Chris Wetherell Since October 5, 2000
Massless

Archive

2002

92 posts

January

  1. We had to liberate the whiteboards.

    The Origins of The W.L.F Recently, Bred Crumbs and I returned to work and discovered that our whiteboards hadn't yet been moved to our new cubicles. We write stuff on these boards…

  2. Calendar scripts in ASP, PHP. View server-side source script in ASP. Croupier. Wit. Pretty Girls Make Graves, and boy do they ever.

    Some script updates Ivar from Norway asked if he could borrow or look at the script which makes my post calendar. No problem at all! And for anyone else who would like it...here it…

  3. Calendar bugfix, or, Why Massless Can't Add.

    My normally crappy code overflowed the toilet bowl recently. A math issue. If I have any flaw as a programmer (and there are admittedly few...in fact my only flaw, really, is that…

  4. The tiny broken waltz is ascendant. And for no reason, two XSLT links.

    XSLT examples Vertana, a consulting company, is providing some useful XSLT examples . Among them, XSLT stylesheets that implement most of the string manipulation functions of…

  5. Mom and The Smoking Man.

    Mom, this one's for you. This is my mother, Mary. My sister and I have shortened her name to just, "Mom." Easier. A palindrome, too, so it's nice and nerdy. That is Mom. whom I…

  6. View Source in Mozilla, Existential athletic team names, and I whine about my good fortune. Someone, please slap me.

    A post in the Mozillazine talkback claims that View Source in Mozilla 0.9.8 displays code from pages on the network and not from pages in the cache. That would explain why it's…

  7. Joel and I might be the same person, Kenneth Lay and (gulp) masturbation, and some serious ass-kissing to Ernie.

    I think... I'll need proof going forward that Joel Spoelsky and I are not the same person. Go have fun reading his latest article , Rub a Dub Dub , where Joel describes the…

  8. Moving Multiple Items From One List Box To Another List Box (Without Using a List Box) for HTML and Javascript

    Another CSS / Javascript experiment While developing for a web application at work, I was asked to design a selector of the kind that exists commonly in native applications. One…

February

  1. A winter's truth.

    It's the dead of winter. Or what passes for winter in California, at least. Throughout every winter life here generally becomes stark and a bit colorless and, so, each year I am…

  2. The pop menagerie: The view from my cage.

    The pop menagerie: The view from my cage. Easily embarrassed by the recent attention I've been getting, I would like to redirect some to other deserving local (SF / Bay Area, USA)…

  3. Sad one-liner.

    Depression is cancer of the personality.

  4. Improvements in tabular data experiment.

    Finally have posted some improvements in my tabular data display experiment. See it in action . I've mainly strengthened support for IE 6, Netscape 6.2 and Mozilla 0.9.8. The best…

  5. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Ding."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Sunday. We're going to play with Guided by Voices, Preston School of Industry and Visqueen next Sunday. Their popularity leaks to…

  6. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Pleading the fifth."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Monday. We're all starting to get a little nervous about Sunday. At rehearsal. New space. We tack up rugs, mats, anything to…

  7. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Siren song."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Tuesday. The conversation season . It starts today. Where people In The Biz begin an assessment. Where you are. Where you're…

  8. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Vinyl and neon."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Wednesday. After several months of waiting, arranging to get tickets, and scheduling my time carefully...I finally get the chance…

March

  1. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Captains of the Build."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Saturday. Big Star are, apparently, Big Stars. But, more on that later... The Fillmore has a decades-old history. Which is to…

  2. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "The Invisible Man."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. Thursday and Friday. Work. Duty. My personal space. The long-lasting conflict between. I stayed home on Thursday and Friday…

  3. The life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Underdogs and Quarterbacks."

    the life of a modern musician: a week of noisepop. "Aren't you guys supposed to be, y'know, on right now ?" I took some pictures of our night with Guided By Voices. The show was a…

  4. PBS, J'accuse!

    Saw Egg: The Arts Show recently. Caught an interview with the balding, grim faced man who portrays/channels the nightclub crooner Glyn Styler (I'm paraphrasing here): "It's like…

  5. Couldn't resist...took bait...musing about music downloads, Disney, and analogies of file-swapping.

    The Gas Is Still In The Pump I think analogy-making is a difficult enterprise. Especially regarding computers, software, or the Internet. The fight over the destiny of copyright…

  6. A new photo series. 80s supermodels are in danger!

    Update: I just added two more pictures this Monday. #11 and #12 . Many of you may not realize the amazing work being done by a local Bay Area T.V. station called UPN 44…

April

  1. The Truth Behind CSS

    The Truth Behind CSS : Ugh. This kind of thing chaps my hide. I think Eric should hijack the domain name. .INFO, my monkey butt. More like .FUD. What kind of jerk does this?…

  2. I will be marrying my friends this summer.

    Speechless. My friends asked me to marry them. That is, to be the officiator at their ceremony. "You can do that?" In California, at least. Specifically, in Oakland, one petitions…

  3. The number of programmers groking weblogs seems to be increasing at an arithmetic rate.

    [Interjecting: I'm in L.A. on Monday, April 15th for an all ages show with Dealership @ Fais Do Do. My life in asynchronicity: I'm offline just after receiving some nice emails…

  4. Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1 is released.

    Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1 is released.

  5. La California. The cult of the Other.

    La California. " Cali-for-nia. Knows how to par-ty. " Recurring song fragment I hear while walking to get my focaccia-bread-pesto-chicken sandwich. Or when I'm watching Bollywood…

  6. Samantha's Dilemma

    Massless: Samantha's Dilemma .

  7. Watching Bugzilla.

    I've been fascinated by the development of Mozilla , the open-source, start-from-scratch, Netscape-redux browser. It's recently become my primary surfing and development browser…

May

  1. Yowza.

    I can totally hear my neighbor having sex right now. So I'm running an experiment as to what kind of music would best benefit from such -uh- vigorous accompaniment. I recommend…

  2. My favorite Mozilla skin, to date: Pinball.

    Pinball is a nice Mozilla skin. I'm using it full time. When using Mozilla 1.0 RC1 while in Windows 2000 it seems the available browser screen height is the same as IE 5 and 6 in…

  3. Avoiding Your Teeth

    Massless: Avoiding Your Teeth

  4. Mozilla 1.0 RC 2 released

    Mozilla 1.0 RC 2 released .

  5. The Dealership / Slayer connection.

    Their names are Guy and Chris . Guy used to be in a serious metal outfit called Epidemic. He's our recording engineer. Chris is in Los Bastardos and used to be the drum tech for…

  6. My heart bleeds for you.

    Ram, who I've written about before * and who has a bitterly dry wit, is still in top form. Houman: (pats back) Hey, Ram! Long time, no see. Ram: My heart bleeds for you. *Scroll…

  7. As an engineer, the Creator kind of missed the boat.

    It's silly, but this whole death thing shocks me. What kind of Creator...? How shortsighted. What a lack of creativity. No failover? No method for storing, preserving, or…

  8. Mozilla RC3 released

    I gotta think about something else... Ok, this'll do: Mozilla RC3 released . Last one before 1.0... A nice young man asked me if Dealership would be willing to play the Mozilla 1.0…

  9. Another revolution: Mine. Packaged as a whiskey and soda.

    Massless (est. 05/30/70) Striving today to be better than my limbic reptilian brain. *checks* Damn. Failing. :) My "since" of the world is a bit twisted today. As in: "I don't feel…

June

  1. Join the dark side. Go see The Vanishing.

    Feeling moody, dark, in the mood for nihilistic destruction ... and yet ready to dance the night away? If you're not doing anything tonight...you should go see The Vanishing at…

  2. Just a link to Paul Graham's excellent post on the power of succinctness in programming languages.

    Paul Graham: Succinctness is power . (Found via lemonodor .) What a fun read. His hypothesis is that succinctness of elements is one of the primary values of a high-level…

  3. A Short Note Regarding Video Games

    A Short Note Regarding Video Games Sometimes the boss at the end of a video game represents Death, or at least Change which is in a way the death of self, and sometimes the boss'…

  4. Sir Real.

    I'm not really a Man of Few Words. I just play one on the internet. Some commands: Regroup. Rethink. Restart. Recharge. Regroup again, or Re-re-group, restated. Regrep. J_ thinks…

  5. Is Dealership Unbreakable?

    sdfh sdhfos vnfis. I am too busy for comprehension. And I've listened to the new Dealership songs over 30 times each. Familiarity breeds respect as well. This time has been…

  6. It was a dork and stormy night - Pictures of the Mozilla 1.0 Party.

    Massless as LiveJournal : I not only use Mozilla 1.0 as my primary browser, but additionally as my excuse to be social. Which is to say that I went to the Mozilla 1.0 Release Party…

  7. Kottke vs. Mozilla: Some minor pushback.

    Kottke says: "Mozilla is a toy built by developers for developers..." An understandable point of view given knowledge of how Mozilla was created. I have some small pushback…

  8. The police visit my apartment as my web activities mark me as a illicit drug maker (sort of)

    The police just paid me a kind visit. They looked at me and kind of laughed. They said someone had called them to report suspected pot-growing activity. Um, here? Yes, in my…

July

  1. Links to: Weeki Wachee - the movie, Perl Culture Considered Harmful, Who's Faster: OS9 or X?

    I am a hill of work. The downturn surprises me. One project down. The new version of the massive supply chain B2B app I've been working on has been released. I can breathe again…

  2. Previvalists.

    Previval n. A artistic movement redux, that is, like, happening way too early. Like, if you're just now starting a band with a 90s Northwest/Seattle-Hype/Anything-But-Compromise…

  3. We build fortresses, not castles in clouds.

    My lips are bloody From kissing the balustrade of the fortress that dreamed me. Building songs and building software. There are so many connection points. Build! Build! Build!…

  4. Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design and others from Usability News

    The new issue of Usability News (Department of Psychology, Wichita State University) has some great articles, and, hey, they do research and conduct tests under controlled…

  5. Sure I'm late, but...

    Tardiness is the privilege of genius.

