Messing with fonts
June 30, 2005 | Software
Yesterday I used FontDoctor to clean up my fonts. I think I checked a few too many options, because today I'm getting screens that look like this:
Looks like a blog, doesn't it? I wonder what it says....
I guess I'll be testing the quality and reliability of my backups today.
[Update: Backups are good! All systems normal.]
For Typographers Only
June 27, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Life | Software
If you want to have multiple paragraph bullets with correct left-justify formatting, you have to use a soft return. That means in order to get the correct paragraph spacing the "bullets" style should be set for a "space before" and not a "space after." Someday I should make a decision matrix of what kinds of styles need space before or after. Headlines, for instance, need space after, and sometimes space before too, but not always. And, by the way, check that your tabs line up from style to style or else for instance the bullets tabs will look different than the rest of the text. Robert Bringhurst is at once a blessing and a curse. It's my favorite book, and my biggest time-sink. Now back to work.
[Update: And when you change space-before and space-after settings, make sure you go back through the whole document and make sure that it hasn't re-flowed your text, changing all the page numbers and un-linking your section pages. That can really twist your knickers right up against the deadline.]
Unique Handcrafted Jewelry
June 23, 2005 | Arts & Culture
As jwz called it: Jewelry From the Barbie Slaughter. Quite amazing.
Entertainment ruminations
June 15, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Software
World of Warcraft, the "subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game," by Blizzard Entertainment, now has 2 million subscribers. Each player has purchased the CD-ROM for $49.99. In addition, there are three monthly payment plans: The month-to-month subscription plan costs $14.99 per month, the three-month plan costs $13.99 per month, and the six-month plan costs $12.99 per month.
Conservatively, there was a one-time revenue stream of just under $100 million dollars, and an on-going monthly revenue of just under $26 million (just under $312 million annually). They are opening the game up in China soon, where there are 500,000 players in the open beta period. It's not hard to imagine cumulative revenues of over a billion dollars, or perhaps two.
Blizzard has 250 game designers and developers, so figure maybe another 100 in marketing and administration. Annual revenue per employee is therefore around $1.1 million. A standard rule of thumb for a normal business is that you need $100,000 per employee to break even. $200,000 is excellent. At one point Microsoft was doing around $500,000 (I don't know what they do today). By this measure, in 2003, the top 10 software companies ranged between $340,000 and $788,000. Point being, online gaming is profitable.
Compare to movies: The top-grossing film of all time was Titanic in 1997. They took in a little over $600 million dollars in eight years. The #100 top-grossing movie was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (who knew?). Since 1991 (14 years) The Prince has taken in $165 million - just about the annual revenue of World of Warcraft.
Of course, it's nice to be able to spend (or squander) that level of resources on entertainment. In a few years, as the price of oil goes from $50 a barrel to $60, then $75, then $100, and suburban salarymen are living in their SUVs at the office four nights a week to save gas money on commuting, we'll all fondly remember these glory days of "robust economic activity." I wonder where our food will come from?
Last Evening's Activities
June 10, 2005 | Life
Location: Albuquerque Regional Medical Center, which is not much like my local DHMC, in many different ways.
Diagnosis: Pharyngitis After five weeks, it had to be something.
Treatment: Bicillin L-A, 1.2 million units in a 2 cc solution. "Administer by deep, i.m. injection in the upper, outer quadrant of the buttock." Not enjoyable, trust me.
Details may follow. Summary: Much awareness of human pain and suffering, far beyond my own.
There's nothing quite like visiting an out-of-town emergency room to bring on recurrent feelings of, "Glad I live where I do."
Couldn't ask for more
June 9, 2005 | Business & Commerce | Life
The Big Presentation for an Important Client went Very Well today.
Later in life
June 6, 2005 | Life | Software
There's some sort of bit flipped in my computer. Every time a context-sensitive tool-tip is supposed to pop up, I instead get a tool-tip that says "later in life."
I mean, okay, it's funny for a while, but then it gets to be weird.
And then, even typing this entry, meta-recursive-like, see above. I mean, below.
It's all too much – "later in life" – what's that supposed to mean, anyway. I think I need to reboot.
