I'm pleased to announce my first Mac software, released via tyLife!

Track5BX is a Mac OS X Dashboard Widget that keeps track of your workouts on the simple 5BX-style exercise program presented in The Hacker's Diet by John Walker. A compact interface displays your current rung, number of times it's been completed, and the exercise plan at that rung (including brief descriptions if you hover over an exercise name). Dashboard Sync is supported for .Mac members with Leopard.

In a crowded market, it's important to differentiate your product from others. As anyone with an email account knows, everyone is selling enlargement pills these days (you know what I'm talking about). Sooner or later all these marketers were going to need to distinguish themselves.

Still, I don't quite get this one. Yesterday I received an offer by email, but this one was different. It promised to "enlarge my aggregate size". Aggregate!? Is this a new approach, rather than increasing the size, add more of them?

Never mind, I don't want to know.

Amazing press release here.

It takes chutzpah to describe yourself as "a leading provider" in the very same sentence where you explain you're being delisted from Nasdaq because you filed for bankruptcy. They go on to assert again that "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system" (never mind the courts' findings) and try to pitch their products and services. "We're circling the drain! Visit our website to learn about our products!"

SCO Group. A leader in hubris since 2002.

The real estate market is pretty gloomy right now, particularly here in Florida after some crazy growth. But is there hope? According to this Reuters story, real estate prices on the Moon correlate well with Earth-bound housing prices:

"Our calculations suggest lunar land prices appear to be a reasonable lead indicator of U.S. house prices by around 12 months. This suggests a trough in U.S. house prices may occur around the beginning of 2008," the bank said.

Although most traditional indicators are quite pessimistic, lunar land prices have risen 40 percent since the start of 2007, so it seems at least when it comes to the Moon, things are... er... looking up.

I realized the other day that my old Blogger.com account, where this blog originated, was still active, and while poking around there I was reminded of a strange feature of Blogger, the "Random Profile Question".

Some things Blogger asked me:

Which is easier to make a model airplane out of and why: a banana peel or a wet sock?

You have a red jar of cedar chips. Why do moths miss the forest?

You can punch a hole in an apple using a straw. How do you think that makes your milkshake feel?

Does this sound a little similar?

You look down and see a tortoise [...] The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. [...] But you're not helping. [...] Why is that, Leon?

Yes, that's a question from a Voight-Kampff test, designed to detect Replicants by their emotional response to odd questions.

Now Blogger asks:

Never mind the turtle. Don't you think you're sure to win?

Hmmm....

Blogger is, of course, a Google company. Is it possible that somewhere, deep in the Googleplex an AI project has gone awry and is now roaming the internet? Perhaps this is a trap to catch it!

Either that, or Google, not content with indexing all of the internet's knowledge, has decided to start cataloguing the Third Magisterium, using bloggers as unpaid labor.

I'm pretty sure it's one or the other though.

It came to pass that Nasruddin decided to start a blog. His first post was short and simple. "People, do you know what I want to tell you?", he wrote. And the people answered in the comment forum, "No, how can we know?". "Then we don't have a common ground for discussion", Nasruddin replied, and closed his browser.

The next week Nasruddin again posted to his blog, asking the same question. In the comments, the people wrote "Yes, Nasruddin, we know what you want to tell." Nasruddin replied, "Then there is no need for me to blog," and closed his browser.

On the third week, again Naasruddin posted the same question. The people replied, "Some of us know, and some do not." Said Nasruddin, "Well, let those who know tell those who don't" and closed his browser.

Via Daring Fireball I found this story at WIRED which may give some insight into why Futurama is one of my favorite TV shows:

As showrunner on Futurama, Cohen assembled a team of writers with equally wonky backgrounds. Ken Keeler, who scripted the pilot as well as the new DVD, has a PhD in applied math. Stewart Burns, who wrote the Emmy-winning episode "Roswell That Ends Well," has a master's in math. There are also PhDs in chemistry, philosophy, and computer science. "It was the nerdiest writers' room I'd ever been in, and that's saying something," says Eric Horsted, whose previous experience on sitcoms like Home Improvement and Coach didn't prepare him for the intense discussions about string theory and quantum mechanics.

Tags: Futurama

Well, I've been neglecting the blog for the past year. So, I have decided that 2007 over, and declare this to be the '08 version of the blog. Hey, if Apple can skip iLife from '06 to '08 during '07, why can't I do the same with tyLife?

You'll notice a few visual differences. I've updated to a new version of RapidWeaver, and then upgraded my spinoff of their Aqualicious theme (which I call The Life Aqua with Steve Jobs) to incorporate the enhancements to Aqualicious.

More importantly, you may see some new content!