Agents of Mischief

Your House Is Too Big

2008-07-12T10:49:00.001-07:00

If your biggest problem is that your wireless router doesn't reach all the rooms in your house, you're a lucky guy.

Oh, That Again

2008-06-30T17:02:00.001-07:00

Every so often, I start up my Mac, and it's extremely sluggish ... maddeningly so. Simple tasks lock up and stall. Every time, I find myself cursing and asking " What the hell is ... " and then the answer comes. Software Update.

Why is the Software Update background check so overwhelming to the system? What exactly is the problem? I can run 4 networked applications all at the same time, and the performance of all 4 applications is acceptable, but if the Software Update system is checking the mothership for available updates, it brings my system to a crawl. WTF, Apple ???

Next problem ... I go to the Dock and bring up the menu for Software Update and select " Quit ". The menu item highlights as normal and I think " Ok. Problem solved. Back to what I was doing. " No.

Why the hell is Software Update the only program on the damned box to which " Quit " doesn't mean quit ??? If there's someone who needs help with this concept, " Quit " means this: The application closes any open windows, saves any pertinent data, and then terminates quietly.

Ignoring the user's instruction to quit is Bad.

Leave Your Car At Home Tomorrow ( Earth Day )

2008-04-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

If you can, why not leave your car at home tomorrow? Wouldn't that be a great way to support Earth Day?

The realities of life won't let everyone do this, but if you can ... give it a try ... for just one day.

Maybe you could arrange to get a ride with someone. Maybe you could ride your bike. Maybe you could take a train or bus to work. Maybe you could work from home.

The advantages of not driving go beyond the emissions from your car. Traffic congestion ruins everyone's gas mileage. The more cars on the road, the worse everyone's mileage gets. ( And of course, more emissions per car per trip is bad. ) Even if you have a super clean burning engine or a hybrid, you still add to the congestion if you're on the road.

Time Is Not Money

2008-04-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

Forget what you've been told. Time is NOT money. Time is far more valuable than money, and far more scarce.

Given an unlimited amount of time, you can easily find way to make money. Regardless of how much money you have, you cannot make time.

You may be able to go out and raise money. You can hit up your friends, family, maybe even venture capital firms, but no one can give you more time. Once it's gone, there is no more.

Why do I bring this up?

If there's a way that spending money will help you do things, then spend the money. Life is all about doing things, whether that's accomplishing things at work or at home, going on memorable vacations, creating something out of nothing, raising a child, writing a song, ... Money is ... well ... just a way to buy the things you need.

If the thing that you're trying to accomplish doesn't get done, it doesn't matter how much money you've saved, you've failed.

Spend the money. Use the time you saved to do something great.

Google Humor

2008-04-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

Google comes up with some of the best gags.

Check out Google's new toilet-based ISP Google TiSP.

Blogging

2008-01-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

As of this morning, I am guest blogging on the Group News Blog. That means probably one post a week or so. My first one is echoed at Mischievous Ramblings II, which also now has my history from the first MR, although some comment dates are wrong. I hope to get MRII operational at the original MR URL shortly.

Change the Look of the Dock

2007-11-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

I really dislike the new appearance of the Dock in Leopard -- the new 3D low-contrast glassy appearance. From what I hear, this was a matter of bitter debate at Apple, and that's good, because there's a built-in way to change it.

You may have noticed that the Dock changes when it's on the side of the screen. I like that appearance much better. It has better contrast and a much cleaner look, so I can recognize the icons more quickly.

You can get the dock-at-the-side appearance all the time by setting a preference from the command-line.


mike$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
mike$ killall Dock

Enjoy.

p.s.

Hey, SJ, if you're listening ... this choice belongs in the preference pane for the Dock, so that users who want (or need) higher contrast in the Dock could more easily improve their Mac OS X experience.

"Vote Robot Overlord: Like You Have a Choice."

2007-11-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

Kung Fu Monkey:

John: ... No.
Tyrone: Listen, all I'm asking is that you give the idea a decent --
John: Robot overlords. You are "pro-robot overlords".
Tyrone: They bring world peace, universal health care --
John: At the cost of our freedoms!
Tyrone: MY POINT EXACTLY. We're already giving up our freedoms -- our right to privacy, gone. Warrantless arrest, gone. Right to have your vote counted is super-gone depending on the state you live in, right to stand trial, gone -- we have torture. We already have all the downsides of a supposed robotic takeover, but we're being cheated of the upside! I say, if this is the world we're gonna live in anyway, at least let the robot overlords have their shot. World peace, technological utopia -- and no crime! The robot overlords' crime control is swift and merciless.
...

