stating the obvious on Pyra -
"Contrary to popular opinion, Pyra's killer app isn't Blogger, it's Pyra. Of course, that's mostly semantics, since Blogger's an application built on top of the Pyra framework. Which means that Pyra could not only be your next project management app, but your next content publishing platform as well. An integrated content, template, task, issue, and discussion database? Sounds like a killer app to me."
4/30/2000 11:38:58 PM | +
Today I didn't code, I didn't get any homework done, and I didn't even do any surfing. I just watched crappy television and wrote this - which I'll probably regret. I think I'm going to stop announcing new texts here and just set up a mailing list or something.
4/30/2000 10:26:58 PM | +
Oh my god. What was I thinking. Perl is so 1995.
I'm reading about PHP now. I think I like it.
Clogger shold probably be a summer project so I can pass my classes. And it's too nice out to be inside coding today.
Damn.
4/29/2000 02:57:11 PM | +
It's funny, play Soldier of Fortune all afternoon, and all night wasn't on the to do list either. But that's what I did. Such irresponsibility. I should just stop making to do lists.
4/28/2000 10:03:26 PM | +
To do list:
Ok, actually, the project is not super-secret at all, it's going to be a blogger work-alike, that will probably be less powerful but have some crap that I've wanted to use for a while, the big one just allowing user-created fields to allow a more flexible templating engine so I can use it for my texty texts and have title, subtitle, blah blah. Umm, yeah, I'm probably not making any sense here and you don't care anyway.
While I really do love blogger and all, and I'm confident ev and the pyrates will eventually deal with the growing pains and make it super-duper reliable (well, ok, not super-duper reliable, but as reliable as you can get on Microsoft software) this is really just an excuse for me to play around and learn some things I've been meaning to learn. I think. Besides, my only real web dev work was using Active Server Pages and stuff, and this was back when I was just a youngin, and I asked about perl scripts they just sort of laughed at me, but really, don't all real web geeks need to know how to hack perl? I don't know. This is probably a big waste of time, and I'm sure there's some gpl'ed something or other that does this better, but I don't know about it. Anyway, thoughts, suggestions, name-calling, etc are always welcome.
4/28/2000 01:35:51 PM | +
I mean, I kind of know what I wanted to do with blueblog originally. It was supposed to be a place to put interesting web stuff I found and provide a little commentary on it, and honestly, it started out as just another pointless indulgence that I figured nobody would care about, just like the old faq said. In some sense the main reason I started doing this was that I felt like surfing while keeping a weblog was kind of like carrying a camera while exploring, maybe it makes you see things differently sometimes, possibly see some details that might otherwise have slipped past, and sometimes you capture something really cool and can share it. The web is a big vast wilderness, and being a weblogger is kind of like being a nature photographer slashing through the thick, dense jungles of worthless crap to find some rare, interesting to take photographs of.
I'm not saying this is really some big grand adventure, but the important thing was that I was excited about what I was posting, or excited about what I was saying about it, and lately, I haven't really been excited about anything, web or otherwise. Nor have I really been surfing. And lately, when I have it's been mainly for webloglog, which is a whole other story. (Brad's recent "Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers?" post on metafilter's recent long vs. short or whatever discussion comes to mind.)
I'm just in kind of a rut right now... I don't know what I'm doing with my life, blah blah, etc. There's slightly more about this in the latest 'rant''s postscript if you actually want to know. I need to do something, and right now I'm just not. It's like all that post-modern bs about "waiting" - it's all just so true for me.
I'm not saying that I'm stopping blueblog, or anything, it's just that updates, which already have been sparse, may stay that way for a while until I get inspired again.
4/22/2000 09:26:02 PM | +
Please note that "update blueblog", "update webloglog", "do problem sets for classes," "pass classes," "leave room," and "interact with other human beings" are not currently on the to do list.
Updates to this little "web log" thing here have become lamer and lamer recently. As of last week blueblog is six months old, and I still don't entirely know what I'm doing with it or where I'm going with it. And I'm even more baffled by the whole weblog "community" thing that I've somehow become a "part of," but that's a whole other issue.
Andy -
"Adam, your favorite Powerpuff Girl is Bubbles? I bet you like candy ravers too, you sick bastard."Well, I've always preferred punk rock girls, but yeah... candy ravers.
Awww, cute little candy ravers, oh my a whole ring of rainbow brite candy kids... I've already confessed my love for rainbow brite, so it's not like I can really rip on girls who dig hello kitty and other cutesy kiddy stuff, and really, isn't this cute, so what's the use, I should just say whoo hoo! I love candy ravers!
