October 2004 Archives

I have never filled up an entire journal. I have purchased 4-6 journals hoping to fill it with witty thoughts, notes, and little drawings. I have never gotten much past page four. For some reason, I have always wanted to be the sort of person who has a bookshelf full of numbered leather journals but I can't get much beyond week one.

So my goal is to fill my little black journal I purchased today.

BTW, I realized that blogging is a little like journaling. I also keep a txt file that is much less censored than this online forum. Neither of those outlets has the cachet of a physical artifact.

I usually don't comment on additions to the blogroll. triplux warrants a comment though.

What caught my eye about this blog was his project, 101 Things To Do in 1001 days. While lots of blogs have to do lists of one thing or another, this list distinguishes itself by having some pretty large tasks combined with a deadline.

For example:

That is a ton of movies!

Some of his tasks are much easier, like buying a new cell phone.

I'll be interested to watch his progress.

It inspired me to add some categories to my blog.

I really want to see the movie now.

I rarely laugh about other people's spelling or grammar because I make so many mistakes. I'll make an exception for this painfully tortured sentence I saw in an email the other day. I took some liberty to re-write the quote, both the spare the sender and to remove some specific references which aren't germane to the grammar.

The space between the words "under" and "stand" is lifted directly from the original quote. You should know that this passes the MS Word Spelling and Grammar checker. I would file a bug, but I don't have a day to spend trying to figure out where to send my bug/enhancement request to.

I'll really have egg on my face if one of my loyal readers explains how this is indeed proper English.

Have I mentioned that I would really like an iPod?

While i don't have an iPod I do use iTunes a fair amount. It's pretty much replaced all previous apps (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, MusicMatch) for me. The reason iTunes has become my favorite player is that it is reasonably stable, has neat features for creating playlists and the store is dead simple to use. I used to like Music Match in that it had some extra features for updating MP3's, but it seems to run too slowly for me. (I think somewhere along the way they must have jumped the shark on that software.) Music Match to it's credit had a easy to use store, and if fact seems to produce suggestions based on your non-drm'ed MP3's. That's handy, a little creepy, but handy.

There are a few more things I would like in iTunes.

• Minimize to a tiny player in the task bar on Windows XP, like Windows Media Player does.
• Give me some more options for the physical (re)arrangement of my existing music.
• Web API for the iTunes store.

The iTunes store is almost too easy to use. I've purchased a lot more music in the last six months than I had in the last couple of years. Immediate gratification can be a bad thing.

The weekly free downloads combines with iMixes, and cross artist suggestions (people who bought X also bought Y) make it fun to surf around looking for new music.

My latest find is "Bowling for Soup". They seem to have this over the top 80's sound combined with a wicked self mocking sense of humour. Think the wit and humor of BareNaked ladies meets a 80's guitar band, with a kind of late 90's irony. Warning, if you're easily offended by the occasional four letter word, there are plenty of songs you won't enjoy too much. I don't know what the radio edits sound like so your mileage may vary.

The songs that really grab me at the moment are "1985", "Ohio (Come Back to Texas)", and "My Hometown".

I always have this niggling feeling when I hear new music I like; "Was this band massaged, photoshopped, and focus-grouped until it would sell to people in my demographic?" My sense is no, but the way big music works it's hard to figure out without having hearing the band in person. It looks like the closest they come is Milwaukee, and I missed that show by a few days.

I have no idea what plays on radio anymore. the only music I listen is cd's and mp3's, as the radio stations are much too annoying for my tastes.

One other thing, why do recording artists have such difficult to use, flash enabled, noisy, and annoying web sites? What's wrong with a simple blog with some mp3's and a list of scheduled concerts guys?

I try and pay some attention to my referrer logs as well as the movable type activity logs in order to figure out why people are visiting my humble web site. For the last several months I noticed that recently a lot of people are looking for "Terrible" Terry Tate, office linebacker. You may remember this gag from Reebok commercials from the Super Bowl a few years ago. It looks like the videos have been removed from the Reebok web site. I would like to point people to the videos but, I have no idea how to contact anyone at Reebok, nor can I determine where the videos might be.

