March 30, 2003

flower, 3.29

We took a detour on our way to Ellicott City yesterday afternoon, and took a whole slew of pictures. More to come tomorrow. | link

March 28, 2003

Some interesting stuff online today; Mike Lee has a roundup of the IA conference on his site, which contains some good notes taken by he and his wife. Lots to think about there. I like the notes taken from the keynote—Stewart Brand sounds like an architect I'd like to hire, had I a few million dollars and a burning need to erect a building. (Perhaps MICA could learn a thing or two about this.) I agree with his point about architects designing and then going away, and I especially agree with his "signature building" point—The world is full of "statements" that do not adapt and must be torn down fifty years after their completion.

I also like the story of the Cape Cod builder documenting the house in pictures before the wall is closed. I've been doing much the same with my house, mainly to show the next owners what was done, but also to show them how far it's come since I moved in. (And, admittedly, to remember where in the heck I put that joist/stud/wire/duct.)

Things That Make Me Laugh, 3.28:
1. "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys." The Simpsons will assimilate you.
2. My cats running for the hills whenever I open, handle, or move aluminum foil.
3. "Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity".
4. Rico Suave. (The Gerardo version, not the Pavarotti version.)

I cleaned out the Home Depot last night; I left about ten broke-down bricks laying on the pallet and was able to get the entire original pad covered over again, minus about...ten bricks or so. Now for some concrete and a sunny weekend, and we're in business. | link

March 27, 2003

Embarassed, Part 2. I wrote a potential client back and provided my address, then went to check the Design section and realized the JavaScript for the Case Studies section was broken. A quick two-minute fix, but who knows how long it's been busted?

The Home Depot in Glen Burnie has used brick in stock, so I'm stopping by tonight with the Scout to pick up a load. Whoopee!

Additionally, I did update the Scout page last night, for the first time in four years. Good grief! I have a bunch of other stuff I'd like to post there, including the lineset ticket and an updated list of links from the past four years. Hard to believe it's been almost five years I've owned it. | link

March 26, 2003

keyboard, 3.25

Props. This camera is the shiznit. I bought a camera bag for it last night, but will most likely have to hunt for a bigger one, as the camera and all its fittings don't quite fit in this one.

Jen and I are entering a pair of logos in the DC Art Director's Club competition; I think we have a very good chance of winning something. We're still waiting with bated breath to see what the Oakleaf work looks like (when we get the whole package, I'll post it for you to see) but the logo itself is ready to be judged.

I think I may take an hour or two tonight and redesign the Scout page, as it still accounts for 30-40% of the visitors to this site. (yeah, how's that for irony? You love my truck more than my boring ramblings or crappy drawings. Where's the love, man? Where's the love?!?) | link

March 25, 2003

I read on Slashdot that Adobe has announced their platform of choice for Photoshop is Windows. I understand that the sheer economics of PC sales demand software makers to bow to the prevailing champ, but I doubt this will affect the quality or performance of their next products. I just hope they optimize Photoshop 8 for OSX a bit better—it runs like a sloth on my PowerBook.

Pissed. My camera arrived this morning—from Buy.com. Some modern tracking and ordering system, guys. If you didn't make people pay $10 to talk to a live customer support rep after they have paid for merchandise, this shit wouldn't happen. I cancelled the order last Friday after they couldn't tell me when it would ship. So now I have to figure out what to do with two cameras.

Then the real camera arrived, and it's very, very sweet. I'm currently charging the battery, but it looks and feels fantastic. The Ikelite housing came in this morning, and it fits the camera like a glove. All the function buttons are useable, the case is solid and sturdy, and it feels good to hold. I can't wait to try this out.

Did you know that you can take a firearm, nunchuks, or a billy club on a plane as checked baggage, but you can't take a flare gun or a 'gun lighter' under any circumstances? | link

March 24, 2003

Birthday. Saturday marked the third birthday of this log, from its humble beginnings as a text-based, manually updated .HTML file to, well, a text-based, manually updated .HTML file. A lot has happened since then—I fell in love, got laid off, found a job, and met lots of new people. It's been an interesting experiment, and I've had a lot of fun. Stick around and we'll find out what happens this year.

