May 2000

I didn't get to finish my Computer Nerd Insults page... maybe you can help...

Small update to the Where are they now? page...

"I can set up a web site in 15 minutes, and forget about it! What do you think of that?"
"I think it would be a good idea... the 'forget about it' part..."

"Hey, I just made up my own tags!"
"Cool, are you using XML?"
"No..."
"Oh, sorry, you're not cool, you're stupid!"

What do you get when you ask Windows software developers to become web developers? You get HELL. Pure, 100%, evil-compliant HELL.

What kind of person is Rasterboy? The kind who appreciates the fact he can track a book he ordered online while at the same time being disgusted by the fact that it's only made it to Kentucky. Where's the matter transporters when you need them!

Hey Bill, want some advice? Keep the Red Hat...

I should follow up my comments yesterday on Tech Camp for Girls with the link for the audio remarks...

Tech Camp for Girls sounds like a good idea. I say "sounds like" because I'm not convinced. I'd love to see my girls have the chance to learn more about computers and technology (if they want to) but is learning to use Microsoft Word or Excel of any real value? Maybe that's the way things are heading. When I was in school I learned Basic. Then again, I'm old and I like making my own tools ;). Learning to use Word, to me, is nothing more that learning to use an 'electronic typewriter' it make no progress towards teaching the real power of the written word, or the real power of computers in communication, visual, textual or otherwise. Here we've got the greatest invention ever (well, arguably) the personal computer, and we teach kids how to create spreadsheet!? At least some of them are learning to use Logo or create multimedia. Of course art is dead, as is free expression. It's all about 'creating a business plan' geez, when I was a teenager, I sure didn't think about 'business plans' I thought about having fun, and when I got older I thought about what I might be able to do as a job, and still enjoy doing. In the end I think tech camp is probably a good thing. I personally had problems with school, I should say, with the fact that schools tend to teach 'things' but not teach how to learn things, which, I believe, is much more important in the long run.

"Hey, I'm taking a computer class, we're learning how to use Word!"
"Hey, I'm taking a writing class, we're learning how to use a typewriter!"

In honor (!) of Al Gore being in town today, here's an Al Gore joke:
Q: What's the difference between an "algorythm" and an "Al Gore rhythm"?
A: "algorythm's" exist!

We saw 'The Sixth Sense' over the weekend. Damn that was a good film. Good film. Damn. It was. Good. (I've been told I should see it at least twice to make sure they "got it right")

Weekend. Tiring. Good. Clean. Filthy. Kids. Fun. Hectic. Food. Rain. More. Rain. Van. Bottle. Pee. Sleep. Drive. Sun. Outside. Nice.

Today is Dan Valerian Day here at Rasterboy Enterprises. Dan was a man with super-happy-terrific-mega charisma... no doubt about that!

In case you can't tell, we're at that time of year (just like the last few years) where updates happen less often. Don't be alarmed. Don't panic. Most people probably won't even notice. Prepare for the lull. Foo ahead! (Of course I could be wrong!)

Yesterday I got a phone call from Emma, she wanted to tell me that they renamed my "Boba Fett", he's now known as "Boba Fart." Being 3 1/2 years old, her new favorite word is "farts." I told her that we should get a "Fart Vader" she laughed...

Remember how they changed the look of the U.S. $20.00 bill? They found the worst graphic designer in the country, well, actually, it looks more like 'design-by-committee' - anyway, I guess they'll be redesigning the $5 and $10 to look just as ugly. Now the $20 I didn't mind, because I rarely see such a large bill, but the $5 and the $10, hey, I have to look at one of those every month or so! sheesh...

It might be all part of the 'uglification' program, which is a direct backlash to the whole 'beautification' thing... and as Ulyssess says, "I don't like you cuz you're ugly on the inside..."

I had this dream that it was May 15th and it snowed out, is that weird or what!? It's May 26th... man...

Actually, I have seen it snow here in May, wiscawnsin... yaa, ok...

