the daily snivel

I buy her pieces and give them as presents quite often. She is very talented.

I'm momentarily sticking my head above ground (given the silence caused by my work-induced lack of life to blog about) to say that you too can buy some amazing, homemade jewelry (as well as paper goods, crocheted items, original art and photography) from Etsy's Trans-Canada team, and support talented artisans who hand-craft neato thingies and offer them to sale on the innovative Etsy website.

They're having a "spring cleaning" sale right now, to clear the way for new pieces. The sale goes on between February 18-24, 2008, which is this week. My roommate Mel in particular is offering 20% off her normal prices on some very stunning jewelry.

There is more information available from the Trans-Canada Etsy Team's Blog: http://transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com/ and you can also see the many pieces Mel has available from her blog and directly from her Etsy store.


Mel's Etsy store is here: http://mieldesigns.etsy.com/

Seriously. I wouldn't post it if I didn't believe in it. 

After spending nearly four months both not having an iPhone (because I live in Canada) and having to read about spoiled users who do have iPhones take what they have for granted and engage in some of the most outrageous hyperbole over the fact that they couldn't install third-party applications like Photoshop or NES emulators on their gadgets (Apple is "arrogant," "anti-consumer," "screwing its fans," etc.), please close your incessantly working jaws for one moment and take a gander at the following.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

I expect to see all the IT geeks, hackers, pundits, wags, and bloggers who said they'd "never buy an iPhone" because of its failure to support all those mission-critical third-party applications like a terminal window (for some reason) and Pong and dancing baby screensavers to start gushing immediately.

P.S.: Steve. Beat some sense into Rogers and let me buy my dang iPhone already. I'm choking with this crappy Motorola V220 here. A girl at the Dominion Tavern actually mocked it the other night. Dude, I'm begging you.

Disclaimer: I do own an insigificant number of Apple shares and I just ordered my precious, tricked-out new 24" iMac for my home office, and anyway I claim no objectivity when it comes to my stylish consumer electronics masters. Instead I claim better taste and sound judgment. 

Cell phones have had a strange impact on our culture. They are pervasive and often used inappropriately as people air their lives loudly and indiscriminately before a captive audience in restaurants, aboard public transportation, and even in movie theatres and libraries. In that respect they are an abomination of our times. On the other hand, they allow people to work and live on the go without having to hunt for a public telephone, and they are priceless in an emergency. They are also often more feasible than a conventional land line subscription for people who don't have good credit or a lot of money. They are often a necessity and may well completely supplant the land line as the home phone of choice one day.

My friend James puts it this way: "One day, we will talk to our children or grandchildren about a time before mobile phones, and they will be utterly amazed that once upon a time people would call a room in the hope that the person they wanted to talk to was in it."

That said, you'd be hard pressed to find an industry that rakes in so much money and yet generates so little satisfaction than the mobile phone industry combined with wireless carriers. Which brings us to the iPhone, launched in the USA on June 29, 2007. A new, simple, attractive, and usable telephone that brings elegance and simplicity to a range of previously complex and less-than-intuitive functions. It came with a simple pricing plan and a slew of well-deisgned features. Apple has so far sold over a million of them and is well on the way to reaching its goal of capturing 1% of the enormous market (that is, by selling 10 million phones) by the end of 2008.

So I am astonished, simply astonished, by the fact that what is arguably one of the most successful and ambitious product launches in the last 5 years has been met with such shameless whining and complaining by a noisy but unavoidable minority of users who are given an audience and legitimacy by the technology press.

The Macalope blog sums up the sentiment pretty well:

There's been a lot of noisy garment-rending in the Apple world recently as the combination of the iPhone price drop (since corrected), the change in iPod video output (still a mistake in the Macalope's eyes), the ringtones feature (really a problem with the industry) and the bricking of unlocked iPhones (boo-hoo-hoo) has apparently driven people insane.

The pointy one understands there have been some misaligned expectations about the iPhone, but what's so surprising is that they're coming from some usually responsible sources, and now he's a little concerned that it might be spreading.

....

