The Jim Morrison Suite
If I was going to make a trip to LA, I knew immediately that it would have to be a vacation on-the-cheap. At first I thought it would be a little upscale to stay at the WeHo Ramada, but then a friend (Hi, Matt!) told me that that Ramada was the Beck's Motor Lodge of West Hollywood.
Ew.
So there were two “motels” (the name always reminds me of family vacations in 1969-1972) in the area. Both motels—the Alta Cienega and the Holloway Motel—were right there in the middle of it all, but when I researched each of them, there were comments about them being basic, clean, cheap; but there were also off-the-charts castigations of each.
So that was a wash. Then I found it: The Jim Morrison Suite. The motel room that Jim Morrison lived in for two whole years, serendipitously the same years that my family and I stayed in motels on frequent trips to the beach. So that felt right, in a kind of teleo-temporal kind of way (no, I don't know what I mean either).
Yes, I mentioned this before, but now I'm showin' pictures!
I posted a whole web gallery via MobileMe (née .Mac). For your edification. Oh and let me add, whoever posted that the "old Chinese woman" at the Alta Cienega was evil or in any way horrible, suck it. She was totally awesome. I checked in closer to 5pm and I interrupted her making dinner and seemingly overall very busy, but she was kind and smiling and helped me out. I'd asked her for a clothes iron and she offered to bring it up to my room—and did, about 10 minutes after I got there.
On The Road
18-July-2008
12:30 - SFO International Terminal. Horrible. Monitors too small and too few. Stairs everywhere. Completely confusing when you first walk in: One monitor attached to each Aisle instead (and at the sides, not the endcaps) of a central one or two to direct you properly.
15:15 - Virgin America Flight 1847 to LAX, Seat 8A. At first I hated the purple lighting, but it worked on me after awhile. It felt more peaceful and cooler. Of course, that could have been the little AC sphincter above me. Large amount of legroom in the exit row, but the tray doesn't pull up close enough to use a MacBook Pro on it comfortably. Boo.
17:26 - Alta Cienega Motel, West Hollywood. In the Jim Morrison "suite"! Yes, this is the room where Jim Morrison lived for two whole years. And I'm in it right now. No sign of ghosts, which makes me believe that Jim Morrison is not dead! Shut up, my logic is undeniable.
17:36 - Still here. There are exactly three doors here in this "suite". Hmmm...The Doors minus the three doors here = Jim Morrison! My logic is undeniable. Where are my sunglasses? There's a CVS across the street. I can see it from my window. WWJMD? I'll have to buy another pair before my head explodes from all this sunlight. Where is my smog salvation?
17:41 - Still still here. I added my own graffiti to the walls. The Ethels & The Toll. Also? I ironed a shirt that doesn't bother staying ironed. At least the collar might stay okay.
19:15 - Ciao - My third viewing. First viewing in the City, with Alessandro next to me on my left Second viewing in Berkeley, solo because I needed it to be that way. Third viewing for me.
Ok, so I was going keep going here, but I had a blast and with such great people that I don't even want to go back and extract details. At least not just yet.
I will say this: I slept like the dead (pun intended) and woke up well-rested. Will wonders never cease?
Figures
I went to see Hellboy 2 tonight with my friend Shiun. Yes, I saw it last week with Kurfty, post-incident, but it was fun enough that I wanted to see it again (after having done “homework” by watching the first Hellboy.
Just my bad luck that it was a Moviebears outing. Yes, there are variations (of a sort) on that tired theme.
Worse still, I was stuck sitting next to the guy who started hitting on Sam right in front of me a while back. And after I pointed out that I was Sam’s boyfriend? Yes, you guessed it: he kept right on hitting on Sam. Bear Typical. And they sure love their Typical this, that, the other thing.
In a sense, though, those Typicals came in handy, in a certain way: my friends are both Asian, so by the time I got into the theater, there were many bears in many seats, except all around my friends. Asians are anathema to the bears. It was kinda funny, actually: it's like that little experiment you do with pepper on the surface of water on a plate? One drop of soap in the middle and all the pepper appears to scatter to the edges.
Speaking of soap, of course the “bear” sitting next to me (who during a trailer for a thriller movie yells “Scare bears!”—yet another variation on the overall theme) might think less about the Bear Typical of “mansmells” when he's out and about and might end up uncomfortably near a human being.
