of Outlook Express. But there was less and less for me to do, and I was kind of curious about some new projects that were happening in the somewhat larger part of our company that worked on Windows... (To be continued.)
Friday, February 28, 2003
Straight outta Redmond
I'm quitting Microsoft! Today is my last day. Starting next week, I'm a freelance writer. I am excited and sad and happy and worried and thrilled. I'll write more about this later, but right now I have to start getting ready for my exit interview.
Go Dave
In which Dave drives cross-country to his new life. Good luck, Dave! "Are you bringing a laptop?" Now that's journalism!
It all started with a mouse
Here's the news you've been waiting for: Willard has been remade and opens on March 14th.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Thriller
This is an astonishing true story, expertly told.
Lightning gives tree root canal
Monday's root-canal related freak thunderstorm struck and destroyed a tree in Cupertino (second item on page).
Dandy Sandy
The once-mighty, once-proud Dodgers franchise hits new lows when the incredible Sandy Koufax cuts all ties with the team. I am so heartbroken.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Slouching toward listening
Another online music service. This one is run by our pals at AOL. So in addition to having to pay for the privilege of buying music, you get to pay to join AOL for the privilege of paying to pay for your music. This is sort of like going to Barnes & Noble, paying to get in the door, then paying more to get into the music department, where you are then permitted to buy CDs. And they call us the pirates.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Flash Mind Reader redux
Some people are writing that they try Flash Mind Reader, and it works for them "some of the time". Heh. Recheck your math, folks.
A slightly eventful root canal
Some activities, like airplane flights and dental work, are best when they're routine. Yesterday, I had a slightly eventful root canal. I'm no stranger to the endodontic arts. I have a mouthful of happy, healthy teeth. Except for the Gang of Four: the rearmost two on the bottom, left and right. All my dental work are belong to them. I have had numerous cavities, plus 3 crowns and root canals on those bad boys. And without exception, I find that getting a cavity filled is more annoying and more painful than a root canal. My theory is that "root canal" is such a bizarre and scary term that it has gotten bad PR over the years. Like eggplant, it needs a new name and a better press agent. Because my beloved regular dentist, Dr. Ron Pack of Sunnyvale, was out of town, I visited another guy (whom we shall call "Dr. Otherguy") for my root canal. The first hint of trouble came when they botched my appointment time. My Official Dental Scheduling Card said 1:00, but when I showed up, they had me for 2:00. Nobody told me that -- I spotted it on the Official Dental Schedule behind the desk. When I asked if they had booked me at the wrong time, the receptionist lied no, my appointment was at 2:00, she said. Quickly I brandished my schedule card. She backed off and adopted a new tactic: soon Dr. Otherguy would see me, because "he can work on two patients at the same time". Great. The procedure started when Dr. Otherguy placed a latex sheet around my bad tooth. The assistant then started to use the tiny dental vacuum to clean the schmutz from around my tooth. Oops! Dental vacuum snares and removes latex sheet instead! She pried the sheet loose from the vacuum. Dr. Otherguy reached for the sheet to reposition it, but the assistant, a woman of indeterminate provenance, snatched it away and snapped "I WILL PUT!" like a tantruming 6-year-old. Yow. I spent the next hour and a half getting a fine 20 minutes or so of root canal, as Dr. Otherguy and Nurse Ratched dropped by in between servicing the other patient with the better 1:00 appointment. As I reclined on the lovely dental chair, trying to keep my mouth propped open for 90 minutes and concentrating on not having foot spasms, the lights in the office suddenly went out. A moment later, a massive BOOM shook the office. Thunderstorms around here are rare, especially in winter, and this was one of the loudest thunderclaps I've ever heard. I knew then that God was punishing me for not waiting for my regular dentist. As I was considering what it would be like to bolt for the exit with the entire top of my tooth open to the world, the lights came back on. The rest of the root canal was relatively calm, if a little surreal. Dr. O. and Nurse R. spoke only professionally to each other as they completed the procedure. The lightning-addled radio faded in and out, producing strange, tinny music that was perfect accompaniment to the mood in the room. At last, I was dismissed, having been relieved of my diseased pulp and restored to dental near-fullness. Dr. Pack, I'll be seeing you soon for that crown. And I swear I'll never stray again.
Monday, February 24, 2003
Pure as snow?
Apparently repeated exposure to cold and snow has dulled minds here.
