Month: June 2003

welcome to the modern age

nikon-coolpix.com

Introducing the user-friendly, highly functional, extremely cool-looking COOLPIX 4300 digital compact.

I just got one of these today (as a gift, yay!) and it’s very cool. We got it with a 64 and 128 Mb flash card, so our trip to Oregon tomorrow should be recorded in excessive detail.

Took a couple of test pictures this evening and tested the connectivity with iPhoto: as easy as anyone could hope. The camera was correctly identified and the pictures imported, just like that.

I bought batteries for a film camera I was thinking of bringing, but after seeing the images on the Coolpix, I may not bother.

is it worth it?

I keep hearing “Shipbuilding” by Elvis Costello when I think about this . . . . is it worth it, indeed?

—–Original Message—–
From: paulbeard [ at ] mac.com
[mailto:paulbeard [ at ] mac.com ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 12:42 AM
To: letters [ at ] seattletimes.com
Subject: Is it worth it?

The more I read about the “importance” of making conditions attractive enough for Boeing to build the 7E7 here in Washington, I keep finding reasons that undermine the urgency.

For one thing, the airlines who are expected to buy the plane are ambivalent at best, and that doesn’t suggest a compelling market research effort by Boeing itself.

For another, I read in this Sunday’s Times that the assembly time for the 7E7 will be 3 days. So where are all the jobs we hope to keep? It looks to me like the bulk of the labor will be done elsewhere — Japan, China and other states — while a small crew assembles the finished components. This is good news for Boeing, but “deskilling” the manufacturing process doesn’t make for valuable jobs: the skill and craft that went with the high-paying jobs of the past might be just that — past.

I’m skeptical it makes sense for a state in the poor financial shape Washington is in to extend a lot of largesse to Boeing or anyone else, especially if it’s more about luster than lucre.

not dead yet

Shirky: RIP The Consumer, 1900-1999

A different take on the “death of the consumer.” I’m not sure I buy the premise that “we are all producers now.” It sounds like one of those delusions: if I am doing X (publishing on the web), then everyone else is, too. It seems we’re replacing one undifferentiated mass of advertising (TV and radio spots) with another: spam.

more eBay love

I decided I would see if I could sell a Tom Scholz Rockman headphone amp I haven’t used in ages. I saw a few for sale, in various states of completeness, came up with a price, wrote some sales copy, and it was gone in an hour.

I wish I had put the price higher.

So that’s another package to take to the post office . . . .

I’m hunting around to see what I can sell . . . .

old school noise

eBay item 2537570281 (Ends Jun-19-03 08:55:01 PDT ) – Pignose Amplifier Brand new In box

I’m listening to The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on my iPod and digging the simple and raw sound on this 30+ year old gem. It may be apocryphal, but I had heard that Mick Ronson played all his stuff through a PigNose, the 9 volt powered 8th Wonder of the World, complete with pig snout-shaped on/off/volume knob.

Ebay’s got ’em, of course, but do I need one?

For sale: 1 and a half Newton MessagePad 2x00s, loaded

eBay item 3030701253 (Ends Jun-21-03 14:40:39 PDT ) – 1 and a half Newton MessagePad 2x00s, loaded

What does 1 and a half MessagePads mean?

I have a complete Newton MessagePad 2000, with keyboard, serial dongle, faux leather case, power supply, and the serial cables to sync it up with your choice of desktop hardware.

I am the original owner so I know it all works.

I also have a MessagePad 2100 for parts: it does work, but the digitizer cable is broken, so you can’t input anything. But it is a 2100, so if you’re handy or know someone who is, you could swap the motherboards and have a 2100 with the 2000 motherboard as your spare. I also have a spare keyboard.
I also have a 2 Mb memory card and a 3 Com ethernet card, both fully operational (I used them just this morning to back everything up).

I am only selling this stuff to get it into someone’s hands who can use it. I’m not able to integrate it into my daily life and it seems a shame to have it collecting dust when someone could be getting some use out of it.

It’s still the best, perhaps the only true, PDA ever made, and it deserves better than to sit on a shelf.

Read my lips, no new services ? or old ones.

Read My Lips

Everyone wants taxes to be cut, but no one wants services to be cut, which is why Democrats have to reframe the debate . . . .

It depresses me that this has to be explained. But then there are too many citizens who think highways are a naturally occurring rock formation, that homeless people like sleeping outside, and their position in society is due to their own hard word, not luck, not the foresight and sacrifice of their parents’ generation . . . .

Born on third base and think they hit a triple, as the saying goes.

rip, AlanE

KDE on FreeBSD – Alan Eldridge 1961 – 2003

Alan Eldridge (AlanE) passed away on 6 June 2003 in Denver, Colorado, USA, apparently the result of a self-induced overdose.

Born on 15 December 1961, Alan moved from Iowa to New York City some 15 years ago to make a life for himself as a first rate Unix programmer. Recently, however, his professional and personal life was severely disrupted, and as a result, Alan moved to Denver to start anew.

A member of the KDE on FreeBSD Core Team, both a FreeBSD and KDE committer and maintainer of numerous FreeBSD ports, Alan will be sorely missed by all those of us who knew him personally, by those who knew him only through his work and, indeed, by the entire FreeBSD and KDE communities at large.

And individual members of those communities, like me. He was an energetic, acerbic, but whip-smart contributor, helpful and dedicated.