It's all over the 'net and the blog o'sphere, but I'm going to steal my 'rubbing with greatness' moment by linking to James Chaney's opinion piece in the Eugene Register-Guard here.
It says so many right (as opposed to Right) things that it quite honestly moved me nearly to tears.
It's as coherent as a laser beam and cuts straight to the bone. And all the things detailed in the piece are the truth-not the Truth as branded and sold by the GOP.
Welcome to the reality-based world, Mr. Chaney. Good to have you here. Although, we're going to have to agree to disagree on GHWB; but intelligent people can do that.
By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - Graphic Designer without Portfolio, aspiring artist who dawdled too long.
03 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd On High-Numbered Streets
I adore high-numbered streets. Actually, I love all numbered streets and am particularly amused when the numberes get sufficiently big.
In the past I've mentioned the Portland grid's highest number: S.E. 502nd Avenue, in the outer precincts, past Sandy, not quite to Welches. Recently we went out there to get photos of the sign, and were dismayed to find the sign was not up any longer-though the addresses on the mailboxes still reflected the street's amazing name and the Cole Cross-reference directory for Portland still features it as a name.
And I've mentioned that, in the Greater Salem area, there exists at 170th Ave, S.E.
There are even numbered avenues in the low 700s in northeastern King County in Washington-along US Highway 2. The joke here is that to get to this part of King County from Seattle you hve to go north to Snohomish County, then east from Everett...you can't get there from here unless you go over there first.
The search in Google for "highest numbered street"
returns a page with six or seven hits, including on of my own articles on this subject. The one at the top, titled "Lucas County-Page 1" has a word on an area of Toledo, Ohio, called "Point Place".
Geographically, this is in the northeastern part of the city, between the mouth of the Maumee River and the Ohio-Michigan state line. It's interesting because it's completely made of crossing numbered streets-no avenues. The potential conflicts are obviated by two different ranges for the E-W streets vice the N-S streets (I don't have a map at hand, but it's something like 130-160 one way and 270-340 the other). This photo (links to the site) details the intersection of 145th Street and 326th Street, which the author guesses as the highest-numbered street in the US (but we know better).
The other unique part of the street numbering scheme is that aside from an obvious increase in the street numbers in the SW-NE direction, there is no apparent origin, nor does the numbering scheme obviously tie into either the Toledo city street naming system nor any apparent system extant in Lucas County. I expect that it's probably a way of naming streets locally to differentiate the district from other areas. But the question as to why the number ranges were chosen such may be one that never gets an answer.
It's a nice site to visit; the author loves street blades as much as I do. Warning dialup users: the pix are big and will take a while to download. But if you love street signs, it's worth the look.
The entire site links here.
In the past I've mentioned the Portland grid's highest number: S.E. 502nd Avenue, in the outer precincts, past Sandy, not quite to Welches. Recently we went out there to get photos of the sign, and were dismayed to find the sign was not up any longer-though the addresses on the mailboxes still reflected the street's amazing name and the Cole Cross-reference directory for Portland still features it as a name.
And I've mentioned that, in the Greater Salem area, there exists at 170th Ave, S.E.
There are even numbered avenues in the low 700s in northeastern King County in Washington-along US Highway 2. The joke here is that to get to this part of King County from Seattle you hve to go north to Snohomish County, then east from Everett...you can't get there from here unless you go over there first.
The search in Google for "highest numbered street"
returns a page with six or seven hits, including on of my own articles on this subject. The one at the top, titled "Lucas County-Page 1" has a word on an area of Toledo, Ohio, called "Point Place".
Geographically, this is in the northeastern part of the city, between the mouth of the Maumee River and the Ohio-Michigan state line. It's interesting because it's completely made of crossing numbered streets-no avenues. The potential conflicts are obviated by two different ranges for the E-W streets vice the N-S streets (I don't have a map at hand, but it's something like 130-160 one way and 270-340 the other). This photo (links to the site) details the intersection of 145th Street and 326th Street, which the author guesses as the highest-numbered street in the US (but we know better).
The other unique part of the street numbering scheme is that aside from an obvious increase in the street numbers in the SW-NE direction, there is no apparent origin, nor does the numbering scheme obviously tie into either the Toledo city street naming system nor any apparent system extant in Lucas County. I expect that it's probably a way of naming streets locally to differentiate the district from other areas. But the question as to why the number ranges were chosen such may be one that never gets an answer.
It's a nice site to visit; the author loves street blades as much as I do. Warning dialup users: the pix are big and will take a while to download. But if you love street signs, it's worth the look.
The entire site links here.
01 July 2005
[pdx_life] Area Taxi Rates Set To Increase
It isn't just TriMet fares that are going up.
On Wed, 22 June 2005, the city's For-Hire Transportation Board of Review approved an increase in the per-mile fare in a taxi permitted through a Portland-based cab company to a new rate of $2.10/mile, or 21 cents per 1/10 of a mile-about a standard city block and a half. The new rates are set to take effect 27 July 2005, according to this report at KGW.com (which also discusses the upcoming TriMet rate increases).
The flag drop-the price that appears when the meter is turned on-is set to remain at $2.00, and it appears that the extra charge-the price for extra passengers over 1-will stay at $1.00/extra passenger.
Despite the expense of taxi rides in Portland, the price rise has been quite slow. Through most of the 1990's, the flag drop in a Portland cab was $1.80, with a per-mile charge of $1.50. In 2001, these were raised, respectively, to $2.00 and $1.80. More recently, the per-mile charge was raised to $1.90, in response to the precipitously-rising fuel prices. Extra charges have remained flat.
Personally, I know a few cab drivers: it's a tough go out there these days. The increase in mileage rates may or may not help, depending on the economy and whether or not the cab companies raise lease and other contract rates to the drivers.
The new rates are city ordinance, and apply to the taxi companies that operate in and are based in the city of Portland: Broadway Cab, Radio Cab, New Rose City Cab, Portland Cab, and Green Cab.
On Wed, 22 June 2005, the city's For-Hire Transportation Board of Review approved an increase in the per-mile fare in a taxi permitted through a Portland-based cab company to a new rate of $2.10/mile, or 21 cents per 1/10 of a mile-about a standard city block and a half. The new rates are set to take effect 27 July 2005, according to this report at KGW.com (which also discusses the upcoming TriMet rate increases).
The flag drop-the price that appears when the meter is turned on-is set to remain at $2.00, and it appears that the extra charge-the price for extra passengers over 1-will stay at $1.00/extra passenger.
Despite the expense of taxi rides in Portland, the price rise has been quite slow. Through most of the 1990's, the flag drop in a Portland cab was $1.80, with a per-mile charge of $1.50. In 2001, these were raised, respectively, to $2.00 and $1.80. More recently, the per-mile charge was raised to $1.90, in response to the precipitously-rising fuel prices. Extra charges have remained flat.
Personally, I know a few cab drivers: it's a tough go out there these days. The increase in mileage rates may or may not help, depending on the economy and whether or not the cab companies raise lease and other contract rates to the drivers.
The new rates are city ordinance, and apply to the taxi companies that operate in and are based in the city of Portland: Broadway Cab, Radio Cab, New Rose City Cab, Portland Cab, and Green Cab.
30 June 2005
[sundial_life] Things You Don't Expect To Find In Another City
In Victoria BC, there's a Banfield Park in the 600-700 block of Craigflower Road in West Victoria.
It's quite cute. Nezt to the Victoria West Community Y.
It's quite cute. Nezt to the Victoria West Community Y.
[net_life] PharmOn babble line Sh pluralism op
This is a screenshot of a spam just recieved by my gmail.com. Click on it to read it upclose. Isn't it amazing?
Corrupt opera cloaks, anyone?
So desparate are they to get thier trash into my inbox that they make it hilarious. I'm not sure if I want "total pillion confdentiality", and I know everyone wants you to get religion these days, but I"m just not sure how I'm gonna pull off "SHIPP devout ING".
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure what's "dodgery in 130 countries" isn't just thier customers.
27 June 2005
[sundial_life] An Heraldic Expedition To The North Country
We are in recovery mode here, at the Station.
Since Friday we have either been in transit or active in an event staged by the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This is a significant part of my life. Or is turning out to be. I'm taking up a few loose ends.
Saturday, 25 June 2005, was the date of the An Tir Kingdom Heraldic Symposium (I'll explain the kingdom part later). In the SCA, "Heraldry" encompasses word (the calling "hear ye, hear ye", announcing at courts and events sort of thing), deed (research and documentation of the theory and practice of how medieval people named themselves) and art (the creation of coats of arms). And, over the past several years, I have been priviledged to have a front row seat at times for some of the most brilliant, contentious, honest, and vibrant heraldic research a bunch of cool kids can do.
The location was Victoria, BC...known in the Society as the Barony of Seagirt. The site was the University of Victoria (UVic), a site for a previous Symposium. And making the trip was myself (Societally Known As Sebastian zem Sterne, The Wife[tm] as the Lady Teceangl Bach, once "Lion's Blood" Herald, the Lady Meadbha ingen Mhilloar Bhrain (we just say "Mave"...it's Gael, and I probably massacred the name spelling), and long time heraldic partisan, personal mentor, and all around boot-to-the-head Ciaran Cluana Ferta, all in one car.
Our course was north to Olympia, up US 101 to Port Angeles, across the Juan de Fuca on the M.V. Coho, and into Vic at the downtown berth, within sight of the Parliament buildings. Since I had been up all night before at TCWMNBN it was a tough trip up, though beautiful. I came nearer to carsickness than ever before, and waited at the ferry dock for about 1h 30m, then got on the ferry just to nearly get seasick.
In these days of fear and loathing at border crossings, I must say that the officials at both sides were straight up good people. The Canadian authorities made us all fill in customs cards going north-which were duly examined at the Vic POE-and the US authorities coming back were models of humanity and efficiency, though the DHS patches on the shoulders still is something that makes you go hmmmm....
And strangely too, even though we keep hearing that the USA is starting to become a nation with some sort of security fetish, they didn't make us fill in one form or card. They examined our documents, judged us sincere, and passed us.
One thing you should know if you are going to Canada, is that you should make sure your ID is current and in order before you go. That, of course, has never been untrue, but since the passage of the US, A PATRIOT Act, you must have a copy of your birth certificate to cross back into the land(free) and home(brave). There is word that, within the next two years, we will need Passports to cross back into our home country. That is a sad thing, because it will end over 100 years of free and unimpeded passage between the USA and Canada, but the way things are going, a passport is probably going to be a good document to have, and as ID, it's ironclad, legally, so you're probably better off with one.
For me, this KHS was an opportunity to learn but more an opportunity to reconnect. There are really nice people in the SCA, people who encouraged me with heraldic art and was thus indirectly inspirational for me going back to school to become a trained designer. They still encourage me; they are still some of my biggest cheerleaders. We are all artistic types, whether or not we create "art", and so we are all contentious, ready to argue, but at the end of it all, they'll make your way easy for you if they can.
In Victoria we stayed with a very wonderful Lady, the Baronial Harold, Meg Gwyneth, who billeted us for two days, allowed for our needs, and her and her SO even bought us some steaks for the evening barbeque.
But the hide-a-bed...murder! But you take the hospitality you're offered and you resolve to return it some other time, if you can.
I must still be tired. I'm rambling and I know it. Went over 1,500 miles through two countries in the last couple of days, but there are things I want to say, and I'm kind of losing it. So I'll close with the following:
At the Black Lion (Kingdom Principal Herald) meeting on Sunday, just before the returning, we all introduced ourselves to the room so we all knew who was who. When it was my turn, some little insane person in my head said:
"My name is Siiimon...and I do drawrings..."
The crowd was won over. Who says heralds are a tough room?
Since Friday we have either been in transit or active in an event staged by the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This is a significant part of my life. Or is turning out to be. I'm taking up a few loose ends.
Saturday, 25 June 2005, was the date of the An Tir Kingdom Heraldic Symposium (I'll explain the kingdom part later). In the SCA, "Heraldry" encompasses word (the calling "hear ye, hear ye", announcing at courts and events sort of thing), deed (research and documentation of the theory and practice of how medieval people named themselves) and art (the creation of coats of arms). And, over the past several years, I have been priviledged to have a front row seat at times for some of the most brilliant, contentious, honest, and vibrant heraldic research a bunch of cool kids can do.