Back home again
We have returned from our 3-day journey to the Happiest Place on Earth, and it was great as usual. Meanwhile, Disney is moving along with plans for a third theme park in Anaheim. Talk about getting right back to reality today: at 1:00 I have a root canal. Oh boy!
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Silicon valley meets the happiest place
Disneyland has a sort of permanent trade show called Innoventions. One of the cool new products there yesterday was a Segway. The actor doing the demo had the name slightly wrong: instead of “the Segway Human Transporter”, it became “Segway, the Human Transporter”. Sounds like a movie monster. She clearly loved riding around on the Segway, going down the ramp, then back up, then reaching the bottom and zipping around through the audience. Looked like fun.
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Earthquake
A 5.4 mag quake woke Barbara at 4:19 this morning. I slept right through it. I hate when that happens. If there's gonna be an earthquake, I insist on feeling it.
Friday, February 21, 2003
Redistribution of wealth
Dave Winer writes about getting ready to move by disposing of junk in his house -- four dumpsters worth. On the first day of cleaning, he already found the first issue of PC Magazine. I bet other geeks in the valley with spare time would love to come by and help go through his stuff and look for gems. This is like a garage sale, which is nature's way of spreading semi-interesting junk from one house to another.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Call some place paradise
Yesterday we drove my wife's new non-monstrous SUV to Anaheim. It did a great job. We experienced some unsettled California winter weather. The first stretch, to approximately Kettleman City, was drizzly and gloomy. Then, the skies cleared and we ran into a tremendous dust storm. Huge brown clouds moved across the horizon. I played Frogger with dozens of tumbleweeds as they bounded across Interstate 5. Finally, part way over the Grapevine, Southern California magic took over and we had clear, sunny skies all the way to the Orange Curtain. We're privileged to live in California.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
We're going to Disneyland!
Tomorrow, we're at the Happiest Place on Earth. I'll try to stay somewhat connected to the blogosphere and sneak time to provide some vaguely interesting posts.
Off the air
I can't load www.blogger.com. I can ping it, but it won't load or curl. Therefore, I can't blog from my WinXP box, which is all I'll have as I'm traveling for the next five days. So, I might be silent here until Sunday.
Any ideas?
Live or jive?
You decide.
Blame Barry
Barry Bonds, who had one of the finest World Series in history, says he's to blame for the Giants losing the series to Anaheim. Bonds relates the following conversation he had with his wife Liz:Liz: You got your wish.
Barry: What are you talking about?
Liz: You asked God your whole life to be in the World Series. You got your wish.
Barry: You're right. I did. Why didn't I wish to win? That was really dumb. I'm going to be a lot more careful about what I wish for from now on.
Here's the correct Keith Stattenfield link. I'm posting through a straw right now. No fixing of typos, no RSS titles. Sigh.
Living in the past Last night Keith Stattenfield and I started waxing nostalgic about thing that used to exist at and around Apple in Cupertino. Such as:The FourPhase building (killed by '89 quake)Hey, old timers, can you think of more? Send mail.
Bob's Big Boy (now Mandarin Gourmet)
Computer Literacy
Peppermill (demolished last year)
Mr. Mariani's orchard (before my time, even)
Cali Bros. grain silo (torn down in '86 or so)
The wrought iron gate with an Apple logo from De Anza 2 (I hope somebody saved that)
Is this thing on? www.blogger.com has been 404ing since last night, so I'm checking to see if I can post via NetNewsWire.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Geek humor
This is really funny. (If you never use Windows IE, you might not get the joke.) The link comes from the fine team that works every day to bring you Nobody Knows Anything.
Orange farmer
We have a couple of prolific orange trees in the yard. When you grow up in Colorado, that's like paradise. Last Sunday we sent our daughter Devi out to harvest oranges from the tree. Of course, she made a whole production out of it. She put on boots, gloves, and goggles. She filled a bucket with water to wash the oranges, and used a towel to dry them. After she had picked a couple dozen, she made signs that said "Come see the Orange's show!" and invited us out. She pretended she was running one of those farms where kids come to visit to see how it works. She let my wife and I pick an orange, wash it and dry it, and then told us "good job!"
