Inspiration
I really like Ashley
Wood's
work. The PopBot series is amazing. He works with a combination of traditional
and digital techniques. As you flip through his artwork, you'll even see screenshots
taken from his Mac.
:::
Macromedia's been doing their homework
Studio MX 2004 is coming. It ought to be shipping in a couple of weeks. Saw
demos of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and Flash Pro last night. Each looks
very
much
to be a worthwhile
upgrade.
If it
wasn't clear before, Macromedia is serious about courting application programmers.
In Flash, they've improved the ActionScript language
so that it's even more consistent with traditional OOP languages – ActionScript
2.0 supports strict typing, for example. They've also enhanced the Pro environment
so that developers who are used to
products
like
Visual Studio will feel more at home. A third way that they've made Flash
more approachable, is that they've added menu items that can generate timeline-based
animation or ActionScript behaviors for you. There's a lot of new video-encoding
stuff in Pro, and the latest player is version 7, but most of the new stuff
works without a problem in player 6, so you might not have to wait for the
player base to upgrade. What else? Improvements in small text rendering, and
a global spell-checker.
Dreamweaver is now set up to handle CSS even better than before, and is intended
to give designers the power to generate completely CSS-based layouts – no
tables involved. They've also done some impressive work with tasks like table
editing,
capturing styled tables from Excel, and rendering clean code from Microsoft
Office products via copy & paste. Some of the Fireworks image editing code
is embedded in Dreamweaver so that simple tasks like cropping an image no longer
require
a
round-trip
to Fireworks. There's also a new feature called Flash Elements, which allows
specially-designed Flash movies to be controlled through parameters using an
interface built into Dreamweaver. Perhaps the most useful tool in the new Dreamweaver
are the enhanced browser validation tools. You can select which browsers and
which versions you want to target, including Opera and Safari. Offending code
is highlighted in the editor, complete with suggestions on how to fix the
problem.
You can
jump
from error to error, and fix them as you go.
Fireworks has some nice new features: new live effects, and contour gradients,
which conform to the shape they're applied to. They've also implemented dashed
strokes for people like me, who never figured out how to get good-looking dotted
lines in Fireworks or PhotoShop. Anti-aliasing for text is also improved. There's
even an option to use the Quartz engine in OS X for rendering text anti-aliasing.
That's cool.
:::
In a hole and diggin' it deeper
[This new effort to secure international assistance in Iraq is] "a tacit admission
that
we
don't have the forces there to get the job done. If we don't turn things around
in the next few months we are facing a very serious long-term, problem." - Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz.
So, now we're going back to the very same UN that we said we said "fuck you"
to, five months ago?! The mess in Iraq is costing the US "at least $3.9
billion a month," with no end in sight. McCain is soft-peddling it when he
says we have a few months to turn it around before we face a long-term problem.
It's more likely that we've had a serious long-term problem since the bombing
started,
and folks are only beginning to wake up to how serious, and how long.
Why are they going back to the UN now, you might ask. Have you noticed the
reports that we need more troops over there? (Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld.) Well,
we're
fresh
out of troops, and enlistment is way down. If we were to continue to try and
go it alone, the only way to get more troops would be to bring back
the draft.
Talk
about
political poison – this mess is already being compared to
Viet Nam – the backlash to a draft under these circumstances would be a total
disaster. Sooo... Poor Colin has to pucker up and try to mend fences at the
UN.
The interesting thing now, is that they can't just ask the other countries
to send troops into harm's way. They have to offer a meaningful role in managing
things over there, yet they are adamant that the entire operation has to remain
under
US
control. Fascinating tight-rope they've asked Mr. Powell to walk. Sounds like
he doesn't have much candy to offer, and I wonder how much leverage he has
to twist arms with.
:::
Spell-checking this entry, I noticed the word "fuck" is not in Dreamweaver's
dictionary. Quel surprise!
Lady blogger from Baghdad
I was a bit disappointed with it all. For the last week, I was anticipating
some sort of… I don’t know- elaborate inauguration ceremony?
No, not really… maybe more of a festivity, worthy of the solemn occasion,
marking his ascent to power. A circus-themed gala, perhaps, where Bremer
can play the ring-master and Chalabi can jump through red, white and blue
hoops
to mark this historical day. Qambar can serve the cocktails. ...
