Month: November 2003

The adventure continues. Thanks to Comcast (no thanks), we’re back to 13 channels. So much for the Rugby World Cup and beyond. Too ridiculous a tale to tell right now… we’ll see if we have signal in the morning.

Dave Winer of UserLand created MailToTheFuture.com in 1998. Just something he did on a lark, seemingly, where you could set up an email to send to yourself (or others) in the future. I used it a few times to send myself an email as a reminder for a dentist appointment or small things like that. Since I use my inbox as a To Do list, and always email myself notes at home from work and vice versa, I like the idea, though I have not used it in years.

This morning, in an email newsletter from Marketwatch, I read the following:

E-mail that’s here after you’ve gone to the great hereafter

Mylastemail.com will deliver your parting thoughts after you’re dead. The $10 subscription e-mail service is based in Tampa, Fla. It is all about, “planning ahead and leaving positive last minute memories for family and friends,” according to Karen Peach of LifeTouch LLC. Account holders can log on and update their e-mails anytime, to keep “messages relevant, up-to-date and even more personal” she added, comparing it to the practice of leaving personal letters for relatives after one’s death. “It’s a bit of a strange subject,” Peach conceded, “but after thinking about it for some time, people say it’s a good idea.”

Aside from being morbid, how is this a business? More importantly, how do they know you are dead? That’s the only part the original MailToTheFuture.com cannot handle… unless you know a bit too much about when you’re going to die?

From reading the FAQ, it seems that you have to register (on paper) a formal request for your trustee to send a copy of the death certificate to the company. That sounds like more trouble than the $10. Couldn’t you just leave a note with your trustee? Another amusing point: for your $10, you get 5 emails (you can buy more, of course), for a three year period. If you’re still alive at the end of the three years, you have to pay again.

After thinking about it for a few lousy minutes, I don’t think it’s a good idea, despite Karen Peach’s citation of ‘people’. Let’s check back in three years and see if they are still with us.

All the channels beyond basic cable went kaput sometime on Thursday. I was running around during the interim, noticed the problem yesterday, but really had time to deal with it today. FYI, the TiVo provided the evidence of when the problem started, because a Premier League football match was recorded at 1am Thursday, but the Rugby World Cup game at 5pm was missed. Argh. Anyway, called Comcast this afternoon. As in prior calls, I was talking to a real person very quickly, and the person was friendly. Spent nearly 20 minutes on the phone, with the man on the phone trying different things on his end, without success. He was able to turn off my digital cable box from his end, but none of the other authorization or configurations he was trying from his end worked. So now we have to wait until Wednesday for someone to come to the house and see if they can untangle the problem. If it’s digital cable related, the visit is free. Otherwise, $20 expense. Could be worse, other than the wait. I know that Gene the stereo guy left everything in working order on Monday, since no problems until Thursday… but how they can turn the machine off remotely but still not fix the problem remotely?

Why did we get -more- involved in TV? I’m a huge fan of Fox Sports World, honestly, but it’s almost not worth the pain. Easy to understand why upgrading is such a slow industry-wide process.

I bought my second copy of Omni Outliner at the end of last week, for the desktop. I’ve gotten hooked on the PowerBook, where it came installed, and decided that the endless To Do list in my head needed to be more tangible. Decided is a cover-up for a longer discussion, but let’s leave it there. I did knock off a few checkboxes this weekend, from the mundane task of writing a friend back to the more measurable step of getting some accounts up to date in Quicken. Anyway, Omni is a slick, smooth program, which does more than I use it for, and it was (is?) on sale for $19.95, so if you’re on Mac OS X, I’d encourage a look.

My favorite thoughtful feature of the program is its strong export capabilities, especially to HTML. I’m a huge fan of CSS, but I don’t -write- compliant code except when carried along by templates… like here and in anything I write in Omni Outliner. It also exports OPML and a few others. Some have even started to take advantage of the application’s scriptability to write their own renderers. If you’re really looking for an in-depth comparison of Mac OS X outliners, try this two-part list. I never knew there were so many choices, so my easy choice of Omni Outliner may be more a testament to the power of bundling than anything (but I don’t think so). Anyone know of a similar comparison list for Windows outliners?

Fun, small wedding yesterday and Friday night. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, and we all rightfully celebrated ‘his Edness.’ If you know him, you know.

A great side-benefit was dinner with another college roommate, Kristan, whom I haven’t seen since visiting Boston to run the Marathon in April 2001. He’s doing well, and I wish we saw him and Stephanie more. One more good friend in Boston… why don’t they move out here to SF?

(I’d like to put down more than these mundanities, but wanted to close the door on this topic, for now.) Earlier this week, I learned from the TiVo Community Forum that the lack of support for the 2.8 version of the Linksys USB wireless adapter in the TiVo software was the problem. TiVo wouldn’t recognize the adapter, and the TiVo site wasn’t clear enough on the fact that they recommended the 2.6 version (which is no longer for sale!) because the later version wouldn’t work with their software. Anyway, I requested an upgrade (beta, I think), and got it sometime Tuesday night… and everything worked like a charm yesterday. So one unsightly phone cord strung across the room and under the rug is gone. Given the extra work that went into connecting all the A/V equipment correctly, I sure hope this wireless thing keep taking over for cords. Our built-in cabinets are great for everything except mucking with the endless connections. Admission: we got help from “Gene, the stereo guy” — quite reasonable rates and helpful. One less thing for me to worry about when I get home.

Writing here reminds me that most people (including me) could use an editor. Oh well!

On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, atrabilious was the word of the day from Dictionary.com. I’ve been saving that email ever since.

The email gives two definitions.

1. Melancholic; gloomy.
2. Irritable; ill-natured; peevish.

I’m rarely melancholic, but a lack of sleep/time sure makes me peevish. Peevish is a good word to say, sort of like moussaka… just rolls off the tongue. I can explain moussaka to the boy. Peevish might have to wait.

Anyway, here are the references from the email. Regular readers of this site (both of them?) will understand why I saved the initial email, knowing I needed to use it before too long.

Captain Aubrey’s steward [was] an ill-faced, ill-tempered, meagre, atrabilious, shrewish man who kept his officer’s uniform, equipment and silver in a state of exact, old-maidish order come wind or high water.
–Patrick O’Brian, The Hundred Days

So here we have him, as entertainingly atrabilious as ever he was . . . mocking the Fords, the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Sir Alfred Monds, the Owen D. Youngs — all who would go back on laissez-faire and on toward the servile state.
–John Chamberlain, “Future Shock,” New York Times, October 6, 1996

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Atrabilious is from Latin atra bilis, “black” (atra) “bile” (bilis). It is a translation of Greek melankholia, from melas, melan-, “black” + khole, “bile.” According to ancient and medieval physiology, an excess of black bile in the system was supposed to cause melancholy.

Aubrey’s steward is Preserved Killick, of course. I have not yet reached The Hundred Days in the series, but I will.