the art of writing is discovering what you believe
The world’s best-loved consumer portable gets an impressive makeover with a superfast PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine, a new architecture, a slot-loading optical drive and enhanced wireless networking capabilities.
I have a new iBook, the 800 MHz 12 incher, and so far, it’s really nice. Functionally, it’s quite similar to the ThinkPad A20m it’s replacing, but it’s so much better in so many ways . . . . .
This isn’t all I’d like to take along, but it says more about the chaotic state of my library than my taste in books. Perhaps I’ll gather the ones I’d like to take as well and keep them by the door . . . .
See more here.
But even more interesting, the Republican National Committee web site runs Microsoft software and the Democratic National Committee web site runs Apache on Linux and the difference in reliability (measured in how often the site needs to be rebooted) is striking: 4.26 days for the RNC and 445 days for the DNC. What I’d really like to know is how much money each spent on their sites so we can have a price/performance ratio of Republicans versus Democrats.
Which is the party of stability again?
I just found out today that the payroll coordinator where I work is a writer, which she had never mentioned. When I asked where I could find some of her stuff, she wouldn’t tell me, daring me to see if I could find anything. Google found her in about 2 queries, and now I know why she wouldn’t come clean. For one thing, she writes under a pseudonym sometimes, but mainly, she writes erotica, specifically for women, not the kind of thing you talk about in a stuffy institution like ours.
I’m amused: it’s refreshing to be reminded there are real people in such an unreal place.
My advance order of OS X 10.3 was delivered today, but no one was at home so all I ended up with was a crummy FedEx doortag. Someone on a mailing list I’m on found his on his doorstep today, so I just lucked and got the persnickety delivery driver.
Oh, well, I’ll just pick it up at the depot tomorrow. Better a day late than not at all . . .
Low-Cost Supercomputer Made With 1,100 PC’s
[T]he fastest cluster machine, the Lawrence Livermore system consisting of 2304 Intel Xeon processors, is capable of 7.63 trillion operations a second, at a price estimated at $10 million to $15 million. The Virginia Tech computer makes the cost-to-performance equation even starker.
The official results for the ranking will not be reported until next month at a supercomputer industry event. But the Apple-based supercomputer, which is powered by 2,200 I.B.M. microprocessors, was able to compute at 7.41 trillion operations a second, a speed surpassed by only three other ultra-fast computers.
A third the cost, for near-enough equivalent performance benchmarks and numbers of CPUs: and this is something you can take home with you. I’m guessing the Intel-based supercomputers aren’t made of clustered off-the-shelf units.
This is for all email clients on all platforms.
I keep running into people who moan about how much email they get and how they so far behind blah blah blah . . . . .
Do these people not understand what mail filters are for or how they work? I have to wonder if they understand the basics of filing paper documents: the principles are the same. What I have done for years is take my most frequent correspondents and filtered their email in their own mailbox, so a. I don’t miss any of their mail, and b. to unclutter my inbox. The stuff that doesn’t fall under any rubric stays in the inbox and can be dealt with as I get to it. But stuff from the people who I correspond with frequently gets filtered out so I can be sure I get to it.
Is this so hard? The people who tell me they have 700 or 1000 unread emails probably need it all printed out for them: perhaps they would find it easier to deal with.
So my feature request would be for an email client to review the corpus of already received email against new email and offer to create a filter based on the receiver’s particulars. Apparently some folks need the help with this . . . . .
[Politech] Jonathan Weinberg on how to create “Net drivers licenses”
[priv]
This is what the Microsoft Network experiment was. M$ leased dial pools from major ISP’s and tried to get into the Internet business. They had spotty control of the desktop, in that they owned it, but had no access to it to leverage it into delivering services. It can be considered a failure because of entrenched ISP’s [who] were already offering more user-centric cheaper service and MSN was doomed. AOL had the right idea from a technology standpoint, and they hedged their bets on local ISPs dying out because of not having any real services. The jury is still out on that one.
What has happened is massive entry into the market by cable providers, who have a business model that is right in between cellular companies and ISP’s. They have the wire, the network, the content and the services. With things like bandwidth caps and proxies, they are slowing closing the loop around the desktop, while dangling the carrot of integrated services like pay-per-view as an incentive to get users to give up control of their desktops.
These alleged “licences” will be little more than phone numbers, but their value is that, like phone numbers, they provide a control connection, which the service providers (and law enforcement etc) can access the user to deliver services to them, and enforce policies against them as part of the agreements.
I have purposely made ambiguous use of the words “control connection” as in this context, the meaning of an empirical control, (or known
constant), an out of band link, and political control, all converge.
After all, property is just information, but media is control.
This notion of “internet driver’s licenses” was an interesting (but lousy) idea, now disowned by the RIAA, though allegedly floated by “an industry type”.
Empowerment or control? Relationships or contracts? How do you want to be treated today?
There’s an angle to this I’m too tired to work out, but it connects the telco business model (of trying to find a revenue stream from a service whose costs approach zero), the cable companies who already have inroads into content and distribution, and the folks being asked to buy these services. Do we want an integrated service with content and connectivity or do we want to buy it a la carte?
Mac OS X has evolved. The fourth major release in just three years, Panther offers breakthroughs in innovation, ease of use and reliability that won’t be seen in other operating systems for years, if ever.
A tad hyperbolic, but why not? I ordered my copy today and am looking forward to seeing it . . . .
Gary Reed has seen 30 years of Puget Sound business history from the boardrooms of more public companies than anyone else in Washington. Here are some of his observations:
The region’s economy: Reed is not terribly optimistic about the future.
Microsoft: Reed, who has been on Microsoft’s board since the company went public in 1986, warns officials not to congratulate themselves just because Microsoft and the tech boom happened to develop here. It’s just luck.
The region’s challenges: He says Seattle leaders also should recognize the area’s disadvantages. “Just geographically, a lot of companies would rather be located in more central locations, like Chicago, simply because their employees don’t have to travel as much.”
Prospects for the Port of Seattle: He said he’s unsure if the problems that prevent the region from exploiting the Port can be overcome. Unions pose an obstacle to modernization, he said, and transportation is clogged. The Port’s traffic has tumbled.
Bleagh. Not what I wanted to read right now.