What Am I Up To Lately in 2003?

7th September 2003, 12:16am

Gary was right. He was a guy I knew at UWA who mocked me when I got my first Palm digital assistant. While I'm ranting about how organized and productive it's going to make me, he always said that "it's a substitute brain". And he's right, because ever since I got my Palm my memory has been getting worse.

If you ask me what I did this month, you'll get the answer "I can't remember". It's only a half truth - there's some things I can remember doing, and some of those I'm not going to tell you. See, I learned something from Yoga lessons, and that is:

"Don't tell anyone else you're taking Yoga lessons unless you want to be mocked and called Gumby or Flexi-Boy."

As for all the work I've been doing, as soon as it's finished it's out of my mind. It's all in the "substitute brain". But since people have asked me what I've been up to lately, here's a few things I've been up to since I last updated the website:

Reading

... Rotten by John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols). I love the punk ethic, and it was inevitable I'd get Johnny Rotten's autobiography. It's interesting but feels ghostwritten. A lot of the book is interviews of people that Lydon knew, not written by himself. It's also quite contradictory - it muddied a lot of views I'd had about punk. But it was interesting.
... Business As Unusual by Anita Roddick. She's the founder of The Body Shop, and has a good sense of the ability of business to act ethically & be socially responsible. The first chapter almost put me off, launching straight into the political causes The Body Shop supports. But the book discusses some of The Body Shop's methods, some of the lessons they learned, and ideas on how other businesses can act on their social conscience. When you understand the how & why of what the Body Shop is doing, you become more receptive to their views. It provides an interesting left-wing view of how businesses can operate.
... The Road To Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. It discusses the trend of western societies to drift towards socialism and discusses an anarcho-capitalist / libertarian response to it. I'm trying to be more politically educated, and this book acts as a right-wing counterweight to Roddick's book. It's dry reading, and while there's a few ideas of interest it hasn't grabbed me yet. Then again, it is over 50 years old.
... Code Complete by Steve McConnell. It's an older book on programming from Microsoft Press, but guess what - it's really good. One of the clearest, most enjoyable reads I've had of any technical book. Even though I haven't finished it yet, I'm glad I own this one.

Writing

... tirades against Bruce Perens, an open source advocate. I like open source (especially BSD licenses, not so much the GPL) but I found some flaws in Bruce's arguments defending Linux against SCO. SCO is suing IBM, claiming they added SCO code illegally to Linux. The flaws in Bruce's arguments showed that at best, Linux has erased the copyright notices from code they were allowed to use anyway, and at worst have used code stolen from SCO by Silicon Graphics. When the LA Times started printing Perens' arguments without conducting an accurate analysis, it hit home just how much misinformation our news media feeds us (not necessarily intentionally). I wrote a long article explaining the flaws, then approached Bruce Perens personally and politely with my concerns. He made some changes to his article and it is now much more accurate.
... support and FAQ pages for namesuppressed. They're not linked yet, but they're already on the web server and the FAQ page will be available soon.
... the latest issue of the namesuppressed newsletter. It's been nearly a year since the last update, now I hope to make it a monthly by covering news from the graphics & music scenes, and whatever else people are interested in.
... incredibly long emails to close friends. I hit 15KB (2200 words) with a plain text email this week. That's not even close to my record though.
... a journal entry on Perfectionism that I never finished because it wasn't quite... oh man that's ironic.
... in-depth newsgroup posts to alt.comp.shareware.authors, providing advice to other developers on marketing techniques and how to get started in shareware.

Working

... on Plaid Lite, a new Photoshop plugin that creates plaid-like patterns from an image. It's been in development for a long time and I finally released it last month. It's been quite popular so far.
... on promoting my software to magazines and user groups. A few of my Photoshop plugins are appearing in magazines from Future Publishing in the UK as a result. Although I was approached by MacWorld, I unfortunately don't have any Mac software to offer them.
... on a custom credit card ordering process for a client. I don't normally do work for clients (and I don't believe in working for friends, it can hurt the relationship) so this was a new experience for me.
... on adding content to e-consultancy.com. I'm one of their main content developers, and I've been having problems accessing their site due to some misconfigured server along the path between my computer and the website. It's not my fault or e-consultancy's, but it's sure causing hassles.
... on a new purchase page for my software. You can finally buy all my software & music from the same page, and pay off invoices there too. It also features a discount code system.
... on the webpage for US/UK band 2liar. We just had to upload all the MP3 and RealAudio files, and correct some errors I'd made in the webpages. On a dialup connection, it takes a long time to upload 100MB.

