bblog: April 2003 Archives

Rushmore Review

April 30, 2003 8:19 PM

Before leaving for work this morning, I watched the movie Rushmore (Criterion Collection version). After seeing Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's other collaboration—The Royal Tenenbaums (IMDB entry)—I was expecting the worst. Visually, the two movies share much in common: interesting camera angles, brisk pacing, textual overlays, and the overall look.

As far as plot goes, the two couldn't be more different. The Royal Tenenbaums was one of those utterly pointless movies that left you wishing you had the previous hour and a half of your life back, like Thelma and Louise or Bulworth. I never felt any identification with the characters in that movie and the plot-line was meandering to the point of dullness. Rushmore, on the other hand, was funny, clever, and intelligent. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the movie had a larger theme or point to make, but it was definitely entertaining and captivating.

The movie relates the story of Max Fischer, a fifteen-year-old student at the prestigious Rushmore Academy, during a crucial turning point in his life. This transition sees him expelled from the school he has tied his identity to and the awkwardness of he and his friend falling for the same woman. The rest of the movie consists of him trying to regain his bearings as he enters a public high school, loses the woman, loses his best friend, and drops out of said high school. Roger Ebert describes the film's plot masterfully, but misses the fact that it's a coming-of-age movie la Stand By Me and doesn't have to stretch its naturalistic shell—though it certainly could have made some larger points.

Overall, the movie was interesting and well-crafted. I liked the visual feel of the movie and especially the character development of Max. Bill Murray plays his character—Max's older, millionaire friend that falls in love with his love interest—impeccably and really stood out in the movie. The ending was positive—though bereft of significance—and left me with a sense of optimism. It's certainly not a perfect movie, but I think it's worth purchasing and would hold up to repeat viewings.

Graveyard Shift

April 30, 2003 7:38 PM

I'm pulling the midnight to 8 a.m. shift today so that I can apply some patches and enhancements to our online banking site on top of the normal month-end downtime.

I've been completely off caffeine for over a month now, but I had to buy a Mountain Dew because I'm already starting to crash a little—to be expected since I've been up since 5 a.m. yesterday. I think that with a month off the caffeine is really going to work.

More Apple Music Stuff

April 30, 2003 3:41 AM

Yesterday I compared mp3 (192kbps) to AAC (192kpbs) to CD (???kbps) in an effort to decide whether I should re-rip my music collection. Through my tiny iPod ear buds, I couldn't tell a difference between the AAC and CD versions of the songs. Amazingly, the mp3 sounded very different from the others—I never noticed how much crisper and more staccato they sound. Finally, I tested 128kbps and 192kbps versions of AAC encoding to see if there was a difference between those. To my ears (and on my admittedly low-end audio equipment), I couldn't distinguish the two. Mind you, these were not double-blind tests but sufficient for my purposes. I decided that I should probably rip the CDs at 192 kbps just in case I ever need to play them on better equipment. I've gotten through about 10 or so CDs so far. I'm also putting on cover art using All Music Guide, which has excellent cover art and a broad selection.

In other iTunes Music Store news, there's a lot of buzz around the Web over Apple's announcements. What Do I Know analyzes the URLs of the store and discovers some very interesting things—like that you can directly access the XML of albums and artists! Elsewhere, 37Signals dissects the usability issues of the store and offers suggestions for improvement. Dave is his usual smarmy self regarding the announcement. Scoble parrots the Microsoft line. Finally, Chris Adamson dissects an actual AAC file to see what makes it tick, hopefully not violating the DMCA in the process! [UPDATE: Slashdot just posted an excellent review of the iTunes Music Store.] [FURTHER UPDATE: Long ≠ excellent. Upon reading the full review, I see that it is mostly a bunch of gripes. Well, the comments should be fairly decent at least.]

There's more out there, but I don't have time on my break to list it all.

iTunes 4 is out

April 28, 2003 5:07 AM

You can download the new iTunes here. Also, iPod software update 1.3 is out.

Demo'ing iTunes Music Store

April 28, 2003 4:43 AM

Jobs is demoing the iTunes Music Store and it is incredible. The layout and thoughtfulness is absolutely amazing and indescribable. Sorry, you should've seen it.

