Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

The Cannon

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I’d never heard of Sarah Vowell, the voice of Violet Parr in The Incredibles, before I started to read the various reviews of the film once it opened. Turns out she’s a writer and radio personality, which is how her voice caught director Brad Bird’s ear when he heard her story about her father’s cannon on This American Life.

The Luxo weblog has tracked down the broadcast in question, and it’s well worth hearing (streaming RealMedia audio).

iTunes “Push Downstairs” by Underworld from the album Beaucoup Fish (1999, 6:03).

From the vaults

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I’ve been playing with HTML for quite a few years now. Every so often over the years, I’ve actually been bright enough to make a quick copy of my website and archive it. Tonight, in a mad burst of misplaced nostalgia, I pulled them all out of the digital dustbin and have put them back online. As an added bonus, this allowed me to put some really old entries into my archives, from the pre-“blogging” days when I was just hand-coding pages and updating them as I saw fit. My archives date back to 1995 now!

Curious enough to check out just how my design and web skills have evolved over the years? Feel free to wander through. Some links will work, some won’t — caveat emptor and all that.

  • February 27, 1996: Yup, you read that right — 1996. We’re talking seriously old-school here (“Netscape 2.0 Enhanced”, even). Looks best if you shrink the width of your browser window to just a bit wider than the graphics, as this was back when 640×480 was in wide useage. Check out that announcements page, too — reverse chronological order, date and time stamped…blogging before anyone knew what blogging was (eat your heart out, Dave Winer)!

  • February 14, 1997: One year later, and things have improved dramatically. This basic design would last through the next three archives, and while it’s a bit broken now, I still like the general idea. Featured one of the first incarnations of a Gigs Music Theatre site, though it’s just a single page here.

  • April 21, 1997: A few months later. A little less content, as I started to focus on expanding the Gig’s page. Design is the same (and is still slightly broken in modern browsers).

  • March 30, 1998: Another year goes by, and things are still pretty static. The design is the same (though by this point, it works in modern browsers). The Gig’s page has evolved into a full-fledged site by this point, though.

  • August 5, 2002: Whoops! Four years went by with no archiving. I’ve been kicking myself for this of late, as I was doing some hand-coded “blogging” back then that I don’t have copies of anymore. Still, at least I have this. By this point, the design has changed majorly, and I was using MovableType to handle my weblogging.

My lord I’ve been doing this for a long time.

iTunes “Kat-A-Mandu” by Poems for Laila from the album Katamandu (1992, 5:11).

Delicious Library

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Ars Technica has a great review of Delicious Library, the new book/movie/music/game cataloguing software from Delicious Monster. I’ve downloaded the demo and have started to poke around with it…so far, quite enjoying what I see.

The second page of the review does a wonderful job of going into just why we Mac people are Mac people, and how nice it can be to get software also made by and for Mac people.

There is simply a “climate of excellence” on the Mac platform. Any developer that does not live up to community standards is looked down upon, or even shunned. Commercial, open source, freeware, shareware, it doesn’t matter: pay attention to detail, or else.

Windows users, think about what your typical download and installation experience is like. How many dialogs are you presented with? What do the file names and icons look like? Do you have to run an installer? What kind of manual clean-up is required afterwards?

Linux users, when you look at the carefully laid out disk image contents in the screenshot and links above, think about how far “desktop Linux” has to come before it can even begin to think about details like how single-icon drag-installed applications are arranged in their disk image windows.

Yes, I know, all of this is “pointless” and “dumb” because looks are meaningless. It’s the software that counts—the code, the bits, not the packaging, right? And so we come to an important difference between Mac enthusiasts and other computer users. Mac users understand that the packaging counts too (and are willing to pay for it). Happily, you get a lot of nice things “for free” on the Mac platform these days: composited windows, large icons, rich disk image and application bundle standards, etc.

So very true.

Brad Bird

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With the success of The Incredibles, more people are finally starting to take notice of director Brad Bird‘s first feature effort, the excellent Iron Giant. In a (very deservedly) gushing look at Iron Giant, MTV’s Karl Heitmueller wraps up with this statement:

Like the Brothers Grimm, Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak, Brad Bird knows that kids can handle some tough concepts, and he never insults the intelligence of his audience. The greatest children’s entertainment has always been challenging and sometimes difficult. But those are the books, films and shows that transcend pop culture to become timeless classics. Like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Iron Giant” is one of those films that was a failure initially but whose stature continues to grow over time.

Very true, and I wish more people would learn how to approach children like that.

(via Luxo)

Star Wars Episode 3 Trailer

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This conversation between Prairie and I pretty much sums it all up.

