GirlHacker's Random Log

"Some things are better left unsaid, so that's why I write." - Lilly (from an old journal)
1/31/2000 12:55:27 AM - name='45389'

The new dollar coin is in circulation. You can get them as change at Walmart and Sam's Clubs. Will it change the way we use money? Some interesting facts from the U.S. Mint's Business Information Center: Coins induce impulse sales. Consumers tend to part with coins more readily than bills. A dollar coin translates to higher value purchases. The U.S. Mint is taking unprecedented steps to make the Golden Dollar a success. A major media effort combining product tie-in's, national advertising and public relations events is scheduled to build consumer awareness and demand for The Right Change(tm). (great...another annoyingly trademarked phrase)
1/30/2000 1:46:19 AM - name='44938'

Saturday, January 29, 2000

The Gap is pushing the jean jacket -- again. Did it ever go out of style? I still have my Gap jacket from the late 1980's. The collar is frayed, but I still wear it. If I'm being unintentionally stylish, well, I guess I can live with that. But I do dread the return of fashion trends that I actually used to follow! Two terrible words: designer jeans. Remember "Oo la la, Sasoon"?
1/29/2000 1:56:43 AM - name='44474'

Well-meaning DSL-addicted friends want me to join them on the high bandwidth-wagon. While it may seem logical that faster downloads will expedite my web surfing and allow me to get to sleep sooner, the truth is I think I would just stay up surfing even longer. I keep saying this but I never do it: I need to set an alarm to remind me to GO to sleep!
1/29/2000 1:39:49 AM - name='44473'

Friday, January 28, 2000

Now that's creative! This New York Times article explains how the New York City welfare department has been recruiting welfare recipients to work from home as telephone psychics. "What if I'm not psychic?" asks a potential clairvoyant. "They'll train you" is the response. Self-described "genuine psychics" are not amused. But who else is better qualified to listen with compassion to down and out callers?
1/28/2000 1:30:22 AM - name='43906'

Going near southern Virginia sometime soon? Maybe you'd like to visit The World's Only Ass-Kicking Machine.
1/28/2000 1:19:11 AM - name='43903'

Why do ad designers sometimes seem to lack common sense? I've seen three billboards with web site advertisements which do not have the URL prominently displayed. The URLs are in a smaller font, don't catch your eye, and are overshadowed by the large message that the ad tries to get across. The Northern Light billboard which loudly proclaims "SEARCH THE WEB" has the URL stuck in the bottom right corner. OK, it's true that many people get stuck in traffic here with ample time to digest the contents of all the billboards, but it seems that the "takeaway" for a web site ad has got to be the URL. It's useless otherwise.
1/28/2000 1:12:07 AM - name='43899'

Thursday, January 27, 2000

After unsuccessfully using Word to convert the stories I wrote for my writing class into HTML, I was all ready to write a horrific rant about the awful HTML generated by Microsoft products. But Andy Oram over at O'Reilly has already taken a stab at "Stalking the Non-Conforming Microsoft Format".
1/27/2000 2:00:02 AM - name='43264'

(Warning: Disorganized Thoughts Ahead) Dru over at Misnomer has been reflecting on voluntary payments and enabling micropayments for web self publishing. That got me thinking about what opportunities I have to pay for commodities after I can fully assess their value. The only situations I could think of were tipping for service and throwing money to street performers. Even when I donate money to an organization, I am not absolutely sure what they are going to do with it. I am trusting their past performance. Suspending reality for a minute, what if I could pay for a movie after I saw it? Would I always pay some base fee that I felt represented my appreciation for the effort made to entertain me and then tack on an additional amount that expressed my enjoyment of the film? It seems that service or live entertainment is more suited to the concept of paying afterwards because the people involved have an incentive to please you. Back to the subject of web publishing, if I wanted to collect payment for my published thoughts, I'd probably want the reader to decide how much they wanted to pay. Information has different value to different people. Although, as Dru says, most information becomes more valuable as more people see it, there are intellectual properties that are more valuable (or, more precisely, profitable) if only a few people know about them. And how best to benefit from potentially profitable intellectual property is something a writer needs to figure out. As a reader, I'd pay the most for writing that was emotionally moving, hilarious or extremely thought provoking. Bonus for all three.
1/27/2000 1:43:53 AM - name='43259'

