August 2005 Archives

Dave Winer just got a mac and has been commenting about things he likes and doesn't like about it. For example, he really doesn't like Safari. Though he is happy with his Airport Express.

He's also been getting a bit of advice about software to use:

This is the kind of advice...
This is the kind of advice I've been getting from Mac users. Good stuff. You know, based on the rah-rah's from developers who are probably too scared of Apple to say what they really think, I thought everyone else thought Apple was the perfect company and the perfect computer. That's the downside of people being too scared to speak up, we get shitty information. How can we change this system, so that people aren't so scared? Or can we get Apple to thicken up their skin a bit, and learn to not punish people who have the nerve to criticize them. Blogs were supposed to fix all this. Frankly I think it hurts Apple to just have rah-rah public discourse and commentary. [via Scripting News]

Most people I know who have macs are more than willing to criticize them. The thing is, I find that the positives for me greatly outweigh the negatives. I've had no real problems with Safari. I think most of their software is designed for the casual computer user. It does the basics and tends not to get too fancy.

So in my case I tend to praise Apple a lot since in general it's been much less of a hassle than my experiences with Windows in its various forms. It's definitely not perfect, but I've yet to find an OS that is.

Here's a fun little video for The Hollywood Reporter 26th Annual Key Art Awards. It features a number of well known voiceover artists. I know I've definitely heard all of them before on various movie trailers.

via Boing Boing

Fun little bit of viral advertising over here at The Irish Job. I still want a Mini for myself.

Link courtesy of Adrants.

Full episodes of cult TV sci-fi show Red Dwarf are being made available for fans to buy and watch on their mobile phone handsets.

The Doctor Who special The Five Doctors, originally screened in 1983, is also part of the licensing deal. [BBC News]

Okay, maybe I'm just a bit picky or something, but I really can't see the enjoyment of watching TV on a cell phone screen. I think the smallest I could go is the PSP screen.

I've started reading a few new blogs lately that I've found quite enjoyable. The first being Kung Fu Monkey, which is pretty entertaining. Today he points to a new screenwriter blog by Josh Friedman, the credited co-writer of War of the Worlds. Though it's just a few posts old, it's quite fun. My favorite post being the one about Snakes on a Plane.

I ask Agent the name of the project, what it's about, etc. He says: Snakes on a Plane. Holy shit, I'm thinking. It's a title. It's a concept. It's a poster and a logline and whatever else you need it to be. It's perfect. Perfect. It's the Everlasting Gobstopper of movie titles.

...

Now out of both loyalty to the sacred bond between studio and screenwriter and also a serious desire to keep getting hired in this town, I will not give away any of the plot details of SNAKES ON A PLANE. But know this. As the great Sam Jackson would say: There are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane.

What else do you need to know? How the snakes get on the plane, what the snakes do once they're on the plane, who puts the snakes on the plane, who is trying to get the snakes off the plane...This is not for you to ponder. There are snakes on the plane. End of fucking story. [I find your lack of faith disturbing]

Added bonus: comments from Samuel L Jackson on the movie.

You find the strangest stuff on Wikipedia:

Fan death is an urban legend confined primarily to South Korea. The legend states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners and the fans in cars. When the air conditioner or fan is on in a car, Koreans are apt to leave their car windows open a crack to avoid "fan death".

...

The legend is remarkably resilient, and is accepted even by many Korean medical professionals. In summer, mainstream Korean news sources regularly report on cases of fan death, even if more likely causes (e.g. heart attack, gunshot, alcohol poisoning) are evident. [Wikipedia: Fan Death]

Okay, a lesson for you kids out there. It's very possible that your parents have more than a clue about computers these days. It's not like my generation where most of them have no idea how to do things like "lob on". From joystiq:

Kid busted by WoW-playing mommy

It used to be that a boy could play his favorite game all night and mean old Mom would be none the wiser about it.

But when WoW’s so popular that Mom’s playing too, Junior runs the risk of getting busted. In the thread linked below, little boy Brion makes a rather innocent-sounding forum post at 3:30 AM. Trouble is, his mother notices because she reads that same forum. She responds:

”Pardon me for hijacking the thread, here..  But, Brion - if you don’t want your mother to know you were up and on the computer at 3:29 in the morning - DON’T post on a forum that she reads. Busted. Grounded.”

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Augh.

I just got off the phone with my insurance company to find out that they'd sent me the wrong forms to get some of my meds covered. And had been giving me only semi-correct information for the last two months. So now I have to go around and find out what happened to the two claims I already sent in to the wrong place.

Next rant will be about Medicare.

Well, I'm back in Boston for another three day hospital stay. Three days of steroid treatments to get rid of a little bit of rejection that is still left from the last time. Three days of boredom. Anyone want to bring over a DVD to watch?