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August 31, 2000
You know, Yahoo's popularity just
You know, Yahoo's popularity just ain't what it used to be. I found out that MetaFilter made it into their Cool Links page this week, but it's only accounted to about 50 new visitors a day.
50! From the millions that hit Yahoo everyday? Oh well, at least they have great maps, address books, bookmarks, and messengers.
Posted by 12:33 PM | TrackBack
August 30, 2000
Happy Birthday Paul!
Happy Birthday Paul!
Posted by 02:02 AM | TrackBack
August 28, 2000
You know, the idea of
You know, the idea of fuckedcompany.com was funny at first - poking fun at bad business ideas.
But if you've ever actually looked at the discussion boards, they're filled with people reveling in others' demise. It's schadenfreude on a grand scale, and the degree to which these people put down companies and the people behind them is appalling. All I want to know is, what's so great about a company you never used folding up? How does it make your life or anyone else's better?
Posted by 04:08 AM | TrackBack
Spent the weekend hanging out
Spent the weekend hanging out with friends, sipping wine up north, and riding my bike to the ocean and back. It's great to do a lot in a weekend, but now I need a couple days to recover from it.
Posted by 03:07 AM | TrackBack
August 25, 2000
I'm going to miss working
I'm going to miss working alongside Derek, but I wish him all the best on his book. Actually, I can't wait until he finishes it, so I can read it and perhaps improve MetaFilter.
Speaking of MetaFilter, I won the in-office pool on how long it'd take the meme to show up as a new thread (I picked before 11:45AM :).
Posted by 12:24 PM | TrackBack
August 24, 2000
Since it won't be working
Since it won't be working tomorrow, I deleted my deepleap bookmarklet off my browser's toolbar today. It didn't seem so final until just now. It's really going to be gone soon.
Posted by 04:36 AM | TrackBack
August 23, 2000
Using windows 2000 for the
Using windows 2000 for the past few months at work and for the past month at home has continually surprised me. It was released in February of this year, and six months later, almost all the hardware on my computers either run beta software drivers or can't run in windows 2000. A recent trip to Fry's for a modem revealed that on a wall with over 40 modems for sale, only one box mentioned windows 2000. One. The OS was in beta for over a year before it, but companies still seem to be scrambling to write drivers for it today. And now Windows Me is set to release in less than a month, but I hadn't seen a beta for it until about four months ago, so I seriously doubt there will be much support for it when it gets released.
Is windows development progressing too quickly these days? Are companies forced to do so much work to get drivers written that they can't do it without a couple years of lead time? It's almost as if Microsoft's doing more harm than good for itself by releasing all these new OSes in a hardware market that can't seem to handle it. Are they innovating too quickly?
Posted by 10:59 AM | TrackBack
I finally got DSL at
I finally got DSL at home, and the Concentric/Covad installer mentioned something that struck me as funny. He said "hmm, the DSL loop install down in your phone box was done badly. It's almost as if PacBell purposely split the cable across two posts, when both cables should come from one post. It will work, but it could easily be damaged or disconnected if work is done on either post."
Now if I were a conspiracy theory junkie, I'd say something here about how I complained about PacBell, and how that might be linked to my name in a database at PacBell some where, but I won't.
Posted by 01:19 AM | TrackBack
Happy Birthday Blogger. I
Happy Birthday Blogger. I hope you like the card filled with McDonalds 50¢ gift certificates I gave you.
Posted by 01:10 AM | TrackBack
August 22, 2000
I'm saddened to hear that
I'm saddened to hear that deepleap will be closing their doors and shutting down servers soon. I loved the app and used it daily. I suppose I can backflip most of my bookmarks until I find something closer to deepleap.
Good luck Lane, Bryan, Ben, Courtney, and Tempy. And thanks for everything you gave us.
Posted by 09:05 AM | TrackBack
For the first time in
For the first time in about four weeks, I drove to work today. I started riding my bike last month, and am greatly enjoying it. It's about four miles each way, takes 15-20 minutes to get to work, 20-30 minutes to get home (slightly uphill and usually in a strong headwind), and I get a good workout. According to my bike computer, in the last month I've riden over 165 miles, averaging just under 13 miles an hour while on my bike, with an all time top speed of 36.5 miles per hour (there's a downhill on Market Street that's a great rush at this speed).
