June, 2001: 20 posts.
July, 1997
July, 1997, when I first heard of Jakob Nielsen. Probably when I started to smarten up about the web.
Today I have realized…
Today I have realized that three of my favorite movies are war movies. Stalag 17 [imdb | amazon] , Three Kings [imdb | amazon] , and Lawrence of Arabia [imdb | amazon] .
It may be a stretch, but they all share a common thread. They feature profound cynicism about the military, and about the politics behind them. They also are unflinching in their portrayal of the brutality of war. Stalag 17 and Three Kings in particular put heroism, idealism, and unparalleled cynicism into their protagonists — Sefton and Archie Gates. Those two characters share cold and honest assessments of how the world works.
Zappaism: AAAFNRAA
Zappaism: AAAFNRAA — Anything, anytime, anywhere, for no reason at all. I think I’ll add it to my personal SIG.
One week to the Bonfire! …
One week to the Bonfire! — I can’t wait. Can you?
Many people know me only via email.
Many people know me only via email. I have always been a little obsessive about my .sig file. I just made another change of my .sig, and retired the old ones. No particular reason, just felt like it. I’ve been getting more done than usual, and maybe that warrants a “reboot.” Check out the old .sigs here
Q: What is AAAFNRAA?
Q: What is AAAFNRAA?
A: Anything, anytime, anywhere, for no reason at all
See: Time Magazine Frank Zappa Obituary
I got a postcard from RT Temps
I got a postcard from RT Temps in the mail yesterday. Very tempting to go off to some exotic locale and travel and do respiratory therapy. Or even just go traveling and work.
Of course, I’ve not practiced my Respiratory Care license in a few years. But it’s nice, especially in what are presumably bad economic times, to have a fallback position.
Controversy du jour:
Controversy du jour: Microsoft ‘Smart Tags’ Could Violate Law – Attorney – via littlegreenfootballs blog
Based on this line of reasoning, valley url , dialectizer , et. al , vischeck color blindness simulator , lynx viewer , or even babelfish could be interpreted as “derivative works” and get the law on their asses.
The problem is not meta-manipulating content per se. The problem is when it’s *only* microsoft allowed to do the smart tagging. A nice thing might be to be able to choose your smart tagging engine. So maybe I can choose a finance specific engine so I can go to real estate and investment sites and understand that stuff better.
And Smart Tags themselves are not bad. The W3C’s Annotea seems to be the same damn thing, but without the Microsoft control, and without the bundling with the browser.
And the bundling, sports fans, was the key problem in that antitrust issue.
50 Bonfire.2001! RSVPs
The Strategians / WebSanDiego.org / Techniquelle Bonfire.2001! has hit fifty RSVPs. Too, too cool.
What blogs / journals do I try to check regularly?
What blogs / journals do I try to check regularly?
It’s hard, because you can spend all day and all night reading blogs and never get any work, play, or necessary family, spousal, or anything else — done. But here they are.
In alphabetical order: backupbrain ; camworld ; captain cursor ; matt haughey / matt haughey ; joel on software littlegreenfootballs ; memepool metafilter ; robotwisdom ; scott andrew ; zeldman.
That’s all for now.
Bonfire. Great. Me tired.
Bonfire. Great. Me tired.
Today, Jennifer graduates with a Bachelor’s Degree.
Today, Jennifer graduates with a Bachelor’s Degree.
I am very proud of her.
Yesterday I took the bus home.
Yesterday I took the bus home. I’ve been taking mass transit while my car has been having trouble.
I was at the Fashion Valley Transit Center and the fireworks at Sea World started. Sea World does fireworks every night – and if you can see Mission Bay from where you are, you get to watch the fireworks. That’s a rather pleasant side effect of living in a tourist-friendly city.
A kid – clean cut in khaki’s and a pressed white shirt – possibly a cholo-kid -all of 13 years old, leapt up and ran to the second floor landing of the Transit Cenetr to watch the fireworks.
Nice to see not everyone on the planet is jaded and cynical. There should always be something that warrants a sprint up a flight of stairs.
Always give your best
Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
– Richard Nixon. Whitehouse Farewell Speech. August 9, 1974
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
– Yoda. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. A long time ago.
I’m mortified.
I’m mortified. Broken stuff in the lab. The horror! The horror!
The multiple select tool was broken in essentially every browser. Ugh. Luckily nobody donated anything on the strength of that one.
I have now fixed it.
This past Tuesday I was quoted in the newspaper.
This past Tuesday I was quoted in the newspaper. Oddly enjoyable.
Here’s the URL of the story.
Here’s the URL of the story. Basically I was a source / interviewee about the Del Mar Fair‘s web design contest, and why not many people entered the thing. It boils down to the word not getting out.
Being the guy who formed WebSanDiego.org, I theoretically should know about such stuff.
A new header was posted.
A new header was posted. It’s a very old picture of me, and a new item, a bit of playfulness which I call art. You can view it if you wish.
Nice to get an art jones off my chest.
Another new header for the website.
Another new header for the website. This features my big ol’ head looking out the window of the bus on the way home. It’s not a bad picture considering I took it myself and was trying desperately to not look self-conscious.
Also included is some typographic nonsense. The colophon for this one would include references to Times New Roman and the 04B-03 and 04b-09 pixel fonts from Yuji Oshimoto’s 04FONTS.
As always, the old headers are in the deadheaders section.
My car is now fixed, for certain a mixed blessing.
My car is now fixed, for certain a mixed blessing. I think I will miss the time afforded to read and contemplate and decompress while riding mass transit. Maybe I’ll ride the bus sometimes, and drive my car to work sometimes. Err… sometimes.
