9/30/2006
php, xml, and character encodings
often I enjoy web programming posts just for the story. or for the quirks and hacks and hoops to jump through. PHP, XML, and Character Encodings: a tale of sadness, rage, and (data-)loss. on php4's (and specifically its xml parser's) handling of character sets. via simon willison.
also: my supervisor and I were talking about why people comment on blog posts. as far as I can tell, people either have to feel like they have something to contribute (their solution to a problem, interpretation of the author's solution to a problem, praise of or request for help with the author's solution, etc), or they have some personal connection to the author ("great cat pictures!"). Anyway, that blog post has a lot of comments, a big fat conversation of comments.
conversation:comments :: gaggle:geese?
note to self
with the new roommate this week, don't talk shit about the old. (not that there's a lot of 'shit' to talk: remember that too).
"translate this page" feature
read this article about Drupal / CivicSpace Translations. Some sort of translation may be in order for the site I'm working on (it would be a Good Thing to have our resources available to CA farm workers, or people who are trying to organize them), but obviously nonsense would be... bad. (and probably unacceptable...) more on translations in Drupal.
(from a few days ago)
"typeface," "font"
AIGA - They're not fonts! uh, oops. via kottke.
dashed lines
kottke pointed to this article that has examples of
the dashed line in use. I really like this
graph from Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information; it's very spare, and disperses with a lot of graph habits. Not sure how much I'd like it if it were on a page and I was looking for information from it.
dropshadow box
I am really happy about making this
box with a drop shadow, which is ridiculous because (1) I spent too much of a perfectly good friday night on it (2) it's reinventing the (rectangular, html) wheel and (3) it's not perfect (at least 3 reasons, which are left as an exercise to the reader).
9/29/2006
newspaper typefaces
some newspaper consultant's
Favorite Display Typefaces. I don't think newspaper typefaces should have scientific names like "galileo" and "kepler" or friendly like "brekeley" or aristocratic names like "walbaum." also, gill sans or lucida sans in a newspaper? weird?
Kirsten Academy
Gariet from the PSO's blog. will possibly have video next week?
Kirsten Academy.
"american music"
what do I mean when I say my roommate plays "american music"? van morrison influenced, that acoustic rock and roll with a tiny bit of country, men's voices?
YouTube - Blue Skies
mpegs and imovie
my roommate found out about YouTube last week, and last night he started posting videos. which is fucking cool, that someone can get involved so quickly.
he has a sony digital camera that records video clips in "MPEG 1 muxed" format; iMovie (5.0.2) can't edit MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 video (because they were designed as play-only formats). "Muxed" is an excellent word; it means that the audio and video tracks are interlaced. In our case, iMovie imported the video just fine, but the audio was gone. Turns out you have to convert MPEG 1 and 2 videos to something else—DV, I guess, though MOV or AVI should work too—before you can edit them with iMovie. The solution I found initially was DropDV, which was wicked simple, but the free version puts a watermark on your video. Later I found the answer: MPEG Streamclip, which converts to and from a million different video formats, whth lots of options, plus does some basic editing.
This exact problem is discussed on the forums at appleinsider: MPG files and iMovie.., and also at macosxhints: Quicktime with the Sony.... I only found out about Streamclip after googling for "dropdv alternatives."
my roommate on youtube.
addition: some notes on converting movies for use in imovie.
9/28/2006
on Georgia and Verdana
the internet has talked a lot about Georgia and Verdana. this article is decent, except for the part where it says, "[Georgia] is a sturdy face that could easily be used by any newspaper." NO it couldn't! no, no. Not a newspaper font at all, not the right proportions. Anyways, ther article:
Georgia & Verdana - typefaces for the screen
free pdf creation for windows
Review of free PDF creation software. Gisela asked if there was a way she could make pdfs on her computer; I'm going to point her to PrimoPDF (if it looks ok after I install it).
scratch that: the first pdf I made with primo pdf (from a letter on stationary) put a zig-zag in our logo, and the second (from a powerpoint presentation) changed the slides' orientation. PDFcreator worked better (other than wanting to install a toolbar, a desktop icon, and a contextual menu item, all of which you can deselect on installation).
