Lefties need not apply
I’ve long thought — like 85-90% of you, I’m sure — that southpaws should be barred from seeking public office, on the grounds that they can’t possibly relate to regular, right-handed Americans.

How can these sinister types know anything about our concerns and worries? They’re flipped all around. They’re mirror-images of normal people, and a hallmark of elitism is obsession with mirrors and images.

These gaucheries are often applauded for being great pitchers and for being creative, out-of-the-box thinkers. Think again, I say — with the Dow moving out of its own box, we need people who can think it back inside the box. Inside-the-box thinking is exactly what this country needs. Not strikeouts.

You may think this is an anti-Obama rant — but it’s not. Obama is left-handed, yes, but so is McCain. Sure, he comes across right-handed, but don’t be fooled. Total lefty.

Seems like no matter what we do this year we’re going south.

We’ve had other wrong-handed presidents lately: Ford, Reagan, first Bush, Bill Clinton. (At least our current president is right-handed!)

I don’t know about you — or, rather, I think I do, so I’m just gonna say what you’re all thinking.

You’re tired of the anti-dextrous. You’ve had enough of their special rights and scissors.

You’re sick of their lack of empathy for the north-limbed, the majority after all, who have suffered so long at their satanic hands.

You tell me, and I hear you, that America is all about democracy. Democracy means majority wins. Period. The southern-appendaged are not part of the majority.

And yet, here we go again.
10:06 am #

Speaking at iPhoneLive
I’ll be speaking at O’Reilly’s iPhoneLive conference on the topic of creating an iPhone app based on a desktop app.

I’m not sure that the NDA would have affected my talk much, since it’s fairly high level. But it’s very cool that other talks can go into more technical details as needed. I’m totally looking forward to the conference.
10:07 am #

XML parsing on iPhone
A few months ago I wrote a little bit about libxml2 and xmlTextReader — I talked about it as an alternate XML parser for use on Macs, but my real point was that it works on iPhones. It’s what I use for NetNewsWire for iPhone.

The code ran much faster and used less memory than the code I used in the desktop version of NetNewsWire — so I’ll be using this in future versions of NetNewsWire for Mac. A nice example of iPhone development benefits flowing back into Mac development.

At any rate, my point is just to provide this as a tip for anyone wondering about how to do XML parsing on iPhones.

And definitely also see Matt Gemmell’s MGTwitterEngine.
08:38 am #

NDA appears to be ending!
Apple: “[T]he NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software.”
08:23 am #

Seattle
View of Seattle from the Bainbridge Island ferry.

10:10 am #

Beneath Apple
When I read that Apple’s solution to the problem of the negative press around apps being rejected from the App Store was to add an NDA warning, I thought it was satire. It couldn’t be true.

But it appears to be true. If so, then someone is making a mistake. This behavior is definitely beneath the company that makes the software and hardware I adore and love developing for.

Apple folks: if there’s any way I can help you find a way out of this, please don’t hesitate to ask.
07:29 pm #