We're in Massachusetts for the Thanksgiving weekend. Yesterday, with my sisters Jamie and Maureen and my niece Kate, we spent the day mostly cooking and talking. Traditional, for us, food -- my mother's recipe for sage stuffing, a new recipe for gravy (a lot of silly work for gravy that's not as good as my made-up recipe), candied yams ... it was a peaceful day, no strife, very pleasant. My brother-in-law Jeff pointed out how lucky we are to have Maureen present, that the Wegener's Granulamatosis didn't kill her in September -- and Maureen is thankful to be off cytox for a little while, even though it's not for a good reason. Stanley spent the day fixing my nephew Ben's computer, and the dog spent the day playing with Ben -- one very happy dog. The cat went from lap to lap, content just to sleep.
I like Thanksgiving the best. Nothing is required except a good meal -- and I like to cook, so even that requirement is fun.
It's gloomy outside right now, and we're due for another inch of snow to add to the five on the ground. I hope this isn't an indication of what this winter is going to be like. I'm spoiled -- two mild winters in a row and I think that's the way it should always be. I can live without snow and ice -- it's pretty to see after it falls, but not pretty enough to deal with afterwards. The dog sure loves it, though, and it's fun to watch her streaking through the fields and diving into Ben's snow fort and trying to catch Ben's snowballs.
I feel kind of wrapped in cotton right now -- I know I have some work to do, but I can't seem to get motivated enough to do it. Maybe after we get back from a quick trip to Cambridge.
This is all over the web, via email, via webpages, etc. But I saw it for the first time today, and it touched me. It makes things seem less, well, hopeless.
by Loren Eiseley (1907 - 1977)
Once upon a time, there was a man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."
"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled man.
To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."
Upon hearing this, the man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"
At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."
Tonight we (Stanley and I) watched PBS's Mystery! Skinwalkers. Robert Redford funded this movie, with the screenplay written by his son, James -- based on the Tony Hillerman novel of the same name. They did an excellent job, I thought -- I love Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries so much so that I actually buy them in hardcover as soon as they're published. Adam Beach played Jim Chee, and he acted just as I envisioned Chee would be as I read the novels. (Lou Diamond Phillips did a good job as Jim Chee several years ago in Dark Wind -- an underrated movie.) It wasn't a perfect production -- the story was a little confusing at times if one hadn't read the book -- but all in all, a fine movie, very satisfying. I would love to see Redford et al. make more of these mysteries into movies. I was also glad to see a Mystery! I could understand -- meaning I long ago gave up on watching the British mysteries they usually have since it takes so long to decipher the accents I never catch up with the plot. (So I'm a little dimwitted in the accents department.)
We also went to see Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets this weekend. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I suppose it was at least a decent movie but I cannot give an objective review since I'm so familiar with the books. It seemed not to last long enough to explain everything -- we were surprised that it was 2.5 hours long! What was most fun was listening to the little kid in the row behind us -- he had one of the best laughs I've heard in quite some time. So even though we went to a matinée to escape the hordes, we did have the pleasure of watching it with some children in the theater. Just spared the popcorn & jujube-throwing masses. This version is better than the first, and scary, but I'm looking forward to the next version because it won't be directed by Chris Columbus, who manages to make the story a treacly in a way that Rawlings never does.
Oh, cool, Stanley just told me Skinwalkers is the first of a projected series of Hillerman stories on Mystery! Very good!
I look at several information design, information architecture, and usability/experience design/whatever the latest buzztitle is these days sites to try to keep up. There are a lot of them since web builders have the ability to take navel gazing to vast heights simply because we know how to make web pages. Some are better than others. I kind of lean toward WebWord.com by John S. Rhodes because he seems to have a better crap detector than most.
But one site, in particular, has been bugging me and I finally nailed down why. Take a look at the navigation on InfoDesign. Once you've figured out the menu (it's those icons in the third row), can you tell me what each of these mystery meat icons is supposed to represent? An Icon that conveys no information is bad information design. Another website/web designer tainted by Razorfish.
Go here to take the National Geographic Roper Geographic Survey 2002. Most Americans suck at geography. I always loved geography, and I only blew the religion question on this survey.
Apparently, American students rank dead last when it comes to matters geography. Don't they teach it in school anymore?
And why do people brag about being geographically stupid? That's like bragging that you can't do simple arithmetic -- it's not cute, it's just pathetic.
