I Am Legend

I've heard great things about the book, so decided to check it out before seeing the Will Smith movie. Some thoughts:

1. It was written in 1954 and is set in 1976-1979. So the interval between writing and it's setting (22 years) is less than the time that's passed since it's setting (32 years, give or take). This makes for a few interesting anachronisms. The main character (Robert Neville) has to fiddle with the choke on his car, for instance. But on the whole, the book seemed remarkably contemporary given its age.

2. The book is set in LA and the movie appears to be in NY. No big deal.

3. I bought the version with Will Smith on the cover not realizing it was a collection of stories by Richard Matheson. So when the story ended on page 171, I still thought I had another 140 pages to go. I enjoyed the story a great deal, but I feel somehow cheated. I never got to brace myself for the ending.

4. The psychological elements seem really authentic to me: Loneliness, despair, violence, self-loathing. I'm not sure about the dog in the movie trailer - seems inconsistent with Neville' loneliness in the book.

5. Lastly, the "brilliant scientist" bit in the movie tagline better be misleading - Neville was an average guy in the book, and that seemed important to me.

A good read, as long as you realize it's short.

Amazon's Customer Service

I ordered two books from Amazon.com on October 13th. By my count, that is exactly 14 days ago. One of the books was in stock and promptly shipped. The second is "unavailable" right now. I guess that means back ordered. Or the truck carrying the books drove off a bridge or something. This is not a big deal.

What IS A big deal: In the 14 days since I ordered the book, I've received 10 emails from Amazon about the book. At least half of them required me to log into Amazon's site and approve a change in the delivery day.

We need you to approve the new delivery day by October 25 2007, or we will cancel the item(s) from your order if they have not shipped by then. Please visit the Order Update page in Your Account at the address below to approve the delay for the unavailable item(s)

The part that kills me: "...or we will cancel the items(s) from your order" I'm sorry, what?
Now, I appreciate that they feel bad about the delay, and want to offer me the chance to cancel it and get the item from another vendor. But just cancel it if I choose to say nothing? I've had to log in five separate times over the past week to approve the shipping delay. There is no option for "Ship whenever it's available" or "I don't give a crap when it arrives, just ship it when you can."

This is so frustrating that I actually called Amazon (somewhat tricky, they keep their phone number hidden behind about six separate links). A nice woman answered and promised to pass this along and "personally follow up," whatever that means.

Ten seconds after I got off the phone with them, I got another email.

We always strive to provide a high level of service, and we would appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if we resolved your inquiry. If yes, click here, if not, click here.

Unbelievable.

In Rainbows

I bought Radiohead's new album today. They are selling it themselves, in case you haven't heard (it was even on morning addition the day it came out). The interesting part is that you can choose the price you want to pay (plus a little bit for handling/bandwidth/whatever).

I paid £5.00 for it, so the total was £5.45, or about $11.77.

We are on track 4 of the first listen ("All I Need"). So far, I like it. Not as outright strange as Kid A or Amnesiac, but still different (innovative?) than most mainstream music. Lots of dissonance, lots of melancholy. Right up my alley (musically speaking).

Having listened once to half the album, I'm going to recommend it.

Inbox Zero

I did something crazy in gmail today.  I used a feature that's been sitting there right in front of me since the beginning: "Archive."

7,475 messages.  Not that many by some people's standards, but it's still a lot.  I should go through and just delete a lot of them, bit that takes time.

Via Daring Fireball, I learned about Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" strategy.  It's worth a look.  The simple act of moving all those messages to the archive was strangely liberating.  They're all still there under "All Mail," they all still show up in search, but they are outa sight, outa mind.  My inbox is completely empty.

Based on "Inbox Zero,"  I also turned off my Google Notifier.  It checks Gmail every minute, so I was constantly being interrupted by the "ding" when new mail arrived.   Now I check mail when I think of it - when I need a mental break from whatever I'm working on usually.

Two small steps toward email not ruling my life.  It feels better already.

The Assassins of Laughter

This is just too much. Clowns gunned down in the streets of Bogata. And they weren't even mimes. The bit about "Acrobats, harlequins, animal trainers and other circus performers" staging protests just kills me. I wonder if they were in costume.

Sounds like a possible sequel to Shakes the Clown.

Sexy Anti-Freeze

Watching SportsCenter and a commercial for "Peak Anti-Freeze" came on featuring Danica Patrick. I had no idea how sexy anti-freeze could be.