Starving and misguided
Joan Ryan's column is about the shocking phenomenon of web sites that help girls and women maintain their anorexia. The quotes from the sites are unbelievable, like this one:hey our stats are almost identical now (i'm 5'5' and nearing 68lbs last i checked) and we have around the same goal weights/dates (mine is to be 40-45lbs by my wedding in may/june)The column written around it is mediocre. At first it seems to be heading toward a classic "the Internet is evil" condemnation, but then it backs off and just kind of peters out. But really, it's hard to comment on insanity like this. This is the second story about "pro-ana" web sites I've seen in the past week, and I heard another on the radio. Cynical question: why is all this interest stirring up right now?
Monday, February 17, 2003
Suspension of disbelief
The SF Chronicle has a story about the new Carquinez Bridge, the first suspension bridge to be built in the U.S. in 40 years. Did you ever see those cool old pictures of a partially-built Golden Gate Bridge? Here's what the Carquinez Bridge looks like now.
White house
Over the weekend there was a big blizzard on the east coast. When I lived in Colorado, I used to love snow. A fresh blanket of snow is a beautiful sight. It sounds cool too, because it absorbs sound and makes the world very quiet. I only hated snow when I had to go somewhere else. Then I had to deal with starting the car, cleaning off the snow, driving through snow and ice, and watching out for other drivers, all of whom were worse drivers than me (of course).
Weblogs as watchdogs
Ed Cone sums up how bloggers are helping keep track of the really stupid things being said by North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble.
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Flash Mind Reader part 2
Yesterday I wrote about how Flash Mind Reader works. I was a little fuzzy on why 9 is the magic number. Why, if you add a number's digits, then subtract that value from the number, is the result is a multiple of 9? Smart guy and old friend Dan Winkler stepped in to help me figure it out. Let's use 84 as an example, because '84 was such a great year. Flash Mind Reader commands us to add 8 + 4, then subtract that sum from the original number: 84 - 12 = 72. Another way to think about this is 84 - 4 - 8. We'll subtract the 4 first, and then the 8. When we subtract the ones digit (4), we basically zero out the ones place and end up with a multiple of 10 every time (this time, it's 80). A multiple of ten means "ten of something" -- in this case, it's ten 8's. The tens place tells us what the "something" is. Now we subtract the digit from the tens place (the 8). So, we're starting with ten of something, and taking away one of the somethings, leaving 9 of something. That's why the result is always a multiple of 9 -- in other words, 9 of something. That's pretty cool. Here's an algebraic way of expressing the same thing. If the original number has digits xy, it can be represented as 10x + y. Summing its digits and subtracting the sum looks like this: 10x + y - x - y = 10x - x + y - y = 9x. Guess what, geeks and folks: there's more. Most humans on our planet use base 10, in which numbers have a ones place, a tens place, a hundreds place, and so on. Every place is worth 10 times the place to the right. But this add-the-digits-and-subtract-from-the-number business works in any base. The magic number is always one less than the base. If you do the trick on any octal (base 8) number, the result is a multiple of 7. If the number is base 257,764, the result is a multiple of 257,763 -- try it yourself if you don't believe me.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Another great reason not to watch TV
"Michael Jackson is the ultimate traffic accident," says the president of NBC Entertainment. And that's why there will be at least 20 hours of Michael-related programming on TV this month.
