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January 3, 2006
I’ve been hesitant to say this out loud because it’s just too baseless and empty, but what the hell:
2006 will be The Year of Truth.
At least 2006 will be a good year for truth.
I don’t know why I think so. But I do. And I’ve never been right yet.
January 2, 2006
I just published a new issue of my free newsletter, JOHO.
| Why the media can’t get Wikipedia right: In the wake of the Seigenthaler Affair, Wikipedia made some changes. Why did the media get the story so wrong?
Are leaves mulch?:
Cool Tool : |
Why do I find Chris Locke’s new business card so cool?
Possibly because I am a dork? [Tags: web20 googlemaps christopherLocke RageBoy businessCards]
December 22, 2005
Tim Berners-Lee has started a blog. Yay!
And what’s the first word in it? “So.” As in “So I have a blog.”
Remember when “so” indicated a logical connection between two thoughts? “I complained about the soup, so the chef spit into it?” Over the past ten years, beginning in (I think) Silicon Valley “so” flipped to become a way of easing listeners into an entirely new topic. Or into a welcome new blog.
So what? So, that’s what. (Thanks to Mark S Petrovic for the link and pointing out the “so.”) [Tags: TimBernersLee tbl blogs]
December 18, 2005
At least I really enjoyed doonesbury]
December 14, 2005
I ate at restaurant in Watertown yesterday. I had trouble enjoying the food because the place is so in love with itself, starting with its menu descriptions, that it was like watching a Chevy Chase movie.
Here’s a scene from The Matrix done as ascii animation. [Tags: marketing ascii matrix]
December 2, 2005
It turns out that I only had about 1.5 hours to wander around Helsinki this morning. Yet in that time I’m confident that I have absorbed the essence of this city, including its arts, culture, history, and people. And now I am ready to render judgment:
What a pretty city! I hope I can come back some time.
Stay tuned for future pronouncements.
I’m blogging from the Helsinki airport where I’ve learned that an “American” pizza has ham, pineapple and blue cheese on it. Perhaps the “Stoned American” pizza does, but that’s not a combo I’ve come across in the States. They’ve kindly made me one with just cheese. My limited experience of Finnish foods leads me to conclude – nay, to pronounce – that it is not the most vegetarian-friendly cuisine in the world. On the other hand, last night I had a cup of glogg (sp?), a mulled wine favorite of the season that was much better than I’d expected. I would have drank it anyway because it’s called glogg (sp?).
November 30, 2005
The Quality Crown Hotel Paddington is a perfectly good budget hotel in London – modern, clean, friendly, a block from Paddington station, 80 pounds a night – but I’m a little puzzled. When I got here yesterday afternoon, the person at reception told me that he was upgrading me for free to a larger room. I don’t understand how the room could be any smaller unless the bed were half in the shower or if I were required to share it with the harpoonist from the Pequod.
(Ok, it’s a small room. But I’d stay here again.)
I had a jetlag dream that seemed so important and was so vivid that I couldn’t go back to sleep until I wrote down the key points. In it, I was mistakenly admitted to a group meeting with an unnamed Supreme Court justice. When called upon, I explained that there are three key points: 1. We as a culture are becoming comfortable with huge amounts of information and details. 2. We are astoundingly good at evaluating the metadata around that information, deciding how seriously to take it. 3. The value of this is an increasing tolerance of – nay, demand for – complexity.
So, there’s your answer. Now, what was the question?
November 17, 2005
At buzz.kayak.com, you can see the most popular locations other people from your area are searching for on Kayak, the travel deal aggregator. Now there’s a hack that will let you see the most popular searches to locations with a particular activity. For example,
http://buzz.kayak.com/h/buzz/flights?code=BOS&rc=&ac=ski
shows where Boston Kayak users (well, actually people looking for flights from Boston) are looking for skiing.
http://buzz.kayak.com/h/buzz/flights?code=BOS&rc=&ac=nude
shows the nude beaches Bostoners are looking for because we’re so damn proud of our maple-syrupy bodies. [Tags: travel]
My PowerBook is presumably on its way. My expectation is that the robustness of its hardware will be on a par with my Thinkpad X40 (well, not this particular X40 since it seems to be a lemon) but that its software will be far more robust and require less maintenance. I’ve used Macs on and off for many years, and am the reluctant sys admin for my father-in-laws Mac OS X desktop, so I expect the learning curve to be steep and that I will find it somewhat less elegant and wonderful than y’all think I should.
I’m looking for suggestions for what I need to equip my machine with. I am not looking to spend a lot of money. Also, keep in mind that my big Windows desktop machine is my primary work computer. I’ll be using the Mac for when I travel.
| I need:
Word-compatible word processor. Since the only way to get Powerpoint is to get it with Word (I believe), I’ll probably be using Word. Graphics program. Vector and raster editing. I use Paintshop Pro 9 on the PC. I’m not a power user, but I do need to edit images, use some special effects, etc. HTML editor. I use DreamWeaver on the PC. It’s got lots more than I need, although I like that. Email client. I expect I’ll either use the one that comes with it or Thunderbird. Browser. I’m very fond of Firefox on the PC. I would like: Programming environment. Don’t throw dead cats at me, but I’m an amateur Visual Basic programmer. I enjoy it. I was a marginally ok amateur C programmer, and once wrote a book on Lisp for beginners (very very beginners), but I crapped out at C++ and Java. Too abstract for me. I like languages that make it easy to create forms/UIs. Any suggestions? Maybe I’ll try Squeak again. Emulator software? Too much of my work environment is stuff I’ve written in VB. E.g., my blog editing software. Any recommendations about emulators that might possibly run that stuff? Fun: Games. Something to play on an airplane. Free would be good. Music editor. Anything minimal around that will let me paint notes on staves and play back the cacophony? Hardware: What do you recommend as essential add-ons? Utilities and misc.: IRC. I’ve been using Hydra. Chatzilla is ok, though. Skype. The one and only. IM. I use AOL’s. Do I like it? Not particularly. Text editor. I primarily use TextPad. I’d be ok with any other non-wimpy text editor. Heck, I’d even consider returning to emacs. I hear it’s still In. What do I not know enough to know I need? Sites.: What are the essential sites? For downloading software? For advice? For making fun of those poor, loser m$sft Windoze users? |
Jeez, this list is getting expensive. I just remembered another reason I’ve resisted geting a Mac.
Thanks for whatever advice you can give me. [Later: I added some stuff after reading Bryan Strawser’s list of essentials. [Tags: mac macintosh apple]
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