Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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I really like old black and white movies, along with other movie classics.
TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies shows some good stuff.
Tonight is The Big Sleep with Humprey Bogart. yay.

I've also been playing around with the infrared remote control software "Remote Commander" on my Clié.
It is very fun. Gives me a full touch-screen multi-device remote control. Controls my Sears TV (using Sanyo setting) and RCA VCR no problem. posted by Richard at 20:36 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

So many links on Moon Farmer are interesting to me, I will just link directly there.
I would classify this under "the death of aspiration" - the modern world, where we're all "free" to be fat, lazy, stupid, nothing is our own fault...
The Spectator in the Breast of Man: Self-regulation and the Decline of Civility. posted by Richard at 18:51 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The terrible difficulty with modern satire and parody is, well, we're running out of things that people don't actually do.
Although it sounds like something from The Onion, the following report is actually from the BBC:
Fat Americans sue fast food firms.

I guess after the tobacco lawsuits, in a litigious society, it was only a matter of time.

Another gem seen on Moon Farmer. posted by Richard at 18:46 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Police shouldn't be enforcing church's morals, lawyer says. As seen on Moon Farmer. posted by Richard at 18:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

EMusic New Arrivals (Universal is deploying some of their catalog on EMusic.)
I had a subscription to EMusic for a while and I thought it was great. Unencumbered MP3s, fast downloads (an album every 11 minutes:), all legal.
I got a ton of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Classical music and also lots of Jazz for my dad.

As seen on Using Bees. posted by Richard at 18:26 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Dave Barry, in fine form: Spam beats cafeteria food.

I like his password changing rant. Frequent password changing is one of those ideas that makes sense if you have no understanding of other human beings. If you make people change their passwords frequently in reality world, they eventually just give up and write them down. Much better is to just help people to select a good password once, and just leave it at that. posted by Richard at 18:14 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

This is what I wrote to the TidBits thread A critical look at .mac (I don't know if my email will be selected for posting):

*** start of email ***
I agree with many of the points that have been made - here is my own spin on things:

This is a major PR blunder by Apple.
But the good news it is easy to fix.
it's a simple packaging error.
I'm amazed that a company who likes to provide "good, better, best" levels for things didn't think of providing an unbundled service, with different levels according to what you want and how much you are willing to pay.

What they're doing right now is like saying the only way to buy a Mac is to get a bundle of an iMac, an iPod, an iBook and an AirPort, all for $5000.

Here's what they should have:

mac.com email "good" level:
- a free mac.com forwarding-only email address for anyone

"better and best" extra cost options
+ webmail
+ POP and IMAP access
+ higher individual email size limit
+ more mail storage on their server
+ advanced filtering
+ spam handling

for spam, I suggest rather than filtering, the best option is the new idea of spam tagging. You select whatever spam identification options you want e.g. different real time blacklists, collaborative filters, semantic heuristic whatevers, and your email gets tagged with a bunch of extra headers:

X-spam-servicename1: flagged as spam, probability X%
X-spam-servicename2: flagged as spam, probability Y%

That way you get ALL your messages, and you can decide on the client side how to weight the different spam tags.

If Apple provided this, with powerful filtering and tag-processing features in their email client, they could tout the combination of mac.com email + Mail.app as a powerful anti-spam weapon. That's practically a killer app right there, these days.

The same thing for iDisk, good level would be e.g. 5 MB for $x, then better and best just adds more space and features.

similarly for @mac.com web pages, good would e.g. be a single 100k page for free, just to advertise "I am user X, and I have a Mac web page, here's a little picture of my cat"

and then better and best add on features: more storage space, more templates, more visitor tracking, higher bandwidth caps...

