2020 Hindsight

You are about to leap. . .

If you came here from the Scripting News link about Dream Garden, you'll find it here. (Thanks for da link, DW!)

Tomorrow is a Leap Day! No, this isn't one of those once-every-4-year events--It only comes once every 400 years!

"The year 1700 did not have a leap year, nor did 1800 or 1900. The lack of a leap year in those years allows the accumulated day to be applied to counteract the 11 minute per year deficiency that was building up for the previous hundred years."

Lotsa good discussion on patents in these parts. Don't have specific links. Keep it up, keep it up! My Amazon Associate quandary will continue... I'm just trying to stay away from the net for a bit and work on a book so that it can get out there and be sold! ; )

QuickSoundBites and The Whole Context

I followed a link from McCain's Navy to read the entire speech that McCain gave this morning in Virginia. It's different than getting a sense of what he said based on the headlines. There was far more to it than attacking Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. It was about addressing matters at the heart of being American and Republican, and about not being beholden to those who seemingly represent those core values, but are actually gathering power for themselves.

(Why do I feel as tho the term "core values" is a term that needs to be expunged from my vocabulary, because, if I say it, someone playing bullshit bingo would score?)

on View From an Iowa Homestead, John VanDyk addresses a similar question (about QuickSoundBite vs. Whole Context, not about bullshit bingo!)

"It's challenging getting to know people over the web. Do websites mask a person's true personality or bring it out more than if you met the person in the flesh?" and... after revealing that he's a Christian, he asks, "Will you change your view of me knowing that I'm a Christian? It will connect your mental model of this site with previous experiences you've had with Christians, positive or negative. I have no control over those previous experiences that I'm being connected to! Scary. Makes me feel defensive."

Courageous of you to voice that, John! I sorta had a kinda similar feeling on Friday, when all my themes were religious.

As a quasi-lapsed Episcopalian

(We interrupt this sentence to bring you yet another example of QuickSoundBite vs. Whole Context: I borrowed a TV from a friend to watch the live funeral coverage of the Princess of Wales, in part because I was drawn into it all, and also because I didn't want to hear about it later as abridged news reports and soundbites. During the service, when the Right Reverend Robert Carey, Archibishop of Canterbury, offered a prayer, I thought, "Eeek!... the last time I was in church was when the Archbishop was in L.A. at the big 100-year anniversary of the L.A. diocese." No press coverage of an event --other than live coverage, of course--is going to give room for *that* kinda reflection! We return you now to your regularly scheduled sentence, already in progress...)

, I want there to be freer speech about life and faith. Not the in-your-face kinda stuff (been there, done that; I was a holy terror in high school!), but matter of course stuff. The this-is-who-I-am kinda stuff.

It's the same thing that I was getting at earlier this month, when I was musing on the theme of "What is Today's Most Unreported Story" and also found, via FrankMcPherson, Jerry Pournelle's article on Treasons of the Clerks.

I like reading through logs and seeing passing references to "the sabbath ended, so I caught up on some web doings" or something about "the men's retreat this weekend" or something about making an online Passover Haggadah. I love it! To me, it's a sign of life, of health. It's yet another twig for the nest.

So, John-- go for it! And the rest of you, too! Give 'em hell! ... well, um... er...I mean... Give 'em heaven! ; )

. . . . .

Getting to know people on the web, from another angle. Is it okay to take days off when I need to hunker down and get work done? That's my ETP-question of the moment.

By the time I finished today's entry, it's tomorrow.

Happy Leap Day! I think that I'll let this stand for two days' entries and enjoy a once-every-400-year exception by giving myself a respite from the web.

Leapin' Lizards!

This is the text from an email I got, explaining all about why the 29th is a leap day. Thanks to Dion Neutra, and R. Cronen and Lisa Masson for it.

---

A day is not 24 hours long; it averages 24.0159 hours. That is, it takes

0.9555 minutes more than 24 hours for the earth to make a full rotation.

Since days are slightly greater than a smooth 24 hours, the year is

slightly longer than 365 days. This gives us a year that is 365.242199

days long; that is, a year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45.96768 . . . seconds long. It's almost 365 and a quarter days, but not quite.

