From what I can tell poking around, javascript is used to measure the vertical position of the footnote in the text and the footnote itself is relatively positioned the same amount from the top. Nicely done.
]]>I can’t believe how long I used OS X’s plain old Finder once I started using TotalFinder. A configurable keyboard shortcut (I double-tap the command key) and a tabbed finder window slides up from the bottom of the screen. The default window size is configurable and two separate widows can be display side-by-side for quick and easy drag-n-drop. Another nice touch is the easy shortcut to display hidden files. I’ve used Path Finder previously, but I found it to be a bit too much UI-wise and it seemed slower than what it was replacing. I love the simplicity of TotalFinder.
I was a NetNewsWire user for years. It was once of the first pieces of software I paid for that didn’t come in a box. Alas, it was startin to wear thin on me. Reeder has a much cleaner interface that is better for reading and the keyboard controls are excellent, and user-configurable. The iOS version is top-notch as well.
You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Twitter client. I like Twitterific for the nice color schemes and the easy way to follow other people’s conversations. I use Tweetbot on the iPhone.
Genius little menubar utility that lets you open browser links in their tab by using a three finger tap. When I use my wife’s computer, I get pissed that she doesn’t have this.
Great application launcher, plus a bunch of other things. LaunchBar is great too, but I like Alfred better for the configurable interface and I find it’s follow-on actions to be slightly easier to use.
Safari is my browser of choice. I was a Camino guy for a long time, but switched back to Safari a few years ago. I also have Firefox on hand as well as Chrome (which I rarely use.) I recently downloaded Opera and it looks promising.
More installments coming soon.
]]>Besides the obvious, I’m intrigued about this movie because of one small scene in Pixar’s The Incredibles; when Helen Parr/Elastigirl is flying the jet to the island with her kids hiding aboard, and Syndrome launches missiles to attack it.
The calls that Elastigirl (voiced by Holly Hunter) makes on the radio, with terms like “VFR on top”, “vectors to the initial”, and especially “buddy spike”, clearly indicate that whomever wrote the script—or that two minutes of it at least—knows a thing or two about aviation in general and military aviation in particular. I’ve always found it interesting that this movie, that has nothing to do with military aviation, used the correct terms in the correct context.
Live action movies, with plots involving fighter aviation, including actual military aircarft, and usually with technical advisors in the credits, screw this up wholesale all the time.
So if Pixar is going to make a movie about with military planes as characters, it could be one of the more accurate films ever. And it will be animated. Count me in.
(As long the Pixar team that made The Incredibles is involved, and not the gang the crapped out Cars 2.)
]]>The site is, and will continue to be, under construction. That’s kinda the point.
]]>Question for #Econdebate: “If we had the prime minister of Slovakia on the phone right now, what would you tell him? You first, Mr. Cain.”
Ahh, the classic stump-the-Republican-dummy question. Not really relevant for an “econdebate”, but no matter. Klein then completely wins the internet for the week with a very quick follow-up:
Correcting last tweet: PM of Slovakia is a her.
Absolutely priceless.
]]>Well, it paid off when I came across this post at Ars Technica about many users of 2010 MacBook Pros having major video issues and “black screens of death.” The article points to this thread on the Apple Support forums, that as of this writing is a whopping 104 pages, all filled with posts by very frustrated users complaining about the issue. Most people had little to no problems under Snow Leopard and now the only explanation/recourse path given by Apple is to swap out the logic board.
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and it is the best computer I’ve ever had.* I haven’t had a single problem with it under Snow Leopard and there is nothing new in Lion that makes want to get anywhere near this issue.
One thing I did learn was that the Mac App Store did update my Lion installer to 10.7.1 when it was released. We’ll see if a future update addresses this.
Update (25 Oct): Apple acknowledged the issue with an article here. And according to CNET, they have issued a software update for Lion users. Unfortunately, Apple’s KB article says that if this doesn’t work, users need to get in touch with Apple support for a diagnostic test. A problematic course of action for me since I live overseas. The original forums post is up to 129 pages now, with results for this patch being mixed. Still holding off for now.
If you wanted to read a 3000 word fic where Picard forces Gandalf into sexual bondage, and it seems unconsensual but secretly both want it, and it’s R-explicit but not NC-17 explicit, all you had to do was search along the appropriate combination of tags (and if you couldn’t find it, someone would probably write it for you). By 2008 a whole suite of theoretical ideas about folksonomy, crowdsourcing, faceted infomation [sic] retrieval, collaborative editing and emergent ontology had been implemented by a bunch of friendly people so that they could read about Kirk drilling Spock.
That’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
]]>
From what I can tell poking around, javascript is used to measure the vertical position of the footnote in the text and the footnote itself is relatively positioned the same amount from the top. Nicely done.
