Archive for March, 2006

Nostalgia Continues

Friday, March 24th, 2006

I went to the Sisters of Mercy show on Wednesday night. In the last year or so I have seen the holy trinity of bands from my high school years, Dead Can Dance, and Bauhaus and now the Sisters.

Overheated amps, underpowered sound system and emblematic out-of-control fog, I’m talking about ‘I got a fever and the only prescription is more FOG, baby.” The performance was a bit lackluster, which is strange considering that it was more rock than goth. Only two guitarists joined Sisters front-man Andrew Eldritch on stage and lontime band-mate Dr. Avalanche (the drum machine) for curious, yet almost indecipherable due to sound problems, rock renditions of Ribbons, Vision Thing, Temple of Love, First Last and Always and many more. Despite the problems with the sound, Eldritch was a bit out of sorts so to speak, a little stiff but quite affable and gracious with repeated thank-yous. In short, he was not quite himself. Blame it on the broken rib he appartenly suffered a day or so before the concert.

The crowd was a fun, familiar reminder that you can’t kill the goth scene, because it’s already dead! Maybe it’s just undead. Good fun was had all ’round.

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Print (and Change) Management

Tuesday, March 21st, 2006

With little fanfare the library introduced a print management solution successfully today. There were relatively few glitches. The successes really came from a phased in roll-out of the new technology for the entire system. Bugs were worked out as each library was brought up. Plenty of helpful staff willing to be patient and train was really the key to a successful customer perception. It didn’t hurt that it is pretty easy to use and the old printers were lousy.

The major complaints came from unfriendly jargon and terminology embedded in the interface and dialog boxes. Communication is the most important thing when it comes to new technology. What makes sense to a user interface engineer is undoubtedly not going to make sense to the average user. In fact half of the stuff barely makes sense to me. If something doesn’t work or match, I would love to see a pop-up or dialog say, “That didn’t work. Let’s try again. Enter your password twice. Make sure they match.” or

“You didn’t change the name of the file you are trying to print.”
“Let’s try again. Enter a shorter name for the file, one that is easy to remember. ”
“Now enter your password. ”
“Enter your password again just to be sure that there wasn’t a typo.”

“Great!”
“Now your file is ready to be printed at any print station. You have 3 hours to retrieve it.”

Posted in Uncategorized, library, management, tech | 1 Comment »

Giving up the Gray Ghost

Monday, March 20th, 2006

cometI sold the Comet today to a wrecking yard. It’s a car that I have owned for almost 20 years. It’s a silver (and rust) 1964 Mercury Comet and I bought it from my parents on my sixteenth birthday for a $1. My grandmother bought it brand new. My grandparents drove it cross country a few times. My parents bought it from her. I remember riding in the back as kid putting my hot wheels in the ashtray and humming along with the AM radio.

Despite owning lots of different cars over the years, I kept the Comet because I felt I could always fix it in a pinch until the steering column wiring shorted out and nearly electrocuted me while I was driving back in 1998. I kept it knowing that I would always have roof over my head if I needed one. I lived in it for a while, and almost died in it a few times, driving too fast, too reckless, or with too many brittle, frayed wires inside the steering column. Most of all, I kept it because it was the last reminder of “anywhere in five minutes”, “the shortcut!”, Bonny Doon, Davenport, and Big Sur. It was the nexus of all the people and places that I have known and loved. As silly as it sounds, I’ll miss it.

comet

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Book Review: ReadyMade: How to Make {Almost} Everything a Do-It-Yourself Primer

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

ReadyMade: How to Make {Almost} Everything a Do-It-Yourself Primer by Shoshana Berger and Grace Hawthorne.

Runaway craft projects meet recycling-chic in this book by the publishers of ReadyMade magazine & website. Illustrated steps guide you through the process of making coat-hanger wine racks, cd case murals, Fed-Ex cd racks, shopping bag rugs, chandeleirs using silverware and water-bottles, beer can room dividers, denim dog beds and much more. The book is organized by raw material with short witty histories of paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass and fabric. Each chapter has a few unweildy (and some just plain senseless) projects that fall into the “why I don’t do this everyday” category. A few sections just titled “This is not a project” cover how to use chopsticks… to eat, or how to build an ark. Go figure.

While you read this book, just keep repeating mini-manifesto #05 “I will attempt to keep all consumer goods in circulation, and out of the big Wal-Mart in the sky, by reusing them. If anything it’ll make you want to make a lounge chair out of a couple of weeks of plastic water bottles. Good fun.

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