It's like they said in Wargames: the only way to win is not to play. I don't think it's coincidence that my life hit a major accelerator in happiness and overall feeling better since I detached myself from groups of bears.
Good God
Please, Please, Please! Someone tell me how it all went so wrong? When did things get so irritatingly stupid that it's considered a draw to name a simple dance party “Pornstar Alley”?
Literalist prats (oh look, I made a funny) throwing flesh and literalism at everything just to make it sell?
I don't know what's worse: that they offer such emotionally and intellectually retarded “branding” or that it actually works among the intended audiences?
I'm not stupid; I know that sex sells and all that. But when did “sex-industry” start to be a sell? Are pornstars the ultimate heroes among us?
This kinda ruined my afternoon.
Couldn’t Call It Unexpected
While I still do worry about that episode I had on Friday, I feel reassured more. Intellectual grokking always comes before emotional, at least so far.
I saw my doctor this morning and she's forbidden me from calling it “aphasia”. Why? well, the easy answer is: because she said so. The less subjective answer: there's no indication post-angiogram that anything bad happened. Then she played the age card: you're 44. It happens.
Ouch.
She knows me so well. She knew me well-enough this morning to tell me that I know enough medical stuff to be dangerous, and she also knew how much I hated question marks when it came to anything health-related. That's when the gloves came off.
She told me she was pulling no punches when she likened me to a woman who had come in with a pregnancy scare: she'd claim she was only making out with her boyfriend and that her panties stayed on the whole time, but could she possibly be pregnant? Even after a pregnancy test came back she'd swear she might be.
So I'm a non-pregnant woman.
For completeness' sake, I'm going to have an ECHO and an bilateral carotid arterial ultrasound. Already scheduled the ECHO for tomorrow morning.
Assuming all-clear on both tests, I'm now planning (again) on LA.
The Case of the Flash-Aphasia
There's always something more you can do. That's what I've always told myself. I'm not being glib here. I always have. Always. That indefatigable sense of, well, I'm just not sure. Lay persons would call it optimism. Pessimists have called it idealism. For me, it's been more of a mathematics issue: gamblers would paraphrase me with “you've got to play to win”. In other words, where there's life there is, if not hope, at least opportunity.
If you're waiting for an “until now”, your wait is over. This time, at least, I'm predictable.
Until two days ago, by far the nastiest test of my stubborn bright side was when Allen was very close to death. So close, in fact, that his body (he wasn't there anymore) lacked the muscle tone to keep his vocal cords out of the path of his labored breaths. Go ahead, try it yourself: take a deep breath and sigh. A long sigh. But let your voice come through that breath. Awful, isn't it? A hollow sound, plangent and plaintive and nothing more. As if Unstoppable Time is extracting life from you with a painful billow.
Still, when Isabelle coached me that day she told me, “There are details you don't have to pay attention to anymore, Jeff. This isn't going to end but the one way.” And still there was some stubborn, almost autocratic, bit of me that twitched with involuntary disagreement. It's not that I didn't know it would end that way, it's just that the absoluteness of her words kept ricocheting around inside my giant head and standing my ground was the first attempt to make it stop.
The beginning of the end was only a month or so prior to his death, when I came home one day and he was speaking to me but not using the right words. He'd grabbed a pen and a notepad and wrote down what he was trying to say, but his assumption that it was only his speech that was damaged turned out to be wrong. There were words on the pad, but nothing any more sensical than his speech.
Approximately fifteen hours ago minus thirteen years, Allen's body was making that exact sound. Approximately fourteen hours ago (again, minus the thirteen years), the sound had stopped. Silence had won and I despised it even while respecting its sway over our bedroom. I spoke softly and kissed him on his cold lips, saying, “Goodbye, Yog.” No tears, certainly no wailing. I was nothing but the Utilitarian Stoic: there were things to be done, coroner to call, family to call, my voice aimed at anyone who had the ability to hear me.
But this is not about Allen, it's about me. That's a new thing. As you might have read, I had a slightly-more-than-a-moment first-hand experience with aphasia myself.
