I love Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, a wonderful piece to listen to while creating. Listen to a one-minute sample in RealAudio format by choosing "1. Canon: in D" from this CDNOW page.
11:47 AMBad user interfaces and difficult computers suck for everybody. They suck for people who can't figure them out. They also suck for people who can figure them out. Not because they are time consuming and difficult, but because people who can figure them out get to spend hours, days, weeks, and perhaps years of their life having to help others who can't. Don't get me wrong; I like helping others. I'm just bothered by the fact the desire most friends and family have for my help was created by the incompetence, laziness or confused intentions of others. I'd rather help people for reasons other than the mistakes of developers and designers like myself. That is a deep psychological reason for why I desire to create interfaces that work and succeed. I have so many years behind me and ahead of me helping others figure computers out that I have a deep desire not to contribute to the wasteland of interface related problems.
12:18 AMTuesday, May 30, 2000
I want a bigger bed.
11:53 PMI watched a movie on USA tonight called Secret Cutting. The movie was about a teenage girl that cuts herself to deal with negative emotions. The cutting is parallel to vomiting and other forms of self-mutilation. In the movie, her parents couldn't get out of their own heads long enough to help her. It is so easy to see the cause of problems in others' lives, especially in a movie. Yet, it is hard to get out of your own head and cycle long enough to make the same observations of yourself that others would. It is hard, but quite worth doing and practicing.
11:22 PMMonday, May 29, 2000
I mistakenly ended an e-mail today with "Happy Memorial Day!" Duh! Just because businesses are closed and people aren't working doesn't mean we're celebrating. That's not what Memorial day is about. This site puts Memorial Day back into perspective.
9:51 PMSomeone wrote me and told me they like reading about my e-life. I didn't know I had an e-life, but I'm glad they think I have one. I wonder if people will start saying "get an e-life" in the future.
9:43 PMI'm not that special. I thought I was for a short while. I admired the voicemail, listened to it over and over again and even played it for my friends. I was seduced by the voicemail slut (I mean that only in the nicest way). Today I learned from a mailing list that she's done this many times before. Jish and Lane wrote about it. Here, hear the voicemail for yourself (in RealAudio format).
7:53 PMSunday, May 28, 2000
At the party someone mentioned Vindigo. Vindigo is the best Palm application I've seen for finding restaurants, stores and movies in NYC. You can search by food type or location, read reviews and get directions as if you are walking down the street (turn left here, turn right there, etc.). If you live in NY and own a Palm organizer, download it and see for yourself.
7:15 PMToday I attended my father's aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary party. That's a long time. I haven't woken up for even half as many days, let alone with a significant other by my side. I can fathom as an idea how long that is, but I know I can't feel it. I was touched seeing the longlyweds smother cake on each other's faces and grasping onto the other during dances. They danced to one of their wedding songs from over fifty years ago. The song sounded like it was from the roaring 20's. That helped to hit home how long they've actually been together.
7:00 PMSaturday, May 27, 2000
Amy and I went to the beach today. The sun was blocked by the clouds, but we managed to get red faces anyway. That's what we get for not putting on sun tan lotion because we thought the sun wasn't strong enough. We went to Point Pleasant, NJ, which was the site of this weekend's Jersey Shore Volleyball Association tournament. I may have been re-bitten by the volleyball bug. I'm trying to find a partner for next week's tournament.
8:20 PMSo I partly answered my own question using Google. I found the following links with useful information on upgrading to Windows 2000 (in order of decreasing usefulness to me):
- Windows Magazine's Essential Guide to Install Windows 2000
- Paul Thurrot's Installing Windows 2000 Professional
- Active Network's Windows 2000 Major Upgrade Issues
8:04 PMFriday, May 26, 2000
First, we get a picture of what we want in our head. Then we struggle every day to make it happen. Then it happens, kind of, and we suffer because it didn't happen the way we pictured it. Then we get another picture and do it again. Many pictures bring much suffering. So often, it is just better to let the picture go, but how often do we do that?
5:41 PMA question for the computer geeks out there: Do you know anyone that has successfully installed Windows 2000 over a working Windows NT 4.0 installation? I want to take advantage 2000's USB, power management and PCMCIA support. I don't want to take three weeks to recreate a working laptop.
3:31 PMLast night's Blogbowl was fun. My friends and I showed up late, in time to get only one game in. Until the eigth frame, Cam was struggling with the fact that I may beat him. Alas, that wasn't possible because Cam wore a bowling shirt that has his name on it. As you know, someone who owns a bowling shirt with his name on it can't be beaten.
