the art of writing is discovering what you believe
the scene: any public park
Two boys, about 5 years old, meet and one says to the other, “hey,wanna play ship?”
“Yes,” says the other.
“OK, I’m the captain,” and the first then proceeds to give orders to the other, reminding him that they are playing together when his crew loses interest.
Not much different from dot.bomb startups, if you think about it.
So this afternoon found me at REI World HQ using my patronage dividend (less that $10: unemployment limits one’s spending on impractical necessities, which keeps me out of REI) on what we called an odometetr when I was a lad, but what’s now called a “cyclocomputer.” I want to more accurately measure how far I ride: $18 buys you 10 other pieces of information, like max and average speed, time, distance, blahblahblah.
While I was there, I sized a bike: looks like I’m a 54 cm kinda guy: sight unseen a 6 footer would be sold a 58cm bike or even a 60, but I’m glad I threw my leg over one to make sure. If you haven’t been around bikes all that much in say 20 years, you’re in for a shock. 24 speeds are one thing, but the whole notion of combined brake levers/shifters will surely have me eating asphalt. I do like the weight of these new bikes: they’re all but weightless. The ticket says something like 18 – 20 lbs, but pick one up and you can’t even believe that.
They had some other bikes in the $400 range (this Fuji is right around there, but they don’t carry that brand). Their own Novara brand bikes look fine but are pushing a grand, which even with gainful employment would be hard to swallow.
They do make you want to just get out and ride though: it feels like possibilities are opening up as you sit on one of these beasts.
Hmm, out of a clear blue sky comes an invitation to come talk about a job opportunity. Could the income drought be near its end?
I’ve met with this outfit before and it was unclear why we didn’t go further last time. But in the meantime, they’ve stayed in business for a year. Nothing wrong with that.
Interview with Stuart Cheshire – The Idea Basket
My hope is that in the future — distant future perhaps — your computer will only need one wired communication technology. [ . . . ] I would much rather have a computer with a row of identical universal IP communications ports, where I can connect anything I want to any port, instead of today’s situation where the computer has a row of different sockets, each dedicated to its own specialized function.
How many times have you wanted it to be simpler to hook things together and wondered if anyone cared enough to make it happen? You only have to spend a little time debugging a balky SCSI bus to appreciate FireWire or USB: imagine all of your pluggable peripherals being that easy to manage.
Wonder when MSFT will announce a similar effort in XP?
From Frank
SpamCon Foundation: to reduce spam (junk email)
I’m toying with the idea of displaying these somehow. I wish they fit the MT design templates (some design to fit the right-hand column would do nicely).
Smoothies are a nice thing to have at hand, and I keep thinking my kids will like them, but no such luck. They even think so, ’cause they ask for them, but then never drink them.
How easy are they to make? This easy:
Blend the ingredients in your machine of choice, Cuisinart or blender, until smooth. Enjoy.
Amazon.com: buying info: Imagine
I check every day in hopes of finding something useful, but I’m out of chances. Yesterday and today, no Gold Box.
But on their movers and shakers list, I see a new Eva Cassidy release (the #1 selling item today). A beautiful voice, and I’m glad her catalog is still growing, but I hate to think her talent may be obscured by stuff that may not be top-quality.
If you don’t know who she is, this may help.
I was getting ready to add a weblog I occasionally read to my list of links, now that the owner supports comments, but as I entered one on a recent topic, I found the edit window was obscuring new lines as I typed them, and then when I submitted, it dropped the whole thing for the lack of an email address.
Bah. Perhaps it’s wonderful from the writer’s side of things, but it’s still a publishing tool. If it’s this hard to interact, why would anyone bother?
MovableType seems to do all I need and the price is right.
Went to see these lads again, this time with the whole clan. They played on a stage in the North Meadow at the Woodland Park Zoo for the ZooTunes series. Sadly, the setting sun was shining directly on the stage, so much of the first part of the show was visually obstructed by large umbrellas used as sun shades. By the time the break rolled around, things were more manageable, but they sounded great, regardless.
As usual, they had some guests with them, notably some practitioners of Ottawa Valley stepdancing which seemed like full-on tap dancing with traditional Irish rhythm. Unlike the more traditional style, with lots of leg kicks but no arm action, this was full-body dancing. Very impressive. There were also some traditional step dancers, including the required element of a willowy female dancer with long red hair, kicking up a storm. By the time all was said and done, there were more dancers than musicians, even with the addition of a bluegrass picker (Keith Little) and Patty Griffin, a singer they worked with on some recent recordings and whose tour crossed theirs here in Seattle.
All in all, an enjoyable show. Kids got a little bored, mostly because it was hard to see much from the lawn, but I thought it was great. Some great solo turns by Sean Keane and Matt Molloy, more singing by Kevin Conneff than the last show we saw, just lots to like.
It turns out the ISO image may have been corrupt (checksumming, anyone?). Some helpful fellow in e-academy’s tech support area said he had found the bug and was testing a fix.