Frankly I find it sad that you're so upset that someone else found a slice of paradise and wants in but you don't want to share. It's like ultimate NIMBY isn't it? Regardless of whether the migration is from CA, NY, or TX.
Sigh, I must admit I liked this area a lot better before everyone went and 'discovered' it.
Still as you point out it isn't as if we can stop people from moving here. Besides I'm not sure I'd like to see the changes that might cause people to start moving elsewhere.
I hate to break it to you but you are probably safer riding on a busy street than on a narrow rural highway.
For one thing traffic is moving slower and drivers are generally watching for hazzards such as other drivers, pedestrians, and even bicycles.
Also in a built-up area there are often quieter streets running alongside the busy arterials that can be used for bike commuting.
The biggest trick to safe bike-riding in traffic is to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Mostly this means looking around while you are riding rather than locking your eyes on the road 20 ft ahead of you. BTW this is a good habit to have in a car or on a motorcycle as well.
Things like scooters or in line skates might be ok if you have to involve a bus or some other public transport in your commute, but... otherwise nothing really beats a bicycle.
Check with your local transit agency as many have bike racks on buses nowdays. Even if they don't or you need to take a train or tram some have bike storage on board.
A bike can make a commute via public transport practical as you can ride to a transit center or area with a lot of commuter routes, throw the bike on-board, then use the bike to get to your final destination on the other end.
A good road bike with a not-flashy paintjob seems to work pretty well too.
I have a fairly nice bike but it has a bean-green paint job which seems to deter theves a bit. At the very least it gets messed with much less than my old hardtail MTB with a flashy paint job did.
FWIW most bike thieves are opportunistic so even using a cheap lock to secure a wheel to the frame is enough in most places to ensure your bike is there when you get back. (note I don't reccomend this in high-crime areas, for stops of more than 20 minutes or so, or where there aren't many passerby)
Perhaps one of the shipping services should sponsor milk carton races (usually either on land or water depending on the event. Prizes are typically awarded for both finishing first and for the most creative entry) with the stipulation that all of the entries must be made out of their logoed shipping/packaging materials (provided free of charge, of course).
For moves far enough to do a 'one-way' truck rental it makes sense to just hire a moving company to move your stuff.
For that matter if your time is worth anything and you have heavy boxes or bulky furniture to move, especially if you need to negotiate stairs, a moving company can be the way to go even for in-town moves. Plus they will deal with storing your stuff for a day or two if you get into the problem of having to be out on the last day of the month but you don't get the keys to the new place until the first or even the fifth.
The only thing you still have to do is pack and label everything on one end and unpack it on the other. Well cleaning too, but you can hire a cleaning service for that if you are especially lazy/busy.
That's strange. I find it's just the opposite. FedEx has always come through for me, while UPS almost always destroys my stuff, regardless of how it's packed (ever seen a cardboard box fall 5 storeys?). Last one that came in had two forklift holes in it. Four, I guess, counting the exit wounds.
I have has a similar experience. Roughly 7 years ago I worked in shipping and recieving for a VAR. Things shipped via FexEx and the Postal Service arrived on-time and intact. UPS regularly misplaced or mangled shipments from our vendors or to our customers. We tried to avoid them whenever possible but some vendors and customers insisted on using UPS also UPS Ground was the cheapest way to ship in-state by enough to make up for the hassle of using them.
The worst thing I ever saw there was the pallet of disk drives that had both been dropped and been stuck with a forklift blade. Also any number of boxes that were crushed and had tire marks on them.
A number of years later when working in the IS department of a midsize company I got to witness UPS' incompetience again as orders for things like servers, switches, routers, laptops, and monitors would arrive damaged. The same sorts of things again: torn open boxes, crush/dropping damage, tire marks, forklift blade punctures, etc. UPS had to replace a lot of very expensive equipment on their dime due to shipping damage.
Hmmm... I'm guessing that FedEx mostly has a problem with his domain "fedexfurniture.com".
If they get pushy (such as threatening to sue) I'd offer to change the domain name to something like "shippingboxfurniture" and otherwise tell them to go piss up a rope.