the possibilities are endless

I don't mind paying for services *as long as it is clear what I am getting, and I have choice*. I pay for a bigfoot.com email address because it gives me a permanent address I feel safe giving out on the net, due to the fact I'm paying extra for them to filter spam for me. Apple's "we'll filter some spam emails but we won't tell you about it" is simply unprofessional. I think a free mac.com email forwarding service provides them with great "viral marketing", they should consider it as a (minor) marketing cost. (Plus which of course they could even stick "This free email forwarding brought to you by Apple, the Think Different company, http://www.apple.com/ Check out our latest 19" iMac." footers on forwarded email, I don't think people would mind too much.) Beyond that, unbundling services gives people choice. Isn't that what capitalism is all about? :)
*** end of email *** posted by Richard at 17:25 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Fun: The Free Email Death-Watch posted by Richard at 17:09 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Doonesbury, keeping up with the times. As seen on comp.risks posted by Richard at 12:33 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I realize I keep repeating myself, but I agree with the TidBits article on .Mac (and can't understand why Apple didn't just do this in the first place):
"a better move would have been to keep the Mac.com forwarding addresses available for free for current users. That would ensure that Mac.com email addresses would continue to help promote the advantages of the Macintosh out on the Internet at large while significantly reducing the bandwidth and disk space requirements of the service."

I would just modify the "forwarding..." part to "for free for all users". Hello Apple. No one cares about iTools. All we want is a free @mac.com email forwarding address. posted by Richard at 12:11 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

A petition for cheaper .Mac and free .Mac email.
In a CNet report on the .Mac controversy, they say "Some 2.2 million free Mac.com accounts had been registered, according to Apple." posted by Richard at 11:57 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Not enough to read? Want to carry some books around with you in your PDA? The Online Books Page: New Listings. As seen on Slashdot /. posted by Richard at 11:53 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The Globe reviews the new book Why I am a Catholic by Garry Wills (author of Papal Sins).

You will also note mention of Hans Küng, he is very well known for his role in Vatican II, and has recently written a book titled The Catholic Church: A Short History which I think I will probably get (Chapters.ca, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com). posted by Richard at 11:41 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

US Department of Justice: How to Report Internet-Related Crime is useful information (it can be found in the Help I'm Being Hacked section of my Internet security page) but I was looking at its list telling you where to report what. In order on the screen, some of the items are:

#3 Copyright (software, movie, sound recording) piracy 
 
#7 Child exploitation

#12 Trafficking in explosive or incindiary devices or firearms over the Internet 

Erm, is there anyone who thinks maybe they need to re-sort their priorities? posted by Richard at 09:29 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Past blogging about the Bible:
John 8 (the story of the adulterous woman)
Genesis 4 (the story of Cain and Abel)
Matthew 5 and Luke 6 (the prohibition of violence)
Leviticus 11 (comments on dietary laws, "abominations")

Left as an exercise for the student: count how many times male-to-male erm "actions" are described as an "abomination" in Levitican Law. Then count how many times e.g. certain types of seafood are describe as an "abomination". Bonus Questions: 1) Try to find any mention of prohibitions of male-to-male love in the New Testament. 2) Try to find any direction mention of abortion in the New or Old Testament . 3) Try to find any direct mention of birth control in the New or Old Testament.

My point being (sorry for belaboring it) that if I can find, based on my vague Bible knowledge and a few minutes of searching, strong arguments against common church positions based on the direct text of the Word of God, then clearly what we have from power mongers like Falwell and sadly to say it, the Pope, is NOT some Bible-based religion. It's some weird power trip based on historical prejudices and a thirst for control.

And continuing back to the Pope, I highly recommend the book Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (Amazon.ca, Chapters.ca, Amazon.com). It describes how historical events led to the current Roman Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome, and where some of the non-Biblical positions that the Pope holds so tightly to come from. His basic point is the RC Church has gotten itself tangled up in lies and denial, and its refusal to admit that it was wrong is harming it and its members worldwide, particularly on the issue of some celibate male priests having an unhealthy attraction to teenaged boys. posted by Richard at 08:35 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Here's my opinion on the deal with the RC Church:
absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Communism - maybe a nice theory, always ends up with a bunch of really old men running an oligarchy.
Capitalism - maybe a nice theory, often ends up with a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs, Prime Ministers...) running an oligarchy
Catholicism - an incredible idea - love your enemies - ended up with an old man running an oligarchy

(In case you're wha? here's dictionary.com on oligarchy)

