From a camera mounted on a rocket booster on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, as it’s jettisoned and tumbles to earth. This is so… human without humans, if you know what I mean.
via Squublog
Don’t Be an Idiot
Dwight, on tonight’s ep of The Office:
Best advice I ever received? “Don’t be an idiot.” Whenever I’m about to do something, I stop and think: “Would an idiot do that?” And if the answer is yes, then I DON’T do that thing.
Rainn Wilson is a genius.
Music: Woody Guthrie :: Put Your Finger In The Air
Managing WordPress with Subversion
Have recently become enamored of subversion, not just as a developer’s tool but as a software management system. WordPress and Drupal installations and updates become trivial when you throw away FTP.
Realized there was no WordPress Codex page on managing WordPress via svn, so I wrote one (Codex is a MediaWiki site). Covers installing and tracking the trunk release, but also (and this is the info I originally set out to find but couldn’t), installing and tracking stable release versions. Linked from the Getting Started/Installation section.
Since there are probably thousands of WordPress blogs that were originally installed without subversion, but that people might want to convert over for the sake of dirt-simple future upgrades, tossed in a recipe for converting “traditional” WP installs to subversion-style installs.
Music: Kleenex/LiLiPUT :: Split
Unchained Goddess
1958 prototype for “An Inconvenient Truth?”
From the educational documentary “Unchained Goddess” produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program “The Bell Telephone Hour.”
50 years of denial, and here we are.
Hybridizing Java
Bruce Eckel (author of Thinking in Java) on his personal transition from Java to Flash/Flex for RIAs (rich internet applications). He chronicles his disillusionment with client-side Java on the web/desktop, from the early, optimistic days of “Write once, run anywhere,” to the current state of affairs, where Java applets on the web are virtually non-existent, and Ajax / Flash have become what Java always wanted to be. And Ajax, he argues, has already pushed JavaScript just about as far as it’s going to go, leaving Flash/Flex as the only real contender for quality RIAs. Only he says it much better than I can.
It’s not impossible to build GUI applications with Java, but it’s been 10 years and there are still installation hiccups with applets, Java WebStart, and regular applications. After 10 years, people don’t trust it anymore. If it’s not there after 10 years, then I’m going to go out on a limb and say that someone doesn’t consider this problem important enough to fix. And even if they did, there have been so many bad experiences among consumers that it would take years to get the trust back.
Music: Fela Kuti :: Unnecessary Begging
Heptagon
A Rose Has No Teeth
Went with Miles yesterday to the exhibition of Bruce Nauman’s 1960s work, A Rose Has No Teeth, at the BAM (the title is a Wittgenstein reference, from the Tractatus: It is false that a goose has teeth, nonsensical that a rose should have teeth; non-intersecting language games yield nonsense, though syntax seduces us into thinking that a logical proposition is concealed in there somewhere).
In one small, empty room, opposing speakers leaked Nauman’s disembodied voice, hushed and garbled, intelligible words seeping out at intervals. Miles and I danced in circles to a-rhythmic ghost tones until the guard cast an admonishing glance our way.
At one point, a chair facing a sculpture. Miles looks up at me and asks, “Daddy, is it okay for me to go on this?” I answered, “Of course, it’s a chair!” He looked at it and then back at me. “Oh. I thought it was part of the artwork.” Poor pomo kid, confused by the boundaries between life and art before he’s had his first art history class.
Later, bought a copy of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, back in print after 30 years. Grapefruit is a book of instructions and notes for conceptual performance pieces. Sat and read through some of the instructions with Miles tonight, including:
PAINTING FOR THE SKIES
Drill a hole in the sky
Cut out a paper the same size
as the hole.
Burn the paper.
The sky should be pure blue.
PRESCRIPTION PIECE
Prescribe pills for going
through the wall and have only
the hair come back.
Asked Miles if he could think of a performance piece. He came up with:
Turn a chicken into a ball and then the ball eats itself.
I think he “gets it.”
Music: The Fugs :: Ah, Sunflower Weary of Time
wescountyreads.org
Birdhouse Hosting welcomes westcountyreads.org, “A volunteer community collaborative of individuals, businesses and organizations working in collaboration with parents, schools, libraries, and community groups in West Contra Costa County to improve literacy outcomes for young children.” The site addresses student literacy issues for parents of school children across the county, and was created by Jenna Jacques of cozmikdesign.com (also a Birdhouse site).
I haven’t posted new Birdhouse site announcements for quite a while, but it’s not because new users haven’t been coming on board. The reality of any hosting operation is that 50-75% of people sign up with the best intentions, register a domain, and then do nothing with it. Coincidence has led to an unusually long string of such sign-ups over the past six months. Some cool things brewing though…
Music: Pere Ubu :: Small Was Fast
Dirt Floors
J-School student David Gelles writes for the New York Times about green homeowners deploying mud, rather than wood, bamboo, or carpeting for their home flooring.
It is hardly a new or chic movement: millions of poor people around the globe use natural materials like dirt for their homes whether they want to or not. But with the growing environmental awareness in this country, Mr. Kahn said, there is greater interest in natural building materials like dirt.
Not without their problems, but can be made moisture resistant with beeswax and linseed oil, and more crack-resistant by adding paper pulp or fiber. They do sound gorgeous and comforting.
Music: Smog :: I Was A Stranger
Block Out the Sun
Some scientists estimate that if we could prevent 1% of all sunlight from reaching the earth, we could offset the effects of all global warming that has taken place since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Global warming? No problem! Block out the sun!
While steering a recent UN report on warming away from the role of emissions, the US wants to include provisions for plans to install giant space mirrors in the atmosphere as “insurance.” Alternatives include floating bajillions of shiny balloons, or injecting the atmosphere with reflective droplets that would mimic the cooling effect of a massive volcanic eruption.
Of course it’s good to be thinking through all possibilities and preparing for last-ditch scenarios, but to emphasize post-facto band-aid solutions while de-emphasizing root causes is both foolhardy and arrogant. And therefore not surprising.
Music: Kronos Quartet With David Barron :: Did I Ever Ride Freights? Huh!