Mathematically Correct Breakfast

An ideal knife could enter on the black line and come out exactly opposite, on the red line. But in practice, it is easier to cut in halfway on both the black line and the red line. The cutting surface is a two-twist Mobius strip; it has two sides, one for each half. After being cut, the two halves can be moved but are still linked together, each passing through the hole of the other. (So when you buy your bagels, pick ones with the biggest holes.)

Previously, previously.

Totally wiped out trying to cross the useless fucking train tracks on Townsend. First time I've done that in nine years. Fuck this weather.

I'm kinda confused about how I landed flat on my back but ended up with road rash on my palms...

Persistent rumor has it that the only reason that the useless menace of those tracks on Townsend (that run less than a block, and terminate right in front of the Adobe building) still exist is that Caltrain's contract specifies that if they don't make use of those tracks, ownership of that right-of-way reverts to the City. So once a month, they very methodically roll a train down the street... then roll it back. "See? We're 'using' it", they say, and no Caltrain bureaucrat gets a black mark on their record for having accidentally reduced the amount of real estate under their control. [citation needed]

Indeed.

...
else if (c == "'") {
  this.consumeChar();
  value = ['list', [['symbol', 'quote']]];
  value[1].push(this.parseExpression());
} ...

Previously, previously, previously.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.

Ok, first of all, the iPhone 3GS is a great phone. Having used it for a couple months, it's now even more abundantly clear what a categorical piece of shit the Palm Pre was. Why did I put up with that for so long? Stockholm Syndrome?

But of course I have complaints.

1. It never seems to delete mail from the server. I'm using Pop3s, and I have the iPhone mail client set to "Deleted messages: remove after 1 day"; "Delete from server: when removed from Inbox" (and I've also tried "Seven days"). The mail client itself only shows me about a day's worth of messages, but they are never expired from the server, even when they've expired off the phone's list. I don't understand how I'm expected to keep my mail server from filling up. From earlier experiments, I do not believe that "deleting" messages on the phone does anything other than move them to a phone-side Trash folder. But if I'm expected to do that, that's just impractical. That would mean that the first thing I'd have to do every morning when I woke up was swipe away the 200+ messages that arrived during the night.

2. Since there's no sane way to delete or mark messages read on the phone, because I'm not willing to click 200 times to do it, the way I use the mail reader is to just leave all of the messages unread and in Inbox, and when I'm out and about and want to check my mail, I just read until I've seen a message that I have read already. This is stupid, but it's the only way I've found that is even remotely practical.

3. When the phone is sleeping and a notification appears (SMS, alarm, etc.) there is no way to dismiss / acknowledge that notification without typing my password to unlock the phone first. Why can't I just double-click it or something? And if I don't dismiss it, then it thinks I haven't seen it and keeps reminding me. That's really annoying. (The repeating reminders are good, the hoops you have to jump through to ack them is bad.)

4. Entering new events in the calendar is insanely convoluted. On PalmOS (and WebOS) you went to the calendar, clicked on the hour where you wanted the event, typed the event name, and you were done. Zero superfluous clicks. On the iPhone, you have to click New Event, click Edit Date, select the time off of an annoying scrolly wheel, click Done, click Edit Name, type, click Done, and then click Done again. WTF!

5. Why is there still no "iChat" on the iPhone? BeejiveIM seems to be the best option, but it kind of sucks. Constant "your screen name is signed in from 2 locations" messages. Frequent "connection reset by peer" messages. I often discover that it decided to hang up on all of my accounts, so I haven't been getting messages sent to my phone.

6. There's no "attach" button when you're sending mail. The only easy way to send a photo is to initiate that action from the Photos or Camera app (in which case the photo is scaled down to 800x600, and you can only send exactly one photo). If you go into Photos and copy a photo, you can paste it into Mail and it will send it full sized; but you can only copy one at a time, by switching back and forth between the Photos and Mail apps for each one, which is really tedious.

7. It takes too much clicking to tell it to forget a WiFi network, after you have connected to one that turned out to be useless. (Which happens quite a lot in this town.) Every "connection failed" dialog should have a "Forget this WiFi network" button on it.

8. There's no way to use a custom ring tone for SMS messages, calendar alerts, or in fact anything except voice calls. WTF.

