I grew up in the Metrodome. Literally. My dad was a small-town sportscaster in the early 80s. I was there, in my dad’s arms, in the press box on Opening Day 1982. I was eight months old. I learned to walk in that place. I used to color on the floor under the desk. I once roller-skated in the basement. Kirby Puckett knew my name when I was five.

After my dad moved on from that job, the orbit of my life moved away from the Dome, and like many people my age, I fell away from the game in the 90s after the strike. I came back to the Twins in 2000, and back to the Dome in 2004. Since moving to the city I’ve been blessed enough to have the chance to make a whole new set of memories in that place that I loved so much as a child.

I’ve met organist Sue Nelson, who is an amazing musician whom I’ve appreciated for years and is as wonderful and gracious a lady as you could hope to meet. I’ll never forget that game; she was kind enough to let my friends and I sit in on an entire inning in the organ room (which is the best seat in the house, by the way). Sue, if you ever read this, I’ve never forgotten. Thank you for that.

I have every issue of Game Day ever released, and hope they can find a comeback themselves next year.

I got food poisoning in the bar, the only time in my life I’ve left a game before the final out. Steer clear of the nacho cheese, people.

My former roommate Jackie and I were the original Justin Morneau Fan Club. We were the ones flying the banner in right field in 2006, the year that started with the two of us shouting “LET’S GO MORNEAU” and ending with 50,000 shouting “MVP! MVP!”

I’ve met so many great people, ushers, concessionairres, employees and fans, over the last five years that I couldn’t begin to name them all. Some I’ve never introduced myself to, but have been seeing, in the same post or the same seat or the same gate, for so many years that I feel as if I’ve known them all my life. Wally the Beerman, of course. Big Yellow Walkman Guy. The six old ladies that sit in right field GA just on the fair side of the pole in row 5 every single night for probably as long as some of you have been alive. Seat Nazi. The stadium club bartenders who got to know me pretty damn well in ’06 and ’07.

Barb, whose last name I don’t think I’ve ever learned but I’ve known just about forever. Barb’s a redshirt, one of the brave and cheerful souls who work the concourse, tell you where the ATM is, keep the unscrupulous from sneaking off where they shouldn’t, and help you find your lost kid in the bathroom. Barb knows she’s my favorite. Barb is an engaging, witty, compassionate, and altogether wonderful lady who always has a hug for me, whose unshakable love and faith in this crazy team have apparently never once wavered (although she will occasionally voice some motherly worry for the pitching staff), and who still asks after my father.

Former team president Terry Ryan, the two brief times I had the chance to, if not properly “meet,” at least greet, was a terrific gentleman who always had time to shake a fan’s hand and exchange a few kind words. Justin Morneau seemed like such a shy and nervous kid when I met him at Twinsfest ’06 that I had to laugh to myself a little bit.

I’ve gotten to know that place like few others ever have. In a way we grew up together, the Metrodome and me. From the loading dock to the press box to general admission, that’s Pete’s house, and that’s something special, something I try to share with everybody I’ve ever dragged to a game with me, because it is special, and it’s something I’m vain enough to think not everyone appreciates like I do.

The swastika in center field. (Once you’ve seen it, you can’t not see it.) The same wooden speaker boxes they’ve had since the place opened. “In any given year, two people will try to run onto the field, two hundred beach balls will be confiscated, and twenty thousand fucking idiots will try to open that door.”

The yellow lines on the concourse floor that once demarked smoking sections. The yellow lines in the gates that once demarked smoking sections. The pitiful corral that now demarks the smoking section. Not that I’m bitter.

Dome rule doubles. The pop fly that never came down and may still be kicking around the roof tonight for all anybody knows. The side door. Canada.

Can you understand this at all?

