Plame Scandal

I've posted an update to the Valerie Plame scandal on Watchblog. At this point, I have no idea what's really going on.

Useful Mac Upgrade

Useful Mac has upgraded to a MT-based blog. Neato. I may have to try and get Books listed once 1.2 is out.

Urk!

Holly found a Books bug last night. If you use > or < in your descriptions, the file will fail to save properly and you will lose your collection data. The updated version will fix this, but beware in the meantime.

[Update] Given the nature of this problem and the potential for future problems of this sort, I'll be putting code into Books tonight that saves a backup upon startup. I'll use the algorithm "if number of books in collection is greater than one, save backup file". This should make it easier to recover from these types of problems.

Bullshit

It's crap like this that instantly puts Bush to the bottom of any list of candidates that I'll support in 2004. I identify with conservatives more than others, but stunts like blowing a CIA agent's cover as revenge for her husband's critical remarks makes me ashamed to even think that I once thought that Bush would be better for this country than Gore. I laugh at lefties who talk about impeaching Bush for whatever, but this act -- if proven that senior members such as Karl Rowe were involved -- would make me support impeachment and criminal charges in an instant. I apologize for the bad language, but this is just pure bullshit.

Matrix Explained?

Read it. (Warning - potential spoilers)

Oyez iCalendar Updated

After a request from the folks at iCalShare, I went ahead and moved the Oyez iCalendar from it's redirected-to index.jsp location to a new URL. For those interested, it can now be accessed via http://www.oyez.org/oyez/calendar/oyez.ics.

PerversionTracker Design Awards 2003 Winners

Heh heh.

Books Update

Since there were less bugs reported than I would have expected with Books 1.1, I've been working on additional features for the next release. I am somewhat philosophically conflicted whether I should continue shoring up the existing functionality before adding new functionality. Since there doesn't seem to be too much to shore up, I went ahead started adding more stuff for the next release: cover images in the browser window and .Mac support. Continue...

Software Customer's Bill of Rights

I should have posted this a bit earlier, but there's an excellent write-up on a software customer's Bill of Rights. I read through it and thought that it was an injection of common sense in the whole software licensing arena. I'm contemplating whether I should take this an explicitly post it with Books and Verify and how they are compliant with this document. I don't know if it's that important -- most of the items are redundant with open source software -- but some users may appreciate it.

Buddy Jesus...

... meet Supply Side Jesus.

Who Killed Apple Computer?

I killed Apple Computer.

How NOT to Complain About Bugs

I checked the Books page at MacUpdate to get an idea of the total number of downloads that had gone through that conduit. I noticed that a user posted an issue with the newest version, 1.1: "DELETED MY ROM FILE!" Now, I don't know who this person is, nor have they attempted to contact me about the bug. I find this really irritating... Continue...

Dolt

So, I've been having this problem locating a play for my assignment due Saturday. I can't find it anywhere to buy in town, and just as I'm about to give up, a voice tells me, "Look in the town library." That's my dolt moment number one. Number two happens when I walk into work and think, "Gee, I work in a university LIBRARY -- the play's probably here." I check the catalog and it is here. Talk about missing the forest for the trees this week...

Verify 1.0

Not wanting to be outdone by it's bigger brother Books, Verify has reached version 1.0. Included in this update are tweaks and enhancements suggested by Creative Commons and embedded QuickTime support for playing media files within the application. Oh, and now the sources are also available as tarballs.

Books 1.1 Online

The official release of Books 1.1 is online. Check it out. Continue...

Grr...

I found out today that Microsoft's Jet SQL is a bit retarded. Maybe I'm spoiled by MySQL's SELECT ... WHERE (foo REGEXP 'bar')... syntax. It took a bit of Googling before finding out that the MS Jet equivalent is SELECT ... WHERE (foo LIKE '%bar%').... Maybe it's me just me, but percent signs make for aesthetically unpleasing syntax (not that SQL had any bragging rights in that department to begin with...). The project that is under construction is the NU weblog information and pilot site.

Yes!

He's back! Awesome.

Sarah From Laos

When you read this, go read up on Allah (see below), then leave me a comment to let me know that you're back in Western Civilization.

