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July 15, 2008
I’m in Milan for an afternoon, and then in Madrid for some part of a day, and then home. Blogging may be lighter than usual.
I’ve been in Milan several times before. Every time I see it, it seems like a different city. I’m not sure if it’s seasonal, because of the accidents of the parts of town I see, or one of the great pleasures of a failing memory. But, my, what a beautiful city it was this afternoon!
Before paper, what did the wings of moths look like?
July 13, 2008
July 12, 2008
Tim Spalding, founder of the estimable LibraryThing, is calling on us all to create an open shelves classification project to replace Dewey and his pals. LibraryThing is a brilliant implementation of a what a library built on a social network of readers can be, so I’m excited about Tim’s new idea.
Im reading Julian Warners “From Writing to Computers,” published in 1994. In a wonderful chapter he looks at the senses in which the Western tradition thought documents contained or were intelligent — written documents “appear to understand what they are saying,” Plato says. Warner looks carefully at Platos Phaedrus, a seminal text for those concerned with the transition from oral to written cultures. Thats the one where Plato worries that the onset of written documents will ruin human memory: Those who acquire the skill of writing “will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of on their own internal resources.”
Plato has another complaint: Writings cant respond to questions: “writing involves a similar disadvantage to painting. The productions of paintings look like living beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence.” Ive taken these quotes from Plato from Warner pp. 58-59.
Makes you wonder what Plato would have made of chat, IM, and SMS.
July 11, 2008
:”Wall-e” is such an amazing movie that it left me unsatisfied.
It’s totally enjoyable. The graphic realism is phenomenal. The creativity of the details is staggering. The directorial vision is superb. The editing is one confusing scene short of perfect.
But “Wall-e” is yet another damn kids story. Oh, adults will completely enjoy it. Scene for scene, it carries you through. You care about the characters and each segment has plenty for everyone. But ultimately the story is predictable, simple, and safe for the kiddies.
At this point in Pixar’s amazing career, it’s proven it can do anything. It can imbue a trash compactor with personality and zip it across a world subject to any rules Pixar imagines. Pixar has the technical skill to show us anything it can imagine. It has the movie-making craft to tell a story with a thousand moving parts.
Now it’s time to stop playing it safe and to and make some art. Now it’s time to stop dazzling us with what it can do, and to do it.
IMO.
July 10, 2008
I’d like to throw a hat into Obama’s VP ring: Elizabeth Edwards.
She is so right for an administration that is promising fundamental change in the politics of governing. Edwards hears past differences to what is shared. She hears past anger to what is worth defending. She hears past fear to what is worth cherishing. If — as a defining phrase of Obama’s puts it — we are the ones we are waiting for, Elizabeth Edwards models who we need to become if we are to enable change to happen.
And is there a better model of the hope Obama stands for? With Elizabeth Edwards, no one can confuse hope with mere wishful thinking or weakness. Edwards faces her mortality with clarity, and seems strengthened by it. I’m sure she hopes that she will survive for many, many years. But she seems to embody a larger type of hope as well: The notion that our future doesn’t have to be like our present. That every moment is an opportunity to move that future closer to us. That we bring that future closer by relentlessly finding what is best in those we encounter. That we can change our world by giving in to our urge to connect with others, our urge to be better people than we are.
There are obvious negatives to an Edwards vice-presidency. She is not ready to step into the presidency if, G-d forbid, something should happen to Obama. True. We would have to rely on the machinery of the administration to carry us forward. And, of course, she has untreatable, fatal cancer. John Edwards could be prevailed upon to be, in effect, her co-VP.
She has political strengths. She’s a woman, a southerner, a speaker who connects with her audience, a military brat. Those strengths could help.
But most of all, Elizabeth Edwards is hope walking on two legs.
I am not as unhappy with the FISA bill as many of my friends are. But this bill needs to be challenged in court. For one thing — as others have pointed out — that the president told you to do something illegal doesn’t excuse you from it, if only because presidents don’t have the power to order you to do anything.
EFF is asking for donations for a court challenge. EFF’s budget is a dry cough in a thin hanky compared to the economic forces it’s fighting. Is it worth a few dollars to you to get this bill tested?
LATER THAT DAY: I took Wray Cummings’ advice in the comments below, which worked. So, now all the examples of uncentered HR statements in this post are in fact examples of centered HR statements, which makes the post rather mysterious. Imagine, if you will, then, that all of the little horizontal rules are left-justified. And, thanks, Wray!
I know I’m going to be embarrassed about this, but for months, if not for years, I’ve been unable to bend the simple <hr> element to my will. I can adjust its length, but I can’t get the little !@#$% to center itself.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to make it work:
<hr width=’100pt’ >:
<hr width=’100pt’ align=center />:
<hr width=’100pt’ align=’center’ />:
<hr width=’100pt’ style=’text-align:center’ />:
None of these work in Firefox or Safari. I have not intentionally redefined hr in any of my many CSS style sheets, but wouldn’t the local, inline setting take precedence anyway?
What incredibly obvious, embarrassing thing am I missing? Go ahead, make me look bad. And I’ll thank you for it.
July 9, 2008
PC Mag has a step-by-step for putting the spring back into your Mac if it’s gotten sluggish under the weight of all the crap you’ve loaded onto it. Basically, it’s a guide to saving all your important data before reinstalling OS X.
(Note to PC users: Don’t gloat. 1. PC Mag recommends you do this every two years, not every every 6 months, as I was doing with Windows. 2. This is to restore snappiness, not to rescue a broken, lumbering hulk. 3. It is way, way easier than reinstalling Windows and all your apps.)
I am disappointed and actually a little hurt that Google’s new virtual world app, Lively, only works on Windows. On the other hand, that it requires Vista I find slightly ridiculous. I run Vista on a high-end PC, and it’s a sign of my dissatisfaction that I do a double-take when I here a software company has written code specifically for it.
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