Since each year has about an extra quarter day, then we accumulate a

day every 4 and compensate with a leap year and a February 29. That's easy

enough.

But a year doesn't fall exactly a quarter day short, it's about 11

minutes and 14 seconds shy. These 11 minutes and change don't mean much in

the short run, but this deficiency does slowly accumulate over the years. By

adding a day every four years, we add just a bit too much.

So, every 100 years, at the century mark, we forego a leap year. The

year 1700 did not have a leap year, nor did 1800 or 1900. The lack of a leap

year in those years allows the accumulated day to be applied to counteract

the 11 minute per year deficiency that was building up for the previous

hundred years. Are you keeping up?

The problem is that this compensation overshoots its mark by a quarter

of a day per hundred years. So, every four hundred years the century mark

DOES have a leap year. So we have one this year. Whew.

So the year 2000 has a leap year even though 1700, 1800, and 1900

didn't, but 1600 did. It makes a difference. It may seem like it's a small

difference, but it's this difference that triggered our modern calendar.

Pope Gregory XIII recognized this problem in the sixteenth century. At

that time, Europe operated under the Julian calendar that had been devised in

the court of Julius Caesar. By the sixteenth century, the extra 11 minutes

and 14 plus seconds per year had added up to ten extra days. Pope Gregory

appointed a committee to look into the problem, headed by a brilliant

mathematician named Christopher Clavius. The committee began their work in

1578, made recommendations to the Pope, and he announced the consequences of

their recommendations in a papal bull on February 24, 1582. Pope Gregory

expunged October 5 through 14 1582 from the calendar, and October 4 was

followed by October 15. This solved the problem of accumulated days.

(Although not in Protestant England or its colonies - us - who initially

viewed the Gregorian calendar until 1752, two hundred years later. By that

time it had to drop another day and Parliament expunged September 3 - 13 1752

from the calendar.)

The committee also developed the current leap year rules. The

committee adopted this convention to drop a leap year at century boundaries,

every hundred years, and to add the leap year on the 400 year marks. Now we

depart from the solar year by only 25.96 seconds a year. To cover the

additional sloppiness, the keepers of the ultra-precise atomic clocks

sometimes perform "leap minutes" or "leap seconds" - corrections that escape

most of us.

The decision to have a leap year this year results from a decision made

in the sixteenth century that was meant to compensate for the irregularities

of nature. I would be nice if a solar year was exactly 365 days long, or

even if it was 365.25 days long. It isn't, and we must accept it.

Most people recognize that it was a privilege to live to see 1999

become 2000. Fewer probably recognize that tomorrow marks another rare treat

- a leap year at the century mark.

Nature is not regular. Tomorrow we celebrate that irregularity.

My Dream Garden

In her book, The Artist's Way (aack! whose bookstore site do I point to? Eeek! find it yourself!), Julia Cameron invites her readers to picture an ideal living situation--a dream home.

My dream home has lots of greenery. I have only limited greenery at the present place. My dream dream dream home has incredible grounds, lots of gardens, and places to explore. That kind of dream dream dream garden is beyond my reach at the moment. Well, then again, maybe not. Not very far from me is the Arboretum, where, for under 50 bucks per year, I'm a member and can come and go and wander the grounds as I like (well, during Open Hours). 50 bucks per year is a small amount to pay for all that water and all those gardeners and all the property taxes!

On Thursday I went and visited my dream garden. Here are some pictures of what I saw.

(All that Amazon stuff is to be continued later. Today's a minimal-web day for me.)

Whither Amazon Associate?

Hey! I know! I'm gonna apply for a patent on Win-Win deals! And then I'm gonna go and prosecute everyone else who dares to set up a Win-Win deal. yeah. That oughtta do it!

On Deciding . . . Publicly Yesterday's news about the awarding of the Amazon patent for the Amazon Associates process raises some questions for me.

I've been an Amazon Associate since early 1997. I sell my own book from my site.

Talk about a conflict of interest! (yes, I think that the awarding of the patent for the Associates' process is more than Amazon--or anyone--would deserve.) Here's the rub: Associates' sales fees are not credited to the associate until the item is shipped. My book hasn't yet shipped. That's some money in the "For Susan" ledger that's waiting to be sent to me later this year.

