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I dig, you dig, we dig, he digs, she digs, they dig.
It's not a beautiful poem, but it's very deep.

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To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money, or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or don't have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

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If you were ever a fan of Nintendo, you might have heard of 枯れた技術の水平思考, "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (sometimes given as "Seasoned" instead of "Withered") - Yokoi Gunpei's philosophy of steering clear of the "state of the art" but looking to what can be mass produced cheaply. Here is a great look at how he put it into practice...

I think there are some parallel lessons for side projects here... when I hear about Pieter Levels who famously makes millions with clever and useful services written in PHP and jQuery, I am reminded that some side projects lean into learning the new hotness (in part because hiring teams might prefer less bespoke code and more following of the latest in the industry) but some projects might benefit from fewer industry dependencies and business relationships to maintain - and that an idea that brings value to customers can be substrate independent.

If you're willing to walk among us unvaccinated, you are an enemy. I don't care about your political beliefs. [...] You are not allowed to infect anybody just because you think you've got rights that are delusional. You don't have the right to go through a red light--actually the government has the right to tell you to stop. If they tell you you can't smoke in a building, you can't smoke in a building. And that's not because they want to take away your rights--that's because the rest of us hate it. We don't want to smell your smoke. [...] I don't want to catch your disease. I don't want to risk my life just because you want to go through a red light. This whole idea, this delusional, evil idea that you get to do whatever you want and the rest of the world be damned is really terrible.

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Playground fun w/ Cora and Kayla and Charlotte Just saw someone in a mask the same color as the skin above it. Damn at first glance that is creepy as heck, like the old Star Trek episode Charlie X...
Mentioned at my therapist's this morning....

I posted that on FB and got back:

What's the difference between a hedonist and a Buddhist? One believes nothing is sacred, and the other believes nothing is sacred.

That's a bit better than the Edie Brickell ("There's nothing I hate more than nothing / Nothing keeps me up at night...") I was posting, but I might quibble anad think the joke would be better with "skeptic" instead of "hedonist"... (or as the original author ponders on, maybe "nihilist"- "hedonist" is funnier though) Me and some fellow CarGurus wearing the same shirt made the Boston Globe article "As casual dress takes over Boston offices, could 'Formal Thursday' become a thing?" :-D

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Also I was pretty fucked in the head, and I was being a sad crazy fuck about some horrors I'd been through. It's true that you go through some horrors and it fucks you up. I don't care what violent motherfuckers say; if it doesn't fuck you up then it's only cuz you're just too fucking stupid.

Sort of like Holden Caufield meets Trainspotting, but with a big intermezzo in Iraq ("Starship Troopers" is the only reference I have for that kind of detailed-laden grunt wrinting.) Man, what a horrific situation that was, for what was done to, and what was done by, our soldiers. ("Spot the East Cleveland reference" was kind of fun for me in the other parts.)

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Almost two decades into updating it daily, this site is increasingly useful to me as a storehouse to lookup half-remembered quotes, citations, etc.

I'm probably the only person who uses it but I upgraded the site search (linked to from features) - now it supports search "for phrases" and individual words rather than just one single big phrase, and it puts all content in chronological order (the earlier seach was weird about "main blog entries" vs supplemental stuff).

I wrote up the main bit of PHP juice on my dev blog

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THERE'S a genius. Except for the genius part.

new logo tech'd up on my devblog

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Stuart: You don't get things by not asking for them.
You don't get things by not wanting them, either.
[...]
Gillian: One of the things I've always tried to teach the girls is that there's nothing particularly good or virtuous about wanting something. I don't put it like that, of course, in fact I frequently don't put it at all. The best lessons children learn are those they learn for themselves.

He truly is a fine novelist.

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CompuServe's forums, which still exist, are finally shutting down Always sad when an old service gets its plug pulled, I'm sure someone's going to miss that particular community.

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A kissing booth at a fair is basically a PG rated glory hole.

