Jason Carl Ruddy

iTunes 10 is out. And everyone is bitching.

Feature bloat is a valid point, especially if you live outside of the USA. For the past few years, most of the new features in iTunes relate to movie and TV show purchases / rentals. None of those things are even available in Japan / many other countries. We don’t even have “Movies” or “Shows” buttons in our store. And while Ping doesn’t really do anything for me, I just see it as yet another feature (Radio, iTunes U, iTunes DJ, Genius, etc.) which has no bearing on my iTunes usage, but will likely be considered useful by others. That’s just been par for the course for me the past few years. 

With each new version, I have mostly been hoping upon hope that the application would just handle managing / playing music (you know, the initial primary purpose of the application) better. And one would figure with Jobs convincing developers to move away from Carbon that someone at Apple would take heed and get rid of all the cruft for what is arguably their flagship application. But since it’s still running on an archaic system, gaining more features and getting bigger and bigger it has been getting redonkey-kong slow as of late. I understand that most people probably don’t have a music collection the size of mine (you don’t want to know, trust me) but I cannot abide having as much as 30 second delays when jumping from one track to the next. However, in my 10 years of blogging, I have yet to write a rant about these points. I just don’t see the point.

Other people don’t feel silence is golden when they’re upset about changes to their beloved media player. And interestingly enough, the points I brought up are not the primary issues everyone is yelling about with the greatest fervor. What everyone hates is this:

SWEET HOLY MOTHER OF INFANT JESUS IN A MANGER! The buttons are rotated on their side now! Worlds are fucking colliding! 

Never mind that iTunes actually runs notably faster. Seriously, it does. Let’s all bitch and moan that three tiny buttons are now rotated 90°. I mean, for crying out loud, how often do people actually click them that some sort of muscle memory routine is thrown completely out of whack? And while I could excuse complaints about the sidebar icons now all being greyscale - as it does make finding the section you need take a bit longer for the majority of us who are not color-blind - the venom is mostly reserved for rotating buttons. Lots of people hate the new icon - of which I am not a great fan, but I’ve been changing my iTunes icon to something else for years with Candybar - but that pales in comparison to the menu buttons.

I guess the main thing about this which perplexes me is that I don’t think most people stare at their iTunes interface all day. so why get that upset about it? Most people I know have it hidden or minimised and only bring it into view when it’s time to switch albums or playlists. But the way the internet is having it out, you’d think the upper left corner of iTunes was their baby and Apple was a dingo.

But for those of you on a Mac who just can’t live with this travesty to your Mp3 player here are some instructions:

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Open the terminal.
3. Type: defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -
4. Enjoy your old iTunes buttons.
5. Move the fuck on with your life.

Sorry for the vitriol, but I’m just sick of seeing all the posts about this issue everywhere I turn. 

Was thinking about this video the other day. 

(via suicidewatch)

I totally had the costume on the right, which my mom bought for me at Albertson’s grocery store - most likely when my (then) step-father was a manager there. I loved it more than the C3P0 one I had the year earlier. Though I hated the rubber band on the back of the mask always breaking -and I rocked a Lazer Tag rifle with my costume.

I also remember questioning why people would wear an outfit that had themselves on their own shirt. 

Well, the myth-believers are already voicing their angst about Stephen Hawking’s declaration that God was not necessary for the origin of the universe. And they’re predictably missing the mark. Even better, Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has said Hawking’s statements contained “elementary fallacy of logic”. So, then are we to assume that the heavily substantiated theory of gravity is less logical and more fallacious a cause than a divine entity who made everything in 6 days - I guess even himself?

This bastion of intellect goes even further (with my italics for emphasis):

There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. The Bible simply isn’t interested in how the universe came into being.

I’ll get to the “explanation” versus “interpretation” bit in a moment, but I first want to respond to the Bible’s lack of “interest” in how the universe came into being. While that book may not care about instant “being” or a big bang like process, I would dare say that only accepting the universe coming into being by a divine power, something which the very beginning of the book tells, more than once (with slight discrepancy, no less) kind of lends me to think that maybe the book does care. Well, except that the book isn’t alive and doesn’t think or have interest in things. 

Now, on to the science versus religion bit with another quote (with more italics for emphasis):

But there is more to wisdom than science. It cannot tell us why we are here or how we should live. Science masquerading as religion is as unseemly as religion masquerading as science.

All right, firstly, except for the Discovery Institute types who hijack the word “science” for their beliefs, I don’t know any serious people who masquerade science as religion. Science is based on thinking things to be a certain way because of testable evidence. Religion is based on belief, i.e., thinking something to be a certain way without any knowledge. One requires logic. The other requires faith. 

Secondly, I don’t know any real science that ever bothers to explain the deeper “why” things happened, outside of actual processes. For example, science explains why stars eventually die (e.g., running out of fuel). It doesn’t ever try to explain why stars came to be. And it sure as hell doesn’t try to tell people how to live their lives. Sure, you get some cause and effect guidance for empirically testable things, like “You shouldn’t smoke because it heightens your chances for emphysema and lung cancer”. But that is a far cry different from “You should close your eyes and pray / wish for that lung cancer to go away”.

If you want to take Lord Sacks’ approach of contrasting science and religion in just a few words, here is what I would say instead:

Science gives us a set of tools to help guide us on how to think, expecting dead ends and new directions. Religion gives us a set of rules to tell us what to think, ignoring dead ends and moving in only one direction.

If anyone was guilty of using “elementary fallacy of logic”, it was the Chief Rabbi. Maybe he should try to avoid masquerading passionate belief with logical debate.

At least he tried to keep things a bit civil. The rest of the Bible thumping internet, on the other hand, are being far less gracious - and Christ-like. “I’d say there was no God if I was still in diapers, too.” Classy.

In other news, humans need oxygen-rich air to breathe.

Of course, this is starting to get a few people pissed off. Though considering a lot of those people are probably in the same group that still think the Sun revolves around the Earth, I’m not altogether surprised.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Just in time for the holidays when the US economy is in such bad shape that every penny counts, a one year subscription for Xbox Live Gold is going to be 20% more expensive come November of this year. And with that increase you get the following new features:

• Nada
• Goose Egg
• Nil
• Zilch
• Bupkis
• And best of all, nothing at all!

Now, to be fair, if you’re unhappy with the price hike, as a protest you could always move to the free version, Xbox Live Silver, where you can do everything a Gold account member can - except purchase a lot of premium downloadable content (like lots of new maps or whatever for those online multiplayer games we all love), have access to many retail game demos and betas (many times for those online multiplayer games we all love) and one tiny thing which probably doesn’t affect that many people - play those online multiplayer games we all love.

Now, everyone knows times have been tough lately, and excellent sales of game consoles or the 27 versions of Windows on the market must not be helping Microsoft’s bottom line, so we should all be happy to do our part to help them out and pay 20% more for an abstract service we’ve already been enjoying at a fixed price for over half a decade. That little extra bit might be the kickstart MS needs to thrive and become a really huge and successful company, enough to the point where they might cut us a break in the future.

FIngers crossed!

Never kill a snake with your bare hands.

I’m really liking the EPIC WIN application for my iPhone. The whole “XP as a motivator to finish off tasks” concept is quite ingenious and I’ve found a lot more joy in checking off items in my to-do list than I ever have in the past (invariably with Cultured Code’s Things on both my desktop and mobile devices). I actually wanted to make an application very similar to this, but I just don’t have the time.

