...more recent posts
My god the spammers are quite insistent lately that I receive a lower mortgage.
Someday we will get them. And I don't mean lower mortgages.
I've been trying to ignore everything. On purpose. I'm sorry. But what can I do?
I guess not be silent, for starters, even when it's clear that speaking will do no good.
What the hell is happening in Jenin? Can we get some neutral observers in there? I'm not asking for peace, but can't we try to prevent an atrocity? By either side.
No matter what your beliefs, can't we agree we need correct information? And more of it?
One side says the Palestinians are leaving the bodies of their fallen comrades in the streets on purpose. To sway international opinion. The other side says that Israeli snippers have the whole camp pinned down and that it is impossible to even get to their wounded. They claim that ambulances are being shot at. They even claim the Israeli's tricked a group of elderly men and women out of hiding with offers of fresh water, captured them, and strapped them to the front of advancing tank columns. That sounds outrageous, and I don't have a lot of faith in either of the sources I just pointed to (but I like that you can at least tell where their sympathies lie.) But what if it's true?
My point is just that we need more information. I'm not talking about peace keeping forces, or anything like that (although maybe that's a good idea,) I just want some neutral unarmed observers on the ground. I'm aware that this is the sort of thing the U.S. government would never allow. So maybe it's a lot to complain that Israel won't allow this. But I complain about the U.S. too. I mean when I'm not trying to ignore everything because I feel powerless. And hopeless. And dumbstruck by the brutality of humans.
What the world needs is a cheap wireless ip-enabled video camera with one of those crank to charge batteries. Then we could just drop (or smuggle) cases of them into war zones. I'm sure the people on the ground would be filming. Not sure how to keep the world's air forces from knocking out the base stations you'd need. Maybe they'd have to be peer to peer. A giant mesh of witnesses. You'd need a ton of them then, but if they were cheap enough....
That might actually help a lot.
It's Hannah's birthday, so we ran to the store to buy her the Harman Kardon iSub subwoofer to go with the Apple pro speakers that are hooked to her new Quicksilver G4. The guy at the store assured us that this was impossible. The iSub (packaged alone, not the bundle with the iSticks) is clearly marked on the box as only for slot loading iMacs. But this would even exclude the new flat panel iMac, and I know it works on that because Stephen has it hooked up to his. So we bought it anyway, and I'm presently listening to some amazingly bass rich sound. Weird. I guess Apple just doesn't want to support it. But it defintely works. At least under 9.2.2. Definitely worth the money.
If I'm not writing here much you could assume I am hard at work. And this time you wouldn't be wrong. As I've said many times before, I love the meaty middle part. First I start making a bunch of little pieces of code. It's like assembling a tool chest. And then I start linking them all together. That's fun. But then past a certain point the big picture has emerged from the connected parts leaving just a lot of small details to be ironed out around the edges. Not so fun. Things like polishing the user interface, writing documentation, and testing testing testing for weird errors in unexected situations. You might think you're 90% done when you hit this turning point, but then after a few weeks of getting bogged down in these mere "details" you realize you were only 60% done. Yuck. Details take time, and you're not moving so fast over the finer grained terrain.
Anyway, I'm not quite to the turning point yet, so I guess I'm in the fun zone. Hence not much writing here. The only thing I can add to these observations is that with each additional time I go through the process the big picture becomes more and more simplified. Since I've used previous versions of the system I know what is necessary and what is superflous. And I've gotten better at writing it. This makes for smaller code that is more understandable. And my guess is that this will result in the turning point being closer to 90% done than way back at 60%. We'll see very soon. This week probably.
Off to Long Island for afternoon dinner with MB's parents. Be back tonight.
Tomorrow will be a bit of a loss, so I'm trying to make progress today. I'm talking about that work over here to keep this page clear for the constant stream of witty and amusing anecdotes that have made this weblog so popular with ones of readers. I owe it all to my fans! Thank you, thank you, thank you. And, oh yeah, thank you. That should cover it.
I guess I should come clean. Minutes (well, O.K., days) away from finishing the new system software I had one of my strokes of genius™ and decided to start the whole project completely over. Long time observers may begin to notice a pattern of delusional behavior in terms of actually finishing anything, but the management requests them to just pipe down.
This madness will absolutely not continue past the first of May. No, really.
Took the subway out to Fort Greene, Brooklyn last night for some Cambodian food. We got the F at Delancey and then switched to the C at Jay St. / Borough Hall. We just made it through the closing doors on the transfer, it was crowded, and I didn't get a chance to grab hold of anything. The train started forward with a lurch and I stumbled back a few steps.
Now I hadn't seen him of course. I tend to keep my eyes to myself. But let's just say I had a sense of the crowd. And in the moment after it was all too quickly clear: the large afro, the impeccable head to toe baby blue track suit, and most importantly, the orange plastic Nike bag holding the oversized sneaker box of urban consumer conquest.
Train moves forward. I stumble back and my very black shoe lands squarely on his pristine minutes old all white Air Jordans. Yes it left a smudge. He shot me a look that managed to both frighten me and simultaneously conveying that killing me would be too much effort, and might well further dirty his shoes. Needless to say I tried to support that latter feeling in the tone of my quick and heartfelt apology. "Sorry" I said, meaning "don't waste your time with the hapless hippie - HE'S NOT WORTH IT."
Jumped off at Lafayette, relieved. Had a great dinner at Cambodian Cuisine, 87 South Elliot Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Just be careful on the subway.
I have completely lost my mind. Possibly in a good way. No time for posting...