Today however, I feel like a lump of lard for driving, and to add insult to injury, it took over 35 minutes to drive to work, park, and walk to my office. A usual drive to work takes about 20 minutes, which is about the same as a bike ride, so I'm only averaging 13 miles an hour in my car, which seems unbelievable and downright pathetic.
Tomorrow, I'm back on my bike.
Posted by 06:30 AM | TrackBack
August 20, 2000
I was watching the gymnastics
I was watching the gymnastics olympic trials today and had the sudden realization of why I'm not a big fan of gymnastics or figure skating. They are sports judged almost entirely by focusing on faults. There's judges dissecting every move, analyzing every step in an effort to see what was done wrong. When you listen to commentators, they say things like "that hop is going to cost him" "her legs aren't perfectly together during her flip" a lot more than they say "great move." The fault finding goes on and on, as the camera follows and interviews athletes that miss qualifying by fractions of points, or single mistakes during routines. It's all about putting mistakes under microscopes and it gets old real quick.
When the olympics get televised next month, I hope NBC gives other sports more time, instead of focusing so much on gymnastics like they did in 1996.
Posted by 05:08 AM | TrackBack
August 18, 2000
I've wasted most of today
I've wasted most of today dealing with the first half of a DSL install. I won't go into the details, because bitching about DSL install problems is about as interesting as talking about the weather, but I'll just say that I can't stand incompetence. Phone companies that get too big become incompetent and in a normal economy other companies should be able to swoop in and steal the market from these lumbering dinosaurs. But that doesn't seem to happen now, does it?
Posted by 02:07 AM | TrackBack
The Eggers piece linked below
The Eggers piece linked below is causing a lot of discussion among many of my peers, but everyone seems to have a different interpretation of it. For what it's worth, what I liked best about the article was the lambasting of the "keeping it real" and "sellout" addendum at the end. Judging and keeping tabs on who or what is cool and who is a sellout is a tremendous waste of time. I don't see it as a blasting of all critics and criticism at all. I don't think I was very clear before.
Posted by 01:58 AM | TrackBack
August 17, 2000
Weezer is one of my
Weezer is one of my favorite bands, and one of my favorite songs by them is only in dreams (link won't work as of 8/18 as the waferbaby crew works out server problems). The description posted there meshes well with how I think of the song, except during the long instrumental leading to the crescendo, I always thought it was weezer's sense of humor paying homage to arena rock stars like KISS. The pounding, speeding drum and wailing duel guitars make me think of smoke machines, lighting effects, and pyrotechnics.
Posted by 05:43 AM | TrackBack
The X games started
The X games started today, and I hope to catch some of the action this week and next. Hopefully it won't be too crowded.
Posted by 05:25 AM | TrackBack
August 16, 2000
This interview with Dave Eggers
This interview with Dave Eggers is possibly the best rant I've ever read. Sit down and read it all, or at least just the addendum near the end.
Dave talking about criticism:
"It's born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It's ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don't have to get off the couch to dismantle them."
exactly.
Posted by 10:43 AM | TrackBack
August 15, 2000
Hmm... maybe I don't need
Hmm... maybe I don't need a Tivo after all: Snapstream looks like it can interface with my video card and tape shows to my hard drive without any problem. Of course, I have to watch the shows on my monitor, instead of the TV, but it's much cheaper.
Posted by 12:59 PM | TrackBack
Gadget lust reaches a new
Gadget lust reaches a new high: Circuit City is selling 14 hr TiVos for $99 after rebate (and remember they're built on hackable linux).
Must. Resist. Urge. To. Purchase.
Posted by 11:21 AM | TrackBack
August 14, 2000
Growing up in California, I
Growing up in California, I have distinct memories of taking family trips every year up and down the state, and passing quite a number of attractions along the way. There's a small handful of places I always wanted to go (like Hearst Castle, Huntington Library, the Redwoods of the northern coast), and as I've grown up, I've gone out of my way to visit these places I never had the chance to as a kid. On Saturday, I was driving through San Jose with Kay, and we were leisurely looking for mall, but then we saw a sign. Winchester Mystery House next exit. I said something about always begging my parents to stop and they never would. Kay echoed those thoughts and said she always wanted to see it, regardless of how cheesy she knew it would be.