While EPIC WIN is much more enjoyable to use than Things, it is still a new app and accordingly not without its flaws. So after using it for nearly a week, I have compiled a list of things which I think need improvement…

USABILITY ADJUSTMENTS

 * Treat repeat options like the iPhone clock alarm repeat settings. Instead of a scrolling list with one option per quest, allow people to tick options as a checklist such that more than one option will be possible. EVERY WEEK is nice, but EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY is nicer.

* Allow for completed quests to be be moved to the bottom of the day’s list, or an option for them to be deleted / hidden from view once completed. It kind of sucks to have to scroll down past completed quests which likely need no further interaction in order to get to the remaining active quests for the day - which do require both future interaction and to be seen. Adding a tab to see completed quests would allow users to see what they’ve accomplished - or to reactivate an accidentally completed quest.

* Move repeat tasks which have been completed today automatically out of today’s list and into the next appropriate day’s list. If “Take out the trash” is a daily task which I completed today, I’d rather see it move to tomorrow’s list now rather than have it take up space for the remainder of today. This would also allows anyone to better judge when not to place potentially conflicting tasks in future days. 

* Allow for newly added quests to appear at the top of the list, instead of just the bottom - where they probably sit underneath a pile of already completed quests as is the case now.  If you’ve put today at the top of the list because users need to tackle today’s quests first, then let users tackle those quests first - not contend with ones they’ve already completed constantly. Besides, my guess is shuffling completed tasks manually isn’t something people would need to do often, were they already out of the way of tasks still in the active queue.

FEATURE REQUESTS

* Priority tags. I understand that one could attribute the priority to the number of XP something is worth, but I think there are far too many instances where something which needs to be done ASAP isn’t necessarily worth as many XP as something which can be done later in the day. 

* Allow a sort option - whether it be by number of XP, feat type, or priority. I almost want to put this in the usability section, but I guess it isn’t that crucial. Especially since it would require priority to be added. 

* Loot can optionally adorn your character. What’s the point in earning that cool helmet if you never see your character wearing it? I realize this will require some serious work, but if you’re going to implement a system, then implement it. Don’t just hint at it.

* Level up much more quickly. I’ve been adding and checking off tasks for nearly one week, “travelling” over 600 miles and getting 6 pieces of loot, and I am still not even halfway to Level 2. If every RPG in existence gets you to Level 2 by killing rats, then my current rate of just over 2 weeks of “non-cheating” quests really dampens the potential sense of accomplishment. And isn’t that what this app is all about? Don’t treat all your customers as if they are 14 year old kids who will just add and complete 300XP quests (the maximum XP allowed for any single quest) for 10 minutes ad nauseam just to make it to to Level 20 as quickly as possible. The customers who aren’t cheating (like me and the friends I know who purchased the app) have to suffer for it. Considering that loot does nothing but sit in your inventory, earning a new piece or two every day doesn’t really satisfy after the first few pieces as much as a new level might. Then again, I wouldn’t know yet…

* Sound effects would be nice. The graphical effects for finishing tasks are vibrant and active enough that they beg for accompanying sounds. From what I gather, this is something which will come in a future update.

* Add “feat type” icons to the quest list, so you can easily see what sorts of “strength” or “stamina” or whatever tasks you have ahead of you. If it’s a stat worthy of having inclusion on the quest details page and the primary content of the character profile page, then it should be important enough to see in the quest listing page.

* Let users add quests which do not have have a target date. Not everything I need to do has a date associated with it. And needing to assign a date which would very likely change quite often - requiring manual editing each time - is an annoyance waiting to happen. I realize that it might be difficult to figure out where to put them, as putting it at the end of the list - after all dated items - could put it very far down the list. So perhaps adding a tab where date oriented tasks are in one list and non-date oriented tasks are place in the other might be the safest bet. Priority could be a winner in this “other” section. 

For now, I think this is a good enough list. I hope the developer stays active and manages to address these issues at some point. It will only help to guarantee that it stays in use on my iPhone every day for the foreseeable future.

I’ve been waiting for this for some time, and happily purchased my copy the moment I knew of its release. Takes grinding to entirely new levels with real world results. Very, very clever application.

A Catholic website has just posted this gem of an article. In it, they list the ways in which “the end” has come. People who know me well should be quite aware that my tolerance for this kind of ignorant bigotry is growing woefully thin. But what really gets me about this specific piece is that the author can’t seem to support his argument without even contradicting himself - sometimes only one sentence apart.

There are few things as clear in God’s revelation as the sacred institution of marriage between a man and a woman. From Genesis 1 (the marriage of Adam and Eve) to Revelation 21 (the marriage of Christ the Lamb with His Bride the Church) God has had only one model of marriage, and it is not gay marriage.

Seriously, it isn’t really that clear - and it certainly isn’t one model. Is it one man and one woman? Is it one man who had no human parents and one woman who comes from his body? Is it one man and many wives? Is it one man, many wives and some concubines? And hand maidens? And slaves? The only thing which is pretty clear is that we don’t see any marriages between a man and a man in that book - not a clear definition as to what marriage is specifically. 

Moreover, I love how the author says in the first sentence “between a man and a woman” and then uses two examples which are quite odd:

Firstly, Adam and Eve were never married. Eve was pulled from Adam’s rib - meaning that she had similar, if not the exact same, DNA as Adam. This would make them related. I don’t feel like digging through Leviticus or Deuteronomy, but I’m pretty sure marrying kin isn’t a “good thing”. I’ll leave the whole “Whom did Cain marry?” argument alone, though.

Secondly, Christ and The Church are not a man and a woman. One is a dude who died a long time ago, and the other is an amalgamation of men and women. If Jesus married the church, then that means he married all the women in the church and the men, too. And the children. Not only does that include gay marriage, but pedo-whatever-it-you-call-it-when-kids-get-married. And does that make anyone who is a Christian then a polygamist for marrying someone alive today? Or is everyone just born a widow / widower?

He’s the one who said that the definition was “clear” and gave those as examples… not me.

The author then goes on to discuss how polygamy / polyamory were done away with - by the church, not the bible, with this bit:

Even polygamy and divorce was [sic] done away with in the Christian Church, as Our Lord reminded all of the essence of marriage as it was “in the beginning.” This Christian view of marriage became the norm of Western society and its most basic societal unit, undoubtedly allowing the West to flourish.

Interesting. So he’s essentially saying that gay marriage is equal to polygamy and divorce. I know that polygamy is illegal, so Western society most likely agrees with him on that. However, he lost me at divorce. And Western society. And, pretty much, reality. Divorce isn’t “the norm” in Western society? Really? A 40 to 50% divorce rate indicates otherwise. Hell, my Christian mother has been divorced twice (once while being a Christian). My father has been divorced thrice. And growing up it wasn’t rare for me to know kids whose parents were divorced. In fact, many of us would joke about the rarity when we would find a peer whose parents were still together.

Funnily enough, people who believe in Jehovah are often getting divorced more often than those who are “godless”. Even the most cursory Google search will show that Christians get divorce more often than Atheists - with Fundamentalists (you know, the people who say every word in their great book is 100% true, and often the loudest voices against gay marriage) at the top of the list. In fact, 90% of the time divorce amongst Christians occurs is after they’ve been saved. After. After. Oh teh ironiez.

