Heaven and Hell

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From Neil Gaiman, after admitting that while he is equally at home on Macs or Windows computers, he is still primarily a PC user…

When I tell Mac people this, they smile their secret smile. They know that after we die, we go to a special place, and that those who used Macs will be raised on high, where they can sip their cappucinos and look down and see the virus-infected writhings and screamings of those who used PCs, as the damned Windows users are forever bombarded with boiling projectile vomit from the thousand-foot high screaming thing that used to be Bill Gates.

But I’m sure even the damned people down in the mud will be laughing up whatever’s left of their sleeves at those of us who secretly like fountain pens best.

iTunes: “They’re Coming to Take Me Away” by Lard from the album Last Temptation of Reid, The (1990, 8:28).

Barry Manilow listens to Underworld?!?

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I never would have guessed this.

I was poking around on the iTunes Music Store, and started looking at some of the Celebrity Playlists — essentially “mix tapes” (only there’s no tape involved) assembled by famous people. I saw Barry Manilow listed, and had to know.

Two tracks immediately jumped out at me — favorites of mine, and not at all what I expected to see.

First, Underworld’s “Born Slippy/NUXX“. Underworld is one of my favorite modern electronica acts, and while most people know them for “Cowgirl” off of the Hackers soundtrack, they’ve done a lot of other excellent work, including this track (also featured on the Trainspotting soundtrack). Driving rhythms, inscrutable lyrics, and lots of electronic bleeps and bloops — good stuff. ;)

Even better, though, was seeing the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush collaboration “Don’t Give Up” off of Peter’s album ‘So‘. Where many people would rank “In Your Eyes” (also featured on the Say Anything soundtrack) as their favorite song of his, “Don’t Give Up” has always been my personal pick. Beautiful, haunting, and full of hope for the future, this song is one that often helps me get through some of the rougher times in life. It also has one of the best videos I’ve ever seen — good enough that I remember it clearly, though I only ever saw it once, in a hotel in Italy during one of my trips to Europe. Just Peter and Kate embracing each other against a sunrise, standing on a platform that revolved so that each was facing the camera as they sang their lines. Very simple, and very effective, much like the song itself.

Good to know that Barry’s got better taste in music than I’d expect.

Free music is good

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One free iTMS song!

I got my first free song from the iTMS today, thanks to the current promotion with Pepsi!

I’d been keeping an eye out for eligible bottles, but today was the first day I’d actually seen them. I picked one up on the way to work, popped the cap, and won right off the bat! Not bad at all — even with one out of three bottles being a “winner,” I hadn’t expected to find a good one right away.

Figuring out what to get wasn’t terribly difficult, either. Ever since I started listening to the CD I got from Kev and Emily at their wedding, I’d been convinced that I knew the Dolly Parton song “Travelin’ Prayer”, only I remembered it being a man singing it rather than a woman. While looking up songs on the iTMS for the previous post, though, I figured it out — she’s doing a cover of Billy Joel’s song “Travelin’ Prayer” off of his Piano Man album.

I knew I’d heard that somewhere before!

Soundtrack to a wedding

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One of the many nice things that came of Kev and Emily’s wedding was their interpretation of the Alaskan “potlatch” tradition, in which the hosts of a large gathering pass out small thank-you gifts to the people who attended. During the wedding reception, they passed out CDs they had made with a selection of songs special to the two of them.

Here are the songs that they chose to represent them at this point in their life:

  1. Billie Holiday: All of Me
  2. Bob Marley and the Wailers: Sugar, Sugar
  3. Crosby, Stills and Nash: Helplessly Hoping
  4. Dolly Parton: Travelin’ Prayer
  5. Lauryn Hill: Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You
  6. Joni Mitchell: A Case of You
  7. Edgar Meyer and Joshua Bell: Short Trip Home
  8. Nanci Griffith: If Wishes Were Changes
  9. Jimmy Cliff: Sitting in Limbo
  10. Tracy Chapman: The Promise
  11. John Prine: Angel from Montgomery
  12. Robin Dale Ford: Where I Am Bound
  13. Super Bass: Blue Monk
  14. Bob Dylan: Shelter From the Storm
  15. Nickel Creek: When You Come Back Down
  16. Arlo Guthrie: Darkest Hour

Genealogy software wishlist

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Okay, so here’s what I wish I had available in a software package. Any mad coders out there feel like putting it together? ;) (This has been submitted to the LazyWeb.)