girls gone wild, race and feminism
Girls Gone Wild, Race and Feminism. that blog is going on my regular reading list.
kb answered my question
yesterday I asked: "When someone says something will be "printed in pantones xxx and
xxx," do they mean that everything-everything will be in those two
colors? Blue and gold text, that is?" kb emailed this answer:
yes. pantone colors are used for "spot" colors, as opposed to
"process" (CMYK) colors. process colors are blends of the 4 inks, spot
colors can be blended with each other or cmyk sometimes, but that is
rare. in your case there may be screens of the two pantone colors (
the ink with more paper showing through) but when they say that they
mean the job will only use 2 inks.
kb > google.
thinking about copyright
from reading creative commons docs ("Things to think about before you apply a Creative Commons license"), I'm getting the impression that conceptually, copyright is the right to apply a license to your work. when work has a creative commons license, the creator still retains copyright. cc licenses seem to codify the mechanisms of cultural transfer.
from the US Copyright website (Copyright Office Basics - What is copyright?), I get that copyright means that the owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to reproduce the work, make derivative works, distribute (including sale of) the work, and to perform, display, or play a recording of the work. copyright applies to "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression," where "tangible medium of expression" (gov faq) is something you can see/hear/touch; I guess this would include web pages, and sheet or recorded music but presumably not unrecorded music, thoughts, speeches, conversations, jokes, and dances/movements.
so yeah: copyright is the right to determine how your work is used, which is done by attatching a license to the work. while the general idea of copyright is an "all rights reserved" license, that's not what copyright itself means. if copyright were a limited-time right (as it should be...), then any license a copyright owner applied to their work—creative commons, all rights reserved, whatever—would end when the term of copyright ended.
question: where do licenses like the GPL fall in terms of copyright? on the cc site something was mentioned about cc licenses not being the best option for software... what is a better option? why? as far as "tangible mediums" go, what about smell and taste, if you can fix it... ie, scratch and sniff stickers, dish soap smells? what about works in temporary mediums, like visual art made in sand? If it were recorded, then copyright would apply, but if the only recording of it was peoples' memories? (guess I have some more reading to do)
also, notes about cc licensing specifically: it's irrevocable, non-exclusive (can license the same work to generally under one license and to specific people under different licenses), you should be specific about what is cc licensed (ie, music but not album art, text but not design, everything everything). and some notes from thinking about licensing: you can write your own license. cc is just an established set of licenses. rolling your own license is like rolling your own software; sometimes it makes something that fits just right, and sometimes you write in big ugly holes.
9/27/2006
California housing bond
glossily positive opinion article on Prop 46, a Housing bond from 2002... coming up this fall is a vote on "Prop 1c" which aims to fund a similar set of programs.
The pro-Prop 1c campaign's main website, homes4ca.org feels information-poor: it's all spread out, the news articles aren't clearly quoted, the stories are cheesy, and it links a pdf flyer on the front page. I guess some of that is to be expected from a campaign website, though.
more font units
In Illustrator's text palette, why is the font size unit "px" in the box, but "pt" in the menu that drops down from the box?
defining visual identity
When someone says something will be "printed in pantones xxx and xxx," do they mean that everything-everything will be in those two colors? Blue and gold text, that is? While trying to answer that question, I ran accross this fascinating document:
University of Bath - Visual Identity. Fascinating because it's an exacting and very objective definition of a visual identity, and also because it's trying to communicate logo and type design choices through a set of rules, entirely without the reasoning behind those choices (it's an objective definition).
Design is science! At least it looks like it, when they use millimeters (what is this mixing millimeters and points, though? weird, even though it's appropriate for the stuff being measured).
google translation
read this article about
Drupal / CivicSpace Translations. Some sort of translation may be in order for the site I'm working on (it would be a Good Thing to have our resources available to CA farm workers, or people who are trying to organize them), but at the same time nonsense would be... bad.
more on translations in Drupal.
