Disorderly Content

One of the things I've noticed about myself is that it can take a long period of grumbling about an issue before I finally do something about it. There are lots of examples, most of which involve cumbersome processes on one or another computer that I put up with for months before I decide enough! and write some scripting code or a little bit of software to make my life easier. Many of the most recent examples concerned a spreadsheet I keep of my stock photo sales; with thirty odd sales every day and the set of statistics I wanted to keep, it was an increasingly time-consuming and error prone process. Finally, finally, I learned enough Visual Basic to write some Excel macros to reduce the tedium considerably (and the errors even more).

But that's not what prompted me to write this post. No, I want to rant about Apple, and in particular the iPod. Because you see, I have a beef with Apple about their software. At some point when I updated iTunes, I found myself with a significant degradation in this user's... ummmm... user experience. Used to be that when I'd sync my iPod with iTunes, it would remember where I was in podcasts and, when I was back listening to my iPod, I could pick up where I left off. And then this update happened. And suddenly, any podcast I'd only half finished would disappear the next time I synced. It would still be in iTunes, so I could listen on my Mac. But not on the iPod, where I really wanted it.

I put up with this annoyance for months, even choosing my next podcast to listen to based on the amount of time left in my trip. And I grumbled; oh, how I grumbled! Granted, I only did it when there was no one around to hear me, and granted, I mostly did it silently (I really don't talk to myself, not often at least), but the thought was there. And then, finally, it occurred to me that maybe there was a setting I'd missed, that the fault was mine for misconfiguring iTunes.

And so it was. There's a sync setting that puts only new podcasts on the iPod (i.e. ones I haven't listened to at all), and an alternative that puts unplayed podcasts (ones I haven't heard completely). So months of complaining (silent complaining -- mostly) was ended in a few seconds of actual action. And boy, do I feel stupid!

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm moderating my friend Barry's discussion forum. Seems like a simple thing, doesn't it? And it is, really; the Simple Machines Forum software is amazingly simple to install and to manage. And our growing membership is getting along well. So why do I feel like I've taken on a second full time job?

Yeah, running a forum is addictive. Right now I can read every post, although I know that won't last. And of course I hope it won't last; the bigger the community grows, the better for the forum and the better for Barry as a writer of successful books. So that means distributing the responsibility. More importantly, it means finding others who can be as slow to respond as I'm learning to be. The hard part of running a forum, as I'm beginning to realize, is accepting the idea that the best response is generally no response at all. And for someone as lazy as me, knowing that I'll want to act and shouldn't is ironic beyond belief.

Oh, and while I was disassembling that phone book of a catalogue (and how long before nobody knows what a phone book is?) in my previous post, I was trying not to destroy that other publication I could see wound around inside. I had a feeling it was my new copy of Entertainment Weekly. And I wanted it to survive, particularly because it might have a review of Barry Eisler's new John Rain thriller. Which it did, and which I've already posted on his brand new web forum. Which, if you're a fan, you might want to peruse. I'm a sort of moderator there, not that I've ever been accused of moderation before.

If I sometimes believe I'm smarter than the average bear, well, maybe it's because there's so much dumbth going around. Take today, for example. I went over to my mailbox to see what my postal representative had brought me. At first I couldn't get my key in; it felt like something was jammed in there. And so it was. When I finally got the key to turn and the door open, I saw that said government official had taken a very large catalogue and twisted it tightly around itself to force it into the box. The only problem: it wasn't coming out again.

First I tried twisting it to make it a tiny bit smaller. When that failed, I went to get a pair of pliers to pull and twist. That didn't get me very far, so I added a box cutter to my arsenal. I had no interest in the catalogue, you understand; I just wanted it out. After twenty minutes of pulling and slicing and swearing, I finally managed to get it out. And as soon as the sabbath ends on the East Coast, I'll be calling the camera store that sent me the catalogue to ask them to stop. Anything I want I'll learn about from their website, thanks all the same.

In case you're still unclear on the whole Ironic thing, this is ironic. Rain on your wedding day, not so much.

It's Mother's Day, and I wanted you to know how much you mean to me. I know you won't see this, but I have to say it anyway. I guess I understand a little better why people go to funerals to say goodbye, even though it's too late to say anything that matters. Not that you're dead; you're just elsewhere.

I've been thinking about you a lot lately, both since the last time I saw you in Florida and then later, when I was told you and pop were going back to New York, you to that nursing home and pop to live with my sister and her brood. It's hard to imagine that things could change so quickly, that the disease would leave you, well, so little of yourself. I realized it two years ago, when I visited after coming into the area for a job interview. The next time we talked, you wanted to know when I was coming for a visit. In a strange way it's easier on you than on my father. He could see how you were changing. You couldn't. And can't.

I owe you so much. I certainly didn't make things easy for you growing up. I can only hope you got some pleasure or at least some satisfaction out of all your efforts. Your three kids turned out pretty well. On average, anyway.

I miss you. It's only now, on your day, that I realize just how much. Even a long life isn't long enough.

Bye, mom.

Congratulations to Ealasaid and Antwon who today became blogger and, umm, blogger. The ceremony was mercifully brief, merciful given both the lack of chairs and Antwon's desperate effort to avoid saying something wholly inappropriate. Whew! Glad that's out of the way!

