Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Obama Modifies 'Yes We Can' Message To Exclude Area Loser
The Onion - America's Finest News Source:
The Onion's still got it sometimes.
"COLUMBIA, SC—In a nationally televised speech Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama altered his vision of a unified America to exclude Dayton, OH loser Nate Walsh."
The Onion's still got it sometimes.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Apture thoughts
Ok so things new things are cropping up on this here little read blog, but I wanted to take a moment to go a bit meta and talk about Apture. All this popping media is embedded via that slick new Websy Deucy app called Apture. According to its developers, "Apture provides the first rich communication platform allowing publishers and bloggers to easily turn flat pages of text into multimedia experiences." And lemme tell you it does exactly that, and it does it pretty darn well.
Pros:
Ohmigosh is linking to just about anything easy. While writing I still insert my main links via copy pasta or manually, but afterward I publish the post, turn on the Apture editing interface, and deep to my heart's content. I've even started just dropping a marker ^before and after^ what I want to link and then using Apture to put straight web links in after composing.
Link controls... don't want PDFs popping inline? Turn it off in the Apture control panel. Same goes for all the different types of media. You control whether they do what they would normally do, or do it the Apture way.
User generated link database... I like this feature though its eventual usefulness will be a function of scale I suppose. If you highlight words that other users have linked you can see what they linked them to. I can see this being useful both for what to link to and what not to link to. If eleventybillion ppl have already linked to that piece of media, why not choose a different one where appropriate?
Neutral but I think will be a pro:
Wiki mode... Wiki mode allows other users to add links to your page. It can be a "protected wiki" of only registered users, or it can be the beauty and terror that a true wiki is. Anyone can link anything on your page to anywhere. As Wikipedia founder The Virgin Jimmy Wales showed us... Wait. Stop. You see what I did there? That joke, if it works at all, only works because of Apture. That has nothing to with Apture Wiki mode, but hey, get your own blog.
Cons:
Auto popping first links... A'ight I'm gonna give everyone a hint. Do not pop anything up inline in my browser unless I click on it. No no no, I didn't say mouseover. Mouseclick. The first link moused over automatically pops the link. This is annoying and painful -- like having Burl Ives strapped to your back. This is also a trivial coding change I would imagine (which most likely means I am wrong). An option to turn this off would be greatly appreciated.
Default interface placement... Again a niggly little complaint, but I use Blogger (Hello Captain Obvious) and the editing interface pops and wants to stick right over my New Post button in the top right hand corner of the browser. Ideally I'd stick in the bottom right corner of the browser window next to my Firefox extension buttons, but that's me. I'm guessing it would be difficult for the browser to "remember" where the edit interface was, so how about a "4-corners" option to make it pop in any of the corners the user chooses.
Some wonkiness (see Update)... Occasionally I've had Apture tell me to close my browser and retry. This needs to get fixed. As I get a better idea of when it does this, I'll expand on this, as this does seem to be a bug rather than a feature I don't like. It deserves a bit of research on my part to make I'm just not doing it right.
Conclusion:
Apture, despite some interface issues, rocks hard tasty ab style, and it might change the way you think about composing posts. I know it has done that for me.
Update -- from the Apture FAQ
That would be my problem.
Pros:
Ohmigosh is linking to just about anything easy. While writing I still insert my main links via copy pasta or manually, but afterward I publish the post, turn on the Apture editing interface, and deep to my heart's content. I've even started just dropping a marker ^before and after^ what I want to link and then using Apture to put straight web links in after composing.
Link controls... don't want PDFs popping inline? Turn it off in the Apture control panel. Same goes for all the different types of media. You control whether they do what they would normally do, or do it the Apture way.
User generated link database... I like this feature though its eventual usefulness will be a function of scale I suppose. If you highlight words that other users have linked you can see what they linked them to. I can see this being useful both for what to link to and what not to link to. If eleventybillion ppl have already linked to that piece of media, why not choose a different one where appropriate?
Neutral but I think will be a pro:
Wiki mode... Wiki mode allows other users to add links to your page. It can be a "protected wiki" of only registered users, or it can be the beauty and terror that a true wiki is. Anyone can link anything on your page to anywhere. As Wikipedia founder The Virgin Jimmy Wales showed us... Wait. Stop. You see what I did there? That joke, if it works at all, only works because of Apture. That has nothing to with Apture Wiki mode, but hey, get your own blog.