The location was Victoria, BC...known in the Society as the Barony of Seagirt. The site was the University of Victoria (UVic), a site for a previous Symposium. And making the trip was myself (Societally Known As Sebastian zem Sterne, The Wife[tm] as the Lady Teceangl Bach, once "Lion's Blood" Herald, the Lady Meadbha ingen Mhilloar Bhrain (we just say "Mave"...it's Gael, and I probably massacred the name spelling), and long time heraldic partisan, personal mentor, and all around boot-to-the-head Ciaran Cluana Ferta, all in one car.
Our course was north to Olympia, up US 101 to Port Angeles, across the Juan de Fuca on the M.V. Coho, and into Vic at the downtown berth, within sight of the Parliament buildings. Since I had been up all night before at TCWMNBN it was a tough trip up, though beautiful. I came nearer to carsickness than ever before, and waited at the ferry dock for about 1h 30m, then got on the ferry just to nearly get seasick.
In these days of fear and loathing at border crossings, I must say that the officials at both sides were straight up good people. The Canadian authorities made us all fill in customs cards going north-which were duly examined at the Vic POE-and the US authorities coming back were models of humanity and efficiency, though the DHS patches on the shoulders still is something that makes you go hmmmm....
And strangely too, even though we keep hearing that the USA is starting to become a nation with some sort of security fetish, they didn't make us fill in one form or card. They examined our documents, judged us sincere, and passed us.
One thing you should know if you are going to Canada, is that you should make sure your ID is current and in order before you go. That, of course, has never been untrue, but since the passage of the US, A PATRIOT Act, you must have a copy of your birth certificate to cross back into the land(free) and home(brave). There is word that, within the next two years, we will need Passports to cross back into our home country. That is a sad thing, because it will end over 100 years of free and unimpeded passage between the USA and Canada, but the way things are going, a passport is probably going to be a good document to have, and as ID, it's ironclad, legally, so you're probably better off with one.
For me, this KHS was an opportunity to learn but more an opportunity to reconnect. There are really nice people in the SCA, people who encouraged me with heraldic art and was thus indirectly inspirational for me going back to school to become a trained designer. They still encourage me; they are still some of my biggest cheerleaders. We are all artistic types, whether or not we create "art", and so we are all contentious, ready to argue, but at the end of it all, they'll make your way easy for you if they can.
In Victoria we stayed with a very wonderful Lady, the Baronial Harold, Meg Gwyneth, who billeted us for two days, allowed for our needs, and her and her SO even bought us some steaks for the evening barbeque.
But the hide-a-bed...murder! But you take the hospitality you're offered and you resolve to return it some other time, if you can.
I must still be tired. I'm rambling and I know it. Went over 1,500 miles through two countries in the last couple of days, but there are things I want to say, and I'm kind of losing it. So I'll close with the following:
At the Black Lion (Kingdom Principal Herald) meeting on Sunday, just before the returning, we all introduced ourselves to the room so we all knew who was who. When it was my turn, some little insane person in my head said:
"My name is Siiimon...and I do drawrings..."
The crowd was won over. Who says heralds are a tough room?
21 June 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd Ruminates
I love addresses. Yes, I mean postal addresses.
When I was a kid, I lived on a rural route. Old fashioned Route and Box (you know, like Route 1 Box 118).
I terribly envied kid in town not because they lived in town but because they had real live addresses, house number and street. 525 South 2nd. 615 Oak Street.
The ones I really envied lived in bigger towns with sophisticated addresses. You know, the ones like we seem to have all over the place these days, with compass directions-NE, SE, NW, SW. Those sounded good.
When I finally left the small town to move into Salem, we managed to say south of the State Street baseline. Salem's addresses carry the directional as a suffix (19th St SE, Market St NE) and due to the way Salem grew and the way the river runs, there is offically no SW. This was a disappointment, as SW is my very favorite directional.
Not officially, anyway. The Salem address grid extends throughout Marion and Polk counties from a notional origin point which is essentially where State Street and the Willamette River intersect. The NE, N, S, and SE suffixes effect throughout Marion County, but the NW directional, on the Polk county side, seems to give up approximtely at the Independence junction-where State Hwys 51 and 22 come together. The last so-suffixed road seems to be Oak Grove Road NW, which is just west of the highest-numbered street I can find on that side of the River...55th Ave NW.
In case anyone's curious, the highest numbered street on the east side of the Salem grid is in deep-eastside Marion County, some distance east of Stayton. 170th Ave SE. Going east from Salem's eastern boundary, addresses go 10 100-house number blocks to the mile...82nd Ave NE outside of Salem is about 10 miles out from the River, whilst in Portland, NE 82nd Ave is just over four miles east of the River.
Since the universal advent of 911 emergency systems, Rural Route addressing has slowly gone away. I doubt it exists anywhere anymore, at least anywhere of which I'm aware. Emergency services need to find locations quickly, and that just doesn't happen with Rural Routes. There are many ways to do it too. A future rumination on the subject will go on and on drearily about how many ways there are. Not just now tho'.
What got me going about this was thinking about Spokane. I've had a certain fascination with Spokane ever since I was a neat thing and heard they were having a World's Fair in 1974 there (Expo '74, which has left its mark on downtown Spokane in the form of a tram over the Falls and, from what I've been told, a lovely downtown park). I noticed, a long time back, that they had a different take on where the directional goes-as a suffix before the entire address, something I've not seen before and not since.
Now, the Spokane grid is a simple one, cleft in four quarters by the east-west Sprague Avenue and the north-south, aptly named Division Street. Streets and Avenues are either simply N or S or E or W depending. But, as in another town, where a notional address of 3550 on the E half of Sprague Avenue would be written:
3550 E Sprague Ave
In Spokane this would have been written
E 3550 Sprague Ave.
I thought that was so cool.
Alas, that era seems to be over. Some old-timers may still do things in that way, but most publications now use the former, "ordinary" format. Nowadays, everything interesting seems to be being conformed into sameness.
Address Nerd, out for now.
When I was a kid, I lived on a rural route. Old fashioned Route and Box (you know, like Route 1 Box 118).
I terribly envied kid in town not because they lived in town but because they had real live addresses, house number and street. 525 South 2nd. 615 Oak Street.
The ones I really envied lived in bigger towns with sophisticated addresses. You know, the ones like we seem to have all over the place these days, with compass directions-NE, SE, NW, SW. Those sounded good.
When I finally left the small town to move into Salem, we managed to say south of the State Street baseline. Salem's addresses carry the directional as a suffix (19th St SE, Market St NE) and due to the way Salem grew and the way the river runs, there is offically no SW. This was a disappointment, as SW is my very favorite directional.
Not officially, anyway. The Salem address grid extends throughout Marion and Polk counties from a notional origin point which is essentially where State Street and the Willamette River intersect. The NE, N, S, and SE suffixes effect throughout Marion County, but the NW directional, on the Polk county side, seems to give up approximtely at the Independence junction-where State Hwys 51 and 22 come together. The last so-suffixed road seems to be Oak Grove Road NW, which is just west of the highest-numbered street I can find on that side of the River...55th Ave NW.
In case anyone's curious, the highest numbered street on the east side of the Salem grid is in deep-eastside Marion County, some distance east of Stayton. 170th Ave SE. Going east from Salem's eastern boundary, addresses go 10 100-house number blocks to the mile...82nd Ave NE outside of Salem is about 10 miles out from the River, whilst in Portland, NE 82nd Ave is just over four miles east of the River.
Since the universal advent of 911 emergency systems, Rural Route addressing has slowly gone away. I doubt it exists anywhere anymore, at least anywhere of which I'm aware. Emergency services need to find locations quickly, and that just doesn't happen with Rural Routes. There are many ways to do it too. A future rumination on the subject will go on and on drearily about how many ways there are. Not just now tho'.
What got me going about this was thinking about Spokane. I've had a certain fascination with Spokane ever since I was a neat thing and heard they were having a World's Fair in 1974 there (Expo '74, which has left its mark on downtown Spokane in the form of a tram over the Falls and, from what I've been told, a lovely downtown park). I noticed, a long time back, that they had a different take on where the directional goes-as a suffix before the entire address, something I've not seen before and not since.
Now, the Spokane grid is a simple one, cleft in four quarters by the east-west Sprague Avenue and the north-south, aptly named Division Street. Streets and Avenues are either simply N or S or E or W depending. But, as in another town, where a notional address of 3550 on the E half of Sprague Avenue would be written:
3550 E Sprague Ave
In Spokane this would have been written
E 3550 Sprague Ave.
I thought that was so cool.
Alas, that era seems to be over. Some old-timers may still do things in that way, but most publications now use the former, "ordinary" format. Nowadays, everything interesting seems to be being conformed into sameness.
Address Nerd, out for now.
[design] Badia: Must-Have XTensions for QuarkXPress Users
In this review on QuarkVSInDesign.com, I go on at length about some products of a publisher called Badia Software. I am really quite impressed with thier quality.
They have freebies there. The concept of a "loss-leader" is nothing new to marketing, and freebies are the ultimate. The free sofware available there, though, is so good I feel like I should be paying something for it.
Badia is one of the software developers who craft what is known, in the QuarkXPress argot, XTensions. If you're an InDesigner, you'd say plug-ins. These are applets which do not stand along, but add functionality to a host application. QuarkXPress comes with several XTensions standard, and many third-party developers make quite a good living producing XPress-compatible XTensions. All that's needed to do, usually, is dragon-drop the XTension into the XTensions folder, and they appear the next time XPress is fired up.
Enough digression, though. What I'm truly impressed with is the Badia freebies. They have four, and I've installed two. The ones I have on board right now, Vistas and ReplaceInPlace, appeal by giving XPress functions that come standard on InDesign.
Yes. There's that feature-parity thing again. Anyway.
Vistas is a graphical navigation palette. Very simple and elegant: a previous-view button, a slider for zoom, and a dropdown for instantly jumping to any spread in the document. The slider-zoom has an extremely lively live-effect, and the XTension as a whole works flawlessly, and is intiuitive to boot; I figured out how to use it in mere minutes with no reference to any readmes or manual documents. Even the non-obvious features-clicking on the thumbnail to recenter and dragging of a box on the thumbnail to zoom-gave themselves up after a very short search.
ReplaceInPlace brings another something InDesign does naturally to XPress. After doing another edition of the Columbia Overlook, it was once again made plain just how nifty a thing replacing-in-place...importing a new graphic to a graphic frame whilst preserving attributes such as scaling and position...is. Not having to resize and move a graphic within its frame is a good burden to have removed.
XPress doesn't do it, at least, not until one installs the ReplaceInPlace XTension. It adds a new tab to the Get Picture dialog (titled ReplaceInPlace) with a checkbox allowing the user to specify preservation of content attributes. XPress layout artists should love this.
As far as I'm concerned, these are two XTensions that I don't plan on doing without, provided that Quark doesn't come out with this functionality in V7.
There are also super for-price XTensions that answer a lot of needs. I highly recommend checking out the FullMeasure XTension, which brings a supercharged Measurements palette to XPress that allows you to access nearly every XPress command from the Measurements palette. If it's crafted as tightly as the freebies are, XPress users really owe it to themselves to check them out.
Badia Software's website is http://www.badiaxt.com
They have freebies there. The concept of a "loss-leader" is nothing new to marketing, and freebies are the ultimate. The free sofware available there, though, is so good I feel like I should be paying something for it.
Badia is one of the software developers who craft what is known, in the QuarkXPress argot, XTensions. If you're an InDesigner, you'd say plug-ins. These are applets which do not stand along, but add functionality to a host application. QuarkXPress comes with several XTensions standard, and many third-party developers make quite a good living producing XPress-compatible XTensions. All that's needed to do, usually, is dragon-drop the XTension into the XTensions folder, and they appear the next time XPress is fired up.
Enough digression, though. What I'm truly impressed with is the Badia freebies. They have four, and I've installed two. The ones I have on board right now, Vistas and ReplaceInPlace, appeal by giving XPress functions that come standard on InDesign.
