The main drawback about the Habitrail 2 is the ventilation, which could be better. Todd calls it "hamper fresh." We'd keep the sliding door leading into the backyard open more often, but Ethan doesn't want dust and insects infecting our technology. Or Mom's golden retriever, Misty.
Habitrail 2 also features:
• 4-fingered cartoon gloves
• ubiquitous Nerfiana
• 24 Donna Karan coffee mugs (long story)
• a decaf coffee tin labeled "666"
• GoBot transformer-type toys
• Glass beads at the door, like the ones Rhoda Morgenstern had
• herbal tea packets and tea-making apparatus
• several Game Boys
• three 4'-x-8' dry-erase wall boards
• a diet 7-UP pyramid
• an extensive manga collection
• T2 spin-off merchandise
• one Flipper thermos
We inhabit our workstations daily for a minimum of 12 hours. We use brown and white plastic folding patio chairs, so our backs are completely shot. So much for ergonomics. (Thank God for shiatsu.) There's the occasional Homer Simpson "doh!" punctuating the air when someone's cursor bleeps, or the occasionally muttered piss and crap. No one can agree on music, so we play none. Or use Walkmans.
* * *
We're doing a Windows version and a Mac version of Oop!. And Michael's drafted the coolest ERS for the graphics, AI, interface, and maybe sound. Just killer stuff, all patentable. Michael needs us to bring his vision to life. Our jobs are:
Michael: Chief Architect. He has the overall vision. He also writes the code engine that drives the graphics and modeling algorithms. He rules the engineers - us.
Ethan: President, CEO, and Director of Operations. His job is to find investors to fund us, find a company to publish and distribute our products, and to run the business day-to-day. Most companies have a CFO, but we can't afford one, so Ethan does the bill-paying, accounting, taxes, equipment-buying, and all that stuff.
Bug: In charge of database and file IO (Input/Output). It's how Oop! stores information to and from the hard drive; it's really complicated, and the kind of thing Bug loves.
Todd: He is "Ditherman" - working on the graphics engine and printer driver. All of the graphics need to be converted into an output format in order to be printed by a printer.
Me and Karla: We're working on the cross-platform class library so Oop! will run on both Mac and Windows. I'm Windows lead, she's the Mac lead.
Susan: She's the User-Interface Designer; in charge of the look-and-feel, the graphics, all that. She's the U-I police keeping me and Karla's code in sync.
* * *
Mom has a collection of rocks. This sounds weird, and it really is weird. She has this small pile of rocks on the patio that just sits there. I ask Mom why she likes them, and she says, "I don't know, they just seem special."
So is this something that might lead to her requiring medication? I mean, they're not even nice-looking rocks. I keep looking at them and try and see what she sees, and I can't.
* * *
As stated, Karla and I are working on the same things, just in different formats. She's Mac, I'm Windows.
"Entirely appropriate," says Karla, "because Windows is more male, and Mac is more female."
I felt defensive. "How so?"
"Well, Windows is nonintuitive . . . counterintuitive, sometimes. But it's so MALE to just go buy a Windows PC system and waste a bunch of time learning bogus commands and reading a thousand dialog boxes every time you want to change a point size or whatever . . . MEN are just used to sitting there, taking orders, executing needless commands, and feeling like they got such a good deal because they saved $200. WOMEN crave efficiency, elegance . . . the Mac lets them move within their digital universe exactly as they'd like, without cluttering up their human memory banks. I think the reason why so many women used to feel like they didn't "understand computers" was because PCs are so brain-dead . . . the Macintosh is responsible for upping not only the earning potential of women but also the feeling of mastering technology, which they get told is impossible for them. I was always told that."
* * *
Remember at the very end of Soylent Green where Charlton Heston screams, "Soylent Green is people!!!!"? Well, I had that same sort of feeling today when Anatole began telling us about working life down at Apple . . . "Apple is Microsoft!!!" He told us that the moods on the two "campuses" are almost exactly the same, and that the two corporate cultures, although they purport to be the opposite of each other, are actually about as different as Tide and Oxydol.
Anatole was hanging around all day today and on the drywall he made this big list of similarities and differences between Apple and Microsoft. Herewith:
Microsoft
waiting for stock to vest
Apple
trying to get laid off
Microsoft
"the Campus"
Apple
"the Campus"
Microsoft
make money
Apple
"1.0" sensibility
Microsoft
Microsoft Way
Apple
Infinite Loop
Microsoft
Bill
Apple
(no longer any equivalent)
Microsoft
Apple envy
Apple
Microsoft envy
Microsoft
boring buildings/good art
Apple
good buildings/art a sideline only
Microsoft
better cafeterias
Apple
better nerd toys
Microsoft
soccer field
Apple
sculpture garden
Microsoft
I-520
Apple
I-280
Microsoft
Intel
Apple
Motorola
Microsoft
average age: 31.2
Apple
average age: 31.9
Microsoft
gray Lexus
Apple
white Ford Explorer
Microsoft
not wild at creating new things but good on follow-through
Apple
good at creating new things but not wild on follow-through
Microsoft
no one ever gets fired
Apple
no one ever got fired. . . until the layoffs started
Microsoft
wacky titles on business cards
Apple
wacky titles on business cards
Microsoft
eerie, Lagan's Run-like atmosphere
Apple
eerie, Logan 's Run-like atmosphere
Microsoft
uneasy IBM symbiosis
Apple
uneasy IBM fusion
Microsoft
13,200 employees
Apple
14,500 employees
Microsoft
people hired in 1991-92 being shuffled around
Apple
people hired from colleges in 1988-89 being turfed
Microsoft
stock set to split
Apple
stock price at cash liquidation value of company; now's the time to buy!
