Great Bad Reviews
I've mentioned here before that I think that some of the best writing of all time happens when a writer gets a truly awful piece of crap to review. Here's a new example of the genre; go read the reviews for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo:
"Vile and laughless."
"There is something to be said for the uncompromising idiocy of the film, but that something is unprintable."
"It would be best appreciated by (a) children of blind, castrated, hearing-impaired Hollywood executives suffering from Tourette's syndrome and arrested development, (b) comic actor-writers who look like Richard Simmons."
"Schneider, who co-wrote the script, has succeeded in making a film that's nearly review-proof: Most of the dialogue — packed with names for fictitious sex acts and the gigolos who perfect them — is unrepeatable in a newspaper."
But the award for best review of the worst film goes to Roger Ebert. Just go read it.
It's an Accuweather Bug
A followup on last night's Widget bug report: it's not a widget error at all. It's an Accuweather mistake, and that's where the widget gets its data from.
From top to bottom, the following were shot on Accuweather's site for the cities of Geyserville, Healdsburg, Petaluma, and Novato, within a span of a few minutes. I assure you, the sun is not shining here at 12:30 am.
Wacky Weather Widget
I've got the standard Apple Dashboard Weather Widget installed, and it appears to have a bug. If I look at it between midnight and 1 am, the purple background shows that it's night, but it also shows the sun as shining. Before midnight: fine. After 1 am: fine.
My guess is that it's an am versus pm issue, but it's hard for me to believe that that's the case — how come nobody else has spotted this yet? Am I the only one who checks to see what tomorrow's weather will be like before I go to bed?
Credit where it's due
I've griped about this before, here and elsewhere, so it's only proper that I hand out the deserved attaboys along with the thwacks.
Prior to O'Reilly's 2004 ETech Conference, I was asked to submit a proposal to speak. I put in two proposals, both of which were turned down. I'd thought that they were good topics, and evidently the conference planners agreed, as they were both on the schedule, just given by others.
Oh well, I figured, I'll go to ETech anyway, cruise and schmooze, and see what's up and watch I should pitch for 2005.
The first I heard about the 2005 conference was when the schedule was announced. I would have liked to have submitted another proposal (or two, or three), but by the time I heard about it, it was too late. I've griped about this publicly and privately, as I would have thought that I'd get notified again to propose a talk.
So now, the planning has started for ETech 2006. And I should point out that O'Reilly has publicly announced their Call for Participation. Not only that, but I've also gotten private pings (one from an O'Reilly employee and one from a non-employee with good contacts) personally asking me to put in a proposal.
As I've said before, all I want is an open, level playing field. It's the conferences that get announced where the schedule's already booked that drive me insane (okay, that, and the conferences announced that are invite-only and already in progress). So to the ORM folks (and non-ORM folks) who've made this happen publicly: thank you!
Yes, I'm planning on submitting a proposal or three. If none get accepted, them's the breaks, and I won't take it personally. If one does get accepted, then I'll have to figure out if I can afford to go; it's an expensive conference to attend.
And while I'm on the topic, I should also point out that the Macworld Expo SF 2006 Call for Papers is open until 19 August. The more open conference submissions there are, the better the pool of speakers is, and the better the conferences are. Know of any other conferences accepting proposals?
PowerBook G4 Graphics Update 1.0
New from Apple, it's the PowerBook G4 Graphics Update 1.0: "The PowerBook G4 Graphics Update 1.0 improves graphics stability for some 1.67-GHz PowerBook G4 computers." That's the very machine I'm working on right now, but I still think I'll wait a few days until I find out what problem it is that this fixes.
Be Rachael Ray for A Day
Kim pointed me towards this Be Rachael Ray for A Day blog contest. That's tempting!
There's two ways to do it in Healdsburg:
- Buy a $37 bottle of wine, head out to the plaza, drink it, and don't worry about food, or
- Downtown Bakery for breakfast ($5), Dry Creek Kitchen for lunch ($25), and El Sombrero (aka "The Hat") for dinner ($10). Plus a whole lot of wine tasting (free), of course.
