Mobil’Homme’s Friends

The Capitalist Manifesto

nobody@vox.com(DJK) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:45:15 -0600

The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire

I just started reading The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire by Andrew Bernstein. Though political philosophy is an important subject I have for a long time shied away from reading books on it. However, I am a fan of this author. I am into the second chapter and I am very much enjoying the book. I enjoy its style and it encompasses many historical facts that I was either not at all aware or only slightly acquainted.

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Barometer Rising

nobody@vox.com(DJK) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:25:46 -0600

Barometer Rising (New Canadian Library)

I just finished Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan. I thought the style was clear and demonstrated an uncommon depth of knowledge. The characterization revealed the morality of the characters and their motivations well through their thoughts and actions. The plot was surprisingly disappointing given the author's uncommon ability at style and characterization mentioned above. In a nutshell the actions of the characters involved in a conflict of justice are dwarfed by the introduction, toward the end of the novel, of a gigantic disaster completely outside of their control. This disaster, which takes place at the point in the novel where the climax should be and the reader expects it, completely takes over the novel. The resolution of the conflict is then mentioned almost as an afterthought just before the end of the novel. The style and characterization of this novel are strangely in contradiction with its plot.

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Two trips to Whole Foods...

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:42:22 -0600

I got an email from Mint.com tonight letting me know that we've been very, very bad. Fat and happy, but bad...:

Hi there,
You exceeded the $230 monthly budget you set for Groceries by $793 in July.
To view details go here:

[View Overview page]

Reminder: it's easy to re-set budget levels from your [Mint Overview page].
Cheers,
The Mint Team
P.S. Love Mint.com? Please tell a friend!

This isn't so bad of course. If you're going to blow a budget, I think you should blow the shit out of it...

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My little square friends

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:49:35 -0600

My little square friends

Every now and then, it actually strikes me as odd how my much life has become one defined primarily by multitudes of overlapping rectangles containing an nearly infinite but ephemeral stream of tiny meandering thoughts sent seemingly from a universe away by my little square friends often to no one in particular and apropos of nothing.

And then I get back work...

Just me, my furry office mate and my tiny little square friends. What an ultramodern, fantastical and lonely little world we've made for ourselves.

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Vox's Video Problem

nobody@vox.com(DJK) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:34:45 -0600

Vox hasn't been able to display any of the videos I have uploaded for almost a year. Flickr now supports videos, and does it well. Check Flickr for several videos I have recently uploaded.

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Laws make for ill-mannered idiots

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:24:01 -0600

One of the biggest differences I noticed between living in the U.S. and living abroad is the number of stupid laws made here and signs to inform you of all of them and those other things the control freaks want you to know.

Go to any park or into an underground MUNI station to see what I mean. No smoking, no pets, no offleash pets, no loitering, no camping, no panhandling, no vending, no solicitig, stay to the right, yield seats for handicapped and elderly, stay behind yellow line, no unauthorized personally, don't touch the third fucking rail.

O RLY?

Since returning from Europe -- where there are relatively few of these things -- I've been tormented by the condescension. But there was something else; some other reason it bothered me. Upon reading this (via ydnar), it hit me:

The Drachten Experiment
Think of Drachten, where they removed all of the traffic lights and stop signs, based on the work of the late Hans Monderman. "The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior," says Monderman. "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."

That's it. Making sure that Everything You Need to Know is written on the walls and signs around you creates an environment where an individual is essentially absolved of the full breadth of things that make us good neighbors and educated well-mannered citizens. When communities try to hold their people and way of life together with tactics akin to passive-aggressive sticky notes on the refrigerator, we all become lesser co-habitators.

I don't need a sign to tell me to give my seat on the bus to those who need it. I don't need a sign to tell me to pick up my dog's shit. I don't need a sign to tell me not to jump down onto the track of the BART train and touch the third-goddamned rail. These things should be completely and utterly obvious and ingrained in everyone. And if the failing of our society seems imminent without these prescriptions, then perhaps a few third rail surprises might actually help us all.

