heyotwell's blog

Noting this here just in case I'm right: my prediction for a super-secret feature of OS X Leopard to be shown off next week at WWDC? Quicksilver becomes part of OS X. Why? Because there have been no releases of it since January, and the developer barely says a word on the forums, and because its one of the most unique and popular applications for the Mac around, one of those things that is incredibly useful for both casual and power users, and which has absolutely no equivalent on Windows. I predict it'll be added as some kind of upgrade to Spotlight.    

I sure don't blog much anymore at heyotwell.com. Here is a little list of some things:

Reading recently:

The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products

The End of Mr. Y

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900

Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action

"Design of things to come" was not bad, though a little in love with its own ideas. I'm liking "The Shock of the Old" a lot (thanks Mike M!). I am also benefiting almost hourly building mockups using Prototype; the "in Action" book is really quite good, one of the best advanced Javascript books out there as well. Just started "The End of Mr. Y" yesterday, but I love me a good story about the 4th dimension, this one seems like fun.

Listening:

We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Future Clouds & Radar

When you go out to eat, how do you pick where to go?
Submitted by Kristine.

A friend of ours is a restaurant critic, so we've been out a few times to places we wouldn't have tried otherwise (and a couple we won't go back to). We're still new enough to Seattle that pretty much everything's still new, and there are probably twenty beloved Seattle restaurants we haven't gotten around to yet. 

We just watched Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which I'd been looking forward to. Phew, what a bad movie, not at all funny. 

Two weeks after we gave up on it entirely, Studio 60 is going away for good. I'd really hoped this would be good, and at first it was...but man, if you are writing a show about a comedy show, can't it occasionally be funny? Shouldn't the characters at least sort of seem like they could be funny people? Shouldn't the rare glimpses of the fictional show feel a bit realistic? The whole thing felt like a show about TV by someone who didn't actually watch TV And the characters romances just seemed like excuses for "witty" "banter". The last straw was the "flashback" episode to 6 years ago--lookee the oldee fashioned laptops!--it was just cringe-inducing.

"7:00 AM:  Breakfast with my sons.  Ended up doing a product comparison review of the various cereals we had in our pantry. Sugar does beat the natural stuff and my suspicions about the impact of packaging on the post purchase experience were spot on.  It turns out the box does matter."

Now come on, Microsoft can't seriously be calling it "squirting", can they? "It's brown and it squirts", says one review. "I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation," says Ballmer. So it would be "welcome to the squirting social," then? I think this guy is probably squirting right now.

I can't begin to convey how uncomfortable all of this makes me feel. 

I think imaboutta die: the Shins finally have the first single from their new album up, and it's great! Phantom Limb is on their myspace page and is now in my brain.  It's been, what, three years since the last record? I really hope this new record's longer than 35 minutes.

Wow, so it's Jeffrey? We should have known that little controversy in the last episodes was just to mess with us. His stuff really was impressive, though, and he seems to have a bigger range than we thought. And oh my sainted aunts, look at Jeffery's myspace page, one of the most incomprehensible I've ever seen. (By the way, I totally love Bravo's distorted-grid website.)

I'm not sure I see what was so good about Ulli's work, though I do get the backhanded compliments that "every woman would want to buy those clothes." But poor Michael, what happened? His clothes just looked trashy...I mean, come on, "Street Safari"? All season long, he was just kicking ass, doing such clever and good work.