Obsolete Your Idols

Offered almost without comment.

My former co-worker Oliver Marsh has moved on to do his Own Thing at Video Fantastica!. He was already doing his own thing at Dig Your Own Grave.

He's pretty selective in what gets on to DYOG; he declined to post the only link I ever sent him. Do stop in and take a look at his sites.

There was a phenomena back when I was in school, where it seemed like the school district would roll out cool programs and resources in my wake. Things like AP programs, decent computers, advanced math curriculum, expanded libraries. Today thanks to a podcast I caught up on from Cory Doctorow's feed, I found out that my nominal home town has rolled out something else cool long after I left it,

KRUU open source radio.

Somehow I doubt anyone I knew when I was there has anything to do with the station. Not their bag, baby.

My co-worker went to Japan and took some pictures. This one's probably my favorite:

My friend Nate's in a band.

Quick, guess which member of the band he must be.

My friend Tim has a brief confession about his new-found fondness for Google. I'm probably reading too much into it by noticing that his blog is hosted at Blogger, aren't I? That's how they get to you! I say we take off and nuke the whole codepus from orbit.

So in the interest of full-disclosure, nutrients I receive regularly from the Google teats, other than the obvious searches:

• Gmail account used for
  • Google news alerts
  • Google group membership
  • a dusty old Orkut account
• Maps, which reminds me to mention my home town. Evidently there is a misspelled name on that map. Twice.
• sometimes I eat nan which Evan leaves at the Lair after gaming. He probably buys it with money paid to him by Google.

I tend to look briefly at each new Google beta or lab service as it gets buzz around it and then not use it very much, not go back to give it a second trial. It's a big web. I have a lot more links I need to be clicking on. I can't wait around for a second chance.

But I'm not ready to jump on the Google-is-secretly-evil bandwagon. I think I'm just glad to see someone else excited about something I have been excited about before.

My friend Randy gets quoted in an article about the Indie Band Survival Guide he had a hand in writing.

If you are capable of reading these words, you should probably go read the guide or at least visit the Beatnik Turtle site.

Do it! Do it now!

Additionally, I may have solved something which annoyed since I moved to this server as a host for my blog.

That being the Mystery of the Nonfunctional Blosxom Plugins. Which came down to Habitual Solution #2, permissions.

Then read this Indie Band Survival Guide for how to avoid getting suckered and abused on your way to musical fame and fortune. My friend Randy had a hand in writing this and showed me an earlier draft; I suggest that you give it a look if you have any interest in the mechanics of making a business out of making music.

It's nearly the end of another year, the time when many people resolve to change themselves or their circumstances. Not me. I'm practically perfect in every way.

More to the point, I tend to make changes aperiodically as a habit. Most recently, I have:

• Started doing the exercises from The Hacker's Diet -- [10 weeks ago]
• Helped craft home made and re-usable holiday cards -- [5 weeks ago]
• Quit my job -- [1 week ago]
• Gotten married to Vylar -- [0.5 weeks ago]

But I think I will take on a challenge for 2006 by Reading 50 Books. For my own purposes, I'm choosing to read novels which I have not previously read. To keep me honest, I'll aim to post about the books here. Toward that end I am even now seeking to return my currently in progress or pending to read books which don't meet this criteria.

... but I forgot to write it down when I thought of it.

Suffice to say, I failed to complete nanowrimo again this year, so I'm 1 for 3. Maybe I'll find the time to wrap up the story I started and put it up here. Or not.

Light scrapes the surface of tidal surges; autumn drowns future silence.

It's been a while; I've been busy. Still am. In addition to the job, and my various and sundry ongoing projects, I've once again undertaken writing a novel.

Yeah, overcommitment. But nothing like Randy.

My planning event horizon points at there being some kind of resolution to many of my projects by mid-December. Of this year, even.

Relegated to its own page, it's my list of bookmarks, sporadically updated.

