Plague of Frog. Singular.

I am currently the victim of a plague of frog. Not lots of frogs, but one frog at a time (the better to torment me, you see). The other night, we watched a movie from Netflix. Afterwards, I went out to mail the DVD back. As I stepped out the front door, something struck me on the head. I looked down, and saw that a small frog had obviously been lying in wait on the front door, and pounced upon me. I laughed, and shooed the frog to the shrubbery; that would be the last of it.

Or so I thought.

The next day, I went into the garage. A frog was lurking on the inside wall next to the door. I barely escaped with my life. Tonight, while having dinner, I saw that there was a frog attached to the front window, in clear sight of the dinner table. The frog campaign of terror continues. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know what happened. But I will not cower in fear. If I do, the frog will have won.

QotD

Quote of the day, from Hack the Planet:

Sorry Adam, Dave, Doc, and Dan, but I hate podcasting. It's a total waste of my time to listen to something when I could read it.

That goes double for me. If you want me to pay attention to it, write it up. If you can't be bothered to write it down and post it, I can't be bothered to pay attention to it. It might be different if I had a commute, or time to kill, but neither one's the case.

Testing aptitude

In honor of Sean taking the PSAT/NMSQT the week after next, here's a couple of other aptitude tests:

• The Google Labs Aptitude Test (via Tara) lets you see if you've got what it takes to work at Google.
  
  
• The Self-Referential Aptitude Test should come with a warning about what a time suck it is. I once completely hijacked a New Year's Eve party by giving the host a copy as a belated holiday gift.

I'm also trying to track down information about a test I took almost 20 years ago that was called something like the "Woolf Programmer's Aptitude Test." Google doesn't appear to know anything about it. With the number of programmers who read this site, it could be worth asking: am I the only one who's heard of this test?

Likeability

Lots of pundits are bitching about how Kerry didn't "go for the kill" in the debate. Here's why (from a brand-new Newsweek poll):

Kerry, typically characterized as aloof and out of touch by his opponents, came across as more personally likeable than Bush (47 percent to the president's 41 percent).

Yeah, it would have been fun to see Kerry give Bush a few well-deserved kicks. Yeah, personal likeability shouldn't be a factor in a presidential vote. But the fact is that it is a factor, and a huge one. Given that the common received wisdom among the punditry class is that Americans "would rather have a beer with Bush," it's nice to see a poll that says the exact opposite.

Other good numbers from that same poll:

Kerry had a better command of the facts than Bush (56 to 37)
Favorability ratings (52 to 49)
Unfavorability ratings (40 to 46)
Did better than expected in the debate (56 to 11)
More confident (62 to 26)
Intelligent and well-informed (80 to 59)
Strong leader (47 to 44)

I'm looking forward to Tuesday's debate between Cheney and Edwards. Cheney's one of those people who can look scary saying "hello," and Edwards is the exact opposite. Cheney's got his work cut out for him to try to make up any ground after Bush's disastrous first debate.

Porchdog Spike

New to me: Spike from Porchdog Software. It's a clipboard utility that works over Rendezvous. Even cooler, it works with Windows 2000 and XP. Why should we Mac users have all the fun?

More Debate Reaction

From Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott, the Tweet Smell of Success makes more good comments on last night's debate:

...Bush has been wheeled out into forums where no one can dare question or contradict his majesty, where he can lean forward and repeat ad nauseam his patented soundbites. Last night I believe we saw the ugly comeback of the private face of Bush--the irritable expressions he flashes subordinates when he's presented with information he doesn't like or feels someone's taken up too much of his time or is pressed to explain himself to people he shouldn't have to explain himself to because he's the president and fuck you. The notion that Bush is "likeable" has always been laughable. It takes a Washington pundit to be that dumb.

Read the whole thing.

Tom's on the Net Radio

I just taped an appearance for tonight's episode of The Mac Night Owl LIVE, a Net radio show hosted by Gene Steinberg. I discussed Web browsers and my new book, Macromedia Contribute 3 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide. The show airs at 6 PM Pacific Time tonight; I'll be on in the second hour.

Nuclear Microbatteries

Here's a really interesting article in IEEE Spectrum about nuclear microbatteries, which use tiny amounts of radioisotopes, in amounts too small to be dangerous, in order to power microscale generators. The article envisions using these microbatteries to trickle charge your cellphone or PDA battery so that it only needs a full recharge once a month. Via Paul Music.

No leashes!

