Part of my birthday present from Laura is an iTMS gift card (a potentially dangerous gift, since I'd been avoiding buying anything there because it's so freaking easy I have my doubts about being able to stop) and I decided that the 2004 top 100 songs list would be a good place to start looking for fun songs. As it turns out though, most people have really bad taste. Who knew?
Category: Society
We got a tree last night (it's nice to be home enough around the holidays to be able to get a tree), so I woke up this morning to that wonderful Christmas smell of fresh tree. It's the sort of thing that makes getting up in the morning almost pleasant.
I'll probably be really confused in a week or two though, because this is much earlier than my family ever got our tree when I was growing up. For me, a tree means Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe I can leverage than confusion to motivate me to do my Christmas shopping earlier than usual this year?
Category: Life
Here's a little tip for any of you who might someday become police officers and need to direct traffic around an accident in an intersection at night without the benefit of those glowing orange cone things: a really good way not to do it is to shine your very bright flashlight right in the eyes of the car you are trying to direct then make hand gestures with your other hand behind the flashlight. If for some reason you do decide to use that method though, a good way to round it off is to yell angrily at the driver for having the audacity to not know what the hell you are trying to get them to do.
Category: Random
I was doing some Perl hacking today (in strict mode, of course) and stopped when I realized I had typed the following:
my $failures = 0;
“For both our sakes, I would that word were true.”
Category: Geek
What is the gender-neutral, singular word for cow or bull (in the standard bovine usage—“whale”, “elephant”, and the like will not be accepted)?
I've posted the answer to the last quiz; I'll try to be more prompt this time. Once again, no looking it up before answering!
Category: Language
I think the em-dash—that fantastically useful divider—is rapidly replacing the comma as my most over-used punctuation mark. Although parentheses and semi-colons (some of my other favorite punctuators) tend to creep in fairly often as well; maybe I just need to write down fewer of my tangential thoughts?
Category: Language
Working inside the reality-distortion field every day has intensified my innate need to buy gadgets that I probably don't need—luckily, Laura acts as a force of sanity, causing me to ration my purchases. The problem is, this leaves me with the task of picking which gadget to get first. Here's my current wish list:
I've pretty much narrowed my first choice down to the RAM (boring, but safe) and the keyboard (cool, but risky). On one hand, I'll never say to myself, “Boy, I sure wish I hadn't bought that RAM. I never use it!” On the other hand, I won't be saying “This RAM is so much fun! I could just play with it for hours and hours!” Do I want the subtle, pervasive improvement to my whole computer experience, or the Christmas-morning excitement and the possibility of a new creative outlet?
So here I am, balanced between childishness and fuddy-duddydom, stability and excitement. If you think about it, isn't that really a metaphor for the struggle we all face daily in our lives to define who we are?
No, I didn't think so either.
Category: Geek
It seems that the songs aren't true, because I'm sitting here listening to the rain on our deck/patio/porch (I may, at Josh's suggestion, start calling it a lanai—no-one can agree on what it is, but I think everyone could agree on it not being a lanai). You can take the man out of Oregon, but you can't take Oregon out of the man—as much as I enjoy the sunshine here, grey rainy days make me feel like I'm truly home.
Category: Life
We watched the second presidential debate last night, and I'm definitely glad I've been watching. Each time I see them I feel better about voting for Kerry—he presents himself very well, he's clearly intelligent, he's respectful, he's not a robot like Gore was, and he is able to clearly articulate definite plans. Bush keeps looking bad in the debates: he gets flustered and angry, steamrolls the moderator, and mostly doesn't have concrete rebuttals. For example, they've had several exchanges that essentially went like this:
Bush: My opponent is wishy-washy! He's flip-flopped on the issue of <whatever>
Kerry: No, I've been consistent, and here's exactly why I made each of those decisions and how it fits with my overall convictions. <clear and concise explanation>
Bush: He's inconsistent! That's just how it is!
Why doesn't he just jump up and down and say “Are too! Are too!”? Obviously I'm biased, but I truly believe that Kerry's points are significantly more based in facts, whereas Bush's are more based in rhetoric. And while it's not like I'm an undecided voter, I'm really glad I can feel good about voting for Kerry, instead of being resigned to voting for him.
Now two moments that struck me most: the funniest moment and the scariest moment.
The funniest moment was Bush's comment about the sort of judges he wanted on the Supreme Court. He basically said he wants constitutional literalists. Then as an example of what he doesn't want, he talked about the Dred Scott decision:
Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all—you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America. And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists.
This is priceless stuff. He was clearly about to say that the Constitution says that we're all equal. So... he wants judges on the Supreme Court who don't know the difference between the Constitution and the preamble to the Declaration of Independence? I don't think that a document that at the time counted some people as three-fifths of a person can really be said to be one that “speaks to the equality of America.”
The scariest moment was when Bush spoke about the Patriot Act:
Our law enforcement must have every tool necessary to find and disrupt terrorists at home and abroad before they hurt us again. That's the task of the 21st century. And so, I don't think the Patriot Act abridges your rights at all.
Wow. He could have said something about why it's important, and then talked about making sure it's done carefully and adjusted as necessary to protect rights, but he didn't. Instead he said several times that he doesn't believe it treads on our rights at all. That's a disturbing stance, as is his statement that “every action being taken against terrorists requires court order, requires scrutiny”, in light of the fact that part of the Patriot Act was ruled unconstitutional for lack of judicial oversight. The fact that he thinks that preserving our rights is the same as giving law enforcement “every tool necessary”—would he say that a police state wouldn't infringe our rights because it's necessary to keep us safe from the terrorists, then? I'm not saying that I think he really wants a complete police state, but the idea of being led for another four years by someone who thinks that giving more power to law enforcement is the same thing as preserving our rights is very scary.
Category: Society
This one requires that you answer in the comments, so don't be shy! Here's the quiz: define the words “biannually” and “bimonthly”. No cheating by looking it up! Answer based on your current knowledge only.
Category: Language
This optical illusion, if it can be called that, is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. Stare at the center, don't move your eyes, and don't blink. It's like magic! Even the name—motion induced blindness—is cool.
Bonus points if you can get all three dots to vanish—I've done it once, so I know it's possible.
Category: Random
On Tuesday I experienced my first earthquake—I slept through the one the week before, and I didn't notice the one or two small ones I've technically been through in Oregon. It was strange, because I mostly heard it, rather than felt it, so I was sitting there trying to figure out what someone could be rolling around above my office that would make so much noise... it sounded like a truck. So that was kind of fun, alough I'm glad I was 120 miles or so away, since I don't think being right on a 6.0 would be so much fun.