Further, if I do nothing, I make money. To drop and redirect bookselling traffic elsewhere entails work--site revision and such. Bleah.

I listed some initial thoughts in a discussion message yesterday. At the top of the list: "Get more info". Today I thought: Do my gathering of more info from Amazon. Let them know what is at stake: I may drop from the program if they behave the way they did about the One-click issue.

Let everyone in on it. Point them here. Publish their reply. Make it a community issue. Use the best of the web--conversation--to respond to their clue-less ways.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please chip in! : )

Here is Amazon's Patent. They make 42 claims. It's lotsa reading, but here's one section of it.

36. A computer-implemented system which implements a program in which associates of a merchant electronically refer customers to a Web site of the merchant, the system comprising:

an associate registration system which implements an electronic application process to at least partially automate enrollment of associates, the associate registration system providing associates electronic access to instructions for forming Web pages with links

that are formatted to permit tracking of customer referrals to the Web site;

a referral processing system which tracks referrals of customers to the Web site from associates using associate identifiers contained within request messages, the request messages generated by customer computers in response to selection of links provided by the associates according to the instructions; and

a compensation system which determines and maintains records of compensation for the respective associates for the customer referrals that result in purchases of items from a catalog of the Web site.

The Conversation is Already Happening! Lots of discussion and viewpoints, plus good pointers here and there. I love it!

Weblogs that mention patent

Notes from the Cave

To me patents are about competitive advantage. When a company applies for a patent they want exclusive right to market something, and to make money off that something. After all, companies are in the business of making money. So, in that light why doesn't Amazon have the right to patent things it invents? I didn't see "one-click" shopping anywhere before Amazon did it. Wasn't Amazon the first with the Associates program?

Array: It might serve to acquaint ourselves with current patent law. Thanks, Garret!

Slashdot had lots of discussion.

Dan Gillmor : How Did Amazon Get that Patent, Anyway?

You are not supposed to be able to patent things that are obvious or have already been invented. Amazon.com's patent on affiliate marketing (AP story) looks like another example of a system gone beserk -- and a company where the arrogance and greed seem limitless.

Also from Dan: BustPatents A site with legal sources for surviving Bad Patents.

Dave Winer: Notes on Competing

Who will respond to your feature requests if we have to become lawyers to improve our product? The users of the Internet are the beneficiaries of an unfettered competitive environment.

Associating with Amazon, hmmmm....

As I understand it, I think that the patent award for the Amazon associates program is ridiculous. To call that proprietary know-how is an insult to real inventions.

But I've been an Amazon Associate since 1997--and I've sold my own books (and some other books) off of my web site. I get a check from Amazon every quarter. These days the check is small, but when Real World Bryce 4 ships, it will be larger.

I've got a conflict of interest here.

Step 1-- gather more information

Will they go after other online assoicates' programs?

The patent itself: What are the "claims" that Amazon makes for the uniqueness of the associates process

How much money in associates fees will I get when RWB4 ships? (hey, like I said, it's a conflict of interest!)

Do I want to take a stand on this matter?

Step 2-- examine my options

Resign from Amazon, Sign up with B&N (or another online site?)

Sell my books myself (major pain!)

Refer to the Peachpit direct sales link

Write a story about this and sell it through eMatter! ; )

I'm open to suggestions and ideas!

Holy Relics

Our father, who art in new Haven, how did you know my name? I loved the http://www.kissthisguy.com/ reference that Curmudgeon and Carpe Diem pointed to. So much so that I posted something to the family phrases thread over in Salon's Table Talk. Then I got a response from someone there about a columnist that writes about Mondegreens. Why am I so amused by the wacky misunderstandings? Maybe it's because I like twisting words!