Look, there's a reason the Macalope tends to buy Apple equipment and it's not because the company ties him up and puts a red rubber ball in his mouth (let's leave that to Mrs. Macalope, shall we?). It's because their stuff works and looks better than other stuff. If someone wants to make stuff that works and looks better than Apple's stuff, well, the Macalope might have to have some plastic surgery, but he'll be happy to use it.

Leo, if the Macalope's not mistaken, didn't you crash your N95 all by yourself by installing third-party applications? Why is this mythical beast supposed to feel like some kind of psychological victim because he doesn't need that particular brand of aggravation? The Macalope didn't buy his iPhone thinking about all the great apps he was going to install on it, only to find out later that it was locked down and then have to justify his continued support for the platform. No, you bought the iPhone knowing it was locked down and are now upset to find out, no, there will be no peanut butter on your chocolate, chocolate in your peanut butter.

I'm writing as somebody who does not yet own an iPhone, but is waiting for them to be sold in Canada with great anticipation. You see, right now I have a crappy phone. I own the Motorola V220, the cheapest flip phone I could buy in 2005 when I lost the need for a land line and gained the need for a phone that would be wherever I went. Now, the phone does the very minimum of what I would want a phone to do: I can send and receive calls with fairly good reliability in most circumstances. For some reason, however, even though other people at work do not encounter this problem, I can barely get any signal at work. If the phone rings, I have to go to a window to get a better signal or I cannot talk to anyone and they cannot talk to me. But my phone cannot use the internet except with great difficulty and slowness. I have to use the numeric keypad to send a text message, which is an infuriating and inarticulate way to communicate. It cannot check my e-mail. It has a terrible camera that takes tiny photos of lousy quality. The hinge creaks when I hold the phone against my head to talk. In short, it is a handy device but I would never call it a pleasure to use. It allows me to make and receive calls, most of the time, and given that this is 95% of what I need to do with my phone, I'm alright with its numerous other limitations. But I know I could be doing more, and so I am outgrowing this phone. My two year contract is up this month, and I am ready to get a new, better phone.

I am not a super geek who must constantly own the latest and greatest. I do not have a Blackberry or any other smart phone or high tech gadget beyond my four-year-old iPod and my new Canon Powershot A640 (my first digital camera and the finest mid-range camera your mid-range money can buy). Furthermore, I swore off programming years ago, and I think hacking is just fine for other people but of no inerest to me, so I'm not interested in having something that can load a lot of weird little applications. All I want is to have the best experience possible with a phone, since I am irrevocably required to have one in my line of work as a lawyer. I travel a lot, as do the senior counsel where I work. They have Blackberries and send e-mail messages around the clock. When you have different groups of people moving around working on tight schedules, it is important to be able to communicate. I could get a Blackberry, but I do not want a Blackberry. I have found a different device that will meet my needs perfectly, and for which I am willing to wait. It is the iPhone.

Here's why I'm exciting about the iPhone:

1. It's time to replace my current telephone, as I've stated above;
   
2. I want to replace my 3rd-generation iPod (10 GB) with a device that will play audio and video;
   
3. I want to be able to check my e-mail when I'm on the road or away from my desk (which is often);
   
4. I want more than basic, pathetic, internet access from a browser that barely and rarely works properly;
   
5. I want a decent display for viewing photos and video;
   
6. I already have an excellent digital camera, but if I'm going to have one on my phone, I'd rather it wasn't the fuzzy, 640x480 rubbish cameraphone on my current phone;
   
7. I want a device that is distinctive, attactive, and easy to use;
   
8. I want to be able to synchronize my contacts and calendars with my computer;
   
9. I want to have the use of visual voicemail so that I can prioritize the messages I check when in a hurry;
   
10. I want to be able to impulsively buy music over a wireless network that will work on my computer; and
    
11. I want to be able to do this with a wireless carrier without paying $300 a month.
    

The iPhone has accomplished all of the above in the USA. By any metric it is a huge success. It remains to be seen what an unlimited data plan will cost in Canada if Rogers becomes the iPhone carrier (as seems likely), but Apple managed to create a simple and affordable pricing plan in the USA for both data and voice access, and I suspect their strategy in Canada will require a similar pricing scheme.