Then, to round out my California experience, Cupertino had a power outage on Friday (although to be fair it wasn't a true California blackout, but instead the more pedestrian someone-screwed-up-a-transformer kind of outage that was all too common back in Cleveland Heights). It was a new experience in that it was my first power outage while in a building with fire doors that all close automatically when the power goes out. Having all the lights go out then hearing doors slamming shut all around me gave me a momentary feeling of being in a supernatural horror movie.
So having had both an earthquake and a power outage in the same week, I think I can really start to feel like a true Californian. If I'd been more on the ball, I could have gone surfing this weekend and rounded out the experience.
Category: Life
Note to self: test blog after making changes (even minor ones) to blosxom plugin code. Although I guess giving everyone coming here an error does reduce blogspam, so it was effective at some level...
Category: Geek
Apparently I had my first California earthquake this morning, but slept right through it. I would say I'm disappointed, but I'm not stupid enough to temp the fates that blatantly.
Category: Life
A year ago today, the world became a much poorer place. A wonderful human being who touched many people, and should have touched many, many more, was taken away from us.
We miss you Skye, and think of you often.
Category: Life
Laura and I just got back from seeing Hero, and, as the title of this entry implies, I thought it was phenomenal. The artistry was incredible, and although it was so intense it was almost palpable, it didn't get in the way of the story at all. Quite the opposite: the feeling it gave me was that it set an elaborate scene in order to invite me to discover the story on my own. I felt volumes of unspoken dialog in nearly every scene, and the meanings poured themselves out effortlessly. At the same time, although the film made me feel as if I understood things instinctively, I was aware of even more depth and texture and nuance of meaning that I couldn't yet identify or draw out.
I plan to buy it as soon as possible, and watch it many many times. I plan to learn about the symbolism of the five Chinese elements, the symbolism of each color, and anything else that occurs to me, and then look for one theme or repeated element at a time. I plan to discover as much of what the film has to offer as possible.
Watching most movies feels to me like the intellectual equivalent of gorging myself on gummi-worms. Watching Hero felt more like meditating.
Category: A & E
Microsoft has come up with a fantastic new concept: a place where you can legally download music, for only 99 cents per song! If only someone else had thought of it earlier, and beaten them to the punch.
Seriously though... I know Apple didn't come up with the idea but it's pretty hard to pretend that they didn't make it very successful very quickly, and even harder to pretend you're launching a competitor, but have never heard of the iTunes music store. But apparently not impossible:
Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president for MSN said, “Our goal with the MSN Music service is to finally bring digital music to the masses by offering what we believe is the largest and highest quality catalog of legal music on the Internet, available on the broadest selection of portable devices.”
First off: which masses are they “bringing it to”? The millions of people in the world who are both trendy enough to want digital music, and yet who have been living under a rock and haven't heard of iTunes and/or the iPod? Do this guy really think there are people sitting on their couches watching iPod commercials and thinking, “I'd love to have digital music, if only I could find somewhere that sells it”?
Second: does he think that because Microsoft's PR group has been living under a rock? If they believe that the library of 500,000 songs mentioned in the article is the largest catalog of legal music online, they might want to, you know, check some recent numbers from their only serious competitor.
It's nice that they want to compete and all, but perhaps they should focus a little more on not sounding like they are either criminally ignorant or lying while they do it.
Category: Geek
I've been using fink's GIMP 2.0 installation for a while, but my old drag-and-drop script was still set up for 1.2. I could have just fixed it by changing the symlinks that point GIMP commands to a specific version so that they refer to 2.0 instead of 1.2 (which I ultimately also did), but I've been bugged for a while by the old script's requirement of launching GIMP in advance, and having to fix another part of the process finally motivated me to do something about it. Poking around a little I found this hint, which improves on the script I'd been using (the one mention at the beginning of the new hint).
The new script has some issues, mentioned in the comments, but unfortunately the fixed version that is alluded to is MIA. The bright side it that it gave me an excuse to play with AppleScript a bit, and now I have a script that uses X11 and handles multiple files correctly in almost all cases. I still need to fix it so it doesn't launch multiple instances of the GIMP if it tries to open several files and finds that the GIMP isn't already running, but that should be easy enough to fix. And if not, it's still worlds better than the old script. Here's to progress! AppleScript is very cool, but I never quite get around to learning more than a tiny bit of it... but I guess that's what Automator is all about: automation without learning/remembering AppleScript.
If any of the other 20 people running GIMP on OS X using fink instead of Gimp.app need good drag-and-drop support, drop me a line :)
[Update: It now handles all drag-and-drop cases correctly, and also launches the GIMP if you run it without dropping a file, so it's now an app for all purposes that matter to me!]
Category: Geek
Have I ever mentioned that I have a sister-in-law? She's super annoying.
;)
Category: Random
So not a lot of activity on the category/layout front recently. Or on the weblog front in general, really—I keep almostposting, but I never quite seem to get around to it. The hot weather is inspiring me to spend some quality weblog time today though, so changes should be coming really soon. A few things to watch for:
Also, keep your eyes peeled for an exciting new addition to the blogging arena!
Category: Geek
I finally finished moving everything into categories, rough though they are. Perhaps the coolest part for me is the count of each section (raise your hand if you are surprised that "Geek" is the biggest category). So now I can have nth post anniversaries and the like.
I still need to figure out how I want to display the category in the posts, and probably how to hack Blosxom to show the prettified version instead of the raw directory name. But first I may come up with a whole new layout/style, since the more I look at this one the less I like it, which would also be an overkill solution to my dilemma of where to put the category name in each past without it looking stupid. A geek's job is never done.
But the organization is there, and user-visible even if somewhat crudely, so I'm happy for the moment.
Category: Geek
Laura and I went to a free Shakespeare In The Park presentation of Twelfth Night tonight in the park next to our apartment complex, and enjoyed it immensely. I thought the acting was excellent, and found it very easy to get into the story and the emotions despite being unfamiliar with the play. In fact, just the fact that I was able to follow it without having read it in advance, and even to catch many of the jokes and wordplays, is a testament to the quality of the production. The set, costumes, props, and blocking were extremely creative, and were at the same time almost jarring in contrast to the overall Shakespearean feel and yet very right. The entire presentation surprised and delighted in unexpected ways, but felt true to the spirit of the play in every way. If you happen to be in Cupertino tomorrow or next weekend, I highly recommend it.
I really enjoy theater, and whenever I go to a play I'm always a bit sad that my days of technical theater are getting to be so long gone. Some part of me is always wanting to have the insider feel again, and thinking about things like how much work it must have been for the sound guy to work with such a strangely shaped, un-acoustic, outside setup. I sometimes find myself mentally adjusting mic levels as actors approach each other, or wondering which light could be repositioned to cover a hole.