You have to understand the allure of power is so compelling that people either consciously or unconsciously distort the underlying system in order to hold on to power. The Bible is an extraordinary document. But much of what supposedly Biblical religion propounds finds NO BASIS in the Bible. You have two incredible books. First the Old Testament, full of mystical and troubling ideas and images. The best examination of this I have ever seen in the Genesis series by Bill Moyers. His idea was, ok lets go to the text (classic KJV mostly) and look with fresh eyes at the actual stories. I mean for heaven's sake people, Cain KILLS Abel. It's not only a murder, it's the invention of the idea of murder and God sees Abel's blood in the ground, there's no reasonable doubt. Yet God simply marks Cain and exiles him. That's the strongest possible statement that could be made about the biblical view of capital punishment. Yet people still use the Bible to argue in favour of retributive killing.

It seems to me spectacularly hypocritical that these arguments continue, when I, with a minimal Bible knowledge, can refute them with a few minutes of intelligent extracts (in context) from the Bible.

The US fundamentalists rant on and on about homosexuality, whereas 1) it's clear from the text that the prohibition of man-to-man "like a woman" is a health directive as part of the Levitican Law. 2) Jesus said "I am the New Law" - Levitican Law does not apply to Christians

Sorry for all the empasis and bold, but it makes me really annoyed.

And again, there's some idea of a prohibition of mastvrbation, but that's a ridiculous conclusion to draw from the tale of Onan, which is about the Levitican Law requiring a brother to impregnate his childless dead brother's wife.

As for violence, it is clear from the New Testament that it is completely forbidden to Christians AND for that matter, the tale of the adulterous woman makes it again clear that the Laws of Moses no longer apply - adultery is against one of the Ten Commandments, yet Jesus says to the adulterous woman only "go forth and sin no more".

I have more in my blog archives, let me go digging... posted by Richard at 08:28 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Attention Haligonians: your opportunity for Paradise.
In the form of a venue for independent cinema.
Props again to Donna. posted by Richard at 08:04 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I had meant to blog a lot about all the articles related to the Pope in the Globe yesterday, but I never got around to it. Fortunately Karen has pointed out that Donna is doing a great job of blogging on this topic.

Disclaimer: I am a Roman Catholic, but I skipped out when it came time for First Confession. I'm quite happy to keep any religion I have personal, I don't see why anyone else has to get involved. As far as I am concerned, the Power and Authority of The Church is vested in us all, individually, directly.

And I can't resist this lame bit of commentary on the mania:

For a limited time only!
Get your Youth Day versions of the fun family games Trouble! and Sorry!
Featuring the Pope-o-matic bubble! posted by Richard at 07:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I was over at my friends and being helpful (and obsessive) I tried to run their Windows Update
"Windows Update is looking for available updates... 0% complete"

Hmm. So I spent several hours the past couple days trying to get it to work - changing WinXP settings, defragging the hard drive...

Turns out it's a Microsoft problem. Fvck.

There's some sort of interaction between standard settings for Rogers and Shaw and Windows Update.
That also explains why I didn't have the problem on my WinXP box, since I set up the connection to Rogers myself, none of this "automatically detect settings" stuff.

I should have just gone to Google Groups and done a good search first I guess.
The group is microsoft.public.windowsupdate
repost: How to Fix "0% complete" problem posted by Richard at 21:14 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I've been using my CD player on the bus the past couple days. I'd never actually used it much before. It's kinda fun. It's an A-Max Napa DAV310, I got it online from the Canadian MP3 Player Store. There is a slight click between MP3s on CD, but that's about the only drawback. MP3s on CD-R and CD-RW is kind of my intermediate step to seeing if I would use a full MP3 player like an iPod. Basically you get (multiple discs worth of) 650+ MB of MP3s. I have all of my Jane Siberry CDs on one MP3 CD. The DAV310 also plays VCDs (video CDs) through a video output jack. The current model is the DAV311, I don't know what new features it has over the 310. Anyway for the price, I think the features are very good. The iPod is nice, but the cheapest one (5 GB) is a five hundred bucks, versus $125 for the DAV311, which can have as much storage as you want (depending how many CDs you want to lug around with you).

