June 2003 Archives

This article in Business Week suggests that advertising agencies aren't feeling the love for TiVO right now.

TiVo can also pinpoint where and when ads are watched the most. For example, a commercial for breakfast cereal might be skipped through less often in the morning on the West Coast than during pricey prime-time slots in the East. "This is the beginning of the end of that drunken orgy of dollars spent on broadcast TV as the ultimate 'reach' vehicle," says Tim Hanlon, vice-president for emerging contacts at Starcom MediaVest, an ad agency that helped TiVo design its new service.

The article also indicates that TiVO has discovered that ratings are an inverse indicator of ad viewing. In other words, the more popular the show, the more likely a TiVO viewer is to fast-forward through the commercials. This sort of information is absolutely great for those buying advertising, but horrifying to the networks and agencies.

I, however, am completely unshaken in my TiVO love.

ComputerWorld, a magazine I read regularly, has a Q&A session with Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News regarding the new announcements from Apple. I'm not particularly sure why Dan was singled out by the magazine on this particular topic, on which he isn't an expert as far as I know, but it does make for good reading and it promotes Apple, which is good in itself.

I didn't post on Sunday because I was busy closing down the pottery studio that my wife, her parents, and I owned for the last two and a half years. As we were combing through the accumulated detritus of years of pottery painting and firing, I reflected on how far we had come from idea to failure and I figured that I should write up the shop's story as a tribute. Yesterday closed a chapter on a period of our life filled with hopes and dreams that suddenly don't seem all that important.

Painting in the Park Pottery Studio was the most recent iteration of the Gatti family's ceramics empire. Okay, it wasn't and probably won't ever be an empire. Painting in the Park was originally Gwen and Joe's ceramic painting operation at a weekly farmer's market at Roadrunner Park in north Phoenix. They then decided to open a retail store at Cave Creek Road and Sweetwater in a small strip mall between an upholstery shop and a mortuary. To put it lightly, this was not a great retail location.

Sandi had an idea in January 2000 that we could invest some money in the shop, go all partner-y with her parents, and move the shop to a better location. We quickly incorporated as Painting in the Park, Inc. and sought a new location. We settled on Arrowhead Towne Center and found a great space right next to Robinson's May—the space is still available incidentally. We were in the process of negotiations and getting ready to sign a lease when our contractor dropped the bombshell that he wasn't going to reduce his prices as promised. That pretty much ended Arrowhead as a viable location. In retrospect, we probably should have left it at that but we were positively inspired with the idea.

We spent the next few months scouting for a better spot. In the end, we came upon the shopping plaza at 32nd Street and Greenway Road in north Phoenix around June 2000. We decided to sign a lease, but there were complications because the property was being sold and the old owner didn't want us as a tenant. We had to wait until October for the escrow to finalize so we could move in and start retailing. The management company lied to us a few times in the interim to keep us from trying to find anything else. In the time it took to finally get a suite—June to October—we certainly could have found something better. Oh well, water under the bridge.

We signed the lease on October 17, 2000 with the opening slated for December 1, 2000. The delay was prodigious since the Christmas season is the gravy part of the year for pottery studios. We worked feverishly throughout November to get things in order. We had limited startup funds: Sandi and I contributed $15,000 and her parents provided all of the capital equipment and inventory. The majority of the money was spent building out the suite and ponying up the necessary deposits. When all was said and done, we had practically nothing for marketing and had to resort to unconventional means to get the word out that we existed. December, to say the least, was a slow month.

The first year flew by and we gradually built up a steady clientele. We created door hangers and walked many neighborhoods putting them up. We created the Web site you see today and submitted it to every local calendar, Web site, and search engine you could imagine. We eventually made it onto Channel 3's mid-morning "news" show to demonstrate our bridal shower party package, of which we only ever booked one. We walked through parking lots nearby and stuck little fliers on windshields. I wanted to attack our competitors by papering their parking lots with targeted messages, but was prevented from doing so by the wholesale business of her parents.

The real turning point was September 11, 2001. We were gaining business each month and the rate was promising, though it wasn't paying anything above expenses. The bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon affected our business in unexpected ways and we had several weeks of trickling sales. The Christmas season was disappointing and it created a downward spiral that kept us always playing catch-up.

As we accumulated more business and spread the word of value-priced ceramics and friendly service, we began to lose interest in the huge time drain our studio had become. The shop was paying for itself, but it wasn't paying us anything. It's really hard to volunteer week in and week out for something that doesn't seem to be working. It was even worse when we would visit our competition and see them packed to capacity despite much higher prices, more limited selection, and inexperienced employees. We would ask ourselves, "What are we missing here?"

In the end, the part of the equation we were missing was exactly what we knew all along: location. Being in a high-traffic area confers certain benefits on a retail store that shouldn't be overlooked or underestimated. The rents are higher, but awareness of your brand is heightened. Our location was between a pretty high-traffic deli and a pizza restaurant—later a shrimp restaurant. These generated more foot traffic than the mortuary, but nothing like a movie theater or department store. Also, the customers of the deli were primarily Eastern Europeans, most of whom spoke broken English at best. There were some high-traffic parts of the plaza, like McDonald's and Blockbuster, but they are what's called destination locations. People go there and go home; they don't usually linger around. We were further crippled by an architectural element that blocked our sign unless you came directly upon it.

I vow here and now never to open another retail store. They impose schedules that other self-employment options don't. You are the slave to those hours. You can get employees, but if something happens to them, you've got to come in. Schedule management occupies your life. You can't take a vacation unless you can assure adequate coverage. There's still a lot of tasks to do to end the corporation, of course, but I can do them at my convenience and that's something that has been a luxury for the last couple of years. I will never take free time for granted again, that's for sure.

Interesting. Tim O'Reilly has a new blog entry regarding Apple and its developer community along the lines of my previous worry. The discussion taking place over there is especially insightful.

After a nice weeklong respite, the asshat neighbors are back full throttle. The patio cover looks nice, has been stucco'd, and is completely painted. All nice and done.

Except that something now requires a circular saw and other power tools at 6:30 a.m. I'm trying to be a good neighbor and let it go, but could that level of inconsiderateness be any greater? I guess I'll just have to be the bigger man and avoid a feud that would certainly span generations.

From Biz Stone, I present to you the Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products. I don't know if there were earlier ones, but ACME has to be one of the first mega-conglomerates with subsidiaries making every product imaginable.

Boing Boing hit it right on the head about WreckedExotics.com: pure schadenfreude.

The site is dedicated to showing off wrecked, expensive cars. I don't condone the site, but there is something strangely fascinating in seeing the ways in which complex machinery can be contorted to unusability.

I have repeatedly voiced my frustration with learning Java. I've bought more Java books and read more online tutorials than you would probably think necessary: Beginning Java Objects, Java: How to Program, Thinking in Java, Thinking in Java, Effective Java, Java for ColdFusion Developers, Introduction to Programming using Java, and The Java Language Tutorial off the top of my head.

Am I a complete idiot? No. Each of these books helped me along a bit—Beginning Java Objects is the only one that had a helpful pedagogy and I'm actually almost done with it, after reading every page—but none of them really taught me the language. Some were well adapted to applet production, which I'm not interested in, and some were well-suited to understanding object orientation, which is but a small facet of the language. None of them really got me from start to finish with an understanding that readied me to tackle actual Java programs. As I said, I think Beginning Java Objects is the best I've read. It also helps that I don't have any practical need to learn Java, either professionally or personally.

