system.reflecti0n.net

I opened up Trainspotting last week, I had read it the first summer after the movie came out but that was a long time ago. I enjoyed it then and I'm really loving it now. Mostly for the dialogue.

Between Robbie Burns and Irvine Welsh, one could easily get the impression that when a Scots writer stays true to the parameters of their language, the written words really jump out of the page. It's like you can hear the actual conversation.

When an American writer tries the same it seems like they're putting on a show for the reader. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest never engaged me the way Trainspotting does (neither did Tom Wolfe's imitation of the same tool in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test).

English writers don't exploit spoken language either, Charles Dickens used it moderately to some pretty good effect, especially in Great Expectations and Nicholas Nickleby, but it doesn't reach the same commitment as Trainspotting or Cuckoo's Nest. Hm, maybe Clockwork Orange should count, but I haven't read that yet... that's going on the wish-list.

Canadian writers are so timid about writing in their own language they simply just don't do it-- or they don't recognize their own differences. I can't think of an example to point out here, its just that rare... Forcing a Quebecois to speak pidgin doesn't count unless you can show me an entire novel of it.

No seriously, the Scots really have a knack for this. Maybe their patois is most suitable for this kind of writing. It's all subjective so there's no way of really knowing this for sure, but I know where my preferences lie.

From what I've seen in forums on the subject of Trainspotting dialogue, it's certainly not the easiest language to master while reading, possibly I'm enjoying it more this time because the second try makes it easier to follow the thread of the story.My only difficulty this time is: exactly what does "whae" sound like for real? I can't make up a sound in my head and using the other words around it I don't come up with a sound that seems genuine. I'll be digging out the DVD for this next week and see if I can pick it up-- although they softened this brogue in the movie for the sake of marketing appeal. On the other hand, they used some more intense dialogue in the director's cut, which I don't have right now and will go looking for soon.

This post seems hard to piece together-- I'm think I'm going to brush up on how to group things into paragraphs sometime soon.

Tags: books, writing, demotivator

Has the war on Microsoft reached a turning point?

With a multi-pronged attack by Google Apps, free StarOffice, OpenOffice.org and Lotus Symphony getting regular press this month, and the seal-of-approval for OEMs to offer rolling-back your OS to Windows XP, the lack of "Ultimate Extras" promised for the top-shelf edition of Vista and even the dawning view that Vista could be their latest Microsoft Bob.

It's the "End of Days", Isn't It? Oh Crap, You're not Denying It Then It Really Is True!

Much as I shudder at the thought of having to use some other development platform (Java? The Chevrolet of programming languages. PHP? A big old mess, my ASP 3.0 days are well behind me. Cocoa/Objective-C? Programma, please!) how can I not prepare myself for the day when the market for Windows platform developers starts to shrink. Its reasonable to expect all good things to come to an end but I still don't want them to end. No, I don't wish them to maintain a hegemony on desktop computing, but I want to maintain it as a serious option for software development as long as possible as there is simply no tool like Visual Studio that I enjoy using more for software development... SlickEdit comes closest, but still...

I guess on the bright side Windows is going to stick around for a little while longer, its not going to disappear tomorrow or next year. Maybe they will turn things around before the point-of-no-return. It's not that I'd miss Windows terribly, I just can't stand the fanboyz thinking somehow they were backing the right horse all along... Not that I dislike the products they back, I just dislike fanboyz and wish nothing good towards them.

But Looking Ahead Things Get Better, Right?

Of course, if Vista really is a failure, then Windows would have to tighten its shoelaces and really get running to build the next OS. Maybe the time has come for management that creates any/all software to understand that more is less and a nice simple OS with less googaws than Vista would be a welcome upgrade-- Just make it fast and good... I will not miss Windows MovieMaker, WordPad, Paint, Character Map, Disk Cleanup, System Restore, et al.

Give me the basics in my OS and make them good and while you're releasing it make it good and clear that you're willing to support a robust third-party app ecosystem that can write all these extra tools anyway. Yes, I really would trade all that and more to get the fastest and most stable networking, Internet, email and media playback. Go for it. call it the "Power User" edition because only a power user would actually go to the trouble of selecting their own suite of power tools.

The real trick is, the list of basics for an OS is a lot smaller than any executive would want to believe... Microsoft, Apple, Linux: I'm looking in your direction.

Further reading:

• Microsoft Excel: Calculation Issue update
• Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself
• IBM Sees 100,000 Lotus Symphony Download in First Week
• Microsoft Giving Vista Business/Ultimate Users 'Downgrade' to XP Option

Tags: vvista, office, microsoft, microsoft bob

Remember back in Bubble 1.0, more than a few companies turned up as "free" ISPs.

You remember, run a CD and get all the free dial-up Internet you could stand, that is as long as you could stand the banner ads that took up 25% of the screen. [No, the ads weren't bigger back then, screens were just a lot smaller!]

You can see where I'm going with this.

Honestly, what's to stop The Google from doing more-or-less the same? Screen real-estate is roomy enough now that forking over some of your browser window would not be such a sacrifice. G's got a browser guru in the form of Firefox developer Blake Ross and their bid for the 700MHz spectrum is one more piece in the puzzle. The only mystery is can they deploy their own broadband device to access all that dark fibre they've been scooping up for the past few years?

Sure, you can roll your eyes over more Googly-daydreaming goodness, but there's no doubt they'll do something with that dark fibre someday.

Tags: dark fibre, google, internet, isp

First: yes, Visual source Safe really does suck.

But in the 8 years I've use VSS 6.0 I've yet to see one of these "database corruptions" that people go on-and-on about any time the discussion turns to source control.

You know, it seems whenever you read any comments from user-land about Microsoft, they generally repeat themselves very soon and very often, e.g.:

• Windows is insecure
• IE doesn't do PNG transparency
• VSS ate my source code
• ad nauseam

The progenitors of these types of comments rarely have anecdotal evidence and when they do, it just seems to be a paraphrase of some (slightly) convincing anecdote you read somewhere else.

My point is people are dumb... I mean really stupid. There's so few of us out there who are ready and willing to conceive and create an original thought as a personal habit. Even less who are willing to join in with the rabble that post to the tech forums.

So how dumb do you have to be to break VSS? Just dumb enough to think that re-using other people comments from a different post actually contributes to a conversation.

Tags: coding, source control, vss

Part 1: Reset the Style Using a Default Skin

'Nuff said. Note, previous post does not refer to the current theme which was obviously cultivated by someone with their head screwed on right.

Part 2: Do Nothing Different

I'm going to do nothing to this skin whatsoever. At least I can rest until I gather up the moxy to produce a decent custom-design skin.

Part 3: See Parts 1 & 2.

Check this space a a month or two.

Update: This post was from a long time ago. As you can see, I'm going to stick with pre-made themes that other people made (and by other people I mean ones with a talent for skinning websites tastefully!)

Tags: css, style, utter lack of taste, design like a n00b, blogging, demotivator