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Hancock

Despite the lackluster reviews, I enjoyed Hancock, Will Smith’s latest high-budget action movie. While the screenplay is relatively generic and the special effects not particularly impressive, Smith and Jason Bateman both have solid performances; the former has come a long way since The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

As one of those kooks who enjoys reading about the movies he’s seen immediately after watching them, I poked around the Wikipedia page and learned that the spec script was written in 1996.


If Film Studios Developed Videogames

Screenwriter John August writes something for the "funny cuz it's true" category:

Puzzle Farter needs a love interest, someone who can match him toot for toot. We think Rachel McAdams would be perfect.

Also, players need to be able to select gender, so as not to eliminate the gay gamer demographic.

So the question becomes: is this why most movie games are dreadful?


The Use of American English Quotation Marks Vis-a-Vis Punctuation, Namely Commas and Periods

Posted on June 15, 2008, filed under Other.

Or, Skip All Of This If You're Not A Grammar Nerd.

For about a month now, I've been bothered by American English's approach to quotation punctuation: that is, the practice of placing commas and periods inside a quotation mark as opposed to the outside. I even wrote a draft about it a few weeks ago, which I never got around to publishing1.

So it strikes me as crazy that, by complete coincidence, Joshua Bryant published his own thoughts today on the issue:

Let's have us an example. Take this sentence I just wrote:

Like, for instance, the word "definitely."

Now, in my head, that's correct punctuation. I should admit that I had to retake English 2 times in University, so there's a high chance I'm wrong, but at least its what I've been taught. But it makes no sense to me. To me, it should look like this:

Like, for instance, the word "definitely".

Apparently, that's not correct. But it feels right in my head.

First of all, you probably don't know how happy I am to not be alone.

Secondly, I don't recall I've ever agreed more passionately with someone on something as miniscule as grammar. It feels crude and strange to me too, and here's why:

  1. When used for "air quotes" purposes, it implies that the comma/period is part of the phrase in the quotes. And almost 100 percent of the time, it's not; if I have a friend named "Nigel" and someone quotes the name as "Nigel," they're technically spelling the name incorrectly.
  2. When used for quotation purposes, the problem is even worse. The idea behind a quotation is that you get a verbatim copy of a particular piece of text. By putting marks on the inside that weren't originally written or spoken, you are, to a certain extent, invalidating the purpose of a quotation. Thus, the practice is only acceptable if you're quoting the end of a sentence.
  3. The rule doesn't apply to semicolons or colons, nor is it a universal English mechanic.

I also recommend this Wikipedia article on the differences in usage.

Which brings me to my next point: "American English" (the inside way) and "British English" (the outside way) have different solutions to this. In contrast to American English, the British variant places periods and commas outside of the quotation marks, so sentences look like this instead:

Your friend's name is "Nigel", yes? I'll have to meet him sometime.

Compared to the American way again:

Your friend's name is "Nigel," yes? I'll have to meet him sometime.

Please, someone-- explain to me why this weird, crude practice exists. I'd love to know, especially if it could make me stop breaking out in weird grammar fits.

  1. Would you publish a lengthy rant about proper punctuation mark usage?
  2. Just to be clear, I am not the most consistent grammar fiend; I'm sure you could pick out examples of this in my earlier articles. So, it's even stranger that this particular issue bothers me so deeply.

Ebert on "You Don't Mess With the Zohan"

In his website review:

This is a mighty hymn of and to vulgarity, and either you enjoy it, or you don't. I found myself enjoying it a surprising amount of the time, even though I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.

I'm weirdly inclined to agree. I wouldn't want to tell someone I actually enjoyed this movie, but deep down, it actually hit my liking for stupid shock humor pretty well. Of course, if you don't like Adam Sandler, don't bother-- but if you do, you might have an idea of what to expect.

(Via Andy Ihnatko.)


Tim Russert Dies at Age 58

From the New York Times Blog:

“Our beloved colleague,” a grave Mr. Brokaw called him, one of the premier journalists of our time. He said this was one of the most important years in his life, with his deep engagement in the network’s political coverage, and that he “worked to the point of exhaustion.” Mr. Brokaw said Mr. Russert was a true child of Buffalo and always stayed in touch with his blue collar roots and “the ethos of that community.”

The article mentions that Russert had just returned from his son's graduation in Italy; as tragic as this is, I'm happy he got the chance to see it before he passed.


Interesting

Posted on June 8, 2008, filed under Apple.

John Gruber speculates PowerPC support in "The Ins and Outs of Snow Leopard":

A few factors: (a) Snow Leopard won’t ship until next year, at which point even the newest PowerPC Macs will be at least three years old; (b) dropping PowerPC would significantly simplify the development and QA testing for Snow Leopard; and (c) perhaps Apple will present technical merits, i.e. that by dropping PowerPC support, they’re able to implement certain performance improvements that can only work on Intel hardware.

Time for some point/counterpoint:

Historically, Apple has been good about supporting older hardware for reasonable periods of time. For example, Mac OS X 10.4 supported G3 Macs with 256MB of RAM and a FireWire port; the first one to do that was the Blue-and-White Power Mac, which came out in 1999. PowerPC was discontinued in 2006, so if Snow Leopard ships in 2009, that would only be three years-- somewhat uncharacteristic of Apple. Say what you want about PowerPC, but three years is just not a long time to own a computer.