Wednesday, January 26, 2000

Here are a couple of amusing high tech gadgets. The Fone Pen from Buka detects cell phone calls so you can turn your ringer off and have a visual indicator for calls coming through. But I have this suspicion that if you are surrounded by other cell phones, perhaps when you're in a movie theatre, it will light up when your neighbor's phone rings too. The second item is something I've been suspecting would show up sooner or later: a digital photo frame that hooks up to the Internet. It plugs into a phone line and downloads from your private online photo album. Someone I showed this to emailed back "I wonder what's going to happen when someone hacks their site and starts shoving spam and/or porn down to people's fireplace mantles?" There you go; they should give it to you free if you are willing to cycle ads through it!
1/26/2000 2:53:31 AM - name='42608'

Just saw Aimee Mann and Michael Penn performing at a club in San Francisco. Aimee's voice is just as gorgeous live as on her recordings. I did something I hadn't done before: waited outside the club like a groupie. She eventually came out after doing an interview for Associated Press and sweetly signed autographs for the few of us still there. I had had only enough cash to buy one of her new CDs which I'm giving to a friend, so I rummaged through my purse, found my movie ticket from seeing Magnolia and had her sign that for me. She seemed amused.
1/26/2000 2:40:24 AM - name='42607'

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

Do you know about Chindogu? I like the Hay Fever Hat and duster slippers for cats (gotta make my cat some of those...I wonder if she'll do windows too).
1/25/2000 1:28:26 AM - name='41949'

Just in case you missed it, DO NOT MISS the eerily beautiful Eskimo Nebula picture from the fixed up Hubble.
1/25/2000 12:57:02 AM - name='41942'

There appears to be a trend going around with women taking off their clothes for worthy causes. First the calendar in England which raised $550,000 for leukemia research and now female streakers have hit the ice rink at Rockefeller Center in New York to protest people wearing fur.
1/25/2000 12:48:03 AM - name='41937'

Monday, January 24, 2000

@Home is putting limits on the upload speed for their cable modem service, according to this NY Times article. Seems "bandwidth hogs" are ruining it for everyone else. Instead of finding the abusers, they are capping upstream at 128 kbps. Bummer.
1/24/2000 1:32:21 AM - name='41366'

I noticed at the bookstore that Joel Glenn Brenner's book The Emperors of Chocolate is now out in paperback. It is a well written expose of the history behind Mars and Hershey. The revelations are startling. You learn how the companies are run, why American milk chocolate tastes sour (it really does!) and why M&M's are so addictive (they make them that way, of course!). There's Mounds (pun intended) of enlightening facts about the candy industry, a few of which are listed here. Consider giving this book in lieu of chocolates to your favorite subversively-minded Valentine.
1/24/2000 1:19:36 AM - name='41362'

Sunday, January 23, 2000

Unisys announced that they have received a patent for a natural language technology. The patent title is a "System and method for creating a language grammar using a spreadsheet or table interface". I don't know too much about natural language processing, but I do know enough about computer software to feel a bit wary at the description of the system and algorithm being patented. If anyone else uses this same method to create a grammar, they would be in violation. sigh. Yeah, and I used a spreadsheet to add a few numbers together for my taxes...can I patent that too? (sadly, probably.)
1/23/2000 2:15:03 AM - name='40974'

Here's something I should've figured out, oh, maybe three startups and two boyfriends ago. Psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire in Britain found that men are less able than women to cope with their partner's work stress. Women could become anxious about their partner's work stress but were much more successful in not being depressed by it. The article in the Mercury News (online access to it may expire soon) ends with a quote from the report's co-author: "Couples need to pay attention to the way they communicate with each other regarding work. If you go home and offload on your partner, it will have an effect on them." Sounds so common sense, but I can't tell you how many times I would forget that.
1/23/2000 1:56:32 AM - name='40968'