I know many of the people who see this site do it using Windows & IE, hey, that's ok, really. Some people have no choice... My complaint is more with people who consider themselves 'web developers/designers/what-have-you' and have never in their lives even touched a computer running the Mac OS, let alone Linux or some other OS. Call me old sküle, but I think the web should (to a certain degree) be accessible to people who choose a platform or browser different than Windows & IE. Yes, it can be a bit more difficult to design & build things, but I think it's worth it. I actually do care that if the people who hit this site using Mozilla under Linux or FreeBSD can actually use it. I can't stand people who live in their little MS/Windows centric world and think that's it, that's all there is...

Whew, sorry to be so negative but negative energy is just as powerful and useful as positive energy, someone must bring balance to the force... as Sam & that other guy (Joe?) said "learn to tear this system down and create you own system..."

While it's not Nate Mendel Day today, I'd like to commend Nate on his fine acting in the latest Foo Fighter's video. He plays 'guy wearing hat laughing' incredibly well...

I'm not a Smashing Pumpkins fan, never was, but I was glad to hear they've decided to call it quits. Most bands need to end at some point, I think it has something to do with the volatility of artists, being able to work together for only a limited period of time. How many countless bands, tv shows, (web sites?) etc, should have called it quits at their height, going out on a high note (like that Mr Steinfield guy) rather than progressively getting worse and worse (Metallica anyone?) Maybe I'm alone in this thinking because almost every band I was in broke up in (or before?) it's prime. Well, I can't say that about PowerThrash or Sand, but then again, there are no plans for future performances, recording or practices. Some would argue that there never were PowerThrash or Sand practices, they might be 1/2 right...

If I were a Bond Girl (!?), my name would be "Fawn Allovermy" (link via SwallowingTacks who got it via mutability who got it via JimBlog)

Wow, this Slashdot poll has "I don't eat meat" in the lead! this comment was amusing to me...

I'll need to update the W.A.T.N. page, got new data from the smelly, I mean older, Von Bohlen...

Searching sometimes turns up the neatest things: an interview with Jesse Michaels, for instance...

I still think it's some sort of travesty of justice: Cleveland Bound Death Sentence... Hmmm, I might just need to write up some brief history on the name "Cleveland Bound Death Sentence" cuz lemme tell ya, they didn't come up with it...

I ended up working 15 hours on Friday, ugh. I took the weekend off. That was nice... I did manage to get a few pages ready updated though: The Road to Linux and a nice drawing by Emma...

Would you classify Stikky in the 'annoying' or 'obnoxious' category - I'm thinking obnoxious... hmmm?

I often forget how incredible Cringer's 'Karen' EP is. This record gets me all choked up. Here's a WAV of Step Back.

I always thought it was called 'Karin' but they have it listed as 'Karen' - which is weird...

Lookout's site still kinda stinks in some ways, but at least they seemed to have dumped NT/Cold Fusion in favor of Apache/PHP.

Hmmm, lookout reminds me of David Hayes. (No, I found no good link to Mr. Hayes... and still can't find a good like for Very Small Records) I've always imagined that if someone said to David Hayes, "Hey, David Hayes, who are the two most annoying people in the world" he'd say, "That guy Pete and that guy Milt from Madison, or Milwaukee, or wherever the heck they're from..." Yup, that's what I imagine...

Apple, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Sun... what, no Microsoft!?

twernt mentions that "Prince is Prince again" awww, there goes all the visitors I used to get from my tafkap page...

It's the little things... like seeing that the wife bought you a case of Mountain Dew when you really needed it... it's the little things, like getting 6 hours of sleep instead of 3... it's the little things...

I updated the Fish page a bit... with more bad news... as well as added a really old QTVR thing, and updated my Road to Linux page...

Allergies suck. I never had allergies, but now all of a sudden I seem to have them, and it sucks. I can feel myself getting older... might be because my birthday is in one month...

I've been working like hell, well, like this guy anyway, on a big, big, big project. I tend to like big, big, big projects - except when they just happen to have an almost unreasonable deadline. I just completed phase 1 of another project, much, much smaller, and with a reasonable deadline.

I somehow found time to install Red Hat on an old PC though, wheee! And by that I don't mean I put a red hat on top of it's monitor, I mean I installed Red Hat Linux on it.