Yeah, I should find myself a cutey little candy raver, so all that happy kid stuff could balance my bitter, angry, old-guy qualities. But it would probably require me to leave my room first, so eh, doesn't seem very likely.
4/20/2000 04:08:05 PM | +
Jesse's information architecture resources page is excellent. thanks brig and rebecca
I miss infosift. And what the hell does technical difficulties mean anyway? How much longer until he just gets the pyrates to give him access to their backend to generate weblog nation randomly and automatically?
4/20/2000 03:00:22 PM | +
See, it's kind of like blueblog, but you see, it's not, because it's bleu blog
Never mind.
4/20/2000 12:39:28 AM | +
Some deepleap related stuff -
Bigwigs are even talking about it - Edd Dumbill of xml.com discusses deepleap and makes some interesting points, especially on the possibilties of the metainfo tab and "standardized" navigation, although I think this is one of the less interesting aspects of deepleap.
Dave Winer mentioned deepleap on Scripting News - Userland thread on "what's the point" - Lane's response has some good "vision" stuff - Bryan's post again explaining dammit, we're not really about the stupid bookmarks.
I think deepleap is at a something of a "proof of concept" stage right now, but as the toolset expands, and becomes more context-sensitive and smarter, it may actually change the way people find and deal with information as they surf.
4/18/2000 11:44:01 PM | +
Lunch with Ben yesterday was fun. He really does have big pants. This post sounds very boring, and really the episode should be written up properly and included in a fascinating and detailed texty piece called "my lunch with the rockstar or something," not a little blog post... yup, I should write after I finish all the school work from the classes I haven't been going to. Well, after that and a nap. I think I need a nap.
4/18/2000 03:02:45 PM | +
I spent the weekend with my parents who are here at Stanford until Tuesday. [No comment.]
I'm supposed to rendezvous with Ben Brown tomorrow for lunch. I'm really, really nervous.
4/16/2000 10:21:17 PM | +
I don't want to turn into a dot-com person if I grow up.
4/14/2000 06:55:37 PM | +
A genuine thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday - Firda, Andy, Joe, rabi, John, allison, .zannah., and christine, you guys really brightened up an otherwise rainy day.
And extra special thanks to ev, who didn't wish me a happy birthday, but instead made fun of me and linked to webloglog, which is by far the best present I've gotten ever. Wow, ev linked me, I think my life is complete.
Boy, doesn't this post sound exactly like the kind of stuff I mock on webloglog... wheee, go hypocritical me!
4/14/2000 02:48:17 PM | +
Ok. Let's try that again.
update - I think I'm going to post some more thoughts on deepleap later, but to get a sense of why this app is really cool and important try highlighting a movie name on a page then launching the deepleap app. I have three important words for you to think about - context, context, context. Thanks to leaper bryan himself for the tip.
4/14/2000 12:14:15 PM | +
Err, ignore that second link. I think it's still too early. Tomorrow maybe. Never mind. Sleep now, leap later.
4/14/2000 02:16:17 AM | +
I'm 20.
When the hell did I get so old? I feel old. Old. Very old. And lame. Very lame.
Ugh. Happy fricking birthday to me.
4/14/2000 12:04:27 AM | +
Which might be all right, but I don't think I'm the first to say that the Netscape 6 Preview doesn't seem to be all that much of one either.
What ever happened to the idea that any dumb shit can write a browser. This still cracks me up.
4/12/2000 08:26:30 PM | +
Current plan -
4/12/2000 12:32:15 PM | +
Ben Brown - censored? Is this the end of the fragile reality that I call my world? And just when my ben impression was getting noticed? (thanks brig)
It was a really intense piece. I guess it's ok because the Carl told him to tone it down.
I'm trying to write something more than pointless blog commentary every day. I've decided writing is important again, and the only way I'm ever going to improve is to keep doing it. I'm not entirely sure why I think it's so important, or important that I "improve." If I ever get a real life or real ideas and they're important maybe I'll be able to express them well.
4/12/2000 12:25:10 AM | +
Second, Gnutella is not there to promote the piracy of music. It's mainly for sharing recipes and naked pictures of your girlfriend.
The important thing is that Gnutella will be here tomorrow. It's reliable, it's sharing terabytes of data, and it is absolutely unstoppable."
4/10/2000 02:06:01 PM | +
DEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Cam - Mozilla is not a browser. via davey
about Gnutella - the open-source napster-like file sharing protocol -
"There are a few things that will prevent Gnutella from being stopped by lawyers, FBI, etc. First, Gnutella is nothing but a protocol. It's just freely-accessible information. There is no company to sue. No one entity is really responsible for Gnutella.