You know it is kind of interesting that all of the current Russian launchers are an evolution of some of their first designs. For that matter the Chinese launchers are also based loosely on the Russian designs.
Also the main US commercial launch vehicles (Delta and Atlas) are evolved versions of old designs (Atlas was used in the Mercury program).
A moderate evolution based on the best features of current US (and Russian) designs is probably the best way forward rather than re-inventing everything from scratch. That approach is what gave us the shuttle rather than evolutions of the Mercury/Atlas, Gemini/Titan, and Apollo/Saturn designs.
The problem with the so-called "assult weapons ban" was it relied on strictly cosmetic features that made a gun "look mean". These features had little or nothing to do with the lethality of the weapon.
Contrary to popular belief there were plenty of AR-15/M16 and AK clones still on the market post ban. They simply had all but one of the banned features removed. Unless you know exactly what to look for it is hard to tell these from similar models covered under the ban.
The only portion of the ban that could be said to reduce lethality is the ban on magazines of over 10 rounds capacity. However magazines made pre-ban were still legal and there were still plenty of these on the market, especially for M-16 or AK type weapons.
Thing is most gun violence is committed with handguns. Long guns of any sort just aren't a big part of the picture.
Problem is it is quite unlikely we will see national support for banning handguns. Even if handgun ownership was heavily regulated or banned I doubt it would slow criminals down much.
Leviticus 11:9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. Leviticus 11:10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: Leviticus 11:11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Leviticus 11:12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
So how did they tell who was circumcised and who wasn't without looking? Even today, its a taboo to look at shomeone's piece when lined up at the urinal. Judaeo-christian history sounds like a bunch of perverts got together and indulged in their fantasies.
If it is close enough to run Windows (barring a specific port from Microsoft of course) it IS a PC. Even if nobody manages to get it running on the bare metal Mac On Linux should have no problems booting it unless they invoke the specter of DRM and the DMCA. They sell box sets. Unless they pull those I can go BUY a copy of OSX-x86 and load it in MOL. At that point they are boned legally, in exactly the same way Microsoft has to permit Windows XP to be loaded in VMWare if you have a valid serial number and they have to let me run Internet Explorer in Crossover Office.
They play enough games and those infamous lawyers of theirs could be spending their days negotiating a settlememt with the DOJ's Antitrust Division
I'm thinking that if Windows runs on the Intel based Macs it will be because somebody (Apple or Microsoft) made Windows drivers for it.
Same situation with Linux. Linux will run on the new Macs because somebody cares enough to add the hardware support. (Note that Linux runs on the current PPC Macs and that Apple has done nothing to make this especially difficult)
The primary reason the new Macs will be different from clone PCs will not be to keep OS X off of clone hardware (though that will be a factor) but to get away from the design comprimises that plague clone PCs and affect stability, performance, and cost.
They often lag by YEARS currently. Compare Macs at any price band against Dell/HP/etc and you will find the Mac behind in CPU, RAM, HDD, video chipset or almost any other metric. And their line never goes as far up or down as the beige box market. None of this is likely to change by swapping out the PPC chip for a Pentium. Apple operates at higher profit margins, more akin to Sun than Dell and unless that changes they will never be a volume player. And as for beating Dell at their own game, good luck, they are Intel's very bestest customer and Steveo is the new guy in the game.
To be honest I'm not all that familiar with Apple's current hardware offerings. However I've looked at a Mac mini and for what I want it for the base spec looked attractive. Now I don't know how the PPC stacks up against Intel or AMD clock cycle for clock cycle but I've been around the industry long enough to know that random specs like Mhz have little or nothing to do with a system's performance running real world applications.
Frankly I don't really care if I have the fastest desktop or laptop on the market (by whatever metric the cool kids are using this week) as long as the box is fast enough for what I'm using it for. I'm interested in owning a Mac but performance has little or nothing to do with why I'm interested in one.
While Apple's and Dell's target user is different Apple does have one advantage over Dell, they don't have to support all of the legacy baggage that the PC platform and Windows drag along. This means the potential is there for the hardware to be cheaper and it lowers Apple's support costs vs. Dell.
