Gimme more hits

The single largest source of hits to any of my domains, from Google, is from this search: Pippi Longstocking. My niece is the 9th image.

In a gratuitous effort to drive more traffic to this site, here's the image, again.

Shameless, I know.

Update: Hah, with Safe Search off, Pippi and I are #1. :-) I need to add ads; we could put the dear girl through college.

Why the transparent menu bar in Leopard was a bad idea.

I got Molly the Leopard update Friday night. It wasn't the most stress-free update, but it worked on the 2nd attempt. That a four month old MacBook would require two attempts to update reflects rather poorly on software that was gestating two years. It should have been painless. But that's another post.

The thing that some folks seem to dislike is the transparent menu bar. In my brief run with it, it doesn't bother me that much, but it does present one of those 'what where they thinking' moments that you get used to with Apple. (Closing the iPhone to developers was the previous WWTT moment, and like that one, I think the menus will get fixed).

Molly, inadvertently, gave me a nice test case, to make the point, that transparent menu bars can lead to goofyness. I say inadvertent, because Molly was just being Molly. She finds cute desktop graphics in the tubesphere.

Here's her desktop:

Notice the black borders? When she was running Tiger, the menu bar was the end of the picture. Now, under Leopard, she gets this goofy look:

It just looks sloppy.

Can something be both new and improved?

Just found this grammar blog:

Imagine, if you will, that I am a purveyor of tasty snacks. Tasty as they are, I decide to improve the recipe with which my snacks are created. When I sit down to design the packaging I decide to put the phrase "NEW, IMPROVED RECIPE!" all over it.

Aside from the glaring error of using capitalised type, I find myself with another quandary: can my recipe be both new and improved at the same time?

Hardee Har

I was writing a blog post about how I hate to fly. During a web search for how stupid the TSA is I ran across Stephen Colbert filling in for Maureen Dowd on the NYTimes site. He's funny, I'm not, so go read it. Sample:

Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.

There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.

It's just a reminder

News From The Home Front

For those of you who haven't heard, which is basically the non-family-member readers of this blog, my eldest sister has been diagnosed with a serious case of lung cancer. She began treatment last Thursday. She gets to do the whole cycle, radiation and chemo. The oncologist is confident in his tools, explaining that drugs are getting better almost daily. The center whose team she is using seems to be on top of things.

For those of you developing an anecdotal statistical analysis of lung cancer, my sister never smoked.

While clearly aware of the gravity of things, my sister continues to use the word "awesome" to describe much her life. She's an active member of a church community and they are rallying. There's a mailing list to keep family and friends in the loop. I'm hopeful she'll be able to focus on being well and will be able to count on her friends for the day-to-day stuff.

I'm glad I'm self-employed; it's given me the flexibility to go to some of her appointments.

In the life goes on category, I'm in Memphis next week for the 4D conference. At this point, it'll be a pleasant distraction.

Sure, since Iraq is going so well, let's grow the war.

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration.

From the New Yorker.