Future features are purely speculative, but given that the iPod touch is already featuring 16 GB of memory, it's likely that the second-generation iPhone will offer at least this much. Whether there are extra applications and support for third-party applications to come is also speculative. But I can tell you that if I bought an iPhone now, getting what I could already expect to get in the USA, I would be happy. I would be extremely happy. I would feel I had found a vastly superior way to stay connected when on the go.

Between the infantile outcry over the $200 price drop and the hyperbole expressed about the recent iPhone firmware update, I'm more than a little disappointed in the stance taken by people who ought to know better. The worst culprits are those claiming that Apple is intentionally disabling phones that have been hacked so that they can be used on different carriers (using the misleading and too-often-repeated term "bricking"). Let's be clear on two points. First, Apple warned users that installing the firmware update might permanently disable a hacked iPhone, and before users could install the update, they had to click their acknowledgment of a confirmation dialog warning them in bold text about this risk. This was not a seek-out-and-destroy operation. Secondly, Apple did not intentionally disable the phones. It was a consequence of the way the hacks and the firmware update interact.

Daring Fireball pointed to this article by Rainer Bruckoff that provided a good and technical explanation why hacked iPhones upgraded to the 1.1.1 version of the firmware both lost the ability to connect to the network as well as why they are resistant to fresh installs of older versions of the firmware. He states:

So, what do these various hacks do to unlock the iPhone? They rely upon bugs in the communications software, firstly, to make the system fall back into a state where it pleads for an external agency to reload its main firmware; cleverly substituted instructions then make it do new things. After several, progressively more complex, phases of this, new applications can be installed. Up to this point, only the main flash memory has been affected and installing a new software update will just bring the system back to the standard state. Now, one of the new applications may try to mess with the radio firmware; it will clear or set regions of it to bring the radio processor's state out of step with reality, or even write bogus activation data into it.

Now, of course, the system's state has been moved completely out of the state space envisioned by its designers. When it powers up, the state is sufficiently consistent - the various checksums check out OK, for instance - for the various processors to confidently start working. However, a few actual values are different from the intended ones - enough to let a different SIM card work, say. Now, if the hackers had the actual source code and documentation available, all this could be done in a reliable way. But this not being the case, they had to work by testing changes in various places and observing what happened, clearly not an optimal process.

Consider, now, the software update process. It assumes that the iPhone's various processors and firmware(s) are in one of the known states - indeed, this is required for the complex cooperation required for uploading new software. If this cooperation is disrupted, the update may not begin - leading to an error message - or, worse, it may begin but not conclude properly. At this point, one or more of the iPhones processors may try to enter a recovery routine, either wiping the flash memories or to reinitialize them to a known state. No doubt this will be successful in most cases, and the new update will then be installable on a second attempt. However, the recovery may fail - since the exact circumstances couldn't be foreseen - or it may be assuming false preconditions (like, a valid AT&T SIM card being present). The system will probably try to recover at successively lower states until falling back to the "can't think of anything more, take me back to the factory" mode; or it may even lock up and "brick".

Apple has taken the position that phones disabled in this way are no longer covered by the product warranty on the basis that the warranty and licence agreement are voided by such modifications. In essence, the hacking community that put the phones in their current state (some of which sold unlocked phones or unlocking software) is being held to the task of getting those phones disabled by the update to work again.

You can disagree on whether or not it is a good idea to take a hard line with unlocked phones, but it is irresponsible and infantile to complain that Apple is being "arrogant" or deliberately working to "screw" its customers (as has been stated in recent days). Lately I've been seeing a rampant sense of entitlement amongst people who were offered an iPhone on the following terms: 1) You can buy an iPhone today for "X" dollars, with no promises about the price we'll sell it two weeks from now; 2) Your iPhone requires a subscription to AT&T; 3) Your iPhone comes with a bunch of cool applications installed and we've put together a way for web-based AJAX applications to be made for the iPhone, but you can't just install any old program on them; 4) If you really want to hack your iPhone to install 3rd-party applications, we can't stop you but we can't promise they'll all work after future updates; and 5) If you hack your iPhone so it will work with different carriers, you probably won't want to install our new firmware, because your phone will probably be permanently broken by it.

