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I rarely laugh audibly (at blog entries) these days, but the retelling of a classic joke earned a chuckle from me today:

A man armed with an assault rifle went into a Best Buy store in Kingston, New York, today and opened fire, according to the AP. He wounded one person before running out of ammunition.

We desperately need an aggressive, federally overseen gun control program in this country. I mean, come on. How much of a spaz do you have to be to unload a rifle in a crowded store and miss everybody? I've heard of not being able to hit the broad side of a barn, but this is ridiculous.

Hardy har har. The only thing funnier than the ol' joke is the five or six posts by Morgan "Clueless" Painter.

Question: Where did you take your last vacation?

My Answer: Hawaii, about six years ago. But I'll be heading down to North Carolina in less than two weeks for a whopping three-day (golf) vacation, and I'm psyched!

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

ABC News has an article called "R.I.P. Microsoft":

Great, healthy companies not only dominate the market, but share of mind. Look at Apple these days. But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google -- but did anybody notice?

I noticed only because I read stories that they announced a number of pages just over Google's (6 billion to 5 billion, IIRC), and then Google immediately bumped their number (to 8 billion+).

Question: Have you ever fired a gun? In as brief a statement as possible, also explain "why" or "why not."

My Answer: Yes. My dad taught me, and it's a skill and an activity I enjoy.

Brief statements like "I just don't want to," "I never had a real chance," and "My family hunts" are fine. Be reasonable or have your comment removed: no name-calling or fighting.

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

I'll be brief and expose the details to those who are potential candidates.

I have a standing offer to write a book covering Cocoa software development, and am seeking a co-author. The former co-author was/is, well, quite bad to be as gentle as possible, and so I am looking for a replacement.

Incredible command of the English language as well as a solid understanding of C, C++, Objective-C, and the Cocoa frameworks (not necessarily an advanced understanding, but a solid one) are musts, as is a solid work ethic and 20 hours/week of time to work on the book.

The contract is through an established publishing company and work and proceeds will be split accordingly (50/50 being ideal for both work and proceeds, though I will entertain offers of varying degrees of "co-," so to speak).

P.S. Contact via email is best ("me@" this domain), but please include your AIM screen name for follow-ups.

Anyone know how I can get a Canon EOS 20D inexpensively? What accessories/package would you recommend? I'd like to keep the total cost at around $1.5k. B∧H seems to have the best price - about $1.4k - for the body and the 18-55mm lens.

At this point, this is merely an exercise in… I dunno. My Nikon CoolPix 995 does an adequate job, but does badly at close-ups and has a little less control than I'd like. Tad slower than I'd like, too. Still a great camera: I just want a better macro feature, mainly, and may as well jump to a camera that'll last a few yars.

Question: Test

My Answer: OK.

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

The Sand Trap, a site powered by MovableType, looks somewhat like a blog. It also looks like a very golf-centric news site. We have a former writer for Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, Golf World, Golf Week, and Golf for Women on our staff. Another gentleman named Kiran and I have kicked out some good, in-depth articles that beat print publications (and even other online publications) to the story. We have in-depth reviews you won't find elsewhere, and opinion articles that are naturally all our own.

All of that makes this response from the "Golf Writers Association of America," puzzling. I requested an application and received this response:

thanks for your interest... unfortunately, blogs and ezines do not fall under gwaa guidelines as recognized publications.

if you have published a minimum of six different golf stories in the past 12 months in newspapers/magazines, we will be glad to send you an application.

Six articles in twelve months. Presumably the Erie Daily Times counts. Its golf readership may number as high as 10,000. The Sand Trap could garner as many as 10 million readers, yet it cannot be a "recognized publication."

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Brad mentioned to me that his later-model G5 (I have the dual 2.0 GHz, he has the next model afterwards) continues to have fan revving problems, and that he was going to get 10.3.8 immediately because he heard it helped to solve the problems.

I have 10.3.8, and my G5 has never revved up the fans so frequently as it does now! I used to be able to hit 100% spikes in CPU usage for 30 seconds or so before the fans would kick in - now they jump immediately when the I hit 25% on one processor.

If anything, the temperature in my office is a degree or two cooler today than a week ago. Argh!

Question: What is your favorite kind of wine? Not a brand, but a kind, and hopefully a bit more specific than "red" or "white"?

My Answer: I'm asking the question because I'm looking for some suggestions. If I knew already, I'd be a wine snob and keep the secret to myself! 😀

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

I maintain a hand-written RSS feed at Freshly Squeezed Software. Now, it seems I may not have to. An application called Feeder will write RSS for you.

I'll have to check it out later…

I don't understand how IDN Spoofing works. I see that the link text goes to http://www.paypаl.com, but why that resolves so unusually is beyond me.

Safari properly renders the а as "a" in the link, but also does so in the URL. Why is Safari so lax when it comes to standard domain names, and where does the url resolve? Reproduction of the code here (Test Now - Left Click On This Link) results in similar (bad) behavior.

Question: With all that Google has, including their new Maps, Gmail, and the pre-existing stuff, how much would you be willing to pay if everything but the basic search features became a subscription service?

My Answer: I'd pay $20/year. And that's stretching it… I'm not sure I'm going to need Maps, and I rarely use anything other than the image search. My gmail account is great for inviting people, but that's it. 🙂

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

If anyone (particularly the people I actually know) is interested in golfing in the Pinehurst area this February 25-27 for an incredible price, IM or email me immediately.

Obviously, I'm going. I can't pass this up - it's a tremendous deal! I haven't taken a vacation since graduating from college, and though this is only three days, it's the closest I believe I can get to one these days.

My favorite movie is, according to Amazon, going to be available on DVD a day before my birthday this year! Woo hoo! To say I ordered it quickly is an understatement.

I once, at 17, signed up for a Blockbuster video card because they were the only place that had the movie on VHS. I borrowed it and never intended to return it. They eventually sent me a notice saying I owed $99.95 or something (the cost of the movie). My dad went in to Blockbuster and argued that they'd made a contract with a minor, and all the fees were removed.

But I had to return the movie. 😛

Years later I found it on VHS and bought a copy, which I now own. My VCR, however, hasn't been unpacked since I moved to Erie. My favorite movie on DVD… yay!