Cafe Bucky

“put the wax on the table / let the dj spin it” -BBoys

I am back y’all! Rusty and shakin it off … It’s been a long while since February 2007.

Resurrected the blog from a noisy 1U rack server that I used to have hosted at sonic.net. Got all of my postings (March 2003 onward) here for your amusement.

Looking back, some of them are not what I would write now. It would have been cinchy to just start from scratch. On the other hand, it’s more fun to have the history (almost 4 years!) and show some evolution.

Evolution — I’ve made it out of the newbie blogging waters and am up on the warm beach dunes. Off in the distance is a shiny plastic city of one-track blogs on multilevel marketing. Over to the left is experimental artsville, rickety blog tents that amaze for a moment and then blow over from the wind of ISP overage charges.

I see a couple of other destinations — one of them is rural, with a beautiful barn studio full of computers, musical paraphernalia, and a video / lights set. It’s the blog of creative and tech that is the grounded contrast between nature and tech overload.

The other view from the dunes, of course, is the city loft in the midst of graffiti sprayed subway signed watch out for that speeding taxi high volume pedestrian hubbub. Get into the freight elevator, go up, stream some dub reggae, and write.

Back to the hot sand on the beach burning my paws … I dont head for country or city just yet (although I can certainly indulge both in Second Life). I have my for-pay work (3D Web), an amicable divorce to go through, a house to sell, and lots of connections to refresh. Time to get out of so much hermit mode!

Feels good to be back into it. I had flitted with tumblr and some Pownce, but this is really my home.

Unlocks the door, steps in, opens the double hungs to air out the blog room. Brews coffee and ponders the updating and tweaks to make.

[a quick note for those new to my blog.. this post is from over a year ago .. yep I am interested in gigs that span web 2.0 / SL / and other virtual worlds  -- dls, June 11, 2008]

Need a Web Dev? 2L Dev? I’m available!

Time to touch base — I wound up my contract with LimeLife.com recently (no more web site work to do). I’m proud of the work I did there — chiefly an implementation of Zones & Modules to make the site much easier to maintain..

Time for a new contract! One great thing about working from home over the last 6 months is that I didn’t need to spend 2-3 hours a day commuting. The time was much better spent coming up to speed on LSL and other SecondLife tech. I’m now in a great position to bridge web and SecondLife development projects.

Time to list some current Projects! The two major avenues are Web and SecondLife.

Web

• Update FlexiPhoto - work on a much more dynamic/Ajax front end. Give it an RSS feed capability.
• Update this blog - and incorporate work from the MultArg Demo
• Continue to develop RSS bridge for use by SecondLife Apps (using Magpie, about to try SimplePie parser)

SecondLife

• Give away demo/1st version of my QuickTime-based RSS reader (LSL + PHP)
• Start distributing my RSS browser (llDialog version), web browser, texture chooser, and object giver apps

I am at resume.daniel.org

So I recently received a notice to renew one of my domains. As anyone with a domain knows, the longer you renew for, the bigger your discount is …

However! This notice had an option to renew for 100 Years! I can see renewing for 10, but 100? Imagine the year is 1907, and you have to renew for a license to use a telegraph. Would you spring for 100 years? Believe me, I love the internet. I even left Autodesk in 1995 to go work with it full-time, because I could see where it was going, and they couldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I think it will be around for 100 years. What do you think?

Anyone that knows me will know my love for my ‘97 ///M3. Once in a while, that love is put to the test …

Last night I was heading home from Silicon Valley - about an 85 mile trip. 5:45 pm… I was on 280 North, just approaching where 380 joins from the airport … It was dark …

Kaflump! Kablump blump! pssst!!!!

I was in the left lane, and *felt* something passing under the car. For a moment I thought I had hit something. Then the battery light went on. That’s bad … bad bad bad. Surrounded by rush hour cars doing 50 in the left lane.. ewww .. I wrestled the car over to the right (no power steering), and managed to stop in a nice clear spot next to a callbox. Lots of smoke (turned out to be steam) .. Towing was ~$300 (to be reimbursed …)

So what Happened????

