Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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bg 2.12

Hmm.
Bit of a deus ex machina at the end there, from a machina that believes in deus.

There are also a number of plot issues, but I am ignoring them.

So I wonder if they're going to try to go back and get what remains of the other civilian fleet, or if those guys are all dead.

Labels: battlestar galactica

posted by Richard at 22:21 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

+10 in Ottawa

My exterior thermo hit +10°C in the sun (Friday 13), briefly, before settling down to a chilly +8.

Err, at what point does this cease being amusing and starting being "wow, we really have f*cked the planetary climate".

Elsewhere:
* BC wet and muddy
* England and Europe cold

I suggest you have a spin at Google Earth and look at where most of Europe is situated versus Canada (hint, think northern Quebec and Labrador). Paris is at N49°, Berlin is at N52°30', London at N51°'30' In other words, Berlin is at the same planetary position as the sunny southern border of... Labrador. I think it's quite accurate to say most of the people in Canada live south of N50°. posted by Richard at 00:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

no more Windows Media Player for Mac

MS is dropping support for WMP, but providing an official alternative called Flip4Mac.

Slashdot Microsoft Ends Windows Media Player on the Mac /.

Someone on Slash also suggested http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
but I can never get those damn mplayer vlc codec displayer wonderful omni player things to work.

You can download the flip thing from

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/flip4mac.mspx

It's basically codecs so you can play Windows Media in QuickTime, far as I can gather. posted by Richard at 00:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Mac OS X 10.4.4

New/updated widgets
- arbitrarily redesigned calendar widget
- Google "search widget" which actually just opens your search in Safari... so, err, why not just search in Safari?

Plus which, this widget selection bar is cr*p.
I'm supposed to scroll and scroll and scroll through this thing looking at each icon to find what I want? They're ordered alphabetically? You realize that puts Weather and World Clock, the only two I actually use a lot (to e.g. bring up multiple widgets for destination locations when travelling) on the 3rd um bar? screen? line? of 3.

Dear Steve Jobs: I don't know whether it's you, or your NeXT GUI team, or some combination, but your user interfaces post-OS 9 Classic are total cr*p. Arbitrary candy inconsistent user-hostile garbage. Thanks awfully. posted by Richard at 20:39 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

corporations want to help you to find great music

And by that, I mean, spy on you in order to do a better job of selling you stuff.

So in terms of music recommendation, there are two other iTunes things:
1) That "you might also like" (beta) thing built into the Music Store, which at this particular moment seems to have disappeared. Anyway the web page says The new Just For You section offers personalized recommendations. Presumably Just For You recommends based on your entire iTMS purchase history.
2) This is new: the MiniStore. The MiniStore minispies on you to guess what you might like. Ok, that's slightly but not extremely harsh. In iTunes 6.0.2 Apple has a feature - the MiniStore. That appears below your playlist. All the time. They implemented this and turned it on without fanfare and apparently without any "do you want me to turn this on" dialog box or anything. According to the net.analysis, it suggests songs by sending info on whatever song (MP3 or iTMS AAC, whatever format) you have currently clicked on (not played, just clicked on). It sends the song info to Apple and presumably it gets run through whatever recommendation engine runs iTMS.

You can turn it off. (Edit->Hide MiniStore)

Slashdot iTunes is Malware? /.
Slasdot comment RTFA and stop whining about things which aren't /.
Boing Boing iTunes update spies on your listening and sends it to Apple?

You see, corporations don't so much like users controlling their personal computers.
This was not a big deal until they had stuff to sell you online.
But now that they do... oh my, look at all that wasted user desktop/application space that could be filled with ads...

My section on music recommendation systems you actually get a choice about whether or not to use is at

http://www.akerman.ca/digimusic.html#recommend posted by Richard at 20:17 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

MacWorld

Engadget live Steve Jobs keynote coverage

new Intel powered thingys mostly it seems posted by Richard at 16:07 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

dear cbc and the rest of the canadian media

Shut about about "the polls".
The polls are about as accurate as reading tea leaves poured over entrails.

Remember last time?
When the polls were all wrong?
When I said

I choose my language carefully on this one:

Polls are fvcking bullsh1t.
Seriously.

Learn from history, you nitwits. posted by Richard at 07:07 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

getcher MacWorld Expo speculation here

ThinkSecret - Eve of Expo: Rumor recap via Macintouch posted by Richard at 21:14 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

dear firefox

Why do you want, at apparently random times, to connect to aus2.mozilla.org and set a cookie? Is it an update server? Why don't you tell me what you're doing? If it IS an update server, why does it need a cookie anyway?

posted by Richard at 20:27 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

dear aol.ca

I am so happy you are opening up to the Internet



This is almost as great as when you first gave your users access to USENET.

(In case you're wondering, unretouched screencap from a web page ad.) posted by Richard at 20:23 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

bg 2.11

Things are getting pretty crazy.
But I guess it's an attempt to answer: what do you do if you have a command hierarchy, and the person at the top of the hierarchy is insane/evil?

Incidentally I am on Rogers Extreme and BT was giving me nothing until I used the port 1720 solution.

And I would be happy to buy and download episodes of BG for C$1.99 if they were acceptable quality (480i ?) and available day-of or day-after, and I owned the eps (no rental). But I can't because there is no TV download purchase available in Canada.

Labels: battlestar galactica

posted by Richard at 10:28 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)