So since nearly half of all marriages in Western society - the larger portion of which are professing Christians - end in divorce, a much higher percentage than what gay marriage would be in comparison to non-gay marriage, by using the transitive property on the above notions, we get a super scary result:

Polygamy ~ Divorce = Gay Marriage = End of Civilization.

According to that logic, it looks like Christian Civilization already ended, probably some time in the 70s.

I blame the disco.

USA is #14. Japan is #81. EIGHTY-ONE. Overall potential for happiness, it seems, is the same in Iran.

So, will FOX News either try and debunk it, or just do like last year and wait for it to snow in winter and say there’s no such thing as global warming?

Pat Dixon

via Josh McKible on Twitter (real life friend, though)

While thinking about Kingdom of the Spiders in my last post, I was reminded of another movie I saw in the late 70s, The Incredible Melting Man. My dad took me to see it at the cinema and we ate Arby’s afterwards. No, Arby’s wasn’t the scary part. 

Overall, the movie didn’t really scare me all that much, melting zombie-like dude included. However, there was one scene which struck a very deep chord with me in a negative way. If you jump to 1:23 in the trailer you can see precisely the scene that scared the living shit out of me. 

Typically when I see scary movies - and I see a lot, let me tell you - only one aspect of it will actually be scary. Maybe the visuals were shocking, but the audio was not. Or something else will just be “out of place” to make the scene’s horror ineffective. However, that specific scene has everything just right for me. The scene is a long hallway with no side exits (another phobia of mine which resulted in a pretty bad experience just a couple of months ago) - so there is no escape. The camera is low to the ground - so you are in a submissive position. Everything is in slow motion - so you can’t get away. And the music is actually well scored.

All of those points alone would do well, but there are actually a couple more which resound with me which would quite likely illicit a “So what?” response from many people. Firstly, there is something about the film stock and lighting techniques used in the late 70s and some early 80s movies which just creeps me out immensely. Brian DePalma’s Carrie and especially The Fury freak me out on a visual level. Carpenter’s work from that era and a lot of earlier Cronenberg films also have that same look. The other, and this is the big one, is the fact that the sound and visuals are not in sync. She is running in slow motion, yet her screams are in real time. I have no idea why, but that creeps me out so very very much.

With the hundreds of horror films I have seen in my life, that scene alone is most likely the largest contributor to the scariest moments in my nightmares. Not a nurse being chased by some melting astronaut who got blasted with gamma rays (ahh… the 70s), but long hallways and odd out of sync sounds. That shit just scares me at my core.

Side note, the most recent thing which spooked me enough that I had to watch something funny immediately afterwards was the smoky Rorschach ghost thing in the 1999 remake of Hause on Haunted Hill. Starting at 5:50 in this video you can see it. The symmetry of it is what gets me. Oddly enough, Rorschach blots don’t scare me, but that ghost did. Again, probably had something to do with the sounds and how the voices, especially “The doctor is in” voice, are “flatter” than the other sounds. Shudder.

I’m a pretty weird dude, huh?

Spiders. Ever since I can remember I have been terrified of them, big time. It also doesn’t help that I saw Kingdom of the Spiders when I was very young. Shockingly, the movie didn’t also bestow upon me Shatnerphobia. 

Everything about them creeps me out. The crazy number of eyes of different shapes and sizes. The mandibles. But most of all, it’s the angles their legs make when they bend. Shudders thinking about it. Seriously, the combination of all those acute angles disturbs me on some weird primal level. 

I can’t stand looking at pictures of spiders. I dread seeing video of spiders. And if either one happens my toes curl and I can’t have my feet on the floor. They’re both in my lap now in my chair as I’m typing this. And when I see a spider in real life, I usually come close to having a panic attack. Even the tiny ones. 

To make matters worse, I often times will have thoughts that spiders are near me, even when I have no legitimate cause to think so. I seriously imagine something about a spider at least two or three times a week with no provocation. Usually it will be a random remembrance of some real life spider experience I had. 

Of all my encounters with spiders, the worst had to be the big Discovery Channel looking beast that was living in the small tree near my bedroom window when I lived in Port St. Lucie, Florida. I was out mowing the lawn one day after school and as I was going around that tree I had the unmistakable feeling of spider web touching my face. I looked up, saw a gigantic black and yellow spider with a cigar-like body start walking along the web. I left the mower on and pretty much teleported through the patio door of the living room telling my mother about it. She didn’t believe me at first about how big it was. “Jason, there is no way that there is a spider out there that… Oh. Oh my. Wow.” or something to that effect was the conversation. She told me to go out and turn off the mower. I refused. 

As recompense, my mother used her patented brand of cruel humor to remind me that spiders can fit through tight areas and it might be wise to check my window. Instantly, fears of it being in my room already filled my head and I remember taping over the seals in my window. She exacerbated the situation a bit with more jokes about it, from time to time, but I only lived there another month or two, so it could have been worse. She could have, I dunno, woken me up with an air horn on my 18th birthday or something. Wait…

Anyway, I still hav that specific spider branded in my brain. Though for some reason, I am always imagining slender brown spiders as being the ones which will “get me”. Oddly, I don’t have any firm recollection of encountering such a spider. And interestingly enough, as I am getting older my phobia is getting stronger. I remember seeing the movie which shares the name of this post in the theater and being scared, but not enough such that I couldn’t watch the movie. However, one of the Harry Potter movies from the early 00s had a scene with big spiders, and I couldn’t look at the screen. 

So yeah, if you ever want to see me freak out - and then punch you or one of your loved ones right in their bitch-ass mouth, then you could do something with a fake spider around me. Try a real spider and there will likely be a murder.

During the course of writing this post I got goosebumps at least 5 times. 

Tonsiloliths. I have them. They suck.

Basically, it’s a build up of collagen in the crevices of your tonsils - with a dash of one form of mercaptan. That’s the stuff that makes skunk spray so atrocious. And it’s always in my throat. That is, until I manage to cough one up and gross myself out thoroughly. 

The next paragraph is a bit gross…

Though they typically don’t start forming until your adult years, my sinus conditions starting in my early teens (like, 13) blessed me with these stanky white throat treasures as early as junior high. I actually still remember a time in my 7th grade English class having a tickle in my throat, which prompted me to cough. That lead to the exodus of my first known counter with a tonsilolith, and it was literally the size of a green pea. The reason I remember it so vividly is that even though no one saw me cough it up, the entire class noticed the odor within a minute. Even the teacher asked if someone was playing some sort of practical joke with a raw egg. And that was the time in my life when I began to be plagues with bad breath.

I use water picks, brushes, oxidizing mouth wash & tooth paste, scrub my tongue with a special brush and even do the salt water up the nose to cut down on post nasal drip. All of these things help somewhat, but the damn things never go away completely. And at times my throat gets inflamed because of all the stress I put on my tonsils by cleaning them. Now is one of those times.

Unfortunately, the only way to really rid yourself of them is to have your tonsils removed - and that is not such a good idea once you become an adult. There is an outpatient laser-based procedure which throat doctors can do, but only if you’re someone with not too strong of a gag reflex. One guess as to which kind of gag reflex I have.

While many things in my Shit I Don’t Like About Myself series are things I should do to improve my person but likely may not get around to improving, this is one thing that I would do in a heartbeat, were I able. As it is, it looks like I’ll be stuck with the damn things.

Clears throat.

I’m not the type of Mac user to say that Macs are superior over Windows boxes. I have my preference, and anyone can have theirs. It doesn’t upset me if people don’t use the same operating system as me. But I do get irritated when Windows users believe / perpetuate FUD about Macs.

