Urbanape

princesscrankypants: “Hi, I cow.” “I...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:14:40 -0400

“Hi, I cow.”

“I sheep.”

“Go jumping together?”

“One, twoooo, threee!”

Another year, another video of my boy in his undies. Here are...

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:23:46 -0400

Another year, another video of my boy in his undies. Here are two years of Lex, taken weekly. Set to The Roots’ “Lovely, Love My Family”. Enjoy.

Marco's Leather Redux

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:27:51 -0400

I like Marco’s leather. In fact, that’s the kind of texture I really wanted when I made some backgrounds myself. But I like the gradient. So, I did him one better (maybe)^[1]. Click through to get to original sizes (they look much nicer in the original size).

iPad

iPhone 4

iPhone

Like Marco, I wasn’t able to find a definitive attribution for the source image, which I found on this tutorial.↩

Same for iPad

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:21:10 -0400

It turned out so well for the iPhone, I made one for the iPad as well (click through to get the full size).

Some Non-Busy iPhone Wallpapers

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:13:29 -0400

I pretty quickly tired of the bright, busy background images for the wallpaper, and so created a few in Acorn.

The orange one mostly matches my Incase Metallic Slider Case, but I’m using the last right now. It’s nicely muted and looks great behind the icons and text.

Update: Since then, I’ve made a version I’m even happier with, for iPhone, iPad, and iPhone 4, based on one done by Marco.

Late Spring Cleaning

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:13:04 -0400

More stuff to get rid of, now that I feel like I’m on a roll. The following things have been obviated by my iPhones over the past three years:

Garmin eTrex Vista Cx

Comes with a 64MB Micro SD card, some manuals, some Windows software, box.

Yours for $125
Kodak Zi6 Pocket Video Camera

720p HD video. Comes with a 16GB Transcend SDHC card, manuals, bags, box.

Yours for $150

Standard caveat: Sorry, I’m not Amazon. You pay shipping.

The Bag Situation

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:00:19 -0400

I have a problem with bags. I like them. I like the promise and the possibility of what they can carry. I like big bags and I like small bags. I’ve never been afraid to carry a murse, and I’ve never felt the need to whiningly defend myself (“It’s EUROPEAN!”). So, when Amber was working at Circuit City and had sweet accommodation offers from Crumpler, we jumped at the chance to fill out my stable of bags. Man, that was a mistake. These were overkill in the extreme, and I think it’s time to clean house a bit. These all link to Crumpler’s US non-Flash site (except the Timbuk2 bag, natch).

The Fux Deluxe

Biggest capacity messenger bag Crumpler offered. Big, open main compartment, with three smaller compartments along the inside front, and a full-length zippered pouch along the outside front.

Yours for $50

The Complete Seed

Same as the Fux Deluxe, only slightly (really! just slightly) smaller.

Yours for $50

The Skivvy (m)

A slim laptop bag, but too big for the 13” MacBook Pro I use daily. One full-width zippered pocket besides the open laptop compartment.

Yours for $25

Standard caveat: Sorry, I’m not Amazon. You pay shipping.

Where I’m likely headed

This list doesn’t include my current bag: The Crumpler Dreadful Embarrassment, which I’m planning on keeping for a while, but I do think I’d like something slimmer and vertically oriented, like the STM Alley, the Tom Bihn Ristretto, or the Waterfield Muzetto. Something that just carries lappy, iPad, and a few cables.

The Fallacy of the Chilling Effect

Fri, 14 May 2010 23:05:00 -0400

So, some people are upset about Apple’s draconian iPhone/iPad development policies.

Some people are less upset with Apple than with other developers who aren’t as upset about those policies as they ought to be.

Well, the developers who aren’t upset, the ones who are dealing with the reality of the situation, aren’t toadies. They aren’t capitulating. They aren’t abdicating. They aren’t scabs. They’re delivering real things of real value to real users. The gripers should take note.

I hear a lot about the “Chilling Effect” that these policies are bringing about. “We don’t even know what kinds of apps aren’t even going to be written.” Well, whatever. The risks presented by Apple (e.g. that a developer might not even want to sink resources into a venture with no guarantee of return) are no different than any other venture risk. There are no guarantees in this world. If they think Apple having an open store or allowing for more stores or providing an adult-only store would guarantee them sales, they’re dreaming. And if they were really as passionate about those unknown masterpieces, they’d put their money where their mouths are and take that risk. You know what would speak louder to Apple than a blog post full of words? Actual, tangible instances of supposedly awesome products that might possibly be counter to Apple’s policies. If they care about the technology—if they care about their users—they’ll make great products and stop waiting for guarantees.

Guarantees don’t exist.

It’s like my Tumblr dashboard had a hiccup.

Fri, 14 May 2010 17:05:00 -0400

It’s like my Tumblr dashboard had a hiccup.

rentzsch.tumblr.com: [C4 release];

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:41:45 -0400

rentzsch.tumblr.com: [C4 release];:

I give my heartfelt gratitude to the C4 volunteers, speakers and attendees. The best thing I can say about C4 is that I know it changed many lives for the better, including mine.

