After about 5 minutes I'm completely sick of the BBC coverage of whatever incidents have taken place today.
I just got a phone call from my Mum to make sure I was okay. They'd heard reports of bombs in the centre of London. After assuring her that I was okay I flipped the TV on to see what was happening. I shouldn't have bothered.
Beyond the possibility that there has been a bomb on a bus (certainly something happened) and some sort of disruption on the tube they have absolutely nothing to say yet they insist on wittering on about it anyway.
You can tell the presenters have been eagerly practicing their waffle and speculation since 9/11. Now is their moment in the sun.
If this is the best the BBC can do then I suggest we close down BBC news and save the tax payer some money.
Update: The BBC website has, predictably, melted down. I'm switching on the TV every half hour or so to comb the coverage for useful information of which there is very little. My hope is that this is not the precursor to something worse.
On Windows I'm an avid user of the excellent Directory Opus which is a connoisseurs tool for working with lots of files & folders. By constrast the Finder is something of a low point in the whole MacOS X experience. A little spade work with Google suggests I am not the first person to feel this way.
I'm open to recommendations for a replacement. I've already come across Path Finder from CocoaTech. The screenshots don't look vastly different from Finder itself so I'm not sure what to make of that.
What do advanced file juggling monkeys like me use?
One thing I haven't gotten used to on the Mac is controlling my urge to misuse Command+W. On Windows the Alt+W combination brings up the window menu and it's my habit to use it to see which windows I have open. I've lost count of the number of times I've managed to close my current window instead of getting the desired effect.
This seems to be the only windows habit of mine which is persistent and irritating. I've also noticed I am having occasional troubles copying & pasting on windows now when my fingers end up doing ALT+C and ALT+V. I guess this is actually a good sign :-)
I'm questioning (especially after speaking to Beth earlier) my response to todays bombings. I don't feel about it so much as I think about it. Given that it's now clear that there are at least 4 deaths and dozens of serious casualties, some of them at Aldgate East tube (which I use for college), I wonder if that betrays a lack of empathy on my part. I feel a sort of weary sense of dread. My thoughts are focused on how we identify with this event and how we respond to it. But now is not the time.
Jeez what a load of hogwash:
Once buried, it will be time to avenge them.
Perhaps the villains' expectation is that the Briton will quail as the Spaniard, reacting to massacre with headlong flight from foreign fields. I think not. About me, I see older Scots with a steely flint in their eyes. The reckoning will come. There is a soul of honor beneath the ribs of death. [Josh Trevino via ScriptingNews]
Irritating prose style aside... have you learned nothing? To talk of vengeance and reckonings while that very scene is playing out?
If it weren't so absurb it would make me very angry indeed.