Having worked for a network equipment vendor, I can say that fairly small changes in parts cost can make a big difference in what you are willing to sell the resulting product for. It wouldn't take a huge drop in cost for Apple to be profitable selling Mac Minis at $299 a pop.
Also remember that one factor limiting Apple's sales at the moment (thus keeping prices higher than they otherwise would be) is supply problems with PPC CPUs.
Apple might have to get in line behind Dell and HP for chips from Intel but they still will be in front of the millions of clone vendors. (not to mention that Intel typically doesn't have the sort of shortages that have caused Apple problems with IBM and Motorola)
It's funny that for a company who's death is so often predicted the only major hardware companies that have been around longer than Apple are IBM, HP, and Unisys. (which arguably is hardly a 'major' vendor anymore) Everyone else got killed by the PC clones and Microsoft.
Steve may be crazy, but lately he has been crazy like a fox. Underestimate him and Apple at your own peril.
You forgot option #4 which I believe is the most likely:
Apple makes non-clone x86 hardware which is capable of running Linux or Windows but different enough to keep OS X off of Dells and other clones. While Apple might lag the bleeding edge clones at the upper end of the market this won't matter at the Mini/iMac/iBook level where most of Apple's (or Dell's for that matter) volume is. Also expect Apple to drop the price of the Mini to match exactly the MSRP of whatever Dell's lowest-end system is.
Don't forget that NeXT solved many of these problems years ago on NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP.
Presumably the infrastructure to support it is still there as the OS X dev tools were based on the ones from NeXT. The infrastructure needed to support FatBinaries is definately there.
From an ISV standpoint all they have to is kick off a build with the 'x86' and 'make Fat binary' boxes checked along with the 'PPC' one. (well at least once they got updated dev tools).
Now for someone who already owns a 'PPC-Only' version of Photoshop and is looking to upgrade to an 'Intel Inside' Mac there is the issue of getting them updates for their software (and convincing ISV's to release them) as not everyone is going to want to pay to upgrade to the lastest and greatest version of all of their commercial apps.
I'm also aware there could be some hardware related issues mostly to do with Altvec support but I assume that either Intel and Apple will find a way to support it or come up with a hack. Again the NeXT had similar issues to contend with as only the black hardware had DSP support.
I admit you are right to be skeptical. I would have been too except a friend of mine brought up NeXTStep on an old HP PA-RISC 712 and OPENStep on a Sun and almost every commercial program he tried had a Fat Binary that supported those architectures. Pretty amazing given that there was almost nobody running NeXTStep or OPENStep on either PA-RISC or SPARC back in NeXTs heyday (at least as compared to 68k or x86)
I agree though that a move to x86 by Apple probably isn't in the cards. My bet is Intel is going to start making PPC compatable chips for Apple and using some of their technology to up the speed and lower the power requirements. Before you scoff remember that Apple has the rights to a good sized hunk of the IP surrounding PPC and could license it to Intel. If anyone can pull off having such a thing ready to ship in time it would be Intel.
I'm pretty new to the wine stuff. I now have a few books and even managed to get myself a free subscription to Wine Spectator.
How did you score the free WS subscription? That is a cool deal.
You really can't go wrong with any of the wines from Washington, Oregon, or Australia that WS picks as either a Best Buy or a Spectator Selection.
In Washington Wine Kiona, Covey Run, Columbia Crest, and Hedges are all good. (especially for the price)
Some of Cte. St.Michelle's wines are very nice as well though some can be overpriced.
Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Most Washington wine I've had has been at least drinkable.
Pretty much any varietal you get from Washington can be good, with the possible exception of pinot noir (most I've tried have been somewhat disapoining compared to California or Oregon)
In reds we are especially known for merlots and recently syrahs, though there are some more 'offbeat' varietals that some wineries specialize in. The Cabs aren' bad either.
In whites there are some good chardonnays, sermillions and rieslings. The 'dry' rieslings are somewhat of a Washington specialty as is gewurztraminer and chenin blanc. My only real complaint is most wineries make their whites really fruity and so most lack the flinty mineral notes I prefer especially with Seafood.
