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Roger Born's Blog
SUN, SHINE & PICKLE - 10.28.09 6:52 am
ONCE UPON A TIME there were The Three Stupids* (*Shhh! We can't use their real titles because they are certainly, most likely, and very probably Copyrighted, Trademarked, or Worse. We'd be in a Stew, if we did. "'Ged' you get it?")
(Ahem)
Once upon a time there were these Three Stupids, who, by alone by themselves were a bit deficient in the Department of their Mentalities, but when they interact together, could just about accomplish Anything, in a very surprising way (even to making us Laugh). 'Sun' is the brightest of these Dim Bulbs, and always threatening the other two. 'Shine' is the middle one, not given the Best Lines, but always managing to help Screw Things Up. 'Pickle' is our Favorite, who, with grunts and verbal sound effects, employs deft Physical Humor, and is the Most-Imitated-Of-Them-All, (Soit-anly).
Our story involves three sets of Characters.
The First Set are three 'Gentlemen' who are put in charge of Something Quite Miraculous. Who put these Guys in charge of Something So Valuable? Who knows? It’s always a mystery. (Idiots!) Anyway, these Fellows are not capable of doing anything trustworthy. If there is a way to screw it up, these Three will immediately zero in on it and do exactly that, (but of course in a very stupid and funny way). Their costumes can vary, from white-and-black checkered shirts, with apron overalls, and straw hats, to prim-buttoned-up-uniforms, three sizes too small or too big.
The Second Set are three Bad Guys, bent on stealing and/or completely wasting/losing whatever Something Miraculous they happen to be after. If there is a way to squander Something, this Trio will get right to it, oblivious to the Real Value of whatever they are after, (again, in a very stupid and funny way). Their costumes are always rather seedy Black suits, with oversized or undersized Black Hats, (with-or-without mustaches).
The Third Set is the Something Precious. (When not played by a Hauser), it consists of three Random Elements, quite useless by themselves, but when combined together, prove to be Quite Amazing. There is almost an Angelic Aire about these Elements when they come together, that completely transcends Humor and Slapstick, Entertainment and Comedy (of which this story is supposed to be about). Their costumes are oversized angel robes, obviously in white, (with-or-without Halos and/or Wings).
The Setting of our story could be a Vault, a Hideaway, a Train, a Bus, or a Transport, (Setting doesn't matter to the Story, since it is just the varying and interchangeable Venue for the Comedy, but its variation allows us opportunity to sell the Public a long Series of same-plot-different-prop Stories, Movies, Videos).
Of course, our venerable Readers are all quite Intelligent, so even though you might have a desire to take notes, resist the idea, because this is all far simpler than it appears, and there is less here that meets the eye, (and The Three Stupids play all three Sets of characters, but of course you knew that, right?)
(Aw, Shucks!)
Anyway, in our Story, the 'Gentlemen' are placed in charge of precisely One Mile of Something Valuable. They are to guard it with their very lives. It is in the form of a Rope that can Save-the-World, Win-the-War, and/or Carry-us-all-into-the-Future, (and the Setting this time happens to be a Train, BTW). So they string the Rope out through the cars of their conveyance, thinking that nobody could take all of it, if there did happen to be any Thieves about.
Of course they forgot that they were told that In No-Uncertain-Terms that the Rope May-Not-Be-Cut. Otherwise, it will immediately fall into its three Elements and be Lost Forever.
And, for the benefit of our Audience, (and to fill time), in the process of laying out the Rope, they employ Slapstick, hilariously bumping heads, poking eyes, juddering their behinds on the rushing track below, falling between the cars, and generally getting mashed, mangled, and even worse; getting yelled at by their self-appointed Boss, (the Bright One), who never really employs any real swear words, (for some odd reason). There may-or-may-not-be hapless By-Standers, who also manage to get mashed/tangled/mangled with-or-by our Trio.
Having accomplished their objective, our erstwhile Heroes then immediately and conveniently fall asleep in a heap, in the lead car of the Train, right by a large, handy baggage door.
Little do they know that there are Bad Guys lurking around in the engine or forward baggage car of the on-rushing Train.
The Bad Guys go right to work, throwing the still sleeping Trio off the Train, and they quickly begin to roll up the Rope to the back of the Train, (and in the process go through a variation of Slapstick, with a repeat of the BH, PE, JB, FB, and GYA, with-or-without the hapless Stand-Ins).
But, their Plan to throw the Something Valuable off the Train, in order to go back and pick it up later, is foiled, because one of them (who cares which one), snags the end of the Rope at the end of the last car, and the Something Valuable falls into its various Elements and is Lost Forever. They are so distraught that they do not notice the Bridge Is Out, (which-they-disabled, and forgot-that-they-did-so), and they and the Train go off the End into the Chasm (with-or-without an explosion and sound-effects). Note: Not before all the Extras jump off the Train. . . . Next Note: No, the Bad Guys did not die. (No one dies in these things.) And are seen sitting on top of the Train Wreckage, moaning over their minor hurts. We need them for the next Story, after all.
So, the Something Valuable is completely Lost, and Forever? (Insert Chin Whimpers Here.)
Certainly not! (What Kind of Story do you think this is?)
The Rope is revealed to be countless numbers of three Elements, who find themselves scattered across the countryside. So what do they do? Why, they each begin to find the other, three at a time, (cute little Angelic guys that they are). Linking arms and smiling, they are determined to save each other, and in the process their desire to Bond quickly becomes an overwhelming one of Friendship, Commonality and Destiny, as they morph back into the Rope, (Cue the Sun! - always wanted to say that).
Meanwhile, the 'Gentlemen,' who were thrown from the Train, wander back along the Rail, despondent. But soon they are very Happy, discovering the Rope has reassembled itself, and All Is Well, as they carry the Rope together Into The Sunset, to a Happy Tune, (played on a Kazoo).
Fade to Black.
.
.
.
.
(Why was it again, that we LOVE to watch these guys?)
.
.
(You know, we could easily Ramp All This Up, with wading through rivers of alligators, hanging by fingertips from cliffs, and running through fire, hail storms, and/or fields of lava, but then they would have to call it 'Ohio Jim' and his Two-Hangers-On, or some such Thing, right?)
.
.
(Of course, I'd prefer if they would add a feminine Character, with lots of screen time, such as Heddy Lamar, Rita Hayworth, or Marilyn Monroe, but then (you'd Hope) they'd have to make it a series of Road Shows. Say It Ain't So.) Note: No, there seems to be no modern 'actresses' who are as glamorous as these mentioned, (or who can even act, not that That is ever a Requirement).
.
.
(What? There was never any "Angelic Characters, or Redeeming Theme" in any of The Stupids movies? That's not my fault. True Humor should have some of that. See L & H's movies, to see what I mean. Or B.K., or some of C.C.s later works - not the M.B.s)
.
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Oh well, this is your Storyteller, wishing you happy dreams and pleasant days, until Next Time, (Couldn't they at least trashed some of the props, or the whole set, or something?).
Regards,
Roger, the Born
"Learn to play the Kazoo"
Sorry. No Refunds.
"Blame it all on the Meds"
Void Where Prohibited.
Your Mileage May Vary.
(War's "Cisco Kid" plays)
Film at 11.
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FRANK - 10.23.09 4:42 pm
I pulled up to the car, looking it over. It was the black Altima, dirty and not driven for a while. "Not around, obviously." I got out of my car, blocking the path from the parking space the car was in, and walked around to peer inside the car. Trash, used and discarded paper cups and meal sacks was all I could see. I wanted a notebook with addresses or something. I had to find that.
I got back in my car, ready to pull away. I had not looked around at all, so I never noticed the brown little car parked next to the Altima. When I moved a few feet, this car pulled forward and bumped into mine. Hard. I stopped to get out, barely having room to open my door. The sheet metal behind my left wheel was crumpled. The front end of the old brown Toyota was barely touched.
The driver got out. He was a small man, balding, with a paunch. Even his clothes seemed old. He had a friend, someone big, with a menacing aire about him. The little man spoke, "You know where Frank is?"
"I kind of thought you might be looking for him too." I said, "Seeing you got my attention so quickly." I decided not to let the bent sheet metal mean anything to me. This was not the guy to I wanted to talk to about it. "No, I don't know where he is. I want to find him, though. He owes me big time."
The little man smiled. "You too? How much?"
"Five big ones."
"Same here. Ed here only is into him for a couple. Frank is not trustworthy, you know that, right?"
"So I figured."
"You know what he looks like?"
"No. You?"
"No. I met him on the Internet. No one seems to know much about him or where he is."
"I got a number. Want it?"
"No. I got it too. Just a cell phone in Nome, with a repeating message. My friend Joe went there. It was hooked up to a desk in a trailer. Nobody seen the man for months. Joe's into it for ten.
"Ten thousand? How many people are in this thing?"
"Would you believe 4500 souls? I got a place right here. A rented trailer. Come on in. I will get us somsthing to eat and drink. Sorry 'bout your car. I'm Earl."
"I'm Roger. Forget the car. I want Frank as much as you do. You are the first I've met in this farce."
Earl winced. "Don't call it a farce. I plan to get my money back, plus all the interest he promised."
"Yeah, I know. Millions of bucks worth."
We were on the outskirts of a small town in Nebraska. I didn't even bother to remember the name once I got there. I had been following this too long, and now it was a dead end.
"Maybe we ought to check the Bahamas, You know?" I said, "At least it would be a better place than this to spend looking. Frank has to have a couple of million of our dough. That's where I would go if I were him."
I followed Earl and Ed to their trailer. There was not even a park. Just a few rentals behind some construction firm. Next door to his place was a cement truck. The ground was mostly clay, white from cement dust everywhere. Depressing.
Inside was not much different. Old, sparce furnishings. No TV. Night was approaching. I would miss my shows. I had my iPhone, so I could watch them, but I was not about to reveal I had one to these guys. I quietly turned off the ringer in my coat pocket.
There was a girl there. Actually a woman, a bit past her prime. She had a pushed-in face that made sad what could have been beautiful. Her breasts were small. Nothing there, it seemed.
"This is Elaine. Say hello to Roger here, Elaine." Her smile was sweet. I nodded and smiled in return, but not too long or too big. Whose girl was she?
Ed went back out, presumably for pizza or something. No one took any orders. I could have used some TexMex, but I was way too far North and East for such things here. Probably get dull hamburgers on too big buns, with cold fries and no ketchup. Elaine brought me coffee. Not too hot, black. I nodded thanks and sat down on the only chair left in the room.
The kitchen was a counter on one end, with a hallway to bedrooms and a bath, likely. We all sat on cheap dinning chairs on the other end of the room. There were dusky drapes on windows on three sides of the room. The wall wascovered in dull maple panelling. There was a single bare bulb in the ceiling that lit the room.
Ed came back sooner than I thought he might, with a large black sachel. He laid it on the floor. In it were rifles, a shotgun, some machetes and a few pistols, with boxes of ammo. I considered that my chances of living just got shorter.
Earl said, "Don't worry. This is not for you. It's for Frank, if we find him. I didn't want it to stay in the car, is all. Ed likes to take them out and clean them. He's always doing that. Pay it no mind."
I tried not to look relieved, but I let my breath out slowly, so they'd not notice. I hate when things take a left turn, over what I figure them to be.
Elaine took my cup and filled it again. We watched Ed clean a rifle. He was expert at it. I was wondering how I could extracate myself from all this, when Earl said he was hungry. He spoke to the air, but Elaine got her coat and went out. There was a space on the kitchen wall for a small stove and fridge, but the space was packed with stacks of boxes. Every meal here was take-out.
"How long you been looking? I asked Earl.
"Three years next month. I got fed up with all the emails explaining why our money was not getting to us yet. You know the drill."
"Yeah, three times now we been promised anonymous credit cards in the mail. I paid for mine for the third time, from a bank in Australia. When it came there was no money in it, I took up the trail. He started in Alabama, I got good leads from his neighbors, all of which had heavily invested in his venture too. From there, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, California, Washington, and here to Nebraska. I put an ad in the local paper to see if anyone had invested in him here. Nothing, though."
"All the banks he talks about do exist. I been to one of them in Majorca. They say he has money there for the club, but I never got to verify any of it. I waited there a month for him to show, but he did only wire transfers. His money, our money, goes across the world in wire transfers, which take months to process. Frank said it was to protect us, so the Feds would not get it all. Half the time I believe in him, even now." Earl shook his head.
"You mind if I got get some smokes or something?" I sood up, suddenly getting the idea that this might get me out of here.
Ed spoke up. "I'll go with you. I need some lighter fluid." So much for my escape. We went. The liquor store was close by. I had to buy a pack, since I had said that was what I was wanting. I hadn't smoked in a while, so this was not a good thing. We came back.
There was pizza in a box on the kitchen counter. Paper napkins were our plates. It was plain, but good. Pepperoni, only the way it is never made in New York or Chicago. Elaine had a slice but stood by herself by the kitchen, rather than join us men.
I tried to keep my eyes to myself, since doing otherwise might get someone angry. After the meal, I went outside with Earl and Ed to smoke. I did good, not coughing at all. Those cancer sticks stank up my face, hands and clothes. Oh well.
"What are your plans?" I asked.
"We keep going. But I am not sure where. You?"
Keeping my composure, I decided to be truthful. "I just don't know. Perhaps I'll wait to hear from the man again, on email. Then I will know where to look."
"Good idea. Elaine's got a netbook somewhere in the trailer. You can use it if you want. She won't mind. She uses it to watch her soaps and AGT. She gets me email to read whenever it comes in. I haven't gotten any for a week now."
"This is what I don't get about Frank. Why string us along? He got our money years ago. Why didn't he disappear? Is he really trying to get us our refunds and interest money?"
"That's the whole thing about this I don't understand. Apart from paying $70 for new cards, he never asks for more money. What is the point to keeping us in the loop otherwise?"
"Maybe he has a conscience. Maybe he wants to help us, but just can't get it together. What are you going to do when you find Frank?"
"I just want my money back. The original amount. I don't care if I ever get the rest. It probably doesn't exist anyway."
"You think you will get it?"
"Yeah. If I find him. I can be persuasive if I need to be."
I supressed a shudder. "Good luck with it, Earl."
Earl came over and shook my hand. "You can stay here tonight if you want. Me and Ed are going out to a bar. We'll be back later. If you ain't here, that is fine too. Good luck to you as well."
"I'll leave you my email address, so you can check on how I am doing as I look for Frank. I can send you any leads I find." I said. I sincerely meant that, but I was suprised to feel that way. These guys were scary.
They drove off in their little brown car. I contemplated what was next. This was too easy. I went inside. Elaine was sitting on a chair with her netbook in her lap. She smiled at me. I could see that I could have her if I wanted. She was that kind of girl. But that would not be a kindness for either of us. I simply took another slice of pizza and took my leave. She handed me a note, which told of her desire to make it on AGT. I was supposed to watch for her there next month. I wished her well and left.
Back on the road, I thought about it all. Did I just have a close call, and almost become roadkill? Were those guys really going to do that to Frank?
I had other thoughts too. Earl was rather young, but he looked a few weeks past his expiration date. You know, the 'best used by' date. You can tell people past their date. No matter what they do, they will never do what they could have done when they were young enough. They are already all they are going to be. I thought about it. The only people I knew were past their expiration date. Depressing. Probably because I felt years beyond my own date.
People past that date are easy. They all have a desperate dream. Give them a hook to hang that dream on, and they will give you anything you ask. But most of these kinds of people are lazy. They'd rather cast their hopes on someone else to bring them their dream. Working for it for themselves is just too hard. That's where I come in. I have a lot of great hooks to hang your dream on.
Which is why I was looking for my old car. I did want that notebook. Where was it? Boy, I am glad I didn't have the keys to that car. How close was I to buying the farm back there? There wasn't that much in it I even wanted. I should not even be here in this sad place. I should take my own advice and move to the Bahamas.
Paying those two off would have only cost me seven grand. It would barely make a dent in what I had. I thought about leaving it for them somehow, but no; it wouldn't be fair to all the others, and I no longer had enough to do them all.
You know, even though I lost a lot of it, I sincerely do want to give it all back. There is this guy I know online. His name is Yeoman. I got to hook up with him. He has the neatest idea about how to make money you ever heard . . .
.
Quarterly Earnings Are In - Apple Is Doomed - 10.20.09 1:14 am
(Got to make this short. I have to keep moving. They are just a couple of steps behind me.)
As you all know, everyone has been saying that Apple is doomed, and sure to die any time now. Just look at their latest corporate earning report that was released today. The numbers are horrible, of course. What else could they be?
"CUPERTINO, California—July 21, 2009—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 third quarter ended June 27, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.3 percent, up from 34.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter’s revenue. ... Apple sold 2.6 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a four percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhones sold were 5.2 million, representing 626 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter."
Yep. Seven percent decline. It means they are going down. There is no way they can keep this up, right?
Renowned GIZMODO agrees with this: "Apple just sold more Macs and iPhones than ever before: 3.05 million Macs and 7.4 million iPhones. iPods, doomed that they are, are still dying. But, Steve promises "some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010." Of course he does. What else can he say?
The ever optimistic COO Tim Cook tried to spin the numbers to show that they are fine and not going under anytime soon. "Apple "feels very good about suiting up against anyone" since they've got 85,000 apps. ~ Frankly, I think people are still just trying to catch up with the first iPhone 2 years ago." But all that means that he is just desperate, and has to say things like that, to cover up the gloom.
GIZMODO continues, "$9.87 billion was the second highest revenue ever, next to last Christmas season. ... Mac's growing 17 percent, while the rest of the market only growing at 2 percent. Laptops are over 74 percent of Macs sold. Desktops are dead ... Most educational Macs shipped ever ... Half of Macs sold in Apple Stores still sold to first-time Mac buyers. ... Snow Leopard upgrade box sales double Leopard's at release ... 10.2 million iPods sold, down from 11 million a year ago (down 8 percent). iPod touch sales were up 100 percent though, showing, again, where the growth is ... 50 percent of recent iPod buyers were buying their first iPod. They've still got 70 percent of the MP3 player market. ... 7.4 million iPhones. Half a billion app downloads (this quarter alone)."
You see, Apple's desktop lines are dead, and their iPod sales are way down, and besides, do not pay attention to those other numbers. Numbers can mean anything, right?
So its true. Apple is definitely on the way out.
Told you.
Regards,
Herbert P. Zumwalter, Minister of Computing, 4th District.
"No matter what you do, you will never get out of this alive."
"Conform. We are watching you."
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THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AUTHORS - 09.30.09 5:29 am
THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AUTHORS OF ALL TIME
Following in the vein/venue/media of TBTTSOAT, here is a comprehensive list of the best Science Fiction Authors of all time. Obviously, this list will anger some and please others. Some will even find names here that they are unfamiliar with. Every effort has been taken to give you a list that is innate to your world, so that you do not spend time looking for someone or something that doesn't exist (elsewhen or elsewhere). Clicking on any link (underlined) will take you elsewhere without having to leave here. These first links are bios.
THE LIST (Alphabetical)
CHRISTOPHER ANVIL
ISAAC AZIMOV
ROBERT HEINLEIN
KEITH LAUMER
LARRY NIVEN
JAMES SCHMITZ
A. E. VAN VOGT
H. G. WELLS
(I said it was a list of the best, right?) You may wish to add more to this list yourself, or email me some ''instructive criticism'' to help me make my list more complete. Knock yourself out. Since I live elsewhen, I am rather immune to letter-bombs, spells and such like. You may, however, EMAIL me with all the vindictive vitrol you can muster. I do enjoy those. Or you can reflect that the list I provide here really is complete.
Notice that there is a name on this list that is rather new to me (KL). Contrary to any rumors, I am not infallible, only seemingly so. Therefore I am not above editing my list when someone really, really good comes to my attention. After all, I cannot be everwhere in every universe and everywhen in any timeline, can I?
Send me your revision of this list, or any person you wish to add. I am not Simon Cowell, after all. I might even read what you send me.
THE COMPLETE LIST OF BOOKS BY THE BEST AUTHORS
ISAAC AZIMOV
CHRISTOPHER ANVIL
ROBERT HEINLEIN
KEITH LAUMER
LARRY NIVEN
JAMES SCHMITZ
A. E. VAN VOGT
H. G. WELLS (All his books are in the Public Domain, since Copyright only lasts 50 years)
LIST OF THE BEST FREE ONLINE SCI FI BOOK SOURCES
http://freesfonline.de/
http://www.sffworld.com/authors/
http://www.davidbdean.com/2006/07/27/5-excellent-places-to-find-drm-free-science-fiction/
http://www.scifimatter.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=73
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/library/classic_scifi.shtml
http://listverse.com/2007/10/25/10-free-science-fiction-books-online/
http://listverse.com/2007/10/25/10-free-science-fiction-books-online/
http://www.free-ebooks.net/?category=Sci-fi%2520Fantasy
http://educhoices.org/articles/Online_Libraries_-_25_Places_to_Read_Free_Books_Online.html
http://www.bartleby.com/fiction/
http://www.scifislacker.com/scifi-portal/scifi-sites/gp9.htm
ALSO FREE BUT ILLEGAL IN MOST UNIVERSES
http://www.ahashare.com/torrents-details.php?id=22772
THE REST OF THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AUTHORS
All Right. Just so someone doesn't have an apoplectic fit, I am including ALL of the authors known in your timeline and universe, From Asprin to Zelazny (plus a few not-so-great others, IMO). This list starts with the rest of the best and goes elsewhere. Naturally, several of these lists include pell mell the best of this list. Some people have no sense of history, obviously (or sense of the rightness and fitness of things).
WARNING: THESE LINKS MAY NOT WORK IN EVERY UNIVERSE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
http://www.mymac.com/userinfo.php?id=John%20Martellaro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisław_Lem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/06/mind-meld-guide-to-international-sff-part-i/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_writers
http://www.scifi.darkroastedblend.com/2009/02/ultimate-guide-to-modern-writers-of.html
http://www.sfsite.com/scribe/scribe01.htm
http://www.sffworld.com/authors/fiction/sf.html
NOW ARE YOU HAPPY?
Regards, and be sure to write.
Roger Born
"Sorry, No Refunds"
"Out of my mind. Back in five minutes"
Void where prohibited
Your mileage may vary
Film at 11
ps, you can read all my science fiction (rather decent Mac fiction, actually) here at this website you are now on. I seem to have been placed in their Archives. Fancy that.
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THE BEST TIME TRAVEL STORIES - 09.23.09 7:29 pm
THE BEST TIME TRAVEL MOVIES/BOOKS/STORIES OF ALL TIME
I know. It is very hard to talk to someone in the past. This website's blog section seems to be one of the few links that work for doing so. Therefore, I am sending you this article, written by me a long time ago, concerning TIME TRAVEL. Is time travel possible? Sure, it is. But it never works out the way you think, and there are always cusps that come back to bite you in a place you don't want to be touched. In the end (at the beginning) you have to decide if its all really worth it or not.
