Binary by Accident Archives

James Hong: "The problem for the normal joe like me is that it is discouraging to continue writing a weblog that nobody reads. I pretty much stopped writing in my weblog for the last 4 days because it seemed nobody was reading."

James - keep at it. Write about whatever you feel passionate about, know a lot about, or find interesting. Make it fun for you. Then, you'll notice a few more people stopping by. Maybe more will come after that, or maybe not. But, it will still be fun for you. I have my reasons for maintaining a blog, and I'm enjoying it every day, regardless of the number of people that read it.

7:41:13 PM

Ralph Waldo Emerson. "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:19:29 AM

Billion-dollar virus economics. When math attacks (Courtesy: The Register)

Finally - someone besides vmyths.com debunking the quote machines "experts".

4:23:13 PM

Indira Gandhi. "You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:12:33 AM

I've been playing with blogrolling.com the past couple of days. It took me all of 5 seconds to get my links pointing to Burningbird's new home. I also like the 1-click favelet to add a site to your blogroll. Good stuff! 10:51:10 PM

I never thought I'd ever be able to say, "Just finished painting toenails." Funny the things you'll do for your 8+ month pregnant wife. She says I did a great job - maybe Beauty School is in my future! ;-) 8:24:52 PM

"HTML is not a crock...It's a structural markup language, and if you're trying to make it into something else, it's no wonder you hate it, because it really sucks at being anything else. And if you insist on treating it with no respect, then it will continue to give you grief, and you deserve it." (Courtesy: diveintomark)

The big problem is that resources teaching proper (X)HTML markup haven't reached the people who make websites, and authoring tools (FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc.) pump out code best described as "icky". I like Radio, but tops on my wishlist for it would be producing valid XHTML markup.

8:58:32 AM

Anonymous. "Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day)

So are the conservatives!

8:37:43 AM

Do you pay attention to and appreciate the "little things" that make life enjoyable? Burnigbird does. 3:43:45 PM

Graffito. "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 2:50:23 PM

Frank Leahy. "Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:23:04 AM

Garrison Keillor. "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:18:35 AM

I've got a lot of work to go to get my links where I want them...the current structure was really meant to just be a test for the left column. Instead, it's been terribly static and not quite representative. Some day when I have lots o' free time, I'll get to it. Promises, promises. I also need to decide if 5 is the right number for the "Fresh" links. Methinks it's low. Grx.

10:38:44 PM

Derek Dahlsad: "Oh, and finally, 11111001111 is binary for 1999, the year I started this journal."

Aha! He's Binary By Design! Alright, so I'm the only person amused by this. So what!

His site doesn't appear to offer an RSS feed...That stinks - I've gotten quite attached to cranking up my Aggregator instead of visiting every site I like to see if something new has been posted.

10:19:11 PM

Proof there's hope for hacks like me - even Zeldman occasionally has problems he needs help to solve. Of course, he has access to some of the most brilliant minds around...I'm stuck with me. 4:54:56 PM

Will Rogers. "I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:26:08 AM

Jenny, the Shifted Librarian, performs some research tonight on the meaning of getting a fortune cookie sans fortune. 10:12:44 PM

Heather Hamilton: "As of today, 22 April, 2002, I will no longer be updating this website ... I'd love to be able to sit here and say that artistic expression and freedom are worth all the damage they have wreaked on the personal relationships I have with family, friends, neighbors and employers, but I cannot." (Courtesy: diveintomark)

If anybody knows what Heather is talking about, it would be Mark. It's a shame people have to realize that this form of communication doesn't necessarily have as much freedom as imagined. The wider audience is great, except when it backfires - which it has for both Heather and Mark. Knowing that the employers who caused problems for them were idiots is small consolation, I would imagine.

4:49:15 PM

Woody Allen. "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 4:36:58 PM

Phil Ackley: "The dog never gets listed on the census questionnaire as 'primary resident' even if it's true." 6:25:22 AM

Bill Watterson. "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:22:46 AM

Another sign the Apocolypse is upon us: On the front page of CNN.com is a story about a professional wrestler. 11:02:43 PM

Liberal or Conservative

A few years ago I attended the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. I was also involved with the Council of Graduate Students (CGS) - basically student government for a class of students that are unrepresented by the traditional student government. (Aside: The current members of CGS have completely gutted their website, removing all sense of the organization's history, which is was interesting.)

