Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
Trying to come up with a new business plan, something along these lines:
Step 1: Read email
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
If you have any grand ideas, let me know (Yes, there’s a connection to South Park and garden gnomes in there somewhere…)
Between Dad and I, we brought three film projectors and one slide projector to Yosemite to review old family footage. Turned out the take-up reel on the one I just bought didn’t work, and it didn’t do Super 8 (fortunately most of our films were regular 8). One of Dad’s projectors did both formats, but its bulb was shot. Dad’s other projector had a working bulb and take-up reel, but rewind was broken. It was our best shot, but framing alignment went out continually. So after much experimentation, we sort of cobbled together a workable solution and watched old footage all three nights. Slide projector was badly broken too, but got the job done, more or less.
Even when working, threading a projector and dealing with its many foibles was a reminder that just 30-40 years ago, the general public was expected to have a level of mechanical confidence that you just don’t see today. The iPod has a single wheel, the DVD player just a few controls. The film projector, in contrast, wears its guts on the outside. Moving parts in modern gadgets are totally hidden, if they exist at all. The world has become increasingly slick. Things tend to work better overall, no doubt, but at the expense of the user being in touch with the mechanics of the device. We spent almost as much time wrestling with equipment as watching film. It was a fun object lesson, in a way, but not one I’m eager to repeat.
Anyway, some amazing old footage of Dad hard-hat diving with mixed gasses, of him doing rodeo trick roping in the 50s, of my brother and I’s first scuba experiences… One highlight: A guy Dad worked with had worked on the movie set of Creature From the Black Lagoon and had been given some discarded portions of the five rubber Creature suits they had constructed. Dad and friends used to don the suit and snorkel up behind surfers on their boards to scare the daylights out of them. And when sailing into a tourist port, they’d tie the Creature to the mast of their ship and pretend to whip him, for the benefit of diners in waterfront restaurants.
May all of you enjoy the most brilliant and squinchy year possible (for a humanoid). We here at Birdhouse certainly intend to! Thanks to everyone for continuing to read despite my frequent lapses and misfires. You guys make it fun.
Pictured: Variant of this year’s holiday card. Technological marvel: We shot the image, photoshopped it in, uploaded to Snapfish, selected a “frame,” and had our cards ready for pickup at a local Walgreen’s an hour later. Soup to nuts. And for cheap.
Another techno marvel: In interminable checkout line for a small purchase at the Apple store yesterday. Attractive techno-hippy employee walks up with what appears to be a souped-up Newton and asks if anyone is paying by credit. I am. Dude uses the device (wireless) to scan my item, charge my card, and record my email address. Says my receipt is waiting in my inbox and “Good day, sir.” I walk out, dodging the rest of the line. Life is good.
Except that the cosmonaut pictured above is very, very sick right now, and it’s been a sad and fretful couple of days. Here’s to most-excellent Miles getting his health back very soon. Miles minus vital energy isn’t very fun.
Planning to dig up our 30-40 year-old Super 8 home movies to watch with family this Christmas, and Dad’s projector’s gone belly up. Craigslist to the rescue. Every time I deal with Craigslist, I’m amazed by the sheer number of flakes and false starts — people who say they have what you need and then never respond again, or who say they’re interested in what you have to sell, make an appointment, and never show up. But amongst the clowns, some kind soul generally comes through. Scored this 1960s vintage Sears Super Automatic for a song (though the replacement bulb is going to cost more than I paid for the projector).
The machine itself is a work of art. Loved the manual that came with, full of golden lines like “It’s easy to splice 50-foot rolls of 8mm film together on Sears 400-foot reels for full half-hour shows.” Easy-peasy! Can’t imagine why this wonderful technology died…
Update: Jim Strickland pointed out a great source for old bulbs and lamps : ETE Tubes — they found me a working bulb for 1/3 the price of other bulb vendors, and shipped it 2nd Day Air. Wonderful.
