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Friday, July 30  

RectAnimals Are Coming

I heard about this long before you did, as you will remind me later when they're famous.

 

GoGoGadget Liberation!

The Robo Freedom Movement gathers momentum.

 

A Friday

I'm not really sure what Today's Playlist is about - sort of upbeat, sort of a latest and greatest heavy rotation kind of thing, some songs I've actually bought from the iTMS, and which I dearly hope will thus appear in the list once it's uploaded. (19 out of 26 - our best results yet!)

I was going to do some more carping about this iMix thing, but decided to let it go. Well, ok - one carp: surely shared playlists are destined to become a web fixture, right along with blogs, IM and porn. Apple knows this, and they know the game is on like a neckbone; the competition in selling music downloads has barely even begun. Are they really going to fumble this incredible lead by being cheap on "sticky" features? What about small member profile pages (a'la Blogger), music message boards and groups, special discounts by listening category, skinnable interfaces, and so on? Is the lack of these things a sign of stubborness, ignorance or neglect? Should I even bother to hope that they have something much cooler than what I can imagine in the works, instead of these? Let's see... I'm trying to remember if they ever had a huge lead with a great technology and let it slip through their fingers before - nope, don't think so! Yay.

Also, this is the company that claims to give us what we expect from digital technology, rather than the lowest common denominator shoveled at us from other quarters. And the appeal has long been (in theory) to make it work right the first time right out of the box, to preserve the integrity of the user experience... would it really have been that hard to make this iMix thing a "wow that's great" moment instead of a farting dissapointment?

Thursday, July 29  

The Moral Minority

To God, or not to God - that seems to be the question. I get a little tired of the atheist = immorality argument, particularly dressed up in the bland post-9/11 nationalist fervor. Uhrm, separation of church and state, anyone?

The one that really galls me is the No Atheists in a Foxhole gambit; to wit, "Those people think they've got it all figured out until something bad happens to them, but then they've got God on speed dial!" But really folks, do they? I've never been in a foxhole, at least not that I can recall, but would reverting back to culturally imposed norms be as simple as that? Isn't it more likely that these are the people who casually rejected religion and its trappings without much thought in the first place?

I think the worst case, anywhere along the whole belief spectrum, is where people meekly accept what they're told at face value, out of fear or laziness or a disinclination to think for themselves. In the end, with all the spare capacity of our supersized brains, what's more worthy of thinking about than this?

Related listening: Today's Playlist*

* This playlist thing isn't working out quite like I'd hoped. I was going on blind faith (har!) that the iTunes store had most of the music I was selecting, but sadly, no. And this reshuffle thing it's doing makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - what jackhole decided that track order was an optional feature for sharing and archiving playlists? C'mon Apple... I've come to expect better.

Wednesday, July 28  

Yay For Netflix!

My favorite DVD by mail Co. just opened a distribution center in Indianapolis, which means I now have a turnaround time of 2-3 days. This is swell on a number of levels, including quantity and more-instant gratification. Back in the day (a day in late 2001, that is), I used to wait for them to go all the way to San Jose, CA and back -- and yes, now that horrendously crappy song will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Then it was somewhere near Kansas City, I think, then St. Louis, and now just a blessed hour away. Next up: Greencastle!

 

It's all about timing

Today's Playlist

Tuesday, July 27  

Playlist #2

Today it's all about houses and homes: iTunes Store iMix.

Monday, July 26  

Ah, politics... the new sports

(... until the new NFL season starts, of course, when everyone will cease caring.)

OK, I'm just pasting here from another blog (things fall apart), but wow:

"Moore's condemnation of President Bush's actions regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' had a weekend haul of $5 million to lift its total to $103.35 million since opening in late June.

The previous best domestic gross for a feature-length documentary was $21.6 million for Moore's Academy Award-winning 'Bowling for Columbine.' That film took nine months to hit that level, while 'Fahrenheit 9/11' did more business, $23.9 million, in just its first weekend. "

Something tells me this isn't the same phenomenon as with the Mel Gibson Jesus movie, where vanloads of churchfolk were going en masse... or is the ACLU/Greenpeace/Whole Foods flotilla sponsoring movie night these days?

Hell, why do I even pretend to pretend to understand this stuff?

 

This Morning

* I decided that I'd upload an iTunes Store iMix each day this week, sort of as a "why not?" kind of thing. Hence, today's playlist:
El Scorcho - Weezer
All Downhill From Here - New Found Glory
In My Place - Coldplay
Amy - Ryan Adams
Armagideon Time - The Clash

* I tried turning on a wood lathe for the first time this weekend - pretty great! Now I've got to figure out what I want to make, I suppose. Or do I resist that temptation and just enjoy the process for a while? Which one is my bottled up excitement focused on: process or product?

* On Saturday, in addition to the wood lathe experiment, I made pots, carved stone, mowed the grass, trimmed tree limbs, washed the car, and a few other things that I've since forgot; but the point is that I'm at my most blissful hopping quickly between tasks, from one medium to the next, jack of many trades and certainly master of none. Aside from the implied lack of focus, discipline and commitment, why fight it?