Reading this interview with the authors, I think Head First Java might be worth a look. It's got an Alton Brown-ish feel to it and that's a learning style to which I relate well. Reading through the interview, I think I agree with most of the pedagogical points Sierra and Bates make. For example, most of the computer books I've read and all of the computer classes I've taken generally were teacher-centered instead of student-centered. The teacher had a syllabus to get through by gum, student comprehension be damned. Suffice it to say that those were not the most effective classes.

If you go to O'Reilly's site for the book, you can read samples and get a feel for the conversational writing style. I would recommend, though, going to a local bookstore, checking it over, and ordering it at Amazon.

In a AppleLinks article, John Farr argues that the new PowerMac G5 is so powerful that many users won't be upgrading for the foreseeable future. In other words, a vital Apple revenue stream might conceivably dry up at some point in the distant future because the new Mac is so future-proof.

Future-proof? What the hell is Bill talking about? Next he'll say that 8GB is more RAM than anyone will ever need. And that we'll never get off our dependency on oil. That is, famous last words. When I say future-proof, I mean that this new Mac will not age like previous generations. I know that sounds crazy, but I don't foresee technology advancing like it has in the past. Wait, technology will keep up its inexorable advance, but the demand for the higher technology will lose steam and plateau. There will always be those will incredible computing needs and those who think they have incredible computing needs. But the average Joe (assuming the average Joe has, at this point, bought a Mac) is going to find all of the computing power he needs.

What will Apple do at that point? If it were Microsoft or Intel, it would make the hardware obsolete through operating system requirements upticks or make the hardware obsolete through new secure motherboards required by a new secure Windows operating system (their words, definitely not mine). Apple has shown a slight affinity for this method in the past with the older G3s not being supported by Mac OS X and the new iPod firmware not being offered for the old iPods.

Farr's prediction (and one shared by the reader he quotes) is that Apple will move away from depending on computer sales for revenue and diversify its revenue streams to hedge its future risks. Wait, didn't they recently unveil some sort of online music store that's been wildly successful? Isn't Apple increasingly focusing on software and the hardware to support it?

I think this is an eminently sensible move, especially since Macintosh is on the firmest footing it's been on since its unveiling. For Apple to pull a pseudo-Microsoft in shifting focus to software and viewing hardware in a less important light is a good thing—providing they focus on usability and power in the software department.

[NOTE: If this sounds 180° at odds with my previous posting on Apple's future directions, it may very well be since a focus on software would necessarily put Apple in direct competition with its developer base. I guess that's a contradiction I'll have to ponder.]

Yesterday, I didn't feel like blogging so I didn't. But it got me to thinking about why I am blogging at all. I mean, what is the point of composing entries at all? It's not like I'm getting paid to do this. I'm not getting any job offers or writing contracts out of it. As a person who is predominantly guided by self-interest, these sorts of considerations carry a lot of weight.

I think I can categorically answer that its not because of any clamor for audience or recognition. If it was, then I certainly wouldn't have continued on for the years that I have. As you can see from the recently added comments feature, there's very little discussion and I think that's because there's not much of an audience here. I see from my logfiles that there is a fair amount of traffic to both my blog pages and their respective RSS feeds. But I've only received one email from someone who read my blog and it wasn't exactly heart-rending since it was a pitch for a business. I've never been linked from a major blogger (sorry, Steve, but you're B-list at best) or really had any evidence that my ramblings here have been ingested by anyone save those I specifically direct to check something out. I used to think that family and friends read this, but I've come to find out that they mainly frequent our pregnancy diary, which is perfectly fine and understandable. My friend Larry checks in occasionally, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't write for him.

What would be the other motivation? It would have to be self-derived. Something inside of me makes me want to write what I write. Perhaps I'm a frustrated writer trapped inside of a Web developer's body. Perhaps I'm Harry Hard-on and this is my version of a pirate radio station. That could actually be true. As a child, I explored pirate radio from every angle except for actually setting one up. When Pump Up the Volume came out, it was a liberating experience. I could picture myself as the quiet guy with a secret life as a disc jockey.

But maybe the media involved isn't important. Maybe the thing that intrigued me then and keeps me going now is self-expression. I've spent my entire life accumulating information, synthesizing observations, and analyzing arguments. But I've never really had a forum to let that experience come out. Sure, there were the bulletin boards of the mid-80s and the newsgroups of the early 90s but that was mostly flaming and you quickly learnt that you couldn't talk about everything you wanted to.

The Web, and blogs in particular, is very good at providing an outlet for me to write whatever I want in whatever format I want to whatever length I want. As I surf the Web, I come across things that make me think and about which I form conclusions and evaluations. Now I have a place where I can access them anywhere and refer people to them easily. I'm discussing an issue with someone and immediately my mind qua search engine brings up a result set of previous blog entries, essays, and reviews that I've written on the subject. If I want to impart those thoughts on the person I'm talking to, I need only point them to my site and I don't have to rehash. What's more, I've got essays here that stretch back my entire adult life. I've internalized their conclusions, but I frequently forget all of the research and detail that went into their crafting. It's now readily accessible to me and others.

On the other hand, though, I've got plenty of tools on my computer that could serve the exact same purpose and probably do it as efficiently (or even more so) than my Web site. I carry my laptop around to most of the places where I spend more than an hour, so why would I go through the trouble to make a dynamic, broad Web site when tools reside on my laptop that would make things easier.

I think it's because my Web site—and by extension, my blog—has become a part of my identity. There's a reason why I call the site The Bill Brown Information Center and there's a reason why my blog is called bblog. They're a part of me: the expressive part that previously lay dormant. When you establish such things as aspects of yourself, letting them be or holding back feels wrong and out of character. I blog because I am, in other words.

I don't mean to give the wrong impression with yesterday's blog entries. I think all of the stuff Jobs announced yesterday were completely pants-shitting goodness. I am going to upgrade to Panther when it becomes available and I am going to lust over the PowerMac G5 every visit to the Apple Store until one day when it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

I just think that there's some downsides to some of the decisions Apple/Steve Jobs have made.

I wasn't there and IANAD, but the software announcements made at the keynote struck me as worrisome. When Apple pre-empted Watson with its Sherlock program, I brushed it off as Apple's prerogative because Sherlock 3 was a natural evolution. I wish Apple would have bought him out or licensed it from him, but what are you going to do.

However, the inclusion of robust Samba and Active Directory support, though super terrific and all, leaves little market for Thursby Software, Objective Development, and ADmitMac. Sure, these are all adults: they had to know that their positions weren't fixed and that they could be displaced by any newcomer with a better widget.

I also understand that including these things with the operating system increases the value and viability of that operating system. But is Macintosh ever going to escape it's lack of software stigma if Apple keeps taking over developer's markets? Apple's bundling of software with the operating system does not establish a de jure barrier to entry, but it would be naive to think that it doesn't crowd out development. Apple itself should know this well from its experience being drubbed by the 800 lb. software gorilla. Macintosh users are fiercely loyal and usually assume that anything Apple produces is better than the other stuff out there.

I remember when someone was telling me about Roxio's Toast CD burning software. I'm no audiophile, but I do consider myself a power user. Steve was suggesting that Toast was a better program for many applications and described several examples of what those situations would be. I was flabbergasted. It was inconceivable to me that Apple's iTunes wouldn't be the best of breed application. Steve proved it well enough and it has really opened my eyes to re-evaluate all of Apple's iLife applications.