And my previously indomitable “where there's life there's opportunity” obduracy has finally met its match. Oh, it's “probably nothing”, my little aphasic episode. The doctors at Davies' ER said so. “Atypical migraine” they called it. Two CT scans, one with and one without contrast dye, showed all-clear, but fear is winning. Fear is the mind-killer, it's been written, but my fear is about the potential mind-loss. The philosophical cart ahead of the paralogical horse is not a practical configuration.
The fear is so front-and-center that I'm not sure about my LA trip anymore. A strange city where I know no doctors, no hospitals. A trip that I've so much been looking forward to—especially in getting to meet Adam—that I haven't been able to much think beyond July 18. And yet still, right now, I can't imagine myself doing anything but bringing people down, much less having any fun myself.
Anyway, all of this put another way? After Allen's death thirteen years ago today I reminded myself with authentic confidence that “I'm still here”. It was a restorative that never failed me. Now I cannot even muster those words without also adding “but for how long?”
I miss him, y'know? But right now I'm worried that I'll miss me more.
This Time It's All About Me
I'm here in Davies Memorial Hospital's Emergency Room.
Earlier today my hand went numb, right up to the wrist and no further. Then it went further: up my forearm with a clean stop at the elbow. Until it started up again. There were runners of numbness climbing up my upper arm, but then feeling was restored in a matter of a couple of seconds, all the way down to my fingertips. This had happened to me once before, two or three months ago. The numbness didn't ascend further than the middle of the forearm, though, and the numbness was nowhere near as complete and total as it was this time. “Complete and total” is a bit of a misnomer, as I didn't lose strength or mobility, but at the surface of the skin, well, let's just say I could have given myself a total stranger.
No real cause for alarm. Even though it was my left arm, there was no shooting pain, no pain in the armpit, no tightness in my chest.
It was what happened 25 minutes afterwards that set the bells to ringing.
I'd gone to see a movie with Kurfty, and as we were driving down Market Street towards downtown to the Metreon. We were having a conversation about what I just told you about, and I started tripping over my own tongue. I must have mispronounced 5 or 6 words. I started to laugh, feeling like a clown or an idiot. Or both.
But then I said the word ‘numb’ and it came out ‘humm’. I stopped, the joking part well past, and said it again: ‘humm’. And again, going for ‘numb’: ‘humm!’
I told Kurfty that it was freaking me out a little and that I was going to “just shut up now”. There was no other impairment. I mainly kept silent before and through Hellboy 2, enjoying the hell out of it. It was big fun, with a far more compelling and satisfying ending that I ever thought it would be for comic book fare.
On the way out, on the way to Kurfty's house, my speech was back in impeccable form, not even swallowing a single final consonant.
But, bless the kind heart beneath the beautiful face, he kept asking if I was OK, then demanding that I keep him apprised of things. I promised.
I called up Felba when I got home—after having called my mom, the nurse, to tell her I was worried. “Get to the E.R. now. No waiting. Do not drive yourself over.” When Marie talks like that, I listen. When it comes to healthcare, her imperatives are mine. No questions asked.
It turned out that both she and Stork showed up to drive me over here. I'd insisted already that they didn't have to stay. Part of that was just not wanting to be too much of a burden: and what could they do here but sit out in the hallway just outside the E.R.? I have to confess now, though, that on the slight offchance this was going to be something difficult (like a TIA or even a stroke), I wanted to hear it just for myself. I'm just that kinda guy.
Now, Davies E.R. is in the lowest part of the building, half-dug into the rock and buried under five or six hospital floors. No signal. None. Not even my 3G dongle could find purchase in the frequencies.
I've been here just over four hours now, and I'm fairly certain that Stork remembers or figures out that cell signals don't exist down here.
They drew blood for basic tests, and a nurse-phlebotomist named Ivy (I.V.!) put in the line and drew the blood.
I had one CT scan earlier which was clear, but after a consult, I suppose, the E.R. doc, known to me only as Rob, told me to sit tight, that they were going to do another CT scan, this time with contrast chemicals. I asked the tech and he read the bottle to me: “organically-bound iodine, if you know what that means.” I said “yes” while trying to move neither my head nor my mouth as I was already on the sled with my head stuck between two stabilizers.
