Far East

Dashboard

One of the niftiest widgets in dashboard is the wikipedia widget. Once they fix it, that is. It's currently at something like 0.7b status, and is a little bit flaky. And the wikity widget looks like a lot of fun, almost like a replacement for whatever your text editor does when preparing a blog post. Perhaps the most overlooked one is the countdown calendar. You can set it to any significant date in the future, and it will tell you in big, bold letters how long til that event. I have mine set to the 2009 inauguration (only 1586 days to go!). The main problem with some of these widgets, particularly the third-party ones, is that the makers just put them out there without any freakin' manual. We need some kind of uber-manual to tell us wannabe geeks how to use them ... Currently most dashboard widgets (other than the obvious ones like clock and calendar) turn 'It just works' (copyright Microsoft?) into 'it just lurks, lookin' pretty'. Lots of time spent looking at them, and few, if any, productivity gains.

Waiting

For someone to explain automator, or better yet, to put up a website with automator scripts. I can tell it's powerful because I have no idea how it works. It looks easy on the apple website demo, but when you have a new automator window in front of you, and the little red ball in the upper left corner has the dot in it (indicating you need to save it), then it's hard to know what to do. Ditto for smart folders. Not smart enough to use them. I get burn folder, and dashboard, and private browsing and stealth mode firewall are all way cool, but spotlight? Hardly need it, my hard drive is so anally neat as it is. Funny that, considering my apartment is such a mess. I guess meatspace takes the back seat to mind space.

It's Great!

All my blogging will be done from Dashboard now. And it will all be in Mandarin. Pretty nifty, right? Life will never be the same with OS 10.4= 所有我blogging 現在完成從控制板。並且它全部是在國語裡。相當妙, 正確? 生活從未將是同樣以OS 10.4

Papers Please!

Fun is in the air. I actually agree with the Taiwan News editorial board for once:

Fingerprint plans trample on rights Beginning July 1, every citizen will have to be fingerprinted when they exchange their old identity cards for new one based on a law approved by the Legislative Yuan nearly 10 months ago. In our view, the policy of requiring citizens to leave finger print (or, more accurately, thumb print) files is not only rash but also exposes the government's unfortunate neglect of human rights in stark contrast to the government's touted promise to "build a human - rights state." According to fundamental democratic and liberal principles, citizens should have the freedom not to be arbitrarily suspected of being criminals or of having criminal intent.

Link

And yes, Virginia, ferengi will be subject to this, too. This is going to cause major protests, even riots. A lot of folks remember the White Terror and will be none too happy to comply.

Doi!

A study done last year involving more than 2000 kids between the ages of 13 and 18 found that over 70% of them felt depressed, unable to talk to their folks, and worried about school pressure. The author of the study recommended:

it is the duty of parents and teachers to help their children build self-confidence in other ways, such as finding each person's strengths and developing his or her special talents. As to improving communication skills, he suggested "practice more, praise more and interact more." Doing this in daily life will help a youngster regain confidence in life.

Link

Yeah, this number is consistent with what I see in the kids I teach; if anything, it's too low. As for the 'recommendations', what planet did this guy come from? How about designing a curriculum that didn't have kids studying 14 hours a days, 6 days a week? And reducing the number of tests, making classes more interesting instead of the 'teacher is the master thou shalt not question' type of ultra-boring style they employ now? Naw, let's throw a few catchy slogans at them, and that'll fix it. What a putz. This reminds me of the story last year that advised overweight people to take the stairs to work as exercise; one reporter calculated that this could mean nearly a million stairs climbed a year! If parents weren't too busy making sure that little Johnny got into the local equivalent of Harvard, and you know, actually cared about them as people, ones who have definite limits, then the kids might not be committing suicide as often as they do.

Carpe Diem

Weird. The great blogger Blogenlust is making a move, and asked me to guest post at his site. I suddenly became all psyched and posted a couple of things straight away. Then I realized that I was up about posting to his site, but not my own. WTF? And it hit me: the color. that old, drab grey had to go. A color I associated in my mind with the reason I set up this (paid) site in the first place, the passing of my grandfather a year ago. A place to write down some thoughts and work out what that meant to me, and what he meant to me. And while the darker hue was conducive to my mindset at the time, it's not healthy to dwell there for too long. Mourning time is over. Time to get on with my life. Best to re-arrange the furniture, in a manner of speaking. White is ever so much more pleasant, methinks.

Hot Air

Amusing to read all the Mac vs. PC flamewars (the most recent at Engadget here), particularly those die-hard PC enthusiasts who have to absolutely vilify Macs, often with very explicit language. The same PC fans that dredge up all the Apple circa 1995 'facts' about how Macs: cost twice as much; are much less stable; don't have the software; and aren't real computers, but just toys. Thanks very much, but I like my toy.