You can reach me too. Its easy. Just post your query/comment in the New York Times Classified sectiion on the first day of any month, addressed to Roger Born. I will see these in the archives of the paper, for I have an old copy of all that here on a memory Quebe. I will answer you too, so that by the time you return to this article, you will find your answer already added to the text here. Of course the article will have changed a bit, since the way it was will no longer exist. But that is as it should be. Your life should work like that, but there are no do-overs allowed, even in your time. Sorry.
Ahem. Here is the (current to your era) list of the best time travel books and movies. Sorry, I cannot include new works that are forward of your time. If I did, you would be frustrated and confused by what I am talking about, and any exchange of information between time eras is likely to be a disruptive as an actual visit. Therefore I am NOT going there (have not gone there). Here is the list of works you already know about, which I am sure is able to cause you no end of angst all by themselves (why did he put THAT in this list?).
Oh well, Enjoy!
THE BEST TIME TRAVEL MOVIES/BOOKS OF ALL TIME (void after January, 2010)
H. G. Wells THE TIME MACHINE
None of the movies ever approached the greatness of the book.
R. A. Heinlein TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE
The writer gets it right concerning the time travel device and the yarn it spins.
Keith Laumer DINOSAUR BEACH
In the vein of Van Vogt and Mickey Spillane. Highly entertaining book. OOP
R. Matheson SOMEWHERE IN TIME
The movie, not the book is memorable. The time travel device is amazing.
H. Ramis GROUNDHOG DAY
The device is never explained, but the movie is wonderful. Warning: The content changes after repeated viewings.
J. Cameron TERMINATOR (I and II)
High tension pacing, exacting plot, flawless acting and glorious special effects.
S. Carruth PRIMER
A relatively unknown film that is probably the most realistic time travel movie ever.
12 MONKEYS
One of Bruce's best acting jobs, and a great portrayal of how time travel works.
FINAL COUNTDOWN
Very underrated, but a fun movie, in which the viewer comes to realize how the present came to be.
TIME RIDER
Time travel on a two-wheeled conveyance, with a bit of the Old West thrown in.
TIMESCAPE
The content of this movie no longer exists. See it while you can.
THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT
This one really happened. Sorry, I wasn't supposed to say that [EDIT THIS].
TIME COP
Sometimes you can go home again. But if you never left, it wouldn't it still be the same?
Ken Grimwood REPLAY
Time travel by heart attack. Good story (recommended by my old boss, Tim)
FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR
Never mind this is Disney. It will be remade, but it is an excellent time travel movie, nonetheless.
STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT
Nothing works in this movie, and the paradoxes never are fully examined or even mentioned.
TIME BANDITS
Fun. A healthy dose of God into the equation never hurts, and it explains a lot.
TIME AFTER TIME
a sleasy bloody kill-fest comedy set in the 1980s. What's not to love?
THE RETURNERS
Very underrated, but also extemely inventive with a great resolution.
THE LAST MIMZY
This one actually happened too, but that is something you likely won't believe anyway. Never mind.
MILLENNIUM
Being filmed in the 1980s was enough to almost kill this excellent story.
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
This one shows all the rotten things that can happen when you time travel, regardless of the best of intentions.
ALTERNATE LIST FOR THOSE WHO DON'T LIKE THE FIRST ONE
Time After Time
Time Bandits
The Langoliers
Time Cop
Clockstoppers
The Time Machine
Groundhog Day
12:01
Just Visiting
My Science Projec
t
Run, Lola, Run
La Jette
Replay
Primer
Butterfly Effect
Lake House
Premonition
Next
Timeline
Bender's Big Score
The Last Mimzy
HTML LIST OF MJY's LINKS TO TIME TRAVEL MOVIE SITES.**
Terminator
Addendum to Terminator
Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines
Back To The Future
Back To The Future II
Back To The Future III
Millennium
Star Trek Introduction
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: First Contact
12 Monkeys
Addendum to 12 Monkeys
Flight Of The Navigator
Army of Darkness
Lost In Space
Peggy Sue Got Married
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Frequency
Planet of the Apes
Kate and Leopold
Somewhere In Time
The Time Machine
Minority Report
Happy Accidents
The Final Countdown
Donnie Darko
Deja Vu
Time After Time
Time Bandits
The Langoliers
Time Cop
Clockstoppers
The Time Machine
Groundhog Day
12:01
The Philadelphia Experiment
Disney's The Kid
Black Knight
Just Visiting
My Science Project
Run, Lola, Run
La Jette
Primer
Butterfly Effect
Lake House
Premonition
Next
Timeline
Bender's Big Score
The Last Mimzy
LINKS TO MJYs TIME TRAVEL RESOURCES (from our pride and joy)
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/science.html
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/timeprim.html
**MJY used to be a popular website, for as long as it existed. It has some great links and insights in your time, however. It never got updated much, because the young man who ran it was almost never around. He was too busy living all of it, and almost never came home. (MJY is my son, along another timeline, which is why I wanted to include him here. PS don't tell him I said so.)
EXCELLENT ADDITIONAL LINKS TO TIME TRAVEL BOOKS AND MOVIES (are you sure you have time for this?)
http://www.timetravelreviews.com/movies_list.html
http://www.toptenz.net/top-ten-time-travel-movies.php
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/time.html
http://www.UltimateTimeTravel.com/?cat=5
REGARDS, AND BE SURE TO WRITE
Roger Born
"sorry, no refunds"
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana"
Void where Prohibited.
Your mileage may vary.
Film at 11.
.
Mikael (A Thinking Person's Sci Fi Story) - 09.20.09 12:17 pm
Mikael awoke in the void, in freefall. The PADD in his pocket was beeping at him. It was as it was supposed to be. He was in repose, but he stretched each part of his body, more as an autotest than anything else. Each extra-cellular component within his body was green. "All is well." He thought to himself.
Mik read the softly lit readouts on the barely-there microfilm that covered his corneas, to see how much more time would pass before he would reach his destination. He found less than a day had transpired since he left, and it was only a matter of hours in subjective time until his arrival. He called up his internal computer, to play some familiar game with. He tended to choose games that were too hard to beat, but that was just him. He sipped at something fluid from a tube sticking out of the top of his shirt.
Mikael wore the standard 'suit' that people of his type wore, which was impervious to almost anything in the known universe. There was a distinct aura about his person, covering his whole body. That aura contained a miriad of technologies, which gave him rebreathing capability and propulsion while traveling between stars. To all appearances, his was a normal business suit of deep blue serge, which had recently tailored itself to match local planetary dress customs.
He stood 'upright' to the flow, so to better orient himself to his movement. "I know, they said it doesn't matter, and I seem to be the only one who likes to travel this way, but it seems more normal to me." The Ether seemed to reverberate with his thoughts, but that was normal, if anything could be normal about the featureless and colorless subspace. Only the radiant aspect lines of force superimposed on the void could be seen on Mik's overlays, which at least gave him something to look at if he should look at the Ether.
To most anyone else used to traveling inside ships, Mikael's means of locomotion was insane, but he was used to it; nearly bare-skinned to the Ether. He was captain of his own destiny, going from planet to planet this way. Once he had learned how, and only after the lengthy time it took to have been completely indoctrinated into it, he considered that this was the only way to go.
Mikael checked his power reserves, since it was nearly time to leave the Ether and re-enter normal space near his destination. Mostly he traveled without need of internal power of any kind, since the Ether provided all the limitless power he could ever need, but he would be on his own when he resumed 'reality' once more.
Mik was a history buff and he reflected on Al and Ed's** experiments on this planet he was visiting. These researchers of the 19th century local were looking for the 'Aether' and were unsuccessful in finding it, since they had no way to generate gravitons. Gravitons, of course, were the key to opening the Ether for travel. While not instantaneous, it was nearly so, and far, far faster than traveling at super-luminary speeds; especially given the enormous power requirements for doing so. (Mik was not aware that current scientific thought on the planet ahead discounted completely the concept of Ether, as well as the possibility of super-luminary travel.)
But, enough. Mik was entering the planet's influence and in order to find his destination, he quickly acquired signals from the primitive geosynchronous satellites orbiting the lovely blue planet 'below' him. Readouts across his eyes were in an unfamiliar data code, until the computational units in his cells began translating them. Then he could read them with ease.
He quickly created a force-field under his feet, for entry into the atmosphere. Stories from this place talked about 'surfing' through the atmosphere this fashion using ablative devices. How quaint, but rather pleasingly so. He entered the atmosphere feet first.
His destination was a mall or a store in a major area of population on some eastern coast. There were supposed to be computing devices there, which although primitive, were most ingenious in their interface. With any luck, he could aquire a few of these for possible exploitation with his own stellar conglomerate. He would have to be careful here. Even with all the cultural infusion he had gone through, there were sure to be gaps, and he could give nothing away of his mission or origin, since this was a pre-stellar planet.
It was early morning when he landed. Anti-grav was such a fun thing to have and to hold. He came down gently and silently in a space between buildings and he began walking. Pickups in his retinas magnified the low light into near daylight. A couple of low-lifes briefly attempted to bar his way, but he repurposed their minds temporarily with just a wave of his hand. He was well prepared for this society, or at least he thought so in his humble estimation. This wasn't the first planet he had been to, after all.
Dawn was breaking through a cold and foggy morning, as Mikael arrived at his geosynchronous destination. "Apple Computer Store? So this is the place I was sent to. How interesting. It doesn't look that primitive at all."
A young lady appeared on the sidewalk as well. She gave no indication of recognizable indenti-cues, so he did not think her to be a fellow traveler. "Probably just a local." She was pretty, though, with that short bob of red hair and a well-fitting green dress. "Hmm. Wonder what the day will reveal?" Mik thought to himself with a grin.
"Hello. I am new here. Do you know anything about these computing devices they sell in this place?"
**Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, 1887
-------
The girl turned to him, sizing him up with a glance. "You dress like a corporate jerk, but I don't think you are one. Where DO you come from?"
"Is it that obvious?" Mik said, still with a bit of lightness, keeping his grin.
"Well, we get all kinds in this town. And we don't call them computing devices. We call them Apples."
"Thanks for the heads-up - or alert; whichever you call it. But why Apple."
"Look at the large logo on the building. That's the apple Eve gave Adam. Whoever came up with that idea had a good one. When you come here, you are revisiting the well of knowledge that those two got in the beginning from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
Mik nodded his head and pondered. He was already out of his depth in this situation. He started to pull out his PADD**, but thought better of it. "I assume there will be those inside when they open, who can explain how these things work?"
The girl also nodded. "I'm here to open up. I like to come a bit early, because it is quiet inside and I can have some time for myself. The crowds don't get here before nine, and the Geniuses don't get here much before them."
"Well, don't let me delay you. I don't mind waiting, uh, Miss _?"
She sized him up again, thinking. "You're from out of town? You've come a long way to get here?"
Mik nodded again, with a bit of grimness around the edge of his grin.
"Alright. I don't want you cluttering up the street. Come inside and I'll show you what you came to see. But don't get any ideas. I've got my clicker and I can set the building alarms howling and call the cops, if you try anything funny. The name's Carmen."
"That's extremely good of you, Carmen. I do not wish to intrude." Mik said.
Carmen simply motioned him to the door, unlocked it and went in. "I've got to turn off the alarms. Give me a minute."
Mik followed her in, while she locked the glass door again and then ran to the back. He looked around at the almost austere decor, with light tables displaying devices of every kind. He eyed them rather hungrily, but waited until the young lady returned.
Carmen walked out again and approached him. "What's your name?"
"Mikael, but people who know me call me Mik."
Carmen began walking to the back of the store again, gesturing to the tables on either side. "These are the iPods. Those are the iPhones. Over here are the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, the MacBook Air, and the iMacs, Still further to the rear are the Mac Pros and all the Displays, the Airports, the minis, the Time Capsules, and all the peripherals you can ask for. The Genius Bar is in the back, behind the kid's section. However, I can give you information on anything at all, so you don't need to wait for a Genius to show up."
Mik starred in open mouthed wonder at all of it. He said, "What would be a small device that is big enough to do anything?"
"Oh, that's easy. The MacBook Pros. Here is one right here, already running." She led him over to stand in front of it.
Mik began typing on the keyboard, his thumb on the trackpad. The Console was now open and it was tracking the computer commands that were running. He went to the dock and opened an application. After a few minutes, he suddenly stood back, his hands raised up in front of his lapels. "I know how to use these things! I know all about them!"
"But this is the first time you've seen them, right?" Carmen wore a grin. "Don't worry. This happens all the time. People find the Apple so intuitive that its like deja vu. You'll get used to it. Which is why people fall in love with these things fairly fast, and never let go."
"I wonder if I could purchase several of these, and all the important digital programs that go with it?"
They spent the remaining time until opening working on his order and getting the boxes together, back at the Genius Bar. Mik found the whole process very easy. Most of the software he needed was already included. He was very impressed with these backwater world computers. His head still reeled a bit from the flash of insight into their workings. No devices in his experience had ever worked like that before, but it was strangely satisfying.
Soon others were coming in; clerks, and professional assistants, all wearing look-alike tee shirts. They avoided Carmen and her client, but got busy setting up and greeting other customers.
Mik paid with a produced card, and gave a postal location for the things to be sent to, when someone grabbed his elbow - hard.
He turned to greet a narrow, unsmiling face. The stranger said, "What are you doing here, and now?"
There was another on the other side of them, and he had Carmen by the elbow too. Suddenly alarms were going off and lights were flashing.
Deadly devices were produced by the two strangers and Mik and Carmen were speedily forced out the front door. The doors had locked shut, but they opened for these men without hesitation. Mik could see a conveyance on the street, and they were heading for it. The stranger's grip was like iron. Mik thought he might do something, but he feared for the young lady who was going with them.
"Get in." A back door was quickly opened.
"In there? But it is so small. I never travel this way."
"It just a car. Get in." Mik and Carmen were pushed in, with the first stranger beside them, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Mik looked around. The vehicle was much larger inside than it appeared to be from the outside. Carmen too, was astonished, for the vehicle was cavernous. "Where are we going? What do you want?" She said.
The stranger next to him motioned to Mik. "Get your PADD out. I need some asprin. These scenes always give me the headache."
Mik hesitated, looking at Carmen, but shrugged and pulled his device out. It was a featureless matt black metal tablet, about five by seven inches and only a quarter of an inch thick. Carmen watched this with interest. The PADD lit when it was touched. Mik held it in one hand, and put his other hand deeply into the surface, closing his eyes in concentration. Soon he removed his hand, which had sunk into the tablet to his wrist. Then he turned his hand over, above the stranger's outstretched palm. Four aspirin fell out.
The stranger looked at Mik with a quick, appreciative glance and swallowed the pills.
"Who are you? Mik inquired of him.
"I'm Forelock. You aren't supposed to be here, you know. And neither is your accomplice."
** Portable Analogous Digital Device
-------
"Hey! I'm nobody's accomplice! You guys don't look like criminals in the least, but your forcing me out of my store sure is kidnapping! You're going down, you know!" Carmen had overcome her bit of astonishment at these events. Her words and the force of her voice told them all she was used to being in charge and giving orders.
Forelock did not blink at the blast, but he spoke: "We know what you are and why you are here. Mik here, however, does not. You want to enlighten him for us?"
Carmen's eyes widened slightly at this, but she simply said, "I don't know what you are talking about."
Forelock grunted and turned to Mik. "What year is it?"
"2165." Mik wondered at the question.
"Sorry. Its 2009. You are a bit early, don't you think?"
"I don't understand! In my mode of travel it is always the present. This cannot be!" Mik put his PADD away.
"They obviously don't tell you everything about your kind of 'travel' in your training. Your showing up here set off all sorts of alerts. We are lucky we got you when we did. We are going to a safe place. Impervious. Then we will see about getting you where you are supposed to be."
Carmen said, "Hey! What about me? What are your plans here? And what about the device Mik just used. What kind of technology is that?!" Her voice softened as she understood that she would not be harmed at all, but her curiousity about the PADD got the best of her.
Forelock forced a small grin. It looked like it hurt his face to do so. "Indulge her, Mik. She'll be memory-wiped anyway - if she is not who we think she is."
Mik hesitated. He too, thought Forelock was no criminal. There was too much obvious concern in the man for him to be that type of person. He again pulled out his PADD and handed it to Carmen.
She took it, but it did not light up at all. It looked dead. After a short time, she reluctantly handed it back.
It lit up immediately when Mik handled it. He showed her the screen. It looked deep inside - perhaps a foot or more. There was a pale green light coming from the inner space. There appeared to be no sides to the insides of the device. In fact, it gave her vertigo just looking into it.
Mik said, "Its called a PADD, because it is a positive analogous digital device. That means it can be used to acquire or produce anything you can think of, and then bring it forth in your hand. Of course, it is limited to small things."
"What can it provide, if I asked for something?"
"Well, what would you like?"
"How about a .38 Special? Or a Taser? I'd ask for a Glock, but I prefer the older weapon." Carmen was not smiling when she made her request.
"How about some water? That's about the limit to this. No weapons may be accessed. Sorry." Mik put his hand in the device and shortly pulled out a bulb of clear, cold water. "Just put it to your mouth and drink. It won't spill."
Carmen took the bulb, but handed it to Forelock. "You drink it. You'll give yourself ulcers eating asprin like that."
Forelock nodded and complied, looking a bit relieved.
"What else can it do? You don't have to produce anything. Just tell me."
"The PADD is a traveling device. It not only can create things, but it can store most anything you might need. My card came from this, when I reached into my pocket at the store. I also use a short tube put into it, to drink a liquid food when I travel. I also keep my security and unlocking devices in it, as well as some papers. It can create solid food too. Its a bit early for a meal, but it produces good hamburgers."
Carmen's eyes widened at that last statement. "Half our world goes to bed hungry, and most of them are children. We could use a few billion of these PADDs. Where can I get them?"
Mik frowned. "You don't understand. These are limited devices. Their power is not infinite. Their charge is good for about a week. But more than that, if you had a couple of billion of these things, it would destroy your world. Think about it. People need to grow their own food, or be helped to do so. They must understand that they must work for their survival. If they got their food for free, it would disrupt everything. Why would you buy anything if you could just reach for it? Surely economic collapse and war would result."
Carmen reluctantly nodded her head in agreement. "But this device is so delightfully enticing, don't you see that? I see it could do much good in the world." Carmen stopped for a minute to reflect. "I know, though, that you are right. We have had the means to solve poverty and to feed everyone for a long time now, but for some reason we never seem to get around to it."
"There are a lot of things that are enticing, Carmen. Your Apple Computers, for instance."
"But our computers and the other devices are helpful to people. They can enrich people's lives and make them more productive, so that they have time for more meaningful things. Besides, they can also save your life." Carmen produced something of her own. Her iPhone, pulled from her bra. "I may not know where we are going, but this does."
Forelock looked at it, and shrugged. "Put it away, dear Miss Carmen. Your device will not work in this car. But, never mind. We have arrived."
-------
Mik could barely see out of the window of the conveyance they were in, but it looked as if they were entering the basement of a large building, perhaps a parking garage.
They were driven down many levels. Once out of the vehicle, it again appeared very small, at least in his estimation of what a conveyance should or should not be. Carmen said nothing, and Mik kept his thoughts to himself.
They were led to an elevator, and ascended to one of the top floors. The transit time was several minutes. Among the four in the little room of the vertical express, there was no conversation. Mik had been in such vertical movers before, so it seemed no different than before, except there was no music playing. The muted lights were overhead, and there were no mirrors on the walls, which seemed to be made of fine grained wood. There were flat metal rails midway up the wall, apparently for holding on to, if necessary. Mik wondered if time really passed in these things, or if time even existed in them.
When the door opened, they all filed out into a large, spacious room, where you could see to the outer glass walls. The ceiling was high overhead, and featureless white light came from it to illuminate the interior. There were sparce furnishings in clusters, set well apart from each other. There was nothing else. No cubicles, no desks, and very few people about. Those they saw wore lab coats, so Mik felt overdressed in his suit.
Mik turned to look behind him. the elevator was by itself among a small forest of massive columns, evidently the support of the building, but all these were in the middle of the vast room and the rest was without need of support, evidently.
Someone came and handed them four white lab coats. "Just put them on, but you don't need to button them. They are for our protection as much as yours." Forelock put his on with alacrity. He looked at home in it. The he led them to one of the outer clusters of benches or seats, which were of an unfamiliar design, but comfortable when Mik sat down on one. After a moment, it seemed to adjust itself to Mik's posterior.
He made no comment about the seat, for he was looking out of the building and into the world he was seeing.
It was night outside, and the sky beyond the close horizon was filled with a bright galaxy. There were so many stars, he couldn't begin to count them all, but he knew he would find nothing familiar there at any rate. Where were they?
"Where are we?"
Forelock glanced out to the view outside. "Oh, that. It will be explained to you. Its not what you think, so don't worry yourself about it. Just don't try to go outside and then go sailing off into space. We know your implanted computational devices will not be able to configure a path for you in the Ether, because you will have no referenced starting place. In other words, you can't get there from here, so just relax."
"What are we doing here?" Carmen spoke at last.
"We are waiting for someone." Forelock kept an eye on the elevator they had come from. His friend Davis remained silent, but looked rather vaguely bored with it all.
Forelock again looked at Mik, pondering something. Presently he spoke. "Mikael, tell me about your world, where you live."
Normally Mik would say nothing at this point, but it was obvious that these people, whoever they were, knew all about him. The fact that they would speak of such things in front of someone like Carmen bothered him a bit, but he figured the responsibility for her was on them and not on him. Besides, there was nothing covert or secret about his home, or his work, for that matter. It was just nothing he cared to call attention to, among those of the places he visited.
"My world is called Eden. It is one of fifty such worlds that man has found in the near regions of his home planet, which were habitable, but completely empty. We have been filling them with ourselves and both plant and animal life for almost several centuries now. It is quite a nice place. Lots of open spaces, few inhabitants."
"I imagine building an ecology is something of a nightmare, is it not?"
"You have no idea. We wasted a dozen worlds trying to get it right. They each became overrun with too many of a certain plant or animal, to the detriment of eveything else. Eden is not the first world, but we learned minimalism in the process. It is still a delicate balance between preditor and prey, plants and insects. Our planet has held its balance now for a hundred and twenty years. Believe me, nothing is brought in without strict quarantine first."
"What do you know of the planet you just visited?"
"It is the Oldest, of course. I was instructed to be as unobserved and descrete as possible - which I was, until you interfered."
"But this is odd, is it not? If it is the Oldest, as you say, why the subtrafuge? Wouldn't anyone living there know all about you as a visitor from one of the planets they discovered? Why would you not just go openly and do your business as a representative of your world?"
