Soldier Ant 

We'll be there tonight.. Gettin' kinda excited.

I'm taking advantage of the new 'Archive to Disc' feature in iPhoto to burn all of our pictures from 2002. All 2221 of them (which averages out to just over 6 photos per day for the year. I swear before digital photography I probably averaged that many per month.)

I feel compelled to back these babies up and get them out of my main iPhoto library, mostly due to the lag times I'm getting while trying to work with new imports.

O'Reilly nails this issue: iPhoto, iTunes Falling Down on Library Size. And a reader's comment notes an alternative tool, iView MediaPro that looks great.

I used to rag on my cousin when we were little, cause his favorite daytime soap (Guiding Light) was developing a ninja storyline. This somehow conflicted with my nascent aesthetic for daytime drama 'realism.'

I realize that this story is pathetic on several levels.

Rather than go into that whole mess, instead I'll point to Ultra-Love Ninja. If you haven't seen it, you need to see it.

(And, please, try to cleanse your mind of the image of me, at twelve years old, defending the statement 'Cruz Castillo could kick Lee Van Cleef's ass!' Wait. Scratch that. 'Butt.' I probably said 'butt.' I was such a momma's boy.)

God's architect design for Twin Tower space?

"Gaudi (1852-1926) was commissioned in 1908 to create a 366 metre skyscraper hotel for Lower Manhattan. Although the project was never realised, he left a spaceship-type design, topped by an observation platform in the shape of a giant glass star, which has now been submitted by a US-Spanish team of artists and academics."

(Link courtesy Follow Me Here. Eliot Gelwan rocks.)

If so, SBC may be coming after you.

This is just assinine. As this linked article points out:

"Just in case you're not fully up on reading patent language, that means that if your Web site uses frames, and there's a navigation frame on one side, with links that load content into the main frame -- you're violating their silly patent, and they can come after you for licensing fees."

This looks fun. Dark Horse has a Flash trailer up for Hellboy - Weird Tales. Lobster Johnson cameo + (what appears to be) Hellboy gettin' jiggy -- what're you still readin' this for!?

Don't get me wrong. I recently got to keep an XBox for a couple of weeks, and it's a beautiful piece of technology. But it's also losing boatloads of money for Microsoft, perhaps as much as $100 for each box sold. Microsoft plans to make up for these losses by selling in volume. (Joke.)

Myself (10:25:01 AM): I 've jusst decided. I think I'm going to say 'Dang Nabbit' more often
Tokyo (10:26:02 AM): throw some 'Doggones' in there too
Myself (10:26:46 AM): and the occasional 'Dadgum'
Tokyo (10:26:52 AM): nice

"It is said that when Xerxes, King of Persia, reviewed his magnificent and enormous army before starting for Greece, he wept at the thought of slaughter about to take place."

This has got to be the nicest thing anyone's done for me all week. Duffy (yes, that Duffy) drew me a dysfunctional greeting card during a meeting the other day. In a world where Reverso Cow and Reverso-Cowboy can make friends with booze pin, why can't we all just get along?

Here are 2+ years of collected AppleScript Primer columns. Nice resource. And here's an XML Library for AppleScript.

Hmm. Looks like Scott McCloud will be speaking on Tuesday at my alma mater (in my old department, no less.)

If you're in Atlanta (I know of at least one semi-regular reader who is) then by all means, try to swing by campus. I had the honor of introducing Scott as the keynote speaker at an AOL Design Summit a few years back, and his talk was every bit as engaging as his books.

psst - If they try to turn you away at the door, tell them you're close personal friends with Thomas Winn.

Latest evidence suggests that the Amesbury Archer (the so-called 'King of Stonehenge') may in fact be of Central European origins.

What is this compelling evidence that points to the Swiss lineage of the Archer? Elderflowers and herbs found in his stomach, coated in a soothing honey gel.

It looks like Ebay is tooling around with their homepage design. Here's one new trial version I got and here's a screenshot of their explanation for its appearance.

Judging by these Google results, I'm guessing that a ragtag band of anything is not a desireable group to be in.

