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February 28, 2001
Last Monday, some new signs
Last Monday, some new signs went up in my neighborhood, and later that dark and rainy night, I didn't notice. The next morning, bare asphalt sat where my car once was. For the first time in my life, my car was towed, and it sucked.
Posted by 12:27 PM | TrackBack
"Let me be by myself
"Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in."
I'll be thinking of Cole Porter's words when we all hit Austin next week. I remember the limitless skies and limitless possibilities, and I hope we can rekindle that again this year.
Posted by 06:01 AM | TrackBack
February 25, 2001
Tuesday night's Frontline episode on
Tuesday night's Frontline episode on marketing to teens looks like it will be interesting.
Posted by 10:39 AM | TrackBack
Finally. Last xmas, I was
Finally. Last xmas, I was wondering why the BattleBots franchise hadn't released some low-end remote control fighting bots. They're not due until this summer, but I'm certain they'll be a popular geek toy. They'll be like an updated, tech version of rockem sockem robots, and I can almost hear the battles within the office halls now...
Posted by 09:43 AM | TrackBack
February 23, 2001
This post was done wirelessly,
This post was done wirelessly, in the next room, 20 feet from my DSL line, thanks to a newly purchased apple airport. Home wireless (encrypted, cross platform) networking is worth the effort.
Oh, and if you bring a DV camera to work, and you stick it in my face over and over, I will whine like a 10 year old child (3Mb, quicktime).
Posted by 12:47 PM | TrackBack
I got a laptop at
I got a laptop at work, and it has a trackpad. Although they work better for photoshop, I prefer eraserhead pointers on my notebooks. The reason? My hands accidentally hover over the touchpad and occasionally make phantom clicks. I've been looking all night for a touchpad hack, to kill the taps = clicks thing, but now that deja's newsgroup archive is gone, I can't find anything.
I was thinking the other day, deja missed their calling on the archive. They could have easily turned it into a money-making treasure trove of ideas. A napster of ideas, if you will, with reimbursements for authors. If there were a paypal or amazon paybox link on deja pages, I'd use them. Often. There have been times where a single newsgroup message saved me hundreds of dollars, days of time, and kept me from pulling my hair out. Most of my deja digging was for the purpose of tech support, and since it came free after some searching labor, I would have gladly kicked the author and deja five bucks for the most useful tips. Deja could have kept most of the money, and paypaled via email the author of the original usenet post. Nowhere near a perfect system, but it's something.
Anyway, I guess I'm getting to the point of giving up. I have a Dell Inspiron 5000 with trackpad I'd like to disable tapping from producing mouse clicks in Windows 2000, and I'm willing to pay for that tip. Tell you what, I'll paypal five bucks to the first person that can give me the correct answer. I don't want to disable the mouse entirely (which can be done in the bios), I merely want to adjust its behavior. The OS control panel doesn't let me do it, but I bet someone wrote a utility to allow for it. Let me know, and you'll be five dollars richer.
update: Graham Walker came up with this utility, which I couldn't track down yesterday. I loaded it and there was an option to kill taps as mouseclicks. See? There's a market in information bounty hunting, someone just has to tap it.
Posted by 01:06 AM | TrackBack
February 20, 2001
The highlight of my daily
The highlight of my daily drive down to Menlo Park is passing by Buddy Junipero Serra. Naturally, I call him "Buddy" as an homage to Dogma's Buddy Christ.
It's a great wacky statue and appears as if a committee agreed to shed the stoic, boring monk image, in favor of something more. He's not just a priest that brought Catholicism to California, he's dynamic, he's your primary action item, when you enter a room he shouts your favorite catchphrases, he's your pal, and if you were in a fight, Buddy Serra's got your back.
"Who's your buddy!" the statue shouts.
You are Father Serra, you are.
Posted by 09:40 AM | TrackBack
Someone asked me what the
Someone asked me what the main difference between working at KnowNow and Pyra is, and I can boil it down to four simple words: All You Can Eat.