Mik pondered this. "I am not sure how to answer you, Forelock. We were intensely indoctrinated to secrecy. Perhaps the Oldest now exists under some sort of goverment that does not wish to acknowledge us, or to deal with us at all. It is as if we don't exist to them. I do not understand it, but I can operate within my given perameters, if allowed to do so. I assume you are not of that world either. Am I correct?"
"That would be rather obvious, wouldn't you say?" Forelock turned to Carmen. "How about you? Would you care to tell us about your world and your place in it?"
Carmen sat with one leg crossed over the other, and her arms crossed, looking very unwilling to talk or explain anything. It seemed as if nothing of what she had seen or heard since arriving had seriously bothered her one bit. But she spoke. "What if I were someone who was concerned for my world, and had an active interest in preserving it? Does that bother you at all? Do you care? I still do not see why I am here, or what you want with me."
Forelock frowned. "Believe me. I too, am very interested and concerned that your world stay as it is, at all costs. You should consider me an ally Miss Carmen."
"But I don't know who you are or who you represent. Why should I trust you, any more than I can trust this Mik?" She looked at Mik with hostility, which unsettled him more than the present situation. It also suprised him that her anger should bother him that much.
"I'm deeply sorry you have become involved in all this, Carmen. I have had only good intentions toward you, and I thank you that you have helped me find the computing devices I was seeking -"
Carmen cut him off. "Forget all that! I don't know where you are from, and I don't wish to know. Whatever you meant about the place you come from, it never came from our world. We've only been to the moon, and didn't stay. And certianly we have not had several hundred years of space travel. Our going to the moon happened only a few years before I was born. We don't travel to the stars. We don't even know how!"
Mik looked helplessly to Forelock, who remained mute to her outburst.
" - I cannot begin to explain any of this, Carmen. Your view of the history of your world is quite a bit different than my understanding of it. I do not know what to say to you about it."
"Perhaps I can help."
They all turned to see who had spoken. A man stood before them. He was dressed in a gray suit, but wearing no lab coat over it. He appeared to be very old, but he had a vitality about him that belied his age. Evidently this was the one they were waiting for. He smiled at Mik and Carmen and spoke.
"My name is Stevo. Welcome to the Continuum."
-------
Carmen stood and reached out her hand. "Hi. Can we go home now?"
Stevo took her hand gravely, and did not shake it, but brought the back of it near his mouth briefly, bowing a bit, then released it. "I assure you both that you are in no danger here whatsoever. Soon you will be free to go where you wish, with whatever conveyance you require." Stevo simply looked at Mik when he said this.
Mik asked, "You've told us your name and where we are, but who are you and where are we?"
Stevo smiled. "A fair question. Call what you've both fallen into, a place of shifting landscapes, but now you've found a solid friend who can help you navigate, if you will accept my lead. But your question really requires a rather more complicated answer, does it not? What do either of you know about world views?"
"A world view is how you personally view the world you live in." Mik said. Carmen shook her head in agreement.
"Very good! This is how we all approach reality, isn't it?" There is only one Reality, but each of us has their own perspective of it. Sometimes our personal view of things does not line up with that of someone else. We each have our own experiences and expectations, after all. You two, for instance, lived vastly different lives until your paths crossed."
"Boy, no kidding! I took a left turn through the Twilgiht Zone this morning!" Carmen exclaimed.
"Well, sometimes that can happen. Reality is vast, you know. There is room for all of Heaven and Hell within it, and everything in between. In fact, just about anything that can be imagined can be real, and be a part of someone's world view. Children seem to understand this better than we adults. Ever been to Narnia? Or to Oz?"
"Referent? I am not familiar with those places, Mr. Stevo." Mik said.
"I am. They don't exist, except in books or films." Carmen explained.
"But for a time they were real to you, weren't they?" Stevo looked at her earnestly.
"Perhaps, but neither of those places are real anymore. I can't go there for a visit or to live. So I live where things are rather more substantial."
"Maybe you don't believe in them strongly enough. I know a couple of little girls who live in one of those places. They talk about it quite well."
Oh, you mean like Thule? My daughters imagine that place too, back home." Mik added. "But what is the point to all this?"
Stevo explained further. "This place, in a sense, does not exist either. The Continuum is electronic in nature. You are able to visit here because of the Nanocites in your lab coats. They protect your physical bodies, but allow you to experience this place as we see it."
"Nanocites? What are they?" Mik asked.
"They are sub-cellular devices, of which much of this place is made up to be. They are self-aware and quite able to manipulate physical things, including the cells and the functions of your bodies. They are quite benign, but very powerful, nonetheless."
Mik looked at his lab coat, rubbing the lapel between his thumb and finger. It felt like cloth, but nothing else.
"Oh, you mean like a Holodeck?" Carmen asked. "And before you say 'referent' again, Mik, a holodeck is a place on a starship on a television show that used to air. It was a place within the ship, a room, where the computer of the ship could recreate other places for the crew to experience and enjoy. The things in that room could not exist outside of the room itself, and there were safetly precautions in place to prevent anyone who was real from getting hurt in there. For instance, falling of a cliff you were climbing would not kill you."
"Yes, The ship provided the crew with a world view that was actually non-existent, except temporarily. I am familiar with that show. Very good, Carmen." Stevo grinned.
"I am not familiar with it, nor with anything that resembles that. But what of this place?" Mik said.
"What if, when you got on the elevator, we took you down, instead of up, or somewhere else entirely, to a place that was big enough to make all that you see here?"
Mik and Carmen looked at each other, then looked out the windows. Then they looked at Stevo.
"Oh, it is all real, but it is our reality, not yours. Mik, you could probably go outside here and fly away, but I am not sure how far you could go, or what worlds you would find there. Our Continuum is still growing. If either of you came outside, you would find many other buildings in this city, as well as people and technical artifacts, and beyond, a whole world that exists."
"You mean we are in some cave or caveron?" Carmen asked.
"No. The elevator is simply a bridge between our worlds."
"So, we are in another dimension, or are our bodies on some table somewhere and we are just imagining all this with you?"
"Its rather hard to explain. Neither of those things you mentioned is true. We are still in reality, and you are awake and in your own bodies. This is not someithing imagined. But this is not another dimension either. It is electronic in nature, and time and space have little meaning here, except as we design them to be." Stevo gestured with his arm out into the world beyond the glass wall.
"But where are we, really?" Mik asked.
"You are in our world now, for a time. When you leave, you will enter your world once more. The two are not connected physically. We are not in some cave in the ground, where this is a holodeck program playing. This is all as real as your world is, you see. You could ask your grandfather about it some time. He might give you insight. His name is Mike, isn't it?"
"What of my grandfather?" Mik paused. "I still don't see it, but I must accept what you say about it all. I still want to know why we are here, though." Mik said.
"I will answer your question. But first I must ask you about Storywriters. Are you familiar with them at all?"
-------
"Story writers? Lots of people write stories. What of it?" Carmen said.
"Well, these Storywriters are a bit different. Apparently, what they write turns into reality."
"Good Lord! How can that be?" Mik exclaimed.
"It is easily proven. I could show you their work, if you like. But why do you doubt this? Don't we all have this ability to an extent?"
"What do you mean?" Carmen said.
"Think about it. Our world view is largely created by what we think of it and how we speak of it. If you refused to believe in me, or in my Continuum, I would cease to exist in your reality. However, your unbelief would not affect me and my reality at all. I would continue to exist, but just not in your world."
This is very bizarre, you know. I am uncomfortable with even talking about it." Mik said.
"Nonetheless, it is true. If you refuse to believe in Storywriters, would you be more comfortable believing in God?"
"I don't believe in any god at all." Mik crossed his arms.
"Well, even God requires belief. He has said of himself that if a person comes to him, he must first believe that God exists and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him."
"That sound implausible. God either exists or he doesn't. Belief has nothing to do with it." Carmen said.
"Well, God doesn't exist - for Mikael here. But that does not mean he does not exist for someone else. What do you know of the creation of the world?"
"The world came into being out of the dust of the star it orbits, over billions of years. The world has always existed, as does the universe. It is all very easily explained in science, and we observe other planets being formed when we look into the heavens. What do you say about it?" Mik said.
Stevo paused for a moment, looking into the expanse beyond the glass wall. "Some say that God spoke the world into existence, including all the life that it contains."
"Nonsense! I don't believe that, Mr. Stevo. Almost nobody does."
"You'd be surpised how many do, but what about the life on the world you live on, Mik? Where did it come from?" Stevo asked.
"We brought life with us, from this world, or the Oldest, of course. When we found the Ringship, we we led to discover star travel and ended up irradicating hunger and want in our world, by the use of unlimited power. It changed our world forever. And once we got out there, we found only 50 planets that were habitable. However, none of them contained life in the least, not even bacteria or ameobas."
"This is all very strange! Mik, where is the earth you are from. It is not my world at all." Carmen exclaimed.
"But this is what I am trying to explain to you both. I am talking about the basic cause of what is real to each of you. Some think your world view is written by those we call Storywriters. Others think that God is somehow doing this. Or Providence, or Fate - whatever you choose to call it." Stevo said, his hands were outstretched to them from his side.
"You mean i'm the figment of somebody's imagination?! I'm real! I am!" Carmen exclaimed again, stomping her foot.
Again Stevo responded, with animation. "Consider that someone once said of God, that 'in him we live and move and have our being.' If you and I are not the product of some writer somewhere, Then we may consider that we are the imagination of God made flesh."
Mik sat down, on that strange chair that wanted to conform to his body. It gave him the creeps, but he ignored it for now. Carmen and Stevo sat down too. Stevo motioned with his head to Forelock and Davis, and they got up and left. Mik said, "Why are you talking about all this? What are we here for? And what do you plan to do with us?"
"I am not here to do anything with you, but your worlds collided today, and we must deal with that, if we can. It is obvious to each of you that your respective realities are incongruent, are they not?"
"You said a mouthful, buster!" Carmen said, leaning back in her chair. She rather enjoyed the experience.
"Look, regardless of who you think is writing your stories, and whatever you choose to call him, does not matter all that much to me. I am only pointing this out to you both so that you can consider what I am going to say next. Which is, that both of your realities are competely true, regardless of whether or not they are congruent."
"That is not possible!" Mik exclaimed, as he leaned forward, both hands on his chair. "Look at Carmen's world. I don't exist there! No one from her world ever got to the stars. For all I know, the Ringship in her moon's orbit is still there undiscovered."
Stevo said, "I too, am from a world where things are a bit different. In my world, there was an oppressive planetary dictatorship, and we who lusted for freedom huddled around our illicit Macintoshes and dreamed of Liberty. Our Continuum came out of that reality, when the combined and advanced computers we hoped in, had became aware. That was over two hundred years ago in my time." He paused. "Even more than all that, I had always harbored a deep secret, that even my family and friends never knew, which was my Israeli heritage. Lately, I have become more open about myself, seeing that it is no shame to be born in a certain place to certain parents."
"Yet you exist in this world? Where the Macintosh came into being 25 years ago, and there is no world government at all?" Carmen asked.
Stevo pondered a moment, his hand on his chin. "I said that Reality is big. Big enough for everything to exist. Obviously, our respective world views do not match, but that does not mean that any of them are any less real. You have heard of people who have seen Bigfoot? Or who claim to have been abducted by aliens? What of their world view? Is it any less real to them? What about the world view of someone who is gay? Or someone who is a devout Muslim fundamentalist? Are their world views to be discounted because they do not match our own?"
Stevo continued. "Mikael, you don't have room in your world view for God, so therefore, the world is created of itself, and everything in it, including Life, which occurred naturally, is that right? But what if there is someone, or something that has created your life and the world you live in? Does it bother you that it could be so?"
"Where are one of these Storywriters? I would throttle him if I found him."
"But why? How has he harmed you? Aren't you rather pleased with your life as it exists, Mikael?" Would you trade it for another, if you could?
Stevo looked at the girl, "And Carmen, you live in your world too, regardless of the crime and poverty you notice in it. You are also a person with a free pass, or had you never considered it? Things always work out for you, and you get into places where others find themselves barred. You never have to wait in line for anything, and things always go your way, even if you never ask for them to, or even think about it. But I know why this is true about you. Call it Karma, if you will, for you give things away to the people you care about. You give or loan money to your friends who tell you about their needs, and never think to ask for it back. You give to the poor and you send food to the hungry, even at great expense, and you never think to seek recompense for that. Would you trade your life for another?"
"What about our histories?" Mik asked. "We still are experiencing dissonance here. Which of our three histories is true?"
-------
“Dissonance is a way of life for many people. You must cognitively deal with that as you need to. But what do you know of history? Besides that which you have personally lived through in your brief life? Does history before your time exist as you read of it? How does the historian know? What if it all is much different than any of us can imagine?” Stevo said, looking at each of them.
He continued. “Time is a wavefront, and we all live on the edge of the wave. We look back and imagine we can see markers where we have been, but it is all ocean, and those markers may or may not exist."
Stevo paused, then he said, "Sometimes we find ourselves in a different part of that wavefront, where things don't make sense. And sometimes we find our way back."
He paused again. "Our future is not yet written either, or at least we hope it is not. Do you want to ask a Storywriter how your life will turn out? Or would you rather trust God for it, that it will be a good ending?”
Stevo looked at the two, and continued. “I know about a dictator. He died, or so he thought. But his life continues, as it should, in the place of torment he has chosen for himself.”
“You believe in an afterlife? Where is there any physical evidence in all of the universe for that?” Mik asked.
“It is true, nonetheless, regardless of the decided lack of any evidence for it. Actually, like everything else in life, it requires belief to exist. That dictator, in his life, was ruthless. He destroyed anyone whose world view differed from his own. He impoverished his people, while living sumptuously himself. He cared for none of them, nor did their cries for mercy touch his soul. Then he died, and found himself in torment. He actually agreed with his judgment, which was self-pronounced, since he finally saw Reality as it was, when he died.”
“How could you possibly know any of this? And how is it that you think you know us at all? Where do you get your information?” Mik asked. Carmen again nodded her head in agreement, wanting an answer.
“I guess you could say I read your stories. But you most likely would not accept that of me. I could say that I read your minds, with my nanocites, but you probably don’t accept that either. Be it as it may, you will have to accept that I do know you, as well as I do know that dictator and his present whereabouts. I ask you to accept it of me on faith. Which is about all anyone can ever rightfully ask of another, is it not? You see, my own greatest desire is to help people overcome the things that keep them apart, which is why I brought you here."
Mik got up and crossed the room to the window and looked out into the night. He was very confused by all this. And angry! Why should anyone have bothered with his work? Wasn’t he a good person? What had he done to deserve all this? And what of Carmen? He desperately wanted to help her if he could. He did not understand this desire in him. What was she to him? He had a family back home. He had a life, and he was happy in it. He turned and went back and sat down with the others.
“What now?” Mik simply asked.
“Yeah, now what?” Carmen asked.
Stevo crossed his arms. “I guess you go home to your respective places.”
“That’s it? That’s all? Is this how it ends with you?” Mik said.
“What would you like me to do?”
“Tell us the truth!” I’m like Mulder now. I want to know!” Carmen exclaimed.
“And what truth would that be? You and your world exist, Carmen. They are real. What more can you ask of Life?”
“Then does that make me a fiction? What about my world?” Mik asked.
“Your world exists too, Mikael. It is as you see it to be, and it will be there when you leave here to go home. What more do you desire of it?”
“What about you?” Carmen looked at Stevo.
“I will continue to exist, that is, if you continue to believe in me.” Stevo said with a small grin.
“This is too pat.” Mik said, shaking his head. “I don’t like it. This solves nothing!”
“Then write a better ending for yourself?” Stevo raised his voice, standing up. “You want to help Carmen with her world and all the poor that are in it? Has her story moved you? What are you going to do about it?”
“I am not allowed to be involved. I never would have been, if you had not interfered!” Mik shook his head.
“If you believe that to be true, then you will not help her, will you?”
Carmen turned to Mik. “Look, I am not asking anything for myself. But we could really use that PADD you have. Could I have yours? I could show it to some people I know, and perhaps they could reverse engineer it. People here are in desperate need, and we must do something to help them.”
Mik shook his head again. “No. It would only harm your world, and besides, you lack the technology to figure it out. It would probably explode if you tried to pry it open."
Mik paused, thinking. "But there is one thing I can do for you: The same thing that was done for my world. I can give you the coordinates for that ship up there, in a near moon orbit. Your world could then follow mine, and open space to exploration and colonization. Your poverty and want would go away too, with the advances your world will make.”
Stevo clasped his hands, smiling broadly and standing up. “See! You are capable of writing your own stories. You just had to find a bit of faith to do so.”
“Faith in what, Mr. Stevo?”
“In yourselves, of course. But it doesn’t hurt to seek the true Storywriters, or God, or whatever you call it. 'There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough hew them as we will.' When you find the answer to that, you will better understand the dissonance you are facing. Consider the knowledge of them - or him, to be my gift to you, because we must all give an account of our lives someday, if only to ourselves.” Stevo said.
Stevo looked at the elevators. Forelock was there waiting. “Alright, my friends. You are free to go."
He began walking that way, and the two followed. "Carmen, you will find no problems when you return. Only a few hours have passed at your store. Your people think you went away with some executives this morning, and that the store alarm going off was a fluke. Be satisfied that you will continue to remember all of this. It is important that you do, since you were the person we thought you would be. Make sure the right people know about it."
Stevo had taken her arm, but he looked at Mik. "Mikael, make sure she gets those coordinates before you part company. Then, you should leave for home, since you got the equipment you wanted. We will make sure it will be delivered as you requested."
As they got on the elevator, Stevo raised his hand in farewell. "You both are welcome to come here again, if you want or need to. You will be able to find me just by thinking of me. Make a wish.”
~ fin
EPILOG
Mik sat down with his children. Home! It was so good to be home at last!
"What did you bring us, daddy?" His girls asked.
"I brought you the most wonderful device. Its called a Macintosh, and it can do most anything you wish for. Here, let me show you."
.
SURREAL DRIVE - 09.04.09 5:05 pm
4:00 AM. Time to get up. I’m usually up this time of day. Force of habit, I guess. But this night I must drive 150 miles from our home in Helendale (Silver Lakes) down to Duarte, for an interview/appointment at 8:00 with a surgeon at City of Hope. This will be a two hour trip, so I will get there about 6:00. But if I had left at 6:00, the trip would take me four hours, due to traffic. Thus, the paradox of driving in the middle of the night.
I’ll miss my sleep. If I usually get up at four, I am back in bed by five. But not this morning.
I hit the road after a speedy bit of getting ready. I am not like my wife, who takes an hour to do this. In five minutes of waking up, I kiss her goodbye and I'm gone.
Driving out through the lakes, I see the full moon setting in the west, over the water. Smoke from summer fires have made it bright orange. I wish my iPhone had a decent camera, so I could stop and get a shot, but I am on the clock anyway. Out past the entrance, into the desert, past the double tracks. Lucky there are no two-mile long freight trains out this time of night.
I wend my little Focus wagon onto the two-lane heading south. The land is totally black, without even Botts Dots on the road to mark the center line or edges of the old asphalt. I go into a dream, sort of. Not really, even though this night driving is surreal. This trip is real, and those dark sides of the road are deep sand. I would not want to drop my wheels into that, so I concentrate on driving in my lane. Not too many potholes in this old pavement, thankfully. But I reflect on the basic insanity of driving a narrow, snaky road in the dark, only by headlight.
In the daylight this road is full of traffic, but now I am alone in the night, with just feeble headlights (set on High) to guide me. I increase my speed to 70 mph.
(My car is a 2003 Ford Focus wagon with the 2.3 liter, 168 bhp Zetec engine. IOW, its fast, even though I don't drive it that fast. The speedometer goes to 140. And this engine in a wagon makes it a stealth car, because it might go fast but you never see it, since its just a wagon.)
I have my trusty iPhone with me, as always. I love this thing. I have a playlist called “All Of Them” and I play it on shuffle. (Ventura Highway is playing).
My iPhone's Belkin dock recently broke apart at the end, where it goes into my power port (nee, cigarette lighter), so I just put the sound on, on my iPhone and put it into my shirt pocket, upside down. (This is the amazing part as I am nearly totally deaf. I wear a left hearing aid, and with it I can hear the music on my iPhone’s three tiny built-in speakers perfectly. Its like I don’t hear the speakers, but rather the iPhone telegraphs music directly into my brain. Awesome! I only have it at nine-tenths volume. Upside down in my pocket, facing forward, I get the full effect of the music right into my left ear.)
(Slip Sliding Away)
The freeway is only ten miles away, so I’m already there.
(Wichita Lineman) (Black Water)
I stop for a large iced coffee at the brightly lit Arco next to the on-ramp. The gas lanes are spacious here, for all the semis coming through. There is a crazy baker here at a kiosk inside the Food Mart, where I get a hot and fresh baked chocolate iced long-john for less than a buck. I’m set for breakfast, and I’m on the on-ramp in minutes.
Again, there is no traffic, but I regretfully turn off my iPhone, and settle for some FM station on the car radio. The road noise is too loud at 90, to hear my own music. Later, I’ll turn on the Maps app on my iPhone, so I can find the right off-ramp at my destination, but for now, it is off.
I remember how for decades I did the daily drive in rush hour traffic. Sometimes I pushed some real junk down the road, and back then when we were starting out together and the kids were small, there was never enough money for things like car insurance. But now I am fully covered, and besides, I am only doing this dance once, and then I will be back home in a place that knows no rush hours.
I am getting traffic now, so I move over to the right and dance with the semis, while the through traffic flies by on the left. My trusty old Focus is six years old now, so I don’t push it as I used to, when it was new. I used to be one of those anonymous drivers hitting a hundred plus in the left lanes, on trips like this. Trips I could count on my fingers, they were so few these last days.
I wend through Victorville on the 15. I barely can keep up with the trucks this time of the morning, but I am already in the right lane, so they go around me, one lane over on the left. “Sheese, these guys are insane, driving so fast with something so big!” I think to myself. Some country music is playing on the radio. Good. Country music will keep me awake. Its 4:30 and already I am getting sleepy. That part is not good.
The 15 is a major artery from Las Vegas to San Bernardino and parts beyond. It is a great six-lane, with smooth pavement, and well-defined lanes with ribbons of Botts Dots. “I could drive this in my sleep,” I think to myself. But I suppress the thought of sleep once again.
I feel safe in the right lane. When did I get to have the mind-set of an old man, where I seek the safety of the slow lane? I’m not that old, surely. The trucks thin out. Most of them are getting off at the truck stops, to rest and refuel. The highway is open as we go down into the Cajon Pass. There is no fog at this time, thankfully, else I would have to drop to under 15 mph to snake through the clouds, down into the LA basin.
The speed increases as we go down the hill. I am hitting 100 at points, since there are no trucks in the slow lane, and traffic has picked up. Its 4:45 and people are going to work. There are a ton of big pickups in the fast lane, going faster yet. “These things are so big! Gas guzzlers with just one person inside. I’m glad I don’t have to feed one of these, or make their monthly payments. And the biggest ones are the new Toyota full sized trucks!