But my life is very different now than it was in high-school, and the time commitments of theater are not trivial. Even if I could find a way to get back into lighting and sound without being a union professional, it's not the sort of thing I can do or not do as life or mood dictates. And so I'll continue to sit in the audience, aware of the lighting and sound equipment, and the back of the set, and the time allowed for quick costume changes. But I'll also be aware of which side of the curtain I am on.
Category: A & E
After several exciting hours of waiting in line at the DMV this morning, I'm now officially Californian. Once we get the new plates on the car, only the CWRU sticker and our pale complexions will identify us as out-of-state invaders.
Category: Life
Today I delved into the exciting world of long-term financial planning. First I went to a very helpful little seminar on 401(k) investment strategy, and came out feeling like I knew what I was doing. Then I spent some time on the enrollment website, and came away feeling more like I picked things out of a hat. It didn't help that it felt more like, say, playing Sim City than determining the course of my retirement. But since they told us that 90% or more of long term results are due simply to the rough breakdown, which I now have a reasonably good grasp of, it should be fine.
Besides, if it turns out badly in the end I can just restart and try again, right?
Category: Life
I've survived my first week at work without getting shrunk, turned into a giant blueberry, thrown in a garbage chute by trained squirrels, or anything else of that nature, so I'm counting it as a success.
We're still settling in to the area, and taking care of fun details like getting new licenses. I've read through the California driver's manual, so that I know the little details like what a white curb means, and I'm not at all concerned about the test. Interestingly, California allows people turning to turn into any open lane, which means that one of my pet peeves from home is actually legal here. On the bright side, if Josh visits I'll finally be able to win that argument about turning from one multi-lane, one-way street to another from one of several turn lanes.
Category: Life
Life at Fruit Co. is notoriously shrouded in mystery, but after my first day I can tell you the following about what it's like inside:
So that's what it's like there. Or maybe that's what it's like at Wonka's Chocolate Factory—I get mixed up sometimes.
Category: Geek
This is a quick belated note to say: We made it! We moved in early on the 23rd, the cable guy was only an hour and a half late getting our cable modem set up on the 24th, all of our stuff miraculously arrived on the evening of the 24th (we were sure that it would come much closer to the August 2nd end of the arrival range), and we've been settling in and wading through boxes ever since. Everything went more smoothly than could realistically have been expected.
It's good to be home.
Category: Life
If all has gone according to plan, we are currently passed out in our new apartment—Woohoo!
If the cable guy is on time (note the naive optimism), we should have internet by tomorrow afternoon, and I'll return to fresh, live posts instead of this canned nonsense.
Category: Travel
We are on the road again, heading for California. I hear they've got women, whiskey and gold!
Category: Travel
We are currently (again, barring disaster) recuperating in the mountains of Colorado with Laura's aunt, in order to be refreshed and invigorated when we strike out again. I hope to take some good pictures out here, as it's rumored to be beautiful.
Category: Travel
We are striking out once again, with two days of corn to look forward to. I'm expecting the drive to be about as exciting as this post, if even that.
Category: Travel
This post is brought to you post-departure, transcending the mists of time, through the magic of Blosxom. Barring some sort of hang-up or disaster with the movers, I'm currently on the road, heading for my first pit-stop: Chicago.
The last night of near-final prep was busy, but not as bad as we expected. In part, it's because we found that there is a certain amount of fun in watching the apartment regress to the barren state we remember from moving in. Plus, of course, the excitement of being ready to go at last!
We'll see everyone in a week and a half! Stop in from time to time, as there are a few more canned updates biding their time until the moment is ripe.
Category: Travel
There's little I love more than a speculative opinion piece pretending to be a statement of obvious facts. Apparently I'm only heading out west for the lucrative stock options, and I'll have deflated morale and dissatisfaction in no time.
Of course, during my visits I got the distinct impression that people were excited about, you know, the software they were writing. But hey, what do I (and all the current and former Apple employees telling him he's wrong in his comments) know? He's looked at a stock graph, which has given him insight that's not available to anyone else. Never mind the fact that he apparently didn't do enough research to discover even Hyatt's widely famed weblog about upcoming Safari features—this is clearly a man who knows his stuff.
Category: Geek
Perhaps not. As a ballroom dancer, formerly competitive, I was excited to see a major article in the NYT about ballroom—but the content of the article, I'm sad to say, doesn't surprise me in the least. When the dancers said that the rules of competitive ballroom are “archaic”, they were really not kidding. In fact, by far the most surprising thing in the entire article was that the YCN stood up to the rest of USABDA and got them to allow same-sex partners at the collegiate level. I've been at college competitions where in order to be considered an official YCN/USABDA competition, there had to be a rule that women could not wear pants while dancing—dresses or skirts only. And this wasn't just a lip-service thing, because the YCN coordinator was on site making announcements, and preventing at least one couple from competing again until they changed costumes. Never mind that there are plenty of great Rhythm and Latin outfits with pants. Progressive they are not.
I had always assumed that USABDA was the biggest group of fuddy-duddies, but reading what the IDF folks had to say to the media I'm realizing that the IDF is at least at the same level of fossilization. This was my all-time favorite section:
“Just as the Hopak dancers do not have to start adding other ethnic groups' elements to their dances because to do so would fundamentally contradict what the dance is about, DanceSport does not have to start adding dances about some other relationship,” Jim Frasier, who heads the legal commission of the Europe-based federation, wrote in an e-mail message, referring to the Ukrainian folk dance to explain why his organization has sought to restrict same-sex couples.
Citing as an example the pasodoble, a dance based on movements performed during a bullfight with the man in the central matador role, Mr. Frasier added: “It is performed by a man and woman because it is about the relationship between a man and a woman, using the metaphor of the matador and the cape to express one more aspect of the man/woman relationship.”
What the hell are they thinking over there, letting this guy do their PR? The pasodoble is they example they choose, of all the dances in their repertoire, to hold up as an example? Pasodoble, while a very interesting dance, is pretty much the black sheep in terms of the equality of the roles of leader and follower. They may as well have issued a press statement saying, “Well, we don't really see ballroom dance as an art form, or a way of exploring the dynamics of partnerships in a broader sense—we like to think of it as a way of preserving the misogynistic elements of our society's past. If there's no woman in the couple to push around, what's the point?”
Also not surprising was the mention of the Olympics as a possible factor in the IDF's stance. Three or four years ago, even at the YCN (collegiate) level, the powers that be in this area were already obsessed with the Olympics. That was already becoming a primary motivator. And when I say “Olympics”, I of course mean “money”
I seriously wonder if any of the leaders of these organizations remember what it was like to enjoy dancing.
