• code.jjb.cc ?
• jjb.cc/code ?
• software.jjb.cc ?
• softwareblog.johnjosepbachir.org ?
• thisisthecodeandsoftwareblogofjohnbachir.com ?
• co.de ?

Discuss.

Stay tuned.

But that never happens. I just can’t get myself to write. Maybe I’m sick of all the opinions and voices already out there. Maybe I don’t see myself as someone who can commit to writting down an idea, because it always might change the next day. Maybe I just don’t have time.

The thing is, I love blogs, and the creation and writing culture that has developed in the second half of this decade.  I subscribe to a lot of things out there and ingest them daily. Technical writing, thougths about life, art, politics. There are good people out there writing good stuff. I used to want to be someone who participated in that culture — who put his thoughts and ideas out there and gained the respect and attention of other people whom I respect.

I used to love creating. I put a lot of energy into my documentary for a couple years, but never figured out what I wanted to do with it, and never had the time or resources to tie it all together. I worked on Lyceum for a couple year, and it was a positive and constructive part of my career, but at the same time I was never able to get it anywhere near its full potential. Perhaps I’ve become burned out on creation, ironically at the same time as the rest of the world accepted it as a cultural norm and expectation (in a beautiful and powerful way).

What are your thoughts, dear reader? Who’s out there reading this, and why are you subscribed to my blog? Should I blog here more, about technology, media, and culture, like I thought I would when I started it in 2004? Should I shut it down, pour my energy into Twitter, and start a Tumblr? Should I go live in a hut in the woods with nothing but a yoga mat and a 3G iPad?

So, what can you, dear reader, do to make this bill better?

It’s been shown that a majority of senators support a public option. Tell Senator Michael Bennet to introduce a Public Option ammendment in the Senate.

Sadly, I think the horrible language about abortion is going to make it into the bill. But the ACLU has a letter generator to communicate your grievances to your representatives.

I knew it was juvenile humor, and lots of words mean lots of things — but still, it was honestly the first thing I thought of when I heard the name.

I figured I would get over it. Then the extraordinary Sarah Haskins tweeted this:

iPad is a funny name, but not as funny as the word Period! Which means menstruation and the end of a sentence and sometimes a unit of time!

And it made me think more about the issue, and I tweeted this:

@sarah_haskins somehow iPad is different. iPhone, it’s a phone! iPod… wtf is a pod? who cares! iPad… not emotional. it’s an object.

@sarah_haskins do you say “pad” to refer to “pad of paper” nearly as often as you say “pad” to refer to something in your purse?

@sarah_haskins Therefore, it is funny.

To which she responded:

@johnjoseph I haven’t carried or talked about pads since I was 12. And yes. I do say “pad of paper” and “padlock” and “pad thai”

And this is actually the point I am making — you don’t say “pad” to refer to a padlock or to pad thai. I responded:

@sarah_haskins Great, now whenever I eat Pad Thai I am going to think of it as Are You There God, it’s Me, Margaret Thai. Thanks.

@sarah_haskins anyway, my extremely important point was, do you ever say “pad” to refer to a pad of paper? Or do you say “pad of paper”?

To which she responded:

@johnjoseph I just say pad, because I assume context will inform the listener whether I am holding a pen b/c I want paper or a menstrual pad

[hahahaha, I ♥ Sarah Haskins.]

Okay, so, really that’s the reason why you can theoretically always use any homograph for a brand. “Pad” really sticks out to me because it it is so rarely used standalone to mean anything other than a feminine hygiene product. I don’t know, maybe some people say “Can you bring 5 pads to the conference room for the meeting?” all the time when referring to pads of paper (which is presumably the concept which Apple intends to invoke with the name iPad). But somehow that usage seems very odd and uncommon to me.

Where else is “pad” used? Keypad… signature pad… ink pad… landing pad… I cannot think of a single usage where it is used standalone, other than for sanitary napkins. But of course, I’m writing a blog post to make this point, so I might be inclined to not think very hard about counter examples.

So I ask you, dear reader:

1. Does it seem weird to refer to a pad of paper as a pad?
2. Can you think of any other cases where we say “pad” by itself to refer to something?

