So it's obvious that they want to include "mac" - focusing the brand. And now we're likely to have the MacBook (formerly iBook) when it's released and the MacBook pro.
We also have the iMac and PowerMac - probably will become MacPro?
MacBook Pro, as others have observed, is not a good name. It's quite clunky - I keep thinking of the word "brick" when I say it - not a good image when applied to a laptop. My suggestion if they really want to ditch "Power":
iBook - ProBook
iMac - ProMac
Simple, and more Apple-like I think.
It doesn't appear to work with Safari (or certain other browsers) - just gives you the regular google maps interface, despite the "Transit Trip Planner" banner. See here for the list of supported browsers.
No - the idea is not that a powerful lobby organizes around the internet itself. Rather, the ability the internet creates to find and communicate with like-minded people has a downside. When people communicate only or primarily with those that agree with them, they tend to harden their beliefs and to become, in the aggregate more extreme. I'm oversimplifying, but the basic gist, like that of the article, is that the internet enables a new and perhaps more extreme kind of balkanization than people could achieve when their primary interactions were with those in their community. Communities don't usually, though there are important exceptions, come together around narrow ideological beliefs, even though there are broader geographical/ideological patterns. E.g., south and north, utah vs. san francisco, suburbia vs. inner city, etc. But these geographical groupings are different than, say, the community of commenters on daily kos or powerline.
Cass Sunstein, Univ. of Chicago Law, has written a book describing this potential threat to civil, democratic discourse. It's called Republic.com (you can read snippets on Amazon). From wikipedia:
"His 2001 book, Republic.com, argued that the Internet threatens democracy because it allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences, and thus cut themselves off from any information that might challenge their beliefs, a phenomenon often known by the term cyberbalkanization."
Sunstein is a deep and careful academic, so don't be turned off by this snippet from delving deeper into his writing.
Automator can be useful, but I think it will take awhile to see how. I have an automator action that sends the selected file to gmail as an attachment. Just right click on the file, select send to gmail, and it all happens in the background. A handy way to back up or move around files. Useful to me at least.
Instructions to build search engine with "largest number of indexed pages":
1. Make a list of 999 sites. 2. Set up website with a query input form. 3. Upon query, return the entire list.
A major problem with this study is that the number of results returned depends on two variables: (a) the number of sites in the index (so far so good) and (b) the accuracy and sensitivity of the search algorithm. The latter is the very point of a search engine. Yahoo may, who knows, be more selective in returning results.
I'm a google fan, but these results prove nothing.
Like all other forms of media, the internet will play host to the product placement. It really wouldn't be that bad. If done with taste, a product placement can fit the content as well as a pair of Old Navy Jeans hug the contours of the human body (even the bodies of slashdotters).
Actually it's a bit more complicated than that. The right to vote for president, once granted by a state legislature, is subject to protection by the courts as a fundamental right. You cannot be denied the right to vote, "in the manner prescribed by the legislature," on any ground that would violate the Equal Protection Clause, whether that be age, race, hair color, or any other irrational classification. The legislature is still subject, in choosing the manner of selecting electors, to the dictates of the Constitution - and not merely those you cite.
While it might be that a state can take back the franchise, appointing electors in some way other than a statewide election, the selection of a nondemocratic method of appointing electors would likely be subjected to attack on numerous constitutional grounds. Who knows what the result would be.
For more on this, see this snippet from the desrvedly maligned per curiam opinion in Bush v. Gore:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, 1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature's power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28--33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 ("[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated") (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.
Your point seems to be that my original post patronizingly suggested that unless Google discloses the censored links the Chinese people will be unable to know that they are being oppressed. And secondly, censorship in China is comparable to the distortion of reality that occurs in the American press.
With respect to your first point, I agree with you that Google's decision on this matter will not affect, in gross, the Chinese people's estimation of how "free" they are. My point is only that with Google's deletion of censored sources, it would appear to the average Chinese user that everything is accessible - when it's not. It would be better if that were apparent. How could anyone not want to know that certain sources are being systematically hidden from them (and in particular, which sources)? I don't think it's calling someone stupid to point out that he or she deserves the same access to information (even if some of that information is imperfect) that the rest of us enjoy. Knowing the degree of censorship is helpful to promoting change even if everyone in society knows, in general, that censorship is occurring.