And my God, the things I’ve seen. 1987, game six. Johan Santana striking out 17 men. David Ortiz’s home run that wasn’t, and I’m here to tell you right now that if that thing hadn’t have hit that speaker it would be in orbit right now. Brad Radke’s final regular season game. The day Doug Mientkiewicz got traded to the Red Sox just before game time. Game 162, 2006, the day we all stayed after the Twins had won to watch the Royals beat Detroit on the jumbotron and Sue stayed the whole time and played organ for that game as though it were ours, and nobody went home until we won the pennant. The day Carlos Silva shut out the Mariners in an hour and 49 minutes. Torii Hunter’s 30th home run in 2006 bounced right between my legs. Me, Matt, and Nick were on SportsCenter that night for two seconds, and if you pause it at just the right spot you can watch three grown men’s hearts simultaneously break. Michael Cuddyer hitting for the cycle. Joe Mauer coming back from knee surgery to go 5 for 5 against the Dodgers and begin a run that would propel him to his first batting title.

Can you understand this?

This place is in my blood. I’m a part of it like it’s a part of me. And I am here to tell you that I have never in my life seen anything like what we were a part of last night.

Orlando Cabrera’s home run, Scott Baker coming back from a rocky third inning to shut the Tigers down for the next four frames, Nick Punto forcing the runner at home and Bobby Keppel coming back with a strikeout to leave the bases loaded in the top of the 12th. And would you believe it, Alexi Casilla. In the bottom of the 12th, after a four hour and 39 minute war of attrition, Alexi Casilla singles up the middle to win it all.

Last night was every amazing thing that could possibly happen and some that rightly shouldn’t. It was without question the most incredible baseball game I’ve ever been at.

But even more than that, more than any of those plays, it’s the crowd that I’ll remember. I’ve never seen it like that before. That place shook. It was like a train. The upper deck crowd just would not sit down. We were all rabid, mouth-foaming fanatics last night. We roared with every strike. We were a blizzard of Homer Hankies. From Cabrera’s home run onward, I don’t think any of us sat for an accumulated twenty minutes. When Randy Marsh called that pitch to Brandon Inge a ball in the 10th, I honestly considered the possibility that there may be a lynching. Through the late innings, I can testify that we shut down the Tiger bats by sheer force of mass will. And when Ron Gardenhire came out in the 12th and for God knows what reason did not replace Keppel with the bases loaded, I am convinced in my heart that the crowd carried him the rest of the way. And when Casilla shot that single through the hole… I mean, god damn. Twenty four hours later my voice is still wrecked.

It was beyond description. It was my whole life in that place in a night. It was every beautiful and agonizing and amazing thing that I’ll take with me forever. And whatever happens in the next week, or two or three, God willing… That was the moment. When every single one of us knew that the magic was ours, if only for just another moment. Just one more teflon October. One more run.

And I didn’t cry once.

Next stop: The Bronx. Congratulations to the 2009 American League Central Division Champion Minnesota Twins!

-p.

Anyway, for real, thanks for checking out my blog, and I hope a few of you stick around to see what I come out with next. I think next I’m gonna go with an idea that’s been cluttering up my drafts folder for a solid year now, the big User Friendliness series. In the next few posts, I’m going to examine the idea of user friendliness as the term is used in our (computing) culture, try to figure out just what the hell it even means, compare some aspects of the free desktop(s) to their proprietary counterparts, and generally shred the commonly accepted wisdom that “free software lacks polish because we’re all a bunch of geeks.”

If you’d like to join that conversation (and help me get this shit written), here’s today’s comment box question: What is one typical desktop computing task that you perform easily on $FREE_DESKTOP that is difficult or impossible to handle on $NONFREE_DESKTOP?

Again, thanks to everyone for stopping by. It’s always cool to be read.

-p.

Arch has been great, so great that I’m in the process of migrating my laptop to it as well. I’m not going to do a full review right now, but maybe later if enough people want to hear my take. One thing I will say is that the KDE packages are first-rate. There is a thriving KDE/Arch community, and the quality of the packages really tells the tale. Blazing fast. Crash-free. No, Guerrilla Tech won’t be offereing Arch machines or service any time in the near future, but personally I’m already completely sold.

(Oh, and I’m posting this using Bilbo Blogger, a new blogging client for the KDE desktop. We’ll see how that turns out and maybe do a review on it later too.)

But what I want to talk about is KDE 4.3! Holy shit it’s so full of awesome! High points for me:

• You can now tie activities to virtual desktops, a feature I’ve been holding my breath for since 4.0.0. This is so tight!

