Yes, I only posted this for the pun

If you read this NY Times article, does it constitute grandmaster-bation?

A real Mac stumper

Ok, I've got a Mac problem that even I can't solve. If anybody out there is listening (Gruber? Drunkenbatman? Rentzsch?), please let me know what you think.

The situation: I use a Logitech MX500 mouse. I have Exposé mapped to the buttons on the side; specifically, Mouse Button 4 triggers the "All windows" action, and Mouse Button 5 triggers the "Desktop" action. I do not have the Logitech Control Center installed.

The problem (repeatable on my machine): if I quit the Dock, then when the Dock automatically relaunches, Mouse Button 5 no longer triggers the Exposé "Desktop" action. The weird part: Mouse Button 4 continues to trigger the "All Windows" action, and the F9-F11 keys all continue to activate their respective actions. I can restore Mouse Button 5's intended functionality by logging out and logging back in.

A Mac software developer, with whom I filed a mistaken bug report, thinks that some other piece of software is stealing that mouse button away from the operating system before it can be assigned to Exposé/Dock. But I have no idea what piece of software could be doing that. I also don't understand why I have full Exposé functionality on initial login if some other startup program might be stealing buttons.

Things I have tried that don't help: removing the SIMBL folder from /Library/InputManagers/, disabling extraneous login items, removing extra USB devices, creating a new test account and trying the same procedure.

Mac gurus, if you could brainstorm for a second and think of what might be causing this, I'd be very grateful. I'll even publish your name if you figure out what it is, and recommend you as a Mac expert. System Profiler reports can be supplied to trustworthy individuals.

UPDATE: Ok, new data point. I just killed the Dock, which of course had the same effect as usual. So immediately after, I went into the Exposé system preferences and switched the mouse buttons around; i.e. I set Mouse Button 4 to "Desktop" and Mouse Button 5 to "All windows". Mouse button 5 works just fine, but Mouse button 4 won't trigger "Desktop".

So it seems as though this isn't mouse-button-specific, but Exposé-feature-specific. Killing the dock also kills the ability to trigger the Desktop Exposé action with the mouse only -- the keyboard is unaffected.

UPDATE 2: Another Mac user reports the same behavior. I wonder if we have the same software installed, or if this is an OS bug.

My latest effort to create a catchphrase

The Dave Winer Contradiction Watch continues today!

Here's Dave on February 26, 2003:

...These days I hear a lot from Microsoft asking what will it take to get us to invest in them. The answer has become clear -- put some of your skin in the game. Implement our protocols and formats in your software, instead of trying to convince us to implement yours in ours. Been there, done that, lost, again and again. No more of that...

After years of maintaining absolute control over user's data in Microsoft Office, the new version promises to give total control to the user, and creates a path for developers to siphon users from Microsoft to new or specialized products. One would think that this would spawn an explosion of new products designed to please Office users but that's not what's happening. A group of large technology companies is proposing a competing set of formats, and has formed an alliance to confuse the market, and at least double the work of any developer who might want to support their products (with almost no installed base) alongside Microsoft's (with a monopolistic dominant installed base)...

1. When Dave Winer says "our", he really means "mine mine mine!"
2. The OASIS OpenDocument format (published May 1, 2005) is based off of the OpenOffice format, which was based off of the StarOffice format -- at least six years of technological history. Meanwhile, Microsoft's new XML format is completely new as of June 2005, and currently only implemented in a "technical beta". Yet apparently OpenDocument is "confusing" the market.

Mmmm, teat!

Empty hand

Mr. Miyagi has waxed off this mortal coil.

Fun argument by analogy

Ok, first read this, then read this.

You want revisionism? You got revisionism!

Project for the New American Century, letter to President Clinton, January 26, 1998:

...The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction...

...We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts...

...signed...Donald Rumsfeld...

CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.

That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 – notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began...

STEPHANOPOULOS: If you had known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found, would you have advocated invasion?
RUMSFELD: I didn’t advocate invasion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn’t?
RUMSFELD: No, I wasn’t asked.

Oh my God, an objective look!

Wouldn't you know, once in a while Charles Krauthammer actually stops being a conservative whore and tries to defend the truth!

...In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase "natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

Facts of a dubious origin, part 1

If you hold your television remote control upside-down and press the Volume Down button, the volume will increase.

Try it!

Why we need a 'Detroitist'

Today's SFist has an interview with Brendan Benson.

Theatrical torture

Oh God kill me now.

Worst. FAQ. Ever.

I think the Fox News channel has infected the rest of the Fox networks, and made it acceptable to lie just about anywhere:

8. Can I get tapes of FOX Network Primetime Shows sent to me?

ANSWER: The FOX Network does not provide nor sell videos of any of shows, specials or movies that air on the Network.

