$ PUBLIC
! ACHTUNG
# YOU'RE
@ NOW @ grog.net
# currently under no version control
# except for copying the file on occasion
#
# NOW AVAILABLE IN PRINT
#
# sorta PG-rated
# in English until further notice... } ...
## WELCOME TO
>> GROG'S NOT-SO-WORLD-WIDE WEB*
For now, this thing is a bit messy. It's a work in progress.
You can call it a "blog" if you want, but it's the start of
something a bit more complex (I hope).
If you want a bit of background, the best explanation can be
found by searching for the words "START HERE" in all capitals
within this document. The correct instance will be on its own
line with the words preceded by the number zero (0).
If you are looking for updates and events, they should (in
theory) be listed in reverse chronological order. The newest
relevant(?) content can be found by searching for the words
"BEFORE NOW" in all capitals within this document. The correct
instance will be on its own line with the words preceded by an
at-sign (@).
Don't let the random punctuation bother you too much. Like
acne, most likely it will clear up eventually.
As I've always said, it'll make more sense later.
-- GC # = 0
@ 2009-01-02
*now part of the Grand Unified Project
# don't look back now
# and now... ... {
@ BEFORE NOW
### #### ##### ##### ### #### ##### # # ### # #
# ### # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# ### #### #### #### # # #### #### # # # # # # # #
# # # # # # # # # # # ## # # ## ##
### #### ##### # ### # # ##### # # ### # #
If I were Mayor of Chicago, I'd institute draconian laws with large
fines for unlicensed noise pollution.
@ 2009-01-22 Thu 12:00:00 CST
9. f%@& the weather
@ 2009-01-10 Sat 12:27:03 CST
O things to do in the future
o clarinet vs. sine wave study of "Law & Order" theme
o klezmer
o create digital bitmaps from FFTs of analog signal generators
# all hilarious disclaimers aside...
#
# ...you should totally do that
O conjoined vertices
# two or more vertices that are directly connected, each with a unique
# set of interfacing edges
O status color coding
o 100%K,r: relevant
o 70%K,r: supplemental
o 30%K,r: irrelevant
o 0%K: absent
o red: machine-dependent interruption
# we're always interrupted by red lights
o orange: human-dependent interruption
# just like those men at work signs
? yellow: human assistance requested
# "Caution, MF!" (in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson)
o green: machine to human
o cyan: machine to machine
# One of the first things I remember about my VIC-20 was wondering,
# "what does 'CYN' stand for, and why is this turquoise color in the
# place of orange?"
#
# When children first learn about color, they're shown the artist's
# color wheel.
# The
O primary colors # of the
artist's color wheel # are:
o red
o yellow # and
o blue
# (in no particular order).
! LPT > ...0
# But once you learn about cyan, all bets are off. Eventually you
# find out about the RGB color wheel which is used in the wonderful
# world of television.
# The unedited
O cut-and-paste: # of the
o URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision #
< Firefox # to
> vi # running within
~ Terminal.app # on
~ Mac OS X Leopard
# sez: ("and I quote," [in the voice of Dan Rather])
... (
Cone cells in the human eye
Cone type Name Range Peak wavelength[5][6]
S β 400–500 nm 420–440 nm
M γ 450–630 nm 534–545 nm
L ρ 500–700 nm 564–580 nm
) ...
# (which is meaningless thanks to the joy of Unicode)
#
# but also
... (
It is important to note that the RGB color model is merely a
convenient means for representing color, and is not directly based on
the types of cones in the human eye.
) ...
# ("unquote.")
# (which means these are
* cut-and-pastes # or maybe
= cuts-and-pastes
# (especially if you're...
# WH0@
# $H!T
# $KW3RL
# ...the type who enjoys Whoppers, Jr.))
## double parentheses
# [Current versions of software at this time for those of you playing
# the home game.]
# Right, where were we?
#
# So RGB is kind of a human thing, but not necessarily, but we'll use
# it for machines, blah blah blah.
#
# So
O cyan # the
o = green + blue #.