Yes. There's that feature-parity thing again. Anyway.
Vistas is a graphical navigation palette. Very simple and elegant: a previous-view button, a slider for zoom, and a dropdown for instantly jumping to any spread in the document. The slider-zoom has an extremely lively live-effect, and the XTension as a whole works flawlessly, and is intiuitive to boot; I figured out how to use it in mere minutes with no reference to any readmes or manual documents. Even the non-obvious features-clicking on the thumbnail to recenter and dragging of a box on the thumbnail to zoom-gave themselves up after a very short search.
ReplaceInPlace brings another something InDesign does naturally to XPress. After doing another edition of the Columbia Overlook, it was once again made plain just how nifty a thing replacing-in-place...importing a new graphic to a graphic frame whilst preserving attributes such as scaling and position...is. Not having to resize and move a graphic within its frame is a good burden to have removed.
XPress doesn't do it, at least, not until one installs the ReplaceInPlace XTension. It adds a new tab to the Get Picture dialog (titled ReplaceInPlace) with a checkbox allowing the user to specify preservation of content attributes. XPress layout artists should love this.
As far as I'm concerned, these are two XTensions that I don't plan on doing without, provided that Quark doesn't come out with this functionality in V7.
There are also super for-price XTensions that answer a lot of needs. I highly recommend checking out the FullMeasure XTension, which brings a supercharged Measurements palette to XPress that allows you to access nearly every XPress command from the Measurements palette. If it's crafted as tightly as the freebies are, XPress users really owe it to themselves to check them out.
Badia Software's website is http://www.badiaxt.com
14 June 2005
[design] Aulakh Out As Quark Supremo
Kamar Aulakh, CEO of graphics software giant Quark, Incorporated, has abruptly left the Denver-based company, according to industry sources. Reasons for his leaving are not being given at this time.
Aulakh succeeded CEO Fred Ebrahimi in 2003 (who remains with Quark as chairman of the board of directors), being promoted from vice-president of research and development. In replacing Ebrahimi, a leader who developed a reputation of disdain toward his customers, particularly toward Macintosh users-a style which seemed to set the corporate tone for Quark-Aulakh promised a new era of customer-centered corporate behavior.
Conventional wisdom seems to hold that the changes Aulakh instituted have been in the main positive and have moved Quark in the direction it needs to be moving. Such changes as unlimited free email tech support (formerly just one free support request) and free upgrades from XPress 6 to XPress 6.5 have turned many heads. Quark still suffers from a tendency to send a mixed message, though, as the now-infamous Postcards from the Edge will attest.
In the interim, Linda Chase, senior VP of commerce product development, will serve as CEO, while Quark contracts with an outside company to find Aulakh's replacement.
Implications for the near-term future of Quark and its flagship product, XPress, remain unclear, though the rumored rollout of the next version of XPress, Version 7, seems to still be on track, though the date is still a matter of conjecture.
Relevant links:
Aulakh succeeded CEO Fred Ebrahimi in 2003 (who remains with Quark as chairman of the board of directors), being promoted from vice-president of research and development. In replacing Ebrahimi, a leader who developed a reputation of disdain toward his customers, particularly toward Macintosh users-a style which seemed to set the corporate tone for Quark-Aulakh promised a new era of customer-centered corporate behavior.
Conventional wisdom seems to hold that the changes Aulakh instituted have been in the main positive and have moved Quark in the direction it needs to be moving. Such changes as unlimited free email tech support (formerly just one free support request) and free upgrades from XPress 6 to XPress 6.5 have turned many heads. Quark still suffers from a tendency to send a mixed message, though, as the now-infamous Postcards from the Edge will attest.
In the interim, Linda Chase, senior VP of commerce product development, will serve as CEO, while Quark contracts with an outside company to find Aulakh's replacement.
Implications for the near-term future of Quark and its flagship product, XPress, remain unclear, though the rumored rollout of the next version of XPress, Version 7, seems to still be on track, though the date is still a matter of conjecture.
Relevant links:
[design] QvID-I Get Letters
Returning to posting after being busier than...well, someone who's been extremely busy.
Writing for QuarkVSInDesign.com, I meet some of the nicest people sometimes, and some with a keen sense of humor.
In response to a how-to article on approaching the concept of what XPress calls "Text Runaround" and InDesign calls "Text Wrap", a correspondent offered this feedback:
I don't know anyone else who gets such cool responses. Now I get to notch marriage counselor and maybe even spiritual guide on the resume.
Seriously, though, this is one of the plusses of doing stuff like this. You get to help others in your trade and you make thier life just a little easier.
For what it's worth, this is one of the big issues in crossing over from one app to the other. Even though I'm proficient in both QuarkXPress and InDesign, it gets me too and I have to go for the help file. When you put aside what the best and most unique features of each aggregator is, though, they largely do the same things. They have different terms and different ways of access (InDesign, for instance, puts a lot of this functionality in free-floating "palettes" whilst XPress tends to use dialog boxes), but in the main, the same thing.
One of the biggest opportunities for service to layout artists who want to make the switch, then, is going to be things that guide from one to the other.
Also, for what it's worth, I have more how-to's in the planning stages.
The how-to that contained the above comment, by the way, is here.
Writing for QuarkVSInDesign.com, I meet some of the nicest people sometimes, and some with a keen sense of humor.
In response to a how-to article on approaching the concept of what XPress calls "Text Runaround" and InDesign calls "Text Wrap", a correspondent offered this feedback:
You’ve saved our marrage and quite possibly… my wifes eternal soul! The wife is a dyed in the wool Quark user being forced to design in InDesign for one of her clients. We both work from home, and she began cursing like a sailor. Something about changing terminology between products and Adobe is full of $#!+. Well… I quickly and easily Googled the offending functions to find your site. Hats off to you for offering such a valuable service!
I don't know anyone else who gets such cool responses. Now I get to notch marriage counselor and maybe even spiritual guide on the resume.
Seriously, though, this is one of the plusses of doing stuff like this. You get to help others in your trade and you make thier life just a little easier.
For what it's worth, this is one of the big issues in crossing over from one app to the other. Even though I'm proficient in both QuarkXPress and InDesign, it gets me too and I have to go for the help file. When you put aside what the best and most unique features of each aggregator is, though, they largely do the same things. They have different terms and different ways of access (InDesign, for instance, puts a lot of this functionality in free-floating "palettes" whilst XPress tends to use dialog boxes), but in the main, the same thing.
One of the biggest opportunities for service to layout artists who want to make the switch, then, is going to be things that guide from one to the other.
Also, for what it's worth, I have more how-to's in the planning stages.
The how-to that contained the above comment, by the way, is here.
30 May 2005
[design] Announcing My Online Portfolio
Sure, I've opined from time to time on design, and rambled occaisionally about my schooling experience. But I finally got off the mark and posted some of my best work for anyone who wants to see it, potential employers, or just anyone who likes designers:
http://www.rdrop.com/users/eagle/portfolio.html
The posters and documents are PDF downloads, and the illustrations are JPGs.
Best viewed with a computer.
http://www.rdrop.com/users/eagle/portfolio.html
The posters and documents are PDF downloads, and the illustrations are JPGs.
Best viewed with a computer.
29 May 2005
[pcc_life] Tales from the Breach:Bringing This Thing In For A Landing
It's just been a crush around here, is what it is.
From the moment I get up to the moment, usually too long from then, that I finally close my eyes for (usually not enough) sleep, I'm doing something because I have to. I really shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but my inner voice cries out a little bit.
I'm set to graduate, after three years of part-full-time and part-part-time schooling, from the Graphic Design program at PCC Sylvania. If things go accoding to program, my final cum-GPA should be somewhere between 3.74 and 3.80. I haven't had enough of a chance to actually scout for work; the job I must maintain to keep The Wife[tm] in diabetes-control medications has remained a requirement, not, regretfully, an option.
My sadder moments come when I think about how much better my work could of been if I'd have been given the chance to go on real part time at the Job Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken; I was always, always, always, having to thread the needle. Hell, I could have been in that better job now.
The one thing that really makes me mad is when people leave obstacles in my path, when those people could have done something to remove that obstacle, making life better for me and (by natural extension) them, but the do nothing. Instead of forging ahead to where I should be going I'm constantly divising coping strategeries by myself, when I should have had help.
That is a personal statement. It addresses the obvious and the not-so-obvious and some issues too personal to actually come out and discuss.
But, for better or worse, and despite all odds, I'm graduating. My personal re-invention is ongoing, and I haven't been totally bereft of new opportunity; Pariah still welcomes my postings at QuarkVSIndesign.com, and the technical editing of his book is proceeding and most of the way there (you know how they say when the student is ready, the master appears? Draw your own conclusion here. I know I'm telegraphing mine). I expect the paycheck on that one to finance more memory for the Mac and an upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 2...but if some nice soul has a good thought for me, it is still on my Amazon Wish List.
Between now and 10 June, I have to:
And, the Men's Wearhouse has seen our custom. Got actual grown-up clothes, at actual grown-up prices.
Out for now.
From the moment I get up to the moment, usually too long from then, that I finally close my eyes for (usually not enough) sleep, I'm doing something because I have to. I really shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but my inner voice cries out a little bit.
I'm set to graduate, after three years of part-full-time and part-part-time schooling, from the Graphic Design program at PCC Sylvania. If things go accoding to program, my final cum-GPA should be somewhere between 3.74 and 3.80. I haven't had enough of a chance to actually scout for work; the job I must maintain to keep The Wife[tm] in diabetes-control medications has remained a requirement, not, regretfully, an option.
My sadder moments come when I think about how much better my work could of been if I'd have been given the chance to go on real part time at the Job Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken; I was always, always, always, having to thread the needle. Hell, I could have been in that better job now.
The one thing that really makes me mad is when people leave obstacles in my path, when those people could have done something to remove that obstacle, making life better for me and (by natural extension) them, but the do nothing. Instead of forging ahead to where I should be going I'm constantly divising coping strategeries by myself, when I should have had help.
That is a personal statement. It addresses the obvious and the not-so-obvious and some issues too personal to actually come out and discuss.
But, for better or worse, and despite all odds, I'm graduating. My personal re-invention is ongoing, and I haven't been totally bereft of new opportunity; Pariah still welcomes my postings at QuarkVSIndesign.com, and the technical editing of his book is proceeding and most of the way there (you know how they say when the student is ready, the master appears? Draw your own conclusion here. I know I'm telegraphing mine). I expect the paycheck on that one to finance more memory for the Mac and an upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 2...but if some nice soul has a good thought for me, it is still on my Amazon Wish List.
Between now and 10 June, I have to:
- Come up with a wine label...this last project probably due this Wednesday
- Take a final quiz in the "Preparing Files for Print" class. Open book. Not sweating this one.
- Getting ready for the AIGA Student Portfolio show
And, the Men's Wearhouse has seen our custom. Got actual grown-up clothes, at actual grown-up prices.
Out for now.
05 May 2005
[us_politics] Your Papers, Please
Strangely absent from the news today is the passage of a certain bill in Congress, HR 1268, Roll Call 161 of the 1st session of the 109th Congress. The title of this is "An act making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes."
There is an amendment that will establish the first National ID Card system. Not in concept, but in fact.
Bluemnauer voted against it. All our other reps voted for it, because, hey, who wants to be seen as being against Tsunami Relief. My congressman is the only one with courage.
Shortly after 9/11, the White House stated was in no way interested in a National ID system, deeming it a dead issue. But now it looks as though the President will sign this. So to speak, he was against it, until he was for it. When John Kerry did this, it was a flip-flop. Of course, putting hanging unpopular amendments on good looking bills is okay now, I guess, as long as a Republican president is doing it.
If you're curious as to why you should be worried, read this ACLU press release, even if you don't think National ID is a bad idea or even if you disargree with the ACLU (who, by the way, was just cool to have along if you were Jerry Falwell protesting religious discrimination).
There is an amendment that will establish the first National ID Card system. Not in concept, but in fact.
Bluemnauer voted against it. All our other reps voted for it, because, hey, who wants to be seen as being against Tsunami Relief. My congressman is the only one with courage.