There's more.

At Will Employment

2007-11-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

This is the funniest thing I've heard all week.

Engineer: What is a "Performance Improvement Plan"?

VP of Engineering: That's HR covering their ass. It's a documented procedure to make sure that an employee knows what they must do in order to not be fired.

2nd Engineer: I thought we were "at-will employees".

VP of Engineering: You are. Get back to work.

Best Game Review Ever

2007-10-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a highly entertaining and surprisingly accurate review of Halo 3. Enjoy.

PITYS - Planned I Told You So's

2007-10-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

I heard a great new term last week: PITYS - Planned I Told You So's

PITYS, attributed to Mark Russinovich, Chief Architect of Windows, is what happens when the concerns of engineers are glossed over by management or marketing or whomever and the clearly-flawed plan is put into play without any further consideration.

I can't tell ya how many times I've been in these situations in various big company environments. You try your best to shed light on the risks posed by a given plan, only to be assailed by fervent rationalization or told that engineers just don't understand the "big picture".

At this point, the experienced engineer knows that he has no option but to quietly resign himself to that the fact that the plan will proceed despite his concerns, and at some almost certain point in the future, he will be dragged into the resulting crisis and will be in the all too familiar position of saying "I told you this was a problem n weeks/months ago."

It reminds me of a scene from Austin Powers:

Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers

Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?

Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]

Dr. Evil: Close the tank!

Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!

Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?

Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!

Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.

Computer Science D&D Spellbook

2006-12-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

link

Delighted

2006-11-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

The new machine did arrive. The folks at the Apple Store were very helpful. I was dragged cussing and frowning into the next milenium.

And ... I'm delighted.

I've set up the new 2.66GHz Dual Dual-Core Xeon powered Mac Pro, and it's amazing. I've been blown away with the raw speed and capacity of this new machine. It makes light work of everything that I throw at it. And, even more surprisingly, Spotlight runs great! Who knew?? All it needs is a server-class machine, and suddenly it's a feature and not a nuisance.

I'm in the process of loading the heavyweight apps that caused me to want a desktop (instead of my PowerBook) in the first place. If there's anything notable after loading 100 GB of music and photos, Photoshop, Aperture, Flash, et al ... I'll let you know.

It was a long and frustrating few weeks, as you've read in the previous posts, but this story did have a happy ending after all.

Bummed ( Part V )

2006-10-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I never expected that there would be a 'Part V'.

I stopped into the Apple Store again late in the afternoon on Fri, Oct 20. I went straight to the store manager and asked that he find out the status of my repair. The shocker: they had decided a week ago that they could not fix the machine. They had called a wrong number on the 14th and the 16th to ask what I would like to do.

I was a bit surprised about the wrong number thing, because I had made sure that they had the right number when I checked the machine in for repair, and when I returned to the store on the 6th they had the right number on the repair order, so ... whatever.

I talked with "the admin" who handles these issues. She, very kindly, offered to replace the machine that cannot be fixed with a brand new Mac. No shit. That's cool.

She originally thought that she could give me a machine right away, out of the Palo Alto store's stock. There was some paperwork that she had to do, so she suggested that I come back in an hour. She asked if there was anything special about the old machine, and I told her that the only thing I cared about was that it was a G5.

I was really happy to get a new machine that same day, so I walked down University Avenue for 45 minutes until she called me back. I asked her to read me the specs on the replacement machine, and she began to describe the new Mac Pro. I politely pointed out that was an Intel machine, and not a G5. Surprised, she said that she thought that what I meant was that the machine was a tower, and that since the Mac Pro was a tower and more powerful than the G5 that it would be an okay replacement. Crap.

She had more bad news. After checking with "her superiors" she found that she would have to order a machine, and it could take as long as 2 weeks! Now, I kinda understand not replacing my busted refurb from store stock, kinda, but what I don't understand is why the new machine would take 2 weeks. It's got to come directly from the factory in Asia?

So, let's recap:
1) I originally bought the refurb because I wanted a genuine PowerPC on which to run all of my existing software that has been customized (with AltiVec code) to run great on the PowerPC. That machine is FUBAR.
2) Apple is graciously willing to replace my purchase with the latest desktop Mac, the Mac Pro. This is a helluva machine, with 2 2.66GHz Intel Woodcrest Dual Core processors (yeah, it's a quad), 250GB disk, yada, yada, yada. It's been ordered, but at this point, I kinda expect that it will never arrive.
3) I'm in this weird spot. The Mac Pro is a great value in this exchange, but it won't run my software as well as the G5 would have. I'm not sure that it will meet my needs.

