Seth’s Blog: Declaring victory
Seth’s Blog: Declaring victory.
Continuing the theme of getting things done: Seth talks about knowing when it’s over.
oddrops
Second and Third Thoughts
Bre Pettis | I Make Things – Bre Pettis Blog – The Cult of Done Manifesto
Bre Pettis | I Make Things – Bre Pettis Blog – The Cult of Done Manifesto.
I still this is worth rereading every now and then. As Seth Godin would say: ship it!
Wine and Food: Good Advice
”Wine and food pairing is generally straightforward,” says Rajat. That is, the elementary rules work nearly all the time. Most important—more crucial than flavors or colors—is weight. A heavy dish will clobber a light wine, and likewise a light dish will be destroyed by a heavy wine. “But the old color codes—white wine with fish and red wine with meat—don’t always mean something today, because we have access to so many different kinds of wine,” explains Rajat. “We have light reds that are great with fish, and richer whites can pair with certain meats. The only color code that seems consistently valid is green. White wines with a touch of green in them—Albariños, Sancerres, some Greek whites—are usually good paired with green foods like salads and vegetables.”
Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay Secrets of The Sommeliers p102
Marvellous Champagne
More on the delights and benefits of Champagne from Your Good Health!: Medicinal Benefits of Wine Drinking by Dr Maury:
You would do better to choose… (as an appetiser)… extra-dry Champagne which is heartily recommended for several reasons… this wine has a beneficial effect on the alimentary canal through its natural aeration. This acts on the stomach muscles which thus retain their suppleness and elasticity. (p 55)
I have already commented that the wines from the Champagne region, whether dry or extra-dry, have a beneficial effect, both chemical and mechanical, on the digestive system. They are therefore recommended for people suffering from flatulence and a bloated stomach. (pp 57-58)
… you should bear in mind the complications associated with this condition: arterial hypertension, the risk of narrowing of the coronary arteries and the possibility of a heart attack… your diet should be complemented by natural elements designed to strengthen the action of the heart and improve kidney function. You should therefore include the wines of the Champagne region, the extra-dry Champagnes of the Montagne de Reims, Côtes des Blancs or those of the Marne valley. (p 66)
… the sulphuric anions in Champagne wines activate the mechanisms of cellular oxidisation and give them purifying and cleansing properties. Finally, as dry white wines they possess powerful diuretic agents, helping to rid the body of its wastes. (p 66)
People who have mild rheumatism should opt, depending on personal taste, … for the ‘blancs de blancs’… of the Champagne region… (p 76)
Still with the same aim of restoring organic and functional order, never forget the beneficial effects of extra-dry Champagne, due to its natural phosphorus content. Its glucose and fructose content also helps to restore energy. (p 85)
On the other hand, if the mineral deficiencies are phosphatic salts, causing physical fatigue and mental depression, the Champagne wines are very suitable… They have the added bonus of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The most noble of all, an extra-dry variety, should be chosen and two glasses may be taken as an apéritif. (p 91)
The good doctor recommends Champagne (usually extra-dry) for loss of appetite, cardiac problems, digestive ailments, rheumatoid arthritis, convalescence, detoxification, mineral deficiencies, hypertension and heart attack.
One final quote:
This spirit of creativity, drawn from the ‘divine nectar’ is evidence of an art of living and a joy in living. If it is sometimes hidden, it will always surface in those millions of bubbles that rise from a glass of Champagne. It took a man dedicated to God, Dom Pierre Pérignon, cellarer of the Abbey of Hautvilliers in the Marne district, inspired by the pagan influence of Bacchus, to blend the vintages of different varieties of wine. By this act of creation was born a beverage of incomparable quality, which can only be produced in the soil of Champagne. It does not need us to exalt its virtues and describe how it affects the emotional centres of the brain by arousing the noble functions of the spirit. (p 100)
Symantec accused of using ‘scareware’ tactics to sell full-version products | ZDNet
Symantec accused of using ‘scareware’ tactics to sell full-version products | ZDNet.
The article says the claim might be hard to prove. Yeah, well…
Wine is the best medicine
“… a meal washed down with water, even if it is served in a crystal carafe, is an unfortunate error in taste and a grave dietary error, as it is one of the causes of dyspepsia. Relying on this tasteless beverage affects the elasticity of the stomach cavity and changes the catalytic value (the ability to break down foods) of the digestive juices, apart from its negative influence at a psychological level which, in the habitual water drinker, may encourage a tendency to pessimism and introspection.”