Date slippage for Mac OS X release?... Not really, but this is a little stinky poo, as I planned on buying a new Mac this year, but knowing Apple (and I do!) it's always risky to buy hardware today and plan to run tomorrow's OS on it... maybe I should just plan on getting a used G3 or G4 this summer... Maybe Apple will fix things in that time....

Does this description "Digital motion and still art along with other works are featured at this desiger's portfolio" describe RasterWeb? (the spelling error desiger's is theirs, unless then think I am a Desiger!)

Spybuilder at Spyonit.com - time to play with XML!

My thoughts on Mother's Day - "Being a mother is the hardest job in the world... if you do it right." I think that sums it up.

From Barbelith: "...even though most of us are using Microsoft products..." Hmmm, I manage to maintain this site without the use of any Microsoft products, can you say that? There's some perl in there, FreeBSD, Mac OS, Apache, but no Microsoft. I'm not dependant upon their software or OS. I use MSIE as well as Windows, to test this site, but that's because I care about the people who view it. I certainly don't have to, and there's plenty of people who don't bother to test anything outside of MSIE under Windows... but I'm one of those old sküle types who think the web should be accessible to a large audience using the OS and browser of their choosing, seems the number of people like myself (guardians of the old republic) are a dying breed.

Today everyone wants the most killer-look, newest-features, Flash/Javascript/DHTML whatever... sites build their navigational elements with Flash. Does this make any sense? I need a freakin' plug-in to navigate your site? And I mean that's the only part of the site that needs it. Someone needs to sit down and think about the purpose of a web site. Try to remember what content is. Maybe today it's all in the packaging, just like Hollywood™, it's all about image and nothing about how it works. No integrity. No honesty. As Nation of Ulysses might say, "you're ugly on the inside..."

Oh, we found our phone. I've now got it set to turn on every night at 10:00 PM and turn off at 10:05 PM, so if we losr it again, we have a 5 minute window in which to try to call it and locate it. (The battery is also 4 years old...)

Seems it's Anti-Microsoft Day at Barbelith...

I'm installing Linux today on an old, old, PC I've got. I'm on install #2 - not because it failed, but I figure it can't hurt to get familiar with the install process. It's done 283 out of 287 packages right now... I'll need to reinstall again when I get a network card for it... (just trying to keep with the Anti-Microsoft Day theme;)

Let's see, Microsoft tries to crush the Digital Divas and says "shut up" to Slashdot, we discover more security holes in MSIE (Netscape & Mac OS anyone?) and HotMail... Gee, I'm no fancy 'Microsoft Developer' but I thought about the implications of spoofing the domain name in urls a few years back, mainly when used in checking the referer string. ugh...

We lost our cell phone, well, it's probably in the house somewhere. We lost it for 2 weeks back in 1997, but this time it's going past 2 weeks. I'm tempted to get a new one (it's 4 years old) with the fancy stuff so I can get email on it... any suggestions?

twert mentions Logan's Run, probably in an attempt to overthrow the sheer number of people I get coming to this site because the search engines return results on "logan's run" and "gregory harrison" (number 5 at google today!)

History: pdp11.org!

I got this as the motd when logging into one of our servers today...

 better !pout !cry
 better watchout
 lpr why
 santa claus < north pole > town

 cat /etc/passwd > list
 ncheck list
 ncheck list
 cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
 cat list | grep nice > giftlist
 santa claus < north pole > town

 who | grep sleeping
 who | grep awake
 who | grep bad || good
 for (goodness sake) {
     be good
 }

Sure it's more timely for December, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, as I won't have any more messages of the day since they ("The Powers That Be" aka "The Man") will be shutting down that Linux server to replace it with an NT machine, well probably a dozen NT machines. Ack! Someone kill me! I tried explaining that there are apps running on it that are *dependant* on the environment. Somehow they don't understand why I just can't port everything over to NT/IIS/ASP. Let's see, Apache (and it's lovable modules) sendmail, procmail, perl, python, php, telnet, elm, cron, etc, etc, etc... I've done work porting things from *nix to NT, it ain't pretty :( It's just a sad day. And yes, I know perl, php, and some others are available on NT, but I'd rather use a PDP-11...

Please send all unused *nix servers to the victims... sigh...

"We put the dead in deadline..."

Yeah, I can't believe some people use Pine to read their mail! Geez! It's ELM all the way for me!