...I stayed silent because I don’t even know the city anymore. Now,
areas are identified as “the one with the crater where the missile
exploded”,
or “the street with the ravaged houses”, or “the little
house next to that one where that family was killed”.
The looting and killing of today has changed from the looting and killing
in April. In April, it was quite random. Criminals were working alone. Now
they’re more organized than the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority)
and the troops combined. No one works alone anymore- they’ve created
gangs and armed militias. They pull up to houses in minivans and SUVs, armed
with machineguns and sometimes grenades. They barge into the house and demand
money and gold. If they don’t find enough, they abduct a child or female
and ask for ransom. Sometimes the whole family is killed- sometimes only
the male members of the family are killed. ...
Good to find another insider view. Sure, parts of it are probably skewed,
and not all the facts are checked, but that's no different than the filtered
junk
(mostly written by the Pentagon press corps) we
get
from CNN and Fox, is it?
This
entry has a lot of good stuff. The site's definitely worth a bookmark.
:::
Life's too short to drink cheap wine,
but if it's just inexpensive, I don't
mind. Had another bottle of Parallèle “45” Côtes du Rhône from Paul Jaboulet
Aîné last night. It's really tasty – a lighter red with a bit of a spark –
especially if you let it breathe for about an hour before you start drinking.
In fact, most reds really do become a lot
more magical, if you let them "open up" for at least an hour. We got an inexpesive
wine decanter (improperly labeled a caraffe) at Crate and Barrel. It looks
something
like
an hourglass that's had most of the top part sawed off. The wide bottom exposes
more of the wine's surface to the air, promoting the oxidation
that
makes the
wine come alive.
Another good, inexpensive red we had recently – 2000 Roc du Bel Air Bordeaux
Supérieur. It's 40% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 25% Cabernet Franc.
This and the Côtes du Rhône were about $10 each, and so much better
than those cloying generic reds that are often around the same price point.
Yup, they're both French. Got a problem with that? Cheers. Drink what ya like...
The 2000 wines from France are rated an especially good vintage, and there
are rumors that some of the producers are mixing in as much left-over 1999
as
they can get away with, to take advantage of the hype.
:::
Victim of their own success
Blogrolling.com is taking no more new subscribers, until they can get a handle
on some bandwidth issues.
:::
The decision, already in effect, has not been made public. It is being treated
as a "new interpretation" of existing law, according to the memo,
which was obtained by USA TODAY. As such, no public comment was required.
What decision? The decision to lift a 25-year-old ban on selling
sites contaminated with PCBs. The law was re-interpreted to make it easier
to sell property before it's properly cleaned up, the theory being that some
property has been stuck in limbo because the owners couldn't afford to
clean it up...
But the EPA already allowed its regional offices to waive the ban on selling
PCB-contaminated land when a buyer is willing to clean it up. Regional officials
say that process slowed the transfer of a few properties but generally worked.
Q: What happens to the materials that are removed from contaminated sites?
Are they dumped together somewhere else to form another, larger, contaminated
site? Or, are they burned, releasing who knows what into the atmosphere?
Brought to you by Bush & Co. – Bend over. We'll drive.
:::
The man burns in 366 days.
I've never been to Burning
Man. The idea is fascinating. Here's one
man's experience, including VR panoramas, and an article from
Wired. I'll have to go, at least once. Maybe next year?
A blonde girl walks into a drapery store. She tells the salesman:
"I'd like to buy a set of pink curtains for my computer screen."
Surprised, the
salesman replies:
"But, madam, computers don't need curtains!?"
To which the blonde says:
"Um, Helloooo!....
I've got WINDOWS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:::
Street scene in SoHo
:::
Monday was the annual West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn, but Saturday was
the kiddies' parade – which had much better weather than the adult parade this
year.
:::
Before the kiddie parade, we took in a bit more of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.The
water lilies were past their peak, but very interesting.
... not that water lilies were the only thing
in bloom.
:::
Isn't it ironic...
:::
Yowsah! Monday, I start the Fast Track to ColdFusion course. I'm definitely looking forward to this...
