...more recent posts
Dan Bricklin gets some extended time with a segway.
On Wednesday the New York Times did a big piece on the revitalization (foodie-ization) of Clinton Street. It wasn't called from heroin to hanger steak, but it might have been. It was very complimentary towards all the restaurants. Pretty much got the back story concerning the Nelson sisters correct. And in the print version (although not online) there were lots of big pictures, including one of MB and Janet and Susan standing in front of Alias.
We knew this would be one very possible outcome of having three places all together on the same obscure block. Add in the plans for Wylie's new place at number 50 and it would seem hard for them not to write. So it's definitely become a destination. I was sitting at the bar at Fresh Foods at 6:30 last night, before we went to midtown for Bill's birthday, and tons of people were walking in looking for tables. I think they turned away 20 people in 15 minutes.
I took a quick walk up to aKa to see how they were doing. I saw six people pile out of a huge SUV and one guy unfolded the Times article neatly ripped from the newspaper and started reading. They didn't really have a specific plan. Probably had never been to the Lower East Side before. He kept reading and the rest of the group looked around trying to match anything he was saying to an actual building.
Alias was completely packed as well. They shattered the previous record for most meals served by over 20%. Carly said there was a line outside the door when they opened at 6:00. This is all great, but maybe even too sudden. Hopefully it will die down a bit. I don't mean the business specifically, but just the sense in the street. So many people milling about. Felt like a vacation town in August. Or disney land.
Still, it must be nice (if a bit embarassing - at least to MB I know) to be recognized. They stepped out ahead of the curve, and it was scary, but it worked. And it's been working for long enough that now there is a big article in the Times official announcing that it worked. All in all I guess that's a good thing. Congratulations to everyone involved!
Given how much publicity the scientology vs. google (or vs. operation clambake) battle was getting a few weeks ago I'm surprised it took this long. Still I'm happy to see that xenu.net is now the 2nd result for a search on scientology (up from number 4 before scientology started throwing law suits around.)
Maybe the scientologist's play book is a little outdated in this ever more interconnected world. Political leaders and oppressors of all stripes might want to take note. Trying to squash criticism may no longer be a workable plan.
I had a little accident with my jimb at digitalmediatree.com mailbox. If you sent me anything in the last 24 hours I have lost it. Please resend. Sorry.
Yes, we're pretty sophisticated around here.
Got my phone back after being out all yesterday.
In an unrelated story, yesterday was one of my most productive days ever. Go figure.
Working upstairs today (although I'm in the office right now.) Verizon somehow managed to knock out my phone, so I'm not online today. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.
My god the spammers are quite insistent lately that I receive a lower mortgage.
Someday we will get them. And I don't mean lower mortgages.
I've been trying to ignore everything. On purpose. I'm sorry. But what can I do?
I guess not be silent, for starters, even when it's clear that speaking will do no good.
What the hell is happening in Jenin? Can we get some neutral observers in there? I'm not asking for peace, but can't we try to prevent an atrocity? By either side.
No matter what your beliefs, can't we agree we need correct information? And more of it?
One side says the Palestinians are leaving the bodies of their fallen comrades in the streets on purpose. To sway international opinion. The other side says that Israeli snippers have the whole camp pinned down and that it is impossible to even get to their wounded. They claim that ambulances are being shot at. They even claim the Israeli's tricked a group of elderly men and women out of hiding with offers of fresh water, captured them, and strapped them to the front of advancing tank columns. That sounds outrageous, and I don't have a lot of faith in either of the sources I just pointed to (but I like that you can at least tell where their sympathies lie.) But what if it's true?
My point is just that we need more information. I'm not talking about peace keeping forces, or anything like that (although maybe that's a good idea,) I just want some neutral unarmed observers on the ground. I'm aware that this is the sort of thing the U.S. government would never allow. So maybe it's a lot to complain that Israel won't allow this. But I complain about the U.S. too. I mean when I'm not trying to ignore everything because I feel powerless. And hopeless. And dumbstruck by the brutality of humans.
What the world needs is a cheap wireless ip-enabled video camera with one of those crank to charge batteries. Then we could just drop (or smuggle) cases of them into war zones. I'm sure the people on the ground would be filming. Not sure how to keep the world's air forces from knocking out the base stations you'd need. Maybe they'd have to be peer to peer. A giant mesh of witnesses. You'd need a ton of them then, but if they were cheap enough....
That might actually help a lot.
It's Hannah's birthday, so we ran to the store to buy her the Harman Kardon iSub subwoofer to go with the Apple pro speakers that are hooked to her new Quicksilver G4. The guy at the store assured us that this was impossible. The iSub (packaged alone, not the bundle with the iSticks) is clearly marked on the box as only for slot loading iMacs. But this would even exclude the new flat panel iMac, and I know it works on that because Stephen has it hooked up to his. So we bought it anyway, and I'm presently listening to some amazingly bass rich sound. Weird. I guess Apple just doesn't want to support it. But it defintely works. At least under 9.2.2. Definitely worth the money.
If I'm not writing here much you could assume I am hard at work. And this time you wouldn't be wrong. As I've said many times before, I love the meaty middle part. First I start making a bunch of little pieces of code. It's like assembling a tool chest. And then I start linking them all together. That's fun. But then past a certain point the big picture has emerged from the connected parts leaving just a lot of small details to be ironed out around the edges. Not so fun. Things like polishing the user interface, writing documentation, and testing testing testing for weird errors in unexected situations. You might think you're 90% done when you hit this turning point, but then after a few weeks of getting bogged down in these mere "details" you realize you were only 60% done. Yuck. Details take time, and you're not moving so fast over the finer grained terrain.
Anyway, I'm not quite to the turning point yet, so I guess I'm in the fun zone. Hence not much writing here. The only thing I can add to these observations is that with each additional time I go through the process the big picture becomes more and more simplified. Since I've used previous versions of the system I know what is necessary and what is superflous. And I've gotten better at writing it. This makes for smaller code that is more understandable. And my guess is that this will result in the turning point being closer to 90% done than way back at 60%. We'll see very soon. This week probably.