David Beach's Blog

Thurston Moore Black Hole

My dog's name is Thurston. Thurston Moore Beach. He's a mix of black lab, great dane, rottweiler, maybe pit bull, and gorilla. We got him at the SPCA a few years ago. He's a very sweet dog and has never barked. Here's the thing. He loves to sleep with Jane and I in our bed. But when he does, he curls up and all matter and light are sucked into his gravitational pull. It's like sleeping with a 125 pound baby. Dense as can be. I'm a sucker for letting him stay there. But every time he inevitably squeezes one of us out. I'll never learn though. I love that dog.

Rambling Random Rambles

Why? Why do they have to show Cialis commercials over and over again during televised sporting events? Why? Why do they have damn erectile dysfunction commercials at all? I'm watching a baseball game (viagra and levitra) or now a football game (cialis) and these spots run over and over. I'm with my kids, I shouldn't have to even think about explaining erections, erectile dysfunction, or even the ridiculous suggestive imagery (long, sturdy trees, caves, rock formations, footballs thrown through tires... i'm not kidding!). There's a time and a place for such conversation and it's not during a call to the bullpen or the two minute warning. Eff the pharmaceutical companies, eff the networks, eff advertising agencies! Eff them all!

I was happy to find out that Mister Product was featured in a syndicated newspaper article over the weekend. Very cool to see.

Margaret Rosas and her brother William Lawrence are organizing a Santa Cruz geek dinner this Friday evening. The scene and co-working will be discussed. I hope it's the start of something cool here. Santa Cruz has so much web talent, but no real space, organization, or community. We're gonna end that.

A Meditation on New

New is marketed and packaged to be sold. It's shrink wrapped, bundled and boring. New comes in a box with a pretty picture. The box is impossible to open and everything is in a plastic bag. There are twisty ties and more twisty ties. OOBE. The Out Of Box Experience. Styrofoam protects the shiny veneer. New lacks authenticity and is poorly designed and manufactured. Quality is not part of the bargain. Every penny is squeezed out of new. New is greedy.

There was a time when new was something to be proud of. New was progress. Now new is soulless.

Random Notes... for Friday July 20, 2007

Here are some thoughts about this first week back at Yahoo! and whatever else pops into my head during the next 10 minutes or so.

• I'm at home, the sun's in my eyes and outside there's that weird howling sound the wind makes when blowing through the tops of tall trees sometimes.
• It's been cool seeing people again. I miss the Wink folks, but I'm going in next week to do some work and to clear out some stuff. I hope they don't hate me.
• A Yahoo! Hack Day was today. I was disappointed by the winner. I'm going to need to sort that out. It's not just about what won, it's more than that. It's about what was considered to be innovative and a good "hack" by the judges. I'm not sure how this reflects upon the organization. I believe, we should expect more. Nothing against the winner so much. I'm sure they worked hard on it. But to me, it wasn't very interesting or innovative, among other things.  It was just more noise.
• Please don't think that I'm some Brickhouse dick... though I do know what I'm talking about, I have the best interest of the company and fostering innovation in mind.
• Yahoo! needs to simplify
• The other day I saw a list of new features and ideas that a Y! property was going to begin to implement... I wanted to know where the list of things to delete was. Everyone should have that list.
• The sun is really bright, but this chair is really comfortable.
• Ah my family has just come home... with Thurston and burritos. Let the weekend begin!

100th Birthday

Today would have been my father's father's 100th birthday. Ralph Beach. He died 16 or 17 years ago. I don't know much about him. I know that he was an electrical engineer. Berkeley graduate. He was born in Lakeport California apparently on the dining room table in his parent's home. He was probably more complex than we know. He worked at Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project, but we're not sure what he did. He may have worked on the detonator for the Atomic bomb.  Or he could have planned the electrical system of the buildings for the project. I wonder how a person could find out such a thing.

I also remember him working at the Lawrence Livermore Lab. He may have worked there earlier in his life, but I know they asked him back to work on something later in his life. My understanding is that it had something to do with lasers.

