Month: August 2003

Holy crap! This is why free, widely distributed, development tools – and responsive developers – are such a big deal. Jonathan Rentzsch shows how to change NetNewsWire’s standard three-pane layout into a ‘widescreen’ alternative that, frankly, makes more sense. The software’s author, meanwhile, seems to pretty much agree.

Unbelievably cool. And Brent, speaking as a happy user: yes, I’d love to see this in a future build. It slightly beats my contribution of spotting the mis-aligned buttons. But hey, even that’s fixed in 1.0.4. 🙂

Oh, that’s just great. Today (apart from seeing a flat I will try to buy on Monday – eep!), I picked up a copy of 24 season 2 on DVD, since I missed pretty much all of it, and it is gloriously silly.

I’m halfway through the first disc, and apart from Kim Bauer, the thing that’s pissing me off most is the menu system. Just imagine: you have a series that plays out in something like real time, so clocks and clock dials are pretty significant metaphors. What, then, in the name of tarnation could possess a graphic designer to come up with a main menu system that goes anti-clockwise? Have they completely lost their senses? Did nobody stick their hand up and say ‘Umm… isn’t that confusingly backwards? Oh, and the bit where Kim gets caught in a bear trap, can we just cut that ‘cos, you know, it’s crap?’

Arrrrghhhhhhhh!

Update on Jules from Alan. Cautiously positive.

[update: Alan’s posted more. Still sounding cautiously positive. 🙂 ]

She’s back in for another operation. Check for updates, leave messages of support, etc here.

Alan, give her a hug from me, yeah? Jules – you do the same for Alan.

Apparently the fourth Test at Headingley this weekend will have a fancy dress competition, since so many supporters are turning up as the Hulk, nuns, or Dickie Bird. When asked on Today if attending in such bizarre attire was bringing the game into disrepute, Tim De Lisle, the editor of Wisden, replied to the effect that in London, chaps wear blazer and tie. It doesn’t get more bizarre, surely? RealAudio version here.

Nuns at Henley next year, Daniel?

I finally got around to installing X-Plane 7 on my Mac (since my PC is 200 miles away), and have just spent a happy hour tooling around in – of all things – a Fairey Rotodyne. Top fun, but in honour of the real thing I left the volume up rather high. Remind me to apologise to the neighbours in the morning.

Oh, and fly-by-mouse is utterly terrible, believe me. Even when you don’t have to worry about two different throttles and a collective control…

 

Damien writes:

At last I have moved into the year 2001! Just as everyone is waking up to find G5s on their doorsteps, I’ve finally got a G4.

Cool. Congrats. What’s it called?

‘Labour planned to assassinate Idi Amin‘ shouts the Sunday Herald. Only, that’s not what David Owen said at all. Interviewed on Radio 4 over the weekend, he said he’s raised the idea, but it hadn’t been viewed remotely positively. Indeed, the Sunday Herald’s own story quotes his next sentence:

‘I’m not ashamed of considering it, because his regime goes down in the scale of Pol Pot as one of the worst of all regimes. It was a disgrace on us all that he was allowed to stay in office for as long as he did.’

…and that’s it. There is no more information that would lead one to the headline. Not in the printed story, anyway. So: do the journalists know something they haven’t bothered telling us, or was their editor too lazy to read his own front-page copy and write an appropriate headline? Or were they just trying to shock people into buying more papers?