Brains...
For the Good Eats fans out there, I give you: Zombie Alton Brown.
It's all about the name
Here's an interesting NYT aricle about schools that are changing their names for marketing reasons -- and having it pay off in higher admissions. To Woo Students, Colleges Choose Names That Sell.
We get mail
I'm the one who answers email from book readers, and I haven't the foggiest idea what to say to this person:
To Whom It may Concern:
I tried to learn Java script from your book, but I have trouble running java script in my computer. Why does it happened in my computer? Do you know how to fix or what should I download something software? I was wondering if you can help me to solve this problems because I have to learn and use Java script as soon as possible.
Thank you in advance!
That's it, beginning to end, minus her name and the obligatory crud that her email provider puts on all her email. It might also help to know that the edition she's asking about came out in 1999. Does anyone honestly think that they've included enough info in a message like this to actually get any kind of meaningful answer? I wish I knew what to say to these poor wretches.
How to turn off potential students
Kathy has said that I'm to keep her up to date on the college search plans, so this one's for her:
Sean's been getting gobs of snail mail and email along the lines of "Please, please, come check out our school! You want to come here! Please!" All of which is, understandably, very complimentary. So it's interesting checking out the Web sites for the schools and deciding what we think about schools only from their sites and their print brochures.
Here's the current case study: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, IN. And here's what made us cross them off the list: Technical Services Center Home :: Laptops :: Model Info. Yes, every kid starting there on September 1 is required to have a Dell Precision Workstation M70.
Ptui.
In 2004, they required the HP Compaq Business Notebook nw8000 of all incoming Freshman, at a pricetag of over $3200 each. Doesn't matter if it's the best price, or the most suitable machine, or what the student is familiar with: they all have to have identical machines.
Why? Because it makes life easier on them.
Note that this isn't a pro-Mac rant, or a anti-Windows rant, or anything along those lines. If the school said, "This is what we'll support; if you get something else, ok, but you'll have to support yourself," that'd be fine — but they don't say that. They say that it's easier for them, and therefore, you must get this exact machine.
If that's indicative of their teaching methodology and how they treat students, they're off our list.
Oh well, now we're stuck looking at schools like Tulane (who sent him two emails today). Poor kid, he might have to live in New Orleans instead of Terre Haute for four years. Doesn't your heart just bleed for him?
Help me choose a picture!
People who know me know that I'm terrible at making decisions, so I need your help. Go check out this photoset of Sean's senior portrait proofs on Flickr and help us pick out which one (or ones — we can pick several) to choose.
Here are some answers to questions you're likely to have:
- Q: Who picked out the outfits? A: Tom did, and I think he did a great job (I was at ADHOC).
- Q: Do they include touchups? A: Yes, and just assume that any acne you see in the proofs will be gone in the final versions.
- Q: How do I vote? A: Put comments on the individual pictures themselves on Flickr.
- Q: How many do you plan to buy? A: We have no idea, but as I'm pretty happy with how they came out, they're likely to be holiday gifts for much of the family.
- Q: What a handsome kid! A: That's not a question, but I couldn't agree with you more.
#3 in a series - collect them all!
Every so often I check to see who's linking here, and today I came across this one: someone who thinks that the two widget images I posted here over the last couple of days are "pathetic," "sad," "stupid," and "horendous" [sic].
In his honor, y'all are getting this:
I hadn't planned on posting another, but with fans like that, who can say no? Thomas, or CraHan, or whatever your name is: be sure to also avoid the October issue of Macworld. To think that they actually paid me not just to write that widget, but to write about how anyone can make them! It's shocking, I tell you, shocking that anyone without much in the way of graphics or coding knowledge could be allowed to put impure stuff up on their own computer or their own weblog.
Macromedia Studio 8
Macromedia today announced Studio 8: new versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Contribute. Amazon's got Dreamweaver 8 for pre-order, but no books as yet. Hmmm…
All entries © 1999-2008 Tom Negrino and Dori Smith