They warned me that there would be odd sensations from the dye: I'd feel warm in my armpits and then in my groin, but nothing painful. While it wasn't any major thing, I am awfully glad they warned me. First I felt the warmth in my neck and then my head, and not long after I first registered that sensation, it felt like someone hand dunked my junk into almost-to-warm unset gelatin.
I'll pause here, just in case there are any Bears or other emotionally-retarded folks who are thinking “that's so hot! where can I get some?” while visualizing their slings or regarding their open relationships turning it up (down?) a notch.
Done now? Good.
And yes, it was a strange sensation, but those are the ones I welcome. I could visualize in exquisite detail the forms, musculature and cardio-insertions as the dye flowed through things down there. Just more to learn.
Doc Rob said it was just a protocol thing to cover their asses, and that like the first CT scan, he didn't expect the contrast-CT scan to show anything more. Of course there's that one in a million chance it could come back showing a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack). I don't expect that either, but never say which before the results are in.
Right now I'm mostly bored. I'll have to be around people all the time for the next couple of days because I live alone. I find it strange that when there's someone living in my house ends up having me to be there for them, and all my shit happens when I am living alone. Not bitter, but I'm not going to play dumb, either.
So I'll know in a little while if I'm cleared to go. I'll pause this until then...
UPDATE: Both CT scans were clear. They sent me home after 5+ hours in the ER. The were very sweet, all of them. There's been no sign of the aphasia since those 10 minutes of it this afternoon, but I have to follow up with a neurologist before they'll clear me to fly to LA on Friday. In my opinion, they better clear me to go, or the blood vessels i'll pop in my head (ischemia!) will be their fault.
Then Is Now, But Now's Not Then
I wish our social traditions included using the same word to mean hello and goodbye. There's something more...local...about it. Without a separate greeting and parting, meeting and conversation has no grand entrance or big-number exit. It's just acknowledgement of start and stop.
And then when two people meet, there is no finality to it.
And when two people meet, its beginning is a mirror of its ending.
And then when two people say goodbye, its ending is a mirror of its beginning.
I have been spending the past two weeks a bit out of sorts, sorting through my reactions to the film Ciao. For the amount of time spent in my own head and especially my own heart, I sit here in wonder that I have not written a speck about the film since before I saw it. Impossible.
Then again, reality has distorted itself somewhat. Brains are really good at bending objectivity into a subjective reality that makes perfect sense at the time. And sometimes, subjectivity descends upon and envelops you. In the dark. With gorgeous colors and even more gorgeous people. Such subjectivity is always welcomed in, has to be welcomed in. Like vampires. But vampires don't give you anything back. The right actors, direction, writing: those are the agents of change. External forces which interlope never get in to where all the good stuff is: too many defenses snap into place.
It's a choice to see a film: $10 or no? It's a choice to sit through it: you can leave any time. It's not entirely your choice to let it in, but let's face it: you paid for the ticket (or at least accepted it—hi, Yen! :) and you sat your ass in the seat and you let it happen.
You say “Ciao” to the experience as the room goes dark. You say “Ciao” to the film as the credits are done rolling. The film says “Ciao” to heart and head and memory and viscera. No one contravenes that kind of communication. No one can.
Now, I have written any number of times about Allen Howland, the man who was my partner. He left us all too soon. He was six years older than I when he died. He died at the young, young age of 37. Actually, 37 and a half (I wouldn't omit a single second of his life). He will have been dead 13 years in six days.
The accompaniment of personal memories to the film is undeniable, but that doesn't explain it all. It wasn't ever the harmony I was trying to get at—conversations among people who all agree are insufferably smug and self-righteous—it was the discordance I heard as the film rumbled through all of my memories, shaking them a bit and lighting them from strange angles as they passed.
My memories of the time with Allen, including my caring for him the entire time (he didn't want to die in a hospital, he wanted to be home with me), are intact. In fact, they've all gotten together and locked themselves into a latticework in the shape of a fancy. Of all things!
Even though that fancy has an excellent view—the Long view—it has only one seat. A seat reserved only for me: from there I could see the outside. From there I had easy access to any given memory. From there, I started to believe only I could create such a thing. From there, I could establish labored analogies that get in the way...
Thing is, intellectually I knew there were other men and women who went through what I did: the loss of a partner. The loss of most of your own workaday, liveaday life: things change drastically. Fast change itself is a huge change after the slow-but-occasionally-punctuated change for the worse. Imagine how much of a change the asymtote that is Death is.
