01.17.00

Shower Thoughts

Posted in General at 9 pm

Jan 17 Mon (09 AM)

After 10 years, I think I’ve finally figured out Particle Man.

Yes, They Might Be Giant’s “Particle Man” has followed me around like a nasty hangnail but after many attempts, I think I’ve worked out it’s deeper meaning and who the cast represents:

Particle Man = Scientific Thought Person Man = Humanistic Thought Triangle Man = Religious Thought Universe Man = Reality

Following this lead, it’s easy to see who is doing what to whom, and that none of it actually affects reality.

<http://www.tmbg.com/melody/lyrics/particle_man.html>

 

01.16.00

Two Houses Approach an Intersection…

Posted in General at 2 pm

Jan 16 Sun (09 PM)

Yesterday was a wash. I think I got about nothing accomplished, except 20% more of Spyro 2 on the Playstation. I’m up to 60% so I should be done with in in a few more weekends.

Fortunately today was a different matter entirely. Amy and I got up pretty early and to watch the Benson House being moved 7 blocks through downtown Portland. <http://www.pp.pdx.edu/benson.html> It was quite a sight.

Last night, on Amy’s suggestion, we went downtown to see where it was at. They had already moved it off it’s foundation and onto the two of the three lanes of 11th street. Following the parking meters that had been covered up to prevent cars from being parked along the street, we found the route that the house was going to use. It was an inverted ‘J’ that brought the house through some amazingly wide streets and ended up having the house in precisly the perfect orientation, with it’s balcony overlooking the outer corner of the new block it is on.

<http://www.teleport.com/~samc/bike/benson.html>

This morning we got there just as the house was nearing it’s final destination. It was supported on three massive sets of wheels, making it a tricycle. It was quite amazing watching this massive two story wooden house move a couple feet at a time till it was in position.

Amy and I then had lunch at Swaggat, our favorite Indian food resturant, followed by a trip to Powell’s <http://www.powells.com> and getting of more dead trees and ink.

A few things to do tonight, including writting Christmas cards. A very relaxed weekend concluded.

 

01.10.00

It's about Time

Posted in General at 6 pm

Jan 10 Mon (06 PM)

It seems like it’s about time one of the net companies actually tried to use it’s over-valued stock to purchase something that makes more that just computer bits.

I’m still impressed and horrified at the size of the deal.

<http://www.wired.com/news_drop/palmpilot/story/0,1325,33535,00.html>

However, my local, Portland, Oregon take on this is: What happens to me? PDX is the thorn in AT&T’s butt. We’ve said that as a public monopoly, they have to give open access to ISPs other than their own @Home service. The city, county and regional governments all agreed on this and stopped AT&T from having the final piece of the TCI/AT&T merger go through. So AT&T sued the city, saying that puny little Portland could not stand in the way of the multi-national communication corporation.

AT&T lost. But they appealled, and now it’s up to higher courts.

However, Portland doesn’t have the budget to pay for a protracted court battle with Ma Bell. So they got some help from a little company called AOL.

Now that AOL is part of a big cable owning company <http://www.pathfinder.com/corp/about/pubarchive/websites.html#cablesys> what will their response be? Will they leave Portland in the lurch? Will they hold true to the selfish capitalistic view they held before or will they switch to a new selfish capitalistic view.

Then again, does it really matter?

 

01.07.00

Dreamy Time

Posted in Life at 12 pm

It’s great. I’m better rested than I have been in months. It’s amazing what a new bed can do for you.

The bed that Amy and I have had was a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law’s grandfather. It was in the guest room of the place he lived, and must be close to 20 years old if not older. The boxspring was a joke and the mattress itself was lumpy… like sleeping on coconuts.

<http://www.monk.com/placestogo/portland/pdxtom/wake.up.html>

But after short visit with a local celebrity we have a new bed by Englander <http://www.englandersleep.com/> that is the cat’s pajamas.

