ihnatko’s posterous

Those of you who don't have Massachusetts roots -- you probably won't be able to relate to the video you're going to see coming from the Land of the Cod over the next few days. Ted Kennedy was much, much loved.

The older folk were around for the full dynasty and losing Teddy is like finding out that a friend of theirs had just lost a son. The middle-younger folk like me came to know him during the Seventies and Eighties. We were perversely proud of the fact that all of his disgraces were personal ones, and all of his triumphs were on behalf of Americans in general and the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in particular.

The Younger-Younger folk got to know him after he'd sobered up. They knew perhaps the last living example of the true Distinguished Senator, an ardent fighter advancing the working and living conditions of those with the fewest friends in national politics, one of the few to correctly call "Bull****" on the case for war against Iraq.

Every disagreement I have with the concept of Term Limits, I owe to Ted Kennedy. Kennedy was a fantastic Senator; we could have had no greater advocate. He had a true passion for public service, he seemed incorruptible, and after 20, 30, 40 years in the Senate, he knew how the entire system worked and how to get things done.

What sort of blight-sighted system would use "he has too much experience" as a reason to boot such a man out of his job?

And what a story Ted Kennedy represented. Here's the pitch: you're the youngest child of a man who's frustrated by the fact that despite his wealth, despite his connections, and despite marrying well, he'd never be thought of as anything more than a Useful Irishman by those high in power.

Your father earmarks your oldest brother to get into politics. He's killed in World War II. So he lines up your oldest surviving brother and he becomes President! And then he's assassinated. Again, your oldest surviving brother is lined up; again, your oldest brother is shot.

And now you're next in line.

Oh, and you're in a near-fatal plane crash that kills two other people, including your personal aide, and spend months convalescent from severe injuries.

Okay...NOW what do you do?

It would seem as though the death of Kennedy's presidential ambitions gave him new life. It's a great illustration of the importance of finding your place in the world. If he'd been elected in 1980, he might have been a great President or he might have been a middlin' one. He might have won a second term, or he might have retired to Hyannisport after four years. Either way: what a terrible loss that would have been. We all would have been denied what were probably Kennedy's most productive and vigilant 25 years of public service.

We knew his death was near. I'm a little sadder than I figured. Mom loved the Kennedys. When there were arguments about the Kennedys -- inspired by a fresh scandal and usually instigated by Dad, who was from out-of-state and thus not necessarily a fan -- she would end the discussion definitively.

"When you have suffered, as the Kennedys have suffered..."

And there were no more words after the ellipses. I sort of stopped wondering what those words might have been, after hearing the phrase enough times.

I imagine that there'll be a public memorial...some sort of opportunity for the people of Massachusetts to pay their respects. I'll try to be there. The anniversary of Mom's death is coming up and I'll attend her memorial mass of course. But I think it'd have pleased her even more to know that her duly-appointed deputy was paying respects to a Senator whom she loved and admired.

Loading mentions Retweet

Damn and blast. I don't know why the photo that I attached to that last post didn't come through. Well, here it is anyway.
 
The screen is very high resolution for its size. ASUS didn't have specs for me but I would guess it has more pixels than an iPhone screen...it "felt" like VGA or a little better. The surface of the keyboard appeared to be a brushed metal. It certainly had a reassuring heft.
 
The specs on the pub food: very thinly-sliced ham and some sort of salami, to be wrapped around bits of breadstick; toast with a very tasty bleu cheese.

Loading mentions Retweet

I really should schedule more briefings in the late afternoon. They often happen in hotel bars, you see. Today I found that when you meet at 5 instead of 1, it's practically rude to decline a cocktail. (Particularly in the Liberty Hotel near Beacon Hill, which has a rather fantastic drinks menu).
 
Here's the general drill on product briefings. A rep is in town for a day or two. Either they're here to see me specifically or (more likely) they're off on a weeklong jaunt across the country. Cities containing multiple Persons Of Interest get priority. It's generally fairly casual; we chat for an hour, I get to see (usually) an early engineering sample, and we bounce ideas off of each other. I'm generally trying to figure out how excited I ought to be about this thing. The rep (he or she can be at any level of the company) is trying to figure out how interested I am...sometimes, it's early enough in the development of the product that they also want to know what I like and I don't like about it.
 
Some stuff is under NDA. Some stuff is completely open, as was this particular item from my briefing with ASUS: this is an entire computer housed inside a conventionally-sized keyboard, with its own dedicated little screen right on the device.

