ugly 3.0

Firefox-UI, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

Firefox 3.0 has been out now for a short while and I have to say that it's pretty good. I made sure to install it onto my computer at work right away and of course there's no comparison to internet explorer which blows many-a-goat. However, it's taken me until tonight to upgrade to 3.0 on my macbook pro. I normally only use firefox on my MBP to check a certain bank account that does not recognize safari and insists upon firefox. Anyway, in the spirit of giving the new software a chance, I downloaded and installed which was a fairly painless process. It automatically helped me upgrade my piclens, and adblocker add-ons and migrated my old bookmarks seamlessly. So far it seems fast on the web, and I hear those old nasty memory leaks from 2.0 are gone (although I'll believe it when I see it), but I can't get over how ugly and wasteful the ui is.

I'm not sure where to start on this one. First thing that jumped out at me was the mismatching (in color AND gradient) bookmark toolbar. It's probably the same gradient as the bar above it, but it's compressed into a third in the Y direction and is visually jarring. Then there are the out of date round corners around all the buttons and input boxes. I mean, that was the kind of thing that was cool when 'skins' were all the rage. Just take a look at windows media player, so many curves and bulges it doesn't know where it's going. The font is also very sloppy. It's on the cusp of being too bold…or is it just fuzzy around the edges? I can't tell. Either way it's not too readable. But probably my biggest pet peeve of all time for any program anywhere, especially browsers, is wasted space. You can see in the screenshot that the fully expanded safari navigation, bookmark bar, and tabs take up less space than firefox in the default 'small icon' mode. Also, the aforementioned rounded buttons make for a lot of wasted space between them, and on top of that they're not even necessarily evenly spaced. Included in this space waster category is the tab bar, why are there gaps between tabs?! Okay, so maybe if I have one or two open and there is extra space can there be gaps, but if I have more tabs than will fit in the bar shouldn't the gaps go away? Nope. Apparently not.

Anyway, I can already hear you saying: "well the beauty about firefox is that you can make/install a custom 'theme' (read: skin), and make it look however you desire." …True. But if that's the case shouldn't the default theme be so bare bones, tiny, but still functional? And besides, I'd just look for a theme that makes it look like safari anyway.

I think I'll just stick to the real Safari for now.

edit: Anyone else notice that scrolling with two fingers on a MacBook Pro is sort of laggy?  It's not instantly responsive unlike any other program I've used.

spaceball

spaceball or what, originally uploaded by guckstdu.

Today at work I had to put together a large number of photos of bike parking facilities as part of a precedent study that we're beginning. So naturally I turned to flickr to find some images. However my attempts to drag the images into a folder were thwarted with the annoying "spaceball.gif." What is "spaceball?" I really didn't check, but I'm fairly certain that it's a 1x1 fully transparent image that is stretched over the protected image on a CSS layer that sits on top. (If anyone wants to correct me on this, feel free). Anyway, I looked into the page's source file and was able to get the urls for the images, but that was slow and tedious until I got the idea to simply add the url for spaceball.gif to my adblocker plugin. Once I did this, I was able to drag and drop any image from flickr with no problems.

The url to block the spaceball is here: http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

Also, in all my flickr journies I've found that I really do not like HDR, digital B&W photos, and stupid "BESTEST FLICKR FOTOS EVAR!!1!!1ONE!" type groups. Please avoid them. For everyone's sake

sasquatch

confetti, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

If you know me, you know I like concerts. and what's better than a concert? How about fifty concerts?! In the past I've shirked my schoolwork for a weekend to drive down I-5 to the deadly heat of the Mojave for the Coachella music and arts festival for two or three days of 100°+ weather and nearly non-stop concerts. It's where I saw Daft Punk in their legendary return show and the debut of the now legendary digital pyramid and Justice in their first ever live (non DJ) set. It's also where I was introduced to, and frightened by, the Animal Collective and Hot Chip.

