When
· Naughties
· · 2006
· · · April
· · · · 26 (4 entries)
Jacobs, Pictures, Spartans · Jane Jacobs died; the city I live in, Vancouver, is pretty solidly Jacobsian both in its current shape and its planning dogma. By choosing to live here I’m empirically a fan. Oddly, few have remarked how great Jacobs looked; her face commanded the eye. Which leads me Alex Waterhouse-Hayward’s wonderful Jane Jacobs & Viveca Lindfors; surprising portraits and thoughts on decoration. W-H’s blog has become one of only two or three that I stab at excitedly whenever I see something new. For example, see Sex Crimes, Homicide and Drugs and yes, that’s what it’s about. Staying with the death-and-betrayal theme, and apparently (but not really) shifting back 2½ millennia, see John Cowan’s The War (after Simonides), being careful to look closely at the links. I’ve written about those same wars.
NBA Playoffs · Been too busy, hardly watched any regular-season games, so all the teams are more or less new to me. I’m really enjoying the TNT coverage of the Lakers and Suns; can’t see the Lakers getting out of this series even though they’re (just) holding on to a Game 2 lead. Of the teams I’ve seen, my money would be on the Suns. Anyhow, TNT is being fairly free with their camera angles, using the floor-level shot to particularly good effect. And—goodness gracious me—is that a Phil Glass soundtrack on the Tylenol ad?!? The mind boggles. What next... John Cage for Nyquil? Cecil Taylor for Pepsi?
Scott · I’ve been watching our internal leadership conference and spending quite a bit of time talking in the virtual hallways, and I’ve been surprised at the intensity of feeling about Mr. McNealy. Yes, there are those here saying “About bloody time, now we can make some progress” but there’s a much bigger group that is genuinely emotional about this transition. Maybe it’s a function of seniority: I never met nor corresponded with Scott, and he hasn’t been much of a presence in the company’s conversation in the time I’ve been here. But there are a lot of smart, seasoned, unsentimental people making it clear that he’s been a major force in their lives, at a more personal level than I’m used to hearing when people speak about executives. I guess also that to a lot of people, Sun’s vision, for which Scott gets some of the credit, was a radical and wonderful thing. I first used Unix in 1979 and quit a nice big-company job to become a VAX-bsd sysadmin in 1983, so I’ve always kind of lived inside that vision. But I’ll tell you one thing, what I’ve been hearing the last couple of days makes me really regret that I didn’t get to know Scott.
Spring in White on White · Most people would generally prefer a climate where it’s bright and warm most of the time. But for Canadians and others who live where it’s not, there are compensations, and one is the experience of spring. I have a picture ...
