Strawberry Festival Today
April 30, 2003 in New York
Walking to work this morning I passed the setting up of NYU's Strawberry Festival (scroll down page). Promising a "Big Fun DAY!", the Festival will take place on W. 4th Street between Washington Sq. and Mercer from 11 AM - 3 PM. It's free and requires an NYU or government-issued photo ID. There will be cotton candy (yippee!) and all sorts of other street fair delights, a DJ, and they promise strawberries. What's odd is that they must be California strawberries, or some sort of import. It's too early in the year for local berries, isn't it? Regardless, it could provide a fun alternative to deli sandwich lunch if you're nearby.
Are you crazy about CSS?
April 29, 2003 in Science & Technology
OK, before I lose my mind and tear apart everything on my desk, I thought I would turn to the wonderful world wide web for some help. I'm trying to do some CSS-based tabs. I want them to work in the major browsers (read: pretty much everything but NN4). I've read a variety of articles about this, including Mark Pilgrim's Pure CSS Tabs and Mark Newhouse's CSS Design: Taming Lists, and I'm stuck. Can you help?
This is what I want (and have in Mac/Camino 0.7):
This is what I see in Mac/IE 5.2 and Win/IE:
Note in the second image there's a line beneath the forward tab, making it appear in the "behind" position like all the others. Here's my code. If you have any ideas how to make this work, I'll be forever grateful. And if it's not possible, I'd appreciate hearing that too, before I tear out what remains of my hair. I've turned on comments to facilitate your feedback. Thanks a gazillion!
(L)i(VE)Pods
April 29, 2003 in Science & Technology
If you're interested in seeing, fondling, or purchasing a new iPod in the NYC area, you'll have to wait until Friday night. The Apple store in SoHo (and I suspect the other stores as well) is having an iPod event from 6 - 10 PM with a "Live DJ, Free event poster, Limited-edition T-shirt. And more." You can also "win an awesome JBL sound system." I asked a salesman today why they didn't offer iPods at the store as soon as they were announced. He said they wanted, "to have everyone here, at once." While that may be fun (fun?) for the Apple store, it seems annoying for a curmudgeonly consumer like me. I don't want to pack into an Apple store on Friday night and hang out with a bunch of geeks and wait in a big line and be all crowded and bonked into. I just want to touch it before I buy it, and I can't do that online. Whine whine whine. I want an iPod now.
Update: Liz Phair will be at the SoHo store on Friday night. So maybe it *is* worth going! Tip from David.
Etcon 2003
April 24, 2003 in Happenings
Here's my presentation from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, "From the Margin of the Writable Web" in your choice of Powerpoint [112 KB] or HTML. Enjoy! And thanks again to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions. I'll try to post all of those when I get a chance later this week.
Update: here are the collaborative notes taken during my talk by some folks in the audience using Hydra. And here are Cory Doctorow's notes from the talk.
Major Six Apart news
April 23, 2003 in Science & Technology
Six Apart: Six Apart Ltd. Announces Close of Series "A" Financing
Six Apart Ltd. Announces the TypePad Personal Publishing Service
Six Apart Ltd. Names Anil Dash as Vice President of Business Development
Wow wow and wow! Way to go Ben and Mena!
Introducing Confab!
April 23, 2003 in Science & Technology
Ludicorp has whipped together a really cool social space called Confab for ETech.
Confab is an ad-hoc conversation space mapped to the conference facility's floorplan which allows you to discuss and debate sessions live with other attendees, make contacts, send instant messages and create conversations to plan group meetings and activities.
It will be very interesting to see how well it works and what sorts of behaviors emerge during the conference.
Better coverage elsewhere
April 23, 2003 in Happenings
This conference has confirmed my inability to multi-task in anyway, shape or form. I can't even manage to take notes and pay attention, never mind blog a talk, and Google it, and ask questions, and everything else that other people seem to be doing. So I'll point you to Jason's ETech coverage. Who knows how long he can keep it up, but it's great while he's doing it. I think I'll resign myself to listening for know.
California I'm coming...
