29 Sep 2001 @ 6:28 AM 

With apologies to Bill Watterson.


So, I’m reading Slashdot and come across this gem of a headline: PayPal Announces Intent to IPO. Um, did something change, or is an IPO now considered a verb? A company can issue or hold an IPO, or it can go public. You cannot IPO, just as you cannot do any of the other things that corporate America turns into verbs. Grrr!

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 29 Sep 2001 @ 06:28 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Verbing the language
Tags
Categories: Journal
 26 Sep 2001 @ 10:09 PM 

Warning, here be spoilers…

Um, did they decide to just rehash every possible stereotype from the previous four iterations of Star Trek for this show?

And, must we introduce the “prototype” of every individual piece of technology seen in the other shows all during the pilot episode? Look, a “phase pistol” that has two modes: stun and kill. Oooh. Or, that newfangled transporter thingie that nobody trusts.

Hey, look, a cold emotionless Vulcan that turns out to have a heart of gold after all! Oh, my, whoda thunk it?!?

I particularly liked the strip-tease with the sexy Vulcan and the cretinous human in the shower/decon room. Yeah, baby, shake that pointy-eared thang!

Seriously, the show wasn’t bad, but they really need to let go of the baggage. Look at Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict for examples of Roddenberry-inspired shows that aren’t exactly like the earlier Star Treks.

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 26 Sep 2001 @ 10:09 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Booby Prize …er… Enterprise
Tags
Categories: Journal
 

Liz?

 
 26 Sep 2001 @ 6:29 AM 

Although not the most talkative of late, happy birthday, !

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 26 Sep 2001 @ 06:29 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Liz?
Tags
Categories: Journal
 25 Sep 2001 @ 4:30 PM 

Well, while working from home and exploring ways to make the webpages for the office actually reflect the federal law that states we have to have ADA-compliant webpages, I’ve brushed up my stylesheet skills.

Now, using Netscape 6, you can choose between the normal or “high-contrast” stylesheets for my random thoughts pages. Damn, I’m smoove.

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 25 Sep 2001 @ 04:30 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on I’ve got Style (sheets)!
Tags
Categories: Journal
 23 Sep 2001 @ 11:01 AM 

My Stores are apparently popular, but nobody is buying anything. I’ve gotten to #25 on the T-Shirt Countdown, though. 🙂

I’ve moved some things around on my site, so if you get a 404, go back to the main page and try again. Nothing particularly popular got moved this time, though.
current_music: Blue’s Clues AGAIN and AGAIN

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 23 Sep 2001 @ 11:01 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Web Updates
Tags
Categories: Journal
 19 Sep 2001 @ 9:37 PM 

Feeling like a Flintstones character with that subject line.

OK, apparently anyone that wants to join up with the zoo in March has to make an obligatory post enticing all their friends to do so as well.

Consider yourselves enticed.

? Got a spare room still? 🙂

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 19 Sep 2001 @ 09:37 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Bash! Bash! Bash!
Tags
Categories: Journal
 17 Sep 2001 @ 9:25 AM 

As in, fuck me in the…


The local post has reduced their alert level from the highest to something just below, which nobody (with a memory reaching back to Vietnam for some) in my office could remember hearing of before. Meanwhile, it took me an hour longer to get through the gate this morning than Friday, and they’ve closed 40 or more parking spots, forcing everyone to walk about 1 mile to get from their autos to work.

This is reduced security? Either these guys screwed up last week, or they’re just being dicks this week.
current_mood: annoyed

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 17 Sep 2001 @ 09:25 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Goat ass
Tags
Categories: Journal
 16 Sep 2001 @ 12:28 PM 

From the wonderful Sinfest, this hilarious monologue…

Simple is beautiful. The masters of any given field always go back to the basics, the fundamentals, the bare essentials of their craft. The fancy stuff is nice, but the real cool shit is minimalist. Drum and bass. Color and light. Meter and rhyme. And the works that grab us are usually built on the simplest of concepts–a love song, the hero myth, the afterworld. Of course, this is not recommended for all professions, like say, medicine. If I ever go under the knife, I don’t want some quack trying to go “minimalist” on me. I’ll be in pain cuz he won’t give me any drugs, and he’ll be like, “Hey, I’m retro.” Or pilots. Those guys definitely shouldn’t be getting too avant garde. “Attention. This is your pilot speaking. I thought I’d break down my craft to its bare essentials. Hold on, everybody.”