A little explanation there for folks who don’t know what the fuck I just said. A “desktop activity,” as best I can explain it, is a fancy name for a profile. You can customize your desktop style, wallpaper, what widgets appear where, your panel layout, everything that the Plasma desktop handles can be tied to an activity (note to lazyweb: is there a better definition for this?).

Okay, so what? I’ll tell you. So let’s say you’ve got four desktops set up. One that’s typically your “home base,” let’s say your email client and web browser usually sit there, then one for your work, one for media, and one for games. The way virtual desktops traditionally work, these designations are pretty arbitrary, really they’re just labels for where you tend to park stuff.

But in KDE 4.3, you can set up each of those desktops differently, customized to your workflow. Maybe you want to use different wallpapers for each one, or Folder View on 2, 3, and 4 (all pointed to different folders, natch) and nothing but a weather widget and a globe on 1 (yeah, you know I’m still a sucker for the globe), or smaller panels on the desktop you use for media, or a mail notifier widget on every desktop except the one that your mail client actually sits on. The sky’s the limit.

Do I sound excited? I am. I just discovered this last night, as a matter of fact, and I’m still tweaking it. If you want to try it out, go to the cashew, select “Zoom Out,” then select “Configure Plasma” from the left hand menu and select “Different activity for each desktop.” I’d love to hear from folks about more creative uses for this feature. I’m so excited about it I could pee.

Anyway, other advancements:

• Keyboard shortcuts have been improved dramatically (but I still can’t figure out how to bind PrintScreen to KSnapshot)

• You can now hover over a folder in Folder View and a window pops up allowing you to navigate your directory structure right there, without having to open a file manager. I had not previously used Folder View, but I’m giving it a try now that it has this feature. When you combine this with a different Folder View on different desktops, you can drag stuff between them, into other folders, you name it. This is tight.
• KWin effects keep getting better. The new “Slide Back” effect shows your windows sliding back (duh) when another window gets focus. This does not translate well into a screenshot or a verbal description but rest assured it is fucking sweet looking.
• Kmail can (finally) insert images inline into email.
• The new bug reporting tool is great, and makes it easy for even beginners to contribute meaningful bug reports, by providing a three-star rating to the quality of the data gathered and hints on how to improve it (for instance, it’ll tell you if it doesn’t find the debugging symbols for a program), and walks the user through the entire bug reporting process. I like this a lot. It’s little things like this that keep me excited about new KDE releases.

I could go on and on about this release. This has been billed as a “not as radical” release as previous 4.x releases, but even so, almost 2000 feature requests have been impemented, and over 10,000 bugs closed in the last 6 months. You can check out the announcement here (the link is to the 4.3 release announcement; the 4.3.1 release has since shipped, and that means I’m a lazy blogger) and see for yourself.

To the KDE team: Congratulations. Really, really, from the bottom of my cold black heart. You guys have gotten such an incredible ration of shit from various corners of the free software community since the 4.0 release. You’ve had your technical acumen and intelligence insulted, you were told (Plasma/KRunner/Folder View/insert new feature here) was a stupid idea that no one would use, you’ve been called nasty names. You’ve caught it from downstream, end users, the tech press, you name it. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. And with every release you’ve filled the gaps and squashed the bugs and kept moving forward.

To release something as innovative and game-changing as KDE 4.3 doesn’t just take good code, or neat compisiting effects, or a nice theme, or a flagship app. It takes balls. It takes the courage to keep pushing the envelope and moving forward when every voice you hear tells you you can’t, or you shouldn’t, or you’re wrong, or that’s stupid. Gentlemen, ladies, thank you for writing the code, and having the vision, and squashing the bugs, and drawing the icons, and doing the work and getting it right. And thanks for finding the nerve. Congratulations.

-p.

-p.

It has attracted much flamage on Slashdot (as is typical), but I just read a really interesting response by Plasma developer and free software rock star Aaron Seigo, a line of which I felt compelled to share here.

There is one thing I agree, at least now, with Bruce on: our users who make up our “online community” (a.k.a. the people who read this blog, or slashdot, etc..) don’t want much innovation on the desktop. That’s sad: most of you are happy with what most of the world is frustrated by. I don’t know many things more tragic than that.