Flash Mind Reader explained
Yesterday I linked to the brilliant Flash Mind Reader. If you haven't checked it out yet, go spend a few minutes there -- you'll be glad you did. Go ahead, I'll wait. Back? Did you like it? Did you LOVE it? If you want to know how it works, and you haven't figured it out, here's the scoop: of course, it can't really read your mind. While you're looking at the instructions, it downloads an ActiveX control that uses the video blanking interval in monitor pixels to crudely track your eye movements. This control then detects the number you look at and "reads your mind". OK, I made that up. Seriously, it works the same way as most number tricks do: math + sleight of hand + misdirection + design. First, the math part. The instructions say to choose any two digit number, add the digits together, then subtract the total from your original number. When you do that, the result will be a multiple of 9, NO MATTER WHICH NUMBER YOU CHOOSE. It even works for bigger numbers, not just two digits. If you're skeptical, pick a few numbers and try it yourself. Why does that work? I dunno, number theory or something? But it's guaranteed, and it's the first key to the trick. Next comes the sleight of hand. Back at the Mind Reader, take a look at the first four multiples of 9, starting with 9, then 18, 27, and 36. They all have the same symbol. You probably figured that would happen, now that you know about the math part. Now click the crystal ball. Check the symbols for 9, 18, 27, and 36 again. HEY, THEY CHANGED! It's still the same for all of them, but it's a different symbol. Did it occur to you that the symbols were changing every time you guessed? Most people don't imagine that possibility. It's sneaky! In this trick, it's the second key. If the symbols didn't change every time, the trick would quickly lose its luster. The third part is a bit of misdirection. Check out the symbols for the two highest multiples of 9: 99 and 90. They're not the same as all the other 9s. That's because they will never be your numbers in this trick. The highest original number you can choose is 99. 9 + 9 = 18, and 99 - 18 = 81. Your number will never be higher than 81, so having different symbols for 90 and 99 is a red herring. Another clever touch is listing the numbers backwards, from highest to lowest, so if you suspect something about powers of 9, you'll probably start by looking at 99 and 90. When they have different symbols, you'll be thrown off the trail. Nice. The final reason why Flash Mind Reader works so well is its wonderful design. It's not called "Flash Trick Based On Math, Etc.". It's hidden behind cool, magical stuff: a crystal ball, mystical symbols, groovy sounds, and no explanations. It's a great magic trick for the web. Bravo, Andy Naughton! UPDATE: Here's more on Flash Mind Reader and why everything comes out to 9.
Friday, February 14, 2003
Blog eat blog
Thanks to Diane Patterson for linking here from her fine and handsome blog, Nobody Knows Anything. The award-winning NKA has been around for years and is a great source of entertainment as well as a way to keep up on the adventures of Diane & Darin and their many excellent children. Diane wrote the funniest blog sentence I have ever read: There on his roof were 5 Mexicans, tearing off the roof with pitchforks.
The weather feels warmer already
Spring training (that's baseball) starts today, a sign of hope, renewal, and lovely summers with the radio. The World Series ended, uh, about 2 weeks ago.
Blow your mind in a flash
Here is a most excellent parlor trick. See if you can figure out how it's done. I'll give away the answer tomorrow (or send mail if you can't wait to find out).
Thousands of tiny tiny frogs
They appear in our neighborhood every year about this time. They announce their presence by ribitting all night long -- cute little croaks that kind of serenade you off to sleep and don't wake you. I have no idea where they come from or even where they spend the bulk of their time. You don't see too many of them. They're maybe two inches long and can sometimes be spotted hippity-hopping through the roses or across the driveway. They cease being cute when they dart under the tires as you're backing out of the garage.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Safari gripes
It's still a beta, so I get to complain. Here are the big 3 for me: 1. Autofill forms (as in IE) is the killer feature for me. It saves me more time than I lose with IE's slower page loads. 2. When a page stalls while loading, Safari looks hung. Why is there no "flowing water" in the address bar/progress bar? 3. When I click the "libraries" button, where does the current page go? It's in a modal limbo land somewhere that I don't know how to get to without, d'oh, closing the libraries (which solution is not that easy to figure out, by the way). And the libraries page is too mondo to be a sheet -- it should probably open in its own window.
NASA Ames devastated by tragedy
Mark Simon has a good column in today's SF Chronicle on why people love working for NASA and how some of them are dealing with the Columbia tragedy. UPDATE 2:46: Fixed the link, thanks to Joanna Castillo.
Woz can't get his phone to work either
Steve Wozniak has to move because he can't get GSM signal at his current place. Silicon Valley: digital ghetto.
Music for our ears
Rhapsody, one of the "legitimate" pay-for music downloading services, has announced burnable downloads for 49 cents during a six-week promotion. You can join free for 7 days, and if you stick around, it's $5 a month for 3 months, then $10 a month. For that price, you also get streaming. Sounds complicated already, doesn't it? I think I'll stay away until downloading works like a record store: go there, browse, buy something. I won't pay a fee for the privilege of being able to buy something from them.
Something's going on here
TiVo has made various announcements of compatibility with Apple's stuff, such as support for Rendezvous (zero-config networking) and now integration with iLife applications. The last bit includes this: "This will lead to exciting new services in the future as TiVo and Apple continue to work together." Apple needs a DVR story as part of its digital hub, and TiVo fits right in. Prediction: something sekrit and big is going on here.
