Things like this make me wonder how long Apple is going to keep making and selling computers and an operating system. It’s quite clear that they’re moving their focus elsewhere, particularly if you look at how much money they make from iPods and the iTunes store. It won’t surprise me one bit when they decide that they can increase their profits dramatically by getting rid of that silly computer division and selling generic Chinese-built PCs with the Apple logo on them, running a lightly customized version of Microsoft’s current OS. read more

This is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen in awhile. I spotted it in a catalog that arrived today, but (of course) the catalog has a website.

Suppose for a second that you actually thought these were cool things to wear. Aren’t there all sorts of practical difficulties? For instance, what if you wear them to a place that you frequent; aren’t people going to wonder how you got all that work done since last Saturday night? Or suppose you wear them the first time you visit an establishment, then go back without them after you realize how stupid they are? “What happened to your tattoos?” Or suppose you forget which one goes on which arm, and someone notices that your tattoos switched arms? These things clearly create way more problems than they solve. read more

There’s an interesting article here about why purchasing food from local sources may be more important than purchasing organic food (important in terms of sustainable agricultural and economic systems, fighting the Wal-Mart syndrome, etc.). I’ve been meaning to mention here that the farmer’s market near us opened recently. This will be the third season we’ve enjoyed its presence; once again we’ll buy our (organic and local) lettuce, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, broccoli, basil, spinach, and probably some stuff I’m forgetting (kale! carrots!) from there until late October. Here are the vendors we purchase from: read more

Okay, yes, I’m beating this one into the ground, but to me it epitomizes how Apple chooses flashy looks and bullet-item-ready quasi-features over good design and usability. Chris discovered recently that the store from which he buys his Apple stuff (not an official Apple Store, but one of the endangered Apple dealers) gives all of their Mac-buying customers a Microsoft optical mouse because experience has taught them that otherwise the customer is going to come back in a couple of weeks with their dead Mighty Mouse in hand. read more

There’s a music video here by Sarah McLachlan that rather poignantly illustrates how a relatively small amount of money can make a huge difference in the lives of many people. If you’ve ever wondered whether donations to charitable causes actually make any difference, well, here’s your answer.

12708Robert Rich played a concert in Lafayette, which is just outside of Boulder, on May 12. Sadly the show was badly under-promoted so only a small number of people attended. (Hint to would-be concert promoters: if you want radio stations to help with promoting your show, you need to contact them about a month in advance, rather than on the day of the show.) Robert put on a fine show anyway. It was a treat to see him perform live after listening to his CDs for so many years. It was also great to get a few minutes to chat with him both before and afterwards. I always enjoy talking to him; I wish I had more opportunities to do so. read more

This is sad: Silicon Graphics has filed for bankruptcy. It’s not really surprising since they’ve been in trouble for awhile, but it’s still sad to see a once-cutting-edge company go down in flames. I wonder how many movies I’ve seen that have CGI rendered on SGI machines.

In my posting of initial impressions about the Intel iMac, I went on at some length about how awful the Apple Mighty Mouse is. I promptly replaced mine with a vastly superior Microsoft mouse, but Chris kept using his. Today he told me that the scrolling ball on his has died altogether, after acting unreliably since a week or so after he started using it. As he observed when it started acting up, there’s no way to clean the scrolling ball. Since anyone who’s old enough to remember using mice before they had optical tracking knows, mouse balls get dirty and have to be cleaned. (That’s one reason why optical mice were invented and took over the market.) The ball in Chris’s mouse finally got gunked up enough that it no longer works.
Chris received his iMac in Feburary, so that means his mouse failed after about three months of daily use. That’s not very impressive; I have mice that are still going strong after years of daily use. read more

The former owner of my house didn’t keep up with the exterior maintenance as well as she should have. As a result, much of the siding is deteriorating. Last year we had the worst parts on the front of the house and the garage replaced. Partly because we’ve kind of given up on finding people to hire to work on the house we decided to replace the remaining siding on the front of the house ourselves. We started Saturday morning; it’s now Sunday evening and we’re about 3/4 of the way done, aside from the painting. read more