So we stopped, and took the tour. I was happy to knock another roadside attraction off my list because to be honest, the place was an enormous letdown. In billboards and advertisements, the place is positioned as some sort of mystical, slightly haunted house, but I think the only mystery to the house is why anyone would want to perserve a crazy widow's bad experiments with architecture. The house is a monstrosity of bad choices and bad taste.
Posted by 10:38 AM | TrackBack
August 11, 2000
I haven't posted to it
I haven't posted to it since I set it up, but just so you know, our wedding blog is over here. Expect a bunch of activity there in the future, as the magic date swiftly approaches.
Posted by 06:37 AM | TrackBack
I've already read the book
I've already read the book Travels with Samantha online (and on my palmpilot), but seeing the photographs in full resolution alongside the words is going to make having the book worth it.
Why don't more web writers publish their work in dead tree format?
Posted by 04:16 AM | TrackBack
August 10, 2000
Lance wrote a followup to
Lance wrote a followup to his napster/artists' rights piece, where he talks about the future train running recklessly into the night, and it mirrors many of the thoughts I've been having lately regarding p-to-p/sharing technology.
The future is coming fast and I'm starting to sense a slight loss of control. Control from creators, distributors, users, everyone. This actually isn't a good thing at all. For the first time, I'm really seeing something created that people say "hey, you can't stop it even if you want to." Like the Freenet creator interview here, he basically describes how he's built a beast that can't be stopped to taken offline completely by anyone. He's essentially built a monster that can't be killed.
Is this progress?
After thinking about Lance's media-free digital future for the past week, I had a horrible vision one night: imagine a new Radiohead album that was entirely about Pepsi. Since file sharing is entirely free and the artists have no way to reclaim royalties from digitally shared music, imagine a future world where artists create things that are advertisements in and of themselves. If a musician can't make a buck on 12 tracks released to napster, they'll certainly be open to writing songs about products for an ample fee. Is that a future we want to see?
I love napster, and I've often pushed the pro-napster debate, but it was always with a "where do I send my money to?" mentality behind it. I keep waiting for Napster or someone else to devise a sharing system that does in fact allow for artist payments, but there's very few out there now (eMusic seems to be one of the only ones).
Posted by 02:18 AM | TrackBack
August 07, 2000
You know, the new IE
You know, the new IE colored scrollbars feature is annoying from a UI perspective.
Take Taylor's wonderful Captain Cursor Creations. When viewed in IE 5.5, the scroll bars match the page background closely. Today I visited the site while having 3 or 4 other IE windows open behind it, I went to drag the scroll bar on Taylor's site, but instead clicked outside the window to a window beneath. I went back to figure out what happened, and noticed that it's hard to see the scroll bar apart from the page. Blurring the line between the window chrome and the page design is a bad thing, as I've been using windows that look a certain way and act a certain way for years (god, I'm starting to sound like a usability freak, aren't I?)
Maybe I'm getting old or something, but it seems to me that forcing a user to hunt down basic windowing control elements within a design makes a site less usable, and I wonder why Microsoft programmed the customizable scrollbars in the first place.
Posted by 06:22 AM | TrackBack
Ouch.
Ouch.
Posted by 05:21 AM | TrackBack
August 04, 2000
I can't stop listening to
I can't stop listening to this and this by the Neutral Milk Hotel. I can't put my finger on why, I suppose they sound refreshingly different than anything I've heard recently. They're a breath of fresh air.
Posted by 12:02 PM | TrackBack
Authentic Godzilla! - bad
Authentic Godzilla! - bad dubbing, cheesy special effects, no computer graphic overload. This is going to be great.
Posted by 04:26 AM | TrackBack
Who says politics are boring?
Who says politics are boring? A quick run through some headlines revealed some interesting tidbits. Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian, the Sierra Club backed Gore over Nader, and Bush is ahead of Gore!?!