Mardi Gras Brent, through q, has a link to a story about the crack down on flashing at Mardi Gras. Yesterday while walking around the L.A. Arboretum, I called a friend who was originally from this area, but now lives on the road. She's in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and relayed this anecdote: "I shouted at some guy that if he threw me some beads, I would spare him from having to look. He laughed and tossed them to me." Cell fones are fun (no more the cell fone luddite, I.) I was wandering among trees in a huge botanical garden, she was at or near Mississippi Bridge at the Mississippi River. Is long distance *still* the next best thing to being there? (I'm living out Plan B; Plan A was to be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras)

Speaking of Mardi Gras and Lent I went to the grocery store yesterday, and already they've put out the Easter Candy. And Lent hasn't even begun! I suppose I could buy some now, and then give up Easter candy for lent. ; ) (Fat Tuesday is March 7, Ash Wednesday is March 8--Easter comes late this year)

Today's ETP entry is turning out to have a decidedly religious bent The L.A. Times has a story about how one archidiocese of the Roman Catholic church in Brazil is offering free internet service.

At Catolico's Web site, visitors can donate money to an orphanage, volunteer for community service, find out when the next Mass is at a local church or learn how to say the rosary. They can click on an ad and buy a computer or a T-shirt, pick an Amazon.com book or bank online.

Catolico doesn't carry ads for cigarettes, alcohol, birth control or astrological charts. But users have access to any Web page on the World Wide Web, including pornographic sites.

Passover Marc Canter is doing an online Passover Haggadah. Excellent! I've never been to a Seder, tho I've participated in the Christian adaptation--The Lord's Supper--more times than I can count. I did participate in the first night of Hannukah with the aforementioned travelling friend: a nice, simple ceremony on the front doorstep of her little motor home, under the twilit sky. But never a Seder. Yet. Next year in Jerusalem!

What did Jesus do? Last night, a friend of mine told me about a book she's reading: The Archko Volume. "The testimonies of Jesus contemporaries, especially of his enemies, Caiaphas, Herod and Pontius Pilate concerning his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection, have a timless fascination for all readers." Kept someplace in the Vatican Library, and translated in the 1800s, the material in this book is a collection of religious and civil documents relating to the life of Jesus.

She read passages about an interview with Mary, Pilate's impressions of the trial of Jesus. It includes physical descriptions, and is rather literary. I thought, No Way! How could something like this be kept a secret for so long? And how do you prove that this was not, er, invented after the fact? Today I got the name and ISBN number from her. One Amazon reviewer says that it's a hoax. There are several references to it on Google. Don't have time to look at 'em all right now, but it appears as tho others go for the hoax theory.

My friend, who was a district attorney and prosecuted fraud cases (and who, therefore, is professionally skeptical!), is gonna sift through the evidence (!). Still, she says, even if it's the work of someone trying to fill in the gaps of the narrative of Jesus, it's very worthwhile reading.

---

Traffic Watch I'm going to drive to visit my parents this evening. It's Friday. Probably rush hour. How are the roads? Cal Trans has a live web update!

What would Susan do? Just saw the news about the awarding of the Amazon patent. Hmmm... this is going to require some thought. I've been an Amazon Associate for a while (in fact, the book link above uses my Amazon Associate tag!). It's a nice thing when you're a book author--sell your own books. I've got to leave now, so I'll mull on it for a bit. And maybe start a discussion thread where I'll weigh the pros and cons and alternatives. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please chip in! After I get back, I'll have to go through and read all of On Deciding . . . Better! : )

Beat by Miraculous Beat

"Beat by Miraculous Beat"-- Those are the words from a poem that was sent to me recently--about how life is lived, and why one moves. This online community thing is no different from any other human undertaking. You don't find community (or love, for that matter) as a discrete, tangible entity that can be found behind Door #3. Living, Community, and Love are organic things, that take place from moment to moment and are built out of a series of moments by moments by moments by moments by moments.

The analogy I think of is a bird's nest (yes, Kate, it's true!) The constituent parts are small, insignificant--a twig here, a leaf there, another twig, some fuzz, a bit of mud. Add another twig, and another, weave them in, weave another one in. After a while, there is a comfortable habitation, a home, a place for birth. Looked at on the scale of an individual twig, nests are a marvel.

This analogy struck me when I was reading again from that Table Talk thread on family phrases that I referred to some days back. I love reading about those phrases--besides containing some of the more hilarious stuff I've read on the web, the thread opens a glimpse of the family lives of so many people. To take some spoonerism, or colloquialism, and adopt it and let it spread throughout family and friends is a way of taking this twig and inserting it between those other twigs, and so to build the nest. It is something that, in the end, says "We" and "Home."