• Friends.
  • christ
  • courtney & roy
  • crag
  • david & brina
  • doug + kari show
  • doug solo action
  • hulk
  • james + robyn
  • keef
  • laws
  • mike
  • morris
  • pg
  • qrs
  • stormagnet
  • sonia
  • tv's spatch
  • will
  • xantha
• Family.
  • nowthis
• Software.
  • aegis
  • amphetadesk
  • bbs100
  • debian project
  • driftnet
  • dropload
  • erasmatazz
  • freebios
  • gamasutra
  • gnu
  • grub the web index
  • honeynet
  • kernel janitors
  • kernel newbies
  • kernel traffic
  • linux-tiny
  • lazyweb
  • linux kernel
  • linux from scratch
  • linuxbios
  • metasploit
  • mon
  • openbios
  • paketto keiretsu
  • perl
  • publicfile
  • shellcode on lj
  • sleuthkit
  • stealth
  • sweetcode
  • systemrescuecd
  • tiara
  • unofficial apt-get sources
• Strangers.
  • aj
  • andyo
  • pied.nu/banned
  • belle de jour
  • blogrunner
  • boingboing
  • bruce sterling
  • centennial society
  • cool tools
  • dave dittrich
  • decafbad
  • delicious
  • die puny humans
  • eat drink make do
  • evan
  • 43 folders
  • linuxchix
  • magic times
  • magnatune
  • memepool
  • memory hole
  • metafilter
  • neural surfer
  • occam's razor
  • raelity bytes
  • reactor core
  • remixfight
  • revland
  • sourcefrog
  • tilman hausherr
• Bedfellows.
  • adbusters
  • air america
  • bartcop
  • calpundit
  • celebrity atheists
  • conscientious consuming
  • counterspin
  • crooked timber
  • cryptome
  • daily howler
  • dailykos
  • detritus
  • economic snapshots
  • eff
  • eschaton
  • greg palast
  • lawrence lessig
  • legitgov actions
  • low impact living
  • mick farren
  • nathan newman
  • negativland
  • no logo
  • opensecrets
  • raw story
  • rightweb
  • robert anton wilson
  • rtmark
  • smoking gun
  • sniggle
  • talking points memo
  • the yes men
  • they rule
  • this modern world
  • uggabugga
  • watching justice
  • whiskey bar
• Comics.
  • bludlines
  • cat town
  • exploding dog
  • howtoons
  • mnftiu
  • modest destiny
  • sinfest
  • a softer world
  • white ninja
• Games.
  • dead inside
    • publisher's site
    • buy it at rpgnow
  • seventh sea
    • all the sites seem to have gone d20
    • i only run 1st edition 7th sea
  • unknown armies
    • official site
    • atlas games
    • cutting room
    • eyeballkid
    • uarchive

Much has happened of late. Forty-five to fifty hours of it each week are work-derived water treading. Here's an effort to condense and clean up some of it and provide an anchor in time.

Unsubscribed to some mailing lists, given simply no time to read them.

• unknown armies
• opie bugs
• opie
• open embedded
• openzaurus users

Started playing around with some of the Social Network Services.

• orkut
• tribe
• mosuki

Spending lots of money, obviously, on crap I don't really need.

• rp games
• cc games

In the free time, a lot of unfinished furniture is getting finished.

I accepted a job with ticketweb. In San Francisco.

There will be a period of extensive chaos after which more will be said.

What a fine, fine book store this is.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"They were used to find the short sides s and diagonals d of triangles with long sides of length l = 1 by the method of completing the square." from Sherlock Holmes in Babylon (and Other Tales of Mathematical History).

UPDATE 2007/12/30: Sourced
Oh, yeah, I got this random demand from here which got it from here.

You may not know Lois Weisberg. But you probably know someone who does. This article is brain-smashingly amazing. Read the whole thing. Seriously, it's revealing and insightful and inspiring and wonderful.

Sock-clad Wiccans.

As a loyal citizen of Mother Earth, I must warn you that this biography is nothing but the most mendacious lies by an insidious alien intruder hoping to pass as an earthling. Little does the extra-stellar marauder realize that mere earthlings are not chosen for such honors as attending Clarion West.

Have I mentioned how proud I am of the alienne fatale?

Grrr! Pants. Thanks to Prof.Membrane for the pointer and to redshrike for recognizing my jihad.

But I just got around to starting the Warren Ellis lj novel.

I took a screen shot of bbs100 with ANSI colors in terminus font.

For people who hate colors, here's one in white on black.

Interesting.

Or, rather, kissing. Kind of a sweet sight, seeing all those famous people kissing for our edification. Kind of a sweet site, as well.

Crypto-Gram reminded me of this page. No real commentary to add. It's just kind of neat.

Vylar pointed me at this article about Wal-Mart. Evidently the fine folk at Business Week have noticed that being a monopoly has downsides to it as well as the delirious advantages of being able to rape customers at will. Oh, well. I suppose I should be glad that some small notice is being taken of the havoc wreaked by Wal-Mart.

Go. Read. Learn. Think. Act.

So Will's got this friend who does things like this and this and even this. I am so astoundingly jealous. It also reminded me that it's been a while since I heard from the Adbusters people.

Drew pointed me at this announcement of the revitalization of the Thieves' World stories. A reprinting of the first two anthologies, where it [from my perception] all began. All the amazing fantasy stories which got me thinking I liked fantasy after I'd been burned out on Piers Anthony. All the treachery and gritty low level grubby ambitions of wastrels, drunks and thieves. Those of you who've played in one of my D&D campaigns will recognize these themes.

Laws took a class recently on doing stand-up comedy and told me these two books are very good, the first being the textbook from her class and the second being full of useful bits. I think I probably need help being more funny.

Evidently Keef has a new project, very nearly a photographic version of the Haiku Postcard project. Or not. I really have no idea. I just know that Keef has more creative ideas in a day than I think I've had in my entire life. Bastard. With Keef's brain and my beauty, I could conquer the world. Eat your heart out, Ultra-Humanite.

