Tag: Uncategorized

Nils, Clarence, and Bruce early in the tour, with Nils showing off his over the top slide technique:

Clearly, some people have more patience than others and certainly more than me. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have spent over 30 years and are just about ready to release Sumerian Dictionary v1.0. Lots of the source material, cuneiform tablets, comes from a boys’ school and so not surprisingly mcuh of it concerns heroes and women’s body parts. Still, I cannot imagine spending my entire career on a single project such as this but very cool that some people can.

Not surprising to me, at least, investigators are on the trail of another corporate accounting scandal, and this one could be a doozy. If it’s not covered up, that is. Because this miscreant is Halliburton Company and the company was run by our current Vice President, Dick Cheney, before he moved to DC to pull GWB’s strings. Harvey Pitt, who chairs the SEC, says his people will go wherever the evidence leads and that “If anybody violates the law, we go after them.” The dozens of former Enron executives who infested the Bush administration were bad enough but will Slick Dick have to follow the precedent of Maryland’s favorite son Sprio Agnew? Who’s gonna run the government if that happens?

It’s official – UC Berkeley is offering a course on Weblogs in the School of Journalism

Oh see the dirty papers sweeping across the vaguely empty parking lot

Past lonely steel grey posts and fractured white painted lines?

Say by five o’clock tonight we can meet for some hot tea and a pastry

At Dana’s, the little place where Ewen wrote his set of ditties.

Can the ready crew before you leave for the day, they’ve outlasted

Their usefulness and Carrie wants them gone straight away.

You, Dawn’s place, with George, get going and figure out how to

Tell them the time has come to hit the highway, no hard feelings.

Early on, I thought the bunch would stick with us to the warm, green end

Too bad that Irwin is the only one who showed us the real stuff.

Light touch, good sense of where we need to put always short resources

The rest seem stuck in the firework’s light and unwilling to move in tune.

What’s so hard to understand is Francis’ reluctance, he’s not done in

As much as Harrison and Natalie, but he keeps chuffing and whining,

Proudly, as if his claim to stick is any better than the rest have put up.

Anyway, I’m gonna spring for the cheer-you-up later at Dana’s.

The weekend was fun, beautiful, and inspired me to make a few changes. Check the picture at the top left, taken early today, to see what I did. Hope you like the new me. You do like me, don’t you? Come on, I work hard to project a certain image and you would not want to spoil that, would you? I’ve spent nearly 41 years working on this personality, trying new things, changing the ones that don’t seem to work. Until we’ve reached today’s finely crafted edition. Anyway, I think I look a lot more like my Dad now, which is good since he’s such a cool dude. Even if he does play golf. A lot. And as I was reminded while watching an old ER last night he does look like Tom Bosley. If only I were the movie director that Tom Bosley’s (TV) son has become, that would be really cool. What is cool anyway? Fonzi? Janet Reno? So back to me. I hope you like what you see. I know I’m happy with the changes.

Update, 4/2/02: Now that the day has passed, here is the “new look” picture I used yesterday:

Frank Moss, co-founder of software vendor Bowstreet, writes an article he calls Web services’ dirty little secret on CNet. Don’t believe the big bad vendors like IBM and Microsoft when they say web services are an open, portable platform. Think back to client/server architectures, the last time this more or or less same group of vendors started spouting. But, Moss claims, what they are really doing is giving customers the next generation of platform lock in, a COBOL for the new millenium. He has a solution though: buy his product (although he isn’t quite so obvious or the editors are barely this side of bought to come right out and say this) and avoid the lock in. Umm Frank, but doesn’t your solution simply lock us in to Bowstreet? Of course he would love that or else his little private company will never escape the dot bomb morass to go public for a bigtime cashout!

I need to do more on this idea. As of today, I’ve been off work for a year and while this has been a great break, one most people never have a chance to take, the time is coming soon to go back and work. Contribute more than just this weblog/website. Spent time on Monster.com sending a few resumes and inputting mine to their system. Would be nice if the economy/job market was a little more… robust, shall we say, than the current circumstances but one can’t make irrational demands (and expect them to come true). Wish me luck!

Britain’s No. 1 beauty

Hello! Magazine says it’s Kate Beckinsale. She’s very attractive but you’re telling me they can’t find someone prettier?

ATT Broadband: Really pissing me off

Well, as expected I have been offline since Friday night. And the more I think about the situation, the more upset I am with the geniuses at ATT Broadband. This whole mess was completely preventable and completely forseeable, yet instead of putting their customers first ATT put a few dollars in their pockets first. The expiration of the contract with ExciteAtHome was well-known and other cable company customers (Cox, Rogers, for example) were willing to pay a little more to keep their customers connected until alternates can be arranged. ATT is just too cheap. I really wish I had a good alternative to them.