This started out as a blog entry but I decided that stupid personal posts longer than like a sentence should be put into rant form. Always, I should ask myself, "Is this thing I've written blurby or bloggy?" Haha. I am just so damned funny. Yeah, this post is personal and stupid and longer than a sentence. Hi, my name is Adam and I'm a hypocrite.
"rant" 34 - The Job Search Strikes Back.
4/7/2000 07:46:56 PM | +
This probably isn't news to anyone, LaunchCast is really great. It's what I've always dreamed of when I listened to the radio - when Alannis comes on I can press a button and they will never play Ironic ever again. Such power... Screw the ratings, it's the x button that really does it for me.
If you have the bandwidth, this is pretty cool. There's still some "issues," my biggest is that "This song is popular on LaunchCast stations" is not a valid reason to play it for me since I hate everyone else's taste in music. But this kind of personalization technology is definitely important. I mean, I know everyone said that about Firefly and it sucked ass and nobody cared, but this is different. I think.
And now you can have video instead of just streaming audio on your personal channel. Keen!
4/7/2000 04:00:57 PM | +
"Rant" 33 - Narnia Staff Application
Again, no real links today. Sorry kiddies.
4/7/2000 12:00:47 AM | +
Hi, my name is Adam and I love Ben Brown.
At least, that's one interpretation of my latest 'rant'. No, they aren't rants anymore, at all. They haven't been in years, but that's not the point. I had fun writing it, maybe somebody will enjoy reading it, I'm not making any guarantees, the first few paragraphs are too weak. Dammit, where's my high-school newspaper editor instincts - you call that a lead! Oh well.
4/5/2000 02:35:09 PM | +
Can somebody, anybody, explain to me why I'm still using Frontier 5?
Yes, you there in the back with the blue sweatshirt.
"Because you're an idiot."
So the rants section which I haven't touched in monhts got a slight facelift, and since I shoved all the entries into a db there's at least some slight chance it might be redesigned to look spiffy one day. But not much.
Summer Stats and Feeling Worthless are the new ones. I don't know what I'm doing with the rants section, it's always been a place I just throw random bits of journal-ish text. In retrospect, most of it isn't worth reading, but I still think the Summer FAQ is funny.
"Hey, isn't this supposed to be a weblog?"
You, in the back, with the sweatshirt, please wait until you are called on before commenting. Yeah weblog. Web log. Logging web sites. I don't even know what that means.
4/4/2000 11:47:19 PM | +
If you're a webloglog reader, go away. Really. I don't like you guys. You smell.
4/4/2000 10:08:12 PM | +
I wanted to write a rant yesterday, but I didn't. All of the rants are generated from files with extended Tracker attributes in BeOS. I used to think it was so cool - the file system can be effectively used as a database by adding user-defined attributes to files. From there I used some stupid ugly bash shell scripts to throw it all into templates and generate the html.
But since I'm anti-BeOS I need to switch over to a real content management system. Which would of course require me to generate "content" but let's ignore that point for a moment.
Why is everything else in static html pages? Didn't I learn anything when I worked for ingenious? Why isn't all of my text in a real database so I can just change templates and then regenerate everything? Or have it dynamically generated on the server? What the hell is wrong with me? What kind of geek am I?
I used to use Frontier for this kind of stuff. Maybe I should try it again. Or I could hack up ugly perl scripts or something, I don't know. This is such a "normal" and "boring" problem, I would think there would be "easier" solutions to it. I must be missing something obvious.
4/4/2000 03:03:40 PM | +
So this is almost three years old, and I'm just getting around to putting on the web now. I'm a little irresponsible.
I was going through some old papers and things over Spring Break, and I found some things from the Brown Summer Pre-College program I attended back in 1997. It was one of the few times I can remember really being happy, and being around people I really liked.
I kept in touch with some of the people I met for a couple years, but I haven't talked to any of them in quite a while. Anyway, my friend Monali wrote something about me and my roommate Matt, and it's by far my favorite thing ever written about me. I found some old pictures and scanned them in too. Yes, I'm even breaking with the "absolutely no graphics" policy of my website. yes, there's even bad pictures of me
So, without any further ado - adam and matt
4/4/2000 12:36:19 AM | +
"Why do all of those books have random animals on them?"
"They're not really random. Bass... bash shell..."
"And the ferret?"
"Never mind."
4/3/2000 06:57:44 PM | +
"Adam, you've reached a new low."
"What, I'm supposed to have something better to do on Saturday night than watch VH1's Behind the Music on Vanilla Ice?"
Yet another conversation you don't want to have with your ex, brought to you by Adam Mathes, total loser.
4/1/2000 11:33:36 PM | +
copyright 1999-2000 adam mathes