NSLog();

Sorry man, but this is not a bug as Bill Bumgarner points out. I'm glad I can replace a folder with a file. It's not as if you're not warned.

From the "Who needs Virtual PC anyway?" department comes the surprising (to me, anyway) news that Bochs is up and running on Mac OS X. Find out more at Open OS X.

Thanks to Mac OS X's advanced architecture, multiple G4 CPUs can be utilized and are emulated as a single powerful Pentium(R) processor or as duel Pentium Processors. Mac OS X is a true chameleon of operating systems, users may now run a long list of operating systems within it: Mac OS 9, Windows 95/98/2K/NT, DOS, Linux, Unix, BSD, etc. software seamlessly.

Someone will have to try this out and let me know how it is. I don't have much need for running any of the other OSes, but for $30, it could provide a useful backup strategy in emergency situations.

Our current Dubyament, errr, government doesn't seem to care what the population thinks, or what the rest of the world thinks, so maybe they'll respond to some pressure from within. From John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart… The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

Find the full letter here, and thanks to Tom Coates for the pointer.

Nick notes the breakup of Zora and Evan, and also a bit about Trista and Ryan. Says Zora:

I think we were just overwhelmed by the situation. I think it was really nice being reunited; we were both genuinely happy to see each other. But there was also some editing done that gave the viewer more hope than there was.

I would like to point out that I am still single, Zora. Ever been to Florida? 😀

The winning design for the rebuilt World Trade Center towers has been announced. The plans look impressive, and the gardens and things are nice. Part of me thinks building an even bigger set of towers in place of the destroyed ones is a bit arrogant, and the other part of me likes that arrogance.

Libeskind says that having calculated the arc of the sun, a wedge of natural light would funnel visitors to the memorial site, and that every September 11 between 8:46 a.m., when the first tower was struck by a plane, and 10:28 a.m., when the second tower collapsed, no shadows will be cast by his buildings.

I don't understand how no shadows can be cast by a 1,776 foot tall building, in September, in the morning, in New York (which is over 40 degrees North). This is curious, and I like small facts like this, but I don't understand how the architect has managed to escape this. Can anyone tell me?

This explains so much:

Self-control, whether used to pass up the office cookie plate or to struggle against temptations like alcohol and tobacco, operates like a renewable energy source rather than a learned skill or an analytical thought process, according to new research.

Read more here if you can control yourself.

Survivor 6.3 played last night, and that's about nearly all I have to say about it.

The men once again played with their balls, errrr, their Magic 8 Ball. "Will I get to sleep with Jenna?" Yeah, I'm sure that's what I'd be worried about if I was losing 4 out of 5 challenges, not catching any fish, and left stranded in the Amazon. I'd be thinking of what chick I'd like to tap. Uh huh. The guys were so obviously making plays for the women at the "Go Fish" challenge that they lost easily.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 556); »

It's a pet peeve of mine when people write to me as "Eric." My name is "Erik." I have nothing against people named Eric and think that, like my name or "Steve" or "Dave" or "Ronald" or "George," "Eric" is a fine name - it's just not mine. If someone continuously called you "Rob" and your name was "Bob" it'd probably irritate you too.

In truth it doesn't bother me that much, but it does enough that i don't ever want to upset anyone by getting their name wrong, so I always double-check if I'm the least bit unsure. It falls into the "common courtesy" bin for me. The corollary makes me wonder, then: what pet peeves of others have I unknowingly tripped on, not knowing that it was a pet peeve?

Slight re-design on my individual archives tonight. Moved the trackbacks to the left menu, took out the popup link for comments since they're below the article, and so on. Next thing will be to rebuild articles when i get a TrackBack, but I'm still concerned about this:

If you have a fair amount of faith in the speed of your rebuilds (or in your TrackBackers' willingness to keep trying, or to let you know that there's a problem)…

I don't know if my server can rebuild files quickly enough to respond to pings before the pinger times out. I maintain that the ping response should be sent, then the stuff should be rebuilt, on the pingee's time, not the pinger's. Hmmm. 🙁

My To Do list. Blue = "I did it already." There's a story behind most of them, but in the interest of humor, I'm just putting this list up without any explanatory remarks.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 977); »

I posted my disclaimer and this is the corollary of sorts: the "about me" page. Who cares? Most likely nobody but me (and a few people wasting time at work). On the off-chance that you need a small piece of useless trivia about me, well, perhaps this will help.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 404); »

Dave sent me this link to an article, and I'll just give you his words on the topic:

For your consideration: A funny, sad, and thought-provoking editorial about personal rights (from a creative arts point of view). Somewhat cynical, but hey… how can it not be that? And no, this isn't about Iraq or Osama or Bush (though there is a picture of Bush on one page). Rather it's about how to stifle creativity. 🙂

That it is, Dave, that it is.

I'd like my archives (individual, daily, monthly, category) to be rebuilt every time an article gets a TrackBack. I did a search and found this article by Phil Ringnalda, but this sentence is preventing me from doing his hack:

If you have a fair amount of faith in the speed of your rebuilds (or in your TrackBackers' willingness to keep trying, or to let you know that there's a problem)…

That doesn't seem to be the way to go. It seems to me MT should confirm the TrackBack, then go about rebuilding the archives on its own time. Is that possible? I don't want to cause any trouble for people linking to me. Any ideas? Please share.

I expected my comments on a recent OSNews.com article to kick off a little flame war (typical of OSNews, Slashdot, etc.) but so far, after about 15 comments, it seems one of the better (keep in mind this is relative) discussions so far.

The article was about Linux on the desktop, IT departments, and so on. My comment (I didn't read the article OSNews was pointing to: oftentimes "Linux" falls well below "prepare dinner" on my priority list in any given day):

What's harder to troubleshoot and requires a larger IT staff than Windows? Linux! Corporate IT types should love Linux! Gooooooo Penguin! Next year, sir, we need to double our IT staff, but at least the OS is free! Wooo!

This moment of sarcasm brought to you by the lucid dreaming of Ed Stevens.

Ed was good tonight. West Wing was okay. And Annie's dog died, but hey, a little perspective here, ok?

A few days ago I promised that I'd post my 404 Search Function code. Here it is (below). Let me cover a few things first. Initially, I did a preg_match after having done a file(). The file() function returns an array. That's a bit costly, so I just wrap file() with an implode() to give me the whole string. I looked, and I haven't done this before so it's possible I overlooked it, but there doesn't seem to be a way to get a remote URL (the search results page) as a string in one function. Bummer.

At any rate, I'll revise this code as necessary. Submit your suggestions. Consider this code in the public domain, and use it as you see fit. If you feel like being nice, credit me. If you feel like being really nice, send me a case of Coke. If you feel like the code is crap and there's nothing to be nice about, do me the favor of telling me why.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 311); »