May, 17, 2001 archives

finished ripping another shelf of cds. two to go. current status: 112 artists, 243 albums, 3088 songs, 12 gigs.

christian rock, gateway music to hell. i expect it to be the music played in hell. (via evhead via triptych cryptic via simon fleundy — watch for rolling blogs!)

tim o'reilly writes what has to be the best response to all the open-source nonsense floating about. i liked that he resurfaced eric raymond's notion that far more software is built for use than for sale. i'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of floating yahoo! as a success of the open-source industry, since i haven't seen where they've contributed back significantly. (but i think they may have in the freebsd community.) the story of how yahoo! arrived at using apache and freebsd is a good one. i wonder if it is online anywhere. (i heard it from david filo's keynote at the first apachecon.)

wow, this article by mary jo foley is remarkably clueless. a group of developers in australia is planning to release a "browser" under the gpl, written in visual basic, using the gecko and internet explorer rendering engines. or maybe on linux using the gecko and khtml engines. i can't believe this got any sort of coverage. clue for mary jo foley: all they're doing is putting a shell around other people's rendering engines! this is a day's work for a competent programmer.

a sneak preview from the next edition of the worst case scenario survival handbook series:

what should i do when i am attacked by a stealth pakistani remote-controlled robot alien monkey man?

• first, try not to panic. the monkey man is as scared of you as you are of it.
• next, try turning on a light. the monkey man, or possibly monkey men, thrive in the shadows.
• got a banana? although it has not yet been proven that monkey men eat bananas, it seems a logical thing to try.
• in a stern, commanding voice, yell: "bad monkey man! bad!"
• preening is always an option.
• don't even try to defend yourself with a knife. it is common knowledge that monkeys love knife fights.
• if his attacks persist, leap off a rooftop.

(adapted from an email from marcus without his permission.)

upn is planning to air an american iron chef, with william shatner as the chairman. gee, think this will suck? (and what's with the "inept english-language dubbing" in the article? i think the dubbing is actually remarkably well done. the real iron chef is an awesome show.)

ouch. summoned for jury duty on may 30, 7:45am. unfortunately, since i was called to the criminal courts building downtown, it requires showing up for ten days or serving through one trial. on the bright side, i can take the subway there. for ten days of service, i'll make $150 (with that generous $0.15/mile one-way travel allowance and $15/day for each day but the first). a two-week metro pass is $21. (driving would cost about the same for gas alone, and probably wouldn't be any faster.)