The ancient burden of language.
I can still see the three perfect self-contained sentences if I look into the blue depths of the sky, into oceanic currents of air. Once, they rode dromedaries or Bactrian camels of syntax, bearing dangling modifiers in boxes, vases, jars. At all the stoplights and Shell stations in Los Altos and Encino, the inhabitants of night would talk about the Crab Nebula and how they saw it erupt in the frigid velvet darkness like the first strobe light in a Whitesnake concert, the first flash of the first camera in picture day at school, and what this meant. The three perfect self-contained sentences lived on the top of a mountain overlooking Menlo Park, and they had fiberglass radio dishes and astrographs and big Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes on tripods, and they had had studied the theory of peace on earth.
So peace would be established in parking lots and the office blocks on Wiltshire, and bags of Reese’s Pieces would be handed out for free. A waitress with frosted hair had seen the Macho Man Randy Savage asking for directions to the banquet of the resurrected at the Getty. Two aspiring hip-hop producers produced an iphone with photographs showing Frank Zappa eating an oven-roasted chicken sandwich on Ventura Boulevard, and they needed a tank of silver-grade unleaded and two bags of Doritos, because this meant that 2Pac was out there somewhere, clothed in white and riding a Ducati through the night. Everybody embraced, and two young Java developers burst into tears at the sudden beauty of the world.
Everyone knew that the three perfect sentences were on the move, through the deserts, because we could hear the sounds of tiny bells. But there were some that doubted that they were self-contained. “..es un Tigre que me destroza, pero yo soy el tigre; es un fuego que me consume, pero yo soy el fuego” said a line cook from El Cerrito, and we all knew that he was right. Serpents made of language that have a period preceding the initial capital letter, they were the recursive CatDog of perfection: if somebody tried to use a chalkboard to make a sentence tree from them, the tree would flower, and burst into leaves. Birds would gather on the branches made of chalk. They were like something out of that dream that Samuel Johnson had, which he was incapable of telling Boswell, because the weight of the words on paper, the shape of the words in his mouth, destroyed the purity of the absolute sentence, the single sustained example of perfect prose.
So where are the three perfect self-contained sentences now, Mr. Neece? What happened to their journey? And what will they find at the center of the world?
Further Proof that the Japanese Think of Everything
When I got out of the shower I looked in the mirror & behold:
Yes, they have heaters behind the mirrors that perfectly defog it in key spots.
Posted my first dispatch from Tokyo, though I’m now in London, jet-lagged & blog-lagged. Cheers.
Internet Overrun by Whiny Commenters
Consuming massive bandwidth every time they upload crudely Photoshopped images of Britney Spears spanking Miley Cyrus, and bantering with like-minded trolls while taking breaks from surfing explicit Internet porn, Web bullies loaf along in the passing lane of the information superhighway.
IRS Spam Is Clever, Dangerous
I just had a pretty scary piece of spam show up in my inbox. It appears to be from the IRS, implicates my employer, and comes immediately on the heels of the US tax season. All in all, very well socially-engineered.
Long story short, it’s spam, but you need to be careful. There’s more where it came from.
More details here.
How to resign from a job in the social media age
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, has tendered his resignation letter to Yahoo, as has his wife and fellow co-founder Caterina Fake. Check it out:
Put simply, Yahoo lost focus and Butterfield doesn’t feel he has a place anymore. The metallurgical storytelling is just clever metaphor. But that’s not the point.
A great many people are familiar with the ins-and-outs of corporate HR and workplace drama, so resignations and their accompanying letters are nothing new to them. But what do you most notice about Butterfield’s parting shot?
On Apple
Adam Lisagor discusses some interesting theories regarding the new MobleMe networks:
With the MobileMe unveiling (and that of its complementary domain me.com), it’s looking like a shift is afoot for Apple—a shift that may be every bit as significant as the shift from PowerPC to the Intel processor, but a shift in ideology whose signs may be found in the simple grammatical switch from subject (I) to object (me).
via jimr.ay
McCain Admits He’s an Absolute Illiterate When It Comes to Computers
No worries, I’m sure his wife will be around forever. Besides, computers are really not that popular, and I don’t think this Internet thing has much of a future anyway. To be honest, I don’t see any practical application at all for technology when it comes to the land’s highest office. None.
Huffington Post: McCain Admits He Doesn’t Know How to Use a Computer (Video)
iPhone 3G: The Siren Song
I have resisted the iPhone for a solid year now, instead sticking with my BlackBerry 8130 on Verizon. But increasingly the BB isn’t doing it for me, and I find myself lusting after iPhones even more than when they launched. I told myself some time ago that I would wait until iPhone v2 arrives, and assuming it has 3G capability, I would take the plunge then.
Tomorrow at WWDC might be the tipping point for me. If the new model amazes — and I think it will, but not NEARLY as much as the 3rd-party software demos will — I will buy one and make the move to AT&T.
I found some purported (‘leaked’) images of the 3G iPhone over on Engadget, but I have my doubts as to whether or not these are real. In fact, I agree with John Gruber: before WWDC, all ‘leaked’ info should be assumed false, as leaked Apple images/news are amazingly viral before any headline Apple event.
If you are an iPhone user, what are your impressions of the device (and network) after owning one for some time? Any insight into the whole iPhone vs. BlackBerry debate?
The World’s Most Expensive Fluid
For the longest time, I’ve tried to tell friends and family members that inkjet printers are a racket and create a completely false economy — they represent the razor blade business model on steroids. Consumers love the low entry price and seemingly have no problem whatsoever paying 40%-50% of the printer’s cost just for ink refills. They also don’t seem to notice that ink — especially black — is used at a supernaturally fast rate.
With my old printer, it took only 1.75 refills and I had bought the printer brand-new again.
With any luck, the jig will soon be up, because as it turns out, inkjet ink is the most expensive substance you’ll ever buy:
And wouldn’t you know, it turns out that printer ink, especially for photos, is probably the most expensive substance per volume you’ll ever buy—more expensive than gold, oil, perfume, even blood in most cases. If you’re buying name-brand ink cartridges, which typically hold a few milliliters of ink, you’re shelling out the equivalent of between $3,000 and $5,000 per gallon. (Suddenly, spending $45 to fill your car’s gas tank doesn’t seem so extravagant, eh?) Just as an idea of how valuable this particular golden goose is, more than 40 percent of HP’s $2.63 billion operating profits from last quarter came from it’s imaging and printing group alone. In other words, ink keeps printer companies in the black.
So what to do about printing photos? I just send mine to Costco or even Apple and have them shipped to me, depending on urgency. That way, I avoid the cost of the printer, ink and paper. My only printer is a reliable Brother B&W laser, which I will replace with a color laser eventually (which won’t be for photos).
Bottom line: these printers are a back-loaded ripoff and have been since day one. Now, most manufacturers (save HP) are even making their ink cartridges impossible to get aftermarket ink into, which means they can’t be refilled easily (or at all).
Microsoft WorldWide Telescope
Rex, bless his soul, was nice enough to post about an incredible video on new Microsoft technology which will change the way we view the universe: imagine Google Earth for space. There is no software released yet but there is a website.
You are required to watch the video. It’s the rules.
And Now a Way to BE Seen
Fresh from labs at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the device transmitted light from a powerful light-emitting diode, or LED, that pulsed through a fiber optic bundle, giving off infrared signals visible to pilots wearing night-vision goggles.