The memories are all mine, jumbled together so that no one single memory can dominate any other memory, any other me.
This is all head-work, though, a trap that I still fall into with alarming alacrity. Old habits die hard. My life with Allen was not a problem to be solved. There was only the experience, valor on his part, dread on mine. I worked hard at....well, at everything.
And I think this is the point where working out my reactions and the changes within me precipitated by viewing Ciao itself were exactly representative of the ultimate solution: I led with brute force thinking instead of open, vulnerable, honest, candid feeling.
Ciao opened my eyes to the amount of thinking I'd done in the past. And how much I refused my own feelings in mapping out a life After.
Please note that my feelings towards Allen were never in doubt, never neglected. Each and every day he declined a little and my love for him grew to fill the space of his withdrawal. It's that in making the whole experience just mine and mine alone, the responsibilities when he was alive became a burden on myself to remember it all for fear that no one else would understand exactly and that it was important enough to not let it disappear entirely.
I realize now that what Ciao showed me is that while Allen was unique and our relationship was as well, my feelings, joy, despair, contentedness, worry, devotion, resentment, all were things that were accessible to other people. Who hasn't felt those things once upon a time, individually or even altogether at once? Who could empathize with me if they didn't have access to their own experiences and feelings? I rejected every attempt at sympathy: I have no use for that because it inevitably becomes yet another burden. You have to be grateful, after all.
In removing the thinking out of it all, I don't merely remember the past, I can inhabit it at will. In inhabiting the past, in seeing it all in first-person instead of third, I understand that there are plenty of friends and loved ones who empathize. Yen Tan and Adam Smith and Alessandro Calza can empathize. Though both my parents are alive and so neither could know exactly how it feels to lose a partner, they've both lost both their parents. Plenty good enough.
Do I feel diminished because my feelings were not unique? A month ago I would have lashed out had anyone told me that, but I feel surprisingly—welcomed back. Back to life in the main and among the world and not sequestered to a sidebar.
I have re-experienced that time of my life in a much closer and ironically much more personal way. Ciao was the key. I suppose it could be argued that this is my time for this discovery, but it wasn't just anything that did it. It was Yen Tan's film.
There is such a thin thread that brought me to the film. Yen Tan, all magnanimous and curious, gets the credit for that. Alessandro Calza, too, an online friend for years who I met at the screening of a film about online friends who were supposed to meet up for the first time. Even Adam Smith, who I expect to meet in LA in a couple of weeks is a singular discovery, easy to like even at a distance.
I no longer feel required to gather my experiences to my chest and huddle in a dim corner with them, all protective. I have use for the sunny days that occurred back then. I feel as if life has restarted at the mindset I had when I'd reached the end of the long shadow of his death. Renewal, restored and happy that I'm still here.
PS This was not at all easy for me. Please forgive any rambling.
User Experience Guidelines, Mac v. Windows
Now, I'm much more familiar with the Mac UI than Windows because I'm a Mac user and a Mac (and iPhone) developer. I'm not sure this applies to Windows developers, but every Mac developer is also a Mac user. That is to say Xcode, Interface Builder, Dashcode and all the rest of the tools also follow the Apple HIG (for the most part). Another way to put it: when you're developing a Mac application, you're using bonafide Mac applications.
I have a bookmark folder item in my Safari bookmark bar labeled Cocoa. It was there originally to drop in any Cocoa developer sites as I found them, any tutorials, any interesting items related to Mac (and now also iPhone) development. Trouble—and serendipitous benefit—is that rather than taking the time to create yet another folder item for more general stuff, I just kept throwing everything inside the Cocoa item. I suppose that's an unconscious exposure of my world view when it comes to development: everything starts with Cocoa.
Why? No, not because I'm some kind of Apple fanboy do I go for Mac stuff. It's the other way around. Having chosen Mac in 1984 and investigated every other platform to come along since then, there's nothing better. A matter of opinion? Well, if evolution is the “opinion of” rather than “theory of”, then yes, yes it's a matter of opinion.
So anyhoo, inside the Cocoa folder I found an item that pointed to Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines. Right off the bat, the UI of their webpage (over which Microsoft has complete control, I click and get this:
Nice start, huh?