Your Good Health!: Medicinal Benefits of Wine Drinking Dr E Maury
This kind of **** is no better than spam
iPad 3 Definitely coming in the Spring – Applerepo.com.
I spotted this headline while browsing Zite, which has become one of my main newsreaders. As an iPad fan, I naturally clicked the link to read the entire article, which turns out to be BS and got me sufficiently aggravated to write this post.
Is the any shadow of doubt in the headline? Any whisper of of uncertainty? A hint of scepticism? The merest trace of disbelief? No, there frickin’ well isn’t!
So what do you get when you read this prognostication?
- “The iPad 3 is still an unconfirmed device…”
- “…very little is known about it”
- “…sources indicate…”
- “The so-called inside source has not been identified…”
- “…the reports indicate that it is a trustworthy source.”
- “No word when Apple will actually announce anything…”
And finishes will the earth-shattering “it [an announcement] will likely be after the holiday season”. Useless drivel all the way!
iTunes Match: the shade of Steve Jobs will be steaming
The introduction of iTunes Match seems like an even bigger cock-up than the introduction of MobileMe – in the UK, at least, which is all I can talk about.
I’ve been an iTunes user for a long time – probably since near the beginning of iTunes on Windows. I was seduced by the iPod and further motivated by running out of storage space for my collection of CDs, which must have been around 1,000-strong by that time. Not a huge collection by some standards, but taking up too much square footage on my office wall. So I ripped ‘em and became a slave to the instant gratification of the Buy button.
Match seemed like a no brainer: all music available everywhere, 256 Kbps DRM-free versions and an effective back-up in the cloud. And to be fair, all these things may prove to be true. But three days in, I’m still trying to get my iTunes library matched and sync’d.
After two or three betas, the nightmare of getting everything set up seems incredible. I would have expected Apple to have resolved most of the shit by now. Signing up was bad; it took several attempts to complete the process. Having done that, signing on to iTunes was screwed for, maybe, 15 or 18 hours, because valid user IDs and passwords were rejected. The popular theory was that the Apple’s servers were blitzed. This was a cause of major panic until I realised it wasn’t just me.
Having got past the first hurdle, there are three further steps for iTunes Match: collect information about the library, match tracks against the iTunes catalogue, upload any tracks that couldn’t be matched. The fun really begins here: I have lost count of how many times iTunes has hung during the first two steps. And it is not just iTunes, but the entire machine that locks, requiring a power off-on cycle. This is more of a pain than usual because it’s necessary to watch the restart and catch iTunes to either stop the current step or force-quit the application; otherwise the current Match step would continue and almost immediately the app would hang again.
Of course, every restart of Match begins again at the beginning. And with over 18,000 items to process, this takes a while. Checking on the Apple user forums, I discover that Match tags some tracks with “error” as the iCloud status. It is these errors that cause the hangs. The workaround is to delete and trash the tracks from the catalogue. The deleted tracks can be recovered from trash; so in theory, nothing is lost – but I have yet to confirm that these tracks can be safely reintroduced.
This is major pain, made even worse because not all errors are identified on the first pass. Multiple iterations of steps 1-2-hang-restart-interrupt-delete tracks-recover from trash-start Match are needed. Eventually, I get to the point where Step 3 starts to upload unmatched tracks. But this doesn’t mean an end to the grief because the upload process – some 5,000 tracks to go – hangs as well before more than a few percent have been processed. I’ve now got the stage of of stopping the upload after 200ish tracks, so I can quit iTunes correctly to “bank” the work. I’m still going through this loop with 2,300 tracks remaining.
It’s reported that Steve Jobs was incandescent with rage after the initial embarrassment of MobileMe. Frankly, this seems an even bigger fiasco. I hope it’s not indicative of complacency from Apple.
If you haven’t yet signed up for iTunes Match, my advice is to wait: first, to let the immediate rush pass and secondly, hopefully Apple will make some improvements. In the meantime, here are three links that I have found helpful in addition to the Apple user forums.
Bugs & Fixes: Three essential iTunes Match troubleshooting tips
iTunes Match: What You Need To Know
How to upgrade tracks to iTunes Match, fast
