Oblomovka

2002-10-22»

I’m really sorry if you’ve been trying to get hold of me for the last few days. We’re in the middle of moving house, and while it’s going pretty well, it does involve me doing most of my Net work within a two hour window in our old but still-wired house. Our old house is empty of anything but a Web server, a wireless AP, and house-moving sheddings, so I feel like I’m hacking from a squat. Again.

Still, relocating is one of those perfect excuses to do a mass re-re-re-re-organisation of one’s life. And thus I imagine that I will have much more free time, just as soon as I have scanned in all my books’ barcodes, re-installed Debian from scratch, and bought a bunch of useless boxes from Organised Living.

Yeah, right. Still, we did our final moving cash splurge today, and bought a Roomba. And, what do you know, it’s actually pretty good: both at cleaning and removing the bejesus out of nearby cats. It backed Dyson into the corner of our living room within minutes – she kept tottering backwards for about ten yards, like she was facing the Feline Terminator.

I feel somehow safer knowing that as I sit here, surrounded by crap, writing crap, somewhere else in town my new home is being cleaned by a small beeping robot.

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2002-10-07»

… for not updating: I’m doing the guestblog at Boing Boing. Now to find an excuse for missing last week.

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2002-09-23»

There are a few net innovations that have far greater ramifications than you would, at first hearing, expect them to. Napster, at heart just IRC with a UI, was one. Google News is another.

In its first day, I’ve already noticed:

• The front page changes its editorial stance depending on where the earth’s terminator is. So in the evening on the West Coast, Google News is lead by the South China Morning Post, and various Asian english-language papers. By the late evening, the BBC and European papers are kicking in.
• The site may be created by algorithms – but what about the choice of sites? The most arbitrary dividing line I see in Google’s coverage is what is a news site, and what isn’t. Slashdot is, for instance, as well as some very obscure newspapers. What about Blues News or Scripting News, though?
• Big companies spend mucho money paying “clipping services” that send them copies of any press coverage they receive. Clipping services are going to have to find some added value, very very quickly.

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2002-09-20»

Neal Pollack proves the self-parodying can still be parodied.

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2002-09-19»

Doc has the info on my close encounter – it was a Minuteman III missile launch from Vandenberg airbase. The bowl-shaped scattering patterns came from the first and second stage separations, I suppose. Greetings from the heart of the military-industrial-entertainment complex!

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Want to brighten up your dull grey box? PC fans with colour LEDs, fifteen bucks.

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We just saw the weirdest thing in the dusk sky above San Jose. Initially, it looked like a very brightly lit jet, with a thick vapour trail behind it. It seemed pretty high, but was far brighter than it should be that altitude. I thought perhaps the setting sun was catching a plane-wing at an angle. Then as we watched, a bowl-shaped vapour plume formed around the dot and behind it (a bit like the vapour blanket you can see forming around the plane halfway down this page, but I guess larger given the apparent distance). The dot carried on for a bit longer, then formed another bowl-shaped cloud. That bowl then appeared to contract in on itself, there was what looked like a scattering of debris from the dot, and the dot disappeared. The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

It was a pretty big deal – the vapour trailed crossed a sixth of the sky or more, about 40° from the western horizon. I’m sure we weren’t the only people to see it. I always wonder where to look for discussions of these geographically constrained phenomena online. Guess I’ll keep an eye on the local papers for a while.

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2002-09-17»

Alright, now I’ve got my tickets, I feel safer telling you this: Philip Glass and the Glass Ensemble are performing a live accompaniment to a showing of Koyaanisqatsi in San Francisco next month. I’m a bit too excited.

Those who now hate me will be relieved to know that the DVD of the film is already out.

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2002-09-14»

Woah. WiFi hotspots have been rolled out in Japan by … McDonald’s and Denny’s? According to Trends In Japan, they are:

Wireless LANs Appearing in Schools and Homes

When wireless LANs first made their appearance, they could be found only in a few hotels or coffee shops, but this year many businesses have been installing wireless LANs for the convenience of their customers. One after another, such chains as McDonald’s, MOS Burger, Mister Donut, Starbucks Coffee, and Denny’s have been creating hot spots in certain model outlets. In addition, rail companies like the East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) have been creating hot spots inside of stations, and some districts and cities are now working to make their entire area a hot spot.

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2002-09-12»

Infinite Matrix is a great online sf zine. It’s having a fundraiser. Ursula K. Le Guin has donated a “lunch bag” for auction, embroidered by her own hand. ‘”You can only have lunch once,” she says helpfully, “because it isn’t washable.”‘.

If I was a zombie who developed my prose style by eating brains, I would eat Le Guin’s brain first. You can read her latest short story, set in the Earthsea universe, for $0.91 here. (I know it looks like I’m being paid off by FictionWise, but I just want to applaud their promotion of uncrippled e-texts. For the record, I don’t touch their “secure” editions).

After Ursula, I would move on to John McPhee‘s lobes.

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