Sick as a very sick dog
I've got the thing that's going around: very sore throat and neck, body aches, fever, run down feeling. Don't come near me, I might be contagious.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Goin' to the end of the line
KFOG's 10-day A to Z song marathon is winding down. Here's the latest playlist: WOULD I LIE TO YOU - EURYTHMICS - 17:13 WORLD TURNING - FLEETWOOD MAC - 17:10 WOODSTOCK - JONI MITCHELL - 17:07 WOODEN SHIPS - CROSBY STILLS AND NASH - 16:58 WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN - WHO - 16:45 WONDERFUL TONIGHT - ERIC CLAPTON - 16:38 WONDER - NATALIE MERCHANT - 16:32 WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU - BEATLES - 16:27 WITH OR WITHOUT YOU - U2 - 16:21 W - JOE COCKER - 16:10 WITCHY WOMAN - EAGLES - 16:08 WISHING IT WAS - SANTANA/EAGLE EYE CHERRY - 16:01 WISH YOU WERE HERE - PINK FLOYD - 15:56 THE WIND CRIES MARY - JIMI HENDRIX - 15:53 WILD WORLD - CAT STEVENS - 15:50 WILD WILD LIFE - TALKING HEADS - 15:40 WILD THING - THE TROGGS - 15:38 WILD NIGHT - VAN MORRISON - 15:34 WILD HORSES - ROLLING STONES - 15:31 WICKED GAME - CHRIS ISAAK - 15:24
Better late
Did you know that the Simon and Garfunkel song Mrs. Robinson was not nominated for an Oscar despite its brillant use in The Graduate? Know why? They sorta forgot, says Paul Simon. He's nominated this year for the sweet Father and Daughter.
Go figure
So I go to Redmond for two days, and the weather (outside, where I didn't spend much time) is beautiful: sunny and dry. I'm back home in California, and it's pouring rain.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Help me get my RSS in gear I'm trying to get an RSS feed going, but I'm stuck. I've tried various settings on Blogger Pro's RSS pane, to no avail. I've posted an issue to Blogger Control, and I've even tried the blogging book they recommend. Still no joy. Anybody out there who has RSS working on a Blogger Pro blog? Or do you know someone who does? Please send mail. I'm sure it's something basic in a setting I'm missing. Thanks, from the bottom of my blog. UPDATE 2/12: Problem resolved. RSS will start flowing soon. Thanks to everyone who helped.
Stranger The Microsoft employee who embezzled (allegedly) $9 million by order software internally and then reselling it has died unexpectedly at the age of 32.
Still ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRockin KFOG is still playing songs A to Z. Here's the recent playlist: SOLSBURY HILL - PETER GABRIEL - 08:07 SOLID ROCK - DIRE STRAITS - 07:59 SOLD ME DOWN THE RIVER - ALARM - 07:51 SOAK UP THE SUN - SHERYL CROW - 07:39 SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK - BYRDS - 07:33 SO IT GOES - WES CUNNINGHAM - 07:23 SO FAR AWAY - DIRE STRAITS - 07:17 SMOOTHIE SONG - NICKELCREEK - 07:05 SMOOTH - SANTANA - 07:01 SMOKING GUN - ROBERT CRAY - 06:51 SMOKE TWO JOINTS - TOYES - 06:43 SMALL TOWN - JOHN MELLENCAMP - 06:34 SLOW TURNING - JOHN HIATT - 06:28 SLIT SKIRTS - PETE TOWNSHEND - 06:18 SLIDE - GOO GOO DOLLS - 06:16 SLEDGEHAMMER - PETER GABRIEL - 05:59 That has to be the first time Smoke Two Joints, a perpetual Friday-at-5 here-comes-the-weekend treat, has been played at 6 AM on a Tuesday.
The statue got me high The Oscar nominations were announced today. The first thing I do is check how many of the best picture nominees I've seen. This year, it's two of the five: The Hours and LOTR: The Two Towers. I liked both of those, but Two Towers will get my vote, if I am suddenly and shockingly asked to cast one. I'm not a Tolkie -- I never even read the book until last year -- but I sat wide eyed and totally gripped for 3 hours during that movie. The other best picture noms are Chicago, Gangs of New York, and The Pianist. Hey, The Pianist...maybe that's who was in my computer when I first connected to GIGA SUPER HIGH SPEED INTERNET earlier today!