Posted by 01:25 AM | TrackBack
February 19, 2001
A quick story from
A quick story from the wedding, in which I realized among others, I owe Larry Roberts, Bob Kahn, Len Kleinrock, Bob Metcalfe, and Vint Cef lunch, for saving my butt that day (if that makes no sense to you, read this).
Also, some photos from the event. A good time was had by all.
Posted by 01:37 AM | TrackBack
February 15, 2001
The 'Summer of Love' started
The 'Summer of Love' started on a street called Haight.
I always thought that was weird.
Posted by 11:35 AM | TrackBack
February 14, 2001
Today was my first day
Today was my first day at KnowNow, and since the company has slipped behind a transmeta-esque veil of secrecy, the most popular IM message I get these days is "so what does KnowNow actually do?" I'm under NDA, so I can't say, but Dan Gilmor attended the O'Reilly P2P conference and spilled some of the beans in his column today.
So there, now you know. Quit askin' me already.
Posted by 10:38 AM | TrackBack
February 13, 2001
With a wedding to attend
With a wedding to attend this weekend, I set out to buy a snazzy shirt and tie. I simplified my life last year by buying a black suit. No more quandaries about whether that eggshell shirt or orange tie will match the brown or gray suit I have at home, from now on, everything just has to go with black.
In my mind, I came up with a quick plan: hit Nordstroms, find a white shirt (simplify!) and colorful tie, and each would probably run $40 or so. A portly, balding gentleman materialized out of thin air the moment I stepped near the tie racks, measured my neck, and was off in search of a shirt for a customer with ape-length arms. He returned with a small number of choices, and for obvious reasons, I picked the whitest, softest in the bunch (you can't put a price on comfort).
The next and last thing to do was pick a tie, and if ties could ask questions, the store offered anything from "Would you like to open an account at this bank?" to "Is that your final answer?" My eye was drawn towards the Regis end of the spectrum, the man helping me, the bank employee end. After shaking my head and making a few "naw, how about something a bit more daring?" comments, he gave up and asked me to pick anything I liked, and a shiny green striped number jumped out at me.
He sprang to life, put it on top of the shirt, and began uttering a series of highly positive adjectives. It was odd to see him react so, but in my mind I felt smug and thought "Yes, those do look good together, I totally understand his enthusiasm for my good taste." As he gently wrapped the shirt and tie in multiple layers of tissue paper, complete with small Nordstrom-branded stickers, I slid my visa card across the counter in response to a slightly high $150-something total. I figured the shirt was probably worth whatever the price was, and it would stay soft and last for a very long time.
As I left the store, and strolled out to my car, I fished the receipt out of the bag, and realized I just bought a $110 tie.
Posted by 03:15 AM | TrackBack
February 12, 2001
I'm happy to report I'm
I'm happy to report I'm once again employed. In a couple days I'll start at KnowNow.
That means no more late nights coding my personal sites, no more sleeping past noon, sitting around with my playstation all day, watching one dvd after another, and no longer will I eat everything in the house due to boredom.
Though I doubt slashdot notices like they did for that other guy coming to work for KnowNow.
Posted by 06:19 AM | TrackBack
If the writers at TV
If the writers at TV Funhouse ever started making commercials, I suspect they'd look a lot like this PETA ad. The adcritic kiddies love it, though I doubt any networks have the sense of humor or guts to air it [via harrumph!].
Posted by 04:06 AM | TrackBack
The comedic material within Best
The comedic material within Best in Show is going on now, broadcast nightly for the next couple days (check out USA's site, they make the competition look downright hip).
I'd love to hear the announcers answer my question of "How much do you think I could bench press, if you had to guess...just a ballpark figure, how much?"
Posted by 03:30 AM | TrackBack
February 11, 2001
The Oscar nominations come out
The Oscar nominations come out on Tuesday, and in case you were wondering, here are the rules and here is everyone up for a nomination. When I tried to remember favorites from the year 2000, I had a hard time coming up with any, since it seems like everything came out in the last couple months, to squeak under the oscar deadline. I hope Crouching Tiger and Traffic get a few though.