  • A web-driven genealogy software package (PHP/Perl/Python with a database backend?).
  • One page per family member, able to display (at minimum, though not all items would necessarily exist for every page):
    • Links to immediate family members (one degree of seperation: parents, siblings, spouses, children).
    • Vital statistics (birth, marriage, divorce, death). This could be expanded to include christening, baptism, etc. for situations where such dates are recorded.
    • Biographical and/or historical information — stories, memories, etc.
    • Pictures.
    • Contact info for still-living members.
  • User registration.
  • Logged-in users would be able to easily edit any individual page on the tree to add memories, stories, information, etc. (Wiki-style ‘edit this page’ links?).
  • Logged-in users should also be able to create new pages for family members not already in the tree. New pages should follow a template to ensure that a consistent look-and-feel is maintained as much as possible.
  • Wiki-like ease in adding pages and linking pages together. IE, one of the things I really like about the Wiki concept is how easy it is to (in this concept) let the tree grow. When creating my page, all I had to do was add WikiWords for my relatives, and I could then jump to and create/edit their pages. Functionality such as this is far easier than having to log into a central database and create new records for each new entry and then have to go back and edit all pages that would link to the new entry.
    • I’m still not sure how to best work around the issue with multiple family members with the same name.
  • Administrators should be able to review and approve/disapprove new users, get a list of recent changes, possibly approve/disapprove page edits before incorporation (this is optional, I think).
  • HTML output should be clean, standards-compliant, using CSS for styling, etc.
  • RSS/XML/Atom feeds of recently changed/added pages (preferably with an option to subscribe to either ‘minimal’ feeds listing only changed pages, ‘short’ feeds listing the edited page and the changes, and ‘full’ feeds listing the edited pages and the full text with changes marked in some way).
  • (This might be pipe dream territory) A dynamically-generated (Java? DHTML?) overview of the tree or branches of the tree. I’m visualizing being able to start with a simple tree of one nuclear family. Lines leading away from members would indicate further information along the branch. Clicking on a member (parent, spouse, child, etc.) would “slide” the display to that member’s nuclear family. “Zoom out” would allow more branches to be viewed (and would need a “Zoom in” control to return to a single-family view. “Detail” links on each member would lead to the individual member’s page (which would have a “View tree” link to switch to the dynamic tree view).
  • Possibly more as I come up with it.

If I had the time, I’d start diving heavily into PHP (or Perl, or Python)/MySQL and start attempting to build this myself. However, I don’t have the time, and something tells me that this might be complex enough to be fairly overwhelming as a first project.

If this software existed, I’d gladly pay for it (hopefully it would be within my price range, of course). At the moment, if anyone feels up to attempting to code it together, I’d gladly beta test!

So how crazy am I? How does this feature wish list sound? Is there already something out there on the ‘net that might cover some or all of this (aside from Wiki, which I’m already exploring) that I haven’t found yet?

Questions, comments, and words of wisdom are, as always, appreciated.

Update: Hot damn — PhpGedView just might be it!

Back home with lots of pictures

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I made it back in last night safe and sound, and immediately crawled into bed and crashed out. While it was a wonderful trip, it was fairly mile-a-minute for much of it, and sleep was a very good thing when I got in.

I’ve managed to get my photos of the trip uploaded, though for some reason the software doesn’t seem to be sorting them correctly, even after I’ve told it (twice) to sort by the timestamp on the pictures. Ah, well. Feel free to take a look, just realize that many of the shots are out of sequence. I’ll work on rearranging them after I get home from work tonight.

Also, as I’m a bear of very little brain, there are a lot of people pictured who I couldn’t remember the names of. If any family members who are able to could add comments to the photos with the names of the people in question, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Wanted: advice concerning Wikis

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I’ve got a project running around in my head that I believe a Wiki would be a good solution for, but I’ve not done much to play with/experiment with Wikis in the past. I’d like to start playing around with this project soon after I get home, so if there’s anyone out there who might be able to give some advice or recommendations, I’d appreciate some “expert assistance”…

For a while now, I’ve been hosting The Hanscom Family Website. While the original intention was for it to be a collaborative weblog for the entire Hanscom family, so far it’s been acting primarily as my dad’s weblog (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!). Hopefully we’ll be gaining more authors soon, though, as I’ll be sending a “how to” tutorial to Susan, Eric, and possibly Doug and Pam also once I’m home.

One of the original ideas I wanted to include on the website (and actually was started on an earlier incarnation, but lost in a server mishap) was a genealogical record of the family. As I don’t know of a really good way to do a web-based family tree, my idea was for each person to have a single page listing important dates (birth, death, marriage, etc.), contact info (if desired), and biographical information. Each page would also have a set of links to immediate family members (parents, children, siblings) that would allow the user to navigate their way through the family tree. We could then, over time, create a genealogical database (of sorts) of the family.

One of the big reasons I’ve wanted to do this (and this was brought up in a major way during a conversation with my mom last night) was the number of stories that are scattered among all the various family members — some written, but many only currently locked in the vaults of memory.

The difficulty I had in the first implementation was that each person’s page was just a static HTML page, and if there were to be any changes to it, they’d have to be done myself. I’d need to have information and stories sent to me, at which point I’d make the changes to the static pages and save them to the server. It’d work, but it would be slow and somewhat kludgy, especially as it would rely on my own time constraints in order to get any additions actually incorporated into the pages.