So Windows itself if chock full of UI/UE donchas, so I decided to go see what Microsoft thinks are no-no's. But then I changed my mind and decided to think positively. I skip #1, ‘What's New in Windows Vista.’ because I really don't care what's new. Users don't seem to care either, so why should I? I started with #2, ‘Top Rules’ which ‘summarizes the top rules that the Windows Vista Design team suggests you follow to create high-quality, consistent Windows Vista UIs.’
Rules? Ok, I'll bite. Rule #1: Use the toolkits provided for UI elements and use the system font. Ok so far, but I'm still not comfy with “rules” for interactive products. Rule #2: Common Controls and dialogs. First illustration:
Anyone spot the owie here? Well, two, really, but stupid and superfluous as displaying all the various file extensions for the image type is, I'd be here all night talking about how much Windows shows TMI. Well, three: where's the large type clearly indicating the reason you're being bothered with a modal dialog?
Americans, in case you hadn't noticed, read left-to-right, top to bottom. They've correctly defaulted the "Save" button, but haven't put it in the proper place: the bottom-right of the dialog is the logical end point of the dialog box. Put the defaulted button there. That's the logical choice for Roman scripts (like English, Dutch, German, western languages in general) and that implies a natural target. The default choice should be in the natural target area. I imagine more than once, Windows users have clicked "Cancel" by accident since it's the final element.
Yes, I really could go on and on and on. Just let me add one little bit of wisdom from the Icons section: “Icons in Windows Vista are either three-dimensional and shown in perspective as solid objects, or two-dimensional objects shown straight-on. Use flat icons for files and for objects that are actually flat, like documents or pieces of paper.”
Yeaaaah, flat. Is flat. Flat for flat. Flatty, Flatty two by four.
Except the icon representing a piece of paper is a piece of paper that's dog-eared. Dog-eared ain't flat. And even if it was flattened, paper still has thickness. For their argument, wouldn't a flat panel display be flat? No? Huh.
Top-level Rule #3: Top Guidelines Violations. Already with the violations? Seriously? My favorite fuck-up in the Windows UI is when they use a determinate-appearing dialog animation that in no way represents the determinate task at hand. (A determinate progress bar is one where the task is finite and known: a progress bar or circle whose appearance matches the, well, progress of the task. When the bar has filled 100%, the task is complete. Indeterminate progress only indicates that something is going on which the computer cannot calculate with any certainty.). That Windows example? The confusing and dumb-ass file-copy dialog. When I first saw it way back when, I thought that each file flying over to the receiving folder was one copied file. Stupid me for thinking a document flying from one folder to another didn't match the task of one document flying from one folder to another.
Comparing this top-down rules-approach to whip galley-slave-developers into line with the approach that Apple takes..well, it's the carrot and the stick. Apple's approach is to justify why you do things in a certain way so that the user is happy. On a Mac, success == happy users. Good applications that look clean and are only as complex as they need to be (and that is hidden as much as possible— *.jpeg, *.jpg, *.jfif ????—and work just like every other Mac application where they have something in common: e.g., ⌘Q is always the Quit Command. Quit is always at the bottom of the Application menu (the menu bar item that is named for frontmost application). Same with a default New, Open, Close, Close Window, Save, Page Setup, Print, etc. These aren't just suggestions, as the Windows documentation seems to suggest. They're not only compulsory (given the context and abilities of the application), they're difficult to work around (but easy to remove those that are inappropriate for your app).
Any complaints you hear about Office applications from Mac folks are from only two problems: speed/responsiveness and bad user interface, which means specifically “not Mac-like”.
Microsoft documentation stands in each pitfall saying “Watch out! Don't go here!”, while Mac documentation lights the way.
Imagine guidelines that just guide you. Imagine a travel book that did nothing but list all the places you should not go, and only offers positivity like “museums are nice” or “you should look for a hotel with clean sheets”. Welcome to Redmond!
How Not To
Next time any of you think that Apple just slapped a touchscreen on a mobile device and called it iPhone. The next time you think that UIs are solely a matter of opinion and try to wuss out when people talk about the Mac UI and how crap the Windows UI is by saying that it's personal preferences and “it all depends on what it's used for”, please do this for me. I'm not asking a lot, I swear. I'll even go as far as saying “There is no step 3!”