But this year Coachella's lineup looked a little less than inspiring and my attention turned northward to a similar, but smaller festival out in the middle-of-nowhere Washington state. Sasquatch has three stages to Coachella's five or six, but the venue is a natural amphitheater that overlooks a surreal gorge with visibility for miles around. There really isn't much to compare it to except for maybe the grand canyon (which is actually much, much larger). For me there were three reasons to make the cross-country trek to the gorge: The Flaming Lips, The Cure, and friends. The Flaming Lips don't play that many shows, but when they do they are supposed to be spectacular. The Cure, who is basically just Robert Smith is so old and drug addled that I'm in constant fear that he wont last much longer and I'll never see him live. But also I really wanted to see friends who have made it a tradition to go to sasquatch every year.

The first day of the three day festival was a little rocky as it rained intermittently throughout the day and really let loose during REM. But during a sunny patch MIA played a really great set which included pulling up tons of concertgoers onto stage. The second day started off slow as Trish and I waited in line to use the shower. The line, which wasn't extraordinarily long, ended up taking nearly two hours. But fortunately there was water left and we didn't miss anything noteworthy. That day we ended up seeing Rogue Wave, which hit a technical snag but was able to pull through, and the nearly forgotten, but loved, Presidents of the United States of America. But the highlight was definitely the Cure…For me at least. Having been thwarted at an earlier attempt at seeing the Cure in NYC late last year, I really wanted to see him before he finally kicks the bucket. They played some good songs and a lot of lesser known ones to start which would have left me okay, but perhaps not entirely satisfied. And then they went ahead and played six encores entirely from Boys Don't Cry. Those really made my night. The third day was the best weather-wise and it became apparent that I was developing a sunburn on my face from the high-altitude sun exposure. There were some good performances that day and near the end we went down to the stage level for the final acts to position ourselves for the Flaming Lips. The Mars Volta played second to last and I wasn't even sure what to expect even in terms of music. From the instruments they prepared it could have been a delightful mix of styles. But from the moment they started to play it was pure agony. There was no rhythm, no hook, no cohesion. Every instrument was competing with the next to be the loudest and the fastest. And then there was the vocalist who was strung out on something and thrashing around onstage throwing a cymbal and an electric fan out into the crowd and fighting a cameraman for his camera. The display crossed the line that separates theatrics into recklessness. So what did I do? I pulled out one of the complimentary magazines handed out earlier and began to read right down in front of some of the fans that were trying to push past. But all was forgotten when the Flaming Lips came on to close the three days of shows. It started with a descending UFO which the lead singer (Wayne) came out of and got into a clear plastic bubble which inflated around him and then walked down onto the crowd itself. Also, the whole time there were people dancing on the sides of the stage dressed as telletubbies, and at some point a giant inflatable sun and astronaut came out as well…for no apparent reason. Also, the generous use of confetti was much appreciated as were the enormous balloons put out onto the crowd. It was all very entertaining and satisfying in the end.

All in all I had a great time. I guess the next time I do anything like this though I'm renting a hotel where the shower line should be less than two hours.

whaling

Surface Zoom, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

It's been too long since updating here basically since I've been incredibly busy with the ending school year, a brief trip out the west coast and everything in-between. Anyway, I'll try and catch up a bit starting now.

A few weeks ago Trish and I went on a whale watching cruise from the New England Aquarium in boston. After a week of planning and postponing we finally made it out for the Saturday afternoon boat. The boat took us about thirty miles offshore into the Atlantic to a marine preserve where humpback whales do their feeding. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect to see so many whales and so close up. Before the boat left we heard someone ask how many whales the earlier boat had seen which was apparently around four. However we easily saw over a dozen whales including a cow and her calf. The trip was great until the boat turned back to shore and I began to get a little sea sick. But I did what I've always done in that situation, sleep. I find that as long as I can sleep I can pretty much shake off any motion sickness. Definitely a great little tour.