Last night as mom and I were talking, though, it occurred to me that a Wiki could be a perfect solution to this problem. The page structure and layout would be essentially the same, but it would allow any of our family members to click an “Edit This Page” link on any one of the pages and add whatever they wanted, be it more biographical information about themselves, memories of other relatives, stories that have been passed down in family lore about ancestors, or other such things. In theory, at the very least, this could work very well.

My limitations (and worries) are simply that I’m by far the most technologically- and web-literate of my family members, and I need to do everything I can to make sure that the interface is as simple and easy to use as possible. I also want to ensure that the site is not publicly editable, so there would need to be some sort of account registration system so that I could grant global edit rights to family members, but prevent random passers-by from making unwelcome changes. I also want to have the system be as resource-friendly as possible, as it will be running on a 350Mhz G3 that is already hosting three websites, two of which use the MovableType weblogging system (which I love, but I also realize that Perl can be a major resource hog as sites grow, and my webserver only has so much firepower at the moment).

I did a quick web search and found the Wiki Wiki Web’s list of Wiki engines, but truth to tell, it’s a little daunting, as there are so many different engines available. Even if I narrow it down to the two languages that I’m sure my system can easily run (Perl and PHP) there are still a large number of possible choices, and I’m not entirely sure which scripting language would be the better choice as far as conserving system resources and ensuring that response time for serving/editing/saving pages is fairly reasonable.

So, to sum up, here’s what I’m looking for:

  • A Wiki (or similar) engine to allow for collaborative decentralized editing of a set of web pages.
  • User accounts or some form of access control and management.
  • As simple and ‘idiot-proof’ of an editing interface as possible.
  • Low (or as low as possible) system resource overhead.
  • The host webserver is a 350Mhz G3-based Mac running OS X 10.2 (i.e., the Apache webserver, Perl and PHP supported, UNIX-based).

Any ideas? Recommendations? Questions, comments, words of wisdom? Any and all would be appreciated!

Preparing to head home

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Well, the deed is done — there are now three sets of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hanscom’ in our branch of the Hanscom family.

The wedding was yesterday at the Memphis Botanic Garden, and went off very nicely. Dad and Aunt Susan were the officiates for the ceremony, Kev’s friend Stu and I were groomsmen (and I was best man), Em’s sister Elizabeth and friend Heather were the bridesmaids, and music was provided by mom and dad. Very nice, short, and sweet. There was a good laugh when Susan got names slightly confused and directed Em to place the ring onto Michael’s finger rather than Kevin’s — I didn’t realize that I was coming to Memphis to get married! Em knew which hand to aim for, though, and aside from being able to gently tease Susan about it, it didn’t cause a fuss at all.

Lots of pictures were taken, of course. Dad and I will be posting ours in the Hanscom Family photo gallery as soon as we get home, we should be getting Susan and Eric’s pictures added after they’re developed and sent to us, and there may be more after that. Quite likely only of any real interest to close family and friends, but still, they’ll be there.

Right now mom and dad are visiting with Em’s parents, and I’ll be getting shuttled off to the airport in about three hours or so. A short hop from Memphis to Cincinatti, and then from Cincinatti to Seattle, and I’ll be back home.

It’s been a wonderful weekend, though. I got to spend some time getting to know my cousins better — one of the downsides to being up in Alaska for much of my life was that I haven’t had as many chances to meet many of my relatives as often as I might have otherwise. Big family get-togethers such as weddings are good for rectifying such situations, though, which was a lot of fun. Mom, Eric and I spent a fun few hours debating politics last night (Susan and Eric form one of the few bastions of Republicanism in our immediate family), and Doug, Pam, Kayt, and Hannah came by our hotel room to visit for a while yesterday, which gave me some time to visit with Kayt (and give her a demo of my iPod that ended with her gently reminding her parents that she’s got a birthday coming up, and the iPod mini‘s are only \$250…).

Anyway, this is coming out all jumbled — I’m still a little out of it (hotel fold-out beds are not comfortable and do not promote a good night’s sleep), and there’s been so much going on this weekend that my brain’s still processing a fair amount of it. Not a bad thing in the least, but I’m sure that it doesn’t necessarily lead to the most coherent narratives. :) So on that note, I think I’m out until I get home.

Too many people!

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Well, no, not really “too many.” One hell of a lot, though.

We had our big dinner tonight at Rendevouz, a barbecue joint in downtown Memphis. I walked in, and was amazed — and ended up remarking to mom at one point how much I liked “small weddings.” Final count was forty people. I suppose that doesn’t really sound like all that much, but it was definitely something of a surprise (albeit a pleasant one).

Afterwards Kev and I wandered around Beale Street, apparently the main nightlife district here. Looked like fun, but between lots of people holed up for Valentines day and a chilly, rainy evening, it was apparently much slower than usual. Still, it was at least worth a lot.

I’m going to be crashing out with Em’s family for the night, but at the moment Kev, Wes and I are heading out to a local bar for Kev’s last night out as a bachelor — I’m not sure it’s going to be much of a “bachelor party,” but it’s at least more than just coming straight home and crashing out.

Besides — my little brother’s going to be married in another fourteen hours. I owe him a drink. :)