April 21, 2003 in Travel
I'm going to see the folks I dig, and attend the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. None of my bags are packed, I'm not ready to go. But my presentation is all set and I can't wait. Yippee! And to everyone who I owe email (many going back months) I'm going to try and answer a bunch on the plane. Honest. Really. At least, I hope. That's the plan. Thanks for your patience.
Mt. Lassen Volcanic Park
April 19, 2003 in Happenings
It's getting on summer time and you know what that means -- time to plan some vacations! One of my favorite places in the whole wide world is Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. It's got boiling mud pits, sulfery pools, and an active volcano, all less than five hours from San Francisco! It makes a great weekend hiking getaway, and you can rent a house up there that'll sleep many (like 13!) for $300/weekend. I tell you this because I got a brochure today in the mail from the people I've rented from twice before, McGovern's Mt. Lassen Vacation Chalets. If you're looking for some good outdoor hiking fun, and an alternative to the crowds of Yosemite, Lassen's your park, and McGovern's chalets offer clean, cheap, and close access to some really spectacular sights.
The kindness of New Yorkers
April 18, 2003 in New York
Last night as I exited the subway, I stopped at the booth to have more money put on my MetroCard. As my transaction was being processed, a train pulled in. Several people began exiting through the turnstiles, while at the same time a woman came rushing into the station, mumbled about being in a hurry and missing the train, and got on line behind me. Just then, a woman exiting called out,
"Hey lady! Lady!"
We both turned.
"I just swiped my card so you could go through. Hurry! Don't miss your train!"
And with that, one woman dashed through the turnstile, calling out her thanks, and onto the uptown train. The other headed off into the evening. And I walked the whole way home with a smile, my mood brightened by what I'd witnessed.
Get the MUG
April 18, 2003 in New York
I subscribe to all sorts of daily and weekly emails but none please me as consistently as the Manhattan User's Guide. It's always the perfect length. It arrives in a timely fashion. It covers topics of interest to me (food & restaurants, shopping & services, neat things to do, etc.) and it does so with humor and insight. As a new New Yorker, it provides me with a wonderful blend of practical and special, giving me insider-like knowledge of all things Manhattan even though I've lived here less than six months. Best of all, it's free. If you live in NYC and you're not subscribed, I'd say you're missing out.
Christian Seder
April 16, 2003 in Happenings
As part of Passover, I knew Jews celebrated Seder but I wasn't aware of a Christian Seder movement. Reading the details, some of it makes sense. Some of it, "Seder is Christian and we can be confident that it will be a worthwhile experience because Jesus told us to do it," does not. For those that are celebrating, whether Christian or Jewish, Happy Passover! For those sweet-tooths that are celebrating, here are some recipes for Passover Tollhouse (chocolate-chip) cookies and Passover Chocolate Mandarin Torte. Yummy.
Female advice
April 16, 2003 in Life
I am probably the last person in the world to learn this, but in the off chance that I'm not, I wanted to share this fabulous discovery: ladies, if you wear a beige bra beneath white t-shirts or lightweight cotton blouses that are rather sheer, you get no bra outline! Stupid me, I usually wear white bras, and I could never figure out how to hide that horrid "bra outline" that appears. But now I know, it's all in the wearing of the beige bras. Of course, if your skin isn't a shade of beige, it probably won't work for you. So in that case I'd recommend a brown or black bra. But you get the point -- if bra matches skin, it doesn't show through shirt! But I bet your probably already knew that, didn't you?
Great thoughts from all
April 16, 2003 in Science & Technology
Thanks to everyone who's sent in thoughts about the cutting edge of blogging. The stuff I've gotten is really great. I think I'll post some of it to the site because a lot of it won't fit into my presentation but it's good stuff worth sharing. I thought "I want to be your naked personal assistant" from Candi had a lot of potential, but when I opened it, it turned out to address a different subject matter. Naked assistants and blogging, what more natural fit could there be?
Inferno reading in NYC
April 16, 2003 in Happenings
Tomorrow (Thursday) night at New York City's The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (the largest cathedral in the world) from 9 PM to midnight there will be a reading of Dante's
The Inferno. From the website: "New York poets and writers will read 'Inferno' by Dante Alighieri during the vigil on Maundy Thursday, the very hours Dante intended the events in this masterpiece to take place. Free admission."
