Robert Morris (1733-1806), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, helped save America from defeat in the Revolutionary War. He was the patriot who loaned George Washington $10,000 for the provisions needed at Valley Forge. At the time, there was no federal treasury.
In 1781, he became the first Superintendent of Finance, and formed the First National Bank. Seventeen years later, in 1798, he was arrested for debts resulting from land speculation around Washington D.C., and put in Debtors Prison. He was liberated with the passage of the National Bankruptcy Law in 1802.
Morris was a patriot, but we need to revisit our banking system of today. Banking is as unwise today, as he was then. The Savings and Loan bailout of the 1980′s was caused by the same type of land speculation that Morris bet on 200 years earlier. Interest is a way to manipulate the flow of money, and the stock market is now a global mechanism of speculation. It is a ponzi scheme, which hides under the guise of a system for supplying credit and capital. All of the winning is apparent, and short-lived.
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“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”– “Howard Beele” played by actor Peter Finch, in the classic movie “Network”.
Do you have an idiot warning system? I’ll bet you do, but don’t realize it. Let me tell you how mine is set up, and how I use it, with this “purely hypothetical situation”. I go into a chain drug store on a typical Saturday afternoon. I just need a few things, such as razor blades, toothpaste, some over-the-counter painkillers, (I’m a Tylenol man) and perhaps the latest issue of MacAddict or Macworld. I approach the lines at the register. Very quickly, I scan the people waiting in line in front of me. Most of the customers are male, and most are buying the same stuff. They either have their cash out already, or wallets at the ready.
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Five years ago I wroteabout my triumphant victory over the Windows masses at my school, which allowed for the purchase of 12 bondi blue iMacs. The machines have been a perfect example of high quality, sturdy construction, quiet operation, and only $50 in repairs. They have survived OS upgrades from 8.5 to 9.2 to 10.1 to finally 10.2. Unfortunately, they have also witnessed Apple’s falling market share at our school from twelve families to one. In addition, as my fellow staff members became computer literate they also developed a blind spot to Apple. As each year went by it became harder and harder to deflect and sway opinions. The final nail in the coffin happened at the beginning of October as I was informed that since my school’s entire technology budget comes from Intel volunteer matching funds that no additional money for the iMac lab was forthcoming. I would have to find financial support for the creation of a two or three eMacs for an iMovie studio outside of school resources. I had to ask myself some very difficult questions:
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The dictionary definition of the word “hosanna” is ‘a shout of fervent and worshipful praise’, or ‘to express praise or adoration of God.’ This is not something you are likely to hear in the West in regard to Osama bin Laden. But, to a great many people of the world, he is a hero.
He killed thousands of people, did billions of dollars worth of damage, sparked the war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and inspired or conspired many other attacks. Most people in the West are convinced that he is a madman and must be stopped. While I agree he must be stopped, we will never solve this problem if we view him as a madman. If he is viewed as a hero by others, we may catch him, but someone new will fill his role. His cause will not die with his last breath. Are we to assume all these people are madmen too?
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NetNewsWire
Company: Ranchero Software
Price: $39.95
http://ranchero.com/netnewswire
Everyone knows what a RSS feed is, well maybe not everyone. If you don’t know what an RSS feed is send me your home address and I’ll personally come kick you to death for being so out of touch. I’m joking, my knees feel like gravel in a Ziplock bag, I couldn’t kick an ant to death. The threat does illustrate a point, most computer articles assume you have a fairly good rapport with a computer. The implication is that on some level you understand the inner workings and the supposed benefits of this or that feature. This is a mistaken notion: Many folks don’t care to know the particulars of any one process they just want the thing to do something useful. Not a big demand to my way of thinking, but products that meet this criteria are fairly rare. So let’s take a look at a Mac add on that adds premium functionality with minimal fuss: NetNewsWire by Ranchero software.
