I've flaked out on a lot of year-end to-do list items regarding the site, so they'll now become 2006 to-do list items to do early, but there's one that I have to get out before I can enjoy the New Year's festivities in good conscience: Spreading the werd of Glogg.
It's still cutting it close in terms of incorporating it into a New Years celebration, however you've got a few hours to hit the liquor store and there are still some chillier months ahead.
posted on December 31, 2005 at 10:00 PM
Gus's "How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days" is now up there with Panic's "The True Story of Audion" in my stable of links to pass on to any and everyone interested in software on any platform -- not just budding indie developers. It's basically a post-mortem of his start as an indie Mac developer, and the lessons he's learned along the way...
Earlier today I checked my email to find some pings about the MacUpdate site having a giant jesus advertisement up on it you had to click through. I assumed they'd been hacked and laughed, but now this evening had a whole slew of others which included screenshot goodness (click image above), or this web archive you can download and double-click...
Today is organization day, both in meat-space and on the computers. In particular, my Dock has gotten backed up with things I wanted handy, either because I was going to post them or wanted to pass them on...
When I get a ping that starts with something akin to "You still like pointless but neat stuff, right?", I don't usually get my hopes up. Unless it comes from Jesper (the guy who spent a bunch of time slapping together a perl script to convert text interviews to audio), which brings us to OGMT, short for "OmniGraffle Musical Taste"...
Over the last year or so I've probably been asked 100 times if I'll be going to WWDC or MacWorld, but it's all the way over there and it hasn't really been in the cards, as I'd just be going for the fun of it. This year, Booth #710 was short on eye candy, and since Booth #710 and I are homies with built-up karma, there was nothing left to do but clear the schedule and pack the shorty-shorts for MacWorld 2006. If you're in the neighborhood, it'd be cool if you stopped by and said hey. Extra points if you are saying Hey while handing me coffee.
My Open Desktop Workstation came the other day, and while unpacking it (so I can geek out over the holidays) I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the sheet attached to the unit. I always wonder how much of it is being proactive, versus an amusing story I'm missing out on.
More and more I'm getting the feeling that whoever is writing technical docs for Apple Computer either:
- Doesn't think anyone is watching.
- Is bored and amusing themselves in the outlet they have.
- Knows I'm reading them and is messing with me. Understandable, I've been there with Apple Legal.
Check out #6, from the current Aperture: Avoiding issues with your External Editor (FAQ). It's right up there with "As if it were a swarm of bees" line from earlier in the year, yet lacks its whimsical charm and probably approaches unhelpful condescension if someone's crashing problems just happens to not be related to unsupported color modes. #9 is back to whimsy though, and both made me laugh.
Them: Do you want to see the supercomputer?Me: Um, sure...
Them: Cool, hold up I just have to swipe us...
Me: Holy hell...
Them: Yeah, terabytes. Dells, but Linux, and there is another... Oh! the software was done down...
Another Them: Uh, he can't be in here.
Them: It's cool, it's the drunkenbatman from...
Another Them: Does he have a pass?
This should be remedial, but you don't want to have to explain to security why someone named "drunkenbatman" wanted to see the HPC cluster, even if you'd be seriously hard-pressed to call it a supercomputer, but then again a G4 was a supercomputer for awhile.
I don't walk around in robes with a copy of the Koran for Dummies or Communist Manifesto half sticking out of my pocket or anything, but it just isn't going to go over well. Do be sure to get these things cleared in advance, whether or not your advisor is cool and reads slashdot.
Paul @ Rogue Amoeba, on realizing the supplier for MacWorld (GES) has a website that doesn't work in Safari and completely chokes FireFox:
Fantastic, no? It finally worked in IE (*shudder*), and even after I registered, I was unable to sign in using Safari. You'd think perhaps the company running a large portion of the biggest Macintosh show in the world would have a website that worked in Safari. You'd think.
The first screenshot had me in absolute stitches, only partially from having met him and being able to picture his expression when he saw it...
I ran into some guys from Meetro at Evening at Adler, and over the last while have been playing with the alpha version for the Mac. The idea behind Meetro is fairly simple -- input your location, such as your address or GPS coordinates, and see who the hell else is around you...
Location-awareness is interesting, if a little odd just thrown into an app by its lonesome, however on the whole it's always nice to see someone throwing together a Mac app instead of only allowing them access through a web service or something (which is a part of it)...
On December 9th I saw a document which intimated that Apple and the last defendant in the original "Tiger Torrent" lawsuit were close to reaching a settlement, which would be filed on December 13th. I sat on this so as not to cause any problems while it went through, however everything went through yesterday. With a little knowledge of the system and some cash you could view the court papers, but since they're public documents I'm posting them here:
There can be an out-of-sight-out-of-mind quality to a story like this, and if you're wondering what the deal is, an earlier entry lays most of it out, and links to the rest of the earlier posts and my earlier contact with David. With this settlement, it's my understanding that the Tiger Torrent lawsuits are now over, as there have been no other filings against any John Does...
I'm in that weird state where it's 5am and I'd blocked out some time to finish one of the umpteen posts in the drafts folder that are 3/4 done (there shall be a blitz shortly), yet my brain isn't loving wrapping my head around any of them enough to finish.
Then it's pointed out that Clocky will be shown on NBC's Today Show at 7:40am EST today, and all is right with the world. I just love this this marvel of absurdity, and remember just having to talk to the brains behind it back when I first came across it, no matter how briefly. If you haven't seen it, it's basically your average alarm clock, except when it goes off, it runs off the dresser and tries to find an inconvenient place to hide while it blares, so you can't just reach over and hit snooze -- you have to get up and find the damn thing to shut it up.
So brilliantly absurd, and it hasn't been shown working on TV much, so it's likely to be the first time most will have ever seen it doing its thing, although I didn't catch whether it'll be the production version (It's supposed to be available for sale not too many months away, and the production version has a smaller body, larger display/snooze-button, multiple colors, etc.) or the prototype shown above.
From 5 minutes ago, via acaben of MacSlash.org...
The 3 year old Xserve which powers MacSlash died a painful death this afternoon. We've got full backups, and the drives in the Xserve are most probably fine, so we should be back up and running very soon. Just wanted to give you a heads up...
Just throwing it out there so that what readers we may share have an idea of what's going on, because I'm sure they'd do it for others. That's gotta be a shitty day, and from what I caught it sounds like their web hosting provder (digital.forest) is looking at getting their drives into a loaner XServe ASAP, so they'll be back online in one form or another. Before you ask, I'm told this includes the Canadian.
Every once in awhile I go through the referral log to get a glimpse of what's going on, and sometimes even I wig. Just for reference, if your argument includes the term "drunkenbatman" in conjuction with a phrase like "one of the Industries greatest minds", your argument is probably screwed whether or not it contains any merit because your judgement has (rightly) become entirely suspect. Try to keep it real, as I have yet to spin up the Bootsy Collins while writing a post, and someone has to.
Oh, and Frasier Spiers is still trying to decide whether or not to put his Cow sticker on his Powerbook. So far, the poll isn't in the The Cow's favor.