Cutting edge blogging
April 15, 2003 in Science & Technology
I'm into the final push for my presentation, From the Margins of the Writable Web, for the Emerging Technology conference next week. I've been working on this for weeks now, but now I need you -- the general public -- to make sure I haven't missed any bleeding edge weblogging stuff (i.e. not warblogs or anything you'd read about in the paper). What's happening on the far-frontiers that I might have missed? If you've any ideas, please let me know via email. You'll get credit in my presentation if I use your example, of course. And I'll be posting the presentation afterwards to this site. Thanks for your help and participation, I appreciate it.
Words of wisdom
April 14, 2003 in Fashion & Style
"Every woman needs the following: her 'fuck me' shoes and her 'don't fuck with me' shoes." - Heather Champ
An Open mind
April 14, 2003 in Life
ATTN: L'Oréal Marketing Dept.
RE: Round Two
Mesdames:
After my inablity to achieve experte hair color last night (and as you now know, achieving instead garish results), I found myself Open to different hair colors. I sought something that would perhaps even out the cheetah-colored blend, while helping me, "see sparkling color alive with highlights." Alas, it turns out I am more than open about hair color, I am a foolish risk-taker who cannot learn a lesson. Didn't I learn about mixing red and blonde back in January '00?
It was the picture on the box that tricked me, mislead me, gave me hope. I wanted the "color that's never harsh, never fake." I wanted to be ZENITH 7c Copper Dark Blonde. It was, I admit, your marketing copy about ZENITH that sold me:
When you imagine your personal best, where are you? What are you doing? That's up to you. But your hair is probably this coppery dark blonde.
When I imagine my personal best, I am in New York City. I am walking down the streets of SoHo, wearing something sexy, something snuggly fitted that shows off my body. Heads are turning, both men and women, in my direction. Not because my hair is this coppery dark blonde, but because my hair is bright orange, a comic spectacle, a dye job so bad is supercedes the cheetah look of 24 hours ago.
Must I give up on L'Oréal completely? Is there no cheap hair product for me?
Living my personal worst,
Megnut
Où est l'experte?
April 14, 2003 in Life
ATTN: L'Oréal Marketing Dept.
RE: Product names
Mesdames:
You recently launched a new hair coloring product with the name Couleur Experte. My understanding, based on your marketing campaign, was that I would couleur like a pro and achieve experte results from my home bathroom. I write today to suggest an alternative marketing campaign. While your intentions with the name experte may have been good, my results speak for themselves, and highlight (no pun intended) the need for an immediate rebranding of Couleur Experte.
May I recommend Couleur de Débutant -- novice color, as we say in English -- as an alternative? While it may not spark sales like the other title, it more aptly describes the couleur de cheetah result I have achieved with your product.
Experte? Pas moi,
Megnut
Wider release for 'Beckham'
April 12, 2003 in Media
Bend it Like Beckham, the wonderful movie I mentioned recently, is getting a wider release across this US this weekend. So if it wasn't playing in your neighborhood, check again, it might be now.
Rather than 1000 words
April 11, 2003 in Life
Additional Office X updates
April 11, 2003 in Science & Technology
Apparently there are further updates to Office X for Mac than I was aware of when I posted about it the other day: 10.1.2 and 10.1.3. [thanks Gabe!]
Thanks Daphne
April 10, 2003 in Life
I want to extend a super-size thank you to megnut reader Daphne O. for the thoughtful gift from my wishlist. I'm enjoying the CD very much and it was very kind of you to send it. Megnut readers are the best readers in the entire blogospheristan!
Flow crazy
April 10, 2003 in Political
I've been using OmniGraffle for the past few days to create flows of the Lafayette system. It's become the only way I can think through any process, so I now present you with the American War with Iraq Justification Process Flow [32 KB].
What alert?