Here's the technical discussion, for those of you who don't get this right away:
The high-end software that I use, like Adobe Photoshop, run great on a G5 because they have been specially built to take advantage of the G5 chip (AltiVec instructions) and the multithreading that is possible with 2 processors. Those programs will run on the new Intel-based Macs, they are compatible, but they won't run as well. You see, they were built for PowerPC. So, on the new machines they will run in an emulator known as Rosetta. The problem is that when run in the emulator, these programs cannot take advantage of the chip architecture for which they were built (and optimized), and because the emulator itself will run on only one of the processors, the program does not take advantage of the multithreading that you would expect. The result, the program runs without the special optimizations and runs on only one processor. So ... I can run my software on the new machine, in an emulator, on only one of the 4 processors, so it won't run as well as it would have on the old machine.

Oh, there's one more thing ... The Intel-based Macs require twice the amount of RAM that the PowerPC-based Mac did. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have verified this with my own independent testing. It takes nearly twice the RAM to boot the machine to the Desktop, and then nearly twice the RAM for the applications that run in Rosetta. So, I have to buy more expensive RAM for the new machine, and I have to buy twice as much of it.

So, after considering all of this ... I gave in to basic economics ... the machine that Apple is offering is flat out worth more on today's market than the one I originally bought, and I would be an idiot not to take it.

So, stay tuned ... Will the promised Mac Pro ever arrive? What will happen next?

-- to be continued --

Bummed ( Part IV )

2006-10-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's Oct 6... The day after the estimated completion date.

The status on the Apple support site hasn't changed since the first day I dropped off the machine.

So, let's recap:

I bought the machine 2 weeks ago.
It arrived in a barely usable state.
Apple's had it back for 12 days.
I can't get any information about the repairs in progress.
I'm getting a bit pissed off about the whole thing.

I'm going to go to the Apple store in person today to talk to the store manager and try to get some answers. At this point, I'm pretty close to simply asking for a refund.

-- to be continued --

Bummed ( Part III )

2006-10-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

I stopped by the Apple store in Palo Alto Saturday afternoon. I was hoping to get some details on the progress of the repairs to my new machine. Instead, I got stonewalled.

The only answer anyone in the store would give was, "We'll call you when it's ready."

I asked if all the parts had arrived, if there was any update to the estimate (Oct 5 -- 10 working days), if there was any additional information at all that they could give me. The response: "We'll call you when it's ready."

That's really unsatisfying. Maybe I can talk to someone at work about changing that policy.

When someone brings their new machine back to the store and is told that the repairs can take as long as 2 weeks, we should have more to offer them than "We'll call you when it's ready." Especially in the era of overnight delivery, 2 weeks seems like a ridiculous amount of time to ask someone to wait.

-- to be continued --

Bummed ( Part II )

2006-09-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

After talking with someone in India for about 25 minutes, it was decided that I should take my computer to the Genius Bar at the Palo Alto Apple store for warranty service. It turns out that I had already done all of the diagnostics and had already attempted all of the repairs that they recommend over the phone. Makes sense. Next time I'll just start at the Genius Bar.

The guy at the Palo Alto store was really good. He listened well, he knew his stuff, and he found another problem with the machine that I hadn't noticed ... the FireWire ports weren't working!

Ding!

That makes sense. The FireWire controller is an integral part of the main logic board. Several of the panics that I saw were during disk activity that could have been accessing the FireWire controller. This could be the cause, or it may just be another symptom, but either way, Apple is replacing the main logic board under warranty.

I feel pretty good about this outcome. I'm not sure that we've pinpointed the cause of my trouble, but I'm really happy to have the main logic board replaced for free. There's a really good chance that this will fix the problem.

It's lucky that the FireWire ports weren't working. That provided a solid reason to replace the main logic board and made it easy to get the machine in for warranty repairs.

The only catch ... is that I really don't know how long it will be before I get the machine back. The repair estimate said Oct 5. That seems kinda ridiculous. Hopefully, they can get the part and do the repair this week.

Either way, things are looking up. This story may have a happy ending after all. If I'm really lucky they will replace the main logic board that I had with the other one -- the one with 8 RAM slots instead of 4 -- which would be great.

-- to be continued --

Bummed ( Part I )

2006-09-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a geek, so I'm all about the toys. This is the story of a broken toy -- a toy that was supposed to be really cool, but instead turned out to be an expensive time-consuming hassle I didn't need.

What the hell am I talking about? My new G5 tower.

On Friday, I received a refurbished Dual 2GHz G5 tower. I was pretty excited. I planned to use the tower to do a whole bunch of fun stuff at home that I don't like to do on my PowerBook, because these things need more ... er ... power than the PowerBook can muster. Typical projects include: fun with GarageBand, Photoshop, Flash development, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, etc.

