Problem Attic. Insert witty tagline here.

That stands for Quote Of The Day For Yesterday. The money quote, as it were:

“You don’t want to make accounting too easy by doing it the obvious way. You’ve got to keep the mystique.”

   — From a Workshop on Accounting Software.

Design by Brehaut, URLs by Me. (Look at the address.)

Try the following in your ~/.bashrc:

alias clone="pwd | pbcopy; osascript -e 'tell application 
  \"Terminal\" to do script \"cd `pbpaste`\"'"

Reload with source ~/.bashrc, then try it out by typing clone at the prompt.

In lieu of a “Filter before Preview” option in SubEthaEdit, try the following as an AppleScript. It will open the front document in Safari after running Markdown (or Textile, or any similar filter) on it. Yes, it’s a bit of a hack, but it works, which is the main thing.

set command to "/usr/local/bin/Markdown.pl"

tell application "SubEthaEdit"
    set content to text of front document
    set doc to (name of front document) as text
    log doc
    do shell script "echo " & quoted form of content & 
        " | " & command & " > /tmp/" & quoted form of doc & ".html"
end tell

tell application "Safari"
    open ":tmp:" & doc & ".html"
end tell

A group of people in Auckland are broadcasting a live reading of the bible this weekend. If you want to listen, go to:

mms://L1.r2.co.nz/careybc
(You’ll need Windows Media Player, sorry)

After the weekend it will become a podcast, so you’ll be able to subscribe with iTunes or your news/feedreader and get a chapter a day in mp3 format — read out loud. Visit the website at podbible.com.

Tim Bulkeley posted recently on a discussion he’d run across about digital (computer) literacy. He was struck by the phrases “digital natives,” and “digital immigrants.” Digital natives are those who have grown up with computers and digital technology — today’s western kids. Digital immigrants are those who have had to learn — like their teachers.

However, I think this divide is somewhat of a myth. Most kids have no more clue about things digital than “immigrant” adults; they just learn faster and earlier. I’ve seen many kids who parents would describe as computer literate, but who have just learnt to do a few more tasks than the parent has — in addition to word processing, the kids can also play games and build a powerpoint presentation.

The biggest problem is that there is still very little understanding. The digital natives still have no idea why things work the way they do, they just know how to make them happen. This is digital literacy of a very poor kind. Compulsory basic computer theory for everyone, I say!