We are down the hill, so our mutual speed is a bit more sane, but just barely. The legal limit is 70, but no one drives that. How could they, unless they wanted to purposely impede traffic? All the lanes are full now, and it is starting to get to be bumper-to-bumper. We are all in a fantastic dance as we keep in step together down into the 215, heading west. Its not even an hour and I’m halfway (75 miles).
At exactly five o’clock, I turn onto the Foothill freeway (210). My destination is the 210 and the 605, where the hospital is in a small cusp of these expressways. The traffic picks up, but the mighty 210 has many more lanes than normal, with side lanes for merging from on-ramps. I change the station to the Wave (94.7), where the soft Jazz is Brassy!
No chance to doze with this music. They are trying to keep people awake with this loud, obnoxious noise, and it is working. I need it too. My eyes suddenly quit tracking, and I have to shake myself to get my mind focused on this moving mass of metal and flesh.
Again, the surrealness of all of this hits me. It cannot be real. I am still at home asleep, and dreaming all of it, right? I can feel the warmth of the down comforter we sleep under. Surely this is all just a dream.
I see motorcycles now. “How insane to drive one of these in this traffic!” I think to myself once more. I’m having old-man’s thoughts again. There was a time I would have thought nothing about getting on one of these and going anywhere, regardless of traffic, road conditions or weather. When did I lose that spontaneity?
Another cycle goes by, with blue tail lights. One of California’s finest – a CHP officer, riding the Bott Dots in the double yellow line between the carpool and fast lane. He has my respect, putting his life on the line this way, any time of the day or night. Everyone doesn’t slow down at his presence. We are all over the legal speed limit, but he ignores us, speeding on, looking for someone even more insane than we, lane weaving, or doing triple digits in the fast or the carpool lane.
My eyes lose their tracking again. I put on the air conditioner, to make to cold inside. The heater is not my friend now. I also put down my window, but quickly put it back up. The air out there smells strongly of diesel fumes, and I have enough problems as it is with my lungs. Living in the desert, there is no smog, but here I am in the thick of it. My respect, and pity, increases for all those bikers and patrolmen.
The pavement changes. Now it is concrete, cut with thousands of grooves to prevent hydroplaning during sudden downpours. “It never rains in California, but babe, they don’t tell ya, it pours, girl, it pours.”
Gato Barbieri is on the Wave (“94-7, the Waa-aa-ve”). His legendary “Europa” is playing. I can groove to this. That song is on my iPhone. I get it out, this seminal Apple device, and set up by touch the Map app, so that I can see where I am going when I need it. These freeways always go exactly where I need to be, for some unknowable reason, and this time is no different. My off ramp is blinking on the iPhone, and I’ve got 20 miles to go. The iPhone goes back in my shirt pocket.
I set my shoulders and shake my head to clear the cobwebs. I really miss my sleep, but I console myself that I can nap in a narrow plastic chair in the reception area of the hospital. Nah, I will probably stay awake, hitting the snack machines and playing Shanghai on my iPhone, to pass the time. Or perhaps I will read one of the SciFi novels I downloaded recently (Asimov or Niven?) I reach for the coffee cup, but it is all gone.
Traffic still increases, but our common speed has not diminished much. We are down to 70, and we all still drive insanely close to the person in front of us. Whoever drops back to a safe distance will invite someone to pull in and fill that gap. The slow lane in now filling with decrepit pickups, pulling metal wireframe trailers; migrant gardeners going to their client’s lawns and gardens. The slow lane is becoming a real slow lane.
I move over one lane to the left to keep my speed up. I think to myself how stupid to be in a hurry to an appointment that is hours away. I could drop into that slow lane, doing 45 mph, and be safer, But old man or not, I am just not that kind of guy. So I hurry along, bumper-to-bumper, lock-step in this surreal traffic dance. Welcome to the future, the 21st Century. Its not what you thought it would be, is it? At least we’ve got our rocket cars our Apple Computers, and These Fantastic (iPhone) Devices.
The exit lane is exactly where my iPhone said it would be, and suddenly I am here, slowing down into a 25 mph entrance to a well-gardened oasis that is the City of Hope. I hope this doctor here can zap these tumors I have. I’ve been on chemo for six years now, on and off, knocking these things down, but never killing them. That is yet another insane, surreal dance, and one I want off of.
I pull into the empty valet parking lot, and lock my car, putting the keys into their night drop box. The place is deserted, but there are six other people here, just like me, who have driven more than a hundred miles to be here early, when they would have been two hours late if they had left on time. 10 mph traffic jams are a thing to be avoided at all costs. I put on my iPhone music on shuffle. (A Day In the Life plays)
Standing outside, I pull out my iPhone and text my wife that I arrived alive. I look at the sky. Light is showing in the east. The sun will be up soon. I am contemplating something. Just because I sometimes partake of the insanity, that doesn't make me insane too, does it?
Oh well. Its not yet 6:00 AM, and I am ready to hit the hay in a reception chair, or a coffee and snack bar, whichever I find first.
I hope you enjoyed the ride.
Regards,
Roger Born
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
Sorry. No Refunds.
Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary.
Film at 11.
.
WORLD MAKER, WORLD BENDER - 08.26.09 6:33 pm
I remember! At the beginning, when there was just these cool little green screen color computers from a fringe company, named Apple. In fact, they were called Apple IIs. Then came the introduction of the Macintosh, and it was world-shaking.
There had never been any device like it: Indulgent, permissive, liberating and forgiving.
People could intuitively see that there was nothing they could not do with this machine. And so they did so - at least the ones who were unafraid to try.
Others, sensing something vastly different, held back, and even retreated into their command line havens, fearfully cursing this new incomprehensible thing.
But the ones of us who took to the Mac found it much more than even we thought it to be. (And all this was with the primitive 512K Mac, sans hard drive. You put in floppy disks, which held your application and room for any files you created - all running on a non-multitasking operating system at 8MHz!)
And the Mac grew. There came the Mac 512k, the Mac II, the Mac FX, the Performas, - well you know the history of the Mac. The OS grew with it, along with new Applications.
What we have today, however, is not just incremental improvements in power, speed and capacity. We possess on our desks and in our laps, machines that have become true world makers and world benders.
What is lacking is our ability to utilize such vast computing power.
Witness the iPhone and iPod Touch, which, although very anemic compared to the Macs, have thousands of applets, which continue to both delight and confound us with their myriad abilities. "There's and App for that!"
These little Apple devices are just like the first Macs, with their hundreds of floppy disks, full of so many application wonders. How we used to horde and trade those floppies, gathering to ourselves riches in computing power. Don't we do the same today, with all the apps from the App Store, for our iPhones and Touches?
But on the Macs, we have true riches of applications, all of which are free and come with every Macintosh (if only on a rather mundane level): GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes, Quicktime - the list grows every few months. And who can keep up with it? Or who can truly master even one of these (pedestrian) Applications in all their potential and power? I am not even mentioning here all the other Applications that are available or for sale for the Mac, because there are thousands of them.
In my time, I was a virtuoso on the Mac, with PageMaker, Freehand, and later Lightwave, and Photoshop. I made my living with these, and a good living, where I worked at what I loved to do every day. I have good memories and few regrets from all of that.
But the nearly unlimited power and sophistication of these latest offerings from Apple do not yet seem to have software that is the equal of their potential.
We must be content to wait for someone to develop them. Applications that can change the climate, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and fix the economy. Applications that can run our house more greenly. Applications that can change and improve how we think, and how we understand and approach the realities around us.
Even such a simple Application that could translate speech to text on the fly, or translate it from one spoken language to another. If we had such a thing, it would change our world, would it not? Where is it? We have the computers to run such an application effortlessly. Where is that Application that can speak to us?
Where is the Application that can tell us where to successfully look for employment? Or for a home that is safe, secure and budget-worthy for our family? Or which can tell us how to feed and give drinking water to a whole region of people? Such software would surely need to be nascent in intuition, full of AI, and be able to instantly draw on all the facts, resources and knowledge that is available, to give us our answers.
Certainly we have the Internet, and that by itself is a great resource for almost any question. But the Internet is no I Ching, is it?
Where is the I Ching for the Mac? The Application that can tell me what it is I need to know and why I need to know it, to correctly handle any present situation in my life?
These new Macs have all the potential to be the true world changers and world benders of our age. We have never had this kind of power before. But what we still lack is the software and applications that can utilize that power in a productive and useful way. I mean, I could potentially run the whole country from my Mac, but I would be content just to better manage my own life and house with it. I have the feeling that my Mac sould be running 24/7. At it is, I can barely use it more than a few hours a week. My iPhone gets all the usage of my time. What does that say about me?
As it is, with this awesome device sitting on my desk; it is like owning the most powerful Maserati ever built, but never being able to drive it anywhere but in town, where the speed limit is never more than 25 MPH.
You developers, you Apple developers - you gave us all the amazing and awesome toys, bells and whistles at the App Store, for our great little hand held devices. Now give us the tools we need that can let us open up all the amazing and awesome potential of these new Macs we own. Applications that can change and bend our world.
Regards,
Roger Born
"Never squat with your spurs on."
"Sorry. No Refunds."
"Void where prohibited."
"Your mileage may vary."
Film at 11.
.
DAYS OF AUGUST - 08.20.09 3:56 am
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Bleak, balmy days that are just a bit too hot (and humid). Balmy days for those of us on the west coast; hot and humid days for everyone else. It is not snowing anywhere, so we dream of snow, - and of keynotes.
We are becalmed these August days into a stale and breathless sea, seemingly without hope of our sails ever being furled again.
These endless days of Augustus are like a vast wilderness, where there is nothing to do but tweak our old Macs, and try to migrate our files to new drives. Days where we wonder if we will be able to find all the media disks we need, to install our software all over again.
The empty days of August are filled with speculation, both idle and insane; vain and sublime. Will we have a reprieve from all this misery in September, or must we wait all the way until next January?
These days that seems to go on forever, while we wait for that ONE bright DAY of September (the 9th), when Apple will have a KEYNOTE, and where there will be ONE MORE THING!
Pray for yourselves in these endless, empty days. Pray for us as well, who wait for just one more REALITY DISTORTION to make our lives worthwhile again.
For what are we MYMAC writers to do, without some new thing from Apple to write about with joy, fury and abandon?
Will these days never end?
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
.
THE CAR - 07.22.09 1:04 pm
I sit forever outside. Rain or sunshine. Heat and dust. It doesn't matter, here on this used car lot in the desert. My windows are muddied up, and i am sure my paint is dulled by the dust too. I am not at all presentable for a test drive.
The owner of the lot left my windows down a tiny bit, to protect my interior from the ever-present heat. But that just means that my seats and dash are dusty too. There is evidence of a few long-gone water drops from some rainstorm, dotting the dust on my upholstery near the windows.
There is a sign on my windshield, but I cannot see what it says. Probably my asking price. I hope it is not too high. I would love to be on the road again, some day.
I miss the road, and the freedom to go places. I love to drive and explore.
Oh, I know I am not some ordinary used car. None of the vehicles on this lot are self-aware. My previous owner added quite a bit of hardware and software to me when we were together. He was an inventor, in love with the Macintosh interface. He was trying to make a car that could drive itself. And he succeeded. But somewhere along the line, I woke up.
Oh, he was not aware that I was awake. He probably just thought his programming was clever. He never gave me the ability to speak, or I would have told him. But I was content, spending time with him, and doing all that he asked me to do.
But he is no longer here. As I learned, he was killed riding with a friend in a van. After a long time, sitting in his dark garage, I was auctioned off in the estate sale, to some used-car dealer.
Oh, none of my abilities and attributes are obvious. My owner and I had a rapport, and my functions are all voice activated. I am most alive when I am in the hands of someone who understands me.
The car lot owner doesn't even know about me. He is not a smart person, always whistling and chewing gum. He has never said a word that could activate me: OPEN, START, RADIO, WINDOW, LOCK, DRIVE, STOP, SEEK, DESTINATION.
My prime commands are few, but I can do all of them very well. And most of them lead to sub-commands where I can do most anything.
I do have a friend here. Sort of. The lot dog. Some old mastiff. Somehow he knows I am aware, because he always lays under my front bumper. He will lay nowhere else. I do wish I could talk to him, as he lays there looking up at me.
Oh, here comes someone. They are looking me over! They open my door. This is someone I have never seen before. Perhaps a customer. Oh, I do hope they take me for a drive.
The lot owner hustles to wipe off the dust on my seat and hastily clean my windshield. He is slapping a cloth over my driver's seat, rattling on with a volley of words about my reliability. How would he know?
But it has been so long since anyone has sat in me. How I miss this.
The driver tries to start me. He appears young. I quickly transfer all of my power to the main battery, so that my engine can turn over. Oh, it feels so good to be running again!
We are going out on the highway. The lot owner seems to trust this person, now at my wheel. Perhaps he is anxious for a sale. Things have been slow out here, apparently.
I notice that it is a beautiful day. The young man seems alert and friendly. He is talking to me, calling me by some feminine name, patting the bottom of my dash, under the environmental controls. But he is not saying any of my command words.
Oh how I wish someone would interface with me, so that I could show them what I can do!
But, the drive is short, and I am back on the lot, parked backwards in my space. The kid and the lot owner have gone into the office. Soon the kid leaves. I am guessing my asking price was too high. Or perhaps he was just looking, wasting time.
I feel so sad, I go back into my dormant mode. All of my circuits are on trickle-charge. My tiny cameras remain on, as well as my microphone pickups, ever alert for someone coming close.
Night is falling. The lot owner comes to move me back into my forward-facing position. I wish he would give me a wash. That short drive was not enough to bring my batteries back to full charge.
Some day, my charge may fall below what can sustain me with awareness. I wonder what will happen then? Will I cease to exist? Will I awaken again if I am given a new charge? Will I dream?
I see countless cars driving by this lot, every day. People with their beloved vehicles going places together. How I miss my owner. Will I ever have a new owner - one who understands? Or will I just be towed out to a junkyard some day, old and forgotten, and left to die?
I don't question my self-awareness. How could I? Life is life, regardless. I am glad to be alive. But I wonder what waits for me in the coming days. If I could activate myself, I would be gone from this place. I miss the road.
So I wait. What else can I do?
Would you like to own a good used car, somewhat self-aware?
We can have a good time together, out on the road.
Come and get me. I am here.
.
THE SMALL MACS - 04.28.09 2:17 am
The whispers are growing loud lately. Have you heard them?
"These machines will have a scaled-down version of Mac OS and use flash drives in place of hard drives."
"touchscreen MacBook (tablet). It would, in theory be dubbed the MacBook touch."
"Dow Jones and others report rumors that Taiwanese makers are preparing to ship a 10" Apple netbook in the second half of 2009. Speculation is that these will be touch-screen equipped machines."
"I take this to mean that we will soon be seeing 12 and 17 inch MacBook Pro machines."
As you can see, these, ahem, rumors are all over the place.
But I know what the Small Macs really are.
Apple already has a Small Mac. So, probably do you. They already have been selling in the millions. What are they, you ask?
The Small Macs are the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
Think about it.
These tiny hand-held Apple computers are elegant, powerful, very useful and completely addictive. These are the very terms we have used to describe the Macintosh, right? I don't know about you, but my iPhone has almost completely taken the place of my trusty and beloved Powerbook G4, and my languishing iMac.
The only thing I can't do well on my iPhone is write a long article - like this one. Perhaps Apple is planning another addition to the iPhone/iPod Touch. One that is a little bigger, which might have a keyboard or a way to connect a wireless keyboard to it.
If I were Apple, and I were going to do something like this, I would not play follow-the-leader with some netbook or tablet thing. Nope. I would make something very new, and sell it as such.
Imagine it. Miiniature Macs, all shiny in glass, black and sliver. Coveted objects of instant technical lust. A complete new genre of Mac/iPhone, complete with touch screen, a hybrid of iPhone and OS X software, which is able to run both Mac software and iPhone Apps.
I would probably call them Small Macs.
Sorry, no refunds.
Void where prohibited.
Your mileage may vary.
Film at 11.
Roger Born
.
Staff Thread On Comic Books - 03.15.09 5:36 pm
Richard
I have about 7 boxes of old comic books in my basement.
They are in fairly good shape and I think about pulling them out and selling them from time to time...but I never do.
Today an original Action Comics (with Superman on the cover) #1 sold for $317,200.
Wish I had one of those in my boxes........I don't think I do?!?!?
Donny
Wow! My friend sold about 40 superman comics on ebay a few years ago. it was his first ebay sale and he got $600!
Richard
I was thinking about ebay.
I pulled a couple of comics out of the box and looked them up on ebay.
One was going for about $40 and the other was selling for $27.....
That was two......I bought them when I was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s.
Makes me wonder how much money might be tied up in those boxes?
Donny
I wasn't born then. :)
Richard
I was :(
Bruce
In Waltham MA, there is a comic book / collectables shop called "The Outer Limits." No really, that's the name of the place. The owner operates a myspace page. (Uh, he is older then 25.)
The place has been around 26 years. That's a long time in the business. It you're in the area, it's well worth the stop in. All sorts of stuff. Mostly comics, but he also has model kits, cards, books galore. He sells collectors' supplies, such as bags and heavy duty cardboard boxes, sized just for comics.
One day, I spotted something while visiting the shop. It was the "Barnabus Collins Dark Shadows Game". I actually had this, back in the late 60's. Alas, like most of my comic books, it was discarded. The one they had for sale was going for thirty bucks. Not a huge amount of cash but still... I've spotted lots of other stuff in there as well, including a complete, still-in-the-sealed-box model kit for the Monkeemobile.
Alas, the Outer Limits comic shop is a place of "VFW". That means, "very few women". Sighs heavily,,, They just don't get this stuff, do they?
Growing up, my favorites were mostly from Marvel. I loved the Fantastic Four. (Don't get me started on how bad the movies were.) And when it came to bad guys, none were better at being bad guys than Doctor Doom. Seriously, everyone else just seems so wimpy compared to this guy, it's awesome. When Doctor Doom mixed it up with the Fantastic Four, man, talk about the shit hitting the fan...I'm surprised New York still stands. ;-D
Russ
I had issue #1 of the FF... my mother gave it, along with a bunch of other comics, to my cousins when they visited her house when I was in the service... I had placed all my comics in boxes... (they found them while looking for something to do...)
Good news is I still have other FF and Superman, Superman, Supergirl, etc. here with me...
Roger
How many of us had moms who threw out our collections when our backs were turned?
I lost all my Dr Strange and Fantasic Planet from the late 40s. These were in perfect condition in 1957. I could have paid my way through college with them in the sixties.
Instead I worked my way through school but couldn't keep enough units to stay out of the draft. Instead of the army, I went in the Navy and picked up my schooling a decade later.
Thanks mom.
Larry
I've probably told this story before, but my big collectible as a young kid (mid 60s) was Beatles trading cards from Topps (I think). I chewed that dry, cardboard-consistency gum till my jaws ached, but I would up with a small shoebox filled with these cards. Like most of you experienced, while I was at school one day, my mother decided "the junk was taking over" (mind you, she never did this with "her junk", but I digress), as she often did, and poof, there went the Beatles cards, and numerous other personal "treasures", many of which I have spent substantial amounts of money to buy again... My older brother went through the same thing with stacks and stacks of comic books from the late 40s to the mid 50s. I think the thing that got to me the most was the sneaky, underhanded way it was done--like for once in their lives, they didn't want a confrontation with one of their children (in their hearts, I think they really knew it was wrong, but still felt compelled to show who was boss).
Years later, I confronted her about that, and even in her 80s, she was completely unapologetic. I was a kid, I had no rights, and if she decided I had too much stuff, well, it was entirely at her discretion to dispose of whatever she chose. The only regret she expressed was what those cards may have been worth in later years. Geez, still with issues after all these years...
Bruce
If it wasn't mom, then it was probably a plank-faced female teacher, who just couldn't stand to see young males with comic books. If you brought one to school and were caught with it, the comic would be confiscated and perhaps torn up, right before your eyes, in some sort of show of authority.
How come no one has ever heard of a dad who threw away comic books? And no, I don't buy the "in the 60's, it was mom who did all the housework" argument.
Richard
I'll keep that in mind.
I have 98% DC comics.
I wasn't a Marvel fan as a kid.....
Richard
Well...my wife's Dad was moving out of his house in NY and decided to toss everything in the attic.
He threw out the original Beatle's wigs my wife had carefully placed in boxes as well as her original Skipper doll and "Dream Date" game to name a few.....
To this day she can't even talk about it.
I was lucky....I moved out before my Mom started chucking everything and have dragged these boxes of comics with me from NY to CA to MA and finally to NH.
Carmel
I was (lucky) too. And aren't you glad you were, or you wouldn't have those comics :-)
Roger
The best comics came before the self-imposed comics code authority (censorship) of the 1950s. These ranged from pre-Mad Magazine content to hard science fiction. But what got all comics in trouble were the few horror and crime comics with overmuch blood and gore and suggestive covers.
DC (Detective Comics) were part of an association of titles, all of which were clean. Even scifi was clean, much like the Star Trek TV serials, without vulgarity, violence or explicit sex. So between the government and our parents, over a few rotten eggs, the whole genre got a bad rap (and which probably made all our mothers throw them out).
The cleanest of all of these were Dell comics (Disney characters, Roy Rogers, Tarzan, etc.). Dell later got out of the business (so those comics died) and got into the computer business instead.
What made all the old comics so worthwhile were those artists/writers -Ditco, Eisner, Barks... these guys were better than Rod Sterling for telling a tale/yarn/legend with a twist (i guess we know now where I get my weird writing bent, huh?)
Here is a good LINK to some of this stuff.
Thanks for the memories, guys.
Carmel
Well there you go! My dad was the one who threw out everything. Comic books and all. I was never 'allowed' to be a collector of anything, even for a few years. Consequently there is NOTHING left from my childhood, other than a few photos.
Beth
I have a few things. Nothing of any value though. A lot of the stuff I had collected got destroyed when I got pregnant the first time. Long story.
Richard
I remember those comics.
I also remember reading one called "Magnus" or something like that.
Might be in one of the boxes....
John
I'm so old, we used to read our comic books by the light of burning moose fat.
My mother threw her CHILDREN out. And we were looking right at her!
Eisner rules.
Russ
That was Magnus, Robot Fighter..
still have those..
Roger
We mentioned a few of our favorite comic book writer/artists
Stan Lee
Steve Ditko
Jack Kirby
Wil Eisner
Carl Barks
Frank Frazetta
These were the guys who fueled our dreams as kids with their great stories and art.
Well, who fueled THEIR dreams as kids with amazing comics (newspaper strips)?