Category: Society
Laura and I have been trying in vain to find something of interest to stop and see along I-80 between Chicago and Colorado, and coming up empty. All the good stuff seems to have been saved for I-90, so that I could be jealous of my friend who's simultaneously making a cross-country road trip the other way, but further north. I've taken to joking about stopping and seeing the world's largest ball of twine, since I figured that's about the most interesting thing the Iowa-Nebraska region of I-80 would have to offer.
Well, yesterday on a whim I actually Googled for the world's largest ball of twine and made two discoveries: First, that there are at least three different "world's largest" twine balls, all using slightly different definitions, and second, that the nearest one to our route is in Kansas. That's right, I-80 is so boring that even the world's largest ball of twine is too exciting for it.
I hope that stretch isn't patrolled too carefully.
Category: Travel
The top ten signs that you are ready to move across the country:
And the number one sign you are ready to move:
Thank you, I'll be here all week—or at least until Thursday.
Seriously though, as much as I like to rag on Cleveland, there's plenty here that I'll miss (most of it in Cleveland Heights, but that's quibbling). But miss it though I will, I am definitely ready to leave. A new life awaits, so living out the last few days of this one seems empty and futile in many ways.
Category: Life
Ok, as the badges on the right suggest, I'm something of a standards nut. I like web standards, and I generally take pride in coding to them.
However, the standards sometimes frustrate me to no end. You would think that something as simple as a reverse-order list would be relatively straightforward. And in older HTML, it more or less is; you simply use the value attribute to override the numbering. However, that attribute is deprecated in XHTML, so I went hunting for an alternative using CSS, and found: nothing. Ok, not nothing, but only a CSS3 method that's widely unsupported. Yippee.
That left me with three options for my last post:
I went with option 3. That's right, I've thrown validation to the wind, and am now living a lie by continuing to display the badge. If the W3C wants better, they should have given us a new standard that was complete before taking away functionality we had in the old standard (and this is hardly the first time they have done so). I blame society for my faults.
Thank you for bearing with this brief interruption. Now back to your regularly scheduled, valid XHTML 1.1 weblog.
Category: Geek
I'm firmly resolved to use categories more widely now, but I have an important issue giving me pause: Should I load my old posts into categories retroactively, thus breaking links (primarily this would be Google, since I'm not cool enough yet for actual people to link to me), or should I leave them where they are, and make a mess of the miscellaneous top-level category? Beloved readers, I turn to you for advice.
Category: Geek
Simmoril's prodding, along with my having reached the point where I'm reading enough stuff that using an RSS aggregator is starting to look like a pretty good idea, has finally inspired me to mess with my RSS feed. Because Blosxom rocks, it's incredibly easy to get RSS going. All I had to do was mirror my strange templating changes into my story.rss file so that I won't be missing my starting and ending HTML tags, and bam: fully functioning (I hope) feed. To celebrate, I've added the little orange icon we've all come to know and love to my badge collection.
Happy feeding!
Category: Geek
Articles like this one really frustrate me. Sure, the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/whoever are going to lie to serve their own interests. But does every journalist have to parrot their report as if it were gospel? Every story I saw today about the BSA's report on software piracy contained a paragraph functionally equivalent to the following:
A BSA study of $80 billion in software installed on computers last year found only $51 billion was legally purchased, resulting in a $29 billion loss.
Now, I only took a year of economics, and that was in high school, but I'm pretty sure I have a basic understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Dumbed down, and ignoring weird fringe effects like prices of luxury status symbols, it goes like this: more people buy stuff when it's cheaper. And yet, everyone who reports "losses" from illegal software/movie/music trading seems to have skipped this basic lesson, and blithely assumes that every high-school and college student with a pirated copy of Photoshop would have shelled out $650 dollars for a legal version if they didn't know a guy who could give them a free copy. Yeah.
I'm not condoning piracy, saying that it doesn't legitmately hurt any industries, or that no-one with pirated software would buy it if they had to, but please. If the real number is even a few percent of the $29 billion they quoted, I would be shocked. Some of the countries where they quote the biggest piracy numbers are places where Office or Windows would cost months, sometimes years, of the average salary of their inhabitants.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to set up a paid subscription to my weblog. I figure I'll charge $100,000 or so per page view—so far, people have been getting this content for free, resulting in millions, maybe even billions, in losses for me.
[Edit 7/8: Apparently I can't type. Hopefully it was clear that I was not condoning piracy. Thanks Laura!]
Category: Society
As my change over to the new job and new home gets closer, I'm finding myself in a state of limbo—my standing with the Camino project more so than anything else. Although I haven't actually started work yet, I have signed the requisite IP agreement. In absence of other information, I'm assuming that it took effect when I signed it, not when I walk in the door for the first time.
Now, this certainly isn't the end of the story, as I fully intend to begin the paperwork to see what my future is as soon after getting there as possible (without being a colossal pain to my superiors, that is). So in a few weeks I'll start the process of seeing what's what. Until then though, I'm playing it safe. Unfortunately, I don't actually know how safe to play it, so I'm leaning toward really safe. That means:
The last at least is probably overly careful, but it's easier and safer to just take a clean step back for a while.
It's hard though, because I like troubleshooting in the forums, and (as sick as it sounds) I like bug triaging. And it's hard because I feel disloyal to the Camino team. It's not like we are swimming in developers, and it's looking like there will be almost no-one for the next month. The Camino team is awesome, and I hate to abandon them even for a short time—they took me in, answered my dumb questions, helped me get going doing real work, put trust in me, and generally made me feel like a real part of the team almost immediately. They're all very understanding of my hiatus, but in a way, that almost makes it worse. Since I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I wouldn't have my new job without my Camino experience (both resumé and real-world Objective-C), and since it's because of that job that I'm taking a hiatus (hopefully nothing more), I can't help feeling like I'm giving them the short end of the stick here.
With luck, I'll be back soon. I'm sure given enough persistence I can find some way, even if it's curtailed or slightly indirect (e.g., working on some of the Moz Mac-only bugs, rather than Camino specifically), of helping out. And if I'm really lucky, the higher-ups will agree with my view: Camino isn't about competing with Safari, it's just about having more choice, and filling a slightly different niche. It's about enriching the platform.
Stay tuned.
Category: Camino
Under the pressure of our impending road-trip (as well as the geek-peer factor from the fact that our destination is silicon valley) I've finally caved and bought a cell phone. I'm not wild about the cost, the two-year lock-in, and my inability to test in the area where I'll be using it for 1.99 of the 2 years. But I must admit, the neato geek factor is pretty high. And now I'll stop having those "I really wish I had a cell phone" moments, which is a plus.
If I were a true geek, I'd probably have a Bluetooth-enabled combination PDA/phone/camera/slide rule/espresso machine... but I have to start somewhere.
