Sep 2003
- Sep 1
- 2003
- Sep 1
- august 2003
the gender genie A little script that supposedly is able to tell the gender of the author of a scrap of text.
· Read more… - Sep 1
- end stage soul disease
Playing with categories in Blosxom.
· Read more… - Sep 1
- movie watch
“Gigli”, “Excess Baggage”.
· Read more… - Sep 1
- targetted advertising
Now, I don't know if this is really targeted advertising, but the ads on amazon.com do tend to shadow whatever it is I have purchased or I have searched for, for example Basic Flight Physiology, given my recent obsession with space medicine.
· Read more… - Sep 2
- brain excrement
Random thoughts. Thinking of sci-fi, and not movies or music.
· Read more… - Sep 3
- a7 "piece of heaven (central seven remix)"
This song makes me think of Robotech.
· Read more… - Sep 3
- sick in the head
Moments of triumph only remind me of how lonely I am. Great.
· Read more… - Sep 4
- google is god reprised
Google is omnipresent, and rapidly becoming omniscient. And nothing will be the same.
· Read more… - Sep 4
- september
September and the end of summer. Taking a moment to look ahead.
· Read more… - Sep 5
- processing
Is the relationship between Processing and Java the exact relationship between Logo and Lisp?
· Read more… - Sep 6
- for fuck's sake by robert lasner
A book about pursuing women. My life is exactly like this book, except I don’t have any of the sex.
· Read more… - Sep 6
- stackable iPods
We should be able to daisy chain iPods and create a RAID array. Or at least have Logical Volume Management.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- elliptical comments on mass amateurisation
We’ve got cheap hardware and free software. All we need is wi-fi everywhere, and we’re on our way to ubiquitous computing. Microsoft is missing the boat. Apple is the wave of the future. Democracy is all about “Worse is Better,” and not “The Right Thing™”.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- the man in the high castle
What if the Axis won?
· Read more… - Sep 7
- lists and positioning
Neat things you can do with unordered lists and CSS.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- mp3s and spam
Wanted: mp3s. Not wanted: spam.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- star raiders
Reminiscing about an Atari 400 game.
· Read more… - Sep 9
- retrograde consolidation
A follow-up to my elliptical comments on mass amateurisation(sic). The original browser wars had the indirect effect of pushing back the envelope. While we have rich media such as Flash, what most of us end up publishing is essentially plain text. (OK, it’s technically HTML, and it’s usually Unicode and not ASCII, but you get the picture.) But plain text will always win in terms of portability and in terms of compactness. Which makes me think of other technology that has gone backwards a bit: MIDI ringtones, NASA’s renewed interest in Apollo space capsules.
· Read more… - Sep 9
- more about retrograde consolidation
On the other hand, plain text is more expensive to process than, let’s say, binary code. But thanks to Moore’s Law, it ain’t a problem. My phone is over 100x more powerful than the first computer I ever owned. In this day, interpreted languages (more fashionably known as dynamically typed languages) are back in the fore. Thanks to advances in bandwidth, in particular, wireless bandwidth, non-lossy audio compression is becoming a reasonable format to download songs in. But the reliance on plain text has the additional side effect of increased openness: it’s much easier to reverse engineer a plain text spec than it is to try to disassemble opcodes.
· Read more… - Sep 9
- the tower of babble
The Babelfish Game: take a phrase in English, convert it through multiple languages, then change it back to English, and see what you get. (See the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the original reference to the mythological Babelfish.) Natural selection in action? A demonstration on how false vacuum can decay into true vacuum?
· Read more… - Sep 12
- blessings in disguise
So-called intellectual property is no hindrance to the Internet. It’s very Taoist in a way. Whatever does not yield to the Internet, the Internet merely routes around. Hence, instead of a myriad of proprietary rich media technologies, we’ve got open standards such as CSS and XHTML.
The RIAA pursues a losing strategy. As they say, those who cannot innovate, litigate. While the iTunes Music Store ain’t exactly a clean break from the old model of music distribution, the fact that you can (for the most part) buy just singles (and not just the crappy singles that the music companies allow to be released) is in itself an innovation.
· Read more… - Sep 13
- 27 in summary
I turned 27 years old today.
· Read more… - Sep 12
- 27 - Part I
Drunk blogging to “Piggy” by Nine Inch Nails on eternal repeat. One of these days, I hope to get through life better than just barely.
· Read more… - Sep 13
- 27 - Part II
After 25, it’s all down-hill. Still don’t know where I’m going to end up, though. The event horizon known as the big 3-0 looms ahead. And sometimes I get the feeling that all the important decisions have already been made. It’s just a matter of riding it all out.
