big dark media

Short answer – Snow Leopard is proving to be the best OS X update in years. For the first time in longer than I can recall an Apple OS upgrade completed in less than an hour, did not break my existing applications and primary workflows, and actually nets positive in all significant areas (performance, usability, elegance).

That being said, not everything is hearts and flowers, but the negatives are third-party incompatibilities and not deal-breakers.

• Line 6’s most awesome Pod Farm AudioUnit plug-in isn’t yet compatible. I’m back to using real mics and amps for now, but as most of my work is mixing/sequencing right now I’ve got some time to spare for this to resolve.
• Xmarks bookmark sync (reasonably indispensible, but I know it’ll get ported quickly).
• When creating a new event in iCal using the Exchange integration, it doesn’t always invite the room I’ve specified unless I drag the event to a new time, and then back to the correct one. Weird!

All things told- still two thumbs up!

Posted in: Uncategorized by Scott / Tags: apple, gadgets, software

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I’ve been offline in many ways for a while, and the Facebook post earlier in this blog explains part of the reason why. Things have been really busy at work the last few months, and social media has somewhat expanded to consume that part of my life that usually was spent blogging random and somewhat arcane thoughts.

That being said, it’s time for a change, partially motivated by the impending ‘migration’ of my Adobe blog to a new Movable Type framework. I’m not particularly happy with Movable Type in general, and much more comfortable with WordPress or Drupal, so although I already did merge in some of my old Adobe blog posts here a while back (just look for the ‘Adobe’ tag), I may be doing it officially soon, and dusting off this default template with one I’ve been puttering on for a little while now.

While I figure out how this will all shake out, I might very likely be temporarily distracted with this.
Pls don’t hold it against me.

I’ve been using this randomly on conference calls lately, too. Enjoy

Posted in: Uncategorized by Scott / Tags: journal, productivity, socialmedia, wordpress

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You’ve got to feel at least a bit sorry for Tucker Carlson.  He gets his ass handed to him by Jon Stewart a few years back, and subsequently gets his show – Crossfire – cancelled.  Generally, in this situation (at least in my opinion), the high road would be to admit defeat, and actually listen to the criticism – that as a journalist, he failed miserably in actually presenting balanced arguments and asking real, hard questions of his guests.  But Tucker’s pride is apparently too strong for that, and after Stewart’s recent skewering of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer for cheerleading soon-to-fall financial giants like Bear-Stearns and AIG when he should have known better, he took his bowtie back into the ring with a stunningly infantile screed on Jon Stewart, entitled “How Jon Stewart Went Bad“.

It really is a shame that after such an ass-kicking, Tucker couldn’t have just looked the other way- but his article is absolutely missing the point.  It truly is a sad state of affairs when a marginal comedian hosting a fake news show actually asks the hard questions that Jim Cramer should have, and Tucker certainly should have back when he got his own dressing-down.  It’s not about Jon Stewart and his liberal bias – which he wears on his sleeve, and it’s not even remotely Jon blaming the recent financial meltdown on Jim Cramer personally (which of course he didn’t) – it’s the fact that supposedly objective journalists like Cramer were really in the tank for gasbags Bear-Stearns and AIG- KNOWING they were operating in the shady realms of finance, yet still softballed them on his show to pretend the sky wasn’t falling.  But Tucker misses the point entirely, and the entire article comes off as a whiny, revenge-based potshot.  Sad.

Tucker should really take a lesson from Jim Cramer, who at least had the sack to stand up and take his lumps like a man, admitting he could have done much better.  Denial really doesn’t suit you, Tucker.   But more importantly- read the comment threads at your own article, see what people are saying about you now, and face the facts that your 15 minutes of fame ended quite a while ago, when a comedian showed you how to do your own job.  You really should have left well enough alone.

Posted in: politics by Scott / Tags: humor, politics, rant

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I’m torn. I generally avoid spending too much time on social media sites cause they’re a huge time-suck, but Facebook has become a bit too addicting lately. It wasn’t as big a deal a year or so ago, but it seems that a global New Year’s resolution was for all the Facebook holdouts to finally join up. Which has been really, really awesome. I’ve connected with some people I haven’t seen since my elementary school years in Virginia, lost compatriots from Musician’s Institute, and all the cool people from high school I haven’t seen in years.