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I have observed Microsoft for a long time now. My life seems forever to be moving further into isolation and despair. I am finally alone, living in the most obscure part of the desert. Why? I fear for the future. I fear for us all. I fear that Redmond will one day soon have all of the people of our planet completely in their control, or rather under the control of whoever controls them.
I wasn’t always like this. Once I had a normal life. But something about Redmond, and Mr. Gates, always bothered me. More horrifically, it was the way all my friends began to rigorously use Microsoft products, in spite of how bad it all was.
I somehow could not let it rest. I could not let it be. I began to investigate on my own, what it was that was happening to everyone, for when it came to anything Microsoft, everyone I knew acted like zombies. They still do.
I think I know why now.
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On November 4 CNN held its “Rock the Vote.” You know this from the (im)famous “Do you wear boxer or briefs Gov. Clinton?” question back in 1991. It is supposed to be for young people, college-aged and college-educated mostly (a built in bias from the start mind you) to get involved with politics. Recent poll by Pew, however, have found that modern college students are more politically active and interested than ever before. Yet, we all supposedly know that voter turn out is miserable in this nation. It is changing with the polarization brought about by the Clintons – being polarized brings strong feelings, so 50/50, right down the middle, equal armies, are at bay, and that’s where we are at, so, enraged, more people are voting. But people are voting more out of anger and against things, rather than voting out of a rational inquiry of the real issues and real people involved in any election. That’s what polarization does – it makes us dumb.
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Apple’s new upgrades to iTunes and iPod features incredible new options and now our Windows friends can enjoy the same functionality.
The announcement on Apple’s website for the Windows version of iTunes, read “Hell has finally frozen over” and millions of Windows users downloaded and enjoyed iTunes for the first time. As jaded as any hard-core music downloader can be, you still can’t deny that, for a free program, iTunes offers a lot of functionality not available anywhere else, for any price.
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HP Photosmart 435
Company: Hewlett-Packard
Price: $149.99
http://www.hp.com
I love doing product reviews. I like to think, while writing one, that I am actually talking to someone, telling them about the product in question. And as a reviewer, there are some companies whose products I love to review. Hewlett-Packard (HP)is one such company. I have had a long and happy relationship with every HP product I have used and reviewed over the last decade. So it saddens me when, after testing the HP Photosmart 435 digital camera, it came time to write this review.
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In the first half of this article I looked back on some of Apple’s best offerings, including products as diverse as ClarisWorks and the PowerBook 500 series. One of the nice things about Apple in recent years has been that most of their products have been good, and some very good indeed. There really haven’t been any real turkeys, though a few have been flawed in some way, for example the noisy G4 PowerMacs. Others have been unsuccessful rather than bad, the G4 Cube being the classic example of this: a machine that while well designed and constructed simply didn’t have a large enough market to be a particularly profitable or long-lived product. The current iMac and iBook lines in particular include some of the most strikingly attractive consumer-level computers yet produced, yet tote enough power under the hood to be attractive to small office users too. They are, in short, great all-rounders that stack up well against comparably priced Windows PCs.
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So many people today worry and worry about Identity Theft. No one, it seems is safe. As a public service, I would humbly share my own experience in how to safely avoid Identity Theft. This is a foolproof method and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to ensure that no one steals their credit and ruins their good name. A surprising by-product of all this is a fantastic savings in good hard cash that no longer will go to pay those high interest fees that a good credit rating costs everyone year by year.
How did I secure my identity from theft by felons and credit thieves?
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Norton Internet Security 3.0
Company: Symantec Corporation
Price: $129.95
http://www.symantec.com
In the movie Marathon Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Lawrence Olivier, the evil Nazi dentist, played splendidly by Olivier, keeps asking Hoffman’s character, “is it safe…is it SAFE?”
Many malicious hackers, crackers, and script kiddies who lurk the Internet are asking your computer virtually the same question: “Are you safe?”
If the answer is “No” then you may have a serious problem. Continue reading »
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MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384