FoxBoom!

The Mac OS 9 installer intro video gets straight to the point, while 10.0 - 10.2 were a much more chilled-jazz affair, then 10.3 went all pop.

Hearing the tune in 10.4’s intro video is like the smell of a new car, or the feel of a new sofa. It’s all refined, polished and comfortable, and LOOK! It’s a SPOTLIGHT because that’s the NAME OF A NEW FEATURE!

But anyway, the video for the current developer build of 10.5 is in FUCKING SPACE, MAN, and space is COOL!

Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is, Miss Teen South Carolina?

Here’s a transcript, just in case you think you misheard her.

I met Jack this morning. He was just walking past me in the city, and we made eye contact. It’s happened before, but this time he stopped, and he talked to me. It turns out there was just a massive misunderstanding between us, and no-one’s to blame, and we’re going to live happily ever after.

And then I woke up. I’m quite sure that crying at 6:25am is a new record for me.

“You’re very normal… I don’t mean that in a bad way.” [Lucien]

Getting beaten up by drunken chavs isn’t as much fun as it might sound.

Trust me, I tried. It isn’t fun at all.

Also: I find it quite amusing that I tagged this comic with “mathematics”, “relationships” and “humor”. I guess that accounts for my social life.

Also: my TV saga ended with the purchase of a 40″ motherfucker. More details, and the answer to “Is PC World staffed by insufferable cocks?” soon.

Since I’m not getting my new TV today, I decided to have the next-best amount of fun. Javascript!

I just discovered that del.icio.us provides JSON feeds, so I modified their “latest posts” example and stuck it in the sidebar.

<div id="recent-delicious-bookmarks" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://del.icio.us/feeds/json/foxboom?count=10"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  var ul = document.createElement('ul');
  for (var i=0, post; post = Delicious.posts[i]; i++)
  {
    var li = document.createElement(’li’);
    var a = document.createElement(’a');
    a.setAttribute(’href’, post.u);
    a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(post.d));
    li.appendChild(a);
    ul.appendChild(li);
  }
  document.getElementById(’recent-delicious-bookmarks’).appendChild(ul);
</script>

Well unfortunately, Amazon was talking bollocks when they “guaranteed” the TV would arrive today. The cable will be arriving in a few hours, but the TV won’t get here until Monday or Tuesday. I mean, it would if I hadn’t just cancelled the order, because I can’t wait in.

I’m so disappointed, I could cry.

Spock is a person search engine, and it turns out that Jon Eccleston is “gay”, “software engineer”, “sagittarius”, “grad/professional school”, “white/caucasian” and “in a relationship”. Five out a six ain’t bad!

So on Saturday, I have a new bed (a Toronto Double with Spring Mattress) and a new TV (a Hannspree YT08-37E1) arriving!

I don’t have an aeriel or a cable line in my room to watch any actual television, but I’ve got a good chunk of my DVDs ripped to my Mac and a Mac-to-HDMI cable to tide me over until I order an AppleTV in maybe a couple of months.

You’ll be hearing more about the TV on Saturday I’m sure, though I’ll have to drag myself away at some point to buy some bedding for what to make the bed sleepy with.

I bought a Canon Selphy CP510 printer today (no link, because the thing’s so old that Canon don’t even list it on their site any more).

I thought I’d tell you about it.

I fired up my Mac and installed the drivers and software, got all the updates off the webs, then fired up iPhoto to find a good shot to test it with. I cropped it down to 4×6, and sent it off to the Selphy.

The Selphy’s power light blinked red, and the print job stopped.

I checked the manual, which suggested restarting the printer would fix a blinking red light (which, incidentally, has no fixed cause and could mean almost any kind of error at all), so I did it and tried again. Same again.

I re-installed the drivers, and still the blinking. I installed the older drivers, and still the blinking. I pulled out and reset the ink and paper, and still the blinking.

Then I figured I could try just printing directly from my camera, which would at least rule out a general hardware issue. I took a shot with my Canon EOS 20D, and plugged it into the Selphy (which has a brilliant little spooled USB cable built in), and behold! After switching the camera’s communication mode to PTP, a photo came out.

So I went back to Canon’s website and started filling in a technical support request, and while I was listing all the things I’d tried, I realised I could try it in Windows, to at least narrow it down to a Mac driver issue.

I fired up Parallels Desktop, booted into Windows XP, installed the drivers and fired off a photo. This time, I got a real, honest-to-goodness error message! I’d apparently selected a paper size which the printer didn’t have… and then things started to make sense.

The printer does 4×6 prints, but the paper is actually a little longer with perforated edges. In the printer setup (for both operating systems) I’d selected the wider paper option, but it turns out that the printer is intelligent enough to know the difference between the paper’s actual size and printable size, and was looking for paper of a printable size of my selection. The Windows driver knew I was wrong, and told me. The Mac driver didn’t, and left the printer to shrug it off.

But, hey! The printer’s great. It’s a few years old, so the new models might be faster or smaller or something, but this one’s great.

Also today: I tried to buy a new bed from Argos, but they won’t accept my credit card. I hope it’s a problem on their end, and I hope they fix it soon, because the floor I’m sitting on now used to be my bed.

Also tomorrow: I’ll be handing in my notice of resignation, marking the end of my second-shortest term of employment ever. Life is way, WAY too short to only have the second-best job in the world, and I’m leaving with no ill-feelings whatsoever, but only with the knowledge that my skills are better suited elsewhere.

Remember the e-mail I sent to the BBC last month?

Dear Mr Eccleston

Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘Dr Who’.

I am sorry you were disappointed that Catherine Tate is to appear in the
next series.

We do find that viewers’ opinions are an invaluable source of feedback for
BBC programme makers. Styles and policies are continually being assessed
and changed based on feedback from the general public. Your views have been
registered and form part of our daily feedback to programme makers and BBC
management. Comments such as yours help us plan future programmes.

It may be of interest to you that the website for the programme can be
found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/

May I thank you again for taking the time to contact BBC Information.

Regards

Anne

BBC Information

“Hello Newton Abbot“, by Jon Eccleston

Shhh… Jon is sleeping now.

Oops. I just realised I’d trashed the trackback links on the comment forms. They’re back now, and I fixed some funny formatting on the tag/comment list down there too.

Is it 4am? Cool.

“University of Darkside“, by benjee

Y’know… The University Of Plymouth’s logo IS rather familiar…