And that’s the bottom line. It (and by “it” I mean all end-user interfaces everywhere) doesn’t “workfine,” it doesn’t “workforme,” and it sure as hell doesn’t work for them. You know, them. The billions of people on this planet who are forced to put up with this crap every day.

Listen, I’m not trying to burn anyone’s ass here. But you know it and I know it. Let’s try and get at it like this. First, pick someone you know who is into computers (bonus points if you can find a zealot like me), someone who is emotionally invested in their computer. Ask them what they think of their interface. Of course they love it and it’s perfect and you’ll pry the smallest change to the order of the lowliest check box in the most obscure submenu out of their cold dead hands. Or (if they’re a Windows user, probably) they absolutely detest it and seethe with hatred and have a list of seven printed pages of things they’d change, but still explode with self-rightious fury and externalized rage if you have the temerity to suggest that perhaps not all interfaces are doomed to suck quite as bad as theirs. Not that I’m naming names…

Okay, now go find someone who’s not crazy. Someone who interacts with computers extensively, perhaps in their work, or maybe they’re a gamer or something. Someone who’s not emotionally invested in their interface. Ask them what they think of their computer. At first they will give you a blank stare, not really having much conception of what the question even means. But let them think about it for a minute, and they’ll tell you. Every time, without fail (I have tried this, and if you don’t believe me, go try it yourself). They don’t like their computer. They don’t hate it or anything, they usually can’t even tell you what it is they’re unhappy with, but they’re unhappy. Maybe dissatisfied would be a better word. They don’t know what it is, but shit just ain’t right.

We need to make it right. I think about this stuff a lot. And I think it’s going to be one of the great technological and social challenges of our time.

The whole concept of “personal computers” is so young, and the ways we’ve devised to interact with them are so primitive, that we don’t even have enough perspective to even be sure of what the problems might be. But we need to make it right. And that’s going to be a great challenge for free software communities, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity. Because we’ve got the chance to get there first. This is how we win.

take it easy, but take it-
-p.

Firefox Howto: Getting started with Stylish

What’s Sylish? From the download page: “Stylish allows easy management of user styles. User styles empower your browsing experience by letting you fix ugly sites, customize the look of your browser or mail client, or just have fun. With an online repository at userstyles.org, you don’t even need to know how to write styles yourself; just a couple clicks and the chosen style is applied. Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript, and unlike other methods of using user styles, most styles take effect immediately.”

Get that? It makes shit look different. A particular site, or certain aspects of sites (I’ve got a style that marks all password fields in red, for instance), Firefox itself, even other extensions. Sound fun? Let’s do it.

1. Head back to that download page, hit the big green button that says Install, and restart Firefox.
2. Over at userstyles.org you will find thousands of user-submitted styles. You’ll want to bookmark this and come back and browse later (if you need some ideas to get started, at the end of this post I list all the styles that I’m using right now).
3. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will be installing a style from the popular Painted Black series, contributed by whatrevolution? I’ve been following this user’s work for some time, and it’s incredible. In the top right corner, enter “painted black” in the search bar and away we go.
4. We are going to install Painted Black – Userstyles (I know, very meta of me), so go ahead and click into that link. You’ll see a brief description, a couple of screenshots, and a button that says Install. Guess that you’re gonna do next?
5. It’s magic! The page changes instantly!
6. Go back to the main page and blow the rest of your day trying out new themes!

Here’s a list of themes I’m using now. I’m not going to link them because there’s a ton and I’m lazy, but you can damn well search for them yourself. Have fun!

• Remove star button FF3
• Ffx context-menu: extreme minimalism!
• ‘New Facebook’ – Remove Ads
• about:microsoft
• BBC News – Fluid Layout
• Better Selected Text
• Bright Focus (for buttons, links, and textboxes)
• Center images
• Download Statusbar – move buttons/add icons
• Google Image Search – dark gray redesign (vC)
• Google Web Search – dark grey for Googlepedia
• Goosh – Black & Green Style
• Hide the search button
• Identify password fields
• IMDB – Dark grey improved
• IMDB.com – adblocked & tweaked
• painted black – forms
• painted black – freshmeat
• painted black – isohunt
• painted black – The Register
• painted black – txt (any plain text) + view source
• painted black – userstyles ( entire site )
• painted black Userscripts.org – RE-FIXED
• Remove the home button
• Remove the RSS feed icon button from Firefox 3 & 2
• Search engine manager – resized
• SKYY’s Dark Wikipedia
• Slim extension list 2
• Tab Visualization Improvements
• This Page Intentionally Left Blank – Silver
• Toolbars – Buttons Closer For Firefox 2.0 (note: yes, it works for Firefox 3)
• ubuntuforums.org grey
• Userstyles.org – tweaked