Friday night I rushed home and started setting up the G5 immediately. It came with Mac OS 10.4 pre-installed, so I started downloading the latest from Software Update. The download seemed to be unusually quick, so I opened Activity Monitor to check out the download speed. Got bored with that pretty quickly and launched Safari, and ... SPLAT! System panic. Crap.

I ran the Apple Hardware Test on the machine, and the RAM test failed. Great. They sent me a machine with bad RAM. Well ... ok. I wanted to add RAM anyway. I went to Fry's, got 2GB of compatible RAM Saturday morning, and tried the tests again. All tests passed. Cool. A few hours wasted, but I'm up and running. Start installing a few apps and ... SPLAT! Another panic. Crap.

Maybe the System software is bad, I thought. I mean ... all of the hardware tests passed. I can't remember the last time that I ran on the system that was pre-installed. Maybe that's the problem.

So, I rebooted from the restore disc, erased the hard drive, and re-installed a clean version of Mac OS 10.4.4. Then, I tried a few things. Ok. Good so far, I thought. So, I ran Software Update again, and began downloading the latest software. Shortly before the big MacOS X 10.4.7 combined update finished downloading ... SPLAT! System panic. Crap.

Huh, I thought, being unusually optimistic. Maybe this is some problem fixed by 10.4.7. I'll just finish the download, reboot into 10.4.7 and ... SPLAT! Ok. This is really getting to me now. Another reboot and I'm into 10.4.7. Things seem ok. Let's try something to stress-test the system.

I started a drag-install of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (copying files in the Finder), thinking that the demos would be a good stress test. Turns out copying the files was enough to panic the system again!

That was it. I re-installed the original RAM DIMMs, put the machine back into the packaging and into the shipping box, and set it next to the door.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I don't know what to expect. I think that I will probably simply return the machine. I don't know what Apple would try to repair on the system, because all of the hardware tests pass. But, now a few strange details start to make sense. The RAM DIMMs that Apple originally shipped in the machine were really scratched up. I bet that the machine was originally returned due to these panics, and someone had tried re-seating the RAM several times. Because the hardware tests all passed, the refurb group probably thought it was all set to re-sell.

-- to be continued --

Obsession

2006-05-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I guess I'm obsessed with the idea of making computer games out of board games and card games. You've all heard me talk about this at one point or another, but I'm beginning to think that I just have to take some time ( like a year or two ) and try this out. It can't be any worse that building software that I don't care about for people who don't care what I think.

So, first of all, I'm not talking about making another computer version of Solitaire or Checkers. I'm talking about taking games like Guillotine ( a card game by Wizards of the Coast ) or Pirateer ( a board game by Mendocino Game Company ) and making compelling computer versions of games like that.

I really like playing these games with people, and I realize that the social nature of playing these games in person is an important element for almost everyone who enjoys these games. I'm not looking to replace that experience. There are lots of times when I'd like to play one of these games and my friends are not available. There are other times when I'd like to try out some new strategies or explore the different scenarios possible in the game.

There have been many times that I had wished that there were good computer versions of these games that I could play, either with strangers on the 'net or against AIs. I think that there might be a significant number of people "out there" who must feel the same way. Take Settlers of Catan as an example. There is a whole community of people who have developed a computer version as a project on SourceForge.

As a child of the Atari generation, I have always wanted to develop games. I understand that the "game industry" is a bad scene, that the annoyances I have seen at Adobe and at Apple pale in comparison to the ridiculous antics of execs at game studios or game publishers. I think, however, that as a cottage industry, indie game development is really interesting, and I'd like to try it. I think I'd like to learn to develop Flash® and see what I could do with the technologically simple but really fun to play games that we play on "Game Night". I'm pretty damned sure that I'd enjoy that a hell of a lot more than what I'm doing now. I'm sure enough that I'm thinking that I'll try it for a year or two and see where it leads. I've been working for other people for the past 20 years, and I've achieved my all of my goals in that regard. Now, it's time to try something else... or maybe it's just a way to recharge... either way, I'm ready for a change.

Unicode Primer

2006-05-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)

Game Industry Pundits Pontificate

2006-03-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

Some interesting (and sometimes crazy) statements from video game industry experts. I especially love the one about single player games. [article]

Retrocomputers

2006-03-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

How cool would it be to have an IMSAI case that also ran Linux? Check it out.

Making Better Games with Test-Driven Development

2006-03-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

Most of us work with

* UI
* complex libraries and frameworks

so this paper on TDD may be more relevant than other TDD literature. It also gives the clearest explanation I've seen yet on what a unit test, well, tests.