* * *
Still no tour of the Apple facilities, I note.
* * *
Today was one of those days where it was warm if you were standing in the sunlight, but the moment you left it, you froze.
* * *
I saw doves and I thought they were rocks, but they were asleep. My breath made them stir, and the rocks took flight, the earth exploding . . . and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too
The man from Whirlpool came to fix the washer today, and he found Black Widow spiders nesting underneath its broken engine, and he showed me the web, and I found myself thi
nking of catching you, biting you, spinning you within my limbs and setting you free
Don't tell me this isn't true.
Tell me you feel this fire.
Oxydol
Revell
makeover
throw cushion
binder paper
lipstick
WEDNESDAY
Down at the library, Mom made up a list of "deer-proof" plants for Ethan. She got it from Sunset's Western Garden Book. Mom loves Ethan. He's a go-getter.
* * *
During lunch, as Ethan, Todd, and I drove in Karla's Carp through the Carl's Jr. drive-thru, Ethan gave us an inspirational chat. "Guys, the last thing we want," he said, "is to seem to be hurting for money. Venture capitalists like to see stability first. Only then will they come in with cash."
Todd expressed some disappointment that Oop! was, in fact, quite desperate for money, in spite of Michael's and Susan's infusions.
He replied, "Todd: fate hands you opportunities for a while, and if you don't take them, Fate says to itself, 'Oh I see - this person doesn't like opportunities,' and stops giving them to you."
I notice that I had to pay for the Western Burgers and fries and diet Cokes.
"Think of money this way," he went on, "take an initial sum and teach it to multiply itself, the way you copy-and-paste text to multiply it. Never think of money in terms of numbers. Only think of money in terms of other things. For example: two weeks of bug-checking equals a Y-class ticket to Boston. That sort of thing. If you think of money simply as numbers then you're doomed."
Ethan then fed a used Band-Aid from his index finger to a seagull squatted on a landscaped berm beside the road, and Todd and I lost our appetites. We gave Ethan our meals and dropped him off at his dermatologist's office.
* * *
Melrose Place night. One hour of work-free bliss and catcalls as the six of us monopolize the living room TV. It's better than the Academy Awards - and every week, too. Added bonus: 90210 as an hors d'oeuvre.
Susan noted tonight that the computers in Billy's office aren't connected to, or plugged into, anything. But this just made the show even better.
Todd chugged Snapples. He calls them, "Workahol."
We all made fun of the commercial for Mentos mints, saying "Mentos" all night with a goofy European accent. "Mentos." It's so dumb.
* * *
This is embarrassing to admit, but I still don't really know what Dad does for Michael. I am amazed that I can be this clueless, but all either of them will say is that he's working on our final corporate space in downtown Palo Alto. But can we afford this? I thought we were hurting for money. I am going to try and sleuth out what he's doing. Whatever it is, it's totally sucked up all of his model train-making energy. He doesn't go near the garage anymore.
* * *
I told Karla what Ethan said at lunch, about teaching money to multiply itself. She said Ethan's talking "bollocks." I asked her what that word meant, and she said she wasn't sure - it was a term from the punk rock era. "Something to do with anarchy and safety pins." We're going to e-mail someone in England and find out what it means.
THURSDAY
Today we were talking about the name of our corporation. It's so boring - E&M Software. Obviously, that's Ethan and Michael, and it is their company, but Michael said if we had a better idea we could change it. Since we haven't shipped anything yet anyway.
Over the day, we wrote our suggestions on our code-blemished dry-erase wall. This is a really common thing down here: dry-erase boards covered in name suggestions. Here are some of our own:
"Cybo"
"GeekO"
"1410 C°" (Michael suggested this - it's the melting point of silicon.)
"@" (My suggestion. Susan said the name sounded too skateboardy, and Ethan said that somebody's probably already used it, anyway.)
"Clean Room" (Abe's e-mail suggestion and my favorite - Lego was always hell to clean up.)
"Dead Pixel"
"Xen" (Pronounced "Zen." Half the companies down here have an X in their name.)
"InfiniToy"
"Bottomless Box"
"Dangerously Overcrowded Electrical Outlet"
"Box of Oily Rags"
"Dream Enabling Technologies" (Ethan suggested this to a chorus of gagging noises.)
"WaferMap" (Suggested by Susan, but then immediately nixed by her as "Too 1981," but Michael liked the idea of InterCapping - mixing capital letters in with lowercase letters.)
