Diwali

I’m back in Belleville.

The drive back wasn’t that great. Getting onto Highway 8 was a challenge. I think people have started Christmas shopping or something. Between K-W and Toronto, it was rainy and busy and not very fun at all. So I went up on the 407.

Seeing fireworks going off in the subdivisions along the highway wasn’t as much of a surprise as it might have been. I’d driven that way during [Diwali](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali) before.

The first time was a surprise. One doesn’t generally expect to see fireworks going off all over the place throughout the suburbs. I made a mental note to figure out what the heck was going on that time, and the Internet provided the answer. The Indian festival of light. Who knew?

I drove straight to Belleville without stopping, listening to Doctor Who audios. [Valhalla](http://www.bigfinish.com/96-doctor-who—valhalla-469-p.asp) was pretty good, with a companion-less 7th Doctor. Personally, I kinda expected more from [Marc Platt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Platt), but I enjoyed it. Giant, intelligent termites in space. Who doesn’t love that?

I’m not in Belleville for any particular reason. Although, as this post might demonstrate, I could probably use the downtime.

Sarah Jane Adventures

I remember when I was a kid, just starting to get into Doctor Who and just starting to read Doctor Who Magazine regularly, that I was a bit surprised at how incredibly popular [Sarah Jane Smith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Jane_Smith) was among fans. People would write in about how she was so much better than any current companion. I remember a cartoon that didn’t seem to have a punchline at all, nor did it make any sense to me. It was just a picture of a boy sitting at the end of his bed, hugging his knees, staring up at the poster of Sarah Jane he had hanging over his headboard.

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. To me, she was maybe a little silly and annoying, but otherwise totally average as far as companions go. If I was going to choose a companion to obsess over, it would be someone like Nyssa or Zoe. They were *smart*. And cute and demure, of course. Certainly not confrontational. And not *empowered*, either, although 13-year-old me didn’t have any particular concept of what that meant.

Sarah Jane makes are more sense to me now. Because of any of the companions, if there was any of them who you could imagine going off and having adventures of her (or his, for the rare case) own, it would be Sarah. [Nyssa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa_of_Traken), while I still think she’s wonderful, ended up an interstellar chronic care nurse. [Zoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe_Heriot), while we’re not entirely sure, is probably back living her life as a space librarian. (♥)

And that’s exactly what happened with Sarah Jane Smith. She’s not just having exciting adventures as an investigative reporter, she’s fighting monsters and saving the world, just like the Doctor.

And that’s pretty much what [The Sarah Jane Adventures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sarah_Jane_Adventures) are about.

It’s a kids’ show, but it actually works fairly well. Doctor Who is nominally a kids’ show, although it’s traditionally aimed above the mark. SJA is on the kids’ channel of the BBC and is aimed squarely at kids. Besides Sarah, the principal cast is kids and it’s much lighter.

For a kids’ show, though, it’s surprisingly well written. While not quite to the same level as Doctor Who, the stories have definite emotional impact. It’s a bit silly and light and fun, but it still feels like it *matters*.

Compare and contrast with Torchwood.

One thing I noticed about the show while we were watching it: the writers seem a bit less reluctant to drop in references to the original series or lift wholesale obscure monsters from the new series. I have a theory about this, too. It’s the kids.

When you present adults with things they don’t understand, they get all flustered and frustrated and annoyed. Obscure references to things that they haven’t heard of are a turn off. Kids, on the other hand, take it all in stride.

What’s more than that, it’s the kids that are likely to pour over Doctor Who Magazine, the Annuals, and the new monster reference books they’ve been releasing. They know this stuff now. And putting sly little references into their show rewards their efforts.

I think it’s nerdily cool too, but they’ve shown considerably more restraint in the past for this sort of thing. I think they’re doing it for the kids.

Anyway, I hope they bring the show over here. I don’t think CBC is co-producing. Maybe it’ll show up on BBC Kids or something. Regardless, if you get a chance and you have any interest in Doctor Who at all, give it a try. I promise it’s better than Torchwood.

Even *with* the sonic lipstick.

