Towse: views from the hill

Scalzi posted about stetting all the serial/Oxford/Harvard commas his copy editor had added to his manuscript and, as to be expected, the comments are piling up on his blog.

Kottke reported that Wired quoted Friendster rep Lisa Kopp saying, Security isn’t a priority for us. We’re mostly focused on making the site go faster but now, it seems, that quote’s been updated at the Wired site to read, Security is a big concern.

Hm. I’m sure Friendster wishes that was what Kopp had said. Kottke now links to a scanned copy of the original version. Not Watergate exactly, but how ham-handed can an organization be?

Speaking of social networking, a neighbor stopped by and talked with his nibs for a while over the Fourth weekend. Turns out James Hong, who co-founded hotornot.com, lives just two doors down. We knew a neighbor was connected because we’d occasionally see his hotster car with personalized plates parked up on Montgomery.

Hong, who was out of work when he and Jim Young started the site as a joke in October 2000, has had such success with hotornot that he never went back to the grind. He now spends full-time on hotornot and other sites he’s involved with instead of having a “real” job. More power to him and to Young.

hotornot.com is booming without any advertising, just word of mouth. Hong, Young, &al. have morphed the site into a social networking/dating site for folks thirty years younger than I am.

From Harper’s Magazine via kottke comes God Rocks! wherein Harper’s excerpts tasty bits from Grand Canyon: a Different View, Tom Vail, ed. (Master Books, June 2003), including this bit:

Based on the lineages laid out in the Bible, God created the heavens and earth and everything in them in six literal days about 6,000 years ago. Contrary to what is widely believed, radioactive dating has not proven the rocks of the Grand Canyon to be millions of years old. The vast majority of the sedimentary layers in the Grand Canyon were deposited as the result of a global flood that occurred after and as a result of the initial sin that took place in the Garden of Eden. As the great post-Flood continents and mountains began to rise from the waters of a global deluge (Genesis 8:3?5), a huge chasm was formed that is now the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Inland waters, rushing down to the newly deepened ocean basin, rapidly excavated the 5,000-foot-deep layers of mud, silt, and sand that had been deposited during the year of the Flood. And the fossils found in the rock layers are remnants of the plants and animals that perished in the Flood.

Many in the secular and Christian worlds have claimed that the Flood described in the Bible was just a local event (or even myth). However, the God of the Bible made a covenant between Himself and the earth. He promised that whenever a rainbow appeared, it would be a reminder that He would never again bring such a flood on the earth. If Noah’s flood was just a local event, then it means that God breaks His promise every time a flood occurs somewhere on earth.

Beliefnet.com also provides an excerpt from the book.

For those dissecting the statements within Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore provides Fahrenheit 9/11 Notes – Sources

Microsoft and Sanjay Parthasarathy in particular bring you an ever-so-hip Poetry Jam

Spent the morning at the loft, making sure keys worked and the locks (both key’d and combination) on the storage in the garage worked. Everything works but for a couple light bulbs and the front door key. As long as we park in the garage and go in through the garage door, we’re okay. Oh, and the deadbolt lock for the 4th floor access to the upper floor doesn’t work. Maybe when we have a locksmith in to spin the locks we can have him fiddle with it. The deadbolt on the 3rd floor access to the lower floor does work.

I spent time taking pictures (60+) so I could put together a walk-through look for old friends and I helped hold the tape whilst his nibs sketched floor plans and detailed where the light switches were so we don’t plan to plant bookcases where they’d cover the switches. The seller gave us complete building planning drawings but they were as-proposed and not as-built and don’t show the light switch locations anyway.

Before we move anything in, I’ll need to do a bit of painting to cover the Faith Popcorn 1999 (or is it 2001?) muddy colors that setoff the fireplace walls on both floors from the frost white walls in the rest of the space. Maybe shades of royal purple and green or some Bhutanese blue-red-gold. Hmmmm.

A fun time was had by all but now, hours later, my eyeballs hurt from sorting through the pictures, re-sequencing them so they made more sense and deleting the extras, setting up the gallery. Nice to have “before” pictures showing the space and the incoming light because soon enough the space will be filled with books and pinball machines. (Did we measure the downstairs hall to make sure the pinball machines will fit? I’ll have to check …)

Time for supper.

Hie thee over to Perry Hoberman’s site and pick up a digital print or three. The System Failure print is part of this set. Spend some time checking out Hoberman’s work.

What Pattern Are You?

Especially the mellow part.

Surprise, surprise. Mozilla has security holes too, it’s just that most miscreants don’t bother with Mozilla because there are more (and more interesting) targets amongst IE users.

The most serious Mozilla security hole to date affects Windows users.

Use Mozilla and Windows XP? Download the patch and install it now. Easy. Peasy.

(Initial headsup from jenett.radio.)

These days you can’t call PG&E Customer Service and talk with someone. You have to call, leave a message. Someone will get back to you.

Four hours later …

No, we can’t transfer the PG&E billing at the Dogpatch loft to your name to reflect your brand-shiny-new ownership. The person who authorized PG&E service to that address closed the account in October 2003. We cannot enable billing to your name until a PG&E employee comes out and reads the meter and someone pays the bill back to October 2003.

No, we can’t bill the previous account holder: he shut off the account.

No, we can’t bill the previous owner for the power used.

No, that’s something you’ll have to work out between you and the previous owner.

update: Selling agent tells our agent, “I’m down in LA for a couple weeks. You’ll have to work that out with the seller and oh by the way, you’ll have to get the keys from him too. I didn’t get them before I left town.” (This after our agent had been told by someone in the other office that the keys had been sent to her office.)

Our agent (have I mentioned she’s a gem?) called the seller to make arrangements for the keys and to settle the problem with PG&E. Seller says, “Sure, I turned the PG&E off in October. It’s not my fault PG&E screwed up. Your buyers will need to work that out with PG&E.”

Um, no.

Later, after talking with PG&E, the seller tells our agent, “PG&E agrees that a lot of the screw-up was theirs. They just need proof that the place has been sold. Your buyers will need to go down to PG&E and show them the paperwork.”

Um, no.

Current status: seller has agreed to go down to PG&E to armwrestle over the past-due accounting so future billing can be transferred to our names.

*sigh*

update2: SB stopped off with the buyer and picked up the keys. She vets him as a nice, conscientious guy. He gave us a note about what he still needs to get us. Promises to get down to PG&E. Gave us the key code for the alarm system.

SB dropped the packet of goodies through the mail slot at Hill along with her good wishes and a message to the universe for a smooth as silk sale for Dale.