Something "European" (Karla: "Americans can only digest one new extremely weird European word every two years. It's a fact. My proof: Nadia Comaneci, Haagen-Dazs, and Fahrvergnügen. We can become this year's scary European word.") Everybody agreed in principle, but nobody knows any other languages besides computer languages, except Anatole, but he's like the wacky upstairs neighbor from a sitcom, and not a part of our core team, so the idea died.
"Cher" or "Sting" (Ethan suggested something one-syllable. So we asked which syllable in particular, and he blanked. "Ummm . . ." doesn't count.)
":•)" (Mom wrote this one, saying, "They're called emoticons - I read about them in USA Today. They're like sideways happy faces." We all ganged up on her: "We hate those things!" Everyone except for Bug who, as it turns out, loves them. And then Susan 'fessed up that she liked some of them. And then Todd. And then Karla. I guess emoticons are like Baywatch - everyone says they don't watch it, but they really do.
Mom, the librarian, said: "Just think of how confused librarians would be! I mean, what would they file it under? Diacritical marks are extraordinarily confusing." I was pleased to note this anarchical streak in her. "We could call the emoticon, ;•), 'WINK' "
Ethan asked what keyboard character the "nose" was, and Michael quickly replied, "It's a dingbat-OPTION-8 on a Mac keyboard using Word 5.1. PCs use the asterisk."
"Interiority" (The winner, and my suggestion. Prize: a Nerf Galling gun.) So now we're making Oop! an Interiority product.
* * *
Housing update: Bug and Susan now live 30 miles north in San Francisco. They drive the 280 against the rush-hour traffic, it's not too bad.
Susan lives in the sumptuous 2-bedroom apartment next door to Bug's seedy bachelor "bedsitter." We gloated at their decision to live next to each other, but Susan told us to stop smirking like dungeonmasters. "Don't think I don't know what I'm in for. I warned Bug that if I smell even one of his crappy little Dinty Moore meals through the walls, I'm going to gel him evicted." Susan just doesn't want to admit she doesn't want to be alone. She acts all tough and wolfwoman, but it's all bark. Michael lives in the other spare room down the hall from me and Karla. More to the point, he announced he's moving to a personalized 1-800 number. That's where he really lives -
1-800land. Todd's renting a room in a geek house - Stanford grad students - near the Shoreline exit off the 101 in order to be closer to the Gold's Gym. He lives at the gym. It's lots of EZ-to-access free sex. Abe is
still in Redmond. We miss him, but then we do talk to him daily over e-mail. Probably more than we did when we were there.
* * *
I yawned too loudly this afternoon, and Susan said, "Don't you ever sleep, Dan?"
Karla, hearing this, said, "She's right, Dan - you're insomniacal again. So, what's the deal?"
I admitted the truth - that I was having bad dreams. Not insomnia, but bad dreams, which is different. I said it's just a patch, and it'll probably pass. I also told them that for the time being, when I go to sleep, I try not to have any dreams at all - "as a precautionary measure."
"You mean you can turn your dreams off, just like that?" Susan asked.
I said, "A little bit. A nightmare doesn't count as sleep, so I don't get any real rest. I wake up even more tired."
Michael overheard this and said, "But that's so inefficient!"
He told me of how his real life and his dream life are becoming pretty much the same. "I must come up with a new word for what it is that goes on inside my h
ead at night. The delineation between awakeness and asleepness is now marginal. It's more like I'm running 'test scenarios' in my head at night - like RAND Corporation military simulations."
Count on Michael to find a way to be productive, even while sleeping.
* * *
E-mail from Abe:
Fast food for thought: Do you know that if you feed catfish (America’s favorite bottom feeder) nothing but left-over grain mash they endup becoming white-meat filet units with no discernible flavor (marine or otherwise) of their own? Thus they beocome whatever coating you apply to them (i.e. Cajun, xesty Cheddar, tangy ranch) They're the most postmodern creatures on earth . . . metaphores for characters on Merlrose Place . . . or for coders with NO LIFE.
* * *
Found out what bollocks means, from a Net user at a university in Bristol. Those Brits are a cheeky lot! It means, "balls"!
FRIDAY
Abe e-mailed from Redmond. He finally fessed up to something that I've known a long time - that nobody really knows where the Silicon Valley is - or what it is. Abe grew up in Rochester and never came west until Microsoft.
My reply:
Silicon Valley
Where/what is it?
Its a backward J-shaped strand of cities, starting at the south of San Francisco and looping down the bay, east of San Jose: San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Los Ritos, Mountain View, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Campbell, Los Gatos, Santa Clara, San Jose, Milpitas and Fremont. I used a map for this.
They don’t actually MANUFACTURE much by way of silicon here anymore . . . the silicon chip factories are mostly a thing of the past . . . it's no longer a cost effective thing to do. Chips are printed and etched here but the DIRTY stuff is offshored. *CLEAN* Intellectual properties are created here now, insted.
Palo Alto:
Population: 55,900
Size: 25.9 square miles
I used to live here when I went to Stanford, so I know it pretty well.
Palo Alto is half bedroom suburb, half futuristic 1970s science fiction movies starring Charlton Heston. It has lush trees, relatively fear-free schools, and only a few malls. Its real estate was the first in America to hyperinflate, back in the 1970s.
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