Bad Restaurant Names

Adding to my ever growing list of unfortunate restaurant names. To date, the champion has been "Pastabilities," which used to be in Port Washington, NY. Fortunately, it's been razed and replaced by a parking lot. However, while in Manhattan last week, I walked past "Wok and Roll." If not worse, it's as least as bad.

Greg Maddux

Great story about Greg Maddux turning 40 at ESPN.com. He is the primary reason, along with the Sports Guy, that I'm a baseball fan.

The End of Innocence

Today is Easter, 2006. J, who is six, figured out the Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy scam a few days ago. I think it had been bothering him since he got a personal letter from the North Pole right before Christmas (courtesy of his Grandmother). It struck him as odd that SC had time to write him personally, what with all the toy building, list checking, etc. A few weeks ago, a personal letter from the Easter Bunny arrived. Now he's had trouble with the easter bunny before. I mean, who wouldn't? It's such a bizarre story to tell kids. And the redeeming value? Don't see one. At least with Santa, you get the "spirit of giving."

So, a few days ago, he asks M about it. "Does the Easter Bunny REALLY hide the eggs and bring the candy? Or is it mommies and daddies?"

M, not wanting to lie to him for obvious reasons, just asked what he thought. "I think it's mommies and daddies."

So there you have it. He wasn't even upset about it. Personally, I think the story was always a stretch, since rabbits don't have opposable thumbs. It should be the Easter Monkey. Makes just as much sense.

Terminator & MacArthur

This space has remained conspicuously empty since December. At least to the three people who read it. So I will attempt a resusitation. Or resurrection, depending on just how dead you consider a four month lapse.

When I was in college, we reserved seats in the common area by saying "Terminator" (ie, "I'll be back."). "MacArthur" also worked if you were going to be gone for a long time ("I shall return."). Clever, and also less emasculating than "backsies". So, I will claim "Terminator" on this small spot and return soon.

R.E.M.

Top 28 R.E.M. songs, in no particular order. No reason I chose 28, that's just where I stopped. No rules except "Hey, I like that song" while listening to R.E.M. on sort while working. Looks like I really like New Adventures in Hi-Fi (which, interestingly, came out while I was living in Athens).

Side note: M was once interrupted by Michael Stipe at a party in Athens. It was at a Christmas party hosted by Michael Lachowski, the once and future bass player of Pylon. Not very polite. :-)

• Leaving New York (Around the Sun)
• Around the Sun (Around the Sun)
• Drive (Automatic For The People)
• Man On The Moon (Automatic For The People)
• Find The River (Automatic For The People)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (Document)
• The One I Love (Document)
• Green Grow The Rushes (Fables Of The Reconstruction)
• Wendell Gee (Fables Of The Reconstruction)
• World Leader Pretend (Green)
• Begin The Begin (Life's Rich Pageant)
• What If We Give It Away (Life's Rich Pageant)
• What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (Monster)
• Crush With Eyeliner (Monster)
• Radio Free Europe (Murmur)
• Perfect Circle (Murmur)
• Shaking Through (Murmur)
• New Test Leper (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• E-Bow the Letter (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Be Mine (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Electrolite (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Losing My Religion (Out Of Time)
• Shiny Happy People (Out Of Time)
• So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) (Reckoning)
• (Don't Go Back To) Rockville (Reckoning)
• Chorus and the Ring (Reveal)
• Walk Unafraid (Up)
• Daysleeper (Up)
  

Enjoy.

Web Content Editors

I recently found out that a couple of people were actually reading this. Since I've slacked off so badly, they brought it to my attention. First, thanks for reading. Second, I will try to do better. Stuff happens all the time, so I should write some of it down. I read other people's blogs to see what is going on with them, so I should repay the courtesy to those that are interested.

So, in the "be careful what you wish for" category, here is what is currently going on in my head.
WYSIWYG Editors all fucking suck. It's not competely their fault, though. I'm talking about the Web Browser based kind - not programs like GoLive or Dreamweaver (they suck too, but I'm not concerned with them right now). The suckiness beyond their control is Browser support and differences in JavaScript implementation. If the browsers are all different, it's hard to expect an Editor to work the same in each place. Sigh. Get Firefox.

Here are the reasons for suckiness, and a list of what they should do.

Suckiness:

1. They spit out crappy HTML. Most people don't care much about this, but I do. If the markup is crappy, it's harder for me (as the developer), to figure out what is wrong. What's with all the font tags?
   
2. They have dumb names. One is called "Hardcore". How stupid is that? Yes, I'm trying to pass that name through layers of "keep the kids away from porn" filters in school proxies. Fun. Some others: FCKEditor (looks like "Fucked Editor" everytime I see it, which is about right since it seems to take it's design queues from Microsoft Word). PinEdit, XXEdit, the list goes on.
   