Saturday, January 22, 2000

I used the term "futzing" today in an email and wondered about the word's origins. According to Merriam-Webster, "Etymology: perhaps part modification, part translation of Yiddish arumfartsn zikh, literally, to fart around". I did the requisite web search and was astounded to find that the Gartner Group did a study which showed that the largest cost associated with owning a computer is "futzing"! People apparently spend more time trying to get their computers to run faster than they save when they are running faster. Another study showed that the average office worker futzes for about 5.1 hours a week. For more details read the 1997 articles from the Boulder County Business Report and PCWeek.
1/22/2000 2:46:25 AM - name='40682'

Baylink (by Jay, recent Buffy convert) has some enlightening commentary on my social interaction observations from yesterday. See "Prana doesn't fit through the wires".
1/22/2000 2:27:55 AM - name='40679'

Friday, January 21, 2000

Saying you've met someone "online" or "over the 'net" has become more commonplace and is losing its nerdy aura. That's a Good Thing (tm). But there's still a huge difference between the experiences of meeting someone on the Internet and meeting in person. The interactions are completely different and can leave vastly dissimilar impressions. Will that divergence change as Internet use evolves? Will we be able to have almost the same experience meeting someone online in the future as we do in person? The textual nature of current Internet interactions are protective, comforting, almost indirect. What will happen when voice and video are commonplace as bandwidth increases; will they become commonplace? Will the introverts stick with text and the extroverts happily chat into their cameras and microphones? Or will we all keep hidden behind the convenience of attractive 3D avatars? (Note: this entry has a name tag and can be linked to using #12100)
1/21/2000 1:27:15 AM - name='40198'

A New York Times article which points out that Mattel's Barbie PC comes with less educational software than its counterpart Hot Wheels PC doesn't list all the titles that come with the PCs, just the educational ones. Here's the Barbie list and the Hot Wheels list. I understand people's concern with the disparity in the titles provided, but come on, the real problem is that parents would actually buy their kid a Barbie computer in the first place! Don't get your kids a gender specific computer! Get them some paint and stickers and let them decorate it themselves. Let them pick out the software they want (and don't cringe when it is Barbie Fashion Designer -- even if it's your son).
1/21/2000 1:13:00 AM - name='40190'

Thursday, January 20, 2000

Java Programmers! The 3rd Edition of Java in a Nutshell is out and has been spotted in big stacks at Silicon Valley bookstores. It covers Java 2. Hmmm I may have to recreate all the nice post-it tabs I stuck in my 2nd edition.
1/20/2000 1:10:14 AM - name='39719'

I decided today that I need to be more tolerant when reading documents with grammatical errors and misspellings. I often read documents at work with a red pen in hand, correcting as I go along. It's more for my own comfort than to educate the writer. The errors pop out at me and I just have to fix them. I think I inherited a teaching gene (not surprising, both of my parents have been teachers). I know it is difficult to edit and correct your own writing, so I'm not trying to show off my superior knowledge or make anyone feel incompetent. I just have this need to fix the errors in order to continue reading comfortably. I think I'll try to learn how to use this rather anal characteristic only when I need to. I often see hand printed corrections in books that I take out of the library so I know I'm not the only person out there like this. At least I don't mark up library books. (That's not to say that I haven't wanted to.)
1/20/2000 1:01:48 AM - name='39717'

Condolences to Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Syme on the loss of their baby. (my Matrix viewing count: 5 -- or was it 6? I can't remember!)
1/20/2000 12:45:44 AM - name='39713'

Wednesday, January 19, 2000

I had a rip-roaringly enjoyable [laugh out loud, turn page, repeat] time last night reading "Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX". Mr. Bunny is a talking rabbit (I bet you guessed that already). Mr. Bunny and Farmer Jake are the main characters in this subversively hilarious romp through the wonders of ActiveX. Along the way, accurate snipes are taken at the Windows Registry, CLSIDs, and Visual Basic. Lawn gnomes come to life to illustrate function calls. Rubber ducks inflate to save our protagonists. Appropriately humorous diagrams illustrate new concepts. Almost all entries in the index say "see ActiveX". Buy it, borrow it, steal it, xerox someone else's when they're out to lunch. Carefully examine each page, don't miss any fine print or you'll miss a laugh. There's also Mr. Bunny's Big Cup O' Java which I will read when I've sufficiently recovered from this one.
1/19/2000 1:00:33 AM - name='39132'

