Don’t Fire Until You See The Frights Of Their Eyes
Is it “legal?” Yee haw!!! Let’s do it!
A canned hunt is a trophy hunt in which an animal is kept in a confined area, such as in a fenced-in area, increasing the likelihood of the hunter obtaining a kill. According to one dictionary, a canned hunt is a “hunt for animals that have been raised on game ranches until they are mature enough to be killed for trophy collections.”
Source: Wikipedia
If, like me, you ask, “What the fuck is a trophy hunt?” here’s a little help:
Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. Although parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial (usually the skin, antlers and/or head), the carcass itself is sometimes used as food.
Source: Wikipedia
Yup. There’s stuff going on in the world that I can’t possibly imagine.
In like a Lion
Yeah, I did it. I upgraded to Mac OS X Lion. Here’s my mini review:
Installation was painless and quicker than I thought. I was expecting 12 hours for the download, but it took less than two. My internet connection must be faster than I thought. (I know a certain someone for who the download was more of a chore. Heh.) Then the computer had to crunch for about 30 minutes to perform the install. When I came back, it was at the login screen. OS update done.
So, what’s new? Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:
- The login screen has a new look. We all know that’s the most vital part of any operating system.
- When logging in the wallpaper now “zooms” to fill up the screen.
- The scroll function on my mouse is mysteriously reversed. Up is down and down is up. It’s okay, though. I like it that way.
- Three new icons appeared on my Dock bar at the bottom of the screen.
- My Sigma Chess 6.2.1 no longer functions. Apparently this was a “PowerPC application” and Lion does not support that. So tough luck for me. “Check and mate,” says Apple.
- My name now shows up on the bar in the top-right corner of the screen.
- After the upgrade, iTunes updated and told me it was new for Lion, but it looks exactly the same to me.
That’s it. Those are literally the only things I’ve noticed. System speed seems about the same as it was before. Overall, a very pleasant upgrade, but as I sit here and type into my little WordPress post box, literally almost nothing looks different than it was before.
It all feels very incremental. Something tells me that’s the future of upgrading.
Graphic video: Mouse eaten by Lion
An anachronism under Lion?
A new version of Apple’s operating system called OS X Lion is afoot. It will be out by the end of the month.
I’m no expert, but as far as I can tell, Apple is using Lion to make the desktop computer more like an iPhone. I think they want to confuse the user. “Am I sitting at a desk using my home computer or is this my iPod? I can’t tell the difference!”
One thing I noticed when I switched from Windows to OS X earlier this year was that my right arm was getting tired. I’m not wanting to say anything good about Windows, but it did do one thing right: There was very little that you couldn’t do with the keyboard. Almost everything you could do with the mouse could also be accomplished with a keyboard shortcut, if one was willing to learn.
I have a keyboard in front of me and my hands are already there. I find it convenient. Might as well make use of it, eh?
Sadly, it was not so with the Mac. To this day I still don’t know keyboard shortcuts that will allow me to access application menus. (Maybe they exist. If they do, I haven’t found them.) True, most things in the menu have their own shortcuts, but that can be a lot to remember. Accessing menus with the keyboard was very convenient. And some menu options don’t have options. In those cases you have no choice: time to take a ride on the mouse.
If there is one thing I hate, it is moving my hand from the keyboard over to the mouse (and back again) when I don’t have to. This particular gesture (if you’ll allow the term) is extremely annoying. Extremely.
I noticed right away on my brand new iMac that my right hand was traveling more than it ever had before. You’d be surprised, but in only a few short months the forearm girth of my right arm now doubles the left. I got lopsided guns! If I could be ambidextrous and use a left-handed mouse half of the time I would be totally ripped.
I’ll provide two telling examples of where I think Apple’s OS X is weak on the mouse.
First, try doing something like emptying the trash. You move the mouse down the the bottom of the screen and right-click and select “Empty Trash.” Viola! The dialog box opens up miles away, vertically centered, near the top of the screen. Hey, Apple! Why not have the dialog open near where the mouse pointer already lives, thus reducing the distance I have to move to get there? Any of you brainiacs ever have that bright idea?
My second example is the “Your Changes Will Be Lost” dialog. This is just one example of a problem that exists throughout the operating system. This particular dialog box gives you three choices: Don’t Save, Cancel, and Save. By default “Save” is already highlighted and you can hit the RETURN key if you wish. If you want either of the other choices, though, you’re screwed. You can’t do anything like type the first letter or use the LEFT ARROW and RIGHT ARROW keys to navigate to a new choice. You guessed it! Your right hand kisses the keyboard goodbye and heads for the mouse. You are simply given no other choice.
It’s the Apple Right-Handed Back and Forth game! Only in this game there are no winners. Apple just loves it some freakin’ mouse.
Well, it used to. Cue OS X Lion.
I just watched a four minute video about Lion on the Apple.com website and guess what? Apple is “gesture” freaks now. The mouse was almost entirely left out of that video.
Gesture is the new mouse!
The video primarily featured the Macbook Air for most of the happy shots of people using OS X Lion. Occasionally they did show a desktop. In those cases a touch pad was prominently featured, either sticking off the right side of the keyboard or as a separate shot. In only a single shot did they should a desktop computer with … gasp … a mouse.
The mouse’s days appear to be numbered. And here I was hoping that Lion would finally address the long-standing issues I’ve had with Mac OS X and my right-handed workout. I’m getting keyboard shortcuts aren’t going to be prominently featured, if there are any at all.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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