For years, I’ve gotten used to interacting with high-tech/web colleagues via social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and the like, but the deeper life connections being made within Facebook are just too strong to avoid. Staying in touch with industry colleagues is great- don’t get me wrong – but the depth and breadth of connections on Facebook trump any of the other social sites hands-down.

So- I’m probably going to find myself posting on Twitter less and less, and Facebook more and more (especially as FB can send Twitter my status updates anyway). Interesting.

Posted in: General, Technology by Scott / Tags: culture, journal, socialmedia

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To listen to the Republican mantras this election season, one would get the idea that Obama is all about raising taxes across the board for the working man (and woman). The ‘tax-and-spend Democrat’ has become a pseudo-mythical right-wing citizen’s new world bogeyman- stealing their hard-earned money and spending it on a more bloated and intrusive government.  Or at least that’s what the Bush, and now McCain camp would have you believe.

A few charts have arisen which visualize the rather sobering truth here.

First, the Washington Post broke down how each candidate’s plan would play out across the gross income brackets in the US.
Secondly, Viveka Weiley provided a scaled version of that graph (shown below), reflecting the real weight of this distribution- i.e. with the size of each bracket drawn to scale in order to see how the cuts (and/or raises) really spread out across the entire spectrum. This graph is in my opinion the most accurate and telling, particularly when you note exactly where US median incomes fall on the scale (hint- it’s not in the high range).

Looking at how both Obama and McCain’s proposed tax plans pan out, it’s a very different story.  Obama is proposing tax cuts for 99% of the population, with the upper 1% income bracket (i.e. those making over $600k annually) footing the bill – which to me makes sense as they’re the ones profiting most from the economy. McCain’s graph, however, runs in reverse- granting his biggest tax cuts to that same abundantly-wealthy 1%, with the 60% of the country in the lower income brackets getting the shaft.

Now tax cuts should not be the measure of this election, there are a lot of other important issues to address – but this is a really sobering look at how our adopting McCain’s tax policy really would be like a third Bush term in that respect. The corporate fatcats and their cronies skate by with monstrous tax cuts, while the people in this country that scrape by on far, far less have to shoulder their tax burden.  The fact that the Republicans have been calling Obama an ‘out of touch elitist’ is  insultingly ironic given the contrast in their tax distribution plans.

I was about 85% in the Obama camp already, but add this to the disaster that is Sarah Palin (don’t even get me started), and the door just shut on McCain, at least for me.  Despite McCain’s ’straight talk’ for change and reform, he’s really just spouting the same policy we’ve had to bear for the last 8 years.  Enough is enough.

(disclosure: For the record, given this information I would pay higher taxes in an Obama presidency, so there’s really no tax incentive for me to support him this election.  It’s just the right thing to do.  And if you wish to repost/use this graph, please respect Viveka’s licensing terms – just click the graph above to visit her original post and get details.)

Posted in: Rantings, politics by Scott / Tags: politics, rant

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I normally don’t pass along political ‘chain email’, but just recieved the following and found it as sadly ironic as I did funny.  If you know who’s responsible for the original please leave a comment so I can credit ‘em appropriately, of course.

it depends on who’s calling the shots

If you’re a minority and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a ‘token hire.’
If you’re a conservative and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a ‘game changer’.

Black teen pregnancies? A ‘crisis’ in black America.
White teen pregnancies? A ‘blessed event’.

If you grow up in Hawaii you’re ‘exotic’.
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you’re the quintessential ‘American story’.

If you name you kid Barack you’re ‘unpatriotic’.
Name your kid Track, you’re ‘colorful’.

If you’re a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you’re ‘reckless.’
A Republican who doesn’t fully vet is a ‘maverick’.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African-American voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you’ve got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military, and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do, so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an ‘arrogant celebrity’.
If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are ‘energizing the base’.

If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are ‘presumptuous’.
If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a ’shoot-from-the-hip-maverick’.

If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are ‘an elitist – out of touch’ with the real America.
If you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a ‘hero’.

If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an ‘empty suit’.
If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an ‘experienced executive’.

If you go to a South Side Chicago church, your beliefs are’extremist’.
If you believe in Creationism and don’t believe global warming is man-made, you are ’strongly principled.’

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
If you have been married to the same woman with whom you’ve been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you’re ‘risky’.

If you’re a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you’re an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
But, if you’re a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you’re ’spunky’.

