The evil green fog of doom is finally lifting!

Our pesky microalgae bloom is subsiding at last (after a week and a half); visibility in our aquarium has increased to the point where you can actually see things that are more than three inches away from the side of the tank. Woohoo! :)

When I get around to it, I’ll re-position FishCam 2 for a more interesting view, possibly including some corals and such.

UPDATE: As promised, I’ve moved FishCam 2. It is now located at the far left end of the tank, looking lengthwise down the center of the aquarium, with live rock and corals on the left, and fish (sometimes) on the right. You can see the current live view at left; here’s an image from earlier tonight, with two damselfish swimming by:

I also moved FishCam 1 off of Patriot and onto the saltwater aquarium. FishCam 1 (the iSight) is the more “mobile” cam; I can easily move it around to show whatever’s interesting at the moment, like passing snails:

P.S. Here’s a picture of the webcam & aquarium setup, excessively captioned for your convenience:

Here are two closer-up views of the cams. Note the sandwich bag on the iSight and the modified shower curtain on the monitor, designed to protect them from splashing and dripping when Becky or I reach into the tank, refill it, etc. :) You may also notice that the G3 is on cinderblocks, so it won’t be sitting directly on the wet floor in the event of a flood.

Okay, y’all know I love Apple, but this really pisses me off.

In November 2003, I paid $29.99 for QuickTime Pro, an upgrade to the basic QuickTime Player that allows you to, among other things, edit sound files. It was a good upgrade and well worth the money.

Then, last month, Apple introduced QuickTime 7, a new-and-improved version of the QuickTime Player. The problem? Serial numbers for QuickTime Pro 6 don’t work with version 7 — you have to upgrade again. And there is no discount whatsoever for people who had previously upgraded (not even for people who did so much more recently, e.g. earlier this year). Everyone who wants QuickTime Pro 7 has to pay the same $29.99, regardless of whether they already paid that same amount for the prior version. Apple explains in the FAQ:

Will my QuickTime 6 Pro key work with QuickTime 7?
Because QuickTime 7 includes royalty-bearing technologies, a new QuickTime Pro key is required to unlock Pro functionality in QuickTime 7. If your key no longer works, visit the Apple Store to purchase a new one.

That’s not much of an explanation, and it certainly doesn’t justify failing to at least offer a discount for recent upgraders, but oh well.

“Well,” you might say, “you don’t have to upgrade to version 7. Just keep using QuickTime 6.” Ah, but that’s where it gets really good: QuickTime 6 doesn’t work with Tiger! Again from the FAQ:

Is QuickTime 6.x supported with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger?
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger includes QuickTime 7. Earlier versions of QuickTime and QuickTime Pro are not supported with Mac OS X 10.4.

That’s right, Apple’s new operating system forces you to use QuickTime 7, and you do not have the option of “downgrading” to the older version. So if you bought a license for QuickTime Pro before version 7 was introduced, and then you bought Tiger, your license is now worthless!

In my case, at least I can say that I got a year-and-a-half’s worth of use out of that now-useless QuickTime Pro 6 license. But imagine how you’d feel if you had bought QuickTime Pro a couple of months ago, before the notoriously secretive Apple innovators had announced their planned upgrade to version 7. Unless you’re willing to keep using an outdated operating system in order to preserve your QuickTime purchase, you basically paid $29.99 for nothing!!!

This is downright unconscionable. Such money-grubbing tactics would make Bill Gates blush. Apple should be ashamed of itself.

Does anyone know of any good, Tiger-compatible alternatives to QuickTime Pro that will allow me to crop sound files and do other basic editing tasks? I need the functionality of QuickTime Pro, but I don’t particularly want to let Apple rip me off again. Fool me once…

I dunno how to put Photos into the Post but click the link to see the Angler & the astounding Anglee :) pictured with the article:

Illinois man boats 124-pound, 5-foot (well, rounded off :) Blue Catfish in the Mississippi.

ALTON, Ill. (AP) — It sounds like the sort of tale Mark Twain might have cooked up: A man fishing in the Mississippi River hauls in a blue catfish roughly the size of a sixth-grader.

But this is no fish story. Early Sunday, Tim Pruitt caught a 124-pound blue catfish.

To get a sense of just how big that is, the state record holder was a mere 85 pounds and the world record holder tipped the scales at 121 pounds, 8 ounces.

