The Nanite Invasion
a 50′s noire black and white film
it all began as dust, blown by the wind. Continue reading »
we all saw the silvery dust falling only onto the desert, it was televised everywhere.
we looked closer.
we saw tiny little silver machines being blown into the crevasses of the land.
there was a limited quantity of them. we examined them cautiously.
we knew, as a world, that they were not active. what were they?
a single one of them was so small. what could they do to us?
what did they want?
[Note:
This is a revised, up-dated and very much expanded
version of a sweries entitled "Mac Communitarianism"
that first appeared on the now deceased "MacOS
daily" site back in Feb. of 2000.]
In the last Continue reading »
Infinite Loop I looked at communities generally
and applied what I found to the Mac Community
specifically. In this article I continue on the
same lines but look at the myths and origins of
the Mac Community. I want to examine the role
of myth in creating communities generally and
the Macintosh Community in particular.
COZO SLEEVE
ACCESSORY POUCH
Company: Cozo LLC
Estimated Price: $19.95 (Sleve)
$27.50 sleeve+pouch)
http://www.cozo.com
Imagine a neoprene wet-suit for your iBook, and
you can visualize Cozo’s Sleeve. It comes in graphite
(gray), tangerine, or blue, just like iBooks. The sleeve
fits snugly over the computer’s shell, with an opening for the iBook’s famous handle. An attractive optional square light-silver zippered accessory case can contain a few CDs (or whatever your lifestyle and imagination require you to carry).
Because Cozo did not provide an iBook (ha!), I placed our ancient PowerBook 1400 inside the sleeve, and it fit nicely. Even without a handle, the Cozo Sleeve works well for cushioning a PowerBook while traveling.
Continue reading »
[Note: This is a Continue reading »
revised, updated and very much expanded version
of an article entitled "Mac Communitarianism"
that first appeared on the now deceased "MacOS
daily" site back in Feb. of 2000.]
The Mac-PC debate, whatever one Continue reading »
thinks of it, shares many elements of other debates
which fine minds have thought long and hard about.
These debates are very, very old, indeed, centuries
older than the Mac-PC debate obviously. But I
think what people have said about these old debates
is instructive for trying to understand the Mac-PC
debate. Specifically, people have throughout time
defined certain kinds of positions on the role
of reason in debate, and I think these positions
are seen in the Mac-PC debate.
One of the downsides of the Mac Continue reading »
Web, and web, is that things are not always tied
together. The same news story will run at various
sites but it is not often that one ties it together
with other related industry news, when in fact
there are such ties to be made. An issue pops
up one day and is gone the next day, and gone
forever. At most, an issue is carried on for a
few days, mostly at troubleshooting sites, as
software and hardware issues emerge and are solved.
This is the way it should be, of course. But as
a whole, the Mac Web lacks a certain “logic.”
What is worse, some single sites themselves lack
a logic.
My first girl friend was named Nicole. I was eight, she was nine. Unfortunately, she was not aware that I had bestowed this great honor upon her. But in my eight-year old mind, she was my girl friend, and that was that. Of course, the fact that she did not know was probably directly related to my fear of telling her.
I would lay awake for hours in bed, tossing and turning, sweating out a way to get to hold her hand. All I really wanted was to hold hands with her, even for a moment. Did she like me, the way I liked her? I figured if she would hold hands with me, then she did like me. If not, well, then she would just continue to be my girl friend, even if she did not know it.
Continue reading »
“When I was young the only way to get a buzz from the web was if your
PC had a lose wire”
You kids think you have it hard when you don’t have a gigahertz PC? Continue reading »
Ha. When *I* was young, I worked in a company with only two computers built from cardboard by Bozo CyberElectric. We had to hold the monitors by hand in front of our faces because there was no money for stands. The keyboards were painted on a slab of wood, and we had to imagine what the text would look like if they had worked. We had only one mouse to share, and we lived in horror of the day the cleaning lady might find it and kill it.
What is a western? Is it the cliche of a rider and his horse, a damsel in distress or the villain in black? What is it about western stories that keeps us enthralled, regardless of age? Perhaps it is a combination of the simplicity and harshness of life in that bygone era. We seem to be drawn to protagonists who have suffered and yet persevere. Examining the past may prove helpful in the present. Here is my version of a story of the old west.
The Present (1891) Continue reading »
The sunshine-encrusted mountains in south central Wyoming could have been a mirror of the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. The peaks were sharp and pointed, like shards of broken glass. They seemed eager to reach up into the heavens to touch or even surpass the serene wisps of cloud that drifted by. The mostly clear indigo sky was a painters palette ready for a sunset of colour. In the valley below, just west of Charlesburg, the dusty trail threaded its way through mesquite and boulders towards the horizon and Fort Laramie. Just below the farthest crest, a moving shadow could just be made out. A lone rider and his horse. At each step, gentle puffs of dust rose from the horses hooves and drifted lazily to the right. The horse, a beautiful pinto, lifted his legs proudly even as the rider slumped forward in obvious exhaustion.
Did you ever notice that when you’re alone in your car, looking for an address you have never been to, you always turn down the radio? Why? Are we afraid the music may cause our eyes to miss the house number?
(For married couples only) Why is it that when you take a bite out of something horrible, the first thing you say to your spouse is “Yuck! This is horrible! Taste this!” We can’t trust our own taste buds or something? Or are we simply looking for justification of the horrible taste? I think we simply want something to talk about later… “God, remember how BAD that Chicken was? UNG! So anyway, what’s on channel 8…?”