3. Implementation is incomplete or too specific. Lots of PHP out there. Not all of us want to use PHP though. I want a spell check plugin for one of the editors - which is provided for WINDOWS via PHP. Um, how about the rest of the world? Not all of us use PHP, and not all of our customers use Windows. This really gets me when they claim to be "Cross Platform" on their website.
4. Documentation - yeah, RTFM. Except when the Manual is wrong, outdated, incomplete or not specific enough.
   

Ok, I was going to list the things a good editor should do, but that seems redundant now.

So, that all said, there are some good options out there, but they don't match my needs completely for several reasons.

1. Hardcore (previously mentioned). This is my current choice, and they seem to have changed their name to Asbru, but the product is still Hardcore. Sigh. On the plus side, they have examples for many languages (including JSP, yah!). Spell check works cross browser, too. On the downside, the HTML is awful. I had a few users get locked out of their content when trying to load it into the editor. I took a look and their were over 10,000 font and strong tags in there. WTF? Think there is a bug.
2. TinyMCE. This seems like a really nice editor - HTML is good, implementation is good. Simple to integrate. Documenation seems pretty thorough. Problems: Spellcheck plugin is IE only. Plugins are all PHP. And the kicker: I can't get many of the documented features to work. I'm still hopeful on this one, though. Plus, it's open source , so maybe I can write some of the plugins for it.
3. FCKEditor. Looks overbuilt, following the Word metaphor a little too closely.
4. The Gmail/Blogger Editor - Common Google, throw us a bone. Your editor is simple, easy to operate and has kick-ass AJAX spell check. How about making it available? Pretty please.

So that's been my day.

36 Years Old

On the occasion of my 36th birthday, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that I needed to renew my Driver's License. While filling out the application, I was presented with the following in the "Change Information" section: "Check here if sex has changed."

Needless to say, I laughed out loud in the otherwise quiet DMV. The part that kills me though is "Note: additional documentation may be required." May be? Under what circumstances won't you need additional documentation? And what does the documentation entail? Note from your Doctor? Photo evidence?

So this is why I had to install the scanning software on my PowerBook. Important stuff.

WTF?

I bought an HP printer/scanner/other stuff awhile back and installed the software on my workstation. However, since I moved the workstation to my new office space (yay!), and the printer is still here at home, I needed to install everything on my PowerBook. The fucking installer requires me to shutdown all running programs, then proceeds to handle that task for me.

So first question, as the title indicates, is WTF? What could it possibly be installing that won't let any other programs run? For that matter, if no programs are running, I wouldn't be seeing much (since the Finder, Desktop, doc, etc. are all programs running in the OS). Liars. My guess is just sloppy programming and they applied a band aid to fix it.

I showed it - I'm running Firefox while it installs (and writing this entry, too).

Fuckers.

Ok, it's finished installing, and didn't even need a reboot. So again, WTF?

Now it's doing the opposite - opening a browser window so I can register, starting up the scanning software, etc.

Back, and just in time

Sorta lost my train of thought there. Last time I posted, it was in the nineties and uncomfortable. Right now it's 41º and a lot has happened that I let pass without comment.

First off, I got stung in the hand by a bee on Monday. I'm not allergic, but damn that hurt. I couldn't work again until Wednesday (since my job involves thinking and typing - both were impaired). So to pass the time, I sat in front of the TV all day Tuesday without guilt. Luckily, Sci-Fi was showing a Firefly marathon starting at noon. So I watched nine consecutive 1 hour episodes. I should add that I did take some breaks, since I have Tivo to help me out. Good show. M and I are going to see Serenity tonight, which is a movie based on the same story/characters as Firefly.

For those of you that don't know, Firefly was a "space western" written and produced by Joss Whedon (of Buffy and Angel fame). Ten or eleven of the episodes ran on Fox a few years ago before they cancelled it. As per network tradition, it wasn't given a chance to develop into anything, even though the characters are great, the stories interesting, and the writing superb. After the cancellation, the fans organized a letter writing campaign that resulted in green-lighting a movie. The weird part is, Fox isn't the studio, it's being done by Universal. I've heard great things, so go see it.