I've started writing longer things for this site, but I keep getting frustrated, I just can't write longstyle, even when it's real technical in nature. Years of zine writing, web writing, and quick communication via email have destroyed my long-winded writing style!

On-the-fly Content Regeneration using mod_rewrite. Now *that's cool!* You request a page, foo.html, and it serves the static file foo.html, unless foo.html doesn't exist, then it would call foo.cgi, which would send output to the browser, but also create foo.html. Sort of like a caching system. The mind boggles...

I think I'm getting tired of determining use cases as I go, especially with regard to cgi stuff... It might be time to look into other approaches, you know, like demanding that everything be defined before the work is started... ah, that'll never happen...

Zeldman lays it out... [via webmutant]

Seems I've been Haiku'd. Here's my attempt:

  I can't do haiku.
  I have never learned how to.
  What's up with that, foo?

Recipe for entertaining a 1 1/2 year old: hot afternoon, garden hose, buckets... the fun never stops! I think I need to get another hose for the house, so that both kids can play at the same time, since that 'sharing' thing never seems to work right... And everytime Mom has the hose, Dad ends up soaked... Dad needs a defense system, either a hose, bucket, or 'water gum'

Once you delete Windows and install Linux, remember, you can avoid email virii and trojan horses by typing rm -rf on the command line. That stands for read mail, really fast ;)

Metallica *is* The Establishment™. Rebellion? Far from it.

"Lars Ulrich, drummer for the heavy-metal band Metallica, suggested that the U.S. Congress should step in..."

Known for spitting in the face of conformity and dominant institutions, Metallica during the fan forum argued for government intervention, sounding remarkably like middle-class parents trying to protect their retirement accounts.

"For the doubters out there, Metallica will carry on for the next 20 years..." (sure, not enough money to reitire yet!)

It seems very clear that Metallica is a business and the members are businessmen. Their job is to produce music. Nothing more. Just a job... "It's a living..." Are there still musicians who create music because that's what they love? I don't wanna hear crap that's spewed out by someone who's looks at music as a job. When I played in bands it was about the passion not about the money, there was no money, money taints art! It destroys it! There's an old joke "What's the difference between an artist and a graphic designer? Graphic designers get paid..." It all comes around to doing what you love, for the right reasons. I know people who play music for money, I just can't comprehend it. I could never do it. It's dirty, filthy... Correlate this to the open source/proprietary thing if that works better, or the dot.com IPO's versus the people who *really* get the power of the net... Greed? Honesty? Integrity? Trust?

Augh, I spent all day yesterday dealing with that ILOVEYOU thing, wiped out all my- wait a minute! I don't use Windows & Outlook. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... suckers... While Cam takes a diplomatic approach, he probably joins me in the group that laugh's maniacally at such things. I'd like to say I was completely unaffected, but thanks to the wonderful software from Redmond, a lot of my mail was delayed. Thanks! And I really hope none of our network volumes were affected, luckily the ones that are Mac-only accessible should be safe, if the ones we share with 'doze users I'd worry about. All in all, Eudora/Pine/Elm/Mut = Good, Linux/*BSD/MacOS = Good. Outlook = BAD, Windows = BAD. I wonder what Mr. Gates thinks of these sort of things, you know, the HUGE security holes in the software his company releases? How can he sleep at night? I guess on a big pile of people's money, that's how...

Wheeeee! Oh, yeah I love you, and I love the good times, I've got a joke for you... I'm sure laughing...

I'm more and more convinced that companies need to do this: Find extremely sharp technical people, pay them well, treat them good, and trust them. Maybe it's happening, maybe it's rare because of the demand for smart people nowadays... I don't know. I tend to put people who choose Exchange in the 'not too smart' department.

Oh, it was *extremely* funny yesterday to hear someone extoll the virtues of Outlook. Did all I could to not burst out laughing...

And how's that migration to Exchange/Outlook going? ;)

I though I should note, I never actually saw the original 'wazzup' commercial. I only saw the Superfriends version. It's often that way, I'm always fimilar with the Looney Toons version, the Animaniacs, the Simpsons version, but rarely the original, well, when it comes to the classics anyway. I'm familar with most of the Futurama stuff as it falls within my realm of existence. The Power Puff Girls spoofed the Star Wars battle of the death star a fews weeks back, I was rolling in the aisles. (We don't really have aisles in out house, I was probably sitting on a chair...)