9/26/2006
to build a bookmarklet
you need to put things that return a value inside a "void operator": void(return true); uh, I just put the last statment that returns a value in a void operator and everything seems fine.
Bookmarklets: The "javascript:" Protocol - www.docjavascript.com
drupal clean urls
I was annoyed that you can't tell drupal to make clean urls automatically, so I hacked up this bookmarklet: drupal - make clean path. Note! doesn't check wheather you're on a drupal content creation page! doesn't check anything, in fact! doesn't even notice where you've put the content within the menus. needs drupal's clean urls turned on, etc. thrown together in firefox.
hopefully I'll (a) find the actual solution to this or (b) actually solve this. that would mean turning it into a module that auto-creates the clean url (unless a someone has edited the field), and makes sure the url is unique. and bases the url off of the item's place in the menus. it would probably not be client-side.
javascript and form validation
onsubmit="".
isolani - Simple Javascript and Forms
Nine Twelve Academy
this school has more PE classes than math classes:
Nine Twelve Academy
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
In San Francisco. I really want to go.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 6: Oct 6 - Oct 8, 2006. (my roommate Ian mentioned it the other night)
9/24/2006
lj
In the past few days, I have not only joined myspace, but also livejournal:
becw.livejournal.com. I will NOT be blogging there. Like I need another blog. I post infrequently enough without diluting the pool any more.
The Big Noob
I think this site is really pretty: The Big Noob™ - a Neubix Studios production. despite the fact that the archives are broken. the profile pics are excellent, and the big top image is informative plus pretty (wallpaper esp). I also like the way it creates its own "fold"... designing for above- and below- the fold is a 90s thing, but this is more like fitting two pages elegantly on to one; anyways, all the info is on the bottom part, and the top is just a quick way to engage people.
1. there are a lot of sites I think are really pretty without noting them. 2. I won't necessarily be imitating this site. 3. what is it with young designers focusing on their personality?
see also: purevolume, a music site that is kind of designed by those people. similar: blocks of content that aren't explicitly labeled but very clear what they are/contain. lots of types of content on the same page. content gets smaller/more lists as you move further down the page.
giving in
I joined myspace:
www.myspace.com/becisthefuture. massively customized with css, I considered but fell short of hacking things out with JS and the DOM. myspace itself doesn't make me feel half as disgusting as reading its html. ugh. oh, and using its interface. what is that shit?
9/23/2006
me talking about my process
my process of making my room cleaning movie, that is. from the september ctc vista pso.
At the Hub Pub in Boston - blip.tv (beta)
Penguin Cocktail Shaker
saw this
Penguin Cocktail Shaker, thought of Jess. who I miss, because there isn't anyone here yet who is crazy nerdy and noisy and ridiculous (or wait: that's my job, I just need someone to bounce off).
idea
"needs outside of the market" - discussed today in the context of housing.
9/22/2006
Sacramento bike maps
Sacramento Area Bikeway Maps Online. but I want a paper copy, one like Yana's
crazy NYC biking map. That was a sweet map.
UC Davis community development department
my work has strong connections to the
community development graduate program at UC Davis. (there's a page for the undergrad-oriented
Department of Human and Community Development, but it has no info).
common fruit and vegetable amounts
A list from the USDA of "
commodities and their most commonly used containers." Apples, cartons, tray, or cell pack, 40 pounds. Beets, carton or crate, 12 pounds. Kiwifruit, 1 layer flat, 7 pounds. Parsley, bushel, 60 bunched, 21 pounds. Etc.
social justice vs. civil rights
"Civil Rights/Gender Rights (a reinforcement of the nation/state)" vs. "social justice (a challenging of the nation/state)" (from Women of Color Blog � A quick note on inclusivity…). POC = people of color, WOC = women of color.
The fight for “inclusivity” and “diversity” also helps to position discussions of race/gender as something that can be addressed without any significant change in the hearts of those in power or the structure of oppression itself. In other words, POC, queers, females, trans, disabled folks can become soldiers who rape and set girls on fire JUST LIKE WHITE DUDES! White dudes don’t have to actually STOP raping and setting girls on fire.
about my digital camera
kb: the biggest annoyance about my digital camera (a canon powershot s230) is the slow shutter speed (or not exactly shutter speed; the slow shutter speed is required for the CCD to get all the light info it needs. anyways: results in blurry indoor pictures).
