I feel like a freaking idiot...

I have been waiting for more than an hour for an important call, an over the telephone job interview. I was all prepared, with software already loaded on computers, reference materials handy and plenty of caffiene. But no joy: The phone never rings. Did they forget? Did something else come up? Did they have the wrong number?

Finally I checked the telephone. The power cord was pulled out just enough that it wasn't working.

Crap!

Kathryn Cramer is reporting that SF writer Hal Clement has died.

As has been noted elsewhere, Microsoft has released the C# 2.0 draft specification. (Joey deVilla did an HTML version.)

I found this months ago, but somehow forgot to blog it: In part IV of 'A Conversation with Bruce Eckel', Bruce talks with Bill Venners about the way the Python language itself acts as a kind of 'tipping point' for programmer productivity.

Also don't miss parts I, II and III.

YAML (aka YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human readable format for serializing and storing data. There is even an HTTP transport RPC mechanism (similar to XML-RPC) defined for YAML called OkayRpcProtocol.

I seriously think this is something which could change the Internet drastically 1. I also think it is something the 'powers that be' 2 will be very concerned about if it does gain critical mass.

1 I suspect this change will accellerate the 'Balkinization' of the Internet as users start creating private zones of the like-minded. Among other things of course.

Kathryn Cramer is raising her kids right .

Some friends came down from Bellingham and stopped by last night. The purpose of their trip was to go to a coffee 'cupping' at the home of another friend of theirs (and acquaintance of mine). And then today they are attending the Seattle Coffee Fest. All very Pacific Northwest, don't you know...

The Open Mobile Alliance has been plugging away for several years now, generating documents describing the architecture and standards for wireless applications for small devices (WAP). Thousands of man hours that are mostly going to waste because, well, WAP is dead just as soon as the next generation of cell-phone/PDA hybrids becomes the standard and there is no longer a reason not to use good old

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!!! Shit, schist, caca, merde!!!

Sorry about the language there, but I am really pissed off right now. Partly at myself, I should have backed everything up before I started. I know that. But mostly I am pissed at Microsoft...

Anita is home and today is feeling well enough to answer email and post to her weblog. Still no word on the biopsy results, but I will take my rays of sunshine where I can get them. And today we have sunshine, after several straight days of rain. Including yesterday, which broke records. For Seattle. For rain in Seattle...

1001 Fonts has easily more than an thousand and one fonts available, well categorized, rated and searchable. The site UI is well-designed (except the front page) and makes it easy to select the fonts you want. Most of the fonts available for download are freeware and the license terms are described for each font.

Useful as hell when you want that special font. But cool to just browse on a rainy day as well...

I just got home after 28 hours at the hospital with Anita. A friend is staying with her for a few hours whilst I catch a quick shower and head back.

The surgery went fine. The oncologist/surgeon performed a full hysterectomy and the tumors were evaluated by a pathologist who determined that they were malignant; however there was no sign of spread. The cancer seemed very localized and the oncologist is currently staging it as a 1b or 1c.

This is a hard entry for me. There are some bad things happening for my wife and myself right now; have been for more than a week in fact. I have held off on posting about them because, well, it has been more Anita's problem than my own and she should decide when and how much to say.

Thanks to Dan Sanderson at Brainlog for this link to Stanford University's "How Everyday Things Are Made".