Shortly after 9/11, the White House stated was in no way interested in a National ID system, deeming it a dead issue. But now it looks as though the President will sign this. So to speak, he was against it, until he was for it. When John Kerry did this, it was a flip-flop. Of course, putting hanging unpopular amendments on good looking bills is okay now, I guess, as long as a Republican president is doing it.
If you're curious as to why you should be worried, read this ACLU press release, even if you don't think National ID is a bad idea or even if you disargree with the ACLU (who, by the way, was just cool to have along if you were Jerry Falwell protesting religious discrimination).
[net_life] The BlogPatrol Report
I use Blogpatrol to count hits on this site (I do crave fame in a minor way, and I have a bit of brain damage that compels me to see how popular I am). BlogPatrol is nifty in that it tells you where people come from and infres how they found you, but doesn't reveal anything about you like your name, address, etc...stuff you don't want me to know.
For a long time now, BP has been delivering to me a sort of restrained comic relief in the form of search terms and referring pages. Sometimes browsers refer from the "next blog" button on the Blogger search bar, rendering referrals from sites whose juxtaposition with mine is bizarre in the least and dadaist at the most.
Without further ado, then, here's the goodies I found the last time I checked in with Blogger:
The last 20 referrers amounted to a lot of Google searches and "Self-referring/Bookmarker", which I must be honest I don't really know what means, although I did get a hit referred from a Comcast search about the defunct BCTI. So, I'll move on to search terms. Always a world of fun here.
Got It On My Mind, Like A Song On The Radio
The top keyword hits had people looking for information on Thom Hartmann, our new KPOJ morning talk jock. I also got a few hits from people looking up Heidi Tauber. Good on you Heidi, you got fans. Other media-related hits included terms for "Bob Miller KPAM" and "Rusty Nails KPTV"-Rusty Nails was a popular kiddie clown on the old Channel 12 during the halcyon days. Also got a couple of hits looking for the former KPAM talk jock "Dream" Weaver (who I still miss...curse you KPAM).
Know The Code
One hit for Si bili, se ergo. I love that.
Vastly Underrated
One for '"Dave Mayes" cribbage'. If you have a Palm and want a few well-crafted, free games, go there and get them. They're wicked fun and more of a match than most computer games. Find the link for Dave Mayes on my sidebar.
A Habit Of Highly Effective People
Two keyworders went after the Uncalendar. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you need to be organized but just can't do it, having a tool you like and is fun to use make it more possible. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's helped me start to instill good habits...and I need all the help I can get. Go to People Systems to find out more about it...and check out the "Note Takers Delight" while you're at it.
Well, You Should Keep Your Leather Cleaner, Then
One search: "keflex for strap infection". Now, that's what I call the wonder drug that works wonders!"
Your All Purpose Criminal Element
I have four or five keyword hits from people looking to crack QuarkXPress V6 and up, three in the last week. I guess that's to be expected; I've mentioned it in the narrative more than once, and it's hard cheese to swallow to ask someone to fork over $1,000 to use what the ininitiated think is probably just a glorified Microsoft Publisher (it's much better than that, trust me). On the other hand, there are a lot of budding designers who need the tool but probably just can't afford it.
Strangely, I receive no keyword hits looking for InDesign cracks. Make of this what you will.
In any event, you can just move along. When it comes to crack access, there's nothing to see here.
Air O-Zone
Someone else is looking for detalis of the plane in the O-Zone video for Dragostea Din Teï. As am I still; I'd like to produce a drawing of it, when I have a bit more free time, and I'd like to know what sort of plane it was that it was based on. If I ever find out, I'll post.
The Big Winner This Time Round
A Google search, which pretty much speaks for itself:
"emma watson's favourite things and what she likes to do and what she doesn't like to do and what her hopes and dreams are websites"
Well, that's all for this time. Tempus fugit, so-little-to-do-so-much-time-to do-it-in, and all that. Out.
For a long time now, BP has been delivering to me a sort of restrained comic relief in the form of search terms and referring pages. Sometimes browsers refer from the "next blog" button on the Blogger search bar, rendering referrals from sites whose juxtaposition with mine is bizarre in the least and dadaist at the most.
Without further ado, then, here's the goodies I found the last time I checked in with Blogger:
The last 20 referrers amounted to a lot of Google searches and "Self-referring/Bookmarker", which I must be honest I don't really know what means, although I did get a hit referred from a Comcast search about the defunct BCTI. So, I'll move on to search terms. Always a world of fun here.
Got It On My Mind, Like A Song On The Radio
The top keyword hits had people looking for information on Thom Hartmann, our new KPOJ morning talk jock. I also got a few hits from people looking up Heidi Tauber. Good on you Heidi, you got fans. Other media-related hits included terms for "Bob Miller KPAM" and "Rusty Nails KPTV"-Rusty Nails was a popular kiddie clown on the old Channel 12 during the halcyon days. Also got a couple of hits looking for the former KPAM talk jock "Dream" Weaver (who I still miss...curse you KPAM).
Know The Code
One hit for Si bili, se ergo. I love that.
Vastly Underrated
One for '"Dave Mayes" cribbage'. If you have a Palm and want a few well-crafted, free games, go there and get them. They're wicked fun and more of a match than most computer games. Find the link for Dave Mayes on my sidebar.
A Habit Of Highly Effective People
Two keyworders went after the Uncalendar. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you need to be organized but just can't do it, having a tool you like and is fun to use make it more possible. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's helped me start to instill good habits...and I need all the help I can get. Go to People Systems to find out more about it...and check out the "Note Takers Delight" while you're at it.
Well, You Should Keep Your Leather Cleaner, Then
One search: "keflex for strap infection". Now, that's what I call the wonder drug that works wonders!"
Your All Purpose Criminal Element
I have four or five keyword hits from people looking to crack QuarkXPress V6 and up, three in the last week. I guess that's to be expected; I've mentioned it in the narrative more than once, and it's hard cheese to swallow to ask someone to fork over $1,000 to use what the ininitiated think is probably just a glorified Microsoft Publisher (it's much better than that, trust me). On the other hand, there are a lot of budding designers who need the tool but probably just can't afford it.
Strangely, I receive no keyword hits looking for InDesign cracks. Make of this what you will.
In any event, you can just move along. When it comes to crack access, there's nothing to see here.
Air O-Zone
Someone else is looking for detalis of the plane in the O-Zone video for Dragostea Din Teï. As am I still; I'd like to produce a drawing of it, when I have a bit more free time, and I'd like to know what sort of plane it was that it was based on. If I ever find out, I'll post.
The Big Winner This Time Round
A Google search, which pretty much speaks for itself:
"emma watson's favourite things and what she likes to do and what she doesn't like to do and what her hopes and dreams are websites"
Well, that's all for this time. Tempus fugit, so-little-to-do-so-much-time-to do-it-in, and all that. Out.
02 May 2005
[design] Calling All Designers! Super Cool Prizes!!!
Okay, you people who are designers (and you know who you are), or those who are just familiar with Quark and InDesign...
A local designer of note, Pariah S. Burke, has organized a little contest, see. Much good prizes! Want a chance to win a copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with an expert support contract? And even more cool prizes?
A couple months back, Quark tried to bring errant, laggart users back on the rez, by publicizing the V6.5 upgrade complete with the ALAP XTension called ShadowCaster, giving transparency and high-quality drop shadows. To promote, they sent out a deck of six cards we like to call Quark's Postcards from The Edge.
Follow the link and read about them. They created quite a stir.
Well, we at QuarkVSInDesign.com thought that the message was a little too edgy and a little too negative. So Pariah hit upon the idea to give our fellow designer-types the chance to show what they were made of and craft pro-InDesign and pro-Quark (hey, a lot of us swing both ways) promos.
After you've read about the postcards (and perused the comments), go here and look at them prizes and peep this contest. I tell you, you people are the lucky ones...you get to enter. I just get to stand by and watch everyone snap up all the schwag.
I mean, QuarkXPress 6.5 to the first place Quark winner...how could you not?
Start brainstorming, you people. But do it quick...the deadline is approaching.
This is good stuff. Don't miss out!!!
Listen Up!!!!
A local designer of note, Pariah S. Burke, has organized a little contest, see. Much good prizes! Want a chance to win a copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with an expert support contract? And even more cool prizes?
A couple months back, Quark tried to bring errant, laggart users back on the rez, by publicizing the V6.5 upgrade complete with the ALAP XTension called ShadowCaster, giving transparency and high-quality drop shadows. To promote, they sent out a deck of six cards we like to call Quark's Postcards from The Edge.
Follow the link and read about them. They created quite a stir.
Well, we at QuarkVSInDesign.com thought that the message was a little too edgy and a little too negative. So Pariah hit upon the idea to give our fellow designer-types the chance to show what they were made of and craft pro-InDesign and pro-Quark (hey, a lot of us swing both ways) promos.
After you've read about the postcards (and perused the comments), go here and look at them prizes and peep this contest. I tell you, you people are the lucky ones...you get to enter. I just get to stand by and watch everyone snap up all the schwag.
I mean, QuarkXPress 6.5 to the first place Quark winner...how could you not?
Start brainstorming, you people. But do it quick...the deadline is approaching.
This is good stuff. Don't miss out!!!
29 April 2005
[everything] Busy ^ 3
Turned in packaging project one...got an eye on upgrading to CS2, have to budget...need real live interview appearance apparel before Real Soon...dicing out packaging project two...putting portfolio together...Registering for AIGA Student Portfolio Show...getting sleep in there somehow...class on Friday...stilllooking at a 10-hour shift at the wage-producer...
...thud.
...thud.
26 April 2005
[us_politics] You See, We Told You, MSFT Is Evil
I mean, just look at who billg has on retainer. And recently it broke that MSFT has pulled a legislative fast one, on the down-low of course.
Links above from, respectively, AMERICAblog and TheStranger.com.
Props to Atrios, who remarked:
At least as far as we can know.
Links above from, respectively, AMERICAblog and TheStranger.com.
Props to Atrios, who remarked:
Maybe I'll switch to Mac after all...Maybe you should, A. Macintosh: It just works, and none of your money will go to Ralph Reed.
At least as far as we can know.
[net_life] Gmail Marches On
Gmail has been dishonest in their recent advertising, I fear.
Recently it was announced that regular Gmailers were having thier online space doubled. It started as 1000MB (which was inaccurately promoted as 1GB-that's 1024MB, people, ask any real geek). In what was a very fun way of rolling it out, Google increased member's storage day by day, with a live update on the Gmail login page. Before long I was at 2000MB.
Then I was at 2048MB, an actual 2 Gig.
But it hasn't stopped. I'm now at 2,133MB. And it still seems to be going up.
Another thing I don't seem to be running out of are Gmail invites. I tried giving them away to friends, but after I give away a few, Google tops me back up.
I have 50 invites to give out. Anyone who wants one, just follow this posting. If things change, I'll repost on this subject.
PS:There are concerns about privacy and Gmail. Google has responded to them with this prospectus. I have so far used Gmail with no problems.
PPS: Yes, I was one of those who knew that the 21st Century began in 2001 and not 2000, but I held my opinion on that. I didn't want to harsh anyone's vibe.
Recently it was announced that regular Gmailers were having thier online space doubled. It started as 1000MB (which was inaccurately promoted as 1GB-that's 1024MB, people, ask any real geek). In what was a very fun way of rolling it out, Google increased member's storage day by day, with a live update on the Gmail login page. Before long I was at 2000MB.
Then I was at 2048MB, an actual 2 Gig.
But it hasn't stopped. I'm now at 2,133MB. And it still seems to be going up.
Another thing I don't seem to be running out of are Gmail invites. I tried giving them away to friends, but after I give away a few, Google tops me back up.
I have 50 invites to give out. Anyone who wants one, just follow this posting. If things change, I'll repost on this subject.
PS:There are concerns about privacy and Gmail. Google has responded to them with this prospectus. I have so far used Gmail with no problems.
PPS: Yes, I was one of those who knew that the 21st Century began in 2001 and not 2000, but I held my opinion on that. I didn't want to harsh anyone's vibe.
23 April 2005
[pdx_airwaves] KPOJ, Of Late
The recent changes at KPOJ have brought a hint of personality to the station that I think it was lacking, and needed badly.