'Critical' Windows, IE Hole Plugged, according to PC World. Yet another security hole found. Yet another patch to add. I think there are more bytes in patches on my Win98 OS than there are from the actual, original 2nd edition software. So it goes. The patch can be found here: yet another MS patch.
I wonder if my current software will run on Lindows? I guess we'll know soon enough, since Stanley ordered a copy of it to test it out.
Stanley and I have each gotten calls, at various points, telling us we've won some Republican leadership award, and please call back this number, etc. etc. We always thought it was a little weird and never returned the calls - if we'd really won some award, we figured, they'd call back. Especially weird since we're not Republicans - not by a long shot.
So, this morning, I had a message that I could barely decipher about "some award," with a toll-free number: 1-800-650-8375. I was curious, so I called. Land sakes alive - I'm a business leader in my community! I'm kind of wondering how, since we don't even belong to the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce (we would if the fees weren't way too high for a micro business) and know just a few business people in Norwalk.
The person who answered the phone asked me to listen to some canned greeting from Representative Tom Delay (from Texas) and then she'd get back with me to fill in the particulars. Seems I was chosen as not just a leadership award winner, but chairman of some small business committee! Seems like Delay would've a least personalized the message to the chairman-to-be (or at least removed the sexist language). I listened to about 5 seconds of Delay's hyper-right rant before my crap meter kicked in. I couldn't tolerate following this any further, and politely told the woman (she was probably some minimum-wage telemarketer) to tell the Republicans to get lost, and hung up.
Did a little research, though, and found this article from ABC.news: GOP Fund-Raising Tactic Questioned. Seems it's a Republican Party scam to shake money out of the pockets of small businesses, and for $300 to $500, you get the chance to attend policy meetings with movers and shakers. Oh boy.
The award thing is a money-raising scam. With Tom Delay as the chief flim-flam man. An indication that it's not a legitimate award is that they had to withdraw it from one guy because he was in jail for child molestation. Another guy is under federal indictment for distributing drug paraphernalia. Gee, that's the kind of august company I want to be associated with. Not.
I've seen some websites were individuals brag about their "appointment" to the Small Business Advisory Council, claiming to have been chosen after an "exhaustive" search. What a total pile of crap. It's kind of like web designers bragging about being members of the HTML Writer's Guild - like you have to do anything besides fill out a form and pay fees to join this group.
It's time to cost the GOP some money: call the toll-free number above and find out about your leadership award! Try to wangle an invite without having to pay any money - bet you can't.
Before my review, a disclosure: we (Stanley and I) made the author's website, www.beneathbuddhaseyes.com. And we really like author, Tony Anthony.
That said, another pre-review comment: I was nervous about finally getting to read this book. I assumed it was good enough for a publisher to spend scarce publishing money on, but I didn't know whether I would find it a good read. Via Puppet Press, our ebook publishing company, we get so very many submissions that, well, suck. Most of them are of the "It was a dark and stormy night ... " ilk. I never thought Tony's book would fall into this category, but what if I didn't like it ... what could I say ... ? I'm very happy to report that my worries were groundless -- Beneath Buddha's Eyes is very, very good. I submitted this review to Amazon, so here it is, unedited:
I've been meaning to do more reviews -- I like reading reviews in other blogs and journals, a lot, so I think it's time I start returning the favor more often. Today's review is of a cookbook, or more apt, a how-to-cook manual, with another mini review of another cookbook by the same author.
How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, by Mark Bittman, is simply one of the most useful cookbooks I've encountered in all the years I've been looking at them (and I used to do indexes for cookbooks, so I'm very familiar with them, the good, the bad, the ugly ... ) This book gives you the basics on how to cook stuff, what terms mean, where to find ingredients and how to buy them, what kind of kitchen equipment you need (and the stuff you can hold off on buying), and more. The recipes are easy to follow and easy to adapt -- Bittman even gives several variations to try if you're too nervous to improvise on your own. What this book does, basically, is teach you how it all works so you have a basic understanding of what you can and can't do to get good food prepared well. He also makes a strong case for cooking "from scratch" at home, versus eating out or buying prepared meals -- it's often just as fast, if not faster, to make a meal yourself than to buy the pre-made versions of most foods. Better for you, too.