It's a real shame that people really want to see advertisements and the company doing the advertising is unwilling to show them to people.

Reebok, if you are reading please bring Terry back and tell the fans where they can find the videos.

After some coffee and a nap, as well as a little time to unwind I am happy to report I am feeling much better.

re: my rope

I am nearly at the end.

Someone on the intarweb collects and posts Grocery Lists. Suprisingly they are fascinating. I love found stuff. Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking about things I could leave around my office for other people to find.

I love speeches. Today, del.ico.us pointed me to a web site where they have a Top 100 Speeches list, complete with transcripts, and a fair number MP3's or streams of the speeches.

This is so beautiful. I'm going to d/l all the speeches tonight. I wish they would specify if all of these speeches are in the public domain. It looks like there the web site author is invoking the "fair use" principles for the material on this site, according to this Fair Use Notice.

Sometime the future concerning digital rights and access can look so bleak. Stuff like this is so much the opposite of the feared future it makes me giggle.

O.K., let's count down the days until they get a "take-down" notice.

I am very much behind on movies that I have meant to see. So I thought I would start a running list here. Similiar to my book list.

If there is a movie you think I should see, add it as a comment.

Classics

• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Casablanca - Technically I've seen twice, but never managed to stay awake the whole way through.
• The Bridge On The River Kwai
• Taxi Driver
• Metropolis
• This is Spinal Tap

Meant to see it

• Fargo
• Saved
• Lost in Translation
• Momento
• The Deer Hunter

Suggested to me

• Crimen del padre Amaro
• Pieces of April
• Fight Club
• Braveheart - what have I been living under a rock!
• Gladiator
• 21 Grams

Obviously this is an incomplete list. I'll keep adding on it for a while.

I love voting. Every time I get a ballot I find myself practically overwhelmed with giddiness. I love the idea of being able to throw out "the man" every few years.

I am fortunate to live in a state with very high voter turn out. Still every year, at least 20% of the eligible voters simply don't show up to the polls. To me this is unconscionable. Who are these people. Is there some way these people can be punished?

With tongue firmly planted in cheek some creative individuals have taken some logical steps to deal with the non-voters among us. (Since this is a little racier than the usual blog material, I'll put the rest into the extended entry.)

Here is a snippet from a recent email exchange I had with a member of my wife's family. I don't usually make private conversations public, but this really does represent how I feel.

I recently ran across a great read on Skeuomorphs. It is germane to me as my chosen field is always grasping for metaphors when presenting fairly complicated choice or functionality to users. It's worth a read.

Anyone want to take a crack at pronouncing skeuomorphs?

IMHO, choosing the right metaphor is the key to the user interface more than anything else. In a complex multi-metaphor product, extending the right metaphor is the key to usability.

I came across the link courtesy of interconnected and Ole Eichhorn.

I'm at home watching the original Manchurian Candidate tonight. It's good, but watch Frank Sinatra doing karate is just a little too mind bending for me. I wish more movies were filmed in black and white.

This made me laugh out loud.

Although I believe technology is allowing people (myself included) to communicate in new and interesting ways, I still think there is a lot of hype about social software.

Joel (a different Joel from the Joel you are thinking of no doubt) sent me a link to the World on Fire Video on iTunes.

Take a look for yourself, it's a great message that make sense to me.

While I shy away from big government solutions to some of the big problems of the world, I believe motivated individuals acting in concert can really make a difference.

Whenever someone admits they read my blog regularly it shocks me. Even though the server logs show otherwise, it still is an enourmous surprise to me that anyone other than me reads this blog.

Some people, who should read it, still don't even though I routinely throw in pompous phrases like, "Of course you would have known that if you had been reading my blog."

I wish everyone had IM on most of the time. I would rather riff over IM than on phone for most casual communications. I do find it strange when an IM goes to a mobile phone.

O.K., I wasn't expecting high brow material here. In fact from the creators of South Park I was expecting low brow, offensive humor that is one of my "guilty pleasures." This movie simply didn't deliver. It was a pretty good send up of a certain kind of Hollywood testosterone driven, nationalistic blockbuster. There were some very funny scenes but overall the movie just wasn't that funny. I do wonder if Alec Baldwin liked the movie more or less than I did.

