Turns out that there are some avid Stanley Kubrick fans at the office. Ryan has seen every movie (but one) that he’s ever directed. Dan hadn’t seen The Shining, and rented it after hearing our reviews during lunch. He’s been raving about it ever since and already knows more about it than most.

Due in March, The Stanley Kubrick Archives looks like a great book. At $200, I’m going to taking donations at work in order to buy it.

That is what the Flickr site says when they are having technical issues. Like right now, for example. And the following message on the Flickr weblog is even more fun…

“Flickr will be down for a (few) moment(s)

We’re doing some database maintenance. It will be back online within 30 minutes.

UPDATE1: Unless it takes longer, in which case it won’t be back online within 30 minutes, but rather will be back online after a longer period of time (greater number of minutes).”

Curio 2.1 is a product that I truly wish I had a need for. I sometimes teeter on the edge of being creative, and if I were to ever fall, Curio looks like it would come in quite handy.

I may be taking this simpler-is-better thing a bit too far. Earlier I looked at software development, cameras, computers and writing. Now I’ve begun evaluating my workflow and the software I use to get things done. For example, I’ve used Mutt to manage email for a very long time. It can be configured to do just about anything and there’s really nothing faster for tearing through mailing lists. Its behaviour can be tweaked to do amazingly geeky and wonderful things. Wonderful that is, only after screwing with the .muttrc file for hours getting it there. Also, I use it via SSH on the mail server. This means no inline images, attachments are a 3-step process, filing messages needs to be done based on a mental map of the server filing system. Links must be copied via clipboard to a browser since there’s no way to simply click them and have it happen automatically (without even more .muttrc tweaking). And editing messages in VIM is great, when I’m in the mood for VIM that is.

Speaking of VIM, I’ve been doing most of my code editing using GVIM on OS X. VIM rocks, no doubt about it. Like Mutt, it can be configured to perform magic using just a few keystrokes. A few barely memorized, arcane and complex keystrokes, that is. Also, as with Mutt, I’ve spent a large portion of my life futzing with the .vimrc file and various plugins and key mappings. I realized today while trying to just get some work done that too much of my brain is preoccupied with the intricacies of the development enviroment while the rest actually works on development. It doesn’t matter if the tool can sing and dance if it’s singing the wrong tune. I want to free up the parts of my brain that are too often processing and remembering configuration options and channel them into more productive things.

In my efforts to become more productive, I may have passed the point of diminishing returns. As an experiment, I’m going to dial down the complexity until essential functionality starts falling off, then stop.

While using Textpattern for this site I started work on a plugin for displaying Flickr photos. I never got past the proof of concept phase, and moved to Wordpress before having a chance to finish it. Thankfully, I don’t have to recreate it here, since this fine plugin seems to work lovely.

I’ve created a Wordpress “static” page template and tossed a call to the plugin at my new /flickr/ page

That will do just fine for now.

Last Saturday evening shortly after midnight I was mindlessly browsing around when I ran across the Kubrick template for Wordpress. I liked it so much I decided to use it for my own little ‘blog. At the same time I figured I’d update Wordpress to the latest nightly build. 3 hours later I was realizing what a terrifically bad idea that was. Repeat after me: never, ever change more than one thing at a time! Anyhoo, I ended up finally getting everything working and all was well. Just one more little tweak and… wait a minute!… the default Wordpress template looks suspiciously like the one I’d just spent all night working on. Then, a few minutes later, I read this on the Presentation page of the Wordpress admin:

“The default WordPress theme based on the famous Kubrick.”

Great, not only did I just waste an entire evening farting around with a template that I already had, but over the next few weeks everyone’s weblog is going to look exactly like mine. Time to focus on that blue bit up there I suppose.

Apparently, the 7 people on the planet who care deeply about podcasting are complaining that the iPod Shuffle isn’t suited for it. Good lord. Who cares? There are two reasons for not caring. First, podcasting is silly. Have you ever actually listened to a podcast? They’re almost universally useless, mainly because podcasters only talk about podcasting. That’s a very boring closed-loop-incest-fest if you ask me. And second, Apple makes plenty of iPods that are useful for listening to podcasts. Buy one of those instead.

Who said that every device Apple makes has to confirm to every niche usage pattern? No one, that’s who.

A favorite quote by someone I’ve forgotten is “Do not mistake complexity for sophistication.” This continues to be good advice. I’ve been tricked into complexity many times. It sneaks its way into everything–software, consumer devices, even the written word. I’m going to get rid of it in as many places as I can.

Software - I develop a boatload of minor, and some not so minor, web applications. The urge is always there to put in a ton of cool features that absolutely nobody is going to want or use. From now on I’m living by the You ain’t gonna need it principle: “Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them.” Now, how to get clients to think like that?

Cameras - I have two cameras. (That’s not entirely true, but for the sake of argument…) One is a Leica M6 TTL and the other is a Canon 20D. Both are awesome, but I seem to grab the Leica first. There are really only 3 things that need changing on a camera: Aperture, shutter speed and focus. Most of these are automatic on the Canon, but when something needs changing it’s a much more complex operation involving menus and LCD readouts and such. On the other hand, the Leica has only 3 main controls. Guess what they do.

Apple - It seems that Apple is thinking along the same lines. The new Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle are about as simple as devices of their types get. I don’t think the appeal of these new offerings is completely about price. I want one of each, even though I currently use each of their more complex siblings.

Writing - I just can’t seem to stop tossing in unnecessary words and run-on sentences. Still working on that. For now you’ll just need to wade through it all on the off chance there’s something useful buried somewhere.

For those of you not reading this via RSS, sorry for mixing up the design again. I wanted to test some of the new Wordpress 1.3 theme features and ran into this particular template and thought I’d see how it felt. All I’ll need is a fancy image up top there and I think I’ll keep it.

Not totally happy with my productivity lately, I found this post from the always useful 43Folders interesting…

“Because, you know: you can’t just turn it on and instantly be the thing you wish you were. It takes reflection, thought, iteration, and a personal commitment to facing the stuff at which you suck. And we all suck at something. You totally suck at something, and it secretly drives you nuts every goddamned day.”