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Democrat’s Blood Libel Against Sarah Palin Bears Fruit As Left Wing Loons Call For Violence Against Her

2011-01-13T17:13:00.001-05:00

Democrat’s Blood Libel Against Sarah Palin Bears Fruit As Left Wing Loons Call For Violence Against Her
By Gary P. Jackson

We seldom [as in never] discuss the volumes of death threats Sarah Palin gets from nut-bags. But it’s gotten to the point that it needs to be out there, and the hate filled left needs to be exposed in all of it’s glory.
We’ve been writing about the violent rhetoric from the left all week. From a sitting democrat Congressman calling for Republican Florida’s Governor to be “put up against the wall and shot” to left wing icon Francis Fox Piven calling for violent revolution. We’ve proven the once somewhat respectable democrat party has been hijacked by violent, rabid loons. Not that these loons haven’t been part of the party all along, it’s just that now they are driving the bus.
...

Read the complete article and prepared to be shocked at how much the mainstream media has failed to report. Death threats, arson, attempted murder all against Sara Palin. And they have the gall to accuse her of inciting a psychotic to murder a congressman?

This is absolutely blood libel, and these people in the press and the blogosphere are not going to stop until someone succeeds in murdering her and her family.

A Conspiracy Against the Mind, Against Life, Against Man–and the Virtue of Sarah Palin - Big Government

2011-01-13T10:38:00.001-05:00

A Conspiracy Against the Mind, Against Life, Against Man–and the Virtue of Sarah Palin - Big Government
By Pamela Geller

Wednesday Sarah Palin responded to the vicious blood libel leveled against her and millions of right-thinking Americans by the army of destroyers. The ferocious, relentless attacks on Sarah Palin are a testament to her greatness, proof of how deathly afraid of her they are, like Dracula to the silver cross.

...
The left was waiting for such an atrocity as the Arizona shooting. It didn’t matter who, what, where, when — fill in the blanks. The ghouls were waiting for Arizona to smear the right and those that best represent us.

Global Warming Panic explained

2011-01-12T09:49:00.002-05:00

Atlas Shrugs: More Muslim Propaganda Debunked: NY Report, Hate crimes against Jews: 251. Hate crimes against Muslims: 11

2011-01-03T11:16:00.002-05:00

More Muslim Propaganda Debunked: NY Report, Hate crimes against Jews: 251. Hate crimes against Muslims: 11

I think the subject line says it all. So when CAIR gets on the news and demands special government protection for Muslims, tell them to blow it out their collective ears.

Dane-Geld

2010-12-25T09:14:00.003-05:00

Literally, "Danish tax", Dane-Geld refers to a tax used to pay off Viking raiders in order to avoid them destroying the land. [Wikipedia]. It is also often used to refer to any act blackmail

This poem by Rudyard Kipling describes what happens what nations think it's better to pay off evil than to stand and fight. It is quite appropriate for this day when nations routinely pay off other nations because they don't have the stomach to fight for what they know to be right.

Dane-Geld

by Rudyard Kipling

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"

Rationalist Judaism: The Prince of Egypt

2010-12-23T10:45:00.001-05:00

Rationalist Judaism: The Prince of Egypt
By Nathan Slifkin

... there is one major theme in the movie which, while it probably grates on the sensitivities of some Orthodox Jews, is an important part of the story ...

WTOP: Some Common Cold Remedies May Not Work

2010-12-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

From Dave Ross, commentator, WTOP Rado:

Some Common Cold Remedies May Not Work

A cold clears up in about 10 days no matter what remedies you take or don't take. So just save your money and admit that you're going to be sick for two weeks.

National Review Online: Merry Christmas to America’s Top 1 Percent

2010-12-22T17:54:00.003-05:00

National Review Online: Merry Christmas to America’s Top 1 Percent
By Deroy Murdock

... Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-styled socialist, who spent nearly nine hours on December 10 excoriating affluent Americans. Sanders complained to colleagues that “when the rich get richer ... they say: ‘I am not rich enough. I need to be richer.’ What motivates some of these people is greed and greed and more greed.”

...
How do the rich behave absent government coercion?
...

Among these multi-millionaires, 98.2 percent contributed to charity, versus just 64.6 percent of the general population. The wealthy typically gave away about 8 percent of their incomes in 2009. This figure has slipped as the economy has slid. In 2007’s survey, the rich donated between 9.3 percent and 16.1 percent of income.

In 2009, 26.8 percent of Americans volunteered with charitable organizations. However, 78.7 percent of wealthy people volunteered — nearly triple the national figure. The average rich respondent volunteered 307 hours. Rather than merely write checks, the average wealthy American last year gave to charity the equivalent of 38 eight-hour shifts.

The Center on Philanthropy researchers valued each hour of voluntarism at $20.85. So, the average rich American’s 307 volunteer hours equaled $6,400.95.

Read the linked article for the rest of the details.

The West, Islam and Sharia: WikiLeaks Cables Vindicate Israel

2010-12-20T17:40:00.001-05:00

The West, Islam and Sharia: WikiLeaks Cables Vindicate Israel

The U.S. and its allies are struggling to contain the damage caused by WikiLeaks, but there’s one country that needn’t worry much and can actually look at the disclosures as positive publicity: Israel.

The documents show that the threat from Iran is not an illusion conjured up by the Zionist lobby and that Israel is not the imperialistic aggressor seeking to dominate and brutalize Palestinians as the country is so often characterized.

HSUS’s Michael Vick Scandal Hits The New York Times

2010-12-20T17:16:00.001-05:00

HSUS’s Michael Vick Scandal Hits The New York Times

If you haven’t heard the shocking news, here it is: Last Wednesday Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) CEO Wayne Pacelle told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that convicted dog-fighting kingpin Michael Vick "would do a good job as a pet owner." It was a slap in the face to animal-loving Americans from the president of a group whose very name suggests a deep and abiding concern about dogs and cats. (Why would Pacelle and HSUS side with a violent felon over his furry victims? A $50,000 check from Vick’s Philadelphia Eagles team might have something to do with it.)

I'm back

2010-12-20T16:59:00.003-05:00

After deciding once and for all that Facebook is far too much of a time-suck, and that their habit of removing stuff I like to use is making the site less and less fun, I've disabled my account. Maybe I'll turn it back on again someday. Or maybe not.

If you're interested in the serious stuff (mostly political rants, occasional bits of tech news) I've been posting there, you can find them here now.

If you're interested in reading my silly stuff (comics, humor articles, etc.) that I've been posting there, you can find them over at my LiveJournal page

Microsoft's PC vs Mac comparison

2010-08-24T14:54:00.011-04:00

Microsoft is obviously getting scared of Apple's market share. Their Windows 7 site now has a page devoted to comparing Macs against PCs. Some of its points are valid, some are half-truths, and some are complete BS.

Here's my point-by-point analysis, for anyone who cares.

Microsoft's point (quoted from their web site)	True?	My comments
You can't get a Mac that ships with a Blu-Ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless. You can with PCs running Windows 7.	Half-truth	This isn't surprising. Apple only sells a small number of models. Microsoft is comparing it against all PCs made by all PC manufacturers - thousands of different models. But every one of these features can be purchased for Macs (often the identical hardware!) and none of the expensive options are given away for free with PCs. Additionally, none of these are Windows 7 features. You can get all of these with PCs running Linux or older versions of Windows as well.
Most of the world's most popular computer games aren't available for Macs. And Macs can't connect to an Xbox 360. PCs are ready to play.	True	Gaming is one of the places where Macs are at a definite disadvantage. There are a lot of popular and good games for Macs, but there's a lot more for Windows.
Most Macs can't hook up to your TV unless you buy a converter dongle. Many PCs running Windows 7 are designed to connect directly to TVs, so you can watch movies and see photos on the big screen.	Marketing BS	Note that they say most Macs can't hook up to a TV without a dongle, and many PC's can. Well, that's because most PC's can't either. Even PCs with TV-out interfaces often require proprietary cables, just like Macs do. And like Macs, the cables are usually not expensive, and like Macs, they are bundled with some models and not with others. It's worth noting that all current-model Macs use mini DisplayPort for their external interfaces. This can connect to DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI and VGA with simple (and inexpensive) cables. Finally, all Macs include Front Row - software for easy browsing of movies, music and photos. And they all have built-in IR sensors, for use with an optional remote control, to control Front Row from your couch.
Things don't work the same way on Macs if you're used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently, and many of the shortcuts you're familiar with don't work the same way on a Mac.	Well, duh!	Of course, not everything is identical. If it was, then it would be a Windows clone, not a Mac. But there's a lot more similarity than differences. And after getting used to the Mac way (which often doesn't take more than a few days), the differences cease to be a problem.
Windows 7 was designed to make it simpler to do the tasks you do every day, with features that the Mac doesn't have. For example, the new Snap feature makes it easy to view two documents side by side.	Marketing BS	And Mac OS X was also designed to make it simple to perform everyday tasks with features Windows doesn't have. For instance, built-in support for virtual desktops. And a Location manager to let you store multiple network configurations as you travel. If Windows 7's most significant feature is the ability to auto-arrange document windows (a feature that both PCs and Macs have had for 20 years) then that's just sad.
Unlike Macs, many PCs running Windows 7 support Touch, so you can browse online newspapers, flick through photo albums, and shuffle files and folders—using nothing but your fingers. PCs with a fingerprint reader even let you log in with just a swipe of your finger.	Who cares?	There's that "many PC's" phrase again. Almost no PCs have touch screens. Of those that do, almost all are "tablet" PCs, which the marketplace has overwhelmingly rejected. I'm sure Microsoft may someday develop a touch interface that people actually want to use, but it's not there yet.
If you use Apple's productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky. Your documents might not look right and your spreadsheets might not calculate correctly.	Half-truth	If you use anything other than MS Office, even on PCs, your documents will be mangled and broken when exchanging them with MS Office. It even happens when exchanging documents with some older versions of MS Office! And, BTW, Microsoft sells MS Office for Macs - and it has no problem exchanging documents with its PC counterpart.
You'll have to buy a separate hardware dongle to plug your Mac into a standard VGA projector. Most PCs with Windows 7 hook up easily.	Half-truth	Yes, most PCs have VGA connectors, so the physical connection is slightly easier, but what about after you actually attach the cable? Now you've got to go through control panels and "presentation" settings in order to get that external display/projector to show what you want, at the display's native resolution. With a Mac, you just select "Detect display" from the system menu bar, and you're set to go. And sometimes, you don't even need to do that.
On a Mac, out of the box, you can only encrypt your home folder. With Windows 7 Ultimate, you can encrypt your entire hard drive and even USB drives. So your stuff can be safer wherever you go.	True	But note that BitLocker is only in the Ultimate edition, which costs $100-120 more than the "home premium" edition most people get. And it's a $140 upgrade if you have Home Premium pre-loaded on a new PC. For that money, you can buy several different whole-disk encryption packages for Mac OS X. Or you can use File Vault to encrypt your home directory (where you are keeping your sensitive documents anyway) without paying anything extra. Mac OS X also includes a utility for making encrypted disk image files, which you can transport or transmit anywhere, without worrying about others getting a copy.
With a Mac, it's harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network. With HomeGroup, it's easy to connect all the computers in your house running Windows 7.	Opinion	Mac OS includes facilities for all of this. Which one you consider "harder" to setup really depends on your personal preferences.
On a Mac, you have to manually set up photo sharing, manually set up music and movie sharing, manually set up file sharing, and manually set up printer sharing. It's easy to automatically and securely network with all the computers in your house when they're running Windows 7.	True	But note that this ease of automatically sharing everything means it's also really easy to accidentally share stuff you don't want shared, and easy for strangers to access stuff you thought you were keeping private.
Apple's productivity suite file formats won't open in Microsoft Office on PCs. This can be a real hassle for Mac users sharing work documents with PC users.	Half-truth	Microsoft Office has a hard time opening anything other than its own documents. And Microsoft sells Office for Mac OS. I find it amusing that they're trying to claim that Office's interoperability bugs are actually good things.
If there's a Mac version of a program you need, you'll have to buy it again and relearn how to use it on a Mac.	Half-truth	And when you do what Microsoft asks and upgrade to the latest version (like from Windows XP to 7, or from Office 2003 to 2007), you'll also have to buy it again and relearn how to use it. There's such a huge learning curve in migrating away from what Microsoft shipped 5 years ago that switching to a Mac is no big deal, and is often much simpler. Oh yes, and lots of your legacy Windows apps also won't run correctly on 7 without upgrades.
You can't get a Mac with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless. PCs running Windows 7 often come with features that aren't available on even the highest end Macs, including Blu-ray, eSATA, multi-format card readers, Touch, and mobile broadband.	Half-truth	This is a repeat of their first point. As I wrote there, most PCs don't include this stuff either, unless you pay a lot of money for upgrades and add-ons. You can buy the same add-ons for Macs. In many cases, it's even the same hardware.
Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.	Seriously???	It's a selling point that PCs can be purchased in different colors? And this is somehow a reason to use Windows 7? And if you want a Mac with a colored case, there are vendors who sell them.
With PCs running Windows 7, you can play the videos and music stored on your home PC while you're on the go, for free. Apple charges $99/year for its online service	Half-truth	Apple's Mobile Me service offers a lot more than just file sharing. It offers network sync services for all your Macs, PCs, iPhones and iPads - including mail, calendar and contacts. It also provides web hosting and iPhone services (locate a lost/stolen iPhone, remote-lock and remote-wipe.) In addition to file sharing, network backup services and seamless no-configuration integration with Apple's bundled home productivity software. But if you really want free file sharing, there are plenty of Mac-compatible services all over the internet.

It seems, from Microsoft's ad, that the biggest advantage to having a Windows PC is simply that the system software comes from Microsoft. Every feature they consider an advantage is either a PC hardware advantage (which would apply even if the PC isn't running Windows 7) or it's a matter of personal preference. And in many cases, the advantage is fictitious because the feature doesn't come for free in the PC world, and can be purchased for Macs.

Comcast users: disable Gateway Smart Packet Detection

2010-04-28T09:54:00.001-04:00

I just ran across this article.

Apparently, the cable modem that Comcast ships to business internet customers has a "Smart Packet Detection" feature that has a nasty habit of making connections go flaky from time to time. According to one report I read, it was actually causing the router to drop every other packet, which will obviously make your user experience less than ideal.

I'm not sure what this feature is supposed to do, and Googling reveals nothing but recommendations that you turn it off. But if turning it off fixes your problems, then I'd recommend doing it. Comcast's support staff don't always know about this, so they might not tell you to try this unless you're persistent enough to get your call escalated to high-level techs.

And They Said The iPad Didn’t Print!

2010-04-22T15:27:00.001-04:00

There, I Fixed It posted this wonderful photo of an iPad on a copy machine as a joke for a printing solution.

Although this was clearly intended as a joke, it begs the question about why today's portable devices can't print. Lots and lots of portable devices have Wi-Fi network access. It's not that hard to scan for and send to a print server or a network-attached printer.

Now, you obviously don't want to load your phone up with large amounts of printer drivers. That would bloat the system and probably make it unstable. But there's no reason why you could ship with two or three generic drivers - plain text, PostScript and maybe PCL. With PS and PCL, you'd be able to reach most laser printers, and plain text would reach almost everything else.

