Snow Leopard

First issue is with MacFusion – it fails to mount (though the command line sshfs-static-leopard binary continued to work)

Fortunately there’s an easy fix.

iGetter interferes with Safari in 64 bit mode, preventing some binary files from downloading properly
e.g., DMG files which would previously download and open automatically now merely open a black screen, appear to wait for a while presumably downloading the byte stream into a temporary location, then fail to do anything else and does not show the location of the downloaded data.

ControllerMate Helper was not running in the background, so my DasKeyboard mappings were only working when I had the CM main program running. An upgrade fixes the problem.

Stacks are pretty, but they don’t support regular Finder operations like right clicking.

Numbers 09: Durations & Templates

So along with my new MacBook I also upgraded to the new version of iWork.

This has produced several problems with my household bills. First of all, spreadsheets which previously worked now produce errors. This appears to be down to the difference way Number 09 handles durations. Previously I had calculations which subtracted one date from another, and used it as an integer number of days. Now that kind of automatic type-conversion produces an error, so first of all I had to manually add DUR2DAYS() function calls to explicitly convert them to integers. That’s fine, the coder part of me likes static typing.

While I was at it I figured I might as well see if I can implement my tables using templates. I thought that might allow me to design one table, then simply reuse it throughout my spreadsheet. Sadly this isn’t the way templates work. First of all they appear to be discrete duplicates, not references, so if you modify a template after already having created a table from it, the modifications don’t propogate to other instances of the table. That sucks, so templates are effectively just a scratchpad where you can copy pre-built tables from.

There are further issues, though: any forumlas on the template which refer to other sheets will disappear when you try to create a new table from the template (or in other words, those references are stripped when the template is created).

The upshot is that I’ve redesigned my tables (and thrown in a bit of colour too), but I won’t be using templates. Given their preponderance to drop my inter-sheet formulas, and lack of instancing, the only effective solution is to simply copy and edit existing tables.

Bibliographic Software

I spoke previously about my troubles with LaTeX, to which this post is related.

I’ve been checking out Papers recently. It seems to be unstable, I’ve had several crashes in the last couple of days.

Doesn’t provide the kind of system integration I expect from normal OSX applications.

For instance, drag & drop of URLs from Safari – this should open a new window (as if I’d manually done “File” -> “Open Custom URL” in Papers.) Also, when I drag a URL for a PDF document into the PDF section of a Papers document, it should automatically download and associate the PDF. Currently it does nothing.

Furthermore in bibliographic software I expect to be able to Copy BibTeX data from one place and Paste it into Papers. Unfortunately this Copy & Paste operation doesn’t do anything.

Doesn’t handle custom .bib files. For example, I have a custom BibTeX entry type called Software with fields for things like “Platform” (e.g., Windows, PS3, etc). When I try to import these into Papers the extra fields are ignored and silently discarded.

Doesn’t import PDFs automatically. When you import a document from the ACM you still have to manually click on the PDF link to download and associate the file with the bibliographic data. This should be trivial to implement and is an obvious usability improvement.

Can’t tag multiple papers simultaneously.

Doesn’t support ACM properly:

I should be able to open an ACM URL in Papers and have it parse the page to extract the metadata. Currently if you open the URL to a document on the ACM (through “File” -> “Open Custom URL”) the webpage will load, but if you import it the metadata will be incorrect (with no real data in it, and using the URL as the document title.)

This should be straightforward (after all there is already ACM-specific parsing code in the application as it extracts this data during an ACM search) and a clear benefit.

ACM DOIs are totally unsupported. If you try to match a document using its DOI it will fail (as Papers tries to get the doc from doi.org rather than acm.org as it should)

e.g., here’s a the BibTeX data for a document on the ACM,

@article{279166,
 author = {Russell,, Daniel M.},
 title = {User experience research group: understanding the complete user interaction},
 journal = {SIGCHI Bull.},
 volume = {30},
 number = {2},
 year = {1998},
 issn = {0736-6906},
 pages = {90--94},
 doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/279044.279166},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 }

I’ve also just started to look at Mendeley, though the desktop application hangs a lot so I haven’t been able to really test it.

Another problem is its poor integration with other bibliographic applications. e.g., if you import a BibTeX database most of the fields will be discarded; export again as .bib as you’ll see vast swathes of your data missing in the new database.

Looks like I might be sticking with JabRef or BibDesk for the time being (though without ezproxy support this isn’t as useful as it could be – perhaps time to get involved with development?), with occasional use of Papers (just to associate PDFs with a subset of my BibTeX data?), as well as Yep and Leap.