There are also some nice dessert wines from Washington including late harvest whites and ice wine.
As for Australian wines I've mostly drunk cabernets, shiraz, or shiraz blends. Lindeman's, Rosemont, Hardy's, and Wolf Blass are wineries that come to mind off the top of my head but I know I've had many others that were decent.
Huh? That's not amendment material. Permissible topics of bills and amendments are part of the Rules of the chambers and so are set by the House and Senate Rules Committees (except of course for the Constitutional limitations on what business the House and Senate can take up to begin with -- the rules committee couldn't let the Senate start a tax bill, or let either chamber make a law establishing a national religion, etc.).
Many state have 'single-subject' provisions in their state consitutions so this has been done on a state level.
Actually just about anything can be in a consitutional amendment so something that limited all bills to a 'single-subject' would be valid. There are already some rules about what has to be done in what chamber and the like in the consitution.
I will argue, however, the line about the cheap wine. I have expensive tastes...
There are some very nice wines that aren't that expensive. In particular Washington, Australia, and Portugal all have some incredible bargans.
In the case of Washington and Australia the nice thing is often the production is high enough and quality consistent enough year to year that the prices don't shoot up when the wine is "discovered" (sadly the nice Portugese bottles I've found tend to be a one-time-only deal or shoot up in price when 'discovered' by the wine snobs)
Slashdot Mirror
Amazingly the internet is one of the few communications links working in the area.
There have been some people posting online from SE Louisiana, and a few web sites located in the area are still up and handling the traffic.
Of the national carriers in the US Verizon and Sprint are CDMA, Cingular and T-Mobile are GSM (Cingular has some older TDMA stuff too).
Code is still worth knowing particularly for a disaster situation where signals may be marginal.
Besides 5wpm isn't really that hard to do with a little practice.
ARRL is mobilized and ready to move in with the Red Cross however they aren't being allowed into the area yet.
The Red Cross works very closely with the ARRL and many Red Cross chapters have ham radio stations and volunteers with licences.
Frankly I find it sad that you're so upset that someone else found a slice of paradise and wants in but you don't want to share. It's like ultimate NIMBY isn't it? Regardless of whether the migration is from CA, NY, or TX.
Sigh, I must admit I liked this area a lot better before everyone went and 'discovered' it.
Still as you point out it isn't as if we can stop people from moving here. Besides I'm not sure I'd like to see the changes that might cause people to start moving elsewhere.
I hate to break it to you but you are probably safer riding on a busy street than on a narrow rural highway.
For one thing traffic is moving slower and drivers are generally watching for hazzards such as other drivers, pedestrians, and even bicycles.
Also in a built-up area there are often quieter streets running alongside the busy arterials that can be used for bike commuting.
The biggest trick to safe bike-riding in traffic is to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Mostly this means looking around while you are riding rather than locking your eyes on the road 20 ft ahead of you. BTW this is a good habit to have in a car or on a motorcycle as well.
Things like scooters or in line skates might be ok if you have to involve a bus or some other public transport in your commute, but... otherwise nothing really beats a bicycle.
Check with your local transit agency as many have bike racks on buses nowdays. Even if they don't or you need to take a train or tram some have bike storage on board.
A bike can make a commute via public transport practical as you can ride to a transit center or area with a lot of commuter routes, throw the bike on-board, then use the bike to get to your final destination on the other end.
A good road bike with a not-flashy paintjob seems to work pretty well too.
I have a fairly nice bike but it has a bean-green paint job which seems to deter theves a bit. At the very least it gets messed with much less than my old hardtail MTB with a flashy paint job did.
FWIW most bike thieves are opportunistic so even using a cheap lock to secure a wheel to the frame is enough in most places to ensure your bike is there when you get back. (note I don't reccomend this in high-crime areas, for stops of more than 20 minutes or so, or where there aren't many passerby)
Hmmm ... there is a thought.
Perhaps one of the shipping services should sponsor milk carton races (usually either on land or water depending on the event. Prizes are typically awarded for both finishing first and for the most creative entry) with the stipulation that all of the entries must be made out of their logoed shipping/packaging materials (provided free of charge, of course).