MS has released a new section of their Windows 7 site which lists the main reasons why you should go PC instead of Mac broken down into 6 sections. Some of the reasons listed are valid. Some are based on FUD. And some are flat out incorrect.

Let’s explore them, shall we?

HAVING FUN

There are some things you simply can’t do out of the box with a Mac like watch, pause, rewind, and record TV like a DVR. FUD. Interesting, so all PCs out of the box can do this? That’s strange, because the PC my business partner just bought for his wife is a Windows 7 device - and it can’t do that. He better take it back to the store and ask for a replacement.

You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless. You can with PCs running Windows 7. FUD - with a bit of true. So right after saying that “out of the box” Macs can’t do something, they list things which most PCs cannot do out of the box. Most Mac and PC purchasers I know get peripherals to do all of these things. Oh, and some “Editions” of Windows 7 can’t do those things at all. You cannot, however, get a Mac to play HDCP Blu-ray media as of this posting.

Most of the world’s most popular computer games aren’t available for Macs. True - for OSX. OSX can’t play Bioshock or [insertSomeGameHere]. But on release day you could play World of Warcraft & StarCraft 2. Last I heard, those were pretty popular right now. And given the switch to Intel and release of Steam, that argument is becoming less valid every day. Though I guess Mac users will have to suffer without MineSweeper. And I’m guessing the millions upon millions of people playing Facebook games in their browsers don’t count. But yes, it’s true. There are way more games out for PC than the Mac.

Most of the world’s most popular computer games aren’t available for Macs. False - for Macs. It’s called BootCamp, and it allows me to install Windows on my Mac. I can play any game I want, “most popular” or not. Not via emulation or some slowed down process, but as a real full fledged Windows compatible PC.

And Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360. PCs are ready to play. False. It’s called Connect 360. Been using it for years. On 3 different Macs.

Most Macs can’t hook up to your TV unless you buy a converter dongle. Many PCs running Windows 7 are designed to connect directly to TVs, so you can watch movies and see photos on the big screen. FUD. “Most” != “Many”. Most PCs can’t be hooked up directly to a TV without buying a “converter dongle”, i.e., a cable which can connect your PC to your TV. I have one DVI-VGA cable running directly from my TV to my Mac Mini, which I use as my primary media player. If I wanted to connect a PC I would still need a cable, sorry, I mean “converter dongle”. And all of the Macs I have owned for years have built in optical audio for full digital and whatnot. Do “most PCs” have that?

SIMPLICITY

Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. True. You need to unlearn Windows conventions. However, knowing many people who switched from PC to Mac, the overwhelming majority of them have said that they *prefer* using Macs once they used it every day for a week or two. The main reason? “Simplicity.” And why not apply the reverse? Sometimes I need to do something on someone’s PC, but I don’t know Windows, so things don’t work the same way. This makes things complex for me. Complex. The opposite of simple. 

For example, the mouse works differently. False. Up is up. Down is down. Left is left. Right is right. Scrolling scrolls. Clicking selects. Right-clicking opens contextual windows. What am I missing? Or did we travel back in time to 1996 when the argument was somewhat valid - until you went out and bought a third party mouse?

And many of the shortcuts you’re familiar with don’t work the same way on a Mac. True. Instead of hitting ALT-C to copy, you hit CMD-C - which is often in the same location on a keyboard. And unless you have serious learning impairments, it shouldn’t take that long to figure it out. Or should we start attacking software developers for using different shortcuts for SEND TO FRONT / SEND TO BACK & other commands?

Windows 7 was designed to make it simpler to do the tasks you do every day, with features that the Mac doesn’t have. For example, the new Snap feature makes it easy to view two documents side by side. FUD / False. Making “tasks you do every day” simpler is not really testable. I find my every days tasks on my Mac pretty simple. And in regards to “the new Snap feature”, Cinch has been doing fine since before Windows 7 was released - and Twoup did just fine for me in the Vista days on my Mac - until it was discontinued. 

Unlike Macs, many PCs running Windows 7 support Touch, so you can browse online newspapers, flick through photo albums, and shuffle files and folders—using nothing but your fingers. True-ish. How many PCs are touch-enabled, though? And does MS really want to go to the whole “Apple vs MS” argument when it comes to the popularity and ease of use of touch-enabled devices?

PCs with a fingerprint reader even let you log in with just a swipe of your finger. True. Most PCs don’t come with one equipped, though. So most people who want one get a peripheral. And those are not exclusive to Windows devices. 

WORKING HARD

If most of the computers in your office or school run Windows you may find it harder to get things done with a Mac. FUD. Yeah, and if most of the computers in your office or school run Linux you may find it harder to get things done with a Windows machine. I have worked in PC dominant offices in the past. It didn’t make it any harder for me to do my work on my machine. MS Office files used to be an issue many years ago, but not within the last 5 years, at least. And let’s not try to fool anyone that Macs aren’t popular on campuses - or that Mac adoption isn’t on the rise in office environments. 

If you use Apple’s productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky. Your documents might not look right and your spreadsheets might not calculate correctly. FUD - with some True. And if you use OpenOffice or any other productivity suite files may not work perfectly. Fortunately, Microsoft has already solved this problem for Mac users with MS Office for Mac - which has been available for… well, ever. They even make it a point to mention that “Microsoft Office for Mac and Windows share the same file format and graphics engine” and that it “is forward, backward, and cross-platform compatible.” Left hand, meet right. And yes, there are soem things you can do in Apple’s tools which won’t display properly, like some of their cooler transitions or layout options which Office doesn’t have. Is that really a selling point, though? 

You’ll have to buy a separate hardware dongle to plug your Mac into a standard VGA projector. Most PCs with Windows 7 hook up easily. Repeat FUD. Again with the “dongle”? And again, “Most” != “All”. The fact is, most people connect laptops to projectors. This means a cable will need to be purchased at some point, regardless if it is a Mac or a PC. I have one single cable which connects my laptop to a projector. Easy breezy.

On a Mac, out of the box, you can only encrypt your home folder. With Windows 7 Ultimate, you can encrypt your entire hard drive and even USB drives. So your stuff can be safer wherever you go. True-ish. Only your Home, i.e., User Folder can be encrypted out of the box with a Mac. However, considering that is where all application preferences (which will house serial numbers and sensitive application data) and your downloads and your documents and your files are saved by default “your stuff can be safer wherever you go” on a Mac, too. Oh, and remember, you can only do that with the $300 Ultimate Edition.

SHARING

At least half the fun of having a computer is sharing the stuff that matters to you with other people. This is harder to do on a Mac. FUD. See this link? All I did was hit the “take screenshot” keyboard shortcut and the screen area was automatically captured, uploaded and the URL to share with people was placed into my clipboard so I could paste the it here in this message. One keyboard shortcut invocation and a few seconds later and all I needed to do was hit the PASTE keyboard shortcut to be able to share it with everyone in the world. I can also just enable “Web Sharing” in my Sharing Preferences and I can allow access to any files I want on my computer. I also have tons of photos on my Flickr page and videos on my Vimeo page. I don’t think clicking “UPLOAD” on a Mac is clicking “UPLOAD” on a PC.  And if “at least half of the fun of having a computer is sharing stuff”, does that mean that playing games is only at most half the fun? And what percentage of fun is looking at porn? You know I had to work that in!

