The Empire Strikes First

Open Source Eudora

Jonathan — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 06:34:19 +0000

The open source Eudora is (hopefully) about to be unleashed onto the world. Sadly, after being lied to for literally years about a new, Cocoa-based version of Eudora in the works, the Eudora community has been left sniffling with the task of doing it themselves. And Qualcomm can’t even release the damn thing without making us wait. The announcement was made on October 1, 2006, and we are still waiting. And I wouldn’t expect it anytime soon. Fuck you, Qualcomm, fuck you in your lazy asses.

cabel.name: Apple’s Next-Generation Themes

Jonathan — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:50:37 +0000

cabel.name: Apple’s Next-Generation Themes

Read this, it’s interesting. Cabel Sasser’s my boy.

Macworld 2006!

Jonathan — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:27:25 +0000

Excited and a little scared I headed over toward Apple.com after school today to meet a very unfamiliar gadget gawking at me: iPhone. The black, touch-screen PDA-esque toy looks a little different from simple and white Apple things we’ve seen in the past. But as an entering college student, what do Apple’s announcements mean to me?

Initially, not much. Steve Jobs said little about the future of the Mac, but rather focused on new Apple entertainment products such as Apple TV and the iPhone. What about iLife ’07 and iWork ’07? I’ve seen the Amazon skeletons, so they must be in the works. But I have always expected a fresh new version of iLife/iWork at the beginning of the year. After reading an article on Macworld, the editors made a great point that the next edition of the iWorld could be Leopard-dependent, and since Steve was using things in Keynote that are clearly not present in the ’06, then that means he must have been using a Leopard machine. Good news for any skeptics.

But what about Apple TV and iPhone? The iPhone looks like a major seller and will definitely help Apple, but I probably won’t be picking one up since I really don’t have that kind of money to spend on cell phones. But Apple TV is a much different story. $300? A decent price in my opinion. But if I can somehow figure up a way to rig up my TiVo to do all these things (it can already do the photos and music), then there will be no need.

And the Beatles on iTunes is pretty cool. But overall, merely mediocre announcements that have made me even more antsy.

Visa Extras!!!

Jonathan — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:35:18 +0000

Hootrah 1 924 points away from a $5 Red Lobster gift card.

Hussein Execution and Effects, with Video!

Jonathan — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 08:11:43 +0000

Any American that has read the Iraq Study Group Report, which obviously not too many U.S. political leaders have, should have a partly clear idea of the repercussions that will follow Hussein’s execution. While I do not know too many who will argue in his favor in terms of being allowed to live, his death will certainly create more and more controversy in the Middle East, and–in my opinion–will in many ways heighten our likelihood for another major terrorist attack. I think it is very important as a nation to not kid ourselves and celebrate his death to the point where we ignore the dangers that very well could arise from Saddam’s death. Even more, we should definitely not see the execution as the end to our problems in any sense, as (undue) difficulty almost certainly lies ahead.

And for dramatic effect, here’s a video of the fucker dying.

The War Against Antibiotic Resistance

Jonathan — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 03:08:00 +0000

In the January 2007 Scientific American, the editors wrote a very intriguing perspective on fighting antibiotic resistance, specifically through human intake of food and water. The article compares the U.S.’s policies concerning procedures involving possible Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) patients to those of other nations, boasting horrific statistics. With an annual death rate of 13,000 in the States, MRSA is certainly causing its bit of damage along with other antibiotic-resistant infections.

After reading an article like this you truly see a vital problem, as an antibiotic-resistant population would certainly require a much different health-care system than what we have in place currently. Even more, these types of infections could lead to massive outbreak with virtually few options for treatment and curing.

After looking deeper into the situation I soon realized that this was the real deal, not just speculation hype. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention calls it “one of the world’s most pressing public health problems” and has launched a campaign against this seemingly certain future crisis. But where can the problem truly be solved? Naturally, clinicians and other health-care professionals are the first to be blamed; yet, in reality, the only true method of bypassing this fate is through education of the general public. For the most, that is where the problem lies. Especially during the current flu season, more and more of the public will exchange antibiotics to fight a pointless battle against viral infections, contributing to the overall resistance that is to come.

