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For about a year or so I've used the old Rivet icon ((What's up with the new one?)) as my "avatar" in a lot of places. It was an icon I was proud of, as the idea for the software, the name, the icon, and so on were my own. If you didn't know what it was, it still looked like a computer's power button, which said something. It had depth, but was simple enough that it could be reduced to a favicon (this site). It was pretty good.

But now that Rivet's been sold, I no longer feel right using its icon as an avatar, so I'm looking at other options.

In the past year or so, where I felt like I needed to use my face (say, on Twitter), I've used my stupid Xbox Live avatar. Yes, that's as dumb as it sounds. On forums I've used a variety of things: at The Sand Trap I've used a picture of Sidney Crosby for a few months. At a photography site, I've used an over-saturated image of a basketball hoop (this one).

I'd like to consolidate my "avatars." I'd like an image I can use everywhere, and one that represents "me."

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I read this article about Christian Longo in Esquire. Naturally, I was struck by the gruesomeness of his crimes and can't begin to imagine how someone can be so screwed up in the head, but I was also struck by his new mission.

The GAVE project seeks to change the way in which we kill prisoners on death row from lethal injection to, well, a different kind of lethal injection. Current methods render the body's organs unusable for transplant, and Longo simply wants a method that induces brain death so that prisoners - many of whom are repentant - can do one final act of "good" before they die.

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Can you believe it's been ten years?

You look at screenshots of Mac OS X Public Beta (or earlier versions) and you think "Holy shit, that's ugly." But at the time it was a breath of fresh air.

I jumped on Mac OS X as soon as I could. I ran developer previews. I got on beta tests for Mac OS X versions of apps as quickly as I could just so I could ditch "Classic."

God, remember Classic? 😛

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For a few months I've been looking at getting a pellet gun. It'd be fun to shoot little targets in the basement. I used to do this from time to time as a kid, and it seems the same exact pellet guns are still for sale: the venerable Crosman Pumpaster 760 and the American Classic Pump Pistol. You can buy both for about $80 or less ((One nice thing about the two Crosman models is that they have a built-in safety mechanism: if you're not strong enough to pump the thing you can't shoot them.)).

Traps run $20 for the pellet-stopping variety. For $80 you can buy a trap that's supposed to stop .22, but I'd never shoot .22s in the basement. Yikes. Pellets are rather inexpensive, as are targets - and you can print your own targets, too.

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I'm proud of myself right now. I'm sure the feeling will fade soon enough, but for now, and at least the next 4.3 seconds, I'm proud of myself.

I teased someone about something recently - I typically only tease people I like - and he completely misinterpreted what I was saying and got quite upset with me in an email he sent three days after the fact.

The old me would have responded immediately, pointing out the many facts that were wrong or perhaps cursing similar to the lashing he doled. Or perhaps the old me would have deleted the email and gone about my day.

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So everyone's predicting we'll see the Apple tablet in about two weeks.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Put me in the pessimist's group all you want, but I don't see myself buying anything that's been predicted thus far. Everything that's been talked about thus far basically guesses that the tablet will be something between an iPhone and a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Why? Is that really a niche? I don't see it as one.

So what if you can read magazines with interactive content on it? A MacBook can do that now.

The only possible thing I might like is a bit of a SuperKindle - a dedicated device for reading things which are presently available primarily or only via dead trees (or recycled dead trees). I have subscriptions to Golf, Golf Digest, Esquire, and a few other magazines that I wouldn't mind getting, minus most of the advertisements and with added features like integrated video or commenting, on a color display. For reading books, the Kindle is fine, but magazines suffer on the Kindle because it's not got a color display. The display would need to be visible in all sorts of light and the device would need to be relatively inexpensive because you'd be paying for the content on top of it.

And, frankly, I don't see that happening. Not even close.

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Erie (where I live) just enacted a cell phone ban that requires handsfree operation (or no operation) of cell phones while driving. It's a secondary offense, meaning that a cop can't pull you over just for the use of a cell phone while driving, but I imagine that if they want to make an example out of you or are having a bad day they'll find a reason to pull you over and tack on the cell phone penalty as well.

