R Allan Baruz: Regrets; Things that are Gone

Fri, 27 Jun 2003 23:51:06 GMT

Recovering from cancelling some things I really wanted to do, losing hundreds of dollars in the process, and skipping work thereby. That and just a little too late playing poker, and trying to get home while making all the wrong decisions. Because of screwed-up NJ Rail tracks, where only one of four rails were working. This put me home at around 3:45. I might as well have stayed for the rest of the game. World Poker Tour championship on the Travel Channel (thanks to TiVo): what a last hand! It was an amazing race, right until the river. The WPT series, despite some problems (<cough>Vince Van Patten</cough>) is amazingly well put together, well-paced, and a solid foundation, hopefully, for next year’s tour. Wednesday: Went to Connecticut for a proof of concept. I got there at the right time, having only traveled for about two and a half horus, which is what it should be. Despite leaving somewhat early, hit monstrous traffic on the way back over the Tappan Zee and Garden State Parkway. Also made many wrong decisions while going home, steadily dehydrating. Almost got into two accidents with the stop and go traffic. Turned off at Clark, where the only road to town had suddenly turned into a one-lane bridge. Got home three and a half hours after work. Blech. Nothing of note really, lost in a fog of my own ineffectualness: meant to go to Atlantic City this weekend, but suddenly overwhelmed by inertia.

Wed, 25 Jun 2003 03:36:01 GMT

PowerMac G5: Can I hold out for the 3 GHz, or will I break down and pick one up in September? A.W.Apps class: Why am I so insane? What is with me? What is wrong with me? Gaaah. It’s too hot.

Fri, 30 May 2003 04:10:34 GMT

Someone got us a set of pinochle cards for us to play Texas Hold ’em. Royal flush, beat that! After a number of rounds of three-of-a-kind kings and full boats aces over jacks, we gave it up, especially trying to push imaginary chips into the pot.

Sat, 17 May 2003 03:43:53 GMT

My parents’ anniversary today, in celebration of which I expected to take them out to dinner, was actually celebrated, without my help, in Atlantic City. There was a lunar eclipse this night and last, but as it threatened to rain on each day, I didn’t see the percentages in it. But I should at least have tried. Instead of all these things, I crashed the New York Blogger Bash, the fifth or sixth or fifteenth of its name, and my third or so. I would add more, but I put one or two too many pales into this head of mine with no dinner and no sleep besides, so later, later.

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 04:18:19 GMT

I heard the President’s address while driving to the bookstore to pick up the Fowler book on enterprise architecture patterns. It is so sad that it had to come to war. Spare a prayer for the men and women who have gone to Iraq, and spare a prayer for the Iraqi innocents who, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in this sorry affair. Is it a just war? It is a just cause, and a just authority which makes the claim for redress by force. (Elshtain, Novak, Niehaus, Pope John Paul II, Carter) The only questions that remain are: was it a last resort? (after 12 years of dodgy non-compliance, I think it is, contra JPII and Carter) will it cause more harm than good? (For the Iraqi people, it will most definitely not, unless we of America foresake all sense; for America and its standing in the world community, perhaps it will.) The selective attacks so far seem to argue for jus in bello, but war has never been a certain thing. Who now remembers France’s occupation of the Ruhr? Not that posterity has anything to do with morality, but we are talking about standing, with which it does. But these things will pass.

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 03:58:32 GMT

For the last week or so, “The Shadow of Your Smile” has been running through my head. It started last Tuesday or Wednesday. I remember at Matt’s valedictory dinner (with mahimahi wrapped in halibut, yum) I asked the pianist to play it, so it was firmly ensconced by then. The song was written by Johnny Mandel, who also wrote another haunting song, the theme from M*A*S*H. It took me a while to find this, folks! Sinatra comes up first on writer "shadow of your smile", but lists no writer. Paul Francis Webster wrote the lyrics:

The shadow of your smile when you are gone
Will color all my dreams and light the dawn
Look into my eyes my love and see
All the things you mean to me.
Our wistful little star was far too high
A teardrop kissed your lips and so did I
Now when I remember spring
All the joy that love can bring
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile.

It was composed for the movie The Sandpiper. While I’m at it: the lyrics to the theme to M*A*S*H. Mike Altman, the lyricist, is, I believe, the son of Robert “Scumbag” Altman. Good lyrics, but he seems not to have produced anything else afterwards. I hope he didn’t take his lyrics to heart. According to IMDB, he wrote it when he was fourteen. Speaking of IMDB, Neil Gaiman printed a letter from a certain Cathy mentioning Internet Book List, the book-reader’s hopeful counterpart to the IMDB. And a Manila site I haven’t explored much: Songtrellis.

Sun, 09 Feb 2003 02:41:03 GMT

Liz at Capital Influx points to a haberdashery for the dysfunctional, with tees sporting such slogans as “i chain scarf brownies in the dark,” “i buy a lot to fill the void within,” “i use big words to impress people,” and, hey! that’s Liz Vassey of the Tick! I still have all the episodes on my TiVo, awaiting the day I can take them off. Sniff. I miss the Tick, both animated and live-action. But why go so far afield for a dysfunctional tee? Paul has got the goods.

