Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Thursday, November, 03, 2005 - Topic(s)
The funniest and sanest response yet to "Intelligent Design". Yes he really sent the letter to the Kansas school board.
Bruce Sterling on Global Warming
Thursday, November, 03, 2005 - Topic(s)
World Changing interviewed science fiction author Bruce Sterling about global warming. I was particularly taken by the following exchange.
With Arctic ice melting and the worst hurricane season in recorded history, are we past the point where mitigation of global climate change is going to have much of an effect?
The climate crimes we've already committed aren't much compared to what's coming down the pipe. It's pretty cynical to write off mitigation when we haven't as yet even tried it. It may well be that the roof is on fire, but that doesn't make it good policy to chop up the walls and floors and add them to the blaze.
New Project
Sunday, May, 15, 2005 - Topic(s)
I've started a new website The Back Porch News to provide a timely source of news for the folk music community. While we have fine print publications, radio and web broadcasters and web sites and email lists about various aspects of our community. I don’t think there is an online source dedicated to news about the folk world.
Moved
Sunday, March, 20, 2005 - Topic(s)
If you see this you're reading noferrets at it's new home on TextDrive.
Let's get this out front right now -- I play a banjo.
Wednesday, December, 08, 2004 - Topic(s) Music
No not me... Brian Robertson writes about playing banjo, why he doesn't play bluegrass and about what playing folk music means to him in Play A Banjo, Go To Jail???
Update: Unfortunately Mr Robertson has taken down his weblog
"Be that as it may, happily bluegrass-less, I am a banjo addict. I play old-time music, if you will, with the kind of mountain sound you'd find in Kentucky or the like. I'm talking real folk music, not the self-indulgent claptrap that you hear so often on places like Sirrius radio's Folktown and in dorm rooms by angst-ridden post-teenagers. I'm talking music that has its power in its simplicity and directness."
What Not To Do on Your Web Site.
Wednesday, December, 08, 2004 - Topic(s) Music
Merlin Mann has posted an excellent critique of problems with band and venue web sites at 43 Folders.
"People are visiting your site because they want to learn more about bands and music—not to have a guided tour of your designer/brother-in-law’s Photoshop brush collection. Don’t be cute with the design, section naming, or navigation. Don’t make your visitors solve a Rubik’s cube to pull up your lyrics page. Tip: Let the music be the star of the show and provide fast access to what your visitors really came for: 1) mp3s/downloads, 2) lyrics/discography, 3) show dates, 4) contact info, 5) where can I buy this (preferably pointers to buying online for immediate download)."
Much if this applies if even if your site is do-it-yourself affair and you've never heard of flash.
The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo
Wednesday, October, 06, 2004 - Topic(s) Music Links
Patrick Costello has placed his banjo instruction book The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo online under a Creative Commons license.
Link Courtesy BoingBoing.
Ain't that the truth
Tuesday, October, 05, 2004 - Topic(s) Music
"Honesty is the cruelest game of all. Because not only can you hurt someone -- and hurt them to the bone -- you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time." - Dave Van Ronk
Courtesy his long time agent Mitch Greenhill.
SyncBack
Sunday, October, 03, 2004 - Topic(s) Tools Technology
Based on a couple of recomendations on the Joel on Software forum. I recently downloaded SyncBack the free backup program from 2BrightSparks. It's simple, easy to use but has a lot of flexibility. It can back up to a wide variety of media do scheduled backups and even do offsite backups using ftp. See the SyncBack web site for a full list of features. Sure I could have done the geekly thing and rolled my own but somehow I hadn't quite gotten around to it.
RECOMENDED.
Ikea Customer Service Bites
Wednesday, September, 08, 2004 - Topic(s) Rants
I used to like Ikea a lot, inexpensive furniture that looks good and lasts. I'm still using Ikea furniture that I bought 16 years ago in preparation for moving to Ithaca. I don't think I will ever buy anything there again. Last weekend while visiting family in Philadelphia I bought a bed for my daughter at Ikea's newly opened downtown store. Now buying a "to be assembled" piece of furniture 250 miles from home is a bit of a risk but I assumed based on my previous experience with Ikea that I'd be able to get any missing or damaged parts replaced in short order, boy was I wrong.