Mark Bittman writes the "Minimalist Chef" column in the New York Times, which I read regularly. Last year I bought his The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor Out of Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (I noticed that he sure doesn't go for minimalist titles!) and use it often enough that I wish the pages were plastic instead of paper (I'm not the neatest cook in the world ... ) Most of the recipes in this book are very good to eat and pretty easy to prepare, though there are a couple that sound great, but taste awful (even Stanley rejected the Fennel-Orange Compote, and he tends to eat whatever I serve him with no complaints). But I wanted more, so I got the Big Book. Both are wonderful cookbooks and definitely belong in your kitchen.
BBC NEWS | England | Moors murderer Hindley dies - even though I was only in the fifth or sixth grade when this woman was convicted for the Moors murders, I still remember the hoopla surrounding it all. I think I followed it because she and her lover were kid killers. I can't say I'm sorry she croaked - she was worse than just a waste of oxygen.
Read You Are a Suspect in the New York Times, Op-Ed page:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
William Safire outlines the dangers of passing the Homeland Security Act as it stands at present. John Poindexter rears his disgraceful, slimy head in the midst of all this.
Do you want every facet of your entire life knowable by some government bureaucrat? Your medical records? Your web surfing habits?
Is Oracle giving Poindexter a huge sum of money to push this through? (You think I'm kidding? Have you read what Larry Ellison has to say about a national database?)
You thought TIPS was a nasty piece of work -- that was NOTHING compared to the evil this will wreak.
Check out Auto FX Software - textures for the taking, royalty free, for just registering. Lots and lots of very nice textures.
This may have been around for a while, but I just discovered it: ColorMatch 5K. It's a pretty handy dandy little color mixer that gives you a good palette of matching colors. I would love it if you could enter a hex value for a color and get the matching colors - but I'm not complaining, just glad to be able to use it.
I found the link to this on MezzoBlue, which I found while reading through comments on an article about Contributor (see yesterday's post) on Evolt.
I got a message from Macromedia this morning about this new content product called Contribute. Supposed to make updating content on websites much, much easier. So I checked it out. I love it. I managed to get a backlog of content updates done very fast. I will defintely buy this when it's released for sale next month. It's $99, at least that will be the intro rate, a little steep for what amounts to an add-on. But I figure the time it will save us will pay for it pretty quickly.
The one thing I did notice about it is the code has to be absolutely correct in order for Contribute to work for updating content. If there are missing tags, such as unclosed table cells for example, it warns the content contributor not to do anything until it's fixed. I think this is a Good Thing.
MIT launched DSpace, which is basically a searchable repository for digitized research reports. Apparently, this is just the beginning. The search seems to work well. The documents are abstracted so you don't have to waste time downloading .pdf files you might not need. It's a promising start in an attempt provide some persistence to digital creations, which have a tendency to disappear as technologies change or webservers are shut down, moved, or rearranged.
The software for the library is open source, so other organizations won't have to pay royalties to create their own digital library using the MIT (developed with Hewlett-Packard) software. It's the first link in what they hope will be a consortium of digital archives.
The one drawback that I've noticed is there is no way to tell if the contribution has been peer-reviewed before being accepted into the depository.
More information about digitized research archives: "College Archives 'Dig' Deeper."
This afternoon, I did a little rearranging of my journal index page. I wanted to add the Movable Type 2.1 search feature -- mainly so I can find things in my archives -- and reorganize the side matter some (I'm not finished with it. Seems I'm never finished with it.) Went to make sure the new template worked fine -- oh man, what a mess!
I'd forgotten that I'd changed SSH to upload on in binary because I was uploading a Flash file last night. Okay, so changed that and then I reloaded the template in ascii format. Better -- but still not quite right. I needed to rebuild.
Headed for the templates page. But no matter what I clicked, I was thrown back to the login page. Over and over. Panic -- I broke it! I'd already had muchas trouble upgrading (had to do with case-sensitive cgi. I had to change the case of about 15 files or so that uploaded as lower case instead of mixed case) so I was NOT HAPPY about this. Headed to the forums, but didn't find an answer there (which left me feeling really dumb -- could I have broken it in a unique way? I doubted it, which meant the fix was so obvious anyone could fix it). I changed the permissions on the files, reloaded this and that, tried all kinds of tweaks. No dice.