Lauren recommends
"curd rice"... a south Indian yogurt and rice dish. (Lauren with the rummy skills and her grandmother's frosting recipe).
ultimate frisbee in Sacramento
Sacramento Ultimate,
Ultimate Handbook. via Carlos' Sacramento Ultimate tshirt.
9/21/2006
Lessig's talk on free culture
linked this before, but here's the talk, and here's the transcript.
and then creative commons: is very focused on artistic and cultural creations on the internet. what about things like publications and research that have a life outside of the internet? how has cc been applied to more formal creations by organizations? or I'm missing things still...
The Big Fix
The Big Fix: riding across the US on fixed gear bicycles. showing in Davis on Monday.
meta
I have so much stuff in this blog that I am absolutely fascinated or excited or educated by or that seems terribly important to read again later that when I read through it I get this twitch that says, "blog this!" except always I already have. It's definitely rewarding to re-read things I've found and thought and still find them interesting and useful and not too embarassing.
9/20/2006
hun-gry. hungry.
sugar and specifically fruit makes me really hungry. fuck, I'm hungry. I'm so hungry I can't deal with powerpoint (or rather, Keynote).
Javascript Window Resize
useful for taking screenshots of websites for presentations:
Javascript Window Resize. or, at least, that's what I just used it for.
9/19/2006
restricting use
Architectures of Control in Design, a blog about things that are designed to restrict the way users can behave. via waxy links.
this example (public benches) shocked me when I first saw it in New York City.
prove it.
recent things I have not been able to accept as superior without gathering my own evidence:
- drupal vs. joomla/e107/xoops (duh: better templating engine, better code structure, better interface, and better modules. note that joomla > e107 > xoops.)
- postgres vs. mysql (not duh: mysql vs. postgresql)
- that TTT stem and handlebars vs. others in general (duh: respected, stiffer, rides better)
karianne says
"bi-identified dyke" = "byke" (oh, it's from
savage love, sept 7)
think
I am tired and want to stay home from work tomorrow to think (I don't pull shit like that though). wanting to think about: foreign key constraints,
in Postgres vs.
in MySQL's InnoDB and programatically in MyISAM, and also
strumming (about.com is aggravating, but in this case authoritative). Also I need some beans.
9/18/2006
computer = bicycle or car?
ben sums up the article. (
original article: there's a movie of Steve Jobs there! But really there's not much more than the summary gives.)
jargon misuse
I just used some tech jargon to ask the director here to spend $50 to upgrade our web hosting. He was tired and didn't know what it all meant and now I feel guilty, because I try to be very conscious in making this stuff accessible. If things look difficult, people won't see them as a tool they can use whether they're actually difficult or not.
Also: I hate the word "whether" because there are too many 'h's in it. Every time I spell it it fights with both storms and castrated rams.
9/17/2006
The Handsome Young Maid
I swear that I blogged this back in May, but: a woman sang this awesome song at the shanty sing Yana brought me to in New York: The Handsome Young Maid. Someone else sang a song called "Don't Sail on the Emma," but I couldn't find lyrics to that.
Oh: I guess I "blogged" it in my notebook. My notebook smells faintly of dark rolling tobacco, and ink.
willy mason - oxygen
the music video (that link will resize your window) is pretty standard issue (ie. sucks) but there are two completely adorable seconds 1/3 of the way in. you pretty much can get it from the screen shot, though:
bike safety
California Highway Patrol's page on bicycle safety. I need to remember to put some reflectors on my new bike.
talk like a pirate
How To Talk Pirate. heh. via slashdot.
Sacramento, home of internet celebrities...
apparently the Cockeyed.com dude (of
how much is inside fame) lives in Sacramento:
Why would anyone want to visit Sacramento?
sacramento record store
or do the kids call them "music stores" these days?