Ukes are hot, no doubt about it. Ukulelia: Your Passport to Four Stringed Paradise is an all-ukelele weblog, hosted by Illustrator and Writer Mark Fraunfelder.

I was at Andyman's Treehouse tonight with Charlie Tokyo, and the discussion went to me and him starting a two person ukelele band. Trust me, we've had this conversation 50 times, at least.

Possible Band Names (please dont steal them):

The Nuke-eleles
The Puke-eleles
Duke Uke and the Fluke-eleles
The Ukes of Hazard featuring Duke and Luke Uke
Uke Skywalker and George Ukes

There were more but I am drunk and it is late.

From Warren Ellis' latest Bad Signal (subscribe here):

"Daddy watch Carusobot on CSI
MIAMI. Carusobot look at Emily
Proctor, think: Carusobot is ready
for the human sexing now. Carusobot
look at Delaney woman, think:
Carusobot Death Ray activate."

1. Note to self: don't do this again next year.
2. And when a fellow human is being assaulted by Macaques, remember to act first, then laugh.
3. Finally, everyone should share a special moment with a broken-assed girl

Which OS are You?

Salt and Christianity provides some juicy tidbits on this most essential of dietary supplements:

"The possession and control of so valuable a commodity has often been an objective in war, and indeed the cause of war. More wars have been fought over salt than over gold. The early salt road via Solaria from Rosettia to Rome was constantly guarded by Roman soldiers who fought off marauders and hostile armies seeking salt. The Germans waged war for saline streams. In our own country, many of the Indian wars were fought over salt licks or salt springs; these were few and widely separated and the Indians protected them at all costs."

The White Stuff gives the secular scoop, and even features a couple of recipes.

Dan Gillmor has broken the news, and you can bet people will be all excited about it. My initial take is that it's interesting more as an indication of where Google is going, than as a legitimization of (or the 'next big step in') the blogging world.

And loving it.

This has been the best weekend I've had for a long time. Quite possibly the best weekend since I rounded the corner into my 30s. I wish I had pictures to share, of the snow, and the dog in the snow (he's a San Jose transplant, but -- wonder of wonders -- he somehow instinctually 'gets' snow -- loves to chomp snowballs, roll around in it, and of course, sign his very sloppy signature.) But there are no pictures, because I've been too busy enjoying the weekend to worry about filming it.

Some highlights:
- snowballs and stick-throwing in the doggy-park
- pulling back the blinds and watching the snow to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
- Beans and sausage in the slow-cooker
- chasing down the neighbor's Rottweiler, Bruno.
- the 'show snovel' ;-)
- Back-to-back-to-back Simpsons for the 300th episode.

And, best of all, I just got the phone call. No work tomorrow. Let it snow...

Yes, I'm still engaged in the onerous task of trying to automate some graph-making steps in Illustrator. (The goal is to auto-create nicely formatted web traffic graphs). This has been interesting, requiring stops in the worlds of Applescript, XML, Excel and, of course Illustrator. And I still have nothing tangible to show for it!

Except some links, for like-minded folks. (And I know you're out there -- an upcoming Soldier Ant post will break down the findings from my referral logs to date -- one of the most commonly-searched terms that bring visitors here is 'Illustrator Scripting'):

- An Adobe whitepaper (PDF format) discusses their Graphics Server, and gives a breakdown of the XML Graph display commands. It kinda-sorta gives some direction on how to generate your own XML data description for Illustrator SVG graphs.

- Late Night Software provides an excellent library of XML Tools for Applescript that do two simple things - allow you to parse XML, and allow you to generate XML. Which is really all you need.

- Finally, something that is just a little too hard-core for me. My old friend Ben Fry has posted a quick set of 'get-your-feet-wet' pointers on generating post-script, Illustrator and PDF files programatically. This goes beyond simple scripting, or using Illustrator's built-in dynamic data capabilities. Good stuff to know, but if my little dabblings take me there, I fear I will have gone too far.

