Deep-Thoughts

Compare The Candidates is a nifty web app that I found when looking into AppSpot, a Google cloud computing thingie. It shows a new style of design that rose in the last few years. I really admire it, and I love interacting with sites like this. It’s a little scary though, it feels like a generation gap. I don’t really feel like I know how to make something that feels like it. When HTTP and CGI came on the scene, I had my feet under me right off the bat. With this generation of design sensibility, I feel a little lost still. ...

I have from time to time astonished, annoyed, or otherwise aggrieved my friends by denying that greenhouse gases cause climate change. This is like standing up in an atheist convention and yelling, “Long Live the Pope!” Everyone knows that all civilized people believe in Global Warming, and the Grand Conspiracy to Prop Up Big Oil by Denying the Action of Greenhouse Gases. It gets even uglier because these days I mostly hang around Europeans, who have been brainwashed about the Global Warming story for much longer than Americans, and consider it one more indication that they are the more highly advanced lifeforms. (Regarding foreign policy and cheese, I will admit that Europeans are in fact more advanced lifeforms than Americans. The jury is still out on the state of the press, as I happened to read a few UK celebrity rags recently, and it appears that not even American journalism has yet fallen that low. But I digress.) ...

I like the IRS. I’ve never really minded paying taxes, and though I have some complaints with the complexity of our tax code, I know that’s not the IRS’s fault. They do the best they can with the mess given to them each year by congress. I think the way the IRS does e-filing is stupid, but I suspect it’s one of those things that simply can’t be any better than it is, for a bunch of reasons out of control of the reasonable people at the IRS. (There are unreasonable people everywhere, even at the IRS.) ...

Karl and I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight. There are fewer classic Moore scenes in it than his other movies, which is a huge improvement. His message is way too important to be lost in the noise of his wacky hijinks. In some ways, I think the criticism of his previous movies have taught him what Moore-moments are defensible, and which ones he needs to just leave out of movies. (The bank-rifle scene in Bowling for Columbine scene is a case where he was fairly excoriated by the critics, I think. To my knowledge, there are none of those in Fahrenheit 9/11.) ...

This is well worth reading. Something special is happing at Google, and with luck they will chart a new course that other companies can follow as they go public. Perhaps my employer, Tellme, will choose to follow such a course, though it seems unlikely. Our core values are probably as strong as Google’s, but are not exactly aligned with theirs.

Karl and I watched The Island of Dr. Moreau tonight. Luckily we were, uh, enhanced, by several beers, a white Russian, a screwdriver, and a glass of Kamikazes. The move sucked. But at least Karl uttered these memorable lines: “He’s getting the hang of the boom stick.” “Quonset hut madness!!!” “Cat versus Dog!” “He’s not dead YET.” I think maybe I need to redeem myself by reading the H. G. Wells novel now. ...

Psst… want to be terrified? Take a look at this. It’s this guy exploring the worst case scenario of what happens when we run out of oil. It goes as far as cannibalism! Real end-of-the-world stuff. At some point, it’s not terrifying anymore, because clearly the guy’s just off his rocker, right? OK, now go read some of the writing here, which is a group of reputable experts discussing the same thing and coming to the same conclusions. ...

Sometimes I come across a saying and I think, “that would make a good band name”. Tonight, which watching Insomniac, there was a steel mill on. In the furnace control room, there was a dial labeled megawatts. Megawatts! I immediately realized I just HAD to have one for a coworker. So I searched on ebay, and on Google. Nothing came up. Perhaps it was the search terms I used. I tried different things until I ended up with the search terms “megawatt gauge”. ...

I get this certain feeling when I read some things on the net. It’s this “click” in my brain that says, “This is a smart person, making good progress on an important problem.” I get it almost every time I read philg. Today’s dose of that feeling came from this article about what’s happening at OSCOM.

Friendster has critical mass. I just recently met two new groups of people, and both are hooked into Friendster. I knew about it a while ago, but I prefer to be a follower, instead of a leader in these “invite your friends” things. Looks like it is time for me to follow along and invite some friends to join. Hopefully Friendster will last longer than Six Degrees did last time this idea came around. ...