Everything I just told you is speculation and hearsay.  To me he was a friendly but intense man. He was loving, but also aloof. I remember being pinched a lot. He was as generous as he could be. A second wife apparently scammed him then took him for just about everything. I remember for my birthday he gave me underwear for a present as a practical joke. Then the real present was something cool. He did have a sense of humor. His dentures were always a source of entertainment.

He made good hamburgers.

I did not know my father's mother well. She died when I was 2 or 3. I have memories of her. A certain smell, always seemed to be dressed for a party. Hair done high. Not much more.

I'm sure my dad will read this and may fill in some blanks in the comments. That's part of the reason why I'm writing about it. There are a lot of blanks. At least for me. Happy birthday Grandpa.

EXT. SANTA CRUZ - COFFEE SHOP - AFTERNOON

FADE IN:

EXT. SANTA CRUZ - COFFEE SHOP - AFTERNOON

It's a lazy Easter Sunday in the afternoon.  People walk slowly by the moderately busy coffee shop/espresso bar. There are tables outside near the sidewalk. Two tables near the door. At the first table, sits a tall African man smoking a hand rolled cigarette, surfing the Internet on his Dell laptop and listening to an iPod. At the second table sits a young Asian woman, quiet, staring off into space, and a middle aged scruffy Caucasian man with a laptop, coffee, and a cell phone connected to his ear by a white ear piece.

The scruffy man begins to speak, though it is not clear whether he is speaking to the Asian woman or to someone on his phone. He speaks thoughtfully, but with determination and some arrogance.

SCRUFFY MAN
... yeah well the doctor said I needed surgery, but I didn't do it, and now my knee is just fine. You can't trust these guys. I wasn't going to pay for surgery just because a doctor told me I needed surgery... Yeah well the doc said I needed surgery and I told him to fuck off and I limped out of there on my crutches and never went back...  You don't have back problems, just because some old lady with back problems tells you that you have back problems... You're fine it's just a muscle spasm... and if it's a slipped disc, then the chiropractor will just slip it back, no problem. Don't listen to some old lady. My knee is fine, I'm totally healed... Aliens came to visit me that night and took me away bodily, and I said to them, that if they were real, they'd fix my knee... and my knee's been fine ever since!

Oh, I guess I never told you that part... Yeah, the aliens came and floated above me, and I prayed to the ether for them to fix my knee. My knee is fine, no pain. So what does that tell you?... If they were real, I said, prove it and heal my knee. Prove it. So don't listen to old ladies with back problems. You're gonna be fine, you just have to be open... fuck the doctors...

FADE OUT

Twitter / Maggie Mason: Hank Mason! 12:17, 8 lbs. 2...

I just wanted to say congratulations to Maggie, and give a howdy to Henry!

Link: Twitter / Maggie Mason: Hank Mason! 12:17, 8 lbs. 2....

MyBlogLog Favicon

Hello people of MyBlogLog.

I sincerely love that thing that you do. I know you guys are very busy and probably don't have a lot of time or many assigned resources yet, so here's a favicon I made for you. I thought that you could use it.

Click on in it to get the ico file.

Love,
beach

Italy Soon

I was thinking about brining my laptop to Italy. Mainly to offload images from my camera and to upload them to flickr. I always like it when people I know keep their flickr photos fresh during a vacation.

I promise that I won't work. Though if Wink launches some new features while I'm gone, i'll check them out.

i-STORM

10 years ago. (1996... A decade... holy crap!) My friends and I created this little venture. I just found a mostly complete archive on an old disk, so I thought I'd share it with you. Take a peek and you'll find a nice story about pranks by Stuart Mangrum with killer video by Scott Beale, a bit of handiwork from Cale Peeples, and some sweet use of frames. Oh and look who was a using brushed steel interface way before your mama. Let your geek flag fly!

>> enter i-STORM

(there's no shockwave plugin for you intel mac users yet, so you'll have to miss out on the obnoxious control panel)