found_drama

• 5 JavaScript Tricks Made Easy with jQuery

  (tags: jQuery webdev tutorial todo)

• Laws of Software Development

  via Global Nerdy (via B^2)

  (tags: tech humor geek)

I wait in line all day and into the night.  For some World of Warcraft sequel?  I had no idea; I play along.  A co-worker admits that he played games as a kid so that he would understand the computers when he got a job and now he has a job to pay for the games.  I laugh like it’s a joke, take my box and leave.  Outside, it’s midnight and a blisteringly hot summer.  But once I step into the car (the old Neon), it flash freezes inside and out.  The car is encased in ice and the interior is frosted over as well.  I manage to jam the key into the slot and turn — it takes a few turns but the engine eventually turns over.  But I can’t go anywhere because the axles are still frozen solid.

Mission(s) accomplished?  No Ladycop last night; ’round town strolls instead led us to The Half (where else?).  Creighton has unleashed Pimm’s.  No one in this town carries The Orb; neither new nor previously enjoyed.  However, Saturday was filled with almost too many serendipitous moments.  Today seems to lend itself to gardening.  We’ve pulled the last of the beets and intend to re-use the space for … peas?  Time will tell.  Also: was … was that a party call?

Caught a sack race in the park while walking home from some errands.

As you may recall, I started this article thread back in September, asking the question:

“How do I teach web publication to a scientist and/or university professor? Someone who is obviously smart but also technologically UN-savvy?”

After setting some ground rules, we quickly eliminated Microsoft Word and all-but-eliminated iWeb.  Then I went on a roughly nine month hiatus on this particular topic.

Why?  For one, the original subject found a solution on her own.  Much the fire’s fuel taken away, there was not much motivation left over.  As I do not want to leave this unresolved however, I did make a vow to return to this and wrap it up.

The thrilling conclusion?

I really didn’t come up with (a good) one.  Not that I could find.  iWeb came close except for the publication matter.  Word was way off.  I did not consider Dreamweaver^[1].  What’s left?  Mostly web-based programs like Blogger or Vox.  Given the original question and the original goal, I believe something like Vox would be the way to go.

Anyway: glad this is off my plate.

1. In part because of cost and in part because (in my experience) it assumes you know how to do what it’s doing for you but without it. [↩]

• Per  jbarlet’s invitation, join the A+++ group on Flickr; after figuring out the rules; maybe after owning-up to the fact that A. actually took the picture
• mow the freakin’ lawn
• Ladycop show on Saturday
• go get a copy of The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (how do I not have a copy of this?)
• return some library books (the sooner I get All Families Are Psychotic out of my house, the better)

• Why Your Free Time is Boring

  @lifehack.org: “You have nothing to lose but your discretionary time!”

  (tags: lifehacks leisure)

Hole up in the apartment.  Close the doors.  Lock them.  Bar them.  Push the tables and chairs up against them.  Patrol the windows.  Get all the knives out of the drawers and butcher’s blocks.  Where are the guns?  The city is half on fire.  The rooftops that are not ablaze are covered with the militants and dilettantes.  The televisions stations are out but you can hear the broadcasts in your mind.  Mayhem and terror, invasion and destruction.  This is not about conquest.  You picture yourself running from roof to roof, picking off the raiders one by one until the bombs start to drop.  You picture yourself a hero.  But you’re not.  You’re sitting stuck in that apartment with your partner.  It’s all you can do not to scream, not to give yourself away.  But you can’t contain the rant and before you can stop yourself, you are parading through a diatribe about forgiveness.  The incantation summons the figure of a bearded, breasted Christ but he sticks around only long enough to make the both of you uncomfortable.   Just the same, his presence serves as a signal and you run downstairs, down three flights, just in time to see the building door hanging open on its hinges and to hear the voices of the looters descending into the basement.  You flip on the lights and call out to them.  But your voice cracks and you are unarmed.

• Boing Boing: MP3 Mixtapes: Balkan hotsteppaz, hardcore klezmer, Roma rap, Raï

  @B^2: “Typsy Gypsy” is probably the coolest DJ name ever

  (tags: mp3 music todo)

• The WebKit Open Source Project – WebKit Project Goals

  via TUAW: “…WebKit seems to be getting pressure from a lot of new angles to implement certain features [...] like support the same rich text editing widgets that Firefox does…” (WebKit isn’t Safari but Safari needs this; end of story)

  (tags: WebKit Safari opensource news)

Argh. This book was maddening. Coming off the heels of Generation X and Microserfs, I suppose my expectations were pretty high but this really felt like the literary equivalent of bottoming out.

With All Families are Psychotic: A Novel, Coupland thrusts us into this absurdly over-the-top comically dismal present tense-ish Florida that just doesn’t ever seem to come together. It’s unreliably realistic that’s as much a future-proofed snapshot Now as it is an immediately dated fantasy of yesterday’s tomorrow.

Sure, there are a few choice lines but every time it seems like it is starting to ramp up, we discover that he is feeding us a false start. It was like vintage GenX-era Coupland was rearing his head every 10 pages or so, about to start the novel only to find that he had lapsed into … I don’t know, some feeble attempt at co-opting Oprah’s book club. It was like reading a book that hemorrhaged interest and the further I got, the more desperate I became to enjoy it. By page 201, I had my enthusiam defibrillator paddles out and was shocking myself. Clear! *BZZZT!* Is it good yet? No? Clear!

I suppose I am not sure what else to say about this one. The surreal nihilism of Generation X overlaid on the mortality subject matter? Mushroom clouds instead of pill caddies? Was I looking for Microserfs‘ sensitive onion layers of humanity trying on some new clothes? Costco lamentations instead of preposterous bullet wounds to the liver?

The mind reels.