I'M STILL ALIVE

This blog has been pretty quite for the last 3/4 of a year or so. For the most part, I've not had much to say. Lately, though, I've had a creative burst of energy and I'm grappling with how to channel it. I'd like to be able to resume blogging or adding to the public discourse in some manner (podcasting, twitter, etc.) but I'd like it to be more significant than my past efforts. The correct channel and theme for my efforts is still under consideration. In the meantime, sit back, light a mantern, relax and enjoy these lazy summer nights.

EASY MONEY

Cringely ponders the subprime mess, what's next for internet business and why aren't there bank service providers that actually look out for YOU.

MY BEST STEAK ENTRY

I propose a best steak of summer competition. Here's my entry. A double-thick cut ribsteak, rare, grilled to perfection (IMHO) with a beautiful crusty shell.

GIVING THANKS

This was a week for reconnecting. First, Lorraine and I went to sheva brachot for my stepfather's grandson Ariel. It was in Queens, so we got to see a lot of Queens people we haven't seen in awhile. Usually, I get to say hello around the Yomim Noraim, when I go to my Mom's for Rosh HaShanah, but this year we went to my in-law's instead. It was especially nice for me because I think the world of the families that I know from Queens. In addition to being sterling individuals, all, they were there for myself and my family during some dark times after my father's passing.

Moving on To Thanksgiving. I got to spend time with my only Aunt and only set of first cousins. I also have not seen them for quite some time and it was nice to watch all the kids -second cousins- play together. Did I mention that the turkey with all the trimmings and mulled wine were superb? Well, they were. After dinner, we watched home movies DVD's and had dessert. Then it was time to stroll down the block (from my aunt) to one of my closest friend's to say hello and see his baby boy. We haven't seen baby Daniel since his bris, so that was a special treat too. He's a real cutie. The only disappointing note was not being able to spend time with the Millers and Bodeks as originally planned back home in Passaic. Overall, this was a Thanksgiving week for the books. Good family, good friends, good food...

GOOD NIGHT!

MONDAY ETCETERA

Find out our neighborhood's "Walk Score" with walkscore.com. (Hat Tip: Joel)

An Army engineer radically improves IED detection using drones by gaming the system in virtual worlds. (Hat Tip: Blackfive)

Just finished watching Orange County on Netflix on-demand. Great movie. Starring the progeny of two great actors: Colin Hanks (Tom Hanks' son) and Schuyler Fisk (Sissy Spacek's daughter.) Recommended

NEW STANDARDS

If you grew up schooled on Ernie's classic Rubber Ducky song (Rubber Ducky, you're the one! Squeak! Squeak!) Be forewarned that there's a new Rubber Duck song for the next generation. Yes, Ernie has a new Rubber Ducky standard, the Reggae-ish Do De Rubber Duck. It's catchy.

Tracy Jordan's (30 Rock character) Werewolf Bar Mitzvah is one of those sitcom songs that should inspire a real, full-length video.

2 GOOD READS FROM THE PREMIER COMBAT REPORTERS OF OUR TIMES

If you don't read Michael Yon or Kevin Sites, you should.

Kevin Sites short video documentary of a 23 year old suicide bombing survivor from Tel Aviv.

Michael Yon on the cameras he uses for combat photography.

BRIAN WILLIAMS?

Saturday Night Live this season has been lackluster, to say the least. Every time I'm about to give up on the show, though, they manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Last season, Peyton Manning hosted a great show, including this gem of a sketch. His "PSA" was also talked about quite a bit. This weekend, Brian Williams unexpectadly hosted a great show. From the opening sketch of Hillary's Halloween party with a cameo by the real Barack Obama, to a strong monologue and some real good understated performances by Mr. Williams as a firefighter on Bronx Beat" and a somnolent Publisher's Clearinghouse winner, this one's a keeper. I don't know why, but it's always the guests you least expect to have a funny bone that end up raising the bar on that show. Sadly, SNL still remains on life support.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

The New York City Subway system is putting orientation decals on the sidewalk outside of subway stations.

THINGS I DID NOT KNOW DEPT.

