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Stuff + nonsense. Updated daily. So far. Pretty much. Overwrought by Scott Knaster.
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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.