Now, Pruitt, whose fish has already been weighed in the presence of a conservation police officer and measured by a biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, is expected to submit documentation to the International Game Fish Association so that it can be certified a world record holder.

…The fish has been kept alive and will be on display in a tank at the Cabela’s Outfitter store in Kansas City, Kan., according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Now that is a big Catfish. I am Blue with envy. :> I may have to make Pilgrimage to Kansas City, to pay homage to the be-barbeled monster. :) / Notoriously persnickety about such matters, the IGFA will probably want to ascertain that Mister Whiskers’ weight hasn’t been unnaturally skewed, like by the ingestion of an Anchor or something, before Certifying the record. / The story should have stated what Pruitt was using for Bait. My guess: rancid chicken livers. The slimyskinned scaleless scavengers Love ‘em. The rottener the better. (In this case, maybe a whole damn decayed Chicken. :)

Read the Rest of it.

Police in West Haven, Connecticut say a 6-year-old girl was abducted from her school bus today. Apparently her mother was involved; sounds like a custody dispute or something. Police believe they’re heading to Florida.

UPDATE: An Amber alert has been issued. It was her mom and her aunt who kidnapped her. (The mom does not have custody, obviously.)

[ UPDATE 2 by Joe Loy (the above Link, now updated, has it): thank God, the girl has been found and is OK & back with her father. The aunt, plus her Friend in the Switched-up getaway car, are Somewhere in Custody. Speaking of which, parental custody of the girl is apparently in Dispute. / On the local TV News tonight the father said he blames the School & the Schoolbus company. What about the Aunt? Wotta Mess.]

In other Connecticut news, a major traffic accident shut down I-84 this afternoon.

[ Again with the Joe Loy Update ~ Yes and no Sooner do They reopen I-84 in CT than a crashed Driver, as a Prelude to the customary Flight on Foot, assaults the pursuing State Cop before further Investigation discloses the presence ~ apparently predating the accident ~ of a Deceased Individual in the disabled Vehicle. (I’m always against the Rush to Judgement but it sounds like a Whack to me. / “Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.” ~ Clemenza :) ]

This article has it all: Red Sox, publicity for a burgeoning organization, and the following phrase:

The Greater Manchester Sports Council, made up of civic leaders and executives of some local sports teams, is still working on the date and location.

Yup, that’s right folks. Kristy LaPlante is a “civic leader.” Never thought we’d see the day. :)

ps-When the Manchester Sports Council’s webpage goes live, I’ll post a link.

Has anybody else using Firefox on Mac OS X experienced the problem whereby pop-up (or pop-under) ads appear even though “Block Popup Windows” is selected in Preferences? It’s driving me crazy! It seems to happen particularly with Drudge’s infernal pop-unders. (I’m using Firefox 1.0.4 with OS 10.4.1, but I had the same problem with earlier versions of Firefox, and with OS 10.3.x.) I love Firefox, but ARRRRGH!!!

On the bright side, wiping my hard drive and upgrading to Tiger seems to have helped with my biggest Firefox bugaboo, namely, the ridiculous lag that would happen whenever I’d start a download (even for a small JPG file) and the download window would open or come to the front. The download window seems to be much more snappy now.

P.S. I love Tiger. :)

P.P.S. I think I might be going a little overboard with Dashboard, though:

Heh.

P.P.P.S. On the other hand, I don’t love how Tiger renders text darker than Panther did. Regular text looks almost bold, and bold text looks ridiculously dark. But I suppose I’ll get used it.

The House today passed a bill in support of increased federal funding in stem cell research, despite Bush’s threats to veto. Despite my good-natured, “Choose Life” Catholic upbringing, I have to say I’m ecstatic that the reps at least made an attempt to support this kind of research… especially since polls have suggested that the majority of Americans support this legislation (some reported the number of supporters was as high as 80%, though I don’t know how they arrived at such a lofty figure).

What I dislike most is the White House’s publicity campagin against embryonic research is that, with photo ops like this…

…it’s difficult to say no. How do research supporters counter that? By bringing in all of those individuals whose lives were saved, extended, or otherwise made better by stem cell research? We can’t do that until it happens.

I say, keep fighting the good fight. Stem cell research — its approval and its implementation — will certainly not come easy. But as the old saying goes, what’s easy isn’t always right, and what’s right isn’t always easy.

(Photo taken from the NYTimes online, who in turn ripped it from the AP.)