All of these things were stated up front. No one put a gun to your head and made you agree to conditions you found unacceptable when you bought the iPhone. It all obviously seemed like a good enough deal at the time that the decision to purchase the iPhone was justified.

So why the bitching? Why the whining? Why act like you got something you didn't bargain for? Why not take some responsibility for your choices and say, "Apple promised X, I got X, and I'm happy with X. If I wanted Y, I'd buy a phone that did Y." I mean, it's only been just over three months since the iPhone came out in the USA. I'm pretty sure that there will be new phones and new features over time, perhaps even the magic features like a software development kit for those third-party applications some people seem so eager to write and install on their phones so they can start crashing their phones by trying to run Photoshop on them. If that's what you want at that time, then buy and be happy.

Until then, why not suck it up and act like there are greater travesties in life than a price cut or a firmware update that Apple made sure you knew might produce unwanted results before you insalled it?

I will make sure that the iPhone offers the features I want for the price I want before I buy it. I will doubtlessly think there are features that could or should be added in the future. But unless there's something out there that does everything the iPhone does as well or better for the price I think is fair, the iPhone is what I will buy and what I will be happy with.

How much simpler could this be?

Update: Roughly Drafted Magazine takes hack tech "journalist" Mike Elgan to task for his sensationalistic and misinformed article about Apple Inc.'s "arrogance." 

This is one of the greatest blog posts I have ever read. The balance of insight and rage is just perfect. It just so happens to also be about people whining about the $200 iPhone price cut:

Apple is right. You are an idiot.

If you bought an iPhone and you think Apple should give you $200, you are an idiot. In fact, you are so stupid I am hereby cordially inviting you to come to Seattle so I can punch you in the face. I don’t care if you were at the Apple Store signing your credit card receipt the moment the price dropped. You are not entitled to shit. You do not deserve shit. If you not only think Apple should give you shit, but you actually believe you are entitled to shit, let me expand my offer. Come to Seattle, and after I punch you in the face, I will pull down my pants and shit on you. You’re not entitled to that, but you do deserve it.

Let me explain to you how business works. Apple made you a proposition. They said, we’ll give you this amazing phone that you’ve been waiting for, maybe even begging us specifically for, for $599. You said, hmm, that seems reasonable. You paid the money, you got the phone. If Apple then turned to the person next to you and said, I’ll give you the phone for a bite of your sandwich, guess what, asshole? That is none of your goddamned business. I don’t care if you have a sandwich that you’re perfectly willing to share with Apple if only you had known it was hungry. I don’t care if your sandwich is better. I don’t care if it’s the best sandwich in the world and your mother made it right before she succumbed to cancer and you just had a baby and it’s really hard. All of that crap is completely irrelevant.

Now, Apple is not a company run by jerks. Rather, Apple is a company run by people are very generous. Indeed, they give you a certain period of time, which for the sake of argument I am going to call 14 days. I don’t care if it’s actually 14 days. It could be 14 years or 14 seconds. It doesn’t matter. The point is Apple says, “Just because we are not jerks, if we lower the price of this or upgrade it in a certain period of time, we will give you the difference or let you get the new version.”

So, if you were signing your receipt and the price dropped, Apple would give you $200. That doesn’t mean you deserve it. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to it, except insofar as it’s part of the deal. It certainly doesn’t suggest that, if you bought your iPhone 15 days ago you missed it by a day. You missed by two weeks and a day, and by “missed it,” I mean you didn’t miss anything because there never was a thing. You made the deal. If you went past the period even by a second, or if there was no period at all, that’s bad luck, but it’s just that.

...

I got in line for my iPhone at midnight. I slept on the sidewalk in front of the store. I waited there all day long until the store opened at 6 p.m., then I went inside, got my phone, and left. The next day, I went back for a case and guess what, they still had iPhones. The guy standing next to me at the case rack said, “I bet the people who were waiting in line yesterday feel stupid.”

Despite the fact I am a socialphobe who hates conflict, I turned to him and said, "You know what? I waited in line yesterday. I slept in front of the store. I don’t feel stupid. Why would I? I got my iPhone. That these people also got an iPhone doesn’t change that fact. What I could have done doesn’t change that fact. I waited and would wait again. You know what else? The iPhone is fucking awesome."