Category: Life
As you may have noticed, it's been pretty quiet around here in terms of posts. The main reason is that I've been spending a lot of time on my job hunt, and haven't wanted to broadcast possible leads (thus necessitating broadcasting some of the inevitable disappointments). For the past few days, I've had some very exciting news that I've been sitting on until it became official, so as not to jinx it at the last minute. Finally, I can break the silence.
I have been offered a job at a very large fruit company! Needless to say, I'm elated! It about a month's time I'll be living in the beautiful bay area, getting paid to hammer on Tiger and see how it breaks. This is pretty much a dream job, so to get in right out of college is insanely great.
To recap: Woohoo!!!!
Category: Life
Camino 0.8 came out somewhere around my layover in Denver last week, so I've been behind on the celebration. I've been catching up on the user reactions, and it's been quite heartening; besides the (surprisingly little) requisite bitching about how it's worthless because of one missing feature or another, the comments are very positive. The consensus seems to be:
The fact that many people consider it to be on par with something 8 people work on full time, despite the fact that all the Camino-specific stuff is being developed by a handful of of people in their spare time, is very nice.
The best part, though, is simply the feeling of progress. Camino is not dead, and it is improving. We still have a ways to go, but we are going there! Unfortunately my contributions to 0.8 were fairly small, as I joined late in the game, so most of my pride isn't warranted. Here's hoping I can help see Camino through to 0.9 and beyond, in order to really make a difference.
Pink already thanked all the contributors, but being a modest guy he didn't thank the person who deserves the lion's share of the praise and thanks: himself. He's seen the project through lean times, a new Goliath challenger, several names, and continuous abuse by smart-alec contributors like myself. And he keeps it all going. Seeing just how much is involved, especially beyond "just" coding new stuff and bug fixes, I have a whole new level of respect for the job he does. Pink: you rock.
Oh, and I can't forget a big shout out to the donkey. As botbot will tell you, he's a vital member of the Camino team.
Category: Camino
The final candidate for Camino 0.8 should be released today, bringing us very close to the 0.8 release that's been eagerly awaited for so long. We've all buckled down recently and cranked out some good stuff—it's nice that we can have a release in a time-frame that we were shooting for without giving up being a bug-fix-driven release.
Category: Camino
I found out this morning that the paper (PDF) I co-authored with my advisor, which is essentially the 8-page version of my 100+ page thesis, was accepted to IROS 2004! So now my thesis work will be catapulted from Case's basement to an major international AI conference. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about that—even if I most likely won't be the one going to Japan.
Category: School
I just took an hour-long pop quiz over the phone on everything I've ever learned about computer science. Now I hurt all over.
Here's hoping I passed.
Category: Life
Pink asked me to take a look at a bug causing Camino to open very slowly for people with a lot of bookmarks (read: way too many) to see if I could find any low-hanging fruit. Some profiling pointed at most of the time being spent posting system notifications to other components of Camino, telling them that a bookmark had changed and to update appropriately.
Only, those other components don't exist while bookmarks are initially loading. They haven't been set up yet. The upshot being that the bookmark-reading part of launching Camino will be about 6-7x faster once my patch lands. It doesn't hang much lower than that.
Note: the only people likely to notice this are those insane enough to have bookmark files that are, like the one I was testing with, 3+ Mb. (For reference, mine, which I consider reasonably-sized, is 100 Kb.)
Category: Camino
Imagine, if you will, a very large island (or a small continent if you prefer). On this island there are horses, but for various evolutionary reasons they are all brown. Every last one of them. Also on the island are people, who develop completely isolated from the rest of the world. They develop language, writing, and eventually create dictionaries, all without interacting with any other civilizations. Not unsurprisingly, their dictionary defines their word for horse basically as a large, brown, four-legged, hoofed animal.
One day, a boat arrives with people from another island/continent. Cultural exchanges of various kinds ensue, and eventually one of our island-folk visit the other island. Shortly after arriving, he sees someone riding a black horse. "What's that animal?" he asks his guide. "Why, it's a horse," she replies, confused. "I've seen many people riding them on your island." "Ridiculous," replies the man from our island, "horses are brown!" "But surely," says his guide, "you can see that it is in every practical way identical to the horses on your island, except that it happens to be brown." "Perhaps," says our islander, "but it's clearly not a horse. As you can see, it says right here in this dictionary that horses are brown, so that creature must be some entirely different animal."
At this point, it should be apparent that our islander is rather foolish. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how this story applies to people who try to base their primary argument against gay marriage on the fact that marriage is defined to be between a man and a woman.
(For those of you already compiling a list of reasons why this is a terrible analogy, I invite you to consider the definition of "person" at the drafting of the US Constitution, and what bearing that has on the validity of the civil rights movement.)
Category: Society
Anyone unsure about Blizzard's target audience should take a look at their wallpapers. These artists are clearly all people who grew up on the old D&D books, which teach us the important lesson that fantasy-genre women wear basically no clothing. I always felt sorry for the women depicted in these books, on the covers of fantasy novels, and in now in many video games. Don't they realize how doomed they are? Their male fighting companions get full suits of plate armor, or at least a nice hauberk or something. What do the women fighters get? Chainmail bikinis, and if they are really lucky some thigh-high boots. Helmets? No way. So basically, they will be fine if their opponents attack only their breasts (or rather, the third of their breasts that's protected), but otherwise that they are SOL.
On the other hand, heroines are better off than evil women, who often don't get any clothing at all. I guess the fact that she's not human makes the nudity ok? At some point, they should give up the pretense and just strap feathers to some women's arms and legs and film porn to sell to teenagers.
Category: Society
Camino 0.8b is out, which should help put down the greatly exaggerated rumors of the Camino project's death.
The release was picked up by several mac sites. So now the feedback is starting to roll in on each of these sites, which is a mixed blessing. Yes, we want feedback. And people are using it and trying it out, which is great. But the problem is that most people online are 1) stupid 2) rude or 3) both. I'm not saying I want all the feedback to be positive, but a basic level of respect for others wouldn't hurt.
Good: Feature X would be very useful, and I really hope it can be included in one of the upcoming releases.
Bad: WTF is wrong with you?!! A brain-damaged monkey wouldn't make a browser without feature X!!! Every idiot knows that! I've been saying Camino needs it for weeks, and no one has done anything about it! What are you slackers doing?!?! Oh, and it's the slowest and ugliest POS browser I've seen in my life! If you weren't all so st00pid, maybe you could make a something that doesn't _SUCK_!!!!!
