SteveX Compiled

The headline: “Windows 7 Next-Gen Graphics”. The teaser: “Windows 7 will usher in a host of changes all over the OS, including a major overhaul of the graphics architecture. Here’s what you can expect.”.
From the article:
The changes to the graphics landscape you can expect in 7 are not sea changes, but these [...]

Fable 2 was a short game. I enjoyed it, but sometimes in spite of itself.
The menu system sucked, the spell system sucked, and the controls for moving around sucked.
It took me until I was about 80% done before I figured out how spells work. And once I did figure it out, they still [...]

I would be watching a movie right now (rented from the iTunes store), but:

“The iTunes Store is unable to process Gift Certificates at this time”.
I have credit in my iTunes account from a gift certificate, and it’s not able to use it for some reason. And there’s no option to not use it and [...]

Seagate has announced a 7200rpm 500gb 2.5″ notebook hard drive. Assuming they didn’t break the form factor (as some other 500gb notebook drives have done, using 3 platters but making a drive that’s slightly taller than the form factor allows), this will be a nice update for the 160gb drive in my MacBook Pro.
There [...]

My web host, Dreamhost, recently upgraded Rails to 2.1.1. This broke my Recipes site.
It’s fixed now, but unfortunately it was down for a few days since I didn’t notice right away.
The way I got it working again was surprisingly easy:
I created a new Rails application from scratch (”rails recipes”), I copied my app [...]

“Most Asian markets recover on hopes for US bailout” == “Most Asian Markets Recover”.
“Banks lead Europe stocks higher on US bailout hopes” == “Banks lead Europe stocks higher”
See? The first part is a fact, the second part is a guess. The title of this post is some Ruby code that will fix up [...]

My wife bought a new teapot.
On the bottom, it says it’s freezer and microwave safe.
It does sound convenient to take your pot of frozen tea from the freezer and heat it up in the microwave, but I wonder what those snobby tea drinkers would think of that.

I picked up some Shure SE310 in-ear headphones when I was in San Francisco back at the start of the year, and never blogged about them. Better late than never, here are some thoughts.

The good:

They sound incredible. It’s stunning how clear music sounds, and how much bass they kick out.
They block out the [...]

It’s never too early for Fruit Cake!

(There’s a surprising variety and quantity of Fruit Cake at my local grocery store today).

I have a theory on the economic bailout plan that’s being proposed in the states. Disclaimer: I know as much about economics as I do about fixing cars, and I’m all proud that just last week I changed the headlight bulb by myself.
Here’s a quote from Dave Winer with some back story:
Now we [...]