On your second point, I fail to see how one could not both point out that facilitation of Chinese censorship is bad and that there is no Saddam-9/11 link. I agree with you that the latter is a dangerous and widely held misperception. But that's not the topic here. Surely it's ok to point out that censorship in China is not a good thing even as there are elements of the media/politics in the United States that are broken.
Finally, I don't mean to suggest that Google is evil or that there are not forces and considerations at work here that are not apparent on the face of the story. But, we can, nevertheless, criticize the stated rationale - that removing the censored links enhances the user experience.
There is a use to listing censored sites - so that people in China can know what's being withheld from them. (In the dubious words of Rumsfeld - listing censored sites makes them known unknowns rather than unknown unknowns....) A precursor to any sort of political change that enhances liberty is knowing that your freedom is being curtailed - and to what degree. I would say that Google is, in a limited way, enhancing China's ability to present a false picture of the world to its people.
If you're interested in having various streamed radio programs (like BBC, NPR, etc.) on your iPod, you may want to check out Streamers for OS X. (Disclosure - I'm the author.) Using Ambrosia's WireTap, iCal, and iTunes, it allows you to keep a library of shows to be recorded and to schedule recordings. Just be sure to drag the app itself, and not the folder that contains it, into your Applications folder. The way I packaged the last build has caused a few users some confusion on this score.
It's freeware; source is included; and I've just put up a sourceforge site for it.
You mean so that you can see the bloody mess that results from that woman's plunging her fist into the man's chest... I guess to rip out his still-beating heart? Seriously, what's up with that. It looks a little low, though, and toward the back. Maybe she's going for a kidney. Wait - I know, he's going to wake up in a bath of ice with a note saying he should call 911. That's it - its from the next expansion pack - Sims 2 - Urban Legend.
Yes it's annoying. But thanks to CarTalk, oddly enough, there is an easy way to get Real's free player. Here is the link provided at Car Talk's website to downloads for the free versions, without any BS. It appears as though it was a condition of Car Talk's returning to Real, from windows media, for streams of its show.
Slashdot users are generally libertarian. Which is a completely different thing from "liberal". Libertarians believe government has no place whatsoever in their lives . . . . But the general gist of things here is usually that all government meddling in technology is bad, which explains the calls of "censorship" in this thread (even though government is not even involved) . . .."
Fascinating how one's intuition can swerve so wildly from an expressed ideology. One can say that one is libertarian - because one "believes" in unlimited personal freedom. And yet for many, that belief manifests in decrying the interference of a private party in their choices.
I think the intuition is right and the ideology is wrong. Freedom is not a rule but a fuzzy state of social ordering, and it absolutely requires restraint - in other words, oppression - to be effectively realized. Is society more "free" when NBC can, because of its market position, secure exlcusive rights to broadcast the olympics and then choose to parcel broadcasts out in chopped up bits, or when the government oppresses private parties by preventing such arrangements or enforcing mandatory licensing - squeezing the choices of broadcasters but increasing access for viewers? Off-topic, I know....
Pure speculation, but pulling various of the latest rumors together (see macrumors.com), it makes sense that the new iMac has a similar quasi-portable form factor. On your desktop it connects to a stand, which in turn connects to keyboard, mice, etc. But the whole computer is in the display (as has been previously rumored to be the design of the new iMacs). Take it off the display, and you can use it like a tablet, hang it on the wall and watch dvds (or tv?) - maybe even with a bluetooth remote. Even move it between multiple stands.
It's like an iBook with the display where the keyboard would be.
Of course, this is pure speculation - but it would finally tie together the rumors about hangable displays and the new cpu-behind-the-display form factor.
The link that ultimately may have provided an answer requires you to pay. But do Macs constitute 2.8% of all desktop computers now deployed? Or are 2.8% of new sales (both boxes and OEM) Macs? If there is a meaningful difference in how long the various desktop systems are in use before upgrades/replacements and if these market share statistics are calculated based on sales, then the numbers may be misleading if understood as capturing the lay of the land - rather than raw sales.
