LookIt

Things I hate about Windows, part 42972

Mom calls, is having problems with printing. "It says 'Unknown printer error'." Drive down, verify that is what it is saying. We determine that she is trying to print to a printer that no longer exists. I show her how to pick a new printer from the Print dialog box, prints fine. To make sure it doesn't happen again, I open "Devices and Printers" and delete the old printer; it disappears from that window. I go to print again and the old printer reappears. I go back to "Devices and Printers" and, sure enough, Windows put the printer back. Delete again; poof. Close "Devices and Printers", open "Devices and Printers": it's there again.

FAQs that don't include Qs you are sure are F

I'm quite intrigued by Glassboard. The privacy model looks great, and there are probably many ways that they can get good revenue. The big problem: they assume that everyone only wants to use the product on mobile devices, not on laptops and desktops. That seemed like an oversight, so I looked at their FAQ to see when other OSs would be added. The fact that Windows and Mac OS are not even mentioned seems kind of dubious, to say the least.

The Willy Wonka future

Maybe I'm the last one to know this, but there is gum with two distinct flavors. Stride Shift starts off fruity, then after a minute or so becomes distinctly minty, then a minute later shifts back to fuity-minty-fruity-minty, then settles into minty for quite a while. Pretty impressive, particularly for someone who basically never chews gum.

Unhappy

Earlier this year, someone asked me "Most Grateful Dead songs are happy, right?". Well, not really. I was just re-listening to a 1988 concert by Brent Mydland that included two of the songs he co-wrote, and "happy" isn't the right word for them.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines is probably the darkest song of the Dead's repertoire. Lines such as "One if these days I'm gonna pull myself together / Soon as I finish tearin' myself apart" and "It's dark outside, but it's darker within" paint it deep black.

I Will Take You Home is a much brighter song about a father who promises to always be there for his daughters. Two years after this performance, with the song still a regular in the Dead's rotation, Brent killed himself with a heroin overdose. I simply can't imagine what it would be like to have your father call you onstage a huge rock concert, sing you that song, and then break the promise forever.

Anachronism of the day

When you install .NET Framework 3.5SP1, the installer tells you how long it will take to download the (rather large) system. After it downloads, the installer tells you "Download complete. You can now disconnect from the Internet." Um, no I can't.

Shopping list, found

...on a street not near any stores.

4 lbs sweet potatoes
aluminum foil
best foods mayo: (picture of a wavy container)
acetone cheap brand
nail polish remover
one lime
prescription: synthroid
avocados
sunflower seeds
white / whole wheat small flours
wheat chex
coconut milk

My one cent on Steve Jobs' new job

I am depressed that people are treating him as dead. He will die, of course: all of us will. I guess folks will then recycle what they have said in the past 24 hours. In the meantime, he will be the activist chairman of the board of an amazing company, one where he set the direction and staffed the entire leadership. Apple and Apple's customers are fortunate to have him in that role.

Wanting 5-inch devices

Tim Bray tweets today: "I have high hopes for the about-to-arrive 7" Honeycomb tablets. The original Galaxy Tab remains my face Android device to this day." I have different hopes. I would really like to see 5-inch tablets, which probably means Android and not Apple (although I would be thrilled with the latter). 3-inch tablets like the iPod Touch do not show enough text on the screen to be reasonably useful to me with my middle-aged eyes. 7-inch tablets are too difficult to carry around: there are no pockets that big.

5-inch tablets seem like a sweet spot on the readability-portability scale. The glass is cheap to make (it's one of the standard sizes for GPS units) and they fit in pants pockets. I would not want one as the thing I read books on all the time, but I would certainly appreciate spending a few hundred dollars less than for the 7-inch and 10-inch tablets on something that is used for occasional entertainment and mobile web browsing.

Google not eating dogfood

I got a very early invite to Google+ from a friend at Google. Of my many friends at Google, he is apparently the only one who signed up for Google+. This is not a good sign. Update: A Googly person has informed me that this might be related to a known bug in this early release, in that nearly everyone at Google is using Google+.

Radio Radio, without the second Radio

Before the Attractions, Elvis Costello was in a little band called "Flip City". Someone unearthed a demo tape they made, and you can hear Elvis just before he took on the rough-n-tough nerd persona for his debut on Stiff Records. Flip City had a few songs that later morphed into early EC songs, notably "Radio Soul", which clearly was the genesis for Radio Radio. (Ignore the Jacksons-sounding intro; the lyrics are on par with Radio Radio.)