bigcat

Sorta seems right …

OK, my brain is completely turned off now — we are watching Are You Hot?.

Sex. Kinda basic, I guess. But why do the people who get kicked off have to do those stupid, weepy interviews?

New York Times headlines are now on the right, you might have noticed.

Right now this is done with JavaScript — I’d actually like to pull the XML feed, but I need to do a little more work there. I have a PHP aggregator I use myself (Rippy the Aggregator) so I should be able to do this, just need some time.

We’re moving at work — all of our offices, all of our labs.

I packed up my cube today and (no surprise) I have a lot of stuff. Four big orange plastic crates of it, not counting the computers themselves.

A lot of it is books. But also a lot of printouts and old notes. Some of it might be intellectual property. Some of it may be historically interesting, or useful reference. Some of it has nostalgia value. Some of it is just junk.

I threw out some stuff. I know it was not enough. But I’m not good at throwing out.

If you need an Internet World show directory from 1999, I’m your man.

A good post on this by Jeff Walsh was pointed out by Dave Winer.

I was a reporter for a few years, and a copy editor for longer. Jeff’s comment about wanting to do instead of just report recalls when I left the business. There were a lot of reasons why I left, but one of them was feeling the need to somehow participate in the great Internet boom.

In my own very small way, I did. Whatever else I do and whether any of it made sense, am glad I was there, in Silicon Alley, in a time we’ll never see again.

There’s now a lot of talk about “boycotting French wine”:http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/metro/Wine_buyers_do_their_part+.shtml in protest of France’s opposition to a U.S.-led war with Iraq.

Now I don’t really think the war is a good idea, but frankly I kind of think boycotting France is just fun, anyway. The French attitude is somehow just annoying, even if correct.

Boycotting French wine also came up during another ill-advised war, in Vietnam. It never really got very far.

Apparently, from looking at Google, boycotting French wine has a long and proud tradition, for reasons ranging from “a tax on beer”:http://www.bodensatz.com/ to “an anti-Semitic ambassador”:http://www.hsje.org/cause_for_boycott_frances_anti.htm to “weapons testing”:http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N39/brit.39w.html to “a ban on British beef”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/525963.stm .

I’m not a big wine drinker myself, but I’d say try some Italian wines — the Italians are just more fun.

I just read a post from someone talking about feeling ashamed at taking antidepressants, and wondering why they should.

I think its time to start fighting the idea that these medications are somehow an admission of some sort of failure.

I take these pills and I’m proud to say so — because I confronted a medical problem that kept me from being as happy and productive as I could be.

(more…)

Just added them, thanks to this “tutorial”:http://unixgal.techieswithcats.com/archives/002156.php

I think it works …

Yesterday, I parked in the Alewife garage when I took the Red Line to South Station for a trip to NYC.

When I got back, I found that the fee there has increased 50 cents.

Big woo, you say. But it was apparently a problem for the person ahead of me in line to pay.

The driver pulls up and, apparently, hands the cashier $4. Then there appeared to be some discussion. Then you could see the driver rooting around in her car, and ever 5 minutes or so handing the cashier some more random coins. Either she found enough or the cashier gave up. But meanwhile the line of cars behind me backed up as far as I could see.

This reminded me of the classic “Charlie on the MTA” (this link gives a lot of little-known history about the song, check it out!), which begins:

The horrible “deaths”:http://www.boston.com/news/packages/nightclub_fire/ in Rhode Island make it hard for me to justify writing of lighter things today. It seems so often these things happen to people who are only trying to have a good time and listen to music they like.

Question: Why the hell are sprinkler systems still optional in some places of public assembly? Yes, it may cost a lot to equip old buildings. Requiring them might close down some old buildings. But we are talking 96 lives here.

…

The rain today isn’t helping my mood. Now in addition to lots of snow, we have lots of mud. But at least we’re on a hill — flooding is possible some places.