Apr 26 2011

Thunderbird and external notification sounds

So, I decided that I don’t want to listen to the default system sound whenever I receive a new email. In Thunderbird, there is a field in “General Preferences” for one to specify a particular sound file to be played when new mail arrives. Easy enough. I chose the file I wanted it to play (went and found a .wav file that was tolerable, as it seems to prefer .wavs), and hit “Play.” Nothin’. Searching around the tubes, I found that PulseAudio was required for this feature. Certainly not, right? Turns out that that is only one option for playing a custom sound on message arrival. A more suitable, much lighter, alternative is to install the enlightened sound daemon (esd). In Gentoo, this is done with:

emerge -av media-sound/esound

That’s all it takes. The esd is also required for many other applications sound playback functionality, so you may already have it installed. 🙂

Apr 25 2011

Modifier location is important

Ugh. Today, on Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day, there was a misplaced modifier in one of the example sentences. Considering MW is supposed to be one of the authorities on grammatical correctness, I was quite disappointed. Here’s the sentence, with the word of the day being vitrine:

“A weathered wooden child’s chair is stacked atop its twin, with two bright pink plastic bowls stacked on the top seat. In an adjacent vitrine sits a miniature version of this assemblage, the tiny pieces placed in the center of a bright orange square of velvet.”
— From an art exhibit review by Jessica Baran in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO), 24 February 2011

In this sentence, “weathered” and “wooden” seem to be modifying “child” instead of the “chair,” but that meaning is clearly not the intent. I don’t think that the child is made of wood or that (s)he is weathered. Instead, the sentence should read something like “A child’s weathered wooden chair…” but I digress.

Apr 24 2011

Niagara photos

I was just looking on my phone and realised that I hadn’t uploaded any of the pictures from Niagara Falls last weekend. I didn’t want to bring out my regular camera as the mist was really heavy and I didn’t pack any waterproofing materials. I am surprised that the photos turned out this well, considering I took them with my phone! Anyway, here are some of the shots (click the thumbnails in order to see the full-sized images):

Niagara mist The mist was pretty heavy when we arrived, but that is to be expected given the high amount of precipitation, coupled with the natural mist of the falls.

Rainbow Bridge to United States The Rainbow Bridge which connects the United States to Canada. Odd that now one has to show a passport to go in either direction. Years ago, there was no passport required when going between the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Right before we were going to leave, the clouds broke and the sun came out. It really made a huge difference in the view of the Falls (along with the temperature):

Niagara when cloudyNiagara when sunny