Fri, 24 Jan 2003 04:03:43 GMT

The Animated Atlas is an interesting idea, but I would have liked to see little dots representing the densities of populations, perhaps how they ebbed and flowed. That would have been cool. Or even a broader brush, with world history, along the lines of Colin McEveady (?) (!!!). That would have been cool. Oh, wait? What was I saying? I could get off my lazy ass and do it myself. (Hah!)

Mon, 20 Jan 2003 00:20:46 GMT

What was I saying? Having done the GeoURL thing, I want more! So... GMT is a set of Unix tools to manipulate geographical data. Perhaps I can use it to plot an electronic version of Ptolemaius’s Geography. Ooh: Metis: Quicktime panoramas of ancient sites. Kind of small, especially when you’ve been spoiled by certain high-bandwidth sites.

Lost Futures

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 04:10:01 GMT

Mike has finished posting the transcripts of the interviews he did with David Sanders to produce his Cinescape article and written a very personal, nostalgic cap-piece to it. Read it.

Sat, 04 Jan 2003 07:36:00 GMT

If you have MAME or MacMAME, an overwhelming tang of nostalgia, thirty minutes, and a spare $999, you too can satisfy your cravin’.

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 03:40:38 GMT

The Recueillement thing I did reminded r@d@r (at ex-lion tamer) of a poetry class exercise. I do remember something like that in the Behn and Twitchell book, but what I was doing was more along the lines of N’heures Souris Rîmes—accents later/read with an outrageous French accent—and, more pretentiously, the Oulipo. This is an Ormonde de Kay obituary. My copy of the slim tome was purchased when I was in New Brunswick’s Rutgers from a Pyramid that had an excess of copies. What I was really after, though, was trying to reclaim the sound of the piece, which, with my decaying grasp of French, was being lost in half-formed thoughts of, “this word is probably...this word looks like....”

Sun, 15 Dec 2002 05:58:07 GMT

Hey, maps in 3D orthogonal blocks. Coolness. Wish I knew about this before I contributed to the company boss-present pool. But the cost is a bit steep for full renditions. [by way of Nick Tang]

Sidebar notes on losing my site history

Sun, 10 Nov 2002 20:39:13 GMT

Whoa! Sometime in the last several days, Radio Userland re-published the whole site! Each and every post, which means the nice template I was using in the springtime and early summer are gone (radio.weblogs.com is a static site, so previously those posts had been rendered permanently in the template that I had at the time, I nice blue one, even as I changed my links and RUL dropped my template), and I lost some sense of the history of how my sidebar links have grown. So I will have to do it by memory. Happy Tutor of Wealth Bon-da-ge first pointed me out when I commented on anonymity, and gave me a full sidebar link; I linked back to him once I figured out how to do the sidebar thing, but as WB, which got me some strange hits. Happy T has a great deal of hits on his site, but those who arrive usually don’t care to follow the sidebar links, sigh. Graham Leuschke pointed to me as well on seeing WB’s post, but only in a daily post, no sidebar. Jim of Objectionable Content pointed out my blog after Blogapalooza, and often comments. Paul Frankenstein and Ravenwolf may have done the same, or right after Paul’s own turn to host the NY Blogger party, BABB3. Aaron Haspel, Sasha La Blogatrice Castel, Zeebahtronic’s Liz, Ken Goldstein, and Hands Free pointed to me after BABB3, definitely. Liz permalinked me, and Ken had a semi-permanent special sidebar edition in which I was one of the BABB3rs featured. Goliard Dream’s pinax started commenting in my blog, then permalinked me. Those who cared to comment started with Charles Hornbell, who sympathized with my tire troubles going to Philadelphia. Mobius One of the44 commented after I linked to his coverage of the Dodge Poetry Festival. Pinax also commented, but was later promoted, as I said earlier. Bill Hayduk commented recently but I missed it until recently, whereupon I had an editorial crisis as to linking all commenters and yet not linking to where I work while explicitly disclaiming any relation of this blog to work or clients. But he commented, and I resolved it as you see to the side. Doc Weevil linked to me in a set of photographs not well publicized from Blogapalooza, but doesn’t read me very often, as far as I can tell, though I try to keep up. Megan McArdle doesn’t link me, but as her travails not four blocks from where I beach when not on site was an inspiration, Live from WTC stays there. Always been a fan of Neil Gaiman since my RA introduced me to Sandman when I was at University of Southern California. RXC is a column I regularly read. I would put Instapundit there, but then I’d never get anything done. As you can see, Smart people is where I eventually put people who would never link to me normally. Roland Tanglao and Jenny the Shifted Librarian have their news aggregators attuned to many hundreds of RSS sources, so they have their fingers to the pulses of geeky technology and information storage/copyright issues, respectively—that is, when Jenny’s Radio installation is working. She actually posted me, once, concerning my contention that loose copyright enforcement led to the freedom of the slaves in America. Everyone knows BoingBoing, and many of y’all know A & L Daily. Too tired. Links later.

