When you have a Tivo, and that Tivo is connected to the internet, and through that internet connection you can download music videos, and so you have Thriller on your Tivo; and you also hanging out on the internet, chatting on IRC; it can lead to doing silly, silly things.

Like this:

[23:35] <Morydd> OMG Michael Jackson is a Werewolf!
[23:36] <Morydd> he just punched a tree in half
[23:36] <Morydd> whew... it was just a movie.
[23:39] <Morydd> And now my wife is quoting along with Vincent Price.
[23:41] <Morydd> OMG! Now Michael Jackson is a Zombie!
[23:43] <Morydd> Don't go in there!
[23:44] <Morydd> It was all a dream.
[23:44] <Morydd> Or was it?

Don't let this happen to your children. Seriously.

In the cemetery where Aiden is buried is the grave of James Pulley, "A black man who died of typhoid while passing through Benton County in the 1920's". He was 27 years old.

The story I've been told is that James Pulley was passing through and was injured in an accident, which weakened him so that he did not survive the typhoid. It would have been unusual at the time for any black person, let alone a person passing through with no family in the area, would be buried in the community cemetery. When he was buried, a simple wooden grave marker was erected. For years after, that wooden marker was regular repainted and maintained by someone who remained anonymous. eventually, the wooden marker was replaced with this stone one.

This is not official Habari policy, nor is it a final, polished document. more it serves to get some ideas outside of my head.

How do we build Habari?

The goal of Habari is to build a web log publishing application that a web architect and her mother can both love. This means that every decision we make should be geared towards achieving this vision.
Let's break this statement down into its component parts. First, we define what Habari is. The core of the project is about publishing a set of posts for others to view. Traditionally, these posts are text, and are displayed chronologically. Next we look at who it is geared at. We are, of course, generalizing here in assuming that our web architect and their mother have significantly different desires and expectations in terms of what they're looking for in a web application. We're also making an assumption regarding their levels of experience with software. Finally, we look at how we define their integration with Habari. We want them to love Habari.

To achieve this, we must keep ourselves focused on making sure that Habari satisfies these requirements. Each action we take should be filtered through the idea: "How will this make web publishing better for both of our imaginary users?" To accomplish this, we need an idea of who those users are. Let's meet them.

Heather Habari is a 28 year old web architect at a mid-sized company. She is active in a few local organizations and is an avid photographer and reader of novels. She is also a privacy advocate and does some coding on Open Source projects in her spare time. She wants to set up a personal blog for friends and family to read, as well as a site about doing volunteer programming for non-profit groups.

Her mother, Henrietta Habari, is recently retired and is, like her daughter, active in several local groups. She has recently begun compiling a history of her family and spends quite a bit of time in her garden. She's asked for Heather's help in setting up an online newsletter for her garden club as well as a site to chronical some of the more interesting stories she's unearthed while researching the family tree.

Now that we know a bit about Heather and Henrietta, we can frame our decisions in terms of "Will this make Heather and Henrietta love Habari more?" if the answer is "No" then we know to look for another course of action. We can describe new features in terms of how they benefit Heather and Henrietta. We want an interface simple enough to use that Henrietta doesn't feel that she needs to go buy "Habari for Dummies" to use it. We want her to be able to sit down at her computer, write a story about Great Uncle Harvey, attach a picture and publish it. We want her to be able to give the new treasurer of the Garden Club access to write an update on the annual fund-raiser. We want Heather to be able to use Habari as a home base for her various on-line activities. We want her, with a minimum number of clicks to be able to tell her friends about a great song she heard with a link to the album on last.fm, or to post the video she took with her phone of karaoke night. We want her to know that when she makes a post about having trouble sleeping, only the people she approves will be able to read it, and it won't become a honeypot for sleeping pill spam. We want her to know that her programming blog will ping Technorati, but won't be sending copies of every comment left on the site to the anti-spam server. Or if it does, it's because she specifically approved it.

This is just a start to how we can use a focus on the user experience to guide the development of Habari. And each member of the Community will have a slightly different version of Heather and Henrietta in their mind. We will each have a slightly different view of a novice user's wants and needs and those of an expert user. This diversity will help insure that all levels of users across the entire spectrum of the Community are represented. While this myriad of opinions will, inevitably lead to some disagreement as to the best solution for some issues, they will insure that the code and the community remain vibrant. And by focusing on our users (real and imaginary) we can keep the debate at the level of determining what's best for the Community and avoid divisive arguments. By using Heather and Henrietta as our guides, we can build a web publishing app and a community that they (and the rest of us) can really love.

Looks like the emergency fund may come in handy in the very near future. Last night, the apartment was seemingly hit by lighting and my abundance of electronics has suffered. By my first check, we lost the living room TV, the bedroom Tivo, both wireless routers, the network switch, and the DVD recorder. I'll also need to replace all the surge protectors, and put some sort of surge protection on the network and the cable (I think that's where the spike came in.) The landlord will probably have to replace the stove, and the cable modem may or may not be dead. Whee!

The people in the downstairs apartment said they lost their cable boxes and cable modem.

Although the renter's insurance is supposed to cover replacement value, I recall from when my bike was stolen, you don't get to just give them a list and the cut you a check minus the deductable, but they cut you a check for the current value minus deductable and then you have to submit reciepts to get the rest of the money back. Bleah.

We found out yesterday that my great-aunt Caroline had passed away. In February, she had a major stroke, and recently came down with an upper respiratory infection which she was unable to fight off. Since she lived most of my life in Florida, I didn't get to know her until recently, however she was a major part of my mother's life.