Apple Music Store

April 28, 2003 4:30 AM

Bashing Napster, Kazaa ("Best not to mess with karma."), PressPlay, and Rhapsody, Steve unveils the "acquire" portion of Apple's new "Acquire. Manage. Listen." campaign to replace "Rip. Mix. Burn."

Quoting Hunter S. Thompson (whoa!), he announces that he's signed deals with all of the five major labels for a library of 200,000 tracksexpanding dailywith unlimited CD burns, unlimited number of iPods, play on a limit of three Macs (you can transfer registrations), and use in the iLife applications. All for 99 per track!

He's now explaining the value proposition of the new service: reliable downloads (already doing QuickTime trailers), "pristine" encoding, free thirty-second previews (!), and album cover art (!). I'm not sure I'll buy another CD again!

You can even browse and search the iTunes Music Store just like iTunes!

iTunes Update

April 28, 2003 4:21 AM

iTunes 4.0 is out!

Added AAC decoding, Rendezvous support (!), DVD archiving, and album artwork (bummer Clutter).

iPod Software Update

April 28, 2003 4:17 AM

Software-wise, they've added AAC decoding, on-the-go playlist, main menu personalization, alarm clock, and two new games (Solitaire and Parachute). Sweet!

iPod Update

April 28, 2003 4:15 AM

Wow, Apple's sold 700,000 iPods.

He's announcing third-generation iPods: 10GB (mine), 15GB, and 30GB. They're thinner and lighter than two CDs! They've also got a new interface with four extra buttons (which are backlit) and a dock, which has a line out as well for playing on other audio. They've got FireWire and USB2.0 connections.

Four minutes late to start

April 28, 2003 4:06 AM

I hope His Mercurialness wasn't wrestling with demo bugs. Oh, now he's on the stage.

Bleh, review of Apple's achievements this year.

At the Apple Store Biltmore

April 28, 2003 4:00 AM

Phew! Just made it to the Apple Store and I got a front-row seat. There's probably 10 non-Apple Store employees here right now. I am so stoked about the Apple Music Event that I have been expecting. My friend Steve is at the other Apple Store

Moist Towlettes

April 27, 2003 10:54 AM

Do you collect moist towlettes? If you do, you probably already know about Modern Moist Towlette Collecting. If you don't, check out that site to find out why you should be collecting them, play an interactive game, or listen to the theme song.

Don't forget to check out the exhibition gallery.

Words etc.

April 25, 2003 3:08 PM

I'm a big fan of words, especially nouns, and I am fascinated by the ways in which the English language evolves. It's said that there are over 600,000 words in English and that the biggest lexical machine is science. I think technology coins a number of neologisms as well and that's the field with which I'm most familiar.

I stumbled today on some new jargon from Jeffrey Veen on the subject of information architecture—I especially like "boil the ocean." Way back when, I used to eagerly wait for the new issue of Wired so that I could check out Gareth Branwyn's Jargon Watch column, highlighting the hippest jargon.

They're so descriptive and apt, yet oh so ephemeral. In fact, I'd say that—by and large—not a single one chronicled by Branwyn ever outlasted the dot-com boom. Hip, fresh, and clever, they harken back to a completely different era—the heady times of the Web becoming mainstream. It's good to see that tech people are still coining.

Change Your Environment

April 24, 2003 12:32 AM

A former co-worker of mine sent me an email yesterday after a year of non-communication (which I was happy about, incidentally). In defending the actions that led to the attachment of "former" to his description, he spoke of two important and related things: complacency and rising to your environment. While I have endeavored to keep my skills fresh, I think it is time to change my environment. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do that, but I know that it's important.

Interesting Project

April 23, 2003 8:16 PM

I love the idea behind Seamless City. I'm big into taking pictures; I especially love panoramics because they capture what is visible to a person rather than one particular scene that might encompass 45° of the 360° of life.

The idea is very simple: take a continuous (and seamless) series of pictures of a city along a route. The execution is much, much more complex because a) the scope is ambitious—to the tune of a 30-mile route—and b) the presentation is difficult—luckily, the designers decided on a linear route and will probably not allow hypertextual non-linearity. I have half a mind to do this for Phoenix but three problems spring immediately to mind:

What 30 miles of Phoenix is particularly interesting?