For moves far enough to do a 'one-way' truck rental it makes sense to just hire a moving company to move your stuff.
For that matter if your time is worth anything and you have heavy boxes or bulky furniture to move, especially if you need to negotiate stairs, a moving company can be the way to go even for in-town moves. Plus they will deal with storing your stuff for a day or two if you get into the problem of having to be out on the last day of the month but you don't get the keys to the new place until the first or even the fifth.
The only thing you still have to do is pack and label everything on one end and unpack it on the other. Well cleaning too, but you can hire a cleaning service for that if you are especially lazy/busy.
That's strange. I find it's just the opposite. FedEx has always come through for me, while UPS almost always destroys my stuff, regardless of how it's packed (ever seen a cardboard box fall 5 storeys?). Last one that came in had two forklift holes in it. Four, I guess, counting the exit wounds.
I have has a similar experience. Roughly 7 years ago I worked in shipping and recieving for a VAR. Things shipped via FexEx and the Postal Service arrived on-time and intact. UPS regularly misplaced or mangled shipments from our vendors or to our customers. We tried to avoid them whenever possible but some vendors and customers insisted on using UPS also UPS Ground was the cheapest way to ship in-state by enough to make up for the hassle of using them.
The worst thing I ever saw there was the pallet of disk drives that had both been dropped and been stuck with a forklift blade. Also any number of boxes that were crushed and had tire marks on them.
A number of years later when working in the IS department of a midsize company I got to witness UPS' incompetience again as orders for things like servers, switches, routers, laptops, and monitors would arrive damaged. The same sorts of things again: torn open boxes, crush/dropping damage, tire marks, forklift blade punctures, etc. UPS had to replace a lot of very expensive equipment on their dime due to shipping damage.
Hmmm ... I'm guessing that FedEx mostly has a problem with his domain "fedexfurniture.com".
If they get pushy (such as threatening to sue) I'd offer to change the domain name to something like "shippingboxfurniture" and otherwise tell them to go piss up a rope.
So what if it's old tech?
It works.
It stays within budget.
What's the problem?
You know it is kind of interesting that all of the current Russian launchers are an evolution of some of their first designs. For that matter the Chinese launchers are also based loosely on the Russian designs.
Also the main US commercial launch vehicles (Delta and Atlas) are evolved versions of old designs (Atlas was used in the Mercury program).
A moderate evolution based on the best features of current US (and Russian) designs is probably the best way forward rather than re-inventing everything from scratch. That approach is what gave us the shuttle rather than evolutions of the Mercury/Atlas, Gemini/Titan, and Apollo/Saturn designs.
The problem with the so-called "assult weapons ban" was it relied on strictly cosmetic features that made a gun "look mean". These features had little or nothing to do with the lethality of the weapon.
Contrary to popular belief there were plenty of AR-15/M16 and AK clones still on the market post ban. They simply had all but one of the banned features removed. Unless you know exactly what to look for it is hard to tell these from similar models covered under the ban.
The only portion of the ban that could be said to reduce lethality is the ban on magazines of over 10 rounds capacity. However magazines made pre-ban were still legal and there were still plenty of these on the market, especially for M-16 or AK type weapons.
Thing is most gun violence is committed with handguns. Long guns of any sort just aren't a big part of the picture.
Problem is it is quite unlikely we will see national support for banning handguns. Even if handgun ownership was heavily regulated or banned I doubt it would slow criminals down much.
How fucking idiotic.
Even the companies that make the machines don't support their use for anything other than diagnostic purposes.
What's next? Recreational MRI? Chest X-Rays just for the hell of it?
Oh wow, two can play at that game:
Leviticus 11:9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
Leviticus 11:10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
Leviticus 11:11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
Leviticus 11:12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
So do you eat shellfish?
So how did they tell who was circumcised and who wasn't without looking? Even today, its a taboo to look at shomeone's piece when lined up at the urinal. Judaeo-christian history sounds like a bunch of perverts got together and indulged in their fantasies.
...