Last night I got around to trying to set up the bed. On opening the box it was apparent that large parts of the bed simply weren't there. In fact it didn't seem possible that all the pictured parts could ever have fit in the box. Today I spent an hour on the phone with Ikea, most of it on hold. This was on my dime thank you, no toll free number. The bed comes in three boxes. Ikea absolutely will not ship them to me, not even at my expense. The third and last person who I spoke with "ShawnWhoWouldNotGiveHisLastName" explained how it was all my fault, that there were certainly adequate signs on the display and on the bins and since the remaining boxes were too big to be shipped UPS Ikea wouldn't ship them period.
Neither my 15 year old or I remember such signage, perhaps I think too much of myself but I wouldn't describe either one of us as slow. But that's hardly the point. If Ikea cared one whit about customer service they might be just a touch more interested in keeping me as a customer then proving I was wrong. (Not to mention how a company as tech savvy as Ikea claims to be let me walk out of the store with only part of my purchase.) While I think they should ship the remaining boxes to me at no charge I would have been willing to pay some reasonable amount to get the rest of my purchase. Ikea won't even ship them at my expense however. This leaves me the option of making a special trip to Philly to get the rest of the item or making a special trip to Philly to return it, guess which I'm going to do.
It's probably worthless but I did try sending a message detailing the whole sad story to Ikea through their web site. So far not even an automated acknowledgement. Clearly Ikea like so many companys these days means "service" only in the agricultural sense of the word.
When I go.
Monday, July, 19, 2004 - Topic(s) Music
Do not worry for my comfort, do not sorrow for me so
All your diamond tears will rise up and adorn the sky beside me when I go...
Two years ago today a massive heart attack silenced one of the most unique voices ever to emerge on the singer/songwriter circuit. Together with partner Tracy Grammar, Dave Carter left behind three CD's and a fourth, now out of print, solo effort. Not a large legacy in number of recordings but certain to leave a mark for years to come. Bringing together influences as diverse as his fundamentalist upbringing, Jack Kerauoc and Zen Buddhism and sense of magic and wonder at the universe. Dave's songs create a kind of magical realism that both captures the American experience and finds something uplifting and universal in the characters he paints.
So give "When IGo" a spin today in memory of brother Dave, and "Gentle Soldier Of My Soul" for Tracy who works hard to keep Dave's songs alive and spreading in the folk community.
If you've never heard Dave and Tracy's music I encourage you to check out the samples of these and other songs here. Tracy has a new EP almost out and is hard at work on an album of unreleased Dave Carter songs.
Begining Perl
Wednesday, June, 30, 2004 - Topic(s) Perl Technology
I've never been terribly thrilled with either of the standard introductions to perl the lama book and the camel book especially for beginning programmers. I found them difficult, and I was far from a novice programmer when I first encountered perl. So when someone asked me for a recommendation recently I decided to look around a bit. I was delighted to discover the excellent "Beginning Perl" by Simon Cozens and Peter Wainwright (Wrox Press Inc. May 25, 2000). It's available online at learn.perl.org.
"Beginning Perl" is straight forward, simple and clear. Aimed at beginning programmers it covers basic programming topics but it moves through them quite briskly. If you want to learn perl it's worth your time even if you're an experienced programmer. I learned some things and I've been writing perl for quite a few years now. The section on object oriented perl is the best introduction to that subject I've read anywhere.
Highly recomended.
Site Update
Tuesday, June, 29, 2004 - Topic(s) Administrivia
I've rearranged things a bit. The old pages should redirect you to the new ones. I'm also resolved to update this a little more frequently we'll see if that holds :-).
Ctycalendar Updated
Tuesday, June, 01, 2004 - Topic(s) CityDesk Technology
I've updated Ctycalendar to fix a problem with the number of days in May and June. This is version .9.2 You can download it here. (The download link in the original article has been updated as well.)
Ctycalendar
Tuesday, November, 11, 2003 - Topic(s) CityDesk Technology
City script is great at creating lists of articles sorted all kinds of ways but what if you want to create a calendar or posts or and events calendar. John Conners has a calendar creator that generates html to plug in to your site but you need to update the calendars manually. Ctycalendar runs as a post publishing step within City Desk to create a calendar from a specially formatted list which can be built with city script. [Continued]