I'd have to get out of my car to take these pictures.

I have a full-time job already and enough sideline ideas to occupy the rest of my life.

So there you have it: enjoy San Francisco's treatment since you won't be seeing it in this town (at least from me, let me know if you are doing it on your own).

Windows User's Take on OS X

April 23, 2003 6:29 PM

Steven Garrity, an ardent Windows user, decided to give Mac OS X a try for a week. Naturally, he did it on a graphite iMac (400MHz G3) running 10.2.5—in other words, a non-ideal setup. His conclusion? He's not switching but he appreciates some of the niceties of the OS. It made me remember some of the things I take for granted on the Mac.

Panther Marketing

April 22, 2003 2:08 AM

Continuing on my Panther—aka Mac OS X 10.3—blogging kick, here's one Apple employee's take on marketing Panther.

Interview with Bob Parsons

April 21, 2003 5:41 AM

I register all of my domains through GoDaddy because you can't beat its price: $8.95/year. I equate it with Southwest Airlines since it is profitable, customer-focused, lighthearted, and value-driven. I would work there in a heartbeat if my ASP skills leaned more towards .NET.

So I read a recent interview with Bob Parsons, GoDaddy's president and founder, with relish. It cleared up a couple of questions I had about GoDaddy and also gave me some insight into the corporate philosophy, which is enmeshed with its founder/president like another company I know.

Apple Event in 7 Days

April 21, 2003 2:28 AM

Describing the event as "music to your ears," Apple recently sent invitations for an Apple Event to be held April 28 to MacCentral. Slashdot has the story with its usual mix of insightful, interesting, and stupid comments.

Naturally, word has spread to MacSlash and LoopRumors.

[UPDATE: MacRumors has also picked up the story and they've got a great roundup.]

[UPDATE TO UPDATE: Reuters is confirming this with some substantial details. Wow!]

Piles

April 17, 2003 4:29 AM

The Mac rumor community has been abuzz with talk about a potential upcoming feature of Panther—Mac OS X 10.3—that Apple patented long ago: Piles. Someone's created a Flash animation to illustrate the idea. Tog even commented on it, which is natural since, as the head of Apple's HCI group during its creation, he was probably intimately familiar with the idea. MacDailyNews provides good coverage as well.

[UPDATE 4/21] eWeek has an article today about some other new features of the upcoming release, though it's quite vague and certainly not comprehensive—not by a longshot!]

Funky T-shirt Entry

April 15, 2003 1:12 PM

There are tons of funky t-shirts available on the Web.

If you're an ardent breastfeeder, BreastOrBust has got apparel to flaunt your chosen baby-feeding method.

If you're a geek, there's a ton of places to get shirts that signify your grokking of grepping. From the practically institutional ThinkGeek—my favorites are "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" and "I don't work here"—to ComputerGear—I like this one— to Copyleft, computer geeks have a broad range of options.

If you're confrontational and vulgar, the Web's got you covered too. Vulgaritees is an obvious first place to visit, but you've definitely got to check out T-ShirtsThatSuck.com if you're looking for something to get you thrown out of a mall.

My personal favorite T-shirt site is FreeWorldTrading.com, which bills itself as "Radical T-Shirts for Rational Minds." Yep, that fits me to a T. *ba bum bum ching* *groan*

Mac OS X Tip

April 14, 2003 5:20 PM

Do this little experiment:

Navigate to your Applications folder in the Finder.

Click on the iTunes application icon.

Press CMD-I, select Get Info from the File menu, or right-click and select Get Info.

Press the triangle geegaw next to Languages.

Click on any language other than English.

Press the Remove button.

Press RETURN at the alert prompt.

Notice the iTunes application file size go down measurably.

Repeat with any other undesired language packs.

Close jaw at file size savings.

On the iTunes application paring, I went from 18MB to 6.8MB just by getting rid of languages that I'll never use. My hypothesis for this experiment is that you're going to go through every application (or nearly all of them) looking for other languages to trim. I did and I shaved off over 200MB of space. Now, there's nothing stopping a system update or application upgrade from completely undoing your effort but you can at least enjoy the savings for now. I would also consider trimming iPhoto as that is one bloated by language resources.

