Archive.
Thursday, May 31, 2001 Link
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If you're as persnickety about the accuracy of the terminology used while describing dead computing platforms as I am, then you'll appreciate the effort that I put into this. Presenting the almost definitive guide to Newton-related terms and definitions: The Newton Glossary A heaping helping of praise and thanks to Victor and Paul for lending an oft-needed hand in the preparation of this goodly tome. Prosit!
Wednesday, May 30, 2001 Link
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I just can't seem to stop typing "United States" as "Untied States" today.
Tuesday, May 29, 2001 Link
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If anyone knows of a source for PC card jewel cases similar to these that:
- is reasonable in price...
- takes online orders...
- will ship to Canada...
I'd appreciate hearing from you. Drop me a line if you can help. Thanks a heap.
Opera for Macintosh went beta today. Rejoice.
Recently observed. A guy pulling the siding off the house across the street, presumably hired to do so, looking like a cross between a shirtless, singular Doobie Brother and a sweaty Kai Krause with slightly less feathering. Remarkable.
Monday, May 28, 2001 Link
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After thinking about it last night, I realized that my previous post wouldn't be completely fair and honest without presenting the consummate set of factual evidence. So, for your perusal, here are the lyrics to the Red Rider song, Lunatic Fringe. Once again, Microsoft has proven their ability to chose theme songs for their software launches that are both poetic and prophetic.
Lunatic fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
and you hold your meetings
I can hear you coming
know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
we won't let you kill the laughter
Lunatic fringe
in the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
but you won't get too far
Cause ya gotta blame someone
for your own confusion
We're all on guard this time
against your final solution
Lunatic fringe
you're not gonna win this time
We can hear the footsteps
out along the walkway
Lunatic fringe
we all know you're out there
Can you feel the resistance
can you feel the rage?
Copyright © 1981 Tom Cochrane
Some of those lines are almost as appropriate as "...you make a grown man cry" in the Stone's Start Me Up, which the steaming Redmond machine licensed for the launch of Windows 95.
Saturday, May 26, 2001 Link
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Has anyone else seen the new ad for Microsoft Office XP? If I could find it online, I'd point it out. It's the one where some corporate casual day leftover is motoring around what appears to be the Bonneville Salt Flats like a .bat file out of hell. The ad uses a fairly standard repertoire of gritty, yet meaningless, "drive stupid fast then slide into a controlled skid" shots more commonly found in commercials pimping high-performance sedans. Oh, did I mention that the aforementioned leftover is not actually driving a car? He's sitting at a desk. With a computer. Clever, huh? The real kick in the creative can is the background music. Maybe it's just my innate hyper-sensitivity to hearing out of context Canadian content, but using Red Rider's twenty year old Lunatic Fringe is forcing the irony a bit much. Experience the lunacy. Experience Office XP.
Friday, May 25, 2001 Link
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Telefunken. Say it and smile.
A simple case of beginner's luck or unencumbered prodigiousness? Whatever the final determination may be, the fact is I just got whomped by my six year old daughter playing backgammon. Damn, she picks up on stuff fast. And now that her reading skills are getting up to speed, I had better keep watch over my shoulder when I'm accessing my online banking accounts. She's liable to pick up on how to do that too.
Thursday, May 24, 2001 Link
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Imagine of you will, a van full of cedar lumber salvaged from a neighbor's tired, but still solid enough to stand on its own, back yard fence. Then add to that image, a freshly adjusted table saw with a brand new carbide-tipped ripping blade. Think of the possibilities in a physical world of pure, tactile analog user interface, where the widgets get no smaller than your forearm. Breathe the sawdust, breathe.
Wednesday, May 23, 2001 Link
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Amazingly and coincidentally, both my mother-in-law and one of my nephews were in the hospital today. One was in for an endoscopic exploratory, the other for corrective limb surgery. I am pleased to report that everyone is doing fine, thank you very much. Our household will be resting much better tonight than yesterday evening, let me assure you.
Shut up your sniggering Mike. Somehow, this is partially your fault.
Ah, the road of leisure I have chosen. This afternoon, I tackled the daunting task of unpacking part of the seemingly endless pile of cartons, boxes, and file folders that came home after I finished up at EyeWire. A goodly chunk of the disjecta membra consisted of a tangled snake-heap of cables that just seemed to grow larger with every intra-office relocation. They are a snake-heap no more. I now have a dozen or so 11.4 litre stackable Rubbermaid tubs on the verge of being labelled, lidded, and stacked in alphabetically order under grandiose headings such as: Serial Cables; Audio Patch Cords; Ethernet Transceivers; and the ever popular SCSI Terminators (Passive & Active). Oh my, I'm afraid that I'm on the verge of turning into the geek equivalent of Martha Stewart. Imported Monitor Resolution Switches, anyone?