I can understand someone who has only known PCs and wants to stick by them, but why bother knocking something you know nothing about? I just don't get it. I had a PC user the other day frantically IM me about a '500 Internal Server Error'. They couldn't connect to the internet, and I was like, WTF is that? I googled it and fairly quickly the problem was resolved. I was a bit taken aback, though, by all the messages on the Windoze error bbs, all stuff I had never heard of. Maybe 'real' computer users like the fact that their machine takes sometimes several minutes to reboot, is often laden with virii and spy (and other mal)ware, and is about secure as the WH press briefing room.

Yes, at one time Macs did suck bigtime, oh, about ten years ago. But in spite of all that suckitude, they were still fun to use. The amount of customization you've always been able to do with Macs, the shallow learning curve, the lack of virii and other maladies, the very cool shareware products that were Mac-only, more than made up for some seriously flawed OSes (remember 7.5.2?). And Apple was always quick to listen to its customers, and send out appropriate bug fixes and/or updates fairly soon thereafter.

Then we got OS X, and all suckiness went out the window (OK, 10.0 sucked a little). A year ago I had a computer die on me, the first time that had ever happened. The problem? A hard drive (two, actually) that were so covered in dust (big problem here in Taipei) that they overheated. Popped in a new hard drive, and I was back in business. And tomorrow is OS X Tiger, and with all the new (albeit tiny) Apple stores popping up everywhere in Taipei, I can get it the same day that everyone else does. Yea!!!

Part of the fun of using a Mac is the way you can crack open the box and add all sorts of things yourself: hard drives, DVD burners, RAM, TV capture cards, whatever. And plug in a digital camera, camcorder, USB drive, you name it, and the Mac will recognize it, no drivers needed. The old (now revived) Mac that died last year is a dedicated console emulator and all-purpose backup station. Oh, how I wish it would die! But the damn thing just keeps on working.

The other great thing about using a Mac is how much it lets you create. I put together a family album DVD (from several hundred still photos) in just a couple of hours. Add in a soundtrack, and you have something you can share with everyone. I don't spend hours trying to fix things that should have been fixed in Redmond; I spend that time creating and having fun. What's not to like?

Progress?

Well, it's good that progress is being made:

The first lady, who has appeared on the ``Tonight Show'' four times since President Bush was elected, was in Southern California to visit schools and promote an education initiative for at-risk youth. During the show, the former teacher and librarian talked about her recent trip to Afghanistan.``It was an honor to be able to bring the best wishes of American women to the women of Afghanistan,'' she said.

Link Or is it? When you have incidents like this, it's hard to tell:

A woman has been stoned to death in Afghanistan, reportedly for committing adultery. The killing is said to have taken place in the Urgu district of north-eastern Badakhshan province. A local Afghan government official confirmed the death, and said the government would investigate the case. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the woman had been sentenced to death by a decree from the local religious scholar.

Link I guess it's just my bleeding heart liberalism, but this doesn't seem like progress to me.

Sucked In Again

To Sims world. What a total waste of time, but somehow entertaining nonetheless. No real changes or advances since it first came out for the pc, well, you can fart and flip someone the bird, but I don't know if that qualifies as going forward, yet it's remains engrossing. And watching Taiwanese playing it is even more fun; they have them try to study cooking skills or the like when their character is deep in the red in the mood-o-meter. Kinda like Taiwanese parents pushing their kids to learn even though the kids are clearly burned out. Good thing The Sims characters can't commit suicide, and that it's only a simulation. Otherwise there'd be major body counts.

Farewell

Light posting of late. The first anniversary of the passing of the most significant person in my life, my grandfather. He taught me so much about life and the world that I wouldn't be the man I am today but for him. He was always upbeat; the only time in my entire life I can remember him being anything other than jovial and joking was right after my grandmother passed away. He was an amazing engineer, designing the first automatic washing machine. He was a killer checkers player; I think I beat him only once in more than a thousand games. He had a rich sense of humor, and was always in touch with everyone around him. He never forget a birthday. He never raised his voice in anger. He always accepted me 100% for who I was, and never tried to mold me into some kind of clone of himself. His love was completely unconditional and freely given. He was never less than completely honest and open about his views and his thinking about the world, and while I certainly didn't agree with him on everything, I appreciated the fact that he would lay it all out so openly. He never had any hidden agendas. If I could be half the man he was, I would be truly satisfied. Rest in peace, GrandDad.