l-dopa

OK, so I’m kind of a font nerd; that’s why it’s a little exciting to me that there are six new fonts in Microsoft’s upcoming new operating system, and even more excitingly, they are all qualitatively better than Comic Sans! Download them here, they’ll work on Windows or Mac OS X.

My quick take: Calibri is a decent update to Arial Rounded, Cambria is deadly dull like Georgia, Candara is goony but ultimately harmless like Trebuchet, Consolas *is* Monaco (and why wouldn’t it be, Monaco is one of the best small point size fonts ever), Constantia is an ok update to Palatino, and Corbel is a subtle take on Myriad.

What’s up with all the c-words, though; that’s a terribly stupid naming convention which just begs confusion.

~jeff

…unless someone else can do better?

~jeff

WidgetTerm, a handy pop-up terminal window.

~jeff

Jeff to Sarah:

Josh and I were talking the other day and he seems to think you are
a suicide girl. I say you aren’t, yet. Who’s right?

~Perfectly Perplexed in Porthampton, Passachusetts

Sarah to Jeff:

>Pear PP in PP,
>
>Pi still have not. i pseem to be TOO plazy to take some pictures.
>sigh. soon, pthough.
>
>perhaps you have a suggestion as to a theme. the only rules are that
>you start out clothed, and end up naked. i’ve thought about doing a
>fire one. . . probably that would be my best bet. . . but if you have
>any suggestions, they are more than welcome. :)
>
>~psincerely, psarah

Jeff to Sarah:

Your theme: “The Galveston Hurricane”. I believe it will be sexy *and* educational. Long considered the deadliest
hurricane in U.S. history, it caused an estimated 6000-8000 deaths in
the year 1900. You play a sexxxy daguerreotype-maker who is outside
in the storm trying to quickly create a news daguerreotype of a Texas
orphanage blowing away, but as you work, each piece of clothing is
stripped away by the gusting winds, piece by piece, until you are
completely naked and for some reason bending over and sucking on a
lollypop.

Oh, and, you’re welcome.

~jeff

A cool and free sampling audio unit. I haven’t played around with it yet, but I will.

~jeff

…. if everyone just stopped saying “Podcast” for a couple of minutes.

http://www.eggandmuffintoaster.com/

Long time friend of ldopa Sarah Bansak writes in:

…hit the blog link. which i’m enjoying (though truth be told, i’m
mostly just reading your entries. luckily, i’d already suffered
through that hipster article last week. note that I live in the heart
of the scene she complains about.) however, i noticed that tucker has
posted that lyrics born is 1/2 of blackalicious. which is just wrong.
he’s 1/2 of Latyrx, and he is featured in a few blackalicious songs.
but at least he’s recommending good music, so I probably shouldn’t
complain. ;)

…thanks, Sarah, good to know. Send more sexy pics.

~jeff

The Island’s not a bad movie. It talks about interesting stuff: corporate misspent government money, cloning and medical ethics in the age of biotech, and humanity’s crisis in the face of impending posthumanity.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty much Logan’s Run, Blade Runner, and a handful of other good science fiction movies from the 70s and 80s. Logan 5 becomes Lincoln 6 Echo. Jessica becomes Jordan. And so on. There are scraps of Blade Runner dialogue here and there, too, but you know what?

It works out for the best.

By knocking off a bunch of creative movies, it is, of course, less creative, but the source material’s so good, and it’s drawn from so selectively, that it works out to be a decent movie. It didn’t need as much stuff blowing up, but the plot’s not bad. I just wish there was less technobabble when they were talking about the technology that makes the story happen. We all recognize a McGuffin when we see it, but you don’t have to rub our noses in it.

Also, Scarlett Johannson is real purdy.

Enough time has passed that there have been some genuinely useful Mac OS X 10.4 dashboard widgets released. Here’s some of my favorites:

Symphonic. This should have been built into Apple’s iTunes widget, but it’s worth using them both in conjunction. Type a song, hit return, and it plays. Pretty simple, works well.

Radar in Motion. Shows a semi-real-time weather radar map of your area. It’s nice to use when you look at Apple’s Weather widget and know it’s gonna rain, but it would be additionally nice to know if that means it’s gonna rain in three minutes, or three hours.

SingThatiTune. Grabs lyrics for the currently playing song. And does a very nice job of it, too.

Wikipedia. I still like the Wikipedia more in theory than in practice, but this is an exceptionally well designed widget.

Marquee. Gets local movie times. My only problem with this widget is that it is honkingly huge, with no way to keep it active but minimized.

Now Playing. Now this is just *cool*; it shows me what’s been recorded and what’s currently recording on my Tivo. However, it also suffers from the honkingly huge syndrome, but not as badly as this similar but not as pretty widget, which does the same thing but provides full show synopses as well.

Archive Films. This is another one I enjoy more in theory than in practice, but just the fact that you can get easy access to entire streamed movies via dashboard (even if they are all old and way cruddy) is amazing.

Speaking of widgets, here’s a shocker; Yahoo has bought Konfabulator and is giving it away free.

~jeff