I exaggerate (slightly), of course, but plenty of comments and feedback have elements of the latter. Even if we weren't volunteers doing this in our spare time, that would still be very uncool. Given that we are, it's just totally beyond the pale. Yes, I mostly ignore those sorts of comments. But I like to dream of a world where I don't have to start every day with the assumption that many people I interact with are going to to be stupid, rude, and aggravating, and adjust my attitudes accordingly.
So for anyone wondering why I'm an arrogant elitist who thinks he's better than most people, all I can say is: spend some time on the internet.
Category: Camino
I picked up my degree today, so it's official! Now all I have to do is wave it around wildly, and hope I can flag down a job with it.
Category: School
So Case's alumni services are launching an exciting "new feature" which allows alumni to use their alumni.case.edu email address as a forwarding account forever, absolutely free. That sounds great in their marketing-speak announcements, which conveniently gloss over the fact that this is replacing the old system where we all kept fully-functioning email accounts forever, absolutely free.
I think I have 180 days to transition to a new email address (I haven't seen any announcement to current students, just a teensy blurb in the alumni newsletter I've been getting since I got my BS last year). Currently alumni, however, get a whopping month and a half before they are cut loose. And anyone who doesn't read the alumni news will be screwed, since there hasn't been any big "your email account will be going away in a month" warning. Perhaps their goal is to reduce the number of alumni donations they get?
I guess it's time to set up my EECS email account for general use, since my department shows a little more loyalty to its alumni than the university as a whole.
Category: School
I spent a three days in Chicago last weekend, and I can summarize it as follows: it's big. Or at least, its buildings are. I came back to Cleveland and one of the first things that struck me is that here I can count the big skyline buildings on the fingers of one hand, and still have enough left over to snap my fingers. That's really not the case in Chicago.
Things I liked best:
Much fun was had by all. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
Category: Travel
That's right, I'm famous now, so you can all give interviews and say, "Yeah, I knew Stuart back before he was a famous software developer".
Ironically, I didn't find that bug to be "the most visible rendering glitch on Panther"—in fact, I pretty much only saw it in the test cases (apparently I don't visit cool enough sites). I would much rather have fixed a completely different bug, which drives me crazy on a more or less continuous basis (yes, I'm enough of a loser to still be on dial-up). I had hoped that underlying cause was the same, and I could fix both bugs at once, but alas no. It continues to taunt me by rearranging pages in modern-art-style ways as I scroll. Maybe it's a feature? "Camino: the only browser hip enough create modern art on the fly" We are looking for ways to set Camino apart from other browsers, after all. Who wants a boring old browser that does nothing more than spit out what it's given anyway?
Category: Camino
So I definitely want to set up at least a few categories (one for Camino, and at least two or three others so that the Camino category won't get lonely), but the trick is finding appropriate categories. I don't want to go crazy, and have 30 categories with a post or two in each. At the other end of the spectrum is just one category ("Huge Geek") that encompasses all my posts, but that's a bit too broad.
There's a reason things mostly stay scattered around my desk in a chaotic jumble, and this is it.
Category: Geek
I've installed 10.1.5 on my long-disused beta OS upgrade partition (I knew it would come in handy again someday!) so that I can try to help make Camino 0.8 rock-solid (or at least firm-dirt-solid) for 10.1.5 users before we leave them behind. This gives me the dubious distinction of being (so far as I know) the only Camino developer with 10.1, and thus the equally dubious privilege of owning all the 10.1-specific bugs. So, if you have any 10.1.5 Camino bugs, let's hear them!
Oh, and for anyone with 10.3 asking themselves, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to switch back to 10.1?" the answer is: No. No it wouldn't.
Category: Camino
It's been a while since I've posted anything, so here's the whirlwind update:
Oh, and in case you were wondering: my iPod is still awesome :) Especially for long drives.
Category: Life
So now that I have this iPod, I'm confronted with the challenge of organizing 1,000 or so songs in such a way that I can easily listen to whatever I want. I've never really given it much thought, since I didn't listen to much music on my computer, but suddenly I find my tiny set of playlists inadequate. It's funny how even with all these tags, it's still tricky to come up with a good organizational system. Maybe it's because my musical tastes are strange, and vary quite a bit with my mood and the alignments of the planets. How do I make playlists when I don't know what I want to listen to?
Basically, I need a musical TiVo that will learn what I like and make playlists on the fly.
Category: Geek
Today is 04/04/04. I just thought that was cool.
Now back to your regularly scheduled weblog.
Category: Random
Today Laura bought me 15GB iPod as a master's graduation present. It is, without a doubt, insanely great.
I was originally thinking of a Palm instead, but after my last Palm fiasco I did some research. It turns out that in the last two years they have apparently chosen not to address their issues of horrible quality control and horrible customer service/support. So basically, getting a Palm at this juncture looks about the same as betting several hundred dollars on a coin toss, which wasn't really what I was looking for.
Thus, the iPod. Most of what I want out of a PDA is the ability to check phone numbers and my calendar when I'm not at my computer, and the iPod gives me that, but from a company known for its quality and service in a good way. Plus, it's an MP3 player (which will be great in general and invaluable for our upcoming cross-country road trip), a 15GB firewire hard drive (in case I want to back up almost everything on my computer easily), and potentially a voice recorder (which is both really cool and solves a lot of the 'lack of input' issues). It also has the advantage of a clear, beautiful screen and a sexy case. On top of which it's tiny; I just can't get over the fact that it's this small, and it's not even the mini! Heck, even the box is awesome.
Oh, and did I mention the software integration? No? That must be because it was so easy, unobtrusive, and fast that it synchronized all my music, contacts and calendar practically without me noticing.
In conclusion, it's basically the coolest thing ever. Go buy one, right now.
Seriously.
Category: Geek
I successfully defended my master's thesis today, and I have the handshakes to prove it!
Ok, I don't really have the handshakes, and they don't actually prove anything... but it's extremely cool none the less. Now some paperwork and a big stack of 25% cotton paper is the only thing between me and a fancy degree.
Category: School
Living here is a constant voyage of discovery when it comes to traffic law. For example, I'm well aware of the "right on red" rule, but on the way to campus today I was reminded about another rule I often forget about: the "left on red at a busy 5-way intersection from a direction where you are only allowed to turn right ever" rule. I'm not sure if that's a special Cleveland traffic law, or just a consequence of the popular "any red light can be treated as a stop sign" rule; someday I really should pick up an Ohio driver's manual and check.