I suppose I could use the photobooth in nearby Tacoma to participate but, you know, why break my ongoing streak of uninvolvement? Besides, I've got NaNoWriMo coming up and that will serve nicely as my get out of anything free card.

I like the Wing Dome. Stacks and stacks of flavored, spicy wings. One more picture from Heath, this time of a plate of defeated wings. Turns out their Super Sampler of six ten sets is just right for four enormously hungry people. Not a bad way to spend forty bucks.

Updated to cut the bad picture link which was here before.

Some updates today to the Blosxom instance that I use to publish these scribblings in the form of plugins, with a few local tweaks to take in to account some of the pathing crankiness of publicfile. Otherwise, it's Access Denied, ahoy! Specifically, plugins currently running are:

• breadcrumbs
• calendar
• categorytree
• seemore, of which this post is the first test
• worldpop

Probably I'll add more as needs grow; categorytree was a replacement of categorylist, as the structure of a tree seemed easier for me to navigate in. As always, it's all about me. Me, me, me.

UPDATE 2007/12/30: Plug It In, Plug It In
Some new plugins added, which allows me to test one of them. Namely, the stack now includes + foreshortened, used in the XML feed + update, being tested here + userstatus This concludes our fun with plugins for the day.

Vylar also pointed me at this set of time management pages. Nothing about being able to bottle it, however.

Vylar pointed me at this history of tapestries.

Belatedly got around to reading Clay Shirky's piece on Groups and Software, close kin to the keynote speech he gave at O'Reilly's Conference on Emerging Technology. It's got several head-smackingly duh points, explained in ways that are only so obvious because I'm looking at someone doing a better job of making them than I ever could. When developing software for group usage, there are three things you must accept about the system and four things you must design for in the system. Go read the piece yourself to get it in context. For additional insight and inspiration, here's a copy of the LambdaMOO Takes a New Direction document referenced.

Kate said John Paul Caponigro's photography would knock my socks off.

She was completely correct.

I keep thinking I should attend more conventions, conferences, festivals, fairs, and so forth. Along those lines, here's a calendar of things happening in my neck of the wood and here's a different calendar of Seattle specific events of all sorts. Thanks to Qrs and Drew for finding these on my behalf.

I need this prelude to Bone. OK, I don't need it; but I sure do want it.

PG pointed me at this site for finding out one's FICO score. Probably useful for people looking to buy a house or rob a bank or something.

Laws says I must buy TV Carnage and then I can be like the cool kids. But not, I dare say, cool. Probably just a poseur. Still.

Vylar pointed me at this book sale, which is probably the world's biggest used book sale, and occurs annually. On a similar thread, I may finally make it to the Northwest Bookfest this year.

So Stephenson's Quicksilver is out and Morris pointed me at a Quicksilver wiki, which she says she found through metafilter, which reminded me that I didn't have a link to it or even memepool from here, yet. It's true; I'm a consumer and aggregator of aggregations. The logical culmination of aggressive passive entertain fixations.

Soon, stormagnet will finish the house copy of Quicksilver and I'll get my peepers on it. Until then, I'm trying to avoid spoilers, so I can't even tell you if that wiki pointed at above is cool or not. I put away the tab as soon as I realized what it was.

There's a story out about a U.S. District Judge finding that the Federal Trade Commission exceeded their authority by creating the National Do Not Call Registry. I suppose the irony in a judge ruling that the group responsible for regulating trade isn't allowed to do so almost balances the subsequent aggravation at Yet Another Delay on some change to get peace and quiet. Evidently fifty million people were so delighted with an opportunity, at last, to opt out of the use of their time and phone to try to sell them things that they leaped at the chance to escape that. Do you think this might indicate an industry desperately in need of some regulation?

I was pointed at this story by PG.

So here's an interesting trio of sisters. As it is said, "One loved money, one loved power, and one loved China". A remarkable family, with motivated women who achieved notable destinies. Curiously little seems to have been written about their male siblings. The Furies of the Guillotine, the Greek furies, Charlie's Angels, the Dixie Chicks, everyone loves a trio of powerful and dangerous women.

Interestingly enough, the one most renowned for cleverness is said to have loved power. I suppose power does trump both money and China. Or to remap it, scissors triumph over both stone and paper. Thanks to PG for the pointer.

Continuing her quest to educate me, Laws has now pointed me at an excerpt from a forthcoming book by David Foster Wallace, who you might remember from such thick and meaty works as Infinite Jest. It's a personal failing that I can only start David Foster Wallace books while on airplanes but that doesn't mean I find him inaccessible. I'll just have to drag myself kicking and screaming in to his mad world.

Laws pointed me at an interesting article about Murphy's Law. John Paul Stapp just went from a "who?" to a "whoa." at supersonic speeds.