With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network. With HomeGroup, it’s easy to connect all the computers in your house running Windows 7. False. I click one button for each type of sharing I want to enable in my network - at home or work. And I can choose what sorts of things I want to share. Not only can I share my User Folder (which houses my photos, music, movies and documents), but I can also give anyone in my network access to any connected Bluetooth device, a CD or DVD in my drive, any connected print or scanner or the even control of the desktop itself. It took 5 seconds for me to connect my media player Mac which is connected to my TV in the living room to the main Mac in my studio such that I can play anything I download to it as if it were on the TV Mac. And I was able to do all of it from one screen, no complex WORKGROUP configurations required.

On a Mac, you have to manually set up photo sharing, manually set up music and movie sharing, manually set up file sharing, and manually set up printer sharing. It’s easy to automatically and securely network with all the computers in your house when they’re running Windows 7. True, but FUD. Or are MS implying that out of the box people want all of their photos, music and movies automatically accessible to everyone in their network? That doesn’t sound very secure to me. So yes, I need to turn on music sharing in iTunes and photo sharing in iPhoto, but it wasn’t exactly difficult.

COMPATIBILITY

Plain and simple, if you’re a PC user, lots of your favorite stuff just might not work on a Mac. With PCs outselling Macs 10 to 1, the reality is that most computer software is developed to run on PCs. True. But lots of your favorite stuff might work on a Mac. It all depends on what your favorite stuff is. Not the best idea to be vague when trying to prove a point.

Apple’s productivity suite file formats won’t open in Microsoft Office on PCs. This can be a real hassle for Mac users sharing work documents with PC users. True, but repeat FUD. This again? While the file formats of iWork, i.e., Apple’s Office equivalent, might not open in Office, all of the apps export to MS formats easily enough. And they can open MS Office files. Can MS Office open iWork files? Which is more “compatible”, then? And last time I checked, MS Office isn’t the only application suite people use. Adobe’s suite of applications get their fair share of use, especially when making web sites and those are cross platform. I deal with PC users all the time who give me files or take my files. The only issue we have is if they have the font or not - which would hold true if we were both on the same platform.

If there’s a Mac version of a program you need, you’ll have to buy it again and relearn how to use it on a Mac. FUD. Since they like to bring up Office in this PC vs Mac “debate”, I’d like to point out that A) Office is often pre-installed on devices and requires you to “buy it again” if you want to run it on another PC and B) there is no “relearning” required for the Mac versions of those applications if you know how to use the PC version - outside of swapping ALT with CMD for keyboard shortcuts. The same holds true for many other applications. 

CHOICE

PCs give you a lot more choice and capabilities for your money. You can get the PC you want, in the size and color you want, with the features you want. You just don’t have as many options with a Mac. True. This is where PCs excel. I can’t buy a hot pink MacBook Pro with a built in fingerprint scanner and a 17” screen. But I doubt you can buy that specific device for Windows, either. But yes, there are many many more options for PCs than Macs. I guess for the millions of Mac owners those options coming “out of the box” don’t matter.

You can’t get a Mac with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless. PCs running Windows 7 often come with features that aren’t available on even the highest end Macs, including Blu-ray, eSATA, multi-format card readers, Touch, and mobile broadband. Repeat FUD. Save for playing Blu-ray discs which specifically require HDCP, every single item they listed I can purchase third party and connect to the appropriate Mac (do I need 3G wireless on my desktop?) for probably the same amount of money as it would cost to get them built-in with a PC.

Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points. True. But for desktops is this really an important point? For laptops I guess it is more important. But it isn’t as though all PC models have “a full spectrum of colors” from which to choose. Or are they saying that if I want a laptop PC with a built-in Blu-ray player, TV tuner, eSata, Memory Stick reader and built in 3G wireless in hot pink that it’ll be a piece of cake? Plus, there is always the Gela Skins route. And they make those for Macs, too. 

With PCs running Windows 7, you can play the videos and music stored on your home PC while you’re on the go, for free. Apple charges $99/year for its online service. FUD with some True. For MobileMe you pay. But that isn’t the only way to share your content “while you’re on the go”. I’ve been able to access my machines with RemoteSharing and having File Sharing (two features built in to the OS itself) enabled long before I owned a MobileMe acount. Plus, DropBox has a free version, and most Mac users I know who need “on the go” files use it. I can even access the files from the web on machines which don’t belong to me, including Macs, PCs, my iPhone and my iPad. Neat!

BONUS

Here are some things they forgot to mention.

Driver issues - On PCs that “freedom of choice” means that there are significantly higher chances that things won’t work. Motherboard X with Memory Y and Graphics Card Z lead to all sorts of possibilities for things to go wrong. Go to any gaming site forums and read about specific graphics cards not working while others do. Fewer hardware types mean less issues in making sure things work. And I like that about my Mac. So if something is broken on a Mac, then chances a significantly higher percentage of Mac users are affected than their PC counterparts - which often brings about a quicker solution from developers. 

Security - Let me requote one of their selling points with a slight modification: “With PCs outselling Macs 10 to 1, the reality is that most computer malware is developed to run on PCs.” Mac users have far less to fear when opening attachments in emails. Mac users also haven’t had any real virus scare in… well, I can’t remember how long it has been. But I can count the number of times it has been a real issue on one hand - and still have fingers (plural) left to spare.

IT is more expensive - A recent survey of the IT departments of 260 corporations (including IBM, a decidedly non-Mac environment) showed that 65% of respondents say that Mac based IT costs less to manage - citing specifically “Macs were cheaper to troubleshoot and required fewer help desk calls; system configuration, user training, and servers/networks/printing were all cheaper for a Mac environment than a PC environment.” Hmm… Less user training & fewer help desk calls? This implies that maybe PCs aren’t “SIMPLER” after all.

Plug (& Install Drivers) & Play - Within just the past couple of years, aaide from a touch panel and 2 pieces of musical gear out of the many peripherals I have purchased for my Macs I have not had the same installation issues compared to the PC. I run Windows in BootCamp for games on my Macs, and devices which just worked “out of the box” under OSX have been met with constant BEEPS in Windows stating that devices have been detected followed by Installation Wizard apps starting up on their own. 

Languages - On OSX you have always been able to view documents and websites in foreign languages with different writing systems, e.g., Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Arabic, etc., without needing to install any IME (input method engine) software. “Out of the box” you can with any Mac, no extra options required. Plus, you can switch your entire operating system language by selecting the one you want in the system preferences and simply log out and back in to have the effects in place. And most applications embed their localization options into the apps themselves, so you often needn’t look for updates or patches. This second point likely doesn’t affect most users, but it’s built in to OSX yet requires paid extra downloads in most “Editions” of Windows, if it is even an option at all. Which leads to…

Confusing OS “Edition” system - When you buy a PC, Windows typically comes pre-installed, often with a specific version. Excluding the whole 32bit / 64bit aspect, there are six versions of Windows 7,  Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Starter seems to be an OEM version, though you still need to pay the (rumored) $119 for it when buying the computer. (It’s hard to find concrete information on the price since it seems you cannot buy it on its own, but $119 seems to be the consensus.) The Ultimate version costs $319 - or $299 to upgrade from a lower version.