The Beat. I learned Friday that this and the café Naked Lunch (possibly at Q and 15th) are the hippest places in town. uh, that would be hearsay, nothing official. yet.
what is a "sew-up" tire?
Bicycle tires explained
9/15/2006
like
great defense of "like" at defective yeti:
I Like Like.
Javascript Boot Camp Tutorial
I can't believe I didn't blog this:
Javascript Boot Camp Tutorial. because I had it open for maybe two weeks at the beginning of august. it was a handy heads-up to basic js things.
CiviContribute
donations CMS module, works with drupal/civcspace sites and joomla/mambo sites.
CiviContribute Guide - CRM - CiviCRM Wiki
business cards!
my new business cards arrived today. this is my third and awesomest title: "Community Technology Specialist." before I have been a "Retail Associate" and a "Computer Consultant," neither of which made it on to a business card.
http auth
quick HTTP authentication setup guide (.htaccess files). mentions that the server needs the
AllowOverride directive somewhere (httpd.conf). of course,
Apache's .htaccess tutorial is good--talks about whys and why-nots as well as hows.
putting liberal values (back) in to liberal politics
Americans believe that leaders should have a moral core that informs what they do. This moral core is seen as more important than one’s stance on any particular issue. George W. Bush is perhaps the best example of this in recent memory. He summed it all up in the 2000 campaign, when, after facing criticism for his lack of mastery of foreign policy details, he responded: "Nobody needs to tell me what I believe. But I do need somebody to tell me where Kosovo is." (New York Times, 3/15/99)
from the Rockridge Institute, on values. via this post at All About My Vagina. also from there, "framing." as in, framing liberal politics in liberal values.
fast meat?
I'm reading Carolyn Chute's
Letourneau's Used Auto Parts and wondering: what is "fast meat"?
9/14/2006
affordable housing glossary
Housing Workbook Glossary. my supervisor emailed this to me.
Open Source CMS Award
Packt Publishing is holding an
Open Source CMS Award thing. by user vote. does that make sense? anyways, am once again looking at CMSes for work... plone is out because it requires zope and we definitely don't have our own server here (ah, the things I failed to appreciate at the RCG. not that I have a whole lot of love for Zope's usability).
form-based building codes
building codes that define what is wanted rather than what isn't. hrm...
resources page at the Form-Based Codes Institute
9/13/2006
"Bike Hikers"
I was hoping the "bikehikers" (how I origionally saw it written) were a group that biked to a hikes. I've definitely been daydreaming about biking to hikes. But no, they're just a cycling group.
Sacramento Bike Hikers.
screenshots in Windows
Windows Print Screen Key. also, two free applications to record movies from the screen:
camstudio (avi and swf) and
wink (swf, exe for movies, plus pdf and other still formats)
suing target for site inaccesibility
I just got noisily angry about web accessibility and cited this:
Blind patrons sue Target for site inaccessibility
cordiality
I keep this blog seperate from other things because I don't have to be cordial here. That is the word I've been thinking all weekend.
using online tools well
I think it's important to not ask to much of people when you're introducing them to online tools. give grand speaches on what it can do, then ask them to do something really easy, like taking the text of an email they've sent out and blogging it too. or something.
zip codes
there's a database of us zip codes freely available on the
CivicSpace download page. I've wanted for a while to overlay zip codes on a map of the US... or at least the first 2 or 3 digits.
industry terms
hah: "constituent relationship management." except it sounds almost reasonable (not for my particular organization at this point, though).
CivicCRM
websites bleed across regional boundaries
websites for regional organizations end up serving people outside of their region. sometimes a *majority* of a site's users are from outside its region. which is not good or bad, just interesting. obviously these sites should be designed for regional needs. a site like
ThinkBlueMaine.org will be used across the country; a town website would be very specifically locally used; what about something like
calruralhousing.org? would affordable housing groups in other states be looking at information here?
extreme sharpies!
at CCRH, we have "industrial" sharpies - sharpies with "super permanent ink" that "remains permanent under most chemical washes, and extreme heat and steam (up to 500 degrees F)." Because we will certainly be using our sharpies in an extreme fashion.