Interesting. I read in an article on Salon this afternoon that out of the 535 elected representatives in Congress, there's only one who has a son or daughter fighting in this war. There's something wrong there. | link

March 23, 2003

Hard Labor. Jen and I took a trip up to the Home Depot yesterday and loaded ten 80 lb. bags of pre-mix cement in the Scout. We got about 70% of the hole in the backyard filled, and returned for the other four bags to finish off the job. It turned out to be the perfect amount, and this morning our initials are inscribed in the hard-set surface. This week I'm going to begin loading in the 'used' brick up at the Lowe's and bringing it home a bit at a time (we almost had to stop short for a blinkerless merge ahead of us with 800 lbs. of concrete on the back springs, and the Scout didn't like that) so that we can take next weekend and begin replacing the floor.

D'oh. I forgot to pull about 30 shots off Jen's camera today—I took a series of boxcar pictures down by the Harbor Tunnel while they sat idle on the rails. Many of them were tagged pretty heavily and the juxtaposition of the colorful paint vs. the faded lettering and rusted walls was very visual. I took them in sequence so that I can stitch them together later or view them singly, but they do me no good in her camera without the adapter card. Dangit.

I need to devour these pages this week and brush up on some old knowledge. | link

March 21, 2003

Proud To Be An American Dept.: This guy changed his name, before shipping out, to Optimus Prime, of Transformers fame. While I am a quiet fan of this noble band of robot warriors, this is taking things a bit too far. Betcha he gets beat up a lot. (via dominey)

Well, Buy.com loses. I cancelled my order after getting fed up with the "one to two business days" run-around, and found 17th Street Photo in NYC. Let's hope I get better service from them. I'll report in on my findings when I get the camera. | link

March 20, 2003

Let the humor begin: I got this from Jen this morning, under the heading I have a totally sick sense of humor: "All Wal-Mart and K-Mart stores in Iraq will be closing on or before March 17th. After that, they will all become Targets."

Winner, Worst Customer Support/Runner-Up, Poorly Designed Website: NikonUSA. Go to their site and attempt to find the support section. Or, try to find an informational page on a camera not created in Flash. Flash should be banished to designers' websites, K10K, and humorous 2-minute cartoon videos, not commercial product pages. Get that through your thick, vacant skulls, you marketing hacks.

Meanwhile, Nikon does not have the manual available as a PDF on their site, and the printed version is backordered for up to three weeks. Thanks.

Runner-Up, Worst Customer Support: Buy.com, for only responding to inquiries via email and charging $9.95 to talk to a warm body. I'm about ( ) this close to cancelling the order. On the positive side, I got the memory I ordered this afternoon.

On other fronts, I visited Mike Lee's site and noticed he's jetting out to Portland to attend an information architecture summit. I got to thinking, and did a little research, and I'm looking at a few different associations around the country wondering if joining would be a worthwhile investment. I definitely have some required reading to catch up on—a good idea for my upcoming plane rides.

All that led me to Chris Crawford's excellent (and weighty) repository of game development (and other) writing. There's lots to read and digest in here, and I'm looking forward to diving in. | link

March 19, 2003

There is a hilarious wrap-up of the year's past business blunders here. I snorfled my coffee through my nose this morning as I read it. (That was before I took a shower, kind readers.)

I'm also glad to hear that in this age of Code-Orange Alerts and Heightened Awareness, they didn't send the S.W.A.T. Team in to blow this guy's head off. Memo to Dwight: Find another crop, my friend.

On Extended Repeat: Doves' Lost Souls. God this is a brilliant album. I keep playing "Rise" over and over again like a mental patient.

10:59 PM: Get Your War On. Say what you will, believe what you wish, but they started lobbing cruise missiles at Iraq. | link

March 18, 2003

Liver Spots. I'm 32 today. Remarkably, I still feel like I'm 25, and that's a good thing. Even though I'm a slug and I don't excercise at all, my body is holding up well, and more importantly I feel like I'm ten years younger.

Today is another research day; I'm immersing myself in the world of underwater photography, hoping that I can learn as much as possible before they throw me off the boat into the water. For those that are interested, I found a few good sites and a few forums for underwater photography enthusiasts.

Present. Oh, and I also ordered a Canon G3 from buy.com this afternoon, with a 256MB card, for a total just over $680. Not bad, considering local stores list them for $700. There's still other things I need to pick up for this before I go diving:

• One or two extra batteries
• Straps for attaching the unit to my BC
• An extra PCMCIA adapter for SmartMedia
• Possibly new foam inserts for the Pelican to fit all this stuff

I've given up on the solar recharger for the PowerBook; it just is too expensive and bulky. Especially considering I'll be lugging two Pelicans thru the airport—one for the housing/flash units and one for my laptop and camera. | link

March 17, 2003 - Erin go bragh

cayuga lake, 3.16

Mad dogs and Irishmen. Jen sent me this link to a story on Shane McGowan, the toothy, drunken ex-frontman for the Pogues. It's funny, I didn't think he was still alive, but aparently this woman made a documentary about the band which will air on TV. God bless, Shane.