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 16 Sep 2001 @ 12:28 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Used without permission
Tags
Categories: Journal
 14 Sep 2001 @ 10:07 AM 

According to Jerry Falwell, the gays and liberals are at fault for the deaths of approximately 5000 people. Since Jerry also believes that the Teletubbies are gay, does that mean that children’s stuffed animals are terrorists? Radicals of any type are just repugnant.


A number of people are trying to get the U.S. into a very long war to eradicate all terrorist-friendly countries once and for all. That may very well be counter-productive. I notice that almost none of the people clamoring for war have ever been near one.


Conversely, there are a rather strident group of folks that think we should turn the other cheek and take our lumps as a deserved response to our imperialist ways. WTF?
I also note that none of these obnoxious twits have been in combat, nor even served the country which they take such pleasure in trashing while simultaneously sucking up all the advantages inherent in American life. To those people, I’d like to say, “Fuck you. You don’t get a vote until you have volunteered to go in the line of fire to defend your way of life.”Not every soldier has been called into battle, but every one of us that enlisted in the military knew that was on the option list. So, until you can say the same, your opinion on when we should risk our servicemembers’ lives is worth a lot less than you might like.
I know this makes me sound a bit too much like the ever provocative , but we agree on a few things at least.
current_music: Pearl Jam – Jeremy
current_mood: grumpy

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 12 Oct 2007 @ 07:43 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Random Thoughts
Tags
Tags:
Categories: Journal
 11 Sep 2001 @ 8:34 AM 

I’m ambivalent about being “non-essential” but after more than an hour waiting to get on-post to work this morning, I was turned away.

Pretty effective crippling of the entire country…
current_mood: indescribable

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 11 Sep 2001 @ 08:34 AM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on All non-essential personnel…
Tags
Categories: Journal
 10 Sep 2001 @ 9:21 AM 

I doubt the veracity of this, since it asked so few questions, and I answered quite strongly in favor of free markets (which seems to be anti-socialist), but here we go anyhow.

# 1 Socialist
# 2 Progressive
# 3 Leninist
# 4 US Liberal
# 5 Anarchist
# 6 US Libertarian
# 7 Marxist
# 8 US Conservative

Don’t expect me to fill out many of these “follow the leader” polls, but this one was entertaining in its lack of accuracy.
current_music: Stacy coughing
current_mood: bored

Tags
Categories: Journal
 08 Sep 2001 @ 3:02 PM 

I’m convinced there is a correlation between gender and shampoo timing. Let’s see…

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 08 Sep 2001 @ 03:02 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on I’m convinced there is a
Tags
Categories: Journal
 08 Sep 2001 @ 1:50 PM 

While looking through the sample page for GiggleCam, I had a thought (remarkable, no?). How exactly does one go about starting a game of naked Twister? And, is this a common game among friends? Heh
current_mood: amused

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 08 Sep 2001 @ 01:50 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Things that make you go Hmmm…
Tags
Categories: Journal
 07 Sep 2001 @ 10:50 PM 

Hey, this is kind of cool. My “Friends Don’t Let Friends Reenlist” t-shirt is up to number 42 on the T-Shirt Countdown website. Hope someone buys them now. Or at least the Origami shirts, they’re cooler anyway. More colorful design will show up as soon as can get me that 102nd logo…

You can vote (if you want me to be more famous) at my website.
current_mood: tired

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 07 Sep 2001 @ 10:50 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on T-Shirt Countdown
Tags
Categories: Journal
 05 Sep 2001 @ 3:46 PM 

Wednesday –

Microsoft has a new browser, Internet Explorer 6.0. Netscape has the new Communicator 6.1. Opera has the relatively recent Opera 5.12.

That’s a lot of choices. Not to mention the truly fringe browsers, like the text-only Lynx and the Linux-only Konqueror. Let’s focus on the options available to Windows users; like it or not, they own the market right now.

IE 6.0 and IE 5.5 Service Pack 2 have something in common that is unlike the other two big browsers: no Netscape-style plugin support. Microsoft didn’t announce this new “feature” before implementing it, and included it in a service pack, which normally only includes bugfixes, not significant changes in behavior.

Microsoft also has decided that IE6 will no longer have a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed by default. It will have to be downloaded separately. Microsoft blames this on Sun, saying that the lawsuit Sun filed against them requires MS to stop bundling the JVM, and that nobody uses Java anyway. This is blatantly false. Sun sued Microsoft to get MS to honor the contract they had signed. That contract stated that MS will only include Java Virtual Machines that are fully compliant with the Java standard, as defined by Sun.