Me: oooh – you’re so not going to care about this — and I really shouldn’t, either — but the first trailer for Star Wars Ep. 3 came out today
Me: (laughs)

Prairie: giggles
Prairie: oh… how… wonderful…

Me: i sat and watched it, knowing that I shouldn’t care, but…dammit…it’s Star Wars, and Lucas still makes it look like Star Wars
Me: lol
Me: even when I know the movie’s probably going to suck, it’s got the music, and the space ships, and lightsabers, and Darth Vader…and…garggh!

Prairie: haha–just keep reminding yourself that it’s only pseudo-Star Wars

Me: and then I had to remind myself that the last two sucked
Me: and I really didn’t need to go buy them to complete the collection

Prairie: aww! I promise not to make too much fun of you if you go to see it
Prairie: although if you go twice I’ll probably mock you brutally

Me: :laughs

Prairie: you definitely don’t need to buy the whole collection
Prairie: (hides your wallet just in case)

Me: (sighs)
Me: i know
Me: but…
Me: (whine)
Me: lol

Prairie: no!
Prairie: not REALLY Star Wars
Prairie: no matter how much it might LOOK like it is

Me: yeah

Prairie: (steers you in a different direction)
Prairie: (takes the new trailer away from you)

Me: my brain knows that
Me: the fanboy in me that grew up with the movies and still loves the space battles and cool aliens and laser swords and all that is still having difficulties accepting that, though

Prairie: (distracts you while a team of hypnotists goes to work on the part of your brain that still thinks there’s a chance that the new movie will be good)

Me: :laughs

Prairie: I’m in favor of watching the old ones as often as you want
Prairie: but unless a miracle occurs and the last of the new ones is good, I hope never to see those

Me: ah, well
Me: i’ll have to see it once

Prairie: just ’cause you’ve gotta know Prairie: (and ’cause you’re braver than I)

So, here you are, if you’re as masochistic as I am — the Star Wars Episode III trailer (Star Wars Episode III trailer).

(via Ryan)

iTunes “Main Theme from Star Wars” by Williams, John from the album Sony Classical: Great Performances 1903-1998 (1990, 5:53).

IQ redux

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Almost a month ago, I signed up for the free StatCounter statistics tracking service, and I’ve been checking in every few days to see what kind of traffic I’m getting on my site.

From the 11th to the 31st of October, I’d been averaging around 1,333 page loads per day, with 1,090 unique visitors, 1,022 first-time visitors, and 68 returning visitors (keep in mind, those are all averages). Not anywhere near the top of the ‘net, but not terribly shabby, either.

Then, over the past few days, I’ve suddenly been watching my traffic start to spike, topping out (so far) yesterday at 2,757 page loads…

Graph Daily Summary

A little curious about what was causing the spike, I checked out my referrers and search terms. Turns out that the majority of the spike is caused by people searching for information on how states voted combined with the state’s average IQ, which first started going around the ‘net back in May regarding the 2000 elections. The table that was flying around the ‘net was later declared a hoax, but apparently the meme is still fairly popular, and a lot of people have been landing on my post because of that.

Turns out that someone has actually updated the table for the 2004 election — though they’re using the same data for the IQ, so I’m sure the table is just as faulty for this election as it was for the 2000 election. As it still seems to be amusing people, though, I added a quick update to my original post noting the new table (and calling attention to the fact that it’s a hoax, though most people probably won’t care about that), and in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the upswing in traffic.

iTunes “Tripnotized Vol. 1 (Part 1) (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Tripnotized Vol. 1 (full mix) (1995, 1:11:25).

Works for me…

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From Mickey:

Had a realization about what bugs me about an awful lot of horror with the “vanity kills” moral to it. Usually the girl (almost always a girl) is being harassed by her male significant other about how she’d look better if she lost a few pounds, had bigger tits, etc… She decides to do something stupid (not unlike a lot of girls in real life) and has horrible retribution visited upon her for her(?) sin of vanity.

Just once I’d like to see the psycho killer show up, hand the girl an entire Sara Lee cheesecake and say, “Eat up. I’ll go take care of the asshole for you.”

iTunes “Damned for All Time/Blood Money” by Brox, Victor/Head, Murray/Keith, Brian/Choir from the album Jesus Christ Superstar (1970, 5:08).

Jason Webley Halloween Show 2004

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Jason Webley Halloween Show, Seattle, WA

Prairie and I went to Jason Webley’s Halloween/Deathday show last night.

The show, of course (and as always), was incredible, and I’ll try to get a better writeup later on today. For now, though, I’ve uploaded a photoset from last night to Flickr.

The pictures don’t have full descriptions yet (another as-soon-as-possible project), but they start with the gathering of fans outside Town Hall, go through the entire show, and then follow us all out through Freeway Park until Jason left us yet again.

Enjoy!