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[How is half of such an advanced country so hell-bent on going back to the 18th century?] Because the same people that like to mock "safe spaces" and "participation awards" and "the pussification of America" are fucking ignorant cowards who are intimidated that women and minorities might actually be edging to equality to the point where simply being a barely high school educated white male isn't enough to stay ahead of the curve.

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Are. You. F'in. Kidding. Me. :
"Returning home to Trump Tower from the White House may not be Mr. Trump's only embrace of the familiar. His aides say he has also expressed interest in continuing to hold the large rallies that were a staple of his candidacy. He likes the instant gratification and adulation that the cheering crowds provide, and his aides are discussing how they might accommodate his demand."
--Joan Sfar (Charlie Hebdo cartoonist)

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As Trd Cruz imitates Billy Crystal, the more he seems like a horrible Nathan Lane.

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I'm up to 1991 in http://gazettegalore.blogspot.com/ my blog going through all the games in COMPUTE!'s Gazette. The magazine is on the downswing (the C64 is almost ten years old at this point, and in 1991 currently Gazette is just a supplement in the parent magazine, before becoming a disk only magazine for a few years) but they've introduced a "Gazette Gallery" of user-contributed art every month. Anyway I liked Vincent D. Zahnle's "Croc".
Not sure if this photo montage captures it, but sometimes I really love the clouds around the seaport district.

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https://soundcloud.com/koosha/comet-bumblebee - The song of the comet fits Flight of the Bumbleebee... (though to be picky, just like the lander, I'm not quite sure it sticks the landing)

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What the heck 7. Everything else under 11 is cool with just being one syllable. Go over there and stand with W.

If you put a Cheeto on a big white plate in a formal restaurant and serve it with chopsticks and say something like "It is a cornmeal quenelle, extruded at a high speed, and so the extrusion heats the cornmeal 'polenta' and flash-cooks it, trapping air and giving it a crispy texture with a striking lightness. It is then dusted with an 'umami powder' glutamate and evaporated-dairy-solids blend." People would go just nuts for that. I mean even a Coca-Cola is a pretty crazy taste.

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

--via 22 words

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Man, I wish I could find a photo of the pen-with-fidget-ball Apple's Jony Ive made at Roberts Weaver.

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Reading the Jobs bio, it made me think of how derivative the Gap "X wore khakis" was of the Apple "Think Different" setup.

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Wait, I guess it was the other way around, "wore khakis" came way before "Think Different".

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At that amazing Arcade Mecca of the northeast, Fun Spot, with Leonard. Would Pengo be so well regarded if it was called "Sno-Bee Holocaust?" I think not.

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November Blender of Love Digest here!

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It wouldn't be the first time the power of love was responsible for a whole lot of bullshit.

Germans in the Woods teaser from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.

A little late for Veterans' Day but still... (via Bill the Splut)

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Goddamnit iTunes "find cover art" feature, every hiphop song is not necessarily off of "Loc'd After Dark", jeez-- So I hear the Patriots lost in overtime after making a dramatic comeback to tie it up. I still think the NFL's sudden death overtime rules should have that "both teams get control of the ball at least once" thing that I think the collegiate game has.

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Funny of the Moment

In the news recently, the FDA is reportedly poised to approve food from cloned animals. Apparently eating clones makes some people uncomfortable. Their thinking goes like: "I sure enjoy eating Bob the cow, but I wouldn't feel comfortable eating Bob the other cow."

Just finished his "Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!" book, which I think is culled from his blog. I enjoyed reading it, though he's 4/5 really smart and cutting observation, 1/5 misguided blowhard. I suppose that ratio is different depending on the reader.

I get a sense that if you were looking for the essence of the "kirkish humor", this would be as good an example as any. I'm inordinately fond of this kind categorization gag.

Leaving the joke aside, I guess there might be semi-reasonable reasons to shun cloned meat... IIRC, Dolly the Other Sheep didn't live as long as the original, in part because it seemed some of the DNA didn't get properly reset, the way it would through the typical conception cycle. If that makes one jot of difference once you douse that stuff in some nice digestive acid, I have no idea.