Credit goes to this Slashdot comment. Applications that do this sort of thing routinely are Monolingual and DeLocalizer. I'll probably use DeLocalizer in the future, but I think it was an important experiment to do by hand the first time.

Iraqi atrocities

April 14, 2003 3:50 AM

Absolutely repulsive. I don't know what's worse, the brutalities committed by Hussein's regime or the fact that CNN knew about them but didn't report them. I wonder why they continued to use Iraqis as cameramen and translators when such usage constantly put them in jeopardy.

A Sad, Sad Day

April 14, 2003 2:23 AM

Today it was revealed that E.G. Ross, the editor of The Objective American Daily and a magazine of the same name as well as a prolific author, died of a cerebral aneurysm.

I was a long-time, daily reader of his writings. His common-sense, optimistic approach resonated soundly with me. His site was the first stop of my Web surfing and it always started the day off on the right foot. Whether he was discussing his thoughts on the defense industry or answering questions on psychology, he was always on message. I was amazed at how consistent and principled a writer he was and I aspired to be like him. This blog was inspired by his diligence and persistence. On days when I couldn't think of anything to say, I would think to myself, "Ross does it so you can to."

It is a crying shame that he died in his prime. I only hope that death was painless and quick because a mind like his shouldn't suffer or be crippled. I am filled with sorrow at this important voice that is now silent.

To E.G. Ross, you lived an amazing life and touched mine in a significant way. Thank you for everything.

Scottsdale Culinary Festival

April 13, 2003 12:54 PM

I went to the Scottsdale Culinary Festival today and spent $30 stuffing my pie hole (and Sandi's, natch) with comestibles. Aside from the good food, we got an eyeful of the Scottsdale well-to-do and their faux racks. I think the valuation of the plastic surgery being flaunted there was probably in the mid six figures at least. It was amazing the lengths to which women (and men to a lesser extent) would go to attract attention and notice.

Apple to buy Universal Music?

April 13, 2003 12:41 PM

There is a lot of talk making the rounds about Apple buying Universal Music Group for upwards of $7 billion.

Why would Apple spend all of its available cash (and then some) to purchase a music company when it could just as easily sign licensing deals to access the same music? I think this Slashdot comment nails it. It's a way to prevent Microsoft from shutting them out of the digital music equation. Microsoft, in retaliation, is obviously trying to drive the price up to punish Apple or to put the price out of its reach. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

After The Gold Rush

April 13, 2003 5:42 AM

If you like Steve McConnell's books, including Code Complete and Rapid Development, then you have got to read the second edition of After the Gold Rush that he has made available online in draft form.

I'm also going to have to check out his top 10 list of computer books since they come so highly recommended.

The Myth of Interference

April 13, 2003 4:00 AM

David Weinberger recently wrote an article entitled "The Myth of Interference" for Salon—better visit it while it's still around—in which he claims that the limited radio spectrum is an artifice and that there is no such thing as interference in nature.

It's an interesting idea and the analogies he cites are compelling, but reliance on analogies can be problematic. I'm not a physicist—far from it—but referring to 770 kHz as "Forest Green" strains belief. If radio spectrum in analgous to colors, how come we can't see the radio transmissions? I'm familiar with frequencies that are invisible to humans but calling an AM station "Forest Green" implies a color that would be visible to the eye. Further, I thought there was a difference between photons and radio waves, so some of his claims seem odd to me.

Where I do agree with the article is that current technology could be improved and that the FCC is holding things up with its artificial restrictions on spectrum. The problem is that interference is a real possibility with today's technology and the FCC has allocated such wide swatches of prime spectrum that the spectrum left for innovation is like the Badlands. The innovative new technologies cannot be allowed to use the prime spectrum because of the current ubiquity of the dumb receivers until such time as a switchover can be effected, though the switchover could be technological and not political.