Hooked On Classics?

2006-01-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

This video of a kid playing Canon in D on his guitar is pretty cool. I'm not sure whether to call this "Hooked on Classics" or "The Return of Progressive Rock" but I like it.

The Daily WTF

2005-12-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

subtitled "Curious Perversions in Information Technology": [link]

How to stop filesharers from stealing hotel bandwidth

2005-12-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

Funny things you can do with network skillz: [link]

Atari 800 Laptop, Oh Yeah!

2005-11-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

I know some of you will find this of interest. A crazy man^H^H^H enthusiast has made a laptop out of an Atari 800. It was actually a fairly elaborate project since he appears to be obsessive compulsive. You have to read it to believe it. [article]

"Someday, no one will march there at all"

2005-10-19T00:46:00.000-07:00

And so now every April, I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.

The last Australian veteran who saw action during WWI died yesterday. Guess now that line will have to be "And now, no one will march there at all".

New Apple Products

2005-10-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. I work for the coolest company in the world.

Check out the new products at Apple's Web Site.

Hobart Shakespeareans

2005-09-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of you share my feelings about the value of education, so I would like to point out an episode on the PBS series POV called "The Hobart Shakespeareans." It's about a fifth grade teacher who is teaching a bunch of poor kids to perform Hamlet. But he's teaching them so much more, like the value of being a decent human being and what a good education can do for you. I found this program (what I saw of it, I came in towards the end) very moving. The website can be found here

Workin' For The Man (again)

2005-09-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back at The Big Red A again as a regular employee. Squeezed about as much contractor juice out of them as I could.

Aw, Hell No!

2005-08-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

Kepler's Bookstore has gone out of business. First Iguana's, now this. I always liked shopping at this store. This sucks. More info here.

U.S. evangelist calls for assassination of Chavez

2005-08-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

This is sooo wrong. Pat Robertson is advocating the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The American people should be outraged. I am apalled.

Read the story (at Yahoo News).

Henrico County iBook Auction Turns Into Riot

2005-08-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

5000 people + 1000 iBooks for sale at $50 apiece + 5 cops = small riot

I am yet again disappointed in humanity's ability to get completely apeshit crazy over stuff. And over four year old iBooks? You have got to be shitting me Private Pyle.

[article]

Canada is the New America

2005-08-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

( from Evan's blog ... )

Kung Fu Monkey wrote a great rant on what is wrong with America and why Canada is closer to our ideals.

Leaving, Again

2005-08-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

PureDigital ( the startup I joined in May ) is NOT what I had hoped it would be. The way the company works is toxic. This is not a group of highly-energetic highly-talented people working hard to accomplish a common goal. The vibe is as corporate as any Dilbert strip. This is not the startup I was looking for.

On top of all of the other problems, the people the company needs most - the people who get things done - are leaving. The lead engineer on my team left a month ago, leaving a huge gap. The CFO suddenly left 3 weeks ago. Our #2 networking/server guy is leaving at this end of this week. This means, for a variety of reasons, it's hard to accomplish anything around here.

Last week management announced a re-org.

It's time to go.

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

2005-08-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

(click to go to the album)

I think most of you will appreciate this album. :-)

Hell Freezes Over

2005-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

(from my blog)

Apple Ships Multi-button Mouse and Russell Beattie provides Apple Mighty Mouse: Hands On Review

What is the world coming to? I think I'm gonna have to get one to go with the new iBook.

In other news, many skiers have been vanishing around the US...

SJ Race Track

2005-08-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

The above link goes to a shutterfly album of some pictures I took on downtown SJ Thursday evening, before the Grand Prix cars showed up there.

Big news

2005-07-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

So, uh, if you don't look at my blog, you should at least check out my latest entry.

Curse of the Wererabbit

2005-07-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

For you Wallace and Gromit fans out there (and you know who you are), you'll be pleased to know that there's a full length W&G film coming out this fall. The trailer is up here. Looks pretty funny. There are a few shots I took of some sets (I think they were sets, fairly small models, anyway) amongst those I took at comic-con the other week here.

Won't Someone Please Think of the Children?

2005-07-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

I am really sick of hearing about this whole GTA: San Andreas thing. First of all, why is it that it's perfectly ok to have a game where you perform ruthless crimes like murder and carjacking, etc, etc, but oh no, not show sex! Secondly, the difference in the actual rating is M (17 and older) and AO (18 and older). One frickin year! Talk about a tempest in a teapot. I'm not even going to go into the whole fact that in order to see said offensive titties, you have to apply a patch which does not come from the company. Give me a break. Aren't there more important issues to deal with?

iTunes Compatible Cell Phone Monday?