The question I have is this: why are cell phones a target? Frankly, I'm probably less distracted talking on a cell phone than I am the times I've eaten, played with a GPS, fiddled with the radio, tried to get a rock out of my shoe, drank a can or bottle of Coke, looked in the back seat to make sure I hadn't forgotten my {camera, hockey skates, golf club, groceries, etc.}, and so on. I've seen people reading maps and even newspapers and books while driving, yet these people are free to continue doing so without any worries whatsoever.

Is the cell phone industry behind these bills? Nobody's going to drop their cell phones or even their calling plans because they can't talk in the car, but cell phone companies and accessory makers can sell a whole bunch of $100+ Bluetooth headsets.

Or is it just politicians doing their usual bullcrap?

And seeing as how it's law, now: any recommendations for Bluetooth headsets for the iPhone? Ideally something that's easy to use and charge.

So apparently Netflix is going to wait 28 days before making Warner Brothers movies available to its subscribers:

Netflix's 11 million subscribers will have to wait nearly an extra month to rent the latest movies by Warner Bros.

Under an agreement announced today, Netflix's DVD-by-mail service won't send out Warner Bros.' latest DVD and Blu-ray discs during the first 28 days after they hit the market.

The deal is a first for Netflix. The company expects to reach similar agreements with other major movie studios later this year.

The moratorium will give Warner Bros. a chance to sell more discs to consumers who can't wait to see the studio's latest home releases.

In return for the concession, Netflix will get a discount on Warner Bros. discs. And it'll be able to offer more of the studio's movies and TV shows for subscribers to watch over the Internet.

I'm fine with that. I don't buy DVDs. Not a one - not movies, anyway - and I couldn't care less about waiting a month. My Netflix queue is already two months deep as it is, and if I'm able to get more streaming movies as a result, yippee. I call this a win in that case.

Obviously at some point (60 days?) it'll start to get bothersome, but 28 days? Pfffft. Easy.

Where are those public, televised healthcare negotiations Obama promised?

I didn't vote for Obama. I voted for John McCain, though primarily for the same reasons that I voted for Bush the second time - because I disliked the other guy more.

I resented the outright smugness that some (most?) Obama supporters exhibited. The guy's turned out to be a dud - and now, a liar, it would seem - but as my wife said the other day I'm glad he's not actually done anything. Where have all those smug bastards gone? How smug are they feeling now? How superior? They may still have backed the "better" guy for them, but the guy they backed turned out to be better than the guy that existed in reality.

I continue to despise the entire party system. Screw parties! Who needs 'em? All they do is force people to vote in ways on certain issues contrary to how they feel simply because they need support for something they believe in later. It's created a system where someone who values small(er) government, for example, is also a God-fearing nut who can't stand the thought of abortion. I tend to be more Republican than Democrat (and more Libertarian than either), but I'm a mix of all things, and I think our politicians are as well and should be allowed to as such. The party system has failed. It's given us John McCain vs. Barack Obama. George Bush vs. John Kerry. And a House and Senate that votes pretty much down party lines and almost always has. Yippee.

Today I got an email from DirecTV telling me that their prices were going up. Yippee?

I've been a DirecTV user since 2001 in Florida. At the time, I even subscribed to the NFL package (which, then, was $199 and which now costs roughly ten times as much) because I didn't want to watch Dolphins games every weekend, but rather those of my Steelers.

I'm still using a grandfathered "Total Choice Plus" package that gets something like 150 channels. I pay $57.99/month with $6 for DVR and $10 for HD access. The current package most similar to mine is the "Choice Xtra + HD DVR," currently $75.99 (a $2 difference). Apparently you also get 50 or so more channels (and 15 more music channels), but I don't know that I care about those.

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Yeah, yeah, so I wasn't exactly forthcoming in my previous post, but that's the point: I was trying to hint at something, not come right out and tell everyone.