(Dammit, the photo I attached didn't show up. Check the next post.)

Yes, it's just an engineering sample. But it was a functional one and I must say that I was impressed. I've been waiting for a true, proper "living room computer" to come along...a design that truly makes sense for sofatop computing. Media Center PCs? Naw, I don't want to have a whole PC stacked next to my TV, though I like the power and ambition of the designs. Plug in a laptop, and tie into it with a wireless mouse and keyboard? Same problem as I have with the Mac Mini. We're dealing with user interfaces that were designed for desktop use. Plus, some of the most convenient operations are clunky. I'm watching a movie and I'm into it, but I've got 18 seconds of downtime while Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise dispense with some important plot points and I just want to check up on Twitter. Do I tab out of my media app and open a browser window? Keep a Twitter client going at all times?
 
The idea of this keyboard PC is that you simply keep it plugged in via HDMI (or VGA, or a wireless video sender that costs extra). You now have a Windows XP PC with two screens. No need to obscure the Boxee window on your HDTV...just check for new Tweets on the little screen. When your attention is on the main screen, you can use the little display as a trackpad.
 
Let me make it clear that this isn't a keyboard: it's a PC. Turn it around and you'll find every port you'd likely find on a netbook, including Ethernet and three USB ports. (No SD card reader, though...I found that to be an odd omission). And it's a solidly-built thing with big, comfortable keys.
 
An actual review will come in a month or two when I get one in the office. It'll ship in October or November for $549.
 
If nothing else, I'm pleased to see a company that's brave enough to try something brand-new (or new-ish) in the field of desktop PCs. I've long been frustrated by the "Monitor, Tower, Keyboard" or "Screen And Keyboard Separated By A Hinge" duocracy of computer design. Even the iMac is barely a step forward. A computer that lives inside a keyboard? With a little screen for your "incidental" display needs?
 
Interesting. Very, very interesting.
 
Meanwhile, here I am at a pizza place on Beacon Hill. My one port wine cocktail was two hours ago and since then, I've had two slices of pizza. By the time I get to my car, it'll have been three hours.
 
(At my size, I probably had little to worry about to begin with, impairment-wise. But is one ever confident about answering "Yes" when the nice police officer asks "And have you had any alcohol tonight, sir?")
 
Again, I think I should arrange for more late-afternoon briefings. Not only because of the potential for a cocktail, of course. It's just that I usually try to set my briefings for 1 and when it's done at 2, I'm eager to rush home and begin what I refer to as "the second session" of work.
 
But when I'm out at 6? It's time for a nice stroll through the Public Garden as the sun is beginning to set. And it's dinnertime. And people are taking their dogs out for some air and to gather compliments from passers-by.
 
At the moment, it's a lovely little planet, you know.

Loading mentions Retweet

There's one specific situation in which I'm just not good at finishing something: when the thing isn't actually important and there also isn't any sort of deadline attached. Importance and Deadlines give you the protein you need to batter your way through obstacles. When the thing is merely something your sort of interested in, you'll wrestle with it for a certain number of minutes, hours, or days until something Important or Due Soon starts barking for your time.

This is by way of explaining why I haven't made any real changes to the looks or operation of my blog...and why a Terrific Idea For A New One has remained stalled in its opening overtures. I have the domain, I have a Wordpress install, and I have the header art...what I most definitely do not have is that basic skill set that allows the mere Enlightened Amateur to make Wordpress do precisely what he or she wants it to do.

You know what I mean? I know what I want this new site to look like. Wide-ish box for the content. A wide center column with the actual postings, narrower columns to the left and right with lots of whitespace to as not to distract from the content. The "mascot" so to speak is the background image, pinned to the upper-left corner. A row of tabs at the top for rough navigation. And nice little styles for a variety of media content types.

This is something I hinted at in my Posterous review: Wordpress is as simple as it can possibly be. Which is not to say that it's as simple as anything can be. But Wordpress is first and formost a system for developing publishing platforms and those of us who want to control how every "i" is dotted and how every overscore is colored and shadowed need to adopt the mindset of a software developer.

(In the end, it's not so much different from when I blogged using CWOBber, my homemade blogging software. The first step in creating a blog is to build the tools with which you will build daily posts.)

We tend to overlook this. There are so many other services -- many of which have a nougaty center of Wordpress -- that make blogging into a true click-and-go system, and with a cozy level of personal customization as well. There's no rational reason to expect that building a Wordpress blog by hand should be as easy as Posterous, or even Squarespace.

