Aliotsy Andrianarivo's Personal Site - TheThousand.net

Default blog theme. Missing images. What's going on?

Well, I'm now on MediaTemple, for starters. Yes, after seven (SEVEN?) years with the same webhost, I've moved on. In that time both my host and my domain reseller have been bought by other companies. Since this blog started sputtering to a protracted death shortly after I started working at Intel in May 2005, I've more or less ignored those changes.

But then, Jennie presented the opportunity to move to a (dv) account with mediatemple, and I didn't want to pass that up. And she brought on board a bunch of her old surreal crew, and there's a bunch of excitement about reviving long-stagnant sites. It's starting to feel like 2002 again, back when everyone was excited about going from Greymatter to MovableType (I totally just dated myself there).

Speaking of MovableType, I'm still using it. Yup. I know everyone and their grandma's ferret are on WordPress now, but there's something to be said for staying with the tried and true. And I'll be honest, I'm a self-confessed Luddite (I stubbornly insisted on sticking with Netscape Navigator 3 over 4, simply because I thought it was better). In all seriousness, though the latest release is pretty spiffy-looking, and exporting entries from the old host and importing them here was a cinch. Can't wait to dive in more.

Although importing entries was a cinch, I'm pretty sure I all but destroyed this slightly respectable PageRank. Oh well.

Honestly, that's part of what kept me from writing, or updating the design of my site: the legacy, both of PageRank and the quality of past posts (yeah, yeah, stop laughing). The weight of living up to that was discouraging. Ignoring it is a remarkably freeing exercise. I was even tempted to not import my old entries at all, but in the end decided to. I mean, there is some darn good stuff there (though I think I peaked circa 2003-2004).

It's also a challenge: can I rebuild from the ground up, in a more crowded online space?

I'm sure going to try. I've done lots of exciting work in the past couple of years, and I'm really eager to start writing about them.

Holy cow, I know this is just a boring "I'm not dead" status update, but man does it feel good to be writing again.

Have a great weekend all. I'll be back soon.

Actual conversation this morning...

Wife: *sniffle* "I have no idea what I'm allergic to."

Me: "Well as long as you aren't coughing up blood and don't have a fever, I think you'll be OK."

Wife: "Well, I did cough up this black liquidy stuff."

Me: "WHAT?!"

Wife: "And my hand started turning into a claw."

Me: *starting to get it* Oh. I was wondering about that. I didn't mention it because I didn't want you to feel self-conscious.

Wife: One of my eyes is turning yellow, too.

I love my wife.

My thoughts regarding all the noise over HTML 5. With apologies to Mr. Iverson.

We sittin' here, I supposed to be the lead developer, and we in here talkin' about DOCTYPEs.

I mean, listen. We talkin' about DOCTYPEs. Not user experience, not user experience, not user experience. We talkin' about DOCTYPEs.

Not user experience. Not the user experience that I develop and die for. And make every site like it's my last. Not the user experience. We're talkin' about DOCTYPEs, man.

I mean, how silly is that? We're talking about DOCTYPEs.

Though I can't help noting that the new design looks just like Dan Cederholm's site.

This exchange was strangely existential.

I don't play video games, but I've been taken by the meditative, almost surreal promos for Gears of War 2. It's a gory, fast-paced shooter, but the advertising focuses on the art direction—a mash-up of Gothic and Neo-Classical architecture, military and post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Think Starship Troopers meets Prague, in an environment that exudes lost Old World beauty.

"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"

"The Last Day"

If you're wondering (like I did), the poem from the first promo is "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" by Alan Seeger, an American who died fighting for the French Foreign Legion during World War I. And the song in the second Promo is "How it Ends" by Devotchka, a Denvier indie rock group.

This is all in keeping, of course, with the memorable "Mad World" ad for the original Gears of War.

Hey, if you want to save the world by making biodegradable plastic forks from corn, go right ahead.