Back in December I said farewell to my oldest friend Rinchen, who was taking off for 3.5 years of total seclusion at a Buddhist monastery. Since his pursuit calls for a more-or-less total disconnection from the outside world, he hasn’t been reading the paper or hearing the news, not to mention corresponding with friends.
But apparently, he did get a short break as the first segment of seclusion ended recently and he prepared for the next, even more intensive segment. Delighted to receive a letter from him recently. Wonder what kind of news seeps through into such an environment? I think he’ll forgive me sharing a couple of snippets. Rinchen writes:
The only other news that filtered thru beyond the sinking of New Orleans + horrible aftermath was discovered in a junk catalogue — a commemorative coin of the new pope – Cardinal Ratzinger! Truly bizarre. Same guy who excommunicated a Sri Lankan theologian for writing that the Virgin Mary is symbolic of Fecundity in the 3rd world. “Nein! She is totally dry and barren. Apostate!”
Wonder how many in the world knew this about Ratzinger (or would care if they did). Wasn’t hard to find confirmation of the story. Rinchen also sold every scrap of his incredible LP/CD collection before heading into seclusion.
You really don’t know what your desert island discs are until you go to such a place. So let’s see: Albert Ayler w/Beaver Harris on drums; Art Ensemble “Fanfare for the Warriors” + “Full Force”; Cecil Taylor “Dark to Themselves” + “For Olim” (side 2); T. Heads “Remain in Light”; Fela Kuti “Colonial Mentality / Sorrow Tears + Blood”; James Browwwwn; “The White Album”; R.L. Burnside’s “Sound Machinegroove” are some of what plays thru my mind.
We miss you Rinchen!
People who contact the webmaster to offer comment on some page or other rarely (as in never) provide the URL of the page in question (the new site will automate that problem away). “Hi, your site says xyz rather than prq. Duh.” A tedious email exchange generally follows, wherein I try to determine what in hell they’re talking about.
Recently received a request to remove a listing from our Jobs database, without any clue as to which listing they meant, the correspondent seemingly unable to distinguish between the concept of a page and a site, to grok the possibility that I don’t have every word on the site memorized, or to digest the fact that someone else manages the actual content of the jobs database. Then the person went silent, problem unsolved. Today received an envelope — snail mail including a printout of the job description they meant, with the words “Scot, please delete this site” scrawled across the top.
Today has been an endless series of similar incidents, originating both from within the workplace and without. It’s hopeless. I give up. I hate myself and wish I had never been born.
Outside watching clouds move across the moonlit sky, a mass of vapor slides across, looking uncannily like the face of a great tiger. Two holes in the cloud make vast eyes, large enough to fly space shuttles through. Then, for a few moments, the cloud aligns itself perfectly over two stars, which center themselves perfectly behind the eye sockets, a pair of pin-prick pupils gazing down on me. A moment staring into the face of cloud-tiger, then gone.
If a bit can be flipped on or off, what state is it in when the computer is powered down? Clearly “On” is incorrect, but “Off” is also not quite right. Wu. The proper answer to a loaded question such as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Wu. Does a dog have Buddha nature? Wu. When language fails to provide mechanism for a logically adequate response, Wu. Accounting for the subtle distinction between “not” and “no,” Wu. Or, if one prefers, Mu.
Phishing isn’t just for email anymore — it’s always been about social engineering, and people are more likely to respond to false authority over the phone than via email, which has become an untrusted medium in most people’s eyes. Scambusters:
“Hello?”
“This is the county courthouse, wondering why you failed to appear for jury duty this week.”
“Jury duty? I never received a summons!”
“Let’s verify that. What is your social security number?”
Victim, afraid of going to jail, hands over their social without pause.
“Hmmm, that’s not coming up in the computer. What is your date of birth? Mother’s maiden name? …”
After getting the goods, the caller says something like “Ah, our mistake. Please accept our apologies for the error.” But it’s too late.
If you get such a call, ask for a callback number, then look up the number for your county courthouse in the phone book. Or just hang up on them.
In reality, court workers will never call you to ask for social security numbers and other private information. In fact, most courts follow up via snail mail and rarely, if ever, call prospective jurors.