2005-07-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

This article from AppleInsider indicates that the long-awaited iTunes compatible cell phone might be announced at a special event Monday.

I've become fascinated with this idea. Because I now carry my phone and my iPod Shuffle with me everyday, I am interested in a phone that would be able to do both.

Until I got the Shuffle, I wasn't interested in listening to MP3s via my cell phone, but now ... after realizing that I like loading short custom playlists onto my Shuffle ... the idea of a phone with 512MB of RAM for MP3s is quite intriguing. I wouldn't want to have to load the MP3s manually, though. ( I could do that with existing phones. ) After giving it some thought, I need iTunes integration to make the idea really compelling.

Early Blogger Now Homeless

2005-07-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Found this story on Wired.com. Jorn Barger, credited with coining the term "weblog" for his blog Robot Wisdom, is now homeless. Not entirely surprising that someone who was known for prolific posting (on USENET, then on his blog) wasn't actually doing anything productive.

A Sad Day

2005-07-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

So I got this mail from a coworker yesterday:

"We are sorry to tell you that our ongoing dispute with our landlord (Malcolm Durham of Maduro Investments) is forcing us to close for an indefinite period of time. We intend to do everything we can in the court system to enforce our rights in pending legal actions. We believe that we will ultimately win and that we will be able to reopen. We very much appreciate and thank you for your patronage and the opportunity that we have had to get to know you. We are sorry that for now we will be unable to serve you. We will be back!

The last day of operation willl be Tuesday, July 5, 2005. So tell a friend to come by and get a bite to eat before then! For updates please check out our website at http://www.burritozilla.com ."

So I went to have lunch (super-mini, no guac) for potentially the last time at Iguana's. *snif*

Zombie Dogs!

2005-06-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

from Evan's blog ...

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005) concerns the suspended animation of dogs via cryotherapy and salt solutions. They claim 3 hours of clinical death followed by revival and tests showing no brain damage. They hope to test on humans within a year.

The essential hope is to be able to suspend seriously hurt people until they can be appropriately treated, as opposed to cryonically suspending people for decades until their terminal chronic condition can be cured. Still, it’s very interesting.

Politics and podcasting

2005-06-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, Mike, I'm here. Just nutty busy.

I've been continuing my struggles to identify some productive steps I can take to combat the ugliness that's taking place in our nation's capital. I'm not completely satisfied with my MoveOn.org experience and am still wondering if there's a way to assemble a network of like-minded people that in some way can contribute to change. The MoveOn model puts together neighborhood teams. We've got wonderful neighbors but in many ways, I'd be more inspired to work toward something if I were working with my friends. The real question I pose to all of you is, "Is grassroots activity only productive if it remains physically localized?" In other words, can a grassroots political activity be successful if those involved are spread out over the Internet?

Speaking of Internet, iTunes 4.9 is out and it integrates podcasting (both client features and submission for publication). I've already pinged Steve, my studio partner, about the idea of starting up a semi regular podcast. Knowing us, it would probably be some combo of our own music, local/unsigned music, politics, life experiences, goofy skits, etc. I'm also wondering whether we set it up so that we accept content submissions from others so that we can assemble a more diverse program. Clearly, anyone can podcast on their own but what I'm thinking is that we might provide people with a way to generate a single short audio clip and submit it to us. They wouldn't have to deal with the overhead of setting up their own ongoing podcast. I'm curious about all of your thoughts on this...

Pictures from the Ghost Town

2005-06-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished a preliminary edit of some pictures I took at Bodie State Park in the Eastern Sierra. Don't think I'm going to touch these much any time soon. Very tired of photo editing. Sorry about the crude web page. It was the simplest I could come up with on the fly. May take a while to load on a slow connection (80-90 pictures to load). Look here.

Hello?

2005-06-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

Is anyone there?

Awfully quiet here ... on this blog.

No matter. Chris and Nancy got some great photos of the ghost town at Bodie State Park. You can see a few of Chris' on his blog and there are some of Nancy's posted on Shutterfly. Most of them are quite good, I think.

Squirrel Flask !?!?

2005-06-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Gizmodo featured this bizarro item: a flask made from a real squirrel.

Cool Camera Site

2005-06-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

In doing a little Father's Day gift research, I happened across the Lomography website. Lots of cool, funky, relatively inexpensive cameras. Current gift picks for Dad (a lifelong hobby photographer) are the Fisheye Compact ( gallery ) and the Oktomat ( gallery ). The SplitCam ( gallery ) is novel too, although easily accomplished in Photoshop. Some of the demo images on the Gallery pages for each item are pretty neat.