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Video of the Moment

--Heheh. Yeah, the "Batman disuguising his voice in a hoarse whisper" thing in the recent movies is a bit much.

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Hearing cubemate phoning in to a conf.call I'm also on, I wonder if conf. calls have extra "dramatic pauses" because of the voice delay...

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An almost overwhelming feeling of vague discontent...

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Kirk's Law of Stereophonic Caution: the speakers or headphones in the store are sounding better 'cause they're turned way the hell up.

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UI Geek: Windows window manager and Eclipse's MDI-ish UI use a similar model for sorting, but w/ Eclipse its awkward, not good for the hunt. Wow. Major Boston-area teams (i.e. including the "New England" Patriots) in sports played with a ball (i.e. excluding those stumblebum Bruins) haven't lost a game since Game 4 of the ALCS, back on October 16. Since then, the Sox took the next 3 games and swept the World Series, the Patriots added three to their lossless season and the Celtics with their "big three" have come roaring out to a 6-0 start.

Not to tempt Murphy by pointing that out, but that's kind of crazy! Boston is really fortunate right now.

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Quote of the Moment

And thus we learn fascinating things. Did you know, for example, that Adam is responsible not only for the fall of man, but also for the creation of venom? It didn't exist in the Garden of Eden, because, well. Why would it? Weeds? Adam's fault. Carnivorous animals (and, one assumes, the occasional carnivorous plant)? Adam again. Entropy? You guessed it: Adam. Think about that, won't you; eat one piece of fruit and suddenly you're responsible for the inevitable heat death of the universe. God's kind of mean.

Also from the Splutmeister: The 25 most baffling toys.

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Snark of the Moment
Boingboing had a bit on the One Laptop Per Child Give One/Get One program that I'm participating in. It had this picture which captured the cross-cultural nature of the endeavor:


My favorite comment was "Landowner"'s:

I'm no expert, but that girl clearly has no idea how to use that computer.

Hee. I was thinking about that Amélie movie like/dislikes thing, a clever little way of painting characters it used. I remember seeing a blog entry playing off of it years ago...I decided to start by looking up what the original ones were:

Amélie's father, Raphaël Poulain doesn't like

• peeing next to somebody else.
• noticing people laughing at his sandals .
• coming out of the water with his swimming suit sticking to his body

Raphaël Poulain likes

• to tear big pieces of wallpaper off the walls
• to line up his shoes and polish them with great care
• to empty his toolbox, clean it thoroughly, and, finally, put everything away carefully.

Amélie's mother, Amandine Fouet, doesn't like

• to have her fingers all wrinkled by hot water.
• when somebody she doesn't like touches her,
• to have the marks of the sheets on her cheek in the morning.

She likes

• the outfits of the ice-skaters on TV.
• to shine the flooring.
• to empty her handbag, clean it thoroughly, and, finally, putting everything away carefully.

Suzanne, the landlady, likes sportsmen who cry from disappointment.
She doesn't like it when a man is humiliated in front of his kid.
The tobacconist is Georgette, the hypochondriac. She doesn't like to hear "le fruit de vos entrailles est béni."
Gina, Amélie's colleague, granddaughter of a healer likes to crack her fingers.
Hipolito, the not-successful writer, likes is to see a bullfighter getting gored.
The only thing Joseph, Gina's jealous ex-lover likes is to pop the bubbles of plastic wrappings.
She likes the sound of Philomène's cat's bowl with water on the floor.
As for the cat, he likes to listen to children's stories.

Amélie likes:

• to turn around in the dark movie theater to see the faces of the people around.
• to spot the little detail nobody will ever see
• putting her hand in a bag of seeds,
• piercing the crust of crème brûlée with the tip of a spoon.
• Play at ducks and drakes on the Saint-Martin-canal.

Amélie dislikes:

• when the driver in the movie doesn't watch the road.