My girlfriend is always telling me I should cook more. Last night, I did just that, as I tried to make some cookies. BEHOLD THE COOKIE BLOB!

I guess they weren't kidding about seperating the cookies 2 inches apart. Don't worry, unlike this Blob, the Cookie Blob has been tucked away safely in my stomach.

Yum.

I feel your pain.

Going by his stage name, our old friend will be grabbing a mic, pulling up a stool and entertaining the throngs at Andyman's Tree House this Saturday. (And everyone's favorite man-crush, Ken Gould, will be there too. Bonus.)

Wired reports that Hackers Run Wild and Free on AOL.

"A third hacker, using the name hakrobatik, confirmed the mumbling method.

'I kept calling and pretending I just had jaw surgery and mumbling gibberish," hakrobatik said. "At first I had no info except the screen name, then I called and got the first name and last name by saying, 'Could you repeat what I just said?' Then each time that I got information I called back making the real information understandable, and everything else I just mumbled.'"

I suspect this tactic is so remarkably effective because of the way it plays to AOL's corporate culture. (I've seen design reviews and product direction given with almost exactly the same level of attention.)

PearlJam.com features a gorgeous timeline of the band's career. It's not incredibly interactive, but it looks great, and you can tell that the content was gathered with a true fan's eye for detail.

The SFGate reports on a shipment of 33,000 Nike basketball shoes drifting toward Alaskan shores.

(Link courtesy the lovely LeeAnn.)

Dennis Hwang has a fun job -- he's responsible for the event-customized Google logos that run for major holidays, anniversaries and birthdays of famous people. Here's a gallery of every such logo mod that Dennis has done (and, I think, a few that pre-date him.)

My favorite is the one for St. George's Day.

I'm up way too late, and Warren Ellis has added comments to his site.

Friends on the web need to stick together, right?

And for that, I'd like to introduce everyone to my friends Charlesworth, Baltimaher, JShabe and JPops' sports blog, The Sports Frog. For those of you familiar with my site, donewaiting.com, it's kinda like that -- replacing music commentary and criticism with sports commentary and criticism.

They deserve your love. These guys are what you would call sport fanatics.

Side note: Charlesworth is also the writer of the donewaiting.com occasional feature, (Fred) Durst Watch.

Here's a lovely, very matter-of-fact breakdown on Retrieving Conversation text from Instant Messengers. This one is focused on MSN, but I can't imagine that the same principles couldn't be applied to AIM.

"This gives us the opportunity to make some fantastic SPYING applications that can e-mail MSN conversations of someone to you or whatever you can think of!"

Whee!

This is an actual e-mail sent to the online editor of Premiere Magazine. Nothing has been edited:

Hello Dickheads,

In the words of Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface, "Iz joo krazy?" Your 'Best 100 Action Movies on DVD' list is a slap in the face to anyone who owns a DVD player and/or a brain. Was this list a joke? If it wasn't, your publicaton definitely is. I kept expecting to see Forest Gump pop-up on your list. How did the Green Mile not make your Top Ten? If you think that Black Hawk Down deserves to be 69 spots ahead of Seven Samurai, and 71 spots ahead of Shaft, I wish I could hop in the Dolorean from the superior Back To Future II (which you miserable pimps dissed in your bullshit 'HomeGuide'), go back in time and repair your father's broken condom, or give your whore of a mother an IUD, cause you didn't deserve to be born! I ran out of toilet paper this morning, and I was gonna use your magazine to wipe my ass, but I realized that my ass deserved better, so I went out into my backyard and used a pine cone.

Regards,
Jamal Jason Hersi
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

P.S. - FUCK YOU!

'nuff said.

National Geographic reports that Ants Practice Nepotism (I love the fact that the writer's name is John Roach.)

This nepotism has long been suspected to be present in the highly structured social world of ants, but studies to date have proved inconclusive.

If you've lived in San Francisco for any length of time, and you still find it hard to remember which road heads East along the Golden Gate panhandle, and which one runs West, then use this simple mnemonic device:

"Oak to Oakland, Fell to the Fog."