Oh and a couple features of the 310 that I like is that it has a rechargeable battery, so you don't have to fiddle with little batteries all the time, and that in "energy saving" mode, it only spins the CD as often as it needs to read new chunks of the MP3, so most of the time the CD drive isn't spinning, so you get longer battery life. It's kind of cool to watch the CD spin for a few seconds and then stop, while you continue to listen to the music being played. posted by Richard at 12:44 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Things with cat went fine overnight.
She slept on bureau and did her thing, then in the morning she came onto the bed and slept on my legs.
I got up at 7:15 feeling reasonably rested.
My latest theory is either something to do with temperature (it has been much cooler) or more likely, with light - it's overcast today. I think the sun pouring into my bedroom at 5 AM probably gets her all excited - must get lightblocking curtains.

In other developments the Nigerian Email Scam has now migrated south to South Africa, I've gotten a couple "I have $15 million, Ministry of Mining, blah blah blah, need your assistance" emails. If I'm feeling energetic, I reply back saying I'm very excited by the opportunity, but I require the deposit of US$1 million in gold, jewels, US dollars or negotiable securities in order to "cover my expenses" before I can assist them. If I'm not feeling so clever, I just forward the email to the US Federal Trade Commission's Unsolicited Commercial Email address: uce@ftc.gov. "I have forwarded this email to Mr. Uce, who is also very interested in such opportunities." posted by Richard at 07:36 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I found the headphones, they're called Brain Shaker Extreme.
The node at the back of your neck is actually a bass module that delivers bass tones directly to your skull. posted by Richard at 20:57 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Before I got off track, where I was going with the previous posting was to ask about headphones.
Any recommendations for headphones to wear outside e.g. on the bus?
I don't like the in-the-ear ones so much, they hurt my ears.

I saw this one guy on the street, he looked like something out of cyberpunk, as best I could see, there was a large silver node at the back of his neck, and from it two arms extended to beneath his ears, and the headphones went UP to his ears from the arms. Very freaky cool looking. Anyone know what it was? Some sort of radio or MP3 player? posted by Richard at 20:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Items currently recharging:
- cellphone
- CD/MP3-CD/VCD player
- razor

Apparently my function in life is to service the needs of batteries.
Oh that reminds me of two things.

A guy in the parking lot as I was crossing my street was packing up his helmet from his T-Rex Campagna car.
I hate to say it, but fancy cars are popular with the chicks.
Every woman walking down the street was drawn to talk to him by some sort of magnetic attraction.

"it's basically a street-legal racecar, with three wheels," he said

Women also seem to like living things, even of any kind.
On the bus I noticed this tiny jade green spider on my arm, so I moved it off to the stainless steel railing next to my seat, but it didn't like that at all. The women across from me noticed it climbing around in the air and we had a long conversation.
I eventually put it into a CD case and released it outside.

So I'm thinking if you had a cute puppy dog, like the bearded collie - golden retriever mix we saw the other day, and a cool car, you would be well, let's just say, it would probably be easier to meet women, because they would actually initiate conversations with you out of the blue.

When I'm walking my friends dog sometimes women literally cross the street to talk to me.
This is not something that normally happens to me. posted by Richard at 20:40 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

For those of you still clinging to the tatters of telecom stock frenzy:
Toronto Stock Exchange Suspends 360networks inc. (July 22, 2002).
And yes, I am sad to report I am counted in that number. posted by Richard at 18:56 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

This Dilbert cracked me up yesterday. posted by Richard at 14:22 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Lots of fun to be had touring around the Halifax photosite PhotoEast. Great work by Alex and everyone. I hope to take some nice stuff when I'm back to visit NS for a few days this summer. posted by Richard at 12:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

With Popemania in full swing, one writer asks Yes, but is he catholic? posted by Richard at 12:30 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I figured out how to use the provided software to sync my Clié with MS Outlook at work. Now I am very happy. All of my meetings in my pocket :) posted by Richard at 11:50 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The title says it all
African Bees Devastated by Mutant Clone Bees posted by Richard at 10:44 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The quality on this is not great, but it is the Simpsons classic Newton "Beat Up Martin" -> "Eat Up Martha" handwriting misrecognition scene. posted by Richard at 10:41 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