Continuing to do work on the camera front, I've narrowed the search down to the Canon model, and made recommendations to the company for the accessories. I've also been doing work researching solar recharging and power options for laptops, thinking that I may be visiting more than one overseas destination. There are several premade solutions, and they all hover around the $200 mark for panels, charge converter, inverter, and DC meter. There are also several sites which offer tips on building your own solution, which to me is a little riskier.

I also added a set of pictures from the weekend in the sidebar at left. | link

March 16, 2003

Weekend Update: Jen, her bosses and I all went to the Baltimore Addy awards on Saturday night; despite a great showing, Jen's piece did not win. Bastards. I do have pictures, and I will post them tomorrow when I can get the PCMCIA carrier for the memory card. After leaving the award show in disgust, we met up with Jason and Shelly and proceeded to get pleasantly squiffed at a few different places downtown. It's always great to get out with those two. This morning, however, we paid for it dearly...

We did get out of the house after noon, however, and walked to Fell's Point to get to Bonaparte's cafe, which serves traditional French (not freedom) pastries and breads, as well as great coffee. Sipping our decaf—this was recovery, remember—we relaxed and watched the folks walk past the water in the sunshine. I stopped in to the Sound Garden and picked up the new release by Massive Attack, and we walked home through the cool breeze to nap on the back bed with the cats. | link

March 14, 2003

Give It A Friggin Break Dept. All this crap about "freedom fries" and banning French wine is pretty stupid, and that's just a basic fact. But this story has me really annoyed at the current political grandstanding by Congress and other legislators who should have a clue. Digging up war graves to make a point does nothing but diminish the sacrifice these brave men made. Bringing them home to spite a country who, for right or for wrong, is speaking their mind, is assinine and short-sighted. These men were sent to liberate a country under the rule of a dictator. They were buried on its soil to commemorate their loss and pay tribute to their heroism. They should not be disinterred to make a political point.

Report. I went to Best Buy and laid hands on the Nikon 5000 and Canon G3, and the results are mixed. Here's a basic rundown of the featuresets and the pros & cons:

Feature	Nikon Coolpix 5000	Canon G3
Megapixel	5 MP	4 MP
Interface	serviceable	better
macro	2-20 CM	5-50 CM
Lens/Zoom	3x Optical, 4x Digital	4X Optical, 3.6 Digital
RAW Support?	No	Yes
Custom shoot modes?	3 - thru Menu	2 - on Dial
Movies	60 seconds Quicktime	3-minute 320x240, audio
ISO Settings	100-800	50-400
Price	$800	$600

I loved the feel of the Nikon, and compared to the 4500, its menu operation was much more intuitive. The controls were easily found, the layout felt good, and is a solid camera. The Canon is much easier to figure out from an interface and layout standpoint (I went back to the 4500 to play with it this morning, thinking it was just my ineptitude, but damn, that thing is hard to figure out without the manual) but it feels less solid—more like a plastic toy. The Nikon had more of a standard SLR feel to it. I know that feel is not as important as the feature set, but for me it goes a long way.

Even so, for the things I'm going to be doing with it, I think the Canon is the way to go. The fact that it can write RAW files, the simplicity of the interface, and the layout of the camera are all strong bullet points in its favor, vs. the feel, picture size, and macro abilities of the Nikon. Plus, it's several hundred dollars less than the Nikon. | link

March 13, 2003

Question. Which is more disturbing—this music video, or the fact that Crispin Glover is still getting work in Hollywood? (via Todd)

Over time, I've noticed that the screen on my Pismo has gotten looser, to the point where there's about 1/2" of play at the top of the case. I did some reading online to find some fixes for the problem, and it appears that other folks with older machines have had the problem before me. There are some links to parts dealers, but it looks like the issue will be at least a $180 problem to fix (est. pricing on left and right clutch assemblies.) | link

March 12, 2003

About damn time. Let us all hope this is the end of our nightly timeshare and telco sales pitches.

