WordPress for iPhone

This WordPress for iPhone app looks very nice. I’ve been able to log in through the regular admin tools and post on the road, but this makes it so much easier! Taking the laptop on vacation is becoming less and less of a necessity…

Stupid CA Cellphone Law

Am I the only one who remembers various studies that proved that there’s no difference between hands-on and hands-free cellphone use while driving? Both are equally distracting:

Many studies have shown that using hand-held cellphones while driving can constitute a hazardous distraction. However, the theory that hands-free sets are safer has been challenged by the findings of several studies. A study from researchers at the University of Utah, published in the summer 2006 issue of Human Factors, the quarterly journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, concludes that talking on a cellphone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk, even if the phone is a hands-free model. An earlier study by researchers at the university found that motorists who talked on hands-free cellphones were 18 percent slower in braking and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.

So how is this new California law that banishes hands-on cellphones, but still allows dialing, texting and headsets, more than activism? Yesterday a coworker almost got run into by a woman who was talking on her speaker phone. This morning, I saw a woman driving way under the speed limit on hway 101 while talking exitedly on her headset. But all of the sudden we’re forbidden from normal cellphone use because that is too dangerous?

Hello, FCC?

Can somebody explain to me what the hell is going on with the Comcast SportsNet that is now taking hold of the Bay Area? I’m no legal expert, but a TV provider owning actual TV stations strikes me as bad. There’s a reason why the Supreme Court broke up the classic Hollywod studio system in 1948. And now we have a TV cable provider branding and producing its own TV program, while denying other sports channels widespread distribution? I’m sure I don’t understand all the subleties here, but this looks troubling. As of today, I can still receive my Giants and A’s games on the familiar channels, but isn’t the next logical step that the Comcast SportsNet, which has the exclusive on tons of local programming that is of public interest, become exclusive to Comcast customers? And isn’t the FCC supposed to prevent this stuff?

R.I.P. Ollie Johnston

Not much more to say than this, the last of the Nine Old Men has passed away. I remember how excited I was when I finally snagged a copy of The Illusion of Life, which was incredible hard to find for the longest time. For good reason, it’s the standard work on animation principles, no matter if 2D or 3D. And just now I’m reading Neal Gabler’s excellent Walt Disney biography, which obviously has quite a few references to and quotes from Johnston.

R.I.P. Ollie Johnston.

Now I Can Post More Again!

Finishing stuff is fun. Especially if the “stuff” took over a month of assembling and editing and rediting. What kind of stuff, you ask? Wait a few more days and you’ll probably see it on Infineonraceway.com and on my Youtube page
Also fun: watching Victoria finish writing the last paper she’ll ever write for her masters degree!

Dear Ticketmaster…

Please find my (IMHO quite constructive) complaint about your website below. I tried to submit this complaint via the TicketMaster page, but after a punishing process of finding the feedback form and entering this feedback, your submission button sent me with an automated response that, after listing a lot of possible solutions to my problem (none of which helped), finally left me with the somewhat hidden information that

*** YOUR INCIDENT HAS NOT YET BEEN SUBMITTED, PLEASE CLICK “FINISH SUBMITTING QUESTION” AFTER READING THE INFORMATION BELOW ***

Guess what? There was no link to submit the incident! Just a bunch of links to additional FAQ entries that didn’t help, either.

[Read more]

Impressed by Powerpoint? Not really.

Program compatability – you gotta love it. For years I’ve made my presentations in OpenOffice Impress, because it does everything I’d be doing in Powerpoint and…well, it’s free! You can’t beat that. In the end I’d convert my presentation to the Powerpoint format for downloads, so that everybody could open it. I never had problems with that workflow, and it still worked a few days ago. But all of the sudden, as of yesterday, Powerpoint refuses to open any .ppt file that I save out from Impress. Any, even the simplest onesheet. “Powerpoint can’t open the type of file represented by !GDC2007.ppt.” What the hell? You didn’t complain three days ago? And I haven’t upgraded Impress or Powerpoint, how could this be broken all of the sudden?

The solution is so simple yet annoying that it took me two days to figure it out. Oh, Powerpoint can open the file type represented by !GDC2007.ppt – but only when that file isn’t already opened in Impress. Because then, some super special “You can’t have it! I’m using it! Neener neener neener!” stuff must be going on behind the scenes, unheard by my weak human ears. That’s some weak sauce – and I don’t even know which application to blame for it…

Ding

As of today, I have been allowed to drink alcohol (legally!) for half of my life.

In Germany, that is. In the US, with its backwater, Puritan “You are responsible enough to die and vote for your country 3 years before you can be trusted to handle a glass of beer” I wouldn’t reach this mark for another 10 years. God bless good olde Europe

R.I.P. Suzanne Pleshette

Actress Suzanne Pleshette died today . She was 70 years old. I would have found out about this by reading the news, anyway, but I’d already noticed earlier today when checking my site stats. I keep getting Google search hits for “Suzanne Pleshette” and “Birds”, which is somewhat unusual When I checked her Wikipedia entry it all made sense…
Just for the record, I don’t have any information (or pictures) on Suzanne on my page. The newpost from last September, in which I detailed my field trip to Bodega Bay and the Birds schoolhouse, mentioned her name, and I guess the search engines associated the name with one of the pictures. I’m not sure where exactly the links is, I can’t find it when I do the search myself. Interesting how those things work… I’ll think of Suzanne the next time we go to Bodega Bay. May she rest in peace.

Page Changes?

Update June 2008: hah! it DID happen

My recent activity makes me think that maybe I should update and reorganize the page. The separation between News and Blog posts, which was quite useful at first, has become muddled and somewhat arbitrary. My archives are way too big. And just in general, right now feels like a good time for blind activism on my part!
When I set up Victoria’s and Missy’s blog a while ago I found WordPress to be really nice and easy to use. I still use it semi-regularly when helping Vicky with Stuff That Behaves Wonky(tm). Customizing WordPress for my own purposes would take a bit longer, especially in the looks department, but should be possible. So maybe I’ll finally invest some time after the New Year’s break. Assign tags for private blog posts and for “official” announcements, and add some missing structure to the page in general. Maybe. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, so this won’t be one. But you never know what might happen