· Read more… - Sep 14
- itunes_playlist
A kludgy way to incorporate my playlist into Blosxom.
· Read more… - Sep 14
- scattered thoughts
Random things I found on the web:
· Read more… - Sep 14
- retrograde consolidation revisited
What I’m trying to say with retrograde consolidation: instead of using new software on new hardware, let’s use old software on new hardware. Examples:
· Read more…SGMLXML, UNIX, etc. - Sep 14
- gorillaz "m1 a1"
A song that makes me think about zombie attacks. (I’m thinking of “28 Days Later”, “Resident Evil”, “Shaun of the Dead”, “Silent Hill”, or “Omega Man”)
· Read more… - Sep 14
- 27 – third time pays for all
Reminiscing on a night spent getting blasted out of my mind.
· Read more… - Sep 15
- outkast "hey ya"
Shake it like a Polaroid picture!
· Read more… - Sep 16
- chrono_nav
“Link to previous article” and “link to next article” for Blosxom.
· Read more… - Sep 16
- r kelly has a way with words
R Kelly sympathizes with Osama bin Laden.
· Read more… - Sep 17
- the xhtml 2 debate
XHTML 2 is deliberately breaking backwards-compatibility and the Web screams. I don’t know why people are so addicted to backwards-compatibility. If you use open-source and open-specs, then there’s nothing to worry about. Some clever hackers will implement the new stuff, and you can move on. Or you go without, and adhere to the old specs, and compile the old source. I mean, there are systems still running Linux 2.2 out there after all.
· Read more… - Sep 18
- the simpsons go to africa
My favorite quote from the Simpsons’ episode ”Simpson Safari”
· Read more… - Sep 19
- blogging – a retrospective
Rebecca Blood is one of the original A-listers on the blogosphere, back before Blogger even existed, and you pretty much had to roll your own blog engine. Going backwards in time on the blogosphere always ends up causing me to go far and wide as well, though, and I find myself in very strange corners of the web.
· Read more… - Sep 20
- buying stuff
Shopping. Getting immersed in wi-fi. Screwing around with Bluetooth. Getting Amazon.com on Blosxom.
· Read more… - Sep 20
- amazon_buybox
The code for getting Amazon.com on a Blosxom weblog
· Read more… - Sep 21
- underworld and neverwhere
And Harry Potter, now that you mention it. It always seems that supernatural worlds have portals in the London Underground, doesn’t it?
· Read more… - Sep 22
- adventures in print serving
Using CUPS to print to the Canon i850 through a print server.
· Read more… - Sep 23
- galileo and the last day of summer
The Galileo space probe meets its end in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The [last day of summer][x1] always leaves me [cold][x2] [x1]: /2001/09/22/the-last-day-of-summer “The Last Day of Summer • 2001 Sep 22 • Foobar” [x2]: /2001/09/30/last-days “Last Days • 2001 Sep 30 • Foobar”
· Read more… - Sep 24
- i think there's something wrong with me
Any moment of triumph crumbles quickly into despair. This may very well kill me some day.
· Read more… -
- Sep 25
- genius and insanity
Ordered chaos. Deliberate, orchestrated disorder. A quote from Charles Bukowski that backs me up. At least that’s what I tell myself. I may very well be a super genius, or a nascent schizophrenic.
· Read more… - Sep 25
- ass monkey disease
Seasonal affective disorder kicks my ass all the time.
· Read more… - Sep 25
- i don't buy it
The only reason to not write standards-compliant code is sheer laziness. Everything can be rewritten given enough effort.
· Read more… - Sep 25
- maybe god doesn't like you
Homer Simpson sympathizes with God and understands why the Flood had to happen.
· Read more… - Sep 25
- insomnia
One of the symptoms of major depressive disorder. Despite the fact that things are going OK, I still can’t seem to pick myself off from the ground.
· Read more… - Sep 27
- i swear i'm not crazy
I don't know about this (see the second to the last paragraph.) I think that, over time, irrational behavior is increasingly irrational, and rational behavior becomes irrational. (Entropy always wins.) In the end, it's all meaningless chaos. Or as Douglas Adams put it (in my quite oblique interpretation of his quote):
· Read more… - Sep 30
- time travelin'
Back in the Bay Area. I’m like a ghost sifting through memories trapped in amber. I figure that I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life, but maybe that won’t be for very long. But trust is a prerequisite for love, so that’s clearly not going to happen. Having too much time on my hands is a good way for me to get into trouble. After seven years, the sting is starting to wear off, but it still stings. The less you have, the more you worry you’ll lose it.
· Read more…