さっちゃんのお気に入りフモフモさんだ。でも、ケローニョ以外そんなに可愛くないと思う。
フモフモさん同盟までもあるらしい。
2006-01-23
2006-01-22
OS X Wallpaper
While I was looking for an OS X Tiger image, I found Google's image gallery to be very useful. Unfortunately, quite a few pictures were non-existent by the time I hit the link. There's one with Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes, but it seems to have disappeared. I'm trying to get it from the Internet Archive, but it's slow going.
There's a Japanese guy on .Mac who has a bunch of interesting pin ups involving Apple products (and like me uses Yahoo! BB). Some of it's really funny and imaginative, but the anime-style girls could be a bit cuter. If someone would translate these into Betty Page-type cheesecake, on the other hand....
I also found this interesting unrelated CG art print that is kinda cool.
There's a Japanese guy on .Mac who has a bunch of interesting pin ups involving Apple products (and like me uses Yahoo! BB). Some of it's really funny and imaginative, but the anime-style girls could be a bit cuter. If someone would translate these into Betty Page-type cheesecake, on the other hand....
I also found this interesting unrelated CG art print that is kinda cool.
2006-01-21
U.S. T-Shirts
Here's an interesting site that makes t-shirts in the U.S.: American Apparel (note the .net; there's a different company whose domain is .com). They sell wholesale. Hmm, just need to find a quality screen printer, or learn how to do it myself....
2006-01-20
Animate! Ohio State
Just so I don't forget the new URL.... http://www.animateosu.org/ is it, after the old server, soyokaze.biosci.ohio-state.edu, was retired from service.
It's amazing how much the old OSU anime club folks were involved in propagating interest in anime over the past 10-15 years. Too bad I wasn't more involved with the non-mundane stuff. I think I maybe timed an episode of something once, copied a few tapes, and hung thousands of flyers. I suppose fandom is not an industry of glory.
But that was many moons ago. Now I don't have time to watch video of any kind anymore, and even if I had the time, I'd spend it doing something else. Like going into business.
Oh yeah, the infamous fansubbing organization, Lost in Translation (whose punned moniker predates the movie of the same name, is also located on the new A!OS server and is apparently back in action. Their version of subs for Mononoke Hime is actually better than the one on the official DVD!
It's amazing how much the old OSU anime club folks were involved in propagating interest in anime over the past 10-15 years. Too bad I wasn't more involved with the non-mundane stuff. I think I maybe timed an episode of something once, copied a few tapes, and hung thousands of flyers. I suppose fandom is not an industry of glory.
But that was many moons ago. Now I don't have time to watch video of any kind anymore, and even if I had the time, I'd spend it doing something else. Like going into business.
Oh yeah, the infamous fansubbing organization, Lost in Translation (whose punned moniker predates the movie of the same name, is also located on the new A!OS server and is apparently back in action. Their version of subs for Mononoke Hime is actually better than the one on the official DVD!
Gold Is Up
Gold is up to over $550 an ounce. Nuts. Just when I was thinking about buying some more, the price spiked on me to $450, and it's been going up since. It's all this damned economic uncertainty that had me looking to buy more too. Silver is up considerably too. Looks like the stock market is too shaky for some investors. Almost all of my stocks are up, however....
Sobering commentary about the U.S. economy in an article on Kitco. On the other hand, there's bogus price target article there, too, so this must be taken with a grain of salt. (Takedown: First of all, the x-axis is inconsistent: there are multiple entries per year as well as omitted years. Second, there is no statistical support in that graph for a long upswing. From the bottom of the last cycle in 2001, gold prices were increasing at $25/yr. Lately it's been more, so the extrapolation is by no means linear. Even if it were linear, there's no guarantee how long the upswing would continue. The thing that bugs me about gold investment is that there's a lot of unreliable commentary made about it. That's not to say it doesn't happen on Wall Street, of course, but they tend to be more rigorous with their graphs.)
There's also an article on MarketWatch regarding the gold prices. One thing I never understood was why investors, both individual and institutional, insist on buying issues of things that were already well into their ascent upward. That just means they missed the boat, and may be buying at prices too high. Gold is different from typical paper securities, I suppose, in that it has the attractiveness of usefulness even in the face of economic collapse.