You have to understand that, as a consumer, I think all of this bundling is wonderful. The less software I have to pay for, the more money I have able for other materialistic ends. But there's a part of me wondering if Apple's innovative streak isn't sucking the winds out of other's sails and stifling development in other avenues that Steve Jobs regards as wrongheaded.

I like the approach of open-source software in this regard. If you don't like the way a project is heading, make your case or fork it if comes to that. With Apple (and the other major operating system purveyor), you don't really have that option. Well, you do, but you're fighting an uphill battle and the vendor could always come up with a vacuum-inducing app for your market share. If an open-source project founders or the developers lose interest, you can always resurrect it yourself or pay to have it resurrected. If a closed-source vendor does that, you're pretty much stuck with obsolete software—e.g., Macromedia Spectra.

Steve Jobs, in his keynote today, made several announcements of Panther features that were previously viable apps or could have been viable apps: the new Finder, iChat AV, the iSight, fast user switching, FileVault, Font Book, built-in fax support, and even Xcode. That's just the stuff that was announced; supposedly there's over one hundred new features in Panther.

He also took some jabs at developers in the audience. I noted with glee his punchiness with regards to Microsoft, but he also denigrated the iBot team and offered a backhanded compliment to MetroWerks. I bet that there were more than a few developers in the audience who were thinking about Steve's famous directness and the viability of their business models.

Should Apple focus on core operating system foundations? Probably. It's made a good business working on it, but it's the small developers—small being smaller than Apple, which is just about everyone in the audience—that make a platform vital. Microsoft mostly understands this and their MSDN package reveals a lot more detail to the companies in the Windows orbit than Mac developers would dream of. Partly that comes from a greater amount of resources, but it's also largely cultural. Microsoft releases vaporware and Apple releases, umm, releases and please cease talking about anything that hasn't been announced publicly.

It's a very hard task to restrict your gluttonous appetite, but I think that there's a larger end in sight. The G5 release would have done enough to excite converts; this diversification will inevitably lead to the shuttering of many fine software houses. Perhaps they couldn't compete, but is it in Apple's best interests for them to not have the opportunity? I would definitely say that Apple is well within its rights to overwhelm and bully its developer community, but I don't think it's the wisest move.

I think that this keynote cements Apple's status as thought leader for the computer industry. The new G5 and Mac OS X 10.3 aka Panther represent the culmination of embrace of open standards by a computer manufacturer.

The G5 uses the HyperTransport bus, developed by a consortium of computer makers. It's got Serial ATA, the standard in the Windows world, as well as PCI-X, the next generation of the PCI standard of the Windows world. AGP 8X is the video interface and it's utterly common in the Windows world. Let's see, what other standards are supported in the new box: Bluetooth, 802.11g, DDR RAM, FireWire, USB2.0, 802.11b, and possibly more that I'm not aware of. All of these (except for the ADC) are prevalent and non-proprietary. It's a change that Apple has slowly been performing. I think it's a welcome move, even though they haven't abandoned the PowerPC chipset for Intel's. I would welcome that only because it would reduce the price of the Macs without significant reductions in power. Well, the G5 might change that last statement but I'll believe it when I see it.

Mac OS X 10.3 embraces even more standards than the hardware. Jobs rattled off a number of them: FreeBSD 5.0, VPN over IPSec, IPv6, Samba, GCC, Rendezvous, NFS/UFS, X11, mbox, PDF, the new video conferencing standard (I didn't see a name or reference), AES, and more. Plus, it supports these via published APIs—the level of publication varies, of course. These are the ones that have been enhanced or amended since Mac OS X 10.2: the list is much, much longer when you consider prior releases.

Why is standards support important or significant? Because any proprietary interface increases costs and decreases interoperability, both of which are bad, bad, bad. Reviewing the Xcode improvements, it again makes me wish I were a developer instead of a Web developer. I'm not entirely sure what everything meant but it seemed really well-thought out and progressive for a computer maker. I applaud Apple for their keynote announcements and look forward to the day when I might partake of them.

I'm watching the stream of the keynote and I just saw the most hilarious part so far:

Jobs says here's where we are for 2003 and a panther stalking through the jungle towards the camera. It looks fearsome and powerful. He then suggests that his competitors OS will possibly ship in 2005 and might slip down to 2006. He says that here's where they are and we see a longhorn bull chewing its cud while Home on the Range plays in the background.

I'm still chuckling just thinking about it. I love snarky, snipe-y sarcasm.

I watched 3:10 To Yuma this morning. The movie stars two Western greats: Van Heflin and Glenn Ford. It's an obscure Western, overshadowed considerably by its predecessor High Noon with which it shared a similar story line.

3:10 To Yuma is a little different, though. It stars Heflin as a rancher who stumbles accidentally upon a stagecoach robbery conducted by Glenn Ford and his gang. The gang tells Heflin to come back in five minutes and that he can have his cattle. His sons, who are riding with him, are crestfallen but rationalize their father's backing down as stepping away from an unfair fight. Heflin himself is torn between showing his courage and making the children orphans. He's a practical man, however, so he consoles himself that he isn't a law man. His ranch is hurting, though, so he decides to go into town to ask the bank for a loan to get him through the drought.

On his way into town, he comes across the posse sent to retrieve the gang and they solicit his help in catching Ford, who is still in town talking to a pretty lady. Heflin agrees, they capture Ford, and then are faced with a dilemma: how do you keep a villain like Ford since his gang will be back for him? They hit upon a scheme to fool the gang, while surreptitiously sneaking Ford onto a train bound for Yuma, the 3:10, where the territorial prison is located. The only thing missing is someone to conduct Ford to Contention City to meet the train.

Heflin is offered $200 for it (exactly the amount he needed to borrow from the bank) and accepts the commission. During the trip, he develops a sort of appreciation for Ford—not admiration, but respect. Ford offers Heflin a substantial sum of money to let him go; finding that this doesn't work, he regales Heflin with the fate that awaits him as his gang re-assembles to secure his release. The viewer—at least this one—finds himself wondering why Heflin is going through with this. The answer comes when the stagecoach owner offers him the money to quit this job since it's become too risky. Heflin has a strong sense of justice, but we also see that it's a little more complex than that. Heflin has let Ford get under his skin and now he's got to prove to himself that he's strong and won't back down. It ceases being about the money or courage and turns instead to that powerful motivator: pride.

It is in this psychological complexity that the difference between 3:10 To Yuma and High Noon lies. In High Noon, Kane plays a man who struggles with the task at hand but his motivation is utterly simple. 3:10 To Yuma shows us a man who has everything to lose and very little to gain, but presses on despite his tremendous inner conflict.

Heflin plays much the same character he did in Shane, a father who is torn by the conflict between family and honor, except that this time there was no gallant stranger to help him realize his inner value—this time he had to do it himself.

The cinematography and direction were also excellent. The chilling clastrophobia of the hotel room and the incessant droning of Ford heightened the story and gave resonance to Heflin's turmoil. The sweeping panoramas added to the story and reinforced Heflin's loneliness in the cause of justice, much like the empty streets of Hadleyville did in High Noon.