## is this a conjoined vertex?
##
## crap, double octothorpes?
## it's already come to that?
# Okay, that kind of makes sense. If we're going to see it well
# enough and a machine can produce it easily enough, let's go with
# that RGB model thing.
#
# Green and blue make turqoise, but SMPTE calls it cyan, so fine.
# Let's see if
O red # and
+ blue # check out. I guess it's kind of
= purple #, but that's according to the
~ artist's color wheel #. Really, it's
= magenta # technically-speaking, because it's brighter and more
# obnoxious and the English language needed just one more word.
# (But it was labeled "PUR" on the VIC-20 key, so we won't go
# there for this story.)
#
# Two out of three, but wouldn't that mean
O red
+ green # approximate the color
?=brown # using the
~ artist's color wheel #? Perhaps, but in the RGB world, it makes
= yellow #!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!1!egy
#
# Here I thought yellow was a primary color? Not in the RGB world.
# It's a secondary color.
#
### [wip]
#
#
#
# (The VIC-20 is actually capable of making orange, but you have to
# do some funky, bizarro POKE commands.)
#
# You eventually get there as you get more bits
#
#
# arose from human
# recognize it as a color*
#
# Cyan represents
# This should stop here. This isn't justifiable as a mere comment,
# it's practically a Rain Man impersonation.
o blue: human to machine
# blue's my color
? magenta: machine assistance requested
# magenta?
O that's your battle color?
o sym C3.
o color: 168R+27G+106B
# RGB in a CYMK universe is a whole 'nother XcountryX matter, however
O X
o Seleccentric -> HTML: |
O Nick Leazard # was the first person who called
o me: "eccentric" #, one who's apparently eccentric
# enough to continue to write his online stream of
# consciousness as if it were an IBM Selectric
# typewriter (until further notice).
# From this eccentricity, we can derive
O Seleccentric #, which is an
< # of
Selectric + # and
eccentric #.
##
!!SHATNER ON BIOGRAPHY
! universal handle conversion
# imagine if all of this crap got twitter'd
# oy vey
@ 2009-01-06 Tue 18:01:00 CST
O Phone ass'stance ain't what it used to be.
... (
1. Call for password reset.
2. Referred to second number by India call center.
3. Second number has been discontinued.
4. Call back first number.
5. Get transferred.
Not to mention being asked invalid questions in order to verify my
identity. Corporations are stupid.
) ...
& LPT
@ 2009-01-06 Tue 15:26:21 CST
# neato:
# grep ^\[Oo\]\ index.txt | sed -e 's/^..//' | sort -f
O random nonsense
... (
this is working out
better than I thought
and I've been doing this
the entire time
Tyler sez "hi."
important things to include in the DUDE mechanism:
* filter commentary (m.t)
* access levels ($Ss)
* right-justification action, AWESOME, etc.
* OMG R0B0TZ.TXT!!!1!1!elfelf
some of this content will be public for a limited time
and now some overly-written and beyond incomplete INSTRUCTIONS FOR
HUMANS, which will be improved soon/later:
#
#o MEDIUM: hard copy
#
# 1. The words STaRT HERE are printed
#
#
#o MEDIUM: web browser
#
#
#o MEDIUM: Unix command: more
#
#/STaRT HERE
#
#
#o MEDIUM: Unix vi:
#
#
#/STaRT HERE
#
#
#o web browser: search for
#
#STaRT HERE
) ...
# I'm kind of liking the new format.
O some notes to self on the format
... (
Careful what you strip out within the ellipsetheticals. (Those
things are a PITA to type.)
The relevant graph for the context is found within big O's and
little o's. (I'm sure this is a bad discrete math joke just
waiting to be written.)
All of the X's remind me of "Family Feud."
) ...
O What is it with the Patrick Warburton?
... (
I'm working on a hybrid impersonation of Patrick Warburton
characters.
Please stand by.
) ...
