http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/25/harris.obit/index.html

A fine performer, who among other things helped thaw my anti-Harry Potter layer of ice. Travel well, good King Arthur.

A couple of funny links of very questionable morality, partly so I can share with you all and partly so I can have a more permanent record of the URLs:

This is an actual historical stained-glass:
http://www.well.com/~justpat/stained.jpg

Talk Dirty to Me!
http://citypages.com/databank/23/1142/article10824.asp

I've been having a lot of problems with insomnia lately. And to be honest, it isn't really lately that this has been happening. I stopped to think about it this morning as I hurried to get dressed and get to work (later than I had meant to be leaving, of course). I've been saying that my insomia has been acting up "for weeks now". But I've been saying, "for weeks now" for a month or so, now.

So I've been trying to figure out what might have been a likely trigger for this. Mind, I've never slept that well at all. But the insomnia will ebb and flow over time. For about 6-8 weeks now, it's been at high tide. I can only think of two really large-scale events that have happened in the window of time I'm looking at: starting my current job at Tellme, and finishing my book for O'Reilly. As it happens, either of these could be what's messing with my head.

I took this job knowing ahead of time that it would be a serious cut in pay over what I had been making at Red Hat. But I had been unemployed for about three months at the time, and the market out here is still pretty dicey. It was this job or one at Oracle. Oracle offered me $5K/year more, but the commute would have been about 25 miles longer, and the environment much less accomodating. This seemed like a good thing at the time, but my first task assignment was to take over a project in Java, a language I'd never written commercial-grade code in. To add to it, about 4 weeks in I was told that they weren't happy with my productivity thus far. Most of that time had been spent trying to get up to speed on Java while also getting familiar with the (badly-written) code. So there's pressure here, pressure that I don't feel I should have to suffer under.

Alternatively, I have to admit that I found myself somewhat listless and adrift after finishing the book. I had been so focused and driven towards finishing it for the last few months, that when it was done I felt kind of disoriented, like being woken up from sleepwalking. Technically, it's not done, in the sense that I just finished editing the first round of galley proofs this past weekend, and will have to do that once more before it actually goes to the publishers. But after 8 months of being so focused, it isn't as easy to channel that energy elsewhere. Not as easy as I had expected it to be, at least.

And on top of it all, I fully expect to lay awake tonight, as well.

By way of Doc Searls, I saw this piece by John Perry Barlow.

I listened to Barlow speak years ago, at either a USENIX conference or one of the early open source events (can't quite remember). He's an interesting one, founding member of the EFF, rancher, former lyricist for the Greatful Dead. And he's a very engaging speaker.

And very much a capital-L Liberal, so be warned before reading.