I would recommend this Western to anyone interested in the great awakening of Westerns during the late fifties and sixties—the time when the genre was revitalized and shorn of its stodgy conventions and clichés. It was a great genre and I'm glad we can still access it readily, even if there's very little new releases.

Stupid illness. I'm going to be watching the keynote via ASCII stream—heheh. I've got coverage from MacMinute, MacRumors, and MacNN. Between the three, I should probably get a good feel for what's going on.

Later, natch, I will watch the keynote through QuickTime stream. There's nothing like seeing His Steveness in the flesh.

In case that last post and the time of it didn't tell you, I am quite sick today. Of all days, I have to be sick for the WWDC. I hope I'm well enough by 9 a.m. to make the trek; otherwise, I have to settle for reading it in real time and watching the stream when it's done.

This morning I had a dream that I was reading Tesugen, Peter Lindberg's cogent and pregnant blog. Specifically, there was an entry about artificial intelligence and how modern software emulates thinking to such a degree that perhaps we should call it thinking. You know, a rose is a rose is a rose.

As if that wasn't strange enough, I then started to dream about a reply blog entry here. I mean I was even dreaming about doing a <a> tags and everything. I woke up and was a little creeped out, so naturally I come over to my office and blog about it.

Incidentally, dream Peter, I think that appearances are superficial. It can emulate a process of thought, but that doesn't make it the activity. Only when the activity matches the essence of thought can we say that it is thinking. Software can embed a process of thought, but it can't diverge from that process without programming another process in there. What is the essence of thought? Unfortunately, I woke up as I was getting to that. If I had to say, I would go back to Ayn Rand's theory of epistemology but unfortunately that stops at concept-formation and doesn't delve into the meat of adult thinking—i.e., how we use those concepts to make decisions, process new inputs, or form conclusions.

Gallery of Pictures of Harrison Ford Pointing in Movies. No comment.

Last night I saw the play Late Night Catechism with my parents and wife. I only call it a play because that's what they call it. In reality, I believe it's more of a improvisational stand-up act—more on that later.

The show's premise is that the audience is being forced to attend some adult catechism classes for the purpose of becoming godparents or witnessing baptismals. I'll confess my ignorance on this because I am wholly unaware of Catholic doctrine. The normal teacher, Father Murphy, had a poker night and so Sister Something-Or-Other (she never said her name) is filling in. Rather than make you aware of the dogma, she's going to fill you in on Catholic culture. Why a nun would do this in such a comedic fashion is beyond me, but I'll suspend disbelief.

She then proceeds to interact with the audience, asking questions and pointing out aberrant behavior by Catholic school standards. Inevitably, a bunch of the audience are Catholic school graduates or Catholics of some devotion. She zeroes in on those and uses them as auxiliary actors throughout the show. She also delivers Catholic history lessons on the various saints, using them as springboards for comments on the Catholic Church then and now—then being the heyday of the forties and fifties.

The set design was fairly sparse, consisting of a desk, blackboard, two bookcases, and a podium. There were knickknacks of Catholic utility spread throughout the stage and Sister gave out small tokens to audience members who participated. It was exactly what one would expect in a small parish classroom. Her costume was a traditional habit with nothing particular on it.

I cannot figure out what role playwrights Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan played in this production. Sure, there were snippets of obviously scripted monologues but the rest was the result of Sister's audience interaction. Sister (played by Patty Hannon) was quite masterful at thinking on her feet because there were a bunch of things that the audience members said for which she couldn't have prepared. On the other hand, these same things could not have been in the play. Perhaps the play was the monologues punctuated by an outline of possible questions for the audience and possible acts to catch them in?

At what point does a play cease being a play and become improvisation? I think Late Night Catechism has certainly crossed that threshold. When more than half the show consists of reaction to audience interactions, I think you can safely say that this is the stuff of improv. Naturally, the actress playing Sister has a background in Chicago improvisation. I'm not a big fan of improvisation, preferring instead the traditional plays by Ibsen, Rattigan, and others of that vein. I've even enjoyed plays by Miller, Coward, and Wilder. Improvisation just seems like stand-up comedy with costumes and contrived situations. If I wanted that, I could watch a sitcom and I would have the assurance of a well-acted, well-conceived script—that might be a bit of a stretch, but it's definitely scripted and conceived.

The show is being put on in nine cities on an ongoing basis with twenty other shows interspersed. It's also available at your corporate event and as a fundraiser for your Catholic school. They've made this "play" into quite a little money-maker. I saw it at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts—a more pretentious setting I know not—and it's probably going to be there awhile. While you're there, be sure to check out Menopause: The Musical—yet another fine "play," I'm certain.

MacTeens notes the recent availability of a Web Publishing Manager position at Apple. Among the responsibilities is "manag[ing] day to day publishing requirements such as image updates, third party loads, pricing changes ..."

Methinks that the G5 leak wasn't marketing after all.

Computer-assisted journalism is just a fancy way of saying that journalists can use computers to more effectively report on a subject—and not in a Jayson Blair sort of way. I'm sure that that's no newsflash there since reporters usually have strict deadlines that require them to get as much understanding of a subject in as short of a time as possible. Computers and the Internet are surely the most useful means to accomplish that end.

Power Reporting is designed to facilitate the task for reporters by providing links to useful utilities and articles. If it sounds like a portal, that's exactly what it is. There's probably nothing here that couldn't be found elsewhere, but the value is in its centralization and organization around one overriding end: providing context. As a writer and a blogger, this is largely my end too. Point of fact: I found some new resources in the site's Beat by Beat on History that I will use in the future. I also like the Company Research section.

For my reference, How to Manage Large Libraries with iPhoto 2. I've got well over 3,500 photos in my library and it's becoming unwieldy for Thor, my 500 MHz PowerBook G4. I've been putting off any sort of solution because my inner librarian/historian thinks that every photo should have both a title and a comment. I know, just call me Sisyphus but I'm crazy like that.

Okay, whether this leak was intentional or not—and I'm leaning towards intentional—these specs are absolutely astounding. Slashdot, in keeping with its newfound Apple love, has an interesting discussion on the matter. Doesn't this seem right up the alley of someone who might also be interested in the Mac OS X version of Quark XPress that was just announced? Hmm...me wonders if XPress was delayed because it was subtly optimized for an Apple with a 64-bit chip?

For those too lazy to click through, the specs basically say "You're so gonna want one." If you're interested in commenting, please choose a topic: "How Bill Can Convince His Wife That We Need One of These Oh So Badly" or "8GB of DDR RAM? I Thought We'd Never Need More Than 640k"

[UPDATE: As the Apple Turns has a great scene about this leak. Oh and a hilarious poll as well—'Uncontrollably doing a little leaking of a more personal nature'. Indeed.]

[UPDATE 2: One enterprising individual has already created a G5 Spec T-shirt in a vain effort to capitalize on Apple's flub.]

The Art Renewal Center is an amazing Web treasure! I cannot believe how many high-quality renderings of great art works they have (23,376 images) and the breadth of their catalog is stunning (2,602 artists). All of my favorite artists are here—and probably a good many that aren't my favorites but should be.

The site's Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema gallery comprises 105 pictures. There's many I've never seen and I've only cruised through three of the eleven pages. My favorite, so far, has to be The Discourse. They've even got an excellent and extensive biography of the man.