And if you don't have a compatible printer at home, you can set up a computer to be a PostScript print server, translating the content for printing. Linux and Mac OS X have this capability built-in via the CUPS printing system. Windows users can use Ghostscript to create a virtual PostScript printer to do the job.

While I wouldn't want everyday users trying to manually set up a Ghostscript print server, there's no reason why a phone/PDA vendor couldn't make a convenient installer available as a free download.

How stupid do scammers think you are?

2010-02-10T09:22:00.005-05:00

For some stupid reason, I decided to read a message in my spam folder. You've got to be the dumbest person on Earth to fall for this scam.

The mail message (with contact info stripped, just in case you're that dumb) is:

From: "UNITED STATES POSTMASTER GENERAL INSPECTION" Subject: Parcel Withheld For Security Reasons USPS OFFICE AUTHORITY P.O BOX 55, NEW YORK NY, 10116-0555 MAILTO:xxxxx@POST.COM This is to notify you that we intercepted your parcel from DHL/UPS courier service from delivering the parcel to you for security reasons stated below. 1. Our scanning system detected your parcel containing a confirmable CARD to the tune of US$1, 500,000.00 USD. You are obliged to obtain A Duly Sworn Affidavit from the Spanish High Court in Spain to back up the the origin of the Parcel,this is in line with the Anti Terrorist Campaign due to the Law Implemented by Usa Goverment to protect and reduce the terrorist activities. We kindly advise you to contact the Agent in Madrid, Spain to get the Sworn Affidavit for you, while we wait to receieve it to enable us terminate the delivering of your parcel containing Credit Cards/Draft/Cheque and Other Personal Items to your home address,please note that the cost of the Affidavit only cost $139 which must be paid by the receiver of the parcel.Below is the Agent in charge he will advise you on how the payment should be made, contact him immediately you receive this notification. Name: Mr Michael Boston Email: xxxxx@mail2world.com Tel:0034 xxx xxx xxx Secure Email:xxxxx@mail2world.com We shall forward the card to you as soon as we receive the Duly Sworn Affidavit,we are doing this to secure your interest considering the Credit Card frauds and stolen cheque which brings problem to America Citizens and all around the world. Your Prompt response is most highly desired to terminate the delivering of your parcel. God Bless America
Mr William R Gillian, Jnr Chief Postal Inspection Service.

Now, shall we point out all the stupid things you'd have to believe in order to believe this mail? In no particular order:

That somebody would send me $1.5M
That somebody would send me $1.5M without contacting me first.
That somebody sent $1.5M without a return address
That the US post office's e-mail address is "post.com" or "us.com". (It's not - it's actually usps.com. Those two domains are actually not owned by anyone.)
That the US post office has my e-mail address (they don't - I've never given it to them)
That the US post office monitors and intercepts overseas packages that ship via DHL and UPS. (They don't. Customs might, but the post office doesn't.)
That the US post office opens packages that they're waiting for recipients to claim
That the US post office not only opens packages, but uses the contents, including scanning cards to determine the contents
That the US post office would ask me to confirm receipt of a package without saying what's on the return address, despite having opened the package, used the contents, and telling me their findings.
That the US post office won't release a package they're holding without legal documents from a foreign court.
That the US post office employs agents in foreign countries for the purpose of handing out these documents.
That you have to phone Spain to contact someone working for the US post office who can help with releasing a held package even though the return postal-address on the mail is a New York address.
That someone working for USPS would use a "mail2world.com" (a free webmail service) e-mail address for official business.

So, is there anybody on Earth who would believe all this and therefore send $140 to a random person in Spain?

What if Flash became an open standard?

2010-02-01T15:57:00.004-05:00

John Gruber's excelent Daring Fireball blog has an article entitled What if Flash Were an Open Standard?. In it, he cites a Dave Winer article, which (among other things) proposes that Adobe open up Flash for all to support and implement

Gruber rejects that possibility, writing:

That’d be an interesting move, and it would certainly shake things up. But what if the source code to Flash Player is — as many would wager — a huge steaming pile of convoluted C++ horseshit? It’s sort of like what if Microsoft open-sourced the Internet Explorer rendering engine. It’s not like anyone who is now using WebKit or Gecko would switch to that just because it was opened — or that WebKit, Mozilla, and Opera would suddenly be obligated to or even interested in adopting IE-specific web features.

I think this makes a strong point, but it should be noted that this wouldn't be the first time. When Netscape decided to release their code into open source, forming the Mozilla project, that code was also a tangled mess and very difficult to maintain. But there was a hard-core team of developers dedicated to improving it, and they did just that. They ripped out and replaced most of Netscape's own rendering code, creating the Gecko engine instead. They replaced the UI code with the Chrome/XUL system that allows almost infinite flexibility with the UI skins, etc.

I think that for something as popular as Flash, the open source community would make a similar effort to improve Adobe's code, eventually producing something with more features, more utility, more speed, and better maintainability.

As for Apple, it could choose to be a part of such development, or it could choose to strike out on its own, using the specs of the SWF format. Apple could develop its own SWF player in the way it feels is best, either releasing the code to open source or keeping the source closed.

In theory, Apple could do this today, since Adobe already publishes the SWF file format spec, but to do this now would be a losing proposition for Apple. Today, Adobe doesn't release these specs until after they ship new versions of Flash, so Apple would forever be playing catch-up. And Adobe is not going to document their bugs - places where they violate their own standard and may or may not ever get around to fixing the code.

But if flash becomes an open standard, then the spec doesn't get modified behind Adobe's closed doors. Instead, there are working groups and mailing lists. Apple (and anyone else who is interested) can join the working group and stay informed about new features. Apple can ship new features in its SWF player at the same time Adobe and everybody else ships players with those features.

I think this can be a win-win scenario for everybody involved. Even Adobe - they might lose their Flash monopoly, but with Flash becoming almost entirely marginalized in the mobile device market, that monopoly is probably going to lose its value pretty soon anyway. Better to take a leadership role in the new market than to sink into oblivion with the old market.

iPad: One step closer to Star Trek

2010-01-28T11:05:00.005-05:00

Gee, Apple's new iPad looks a lot like something out of Star Trek, doesn't it? And I think it actually looks better than Trek's PADD.

Unsafe water or just not enough taxes?

2009-12-08T11:19:00.002-05:00

The New York Times writes a very interesting article about water safety. It starts out with the attention-grabbing headline that millions of Americans are drinking dirty water. It then goes on to point out that only 6% of water-safety violations have resulted in fines or other government punishments.

What it does not say, however, is how many of these municipalities, after learning of the violation, went on to repair their system and later become compliant. After all, as far as public health is concerned, the important issue is that the water is cleaned up, not that somebody is forced to pay a large fine.

Unfortunately, the only references to this in the article are vague handwaving terms like "hundreds of other systems" (out of how many? A thousand? A million?) and "many". What percentage of systems were fixed quickly? What percentage were fixed after a long delay? What percentage have not been fixed after a long time? That, we don't know. It could be 0.01%, 5% or 95% without affecting the text as-written.

So what is really going on here? Do we really have a crisis of people drinking contaminated water? Or do we just have some Congresscritters looking for another scare tactic to blame the Bush Administration for (which the article explicitly does)? Do they think cleanup is lacking or do they just want to impose more fines?

Unfortunately, the New York Times will be of no help answering these questions.

Administrivia: Captchas and comment moderation enabled

2009-11-27T23:51:00.002-05:00

I don't like making people jump through hoops in order to post comments, but it appears that the spammers have finally found my blog. Rather than have to log in every day to delete spam from my message comments, I've enabled the use of captchas (where you need to type in a key word in order to proceed) and moderation (where comments won't appear until I approve them.)

I apologize for the inconvenience. I wish I could do something more satisfying, like slowly torture the spammers to death, but I don't know where they live, so I don't think I'm going to be able to exercise that option.

Finding Common Ground on an Open Internet - a joint statement from Lowell McAdam, CEO Verizon Wireless and Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

2009-10-22T10:34:00.003-04:00

This message was posted to a popular internet tech blog and appears to be genuine. You might also find it of interest.

From: David Farber
Date: October 22, 2009 7:27:48 AM EDT
To: "ip"
Subject: [IP] Finding Common Ground on an Open Internet - a joint statement from Lowell McAdam, CEO Verizon Wireless and Eric Schmidt, CEO Google.
A Technology and Telecommunications Policy Blog
Thursday, October 22, 2009

Finding Common Ground on an Open Internet

The following is a joint statement from Lowell McAdam, CEO Verizon Wireless and Eric Schmidt, CEO Google.
Verizon and Google might seem unlikely bedfellows in the current debate around network neutrality, or an open Internet. And while it's true we do disagree quite strongly about certain aspects of government policy in this area--such as whether mobile networks should even be part of the discussion--there are many issues on which we agree. For starters we both think it's essential that the Internet remains an unrestricted and open platform--where people can access any content (so long as it's legal), as well as the services and applications of their choice.
There are two key factors driving innovation on the web today. First is the programming language of the Internet, which was designed over forty years ago by engineers who wanted the freedom to communicate from any computer, anywhere in the world. It enables Macs to talk to PCs, Blackberry Storms to iPhones, the newest computers to the oldest hardware on the planet across any kind of network--cable, DSL, fiber, mobile, WiFi or even dial up.
Second, private investment is dramatically increasing broadband capacity and the intelligence of networks, creating the infrastructure to support ever more sophisticated applications.
As a result, however or wherever you access the Internet the people you want to connect with can receive your message. There is no central authority that can step in and prevent you from talking to someone else, or that imposes rules prescribing what services should be available.
Transformative is an over-used word, especially in the tech sector. But the Internet has genuinely changed the world. Consumers of all stripes can decide which services they want to use and the companies they trust to provide them. In addition, if you're an entrepreneur with a big idea, you can launch your service online and instantly connect to an audience of billions. You don't need advance permission to use the network. At the same time, network providers are free to develop new applications, either on their own or in collaboration with others.
This kind of "innovation without permission" has changed the way we do business forever, fueling unprecedented collaboration, creativity and opportunity. And because America has been at the forefront of most of these changes, we have disproportionately benefited in terms of economic growth and job creation.
So, in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission's national plan to bring broadband to all Americans, we understand its decision to start a debate about how best to protect and promote the openness of the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has promised a thoughtful, transparent decision-making process, and we look forward to taking part in the analysis and discussion that is to follow. We believe this kind of process can work, because as the two of us have debated these issues we have found a number of basic concepts to agree on.
First, it's obvious that users should continue to have the final say about their web experience, from the networks and software they use, to the hardware they plug in to the Internet and the services they access online. The Internet revolution has been people powered from the very beginning, and should remain so. The minute that anyone, whether from government or the private sector, starts to control how people use the Internet, it is the beginning of the end of the Net as we know it.
Second, advanced and open networks are essential to the future development of the Web. Policies that continue to provide incentives for investment and innovation are a vital part of the debate we are now beginning.
Third, the FCC's existing wireline broadband principles make clear that users are in charge of all aspects of their Internet experience--from access to apps and content. So we think it makes sense for the Commission to establish that these existing principles are enforceable, and implement them on a case-by-case basis.
Fourth, we're in wild agreement that in this rapidly changing Internet ecosystem, flexibility in government policy is key. Policymakers sometimes fall prey to the temptation to write overly detailed rules, attempting to predict every possible scenario and address every possible concern. This can have unintended consequences.
Fifth, broadband network providers should have the flexibility to manage their networks to deal with issues like traffic congestion, spam, "malware" and denial of service attacks, as well as other threats that may emerge in the future--so long as they do it reasonably, consistent with their customers' preferences, and don't unreasonably discriminate in ways that either harm users or are anti-competitive. They should also be free to offer managed network services, such as IP television.
Finally, transparency is a must. Chairman Genachowski has proposed adding this principle to the FCC's guidelines, and we both support this step. All providers of broadband access, services and applications should provide their customers with clear information about their offerings.
Doubtless, there will be disagreements along the way. While Verizon supports openness across its networks, it believes that there is no evidence of a problem today -- especially for wireless -- and no basis for new rules and that regulation in the US could have a detrimental effect globally. While Google supports light touch regulation, it believes that safeguards are needed to combat the incentives for carriers to pick winners and losers online.
Both of our businesses rely on each other. So we believe it's appropriate to discuss how we ensure that consumers can get the information, products, and services they want online, encourage investment in advanced networks and ensure the openness of the web around the world. We're ready to engage in this important policy discussion.

How many geeks does it take to change a lightbulb?

2009-10-08T11:00:00.006-04:00

Or more accurately, how long and how much does it take to get a specialty lightbulb?

The green-circle light around my car's cigarette lighter burned out. These things happen, especially in a car that's 8 years old. So I removed the old one (it's easily accessible in my car) and went looking to buy a replacement.

Easier said than done. This isn't an ordinary lightbulb. It's a tiny little bulb that is permanently attached to a plastic mounting designed to mate it with the wiring harness where it attaches.

OK, so I won't be able to find it in a normal automotive parts store (and I looked). So I went and started googling for this bulb to see if anybody sells them. No luck whatsoever. So I asked at a Chevy dealer - they don't sell just the bulb, you have to buy the entire cigarette lighter plastic mounting assembly, which includes a bulb, and that cost $40!

So I thought, OK, let me see if I can just replace the bulb in this mounting and do this cheap. Well, that can be done, but it's a real pain to get it out, and you have to buy a bulb with bare-wire leads so it can be soldered to the holder. I'm not going to do this if it will burn out again in a few years and you can't get a small LED that runs off of 12 volts.

But then it occurred to me: A Chevy Prizm is a Toyota Corolla. So let's ask at a Toyota parts department. Well, Toyota also doesn't sell just the bulb, but they only charge $13 for the assembly and $13 is a whole lot less than $40. So I bought it from them and installed it in about two minutes in the parking lot.

Now, you may be asking why I'm relating this story when all was resolved in relatively short order. Simple. I want this story to be on the internet and hopefully indexed by search engines, so somebody else with a similar situation won't have to do all the ugly legwork that I did to find this part.

And just so there are nice keywords to search for, the car is a 2002 Chevrolet Prizm, and the cigarette lighter bulb mounting (known as a "Cigarette Lighter Stay") is Toyota part number 85515-02041. I paid $12.97 (plus sales tax) for it.

The image to the left is the entire assembly with the bulb mounted in it.

Comments on "iTunes and Cocoa"

2009-09-11T11:53:00.003-04:00

This week, John Gruber wrote an article commenting on the fact that the latest version of iTunes is still a 32-bit application using Apple's Carbon APIs (vs. the newer Cocoa APIs Apple encourages developers to use today.

John makes many good points and discusses the subject very thoroughly. If the question interests you, I highly recommend you jump through the above link and read the article. I'll wait for you to come back here when you're done reading.

Done reading? Great.

During the article, John writes:

Cocoa was not magic pixie dust that inherently made the Finder radically better. But so why did Apple bother? Because Cocoa and 64-bit are the future of Mac OS X. And, for many new APIs, they are the present.

This is a very plausible explanation for why Apple chose to port nearly all of the system applications to the 64-bit Cocoa libraries. It is also really good marketing PR - what better way to encourage others to use your new libraries than to point our that you yourself are using them everywhere.

But there's another possible reason that I think may make even more sense: the need to test all those new libraries.