You know, that would explain a lot
If it is close enough to run Windows (barring a specific port from Microsoft of course) it IS a PC. Even if nobody manages to get it running on the bare metal Mac On Linux should have no problems booting it unless they invoke the specter of DRM and the DMCA. They sell box sets. Unless they pull those I can go BUY a copy of OSX-x86 and load it in MOL. At that point they are boned legally, in exactly the same way Microsoft has to permit Windows XP to be loaded in VMWare if you have a valid serial number and they have to let me run Internet Explorer in Crossover Office.
They play enough games and those infamous lawyers of theirs could be spending their days negotiating a settlememt with the DOJ's Antitrust Division
I'm thinking that if Windows runs on the Intel based Macs it will be because somebody (Apple or Microsoft) made Windows drivers for it.
Same situation with Linux. Linux will run on the new Macs because somebody cares enough to add the hardware support. (Note that Linux runs on the current PPC Macs and that Apple has done nothing to make this especially difficult)
The primary reason the new Macs will be different from clone PCs will not be to keep OS X off of clone hardware (though that will be a factor) but to get away from the design comprimises that plague clone PCs and affect stability, performance, and cost.
They often lag by YEARS currently. Compare Macs at any price band against Dell/HP/etc and you will find the Mac behind in CPU, RAM, HDD, video chipset or almost any other metric. And their line never goes as far up or down as the beige box market. None of this is likely to change by swapping out the PPC chip for a Pentium. Apple operates at higher profit margins, more akin to Sun than Dell and unless that changes they will never be a volume player. And as for beating Dell at their own game, good luck, they are Intel's very bestest customer and Steveo is the new guy in the game.
To be honest I'm not all that familiar with Apple's current hardware offerings. However I've looked at a Mac mini and for what I want it for the base spec looked attractive. Now I don't know how the PPC stacks up against Intel or AMD clock cycle for clock cycle but I've been around the industry long enough to know that random specs like Mhz have little or nothing to do with a system's performance running real world applications.
Frankly I don't really care if I have the fastest desktop or laptop on the market (by whatever metric the cool kids are using this week) as long as the box is fast enough for what I'm using it for. I'm interested in owning a Mac but performance has little or nothing to do with why I'm interested in one.
While Apple's and Dell's target user is different Apple does have one advantage over Dell, they don't have to support all of the legacy baggage that the PC platform and Windows drag along. This means the potential is there for the hardware to be cheaper and it lowers Apple's support costs vs. Dell.
Having worked for a network equipment vendor, I can say that fairly small changes in parts cost can make a big difference in what you are willing to sell the resulting product for. It wouldn't take a huge drop in cost for Apple to be profitable selling Mac Minis at $299 a pop.
Also remember that one factor limiting Apple's sales at the moment (thus keeping prices higher than they otherwise would be) is supply problems with PPC CPUs.
Apple might have to get in line behind Dell and HP for chips from Intel but they still will be in front of the millions of clone vendors. (not to mention that Intel typically doesn't have the sort of shortages that have caused Apple problems with IBM and Motorola)
It's funny that for a company who's death is so often predicted the only major hardware companies that have been around longer than Apple are IBM, HP, and Unisys. (which arguably is hardly a 'major' vendor anymore) Everyone else got killed by the PC clones and Microsoft.
Steve may be crazy, but lately he has been crazy like a fox. Underestimate him and Apple at your own peril.
You forgot option #4 which I believe is the most likely:
Apple makes non-clone x86 hardware which is capable of running Linux or Windows but different enough to keep OS X off of Dells and other clones. While Apple might lag the bleeding edge clones at the upper end of the market this won't matter at the Mini/iMac/iBook level where most of Apple's (or Dell's for that matter) volume is. Also expect Apple to drop the price of the Mini to match exactly the MSRP of whatever Dell's lowest-end system is.
(would you buy a mini for $299? I would)
Don't forget that NeXT solved many of these problems years ago on NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP.
Presumably the infrastructure to support it is still there as the OS X dev tools were based on the ones from NeXT. The infrastructure needed to support FatBinaries is definately there.