Other favorite artists of mine include Maxfield Parrish, my personal favorite. His gallery, with only 72 high-quality images, lacks a biography and gets the qualitative order of his pictures completely wrong. The William Bouguereau gallery shows a remarkable amount of polish and boasts 188 images of his artwork. Unfortunately, Thomas Cole only has 17 images up but with a fairly decent biographical sketch. Johannes Vermeer has 24 images, of which the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring is my favorite. Lastly, Joseph Wright weighs in with 11 images and Joseph Mallord William Turner's gallery boasts all of two pictures—neither of which does the master justice.

The Living Masters section showcases living Realist artists. I especially liked the Steve Hanks gallery, an artist that Larry thankfully made me aware of. (At this point, I should tell you that there's another great source for living masters: the Quent Cordair Gallery. I've been visiting his site since it was created and longing for the day when I could afford some of my very own masterpieces. If you can afford them, I'd suggest you take a gander their way.)

I haven't fully read it yet, but it's refreshing that the Center has a philosophy behind it that is well-thought out enough to encompass six "pages" and is subtitled "The Great 20th Century Art Scam: or How Arrogance, Greed, and Folly Nearly Destroyed 2500 Years of Western Art." Sounds like a great start, there!

If you know of any great sites like this one that offer up non-"abstract" art, please leave a comment. I'd love to expand my horizons!

Blogger doesn't seem to want to publish my Amazing Art Site below in my RSS feed. Stupid Blogger! I was just singing your praises since you enabled a non-IE version that I could access from Safari or OmniWeb. Now you've got to go and screw with my precious RSS feed.

It's enough to make a man look at other options.

The latest news from Mac OS Rumors—did I just say news regarding that site? Reminds me of So I Married an Axe Murderer—is simply amazing. A dual-processor G5 PowerBook 17"? I'm not sure I should attend the Keynote at the Apple Store: I may faint and start a Mac-head domino chain reaction. Now that would be perfect successor to Thor, my aging (hah! he's two years old!) PowerBook G4.

Two funny things I found on the Web in the course of my surfing:

• Big Things in Canada: an online catalog of big, gaudy monuments in the land of Canuck. For example, the gold miner, the pierogie, and the happy rock. Yeah, I don't know what it's aboot either.
• Haunted Mobile Homes: The facts page reveals that ghosts are the second biggest threat facing trailer park dwellers, after tornados and before cops. I'm pretty sure this is tongue-in-cheek.

50 worst business names. Note: these are actual companies.

I am hereby adding something to the jargon world from which I have so frequently drawn: one-finger discount. It means stealing software through Kazaa or other file services.

There's a new version of Hydra out now: 1.1. Here's what's new.

DownWithWhitey.com reminds me a lot of Chris Rock's skit on Saturday Night Live called "The Dark Side with Nat X". Okay, so it's pretty racially charged but I think it's more tongue-in-cheek than literal. At least, I hope so. Hmm, it's well-designed and conceived if nothing else. And I finally got to see a picture of The Man. Oh, and I learned the action plan for disposing of whitey.

For my reference (since as a soon-to-be new daddy I want my home movies to be cinematic masterpieces, not drudgery to be endured. You're welcome.): Top Ten Digital Video Tips.

Finally, a gallery dedicated to Post-It art. It's about freakin' time!

Arnold Kling asks if he's overstating the importance of his most recent essay at TechCentralStation.

Reading it, I immediately thought that the file server he describes sounds like a hardware version of XML. It sets a standard file system which any number of devices can decide to use. Like XML, it accepts all comers.

I think that the phenomenon he's describing has been present in UNIX for decades: small pieces of software that do one thing and one thing only. The power of UNIX comes from this modularity: these small applications can be combined to do amazing things. What's interesting to me is Apple's embracing of UNIX and the underlying philosophy it brings with it. They're doing it in software and they're doing it in hardware. They get it and they're only going to get increasingly more important as other people start to get it as well.

Kling attributes this "getting it" to decentralization, the centrifuge that is ripping the computer apart and making it more ubiquitous. Interestingly, Apple disagrees and believes that the PC is going to be more important. They say that it will act as the digital hub for your digital life.

What he does get right is that this isn't happening in a controlled, top-down manner. Sure, Apple is suggesting usages of its products but it's keeping an open enough architecture to enable people to do whatever they want. The iPod was designed for music, but it's really just a portable hard drive and could be used for practically anything. Similarly, their iApps use XML as the standard data storage mechanism, thereby exposing their data to the world and any other apps residing on the user's hard drive. Innovative applications have sprung up to use Mac OS X that I doubt anyone at Apple ever suspected.

So, Mr. Kling, I respectfully say that you did not overstate your case. In fact, I think it could have even been stated more strongly. Maybe I'll do that one of these days when I have some time.

Steve turned me on to Red vs. Blue, an online sitcom. Online sitcom? I know, that's so late 90s but this one's different. The people responsible used the characters in the Xbox game Halo as their actors and did the voice-overs themselves. I've seen this concept before and it wasn't particularly well done: something was usually off, either the dialog sounded wrong (read: out of character) or the animation was sketchy. These guys, however, look like they've put a lot of thought into the endeavor: it's obviously scripted and storyboarded with interesting camera angles and witty dialogue that is completely consistent with what guys stuck in some out-of-the-way military outpost would say.

They produce one a week and there is currently nine available. There is some profanity, but you're not going to let that stop you. Enjoy! (Their FAQ is hilarious as well.)

Like Jack Miller, I am super excited about the WWDC Keynote given by His Steveness. I was especially excited after reading this report from MacRumors. Note the translated text in the Apply Germany invitation: "Expect some news that will exceed all your past expecation [regarding speed]s" and "Be ready for a new computer era." It'll be (maybe) the first time I've looked forward to a Monday.

After reading this account of Steve Jobs at the presentation of the Segway HT née Ginger, I am even more impressed with him than I was before. That sort of take no crap, cut to the chase attitude is refreshing and just as I would have expected. Confirmation is a good thing. Some might say that he was rude or mean, but I see it as thoroughly vetting an idea that he regarded as problematic. They say at the end that such "energetic discussion" is good, but the results don't seem to support any fruits of that exchange.

When you get right down to it, the Segway isn't that revolutionary. Some people can hardly even ride it. The only thing that might even be revolutionary is the hype surrounding it and its sister invention, the drinking water thingy. It's practically a perpetual motion machine: a finite, limited amount of information generated a practically limitless amount of publicity with nearly zero loss. If Kamen could replicate that for companies, he could make another fortune just doing PR work.

[UPDATE: As usual, good discussion the article over at Slashdot.]

I went into this movie not expecting to like it. I was not impressed by Monsters Inc. and the trailers for this one didn't portend anything better. I decided not to read any reviews and to just give it a chance. To my surprise, I actually liked this movie and really got into it.

Before I begin my review, I'd like to comment on the pre-movie attractions. I absolutely cannot wait to see Pixar's next movie, The Incredibles, even though the trailer didn't give much information—maybe I'm so excited because it didn't give too much information. It reminds me of Mystery Men and that's a very good thing for a movie to remind me of. Also, kudos to Pixar for including short films before their feature presentations. It costs them nothing since they've already produced them and it adds a lot of value. The one before Finding Nemo, Knick Knack, was quite funny. If you want to see the whole thing, you'll have to go to the movies but there is a short preview on Pixar's site. Since it's so short, I won't give away the details.