The 64-bit Cocoa APIs are brand new. As such, they need to be thoroughly tested. What better way to test them than to use them in as many applications as possible? Since the outside world doesn't have the new libraries, there won't be any third-party applications using them, and real-world applications almost always provide better testing than contrived test cases.

With all the system apps using the 64-bit Cocoa libraries, it means developers and testers will be exercising these new libraries with every app they run. Additionally, it guarantees that the application code is portable to both 32- and 64-bit environments, since Apple will still have to ship and test 32-bit versions of them. (Some of the early-model Intel-based Macs only have 32-bit processors.)

If they didn't port all this code to 64-bit Cocoa, then the 64-bit Cocoa libraries would end up shipping with a lot less testing. This would result in bugs being discovered post-release, as third-party apps are developed. That's something no developer ever wants to have to deal with. Aside from the embarrassment, sometimes you find bugs where the best fix is to change the API in a way that breaks applications. This isn't a problem if the API hasn't been released and the only apps are your own. It is difficult, often impossible, and always embarrassing to do this after you have shipped those APIs to customers. Once an API is shipped to customers, its published interface can't change, forcing you to fix the bug in other ways, which may be awkward, less efficient, or downright hack-ish.

As for why Apple didn't port iTunes to 64-bit Cocoa? My guess is that iTunes 9 was under development for quite some time, while the new APIs were still in a state of flux. If you've got a release schedule to meet (and iTunes 9 had to ship on the same day as the new iPod announcements) then you don't want to attempt porting to a potentially unstable platform. Far better to ship on-time and then begin your porting effort afterwards.

Will iTunes be ported to 64-bit Cocoa in the future? It wouldn't surprise me, but there may not be an overriding need to do so at this point. Now that the 64-bit Cocoa libraries have shipped, the "libraries need testing" argument no longer applies, so we're back to the "how will it improve the iTunes app itself" argument. John's article discusses this at length and provides a good explanation, so I won't repeat his arguments here.

Printing costs and a minor surprise

2009-08-04T20:09:00.004-04:00

This evening, I decided to compare prices on printers and printing supplies. I've always believed that ink jet printers cost more per page than other kinds of printers, but as it turns out, the reality is not as simple as that.

My ink-jet printer is an older model HP DeskJet 842c. According to HP the black cartridge lasts 500 pages and the color cartridge lasts 480 pages. I can usually buy these for about $30 each in retail stores. This makes my cost per page:

Black cartridge: $30 / 500 = 6 cents/page
Color cartridge: $30 / 480 = 6.25 cents/page
B&W page: 6 cents/page
Color page: 6 + 6.25 = 12.25 cents/page

Of course, this assumes that color pages also use black, which I think is a reasonable assumption. This ignores the cost of paper, which is going to be the same for all printers.

Next, I looked at an inexpensive color laser printer I've been considering buying for some time, Brother's HL-4070CDW. According to Staples, a standard-yield black cartridge costs $65 and yields 2500 pages, a standard-yield color cartridge costs about $77 and yields 1500 pages, a high-yield black cartridge costs about $93 and yields 5000 pages, and a high-yield color cartridges costs about $138 and yields 4000 pages. Plus a drum costs $190 and lasts for 17,000 pages. This yields the following prices per page for standard cartridges:

black standard-yield: $65 / 2500 = 2.6 cents/page
color standard-yield: $77 / 1500 = 5.1 cents/page/primary color
drum: $190 / 17000 = 1.1 cents/per page
B&W page (standard-yield): 2.6 + 1.1 = 3.7 cents/page
Color page (standard-yield): 2.6 + (5.1 x 3) + 1.1 = 19 cents/page

Or using high-yield cartridges:

black high-yield: $93 / 5000 = 1.9 cents/page
color high-yield: $77 / 4000 = 3.5 cents/page/primary color
drum: $190 / 17000 = 1.1 cents/per page
B&W page (high-yield): 1.9 + 1.1 = 3.0 cents/page
Color page (high-yield): 1.9 + (3.5 x 3) + 1.1 = 13.5 cents/page

In other words, the laser printer definitely costs less per page for black and white printing, but for color printing, surprisingly, the ink jet printer turns out to be less expensive. By almost 7 cents per page, comparing against the laser printer's standard cartridges, and by a little more than 1 cent per page when compared against the laser printer's high-yield cartridges.

This is not the result I expected to get when I ran these numbers.

The economy isn't making people eat poorly - laziness is.

2009-07-16T10:13:00.001-04:00

For quite a while now, the self-appointed food cops, politicians and their lackeys in the press have been claiming that the economy is why people aren't eating healthy. They claim that the poor are eating so badly because all they can afford is fast food.

Well, it just ain't true. According to a University of Washington study, healthy foods do not cost more than junk food. Sure, there are some very expensive healthy foods, but most of the basic staples (rice, beans, chicken, carrots, etc.) are much less expensive than fast food and are plenty nutritious.

So why do the people eat so badly if it's not because of cost? According to the article, it's time and convenience. It takes 9-16 hours a week to shop for groceries and cook and serve them at home. In households where all the adults work, nobody wants to take that kind of time, so they eat out, and fast food is cheaper than other kinds of restaurants.

In other words, these people are not eating fast food because they aren't making a lot of money. If they suddenly make more money, they will still not want to go grocery shopping or cook meals for the family. I suppose some might start going to more upscale restaurants, but most families are going to require a really huge raise if they want to eat like that every night.

CCF comments on the Nanny State

2009-06-25T10:53:00.004-04:00

The Center for Consumer Freedom writes about the rampant increase of "nannyism" in our government, where in the name of "it's good for you", lawmakers are trying to literally control every aspect of your life because you might prefer something different for yourself.

They quote H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it." He got it right over half a century ago, and it's far more true now than ever before.

The above link also links to three YouTube clips of a TV interview that the article summarizes: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

I'm pretty much in agreement. If I want to eat really tasty food and give up the chance to live an extra year in a nursing home, that's my right. The government can issue press releases telling me that they think I'm making a bad choice, but they have absolutely no right to force me into agreeing, or raising my taxes for daring to disagree.

Israeli dew collectors

2009-06-11T12:20:00.002-04:00

Ganked from yourish.com. Also read the article it links to.

An Israeli tech company has developed a passive device that allows plants to collect dew and excess rainwater, while also cutting off sunlight to weeds. Farms using these (at a cost of about $1 per plant) can use 50% less water - a real boon when growing crops in the desert.

iPhone 3GS and whiney pundits

2009-06-09T11:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Apple announced the new iPhone 3GS. It looks like a really nice new model - faster processor, more memory, a compass, etc. Apple announced pricing of $200 for the 16GB model and $300 for the 32GB model (and $100 for the older 8GB 3G (no "S") model).

But these prices are for "qualified customers only", meaning they are subsidized prices. You can get them if you are a new AT&T customer or if you are approaching the end of a contract (making you eligible for a new phone at subsidized prices. If you're not "qualified" and don't want to wait for your contract to expire before upgrading, then you have to pay full price (See the fine print at the bottom of this page) which is $400 higher. But in an unusual gesture, AT&T is offering "early upgrade" pricing of only $200 higher for customers who have less than a year left in an existing iPhone contract.

As far as I know, this is standard for the cell phone business. If you want to buy a new phone and you're nowhere near the end of your contract, then you have to pay full price, which is several hundred dollars higher than the subsidized price. That was the case with both of my phones from Verizon and is (as far as I know) the case for all phones from all carriers in the US.

But apparently, many iPhone users are completely clueless about this, or they just enjoy complaining. This afternoon, I ran across this article which was apparently written by someone who has never done business with a cell phone company before. He makes it sound like existing iPhone customers are being punished, because they have to pay more than new customers. (He doesn't make any mention of the fact that existing customers can get the same price if they wait for their contract to lapse.) And the people commenting on the article seem to be taking it as a personal attack by Apple Corporation itself.

To these people: get a life, get a brain, and learn to read contracts before signing them. You're not going to get something for nothing, no matter how loudly you scream "but I want it and I want it for free and I want it now". If you want to act like a 6-year-old child, then my only answer to you is "go to your room until you learn some manners."

If you want to complain about industry-standard pricing practices, fine, but this is hardly isolated to the iPhone. If you don't want a contractual obligation, then you aren't going to be able to get a subsidized price. But given the hatred Apple got in return for selling the first-generation iPhones without a subsidy (for $600), I doubt the whiners would like that either.

Atlanta Investigation Uncovers Deceptive 'Humane Society' Agenda

2009-05-15T15:50:00.001-04:00

Atlanta Investigation Uncovers Deceptive 'Humane Society' Agenda

Just another reason why I tell people not to give any money to the so-called "Humane Society of the United States".

If you support animal welfare, donate to the American Humane Society or even better, to a local animal shelter. They have a greater need for the money and they will spend it on helping animals instead of on political activism.

Dry Bones on Obama's image

2009-04-24T08:43:00.002-04:00

Million vs. Billion

2009-03-20T11:24:00.003-04:00

Normally, I don't post comics here (I save that for my LJ, where I put the less-serious posts) but this one tells a world of truth.

xkcd

New iPod shuffle, now without any controls!

2009-03-12T10:50:00.006-04:00

Update 3/17/2009: New information about the controls (seven operations on the middle button, not five), fixed a typo, and added a little more commentary.

This week, Apple released the third generation iPod Shuffle.

This unit is even smaller than before, if you can believe it. 1.8" x 0.7" x 0.3".

So how'd they get it this small? Simple, they removed all the controls.

Well, not really, but it seems that way. On the iPod itself, there is only a slider switch (off, sequential play, shuffle play) and the headphone jack. It is charged and attached to computers via the headphone jack and a proprietary USB cable.

So how do you actually control the thing? It uses a special set of headphones, with three buttons on the cord. This is the same kinds of headphones introduced for the iPhone, for "hands free" operation. On the cord, the "+" and "-" buttons control the volume. Between the two is a big flat button, whose behavior will depend on how you push it:

Click once to play/pause
Double-click to skip forward a track
Double-click and hold to skip forward within a track
Triple-click to skip backward a track
Triple-click and hold to skip backward within a track
Press and hold and a voice synthesizer will say the title and artist of the track currently playing
Press and hold until you hear a beep tone to skip to have your list of playlists recited to you. Click to select the playlist last-announced.

If you think this seems unusually complicated for an Apple product, then we're in agreement. It may be sleek and "kewl" to eliminate all the buttons, but when that design forces you to cram seven distinct features onto a single button, it's a bad design. Sure, it's documented, but let's be honest - how many iPod owners have ever read the documentation?

And, of course, there's the problem of what to do if you don't want to use Apple's headphones. Maybe you've got better-sounding ones, or you want to plug your shuffle into your car stereo or something. Without the proprietary earphones, the shuffle starts playing when you turn it on and stops when you turn it off, and that's all you can do. Not at all acceptable unless someone starts selling a set of controls you can attach in-line with a generic headphone/line cord.

My prediction is that this iPod is going to be quickly replaced with something more like the second-gen model, that has actual controls. Or there will be a new accessory to provide a more proper set of controls for those people who don't like the Apple headphone buttons and/or want to use a different set of headphones.

Yet another buraucracy overgrows its usefulness.

2009-02-12T12:44:00.002-05:00

In recent news the Author's Guild has decided to take a legal stance against the Amazon Kindle. Specifically, they object to it text-to-speech ability (where it can read books to you.)

The guild thinks that this infringes on their right to license audiobooks separately from the text.

Neil Gaiman thinks this is BS. I concur.

And since I'm not a guild member that might have future retribution to consider, I'll go so far as to say that if the Author's guild thinks it's a good idea to follow in the footsteps of the RIAA and MPAA, screwing over content creators in favor of the lawyers, then their organization no longer has a reason to exist at all.

New Scientist: Our world may be a giant hologram

2009-01-19T08:07:00.001-05:00

Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist

Nothing conclusive yet, but some very interesting data and conjecture.

Mitt Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

2009-01-07T15:21:00.001-05:00

This article is a few months old, but it's still relevant today (and I just got around to reading it.)

Detroit doesn't need wads of cash to prop up a system that has failed and will continue failing if it doesn't change. It needs to radically restructure itself, taking advantage of things like the bankruptcy laws to make the process less painful. Mitt Romney spells it out in the article.

Review: EFI-X Boot Module

2008-12-29T13:19:00.001-05:00

Today's edition of MacInTouch reviews a new product, the EFI-X Boot Module. This is a $260 (currently discounted to $200) USB dongle that sets up an EFI boot environment on a generic PC.

For those who don't know, EFI is a new boot environment for PCs that is intended to replace the old BIOS environment that PCs have used in various forms since the first IBM PC shipped in 1981. EFI is much more advanced than BIOS, but only the most recent operating systems can boot on EFI-equipped PCs.

So why is this interesting? Apple Intel-based Macintosh computers (which is everything sold since mid-2006) use EFI and Mac OS X requires EFI in order to boot. (There have been some hacking efforts to make Mac OS X run on BIOS-based PCs, but they are of questionable reliability.) With the EFI-X Boot Module, you can get that same EFI software on a generic PC. It would appear that this alone is sufficient to allow Mac OS X to install on non-Apple hardware. (Assuming you have hardware for which Apple provides drivers, of course.)

Of course, installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware is a violation of Apple's software license terms, so actually doing this might be illegal, depending on where you live and what the courts decide. And it is likely that Apple will update Mac OS X in some way to make it incompatible with an EFI-X-equipped PC. Nevertheless, it is a very interesting piece of news and an even more interesting product for PC hackers to play with. (And there's absolutely nothing illegal about using EFI-X to run Linux or the 64-bit version of Windows Vista - both of which have EFI support.)

The Ornery American: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

2008-10-27T01:00:00.001-04:00

Orson Scott Card deals out a much-needed blow against the media, who are lying through their teeth about the causes of today's financial crisis in order to get Obama elected.

Read the essay for the whole story.

Global Warming as Mass Neurosis

2008-10-13T09:53:00.000-04:00

Back in July (sorry, I just read the article today), Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal that much of the science behind today's global warming panic has been discredited (he presents several specific examples) and that the arguments being tossed about today are based on religious and political ideologies, not scientific fact.

Read the article for the full story.

The entire universe

2008-09-29T09:23:00.002-04:00

Today's XKCD depicts the entire unvierse, plotted on a logarithmic scale of distance from the Earth's surface.

Pretty nifty, eh?

Behind The Music: The Muppaphones

2008-08-18T23:56:00.004-04:00

Ever wonder what happened to those stars of TV, the Muppaphones?

They made their TV debut on The Muppet Show in 1976, with their front-man and manager Marvin Suggs.

Their performance was so popular that they made several more TV appearances on The Muppet Show with Mr. Suggs, including their world-famous performance of Witch Doctor.

But life on TV was not a life of glamor. As they came to realize, Marvin Suggs was not acting with the Muppaphones' best interests in mind. Here, seen in a rare behind the scenes interview, we get a glimpse of the life of the Muppaphones.

By 1978, the rigors of being a TV celebrity, and the constant abuse from Marvin Suggs became too much for them. In one famous performance of the Blue Danube Waltz, they came close to having a breakdown on stage. Fortunately, the show's guest star, Lesley Ann Warren intervened, preventing total disaster.