Reuters has an update on the situation. Fortunately, I have a buddy who is kind enough to let me hook into the web through his net.

Programming in tongues

Joey deVilla is building an interesting and impressive programming reference site called The Rosetta Stone. In this effort, deVilla is compiling a piece-by-piece cross-language reference for programming in C/C++/C#, Java, Python, Real Basic, Visual Basic and VB.NET. He has created conceptual sections (language overview, data types, loops, sting functions, and so forth) and for each section describes how each language implements the concept, with examples.

As a one person effort this is quite impressive. One wonders how much more comprehensive the reference could be if deVilla opened his work to other contributors. Also, there are nagging link errors that should be fixed. Finally, one might quibble with the way in which the navigation hierarchy is implemented; opening one of the conceptual sections completely changes the left hand navigation menu instead of, say, adding the submenu for that section.

Still, deVilla is making an important contribution that can be very useful for programmers migrating from one language to another and to those working in multiple languages.

Update: In an email, Joey says he will be fixing the broken links this weekend and is working on a way to allow others to contribute to the project. As the man says, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

RTFM, if you can lift it

Reuters reports that the first 3G Phone, from NTT DoCoMo in Japan, Debuts With Huge Manual, 945 pages for the standard model and more for the videophone model, expected to be more popular. Damn! RTFM for sure.

Short and to the point

Only two days after being delisted from NASDAQ, NetObjects issued a two sentence press release:

“REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 1, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) — NetObjects, Inc. today announced that it will cease operations effective today. The Company intends to sell its assets as expeditiously as circumstances permit.”

Four years ago IBM purchased 51% of this company and we at NetDynamics thought of it as an important competitor, but almost immediately it fell by the wayside. Per the latest 10-Q filing, IBM owned 48% but there is no statement from them about this.

Yesterday’s movie: Cats and Dogs

Having a four year old in your life has some unexpectedly pleasant benefits. One expects the smiles, hugs, and kisses when that special child is happy. But you also get to see movies an adult wouldn’t dream of watching (or admitting to watching anyway) like Cats and Dogs. This movie must have been amazingly hard to make–I mean, how do you ‘direct’ actual animals (not robots or mechanicals) even if they are trained? And all the special effects surrounding their dialog. Ninja cats and rocket sled riding dogs battling over a formula that would eradicate human allergy to dogs. Mr. Tinkles (voiced by Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes) is trying to lead cats back to domination of humans and the Earth. But dog agents Butch (Alec Baldwin) and puppy Lou (Tobey Maguire) are on the case. Jeff Goldblum’s gawky awkwardness is actually suited for his role as the scientist.

While researching this entry, I found out that one of the film’s producers is named Andrew Lazar. Unfortunately not a relative but he has produced such outstanding movies as Space Cowboys (so he knows Clint Eastwood and James Garner), 10 Things I Hate About You (Julia Stiles), and The Astronaut’s Wife (Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron).

GWB: President, like, uh, for real?

Bob Herbert, writing on the NY Times editorial page, hits our dumb president right on the head with The Message in the Sinking Polls. Fav quote: “There are now book- length editions of his misadventures with the English language (“I know how hard it is to put food on your family”), and he is a figure of constant ridicule on late-night television.”

Zep News: Plant to record solo album

Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant is going back into the studio with a collection of younger musicians who’ve played in bands such as the Cure, Portishead, and Sinéad O’Connor. Quite a different approach than the one taken last year by Zep guitarist Jimmy Page, who hooked up with the Black Crowes for a tour and live album. Page and the Crowes played mostly Zeppelin music with singer Chris Robinson doing his best Plant imitations (after spending most of his career trying to sound like Mick Jagger). While Plant is playing some Zep material, he also plans on some other covers (such as “Hey Joe” made famous by Jimi Hendrix) and some originals. While Page and Plant are playing together later this summer for one gig, there are no recording or touring plans.

Today’s Book: Steady Eddie

It’s the mid-70s again and 19 year old Eddie is sliding through life on beer, weed, and his buddy Loopy. Bonus points: Eddie is a Springsteen fan. Author T. Glen Coughlin lives in the Jersey suburbs but he paints a strong portrait of life on the wrong side of Long Island in this second novel, throwing Eddie enough loops to twist his life completely around. Well-written coming of life story, a good change of pace from the military/SF I’ve been reading lately.

One week to BruceTV!

I can’t wait! Only six more days until Springsteen and the E Street Band rock the world on HBO–don’t miss it. While you’re waiting, check out this new interview Bruce gave the legendary critic Robert Hilburn.