Well, with the volatility of the gold price lately, I'm sure there's money to be made in timing the short cycles.
Sobering commentary about the U.S. economy in an article on Kitco. On the other hand, there's bogus price target article there, too, so this must be taken with a grain of salt. (Takedown: First of all, the x-axis is inconsistent: there are multiple entries per year as well as omitted years. Second, there is no statistical support in that graph for a long upswing. From the bottom of the last cycle in 2001, gold prices were increasing at $25/yr. Lately it's been more, so the extrapolation is by no means linear. Even if it were linear, there's no guarantee how long the upswing would continue. The thing that bugs me about gold investment is that there's a lot of unreliable commentary made about it. That's not to say it doesn't happen on Wall Street, of course, but they tend to be more rigorous with their graphs.)
There's also an article on MarketWatch regarding the gold prices. One thing I never understood was why investors, both individual and institutional, insist on buying issues of things that were already well into their ascent upward. That just means they missed the boat, and may be buying at prices too high. Gold is different from typical paper securities, I suppose, in that it has the attractiveness of usefulness even in the face of economic collapse.
Well, with the volatility of the gold price lately, I'm sure there's money to be made in timing the short cycles.
2006-01-07
Dashboard Widgets
Make:Blog also has an entry about constructing an RSS widget. Funky how those things are internally. I didn't realize they were basically Dynamic HTML. No wonder Dashboard is so damn slow!! Anyway, there are useful links to Apple widget info: Dashboard Tutorial and Dashboard Reference.
MakeBot
Make magazine is cool. There was a post on the Weblog chief's blog, which also linked to coverage about CES, about MakeBot. MakeBot sends the latest links from Make via AIM at configurable intervals. Neat.
2006-01-01
東京トイレマップ
Many moons ago, I saw the funniest graffiti on a website documenting the locations, conditions, and artwork of public toilets around Tokyo. By complete coincidence, I ran across the site again, called Tokyo Toilet Map, again a couple days ago. The beautiful piece of graffiti is here (not suitable for work).
日本語版はメイン。英語版より地図が細かいし、日本語でのコメントのほうが面白い。
日本語版はメイン。英語版より地図が細かいし、日本語でのコメントのほうが面白い。
OS X for x86 Howto
To avoid being hitched to the TCM ball-and-chain, there's the warez'ed pre-release OS X for x86. I found this guide on how to install the hacked OS on Intel-based machines. There's a release of the howto for the 10.4.3 binaries as well. One just has to manage the 4GB download.... A Russian site has various patches and installations. There's also the OSx86 Project site that has news, forums, a wiki, and other such stuff for consumption.
Okaya Electronics and Ricoh's mini-ITX
I was looking for electronics parts stores in Japan, and ended up checking out Okaya Electronics's site. That wasn't what I was looking for, but they're apparently selling a mini-ITX alternative to Via's boards. The board is made by Ricoh, which I didn't know produced such items. Anyway, the board has GbE, SATA, and a LVDS port. Funky. Now I just need to find a place that sells cheap LVDS-compatible LCD screens....
GPG for OS X
So I started using PGP's commercial product, but then got to thinking, since this is closed source, I don't know if they've built in hooks for the government to decrypt one's messages. Actually, it'd be naive to think that the government didn't require that of PGP Corp. Therefore, I'm looking into open source options for my encryption, whereby I can compile the stuff myself. The point is to not let a government less and less interested with maintaining the rights of its citizens have access to my communications, for whatever reason.
The open source option is GNU Privacy Guard, abbreviated GPG. Another one of those great open source pun acronyms. There is a version of GPG for OS X, but it's command-line only. From there, one needs a front-end for the OS X mail application, Mail.app. There's a Mail.app plug-in called GPGMail that fills this gap.
There are expedient download links for these two applications, GPG for OS X and GPGMail, but unless one builds the apps oneself, that defeats the purpose of using this open source software.
The open source option is GNU Privacy Guard, abbreviated GPG. Another one of those great open source pun acronyms. There is a version of GPG for OS X, but it's command-line only. From there, one needs a front-end for the OS X mail application, Mail.app. There's a Mail.app plug-in called GPGMail that fills this gap.
There are expedient download links for these two applications, GPG for OS X and GPGMail, but unless one builds the apps oneself, that defeats the purpose of using this open source software.
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