Note to self: pay attention and register to vote online with your new address dammit!
Posted by 04:14 AM | TrackBack
August 03, 2000
Oh my lord...Wired News is
Oh my lord...Wired News is quoting posts from MetaFilter in news articles. How crazy is that?! They even gave props to Ryan. Amazing.
Posted by 12:32 PM | TrackBack
August 02, 2000
Apparently, the @ sign was
Apparently, the @ sign was invented in Italy over five hundred years ago. They must have noticed it on a lesser-known painting signed by michaelangelo@sistinechapel.rome.gov.it
I hope Derek has fun in the birthplace of the @
Posted by 08:46 AM | TrackBack
Reason #2,235 not to vote
Reason #2,235 not to vote for George Bush: This revolting passage is from the Texas State Constitution, Article 1, Section 4
Posted by 04:13 AM | TrackBack
August 01, 2000
I've noticed something odd in
I've noticed something odd in my web wanderings today. When I buy stuff online, it's almost always of the uber-popular books/CDs/movies/computer stuff/playstation games/toys variety, so naturally, I'm well covered by the heavyweights of the e-commerce industry. But, when you go outside the realm of the everyday online products, the pickings are slim, and the sites are horrible.
I'm looking for some airwalk shoes that I can ride my mountain bike with (w/ spd pedals), but airwalk's site is giving me ASP errors and I can't actually buy anything direct from them. Terrific, so I go to fogdog, the "amazon of sports junk" but they don't have what I want.
I'm also looking for some new skate shoes, but fogdog doesn't have any Vans or DC shoes in my size, and the company sites are these horrible flash monstrosities that don't let you actually buy anything.
So I go to skateboarding.com, surely they must have some sort of paid portal where I can find some good e-commerce sites that will offer me the goods I want to purchase. But everything linked off their shop is pretty weak in terms of navigation, shopping carts, and product availability. I'm not going to trust any of them with my $80.
Several months ago, a similar experience came up when I tried to look for Futon bed/couches, and when I looked for a new mountain bike. Nothing but unprofessional sites that lack features Amazon/B&N/buy.com/Borders.com had in 1997.
I guess the moral of the story is, there's plenty of sites out there that still need building, the e-commerce pie is far from completely taken.
Posted by 12:15 PM | TrackBack
PacBell is the absolute worst
PacBell is the absolute worst company I have ever had the displeasure to deal with
(from a letter I'm sending to PacBell Customer Service):
When I ordered a new phone line on July 15th, I added the additional DSL package which I was told would be scheduled for a August 1st self-install (I was told I could have an installer come out and do it for me, but that would require waiting until August 9th). I'm an internet professional and having a broadband connection is an absolute necessity for me. Every day I am without it, I am heavily inconvenienced. On the morning of August 1st, I called customer service to double check on the arrival date of my DSL modem and service. During the call, I was informed that although the person signing me up for a new phone line also signed me up for DSL, she didn't actually place the order. I was further informed that DSL service isn't actually available in my area, due to high demand and a limited number of connections available in the area, and the best thing I could do right now was get on a waiting list.
I'm displeased with the level of service PacBell continually provides, it's simply unacceptable in this day and age to give customers false information, without any explanation as to why it occurred. I want PacBell to know that I'm dissatisfied and will not be signing up for DSL service through the company, and will instead be searching for alternatives.
Posted by 09:22 AM | TrackBack
So I found out over
So I found out over the past couple days that my apartment has some pretty aggresive ants. If you eat a cookie somewhere and don't clean up the floor, thousands of ants come out of no where to finish the job.
But, it's not just my sloppy, lazy ass that's calling them out of the woodwork, this morning they found my cats' food bowls. My cats woke me up this morning with "we're hungry, feed us now" sounds, and when I went to put some food in, I noticed their old food was covered in ants, which seemed to sort of confuse the cats. I asked jeeves for a solution, but he could only come up with this futuristic bowl. Maybe I'll construct a moat of water around the bowls tonight and see if that works. If anyone else knows of a safe solution, let me know.