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Existentialist Animation

Seen the libertarian candidate who turned himself blue? According to CNN, “Stan Jones,a 63-year-old business consultant and part-time college instructor, said he started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that Y2K disruptions might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.” And that, my friends, is what too much doomsday / conspiracy thinking will get you.

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Scratching my head, I turn to these amazing existentialist animations for solace, and find none. Perhaps answers are buried in this real-time WebCollage.

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It appears the web is becoming more clairvoyant – this site can accurately guess pert near any dictator or sitcom character you can think of by playing 20 questions with you. 10 Qs to guess that I was Maya from Just Shoot Me. Niles Crane from Frasier was much harder – about 25 Qs, with some absurd detours. The power of public/collaborative database building coupled with a slick AI engine — this is how Amazon et al can “recommend 10 other books you might like” and amaze you with how well it “knows” you — same basic principle.

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Think surveillance might be getting a bit out of hand? As Mike says, “I think this is what people mean when they talk about “slippery slopes”:

“There are now video cameras in the remote part of a national forest for the stated purpose of catching people growing marijuana. There are at least 2,397 surveillance cameras on the streets of Manhattan.”

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Sure Microsoft cares about security! They care so much they’re going to start making you pay for it.

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Very cool bookmarklet for web developers – open this as a URL, then drag the bookmark icon to your toolbar. Now you can toggle CSS on/off for any page, any browser:

javascript:i=0;if(document.styleSheets.length>0){cs=!document.styleSheets[0].disabled;for(i=0;i<document.styleSheets.length;i++)document.styleSheets[i].disabled=cs;};void(cs=true);

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Hexed by Halitosis

So apparently, researchers have unearthed the world’s funniest joke. Found it interesting how people of different nationalities find different kinds of things funny, and that Americans tend to favor humor that makes other people look stupid.

Actually, I’m not sure this one isn’t funnier (but then, I’m a sucker for deliciously bad jokes):

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which
produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little,
which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad
breath.

This made him ….what?

A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Thanks xian for that – I owe you a groaner.

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23, Cont.

Is September 23, like, dodecahedrally auspicious? Other people with whom Miles shares a birthday:

1920 – Mickey Rooney
1930 – Ray Charles
1943 – Julio Iglesias
1949 – Bruce Springsteen
1967 – Harry Connick, Jr.
1970 – Ani DiFranco

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Images, Week 02

Yet more pix: Miles’ room, grandma and grandpa visit, Miles gets more expressive, Amy is liberated.

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I promise I’ll slow down with the pictures soon! Yeah, uh, we’ll be getting back to normal, um, Monday, I think ;)

Great news: Miles is latching like a champ, mom’s milk production is edging upwards quickly, he’s eating lots. The train is leaving the station.

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Architecture is Politics

Finding myself increasingly enamored of this meme that “Architecture is politics.” The idea comes up in Lawrence Lessig’s “The Future of Ideas” and is being repeated by Tim O’Reilly at OSX Con (which I am regrettably not attending). I’ve been drumming on the idea a bit in the blogging class, and it has come up on a mailing list I’m on, in a thread on whether using HTML in email is a political choice or not (I believe it most definitely is).

Applied to software, the meme suggests that there are no neutral choices – every technology decision you make impacts (pardon me for using that word as a verb) the real world in some way… tangibly or intangibly. It affects the question of whether technology flows upwards from the people to the big picture or from corporations on down, for example. It’s all about power – the difference between “power over” and “power to.”

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Looks like Jean-Louis Gassee is moving on yet again.

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Great piece by Dan Gillmor on Apple’s contrarian (pro-people, not pro-corporation) stance on DRM: Apple stands firm against entertainment cartel

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Since the other 72 pieces of spam I get every day aren’t having an effect on my wallet, they’ve decided to double the volume on the subject line. Today I received one promising me two carrots at once: Get a Big Penis and a Free Vacation!

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Ack packet via Rebecca Blood: William Gibson is credited with saying ‘The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.’

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Miles One Week Old

This week has just drifted by so casually. Amy and I stay around the house, take visitors, watch the baby, take turns finding new ways to make him happy. I cook and clean, take care of things that have been hanging… We talk on the phone to friends and relatives a lot. When I have time off work, I’m usually either on vacation or I stay home and work obsessively on my own stuff, freelance projects, etc. This time is so different – we’re not doing anything but figuring out how to be a family together.