I will remember her as being fun to talk to, appreciative of a joke, and positive in all things. I'll also remember her quilling projects which are beautiful. Taking a bit of paper and, through painstaking effort, turning it into a work of art requires great patience.

We will miss Aunt Caroline, and our thoughts and prayers are with her sister (my grandmother), her husband Fred, my mom, and the rest of the family. This is a tough loss for us.

... and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. Senate Oath of Office

I've been doing some research for an idea I had, and I came across this page that list US Senators, in order of the percentage of votes that they have missed. Interestingly, the top of the list consists of McCain, Obama, Clinton and Tim Johnson (who was recovering from a brain hemmorage). I don't know about the rest of you, but if I skipped out on 33% of my job, I'd be fired, and fast. (Let alone 43% or 62%.) Seriously, these people are asking for a promotion when they aren't doing the job they were hired for. And we wonder why this system is broken.

In other news, as far as the "Change we can believe in"... Obama as voted along party lines 96% of the time this session of congress. Which means that the senator who is supposed to be representing me has either not voted, or rubber-stamped his party's position almost 600 times. When are we going to actually get some candidates worth voting for?

As with my Top 10 Movies, this list is not a list of the "best" books I've ever read, but the books that have had the most significant impact on my life. I'm not going to bother attempting to put them in any particular order. So, without further ado, here is the next entry for my 101 in 1001 goals.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
There is so much going on this book. It's is simultaneously a commentary on the power of youth, the horrors of war and the strength of will. As with most of Card's work, there are no traditional heroes or villains. Characters have complex motivations, and are overwhelmed by the situations around them. This book is as moving now after dozens of reads as it was the first time I read it. Honorable Mention: Ender's Shadow- the same story from another character's point of view.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
You'll notice that several books on this list are "children's" books. That's because these are the books that made me love reading as much as I do. Mike and Mary Anne are a great team, and as it becomes more difficult for them to keep up with the newer shovels, they must go further afield to find work. Eventually they agree to dig a foundation in a single day. At the end of the day they are successful, but they went so fast they forgot to leave a way out of the hole. However a great solution is reached that allows Mike and Mary Anne to stay together and useful for many years to come. Like John Henry but with the man and the machine on the same side, and a happy ending. Honorable Mention: The Little Engine That Could- I think I can, I think I can.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
A story of celebrity, music, love, status the choices people make in life to reach their goals. A plot line that doesn't deserve to be more than a pulp one-read book is made beautiful by Rushdie's prose. In the hands of anyone else, this story could seem silly instead, it is one that can be read again and again. Honorable Mention: The Satanic Verses- Surprisingly little to do with Satan at all..

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
A giant tome spanning 50 years, and three interwoven stories. It's got action, science, treasure, mystery and love. Characters you simultaneously wish you were and are glad you aren't. Stephenson manages to make a cryptologist into an action figure and a gung-ho US Marine into a brilliant strategist at the same time. Honorable Mention: The Baroque Cycle- 3000 pages of awesome. With pirates.

The Story of Light by Ben Bova
If all science books were written like this, school would've been a lot more interesting. It covers both how light itself behaves and the effect light has on the world around us. The writing style is easy to read, and the information is related to everyday concepts that make it easy to grasp. Honorable Mention: Chasing the Rising Sun- More non-fiction written as engagingly as any fiction.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
This book was one of my earliest introductions to the world of both Sci-Fi and full-length novels. Some of the ideas were a bit shocking to my fairly sheltered Jr. High-aged self, but the depth of the world created was what kept me coming back for more. I still seek out Heinlein's works and spend most of my time in the Science Fiction sections of libraries and book stores. Honorable Mention: Farnham's Freehold My very first Heinlein. Not his best work, but a real eye-opener.

Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like by Jay Williams
Even without the simply amazingly beautiful illustrations by Mercer Mayer, this book has much to teach. It shows us that judging a person by their appearence is not wise, that the wise men frequently aren't and that sometimes a child can see the truth better than any adult. And sometimes a simple act of kindness can save an entire town. Honorable Mention: Terrible Troll- Sometimes you get to be the hero.

And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss
How can you not love this book? It's a wild ride through the imagination. Making the truth more exciting is always a temptation, and the process of embellishing the truth requires great strength of character if you ask me. Marco's desire to come home with an interesting story makes for a great story for the rest of us. Honorable Mention: The Cat in The Hat- maybe the first book I ever read all by myself.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
Anyone who doesn't want to be Atticus Finch when they grow up, at least a little bit, has something wrong with them. You'll notice that there aren't many "classics" on this list. Mostly, that's because they're not that great. I didn't read this until I bought a copy for my father that he already had, so I kept it to read myself. The simple faith in the overall goodness of people and the strength required to bring that out of some people is uplifting and sobering at the same time. Honorable Mention: I can't think of another "classic" that comes close

The Boy Scout Fieldbook
Despite my first exposure to this book being my father's copy that his brother had decorated with extra references to latrines, this book is somewhat fundamental to the idea that you should know how to do things for yourself. Basic knots, cooking, sewing, and a little of everything else makes you a well rounded person. Collecting that information into an easy to use reference is indispensable. I haven't been a Boy Scout for a long time, but I still use this book regularly. Honorable Mention: The Backstage Handbook- just in case you need to fly a case of beer.

And finally, the one book that has kicked my ass, over and over again:
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
Seriously, I've tried to get through this book 3 or four times. I've yet to succeed. It's interesting enough and important enough that I really really want to finish it, but my brain gets full before I can.