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Sunday, September 30, 2001
I'm almost finished rolling an admin page for Tawn's site that will allow for the easy modification of the editorial calendar. I have the front-end of the admin interface. Now I just need to roll the backend. It's only a few hours work, but it will make all the difference in the maintainability of that site.
Watched two drug movies this weekend: Permanent Midnight and Blow. Both were good. Blow is the better film (but a real downer trip. You've been warned). On the subject of addiction, note to self: never buy Cheez-Its again.
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I'm almost finished rolling an admin page for Tawn's site that will allow for the easy modification of the editorial calendar. I have the front-end of the admin interface. Now I just need to roll the backend. It's only a few hours work, but it will make all the difference in the maintainability of that site.
Watched two drug movies this weekend: Permanent Midnight and Blow. Both were good. Blow is the better film (but a real downer trip. You've been warned). On the subject of addiction, note to self: never buy Cheez-Its again.
[1 comment]
Thursday, September 27, 2001
A few quotes from two good sites
From the archive page at v-2.org: "To me, America is still and will always be the greatest idea in human history, but furthering that idea has nothing to do with wrapping oneself in the flag, brandishing tough-guy rhetoric and smothering any sign of dissent." That just about sums it up, for me. A good dose of wisdom in a trying time.
On a different subject, this from zeldman.com: "We are blessed with a rich culture, woven from thousands of years of European, African, and Asian art, philosophy, and political thinking. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the junk we put on TV and export to the world."
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A few quotes from two good sites
From the archive page at v-2.org: "To me, America is still and will always be the greatest idea in human history, but furthering that idea has nothing to do with wrapping oneself in the flag, brandishing tough-guy rhetoric and smothering any sign of dissent." That just about sums it up, for me. A good dose of wisdom in a trying time.
On a different subject, this from zeldman.com: "We are blessed with a rich culture, woven from thousands of years of European, African, and Asian art, philosophy, and political thinking. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the junk we put on TV and export to the world."
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Tuesday, September 25, 2001
I watched Pi last night. It's a fairly interesting (if a bit long) art flick about a math genious who goes insane due to his obsession with finding a pattern in Pi (and, in fact, mathematical patterns in everything). Part of what leads to his madness is his obsession with finding a fundamental truth beneath outward appearances. Fredric Jameson once defined postmodernism as privileging surface over depth. He meant that as an insult, but it's better taken as a compliament. The protagonist's assumption that "all things can be described with mathematics" is useful and true. His assumption that this mathematical description is somehow more true than other sorts of descriptions is what drives him crazy. Anyway. It wasn't a bad movie, but Aronofsky's more recent Requiem for a Dream is, IMHO, better.
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I watched Pi last night. It's a fairly interesting (if a bit long) art flick about a math genious who goes insane due to his obsession with finding a pattern in Pi (and, in fact, mathematical patterns in everything). Part of what leads to his madness is his obsession with finding a fundamental truth beneath outward appearances. Fredric Jameson once defined postmodernism as privileging surface over depth. He meant that as an insult, but it's better taken as a compliament. The protagonist's assumption that "all things can be described with mathematics" is useful and true. His assumption that this mathematical description is somehow more true than other sorts of descriptions is what drives him crazy. Anyway. It wasn't a bad movie, but Aronofsky's more recent Requiem for a Dream is, IMHO, better.
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Monday, September 24, 2001
Yesterday, I downloaded a great open source editor/IDE for Java (though it's good for lots of other things too) called SciTE. It's small, fast, and ahas a nice set of features including fully-customizable syntax highlighting and HTML export of your code. It also makes great printouts of your code. If you have need of a simple but effective IDE but don't want to 1) pay money for one or 2) learn Emacs, then this might be for you.
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Yesterday, I downloaded a great open source editor/IDE for Java (though it's good for lots of other things too) called SciTE. It's small, fast, and ahas a nice set of features including fully-customizable syntax highlighting and HTML export of your code. It also makes great printouts of your code. If you have need of a simple but effective IDE but don't want to 1) pay money for one or 2) learn Emacs, then this might be for you.
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I stayed up late last night and watched a great documentary on PBS called People Like Us. Most people in America, regardless of their political leanings, feel uncomfortable talking about class. This moving film focusses on just that, but in a personal rather than a pedantic way. It's definately worth catching. It should probably be required viewing in high school and junior high civics classes across America.
A brush with Nature: The fall is finally here and the weather has turned cool. I saw three beautiful flock of geese this morning as I was dropping off our friend Heather's dog, Abby, at the kenall. Gina found a beautiful catepillar joyfully eating the leaves on one of our dying tomato plants. I'll link to a picture of it if I can find one (I took one myself, but it didn't come out).
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Sunday, September 23, 2001
Last night, Nancy played a show with an Austin band called The Action Is. They were amazing: a completely cool real rock band. And they're nice people to boot. If they play your town, do yourself a favor and check them out. As I watched them, I thought "These guys f*cking rock" and then thought "and they're about to blow us off the stage." But it didn't turn out that way. As it turned out, their amazing showmanship (showpersonship?) just pushed us into playing one of the best shows we ever have. It was a great night.