In there an app that will let me blog on my Palm, and then HotSync the entries when I connect to my computer? posted by Richard at 07:41 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Oh, so now that I am in the Palm world, anyone have any fave apps or toys to recommend, or good sites for information and downloading programs? So far movies seem a waste of time since even with the high-res screen, the sound is not so good, and they're usually 1+ MB and I only have about 4 MB free. But photos are fun. I have downloaded a couple pics of my cat so I can carry her with me everywhere (holds up sign to audience: "Awwwww"). I've read that some people download font modifications for the Clié, is that worthwhile? With the backlight on, I find it pretty easy to read so far. posted by Richard at 07:08 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

My Clié is charged up and ready to go - I spend my life in service of rechargeable batteries.
I wrote my first real notes on it this morning, it is very fun.
It's a shame the Newton got such a bad rep for handwriting recog, since Palm's simplified Graffiti system is very easy to learn, I immediately picked up the basics and I think in a couple days I should be able to Graffiti as fast as I write.

Cat situation is improving.
Mainly I am asserting my authority.
I am terrible with discipline because I am normally a pushover.

The weather is great. (Keeping in mind my ideal weather is +15° and sunny.)
I'm wondering actually, is summer over? Man, that went fast. posted by Richard at 07:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I finally got some reasonably satisfactory macro flower photos today.
I don't know what was going on the previous two days. posted by Richard at 22:36 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I got the Sony T415 and I'm quite pleased.
I didn't realize the main manual was only as a PDF on the CD-ROM, so I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to turn the backlight on. I don't think "hold down the power button for two seconds" is exactly intuitive. posted by Richard at 20:48 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Danger: Potential Loss of Productive Work Time
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail script with clickable audio clips. posted by Richard at 13:23 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for MacOS X will let you use your Mac to remotely display and control Windows desktops of the following types:

* Windows XP Professional
* Windows .NET Standard Server
* Windows .NET Enterprise Server
* Windows 2000 Server
* Windows 2000 Advanced Server
* Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
* Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition

Of course if you're running XP Pro, you knew that people with the right software could connect to its built-in remote desktop feature, right? posted by Richard at 13:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I think medical savings accounts are an interesting idea. posted by Richard at 12:17 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The Truth About Cats and Dogs is that Uma Thurman is a freakish stick woman, whereas Janeane Garofalo is a funny, smart, goddess. posted by Richard at 12:16 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

System Administrator Appreciation Day
Friday - July 26th, 2002

As seen on Slashdot /. posted by Richard at 11:56 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

for the spam wars

MailArmor

Another approach is

ChoiceMail

which is permissions-based email. Anyone on your approved list gets through automatically, anyone on your reject list is denied, anyone else who tries to contact you will be directed to a web form - basically they have to request your permission in order to be able to email you. posted by Richard at 11:44 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

So tired.
Crazy cat.

[Wireless Mesh Networks] posted by Richard at 09:22 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I am a bit :(
One of the things I liked about my digicam is it easily took awesome macro shots e.g. of flowers.
But for two days now I have gone it, and diligently made sure macro mode was ON, but it still is focussing on the background and not the foreground, so I have great pictures of a sharp bunch of leaves behind a fuzzy flower :( :(

Also cat is driving me crazy with up-all-night, must-get-up-early running around bedroom, on bed, meowing behaviour. posted by Richard at 07:26 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I have been thinking about getting a PDA. I had a look at some at Staples.
I got it down to between the Palm m125 and the Sony T415.
I'm leaning towards the Sony because:
- rechargeable battery
- twice the screen resolution of the Palm
- it's sexier

Anyone have an opinion / suggestions? posted by Richard at 22:42 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Today is not such a great day for the market.
Time to haul out an old post on the Down and the Nasdunk.

PS you can't see ads on AdCritic anymore... because they turned into a pay service. So now, thanks to the power of the Internet, you can pay... to watch commercials. posted by Richard at 16:24 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Homeowners caught in the crossfire between environmentalists and the US Forest Service (which some would argue is more like the Anti-Forest Service).
Green Groups Urge Fire Fuel Reduction, Not Logging.

