This is just wrong
You know, go ahead and protest potential war with Saddam Hussein's regime. But when you take it out on little kids just because their parents are in the National Guard, you're stepping over the line. Further comment withheld due to incensed author.
Banana Junior 6000
Tech gear lust can begin at an early age. For me, in 1985, I wanted a Banana Junior 6000. (Thanks to Gruber for the link.) My personal favorites are "Fritos," "Toaster Ovens," and "I Think."
P800
More gear lust, this time courtesy of Steven and The Register. With our current mobile contract up in June, I'll be shopping around for the best plan, and a new phone. I've had my sights set on SonyEricsson's T68i, and may still pick that up, depending on P800 pricing in 4 months. Both the T68i and the P800 would allow me to dump my Palm and have just one device. Currently, my mobile is a low-end StarTac.
Good-bye, Mr. Rogers
Beloved children's programming legend Fred Rogers died early this morning at age 74, from stomach cancer. Song composer, puppeteer, Presbyterian minister--Mr. Rogers' love for kids took us all, from 1968 to 2001, into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers, and thank you for being a part of my childhood. You were a blast.
tchotchke
Lee was not familiar with the term, so I pointed him to Webster's, which defines it as a noun, Yiddish in entymology etymology, and means "trinket" or "knickknack."
As I told Lee, the word saw a jump into the mainstream during the dot-com glory days, when those companies would give out all kinds of logo-emblazoned crap at trade shows, conventions, expos, and to anyone the marketing people ever came into contact with. Maybe too many tchotchkes is yet another reason why so many of them dot-bombed.
That said, I do appreciate a quality tchotchke, like the metal Apple luggage tag I received from them last year at MWNY.
Don't waste your money
Please don't shell out ten smackers for MacMaid when Erik gives you an AppleScript that'll do the same thing for free.
Monty Python in church?
It's pretty cool when your pastor uses a Monty Python reference in his sermon. In this case, it was the "Department of Redundancy Department." Tim was talking about how the term "born-again Christian" is redundant, since by definition someone who is a Christian is born again through his new faith in Jesus Christ. He threw in the above Python gag as a further example of said redundancy.
Former Star hits 1,000
Former Dallas Star Joe Nieuwendyk, currently with the New Jersey Devils, reached the 1,000-point plateau last night with a goal against Magnificent Mario's Pens in a comeback win for the Devils. Many Stars fans, myself included, were sorry to see Nieuwey go, though we understood Stars management's thinking at the time. Congrats, Joe!
What a great kid
Mark Newhouse's daughter Jordan donated a 14-inch ponytail to Locks for Love on Valentine's Day, and Mark has documented the event in the form of a QuickTime movie:
"Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children across the U.S. under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss. "It takes ten to 15 donated ponytails to make one hairpiece because Locks of Love only uses lengths of 10 inches and longer. 80% of donors are children."
Liberal radio talk show hosts?
Ann cracks me up:
"If liberals cared about ideas or knew any facts, they would cease being liberals. Even the audience for the left's government-supported radio network, National Public Radio, has more conservative listeners than liberal listeners. According to a Pew Research Center study released last summer, conservatives consume far more news than liberals--including listening to NPR and watching PBS more than liberals. (As Mickey Kaus said, 'No wonder conservatives are so pissed off.') "Liberalism thrives on ignorance. Their media are 'Lifetime: TV for Women,' NBC's 'The West Wing' and 4 billion 'Law and Order' episodes in which the perp turns out to be a Christian, white male who recites the Second Amendment before disemboweling a poor minority child. "Liberal persuasion consists of the highbrow sneer from self-satisfied snobs ladled out for people with a 40 IQ. This is not an ideology that can withstand several hours a day of caller scrutiny where their goofball notions can be shot down by any truck driver with a cell phone."
I don't know why my wife watches "Law & Order," "NYPD Blue," et al, when she spends half the episode complaining how the cops twist citizens' rights to gather evidence and/or get a confession. No, she's not a criminal attorney, but yes, she is a lawyer and remembers all of this good constitutional stuff from law school. (Thanks, Rick!)
iChat logs
I share Michael's iChat irritation. One of the things I love about Fire is that I can drag a log file onto BBEdit and have it open up in the text editor. iChat logs have to open in iChat, presumably so you can see the pretty word balloons. The solution, obviously, would be the ability to open my iChat chat log in BBEdit and read it in plain text glory, or open it in iChat and get it with the balloons. From a UI perspective, I prefer iChat over Fire, since most everyone I know uses AIM. Two friends stubbornly cling to MSN (Hi, Wil!). I have accounts with ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger, but with the aforementioned MSN exceptions, everyone I know on the other services also uses AIM, so iChat it is.
Cool new PDF trick
Michael notes Bill Bumgarner's example on using Mac OS X 10.2.4's new PDF Workflow feature. I tried out Bill's example, since it plays into my own web reading habits, and it's wicked cool. Bill also says:
"But PDF Workflow is even more flexible than that. It isn't limited to just saving PDF. You can also drop scripts, apps, filters, and other mechanisms into the PDF Services folder. That'd be the Workflow part of the whole thing."
Doing the right thing, rather than the "popular" thing
Doing the right thing is oftentimes not the easy thing to do. With regard to Saddam Hussein, President Bush's course of action is the right thing to do, though it certainly isn't easy. This is counter to the Clinton model of executive leadership, always putting a finger to the wind to test popular opinion. What amazing foresight Winston Churchill had:
"Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature."
This is why President Bush is also not listening to the "news" media and the peace protestors (whom with, again, I have no problem regarding exercising their right to protest, rather with their reasons). Despite what the "news" media would have you believe, the current peace movement does not reflect the popular will of the American people. Even if it did, that still wouldn't make it right.
"The Founders understood that democracy was important, but if you didn't filter it through a republican system you'd be just as likely to end up with a tyranny of the majority as you would with a healthy society. Don't worry, I won't quote the Federalist Papers, but trust me, it's in there." --Jonah Goldberg
The "news" media and peace protestors would be wise to hearken this advice, as well:
"We do need to remind everybody that tyrants don't respond to any kind of appeasement. Tyrants don't respond to negotiation. Tyrants respond to toughness. And that was true in the 1930s and 1940s when we failed to respond to tyranny, and it is true today." --Condoleezza Rice, U.S. National Security Advisor, over this past weekend
Tyrants don't respond to peace protests and sycophant "news" media in other nations as well. At least not in any way that would make them less of a tyrant.
Hypocrisy, anyone?
Riddle me this: why was it okay for President Clinton to go into the Balkans without approval of the U.N. Security Council, but it's not okay for President Bush to go into Iraq--where there is a WMD threat--without the approval of the U.N. Security Council?
NetNewsWire + Safari = Power
Ok, I've finally used NetNewsWire consistently for a couple of weeks, and now I'm hooked. Like Michael admitted, my vision on NNW's potential was limited. Like Rands, I'm reading more weblogs, collectively, than any other type of site. Combined with Safari, NetNewsWire is a powerful tool for weblog reading, as well as accessing any other site with an RSS feed, such as ATPM. The two form a potent combo for accessing nearly any info on the web you might need.