Freeman still trying for Rendezvous with Rama

A poll on SciFi’s website says that Morgan Freeman is still trying to get a film based on Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. I hope it gets done. Rama is such a good book.

Also from that poll, nearly 700 humans are too stupid to live (see Response #4 and do the math, click to enlarge).

Apple, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!

Apple is being sued in California because its flagship retail store in San Francisco isn’t friendly to two wheelchair-bound customers who tried to get help there. The suit claims that Apple violates the Americans With Disabilities Act and the California Health and Safety Code.

If it turns out to be true, Apple needs to settle this quickly and fix the problems. That’s it. Plain and simple. Do the right thing.

AppleInsider | Apple accused of short-shrifting disabled retail shoppers

The Talk Show with John Gruber and Dan Benjamin

I like Dan Benjamin and John Gruber’s podcast The Talk Show. On the most recent episode (Episode 7) they read some reviews on iTunes of their podcast. The first review had a few negative things to say about it:

That being said, the podcast is undwerwhelming due to it’s subpar production values and planning. It doesn’t follow a coherent structure like some of the more established podcasts and radio shows do. There is a lot of dead air, “uhms” and “uhs,” off-topic remarks that stretch for a long time, and other minor, annoying things which could be hopefully fixed in future episodes.

I like everything he dislikes about the podcasts. I like the unscripted nature. I, being a fan of almost everything off-topic, love the off-topic moments. I like that, like another reviewer said, “Gruber and Benjamin’s casual style emulates regular conversation.”

The Talk Show with John Gruber and Dan Benjamin

Gonzales Resigns. Who’s next? Who’s left?

News is that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned on Friday and is soon to announce that fact officially to the news media.

According to Juan Williams on NPR’s Morning Edition, he is the last of the people with “long-term relationships” with George Bush to depart and all that’s left are, as Mr. Williams put it, “professionals”.

Update:

Audio from the resignation announcement:

NPR : Attorney General Gonzales Steps Down

Wal-Mart DRM-free downloads: Not for me.

Wal-Mart is offering DRM-free music downloads in MP3 format for $.94. They claim that you can “download to any player” and that may be true but I tried to buy a track from Wal-Mart and guess what? It doesn’t work on a Mac.

When I go to the Wal-Mart catalog and click “Check out MP3 music” in their flash thingy I get the following:

Everyone claims that Wal-Mart’s new Windows-only DRM-free MP3 download service is a competitor to iTunes but I don’t see how.

Update:

Wal-Mart also seems to not play well with any browser but Internet Explorer.

Firefox users can still use the “original” store which, apparently, isn’t as feature-rich as their new store. I don’t know what their new store looks like or what sort of features it has because when I tried to open it in Internet Explorer 7, it just showed a blank page with the error icon in the lower-left of the window with “Done” next to it.

Must have album: Raising Sand

An absolute must-have album is Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Just by listening to the horrible quality previews on Amazon I know that I just have to have it.

Amazon.com: Raising Sand: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

Other upcoming music purchases:

Amazon.com: Play It as It Lays: Patti Scialfa
Amazon.com: The Awakening: Melissa Etheridge

I’m really excited about the Patti Scialfa’s Play It As It Lays, too. I loved everything about her last release, 2004’s 23^rd Street Lullaby and I expect that this new album will be just as good.

Thompson will run on social non-issues instead of something important?

In an interview with CNN, Fred Thompson said that he would work towards a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and overturning Roe v. Wade.

I don’t think that one state ought to be able to pass a law requiring gay marriage or allowing gay marriage and have another state be required to follow along,

Nevermind the fact that the current DOMA exempts marriage equality from the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

When asked about how he would deal with Iraq, the only answer he gave was, “We can’t run away with our tails between our legs.” (paraphrased)

CNN Political Ticker Thompson: Roe ‘bad law and bad medicine’ «

Twicetab 1.3

Twicetab is a SIMBL plugin for Safari that allows you to create a new tab by double-clicking on the tab bar. The new version allows you to close tabs by option-clicking them or clicking them with your middle mouse button.

Twicetab will open either a blank tab when you double-click or it will duplicate the current tab.

I’ve not had any problems with it at all and I’ve used previous versions for a while now. The only complaint that I have is that it places a menu item in the Safari menu. It puts its preferences item there instead of putting it into Safari’s preference window like other plugins.

Twicetab is donationware.

I love Audio Hijack Pro

I use it to schedule and record an audio stream from Chicago Public Radio so that I can hear Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Marketplace without having to actually be listening to it at the time.

Audio Hijack will, on a schedule, run an Applescript that plays an audio stream in iTunes. It will then add the resulting file to an iTunes playlist of my choice via a second Applescript file. It’s completely automated. Just set it and forget it.

The Applescripts are really, really simple.

The first, to play the audio stream:

tell application "iTunes"
play track "Chicago Public Radio" of playlist "Chicago Public Radio"
end tell


I could leave out the of playlist part, but I sometimes listen to the stream without Audio Hijack so I don’t want to sort through the entire music library to find it and searching is usually too logical for me to think of.

The second script that adds the result file to iTunes is a modification of one of the stock scripts that comes with Audio Hijack:

(* Audio Hijack Script *** (C) Copyright 2003-2004, Rogue Amoeba Software, LLC *)

on process(theArgs)
--Coerce args to be a list
if class of theArgs is not list then
set theArgs to {theArgs}
end if

--Into iTunes ye files shall go
tell application "iTunes"
repeat with theFile in theArgs
add theFile to playlist "AudioHijack Recordings"
end repeat
end tell

end process


All I did was add to playlist “AudioHijack Recordings”. It’s that simple.

Rogue Amoeba – Audio Hijack Pro: Record any audio on Mac OS X

Newshutch Revisited

I wrote recently about Newshutch, an online RSS feed reader. I liked it, but wouldn’t use it because it wouldn’t import my OPML file. Well, I got the file to import last night and have been using it since.

The folder structure of my OPML file was maintained but the feeds that were “loose”, that is not in a folder, were just scattered throughout the other folders willy-nilly. I had to make a special folder for them and move them. That’s not really a big deal but it’s a little bothersome.

Now the only drawback I can find is that I can’t view an entire folder’s new items in one go. I have to move between each individual feed. I can live with that.

Newshutch is good stuff.

Related: Newshutch « JeffSay…