Anyone know of a free app that takes pg text files as input and renders them nicely as pdfs? I know many prefer.txt files for readability - but others would prefer well-formatted pdf files. It would be kinda neat to be able to be able to configure the conversion too (fonts, layout, etc.). And, needless to say, batch processing would be great too.
I'm no programmer in any sense of the word, but I have dabbled and have come up with an app that works a little like tivo for realaudio streams. It allows you to automate the recording of streams and the importing of them into itunes.
You can schedule a program to be recorded on a one-time, daily, or weekly basis (or more generically using iCal). And you can save programs in a Library. After they are recorded, the streams are converted to mp3 or aac in itunes and moved to a special playlist. All ready to upload to the ipod. I use it to have the latest broadcasts of several npr programs that I like on my ipod. Unfortunately, cartalk just went wma, which I don't yet support.
The source is included and is public domain. The latest version is here. There is also a beta that has a revised and simpler interface - but which has a couple of interface glitches.
I've got an 80GB TiVo Series 2. I bought it last April. It does everything my wife wants. . . . . As soon as my cable company offers PVR which should cost about $10 a month, my TiVo is going on Ebay. Then I'll build a MythTV from one of my computers.
I don't think I'd even want to be a fly on the wall when the topic of junking the TiVo and rigging a solution from old computers comes up over the dinner table.
I am suspicious of the argument that subscription services have failed and will fail because people want to "own" the music they buy. People are happy to rent DVDs and pay for cable television. (I appreciate that there are significant differences between these media - music is generally something one will go to again and again; it may be more personal... etc.)
I think the real stumbling block for subscription models lies in their selection and the usability of the downloads. If one could pay $x (10, 15, 20?) per month to the itunes music store and have the ability to download any song from the store and use it in the way one can use itms downloads now (with the exception that downloads only function as long as you're subscribed), I think the service would be very popular.
Of course popular != profitable or possible. Most people would download a lot more than they do from pay per download services - increasing the costs to the provider. Maybe some would download so much that the system would be unworkable. There are many reasons a subscription service that is otherwise similar to the itms might fail.
My point is only that the reason susbcription models don't work is not because people insist on overly fetishistic notions of ownership with respect to music. It's (probably) because the right mix of rights cannot be rented at a subscription price that people can pay.
"The Phoenix 1000: The ultimate personal transportation device, 65 meters (213 ft.) in length with 470 square meters (5000 sq. ft.) of interior space on 4 levels."
This thing is pretty close to the Nautilus... enough range to make transantlic crossings (at least when traveling on the surface in "yacht-mode" at 16 knots (maximum=18 knots). Huge windows, travels underwater, on battery power, for 6 hours at 10 knots, 50 hours at 5 knots, 140 hours at 2.5 knots, etc..
Diver lock-out "chamber allows a diver to enter or exit the submarine from the area between the shafts at depths of up to 45 meter."
They haven't built one but estimate the price to be a mere $78 (million).
The point here is not the creation of jobs but rather the efficient allocation of the cost of computer disposal. By making those who manufacture (and consume) the product bear the costs created by that manufacture, (a) consumption of the product does not come at the expense of a net loss in overall welfare and (b) manufacturers have an incentive to make disposal of their products less costly. Disposal could be made less costly by improving the technology of disposal and recycling or by engineering the product to be easier to recycle or junk. In the absence of this sort of measure those industries that make products that cost a lot (in terms of human health or real dollars) to deal with as waste are subsidized by the universe of payers for disposal services - or, in the absence of adequate regulation, fall upon those whose health is adversely affected.
The upshot - this only slows down the industry if the industry was being artificially subsidized in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
We also have the iMac and PowerMac - probably will become MacPro?
MacBook Pro, as others have observed, is not a good name. It's quite clunky - I keep thinking of the word "brick" when I say it - not a good image when applied to a laptop. My suggestion if they really want to ditch "Power":
iBook - ProBook
iMac - ProMac Simple, and more Apple-like I think.
It doesn't appear to work with Safari (or certain other browsers) - just gives you the regular google maps interface, despite the "Transit Trip Planner" banner. See here for the list of supported browsers.
