Entries from July 2004
Writing tools for the web
No easy solution
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Saw The Story of the Weeping Camel with Gwen last night. This is the first Mongolian movie I’ve ever seen (unless you count Genghis Blues, which I don’t). It’s not clear whether this is a documentary or a work of fiction that just happens to be made with real events and real people who are [...]
More on music storage
Some time ago, I wrote an essay on music storage options (mostly on how bad they are).
We’re at a point today where even a big music library–say, 1,000 CDs–can be easily archived on a single hard drive using high-quality MP3s–say, 192 Kbps encoding. Some people claim this encoding rate is indistinguishable from CDs; others claim [...]
Before Sunrise
In 1995 (was it really that long ago?), Richard Linklater made Before Sunrise, where two young people, Jesse and Celine, meet and spend a night in Vienna, having a “My Dinner with Andre” — style rambling conversation. They agree to meet six months later at the same train station where they separate.
I always wondered [...]
Spider-Man 2
Saw Spider-Man 2. It’s as good as they’re saying–not just good as comic-book movies go, but good as movies go in general. The special effects don’t dominate the movie, but they’re damned entertaining.
Doc Ock’s tentacles are pure genius–good enough that I didn’t bother asking myself “how’d they do that?” and just enjoyed the effect.
Who hates what?
It has almost gotten to be a joke: a progressive criticizes G.W or one of his policies, and a conservative fires back “Why do you hate America.” (It’s gotten to the point where it may be more likely to be another progressive asking the accusatory question, except in jest.)
This is a neat trick for changing [...]
Ten years
Looking through some old e-mail, I just discovered that I’ve had the “crossroads.net” domain name, and this e-mail address, for exactly ten years as of a few days ago.
Firedancing goes uptown
I’m staying down on the farm.
Simultaneous invention
Behind the dashboard
Fahrenheit 9/11
Though we planned on seeing Supersize Me, Gwen and I arrived at the theater a few minutes late, so we decided to catch Fahrenheit 9/11 instead. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the summer, we both walked out silently and barely said a word on the way home. There was very little in the movie [...]
