Recently in Ennui Category

iPad it is, huh? Let's get the good out of the way first: very nice screen, beautifully designed case (The bezel's a little big; but, I'll get to that.), impressive that it syncs with cameras (with a dongle), handles 3G (for $130 extra), and is, for Apple, reasonably priced.

Problems:

• The name!! Come on people?! What're they going to call v2, iPad 2, Heavy Flow
• No camera front or back, probably front facing first, then wrap-around coverage in v3: Light Days.
• No multitasking for third party apps. Contrary to what's said, the iPhone OS does multitask, it just doesn't allow things like Skype to keep running in the background. I can see where developers could beat the OS to death and tie-up the built-in functions; but, those apps that screw up would be ridiculed out of contention.
• Adobe and Apple need to kiss and make up. No flash?! Don't get me wrong, I don't really like Flash much anymore, mostly because of the item above; but, though it's easy to hate in many respects, it has stood the test of time and enough people use it for their ads that Apple should be concerned about losing revenue.
• Speaking of revenue, funny how iBookstore looks almost identical to Delicious Library, I do hope those devs got paid. Also, what about annotations, searching a book, extending the functionality?! Oh, right, you can't because you don't get to have access to the file system.
• Speaking of restricted access, Apple has decided that users don’t deserve a first class file system.
• No shell

I’ve heard many interviews of this guy, Jonathan Zittrain, on NPR and elsewhere decrying the world of closed tech. At first I was full-blown fan-boy mad at him; now, I'm just a little ambivalent. On the one hand, it's true that the internet did allow, and mostly, still does allow, open anyone who wants to understand it to read the source code and dive in. There are plenty of examples of how and why this is bad. I won't get into them as I must go put on my ballet hat.

If you’re in the market for an eBook reader, the iPad is for you; as you'll be able to do much much more than any of the competing devices, it will be gorgeous, and probably even fun. The name, however, must go.

Poor Tess suffered a conk to the head this afternoon when I plopped her on the bed after riding her around on my shoulders. Later, she was cleaning up her room and somehow her little fingers got underneath my knee as I was shifting weight. While I was out running errands, Tam was working out with some hand weights and bopped Tess in the face. When I returned Tess wanted me to tell her about Pegasus before bedtime; so, I dutifully busted out the Bullfinch's and proceeded to scare the bejeezus out of her with Medusa. So, I put Tess in the big bed so she can watch some TV to calm her down and in walks Tam in a green beauty mask to tell me that something's moving in the bathroom. Dear Lord!

There's a cabinet behind the tub that we keep closed because it has an opening to the crawl space under the house. I grabbed a flashlight and opened the door. Inside was an opossum huddled against the cold. $350.00 to have him removed tonight; so, we'll be hosting the little critter and check on him in the morning. I'm fairly confident he's the same guy that walks around the front yard at night. If I was certain that I wouldn't be bitten or have him play dead and stink up the house, I'd invite him all the way in and maybe show him to Tess. Or, not.

Well, it seems I was right about the Augusta Ballet Company. I have it through the grapevine that the Augusta Ballet Board has voted itself a presenting company only. This only formalizes what I’ve suspected since the ‘reorganization’ several years ago. I can’t find a link in the Chronicle, or other local news outlets because, I’m certain, the board would prefer to have this decision be somewhat quiet.

Supporting Ballet is so much easier without those costly dancers and artsy fartsy types living, working, and paying taxes in the community.

I wrote a fairly pithy letter to the editor at the Metro Spirit. Recently, the 'Augusta Ballet', announced a party celebrating the retirement of their debt. The first sentence uses the weak construction, 'Some people say...' without telling us who are 'some people'. This is a celebration of what exactly? Below is my letter:

balletdebt.pdf

You cannot view your actual account balance through online banking tools; you need pen and paper. You cannot view your bandwidth usage: you can flash your router and install bandwidth monitoring software. I realize we're in our infancy in the online world; but, I call shenanigans on the nonsense banks' and cable companies' "Services" and "Innovations". I also love how banks can extend credit to you, without your permission, after stacking payments in numerical instead of chronological order and somehow this is a 'service'. Heck, I hope you're not receiving Social Security checks through your bank! If so, the bank will happily perform the 3 Card Monty on your debits and garnish your check to cover any balance. I find this most discouraging.

I just saw this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7472722.stm

I understand that they have a relatively small geographic area; ‘slightly smaller than Maine.’ and they have lots of money. Still, one marvels at their use of space. Their policy on crumbs found on airline customers aside (it’s a big aside, I know), one is curious how it is that we can’, in our infinite wisdom, afford similar efforts of engineering.

My theory on this is probably population density and relative ethnic, tribal hegemony. I'm guessing that the more populous, hegemonous, and dense is a population, the easier it is to get things done. It's too bad that we cannot somehow formulate some sort of national identity. I'm not talking about patriotism as much as self identifying as an American. After 911, there were AdCouncil ads with people of various backgrounds saying, ‘I am an American.’ I wish we could somehow get back to that idea.

Sad news: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25322638/

You'll have to forgive me, parents and students; I can't get enough of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2YDq6FkVE Inappropriate language ahead, kiddies. You've been warned.

I'm watching this:
Real Audio Link
The first speaker after the chair was Representative Cliff Stearns. He goes on and on and is wrong, wrong, wrong. Guess who's paying his way in DC?
Here comes Fred Upton. Guess where his money comes from?
Here is Mike Ferguson His top donors?
His argument is that piracy, read bit-torrent traffic devastates the internet; and yet, check this out.
John Shimkus?
From what I hear so far, it's a three hour hearing, these shills for the telcos are full of it. They want content creators to pay for the privilege of residing on their networks. It's the same as saying that only Lamborghini's will be allowed to drive on surface streets. That's great if you can afford a Gallardo; unfortunately, that's going to make we mere mortals unable to play. This is how the ISP's want it. I think the chairman of the hearing has it right on the money that there are so many red herrings in this debate you could fill an aquarium.
Please write your representative and tell them to support network neutrality

 
Here is another place, saying it better than I can…

So I've been playing around with Movable Type 4 again. It's a bit frustrating. I think my problems are with specifying the proper paths. The documentation is lacking, or I'm an idiot. Either way, I keep getting 500 errors whenever I try to publish anything other than the index pages. Scouring through the error logs, I can see that the wrong url is supplied despite my best efforts to figure out what and where mt wants to point. Once I figure it out, I'll put the rest of the pages up.