# I changed the format so a freshness-dated @ stamp follows the
# events or content following that event. Since I didn't save
# the file using the old format, I'll have to get back from someone
# the one known hard copy that exists.
O lines from "Get Smart" (2008)
. Copyright (C) 2008 Warner Bros.
# all of
o Patrick Warburton as "Hymie"
... (
# Larabee: Hey, new guy, hold up a second. Welcome to CONTROL.
# We have a tradition here. It's called "pick on the
# new guy," and here's how it works: we pick on the
# new guy.
#
# Agent 91: And you can't do anything about it.
#
# Larabee: Let's try one. [drops pencil] You dropped your
# pencil.
#
# Agent 91: Did you hear the man?
Hymie: I don't see a man; I see two little girls. I think
I'll call you "Maurine"... and you "Britney."
# Agent 91: New guy did not.
#
# Larabee: New guy did. Okay, new guy, I got this. And I'm
# going to enjoy it.
Hymie: And that will make me happy, Maurine.
# Larabee: [scoff] "Maurine..."
#
# [grunts]
Hymie: And just for the record... my name is not "New Guy."
My name is Hymie. Now, if you ladies will excuse
me.
# I will sign an affidavit to affirm that PCL "New Guy" character was
# created before I had seen the "Get Smart" movie. I also had no
# idea Patrick Warburton made an appearance.
) ...
o Alan Arkin as "The Chief"
... (
"I'll tell you what we're not! We're not people who jam staples into
other people's heads! That's CIA crap!"
) ...
# Alan Arkin is the new awesome.
# an incomplete list of
O machines that broke in 2008
o dweezil (iPod) # death inspired cross-stitch
o washing machine # functions with human intervention
o Mondaine watch # sent in for repair
o santosh (SE/30) # ! inquire about weird screen
o MCLUHAN0 (Mac mini HDD) # ! recover the data some day
o The Tiny (car) # multiple times
# and the false alarm
x projector # just power outlet weirdness
X K&B's NYD dealio # I have returned
& K&B: Thanks for the grub and all of the accoutrements (au Francais) [sp?].
& Kim: Thanks for the emergency Coke Zero (and the smoke). Will spaz less.
& RSB: It was fine dining with he who provides fine dining.
& Mwelwa sez: "People may hear you, but very few actually listen."
& Fleep: I'm sorry... I had a cigarette. It was my ironic way of celebrating
my fulfilled promise to you to not smoke for the remainder of 2008.
# I didn't finish it, either. And that's it for a long time. If ever.
# (The 87th Anti-Smoking Brigade may stand down now.)
#
# OH MY GOD
# GREG WAS SMOKING
#
# THE PROPHECY OF JAN BRADY HAS BEEN FULFILLED
#
# Seriously, if it ever became a regular thing, it'd cease to be a novelty
# act (which is far more appealing than taking on an unhealthy habit).
& the parents are hopefully not scandalized if they just read that
X furnace died # okay, it didn't, but I don't trust it
! @ phone: [pod & PRL] inquire about in-house maintenance
# or possibly
!?@ phone: [pod & Howard] get referral for furnace maintenance
# and then (a la "Dude, Where's My Car?")
!?@ phone: [pod & ?] schedule furnace inspection/repair
@ 2009-01-01 Thu 23:46:21 CST
O Christmas at home
... (
I'm amazed that, after three decades, Christmas in Iowa City has
demonstrated itself to be consistent and constant. And while I know
it won't be like this forever, I'm lucky it's been this way for so
long.
) ...
@ 2008-12-28 Sun 06:16:33 UTC
O What is this?
# vi {:set wm=10}
... (
0 START HERE
### #### ##### ### #### ##### # # ##### #### #####
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
# # # ### # ##### #### # ##### #### #### ####
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
### #### # # # # # # # # ##### # # #####
Sunday, December 21, 2008
WHAT IS THIS?
This is my attempt to start my Internet presence from scratch. It's
also to tell you why I consider this date (December 21) to be
important.
