For you slow pokes who have not yet upgraded to Leopard, my continuing experience might be of interest (then again it may not.) If you are a real slow poke you may not know that Leopard is Apple’s new generation operating system for the Mac line. My reference above to Vista is mostly tongue-in-cheek. Here’s what my log book says so far: Tried to upgrade my old iBook G4. The DVD spent a long time making reading noises but nothing seemed to happen. Waited about 4 hours. Then gave up. Couldn’t get the DVD out – the iBook continued to book back to the DVD. Called Apple. Got a barely trained tech on the phone that really annoyed me. Finally figured it out myself. Leopard doesn’t like getting installed on a 4 year old iBook with 256M of memory. Duh. Why didn’t it just say so? Next upgraded my 2 year old Mac G5 tower. Went, soup to nuts, with no hiccups at all. Wonderful. Next post: What’s different that matters in Leopard, at least to me.
Usually more on the bleeding edge than this, I decided to wait until now to upgrade my macs to Leopard which is the name of the new Mac OS X release. If anything interesting happens I will let you know. Hopefully nothing interesting will happen 🙂 Why does the Leopard update begins with an exhaustive and lengthy “checking of the DVD for consistency”? process? I haven’t heard much about DVDs getting mysteriously turned inconsistent. Maybe they are doing something else and just making up a more tolerable exuse for the 30 minute do-nothing delay. I have a 4 year old iMac G4 notebook. I wonder if Leopard will like it.
This is relevant to the discussion about congestion pricing, mesh networks and avoiding traffic jams, a topic that I am getting interested in as you could see from this previous post. [… snip] Now help is at hand. As satellite-navigation devices become more widely used, networking effects are making them more powerful. This is because vehicles themselves are starting to relay real-time traffic data—and he more that do so, the more accurate traffic information will become. [snip…] (from The Economist) Read the whole article and you will see that it’s more than just GPS devices that are being called to duty: cell phones as well as verbal reports can get integrated together into an overall picture of where the traffic is and how to avoid it.
I am starting to follow the world of mesh networks and things related to that. One immediate question that has popped up is: now that there are cell towers everywhere, what advantage might there be to creating a new national or global or mobile network based on mesh technology? I am just an ignoramus so far on this, but in that quest, I came across this article. “It was the first step in an initiative Verizon began last fall in an effort to open up its network to entrepreneurs interested in creating devices and mobile applications not sold through the company’s retail stores.” (from Verizon Details Its Open Wireless Plans) Does this allow the creation of a new class of device placed in homes or cars or what-not that uses the cell network as it’s backbone?
You know I follow the vagaries of computer voting machines, right? Here’s an interesting article about how one e-voting machine maker is trying to prohibit a researcher from studying the security (= trying to hack into) one of their machines: “Princeton Professor Edward Felten astonished Congress and increased doubts about electronic voting two years ago when he showed a House committee how easily he could open a Diebold touch-screen machine, insert new software and alter vote totals. Now, Sequoia Voting Systems, the other large voting-machine maker, has sent Felten an email suggesting legal action if he tries the same thing on its equipment.” (from the Wall Street Journal)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfWsfDweeM4&hl=en]I found my way onto Robin Chase’s blog, Network Musings. She writes about lots of stuff I am interested in. Starting with the top post right now, “Should Casinos Subsidize Car Travel?” where she says: “The Governor of Massachusetts has asked state legislators to seriously consider encouraging the building of several new large casinos in the state in order to raise revenues, the majority of which will be used for transportation shortfalls.” (from Network Musings) In the Youtube video, which is short and worth a listen, the bon mot: “Legalizing Casinos in Massachusetts […] is introducing a second addiction to pay for our first addiction: low cost driving”
I am constantly downloading applications and utilities off the web to try this or that out. I am as paranoid as the next guy so I do think about where this app came from and what havock it may or may not be planning. Still, I often will choose to ignore my most paranoid impulses and go ahead. I came across a story of such a utility which in addition to doing something useful for the user, was stealing passwords. It is altogether expected that this kind of thing is going on and still, it’s a chilling story. This is an excerpt this post from ReadWriteWeb: “…Wha...