It was fun to chat with Dave and Brig. I didn't get much chatting time with anyone else. Oh, and Brig brought her sister. She's cute.
11:31 AMAccording to what I heard on my voicemail (call toll-free at 1-877-545-7722 ext. 793), someone with a cute voice likes to sing the Scooby Doo theme. The question is, who? You?
11:20 AMWhy me? Why can't I get Internet access to work the way it should when it should? Why can't DSL be installed in my home? Anyway, the webcam images, my writing and e-mails I send will be sparse, again.
11:13 AMThursday, May 25, 2000
Richard Branson is afraid of technology. That just goes to show you how easy computers and technology are. The guy has raced boats across the Atlantic, flown hot-air balloons around the world, runs a billion-dollar company, has taken it public and bought it back, and he can't figure how to use a freaking computer. I've got my work cut out for me.
3:47 PMWednesday, May 24, 2000
Get your fix of webcams and people who write about their life here.
11:30 PMI'm going to attempt to attend the First BlogBowl Get-Together tomorrow night. I get these random urges to bond with other freaks like me who like to share their psychotic tendencies and warped perspectives with complete strangers through their web sites.
7:54 PMMental note: watermelon and anchovies don't go together.
7:52 PMSo far the laptop is working great, no cyan-effect.
7:53 PMBrig wrote the following about her plane ride to NYC:
i've discovered that an aisle seat is infinitely more pleasant than a window. if you're at the window, and the plane is full, you have to disturb two people whenever you need to use the loo. i hate to bother people like that. not that i mind in the least when i'm on the aisle and the person at the window needs to get out, but still, it seems such an imposition.Elan is an aisle boy. For me it comes down to this, if I'm in the window seat then I need to bother up to two people (who could be sleeping) to resolve a bodily urge. If I am in the aisle seat then people have to bother me, which is fine. In the aisle seat, I end up doing "favors" for others instead of the other way around. There is more satisfaction that way. Besides, I like people watching more than ground and cloud watching.
2:12 PMMy laptop is back from IBM's repair center. Comments were as follows:
Replaced LCD and LCD cable and corrected your display problem. Thank you!Jonathan, who inspected the machine, added "Buddha seems to be doing much better!" I haven't tried the laptop yet, but I'm hopeful.
1:47 PMAlmost all my white socks have holes in them. I need to buy socks! I kinda wish Amazon sold white cotton socks...
11:44 AMTuesday, May 23, 2000
Oops, Salon.com did it again. Author Strawberry Saroyan put's Britney Spears into perspective, explaining clearly what she is doing and why the world pays so much money for it. Here are a few good quotes, but reading the article is itself an unfolding experience:
"Britney Spears' songs and her persona, in fact, seem to be all-too-authentically Lolitaesque: Her appeal hinges on a confusion between, and an overlap of, sex and violence. Her secret weapon, as it were, is in some frightening and unspoken but also real way, abuse."And it works. It works so well because all massive entertainment successes that appeal to the world over cater to the basic senses and desires that come with being alive.
"We like sex, but we like it better when it's wrong. In fact, its very wrongness makes it even hotter. And what's more wrong, in a sense, than a girl in an abusive relationship -- who likes it? Who thinks it hurts, as another shamelessly commercial but conflicted pop star once sang, so good? And so we like a girl like Britney, who allows us to have our cake and hide it too: She'll give it to us, but she'll never tell."
"It's true life alright, stumbling upon moments, media and otherwise, that are the exact opposite of what they promised to be. And it may not just be odd, it also may be dangerous. In fact, it's supposed to be a leading cause for schizophrenia -- being sent mixed signals, being told (or, in this case, sold) one thing, and shown another. It screws with your sense of reality. It makes you, in a sense, split right down the middle. It cracks you in two.
And so we have Britney, a girl for our times. A virgin and a whore. A girl who doesn't know what she's doing, but boy does she do it. A girl who lets you hurt her, and who pretends, and maybe even believes, that she likes it. A girl whose pain is our pleasure. A girl who gets even, but only as long as it's hot. A Mouseketeer turned near-kiddie porn star. A girl, finally, who feeds something black and blue in all of us, but who wraps it up in a pretty pink bow."
