Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

NetNewsWire display bug

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NetNewsWire display wierdness

Has anyone else seen this particular NetNewsWire bug? Every so often when working my way through my feeds, I get a weird display glitch where a section of one post will be repeated over and over in the viewport, with each repetition getting slightly more blurred. A quick click in the display port clears up the display, but eventually this will pop up again. So far, I haven’t been able to pin down any one thing that triggers the glitch — sometimes it won’t happen for a while, other times it happens just about every time I use the space bar to move to the next article. Very odd.

This is under NetNewsWire 1.0.7 (it happened with 1.0.6 too), using the “combined” view and the spacebar to move among unread posts, on a stock dual 2.0Ghz G5.

It appears that I’m not the only one seeing this…I’ve added my own bug report too.

From vinyl to .mp3

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The New York Times has a decent overview of how to transfer vinyl recordings to .mp3 (or AAC, or whatever your digital format of choice may be). This could come in very handy at some undetermined point in the future, whenever the family record collection swings my way again (currently I believe it’s in Fairbanks somewhere with Kevin’s stuff, though I’m not entirely sure).

(via Paul Beard and Cory Doctorow)

Update: MetaFilter links to another site looking at the same process: Converting Tapes and Records to CD.

Blog of the Month

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This was nice — I got picked as “Blog of the Month” by AndrewBlog:

This is a beatiful blog with amazing content and a superb layout. Michael Hanscom is bringing blogging to the next level with this site. He has a firm commentment to his blog (this is the guy whogot fired from Microsoft for his blog).

Thanks, Andrew!

Cheaper By the Dozen

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I absolutely, uncategorically, and unquestionably refuse to go see the Cheaper By the Dozen movie currently playing in the theaters.

The original book by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey was one of my favorite books growing up. It’s the true story of the Gilbreths, a turn of the century family unlike any other. Father was an efficiency expert, hired by companies to examine their work processes and find ways to speed up production — and he ran his life and his household by the same standards as his business. His wife shared in his duties, giving lectures on efficiency techniques (no small feat for a woman in 1917), and continued her husband’s work and business after he died. Then, there were their children — all twelve of them.

At first, when I saw that there was going to be a new movie made from the book, I was interested. Then, I found out that it starred Steve Martin, and I began to worry. Then I saw the previews, and my fears were confirmed — in the name of “modernization”, the story I loved as a kid has been gutted to the point where apparently the only connection to the original source material is the number of children. Such a shame.

I was ranting about this to Prairie after seeing the preview a while back, and while she could sympathize with my frustration, she couldn’t empathize, never having read the book. So, one of her Christmas presents from me this year was her own copy of Cheaper By the Dozen. She’s been reading it off and on all evening as I’ve been dinking around on the computer, and I’m constantly hearing her start to giggle (or out and out laugh) at one passage or another. I love it when something I loved so much when I was younger gives someone else the giggles as they read it for the first time.

eWeek best and worst of 2003

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eWeek’s Steve Gilmore just posted his round up of the Best and Worst of Messaging & Collaboration in ’03. Apple or Mac-dependent software got no less than three mentions in the “best of” category:

iSight/iChatAV — Apple finally does IP videoconferencing right. Cleverly embedded inside the Mac’s new Panther OS X operating system and its iChat instant messaging client, iChatAV leverages your AOL Buddy list for point-to-point videoconferences around the world. The secret sauce: sophisticated noise-canceling algorithms that erase distracting echoes and eliminate the need for headphones.

>

Hydra — An OS X open-source project that allows networked sharing of document creation and editing. Another Mac technology that leverages the powerful Rendezvous system service, Hydra was used to great effect at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference to generate real-time transcripts of conference sessions.

>

NetNewsWire — My RSS weapon of choice on my platform of choice, the Mac. Once you try it, you’ll fall in love with it. And I’ll stay married to it as long as author Brent Simmons continues to add information router features — persistent storage, embedded browser rendering, enclosures, a plug-in API for services from Technorati, search engines and rich media renderers.

The “worst of” list, while fairly solid, didn’t catch my eye quite as much until I got down to item number seven…

Microsoft firing of contract blogger — This poor soul made the mistake of posting a picture that suggested something other than an official Microsoft policy position. Someone should have fired his boss for putting the lie to the warm and cuddly notion that the “new” Microsoft is listening — watching — Big Brother style — is more like it.

I had to laugh. I’m never, ever, ever going to live this down!

Forget about all this selling your soul to the devil crap — he’s so incompetent, he couldn’t even get a wish to be “famous” right, and I ended up with “infamous” instead. Can I get a refund on this deal?

(via Scoble)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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Oh.

Look out!

My.

Giant robots marching through the streets!

God.