9/12/2006
fink quick start
installing fink to install readline to install postgreSQL to install Django. whew.
Fink - Download Quick Start
technology grants in california
the
Community Technology Foundation of California does tech grants in CA.
darryl recommends
KnowledgePlex, an affordable housing and community development news and resource site. what relation does the name "knowledgeplex" have to affordable housing and community development?
gentrification
... gentrification is a process of class transformation: it is the remaking of working-class psace to serve the needs of middle- and upper-class people. ...
(Gentrification and Resistance in New York City, by Kathe Newman and Elvin Wyly in the July/August 2005 issue of a magazine called Shelterforce put out by the National Housing Institute.
wordpress as a cms
jen at my old work was doing this with wordpress:
Gulf of Maine Census
Battlestar Galactica "webisodes"
damn, what a dumb name. Anyways, every Tuesday and Thursday at noon, they post a ~2 minute bit of pre-season Battlestar Galactica, until the show starts on October 6.
Battlestar Galactica at Scifi.com.
9/11/2006
supervisor's myspace blog
he uses it to talk about affordable housing issues in California, these days specifically a few bond issues on this November's ballot.
blog.myspace.com/ruralknight.
free windows ftp client
FileZilla. recommended by
photo matt.
community service words
"direct service provider" = hands on things.
Crimson Editor
A good free text editor for windows.
Homepage of Crimson Editor.
9/10/2006
underground old sacramento
apparently they raised the city 12 feet around 1862 because of repeated flooding. store owners had to do part of it themselves!:
"They were to build a cofferdam wall in front of their store 10 to 12 feet high, and the proprietor on the other side of the street was to do the same. And between the two cofferdam walls, the city filled in with debris, rock, dirt, whatever they could get."
and then they either raised their building, worked out of their second floor, or just used a ladder to get down (laughing). from this article at sacticket.com: Going underground. via heckasac.
apple cider donuts
apparently there is
a place outside of Sacramento where you can get apple cider donuts. I kind of have to go. I wonder if I can bicycle that far (no). I wonder if I can take the light rail partway, then bicycle (that's still 60 miles, about 40 more than I'm fit for). I could take the
amtrak bus (no: it's $17 each way). I *would* go on an entire day trip for apple cider donuts if the opportunity arose.
Rojo - web based rss reader
Rojo tour. rss + delicious + digg + saving stories. this would be a serious candidate were I to get into using rss (but I'm not, because I like the context of site design: being able to tell one web site from another and see new things with the context of previous posts.)
today's big stories on Rojo. found via waxy links mentioning that Rojo has been bought by Six Apart (for the CTO rather than the application).
privacy and transparency
Privacy and transparency - in social networking sites. in response to, but more far-reaching than, the facebook rss feeds of user activity. via waxy links.
oh, no! where's my first photo?
Flickr Help: with a free account, only your most recent 200 will show up. Is it time for me to start paying? bleh.
9/09/2006
roommate's dog ate the last of my delicious chocolate bar.
Dogs and Chocolate Toxicity
hanger
the closet in my new room is the length of the wall. the bar in the closet is entirely occupied by hangers. the most interesting one looks like this:
wasn't there an online museam of hangers? I think I saw it at the MoOM once.
notes from my CTC VISTA Project August 2006 Pre-Service Orientation
wikis. some are hosted services?
- "remixing is the heart of cultural innovation" ??? (I disagree, but mostly because I dislike using the word "remixing" because it is a trendy word.
creative commons concerns:
- controlling expansion? / brand protection
- (apathy about copyright)
- perexisting copyrights and limitations on sharing
from the handout (almost exactly what it said in the bottom section):
audience comments:
- wikispot - a hosted wiki service about places. there is a big Davis wiki. (when I wrote this down, I thought that the davis wiki was on wikispot. looking on the internet, I can't even find a wiki hosting service called wikispot, and the davis wiki certainly doesn't use it.
- why is drupal so big here?
- how is moodle related to drupal?
