Hack hack
Funny how differently colds affect folks. My son has been fighting one longer than I, and it manifests itself with a constantly running nose. Meds from the pediatrician are helping with that. And other than the runny nose, he's been in his usual great mood for the most part. For me, my nose doesn't run, but instead the congestion drains down my throat, meaning I'm constantly coughing. OTC congestion and cough meds haven't been doing the trick, and last night was the first with the new script from the doc. Still, I was lucky to have gotten four hours of sleep, the longest uninterrupted bit being around an hour and a half. Not to mention that the coughing lends itself to a near-constant headache, and I am not one who usually gets headaches. The good news is that I can feel the new meds working. As the saying goes, it just takes time. Right now, with an empty house, I think it's time for a nap.
Opening Day
Our softball league's spring season began today. Most of the old crew was back, with a couple of new faces. We faced a new opponent for this first game, as one of the town's Methodist churches is fielding a second unit this year. I was on third, as usual, playing four of the five innings. (With one extra man, we had a three-way rotation going.) From a fielding perspective, I'm out of practice. My throws to first were a wee bit short each time. At the plate, I was much happier with my performance, going 2-4 with a walk. No RBIs this game, but I did advance runners each time I got on base. Final score was 18-7, and we're 1-0 to kick off the season. It was a good start, working a lot of the kinks out after being off for four months. My time off was much longer, due to the injury I sustained at the end of last year's summer season, and it showed. Time to hit the cages, and get to throwing around more with the guys in the neighborhood. One of our ladies took a shot to the head in the second inning. She was on third, and the batter at the plate, another lady, tattooed the ball right down the third-base line and beaned her before she could get out of the way. She was very woozy, but never passed out. One of the guys on our team is the assistant fire chief for the town, and has some EMS training, and we kept her under observation on the bench the rest of the game. We all encouraged, asked, and begged her to go to the hospital to get checked out, just to be assured there was nothing critically wrong. We'll be checking up on her in the coming days.
Being hijacked
I am not referring to an airline hijacking. Michael informed me this morning that our host for ATPM told him we went over our bandwidth limit for the month of February by 17 GB. After further investigation, we learned that most of this extra bandwidth is going toward serving up various JPEGS to other sites. In other words, rather than downloading the desktop pictures we offer to our readers each month, and hosting it on their own server, people are linking directly to the file on our server for display on their sites. They are hijacking these images, and our bandwidth. This is nothing new. It's just never happened on such a large scale before with any site I've been involved in. People, this is not cool. First off, those desktop pictures are the copyrighted property of a photographer or artist who graciously donated their use to ATPM, and subsequently to our readers, as desktop pictures. This means if you want to use said picture on your web site, or any other medium, you should be contacting that photographer or artist for permission. Second, if said photographer or artist grants you permission for usage, you then host the picture on your own site. To link to the picture directly on ATPM means you are stealing our bandwidth, and driving up our costs. We are not a for-profit publication. Our staff is all-volunteer, from the top down. Any moneys generated from ads and sponsorships goes in to our hosting costs, and after ten consecutive years of publication, those costs can be considerable. Thus, bandwidth is not something we can afford to give away, and certainly not at the rate of an extra 17 GB every month. If you are one of the many persons out there linking directly to one of our pictures, please stop. You are violating legitimate copyright and stealing bandwidth from a group of people who do something each month out of love and joy.
ATPM 11.03
The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your viewing pleasure. Ellyn opens with a look at a life in--or on, rather--Jeopardy, and Wes's Bloggable delves in to the issue of Napster's resurgence, as well as noting other happenings in the Macosphere. Lee weighs in with the second edition of Pod People, and reader David Blumenstein shares his switching story. Ted wraps up his look at outlining task managers, a favorite mini-series of mine, though I'm not sure if I'm any closer to selecting any sort of app to help me in this arena than I was when he started writing it. Marcus J. Albers offers some hints and tips toward getting the most out of OS X. Andrew reviews the addictive Apeiron, and Chris Lawson examines the Cobra.XM from BOOQ. Michael runs LaunchBar 4 through its paces. While LaunchBar has long been a staple in my computing toolbox, I do have my eye on Quicksilver. I actually learned something new from Michael's review, and I'm pleased to see that like a fine wine, LaunchBar is getting better with age. Conversely, Chris was rather disappointed with PolyRingtone Converter, in his words, "a good idea ruined by a horrible interface and poor features." Finally, Eric puts WireTap Pro through the wringer to test its audio-capturing capabilities. A new chapter begins in the Cortland saga, and Frisky Freeware notes my favorite IRC client, Conversation. Lee has generously donated some inspiring cloud photos for the desktop pictures section this month. (My favorite is "clouds-6.jpg".) Yours truly was supposed to have a book review in this issue, but writer's block and a sick toddler this past week foiled my attempts at finishing it. (Hey, don't laugh about the writer's block; I don't want my review to be a simple regurgitation of the table of contents.) Look for it, and other awesome stuff from the staff, next month.