• Water Pump exploded …
• which threw that belt off
• which got entwined with the other belt …
• which then shredded up the fan blades…
• .. and then a fan blade pierced the radiator…

In other words, a pretty impressive laundry list of damage from a chain reaction …

I’m thankful to have some track training which helped me stay calm. Feeling a car start to come unglued under you can be disconcerting :-)

Another one for Woody Allen, Bette Midler, and Carol Alt! (and me :-)

I wasn’t ready for this one. It kind of snuck up and tapped me on the shoulder. “psst!”, it said. “more age for you! a big tablespoon of it! .. here it comes!” And I dont mind. What am I gonna do? Take my birth cert back to the hospital and have them change a number?!

Nah, I really dont mind that much. I think age is more of a state of mind. It’s a “how open are you to keep learning new things?” kind of deal. The ones that shut off their mind when they get out of school bore me, and the ones that keep adapting, learning, and creating enthrall me. That’s the nutshell …

You wont generation gap me. I take pride in being on web early, and being in Second Life in the first few hundred thousand. I wont sit around and wait for developments to make their way to Readers Digest :-)

So, Age 46, let’s see whatcha got!

Farewell to Michael Schumacher, who retired from Formula One racing today after 16 seasons. I got see him race a few times: Nurburgring ‘99, Australia ‘00, and Monaco ‘00. He was the best driver of his generation, bar none. It was the combination of Michael, Ross Brawn, and Jean Todt that jelled Scuderia Ferrari. There will be gaping holes for them in 2007. Will Kimi Raikkonen be able to fill the boots of the missing Schu? He’s good …

His longtime rival, Mika Hakkinen, flew in to Brasil to see the last race. It was typical of Michael to battle back from being nearly a lap down, to finishing in 4 place. One has to wonder if he would have won, were it not for a tire puncture early on.

Speaking of Mika, I will never forget The Pass at Spa ‘00 … Simply Epic. I miss their rivalry.

I’ll refer to my fave F1 photographers at Schlegelmilch.com for shots of Michael and Ferrari. (I blame the Schlegelmilch family for getting me started on zoom blurs :-)

Not sure why it took me so long to get around to seeing Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt”. Time has not diminished it …

Very moving & effective ….

“One .. Two.. You know what to do …”

So begins “Elevator Music” off of Beck’s new album “The Information”.

One, Two, I know what to do. Back and bloggin’. I never quite left. Tuned into Second Life and dropped out of the web for while. Needed the break, now comes the balance. How to tie my newfound love into my oldfound profession?

Much of the following will not make sense if you have never spent time in Second Life …

2L Builder. 2L Scripter. I have a one-man photo exhibit. Own land. Happy in many dimensions. Lovin’ Second Life. It appeals to my creative and technical bents. Web 3D.

And there are wonderful people and flakes. Wow, just like real life. And there are great places to see, and virtual strip mall big box regurgitations of suburban fucking hell.

Most Second Life builders do what Desktop Publishers did in 1985. Prims are tortured. Textures are stretched. Real estate and virtual buildings are The Wild West - some people here and there seem to know what they are doing. The landscape of Prefabs reminds me of Gary, Indiana. I’ve seen gaps and overlaps; rooms too small and doors too tall. You want how much for that? Ya must be jokin’

And there is no sense of day. If you dont like the sun, make it midnight. There’s a menu for everything, if only you can find it in time.

So what happened in Web 2.0 while I was gone? Suppose I’ll catch up. Suppose I’ll blend these worlds somehow. The 2.0, and the Web 3D. I’ll even put up with LSL until we get Mono. Not like we have a choice on that one :-)

Yeah, I’m back. Hi there. I want a gig in the metaverse. See ya on the grid.