RouseWorld | Main -- April 2003 Archives

What is up with Japan? (Part 36)

I'd known that Gloomy Bear was some sort of a Japan comic thing, I just had no idea that it had gotten this far.

I mean really -- I can understand cute little cartoon pop groups that have Sony's backing. But why is Gloomy Bear attacking them?

I know, you are telling me it would probably all make sense if I knew Japanese, but heck -- there are things about the Japanese that even the Japanese don't understand.

Oh no -- Links!

Okay, so I've gotten a little behind. Here are a few of the odder pages I've stumbled across while I've been fiddling with the site's CSS or just lazing around:

Okay, let me get this straight...

So I'm watching TV this afternoon, because everybody else is. They are showing, you know, the footage from Iraq's capital of Baghdad. And I see these guys riding around in a pickup and I swear this one guy has a party hat going on.

So what does this tell us?

Baghdad Bob!

Today I was joking around today and I said Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf needs to get his career in turnaround real fast. The dude would be great as the host of a liar-liar style reality game show, where contestants had to bluff and lie their way into or out of setup situations. Either that or a slot on SNL, where each week he can reassure the faithful that the US did not win the war.

What now?

I've been a bit unhappy with the site under PHP-Nuke, so I've moved production of the site to Movable Type, a different kind of CMS. The new system is simpler in some ways and also should allow me a little more flexibility.

I'm going to provide links back to some of the original RouseWorld content and maybe even import some of the PHP-Nuke entries, if I have time.

Gadget Freak — High speed RAID

A bit of old news to some, but I found this both really funny and an interesting reminder of how flexible Apple's hardware and software can be. Daniel Blade Olso has built a RAID 0 array of USB floppy drives. The only suggestion I could make is to try in on a machine with dual USB channels and split the floppy drives between channels, that ought to really speed things up!

Link Boy to the Rescue!

Yeah, I know — like you care what websites I like. But some of these are pretty good.

Photographer Eric Myer has built an interesting webapp called Stereotypes. The idea is simple, you get to put the top of one person's head on the bottom of another person's head — but the execution is terrific. Interesting to me was that some of the combinations were better looking than the orginals. Myer needs to get the word out to his subjects, some of them could have cute babies together.

The next page takes a while to load, but to me it is worth it. The site We Love the Iraqi Information Minister is full of great quotes from everyone's favorite propaganda machine. You remember the guy:

"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"

Software Fetish - NetNewsWire

In addition to a new CMS, I'm also trying out a new RSS viewer and weblog editor from Ranchero Software called NetNewsWire.

RSS is an interesting newish standard for news sites and weblogs. RSS allows a website to publish a text summary of its content in a format that is machine readable. An RSS reader can get the latest updates from a bunch of web sites and show you the headlines and summaries. Lots of sites, from the BBC to small hobby sites, use RSS.

The NetNewsWire software goes one step further and allows you to edit your own website using a normal application, instead of going through the weblog's backend web form.

So far I've been pleased, although I'll probably continue to do most of my editing in BBEdit. If I have one complaint, it is that the software makes it really easy to accidentally stomp over an existing post. I don't think anyone would make the mistake twice, but I lost some time this morning re-creating the 'LinkBoy' post.

Gadget Freak — Soybo hub

As you know, I'm a big fan of gadgets and gadget/computer interaction. That is why I'm interested in things like Soybo, software that turns applications into web services.

The idea, if I'm understanding this correctly, if that instead of traditional remote access (which involves sending pictures of one computer's screen to another) you just publish what the application can do and what its current state is. Then other computers (or Internet connected device) can control the application over the Internet. Of course, we already have SOAP and XML-RPC, but apparently Soybo generalizes the solution and allows for discovery.

Brand New Old Imports

It turned out to be fairly easy to import my old blog entries into MovableType. Everything from the old PHP-Nuke site should now be visible in the new RouseWorld. Now I need to get the really old stuff in shape to import.

