I learned to type on my Mum's old Imperial Model 55 typewriter. A huge sit up and beg thing, crinkle painted metal with chrome strips, red and black ribbon, big and heavy keys and the entire carriage went CLUNK! when you pressed down the shift key. Marvellous device. It's still there in my Dad's house, the only thing wrong with it is the belt that runs the carriage mechanism is frayed almost through.

Modern PC keyboards are rubbish....

Tef: I missed out the bit about doing the first third of a comp. sci. 'A' level in evening classes after I graduated. With a teacher who actually understood computers, of course. I dropped out not because it was hard, but because it was too easy -- and instead I signed up for a full-time conversion degree.

Nix: maybe if I'd been born a bit later still, both my eyeballs would work properly. Too much earlier and I'd not be here, indeed -- when I was less than a year old I had the kind of bout of bronchitis that used to kill bairns back before antibiotics came along.

Dop: agreed about the modern keyboards. Although if you can find them, an IBM PC AT keyboard from the 1984-87 period is a thing of joy -- they were made by the Selectric typewriter division, have individual microswitches in each key and a steel plate in the base, and they do indeed go CLUNK. I've got to get my USB/ADB converter out and dust mine down and try it with the iBook under OS/X 10.3 ...

Oh, and not on the subject of oooh shiny watches from japan: http://www.tokyoflash.com/

I often feel I was born too late, most of the big advancements were made before my time, and it seems most of the fun was had earlier.

The AlphaSmart Dana is a worthy successor to the Z88.

I look at the wristwatch...

I boggle...

Now all we have to do is implement the electronics with thermionic valves, and we shall have discovered what the Lens of Arisia really is.

Note for new readers:

Charlie weighs the same as a very large duck.

Charlie:

"I haven't sold any novels this week (despite a couple of foreign rights queries),..."


Uh, sorry to contradict you, Charlie, but *I* bought 'The Atrocity Archives', in the US (from Amazon). So you have at least one foreign sale :)

Re. your Geektoys script, the symbol you want is the 'not' sign, ¬ (character 172 in Latin1, 194 in MacRoman).

Nope, I don't know why they didn't just backslash to escape returns instead of inventing their own line continuation sign either, but that's AppleScript for you: occasional sparks of pure genius surrounded by some of the most appallingly bad thinking imaginable. (The sparks, btw, are mostly lifted from Smalltalk and maybe Lisp or Logo. The syntax, Hypertalk. The stupidity? God knows...:p)

Here's how I'd do the same thing in AS, FWIW:

tell app "Finder"
   if exists Finder window 1 then
        set src to Finder window 1's target
    else
        set src to desktop
    end
end
set source_folder to src as alias

Bit cleaner and more robust, and without the redundant crud that AppleScript so seems to encourage. Still looks pretty long, mind you, but compare it to its nearest Python equivalent and you'll realise it's not that bad:

#!/usr/local/bin/pythonw

from appscript import *

fw = app('Finder.app').Finder_windows[1]
if fw.exists():
    src = fw.target.get()
else:
    src = app('Finder.app').desktop.get()
print src.url.get()

Not sure what the Perl equivalent using Mac::Glue is, but I doubt it's any tighter (its reference form syntax isn't as elegant, IMNSHO).

...

BTW, one of the ironies of the AppleScript language is that it was intended to have a replaceable syntax, allowing users to view scripts in their dialect of choice: English, French, Japanese, C-style, etc. However, the only dialect ever publically released was the verbose, HyperTalk-derived English one; and the whole dialect system eventually got canned somewhere around OS8/OS9 IIRC. I think the technology side worked okay, but the sheer logistics of supporting multiple dialects proved too much to be practical. Especially as it would've required scriptable apps to provide multiple localised terminology resources (aetes) to really be of use to users. And since a lot of application developers can't even do _one_ aete right, never mind a dozen of 'em, well, you can probably imagine how that would've panned out... :p

...

Anyway, if you want to check out some of the better developed alternatives to AppleScript language for Mac IAC:

- Mac::Glue (Perl bridge c/o Chris Nandor): http://search.cpan.org/~cnandor/

- appscript (Python bridge c/o me): http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/appscript.html

Both are works in progress so may have their own bugs and kinks that haven't been knocked out yet, and they won't help you any in dealing with the many delightful vagaries of scriptable applications themselves of course, but at least they'll save you having to fight the language at the same time.

HTH
(Greetings from the far west coast o' Embra!:)

Hmm. Learning Python has been on my to-do list for ages; I suspect you've just given me a kick in the pants in that direction -- the python version is much clearer to me than the Applescript one.

Now if only I could find a robot mouse for them to chase while I'm writing ...

Robot mice:
http://www.robotstore.com/catalog/display.asp?pid=28
or R/C mice, maybe your could tie the controller into basic stamp.
http://www.talkingpresents.com/productpages/pet_remotemouse.html
I've seen the later in stored in the U.S.

Of course, a laser pointer with some sort of programmable, oscillating mirrow would be the ideal cat toy. Maybe you could repurpose something like this.
http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/children-g...ome-laser-show.html

Personally, I mostly use my office door to physically keep my owners at bay while I write, then I augment that with a set of headphones to protect against feline memetic attacks.

Ah...the Littermaid.

Or as most owner's of the world seem to refer to it as "That goddamn awful scarything with teeth and claws that scares more shit out of me that I left in it".

Your cats are braver than mine if they use that thing. Not only does it look like some sort of Nazi torture device for felines, but the designer doesn't seem to have taken into acount the general shape and physiology of a cat.

If you ever read the mad rantings of the lads at Penny-arcade, at some point I think they got one.

Their experiences were similar.

If you can mod it to work - tell me. I'm sick of carting out lukewarm faeces in a sandwhich bag!

Anything has got to be better than the current situation.

It's not that Frigg and Mafdet are untidy cats -- far from it -- but they're, shall we say, not small. And they're on obesity control food (prescribed by the vet) that seems to consist mostly of dietary fibre, so they eat as much as they want and still lose weight. Which translates to filling up the two bonus-sized litter trays at a rate of approximately a kilogram per week per cat.

Given that we're thinking about adding a third beast to the herd, our ability to dispose of toxic waste is a critical limiting factor.

Penny Arcade on the Littermaid:

"The thing is, the device really doesn't have a lot of room in it for cats, which strikes me as a design flaw. You would think they would try to put a cat in there, or find somebody who had a cat, shit, maybe just imagine a cat and try to design their litterbox around that hypothetical, hairy customer. But they didn't. Cats must situate themselves diagonally in order to make a deposit as it were, so the container at the end where it's all supposed to go fills up at the sides first and then boils over into your house. This isn't even the worst problem."

More at http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2004-03-15

"When the cats begin to use the Littermaid, my first warning will be a loud rumbling, creaking noise accompanied by metalic squeaking and a light artillery bombardment to soften up the beach-head -- at about four o'clock in the morning. "

This will, of course, be considered a bonus feature by the cats once they realise it annoys you.

WD-40, it is your only hope :)

Stop press: Mafdet's using the thing. And she doesn't seem to be afraid of the kitty-eating machinery, either. (Dunno about Frigg, she spends most of the day sleeping in the deepest shadow she can find.)

I'm going to get a time switch so I can have the Littermaid switch itself off from midnight through 9am -- it automatically cycles once whenever you switch it on, so that'd sort out the overnight use.

All in all, so far I'm not totally displeased with it.