NSLog();

As some may have guessed, a Kindle 2 is on its way to me.

I've previous said that the Kindle only interested me if it was $299 or less, and then went on to say "if it's free, and only then." ((Which is pretty much the same as this comment: "Unless someone gives me a $359 Amazon gift card that expires in ten minutes, I'll pass."))

I took advantage of the fact that, as a freelancer, I can set my rates at whatever I like. When I'm bored, I'll sometimes do favors for friends and ask nothing in return. To make a long story short, I did about eight hours of work over two uneventful, non-busy days, and I got a Kindle 2 and a cover out of it. The work I did was worth $400 to my friend, and suffice to say it was worth giving the Kindle 2 a shot. ((Effectively, since my friend would have been just as happy to give me $400, I rationalized it to myself as "well you're not really losing anything, and you're gaining a Kindle 2. I effectively set my hourly rate at whatever I'd pay for a Kindle 2 divided by eight. So I worked for somewhere between $12 and $25/hour. :-D))

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 617); »

A simple question this time:

I know Blu-Ray is currently a big ol' world of hurt. But you know, if the new Mac Mini had a Blu-Ray drive, I'd have bought one instantly ((My friend Josh makes the point that Apple wants you to buy HD movies from them, not on disc - the OS doesn't even support Blu-Ray drives.)).

How much do you pay for Internet service per month? What kind (cable, DSL, FIOS, etc.) do you have and what speeds do you get?

I pay about $60. I see real-world speeds of 4-8 Mbps from faster sites and my upload is about 700 kbps via Time-Warner/Roadrunner Cable.

March is colorectal cancer awareness month, and you can help.

I'm jumping the gun by about an hour, but I've posted new Desktops for March, 2009.

Get them while you can. Just three this month.

Just realized something… I've taken no artistic photographs (i.e. non-family/scrapbooking type photos) in the month of February.

Then again, how many pictures of snow can you really take in a year? 😛 Busy month. I could have taken shots in the "studio" but never found the time.

Lot of stuff here for an x.x.x release, but here goes:

• Added support for mt2s and vob files on the PS3.
• Added French localization. Thanks to Eric Morand for the translations.
• Fixed ordering of playlists and albums on the PS3.
• Fixed the display when showing only unplayed podcasts.
• Fixed an Aperture parsing issue with projects.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Rivet to not start its networking after waking from sleep.
• Fixed the display of albums having more than one artist, like soundtracks.
• Reworked UTI handling to improve media parsing.
• Fixed an issue that caused picture quality to degrade when not viewing jpegs or jpegs at highest quality.
• Fixed updating of playcounts for video podcasts and movies that are in iTunes
• Fixed memory leaks and various minor issues.

No big new features, which is why it's a x.x.x only.

The update is free to anyone who has ever bought Rivet, and can be obtained from http://cynicalpeak.com/rivet/.

I wrote about how I'm ISTP (based on a VERY short test) back in 2003, and when I run nslog.com through Typealizer, it comes back ISTP as well:

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

The Safari 4 Beta shipped today, and frankly, I think it stinks.

Among the many things that I think are wrong with it:

• No title bar means it's not easy drag windows. You have to be very careful about where you click.
• The ability, via command-click, to navigate up the hierarchy is gone.
• Repurposing of resize "grabber" to mean "move/drag" is confusing.
• Close "x" on each tab supports click-through, so you can accidentally close a tab - with no way to get it back - when simply trying to switch to Safari from another app.
• Tabs resize and thus change position when one is selected.
• Web Inspector now takes up room within the window by default. At least it remembers if you expand it out.
• Inquisitor doesn't work, and the "suggestions" Safari offers are nowhere near as good a replacement.
• URL search now lists bookmarks LAST in the list. Previously they were a down-arrow away.
• Cover Flow view for websites? C'mon…
• You can have tabs to the left and right of your current position, but the "..." only appears to the right. It looks like you're seeing the first tab.
• The first tab's close box is about 16 pixels away from the window's green grow box.
• The loading bar is gone, replaced by a stupid indeterminate spinner.
• You can only drag a tab from one corner now, as opposed to the whole tab.
• Where did the Stop/Reload buttons go? In the Address Bar text box? Seriously?

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 438); »

You know what would be handy? A website that let you enter in package sizes, weights, and destination and shipping zip codes, and then gave you the rates for FedEx, UPS, and USPS.

Does such a site exist? The rates are available - my Pelouze scale (if I had a Windows machine) can calculate the rates, so they must be publicly available in some form or another.

The record for the 2008-2009 Tungsten Blades. Not too shabby, and a great group of guys. Now, onward to the playoffs.

I didn't even know that "simple.wikipedia.com" existed until xkcd told me.

What the heck? Is it Wikipedia for morons?

The Simple English Wikipedia is for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English.

So it's for children, adults learning English, and morons. Got it. 😉

In all seriousness, that's kind of cool, particularly for kids doing a little research. When I was little I'd read things in my encyclopedias, and my first set was a kid's set that was really quite well done - lots of images, smaller words, and shorter entries.

Most of the time, that's only a small problem.

It becomes a big problem when (false) assumptions horrendously color the perception.

For some reason, every time I launch Aperture (latest version), it selects an image from last spring. I dutifully collapse that folder back down, work on other images in other folders (and even other projects), sync to my vault, and yet when I launch Aperture next, it selects and displays that same image, un-collapsing the folders again in the process.

Anyone else seeing such a behavior? Next time I have the chance I'll check out the .plist to see if there's something in there…