Now, as you may or may not know, MBA programs are stereotypically stocked with conservatives. At OSU, this was also the reality. CGS was mostly filled with your stereotypically liberal types (theatre, fine arts, communication, etc.). Again, while I was there, this was also a dead-on characterization.

What's funny is how variable the definitions of liberal and conservative are, and how they don't mean much, other than in a particular context, at that point in time.

Some days, I had both MBA and CGS functions to attend back-to-back. I went from being the bleeding-heart liberal of the MBA program, to the right-wing reactionary of CGS All within the 15 minutes it took me to walk across campus.

They were both right (and wrong).

8:26:08 PM

Jonathon Delacour: "...warbloggers are hardly different from the liberal do-gooders they castigate." 1:10:54 PM

Albert Camus. "Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 7:32:59 AM

Happy Birthday, Phil! 10:44:27 PM

Mark Pilgrim: "I've added a new feature to the home page of my weblog: automatic linkbacks to people who are linking to specific posts."

Neat idea. But, what will keep this from getting as unwieldy as the referer logs? Or am I missing something?

7:27:04 PM

Francois de La Rochefoucauld. "Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 7:18:24 PM

Build a pub in your backyard! (Courtesy: Bryan Bedell of Coudal Partners) 10:34:53 PM

Martin Luther King Jr.. "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:18:31 AM

A bookmarklet that defines the word highlighted on a web page. (Zeldmanesque hat tip to...um...Zeldman) 7:40:26 PM

Laurence J. Peter. "Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:13:13 AM

"Segway sales up from three in 2001 to five in 2002" (Courtesy: The Onion) 7:12:47 PM

Deutsche Bahn to sue Google: "The German national railway operator, will file suit Wednesday against Google because the company's search engine provides links to a Web site that offers instructions on how to sabotage railway systems, Deutsche Bahn said Tuesday. Lawsuits against Yahoo and AltaVista also are being prepared." (Courtesy: Dane Carlson)

While I find this particular nugget of information distasteful (the sabotage part), I'm quite disgusted that another country's laws can be used to restrict what I can legally view here (in the United States).

So, what's the right way to go? Do we arrogantly assume that the interests of a country with a liberal freedom of speech, such as the U.S., supercede those of other countries? Does Google block its site from all Germans? It can. Is the burden to be placed on ISPs?

I don't have the answer. I don't think anyone will any time soon.

4:25:48 PM

Thomas A. Edison. "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:11:15 AM

Arthur Miller. "Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:18:34 AM

Peter da Silva. "Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:14:04 AM

IE6/Win bugs are fixed - just noticed some in Mozilla 0.9.9. Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. 11:13:23 PM

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.. "Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 7:41:31 AM

George Bernard Shaw. "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 9:20:37 PM

Mark Pilgrim writing about Vincent Flanders - "Bottom line: for a guy who makes money on a site called 'Web Pages That Suck', your weblog sucks." 11:14:44 PM

Poker was better this month - I actually added a whopping $3 to my net worth. 10:41:11 PM

Jean Sibelius. "Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:26:13 AM

Not that this site has a running topic, but I've started a separate section for items about Radio. If you're interested find the link on this page (currently under the calendar). I'm sure most people are no more interested in what tool I use to create the site (if the URL wasn't a hint) than I am in knowing what tool or OS others are running behind their sites.

Also, I'm having some nasty bugs pop up - especially when using Internet Explorer 6. Other browsers show everything (but, in some cases, it looks even uglier than normal) but IE6 is "hiding" content. Ugh. I think it goes back to a few nights ago when I accidently deleted a file. I don't think my backup was current enough. I'll work on a fix as time allows.

6:25:43 AM

Robert J. Shiller. "The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 6:19:08 AM

Aaaaaaaaaargh. (Courtesy: diveintomark)

Ahhh, the joys of April. Just had to recalculate our taxes as married filing separately, since, for some odd reason, Ohio makes it more advantageous to do so. It was more than worth the hit we took on the federal return. Who woulda thunk it?

11:10:33 PM

Another picture (Courtesy: Burningbird) 10:42:17 PM

Help! Help! A Goth Stole My Child!. (Courtesy: Deadly Bloody Serious)

Next year's Congress will pass a bill funding programs for kids weaning themselves from Abercrombie & Fitch.

