Bit
November 1, 2005
This is one of the coolest pieces of software I’ve played with in a while. It’s the bit from Tron, and it answers questions when you click on it.
Complaints about 10.4.3
October 31, 2005
[Cross posted from
Well, I guess I’ll be the first to complain about 10.4.3 here.
#1 — The Mail.app problem I complained about before (and submitted a bug report to Apple on) has not been fixed.
#2 — Despite adding more RAW support, the Coolpix 5400’s RAW (NEF) files remain unsupported. This is supported by dcraw so Apple has no excuse for not making it work. This too has been submitted as a bug back in April or May.
#3 — While Safari has gained the ability to render the ACID2 browser test I have been able to make it break. I visit the ACID2 test page itself, then after the rendering is complete I spin the ball on my mouse (a Mighty Mouse, in this case) and the face breaks and scrolls even though there is no scroll bar. Here is a screenshot of the problem.
#4 — The out-of-the-blue failing of my attempt to rsync lots of data to an external drive continues to fail as follows:
Documents/iChats/Erika Alpert on 2005-09-09 at 23.57.ichat
3500 100% 18.99kB/s 0:00:00 (6610, 10.0% of 185201)
rsync: fstat failed: No such file or directory (2)
❚
Then after being sent a break:
^Crsync error: received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT (code 20) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-20/rsync/rsync.c(231) rsync: writefd_unbuffered failed to write 103 bytes: phase "unknown" [generator]: Broken pipe (32) rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-20/rsync/io.c(909) mercury:~ c0nsumer$
This hasn’t yet been reported to Apple as an official bug report yet because I don’t have a standard test case for it yet. However, it worked under 10.3.9 just fine. Unfortunately this is the bug I can’t work around, because even copying data to the external drives with Finder fails in the same manner.
So, Apple… Drop the ball much?
Mail Hold
October 31, 2005
Well, this is quite nice… One can now request that a hold be placed on their mail delivery online. No more having to dig up a form, fill it out, and mail it in a few days ahead of time.
New Fridge
October 29, 2005
Click for more…
Well, the new fridge is here and installed. The delivery people called at 9:50 and said that I should expect them between 10 and 1. They got here just before 11, and everything went great. Interestingly, they didn’t use any hand trucks, so the cardboard I put down in order to protect the threshold wasn’t needed. Ah well. I did have to flip the plug around before hooking it all up, but it seems to have gone well. There is plenty of room inside, and I think everything will fit well.
The old fridge claims to cost ~$75 year to operate back when it was made in 1990 / 1991. This new fridge claims $40/year. Figuring for increased energy costs and inflation, I’d imagine that old fridge would have just cost a whole bunch to run even if it was working in ideal conditions. I’m figuring the cost of the new fridge will be offset by saved electrical costs over the next three years or so, so this should be good. And it looks nice to boot.
Anyway, if you want to see photos of the new fridge and the things I did in order to connect it, click on the picture above or this link right here (photo gallery retired).
Old Photos
October 27, 2005
Here’s something I find extremely interesting. Someone has been acquiring antique cameras, finding the film in them, and developing the film. Clicky Clicky. It’s too bad the assigned captions are dumb.
Mokomoko Cocoa Chiffon
October 26, 2005
Click for more…
Continuing with my interest in odd or different foods, I picked up a box of Mokomoko Cocoa Chiffon when I was at Tsai Grocery. Well, tonight I made it, and I must say, it’s really quite good.
To put it simply, it is a sponge cake dessert which is made by mixing a powder in with an egg in a mug, then microwaving it for a minute or so. As mentioned before, it’s quite good. Pretty much like a light chocolate angel food cake, but in a mug,
If you click the picture above or on this link (photo gallery retired) you can see some pictures of the product itself, along with step by step of making it, and some close-ups of the final product itself.
So, yeah. If you get a chance to try this, go for it. It really is good… I think the pictures came out well too.
Mmm… Mokomoko Cocoa Chiffon (photo gallery retired). Hrm, no. That doesn’t go as well as mmmmmmeat! Ah well.
UPDATE: Yes, I did change the photo. This one is more enticing. Click on the current photo to see the gallery itself, then you’ll get to see all the photos.
Mozilla!
October 26, 2005
Okay, a moment for me to bitch about the Mozilla people:
Who the hell makes an application which supports SOCKS as a proxy type, but doesn’t provide the option for name lookups to be done via the proxy? Both Thunderbird and Firefox have been this way forever, and only a Mozilla nightly properly presents this option.
Maybe the only people who use SOCKS these days are kiddies bouncing through open proxies? Or maybe the only users of SOCKS are on weirdly configured networks which will resolve any name, but only provide connections out through a single box?
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Cheeeeeeese!
October 25, 2005
Click for moblog…
That right there is the last remaining bit of the Couronne Lochoise which
Wow. Just… Wow. This is so good. After coming up to temperature the rind tastes of black pepper, and the core of the cheese dissolves into a wonderfully smooth pastry-like creamyness. After each bite is gone from my mouth it begins watering again, anticipating the next bite.
Unfortunately now I can be assured that whatever I eat for lunch, it won’t be this good. Ever.
High School Math
October 24, 2005
Remember how, when learning Algebra in high school, most people thought that they’d never really need it in day to day life? Well, while I don’t use such things for my job, I need to solve similar problems all the time for brewing beer.
Make:
October 21, 2005
Odd. It seems that my article isn’t going to be in Volume: 04 of Make: either. I’ve been paid the full rate for an accepted article, so I’m wondering when it’ll actually get published?
Ah well. Maybe Make:’s getting better and better articles and the iSight Tripod Adapters just don’t fit the bill any more.