Within the living mirror, the beholders fondle the erotic cleft between them.

This book was left inexplicably at our doorstep on Valentine’s eve, and thus far no one has taken credit.

Blah blah blah…

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

The Gates were overwhelming in their magnitude. The best part was when you happened upon an angle or view where you could see 40 or 50 of these things all at once in a curvy row. And then wait for the wind to blow. They seemed to keep reminding me of women’s dresses. The bright orange felt like summer, and momentarily made me forget about my bones chattering. I would love to see those bright colors contrasted with pure white snow on the ground.

I arrived at about 7am on Saturday and took the A-line in to Manhattan, which takes forever. I was worried about arriving late for the unfurling, since I was perceiving that somehow all the gates would be opened at once. Luckily (I guess) the many groups of people doing the opening took their sweet time, posing for cameras, and joking around. They are paid and bonded for insurance purposes, so no, you can’t open one of the gates, mister.

After a few hours of wandering around, and not being able to feel my fingers, I go to the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (40 minute line wait) to take in a grander view. There were a few good angles, but trees obscured a lot. I think it would have been best to go to the roof of that very tall building in New York I forget the name of.

Spent a few hours in the MET looking at beautiful art students painting ugly versions of beautiful paintings on the walls. Around this time I ran completely out of steam, since I hadn’t slept at all on the red-eye flight out. After a few failed attempts to hide in some cozy museum spot for a nap, I was out to Times Square to find a hotel no matter the cost.

Everything was booked. Angry and delusional I vaguely recall badgering the desk clerk at The Plaza about the absolute necessity of dorm beds. Eventually, a friendly lady at the 5th hotel I tried wrote down a list of the 4 lowest priced (crappiest) hotels in Midtown, which usually tended to have openings. The second YMCA on the list turned out to be my savior, and 20 minutes later I was taking a $70 nap.

The Y was fine, if you don’t mind prison-style showers, and sleeping in your clothes ‘cause you don’t trust the sheets.

Later that night I met up with an old friend studying in the city, and we went out for a night of dinner(s) and revelry. Lesson learned: make reservations. Places where you don’t need a reservation to eat probably deserve not needing a reservation. The wine was good however.

Whirlwind tour of Soho, Upper West Side, Midtown, as seen from the inside of bars and taxis. Every place in Soho we went seemed to theme itself based on color and drown you in its tinted lights. Reds, purple, pale green.

… (details) …

Wake up on friend’s couch. Walk around central park for a few more hours. Almost adjusted to the cold by now, but never the wind. Oh Christ The Wind. Lots of happy smiling Valentine’s couples out and about, which gets on one’s nerves after a time.

Fail at trying to find a too-expensive hair salon open on Sunday. Fail at going to Cafe “the best pastries in New York” Pagard on Lexington and 73rd, also closed. Fail at finding a copy of Spring Snow at two Midtown booksellers: “Mishima is too, err, intense for this part of town".

I give up and go shopping. NYC is understandably pretty streamlined for shoppers, so I have no problems rerouting a few paychecks.

A quick $20 taxi ride to LaGuardia, at little incompetent-airline two-step, and I’m back home in S.F. by 10pm. All-in-all a pretty successful and fulfilling spur of the moment trip. Next time I’ll try to bring a change of clothes.

Have you ever sent yourself an email containing an attached file so you could work on it somewhere else - at home, work, school, or at the client’s office - anywhere other than your primary computer? …

Then iFolder is just for you. You’ll be supprised how easy it is to simply save your files the way you always do, and have them automatically synchronize in the background while you work.

and contrast…

Have you ever felt the frustration at not being able to locate a website you wanted to check out, or find an email you found interesting, or remember an idea about the direction of the political landscape in post-industrial Australia?

Time for Tomboy. We bet you’ll be surprised at how well a little application can make life less cluttered and run more smoothly.

But one of the questions was related to something Seth wrote:

Is it sufficient to have a useful little app like this referenced on various Web sites, or does it need to be part of an open-source/Linux package to attract mainstream interest? Has this been one of Gnome’s weaknesses against KDE?

It really doesn’t make that much of a difference. I think that in the minority desktops, good software tends to get used no matter what. But I do think it’s only a matter of time before Tomboy or something like it is on every Linux desktop.

This is unfortunate because people tend to care more when software is simple and solitary, with a few authors they can personally connect with. When a piece of work joins an overarching project it naturally becomes dehumanized and taken for granted.

Personally I like the idea of my software being spread by word of mouth. It gives me warm fuzzies to think that everyone that has my software has it because they want it.

There are a lot of lessons to learn from the Mac community here. Their community’s culture seems to engender interest in new ideas, friendship, and a really warm and fullfilling relationship between developers and users.

This is a direction I’d like to see our Free Software focus on more. It’s no coincidence that the Tomboy website looks like that of any 3rd party Mac application.

My reading really dropped off when I had to give it up for a newer unsupported Firefox version.

Well, it’s back. The new version even supports scaling images to fit into the brilliant newspaper-style layout. Yay!

Jeffrey. It isn’t a one-time fee. It’s a per-user $100 fee, plus a multi-phase disconnected registration process that cannot be automated. How much of a percentage drop in purchases could you expect if Ebay charged $100 for a user’s first purchase, no matter what?

NO ONE (in their right mind or otherwise) is going to go through this trouble.

It’s also important to realize that the only people who would use this application are already giving Ebay their money.

Really, what do you have to lose by opening up the read-only methods for all to use for free? I mean, it isn’t as if people aren’t screen-scraping already.

And I can use the multiple Ebay APIs to get the data and avoid error-prone screen-scraping to provide a reliable user experience! Man, this will be useful…

People who want to use your application can join the [Developer Program] themselves and insert their own set of keys to enable the application. Since they will presumably want to use it against live data, there will be a charge for them.

Uh-Oh.

Ebay’s reasoning for this is not monetary, rather that they want to promote efficient 3rd-party applications by charging developers large subscription fees, and requiring thorough registration and app certification.

Of course the only option for most developers (open or proprietary) given these restrictions is to screen-scrape, completely defeating the stated purpose of the Developer Program.

It’s amazing that a large company, built largely around a viral business model can be this hypocritical.

“No, this is Alex.”

“Oh, is this another household member?”

“Yeah, do you want me to take a message?”

“Maybe you would be interested in helping to support the city’s Firefighter League?”

“Uhh, you’re talking to the wrong household member. I don’t have any money.”

“It would only be a small…”

“No, you don’t understand. I sleep on the couch.”

Since moving to Southern California, and since I am nearly penniless, I have decided to take a temporary service-industry job at a small business in town. To pay for food while I look for some interesting programming work.

So after applying to several places and taking the first offer (Pier 1 Imports, $7.50/hour), I’ve been hassled for the last two days with the proving of my identity…

On the INS’s Form I-9, used to establish employment eligibility, Section 2 regarding the presentation of forms of identity reads:

Examine one document from List A OR examine one document from List B and from List C

For me, this translates to:

A || (B && C)

Since I had presented a valid U.S. passport (List A) and a Virginia Driver’s License (List B), I believed I was in the clear.

Today however, I learned that according to this manager’s interpretation, I am not. Instead I must present a form of identification from List C. Namely a Social Security Card I do not have.

You see, the manager who has been handling hirings for over 10 years, reads the above instructions (disregarding all the form’s other visual queues) as:

(A || B) && C

This misinterpretation means 10-12 days of waiting for the Social Security Department to create a card for me. Which means at least another month before my first paycheck.

Go Play, and remember to save.

It’s WebNote!

(Thanks to Danah for the clue-in).