On Thursday I had a day trip to Portland for work. On the way back, the gentleman seated next to me wanted to show off his new Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad. Nice machine, I guess, although he seemed to be having more than a little trouble with it. The problem? Vista, Microsoft's latest answer to a question no one seems to have asked. So here I was, Mac fan and unwilling Windows XP user, helping him figure out the new, more intuitive user experience that Redmond has been working on for lo these many years. I have to say that I wasn't impressed; Vista is far uglier than its predecessors, at least as far back as NT. And all those gaudy graphics come at a high price, as his battery gave up the ghost less than halfway through our relatively short flight. (To be fair, he probably drained most of it at the gate, while we waited for our delayed aircraft to arrive.)

But if our experience was less than ideal, it's nothing compared to this guy's. Richard Rasker decided to confirm a rumor that Vista burns CDs and DVDs in a nonstandard format. And instead, he discovered a level of customer hostility one generally doesn't find outside a Terry Gilliam movie, or maybe a Walmart. Read it for yourself and enjoy. Although your enjoyment may be limited, assuming you ever need to buy another PC. Me, I'm thinking Macbook.

What with my photography hobby, I'm always looking for interesting places to shoot pictures, especially shots that are otherwise hard to get. I've found some great spots around San Francisco Airport where I can catch the jets leaving and arriving; a 300 mm lens and a digital SLR with a 1.6 crop factor (smaller than 35 mm film sensor = 1.6 multiplier on the lens) can give me shots like this, assuming I can find the right place to stand. But I haven't been able to get much closer locally.

But last week I was in San Diego for work. And when I picked up my rental car, I couldn't help noticing the jets flying directly overhead on their way to the runway. And not that far overhead at that; the approach takes them awfully close to the eight story parking garage behind Dollar's rental lot. So on my way back to the airport to fly home, I took advantage of the wait for the shuttle to snap a few shots of the incoming jets. Which look quite a bit closer than I get at SFO. And which are even closer than that: the jet at right is one of those small regional numbers (the 747 above is somewhat bigger). Oh, and the lens was a mere 200 mm. And no, I didn't crop the shot; it's exactly the size it was in my viewfinder. Like I said: close.

As devices get more sophisticated, they also get more unpredictable. Case in point: my Camry Hybrid. In most every way it's a wonderful vehicle. But then something odd happens, and I'm reminded that I'm driving around with more computing horsepower and more software than the timesharing system I used in college.

The Camry has a keyless entry system: touch the door handle with the key in your pocket and it unlocks; press the button and it locks. Except on the rare occasion when it doesn't. Like today, when I was in San Francisco taking pictures. I get out of the car, press the button, and... nothing. No beep acknowledging my command to lock. Try it again. And again. Still nothing.

So I use the button on the key fob, which does work. And I wonder what's going on. And I find another location or three to take pictures. And the locking mechanism works fine, until my last stop. And I think, "WTF?" And finally the little light goes off. 'Cause what am I taking pictures of? Only the biggest damn radio antenna I've ever seen. And maybe, just maybe it's playing havoc with my little RFID key system. Which is a much more satisfying explanation than the one about my car randomly misbehaving. I just hope it's the right one.

It's always an iffy thing, trying to calculate the exact moment when it's okay to make jokes about a tragedy. And of course the specifics of the joke matter too; not just any joke at the expense of the victim will do. I'd normally be at least a little bit on edge about anything that smacks of 9/11-related humor. But not in this case, largely because the connection is so tenuous.

Boing Boing pointed me to 4/29truth.com, a wingnut site that sees a conspiracy in the recent fuel-truck-destroys-a-freeway incident here in the Bay Area. As the site's blogroll makes clear, the author is making a connection between the "truth" of this incident and the "truth" of the World Trade Center attacks. And just as with the wingnuts who claim conspiracy on 9/11, this site cites its own set of unassailable "facts":

• The bridge should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning auto fuel.
• If steel from those overpasses did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to auto fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fire under that bridge.
• 800°C is near the maximum flame temperature of hydrocarbons burning in air without pre-heating or pressurization of the air, well below the melting temperature of steel.
• It is impossible for fire to melt steel.
• The section of the bridge appears to have fallen straight down, exactly as it would have from demolition charges.

Uh huh. So maybe whoever it was who "really" brought down the WTC needed another disaster to make the first one more believable. Sure, that makes sense.

Ah, a spammer with a sense of irony. Having noticed a typo in my previous post, I made the correction and uploaded it to my server. Which noted that some email had shown up in one of my spamboxes, so I took a moment to see what form of luncheon meat it was. Logging in ran my comment spam checker, which shows me any blog comments posted recently. And what should I see but yet another piece of drug sales spam (and who in the world buys life altering chemicals from some sleazebucket on the Internet?). But this one was special: it started with a plea to the webmaster to "Please do NOT remove this message". Which of course I did. Still it was nice, and entertaining, to be asked.

(Did he really think that would work? Then again, he's used to selling to people too stupid to recognize a bad idea when it's shoved in front of them.)

My friend Barry Eisler has his latest John Rain thriller coming out in just three weeks from this very day. (I'd ask, "Very what day?", except that I've used that joke a few times before.) Which means he'll be off on another whirlwind book tour, on the premise that the author is the best advertising for the work. Which isn't always the case, although this time it is. Anyway, the tour starts on May 22nd (I told you it was three weeks from today, didn't I?) at Kepler's in Menlo Park. If you're into thrillers, or just want to hear someone who reads very, very well, stop by. Other dates and places will be listed on Barry's MySpace page and (although not at this writing) on his website.