Virtual, but permanent.
General comments.
I happened upon this nugget of historical coincidence some time ago in one of my Google home page gadgets. Saddam Hussein was captured on
the same calendar day on which Al Gore finally conceded the presidency. It’s the sort of coincidence that will bring infinite energy and thrills to every conspiracy theorist.
I only get a chuckle out of it. It’s hard to imagine what Al Gore thinks of it. Hussein has nothing to worry about anymore, of course.
It’s perhaps my tenth visit to Amsterdam, and I finally got to eat the mixture of fried cake dough, butter and sugar that are known as a form of traditional Dutch holiday cakes.
This is how they are made:
And, this is the final product. It is topped with about as much butter as cake, and topped with a large helping of powdered sugar. In celebration of the impending holidays, I had mine additionally topped with a shot of amaretto. Six euros, almost $10, was the cost, but it went down well after a long bike ride in freezing conditions.
Yes, that is a gargantuan block of butter that has been thoroughly carved.
Wish I remembered what the damn pancakes are called. I recommend them.
As it took about three weeks to get acquainted with the iPad and to post something to this blog, it has taken me about three weeks to stop marveling at the iPhone 4 and to put it to greater use. Or, even some use.
So, it might be fitting to make this first post a tribute to the grande dame of the family, my grandmother. I visited her a few Saturdays ago, and I presented her with this photo of her which I had just taken with the iPhone 4’s snazzy camera.
At first, this magnificent nonagenarian was skeptical that the image was that of her. “In manam?” (Is this me?) she inquired incredulously in Farsi. “Areh” (yeah) I replied repeatedly. Then, this remarkable woman who has valiantly and tenaciously survived the vicious battles that Farsi, French, Hebrew and English have waged for her neurons, turned to her Israeli neighbor and said, in perfect English, “I am very, very old!”
A long life is wonderful, but a slow demise is the ultimate spoiler for all: for the nonagenarian and all of her descendants. I can think of few sorrows greater then the slow process by which my grandmother is succumbing to time. The gradual transformation of this stubborn, invulnerable and irrepressible lioness and matriarch to a sedentary and gentle white-haired woman who struggles to hear, to stand up, to recognize her children and grandchildren and to remember her own life has caused more grief than any single event in my life.
It is a grief rooted in more than the mere realization that a most dearly beloved who has mothered and nurtured more than three generations will soon pass. The grief runs deeper to that fundamental realization that time is the ultimate ravager, merciless and infinite in its capability to destroy cities, nations, entire civilizations, planets and even galaxies. Given that perspective, the loss of one life is perhaps insignificant and trivial, but the human heart can never bear the burden of such a loss, and mine can’t bear the burden of seeing the single greatest pillar of strength in my entire life reduced to a tired soul awaiting death.
It is still a privilege to visit her and to love her, even though the lioness I remember was vanquished long ago. The only lesson to learn is to be appreciative of every moment and every privilege that time gives us.
I can only be cynical about the adage that time heals all wounds. When you’re dead, you don’t feel a thing.
This is absolutely nothing short of amazing. I just downloaded the latest version of the WordPress app for the iPad, and in less time than it takes to say WordPress, I am posting the first message to my blog.
This is a lot more than a revolution. It feels more like an upheaval of biblical proportions. This device changes everything. Absolutely everything.
Typing is still a bit clunky, but it’s my first attempt, and it’s going awfully fast for a first attempt. In fact, I am tempted to say that I am typing almost as fast as I type on my normal computer keyboard.
The top pee is the fact that I just pulled this choice photo of the fabulous view from my balcony from my photo gallery–the entirety of which resides on my iPad–into the post in about one second.
The iPad changes everything. Everything!!!
Firebomb thrown at Mont. marijuana business – Crime & courts- msnbc.com.
Was this guy trying to make a statement agains “medical” marijuana, or was he trying to get the whole town high? Maybe trying to get a free high?
So, I got the Wordbooker plugin installed and configured on my blog. This is a first test of the plugin to see how much it manages to amplify trivial words.
People are saying altogether too much about graffiti. About six months ago, graffiti burst onto the mainstream art scene with a bevy of exhibitions touting the rise of erstwhile taggers to the level of masters. One lovely exhibit was the Calligraffiti exhibit at Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. It consisted of works by graffiti artists from diverse backgrounds who integrated elements of Asian calligraphy into their works. On the whole, the exhibit was very nice, and the art was thought-provoking, but one could not escape the feeling that a great lion of expression had finally been de-fanged, de-clawed and thoroughly domesticated.
Graffiti was an expression of rebellion, much like punk rock. Its appeal was precisely in the way it which exposed, defied and counteracted the accepted order. It was a means for creative souls to circumvent commercial censorship boldly, loudly, crassly, beautifully and arrogantly. That was the point. And, it had to be done in grand style: graffiti’s impact came from the way it transformed and mutated the giant edifices of the corporate, commercial culture. Consequently, lacking any expression of defiance and confined to the small walls of a museum, the medium has no soul, it lacks impact, and it neither impresses nor inspires. The strict enforcement of criminal laws have quashed this wonderful voice. Only oddball geniuses like Banksy manage to provoke despite his ability to garner outrageous sums for his work.
So, as beautiful as these works of art may be, these are not loud avant-garde voices. Jean-Michel Besquiat’s genius and its context in the New York underground art scene in Downtown 81 puts all of this in perspective. Graffiti was the vanguard of underground art, itself the last bastion of creativity in a culture dominated by commercial enforcement of subordination, acceptance, mediocrity and complacency.
And, alas, with the acceptance of graffiti into the mainstream museums, this great vanguard of creativity may finally have been silenced, accepted into submission, swallowed by the capital juggernaut.
Graffiti, rest in peace. You had a great run.
About this time last year, the Guardian (UK), ran a very unscientific poll of the perceptions of its readers of the net results of the McCain-Obama debates.
As unscientific as this poll may be, it is impossible to dispute the prevalent choice in the UK. Though it would have been nice if the American perception mirrored this British perception, we can be thankful that such a lopsided perception was not necessary for Obama’s victory.
It’s the sort of victory that makes one believe.
Almost.
How does one go about improving on Microsoft Windows? One uses a virtualization engine to make it look more like a Mac. This development bespeaks frustration of biblical proportions that drove programmers to undo what Microsoft programmers spent billions of dollars to implement.
This tops even the wine project, wherein programmers forewent compensation for the pleasure of having Windows programs work inside Unix-like operating systems.
Still, Microsoft will never understand user interfaces and user experience issues.
It was recently the anniversary of the birth of the browser, the piece of software that changed the internet forever by spawning the world wide web, and the piece
of software whose further development is presently changing computing forever.
Of particular interest to Apple enthusiasts would be the fact that the first browser was written on a NeXT Computer workstation. The NeXT operating system became Apple’s OS X. Therefore, the world wide web was invented on a Mac.