RyanHarne.com

I had very little motivation to move myself away from the bed this morning. An infrared camera would have shown that just inches above the covers the temperature began to plummet. Why should I submit myself to my typical Tuesday morning ride when Mother Nature would seek revenge for my bitterness last week? By the time I had suited up and left the house, the temperature stood at 28ºF. When I arrived home an hour and a half later, it was 36ºF.

What’s clear, I discovered, is that I am ill-equipped for cold hands. I had two pairs of gloves, but the liners still surrendered to the wind of high speeds. As I began to climb, and my racing through the wind backed off considerably, it was obvious that I was regaining feeling in my fingers. So, new, winter-worthy gloves are on the to-do list.

Traces of determination and discipline are hidden in me, I warn you. I enjoyed the weird looks a few motorists gave me as I was departing town. However, given the peacefulness of the morning, none of the weird looks appeared to border on angst. Angst leads to rage. Leads to Hit-And-Runs. No good.

It’s a wonderful feeling breathing heavily, with condensing air fuming from your mouth, as you crest the mountain back to town. Forcing the cold on yourself is the best method to appreciate being warm-blooded. Plus, only warm-blooded creatures are able to blog, as far as I know.

There was a midnight viewing of The Shining last night (this morning?) at The Lyric theater. I imagined the place would be packed, given the Halloween weekend, but the reality was that maybe 40 people sat in their clusters around the otherwise barren theater. This was a new movie for me and I expected a lot because 1) it is by Kubrick and 2) it is a horror film shot long before the advent of shock-scare tactics. Two really good examples of the movies prior to shock-scare would be The Silence of the Lambs and Psycho (both of which I can actually watch multiple times, contrary to most horror films). These films succeed so completely because they build up suspense without needless violence or nightmare-inducing grotesqueness. Shock-scare is an easy method for frightening an audience because it causes your “primitive” instincts to kick in - a directorial maneuver designed to attack your subconscious levels that you otherwise haven’t exercised enough in your lifetime to have a regimented control over. Shock-scare frequently leads to or encourages nightmares because our typically “civilized” world is practically rid of frightening run-for-your-life-or-die scenarios. And we have air-conditioning. So, you know.

The Shining was truly amazing. Suspense, dread, absolute fear. I really enjoyed that movie. And, perhaps for the first time, I didn’t walk away looking over my shoulder. Maybe because the film revolves around an inward destruction that becomes externalized, rather than a nutcase intent on needless slaughter. If you haven’t seen it, and aren’t keen on scary movies, then I would actually recommend this since it is less likely to stick with you, as modern horror films are wont to do.

I rode just shy of 60 miles this morning in some cold weather. But, on my grocery run tonight I absolutely froze. What happened to autumn? And where are my earmuffs…

There is an enormous party going on nextdoors, so enormous that it sounds like the bass reverberations are coming from upstairs when they are visibly coming from 511. To combat the bass, my roommate and I decided to play my Boston Acoustics subwoofer demo track, typically used to show off the reach of a new home theater subwoofer to drooling customers. It has a constant 20Hz tone in it that shakes anything, in addition to a bass-featuring track.

We played it as loud as our living room could handle. The 20Hz tone was shaking the floor foundations, a piece of paper laid on it would flutter. When the four minutes were over, next door became even louder. But I’m in no mood for more. They will tire out by the time I’d ready to lay myself to sleep. And if not, there’s always the cops who are just down the street. They’re typically eager for something to bust.

Now that I think of it, we have a subsonic subwoofer in the lab (can play 5-20Hz). Subsonic tones aren’t actually heard as much as they are felt. And not really felt, but subconsciously intercepted. You “hear” a 10Hz tone and you feel nauseous. That’s pretty much what it’s like. Oh well. Next door is getting louder by the song.

Yes, I read the blogs. And I keep in touch with my electronic mails. The Last Minute Blog found a great video to show you, yes you, how to make the dreamlife of your dreams.

Within my RSS reader are my most cherished news and blogging sources. For years now, I think ever since I began using NetNewsWire to grab RSS, I have subscribed to TLMB. Duncan Rawlinson, the blogger, has an incredible ability to find the best links are articles on the web, or at least grab them from others as I do. His Flickr account isn’t too shabby either.

Speaking of Flickr, I decided to cease posting photos after post-processing to the Photos page (see sidebar) and will instead make my life easy and throw whatever I like up to Flickr. It occurred to me that, when it comes to photos, quantity trumps quality in the internet age; high-speed webpage loading makes flipping through hundreds of pics incredibly simple and it’s nice to see a grander picture in the form of 1,000 photos than one photo and 1,000 words. I also plan on grabbing a pro account soon.

Anyways. You might want to add TLBW to your RSS grabber, too. Rawlinson is also a 5+ year-long blogger like myself, but who’s keeping score?*

*I’m keeping score.

I understand the crisis of global warming and I feel that I have a reasonable comprehension of the collective human wallop in the Earth’s gut. But, as one of the more reflective and conscientious American objectors to the standard human-to-globe impacts, I feel that the earth and nature owe me something.

