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I guess my plan to go to bed at 11 o'clock failed.</2002> It's just as well… I got Cocoa Dev Central moved to MovableType as well.

Gotta keep this in mind for the next time I play... (source)

According to Craig Rowland, Scrabble in North America recognizes five words which, if spelled over two triple-word score squares, and with a premium-scoring tile on the double-letter score square, will award the player 392 points on a single play. These five words are: OXAZEPAM, BEZIQUES, CAZIQUES, MEZQUITS, and MEZQUITE.

John Chew says that OXYPHENBUTAZONE is the highest-scoring word known under American tournament Scrabble rules (OSPD+MWCD). It can score 1778 under suitably contrived circumstances listed and credited in the Scrabble FAQ.

Are you in a boy band, incapable of understanding words longer than a syllable or two? Can't quite grok the meaning of a sentence that does not end with "oooh baby?" Or do you just have a really short attention span. Either way, this page will teach you Einstein's Theory of Relativity using words no longer than four letters! Quick... run (at the speed of light if possible) to this article and check it out:

You know all the ways you can move, here. You have your up-and-down, and you have your east-and-west, and you have your fore-and-back. Well, Herb had said, we want to add one more way here: time. Yeah, time as just one more way to move in. Four ways, all told. And now Herb and old Al said, "Let's take a look at what we can do when we look at here as a four-way here. Like, what if this four-way here can be bent? We don't mean that what is in a four-way spot gets bent: what if the very spot gets bent?" Some of us said, "You two have got bent, is more like it." But they said, "Ha. Get a load of this."

Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. flew for Pan Am, was a practicing pediatrician in Georgia, a sociology professor at BYU, and an assistant state attorney in Louisiana for years, without graduating from high school. he was a con man, a check forger, and went by several names (Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, Robert Monjo, etc.). The FBI collared him after listing him on their Most Wanted list (the youngest person to be so listed), threw him in jail, then hired him to help combat check fraud and other white collar crimes.

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Chuq has a little post that fairly vividly describes the place in which any responsible 'net user should regard spam blacklists: as unethical, amoral, and perhaps illegal acts.

I've written on spam a few times in the past:

• Shein on Spam: Stupidity
• Spam: It's Not Just For Dinner Anymore
• "Unsolicited" is Right

Spam needs to stop. Blacklists stop legitimate users more than they stop spammers. That ain't right.

There's an interesting article here on le blog de Matthew Thomas that talks about "interface cruft." Unfortunately, I don't quite agree with all of his ideas, but his article did what I consider as the primary purpose of a good article: it sparked a lot of thought in me, the reader (and in him, the writer, I imagine).

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Me: I'm always amazed at how many people think that "wow, that's the whole computer?" when they see the iMac
Josh: i like the people who thought the cube was a subwoofer
Me: These same people are not amazed by laptops, yet, "wow, it's all in THAT tiny thing?" is their response to the iMac. Reality distortion field is right...

Apple, like any technology company, always applies for patents. They get hundreds granted to them every year (rightfully or not). Regardless, this little patent is interesting, and so far, has an interesting thread of comments. I just wonder, given that your computer would try to be the same general color as your desktop, if people would complain that their hardware was too slow due to unnecessary Aqua "eye candy."

This site is now under a "Creative Commons" license. Anyone is allowed to reproduce my content so long as:

• they attribute the work to me
• they use it noncommercially
• their content should be shared similarly

This is all explained here. In other words, I chose the license that protects most of my rights under normal copyright law (I guess). Of course, this will do nothing more or less to stop people from stealing my content and not following these rules, but... I'll give the CC folks my tiny shred of support. I may even look to apply the license to other sites, like Cocoa Dev Central and so on...

Steven of Panic has blogged his HipTop wish list. Among the ideas listed, I've already put the iSync support (via Bluetooth or the USB cable) on my own list. However, his sixth idea is absolutely awesome: SSH access. Yeah, that'd rock. Wow... Assuming you could stay connected regularly, of course 🙂 . I wonder where the SDK is... (BTW, Steven's mini-review is here, and worth a read too.)

Phil Collins sings, "Billy don't lose my number." Soon, Phil will be able to switch wireless carriers - or even switch from a land line to a wireless phone - without losing his own number. Here's the article, and here's a quote:

But starting Nov. 24, 2003, most of the United States' 135 million wireless subscribers will be able to keep their cell-phone numbers even if they switch carriers.

The FCC's mandate forces carriers in the 100 largest urban areas to support wireless local number portability (PDF), which also lets wireless customers keep their numbers if they switch from a wire-line to a wireless carrier.

This is good news for consumers. I've only ever given out my home phone number, and I simply forward calls to my cell phone when I'm out of the house. I was very glad to keep my Bellsouth-assigned (561) number when I switched to MCI's "The Neighborhood" plan. Had I not been able to do that, well… that would have been the end of that idea.

This article goes on to talk about how this will eliminate a major barrier to switching, but fails to mention another: plans. Most cell phone plans are still yearly, are they not, with fairly large cancellation fees? Surely that's a good reason (restriction) to not switch.

I've begun using the MasterGrip doo-hickey (like the one seen to the right, here) to strengthen my fingers for rock climbing. I haven't started doing pull-ups just yet (no real way to do them at this time, need a bar or something), but this hand grippy finger thing is tough. It's amazing how weak your left-hand pinkie is. 😛 I've got to remember to do it outside of my pockets, however, or it looks quite suspicious. "Anyone for a game of pocket pool?" 😉

I wonder where my old trumpet is (the picture reminded me of playing a trumpet)... and if I could sell it on eBay and get a few bucks. I guess that'd be up to my parents. They did buy it originally...

This Slashdot article talks about a job opening in Microsoft's "Next Generation Shell Team." They are "designing and developing a new command line scripting environment from the ground up." Joel Spolsky has written about how stupid it is to rewrite things "from the ground up," and Microsoft, having finally escaped the horror that is DOS (at least in the minds of most computer users - certainly not technologically), is seemingly backpedalling.

I think I'll stick with tcsh, bash, etc. After all, they're a bit more battle tested.

I'm a geek, and as such, I would really like a Segway. However, until the price drops below a thousand bucks, I won't get one. I work from home, and aside from driving it around (riding it around?) my apartment complex, what would I do with it? I don't live in Manhattan. What would anyone do with it? Will this thing really take off? Maybe in warehouses, sure, but in cities? C'mon... It's heavy, isn't it? You've gotta lug it up stairs or have it in an elevator if you work in an office?

Aaron Swartz echos some of these thoughts quite succinctly:

Well, it's almost time to return the Segway and we've all but lost interest in it. Working on the movie kept us going for a little while longer but since I posted it the Segway has pretty much stayed in its place in the corner, off. I think we've explored everything there is to do with it, and now it's just uninteresting.

The Pittsburgh Steelers continued onward into the playoffs with a victory against the Ravens today. What's perhaps even better is that the Dolphins loss to New England and the Jets win over the Packers, both Miami (near to where I currently live) and New England are out. Out out out!

The Steelers will of course steamroll everyone and win the Super Bowl. And if they don't, well, I can just edit my blog to remove my blatant egotism 🙂