Back in the olden days before Google, the powers that be had an idea. It was a way to help automated search and classification with metadata; if the content was about literature, then a keyword “literature” was to be helpfully placed into the HTML source. A librarian’s dream, it was a good idea, and like so many good ideas, ended up being exploited mercilessly for fun and profit.

Here’s an example: At some point in 1997 I was searching Altavista for some information on Karlheinz Stockhausen and turned up a result page which proved to be completely devoid of content; as blank as Beginner’s Mind. Looking into the source, however, I found a goodly number of keywords, which seemed to fool the search engine into thinking this page to contain the Secrets of Sirius. I copied the keywords out to a file and saved it for posterity, thinking it would make some right proper performance poetry.

Each line of the keywords follows a form of sorts. The first word is random, and the remaining four are something related to what was then (and now) the only thing online that really brought in the cash. Here’s a sample — note the classy use of pogrom.

This runs for 19 pages. If you’d like to take a gander for your upcoming naughty poetry slam, here’s the complete set of keywords.

Coming into the kitchen to find that I’d again forgotten to put the coffee pot under the coffee maker, the first thing that popped into my head was “from Hell’s Heart I brew at thee!” I don’t know if one can brew at someone, but I’m willing to try, given the chance.

At work we’re initiating Operation Dessert Storm, which will make me a busy bee during coding hours for the next few months. The wide variety of activity is a definite plus of this job. I might turn into a businessman after all, in spite of myself.

V is tempting me to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it’s taking all my willpower to not give in and rip into it right now. I must however be strong, as I have a number of other obligations to attend to before losing myself in yet another 800 page book. O brevia tempora!

If I ever see a coupon again, it’ll be too soon.

Mozart’s Requiem isn’t the best choice for a pick-me-up tune.

I’ve had a diabolical tickle in the back of my throat for about six hours now.

Finished System of the World. It was fantastic; page 581 will always be near and dear to my heart.

In a exemplar quality contrary-to-fact error, my mail host completely and utterly failed this morning, claiming I was over quota when to all appearances I was hovering at around 70%. Six hours later it’s still not working and I’ve routed everything to my gmail account. If you’ve tried to send me something in the past 12 hours, chances are it didn’t reach me.

Dealing with this on top of various other error-related issues has seriously depleted my gumption reserves.

In between gorging feasts of System of the World, I’m cleansing my palette with a chapter or two of Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. For a book on design, the layout is most displeasing to me. Anything resembling an anecdote or story is set in italics. There are quite a bit of anecdotes, so the net result is huge swaths of italicked text interspersed with huge swathes of normal text, resembling essays on usability and design by William Faulkner (such as the classic As I Lay My Controls Out As Natural Mappings).

I’m working on the PowerBook for the duration of the repairs, and the studio is eerily quiet without Hrothgar’s constant hum.

I drove the PowerMac to the repair shop this morning, a place in every way the opposite of the Apple Store, dark and cavernous, overflowing with an uncountable number of Macs. Instead of a homogeneous display of the latest-and-greatest, practically everything Apple ever constructed, ranging back a decade, was represented. I love going to the Apple Store; it never fails to instill in me a longing for what the future holds. Yet today I left my machine in a place that seems to recognize and honor the past as well.

As much as I like the machine, I resent the amount of time I’ve spent tending it as I wistfully think of other applications of that time. When does the maintenance of a tool outweigh its usefulness?

Hrothgar finally developed a verifiable hardware error, so I’ve backed him up and am taking him in tomorrow. He’s crashing far far too often, and even though I’ve delved into crash logs, I couldn’t seem to find a common software-related thread that was responsible. I love me my Macs, but this one is more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.

Varia has been on a Bands From Sweden kick lately. I hadn’t really given thought to bands from Sweden, and now I realize my mistake. This past week I haven’t been able to get enough of Last Days of April’s album Ascent to the Stars; they join Metric alongside my favorite finds in rock from the second half of the year.

If one were to chart my coffee consumption as a graph, it would look roughly sinusoidal, with the nadir being at one cup daily and the zenith at around eight.

I’ve peaked and am quickly turning into Mister Coffee Nerves, so it’s high time I start my slide down to tolerable levels. While the element of physical addiction is certainly present, it’s more of a psychological one; there’s something ultimately comfortable about having a cup close to hand.

Tinderbox 2.3 is out. Lots of little polishes, and I’m certain a few more substantial features lurking; I haven’t had much time to poke around as of yet. My pet bug, which prevented putting an object back in the same place after being picked up (reminiscent of that guy in Junior High chess club) was fixed, so all that’s left for me to do is pray for better language support so I can type in Greek.

My wound from the kitchen unpleasantness has finally closed up, leaving behind a modest scar. It seems to ache at strange times; perhaps it will turn out to be one of those “lucky scars” that warns of impending gorilla stampedes or something similar.

There’s some sort of trilogy out on DVD today, or so I heard. Something about some guy shooting before some other guy. Frankly, I can’t be bothered, because The System of the World was released today.

Immersive programming day. I can’t really remember anything that happened after eight this morning. Apparently I missed the doorbell, judging from the UPS note stickied to the front door. I almost set the kitchen on fire by setting some water on the boil and then completely forgetting about it; I was alerted when the pot ran out of water and started to burn.