My favorite recent new parent Jennie, has been posting about the difficulties of parenting. I so sympathize. Parenting is so much harder and more rewarding that I ever expected.

Hearing your child scream helplessly, seeing their glazed eyes the first time they are really sick, watching them tumble down a few stairs are all such heartbreakers. Parenting is full of this kind of heart break; it proves just how much you are head over heels in love.

I've learned so much about myself since having children. I never knew how much I dislike being bitten or contradicted until having children. I used to consider myself a patient and calm person, not anymore.

In a college class on the topic of human sexuality, the idea that the relationship between husband and wife changed dramatically after child birth was a strange mystery. I remember thinking at the time, "I can't imagine why marital satisfaction rates would decrease, how peculiar." Hey, not that I'm not happily married, but when someone goes days without a conversation that isn't interrupted in on way or another it changes things.

On the rewarding side, there is nothing so wonderful as a pair of happy toddlers nearly knocking you down with their hugs when you come home after a hard day of work. There is nothing like your child telling their first joke, catching their first fish, or learning some new skill.

I am listening to Dave Winers podcast. It's a very cool concept. I would love to try posting one of my own. The thought of having to listen to myself to check the file isn't too attractive to me. It's also a bit of a tough sell to get folks to download such a large file, although the podcasting software makes it a little easier. Part of the success of blogs has been in the way that they have a large presence in search engines. Audioblogs won't get the same mindshare from the search engines, as far as i can tell. Of course RSS enclosures and aggregators will make that job much easier.

The most interesting thing to me is that today commercial radio is so bad, that this clunky medium could really catch on.

Have I mentioned I want an iPod?

One more thing, if NPR or MPR would have podcasts available for their members I would sign up immediately.

It's amazing to me what short shrift the constitution gets in the Presidential race. This amazing document defined the President's role and responsibilities, the role of the federal government, and the limits the role of government can play in an individual's life, yet the candidates don't even spend five minutes discussing their views about this document. Sometimes I think politicians are embarrassed about that document, wishing those guys hadn't written it down.

Good fences make good neighbors.

The year at the Lake, the neighbor has really cleaned up his property. It is a real improvement.

I finally had a chance to d/l the Jon Stewart appearance on Crossfire. I had already read the transcript a few days ago so I knew what was going to be said. I still loved the show. It's one of the few times in my life a TV show has fired me up enough to whoop. Below are my favorite lines.

Jon had the chance to go on the show and make people laugh, instead he chose to be serious and hold the pundits feet to the fire. He was right and courageous. Jon Stewart has become the fool (in the classic sense) of this election. He's the one telling the truth about the absurdity of the process; noting the emperor has no clothes. My hat is off to Jon.

He is so right about America needing an honest debate. I propose a new show on PBS that is dedicated to debating real issues. It would follow a more traditional debating style, like High School or College debating instead of the dinner theater style the major parties agreed to in the Presidential debates. The show should also feature fact checkers and intelligent commentators. If this show is on for the next fours years, perhaps the American people will demand a real presidential debate the next election cycle.

While I am not a baseball fanatic or a Red Sox fan, I would like to offer my hearty congratulations to the Boston Red Sox for winning the AL Championship, by beating the Yankees in an amazing comeback.

I can so identify with the feeling of elation that one's favorite team is on the cusp of winning their sports most important match. Growing up I watched the Packers in the 80's and heard about the glory years of the 60's. I never thought I would see them go the Super Bowl in my life time. Seeing them do it not once, but twice was an amazing feeling.

On an intellectual note, I know sports are all about theater, big business, and spectacle, but sometimes the theater is so good you have to watch.

Monica of The' Inkwell has a great riff entitled Surrender monkeys unite!.

She begins by railing about some peacenik appeasement types whose pictures are collected in someone's blog.

The quote from her entry that resonates most with me are the following two paragraphs.

I wish our politicians were this direct in their communication.