But in the same sense, new policies must be designed to combat this resistance. The article specifically contrasts the Dutch practice of isolating MRSA high-risk patients–such as those coming from nursing homes–until they test to be MRSA-free, against the U.S.’s major lack of policies concerning isolation of MRSA patients. The article also mentions other particular European laws concerning the limitation and ban of antibiotic use in agriculture and animals.

All we can do is hope that the European “ounce of prevention” philosophy will wear off on us soon enough.

Five books for winter break

Jonathan — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:44:50 +0000

Just another list of stuff you should do.

1. DNA: The Secret of Life by James D. Watson and Andrew Berry

2. America (The Book) Teacher’s Edition: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and The Writers of The Daily Show

3. Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski

4. The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, The World’s Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio

5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The new Facebook is not that bad

Jonathan — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 20:30:38 +0000

A pretty large update to Facebook led to about every friend I know to join about a million groups that somehow related to calling Facebook stalker-ish and the like. Since then, the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and company have added new updates for each user to limit what they want to be placed in the mini-feeds (which by the way, is the reason for the controversy to begin with, if you aren’t in the know). I think it’s great that the users championed something they wanted to be fixed, and the creators listened. But realistically, Facebook and MySpace and every other social networking site has been stalking forever anyway. If anything, even with the mini-feed, Facebook was still the safest way to play as someone had to already be a friend or in your network to see your stuff to begin with. Honestly, who doesn’t want to meet a new middle-aged friend named Jim from Alabama who enjoys the company of younger ladies.

Backpack for note taking (with minimal page use)

Jonathan — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 03:06:43 +0000

A while ago I came across this nice article about how to use Backpack for taking notes in school. The post is greatly informative and I learned loads from it, but my (and many other’s) complaint are the great amount of pages one would use in using this method. Theoretically, each day means a new page. If you have more than one class a day, we are talking several pages a day. In a few short weeks, you’ll be looking a quite a few pages and be moving toward the high-dollar Backpack account. For the power note taker, I guess this would be a great idea. However, I only take around 30 lines of notes a class. Instead of re-writing pagini’s article on how to use Backpack for notes, I will just add a few short points for those using it the minimalist way.

Instead of doing a new page for each day, try breaking it down into each section of the book or class. For instance, in my English class we focus primarily on certain novels which take around 2-3 weeks each. I create a new Backpack page for A Raisin in the Sun and keep all my notes related to that book as well as lists for homework and other things to do with the book. I also keep links to Sparknotes and other helpful reference material. In other situations, you can break it down into chapters of the textbook, certain information material, or major test. Whatever way you choose…
Instead of having a class master page, I just made my homepage the way pagini suggested (with the schedule) and added one note for each class. Then under the note I would add all the material needed for the class. Works great as I don’t have too much information for each class page. If you or I had any more I guess a full page for the class would be the most reasonable solution.
Don’t keep the pages forever! I keep a nice three-ring binder labeled “Old Backpack Notes”. Whenever I am finished with the material I have in Backpack, I email the page to myself and print it out. I use dividers to keep everything together, and it frees up space. I do tend to keep the pages in Backpack for a few weeks even if I am not using it, just in case. You can also easily re-add the information into Backpack if need be by just creating the page again and emailing the self-sent email back to your secret address.
Finally, if a project is too big (i.e. thesis papers, large reports, etc.) keep them in a separate page. Generally, I classify “big” as including more than two other pages (for instance, two books), having it’s only calendar in Backpack, or taking a pretty long while to complete.

Alright! Of course, this isn’t dogmatic and is just the way I use Backpack for my schoolin’. Let me know what you think and mix stuff up to create your own method. Cheers pagini and Backpack!

Ten Applications I am looking at right now…

Jonathan — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:47:36 +0000

1. Yojimbo

2. Backpack

3. OmniOutliner

4. Cocoalicious

5. Bloglines

6. MAMP

7. Xchat-Aqua

8. Firefox

9. MediaWiki

10. VooDoo Pad Lite