After that fateful night, the Muppaphones realized that working with Marvin Suggs would ultimately lead to a bad end. Since Mr. Suggs held the rights to the name Muppaphone and was a co-signer of their Muppet Show contract, they were forced to quit the show in order to perform solo. Unfortunately, there was not much other work for them, and they were forced to take whatever jobs were available, including several advertising jobs. But these employers were often more cruel than Mr. Suggs was, forcing them to receive plastic surgery, including prosthetic limbs, in order to get jobs.

But even that was ultimately doomed to failure. Finally, they hit rock bottom, and finished their careers performing in a public service announcement for a New York poison control center.

Talking to the Police by Professor James Duane

2008-08-13T15:37:00.002-04:00

Professor James Duane gives a 47-minute lecture on why talking to the police without a grant of immunity is always a bad idea, even if (especially if) you are innocent. The first half of the lecture is the professor's lecture, the second half being commentary by a police officer who confirms everything and then describes many (all perfectly legal) techniques for getting people to confess.

Male dogs and other unusual words

2008-08-04T17:29:00.002-04:00

This week, I started wondering if there is a term for a male dog. We all know the term for a female dog, but the males are usually just called "dogs".

Well, thanks to the internet, I now know that answer.

There are three terms used for a male dog:

Stud - usually only used for breeding purposes
Sire - but only if it has fathered pups
Cur - although this usually implies one that is angry or ill or abused

And while on the subject, I was able to find out what male and female cats are called. Until now, I only knew the first of the following:

tom - a male cat
gib - a male cat that's been neutered
queen - a female cat (usually only if she hasn't been spayed)
clowder - a group of cats

And now you know too.

A terabyte in the palm of your hand

2008-05-18T09:07:00.009-04:00

This weekend, I assembled a 1TB hard drive for my Mac. I purchased a Seagate Baracuda ST310005 1TB internal SATA drive at Micro Center for $210. I installed this drive into a Vantec NexStar-3 360UFS external drive case, which cost $70. This is an all-metal case that provides USB, FireWire and eSATA ports. It is currently attached to my Mac via FireWire, that being the fastest interface I currently have. (I may install an eSATA card for better performance, but not now.)

Overall, installation was very simple. The drive just snaps onto the circuit board in the case. The circuit board is also attached to a metal frame that contains the case's external connectors. Thanks to the standardized (and simplified) ports used by SATA drives, there is no need for actual cables. Just a simple connector that mates with both of the drive's connectors. The drive then attaches to the board's frame with four screws. It was important to use the screws that came with the case, and not the ones that came with the drive. The former are pan-head, while the latter are round-headed. The round-headed screws scrape the bottom of the case when the drive is inserted. After attaching the drive to the circuit board, the assembly slides into the case. A single wire attaches the case's in-use LED to the circuit board.

After assembling the drive, I attached it to my Mac. Although simple from a technical point of view, this was tricky trying to find a place for it on my desk. My other external drives (two hard drives and a tape drive) reside on top of my Mac. When I tried to put the new drive there, however, the power cord proved to be too short to reach the power strip on the floor. I found another location, on my desk, behind the monitor, only to find that the bundled FireWire cable was too short to reach from there to my FW hub. Fortunately, I have other FireWire cables and was able to swap it for a longer one.

After physically attaching the drive, the rest was smooth sailing. As soon as I turned it on, Mac OS informed me about the new drive and asked me if I would want to format it. I said yes and the system's Disk Utility launched. The drive was partitioned and formatted in a few minutes. Afterwards, I chose to explicitly zero-out the partition - this is unnecessary, but I do it with new drives, to check for any damaged sectors. That operation took nine hours. (This is a trillion bytes we're talking about!)

After formatting, the drive appeared on my desktop and Mac OS asked me if I wanted to use it to store Time Machine backups. Since this was my purpose for buying the drive, I said "yes" and it was automatically set up.

Time Machine took about four hours to make the initial backup of my data (about 90GB). Subsequent snapshots (taken every hour) take only a few minutes, because they only back up files that have changed.

I don't yet know what the overall reliability of this system will be, since it's a new drive and a new case, but so far I am suitable impressed. The drive case has no fans, so it gets a bit warm but the aluminum case seems to dissipate the heat well. It does not get hot to the touch, and I don't have any other devices stacked on it. Mac OS X seems to have absolutely no problem supporting a single disk volume of 1TB.

Update 6/13/2008:
See also my review on Epinions

The story of the Commodore Amiga (updated: now with part 7)

2008-05-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Ars Technica has been writing a series of articles about the history of the Commodore Amiga. For those interested in computer history, this is a fascinating story. More interesting, in many respects, than the stories of Microsoft and Apple.

Here are links to what's been written so far:

I will update this article with additional parts, as they are written (and as I learn about them, of course.)

My LJ is back

2008-04-24T17:14:00.003-04:00

For those who care, I also run a LiveJournal blog. That site mostly contains stuff that is not going to be of interest to people who don't know me personally, but since many of my friends read this blog and may not know about that one, here's a link to it.

The self-peeling potato

2008-04-08T10:13:00.001-04:00

The Japanese seem to have a miracle solution for everything, including a clean and easy way to peel a potato:

Breaking matza in half - the Japanese way

2008-04-07T13:37:00.002-04:00

I posted this last year to my LJ, but what the heck..

Delicious irony: Sony caught using pirated software

2008-03-31T17:22:00.001-04:00

Ars Technica reports: Sony BMG's hypocrisy: company busted for using warez

Sony BMG, proud RIAA member and supporter of thousands of lawsuits against people suspected of distributing pirated music, has been caught red handed using pirated software on some of their own servers.

Insert obligatory comments about people in glass houses, karma, etc.

PlayStation scare tactics

2008-03-26T17:36:00.001-04:00

According to Sony's PS3 network troubleshooting page:

Use only an Ethernet cable compatible with 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX or 1000BASE-T networks. Do not use a cord for a standard residential telephone line or cables of types other than those mentioned here. Using the wrong type of cord or cable can cause more electrical current than necessary to flow through the LAN connector, which may lead to heat build-up, fire or malfunction.

(emphasis mine)

So if you use phone wire instead of a Cat-5 wire, it can make the PS3 overheat and catch fire? If that's true, then the PS3's network interface is a complete piece of trash. With any other network device, using phone wire will simply not work - you won't be able to move any data, but it won't make the device catch fire!

So, is Sony simply exaggerating reality, or is their network hardware really that badly designed?

Or are they worried that someone will try and solder a power plug onto the end of a phone wire and shunt 120vac into the Ethernet jack? But even then, it should just blow out the PS3's circuits. It still shouldn't catch fire.

Farewell, Gary Gygax

2008-03-07T12:21:00.001-05:00

I think this is a fitting epitaph for the creator of D&D.

Wire coat-hangers sound as good as Monster Cable!

2008-03-05T16:35:00.001-05:00

Experiments: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?

Somehow, this doesn't surprise me. And it's a finger in the eye of every so-called audiophile who, over the past 20 years, has tried to sell me expensive (sometimes $20/foot) cable when I try to buy el-cheapo $1/foot cables for my stereo.

I do like to get heavy-gauge wires with thick insulation and gold-plated connectors. Not because it sounds any different, but because these kinds of cables are more durable and resistant to corrosion over time. But that's still a whole lot less expensive than what Monster (and other audiophile brands) charge.

The death of HD-DVD, the fall of Microsoft and the power of free markets.

2008-02-21T10:03:00.001-05:00

In Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD, Daniel Dilger points out the Blu-Ray's success (now almost inevitable) over HD-DVD is a lot more than just one media format winning out over a rival. It is also the combined energy of an entire industry focussed against Microsft's attempt to "embrace and extend" and take over that industry.

In the article, Dilger points out that this is hardly the first example. A lot of Microsoft's recent projects have suffered the same fate, including the XBox 360, the Zune, Windows CE, and even Windows Vista. Part of this is due to the technical merits of the competition, but a lot of it is a direct result of the competition deciding to gang up against Microsoft.

On the surface, this would seem like a cartel, which is illegal in the US. For those unfamiliar with the term, In a cartel. industry leaders conspire together in order to control a market. This usually results in high prices and (when the market does not involve commodities) inferior products. IMO, it also destroys a free market economy, since the cartel prevents customers from having choices, and it prevents competitors from entering the market.

But here, we're seeing something different. Microsoft's competitors are not conspiring together. They are all independently deciding to focus their individual efforts against Microsoft. And it's not because they want to control the market (although I'm sure they wouldn't object to that outcome), but because they want to prevent Microsoft from establishing itself as the controlling entity. And not just for arbitrary reasons, but because Microsoft has a well-established history of abusing its monopoly power.

There have been anti-trust lawsuits against Microsoft, but history has shown them to be ineffective. Microsoft consents to token actions and continues abusing their monopoly power. This time around, however, the industry is not trying to use the legal system. Instead, the competition is using the power it has always had - they are choosing to support and promote competing standards, they are shipping products using competing standards, and they are selling those products to customers. The market is bringing down Microsoft where decades of litigation could not.

I find this very uplifting and reassuring. A monopolistic company does not inevitably dominate its markets. As long as competitors (no matter how small they may be) are free to sell alternative products, consumers end up with all of the real power. When they choose to vote in unison with their dollars, not even the biggest company can fight the trend.

The only real question here is: Will Microsoft see the writing on the wall and start delivering what customers want, or will they continue their current behavior and be further marginalized in the marketplace. Regardless of what they choose, it's good for consumers.

Your tax dollars at waste

2008-02-13T15:49:00.002-05:00

Maybe those of you who understand sports can explain why I'm wrong.

As many of you are no doubt aware, the baseball player Roger Clemens has been accused of using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. He's been testifying before Congress about these allegations, and recent news is that it seems he was lying about it and may end up facing criminal perjury charges.

What I want to know is Why the hell is any of this happening and why is Congress wasting our time and money on this nonsense???

As far as I know, there are no laws against using steroids or HGH. I can go and take them until I explode without violating any laws.

Major League Baseball has rules against players taking performance-enhancing drugs. This is not in question, and I don't even disagree with the rule. But that's all it is - one corporation's rules regarding the conduct of its own employees (which is what these players are, right?)

If I start a corporation and require my employees to wear yellow name-tags, and one employee refuses, I can fire him. If it's in his contract, I might even be able to sue for breach of contract to recover some kind of damages. But that's where it stops. There's no way this person could (or should) be jailed, and Congress certainly shouldn't get involved.

But that's what we're seeing here. MLB has a rule against steroid use. Clemens was accused. So MLB should conduct an investigation and depending on the result, they can fire Clemens and maybe sue him for breach of contract. If the investigation's results are in dispute, then maybe they should go to binding arbitration, or a local court (e.g. a wrongful termination suit.) But for some reason, it is going way way beyond that. Somehow, Congress - the supreme legislative branch of the United States - has gotten involved in what is still an MLB internal affair. They are having hearings before committees all over the place, treating this as if it was a matter of national security. And for what? Because a baseball player is accused of violating league rules? That's it?

And they're going to pursue criminal charge against him because of what? Because he was caught in a lie (so the committee says) while testifying about this BS that should never have begun in the first place?

What's next? Federal tribunals for people accused of jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk? At least in that case, a law was broken.

This is yet another incident in a long chain of prosecutorial abuses by our legal system. Somebody in Congress likes baseball and doesn't like Clemens. So he sets up a show-trial, with no actual charges, solely for the purpose of forcing Clemens to either lie or make a career-destroying statement (or even better, both).

But it's not all that surprising. It's now a tradition to send unpopular people to jail on trumped up charges. Lewis Libby and Martha Stewart were also convicted of perjury regarding crimes that were never committed. And this won't be the last case either - you can be certain that in a few months, some other unpopular public figure will be similarly railroaded.

Child Discovered In Word Code.

2008-02-01T04:46:00.000-05:00

Who would've guessed it? The Microsoft Word code is so big and bloated that a child got lost in there and was apparently living with Clippy for several years.

Fun with a Wiimote

2008-01-31T13:12:00.000-05:00

Johnny Chung Lee has a fascinating set of simple projects demonstrating the amazing capabilities of the Nintendo Wii controller.

The Wii controller is an infrared video camera capable of tracking up to four light sources. It also has a 3-axis accelerometer. It communicates via BlueTooth. This means any BlueTooth-equipped computer (like a PC or Mac) can use the sensors in the controller. Mr. Lee has videos of three proof-of-concept experiments:

A multi-touch interface for manipulating an on-screen object by moving your fingers through the air (like in the movie Minority Report).
An interactive whiteboard application
A demonstration of head-tracking to produce virtual reality

The demos are incredible. Go visit the link and see for yourself.

I resemble that remark!

2008-01-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

Today's Dork Tower strikes a chord here.

Or am I the only one who (like the comic) listens to music, thinking about if the songs would be good for Guitar Hero?

And am I the only one who really really would like to see Tempus Fugit as a Guitar Hero track?

Keep those metal objects away from the MRI!

2008-01-25T20:01:00.000-05:00

Photos of stuff that got stuck in MRI machines because someone didn't heed the warnings. The floor polishers are particularly amusing - I'd hate to be the janitor that had to explain what happened.

A primer on TV terminology

2008-01-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

After reading discussion threads from many forums, it appears that a lot of people are unfamiliar with the terminology used to describe the different features of modern TVs. As a service to them, I present the following primer.

Audio terminology

Unbalanced Analog	Unbalanced analog audio (often just referred to as analog audio) is the oldest form of audio input/output. Audio is carried on two wires: one carrying the signal, and one attached to ground. In TV and stereo applications, the connector is usually an RCA connector. By convention, most stereo audio cables use a red connector for the right-side channel and a white connector for the left-side channel. Other applications sometimes use other connectors. For instance, computers usually use a 1/8" tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) connector that carries two channels of audio sharing a common ground. Musical instruments usually use a 1/4" 2-wire TRS connector (also known as a "TS" connector).
Balanced Analog	Balanced audio is not often used for consumer devices, but is commonly used for professional audio. Audio data is carried on three wires: one carrying the signal, one carrying the inverse of the signal, and one attached to ground. Inside devices, the two signals are combined (inverting the inverse-signal), eliminating much nosie and interference from the audio. Many different connectors are used for balanced audio. Microphones typically use a 3-pin "XLR" connector. Also common is a 1/4" TRS connector.
S/PDIF	S/PDIF stands for "Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format". This is a mechanism for encoding multiple channels of digital audio (using multiple formats, including uncompressed PCM, Dolby Digital and DTS) into a single digital stream of bits. For consumer audio, S/PDIF data is either carried on 75-ohm coaxial copper cable with RCA connectors (usually called called "coaxial") or on optical fibers with TOSLINK connectors. Note that RCA connectors are used on a wide variety of audio, video and data cables. These cables may or may not be coaxial, and have a wide variety of impedances. For this reason, you should make sure to use a cable designed for S/PDIF audio and not any old cable with RCA connectors that you may have on-hand. The wrong kind of cable may degrade the signal, resulting in dropouts or a total loss of audio.

When connecting devices together, they obviously have to use the same standard. Trying to send S/PDIF data to a device that expects analog audio will obviously not work (and may damage your equipment.) Modern televisions and home theater receivers usually support multiple audio formats.

In general, S/PDIF audio is recommended, whenever possible. Because it is digital, signal quality is usually much better than analog audio. The multi-channel capability of S/PDIF allows a single wire (or optical fiber) to carry all the channels of a surround-sound production. With analog audio, multiple connections are necessary to carry surround sound. (e.g. 6 RCA connectors or 3 TRS connectors.)