Tidying

... my room. I work better when I'm in a tidy environment, so I've spent a lot of time giving away things I don't need anymore. The fewer things I have in my field of vision, the fewer distractions I have. I'm trying to do that mentally too - stop watching the TV news, so I don't distract myself with how sad the world is, and tidying my computer desktop & to-do lists so I don't feel overwhelmed by everything I'm meant to be doing.

Listening

... to Fischerspooner, a weird techno group who mime their songs. The music is like 80s video game soundtracks... I like much of it and it's great to work to. It's hard to find this CD in Perth.
... to Chaos AD by Sepultura. We studied the songs at school nearly 10 years ago, and I never forgot it. I bought the CD on a whim last month and was impressed - it sounds like death metal, but the lyrics and ethics are very punk: "Silence means death / stand on your feet / inner fear / your worst enemy".
... to the new Marilyn Manson CD. The Golden Age of Grotesque is a good album, but it's not consistent. There's 4 killer tracks on the CD (mOBSCENE, Bright Young Things, Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth, Better Of Two Evils) while the rest are only so-so. I'm not a fan of Manson but I was drawn in by the lyrics on the new album: "Set fashion, not follow / spit vitriol, not swallow" and "We don't rebel / to sell / it just suits us well". Kinda punk rock.

Eating

... out with friends. Some of my friends regularly hold get togethers at their house, where we eat, laugh and watch Bond movies. (Though not always.)
... yummy homecooked meals. My mother broke her arm and was out of action for nearly 3 months, so I had to eat more self cooked food (which isn't so tasty). Now that she's regained some strength and can cook again, I'm treated to some delicious meals.
... new McDonalds menu food. They've introduced a healthier menu in Australia, including some vegetarian food. The Vege Burger isn't much good, but the Chicken Foldover is nice and the Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch is delicious.
... Red Rooster. We've drifted from McDonalds because the service at our local store is abysmal, we rarely get the correct order. Red Rooster staff go out of their way to help elderly people place special orders, and they're local, so there's lots of reasons to support them.

Watching

... the Fremantle Dockers getting beaten by the Essendon Bombers in their first final since they started playing AFL football in 1995. I've been an armchair supporter of the Dockers since then.
... the movie Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, because it was recommended on The Movie Show. Bad idea. It's meant to be a comedy, but it's depressing and slow moving and the ending is abysmal.
... Finding Nemo, the latest Pixar movie. I love all the Pixar movies. They're technically brilliant, and the stories are intelligent and enjoyable for kids and adults alike.
... 28 Days Later, a good apocalyptic flick. It's not a true zombie movie like the ads claim, it's more like Z For Zachariah, the post-nuclear book they made you read in school. There's holes in the plot and the ending seems wrong, but it's worth seeing for the deserted shots of London. Oh, and try not to jump out of your seat when the car alarm goes off in the first 20 minutes of the movie, okay?

Talking

... an awful lot to friends online. I stayed away from online chat for several weeks while I caught up with work, but it's time to spend a little more time with them again.
... via Trillian Pro 2 Beta. Microsoft has upgraded the MSN Messenger chat protocol in a way that is incompatible with the free version of Trillian, and I've been meaning to buy Trillian Pro anyway. As a result I've lost the ability to send files over MSN, but I'm now able to get live news updates through Trillian's RSS features.

Enjoying

... getting back into exercising. I've been walking around my suburb for several months and making the most of all the local parks and grassy areas. Now it's time to turn things up a notch.
... lying in the sun on the grass by the water of the Perth foreshore for 30 minutes or more, looking at the clouds in a bright blue sky. Life doesn't get much better than that.

That's just a small selection of the things I've been doing. I've been up to plenty more, but some of it is secret, some of it I'm not ready to announce publicly, and some of it is personal. Or possibly, I just forgot to mention it.