Blogging tools

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that I use [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) for blogging. I love Markdown. It’s awesome. If I had my way, I’d use it for all my writing.

After spending years making web pages, I can’t be bothered writing HTML anymore. I hate WYSIWYG editors–they’re way too fiddly and distracting and it’s all too easy to end up with inconsistencies.

The way it works is I type up my blog entry into WordPress in Markdown and it saves it in Markdown, exactly as I typed it. It only converts it to HTML when it’s displaying it. This is sane and reasonable and obviously the way it should be.

I’ve been trying to find some sort of offline blogging tool. Web apps are great and everything, but I don’t trust them. I’ve lost too much work to closed tabs and browser windows.

I’ve always really liked [Semagic](http://semagic.sourceforge.net/) for Livejournal…

Uh, hold on, there goes the point of this post. Apparently (as I’m reading that link, having just retrieved it), Semagic supports the MetaWeblog API now. So I can use that. Or at least I’ll have to try it when I’m on Windows at work tomorrow.

Huhn.

Anyway, this was going to be a rant about how while there are many, many offline blogging tools on Windows, including and especially [Windows Live Writer](http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/), and most of them have an HTML code editing mode, they all very irritatingly strip the whitespace before saving.

Strip the whitespace! That’s outrageous! While HTML parsers have no need for whitespace, people coding HTML absolutely do. And it’s part of the syntax in Markdown.

Semagic doesn’t strip whitespace, though. So I’ll have to give that a try.

Well, that turned out better than I thought it would.

Computers and Me: Apple Macintosh

Previously on *Computer and Me*:

* [Amiga](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2007/11/02/computers-and-me-part-1/)

I was going to do these things chronologically (more or less), but it all kind of weaves together, so there’s no reason not to jump around.

Part of what prompted this series (besides needing filler for NaBloPoMo), was my rediscovering a page I wrote ten years ago about [why I was using the computer I was using](http://flyingsquirrel.ca/amistory.html). I concluded with a defiant proclamation that I’d get my parents to get my sister a Mac for school.

They did, too. They got her one of the early PowerMacs running System 7.

That was fine enough, I suppose. After a few years, though, she got annoyed she couldn’t read MS Word documents or play the games her friends were playing. Honestly, though, if she got a PC, it’s not like she would’ve upgraded the hardware or Windows or any of the things she’d have to do to do those things anyway. But I got in trouble anyway for subjecting her to a deviant computing platform.

I was probably more happy with it than she was. It was a little bit more capable than my Amiga at the time. When she and I were both home one summer (me on co-op), I ended up commandeering her computer to do things like watch videos of anime openings and playing games like [Exile](http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/exile/macexile.html). Whatever I could download on her super-fast 56k modem.

She eventually got rid of that machine and ended up getting a PC at Future Shop. And when it came time to pick a successor to my Amiga, I never even considered getting a Mac.

I knew about Max OS X, though. It was a flashy, new operating system built on an open source BSD base. Unlike my sister’s Mac, it had a command line. While I was mucking around in the dreary Windows world, it was gaining converts and cachet. You could do more and more stuff with it. Firefox was ported to it and it finally had a decent browser. It started looking like a viable platform.

I was curious. I wanted to see what was going on here. Plus, I kinda wanted a laptop for wireless networking, and I knew PC laptops sucked for that. (This was four years ago. They did. Seriously). Mac laptops were supposed to be really good, so I decided to get my feet wet.

I went to a Mac sales demo at the university. I really, really wanted the 12″ aluminum Powerbook, but the sales guy said that, with it’s plastic case, the 12″ iBook had better wireless reception. I caught wind that a G4 iBook was coming out, and I was sold.

And I’ve had it for four years. It’s what I’m writing this on right now.

I love my little iBook. There are a few little quirks that bug me sometimes, like jerky Flash animation and video, a jumpy track pad, and the lack of a one-handed Page Down key. And I love Mac OS X, too.