As seen on Wired News. posted by Richard at 16:17 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

This is good news:
[US] Security bill loses ID card, TIPS.

As seen on Wired News. posted by Richard at 16:15 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

If I bring the food dish into my bedroom at night, the cat not only eats all the food, but still wakes me up early in the morning with long meowing cat epic poems about her urgent hunger. posted by Richard at 11:57 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The complicated story of high-speed interconnect standards (to Infiniband and beyond?):
Heat's on to pick sides in interconnect battle. posted by Richard at 11:56 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

PS Hmm, from what I can see, the iCal calendar looks at lot like the Entourage X one... almost like Apple is trying to replace all of the Office apps in case MS stops supporting Office on the Mac...

Anyway, one of the things I was trying to get at in my previous message is the functionality I want in an email app is powerful message handling functionality in terms of filtering, filing, sorting, sending, all potentially using dozens of different email accounts and services through one unified interface (yes, I know, I make my life complicated). But the new functionality the application vendors tend to provide is all this integration crap, that ties your email application into the rest of the operating system and into dozens of other applications. Ok, I can open other files in OTHER APPLICATIONS. I don't need everything to run through my email, opening up huge security risks and complexities. Argh. posted by Richard at 11:39 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I'm surprised at the state of email clients today.
Here is one area where I actually WANT companies to add functionality, which they seem keen on doing needlessly to so many other products. Of course the functionality I want is not necessarily what they are interested in providing.

To me, the issue is how to manage thousands of emails for dozens of different accounts, both in terms of being able to use multiple different email addresses to send mail as well as being able to easily filter incoming mail into appropriate folders, and to handle spam (by automatically identifying it and putting it in a Junk Mail folder).

I find Outlook Express for MacOS 9 actually handles most of these tasks quite well. It has no problem with me using multiple email "from" addresses, and makes it easy to configure and select them. It has nice built-in features for automatically dealing with mailing lists, as well as pretty good filtering. Its built-in spam detection is also quite good.

My main complaints are that I can't figure out how to write a filter that will catch these cases: where there is no name for the "from" or "to" field. That is, it (usually) has an email address, but the display name is blank.

e.g. in

"Foo Bar"
Foo Bar is the display name. The main spam that the combination of OE and my custom filters doesn't catch is where there is no display name.

The other drawback to OE is that there is no MacOS X version :(

Other than that it does pretty much all I could ask of an email application. Does anyone have experience with the new Entourage app in MS Office X? Does it have similar functionality? (I have Office X, but I haven't installed it.)

Anyone have any other fave programs? I was considering BareBones Software's MailSmith because I am a big fan of BBEdit, but I read in a review somewhere that you can't set it to filter based on your address list (e.g. "email from people in my address list should always go into my personal folder, never be classified as junk email"). I suppose that's a feature request one could make.

And then of course there's Eudora.
And with OS X all of the standard UNIX email possibilities open up.

What are you using for email and spam management?

posted by Richard at 11:33 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I am not that impressed with Amazon.ca
It seems that as reported in the press, they are having some inventory management problems. I ordered a book because it was listed as 2-3 day availability, they just emailed me this morning and said the availability has changed to 4-6 weeks. posted by Richard at 11:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

photoSIG is another place to post and discuss photos.
And of course there's always photographica.
And for east coasters, PhotoEast.

Does anyone have any favourite photo posting/discussion/forum sites? posted by Richard at 07:52 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The benefits of slack. posted by Richard at 16:47 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Trust in the wisdom of the machine: Expert says Palm Beach's new voting machines have problems.
I wonder if Americans will ever get over their fascination with unnecessary technical solutions, and start using appropriate technology, which in this case is a paper ballot marked by hand. posted by Richard at 12:32 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Incidentally, if you want to let Apple know what you think:
Apple - .Mac - Feedback posted by Richard at 12:11 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Macintouch report on Alternatives to .Mac.
I hadn't heard of the fastmail.fm service before, it sounds interesting. posted by Richard at 12:04 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Hmm.
The "reds under the bed" MPAA is snooping P2P networks with such enthusiasm that it actually admits hacking the networks to disrupt file trading.
But wait a second, in the US Hackers face life imprisonment.