So why don't I just go with one of those? Well, because

• I want to do more with Ihnatko.com and [redacted].com than what Posterous can handle.
• I want to have total control over where the content lives, and I want the ability to make regular backups of what I hope will be valuable content.

And admittedly,

• Cripes, the number of little services I already use that cost me $12 a month is enough to curl my nose hairs.

Squarespace is a nifty deal, but one of the fab things about getting virtual hosting through MediaTemple is that I can keep adding new Wordpress installations at no extra charge. I'm buying bandwidth. Whether I "spend" that bandwidth on one site or a dozen is completely up to me.

To learn is to live. I happily find myself in a line of work in which no time is wasted so long as I learned something in the process. (Ideally, something that I can then convert to discretionary income through publishing).

I had two illusions about Wordpress development:

"You can find an existing Wordpress theme that looks like the site you want. Download it, activate it, tweak it a little, and you're there."

Not really. There are thousands of free, professional themes for Wordpress that'll take you 75% of the way, but that's a bit like a ship that will take you 75% of the way to the Sun. You're still about 25,000,000 miles short so pack a lunch and wear comfortable shoes.

Also, good luck finding "a theme that's 75% close" to what you want. There are search engines that let you click and select sertain features ("Three columns," etc.) but on the whole you want a single checkbox that reads "C'mon, you know what I mean." It ain't there.

"I can build my own theme from scratch if necessary."

Indeed I could; indeed I did. But again, a Wordpress blog is a piece of software. The result of weeks of effort by a relative newbie is going to pale in comparison to the most trivial scrawlings of an experienced professional.

The power of Wordpress is its integration into the larger WP community of plugins and services. These things only work if the theme supports 'em. I quickly found myself back in my classic AppleScript Quandary, where I'd want to incorporate a feature to simplify posting, but the effort of writing that feature and making it work correctly far outstripped the effort required to just do it by hand every time, over my entire lifetime.

"I want to use this plugin with my theme."

"Okay: so here's how to incorporate support for the plugin architecture:..."

I've come to a conclusion: there are really only two solutions to my "I want a slick, custom Wordpress blog" problem.

I can simply pay someone to build it for me. Good. Satisfying. Do you want to spend the entire summer enjoying your new patio? Or do you want to spend May through August with a dug up backyard strewn with tools and supplies, ending with an amateurish barbecue deck that's finished just in time for Labor Day?

The difference is the ability to see your checkbook as a power tool. Honestly, give it a try. Put on canvas gloves while you sign it if it'll make you feel better. Yes, it kills you that you're spending all of that money for just a couple of days' labor. Think of it like this: you're not paying for the two days of labor. You're paying for the years of study and practical experience that allow this person to apply exactly the right procedure and technique without wasting time with inefficient methods, unproductive dead ends, unanticipated problems, or hopeless mistakes.

Not a satisfying solution for me, though. Experience is currency, for one. Currency is currency, as well, and all things considered I'd rather bash out an answer myself. I know CSS, I know HTML, and I have functional knowledge of JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, and the architecture of a Wordpress blog. I ought to be able to do this.

Which leaves me with Option 2:

Forget about finding a Wordpress theme that looks like it's just a few tweaks and styles away from what I want. Instead, I'll start with an utterly blank theme with every piece of WP infrastructure I'll need, and use it as the starting point.

So here's where I am right now: I've downloaded and installed the K2 theme. There are a couple of (old) tutorials on customizing it, and I'll prolly be dipping deep into that well.

Eh? Oh, well, yes, of course: if you have any suggestions or links to additional info or tutorials, or endorsements of other "blank" themes, I'd be pleased to hear them. Specifically, I'd love to compile a list of "See this CSS effect? See this popular webpage element? Here's how to make it happen" type tutorials.

(Dear Andy: please don't close this Firefox window before you've bookmarked the following multipart article about CSS tricks:

http://www.noupe.com/css/using-css-to-do-anything-50-creative-examples-and-tutorials.html

Oh, and pick up some cold cuts on your way home. Ham and Swiss? -- Love, Andy.)

What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is that I learn something.

I liked the movie "Apollo 13" but it did the world one great disservice: it put the phrase "Failure is not an option" into the lexicon. It's a deathly thing to embrace in any creative endeavor. At least it does if the maxim ends there.

It doesn't matter if you're a writer, an artist, an animator, or an engineer:

Failure isn't an option. It's actually an important and mandatory part of the process of creation.