This blog post reminds me tangentially of a interview I heard where some historian was describing the naivety of Jimmy Carter's foreign relations. He approached other world leaders as if they were reasonable people who would honor their agreements and could be convinced to take the actions that would be best for the people of their lands.

My reaction at the time, and to this day is that I wish I lived in this mythical "Jimmy Carter world". It would be fabulous. Unfortunately, I live in a world filled with greedy, murderous thugs who are filled with ambition to take what is not theirs by any means necessary.

I do differ with Monica's notion that prayer will do no good, other than perhaps the dubious honor of putting you into good stead with the shamans of your faith.

If there is no God, then prayer still has a good. I believe that no matter how much personal power one possesses in life, there are events beyond one's control. Prayer is an active way to pursue a kind of mental health that wishes for the best and accepts a power greater than one's own "metaphysical potence." Praying for better weather does no harm and relieves one the duty to worry about it.

In the event that there is a God, than perhaps God will intervene in the behalf of the supplicants. It's a small price to pay for a great possibility if you ask me. That's my twisted version of Pascal's Wager I suppose.

So I can pray for peace in the Middle East, but also be very glad that people are willing to go there and enforce the peace with deadly force if required.

Occasionally a blog I really enjoy goes on an extended hiatus. It's a treat when they come back and they are just as good as they used to be.

Welcome back Critical Section, it's great to see your posts. As usual, there is a lot of links to chew on.

Can't wait for The Religious Policeman to start posting again, although I can understand that he might have to wait for regime change.

I'm loving google desktop.

Here is my "google desktop" wish list in no special order. It might do some of these things for all I know, but there isn't much UI or documentation that might show me how.

• Ability to restrict search by file type.
• Integration with gmail.
• Tool to allow developers to write plug-ins to do something special with other file types.
• Syntax and/or configuration to include/exclude files or directories.
• Make initial indexing a little less intrusive re: system resources.
• Ability to search by other criteria.
• Ability to understand exif data, to allow for the searching of photos.

It's a really nice first effort. I can't wait to see how this will turn out.

I can't believe how good the email searching is. I don't know why the Lookout folks didn't make the UI look so cool.

The Packers were in fine form yesterday winning 38-10 over the Detroit Lions. The Pack needed this game and not only did they win, but they did it convincingly. They all seemed to be playing from the same script and it showed in some great plays. Nice job guys.

In my continuing effort to read some important books, I finished The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.

I didn't like the book. I am doing a little research to see if there was some sub-text, meaning, or english lit crapola that would help me to like this book. I'll be the first to admit that after pages and pages of whining and railing against the phonies in life I was a little numb and might have missed something.

Call me old fashioned or hopeless bourgeois, but I like plot. This book lacked that.

<ironically>

Holden didn't have to deal with nearly the phonies that I have to deal with.

</ironically>

We frequently visit a lake cabin owned by my wife's uncle Russ. It is situated near Ely, Minnesota on Lake Vermillion. If you don't have an atlas handy it's not all that far from the border between Minnesota and Canada, on the edge of the BWCAW.

This weekend we went up there to have a little R&R and to get the cabin ready for winter. It was our first time to help shut the cabin down for the winter.

Shutting the cabin down for the winter is a melancholy sort of exercise. The cabin is so full of summer memories; catching loads of crayfish, catching northern and smallmouth bass, taking my niece and nephew camping, entertaining relatives and friends, watching a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis for hours, and much more.

My kids in particular loved going to the cabin this year. From the moment there feet hit the ground they wanted to be outside on the dock or in the boat, or just running around catching squirmy things.

The crunch of leaves underfoot and the chill that accompanied a small snowfall made it clear that winter is approaching fast and we'll have to wait out the bitter Minnesota winter to feel the same skinny dipping--shoes off freedom again.

A classmate of my wife's complained that I did not post enough pictures of my wife on my web site.

Here you go.

BTW, there are reasons why more pictures of my wife aren't displayed on my blog.

• I would take more photos, if someone would sit still and allow me to take more photos.
• I would then post them to the blog more frequently if there wasn't objections lodged when I post them.