But I'd appreciate it if the fork didn't warp out of shape when I try to eat the delicious kibbeh my wife made for my lunch.

By the way— I love my wife and her delicious kibbeh.

It seems I need to make an addition to my last entry.

Usain Bolt is not the next Maurice Greene, Michael Johnson, or Carl Lewis. He's in a league of his own.

I'm almost mad at him now for showboating in the 100m. He could have set a mark in that event as untouchable as Johnson's in the 200m.

Watching the first few days of the Beijing Olympics, I couldn't help but muse at how ho-hum breaking a swimming world record seems. Not to downplay the incredible talent of the athletes, but it seems that the limits of human physical achievement in the pool are yet to be established, what with the frequency of new world records since the advent of Speedo's LZR Racer speedsuits. In this Olympics alone, there have been 25 world records set (and some subsequently broken), and all but two Olympic records have been broken.

That, coupled with Usain Bolt's stunning 9.69 in the men's 100m, got me thinking about another world record: Michael Johnson's unbelievable 200m sprint at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Johnson himself says he's ready to see Bolt break his record, which is surprising given how untouchable Johnson's mark seems. I remember seeing a chart about a decade ago that illustrated how dominant Johnson's record is, and seeing how I couldn't track it down with Google, I've recreated it here (if anyone can find the original chart, circa 1998 or so, I'd love to give credit to the original creator).

This chart shows the twenty twenty-one fastest 200m marks of all time. Each row represents a hundredth of a second. Eyeballing the chart would suggest that the cutting edge of human achievement in the 200m is anything sub-19.7. A 19.59 at Beijing would be phenomenal. Then you scroll down—way down—and you hit Johnson's 19.32. Usain Bolt has his work cut out for him.

This data is taken from the IAAF's website (note: the all-time page didn't include two 2008 runs by Usain Bolt; I've added them to the chart). I'm not sure what the "A" stands for—altitude, maybe?

Some other interesting notes from the chart:

• The previous world record of 19.72, set by Italy's Pietro Mennea, held for 17 years (Johnson broke it at the 1996 Olympic Trials), and was seriously challenged only four times during that period.
• Frank Fredericks ran a 19.68 to claim silver behind Johnson at the 1996 Olympics. They would be the only men to run the 200m faster than Mennea for 10 years, until Xavier Carter and Tyson Gay ran 19.63 and 19.68 respectively in a 2006 race.
• Gay holds four of the twenty fastest marks—the same number as Johnson— including the second-fastest of all time. Unfortunately, Gay failed to qualify for the 200m at Beijing.

Update: So that's what it's like to be linked by Jason Kottke. Thank you and thanks for visiting everyone. Sorry about the comment verification—been having a beastly time with comment spam lately, though that seems to have died down, so I'll temporarily allow commenting again.

And for the record, I'm pretty sure "A" stands for "Altitude," since the IAAF site doesn't list wind-aided times, such as the 9.68 Tyson Gay posted a few weeks back in the 100.

Update 2: Needed to make an update.

Are you a Christian? Do you make things? Then you should read Matthew Griffin's series on Web Design Worldview, (found via the always thoughtful and wonderfully outspoken Andy Rutledge). Even if you don't make websites, it's a good introduction to applying worldview to your field. I couldn't find an overview page for the series, so here are permalinks to each of the four parts he's published so far (there will be six in total, published every Wednesday).

• Web Design Worldview, Part 1
• Web Design Worldview, Part 2
• Web Design Worldview, Part 3
• Web Design Worldview, Part 4

Speaking of websites: we've launched our official wedding website. May write up a case study if I find time, but I just wanted to note for posterity that it got featured on CSS Mania, the first time a site I've built has been featured in one of the major* CSS galleries. Coolio, and thanks, CSS Mania.

*What defines "major" these days in CSS galleries, anyways? I have no idea. There's like a jillion of them these days, but CSS Mania still seems fairly important.