Say What?
Another one of those 10.2 dialog boxes giving me that warm comfy feeling. This one showed up when I hooked up my Keyspan Digital Media Remote. Another day, another wonky gadget.
Good/Bad
The good news is that my iPod arrived today, just in time to go with me to Las Vegas. The bad news is that it proved definitively that I had a problem with my BookEndz TiBook dock.
With both the TiBook and the iPod plugged into the dock, the iPod would charge but the Mac wouldn't show it as connected. With the iPod connected directly to the TiBook, everything worked fine. So, one 800 phone call to Photo Control later, I got an RMA number and it's been sent back to MN. The timing's good; it's still under warranty, and so long as it has to be in the shop, it's handy to have it be while I'm not at home to use it anyway.
BTW, I put every song Tom or I have ever ripped on the iPod, which worked out to 6.1 days worth of music. And the thing is still less than half full, so it'll work perfectly as a short-term portable backup device.
Watson's hot
Today's release of Watson 1.5.5 shows that Karelia isn't going to curl up and die just because Apple decided to sincerely flatter Watson with Sherlock 3, which is part of Jaguar. Today's Watson adds two new tools, for searching Google and Amazon. There's no faster way to browse stuff on Amazon. Note that if you buy stuff from Amazon through Watson, part of the purchase price goes to Karelia as an Amazon Associates commission. The Google search tool is nice, but Google is already pretty easy to use and navigate. This new release shows that even if you have Jaguar, Watson is still worth your money.C'mon already!
Where's my iPod?Oil Do-Nothings
Oil Price from The New Republic reports on all the things that have happened since 9/11 to help the US become less dependent on foreign oil. In short, not a damn thing, thanks to a bipartisan Congressional and Presidential effort.Jagwire
After griping about Amazon.com in my previous post, I should probably mention that 10.2 Jaguar did finally arrive, and is now installed on my TiBook. If you want to help me check out iChat, I can be found at dori (at) mac.com. First thoughts: yes, Quartz Extreme does appear to work on this machine. I love software that makes hardware appear to run faster!About damn time...
After nearly five weeks and two phone calls, it looks like I may actually get my new iPod from Amazon.com in time to take it to Las Vegas. It's about time, imo, as they've had them in stock for weeks. Anyhow, the point of this post is to remind me that Amazon.com's 800 number is 800-201-7575, so I won't have to look it up again if things go wonky (again).
Congratulations, you two!
Glenn and Lynn got married on Sunday. A belated congratulations to you two from us, and best wishes for many happy years together!Kicking myself
I've got to get over this shyness thing. I saw Anton Sherwood at WorldCon and wanted to introduce myself to him, but figured that he hadn't the foggiest idea of who I was and thought that I'd look like an idjit. Today, I find out that he linked here on Sunday. Sheesh. Well, thanks for the link, Anton!Bring back my Happy Mac!
Running Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar? Miss your Happy Mac icon on startup? Here's instructions on how to get it back, although they're not for the fainthearted. I suspect that someone will come out with a program to do this within the next few days.Pop-Up Zapper
I bought the $10 shareware Pop-Up Zapper a couple of weeks ago. It's a program that runs under Mac OS X that does a pretty good job of getting rid of anoying browser pop-up windows. It's not perfect, but I found that I missed it when I didn't have it on the iBook these past few days. Recommended.A New Review Gig?
After this weekend, I've been thinking of doing some SF book reviews. I figure it'll keep me fresh for my other writing, and it could be fun, too. And no, it's not just so I can deduct this weekend from my taxes (I've already figured out other ways to do that).Make it so
Patrick Stewart showed up Friday night to pitch Star Trek Nemesis (December) and X-Men 2 (May 2003). That man knows how to work a crowd. Remember how you thought that First Contact rocked, and Insurrection didn't? From the clips we've seen, we're back to rockin' with Nemesis. And X-Men 2 looked pretty good too; he showed the same clip that the director showed at ComicCon a few weeks back in San Diego. He also mentioned that he'll be doing a remake of The Lion in Winter next year.Hall Costumes
There were some amazing hall costumes. OK, sure, some of the Klingons were cool (didn't see any Vulcans, though). But there was one guy there dressed as a classic Satan; not the guy with the red skin and the pitchfork, but the half-goat, hairy all over, horns and teeth, scare-your-ass-off Beelzebub. He was wearing incredible platform shoes that looked like goat's hooves and made him at least seven feet tall. Two other folks had amazingly detailed Ghostbusters costumes, including the backpack reactors. I saw a damned good (and I use the term advisedly) Pinhead, from the Hellraiser movies. I myself was dressed in my secret identity as a middle-aged science fiction reader. Bet that fooled them.Fans of Weight
If you worry about carrying some extra pounds, go to a science fiction convention. We felt positively svelte, and we're both looking to shed some weight. It's quite sad, actually; many of the fans just can't be described as anything other than morbidly obese.The Digital Medievalist
At the weblog panel yesterday, we met Lisa Spangenberg. She's doing a better job (i.e., anything at all) than we are of blogging ConJosé, so go read what she has to say. And Lisa, thanks for the compliments on our JavaScript book, we're glad you like it.Scottish Socialist SF Writers
Scenes from the World Science Fiction Convention:
One of the sessions I attended was a panel discussion about Scottish Socialist SF writers. I quite enjoy the work of two of them, Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod; they do great work, and I don't much care about their politics. The session was supposed to be about their work, but it was ruthlessly hijacked by the two libertarians on the panel, one of who was well-known open-source preacher Eric Raymond. Much ranting about the work of von Mises and Hayek ensued. The low point for me was an audience member standing up and shouting that it was wrong, just wrong! to conflate Lenin and Stalin as socialists, and the libertarians should stop doing that at once!
Shortly after that, I bailed out on that session. Some observations:
- For people that claim that personal freedom is so darned important, libertarians sure can be doctrinaire. I practically expected them to start pounding a shoe on the table and shout "Ve vill bury you!" Apparently, when it comes to opinions about economic theories, you can have as much freedom as you need to agree with the libertarian view.
- If Eric Raymond is the exemplar of the New Libertarian Man, the world will sure be a more dogmatic and less polite place. And yes, I think that's a bad thing.
- What is it with libertarians that make them so unlikable and act so superior? The socialist and the liberal on the panel certainly managed to get their points across without sneering.
- For some reason, there was a much higher than average number of attractive women audience members for this session. Since when did socialists become babe magnets?
When the Trotskyites start talkin', Tom starts walkin'.
All entries © 1999-2008 Tom Negrino and Dori Smith