$29.95 Video Camera Launched

2005-06-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

My new company has just launched its latest product. There are a few articles of note: $29.95 one-time-use video cameras ready ( USA Today ) and Testing the New Disposable Camera ( The Wall Street Journal )

I used one of the cameras last weekend. It's a pretty cool experience. The camera is small and light and easily fits in a jacket pocket. The video is pretty good. After processing ( $12.95 at a CVS store ) you have a DVD that can be played back on a standard DVD player or on a PC ( the Mac OS support sucks ).

It's very cool that PureDigital ( a tiny company of 40 employees ) was able to get such great media coverage. Walt Mossberg doesn't review every new device to be sold in a drug store. ( wink )

Make magazine & blog

2005-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Make magazine is a Popular Mechanics for the computer age. It's really great, if rather expensive. They have a very cool blog that has fascinating stuff in it.

As long as I'm at it, Kevin Kelley's Cool Tools is also a lot of fun.

Safari RSS makes all these things much easier to follow!

From the Great White North....

Game idea

2005-06-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

I think I've mentioned this in the past, but here's an idea that I think is fairly cool.

A video (or PC/Mac) game called "Suicide". Your goal in the game is to kill yourself. But there are two problems:

1) You live in a world where things don't work very well, and
2) You are surrounded by people who would like to "help" you.

So, for example, you get yourself a length of rope and fashion a noose. But as you string yourself up, your neighbors break down the door and rescue you.

Or, you buy a gun. But when you try to use it, the trigger falls off.

So the idea then is to find the appropraite tools to help you in your task, and to find enough privacy so others can't get to you quickly enough.

You Might Be An Idiot

2005-05-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my fellow commuters, I have composed this ( hopefully humorous ) list, in the style of Jeff Foxworthy.

Our world is complex. The things we need to do to get by are getting more complex everyday. Things like keeping track of time, being able to make exact change, the ability to read and understand a train schedule or roadmap. Modern society expects a lot from us.

Sometimes we're not up to the task. People who drive cars end up in traffic jams or in "accidents". People miss trains or airplanes. People get lost (even when they have a map). People get hurt and end up in the emergency room.

Studies show that many of the above situations are caused by idiots. The problem with idiots ... is that that don't know that they're idiots. That's about to change. Any one of us might be an idiot. You might be an idiot. The list below is provided to help you determine whether or not you're an idiot.

If you saw something on TV, and they said, "Don't try this at home", but you did anyway ... you might be an idiot.

If you never drive in the right lane on the expressway, even when the right lane is clear ... you might be an idiot.

If you frequently get into arguments, but you never seem to win them ... you might be an idiot.

If nothing, I mean nothing, ever turns out as you plan ... you might be an idiot.

If people frequently roll their eyes or sigh when you speak ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that because you saw someone else do it, it's ok for you to do it ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that you have a lot of problems that other people don't seem to have ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that all those other people are "luckier" than you ... you might be an idiot.

If something went wrong, and you think that you can fix it by just trying again ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that you always have to answer your cell phone, no matter where you are ( in a public restroom, paying for groceries, taking a left turn ) ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that those people who can hear your conversation aren't listening to it ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that those people don't mind ... you might be an idiot.

If you could easily walk there, but you drive anyway ... you might be an idiot.

If you spent a lot of money on your truck, jacking it up 3 feet and adding huge mud tires, but you drive it on the expressway everyday ... you might be an idiot.

If you think that everyone else is an idiot ... you might be an idiot.

If you think you might be an idiot, don't panic. There may be something you can do about it. Try some of these suggestions:

Try asking for help ... often. Try out phrases like, "do you know how to ..." or "what would you think if I told you ..." or "would you ...".
Slow down. Try doing just one thing at a time. You might be good at things one-at-a-time.
Stop talking. Try listening to other people. They might have clues about how to avoid messing up.

Christian Video Games?

2005-05-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

There is an article about Christian Video Games today at Yahoo! News. These are apparently games that "have drawn a loyal following by combining biblical themes with mild action".

If memory serves, there were a lot of horribly violent acts committed in the name of religion. Does repackaging your violent game to adopt a "Christian" theme earn you a first-class ticket to hell, or have you redeemed it and yourself because now you have taught children that violence is ok when you're absolutely certain that you are right?

There are a lot of puzzle games and other non-violent and amoral games on the market. Perhaps these games would benefit from marketing them as "Christian"? Would it be useful to have a symbol for games that marks them as "Kosher" for Christians? (grin)

From North Vancouver

2005-05-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

North of the border we continue to be well.