If you didn't break it at least once, then clearly you never pushed hard enough to begin with. Granted, the ideal is to embrace Failure as part of the ongoing process and not as a desirable or acceptable result of that process.

Loading mentions Retweet

The more I use AutoStitch, the more it impresses me. Check out this photo. There's absolutely nothing odd about it whatsoever. I was at my local comix shop, I had a halfway decent camera with an ultrawide-angle lens, and I took a picture.
 
Aha...but it's all a lie. I was waiting for a friend, I was bored, and so I snapped three or four shots from about a foot away with my crummy iPhone camera. Not even the nifty iPhone 3G S...I mean the heroically-disappointing camera on the iPhone 3G. But a few seconds later, I launched AutoStitch, selected the photos in the camera roll, and seconds later I had a seamlessly-stitched, cropped image ready for posting.
 
AutoStitch is in that class of iPhone apps where I want to urge Apple to just write CloudBurst a check and incorporate the feature right into the Camera app. It's just too bloody useful. The classic problem for any camera is "what do you do when you can't back up far enough to get everybody and the whole scene in the frame at once?" And one of the best uses for a phone with 16 gigabytes of memory is to create an accidental ongoing timeline of your life. I can look through my camera roll and replay all of the significant and insignificant events and sights of my past two years on this planet. With AutoStitch, it's easy to document a full field of view. WIthout it, you can take a snapshot of a single element of interest but you can't capture the sense of the entire place, of standing in this spot and taking it all in.
 
I just wish it had an "email full resolution image" feature. The iPhone's camera roll downsamples all images to 800x600 when you tap the "Email Photo" button. Natcherly there's a workaround (don't use the built-in feature; copy the photo and paste it into a new email yourself) and you can get the full-rez image when you sync the phone to your desktop. But the power of cameraphoning comes from the impulse to take a photo and share it immediately...and extra steps are wasted effort.
 
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=318944927&mt=8

Loading mentions Retweet

Greetings from the parking lot of Lottery Vista Donuts on the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border. I decided to take TomTom out for a quick spin and here I am with a half a dozen crullers, two Quick Pucks for Tuesday night's drawing, and some quick first impressions:
 
"Good stuff."
 
I do wish that the display contained more info (and that the data it DOES present was easier to read with a casual glance) but it's a TomTom GPS that routed me quickly and accurately through some tricky terrain. Based on just 30 miles of driving, it looks like a very solid 1.0 release.
 
More later.

Loading mentions Retweet

Okay. I'm willing to walk around a comic-con or the MIT Flea with a big SLR and a flash head and a battery grip in order to get the best photos I can get. But THIS guy! This is a sign of true dedication:

Breaking it down for folks who aren't photo geeks: he's got a studio-style umbrella flash rig, mounted to a backpack and fired via a radio remote mounted on his Canon EOS 40D. My hat's off. Though I have to think that this lighting rig made candid shots a bit of a challenge.
 
I wonder how frequently people stopped to ask him what character he was supposed to be?
 
His photos, from the San Diego Comic-Con:
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howiemuzika/sets/72157621867516976/

Loading mentions Retweet

Another Third Sunday Of The Month, another MIT Flea. Once again I was left to ponder the question "What kind of weather ensures a big, lively MIT Flea?" I suspect that it's not "beautiful, warm and sunny" like today. If it's slightly miserable, the impulse to make the most of summer dissipates and people think nothing of spending two or three hours wandering through a parking garage and an outdoor lot. If it's completely miserable, why leave the house at all?

 So: not the greatest Flea of the year by any means. But it definitely fell within the broad parameters of Worth Coming Out For It.

 Yes, pictures were taken (the usual Flickr album will be up later). And yes, things were bought. For some reason there was a military theme to my purchases.

 First, I bought a cannonball. I'm going to keep it in the car and drop it inside the next town square Civil War cannon I come across. The NEXT time someone takes a gag photo of themselves lighting the fuse, boy will they be in for a nutty surprise! As well as everybody inside the big church 1000 yards away!

Oh, and my plan to own a complete military jet airplane is coming along nicely. I can't afford to buy the whole $59,299,201 aircraft right now, so I'm buying it in kit form, one part at a time. This way, I can purchase bits of it as I can afford them, and I'll save a bundle by assembling it myself.
 
First part: a titanium vane from the jet intake turbine:

You're probably thinking this is a silly idea, but it'll work out great. All of the parts are numbered so you know what order they all go in:

Loading mentions Retweet