Small is the new big
June 5, 2005 | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites
Seth Godin: Small is the new big:
"Today, Craigslist (18 employees) is the fourth most visited site according to some measures. They are partly owned by eBay (more than 4,000 employees) which hopes to stay in the same league, traffic-wise. They’re certainly not growing nearly as fast.
Small means the founder makes a far greater percentage of the customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them, quickly.
Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.
Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.
Small means that you can answer email from your customers.
Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.
Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.
Don’t wait. Get small. Think big."
All revved up with no place (worthwhile) to go
June 5, 2005 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Imagine the difference it would make if these people put their energy into the long-term problems of the world (energy, food security, poverty, human rights, corporate malfeasance, and political corruption) instead of the rather simple game of business.
Excerpt: "Apparently none of these friends got the word that Silicon Valley's best days are behind it. So fervently do they believe in their collective imagination and potential that they routinely invest in one another's endeavors -- $50,000 or $100,000 or $200,000 a pop, creating an informal high-tech investors' club that serves as a kind of market index of Internet startups. None have to work another day in their lives, yet they still routinely work 60 to 70 hours a week -- except those who sheepishly confess to working 80. [....] 'We are not ready to stop changing the world.'"
Oh, the sadness of human insecurity, from fashion victims to wealth and power addicts. They think they are changing the world, when actually they are just money changers. Glad it's fun for them. I certainly enjoy my business. But it's not that important in the overall scheme of things.
Don't ask, don't tell
June 4, 2005 | People & Society
The other day someone said, "I don't know or care to get into what your politics are, but since I'm not a flaming liberal, I won't pay to get the New York Times, but I read it online because it doesn't cost me anything."
Maybe that's why the Times is going to start charging for Op-Ed access? [Salon's take on it.]
Working Weekends
June 4, 2005 | Life
I'm supposed to be working today, perhaps the first sunny Saturday in eight weeks. And, in fact, I am. But the procrastination level is high. How high? Well, I haven't installed any new software (at least not yet), but I am posting to my weblog (three four times today, so far!) and I did try to get rsync working (turns out there's a known bug on 10.4.1), and of course the big Macintosh rumor de jour has occupied some attention.
I think it's time to go warm up the tea and refill the water bottle. I should probably empty the trash, too, while I'm at it. And maybe get a tape backup started. But I'm not going to balance my office Quicken accounts today – that would be insane.
There, I've edited it twice and made this post just about as perfect as I can. I think I'll check for reader comments in a few minutes. [Update: None so far.] I was thinking about updating the weblog design template, but not today!
Appropriate Automation
June 4, 2005 | Life | Products & Opportunites | Software
Last night MacFLAC 2.1.2 (OS X) was choking on filenames of this form: dmb2005-06-01.akg483.v3.d1t01.flac
I suspected the additional dots in the filename were the problem, and there were 19 files to fix. Should I do it manually? Nah, let's learn something instead. I fired up the new Apple "Automator" application for the very first time, and literally in ten minutes I had created a set of actions to 1) multi-select the files; 2) copy them to a new place; and 3) find the offending string and replace it.
I searched for "dmb2005-06-01.akg483.v3." and replaced it with "dmb2005-06-01-akg483-v3-"
And less than a minute later 19 files were moved and renamed. It was absolutely amazing. What a dream. It Just Worked. And, I was tired (right before bed), had never used it before, etc. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but Automator made it a breeze.
In Memory of Black Bear (5/05)
June 4, 2005 | Life
Our beloved cat Black Bear died this week after 11 years of joyful, loving cat-ness. She was friendly, smart, happy, wise, and playful right to the last hour of her life. Above, you can see her helping us pack for New Orleans in October 2000.
She had a heart condition that finally caused a severe blood clot. Amazingly, she made it home from the field to the front door under the deck, where it was easy for Lynne to notice her at about 11:30 in the morning. She was still alive, but stiff and unresponsive. A flurry of blurry and surreal activity ensued, but by around 1:30 PM at the vet's she had passed.
A huge hole in a million little ways. We've moved past the pain and just have the sadness, but man these supposed "pets" are truly companions and family members.
