Amaztype. Hacking fun with Amazon web services.

Natural selection at work! Warning: may be considered gross.

Rent A German

I'm starting to rewrite two applications, combining their functionality into one, shiny new app.

One of the old applications was written in Java, targeted for Mac OS 9. OS 9 had a utility that took a Java application and wrapped its classfiles, classpath, jars, etc... into a single, double-clickable file. It made the Java app behave more like a native MacOS application.

This utility, JBindery, took your stuff and output a single file, the default name of which was "JBoundApp." Sort of a generic name, just in case the developer was too dim to assign a real name.

Well, this application that I'm rewriting was distributed to the users using the default name, so now they all call it "JBoundApp," like you'd call spreadsheet software "Excel" or a word processor "MS Word."

I wonder if this happened anywhere else? Are there people out there firing up their copy of a.out?

Oh my God. I'm watching the premiere of NBC's The Office. What a weak piece of sucking shit. Not content to license ideas from the BBC, NBC couldn't even muster the minimal creativity to write a new script.

They are using the BBC script with some minor "Americanization" changes.

American TV sucks.

Does NBC not know about cable television? The BBC version of The Office is airing here.

I can't believe how weak this is.

Gothamist reports that Barney Martin has died. He played Jerry's father on Seinfeld. Great stuff. I still giggle when I think of him saying, "eat a plum."

Would anyone like to comment on my thinning hair? It is really quite disturbing.

A brilliantly performed, full-orchestra 4' 33".

NYC Photobloggers meet-up last night. Good stuff. So many creative, talented people in the city.

Adam from tozzer.net.

Joe from Joe's NYC.

Red from 990000.com. Red got the worst question of the night ("What kind of strobes do you use?").

Jesse from jessechannorris.com.

Youngna from youngna.com. Youngna presented some great stuff with Zach Klein. I was shooting like shit last night, so I didn't get a useable shot of him; next time I bring a monopod. Not that Youngna's photo is all that usable. Zach's stuff is great -- check him out on Flickr.

Fotolog.net telling us that APIs are for geeks.

Alas, Flickr didn't show. It was great to put faces on some of the photoblogs. Thanks to the Apple store, Gothamist, and JPG Magazine for hosting, and Jake for MCing.

POTD

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"Life ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water."

Profoundly stupid protester arrested while trying to bring Terri Schiavo a cup of water. What was the plan once you got in there, moron? I hope there is a particularly hot corner of hell reserved for people who make a circus out of another family's tragedy.

Solidifying its position as the "me too" company, Hewlett Packard has acquired online photo sharing and printing site Snapfish.

Bravo. HP now owns one of the world's largest collections of cat photos, bad self portraits, and amateur pornography. Getty is surely feeling the pressure.

Unrealized Moscow

POTD

click for high-res

It sounds goofy, but every time I visit other places, places where I don't live, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to be there. This weekend, I was a guest in Washington, D.C. It was great fun to visit the National Gallery, walk the streets, and ride the Meto (even though we were stuck on a train for 30 minutes Sunday morning). It was also a great privilege to have dinner with a friend while in the city.

So I go to D.C. for the weekend, and Yahoo acquires Flickr. Damn. I hope this doesn't change Flickr for the worse. Yahoo is getting one hell of an asset.

Sometimes people make the most profound statements when, in fact, they intend to say quite the opposite.

I'm guessing that Tina Brown intended to pen a pithy commentary in her Washington Post piece. That isn't how I read it, though.

Treat yourself to the rambling writing in all its glory. Soak it in. Then ask yourself if Ms. Brown put her writing talents to their greatest use. I'm still processing the thrust of the article, but I think it might be one of the following: Condi's "rock star persona"; a comparison of Condoleezza Rice's, Hillary Clinton's, and Madeleine Albright's public image; thoughts about political correctness and risk taking.

It really doesn't matter which was her target; all are profoundly irrelevant.

"The Condi Style boomlet, however, will probably be short-lived. Madeleine Albright got a similar honeymoon when fashion writers burbled about those lapel pins of hers that were the size of small countries. To hold the public's attention for the long haul you have to display the hint of a character flaw that suggests a bubbling subtext or a possible fall from grace. "

Ms. Brown isn't discussing the issues, nor is she discussing the horse race. She is talking about the people talking about the horse race. She isn't Nero, nor the person trying to extinguish the flames around the Circus Maximus. She is the person making fun of the silly sandals worn by the firefighters.

"Even the rats themselves have to look over their shoulders, because some smaller rat is always waiting in the wings. Bloggers are the new Stasi. All the timidity this engenders, all this watching your mouth has started to feel positively un-American."

Bloggers aren't the new Stasi. Bloggers are doing the job that the "bored" White House correspondents should be doing. Citizen journalists are researching the facts and asking the hard questions. And they are doing this while full-time journalists are filing stories about the lapel pins Madeleine Albright used to wear.

Given the hard right's willingness to use fear, ignorance, hatred, and polarizing issues, and given the press' complicity with the plan, rather than calling bloggers the new Stasi, Ms. Brown should consider whether she has become one of Goebbels' copywriters.