jack is back! (omg.) I love the new design. I think he proves red is the new orange.
This whole digital revolution needs some songs. We need some folk songs that tell the story of the early days of the Internet. We need some folk songs that tell stories about web people. I have some ideas for titles:
- Bobby Kahn at BBN
- Packet Switch Blues
- Ballad of the RFC
- Ode to Berners-Lee
- Wars and Standards
- 10,000 Coders in Soma
- Broken IPO
- We Blog
song of the day: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band. You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat.
song of the day: Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry. And now you tell me Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
I'm speaking to you live from my new office in Sebastopol. I'm sharing some space with the generous folks at Via Pacifica Imports - Importers of Fine New Zealand Wine. And one of the perks should be obvious.
matt created this cool graphic:
I think it's great. If you like it too, throw it on your site (if you have one). You might also want to learn more about Ralph Nader and his platform. I registered with the green party this year. I did it in part to register my disgust with the two major parties.
Ayn Rand is like a grain of sand in my eye – a minor irritant that causes me to pause a moment to rub it out. For some reason, every once in a while, I have to remind myself how great it is to see without sand in my eyes. So I purposely grab a speck of Rand. I was browsing through the old TiVo listings, when I saw that The Fountainhead (a movie?) was going to be on Turner Classic Movies. I set it to record out of morbid curiosity. Well, it turns out the movie is so bad that it turned into an ok experience. I was mostly doubled over in hysterics at the stilted dialogue. I was my own MST3K episode. I looked high and low for the screenplay online so I could give some examples, but couldn't find it. Here's an approximation of what the screenplay looks like:
INT. HOWARD'S OFFICETry to catch it if you can. Oh yeah, and Rand herself wrote the screenplay. (Good thing she didn't compromise and let a pro screenwriter do it.)Howard looks emotionlessly at a model of a building he has designed. It is a beautiful building that no one could possibly understand.
HOWARD
(coldly)
I am pushing the boundry of architecture to its limit.
SOMEONE ELSE
(with passion)
You can't do it! Give in to the masses! Stop trying to create something new and vital!
HOWARD
(flatly)
But this is modern. Form must follow function.
SOMEONE ELSE
You're insane! They'll kill you because of your ideas! Compromise! Compromise!
HOWARD
People should not work for the common good but for themselves. I am the greatest architect who ever lived.
today's song: visions of johanna by dylan. But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off.
The Charge by Ron Padgett
That poem is from a book I have called Surrealist Poetry in English. It has some poems by Ron Padgett in it. There has to be a good link to some Padgett Poems. I'll see if I can dig one up.