Tuesday, May 22, 2001 Link
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e-thanasia n. :
The act or practice of pulling the plug on a dot-com company or a website of traditional company. Mad props to Jane for coining this golden boy.
Sunday, May 20, 2001 Link
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For those of you who are not Canadian in persuasion or ilk, you may very well be contorting your various facial crags wondering what the heck a "Front Page Challenge" is. Well, since the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has seemingly obliterated any historical evidence of this particularly white bread slice of television history, I humbly present Front Page Challenge as described in the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television. No apologies, no explanations. It was just part of growing up Canuck.
Last night, with a house full of family and friends, we celebrated a very special occasion just a little bit early. Today, it was made official...
Friday, May 18, 2001 Link
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Does anyone else find the concept of AOL for Mac OS X hovering ludicrously close to this side of moronic? Sure, let's slap the online equivalent of a decomposing roadside attraction on top of the industrial-strength underpinnings of Darwin. Thank goodness someone out there is releasing genuinely useful applications for OS X to balance out the bland software pablum that come dribbling out of orifices of companies like America Online and RealNetworks.
Well, at least they're not bitter about it.
Thursday, May 17, 2001 Link
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By the way, BBEdit has been revbumped again. Get on it.
... and how come Rachel gets her mail at night?
For the past couple of days, I've been compiling a comprehensive glossary of terms, descriptions, acronyms, and other geeky blandishments specific to the Apple Newton. Why? Because nobody has done it before, and quite frankly, it needed to be done. All sorts of folks out there, clinging desperately to their treasured piece of forsaken technology, will benefit from knowing the absolute difference between a thawed package and a soup icon. I have over 400 definitions as of tonight, and have yet to request submissions from the Newton community at large. Just wait until they have the chance to toss in their dos centavos. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Tuesday, May 15, 2001 Link
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Magnetbox serves up the best turn of phrase I've heard in a Cesium half-life:
"McDonalds is racking up lawsuits like a meat abacus."
In case you're wondering, it's in reference to this article. Moo.
Sweet. I've finally managed to figure out how to get Summary to generate separate log analysis reports for each of the virtual domains I host on this coffee grinder Quadra I call a server. Very soon, all of my "customers" that I "provide" internet hosting "services" to will be able to tell a cacomixl referral from a craptastic page view. Once again I have been completely and utterly amazed to discover that it really does pay to read the user manual cover to cover.
Monday, May 14, 2001 Link
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How To Migrate Your System To a Different Hard Drive
I knew there had to be at least one more reason to keep me from plunging into another operating system's user pool. Yes, I'm quite aware of the advantages of Unix-based systems, but maybe I'm not quite ready to wade through this much crap just to move my system to another drive. And this is the simplified method. Zoinks. How about if I just admit right now that I'm very comfortable continuing along with the simplicity of dragging, dropping, and rebooting on my Mac. Fair enough?
The loss, the laughter, and OS X. Not just another tribute to Douglas Adams.
Saturday, May 12, 2001 Link
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Bought a two pound zip-lock bag full of silver lead solder and a hardcover textbook published in 1982 entitled "Computers And Data Processing Concepts And Applications With BASIC" at a garage sale today. What does this say about me? Your comments are welcome. And Mike, I already know what your analysis will be, so don't even bother.
Author Douglas Adams Dies
Oh dear me, I think I'm going to be ill. The last time I felt this way after reading an obituary was when Jim Henson died. In a description for the fourth book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, it says: "...as everyone knows, the answer lies in making life flash before your eyes...." Congratulations Mr. Adams, you have done just that. Attention everyone, you may now begin heaping on the superlatives. So long, and thanks for all the fish...
Oh, those wacky referrer logs. For whatever reason, this Italian portal site found the grantcam interesting enough to include in its directory of places to go and people to see. While being listed isn't necessarily that big of a deal, I did enjoy running their description of my site through the eponymic Babelfish translator:
"Under the singular name of "Splorp" Grant hides itself Hutchinson, Canadian creative young person that has decided to leave one seen on its life, framing just the study and just the Macintosh. He does not seem but that Grant has an enlivened existence a lot. According to Grant, however, its webcam would be one of the three that is active uninterruptedly from more time. The modernization is every..."
Yes, Grant has an enlivened existence a lot.
Thursday, May 10, 2001 Link
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Shooting Digital Video PDA Style
Creating honest to goodness QuickTime movies using a Visor Platinum, an EyeModule 2 camera, the Targus digital voice recorder, a compact tabletop tripod, and a light bulb. Now that's minimalist cinematography.
Had a very interesting phone call this morning. Very interesting indeed...
Wednesday, May 09, 2001 Link
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Thought for the day: Every once in a while, you'll find that there's a ray of sunlight shining out of the rear-end of even the shittiest situation. With an apologetic hat tip to The Smiths.