Our recommendation is to ask co-workers, friends, family and neighbors for anyone who may have taped off-the-air the show you are looking for.

[Fox link via Boing Boing]

Fieger? I barely even know her!

For those of us who appreciate juvenile humor, you can't do any better than the Michigan attorney general scandal.

After all, how often do you get to hear the phrase "extramarital affair involving Cox" on the nightly news?

The blue balls of Texas

Mother Jones magazine looks at a Texas constitutional amendment, passed in the Texas House yesterday, that appears to ban all marriages.

Guys, I think that's a bit of an overkill response to gay marriage!

The kext generation

Macintouch reported yesterday, and others have re-reported, that some Sony music CDs have Mac-specific DRM. If this is true, then I have a couple of thoughts:

1. I hope the Mac programmer responsible enjoys his/her blood money.
2. Does the Mac programmer responsible realize that they are a retard? The DRM is distributed as a kernel extension. Kernel extensions give you unlimited power over the operating system (and thus require an administrator password to install), so why doesn't the DRM hide its own presence like the PC version does?

The criminalization of politics

Boy, that partisan Ronnie Earle is really unbelievable. All Tom Delay did was confess to a crime, and suddenly Earle goes and indicts him! That's completely unreasonable in my book.

I'm Judge Rick James, bitch!

I'm about to reprint some parts of Judge Samuel Alito's history. Keep in mind that they're all from the same news article.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., who said in 1990 that he would disqualify himself from cases involving his sister's law firm, was a member of an appeals court that reviewed a 1995 case in which his sister's firm represented one of the parties, according to court records...

...The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, acting as a full court, denied a borrower's petition for a rehearing in the case. The bank that held the loan, MidAtlantic National Bank, was represented by Rosemary Alito's firm...

...In his questionnaire, provided to the Senate during his confirmation hearings as an appeals court judge, Samuel Alito cited four types of cases in which he would disqualify himself to avoid a potential conflict of interest: those involving Vanguard, in which he owned mutual fund shares; Smith Barney, his brokerage firm; First Federal Savings & Loan of Rochester, N.Y., which held his home mortgage; and his sister's law firm.

Alito ruled in a 2002 case in Vanguard's favor at a time when he owned between $390,000 and $975,000 in mutual fund shares from Vanguard.

He withdrew from the case after a complaint was filed by Shantee Maharaj, a Massachusetts woman who wanted Vanguard to give her the assets of her late husband's mutual funds.

Nonetheless, he wrote a letter to the chief circuit judge in 2003 complaining about the effort to remove him from the case. "I do not believe that I am required to disqualify myself based on my ownership of the mutual fund shares," he wrote...

...Samuel Alito was involved in a 1996 case involving Smith Barney despite his vow to disqualify from such cases, Newsday has reported.

I curse the air I breathe

I understand that Instapundit throws words like "Mccarthyism" around by reflex, but come on.

I really don't see why firing professors who advocate intelligent design is a bad thing. Intelligent design is a deeply anti-scientific concept. If you worked for Wal-Mart, say, and then started to make public statements denouncing the company as evil or criminal, you wouldn't expect to keep your job for much longer. Likewise, if you're a science professor and then start attacking science, expect your colleagues to have a serious problem with it.

So that's how they define lack of focus

Oh, Ray Ozzie! You so crazy!

"The same is true of Apple, which has done an enviable job integrating hardware, software and services into a seamless experience with dotMac, iPod and iTunes, but seems less focused on enabling developers to build substantial products and businesses," [Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Ray] Ozzie wrote in his memo.

Tell me again which company charges $719.99 for their development tools, and which company gives away their development tools with every computer they sell?

I can't distinguish it from whitehouse.gov

What if you wrote an article in which every sentence contained at least one lie?

Arrrgh!

Oh come on! Can they be serious?

What the fuck is this world coming to?

What news on the Rialto?

Upon the recommendation of the Detroit News, I tried out Slows Bar BQ this weekend.

It gets five Geekable stars. The food is fantastic and very reasonably priced. The parking situation blows, but their waffle fries and cheese are worth the hassle.

Truth in anagrams

Amygdala uses the power of the anagram to shed some light on our new Supreme Court nominee.

Biggest fan

I just saw an automobile ad on television with the song "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)" in the background.

Near the end of the ad, they show the car's slogan -- "Life in D". What a clever shoutout to Brendan Benson fans!

The heartiest of meals

Dave's latest post has just the right mix of harmlessness, absurdity, and profanity. I laughed out loud.

Unorthodox

Mmmm! Tasty!