Speaking of cats, one of the nice things about the new bed is that Simone no longer leaps up into the bed simply to roll around and nap. It’s difficult for her get her 17 lbs. up to the top of the new bed, so she only launches that effort when I’m sleeping there for the night. (She’s very attached to me and seems to love sleeping right next to my ankles.) Amy and I are already noticing the smaller amount of cat hair that’s in our clothes, hair, etc.

Now if I can just reduce the recently elevated stress level at work. Then I’ll get a good night’s sleep and not have such a great reason for not getting out of bed.

01.06.00

New Mac Stuff

Posted in General at 1 pm

Steve Jobs and Apple came out with the new User Interface for MacOS X, Aqua yesterday. I’m loving it, and I’m starting to see it as simply the next step towards truly 3-D interfaces. Each time Apple moves the OS’s interface forward, they continue to add more and more ‘dimension’ to the look.

And the animation of the interface is going to be the part that most elates and irritates the users. From what I saw, the dynamics of the animation for sizing up a down the windows and moving them into the dock will be quite dramatic.

Although it looks like we might be losing Windowshade. 🙁 That’s a big loss for me. I started using it way back when it first came out as a seperate piece of sharware. I’m sorry to see it go, if indeed the Dock is supposed to replace it.

Let’s hope that Apple also sees fit to develop a better Launcher to go with the Dock. DragThing has been a constant companion for me and I hope it will eventually become part of the OS.

One nice thing about the announcement is that the late local news, <http://www.kgw.com> had a small one minute piece on the announcements, though it focused on the video production technologies that Apple’s pushing. It was nice to see some local coverage on Apple’s moves after the coverage on the release of Win95 and Win98 back when MS introduced them.

 

01.04.00

Week One

Posted in General at 11 pm

Got through the first class tonight. Looks like I’ll have to change a few things. I was expecting to have more people that had some strong development skills and hands on experience with the tools we’re going to use. Uh-uh.

I’m going to be delving pretty deeply into Director and having to run everyone through it at a rather accelerated pace. I’m hoping everyone can keep up. Trying to put this together in just 9 more classes will be tough. But I think it’s still do-able. It’ll be a matter of using every minute of the class time.

I’ve introduced the class to the <http://authoringdigitalmedia.editthispage.com> site and everyone seemed pretty interested in seeing how we can effectively use this tool.

Onward!

 

01.02.00

Fixed up

Posted in General at 11 pm

Damn file permissions.

 

Being Ross Olson

Posted in General at 7 pm

I saw Being John Malkovich <http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120601> last night at the KOIN Theater. It was really good, though I think my expectations were a bit too high, so I didn’t fully appreciate it. What was up with that piece of wood?

Yesterday’s activities of trying to get my web site moved and everything updated has finally passed. Looks like all I need to do now is update people’s bookmarks and web sites. The archives for Dwelling are still under construction, but they are coming along well. Today will roll-over week zero to week one of the new year. Let’s hope the archives work correctly.

I’m glad I was able to get a re-direct page put up at Powertalk. Had I known in advance what was happening, I would have had everyone preparing ahead of time. Kind of what I did when this site was at OMSI, <http://www.omsi.edu/~rosso/>

I’ve had this concpet of hearts: “cosmic hearts” in particular that sprang from a phrase that Amy used the other day. It’s been floating and fliting around in my head. I really ought to do something with it. Something more than just filing off in some respository.

—

In the mean time I’ve been working up a web site <http://authoringdigitalmedia.editthispage.com> which I will be using as a colaborative environment for my class this term. It should be quite interesting.

 

01.01.00

Domain2K problems

Posted in General at 12 pm

Wouldn’t ya know it? My web sites that are on Powertalk go off the air on December 31st, 1999, but not because of Y2K problems, but because of the buying of my old host (powertalk.com) by a new company and they failed to tell me that the domain would break at the new year.

Ah well. No harm done, no files lost, just lots and lots of links to update. Looks like my scripts and journal will work just fine in the new year, as this and the last journal entry atests to.