List of Lists is an entertaining blog. He doesn’t post that often but when he does it’s usually interesting. Check out this post from A List of Lists: “[….]in keeping with A List of Lists factual theme I’ll try to shy away from United States government and The Bush Administration, and instead focus on George W Bush himself and so here are 25 facts about George W. Bush.[…snip] […snip] Fact #16. In the days immediately following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bush denied having received warnings about the possibility of floodwaters breaching the levees protecting New Orleans. However, the presidential videoconference briefing of August 28 shows Max Mayfield warning the president that overflowing the levees was “obviously a very, very grave concern.” (from: 25 George W. Bush Facts)
“The new image shows tan clouds moving away from the foot of a 700-metre slope, where dust and material made of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide have just tumbled down.” (fromNew Scientist) This is one of those times when a picture is worth 1,000 words 🙂
No less an authority as the Freakonomics dudes offer an article about “A Call Girl’s View of the Spitzer Affair” Read this Q & A and many more like it. “Q. Have you ever had a client as powerful or well-known as Eliot Spitzer? (You haven’t had Spitzer himself as a client, have you?) A. I have clients that are professional athletes,artists, and entertainers. They are probably better known, but obviously not as powerful. I don’t believe I have ever seen Eliot, or as I like to call him, Number 9.” (fromA Call Girl’s View of the Spitzer Affair)
Check out this post from Planet RubyOnRails: I doubt few of my readers have missed that Apple just released the iPhone SDK. How many read through the fine print? Bottom line is: If you want to sell apps for the iPhone you gotta give Apple 30%. Thirty percent!? Why?! Apple is making ridiculous money off selling the iPhone. The more apps the iPhone gets, the […] (from: tirsen: Apple doesn’t get it) Update from Pito : Seems like I jumped the gun a little. Such are the risks of blogging I guess. If you look at the ...
Sorry, but for some reason it seems that the cynics win out once more: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer…” (from The New York Times)
I agree with this post from Feld Thoughts: Overall, titles don’t (and shouldn’t) matter much in an early stage company, other than for helping people on the outside of the company understand who does what to whom. In my experience, the idea of a COO almost always muddies the water. (from: I Don’t Believe in COO’s)
An interesting post by Cringely, forseeing the imminent demise of most 350 social networks. This quote, only tangentially relevant is good, but you should read the whole post from I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS: ** "Marshall McLuhan argued that obsolete communication technologies survive as art forms. This is true, I’d say, for Morse code and movable type printing and perhaps even for your venerable Rolodex or typewriter. But it isn’t yet true for CB radio, nor for most Internet technologies. Maybe they aren’t old enough yet to be appreciated**. In the case of CB I think range of reception limits the possible population of players to something less than an artistic critical mass." (from: Antisocial)
Check out this funny post from The Dilbert Blog: A reader sent me a link to a story about a Japanese woman who was accused of kicking a hole in some guy’s door, crawling through the hole, and destroying his property. She was acquitted when the court realized that her breasts were too big to allow her to fit through the hole. (from: Right Up My Alley)
First it was Facebook, then (I think) it was Plaxo, then LinkedIn, and now MyBlogLog is offering me a way to publicize all the fascinating stuff I do on other sites. I dunno, there must be 100 other ones that do it too.Check out this post from ReadWriteWeb: “The smartly reorganized profiles let you look at an individual’s opt-in exposed activity on sites like Del.icio.us, Last.fm, YouTube and LinkedIn or click over to a view of all their friends’ recent activities as well. From yo...
Check out this very interesting 
“The new image shows tan clouds moving away from the foot of a 700-metre slope, where dust and material made of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide have just tumbled down.” (from 
Check out 