It's about a movie.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Back in 1994, when the Internet was novel and technology was more
modest. You could throw up a web page relatively quickly using very
simple HTML.
But of course, it was also kind of bland, which is why Netscape started
throwing in bizarro extensions in attempt to make the Web look more
exciting and attractive. I remember watching my Unix mentor, David
"Tiberius" Bronder, reel as he looked at the HTML source. He'd point
out tags... some had unfamiliar extensions, and others were new
entirely.
This was during my freshman year of college. I was working as a
simulator operator at the Iowa Driving Simulator, a program at The
University of Iowa (UI*) Center for Computer-Aided Design (CCAD). Standard
workstations were X terminals connected to various several HP-UX servers.
That, or people had a Mac on their desk. Or both.
I had become sufficiently entrenched in my new life as an undergraduate
engineering student, and whatever novelty it once held had quickly
dissipated. Despite its own necessity for design and exacting,
certainly electrical engineering did not have aesthetics as its core
concern. (Nor should it.)
B.C. (BEFORE COLLEGE)
The Internet access I enjoyed at UI was something I had pined for
during my senior year of high school. There was the journalism
computer lab at City High with one lone IBM PC and a 2400 baud modem.
This was when I began the bizarre culture leap from the BBSes of
dial-up to those of the Internet.
It seemed like the same concept at the time, only the University of
Iowa (pre-capital-"The" in those days) had a great deal of resentment
for the high school brats tying up the Weeg modem pool to do Internet
chat. At the time, modem access was a really, really big deal. And
it was an even bigger deal if you had a static Internet connection to
your house. (That's several stories right there.)
There was no wireless Internet when I went to school. We didn't even
have a wired ethernet network. Data transfer relied on floppy disks
for the files and parallel ports for printouts.
But room 215 had a nice collection of PCs (IBM and others) assembled
by Jack Kennedy, an English and journalism teacher at City High. As
Bronder was to UNIX, Jack (never Mr. Kennedy) was to type and design.
Sure, being on "The Little Hawk" gave me the opportunity to express my
unwashed thoughts before the days of LiveJournal, but the real draw
was access to graphic design tools.
At some point I picked up on arguably irrelevant minutiae of
typography. I found myself thinking about things that only helped
solifiy my apparent "geek" facade, a label I've always accepted with
reluctance.
Why did we have to own a copy of Helvetica?
Why is it not called that in Arts & Letters?
Why does Avant Garde look different on the Xante Accel-a-writer?
Why do we need Adobe Type Manager for fonts to look normal in
PageMaker?
So wonderful. The computer had now sucked me in for a whole new
reason: desktop publishing.
AND EVEN EARLIER
The use of the computer as a tool was presented to me by the "original
Dave," Dave Muller, my first mentor. The platforms for learning were
the VIC-20 and Commodore 64.
At the time, Dave worked with my father at the School of Music.
A visit to the Music Building meant different things while I was
growing up.
* lasers!
* type on the Selectric
* play with the Neve console
* piano lessons
* attend concerts
* play with IBM PC/AT
* computer lessons
* desktop publishing for recording studios
* clarinet lessons
* perform in concerts
* electronics lessons
Dave would point out at some point that he was my "personal toymaker."
Indeed, Dave was able to help me assemble what I couldn't do on my
own.
NOT IMDB-WORTHY
Dave worked in the Electronic Music Studios. They had an Amiga.
I knew the Amiga had all sorts of video capabilities, but I never was
able to get immersed in the details of rendering or post-production.
It was pretty cool, though. (Despite all of the outlandish claims the
fanatics made about it.)
This at was the School of Music, which meant the technology to be
found was necessarily focused on sound applications. (Of course it'll
always be home of the laser light show.)
There was a video camera there, though, and I borrowed it to make a
documentary in German.
Before that happened I spent time experimenting with the QuickCam-like
video created by the PXL2000. (This was in 1987. I would wonder
then how dated Anything 2000 would look after the year 2000.) At
least on of the cassette tapes I need to digitize contains footage of
the Toronto subway (probably while driving on Allen Road).