I love flowing, curvy designs so this furniture really caught my eye. Eero Aarnio designed the famous ball chair. I probably wouldn't decorate with them, but they're great eye candy for a web site!
1/19/2000 12:38:25 AM - name='39121'

Tuesday, January 18, 2000

I spent at least five minutes of precious work time playing with this mesmerizing DHTML clock. Watch it flow!
1/18/2000 1:45:02 AM - name='38465'

Scenes from Silicon Valley:

• Got Bandwidth? WE DO. -sign outside apartment complex on El Camino Real.
• Overheard in the Big Long Line at Fry's: "For Christmas I told my sister, she's a teacher, that I'd create a database for her to keep track of her student records, but I don't think she really appreciated the value of it. I mean, do you know how much I make an hour?"
• Jan 15, 2000: Worried about a risky operating system upgrade (with Windows there is no other kind), girlhacker sends email to a friend to let him know what she's about to do -- just in case something goes terribly wrong and she drops off the face of the Internet. She briefly considers and then opts out of creating a will. Let the cat have everything.
• I can't believe I'm linking to this. But where are all the geeks? Craig Newmark is the only "hardcore Java programmer" of the lot.

(The upgrade went fine. I gave the cat rights to the air space over my monitor as a consolation prize.)
1/18/2000 1:41:20 AM - name='38462'

Monday, January 17, 2000

The Real Story of Rosa Parks, an essay by Paul Rogat Loeb, really rang true for me. It discusses how heroes become glorified to such an extent that we forget how they were able to achieve their heroics. Us normal folk forget that we too can accomplish great things. I often make the mistake of putting people I admire on a pedestal, which has two effects: 1. If I meet them and realize they are real people with nasty flaws, I am gravely disappointed and discouraged. 2. I forget that with perserverence, I too can make a difference in the world. To quote a quote by an activist from the article: "I think it does us all a disservice when people who work for social change are presented as saints... we get a false sense that from the moment they were born they were called to act, never had any doubts, were bathed in a circle of light. But I am much more inspired learning how people succeeded despite their failings and uncertainties. It's a much less intimidating image. It makes me feel like I have a shot at changing things too." This MLK Day I resolve to do more than think about how my commute will be more enjoyable than usual :-).
1/17/2000 12:42:07 AM - name='37862'

I am definitely going to buy Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions. It sounds too useful to not have around for further enlightenment into the whimsical evolution of American English. "Suggested rule: if you don't understand the reference yourself because you haven't read the book or seen the movie it's from, steer clear". Oh, but Seinfeld episodes you haven't seen are OK, right? Yada yada. Uh, Yoda Yoda?
1/17/2000 12:17:14 AM - name='37855'

Sunday, January 16, 2000

Eric Idle is indeed touring the U.S. this year with his "Eric Idle Sings Exploits Monty Python" spectacle. Tickets for some cities are already available online. So don't say I didn't warn you (like with Kids in the Hall).
1/16/2000 1:51:47 AM - name='37412'

While reading an article on how architects get upset when homeowners alter their original designs, I realized that notion doesn't apply to me as a programmer. To me, software design and coding is a creative, artistic pursuit, and I could perhaps make the case that certain code is art, but it is the nature of the beast that it evolve, be altered, and sometimes even get thrown away as a learning exercise. I suppose architecture goes both ways; the finished product could be a work of art that must stay as true as a painting, or it can evolve to better suit its inhabitants. Stewart Brand makes the case for structures that evolve in his book How Buildings Learn. My preference is that a house be built to change since culture and lifestyle alters over time. A remodeling job that retains the original design intent can be more worthy of admiration, just as elegant code retrofitting is deserving of high praise. A former CEO of mine calls that "code sculpting" and places it as high as design skills on his list of desired programmer traits.
1/16/2000 1:28:16 AM - name='37409'

