Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Where's Johnny? I've also been playing around with Speech. I took off the requirement that you say the name of the computer beforehand and I was just sitting here watching the Daily Show and up pops a message asking if I really do want to quit all applications and log out. I'm not sure what John Stewart said that my PowerBook interpreted as "log out" but I think I'll turn it off for the time being. [Mac OS X Blog] That had me laughing out loud. Then the question popped into my head: If an infinite number of macintoshes were listening to an infinite number of television shows, would anything useful result? In any case, what TV show would the computer respond to "the best"? 1:43:07 PM  pontificate

When I was a kid, the NYC... When I was a kid, the NYC subway had an emergency brake in every car. It was an amazing thing. Any person on the train could at any time cause the whole train to stop. The amazing thing is that in all the subway riding I did (every weekday for three years when I was in high school) no one ever pulled the cord.... But, Dave, as a former resident of NYC, you should already know exactly why no one every pulls the cord without a damned good reason... If someone did and there wasn't an emergency at hand, you can rest assured that there would be one first class ass kicking about 5 seconds later. New Yorkers are not known for putting up with crap from anyone and messing with public transportation is about the best possible way to seriously piss off a good chunk of the city's population -- nothing irritates a New York resident more than some random ass delaying their progress from point A to point B. I suppose I could draw some pithy analogy between your original statement and the current RSS stuff and Mark Pilgrim's little ditty that seems to have finally put the fear of typing into the man that never holds back... ... but I'm not going to bother because, ultimately, what bloggers think about other bloggers and blogging technology doesn't really mean a damned thing. It is just a bunch of people in a sound proof room yelling at each other while the rest of the world gets on with business as usual, using whatever useful bits happen to leak out of the room. But let me say this: Dave-- I owe you a debt of gratitude. Some day, I'd like to buy you dinner. It is the least I can do. If it wasn't for your work, this forum wouldn't exist. I don't for a moment believe that the words I write here will ever change the world, but I do know that there are a lot of people that have thanked me for writing what I have and through the referer log and various commentary forums I have learned a tremendous amount as a result of these writings. So -- for that, a hearty thanks. Speaking of stuff that actually interests people beyond the closed room, I really ought to explain what was bubbling through my head when I made that previous post... 12:07:54 AM  pontificate