…the little round disk of litter on the ground isn’t a used condom, but the top of a wine bottle wrapper.
Month: October 2003
Hypocrisy of Tableless Design Advocates
So you’ve got a site and you want to say how great “standards” are, and “standards” now means that a certain way of developing things is better than another, equally standards-compliant way. Tables, they opine, are bad for layout, despite the fact that they are better and more consistently supported by browsers and accessible readers than relative or absolute CSS positioning of <div> tags.
How should you present this revelation to the widest audience possible?
Panther Attacks, I Relax and Enjoy (ewwww)
So I got my copy of Panther a day early, but took my time backing everything up and installing it due to the general crappitude of a cold that preceded it. Nonetheless, there are a couple of cool things I’ve picked up from the various sites.
What To Do With a Cold
…feed it, starve it, or blog?
At the moment, it’s blogging. The other thing has been watching martial arts flix. I’ve been in that annoying phase of the cold where I have a general feeling of crapitude, but not sufficiently so to drive me to bed to sleep it off. However, I’m not up to anything physically or mentally challenging. Still, I’m heartily bored and sick of my enforced lassitude.
The result? Martial arts film fest. Brainless, engaging, and fun. Plus They Live was rented.
iTunes Gets a Convert
(Now Playing: Bi Kyo Ran, “Ran Part II”, Go-Un–I love my collection)
Funnily enough, I’m not even that into iTunes. I think it’s a swell jukebox player, but I haven’t gotten sufficiently involved that I’ve actually bought anything from the music store or an iPod. Nonetheless, as the Mac Person of Note for several of my friends/colleagues/relatives/countrymen/lent ears, I’ve been getting a lot of feedback about it.
Some of it even positive.
Ask, And Ye Shall (Partially) Receive
MacMinute is reporting that an article in a paid subscription music industry rag claims Apple will be releasing “iTunes Producer” to make it easier to submit music to Apple.
Whoah? Apple making iTunes the vehicle for my garage band to get, like, totally out there?
Nope. It is being reported that way in some circles, but if you read carefully, the software is for music labels to submit their songs. So it doesn’t circumvent the legal process of authorizing Apple to distribute your music, and that is being carried out only (for now) with relatively major labels and select indies.
Still, this should make it easier for smaller labels in the big companies to get their catalog encoded, categorized, and on Apple’s system for your buying pleasure. Slowly, but surely, the complaints about lack of selection are being heard and dealt with.
Stay (i)Tuned, it will get better.
(And don’t forget to check out their Just Added link, which includes new releases as well as older catalog stuff that has come online, each Tuesday. Unfortunately this Tuesday it included Willie Nelson (*gag*), but it included something that sounds unpleasant and filthy enough to be some sort of Indie crap that you people will claim to like. And if you still aren’t satisfied, then take this musical message to heart.)
Beautiful Moments in Technology
So, Joe Schmoe‘s resolution having been delayed a week in favor of the Flagging Magazine Subscription Awards ’03, I turned on the leaden USA remake of the DC Sniper Shootings (which I was peripherally involved in, having spent the worst of it in London).
As I sometimes do when the sound might be down, I left the Closed Captioning on, and a scene closed on a dramatic moment: a bad actor asks what the point of the shootings is. The other bad actor playing Chief “Bad Actor” Moose replied, “Fear”. This word was appropriately displayed by the Closed Captioning. The word “Fear” lingered after the scene faded to black, and the sponsor’s announcement came on.
“21 Days of Fear: the DC Sniper Shootings is brought to you by KFC.” The ubiquitous and strangely target-like face of Colonel Saunders was displayed over this announcement.
And still hanging below the red, black, and white visage of the Colonel, as the announcer faded to silence, was the word “Fear.”
Annoying Religiosity
I am not religious, but I try not to force said lack of religiosity on anyone. Likewise, I really appreciate religions that do not try to force themselves on others (Judaism, most Bhuddist sects, etc.). I really, really do not like religions that try to convert others. If your message is so great, won’t it sell itself?
Today, at the end of our hike, we came across a circle of people, with a leader praying and the rest murmuring in response. While I firmly believe people should be permitted maximum freedom in practicing their religion the way they choose, these people had chosen this rather public display at the intersection of two trails. That meant there was no way around them, and we had to scramble up a talus slope to get back to our cars.
That’s just inconsiderate. There were several places out of sight of the road that wouldn’t block two directions of travel on the Appalachian trail, as well as an access trail, that they could have prayed on. If practicing your religion means you need to be in public showing you are religious, well, that seems a bit like you’re trying to prove something to yourself by proving it to others, but I have no reason to attempt to stop you. But if you must block others from going about their business and enjoying a public land, you’ve just gone too far.
In the end, we asked them, politely, to move one way or another down the trail as people were turning away rather than disturb them. One man said he’s take care of it, and within a few minutes they broke up. It was not my intention to stop them, but just to have them move somewhere where they wouldn’t interfere. Perhaps they were at the end of their service.
Normally I wouldn’t dream of disturbing someone in prayer, but it was really intolerable how inconsiderate, rude, and annoying they were being.
Bad Things, Good Things
So now I have a friend with breast cancer, and my friend Oscar, the presently not as smiling Bolivian, is worried with good cause about his dad, who went back home at precisely the wrong time.
Let us hope Ginger is still speaking to me after tomorrow’s hike. That should be good. Some friends of mine have just moved and another friend is coming into town so we can have brunch together on Sunday. This is also good.
Life has no discernable pattern I can see.
Supporting My Theory…
This report on MacNN confirms what everybody’s known but for whatever reason have been reluctant to shout from the rooftops: iTMS is to sell iPods.
I would also suggest that the Aqua-like feel of iTunes for Windows is not coincidental, either, and is part of a deliberate strategy to give Windows users a taste of a truly lickable user experience, and thus create some more switchers.
Especially since the new accessories for the iPod from Belkin will make the most sense on a Mac, particularly the digital camera card reader, which integrates with the Mac-only iPhoto–a handy utility that I’ve been surprised to find myself using more and more, and would use even more if I got a digital camera. 😉
Another entry on MacNN reveals that the Savoy Music Group will increase iTMS’s woeful jazz selection. Classics and modern stuff included.
Sandy Smith 