In looking through a variety of information sources, the value of serendipity cannot be overestimated. Today, I first browsed to Restating the Case for War - Waiting for Saddam to change is what got us into this mess in the first place. By Christopher Hitchens to discover Mr. Hitchens in fine form.
The question then, becomes this: Should the date or timing of this unpostponable confrontation have been left to Saddam Hussein to pick? The two chief justifications offered by the Bush administration (which did mention human rights and genocide at its first presentation to the United Nations, an appeal that fell on cold as well as deaf ears) were WMDs and terrorism. Here, it is simply astonishing how many people remain willing to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt.
Immediately after I found myself at the popular but excrable Josh Marshall peddling his less-than-fine whine to the converted in: Silly word games and weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Marshall spends a lot of silly words on parsing word games, of which he is a master. To wit:
It's true that administration officials avoided the phrase "imminent threat." But in making their argument, Sullivan and others are relying on a crafty verbal dodge -- sort of like "I didn't accuse you of eating the cake. All I said was that you sliced it up and put it in your mouth."What is one to think of a person playing silly word games writing on how silly word games are.The issue is not the precise words the president and his deputies used but what arguments they made. And on that count, the record is devastatingly clear.
To call something an imminent threat means that the blow could come at any moment and that any delay in confronting it risks disaster. Webster's defines "imminent" as "ready to take place; especially: hanging threateningly over one's head." That gets it just about right. The White House described the Iraqi threat as a sword over our heads, a threat we had to confront now.
Ah well, Josh Marshall is too invested in his schtick and making too much money off of it to change his thinking. If only there were a word or an image that fit his style of subtle anti-Americanism.
But then, there was.
The very next link brought me this ground-breaking bit of news from the site of the of science:New Scientist
Fish farting may not just be hot airBiologists have linked a mysterious, underwater farting sound to bubbles coming out of a herring's anus. No fish had been known to emit sound from its anus nor to be capable of producing such a high-pitched noise.
"It sounds just like a high-pitched raspberry," says Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Ah, Josh Marshall and his silly word games considered as "a high-pitched herrings' raspberry." There's a poetry in that as well as no little truth.
I'll go with it.
Posted by Vanderleun at November 9, 2003 2:19 PM
To help you become a good Aqua citizen, Apple has created a few guidelines. I've put together a brief overview of them, and we'll be tackling many of them in the months to come.
Posted by: Margery at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMFor example, if you see an AIM window peeking out from behind your browser and you click on it, that window will come to the front, but the main application window will not. The Mail.app/Activity Viewer is another example. The Aqua system of layers works well in many instances, but not in all. Thank goodness that the Dock is always there to come to the rescue. I know that clicking on an application icon in the Dock will always result in not only the application coming to the front, but also any non-minimized windows associated with it. And if the application is active but no windows are open, clicking on the Dock icon should create a new window in that application.
Posted by: Emma at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMAdhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"
Posted by: Edmund at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMThe simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.
Posted by: Leonard at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMAdhere to Window Models. Document windows, Utility windows, Click-through, Layering, Drawers, Controls. How do users open windows, how do you properly title windows?
Posted by: Hercules at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMAdhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"
Posted by: Archibald at January 12, 2004 11:21 PMBy building an application that takes advantage of Aqua's many facets, you help ensure that your application will not only look good, but have a chance of becoming a raging success. After a new user clicks on the icon of your program, the first thing he or she sees is the application interface. I know that when I review a product, I am very critical of its visual design. I usually have a short time to learn the new software, so design and ease of use are very important. Aside from those who marvel at the beauty of the command line, most users tend to react the same way.
Posted by: Humphrey at January 12, 2004 11:22 PMThe simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.
Posted by: Lucretia at January 12, 2004 11:22 PMThe simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.
Posted by: Botolph at January 12, 2004 11:22 PMOkay, I just told you what Apple wants you to look out for with window positions, but in the real world, not everyone uses the hiding feature of the Dock, and it is unrealistic to be able to predict where each user will place their Dock at any given day or how large they will have it. However, you can build a feature into your application that allows spacing for the Finder. You can give users the option of where to position their windows and what area of the screen not to cross. I know that BBEdit provides me with this feature, and I wish more developers gave me more control over my windows.
Posted by: Judith at January 12, 2004 11:22 PM
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