Zach Paine

Team Fortress 2 - A Heavy Update - Meet the Sandvich

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:23:20 -0400

Team Fortress 2 - A Heavy Update - Meet the Sandvich: A new unlockable for the heavy. The Heavy Update page doesn’t have a link, but I guessed the URL.

The Associated Press: College presidents seek debate on drinking age

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:36:00 -0400

The Associated Press: College presidents seek debate on drinking age:

I need to see some research on the effects of changing the legal drinking age, but my gut feeling has always been that raising the drinking age increased the amount of binge drinking in college.

The current drinking age handcuffs parents by preventing them from teaching their kids how to drink responsibly. By the time their kids are able to drink legally, the parent’s influence is greatly diminished.

MobileMe Sync Eats CPU

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:44:45 -0400

I’ve been having an issue recently where MobileMe sync (in particular, dotmacsyncclient and dmnotifyd) would spike up to 100% CPU usage, and hang indefinitely. It appears that syncing doesn’t work so well when you have HTTP proxies configured.

I turned off my HTTP proxy in System Preferences and syncing takes a matter of seconds now, and very little CPU. Apparently this is a problem that existed in earlier revisions of Leopard, was fixed, and then returned in 10.5.4.

Here’s hoping Apple fixes this bug, again.

I just don’t want to know what Vista did to this poor old...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:19:02 -0400

I just don’t want to know what Vista did to this poor old guy.

Unhappy Meals

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:32:39 -0400

Unhappy Meals:

Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health.

Learning from "bad" UI

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:07:00 -0400

Learning from "bad" UI:

37signals on the recent bashing of TripLog’s UI:

When we talk about “usable” or “intuitive” interfaces, Apple devotees and the web app crowd (myself included) tend to bias toward the first-time user. The idea is an interface is easy to use if new users can figure it out and get running quickly. Or an interface is “clear” if all the parts and functions can be immediately parsed upon eye contact. Typically this means stacking features in time so that each screen has fewer elements and is easier to digest. TripLog, while far from perfect, has a different focus. Rather than first-impressions, Patt is thinking about repetition. Spatial memory and adjacency play a major role in repetitive tasks. How many of you keep an assortment of pens, papers, and peripherals on your desk in specific positions instead of moving them in and out of drawers every day?

Father’s Day

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:00:38 -0400

Father’s Day

Big Ideas (Don’t get any) on Vimeo (via 1030)

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:27:00 -0400

Big Ideas (Don’t get any) on Vimeo (via 1030)

Alex has a fever, but is very cuddly

Sat, 24 May 2008 14:10:18 -0400

Alex has a fever, but is very cuddly

Spy Rush!: The fine folks on the MetaFilter TF2 server attempt...

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:41:16 -0400

Spy Rush!: The fine folks on the MetaFilter TF2 server attempt to win Gold Rush with all spies.

Winning Gold Rush: All the players on the MetaFilter TF2 server...

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:41:14 -0400

Winning Gold Rush: All the players on the MetaFilter TF2 server joined the blue team last night so we could see the thrilling conclusion of the Gold Rush map.

The missing finger that never was - The Guardian

Sun, 04 May 2008 19:23:02 -0400

The missing finger that never was - The Guardian: For Allison.

Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times

Sun, 04 May 2008 19:14:54 -0400

Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times:

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

The Gates Building

Fri, 02 May 2008 16:31:57 -0400

The Gates Building

Hillary Clinton Goes on the O’Reilly Factor (via Talking...

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:11:51 -0400

Hillary Clinton Goes on the O’Reilly Factor (via Talking Points Memo).

She is scary good in this clip.

Krugman on Obama

Fri, 02 May 2008 11:01:33 -0400

Paul Krugman has been on Obama’s case for a while now. Two recent articles were particularly interesting. Clinging to a Stereotype and Party of Denial.

The first column analyzes Obama’s “bitter” comment, not in terms of political consequences, but rather in terms of its veracity. Obama seems to have bought into the “What’s the Matter with Kansas” school of thought regarding working class voters, which according to Krugman, has been pretty well debunked. Krugman closes,

Indeed, the book concludes with a blistering attack on Democrats who cater to “affluent, white-collar professionals who are liberal on social issues” while “dropping the class language that once distinguished them sharply from Republicans.” Doesn’t this sound a bit like the Obama campaign?

I think Krugman has, in these columns and others, nailed what is ailing the Obama campaign right now.

Fire Alarm: I walked down 11 flights with the boy in my arms and...

Thu, 01 May 2008 19:30:51 -0400

Fire Alarm: I walked down 11 flights with the boy in my arms and then stood around until we could go back in.

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:14:59 -0400

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well: I see what they are getting at here, but I don’t think they’ve nailed it. When I say that someone is “articulate”, I don’t mean, as Webster’s defines it, “able to speak”. I reserve the word as high praise for those who are able to clearly present their ideas, a trait that is far less common than this article wants us to believe. I can count the number of articulate people I know on one hand.

Barack Obama Goes on Fox News Sunday (via Talking Points Memo). ...

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:57:43 -0400

Barack Obama Goes on Fox News Sunday (via Talking Points Memo). The interview, based on these highlights, seems pretty cordial.

SoyLatte - Port of BSD Java

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:29:18 -0400

SoyLatte - Port of BSD Java: 1.6 JDK for 32-bit Macs.