Mocca Gallery

 

I really like the way this works. This is a good example that highlights the flow. You start with a raw XML file. Performing an XSLT translation on that creates basic HTML content. Apply a CSS style sheet to that, and you get a beautiful web page.

The part I like best is that you can specify the translation file directly in the XML and have the browser do all the work. There is something very elegant and slick about that. It may not be appropriate for web crawling spiders, but you could always have the server perform the translation in those cases. In fact, serving up pages specifically optimized for spiders is a common practice.

I don’t know why I’m so into this. I just know it happens sometimes, and if I give into it and play around with it, eventually I’ll be satisfied, then I can move on to something else. I did want to create this nothing so I would have a good example of the practice in case I ever wanted to use it in the future.

The Jeep is back in the shop, this is the fourth time for the same problem. I’m running out of patience, and money.

I must admit, this is what it must be like when some user has bugs, but the software works fine when I run it. All I can say is, well, I changed this, try it now. The difference is I don’t keep handing them bills for $500 every time I try something that doesn’t work.

Hmmm, I guess maybe I do, I just got paid today, and I did spend a lot of time last week working on fixes that didn’t fix anything.

Now I’m really depressed.

I’m still getting fucked, but now I feel guilty for getting mad about it.

I need a three day weekend.

Motionless at 70 miles an hour
No reason to daydream
Days without walls
Never hurrying
Busy with no plans
Joyous intentional pointlessness

I came across this picture the other day and decided to post it here. This was taken in 1984 at the Frontier Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. I was 27 at the time. I was working days at Summa Corporation, the old Howard Hughes company, and playing poker every night.

I’m playing Pot Limit Texas Hold’em with $2-$5-$10 blinds. Those are stacks of green $25 chips in front of me, maybe $2500 worth.

Tournaments weren’t as popular then as they are now. Most of us played cash games only. We had a regular game going at the Frontier. Siegfried & Roy played twice a night and the show line went right past the poker room. It was a great game. Most of the players who won the World Series of Poker in the early days came and played with us.

Bill Smith, Don Williams, Cowboy Wolford and Bobby Hoff played there every day. I’ve played against Johnny Moss, Puggy & JC Pearson, Tom McEvoy, Jack Keller, Berry Johnston, Jack Straus, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, David Skalansky, Brad Daugherty, Russ Hamilton and Bones Berland. Lots of colorful characters and good memories.

So, I’m working on a programming project.
It’s going smoothly.
I have a series of tasks to complete.
I’m thinking it will be great when I’m finished.

Then I get stuck.
Something doesn’t work the way it’s suppose to.
My mind is already three steps ahead.
But I’m stuck on this damn problem.
I feel frustrated, angry, confused, annoyed, irritated.
This shouldn’t be happening.
I’m wasting time.

Then I remember.
These bad feelings are indicators.
Like gauges on a car’s dashboard.
These indicators tell me I’m thinking about this all wrong.
Problems are wonderful.
It’s so easy to forget that.

What I have to do is stop thinking three steps ahead.
Just focus on the problem that is in front of me, here and now.
Apparently, the way I think things are, is not the way they are.
I may not need to change the thing, I may need to change my mind.

This is really a fabulous opportunity to learn something new.
When things go smoothly it’s because there is no mystery in them.
I’m stuck now because there is something I need to learn.
But I don’t know what it is.
If I knew, I wouldn’t be stuck.

So, take a deep breath, and relax.
Let’s see if we can figure this out.
And don’t worry about the time.
I always figure it out.
It may take a few minutes.
It may take a few days.
But when we’re done, we’ll know something new.

I’ll know I’m done when I feel good about it.
That is my gauge.
When I feel good again, the lesson has been learned.
Class Dismissed.

Imagine waking up, looking down at the foot of the bed, and seeing this… pretty sweet.

It turns out, my corporation is what I say it is. It’s that simple.

I do have to act it out, play the part, behave as though it were true. If I do that, then other people believe it too. The more I work it, the more paper is created with the new name on in, the harder it is for people to see that it is just a made up thing.

If one person believes – he’s insane.
If two people believe – it is a religion.
If everyone believes – it becomes reality.

So, doing something, anything, with the corporation is really just a matter of changing other peoples beliefs about it. I like this game.

This occurred to me today – during the Renaissance it became clear the Bible did not have all the facts, and truth could not be found in other books at the time. To know, you would just have to look for yourself. A novel idea. Some looked directly at nature for the first time, and it was not what they expected, many great discoveries were made.

Today, I don’t seem to live in the natural world. I live in a world of concepts of corporations, governments, markets, and currencies. All very abstract, mind stuff, but with real consequences. Can I retire, or will I be a Wall-Mart greeter when I’m 75?

With the stock market gyrations lately, I thought – I want to understand what it going on. So where do I look? There is no nature to look at, nothing independently physical. All I can see are people on TV, in magazines, on the internet or in person. All I ever get is other people’s thoughts about what is going on. How the hell would they know? Their only source is other people’s thoughts too. There doesn’t seem to be an original source.

Oh, there are facts. The Fed cut rates by half a percent. IBM opened at 111.87, today is Friday and the temperature will be 107. But what the hell does that really mean? I don’t know.

With programming, if I don’t know, I can look it up, I can figure it out. With life, I’m beginning to see that, not only, don’t I know anything – I can’t think of anyplace I can go to get the answers.

It seems I am going to have to get comfortable with not knowing.