April 10, 2003 in Life
I keep seeing headlines about an Amber Alert and thinking with relief, "Ah, we're out of orange alert and downgraded to amber!" But that's not true -- there's not even an amber alert level -- instead it's a, "child kidnapping notification network" named after a girl, Amber, who was abducted and murdered. I can't keep track of all these alerts!
Remembering Dr. Anita Borg
April 08, 2003 in Science & Technology
Dr. Anita Borg, a computer science visionary and champion of women in technology died yesterday in CA. I was first introduced to Dr. Borg through the Systers mailing list, and her accomplishments have inspired me ever since. Founder of the Institute for Women in Technology, she worked towards so many things I believe in. From the philosophy statement of the IWT:
[T]he relationship between women and technology must be transformed. The number of girls pursuing math and science education must increase to parity with boys. Women must be encouraged to choose technical studies and careers. Women who make that choice must be supported as far as their skills and interests allow. The environment must assure that women of all backgrounds and races can bring the full richness of their experience to their own work.
With many challenges still before us, her leadership and vision will be missed. But her inspiration remains to encourage generations of women, including me. Thank you, Dr. Borg.
Bend it like Beckham
April 08, 2003 in Media
I went to see Bend it like Beckham last night and haven't enjoyed a movie that much in a long time. Though the plot is nothing new (teenage girl rebels against traditional parents, falls for guy, etc.) it's well acted, fun, and refreshing because of the details. The girl is rebelling because she wants to play soccer (called 'football' in the movie because it takes place in the UK). Finally, a movie about girls and sports, featuring strong, healthy, active girls playing soccer and having fun together. I can't even think of another movie that features girls and sports. There are no make-up crises, or prom crises, instead it's whether Jess, the protagonist, can go with her team to a match in Germany. Yippee! Plus it has fun music and confronts the stereotype that girls who are into sports are lesbians. Highly recommended for everyone, but especially if you played sports when you were younger. Also recommended for teen and pre-teen girls looking for a coming-of-age story where a young woman learns who she is (and wants to be) through athletics and family, as opposed to the mall and Vogue. Yippee again!
Via email, two more sports + girls movie suggestions: Blue Crush, about surfer girls in Maui and based on a Susan Orlean article and Girlfight, about a girl who takes up boxing in NYC. I've been wanting to see both and forgot, so I appreciate the reminders. Thanks folks!
Women and tech
April 07, 2003 in Science & Technology
Liz over at mamamusings has been thinking about women and social software and related issues: lack of women speakers, minority of women in technology, etc. I dug through my archives for some related posts from August 2001 and I know this is a still an issue. Though I've been speaking at lots of conferences, there aren't many other women up there on the podiums with me. I know that conference organizers would like to have more women speakers, so we need more women to submit proposals. You have until May 15, 2003 to submit a proposal for O'Reilly's Mac OSX Conference 2003. And they're still looking for proposals for lightning talks at the 2003 O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Geek girls, get in gear! And if you know of other conferences looking for speakers, let me know and I'll post them here.
DEF CON ELEVEN Call for Papers until June 15, 2003. DEF CON is, "the largest underground 'hacking' convention on the planet." [via boogah]
A nice po-mo chuckle
April 07, 2003 in Media
What would Baudrillard or Lacan say about an empty DVD case? Kieran Healy's spot-on speculation. [via mamamusings]
OS X Office update
April 07, 2003 in Science & Technology
There's an update to Microsoft Office for OS X that many don't seem to know about. Be aware that if you've got a copy of Office of dubious legality, after running the update, you might be prompted for the CD key. Also note that after I ran the update, I noticed a kind of super-anti-aliasing on my apps, text seems even fuzzier than before.
Take your own passport photos
April 06, 2003 in Travel
If your passport is up for renewal, make sure you look your best by taking your own pictures. Check out the State Department's Guidelines for Producing High-Quality Photographs for U.S. Travel Documents. Though the document is aimed at professional photographers, there's no reason you can't do your own shots at home by following the directions. After all, you're going to be stuck with the mug shot for ten years, you want to make it good. I was wearing two long dangly earrings the day of my last passport photo, but due to a lighting fluke, only one appeared in the print. I've spent the last ten years travelling the world looking like a devotee of Cindy Lauper.