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Last night, Nancy played a show with an Austin band called The Action Is. They were amazing: a completely cool real rock band. And they're nice people to boot. If they play your town, do yourself a favor and check them out. As I watched them, I thought "These guys f*cking rock" and then thought "and they're about to blow us off the stage." But it didn't turn out that way. As it turned out, their amazing showmanship (showpersonship?) just pushed us into playing one of the best shows we ever have. It was a great night.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2001
Two more essays. These describe New York in the wake of the tragedy in the eyes of Jeffrey Zeldman, one of my favorite web designers and a Gotham city dweller. These, like all his personal writings, are beautiful in their economy and refreshingly honest: Day Four, and 911
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Two more essays. These describe New York in the wake of the tragedy in the eyes of Jeffrey Zeldman, one of my favorite web designers and a Gotham city dweller. These, like all his personal writings, are beautiful in their economy and refreshingly honest: Day Four, and 911
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Three essays by writers I've often admired say more of importance concerning the entire middle east situation than I will probably every be able to: Edward Said, Martin Amis, and Richard Dawkins. I also found this excellent Encyclopedia of the Orient which has lots of valuable background material on many things relevant these days.
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Sunday, September 16, 2001
Weekend media: The Usual Suspects (2nd time), Memento [here or here] (amazing), and Snow Falling on Cedars(also very good and very timely considering the current state of racial paranoia). Not much else to report. My teeth are still packed with stuff that resembles silly putty. It's not pleasant.
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Weekend media: The Usual Suspects (2nd time), Memento [here or here] (amazing), and Snow Falling on Cedars(also very good and very timely considering the current state of racial paranoia). Not much else to report. My teeth are still packed with stuff that resembles silly putty. It's not pleasant.
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Today is the first day since my surgery that I've been out of bed before late afternoon. I spent some time watching ABCs coverage of the bombing. Then I surfed metafilter to see what was being said about it there. I find a lot of people resisting the idea that the US should retaliate to the bombing. Surely, war is never something to be entered into lightly, but I don't see what these peaceful people would have us do. Surely, we can't just sit quietly and do nothing. I certainly understand that the US has made some bad decisions concerning the middle east and that our own policies and actions have created many enemies for us, but none of that--to my mind--justifies what happened in NYC and none of that forgives it. Those involved in this conspiracy will, in time, be found out and will, in time, be punnished. And that is as it should be.
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Thursday, September 13, 2001
I had gum surgery today to correct (I hope) the peridontitis that's been haunting me for years. They split open my gums, cleaned away tarter below the gum line, and graphed synthetic bone-like material. The idea is to make up for bone loss due to the condition and firm up my teeth which, untreated, would eventually fall out. I have genetically strong teeth (I've only every had one filling) but genetically weak gums which have troubled me since childhood. The procedure itself took place at 8:00 this morning. I was in bed, drugged-up iced-down, until 10:00 p.m. So now I've spent my obiligatory time online and can go back to bed. Luckily, I have tomorow off from work, but there will be plenty of work for me when I get back and I'll probably finish some smaller things from home tomorow (in a little uncompensated telecommuting, I'm sure).
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I had gum surgery today to correct (I hope) the peridontitis that's been haunting me for years. They split open my gums, cleaned away tarter below the gum line, and graphed synthetic bone-like material. The idea is to make up for bone loss due to the condition and firm up my teeth which, untreated, would eventually fall out. I have genetically strong teeth (I've only every had one filling) but genetically weak gums which have troubled me since childhood. The procedure itself took place at 8:00 this morning. I was in bed, drugged-up iced-down, until 10:00 p.m. So now I've spent my obiligatory time online and can go back to bed. Luckily, I have tomorow off from work, but there will be plenty of work for me when I get back and I'll probably finish some smaller things from home tomorow (in a little uncompensated telecommuting, I'm sure).
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Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Of course, I'm as upset about the bombing of the World Trade Center as is anyone else. Speculations fly, gas prices have gone through the roof, news coverage is incessant. I tracked it for a while, then tried to put it out of my mind. I've spent the last hour on metafilter which is where I first learned of the attach and where I found out details while the major news sites were down. Gina and I had plenty to worry about since her brother-in-law flies for United and my birth-mother is a flight attendant for American Airlines. We are happy to report that none of our family, as far as we know, died in the attack. Though we're devestated that so many of our larger family--our human family--did. Go in peace.
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Of course, I'm as upset about the bombing of the World Trade Center as is anyone else. Speculations fly, gas prices have gone through the roof, news coverage is incessant. I tracked it for a while, then tried to put it out of my mind. I've spent the last hour on metafilter which is where I first learned of the attach and where I found out details while the major news sites were down. Gina and I had plenty to worry about since her brother-in-law flies for United and my birth-mother is a flight attendant for American Airlines. We are happy to report that none of our family, as far as we know, died in the attack. Though we're devestated that so many of our larger family--our human family--did. Go in peace.
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Saturday, September 08, 2001
I haven't posted in ages--sorry for that. While I've been away from the net (more or less), I've been out of town twice: once to Dallas to visit Vicki and Kendall and most recently to Chicago to attend a conference. Life is busy and it's starting to stress me out, but things will fall into place in the next few weeks. And life should get considerably easier for a little while (fingers crossed).
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I haven't posted in ages--sorry for that. While I've been away from the net (more or less), I've been out of town twice: once to Dallas to visit Vicki and Kendall and most recently to Chicago to attend a conference. Life is busy and it's starting to stress me out, but things will fall into place in the next few weeks. And life should get considerably easier for a little while (fingers crossed).
[0 comments]
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