Salon had a couple of

Salon had a couple of good articles recently on the problems at United Airlines (Unfriendly skies and Out of the Blue), but it's different when your unaccompanied twelve year old is sitting around for 4 1/2 hours (current guesstimate) waiting for his connecting flight. Keep your fingers crossed that flight 1518 leaves sometime today, please?

Some friends of mine are

Some friends of mine are talking about going together as a group and renting Castello Rocchette (in Bagnoregio, Lazio, Italy) for a week in October 2001. It's very, very lovely and very, very tempting.

By the way, one other

By the way, one other nice thing about the digital cable is how it will look on my forthcoming engagement present. As mentioned below, Dori has the ring. But I'll soon have the new digital projection TV.

We're also up on Haiku

We're also up on Haiku the Blog; check it out! It's kind of cool how our names add up to the middle seven syllables.

We're getting closer to the

We're getting closer to the 21st Century here in Healdsburg; our cable system has just been rebuilt, and as of today, we're enjoying digital cable. We've now got about a zillion channels, including something like 5 each of HBO, Showtime, TMC, Cinemax, Encore, and Starz. It's nice to have stuff like the Sci-Fi Channel back; I'd missed it since our move up here from LA. So far, I'm very impressed with the picture quality, and there's also a couple dozen digital music channels with no commercials and no talk.

We're told that we're now only about 4 to 6 weeks away from being able to get a cable modem here. After suffering through Centrex ISDN, I can't wait.

Two links for Sean: The

Two links for Sean:

• The Var'aq Programming Language: A Programming Environment for the 24th Century. This page is sort of a speculative glance at what a programming language on a Klingon computer system would look like. Yes, really.
  
• Lego Robotics Which Set Should I Buy? FAQ.

Via NTK: Selecting Blendolini Causes

Via NTK: Selecting Blendolini Causes Choco-Banana Shake Hang. More tales from MS support or a peek into the 21^st century? You decide.

Day 3: Sorry, no new

Day 3: Sorry, no new cute kid sayings today. Sometimes, twelve year olds just don't want to perform on cue.

He and his buddy did figure out, though, that the easiest way to make a robot go up a flight of stairs was to attach it to the bannister instead of trying to teach it to climb steps.

My cheese rating is Emmental,

My cheese rating is Emmental, while Tom's is Schloss. I would have picked him for a Parmesan or Romano, personally.

From SF Gate, an article

From SF Gate, an article on Wrath of the Dot-Com: Chronicler of Local Art Scene Ponders Loss, Options. I found this piece to be extremely offensive, in so many ways.

First, I think that it's ridiculous for SF'ers to be whining about how it's gotten too expensive due to the dot-commies. Campaigns for areas to remain crappy and crime-ridden (and therefore, cheap) is just one more form of bigotry, and it's not a form that's more acceptable than others, imo. Bigotry against people because they want to live in a nice place? C'mon, already.

But what really pissed me off about this article is the way the author said, not once but twice, that the gentrification of SF reminds him of the AIDS crisis--the way his friends are disappearing, oh dear, oh dear. Excuse me, but there really is life outside of SF; I know, because many of my neighbors (cool people, btw) are refugees from the high bay area prices. Last I checked, they were still perfectly alive, and even going back and visiting from time to time--something AIDS victims aren't quite able to do.

At the end of the article, though, he's talking about moving to (gasp!) Oakland and purchasing property with other "refugees." Their take on property ownership: Neither of us had ever done such a thing; it seemed far too adult...We both began to realize that there was a whole maturity component to this endeavor. Well, welcome (finally!) to being a grown-up, little boy.

Of course, doesn't he realize that doing this will drive up the rents in Oakland, which will then kick out the current residents? Sounds like he's becoming part of the problem, to me.

Day 2 of a newbie

Day 2 of a newbie programmer: "It's not working the way I want, and every time I look at it, it turns out that it's doing just what I told it to do!"

I've said it before, and

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Run, don't walk, and read the always excellent Joel on Software's latest article: Does Issuing Passports Make Microsoft a Country?. What's interesting, to me at least, is how this all ties back together with MS's purchase of Firefly Network, the personalization people.

Mark Twain for President: Campaign

Mark Twain for President: Campaign 2000. (Via MemePool)

I'd just like to state

I'd just like to state for the record my objections to Tom's use below of the <irony> tag. The correct way to display this information is, of course, <fe>.

Almost lost in the <irony>

Almost lost in the <irony> breathless excitement of the Bush-Cheney announcement </irony> was the real news of the day: Alan Keyes has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination for President. He'll be missed.

The usual suspects picked up

The usual suspects picked up on my MacWEEK piece, along with a few weblogs I'd never heard of before: Archipelago, Geoff's Mindless Wanderings, and Swaine's World
. Thanks all!

On Saturday, Sean got Mindstorms

On Saturday, Sean got Mindstorms for his twelfth birthday, and I helped him hook it up today. First impressions: "Programming's a cinch" and "I found it works better when it's turned on." Yep, that's our kid.

Some friends of ours from

Some friends of ours from Los Angeles visited us today. They're going to see Mt. Shasta; along the way they visited Hearst Castle, the Winchester Mystery House, and us. From the sublime to the ridiculous to... ?

Via Camworld: an excellent piece

Via Camworld: an excellent piece on Pride and Prejudice: The Platform War Comes to the Web. I think that he's missing one important element, though: most of what he's unhappy about is, imo, due to FrontPage.

Let's see... Bush puts Cheney

Let's see... Bush puts Cheney in charge of finding a VP, and the Cheney comes up with himself? Wow, that's pathetic.

Of course, this is all rumor-mongering, and we're supposed to get the real scoop tomorrow.

We've been sorely lacking in

We've been sorely lacking in Jesus links lately (sorry, Jean), so here's one, courtesy of the The Norwegian Heathen Society. (Requires Flash)

Dave sez: BTW, we bought

Dave sez: BTW, we bought a sexy name for a new site we're working on. It'll live up to its name for sure. First we're going to tell it what our favorite songs are. Then we're going to make it easy for you to do the same. And your friends, and so on. Is it viral? Do people read charts? What's number one on Napster? No one knows, not even Napster. Let's find out!

Wonder what domain name he's talking about; he's registered so many of them. Could it be this, this, this, or this? I gotta say, though, that I'm most curious about what Dave's going to do with this one.

Joel on Software: Microsoft Goes

Joel on Software: Microsoft Goes Bonkers. I'm not saying that there's nothing new in .NET. I'm saying that there's nothing there at all. The emperor has no clothes!