Coming in under the radar Monday was this report that the United Nations has redesigned its logo and has a new motto.
(Thanks, Michael)
Month: March 2003
“Training In Progress” cries the banner outside the new Grapevine location of P.F. Chang’s. Two minutes from the office, about 15 minutes from the house. No more half-hour-minimum drives for our favorite Chinese bistro! Chicken lettuce wraps! Chang’s Spicy Chicken! Mongolian Beef! Yum!
Even members of Congress are beginning to call them “freedom fries,” and even “freedom toast.” (Yes, I know French fries aren’t really French.)
Thanks, Rick!
Thanks to Gary and Chuq, I blew water out my nose when reading this. Highly entertaining.
You can always count on programmers to be logical. (Well, good ones, anway.) Gary Robinson sallies forth:
Saddam is today in a position where he is very, very likely to be attacked, and he is still not giving inspectors the facts. If he is not doing so now, the trivial added circumstance of the U.S. having the Security Council’s permission is obviously not going to make a significant difference to Iraq’s choices.
(via Michael)
MacMinute notes a c|net report that Hilton Hotels, Borders Books & Music, and McDonald’s are partnering with Intel to deliver WiFi (802.11b) wireless network access in various hotels and stores around the country.
Though I’m sure they’ll try to charge separately for something they should simply build in to their costs, the latter of which would help attract consumers, the only mention of pricing thus far is from McDonald’s: one hour of free access when you purchase a combo meal.
One of my favorite pieces of software has been updated. WeatherPop has been revved to version 1.7. The Advance version is only $8 and gets you:
- National Weather Service forecasts for the United States
- my.aol.com and wunderground.com forecasts for US and International users
- 3 to 5 day forecasts depending on your location
- Beautiful color icons and realistic moon phases
- Up to 3 favorite locations in addition to the your main location
- The best darn easy-to-use Mac OS X-savvy interface they could design
- 14-day trial period so you can decide if you like it before you buy
I refer to it often throughout the day, checking out other locales where I have friends and family as well. Great piece of software, so download it, register it, and support a Macintosh developer.
John Gruber makes an outstanding case for one of the few things I don’t like about Safari.
One thing that Safari has gotten wrong ever since it debuted is that it applies anti-aliasing to all typefaces, including small monospaced fonts such as 9- and 10-point Monaco.
Yes, yes, the Mac OS X zeitgeist is such that anti-aliasing is everywhere. But small-point monospaced fonts are the exception to the rule, for good reason. Monospaced typefaces are an anachronism, a throw-back to the typewriter era. They are, for most purposes, ugly; their metrics contradict the basic precepts of proper typesetting. With regular (non-monospaced) fonts, small punctuation marks such as commas and apostrophes fit snugly next to adjacent alphabetic characters; punctuation is intended to be subtle. But with a monospaced font, every character consumes the same amount of horizontal space on the line; it’s downright silly that an apostrophe should consume the same space as an “m.”
Downright silly, perhaps, but I find a certain elegance in monospaced fonts. After all, look at my logo and tagline!
I differ with Gruber only in his observation of Geneva in Camino versus Safari: I think Geneva looks better in Safari, though, I admit, at the same point size, it is slightly less readable than in Camino.
I’m finding more and more stuff that makes me antsy for my forthcoming MessagePad 2100…
One day before the NHL’s trading deadline, the Stars make some moves to set themselves up for their run for the Stanley Cup. Currently second overall, Dallas traded big Sami Helenius (and “future considerations”) to Chicago for playoff-experienced Lyle Odelein. Prospect Mike Ryan and a 2d-round draft pick go to Buffalo in exchange for Stu Barnes.
Brian and I agree that the Stu Barnes trade is a good one, and the gritty forward will help fill the gap left by an injured Bill Guerin, as well as add depth to Dallas’ lines. We’re a little torn over the defensive trade, as we’re both big Sami fans. He has a great presence on the ice, and it’s unfortunate that the Stars will have to face off against him in the future. On the plus side, there is young John Erskine waiting in the wings. Erskine exhibits very Hatcher-esque qualities, qualities that have made the Stars’ captain one of the top defensemen in the league. Erskine has been up from the minors a few times over the past two years, mostly to fill in during injuries to starting defensemen, and has shown he is a force to be reckoned with.
So, nothing huge in the way of trades, but that’s not surprising when it comes to the Stars. They pretty much have had all the major pieces they need for a playoff run, and just needed to fill in some gaps. Go Stars!