Customers don't care about technical challenges, because such challenges are invisible to them; saying "deal with it" only becomes a consideration when the end product is directly diminished in quality because of them. If this is the case, fine, but I don't believe it is.

The counterpoint is that Gruber claims to have sources, and being a reputable writer, it's probably true. Thus, if he can confidently state that Snow Leopard will be Intel-only, it very well may be so.

(all other reasons I don't think/wish it will happen can be found in my may-be-laughed-at-after-tomorrow article about this whole issue.)



Reminder: PowerPC Macs Don't Suck

Posted on June 6, 2008, filed under Apple.

Every once in a while, I hear a jab about the alleged mediocrity of PowerPC Macs, usually about how they're unsuitable for today's needs. Performance-wise, folks claim, they're just plain slow; why buy a $600-700 PowerBook when you can get a $1100 MacBook that offers "twice the speed"? Or better yet, who invests in a PowerPC Mac when Apple may drop support for them in the next release of OS X?

But I think PowerPC is long from dead; last March, after my iBook's motherboard gave out, I bought a 15" PowerBook G4 with 2GB of memory on eBay, a purchase that ran me $825. And quite simply, I love it; I don't think I could have bought a better machine for that money. And though the last models rolled off the line nearly two years ago, there are a few reasons the whole line is appealing to users:

  1. The last shipping models are extremely fast. The Power Mac G5 Quad, discontinued in August of 2006, is not only a relatively-young model, but a really speedy one at that. Those computers can fulfill all the processing needs from computationally-intensive applications like Final Cut Studio, Cinema4D or Pro Tools, because the people who bought them expected them to work for a long time-- certainly more than two years. The same holds true for the folks who bought iMacs or PowerBooks.
  2. The expansion you'll find is still pretty swell. Apple's desire to make their PowerPC-Intel transition transparent largely extended to the Mac's I/O; for example, the only things my PowerBook lacks from the MacBook Pro are the ExpressCard slot and 4GB memory limit, but even the standard MacBooks don't provide as much I/O as the PowerBooks. Desktop-wise, consider the iMac: until the aluminum model came out last September, the white G5 and Intel iMacs were almost completely identical on these marks.
  3. Capable PowerPC Macs are inexpensive. Four years ago, the particular PowerBook I own would have cost me $2,500; that is not the price for a low-end machine. In fact, I dare to say the PowerBook would be a better value than, say, a $1100 MacBook, because the better I/O options offset the slight loss in speed-- and remains $300 cheaper. The success of used computers is built on the appeal of having four years ago's best machine today.

These reasons don't just apply to people buying old Macs on eBay: PowerPC is important to Apple, too. Selling software (OS X included) that will run on older machines is a great source for upgrade revenue-- and traditionally, Mac users have high upgrade rates. It's even feasible to make it run well; contrary to what some may think, I actually find the PowerBook to be quite satisfactory, especially after the 2GB memory upgrade. And those G5 Quads I mentioned early are not slow machines2.

So... yeah. The other side of the argument is that as long as PowerPC is supported for upgrades, optimizing software for it will hinder progress moving forward. This is valid, and I think Apple will start considering the axe when nothing other than high-end G5s will run OS X. Regardless, I'm certain technical support will be offered long after that; PowerPC may be gone from the shelves, but that doesn't mean supporting it isn't on Apple's priorities.

Plus, I'd really like to see "Snow Leopard" or whatever it's called for PowerPC, please.

1. Tidbit: While visiting my Apple Store's Genius Bar, I mentioned my PowerBook purchase off-hand to the genius and was told that Apple "will support it for at least five more years". In all fairness, I actually have no evidence to back that up, nor do I know if that also includes system upgrades, but it'll be interesting to revisit this in five years and see what actually happens.

2. Someone is going to read this in 2014 and laugh at my declaration that G5 Quads "are not slow machines". It's true that the Mac Pro is significantly faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad, but the latter still would have delivered pretty darn well in 2008.

37signals: The customer doesn't care who's fault it is

"MattH" (Matt Linderman, perhaps?) of 37signals does a bang-up job talking about customer satisfaction:

In the end, the customer doesn’t care who’s fault it is. They just want the problem fixed. And if it’s not fixed, the entire chain of companies involved suffers. So it’s neat when a company takes responsibility for something that’s normally considered out of scope.

And check out this comment:

I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to explain to that companies from telcos, to custom application development shops, to HVAC repair shops. The bottom line is that when a customer calls they expect services, answers, and solutions not buck passing or excuses.


SquirrelFish Benchmarks

If you didn't hear about it yesterday, SquirrelFish-- the brand-new JavaScript interpreter unveiled by the WebKit team-- is fast. I'm not seeing many people link the speed comparisons Geoffrey Garen posted towards the end though, so here they are: against Safari 3.1 and against Safari 3.0 (the latter results are particularly startling).


Manhattan 1.1.1

I've received a bit of feedback regarding my NetNewsWire stylesheet, Manhattan, so I've updated it to 1.1.1. The gist of the changes:

  • The big one: images beyond 550 pixels will now be correctly displayed, instead of cutting off.
  • Really, really detailed color, margin, and header changes.
  • I hate it when the author's email is published next to their name-- and it was particularly distracting in Manhattan-- so it's hidden now.

You can get Manhattan here (and if you haven't seen it yet, check out these swell screenshots). Double click to install; have a nice day!