We also had a Minolta Super-8 camera. And I used that to make some
stop-motion animation of a highway accident. (That's probably
PG-rated, right? Should kids be able to make movies that they may not
be allowed to see?)
1980
Before the Minolta there was another Super-8 camera. But we gave it
to the relatives when we visited Hungary. After leaving Hungary, there
were laser light shows in Europe. The trip schedule caused me to miss
the first day(s?) of kindergarten. (Late as always?)
That Christmas my father had bought the family a VIC-20.
And sometime that year he had introduced me to Pac-Man.
DEGREES OF TRANSPARENCY
A lot of memories are kind of soupy and vague. You may only remember
the time of the year, or "some time in grade school." Perhaps you can
focus on the time and date.
There are the faces, some you see more clearly than others. Locations
and distances may be skewed a bit. Your brain is an imperfect
recording medium, but it can be occasionally frighteningly precise.
Visually, I have witnessed countless subway cars on the
Yonge-University-Spadina line through Spadina station in Toronto.
It's been a few years since I was last there. If I were to return,
I'd expect it'd be very similar to what I experienced when I took my
first ride.
Lately I've been trying to conceive of models and methods to define
experiences. A lot of that pertains to the medium involved. I'll
spare the meek allusions to McLuhan until I know what I'm talking
about.
Suffice to say, there's a factor of transparency between what happens
and what we actually experience. Despite what Memorex would like you
to believe, no means of recording, virtualization, or digitization of
a real event can completely reproduce the original experience with
100% transparency.
But you can never get 100% transparency, period.
WHY I DON'T MIND CIGARETTE SMOKE
While it has been at times alarming to see people having a cigarette,
the smoke itself has never bothered me.
Cigarette smoke and ozone trigger my earliest "soupy" memory, which is
a collage of details assembled to represent Spadina station in my
head. Smoking was permitted when the station first opened in 1978. I
turned three that year.
Between my knowledge of the evolution of the TTC and my personal
memories, I can reconstruct an approximate experience of being at the
station based on a specific year. As the year gets closer to 1975,
I remember fewer exact details and rely more on research in recent
years. ("Research." Hah.)
The first experience of descending into the station, whether the
first impression was made in 1978 or some later year, includes the
smell of cigarette smoke and ozone. And the coincidental smell of
tobacco during a walk over a CTA grate can bring back a variety of
clear thoughts about other things that have since vanished from the
station:
* token machines that accept $1 and $2 bills (Canadian)
* $1 and $2 bills (Canadian)
* the moving walkway to the Bloor-Danforth line
* red subway cars with incandescent lights (that occasionally go
out for a second)
The memories are clear and linger far longer than the smoke.
SO...?
In order for me to share one of my earliest childhood memories, I'd
have to borrow Gloucester cars from a museum, retrofit the station
with token machines of the era, build a new moving walkway, and allow
smoking in a public transit station.
I only know of two cars in Halton County, Ontario. No idea where I'd
find a late '70s-era token machine. The moving walkway was ripped out
because it was too big of a hassle to maintain (parts, labor, and of
course, money). Who knows if the original specifications are still
around.
And even if you got all that, you'd have to be willing to blow smoke
into the face of By-Law 709.
We've all been told that you can never go back.
Canadian $1 and $2 bills are now collector's items. It'd be worth
spending mine if the opportunity arose, just so perhaps someone new
would understand what I'm talking about and "get me" a bit more.
It'd be almost 100% transparent. Almost.
DRIVING IN WINTER WEATHER
It's cold today. Weather Underground currently reports 0.3 degrees F.
It's also the shortest day of the year.
Winter weather and I have been arch-nemeses since I was born. I was
brought home in an ice storm... what a precedent.
My earliest childhood memory was (unfortunately) being in a car accident.
My mother was driving my sister and me home after dropping off my dad.
The car slid on some ice and ended up on the side of the road. I
suppose it would have been more traumatic had there been any permanent
injury or had the car not been repaired.
