November 02, 2009
Eshu
“Jim, you’re an eshu.”
Thus spoke my old friend Kent, who’s long had a knack for uttering Truth, after I’d driven us through three yellow lights in a row to arrive for an appointment at just the right time.
We were all playing role-playing games back then, and Kent was referring to the eshu of a game called Changeling. Based on the Eshu of African Yoruba, the eshu of Changeling were storytellers and travelers. Fate had a way of smiling on them in a capricious way. An eshu could be relied on to never take the most direct path to a location, but the one that gave him the best story to tell. Likewise, an eshu rarely arrived at a place when he was supposed to arrive - but he always arrived when he needed to.
And yes, Kent’s offhand comment had that ring of Truth.
When things have needed to happen in my life… they’ve happened. Not what I wanted, when I wanted. It’s never been like. But when something has needed to happen… it does. In time, when I let it. Wu wei in practice. I owe my life to it, actually, but that’s a story you have to buy me scotch to get.
Eshu of Yoruba is the protector of travelers and the deity of roads, particularly crossroads.
For the last several years I’ve felt like I’ve been on a rail rather than a road. I made decisions, and there were precious few crossroads once I got on that path. As I look back I can see that, while it might not have been the most pleasant of paths, it was still a path that took me past much that would have been unpleasant otherwise.
But the path was still a rail. Not a road, and precious few crossroads.
That’s been changing the last few months. I’ve caught few glimpse of other paths through the undergrowth, the rails have faded into the dirt and it’s starting to feel like I’m walking on a road again rather than riding the rails.
There might even see a few crossroads up ahead.
I’m letting them come. I feel like an eshu again.
Posted by jim at 07:37 PM
September 30, 2008
It Lives
Yes. I'm alive.
Blog is suffering.
Posted by jim at 08:19 PM
October 24, 2007
Classic is Dead
Still have MacOS 9 apps banging around on a PPC Mac, running in the Classic environment? As of MacOS X 10.5, they’re no more:
Classic applications do not work on Intel processor-based Macs or with Mac OS X 10.5.
[From the Apple Support knowledge base:]
Posted by jim at 07:04 PM
Leopard: Final Dock
Another good piece of news. MacOS X 10.5 Leopard has a new appearance for the Dock; it looks like a reflective 3-D shelf for your application icons. There’s been a lot of debate about this, centering around two arguments.
It flies in the face of Apple’s human interface guidelines in terms of the 3-D perspective and light-sources. If you aren’t aware of such things, then it just looks a little… wrong. If you’re aware of such things, it screams like a misused “it’s” to an editor.
It looks horrible at the side of the screen. Many users - especially those with multiscreen or widescreen setups - place the dock at the side of the screen. The sideways shelf looks really…. wrong.
Apple apparently listened. One last-minute change in the final release version of Leopard is an alternate appearance for the Dock that’s “flat” - avoiding the perspective and positioning issues of the Shelf appearance.
Whew.
Posted by jim at 10:14 AM
IMAP on GMail
It’s been long-awaited, but Google has finally added IMAP to GMail.
This generally has two reactions. If you’re in the “W00t! IMAP!” camp, then have at it.
If you’re in the “what’s IMAP?” camp, and ever have a desire to access Gmail from something other than the web interface, then rest assured this is Good News.
Posted by jim at 10:05 AM
September 06, 2007
Pat on the back
I called it. Apple’s posted An open letter to iPhone owners from Steve Jobs. Long story short, Apple will offer a $100 Apple Store credit to early iPhone buyers.
The money quote?
Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.
Exactly. Good response, Apple.
Posted by jim at 01:29 PM
September 05, 2007
What's missing from the iPod touch.
With today’s announcements and price cuts, the iPhone is the same price as the high-end iPod touch - $399US. They have the same screen, same UI, both have Wi-Fi. Looks like they both have the same annoying ultra-narrow sunk headphone jack. So you lose 8GB of storage buying an iPhone rather than a Touch… what do you get? Well the iPhone has:
Here’s something else the iPhone has that the Touch doesn’t. Email.
That’s right. The iPod touch lists “Wi-Fi Web Brower”, not “Breakthrough Internet Device.” No Mail. Go ahead, look around the Apple site. There’s no Mail button on the Home screen, no mention of email anywhere on the iPod touch site. Steve didn’t demo it.
While we’re at it - there’s no Google Maps application visible, no Stocks widget, no Weather widget. The iPod touch is an iPod first and foremost. Wi-Fi is there to allow you to get to the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, and Apple knew people would scream murder if they didn’t put in mobile Safari and YouTube.
Looks like Apple may try the road of differentiation by bundled software. We’ll have to wait and see if the iPhone and Touch share similar enough hardware that the hackers can migrate apps from one to the other but, until then… email only lives on the iPhone.
Posted by jim at 02:49 PM