Saturday, January 15, 2000

Lesson learned: Only install new devices on your PC when their tech support staff is available. I've spent a not-so-entertaining Friday night trying to get the Buddy B-210 from Vega Technologies installed. This $169.00 device allows you to add a second monitor, keyboard, and mouse to your Windows system, creating a second terminal for it. I was about to start looking at laptops so I could have a computer in another room, but I don't really want to maintain a second system, even if it is portable. So I bought the Buddy device tonight, optimistically set up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (all "borrowed" from my old 66mhz system) in my living room, and then spent the next four hours trying to get the darn thing installed. The software keeps blue screening, the PCI card and driver won't install properly, I got patches off their web site which didn't help, and I've finally given up. I absolutely hate it when installing something screws your PC up so much that it is unusable. Thank goodness for Safe Mode. Now I have to wait until I can actually be next to my computer during their tech support hours, which will be a nice trick since I have to be at work. Big Sigh. They should be very lucky I've worked tech support before because I am so ready to give them a piece of my mind. But I'll be good.
1/15/2000 12:20:40 AM - name='37128'

Friday, January 14, 2000

I'm not really sure what to think of this site which you can use to send actual postcards from Paris. It falls in some odd category of my digital vs physical cultural evolution observations, kinda balancing out those digital postcard kiosks you see at tourist attractions. I wonder if anyone in Paris has used it.
1/14/2000 12:20:09 AM - name='36723'

I've realized that I no longer surf the web the way I used to. It's almost too convenient now to find interesting links! I know exactly where to go to find something new to ogle. And most days I have time only for my essential daily links. But in the young days of the web I'd sit for hours, following link after link, discovering all sorts of obscure pages. These days the web is prettier, more cleverly designed, certainly more corporate, and I should try to get in a good surfing session once in a while to find out of there's even more interesting junk. This train of thought led me to wonder if it would be at all interesting to try a "longest path" surfing challenge where you have to start and end on the same page, but never hit the same domain twice. How far could you go and still come back? Is this even a feasible idea (I feel I may have missed some logical "duh" reason why this is a stupid idea)? We're always trying to find the shortest distance between two points... how about the longest? How much of the web can you traverse and still return to the same point without using something like Yahoo as your roundabout?
1/14/2000 12:17:47 AM - name='36722'

It always takes me a few weeks to make peace with a new IDE (integrated development environment). Along the way I usually decide that the whole concept is a bad idea and I should just use the editor, compiler, and debugger that I get along with best. There's always some editor quirk I don't think I can live with, some compile setting that I know the command line flag for but can't find the darn checkbox for. I'll grab a sympathetic coworker and rant about programmers who are given a customer they can actually understand (themselves) but still can't create a decent UI. Then I remember that I'm not them. I hold onto the grand vision of interoperability and plow on through. I'm getting used to my sixth one now, and, true to form, I am going nuts. After fighting with CodeWarrior for hours, I realized that it doesn't spit out class files until it has compiled all the Java files in a project. Augh. But I haven't had any fights with the editor yet, and about all that remains is to remap the function key shortcuts in my brain. I suppose what I really need is a fully customizable environment. But I doubt I'll get the malleability I want in the places I need it.
1/13/2000 1:24:24 AM - name='36178'

True Confessions: After reading this article on The Typing Explosion (writers who create instant poetry using typewriters) a big nostalgia wave whacked me and I started reminiscing about my typewriter. It was a wonderful, small, portable one, not electric; never had mechanical problems. I pounded out all my college applications on it. I was practically addicted to it. I would roll in sheets of scrap paper, the backs of used giftwrap, the thin cardboard you get with nylons, anything that fit (I even used leaves once) and I'd tap out odd musings, midnight poetry, rants about Maddie and David, senior slump soliloquys, a ludicrous plea proposing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'round the Oak Tree" for the prom theme song, and a business proposal to market different shades of Wite-Out in college application colors to frustrated seniors (Wellesley Blue, Amherst Buff, Brown...uh, white?). I'm beginning to understand why I wasn't nostalgic before. You gotta grow up to have things to be nostalgic about. On the other hand, I had recently had a conversation which went something like:
"Hey, remember musicboulevard.com?"
"Hey yeah! That's where I made my first ever online purchase!"
"Well, they've become part of cdnow.com."
"Oh. Huh. You know you're traveling in Internet time when you can be nostalgic about an ecommerce experience."