Miles is a different boy every day. We’re beginning to wonder if we spoke too soon in declaring him to be quiet – he’s seeming to cry a bit more every day, and starting to get harder to calm, unfortunately. When it’s not the diaper and it’s not the milk and it’s not the burping… it doesn’t leave a whole heck of a lot to try. We scratch our heads and look all concerned, but it always works out.

Put up another set of images — Miles Week One (click):

baby power

While I was at it, moved the sonogram/doppler audio loop into the miles dir.

We obsess over things that would probably look small from the outside – whether his eyes are opening quickly enough (one of them has seemed kind of “sealed,” but seems to be getting better on its own), whether his breast-feeding habits are “normal,” whether he’s pooping too much or not enough… I suppose it’s common to be a bit obsessive as you figure this stuff out for the first time.

We’ve had three outings so far – a walk around the block to get some sunshine on him and to see how Amy is faring (excellently, but not out of the woods yet). Then a pediatrics visit on the 3rd day (all is well) and a trip to Rockridge Kids today to spend some of the gift certificate we received from the J-School.

Amy’s friend Sarah made a gorgeous mobile for us — hand-folded origami birds hanging from backyard apple tree branches (because Miles used to be Appleseed). It’s lovely. Will hang that over the crib tomorrow.

For those who read this blog for something other than endless baby tales, don’t give up on me yet – the newness of all this will wear off after a while and we’ll return to the regularly scheduled blah blah woof woof.

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Hooptie Goo’s Haikus

Just so you don’t think I’ve lost my mind entirely and become driven by nothing but baby for ever and ever, a few quick hits for the week:

ComputerWorld reports that if you type “go to hell” (using the quotation marks) into Google’s search engine, the first result served up is Microsoft.com. So is someone at Google tampering with the database for fun and profit, or is this an actual reflection of the sentiments of the web at large as manifested through Google’s usual bubbling process?

I usually cringe when someone invites me to a party using eVites rather than an invitation of their own device, but I had no idea the world’s leaders were using the service to arrange the war on Iraq!

Yet another Unix/Linux pundit/guru has made “the switch” – again, not from Windows to OS X, but from Linux to OS X. It’s starting to look like OS X is getting more “switch” traction from the *nix camp than from Windows users… raising the question of where the next round of Switch ads might tread.

Hooptie Goo’s Haiku, like you’ve never read before (for example):

I spilled brake fluid
Let’s get some sucking action
And clean this damn floor

At the site, hit Cartoon Classics, then Hooptie Goo’s Haikus — this is one reason I hate Flash-based web sites – rather than dropping a direct link, I have to sit around describing how to navigate… but in this case it’s worth it ;)

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Miles Music

Albums Miles has heard so far in his life:

William Parker – Raining on the Moon
Sex Pistols – Nevermind the Bollocks
Nora Jones – Come Away with Me
Orchestra Baobab – Pirate’s Choice
Raymond Scott – Soothing* Sounds for Baby

*Yeah, right

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Brand New Eyeballs

Miles is coming along so well. Watching him experiment with the eyes he’s never used… we’re aware of exactly when his eyes are open, how wide, and for how long, but unsure of whether he actually “sees” anything. He does seem to turn his head toward our voices, following with eyes.

All of his parts are brand new, untested. These lungs have never been used – how to turn them on? These eyeballs have never seen anything. And they work, right off the showroom floor! These limbs have barely moved, not with this much range of motion anyway – but this elbow does flex! These lips do lick! He’s got to figure out how each and every part works. Doing great so far. Grasping motions are already seeming slightly more focused, more coordinated.

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miles_blankysleep_tb.jpg

Amy’s milk came in yesterday – the real deal, not colostrum. The milk knocks him right out – amazing soporific powers. Breast-feeding has gotten easier since last post – mom and baby have both learned the tricks. Wide mouth, tongue down, chin down, lips flanged. His sucking is so incredibly strong – put a finger in there and be amazed.

Filing his nails every other day to keep his face from getting scratched. A and I are learning the diaper thing as we go – it’s not too hard.

He sleeps with us in the bed, between us. No, you don’t have to worry about rolling over them any more than you have to worry about falling out of bed – you just don’t.

We’re floating in love – melting several times daily.