From an ISV standpoint all they have to is kick off a build with the 'x86' and 'make Fat binary' boxes checked along with the 'PPC' one. (well at least once they got updated dev tools).
Now for someone who already owns a 'PPC-Only' version of Photoshop and is looking to upgrade to an 'Intel Inside' Mac there is the issue of getting them updates for their software (and convincing ISV's to release them) as not everyone is going to want to pay to upgrade to the lastest and greatest version of all of their commercial apps.
I'm also aware there could be some hardware related issues mostly to do with Altvec support but I assume that either Intel and Apple will find a way to support it or come up with a hack. Again the NeXT had similar issues to contend with as only the black hardware had DSP support.
I admit you are right to be skeptical. I would have been too except a friend of mine brought up NeXTStep on an old HP PA-RISC 712 and OPENStep on a Sun and almost every commercial program he tried had a Fat Binary that supported those architectures. Pretty amazing given that there was almost nobody running NeXTStep or OPENStep on either PA-RISC or SPARC back in NeXTs heyday (at least as compared to 68k or x86)
I agree though that a move to x86 by Apple probably isn't in the cards. My bet is Intel is going to start making PPC compatable chips for Apple and using some of their technology to up the speed and lower the power requirements. Before you scoff remember that Apple has the rights to a good sized hunk of the IP surrounding PPC and could license it to Intel. If anyone can pull off having such a thing ready to ship in time it would be Intel.
I'm pretty new to the wine stuff. I now have a few books and even managed to get myself a free subscription to Wine Spectator.
How did you score the free WS subscription? That is a cool deal.
You really can't go wrong with any of the wines from Washington, Oregon, or Australia that WS picks as either a Best Buy or a Spectator Selection.
In Washington Wine Kiona, Covey Run, Columbia Crest, and Hedges are all good. (especially for the price)
Some of Cte. St.Michelle's wines are very nice as well though some can be overpriced.
Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Most Washington wine I've had has been at least drinkable.
Pretty much any varietal you get from Washington can be good, with the possible exception of pinot noir (most I've tried have been somewhat disapoining compared to California or Oregon)
In reds we are especially known for merlots and recently syrahs, though there are some more 'offbeat' varietals that some wineries specialize in. The Cabs aren' bad either.
In whites there are some good chardonnays, sermillions and rieslings. The 'dry' rieslings are somewhat of a Washington specialty as is gewurztraminer and chenin blanc. My only real complaint is most wineries make their whites really fruity and so most lack the flinty mineral notes I prefer especially with Seafood.
There are also some nice dessert wines from Washington including late harvest whites and ice wine.
As for Australian wines I've mostly drunk cabernets, shiraz, or shiraz blends. Lindeman's, Rosemont, Hardy's, and Wolf Blass are wineries that come to mind off the top of my head but I know I've had many others that were decent.
Well if you like good wine I'm supprised you haven't gotten into Washington or Austrailian wines yet.
It may not be the top scoring stuff (compared to the best of California or Europe) but it is something you can afford to drink everyday.
One notable incredible bargin is the Chateau St.Michelle sparkling wine. As good as many top California or French sparklers for only $10 a bottle!
Huh? That's not amendment material. Permissible topics of bills and amendments are part of the Rules of the chambers and so are set by the House and Senate Rules Committees (except of course for the Constitutional limitations on what business the House and Senate can take up to begin with -- the rules committee couldn't let the Senate start a tax bill, or let either chamber make a law establishing a national religion, etc.).
Many state have 'single-subject' provisions in their state consitutions so this has been done on a state level.
Actually just about anything can be in a consitutional amendment so something that limited all bills to a 'single-subject' would be valid. There are already some rules about what has to be done in what chamber and the like in the consitution.
I will argue, however, the line about the cheap wine. I have expensive tastes...
There are some very nice wines that aren't that expensive. In particular Washington, Australia, and Portugal all have some incredible bargans.
In the case of Washington and Australia the nice thing is often the production is high enough and quality consistent enough year to year that the prices don't shoot up when the wine is "discovered" (sadly the nice Portugese bottles I've found tend to be a one-time-only deal or shoot up in price when 'discovered' by the wine snobs)