C.B.", "mv", "mmm?", "B.B." ok, some of those aren't technically 'letters' and some are abbreviations... but still! (Citizen's Band radio, mv'ing a file under unix, asking mmm? and shooting a B.B. gun are all valid things...)

Dave mentions he created a page on Metababy and then someone edited it! I think perhaps Dave doesn't understand Metababy. To me Metababy is a big blank wall with a can of spray paint next to it. Devious fun. Kilroy was here. Contrast this to Wiki. Why Wiki Works explains the philosophy behind Wiki. "The openness might make it less of a tempting target - it's so easy to wreck, there's no kudos in doing so" is on that page as I type this, but may not be by the time you read this. Wiki seems to be about respecting the fact that Wiki is a useful tool. Metababy seems to be about fun, fun, fun... It's all about existing for the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if Dave's Metababy page lasted just a couple of minutes before someone 'edited' it. That's the beauty... Sometimes it can be insightful, sometimes it can be stupid, sometimes it can change from insightful to stupid in a matter of minutes ;) (oddly enough I typed Kilroy was here before I went to www.metababy.com/davewashere... maybe it's not odd, since I'm not the only one who gets Metababy...)

I really didn't mean to write an analysis of Metababy... sorry...

Yesterday, Emma and I were in the kitchen and she says "Daddy, it's getting silly in here" to which I reply "Getting silly? I think it's been silly in here!" and she says, "No, I'm silly!" to which I say "You sure are..." to which she says "Daddy, close the window!" ("silly" and "chilly" sound similar... oops...)

Inspired by others, I had to combine my artistic abilities with Photoshop's pencil tool with the insatiable thirst people seem to have with all things 'WAZZUP' - the results are somewhere over here... (who needs Flash?;)

Danpathy's comix are drawn reel gud...

"...someone's changed the formula..."

"Captain, I'm picking up a strange reading..."

RasterWeb: "We put the 'tent' in 'discontent'" (But who puts the 'con' in 'content' or the 'content' in 'discontent' or the 'nt' in 'discontent' or the 'disco' in 'discontent'?)

You can find art on INTERNET, really you can, really!

Argh, I totally missed Fugazi Day at Apathy... I don't know if Danpathy has any need for a Fugazi V Act Play but I've got one... As long as I'm mentioning Apathy, I should mention that I really need to spend some time reading up on Legos and Robots...

More parallel thinking: linkwatcher metalog has been digging into Wiki lately, just like I have...

Yes, I am dangerous... I'm a danger to myself and others... For a small fee I can be a danger to anyone of your choosing...

Whew, what a weekend! I finally got to take a day off, so we went to rummage sales. What did we get, you ask? Well, 2 desks, a chair, an air hockey table, ironing board, clothesline, clothespins, 2 toolboxes, curtains, a lamp, and for the kids, a bike helmet, an Easy-Bake Oven, a toy lawn mower, Sit 'n Spin, some doll furniture, lots of clothes, and assorted other stuff I can't remember.

Nothing tastes quite as good as a cake you make in an Easy-Bake over with your child... ;)

If you saw Malcolm in the Middle and thought the dad teaching Malcolm was amusing, well, I'm trying hard not to teach Emma (whose 3.5 yrs of age) air hockey using the same method. I have taught her to yell 'FACE OFF' when she scores a goal. We play by 'kid rules' wherein you can't block a shot, and she gets to put her paddle on top of the puck. (Oh, I should mention this is not a full sized normal table, it's a cheap kid-sized version, although we could have bought the full sized one for $200!)

I asked Shana if she wanted to come over and play air hockey... she didn't seem to excited. How disappointing... She was the original proprietor of the air hockey table that graced the Mound House during the 1993/1994 season.

California Air Hockey News (CAHN)...

Build you own table hockey game. This is like the ones we used in Summer Rec as kids, it's like air hockey, without the air...

Favorite line from last week's Power Puff Girls: "He's got a boomstick!"

April Updates