So, I got to thinking about some of my likes and dislikes. At the risk of being excessively corny or trite:

Kirk dislikes:

• books where the book title and the author name are repeated at the top of every page rather than the chapter or story title
• The feel of sitting on a toilet seat when one's backside is still wet from the shower
• when television actors have subtly changed their postures between consecutive shots

Kirk likes:

• reclining in the car in silence at night after arriving home and turning off the car and the radio
• the smell inside freezers at the supermarket
• peeling off band-aids

(UPDATE 2019: I also really like letting people know their brake-light is out...)

I suppose those weren't as "character-revealing" as the originals... more frank and useful ones would be something along the lines of "likes women wearing stretchy tanktops" "likes writing small perl scripts and macros to automate repetitive tasks" "dislikes PC laptops that won't wake up from suspend for like a solid minute so you press the damn power button and it ends up going right back into hibernate as soon as it wakes up" "dislikes traffic jams".

But still, it's a nice exercise, and tougher than it might seem. Anyone want to give it a try, at least two gripes, two small pleasures?

Literary Bit of the Moment

[After tussling with the Tin Woodsman and the stuffed Scarecrow]
"What is that little animal you are so tender with?"
"He is my dog, Toto," answered Dorothy.
"Is he made of tin, or stuffed?" asked the Lion.
"Neither. He's a--a meat dog," said the girl.

I finally read the book though I'm worried it might just be a condensed or slightly modernized version. (In the Gutenberg text the lion says "tender of" and Dorothy stammers more.) Overall, probably not as good as the movie.

I was startled and delighted by the reminder that we're made out of meat.

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Quote of the Moment

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.

That's a very good point, and nice way of looking at true literacy. (Thanks Lex!)

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Crush of the Moment
Wow. I think I have a giant pop-crush on Sarah Silverman 90% from this Slate article alone.

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Comedy in a Moment
5 seconds of funny from Lore at his Slumbering Lungfish blog.

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Weird News of the Moment
Irish Nursing Home starts own pub. It seems to make sense on a number of levels; I think just the different karma of a pub vs. a typical nursing home is a huge improvement.

Here's a thought: I've been taking some yoga lately. (Though even more lately I've been inclined to blow it off.) One of the big themes in yoga and other forms of meditation is quieting the mind, stilling all the endless chatter and, at least for Zen Bhuddism, leaving nothing behind. It seems almost every Eastern philosophy and many of the Western ones see a calm mind as a benefit. For a long time I took it for granted that it was a good thing. But lately it's been occurring to me: I love the way my mind wanders. I really enjoy having it zigzag from one thought to another, how sometimes it'll land at a meme, I'll start thinking "Now how did I get to thinking about that?" and can enjoyably trace the steps back. I'm a tangental thinker, pretty good at making connections, twisting concepts slightly and then examining the results...why on earth (or in heaven) would I want to lose that? (Of course it is annoying when your brain fixates on a single meme over and over, whether it's a song or a bad joke or what have you.)

I suppose there might be some health-type benefits. A static mind is more relaxed, it's not going in any anxiety and neurosis-producing places (and I sure as heck have enough of those) and so I guess for blood pressure and what not it's a good thing. But for my money, nothing beats a good leisurely mental ramble, a thoughtful ponder. It's where some of society's big breakthroughs have come from, and I can't see why giving that up is such a big plus.

Actually, it's funny how much of this goes on in the hindmind without the conscious mind being aware of it...sometimes a vague emotion will be the main residue that my aware mind can follow to figure what the rest of my head is up to (To quote They Might Be Giants, "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"...or what it is thinking of, in this case.) For instance, I'll be trying to remember something I was supposed to do...I'll feel a slight sense of...I dunno, nervousness, or pride, and that will be the hook to let me recall the core idea. "Why do I feel nervous? Oh right, there's that project that's almost due and still needs a lot of work." Does anyone else function this way? My brain is a brain of associations, I think a bit more so than with some people, which lets me more clever than average in some ways, but it has handicaps as well. Milestone of the Moment
A year ago today I introduced the world to Dylan's Pointless Sidebar! (I was confused because the first entry was November 8th 2002, but I think I just "seeded" the sidebar with a guestbook entry he had left previously.)