But which version is best for you? Well, if you want to enjoy that Blu-ray player they mentioned (or a DVD player for that matter), run XP programs (so as not to have to “buy it again” for Windows 7), “watch, pause, rewind, and record TV like a DVR” or any other kind of video media,  have more than one monitor connected to the PC, share “your photos, music & movies”, or (get this…) change your desktop background or windows colors - then the Starter Edition is not for you. As in, you can’t do it. At all. Nor can you (according to the MS site) “connect to company networks easily and more securely with Domain Join”, “back up to a home or business network, in addition to full-system Backup and Restore found in all editions” or “help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker.” Wow! That’s a lot of what they said made PCs so great - and you can’t do it with one version of their latest OS.

Just by going to their Feature Comparison Page, you can ee that there are 75 different aspects to differentiate one version from the other. And there is no leeway on selecting just the specific features you may need. So if you need to run an XP application, but don’t need location-aware printing, remote desktop access or advanced backup tools you still need to buy at least the Professional Edition - which costs $200 to upgrade from the Home versions. With OSX, however, there is one “edition”. And it only costs $29 to upgrade it from an older version - as opposed to the $119 price tag to upgrade from Vista or XP for only the Home Premium version (the cheapest one MS lets you choose stand-alone).

Seriously, with all that FUD, I can’t believe they didn’t bring up the whole “Macs have a one button mouse” argument” from 1996. Wait, they kind of did.

Ever since I was young I have found myself to be more of a night owl than an early bird. Perhaps because my eyes are far more sensitive to light than most people’s I find being awake in evenings easier on me than spending the majority of my hours in the day light. That alone is not so much my issue. What bothers me is that I can’t remember a time where I went to bed at the same general time of night for two days in a row or longer. 

Now, I should say that this past week has been far busier for me than my usual weeks (for a project I can’t mention until next week or so), though I have been somewhat busy on the whole since February of this year. 

Here are the times I have gone to sleep in the past week - and keep in mind I have been contending with a kidney stone during this time, so I’m not exactly in peak physical condition):

• August 5th - 0500 (2 hours sleep)
• August 6th - 0300 (6 hours sleep)
• August 7th - 0130 (6.5 hours sleep)
• August 8th - 0430 (4 hours sleep)
• August 9th - 0630 (2.5 hours sleep)
• August 10th - 0500 (3 hours sleep)
• August 11th - 0730 (2.5 hours sleep)

I have managed to squeeze in a couple of naps in that time, but I typically don’t like doing so. Invariably, I wake up with a headache which never fully goes away until I wake up the next morning - where I deduce the general “zombie mode” cloud which hangs over me until I shower kills my ability to notice if I still have one or not.

On average, I would say that there is a 6 hour window in which you can expect me to go to sleep. I realize that Circadiam Rhythms vary from person to person - and even have a bit of leeway for each  individual - but a 6 hour range it is not.

I would say a large part of this is due to my work. (Like, a 90% part.) However, I can’t attribute it entirely to work. I don’t know about most people, but I am not the type to just go straight to bed after working. I need to have some “me” time before going to bed, whether it’s just 20 minutes surfing the web or 90 minutes of watching a movie / playing a game. (Though, truth be told, I have been far too tired to play any games in the past couple of weeks - save for that 10 minute session of StarCraft 2.)  While I could just go straight to bed, mentally I can’t abide making work the last thing I do any day. Since work is most often the first thing I need to do when I wake (check email, etc.), I need to have one bookend of my day not be job-related. And I can’t very well watch a movie first thing when I wake up, now can I?

I’ve been quite the workaholic (I’m addicted to workahol!) for quite a few years, and that warrants its own future post, but I can’t just quit my job and do something new to offer better potential for regular sleep. I just started a new company and we’re still on the “wrong” side of our first year, so my ass belongs to the business - that is, if I want it to be a success. Plus, there is that whole “mouths to feed” thing, you know. But in all honesty, even in the times when I wasn’t very busy, I found myself going to bed at all different times starting around my college years. I am guessing it is due to the fact that I didn’t have a parent-imposed bedtime. 

Whatever the reasons may be, my sleeping patterns suck. And I am quite confident that many of the other SIDLAM posts will be able to trace their roots back to this specific point. So now you know why I posted this one first.

By the way, it’s almost 2300 now. I’ll be eating dinner in about 20 minutes and probably going to bed around 0500.

The Cosby Family. Heheh.

 via tmblg

Lots of people blog about things which bother them - namely other people and situations seemingly outside the author’s control. I am not exempt from this. But I have been trying to refrain from it quite a bit lately. I barely post on forums or mailing lists any longer, though some of this inactivity could be attributable to my general lack of free time recently. I have found this to help reduce my stress (the reduction in posting, not the lack of free time), as I don’t get myself all worked up over ultimately pointless “discussion”.

However, I have decided to veer off of that course and go full bore on another - and start blogging about things that bother me… about myself. As such, I am starting a new series of posts called Shit I Don’t Like About Myself. I have decided to abbreviate it, not to avoid swearing (which I am sure my mother will force the S to stand for “Stuff” were she to get around to reading these) but because it makes for a nice acronym and saves me valuable seconds when making the title of each post.

In these posts I will try to be as sincere as possible and post real aspects about myself which I think could use adjustment / elimination in my life. By writing them down I think I would probably allow myself to analyse them accurately - instead of going off into strange tangents were I to strictly just think them out in my head. Additionally, by putting them online I either give my readers (all 7 of you) decent ammunition for blackmail or render insults against me in each respective regard ineffective as I have already “done the damage”.

Unfortunately, it is currently 6AM now, and those who know me should be fully aware that I most certainly didn’t wake up at that time. As such, my first post may very well be about my shitty sleeping patterns. Guess we’ll find out within 24 hours when I make my first post.

Hell, maybe I won’t make it within 24 hours and then it could be about my lack of commitment to blogging! The possibilities are endless.

jstn:

Incredible video of an apocalyptic stormfront approaching a Finnish beach.

Well… I know what is going to be in my nightmare tonight.

I have personally experienced every single one of these sounds except for the last one. And a few of the frowning Mac sounds still send a shudder down my spine.

The only thing which I feel is “missing” from this is that Olson doesn’t bring up Wallace’s lack of concern about the specificity of television *not* being mentioned in regards to the right to free speech when he mentions interracial marriage not being mentioned in The Constitution.

Via: maniacalrage: Ted Olson on Fox News (via david and charlietodd)

Want. 

ukkie:

arma:

chimpanzeeman:

popqoq:

(via johnnychallenge, dysnomia)

I usually skip right past all the fashion stuff my friends post, but this one caught my eye. Inspires me for some reason…

I got a Magic Mouse after my last keyboard got trashed - taking the mouse receiver out in the process. For the most part, it is pretty damn cool, and I’ll likely throw it in my bag as my MacBook Pro’s mouse. All of the gestures made possible with a great (and free, as in beer) utility called BetterTouchTool made for a lot of possibilities - both system-wide and application specific. Two finger swipes, three finger swipes, “tip tapping” (one finger stays in contact with the mouse surface while another lightly taps the surface - either with the leftmost or rightmost finger) and key combination modifiers let me do some crazy cool things. The slight learning curve for the extra operations I set up myself was well worth the amount of flexibility I was getting.

But, I’m a bit twitchy. I’ve never had steady fingers so I found myself accidentally triggering actions I set up at times I wish I hadn’t. For instance, I set up the mouse to go to a previous or next tab in my browser whenever I would “tip tap” with my index or middle finger. This happened by accident many a time. And similar follies occurred in Photoshop and other work apps where accidents proved time-wasting. I tried to bear with it, given the numerous commands at my disposal and my ability to remember all my gestures pretty easily. And were I not so twitchy it wouldn’t have been an issue - so I still strongly recommend it to Mac users who don’t have regular finger spasms.