Three years ago, The Tiny spun out on a patch of black ice. The day
before I was to drive to Iowa City for Christmas. I suppose it would
have been more traumatic had there been any permanent injury or had
the car not been repaired. (It was just me, and I was fine.)
Since then, I have taken that S-curve on Lake Shore Drive more seriously.
Last year I drove home to Christmas in Iowa. It took twice as long as
usual, having to manage through near-zero visibility fog, freezing
rain, and heavy snow. Julie drove on I-80 and I-380 the next day and
sighted about 90 vehicles off the side of the road in the span of 90
minutes.
Somehow, I survived that. And the drive back, which was almost as
bad, and I barely made it back to Chicago before 2008 began.
WHAT STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS
I guess every winter driving story has a silver lining. (Or something
like that.)
The accident I experienced at age three would be eclipsed by the
memory of my father returning from Germany with an early birthday
present.
Lego set 381.
It's the first really clear memory that I have from my childhood. The
Volvo accident might not have been as much of a fog had something so
novel happened shortly thereafter. Perhaps its significance
inadvertently hides other earlier memories as well.
My parents will point out that I had Karen build it for me. I
probably was just so fascinated by what it was that I wanted to see it
immediately.
SINCE THEN
The Lego collection grew rapidly and became a city that ended up
consuming a large portion of the basement. It was used as a means to
prototype my own city, which came out of my fascination with the City
of Toronto, which we'd visit every year.
The city's computer-controlled subway was inspired by the Scarborough
RT. I learned about programming and electronics as Dave led the
design and implementation of a modified 4.5 V-powered engine. When
an attached photosensor saw the light at the station, it would stop.
RC car circuits were used to trigger forward or reverse movement.
Other projects were inspired by the city.
A computer-driven stoplight.
Software that would track the minifigure population.
A stop-motion animated film in Super-8... of a car accident.
A documentary about the city's ten year anniversary, recorded with a
single VHS camera. Titles made with a Commodore 64. Narrated by my
sister. In German.
STILL RUNNING LATE
I was still "playing with Lego" well into high school, and while I
knew it was best to keep most of my projects covert, they inevitably
became the gossip of peers.
In 2008, the minifgure turned 30. It's clear Lego has a serious
presence in pop culture. And suddenly everyone wants to be a geek.
You're apparently nothing without Internet access. The iPhone is a
status symbol. All the girls want to look like geek-chic Tina Fey.
Are you on Facebook yet? OMG TXTSP33K!!1!one
What is The Jobs going to announce at WWDC?
Conventions? What about video game conventions, sci-fi conventions,
comic book conventions?
Or Lego conventions?
Yes, in 2008.
In early 1991, no such thing existed. Nor would I have attended. I
gave up at that point. I had a concept I was trying to articulate,
but it was pointless. My peers were wearing flannel and listening to
grunge (I still don't get it). And I had received enough shit for
apparently being a teenager who still played with toys.
My mother was tired of the Lego city collecting dust in the basement,
and I wanted to attend the University of Toronto. I could have
attended at a tenth of the cost if I were able to show proof of
Canadian citizenship. She wasn't viewing Canada as favorably as I was
and didn't see the desire, but we agreed to the following:
I'd mothball the city if she'd help me get citizenship.
It was collecting dust anyhow.
The high school experience improved after the Lego was put away. As
if I had buried some shameful secret. Had a column in the newspaper,
was first chair clarinet of the orchestra, and I was even elected to
the homecoming court.
But I was still a computer dork, and I never went out on a date.
BUT WAIT I THOUGHT
I ended up going to The University of Iowa (I believe it was a capital
T by then). It was my second, last, distant choice.
My application was informally made and accepted after a five minute
conversation with the Dean of the Engineering College. This was after
I had gone to Ms. Kanellis (sp?) in a moment of panic, realizing that
there were too many delays in the citizenship process. It had gone
from a matter of applying for proof of citizenship to full-blown
application FOR citizenship. And it'd be over far after the beginning
of my first year at the University of Toronto.
