July 30, 2003
Ah, the Web

Mike forwarded me to the Job for John website.

Think Michael Moore, without bombast and writ smaller (but with a drivethrough).

Posted by esinclai at 06:42 PM
July 29, 2003
One of those guys...

I'm one of those guys, whose wife watches Sex and the City on HBO.

Last night, I caught them doing something very savvy. The guy gets the
girl, in this case the not-immediately-appealling Harry proposes to the
no-longer-WASP Charlotte.

So now, instead of the overdressed girl hooking the catchy guy, the
shlumpy guy gets the girl.

Which is, imho, probably how most of the husbands sitting on couches as
their wives watch the show feel - the "how did I get here moment".

No spoilers, please.

Posted by esinclai at 08:58 AM
July 28, 2003
When...

When is it time to take the "No War" badges off our satchels and
jackets? Or is it just more convenient to keep it there so one doesn't
have to rummage around for it in the drawer when the next military
action comes about?

Posted by esinclai at 06:28 PM
July 25, 2003
UI Violation Karate Chop!

I'm a fan of the various UI Curmudgeon's out there... Daring Fireball, Tog, et al. They help to provide me with the critical tools to begin to grasp why things don't seem to work well.

Anil now has added himself to that list, and he made me laugh aloud to boot.

But here's the thing (ok, along with him being right and all...). He always looks so mild when he's seen in person at conferences. Is he on his best behavior, and this is the raging beast inside him striving to get out and cause people what can be most delicately referred to as reproductive damage (admittedly, for a nominal fee).

And will this enforcement of good UI practices become a value-add service for SixApart?

Posted by esinclai at 10:24 PM
nodding

I think David has the sense correct here, that sharing rather than hoarding of knowledge makes any organization or individual stronger, both as that particular entity as well as as an organization with ideas and knowledge.

This sharing, of course, can take many forms - from corporate logs to hallway conversations to regular presentations of current investigations.

Plus Plus, David.

Posted by esinclai at 06:57 AM
July 24, 2003
Power of Music

Somewhere in my drafts folder is a longer VB/musical memory piece along the lines of Mike's.

But also to be remembered is the redemptive, not just rememorative aspects, of music.

Take for example the recovery of a bad dayend.

What could help resolve the distress and angst of a quick system test gone awry, the quick documentation of the problems, and the quick necessity of a repair to return to service. All of which takes 40% longer than hoped...

That's right. Live and Loud Clash recordings.

Phew. Thanks again, Joe.

Posted by esinclai at 05:58 PM
OSX ++

So the home network is a wireless thing with multiple boxes on it at any given time, DHCP'ing when necessary. Typically this is swell.

Except when the XP box, for whatever reason (a router upgrade yesterday, for example) changes leases. Since that box is also the IP printing server, I have to readjust the configuration on the OSX box to find the lpd anew.

Ah, but this morning I discovered that since I consistently do this after I've already enqueued a half dozen jobs, I can -yes!- drag and drop the jobs between the old failing queue and the new functioning one.

It 'just works'.

Now to lock down the lease for that XP box... That would be even smarter....

Posted by esinclai at 07:33 AM
Overlinked

It's overlinked, but hard to not delight in... This short kabuki / lotech ping-pong (.wmv) as special effects exposure clip really does warrant a viewing. If for no other reason than it opens up the "camera vs stage movement" dichotomy nicely.

I made my linkage from Trevor Smith

Posted by esinclai at 06:58 AM
July 22, 2003
More on Semantic Indexing

Some time back I referenced referenced Maciej Ceglowski's talk at ETCon about semantic P2P semantic search engines. In cleaning up for a talk to be given later this week (a broad ETCon overview), I finally reviewed for his slides and notes, which certainly warrant review.

Beyond that goodness, Maciej has posted his talk from OSCon 2003, which I was unable to attend.

Ah, food for the thought.

Posted by esinclai at 02:26 PM
July 20, 2003
Trudeau

Garry Trudeau does a swell job of drawing out the delineations of political reality, but sometimes overlooked is his attention to detail for domestic reality. As a reader from the start (well, post-Yale), I still delight in that same attention.

Today's strip is an excellent case in point. On my once or twice daily tithings to the gods of stimulant and sociality, I wonder much the same thing.

At this same time, let me remind you of the fineness of iComic.... Making the reading and reference to the comics easy, but retaining access to those capital generating methods the comics require.

Posted by esinclai at 10:17 AM
July 19, 2003
X-Chat Aqua

Doesn't look like it got a lot of notice, but X-Chat Aqua, a cocoa port of XChat, got a rev yesterday to version 0.10.1. Incorporates some better handling of URLs, some cleaner keyboard shortcuts, etc.

It's still alpha code, but quite nice.

