December 2001

More reorganizations taking place. I’m moving the mountains of content I have around into more logical places. One thing that’s being established is a words area, for pieces which are not journal items, not portfolio items, and stand on their own in some way. I’m exhuming some old mailing list posts for this area. I’ve been a very busy person on mailing lists since 1997 or so, and it’s about time I start to see if some of it needs a web home. First up: What is a Web Integrator?, from 1998. I also moved the WebStandards.org Alpha Baseline Proposal to prominence. In other “moving the deck chairs” news, I’ve moved my old sig files. Under the hood, I’m unifying navigation and site programming everywhere I can. According to automated checks with linklint I’ve done I have roughly 700 files and 3500 links on artlung.com. I’ve made it a goal to make managing the site as simple and painless as possible for me. Additionally, I want the site to be friendly to visit for web crawlers, visitors, family, friends, and avoid linkrot.

And now, bedtime.

New lab item: Batch File Rename By File Extension in Unix. (Not really new, but moved from the smorgasborg)

I have added a colophon to the site.

If you’re a geek, you know very well how distinctive O’Reilly’s book covers are. Now you can customize one for yourself! Hours of fun for the whole geek family.

Played Cutthroat with two of my aunts tonight.

Cutthroat = Racquetball with 3 players. Heckuva workout. I am definitely getting in better shape. Granted, I’m not in good shape yet. But I am in better shape.

My shape has been a difficult issue my whole life. I’m overweight. Ideally I can integrate behaviors into my life which help the issue in a painless manner.

I want it on the record that I won the soundtrack to the Royal Tenenbaums’s being referenced here. I won for shouting “Dignan” in response to the cheesy DJ’s trivia question. Dignan is the funnest character from Bottle Rocket. Jenny and I are on a good streak this month. Jenny won the tickets to the sneak-preview screening. Let’s hope the trend continues!

Great interview with Elinor Burkett, [ link via robotwisdom ]

A quote:
In the end, those kids at Columbine committed suicide. And maybe the question should not just be, Why did those kids want to kill everybody else? The question should be, Why did they want to die? Those were some pretty unhappy kids. But you’re not allowed to be unhappy in high school. If you’re not with the program, they send you to therapy, they medicate you out of it. They don’t leave you any room to just be a surly teenager.

I am thankful as hell that I was allowed to be a surly, quasi-happy teen. I was a mess, but I was never forced to put on a happy face. I was always told that life is hard. It’s normal and usual to have a stressful time as a human being. It’s reassuring in a way that you can depend on life being hard.

Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School looks worth a read.

I like this line very much, from Doc:
... you’d think that Linux was failing on the desktop. It’s not, any more than, say, Saab is failing on the highway…

¡Qué horror!
I missed Christina’s Birthday

Presents and Treesville
Whoa. Great Christmas Eve at my Grandparent’s tonight. Some great gifts, including theatre tickets to see Mark Twain Tonight with Hal Holbrook. And to top it off, a new header featuring the great tree I got and which my lovely wife decorated. Happy Holidays!

Peace on Earth.