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I miss Vox

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:59:45 -0600

EOM

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Firefox remembers form input after crashing!

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:26:11 -0600

I worked for a little over a straight hour tonight on a new wiki document. During that time, I kept previewing but never saved. Dumb I know, but I kept thinking that I was done and then wanted to add a little more. What's more, I didn't really want the page to show up in the recent changes list.

So I got to the point where I was actually done. I had read over the document all the way to the bottom and had just decided to save when, of course, the computer completely freezes.

I did it to myself. It was stupid. I had two other text editors open that I could have used, saving the whole time, but no. This was the price I had to pay for my idiocy. Still, as you can imagine, I could have crushed rocks with my teeth.

So, after attempting (via another computer) to regain access to the UI, I finally threw in the towel and did a hard reboot. After the reboot, I opened up all of my apps again.

So, you know how when Firefox crashes, it asks you if you want to restore your last session? I love this feature. Well, I did that and would you believe? The browser remembered every single word of what I wrote and it was there waiting for me in the text area, ready for submission.

Seriously, Firefox, I don't think I could love you much more.

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ExpanDrive is like living in the future

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:46:58 -0600

I've become much more pragmatic in the last year or so when it comes to trying out the latest and greatest apps. That's mostly because I have a setup that works well for me and it would take something big to make me want to take time to learn a new app or a new habitual workflow.

Of course, when both Allan Odgaard and John Gruber link to the same one with glowing reviews, that's when I sit up and listen. In fact, ExpanDrive is the app I've been waiting for. And waiting for. And waiting for.^[*]

ExpanDrive (and its Windows counterpart) allows you to very simply mount a remote filesystem over SSH as if it were just another drive on your Mac. What's more, it apparently does so with blazing speed when compared to MacFUSE et al. I can confirm this at least insofar as I've tested.

Now, I can easily move crap around my various webservers and edit remote files and entire directory hierarchies effortlessly from TextMate. I can mount my mini (not as painful as it sounds) making it simpler to share an iTunes library. I can even set things up so I can access my FireWire hard drives while on the road.

This is the future I've been waiting for. Minus, of course, the jetpack that's been back-ordered all my life...

^[*] - MacFuse had promise but the installation, cautions of latency and my pragmatism kept me away until they refined it. Ironically, at least some of the MacFUSE underpinnings are used in ExpanDrive but the latter adds some caching elves and other magical creatures to make up the speed difference.

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Flickr adds video!

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:33:22 -0600

While video has already hit the big time with YouTube, Vimeo, Revver and countless others, no release has gotten me excited about actually creating videos than Flickr's new video feature. I actually said to Jen with real feeling behind it that I wanted to buy a video camera. I've never wanted to hassle of tapes or the endless rising tide of hard disk space necessary to deal with video, not to mention the editing/rendering time.

I suppose the reason is that it's a site I love and already use and more importantly all of my friends already use it. It's comfortable. It's familiar. It's simple and beautiful. Not to mention that The Flip makes it look pretty damn easy for a very nice price.

And now all of my friends are MOVING like wizard pictures in Harry Potter!

I mean, how can you NOT love this?! (*Ahem* Vox we need embed support! :-) You can go check out a whole bunch of other "editor's picks" from this group.

Of course, like anything on or off of the web it has its detractors... Of course, if God came down from heaven and created ponies for every human being, there would still be people bitching saying "Ponies are smelly and too expensive to keep" or "Oh great, who's going to clean up all the horseshit?!" or "Horses make it dangerous for walkers!" or "You've been gone 2000 years and THIS is all you brought us!?" or "Hey, YOU'RE not supposed to be a black woman!?"

Like unemployment, there is always a baseline of assholes because some segment of the entire population at any one time is in a sufficiently shitty mood to want to ruin it for the rest.

But me? I am a big fan. Thank you, Flickr for proving once again (and time after time) that you guys are awesome.

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