So I decided to just go out and nab a new model of the old Logitech MX Revolution I had been using since 2005. The damn thing had 13 (yes, one-three) functions outside of mouse movement - and I had functions assigned to every single one of them. Regular click, right click and a dashboard button on the top. The scroll wheel when up and down, but also went left and right - and when depressed served as option-click (hides the current application and jumps to whichever window’s application to selected). The side had its own spring-loaded “wheel” which served as zoom in and out in scroll mode and “return to 100% size” when pressed. Plus two extra buttons by the thumb which I assigned to show all open windows or hide all windows and show the desktop - both via exposé. It was a great mouse.

Unfortunately, it seems to have bene discontinued in favour of the new mouse I ended up purchasing today, the Logitech Performance Mouse MX™. It’s missing the thumb spring-loaded scroll wheel, and the button I used on top for the dashboard are gone. Plus, two of the buttons near my thumb don’t seem to want to take commands - they just give me system beeps whenever I try and do anything with them.

So I am missing a few functions, but for the most part I like it. It’s lighter. I can charge it via a USB cable - and I can use the mouse while it is charging. And, it works on glass. No idea how they managed to do that, but rock on. It also costs about $70 less than old Revolution, so I suppose I don’t mind the loss of a couple of buttons which I could just as easily access by hitting their respective keys on the function line. The best part for me is no more accidents. And I can set up special commands on a per application basis, which is already coming in quite handy.

I was strongly considering getting the new R.A.T. 9 mouse, but thought that the considerable lack of buttons would be a bigger con than the adjustable sizing, weights, etc. pros for that decidedly laser-focused mouse. It’s mostly made for games, and given my recent workload, they aren’t exactly in much use on my machine as of late. So Logitech wins out this time.  

How’s that for a post you most likely don’t care about in the slightest?

When I was going to a meeting the other day I had a transfer at Tameike Sanno Station, where they have giant murals of flowers painted on the walls. Nice to look at, to be sure. Though I don’t necessarily think the English name given to that specific type of flower was the best choice.

Seriously, “RAPE BLOSSOMS”?

Not even one week after my diatribe about hype without substance, I got an email from RealMac Software today which basically said:

Guess what? We’ve got a new app coming out soon. But we’re not going to tell you what it is! And since our previous apps are a template-based web design toolkit, a screenshot manager and a social application, chances are you won’t be able to successfully guess what the next application is!

Of course there were the requisite “follow us on twitter” and “check our FaceBook page” links, which undoubtedly have the same (lack of) information that my email contained. 

I really really really hope this fad dies off very quickly.

Now if only I could download the font I make.

Bit of a rant, here…

So this new iPad app which takes twitter and facebook links and presents them in a nice magazine style has just been released. It’s called Flipboard and people are in love with the idea. The idea. Not so much the app because, well, it barely works.

Firstly, when the app was released after massive hype, most people could not connect their facebook or twitter accounts. That encompasses the only features listed on the three of the first 5 pages of their site. Their CEO even says “Of course, the main point of Flipboard is to enable people to also look at their Facebook and Twitter content.” And it doesn’t work for at least half of their users.

So they put out an update. Did it fix the issue? Nope. It simply added a “Please give us your email address and we will mail you when you can connect your facebook / twitter accounts to the app” alert when you first start the app. So I did that.

24 hours later I got an email, which I expected to be the “You’re all set” mail. Nope. The mail said “We got your mail and will mail you again when you can connect your accounts”. 24 hours to let me know you got my mail? From an automated system? Unbelievable. I fully expect a mail 2 days from now saying “We think you got the mail we sent about the mail we will send, so we just want to let you know that that mail will be coming, so this mail is about that mail. MAIL!” or something equally ludicrous.

Then we have another app which was released by Boinx Software called… Well, I won’t tell you yet. 

Essentially, the software company went around and said “We have a super great iPhone app coming out in a few weeks, and if you follow us on twitter, we will tell you all about it”. I have to follow and research trends in apps and whatnot, so I wanted to see what sort of value this kind of “campaign” might have - so I followed them. Considering they said they would give behind the scenes access to the development process, I thought it was a pretty neat idea. Get people invested in the idea as it matures. Let people give some feedback. All that stuff.

Too bad they did nothing with it. And by “nothing”, I don’t mean they wrote nothing. I mean they wrote nothing of any use to anyone who followed them. They didn’t show the app. They didn’t give details about the app. They gave no clue whatsoever about what the app was going to be. No name. Nothing. Just a bunch of “Wow, we are coding all day and night” and “We’re on a much needed break drinking beers” and “Here is some cryptic sketch about something” and “The app has been submitted for approval” and “We will finally tell you about the app as soon as it is out” tweets.

That has to be the stupidest “social” campaign I have ever seen in my 21 years of working in an industry known for hype and my 30+ years of being exposed to advertising.

Now… When a software company which has never made an iPhone app, is still under most people’s radars for the platform for which they have experience developing and gives you not one shred of information about what the app will do, what is there to get people excited about at all? And if people don’t get that excited reading tweets about their friends taking a break to drink some beers, why on earth would we / should we get excited about total strangers doing it?

Lastly, the app is just some silly photographic stitching app called See This. There are many apps which people are dying to have on the iPhone - some productive and some for entertainment. Had the “punchline” of their little exercise in hype been one of merit to the general iPhone using population, then at least there would have been something worthwhile at the end. As it stands, I don’t see that being the case. People looking to stitch photos together with rainbow backgrounds isn’t anything I have read on the internet as a “Why isn’t this out yet?” app.

I understand the value of hype. You get people excited about something. But the key word here is “something”. People need to have at least some sort of clue about what they should be getting excited. Some of the trailers for the Dark Knight were a good example. We knew The Joker was going to be in them, and we knew the first movie was awesome, so a giving us just a taste actually went a long way because we had some points already plotted. There are other examples I can give, but you get the idea.

And hype doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Think what you will about the payment developers get for participating in the Mac Heist offers, the hype there has some useful information and, more importantly, value. They make mini mystery games that people can participate in which gives hints about what software will be released. Better still, solving the mysteries often gets you discounts or free software. And subscribing to their twitter feed grants earlier access to items or even more free software. There is real value there for people. And that makes it worthwhile for the end user. 

It’s a shame that so many other people seem to miss that point. More so, it is ironic that an app all about delivering content failed to even deliver their own content to half of their user base.

I don’t usually care about the babies from total strangers - but this lady does something pretty damn cool.

December 17th cannot come quickly enough. And for a change there isn’t some huge delay for the JP release.

I want to believe in the nobility of the human spirit. I want to believe that mankind is essentially good and that the horror I see and the horrors I hear about are simply the last cries of a dying spectre that has haunted our fragile globe for just too long.

I want to believe that we are about to peel off the mask with which this spiteful god has been frightening us. I want to believe that we will not dance on his defeated rotting body, for that would grant him victory in death.

I want to believe that we will peel away the masks with which we frighten each other. I want to believe that no new spectre will replace the one that died and that we can stand alone and respect one another… love one another… respect and cherish life in all its shapes and sizes… all while continuing to evolve.