- openeducation.org
- schoolforge, eduforge
- what is elgg?
notes from nettrice's presentation:
- her blog: mixxnmash.blogspot.com
- requiring every student to blog: how many blogs does one person have to maintain?! on the other hand, if it's classwork it's classwork, and people should do it regardless of what they do outside of class.
- interesting (to me): having learned these web tools without other people, my interpretation is similar to other peoples' (this is good news)
- don't like the green sidebar
- was annoyed by the distorted thumbnails
notes from the crash course in "web 2.0" tools:
- I'm still not sure about using commercial tools for nonprofit or even for business purposes
- delicious has gotten really fancy with their js interface features
- check out the "alphabet soup" at ctcvista.org/node/53
tools we'll be encouraged to use:
other ctc vista things online:
other:
media that matters talk:
- meadiathatmattersfest.org
- 16 short documentary films, with an organization focus on youth made films. (that focus isn't part of the selection process, though, which is age-blind. 6 of 16 films are made by 13-21 year olds!)
- online, both streaming and downloadable
- broadcasted, on cable and satellite stations
- dvd, all 16 on the same disc
- screenings, by random or official people. will send a free dvd and materials if you want to host a screening!
- this is cool, that they don't see having multiple distribution methods as conflicting.
- but what the lady talked about was mostly how cool it was that their young filmmakers were getting so much exposure. which I found obnoxious, so I kind of tuned out until the movies started. the list of 4 distrobution methods, above is directly from the brochure.
notes from the brainstorming session (things I'm interested in doing this year):
- getting people to use online tools effectively
- email lists like citizen speak/putting that on calruralhousing.org
- CMSes - architecture and plugins
- whiting/publishing article type things (longer, more complete, than blog entries. polished and publishable)
- collaborative documentation
what is CivicSpace?
CivicSpace. it's not an obvious enough brand name to leave it as "Civic Space," for one thing. other than that, I don't have the energy to read past their intro paragraph, which doesn't answer my questions (is it a hosted website service? or just a listserv and message board? is it free? why isn't there a list of examples on the front page?).
side note on drupal: all three of the drupal based sites I've visited recently haven't changed their favicon from the default, which could be a squinty angry water droplet.
thinking about
supporting oppressed communities while discouraging their own patterns of opression. is expressing my disapproval constructive? I hate using the word 'oppression' all the time. also: 'professional.' at the same time, those words are addictive.
feeling critical and argumentative
generally my form of liking something is criticising it. if I care about something, I can usually give a constructive piece of criticism.
music
I like shawn colvin's version of 'sonny came home' (and am a bit embarassed about it).
my mom recommends
the movie
Munich.
9/08/2006
stupid words for talking about my body
why I say "ladies exam" when I mean "yearly gynecological appointment":
- because it's ridiculous.
- because it is interesting to me to associate myself with being a "lady"... an idea or expression of womanhood that I specifically don't identify with.
Ben says
that the south side of hills is usually settled before the north, and is more prosperous. In the northern hemisphere they get more sun. (In the southern hemisphere, it's the north side that is settled first.)
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons Licenses
Room Cleaning
Room Cleaning at blip.tv. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS IT IS AWESOME you can watch it at work it has no sound.
blip.tv is pretty cool, found out about it today at the CTC VISTA PSO, they have principles. (they lay no claim to works you upload. they have creative commons licensing built in. etc.)
9/07/2006
work scrap pad
I'm not sure if I ever noted that I had a blog at the RCG:
work scrap pad. I no longer work there, and don't add to it anymore, but it still exists (for now).
sac weather (is this all there is to life?)
the weather for sacramento as of yesterday:
from the nws forecast on tues the 5th
9/05/2006
notes about pictures in the blog
I like putting pictures in my posts to my blogs. I a little confused about wheather to post pictures to flickr and then blog them from there... but I feel like I should save flickr for photos, and scrapbook type things should go here.
I would almost switch all of my scrap-saving to photos and scans, but I've always loved leafing through old notes and ticket stubs and receipts. Written journals... meh. Give me an hour (two, five) with someone's junk drawer.
zine from the zine show
"leaflit imp" - the cover of a one-page zine I picked up at the zine show I went to with Cliph and Helena in Dublin. I think putting it all on one page is an awesome way to make a zine, because I am easily overwhelmed.