- Remind yourself that you're being stupid.
- Remember the following image:
The next time you think that Apple was utterly lacking in good intentions for making developers wait so long for a proper SDK, close your mouth. Close it and just trust. Trust. Apple knows what it's doing with User Experience. Also trust that API development is one of the most conservative tasks in all of computing. If you don't believe me, look at what a piece of shit Vista is. Why did it take Microsoft so long to produce so little? Because it didn't bother taking its time when publishing an SDK. It didn't do the right thing and make sure they were right, they were potent, they were orthogonal, they were complete. There's a difference between Apple delaying public APIs (like Core Animation and Core Image) while using them themselves and Microsoft's tactics of keeping superior APIs to themselves so they'd have a competitive advantage. Trust again. Trust that Apple knows what it's doing when it comes to crafting something worthwhile.
It's really just as simple as that.
And remember that this has nothing to do with Apple as a corporate or Green or political entity and everything to do with the inspiration and diligence of engineers, designers, QA, marketing and yes, even Steve.
Apple is one of the worst corporate citizens when it comes to how it treats its employees if their personal paths veer from a regimented professional path. Steve Jobs can be a dickhead. Financial & Legal clearly seem to have no issues with cheating.
Separate those soi-disant “real world” aspects from the higher, idealistic efforts.
People you can trust. Corporations you must always distrust.
Leopard Wiki Server
I suppose I should first do some research to see if the wiki server that comes with Leopard Server is open-source or licensed or whatever, but for now, suffice it to say that it erases every last nasty thing about contributing to a wiki.
Lots of Javascript and excellent graphics make me all the more psyched about the SproutCore-based applications that you'll get with MobileMe.
Very nice. My world should change significantly after .Mac transfers to Mobile Me.
As for my own development, well, someone with the experience to speak on such matters offered the following advice:
- 64-bit
- Computationally expensive
- Graphically intensive.
If your requirements include any of those things, write a native (Cocoa) app. If none do, write a web app.
I've never much liked anything to do with a serious application inside a browser window. I never EVER write long pieces in a web text field for fear of losing it all (e.g., I have used a blogging client—two, now—ever since I started blogging). For those of you keeping blogs, I highly recommend ecto and MarsEdit (oh, and check out Red Sweater Software's other offerings. Daniel Jalkut is a brilliant developer.)
There's so much more you can do with a local client than in a blogger or typepad web editor, like add Amazon references or graphics by a built-in search function. And indie developers are some of the best out there.
For example, Wil Shipley of Delicious Software is the smartest man on earth (and probably a space alien—he'd have to be). If you're not a Mac user, go to an Apple store—or find a friend who's a Mac user—and download the demo of Delicious Library. Oh, and bring a book or a CD or DVD with you just to try out the built-in barcode scanning. If this app doesn't make you want a Mac yesterday, well, Microsoft has won.
Obama & Truth: Today's Celebrity Divorce
You've probably all read about it somewhere, but it appears as if reconciliation talks between Senator and Presidential-hopeful Barak Obama & The Truth have failed.
Citing infidelity and verbal abuse as reasons for dissolution of the marriage, The Truth appeared...well,nowhere in the media, really. Ms. Truth claims that Sen. Obama, IL, cheated on Truth with “some nosy whore called FISA!” and that FISA would “give it up for anyone!”.
Obama's spokesperson denies that he's not the only one who cheated: he claims that The Truth has been seen courting just about everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Salon.com.
“I have never been near Rush Limbaugh in any way!” The Truth denied vehemently. “And Salon.com? They've been coming after me for years, but Christians seem to be getting in the way! But then again I've always tried to keep my private life private. Not that I'm thanking Christians or anything: They think they own me!”
Obama couldn't be reached for comment. Word around is that his spokesperson is all tied up brain-to-tongue and that both his faces are convalescing from pulled muscles.
So, all, it appears that Obama has finally parted with The Truth. There's been a rumor floating about the Beltway that Obama had long intended to walk away from his marriage for a while now, a rumor which appears to be well-founded. The surprise is that no one expected the separation to occur until after ‘Senator’ gave way to ‘President Elect’.
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