6:48 PMHours after resigning last week I walked into a store to buy a banana for a lunch snack. An issue of Yoga International caught my attention. An article titled "Mind Games: How We Make Ourselves Sick" did it. I always felt that the state of my mind determines the state of my body. I see evidence of the inseparable connection in my own mind and body. So, I bought the magazine and read the article. It was great.
It summarizes well, how your conscience tells you what's right and wrong, and how ignoring this internal wisdom weakens your immune system and generates conditions of disease. Well first off conditions of dis-ease are created, after which disease will set in if more dis-ease is created from further disregard of your conscience. Do yourself a favor, if you're in Barnes & Noble or your local organic-feel-good-about-yourself store pick up a copy of the July 2000 issue and read the article (The article isn't on Yoga International's web site). The issue also contains a good article about getting a meditation practice together.
4:30 PMThursday, May 18, 2000
Amir and his friend Cecile went to Miami recently. Cecile documented their trip with photographs (via Amir). Her page is in French. I don't know French, but let me attempt to reverse engineer what they did from the pictures and what Amir told me. Here goes... They drove from New York to Miami in 6 days. Amir is Cecile's salsa partner. They drove 8-10 hours a day (in a BMW convertible)! They took photos and camped on the beach.
You can figure the rest out from the pictures. I don't want to ruin it for you. I was amused trying to recreate their trip using the words that resemble English, her black and white sketches and the color pictures.
11:57 PMI had dinner with Cam tonight at Baluchi's. Food was good. He was telling me about the exciting things his company, Alphanumerica, is doing. Now is a good time to be involved in the open-source movement. Cam has much more to say about that than me. After dinner we went to Chicago City Limits, but the UJA event was canceled because the stage flooded from tonight's thunderstorms. Instead, Cam suggested we head to netsetgoods.com launch party at a club in Chelsea. The party was loud and uneventful, not the scene we were hoping for. But, I enjoyed it because I got a free 15-minute head and neck massage.
11:39 PMI'm sending my ThinkPad in to be repared tonight. I will attach this letter with the laptop:
Dear IBM Tech Support,I feel like tech support needs to smile more often and have their customers appreciate the fact that they're human and do good stuff.
Thank you or taking the time to look at Buddha, my ThinkPad. He is a strange ThinkPad. Buddha works great. Buddha has a big screen, fast processor and a long battery life. But sometimes (like me) Buddha acts up. Buddha's screen turns cyan. Well, not the whole screen, but everything that used to be white on the screen becomes cyan. Cyan makes for very hard reading and lots of squinting.
You may benefit by knowing a few things. This cyan-effect, as I like to call it, doesn't appear on a monitor when I connect one to Buddha. You probably don't want to hear this, but I can make the cyan-effect go away by dropping Buddha or hitting him. I hate hurting Buddha because I'm afraid of damaging his long-term memory, but sometimes I just need to keep working.
I can't make the cyan-effect appear. Cyan-effecting happens pretty randomly. The only pattern I can work out is that I move or carry Buddha shortly before he turns cyan. I suspect some of Buddha's internals aren't very sturdy or well connected.
As instructed, I removed Buddha's long-term memory and pumped his stomach (err, removed his battery). I ran out of bracelets; so when you read this letter, please put one on Buddha that says Case # 22T2GHF.
Please take good care of him and if you could, return him to me in better health as soon as you can. Thanks!
Buddha's Master and Servant,
Elan Freydenson
4:28 PME-mail programs need a randomizer function that brings old e-mails to your attention. Today's e-mail programs push old e-mails below a fold on the screen when newer e-mails arrive. Conscious scrolling and effort by the user is required for them to notice old e-mails. Optionally, I would like my mail program to bring random old e-mails above the fold one at time. Then I may actually respond to the old e-mails I've forgotten or chosen to avoid. The older the e-mail the more frequently random it would appear.
I'm terribly behind in responding to e-mails. Hmph! I probably could have written a few e-mails in the time it took me to write this.
3:45 PMI'm nicer to strangers when I don't have a job.
3:42 PMNo surprises in Accentuate The Positive At Work And At Home (via Amy). Don't just work on removing the negative situations, but focus on already existing postitive situations. We should also bring emotional support from home to work and work to home. It helps if your family supports what you are doing for a living.
3:30 PMFreaking small world. (The party was lots of fun btw, more on that later). Bryan Busch's birthday was the 17th, also! He's a fellow Jersey-ite with a weblog and is exactly one year older than moi.
1:34 AM
