monday, august 16, 2004
Camera statistics
- 3200 pictures taken (according to the camera counter)
- +50 with other cameras
- -250 not by me
- = 3000 pictures.
- 695 pictures kept.
- I take four pictures for every one I keep.
- I should have about 300 good pictures.
- 434 days.
- I take seven pictures a day, on average.
- 110 pictures in /pixels/photo/.
- I post four percent of my pictures to jeweled platypus.
- I wonder if this really belongs in a definition list.
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A jeweled platypus
Translucent blue plastic platypus — sixty cents at a thrift store in Ventura.
Costume jewelery brooch — from my aunt Julie.
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friday, august 13, 2004
Pasadena words
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wednesday, august 11, 2004
View from a metro station
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sunday, august 08, 2004
Skating constraints
The Eagle Rock Branch Public Library had a problem with skateboarders. Kids from the neighborhood and nearby elementary and high schools loved the stairs and railings and curbs. A boy got hurt.
So they added a big square planter in the middle of the stairs. That didn’t stop the skaters. Soon, they glued little speedbumps onto the curbs and bought new, bumpy railings. They added some awkward fences. And now, the front of the library is permanently empty and ugly.
They could have just removed the curbs (so what if the grass spills over a little?) and turned the stairs into a slope (there’s enough room). No railings, no planter, no fences, and nothing for skateboarders to play on.
With the proper use of physical constraints there should be only a limited number of possible actions — or, at least, desired actions can be made obvious, usually by being especially salient.
(From The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman, p. 83.)
This is what happens when you make the undesired actions obvious instead.
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saturday, august 07, 2004
i’ll wait
so, i’m stuck at school. and i’m hungry. i have a lunch. but it’s kinda gross. cheese and mustard. ick. i need something else…like…soy sauce! soy sauce makes everything taste better! ok. the theory of the world:
1) to fix the taste of anything, put soy sauce on it. if it’s still gross, add more soy sauce. if you dislike soy sauce more than what you’re going to put it on, use mustard. but don’t eat soy sauce and mustard at the same time. you’ll be stuck forever wondering whether you are eating soy sauce with mustard…or mustard with soy sauce…
2) to fix anything internal (headaches, etc), take an advil. if that doesn’t work, ask someone else. especially if you’re allergic to advil.
3) to fix anything external (warts, etc) or broken (objects, etc), use duct tape. and unbroken things, too. it doesn’t have to be inanimate, remember! if it can’t be fixed with duct tape, ask a haxor friend to fix it for you.
and that, my dear friends, is the theory of the world. erin and i came up with #1 together. #2 was originally zack’s idea. #3 was originally general consensus.
but i copyright it! bwahaha!
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pajama pants continued
specifications for short pajama pants (pajama shorts?).
women’s:
- [important] loose fit
- mid-thigh to one-third-thigh length
- should not be flannel or plaid. cotton, some synthetics, or “velour” are preferable.
men’s (contributed by steve havelka):
- should come down to a point halfway between the midpoint on the thigh and the knee
- loose-fitting in the legs and ass
- elastic or tie-string is fine
- lightweight cotton material
- solid colors are preferable, though plaid is acceptable. patterns are right out.
- (unless they are patterns of a tropical nature)
oh, and pajama pants do not have belt loops.
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happy pajama pants
as my contribution to this pants standards project, i shall speak on the topic of pajama pants. this will mostly cover women’s pajama pants.
pajama pants are modified chino style, relaxed fit and straight ankle cut.
further necessary features:
- soft
- symmetrical
- have a little drawstring tie (helpful for distinguishing them from sweatpants)
- no buttons, zippers, or other bits that may be uncomfortable during sleep
- [optional] front pockets
material should be one of:
- cotton
- flannel
- linen
- that weird fuzzy soft synthetic stuff [should this be considered non-standard?]
