Office Water Cooler

Fri 1 Aug 200306:51 PM

Things we were talking about at Behavior today: My move, the relative merits of the moving company I used, and how I won’t be able to get into my new apartment for another week yet. The horrific reviews of the Ben Affleck and Jenifer Lopez vanity project “Gigli.” Al Pacino’s miserable performance in the far over-rated “Scarface.” The new backpack I just bought from BOOQ. The good taste and bad calories of Ranch 1, where we went for lunch. Mister President’s upcoming appearance in The Great American Mutt Show. Oh yeah, we talked about design a little bit, too.

Fuel for the Fire

Wed 30 Jul 200308:24 PM

You can hardly argue that there’s no connection between oil consumption and terrorism, but even if you can ignore all the evidence pointing to gasoline-fueled cars as the crucial link between American culpability and third world enmity, I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to make cars more fuel efficient. Led by Republicans and backed up by Democrats from auto-producing states, the Senate yesterday rejected a proposal to increase the mandated fuel-economy of passenger cars to 40 miles per gallon… by the year 2015. That’s a dozen years from now, and the opposition argument is that this sort of legislation is a danger to American jobs. C’mon! Saying that the American auto industry is incapable of gearing up for a new fuel economy standard over the course of twelve years is a kind of insult to American ingenuity and resourcefulness, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s a testament to laziness, greed and an obstinate unwillingness to really address the reality of our role in the world.

The Skillz to Design the Billz

Wed 30 Jul 200303:35 PM

There was a stack of bills waiting for me on my desk at Behavior when I returned to work on Monday. It’s pretty amazing how quickly bills will accumulate even for a small business, and I wrote literally eighteen checks before the day was out. Paying vendors and utilities has been my responsibility since last fall, when we rented our office space and the monthly expenses started really racking up. In my dealings with countless of these statements, I’ve been keeping mental notes on the usability of invoices, what makes them easy to understand and easy to pay. Following is a sketch of an ‘ideal’ paper-based invoice.

Location, Location, Location

Mon 28 Jul 200309:56 PM

Now that I am more or less recovered from my unexpectedly debilitating, week-long bout with the common cold, I’m able to focus my energy on the daunting task of moving into a new apartment later this week. The bad news is that, against my better judgment, I’ve spent the past two and a half years loading up my current apartment with a ridiculous overabundance of books, magazines and computer equipment. Packing up all of this stuff is going to be a laborious process of purging items I can’t justify owning and sorting through items I’m not sure why I want to hold on to.

Fever to Tell

Fri 25 Jul 200309:46 PM

After a few days of running a fever of 100° F, I’m finally back at good ol’ 98.6° again. But I’m still hardly back at full strength — this cold has been tougher than I thought. I missed a full week of work, which in some ways is probably something my body needed, but I’m sure I’ll pay for it dearly next week. And now I have to turn my attention to packing up my overcrowded pad for my move to a new apartment next Thursday. Posts may be thin in the meantime.

The Sound of Washington

Wed 23 Jul 200310:55 PM

Still sick, I slept through most of today uncomfortably. By the mid-afternoon, I finally felt well enough to get up and cook myself some soup and park myself in front of the television for a while. As it happened, Encore was running Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 film adaptation of “All the President’s Men.” I’ve watched this film about half a dozen times since I was kid, and each time I come away convinced that it’s one of the greatest movies I’ll ever watch.

Remote Control

Tue 22 Jul 200303:53 PM

Ill Communication: It’s Hot

Mon 21 Jul 200307:44 PM

Summer colds are just about the worst way I can think of to plod through a hot, muggy, New York July, though that may be because I started coming down with one on Saturday afternoon. At first I thought I was just completely wiped out by the previous work week, but then my sinuses started drying up and a soreness took hold of my throat, and now I’m sitting here in bed, blogging under the covers.

New Speed for an Old Mac

Sat 19 Jul 200305:42 PM

My girlfriend’s Power Macintosh G4, formerly an ailing relic of the Mac OS 9.x era, is now a spiffy new Jaguar machine. A few days ago, I rolled up my sleeves, popped the tower’s side door open and installed the upgrades I bought at Macworld Expo: First, an additional 512MB RAM chip, which brings her grand total to 640MB. (To think, I once bought a pair of 16MB RAM modules for something around US$900!)

Second, I added a new IBM-Hitachi Deskstar 120GB internal hard drive. This saved me the hassle of having to pull off all the old data from the incumbent 20GB disk, and it gives her the added bonus of having two bootable internal drives. The Deskstar spins at 7200 rpm, which makes a much bigger difference than I had anticipated; the machine now seems to run much faster than its pokey old 450 MHz processor formerly allowed.

In fact, I had originally been skeptical about whether this Power Mac, which is already almost four years old, would perform acceptably under Mac OS X. Happily, I can report that with these additions its performance can be characterized as very responsive, and certainly more than sufficient for her not-unusual computing demands: email, Web browsing, MP3 playback, CD burning, instant messaging etc. Best of all, these upgrades cost a remarkably reasonable total of about US$210.

I Knew Him When

Fri 18 Jul 200301:32 PM

Among the nominees announced yesterday for the 55th Annual Emmy Awards was Jonathan Corn for “Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series.“ Specifically, the nomination singles out his work on the semi-infamous “Krazee Eyez Killa” episode of Larry David’s painfully hilarious HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It was a brilliant episode, but the real reason I’m posting this here is that I’ve known Jonathan since the 8th grade, when we attended, first, junior high and, later on, high school together. I also saw him off with a books-on-tape copy of O.J. Simpson’s “I Want to Tell You” when he packed up his bags, left behind the East Coast and headed off to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Congratulations, Mr. Corn!

About

Subtraction.com

Khoi Vinh’s Web site

Archives

Office Water Cooler

Fuel for the Fire

The Skillz to Design the Billz

Location, Location, Location

Fever to Tell

The Sound of Washington

Remote Control

Ill Communication: It’s Hot

New Speed for an Old Mac

I Knew Him When

Khoi Vinh’s Web site