]]>Cliff Notes Version, Not Without Biased Commentary: A shitty social website that is exponentially lamer now then when it started is going to “revitalize and transform” itself, care of an online ad company and…wait for it…Justin Timberlake. I’m not making this up:
Timberlake will have an office at MySpace’s Beverly Hills headquarters and a staff of about a half dozen people working for him “around the clock” developing his ideas for the site, said Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook.
I can’t wait. The interesting part is at the end:
At $35 million, Specific Media gets an Internet property for a price that Altimeter’s Li called “ridiculously low” and values each monthly U.S. visitor at about $1 each. Its new owners should be able to recoup their investment if the company gets each user to click on about 20 ads over their lifetime, she said.
Nothing earth-shattering about making money off of ads, but if getting ad clicks is really what it is all about, I wouldn’t have a lot of faith in the “revitalize and transform” part. And using anyone’s lifetime has a measure of ROI, especially for something like a social media site, is probably not very wise.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that MySpace will continue to suck.
]]>Note: I rarely use the iPhone camera (either my current iPhone 4 or on my old 3GS), either because the photo quality isn’t that great, especially indoors, and I honestly sometimes I forget that my phone even has a camera.
Here’s the software I use:
And here is my wishlist:
Here is Mamet’s seminal Village Voice article from two years ago, “Why I Am No Longer Brain-Dead Liberal.”
And here is Andrew Ferguson’s excellent writeup in the Weekly Standard.
Update: Here is a John Podhertz column about Mamet. The story at the end is priceless.
Update 2: And here is a long transcript of Mamet’s interview on the Hugh Hewitt show.
]]>Learning about web design and (very poorly) trying to apply some those things here is my hobby, especially with all the new-fangled things going on with HTML5 and CSS3. I have a laundry list of things I would like to accomplish here, from small (use Typekit) to long (complete redesign and move to a new CMS).
I also spend an inordinate amount of time looking for shiny new software toys and not nearly enough time using them to do anything, you know, productive with them. So here is a random rundown of about a week’s worth of time wasting:
Bottom line: More doing. Less looking.
]]>@RumsfeldOffice Mr. Secretary, I’d like to see you use some emoticons every now and then. OK? :)
And here is the former SecDef:
From now on I will add an emoticon in response to reporters who tweet questions I find disappointing, uninformed or both. @jaketapper :(
I like Jake Tapper, but he teed himself up for that one.
]]>What in the hell operating system are you running?
Seriously, you’re some government minion and that’s not Windows on your machine? I don’t think I have ever seen a character on film or in the movies that worked for the government read an email using Outlook.
I have always thought there was some cabal of Hollywood creative types that sat around and created these multitude of fictional user interfaces. Well, I guess I wasn’t the only one. Via Smashing Magazine on Twitter, I came across Access Main Computer File, an awesome website that is a “visual study of computer GUI in cinema.” A single page that scrolls forever with screenshots of computer screens in movies over the years. And no two are the same, except for the rare examples where an actual Windows or Mac screen is shown.
A version for TV shows would be great too. I’m pretty sure the sixteen different flavors of Law and Order and CSI:Wherever all use some some superkickass, and completely different, operating system to track down the bad guys.
]]>I have a few masters papers due in the coming weeks and reading about Scrivener and exploring the program has provided one of the few “holy shit” moments I’ve had with a piece of software. I had been pondering how I was going to use the various note/writing apps to organize and write. No more. I paid the license fee after about ten minutes. The ability to compile your work into whatever program you need for final output is borderline magic. Check it out if you do any serious writing, no matter what it’s for.
I now shudder to think I was going to do the majority of my work in Microsoft Word…
]]>Not so fast. Colman McCarthy writes in the Washington Post:
“It should not be forgotten that schools have legitimate and moral reasons for keeping the military at bay, regardless of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” They can stand with those who for reasons of conscience reject military solutions to conflicts.”
And…
“Their pride in running programs in women’s studies, black studies, and gay and lesbian studies is well-founded, but schools have small claims to greatness so long as the study of peace is not equal to the other departments when it comes to size and funding.”
It gets better:
“I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home.”
Nothing like a good dose of moral equivalence to get your point across. More goodness:
“ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace.”
Oh, I see. Intellectual purity is the goal of higher education. Explains the rigid adherence to liberal dogma. I have two reactions to the foul hate speech of peacenik cretins such as Mr. McCarthy. One is to refer them to the John Stuart Mill quote on my About page.
The other is to punch them in the face.
UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg is all over it. As is Moe Lane.
More Updates: Stephen Green and Victor David Hanson, who has this gem:
]]>“Examine questions of free speech, intellectual diversity, and tolerance for minority opinion on an average campus, and the notion of “intellectual purity” is rendered Orwellian.”