appearance should be one of:
- tasteful plaid
- striped
- [unusual] checkered
- small pattern (clouds, superman, flowers, “zzz”, etc)
- solid colors (usually not white or black, often grey or pastel)
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porque seraaa que no te puedo sacaaar
well. the color scheme has changed a bit. hopefully, it looks better & easier to read. and stuff.
let’s see.
i started to make this thing last april.
i put it up at geocities. the first version (“and then the world exploded”; adobe pagemill & awkward html; copy-paste) was finished last july.
i was hosted at disappointedidealist starting in december. the second version (“giraffe girl strikes again”; html & some awkward css; blogger) was finished in february.
hopefully, maybe, i’m getting icdsoft.com hosting in august sometime. this third version (“a jeweled platypus”; xhtml transitional & css; blosxom) will be finished by the end of july.
how neatly it fits into three parts. maybe, the fourth will be where i redo it with php and figure out a better domain name. maybe adding a wikieditish blosxom and a link thingy…
hm. i need a book to read. foucault’s pendulum was next, but it’s at mom’s house. poo.
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wheee
new blogging system thingy: blosxom! it is turning out to be quite cool. easy templating, easy categories, blah blah blah. cool.
only thing i don’t like is that i can’t edit old files easily…they pop to the top of the blog…oh well. i’m in the process of integrating old blogger posts…i think they’re about halfway done. february and before are in blog limbo until i put them into blosxom format. whee!
the way this thingy does things is nice: if i’m somewhere else i can just ssh in and zap open vim or something, type, and save it to the right directory. or i could set up the email interface thing. or i could ftp things. and the next version might have a wiki sort of capability. much cool!
the only icky bit is that getting an archive with everything in all the categories, arranged by date doesn’t seem possible. it just cuts off after 20 or whatever i set it for. which is good for my purposes, i guess. i like the idea that things disappear eventually. i think. it’s more natural. or something.
and all the blog pages aren’t actually on dreamyshade.disappointedidealist.com… they’re on my computer, giraffegirl.dyndns.org, because it’s just cooler (and easier) this way. so i’m using this this weird frame thing. oh well.
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googlewhacking time
jul 15 3:09 am
jun 8 3:32 am
apr 23 12:05 am
oct 23 12:05 am
nov 23 12:05 am
may 11 8:32 am
dec 12 6:20 pm
nov 12 6:20 pm
oct 12 6:20 pm
hmm. well, that turned out to be less interesting than i thought it would be. half the pseudo-random times i googled just gave me boring forum posts (mostly network54.com) or bad poetry (mostly allpoetry.com). oh well.
you may ask why i was doing this pointless thing. 1) i was sticking the current date & time in the little “search google” box in safari (so i could change it back painlessly) while i changed the system date & time to edit old posts. 2) i was curious, so i pressed enter. 3) i was curious, so i put quotes around it and changed some numbers. 4) ??? 5) profit!!!
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AIM IM with sarah <[older sister]>
sarah: BRIttaaaaaaq
britta: saaaraq
sarah: that sounds so terroristic
britta: haha!
sarah: so wuzzup
britta: nothing much, home dawg
sarah: i don’t process that expression
britta: o my, i could not type that with a straight face
sarah: are you a home dawg
britta: hahahah
britta: YES
sarah: or am i the dawg and you are at home, dawg being an interjection that vaguely refers to me.
sarah: like d00d
britta: i was thinking of it as calling you “home dawg”
britta: as in you are my dawg that is at home
sarah: Oh! A complication that had not even entered my head
sarah: alas
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pictures from the past couple weeks
this is what the drive to and from san francisco looked like. all twelve hours (total). this is the central valley. aka endless land of soul-crushing boringness.
this is the sort of picture i take when i am bored sitting in the car.
the obligatory crappy golden gate bridge picture.
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aesthetics are superfluous
flowers in my mom’s backyard.
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mirrorproject
one of a few possible new mirrorproject submissions:
i like my eyes in it. but wooo, i need to cut my fingernails!