Cons:
Auto popping first links... A'ight I'm gonna give everyone a hint. Do not pop anything up inline in my browser unless I click on it. No no no, I didn't say mouseover. Mouseclick. The first link moused over automatically pops the link. This is annoying and painful -- like having Burl Ives strapped to your back. This is also a trivial coding change I would imagine (which most likely means I am wrong). An option to turn this off would be greatly appreciated.
Default interface placement... Again a niggly little complaint, but I use Blogger (Hello Captain Obvious) and the editing interface pops and wants to stick right over my New Post button in the top right hand corner of the browser. Ideally I'd stick in the bottom right corner of the browser window next to my Firefox extension buttons, but that's me. I'm guessing it would be difficult for the browser to "remember" where the edit interface was, so how about a "4-corners" option to make it pop in any of the corners the user chooses.
Some wonkiness (see Update)... Occasionally I've had Apture tell me to close my browser and retry. This needs to get fixed. As I get a better idea of when it does this, I'll expand on this, as this does seem to be a bug rather than a feature I don't like. It deserves a bit of research on my part to make I'm just not doing it right.
Conclusion:
Apture, despite some interface issues, rocks hard tasty ab style, and it might change the way you think about composing posts. I know it has done that for me.
Update -- from the Apture FAQ
Q. I get the error message "Could not load panel. (This might be because you have other browser windows open with Apture. Try closing other browser windows and refreshing the page, or restarting your browser.)"
A. On a Mac, the Operating System in conjunction with Adobe, only allows a limited number of Flash instances. To fix this, close other windows using apture or running Flash.
That would be my problem.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
It's good to be a Red
Through at top of the group to the knockout stages of the Big Ears Cup. A point atop the Prem over the Chavs... life is good.
Auto industry bailout debate
rant: the mistake in bailouts (Lessig Blog)
I don't know enough to know whether it's a good idea, though it would seem that they ask for a pittance compared to the banks, but I know that Lawrence Lessig is against it. This means two things:
1) The legislation is a bad idea.
2) It will pass.
Lessig might as well be the poster child for great workable ideas that will not implemented, or in this case the sentry warning of Bad Things that will not be challenged. Anyhoo, jump over there and read the Good Professor's take on the matter as well comments from auto industryflacks p.r. people and others.
I don't know enough to know whether it's a good idea, though it would seem that they ask for a pittance compared to the banks, but I know that Lawrence Lessig is against it. This means two things:
1) The legislation is a bad idea.
2) It will pass.
Lessig might as well be the poster child for great workable ideas that will not implemented, or in this case the sentry warning of Bad Things that will not be challenged. Anyhoo, jump over there and read the Good Professor's take on the matter as well comments from auto industry
Blagojevich's indictment
Blagojevich's indictment is here.
From page 66 of the indictment (68 of the .pdf)
Also of note is that Senate Candidate 1 is referred to as "her" elsewhere in indictment. Lisa Madigan or Tammy Duckworth? I'm actually going with Duckworth as I think that Madigan would have enough political capital of her own to horse trade with Blago for the seat. A relative newb like Duckworth would need a push from someone else in a "political Senate buying" scenario.
Update:Peter Patrick Fitzgerald is live right now.
Update2: Lots of people are calling Senate Candidate 1 Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett
From page 66 of the indictment (68 of the .pdf)
Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”
Also of note is that Senate Candidate 1 is referred to as "her" elsewhere in indictment. Lisa Madigan or Tammy Duckworth? I'm actually going with Duckworth as I think that Madigan would have enough political capital of her own to horse trade with Blago for the seat. A relative newb like Duckworth would need a push from someone else in a "political Senate buying" scenario.
Update:
Update2: Lots of people are calling Senate Candidate 1 Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett
Monday, December 08, 2008
Daily Drew
This feature is no longer anywhere near "daily" (nor is this blog, but I'm working on that), but here's a bit of eye candy that I missed back during Drew's Gucci jewlery campaign.
Santo to the HoF?
Dugout Central -- Allen, Santo and Torre To Get The Call Monday:
"According to a source close to the situation, the Veteran’s Committee will on Monday announce that Dick Allen, Ron Santo and Joe Torre have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Emphasis mine, but it shouldn't have taken this long.
Update: Nope. Missed it by 14%, and none of the players listed above got in.
"According to a source close to the situation, the Veteran’s Committee will on Monday announce that Dick Allen, Ron Santo and Joe Torre have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Emphasis mine, but it shouldn't have taken this long.
Update: Nope. Missed it by 14%, and none of the players listed above got in.
Friday, December 05, 2008
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