Jeannie's uncle has the coolest set of mod chairs you have ever seen. They have sort of Egyptian feet and decorations, but then mostly they are chrome and leather. They are super formal, but at the same time resemble a piece of lawn furniture. I wish I could determine who made these chairs or where they came from.

I am in the middle of reading Smart Mobs, by Howard Rheingold.

It's really interesting to think about ways that IM always on communication can change human behaviors.

I use IM a lot as some of my co-workers are on the other side of the globe. Without IM, there are a number of tasks that would be much harder if I had to rely on email, voicemail, or conference calls.

I think it would be really interesting to write a short story/novella all told with IM's. The only question I have is whether one could truly give the sense of the parallel conversations which might be taking place simultaneously.

It would be interesting to actually perform the story live like a play, but using an IM client. I suppose the stage would have to look like a desktop environment.

I just got back from a quick trip to the Superior Hiking Trail on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Aras and I went camping in Devil Track Canyon, the deepest gorge in Minnesota. Aras managed to take some good shots of me.

Since this blog is really all about me, I thought I would share the best pictures of me. If you want one suitable for framing let me know.

Dinner last night was spectacular. The guests were very talkative and interesting and more importantly nothing serious went wrong with the food.

Ever invite people to your house and then feel a sense of impending doom?

No you say, ... uh me either.

I have always been a packrat when it comes to old books. Lately, I have been thinking that I should part with some. I tried to get rid of them via amazon, but didn't want to part with the book for less than the cost of shipping.

I ran into operation paperback and booksforsoldiers.com. I have a soft spot for anyone who wants a book, but especially for those who have volunteered to place themselves into harms way. It seems like a better use of a book than just leaving them around ... but perhaps I could do both at the same time. Does anyone have any feedback on operationpaperback or booksforsoldiers.com?

As a cvs user, sometimes I create a sandbox for a specific date and time. Then three months later I got back and wonder, gee is there anything important left in my source tree I want to retain? I didn't know how to do that until yesterday. Thanks to Larry T. for setting me straight.

In the VP debate last night Cheney mentioned factcheck.org while defending himself against Haliburton barbs from Edwards. (Unfortunately, he actually referred people to factcheck.com which appears to be one of those placeholder/domain squatters.) In any case the good folks of factcheck.org dutifully put up their analysis of the debate early this morning. Cheney and Edwards Mangle Facts. It's well worth a read no matter your political persuasion. Unfortunately, it really won't restore anyone's belief in the political process or the individuals involved.

The blog ranking site blogstreet ranks this blog 65417 of 141307 blogs. I have watched my ranking for some time and my ranking hasn't really changed much. I think I have a pretty nice little site with interesting content. Why do I rank so low?

Why won't Cheney talk about poverty in Cleveland? He answered about education.

Why wouldn't Cheney answer more directly about Israel. He was off topic.

I think Cheney's crooked smile is endearing.

I know people like to talk about evil Dick Cheney, but frankly he just seems like an effective leader to me. I would rather work for him than Kerry, Bush, or Edwards.

I saw an article on caffeinated beer on Slashdot today. This reminds me of one of my most profitable business ideas, which I have never pursued. NicoSoda: It's like normal soda, but with added nicotine. I thought of it long before the fabled Tomacco episode of the Simpson's BTW. It would be so addictive and profitable.

I am always sympathetic to libertarian leaning political stances. However, I for one am glad that there are checks and balances in the world. When I read someone complaining about government regulations requiring food labeling standards it makes me a bit nervous. Yes, regulations are mostly bad. But if there weren't just a few corporations would run amuck. I think regulations are a pretty good trade for being able to avoid liability in the guise of a corporate shell.

An interesting twist on this showed up in Badnarik's Slashdot interview. He would avoid almost any regulation of corporations, but stockholders would be 100% liable. It's a very interesting way to rebalance things. People would sure invest differently.

Saw "Something's Gotta Give" on DVD this last weekend.

Why is it that almost all romantic comedies follow the exact same story arc. I mean I felt like I could almost set my watch by this movie. "O.K., it's time for the romantic lead to do something to lose the girl at half time"

It was really quite a good romantic comedy and I liked the twist of it involving mature characters. However, it was a good example of a genre that has grown very dull and tedious to me.

