Oh, yeah, I’m home sick today. I woke up this morning feeling miserable, disoriented, still-unconscious, the way you do if you’ve been awake for a couple of days straight and accidentally fall asleep for just an hour. Just plain crappy, and with nothing critical going on today (but many critical things in weeks to come) I figured now would be a good time to take a sick day, so I e-mailed pertinent people and went back to sleep.
I slept until 10:30.
iPod team unhappy about adding contacts feature?
Now that iPod users have figured out how to use the iPod to store contacts, Apple has added the same functionality with updated iPod software.
There’s a clue, however, that the iPod team may not be terribly happy about having to cram this quite tangential feature into their svelte product. Take a look at the name in that screenshot: Alan Smithee. Where have you heard that name before? Yes, it’s the name used by disgruntled film directors to distance themselves from projects over which they have “lost creative control” to the studio.
So if you notice a film directed by Alan Smithee, it is certain it is not what its director intended, and likely that it is not any good.
According to various sources, the going price is $300,000. Not surprising (given that “be” is a pretty common word, and apparently common words make excellent domain names, and excellent domain names make great companies. oh, wait, that was three years ago).
[11:25] <dsandler> This sounds like
something out of an anime: “Sony is one of several Japanese companies
beefing up their robot divisions. “
[11:25] <em> welcome to the future.
I should have worn my leather jacket today.
I wore my vinyl jacket instead (a little paranoia about the (nil) chance of rain). On the way home, after parking the car, on the path to my apartment, I re-encountered a very friendly neighborhood cat (buff-colored, earning him the name “buffcat”). He recognized me, and turned to meet me as I walked toward him. I leaned down to let him sniff my fingers.
With a violent POP I released into the tip of his nose the thousands of electrons my vinyl jacket had scraped off the synthetic upholstery of my Civic.
He recoiled in pain and fright, and eventually slunk away down the path, crying feebly. He seemed to say, as he looked back over his shoulder, “Why? Why would you do this to me, you nice stranger? I thought you were my friend! How can I ever trust you again?”
By the way, I took a few pictures last week: e. and I visited the City of San Mateo Japanese Garden last Sunday, and unwrapped our new iMac as well (full narration forthcoming).
Linked all over the place already, but the NYT mag has a fabulous interview/analysis of Moby and his ideas about the value of music when music is free, &c. He offers a few tidbits about his own creative process, too:
“You know the song on ‘Play’ ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?’ The song I took the woman’s vocal from actually goes ‘glad,’ not ‘bad’ — it’s an upbeat, happy song. But me being me, I guess, I put these minor chords under it and manipulated the vocal, and it became something else.”
“I’m a megalomaniac, and this setup is perfectly suited for megalomaniacs. ” He gestured to the wall of synthesizers. “All these different musicians. They’re always here waiting to play. And they never complain.”
When it came to sequencing the settled-upon tracks, he loaded them on an Apple iPod in scores of differing orders and took his late-night walks.
It seems that 18, the new album due in May, borrows heavily from those musical influences that most impacted a young Moby: the cutting edge of the early eighties. “The first single from the album, ‘We Are All Made of Stars,’ might have been called ‘This One Is for the Cars.’” Oh, and I’ve linked it before, but Moby keeps a weblog.
kottke.org turns four years old today. I only bring this up (heck, I don’t even know the guy) because I identify strongly with the content of his first post:
I decided I needed to start writing things down. Because I forget. Because I think better and feel better when I write. I used to write often but got away from it. So here it is again. But you ask: “Jason, why not keep a private diary?” Because I’d never keep up a private diary…I need to force myself to write this. So, I made it into content. Since it’s content, I feel obligated to keep it up-to-date.
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