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 18:28:16 GMT

One less opportunity to speak authoritatively on matters I know nothing (well, almost nothing) about. *sigh* [Update from Ken Goldstein, who obviously reads further down pages than the headline: Philosophy & Literature. More info. Bad Allan!]

Wed, 18 Sep 2002 20:47:02 GMT

Still have not inquired into getting into that blasted pool. Sheer lethargy.

Nations that are Gone

Sat, 14 Sep 2002 11:33:25 GMT

By way of Cory Doctorow: Footnotes to History: The nations you didn't learn about in high school geography. by James L. Erwin. Of particular interest to me were the Khazars, Lijien (so that’s what happened to Crassus’s legions at Carrhae), and Gothia-Mangup.

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 12:48:55 GMT

never forget

Last Words on Modern Bab-ilu You'll Find on this Blog (I Hope)

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 18:48:06 GMT

I know, I should probably follow mine own advice, especially when I back it up with Yeats. But. I have always thought that we should have attacked Iraq first. Afghanistan may have been a refuge and a training ground for the Qaida, but I don’t think anyone ever thought it was funding them. Let’s make the dangerous assumption that putting the big foot of justice down has somehow ended what’s-his-name’s life, his bodyguards now assigned to other duties. Who cares? Mr SH will find yet another cat’spaw to fund attacks on whomever he pleases. If we had attacked Iraq while seizing al Qaida assets, we may not have achieved the quick satisfaction that catching a rat engenders, but we certainly would have less of plague to fear. (!!! That whole paragraph was a bit catachretical, hm? Edit the conceit later.)

Fri, 16 Aug 2002 03:20:38 GMT

As I was saying earlier, systems, processes, aims, and efficacy:

William Blake. "I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's." [by way of Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Philosophers nowadays seem to avoid system-building. (I believe this is called antifoundationalism.) In college a friend and I were arguing about language in one of the school cafeterias when a visiting philosophy professor whose name I forget (quick! Name a contemporaneous philosopher. Nozick doesn’t count; Iris Murdoch is dead. Hah! I didn’t think so. I bet you don’t even remember the name of your Intro to Philosophy professor.) overheard, joined our table, and started talking about the state of philosophy. It was surprising how differently he saw the role of philosophy compared to our view, despite how often my friend and I disagreed on basics: we both felt that a basic metaphysical concern was fundamental to building a personality, let alone a world-view.

Wed, 14 Aug 2002 03:01:46 GMT

First day I came on this most recent site I drove around the whole compound once, leaving by the back exit, then coming around to the fore entrance. I found where I went wrong and bore a hard right after coming in. I was expecting a cylindrical building, but there was a cylindrical glass jutting out from this. I kept staring and staring trying to figure out if this was the cylindrical building the client had mentioned that I only noticed the cones blocking the rest of the access road just barely in time to stop right before them. One of the security type guys came over as I drove into the lot to tell me, that’s a fifteen mile-per-hour road, son. I nodded and parked, then waited. Apparently the stop was loud as well, because everyone inside was snickering as I came in. Well. Second day I came in, I finally got the product working right before lunch. It was something I had seen several times, and yet had not recognized it until I had it staring me in the face. Going down the staircase for lunch, I noticed a callipygian short skirt walking from the stair into the hall, and felt an urge to give chase an introduce myself. What did I do with this urge? Swallow it, keep it locked inside your stomach until it becomes a thing gnawing at you, gnawing, gnawing....

Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:39:12 GMT

This is my third or fourth time coming around. I remember the first time I was supposed to go with the honors seminar, but they cancelled. So as I had no car I had to take the PATH to NY, get to GCS, and take a bus back to New Jersey, in the northwest wilderness. I’ve met a great many of my favorite poets, personal heroes, here. I believe that on the slate are several of the poets laureate if that is what they’re called this year. Something about how the language is shaped by these people, not just in sound but in meaning, and the dance between them, that engenders such an awe within me calls to me. It’s been years since I wrote anything decent, and sometimes it makes me sick sick sick that maybe I’ve lost something that I once considered essential to my character. All ideas, no words. http://www.grdodge.org/poetry/index.htm

Tue, 13 Aug 2002 00:49:31 GMT

Slashdot reports on Kristen Nygaard’s death. He co-created Simula 67, the first language to include formalizations of object-oriented ideas floating around at the time.

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 18:54:02 GMT

You’ve probably heard that the Apple iTools set is going away, to be replaced by .Mac (“dot-Mac”). I’ve assembled a list of bookmarks based on iTools web pages (grep homepage.mac.com Bookmarks.html > dotMacGoaways.html) from my OmniWeb bookmarks and am posting them, and I would appreciate if you did the same. Many of these will go away in late September if their registrants decide not to opt for dotMac and its attendant $50 or so one-year fee. I will also check my other bookmark files for them, to be posted later.

Thu, 08 Aug 2002 03:12:09 GMT

Edsger Dijkstra has died.