Jerry Stratton's Blog, page 42

Editorial linked on Astoundingly useful programming tools

“Editorial is a plain text editor for iPad and iPhone with powerful automation tools and a beautiful inline preview for writing Markdown. You can combine a large selection of simple text processing actions into your very own workflows—all in an intuitive drag’n’drop interface that makes it easy to see what's happening.”

The author of Pythonista also has a text editor on the app store. But Editorial isn’t just a great text editor; it’s also a great way of running scripts on text documents. I use it extensively when writing blog posts, to format my posts, to create lists, and to look up information on the fly on my own web site and others.

The drag-and-drop workflow creator is very powerful, and incorporates many of the features of Pythonista while keeping those features extraordinarily simple to use.

Roast beef for National Sandwich Day

Sandwiches are not made by bread alone. And this roast beef recipe is a very simple way of making meat for your sandwiches.

Artist and Computer linked on Astounding Computer History

“No computer will ever take the place of an artist. But many artists are discovering computers as a medium to create finished pieces of art, while others explore new art forms, using the computer as an idea machine.”

This is the book that inspired me to finally write an ASCII art generator. Artist and Computer• is a fascinating collection of essays by artists from the seventies, just before the onset of the home computer. It contains everything from oscilloscope art to ASCII art, as well as primitive three-dimensional work.

Because it is set before the advent of the home computer, the artists often didn’t own the computer they were using to create their art. Many worked with a programmer. But they all had to have some understanding of programming in order to manage the process.

The artist now goes to an art supply store to purchase a given set of tools, whereas the computer artist can create the tools he will use. This is remarkable and allows for unlimited possibilities in the art to be created. — Ruth Leavitt (Artist and Computer•)

Why is it so difficult to hold schools accountable?

Simulating accountability in education has the same problems as simulating accountability in health care or any other monopoly. Tests and grades and paperwork are never as effective as choice.

Catalina: iTunes Library XML

What does Catalina mean for 42 Astounding Scripts?

A thousand points of color: give your photos a pointillist turn

I had far too much fun with that kleenex mask in the book. Here’s a more serious look at creating pointellated images using the asciiArt script in 42 Astounding Scripts.

Lingon linked on Astoundingly useful programming tools

Mac OS X contains a powerful alternative to cron, called launchd. Unlike cron, launchd can run scripts not just based on time of day but on repeated intervals; it can also ensure that scheduled scripts run when the computer starts up if the computer is turned off when their scheduled time comes around.

Launchd can also run applications that need assistive access, making it possible to schedule such apps without using an AppleScript app running all the time in the background.

Launchd is also, however, a lot more complicated to set up than cron jobs. I still use cron for most scheduling because cron is easier to maintain. Lingon, however, goes a long way toward making launchd almost as easy to use as cron. This is the only case in the book where I do things differently than I describe: I use Lingon to tell launchd to run an Automator app that runs the schemail e-mail scheduler.

I didn’t want to require you to buy third-party software. But I do recommend it if you use schemail but don’t like having an AppleScript app running all the time.

Anything less than school choice is unfair

Forcing people to pay for one government school regardless of where they want their kids to go is so unfair that even far-left Democrats think it’s wrong.

Astounding Scripts@MeWe linked on Jerry Stratton

Amazing Grace (Uncommon Melody)

Amazing Grace, by John Newton, with melody by C.H. Warwick. This was apparently once a common melody for the song but is rarely heard now.