category: technology


technology stupid css is stupid

ARGH I spent hours trying to get it to look right with retina graphics and it ONLY LOOKS RIGHT IF YOU’RE LOGGED IN. Which shouldn’t be the case at all in any way.

I don’t have the energy anymore. I don’t even. Just log in if you want it to look right.

technology Late June, 1993

As cool as it was to go late, I still wish we’d gone earlier in the day, so the pictures would be better. This was their only time, and my last time.

Wtc93-Lisa&Elaine

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technology You don’t say.

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I got this by selecting “Open Network Preferences…” from the AirPort menu when the preference pane in question was already open.

technology What I want

I want a tablet I can write or draw on, with a surface that feels like paper and a stylus that feels like a pen. Maybe I could adjust this stylus to feel like a pencil or a paintbrush or a marker if I wanted, but really, I write more than I draw, so I’d like it to feel like a really good ballpoint pen.

When I write, of course, it would be editable text. When I draw a diagram or a chart, it would be vectors and approximate data. If I sketched out a page design, it would be a page design, with margins and guides.

I’d like to be able to type on this tablet, just put my fingers down and touch-type on keys that aren’t there (or perhaps keys that appear, or, perhaps, in a science-fiction sense, keys that appear only when I need to look), and then when I pick the pen back up, it’s just a tablet again.

And when I need a mouse, that would be on the tablet as well, or the whole tablet could be a touchpad, with multi-touch and gestures.

Except for the psychic ability to tell when I need to look at the keyboard, and except for being able to change the physical sensation of the stylus, why doesn’t this exist already? Why isn’t the keyboard and the tablet one device yet? I’d buy the shit out of that.

other Editing the dictionary on my computer

One guess whose last name I right-clicked on to get this menu.

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technology my menu bar

…because it all poofed today for NO REASON and I needed to document it for the next time.

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Synergy controls
AdiumX
Synergy icon
Salling Clicker
AudioScrobbler
IC-Switch
URLWell
Amua
WeatherPop
MenuMeters: memory, disk, CPU
Ink
Modem
Bluetooth
AirPort
Detour
Volume
Battery
Classic
Displays
Input menu
Fast user switching
DotMacMenu
Clock
Spotlight

technology Something useful I’m saving for later

Just read this on Woot! from a forum user named WindowPain:

———

If you currently have a 4:3 set and you want to know how big a 16:9 set you need to purchase so that you really do get a bigger picture, multiply your current set’s size by 1.22. For example, if you currently have a 32 inch 4:3 set you’d have to buy a 39 inch (OK, 40 inch) 16:9 set to get equivalent 4:3 picture size.

If you want to know the equivalent 4:3 picture size for 16:9 set multiply the 16:9 set’s diagonal measurement by 0.82.

HD promoters like to tak about how HD gives you a “bigger” picture. It’s only bigger if you buy an HD set sufficiently large so that its 4:3 picture is equivalent to your current 4:3 set’s picture.

If you were to go from a 32 inch 4:3 set to a 32 inch 16:9 set you’d actually be getting a total screen area that’s more than 10 percent smaller.

———

This earlier entry gets a different result from more math. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it stands to reason that a 16:9 set, with a ratio of 1.77, with the same diagonal measurement as a 4:3 set, with a ratio of 1.33, would be less tall and overall smaller. Not even counting the fact that 4:3 sets have different measurements and “viewable” measurements.

technology Exceeds expectations.

The iPod is a thing of beauty. It’s so smooth and shiny and slender. It’s really very nice. I haven’t gotten used to the click wheel yet; I had very much gotten into the habit over the last couple years of touching the solid-state buttons on my old one with no force at all, and now I have to press. It means I have to hold the whole thing in a different way.

The way videos work is a little odd. I subscribed to some video podcasts to see how it would go. If you go through the Podcasts menu, it just plays the sound. You have to navigate to the same files through the Videos menu to get the video. It seems really stupid to me, but it’s just a little change, and I’ll get used to it.

The W.O.M.B.A.T. results are in, and I got an E (Exceeds Expectations). Yay!

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The test was behind the office door on www.jkrowling.com. I’m not sure whether it’s still possible to take the test. But if you want to see how the results look, you can use mine. Click the W.O.M.B.A.T. card on the front page and when the site comes up, enter my student ID, which is:

8nm3lVmMpNANKIiwmWVyX

shopping Well, I did it.

CDI paid me, and I … well … I spent some of it.

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The accompanying Hogwarts crest–engraved iPod will be in hand tomorrow.

That means, tomorrow I’m going to see STEPHEN KELLOGG AND THE SIXERS at the 9:30 Club, and I have a new iPod.

Also, the job interview this morning went really well. They weren’t nearly as Christian as I’d feared; they just wanted to be sure I was aware of the kind of business they’re in and that I was open to doing it, which is what I was hoping for. We got along well, and supposedly I’ll be talking to someone else soon about technical things. Their whole production staff now is in Orlando, so that will either be a phone interview or I’ll have to wait for them to fly someone up here.

Edited to add:

Check out the help menu on an application I just ran for the first time in months and now realize must have been a beta.

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technology A few amusing pictures

They’ve introduced a new model of the camera Jeff and I both have, the Casio Exilim EX-Z750. We love this camera. One of the things it does (occasionally useful) is set up pictures with “best shot” presets.

The new model (this is a photo of a website, so sue me) has a “best shot” specifically for selling crap on eBay. This is unbelievable.

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Especially since the existing camera has a “best shot” mode called “Collection” that’s designed for photographing collectible objects up close. I wonder how this is different.

Last weekend, during the Olympics, Deborah and I were watching four-man bobsled. One of the announcers was talking about one team’s weight advantage over another, in terms of the maximum weight on a four-man sled, and he stammered a little and repeated the number. The live closed-captioner was quick, but not quick enough, and this is the hilarious result.

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In other camera news, I just downloaded a wonderful set of Mac icons called “CHUMS.” I don’t know if these are photorealistic drawings or what, but they’re awesome. It’s one of the best icon sets I’ve ever seen, and I have about eighteen thousand icons right now. This set includes beautiful images of my Dell monitor, my exact Exilim camera, and of cousre the Bose noise-canceling headphones that will one day be mine.

I just replaced the file “import_camera.tiff” inside the iPhoto 5 package with the image from this beautiful icon, and now when I import photos, the generic camera it shows has been replaced by my actual camera. For some reason, this sort of thing always makes me happy.
Import Camera

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