I guess the web is now my typewriter, or at least the paper that was in it (my computer is just my word processor). I don't need Wite-Out much anymore. And, for the record, the prom theme was "I Melt With You" by Modern English. Great song.
1/12/2000 1:16:05 AM - name='35502'

Tuesday, January 11, 2000

Oldie but goody: The Tao of Programming is available online. My copy is on my bookshelf wedged between the Tao te Ching and The Tao of Pooh. And a few months ago I received email spam for The Tao of Dishwashing (I hate publicizing a site that spams, but I found this one metaphorically humorous).
1/11/2000 1:26:50 AM - name='34915'

Sometimes I have a thought that I don't log right away and then it comes true. This one was bound to happen sooner or later. The city of Halfway, Oregon is discussing changing its name to "Half.com", a publicity stunt by a company of the same name. In related thoughts, do people changing their name or having a baby nowadays check to make sure a matching domain name is available? And certainly by now there has been a divorce settlement that specified ownership of a jointly owned domain name. (thanks Seth for that last one)
1/11/2000 1:13:42 AM - name='34910'

Monday, January 10, 2000

Flipping around the channels this morning, I heard the familiar strains of "the hills are alive, with the sound of music". Actually, what I heard was a large group of people being shown how to raise their arms as they strained to reach the high soprano "HILLS" note. What the heck was going on? It was a CNN report about "The Sound of Music: Singalong Special" in London. There's a movie theatre showing The Sound of Music with captioned lyrics for the audience to sing along. What fun!! And boy do they sing along. Most people come in costume, some in play clothes and kerchiefs made out of reappropriated green print curtains, many in black nun habits. The woman they interviewed claimed there had only been one Nazi costume so far. (Not surprisingly, this same theatre shows Rocky Horror.) Audience participation rules! Maybe I should get the Stanford Theatre to think about this concept. (The Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA shows wonderful old movies and they have a Wurlitzer organ.)
1/10/2000 1:23:18 AM - name='34395'

Sunday, January 9, 2000

A new month brings new billboards. Early in the week I noticed one on 101S which read:
goliath689@aol.com
david@earthlink.net
Intrigued, I did a web search. david@earthlink.net belongs to David Beckemeyer, CTO at Earthlink. Today I saw another one:
herd@aol.com
heard@earthlink.net
Obviously, these are Earthlink advertisements, taking a few digs at AOL. Anyone seen any others? Was Earthlink unable to convince goliath@aol.com to give up his/her address (or does 689 mean something?). Hmmm, should I send email to all the addresses asking "How many people have sent you email because of the billboard? Besides me, I mean." Will I get a canned marketing response? Did Beckemeyer give up his address to PR?
1/9/2000 2:17:15 AM - name='34048'

Saturday, January 8, 2000

A truly random thought popped into my brain this week. "Surely I'm not the only person in the world who has taken a photo of a Kodak Picture Spot?" I'm not talking about a photo at a Kodak Picture Spot, but a picture of the spot itself, sign and all. It's an amusing and mildly subversive photo opportunity that I'm sure others have thought of. A web search turned up two examples and a few usages of the phrase to describe a perfect photo setting. Apparently no one has created a web collection of Kodak Picture Spot photos (kodakpicturespot.com appears to be available if anyone wants to start the film rolling :-). How many spots are there? Are they all in amusement parks? I couldn't find any info on Picture Spots at the Kodak web site. Hmmm, I wonder who gets to go around and select these places.
1/7/2000 12:58:46 AM - name='33238'

