Hi everyone living on this splendid but ultimately endangered
planet!
Last week's Stevenote was the first one I missed in a couple of
years, but with hindsight I am quite satisfied that I was otherwise
occupied, as I probably would have thrown my iBook through the window
of my Queenstown (NZ) Hotel.
Again, the few people who use Macs professionally have been denied a
significant speed-bump (probably due to Motorola's chronic failure of
delivering the goods), those who use .mac addresses now can pay for
them, and I can shell out another $129 for "Jaguar" (at least they
didn't call it "Puma," as we all know what they smell like - ewww) to
finally get the speed we deserve.
I have been critical of OS X in the past, but I accept that it
has significant advantages to Classic, although speed was always a bit
of an issue on my 500 MHz
iBook. So now that Apple has finally got it right, I have to pay
again. Sigh.
Okay, they are throwing a couple of new applications and features in
as well, but I still have the slight suspicion that I'm getting ripped
off. It is obviously not enough that we are paying the highest hardware
cost in the business, now we even have to endure upgrade policies that
smell of William Gates III. Oh well.
Does it matter to us? Are we going to start using Windows, or, God
forbid, Linux on our Desktops (btw: OpenBSD is not Linux)? Of
course not, because Steve's reality distortion field is still strong
enough to make us all go to our local apple supplier (in my case, drive
120 km) to pick up 10.2 and drool over its new features. Oh well, I'll
stop moaning.
Let's do something different today: Let's plug a website!
For the last couple of weeks, I have been seeing myself becoming
helplessly drawn to the genial Everything2. A database with a
difference, it has an amazing 478,000 cross-referenced entries which
range from the obvious (towns, pubs, bands, definitions) to the
outright weird ("How
to Become a Fruitarian: After-Thoughts").
Nevertheless, it's a great place to hangout, as the place is
populated 24/7 and the software allows HTML chatting. Some of the
write-ups are clearly worth publishing, while some are clearly the
products of male adolescent minds - a bit like Low End Mac and SlashDot - but once it grabs you, it doesn't
let go.
Have a great summer everyone!
Cheers,
Dirk 
