JDHarper.com

Impressions on the Mac » 0

I bought a new Mac Mini a couple days ago. (I'm planning to learn how to write applications for the iPhone.) Now I'm finally getting the chance to try out all the apps and tricks that I've heard about from Mac users, most notably Quicksilver.

For the most part, I really like it. The interface is beautiful and minimalist; it's no wonder why Macs have always been favored by graphic designers. And it does make some things dead simple. If you plug in a DVD, it blacks out the screen and shows you the movie, which is exactly what it should do. (Windows does not handle this half as smoothly.)

On the other hand, there are a number of absolutely stupid interface mistakes that I've noticed. Most notably, the home and end keys do not do what they're supposed to. Instead of moving the cursor to the beginning or end of the line, it moves the view (but not the cursor) to the beginning or end of the document. Using it in the Firefox link bar has no effect at all. Fortunately, this is easily fixed with these two programs.

Also high on the list: At first, I noticed that the screen was a little fuzzy and hard to read, especially the gray-on-white text of the Apple website. I attributed this to my cheap monitor, but then I found out that OS X had put my monitor at the wrong screen resolution. When I cranked it up to 1280x1024 from 1024x768 and switched the color profile to Adobe RGB the problem was solved.

Most of my other complaints are minor. There's no "restore" function in the OS X trash can. The "are you sure you want to save this" dialog doesn't respond to the arrow keys or the letter keys, so you can't say "don't save" without moving your hand to the mouse. Pretty much everything else is just me trying to get used to the OS X keyboard shortcuts after a decade of heavy Windows use.

Other than those interface issues, I've gotta say that OS X feels like a much better operating system than Windows for almost everything except games. I really quite like it.

An Interesting Point on Abortion » 0

After hearing that John McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade¹, Randall Balmer posted an opinion piece for the Washington Post today that's given me a lot to think about:

Let me put it succinctly: I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable.

In terms of morality, I have no problem saying that abortion is always regrettable - even though it may be justifiable in some cases, especially in instances of incest or rape. In many other circumstances, abortion rises to the level of moral abomination. As a legal matter, however, I am decidedly pro-choice. I believe that the government should have no jurisdiction whatsoever over gestation.

The only point of agreement between both sides of the abortion debate is that making abortion illegal will not significantly reduce the number of abortions. It will only endanger the lives of women. But the larger question here is how those who favor making abortion illegal would enforce those laws.

After examining the deeply unsettling idea of every miscarriage becoming a potential criminal investigation, Balmer proposes combination of public service campaigns against abortion, sex education (teaching about both abstinence and contraceptives), encouraging adoption, and improving the economy to reduce abortions.

This, I think, is the wisest path. First, leave the Partial Birth Abortion ban in place, as there is no possible moral ambiguity there. We can argue over when life begins and whether abortion is acceptable or not earlier in the process, when we're talking about a nearly microscopic cluster of cells. But partial birth abortions deal with viable children; at that point, the mother should be signing adoption papers instead.

Second, promote the idea that abortions are wrong, rather than that they should be made illegal. When it comes to the law, I prefer a pragmatic approach over moral grandstanding. An out-right ban would only prevent a handful of abortions; the majority would still be carried out, but without medical supervision. This doctor describes how before Roe v. Wade his hospital would see 10-30 cases a day of people with severe complications as a result of botched abortions. After Roe v. Wade, these cases stopped.

In terms of a moral calculation, if you save a handful of lives while causing the torment and (in some cases) death of many other people, have you really gained anything?

I do not favor abortions; I think that in most cases they are immoral. But I think that an outright ban does more harm than good.

1. McCain's position is that abortion should be illegal except in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother. He co-sponsored the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act, along with 42 other senators. This law was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2007. He is for embryonic stem cell research.

Obama, on the other hand, voted against a partial birth abortion ban in the Illinois Senate. (However, according to the link above, the bill's wording would have criminalized all abortion and included no provision for the health of the mother.) His position is clear: NARAL (the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) rates him at 100% Pro-Choice, while the National Right to Life Committee rates him at 0%. Naturally, Obama also supports embryonic stem cell research.

To one of my neighbors: » 1

Thank you for your generous donation of one raw egg, which I discovered in the driver's seat of my convertible this morning. In these difficult economic times, every bit helps.

However, I regret to inform you that your gift was somewhat damaged. The egg had cracked on the driver's side door when it was delivered from your moving vehicle, and most of the egg glop had drained through my seat into the carpet in the back.

Also, I had already eaten breakfast.

Should you wish to make any other donations, please make sure that they are properly packaged to avoid such accidents in the future. Gift wrap would not go unappreciated.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

J. D. Harper

Obama and McCain » 0

Initially, I was a little ticked off at the attacks from Giuliani and Palin the other night, especially the digs against Obama as a "community organizer." (What, we don't want community service? Republicans don't want average citizens involved in fixing the problems in their communities? Just leave the problems for the government to fix? That isn't what Republicans used to believe.)

On the other hand, the target of those attacks doesn't seem to be bothered:

Here's what I think: Obama is a diplomat, a peacemaker. His speeches tend to be about bringing people together to fix the nation's problems. McCain and Palin are self-proclaimed "bulldogs with lipstick." They're combative and aggressive, two attributes that tend to be unhelpful in problem solving.

I also think that the Republicans had a clean shot at making the country better, and they blew it. We've had 8 years of Bush, 6 of which had a Republican House and Senate. When the "small government" Republicans had the reins, they took the budget from a surplus to a deficit and they started a new multi-billion dollar prescription drug program. They embroiled us in a war that's tripled the cost of oil and cost the country billions of dollars (let alone the untold cost in human lives) on manufactured pretenses. For all their bluster about following terrorists to the gates of hell, we still don't have Osama bin Laden. The Republican government is so badly run that even McCain is calling for change.

Obama's plans look better to me than McCain's plans. His proposed budget lowers taxes for all but the most rich, giving the biggest tax breaks to the poor who need them most. Our country needs universal health insurance. We need to carefully withdraw from Iraq. We need to fund the science and education programs that the Republicans have neglected.

So, I'm voting for Obama this time around. Hope you will too.

Great Disassembly Guide for the Fujitsu T4215 » 0

My current laptop is a Fujitsu T4215. While excellent in most respects, it was starting to get unusually hot and the CPU fan was starting to get annoyingly loud. On Sunday afternoon, I decided I would clean out the fan with compressed air.

This is not usually a difficult undertaking. For example, my brother's old computer has a panel on the bottom of the case that you open, and then the fan is right there for you to clean out. Not so on the T4200 series. To get to the fan, you have to literally take apart the entire computer, removing the display and the keyboard. It took a couple of hours and was absolutely nerve-wracking to the do the first time.

However, the process was made much easier by this step-by-step guide to taking apart a T4200 series laptop, which contains easy instructions and photos of the whole process. It still made me very nervous to pull out my keyboard ribbon (seriously, why use a ribbon instead of something with a connector?!) but the guide was extremely helpful and gave me enough confidence to finish the project.

A little compressed air, a little Arctic Silver, and my computer is back to nearly silent. Nothing seems broken, and I didn't even have any screws left over!