No - the idea is not that a powerful lobby organizes around the internet itself. Rather, the ability the internet creates to find and communicate with like-minded people has a downside. When people communicate only or primarily with those that agree with them, they tend to harden their beliefs and to become, in the aggregate more extreme. I'm oversimplifying, but the basic gist, like that of the article, is that the internet enables a new and perhaps more extreme kind of balkanization than people could achieve when their primary interactions were with those in their community. Communities don't usually, though there are important exceptions, come together around narrow ideological beliefs, even though there are broader geographical/ideological patterns. E.g., south and north, utah vs. san francisco, suburbia vs. inner city, etc. But these geographical groupings are different than, say, the community of commenters on daily kos or powerline.
"His 2001 book, Republic.com, argued that the Internet threatens democracy because it allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences, and thus cut themselves off from any information that might challenge their beliefs, a phenomenon often known by the term cyberbalkanization."
Sunstein is a deep and careful academic, so don't be turned off by this snippet from delving deeper into his writing.
Automator can be useful, but I think it will take awhile to see how. I have an automator action that sends the selected file to gmail as an attachment. Just right click on the file, select send to gmail, and it all happens in the background. A handy way to back up or move around files. Useful to me at least.
Instructions to build search engine with "largest number of indexed pages":
1. Make a list of 999 sites.
2. Set up website with a query input form.
3. Upon query, return the entire list.
A major problem with this study is that the number of results returned depends on two variables: (a) the number of sites in the index (so far so good) and (b) the accuracy and sensitivity of the search algorithm. The latter is the very point of a search engine. Yahoo may, who knows, be more selective in returning results.
I'm a google fan, but these results prove nothing.
Like all other forms of media, the internet will play host to the product placement. It really wouldn't be that bad. If done with taste, a product placement can fit the content as well as a pair of Old Navy Jeans hug the contours of the human body (even the bodies of slashdotters).
While it might be that a state can take back the franchise, appointing electors in some way other than a statewide election, the selection of a nondemocratic method of appointing electors would likely be subjected to attack on numerous constitutional grounds. Who knows what the result would be.
For more on this, see this snippet from the desrvedly maligned per curiam opinion in Bush v. Gore:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, 1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature's power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28--33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 ("[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated") (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.
With respect to your first point, I agree with you that Google's decision on this matter will not affect, in gross, the Chinese people's estimation of how "free" they are. My point is only that with Google's deletion of censored sources, it would appear to the average Chinese user that everything is accessible - when it's not. It would be better if that were apparent. How could anyone not want to know that certain sources are being systematically hidden from them (and in particular, which sources)? I don't think it's calling someone stupid to point out that he or she deserves the same access to information (even if some of that information is imperfect) that the rest of us enjoy. Knowing the degree of censorship is helpful to promoting change even if everyone in society knows, in general, that censorship is occurring.
On your second point, I fail to see how one could not both point out that facilitation of Chinese censorship is bad and that there is no Saddam-9/11 link. I agree with you that the latter is a dangerous and widely held misperception. But that's not the topic here. Surely it's ok to point out that censorship in China is not a good thing even as there are elements of the media/politics in the United States that are broken.
Finally, I don't mean to suggest that Google is evil or that there are not forces and considerations at work here that are not apparent on the face of the story. But, we can, nevertheless, criticize the stated rationale - that removing the censored links enhances the user experience.
There is a use to listing censored sites - so that people in China can know what's being withheld from them. (In the dubious words of Rumsfeld - listing censored sites makes them known unknowns rather than unknown unknowns....) A precursor to any sort of political change that enhances liberty is knowing that your freedom is being curtailed - and to what degree. I would say that Google is, in a limited way, enhancing China's ability to present a false picture of the world to its people.
It's freeware; source is included; and I've just put up a sourceforge site for it.
You mean so that you can see the bloody mess that results from that woman's plunging her fist into the man's chest... I guess to rip out his still-beating heart? Seriously, what's up with that. It looks a little low, though, and toward the back. Maybe she's going for a kidney. Wait - I know, he's going to wake up in a bath of ice with a note saying he should call 911. That's it - its from the next expansion pack - Sims 2 - Urban Legend.