Robert Duvall played Boo Radley in the 1962 Gregory Peck, Harper Lee classic To Kill A Mockingbird. It was Duvall's first role on the silver screen. I loved that movie for many reasons, my favorite being Peck's Atticus' use of the word "temerity" in one of his court tirades. Try sneaking a word like that into today's mass-market cinematic fare and just watch the ensuing glassy-eyed, blank stares.

Until the next time my fancy is struck...

LONG, BUSY SUMMER

I feel like the alma mater scene at the end of Dirty Dancing, when staff and guests of Kellerman's sing the hotel's farewell song. Summer's over folks, it's been great. Ready or not. Here comes the chagim, school, jackets and real life. Where to begin:

1. We MOVED! My sister and brother in law and family decided to live in Israel on a trial basis, so we're housesitting the manse until they decide where to live. This could take awhile.
2. My back went out and suddenly I felt every inch my thirty-five years. Thankfully, it seems to be recovering rapidly and with some preemptive stretching exercises should be fine.
3. My oldest had her first day of school. Playgroup, really, but it was a momentous occasion for Mother and Father. Said daughter took it all in stride and enjoyed every minute of her first day. (Sniff, how soon they grow!)
4. I assisted in launching my synagogue's online lecture and study website. Users can click in to listen or download lectures on various Torah topics. I'm hoping for some major heavenly brownie points for this one.
5. I (re)wrote the bulk of a major bank's retail money wire application.  When it goes live, it will be the most highly trafficked application I've written in at least ten years.
6. My good friend Kat got engaged!
7. THIS JUST IN TO THE WTF DEPARTMENT: German terror plotters were collecting unemployment benefits while their main occupation was the (terror) plot.

GO GO CODE MONKEY!

Work safe music video. Hat tip: Roumen

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE

This article in BusinessWeek about unsafe tires made in China is sobering. In the wake of storiesW about unsafe foodstuffs and chemicals sourced from the Chinese mainland, this tire story indicates a trend. So my advice is: Know the country of origin of consumables you buy that may impact the safety or well being of you and yours. It appears that the basics of quality control and civic responsibility are severely lacking in China and you should factor this into account when shopping on price for your purchases.

TWOFOR

If you're a programming nerd, this essay on abject-oriented programming is hilarious. (Hat tip: Ned.) Joel's review of some management tomes, has me seriously considering going out and buying some.

MY AUTO-AERO FEED

I just noticed that you can make your tagged categories available as a feed from Google Reader. I'm so happy I switched to Reader from Sage awhile back as my primary RSS experience. Google constantly adds interesting new features that enhance the recombinant nature of feed consumption in ways that are useful to me. I just discovered a new aerospace related blog that I added to the feed this morning: Jetwhine. Oh yeah, here's the link to my auto--aero tagged feeds.

PLASTIC FANTASTIC

I love airplanes. This scoop on the soon-to-be-revealed very first Boeing 787 Dreamliner -mark the calendar, July 8, 2007 (7-8-7, get it?)- has me pretty excited. The 787 is the first commercial jet who's primary structure is composite (read: plastic) which, due to its of its being stronger and lighter than the alloys mostly used until now, will result in increased cabin pressure and comfort and larger windows. Yay!

IT"S A CULT

In the course of my current work, I stumbled upon Drupal. I've heard of Drupal in the past -it's the open source content management system (CMS, for short) that powers thousands of web sites. Some of the biggies use it, like slashdot. The beauty of a CMS is that it takes the drudgery of building a website out of your hands. Content creation, categorization and relationships are baked into the product. Additionally, and most importantly Drupal has a large and vibrant ecosystem of users and developers that contribute to the project and user community. Drupal is written on top of the so-called AMP stack (Apache webserver, MySQL relational database, PHP programming language) -commonly referred to as LAMP (Add Linux at the front.) Its architecture is one of the reasons that historically I've not paid much attention to it. I've only recently caved and started to develop in PHP in response to some new clients' needs. While my gripes about the encapsulation and interoperability of this development toolset remain, I can't help but be impressed by the massive amount of "plain 'ole it just works" products out there that have been developed with this stuff. It's not an exaggeration to say that possibly the largest single chunk of web faff out there is deployed using LAMP.