....

I believe people need to be rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad behavior. Keep your word, and everyone benefits. Break your word and you’re threatening the whole word-keeping system. If Apple sold you an iPhone and you got home and opened the box and it was a pear, you would be pretty upset. The deal was, I give you $599 and you give me an iPhone. This is a pear. That was not the deal. You would suggest Apple needs to be punished, and I would agree.

If, on the other hand, you open the box and it’s a phone, but you turn around and demand $200 back, you are the one breaking the deal. If, in the commission of this breach of contract, you call the Apple store and yell, insult, and threaten the employees, you are behaving very badly. If Apple gives you $200, they have rewarded your breaking the deal and furthermore rewarded your abusing their employees.

This is not a victimless crime. You are yelling at, insulting, and threatening a real person. I don’t care if it’s a dance. You are hurting someone because you are a deal-breaking cock. That person is now having a terrible day, thanks to you, your dishonesty, and your greed. And what hath thou wrought?

Now the person who tried to help you is going to give bad customer service to someone who deserves good customer service. They are going to be angry in traffic and make other people angry. They are going to be cross with their spouses and intolerant of their children.

Is your $200 worth that? The answer is fuck you. It would be “no,” except that’s so fucking obvious the fact you’d even have to ask means you’re too stupid to understand what “no” means. So, fuck you.

Please, read the whole thing. It's very long but very good. I wish I'd written it. 

I make a ridiculous amount of money in a job I love where it would actually be insanely handy to have an iPhone with me at all times, especially when I travel. I want to fork over some of said money for an iPhone. Gimme iPhone. Gimme gimme gimme.

Or maybe I just seriously need to get lucky. But paying for consumer goods is at least slightly less lame and more legal than paying for a sex life. 

I think of myself as an extremely safe and conscientious cyclist. I do not ride on the sidewalk, I always wear my helmet and use bright LED front and rear lights at night, and I certainly don't do anything fucktardedly stupid like riding with earphones on and music blaring. I also obey the rules of the road fastidiously, because when you travel on a road the best way to stay out of harm's way is to make sure other drivers are aware of you and can understand where you're going without surprises. It's kept me safe and accident free for over seven years of awesome cycling, and made me a better and more confident driver, too.

I recently bought a brand new bicycle to replace my beloved but failing Norco Olympia, which is now out to pasture because it simply no longer made sense to continue sinking money into it for the repairs that were becoming increasingly common and expensive. So I went to McCrank's here in Ottawa and had them put together a shiny new Kona Fire Mountain for me. It is an incredible bike -- very sturdy and strong, but light and agile. I'm 6'3" and have a big frame, and I ride an hour each day, so it's important to have a bike that can take some punishment and support my pasty self. This bike has been nothing but a pleasure to ride, and it makes my daily commute to work so much more enjoyable than taking the bus (not to mention I thoroughly burn off any background stress and frustration while motoring up hills and dealing with the idiosyncracies of downtown traffic, so I'm even more relaxed than normal).



Add some sweet black fenders and you've got my bike.

So I try to be prudent about biking. I have a Kryptonite New York lock, which apparently can withstand power tools for ten minutes, and although I loathe quick release-wheels and seats, I keep my front wheel and my seat with me in my office during the day.

My new job has me working long hours, which is nothing new, but I get paid to work those long hours, which is. Previously, my long hours at the Clinic were simply a labour of love, whereas here I love the job and can bill up to 10 hours a day (and even that is seen as short by the other junior lawyers, who can bill up to 12). I won't tell you how much I make because it would frighten you and jinx me (but I'm being paid to make the world a better place, I promise!). As a result, though, I frequently leave work after dark, and so I'm always careful to attach my front and rear lights and make sure they are visible and bright.

Last night I left around 10:00 pm and took my usual route down Laurier Avenue here in Ottawa towards New Edinburgh, where my secret lair can be found. The lights were against me, however, and it seemed like I was stopping at every intersection with a red light staring back at me. But stop I did because, as I've said several times here already (sense a theme?), I am a safe and conscientious cyclist.