I want to believe that mankind will never be too arrogant to abandon its quest for an ultimate answer. I want to believe that this ultimate answer remains a simple question. I want to believe that even I could answer this question.

I want to believe all of these things and more.

But you caught me at a bad moment and I can’t.

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to my dear friend and business partner, Daisuke, and wish him a great birthday. I’ve never met anyone who works as hard and deals with my never-ending bullshit as much as he does - all while maintaining such a positive attitude. 

Trying times have been with us both lately with our new company, but he has also had to simultaneously contend with finishing his thesis for his masters. Not only did he pass (which can not be said for a good many fellow students in his class) but he also worked hard to help us land a huge client.

He’s got a lot to celebrate, not the least of which would be the fact that yesterday was also his 2nd wedding anniversary, and he is deservedly taking the day off today to spend some much needed time with his wife, probably at the beach. 

So happy birthday, wedding anniversary, congrats and ganbare, Mr. Strategy!

I thought instead of uploading my usual fare of indie rock meets experimental stuff, I might switch things up and share an ambient electro track from the mid-90s for a change. 

Even though it’s loaded with some pretty old school drum machines, it still sounds pretty good almost 17 years after ti was recorded, I think. But let’s be honest, overmodulated 808s and 909s never go out of style. Am I right, or am I right?

I especially loved Q-bert.

As always, thanks to mighty mighty Bob for the head’s up.

And here is the video of Akanè enjoying her pudding on top of roll cake.

Although today was the day after her birthday, her schedule (she has one now, damn!) I got to take her to the Sony Explore area in Odaiba. She played around with the interactive exhibits, and we also got to see a giant 3D projector. Momoko thought it was kind of cool, and Akanè seemed to enjoy it - but given my lazy left eye, it just looked like regular TV, albeit a bit darker and with even more ridiculous glasses on my face than the pair I wear every day. No 3D gaming for Jason.

Out of everything, though, she liked the sound exhibits the most - one of which was a 20.1 surround sound system that cycled through different types of music and environment sounds (which I also loved). But mostly she loved the areas where you wore headphones and got to manipulate your voice. We could do weird granular effects and stuff with fast fourier transformations (ahhh… I was able to work that audio jargon into a conversation!) like real time pitch shifting. After she moved on to another area I stayed a bit longer, dropped my voice down well over an octave and recited ED-209 lines from RoboCop. Momoko also liked that all the guide devices were PSPs with multilingual instructions on how to use each exhibit.

Anyway, we all had fun, especially Akanè. So, yay!

Unlike many people who have a job at FOX NEWS, I actually know the difference between weather and climate. Last winter it was really cold in some places, so they all made fun and said “There’s no such thing as global warming! It’s snowing!”. Well, interesting how places the world over are facing record heat and yet FOX anchors’ snide commentary is gone. They’ll probably make an aside remark that “God is punishing the us for participating in the World Cup” or something equally moronic.

The Daily Show will probably catch a clip for me.

Today (7/7 for the FaceBook delay compensation) was Akanè’s 2nd birthday - and the first one she was old enough to enjoy. She got to play with her friends from her music class in the morning, as well as have a nice dinner with Momoko and me. I also got her quite a few presents, namely a big Stitch sleeping pillow, a Stitch bag, a Stitch cup and an Ampanman colour identification / counting toy. (For those of you not in the know, Ampanman is a children’s cartoon character who has been in Japan since the late 60s and every Japanese kid knows him.)

She had a blast, and even sang “Happy Birthday to you” to herself after she was done eating her pudding / cake dessert. The picture above is her blowing out the 2nd candle on her cake - which both intrigued and worried her a bit. “Why are Mama and Dada putting open flame near me?!?”

Because I didn’t get to do something special with her this morning, I will be taking her to Odaiba (other side of Tokyo Bay) tomorrow morning to check out the Sony Science area. They have light projected interactive things and a bunch of funky technology things which she would likely enjoy. Think the Kodak exhibit at EPCOT from the 80s, albeit with newer tech, and you’ll be on the right track.

I’ll post pics when they’re ready.

Now I know for a fact I get the damndest captchas.

Prototype toy of one of my characters (warning: Japanese site). I have a few requests for changes (fur shouldn’t be as shaggy, the appendages should be thinner at the base, eyes could stand to be a touch smaller), but an excellent first step.

Momoko and I have managed to catch a new cop show called The Good Guys. And I have to say it is one of the best programs I have seen in a long long time. It was cerated by Matt Nix, the man behind Burn Notice - which I also like - and you can tell pretty quickly his involvement with editing techniques, character subtitling and other stylistic thingies. The storylines are less serious than BN because the comedic aspect is top priority. But the character interactions are quite similar, as a good deal of what makes the show great isn’t the action scenes (of which there are plenty) but the dialogue between characters.

Colin Hanks plays a “by the books” cop and Bradley Whitford plays his “was a big deal hero in the 80s but is washed up now” cop. The two have been somewhat recently paired and are stuck in Property Crimes, for which they are the laughing stock of the station. However, when investigating tiny crimes they inadvertently discover much more nefarious criminal activity. It sounds done to death, but the writing and acting pull it off surprisingly well. 

And Bradley Whitford is hilarious. Extremely hilarious. Some of the completely inane things he says get stuck in both of our heads - enough to be repeated at random times through following days to one another. Hell, Momoko and I both have more genuine laugh-out-loud moments watching this show than we do when watching most other more “direct” comedic shows. 

I cannot stress to you how much I recommend this show. Watch it.

For reals.

If 2:38 doesn’t give you goosebumps then you have no emotion.

Direct link for the FBers.

Standing right next to the spot where the sarin attack happened all those years ago.

How sweet! My daughter made a Father’s Day post for me. ^____^

akaneruddy:

I had a nice time with Dada today for Father’s Day. We went to Kid-O-Kid in the morning and played with a lot of toys and stuff. I particularly liked driving the fire truck and panda by the Arc de Triomphe.

Here’s how much coverage the oil spill would have if it were laid over Kawasaki. I realize that Japan may not be the best frame of reference for some of my readers - as only some people who live in Japan read my blog - so feel free to virtually dump oil over your home town, or anywhere else for that matter.

Quick note: PPI is “pixels per inch” and DPI is “dots per inch”.

One of the big features of the iPhone 4 is the 326ppi “Retina Display” screen. At Apple’s conference a couple of weeks ago, Steve Jobs alleged that at that pixel density people cannot see individual pixels on the new iPhone while held 12in or more from your face - giving a perfectly smooth appearance to images on the screen. Others have alleged Jobs is wrong / lying.

Phil Plait over at DISCOVER has managed to bring the math to the table to show that Jobs is right. Or more or less right-ish. Well, not wrong - at least in the real world. I read the article after having someone point it out to me - knowing my love of astronomy and math. (Well, not so much math but the idea of math.) I liked the article quite a bit, not  because of the debate, but because of the details I learned about “resolution”.

As far as the argument itself - as to whether or not 326ppi is perfectly smooth – anyone who has been doing print design long enough stopped worrying about ppi / dpi long, long ago. The standard for printing is 300dpi - because it looks smooth. And unless you are using some new math about which I don’t know, 300 is less than 326.

Some people are so hell bent on dissing anything coming from Apple that they will needlessly bring up points which have already been… well, resolved.

Robogeishia. Is. Mine.

Alternate LOST ending that is just too awesome for words. So I will use strange punctuation marks instead. #)¶∞§•©˚¥®!!!