The scariest Apple help questions ever!
In what is quickly becoming one of my favorite weekly features. The Crazy Apple Rumors Site takes on Holloween in the Crazy Apple Help Desk... Of Terror!
Wednesday - 10.30.02
Convergence: Dell selling iPods for Apple.
News.Com: "Apparently the draw of Dell's online store for Apple and the lure of the iPod for Dell were enough to convince the bitter rivals to set aside their differences. The two companies compete especially hard in the education market, where Dell has moved ahead of the Mac maker to become the largest seller of computer gear to schools."
Sunday - 10.27.02
A Little Black Death.
The Fray explores fear in their latest story. A Little Black Death:
Everyone grew up with a scary family in their neighborhood. I suppose nowadays that definition might include the people who voided their condo agreement by painting their garage door in an unacceptable color. On the other end of the spectrum, there's probably the house that always has those annoying drive-by shootings.
But when I was a kid you had to go quite a bit out of the everyday to be The Scary Family, and the winner on my block, hands down, was the abnormal Addamses known as The Jenkins Family.
[via: Boing Boing]
Saturday - 10.26.02
Xian is available in powdered form
Google knows a lot about me. More than I did in fact. Apparently:
xian is available in powdered form
xian is said to be a cocktail of 15 plant extracts
xian is well known for his unarmed martial prowess
xian is a male fox
xian is close to 3 million
xian is the centre of industry
xian is ancient
xian is miscast as fei yun
xian is somewhat modern
xian is on her bed
xian is a fusion cuisine restaurant located in cheongdam
xian is also called the kua of "wooing" ? something bill clinton has mixed success with
xian is home of the world
xian is no man
xian is nick jacobs
xian is the responsibility of the student
xian is a head taller
xian is no longer subject to the "world of dust" and is a master in various magical skills
xian is just splendid
Well said.
Friday - 10.25.02
Sterotypes
Eric Myer's Sterotypes are incredible. Must be experienced to fully appreciate the effort that went into this. Plan on losing a good chunk of time there. [ via wdik ]
PhotoShop tennis today.
Coudal Partners:
The Third Season of Photoshop Tennis continues at Coudal today, Friday the 25th. Wojtek Krosnowski of Different Human and Warsaw versus Anthony "Ant" Kyriazis of Onyro and London. With commentary by John Aboud of Modern Humorist in NYC. Live at 10am Chicago, 11am NYC, 4pm London, 5pm Warsaw.
They are currently on volley four of ten. Catch the rest of the action at the Tennis HQ.
Wednesday - 10.23.02
Tuesday - 10.22.02
Learning how much I don't know.
I need to study Smokinggun.com's timeline for the IHT website redesign.There is much to learn there. And I need to learn. Accurate estimates of time and cost are something I struggle with. I need to find more examples like this. Anybody know of any?
Dance tools. Dance.
I have spent the majority of the past few months getting to know the back end of the internet to a great extent. You know. Acronymland. I know the HTMLs from 4.01 to XHTML 1.1 and all the little differences in between. I got your PHPs and your CSSs. I've been learning Perl. I've followed the RSS madness as it has gone from 0.91 to 0.94/1.0 and then to 2.0 (Which has more in common with 9.4 than 1.0. In case you were interested. But that is a long story.) I've looked into FOAF, and I've even tried to understand RDF. I've subscribed to XML-SOAPmailing lists. I've read up on CMS. I don't know how or when the semantic web will overtake us but I plan on being there when it does. (Fun fact: This paragraph has as much acronym describing meta-data as it has actual data.)
Sadly, the practical result of all of this is that I have misplaced my affinity for visual design. Truth be told. Graphic design is not something that I am inherently good at. I have spent my life leveraging my symbiotic relationship with technology. I may not be very good, but I can make my tools dance. I do things backwards. I take a lump of pixels and beat them until they are right. Consistently happy accidents. My true gift is that I can reverse engineer accidents or situations fast enough that it appears like I had a plan. And more importantly, I know what good is when I get there.
