Category: Uncategorized

When the two companies keeping some semblance of competition in the desktop creative space merge, Wired News: Adobe Acquires Macromedia, what happens? I really like Adobe, and I’m very happy this deal didn’t go down the other way round, but this isn’t exactly going to encourage innovation.

Adobe do a pretty decent job of upgrading their software, but they can take a while to do it. Plus, when the going got tough for Premiere on the Mac, they binned it. Nobody cried, but it shows their attitude to the Mac market, and one vendor shouldn’t have that much power.

Oh, hang on. One very large, despised company already does.

So now, on the Mac, it’s going to be Adobe all the way. At least the horrible interfaces on the Macromedia stuff will improve, and maybe Flash can pick up the long-dead LiveMotion interface for animation. Please.

I thought the last timewaster was good, but check out SymmetryLab. Wow. Also sodaplay. I should spend more time making fun things like this, and less time telling you about them, shouldn’t I?

Simple and beautiful: The Dot Game, via Web Zen.

In other news:

Last weekend (9+10 April) we saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Wonderful, and my new favourite movie. No movie can remain a favourite forever, but I can’t recall enjoying a movie more than this one. Bill Murray and a large supporting cast weave a wonderful tale of fluorescent snapper, piracy, great sets, paternity and David Bowie sung in Portuguese.

Though I’m not related to either of them, both Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love) have made fantastic, unusual movies over the past few years. I can’t make any claims to be following in their footsteps, but more, please.

Also last weekend, a great massage from Bodywize in Teneriffe, opposite our old flat in McTaggarts. Recommended and very pleasant. Since then, lots of training plus private work, feeling tired but happy.

Recently: the first real, anonymous comments to this blog. Keep them coming.

The musical tastes of teenagers have been driving popular music for so long, I’m very interested to see what will happen in the UK now that downloads will be included in the Top 40. The BBC’s report: How downloads will change the chart is an interesting starting point, though there have been complaints made.

A song is not good because it sells; a movie is not good because it has a big opening weekend. Most pop culture exists to make money, not art. Simply: a product has been packaged and marketed towards those with discretionary incomes but little discretion. Fish in a barrel, fingers in my ears. Go Triple J.

Blasphemy ahead: you have been warned.

So the Pope’s died. Ignoring the living hell that Africa’s becoming because of the edict that condoms are “against god”, my concern is with those who are praying for Pope John Paul II. While I don’t have a copy of the Heaven Entry Rules in front of me, surely he’s home and hosed? Surely if anyone’s getting in, the Pope is… or is there some level of doubt out there?

Here in Brisbane (and I guess in many places) most churches have boards out the front with changing messages in large red and black letters. My favourite up until now has been the distinctly odd “JESUS IS GOD WITH SKIN”. The new winner, though, is one recently seen on an Anglican church that ended in “OUR GOD LIVES”.

Isn’t it nice to know that Christians are all kind and considerate to one another?

Living on Mt Nebo is really, really nice. Sometimes, I get over the drive, but then on the weekend, we can take the comfy chairs out to the back deck, open a bottle of wine, and let the clean wind lift the stress from the world. It’s all in the air.

Meanwhile, I had fun coding over the weekend. (Yes, that’s geeky, but if that’s a problem it’s yours.) Simple-ish, I hacked up some code in JavaScript for Adobe InDesign to transpose a table, including content, fills, colours and fonts. Transpose is when you exchange rows and columns, and it’s something you never want to do by hand. Even in Excel it’s well hidden (Paste Special then hunt for the checkbox) and that would ditch the styles. So yeah, request in the comments if you’re interested. Which is none of you. So I’ll just go and post it to the Adobe site, assuming it hasn’t been written already.

Oh, if you’ve taken the word challenge from last post, put your words in the comments. Post without an account, it’s easier. Cheers!

Quiz time!

Get a pen and a piece of paper. You’ll be making as many words as you can out of these five letters: A, C, D, E, R. To keep it interesting, there’s a three-letter minimum, and you should be able to get at least 20 words. There’s no time limit, so let it keep you up at night, like it did me. This didn’t come from any website or puzzle book, it just bubbled up out of my head after a few too many rounds of Boggle. Enjoy!

And if your inner geek hasn’t had enough of an exercise, check out this logically reformatted version of They Might Be Giants’ classic Istanbul Not Constantinople.

More on Easter, just quickly. If you check out this search page, you’ll see a lot more. Google Search: eostre christian . Even better, there’s the hilarious sponsored link (LetGodBeTrue.com) in the top right, Easter: A Few Problems. That page has this great quote: “Jesus does not look like this effeminate hippie.”

In the course of its literalist biblical preachery, it points out a few problems with Easter. The most obvious is that Jesus was supposed to take three days and three nights to die and be resurrected, but there’s only two between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Is that what Easter Monday’s for?

Also, in the US, Easter Sunday is actually Resurrection Sunday. Freaky. Call it what you want, I’m just happy to have a four-day weekend. And don’t get me started on Christmas.

Wait… shit… it’s too late.

Lots of other stuff around the same time. Yule (Pagan) on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, December 22nd. Gifts exchanged. Wreaths hung. Holly and ivy etc. Also, Victory of the Sun-God (Babylonian); Birthday of the Gods (various ancient pagan civilisations, apparently); Saturnalia (Romans), to celebrate Saturn (harvest god) and Mithras (light god) involving more gift-giving, especially toys to children. Caesar action figures and so on.

Interesting stuff just googled: “When it was first proposed in the fifth century to celebrate “the birth of the Son” on the date of “the birth of the Sun” the eastern churches rebelled. They were upset that a pagan holiday was being expropriated by the church, and resisted the change. The Russian Orthodox Church today still shuns December 25th and celebrates the birth of Christ on January 7th instead.” – from the Institute for Liberal Values. Also, that Christmas was illegal in England from 1647 to 1660 under Oliver Cromwell, and for the Calvinist Puritans in Massachusetts from 1659 to 1681. Also see American Christmas Origins.

And of course, let’s not forget Father Christmas, good old Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, Sinter Claes, St Nicholas, etc. Check out the Chronology of Santa Claus. From 1931, Santa’s been wearing Coca Cola’s red and white, and has become the “traditional” view of Santa Claus.

So please, don’t tell me that modern times have taken Christ out of Easter or Christmas. He doesn’t belong there, never did. He was inserted. It’s all about the chocolate, people, and don’t lie to your kids.