Video terminology

Interlaced	A video format where each frame consists of two fields - one containing the odd-numbered lines and one one containing the even-numbered lines. Odd and even fields are alternated to produce the sequence of frames. The human eye usually does not notice the image alternating between the odd and even fields, but some people can notice flickering images or other minor distortions caused by interlaced video.
Progressive scan	Also known as non-interlaced, progressive scan is a video format where each frame consists of only one field, containing all of the frame's lines. Progressive scan images often look better than their interlaced equivalents, eliminating the flicker that some people perceive.
NTSC	Short for "National Television System Committee", NTSC is a system for encoding video data on an analog signal. It is the standard for analog video in the United States, Canada and a few other countries. Other analog video standards are used in other countries, including PAL and SECAM. NTSC video has a vertical resolution of 486 lines (each frame of signal contains 525 lines - 486 containing the image, and 39 rows of "vertical blanking" which may contain non-image information.) As an analog signal, there is no precise horizontal resolution - the signal continuously varies across each scan-line. Black-and-white NTSC signals are interlaced, with a refresh rate of 60 fields per second. Color NTSC signals use a slightly slower refresh rate (59.94 fields per second) in order to accommodate the slightly more complex signal in a way that is backward-compatible with black-and-white TV sets.
RF	Short for "Radio Frequency", RF video is a video signal (analog or digital), combined with an audio signal and modulated onto a radio carrier. This is typically done for over-the-air broadcasts (receivable with an antenna), and for some other kinds of broadcasts (like cable TV). Many video-producing devices, like VCRs and set-top-boxes, may also generate RF video, in order to be compatible with televisions that have no other way of receiving a signal. For analog video, RF signals tends to produce a low quality image. For digital video, RF signals look just as good as other formats.
ATSC	ATSC is the "Advanced Television Systems Committee", an organization that defines digital television standards in the USA. All televisions capable of receiving a digital signal over the air (that is, with an antenna) in the US must have an ATSC-compliant tuner
QAM	Digital cable TV systems do not typically use ATSC. They use a different standard called QAM. A television capable of receiving digital cable TV without a set-top box must have a QAM tuner. Cable companies tend to encrypt signals, however, so a QAM tuner by itself will typically not be able to tune in many channels.
CableCARD	CableCARD is a device, typically leased from a cable TV provider, that, when installed in a TV with a QAM tuner, will decrypt the video content, eliminating the need for a set-top box, for many purposes. CableCARD technology is still being developed, and is being improved. In its current form, CableCARD can not be used for two-way communication (where signals are sent back to the cable company). This means a set-top box is still required to use the interactive features of digital cable TV services (like video-on-demand.)
SDTV	Short for "Standard Definition Television", SDTV defines several digital video formats that are similar to existing analog formats. In the United States, SDTV consists of the following formats: 480i - This is 640x480, 704x480 or 720x480 pixels, interlaced, with a refresh rate of 59.94 fields per second (compatible with NTSC analog signals). 480i images may have a 4:3 aspect ratio or a 16:9 wide-screen aspect. 480p - This is 640x480, 704x480 or 720x480 pixels, non-interlaced (progressive scan). 480p has three sub-variants: 480p24, 480p30 and 480p60, corresponding to refresh rates of 24, 30 and 60 frames (not fields) per second, respectively. 480p24 is commonly used for movies (since the original film was produced at 24 frames per second). 480p60 is often defined as an "EDTV" mode, because it uses twice the bandwidth of SDTV broadcasts. Televisions sold as "SDTV" devices with digital tuners often have circuitry that can receive HDTV signals and display them at SDTV resolutions.
EDTV	Short for "Enhanced Definition Television", EDTV is a marketing term commonly used to refer to non-HD televisions capable of displaying a 480p60 image.
HDTV	Short for "High Definition", HDTV defines several resolutions and refresh rates that offer image quality better than SDTV and EDTV. In the United States, these are: 720p - This is 1280x720 pixels, non-interlaced (progressive scan). 720p has three sub-variants: 720p24, 720p30 and 720p60, corresponding to refresh rates of 24, 30 and 60 frames per second, respectively. 1080i - This is 1920x1080 pixels, interlaced. 1080i (aka 1080i60) has a refresh rate of 60 fields per second. 1080p - This is 1920x1080 pixels, non-interlaced (progressive scan). 1080p has two standard sub-variants: 1080p24 and 1080p30, corresponding to refresh rates of 24 and 30 frames per second, respectively. Many HDTVs also support a non-standard sub-variant of 1080p60, which has a refresh rate of 60 frames per second. ATSC broadcasts never use 1080p60, but some other signal sources (like HD disc players and some video game consoles) offer it as an option.
Composite video	In the United States, Composite video is NTSC analog video, transmitted without an RF carrier, over a wire. Consumer electronics devices almost always use an RCA connector for composite video. By convention, the connector is usually colored yellow.
S-video	S-Video is NTSC analog video that has had its image-brightness data ("Luma") separated from its image-color data ("Chroma"). The luma and chroma signals are transmitted on separate wires. This produces an image somewhat better than composite video.
Component video	Component video is an analog video format capable of carrying analog versions of all the SDTV, EDTV and HDTV resolutions (note, however, that not all TVs with component video inputs can display all these resolutions!). Component video signals are typically carried on three wires, using RCA connectors on each. Two different signal formats are usually supported for component video: Y/Pb/Pr and RGB. RGB carries the red, green and blue image components on separate wires. Y/Pb/Pr is conceptually similar to S-video: one wire ("Y") carries image-brightness ("Luma") information, one ("Pb") carries the blue component of the color information and one ("Pr") carries the red component of the color information. By convention, component video cables color the connectors red, green and blue. When Y/Pb/Pr format is used, the green connector is usually used for Y, the blue for Pb and red for Pr.
VGA	VGA is a computer video format that is occasionally found on HDTV sets and some consumer video equipment. It uses an HD-15 connector to carry analog video. All of the video components (red, green, blue, horizontal sync and vertical sync) are carried on separate wires. VGA connections can support resolutions far in excess of HDTV standards (for example 2048x1536 progressive-scan at 75 frames per second), although not all displays with VGA connectors can display such images.
DVI	DVI is a digital video format. The DVI connector carries one or two channels (also known as "links") of digital video information. One link is sufficient to carry the full range of HDTV resolutions, and most computer resolutions. When both links are used, the maximum resolution is doubled, allowing high resolution displays, like 30" LCD panels with their 2560x1600 resolutions.
HDMI	HDMI is the current standard for getting digital video into HDTV sets. The HDMI connector combines digital video signals with digital audio signals and some remote-control features into a single convenient cable. HDMI is backward-compatible with single-link DVI video.
HDCP	HDCP is short for "High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection". HDCP is a system for encrypting digital video and audio as it is transmitted between devices. The purpose is to prevent someone from recording the video and audio in violation of some interpretations of copyright law. High definition video players (including Blu-Ray Disc players and digital cable TV receivers) use HDCP when sending audio and video data over DVI and HDMI connectors. If the receiving device does not have an HDCP decoder, it can not display the data. In consumer products, almost all devices with HDMI ports support HDCP. Devices with DVI ports may or may not support HDCP. This is very important, because a TV without HDCP capability can not display an HDCP-encoded signal. Today, most displays sold as HD televisions support HDCP, but most displays sold as computer monitors do not. Note that I said "most" - there are exceptions in both cases. There are still some TVs that do not support HDCP, and there are some computer displays that do.

Administrivia: e-mail links work again

2008-01-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

At some point, Blogger's standard CSS template lost the entry for displaying the mail-to icon. I just added code to my blog's template to put it back.

Click on the envelope icon if you want to e-mail someone a link to an article.

Another blow against the evil empire

2008-01-17T16:45:00.000-05:00

Exonerated RIAA defendant scores double victory in court.

Tanya Andersen has been persecuted by RIAA lawyers for years. When shown that they could not win their lawsuits, the labels dropped their case. Ms. Andersen, however, didn't stop there. She sued to recover attorneys' fees, and won. She is now filing a malicious prosecution lawsuit and is seeking class-action status for it, so the results will apply to everyone wrongfully accused by RIAA lawyers.

Every now and then, something like this happens to make you realize that the legal system isn't 100% corrupt (yeah, so 99% isn't that much better, but it's still a little better.)

Why my next PDA will be an iPod

2008-01-15T14:24:00.000-05:00

Today, at the Macworld expo, Apple announced a software update for the iPod Touch. This adds several key applications, giving it almost all of the capabilities that I have in my Palm PDA. Given the fact that Palm will soon stop making PDAs (focusing entirely on smartphones), this is very good news for me.

Today's announcement adds the following software apps to the iPod touch:

Mail (E-mail, including HTML formatting and some common attachment types (including PDF, Word and Excel)
Maps (interface to Google Maps)
Notes (a text-based note pad)
Stocks
Weather

With these additions, the suite is now very close to what I have on my Palm PDA (plus several extras I don't have). Here's a quick comparison (and yes, I'm aware that modern Palm OS devices have features my m515 doesn't.)

iPod Touch feature	Palm m515 feature
Calculator	Calc
Calendar	Date Book
Clock	Clock
Contacts	Address
Mail (With HTML and attachments)	Mail (Without HTML or attachments)
Notes	Memo Pad
Settings	Prefs Security
iTunes Store	N/A
Maps	N/A
Music	N/A
Photos	N/A
Safari (web browser)	N/A
Stocks	N/A
Videos	N/A
Weather	N/A
YouTube	N/A
N/A	Card Info
N/A	Expense
N/A	HotSync
N/A	Note Pad (a simple paint app)
N/A	To Do List
N/A	Tutorials (Graffiti and Welcome)

Plus, I've installed a few third-party apps on my Palm:

A bridge game
A hexadecimal calculator
Mobipocket (an e-book reader)
PalmReader (another e-book reader)
A scientific calculator
A vector-drawing app
A solitaire card game

You will notice that the iPod Touch now includes equivalents to almost everything of importance on the Palm. The big exceptions to this are the Expense, Note Pad and To Do List, for which Apple has not (yet?) released their own equivalents. Plus the third-party apps.

Next month, however, Apple will be releasing their iPhone/iPod Touch SDK. With that, it will be possible for developers to write their own apps. I fully expect to see third-party software (hopefully not too expensive) to fill in this gap. When that happens, the iPod Touch will have become my ideal PDA.

Geek comic

2008-01-11T18:13:00.000-05:00

The programmers among us will appreciate this enormously.

Just when you thought Network Solutions couldn't get any more sleazy

2008-01-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

We all hate domain-name squatters. They put web pages on unused domains, so your typos don't generate the errors they should produce, and they prevent legitimate companies from registering the same domains. But we used to think that the domain-name registry itself wouldn't be that sleazy.

Wrong! Network Solutions (the most popular, for historic reasons, DNS registrar) has set up a new service. When you use their "whois" server to look up information about a domain, and it's not used, they automatically register it for themselves and install a DNS-squatter page, with links to their "buy this domain" form. This makes the domain appear to be in-use, making it impossible to use any competing registrar.

If this isn't illegal, it should be.

Orson Scott Card: Bhutto's Death Shows Who Our Candidates Really Are

2008-01-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

Orson Scott Card writes yet another insightful essay on current events. This time, he points out how the various Presidential candidates reacted to the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Unfortunately, most of the major candidates (of both parties) proved their incompetence.

According to Card (and I tend to agree), only Giuliani and McCain acted responsibly, saying the right things. Romney pretty much said nothing. The others (Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, Biden and Edwards) all said things that, if said by a President or an ambassador, would destroy our peaceful relationship with Pakistan, possibly even expanding our current war to one where we have to fight more than just terrorists.

You may disagree with Giuliani and McCain. You may even agree with what the others said, but in the final analysis, these two people are the only ones who seem to understand diplomacy and foreign relations enough to not turn Pakistani tragedy into a US atrocity.

Apple updates the Mac Pro

2008-01-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

And wow what an update this turns out to be. $2300 gets you a 2.8GHz quad-core system. $2800 gets you an 8-core system. This is power that, only a few short years ago, would've cost tens of thousands of dollars. When you consider that my 2002-era Mac (dual 1GHz PowerPC G4) cost $3000, we've come a long way.

Details follow

The base configuration, as bundled into boxes in stores, and selling for $2800, consists of:

Two quad-core 2.8GHz Intel Xeon chips (1600MHz, 64-bit dual independent FSBs)
2GB of RAM (two 1G DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs, leaving 6 empty sockets)
A 320GB 7200 RPM SATA-2 hard drive.
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256M video (with two dual-link DVI ports)
A 16x "SuperDrive" (Dual-layer DVD+/-RW)
USB keyboard and mouse (including a 2-port USB 2.0 hub in the keyboard)
Two GigE network ports
Bluetooth 2.0 EDR (up to 3Mb/s)
4 FireWire ports (2 at 400Mbps, 2 at 800Mbps)
5 USB 2.0 ports
Audio in/out (optical, line-level, and mic/headphone)
Mac OS X 10.5
Apple's iLife application suite

Various build-to-order options (available from Apple's web-store) include:

Processor choices:
- Downgrade to one quad-core Xeon (instead of two) at 2.8GHz for $500 less
- Upgrade to 3.0GHz for $800 more
- Upgrade to 3.2GHz for $1600 more
More memory. Up to 32GB. Note that it's pretty expensive. I'm not sure how much of this is Apple's (frequently expensive) fault, and how much is because FB-DIMMs are simply expensive parts.
A hardware RAID interface, including a battery backed-up cache.
Hard drive options - 4 bays with up to 1TB in each bay.
Video options:
- Up to 4 Radeon 2600XT cards - one in each PCI Express slot
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT with 512M (with two dual-link DVI ports)
- NVIDIA Quadro FV 5600 with 1.5GB (with two dual-link DVI ports and a stereo 3D port)
Displays (20", 23" or 30"). You can, of course, use any DVI- or VGA-based display, not just Apple's.
A second SuperDrive
802.11 pre-n Wi-Fi interface
Dual- or quad-channel FibreChannel interface (for attaching an external RAID chassis)
Modem
Bluetooth keyboard/mouse instead of the USB ones
AppleCare (extends warrantee to 3 years) for $250

The fours in my life

2008-01-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

This meme is making the rounds. If you want to play along, answer the questions for yourself and either post them as a comment here, or (even better) post it to your own blog and write a comment here with the link.

Four jobs I've had in my life

Software developer (for network equipment)
Software developer (for user-interface libraries)
(Sorry. I know this is repetitive, but I haven't had that many different jobs)
Secretarial / Administrative
Fast food restaurant employee

Four places I've lived

Northern Virginia
Northern New Jersey
New York City
Southern California

Four places I've been on vacation

A cruise along the north-east coast of the US and Canada
Dragon*Con, Atlanta GA
Sterling, NY
Phoenix, AZ

Four of my favorite foods

Sushi
Pasta with cheese (any kind - it's all good)
Chinese food
Tiramisu

Four places I'd rather be right now

On a really big cruise ship (and I don't care where it's going)
At a sci-fi convention (especially if I can talk with my favorite authors)
At the MacWorld Expo (I know, that's next week, not now. So sue me.)
Working as a host of MythBusters.