Red River, Redmond I'm sitting here at the Silver Cloud Inn, a cheap but tidy hotel hard by the Microsoft campus in Redmond. There's creepy dense ground fog this morning, obscuring the view of Wendy's out my window and across the parking lot. I haven't stayed here for years. A new feature in the room is a little hublike box that's labeled "GIGA SUPER HIGH SPEED INTERNET". No information anywhere about whether it's free or for pay. OK, I can't resist. I pull the cat 5 cable from the recesses of my travel bag and hook up my laptop with a satisfying snap. Right away there's a bubble telling me I have a 10 Mbs connection. I start downloading mail, then open an IE window. Mail is coming in fine, but the browser window is getting stuck.
Then it happens. Inexplicably, I hear the faint, surreal plinking of piano music coming from my laptop speakers: Red River Valley. The browser is fully stalled, mail is coming in, and a phantom Nick Winters is tickling the ivories.
After enjoying the music for a while and marveling at the perpetual surprises the Internet offers, eventually I force-quit IE and try again. It works fine, and no more music. Possible explanation: maybe I'm going insane and I just imagined the whole thing.
Monday, February 10, 2003
Eye see you The wonderful original logo (now abandoned) of the Information Awareness Office just won't die. Now it's available on your choice of fine consumer items: t-shirts, coffee cups, teddy bears, thongs, etc. What a country!
Duty now for the future Here's a cool problem: designing a user interface that will last for 10,000 years. The Wall Street Journal has a front-page story (paid subscription required) today about the challenges of creating warning signs for Yucca Mountain, where high-level radioactive waste will be deadly until approximately the year 12,000.
Flyby I work at Microsoft's Silicon Valley Campus, but every month I go to company headquarters in Redmond for two days. I'm going today and I'll blog ya later from there. Weather at home, weather in Seattle. Pretty similar, but a little colder up there.
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Bozo on this bus I'm trying to get an RSS feed going, but no luck. I suspect I filled in the wrong values for RSS Server Path, RSS Filename, and RSS URL. The help article (which seems outdated) says to just leave these blank if you're on Blogspot, but the form insists I fill them in. Any ideas? Please let me know. Thanks.
Chili today I highly recommend By The Way, the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers record. It's filled with hooky pop hits, great beats, and groovy harmonies that reveal the Chili Peppers as the Beach Boys/Eagles of the 2000s. I really like the songs Can't Stop, By The Way, and Cabron, a sweet love song with a cool mandolin part.
Are you ready for some baseball? I'm sitting here watching the Arena Football League Game of the Week (San Jose vs. LA) with my son. I'm not much of a football fan, but this goofy game is kind of interesting. The teams play in hockey and basketball arenas (hence the clever name) during the non-NFL months. Players are crammed into a 50-yard field and there's plenty of scoring. The league (and it's junior partner, AFL2) is very successful, now in its 17th season. Starting this year, NBC is broadcasting games every Sunday. Of course, I'm old enough to remember a different AFL: the American Football League of 1960-69 (wow, I can't find a link for info about that league!).
Microsoftees are people too This site endeavors to keep track of blogs maintained by Microsoft employees. I hope more people at Microsoft start blogs. Most of these folks are very smart and quite nice, and more blogs would help counteract the company's negative public image.
Saturday, February 08, 2003
White out The east coast is digging out from under (I love that apt cliche) a big blizzard. Which reminds me that nearly 20 years ago, when I was considering whether to move to California and work for some cool computer company, this blizzard helped push me out the door.
Friday, February 07, 2003
Alpharock update Here's the latest playlist from KFOG: LAWYERS GUNS & MONEY - WARREN ZEVON - 19:19 LATE IN THE EVENING - PAUL SIMON - 19:18 LAST WORTHLESS EVENING - DON HENLEY - 19:11 THE LAST TIME - ROLLING STONES - 18:59 LAST NIGHT - TRAVELING WILBURYS - 18:55 LAST GOODBYE - JEFF BUCKELY - 18:50 LAST GOODBYE - KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD - 18:47 LANDSLIDE - FLEETWOOD MAC - 18:35 LAMB LIES DOWN ON BR'DWY - GENESIS - 18:31 LADY WRITER - DIRE STRAITS - 18:27 LADY MADONNA - BEATLES - 18:26 LADY JANE - ROLLING STONES - 18:22 THE LADY DON'T MIND - TALKING HEADS - 18:09 LA GRANGE - ZZ TOP - 18:05 LA BAMBA - LOS LOBOS - 18:03 KNOCKIN ON HEAVEN'S DOOR - BOB DYLAN - 18:00 KNOCKIN'ON HEAVEN'S DOOR - ERIC CLAPTON - 17:56 KISS THIS THING GOODBYE - DEL AMITRI - 17:51 KISS THAT FROG - PETER GABRIEL - 17:47 KISS FROM A ROSE - SEAL - 17:44 Here's another perspective: KFOG brags they'll play 2000 different songs by the time they're done. Apparently that's a lot for commercial radio. But that's also the number of songs in a medium-sized iPod.
