Monthly Archives: September 2009

Unpopular

Posted on September 28, 2009 by MXH

I was reading a piece about H. P. Lovecraft the other day, which revealed him to be another one of these impoverished-in-life-popular-in-death types. It seems to me that this sort of fellow pops up a lot: In addition to Lovecraft, … Continue reading →

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Spider Rescue

Posted on September 27, 2009 by MXH

I like spiders. Unfortunately, sometimes they get trapped in sinks or bathtubs from which they cannot escape. Today, a simple tip for performing spider rescue.

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Quickie: Core Data “Scratchpads”

Posted on September 25, 2009 by MXH

The Cocoa Core Data documentation makes frequent reference to the fact that Managed Object Contexts (MOCs) are “scratchpads“, in which objects can be moved around willy-nilly without affecting the permanent store. This is all well and good, but it leaves … Continue reading →

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Brazen

Posted on September 24, 2009 by MXH

Okay, so Seth Godin’s Squidoo is launching a new venture: Brands in Public. There’s a bunch of interesting stuff in Seth’s announcement. It contains some masterful spin, a brazen proposition, and some nice o plata o plomo persuasion. Seth’s a … Continue reading →

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Housekeeping

Posted on September 21, 2009 by MXH

Today I just want to take care of a little administrivia. I’ve piled up a fair number of posts related to Shiny Red Buttons, but they’re scattered a little randomly throughout the blog. Therefore, I pulled together a page devoted … Continue reading →

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Floyd Mayweather Jr.: Not a Fan

Posted on September 20, 2009 by MXH

I saw the Mayweather/Marquez fight last night. (It was, as everyone else reports, a major mismatch; I couldn’t give Marquez a single round.) Watching it, I was struck by two things: First, Floyd Mayweather is an undeniably talented boxer, and … Continue reading →

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SMS Bubbles

Posted on September 18, 2009 by MXH

Talking with Benoit Cerrina (of ShinKanji) about a related issue, I started to wonder how you could render “bubble” text, as for instance in the SMS application. It turns out to be pretty easy; all you need is a little … Continue reading →

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Fitted Labels

Posted on September 17, 2009 by MXH

A recent problem required me to find bounding boxes for text on the iPhone. While this problem is neither typical nor particularly hard, I did spend some time digging though the documentation until I found an approach that I was … Continue reading →

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Not Indicative

Posted on September 14, 2009 by MXH

“Past Performance Is Not Indicative of Future Results.” This little piece of boilerplate, or some variation on it, will be familiar to anyone who’s ever heard a pitch for an investment or a mutual fund. What I think it worth … Continue reading →

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Let Me Please Introduce Myself

Posted on September 13, 2009 by MXH

Several people have been nice enough to link to items from this blog, and, in so doing, have brought it to my attention that it’s a little hard to figure out who, exactly, I am. Let me address that now.

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