When it comes to deciding who won or lost the debate, I have to say the American people lost. As John Stewart said it wasn't a debate it was two campaign speeches given in parallel.

I want to see a real debate.

I'll grant that Kerry acquitted himself nicely, although I still want an answer to how he can build a coalition to win the peace in Iraq, aka "The Grand Diversion."

I finally turned off comments on old posts. The comment spam just got too bad. I have more sympathy for drug dealers than I do spam senders. That's the question I want Bush and Kerry to answer at their next debate. When are they going to start sending the spammers to Iraq.

So I am reading "Smartmobs", the book not the web site, and at the same time have become aware of more people using IM on mobile devices like phones. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

I notice for me, that when a message goes to a mobile device, accidentally or not, I feel like I just intruded. I don't feel the same way if the same message had went to a PC IM client. When I send an IM read on a PC client, it seems as informal as writing a note and leaving it on someone's chair. When it goes to a mobile device it feels more like leaving a note in someone's pocket or their purse. My message just wasn't that important. It didn't have to wing its way across the internet and then across the cell phone infrastructure. I didn't need it taking up precious memory embedded on a hand held device anywhere.

I'm not sure that this reaction is normal. Perhaps it will fade in time after IM with mobile devices get more mainstream like it is in other parts of the world.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was on "The Daily Show" recently. What a perfect gentleman. I wish all the world's leadership looked and acted more like him.

Stewarts best line was about how Tutu was the second Nobel Peace Prize winner on his show. The first was Henry Kissinger, whose Peace Prize was given "ironically." I love John Stewarts show.

Looks like the Packers at 1 and 3 are off to a very slow start this year. So far the last three games looked pretty shaky on both defense and offense. The have to find some rhythm soon or it's going to be a very long season.

I love the way Ahman Green runs the ball. It's always such a shock to me when he turns the ball over. I've seen it happen numerous times, but each time it's still a surprise. That's got to give a person a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach when it happens.

Best of luck guys.

Mike McKenzie is gone now. I really liked watching this guy play for a couple of years. He had a lot of spark and drive. Then he got the big contract and I guess it wasn't big enough and his game went down hill from there. This year he held out in spring training looking for more money and doesn't show up much after that. I don't have much patience for that.

Glad to see Mike McKenzie gone.

I spent yet-another-day in my basement. I am adding a home office. Today I finished the framing of the walls and the ceiling today as well as almost finishing roughing in another door way. The bulk of the day was spent working on an angled corner I put in the office. One simple angle made things a lot harder to do. My mother-in-law's husband has been helping and he has been an enourmous asset to the project.

I am looking forward to the day when this office is truly a fortress of solitude.

I have heard it said by numerous individuals every one has a finite number of tech support calls they can field. Once one reaches beyond this number, the individual can no longer be effective on the phone helping people. I know this to be true from the inside out. To this day this is why I don't carry a cell phone. I can't take the stress.

However, something that looks like a phone but is made for IM seems cool to me. If only there was an IM->Voice gateway I would be set. I mean it's all well and good to IM your friends, but if you need directions to the nearest pizza place, they might not be reachable by IM. How cool would it be if they were? Looks like ATT Wireless is selling a device just like this called the OGO. The only one part I don't like is it's an extra $3.00 for more than one IM provider. This is a bit of an issue for me, as there are a few hold-outs who don't use Yahoo IM. I would hate to spend $3.00 per month, just to talk to two people who won't switch.

I finished "The Soul Of A New Machine", by Tracy Kidder recently.

I had heard of this book several times in reference to the tech industry and product development cycles. It is the story of the development of a 32 bit computer at Data General which they needed badly to compete with their competitors. It followed the entire release process from inception, through internal politics, all the way through QE. In some regards it seemed very real, very much like experiences I have had in the high tech industry. On the other hand, it never portrayed the emotional roller coaster of the cycle very well. The end was especially strange to me as the main character sort of fades away, which was unexpected. Perhaps it was disappointing because it was more reality than fantasy at this point. I give it three stars out of four.