It's over, now go start it

The saga of Unicorn Jelly is now over, which makes for an excellent time to read it from the beginning. In case you haven't heard about Unicorn Jelly, it has been one of the best online comics out there.

A great commercial

Shout out to Slashdot for this one.

I like commercials that try. The UK "Cog" commercial for the new Honda Accord really does try to be better than just another loud sales pitch.

If you can't see the official link, here is a mirror of the commercial. Also check out this story about how much work it took to film the commercial.

Oh, props to the man himself Rube Goldberg and the film The Way Things Go.

All Tomorrow's Freak Outs

Already technology has started to erase the line between sane and insane. Walk down the street and see someone talking to people who aren't there -- maybe he is just another cell phone headset user.

But just down the street, is a future more odder than that.

I'm okay, just busy

Just in case you folks are thinking I snapped after the 4/15/03 entry, I'm okay -- I've just been busy.

Underworld Movie

Via Slashdot, again.

This might even be interesting, a hottie vampire slays werewolves in a movie due out this September. The only thing that bothers me is that About.com has filed this under Dramatic/Romantic — hmmmm. Is this the Goth Remix of Romeo and Juliet?

Still, Kate Beckinsale kicking ass is an interesting concept.

Spriting away...

I've heard a lot about the movie, Spirited Away, so when I saw it at the rental shop today, I decided to get it. I'll try and put down a review in the comments.

The Holster Rant

Recently, too recently, I've broken two cell phone holsters and one iPod holster. So I'm here today to talk about the right and wrong ways to make holsters.

Many holster makers (including Apple, with its very expensive iPod holster) make the mistake of using plastic at the load-bearing hinge of the holster -- where it clips over your clothing or belt. So when you get into a car and something snags the holster the plastic clip breaks and the whole holster is ruined. Of course even a simple cell phone holster costs more than $10.

So what is the right way?

The best way, as far as security goes, is to have a simple closed leather or nylon loop that you pass your belt through. But not everyone likes belts, so we need something to clip to your pants or what have you.

The second solution -- and the one used by the folks at incase, for their iPod holster -- uses a short ribbon of metal. The end of the ribbon are bent nearly together, forming a springy clip, and it is sewn into the holster. The metal makes the clip very forgiving when tugged ... certainly it hasn't broken yet.

A third solution, a nylon loop with a loose end that snaps to the side of the cases, is what incase used for one of their cell phone cases. That certainly won't break, but it would probably be just as hard to take on or off and doesn't work unless you have a belt.

So ... all you holster makers out there -- pay attention and make better stuff!

An instructive allegorical anecdote

An Indälin by the name of Barak came up to me and said:

"Two men were sleeping. One was disturbed by what he saw in his dreams and said 'Take me from this place!' The other was also disturbed by what he saw, and he exclaimed 'I am this place.'"

Barak then held out his two fists at waist level, as if offering me to choose. But I clenched my left hand into a fist and placed it in front of my left eye. Then I looked at Barak and said:

"Ohio."

And then ... I woke up. It was just a dream.

Don't call me Tonto

This past Friday night I was going to bed early so I wouldn't oversleep. I really should have known better...

At 4:21 AM by cell phone bleaped to let me know I'd gotten a text message. I fumbled with the lamp and read the message:

MI DAUG KAW DOON O WA-A?

The prosumer rant

Steve Jobs called, he wants his Apple back.

Okay, This may be a little late as far as commentary goes -- but the recent Apple Music thing has pushed it to the front of my mind.

In the very beginning, even before the Macintosh, Apple was about being the computer for the rest of us, and in a good way. Indeed that cliche seems to originate with Apple. The idea was a computer that someone can just start up and use. The company wanted to make a computer would be familiar with you -- instead of requiring you to become familiar with the computer.

Jobs may have wanted to be cool, but he also wanted to be ubiquitous (as any manufacturer wants for his product).