August

  1. A dream of dollars.

    Did I dream a real thing? Last night I dreamt of a concept I was calling price gating which described the automatic raising or lowering or price of an item in conjuction with the…

  2. The Rich Miss Opportunities, Too. And everyone's calling me "Reverend."

    The Rich Miss Opportunities, Too. At the market today I glimpsed a woman with hair like Billie Jean King and a voice like ruthless logic. We would have gotten married but the sun…

  3. Sports: They bring people together.

    Like many modern development houses, we have outsourcing teams in India. Two contractors are visiting. THE BOSS: So....how's India's cricket team looking this year? THE INDIANS…

  4. Wherein I Prove My Executive Mettle

    Wherein I Prove My Executive Mettle : Notes from my Palm Pilot -re early Sept.: Ask VP "If we're killed by terrorists, do we have to meet deadline?" -stabbing motions and gestures…

  5. Bug fixes means more Massless.

    Re: work. Yes! I fixed all of my bugs. They've been verified by QA. I'm about to update my posting rate here.

  6. UPDATED: Mozilla 1.1 users can ALMOST use the Bold, Italic, and Link options for text editing areas that have popping up everywhere. There's still an outstanding bug.

    Sadly, the Mozilla and IE HTML text editor hits the wall when there are more than a few lines. Like, say, two full paragraphs. Thanks to Leonard for having noticed the issue. He…

  7. What's more important in Mozilla as far as usability? Integrated Flash plug-in installation or a non-valdiating HTML error indicator?

    You, Dear Reader, have little interest in the goings-on of Mozilla contributors. But, as I've said before, I'm fascinated by the stuff. F'r instance: Two smart guys (whose sites I…

  8. Yet another online Musee Mechanique photo gallery.

    For a few more days San Francisco's wonderful Musee Mechanique remains nestled to the Pacific on a nub of rock near the Cliff House. In Sept. it moves to Pier 45 through 2004 while…

September

  1. a ghost lives around the corner

    a ghost lives around the corner and it wears my old pants and it kisses my old lover just as i remember and meets them for the first time and holds their hand and damps their…

  2. Opera is suggesting to the press that they'll support the DOM.

    This article suggests that Opera 7 will indeed offer the intensely anticpated DOM support that's been lacking in previous versions. It also suggests that the beta could be…

  3. Personal stuff.

    A personal entry: Had the most cathartic musical conversation I've ever had - while meeting Yoshi from The Aisler's Set . And our talk was generally banal in that "hey, you're in a…

  4. Most of my friends are either Avoiding It or Reflecting On It.

    The anniversary. Most of my friends are either Avoiding It or Reflecting On It. Some vacillate wildly between the two, after a bipolar fashion. These friends I call musicians or…

  5. Fray Day 6: Pictures of Super-Nice Autocrats.

    The things I've learned this weekend... At Fray , as at secondary education in America, the real lessons come after class... ...which may be the tagline to Porky's... ...a movie…

  6. Door Sign Displays For Hotels (#1)

October

  1. Leonard looks at how some sites are rendered when viewed with the T-Mobile Sidekick.

    Wanna see how well some sites are faring on the much-hyped new T-Mobile Sidekick? (For those who haven't heard: it's a very small computer with wireless internet access.) Leonard…

  2. My Journey Aboard The Whiskey Sour, Day 1

    My Journey Aboard The Whiskey Sour, Day 1 We set out today. I had no prospects, save Adventure and plenty of it. There was a prodigious draft and our sails were full and swollen…

  3. Two reminders.

    Reminder to self: Don't Blog Drunk. Reminder to friends: Friends Don't Let Friends Blog Drunk. Honestly. In high school, as now, I didn't like reading Billy Budd anymore than you…

  4. Technopop and Russian Prison Tattoos

    I am loving these... 1.) Technopop: The Secret History of Technology and Pop Music A six-part NPR series on how technology has changed popular music. The first three parts are…

  5. Excellent! Ee, Vervein, and The Skyflakes at the Metro! Spread the word! Sprrr-ee-ad I-i-it.

    We forgot to talk about your "absolutely-going-to-this-show"-ness. I forgot to mention earlier that there's an excellent lineup at the Oakland Metro tonight. Ee , The Skyflakes…

  6. The beauty of Golublog.

    Go read: Golublog: Life off the Rails Synchronicity, I think...or BeAllYouCanBeQatsi (Life as Stella's Groove), if it were cinematic... "...trying to prove to yourself and…

  7. document.getElementById(TEXTAREA).value suggests a possibility...

