señor taco’s travels

Warren Ellis writes:

“The more creators who only took on housepainting as a part-time gig, the healthier this medium would be.”

Oh man, so true. This is why staring my own work up is very appealing.

What is it with people that they think I must be responsible but they can shirk on their responsibilities? Take tonight. I commute between work and home on a bicycle. There is a part of the route I take that is a greenway which is bikes and pedestrians but no cars.¹ It is also park-like and right next to several housing areas. People tend to walk their dogs along there and as long as they pick up the poop I don’t care about that.

Tonight there were two people off the paved path with two dogs. As I got close the dogs darted out across my path. I braked and as I did the lady reached out and grabbed my shirt sleeve causing me to skid out. Today I was on my road bike because I went riding with Everett this morning. Not only does that mean I was clipped in but it also meant that I had a bit of gear in my bag on my back.²

I came to a safe stop without falling and immediately blurted out “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” at her. The guy across the path and the woman both start claiming that I was going to hit their dogs. I pipe up that had I hit a dog we would have had something but I was breaking and that by her grabbing my shirt I could have crashed badly. She said I have to yield the right of way. I yelled not for dogs, looked her in the eye, and told her if she touched me again I’d break both of her hands.

Now comes my favorite part, she pulled out her phone and said she was calling the cops. I pulled mine out and said I’d join her and we could see if assault was still a reason for people to spend the night in jail.³ She said “Fuck you!” and stormed off. I looked at the guy and he just walked off.

Is it just me? Do people get shit like this happening to them too? Why do I have to be responsible for people’s dogs actions but they don’t have to control their animals in a public space? Yes, the comment about breaking hands might have been a bit over the top, but when my blood gets boiling I can bubble over a bit.

Ugh, time for a drink.

1. There is a double wide paved path and a single wide dirt path on it↩
2. Clothes, shoes, Camelback, laptop, etc.↩
3. See, I hadn’t touched a person or a dog at all↩

Flying Meat makes a great, and simple, image editor called Acorn. Acorn has a plug-in architecture that allows one to develop in python. I had begun work on a Flickr export plugin but got side tracked because I didn’t know Objective-C (you can write obj-c interface code in python) or Interface Builder all that well. Now that I’ve learned them I was going to go back into it and see about finishing up with a dialog box.

Happily, the gang at Coding Robots just beat me to it with Flicker Export Plugin for Acorn. I won’t complain because they’ve done a great job and with the source available I can learn more from it. Interestingly enough, except for the dialog I hadn’t yet done my implementation is very similar to theirs.

(via Gus Mueller)

This morning I was listening to NPR and the weekly StoryCorps segment came on. I’ve been fascinated and delighted by StoryCorps. It’s a project well worth the time people are putting into it.

Today was Marry Ellen Noone talking about her great-grandmother. There was a disclaimer on the radio that this segment was hard to listen to. That disclaimer applies here as well.

Mary Ellen Noone on StoryCorps.

That a person could have so much hatred, distain, and disrespect for a human as what happened to Mrs. Noone’s great-grandmother makes me sad and angry at the same time. I realize the event was almost 100 years ago, but that our country and the world ever got the point that degradation of humans was acceptable I sometimes wonder how we ever got where we are without destroying ourselves.

At any rate, StoryCorps is fascinating. If you’ve got some time browse through it and listen to stories. If you have a story I encourage you try and share it with StoryCorps.

The future is born from the mind of visionaries. Arthur C. Clark is one of them. He first conceived of communications satellites in 1945. Ninety years is a good long run. Farewell ambassador from future times.

NY Times

When I woke up this morning I thought it was raining enough for me not to ride. I looked again and it was fine at my house so I went out any way. I was at the stop sign at Sacramento and Harmon on my way to Rockridge. I was waiting for traffic on the far lanes to pass when a pickup came up behind me, decided not to stop at the stop sign, went around me, and clipped me with his extended mirror.

It hit me on the left shoulder and I went over to the right. I was fine but furious so I just turned around an went back home (about half a mile). Because I fell over I didn’t get the guys plate. I’m glad it wasn’t more serious. I hope that’s the closest I ever get to a car hit while on a bike.

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

[via Clickable Bliss]