We watched the presidential debate, and our feeling was that Kerry did just what he had to do: look presidential to the huge audience that hasn't been engaged in the election up to this point. He also effectively showed the bullshit caricature painted of him by the GOP attack machine for what it is. Our verdict, as seems to be the consensus, is that Kerry won it in a walk. We were actually open-mouthed at some of the bizarre things that Bush said, and at how at times he just seemed to be completely lost and out of it. By the way, did you know that war is hard work? It's clear that Bush was getting peevish at being criticized for his failures; he's obviously not used to that, given that he doesn't do news conferences, and only appears before hand-picked crowds that have signed loyalty oaths. Conservative Andrew Sullivan wrote a good wrapup of the debate, and made this excellent observation:

No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash.

Reservations at hotels at conferernces

While it's still a while until the conferences themselves, it's never a good idea to wait until the last minute to book your hotel rooms...

• For the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference, you'll want to stay at the Westin if at all possible. The discounted room rate officially expired Sept. 28^th, but I understand unofficially (and I could be wrong) that you can still call the hotel directly and get the good rate—so go do it asap. Otherwise, it's a lot more expensive/inconvenient.
  
  
• Yeah, it's already time to start thinking about making room reservations for January's Macworld Expo SF. Once again, we stay at and recommend the Hotel Palomar. It's not the cheapest on the list, but it's the least-expensive close hotel that includes 'net access. After 20+ years (and nearly as many different hotels) of going to SF for Macworld, this is the only hotel that Tom and I considered returning to. Highly recommended. Good beds, too.

First debate tonight

In case you've been living under a rock, the first presidential debate is tonight at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific. You can get up-to-the-minute online info from the John Kerry for President Rapid Response Center, or you can play Bush Debate Bingo.

If you watched The Daily Show last night, you saw Ed Helms giving his already written report of the debate. Once again, he wasn't being so much ironic or cynical as just slightly ahead of the curve; the text of ABC's past-tense debate coverage can be found here.

Woot?

My sincere apologies if anyone followed my link a few days ago to Woot and your credit card is now writhing in pain. If it's any condolence, mine is also.

The good news, I guess, is that my 40 Gb HP iPod should be arriving shortly, which means that the 20 Gb 2G iPod I have now will be up on eBay soon. I'll mention it here when it's up for auction, and if you're the winner, tell me that you heard about it from the blog and I'll, uh, "forget" to erase it before sending it out.

Babies, babies, babies!

About six weeks ago, I put a congratulations up here to new parents Glenn and Lynn. Since then, I've dropped the ball and neglected to welcome some new babies to the world, courtesy of Jason and Lauren, David and Jennifer, and Jeffrey and Carrie.

That's four kids in six weeks. Did a memo go out last December or something? Copycats.

Dori's 200 things

The latest meme going around is "200 Things", so here's mine:

1. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
2. Swam with wild dolphins
3. Climbed a mountain
Sinai and Masada, 1978. In the dark. The sunrises were amazing.
4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
5. Been inside the Great Pyramid

Read more…

Useful Amazon hack

In the comments to yesterday's post, Derek and I were discussing whether or not it's okay with Amazon if, as an Amazon Associate, you credit yourself with your own purchases. So far as I know, it's not. But, on the off-chance that you wanted to do it anyway, here's the simplest approach I know of: Amazon Buy This.

It's a bookmarklet (of course!) which assumes that you're currently on an Amazon item's Web page. If you are, it'll reload the browser page to show the current item with a correctly massaged URL to give you credit once you click on the purchase link. Obviously, you should change the first variable in the bookmarklet to be your Associate ID; just as obviously, we won't be heartbroken if you don't <g>.

If you're not familiar with bookmarklets, don't click on that link! Just drag the link to your browser's toolbar/bookmarks bar, and when you've found an item at Amazon you want to purchase, click on it.

This was very loosely based on the Library Lookup Bookmarklet to give credit where credit's due, but if you run into any trouble with it, let me know.

Griffin iBeam

Okay, this is just silly: the Griffin iBeam. It's a flashlight and laser pointer set that, yes, attaches to your iPod.

Hot Deals

Because you want to save some money when you spend your money:

• Amazon is still selling the full retail version of .Mac for $79.99, which is still $20 less than what Apple wants you to pay to renew your .Mac membership. And when you realize that the retail box works just fine as a renewal, it's even better.
  
  
• You like the idea of saving $20 by shopping at Amazon, but wish you could save even more? Here's how: go to A9.com first and search for something—anything at all. Then come back here and click on that first link, and Amazon will give you credit for being an A9 user and give you another 1.57% off your total ($1.26). Or in other words, Apple wants me to pay $107.45 ($99.95 + $7.50 tax), for the exact same thing that Amazon will sell me for $78.73—a savings of $28.72.
  
  
• Want to attend the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference, but don't want to pay full price? Here's a tip: ADC (Apple Developer Connection) members get 30% off the cost of registration. What's it cost to join ADC? Nothing at all for an Online membership. So, go sign up for ADC, and then register for TenCon using discount code macosx04ae. Sweet, huh?
  
  
• And lastly, Woot!