2I is 1
This week is the week of site birthdays, I suppose. Lee's Second Initial turns one today. Congratulations, compadre!
Mickey Mouse Musical Toaster
No, I'm not kidding. As if we needed another reason to lobby for copyright law overhaul.
Just Can't Get This Out Of My Head
So while ripping CDs and loading up my wife's Shuffle, I decided to listen to a few tunes on it. I am still amazed that music comes out of this little chunk of plastic. One of the tunes I came across was Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough". I remember it was used in a commercial, but the commercial made such an impression on me that I cannot recall what or whom the commercial was for. Anyone?
MT turns two
No, not that MT. My pal Jon's MobileTracker celebrated its second year of publication today. Congratulations, Mr. Gales!
Mapping the tax man
Since Google Maps now works in Safari, and I had to get our property taxes paid today, I thought I would give the new service a whirl. I prefer it to the other map sites, since the interface is contained inside a single browser window. It's also fast compared to the other sites; it's snappiness reminded me of using Gmail, which is the fastest web-based e-mail system I've ever used.
Shotgun Rules
No, not a shotgun as in firearm (though those do rule, especially when it comes to room-to-room clearing), but as in calling "Shotgun!" when you're about to take a ride. Yes, official rules for calling shotgun. Larry's good for something now and again. ;-)
Great moments in socialized medicine
Dave Murphy, for the San Francisco Chronicle:
From the time Tilly Merrell was a year old, doctors told her family she would never have a normal life -- or even a normal meal.
British doctors found that the food she swallowed went into her lungs instead of her stomach, causing devastating lung infections. They said she had isolated bulbar palsy, and their solution was to feed her through a stomach tube. Forever.
But having a backpack with a food pump wired to her stomach wasn't much of a life for a girl whose favorite smell is bacon frying -- a girl who once broke through a locked kitchen door in an effort to sneak some cheese. So her family got help from their community of Warndon, about 120 miles north of London, raising enough money to take Tilly, now 8, on a 5,000-mile journey they hoped might change her life, a journey to Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University.
Doctors at Packard were intrigued that she had no neurological symptoms often associated with the palsy. In all other ways, she was a normal child with a mischievous smile and a truckload of energy. After seeing her Feb. 7, they ran three tests and found out what was wrong with her.
Nothing. And you wonder why conservatives froth at the mouth over such nonsense as HILLARY!Care. [Via Jack on World_SIG.]
About those unblocked pop-up/under ads
In case you've ever wondered why you keep getting pop-up or pop-under ads, even though you have pop-up blocking enabled in Safari or Firefox, MDJ has the answer in today's issue:
Several people have noticed more pop-up and pop-under Web ads recently, even if Safari's pop-up blocker is turned on. Safari can't block them because they're not coming from JavaScript - they're coming from Macromedia Flash content. Macromedia has spent the past few years bragging about Flash's browser ubiquity, convincing developers to create everything from simple animations to full-fledged video in Flash because every browser can run it.
Now we're seeing the dark side of that - Flash content can also open windows, and advertisers are using it to subvert standard pop-up blocking, which typically prevents JavaScript code from opening new windows unless you clicked on a link to do so. So there you have it. Yet another reason to hate Flash.
New long distance record in Iraq
A U.S. Marine, Staff Sgt. Steve Reichert, has scored a kill shot while engaging the enemy in Iraq, and the shot was over a mile away. For his actions, Staff Sgt. Reichert has been awarded the Bronze Star for Valor.
In the after-action report, the platoon leader made a remarkable account: that Reichert made the shot from 1,614 meters – about a mile away. His accuracy was the deciding factor in the outcome of the firefight. For the math-impaired, 1,614 meters translates in to 1765.0918662 yards. There are three feet in a yard, so that number times three yields 5,295.2755986 feet. Staff Sgt. Reichert scored a kill shot at fifteen feet beyond a mile. Boys and girls, that's a long, long way for a rifle shot.
Identity thieves targeting medical patients
Read this article now, as it will become subscriber-only after March 1st.
The biggest vulnerability of hospital patients is that their Social Security numbers often double as a medical identifier. For identity thieves, "Social Security numbers are the key to the golden kingdom," says Mari Frank, a California attorney specializing in identity theft.
[...]
Often, the culprit in medical settings is a rogue employee. Identity-theft experts recommend that patients and loved ones protest any visible use of Social Security numbers, such as on wristbands or unguarded charts. At the very least, patients may be able to darken a couple of numbers. Patients should refuse to answer aloud any verbal request for those numbers when they might be overheard.
Patients should also resist the impulse to trust their fellow patients. "If you and the other guy were at the counter at Costco, you'd be careful in a way that you're not when you're wearing hospital gowns," says Mr. Cox, the Michigan attorney general. His office recently extracted a guilty plea from a cancer patient who stole the identities of nine other cancer patients. The best thing to do is, if at all possible, have the hospital assign you a non-Social Security number for identification purposes.