New Laptop

My old 12″ aluminium PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz looks like it’s come to the end of it’s life. It fails to boot past the apple logo screen, and there’s extensive video corruption on the display as well as external monitors. I’m going to try to take it apart and make sure everything looks right from the inside, but I’m realistically not expecting to be able to save it. Unfortunately the graphics chips are soldered onto the main logic (mother) board, so I can’t just replace the gfx components. I could replace the board myself, but this looks like it’s going to cost in the order of £400! Clearly it’d be far better to fork out for a whole new laptop. I guess other solutions include be to buy a standard PC laptop and try installing OSX on it as a Hackintosh. Or going even more lo-fi I could just pick up a notebook (e.g., Samsung NC 10) and run Ubuntu.

I’m currently considering the white MacBook (£618.70) as it seems quite similar to the MB466LL/A aluminium model (£799.25), meanwhile the Pros seem don’t seem to be that much better, but they do cost twice the amount (£1,163.80). The only compelling reason to get a Pro would be to play games, but that’s what my desktop PC’s for. I guess the main disadvantages I’m concerned about with the white MacBook are the slower RAM (how much of a performance hit is this?) The gfx are pretty much the same, and I don’t although I do love my aluminium PowerBook I might be willing to save £180 for the cheaper hardware. Not sure… Any thoughts on what I should do? I can’t stand not having a computer at home so I’m keen to act on this ASAP.

[EDIT: 20090215]

Ok, so the WhiteBook has DDR2-667, with a maximum transfer rate of 5333 MB/s (210 GBP: Apple Memory Module 4GB 667MHz DDR2 (PC2-5300) – 2×2GB SO-DIMMs), whereas the MacBook has DDR3-1066 with a maximum transfer rate of 8533 MB/s (196 GBP: Apple Memory Module 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 (PC3-8500) – 2×2GB SO-DIMMs). When buying a new laptop from Apple’s Higher Education store in the UK, to upgrade to 4GB instead of the default 2GB costs 90.85 GBP for the WhiteBook, or 83.95 for the MacBook. Annoyingly if I were to buy a model with the default 2GB this would be supplied as 2×1GB, which means I’d need to get replace both memory units with 2×2GB ones. 2×2GB of DDR3 costs between 70 and 130 GBP for (non-)ECC memory. Whereas 2×2GB of DDR2-667 costs 42-52 GBP. Either way I could avoid having to pay this amount for a while, at which point the cost may have decreased, and this would act as a later upgrade in case things begin to slow down.

The unibody features a multi-touch (rather than twin-touch) trackpad that’s 39% bigger than the WhiteBook’s one.

The WhiteBook has a MiniDVI like my old PowerBook, whereas the MacBook has a Mini DisplayPort, which would mean I’d need to buy a VGA adapter to use an external monitor (or projector), but this only costs 17.25 with the MacBook.

The WhiteBook has a 120GB drive instead of the MacBook’s 160GB. In addition to the standard 2 USBs, the WhiteBook has a FireWire port which is missing on the MacBook. Apparently the WhiteBook has greater WiFi range.

The LED screen of the MacBook is supposed to be brighter and crisper as well as being “instant on” (though as a glossy rather than a matte it might suffer from excess reflections.) It also supports higher external display resolutions (2560 x 1600 instead of 1920 x 1200), has a 30 minute better battery life and weighs 0.5kg less.

Apparently the WhiteBook gets hotter and dirtier, and can develop cracks over time.

End of the day: Looks like I’m spending £816.50 on the unibody model. For very similar money I could get a 20″ iMac instead, but what would be the point when I already have a nice desktop PC.

The only thing that occurs to me is that it might just be worth waiting until the release of OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard” if I possibly can, as I wouldn’t be surprised if they upgrade the spec of the CPU at that point, and it might be coming really soon (maybe June.)

EvilSexyGeek

A certain someone recently awarded me the dubious honour of the title “Evil Sexy Geek”, which I used for my Top Secret Dance-Off handle.

Google gives no hits, so I’m hoping it’ll pick up this page shortly.

