Category: Personal

Showing the ease with which good ideas can proliferate on the web, John Robb is launching Intelligent Defense tomorrow. ID is intended as “a series of conversations dedicated to a deeper understanding of next generation terrorism and what we can do to defend ourselves against it.” The series is a companion to Robb’s Global Guerillas blog, which itself is a research portal for books and other ventures he has in mind, and takes Doug Kaye’s increasingly popular IT Conversations model into a new topic space.

Props to Luke on a very nice new rev of SharpReader. Not sure why he doesn’t call this 1.0 yet, but that’s one of those little mysteries in life that will one day be answered. My main concern is that with each micro-release he’s fixed more of the usability issues I had. This time he got some biggies:

 

Remembering the app’s window size and position. I would have though that some of the basic .Net plumbing would have handled this from the start but good to see he’s conquered it.

Remember treeview expansion-state across sessions. Handy for me because I like to keep the category nodes closed and read them at that level rather than the individual blog level.

MouseWheel now scrolls control over which mouse is hovering, instead of the focused control. So now long entries won’t require the entry window to be selected.

 

All told, much to like especially since SharpReader is still freeware. I even got in the first thank you in the announcement thread’s comments.

Over two years ago, I mentioned that thanks to being on the winning side of a class action lawsuit against BankAmerica that $16 would be coming my way in around 12 months. Well, it’s been quite a bit longer but I made out much better–given money market account interest rates taken into account–when the check arrived in today’s mail for the princely sum of $25.32, reducing my net loss on the original investment to only $1237. Go to love those lawyers. Suh-weet!

I always remembered To Live and Die in L.A. fondly even if I only saw it once in the theaters during its run in 1985 and on cable shortly after. A very slick movie that had ahead of its time visual editing and a purpose-built rock soundtrack. Not to mention writer/director William Friedkin’s sure touch with the relationship between cops and crooks.

 

Tried to get the thing recorded by TiVo for the longest time but for some reason no luck; then Fry’s had the DVD on deep discount and voila! A lazy Summer afternoon is a great time to watch this icy cool flick.

 

The first starring roles for Willem Dafoe (the bad boy), William Peterson (the anti-hero) and John Pankow (badling before his time), the story turns on a murderous counterfieter faced off against two Secret Service agents. Peterson will go to any lengths to avenge his murdered partner (played by Michael Greene), even though his partner more or less brought his own death on by mysteriously refusing backup.

 

Not too many big blowups or action sequences but the ones we get are really strong. Most spectacular, perhaps, is an amazing, very long car chase where Peterson and Pankow don’t even know who’s chasing them or why. And a lovely romantic interest for each of the leads, with matching personalities.

 

The end is very surprising for Hollywood and I was not at all surprised to hear the director say, on his commentary track, that the studio ordered an alternate shot; watching what was proposed (an extra on the DVD) I’m more than happy he was able to stay with the original. Sadly, this was Freidkin’s last decent flick, though not his last by far. Remember Samuel Jackson’s rancid Rules of Engagement or Shaq in Blue Chips?

 

recommended

Brian Ching reclaimed joint lead of the MLS goal scoring list this afternoon with two goals, leading the Earthquakes to their first league win in what seems like forever. Have to give the team credit for this one, they dominated the Rapids all afternoon until the heat and pace got to the players for the last 15-20 minutes or so.

 

Landon and Ching were really on the same page, with Donovan assisting on both of Ching’s goals and scoring the third himself. Ronnie Ekelund also showed he’s fully recovered from the injury that cost him most of the season till now. Onstadt was never really challenged except for the one goal, which was late and a blast that he never had a chance to stop. And this is a good time to have a full week off.

The Big Guy and my Dad both pointed me to A View from the Eye of the Storm, a speech by Haim Harari, a theoretical physicist, on War on Terror. Lengthy but unlike many essays on the topic, concrete in both examples and required actions. Too bad politicians in the West will not listen to plain spoken truth such as this.

Depending on when you asked the question, Sun’s CEO was either one of tech’s greatest businessmen ever or one of the worst. These days the latter view seems to be more prevalent, according to the tenor and quotes in this Business Week cover story. A few years back, during the dotcomboom, no doubt everyone, especially including journalists and analysts, couldn’t praise him highly enough.