Category: Society
I just came across this editorial by Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts. Basically, it's a plea to the country to pass "defense of marriage" acts—which is fine with me; it's a free country and he should feel free to make all the pleas he wants to. I did find it interesting that he specifically mentioned the Dred Scott case, given the parallels many draw between these rulings and the progressive civil rights rulings in the 60's. I guess it's an attempt to point out that the Supreme Court isn't always right. This is, however, a sword that cuts both ways, as you can substitute "slavery" for marriage in his arguments (and other terms in other places as appropriate) and get a document that, in many places, reads like arguments for slavery that might have been made at the time had the Supreme Court decision gone the other way. For example:
In a decision handed down in November, a divided Supreme Judicial Court of [the United States] detected a previously unrecognized right in our [100]-year-old constitution that permits [slaves] to [be free]. I believe that 4-3 decision was wrongly decided and is deeply mistaken.
Contrary to the court's opinion, [slavery] is not "an evolving paradigm". It is deeply rooted in the history, culture and tradition of civil society. It predates our Constitution and our nation by millennia. The institution of [slavery] was not created by government and it should not be redefined by government.
A few simple substitutions shows how absurd some of his arguments truly are. But that's just an interesting mental exercise, and not the main point. The main point is this:
I am deeply disturbed by some of the statements he makes about the way our government works. I am not sure whether he is truly ignorant, or simply trying to manipulate people through their ignorance; either way it is entirely unacceptable behavior. Here is one of his primary arguments:
Beware of activist judges. The Legislature is our lawmaking body, and it is the Legislature's job to pass laws. As governor, it is my job to carry out the laws. The Supreme Judicial Court decides cases in which there is a dispute as to the meaning of the laws or the constitution. [...] If the powers were not separated this way, an official could make the laws, enforce them and stop court challenges to them. No one branch or person should have that kind of power.
It is inconsistent with a constitutional democracy that guarantees to the people the ultimate power to control their government.
By its decision, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts circumvented the Legislature and the executive, and assumed to itself the power of legislating. That is wrong.
What? The court did exactly what he says they should be doing: it interpreted a dispute as to the meaning of the state laws and constitution—and found the law wanting in light of the constitution. So by the definition he gave, they did nothing wrong, and yet he calls what they did "[assuming] the power of legislating." I can see no other interpretation of his statements except that he believes that the court should be able to make only minor interpretations of laws, and that disagreeing with a law—even if that decision is based firmly in the state constitution—is overstepping their power. So what is he saying? If you read between the lines, it looks a whole lot like he believes that the Legislature should have complete control over laws (or in his own words, "stop court challenges to [laws]"). He invokes separation of powers but uses it to argue against separation of power! The argument is of course even more absurd than that, because he leaves out the crucial point that there exists a check already in place, namely the ability to create constitutional amendments, for exactly the case where an overwhelming majority of people disagree with the court's decision... odd that he's forgotten it, when only a paragraph earlier he urged people to pursue and support that course of action. Or is it truly that it has not occurred to him that the only reason to have the power to make constitutional amendments is if the drafters of the constitution intended the courts to have exactly the power they exercised in Massachusetts?
I also take issue with the one-liner about the constitutional democracy, and his later statement that "This issue was seized by a one-vote majority of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. We must now act to preserve the voice of the people and the representatives they elect." Taken together, it sounds suspiciously like he is trying to make everyone feel like the courts trampled on their right to have the government respond to "the voice of the people"—also known as "majority rule". In fact, our government is a constitutional republic, precisely because mob rule was seen by our founders to be a terrible idea (partly because our founders are, like me, elitist snobs, but partly because life under the Articles of Confederation had pointed out some serious problems with majority-rule government).
In summary, I have this to say to the governor of Massachusetts, and others who make similar arguments: You don't like the idea of gay marriage? Fine. You disagree with the court's decision? Fine. Convene a constitutional convention, and vote on a Discrimination against Homosexuals act (I refuse to call it Defense of Marriage; I am married, and feel entirely unthreatened. To me, it looks like a spade, and I'll call it such, even though some of those promoting it genuinely believe that it's not a spade). Maybe it will even pass, and I would be saddened by that. But what I will not be, if that day comes, is dishonest and manipulative. I will never claim that a constitutional amendment is an abuse of power, or that any branch of government has overstepped its bounds in creating such an amendment. I will not try to sow misinformation about the workings of our government and conflate a moral issue with one of governmental process in an attempt to win people to my side.
I know it's too much to ask that everyone be honest about how our political process works and is intended to work, but it is not too much to ask that our politicians do so. Mr. Romney, I pity you—you are clearly driven by fear to lash out in this way—but I cannot respect you.
Category: Society
The best part is how they keep pointing out that there is absolutely no legal precedent for the position the telemarketers took (i.e., "But it's not fair! It should be fair"), and that in fact many similar rulings were against them. That and they called the stupid "The economy will collapse as we fire everyone" bluff, pointing out that it's pretty stupid to argue that not being able to call people who are just going to hang up on you will hurt your business. All in all, the decision reads like a slightly legalese version of, "You're idiots; go home."
Category: Society
There's a shiny new version of Mozilla's stand-alone browser, formerly known as Phoenix, then Firebird, but now called Firefox. They promise they won't change it any more. I didn't like it at first, partially just because a new name for something is never quite as good as the old one (*cough*Case*cough*), and partly because it didn't make sense. What the heck is a firefox? But now I know that "fire-fox" is a translation of the Chinese name for the red panda, and after seeing a few pictures, I am an instant convert. Instead of "The browser, reloaded" (which I'll grant is clever in a pop-culture sort of way), their tag line should be "as powerful as its namesake is cute." And they could have a web button with a picture instead of their logo. I bet their adoption rate would soar.
Speaking of web buttons, I'm torn. I'm a big fan of CSS, XHTML, and accessibility buttons, which are about raising awareness of standards and showing that you care—I proudly slap standards buttons on my sites. But a browser button smacks of the dark ages of "best viewed with" buttons. On the other hand, good CSS designs often are best viewed with a compliant browser. But back to the first hand, I myself use several different, non-Firefox, highly compliant browsers (Camino and Safari), so I don't think it's right to presume to tell people that they should use Firefox if they are in a similar situation. But returning yet again to the second hand, the vast majority of people using the web don't have a clue that IE isn't "the internet", so getting the word out is important.
Of course, the bottom line is that buttons aren't likely to make a noticeable difference anyway: the people who put buttons on their sites are likely to have predominantly readers who already know about other options, and the people most likely to click on (or even notice) the buttons even more so. The real battle will be fought on a person-by-person level, telling family and friends and, in many cases, doing the install and bookmark import for them.
Note to self: convert people to Firefox (using pictures if necessary) instead of Firebird, and hope there aren't any more name changes that might confuse converts.