Thursday, January 6, 2000

If you remember Aimee Mann, you may be pleased to know that she has a new album coming out very soon. And nine of her songs are on the Magnolia soundtrack. If you don't remember her, she's the one who sings "Voices Carry" (and if you don't remember that, you probably saw Star Wars first on video). Amazon's reviewer writes: "Mann's voice has always been a suitable vehicle for conveying emotional turmoil and indelible sadness..."
1/6/2000 1:22:35 AM - name='32735'

What a nice surprise it is to find that a truly personal story inspired Charles Schulz to create the little red-haired girl in Peanuts. Donna Wold declined Schulz's marriage proposal in the late 1940's and married someone else. She has no regrets, but did stay in touch and collected all the strips that mentioned the little red-haired girl. Hey, she certainly can't regret being immortalized in the comics. After all, I've never noticed his wife mentioned (though I imagine she was probably influential).
1/6/2000 1:12:26 AM - name='32732'

Wednesday, January 5, 2000

You can learn interesting things from obituaries. Sadly, I had not heard of David Mellinkoff until today, but when I noticed his obit on Wired, my interest was piqued. He was an attorney who advocated the use of plain English for law. He fought against "contagious verbosity", was influential in the revision of California's constitution, and published books on legal writing. Sounds like a great guy who stood up for a belief that very likely irritated many of his peers. Here's his LA Times obit. In doing a web search on him, I discovered the Plain Language Action Network. They have a guide to writing user friendly documents. The point is not to dumb the language down or be boring and simple. The ideal is to have clarity, precision, and elegance for reader comprehension. It's just like UI design, where a florid, artistically overdone website is rarely as usable as a simply elegant one. It's harder and more impressive to create something beautifully usable and readable. Unfortunately, a lot of people forget that there has to be something beneath the surface.
1/5/2000 12:46:24 AM - name='32291'

Tuesday, January 4, 2000

Yes, I know you're sick of Christmas. But here's one important fact (which I learned from AdCult): Did you know that Santa Claus looks the way he does today because of Coca-Cola advertisements that began in 1931? Yup. I find this most interesting because I had no idea Coke had anything to do with styling Santa, so I bet they wish they had added some Coke reference to every Santa Claus depiction. Then we could've seen some truly creative retaliatory marketing from Pepsi (would they have dressed him in blue instead?). Read more in this Brief History of Santa.
1/4/2000 1:00:41 AM - name='31818'

People from different generations can have different associations for the same thing. A friend said to me: "When the previous generation hears that riff from the song 'Under Pressure' they think of Queen and David Bowie. Our generation thinks of Vanilla Ice. And kids now think it's from that Gap ad!" I wonder if the "ecommerce" generation will know that "amazon" used to mean a tall, aggressive, strong-willed woman instead of online shopping. It's odd to realize how the same word has an entirely different primary meaning in another person's brain. Even weirder when it's the entire next generation.
1/4/2000 12:44:27 AM - name='31816'

Yay! Bravo (cable network) is now showing episodes of Moonlighting! This was my absolute favorite show in the 80's. It didn't take itself too seriously, often broke the "fourth wall", and unfortunately self-combusted. Hmm, now I remember why I once bought pairs of heavy goldtone earrings and sunglasses with gradient lenses. As if I could ever look like Cybill Sheperd.
1/3/2000 2:17:55 AM - name='31370'

Sunday, January 2, 2000

Thank goodness for Steve Martin, the writer. He's keeping intelligent humor writing from becoming a lost art. I was so happy to read his essay in the New York Times on the millenium. An overdone subject, made fresh and hilarious by his special brand of wit.
1/2/2000 12:53:42 AM - name='30975'

A while ago someone made fun of me for saying "PIN number", since the "N" already stands for number. Since then I've been careful to use all those ubiquitous TLAs properly. But I'd been dutifully calling Java Server Pages "JSPs", only to find that all the documentation says "JSP pages", which seems redundant. I guess it's OK because "JSP" is the designator for the type of the page (like HTML page, which just happens to not have the word page in it). I dunno. I probably shouldn't worry about proper usage when all of us are making it up as we go along.
1/2/2000 12:41:49 AM - name='30974'

Saturday, January 1, 2000