Sears corporation installs massive amounts of spyware

2008-01-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

Sears/KMart has set up a new "community" forum, supposedly to allow you to communicate directly with manufacturers. What they don't tell you (except in obscure legalese fine-print) is that if you sign up, they install spyware that redirects all of your internet traffic to a market research company. This includes secure transactions (like your banking and e-mail, including all of your account numbers and passwords.)

I hope some lawyer has enough balls to completely destroy them over this. People should be going to jail for this offense against humanity (and yes, that's exactly what I consider this.)

New FAA restriction on Lithium batteries

2008-01-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

The FAA has just enacted new rules. Lithium batteries may not be transported in checked bags. They may be in carry-on bags, as long as they are not too large. Lithium batteries not installed in devices should be transported in insulated containers, like plastic bags, to prevent short circuits.

Read the article for all the details (including what defines "too large").

According to a DOT press release, this is an issue of safety, not security. The FAA has determined that the fire suppression systems installed in commercial cargo bays can not put out a lithium fire.

The Myth of Market Share

2007-12-26T11:16:00.000-05:00

According to the above article, corporations that focus on market share (that is, trying to dominate the competition) end up much less profitable than those corporations that focus on profit without regard to market share. Companies that pursue market share as their ultimate goal often end up with pyrrhic victories, if they win at all. Companies that ignore the competition and focus on profit can be very successful and provide the greatest return on investment to shareholders, even from the number two (or three or fifteen) position.

This has always seemed obvious to me, but it is apparently a new concept in US corporations (compared with Japan, where this is the standard practice.)

As one respondent said, American Airlines is the biggest. Southwest is the most profitable. Which would you rather own shares of?

Indonesian "tree man"

2007-11-29T18:57:00.000-05:00

A man in indonesia has a very rare immune disorder, which causes HPV warts to grow completely unchecked, resulting in extensive growths that make his hands and feet resemble tree roots. Fortunately, it appears that a cure (or at least a treatment) may be possible.

One thing that struck me as interesting is that this is the sort of thing that myths may be based on. According to the article, these growths started forming after he injured himself many years ago. If this had happened a thousand years ago, the story about the man turned into a tree by the gods would be dismissed as pure fantasy by people today.

I wonder how many other crazy-sounding ancient stories, that we dismiss today, may also have a basis in reality.

World's dumbest counterfeiter

2007-11-28T12:37:00.000-05:00

FOX News: Man Charged With Disorderly Conduct, Forgery After Trying to Deposit $1M Bill

Someone tried to open a bank account with a forged $1,000,000 bill. Somebody should've told him that the largest bills in circulation are $100 (so his "Series 2007" printing makes the bill even dumber.) But even if he was trying to forge a historic-but-still-legal large denomination, he should've done enough homework to realize that the US has never printed a $1,000,000 bill. (The largest ever produced was $100,000.)

Rat, on blogging

2007-11-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

Today's Pearls Before Swine makes a wonderful observation about blogging. The key paragraph follows, for when the link expires (in about a month):

Rat says to Goat (who is blogging):
[Blogs] provide their frustrated creator with the delusional outlet of being a published author. Sort of like how the prison warden lets the psychotic inmate scribble 'poetry' on the cell wall so he doesn't beat his bunkmate with a toilet seat.

All about profanities

2007-11-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

This is actually a very interesting essay about profanity, and why it has the impact on society that it does.

http://www.tnr.com/currentissue/story.html?id=246c0071-a9cd-46e2-a665-c6e61a4...

I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper

2007-11-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

By Sarah Brightman (and Hot Gossip), 1978

Microsoft Surface - the sarcastic view

2007-11-15T17:29:00.000-05:00

Steampunk keyboards

2007-11-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

Datamancer makes custom keyboards designed around a steampumk theme.

These keyboards are expensive. According to the FAQ, they are all custom-made and typically $800-1000, due to the cost of materials and the extreme amount of labor needed to manufacture them. But wow, do they look good!

Roy Spencer on global warming

2007-11-09T12:36:00.000-05:00

Roy Spencer (PhD in Meteorology) writes a very interesting essay pointing out the fact that current climate models are woefully deficient and that there is strong evidence to suggest that proponents of man-made global warming are incorrect.

His believes (and provides much supporting evidence) that the Earth's climate exhibits a negative feedback system. That is, the greenhouse effect constantly adjusts itself in a way that keeps temperatures in sync with the amount of heat received from the Sun. That winds, clouds, evaporation and precipitation react to temperature changes such that high temperatures weaken the greenhouse and lower temperatures strengthen it.

He points out that today's climate models do not take enough of these factors into account, so they incorrectly predict disasters.

Read the essay for all the details.

... and this is why DRM is evil

2007-11-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

Major League Baseball switched suppliers for their videos. As a part of this, they shut down their DRM server, making all previously-purchased videos completely unplayable. That's right - if you spend hundreds of dollars on MLB videos, you can no longer play any of them, because the DRM server needed to authenticate your player no longer exists.

MLB will not be putting the server back, nor will they issue any refunds for the now-useless videos. They are, however, asking you to buy new videos using their new (and incompatible server.) And anybody who thinks they won't get screwed over a second time is just plain stupid.

Anti-DRM advocates (myself included) have pointed out that this is a distinct possibility whenever you buy DRM-protected content. Your rights to your purchases can't possibly outlive the supplier. And in the case of Major League Baseball, their outsourced IT department, it seems.

Wired's predictions for Apple

2007-11-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

Back in 1997, Wired Magazine ran the article "101 Ways to Save Apple", listing what their editors felt would be best for Apple, its shareholders and its customers. This past year, Wired points out that a few of the predictions almost exactly matched what Apple ended up doing, calling themselves "oddly prescient".

Well, five predictions out of 101 are hardly an indicator of prescience. With that in mind, let's investigate the rest of them. For those who don't want to read my 101 comments (this will be a long post), here's my summary of the 101 predictions:

Correct: 24
Incorrect: 38
Debatable: 25
Inconsequential: 10
I don't know: 2

Note: Correct/Incorrect simply refers to whether Apple actually followed the recommendation. It has nothing to do with how good or bad the suggestion might be. Also note that many of the "incorrect" recommendations are ones that were obviously intended as jokes.

Admit it. You're out of the hardware game.. Obviously incorrect. Apple didn't quit the game. They came back with a vengeance and are now the third-largest computer manufacturer (only behind Dell and HP).
License the Apple name/technology to appliance manufacturers and build GUIs. Nope. Apple did nothing of the sort. While Apple does some licensing (like the "made for iPod" logo), Apple's name, logo and products are all strictly in-house.
Start pampering independent software vendors. Debatable. While some key vendors have definitely been pampered, most are just as much on their own as always.
Gil Amelio should steal a page from Lee Iacocca's book. Debatable. Well, Amelio didn't forgo a salary, but Jobs still works for a token $1 annual salary. Of course, he does have massive amounts of stock, so he's hardly forgoing compensation.
Straighten out the naming convention. Correct. All those confusing model numbers were dropped in favor of a few easy-to-remember names (iMac, eMac, mini, etc.) Within a series, the distinguishing features are all easy-to-manage concepts like screen size and CPU speeds.
Apologize. Inconsequential. Apple didn't apologize, but they didn't have to. They revamped the product lines into something people wanted to buy, which is far far better.
Don't disappear from the retail chains. Correct. In addition to the Apple Stores, Apple also set up the "store in a store" concept in the now-defunct CompUSA, and is currently doing the same thing at Best Buy and a few other major retail chains.
Buy a song. Inconsequential. I'm not even sure what Wired was suggesting with this one.
Fire the people who forecast product demand. Debatable. I have no idea who was fired, but Apple doesn't seem to suffer from the massive backlogs that they once had to deal with. They seem to have solved this problem, but probably not in the suggested way.
Get a great image campaign. Correct. Starting with "Think Different", and then the iPod campaign, and several others, Apple has definitely taken this advise heart.
Instead of trying to protect your multicolored ass all the time, try looking forward. Correct. Under Jobs, Apple has become highly innovative. So much so that they now take criticism for not doing what everybody else does.
Build a fire under your ad agency. Debatable. They've definitely change the character of their ads, but they don't focus on geeky details either. The focus is on what you can do with the whole system, not on raw MHz and prices.
Exploit every Wintel user's secret fear Inconsequential. Apple never ran this kind of campaign, but the Wintel world change enough that DOS-isms became a non-issue anyway.
Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourselves from the pack. Correct. The iMac started this ball rolling, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down any time soon.
Dump (or outsource) the Newton, eMate, digital cameras, and scanners. Correct. They did.
Take better care of your customers. Correct. Apple ranks top among customer satisfaction surveys. And high-ups in the company often bend over backwards to compensate those customers that, for some reason, can't get satisfaction through normal channels.
Build some decent applications. Debatable. Yes, they built some incredible software (iLife, iWork, Final Cut Studio, etc.), but these are not targetting the business community (what Wired was suggesting.) Apple has played up to their strengths (media/content creation) instead of trying to shoehorn in on Microsoft's monopoly.
Stop being buttoned-down corporate. Correct. And the fan-base bears this out, as predicted.
Get rid of the cables. Correct. Although cables are not completely eliminated, they are optional for all but power and video these days, thanks to WiFi and BlueTooth being standard is most devices.
Tap the move toward push media. Incorrect. Not even close, here.
Sell yourself to IBM or Motorola. Incorrect. Never happened. Never will happen, especially now that Intel supplies the chipsets
Create a new kids' computer. Incorrect. Didn't happen.
Create a new logo. Debatable. The colored stripes were dropped, but the logo itself is more prominent than ever.
Pay cartoonist Scott Adams $10 million. Incorrect. I assume Wired wasn't even close to serious about this one.
Portables, portables, portables. Debatable. Apple took the lead in laptops. The iPhone and iPod Touch may someday dominate the smart-phone/PDA markets when third-party software development becomes possible, but that hasn't happened yet. The iPod dominates it's market, but that market was previously a failure, not dominated by Wintel or anyone else.
If you sell it, make it! Debatable. Apple doesn't usually have massive shortages, but they also won't refuse to release a product, waiting for the factories to ramp-up to match peak demand. iPhones and iPods have both had shortages in some models, soon after releases.
Relocate the company. Debatable. Apple is still a California company, but manufacturing is now in China.
Don't lose your sense of humor. Inconsequential. I don't think it was ever lost, but others will disagree. I don't think it ever mattered.
Work closely with Hewlett-Packard. Incorrect. Apple's power management has gotten much better over the years, but not as a result of partnering with anyone.
Reach forward by reaching back. Incorrect. Apple has secured the harts and wallets of students, but they did it by making products powerful and "cool", not by issuing loans.
Build a PDA for less than $250 Debatable. The iPhone is clearly the kind of PDA Wired was talking about, but it only sports one of their three key features, and it costs much more than $250.
Advice to Gil Amelio: shorter speeches, tighter pants. Inconsequential. Gil's gone. Steve seems to get along very well with 2-3 hour product presentations
Change the visual presentation of marketing/advertising to signal that real change is under way. Correct. While I'm not privy to Marketing's reports, Steve's presentations almost always begin with a rundown of market penetration, along with predictions for the future.
Port the OS to the Intel platform Debatable. Yes, Apple went Intel, but they still don't support commodity PC hardware. Mac OS-compatible systems still must be purchased from Apple, no matter where the processor comes from. Apple chose Intel because they couldn't get fast-enough chips from Motorola and IBM, not out of any desire to support the installed base of PC hardware.
Get MkLinux and BeOS to run on PowerBooks. Inconsequential. These operating systems were ported, but not by Apple, and it didn't do a thing to help Apple's corporate health.
Clone the PowerBook. Incorrect. Never happened, never will.
Take advantage of NeXT's easy and powerful OpenStep. Correct. Not only did they embrace OpenStep's tools, they bought NeXT corporation and based the entire OS on NeXTStep.
Make it easier for ISVs to make applications for both Apple and Wintel environments. Not really. Apple has embraced web standards, but cross-platform application development requires third-party tools. Apple has ported some of their libraries to Windows, but they're only used internally (e.g. for the Windows version of iTunes). ISV's can't use them.
Build a laptop that weighs 2 pounds. Incorrect. Apple has never shipped a laptop this light. I'm sure they'd love to ship a product this light, but only a subnotebook could pull it off and there are no signs (other than unconfirmed rumors) that they are even trying to develop a subnotebook of any kind.
Cash in on millennium fever. Correct. From the iMac to the iPod to the iLife apps, Apple often sacrifices flexibility for simplicity. And the market has responded very positively.
Arrange venture funding. Incorrect. Although Apple did make massive strides forward in terms of multimedia production and publication, they did not do it by investing in other companies. They bought existing companies or developed product in-house.
Organize a telethon. Incorrect. This looks like another joke-prediction.
Remain committed to the openDVD Consortium. Incorrect. Apple belongs to many standards bodies, but they aren't really driving any of the tech. They ship other vendors' drives and support existing/emerging standards. Apple's focus here isn't to develop DVD tech, but to make it accessible to the masses.
Continue your research in voice recognition. Incorrect. Apple didn't go this route, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them. Video conferencing and remote access are very popular without voice recognition.
Don't raise the Mac OS licensing fee. Inconsequential. Apple eliminated clones altogether, so the licensing fee is really a moot point. Everyone thought it was crazy to kill the clones, but history showed that clones were eating away at the lucrative high-end profits, and did not fill in the commodity low-end.
Stop wasting time on frivolities like Spartacus, the 20th-anniversary Mac. Correct. While there are some special edition devices these days, they are the traditional devices with new paint jobs, not entirely new products.
Work on ways to make your lower-end models truly upgradable. Incorrect. The low-end models are more closed than ever before. There are no user-upgradable parts to a mini, and anything beyond a RAM upgrade is pretty painful. Anyone trying to replace a hard drive on an iBooks knows all about this.
Get Ben & Jerry's to name a flavor after you. Incorrect. Another joke entry
Bring back Andy Hertzfeld. Debatable. The original engineers didn't come back, but Jobs did. Some of Wired's suggestions remained in Mac OS. Others (like the lack of file-extensions) didn't.
Give Steve Jobs as much authority as he wants in new product development. Correct. I think CEO is about as much authority as you can give.
Speak to the consumer. Correct. Apple's current strategy is definitely designing and marketing to the users, not IT departments. Which is why they're very popular at home and in school, but not in corporations.
Return to the heady days of yore by insisting that Steve Jobs regrow his beard. Inconsequential. Really.
Recharge your strategy for Europe Debatable. They've revamped their European strategy, but they revamped their strategy everywhere.
Sell off the laser printer business. Correct. I don't think they sold it off, but they don't make printers anymore, so the effect is the same.
Give the company that buys the printer business a contract. Incorrect. There are no Apple-branded printers anymore, so obviously, no contract was given.
Stick to your schedule. Debatable. Apple has generally stuck to schedules, but with some slippage. But definitely nothing like the frequently-hyped and frequently-delayed/frequently-cancelled Copeland/Rhapsody software. Today, Apple doesn't pre-announce anything, so you can be sure you'll be able to buy stuff that they talk about.
Bring back John Sculley. Incorrect. Apple needs no whipping boy when they're selling product.
Create dollar incentives to attract software vendors. Incorrect. I don't think Apple did anything like this.
Invest heavily in Newton technology Debatable. Newton, as a name and a trademark, is dead and buried, but much of its core tech has made its way into Mac OS and into the iPhone. Voice is not used anywhere. Gestures are used in the iPhone. Handwriting recognition seems to be missing. Multi-Touch is where it's at now, but that doesn't seem to be based on anything from Newton.
Abandon the Mach operating system you just acquired and run Windows NT kernel instead. Incorrect. The exact opposite is what Apple ended up doing.
Ink a promotion/development deal with Shaquille O'Neal Debatable. There was no Shaq-Mac promo, but there have been special edition iPods (like the U2 edition.)
Build a computer that doesn't crash. Correct. Although Macs do occasionally crash, kernel panics are very rare (unless there are hardware problems, of course.) Applications still crash, but they usually don't take out the OS. (To be fair, modern Windows systems very rarely kernel panic either these days.)
Make Java work on your OS. Debatable. Java is definitely a key part of Mac OS X, but it's a second-class citizen. And it is definitely not the focus of an enterprise computing strategy with Sun or anyone else.
Team up with Sony. Debatable. There has been no Apple-Sony computer, but the two companies work closely together on many other things, like disk drives, cameras, and other media products.
Roll out the Mac Plus again as a hip retro machine. Incorrect. Some may argue that the iMac/eMac fit this category, but I don't think so.
Get the top systems integrators to push NeXT's WebObjects Debatable. Apple does push WebObjects all over Mac OS and the iPhone. I don't think this has spread to other platforms, though.
Tighten the focus on your publishing niche. Incorrect. This is most definitely Microsoft and Adobe's niche. iWeb and the iWork suite are recent forays in this direction, but it is far from domination.
Retain your Apple Fellows at all costs. I have no clue about this one.
Change your name to Snapple. Incorrect. Another joke.
Simplify your PC product line. Correct. Five product lines, with only minor differences within each line is much simpler than what came before.
Become a graphic design company. Incorrect. It simple didn't happen
Try the industry-standard serial port plug. Correct. OK, Apple didn't switch to standard serial ports - they dropped serial ports altogether. But they did (eventually) go with standard ports for most of the important ones: USB, FireWire, Ethernet, audio, DVI, etc. There have been some exceptions where necessary to make everything fit in a small space (e.g. mini-DVI), but for the most part, today's ports are standard.
Rename the company Papaya. Incorrect. These joke-recommendations are really becoming annoying.
Solidify the management team. Debatable. There have been many shake-ups. Getting rid of people isn't bad, as long as you're careful about who you get rid of.
Speed sells. Debatable. This is the main reason Apple switched to Intel processors - Motorola and IBM were unwilling to develop the kind of high-speed/low-power processors needed to move Macs. Intel did, and the results have been phenomenal. I have this entry listed as "debatable" because the Wired article uses this bullet as a reason to promote PowerPC over Intel, which definitely did not happen. (At least not in the long term - some PPC chips, like the G5, did create temporary bursts in sales, but IBM never kept up with their product improvements.)
Make damn sure that Rhapsody runs on an Intel chip. Debatable. Rhapsody is dead. OS X runs on Intel, but on Intel Macs, not on PCs. Mac apps don't run on Windows and probably never will.
Lose the cybercafés idea. I have no idea what they're talking about here. Maybe someone can refresh my memory?
Turn Claris loose. Debatable. FileMaker is independent, but hardly market-dominating. AppleWorks for Windows was developed, and was mostly ignored. So Apple (sort of) took this advice, but it didn't help much.
Exploit your advantage in the K-12 education market. Debatable. I think they're doing this, but the K-12 market now has complaints that the new systems can't run their 10-year-old Mac software! I see this market as a no-win situation for Apple. But the advice is still correct - they need to remain strong in that market.
Maintain existing loyalty at all costs. Debatable. In some cases, they did. In other cases, they have deliberately abandoned features while people were still using them. Apple wants loyalty, but they want loyalty to the new future products, not to the old stuff that's on its way out.
Merge with Sega. Incorrect. As a matter of fact, Sega has abandoned game consoles and is now just a software company.
Give the first Apple made exclusively for Windows a cheeky name. Inconsequential. Mac OS for commodity PCs (or Apple hardware for Windows) never happened and probably never will.
Develop proprietary programs that run only on Macs. Crow about them. Correct. iLife, iWork, FinalCut, etc.
Effectively communicate your game plan. Correct. Apple doesn't talk about much future development, but they are very clear and accurate with what they do disclose.
Quit making each Mac in a platform-specific case, with platform-specific parts. Incorrect. While each line (mini, iMac, MacBook, etc.) has a uniform case, the lines are very different from each other. And they change every few years. Upgradeability varies from model to model, but most can't be upgraded beyond RAM expansion without performing major surgery.
Organize a very large bake sale. Incorrect. Yet another joke.
Price the CPUs to sell. Correct. The iMac quickly established $800 as an entry price-point, that was maintained by the eMac. Today's mini, at its $600 price maintains the tradition. And these low-end systems are quite powerful, so you're not settling for junk (unlike low-end PCs).
Acknowledge that there are people with repetitive stress injuries. Incorrect. Apple still doesn't sell special ergonomic parts. On the other hand, since commodity keyboards are supported, it's no big deal to get a Microsoft Natural keyboard if you really want one.
Create a chemical that cleans the Mac's pale gray plastic Inconsequential. Apple abandoned beige plastic cases altogether. Some of the new designs retain their looks very well (and some don't, unfortunately.)
Design a desktop model - call it La Dolce Vita - with a built-in cappuccino maker. Incorrect. Yet another joke. I get the impression that the Wired editors were running out of ideas...
Start a new special projects group. Correct. Although Apple is tight-lipped about their internal development, it is quite clear that products like the iPod and iPhone were developed by groups like this.
With each new Mac, include a CD-ROM that explains the Apple family tree and future plans. Incorrect. Didn't happen. Apple doesn't discuss future plans. And any such CD would be out of data by the time it shipped, anyway - that's what web sites are for.
Develop a way to program that requires no scripting or coding. Debatable. Automator comes pretty darn close, but it's limited in what it can do. I don't know if this problem, as written, even can be solved.
Maintain differentiation between Wintel and Apple. Inconsequential. This recommendation assumes some porting of Apple's tech to Windows, which never really happened (at least not in any form third-party developers can use.)
Fight back. Incorrect. Apple ignores criticism and chooses to "fight back" by shipping great products that people want to buy. Let the critics say what they want - the best way to defeat them is to prove them wrong.
Partner with Oracle Incorrect. Didn't happen.
Have Pixar make 3001, A Space Odyssey, with HAL replaced by a Mac. Incorrect. Another joke.
Testimonials.. Correct. See the "switch" campaign.
Reincorporate as a nonprofit research foundation. Incorrect. Never happened.
Build a second graphics/video product based on the connection with Pixar. Incorrect, as far as we know. Perhaps the rumored "asteroid" product might be such a device, but so far no such thing has been developed.
Don't worry. You'll survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about. Inconsequential. As it turns out, Netscape is gone.