Yes it's annoying. But thanks to CarTalk, oddly enough, there is an easy way to get Real's free player. Here is the link provided at Car Talk's website to downloads for the free versions, without any BS. It appears as though it was a condition of Car Talk's returning to Real, from windows media, for streams of its show.
No. See here.
Fascinating how one's intuition can swerve so wildly from an expressed ideology. One can say that one is libertarian - because one "believes" in unlimited personal freedom. And yet for many, that belief manifests in decrying the interference of a private party in their choices.
I think the intuition is right and the ideology is wrong. Freedom is not a rule but a fuzzy state of social ordering, and it absolutely requires restraint - in other words, oppression - to be effectively realized. Is society more "free" when NBC can, because of its market position, secure exlcusive rights to broadcast the olympics and then choose to parcel broadcasts out in chopped up bits, or when the government oppresses private parties by preventing such arrangements or enforcing mandatory licensing - squeezing the choices of broadcasters but increasing access for viewers? Off-topic, I know....
It's like an iBook with the display where the keyboard would be.
Of course, this is pure speculation - but it would finally tie together the rumors about hangable displays and the new cpu-behind-the-display form factor.
The link that ultimately may have provided an answer requires you to pay. But do Macs constitute 2.8% of all desktop computers now deployed? Or are 2.8% of new sales (both boxes and OEM) Macs? If there is a meaningful difference in how long the various desktop systems are in use before upgrades/replacements and if these market share statistics are calculated based on sales, then the numbers may be misleading if understood as capturing the lay of the land - rather than raw sales.
Anyone know of a free app that takes pg text files as input and renders them nicely as pdfs? I know many prefer .txt files for readability - but others would prefer well-formatted pdf files. It would be kinda neat to be able to be able to configure the conversion too (fonts, layout, etc.). And, needless to say, batch processing would be great too.
You can schedule a program to be recorded on a one-time, daily, or weekly basis (or more generically using iCal). And you can save programs in a Library. After they are recorded, the streams are converted to mp3 or aac in itunes and moved to a special playlist. All ready to upload to the ipod. I use it to have the latest broadcasts of several npr programs that I like on my ipod. Unfortunately, cartalk just went wma, which I don't yet support.
The source is included and is public domain. The latest version is here. There is also a beta that has a revised and simpler interface - but which has a couple of interface glitches.
Hope someone enjoys it.
I don't think I'd even want to be a fly on the wall when the topic of junking the TiVo and rigging a solution from old computers comes up over the dinner table.
I think the real stumbling block for subscription models lies in their selection and the usability of the downloads. If one could pay $x (10, 15, 20?) per month to the itunes music store and have the ability to download any song from the store and use it in the way one can use itms downloads now (with the exception that downloads only function as long as you're subscribed), I think the service would be very popular.
Of course popular != profitable or possible. Most people would download a lot more than they do from pay per download services - increasing the costs to the provider. Maybe some would download so much that the system would be unworkable. There are many reasons a subscription service that is otherwise similar to the itms might fail.
My point is only that the reason susbcription models don't work is not because people insist on overly fetishistic notions of ownership with respect to music. It's (probably) because the right mix of rights cannot be rented at a subscription price that people can pay.
or use Preview in OS X, and then copy and paste to textedit - pretty neat seeing the censored stuff revealed in a poof of (simple) technology
Here's my favorite:
"The Phoenix 1000: The ultimate personal transportation device, 65 meters (213 ft.) in length with 470 square meters (5000 sq. ft.) of interior space on 4 levels." This thing is pretty close to the Nautilus... enough range to make transantlic crossings (at least when traveling on the surface in "yacht-mode" at 16 knots (maximum=18 knots). Huge windows, travels underwater, on battery power, for 6 hours at 10 knots, 50 hours at 5 knots, 140 hours at 2.5 knots, etc..
Diver lock-out "chamber allows a diver to enter or exit the submarine from the area between the shafts at depths of up to 45 meter."
They haven't built one but estimate the price to be a mere $78 (million).
Check it out here.
The upshot - this only slows down the industry if the industry was being artificially subsidized in the first place.