monkeys and ponies

Knitty's Bigger on the Inside pattern, made in a nice Cascade Superwash variegated navy that I think looks like weathered TARDIS paint, and with an utterly screwed up lace section because I'd never knitted the stuff before and didn't realize I was supposed to alternate directions on the pattern. OOPS. Still looks lacy, though, which is the important thing. Well, that and the bit where it's done, what with my having to frog parts of the lace at least twice, plus picking up all 340 stitches for the lower part three separate times, plus frogging the lower part once.

Yeah. Glad that's done.

The backstory is that one of our routers died today, leaving us sans wireless network. Considering the number of internet-enabled devices in our home far exceeds the number of residents, even including the cats, this is a problem. (And how little am I looking forward to reconfiguring the home network? Gin may need to be involved.)

That's not how I know I live in the future. No, that's because after a long drive in pouring rain to get my first winter CSA share, I went to the mall to buy a new router. The Apple Store was packed to the gills with people, and the wait to talk to someone who could sell me anything was clearly going to be significant.

But I'd read this morning that the Apple Store had released its own app allowing you to check out your own purchases, so here's what happened:

1) Thread my way through the crowd to the back of the store, where they keep the routers.

2) Connect iPhone to store's wireless network; download Apple Store app.

3) Launch app; touch option to purchase something; get little rectangle in which I must line up the product bar code.

4) App recognizes bar code and asks me to confirm my purchase, which is charged to the credit card attached to my Apple account.

5) Receipt appears on my phone.

6) Leave store.

Total elapsed time in mall: five minutes.

And now, to go configure a network. If only it were as easy as buying the router.

Wikipedia's celebrating its tenth anniversary, so the MIT hacking community decided to join in:



( +4, after the cut )

You can tell I'm getting desperate for photos now, because I've been reduced to photographing the geekiest bookshelves in the house. (In my defense, it's been pouring outside all day, so I couldn't go shoot what I'd planned to.)

Not like anyone who knows me or columbina needs further proof of this household's geek cred, but here it is anyway:



Included on these shelves:

• a ridiculous number of Marvel and DC comics collections, including an entire shelf of virtually nothing but X-Men books
  
• a ridiculous number of other graphic novels: all the Sandman books, a whole bunch of Kyle Baker, the complete run of Cerebus (I KNOW, I KNOW, Dave Sim is a sexist pig and a monumental asshole, but at some point I do want to see how the story ends), Keith Knight collections, more Dykes to Watch Out For books than I can count ...
  
• just out of camera range, all our Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Asterix books, many in French
  
• ... and of course, the plush 20-sided die.

"No. Stop. Their logo is Copperplate. We can't shop here."

(Actually, I think Copperplate has its place, but the rest of the material in this strip is dead-on.)

Because I know this will be relevant to some people's interests: Icon Factory has some gorgeous free Star Trek icons and wallpapers available for Mac and Windows.

(via Daring Fireball)

With all the fuss about LJ layoffs, I know a lot of people are backing up their journals today. But while there are plenty of tools for Windows users to back up their LiveJournals, there are hardly any for the Mac.

Fortunately, this very handy post describes two methods Mac folks can use for LJ backups; you'll need to use the Terminal app, but bryant's instructions are clear and easy to follow. I had no problems running the two packages he suggested, and now I have everything backed up.

Well, everything except this post, that is.

Because randomcrazy wanted to hear me ramble on and on about why I love my iPhone.

( Why I love the iPhone, in bullet-point form. )

I took advantage of the tax holiday in Massachusetts this weekend and bought myself a shiny, happy little iPhone. (Its official name for iTunes syncing purposes is, in fact, Happy Little iPhone, much as the iPod is Happy Little iPod.)

It is so unbelievably cute I want to lick it. It is so beautifully designed and perfectly intuitive that I want to cry. All user interfaces should be this intelligent. I cannot believe I suffered through Symbian for a year and thought it was mostly fine, and suffered through whatever the hell Ericsson was using and thought that wasn't so bad either. Both of those are like Windows 3.1 compared to the iPhone. Even the flat screen doesn't bother me, and that was the one thing I was worried about, because I like tactile feedback to confirm I've pressed a key; the iPhone provides more than enough confirmation feedback visually.

I've set it up to talk to my Yahoo! Mail account and one of my GMail accounts (I'm still not using Apple Mail, or it would work there, too); it's connected to the home wireless network; I've transferred over a wallpaper; and most important, I have my custom ringtone back, thanks to a nice little piece of conversion freeware. Sure, it's only available in French ... but hey, I speak French, so no problem there.

(Now that I've said all this, watch, I'll have one of the 2-3% of iPhones that appear to have defective chips affecting 3G access. But for now, I'm in love.)

The Rather Difficult Font Game.

I got 31 out of 34. The game is randomized, so you may get easier choices than I did ... or you may not.