British army tests invisible tank

2007-11-01T15:44:00.000-04:00

According to the above article, the British military have an experimental tank that can become invisible.

Well, not really invisible, but close to it. It has cameras to capture images of the surrounding landscape, which are then projected onto the tank's surface. When you look at the tank, you see what's on the other side.

Of course, it's far from real invisibility. You have to be standing right where the system thinks you should be standing in order for the tank to be completely invisible. But it should, nevertheless, act as very good camouflage, especially when the background is relatively uniform.

Of related interest:

An invisibility cloak demo produced by some University of Tokyo students.
A HowStuffWorks article explaining how that demo was produced
A Wired article explaining how invisibility is theoretically possible, and the practical problems with actually producing it.

Memage: TV shows

2007-11-01T13:27:00.001-04:00

This one is making the rounds of the blogosphere....

Rules:

Bold all of the following TV shows of which you've seen 3 or more episodes.
Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
Asterisk if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD
If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

The 4400
The A-Team
The Addams Family
The Adventures of Pete and Pete
Ally McBeal
Amazing Race
America’s Next Top Model
The Andy Griffith Show
Angel
Animaniacs *
The Apprentice
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Are You Being Served?
Arrested Development
The Avengers
Babylon 5 *
Babylon 5: Crusade *
Barney Miller
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one) *
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beauty and the Beast
The Beverly Hillbillies
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
The Bionic Woman (the old one)
Blackadder
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boston Public
Boy Meets World
The Brady Bunch
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century *
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Caitlin’s Way
Carebears
Caroline in the City
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Clarissa Explains It All
Cold Case
Columbo
Commander in Chief
The Cosby Show
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Daily Show
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Darkwing Duck
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
Dead Like Me
The Dead Zone
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Dinosaurs
Different Strokes
Dirty Jobs
Doctor Who (1963)
Doctor Who (2005)
Doctor Who (2006)
Dragnet
The Dresden Files
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
The Famous Jett Jackson
Fantasy Island (1977, with Ricardo Montalban)
Fantasy Island (2002, with Malcolm McDowell)
Farscape
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly *
Flash Forward
The Flintstones
Forever Knight
Fraggle Rock
Frasier
Freaks and Geeks
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Friday Night Lights
Friends
Futurama *
Get Smart
Ghostwriter
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
The Golden Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Greek
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gummy Bears
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hardcastle & McCormick
Heroes
Hey Dude
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven
Hogan’s Heroes
Hillstreet Blues
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
The Honeymooners
House
Hunter
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim Invasion
The Invisible Man
JAG
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
The Jeffersons
Jem
The Jetsons
Joey
John Doe
Just Shoot Me
Keen Eddie
Knight Rider
The L Word
LA Law
Land of the Lost
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
Lexx *
Life on Mars
Life With Derek
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
M*A*S*H *
MacGyver
Magnum PI
Malcolm in the Middle
Mama’s Family
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Married... With Children
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Melrose Place
MI:5
Miami Vice
The Mighty Boosh
Millennium
Miracles
Mission: Impossible
Monk
The Monkees
Mork & Mindy
The Munsters
The Muppet Show *
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Little Pony
My Name is Earl
My So-Called Life
My Super Sweet 16
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
Mythbusters
The Nanny
News Radio
NCIS
Night Court
Nip/Tuck
North Shore
Numb3rs
NYPD Blue
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Phil of the Future
Pokemon
Power Rangers
The Pretender
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
Punky Brewster
QI
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
The Real World
Red Dwarf *
ReGenesis
Relic Hunter
Remington Steele
Rocco’s Modern Life
Rescue Me
Road Rules
Robotech
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Salute Your Shorts
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
The Sentinel
Sex and the City
The Shield
Silver Spoons
The Simpsons *
Six Feet Under
The Six Million Dollar Man
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
Small Wonder
So Weird
The Sopranos
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek Star Trek: The Next Generation *
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine *
Star Trek: Voyager *
Star Trek: Enterprise *
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Super Mario Brothers Power Hour
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
3rd Rock from the Sun
Third Watch
Three’s Company
Top Gear
Torchwood
The Twilight Zone (1959, with Rod Serling)
The Twilight Zone (1985, with Robin Ward)
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Two and A Half Men
Ugly Betty
Under the Umbrella Tree
Veronica Mars
The Vicar of Dibley
The Waltons
The West Wing
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Wings
Wiseguy
Without a Trace
WKRP in Cincinnati
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Xena: Warrior Princess
You Can't Do That on Television

Ars Technica reviews Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

2007-10-29T12:24:00.000-04:00

This is a fairly long article, but it's a good read. Unlike most other reviews I've read so far, this one contains a lot of technical description and analysis. It's also not a "fanboy" article - it criticizes the product almost as much as it praises it.

Of particular interest to me is the fact that Mac OS 10.5 has a lot of interesting new technology on the inside. Unlike what I often see in software, this is not just a cosmetic skin over the same old system. Apple appears to have done some solid (and original) computer science research as a part of developing this release.

Assuming reality lives up to first impressions (which I'll know in a few weeks, I'm sure), I'm going to have to get myself a copy. If there are critical bugs (all new products have bugs, but they may not be critical to me), then I'll wait for one or two service packs first.

I thought this only happens in cartoons

2007-10-24T11:53:00.000-04:00

Car combusts - squirrel gets the blame - NJ.com

Discrete Track Recording hard drives

2007-09-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

Apple's newest iPods use a 1.8" hard drive with a capacity of 80GB per platter. This results in two different capacities - a single-platter 80GB drive and a slightly-thicker 2-platter 160GB drive.

Not content with that, Toshiba has invented a new hard drive technology, known as Discrete Track Recording (DTR). DTR promises to increase capacity by 50% (when combined with existing perpendicular recording technologies). They have already announced a 1.8" drive with 120GB per platter (and therefore 240GB on a 2-platter drive.) They expect to ship these drives in 2009. Expect Apple to ship iPods with this a week later.

They have not yet announced drives with this technology in other form factors, but we can probably expect to find 50% storage increases across the board - meaning 2.5" laptop drives at 480GB. (They did say that the process "is most easily applied to small form factor HDDs", so we may not find 3.5" drives using this until the process matures, but when it does, it would not be unreasonable to expect a 1.5TB drive.)

NBC proves themselves to be a bunch of greedy pigs

2007-09-05T09:31:00.000-04:00

As you may be aware, NBC and Apple have recently had a falling out. NBC may be deciding to stop selling content through the iTunes Store. According to Apple, NBC was insisting on much higher prices - as much as $5 per episode for some shows, and Apple refused to budge. (Apple says that NBC has already walked away from the bargaining table, but other sources say this hasn't been finalized yet.)

For this alone, I applaud Apple. Note that NBC's request would have been more than twice the price they charge for programs on DVD - a typical TV series DVD box set costs $30-50 and contains 20-25 episodes. This equates to a per-episode price of $1.20-2.50. If they think people are going to pay more than twice the DVD price in order to get a low-resolution downloaded version with no surround sound and no bonus materials, they're insane. Apple's pricing ($2 per episode for everything) is, on the other hand, right in-line with what the public has already proven themselves willing to pay.

If that was the end of the story, however, I wouldn't have much to write about. Today, however, the story gets more interesting. NBC has decided to start selling content through Amazon's "Unbox" service. The official reason, they say is because they think Apple's DRM isn't restrictive enough.

For those unfamiliar with the DRM differences between these two systems, let me explain. Apple's "FairPlay" DRM is very simple. For videos, you may play them on any five computers, on as many Apple-TV devices as you want, and on as many iPods as you want (Apple-TVs and iPods must be loaded from an authorized computer) and that's it. Nice and simple.

In comparison, Unbox only allows you to play videos on two computers, and on two portable devices. And you can not authorize one computer to play content from two accounts - so you and your wife had better use the same account or you're going to need two computers attached to the living room TV. And Unbox uses Microsoft's proprietary "WMA" DRM scheme, so users of Apple products (Mac, Apple TV, iPod, etc.) are not welcome.

As a customer, which would you rather use? Are you going to pay 2-4 times the DVD price in order to use a system that places these kinds of restrictions on your purchases? I didn't think so. As John Gruber wrote in his Daring Fireball blog, "This just shows how moronic these NBC clowns are."

The interesting question now will be what NBC does after all their content is removed from iTunes, and appears on Amazon, and the money dries up. Will they:

Come crawling back to Apple (with or without a statement why)
Do nothing, and simply lose money
Declare that there's no money to be made from downloads, and accuse their formerly-loyal download-audience of piracy when DVD sales don't increase.