Of course none of this helps my current situation. I am behind on my current project. I need to have some basic design sample done by last friday. Starting is so hard for me. Once I have a good base I can work off of it. But I'm horrible at starting. Because I am afraid. Which is silly. All being afraid does is keep me from getting a good start. Which makes me late. Which makes me stress. Which keeps me from sleeping in an attempt to get work done. Which results in my not getting enough sleep. Which screws with my system and makes me more susceptible to locking up due to fear. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It is silly because I know it. I know how it works. I know what my problem is. I know that all I need to do is to just do my work and give my worries to God. I just have to stop worrying long enough for it to happen. Stupid me.
Saturday - 10.19.02
Method of swinging on a swing
Ladies and gentlemen. I present to you United States Patent number 6,368,277.
Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required.
Licenses are available from the inventor upon request.
Because abusing the patent system is fun.
Friday - 10.18.02
Triptych. Block bangling fun.
Check out Triptych from Chronic Logic. The first new take on tetris style game play I have seen in years. It's tetris with physics. You can use the piece that is falling to push the others around. Falling, bouncing, blocks with satisfying combos. What more do you need?
Demo are available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS 8-9. A Mac OS X version is coming soon. Thanks to boing boing for the link.
Switch this. Yo.
Janie Porche (who saved christmas) has a switching twin. Momoko lives on the other side of the world. But it is quite amazing how similar their mannerisms are. Spooky. You can watch the rest of the japanese switchers here.
And if you are still wondering if the switchers are real or not. Here is Mark Frauenfelder's own announcement of his ad. Here's his website, where we learn that among other things, Mark was the founding editor-in-chief of Wired Online. And we learn from this discussion thread that Mark was paid and required to become a member of the Screen Actor's Guild for the commercial. So there you have it.
The Register weighs in on the switch campaign declaring that
The bad news is that Apple couldn't have picked a starker collection of life's losers with which to promote the Macintosh.
When I was first exposed to the switchers I thought along those lines. Then after a while they started to remind me of my friends. Hmm. Maybe they are losers. Maybe we are all losers. At least we don't talk like this. (Here's Daring Fireball's write up about the whole Microsoft switching scandal. Incase you missed it on Monday.)
Wednesday - 10.16.02
Taking back control.
Thanks to Tycho for directing my attention to this useful bit of culture jamming.
I have a bit of a problem with telemarketers. My problem is that I'm too nice. I listen to their little talk and try to politely tell them I'm not interested. But that doesn't make them go away very fast. It's not a new problem for me. When I turned sixteen I started getting a whole slew of armed forces recruitment calls. I wasn't even old enough yet! *sigh* That's what I get for graduating high-school early I guess. The problem with recruiters is that they just want to talk. They aren't looking for an answer right now they just want to warm you up to the idea. I remember one time this got out of hand. I was supposed to go and meet some people and this guy wouldn't stop talking. Wanting to know about what my interests were. Telling me they had this program and that program. I was trying to answer all of his questions nicely. I mean, it is their job. They don't have anything against me personally. But just ask me if I'm interested already so I can say no. Finally we got cut off for some reason. I ran out the door before he got a chance to call back.
Things haven't changed much. I still answer any question I'm asked. Thankfully though 80% of our junk calls come from Ameritech. Which is stupid on their part. We are already customers. Stop annoying us by calling and trying to get us to upgrade. You should know by now that we don't want your DSL service. We have Earthlink's. We like them better. We've told you that five times...
Sorry, that wasn't the point. Since 80% of our junk calls come from Ameritech I just hand the phone to Ann when they ask for her. The account is in her name. Maybe sometime I'll try the counter interview method. I just have to convince myself that it's not mean.
Tuesday - 10.15.02
My computer probably hates me.
A glimpse into the inner workings of my computer on deadline day. (Items with a triangle are open and running.)
Tempted by the kitty.