Continue reading »
Let’s pick up the tale of Nemo’s free SmallDog.com “My Mac iMac,” which began last month in issue #65. (publishers note: the “free” iMac is free only for John and other My Mac staff members, Small Dog Electronics is simply who I buy them from. Please don’t contact Small Dog hoping for free iMac’s.)
Tangerine Girl
Barbara and I spent the final hour of our California summer vacation at the splendid outdoor farmers market in affluent Santa Monica, just north of Los Angeles. Surrounded by endless carts of fresh, organic produce, our only complaint was not being able to buy enough fruit and veggies for another eleven months. Oh, well. We’ll be back next August.
Continue reading »
In early July, the following three intriguing messages appeared
on our local Tucson Mac Users Group online bulletin board:
Subject: The new Sprint connection
In case some of you haven’t heard, Sprint Broadband high speed wireless Internet service is now available in Tucson. The service covers most of the Tucson area, limited only by line-of-sight to the transmitter in the Tucson Mountains.
Connections are advertised at 1 MB/s max. download, 256 MB/s upload. Monthly price is $39/mo. You can keep your present ISP if you wish. Installation is free for a limited time. Equipment costs are from $99 to $199 depending on which plan you chose. Sprint web page is http://www.sprintbroadband.com if you want to check it out for more details or you can contact any of the following Tucson locations:
Continue reading »
Monsoon iM-700 Flat Panel Audio System
Company: Sonigistix
Estimated Price: $169.00
http://www.monsoonpower.com
Here in southern Arizona, the “monsoon” rains begin in July and continue through September, with their source in the warm waters off the coast of Mexico. Up in British Columbia, a different MONSOON originates: a stylish, powerful line of multimedia speakers perfect for your new iMac, iBook, and G4.
I heard about these flat panel systems when I was working on my coverage of the Benwin Flat Panel speakers over a year ago. A helpful reader reminded me to investigate further, and I’m glad to have persevered.
“Gorgeous” and “wow” is how visitors to my home office spontaneously rate the looks of the sleek, contemporary desktop satellite speakers. A louder “WOW” is exclaimed when listening to the sound of the system, including the big, black subwoofer sitting on the floor.
Continue reading »
SmartDisk VST USB/FireWire Ultra-Thin Hard Drive
Company: SmartDisk Corporation
Estimated Price: $399.95 – $999.95, depending on capacity
http://www.vsttech.com
Embedded in my brain is the memory of Steve Jobs holding up a pocket-size red portable VST drive at Macworld Expo a couple of years ago. The opportunities for archiving, backing up, and transferring files exploded with that announcement. The Ultra-Thin drive under consideration here is the latest, smallest, lightest, most versatile (and expensive) unit from SmartDisk Personal Storage Systems.
SmartDisk provided a 10GB/$499.95 drive for our review. Other drives in this series range from 5GB/$399.95 to 30GB/$999.95. If the smaller and larger capacity units perform as flawlessly as the one I’m evaluating, purchasers of these amazing products will consider them well worth the price.
Continue reading »
Rave parties are the latest rage, the 60′s rock festivals transplanted to the turn-of- the-century dance celebration. Ravers are typically mid-teen to late twenties oriented. The gatherings are usually large, sometimes running into the thousands. These dance music marathons can be fun, exciting and, if you are irresponsible, deadly.
My name is Rhonda Morgan. The first time I met Tom was 2:30 on a Sunday morning. It was at a rave party and most of the teenage dancers were not supposed to be there. Parents don’t understand these things. They get too caught up in the adverse publicity and notoriety of these rather clandestine, all night events. Because of my job, I attend regularly and enjoy the atmosphere, the music and the dancing. The mood of the rave is as much the music, with its throbbing bass beat, as it is the laser lights and the other-worldly look of streaking glow sticks.
Continue reading »
One Song. I have but one song,
one song only for you.
One heart tenderly beating,
ever entreating,
constant and true.
One Love, that has possessed me,
thrilling me through.
One Song my heart keeps singing,
one love only for you.
Some day when spring is here,
we’ll find our Love anew.
And the birds will sing,
and wedding bells will ring,
some day when my dreams come true.
In the public domain, 1985.
from Snow White, by Walt Disney, 1937.
Once in the country of Orange, on the western coast of a magic land there lived the Tin Knight. T.K. was his name. He was a godly and gentle man who loved a young maiden named Truth, from La-la land, whom he had courted and wed, and who lived with him in a little castle down the lane.
Continue reading »
I have been talking for some time Continue reading »
about the Web’s ability to break down barriers,
namely interpersonal barriers. I mentioned this
in the first part of this article series “The
Mac Web as Therapy.” And I have continued
to think about it since then. I am just a soul
looking for answers to the many questions I have.
One question is, “Why does the Web seem to
affect people like this?
Something has come to my attention Continue reading »
which I think may explain some of the things we
find on the Mac Web. Very simply, the Mac Web
seems to function as therapy for many. I see this
on several levels, but once we take it seriously
(and is there any other way to take it?), the
notion of the Mac Web as therapy makes a great
deal of sense. Of course, all therapy is a cure
for something, and the point here is to find out
what the Mac Web sures, if anything.
Comments. Be heard!
MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384