I told you it was a shitload, didn’t I? Most of them are darker themes for sites I frequent (I’ve got a CRT monitor, white backgrounds burn my eyeballs out) and interface de-crappifiers for Firefox.

I certainly don’t guarantee that all these styles will be to your taste, but if nothing else it’s indicative of just how many styles there are to choose from. That’s the cool thing about free software, right? You can make it yours in so many ways. Enjoy!

-p.

My friend Ian, better known to you tube denizens as The Joy of the Mundane, died on Sunday. He was a prolific photographer, a joyful explorer, and a passionate artist. One of the fucking greatest, and as one commenter on Flickr said, “he died with his boots on.”

He touched a lot of lives, and the flood of comments on his last Flickr upload and torrent of blogs, notes, and tributes from friends, fans, people whose work Ian admired, and total strangers is a stunning testament to what a giant he was, and what a huge hole he’s left in that community (Ian would probably have liked me to make a goatse.cx joke here, but you know, my heart just ain’t in it).

There just isn’t the space here to link to everything. It’s crazy. I don’t think any of us (Ian included) truly realized the amazing reach of his work before this.

But Ian was more than that. A devoted husband and a great dad. A true friend. A role model to me personally, someone whose opinion I respected more than damn near anyone else’s, although I never said it to him. I should have. Ian is actually a big part of the reason I went into business for myself. Ian believed in me. Ian believed in everyone. There was never a man happier for the good fortune of his friends, or so humble and appreciative of his own. Ian was the best of all of us. I keep stumbling over words here because it just doesn’t seem real, or even possible. Such men should not die.

He was a giant to everyone who knew him. He was the only truly decent human being I’ve probably ever met in my life. And now he’s gone. What the hell else is there to say?

Godspeed, friend Ian.

Howtos

• cmus part 2
• Firefox howto: Intro to Stylish
• Fluxbox howto series: Intro to the .fluxbox config files
• Scribus howto: Business cards

User-friendliness series
—

1. easy in Linux, impossible in Windows
2. areas where we need work
3. tying it all back together, what is this “user-friendliness” thing anyhow?

Other

• Why you’re not sticking it to the man when you pirate software
• An open letter to the guy who asked me “how can you sell free software?”

Okay, that’s a decent list, I guess. What do you want to see, folks?

best wishes, happy spring, go Twins, all that shit-
pete

Real quick here, I’d like to talk about the title of this post. This is something of a public reply to a question that I’ve been hearing a lot lately from some folks I know personally.

If you hadn’t heard, the “global economy” (whatever that is) is in a “recession” (or something). And personally, I couldn’t be happier about it. I mean, not that people are out of work, certainly. I empathize with the hardships that this is causing people. I’ve got friends and family out of work too. Keep pushin’. I know it’s hard.

But for me personally, and other entrepreneurs out there, especially free software entrepreneurs, what does this “economic meltdown” really mean? Opportunity. Seriously. Right now shit’s cheap and getting cheaper. Right now a lot of the really heavy hitters in our industry are having trouble, and players large and small are stepping back. And right now it’s time for the bold to step up, and there’s never been a better moment for new entries into the market.

I know some of you think I’m batshit crazy, and that’s cool. Then sit there and live in fear and tremble for the future, put all your money in mason jars and bury them in the back yard, sell your baseball card collection to buy a generator and a gun, I don’t care. Call me when you want to replace your laptop, I will still be here.

TwoThree things I know.

1. Invest in America. You will always win.
2. When times are flush, the only people who really get rich are rich people. But throughout history, it’s been moments like this one that have made fortunes.
3. Oh yes, one day I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!!!1! (And so can you.)

Keep it real. And keep pushin’.

-p.