NSLog();

Okay so the title of this one is a bit provocative, but arousal is often a provocative subject. Funny thing is, "arousal" could mean "of the senses" or "of the mind" but if you walk up to someone and say "I'm aroused" you're likely to get beat up (or, in a few cases, maybe laid).

It's raining out right now, one of those sunny rains for which Florida is famous, and I'm aroused. I went outside, stood in the rain, and stared up (glasses help). What is as amazing as rain? It's literally life, just falling from the sky!

That's arousing. I love the rain. I dig thunderstorms, too. Florida supposedly has a bunch of those, but I remember having a lot more in the summertime up in Pennsylvania. CRACK! What can awaken the soul more than the crack of thunder and the piercing strike of lightning?

Thunderstorms are like mother nature having an orgasm.

"Software is like women: either it is good, or it is free."
- Slava Karpenko

Slava tells me that this is a joke translated from Russian, author unknown.

July, August, September, October, November = JASON

I noticed this while surfing Gary Turner's blog. I got to Gary Turner's blog by following the link to the Switch Off page from BlogStickers. Why was I going there (see how this is winding backwards?)? Because I was considering taking down the parental advisory picture (left side, in the "Critical Info" section) and I clicked it to see whether the site it linked to had been updated lately.

I've decided to leave the blog sticker alone. Wouldn't want to piss off JASON.

I accepted another job offer today. I'll relinquish one of my smaller jobs in favor of this job. I'm really looking forward to it (but can't say what it is).

This will be my third job: the first two are of course my freelance Web/software consulting business and Freshly Squeezed Software. It's all part of my "work like hell for a year, play very little, save up enough money to get a decent house" plan.

Plus, now I'll have health care.

I include a quote in my email signature, and this is the collection. It's fairly big, I suppose, so I used an AppleScript and a quick find/replace in BBEdit to grab the list. The script I used is:

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
    set blah to content of every signature
    set bar to ""
    repeat with foo in blah
        set bar to bar & foo & return & return
    end repeat
    set the clipboard to bar
end tell

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 937); »

How do I feel about OmniGraffle Pro 3's icons? Let's see, to put it bluntly, UGH!

Rick Roe still works for Omni Group, doesn't he? This Rick Roe, the one with the icon design site? The icon to the right is an OmniGraffle 3 Pro (is there a difference) icon. I expected more from Omni.

The app icon is gorgeous (see my previous post). The document icon? I know we're a picky group, us Mac users, but ugh. Ugh. Have I said ugh yet? Capital UGH.

Buzz over at Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Fe-Fi Fo-Fum really likes OmniGraffle 3.0. While I like OmniGraffle, I'm not sure I'd throw myself into the "I Love It!" crowd. It's always been a bit slow, and my biggest problem with 3.0 is apparently Buzz's favorite:

As a Cocoa developer, I must also admit (over the certain protests of Mac UI purists) that the stunning, custom GUI work Omni did for OmniGraffle 3 is a large part of the attraction for me. I particularly admire the system of collapsable inspector palettes.

I admire, but could they be more bland? And do we really need no less than twenty inspectors? Could Omni not have taken a page from the way Photoshop handles its effects (drop shadows, etc.)? The word "cluttered" springs to mind. The Show/Hide Rulers and some other toolbar items look disabled, Andy pointed out, and I agree.

All told, I like OmniGraffle. Not really "a lot" but then again I've not done "a lot" with it either. The fact that one of my biggest complaints is about a toolbar icon says a lot.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 295); »

I was going to link to a New York Times article, but they've gone to a paid archive system of some kind, so fuggem. >:-o The article discussed "away messages" on chat clients, largely focusing on college students.

One girl was quoted as saying something like "I log on and check about sixty people's away messages, even people I have never talked to. I want to see what everyone's up to. Another boy, famous for his funny, insightful, and strange away messages, talked about the pressure of changing his away message five times a day to keep up with demand for people who were checking it.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 512); »

I published a little ditty on Interland a few days ago, and now we've set up the domain: splinterland.com. It's going to house a forum to help Interland Freedom and VPS customers to help themselves, avoiding Interland's tech support where possible.

If you have a Freedom or VPS account with Interland, or know someone that does, please visit or tell them to visit. The site is just online, so obviously there is no content yet.

This has been a public service announcement. Thank you.

Question: If you could free yourself from one burden in your life, what would it be?

My Answer: I doubt that "sleep" counts as a burden, so I can't say that. I'm going to go with the simple one: income taxes. Just tax purchases an even percentage and be done with it. Heck, for that matter, just put the actual price on everything, tax included. Spam was a close runner up.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Sven-S. Porst asks whether blogs are good for research and lists a few pros and cons. I used a "blog" for research quite a bit in college, except I spelled it without the "b." In other words, I had a notebook with dated entries where I wrote down paradigms, mnemonic devices, and other tricks and "eurekas!" as I discovered or invented them.

Had MovableType 2.x been available at that time, I think I might have used it. After all, I type much faster than I write.

Some guy named Gabe Anderson asked me how I do the random quotes you see to the left. Quite simple, really!

<?
    $lines = file('http://nslog.com/quotes.txt');
    $count = count($lines);
    $linenumber = rand()%$count;
    echo $lines[$linenumber];
?>

May not be the most efficient means of doing this, but it certainly works.

I'm just testing some things out - apologies to those that will see this in their news aggies several time as I play around. As you'll notice two of these - the two that look like I want them to look - are not valid XHTML 1.1. Anyone know how to fix them so that they are?

A few years ago - nearly two as I write this - I signed up with a company called "HostPro" for what was then called a "Freedom" account. The Freedom account provided 500 MB disk space, root access, 40 virtual hosts, and more on a FreeBSD "box" that I could essentially consider a dedicated - though small - server.

I think I've figured it out… See comments.

Did you know that you can get a big big bag full of stuffed animals for $2.50 at your local Goodwill store? These make great toys for dogs, who chew them up anyway. Stop paying $10 per toy at Petsmart! Getsmart and shop for your doggie toys at Goodwill!

Flint likes his new pink stuffed animal. This is one of the ones I had to throw out quickly, though, because it had foam beads and not stuffing inside of it. I bought two bags today, and then sorted them into "stuffed toys only" and "toys with things like batteries in them." I got about one full bag of each, and donated the bag with the non-suitable toys back immediately. $5 for about 10 new stuffed animals? Bargain city!

A few years ago - nearly two as I write this - I signed up with a company called "HostPro" for what was then called a "Freedom" account. The Freedom account provided 500 MB disk space, root access, 40 virtual hosts, and more on a FreeBSD "box" that I could essentially consider a dedicated - though small - server.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 1265); »