In the west, monks kept the light of inherited knowledge alive during the middle ages in their scriptoriums, copying and illuminating manuscripts by hand onto vellum scrolls and whatnot. Okay, so transmission of the grand cultural legacy of our age has gotten a little easier... still, this story makes me want to name a backup process "Scriptorium" and include lots of little tonsured head icons.
Which one's more vulnerable, a set of negatives and a single set of prints bent into a camera shop envelope high in my closet, or a digital photo on my hard drive? Sure, hard drives have a designed window before obsolescence, especially in the consumer market. Basically that's because the cost of enhancing their reliability is less than the cost of a whomping new drive that dwarfs the old one every three years. Even so, though -- hey, how many photos do you have from your great great grandparents' trip to Tahoe in the year aught-six?
If we're talking about preserving the works of Aristotle, I'm betting on hard drives to do a better job than monks with feather quills. (Not that the monks didn't draw better pictures in the margins, doodling along the way.)
Until our sources north of the border break the story, I'm not a believer.
There's no reason to use rumor mill sites for anything but kicking around what you think a company should do. Yeah, the iWalk didn't exist, but it did make me think through exactly what sort of Newton the 21st century would want, at least.
CNET's story says sales of existing 15" iMacs have "all but stalled." What does that mean? It it accurate? Does it mean the new iMacs are already off their "sweet spot" a little? Gee, I've had trouble finding an available one myself. Maybe that tossaway line was just the usual CNET Applebashing; this is a source that always, always slants against the company.
Tedious as the rumors are, they at least open the "what should they release next?" question. (In this case there's no question, though: Since the new iMac stories way back, everyone's said the towers got leapfrogged in price for performance. Something needs to fill that niche, though "new, better towers" would be an uninspired replacement.)
It's amazing how many times in this thread people have whined about Janis Ian being "obscure" or words to that effect. You'd maybe think a group of Web Geeks would be able to try a search or two, to start with.
This is a woman with something like nine grammy nominations in at least three different decades, from what I can dig up in a few seconds' searching. She's been a big star, first for a sort of social-issues breakthrough song about interracial love in the sixties and then with a more mainstream hit, "At Seventeen." She's become a "back list" artist, and then a decidedly niche artist. (She released an album more-or-less about coming out as a lesbian.) She's released albums in different styles -- country, pop, folk -- with different labels. Tons of her songs have been recorded by other artists. Basically we're talking about the classic singer songwriter, and one with more than the usual longevity, versatility, class, and eloquence.
Sounds like someone you'd maybe make an effort to listen to rather than trumpeting your own studied ignorance as if it renders her views meaningless. You think?
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Which one's more vulnerable, a set of negatives and a single set of prints bent into a camera shop envelope high in my closet, or a digital photo on my hard drive? Sure, hard drives have a designed window before obsolescence, especially in the consumer market. Basically that's because the cost of enhancing their reliability is less than the cost of a whomping new drive that dwarfs the old one every three years. Even so, though -- hey, how many photos do you have from your great great grandparents' trip to Tahoe in the year aught-six?
If we're talking about preserving the works of Aristotle, I'm betting on hard drives to do a better job than monks with feather quills. (Not that the monks didn't draw better pictures in the margins, doodling along the way.)
There's no reason to use rumor mill sites for anything but kicking around what you think a company should do. Yeah, the iWalk didn't exist, but it did make me think through exactly what sort of Newton the 21st century would want, at least.
CNET's story says sales of existing 15" iMacs have "all but stalled." What does that mean? It it accurate? Does it mean the new iMacs are already off their "sweet spot" a little? Gee, I've had trouble finding an available one myself. Maybe that tossaway line was just the usual CNET Applebashing; this is a source that always, always slants against the company.
Tedious as the rumors are, they at least open the "what should they release next?" question. (In this case there's no question, though: Since the new iMac stories way back, everyone's said the towers got leapfrogged in price for performance. Something needs to fill that niche, though "new, better towers" would be an uninspired replacement.)
It's amazing how many times in this thread people have whined about Janis Ian being "obscure" or words to that effect. You'd maybe think a group of Web Geeks would be able to try a search or two, to start with.
This is a woman with something like nine grammy nominations in at least three different decades, from what I can dig up in a few seconds' searching. She's been a big star, first for a sort of social-issues breakthrough song about interracial love in the sixties and then with a more mainstream hit, "At Seventeen." She's become a "back list" artist, and then a decidedly niche artist. (She released an album more-or-less about coming out as a lesbian.) She's released albums in different styles -- country, pop, folk -- with different labels. Tons of her songs have been recorded by other artists. Basically we're talking about the classic singer songwriter, and one with more than the usual longevity, versatility, class, and eloquence.
Sounds like someone you'd maybe make an effort to listen to rather than trumpeting your own studied ignorance as if it renders her views meaningless. You think?