10:37:45 PM

Robert Orben. "Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:25:26 AM

It's Australia Day over at Burningbird's roost. Meet her favorite bloggers from Oz. 6:40:25 PM

A couple neat pictures posted recently by some wonderful photographers:

• Fireworks (Courtesy: Carlos Granier)
• Lightning (Courtesy: Phil Ackley)

7:11:31 AM

Thomas H. Huxley. "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:41:27 AM

Anticlimax. "I had no idea birth was getting so... specific. As Zoe says, it kinda takes the fun out of it." (Courtesy: Deadly Bloody Serious)

I'm glad we still don't know the gender of the baby, or when it's going to be. The anticipation and unknowns just add to the excitement.

9:56:44 PM

NY Times: Compensation of some US corporate CEOs (Courtesy: Dane Carlson) 9:47:14 PM

Michel de Montaigne. "Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 6:23:52 AM

Will Rogers. "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 10:11:09 AM

And the flag is still here. (Courtesy: One Pot Meal) 10:13:06 PM

Just spent the day in Detroit catching an Indians-Tigers ball game. The good guys won. Check out ESPN if you need to know who the good guys are.

Seven of us went, including the most precious three year-old ever. He comprehends and follows events like no kid I've ever seen before.

I can't wait to have my own - oh, yeah, I will - in 6 weeks. Yea!

10:05:49 PM

Arthur C. Clarke. "The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 9:09:56 AM

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. Nellie was the only character I liked on "Little House". What does that say about me? 10:48:47 PM

"We at Romanza wish to celebrate the history of romance and the living genre itself, the possibility of living happily ever after, and to have fun with some adjectives of our own. We also dispense questionable advice to the lovelorn and sexually confused on demand."

Follow the link - you know you want to!

10:38:46 PM

Signal vs. Noise - a tag-team blog covering Las Vegas corruption to describing someone by the color of their skin to the Kyoto standards.

Brought to you by my newfound wanderlust.

10:31:50 PM

Thomas Jefferson. "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:14:20 AM

Housekeeping: a careless error has been affecting this site for some time now, has come to my attention, and has been fixed - there is now a link to the homepage in the top-right corner. I was stranding people linking into the site. My apologies. 9:54:32 PM

Natural items forming an alphabet. (Courtesy: Textism) 9:24:04 PM

Serendipity strikes!

After the last post, I checked my referers and saw a hit from Burningbird's blog. Much to my surprise, she has a link here on her blogroll. Well, I won't pretend to understand how she groups the various blogs in the blogroll, but I think a great place to start my wanderings will be with the blogs near mine.

I'm off!

7:32:51 PM

I've been reading a great set of sites (see the Fresh Favorites in the sidebar) but just realized I haven't added to that list for some time. I know why...most of those sites form a mini-ring and link to each other. I've enjoyed them so much, I stopped exploring.

That's a shame - I know there are lots of great voices out there to join those I've already found. Time to start virtually Waltzing Matilda and find them.

7:12:06 PM

Boy, I can't believe how busy getting ready to have a baby is:

• Cram in all the last bits of things you need to know/remember when the blur that is labor hits
• Stock up on sincere empathy (I tend to be a nervous laugher and joker - traits that I'm guessing will not be appreciated in the delivery room)
• Clean up the 2^nd spare bedoom so there's room for both sets of parents
• Finish buying all the gadgets and gimmickry that we've been tricked into believing is necessary to being a "good parent"
• Assembling said gadgets
• Getting things cleared up at work in preparation for being absent for a few days

I know I'm forgetting lots of things - My brain is fried. Maureen's not sleeping well these days, which means I'm not sleeping well either. I suppose this is good practice for later.

6:53:38 PM

Plato. "You are so young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as judge of the highest matters." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 6:18:24 AM

Rita Rudner. "I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:18:07 AM

"I don't know which is worse." (Courtesy: Phil Ackley)  It's hard to find good salad these days. 6:26:52 AM

Galileo Galilei. "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:17:24 AM

Lots of people were nice to me today...I wonder why? 10:49:48 PM

Teoma. I like the results it returns. But, it's owned by Ask Jeeves...how long until it's completely screwed up? 10:36:07 PM

When I was 12. (Link Courtesy: Zeldman) 10:14:25 PM

Burningbird is back! 10:00:38 PM

Be nice to all the fools you meet today - you'll be surprised how many people you end up being nice to.

I'm going to be very, very careful before I post links today. (Courtesy: The Register, via Scripting News)

6:22:44 AM

M. Cartmill. "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:19:51 AM