Not far from the University of Ottawa, I was stopped at an intersection when the light turned green. A car passed ahead of me as I rode into the intersection, and a car in the oncoming lane was waiting to turn left as I went. Suddenly the turning car accelerated into the intersection right at me. I yelled and tried to swerve out of the way, but the momentum of the car won the race.

Whammo.

The words "it all happened so fast" are a cliché but no less apt.

I was knocked onto the ground and off my bike. Worse, the driver in her panic got out of the car with the vehicle still in gear, so it continued to crawl forwards on top of me. People were yelling at her to put the car in park (certainly I was), and onlookers quickly came to the scene. In what must have only been a few seconds (but which seemed much longer), I was able to get to my feet and drag my bike out of the way. The driver kept apologizing, telling me that she had been so blinded by the lights of the oncoming car that she didn't see me, and I (in shock and a little pain but happy to be on my feet and apparently uninjured) kept trying to reassure her. Kind strangers offered to call 911, but I assured them I hadn't hit my head of suffered any injuries. Someone else reminded me to check on the condition of my bike, and we discovered the front wheel had been warped and wouldn't turn more than a revolution. The driver gave me her contact information and offered to pay for the damage, which seemed to resolve everything.

At that point I just wanted to get home. I was full of adrenaline and not quite composed, and I didn't want to be a spectacle any longer. My bike was no longer rideable so I had to call a cab to bring the two of us in, and as the evening wore on and I reassured a couple of friends that I was safe and well, I reflected a bit on the situation.

Clearly the driver wasn't really paying attention. You look into the intersection as you turn, and before you turn you make sure the way is clear, and then you make double sure before you hit the gas. I wouldn't dream of turning left, whether in a car or a bike, without looking to make sure there was no oncoming traffic. I'm sure I was hidden briefly by the car that passed me, but it's no excuse for turning without thinking. I'm also trying to think of ways to ensure I stay more visible, because I don't want the next situation (however not at fault I was) to be even worse.

Flash forward to today. It is murderously hot outside. Today is the kind of day where a glass of ice water doesn't stand a chance.

I am at home now, contemplating whether to take my bike into the shop and/or go to work. I'll probably do both.

I'd like to offer a few thoughts in closing, while I pop Advil and keep an ice pack on my knee, which is sore and a little swollen and took most of the force of my fall.

First, to drivers: look where you are fucking going. Pay attention. Don't stare into headlights and always, ALWAYS, keep your eyes scanning, especially at intersections, and look into the turn. Take a Young Drivers course if you need to refresh yourself on that.

Second, to cyclists: wear helmets, always. I was lucky enough not to hit my head in this accident, but if I had, the helmet probably would have been the difference between calling a cab home and waking up in 10 years after a dramatic coma. Or going from being a lawyer to being a janitor.
Also, assume the person in the car ahead just doesn't see you. They're probably thinking about the long day they had and the stupid thing their boss said and what they'd like for dinner, and so they probably don't. 

I wanted to alert your attention to the new online boutique operated by my good friend Mélanie, who handcrafts the most intricate and beautiful jewelry I have ever seen. She is an incredibly talented artisan and I really want to show off her stuff in my capacity as proud friend and oft-times patron. There's more than a few happy, sparkly people out there sporting her designs and now you have the chance to join them.

Here store can be found here at Etsy. The best way to discover her amazing jewelry is to have a look for yourself. 

(Click to view the image full-size)

I started an amazing new job recently and, as you can imagine, this has been eating up a lot of my time. I won't say exactly where I'm working, since I needed top secret security clearance just to get inside, but I will say that I've been hired as counsel at a major commission and that it's a lot of work. Normally, I'm locked up in a windowless room but I had the opportunity to work from home for a couple of days and I'm finding it very liberating. This despite the fact that yesterday I put in a 12.5 hour day, and even then I only quit when I blew through the 1000 sheets of paper I'd stocked up my new laser printer with.

I could definitely get used to the home office situation, as pictured. When I'm working late I can relax with a tasty cider, and I can play music without disturbing a soul. I know it's not feasible for most people to work from home, but wherever it is possible, it really is the only way to go. It's efficient, cheap, and good for the environment (and one's mental health) to boot.