If you’re a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you ‘First dog’.
If you’re a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you ‘beautiful’ and ‘courageous’.

If you kill an endangered species, you’re an ‘excellent hunter’.
If you have an abortion you’re not a Christian, you’re a ‘murderer’ (forget about if it happens while being date raped).

If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are ‘eroding the fiber of society’.

…

Yeah, we sure do have a ‘liberal media’ in this country, don’t we… >:/

Posted in: General, politics by Scott / Tags: humor, politics

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I feel I would belittle the brilliance of Jon Stewart by even attempting to intro this clip. Hypocrisy does speak louder than words.

Posted in: politics by Scott / Tags: awesome, culture, politics, video

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I’m typing this in via the new iPhone-native WordPress app- and it’s damn impressive so far. No dashboard, minimal features, but it does exactly what I need it to right now- add and edit posts. And that helps me use the iPhone for exactly what I’d hoped I could- untethering me from desk and laptop for a change. F$@kin’ awesome.

Posted in: Gadgetry, gadgets by Scott / Tags: apple, gadgets, journal

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I’ve been working pretty heavily since my paternity leave ran out exactly a month ago, and despite working from home a day or two a week since, can’t say that I’ve had nearly as much 1:1:1 time with Des and Devin as I did then. Given he was pretty much an adorable little red-haired lump of clay at that time, a lot’s changed since then.

And I’m basically writing this post in admiration for the work my wife’s put in since then. The reason it’s delayed is that I haven’t been able to see the fruits of her labor until now. Now sure, I’ve helped indirectly with most all of these items, but she’s the one that really put the hours in, and it’s very obvious now.

• Vocabulary: although Devin’s got about 6 words he uses regularly now (Mom, Dad, Cat, Ball, Baby, and of course No), he’s got at least 25 signs that he uses even more frequently, and I’m only just starting to realize it. My friend Julie extolled the virtues of teaching babies sign language early, and although I was always on board philosophically, it’s one of those parental tasks that takes a LONG time to glean results. When Devin busted his first sign on me a couple months ago (Milk), it came out of the blue, but was absolutely, positively communication. Since then, he’s been springing out with a few new ones every week, and starting to put them together into ‘micro-sentences’ (i.e. more + food + please). The part that’s blowing me away right now is the fact that he’d been using many of his new signs for a while before we realized it. Fine motor skills and precision are not a 1-year old’s strong suit, so many of the signs he was taught came back to us in a slightly modified if not exaggerated form. However, now that he knows it’s an effective way to ‘talk’ with us, he makes sure to let us know when he’s telling us something and we’re not getting it. If Des wasn’t so consistent in always using signs for key words along with her verbal communication, I’m reasonably sure he wouldn’t be so overflowing in ’speech’ right now. It’s just plain awesome!
• Fine Motor Skills: I’m pretty much the ‘read a story’ guy, and the ‘crawl around and chase each other’ guy. I made a comment to Des a few months back that I was wondering when he’d finally start using his stacking blocks and such, and she started setting two parts of the day aside (without me realizing it) to play with him in that regard. When she opens a bottle, she hands him the cap and lets him put it back on. When she needs something picked up from the floor, she asks him to please get it for her, and he’s all over it. I didn’t realize how well this was working until today, when he picked up a water bottle cap I dropped, got mad when I didn’t put it back on, and then proceeded to pick it back up from the end table and place it solidly on my water bottle. This is now manifesting itself with him actually cleaning up after himself, and placing toys back in the basket when he’s done playing. Again, amazing. The real-world tasks have apparently not just strengthened his motor skills, but his independence and responsibility, as he often now follows after US and picks things up that have been left behind.

I suppose I’m writing this as I feel a bit like an absent dad in parts of the process, but am now incredibly impressed with how well Des’ work and parenting has paid off while I’ve been bringing home the mortgage payment. The pivotal moment was today when he was making odd gestures at me and I had to be told that he was actually talking to me – in this particular case telling me about his stuffed bear, and I just thought he was scratching his chest.

Looks like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and appreciation to give. This really is a learning experience for everyone involved, and one I’m humbled daily to be a part of.

Posted in: Uncategorized by Scott / Tags: desiree, devin, parenthood

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Posted in: Uncategorized by Scott / Tags: awesome, gaming, video

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