But I digress. Drupal is what has me jizzed at the moment. All three new clients I've taken on have unique requirements that can be relatively easily met with Drupal and some additional modules. My favorite module  so far has been the Audio module, which snapped in to a Drupal installation like a dream and provided instant podcasting support for my local synagogue. The most powerful and far-reaching modules I've encountered so far are the view module, which provides custom and themeable views and the CCK module, which is a powerful extension for adding custom fields to Drupal content types, or nodes, in Drupal parlance. Yes, they have a parlance. The user community is rabid in its devotion to this. I've been immersed in Drupal for almost two weeks now and have learned a lot from two podcasts in particular. The Geeks & God podcast on Podcasting with Drupal pointed me to the solution I'm using at one site. The Lullabot podcast is pretty much the bees knees on Drupal podcasting, AFAIK. It seems that the Lullabot crew are also quite definitive in all their Drupal work. I've been having trouble setting up a proper Drupal development including remote debugging, but this tutorial on the IBM website (of all places!) may address that problem. To paraphrase the Sony exec interviewed in Lullabot podcast 39: "It seemed like the Drupal community was a cult. My experience has been that with technology cults are a good thing." So there you have it, I've joined a cult! Feel the Love. Peace Out.

IT'S GENETIC

Apparently my early childhood penchant for trudging out the door with a suitcase or briefcase and "going to Florida" has been inherited by my oldest. Yesterday morning, she insisted on taking her suitcase with her on our walk. So cute. So genetic memory isn't just a plot point on Stargate SG-1 (geek alert.)

NOTES KILLER? Is Google Gears a potential competitor to Lotus Notes in the offline space? Probably not, at least in the near term, although it could be if used properly by savvy developers. I'm reminded of DOLS, a Lotus offering that provides a similar functionality. DOLS has more industrial-grade support for security and application development than Gears probably has -at least at this point in time. DOLS is a huge, hairy download, though. Gears seems to be elegantly simple and lightweight, like most Google ideas. 

STIIL TRUCKIN' I'm writing this post using Windows Live Writer. WLW is he first rich client app I've been comfortable using tor blogging since the late, great Sauce Reader. Blogger's Blogger for Word add-in is unacceptable to me as it keeps Word's proprietary style information in the uploaded HTML, which I hate strongly dislike.

CORRECTION. My sister Bena says I would go to California, not Florida. I was too young to remember the details myself.

BUT WHY?

Apple announced today that their Safari web browser is now available for Windows. I downloaded and played with it and it is shiny, new, cool and slick. I like the font rendering better than Firefox and by enjoyed using it -which is more than I could ever say from similar five minute test drives of several versions of the Opera web browser. The overriding question I have though, is why? Unless there's a content play in the future that's tied to Safari -which would arouse the ire of the standards-loving web development community that adores Apple- I don't quite see the point. Verdict: stick to Firefox for Windows unless and until a compelling reason for Safari emerges.

CREATURE COMFORTS. If you're not familiar with Nick Park's classic claymation series that ran in England in the '80's called Creature Comforts, today's your lucky day. An updated version of the series, which interviews people all across America on slice of life issues and sets the sesions to claymation animals is now running on CBS. Watch the episode for free online from CBS.com or look up classic sketches (set in the London Zoo) on Youtube or AtomFilms for a truly hilarious diversion.

APPLE'S SECRET SAUCE

It occurred to me over this weekend that all Apple needs to do to assure the continued success of its MacOS operating system is to stay one step ahead of Linux. That's all. This strategy assures Apple the undying affection of the geek crowd while making its own roadmap amazingly simple: Just build and improve upon the current system and keep the *NIX core (in Apple's case, open-source BSD) current. This keeps a lid on the core OS investment Apple needs to make as opposed to, say, Microsoft, which needs a veritable army of developers to maintain the monolithic Windows code-base. The added advantage of Apple's strategy is that the core OS decisions have already been vetted by the community keepers of the *NIX/BSD flame. Simple!

I have another post in the works on the shadow that Steve Jobs casts over any industry tangentially connected to high technology and how much of his aura may actually be riding on the upcoming Apple iPhone release. This ties in to my old ideas regarding Religion 2.0 that were dredged up during a conversation Friday night with Mennu. Stay tuned.