The premise of the movie is that a clown fish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) is looking for his only son Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould) who has been scooped up a diving dentist who is going to give the fish to his niece Darla, who behaves much like Sid from Toy Story except with fish. Marlin doesn't know this, of course, but in his search for Nemo he comes across the diving dentist's face mask with his address on the strap. This provides some direction for his quest and he enlists the aid of many sea creatures along the way. I won't divulge the ending and tell you whether Marlin finds Nemo or not, but I will tell you that it is a Disney movie.

If the story sounds anything like Toy Story to you, then you're not alone. Except for the more vivid dangers Marlin et al encounter along the way, the plot could have been a template. Different characters, different scenery, but same premise. That may sound like a strike against it, but Toy Story really worked and the scenery and characters are enough to probably distract most people. On the other hand, both movies feature worlds that humans know little about but are very interested in—just look at the popularity of the Disney theme parks and Sea Worlds. In the end, I did find myself noting the similarities and it did distract me a little but the movie is cute and interesting in its own right.

Where the movie really shines is in the computer-generated animation. It is simply amazing. No, stunning. No, awesome. Hmm, I can't think of a superlative strong enough to represent the advance this movie offers. The humans look human, the scenery is complex and independent, and the characters are rich in detail. There's a part where Marlin and Dori (his companion throughout the movie voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) are at the surface of the ocean and they look exactly like I would imagine fish coming to the surface would look, but they looked real-er. That scene cinched it for me and made me gasp. I had heard that Pixar was always making advances, but this is better than I expected. I remember being amazed at the way Sully's hair moved in Monsters Inc.—this blows that out of the water (pun intended). At the rate they're going, I can't wait for Cars or Untitled Pixar Rodent Project.

It might sound negative to say that you should see this movie for the special effects, but you should. The story is a bonus and the comedy is gravy.

Remember the eighties? Yes, but hazily? Check out this large archive of 80s commercials. Being on dial-up, I couldn't possibly download the commercials to any appreciable degree, but I had a flashback just reviewing the titles and still pictures.

As you may know, I'm a big fan of Alton Brown and his show Good Eats. While archiving a bunch of shows to VHS tape from TiVO, I caught a particular formulation from his yogurt show: froyo for frozen yogurt. For some reason, its cleverness and unexpectedness caught me off guard and cracked me up for a number of minutes.

Two situations came up this week that neatly contrasted each other. My conclusions follow their elaboration.

Some regular readers may remember when I added a rice cooker to my cubicle at work. I said at the time, "I think we're going to have a lot of good times together." Sadly, those good times have ended. I received a cease and desist email from my boss on Friday, citing a "few complaints" about the smell exuded by cooking the jasmine rice. I was as livid as I'd ever been at work and I went on a bit of a rampage, complaining to all within ear shot about the inequity of the situation. My boss did suggest that I could use the rice cooker in the break room, but that's about 100 feet away and practically destroys the convenience of having it nearby (plus, it completely opens it up to widespread sharing and I'm not too keen on my fellow second-floor denizens helping themselves). I used to make up two cups of rice in the morning when I got in and snack on it throughout the day, thereby obviating the need to go out for lunch or purchase expensive snack items. That's all gone now.

On the home front, our asshat neighbors to the east of us are building a patio cover on to their house. If you notice the time of this posting and the day of the week (Sunday at 7:30 a.m.), you'll probably infer why this makes them asshats. If it were just today, I wouldn't even be squawking. Unfortunately, this ruckus has been going on for fully three weeks (before our vacation to San Diego) and it's nearly a daily activity beginning at 6 a.m. or earlier. It's getting better: this morning there's only the infrequent staccato of hammer falls. The noise is bad, but it excites my dogs. They go outside and bark at the asshats, which is exactly what I'd prefer them to do but just not so early. So then either Sandi or I have to go downstairs and holler at them to get back in the house. This is a pain and it's compounded by the fact that Sandi is presently sick.

What interests me about these two vignettes is that they both illustrate an attitude about being a good neighbor. At work, my co-workers concoct any number of smells. They brew coffee, the smell of which disgusts me; they eat lunch at their desks, making me either crave whatever flavorful beef carcass they've got instead of my ascetic rice lunch or avoid inhaling as much as possible when it's particularly pungent; they eat popcorn, the smell of which incites the strongest of cravings. What have I done for the last two years that they've been around: kept my trap shut (literally, when a former co-worker flatulated practically like punctuation—I'm glad he's gone). I could've ran to the boss and whined but I instead chose to grin and bear it. Why? Because I expected the same from them. It would have been hypocritical. So we lived in a nice live and let live, woefully-small-cubicle utopia that's now gone. If I can't have my rice cooker, then you better believe that all of the other things I've put up with will cease as well.

And that's why I've put up with the inconsiderate construction timing of our neighbor. Once you start down that road (you know, the one colorfully known as feuding), it never stops. Next thing you know, you're turning each other in to the HOA over petty infractions and calling the cops when the dogs are barking too late. I don't want to be that type of neighbor and I think that he doesn't either since there's been plenty of opportunity for both complaints. Unfortunately, my highly-paid co-workers don't see it that way and, like spoiled kids, ran to daddy aka jefe crying about the olfactory offense while ignoring the odors they produce. Unfortunately, this leads us inexorably down that sniping road—my heightened sense of justice precludes me from any grinning and bearing.

Bruce Eckel's blog Thinking about Computing has a great post about computer jobs that everyone should read.

It covers the current computer job market, why computer programmer numbers are overstated, the importance of business plans, and distance learning. Quite a pregnant post and you may even have to read it twice.

Also, if you're not subscribed to his RSS feed, you're missing out.

After reading Bill Palmer's account of his visit to CompUSA, I may actually want to check back in. How heartening!

MacRumors notes that the WWDC keynote will be broadcast in participating Apple Stores, including my home base. With my $5,000 Apple Loan open and idle from disuse and a wife who can get me an educator discount, I'm mighty tickled with anticipation. Or it's the carbonation in my Sunkist. Whichever. (Those last two sentences were what you might call an homage to As the Apple Turns. The clever twist of phrase followed by a choice "Whatever" is practically a trademark over there. And I like it.)

I ran the idea by the little lady (little in stature, definitely not little in will or intelligence) and she put the kibosh on any such notion. In our family, we must unanimously agree to such major purchases (and many minor ones as well). Since we've been burned by Apple on any number of instances—let's see: bought a Performa 575 in 1994 a month before the PowerPC chip was introduced, bought an iMac the day it was announced in 1998, and bought a PowerBook G4 the day it was announced in 2001—her hesitation is understandable. Note the word "understandable" there certainly doesn't convey any agreement with her. You don't get to the bleeding edge waiting for the best—and I bleed in six colors, baby.

She has a good point, though. The PowerPC 970 is super bitchin' but how long is it going to be before the PowerPC 980 comes out? One year? Two? My greatest fear is that I'm going to have a computer that can't run the latest incarnation of Mac OS X. On the other hand, it's not like that's ever happened—I buy computers too frequently. Well, I guess I'll have to see what Steve announces and decide if it's worth the full-court marital press.

From Damian's blog, how to do a packet trace using tcpdump—for my future reference.

Super interesting bookmarklet ideas for CSS. I guess it's time to ditch Camino and install Firebird.

Weirdness I saw today: a red DeLorean, a postman with enormous mutton chops and a pith helmet, and a lady standing in the open door of her running car being photographed in front of Babies 'R' Us. Sadly, I was sans camera.

