September, 6, 2004 archives

justin mason provides desktop background images generated using xplanet and satellite cloud data.

i couldn’t get the recommended mac os x tool (geektool) to work, so i came up with a lower-tech solution. i created a folder ~/Pictures/Backgrounds/, and set up a cron job to pull down the latest image every hour (using curl, and limited to the hours i’m likely to be awake to avoid some unnecessary traffic). and then in the system preferences, i set up the background to change picture every 5 minutes, with the folder i created selected. since there is only ever one picture in there, it just reloads that image.

it’s not quite the ideal solution (it would be nice to be able to just signal that the image should be reloaded after it is updated, rather than having it do it every five minutes), but what i did was easy to set up.

the image is fascinating. you can see all sorts of other tropical storms that you don’t hear about in the news, and right now you can see a cloud front moving across the midwest.

i had trouble getting to sleep last night, so i had fun trying to take pictures of city hall from my window.

i went to the zócalo la event tonight at the central library, an interview (taped for kpcc’s airtalk radio program) with michael kinsley, editorial and opinion editor for the los angeles times. it was a bit strange to see a radio talk show live (well, live-to-tape), but it was interesting. they focused a bit too much on national issues, but i guess that is really what kinsley is supposed to bring to the times. after all, an editor living half-time in seattle isn’t brought in to add more local color.

the crowd was a little too uniform in it’s politics, so the short question-and-answer period was pretty tame. the moderator did force the final questioner to get to his question (with some audience prompting). i was reminded of the question-and-answer with rep. howard berman that i went to a while ago, where a little of that moderator direction would have been a vast improvement.