Kevin Maney

April 13, 2003 3:27 AM

Kevin Maney's columns are normally a little too flippant for my tastes, but his most recent one featured this gem:

The prince used to own a minority chunk of the old Iridium in partnership with the Saudi Binladen Group, the company run by Osama bin Laden's family. So in a way, some of the money that gave a start to the world's most notorious terrorist partly funded a communications system helping the U.S. military blast Saddam's army. Now that's globalization.

I bet he was slapping himself on the back over that formulation. I know I would be.

Site to Check Out

April 12, 2003 2:30 PM

If you're a regular visitor to VersionTracker, you should visit PerversionTracker—a parody site that highlights actual stupid software, paying special attention to skewering RealBasic-crafted cruft.

Funny Top Ten

April 11, 2003 6:23 AM

Top Ten Things Iraq's Information Minister Has To Say About The War. Heh.

OmniWeb

April 10, 2003 5:44 AM

Sneaky peek #2 of OmniWeb is available. After a day of use, I can't see any difference from 4.2 except that pages render quicker than they used to and my pages look better than they do in Safari because of OmniWeb's different rendering style.

I am, though, recalling why I fell in love with OmniWeb: shortcuts, download manager that lets you save wherever you want instead of just your download folder, ad blocking up the yin-yang, and drawers galore. No tabs, though. Sigh.

Mac Browser News Aplenty!

April 9, 2003 6:42 AM

First, Apple is working hard on Safari. The rumor mill has it that public beta 2.0 is due soon! I can't wait. I'm all goose-pimply. Well, no. But I am excited.

Second, OmniGroup unveiled its new version of OmniWeb. It features a text area zoom box. Why didn't anyone else ever think of that? That is such a great innovation.

Finally, OmniGroup has also unveiled its newest sneaky peek area where they make OmniWeb 4.5 available to licensed OmniWeb users. The new sneaky peek release features the preliminary integration of WebCore and JavascriptCore from Apple. I am downloading it presently and will comment after some use. The release notes are available.

These are heady browser times on the Mac indeed!

New Blog News

April 9, 2003 6:03 AM

In a move that is long overdue, Philip Greenspun has started a blog. Philip, if you didn't know, is the man behind Photo.net, a MIT professor, and author of several good books.

He's also so many other things; it's nice to see him add "blogger" to his credits.

Who Knew?

April 8, 2003 7:19 AM

Who knew dull could be such fun?

Fantasy blog stock market: Enh.

April 7, 2003 3:55 PM

Fantasy blog stock market:

Enh.

Fiestaware

April 6, 2003 10:50 AM

Sandi and I have been collecting Fiestaware for several years now, amassing both the place settings as well as various serving accoutrements.

It's hard to find these accoutrements in some of the more interesting colors since you're usually limited to open stock at the department stores. Amazon to the rescue! I've discovered a Fiestaware store that stocks almost the entire spectrum of Fiestaware in almost the entire spectrum of colors. By the way, we collect Fiestaware because it comes in neat colors—making a dinner table full of the dishes more festive—and it's fairly affordable, unless you get into the rare pieces.

Digital Photography

April 5, 2003 4:51 PM

I'm an avid taker of digital pictures and I'm always looking for ways to get better. I recently found a site dedicated to just that end: TakeGreatPictures.com. The site features regular columns on various topics, including digital photography. Check it out.

[UPDATE (1/8/04): Just found an interesting online book on classic portraiture. It's decidedly dated, but its subject matter is timeless.]

Simicide

April 5, 2003 3:44 AM

TechTV offers up a guide to killing your Sims. I've done each of these. My favorite variation on the theme of deprivation is to get the Sim outside and build a fence around him—or as I like to think of it, his "pen." He'll do the exhaustion thing that she describes in the guide, but he'll also make puddles as he loses bladder control.

Good times.

The Things I Get Myself Into

April 5, 2003 3:33 AM

I've agreed again this year to grade essays for the Ayn Rand Institute's essay contests. You get a small honorarium, but mainly you get to see students in various stages of grokking the books. The downside is that I've got probably 200 essays to run through in the first phase of the grading (dropping to maybe 50 or 100 in the second phase) and my natural inclination is to reject nearly all of them because they're so poorly written and conceived. However, these are also ninth and tenth graders so I have to adjust myself to their context and judge it that way.