As an organic thing, it does not spring forth fully-made. It's amorphous for a while, and then, all of a sudden, there is something that is There. Noticeable. More Tangible.

(In my original thoughts about this, before applying them to community, I was pondering the longing for that Noticeable and More Tangible thing while not taking into account the organic, twig-by-twig nature of it... that life is lived beat by miraculous heartbeat.)

And I love comparing this to the process of what's happened here in etp-land over the last couple of months. From "how do I do Blah?" to "here's something cool" to "I read what so-n-so said, and here's my take on it" to a marvelling "hey, uh, there's a community that's developed here."

Did any of you who started out with making a web site aim for the community part? Shoot, I just wanted a site that would let me write stuff often without paying attention to all the structural crap that goes into a growing web site! I thought it'd be a good way to keep track of a family visit in wintertime.

And, after dwelling in family history while visiting my grandfather (see A Lake George Diary for more of that), I've come back home to solitude and an unfinished writing task that is a burden to me. Being able to write a little bit here--day by day--is a kind of lifeline that helps me get through that other writing that takes days and days and days and is Never Finished Until The End. (Then again, maybe writing here daily doesn't help--there's always the distraction of finding out who grabbed a twig of kindling for my Fad idea!)

Another metaphor that I just love is one from A.S. Byatt in Babel Tower. Frederica, the protagonist, is teaching literature to a class of artists (who are much more visual and kinesthetic in their thought patterns than verbal and abstract). She's trying to get across to them how writing, too, is an art form. She likens it to knitting. A book is knit together in writing. The writer knits it all together, with words. The knitting takes place over time. Then the reader, upon reading, does the same knitting, knits it together all over again in his or her mind, with the words and word-images forming, once again, anew.

(Damn--novels don't have indexes; it'll take me a while to find the actual passage.)

Well, my etp knitting is done for the day, time to move on to other things. I've got a major case of cabin fever and it's sunny and big-puffy-cloudy outside, so I'll go out to the L.A. Arboretum. Heh! *With* my digital camera! : )

Community! Fads! Links!

Weblogs, links, conversations--the topics du jour. Yes, I'm all for it, too. And I collect links. But I like the matter of sharing impressions, pictures and things like that. I love the instant publishing thing.

The downside of this--recently Garret posted a link to online community how-to. I thought, Oh! I collected a whole bunch of links to that sort of thing! I'd love to share. I searched my looooong bookmark menu, and couldnt' find them. Then I remembered that we cobbled them together back and posted them on an intranet discussion board at MetaCreations. ("we" refers to a number of people who worked at MetaCreations) They are gone, gone. Well, no, not quite. I just contacted one of my former colleagues who's gonna go looking for them. Keep your fingers crossed. Update, 2:30 pm Nope. No can do; the discussion forum has gone to file heaven. oh well.

I want to start a fad!

First off, Thanks and Thanks and Thanks to Dave Winer for prominently posting the list of glossary terms that can be used site-wide. (I saw them once, wanted to see them again, and had one hell of a time finding them. But that's All Over Now.) There are pages and pages of the zeldman ones--little picture icons. Before, I passed over them, thinking about how quizzical they were. Yesterday I got inspired.

Let's see... I can just find the ones I'm looking for and use them instead of the occasional ascii or html separators I use (that is: . . . . , or a horizontal rule).

I even made a story page for myself where I collected the ones I like. That way I can refer to the page, see the line of images and compose them into my entries, lickety split. Still have a couple more categories to search for.

It's also fun to do a whole bunch of the same picture:

The text I typed to get that? Simple!

"zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl"

"zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl"

"zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl" "zeldman.marl"

Spaces between the sets of quotes makes a difference in the appearance. Let the fad begin!

Evening update It's starting. Sheila came here and tried it out in my DG, then went back to her site and displayed some. Hee! Plus, she posted a brilliant link, courtesy of Brent for Mind Reading Markup Language. I guess I should add to it with a new tag. <BeginFad>Post the Zeldman icons on your own site</BeginFad>. See? What can I say about MRML, but IT WORKS! Oh, then I read about the already existing tags that are supported. I shoulda marked it up this way:

<!--HYPNOTIZE-->

   <SUGGEST>Post the Zeldman icons on your own site</SUGGEST>

</HYPNOTIZE-->

Links.