Geek Update. My attempt to get the AppleTalk printer working is successful. I hooked up the 8500 and re-connected the cabling (AppleTalk -> DaynaPrint -> AAUI transceiver -> RJ45) and magically, the printer appeared in the Chooser. Now I just have to bring it to Jen's house and set up her laptop.

Anybody remember this show? For some reason this popped in my head this morning.

Album of the Day: I'm between the Pogues' Peace and Love and Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. Ah, this brings me back. (one of the many things that originally drew me to Jen was the fact that she had a lovingly worn, paper-thin Pogues Peace and Love concert shirt.)

Hint. I got prescription lenses put in my diving goggles today. Besides a slight pull to the left eye (a mild astigmatism), they are like looking through my glasses. I can't wait to try them out underwater. Also in the works is a plan to get an Ikelite housing for one of the digital cameras—either the company's Nikon or a (possible) Canon G3. | link

March 11, 2003

No Habla Español. So the company bought a digital camera on my advice. It's a really nice camera—a Nikon Coolpix 4500, and it has all the features you'd want in a camera if you were interested in doing more than snapping shots of your dog. The problem is, it has so many features, you have to be a computer scientist to figure out the menu system. (it took me a while to figure out how to get out of the idiot mode into the program mode, and only then could I edit the menus to change the ISO and other settings, which left me taking pictures that looked like blurry snow.) Ordinarily, I'm pretty adept at figuring out interfaces (okay, not quite that adept) but this one is just cryptic, man. So I go into the box and find the manual, and it starts talking about "Conozca la Coolpix 4500", and continues from there. To their credit, I got a Nikon lady on the phone and within minutes she ordered an English manual for me, but based on some of the C|Net reviews, I'm now seriously considering a Canon G3 instead.

Nate just bought himself a Canon S230, and in a few minutes I understood the interface and enjoyed the pictures it took, so Canon has won points for usability. Plus, it's about the size of a carton of cigarettes. I'm going to wait for the user's manual to show up for the Nikon, and go lay hands on a G3 and then report back as to what my thoughts are.

Okay, i don't have $400 just laying around, and the security is a joke, but this offering from Martian Technology is strangely appealing. | link

March 10, 2003

Font-tastic Monday. I found this hilarious link this morning on the SXSW site in the humor/satire section: Behind the Typeface.

Have you ever seen a pile of text somewhere and couldn't identify the font? Do you look at signage, TV commercials or cereal boxes and consider how you would have designed it differently? You should try identifont. It's a stepped-question site which attempts to identify a font based on a series of questions about the letterforms you can see. (e.g. "Does the G have a downward-pointing spur?")If you don't remember what some of the letterforms are, it allows for that, but it might take you longer to find your font. Its companion site, fontscape, has organized faces into categories so that you can easily find a particular look, and provides links to the font houses that sell them.

Craptacular. Jen sent this link in reply to my bitching about the Addy information yesterday. You might as well not even go there, because it sucks. | link

March 9, 2003

peter's inn, 3.8

We had a good weekend. Freelance work is out the door, we did some volunteer work for the AIGA, and bought some nice clothes for Jen. And ate lots of sushi. She also takes over the digital camera this week in hopes that it will spark a little creative energy. I have to dig out the cables and manual for her tomorrow morning.

You may need to register to read this (it's free) but I think it's right on the mark. I still remain unconvinced that war is the only option, and frankly, I'm embarrassed by our current foreign policy.

Also, seen downtown, Saturday morning: a plane towing a sign that read: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. —GOD

Keep your fingers crossed for Jen; she has a piece selected as a finalist for the Baltimore Addys this year. She's listed as designer, copywriter and illustrator, and the piece is a contender. I just hope that this year is not a repeat of last year. One of the things that annoys me though is that there's no site I can find with a listing of any of the finalists, an event schedule, or even an invite online. Nice going, guys. | link

March 7, 2003

john w. brown, canton waterfront, 3.4

Today Slashdot provided a link to an article by Robert L. Park, who wrote a book on voodoo science. The article discusses "seven warning signs of bogus science", and it remarkably has many connotations outside its intended realm. (I have not read the book, but provide a link for your information.)

Also from Slashdot, this excellent summary of the Internet. I found this point interesting, until I read the explanation: 4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value. Stop and think about it for a minute, then read the explanation. It does make sense.

From the ever-knowledgable Macintouch, this article on printing from PCs to Apple printers contains a ton of good information. | link

March 6, 2003

Music for today: Röyskopp's Melody A.M. Good chillout music, or as Pitchfork says, music for the Jetta-driving 30-year-old set. Whatever.