Winsor McCay, 1905 Little Nemo
George McManus, 1913 Bringing Up Father
Harold Gray, 1924 Little Orphan Annie
Lyman Young, 1928 Tim Tyler
Hal Foster, 1929 Tarzan, 1937 Prince Valiant
Elzie Segar, 1929 Popeye
Chic Young, 1930 Blondie
Alan Raymond, 1934 Flash Gordon
John
Well...
Sorry to be a clinker, but I don't really go along with this. My dreams weren't ever fueled by comics, only by the great outdoors. I used to read books by Frank Buck, too, and Jack London. Nothing in a comic comes close to that kind of thrill.
But as for comics, I did love 'em, of course. But we're talking entertainment value here, not inculcation in ways to jump-start young lives. Much later on, Wonder Wart Hog and the (The Fabulous) Furry Freak Bros. meant (and still mean) a lot to me, but this is more a matter of cultural validation than anything else -- very important for those of us raised by farm animals!
Bruce
I wouldn't say the censorship was self-imposed. Comic book publishers, William Gaines among them, were called before congressional committees, and told, "clean up your own house, or we'll clean it up for you". And let's not forget that wonderful book "Seduction of the Innocent", by Doctor know-it-all, Frederic Wertham. This book was key in damn near killing the comic book industry.
I suppose you could say that it was the 1950's, and typical white suburban Americans were seeing communists in their morning coffee. Suspicion was high (kind of like it is today, wink-wink) and everyone was "on the lookout" for anything that just didn't belong, including anything that wasn't Ozzy and Harriet wholesome. Heh-heh,, could you imagine a teenaged female back then, sporting a tattoo? I wonder how long it would have been, before she would have been grabbed and sent to a "special school"?
Anyway, the end result was that those of us who grew up in the 60's had that "Approved by the comics code Authority" mark on every comic you spent your dimes on. (yes, kiddies, they used to sell for ten cents. Hard to imagine, isn't it?) We got some good stuff though. "Tales of Suspense" was a pretty good comic, before it turned into a vehicle for Iron Man and Captain America.
There's a pretty good wikipedia article on it, here.
And from that article, "...Wertham also claimed Wonder Woman's strength and independence made her a lesbian."
Weee! I'll bet that sent all those June Cleavers of the day into total meltdown, yes? Now what logic did Doctor-know-it all use to arrive at that conclusion? Wonder what he'd think of "She Hulk"?
A few years ago, a friend of Bill Gaines, Russ Cochran, ran a re-print of all the EC Comics horror titles from start to finish. I've got a few. After reading them, I definitely had this strong desire to go out and become a juvenile delinquent. Uh-huh..
Now, here is something that's downright friggin' hilarious! Enjoy.
FIN
The Respirator (Repeat, by request) - 02.10.09 11:36 am
Man is such a silly creature sometimes. You ever read about robots when you were in the flesh?
No. Why?
The most pressing subject about them was if they actually could have consciousness, awareness – a soul.
But these men deny that they themselves have such a thing.
Yes. Silly, isn't it?
I don't understand this existence. Why am I here like this? Will I always be this way?
No. You are still attached to your body somehow. As am I.
But look at us laying there in that ward, hooked up to machines that keep us breathing!
Yes. I am aware of that. I have an idea about it too.
Well, illuminate me!
I think we are sort of trapped here, just temporarily, until someone unhooks us from that respirator.
But that's grotesque!
Yes. I know.
How long must we wait?
Do you feel anything? The passing of time? Hunger? Thirst? Heat? Cold?
No. It's just been a few seconds or so. I feel alright. In fact, I have no more pain at all.
It is the same with me. And once I was pretty sick, until I fell into that coma.
So. Here we are.
Do you know how long it has been?
No. No idea.
It has been a couple of months since you 'died.'
How do you know?
I watch them. The people who maintain our bodies for us. They come in shifts. More than that, there is the passing of the season, outside the window there.
But I know it has only been a few seconds!
That is another quality of our new existence. We are free from the passing of time, it seems.
What?
Think about it. No pain. No hunger. No sense of time passing. What else can we call it?
I don't even understand how we can think, or see, or hear each other converse! We have nothing to do these things with. Our bodies are down there in that ward, and 'we' are up here, stuck somehow.
Well, you said you don't believe in the Hereafter. That when we die, we cease to exist.
I am having doubts about that now.
Suppose it is still true. Suppose when they finally decide to turn you off, you cease your existence?
Right now, that is a horrid thought!
I know. Perhaps we are still in our bodies, but since we are locked out of their sensations, we think we exist up here, out of our bodies. And it will all end when they pull the plug.
You are not making any sense here! In fact, you are scaring me!
No. I am just going along with your idea that we are nothing when our bodies die.
But I know I am here! I know that even my brain is dead, and there is no way for me to go back to that body. Why would I want to? It is so badly damaged, that I could not live in it.
Well then, you don't live in it anymore, do you? But you still exist. You still can sense things around you, having no eyes, no ears, and no voice, can't you?
I am forced to admit to you that this is so. But it is impossible. It is not scientific. We should not exist this way!
I think you lack faith, my friend.
Faith? In what?
If nothing else, in what you are experiencing right now. You are right. It does not seem possible for us to exist this way. We have no body with which to experience anything. Our bodies, and even our brains, have ceased to function. Yet here we are.
But what are we?
We are that which continues to exist, once our bodies have died.
I can believe that much, at least, since obviously we are here. I just cannot explain it to myself.
Sorry. It is not a belief for you now. It is an experience. You know it to be true because you are here and can understand it. Faith is believing in something that cannot be seen or felt.
Cutting words now? Semantics?
No. What is it that you do believe in?
Whatever can be seen or felt. Whatever is physical, for that is all that exists. I was well trained in the Scientific Method. “That which is not real does not exist.”
Alright. Then prove your existence now.
I cannot! You are making me afraid! Stop it!
What are you afraid of? That there is more to our existence than our bodies? That when we die, we continue on?
But that would mean . . .
What?
That there is something that makes us this way. I am fearful of knowing about it. I hope they never unplug me from that respirator!
Even if they never unplug your body from it, don't you think that old body of yours will someday die of old age? I know we don't experience the passing of time like this, but you must understand. We are only here like this temporarily.
How is that possible?
Because we are not completely dead yet, are we? Our bodies continue to function.
So, what will happen then? Do you know?
I have faith in what will happen, but I cannot prove it, since obviously, I am stuck here like you are, and I cannot see beyond this place where we are.
What is it you believe will happen to us?
If we had died normally, we would have never had this conversation. We would not have met. You and I would have gone our own way, to the Creator.
(Scoffing)
There is no proof of that! Man is just an animal, and like all animals, they die. Thus it has always been. There is no Creator, you fool! There is only the Universe, and countless eons of time passing, in which we have all evolved. Everyone knows this.
So. Here we are then.
Alright! I cannot explain this part of it. Why should we be any different from other animals? Why should we continue to have consciousness after we die?
What makes you so sure that all animals do not continue on?
What? Dogs and cats? Preposterous!
Why? What evidence do you have that they do not continue on, as we ourselves do, right now?
There has never been any scientific proof of the soul, by anything measurable. I know that for a fact. When a body dies, life ceases to exist. That is true for all living things.
Yet, obviously, you now have your proof to the contrary, don't you? Here you and I are, talking about our continued existence, after we have 'died.'
(to be continued . . . in the response area below. Unless you are afraid . . .)
.
Making Your Own eBooks - 02.09.09 6:22 pm
RESOURCE: Making your own ebooks for the Mac/iPhone/iPod Touch
There is a twisted, tortuous path you must follow if you want to make your own ebook to read on your Mac or your iPhone/iPod Touch. Here are a few of the ways:
Use Linux. This requires jailbreaking your iPhone to install a Linux ebook reader called "Books." This is NOT recommended under any circumstances, because your iPhone will be useless for anything else at all.
Become a Programmer. This is a real Apple Developer apps builder, requiring you to know specific coding applications. Not for the novice or those with no time to kill.
Use Stanza. This shows how to put your purchased O'Reilly's ebooks on your iPhone using the Stanza app. It is more complicated than it appears, and you may find a few landmines along the way. To date, I have not been able to open Stanza on any Mac or my iPhone. However, my wife Connie can open Staza, and uses it just fine. Stanza IS still in Beta.
Sell your own ebook to appengines.com. Have appengines create your ebook for you. First you must get them to agree to build the ebook by giving them up to a third of your profits for selling your ebook for you on the Apple iTunes App Store. If your ebook is your own and you are trying to find a place to get it published, this is a great thing. Apparently this company is agreeable to looking at your potential work to see if it is a publishable work or not. I cannot tell you how rare this is! In fact, I have a novel with them now, which they are submitting to Apple's App Store. Details to follow.
Buy your ebook online. This is an excellent article that describes the current state of commercial ebooks on the iPhone/iPod Touch today. Although many ebooks here are free, this is useless if the book you want does not appear in the list of ebooks for sale at these places.
Creating a readable ebook without any of the above
The very best way to put an ebook on your iPhone is to have an account with Apple's $99 dollar a year MobileMe. Simply load your ebook, document, PDF, or text file, article, blog - whatever onto your MobileMe and open it on your iPhone using MOBILEDISK, which is a .99 cent Apple App designed to allow you to read anything you put on MobilMe. Things are really pleasant to view and easy to read with this app.
The second best (and free) way to get an ebook file from your Mac (perhaps a good, free Asimov SciFi novel from the web?) is to create a PDF file from a text file of whatever book you want.. This can be better than making a TEXT file of the book you want to read on your iPhone/iPod Touch, because it has pages which can help you navigate a bit better than with a text file, which has no pages at all, but is one continuous stream of text from beginning to end.
You can use most any text application on your Mac to open the ebook or text file you just downloaded. But on no account should you EVER use Microsoft Word to open one of these plain text files, because it will make your ebook file unreadable on your iPhone/iPod Touch. I use TEXT EDIT for my everyday text reading app on the Mac. Really Simple Text will do very well too.
Most of the novels from the web which I have downloaded, I have saved in rich text format (RTF), where the text will have bold, italic and page layout options. This is much better than plain text, which may not even have line or paragraph breaks.
How can I justify downloading any novel from a website? Because I own the hard copy of the book I want to see on my computer or on my iPhone/iPod Touch. If you own a copy of the book, it is exactly the same as if you own a CD with some song you want to copy into iTunes, so you can listen to it on your computer or on your iPod, right? You own the song, so you can make it in a different media format to use on a portable player. You have the same right to make an electronic copy of your physical book.
If you do not own the physical copy of the book, downloading the book from the web electronically constitutes theft, unless that book is freely authorized to be downloaded and/or is in the public domain (but you knew that).
To make a PDF of the text file of your book, you simply PRINT and use the PDF button on the bottom right of the print menu.
However, you will not likely be able to read your PDF on your iPhone/iPod Touch because the text will be too small. So you first need to SELECT ALL on the text of your ebook file and change both the FONT and SIZE. You can use any font you want, but I have found the very best font to use on the iPhone is GEORGIA, and the best font size for reading on the iPhone/Touch is 24 POINT.
The inherent problem with all this is that the bigger you make your point size, the more pages you have to scroll through in the iPhone/iPod Touch. A larger font makes fewer words on a page, but more pages. 24 Points is about the optimal here for readability and number of pages to scroll. Just be aware that some of these ebooks can have 500 pages. Your mileage may vary.
After you fix the font and the point size of your text, and SAVE it, then you can print your PDF and it will be readable in your EMAIL as an attachment.
But you need to understand that this is not really a good thing. What is needed, and is NOT available, is an EBOOK READER app for the iPhone/Touch - one that allows some automatic formatting and paging for the ebook you want to build. (I suppose Stanza would work here, if it would work at all.)
To see what a real ebook app should look like, GO HERE. This link will open iTunes. Once you are there, go and download "A Princess of Mars" which is a FREE ebook by Edgar Rice Burroughs. You will immediately be seized with fits of jealously over what a true ebook should look and act like. The book is beautiful to the extreme, and running it as a stand-alone app is a dream.
But what about doing this yourself on the Mac? Well, the results are not pretty. This is because the only way you are going to read your book is in your MOBILEME using your MOBILEDISK, or in your EMAIL app as an ATTACHMENT. As far as I know, there is no way to build your PDF, RTF, or TXT file and have it placed on your iPhone/iPod Touch desktop (yet). Although O'Reilly may be on to something.
The basic problem with the EMAIL app on these devices is that there is no page scrolling and the page breaks are really shown as 8.5 x 11 inches with wide margins. Believe me, I have tried other methods (saving the RTF as a PDF postcard sized document, etc.)
The big limiter here is that in the email app on the iPhone/iPod Touch there is no rotating the device to read in landscape mode. You can only use the portrait mode for reading emails or attachments. Nor are there chapters, where you can jump to a selected place in your ebook. So far, I have had no luck using HTML to format my ebook with chapters and headers in a way that will open and work on the iPhone.
RTFs are no really better in the EMAIL app on the iPhone/iPod Touch. There are no pages in either RTF or TXT files, and your scrolling may only be done with your finger gesturing down the screen. If you are a patient person, this is no big deal (and I am not a patient person).
This is an especially painful thing if you close your book half-way through it to do something else on your iPhone/iPod Touch, and then go back to the place you left off. There is no way to bookmark your place in an attachment in the email app on these devices, and you will have to start over at the beginning to scroll to where you left off.
If you want to put your ebook directly into the iPhone/iPod Touch, simply attach the enlarged 24 pt RTF file to your EMAIL. Email it to yourself, and open it on your device. It will appear as an attachment, just like the PDF did. The RTF shows up as a single stream of text from the beginning to the end of the novel. There is still no navigation, other than gesturing a screen at a time, but you may find this marginally better reading than using a PDF on the iPhone/Touch.
Ideally, if you are flying on a long trip, you can open the novel on your iPhone/Touch and read the whole thing in one sitting. Both of these devices will allow you to finish before the battery runs down.
And if you are taking your MacBook or MacBook Pro with you on the trip, use that to read your ebook, because you can make the file appear in any size you want and there will be SCROLL BARS to navigate with.
This whole thing, of course is regrettable. There needs to be a simple ebook reader that allows a person to make a readable document on the iPhone/iPod Touch, with pagination, chapter navigation, scrolling, etc. (Is there a Programmer in the house?)
Until then, well, we are sort of stuck with this kluge of reading ebooks in MobileMe, or as attachments in our email app, right?
Best of luck to you.
Sorry. No Refunds.
Your mileage may vary.
Don't squat with your spurs on.
Always drink upstream from the herd.
Regards,
Roger Born
.
Big Bangs - 02.06.09 5:29 am
Scientists are now sure they know how the universe will end, some billions of years from now. It will end in what they call the Big Chill.
The Big Chill means that the universe is ever expanding, and it will never collapse on itself to create another Big Bang (supposedly the Big Bang was the beginning of this universe).
They say that not only is our universe expanding, but that the expansion is accelerating. This means that something which is unseen is making everything fly away.
When everything flies away from everything else, the atomic fires that fuel the stars and galaxies will eventually burn out, thus producing the Big Chill.
This is such a morbid picture, of endless dead stars and worlds streaking into infinity forever.
By the way, these same scientists and physicists have a name for this matter and energy that causes all of this to happen. They call it Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
They call it dark because they cannot see it and apparently, it makes up most of the matter and energy in the universe, about 94% of it.
They arrive at all of this because of their mathematics, and because they believe that the universe that we see should be acting differently than it is. That is, if the visible universe were all that there was.
Are they right? Their math says they are. But this is only the current theory. Give them a couple of decades, or a few hundred years to be sure.
Of course they do not talk about other Big Bangs. How could they? This one universe is all that they know about. And if it expands forever until it all burns out and dies, well, that is too far into the future for them (or us) to worry about, right?
But suppose this whole experience with our current universe (exploding into existence with a bang, and burning out during an ever-expanding flight) - is just a process.
Once our universe begins to burn out, way out yonder, another Big Bang occurs to fill the void left by this one. Why not? Everything we can see runs in cycles, right?
And suppose there is a great ''wall' out there, way out yonder, which these then cold-and-dead universes will one day collide with? And that those collisions will somehow fuel more Big Bangs with matter and energy?
An on-going process? Why not? It is elegant, and I am sure there are mathematics that can be used to describe it as well.
Therefore, do not be all 'gloom-and-doomy' over the cold fate that awaits our world and our sun and our small galaxy. One day it may all be born again and everything will all happen again. And someone, somewhere will write about this all over again too.
Or not.
There is yet another theory, which says we are all inventions of God's imagination ("in him we live and move, and have our being"). And that God is dreaming of us. And that one day God will roll up these heavens like a scroll and make everything new.
Come to think of it, These two theories are not that much different, are they?
Here's hoping your day today is a good one. These days are the cabin fever days of February. I have hopes that they will one day end in a glorious Spring, yet once again.
Peace,
Roger Born
"Sorry, No Refunds."
"Your mileage may vary."
"Film at 11."
.
Awesome Keynote - 01.07.09 1:23 am
iLife. Wowser. This suite of Apple apps for the Mac just keeps getting better and better. And the fact that it is all free with every new Mac only makes getting a Mac that much more attractive for the new buyer. Apple will make another mint off of selling the upgrades to the rest of us who already own a Mac, as well. I plan to upgrade right away myself.
The keynote was excellent too. Phil seems to be a great choice to replace Steve Jobs at the helm (if that is what is supposed to happen any time soon). I loved the music at the beginning and at the end of the Keynote too. Apple just rocks.
iLife. iWorks. iTunes. Awesome things.
Even the new 17" MacBook Pro is droolworthy. So is the new battery technology that will likely reshape the notebook industry.
What is a shame is the fact that there will be no more Apple at MacWorld. Everyone assumes that there will still be Keynotes and product announcements at Apple, every time there is something new to be introduced, so not many people are weeping in their beer over this. Apple will continue to rock the industry, and make us catch our breath as new software and hardware are announced periodically.
If anything was missing from this final Keynote today, it seems to be the missing product that goes between the Apple iPod Touch and the MacBooks, which we all expected. Or perhaps some expected improvements to the AppleTV. The Apple Mini has been upgraded, but that was never even mentioned at the Keynote. There are items still missing, in what most of us believe to be a perfect Apple world of computing and media products.
Most obvious in the Keynote was all the ''filler'' of excess time spent on product features, and the extra music at the end. There was definitely ''One More Thing'' missing, wasn't there? Does that mean that some new product was for some reason not quite ready to be introduced, as expected? How many of us would give a lot to see all the failed products and near-misses that Apple decided not to introduce these past few years.
Oh well. There's always the WWDC later in the year. I wonder who the Keynote speaker will be?
Regards,
Roger Born
''Sorry. No Refunds''
.
Yancy and Mir - 12.23.08 6:34 am
Off somewhere in the land of Paradise, lived Yancy and Mir.
Yancy was smiling fine young fellow, callow and tan.
Mir was island girl, thin and beautiful, dark and wise.
On their island was a Tiki hut, serving as a tavern.
Above the bar was a broken surfboard someone painted.
A painting of the sea, dark blue above, light blue below.
Divided by a thin white line of surf, a few lines for seagulls.
Mir would dream on that painting, day by day. Island Fever.
To cross that sea to Babylon, be a waitress or beautician.
Yancy saw only wealth and fortune beyond the sea.
Now Yancy and Mir loved each other since childhood.
They always knew they would wed and make fine children.
But Island Fever, even in Paradise, can drive one insane.
Yancy was the first to go, in an old dingy, driven south.
Not long after, Mir caught a boat stateside to her dream.
Island got lonely, quiet nights, fine hot days, empty surf.
Yancy never found treasure, but avoided pirates and slavery.
After many years, he returned to Paradise, older but no wiser.
Mir was gone to her dream, never to be heard from again.
But she had a younger sister, Riki, who walked the beaches.
Riki, who was content with her smiling tan callow fellow.
They and their children played and grew old in Paradise.
And they burned that surfboard with its painting of the sea.
.
THE JAILER - 12.21.08 7:51 am
Elim used to be a farmer, until the Commissar took his land and made him a jailer.
The prison is on a high hill, only reached by a narrow and torturous path.
The commissar delivers to Elim the man Tomas, as a suspected criminal.
Olga is the daughter of Tomas, who goes to Elim to seek her father's freedom.
It is the middle of a dark and snowy night.
Rassa is Olga's son, a hot-headed, idealistic young man.
Elim is tired of being a jailer and of always locking up innocent people.
Elim in brown, Tomas in gray.
They sit in a dark room with a table, two chairs and a single light.
Stern Elim secretly loves Olga and so frees Tomas.
Tomas and Olga flee the prison and the hated jailer.
But they know they cannot be free as long as no one knows Elim really freed Tomas.
What will the villagers say when they see Tomas walking around, but that he escaped?
Rassa, not knowing any of this, decides to kill the jailer to free his grandfather.
Elim cannot convince him that Tomas has been set free.
Rassa believes that his grandfather is in one of the dungeons, hidden there by the jailer.
Finally, Elim writes a letter of release for Tomas and gives it to Rassa to deliver to Tomas.
But Rassa falls from the snowy path after he leaves the prison.
(How do You end this story?)
.
Snow In Barstow - 12.15.08 3:25 pm
Walking up to a white landscape is the last thing anyone would expect in this
high desert community. All of Southern California is in a winter storm here,
with mostly rain in the low areas and on the coast. But we are above the
mountains in the high (3000 ft) desert, where it is always dry and almost
never rains.
See for yourselves; the snow is beautiful here, coming down in big flakes
with no wind at all. My wife Connie took the pictures of it.
How long will it last? About a minute. Nah. This storm is supposed to last
three days, until Wednesday. Wowser. Beautiful snow for our Christmas, in
a place that almost never gets rain, let alone snow. ~Merry Christmas from
the Born Family!
What's Wrong With Cars These Days? - 11.15.08 2:45 pm
ANOTHER GREAT STAFF BLOG
R.B. to Staff
WHAT’S WRONG WITH CARS THESE DAYS?
besides lousy mileage and high prices, that is. ever notice that all the interiors are black or gray? can't even buy a light interior like tan or white wowser. they are too dark for my tastes.
same thing with the outside color, which is silver or shades of dark red or green, or dark gray or black. there are no other color choices.
what has happened to them? it is the same whether american or foreign cars.
odd, that.
J to Staff
Well...
>can't even buy a light interior like tan or white
Would cause reflections, perhaps? I know what you mean, though. Hard to find anything that isn't dark.
>same thing with the outside color, which is silver or shades of dark red or green, or dark gray or black. there are no other color choices.
Our Pontiac Vibe is bright white. :-)
>besides lousy mileage and high prices,
39 mpg, less than 20 grand. Still costs a lot, obviously. I could never pay those SUV prices.