First-Thom Hartmann. After listening to him for a week, I've got to say, I'm glad he's here. Smart, hip, and quietly humorous (sure, he's not Marc Maron...but who is? Is Marc Maron even Marc Maron? Anyway.) It's good to hear Heidi Tauber and Paul Pimentel, and the local approach really leaves a mark with me. Had good guests on all week to welcome him, from the Governor to local lights, and he's got one of the greatest radio voices I've ever heard.
I'll look forward to seeing where this one goes.
Also, KPOJ has opened up to the Satellite Sisters on Saturday morning,in place of where Randi Rhodes used to be recycled. This is a good addition because it's good to take an occasional break from politically charged talk all the time (these days it can get might depressing, and where you stand on that one depends on where you sit). And there is a local connection-one of the Sisters is based here in Portland.
First-Thom Hartmann. After listening to him for a week, I've got to say, I'm glad he's here. Smart, hip, and quietly humorous (sure, he's not Marc Maron...but who is? Is Marc Maron even Marc Maron? Anyway.) It's good to hear Heidi Tauber and Paul Pimentel, and the local approach really leaves a mark with me. Had good guests on all week to welcome him, from the Governor to local lights, and he's got one of the greatest radio voices I've ever heard.
I'll look forward to seeing where this one goes.
Also, KPOJ has opened up to the Satellite Sisters on Saturday morning,in place of where Randi Rhodes used to be recycled. This is a good addition because it's good to take an occasional break from politically charged talk all the time (these days it can get might depressing, and where you stand on that one depends on where you sit). And there is a local connection-one of the Sisters is based here in Portland.
19 April 2005
[pope_watch] We Have A Pope
It's 78-year old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, of Baden-Baden Germany. This is a clear victory for the conserivative wing of the Roman Catholic Church.
More news to come, of course.
More news to come, of course.
[pope_watch] Well, that was fast!
Just heard that the white smoke's been seen over the Sistine Chapel. New Pope to be announced any moment.
18 April 2005
[design] Surprise! Adobe assimilates Macromedia
Didn't see this one coming...
Read all about it!
This is monster. Adobe makes three of the most successful software tools in the designers toolbox...InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Photoshop is as near as no odds as being the standard to which similar programs aspire, Illustrator represents for Adobe in vector drawing, and InDesign is on the way to becoming the layout king. Macromedia, I need tell nobody really, gives us Dreamweaver, and of course there's Flash, which one finds everywhere and without which sites like homestarrunner.com would not be possible (or, in some cases, necessary).
The question I have is this: web design. Adobe has GoLive, which is technically brilliant but curiously non-intuitive (relatively speaking, when compared with the rest of the CS apps). Macromeda has Dreamweaver, which is an easier program to learn and use (I've done so) and thus is rightfully the dominant web design app on the market today.
So, what I'm wondering is, whither GoLive? Or will Adobe preserve the Macromedia mark and family? Stay tuned.
Read all about it!
This is monster. Adobe makes three of the most successful software tools in the designers toolbox...InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Photoshop is as near as no odds as being the standard to which similar programs aspire, Illustrator represents for Adobe in vector drawing, and InDesign is on the way to becoming the layout king. Macromedia, I need tell nobody really, gives us Dreamweaver, and of course there's Flash, which one finds everywhere and without which sites like homestarrunner.com would not be possible (or, in some cases, necessary).
The question I have is this: web design. Adobe has GoLive, which is technically brilliant but curiously non-intuitive (relatively speaking, when compared with the rest of the CS apps). Macromeda has Dreamweaver, which is an easier program to learn and use (I've done so) and thus is rightfully the dominant web design app on the market today.
So, what I'm wondering is, whither GoLive? Or will Adobe preserve the Macromedia mark and family? Stay tuned.
[design tools] Travels With FontForge
The following is a post I made to the Yahoo! Graphic Designers Resource Group
A while back, I asked a question about font composing programs. Not too far down the road I want to produce my own fonts and wanted to find that program that would help me do it.
I got a few good suggestions, but in the main, I was surprised at how little there actually seems to be available. Fontographer and FontLab were suggestion (thanks, guys!) and I checked them out, Fontographer is the grand old program of the two, and is still available, but apparently still works (for the Macintosh) in OS9, which means Classic Enviro if your running OS X. FontLab is a very very capable program that has more than the features that I want.
The obstacle here is price. Prosperity may or may not be just down the road for me, I dunno, but with Fontographer at $349 and FontLab at $549 I won't be going there just yet.
The search began for alternatives. It's astounding how very little there is out there for those who want to create type. FontLab has a lighter-weight app called "TypeTool" which I've tried out. It's a very capable little program that will produce TrueType and PS Type 1 but doesn't have at least one crucial deal breaker for me-I want to make drawings and import them to trace off. TypeTool does not do this. But, at $99, it runs well, looks good under OS X, and seems good for the beginner. My survey of it found that it wasn't terribly intuitive and if you want to get beginning help on the demo version...well, good luck. There's no online help at all.
So I ventured out onto the web again in hopes of finding an alternative. Like I said, there's not much. It took a while to locate, but I seem to have stumbled onto something.
Once upon at time, George Williams wrote a utility called PfaEdit. It has been updated and called "FontForge", and is available at
http://fontforge.sourceforge.net. It has much to speak for it. There are considerable ups and considerable downs.
Upsides: Cost (it's free). Versions available for Wintel, Sun, and OSX, both source (so you can compile it yourself if your sufficiently geeky) and compiled binary. You can generate PS Type 1, Type 3, TrueType for Win and Mac, SVG, OpenType. More range than I need right now actually. Interface very close to what I've seen of Fontographer, with familiar tools to create beziérs and all that. Also-imports graphics for tracing-sweet!
Downsides...well, here we go. It's neither OS X nor Win native. It's an application designed to run under X Windows, the unix gui windowing system. This means you have to let your inner geek out to implement it, or, if you have none, get one. For Windows this means you have to install an open-source gem called 'cygwin' (Google for this). OS X users have a bit of an easier go of it; if you installed all the OS X you've got the Developer Tools and that means you have X11 for Mac. If you run OpenOffice.org (as I do) you've already used it. So far as I've had the experience, X starts up automatically when you launch an X Window application.
Not only that, but you have to grok...at least a little...your file system. I have no experience with this under Windows, but I do know unix enough to get around the file system and I know OS X. Fontforge installs in one of the unix directories, though, that aren't displayed in the Finder window...you either have to navigate there in Terminal and do "open ." or get your TinkerTool on. I then created an alias and put it where I could easily find it.
Since the icon for a unix executable is so dreary I made a graphic for the alias. Gill sans, maj F next to min f, little drop shadow on a white background square. Looks cute down there in the dock. Anyway.
More geekery required. Once the app is launched I try to import a PNG from the tutorial and it don't go. Says it can't load dynamic library and that the file is bad. I find that you can import bmp's but not anything else unless you also install a few libraries-that handle tiffs, pngs, and jpegs, amongst others. MacOS versions of these are obtained through the Fink project, so I get Fink, download, install (wake up out there!) and download and install the libraries.
Still can't import the PNGs. Humph.
Subscribe to the developers mailing list. Correspond with the app's author, who says that ff doesn't look where it's supposed to for these libraries and you have to set an environment variable to make ff look in the right place...or recompile ff with a patch. I go for the simple solution, which is the environment variable.
So, now it's working. Got my inner geek out to play (never was much of a coder but can hold my own in some geekery situations), and I'm ready to learn the app and compose some really killer fonts.
I'll be coming out with the next Gill Sans any. day. now.
A while back, I asked a question about font composing programs. Not too far down the road I want to produce my own fonts and wanted to find that program that would help me do it.
I got a few good suggestions, but in the main, I was surprised at how little there actually seems to be available. Fontographer and FontLab were suggestion (thanks, guys!) and I checked them out, Fontographer is the grand old program of the two, and is still available, but apparently still works (for the Macintosh) in OS9, which means Classic Enviro if your running OS X. FontLab is a very very capable program that has more than the features that I want.
The obstacle here is price. Prosperity may or may not be just down the road for me, I dunno, but with Fontographer at $349 and FontLab at $549 I won't be going there just yet.
The search began for alternatives. It's astounding how very little there is out there for those who want to create type. FontLab has a lighter-weight app called "TypeTool" which I've tried out. It's a very capable little program that will produce TrueType and PS Type 1 but doesn't have at least one crucial deal breaker for me-I want to make drawings and import them to trace off. TypeTool does not do this. But, at $99, it runs well, looks good under OS X, and seems good for the beginner. My survey of it found that it wasn't terribly intuitive and if you want to get beginning help on the demo version...well, good luck. There's no online help at all.
So I ventured out onto the web again in hopes of finding an alternative. Like I said, there's not much. It took a while to locate, but I seem to have stumbled onto something.
Once upon at time, George Williams wrote a utility called PfaEdit. It has been updated and called "FontForge", and is available at
http://fontforge.sourceforge.net. It has much to speak for it. There are considerable ups and considerable downs.
Upsides: Cost (it's free). Versions available for Wintel, Sun, and OSX, both source (so you can compile it yourself if your sufficiently geeky) and compiled binary. You can generate PS Type 1, Type 3, TrueType for Win and Mac, SVG, OpenType. More range than I need right now actually. Interface very close to what I've seen of Fontographer, with familiar tools to create beziérs and all that. Also-imports graphics for tracing-sweet!
Downsides...well, here we go. It's neither OS X nor Win native. It's an application designed to run under X Windows, the unix gui windowing system. This means you have to let your inner geek out to implement it, or, if you have none, get one. For Windows this means you have to install an open-source gem called 'cygwin' (Google for this). OS X users have a bit of an easier go of it; if you installed all the OS X you've got the Developer Tools and that means you have X11 for Mac. If you run OpenOffice.org (as I do) you've already used it. So far as I've had the experience, X starts up automatically when you launch an X Window application.
Not only that, but you have to grok...at least a little...your file system. I have no experience with this under Windows, but I do know unix enough to get around the file system and I know OS X. Fontforge installs in one of the unix directories, though, that aren't displayed in the Finder window...you either have to navigate there in Terminal and do "open ." or get your TinkerTool on. I then created an alias and put it where I could easily find it.
Since the icon for a unix executable is so dreary I made a graphic for the alias. Gill sans, maj F next to min f, little drop shadow on a white background square. Looks cute down there in the dock. Anyway.
More geekery required. Once the app is launched I try to import a PNG from the tutorial and it don't go. Says it can't load dynamic library and that the file is bad. I find that you can import bmp's but not anything else unless you also install a few libraries-that handle tiffs, pngs, and jpegs, amongst others. MacOS versions of these are obtained through the Fink project, so I get Fink, download, install (wake up out there!) and download and install the libraries.
Still can't import the PNGs. Humph.
Subscribe to the developers mailing list. Correspond with the app's author, who says that ff doesn't look where it's supposed to for these libraries and you have to set an environment variable to make ff look in the right place...or recompile ff with a patch. I go for the simple solution, which is the environment variable.
So, now it's working. Got my inner geek out to play (never was much of a coder but can hold my own in some geekery situations), and I'm ready to learn the app and compose some really killer fonts.
I'll be coming out with the next Gill Sans any. day. now.
14 April 2005
[us_politics] It's Law: The Credit Card Companies 0wnz0r You Now
This just in: The "Screw the Working Class"...ehr, sorry...the "Bankruptcy Bill" just passed the House.
Now, creditors can jack up your interest rates because of late fees beyond 30 percent. Now credit card companies can jack up your interest rates because of late payments on your other bills (you didn't know this? Go Google up "universal default" and when it sinks in, get back to me. No, no, on second thought, go get that second job, or curl up in the corner and cry, whatever works for you). And when you get in over your head because you got huge medical bills, you can't find any work, and you're at the end of your rope. you are going to have to go in front a judge who will make you do a means test and most likely force you into a repayment plan, which will amount to being on a debt treadmill for the rest of your life regardless of what you do.
And they can market you incessantly to get even more credit cards so they can get even more hooks in you. However, unlike working class addicts, they get to shift the blame and take no responsiblity.
No more fresh starts for the working guy. They sure loved us when they needed to get into power. Now we are The Enemy.