Rivet - Cynical Peak's software for streaming movies, music, and photos from your Mac to your Xbox 360 and/or PS3 - has been sold and transferred to The Little App Factory. TLAF also makes iRip, RipIt, and Evom, so adding a fourth media-related application will allow TLAF to build a little empire of media-related things. RipIt, in particular, is quite good.

Also, there's a new release: Rivet 2.4. Your registrations will continue to work and Rivet 2.4 updates Sparkle to version 1.5, changes the registration system for new registrations, fixes a bug with piping, and a few other little tweaks. Grab the free update.

Brad and I fully expect The Little App Factory to take good care of Rivet and to grow its functionality.

P.S. And to think, Rivet got its start because I didn't like Connect360 and the company went dormant for months at a time.

I'm starting to regret re-doing my home network. Don't get me wrong - when things work, they're great. When they don't work, well, not only do they not work but they don't even make sense most of the time.

I'll briefly describe my simplified home setup. My cable modem is hooked directly to the outside cable line where it enters the house and is plugged into a new AirPort Extreme ("Basement"). "Basement" is connected via ethernet through the floor to my first-floor entertainment center (Xbox 360, DVR).

Directly above on the second floor I have another new AirPort Extreme ("Upstairs") that's connected via ethernet to a PS3 and a DVR. In my office, I have a first-gen Time Capsule with no wireless (or ethernet) clients, but hooked up to a USB printer. The Time Capsule ("Einstein") is about 25 feet from "Upstairs," which is in turn about 15 feet from (above) "Basement."

Everything on the network (except for the iPhones) has an IP address I've manually configured and which matches the DHCP Reservations table in Basement's configuration. The radio mode is set to 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g/n and the channels are set to 149 (5 GHz) and 1 (2.4 GHz).

Two major issues persist:

1. My wife's MacBook and, occasionally, my MacBook Pro will have a dickens of a time connecting to the network.
2. A random AirPort station will become unavailable to the network from time to time.

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As I did for 2006 and 2007 (but not in 2008, it seems), here are the results of my 2009 blogging.

                 2009   2008   2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002
                 ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----
Posts             379    403    493    560    940    993   1335     68
Avg. Length       891   1047    994    925    824   1023   1195   1836

Comments         2011   2284   2961   2832   4956   7104   5491      9
Ratio            5.31   5.67   6.01   5.06   5.27   7.15   4.11   0.13

My Comments       194    270    362    459    545    749    639      0
My Ratio         0.10   0.12   0.12   0.16   0.11   0.11   0.12   0.00

This wasn't a great year for me blogging wise in terms of the number of posts. I believe I write something every day, and with 365 taken away from 379, that leaves only 14 posts that double up on another one? Ouch.

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I'm updating the blog's design at The Sand Trap today and I've narrowed my choice for the "bones" of the site to two themes: Publication and Marketplace.

I think I like Publication more, but the pros and cons put them both pretty close to each other.

Publication Pros
- Like the postdata
- Like the tabs on the top
- Like the built-in styles

Publication Cons
- Doesn't support widgets (???)
- Would reduce the font size (easy)
- Would need to convert to a white main background (pretty easy)

Marketplace Pros
- Supports Widgets
- Already a white background with a two-tone header/background
-

Marketplace Cons
- Don't need/want the big images per post (?)
- Don't need/want the bottom stuff
- Font face and size is blech, postdata might not wrap well.

I'm still leaning towards Publication because it seems easy to add widget support. Thoughts?

I drag from my "Podcasts" playlist in iTunes to my "iTunes DJ" playlist fairly frequently.

Today when trying to do that I noticed that iTunes was preventing me from dragging EVERYTHING on EVERY playlist. The drag doesn't even start.

Dragging works in every other application. I can drag files from the Finder into iTunes. I just can't drag files originating in iTunes. I tried deleting the prefs - that didn't work. I tried using a different mouse too, and disabling all mouse-related add-ons (mostly USB Overdrive). No iPhones were plugged in.

Update: Restarting solved the problem. No idea.