9. Every time you sync, the music player turns off "Shuffle". WTF.

10. The whole cut-and-paste mechanism really is insanely janky.

11. The on-screen keyboard is bullshit.

Other than that, it's pretty good. It's fast, and it mostly just works.

Apps I like:

• BeejiveIM (best IM client of a bad bunch)
• Edge (like marble madness)
• Eyegore's Eye Blast (like Bubbels with spinny inertia)
• I Love Katamari
• iBART (faster than the web site)
• iSSH (the way it handles keys is very nice)
• Now Playing (movie listings)
• OpenTable
• Photoshop Mobile
• Remote (controls iTunes)
• Shazam (music identifier)
• Sol Free (solitaire)
• Taxi Magic
• Wikipanion (faster than the web site)

I have been typing dirty words and body parts into Google Patents for some time now, trying to decide what to order. Please point out to me your favorite patent illustrations. For example... I'm afraid I will be paralyzed by choice like I was when trying to decide which velvet painting to commission...

Rabbits Milked for Human Protein

Pharming has been milking rabbits experimentally for years, and recently developed a drug called Rhucin from the rabbit milk-derived C1 inhibitor protein. If the drug is approved in Europe, Pharming would start milking a herd of about a thousand rabbits.

The rabbits are milked using mini pumping machines that attach to the female rabbits' teats. The method "can roughly be compared to cow milking, but of course on a smaller scale," de Vries said. And like dairy cows, the rabbits stay relaxed and appear to suffer no discomfort during milking.

Gene Doctors Milk Mice; Yield Human Breast Milk Protein

Thanks to human genes spliced into their genome, the mice are the first genetically modified animals to produce lactoferrin. This human breast milk protein protects babies from viruses and bacteria while the infants' immune systems are still developing.

To milk mice, the research team had to anaesthetize the rodents and use specially adapted pumps fitted to their tiny teats.

Previously, previously.

The footage and Linnman's report made the evening news and eventually found its way into the national media, something that only earned him $90 extra bucks and $110 for Brazil "because he had a better union than I did apparently."

"When it airs now, it's kind of tough for me to watch. I don't think it's that good and I've got four grown sons who are able to repeat any part of that story word for word and they do so frequently just to bug me," Linnman said with a laugh.

Someone just used the email form on the Stop the War on Fun site to send this gem. I assume it's an attempt at spam? Well, if it's a legitimate question, I'm sure someone on the SF Board of Supervisors can help them. They seem like people who would be knowledgeable about cell phones.

From: addesee <jansuto+dikige@gmail.com>

To: Gavin.Newsom@sfgov.org, Mark.Leno@sen.ca.gov, Bob.Hartnagel@sen.ca.gov, Tom.Ammiano@asm.ca.gov, Tara.Mesick@asm.ca.gov, Heather.Fong@sfgov.org, sfpd.online@sfgov.org, George.Gascon@sfgov.org, sfpd.commission@sfgov.org, Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org, Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org, David.Chiu@sfgov.org, Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org, Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org, Chris.Daly@sfgov.org, Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org, Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org, David.Campos@sfgov.org, Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org, John.Avalos@sfgov.org

Subject: Stop the War on Fun
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:34:12 -0800 (PST)

Zip code: 123456

I recently acquired an unlocked iphone 3G. I'm sort of new to cell phones, but i know the plan i want. It is a pay as you o rogers plan. How exactly do i activate my phone with pay as you go.

And this one that I received last night is equally puzzling. How does this spam turn into money? Needless to say, there is no such discount offer and we've never heard of these people, so how does trying to piss off my customers with a lie help them? Why would they send this? There were no links.

From: Mike <infoanswer@eadvertise1.com>
Date: November 30, 2009 12:39:01 AM PST
To: booking@dnalounge.com
Subject: DNA Lounge,
Reply-To: Support@eadvertise1.com

Save 10% on your next visit to DNA Lounge.

Located at 375 11th St, San Francisco.

Print this page and bring it with you for a 10% Savings.

(for details click on clientservices@ecouponsads.com and Send)

To Opt-out put Unsubscribe on the Subject line and return.

YOU ARE NOT COMPETENT ENOUGH TO BE A SPAMMER!
How does that make you feel?