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Wednesday, May 22, 2002

 
DigitalConsumer.org Home Page. Go, lend your support.(5:11 PM) ¶

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

 
I just wrote my review of the season finales so far. There are some spoilers but they are marked. Check it out: Reviewing the Finales(10:33 PM) ¶

Monday, May 20, 2002

 
ABCNEWS.com : Researcher Analyzes the Meaning of Meows: "Cornell Researcher Seeks to Prove How Cats Manipulate People"

Well, duh.

I could have told you all of this.

That reminds me... my cat has been in a friend's care for months now. We've moved in and are settled. Time for me get him back.(8:38 PM) ¶

 
tvpicks.net - 2002-03 Fall Schedule Grid. Very handy. (via NowThisLog)(8:32 PM) ¶

 
MATRIX Trailers. Oh so excellent...(8:29 PM) ¶

 
Stephen Jay Gould, Biologist and Theorist on Evolution, Dies at 60: "Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary theorist at Harvard University whose research, lectures and prolific output of essays helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology, died today at his home in Manhattan. He was 60."

Back in 1994, I saw Gould speak at a very weird three-day symposium at Dartmouth College. I've already forgotten exactly what the conference was about (the fact that I was all night the night before, uh, starting a new relationship may have had something to do with some gaps in my memory, I was struggling to stay awake that first day) but it featured Paul Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Gould, Roger Penrose, and many other luminaries in modern science, mathematics, and philosophy. Gould and Dennett got into a lively debate. Gould was describing his theory of the evolution of intelligence. He compared intelligence to medieval spandrels in arches. Basically, if you build a room with four arches (instead of four walls) and a dome ceiling, at each corner you will have a large triangle of unused space that's outside the arches and below the dome. Medieval artisans painted scenes in the spandrels. The spandrels were not there for the art, rather an interesting use was made of this extra, leftover space. He feels that intelligence is the same way in our brains. That, for other reasons, our brains grew larger and intelligence was a by-product of this extra space, not the point of it. Dennett flatly disagrees. It would have become a shouting match except neither man wanted to let the other think that he was respected so comments were always cloaked in sad head shaking or derisive laughter. Dennett was sitting in front of me for that particular show and it was hysterical to watch his reactions.

Like him or not, Gould was a fantastic writer and a baseball fan as well. I'll miss his wonderful, thought provoking essays and his insightful thoughts.(8:13 PM) ¶

 
Doc Searls on Apple: "Here's what I think (at 11am on a Monday in May): Apple is doing a lot of things right (or close enough), and their circle of the development Venn diagram is overlapping hugely with the UNIX community, including committed open source folks, commercial "solutions" developers and all those science types for whom UNIX is simply a universal environment ÷ and they're still highly compatible with Microsoft as a fellow platform vendor. Yes, there's reason to be concerned about Steve Jobs' Hollywood connections (Apple is in the BPDG), he's clearly his own man, and blessedly free of the antitrust lawsuits that have terribly damaged Microsoft's spirit (no matter how much they may deny it). The energy coming off Apple right now is very stong and positive. People there are having fun. They're competitive, but not combative (a critical advantage over Microsft's only serious ÷ but perhaps fatal ÷ character flaw)" [Doc Searls Weblog](8:13 PM) ¶

 
And now I know. :)

(8:13 PM) ¶

 
Divers Discover Maya Relics in Caves That Became Rivers(8:13 PM) ¶

 
It seems that items are not making it over to my blogger-based site. Not sure what's going on but until I figure it out, this is the better site to check.

Oh bugger. Now posts aren't even making it to the radio site from my laptop.

*sigh*(8:13 PM) ¶

 
Walter Lord, Narrative Historian, Dies at 84: "Walter Lord, the narrative historian whose books ÔFD1 most notably "A Night to Remember," a riveting account of the sinking of the Titanic ÔFD1 were characterized by intensive research and exhaustive interviews, died on Sunday at his Manhattan apartment. He was 84."

This is a despressing day. I read Walter Lord's book about the Titanic when I was quite young. I was very into the Titanic before it was fashionable to be. I remember the day (September 1983, iirc) when it was found by Ballard and was so thrilled.

I am truly saddened by this.(8:13 PM) ¶

 
The Mac Observer - One Mac User's (Successful) Effort To Get A Mac In His Windows Run Company. Funny, I just asked when I got hired. Ok, I whined a lot too. But it worked.

Of course, I've run into problems too.

• We have a VPN. Only with Windows 2K can I access it. When Jaguar comes out this summer/fall, I'll be OK but until then, I can't access the company file servers from home (and I work from home one day a week).
  
• Outlook is the tool of choice for email. This isn't an issue because I can do all email via IMAP to our office exchange server. But the company contacts database is in Outlook. Solution? Either use Outlook 2001 under Classic (works, but is a pain) or use Outlook XP under Win2K in VirtualPC (agonizingly slow, but works). Would that Entourage X do Exchange.
  
• Development: While I am not a developer, I am the CSS/XHTML guy at work. This means that I design the HTML templates for projects and the CSS files to boot. Designing them is snap thanks to BBEdit. But when the developers need me to go in and check their work, I can't actually do so. The development team uses a sandbox model where everyone has their own centrally synchronized Linux box running under VMware under Windows. I can't get it to work under VirtualPC so I can't test code. So, what I do is either pull out the necessary HTML file and the necessary CSS file via MacCVS and then adjust them so I can view them locally (which is a nightmare when the html file relies on back-end processing) or I go down the hall to a Win2K machine which is often not being used.
  

Aside from those issues, I'm very functional and am quite happy being a Mac guy in a Windows office.

Well, I could do with less ribbing. That gets old fast. But I'm mostly used to it. Mostly.(8:13 PM) ¶

 
Looks like items are not making it over to this site from the Radio version. For the record, at this point, you are better off reading the Radio version. Soon, I'll probably retire this site and use the Radio one exclusively (though, at this URL).

Anyway, check there while I figure this mess out.(6:57 PM) ¶

Sunday, May 19, 2002

 
What 'Friends' Has That 'X-Files' and 'Ally' Lacked(10:42 PM) ¶

 
So, we just finished the X-Files finale. Bullet points:

• "I could smell you coming, Clarice" and "Come here you big, beautiful, bald man" were fantastic. It goes downhill from there. I kept waiting for Mulder to say "I see dead people."
  
• The trial was an ultra-weak attempt to recap the show. It felt so forced and artificial and absurd and useless.
  
• Last we saw that prosecutor, he was being shoved into the bathroom of an airplane by Billy Idol while his fiancee, Drew Barrymore, was running off with Adam Sandler.
  
• Dana is willing to give everything up to follow Mulder to the ends of the Earth. But she is not willing to do that for her own son. He, she gives up for adoption. Why? She could have run with him and protected him. Sure, you could say he is safer with the anonymous couple than he would be with her but I don't buy it.
  
• So, after all is said and done, we still don't have all the answers. The X-Files are closed, everyone is on the run and in danger, and Mulder is deciding to get religion. Yawn. I'm not going to hold my breath for the movie.
  

 
Salon.com on the X-Files: The truth is, um, where, exactly?: "If I wanted to watch people in a poorly lit room hold painfully slow, incoherent conversations, I'd hang out with heroin addicts. "(12:17 AM) ¶