I don't know how many people adjust their contexts frequently, but given my druthers, ninth and tenth grade English students is not my preferred choice to switch to. That means that each essay takes awhile to grade (though it diminishes after about ten essays) as I am adjusting. What makes it all worse is that I have to finish grading by April 9th! Phew!

Oh boy. I forgot my

April 5, 2003 3:15 AM

Oh boy. I forgot my power supply at work on Friday and my battery's only got an hour of juice left—ach, 58 minutes! I've turned my screen brightness to as low as I can take, elevated Thor, my PowerBook G4, so that the fan doesn't come on, and opened all my essential apps so I don't spin the hard drive too much. Suffice it to say, posting may be sporadic or non-existent this weekend unless I can make the thirty-minute drive to my work.

Unfortunately, I'm working this morning and afternoon at my pottery studio and spending the rest of the day with my family. Tomorrow, though, I may go down to the Arizona Book Festival—held at the Carnegie Library—and that event is fairly close to my work. If I can last that long!

[UPDATE] CRAP! I just read that the Festival is only today. Arrgh. Maybe I'll alter my plans for today.

Lunch with Redmonk

April 4, 2003 9:12 AM

Hi, I'm Steve Ivy and I just ate a meatloaf wrapped in pizza crust. This smile is a post-Oregano's grin. By the way, go to BlogShares and bid on me.

Just kidding. I had lunch with Steve Ivy of Redmonk blog fame. We had a pretty freewheeling discussion, but the outcome was that I am now convinced that Java is my next order of business. He's a nice guy and I look forward to future lunch meetings and maybe some sort of collaboration.

Triumph

April 3, 2003 12:05 PM

It took a long time, but I've finally dethroned the Yahtzee handheld queen from her long reign.

Since "accidents" happen and batteries get unplugged, I'm documenting this feat for posterity—on the Web no less, heh—with the picture to the right.

Finder Bashing Redux

April 1, 2003 11:26 PM

John Siracusa is at it again, this time leveling his sights on the Mac OS X Finder. This article, which I've just started, is just as thorough and thoughtful as any he's written for Ars Technica. I'll probably update this entry with my thoughts on his thoughts later today. In the meantime, you should read it.

[UPDATE 4/3/03] I didn't get a chance to post my thoughts yesterday, mostly because it took me most of yesterday to slog through the entire article. It was entirely worth it as I expected and I am now more of a Siracusa fan than I was before. I disagree with him on several points, but his arguments are presented exceptionally well.

Where I agree: live search folders, the shelf, the Finder qua browser

Where I disagree: inviolable spatiality, Finder plug-ins

Some might think that the article is much ado about nothing and will never see the light of day, but I think that the piece is geared towards advancing HCI thought. I particularly liked Siracusa's point that humans are adept at handling physical clutter but awful at dealing with mental clutter. That is a pregnant thought for my own interface and interaction work.

Hydra: New Programmer's Text Editor

April 1, 2003 1:30 PM

Redmonk Steve turned me on to Hydra, a programmer's text editor that focuses on collaboration.

Now I've got no one with whom to collaborate—though I hope to someday—but it is god-damn fast! I normally use jEdit for all my development needs, but it can be something of a memory hog, even on Thor who has 768MB of RAM. I still love jEdit profusely (and am toying ever so delicately with Eclipse), but Hydra reminds me of what Safari did for me after years of OmniWeb use: it's a great power application but too sluggish for daily use.

Thanks, Steve!

Get Out

April 1, 2003 1:16 PM

Get Out is the local Tribune newspaper's entertainment guide for east metro Phoenix. It recently had its annual dining options issue and it was both thorough and accurate.

If you're a Valley resident, you should check it and the restaurants it highlights out.

April Fool's Day

April 1, 2003 12:06 PM

Today was one of my most boring April Fool's Days ever (well, last year was probably worse). All I did was do the old desktop-as-wallpaper trick, though it worked like an absolute charm—my unsuspecting co-worker clicked frantically and then rebooted. Mucho guffaws!

In the spirit of the day, here's the top 100 April Fool's Day pranks ever—though the criteria for inclusion aren't divulged anywhere, it is a funny list.

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