I do like having a micro-blog there. I like being able to see what's going in his life, and it adds a little somethin' to the frontpage overall. And it's nice to give him more of an audience than he would have otherwise. I think it would be even cooler if he updated it like 2 or 3 times a week instead of his current schedule, but hey. He's a busy guy.

So happy anniversary, Dylan's Pointless Sidebar, and don't forget, you can always read the past entries in the Dylan's Pointless Sidebar Archive.

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Pop Culture of the Moment

"My name's Ice Cream Jones,
and I'm deliverin' my ice cream cones
New ice cream cereal for breakfast,
with the great taste of ice cream cones!"

For some reason in middle school, we kind of adopted this breakfast cereal peddler as a mascot. At least we would sing his song in the hallways. I think we were just on the verge of discovering irony.

This guy and many, many others (including some interesting ones from the world of fiction) can be found on the well-annotated Topher's Breakfast Cereal Character Guide. He divides it up by company, which makes some kind of sense, though it made me realized that I never developed any manufacturer loyalty...every company used about the same technique to peddle their wares. Kids are loyal to the cereal and the little cartoony dudes and, much to the chagrin of some corporate bigwig somewhere I'm sure, just don't give a hoot about General Mills or Kellogs "fine family of products".

I do find it disturbing when they revamp a character. Like changing the Honeynut Cheerio Bee or Diggum the Frog's voice. That's even worse than dropping "sugar" from the name.

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Quote of the Moment

It's a cold bowl of chili, when love don't work out.

I'm happy to announce a new feature for the site: Dylan's Pointless Sidebar, you can see it there on the right. Dylan's my best buddy from middle school when I was living up in upstate NY, we kept in touch through out high school, both went to college in Boston, and he even stayed with me for a few months in my old Waltham apartment. He's now in San Diego...he keeps in touch with my life by making this page his startpage, and has kind of kept me informed via the guestbook. But now he has his own public spot to spout tales about his mundane life. He'd like everyone to keep their expectations nice and low for his little sidebar.

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Brand Loyalty of the Moment
It hit me that I'm really loyal to this one brand of pen, the Pilot Precise V5 and V7, and I have been for years. I made a special sidetrip to Staples just to buy a 5 pack of 'em (one shown here to the left.) They just write so well, with a nice thick line, almost like painting, but without too much page bleed-through. In middle school, I was all about the EraserMate, but no longer.

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Awesome Link of the Moment
PUT YOUR NAME ON MARS! Looks like the real deal...you can put your name in a form, and it will be written to a DVD. They'll then photograph the DVD when it's on Mars. But you have to signup soon!

A Photo of a DVD is kind of funny. Kind of like those folks who can guess what music an LP has just by looking at the groove pattern in the light.

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Quote of the Moment

Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.

I think by this measure, Bush is just a tiny bit smart, but mostly dumb. On NPR, someone speculated that one of the reason Bush has hesitated a little bit from the warpath is reaction from the armed services.

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Followup Geek Link
The other day I posted that article on leaky abstractions...today Slashdot picked up on it too (meaning the server is much slower...) and someone there posted a link to this older Salon article by the same author that covered some of the same ideas in a more approachable way. I think one of the differences between good geeks and the rest of the world is that geeks aren't happy unless they have some idea of what is going on behind the wizardy, the "automagicness", while the rest of the people are content with it so long as it works. "An X" signed my guestbook, mentioning my previous infatuation with Diet Dr. Pepper...I have some idea who it might be, but not their e-mail address. So I have to live with the mystery....

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Cultural Exchange of the Moment
Interesting. (And R-Rated, for the underage or readily offendable...) gay bathouse rules. Also see Bathhouse 101. Interesting piece of another culture I'm always going to be rather distant from.

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Quote of the Moment

A barbarian ... [is one who] thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.