 

I met him once, very briefly, when Sun acquired NetDynamics. Just a “Hi Scott, I’m Bill Lazar, glad to be a part of the team” kind of thing. He gave a good CEO smile and a firm handshake and kept walking. Actually got to speak with Ed Zander for a couple of minutes two or three times during the same period–now there was a guy who I got great vibes from.

 

Wither Sun? My few friends still inside aren’t telling me anything that inspires positive thinking. Nor are any of the bigger public decisions, like the plan to cowboy up with Fujitsu or open source Solaris, doing anything to help. McNealy claims to be working on new disruptive innovations that will lead the company back from its wanderings, but I (and most other observers) still need convincing.

[Sent to the hosts and program director at The Bone but of course there was no response from them.]

 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that much of what we call humor involves pain but only when that pain is another person’s. Fair enough, I suppose. This morning’s routine, however, where Lamont and Tonelli called a father to tell him his 12 year old son was busted for pot was just too much.

I really enjoy the music your station plays (though you could add more Springsteen) but today makes me realize you have no limits. I can only imagine the pain you put this guy through–short of death or serious injury there’s hardly anything worse for the parent of a 12 year old child!–just to entertain listeners. That’s sick, seriously sick, and I have to say I pushed the button for KFOG immediately.

I know that the victim of these jokes is called back a few minutes later and told the truth but what gives you the right to inflict such anguish? The other week I heard the hosts calling a woman to tell her about her husband or boyfriend fathering a child by another woman, again this terrible, but a perfect example of how you’ve gone off the rails.

Isn’t there enough pain and hurt and anguish in our world today without you adding to it intentionally? With all the experience of your team in radio, can’t you find a better routine for Friday mornings? Maybe you could just play more good music and leave the obnoxious chatter to Greg Kihn?

Testing the new Blogger editor first time.

[Later] I cannot say I’m thrilled with the improvements in the editor. How many Blogger users, for instance, need to link to gopher or WAIS servers? And the old shortcuts, like CTRL+SH+T for the emphasis tag, are worn into my fingers after three plus years but no longer work. Viewing this entry as is in the Edit HTML tab shows that a non-breaking space was inserted on the otherwise blank, second line of this post, why is that? And even though it says Edit HTML, I’m not shown the <br> or <p> tags that are obviously in here. No, not thrilled at all.

[Even Later] Also, I’m still not thrilled with the recently introduced overall interface. Why oh why couldn’t Google leave the old style, with editing box on top and post listing on bottom, as an option for those who prefer it? The new style introduces unnecessary extra key and mouse work. The interface was essentially dumbed down with no advanced mode for experienced users. And they still haven’t added Trackbacks or Categories, which I always thought were the two most requested new features.

 

Interested discussion/bug reporting over at Massless, the blog of the primary coder for this stuff.

You know we’ve slipped past the point of good sense when they start giving out awards for non-entertainment, non-sports, pure product categories. Oh well. But there are a bunch of resources mentioned that me, Mr. Low Carb Expert, hasn’t even heard of, so that’s cool at least.

when was the last prelude manufactured?

2001? Looks that way.

In today’s letters column, Edward Styles writes:

“Marriage benefits originated not as a reward for monogamous heterosexuality, but as a means for humankind to perpetuate itself and to meet the huge needs of our dependent young. Redefining marriage would make these goals more difficult to achieve.”

As someone opposed to the FMA, I think Mr. Styles has inadvertently hit the proverbial nail head. Instead of redefining marriage, perhaps what we need to do is redefine the benefits, or rather how they’re parcelled out. That is, direct the social rewards based on relevant actions, such as providing for children, rather than a simpler definition such as a wedding ceremony.

Further, Style’s extension of the discussion to benefits like healthcare coverage reminds us that the current employer-based system leaves too many families and individuals without any, and burdens employers in ways that would be quite unnecessary in a universal system. If two people, or more, choose to make their lives together then more power to them in finding happiness.

Today’s FoxTrot uses Springsteen in a really funny way!