4:05 PM. No more downtempo. Van Halen to rock out to. Must get work done.

Smoking Crack, Take 1.Tonight I'm taking apart the innards of a surplus Pelican case I got from an old employer and replacing the foam (fitted for an IBM laptop) with new stuff for my Powerbook. I spent a day or so chasing closed-cell foam down locally, after getting a quote from an Internet source for over $450 for a 4x8' sheet. Who knew that foam was so expensive? Anyway, I was able to get a whole bagload for $36 from a local supplier in town (cheerfully named the "House of Foam".) It's lighter, more pliable, and easier to work with than the original stuff. Today I did a search for "Pelican case" for this post and found that they have an option to buy foam directly. I want to hit myself in the head repeatedly. But I did get to experience the House of Foam, so all was not lost.

Smoking Crack, Take 2. I went to the CompUSA a few days ago and found a copy of Retrospect Express for the low low price of $59. I got it home and excitedly tore the wrapper off to find that it's mainly just an installed reminder service for one machine, not the centralized multiple backup utility I was hoping for. (Read the box, stupid.) Having ripped off the plastic, I voided the store's return policy. (Read the receipt, stupid.) I called Dantz and found that I can upgrade to Desktop for another $59, but I was feeling pretty dumb about the whole thing today. | link

March 5, 2003

Curse my sewer pipe. There's a nice Scout on the Binder Bulletin Classifieds in DC going for $5,000 right now.

I'm working on the interface for a game project right now. The game is still very much in the planning/designing stages, and we're trying to plot out the paths for the users from insertion of the CD to the click of the "quit" button. It's challenging to be back in a high-level planning role, and help make decisions about how the game will work and feel, instead of dressing up a three-year-old flawed bitmap interface. I can't wait to get into the building and testing of this thing.

Welcome to the Machine. When did this country become a fascist state? When did free speech become anti-American? Why is it wrong to speak your mind? What's wrong with this country?

I hope some of those dudes at the ACLU rise up righteously and sue the crap out of that mall. | link

March 4, 2003

Last night, while toying with some more interesting navigation for the photo archives, I finally got around to submitting a photo to the Mirror Project. It was a shot I took in Ellicott City last year, actually by accident, in the windshield of a Model T Ford.

Album of the day: The eponymous first album by the B-52's.

ThinkSecret has a bit of information which illustrates a very good point. In an article on the upcoming Illustrator 11, Adobe concedes that most owners of versions 9 and 10 still use version 8 because it's faster. I agree, and I'm one of these owners. At the release of 9, the interface, upgrades, and modifications to the application began to drag down an otherwise powerful tool to the point where I ditched for 8 it two weeks after installing it. For the same reasons that I still use older versions of MS applications (I have a copy of Word 4 for the Mac that I use on a Powerbook 100, and it does fine), I avoid some newer versions of popular software, because the tradeoffs can be too great. I hope Adobe, and other vendors, learn this lesson. (PS. It's about time they rolled the poor orphan Streamline into Illustrator. The path was clear six years ago. Let's hope they've refined the recognition sensitivity.) | link

March 3, 2003

This weekend Jen and I drove south to St. Mary's County, Maryland, for a local tradition: The spring dinner, featuring stuffed ham and fried oysters. Not unlike many of the fireman's dinners you may have been to, there are a lot of old men selling tickets outside the firehouse, and you enter a large hall (in my experience, they've moved the trucks out of the garage, but down in the County they have a whole meeting hall above) where one of the ladies' auxilliary seats you. Usually there's some folks at your table, and you make your introductions while they start passing you plates heaped with food. This year the ham was spicy and the oysters had been cooked perfectly, so they were crisp and delicious. Unfortunately, we were seated next to some older women who kept to themselves and hoarded the oysters.

I find this article sad, not because people are possibly strapping their children into incorrectly fastened car seats, but because estimates place a quarter of this country's population reading at or below a fifth-grade level. I think if you read that poorly and you're over the age of twenty, you shouldn't be allowed to have children. How are you gonna help them with their homework when they're in the sixth grade?

Google Fun. Apparently there was an AA baseball catcher named Bill Dugan (not to be confused with the athletically-named Jumping Joe Dugan), who played two years of ball starting in 1884. At this point, his stats on Google place him directly behind me and above another Bill Dugan who lives in Cali and who's been making video games for a number of years now.

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