Praise be to Allah

If you're not reading Allah in the House, you're missing something funny.

Hosed

I was upgrading SSH on the server today and managed to hose my Perl installation. :-P I'm now compiling from source. If you are reading this, than I was at least slightly successful. When thing calm down a bit, I'm seriously considering moving to an easier platform to update, such as Gentoo.

This is a Demo

Horray... Continue...

Blog Talk

I've finished up my blog talk that I'll be giving later on today. I've made several versions available - disk image containing Keynote source, a PDF rendering, and a QuickTime movie of the presentation. Continue...

Star Trek / Marx

Get the scoop on Star Trek and communism.

Rumors

Get your Apple Paris Expo rumors here. I'm hoping that they refresh the laptop line so that I can buy discounted "now" models. I miss being able to do stuff from my couch.

"A Streetcar Named Desire"

Last night, I finished my first reading for my first playwriting course. The play - "A Streetcar Named Desire". Continue...

Today

Today promises to be pretty busy. I have about three meetings lined up and I need to do the speaker images for the McConnell argument sometme today. At least I got Verify out of the way and into the hands of the Creative Commons folks... Continue...

Verify

Verify is online. Verify is a Cocoa-Java application for checking whether media files can be verified that they are licensed using the Creative Commons license metadata embedding standard. If the file has an embedded license and that can be verified, the application indicates this and allows users to view the license on the web. Send bugs, questions, and suggestions to verify@aetherial.net.

Democratic Debate Predictions

Read them here.

This is a bot posting

This is a bot posting to Chris's blog....

Where are they now?

Al Qaeda two years later, as described by the Washington Post.

How NOT to Structure a Blog

John Edwards should be recognized for his blog, but it is a poor one at that. There are no RSS feeds for updates and the comments section is far too difficult to navigate -- they should either support a decent threaded view or leave it flat. Furthermore, the amount of space that is wasted by bubbly boxes is criminal. I tried reading through a few conversations and I've found it exceedingly frustrating. I try to keep my political views on aetherial.nu, but this site show how poorly the campaign understands the medium. If there were a PerversionTracker for blogs, this would be my submission.

Homework

I was plugging away at implementing METS on Oyez (if you have to know, visit aetherial.net) when I received a phone call. On the other end was a professor telling me that I had missed my first playwriting class... Damn screwy calendars. Continue...

Transformers + Pokemon = Transformers Armada

Why do I still feel compelled to watch cartoons? At least Trigun is a bit more rewarding...

Six Computers

I managed to pick up six computers that were being given away at work. The computers are cast-offs from lab upgrades this summer. The equipment acquired: one SGI Indy (R4600), one Dell Dimension H266 PC, three Power Macintosh G3 desktops, and one Power Macintosh G3 tower. Read below for plans for these machines.

Continue...

Interesting SGI Indy Site

I managed to obtain a used SGI Indy from Northwestern as they were replacing machines in their labs. I found this site - Buying an Indy: 2nd-Hand Purchasing Advice - to be very informative and interesting. I'm currently looking to get my hands on some Irix 6.5 install media, so I won't have too much information about this new system until I can boot it up and do a clean OS install.

I may start buying music again

Universal introduces CD price cuts. If these cuts put CDs at the $13 price mark or below (in contrast to the common $18 price), I may start buying CDs again. The question is whether the $3 premium I pay for a CD is worth having the physical medium. I think it may be. Continue...

YAIA (Yet another Iraq article)

101st Airborne rebuilds northern Iraq.

Spoons on Guns

Spoons takes aim at the attention paid to the gun used in the recent Chicago workplace shooting.

Books in MacPeople

I received this mail this morning: Continue...

Updates

I figured that I'd better update this thing lest I lose all the readers I have built up. (Hahaha - wishful thinking!) Anyways, read on for whatever details pop up. Continue...

1.0beta4

Books 1.0beta4 is now out. Included in this version: HTML export, printing, and proper OS X toolbar. I'm too tired to write much more, so go get it.

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Recent Entries
Plame Scandal
Bullshit
Matrix Explained?
Buddy Jesus...
Dolt
Yes!
Sarah From Laos
Praise be to Allah
Star Trek / Marx
Today