• Raging Bull
• Easy Rider
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Secretary
• Sixteen Candles
• Platoon
• Bleu
• Scanners
• The Godfather: II
• Chinatown
• North by Northwest
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Metropolis
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Ben-Hur
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
• Shane
• Swing Time
• Dances With Wolves
• The Outsiders
• Twin Peaks (not a movie)

Very new versions of software for software developers

• PHP 5.3 (the very newest version, with many “modern” features, finally)
• PHP also has Pear!
• PHP and mod_php are compiled with GD, praise the lord!
• Subversion 1.6.4 (10.5 didn’t have subversion at all)
• Apache 2.2.11 (same as 10.5 I believe)
• Python 2.6.1 (10.5 had 2.5.x I believe — there is also a 3.1.x series but AFAIK the majority of Python software is still made for 2.x) – easy_install is included, as I think it was in 10.5
• Still no MySQL…

Nice!

your locate database is gone

At least mine was. You can rebuild it like this:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist

modifier key reassignment is now per-keyboard

A nice feature– but it took me 10 minutes of abject panic, despair, and tearing of clothes (and a couple reboots) before I noticed the new setting:

You can change audio input and output from the menu bar

No more need for the (excellent) SoundSource, you can now option-click the menu bar volume control and change input and output:

cp now has an -a flag

-a Same as -pPR options. Preserves structure and attributes of files but not directory structure.

Whoo hoo! It’s the little things…

Actually, I have no idea what “but not directory structure” means.

Horses to the slaughter – U.S. horses are meeting gruesome ends abroad, while the debate rages on: Are horses 1,500 pounds of food or friend?

Congratulations Meg!!!

This piece by Elizabeth Schroeder (1956-2008) caught my attention.

I used to be heavily involved in various “third” party efforts — I was a huge Nader and Green party supporter in the late 90s, up through 2004 pretty much. Since then I’ve slowly become disenchanted with that scene. Why? Most of the time, we see third parties using the small resources that they have achieved, to bring their issues to the mainstream — an important effort, and arguably part of the process of legitimizing a multi-party system, but to me it just didn’t seem like a focused and efficient movement. I think the #1 focus should be opening up elections, primaries, and the party and voting system, so that it won’t be hardwired to allow for only 2 parties.

Well, guess what, that is what CUIP is doing. I spoke at length with the volunteer who called me, trying to fully understand their mission and activities. My main problem is that their name suggests that they want to “unite” “independents” into a single “party”, which to me is just silly and pointless. The volunteer sufficiently convinced me that their name is a historical artifact, and that this is no longer a goal of theirs.

As some evidence of this — if you go to cuip.org, you are redirected to independentvoting.org, their new identity.

Head over to their website and check out their FAQ and activities, in particular their Open Primaries campaign.

To Install

1. Download the app: Kindle Blast.app.zip
   
2. Expand it, and put it in Applications
3. Stick it in your Dock

To Use (make sure your Kindle is connected to your computer and the disk is mounted)

1. When you are somewhere where there is text that you want to read on your Kindle (for example, a long web article), highlight the entire body of the text and copy it to the clipboard (as in, regular Command-C)
2. Click on Kindle Blast in your Dock
3. You will be asked for a title. Type in a meaningful title — the file name will be based on this, and the Kindle will use it nicely as the document title — so format and capitalize it in the most human-readable way
4. Press "OK" and Kindle Blast does the rest

FAQ

Q: It’s annoying that I have to type in the title and can’t copy paste it, because I already have the body of the article in the clipboard. Can you fix this?

A: Well… what other workflow do you recommend? I could make it so that the first line of the copied text serves as the title– but there would be too many exceptions. Hmm but maybe I could make that the default title in the field. We’ll see.

Q: That’s a stupid name, are you open to other name suggestions?

A: Yes.

Q: How about a clever vector-art icon that goes along with the current name or new name?

A: Yes

I was met with the below mayhem when I first booted up the machine:

Immediately upon booting my new computer, I am presented with a terrifying message informing me that my computer is at risk.

what is happening

I can't remember exactly what caused this error message, but I am certain that it was something rational such as opening Internet Explorer, attempting to load google.com, and then selecting Exit from the File menu.