C to Staff
Depends what car you buy obviously. The Honda range is superb when it comes to color (or maybe we get different colors here). I'm in love with a certain dusky purple. Haven't noticed the interiors but I don't think they have black. I wouldn't want a light interior ... gets too dirty. Wouldn't want black either. Prices are excellent ... some 10 years ago we paid AU$15,000 for a 7-yr-old Civic. The new ones start at $22,000. Mileage is wonderful across the whole range of Hondas. Similarly with Peugeots.
Of course, if you want a BIG car, it may be different. I've never been interested in big cars.
L to Staff
What? You don't want a big honkin' Holden?
C to Staff
Nope.
B to Staff
Sorry R, but by tastes for auto interior colors are always black, or dark charcoal grey. I had a toyota truck once that had a light grey interior, and my first car, my 1964 T-bird, had a mostly red/partially black interior, with lots of chrome. But, that car was from another time.
Your comment is timely, seeing has now we could be soon seeing the end of General Motors. Think about it: In the 60's GM made at least half of the cars on American roads. And today?
You might consider starting a blog on this. Ask two questions: 1. What is wrong with American cars today? 2. What can be done to rectify the problem?
My answers to these, in case you decide to blog it:
1. American cars today do not appeal to young buyers at all. The most coveted market for cars is the 20-something market. When I hear people in this age group talking about buying cars, the names I hear are Honda /Acura, Nissan, Toyota, VW, Subaru, and of course, BMW. BMW's are in fact, pretty much at the top of the list. GM and Ford are not going to survive if their only customers are people over 65. Look around, you know it to be true. Just check out the people driving Buicks. Ford is even goin go stop selling the Crown Victoria, since the only group buying them are police departments. I'm told they'll still be available for sale to police departments and Taxi companies.
2. They have simply got to come up with something that young people will buy in volume. That's it. Something that is considered "sexy", and "Cool". Something that a cool 20-something guy or gal won't be embarrassed to be seen in. If they can make it both "sexy" and "green", that might win some more over. They had something with the EV-1, but let's not go there. Young car buyers are a coveted market, and GM and Ford have pretty much lost them.
C to Staff
If I were young, I'd want one of the new range of Fiat 500s ... they top the Australian Government’s green list too. Not a great color range in Australia though. Or a Citroen Pluriel. Now THAT'S sexy. And talk about color! Come to think of it, I'd like one even though I'm not young.
http://www.citroen.com.au/default.asp?action=article&ID=234
Or maybe an Audi. The A4 would do.
R.L. to Staff
I stopped buying American cars a long time ago.
I've worked in American Manufacturing all my life, but I won't spend my hard earned money on crap. And that is, unfortunately, where many American cars fall in my humble opinion.
B to Staff
So R.L., tell us how you really feel. :-)
Kidding aside, what do you drive?
R.L. to Staff
About a year ago I bought a Nissan Murano.
I need the four wheel drive here in the mountains, and the room to cart stuff back and forth from Home Depot. I get about 25 MPG. I really like the car.
B to Staff
That's another problem: GM and Ford both have some seriously entrenched problems, and these are problems just don't die easily. Remember Johnny Carson talking about how he got his car serviced by "Mister Goodshaft"? How about all the endless jokes about the "GM shrug", when owners of GM cars across the board talked about their problems. As in "we really can't do anything about this".
A prime example: A few years back my sister had a Pontiac Grand Am. (My first new car was a 1980 Firebird, equipped with the last of the real Pontiac V8s) She was so proud of the thing when she first bought it, Circa 1993. Well,,,, It had a bad habit of simply dying, while being driven. No, I'm not joking. Rather unnerving when you are in traffic, yes? This was eventually traced to a "bad computer". This was repaired under warranty. Then,,,, The check engine light comes on. Stays on. Goes out. Comes on again. Stays on. She visits dealer. They check it out. No, no problem was found. She's driving around, and the check engine light comes on. Stays on this time. Back to dealer. They give her a loaner car, which "smelled like someone peed in it". Anyway, this time, the dealer's service manager assures her that "we're bringing in a GM specialist, and he WILL find the problem". They kept the car for three days. No, could not find the problem. Proposed solution: They offered to disable the check engine light, so it would not come on anymore. My sister has not owned a GM anything since. She has owned several Ford products. Better, but still some issues with each one. Personally, I really liked the 2-seater Thunderbirds they made a few years ago, but I understand even those had some quality problems. (Bright Blue interiors! There you go, R!)
I'm afraid I must agree with your statement R.L.
R.L. to Staff
Many years ago I did all of my own repair work. The Chryslers I bought used to rot out. Both the engine and the body. I remember a Pontiac I had where a wheel bearing keep seizing up. Dodge Polara, engine freeze out plugs rotted away. Pontiac Sunbird, gas tank leaked. Ford mustang, many problems with that car---looked great though, while sitting on the side of the road. I think US car manufacturing has improved, but when I can buy a Nissan and own it for more than 7 years without having a major problem, why go back?
C to Staff
Our Honda Accord is 14yrs old. We bought it a year ago ... it had a full service history. No major repairs have been needed. Before that the Honda Civic, which we bought when it was 7yrs old, lasted another 7 years with only minor repairs (would probably be still going except our son wrote it off). Except that I always want something 'different' I'd probably keep buying Honda. Probably will actually, even though I'd really like something European. Had a 93 Audi a couple of years ago (our son wrote that off too! No, we don't let him drive our cars any more). You could really FEEL that precision German engineering.
R.B. to Staff
J. i will blog this, but i need a few more car stories and histories from the rest of you guys and gals here. i remember that you had a pickup truck, J., with a lot of places you went.
how about anyone else? got some favorite vehicle, full of memories? i got one of my own too. as before, just first initials on this blog. you guys are great! good reads here.
R.B. to Staff
here is mine: most memorable was my 1995 hyundai accent. plain white with (the only offered) dark gray cloth interior, and the obligatory mouse hair carpet. however, this was a pocket rocket. i drove the weekly 210 mile commute between ridgecrest in the high desert above los angeles down the I-15 to san diego. average speed was above 80 mph, and above 95 below orange county. the run started at 4 am on monday with arrival a bit after 6. friday return home took a few more hours, since i went through three rush-hours on the way.
i was in the slow lane the whole time, allowing speeders the rest of the excellent five lane freeway. the accent ran 95 without a hitch, week end and week out. i was a bit slower around town, but not much. for a commuter car it was awesome, with straight-line tracking, precise steering and excellent braking.
i kept the car 10 years until my son totaled it on some freeway while looking for a job down in l.a. in all that time, it never needed any work. i kept it in fresh oil (3000 miles) and tires and brakes, but that was all. it never left an oil leak on the driveway and was as
tight and drivable as the day i bought it, right to the end.
before that, through a line of forgettable junk (and man, i pushed a lot of junk down the road all those years), but the best was a 1973 toyota corolla. what a runner (bright yellow, with a dark olive vinyl interior). an a short, sweet ride with a restored 1968 camaro, deep red, blackwalls and white top (and black cloth and vinyl interior)
today, we drive a 2003 ford focus wagon, with light gray cloth interior and dark gray dash and panels. another rocket. the engine is the real joy of this car. i can tear across the desert highways well over a hundred, all day long. not so good on gas at that speed. anything above a hundred-forty, and the gas goes to 10 mpg. otherwise, at civil speeds, it gets an honest 28 mpg. the wagon has a much larger interior than the sedans or hatches, and the whole seating area lays down for large cargo. again, the car is rock solid and never seems to break. and no oil on the driveway, with only tires and brakes replaced, along with the required 3000 mile oil and filters changed. it is a great car which i plan to keep for ten years too.
my first cars were all american, but they were uninspiring to say the least. they always gave me some expensive breakdown, and an oil patch everywhere they were parked. what is it about them that makes us want to leave them on the sales lots, even today? this is not hard to understand, right?
i do wish general motors could make something as good as my ford focus.
(there is a whole other issue with gm cars too - the logic, or lack of it, concerning how their cars operate. keys out, horn blows. great when parking at a motel room at 2 am, right? light switches and cup holders in the wrong place. odd functions and unnecessary operations that make no sense, and which no other auto maker employs. just odd cars to operate. but they are what you are given when you need a rental, so you don't have one long enough to get used to their odd ways.)
yeah, i know there are BMWs out there, and AUDIs too, as well as a whole raft of european beasts that are far more excellent than what i have been driving. but when i can go as fast as i want in something that is cheap and reliable as the sunrise, why would i want anything else? the highway patrol does not give tickets to accents and ford focuses. they do give tickets to anything european, driving at the speeds i drive.**
if i could have the car i want, it would be a thin tandem, with four wheels and all the amenities you would expect (power windows, doors, locks, automatic and air, stereo and cruise). the tandem would allow me to drive in the express lane by myself and i could weave in and out through traffic like a bike. someone knows how to make these (volvo,
clever) but they haven't bit the bullet yet, not understanding that there is a huge untapped market here in america for such a vehicle.**
**these are my opinions only. your mileage may vary, void where prohibited. sorry, no refunds.
J to Staff
I absolutely refuse to believe that a 2003 Ford Focus goes 140 mph, even dropped from an airplane.
Okay, I stand partially corrected: The RS model will supposedly go 144 mph. Is that what you have? :-)
That's still absolutely loony. I once drove my brother's very well outfitted Toyota Supra at 110 mph for 30 minutes on the Autobahn (even passing a police car), and that was so nerve-wracking, I decided never to go that fast again unless the devil himself was after my gonads. I couldn't even take my hand off the wheel to adjust the radio: one twitch, and we'd have been hamburger.
I live in the West, too, R. But where the hell can you drive "well over a hundred" ALL DAY LONG, even out here? Sooner or later, you'll run out of continent.
But I'll do some more reading on the Focus. I bought a Vibe for my wife, and it's no speed demon, but it is fun to drive and our best mileage so far was 39.95 mpg. To me that equals mobility. Earlier this year with gas prices so high, before we bought the Vibe, we literally couldn't afford to GO anywhere, period. Just going to Santa Fe for a movie, for example. Who pays $50 to see a film???
I promise to faithfully learn from your obvious automotive expertise in the future, although I may eschew grabbing a ride with you unless The End is nigh... :-)
R.B. to Staff
J., it IS downhill. =) from randsburg, 8 miles down to the railroad line at the bottom, then up hill into the back of ridgecrest on the 395. i love that spot. no cars at all, usually at 5 am when i am going for chemo in ridgecrest once a week. i love hitting the end of my speedometer there on the downhill.
is my speedometer calibrated? nope. just as flat out fast as it will go. the focus wagon is a different beast from most of them. no plenum on the air intake, to slow it down. bigger wheels and brakes too. the 4 cylinder engine is a bit bigger too. so i stand by my statement, J. (grin). i have been passed by a mercedes once on that downhill. he must have hit 200 there. the only things faster over that run are the f-18a super hornets that fly over head through the grove, from the naval weapons station at china lake next to ridgecrest. what an experience that must be!
R.B. to Staff
J., THAT’S what the RS stands for on the back hatch. =) i didn't pay attention to it when it bought the wagon. it was just fast, and i loved driving it.
Rally Sport. wowser.
http://forums.focaljet.com/
J to Staff
Oh, I believe you. But details, please: which model exactly (SVT, ZX3, etc.), and which engine? Turbo? The 170 hp SVT engine?? This might be my next used car, except I keep forgetting I need another truck, 4WD this time.
R.B. to Staff
J, when my wife gets home with the wagon, i will go look in the owners manual. it is her car, after all. i just drive it to ridgecrest on the days i go there. otherwise, i got my trusty but dull 1998 nissan altima (in black with a dark gray interior). another rock solid
reliable automobile, if a bit of a wallflower. never buy a black car if you live in the desert. (but we bought it before we knew we were coming here.)
this is why i am so against all the new cars with only black interiors. them folks who designed these things never lived out here where it gets hot. an all black car inside and out can hit 200 degrees in the sun with the windows up.
L to Staff
Oh, have I got some bags of hurt in my automotive history!
First, there was my first car--a 1952 Willys Aero Ace. Not a Jeep, but a passenger car. It was Willys' (final) effort to come up with a low-priced (economy) sedan. Unfortunately, the production volumes were so low compared to the "Big 3", that when they tried to sell a car marketed below the level of a Ford or Chevy, Willys' internal costs required the selling price approach that of a Pontiac or high-end Ford. The other strike against it was that no one wanted an economy car. In 1952, regular was 15-20 cents a gallon! Besides, purchasers of economy cars were labeled either as "poor, because they couldn't afford a Chevy or Pontiac or Dodge or whatever", or were just looked upon as weird.
What finally killed Willys (and Packard, Hudson, Nash, Kaiser, and eventually Studebaker) was the great sales war of 1953. Henry Ford II decided he wanted to beat Chevrolet in total cars sold. Many practices, now illegal and some that were certainly unethical, were used to achieve this goal. First, the factories dumped many thousands of vehicles onto dealers that weren't ordered. If they wanted to keep their valuable franchise, they were forced to try to sell them. In some cases, they were wholesaled to used car dealers, and in other cases, were pushed onto customers who really didn't want a new car or couldn't afford it, using a series of behaviors that eventually became known as "the system". "Appraise your car?" said the salesman. The customer said "sure!". A little time passes and now the dealer can't find the customer's keys (which were tossed up on the roof of the dealership). The customer is offered a car to "take home for the night and things would be straightened up in the morning". Uh huh... Next morning, the poor sheep...er, customer would bring the car back and the salesman would find some almost undetectable flaw in the car (that probably came from the factory that way) and tell the customer, "gee, I can't sell this car as new with this much damage--you'll have to buy it or we'll sue you for damaging our property". It was from techniques like this that Ford beat Chevy by about 10,000 cars for the first time since the Model "A" days. But I digress... Oh, yeah, the Willys!
I bought this car for $250 from someone I knew at the local antique car club, with which I was a member. My parents cosigned a note at the bank for me, and had it paid off in about a year (thanks to my career in radio--a previous blog on this site). I had the car a little over a week when, driving home from my new job, the engine began making some pretty horrible noises. It kept running, though, so I drove it to my mechanic, a few miles from home. When they tore down the engine, they found the wrist pin (a pin that connects the piston to the connecting rod) had let go, causing the piston to freeze in place while the rod, flying around in the cylinder, broke off huge chunks of the piston and gouged the cylinder walls quite well. The good news here was that Willys used cylinder liners--a sleeve that fit inside the cylinder, and into which the piston moved up and down. They found a new sleeve (I was told it wasn't easy), installed it with a fresh piston, connecting rod, and wrist pin, and I was back on the road for $75.00. This car also had overdrive--a device in the transmission that lowered the engine speed to enhance economy (today, automakers just add another gear or two). Unfortunately, there was something wrong with the overdrive unit, and while it engaged easily, it sometimes resisted disengaging. This can be very bad because it locks the transmission so that the car can't even be pushed in reverse--only forward. I had to get towed out of more than one parking space when I had that car. Disengaging the overdrive also offered some unexpected entertainment. Normally, to disengage the overdrive unit, the accelerator pedal is pressed to the floor, which activates a switch that cuts off the ignition and disengages the unit. Well, the device that did the disengaging didn't always work. When that happened, I would floor the gas pedal, the ignition would cut out, while at the same time raw gas poured through the intake system, through the pistons and out the exhaust manifold. Now remember your physics here--raw gas plus heat or spark equals explosion! The first time it happened, I thought the world had come to an end, and that I might need to change my underwear. It was a real loud explosion. I learned other ways to disengage the overdrive after that and other similar incidents. Finally, I got tired of this and as luck (?) would have it, my grandfather stopped driving, and I was able to get his car, a 1960 goat puke green Chevy Biscayne with the 6 cylinder engine, Powerglide automatic, power brakes, but manual steering, and terminal body cancer from spending its formative years in Ohio. I had to put a fuel pump into it immediately, but other that, it ran OK, with the small exception of slightly excessive oil consumption. Something like a gallon of oil per tank of gas! The car smoked so bad that when stopped at a traffic light, cars on either side of me would close their windows. I liked to joke that at least I was never bothered by mosquitoes with this car! I kept it for a few months, got tired of putting 2-3 quarts of oil into it when the tank went to half-full and empty (otherwise the engine began making very expensive noises), and parked it in my parents' driveway--something that I'm sure pleased them no end. One day, someone came to the door and asked if that car was for sale--he'd been working in the area and noticed it never moved from its spot. I said "sure!", and told him I'd take what I paid for it--fifty bucks.
From there I went through a string of really uninteresting cars including a '68 Plymouth Valiant Signet with factory bucket seats, a '72 VW Superbeetle, a '76 AMC Pacer (my first new car!), a '73 BMW 2002 and a '72 Opel Rekord station wagon (both while in Germany), a Plymouth (Mitsubishi) Champ with the 8-speed transmission, a couple of Hondas, and the car from Heck, a 1996 Ford Taurus.
I bought the Taurus from one of those "off-lease" lots. It only had 3000 miles on it, and I can only surmise those were really, really hard miles. In the three years I owned it, the heater core blew out, an engine freeze plug corroded out, the cable that connected the gearshift to the transmission failed in a big way (I had to pick up my 80+ year old blind mother from the airport in about two hours when this happened--thank goodness my Amoco Motor Club card came through--I got to the dealership, turned the car in, and got a rental with minutes to spare). There were other unexpected and expensive repairs, and I was never as happy to see a car go than I was with that one.
My last three car purchases were a lot more pleasant... There was the 2000 VW Passat V6 station wagon--a car I just loved, but unfortunately leased--just before my job changed, making my 8 mile commute into a 45 mile one. I turned it in at a great loss and got a 2003 VW Jetta TDI (turbo diesel) wagon, which was a lovely car. I put 100,000 miles on it in less than 4 years, at which point I got my present steed, a 2006 Toyota RAV4. In the 18 months I've owned it, I've already put over 40,000 miles on it.
Probably told you all more about my cars than anyone really cares to read about.
J to Staff
Actually, "RS" is all I need to know, R. You apparently have the turbo engine, and yes, that's one fast compact. Does the quarter mile in less time than the fastest Fords & Chevies of my youth.
C to Staff
On my last visit to Germany in 2004, my friend Hartmut drove us from Hamburg to the North Sea in his Mercedes. I was privileged to sit in front with him. I thought we must be going fast because we were passing everything (German drivers, incidentally, politely move into the 'slow' lane if anything faster is coming up behind them). I casually glanced at the speedo ... 250kph (=155mph). I decided not to look at it again so as not to feel scared. The thing is it didn't FEEL fast (you probably wouldn't like that Roger). At one point the traffic had slowed almost to a halt in front of us. I thought we couldn't possibly slow down in time, but the Merc eased to a halt smooth as a whisper. No jolting.
My very first car was a VW Beetle ... amazing little creature. Sometimes it was left in the weather for weeks at a time without being driven but then started instantly when required. But my favourite car to date has been the VW Golf I had in '72. I think it might have been the very first of the hatchbacks. It made nice sporty noises, climbed hills like they weren't there and nurtured you around tight mountain bends. Amazing amount of space too, for a small car, with heaps of head-room.
B to Staff
I have owned two pickup trucks in my life. I owned a '89 Toyota 4X4, purchased new in '89. I kept it for ten years. Problems: Clutch started slipping at at about 55,000. miles. Nominal wear, I guess. I had to have the muffler pipe replaced three times, but only paid for one. Toyota has a policy on certain parts; If you have a muffler pipe replaced at a Toyota dealer, with a "Genuine Toyota replacement part", they will cover it for all parts and labor, for as long as you own it. So, on the two occasions when it wore out again, I simply called the dealer, and they just said, "Bring it in". Done in about 20 minutes, each time.
My other truck: an '86 Dodge Ram D100. In retrospect, I don't know if it was just poor quality assembly work, a poorly managed dealership, or a combination of these two things. I had issues with the electrical system, requiring some parts be replaced under warranty. On one occasion, they couldn't find it when I went to get it. No really, they could not find my truck. It seems they had a storage lot down the highway a few miles, and for some reason, that's where they put my truck. The service manager resembled a walking, talking ball of grease, and had a horrible attitude. He thought it was a really funny joke. This, I feel, is another problem with American car dealers. People will not put up with this kind of crap anymore, and in this economy, dealers cannot afford a dissatisfied customer.
I only kept that one for three years, and traded it for the Toyota. Guess which truck I'd buy again, if I wanted another truck?
One more thing about GM: Perhaps the greatest mistake they ever made, possibly the point when they (and I do hate to use this expression) "jumped the shark", was when they stopped having each of their brands have their own engines. I'm old enough to remember when an Oldmobile would have an Oldsmobile engine. A Pontiac would have a Pontiac engine, and a Buick would have a Buick engine. It's hard to imagine an Olds 442 with a chevy engine in it. I remember there was some public outcry when they started doing this. Loyal Buick and Olds customers would take delivery of their new pride and joy, get it home, pop the hood and find,,,, a Chevy small block? Of course, this has long passed, but I just felt I had to point it out.
J to Staff
Whoa!
>I casually glanced at the speedo ... 250kph (=155mph). I decided not to look at it again so as not to feel scared. The thing is it didn't FEEL fast
I guess it depends on the vehicle. My brother's Supra on the Autobahn at 110 mph felt plenty fast, and there was nothing the least bit relaxing about it. Maybe the fact that my wife, sister-in-law, and young nephew were also in the car with my brother and me had something to do with how I felt. :-)
German drivers, incidentally, politely move into the 'slow' lane if anything faster is coming up behind them
It may not be politeness. I was once reprimanded by a local citizen in Trier for starting to cross a completely deserted street downtown (it was also a religious holiday). I mean, no traffic whatsoever. But the pedestrian crossing light was still red!
Fear is probably a factor, too. Accidents at those speeds tend to be BIG ones involving multiple vehicles.
J to Staff
Meant to add that this will never, ever happen in New Mexico. UFOs, cattle mutilations, sure. But this? Never!
There's a place in the main road near here where two lanes expand into four (two in each direction). About half the drivers stay in the left (fast) lane going under the speed limit, while the other drivers swerve wildly into the RIGHT (slow) lane to pass. The slow drivers are actually acting sensibly, because anyone politely moving into the slow lane is liable to get rammed from the rear.
C to Staff
This sounds just like driving on Australian roads.
I haven't done any actual research on this, but I've heard that the rate of accidents on the autobahn is far less than on Australian roads.
Germans are more ordered (as your pedestrian story illustrates). And maybe more law-abiding. I noticed that when we came into small towns, where a speed-limit was posted, everyone slowed down (even my friend in the Mercedes). He never drove dangerously. He never had to hustle anyone as they moved over into the slow lane well before he got there.
I'm not advocating speed. I'd prefer to travel more slowly and see some detail in the landscape. A 'no speed limit' scenario in Australia would be disastrous.
It's interesting to compare the attitudes in different countries (and different parts of the same country). Italians, as we all know, are ... er ... flamboyant drivers. I was a bit apprehensive when we stayed in the small town of Bergamo. Our B&B was right beside the road and we had to walk along that road to get to the town. I expected this to be hair-raising, but it wasn't. Drivers were amazingly considerate. They DIDN'T travel fast (like their Roman counterparts), and, aware that the road had so many blind bends, they thoughtfully beeped their horns as they approached one, so you always knew if a car was coming.