I was accepted at UofT. I applied as a Canadian citizen, and I would be
called on my bluff.
So instead of being a CS major at UofT, I was a EE major at UI.
It was just as well. Had we not both attended The University of Iowa,
Derek and I would never have joined forces. We both finished in four
years.
We were pretty retarded... and AWESOME.
And we took advantage of modern technology to refurb a relic from my
city: the computer-controlled subway engine. The core RC and
photodetection components functioned just fine and were left alone.
The VIC-20 interface was replaced and the electronics now interfaced
with a microcontroller. Signals sent over the serial port of a NeXT
computer that told the microcontroller the train's direction.
The user controlled the train through a web interface. The NeXT's
NCSA Web Server ran the appropriate CGI script and would routinely
fetch an image from a QuickCam on a PowerMac 7600.
The train was set up in my bedroom. An hour before our demonstration,
the SLIP connection to my home network died.
MEANWHILE...
Around that time I was going through a Futura phase. That all came
from Grogvergnuegen (origin obvious depending on your age), which was
one of my early attempts at a web presence. Kudos to Volkswagen for
sticking with a typeface that has worked well for decades.
It was 1997. It was the Netscape 3 era, with new, uncharted HTML
features that would only be exacerbated in the Great Browser Wars.
(Seriously, though, technological disputes should never be likened to
catastrophic phenomena involving human casualties.)
And I began to see Bronder's point. It was really hard to keep up
with all of the new tags, and all of their little doo-hickeys and
what-nots. Trying to build a web page was turning into a major
ordeal.
AND NOW
Web 2.0 (*sigh*) has notable differences in terms of the applications
offered when compared to its predecessor. I use wikis, I'm on
Facebook, etc., etc.
Operating systems provide greater accessibility to creating
multimedia.
Digital electronics become cheaper and cheaper.
In theory, you can create a lot of content and distribute it to all of
your audiences, all through their preferred means of communication.
If only it all worked well together.
And that's the struggle with building a web presence.
New languages, media formats, protocols, devices, software... a
constant influx that is becoming a management nightmare. There are
standards, but who's following what, and how important are they? If
it's cheap, small, and fast, does usability become somehow irrelevant?
SELECTRIC
I've returned to the simplicity of writing Courier text in a terminal
window, as it has a nostalgic familiarity. I continue to use a Model
M-style keyboard (the "IBM clicky" variety) because of the tactile
response.
I wrote the HTML for my father's web site** in vi. It was a pain in
the ass, and like driving through the winter last Christmas, it's not
something I'd really like to repeat.
But I don't really like the alternatives. Web authoring tools glaze
over many details I feel are fundamentally important, and implement
content based on a variety of assumptions.
(I'll also drive through crappy weather when necessary.)
Writing a text file is still as simple as it gets. If you've read
this far, my thoughts and use of English have proven coherent enough
to get across without the aid of additional formatting.
For the school newspaper, we'd write plain-text copy in WordPerfect,
and that'd get placed into PageMaker for formatting... assuming your
floppy disk didn't go bad. (Disk error 23.)
The data -- the story -- was 90% accurate without any further
processing. Sure, there'd be edits, font changes, leading and kerning
tweaks... and if I were lucky, removal of any "unsexed quotes." (I
know a lot of you dislike "smart quotes," but frankly, they and the
Illinois license plate demonstrate the side-effects of universal
access to desktop publishing.)
WHERE WERE WE
I'm in the process of recreating my Internet presence. It's going to
be a long task given all of the variables. Things are going to stay
plain text until they're ready to evolve. At some point, my hope is
that raw data will be able to be realized through a user interface
with the maximum transparency possible. (If that doesn't make sense
now, hopefully it will later.)
And then there's the movie.
It's a feature-length, computer-animated, photorealistically-rendered
secret agent movie.
Coming December 21, 2010.
The screenplay will be done by the end of the year.
Production will start next year "on location" in a virtual world made
of plastic toy bricks.