Bye bye Jack Valenti, you're going to the Big House.

I submitted the above story to Slashdot /. (Rejected.)

Now, where's that Monty Python sketch... ah here we are
"I can't even take a bath without 6 or 7 communists jumping in with me. They're in my shirt cupboard and Breshnev and Kosegan are in the kitchen now eating my wife's jam. Oh they are cutting off my legs. I can see them peeping out of my wife's blouse. Why doesn't Mr Maulding do something about it before it is to late. Ohhhh.God."

Incidentally, Gumby Theatre is my 2nd fave MP sketch. I literally rolled on the floor the first time I heard it. posted by Richard at 11:41 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The cat is very good, except for one thing: she wants me to feed her most days at 5 AM.
It doesn't matter if there's food in her dish in the kitchen, she wants me to physically get up and show her there's food in her dish.
If I don't respond she does the usual escalating cat things e.g. this morning she pawed (clawless) at my feet.

At 5 AM this morning I was in the middle of an important time-travel dream.
And then I couldn't get back to sleep.
I count this as unhelpful catwise. posted by Richard at 07:27 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Why I no longer eat ground beef: Beef recall expanded to 19M pounds.

In fact the only ground meat of any kind I will eat any more is bison.
Fortunately the Arrow and Loon serves bison burgers.

All I have to say about ground beef is -- if this is how good they are at controlling the known, testable, preventable threat of e.coli. then imagine what a great job they must be doing keeping mad cow out of our meat. posted by Richard at 23:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I must say, I like my radio station.
Mostly because I'm too lazy to set up a playlist for my MP3s.
I will be sad to see it go :( posted by Richard at 19:19 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

If you're more into the actual photo part of photography, taking and critiquing pictures, there's tons of stuff for you over at http://www.photo.net/ posted by Richard at 19:15 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Has anyone seen K-19: The Widowmaker yet?
I must admit I am mainly curious because I saw the sub, and it has duct tape on the front.
And as far as I can tell from the trailer, you can see the duct tape.
I'm trying to figure out why this highly sophisticated Russian submarine had Red Green as its engineer. posted by Richard at 18:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Ok, ok you're thinking wow, way too much geek stuff.
Fine then.
An entire article about visible th0ngs: Peeping Th0ng [was Globe and Mail article, now dead link]. posted by Richard at 16:30 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

This Rendezvous stuff also sounds like a security nightmare.
"Automatically discover devices over any IP network."
And what if I don't want to be discovered?

It's also not clear to me how Rendezvous fits in with Jini.
It sounds like it provides many of the same features.

Also, Steve keeps talking about Sherlock 3 and zip codes.
Um, Steve, I don't have a zip code.

Plus, QuickTime in the Mail app? Um, yeah, I'm sure there wouldn't be any security compromises possible with that.
The whole reason Outlook causes so many security problems is because it's tied into so many other parts of the Windows operating system.

In case you're wondering what I'm talking aboot, I have been watching the MacWorld New York 2002 keynote. posted by Richard at 16:19 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Steve keeps pronouncing Jaguar "Jagwire". What's up with that? posted by Richard at 14:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

So I'm watching the Steve Jobs MacWorld keynote, and he's like, oh this is great, your email can tie in to your iCal calendar, your iChat can tie in too, how convenient.

Um, isn't having every application able to talk to every other app one of the ways Microsoft got itself into such a security mess? posted by Richard at 13:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

When I try to post things, the freaking Microsoft VBscript error keeps coming up :(

Anyway, as I just tried to post, I have been getting Rinag one-person microwavable Indian food dinners from the local organic store. I find them very yummy and filling. The price is about the same as a regular microwave dinner from the grocery store. posted by Richard at 12:01 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I have updated my Table of Online Digital Photo Printing Services available from Canada, including confirmation that photolab.ca still offers free shipping within Canada. posted by Richard at 11:02 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I have added a slides section to my online digital photo printing page, based on information that was submitted to me. posted by Richard at 10:35 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Apple Java Developer FAQ - yes, they are working to bring Java 1.4 to MacOS X. posted by Richard at 09:06 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)