Music, opinions, and portfolio of Mark Eagleton, musician and web developer in Northern CA.
Comentary about things I have found around the web.
Juan Forero had a great four minute piece on Morning Edition today about a weekly TV show that Hugo Chavez has been doing for the past ten years. He is the host. He is producer. And apparently there is no limit to how long he will go. His previous record was 8 hours. He’s currently in the middle of a LIVE four day broadcast! If you ever had any doubt as to the level of sanity of Venezuela’s presedent, well … there you go.
The California Supreme Court will issue an opinion in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2009. The cases in question are Strauss v. Horton, S168047; Tyler v. State of California, S168066; City and County of San Francisco v. Horton, S168078.
Also related, I saw a really cool new equal rights sign on the news this morning, but I haven’t been able to find it on the internet. It's a circle around an equal sign.
Peavey has a line of audio products (and a web site) that caters specifically Christian churches. Smart niche, but kind of creepy.
I was just notified via xScope’s check for new versions on startup that version 2.2 has just been released. The new version adds some global hot-keys, more ways of copying various things to clipboards, and much more. I use xScope just about as much as I use my keyboard. It is THAT much a part of my workflow. If you are an interface designer and don’t use xScope, you are a stupit.
On the subject of my recent how-to on hiding CSS from IE 6, Andy Clark has gone a few steps further and is serving the same universal CSS file to IE 6 from all his sites via Google Code. I’ll be implementing this post haste. Thanks Mr. Clark!
Two great things that taste great together! via TMBG
Remember web developer folks, people generally upgrade their computers when they no longer work. Browsers are no different.
Kristyn read the following excerpt to me in this morning’s Daily Democrat about a new state of the art electric car charging station in town:
Six of the ultra-modern Tesla Roadsters were brought to the charging station by Tesla Motors representatives from Menlo Park. The sleek, low-slung sports cars are capable of traveling 250 miles on a single electric charge. The cars themselves can go from 0-60 miles an hour in 4 seconds.
There is no other car I have been more excited to see in person. While I would never spend $101,500 on an automobile, there certainly are many people who would. And those people who have purchased them have provided the research and development capitol for the auto maker to produce the Tesla Model S. A sedan that starts just under $50,000.
It can only be a matter of time that a $25,000 Tesla auto is available to the masses. A failing GM will have a much harder time lobbing against the electric car this time.
Loren Brichter, creator of Tweetie for Mac OS X and the iPhone on Adobe AIR in an interview with Macworld:
And AIR apps are like modern day Java applets... sure, they run on every platform. But they also suck on every platform.
I have been dying for a native, elegant, multi account Twitter client for Mac OS X for months. It seems that the Adobe AIR runtime was invented for making Twitter clients. Tweetie is the best, and I couldn't be happier that Loren Brichter feels the same way I do about Java and Adobe runtimes.
The inner struggle within me to not purchase this instrument right now is so great, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Game Informer outsells Time, TV Guide, Sports Illustrated, Cosmo, Playboy and O in the US. This doesn't actually surprise me very much, but I'm always happy when the popularity of gaming makes the news in some way.
Spiderman + giant robots + ninjas + a sweet 70’s soundtrack = my speechless ass quivering in ecstasy. I cannot wait to share this with my kids.
via S.britt
The Dead Milkmen have decided to reunite for some shows. My brother in law brought to my attention that it has been 21 years since Beelzabubba was released, which was the last record of theirs that I bought. I was in Jr. High then.
Will they actually kill the keypad altogether? I had better stock up before it’s too late. I never have been comfortable using the numbers on the typing half of the keyboard.
Speaking of Flood, if you’re in the New York area at the end of the month, TMBG will be performing all the songs from their platinum album, Flood, at Le Poisson Rouge on February 28th. They will be performing all of their albums on the last day of every month this year at the LPR.
Their kids music is fantastic, but if you haven’t bought a record since Flood, you have some seriously exciting catching up to do.
Lux Interior died yesterday morning of a heard condition. He was 62. I need to start reading fewer nerd blogs and pay more attention to music.
Props to @writegrrrl for breaking the story in my twitter feed. She’s good.
What do you mean he’s high?
On the weed!
Who’s this cat, anyway?
Kudos to Joe Lewis for making my morning...
I converted to the metric system last year. I quickly found that the trick was not to think in terms of conversions to the American way, but to simply stop using it. Today's XKCD is funny because it's true.
Google is finally jumping on the ditch IE 6 band wagon! Welcome to 2001, global IT departments!
I have always been a fan of taking direction to the utmost literal level. It has gotten me into lots of trouble, but if people are challenged to communicate clearer, society progresses. Link via Derek Sivers on Twitter.
30GB Zunes poop out for new years. Users are told to run their batteries down and wait until noon on January 1st to boot back up. Sort of like a Zune hangover.
This beer has been on my to-do list since John Gruber blogged about it 3 years ago. I was ecstatic to stumble across it at the Davis Food Co-op. This beer is as good as I had hoped (if not better). Extremely well balanced, easy to drink, and still hoppy enough to satisfy a Northern Californian pallet. And yes, the can is a vastly superior container to the bottle. This beer’s tap-room freshness is concrete proof.
WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” is available for download and has some hugely useful new features like comment moderation and replying from the dashboard, a “Post This” applet that lets you create entries from web pages with a robust blog GUI break-out window (a must see), a new plug-in browser with one-click installs and upgrades, and probably the best new feature: one-click upgrades right in the admin area. They even threw in a few features I put in the custom CMS for this blog. While it is still way too overkill for this site, I look forward to using it for client work in the future.
The first stapler is said to have been made in the 18th century. For 300 years, mankind waits in torment for Joonhyun Kim to rescue us from our sloppily stapled page nightmare. This stapler could almost make me rethink my paperless lifestyle. Almost.