All right, here are some links from some recent reading.

A great story about one woman's search for acceptance in a church. I love the conclusion. When I was in New Hampshire, I visited with a former college roommate, who ended up going to seminary and now works for two different churches --Congregational and Episcopalian--that are nearly on the same block in a small New England town. One of my two visits with her was downtown at work... I loved the tour of the churches. The architecture, the surrounding activities--it was great.

I clicked one of those weblog ads--(like the one at the bottom of this page). The ad was for Anita's LOL. From there I follwed a link to the diarist award nominations.

Found great stuff on the other end of that list.

This story took my breath away.
(it was part of her set of links called word for word)

I also checked out one of the "Best New Journal" entries. A total scream!

Speaking of cats, I was extremely surprised that, for the most part, everyone who sent me mail agreed with my Cats Are Fucking Evil theory. I was ready for this great backlash from cat lovers, coming to my house and stringing me up by my dog's leashes. I can't decide if that's because I told you I would ignore the mail or because you're all plotting your revenge. Either way, I still hate cats (one of you did write to me about cats being great, and told me I was in need of "anger management". Right. Whatever. Get a grip. This page IS my anger management.)
[check out the entry for Feb 5 to see what this was all about]

I hope you saw my pictures yesterday. If you're reading this on today's date, scroll down. If you're reading this on a day other than Wednesday 23 February, well, check it out!

zeldman stuff

"zeldman.marl"

A Tourist In My Hometown, Once Again

Yesterday it rained. Around 4 o'clock I looked out the window, and saw a full rainbow. That's it! Time to grab the camera, go outside and look around.

While walking up to the corner bank kiosk, I looked at the sidewalk. Rain had pummeled a tree, and the little "wormy" things fell off and onto the sidewalk. Lots and lots of them!

Here's another view of them:

Once I got to the shopping center, I saw a beautiful view of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Click to see a larger view (800 pixels wide)

Yep.. I noticed that the temperature was a bit more brisk (by, er California standards!) Barely discernable from under the clouds hovering around the peak--Mount Wilson, I saw a light dusting of snow.

No matter where I looked, I found beauty. Gazing at the reflection on the parking lot asphalt, I saw beads of water resisted by car oil drippings.

Walking back in the other direction, I saw some incredible clouds. How to get a shot without trees and fone lines in the way? How about a walk down the rail road track?

Funny how there are places right nearby, but haven't taken the time to see. I've lived in the same place for 10 years--near a railroad track, but hadn't wandered down the track. The quest for clouds took me to new places, where I saw the clouds, but also saw what's been here all along.

(Don't worry--the track is deconstructed down a ways, what with earthquake safety and bridges and the re-purposing of existing track as part of the LA Metro system. A single engine comes down the track once a day in late morning--if that. So, here in late afternoon, I was in no danger of being hit from behind.)

Look at the details here. The gravel colors... the weathered track and fittings where one rail joins another.

And those ties... they've seen lots and lots of weathering.

Funny how railroad ties beckon you to keep stepping and stepping, traveling on and on them, evoking images from movies, where people wander on or near railroad tracks. For a bit, I joined the Great Vagabond tradition, not in quest for adventure or opportunity, but to harvest light--specifically, the light from clouds.

Here's my harvest:

and yes, the proverbial clouds that say, "and then God spake unto her, saying. . . "

here's the detail. (Yes, I retouched out that fone pole!)

I kept walking around. The sun began to set, turning yellow, and lighting the clouds from behind. The contrast between warm yellow and cool blue fascinates me.

All of this was terribly inspiring. All these clouds I've been studying. Time to try it out in Bryce.

The beginning scene:

Okay, it's a start. Needs more complexity in the sky as far as clouds go:

More dinking around. How about the appearance of those mountains?

Okay, let's change things around and make the sun shine at a different angle.

I know that once I load this page and compare the pictures with the renders, it'll be sorta disheartening. But that'll keep me going outside to observe more, and hanging out inside to Bryce more.