While it lasts it’s an endless moment; the strands of complexity are clear, and I weave code faster and truer than I could ever hope to do consciously. If I could only manage to do this at whim — so far the only thing I’ve been able to pick up on is that my mental and physical state has to be set just so before I start. Ducks aligned, end goal identified, distractions set aside.

Film is the one area where my tastes are as close to popular as they get. I was raised on B movies, comedies and action blockbusters; if I laugh or buildings get blown up, it’s a winner. Over the years, my gross and gore factor has been toned down a lot, by virtue of maturity. Eventually this process will conclude and I’ll end up like my grandfather, who watches only romantic comedies or anything with Harrison Ford (excepting Blade Runner).

I’ve made attempts (and have had attempts made on my behalf) to raise the film bar, but it’s met with limited success. I feel that one of the reasons I’m so hesitant is that the few films which get through to me do so with such ferocity. I saw Salo seven years ago, and it is still etched in my mind. It’s not the that films are bad (far from it), it’s that I myself don’t have the ability to filter; I don’t know if I have the fortitude to handle another Salo.

This has led to something of a film neurosis on my part. When I become rich, I’ll see a therapist and cure myself, but in the meantime, I will continue to see “my kind” of films, with occasional forays into the frightening world of “art movies.” I finally watched that copy of The Seven Samurai I bought last year. I don’t have a problem. Really.

I digress. Yesterday, we wandered through the rain to catch a showing of Mamoru Oshii’s newest, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. This was being played in the art cinema close to us, which instantly set my warning systems on alert. “These people frown upon your movies. They are better than you.” the place seemed to whisper ominously as I passed posters for The Brown Bunny and Orange County. I dove into the theater to find myself surrounded by anime fanfolk; strangers here too. My fears were placated somewhat. I enjoyed a stark remix of Tom Wait’s Filipino Box Spring Hog while the movie waited to start (I’ll give the art cinema the better music).

What I like about certain Japanese films (in particular Oshii’s) is that they can bring into play more “serious” themes without triggering my phobia. This film was about the concept of dolls and our relation with them, and as the gun-toting cyborgs ran interference I found myself having a great time. The animation was superb, and was used in a way that furthered the story rather than just as a technical “look what we can do.” The more surreal the story, the more photorealistic the images, until they managed to bust through realism into something else entirely.

Pouring here; has been for hours. Residual effects of hurricane Ivan, I’d imagine. I’m wrapped up in a six year old grey fleece, long since deprived of its logo, nursing the day’s first cup of coffee from an exquisite midnight blue diner mug. It’s a morning made for retrospection, and the calendar agrees.

Two years: you can tell from the strata. The CSS tags in the source HTML point to its origins as Movable Type site. Strange pockets in the code which didn’t make the transition to Tinderbox as smoothly as the rest. Bits erased, bits bolted on. Some of this will naturally fade away, replaced by new layers, and some will persist. Analysis of the content would no doubt say similar things about the nature of the author.

Looking back, on this rainy morning, it seems that this place was started by a different person and I’ve somehow ended up with control of the place. But really it’s gone on a journey, and so have I, and in the end we end up looking pretty much the same as we ever did, with a bit more content.

Lots of stores have buyer cards which offer cardholder some sort of reward for frequent shopping. You know the thing — buy $100 worth of stuff and get $10 off your next purchase. But how many stores require that a shopper sign up for a card in order to buy anything? Howdy there, passing through on your way to Kansas and want to buy some sandwiches? Well, you’d better sign up for one of these here cards, or I can’t ring you up. Company policy, sir.

If you lived in the days where buying a $1.99 cable with cash required filling out a form with your full name, address and phone number at Radio Shack, you remember how frustrating this was. The rest can imagine.

Yet this is the way of most online stores. Registration is not a perk of any kind, it’s mandatory, and it generally provides no benefits for the shopper. Why do we as developers persist in doing this? It’s not a insurmountable technical problem; many shopping systems (mine included) don’t require registration.

Shopping online, just like shopping in the real world, should not be a hassle. This is not a difficult concept. People will be much more likely to return to you if they have a good experience, not because they registered for your site. If you’re so sold on the concept of registration, take some time to explain to your consumers why it’s such a big deal, and make sure they get something out if while providing your business with demographic data.

I am noticeably less edgy after changing the dominant color of my background from red to blue. I wonder if a study has been done on the behavioral effects of computer wallpaper.

Speaking of Blues, I’m nearing the halfway point of Circus Factions, and so far I’ve got a pretty good idea of what circus factions aren’t, and a very vague notion of what they probably were. The information itself isn’t so difficult to process; it’s that the the book is the latest installment in a centuries old discussion, and I’ve missed out on the other bits. It’s a scholastic blockbuster: no exposition, all academic action. I can imagine that if I were at Star Wars fan club meeting and had to listen to people deconstruct the political ramifications of the rebel defense of Endor without ever having seen the films, I’d feel the same way.

I voted yesterday. Disconcerting was the fact that while they asked for my name and address, they did not ask for any sort of identification verifying my identity. I really don’t think this is a good idea, given that the seat I was voting for was decided by a little over one hundred votes.

The About Page was updated last night — I added a few things here and there and removed a few embarrassing typographical errors which no doubt have already destroyed my chances of being selected as a Reader at Oxford. O, cruelest fate!