For instance, I love the rain. And riding my bike to classes and meetings around in the rain today was unusually enjoyable. Though my jeans were soaked and I had to stand atop a building heater exhaust vent to dry off, the experience was relaxing for a Wednesday afternoon. Then, I get out my cellphone from inside my water-proofed messenger bag; I began rapidly typing using T-9; and, then, my buttons progressively stopped responding.

Ok, so, granted, I was standing out in the rain. But, I assume Motorola had that type of user environment in mind when they stress and temperature and humidity tested my phone - any respectable phone manufacturer would clearly anticipate that not all cellphone users operate their devices in the ideal, bunny suit vacuum. So, who’s to blame?

That’s right. Mother Nature. Her specific targeting of me and my phone at that moment in time is insufferable. Dehumidifying my phone could precipitate a downtime in the range of 4, 5, or even 6 hours - a not-inconsequential productivity loss. This is inexcusable.

I should bike to WalMart, buy a window air conditioner unit, travel back to campus, find an open outlet in some empty classroom, and chill that room down right. That’ll teach her.

After speaking with the managers at VT’s official bookstores, they have decided to sell Mac OS X Leopard for the $69 price instead of the $116 educational price. Us poor people can now take a sigh of relief.

This week was too busy for me to go through the 300+ New Features page for Leopard. But, now that the Friday rain is keeping me inside, I have had two chances to cover the full web terrain. Watch me geek out at the small things.

Boot Camp: When the Leopard website received its overhaul this past summer regarding features, one of them was that you could click on Apple and then beside “Restart” there would be an option of “Restart into Windows”. Then, a week later, the feature (and screenshot of this) was pulled from Apple’s website. Now, it’s back. I loathe having to wait to hold down the option key. Windows takes a long time to boot, so I would rather the leave the room and refill my glass of water than hold Option and wait.

DVD Player: It can now float above all windows even if you need to be working on another document while watching. Great. Now, this feature needs to be added to both iTunes video windows and Quicktime and I’ll be set. Also, what’s this “Scratched Disc Recovery” that’s mentioned?

iCal: Unfortunately, none of these new collaboration features make any sense unless all of the people you are working with are using Mac (as far as I can tell) and are also as obsessive compulsive as you with your calendar. I live by my iCal, so the new interface might assist me. I just wish I could get more out of the program but most other engineering colleagues #1) use PCs, #2) barely maintain any calendaring in Outlook, and #3) typically rely on their memory to make it to an event. Such a pain.

iChat: Tabbed chatting takes all of the fun out of Exposé. I will resist it, if it is an option. And “Hide Local Video”: Thank You, Apple. I’m sick of always sneaking a peek at my mug and then wanting to flex my neck muscles to look cooler. Seriously, it’s an issue.

Instruments: I don’t even understand what this is, but, oftentimes, the strangest technical apps in OS X are the most useful (see: Grapher, an application so wonderful but forgotten that it can’t even be located on Apple’s own website apart from hearsay).

Mail: Finally, To-Dos and Notes! I am the token forgetful person that Steve Jobs spoke about at this year’s WWDC, one who emails himself quick action items and notes. Whether this was successfully incorporated into iCal or Mail, I never cared, as long as it can happen. The current To-Dos in iCal are miserable to access and make the iCal window even smaller in month view.

Printing: Printer Drivers via Software Update. This should make the Leopard installation take half the time of Tiger. I’m sure of that.

Quick Look: I think CoverFlow is neat, but it is very inconvenient for the way I assess files (lots at a time, in detail view). Browsing through my PDFs without fully opening Preview is going to be a blessing.

Spaces: Yeah, I used Virtual Desktop for about a year. Hated it. I always want to see the edges of application windows behind my current workspace so I have a basic impression of what’s going on. I am a lover of Exposé and Apple+Tab, not jumping around workspaces.

Spotlight: “Calculations in Spotlight” - this was the headline that literally made me smile. I hope it recognizes things like “sqrt” and “abs” and “log10″ because I use those all the time in Excel.

TextEdit: The new features are ok. I just wanted to reiterate how much I am dependent on TextEdit. Want to know why I love TextEdit? Restart your Mac. Spotlight “texted” and it will appear fairly quickly. Then select it. Watch how long it takes to open. Then, close TextEdit. Now, Spotlight “word”. Open Word. Watch how long it takes to load. Pages isn’t that much better than Word in this respect. TextEdit fulfills my requirement for a super low system resource-using word processor. I’m just weird like that.

Time Machine: Speaking of low system resource using, I have waited for an auto-backup feature like this but have always been concerned about how it is updating its catalogue of files. If this kills your performance when open (and using intense stuff like Photoshop or my iPhoto library), then forget it. I’ll go back to manual backups.

Universal Access: I sense that the auto-header/table/link discoverer will make moving through my daily list of blogs a lot easier. The “Hot Spots” idea sounds very interesting. It took me a while to figure out how to use Automator to my advantage; I wonder if I can get anything out this.

It’s exhausting being a geek.