If you voted GWB, this is what you voted for. How'd'ja like it so far?
The vote in the House: 302 to 176.
73 Democrats voted in favor of business against thier constituents (unless business is thier constituent). Republicans all voted yes; no surprises there.
On the side of the angels and the working class:
On the side of Democrats voting Republican to cover thier ass, forgetting that, in a race between a Republican and a fake Republican, the Republican will win:
On the side of Republicans who're screwing thier constituents, who, in this case, are ranchers and farmers who are barely getting by in this tenuous economic climate:
Remember, everyone it's an ownership society. Me, I'm going to find my owner before we get divvied up. I'd rather choose mine than have one choose me.
Now, creditors can jack up your interest rates because of late fees beyond 30 percent. Now credit card companies can jack up your interest rates because of late payments on your other bills (you didn't know this? Go Google up "universal default" and when it sinks in, get back to me. No, no, on second thought, go get that second job, or curl up in the corner and cry, whatever works for you). And when you get in over your head because you got huge medical bills, you can't find any work, and you're at the end of your rope. you are going to have to go in front a judge who will make you do a means test and most likely force you into a repayment plan, which will amount to being on a debt treadmill for the rest of your life regardless of what you do.
And they can market you incessantly to get even more credit cards so they can get even more hooks in you. However, unlike working class addicts, they get to shift the blame and take no responsiblity.
No more fresh starts for the working guy. They sure loved us when they needed to get into power. Now we are The Enemy.
If you voted GWB, this is what you voted for. How'd'ja like it so far?
The vote in the House: 302 to 176.
73 Democrats voted in favor of business against thier constituents (unless business is thier constituent). Republicans all voted yes; no surprises there.
On the side of the angels and the working class:
- Blumenauer (good on ya)
- DeFazio (always solidly on the side of the little guy)
On the side of Democrats voting Republican to cover thier ass, forgetting that, in a race between a Republican and a fake Republican, the Republican will win:
- Hooley
- Wu
On the side of Republicans who're screwing thier constituents, who, in this case, are ranchers and farmers who are barely getting by in this tenuous economic climate:
- Walden
Remember, everyone it's an ownership society. Me, I'm going to find my owner before we get divvied up. I'd rather choose mine than have one choose me.
[or_politics] The Oregon Supreme Court Decision
I just can't ignore the fact that the real defending of marriage needs to be done from the people who the conventional wisdom seems to acknowledge are most entitled to it: heterosexuals. You know, breeders.
Rogues gallery:
It strikes me as hypocritical for people in power who can't come up with a successful marriage to then go out and lecture everyone, but everyone, about who should get marriend, and possibly how.
And how can I pass up mentioning Arthur Finkelstein...the heavy Republican operative who furthered a party which strove to nose it into everybody's bedrooms, to say who should have civil rights between consenting adults and who shouldn't, whisked himself and his man off to eeeeville Massachusetts to get a marriage.
This is another part of the poison that's contaiminating America these days. These high and powerful people feel they have the perfect right to tell us regular folks what to do and where to go and who to do it with...to define our lives...whilst they reserve the same freedoms we all thought we had to themselves. You see..the powerful really are different.
Feeling like peons yet?
If you don't feel like objecting to what these people are doing to gays, then watch and at least keep strict notes. Because once gays are subdued as a scapegoat, they'll go looking for others. They always do.
Rogues gallery:
- Britney Spears, who treats marriage like a personal playtoy.
- What seems to be the majority of the self-righteous Republican political leadership on this issue, who seem to have been married more than once.
- Newt Gingrich, who left one of his wives on a cancer treatment bed to marry a younger aide (why, again, do people look to this man for moral leadership?)
- Ellizabeth Taylor
- Cher, in her early years
It strikes me as hypocritical for people in power who can't come up with a successful marriage to then go out and lecture everyone, but everyone, about who should get marriend, and possibly how.
And how can I pass up mentioning Arthur Finkelstein...the heavy Republican operative who furthered a party which strove to nose it into everybody's bedrooms, to say who should have civil rights between consenting adults and who shouldn't, whisked himself and his man off to eeeeville Massachusetts to get a marriage.
This is another part of the poison that's contaiminating America these days. These high and powerful people feel they have the perfect right to tell us regular folks what to do and where to go and who to do it with...to define our lives...whilst they reserve the same freedoms we all thought we had to themselves. You see..the powerful really are different.
Feeling like peons yet?
If you don't feel like objecting to what these people are doing to gays, then watch and at least keep strict notes. Because once gays are subdued as a scapegoat, they'll go looking for others. They always do.
[pdx_airwaves] This Just In: KPOJ Getting Live Local AM Talker
Just heard a promo over the radio, and haven't seen this menched much elsewhere, which I find curious, but here goes:
According to KPOJ's promos, as of next Monday we're getting a live liberal talker, broadcasting from KPOJ itself, 0600-0900. The host will be Thom Hartmann, who is apparently relocating here from Vermont. To make way, the Morning Sedition will be moving from its current slot to the 0300-0600 time frame. The upside to that is, locals will hear Marc and Mark live for the first time, and that is actually kind of an improvement for major local radio- when it comes to current news and events rerun programs tend to dominate.
I am encouraged by this but also puzzled. Thom Hartmann will be a good fit; he is a solid progressive thinker with considerable intellectual throwweight (check his website here, check out his bio, and the books he's written). He seems to be acknowledged as a rising progressive writing and broadcasting star. Moreover, he says things that make sense and can be unpopular, saying the unsayable that has to be heard.
There are things that make me go "hmmm" though. There is a strong thread on what is called "Neruo-Linguistic Programming" which he has woven into his syndicated show. While it has a history of practice stretching back to the mid-70s and a community of committed professionals it also has skeptical objections. That being said, as far as I know, it hasn't hurt anybody, at least not so far as has been heard. The worry I have is that this would become part of the Portland broadcast, and my honest opinion is that it wouldn't be wise. I think the priority of a local AM progressive talker should be local issues, and not forwarding a therapy program, good, bad, or otherwise. We lefties are hungry for real Lars-less talk about real local issues.
Another puzzler is, why the sudden relocation from Vermont to Oregon? Not that I think he has poor taste in moves, mind. It seems fairly precipitous. Perhaps it's just me not being familiar with how the radio business works. If KPOJ wanted star power, they found it, that's for sure.
Despite my discomfiture, however, I'm perfectly willing to give him a chance. Last time KPOJ was worth listening to was when it went from music to talk, whilst it was still over at 1501 SW Jefferson, called itself KGW 620-The Talk Station, and was home to one of the many lives of Ralph Steadman. I missed that show....
I'll only get to listen to the 0800-0900 hour of the show on Monday. But I will be listening!
According to KPOJ's promos, as of next Monday we're getting a live liberal talker, broadcasting from KPOJ itself, 0600-0900. The host will be Thom Hartmann, who is apparently relocating here from Vermont. To make way, the Morning Sedition will be moving from its current slot to the 0300-0600 time frame. The upside to that is, locals will hear Marc and Mark live for the first time, and that is actually kind of an improvement for major local radio- when it comes to current news and events rerun programs tend to dominate.
I am encouraged by this but also puzzled. Thom Hartmann will be a good fit; he is a solid progressive thinker with considerable intellectual throwweight (check his website here, check out his bio, and the books he's written). He seems to be acknowledged as a rising progressive writing and broadcasting star. Moreover, he says things that make sense and can be unpopular, saying the unsayable that has to be heard.
There are things that make me go "hmmm" though. There is a strong thread on what is called "Neruo-Linguistic Programming" which he has woven into his syndicated show. While it has a history of practice stretching back to the mid-70s and a community of committed professionals it also has skeptical objections. That being said, as far as I know, it hasn't hurt anybody, at least not so far as has been heard. The worry I have is that this would become part of the Portland broadcast, and my honest opinion is that it wouldn't be wise. I think the priority of a local AM progressive talker should be local issues, and not forwarding a therapy program, good, bad, or otherwise. We lefties are hungry for real Lars-less talk about real local issues.
Another puzzler is, why the sudden relocation from Vermont to Oregon? Not that I think he has poor taste in moves, mind. It seems fairly precipitous. Perhaps it's just me not being familiar with how the radio business works. If KPOJ wanted star power, they found it, that's for sure.
Despite my discomfiture, however, I'm perfectly willing to give him a chance. Last time KPOJ was worth listening to was when it went from music to talk, whilst it was still over at 1501 SW Jefferson, called itself KGW 620-The Talk Station, and was home to one of the many lives of Ralph Steadman. I missed that show....
I'll only get to listen to the 0800-0900 hour of the show on Monday. But I will be listening!
12 April 2005
[pcc_life] Tales from the Breach:Whiners
In a class I had quite recently, the teacher had to clamp down on the chatter. It was noticeable and irritating for me, too.
She had to get kind of rude about it. It worked and class could proceed.
After the lecture she had to leave for a few minutes and we students were left to thier own devices. Many of us got to work on our projects. Some moaned about her behavior whilst she was out of the room.
The nature of the whiners was something like: The nerve! She had no right to talk at me like that! If it would've gone on much longer i'd of given here a piece of my mind, that's for sure!
Okay, maybe I'm old school but that attitude really, really bothers me. Gets under my skin. You see, teachers come in many types, many temperaments. Unless that teacher is out-and-out insulting you for no good reason, though, or doing something that is clearly out of line, we ought to be doing what that teacher is saying...and if we've been put in our place, in a behavioral context, we need to address what it was we are doing that is causing the instructor to get all rude on us.
During my training in design, I had an epiphany early on. I think I've writtien on this before, but I rarely review what I write. Anyway, I soon saw that each instructor I had, whilst training toward a common goal, had different ways of looking at the same thing...and they brought that into thier instruction. This obstacle is an unexpected gift. For, in the future, I will hopefully have a range of clients or bosses that give me work, and here's my chance to learn how to communicate with a range of people in person, and to learn how to do it efffectively.
Since the first term of design, I've thought of my instructors as my clients, in a way.
So, when I interface with an instructor, I try to assay what kind of student they hope to teach to, and try to become that target. I refuse to acknoweldge this as mere 'sucking up', because when I'm on the instructor's wavelength, I am most apt to recieve thier message...and that's what I'm there for, anyway.
So, if I'm addressed as being to noisy...I button up, and figure what it was I was doing wrong, and figure out another way to do it if it was something I needed to do.
And I don't whine if I think my dignity has been affronted.
She had to get kind of rude about it. It worked and class could proceed.
After the lecture she had to leave for a few minutes and we students were left to thier own devices. Many of us got to work on our projects. Some moaned about her behavior whilst she was out of the room.
The nature of the whiners was something like: The nerve! She had no right to talk at me like that! If it would've gone on much longer i'd of given here a piece of my mind, that's for sure!
Okay, maybe I'm old school but that attitude really, really bothers me. Gets under my skin. You see, teachers come in many types, many temperaments. Unless that teacher is out-and-out insulting you for no good reason, though, or doing something that is clearly out of line, we ought to be doing what that teacher is saying...and if we've been put in our place, in a behavioral context, we need to address what it was we are doing that is causing the instructor to get all rude on us.
During my training in design, I had an epiphany early on. I think I've writtien on this before, but I rarely review what I write. Anyway, I soon saw that each instructor I had, whilst training toward a common goal, had different ways of looking at the same thing...and they brought that into thier instruction. This obstacle is an unexpected gift. For, in the future, I will hopefully have a range of clients or bosses that give me work, and here's my chance to learn how to communicate with a range of people in person, and to learn how to do it efffectively.
Since the first term of design, I've thought of my instructors as my clients, in a way.
So, when I interface with an instructor, I try to assay what kind of student they hope to teach to, and try to become that target. I refuse to acknoweldge this as mere 'sucking up', because when I'm on the instructor's wavelength, I am most apt to recieve thier message...and that's what I'm there for, anyway.
So, if I'm addressed as being to noisy...I button up, and figure what it was I was doing wrong, and figure out another way to do it if it was something I needed to do.
And I don't whine if I think my dignity has been affronted.
[sundial_life] Raydidio on the Internets
In a way, thank God for mp3 files. They make it possible for me hear radio programs that I'd otherwise miss.