Boston/Cambridge Radical Queer Space
got this flyer from a girl at Burdock. It happens in Cambridge on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of every Month at 7pm.
fence slats
A while ago (years) I saw a fence with boards shaped like this and thought it was cool. At one point my parents were talking a lot about putting a fence around the garden.
extremely tempting
with my jitters about the orientation I'm going to tomorrow, and moving, I'm very, very tempted to set this as my desktop picture:
comic.
envelopes
In Belfast (Northern Ireland) I got my train tickets in an envelope. For the rest of the trip I was kind of obsessed with the envelope, which is manilla, funny sized (4 1/4x8 5/8 inches), and soft/smooth. I schemed about who to send it to, but instead stored special (job!) documents in it. Now it is even smoother and softer, but ripped. It was the "Niger Manilla" 01300, as described in this chart. Possibly also available from Wiggins Teape in the UK.
I also really like the envelopes with the rectangular flaps that reach all the way down to the bottom edge. (Envelopes are so awesome. I should send more letters so that I could buy more envelopes.) Unfortunately my stock of business "security" envelopes are classic and I like them well enough that I'm not running out for replacements.
crocodile hunter died yesterday
Steve Irwin, Wildlife Master, Is Killed by a Stingray at 44 - New York Times
Dr. Leo Smith, an expert on venomous fishes in the department of ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, said that although Mr. Irwin had no scientific degree and some scientists criticized his theatrics and hyperbole, “he could be considered a biologist rather than just a television personality.”
“He was knowledgeable and seemed to care passionately about wildlife,” Dr. Smith said.
So apparently he didn't even have a bachelor's degree (nytimes only mentions no science degree, this implies no degree at all... though that's not sourced... whatever). Over the summer I've been collecting examples of people who have interesting and intellectual lives without college degrees.
obnoxious phrase
"many do but most don't." It makes sense, but saying "many" do something nearly implies that a majority does that something... but wait, "most" don't do it, so not a majority. anyways, it's obnoxious.
enjoyable phrase
"laziest assed"
intersection of religion and politics, part 1
on WBUR the other day there was a guest who mentioned Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine's (D) position on the role of his religion on his actions as governor (if elected). He's a Roman Catholic and is against the death penalty for religious reasons, but if his office required that he authorize an execution, he would, because it's a public office. Or something: "Kaine, a Roman Catholic, said he has a faith-based objection to the death penalty but would carry out executions unless an inmate can demonstrate his innocence."
(
quote from this article, article found
via)
double jump
ten minutes later, still obsessed with flib book movies. (this has been going on for weeks, actually)
movie of my dad and dog jumping off a dock. at youtube.
I think I like the still version better than the movie, though:
9/04/2006
gray suit
There were three new button-up shirts in my size (14 1/2) at the thrift store the other day. One of them is a kind I thought I hated, but now that I have one I feel compelled to describe in as "natty" with a smirk. It is gray with white stripes, with a white collar and cuffs.
movie of me in a suit with the shirt. at youtube.
I am obsessed with flipbook movie making recently. When I finish packing I will also finish a movie about me packing.
pretty bike
vintage PEUGEOT Road Bike with UPGRADES. probably too big for me though.
Wilhelm Reich
I think that orgonite is pseudo-science, but it's a pretty interesting story: escape from the Nazis, altering the weather, a tiff with Einstein. Wilhelm Reich at Wikipedia, but especially the discussion about the article.
reading the discussion reminds me of a discussion Liz and I had last month. She teaches at NYU and students use Wikipedia as a source. I don't think thats ok (mostly because it is lazy and was never ok when I was writing papers), but we were talking about what could make it ok, like keeping a copy of the version of an article you reference, or using articles only as a starting point and working from the references. And most interesting was the idea of discovering different angles on a topic by reading the discussion about the article.
9/01/2006
on professors
how not to teach a class (via uncertain principles). Definitely sounds like my EE prof last semester. And the last paragraph describes my DiffEq professor.