I think if you wanted to spend all your time in the Mac universe, you’d be just fine. Actually, you’d be fantastic. Everything works really well together. Not just Apple stuff, either. Third party application developers on the Mac are fantastic. [Quicksilver](http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver) has changed the way I think about computer user interfaces. Attempts to clone it on Windows or Linux are (for now, at least) only pale imitations. If every computer I ever used had Quicksilver and [Exposé](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expos%C3%A9_(Mac_OS_X)), I’d be so happy. It’s already ingrained in muscle memory. It eliminates so much command line and window fiddling.

There is trouble in paradise, though. Apple doesn’t play nice with others.

They do support things like Windows networking, but they by no means go out of their way to make it seamless. My [Airport Express](http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) is a lovely little device for getting podcasts over to my stereo, but the hardware works with iTunes and only iTunes. My iPod is tied to iTunes. Data put into iTunes or iPhoto is never coming out again. The new iPods are even more restrictive. And then there’s the iPhone.

You know those Star Trek episodes where some hyper-intelligent alien comes along and sticks Kirk in some exquisitely beautiful paradise, where all his wants and needs are taken care of? But upon realizing this, he recoils and breaks out, giving a stirring speech about how it’s man’s nature to be free, to strive and to seek challenges, even though perfection could be handed to him?

That’s how the Mac and the whole Apple platform is starting to feel like for me.

I love the Mac. I really do. But the more I get into it, the more I feel like I’m being shackled to it with velvet handcuffs.

The handcuffs are starting to chafe.

Dear Facebook: Please Try Harder

Facebook, I gotta hand it to you. You’ve done a fine job. Everybody’s on Facebook. My mom’s on Facebook. You somehow suckered Microsoft into giving you $240M. Nightly news commentators make comments about you in their pointless banter. By all accounts, you’re on top of the world.

So why do you seem so desperate?

I know, I know. All of Web 2.0 (you included) is driven by ad revenue. That means you need to drive people to your site and keep you there. No problem there, it seems. Facebook junkies spend hours and days flipping through their News Feed and profiles. And by the looks of it, your advertising strategy is to stay relatively inobtrusive, and off to the side. No flashing banners. I might get a flyer in the sidebar sometimes, but not always. Which makes me think maybe you’re not scrambling desperately after every single eyeball at every possible instant.

Why, then, don’t you send message text in your email message notifications? Would that be so hard? You sent me an email message just to say “To read this message, follow the link below:”?

You know, I don’t really mind your site too terribly. But I’d probably like it more if I didn’t feel like I was being coerced into using it.

And then there’s Facebook Applications, each one desperately trying to be more viral than the last. At least you give me warning that you’re going to sell me out to third parties before I get suckered into installing one. I appreciate having the opportunity to say no.

I admit, though, I like being able to get various online things that I do into my profile so that people who like your site in and of itself can get easy access to it. That’s fantastic.

However, surely it must have occurred to you that it really needs to go both ways. I’m not going to put anything into your site that I can’t get out again. I already feel bad that I’ve accrued as much relationship networking stuff in there that I’ll never be able to get out again. You’re not going to be around forever. The next time I sign up for one of these social networking sites, I’m going to have to start all over again, re-establishing all the same relationships, presuming any of my friends have signed up. And again, the time after that. And the time after that. It makes me a bit sad that there’s no free and open platform that let’s me say “I trust this person; they can see my stuff,” but there isn’t. You could have been that, but you seem more preoccupied building up your walled garden.

And just because there isn’t an open platform now doesn’t mean there won’t be forever. And what do you know? It looks like [Google is out to eat your lunch](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/details-revealed-google-opensocial-to-be-common-apis-for-building-social-apps/).

You have so much potential, but from the outside looking in, you’re squandering it. You could be doing things that might make your users lives easier, like better filtering to cut down on the horrible spaminess of the News Feed page, or allowing me more control over who can see what than just assigning people to my “limited profile.” I’d like that. Instead you’re… I’m not even sure what you’re doing. What *are* you doing?

Well, whatever it is, good luck with it. You’ve got me on your site, and I feel a bit dirty about it. I like being able to keep up with old friends and acquaintances, but I feel no particular fealty to you. When they abandon you, I will to.