General

I keep hearing grumbling that this season of the Sopranos isn’t as good as seasons past.

Why? Because these episodes are more psychological? Because past consequences are coming slapping all of the characters? Because its getting harder to empathize with the characters?

Or is it because attention spans have become so short that in-depth stories are too long and confusing for the average viewer?

Personally, I love the direction that the show is moving. Emotions are running much higher and we are getting deeper glimpses into the characters than ever before. As much as I like Tony and his issues, its good to see further development in everyone else. How many shows have characters that you can really hate? Not many, and it has only been in the last couple of seasons where they have been visible.

Personalities, relationships, desires and aspirations are set to collide and if you take the time to study all the layers of the current plot lines you will see the powder kegs awaiting that one little spark.

Taking a break from my current project, I ran across the Banned Books Project. As I count myself an avid reader I shudder at the thought of censorship and book burning.

Knowledge and learning coupled with curiosity are the reasons that mankind has attained this heightened state of communication we take for granted. If those stories which tease our interest, tug at those innermost emotions and challenge our most basic concepts are removed then we will stutter, trip and fail.

If those same stories are not made available to all of our citizens, then we run the risk of losing or slowing future advancement. The public domain exists for a reason. Authors, artists and companies are entitled to profits from their work. But, it is important that the knowledge and ideas embodied within that work becomes a part of our larger society, to form a stronger foundation for future work.

This is where the Internet Bookmobile comes in. They take public domain works and print them out for students with the hope of opening people’s eyes to the possibilities. As mentioned in the article “The Bookmobile’s message, in essence, is that these are books we can put in the hands of children, through schools, and we can do it at a very low cost. (The material cost for a black and white book with color cover is $1.)”

Amazing.

Libraries could offer so many more works if they were able to publish these books for the cost of materials and time. Schools in poorer areas could provide a wider perspective of the world and a deeper understanding of society and history than is currently available to their areas.

And people might actually understand that The Three Musketeers is more than a candy bar.

Time to do a bit of research around Austin to see if there are any campaigns or projects in the works. If anyone is attempting to get one of these systems up and going I’ll help as best I can.

I can’t help but get into a great groove when Parliament is playing. At the moment “Tear the Roof off the Sucker” is coursing through winamp to my receiver and out to the speakers where it fills the room with pure funk.

I’m much more productive when the muse of Geaorge Clinton and company dances on my eardrums.

“We need the funk…gotta have the funk…”

Yet again Zeldman points to a great resource: Microsoft’s ClearType which is a method of sub-pixel rendering/anti-aliasing for fonts on Windows XP. I decided to play with it and was pleasently surprised by the improvement made across all of my applications. Text is much easier to read as it renders much like the anti-aliased text in Photoshop and other graphics tools.

If you run XP, you should check out ClearType Setup on the MS Web site, which walks you through the simple process of enabling it.

A few months back the front passenger window in my Xterra shrieked in pain as a friend hit the button to roll it up. For a couple of weeks it was not very happy in its job of going up and down and complained any time I expected it to perform either task. I finally took it to the dealership and had it repaired.

Well, a couple weeks ago the other three got fed up with their place in life as well, and promptly went on strike. The stars and planets aligned to allow me to take the truck in and the window regulators were replaced. I now have four windows that all work at once.

The description on the paperwork I received post-repair is quite concise: “A part replaced it done works fine now.”

Easily Amused is the journal of Pamela Hichins, a friend from the NI days. We’ve been chatting a bit more of late which has been quite enjoyable. I must say I really dig the design and the content has brought me back regularly.

Be easily amused