AHA! I know, I'll READ THE F*ING MANUAL. Lo and behold, down there in the Troubleshooting section, there was my problem: "I keep getting the Movable Type login screen." With an answer in plain English no less. Which was: if you've set ZoneAlarm to block cookies, the thing ain't gonna work. And what had I done before I began my MT tweaking? Upgraded ZoneAlarm -- where I'd just decided to try a tracking cookie block. I untried it. Problem solved.
The "Friendly" Worm
Yesterday I got a message from a woman at the place where I no longer spend three days a week. It contained a message with a link to download a greeting card she'd sent via friend - greeting (or something like that). I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to get a greeting message from her -- but I figured she was just touching base with all us refugees or something. It wasn't until I'd clicked the link and "install" button that the alarm bells started going off -- would she really send a greeting? But neither Norton AntiVirus nor ZoneAlarm Pro protested ... so maybe it was okay ... I did LiveUpdate only yesterday ... why's it taking so long ... and what a cruddy card -- this isn't something she'd send! OH NO!
I sent her a message asking her about it, and she wrote back apologizing profusely and telling me not to install it because it is a worm, etc. etc. etc. But of course I had. Then my desktop started going haywire. Hoo boy. Here we go ... the SECOND time this week Norton failed me.
Stanley immediately started researching it; it's called, according to Symantec, friend greet or friend greetings -- and they provided removal instructions. Which wasn't easy -- uninstalling it is incomplete, I had to freaking do a liveupdate on Norton AntiVirus TWICE to get the right virus definitions, then NA could not either quarantine or remove the files until I rebooted. Then there was a bunch of registry changes I had to make because Norton could not, and though Norton warned you to clean out all the temp files in the browser cache, it did not warn you to clean out the files in the temporary download file, were I found it again today (it did not execute, fortunately).
A would say that all's well that ends well, except that my quickstart programs are still all rearranged and I'm really pissed that Norton AntiVirus failed yet again. This is one instance where virus definition updates should be automatically pushed content, rather than scheduled pulls. At the very least, Symantec should send out warnings, like McAfee does (I dumped McAfee because it kept crapping up my operating system). At any rate, Stanley told me it's time to update ZoneAlarmPro -- he's the person in charge of all this stuff, so I did what he told me to do. And that, ultimately, is why I had the MT problem.
It amazes me sometimes, the cascade of consequences.
My fascination with ruins continues unabated. This site is gorgeous, and spooky: the derelict sensation.
Audrey Mantey has a series of photographs of the ruin of the Detroit Train Station in Southwest Detroit (abandoned in 1988). I remember this station vividly - I was fascinated with it from the first time I saw it. I remember going with my Dad to pick up the out-of-town newspapers there when I was a little girl and then doing the same thing by myself when I was in college. I used to sit there and read the newspapers and watch the people.
This train station is not too far from where Tiger Stadium used to stand, and where the second-oldest Roman Catholic church in America, St. Anne (founded in 1701), still stands.
This site is worth spending time on, a lot of interesting projects and presentations. And it makes me realize I should go get pictures of a derelict building right here in Norwalk that fascinates me before it gets torn down. It's a building I would love to buy and renovate if I had the money to do it right.
My Dad said last night: "I don't understand people. We had eight years of a booming economy under the Democrats. Now everyone can see the economy is still going down the tubes, and yet they're still voting Republican." I don't understand it either, but as Stanley is fond of saying: "Half of all people have an IQ of 100 or less." CNN has a good roundup of all the election results here: CNN.com Election 2002 Results. One bright spot was Michigan, where a Democrat, a woman at that, won and managed to throw off too many years of Republican control. Too bad about Missouri and Minnesota, though. And here in Connecticut our sleazy governor got another four years to further trash the economy.
Voter turnout seemed to be low around here - I'll have to look for those results.
I don't even remember where I stumbled upon this - rediscovered it while sorting my bookmark list (which I have to google to find anything in ... ): Conversion & Calculation Center: Measurements, Currencies, World Time, Calculators & Reference Info. All kinds of handy dandy thingies.
And if you need just the facts on the nutrient values of foods, such as carbohydrate content or fiber content, etc., go here: Search the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. Click the home button to find more info. I remember now why I have this bookmarked: Stanley and I did a lot of research on food nutrient content for The Circadian Prescription, a very, very good book written by Dr. Sidney Baker and Karen Baar about circadian rhythms of our bodies and its effects on health.