    1.) The following line of Javascript works in Mozilla 1.1. (occasionally crashes Moz 1.0) document.getElementById( x ).value = document.getElementById( y ).value; Where x and y are…

  8. Who will win? Scott? Observer: This war against The Vespidae.

    Scott has much to say regarding web standards, scripting, browsers, and web application development. But it's his other standard which makes me smile: the banner he carries in his…

  9. Supper thoughts on insanity and war.

    Oh! The outside world! Right. Been missing it due to a large volume of work. Let's see what's happening... " News: " Death. Insanity. Death. War. Death. Calamity. Death…

  10. Joanna "Isis" Cameron's Likeness reads from Notes On Love and Courage.

    Joanna "Isis" Cameron's Likeness is today reading from "Notes On Love And Courage" by Hugh Prather Copyright © 1977 It's my father's copy. Which I will return When we can manage To…

  11. Paul Erdos was The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.

    Asymptotically approaching the extreme of obsession... Paul Erdos was The Man Who Loved Only Numbers. "Erdös (pronounced 'air-dish') structured his life to maximize the amount of…

  12. Boo! Did I scare you? Larry Seltzer finds the horror in XML...

    Boo! 1.) The horror of XML Sure to start a flamewar, Larry Seltzer wonders aloud about the delicate balance between coding for efficiency and coding for standardization in XML…

November

  1. In really, really local election news...

    In really, really local election news... Pulling ahead in a closely run race, my uncle Rick has a new job for the next two years as he was elected Mayor of North Bend, Oregon…

  2. Elvish Name Generator

    I added an Elvish Name Generator . (per hundreds of requests)

  3. Visual Basic DLL Has Memory Leaks and Crashes in COM+ If 'Retain In Memory' Is Not Set - So Just Check 'Em

    Short technote: I'm currently working entirely within a Websphere/Java/JSP environment. Last year I was working entirely within a IIS/VB/COM/ASP environment. If you're working in…

  4. Site content returns, I help Ernie with his new book, and Secadora and Dealership make some new noise as Citizens Here and Abroad

    Massless: Too Big for Britches "This site used to be beautiful in a simple not-so-beautiful way. It certainly had lots of content. But as of two days ago, my host asked me to slow…

  5. Spoilers from the Commons: A preview of an interview about music and the internet.

    Sometimes I have something interesting to say. These I like especially: spoilers from a soon-to-be-published Creative Commons interview with Jane , Scott , and I. The article will…

December

  1. Driven: a short story.

    (Fiction) "Did you know they're calling you 'Slayer'?" Peter's fingers stroked the fuzzy walls of the cubicles as he passed. He turned his head at hearing this - he didn't know…

  2. Perforce is fine - so long as you know what "Head" means.

    Snarky, off-the-cuff review: Perforce (or "Perforce is fine - so long as you know what 'Head' means.") I'm sneaking this entry in during a Perforce training session. Perforce is…

  3. Toil and Reward (very short)

    Massless on Toil and Reward: I hope there's a rainbow at the end of this pot of gold.

  4. A drink today goes out to Mary Hansen, formerly of life and Stereolab.

    A drink today goes out to Mary Hansen, formerly of life and Stereolab. ( the BBC article ) Stereolab's music helped to change how I viewed pop music construction. And Mary's vocal…

  5. Getting A Seat At The Algonquin Round Table Just Means You'll Fall In Love With Dorothy Parker.

    What say you? To piquant humor. Cocktails. Shared admiration of work or art. It's all just peer-to-peer social technology. or Getting A Seat At The Algonquin Round Table Just Means…

  6. Why is this man smiling?

    Why is this man smiling? He knows the universe secretly loves a good misunderstanding. It must - the artful way they're constructed, so perfectly, suggests a malign humor. He's…

  7. Taken to school.

    Are you having trouble finding class? Why not let Mr. H take you to school ? Matt Haughey : "...they'll think you sound something like the 'A Very Kenny G Christmas' album." Me…

  8. Gossip is, perhaps, a sign of salvation.

    The word I think you're looking for, Mr. Affleck, is mercurial . Is it true that...? Gossip is the ability to deride in others what we practice with better discrection? I don't…

  9. Christmas fire.

    Christmas, 2002 A true story. Searched 5 times, flown twice. I mention it for later - for now what purpose would be served by addressing what civility permits and is meant well - a…

  10. Fecundity's lament

    Pop songs. And So Wherein I Suffer Through The Greatest Creative Period of My Life. how dare they tell you life goes on? (in every line, in every song) the meaning gets just strung…