Posted by esinclai at 01:26 PM
July 17, 2003
A Quote

I meant to snag this the other day, but forgot to until I came it across again. Chris Dent writes (with regard to Purple Numbers, but on a mailing list):

Transcluding is a good tool in the process of presenting thesis and antithesis, but at some point we want to crystallize out the synthesis.

Nicely put, and a difficult goal; somewhere in the serendipitous nature of discovery we hit the aha moment. Making that clear can be hard.

(and I'll point out to some readers that what I've done there is in fact a use of Purple Numbers.)

Posted by esinclai at 09:40 PM
July 16, 2003
Apple on Intel. It's twoo, it's twoo!

The rumours are true.

A picture on page C4 of Today's New York Times is captioned about a
laptop with an Intel Centrino chipset in use with McDonald's WiFi access.

But the screen shows Intel's website on a Mac OSX desktop...

Quick! Get Steve Lohr or John Markoff on the case. This could be the
secret hidden announcement for the MacWorld Expo!

Posted by esinclai at 08:28 AM
July 15, 2003
At long, long last

Our shelves, as A has noted, have been installed at last - in a marathon 6 hour frenzy of grunting, drilling, wakening the neighbors with an air compressor, shifting, sweating and, overall, smiling. Dave, who built the things, did most of the heavy lifting, and the went into place beautifully. Pictures of the assembled mass will follow

The great thing about it - for the first time since we moved to Chicago, something like 7 years ago - is that all my vinyl is out of the boxes, and up on shelves where I can refer to it. So I can pull out gems like an early Vulgar Boatmen album (about whose central songwriting you must read Mike this week, and consider going to the record release at Schuba's). Or a Rough Trade promo of Youssou N'Dour covering Rubber Band Man.

And for the first time since I left Parlano's self-managed and controlled office space, my O'Reilly titles are out and gathered together for ready reference. Still need to reorganize the Beat/Punk/Situ works (so I can threaten A with them....), but that shall come with use and time.

Life is indeed good.

Next: The Comfy Chair!

Posted by esinclai at 09:25 PM
confused

Does Radio / Manila not support blocking access to a file via IP? Wouldn't that solve Dave Winer's problem with reasonable quickness?

Obviously, it doesn't address the political problems, but the technical overloads would be mitigated as a start, and then calmer discussion might be able to happen...

For what its worth, I found the diffs entertaining the one time I looked at them, but the minor changes were less interesting that one might have thought.

Posted by esinclai at 07:07 AM
July 12, 2003
Fulfillment

Finally got to see X tonight, after many years of not - being too young (and not allowed to go hang outside the back door of the bar they played at during my adolescence), or them, well, not being a band - being able to.

Quite the great show from X, even with an inexorable interstitial band between the pretty decent rockabilly/punkesque St Louis band that opened and X themselves. As D. put it "I'm trying to decide between whether they want to be Nirvana or Mudhoney, and why to bother?"

But oh, my aging bones are tired. I don't see how the band can pull it off every night...

Posted by esinclai at 01:17 AM
July 11, 2003
Apple Store Fun

In Santa Monica, Hal Bergman is taking part in an Apple Store Campout, attempting to be the first in line for that store's opening this evening.

Read on for his travails of power, police, and lack of sleep!

Posted by esinclai at 10:27 AM
Your moment of Tao

From Trevor (from someone else) comes this bit of morning calming.

Posted by esinclai at 06:53 AM
July 10, 2003
Art People

A and I went to an art opening tonight, to see a friend of ours perform as part of an installation.


On the way over, A was concerned about being surrounded by At People (as one will at these things). Well, we're here, and we are.


As mike says... "Kissy Kissy!"

Posted by esinclai at 08:28 PM
July 06, 2003
Palm Retrocomputing

Mike forwarded me the PalmApple - Apple IIe Emulator for Palm reference that's been making the rounds. I haven't installed it yet - but it looks wacky and sweet.

Now I can finish the Learning Pascal on the Apple II book I purchased 20 some years ago!

Posted by esinclai at 09:18 PM
July 03, 2003
MT Bookmarklet for Safari

Though I've largely moved to using Kung-Log for my posting, it's nice to see that Backup Brain has posted a little Blog This bookmark for when I'm too lazy even to pull down the services menu...

Posted by esinclai at 12:52 PM
July 02, 2003
Macintouch

I note that Ric Ford has raised the specter of ongoing funding for Macintouch. As a longtime reader and returner to the fold, I think its a good cause to try and keep going, indeed. Think of it like the tithing (not literal, perhaps) to NPR, Heritage Foundation, Tidbits, EFF, Scions of Lucas and whoever else doing decent work you might support.

Posted by esinclai at 07:02 AM
Morning Chortle

Again courtesy E.Sigler!

A morning chortle. Read and learn a bit more about the law.

Posted by esinclai at 06:42 AM