We launched Beneath Buddha's Eyes today. Beneath Buddha's Eyes is website for a novel of the same name written by Tony Anthony: "Based on a true story, Beneath Buddha¹s Eyes offers a tender story of love amidst the hell of war, a singular perspective of the Vietnam conflict, and — especially at a time when the country appears on the brink of entering another war — a thoughtful questioning of what America is really fighting for."
What made this site so satisfying to build is that we really like Tony, and it was a pleasure working with him. He communicated quite clearly what he wanted the site to be like, and provided us with some digital sketches (he is a graphic artist) with his concepts, and we took off from those.
Part of the site is devoted to Tony's recently rediscovered photos, which he took while he was a draftee assigned as a correspondent in Vietnam. Impressive photos.
Advertising Deregulated: The Inalienable Right to Mislead Millions, by Carol Norris
[snip]
The FDA, absolutely, positively, cross-my-heart-hope-to-die not a special interest lackey, whose job it is to police the food, drug and cosmetics industries, says it is committed to reducing false or misleading advertising. But somehow, there seems to be a disconnect between what it says it wants and what it is doing. This year it sent out 60% fewer warning letters than last year to advertisers regarding misleading or distorted facts. Representative Waxman from California notes that, "there has been a dramatic drop in enforcement actions." These warning letters are the first step in the FDA's policing tactics. Maybe there were 60% fewer infractions, you argue. As drug ads are burgeoning, drug sales are booming and the pharmaceutical companies have ever-growing political clout, this is highly unlikely. In addition, those in the industry most assuredly know that at this very moment the FDA is actively considering relaxing the advertising rules that govern them. How hard it must be to follow what you know might soon be outdated rules.
[/snip]
I've been thinking a lot lately of all the new ways manufacturers are coming up with to sell us the same products at much higher prices. Purple ketchup. Swifter and Pledge floor cleaners. Paper towels pre-sprayed with furniture polish. Chicken meat shaped like cartoon characters. Just going through the coupon flyers amazes me.
What really brought it home for me was bypassing generic dog biscuits in favor of Scooby Doo dog biscuits -- like the dog cares. And I didn't even watch Scooby Doo.
There are some cases where generic is not a bargain. A few. Aluminum foil. Soap. Toilet paper. That's all I can think of at the moment.
We have been so brainwashed. It's frightening to contemplate even trying to "un-do" what a hundred years of advertising has wrought. So I'll just do what I can -- try to see through the crap to determine if the product is worth the money I have to shell out to get it. Or, an even more radical idea -- trying to determine if this is something I really need ...
I know this is a little old, but it cracked me up: Candidate's Relatives Say They Won't Vote For Him (Hartford Courant Online Edition)
October 17, 2002
Associated Press
[snip]
SOUTHINGTON, Conn. -- State Rep. Dennis Cleary won't be able to count on the support of his family this Election Day.
The Republican, who represents Wolcott and Southington, is seeking a seventh term in the General Assembly. But relatives have taken out a newspaper ad and planted signs on their lawns in support of his opponent, Democrat John "Corky" Mazurek.
The ad, printed in the Wolcott Community News, reads, "We are tired of Dennis ... Are you?"
Jude Cleary said family members believe his brother is a "corrupt" and "self-serving" politician.
"He's sort of been on a trip for a number of years," Jude Cleary said. "He just seems to have rolled with the Hartford insiders and sort of lost touch with his own family, let alone the people of the district."
[/snip]
Seems the family doesn't like the way he handled his father's estate. I wonder what the real story is here, since there are always at least two sides to every story. At any rate, he's been in office long enough -- time for him to say "bye-bye."
The ads in CT have been particularly unenlightening this silly season. Very few ads for Curry, the democrat running for governor. I guess he didn't raise enough money.
Attack ads - all attack ads. I think the only non-attack ads I've seen are for the woman, Susan Bysiewicz, running for secretary of state - those ads actually talk about her accomplishments. I guess she managed to get some stuff done despite working under our oily republican governor, who, in just a few years, managed to turn our state from one with a substantial surplus to being nearly a billion in debt.
Monday, November 4th, is Mahalakshmi. Mahalakshmi means great wealth.
Maharishi says: "Mahalakshmi is a very precious element, it's an element of all possibilities; it's prosperity; it's fulfillment; it's a field of all possibilities. It makes life absolutely fulfilled."
So, Monday is the day we will launch our latest creation; a website that has been a pure pleasure to build both because it's beautiful and because we really like this client. Stay tuned ...