Flying the American Flag
I got a postcard in the mail from a local real estate agent, and on it was a helpful list of flag-flying days. Some of these will already be on iCal's U.S. Holidays calendar, but I decided to make a separate calendar you can download for iCal or any other calendar app which supports a .ics file. The dates are: + New Year's Day (January 1) + Inauguration Day (January 20) + Martin Luther King's Birthday (3d Monday in January) + Lincoln's Birthday (February 12) + Washington's Birthday (February 22) + Washington's Birthday (Observed) (3d Monday in February) + Patriots Day (April 19) + National Day (2d Sunday in May) + Memorial Day (Last Monday in May, fly flag at half-staff until noon) + Flag Day (June 19) + Independence Day (July 4) + Labor Day (1st Monday in September) + Constitution Day (September 17) + Columbus Day (October 12) + Navy Day (October 27) + Veteran's Day (November 11) + Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November) + Christmas Day (December 25th) I did not include Easter, since Easter Sunday varies from year to year. The flag can be flown on Easter. The flag should also be flown on election days, can be flown on state and local holidays, a State's Birthday, and any days as proclaimed by the President of the United States. I welcome any additions or corrections.
Looking at you, bureaucrats
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." --Thomas Jefferson
And the winner of my almost twenty bucks is...
Last night, my Movable Type installation decided it wanted to keep me from further posting on any of my blogs. This wasn't simply an authentication error with my login and password. Something in MT's lib directory wasn't playing nice, and I kept getting this error: MT/App/CMS.pm did not return a true value at /www/retrophisch/public/movabletype/mt.cgi line 21. Now I had been considering upgrading to Transmit 3, since as a registered user of version 2.x, I could do so for $17.95. Or I could, as a registered user of version 4.x, upgrade to Interarchy 7 for $19. This really wasn't a fair contest, as I was using Interarchy 7.3.1 and the last 2.x version of Transmit, 2.6.2, not the new version 3. For whatever reason, whenever I SFTPed in to my domain with Transmit, the transfer mode always turned to Auto, with no way to turn this off so I could transfer in ASCII, or Text, mode. Interarchy saved the day. It reuploaded MT's lib directory from the local installation copy I had, preserving permissions, etc. And while they're so similiar, I'm not sure there's much of a differece, but I like Interarchy's "Edit in BBEdit" implementation better than Transmit 2's. Transmit's a great app, don't get me wrong, but this time around, my money went to Interarchy.
"But the police will protect you, you don't need a gun..."
Tell that to Barbara Gesell and her daughter Theresa, who used her .45-caliber handgun to subdue the purse snatcher who attacked the elder Gesell, 83, in her garage as she arrived home.
"A man has attacked us in our house, and we are fighting him in the yard," Theresa Gesell said to the 911 dispatcher.
As the struggle moved down the street, a neighbor -- whom Theresa Gesell identified as "Hershall" -- stopped to help. Theresa then grabbed her .45-caliber pistol and continued running after Campbell -- despite the dispatcher's plea for her to drop the handgun.
"I am going to go get my .45 ... you all are too slow," she said.
As the call continues, the dispatcher asks Theresa to get rid of the weapon. However, after the suspect tried to escape along a creek bed, Theresa and Hershall used the pistol to make sure he didn't leave.
"You can go put that gun up now," the dispatcher said.
"No sir," Theresa replied. "We have the gun pointed at him ... he must have been a city fellow because he didn't know anything about the woods."
Seconds later, police arrived and arrested Campbell. With Hershall's help, the Gesells retrieved Barbara's purse. So let's do the math: 1 purse snatcher attacking an 83 year-old woman + 1 daughter with firearm = subdued criminal who would have escaped before police could arrive on scene. Now imagine that the criminal in question was after more than a purse, and you can see why firearms save more lives each year than they take. You just don't hear about all of those live-saving events on the nightly news. [Emphasis added. --R]
Free speech, private versus public
Tenure was supposed to create an atmosphere of open debate and inquiry, but instead has created havens for talentless cowards who want to be insulated from life. Rather than fostering a climate of open inquiry, college campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banned words and prohibited scientific inquiry.
Even liberals don't try to defend Churchill on grounds that he is Galileo pursuing an abstract search for the truth. They simply invoke "free speech," like a deus ex machina to end all discussion. Like the words "diverse" and "tolerance," "free speech" means nothing but: "Shut up, we win." It's free speech (for liberals), diversity (of liberals) and tolerance (toward liberals).
Ironically, it is precisely because Churchill is paid by the taxpayers that "free speech" is implicated at all. The Constitution has nothing to say about the private sector firing employees for their speech. That's why you don't see Bill Maher on ABC anymore. Other well-known people who have been punished by their employers for their "free speech" include Al Campanis, Jimmy Breslin, Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy the Greek and Andy Rooney. I have seen confusion regarding one's free speech rights regarding one's employer on more than one occasion on various e-mail lists. In this country, you have the right to political free speech, but this does not necessarily translate to a right to said speech while on your employer's dime. Your right to said speech also does not translate in to a right in having it heard or accepted by those who disagree.