| Wednesday, September 6, 2006 |
23:29 - iMac Core Duo, we hardly knew ye
http://www.apple.com/imac/
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Wow. iMacs go up to 24" now. And the entry-level 17" one comes in at under $1000. That consumer-level market segment keeps getting fatter and fatter, doesn't it?
The iMac has spent barely any time in Intel-land, and already it's on the second-generation chipset, with a claimed 1.5x speed increase. I guess the MBPs will go to Core 2 Duos pretty soon too; and when that happens, there'll be quite a spread in features and performance between the top and bottom end. The product line (particularly in the laptops) has spent a little too much time with too much overlap between the ends of the market; now they'll get to spread apart more comfortably and start swinging their elbows around again.
This Intel move sure does look like it's paying off well. That is, so long as those ten thousand layoffs at Intel don't end up impacting their ability to deliver...
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23:22 - Blazing fast
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212340,00.html
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Well, we were afraid of this:
Korean Air, South Korea's largest airline, has banned the in-flight use of
all of Dell and some Apple laptop computer models while operating on battery
power after the U.S. firms announced massive recalls over a battery problem,
a company official said Wednesday.
The ban has been in place since Aug. 30, but passengers can still operate
the laptops if using electricity from the in-seat power supply system after
separating the batteries from the computers, a Korean Air Co. spokeswoman
said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
Interesting. My MacBook Pro runs plenty hot, even when plugged in to AC power; but the heat is up toward the top of the keyboard, not down around the battery area. Either way, it's quite something to get used to after the comparatively cool-running iBook.
Via Steven Den Beste via e-mail.
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| Monday, September 4, 2006 |
01:31 - Run that by me again?
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There's this ad for the Academy of Art University that they keep running on late-night cable. Its pitch goes like this:
Love what you do; do what you love. It's never too late to start! You've got until September 16th to register.
At which point it'll be, uh, too late to start...
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00:52 - Crikey
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/germaine_imagines/
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Apparently some people are using the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin as a teaching moment, an excuse to harangue us all about our hubris toward the natural world that Irwin allegedly personified.
As though we don't get enough of that already. We can hardly turn around without Jeff Goldblum misquoting Einstein to say "the complete lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here is staggering", or whatever he was mumbling. Life will find a way, indeed: a way into your heart. How's that? Do we all have our one-liners ready to deploy?
Evidently the charge is that kids raised on Irwin are growing up with a cavalier disdain for nature and a feeling of man's lordship over it, and Irwin's death is supposed to be a poetic illustration that not even the man who led the charmed life while sticking his thumb up various venomous animals' butts on camera could last forever—the great symbol of man's dominion crashes to earth, and with it all our childlike delusions of power.
Well, tell that to the members of my site, who have been deluging the bulletin system and the recent uploads with tributes to Irwin and the appreciation for nature that he instilled in all of them. Rain-forest destroyers these people aren't.
Egad. Now it's not even enough that some popular hero be a conservationist, he has to be the right kind of conservationist. And apparently one that actually captures kids' imaginations, like Jurassic Park did for the paleontology departments of universities everywhere, is a big no-no. Too crass, don't ya know. Too brash. Too loud. Too... enjoyable.
At least this way Irwin's legend won't fade into obscurity; it'll just make a great story someday.
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Brian Tiemann