In today's commute, I went ahead and tried out my earlier suggestion. It saved me at least ten to fifteen minutes! Holy moly! Goodbye interchange (except for non-rush hour times).

Jack, I think that News.com confirmation should settle your "faint rumblings".

[UPDATE: Yee-haw! I got a mention in today's scene on this one. As they say in his part of 'merica, wicked pisser!]

My sweetheart bought me a pair of Etymotics ER-6 Isolator ear phones for our decennial. Those of you who know us know that I had a hand in both the selection and purchase of these aural wonders.

We were able to purchase ours for $114.95 on eBay and the list price is $139, but that's strictly for suckers. I'm sure some of you gentle readers will be thinking, "$114.95 for ear phones?! Bill Brown thinks he's better than us." No, no, no. I may in fact be better than you, but these ear phones don't confer such an evaluation automatically. I just know that aural immersion is a great environment to code in and that is worth far more than either the price I paid or the list price—in other words, it's a good value.

I've been looking for a replacement for the 'phones included with Dagny, my iPod. Bang & Olufsen's were too expensive (and I wasn't really sure that they were worth it). The ER-4's were also too expensive, but I thought they would be worth it. So, ultimately, I decided what represented the best value and read everything I could find about that choice. Since I couldn't take them for a test drive (I'm not sure I'd want to stick something that had been in who-knows-how-many ears in my own. I'm not a germophobe, but that's gross), it all came down to this comment on MetaFilter. Anything that made someone feel isolated and "like the sound was being injected straight into my eardrums" was the right thing for me.

So I waited and regaled the love of my life with stories of how wonderful my life would be if I could just shut every other sound out of my head while I worked. Our decennial seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to show me how much I meant to her. When they arrived, it was reminiscent of my iPod unwrapping.

I read the instructions on how to insert them properly into the ear canal and proper maintenance. At this price, these things will be handed down to the next generation (with new tips, natch). Getting the seal nearly right, I cranked up ol' Dagny (I can call her that now that the new generation iPods are out, even though she was acquired at Christmas 2002). The noise reduction of just having them in my ears was significant—the manual suggests it's on the order of 20 dB. Turning on the music completely drowns out any external noise. I was in coding heaven!

After a day and a half of serious use, I can honestly say that these things are worth every penny. While I sit at my desk and code, I am blissfully unaware of my surroundings and, most importantly, my co-workers and phones. They suggest that you don't jog, drive, or pilot while wearing them and I would concur. As I walked around my floor, I became aware of why you shouldn't jog with them: you can hear every footfall, your breathing, and your talking sounds like an internal monologue. You get used to that after awhile, but it's almost haunting at first.

The frequency range is quite extensive, listed from 20 Hz to 16 kHz. I think I probably should have used iTunes's equalizer function better because the bass didn't sound like I expected it to. Or maybe I've become conditioned to subpar performance by all of the headphones I've used in my life. Or maybe I didn't get a great seal when I inserted it. Seals are critical in such a tiny package and I didn't effectively moisten the silicone the first couple of times.

If anything startling comes up in future use, I'll definitely note it here but as of today, these things are great. I don't see how the ER-4s could improve on these babies, so I'm not willing to pony up the dough and will probably never regret my purchase decision. Also, this purchase brings my iPod-related expenditures to over $600 not including music. I'm still of the opinion that it's money well spent, though I doubt Sandi would agree with that.

My love affair with the Loop 101-State Route 51 interchange is over. It was a short, torrid event but she's not what I thought she'd be.

Every morning is a line of cars that stretches three-quarters of a mile from my Cave Creek Road onramp to the interchange. You get to the turning lane on Cave Creek and it looks decent. "Aha!" you think. "Today, it's going to clear up. The novelty has worn off on my fellow ignoramus drivers." As you make the left turn, you see that it isn't so. There's nothing to do but queue up.

At least when I had to enter State Route 51 on Bell Road, I could be an asshole and skip directly to the front of the line with some aggressive opportunistic driving. Now I'm forced to wait like any other sucker. I think I may just do surface street driving to the Union Hills onramp until things get better—oh wait, this is Phoenix and traffic stinks no matter what they do.

Carpe taurus! Seize the bull!

Deloitte & Touche Consulting is offering a plug-in buzzword detector for Windows called Bullfighter. It adds a toolbar to your Office apps that acts like a spelling or grammar checker, except that it checks for verbiage and business effluvia. What an awesome app! And it's free. What I don't get is how a major consulting firm got so clueful. Francine Hardaway of Stealthmode Partners has all of the details.

I think it's obvious why they didn't make a Mac version. Mac users are less susceptible to verbosity and buzzword slinging. :-)

Those of you developing your own software (*ahem*, Steve) would do well to read through this collection of articles on the subject I found via Joel on Software. They're written for game developers, but applicable to everyone.

This earlier series from O'Reilly serves a similar purpose but isn't nearly as detailed and helpful to my mind.

If you know of any other good articles along these lines, please leave a link in the comments.

Since I submitted the story to Slashdot about Wal-Mart entering Netflix's online DVD renting space, I thought I should probably clarify my statement that "At the very least, that's not going to be good for business." It's a reference to a hilarious Seinfeld episode about Kenny Rogers' Roasters.

Personally, I think this is going to be very good for business. I'm a big fan of Wal-Mart and I think their entry both legitimizes the market and increases the innovation there. I mostly meant that their entry isn't going to be good for Netflix's business and anyone who thinks differently is probably an ex-high official of the Iraqi Information Ministry.

I'm still surprised that my story generated 642 comments. Wow!

[UPDATE 7/13/03: I got a record 662 page views off of that story. Very neat!]

Good article on making meetings effective. Thankfully my boss hates meetings and only holds them if he has to.

I watched The Tuxedo last night. It was everything I thought it would be; I can take consolation in the fact that I didn't pay the rental fee.

The story, loosely defined even for a Jackie Chan flick, centers around a miraculous piece of technology: the eponymous tuxedo. "Wait a second," you ask. "A tuxedo isn't a miraculous piece of technology." In this movie, though, the government has spent over a billion dollars to construct a tuxedo that enables the wearer to do any number of maneuvers accessed by a select list on the accompanying digital watch. On second thought, that sounds exactly like something the CIA, the military, or Congress would spend a billion dollars on. I guess the story has a realism I hadn't initially suspected.

This tuxedo also has the ability to practically anticipate what the wearer would have picked from the list on the watch, apparently, because there are several (maybe two dozen) instances where Jackie didn't even look at the watch. It also has some default moves, like the whirlwind lighter grab it does whenever a cigarette approaches anyone's lips within some range. Darn, I'm losing sight of the plot; I'm not alone here, though, because the screenwriters did as well.

Back to the story, Jimmy Tong (referred to several times as Tong, James Tong—groan!) is an ersatz secret agent when the super spy he was chauffeuring gets injured by a skateboard bomb—don't ask, please. He discovers that this super spy is mostly a handsome guy with a great wardrobe, if you get my drift. With super spy out of the picture, Tong dons the duds and does the deeds along with his junior partner Del Blaine, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. She being the super forensic physicist that she is, she realizes that Tong isn't the super spy Clark Devlin like she thought for the first two-thirds of the movie and removes his tux in preparation for the climactic fight scene. Of course, she gives the super villain the tuxedo and the government luckily had some mad scientist/tailor make a duplicate so they could fight.