They're destroying everything!

Have you seen the trailer for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow yet? If not, run over, do not walk, do not pass Go, do not collect \$200, and watch it now.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

1930’s pulp sci-fi on a modern budget on the big screen, complete with giant marauding robots shooting death rays from their eyes, an intrepid reporter (Gwynneth Paltrow), a bold flying ace (Jude Law), and a courageous Naval officer (Angelina Jolie — with an eyepatch, even), battling the futuristic forces of evil and the mad scientist behind it all, Dr. Totenkopf…

Escape is impossible!

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a trailer this jaw-droppingly cool. Ever. I’ve just watched it six times in a row.

Those zeppelins are no match for them!

This can’t hit the theaters soon enough!

Peter Pan…soon!

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I’ve been looking forward to the new film version of Peter Pan ever since I stumbled across the trailer in mid-November. Kalyx just got to see it, and her writeup just makes me want to see it more…

This was the best adaptation that I have seen. Peter Pan has always rubbed me the wrong way. I saw the musical as a child and the Disney film, and found the music annoying, and just nothing overly interesting about the story except for Hook and the Crocodile. Well, the version in theaters currently is so not the Disney classic. There are no songs and the story adds so much depth to the characters. This is a darker and more complex Peter Pan.

[…]

The elements of the Disney classic, which is the version of the story I am most familiar with are all there. But this version puts the pieces together making sense of the myth. It doesn’t shy away from the erotic nature of the Peter Pan story and certainly does not avoid the real issues of childhood stirring within. We understand Peter’s attraction to Wendy is not that of a boy, but the stirrings of adolescence and the jealousy of Tinker Bell, makes sense in this context. We also see Wendy’s eventual welcoming of adulthood after her own recognition of Peter’s shortcoming, essentially that he is a boy that can never grow up.

[…]

…this film feels a deep grief for Peter, for the never ending cycles of games and adventures that will always leave no real mark or impression, as he is incapable of growth. This is a fairy tale that welcomes adulthood while grieving the loss of play. And this film does not shy away from allow Peter Pan to be tragic figure.

This is truly a lovely telling of the classic tale.

I’m so looking forward to this, and thankfully, I don’t have to wait much longer — Prairie and I have plans to see it New Years day.

Second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning…

LotR:TRotK EE DVD – 4h50m+?

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I think I just wanted to make the most cryptic post title possible. ;)

Apparently, Peter Jackson recently revealed that the DVD Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King “will be longer than 4 hours and 50 min” long!

Wow.

Let’s see. About 3:28 for the extended TFotR, about 3:43 for the extended TTT, and possibly over 4:50 for the extended TRotK. We’re rapidly approaching a solid twelve hours for the full saga when all is said and done.

Sweet. I’m all for it. Bring it on!

(via Jarret House North)

2003 Pictures of the Year

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©2003 Alan Berner

The Seattle Times’ Pacific Northwest magazine has released their 2003 Pictures of the Year special issue, and all the shots have been posted on their website.

While some of the photos merely state the subject and what is happening, several include the thoughts of the photographers regarding the subject matter, how the photo was taken, and other such things. One of the things I enjoyed reading was how often these professional photographers deemed their shots “total luck” — it makes me feel better about my ratio of good shots to pure dreck. ;)

(via Spiel)

I need a new router

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I’ve got \$75 of gift certificates to Best Buy thanks to a promotion through work, and I need to get a new router — but I don’t know quite which one to go for. Anyone have any suggestions?

Here’s the deal. Right now I’ve got a Linksys BEFSR11 firewall/router, but I’m really not happy with it at all. Ever since I bought it a few years ago, I’ve had to constantly struggle with it occasionally locking up. It appears to still be functioning, the lights still flash as if traffic is passing through, but no data will actually move from my LAN to the ‘net at large until I reset the router by unplugging it for a few seconds. I’ve upgraded the router’s firmware a few times over the years as updates have been released, but it’s never cured the issue.

I’d avoided the hassle for the past few months by taking the router out of the network — my PC was having issues, which dropped me down to only two functioning computers, and as I’ve got two IP addresses available, that worked fine — but after spending some time resurrecting the PC yesterday, I needed to put the router back into the mix. Sure enough, not ten minutes after it was back on the network I lost my connection. Grrr.

So, I need a new router, and I don’t want another Linksys. Nor do I want a Belkin, after their little destination hijacking spam trick two months ago. I don’t need to spring for a wireless router (three desktops in my apartment, none of which have wireless access cards, and I’ve already got Ethernet cable strung around the baseboards), so that should save a few dollars.

Looking at Best Buy’s Networking section online, they seem to concentrate on products from D-Link. Anyone have any experience with their routers, good or bad?