Neuropsychological Model of Spirituality

I have a copy of this, if you’re interested,

AU: Brick Johnstone, Bret A. Glass
TI: SUPPORT FOR A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL OF SPIRITUALITY IN PERSONS WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
SO: Zygon(r)
VL: 43
NO: 4
PG: 861-874
YR: 2008
CP: © 2008 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon
ON: 1467-9744
PN: 0591-2385
AD: Professor in the Department of Health Psychology, School, and Counseling Psychology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65212; e-mail johnstoneg@health.missouri.edu.; Graduate student in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65212
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2008.00964.x
US: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.2008.00964.x
AB: Recent research suggests that spiritual experiences are related to increased physiological activity of the frontal and temporal lobes and decreased activity of the right parietal lobe. The current study determined if similar relationships exist between self-reported spirituality and neuropsychological abilities associated with those cerebral structures for persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Participants included 26 adults with TBI referred for neuropsychological assessment. Measures included the Core Index of Spirituality (INSPIRIT); neuropsychological indices of cerebral structures: temporal lobes (Wechsler Memory Scale-III), right parietal lobe (Judgment of Line Orientation), and frontal lobes (Trail Making Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test). As hypothesized, spirituality was significantly negatively correlated with a measure of right parietal lobe functioning and positively correlated (nonsignificantly) with measures of left temporal lobe functioning. Contrary to hypotheses, correlations between spirituality and measures of frontal lobe functioning were zero or negative (and nonsignificant). The data support a neuropsychological model that proposes that spiritual experiences are related to decreased activity of the right parietal lobe, which may be associated with decreased awareness of the self (transcendence) and increased activity of the left temporal lobe, which may be associated with the experience of specific religious archetypes (religious figures and symbols).

Fit, Sexy, Geeky Chicks!

In an article called “The Virtual Battle of the Sexes“, the BBC report on research by Dmitri Williams (University of Southern California) Mia Consalvo (Ohio University), Scott Caplan (University of Delaware ) and Nick Yee (Palo Alto Research Center).

In particular they highlight analyses which suggests EQ2 players tend to be healthier than the general population, and that 40% of them are female and 5 times more likely to be bisexual.

Williams also posts about this paper on Terranova in an article called “Gender differences: New findings, new paper“

You can get the original 44 page manuscript from his publications list,

Williams, D., M. Consalvo, S. Caplan & N. Yee. (2009, in press). Looking for gender (LFG): Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers. Journal of Communication.

Here’s the abstract,

“Gender role theory was used to examine differences among male and female players of a large online game. Several hypotheses regarding the importance of gender and relationships were tested by combining a large survey dataset with unobtrusive behavioral data from a year of play. Consistent with expectations, males played for achievement-oriented reasons and were more aggressive, especially within romantic relationships where both partners played. Female players in such relationships had higher general life happiness than their male counterparts. Female players were more likely to play for social reasons. Contrary to popular stereotypes and current hypotheses, it was the female players who played the most. Female players were also healthier than male players or females in the general population. The several findings have implications for gender theory and communication-oriented methods in games and online research—most notably for the use of self-reported time spent, which was systematically incorrect and different by gender.”

Mobile Phone Battery

My phone battery is pretty much useless these days.

Manufacturer: Sanyo
Model: WIZA16
Type: Li-ion
Capacity: 1250 mAh
Voltage: 3.7VDC

These suppliers seem to be the cheapest in the UK,

• Replacement for DOPOD 838, D600, WIZA100, HTC Wizard, I-Mate K-JAM, O2 Xda Mini, QTEK 9100, T-MOBILE MDA Vario PDA Battery (£10.05 + £3.95 registered delivery of 4-7 business days, PayPal MasterCard or Maestro)

• Replacement PDA Battery for DOPOD WIZA16 (£10.40 + £4.00 registered delivery of 2-5 days. 1% off when using PayPal with MasterCard or Maestro)

Paper, Scissors, Stone

After a long day of study I finally posted this Tweet at around 01:50 in the morning,

“About to give up and let sleep beat work once again. If only I knew the third part of this Paper/Scissors/Stone-like triad…”

It couldn’t be easier: the final part is Play.

• Sleep beats Work
• Work beats Play
• Play beats Sleep

Console Windows

My internet connection’s slow, so X over SSH isn’t usable for remote connections.

Twin might be a solution,

 

sudo apt-get install twin

 

Alternatively there’s VWM,

 

Download, make and install in the following order:

libpseudo

make && sudo make install

 

sudo apt-get install libgpmg1-dev


make && sudo make install

 

libviper

make && sudo make install

 

Viper Window Manager

sudo make && sudo make install

sudo mkdir /usr/lib/vwm/modules

 

Personally I had some problems (make wasn’t creating the modules directory, and I don’t understand how to use the application once it’s launched anyway.)