Tuesday, May 08, 2001 Link
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Salon has the skinny on Neil Cicierega, the fourteen year old behind everybody's current internet pass-around, Hyakugojyuuichi!
As much as I'd love to cheer mightily and flap my arms with unabashed vigor at the prospect of Apple resurrecting the Newton platform, I don't see it happening. Methinks the gang down in Cupertino are simply hedging their bets by exploring alternatives to their current component supply chain. That's not saying the an ultra-portable, slate-based device with true, accurate handwriting recognition isn't going to pop out of the plant. We will probably see one of those creatures within the next twelve months, but it isn't going to be a Newton.
Fortunately, to take my mind off of recent events, I have a special engagement to attend this afternoon. I am privileged (and somewhat nonplussed) to have been invited to my daughter's grade three art class. Through a series of ongoing events and conversations that started last school year, Molly's teacher finally convinced me to come into the classroom and do some art stuff with the kids. So this afternoon, a roomful of eight and nine year olds are going to learn the basics of typeface design and decorative lettering. Yes, you can blame me for yet another generation of humans perpetuating the use of drop-shadowed display lettering. But darn the diphthongs... every single one of them is going learn what the heck an ogonek is too.
Toby was kind enough to point out the following chunk of copy that appears on current EyeWire home page. It's especially ironic in light of what transpired at my former place of employ yesterday.
"No more 9 to 5. The old rules of business don't apply. 55 images of hip people making a living in the new economy. Home office and laptop computers. Boardrooms filled with unusual shapes and bold colors. Saturated. Colorized. Collage. It's Synergy: New Company."
The kicker? The images in this collection feature people that I worked with at EyeWire as the models. Those "hip people" are now going to be looking for new jobs in the new economy. No more 9 to 5 indeed.
Monday, May 07, 2001 Link
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Maybe I should explain that little outburst I had a bit earlier. You see, I left EyeWire because I really wanted a change. The corporate environment had changed from an invigorating, challenging, thoughtful, and exciting place to one that was just a job. Part of that change had to do with the standard bullet-point list of bureaucratic crap that gets shoved down the throat of any startup company once it gets wedged far enough into the craw of any certainly well-intentioned parent company. Well-intentioned or not, I was not prepared to stick around any longer to see if everything that was being promised to our office was going to pan out. Well, as of today, it most definitely has not panned out and I am feeling a mixture of sadness and anxiety for the friends I left behind at EyeWire. I'm glad I don't have to deal with what they will be going through, because I acted in that screenplay once before. But that doesn't mean I don't think situation sucks. Sorry guys, I wish I knew that it had been coming. I trusted them and you got screwed. I guess it's time to go to plan B, eh?
I just heard the distinct sound of shit hitting fan.
Sunday, May 06, 2001 Link
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I spent most of today shuffling piles in the basement ot make room for some new shelving. I'm in dire need of some outside. After the kids are in bed, I'm treating myself to a side-trail bicycle ride through Fish Creek Park. With any luck at all, the frogs and the red-winged blackbirds will be singing a soundtrack for me as I trundle through the trees.
Friday, May 04, 2001 Link
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My apologies to those folks trying to hit the home page since yesterday afternoon. I was experiencing some configuration hiccups with the way the virtual domains were being handled on the server, and it was caught in some sort of endless redirection loop. It figures that my own site was the only one that went all cattywumpus, and the other thirty-five or so domains I host were working fine.
Wednesday, May 02, 2001 Link
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Daniel has just finished posting a freshly pinched, steaming pile of all-Canadian fusion - specially edited by yours truly. Please kick back wth your browser and take a sniff of the rescue.
It happens when you have pet fish. Inevitably, one of your underwater buddies kicks the proverbial TetraMin container and you end up flushing them to their final resting place. This exact event happened in our household yesterday. My daughter's two year old gold fish finally succumbed, and the body was summarily disposed. This evening I found a tiny, hand-drawn tombstone taped to the upstairs toilet. "Here lies Big Fat Fish" was all it said.
Tuesday, May 01, 2001 Link
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In Defense of Aqua
Thank goodness someone is viewing the world through Aqua-coloured glasses while sitting on the other side of the fence... er, nevermind. Take a quick read of this contrarian-esque article and there's a much better chance that you'll understand what the heck I'm talking about. The experts and soothsayers do not necessarily take everything into consideration. Via xblog
I'm wearing toasty warm pajama pants, fresh out of the dryer.
I have always suspected it, but now we have proof. It seems as though some of Steve Jobs' arrogance has leeched into Apple's public relations pool. All that NUblog purveyor Joe Clark was attempting to do was locate a bit of additional skinny on localization in Mac OS X. The so-called PR firm wouldn't so much as toss him table scraps, and now they've turned all pissy. I thought press coverage of a new product was generally considered a good thing. Godspeed, Joe.
Furthermore.
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