Category: Geek
I've been getting back up to speed on CSS and web design, and I've found some incredibly cool stuff since my list bout of interest—some because it's new, some because it was way above my level when I was first learning CSS. Among the coolest developments are CSS-based drop-downs (example); CSS image map replacements, complete with very cool roll-over effects (example); and "sliding doors" and sliding doors part II for making sweet expandable tabs (example)—especially cool since I'd just finished patting myself on the back for coming up with CSS tabs that looked just like their example ugly tabs. A List Apart is definitely the best resource I've found for CSS-oriented coolness.
The other incredibly cool CSS effect I've come across is faux image compositing with CSS—don't bother to visit unless you are using a standards-compliant (or "not-IE" as they call it in the trade) browser, as it will just look weird. Of course, the better solution is to simply use semi-transparent PNG backgrounds (this also doesn't work in IE (well, Win-IE) without ugly hackery, but that's no loss over the multi-image method), but it gets points for cleverness.
And then, of course, there is the CSS Zen Garden, which demonstrates the awesome power of CSS. My personal favorite is this design, but once again IE users need not apply.
Note to self: convert more people to Firebird.
Category: Geek
I've discovered that the reason such a large chunk of the people coming here are looking for statics on homosexual promiscuity is that I'm magically the number two Google result for "(gay OR homosexual) promiscuity statistics"— maybe even number one after this gets indexed. I feel bad about all these people wanting statistics who are just getting my rant, so as a public service I did a little bit of looking and found this survey of papers about promiscuity among gays and lesbians, which is far more worthy of being a front-page Google result (but doesn't look as useful from the blurb).
Disclaimer: the author is himself gay, so has a vested interest in his interpretation of the papers. However, he is very explicit about places where he is interpreting data instead of just quoting it, and he gives full references for every study and paper he uses, so you can go get the data yourselves if you don't trust him. That, and his presentation of studies that give bleaker results than other studies rather than just glossing over them, makes me inclined to trust him. If nothing else, it's a good list of papers.
If you are just looking for information proving that all homosexuals are terrible people, you can do your own damned research—or just keep misusing the same partial statistics from a few questionable studies like all the other intolerant homophobes.
And there you have my unbiased effort to bring light to all sides of this issue.
Category: Society
As my job search progresses, I find myself more and more convinced that I know exactly what I want to do, and that there is (or at least should be) a huge market for it: making online job application systems that don't suck unimaginably. Frankly, just about everyone seems to need one.
So far, all the job sites fit into one of three categories:
So right now I'm in a fantastic position to know exactly what people want out of a job application system, and I'm qualified to make one. It's ideal.
Interested parties can contact me by: (1) emailing me, (2) using the comment submission form, or (3) building an entire blog from some kind of horrible templating system, then using trackback.
Category: Life
Lets talk for a minute about Apple's iLife programs, and whiny babies. Up until last week's keynote, iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie were free, and only iDVD required buying the iLife suite (unless it came with your computer, in which case they were all free). Now it appears that the only way to get new versions is to buy iLife, or buy a new Mac—although iTunes will, almost assuredly, remain free, since it creates revenue by pushing the iTunes music store.
That, if you have the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old, is terribly, terribly unfair, not to mention devious and underhanded. Of course, this being the internet, most of the vocal people do have the emotional maturity of small children. Some people are very up-front that they are simply spoiled brats who feel they have some right to free upgrades (and boldly proclaim that they will feel perfectly justified pirating the new iLife suite), but most try to dress it up in rational-esque arguments or comparisons. If you are one of those people, I offer you this simple guide to why you are wrong:
It's always been free before, so it should continue to be free.
You're an idiot (translation to your language: u R a 1d10t). Go home.
It's a bait-and-switch! It's just like what happened with the .Mac fiasco!
No, no it's not. First, and most importantly, you still have all the iApps, and they will all continue to work indefinitely. If you have trouble with that concept, try reading the sentence a few more times. They are not a service that will vanish, and you will not have to change your email address if you don't pay for the new version. You will continue to have good, free products; just not the absolute best.
Well, it's still devious, hooking people in like that.
Not really... it's not uncommon for people to give away beta software, then charge for it when the final version is ready. The only difference is that often the beta is set to expire, so you can't keep using it. So Apple is being much more generous than most software companies.
Oh yeah, what about backward compatibility?
Huh? Compatibility with what exactly? Future digital cameras that don't use jpeg? Not too likely. Future versions of Quicktime that don't play current mpeg files? Not a chance. New DVD players that can't read current DVDs? They would fail on the market if released in the foreseeable future.
Ok smarty-pants, but what about the next OS X release?
Well, first off, I think it's safe to say that 10.4 (or whatever) will run 10.3 applications. Second, it's not unlikely that it would come with the new iApps anyways. Third... you're willing to shell out $130 for an OS upgrade every year, but are too cheap to pay $50 for a really under-priced software suite?
I still think it's too much.
How nice for you. Use something else, and pipe down.
Shouldn't they sell iPhoto as a stand-alone?
Ok, yes, I think they should. I would imagine that there's a sizable market for iPhoto in the $15-20 range, of people who don't have any need for iMovie, iDVD, or Garage Band. Hopefully they'll agree, and sell it that way. Does that make iLife any less of an awesome deal? Nope.
Are you just an Apple apologist?
No. Among other things, I think that the .Mac switch was devious, underhanded, a bait-and-switch, and leaned way out over the border of false advertising. Whoever was responsible for that mess should be smacked with a ruler, repeatedly.
Category: Geek
The mystery of the wireless access in my apartment deepens... I haven't used the wireless network much at all, so I didn't notice discrepancies until I used it here today, and talked with more knowledgeable people. Signs point to it not being CWRUnet, since it allowed me to surf anywhere without connecting through the VPN, and I'm pretty sure it gave me a 192.x.x.x address. But it's definitely called CWRUnetWireless, and it's not just a weird ghost on the computer since it persists across reinstalling the entire system from scratch.
So now the question is not "how does CWRUnet reach my apartment", but instead "why is there an open access point called CWRUnetWireless near my apartment, and who is serving it"?
Category: Geek
So I discovered today, toally by accident, that I can, apparently, get a CWRU wireless signal in my apartment. At full strength! It would seem that I need to order a wireless card for my computer. Right now.
Category: Geek
Long time no entries... holidays will do that I guess. Hawaii was fantastic, the conference went well, and my holidays were very restful and enjoyable. Of course, I missed more or less the coolest snow-storm ever back at home by a few days, which is a shame. But hey, there's weird Cleveland pellet snow here, and the mid-afternoon temperature is 21°F, feels like -5°F, so winter here isn't all bad.
Oh wait, yes it is. The crappy weather was much better when I could end my entries with the countdown to Hawaii, but now all I have to look forward to is April, when it might get warm again.
Months until I move and never have to experience another Cleveland winter: 5
Category: Life