The space western concept isn't as weird as it sounds. The idea is that 500 years in the future, the Earth's resources have been used up, so we moved onto different planets. The story is set in the frontier of this future, where there isn't much money or technology - just people trying to live off the local resources and trade. There are quite a few tongue in cheek references to traditional westerns (in one episode, the crew of Serenity (the ship's name is Serenity) moved some cattle. In another, they rob a futuristic train). Clever. Of course, there is also a big bad guy (the Alliance) that controls the central planets. Go see the movie. I've been told that prior knowledge of Firefly isn't necessary. And if you like it, the entire series is available on DVD, plus 3 episodes that never aired on TV. My copy was shipped by Amazon yesterday.

+----------------------------+

Ok, onto Baseball. Red Sox are tied with the Indians for the Wild Card, and are one game back of the Yanks with three to go (against the Yanks at Fenway). So a sweep means they win the AL East. 2/3 is a tie, forcing a one game playoff in the Bronx on Monday. 1/3 and we hope the White Sox take care of business against the Indians. Since the White Sox have clinched the AL Central, I'm worried. We have Wells pitching tonight, then Wakefield (yay!), and finally Schilling on Sunday. So who knows. Yankees are due for some losses - they've been hot lately. And the Red Sox offense should be well rested, they haven't produced much this month.

+----------------------------+

J started kindergarden. Seems to like it. He comes home from school excited every day. E's trying to say a bunch of words, but having trouble getting her point across. She understands a lot though.

+----------------------------+

Tom Delay was indicted a few days ago. And Bill Frist is in some trouble - the same sort Martha Stewart had. Maybe Frist will go to jail for awhile, then come back and host a cheesy reality show. Add those two to the Iraq and Katrina debacles, and maybe the Democrats have something going into the mid-terms. Maybe. Of course, being Democrats, I'm sure we will find a way to squander any opportunity. Not that I'm suggesting politicizing Katrina is a good thing, but this President has made the case OVER AND OVER AND OVER with a blunt object to our collective foreheads that we are living in a "post 9/11 world." Exactly. So being prepared to respond to disasters is a big piece of that. So what happens when we can't see the disaster coming in advance (as we could with Katrina)? I'm thinking trouble.

Say what you want about Clinton, but one thing he did right was put somebody in charge of FEMA that had experience with emergency management. FEMA, under James Lee Witt, was almost universally praised as a model of how a Federal agency should operate. In fairness to Bush, FEMA has traditionally been a dumping ground for political patronage. Clinton was really the first President to do this one right. But then again, we are now living in a post 9/11 world, as Bush keeps reminding me.

Ok, time to go to work...

More Winter Wonderland

There are a few pictures of E in the blog, but I think this might be J's first appearance. This is from last winter - early March actually. Right before he took the previous picture of me.

I shouldn't complain about the heat

Summer is pretty short here, after all. Spring and Fall are really nice as well. But summer is short. But right now, it's hot and muggy. I have no idea how I lived in Virginia and Georgia so long.

So, this picture makes me feel cooler. J took it - not bad for a 5-year-old.

The background is the river behind the house. I'm actually standing right above where the dog is standing in the picture from the previous post.

In February, I will be looking for a nice picture of August, most likely.

Surprise for Henry

Henry is the dog. He's an Aussie mix and a great dog. Well, usually. He has some bad Aussie habits like being very needy. He's also a strange dog. Our house is near a small river, and the dog doesn't much like to swim. What he will do is chase rocks if you throw them into the river. He moves his paws around under the water trying to find the rock. When he thinks he's found it, he sticks his whole head under water to retrieve it. Then he takes it up into the woods and leaves it. We don't really understand, but it's entertaining.

So today it was in the nineties and we headed down to the river to cool off. While we played in the water, the dog was running all over the place, which is normal. At one point, he came up to us from a new direction. At that point, we were on a little sandbar across the river. This particular point is an "ox-bow", and we were on the inside of the loop. The current runs into a corner there and foam, wood, and assorted other items get trapped. Apparently to the dog this looked like a reasonable place to walk across the river (it's actually about 4 feet deep there).

So Henry jumps down off the bank onto what he expected was solid ground. Entertainment ensues.

The dog plunged into the water and disappeared for a couple of seconds. Poor guy. He pops up out of the water and tries to climb back up the bank, but it's steep, so he's stuck. I had to wade out and calm him down. I pulled him up onto a log to catch his breath, then moved him into the open water to swim across to the sand bar. Completely soaked through from head to toe. And not interested in swimming.

But he grabbed a few more rocks I threw into a shallow area for him.