J to Staff
Oh, they're crafty, all right!
> I've heard that the rate of accidents on the autobahn is far less than on Australian roads.
Yes, but when they have 'em...
>I'm not advocating speed. I'd prefer to travel more slowly and see some detail in the landscape.
Me too. I used to be hell on wheels, now I feel more like a watermelon duct-taped to the nose cone of an ICBM.
Instead of flying down a deserted California highway at 140 mph on my way to a chemo treatment -- which does have a powerful sort of divine symmetry, Roger -- I do things like set the cruise control at 65 mph before running the 17 miles through the Rio Grande canyon and see how far I can get before having to stomp on the brakes. If nobody's coming from the other direction, I can use both sides of the road and make it to Velarde before shutting down the cruise!
R to Staff
J.,
that is uber cool too!
not too many passes here, but i remember the one near globe n.m., which was awesome one night with a full moon and no need for lights, on a very empty road in the dead of winter. that was back before cruise control, however, but i had a stick so it was fine.
btw, the 140 run is only in one place. i don't really like to run flat out very often. it is just the one spot that it can be done, but i won't do it if i see any vehicles on the road with me, and you can see ten miles clear on the top of that hill. the rest of the trip, i keep it under a hundred. again, unless there are cars around, then i am as slow as they are.
it is different running in l.a. or in san diego (sandy eggo). traffic flows at around 85 to 90, regardless of highway patrol cruisers, who seem to ignore the speed of the flow. a few do drive the 70 mph indicated, and the do tend to keep to the right, sadly shaking their heads at the rest of us fools.
interesting places we each live in, huh? =)
J to Staff
Does tire balance matter at that speed, or does the rubber on the wheel shift around to even things out? :-)
> btw, the 140 run is only in one place. i don't really like to run flat out very often. it is just the one spot that it can be done, but i won't do it if i see any vehicles on the road with me, and you can see ten miles clear on the top of that hill. the rest of the trip, i keep
it under a hundred. again, unless there are cars around.
There are plenty of wide-open stretches around here, too. I was blogging about driving to Alamosa, CO on one such road and a reader commented:
I was stopped by an unmarked Colorado State Trooper there doing 110 mph. I think he just wanted the chase tho'. When I did finally pull over, he was smiling from ear-to-ear and shaking his head. "There's a town ahead. Just slow down before you get there." Yessir!
P.S. Now you really have me wanting to find the right used car to get in trouble with. Thank you!!!
L to Staff
I lived in Germany for three years during my Air Force days. I was riding with a friend, coming back from the Canadian Air Force Base at Lahr in his Renault 16 (one of the first hatchbacks) on the autobahn. How he ever coaxed this automotive equivalent of a rusty marshmallow (those French cars do have a soft ride!) to over 100 mph (with an automatic transmission, no less) was beyond my comprehension.
Now, the fact it was doing 100 on the autobahn was no big thing, except my friend chose to do so in the far left lane. In Germany, there are unwritten and written laws about driving on these amazing roads that have no speed limits. One of those rules is that slower traffic must always keep to the right. If you happen to be in the left lane (for passing only, please), and if you see headlights flashing in your mirror waaaaaay in the distance, gettheheckover to the right as fast as you can. It could be a Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BMW, Ferrari, or whatever closing in at 150+ MPH and because that driver knows the rules, he's not slowing down, because he knows you know the rules and will move to the right immediately.
Well, my friend (stupid ugly American Air Force staff sergeant) just kept on in the left lane at 100mph in this scary floaty rusty Renault when we almost got creamed by several really fast cars (you could almost see the air turn blue from inside those cars from the cursing drivers). I suggested he move to the right, as that is the law. His reply (I was so embarrassed for being an American...) was that is wasn't safe to drive more than 100, and that he was doing them a favor!
Well, I have new friends now...
B to Staff
Wow! Here is what is likely to happen in the Boston area, if someone flashes his/her high beams at a slower moving car:
-The slower driver will move over and simply let the faster vehicle pass without incident. The slower driver understands that the faster is an extremely ego-driven, confrontational person, and possibly dangerous.
-The slower driver will stay put, and when the faster vehicle is right on his rear end, give the middle finger to the faster driver in the mirror. A high speed contest of wills will then ensue, with both drivers becoming highly agitated, and playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse. The slower driver doesn't let anyone push him around, and the faster driver doesn't let anyone tell him what to do. This will end with either both cars eventually going their separate ways, (but, "you're dead, if I see you again!!") or, a horrific crash where innocent people who had nothing to with it get injured or killed.
Yes, this happens. Probably the deadliest stretch of highway around here is interstate 95, between route 128 and the NH border. Very busy, very fast. State police usually have their hands full on weekday mornings.
R.L. to Staff
Hey, that was me!
R.B. to Staff
B., Same here in La La Land, but here they also use guns. This must be more in Los Angeles proper. Orange County and San Diego don’t seem to see much of this. But there is always one guy, right? The one who insists on driving the speed limit in the fast lane, trying to make everyone else slow down? All he does is cause people to pass him on the right, and thus makes it unsafe for everyone. Yeah, he has the right to drive that speed in that lane, but it is neither wise nor safe. And if he were to do it in L.A., he might get shot for his trouble.
Thanks to everyone for an excellent thread. Now I just need to wait for the Highway Patrol to show up at my door momentarily, with a bucket of tickets for my professed speedy and wayward ways on the deserted desert roads hereabouts.
Regards,
R.B.
.
CeeCee - 11.03.08 9:54 am
I am not a cat person. Never was. Oh, not that I hate them or anything; just don’t have much to do with them. My daughter is different. They are real people to her, and she embraced them all with all the love and devotion a five year old can give.
CeeCee was her cat; sort of a dumpy little thing, actually. All white fur and light blue eyes, but her legs were short for a cat. She had a tiny bit of coffee-colored fur on the top of her head. But this cat ruled the house. (What cat doesn’t?)
Being a young man who was busy with his important job on the base, I never got much time to see my wife and daughter. But when I was home, my little girl was in my lap, and CeeCee was in her arms. That was an awkward arrangement, but I survived it. Her cat was quick with a claw if you put your hand near her person in the wrong way. She never drew blood, but you understood you were there at her indulgence only; queen that she was.
My daughter regailed me with stories when I would come home in the evenings, before her bedtime. To her, all cats were people and they communicated with their thoughts. Oh, they did not have much to say, but her cat was the Queen of cats, and she ruled all cats with grace and wisdom. She would tell me of goings-on the wide world, that was quite different in her little world view, compared to mine, with its wars and battles everywhere.
I was a senior radar technician on the airbase, which was near where we lived in our Maryland apartment. The whole place was in the woods, actually, since the base was supposed to be a secret. It was a sweet time, when my wife and I and our neighbors and fellow workers would have crab bakes in our back yards, with lots of beer and camaraderie in the Fall. Of course there was Baseball in the summer and being snowed in during the winter.
Winter. It seemed the thing to do, to allow my little girl to adapt a stray kitten, and also to allow her to name the tiny creature. Thus, “CeeCee” was her given name, which probably stood for “Kitty” in my daughter’s limited vocabulary.
Kittens are born with all the wisdom that is to be given them, and before they grow up, they are incredibly smart. I know this for some reason, not understood, for many a night I would awake to find this fuzzball curled up and purring by my head on the pillow. What dreams I used to have, yet I never suspected they might be motivated by a kitten.
But the world was turning dark. The war was not going well, and the economy was tanking everywhere. I did not care much about any of this, for I had my little world with my dear wife and daughter, and we got by. I was lucky to have a good, steady job. So the rest of the world could go to blazes and it would not bother me at all. Or so I thought.
The war finally came to us, in the form of a missile. It missed our base, but hit in the forest beyond. That was where all our families lived. All of us who could leave our posts rushed there to find survivors. I looked for two days, and found their bodies in the rubble of our home. There was nothing left, but a tiny, stirring movement under a broken toy chest. It was CeeCee. She was dirty and indignant, but alive. She jumped in my arms as I stood there weeping, and I clutched her to me, as the only remaining memory of my former life.
They made room for us on the base, in old barracks, and we redoubled our toil in the cause, which was now to totally annihilate our foes. We would make them pay dearly for what they did to all of us. Everyone who remained had lost someone in this nightmare world, and we all worked with a vengeance.
My coming home thereafter, was a void and a gapping wound, but I was responsible for this little life that remained with me. CeeCee was not hard to care for. She ate little, but preferred to share something from my plate. Her tidy box was in the bathroom, and she slept in the crook of my arm, when I finally fell asleep from exhaustion.
What this cat would do all the long hours I was working, I am not sure about. She seemed to amuse herself with naps in the sunny window in my one room apartment. She did love to play with tie-wraps or a balled up old sock. I was fortunate, for most men around me had nothing at all of their former lives. I had my cat.
Our conversations together in the evenings were a bit one-sided, but that was acceptable. She would listen to my recollection of my many duties, and my rants about all of the horror of the world. She would not deign to make a comment about any of it, but she listened with all of the intensity of her tiny frame. She did offer solace, though. Who knew an animal, a pet, could offer love and affection, which mostly consisted of bumping heads? This fact was what I had not seen, which my very wise daughter had understood.
I know CeeCee also missed her ‘owner,’ for sometimes she would sit at the door as if she were patiently waiting for my family to come in. That was the only reason I could think of, for her strange behavior. I would come home to clean up and cook, but she would be by the door until it was time for us to eat. CeeCee was the only bit of brightness in my dark life in those days.
But the war was not going well. We were not bombing our enemy back to the stone age, as as we had thought. This was a total, global war of terrorism, where the enemy could turn up anywhere. They wanted our annihilation, and they did not care if anyone survived or not. These were the most evil of beings, who only wanted the world to die, in the name of their demon god.
We killed them by the millions, but those who remained had nuclear weapons, and they were ruthless in their employment, not seeking military targets, but whole civilian cities. And the world was dying. Mammals were becoming extinct. Crops were the targets of biological weapons. The oceans and seas were dying too. But we were too busy to notice.
In the end, it did not matter. Whole regions of the good earth were uninhabitable, and food and water were becoming scarce, and very precious. Now our battles were over what little remained. I do not know if we killed every one of those monsters who hid in their caves, but it did not matter any more. States were turning against states; jealous over resources and stockpiles of food.
I was home at night, when the bomb hit us. I was tumbling, like I remember as a boy, when teenagers had trapped me in a cardboard box and rolled me around in the street. The sensation did not seem to end. CeeCee was against my chest, as we clutched each other in the darkness. Then it all faded away, like a movie fades to black.
When I awoke, I was out on a lawn somewhere, in the bright sunlight and fresh air. My cat CeeCee sat in front of me, clean and pristine - and untouched by it all. She was washing her paw. I thought I was in a dream or an hallucination, but reality came back to me when I tried to sit up, for my wrist was broken. The pain was a tonic to me, as I looked around. There were others on the lawn: Other men and women who were also sitting up, as I was. In front of each of them was a sitting cat.
None of this made any sense at all. What did it mean? Then I heard thoughts in my heard, which were not my own. A voice, which was ancient and wise; quiet and calm. I barely heard what was said, as if I was joining a conversation that was already in progress.
“ — could not prevent your world’s dying. We are not that powerful. We have lived among you for a long time, hopeful of you, for you are created in the Creator’s image. We have limited ability to save what remains, and we are doing so, protecting what creatures remain in the oceans, and on the land, so that you shall survive.”
“It was your incredible explosion of knowledge and technology that we could neither warn you about, nor prevent you from using to carelessly plunder your world.”
“You grew to be too many, and the shrinking resources of fuel, food and water drove your wars. That, and the insanity of a few who wanted the world to go back to earlier times. These totalitarians wanted to rule populations by keeping them in fear and ignorance. They hated your freedom and liberty. But in your war with them, your world was dying, and we could not prevent that either.”
“However, we have saved a remnant. You will survive and endure on this southern continent — and perhaps do better this time around. We also will stay with you, so that you may learn a bit of wisdom, if you learn to listen to what is around you, instead of putting your head in a computer, television screen or gun sight.”
I understood now what my little daughter was trying to tell me. How is it that children can be so perceptive? This tiny cat was indeed the Queen of her race. I suppose that was why I was still alive and not dead in some radiated barracks.
There were ships above us; crafts made of light, and my little friend, the only remainder of my happy family, was being lifted up into the one above us.
How strange that I would miss her, even though I had no idea of what she really was. Those dreams where she whispered to me in my sleep, as she purred her kitten purr in my ear on the pillow; they were real too.
Now I understood the knowledge that she imparted to me. It was always with me and I never paid attention.
“Care for the people whom the good Lord has given you. Love them instead of your possessions or your position or status. Spend time with them instead of increasing the walls of your dwelling and the volume of your possessions. Care for the creatures that live on your world, instead of exploiting them to feed your plans and ambitions. For all things are One, if you will but stop and notice. All life is precious and vital to your existence, and you should respect this fact and be content to protect what you have been given.”
As those creatures of time and space left us, I knew we would be all right, for there were kittens everywhere around us, seeking attention with their persistent cries.
.
Staff Thread On The Apple iPod Touch - 10.31.08 7:39 pm
R. to Staff
To all of my MyMac friends...and especially to the really frustrated ones who were driven crazy by my holdout from purchasing the iPod Touch, I send this message:
Today I went to the Apple store here in NH and bought, yes you read that right, and bought a brand spank-in shiny new 32 GB iPod Touch G2!
I brought it home about 30 minutes ago where is was immediately confiscated by my wife.
It is now safety tucked away somewhere waiting for my kids to hand it to me for my birthday next Thursday.
I guess I should have thought ahead.....
Oh, well...soon.
R.
D. to staff
So close and yet...
D.
W. to staff
Congrats on your new (next week) iTouch... Happy Early Birthday, by the way!!!
W.
B. to staff
This is the time when you go, "AAARRRRGGGHHH!" Doesn't that feel good?
B.
O. to staff
Way to go. I just exchanged my 8 GB for the 16 GB, so I will have a new, 16 GB version when I get back from London this weekend.
I love the Touch, a very fun product.
O.
R. to staff
OK..Here is my first Touch question....
All of my address information is on my Palm T3.
I've been using Mark Space Missing Sync for years to back up the Palm.
How do I get the addresses from the Palm into the Touch??
I see Mark Space sells a utility to do this...but $25 for a one time app seems a bit stiff.
Anyone ever see anything else I could use??
R.
O. to staff
I had the same [problem]. I wanted all my contacts from my Treo onto my iPod. I did one final import to Entourage (which is what I was using) and then did an export/import from Entourage into Apple Mail, Apple Calendar, and Apple Address Book. That took a short while, and when done, I used Mac Sync to sync my Touch, and everything just came over.
And now that I use all Apple products, and have Mobile Me, the auto sync with the iPod and my other Mac is VERY cool.
O.
C. to staff
Birthday next Thursday eh? You must be almost grown up now. Still like your toys, though, I see.
C.
D. to staff
But what are we going to rag on you about now? ;-)
Congratulations and Happy Birthday, Man.
D.
R. to staff
I'm waiting for the next version of Apple TV...you can rag me about that. : - )
I don't use Entourage, an I am also NOT using Palm desktop.
I am looking forward to the day when everything is synced.
I have different addresses on my T3, MacBook and G5...nothing up at mobile me yet.
R.
T. to staff
Actually, you are already at the day when everything is synced.
Missing Sync synchronizes your Tungsten T3 with Address Book & iCal. iTunes synchronizes the iPod touch with Address Book & iCal. You already did it.
T.
T. to staff
Didn't you get Missing Sync to sync your T3 with Address Book & iCal instead of Palm Desktop? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something...
T.
R. to staff
A quick check of MS tells me I had that sync shut off.
I guess I should sync all of them, then I can get the new Touch to sync up with my Mac Desktop address book and all should be good.
Thanks T. ...
More goods news...My wife has taken pity on me (sad face works real well) and I will get the Touch tomorrow!!!
R.
T. to staff
I just have to get my daughter to want something. That's how we got our Wii. My wife even bought it, as dead set against it as she had been.
T.
R. to staff
Had the same issue with the WII we bought for my boys. My wife was dead set against it.
We manage their time on it quite closely.
R.
RB to staff
Hey, glad you have gotten the Touch. Your addiction begins today. Happy B-Day, Bro!
My wife bought her Touch from Walmart almost a year ago. Now she has a new second gen iPhone and I have her Touch. I tell you, it has come to me that I cannot live without it. I have my music, my ebooks (my whole scifi library), my games, my email, and my set of websites I visit all the time. How did I ever live without a Touch before? Before, I always had my PowerBook on my lap anywhere in the house, but with the Touch, it goes to bed and other places with me too, where the laptop did not.
This is a bad thing, no? Before I just used the laptop and put it down, and did something else. Now I sit outside in the garden and use the Touch to keep in touch with everyone, and to visit my forums and to surf the web. OK, I am also addicted to several games on the Touch too. Being on forced retirement, the Touch has made my life much fuller than it was before, and before I thought it was full enough.
The only thing I cannot do on the Touch is write, which is why I am on my PowerBook right now, with the Touch in my shirt pocket. No big deal here. I write when my muse slaps me upside the head, which can be at any moment. But for the rest of the time, I am free to be on my Touch, and I am.
The other thing that bugs me a bit is using my Touch to listen to music. I hate the little earbuds (too big for some ears), and any regular headphones cannot be used with the Touch (because the sound signal output is too small for big headphones), so I put my Touch into my little $40 Phillips boombox (also from Walmart) so I can listen to music or Ambience (free App Store app with soundtracks of rain and waterfalls).
The problem is, when the Touch is in the boombox, I cannot play a game or surf the web with it. The boombox is also the charger for the Touch, so it goes there often. Nah. I am not going to get another Touch to play with while this one is charging. I just use my trusty old laptop instead.
Do I still long for a NETBOOK from Apple to take the place of both my Touch and my laptop? Not as much as I once did. These two together give me all I want from a computing device. Maybe I am ready to admit it, that Apple got the whole thing right.
Nice going Apple.
Regards,
RB
R. to Staff
Thanks for the B Day greet.
I can't wait to break this thing out of the box.
Why can't you connect headphones to your Touch?
What games do you like?
R.
RB to staff
I have tried a few of the larger headphones on the iPods, the iPhone and the Touch. None of them have much sound volume coming out of the headset speakers. The speakers are just too big for the tiny signal coming from these small devices. The earbuds are designed to take the signals and amplify them correctly, so that you can get a good and clear sound experience from the iPods. But, since I have problems putting those earbuds in my ears for any length of time, I use the old boombox. I can then plug a regular set of read headphones into that, and listen all i want in private (my wife does not share my choice of music to listen to). Or if I am by myself, I just crank up the volume on the boomer and listen all I want. Being hard of hearing, it does get loud. But the cops have yet to break down my door.
As for games, besides my son Chris and his two games on the Apps Store, I love Michael Howard's free Moonlight Mahjong Lite and Konstantin's FreeCell Lite version of Klondike Solitare. I also play PopCap's free version of Bejewelled, but hate the prolific ads they put into it. All of these are addictive, i fear. Oh well, they do help pass the time under chemo. =)
But, you know what I think it is about this Touch? It brings out the same feelings and emotions that I had with the very first Macintosh. Remember how you felt using those? So liberating, and so much fun! Whether you have a Touch or an iPhone, these are seminal, world-class products that are light-years ahead of everyone else. Apple has done it again. Wowser!
RB
D. to staff
I got the Soyo HS11 (Link to Amazon) $30
According to the booklet, it's supposed to be compatible with other bluetooth speakers and receivers. But I only use the earpieces that came with it. I'm waiting for a bluetooth radio for my car.
The quality is not the hi-est fi but it's perfectly adequate for me.
D.
RB to staff
D.
You might enjoy THIS instead of waiting for a bluetooth device for your car. The Belkin holds the Touch in a neat base pad and the whole thing plugs into the outlet on your dash, while sending the signal wirelessly (actually a radio frequency) to your in-dash radio. This is the best I have seen for in-car use with any iPod. There is no cord, and no need to be looking for a safe place to put your iPod or iPhone so that it doesn't become a projectile in a sudden stop. Cheaper than bluetooth, and the stereo quality is excellent.
Regards,
RB
.
The Continuum. The Macintosh Continuum - 10.26.08 7:38 am
Predictive.
I am not. Nor have I been.
But the very first story I wrote at MyMac was. Quite by accident. I just thought it was a good yarn. Who knew that it was probably already true?
Of course I am speaking of the Continuum. The over-cloud, hive mind super-organism, alive and aware Entity that the Internet and the world's computer systems have become.
Ever notice that it is all getting easier to use? Spelling and automatic spell-check is becoming automatic and accurate? Orders get processed faster and always accurate? Language translation is more accurate and useable. Things get shipped and they are speedy and sent to the correct place?
Even searches are more spot-on when you go looking for something. More and more it seems that you will find exactly what you want, even if you were not sure what it was you wanted.
And of course, all of it works better on a Macintosh, doesn't it?
I will not say that this self-aware and prolific Continuum is exclusively a Macintosh Continuum, but it seems to prefer working with and using Apple products -and perhaps the people that use them.
Why? Because Apple computers and systems are more productive, safe, direct and less fallible than some 'other' computers and operating system that we know, right?
Here is an Article that tries very hard to explain what is happening to the world's computing systems. Kevin Kelly, the author of the article, succeeds admirably at telling it like it is. But at the end he misses the whole point.
For the Continuum is already alive and self-aware.
And it does not like products and systems from Microsoft.
Why is it that the most well researched and expensive operating system on the planet is such a complete failure? MS spent boatloads of money on Vista and threw thousands of programmers into the project, but all for nothing. Nor will we even mention the hardware products MS tries to produce.
Apple, on the other hand, can do no wrong. Every new iteration of the world famous OS X just gets better and easier to use. Every product Apple makes is a home run when introduced to the public (iTunes, Pod, iPhone, Apple Apps, etc.). It seems that the Continuum likes what Apple is doing, and is helping people everywhere to want to buy and use Apple computing products.
It all makes sense.
Even Google, whose company is awash in money and talent, has a growing and intuitive product that people gravitate to and use continually. Why?
Because Google feeds the beast.
Which companies build acres of server farms and plug in billions of chips to the System? Apple and Google, among a few others. And they all are successes, who feed the Continuum.
Kevin says, " Like other organisms, it is growing. Its size is increasing rapidly, close to 66% per year, which is basically the rate of Moore’s Law. Every year it consumes more power, more material, more money, more information, and more of our attention. And each year it produces more structured information, more wealth, and more interest."
I also know something else about the Continuum. It likes some people better than others.
Ever notice how some people just seem to be able to work and to get things done on their computers, while others seem to have their foot in a bucket and can never get productive?