I could, at this point, tell you what the supervillain's world-domination plot is but I've completely lost interest in describing the story. I'd instead like to focus on a disturbing trend: Jackie Chan still thinks he's a stunt man/martial arts guy. The man is almost fifty years old and has an amazing corpus of work—I wish he'd stop trying for these kinds of movies and branch out. His Keatonesque comedy would work well in any number of non-action movies, but he seems timid in spreading out. The Tuxedo uses so many enhancements that the fight scenes are positively painful to watch for a Jackie Chan aficionado like myself. I almost turned it off several times because it was so bad.

But I'm a trooper of a reviewer and I braved the movie for your benefit, dear reader. The psychic damage is hopefully only temporary. If you're a Jackie Chan-head, don't watch this movie—it's borderline travesty. If you're not a Jackie Chan fan, don't watch this movie—you'll regret it. If you're on the fence about Jackie Chan (Hi, Dad!), don't watch this movie—go watch Who Am I or even Cannonball Run for that matter.

Side note about Jennifer Love Hewitt: She is a beautiful actress. She might even be a good actress. I wouldn't know because she stars in such dreck. C'mon, even Denise Richards picks better movies than you!

Upon the advice of these computer pranks, I played around with the printer at work—an HP LaserJet 4000M—and changed the default "READY" message on the front LCD to "PC LOAD LETTER." If you're not familiar with that message, please watch Office Space repeatedly until you get it. If you want to repeat my trick, I'll have to tell you how to do it because the prank doesn't go into near enough detail.

Other thoughts for the message:

• "BOW BEFORE ME, HEATHEN!"
• "PAPER SIZE DOESN'T MATTER"
• "OFFLINE"
• "ALMOST READY"
• "WARMING UP"
• "HAVE A NICE DAY!"
• "PLEASE WASH HANDS BEFORE TOUCHING ME"

If you have any other ideas, please leave them in the comments.

The folks—err, folk? I can't really tell—at Zug.com prove in a recent prank that signature lines on credit cards are virtually useless as security devices. Okay, okay, so it's not a controversial position but the way they proved it makes for a good read.

While you're there, check out some other pranks like the Printer Pranks series, the Prank Software, Good Office Pranks, and the Good Computer Pranks.

I'm definitely going to have to keep an eye on that site!

For you Windows users out there (hi, Dad...I know! My own father! Luckily, the apple did fall far from the tree—no pun intended), you might want to check out SpamBayes, a free, open-source Outlook plug-in that catches spam. It requires Python, but there's an installer that takes care of everything for you.

What does it do? Basically, it uses a technique called Bayesian analysis to establish a pattern of what you consider spam and what you don't consider spam. After installing the program, you select a bunch of emails that you know are not spam (which the program weirdly calls "ham") and then you select a bunch of spam. Then, whenever email comes in, you tell it which ones are spam and it gradually learns to distinguish the good from the bad. After its training period, you can either have all of the spam automatically moved to a separate folder or deleted—it's your call.

Jon Udell, a columnist for InfoWorld, swears by it and I've generally found him a credible and reliable source. Arnold Kling, a Corante blogger, has discussed Bayesian filtration numerous times.

I've been using Bayesian analysis for some time now and I've been mostly happy with it. I don't even check my junk folder for false positives anymore because I hardly ever found anything in there of value. I still get a couple of spams every now and then, but it's mostly a case of not having any text in the message. They're easily found and deleted, of course.

[UPDATE (8/11/03): Slashdot links to an interesting review on different implementations of Bayesian filtration in the Windows world. SpamBayes comes out the winner.]

I'm back from not-so-sunny San Diego. The vacation was great, but we spent way too much money. Eating out for every meal at hotel and Sea World prices is a quick way to deplete your checking account. Come on payday! It was cold every day and extremely overcast. For a Phoenician used to sun and clear skies, it was a most unwelcome change. We spent two days at Sea World and saw everything there was to see several times over.

Today's interesting find is a Java applet version of Infocom and Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you're not familiar with Douglas Adams's wildly popular science fiction trilogy (QUICK QUIZ: Do you know the significance of the number 42? If you don't, you're unfamiliar.), then it probably won't make much sense to you. You probably also won't enjoy the experience if you're not familiar with Infocom's text games. I know what you're thinking: "Text games?! WTF! I might as well read a book." Well, Bubba, you probably should read a book—it'll do you wonders.

Many, many days of my childhood were spent playing Infocom's incredibly addictive games (and cheating horribly, I might add) on my then-state-of-the-art Atari 1200XL home computer. HHTG was the first one I encountered and I still remember fondling the package's contents trying to figure out why they included a cotton ball. These gaming wizards not only figured out how to pack an entire game and parsing engine into a single 5.25" floppy disk and offer it on every conceivable operating system, they figured out how to take interactive fiction to an entirely new level. The stories were engrossing and the experience compelling. I encourage you to read the history linked above because their story is a tragedy—who knows to what heights gaming would have soared if they had survived to embrace graphical games.

For now, though, you can revisit your childhood (or mine if you were too young to remember it)

Thursday, June 5th, marks the tenth anniversary of my marriage to the incomparable Sandi. To celebrate this decade of wedded bliss, we're going to Sea World San Diego and staying in the luxurious Dana Inn and Marina. This may sound pedestrian to you, but it substantially duplicates our honeymoon and seems romantic to me. We would have done more, but Sandi's pregnant and can't travel by plane.

We're due back on Saturday, so blogging will probably resume on Sunday.

As promised yesterday, I watched Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Cartoon Network's interesting new adult cartoon show, last night. The show's premise is that Birdman (an obscure cartoon hero from the sixties) is a lawyer defending other obscure cartoon characters. The episode from last night was the second half of an episode about Birdman killing DynoMutt. If this sounds bizarre, it was.

It was also extremely interesting. I've always been fascinated by the taking of things out of their conventional context. That's the reason I liked The Brady Bunch Movie, the movie where the Brady Bunch is brought into the context of the '90s. I know that such decontextualization is completely pomo, but is it really so bad if I just enjoy it in an artistic way? That doesn't mean that I'm a postmodernist, does it? I find Derrida a bore and Lacan completely obtuse.

I think I've been pretty good at keeping up on my bloggery, but this weekend was just jam packed with family, friends, and reading. I apologize for the slack.

By way of recompense, here's some links for your surfing pleasure:

1. Poynter Institute exhibit on "The Art of Explanation": I really liked the diagram of Hussein's bunker


2. Mozilla Firebird: I just installed this on my work machine and it's already unseated IE as my default browser there. It's fast and spartan like Safari but standards-compliant like Mozilla. If you've got a Mac and don't like Safari (heathen!), you might want to give Firebird a try.


3. FotoWiki: If you don't know what a wiki is, you're not alone. A wiki, which sounds vaguely dirty but isn't, is a way for people to collaboratively edit documents—though not at the same time. FotoWiki is like that except it's with pictures instead of text. Well, there's text because you can't edit pictures. Well, you can but why would you need a wiki to do that? Just check it out already.


4. Harvey Birdman article: this cartoon is on Bill's viewing agenda tonight. I'll report on it tomorrow.


5. Effective Rsum Creation: William Grosso—whoever that is—gives some tips as a follow-up to his previous entry. Worth a read for all you job-seekers out there.