February, 13, 2003 archives

peter carlson of the the washington post has a nice little essay about the rise of the screed as american political discourse. i don't think irony died, nuance did.

i know that i'm supposed to be all bitter and say things about how much i hate valentine's day because i'm uninvolved, but i'm not. life's too short to begrudge others their happiness.

some finds in bookcloseouts.com's moving sale:

• the cathedral and the bazaar by eric s. raymond for $2.99
• weaving the web by tim berners-lee for $2.49
• jay and silent bob strike back: the screenplay by kevin smith for $1.74
• pooh and the millenium by john tyerman williams for $3.49
• the raven and other poems and tales by edgar allan poe for $2.99
• yowl: selected poems about cats by ferris cook for $2.99
• zen for cats by henry beard for $2.47

i think that any small sliver of a chance that i was going to attend the live from the blogosphere event tomorrow disappeared when i got up from tying my shoes while out walking, and my back decided that the best way to respond to movement was with pain.

one downside of waiting until essentially the last minute to submit my oscon 2003 talk ideas is the danger that i'm in a too-clever mood when submitting them. that could result in at least one groan-inducing title, dropping in an obscure word thanks to too much time spent with a thesaurus, and ideas that are just too clever for their own good.

at least i left the extended peanut-butter-and-chocolate analogy out, although i'm not willing to guarantee it won't be found in the actual structure of the talk. (the way that will be guaranteed will be by my procastinating on actually writing the talks until days before they're given.)

if only i could bring myself to give another simple "intro to php" talk.