2002 April

Some of you may have noticed that this space was left blank unintentionally earlier. Any time we'd try to save something on our server, the file would become 0 bytes in size. My troubleshooting prowess leads me to believe that a log file inflated to the point where it sucked up too much space on our drive. Bill worked his magic and (as you can see) things are back to normal. Bounced e-mails are just starting to trickle in.

Read more on Blank Blogs…

I keep getting e-mails from concerned viewers / subscribers regarding the news. I don't know if I'm breaking any rules by posting this to my personal site, but I wanted to let everyone know that I still have a job at TechTV. The world would have been able to figure that out for itself after we did today's show. I do appreciate the concern, though. Call for Help is still going strong, though that does not necessarily put me in a partying mood. It's always sad to see people lose a job they love – especially when there are few jobs to be found out there.

Read more on TechTV Layoffs…

Catching up on tasks. Day behind with Lockergnome. Jake in SF. Going to Chinatown in a few minutes. Going nuts. Having fun. Still looking for human editor for small editing projects. Wish could blog more. Must finish Munch on Xbox. Hate sentence fragments. Love you.

Read more on What's Up…

I'm thikning of taking up golf, but only if I can play alongside Cristie Kerr.

Editor (a person who edits documents) wanted. Now.

People have been asking what I think of my new machine. I love it! I've yet to boot into OS 9. Wired asks: Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly? I don't know for sure. Give X a little more time and I'm sure it'll get better. It's too simple to hate. It's too complex to hate. Finding software for this thing is totally FUN. The Windows “download” world is getting tired. There are too many “me too” applications trying to make their mark. Not counting the Clockdown toys, natch. Anyway, the Apple Core is keeping my interest in personal computing alive.

Read more on It's That Simple…

Would you ever consider using a shell like this one? With a little bit of polish, this could actually be a very COOL desktop environment. Watch it all the way through – tres sweet.

Read more on Would You?…

I debated singing this song at Gnomedex. I wanted to do it last year, but things kinda fell apart after 9/11. This week has been a busy week, for sure. It's a Lockergnome weekend, and I have quite a bit of work to catch up on beyond that. I've also pledged my support for an up-and-coming tech-savvy advocacy group. I'm still finding time, amazingly enough, to swing through my favorite blogs on a nightly basis. I love doing it when I'm wirelessly connected on my laptop. Although, my connection seems to be crawling for the moment – on all of these machines at home. Must be an external network problem? Ah, I bet Jason's connection is flying. He kinda runs an ISP back in Iowa. By the way, I may have some major news RE: my radio show very soon. It'll totally rock. Roll, quite possibly.

Read more on Blank Intentionally…

Red shirt being worn today for Robyn. If I knew what Christine liked, I'd wear something different for her, too. I hope she got the package we sent?

“Esperanto isn't a bad idea, but it has yet to catch on in the mainstream.”
Actually, this is not the case. Esperanto certainly did catch on in the mainstream. In China, there is a weekly newsmagazine in Esperanto with over a million readers. However, the real hotbeds of Esperanto culture were Germany and the Soviet Union, right up until WWII, when both Hitler and Stalin had everyone who spoke the language murdered. (Stalin called it “yatzike shpeeonam” – the “language of spies.”)
When I lived in Europe, I not only met fellow Esperanto-speakers everywhere (I've been to a couple of the “Universalaj Kongresoj”, but even met native speakers of the language–children whose parents did not speak each other's languages, so the child grew up speaking the only common language–Esperanto. (Of course, the child would also speak both parents' native languages as well.)
I turned to Esperanto because after living in Europe for five years, I had had to learn seven languages,and I still couldn't communicate in Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. etc., yada yada. I got tired of it–figured I had made enough of an effort, and it was about time someone met me halfway. Esperanto makes that easy. You can learn to speak it well in an hour or so; then you just add vocabulary like in any other language, but in completely regular ways. (Just one brief example–since all nouns end in o, all verb infinitives in i, and all adjectives in a, once you know that bicycle is “biciklo,” you know that “to bicycle” is “bicikli,” and a bicycle shop (”butiko”) would be “bicicla butiko.” What could be simpler?)

Read more on From Terence Geoghegan…

“A few months ago, I think you featured an item about putting your HD in the freezer if there were problems with it. Yesterday, I received a ‘Write Error’ on C – the HD LED was constantly lit. I could not control the PC, Ctrl+ALT+Del did not work, so I had to turn the power off. Lo and behold, when I switched it back on, the system could not find the HD. I was dreading the thought of having to buy a new HD.”

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Looks like TechTV has erected a new set of Message Boards (and not a moment too soon). If you're looking for help, look no further. Or, keep looking – as long as you stop here first.

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What happens in two years? I don't know yet. I'm doing too much writing – I'd rather focus on my television / entertainment career. More to come. Or, less to come, as the case might be.

Read more on Clarification…

From the SF Sidewalk Astronomers list: “The Space Shuttle ATLANTIS docked with the International Space Station (ISS) makes an almost straight overhead pass for the Bay Area tonight. The pair will first appear low in the NW sky at 21:09 (9:09pm PDT), reaching 70 degrees high in the NE at 21:12, just missing the bowl of the Big Dipper. Shortly after passing the Dipper, they will disappear into the Earth's shadow (orbital sunset) high in the east at 21:12:37. Click on 'ISS' under SATELLITES.”

Read more on Look Up Here…