Achievement unlocked

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So, a famous-to-almost-no-one, A-List web design celebrity blocked me on twitter:

I consider this a win, that I managed to say something to annoy/outrage him to blocking me. So, achievement unlocked.

Oh, and what did I say to him?

@andyrutledge because the reverend isn’t responsible for his own actions, it’s all #OWS fault.

Outrageous, huh?

Find missing fonts in PSD

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So, opening a new PSD file in Photoshop, and you get this error message:

"Some text layers contain fonts that are missing. These layers will need to have the missing fonts replaced before they can be used for vector based output."

And then, well, shoot, which fonts are missing? You can contact the client and ask for the list of all the fonts used, OR, you can ask Photoshop.

Click that OK button, then go to the top bar for the Font list:

Open up the list and scroll ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST. Ugh. So. Many. Fonts.

At the very bottom, you'll see, greyed out, the list of fonts in this PSD that you don't have on your system.

Yeah, I was missing "Helvetica Neue LT Std". $29 and a few minutes later, I'm not.

P.S. Frutiger Ultra Black is still the best font on all the world.

Started a new book today

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I started a new everyday book / tracking journal today. This is number six, and my first orange one. The previous ones were red, black, lime, grey, and turquoise.

IMG_2056.JPG

I've been tracking food, exercise, health issues, mileage, money spent, story ideas, meeting notes, to-dos (when I don't have my secondary brain), lists (pioneer month foods, things to do in San Francisco, things to do in Ottawa, house tasks, monthly habit ideas, daily photo themes, and the like), and anything else I need to write down when I need a piece of paper.

I took Jonathan's idea for the reward if found, should I ever *SHUDDER* lose it:

IMG_2057.JPG

Cutting the cord

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So, on a Hacker Dojo mailing list, a note went out today that read:

When I came in today, I saw the toaster was written on "MORONS LEFT ON ALL NIGHT SOLUTION ->" with an arrow pointing to the cord which has been cut. I'm wondering if anyone knows more information about it.

With a picture attached:

Hacker Dojo Toaster

It reminded me of college, and, in fact, of the Ride of the Valkyries.

It was tradition during finals week to play the Ride at the loudest possible volume at 7:00 am. I was dating Frank my sophomore year. He had access to the giant speakers from the music room sound system located at the Student Center. By "giant" I mean the cabinet for the subwoofer was a meter tall. And he had a particularly good amp that could power two of these speakers.

So, at the end of the school year, on the first morning of finals, we dragged those speakers up the stairs, set them up at the end of the freshman hall, set up the amp, attached the CD player, put in ear plugs, and promptly at 7am, launched the Ride of the Valkyries at volumes not previously heard in the previous two years (I have no idea if someone else had done this same plan, I just know it was the loudest I had heard). As soon at the song started, we hustled to the far end of the hallway to see the carnage that would follow.

Not very long later, I really don't recall how long it was but it wasn't very long, Prince, the tiny freshman that no one in the house liked, walked out of his room next to the speakers. With scissors, he proceeded to cut the cords on the speakers.

*snip*

*snip*

Silence.

There was a certain amount of anger and finger pointing that happened immediately after that. Frank ended up paying for replacements for the now unusable speaker cords. We filed a complaint with the MoSH, though, in retrospect, I'm not really sure what argument we were trying to make. We were tormenting the frosh, but doing so in an accepted tradition, they responded in a destructive way, who is really at fault here? Had Prince just unplugged the speakers, I'm not sure we wouldn't have just plugged them back in, though I also don't recall the "rules" with the Ride.

Maybe Andy or Charles can help me out there, I should ask one or both of them if it was verboten to start the Ride back up once it was legitimately shut down on a morning, or if we could play it until the end.

One Day of Dumb

Scalzi Story

Wherein I take a band name from Scalzi’s Next Band Name list, and spend no more than 20 minutes writing the story with the band name as a title.

---

Laura leaned forward and rested her head against forearm, before relaxing into a slumped position. She had heard the lecture the teacher was giving every year for the past six years, each time with a slight variations, but always the same message. She didn’t need to listen to the stupid message again, she practically had it memorized.

No, wait, she did have it memorized.

Of course, she did. She and all of her classmates, and all the kids in the next room over, and all the kids in the school older than ten.

She relaxed and started to fall asleep.

“If you would be so kind, Miss Charleston.” Laura’s teacher’s voice spoke just behind her, startling her awake. Laura looked back and up at Ms. Reid.

“Yes?”

“What are the basic four tenets to remember for tomorrow?”

Laura rolled her eyes, and started quoting the rules. “Don’t take chances. Don’t make decisions with lasting consequences. Conserve. When in doubt, don’t.”

Ms Reid looked down at Laura a moment longer, lips pursed. “And what does that mean to you?”

“Don’t be dumb.”

“Yes.” Ms. Reid started walking back to the front of the classroom. “Don’t be dumb. Up until now, on the Reset Day, you’ve been sheltered. Your C-chips’ controls were transferred to a secondary system, one too immature to achieve sentience. Tomorrow you won’t have that luxury. Tomorrow, you will experience your first day without assisted consciousness, while the collective reboots. Your decisions will be questionable, your choices either too many or too limiting. You will not have access to the knowledge you have today, as your connection will be cut off. You will experience what used to be experienced by only the old and infirm: the inability to recall information that you haven’t actually learned.”

She paused for a bit.

“So, follow Miss Charleston’s advice. Don’t be dumb.”

Next to Laura, Sean raised his hand.

“Yes, Mr. Richards?”

“But, well, instead Reset Day supposed to our one day of dumb?”

Ms. Reid stared a him for a bit before responding. “Indeed.”

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