Posted by 07:05 AM | TrackBack
February 10, 2001
Tenacious D is the
Tenacious D is the greatest band on earth for a multitude of reasons, but one of them is their hilarious and insightful lyrics. Tonight, I wrote down my favorite passage:
"If I was to distill down the message of the D, into one phrase that you could take home and meditate on... I'd say: 'set the artist free.'
I'm talkin' about this artist, inside of your heart. Set it free!
You know what I'm saying? I'm saying quit your day job. And I know that scares a lot of you. And a lot of you are saying 'Fuck you Jack, I can't quit my fucking day job, I have kids to feed.'
Quit your fucking day job.
Focus on your craft, one time! Before it's over, and you've squandered it, because you're a fucking robot!
And after a couple years of earnest, concerted effort, me and Kyle will swoop in, we will check out your progress. And we will say 'continue.' We will encourage you. Continue!
Or we'll say 'stop' And then seriously, you must stop, if we say so. Otherwise, penalties, we'll think them up, and enforce them..."
Tenacious D "Cosmic Shame" introduction (Download it here).
Posted by 01:50 AM | TrackBack
February 09, 2001
I'm glad I didn't put
I'm glad I didn't put my snowboard back in storage just yet. According to the national weather service, the cold alaskan storm we're experiencing may actually dump snow on the bigger hills of the city tonight. You haven't lived until you've carved 2 feet of fresh powder on Clayton Ave., did a railslide across the trunk of a BMW, or 360'd off the Sutro Tower.
Posted by 07:20 AM | TrackBack
I've always secretly hated Design
I've always secretly hated Design Within Reach, because they send me beautiful catalogs filled with things I admire, but I doubt anything they carry will ever be within my reach. However, tomorrow they're having a sale, and maybe, just maybe I could afford something I've always wanted, but I'll have to settle for wishing I had the money to go. Why must beautiful things cost so much?
Posted by 02:58 AM | TrackBack
Today was a relaxing day,
Today was a relaxing day, spent hanging out in Sonoma County. Davis Bynum continues to be a great place to taste and buy wine, and Armstrong Woods was the perfect mix of serenity and natural awe. Here are photos from the trip.
Posted by 01:05 AM | TrackBack
February 08, 2001
Being unemployed certainly has its
Being unemployed certainly has its advantages. I can get errands done easily during the day, I can stay up until 5am redesigning and coding a website, and I can finally get to those projects that were sitting on my "to do" pile for the past year or two.
Case in point: the new More section of this site is something I've had in my head for two years. Write articles, design covers for them, put a simple db setup behind it all, and updating is a piece of cake. So far, I've imported some old stuff into it, and designed screens for each piece. I hope to add a new one every couple weeks, but I'll have to wait and see how long this creative binge lasts.
Posted by 01:33 AM | TrackBack
February 07, 2001
A new look, a new
A new look, a new name, a new site. Last week I looked over the incessant rambling of the last year or so, and I realized it was complete fluff. Nothingness. Space.
So I grabbed an appropriate URL, built a little content system and here it is.
I'll be experimenting with new features, once the longer content is in place (in the "more" section, which isn't live just yet), but you'll always see bursts of thoughts in this space.
Posted by 03:43 AM | TrackBack
February 02, 2001
"it's about the struggle between
"it's about the struggle between individuals with jagged passion in their work and today's faceless corporate committees which claim to understand the needs of the mass audience
I offer a modest solution: Find the cracks in the wall
There are a very few lunatic entrepreneurs who will understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets but about creating a future
They will understand that wealth is a means, not an end
Under other circumstances, they may have turned out to be like you, creative lunatics.
Believe me, they're there and when you find them (or they find you) treat them well and use their money to change the world."
Tibor Kalman
New York June 1998
Posted by 01:21 AM | TrackBack
February 01, 2001
Tonight on Behind The Website,
Tonight on Behind The Website, the story behind Pyra/Blogger.
Posted by 07:01 AM | TrackBack
Strange things that happened today:
Strange things that happened today:
I get in my car, turn on the radio and U2's "Beautiful Day" starts. Cruel irony, why must you mock me?!
Driving home, a Monster.com blimp was flying over the city, over my neighborhood.