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t-shirts!
i want this t-shirt. i would be so cool if i just had that t-shirt. want want want. i must consume. i am a hu-man. i must consume. woohoo!
this shirt would be awesomely cool, too. who want to buy it for me? get me a lomo while you’re at it, ok?
ooh, i feel self-indulgent.
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gratuitous linkage
ok. the musings section is redone. go look. :)
zzzz. time for gratuituous linkage.
blogs/personal things: i can’t focus. designflea. apt13. jwz. giant exploding heads. kapowaz. zlog. turmeric rant archive. chunkysoup. white noise. bjorkdoll.
words: snuddle. chiasmus. kandinsky.
art: n-gen design machine. the numbered shirts project. ban comic sans. banksy. css fun.
i think that’s enough for now.
oh yeah, and my older sister’s livejournal thing.
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oo mu
this is for tobie. hahaha.
interesting weblogs: integer poetry. the alternative nerd. vitamin-d.
a nice censorware article. if you’ve already decided censorware is sometimes necessary, it probably won’t change your mind…a good basic read if you hate BESS and haven’t thought more about it than that (which i suspect of most of the people at my school).
teeheehee. oo. a distant cousin of mu. or something.
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geek code
heh heh voodoo toaster…sounds trite, but isn’t.
ok, ready?
——-BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK——-
Version: 3.1
GMU/U d- s+: a—- C++(+++) UB P >+ L E? W++ N+ o K w— O? M+ V? PS+++ PE— (++) Y+ PGP- t- 5 X R* !tv b++ DI (+) ?D G e- h! !r x-
———END GEEK CODE BLOCK———
um, yeah.
ooh, intertext is way cool. read this story. i think i’m going to go get myself a pgp key now. whee!
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like a noise
oh, the suspense.
well, i updated the links page again. the “essential” list is growing longer and longer…
too many links, too many links.
interesting sites: uncapitalized. a bliki. mattmagic. themaxx. robot frog (the picts are cool). evileye’s forest.
two crazy zines: misanthropic magazine and the jolted times.
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more!
more? what, are you crazy or something, britta?
orbyn is full of self-deprecating goodness. “ninja polymath blues”. teehee, that’s cool.
get yer vitamin c addictions at slowwave.
I am totally shocked and amazed that there is never any buffering. Is it really streaming as I am watching it? How does ESPN Motion really work anyhow? could be a likely candidate for the question to the answer to life, the universe, and everything. oh, guess it’s not. i’ll find it someday.
blah, i just keep regurgitating links i find on other blogs. this is pathetic. must go discover new vivisection candidates! beware!
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crazy internet
haha, i have a ton of links to stick in here, but i’m too lazy to collect them all. for now, i shall give you…
radioneurotica and superbad.
start listening to radio neurotica and then click around superbad. what a crazy thing, this internet.
in other news, HOORJ.
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airplanes society haiku
lovely post from idle words about airplanes…something similar to what i wish i could have written about the plane ride from new jersey to home. similar to what i want to write about the ride home from here in a couple days. wow.
i want to send this entry to a certain friend. society does not owe us anything…society does not owe us anything…
another post i like. the bits about poems, particularly. we (the intellectual club [a couple of my friends here and i {the title is a joke-thing…}]) were talking about poems a little while ago…about how your own poems sound silly, how automatically generated haiku is cool but real haiku isn’t, how poetry is like bagpipes…kilts and skirts and la la la…i forget the point of what i was trying to say. oh well.
so utterly crazyawesome. and i want to play this game. teehee. scary!
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friday, august 06, 2004
A little wildfire
At about 9:45 tonight, Mister Kyle and I were driving south on the 110, passing over those tunnel-hills in Pasadena (the ones that you go under before the 5 splits off). There was a little wildfire burning left of the freeway. Some firetrucks arrived as we went by.
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wednesday, august 04, 2004
The walk home from school