More on the Flat World

As I mentioned a few posts back, I've been reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, which so far I would say is a pretty optimistic appraisal of globalization and the 21st Century economy. He talks about the dark underside, but it's not emphasized the same way that, for example, Greg Palast handles it in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Of course, the topics of these two books aren't the same, but they are closely intertwined. Palast is taking a position on modern American politics, while Friedman is talking about "Globalization 3.0". To paraphrase him, Globalization 3.0 is such a difference of degree from what we call the "Information Age" that it is a difference of kind. We aren't going to recognize the political and economic landscape in the near future.

A few years ago (well, more like a decade ago now), I started working as a programmer and thought it would be a secure living for as long as I needed it. "Computers aren't going anywhere," I naively thought. I looked down at my home town and its long-term economic troubles rooted in the movement of labor overseas (in this case lumber and shipping, but it applies equally to textiles, automobiles, etc.). Not going to happen to me.

Well, from the perspective of mid-2005, I have good reasons to fear for my job. The last four years (post tech bubble) have been rough, although we have gotten by pretty well. I'm busier than I would like (should be working now, in fact). My profession hasn't been a lucrative as it once was, either. I'm lucky though, because I have skills that compliment my technical knowledge - primarily of the communication variety. So I've put together a niche for myself that is working out very well.

But reading this book by Freidman has me seeing things in a new light - or may it has focused things I already suspected.

A couple of interesting quotes:

The cold, hard truth is that management, shareholders, and investors are largely indifferent to where their profits come from or even where the employment is created. But they do want sustainable companies. Politicians, though, are compelled to stimulate the creation of jobs in a certain place. And residents-whether they are Americans, Europeans, or Indians-want to know that the good jobs are going to stay close to home (The World is Flat, page 211).

Well that's the truth. The "capital" isn't going to change it's opinion (mostly - some companies view social/societal obligations as critical to their success. Costco being a great example). But the politicians are pushing protectionism as a solution, when it really only hurts our position economically. Education is the real problem and solution. We have to create (or repair) a climate where it makes sense for companies to do business here. Content based curriculum standards and high-stakes tests (the current favorite) aren't the answer.

Strangely, I think the answer to the these questions about the future rests in concepts from the past. Specically, the "classic liberal education" available at many American colleges. Friedman talks about an interview he had with Colin Powell before Powell stepped down as Secretary of State. Friedman asks Powell if he remembers where he was when he realized the "world had gone flat". Without missing a beat, Powell replied "Google." The importance of the point can't be underestimated. The sum of human knowledge is at your finger tips, every day. It doesn't matter at all if students remember why 1066 is an important date in Western History (type "1066" into Google and see what you get). Not if they know how to find out. The tools of the information age have flattened the world by giving nearly everyone access to information, instant communciation and feedback.

Powell notes that he used to ask his staff for the text of a particular UN resolution, only to wait hours to get the answer. "Now I just type into Google 'UNSC Resolution 242' and up comes the text." His staffers noted that he doesn't ask for information much anymore. Now he asks for analysis and action. Big difference. Critical Thinking skills just got a lot more important.

Powell, according to his staffers, also kept IM sessions running with his British counterpart, Jack Straw, during summit meetings. Presumably encrypted. That is simply amazing to me.

(all those quotes were from Friedman's chapter "The Great Sorting Out").

In The Demon Haunted World, the late Carl Sagan wrote:

If we teach only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience? Both then are presented as unsupported assertion.
...
It is a supreme challenge for the popularizer of science to make clear the actual, tortuous history of its great discoveries and the misapprehensions and occasional stubborn refusal by its practitioners to change course. Many, perhaps most, science textbooks for budding scientists tread lightly here. It is enormously easier to present in an appealing way the wisdom distilled from centuries of patient and collective interrogation of Nature than to detail the messy distillation apparatus. The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science (pages 21-22).

Chapter 1, at least, ought to be required reading for all high school students. Until you understand THIS, no diploma for you.

Wandered around a bit there, sorry. Thanks for reading.

Birth of Google

Wired has an interesting article about the origins of Google at Stanford University. Turns out Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the original system in their dorm rooms. The interesting part, to me, is how Google's original structure actually mirrors a real world phenomanon - source citations in acadamic journal articles.

The other interesting point is that two academics, from academic backgrounds, fell into a business together almost by accident.

A funny quote (BackRub was the name of the project from which Google grew):

The project grew into something of a legend within the computer science department and campus network administration offices. At one point, the BackRub crawler consumed nearly half of Stanford's entire network bandwidth, an extraordinary fact considering that Stanford was one of the best-networked institutions on the planet. And in the fall of 1996 the project would regularly bring down Stanford's Internet connection.