Maurice Sendak on “Where is Max now?”

by philg

The April 17, 2006 New Yorker magazine carries an interview with Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are, whose protagonist is a young boy named Max.

“My God, Max would be what now, forty-eight? He’s still unmarried, he’s living in Brooklyn. He’s a computer maven. He’s totally ungifted. He wears a wolf suit when he’s at home with his mother!”

[Note: “Computer maven” is New York-speak for “programmer” or “computer expert”.]

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Updated Slide Show Software Released

by philg

http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/slide-show?size=small&spec_file=/photography/exhibits/alaska-trip-2005.ss

demonstrates a new version of the slide show software developed by Shimon Rura, Julie Melton, and myself.  If you “view source” you’ll get documentation and a link to a .tar file.  The new version is designed for easy reskinning.

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Cambridge now a sanctuary for high net-worth illegal aliens

by philg

Yesterday morning I decided it wasn’t worth showering or shaving before walking out the door for breakfast in Harvard Square with my friend Doug. The weather was so gloomy, who would be likely to see us anyway? Around 10:00 am, we arrived in the non-square Square and were accosted by a local CBS TV news crew. I hadn’t shaved for two or three days. Alex was looking a bit soggy in the drizzle. They stuck the camera in my face and asked what I thought about the City of Cambridge City Council voting, the night before, to make Cambridge a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. I responded that I wasn’t sure where these folks were going to live, given that none of my friends with jobs can afford to live in Cambridge anymore. The City of Cambridge does have a subsidized housing program (anyone earning less than $75,000 is entitled to a taxpayer subsidy), but these houses require a lot of patience and paperwork to get into. So… we are a declared sanctuary for illegal aliens, as long as they have $1.5 million to buy a house.

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What do folks think of this new WordPress-based blog?

by philg

Gentle Readers:

Thanks to the efforts of Hal Roberts and a few other (nerd-)heroes at the Berkman Center, we have finally escaped the ghetto of Manila.  This Weblog is now running on WordPress and should be faster, more reliable, and a lot more spam-proof.  Please comment (note that comments are now going to be subject to pre-moderation).

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Canon EOS System Explained and experience with rentacoder.com

by philg

I’ve completed an article for people who are building a Canon EOS system.  I call it “Canon EOS System Explained”.  One interesting aspect of this article is that I needed to get together data on all the components of the EOS system, i.e., the bodies, lenses, and flashes.  For each item, I needed the full name, the price, and the serial number on Amazon.com (so that people could click through and see reader reviews, buy the item, etc.).  I estimated that it would take me 10 hours to assemble these data by clicking around at Amazon.  It is a bit more involved than you’d think because for many of these items, Amazon requires you to “add item to cart to see price”.  Anyway, I put the project up on www.rentacoder.com and a guy from Pakistan did the job in two days for $10.  He made only a couple of mistakes.


I would appreciate comments/corrections on this draft article.  What is confusing?  What should I say more about?  Where are the typos?


Thanks in advance!

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Summer internship for a young pilot

by philg

I’m looking to hire a high school or college student as a summer intern.  The main thing that this young person would get out of the deal is some flight training (otherwise fairly expensive) and an introduction to the world of aviation in and around Hanscom Field.  I’ve drafted an advertisement in http://philip.greenspun.com/jobs/aviation-summer-internship and would appreciate comments on the ad and how to make the internship more attractive.  Basically I would treat the person as an apprentice and try to teach him or her whatever I know that he or she wants to learn as well.

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The best amazon.com review ever?

by philg

My friends Paul and Miryam were gracious enough to let me stay in their guest cottage in California a week ago.  Said guest cottage is a former garage, with no insulation and only an electric space heater for warmth.  It was 45 degrees F outside and raining overnight in Berkeley.  Inside the garage, it was a toasty 47 degrees F.  I decided to get them an electric blanket or mattress pad.  In shopping for this item, I found what might well be the best Amazon.com review ever, of any product.  Check http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00067L9A2/

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Sound quality comparison for the voicemail message

by philg

I’d appreciate comments on the sound quality of three audio clips, each of which is 30 seconds long, contained in the following directory:


http://philip.greenspun.com/scratch/audio/


The original file is the .wav.  The other two are MP3s recorded at 128 (actually only 64 kbps for a mono file like this) and 64 kbps.


Thanks!


Philip


p.s. None of these audio clips is as funny as the ghetto version of “Who’s on First” that my friend Andrew sent me… http://openpodcast.org/media/2006/2/23/openpodcast_3532.mp3

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