Immigration-wise we've returned a bunch of documents on our PR (Permanent Residency -- the Canadian equivalent of a Green Card) and hope to be hearing back again. There are several possibilities, the mostly likely of which is that we'll be asked to go down to Seattle to be interviewed. Next most likely is probably that they'll just grant us the PR as we are certainly desirable aliens :-). In the meantime, we're getting a second Work Permit that will extend our stay past August until next May or so, just in case.

I'm doing little that's special economically, although we have a deal in the works to buy a company I've been contracting with on-and-off. We found an Angel who seems to be raising the money for me and another guy to be the new management team for this (poorly managed) company. We'll see if it goes anywhere. If it does, I'll almost certainly have to come down to the Bay Area to meet the other principals and sign papers (and have those papers checked out by a lawyer!), so maybe we could have a lunch.

I'm editing videos of services down for our local UU church and putting them online. I imagine it's hardly as interesting as what Dave's doing but it keeps my hand in. As a result I've had the innards out of my eMac swapping in a 200MB drive, but the real difference was the extra 1/2 gig of RAM -- the system now responds when FCE is doing something. :-) For the second year in a row I'm taking hundreds of pictures of Little League Baseball. Last year I actually sold a few -- I guess that makes me a semi-pro photographer.

Kids are well, and adapting well to being in school. This weekend was the big annual fundraising event for Mulgrave (Devi's school), and we've been crunching pretty hard. Sara's on the committee and wrote all their auction copy, while I shot photos of a bunch of the stuff and created several animations out of their logo for display during the event. As a black-tie event goes, it was only half-tedious, but at 6-7 hours long, it's waaay too long. Devi's having some prioritization problems with studying (especially with math), but we're working on it and she seems to be improving. Kiernan is doing well at Kenneth Gordon and we hope we'll be able to mainstream him after next year, moving him to Mulgrave for 8th grade.

I spend too much time reading blogs :-) and playing Counter-Strike: Condition Zero -- if you see a guy named "Grumpy" or "bufflao" on line and he's easy to kill, that's me.

David's here

2005-05-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

(I originally posted this as a comment to Mike's "Inaugural Post" and then figured out how to create my own post.)

Just thought I'd follow up to let folks know I'm here too.

Other than enjoying every minute I have to spend with Nancy, Kiley and Zane, there are a few things that fairly often occupy my thoughts:

I'm thinking a lot about renewable energy (i.e. solar power, pluggable hybrid vehicles, etc.). I've been donating my time to www.calscars.org to help them convert video newsclips about pluggable hybrids into downloadable QuickTime movies. At some point soon, I may help them author a promo DVD.

I'm also regularly dismayed by news out of Washington, D.C. but try to keep my spirits up through the humor of Morning Sedition and the Al Franken Show on Air America. Because our local AM station for Air America has lousy coverage and has shifted Morning Sedition to 3am to make room for Jerry Springer, I now do all my Air America listening through podcasts.

My patience with FreeHand Systems is wearing a little thin these days. Until recently I was just happy to be employed but lately, being underpaid for much longer than advertised and some examples of gross financial mismanagement leave me longing for something different.

I've been exploring the idea of charging for recording and production services in my studio. I'm having to weigh the desire to generate money with the facility against the desire to avoid having a stream of strangers parading through our property. I would prefer to emphasize sound editing work that allows me to use the facility without bringing many people in...

More than anything, I still miss being surrounded by a bunch of great friends. FreeHand is just too dang small. I've become very good friends with Kevin but otherwise just don't have the social outlet I had at Adobe. Bummer.

The Inaugural Post

2005-05-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

Hey, man. We're gettin' the band back together.

This is a place to share our triumphs or frustrations, amazement or concern. It's a place to solicit advice, spread awareness, or commiserate. It's a place to tell a good joke, post a link to something funny, or show off pictures of your kids.

At one time, we all worked together, and we'd have these discussions in the hallway or at lunch. Sometimes they were deep or profound. Sometimes they were absurd. It didn't matter. It still doesn't. (grin)

We're spread all over the place now, and it's a bit tricky to get everybody together for lunch on 10 minutes notice, but here -- on this blog -- we can still share and connect. Please feel free to post anything that you'd like the rest of us to see. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to act as admin, but I'll happily grant any reasonable request.

My initial concept is that we will restrict posting/commenting access to a very small group of people -- people who still wince when someone uses the phrase "Core Tech", but just as we always welcomed new people into our band then, I'm happy to add people to this blog too. Just send me a msg which includes the email address of the person you'd like to invite and I'll get them set up.