* My nephew Travis, age 16, proved once and for all that I am the world's worst player of juegos del video. After months of careful plodding through Madden 2003 last spring, I thought I'd finally achieved some small mastery of the thing -- if I played six days straight, and concentrated REALLY HARD, I could squeek out a win on the default difficulty setting. Yay for me! Yet, against a human opponent for the first time - one who was lackadasically sprawled on the couch and barely expending an ounce of effort - I threw countless interceptions, couldn't run the ball to the corner store, and was humiliated in the kick return game. My only consolation is that the real thing starts back up in a month or two, so I can go back to football fantasy without aggravating my carpal-tunnel-in-progress.

* I received some spam with perhaps the strangest subject line yet (cover your eyes if you're kinda squeemish):

extreme anus?

Uhm... what? I dearly hope that this is the mindless concatenation of two random words chosen by a bit of code somewhere, because trying to sort out the decision chain a human mind went through to pick this is baffling and a bit frightening. This is supposed to make me want to read the rest? And what's with the question mark at the end? It could imply so much, but... I'm just at a loss on this one.

Wednesday, July 21  

Cheat

After x  years as a loyal Netflix subscriber, it finally occured to me last night what I'd been doing wrong when it came time to zip the disc back up into it's handy red envelope for return to the mothership: throwing away the peel-off strip. See, I have always been pretty fastidious about trash going in the can, so later I don't have to wonder, "Hum.. is this trash?" But going across the room to toss out a small strip of paper rings a small anoyance bell in my brainstem. "This is a waste of time," it says.

Hence, my great, albeit minor, idea:
  ~ peel off strip
  ~ fold in half
  ~ insert into envelope
  ~ seal

Sure, this makes life a bit rougher for the good mail-slitting machines at Netflix (god, we hope it's machines and not real people, right?) - but for that extra $2 a month rate hike, it's the least they can do.

I'll say it so you don't have to... lazy bastard.

Thursday, July 15  

Patent This!

My webteam developer-extroadinare cedsav said: "Next time someone suggests we should use a content management system... tell them it's not possible, it's patented :-)" Looks like he's right -- look out, Macromedia!

Oracle patents content management systems

The comments are great, and right on the $$. My favorite: "Maybe USPTO can invest in an Internet connection and a PC. Maybe then they wouldn't issue idiotic patents like this."

Tuesday, July 13  

Stone

I'm on a stone and stonecarving track lately, reading a lot and trying my hand on some limestone blocks dug out of the foundation of a demolished house. I ordered some tools this morning -- real ones designed for the job, to replace the cheap, anonymous chisels I bought at Home Depot a few weeks back. I'm also researching suppliers of different kinds of stone, wondering how alabaster or marble would feel compared to the local Indiana rock.

Here's a great article on Charles Wells, a stone sculptor, written by William Harris of Middlebury College. I really enjoyed it, and think it has great insights into an artist's path, the process, and teaching craft-based materials at a university.

Monday, July 12  

F8cked 4 L1fe!

Topic: Spam

Once again, I've completely underestimated the impossibility of screening myself from the SpamMonster. A Google search for my email address returns results for pages on my site that I've removed it from, but that haven't been reindexed; and my CLAYART posts, going back to 2001. Searches for my other addresses (shh... they're secret, or so I thought) return similar results. Crap, crap, crap.

But wait, there's more: simply by writing about the phenomenon, and linking to the search, I'm helping sustain the thing's unholy half-life. Scoob, we're doomed.

 

Dream #35

I had The Home Invasion dream last night, one of my recurring Greatest Hits. You know, it's the one where you're sitting alone, wishing you had a good weapon, knowing that THEY are coming for you and there's no escape. Quite restful! The strange part is that I wasn't at our house, but at my grandparent's, and they haven't lived there for a few years now. How did my melon assemble those disparate pieces into one dream? Why?

Possible pre-sleep contributors: m&m's at 10:30pm, and this Steven Johnson book I'm reading about the workings of the human brain.

Friday, July 9  

So Much For Living In the Past

A nerdish impulse drove me to search Google News for "INXS", following my last post, and miracle of miracles, it came up with this: INXS meets Survivor in global star search.

To wit:
"In the long term it could be the best thing that's ever happened to them or it could be the kiss of death, it's one of those things you won't find out till you get there. But if Bono died, would U2 go out and go on a reality TV show?' "

Good lord.

 

INXS? No, Actually InNeedOf...

A quick perusal of my iTunes library has revealed a shocking discovery: I have not a single old album by INXS! [link only works if you've got iTunes, dude.]

And then it dawns on me:

INXS was my favorite band for a long time (yes, I admit it), but that was circa 1986, the glory years of the humble yet serviceable cassette tape. I didn't buy my first CD until 1990, the summer after my freshman year of college, by which time I had stopped, for a while, admitting that I loved this particular brand of Aussie rock. Hence, my only copies of old INXS albums are sitting in a closet at home in a 20-year old laminated-plywood tape case. By now I bet they sound like noise "made by angry, retarded gnomes."*

Which leaves me in a bit of a quandry. Since ripping from a mangy analog source is entirely out of the question, do I succumb to the clever, evil plan of the RIAA and buy them - again - as digital files? Or buy the CD's used (for less, no doubt) and rip them into my collection? Or, do I sneak back to Kazaa one last time and sdlkvj jalf*F*)AV&*EDEdg09vs88()78sdfvvll sdv/.,. kyfgh. ..record expunged..