I’m really grateful that I was able to be a C4 alum, and while I can’t really appreciate all the hard work that Jon put into C4 each year, I can definitely admire the results.

I met a whole rogue’s gallery of interesting folks, learned a lot, and in all three years I attended combined I spent less than one year at WWDC. Chicago is in a sweet spot for conferences in terms of accessibility. You can easily get to it from either coast and from places in between.

I’m terribly sad to see it end, but on the upside: no more of that Chicago “pizza”.

Transparent Design

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:24:00 -0400

One thing I never noticed until recently:

Coffee to here

Water to here

Rainbow Cupcakes

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:27:00 -0400

So, my cousin Molly tweeted about wanting to make these Taste the Rainbow cupcakes, and Amber let me know just how happy she would be to have some on St. Patrick’s Day for Lex. I had to hit the grocery store for some items anyway, so I picked up a white cake mix.

While they turned out okay, I found them maddeningly hard to measure. The recipe online calls for 16 muffins, the cake mix is for 24 (each filled two-thirds full), so I went gonzo, and did them in 12.

To complete the obligatory faux-Irish setting: green plates, green napkins, green milk, broccoli. GREEN.

Lex got to lick some of the whipped cream, which started a sugar high that lasted until he crashed a few hours later, completely indistinguishable from the status quo.

Hypercritical: No Movie for Old Men

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:05:14 -0400

Hypercritical: No Movie for Old Men:

As men age, they become progressively more sensitive. The biggest spike (or dip?) in the graph occurs when a man becomes a father.

In my experience, this manifests itself most noticeably in a reduced ability to enjoy any story where children are in peril.

I’ve had similar reactions. The most recent of which was the Lie to Me episode where an anguished mother confessed that her purported missing son had actually died due to her negligence.

A friend of mine, who is an operatic bass, told me a similar story years ago: As a new father, he simply couldn’t perform a role where he sang as Death, about to harvest a young child.

In some ways, it’s akin to the displeasure you sense when you notice technical flaws in characters who do the work you do (“You could never upload a virus to an alien mothership’s computer via TCP/IP!”) or noticing anachronisms in period stories (“Fnaw! Everyone knows 3rd Battalion Bravo Company patches had a charcoal chevron on a field of chartreuse before the Battle of the Bulge! It was only after that they switched to a field of spring green!”. But in these cases, the displeasure arises from the ease with which we can identify our child with the child in danger. And I notice that I’m far more likely to feel this when the scene involves pedestrian dangers, since I’m more likely to encounter them.

The Big Lebowski Alignment Chart

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:04:00 -0500

So, this^[1] has been making the rounds over the past few days.

It’s not wrong^[2], but there are a few corrections I’d make:

Walter is Lawful Good. He’s far too rule-bound to be Chaotic.
The Dude is Chaotic Good. While being basically Good, he’s pretty much the definition of Chaotic, bouncing from situation to situation, without any real plan.
The Stranger is True Neutral, as evidenced by the quote chosen. He has no real skin in the entire game.

Update: From off-site, I get a response, “But I’d leave The Dude in the center. He really ties the chart together.” Well, The Dude abides.

Tineye wasn’t able to find a source for it. If you know, please let me know so I can link to the original.↩
It’s just an asshole.↩

Peer Pressure: Good Stuff Matters

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:42:11 -0500

Peer Pressure: Good Stuff Matters:

When one works in software development, like I do, and one does not work in frequent contact with clients and colleagues, like I do, it is very easy to lose track of the real world value of the work that one does. Instead it is easy to get caught up in the technical details of the work, especially…

The sum is often greater than the whole of its parts.

I saw that pretty often with the CMSes I’ve been privileged (or horrified) to work on over the years. The sites that come out of those heaps of messy spaghetti code are worth far more that any underlying elegance or cleanliness. Which is not to say that developers should strive to make things as best they can, but to recognize that even with a suboptimal tool, a passionate user can still make something worthwhile.

supervillainlex: Cupid was exhausted after a long day of...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:22:40 -0500

supervillainlex:

Cupid was exhausted after a long day of inspiring all that love.

Yavin IV… I mean Tikal

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:36:14 -0500

So, some might not know that the Yavin IV scenes in A New Hope were shot in Tikal, Guatemala. Shot from the top of Templo IV, incidentally. I wonder if that had a hand in naming the moon.

Here are some shots from ANH, with complementary shots we took on our recent trip.

The Millennium Falcon approaching:

A Rebel grunt tracking the Falcon:

Months with the Magic Mouse

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:55:51 -0500

“A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive — you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.” - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This is pretty much how I feel about the Magic Mouse after having used it for a few months. As wonderful as the multi-touch is when needed, frustration quickly ramps up when you inadvertently send multi-touch swipes and taps to unintended targets.

Just waiting for the Death of the Mouse.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 20:04:40 -0500

Merry Christmas, everyone!

atsween: “godzilla and an alien wish everyone a merry...

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:12:20 -0500

atsween:

“godzilla and an alien wish everyone a merry christmas!”

I hope the ZB is for me, and not for that nogoodnik, Zaphod Beeblebrox.