The Truth, According to Me

I posted a link to Twitter the other day on how to add a signature to a PDF using nothing more than the built-in OS X Preview application. The result was excellent and I don’t have to shell out $60 for Smile’s PDFpen. But what if I want to create/add a signature on a Mac that doesn’t have an iSight camera? Well, if you don’t have access to at least one Mac with a camera you’re screwed. But if you do, you can transfer/copy your signature to another Mac sans camera (i.e. Mac mini with a vanilla monitor). So I got that going for me…which is nice.

1. Unsinkable

   “If the Titanic had sunk on her twenty-seventh voyage, it wouldn’t haunt us in the same way. It’s the incompleteness that never stops tantalizing us, tempting us to fill in the blanks with more narrative…there is an ancient theatrical pleasure, not totally free of Schadenfreude, in watching something beautiful fall apart.”
   — The New Yorker, 16 April 2012

2. The War Against Youth

   “If you follow the money rather than the blather, it’s clear that the American system is a bipartisan fusion of economic models broken down along generational lines: unaffordable Greek-style socialism for the old, virulently purified capitalism for the young. Both political parties have agreed to this arrangement: [The Baby] Boomers and older will be taken care of. Everybody younger will be on their own. So when the Boomers and swing voters scream for fiscal discipline and the hard decisions have to be made, youth is collateral damage.”
   — Esquire, 26 March 2012

3. Edward Van Halen Is Alive

   “Ed picks up his guitar, thumbs around in his pocket for one of his custom picks, and starts playing. He’s just dicking around, beautifully playing nothing in particular, and I just can’t take my eyes off the guitar. The thing is, Eddie Van Halen should never have set foot on a stage. He’s never really talked about it, but this album is the first album he recorded sober, and this tour is the first tour that he will fully remember. For thirty-five years his nerves just paralyzed him, and the bottle was his only cure. “
   — Esquire, 17 April 2012

Enjoy.

1. U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border

   “When she arrived at JFK Airport on Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, she was told by one DHS agent — after she asserted her privileges as a journalist to refuse to answer questions about the individuals with whom she met on her trip — that he ‘finds it very suspicious that you’re not willing to help your country by answering our questions.’ Indeed, documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show that DHS has repeatedly concluded that nothing incriminating was found from its border searches and interrogations of Poitras. Nonetheless, these abuses not only continue, but escalate, after six years of constant harassment.”
   — Salon, 8 April 2012

2. The Case Against Kids

   “Wouldn’t it be better to provide one or two children with a decent upbringing than to give three or four a lousy one? There’s no need to monitor a kid’s French-fries consumption, or ferry him to music lessons, or teach him to avoid felony charges. As long as you ‘don’t lock him in a closet,’ he’ll be O.K. Or not, as the case may be.”
   — The New Yorker, 9 April 2012

3. Kevin Smith: ‘I haven’t taken my shirt off since I was nine’

   “It was Larry King’s final series on television and he asked me to come on the show. I was like, fuck, now I’m going on Larry King, but it’s not to talk about my work, but some bullshit that an airline put me through. And when they really shone a light on me, it wasn’t for the movies, it was for my fatness. Then, after three days, Tiger Woods gave a press conference where he talked about cheating on his wife and nobody cared about me any more. I don’t even like golf, but now he’s my favourite athlete ever.”
   — The Guardian, 2 April 2012

Enjoy.