Apparently my ‘temporary new home’ loaner laptop will be less temporary than I’d ever expected. Just got a call from Fry’s to find out that because my poor, broken down Toshiba is still under the manufacturer’s warranty the store is required to send it to Toshiba for repair. And the average (meaning it could easily be longer) turnaround time is eight weeks. EIGHT WEEKS?!?!?! Have you ever heard of a consumer business that can take so long to do a repair?

I was informed that this is not Fry’s or Toshiba’s number but an industry average across manufacturers and big retailers so my experience would be the same wherever I’d bought it. Of course if the hard drive had managed to live out another three weeks I’d be past the one year mark and then the Fry’s extended warranty would kick in, and I’d get back Little Steven in under a week.

What a freaking joke.

Even though it wasn’t a get rich quick scheme, the US Men’s team pulled out a draw with a late goal off a header by Carlos Bocanegra, crossed in on a corner by Landon Donovan. The Polish goal midway through the second half came off a sweet cross through the box that Tim Howard, getting a rare start in goal, tipped when he should have let it pass. At least we kept a six game streak without a loss alive. Landon was all over the field all game and Brian Ching had several really nice touches after coming on in the 66th minute. Next up is the group round of World Cup qualifying, August 18.

marcelo wrote to let me know that I missed an option to tell it which browser to use for displaying web pages and that he has even more Mozilla-specific plans post-general availability of v4.0. Cool.

The hard drive on Little Steven, my less than year old Toshiba Satellite laptop, was whining like a buzzsaw and finally the machine was constantly crashing. The Big Guy tried his best and with Knoppix we were at least able to boot into that Linux and save some files but it was clear to both of us that surgery was required. Fortunately for me I’d bought the extended warranty for the first time in a long time and so off to Fry’s with Little Steven.

Though they made a fuss about waiting 24 hours for a loaner, I asked politely (I did, ask TS1!) to waive that and let me take one home. Give the oft-maligned store credit because the manager did say okay, and here I am typing on a very snazzy ultra-new Toshiba Satellite A75. Very sharp, bright screen, wireless networking built-in that connected to my network no problem. One little fuss: the right button doesn’t work and I can’t seem to change that, but since I should only have this box for two or three days, no big deal. And I can get my BillSaysThis email through a web interface too, so no problem there either. Nice!

w.bloggar is moving towards v4, this is composed with the beta version. Looks nice, not sure it’s enough to get me to use it as the main tool. One nit is immediately visible: Clicking menu options that go to web pages automatically open in Internet Explorer, not the system default browser and given all the foofaraw around IE lately this will probably not be making many people happy. Good to see non-US (and non-European) software developers though!

Get out your rose colored glasses

Put on your long red dress

Don’t worry about the grey swirling clouds

Passing under your feet, through your legs

Honey those glasses make everything alright

As if Snow White and Cinderella both came

Visiting and stayed to tea and crumpets

Just take my word and put them on

Hold your arms out straight as long as you can

Let them fall back against your waist

Bow your head forward without lifting them

Tell me how the clouds make you feel

Look up again at the sky, even straight

Into the Sun, listen for the birds, the cars,

The planes passing overhead and carrying

So many people who never pay you mind

No, Sweetie, you can’t sit just yet

You have no sons to care for you, no savings

To tide you until your day has come

Just put those glasses on and turn around

Your work is here in front of you and

It will never go away no matter how old,

How tired you get, if your beauty stays

All well and good, goes better with those glasses

When I was a child I had a magic decryptor ring

That gave me secret messages from the comics

But now I can’t find that ring to give you

Can your rose colored glasses save you?

There’s a man to your right, a woman to your left

Look at their children coming to visit

Inviting them home to stay, to rest

But your glasses cannot decrypt that puzzle

Just finished watching FSW’s replay of Sunday’s Euro2004 championship match which ended, of course, with Greece lifting on the only goal of the game on a sweet header from their scoring leader Charisteas. Or maybe not so sweet, looked perhaps like another Greek player was holding back Portugal’s keeper so he couldn’t get to the ball first though no one made a big fuss during or after the game.

Did Greece deserve the win? I thought the hosts played a much more aggressive match and had most of the offense. But the visitors’ defense was rock-like and the few shots Portugal had were either off-target or not difficult, I don’t recall a single really tough save by Nikopilidis. And Greece, bottom line, scored the only goal. Congratulations!