* Here I humbly quote the majestic IzzlePfaff!, by way of imitation=flattery.

 

Dear Bloogle,

Here's what I want from the next iteration of Blogger, Uncle Google:

1. An auto-categories feature, for grouping topics by subject in the archive, as seen on Izzle.

2. Spellcheck in the compose window (sorry - this already exists)

3. Random link/topic of the day sent to me to comment on... (*weird)

4. what the HELL what my other idea???????????????????????????????

OK, so really I only had one good idea, and the rest is stale gasping. What's new?

 

Fonts Be Gone!

[Geek Alert! What follows will be of no interest to a normal human.]

So I've finally eradicated every last stinking <font> tag from my clay site. Hurray!... and there was much rejoicing. Nothing but lean, clean text surrounded by <p> tags and some wholesome <divs>, all linked back to a single CSS stylesheet just like god intended.

Stage 0 of the redesign complete. Next step: actually creating the new design. Ug.

 

Racoon Problems

We've had a coon problem lately, which is one of those things I never thought I'd write until I moved to Indiana. Not the end of the world, but this little fucker was coming in our cat door to the basement and snarfing all the cat food... one night I'm standing there investigating a disturbingly loud noise and he sticks his head in and looks at me like, "Yo, you wanna make something of it?" Unreal. Zeke (the cat) has a big festering wound on her chin, probably from thinking she was tougher than a 20# racoon with 4" claws. Uh - wrong!

Thursday, July 1  

I'm (not) Famous!

To summarize a recent Google search, here are a few of the places my St. Earth site is referenced in good ol' cyberspace:

1. PMI Online - Website Reviews, Jan/Feb 2004 - for NCECA

2. A dragon site

3. Something called the International Ceramic Directory

4. A massive list of CLAYART members' sites at amsterlaw.com

5. The Open Directory Project

6. Under the keyword "generously" (based on the description created by #5 above) at a lame engine called Nebula Search

7. A European directory called CBEL

8. A Tripod site with one of the most bizarre menu schemes I've ever laid eyes upon

9. Another fantastically long links page by a guy named Russel Fouts

10. The DWodp (something open directory project), which includes a screenshot of each featured page - nice!

11. A site from the Netherlands called Kellysearch, where I'm listed as some sort of materials supplier, I think (my Dutch is rusty). Aha - perhaps this is why I keep getting international spam asking if I can fill an order for 500 rice bowls or whatever! I like how I'm listed as being in the "Verenigde Staten"

12. A profile on Vasefinder site

13. And, last but not least, a bunch of posts to the CLAYART discussion list.

 

More Layout Changes

I continue to twiddle with the layout and CSS properties of this 'ere blog. Today I've:

~ changed all the text to relative font sizes (e.g "x-small" instead of "11px") - this restores user-control of display size in the browser. I like to read it pretty tiny, but want someone who prefers big text to see it their way*. Someday I might get around to adding those nifty CSS font control buttons to the interface.

~ used CSS to modify the <blockquote> tag, which gives me more control over the margins in the main content area. The tag seems like a good tool for formatting, but the default margins made for shorter lines than I prefer in this current 3 column layout.

~ moved all the CSS from inside my Template file on the Blogger site to a linked relative stylesheet residing on my server. This should make it easier to tweak CSS changes without having to republish the entire archives; they'll take effect at runtime, like good CSS is supposed to.

~ consolidated several overlapping and/or redundant CSS styles, and converted some plain HTML formatting to CSS styles.

~ a lot of minor pretty-fication that should go largely unnoticed.

* Note: A really big font display makes this page look like crap; a really small one might require vision enhancement. In IE6, I prefer "smaller" or "medium", but it's dependent on half a dozen other factors, so suit yourself.

[Update, 7.28.04: I've now added a decent DOCTYPE to my blog template, so the fonts render in most browsers as they should, rather than the old "quirks" mode. I now highly recommend a 'medium' font size for mass consumption, 'smaller' if you're conservative with screen real estate, and the ever-popular monitor resolution of 1152x864 pixels.]

 

Dreams #32-34

More nighttime weirdness to report, including several that I remembered in the shower, but now seem to be blocking out:

~ I went to teach my class next semester without an ounce of prep or even a syllabus. And somehow, it was Ceramics II, which I've never taught
~ Something involving a creepy old woman and a gun

And from the night before last:
~ My jr. high crush, one Miss Marty Ann Fields, somehow disappeared/was abducted from the ladies' room of a big airport/station/shopping mall; I and a group of friends (perhaps from that same era) were anxiously searching everywhere for her

It occurs to me that it's pretty convenient to blame noteworthy dreams on anxiety or stress, such as being in house-hunting hell, but what about all the other times? And what about good dreams - are they a product of excessive relaxation or peacefullness?

Can anyone recommend a good book about this stuff, preferably in an imaginative, pop-psychology vein... something that won't give me weird dreams?