NYC plans

OK, now that the transportation details have been worked out, I'm looking for ideas for what to do in a very limited time in Manhattan. It'll be me and Sean (age almost 15) from 6:40 pm Friday, July 18 to 9:45 am Sunday, July 20. It's not a lot of time so I'd like to make the most of it. What should we do? Shows, museums, ??? Tell me.

And if you're a NY-area buddy of ours reading this, get your bid in early to see us. Right now, our schedule is completely free, but that won't last long.

Correcting the record

OK, this made me laugh, especially considering the breast-beating some media outlets are doing about accuracy in the wake of the NYT's problems. From Slate's William Saletan:

Correction: In Monday's "Ballot Box," referring to presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, I wrote, "Somebody toss a dollar in his guitar case so he can buy a quart of milk." Kucinich, a vegan, does not drink milk.

NY advice needed, please!

A quick question for you smart people out there who know NY—which is the better idea (price-wise, hassle-wise, time-wise):

• renting a car in Manhattan on a Friday morning, driving to Albany and back that day, parking the car in Manhattan over the weekend, driving another round trip to Albany on Sunday, and then returning the car somewhere in Manhattan
• skip the car idea completely, and depend on the train from Manhattan to Albany for two roundtrips
• rent a car in Albany twice (Friday and Sunday) for the approx. two hours each time I have to be there
• rent a car twice in Manhattan just for the drives to Albany and back, and don't think about keeping it on Saturday

I hate the idea of having to deal with a car in Manhattan, but I also don't know if I'm going to find myself without any transportation in Albany. Anyone know how good the cab service is there?

Any suggestions would be heartily appreciated.

RIP IE/Mac

Microsoft drops development of Internet Explorer for Mac. RIP, IE/Mac. You were an amazing browser for your time. I sincerely hope that this isn't the end of the Tasman rendering engine.

Later note: Tantek found out about this announcement from the news reports. That just sucks.

The Green political fantasy

A nice quote about the Green Party from Salon's article Can Bush be toppled?; this quote from Paul Berman:

I interpret the Green Party as a movement of the middle and upper-middle class, as actually having a certain satisfaction with the way things are -- which is to say, the reason you should vote for the Greens is because you want to feel the excitement of political engagement, the adventure of it, but you don't really care what it's going to mean for other people if the Republicans get elected. It's the sexiness of sheer political fantasy. The advantage of the Green Party is that you can feel good, like you're playing a role, but your own good feelings about yourself aren't going to do anybody else one bit of good.

This seems to us to be spot on; many Green Party members appear to be more interested in political theater and in "making a statement" than in actually making a difference in people's lives.

Two more memberships for the WWDN fan club, please

This page calls us too cool for words.

This page (with a picture!) describes us as two of the nicest people [he's] ever met. Insanely smart Macheads, too!

Wow. We're, just, ummm... without words (a real rarity for two writers). Thanks for the compliments, Wil! We thought you and Anne were great folks and a blast to hang out with, too.

Mac and Perl communities meet

I've got tons of stuff running through my head about how cool last week's Geek Cruise to Hawaii was, but I've also got a ton of deadlines that I avoided while I was there so I'm swamped this week. I do want to state one thing publicly, though, so that if/when it comes to pass I can point to this and say that I predicted it:

This cruise was the first time that the heavy hitters in the Mac field and the Perl field have gotten together. These are two groups with an immense amount in common, but given tech niches, most of them had never met each other. But the Mac folks are getting geekier now that they're using OS X, and many (most?) of the Perl people are now using OS X as their main development platform. The attendees had a lot in common, and it was fascinating to watch connections being made.

So, my prediction: any time you get that many smart people thrown together, amazing things are likely to occur as a result. I want to point out for anyone in the future trying to figure out how all this started that they need to look back at the first week of June 2003 in Hawaii.

And it was an honor just to hang out with them.

Erdos and Bacon Numbers

At some point I need to do a massive brain dump from the Geek Cruise, but here's at least a partial answer to a question that arose: what people have both an Erdos number and a Bacon number? I was correct that one was Danica McKellar (Bacon of 2, Erdos of 4). I was also able to find one other: Paul Erdos himself (Bacon of 4, Erdos of 0 (obviously)).

Back on shore, redux

I was going to write about being back on dry land, but then I remembered that I'd already written it. Time to go have a little lie-down, I think.

We're back

We're back from the MacMania II cruise. More to come after we get some sleep (it was a long travel day home).