Posted on
by

Apple Matters has posted What OS X Could Learn From Windows, a short wish list of features that Windows already has. The first one is to move keys around so that Command on Macs and Control on PCs are in the same place. When I first read it, I thought “Yeah, that’s tripped me up a lot!” Then I thought about it, and realized that it only causes me problems when I’m using Unix apps on OS X, either directly or through a SSH connection, or on those rare occasions when I’ve booted the PowerBook into Linux. I can’t remember the last time I fumbled over this while using Mac software. It’s only when there’s a conceptual conflict—and then I really stumble!

Maybe it’s because laptop keyboards are already different from standard keyboards. Except for occasional browser testing and iTunes importing, I haven’t used a desktop Mac in years. Or maybe it’s harder for people switching the other direction.

Anyway, I would’ve just posted this in the comments over there, but they require you to register before you can comment. I consider that rude, and I usually refuse to register on a site just to be able to post one comment. If I’m going to come back as a regular reader, that’s one thing, but if not, it’s not worth setting up yet another account with yet another username/password/etc.

(via Slashdot)

Edit: And just to prove that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I just tried to close a tab in Opera using Alt+W instead of Ctrl+W. (Alt on a PC being where Command is on a Mac.) I guess all that writing about the Apple keyboard had me thinking differently.

Posted on
by

Forget “Coffee is Hot!” and its variations. What they really need is a warning on iced blended drinks that anything larger than about 12 ounces may separate and require frequent re-mixing unless drunk rapidly. And those are the ones that are mixed well. Let us not speak of the ones you get at the café downstairs from the office, or at rush hour when everyone else in town wants a Frappucino NOW and the baristas are just trying to get through with the blenders as fast as they can. You know, the ones that end up like a coffee-flavored snow cone with a straw.

For some reason, coffee just doesn’t seem to blend with ice as well as fruit does.

Posted on
by

A few months ago I discovered that medications containing pseudoephedrine were labeled “restricted quantity items” at the local Sav-On because it can be used to make meth. Today I found that the shelf space that used to hold both brand-name Sudafed and the store brand now holds cards which direct you to the pharmacy. The boxes aren’t actually in the pharmacy in this store, they’re in a case up front, but the cards are pre-printed, and they say to go to the pharmacy.

Meanwhile, Sudafed has come out with a new formulation that isn’t based on pseudoephedrine. Yes, I know. I mentioned it to Katie and she asked whether they called it “…” We started trying to come up with names like “Sudasudafed” or “Quasifed” or “Notfed.”

They’ve got too much invested in the name, of course, so it’s the less-creative “Sudafed PE.” The store brands have caught up already, but it’s new enough that I could not find any reference to it on Pfizer’s website [archive.org: July 12, 2005]. A quick trip to Google turned up the Sudafed FAQ [archive.org: Dec. 10, 2005], though, which is currently all about the new medication.

Posted on
by

With luck the people complaining about the “unseasonable” morning cloud cover have all realized we get the same thing every year. Although I don’t think it usually lasts this far into July. We were standing at the America Plaza transfer station on Thursday morning, watching the fog roll in past the buildings at the south end, but by the time we hit the Gaslamp district for lunch, it was all cleared away.

We noticed an interesting coastal climate zone, though. On the trip down Wednesday afternoon, the clouds came in somewhere around Mission Viejo or San Juan Capistrano and stayed locked in all the way through La Jolla. It finally started clearing up just as we were reaching San Diego. Then on the trip back, a bit later in the afternoon on Sunday, the clouds rolled in as we reached La Jolla and didn’t break up until we reached Mission Viejo. We stopped in San Clemente for coffee (it was a long weekend with lots of walking and not much sleep), and the barista asked us if we’d been to Oceanfest, adding that it wasn’t really a good day for it. We explained we were on our way back from San Diego, he asked whether it was better down there, and we told him that it was warm and clear—but only south of La Jolla.

Posted on
by

Years ago, I put the Niven/Pournelle novel Footfall in my to-read box. I finally started reading it today. After a prologue that takes place mostly at the press conference for the 1980 Voyager 1 encounter with Saturn, the first chapter opens (years later) with a drive up Hawaii’s Kona coast and inland to the observatories at Mauna Kea.

Now there’s timing. If I’d read it when I first picked it up, I could only imagine that sequence. Now I know exactly what it looks like. Well, aside from the fact that there are twice as many observatories now as there were when the book was written.

Posted on
by

Late lunch today (there’s a news flash). Heard the last bit of an interview with Rob Zombie about The Devil’s Rejects, which was all over Comic-Con. Interesting perspective on the MPAA rating process, where he actually had to contact the MPAA directly to negotiate down to an R. Apparently after going back and forth on cuts with the studio as a mediator, he got to the point where toning down the villains made them seem less evil. Instead of making a film with violent villains, it was heading toward becoming a violent action film. After another round of calls directly with the ratings people, he apparently managed to get them to agree with him.

Also interesting: The MPAA will let filmmakers show much more graphic violence with a known celebrity than a B-list, cult, or unknown actor. With any commercial film, you know intellectually that the actor isn’t really being killed. But with someone you recognize, you have the added sense that there is no way that (for example) Brad Pitt’s skull is really being ripped open. With an actor you don’t know, your brain doesn’t have that extra disconnect layer and (in theory) takes it closer to face value.