That's it for now.
-- G
P.S. The NeXT was rebooted and the demonstration went flawlessly.
*While I live in Chicago, Illinois, the letters "UI" always mentally
translate to The University of Iowa. And the "The" is capitalized,
because it humors me to think that my alma mater felt it absolutely
necessary to do so. Are there really any other universities of Iowa
threatening to dethrone the original?
must I proudly state
every time I say
from where I graduate
the "The"
with a capital T
I attended
The
University of Iowa?
(no, that is not rap)
And last but not least, the virtualized stream of consciousness:
O UI # not to be confused with Chambana
= The University of Iowa # do it this way or it's a lawsuit
= the University of Iowa # acceptable at some point in the past
= University of Iowa # simple and to the point
**http://www.lowellcross.com/
) ...
# NOTE TO PUBLIC:
#
# Things may stop making sense at this point.
O Obligatory LEGO(R) Disclaimer
o where "site" means "wherever you see this"
... (
LEGO(R) is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does
not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site.
) ...
X Sync'd PS2 clock with pCST.
O pCST
= pod Central Standard Time
@ 2008-12-21 Sun 23:55:48 UTC
O The Moon <- Make the Moon <- Katamari Damacy (fastest)
? Diameter: 878m87cm
o Objective Completed: 16:20
o Objects: 1595
@ 2008-12-14 Sun 14:38 CST -:52:
O Mondaine watch dies
O The 80s are back! -> Media Wonkiness @ Facebook
# later, back
@ The Pod
@ 2008-11-05 Wed 00:55 CST
O CNN projection: Obama elected 44th President of the United States
@ Grant Park, Chicago, IL
@ 2008-11-04 Tue 22:00 CST
O The Moon <- Make the Moon <- Katamari Damacy (largest)
? Diameter: 878m87cm
o Objective Completed: 16:53
o Objects: 1589
@ 2008-11-01 Sat 18:38 CDT -:52:
O Mondaine watch purchased
o start date of two-year warranty
@ ZRH
@ 2007-01-04 Thu
# Swiss Time (oo la la)
# !!%!)(%&*!(@$&!
@ 2007
@ Chicago <- Boston
? verify freshness date
@ 2004-12-22 Wed 10:00 CST
& big mini: "'Are you guys having a party? It's the bass.'"
@ 2004
O my first B*
o 318ti
o The Tiny
*In the spirit of MF, the B stands for whatever you want it to.
@ Saco, ME
@ 2000-06
O grog.net registered
@ 1997-02-27 Sun
O SLIP
@ 1995 Summer
O dual citizenship
O Heinous BBS
O CondoLAN
@ 1994 summer
O my first home network
o mug-hut (386 running NeXTSTEP)
o evil (NeXTstation color)
o thinnet
@ 1994-01-01 Sat
O my first computer
o VIC-20
@ 1980-12-25 Thu
O my first Pac-Man game
? probably in Iowa City
@ 1980
O my first Lego
o set 381
o an early birthday gift from Dad
o purchased in Germany
@ 1979-03-11 Sun
O Spadina TTC Y-U-C station opens
@ 1978-01-28 Sun
O Gregory James Cross
@ 1975-03-25 Tue
@ 0
@ ?
@ 1
! @ 2009-01-03 Sat 10:00 CST @ dentist
@ AFTER NOW
# AND AS ALWAYS...
O Copyright (C) Greg Cross (GC)
o with exceptions as stated
o at respective times above
o where applicable
O Greg Cross
# a.k.a. Grog (mostly on the Internet)
o Texo-Hungarian
o reverse engineer
@ Chicago <~ Boston <~ Iowa City
& Carrie sez: "You 'summered' in Canada." @ 2008-12-30 @ 2629
# ...OR AT LEAST AS LONG AS I'M HERE, AND MAYBE A BIT AFTERWARD
@ *
# ____
# | | IS PROBABLY NOT
# |grog| A MARK-GOODSON
# |.net| TELEVISION PRODUCTION