Current Diversions

iTunes now has an RSS feed. Just one more reason why NetNewsWire has become my new Favorite Application Ever.

GarageBand has a shot at the above title, though I may have to pick up some new loops to keep it from getting stale. I've no musical talent whatsoever, but after using GarageBand for half-an-hour, I'm suddenly entertaining thoughts of scoring my own films, like John Carpenter with less synth, and I'm fighting off the urge to buy an M-Audio keyboard to go crazy with.

Legendary Brit radio DJ John Peel can now be heard online, welcome news to those of you who, like myself, bitch all the time about how much American radio sucks. Go hear something different.

Here's a digital animation of how we got that rover to Mars.

And here's some scanned-in comic books from the 1940's.

Han Solo, in Carbonite, in Lego.

"These 9 drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during it's dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950's. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils..."

What's going on at Sundance this year.

Speaking of blogs: for the fourth year in a row, I have not been nominated for a Bloggie.

Trainspotting.

Did you know you can link directly to the iTunes Music Store? Like I just did?

Now, time for a group hug.

News

Well, the missus and I are packing up and heading out west to California. We're leaving in late March. So, on my current list of things to do, along with "buy toilet paper" and "clean up this site," I've got the following:

• find a new job
• find the missus a new job
• find a car
• find a place to live

In other words, I'll be a little busy for the next couple months, so pardon me in advance if I don't post here to much or promptly return your emails or phone calls. And if you happen to see me sobbing uncontrollably or staring blankly off into space, just take it as a healthy sign of a rapidly-progressing Major Life Change. Cheers!

Adobe Conspiracy? Not Quite.

After reading of Adobe's recent announcement that, at the request of a number of national governments and banking institutions, they'd covertly hobbled their imaging software to prevent its use in counterfeiting, I felt obliged to give it a spin, to see what happens. And what happens, is this:

Scanned in with a $99 scanner and Adobe ImageReady. No errors, no problems; I added in the "not legal tender" to avoid any kind of legal stickiness. So either Adobe's counterfeit-proofing is only in their Windows version, or it's a bit more clandestine than an error message and I'm about to have a squad of Secret Service men crash through my window. I'm surprised if it's the former (actually, I'd be surprised if it's either), since, while PCs enjoy a near-monopoly, creative types tend to use Macintosh.

My thoughts on what Adobe's done? Honestly, I don't care. I don't plan to go into the funny-money business (I don't even have a printer), and I've no use for scanned currency. And while the creative types who seem to be burning their boxes of Photoshop in outrage might not like it, guess what? It's ADOBE's software, and they can do what they want with it. Yes, they should have made it known that this feature was built-in when they released the software, rather than waiting for the inevitable someone to stumble on it. But their intentions are decent enough, and even if they weren't, well, like I said, it's their software. And if you absolutely have to have a scanned-in twenty for some reason, well, go get yourself an iMac or something.

UPDATE:

I've since been informed by knowledgeable fellows at work that Adobe's counter-counterfeiting measures do in fact exist in the Macintosh version of their software. So how did I get around them while scanning in a new twenty dollar bill in ImageReady and editing the image in Photoshop?

Um, I don't know. Just lucky, I guess?

20 Years of iPods?

It took a second viewing, but NOW I get why people were laughing when Apple screened their legendary Superbowl ad from 1984 at last week's Macworld expo:

Clever.

Mates

Peter Weir's GALLIPOLI was on cable the other night. I watched, because whenever Peter Weir's on, I watch. The man's a master.

Anyway, all I could hear, as I watched, was the voice in my head of a professor I had in an Introduction to Australian Film class I attended while studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. "Don't be distracted," the professor said, in his heavy German accent, "by the film's overt context, which is Australia's involvement in the First World War. What we're interested in, here, is the subtext." Or words to that effect.

The subtext, for those unfortunate of you who haven't seen GALLIPOLI, or weren't paying attention, is the uniquely Australian concept of friendship. That is, the concept of mates. A mate is the friend that you stand behind, and who stands behind you, come hell or high water. The guy who's got your back, in a nutshell. It reeks of machismo, and it's difficult to describe without sounding like a fratboy or a deeply-closeted homosexual, but if you've got it, you know it: the friend you can call in the middle of the night, half a continent away, and ask for help, knowing with certainty that you'll get it, that he'll be in his car before the sun comes up. The friend you can see after a year of absence without missing a beat, picking up the conversation right where you left off. You can be in a pub single-handedly challenging the entire Sydney National Rugby squad to a drag-down brawl, and your mate will be standing behind you, maybe not liking the idea so much, but standing there nonetheless.

You don't hear much about mates. You hear about "friends," about "buddies" and such, but it's really not the same. Mates are a rare thing, and when you've got them, you've got them for good. That kind of loyalty's a hard thing to come by in these times...it's too much work. Casual friendship is easy. Casual friendship is safe. You can walk away from casual friends without much of an effort, without sparing so much as a glance behind. Mates, on the other hand, are hard. Honestly, mates can be a pain in the ass, and they can get you into a world of hurt. But in the end, they're the ones who are worth it.

I've got mates. I don't see them nearly often enough, but it's enough to know I've got 'em. You can judge a man by his friends, by his mates, and I'll be happy enough being judged by mine. And I'd go to the wall for them. Because, really, what the hell else is worth going to the wall for, if not your mates?

I turn into a real sentimental sonofagun after a couple of pints of Guinness.

"Mars desktops! Get 'cher Mars desktops heah!"

Conveniently sized at 1600 by 1200 pixels and 1024 by 768 pixels, for your viewing pleasure.

Wish You Were Here

Okay, I'll admit it. I was concerned. I'd been thinking about you a lot, more than I thought I would. And you were taking your trip, and I hadn't heard from you in a while, and well, yeah, I was starting to get a little worried. Fearing the worst. Fearing I wouldn't hear from you again.

So it was nice to wake up this morning and find the little postcard you sent me. It meant a lot, really. I feel much better now.

Good to hear from you, little buddy.

"You're a Coward and a Liar and a--" OOF!

Click here if you'd like to watch a conspiracy theorist getting decked by a 72-year-old retired astronaut. And really, who wouldn't?

[found on whatdoiknow.org]

The Coolest Things of 2003, Addendum

Sneaking in just under the wire, it's the White Stripes with Elephant, an explosive triumph of drums and guitars that's been killing my headphones since I picked it up at Cleveland's best record store on Christmas Eve. Props as well to Nada Surf's Let Go, which would have been my favorite album of the year if Ryan Adams and Jack White hadn't come along, and to Guided By Voices for releasing their Hardcore UFOs, a chock-full-of-goodness box set laden with hits, rarities, live cuts, and DVD extras that should keep me occupied until next January. Meanwhile, one of the coolest things of 2003 certainly WASN'T Cyndi Lauper, who, instead of staggering out into the wind-blown fields of eighties' pop rejects and dying quietly in the snow, rang in 2004 by dancing spasmodically and wailing a couple of her atrocious new numbers and an abominable cover in a Times Square "sing-along," demonstrating that, (a), you can't have a sing-along when no one's ever heard your songs before, and (b), you can't have a career after fatally embarassing yourself in front of millions of people, most of whom put "Kill Cyndi Lauper" on the top of their lists of New Year's Resolutions immediately after your performance.

For the record, my new year was brought in with friends and fine champagne, which is exactly how it should be.