My shiny new copy of Mac OS 10.2 Jaguar is siting on my desk in all of it's Pixar rendered furry glory. It is tempting me. It is tempting me to back up everything on my computer so I can repartition my hard drive into yet another better way. It is tempting me to install it so I can go download the newest versions of all my little programs. It is tempting me to play with all of its new features. To run AppleScript from the command line. To play with the new Nitro jabber client. To create an ad hoc p2p iChat network. To find other jaguar users so I can see if my ad hoc network is working!
But more than all that. It is reminding me how much work I have due today.
The Crazy Apple Rumors Site presents:
The Crazy Apple Help Desk. Answering any questions you might have had about the new iMac or the iPod.
Friday - 10.11.02
Hi. My name is Xian. And I Kill TV shows.
Julie pointed me to this heads up about the future of Push Nevada.
We're very sad to read that "Push, Nevada" has apparently been cancelled, yet another casualty of ABC. The show was actually quite compelling, though we'd guess that audiences yet again got confused by the quirky Twin Peaks-esque characters and situations.
I'm going to pretend I didn't hear this. At least until they pull it out from under me and I go into depression. At which point I'll decide to never watch TV again.
Ever.
They only other show I have ever tried to watch every episode of was Harsh-Realm. You even heard of that one? It was really good. And it was created by Chris Carter. Mr X-files himself.
Yeah, well Fox Killed it after 3 episodes. Three freaking episodes. Three!
I think TV executives have me hooked up to some sort of meter. Red Alert! Christian Metts is actually watching this show. It can't possibly have mass appeal. Quick. Kill it!
You'd think they would actually be happy I am watching something. Or maybe they just kill shows that try to do something different. Or maybe not as many people watch weird shows. But maybe people would watch them if they were ever around long enough for people to get used to them.
Or maybe I should just go and buy Twin Peaks on DVD. I've heard that's a quirky show. I'd probably like it. Sigh. Stupid stupid TV.
Thursday - 10.10.02
Free the mouse.
Arron Swartz has an rather interesting write up of his trip to washington to witness Larry Lessig's Arguments to the supreme court in the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case.
A little background on the case (from the Eldred vs. Ashcroft website):
Over the past forty years, Congress has extended the term of existing copyrights 11 times, thereby stopping the flow of creative material into the public domain. The biggest supporters of these laws are individuals and corporations with extremely valuable copyrights that are about to expire (for example, Mickey Mouse).
A verdict is expected this spring.
Blue Mint Special.
CafePress is officially 3 years old and to celebrate: They are giving you $3 off anything from their original product line and I put up a new shirt. I also gave the MintStore a new friendly URL. www.mintchaos.com/store So get over there and buy a cheap shirt.
Friday - 10.04.02
In the news.
Area man redesigns the wallpaper section of his website. The new design features improved URLs and 200% more spider action. The reason for the surprise redesign was to …make it match the branding of the rest of the MintChaos.com network.
When asked where the rest of the MintChaos.com network is. He was quick to point out that there are two new wallpapers up. He has since then been unavailable for comment. The new wallpapers are Spider and Hog Processing.
It is that funny. And they can prove it.
A British research team called the LaughLab set out to empirically discover the funniest joke in the world. And here it is:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”
Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman who headed up the research says These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour.
Gee Doc. Thank’s for clearing that up.
You might want to check out the top-rated jokes in specific countries. I'm with Canada.
Tuesday - 10.01.02
Convergence.
There is silence in the chaos. I am doing a fair amount of work. Which is a very good thing. I am learning Perl. Also a good thing. I am retooling mintchaos.com. Again. Most exciting is a new weblogging system that should get me to write more often.
While are waiting for new content here please take a moment to read about Mark Pilgrim’s adventures as a Weblogger.:
One year ago today, my (now former) manager told me to shut down my weblog and remove all traces of it from my server. He tried to convince me that the Internet was too small to mix the professional and the personal.
One year ago today, I gave him my answer, and the rest is history.
Mark is not the only person to get into trouble because of his blog. In august Steve Olafson, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle was fired for a keeping a weblog. Keep an eye out for more of this to happen. The professional and the personal sides of the internet are going to become more and more intertwined. And I believe that weblogging is and will continue to play a huge role in a new post-television literate culture.