:)

Over at Time's Shadow, Dave Rogers talks about trying to get a grip on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (hehe, great oxymoronic image!). Like me, he's fascinated by physics. Neither of us is ever going to push the frontiers of subatomic physics back, nor expand the limits of cosmology, but we think the ideas are neat and we like to learn and think about them.

Is this "mental masturbation"?

Well, so what if it is? First of all, let's all take a deep breath and get over the idea that masturbation is a bad, shameful thing. Masturbation ~ mental or otherwise ~ has a lot going for it. But, title notwithstanding (can you say "bait & switch"?), that's a topic for another day.

All knowledge needn't be sought purely for immediate and practical purposes. There is such a thing as intellectual play. Learning for learning's sake. Stretching ye olde grey matter. Thinking big thoughts because big thoughts feel cool inside the brain pan. Because one idea leads to another. Because everybody could always use another item in the potential analogy/metaphor file.

We are already professionally specialized almost to the point of extinction. It's a Good Thing to know a little something about fields beyond our own, to be able to sling the lingo about a bit (while not pretending that we actually KNOW what we're talking about in any truly professional way).

But most of all it's FUN. And we all need more actual, genuine fun in our lives. Fun keeps us from crusting up and becoming tedious pucker-butted fuddy-duddies. Fun is a surefire way to retain a sense of humor and some good-natured humility. And forget the virtues of fun, the key thing about fun is that it's fun. And sometimes that, right there, is enough.

Kinda like masturbation.

[Update: Okay, one other thought. Masturbation ~ of any kind ~ should in general be done in private. Unless you've got an eager audience for it. After all, no one forced you to visit this site.]
1:25:47 PM    please comment []

But this is really annoying:

Other updates, Jake and Lawrence are hot on the trail of the beginning-of-the-month bug that's been torturing some (not all) Radio users since approx April or May. It seems to only happen if you have titles and links turned on, and don't specify a link on the first post of the month, and do specify a title. If that is indeed the situation, we know what the problem is, and will fix it. I apologize that we didn't nail this sooner, but my health was failing in May and early June, and I was seriously recuperating during the July, August and September monthly rollovers. Some of the feedback has been less than kind. I think these people momentarily forget that behind every user interface are people with lives, and struggles. That goes double for UserLand. 2002 has been an unbelievably challenging year for this company.

The entire time I and others have been experiencing this bug, Userland has been working on instant outlining, instant messaging, RSS 2.0, and other stuff that I'm less than interested in ~ while basic functionality has been broken. Whizzy features are wonderful... in their time. In my developer's book, that's after the stuff you've already shipped works the way it's supposed to.

I fully agree that no one should be mean or rude when they complain.

But as a developer and interface designer myself ~ this plea for sympathy won't work, because it does not reflect the way Userland has been allocating its resources.

I look forward to a fix for the First-of-the-Month-Bug. And maybe someday they'll get around to making links relative in Radio. (But I'm not holding my breath.)

[Update: The bug is fixed. At least some manifestations of it. From the comments on the Radio discussion group, it looks like it took less than a day's attention from Lawrence and Jake. I rest my case.]
12:17:36 AM    please comment []