colemanate [kohlmaneyt] verb To build by means of ongoing discussion, vacillating, discourse, or examples until all parties cease to be interested: At least it didn’t colemanate in some horrible ending (K. O’Mara)
Some Nerd Treasures in the Attic
We’ve been in Spring cleaning mode here around the house. Angela went through our old file cabinet, combing over records for the past decade plus. We also both chucked most of our papers and files from college. That alone ended up being ten boxes to take to the document shredding & recycling place. In the process,… Continue reading Some Nerd Treasures in the Attic
Maybe McG Gets It After All
Speaking of summer movie thrills, I’m cautiously optimistic about Terminator: Salvation, which opens next week. Director “McG” — of Charlies Angel’s money grab remake fame ” makes a good case for going with a PG-13 rating: “It just became clear that the things that would take it to an R or an NC-17 would be:… Continue reading Maybe McG Gets It After All
The New Star Trek
With two kids now, finding time to go out to watch a movie is only a great challenge. Given that Angela is a long-time Trekker and that this was Mother’s day weekend, we really wanted to get out to see the new movie. We’re also big Lost fans and had really high hopes for this film. … Continue reading The New Star Trek
DVD Ripping Should be Legal for Personal Use
Wired’s Thread Level has a blog on the likely outcome of the Real Networks DVD ripping case. The provide a little background on the oddity of DVDs (& Blu-Ray discs, too): It’s OK to copy music from CDs, for example, and place it in an iPod. Yet, it’s illegal to do the same with a… Continue reading DVD Ripping Should be Legal for Personal Use
The Son Also Rises
Our second child — a boy named Wyatt Paul — was born yesterday morning. Currently, everyone is doing very well and we’re still in the hospital as my wife recovers from surgery. My in-laws are staying at our house and watching our daughter. All things considered, it seems that this delivery went even smoother than… Continue reading The Son Also Rises
What’s Wrong with Wall Street
Frank Rich’s excellent insight into the culture of Wall Street that was at the core of the current recession: This was not an exact replay of the preceding dot-com bubble. As a veteran of the tech gold rush recently observed to me, in Silicon Valley “the money comes later†and “the thing you make comes… Continue reading What’s Wrong with Wall Street
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Best description/review of the Watchmen film I’ve read yet that sums up my exact feelings: Fully deserving of its R rating, this is a sad, violent film about sad, violent people where the only one actually saving the world is the villain. While most superhero movies are about action and drama, this one’s a straight-up… Continue reading Who Watches the Watchmen?
PediPaws — Not As Advertised
Maggie, our overly-sensitive Airedale terrier, has some gnarly claws. I mean, she’s bread for digging up larger rodents and snapping their necks, so one can hardly blame her. It’s just what she is. Her claws are those black, really brittle type that are very tough to trim. The only way to do it that doesn’t… Continue reading PediPaws — Not As Advertised
Open Source Documentation
This is very humbling to me. Last week, at the DocTrain West conference, 25 writers produced a manual for FireFox in just two days as part of the FLOSS Manuals project. The manual is freely available online and is distributed in a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license. You can purchase a print-on-demand copy of the manual… Continue reading Open Source Documentation