Category: Miscellaneous

Just now I stumbled upon Robert J. Lang’s amazing origami site. Robert creates the most fantastic things out of paper.

Having been working with vector shapes a lot yesterday, I was getting pretty frustrated when trying to switch between tools quickly. Though it’s not in the menu commands or tool tips within Photoshop, I found this table of helpful hints in the help file. I realize that for most people it’s going to be pretty boring content, but for me, it’ll be a handy resource for vector art (and most likely easier to find than looking it up in the help file).

Result	Windows	Mac OS
Select multiple anchor points	Direct selection tool + Shift-click	Direct selection tool + Shift-click
Select entire path	Direct selection tool + Alt-click	Direct selection tool + Option-click
Duplicate a path	Pen (any pen tool), Path Selection or Direct Selection tool + Control + Alt-drag	Pen (any pen tool), Path Selection or Direct Selection tool+ Command + Option-drag
Switch from Path Selection, Pen, Add Anchor Point, Delete Anchor Point, or Convert Point tools, to Direct Selection tool	Control	Command
Switch from Pen tool or Freeform Pen tool to Convert Point tool when pointer is over anchor or direction point	Alt	Option
Close path with straight-line segment	Magnetic Pen tool + Alt-double-click	Magnetic Pen tool + Option-double-click

I spent the afternoon making this cartoon character in Photoshop. It’s mostly vector shapes with some brush strokes for highlights and shadows.

I love a good controversy — especially when it involves google rankings, blog comments and maybe even the mob. (Okay probably not the mob, but some jerks at Quick Boys Moving & Storage.)

Adam Laurie, chief security officer of the London security and networking firm ALD shows Wired News how using Linux he was able to expose billing systems, read other guest’s e-mail, and open the minibar at hotels around the world before he spoke about the vulnerability Saturday at the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas.

I find this sort of stuff very interesting.

Yesterday The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the levy on recordable media like Mp3 players. My iPod was purchased in the States so I never paid the tax, but from what I understand if you bought your iPod in Canada and paid the levy, you might be eligible for a refund; great for you.

However, as Canadian copyright lawyer Michael Geist points out, the ruling is actually not so good for users of the iPod because without the tax (although we’ll certainly hear more about this in the future) it looks like the government now considers any copying of music onto any hard drives, including iPod’s or personal computer drives, as illegal.

Further, today’s decision represents a serious blow to the iPod, which has been an incredible boon to the music industry. Simply put, copying store bought CDs onto iPods, as CRIA’s own Graham Henderson has supported, may now be unlawful in Canada since it is difficult to find an exception within the Copyright Act that would permit that form of copying. While perhaps some in the industry may think this is a good thing as it transitions users to re-purchase the same music yet again as MP3 files from services such as iTunes, I think it will ultimately lower the value that consumers associate with music to the detriment of everyone in the industry.

Link to Canada.com news report on the issue.

Google has a really cool service called Individualized Google. I love it because it not only lets you set your personal bookmarks on a google start page, but it also lets you track all your favorite RSS and news feeds and even your gmail on the same page!

I went for a quick dip at the Fritz Sick pool tonight. Over the couple years that I worked at that pool I’ve seen a few relatively minor instances of theft from the lockers so since I didn’t have a lock with me, I just brought my stuff out on deck with me.

It turns out that it was a very good idea because when I got out of the pool I overheard that someone had been going through the change rooms stealing whatever they could find. Apparently at least one lady had lost her watch and maybe some other belongings.

What makes people so selfish and inconsiderate? Thieves of the world, please quit thieving.

Ahhhh, it’s some kind of miracle! (Satellite image from somewhere in Peru). Well it’s probably just as miraculous as deciphering messages in music you play backwards anyway.

Google Siteseeing is full of other interesting satellite images.

My house is infested. It’s really frustrating, but I have a serious moth problem. (Not to be confused with a math problem which I may or may not also have).

I have been killing these intruders like crazy but every morning when I wake up there are fresh ones all over the house. (Actually I can usually find about… Let’s see three or four each morning but let’s not talk about numbers, as I said earlier this is a moth problem and has very little to do with math.) Just so you know, I’m not talking about the huge scary “Silence of the Lambs” style moths, luckily, but still even though they are small they are still annoying.

I poured out some Vector cereal this morning and discovered a moth in the bowl. This was pretty sick, but whatever, I scooped it out and ate it anyway. Looking in the box indicated that there weren’t any other moths and so I didn’t think much of it.

Tonight I grabbed myself another bowl only to pour in the milk and find ANOTHER moth in my food! GROSS! Little bits of moth dust spread through the milk. I inspected some of the other (old) boxes of cereal – which should have been tossed long ago just because nobody is going to eat Bran Flakes anyway – but when I opened them I found what you might describe as a moth hive. There were tons of dusty dirty moths creeping and crawling around everywhere inside the box. I didn’t count them (see paragraph 1) but I certainly tossed them. Which serves me well anyway because now that I’ve cleaned the cupboards I have room for more tasty cereal.

Hopefully that will be the last of them, if throwing out that old cereal doesn’t take care of them I’ll have to get some mothballs. Which begs the question of which is worse: moths in your food or the smell of mothballs in your kitchen?