Month: May 2004

Windows jump around when clicking on workspaces in pager

If you are running Fedora Core 2 with Sawfish as your window manager, and you notice that when you click on workspaces in the pager your windows jump around randomly, there’s an easy fix to get it working again:

Download the source code to libwnck, build it, and install it on top of the rpm Fedora Core 2 provided to you. This was an old bug that was fixed long ago, but for some reason the RPM of libwnck still has it.

software I need

I often have ideas for software projects, some of which I even think I might be capable of writing. I don’t make time for writing software, however, so they never get done. In case I get amnesia and forget, here are some programs I wish I had (you can also interpret this as lame-o nerd posts wishlist):

  • GNOME panel rss ticker applet: Straw should integrate with the gnome panel to provide a ticker applet. Headlines would run by, and a click could either bring up the article in straw or the link in a browser. Perhaps it could sense mouse proximity and slow down the ticker as the mouse gets close. You could do cool things like make make stories which are repeated among multiple blogs bolder or bigger (could look at link targets or common keywords)
  • Live squencer / sampler for DJing: You could do live electronic music based on the idea of initiating samples and letting them loop. You could gang loops together and alter them (pan, pitch, etc) in real time, allowing a dj to do live production. The interface should be totally keyboard driven for convenience. On import, loops would be bpm’d so that they all line up perfectly
  • GStreamer-based video editing: Obviously people are working toward this and thinking about it, but after being trained on an Avid Nitris DS I think the OSS community should really aim high and look at what other people have done. Things like unbiquitous keyframing and a line graph view for those keyframes are extremely powerful features. This is one application where the HIG might have to go out the window. Editors don’t care about discoverable, they want every possible way to color-correct their video. The HIG is important, but don’t let it stand in the way of a top-class app. In other words, aiming to be an Adobe Premiere replacement isn’t going to cut it. If you can replace a 150,000$ package you’re going to be attractive. The product doesn’t have to have chroma-keying with spill mattes from day one, but someone on the project should at least know what that means, and the software should be extensible enough to support it.
  • Web-based RSS feed reading for mobile phones. oh wait I wrote that

Oops

This is why you should know the language before you buy the shirt. This gentleman’s shirt says ‘italian princess boston’

Excitement in davis!

Of course you can’t tell by my crappy photo. But they’ve blocked off a street in davis square. Supposedly due to a bomb scare or something. That’s where the post office is, so it’s not surprising

Providence Trip

So about, uh, a month ago, Char and I took a day-trip to Providence. It was meant to be a “week-end
getaway,” but I’m a slacker so we couldn’t get a hotel for the night. But we had a very enjoyable day.

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Char on the train

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A town square along the way

We took the Amtrak train down to Providence, and it was fast and cheap. We even got Acela tickets, so it
only took 30 minutes to get there. Basically it’s as fast to get to Providence than it is to get to Davis Square.

When we got to Providence, we bought a map and started wandering around to get a feel of the place. I’d never been there, so I didn’t really know where to start. We knew we were going to the zoo later on, and we knew we wanted to eat breakfast in a diner, but finding a diner was more difficult than you’d think.

It seems that Providence has fallen victim to a giant sucking leach of a mall, which is situated right next to the train station. It’s a few football fields long and 4 stories high, and has every single stupid chain store you’ve ever heard of. Just when Char said “boy too bad there’s no Guess store!” We turned a corner and found one. We left the mall, and tried to find our little diner. We walked around the downtown, and found just about every single store and restaurant closed and boarded up. There was abosolutely no business being done outside the mall. Finally we found one last little place called the Metro Cafe (189 Weybosset St) and ate there.

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Char matches the restaurant

We went to the zoo in Providence, and other than it being overrun by kids it was nice. Zoos are depressing places, because rather than being gleefully ignorant we’re crushingly aware of the general cruelty of keeping wild animals in small places with nowhere to run and nothing to do but follow the shady spot around the pen all day. I don’t think it’s a matter of being too PC either, I think zoos are a concept whose time has passed. When was the last time you heard of a brand new beautiful zoo going up somewhere?

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Temporary holding pen for giraffes while the new (quite large) pen gets finished

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giraffe: wha?

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Cutey lamb

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Cutey bunny

Char demanded a new friend, so I got her a cute little snow leopard. She named it “Mocha chip.”

We also saw the real thing

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Snow Leopard chillin’

When we left the zoo we saw one of Char’s favorite animals, a wood duck

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Wood ducks, actually

I still feel bad for screwing up the hotel thing and only getting one day in Providence, but we’re probably going to go back again, next time to Newport. We’ll get a cute bed and breakfast and everything, really.