Pop culture images, rendered in the isometric perspective. I just thought it an interesting concept. Also expropriated from David Morford.
11:57:34 PM  #  comment []

Malling!

In poetry collection news, I picked up Anne Carson’s Glass, Irony and God on the strength of “The Fall of Rome” and Hayden Carruth’s Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey. I forewent Louise Gluck’s Vita Nuova and Geoffrey Hill’s Speech! Speech!, but will probably reconsider in the next week.

The Apple Store is offering an “Apple Store Pro Card.” Sigh. I don’t know how much, but the one day of ten percent off on software is looking attractive, especially with my Adobe suite (of which I only use Illustrator and Photoshop regularly) still stuck in the flakily emulated OS 9, and other software I really really want. But then there’s the G5 coming up soon.

Sigh. Must resist urge to translate dissatisfaction into purchases.
10:17:45 PM  #  comment []

Recently started searching for my old copies of Elementals and Coventry after picking up the graphic novel Fables: Legends in Exile, collecting issues one through five of Williamson’s new Vertigo series. I keep seeing little things in the dialogue and panel layouts that remind me of his earlier work, like Colin running around in the foreground and background while the main action is happening elsewhere in the scene. I couldn’t find anything, though, to verify my thoughts. Sigh. I enjoyed both of those comics while they lasted.

Anyway, came across some old New Teen Titans issues, the stuff from which the Teen Titans cartoon series will be based. I had forgotten how risque Koriandr’s outfit was; the cartoon tones it down into a teenybopper tube top it seems. Kid Flash doesn’t seem to feature in the promos. The cartoon also seems to put them at a much younger age than the comic book, making the Robin/Nightwing-Starfire romance plotline unlikely. It seems to play up a Robin-Cyborg rivalry I don’t remember from the book.

Also came upon the twisted The Lost, recounting Captain Hook’s search for the vampiric Lost Boys. Only two issues of a projected four came out, both of which I have. Pity.
10:07:52 PM  #  comment []

Oooh, shiny, pretty buttons... Must resist urge to add flair.

[whoops, forgot from whom I nicked the link. Sorry!]
9:31:08 PM  #  comment []

Scott Robert Ladd seems to have written a new book on parallel programming for Springer Verlag that I can’t find anywhere, so I’m assuming he just turned it in.

I’m surprised he turned it in to Springer Verlag; he’s quite readable, and from my recollections of them, Springer Verlag books tend to be a bit dry and academic, with thin and reedy fonts that are a drag on the eyes. Of course, I could be wrong, but I don’t have any Springer Verlags in my library.
9:10:19 PM  #  comment []

Apple WWDC Keynote

Finally watched this.

While I am shaking with desire, let me note some of the grace notes that seem to have been overlooked in the bigger feature announcements that had the audience going ooh and aah.

Labels have returned (about 14:00). Much as I liked Unsanity's implementation, I don't think it ever allowed searching for labeled items. If Apple brings this back from its OS 9 graveyard, there may be life for other OS 9 features.

Postscript to PDF on the fly (about 36:00). Finally all those academic papers I downloaded from the ACM and IEEE libraries are readable without having to resort to Ghostscript.

Waiting for the auto-negotiate of the iChat with Parisian addresse Jean-Marie Hullot, creator of InterfaceBuilder (45:30): “It takes a little while longer to negotiate with France.”

Microsoft jab (51:00).

Incremental compile, bringing XCode (the new IDE) closer to the Smalltalk ideal. Java has this in Websphere, which was built on Smalltalk technology, and perhaps Eclipse, which was dervied from the Websphere model. Xcode looks like it is starting to become a much more useful platform for Extreme Programming.
10:47:56 AM  #  comment []