AKMA’s Random Thoughts

When trying to simplify a complex [bureaucratic] system, any change that does not result in an obvious quantum of simplification amounts to further complication — or, more concisely, “any attempted simplification short of a quantum change is always a complication.”

I’m happy enough with the spreadsheet functions in AppleWorks as it stands, but it’ll be hard to resist buying iWorks, just for the Pages function (I’m a sucker for word processors; what can I say?). Still, it would be a vast improvement if Pages could read and write an XML-based format, especially Office Document format.

For the record, the various devices that the rumor sites identify sound terrific and all, but the one MacRumor of consequence to my life would involve a resuscitated AppleWorks. That antique program is hardly useable these days; a snappy new version, Cocoa-fied, would be good news indeed. On the other hand, if Tom is on…

I’m a late adopter when it comes to last.fm — due mainly to problems working out what my password was (does the last.fm play appropriately with Safari? Might that be the problem?), but I finally got the password straightened out, and the possibilities of that project look terrific. I’m always to eager to learn about…

This morning, life at chez AKMA returned to normal. We had a visit from Juliet for the weekend, which was great (we hadn’t had a visit with Juliet for ages); we planned the service of blessing for her wedding, and caught up on her life and ours. Her visit was particularly welcome with Beatrice, who…

Here’s some more throat-clearing about marriage, before I get to the more difficult task of saying something useful about this controverted topic. The discourses of marriage, it occurs to me, have clouded the topic by latching onto the notion of “marriage” as “the zone of licit sexual activity.” I’m trying to figure out what it…

Today David Weinberger blogs about the Web as a medium (which makes sense to me) and about the Web as a world. We’ve talked about this kind of topic before, so I’m nostalgically excited; maybe we’ll get into a jolly online donnybrook about it with acerbic interjections from other quarters. The difficulty with that prospect…

I was thinking this morning during the sermon (nothing against our rector’s sermon — she’s batting 1.000 in the Sundays I’ve attended), thinking about marriage. Marriage was on my mind partly because I’ve been working with Juliet about the blessing of her marriage, and partly because I was remembering a discussion with Micah about the…

Someone has collected links to 300 downloadable TrueType fonts* that the site-owner describes as essential. I wouldn’t go that far, and I have qualms about the inclusion of some Bitstream fonts (identifiable by the “BT” marker at the end of the font name), but I thought some readers would like a pointer to the site…

Micah scolded me for not blogging about SixApart’s purchase of LiveJournal: “I shouldn’t have to hear stuff like this on the street.” I have to admit that I saw so many different people commenting on the takeover, and with such intriguing visions of the possible benefits and pitfalls of the move, that I didn’t reckon…

I’ve had a couple of items rattling around my newsreader for a while, so instead of waiting till I have a short essay to write about them, I’ll drop them off here. For instance, I enjoyed reading Malcolm Gladwell’s article on personality testing (though he left out the online personality quizzes that identify you as…

Frank suggested to this morning’s Gospel Mission class that I was a Big-Time Blogger (don’t disabuse anyone of this illusion, you who know better) — so I probably ought to write something today. Ordinarily that’s no trick; you know that I can get up a good head of steam talking about almost anything. Still, today…