I’m looking for someone to create a simple original graphic to be used as a logo/icon for a web-application I coded. I think the requirements I have in mind could be achieved by an experienced vector artist in an hour or two, tops. I know I’ve gotta have at least one friend or reader out there who’s up to this task. Let me know if you’re interested (and name your price if you’re so inclined) either in the comments or via my [contact] form and I’ll shoot you more details in an email.

Thanks.

Okay, so I just checked out screenshots and Quicktime movies of xScope (hat tip: Stopdesign), and I’m really wishing I had a Mac right about now.

Other reasons I want a Mac include (but are certainly not limited to): Coda, Quicksilver, and VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop—no need to toss any of my Windows software! Add to this the simply stunning hardware and UI (visually and intuitively) not to mention the fact that Apple is widely known for their general designer-friendlyness (be they of the web, graphic, or video kind), and I’m really salivating.

Except, I’m torn. I also love Ubuntu. I love the idea of free (as in freedom) software and am in particular agreement with Mark Pilgrim about proprietary file formats, and Mac is honestly no different from PC in this regard. Plus, I recently found the perfect machine to run Ubuntu. The price is right, the specs are more than enough, and the color and texture make me think Ubuntu would be right at home. From a hardware standpoint, I could see myself enjoying this computer as much as I would enjoy a Macbook.

I’ve been coveting laptops for a couple years now, and it may be another year before I finally get me one, but I’m dreading having to make the final decision between Apple and Ubuntu. What should I do?

I’ve been a fan of Solitaire card games ever since I was a kid. Klondike is my old favorite, of course, but FreeCell quickly became my game of choice after I learned to play it about five years ago.

I’ve had on my Treo for some time now a collection of 50 Solitaire games called Smallware Solebon, but only recently stumbled across two of them, Eight Off and Beleaguered Castle, that have really struck my fancy. Both games are variants of FreeCell (or perhaps FreeCell is a variant of one of them? ((I just learned from Wikipedia that Eight Off may be the earliest form of the game, from which variants like Baker’s Game and FreeCell are descended.))), but each has its own twist that makes it fun to play.

Eight Off

Eight Off, as the name implies, has eight reserve spaces instead of four as in FreeCell. However, instead of stacking the cards in the tableau columns red on black, you must stack them according to their suit. Additionally, instead of four columns of 7 and four columns of 6, all the tableau columns are dealt to equal lengths (six cards apiece) and the four leftover cards are dealt directly into four of the eight reserve spaces.

These two rule variations (i.e., stack by suit and deal four cards to the reserve) together serve to make the game slightly harder, but having twice the usual amount of reserve spaces more than makes up for it. I consider Eight Off a fair amount easier than FreeCell (though perhaps it’s meaningless to compare their difficulty levels since it’s possible to beat either game from any starting position ((Actually, I just learned from Wikipedia that this isn’t true. I don’t know about Eight Off, but there are at least eight starting positions in FreeCell that are believed (but not proven) to be unsolvable.))).

Beleaguered Castle

Beleaguered Castle is another story, however. Of the three, it’s most decidedly the hardest. Like Klondike, a good percentage of starting positions are simply impossible to beat (I tend to win 60% of them). In Beleaguered Castle, you have zero reserve spaces (!). To help you out a slight bit, the Aces are dealt directly to the Foundations instead of being mixed into the tableau columns, which leaves the columns even at six cards apiece, like Eight Off. To help you further, you’re allowed to stack the cards in tableau columns without any regard for suit or color. ((Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that Smallware Solebon arranges the cards in Beleaguered Castle in a non-traditional way. The traditional way to arrange them, as shown on the Wikipedia article (I really should stop reading Wikipedia and just publish this dang entry!), is to have the Aces in a vertical line down the center, with the eight tableau columns arranged horizontally out to either side of the Aces. Solebon deals the tableau columns vertically and places the foundations at the top, so the playing area more closely resembles FreeCell and Eight Off. This is the style I prefer, and if you’ve played a lot of FreeCell it may make more sense to you.))

But how the heck do you play FreeCell without any free cells? Well, you start by moving around single cards trying to clear out a whole column. Once you’ve got a column cleared, it’s like you’ve earned yourself a reserve space, and from there you can start moving around stacks of two cards. In order to win, you really need to clear out three or four columns, and then you’re essentially playing FreeCell. This game is easily the most addicting card game I’ve ever played, and winning brings so much more satisfaction that winning FreeCell. I heartily recommend Beleaguered Castle to any longtime or budding Solitaire buff.  

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that every year my church, Southeast Baptist, has a combined evening service with our sister church, New Pilgrim Baptist, the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day. The two churches take turns hosting the service, with whichever Pastor is visiting providing the sermon. In addition to special music and preaching, they always have someone prepare a 10-15 minute tribute to Reverend King. This year’s tribute made mention of King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which was interesting to me, since the Desiring God Blog also quoted a section from that letter earlier this week.

Each year on Martin Luther King Day I try to choose one of King’s speeches or writings to read and study. Two mentions of the same letter prompted me to choose that as the thing I would read this year. Here’s possibly the most important section of the letter (the same section quoted on the Desiring God Blog):

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Powerful stuff. I’ve included a link below so you can read the whole thing. I highly recommend you do.

See also:

* Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
* Desiring God Blog › Don’t Waste Martin Luther King Weekend
* Salt Lake Tribune › Hodges: Congregations unite to worship in the spirit of King’s dream