A scary statistic
April 06, 2003 in Political
According to this BBC article, "59% of all Americans believe that what is written in the Bible's Book of Revelations will come to pass."
Noooooooooo!
April 06, 2003 in New York
Tomorrow: Snow will become heavy at times during the afternoon. Temps nearly steady in the low 30s...Chance of snow 80%. Snow may accumulate 3 to 6 inches.
Iraq and weblogs
April 05, 2003 in Science & Technology
Reading BBC correspondent Jim Muir's account of the death of BBC cameraman Kaveh Golestan and injury of producer Stuart Hughes this morning, I learned of Mr. Hughes blog, which he had been updating until his injuries on April 2. His Northern Iraq Weblog is packed with stories and photos, and seeing it was a Blog*Spot site filled me with a strange, powerful feeling.
Over the past four years, I've had such a range of emotions about Blogger and Pyra, many of which revolved around bitterness, anger, and disappointment. Time has done a good job of mellowing those feelings, and what time hasn't healed, (oddly enough) this war has. All those fights at the office, the worries about finances, the anger over indecision, all of it fades away into inconsequentiality when I see Salam Pax, Kevin Sites, and Stuart Hughes using Blogger to share their experiences with the world. I realize now, more than ever, it was all worth it.
On the impossibility of owning...
April 04, 2003 in Fashion & Style
...too many pairs of shoes. It has been said by some that I own enough shoes, to which I respond, are there enough stars in the sky?
Via email, a response
The sky is vast, but our closet is not.
Via email, a response to the response
You live in NY now...that's what your stove is for.
Eclipse plugins
April 04, 2003 in Science & Technology
One of the really cool things about Eclipse is that it has lots of plugins. I've installed two so far: SolarEclipse for color-coding of XML/HTML/JSP, etc. and Sysdeo Eclipse Tomcat Launcher, which lets you run Tomcat from within the Eclipse environment. Two more I'd like that I haven't found are a text wrap plugin and one that color-codes JavaScript. Please send me an email if you know of any. And soon, very soon, I will try and get comments going here so you can comment directly. There's just so much to do! And so little time!
A total Eclipse of my heart
April 03, 2003 in Science & Technology
I am about the happiest geek in town since yesterday, when I was introduced to Eclipse. Holy moly! Now I'm hoping I can find some nice plugins for HTML, CSS, and JSP and I'll be flying. Take that, sucky BBEdit! Ok, I shouldn't be too harsh on the ol' BB, and I shouldn't be too excited yet about Eclipse. But I am. It just already feels so much more usable to me, and I can feel the speed returning to all my programming endeavors. My apologies for the cheesy title, I couldn't resist.
Blogs in business
April 03, 2003 in Science & Technology
Lots of articles are coming about touting business uses for weblogs: Blogs likely to gain place in business world, Blogs Begin Getting Down to Business, so it seems like a good time to remind folks about
We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs' Chapter 8, Using Blogs in Business. Lots of stuff in here about how and why to use blogs in a business setting. And it's all yours for free! You don't even have to buy the book to get it.
Seabiscuit is coming!
April 01, 2003 in Media
The American Experience is airing a new episode on Seabiscuit, "the longshot that captured America's heart" on April 21 at 9 PM on PBS. I'm assuming this is related to the upcoming release of the movie about him. The site for the AE episode has a gallery of famous racehorses and also has vintage radio broadcasts of Seabiscuit's races. I can't wait to listen! Just thinking about the show and movie has me all Seabiscuit crazy again!
One final article
April 01, 2003 in Science & Technology
I missed this article on the Google/Pyra deal a while back: Only Connect: The Google-Pyra Deal. It's got a quote from me and talks a little about the Lafayette Project as well.
Ludicorp advisor
April 01, 2003 in Life
I'm pleased to announce I've joined the Ludicorp Advisory Team. You may recognize Ludicorp as the company behind the Game Neverending prototype that was released a few months ago. Ludicorp is up to some really cool stuff and I'm pleased to assist in any way possible. And I'm really looking forward to the launch of GNE later this year.
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