Of course, under this economy, I can't afford other than dialup. No broadband for this city mouse, at least not yet. Anyway, I've had an addiction to Air America's Mike Malloy of late. There are two places to download his broadcasts if you've missed them.
One is Air America Place, which seems to be blog/message board/audio archive adjunct to AAR. They got lots of archived shows. Each mp3 file of Malloy is about 12.9MB, however, which is about an hour's dowload time, more or less, on dialup. If I don't get dumped because I tried to load a graphics-intensive web page.
The other is The White Rose Society. Named for the White Rose Society that resisted the Nazis in Germany by distributing leaflets criticising Hitler and his cronies during WWII, the spread the news by archving a whole armload of progressive talk. They archive not just the show, however, but all the commercials: a Malloy stored by White Rose has a throwweight ov just over 30MB. Download time over dialup: completely out of the question.
It's actually a pity. I enjoy the commercials I hear on radio, with some exceptions. You see, it's alarming, but true: you really are judged by the words you use.
But, at least I get to hear Malloy I miss. Better than nothing.
Of course, under this economy, I can't afford other than dialup. No broadband for this city mouse, at least not yet. Anyway, I've had an addiction to Air America's Mike Malloy of late. There are two places to download his broadcasts if you've missed them.
One is Air America Place, which seems to be blog/message board/audio archive adjunct to AAR. They got lots of archived shows. Each mp3 file of Malloy is about 12.9MB, however, which is about an hour's dowload time, more or less, on dialup. If I don't get dumped because I tried to load a graphics-intensive web page.
The other is The White Rose Society. Named for the White Rose Society that resisted the Nazis in Germany by distributing leaflets criticising Hitler and his cronies during WWII, the spread the news by archving a whole armload of progressive talk. They archive not just the show, however, but all the commercials: a Malloy stored by White Rose has a throwweight ov just over 30MB. Download time over dialup: completely out of the question.
It's actually a pity. I enjoy the commercials I hear on radio, with some exceptions. You see, it's alarming, but true: you really are judged by the words you use.
But, at least I get to hear Malloy I miss. Better than nothing.
10 April 2005
[meme] Saturday Slant: Recent Scare
And, now, for this week's question:
That's easy. But, with all due respect to the Grand Slantmaster, I'm changing the rules on this one just a small amount. I'm going back three years. It's relevant.
So, there I was, sitting in the Clackamas Red Robin with The Wife[tm], and I'm enjoying my favorite and least guilt-ridden item on the menu, the turkey burger (it really is quite excellent, folks, you oughta checkitout). Be it duly noted that I am largely erasing whatever benefits I'm bestowing upon myself by liberally partaking of the bottomless steak fries, because, yummmmmm, steak fries.
Anyway.
I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden I get this...feeling. There's an emptyness in the chest, and there's a hitch in my breathing. Now, I'm a bit of hypochondriac, and it comes out at the oddest times. Like this one.
Crap, I think, am I having a heart attack?
When the panic finally consumes me, I gulp down two asprin and ask The Wife[tm] to signal for help. The medics show up soon after, and I'm loaded up into the ambulance and whisked off to Providence Milwaukie and duly examed. I get this horrid tasing orange-colored beverage that is loaded with potassium and wait whilst they take readings and look me over.
They are nice people and work efficiently and quick. There are definitely worse places to find oneself in in a percieved medical emergency than the E/R at Prov Milwauke. Please make a note of it.
I get a chest X-Ray.
Long story short, nothing. I'm okay. There isn't even any reason to keep me there. I'm released in about an hour and a half. The Wife[tm] and I go for a ride, pick up a bottle of rum at the Liquor Store at King Road and Southeast 82nd Avenue, and we make ready for a drive to see SCA friends in Idaho Falls next day (we amounted to the An Tirian ambassadors to the royal court of Artemisia, but that's another story).
Ever since then, I've been a little less afraid to try things. They say you only get one go-around, and I suspect it's true, but until you have to really think am I dying, you just kind of rationalize it all. It's just a philosphical conceit until you get stuck in such a situation.
Until that time I was toying with the idea to go back to school and studying art or design. Before long after that incident I was registered for classes.
Sure, it's kind of cliche'd. But many (if not all) cliches, I think, have thier basis in authentic human behavior. People who have had health scares realize that they may only have one chance at it and characters do change. Ever wonder why Larry King is always on the radio advertising anything that may give you a few extra minutes of life? He's probably still devastated after he was declared clinically dead for a few minutes during one of his heart events and didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing. So, depending on your POV, he's either going to the bad place (which might very well be the Plaid Pantry at the corner of North Interstate and Going) or just going out into oblivion at the end. His behavior seems very desparate to me. But I digress.
Others of us act to try and achieve some goals that we've been putting off in the interest of comfort for a very very long time. And for me, that was to let my inner artist and designer out. I've always wanted to carve a niche for myself, and this seems to be the way; with the writing and editing I'm doing lately, it seems to be paying off.
Of course, I hope there'll be more. I desparately want more; if I leave this mortal coil having little else to show for my productive life than the last twelve years at a place I'm not so proud of, then I will close my eyes at the last being a very disappointed man.
Another cliche' is, that you'll never know what can happen if you don't try and strive, and at least, I'll know that I did positively and constructively try something.
(PS:no, I apparently have no heart problems at present. And, as far as I can tell, I'm nowhere near death).
In the last two years, what was the scariest moment you recall? It’s a simple question, loaded with implications. I won’t contaminate the results by providing examples. Be as honest as your conscience (and readership) warrants.
That's easy. But, with all due respect to the Grand Slantmaster, I'm changing the rules on this one just a small amount. I'm going back three years. It's relevant.
So, there I was, sitting in the Clackamas Red Robin with The Wife[tm], and I'm enjoying my favorite and least guilt-ridden item on the menu, the turkey burger (it really is quite excellent, folks, you oughta checkitout). Be it duly noted that I am largely erasing whatever benefits I'm bestowing upon myself by liberally partaking of the bottomless steak fries, because, yummmmmm, steak fries.
Anyway.
I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden I get this...feeling. There's an emptyness in the chest, and there's a hitch in my breathing. Now, I'm a bit of hypochondriac, and it comes out at the oddest times. Like this one.
Crap, I think, am I having a heart attack?
When the panic finally consumes me, I gulp down two asprin and ask The Wife[tm] to signal for help. The medics show up soon after, and I'm loaded up into the ambulance and whisked off to Providence Milwaukie and duly examed. I get this horrid tasing orange-colored beverage that is loaded with potassium and wait whilst they take readings and look me over.
They are nice people and work efficiently and quick. There are definitely worse places to find oneself in in a percieved medical emergency than the E/R at Prov Milwauke. Please make a note of it.
I get a chest X-Ray.
Long story short, nothing. I'm okay. There isn't even any reason to keep me there. I'm released in about an hour and a half. The Wife[tm] and I go for a ride, pick up a bottle of rum at the Liquor Store at King Road and Southeast 82nd Avenue, and we make ready for a drive to see SCA friends in Idaho Falls next day (we amounted to the An Tirian ambassadors to the royal court of Artemisia, but that's another story).
Ever since then, I've been a little less afraid to try things. They say you only get one go-around, and I suspect it's true, but until you have to really think am I dying, you just kind of rationalize it all. It's just a philosphical conceit until you get stuck in such a situation.
Until that time I was toying with the idea to go back to school and studying art or design. Before long after that incident I was registered for classes.
Sure, it's kind of cliche'd. But many (if not all) cliches, I think, have thier basis in authentic human behavior. People who have had health scares realize that they may only have one chance at it and characters do change. Ever wonder why Larry King is always on the radio advertising anything that may give you a few extra minutes of life? He's probably still devastated after he was declared clinically dead for a few minutes during one of his heart events and didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing. So, depending on your POV, he's either going to the bad place (which might very well be the Plaid Pantry at the corner of North Interstate and Going) or just going out into oblivion at the end. His behavior seems very desparate to me. But I digress.
Others of us act to try and achieve some goals that we've been putting off in the interest of comfort for a very very long time. And for me, that was to let my inner artist and designer out. I've always wanted to carve a niche for myself, and this seems to be the way; with the writing and editing I'm doing lately, it seems to be paying off.
Of course, I hope there'll be more. I desparately want more; if I leave this mortal coil having little else to show for my productive life than the last twelve years at a place I'm not so proud of, then I will close my eyes at the last being a very disappointed man.
Another cliche' is, that you'll never know what can happen if you don't try and strive, and at least, I'll know that I did positively and constructively try something.
(PS:no, I apparently have no heart problems at present. And, as far as I can tell, I'm nowhere near death).
06 April 2005
[geography] Street Name Blues
Here's something, from Bend area blog Utterly Boring that is something only address nerds like myself can love.
Click this link to read a short story about the renaming of a certain street in central Bend, which is apparently the start of what may turn out to be a citywide street name regularization.
These things are usually brought on when residents and local officials notice that the idea of picturing a location in town, or giving a newcomer or tourist directions, is a bit of a problem. Without a coherent street-naming rationale, developers can-and do-name the streets in the subdivisions they build anything they want. This happened in 1900-1930's Portland, after the merger of the original three towns of Portland, East Portland, and Albina into one City of Portland. There were armfuls of duplicated street names because nobody cared to control them.
As Portland grew in the first three decades of the 20th Century, duplicate names were gradually eliminated and an ad-hoc system of names and address evolved. In 1933, according to Eugene E Synder, the present system of N, NE, SW, SE, NW was established. I'll not go over the process now, that's for another entry. Suffice it to say that it made any address in Portland more intuitively findable..not pefectly so, but good enough so that newcomers could get round with a minimum of confusing directions.
About seven or eight years back, a similar system, resulting in street names sounding similar to those in Portland, was insituted in McMinnville when it was found that it wasn't intuituively obvious were in town any given street was, when mentioned off-the-cuff. Now, with NW,NE,SW,SE address sectors, you at least know what part of town to be looking in.
Now it's Bend's turn. The city has grown outward immensely from even its 1980s bounds; the street names tend to change unintuitively (the example in the Bulletin, Hill Street, is being changed to Wall Street to reflect the street that it feeds into from the main drag). Additionally, the city address grid is quadranted in the way discribed for McMinnville and Portland, but that system, which is somewhat unintuitive because it's baselines are the railroad and two east-west named streets that line up (but on opposite sides of town, peters out now before you get to the city limits.
A good street name system and address grid does a few things for you; gives you an idea of where you are in town in relation to a center; gives an orderly progression of addresses, from which you can reason which directions you are going in relation to that center, and is consistent-that is, names behave in predictable ways in most cases. Ideally that center is in a notable and logical location-most Oregon towns have addresses that radiate in all directions out from a locus that is usually located in the city center, and address base on notable baselines that more or less converge on and extend out from that center (rivers, renowned streets, and the like).
It makes things in the city findable. I'm hoping Bend comes up with a good rationale, and sticks to it.
Click this link to read a short story about the renaming of a certain street in central Bend, which is apparently the start of what may turn out to be a citywide street name regularization.
These things are usually brought on when residents and local officials notice that the idea of picturing a location in town, or giving a newcomer or tourist directions, is a bit of a problem. Without a coherent street-naming rationale, developers can-and do-name the streets in the subdivisions they build anything they want. This happened in 1900-1930's Portland, after the merger of the original three towns of Portland, East Portland, and Albina into one City of Portland. There were armfuls of duplicated street names because nobody cared to control them.
As Portland grew in the first three decades of the 20th Century, duplicate names were gradually eliminated and an ad-hoc system of names and address evolved. In 1933, according to Eugene E Synder, the present system of N, NE, SW, SE, NW was established. I'll not go over the process now, that's for another entry. Suffice it to say that it made any address in Portland more intuitively findable..not pefectly so, but good enough so that newcomers could get round with a minimum of confusing directions.
About seven or eight years back, a similar system, resulting in street names sounding similar to those in Portland, was insituted in McMinnville when it was found that it wasn't intuituively obvious were in town any given street was, when mentioned off-the-cuff. Now, with NW,NE,SW,SE address sectors, you at least know what part of town to be looking in.
