iPods can be used to steal software. Well, duh. So can a friggin’ floppy disk. The real point of this article is that Apple machines were being sold in an environment where none of the sales staff had any clue how to secure them. And that’s the whole argument for the Apple retail stores, and why Apple has such a small market share anyway. CompUSA sucks.
Category: Random Links
Links that I’m reading/watching/listening to/thinking about
-
RIP Spike Milligan
R.I.P. Spike Milligan. Did you know that he was Roald Dahl‘s first choice to play Willy Wonka?
-
Wine
The Snook is a bit of wine connoisseur, as is his brother-in-law Smithy. (Smithy actually has a purpose-built wine cellar with all kinds of crazy high-tech gadgets measuring the humidity and temperature and stuff.) Next to those two, I feel like a complete Philistine. I can’t tell the expensive stuff from the plonk. Anyway, that’s why I found this article so amusing. It’s about a scientist who did a study on taste, especially in regards to wine. He basically concludes that all “professional tasting” is hooey, and that the experts are just making it all up. One of his particularly cheeky tricks was to serve them all a white wine, and then serve them the same wine dyed red. Everyone fell for it. See? Maybe I’m not the uncultured rube I thought. (Link via PCJM.) -
Olympics
Cathleen is whinging about the BBC’s Olympic coverage in England. Hey, if all they showed was the British curling victory, I’d be pissed too. Luckily the Australian coverage has been excellent. Throughout the Games we got two or three hours of coverage a night, all of it highlights. But to Channel Seven’s credit, there seemed to be an effort to cover a bit of everything. So not only did we see the two Australian victories, but we also saw most of the winning performances in everything else. I was also relieved that the Aussie coverage seemed relatively free of the sappy glurge that the American networks cram down your neck. It was mostly just sports.
And, of course, The Ice Dream! Last night was Roy and H.G.’s last show. They have been so funny over the past two weeks. Who else would dare to make fun of the idea that “Old Man Shea” was standing beside his son and grandson with the torch? Who else would show every skating routine from the Hugentoblers, a sister and brother team that finished near the bottom despite some very flashy home-made outfits? Who else would award medals to the worst “Hockey Bastards”? It was the perfect antidote to all the sentimental Olympic crap you get in America. -
Wabi-Sabi vs Weltschmerz
Very interesting discussion going on at Tara D’s site. Are you a wabi-sabi person or a weltschmerz person?
-
Good vs evil
Hee hee! Max was right. I was amused by this article about the Hollywood phenomenon of good guys using Mac and bad guys using PCs. Actually, the Snook and I find it more amusing when a program shows a “PC” running Windows that is clearly a Mac running a Flash movie in reality. Even Office Space – which is otherwise so true to the IT industry – falls prey to a similar mistake. Remember when Peter is frantically trying to close down his machine and leave the office before Lumbergh stops him? Check out the widgets and progress bars on his screen. It’s clearly a Mac. But for some reason when he finally manages to shut down, he gets a C: prompt. I giggle every time I see it.
-
Say Anything
Ebert has added Say Anything to his list of “The Great Movies.” I tend to agree.
-
An orgy?!
Who else is anticipating a huge increase in applications to UC Berkeley this year?
-
Make your own license plate
Make your own license plate. Yeah, mine’s stretched a bit. Remember when you used to get little bicycle license plates in boxes of Honeycomb cereal? I’d always pray for a cool one, and instead it’d be Texas every single time. Not that Texas sucks or anything, but I swear that’s the only one they ever gave out.
-
Gold!
Today at the Fair Day, some guy excitedly told us: “Did you hear that Australia just won its first ever gold medal? He was a speed skater. He won because he was last and all the other guys fell down.” We all laughed. It was the classic joke. Except later I found out, it really happened! The guys on the Ice Dream are having a field day with this.