Other waves
This is not the first giant wave, by far. People further up the beach have faced other waves, and those have drowned a lot of people. I’m sure a lot of people will survive the effects of the coming wave even if they don’t believe its size. The important thing to notice is that the size of the waves has been increasing – and the time between waves is getting shorter… The silence is deeper this time. But there are important thresholds that will be crossed, perhaps some that will change who we are on the other side of the wave. This time is not only a question of survival, but a question of identity.
VMWare Fusion – first impressions
VMWare has opened their Mac OS X virtualization product to beta-testers. It’s named Fusion, and it allows (on Intel Macs) to run VMWare virtual machines (virtual machines, for who doesn’t know, are the images of entire computers that can be run as applications inside other operating systems). I’ve almost completely switched to Mac OS X, and one of the applications that I need (promised by the end of 2006 for Mac OS X by Garmin….) is Garmin’s Mapsource and Wep Updater, so I can mess around with my GPS receivers. I’m happy to say that it works! Although everything is not working as I wanted (bridged ethernet on the Airport connection, for instance), it’s pretty slick. After installing the VMWare tools on the virtualized OS, it works just like an application, to the point of the client desktop (in a Windows XP install) resizing seamlessly when you resize the VMWare window. Give it a try, it’s a great way to experiment with new and strange OSs without doing anything strange to your computer.
Looking sideways
Ponder your decision. Wisely. Look sideways, to the people parallel to you, the ones looking happy, sad, or indifferent. Some are looking back to the beach, to the ones the wave cannot really hit, others forward, but most are looking sideways, to the now. And most people haven’t noticed the sudden silence, even most of the ones looking forward. Those see promise in the wave, or a threat, but most of them don’t see the size of it, for good or bad, the impressive shadow it may cast. They don’t hear the silence. They don’t even conceive that there’s a choice to be made. That running towards the wave is one of the possibilities. Look sideways, but don’t let the sound of the now make you deaf to the silence of what may come.
Time to decide
Ten years old. Beach on the Atlantic ocean, cold water, warm but breezy summer day, hard light. Standing right where the waves end their intense crashing, afraid of their size. Back turned to the ocean, feet on wet sand, looking at people right and left of you, on a parallel line to the water, some looking happy, some sad, others indifferent. A sudden silence behind you makes you turn towards the waves. Time freezes. A giant wave, several times taller than you, almost casts a shadow. Time to decide. Try to outrun it? Impossible, unless you have some hidden certainty that something will stop it. Or run as fast as you can towards it, trying to jump into it, before it crashes on you. Will you be able to? Time to decide. Just don’t take too long to make that decision – it might take twenty years, it might take one hundred, but the wave will come.
Gaston Lagaffe
Most readers from the English speaking world won’t be familiar with Gaston Lagaffe, one of the funniest comic book characters ever. It’s a pity that this facet of Franquin’s work hasn’t been translated fully into English. I was reminded of this part of my childhood by this post I saw today at Make!, as one of Gaston’s inventions was a networked fish aquarium like the one in the post. I always wanted a setup like that, but alas, the wife doesn’t share my madness 
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