Is this still amusing? Probably. Another wacky maybe-Japanese kinda-risque pop-culture-drenched Flash thingie that's clogging servers everywhere. Yatta! More info here.
Everywhere a sign Last week, I drove past Applebee's restaurant. The "bee's" was burned out. At the airport, as we waited in the departure lounge, I looked out the window. The plane parked there said Apple Vacations. Back at my office the next day, I bought Lifesavers from the candy machine. The Lifesavers were at position G5 in the machine. What does it mean, what does it mean?
Something completely different Did a bolt of electricity bring down Columbia? NASA is checking it out. This is the page-one top story in today's SF Chronicle, with a huge headline ("Cosmic bolt probed in shuttle disaster") and pictures.
Switchback Microsoft plans new Switcher campaign. This time, apparently, with actual switchers.
Mutual CJ sends readers. Back atcha, Ceej. CJ has taught me tons about music, the net, and other tech, is an excellent writer and programmer, and is my baseball buddy and a fine young person. She once gave me a television set -- never mind that it actually belonged to Microsoft Corporation. Maybe we'll even get to work together again.
Bruuuuce! Great lyrics, from a great song by Bruce Cockburn:I want to raise every voice -- at least I've got to try Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry If I had a rocket launcher...Some son of a bitch would die
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Stylin' Apparently the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications is out of print, but every geek tech writer and editor needs one. This has led to a remarkable gold rush: used copies of the book get snatched up for $100 and more when you can find them, which is not often. Here are two copies for $256.75 each. And I remember when there were stacks & stacks of 'em at the company store in Redmond. Sigh.
Alpha Geek My favorite radio station is spending 10 days playing music in alphabetical order by song title. I love the random juxtaposition this provides. Here's some of what they have played recently: IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS - BARENAKED LADIES - 22:01 IF I HAD A BOAT - LYLE LOVETT - 21:58 IF 60'S WAS 90'S - BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE - 21:53 IF 6 WAS 9 - JIMI HENDRIX - 21:47 ICE CREAM - SARAH MCLACHLAN - 21:45 I'VE JUST SEEN A FACE - BEATLES - 21:43 I'VE GOT A FEELING - BEATLES - 21:33 I'M TORE DOWN - ERIC CLAPTON - 21:30 I'M THE ONLY ONE - MELISSA ETHERIDGE - 21:25 I'M SORRY - HOTHOUSE FLOWERS - 21:21 I'M SO GLAD - CREAM - 21:17 I'M SHAKIN' - BLASTERS - 21:07 I'M ON FIRE - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - 21:04 I'M LOSING YOU - JOHN LENNON - 21:01 Not bad for commercial radio. Hmm, looks like apostrophe comes before letters in their scheme -- OK. You can tune in on the web and listen. They start up again with the alpha stuff at 6:00 AM PST.
Whoa. From Boing Boing comes this report:Bev says: "The Wachowski brothers have produced nine animated shorts set in the world of The Matrix that will be released this May on DVD." You can find out more and even watch the first one here. It's gonna be a big year for Matrix fans. Let's hope The Matrix hasn't jumped the shark.
It's all more than you deserve This one is especially for Lord of the Rings fans. Whole new myths are created; entirely new chapters are written. Your life will be changed forever.
Will Intel forgive those "toasted bunny" commercials? Omni Group CEO Ken Case believes Apple will change it's chip architecture "when the time is right". Well, why not? For the first time ever (6502, 68000, PPC) Apple would finally get on top of the CPU power curve and let the Mac universe benefit from Wintel CPU R & D.
