Contrary to many opinions, there are legitimate reasons for using an electronic voting system. They provide much greater flexibility in creating ballots in the languages needed for the community. They also provide better support for blind or disabled voters. Last, and certainly least, the quick tabulation can satisfy America’s need for immediate gratification. Of course, [...]
So I worked, and took conference calls, and ended up getting home at 4:30. Even though it had become obvious that Ernesto was not going to be all that (and certainly no bag of chips would be involved), I decided I needed to take down the potted plants on the porch, to prevent the accidental [...]
There’s a post of mine (of sorts) over at Burnett’s Urban Etiquette. The events described took place a couple of weeks ago, just as my last bout of illness was taking hold. Share/Bookmark
Dealing with hurricanes is admittedly quite frustrating. You try to prepare your home adequately for the storm, based on the best predictions of the National Hurricane Center, only to find yourself severely overstocked on canned tuna and saltines when the system disintegrates over Cuba. Now imagine that you aren’t just making decisions for your home [...]
I’m on the mail list for the Zogby polls, and this morning an interersting question came up, one I am passing along to you. It relates to a longer post I have going on-line later today. If you were allowed to vote in national, state, or local elections via an Internet site, would you? And [...]
I find it oddly amusing when the feed for a site I follow shows a post which cannot be found on the site itself. Most of the time it’s a simple error, such as a few weeks ago when I posted an entry with a misspelled title, and timed things just right so that both [...]
[The following essay originally ran on August 22, 2001. Yesterday Bradbury celebrated his 86th birthday.] Today is the 81st birthday of author Ray Bradbury (who doesn’t seem to have an official web site*). Bradbury’s been one of my favorites for decades now; he was one of the first “science fiction” authors I encountered who was [...]
On eBay I recently bid on and won the 4 CD set of The Best of William Burroughs from Giorno Poetry Systems. I’d been looking for a good copy of this set for a while, as it includes a lot of great photos and biographical material, in addition to the obviously marvelous recordings themselves. I [...]
Bolaños is Spanish for “tool”. Show of hands here: Who thought Bolaños would listen to reason and back down on this loser issue? Anyone? With weeks to go before the election and an opportunity to keep his mug in the media as an anti-Castro crusader? I thought not. More in the Herald, as Frankie the [...]
So one reason I don’t post stuff about my health other than the occasional humorous* bit is this: by the time it looks serious enough to warrant a disclosure, I start to get better. It’s as though posting loosens some phlegmatic wad in my psyche and starts me on the road to recovery. Not that [...]
[I am still ill, so I hope this post is at least moderately coherent.] My late mother had issues with doctors. She was one of the old school “tough it out” kind of people, at least as far as her own health was concerned. She didn’t have a problem with sending me or my brother [...]
Did you know that Suri Cruise is the messiah? It’s true, and TomKat are keeping her identity a secret to try to protect her from her arch-enemy, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, the Antichrist. At some point in the next twenty years they will meet in battle at Megiddo — or Hollywood — to determine the fate of [...]
As will soon be reported everywhere, I suppose, an updated version of Blogger is in beta. It doesn’t grease all the creaky joints of the old version, but it looks promising. It also explains why earlier today I was getting some weird URLs when viewing profiles, redirections to beta.blogger.com. Unfortunately, it’s a limited beta, and [...]
Saturday night I had the opportunity to meet some prominent South Florida bloggers face to face. While vows of secrecy and blood oaths prevent me from divulging the names of the cabal present, I feel I can safely mention that — contrary to social stereotyping — the members of this community are without exception youthful, [...]
While I finish up a few other projects, I would like to take a moment to direct your attention to three perhaps under-appreciated sites worth your time. First is Wide Lawns, Narrow Minds, the fabulously well-crafted and hysterically funny tales of life in an extremely exclusive and exceptionally expensive country club community in the far [...]
We all have something we fear. Some are common, some not, but there are few terrors we all share equally. But our fears are rarely static. I used to be quite afraid of spiders. However, when I learned how beneficial the creatures are in keeping down the population of my even less savory insectoid neighbors, [...]
Here are a few observations and impressions from last night’s Steely Dan concert at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe. I had not realized that Hard Rock is a mall, a mall full of old people in bad clothes. Kind of like Aventura Mall. I don’t know if it is a sad commentary on me or [...]
Part three of Internet Years will be delayed until Thursday or Friday, as tonight I’ll be off seeing a performance by the band named after a steam-powered metal dildo. The show’s in some Broward County den of iniquity [sound link], so wish me luck. Share/Bookmark
In the late 1980s I started working with computers for a living, and in relatively short order began to kludge together ways to twist the mini-computer system I managed into a desktop publishing system. (Getting an AT&T; 3B2/400 running UNIX System V to do what you want is a daunting task, especially when it you [...]
While I inadvertently let the precise date slip by, I am now in my seventh year of resisting the use of the word “blog” to describe Hidden City. For your potential amusement, this is my first Blogger-based entry here, from July 11, 2000: Even though I had heard about blogs for a while, the manifold [...]
“Blogs don’t have computers, Rob, they live in ponds!” Share/Bookmark
I’m still slogging my way through entering my library into LibraryThing. It’s a marvelous tool, and is getting better each day; unfortunately, it isn’t the fastest thing in the world. This is a particular problem when you have as many fringe books as I do, which require additional research or manual entry to get the [...]
My hosting company seems to be having some issues this week, so I appreciate your perseverance in continuing to check back. I hope the issue will be resolved shortly. The only redeeming value of spam mail is that it on occasion provides some form of inspiration. This morning’s 1,050 gnats caught in the filter had [...]
Some ill-defined thing in my dreams startled me awake at 3am today. I knew I’d never get back to sleep, so I made a pot of coffee and headed out to the porch to think through some things. What slight breeze there was came laden with African dust, any exotic traces overwhelmed by conversion to prosaic grime. It only took a few minutes sitting on the steps to become sticky with sweat and tropical humidity.