I predict #3.

What does the government really mean by "poor"?

2007-09-04T13:58:00.000-04:00

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a report on Poverty in America.

Last year, the US Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in America. It stated that there are 37 million poor people in the US, roughly the same as in the past. (A report that came out a few days ago says that the amount of poverty has gone down slightly in the past year.)

What is interesting is that the Census Bureau's definition of poverty is radically different from the popular image. When you talk about poor people, you usually get a mental image of people who are homeless, or living in substandard housing, without enough food to eat, poor medical care, etc. Nobody doubts that such people exist in the US, but most of the 37 million "poor" people described by the Census Bureau don't even come close to this description.

Go read the Heritage Foundation's report (linked above) for an eye-opening examination of what the government considers "poor". Most of the people in this category live better than middle-class families did in the 70's, and better than the average person in most other countries. To quote the article's conclusion:

The living conditions of persons defined as poor by the government bear little resemblance to notions of "poverty" promoted by politicians and political activists. If poverty is defined as lacking adequate nutritious food for one's family, a reasonably warm and dry apartment to live in, or a car with which to get to work when one is needed, then there are relatively few poor persons remaining in the United States. Real material hardship does occur, but it is limited in scope and severity.

Keep this in mind the next time some politician tells you about how we're suffering from a poverty crisis. Sure, there is a huge number of people classified as poor, but that's only because the government has chosen an unrealistic definition of the word. Today's "poor" are living far better than the poor of the 1970's (and even better than much of the middle-class of that time), and the number of people who are truly destitute is much smaller than it was back then.

Shamino reviews two new products

2007-08-27T22:30:00.000-04:00

As some of you may be aware, I occasionally write reviews of products I buy for Epinions.

I wrote two more tonight. Check them out. If you find them helpful, be sure to let the site know (there are buttons at the bottom you can click to rate reviews).

Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS camera
Kenwood KDC-MP205 car stereo

USB enclosures: You don't always get what you pay for

2007-08-20T13:31:00.000-04:00

Barry Brown (see the above link) was seeing poor performance when attaching a USB hard drive to an Apple AirPort Extreme router. He ran several tests with different enclosures and found that an el-cheapo enclosure performed better (sometimes much better) than a more expensive enclosure.

In the computer/electronics industry, it's not too unusual to see cheaper products outperform more expensive products, but this is a lesson that is easy to forget. Mr. Brown's example underscores this fact.

US colleges speak up against British academic antisemitism

2007-08-09T13:22:00.000-04:00

As you may or may not be aware, back in May, the UK's new "University and College Union" decided, as its first official action to recommend that its member universities boycott all Israeli universities, as a show of solidarity with Palestinian terrorists.

Well, in a pleasantly surprising show of backbone, 300 US universities signed a statement (written by the American Jewish Committee) stating that they stand with the Israeli universities, and against the UK's UCU.

And I'm very happy to see that my alma mater (NJIT) did sign.

The continuing crisis...

2007-07-26T16:32:00.000-04:00

I have long held the belief that people today are far too angry, and that if people could simply be a little more patient (and a little less quick to anger), most of today's problems would go away.

As if to underscore this belief, this story appears in today's news.

A total stranger in Texas calls another total stranger (a sailor in the US Navy, stationed in Virginia) a "nerd", on an internet forum (one where people routinely poke fun at each other.) In response, this sailor flips out, and threatens to kill the guy from Texas. He then drives halfway across the country, locates the Texan, and sets fire to the trailer he was living out of.

Clearly, the arsonist here is mentally deranged, is a threat to society, and should be locked away for a long time in the most oppressive prison cell allowed by law, but that's not my point. I've been seeing a lot of stories like this in the news recently - people who get murderously angry over trivial nonsense. What I wonder is: Are things like this happening more often than before? Or has it always happened, but without national publicity?

The arsonist blames the internet. Of course, that's a BS answer - the internet didn't make him do anything, but it allowed a stranger over a thousand miles away to trigger his rage. Without the internet, he'd probably have ended up following a stranger home from a local bar, movie theater or sporting event, committing his arson closer to home. Fortunately, he plead guilty, so we won't have to deal with the possibility of a jury unable to come to the same conclusion.

Anyway, getting back to my main point, is this a new phenomenon? When I was growing up, I occasionally heard news stories about crazy people committing crazy acts of violence, but I didn't hear stories like that happening all the time. Today, I hear of stories like this almost every month.

The more I observe the world, the more I want to move to northern Alaska and live out of an igloo or something.

Learn to read between the lines

2007-07-18T11:50:00.001-04:00

Sometimes is funny how a scam-artist can become really goofy when sued by the government.

Hi-health, a shady company that sells pills, has long been advertising a product they call "ocular nutrition". This product is basically a multivitamin, nothing more. The manufacturer (advertising on nationally syndicated radio programs, like Paul Harvey) has historically made the most outrageous claims about this product. They claimed that it could cure age-related macular degeneration, remove "floaters" from vision, and even cure cataracts.

Well, they were sued, and they settled out of court by paying the FTC a $450,000 fine. A slap-on the wrist, IMO, but that's not the point of this article.

After the FTC fine, Hi-health did not stop selling ocular nutrition. They still advertise it on Paul Harvey's program, but now their product claims are much weaker. They now point out the fact that, in controlled studies, 25% of the people using it found the progress of their macular degeneration had halted or slowed.

In other words, 75% of the people taking it saw no effect or saw their degeneration progress faster! It doesn't take very much intelligence to see what they're really saying, but it does require you to pay attention and think about what was said.

Unfortunately, the elderly population - who this ad is targeted at - generally do not think critically when it comes to scam-artists promising miracle cures. And when the message comes from a friendly voice, like Paul Harvey (who actually reads the ad-copy during his broadcasts), they will tend to trust it more than if it was a random ad prepared by an ad agency.

If you know someone who is considering (or actually using) ocular nutrition, please show them this article, the FTC statement, and have them get real advice from an ophthalmologist. At best, they are throwing their money away. At worst, they may be making themselves sick, from overdose and possible drug-interactions.

Updated blogger template

2007-07-16T19:22:00.000-04:00

Google recently updated their template system for Blogger. Not wanting to be left behind, I upgraded to the new system. None of the pre-built templates were formatted exactly as I had this blog originally (which isn't surprising, since I customized the template I used originally), but I think I managed to make everything look the same. If you notice anything broken, let me know so I can fix it.

New e-mail contact

2007-06-24T23:01:00.000-04:00

Just a heads-up for those readers who know me in real life.

I've recently set up a new e-mail address, which I'm requesting friends and family use instead of the addresses they have been using until now.

I sent e-mail to all of the friends and relatives that I have in my address book, but I know there are others that aren't listed there. If you are one of them, contact me for the new address. (I'm not posting it here to keep the spammers from harvesting it.)

If you are just a casual reader of this blog and don't know me personally, disregard the above message.

Don't disable memory testing

2007-06-06T16:55:00.000-04:00

Whenever I buy or build a new computer for myself, I always configure it to test the memory. By default, most computers sold today have this disabled. They do this because it can take a few minutes to test the amount of memory needed to run modern system software comfortably.

Earlier this week, I powered on my PC and the memory test failed. After running a few of the usual tests (reseat the DIMMs in their sockets, try each DIMM individually, try different sockets) I determined that one of my DIMMs no longer works reliably. (This DIMM was working fine for two years until this weekend.) I removed it and sent it off to the manufacturer for warranty replacement.

If I hadn't enabled memory testing, leaving it in the "fast boot" mode, I would not have discovered this problem. Windows and my applications would simply run, and then malfunction when accessing the defective parts of RAM. I'd have then started tracking down things like buggy software and/or virusses, when the problem was a piece of hardware gone bad.

To everybody reading this: learn from my experience. If your PC is configured to skip memory testing (sometimes referred to as "fast boot" or "quick boot"), change that configuration. It may make you wait an extra minute or two when turning the computer on, but you will be able to quickly detect memory problems before they cause your software to malfunction.

Goodbye LJ, hello Yahoo!

2007-05-31T17:12:00.000-04:00

Due to a colossal screw-up by LiveJournal's abuse department (which did not affect me, but showed them to be incapable of running their service in a professional manner), I have decided to stop using their service.

My LJ page still exists, but only so I'll have an account to use for posting comments into other people's journals. I won't be posting any more content there.

This blog, however, is not going anywhere. I will continue to post articles here, as I come up with content of sufficient quality.

For those articles I write that have little serious or original content (the kind I used to post in my LJ), you may now find them at my Yahoo! 360 blog. Visit http://360.yahoo.com/shamino3 to see my Y!360 home page. Click on the "View Blog" link in there to see the entire blog (only an excerpt of the most recent post is shown on the home page.) An RSS feed is available for those who like to use RSS to check for new articles.

Obama, affirmative action, and my take on it

2007-05-15T11:03:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday, in an interview on ABC TV, Barack Obama stated that he does not believe there is a need for race-based affirmative action in college admission. He believes that poor white kids are just as disadvantaged as poor black kids, and that rich black kids are just as advantaged as white rich kids. He goes on to suggest that race-based affirmative action should be replaced with some kind of financial-need-based affirmative action program.

... and now my take ...

I think we need to distinguish between two aspects of college attendance - admission and financing.

After admission, I have absolutely no problem with colleges offering need-based scholarships, so students from poor families can actually accept the offer and attend. (Of course, such scholarships should require the student to maintain a reasonable grade level - no assistance program should allow students to slack off on someone else's dollar.)

Until the point of admission, however, financial need shouldn't be considered. Admission should be based solely on test scores, grades in school, and extracurricular activity. Race, financial status, religion and other such factors should not be considered at all. As a matter of fact, I would say that the admission boards that make these decisions shouldn't even have this kind of information (including the candidate's name, since that can also prejudice a board.)

There is nothing inherent about poverty (or race, etc.) that makes someone less intelligent or less educated. In college, I made several friends who came from poor families. They were not admitted on the basis of lowered standards, but because they were able to get good SAT scores and get good grades in high school, despite their upbringing.

Sure, many poor kids come from families where education is considered unimportant, or from incompetent public schools, and that is unfortunate, but how will these kids be served by admitting them to a college where the coursework is too advanced for them? Either they will be unprepared for the difficult coursework or the college will have to dumb-down the coursework - neither of which is going to be good for the student in the long run.

With regard to a possible solution, if there is a problem with the students' families, there is nothing anybody else can do about it. If there is a problem with the public schools (and we all know there are problems with many of those schools), then the solution is to fix those schools, not dumb-down college admissions procedures.

Of course, until the public schools do improve (which we know may take a very long time), some kids will fall through the cracks. One possible remedy would be some kind of optional post-high-school program (perhaps run by colleges) that offers remedial courses to promising students from bad school districts, specifically to get a student up to the level where he can get admitted to a college on his own merits. Many colleges already have programs like this, so perhaps the real solution is to convince more colleges to start up similar programs of their own.

Unstoppable Global Warming - an interview

2007-04-27T17:17:00.000-04:00

The above link is a transcript of a talk by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, authors of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, given at the Hudson Institute in November, 2006.

As a part of this presentation, the authors summarize their book and take questions from the audience. A lot of (politically inconvenient) facts are presented, making that case that the global warming trend we're currently experiencing is:

Completely natural (not man-made)
Cyclic (tied to an approximate 1500-year solar cycle)
Not preventable, and
Beneficial

The authors point out the junk science being published as fact, and the bias in supposedly respectable scientific journals. They also point out how much carbon reduction would actually be necessary to have an effect (for the US, 100% - meaning complete elimination of all fossil fuels from all sources.)

Read the paper. Then read the book. It's well worth doing.

WETA: Fourth Estate or Fifth Column? You decide.

2007-04-24T14:07:00.000-04:00

"Islam vs. Islamists" is a documentary about the "silent majority" of Muslims that support democracy, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. They oppose the radicals who are seeking to force Islam on the rest of the world by threat of terrorism. These people are usually unheard in Muslim nations, because the radical governments in charge don't let them speak.

Well, it appears that PBS (and WETA, in particular) has decided to agree with the radicals and silence them in yet another venue. The "America at Crossroads" series it was produced for will not be broadcasting it. They will, however, be broadcasting the segment that presents the radical's pro-terrorism point of view.

According to an interview with the producer (on the radio this afternoon,) "Islam vs. Islamists" will be shown to members of Congress in a private screening in Washington DC, but that may be the only time the film is shown. On top of all this, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are blocking all attempts to get the film broadcast by a different TV network.

The media elite in the US hates George Bush so much that they have decided to join ranks with the radical Muslims that seek to murder us all. If the terrorists win, then George Bush loses, and there's all that matters. If this means broadcasting terrorist-propaganda films as documentaries while silencing the opposite opinion, that's just fine. And the fact that these members of the press would be the first murdered by a radical Muslim government, should one take over, doesn't matter either.

UPDATE

The original article's link at AZCentral.com has expired. But you can read about the current status of Islam Vs. Islamists at http://www.freethefilm.net/. You can also sign a petition to demand that PBS allow the producers to release this important film to the public.

Nukes? Ha! Who needs 'em?

2007-04-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

Here's a fascinating article: MOPping Up: The USA's 30,000 Pound Bomb.

During World War II, the US developed some truly huge bombs. For example, the "Grand Slam" packs a 22,000lb blast (11 ton).

Development of these pretty much stopped after nuclear bombs were invented. For comparison, "Little Boy" (dropped on Hiroshima) and "Fat Man" (dropped on Nagasaki) were 15T and 21T, respectively.

Today, however, it is unacceptable to use nukes. It is especially unacceptable to use them for taking out small targets (like underground bunkers). So the US has gone back to the drawing board and is developing new, terribly powerful, conventional bombs.

The first of these, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is a 30,000lb (15T) bomb. That is as powerful as Little Boy, but without any nukes. Which means it can be dropped on a battlefield without poisoning the landscape for centuries. Initial tests show that it can penetrate through 60' of concrete. My guess is that the goal here is to be able to take out Iran's underground nuclear development labs.

Apple - We'll put up, not shut up

2007-04-03T11:45:00.000-04:00

You may recall Steve Jobs open letter, Thoughts On Music, where he called on the record labels to allow Apple to sell music without any digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Well, one record label took the bait, and Apple is following through with their end of the deal. In May, all iTunes Store songs published by EMI will be available without DRM. More specifically, these songs are 256K AAC (double the bitrate as before) and sell for $1.29 ($0.30 more expensive), and have no DRM.

The existing 128K AAC DRM-protected songs are still available for $0.99. Customers who have already purchased EMI songs may upgrade them to the new format (256K, no-DRM) and only pay the difference in price ($0.30).

Something just froze over

2007-03-27T18:11:00.000-04:00

Jerusalem Post: Evangelicals to present Knesset with 'letter of repentance'

I'm under no illusions here - I don't think anything will change in the grand scheme of things. Christian missionaries worldwide are not about to give up their careers because of this one group of evangelical leaders.

Nevertheless, this is still big news. If the leadership of prominent ministries can come this far, then maybe in time, they'll walk the next few steps and decide that Jews (gasp) have the right to want to remain Jewish.

Naw. I'm just fooling myself now. No Christian missionary will ever come to this conclusion. They'd have to abandon or ignore large chunks of their bible in order to come to that decision.