Now it's Bend's turn. The city has grown outward immensely from even its 1980s bounds; the street names tend to change unintuitively (the example in the Bulletin, Hill Street, is being changed to Wall Street to reflect the street that it feeds into from the main drag). Additionally, the city address grid is quadranted in the way discribed for McMinnville and Portland, but that system, which is somewhat unintuitive because it's baselines are the railroad and two east-west named streets that line up (but on opposite sides of town, peters out now before you get to the city limits.
A good street name system and address grid does a few things for you; gives you an idea of where you are in town in relation to a center; gives an orderly progression of addresses, from which you can reason which directions you are going in relation to that center, and is consistent-that is, names behave in predictable ways in most cases. Ideally that center is in a notable and logical location-most Oregon towns have addresses that radiate in all directions out from a locus that is usually located in the city center, and address base on notable baselines that more or less converge on and extend out from that center (rivers, renowned streets, and the like).
It makes things in the city findable. I'm hoping Bend comes up with a good rationale, and sticks to it.
[design, sundial_life] Doors Ajar
The activity I've been making for myself is, yes, starting to pay off, just a little.
QuarkVsInDesign.com. 'Nuff said there.
And, since Adobe has announced the release of CS2 I can intimate that I've known of some these things for a while (see the post about two-three back where I announce the announcment). I don't think I can say why just yet, but I can say that I've been liking what I've been seeing.
I'm also Tech Editing the first chapter on Pariah's Illustrator CS2 book. It's quite an educational experience, I'll tell you, going through all of this. Tests and expands my Illustrator knowledge and it's like I get Pariah training me, which is just gravy, no doubt about that.
And all along I'm wondering what's next, is anything next, what's next?
QuarkVsInDesign.com. 'Nuff said there.
And, since Adobe has announced the release of CS2 I can intimate that I've known of some these things for a while (see the post about two-three back where I announce the announcment). I don't think I can say why just yet, but I can say that I've been liking what I've been seeing.
I'm also Tech Editing the first chapter on Pariah's Illustrator CS2 book. It's quite an educational experience, I'll tell you, going through all of this. Tests and expands my Illustrator knowledge and it's like I get Pariah training me, which is just gravy, no doubt about that.
And all along I'm wondering what's next, is anything next, what's next?
[pcc_life] Tales from the Breach:Swimmingly, So Far
Am moving forward into that ultimate term of PCC Graphic Design training. Am quite amazed at what it's prepared me for...but more on that later.
The GD6 course is running along fine, so far. The first project...the product is dirt. We get to make it look good!
Here's the deal: the notional client wants to sell dirt. They want to sell it in three varieties to two markets in each; six different ways. The first one, Dert, is for kiddies. Perfect for making mudpies, building mud cities, invading mudcountries. The second one, Durt, is down-to-business, industrial grade fill. The third one, Düyrt, is your basic, high-end, 'gourmet' product, for tasteful landscaping, fine gardening, and cordon-bleu mudpies.
The point here seems to be unity across a range. The question to be answered is, given a range of objects to be sold or marketed, how to make them unmistakably related whilst still asserting each's appropriate individuality. I'm going for a solution that uses layout to make the unifying connection, type and simple graphics to define the economic stratum (kids/low-end, adults/middle-end, toff/high-end), and color to indicate gender-based market slant.
To be honest, I have a little trouble with the standard blue-for-boys/pink-for-girls sterotype. But in our culture, it IDs the gender line like nothing else. This is playing the hand you're dealt, working in the seeming-societal verities that one is supplied.
The real triumph of the past few days was the portfolio class. however. Even as I evaluate portfolio cases and decide which way to go in that direction, I have a range of projects already that I can start to work into portfolio pieces.
The instructor, Precious (I love saying that for some bizarre reason) requires that we have a minimum of ten projects for display. In my selection of what I thought of as best, she found eleven. Moreover, the star piece was a poster I did to illustrate the term project I did for Geography of Oregon class last term...friends,this thing was a one-off, a knock-off, a tossaway, and it somehow distilled everything good I've been struggling to learn and apply about design into one lodestone for the rest.
There's a moment when everyone knows that they've accompilished something. And there are other nice things happening to me right now. But this one had me coming home on tiptoes with a grin on my face, something The Wife[tm] couldn't help but react to, and The Day Job tends to wipe the smile off my face on a fairly regular basis.
The GD6 course is running along fine, so far. The first project...the product is dirt. We get to make it look good!
Here's the deal: the notional client wants to sell dirt. They want to sell it in three varieties to two markets in each; six different ways. The first one, Dert, is for kiddies. Perfect for making mudpies, building mud cities, invading mudcountries. The second one, Durt, is down-to-business, industrial grade fill. The third one, Düyrt, is your basic, high-end, 'gourmet' product, for tasteful landscaping, fine gardening, and cordon-bleu mudpies.
The point here seems to be unity across a range. The question to be answered is, given a range of objects to be sold or marketed, how to make them unmistakably related whilst still asserting each's appropriate individuality. I'm going for a solution that uses layout to make the unifying connection, type and simple graphics to define the economic stratum (kids/low-end, adults/middle-end, toff/high-end), and color to indicate gender-based market slant.
To be honest, I have a little trouble with the standard blue-for-boys/pink-for-girls sterotype. But in our culture, it IDs the gender line like nothing else. This is playing the hand you're dealt, working in the seeming-societal verities that one is supplied.
The real triumph of the past few days was the portfolio class. however. Even as I evaluate portfolio cases and decide which way to go in that direction, I have a range of projects already that I can start to work into portfolio pieces.
The instructor, Precious (I love saying that for some bizarre reason) requires that we have a minimum of ten projects for display. In my selection of what I thought of as best, she found eleven. Moreover, the star piece was a poster I did to illustrate the term project I did for Geography of Oregon class last term...friends,this thing was a one-off, a knock-off, a tossaway, and it somehow distilled everything good I've been struggling to learn and apply about design into one lodestone for the rest.
There's a moment when everyone knows that they've accompilished something. And there are other nice things happening to me right now. But this one had me coming home on tiptoes with a grin on my face, something The Wife[tm] couldn't help but react to, and The Day Job tends to wipe the smile off my face on a fairly regular basis.
04 April 2005
[design] Adobe Creative Suite 2 Arrives!
Links:
1. QuarkVsInDesign.com:Creative Suite 2 Announced
2. QuarkVsInDesign.com:Top 10 New InDesign CS2 Features
3. R. Allan White on CS2's Release
4. Adobe Creative Suite 2 Main Site:Read about it, Preorder it
A new way to tie the products together...an new way to get stock photography...live trace...PSD layer support...read all about it, people!
More thoughts later. Pressed for time.
Props as always to Pariah S. Burke, without whom much would be impossble. Allan just has a cooly-designed site, and you all should check it out.
1. QuarkVsInDesign.com:Creative Suite 2 Announced
2. QuarkVsInDesign.com:Top 10 New InDesign CS2 Features
3. R. Allan White on CS2's Release
4. Adobe Creative Suite 2 Main Site:Read about it, Preorder it
A new way to tie the products together...an new way to get stock photography...live trace...PSD layer support...read all about it, people!
More thoughts later. Pressed for time.
Props as always to Pariah S. Burke, without whom much would be impossble. Allan just has a cooly-designed site, and you all should check it out.
02 April 2005
[meme] Saturday Slant: A Different Kind of Question
Here is that question:
As a so called "lapsed" Catholic (born, baptised, confirmed) I feel compelled-no, obliged-to answer this question.
When I think of John Paul II I think along two lines.
The positive aspects...the numerous pilgrimages he conducted, the immense popular support where he traveled, the sheer vitality and activity of the man...I shouldn't have to detail too much. As a (still) semi-disenchanted Catholic, I must say that the general positive face he put on the Roman Catholic church was inspiring and encouraged me to look upon the Church with a good face even when I felt farthest away from it. His towering stature and his influence, the span of his tenure-27 years, the longest of any Pope in memory, all these will combine to a historical feature that will be called John Paul the Great.
Seriously. There's been academic buzz about the way historians will refer to him. Look forward to seeing his name in print that way, if not now, in future.
The negative aspect...I will be direct and honest. As someone sympathetic to the Roman Catholic Church, I think his conservatism hurt in a certain way, rather than helped. There are actually lay factions within the Church which seem to have formed because of his conservative stance or were reinforced by them (Opus Dei) or as loyal oppostion (Voice of the Faithful). Whilst it is foolish to expect utter unity in such a huge population (over 1 billion avowed members in numerous countries and even in differing Catholic traditions) i despair over the power that the Pope had to heal and to promote general unity, which he did not use.
The writings of Gary Wills (I recommend) suggest that the big guns in the Church are just as political as any temporal authority, and are just as willing to play both ends against the middle as any temporal political authority is. But then, as I mentioned elsewhere, whether one finds the Church divinely guided or not, they are an organization of humans, and humans are as humans do-flawed, mistaken, prone to misunderstanding, arbitrary and sometimes cruel in the name of a greater good.
The other thing that JPII missed was the chance to effect real change in the matter of the recent child abuse scandals here in America. The Pope was usually given a pass on this, the matter being seen as a mishandling laid at the feet of the American Catholic bishops. And this may be true and valid. But as the Man In Charge, the Pope could have, and should have, done something. He could have promoted healing and revitalized the church by doing the right thing, giving a sense of direction from the top. Nothing ever came from him. A big chance was missed here.
I look to the future with a sense of apprehension and hope. Who will be the next pope? It won't be an American. It may be a Hispanic or African bishop. It could certainly be an Italian. He may be as conservative as JPII, in fact, that's what I expect.
I, like many, will miss John Paul II. There are things I wish he'd done; but I enjoy and appreciate what he did do as much as my heart aches for what he didn't.
What does the passing of Pope John Paul II mean to you?
As a so called "lapsed" Catholic (born, baptised, confirmed) I feel compelled-no, obliged-to answer this question.
When I think of John Paul II I think along two lines.
The positive aspects...the numerous pilgrimages he conducted, the immense popular support where he traveled, the sheer vitality and activity of the man...I shouldn't have to detail too much. As a (still) semi-disenchanted Catholic, I must say that the general positive face he put on the Roman Catholic church was inspiring and encouraged me to look upon the Church with a good face even when I felt farthest away from it. His towering stature and his influence, the span of his tenure-27 years, the longest of any Pope in memory, all these will combine to a historical feature that will be called John Paul the Great.
Seriously. There's been academic buzz about the way historians will refer to him. Look forward to seeing his name in print that way, if not now, in future.
The negative aspect...I will be direct and honest. As someone sympathetic to the Roman Catholic Church, I think his conservatism hurt in a certain way, rather than helped. There are actually lay factions within the Church which seem to have formed because of his conservative stance or were reinforced by them (Opus Dei) or as loyal oppostion (Voice of the Faithful). Whilst it is foolish to expect utter unity in such a huge population (over 1 billion avowed members in numerous countries and even in differing Catholic traditions) i despair over the power that the Pope had to heal and to promote general unity, which he did not use.
The writings of Gary Wills (I recommend) suggest that the big guns in the Church are just as political as any temporal authority, and are just as willing to play both ends against the middle as any temporal political authority is. But then, as I mentioned elsewhere, whether one finds the Church divinely guided or not, they are an organization of humans, and humans are as humans do-flawed, mistaken, prone to misunderstanding, arbitrary and sometimes cruel in the name of a greater good.
The other thing that JPII missed was the chance to effect real change in the matter of the recent child abuse scandals here in America. The Pope was usually given a pass on this, the matter being seen as a mishandling laid at the feet of the American Catholic bishops. And this may be true and valid. But as the Man In Charge, the Pope could have, and should have, done something. He could have promoted healing and revitalized the church by doing the right thing, giving a sense of direction from the top. Nothing ever came from him. A big chance was missed here.
I look to the future with a sense of apprehension and hope. Who will be the next pope? It won't be an American. It may be a Hispanic or African bishop. It could certainly be an Italian. He may be as conservative as JPII, in fact, that's what I expect.
I, like many, will miss John Paul II. There are things I wish he'd done; but I enjoy and appreciate what he did do as much as my heart aches for what he didn't.
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