That does not excuse Microsoft from breaking the contract they voluntarily signed with Sun. Nobody forced MS to promise Java compatibility, they did it on purpose and then broke their promise (contract). When it looked like Java was going to be vitally important, MS pledged allegiance. Now that Java looks more marginal (I know some businesses use it for important functions, but not most consumers), Microsoft sees no gain in going along with someone else’s standards.

Sun didn’t want to make an “open” standard, they wanted a standard. If it were open, they would allow others to change it. Instead, they want others to abide by their agreements.

That way, you could write a Java applet and know it would work on any JVM on any OS/platform. Does “Write once, run anywhere” ring any bells?

ActiveX controls, which were embryonic at best when Java was introduced, are now at the forefront of MS’s plans.

The convenience angle has been what Microsoft has ridden to market dominance. Breaking contracts willy-nilly has been another thing that has helped them, however. Whenever MS has a strong belief they can out-litigate their opponent, they do so, but still scream foul when anyone else takes them to court.

The rather ominous security and privacy problems with Microsoft’s current products are getting a great deal of press, but I wonder how much the average consumer notices.

I personally think that MS will stand firm on their new “no-Java” policy, and we’ll end up with even more of a headache for web developers. Especially with their recent announcement of no non-ActiveX plugins either. Makes most content quite dull, unless you buy into the ActiveX plan, which breaks all cross-platform compatibility, as well as introducing those lovely ActiveX-based virii and such.

We techies can rail against the absurdity of Microsoft’s plans all we like, but “normal” consumers are most concerned with convenience. The business community won’t have to deal with the onerous Activation Wizard, but consumers will. Guess who the bigger cash cow is and win a prize. 🙂

The big problem with Sun’s lawsuit against Microsoft wasn’t that their JVM had Windows-only speed enhancements (it was the fastest JVM for Windows), but that they had extended the language to add commands that only worked in Windows. Obviously, Windows is the biggest part of the market, but it is not the ONLY market.


As a web developer, I’m continually amazed at how the same page renders in different browsers. IE gains some of its ease-of-use at the expense of breaking some web standards (http://w3.org), and creating extensions that aren’t defined by or recognized by W3C. Netscape started that trend, but they’ve begun to play nice with version 6.1 finally.

Opera is the most standards-compliant browser, and I’ve recently adopted it as my primary browser (after using IE exclusively for over a year). I still have to use IE on occasion for some websites that refuse to follow the recognized standards, but it is quite rare now. I think the HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.0 standards are helping make the differences between browsers more negligible. NS 6.1, Opera5.12 and IE5.5 all render my web pages correctly, for instance. That may be because I validate all my pages for standards-compliance, but the differences between the three are minor now. Trying to view my pages with Netscape 4.x, though, will usually cause some non-fatal errors. For one thing, the CSS2-based buttons on my Livejournal page are invisible and non-interactive on NS4, but work fine in the newer version. Also, the “fixed” background works in Netscape 6.1 just as in IE and Opera; this is the first time that NS has supported the “watermark” background that Microsoft introduced years ago.

Even Netscape actually works now, for the first time in 4 years. 🙂

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 04 Jun 2004 @ 05:04 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Browser Wars
Tags
Categories: Random Thoughts
 05 Sep 2001 @ 1:16 PM 

I’ve updated my website with a rather lengthy screed, regarding the lovely state of Web Browsers today. All the major players seem to have matured to the point of near-identicality. Read more for my hate-filled loathing of Microsoft. Well, maybe not quite hate-filled.
current_music: Texas – Say What You Want
current_mood: cold

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 05 Sep 2001 @ 01:16 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Browser Wars continue
Tags
Categories: Journal
 01 Sep 2001 @ 2:10 PM 

Added a new page for my Photo Album: Origami Photos. Showcased currently is the John Montroll Stegosaurus, a truly cool looking model.

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 17 Sep 2007 @ 03:58 PM

EmailPermalinkComments Off on Site update
Tags
Categories: Journal

 Last 50 Posts
Change Theme...
  • Users » 2
  • Posts/Pages » 4,635
  • Comments » 896
Change Theme...
  • VoidVoid « Default
  • LifeLife
  • EarthEarth
  • WindWind
  • WaterWater
  • FireFire
  • LightLight

MythTV



    No Child Pages.

Who is Bunk?



    No Child Pages.

Friends



    No Child Pages.