I'm soaking in it! There's a new beta of NetNewsWire, a very cool RSS aggregator for Mac OS X. It's easy to use and fits nicely into OS X, and it makes it incredibly simple to post to a blog from an RSS feed.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Incoming Thanks to Doc Searls' link, I got about 300 page views today, even though nobody else knew about this blog yet. Howdy, howdy, howdy. Also, I got exactly zero comments via mail. That's approximately what I expected. I think I need to get inline comments wired up if I really want to communicate with people here -- that one lonely mailto over in the left margin just ain't cuttin' it. Blogger suggests YACCS, netcomments, Falasério, BlogOut, and enetation. What do you think? And if I had known all you nice folks were coming, I would have told you more about myself..
When I was your age My newest toy is one of those USB flash drives with a ring for your keychain. It's the latest incarnation of the floppy disk. Mine cost $30 for 32 Mb. The first personal computer hard disk I ever saw was an Apple ProFile circa 1981 when I worked in an Apple sales office. It held an incomprehensibly whopping 5 Mb, cost an unattainable $3500, and came in a box so big that my girlfriend had to sit in the back seat. So my new "hard disk" is about 746 times cheaper per byte than a ProFile, plus it's silent, tiny, faster, and infinitely less fragile. But ProFile is still a cooler name. :-)
Open source, part 2 The openness in the Columbia investigation is by design, and is a big change from the way NASA handled Challenger, as analyzed here. "They have behaved with a becoming humility" and "They are going out of their way to be forthcoming" are quotes from someone described as a frequent critic of NASA.
It knows who you are Hmmm, is Rendezvous the killer app? I'm not sure about that, but it seems to be one of those technologies that keeps folks thinking up with new ideas for what it can do. So far, there's instant no-config printing, auto-discovery of local chat buddies, and zero-admin database login. Other ideas include easy iTunes music sharing (which was demoed long ago and no doubt has the RIAA going nuts), CPU load balancing across a network, and routing of voice phone calls. Got any other ideas?
More to read There's another new O'Reilly book about Mac OS X. This time it gets the famous Nutshell treatment. I'll be interested in seeing how it compares to existing OS X books from O'Reilly and others.
Idle hands Screen savers eyed in search for smallpox cure
What th'? A photo of Columbia just before it broke up "appears to show a purplish electrical bolt striking the craft as it streaked across the California sky." Say WHAT? NASA is interested enough that it sent a former astronaut to check it out, and they're flying the picture and the camera to Houston for investigation. Fake photo publicity stunt? Probably not, as the photographer is staying anonymous and isn't giving the picture to anybody but NASA just yet. I'm guessing this is probably some weird camera glitch, but as the former astronaut reportedly said when she saw the picture: "Wow".
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Open source The shuttle investigation in general and program manager Ron Dittemore in particular seem incredibly open and honest. In this story, he discusses the conclusion that the shuttle was not seriously damaged by falling insulation on launch: "I'm not sure we knew what we were talking about."
Think like a geek Is it bad luck for a web person to have 404 e-mails in his in box? (You know, 404. Page not found. It's an error. Never mind.)
That's it, no more KaZaa for me Yesterday I came home to find the card of a United States Marshal stuck in my front door. On the back was the handwritten message "SCOTT KNASTER: Please call our office today." THAT got my attention. According to this Dept. of Justice site, the Marshals serve the judicial system and "pursue and arrest 55 percent of all federal fugitives." So I was a little concerned. It turned out to be totally benign: they were delivering a document from a court in France, where I'm a party in a case. Usually, that court just mails these to me. This time they sent it via The Hague and the U. S. Marshals! Just because they could, I guess.
Another example of supersizing? Are side view mirrors on cars bigger than they used to be? Sometimes walking between cars in a parking lot requires ballet training.
Venture capital is happening again in the Valley Today's San Jose Merc says that venture capital funding is picking up in Silicon Valley. According to the story, "The top-tier early-stage venture firms have resumed a pace of a deal a month." I've been here for 20 years and I have faith in the Valley's ability to reinvent itself again. Why, they're even rebuilding the 85-101 interchange, which was judged obsolete in 1984. It will be finished in 2006! It's gonna be 17 lanes! The current interchange suffers from "mainline weaving operations", an awesome euphemism. Construction started last week when workers felled a ragged stand of tall eucalyptus trees next to the Microsoft campus.
Little flaming turds I just don't get this: what's with people who drop burning cigarettes out their car windows and onto the ground? I guess they think that once the little stinkbombs are out of their sight, they cease to exist. Most people stop believing that after infancy.