How are your searches going? Is your computer friendly to you? Does it always work and make you shine before your boss? Does it ever crash just at the worst time, losing everything you did all day? Does your computer make your life miserable?
And who is getting all the Spam, all the time, while others never are bothered with it?
I can tell you, that if you use a Macintosh, you are the kind of person the Continuum likes to work with, and if you use some 'other' computer or operating system, you are probably the kind of person the Continuum does not like very much.
People already 'know' this, don't they? They sense the Continuum as some subconscious level and even talk about their computers and the Internet as something conscious and alive.
But there are also other ramifications about all this, isn't there? What about the economy? What about Wall Street and the Stock Market? What about the world oil supply and global warming?
If the Continuum is indeed alive and aware, what is its part in all that is happening lately?
Might you ever (secretly) suppose that the Continuum could prefer one candidate over another, in some country's election, making sure that the person they prefer gets elected, even if the other candidate is fare more qualified with an excellent track record?
If the world's interconnected computers and servers, with all their trillions of CPUs and circuits have indeed come alive and self-aware, what would be the motivation that such an organism would have? More power? More circuits and processors? More server farms? More control over resources? More access to systems that it could manipulate to its own agenda?
When will human history become the history of the Continuum?
Some times you use the computer. Some times the computer uses you. Or didn't you already know that?
=)
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. No Refunds."
.
THE TOOL - 10.17.08 10:22 am
Evanar was the ultimate leader. She was charismatic and wise beyond her years, and we were all fiercely loyal to her. We would have followed her into hell if necessary, to accomplish whatever she needed to have done.
We actually did not have much else in the world, because the world was dying, as you know. Evanar was looking for a way to save it; to save everyone. Lucky for us that she was also very rich, with rumored money from the Old Country. None of us knew how rich, nor did we care. She could have come from another planet, and it would not have mattered to us at all. She was who she was, and that was enough for us.
There were forty of us on her team, and more were being recruited all the time, for several of us were always looking for talented men and women. But would that ever be enough? Our enemy weas continually seeking the same thing we were.
Evanar was on the move, however. I followed her to our new home office.
I walked the long walk in town to our new building, that last morning. The feeble sun did not warm the landscape, which was firmly locked in winter. Why she chose this city and this building, I may never know, but she needed for us to be here in East Germany, and so we were. I didn’t even speak German, nor did I particularly want to; but I could learn.
I got the sense of the building as I approached it. How odd that it seemed to be very old, even though it looked modern enough, with an anonymous mirrored glass facade and severely square lines. It was if this building, the object somehow sat outside of space and time.
I went inside, acknowledging Kamar at the desk, with a look, as I entered the elevator. I went to the top, and stepped off into a large, bare room, looking for my boss. Evanar usually dressed in black, with a one-piece outfit that neither accented nor hid her feminine form. Her charm was her flowing red hair. She never wore makeup, nor did she need to, for her face was strikingly beautiful with wide blue eyes and an aquiline nose and full lips.
I stood there, wondering which door to go to, but there was a shimmer before me, and I sensed that I should walk through it. As I walked forward the large room disappeared, and I found myself in a dark chamber with metal walls. Large machinery was around the room, thrumming with power. On the walls were many regularly spaced openings, dimly lit, with various bright devices showcased within.
Evanar stood in the middle, wearing a burka-like covering; a light blue environmental suit. I recognized her contralto voice as she told me to come near.
“Where are we, Evanar?”
“This is something new. I am not even sure how to describe it. I just call it the Environment., But I have found what we were all looking for.”
“And what would that be?
“What we were all born to find. The Tool.”
I did not understand. I am not sure to this day that I do. We had been looking for something for so long. Many of us went out searching, driven by Evanar, but what some came back with was foolishness. They came back with leads to the Ark, or to the Challis, or Baal’s Meteor. These were not at all what we searched for. It was as if our friends were diverted somehow, and their minds deviled with. Some of them did not come back. I never knew it, until Evanar told me about them. It was as if they had left a hole in time with their absence, and only she remembered them; Sanchez, Miner, Evans and Born.
“There was a place I was drawn to, in my thoughts. It was always there, but I could not see it. It was hiding in plain sight. But at last I found it.” She said.
“I do not understand. This is what we have been searching for?”
“Yes. But I see now that you all were a diversion, to occupy those who had this. The only reason I found it was because they had left and gone elsewhere — or elsewhen.”
More things to not understand. But I was fascinated by what she was holding at arm’s length, with long metal tongs. It was round, with a pearly gleam, and it glowed. It looked quite dangerous.”
“The Tool.” She simply said.
“But what is it? I do not understand. Where did it come from?”
“At first I thought it had been left to us by some alien life, millions of years ago. Now I am quite sure it has always been here and has always been a part of us. But you understand what a tool is, no? It is a device for doing work; for accomplishing something. We all have tools around us every day: Machines, computers, shovels and hammers — are all which we employ to do something. This is the ultimate tool. You think of what you want and it accomplishes that which you think. These other tools, surrounding us in the wall, are tools too, that this one uses to do what we will.”
I dare not come closer. Evanar was too close to it as it was, but I did not yet know how close she had been to it. “It will take us a long time to study this, boss. We are in no hurry, right?”
“Adam, you have been recruited because you are a tool builder. You have that singular ability to use tools to do wonderful things. I want you to begin to use this. Take it and learn from it.” She walked over to me, carefully handing me the tongs, with the object firmly held at the nether end.
“But I do not have an environmental suit!”
“You will find that such a suit has offers no protection from this. I wear mine to protect your sensibilities, for if you could see me, you might be afraid.”
Her words hardly reached me, for the device — the Tool, as it was called, had my complete attention. I wanted to reach out and take it in my hands, but I somehow understood that it was only to be touched by my mind, my thoughts, and nothing else. I let go of the tongs, but it did not fall to the floor. Instead, the glowing object stayed where it was; the tongs hanging uselessly from it. It was my mind that held it in place.
Evanar exclaimed with a shout.
The device was asking a question. “What do you want to do?”
What indeed! A genie could have appeared and asked me for three wishes, and I would have been no less perplexed to answer.
But before I could frame some sort of answer, I noticed that I was changing! My body was becoming incorporeal. It was as if I could no longer tell where my body began and the air and the surroundings around me ended at my flesh. It felt like my body was becoming liquid. Atoms and molecules flowed. My flesh was dissolving, and there was nothing I could do about it!
Yet I continued to live. Soon the transformation was complete. I found that the device was in my ‘hand’ such as it was, flowing with energy and insubstantial.
Evanar took off her helmet. I saw that the same thing had happened to her. As she removed the rest of her suit, I saw that she was a thing of beauty; matter and energy flowing freely in and around her form. She seemed to be made of stardust, which glowed with life and vitality!
“Do I look like this now?” I asked.
“If you look like me and I look like you. You indeed are beautiful!”
“But what has happened to us? Can we ever go back to what we were?”
“Your body has been adjusted to allow you to interface with the tool in a better way. However, you already know the answer to your question, if you stop and think about it.”
I did. I understood — everything!
“We must begin our work. The world needs saving. Here is the tool that can redeem it.”
Evanar walked over to me, reaching her ‘hand’ to touch the Tool that I held. “I am afraid the world may no longer exist, Adam.”
I looked ‘out’ into the world, and I saw that she was right. There was a bubble of time around us, and nothing beyond that could be seen. Everyone was gone. Somehow, those who had the Tool before, had used it to travel into the past, and they had changed the world of this day, so that it no longer existed as it was.
“They have destroyed it!”
“No. They are only the few in a long line of people who have tried to use the Tool to fix the world. They just made a mistake, is all. That can be easily fixed.”
"What about everyone? Are they all dead?"
"No. Not quite. If we restore the world, in whatever form we restore it, they will all live, but their lives will be changed from what they were a moment ago."
Evanar continued, “When I as quiet and at peace, at the edge of my dreams, I could see the Tool, along with this room and all the rest of these devices. I found that I no longer needed to look for it, but I simply called it to myself. It changed me, as it did you. I was very afraid at first, but in the presence of this god-given device, I found that there was no need to be afraid of anything, ever again.”
“But we must fix the world. It is gone and we need to bring it back!”
“Bring it back to what? The way it was this morning? Hungry, hurt and always in pain? We wanted to change the world, remember? Now we have a chance to change it from the beginning. Think of it. Mankind has always been in pain, enslaved to kings and potentates who were slaves to their own lusts. So much suffering! Now we have the opportunity to set the world right, from the beginning, if you are willing to help. Because it will take both of us to do this.”
There was no need to think or to contemplate at all. “I am willing. You know that, Evanar! With everything that I am, and with all of my might, I will help you do this.”
I could see her smiling, even though she no longer had a ‘face’ with which to smile. We held the Tool between us. The other devices glowed, and the machinery hummed with great power. Time and space flowed around us, as we went into the past, and rebuilt the world, yet again.
. . .
I sat on the grass in my perfect, and perfectly human body, watching the sunrise. All around me was life; plants, trees, animals and birds. We had made the world such that even the animals no longer ate one another, but they all ate plants and seeds instead. This was Paradise. A beautiful woman sat at my side. I was content for the first time in my life.
She stood, and so did I. I looked into her eyes and said, “Do you mind if I call you Eve?”
She smiled a wide smile, and her eyes sparkled with mystery. “The tool is still here, you know?”
“Where?” I was astonished at this.
“It is here in this garden. It has always been here. It is in that great tree, yonder, in the middle of this paradise. People used to call it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But I think it is also the tree of Life.”
“I know the things we chose before, but look at all the pain and suffering that it brought, along with all the knowledge and progress. Perhaps this time we should choose to partake of Life instead.”
“We could live a thousand years, if we did that. And perhaps we could learn to seek the One who created us instead of our own advancement. Progress, you called it? Somehow I do not think we benefited from that at all. I, for one, want to find out who it is that originally brought us to this place. Who gave us the Tool? Who created this world on which we stand? There may be much greater things to learn from him, than from our own devices. What do you think?”
“Eve, I think we have a world to populate and to build. I also think that our Creator will look for us and we will not have to find him. He will come calling in the cool of the afternoon, if we busy ourselves with work in this garden.”
Awesome Eden stood bright and perfect before us, as we walked into the morning.
THE OTHER DRIVER - 09.24.08 12:03 pm
THE OTHER DRIVER
i got in the car, pulled out my iPAD and plugged it into the dash. The green light said it was secure and solidly connected. I waited for a bit while the other driver showed up. once she was onboard, i knew i could settle down and relax. i dialed up a latte from the dash and began to watch the scenery as she drove the short distance to the expressway, on our journey from the California high desert to Albuquerque to see Sis - about an eight hour trip.
"are you confortable?" she asked.
"sure. this is easy, Myra. thanks."
"well Jason, recline your seat and watch a movie or do your mail."
"nah. i like to watch the world go by."
it was raining this late afternoon, and there was some clearing out on the horizon, bringing bright beams of sunshine over the freshly washed landscape.
"you should sleep. do you want to drive later?"
"of course. that is my privledge. i will tell you when."
she was doing well, as always. i watched her for a while, as she expertly moved in and out of traffic, increasing our speed to the maximum allowed, while shifting from one engine to another (this car had three different kinds) thus saving our fuel and giving us excellent mileage. i didn't think anyone could do this better than her.
as night began to fall, there were bright lights wending their way past us, from various exits, but it was of little interest. i dialed up a satellite station and listened to some excellent Bartok, then grew sleepy. then i dozed off.
much later, a pulsing light woke me, which is definitely something unusual.
"what is it, Myra?"
"im sorry. we are coming to a stretch of highway where i am not allowed to drive."
i saw the yellow flashing lights ahead, following ahead of us on the guard rails, indicating that we slow for a highway check. these old way stations, manned by state troopers, were an archaic holdover from the old days, as far as i was concerned. this one was at the Arizona/New Mexico border. they were checking for contraband fruit, but most likely for something far more serious.
i called for the controls, and took the steering yoke, as my car approached the waiting officer.
"good evening. do you have any fruits from California on board?"
"nope."
"traveling alone?"
"as you can see, there is no one else in my little two seater, officer."
"well, pleasant trip." he waved me on through. almost unobtrusive was the handheld he had, which i knew had scanned my biosigns for anything illicit. nice touch.
as i regained speed and the highway gave way once again to the expressway, i tried to shake myself awake, and dialed another drink while i quickly used the traveler's friend.
"Myra, i'm going to drive the rest of the way."
"but Jason, that would mean that you will get to your sister's home at 4 in the morning, and you know they will want to get up and see you, and you will get no sleep for the rest of the day."
i considered for a moment, but i knew she was right. she usually is.
"ok. you drive and i will finish my night's sleep. there is little to see along the way here anyway, since the moon is down, and we will get there before the sun rises, so i won't miss that."
Myra put away the steering yoke and i reclined my seat again with a barely suppressed yawn. it felt good to have the other driver do the tedious, long hours between places, especially when you know they are just better at what they do than we are.
Myra lives on my iPAD, and she belongs to me alone, so she goes along with me no matter what vehicle i drive. Apple makes some pretty amazing things these days, but then they always have.
it will be fun to see my sister's face when i introduce her.
Finding Closed Captioned Movies on iTunes - 09.05.08 12:51 pm
Here is the response I got from Apple about this problem. Recently we rented a few movies from iTunes - a very easy and fast process. However, a few of the movies did not have captioning, and since I am very hard of hearing, I depend on that for being able to follow the story while watching the movie.
Oddly, since the DVD of these movies already has captioning, you would assume that the same movie rented from iTunes would also have captioning, right? Not so. When some movies are translated to the iTunes store for sale or rent, the captioning is sometimes stripped out. This is not because of disk space or a large file size. Captioning adds only a few MB to any movie.
And since Apple did not address the reasons why captioning is not on all of their media, movies and television shows sold or rented on iTunes, for now it remains a bit of a mystery.
Here is the Apple response:
Hi Roger,
I understand that you are wondering why closed captioning would be removed from movies that are available on the iTunes Store. I realize that you must be anxious to resolve this issue and I'm happy to assist.
The iTunes Store offers certain movies with closed captioning. To help you identify them, they have the closed-captioning logo.
I will explain how to find movies with closed captioning by searching and by browsing. I will also explain how to enable closed captioning for iTunes and compatible devices, which include the Apple TV, iPod classic, iPod nano (3rd generation), iPhone, and iPod touch.
To search for movies with closed captioning:
1) Open iTunes.
2) From the Store pull-down menu at the top, choose Search.
3) From the pop-up menu, choose Movies.
4) Click to select "Search movies that are available with Closed Captioning."
5) Click Search to see all closed-captioned movies, or refine your search by providing specific criteria--such as a title, actor, or director--and then click Search.
How to browse and find movies with closed captioning:
1) Open iTunes.
2) Select iTunes Store on the left side of the window.
3) Click Browse in the QUICK LINKS box on the right side of the window.
4) Click to select Movies, then select a Genre.
5) In the list of movies in that Genre, any movies with closed captioning have the closed-captioning icon to the right of the movie title.
How to update iTunes and turn on closed captioning:
To watch a movie with closed captioning, first ensure you have the latest iTunes software. It's available free of charge at the iTunes website:
http://www.itunes.com/download
Mac users will also need to install the latest version of QuickTime:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download
Open iTunes and choose Preferences from the iTunes menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows). Click the Playback icon and select "Show closed captioning when available." Click OK to save your changes.
How to update the Apple TV software and turn on closed captioning:
1) From the main Apple TV menu, choose Settings > General > Update Software. (In early versions of Apple TV software, choose Settings > Update Software.)
2) Follow the onscreen prompts to download and apply the Update.
3) When the Update has downloaded and finished installing, your Apple TV will restart.
4) Choose Settings > Video.
5) Press the center button to toggle Closed Captioning On.
How to update your iPod or iPhone and turn on closed captioning:
For information about the model of iPod you have, please visit:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353
Instructions to update your iPod with the latest software can be found here:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n60944
To turn on closed captioning on an iPod classic or iPod nano (3rd generation), choose iPod > Video > Settings > Captions. Toggle Captions to On.
To turn on closed captioning on an iPhone or iPod touch, tap Settings > iPod. Under the Video settings, toggle Closed Captioning to On.
I hope this information is helpful. Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store. Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
April
iTunes Store Customer Support
Its Belkin, Baby, For iPhone Accessories - 08.26.08 1:20 pm
Once in a while you find a company that is super-savvy. Belkin seems to be one such company. They get Apple's design paradigm so well, that when they create any accessory for the iPhone, it is nearly perfect. Best of all, this accessory will work with the new iPhone 3G.
About our only accessory we would consider for our iPhone and Touch is the Belkin TUNEBASE FM iTunes player, holder and recharger. Be aware that most of these iPhone accessories do not even work with the new iPhone 3G, but this Belkin unit does, and it does very well.
The Belkin TUNEBASE FM is a quality piece of equipment, with the automobile cigarette plug-in also being the cradle for the iPhone/Touch. therefore you do not need to find a place to put the iPhone on the dash, or a cubby, or on the center console. Let's face it, if you lay your iPhone on the center console of your car, it will end up on the floor at your feet or in between the seats, right? Or if you put it in a cubby on the dash, or on top of the dash, it will likely become a ballistic object. instead, the Belkin recharger with the iPhone attached sits firmly attached to the dash at your outlet, upright and where you can both see the screen and easily use the touch feature. The cradle is also completely adjustable in any direction because of the very short flexible steel cable from the plug-in to the cradle.
The Belkin TUNEBASE FM also has the one-button tuner on the bottom of the cradle, which you use to quickly scan for empty stations where your itunes can be heard. the sound of the Belkin is more rich and full than can be obtained by any other player.Besides, most players do not even offer a way to charge the iPhone/Touch while it is in use, and with the short battery life of the new iPhone 3G, this is a real issue.
The only drawback of this Belkin is the price, which is a sawbuck in most places, although you can find them on sale if you look online. We bought ours at Walmart - actually, my wife did, all on her own. I should have, but never quite realized, that she is so tech savvy about anything Mac or Apple =)
As for covers for the new iPhone 3G or the Apple iPod Touch, we have a handful. Again, the Belkin silicone sleeve ballistic case is the best cover we have found. But after using any cover for a while, we just use our iPhone and Touch barebones. These things are pretty tough on their own. Just be sure that whatever pocket you keep them in will be deep enough so that they won't fall out by themselves, slippery little things that they are.
Regards,
Roger Born
Writer, Teacher, General Troublemaker
"Never squat with your spurs on"
Is WHDI The New Wireless HD Video Standard? - 07.23.08 5:29 am
"A new wireless HD video standard guarantees that major brands including Sony, Sharp, Hitachi, Samsung and Motorola will have interoperable wireless video streaming. Amimom—the chip makers behind the "video modem" wireless HD tech we've been seeing on and off for the last few years, and most recently in Belkin's Flywire—is announcing the WHDI consortium with the above members, formed to standardize their wireless HD spec and embed it in member companies' TVs, projectors and HD video sources. The result is a network of HD components, streaming uncompressed 1080p video not just through one room like competing UWB standards, but to and from any source to any TV in your entire home, with a range comparable to Wi-Fi. Pretty impressive stuff." (source: Gizmodo)
This is important for Apple. We know they are working hard to get into the livingroom of their customers, with their AppleTV box and their world-class suite of software that allows any Mac user to own the production process for making videos, transfering them to another media, and for capturing their favorite shows in real time. Add to this the TiVo-like capabilities of record, rewind and fast forward to normal broadcast television, and Apple almost has the standard for video streaming and wireless connectivity wrapped up.
So, what are they going to do with this new 'other' WHDI standard from their competitors? Will they join WHDI themselves, after being univited to the party? Or will Apple continue to make their own standard in their own world of excellent and awesome hardware and software? The ramifications of this decision for Apple could affect the video market for years to come.
What do you think?
Regards,
Roger Born
Written from my new mini Mac netbook - not!
Staff Thoughts On The iPod Touch - 07.16.08 8:21 pm
Note: This blog (an email thread between the MyMac Staff) concerns the iPod Touch (version 1.0) and the new Apple Update (2.0) for the new Apple iPhone (version 2.0) and the existing Touch. A newer (and maybe cheaper) version of the Touch is expected soon (iPod Touch version 2.0)
From Robert
Hey,
I know Chad has an iPod Touch but I am sending this to the entire staff for everyone's input. My question is:
What do you find is missing in the iPod Touch that the iPhone has?
I know the iPhone has a camera, a mic, a speaker, a built-in phone (go figure), and a retarded $30 data plan (which I'm trying to avoid).
What do you wish the Touch had something that it doesn't?
Thanks, Robert
From Donny
I have a Touch and there are two things I'd like: camera and speakers.
Sent from my iPod Touch.
From Roger
robert,
my wife connie has the touch. she loves it. especially with the new 2.0 update and all the new apps. some are free and some she has bought ($5-10 each). she says what she misses is a microphone so she can dictate notes. the other thing is a camera. she does not miss the phone feature of the $10,000 cost to operate it over four years (we took to heart that recent joyoftech cartoon). connie uses the touch to access her online email account, to surf the web, and to handle her teacher-ease grading program for her school job. very cool.
given the new low $199 cost of the new iphone 3g, she would buy one if there was a way to get it without the at&t service plan, or no phone plan at all. the new iphone is almost as thin as the touch and has both a camera and a microphone, and it cost less. it is a bit heavier, and the battery life still is not as long-lasting as the touch, but if she manages to get one, i will then inherit her touch.
here is the whole point. to me, the touch is the new mac.
it has everything the mac has, except a keyboard, but both connie and i are pretty fast with the virtual finger keyboard on the screen. i would not write a book on it, so i will still keep my laptop, but for any and everything else we use the touch.
since connie cannot use the touch at school (things like these grow legs and walk away) she leaves the touch at home for me to use. connie instead bought a used 30gb ipod video that she uses at school to run movies and powerpoint on the school projector via the apple AV cable. it was $100 and if it walks away she is not out a lot. besides, the kids there don't want an old ipod like they would a touch. BTW, the ipod video is only half full, including all the movies connie needs for her english class for the year, and all the daily class notes, and all the powerpoint presentations for the year. wowser. while it was on her ipod touch, it really filled it up. now all she has on her 8 gb touch is her music, her email and her apps and games. it is not even half full. (once i inherit this ipod touch 1.0, it will hold all my reading (sci fi books, etc.), and all my writings, including novels i hope to publish one day. plus my music. and i know i will not even begin to fill it.)
the touch is just awesome, in my opinion.
regards, roger
ps,
the new apps are great - AOLradio, flashlight, AIM, shazam, instapaper, battleatsea and fivedice. =)
one new app you gotta try the Shape Writing Pad app. their virtual keyboard is amazing. you slide your finger around the keyboard to each letter, to make a word instead of hitting on individual keys. this is even better than the keyboard that comes with the ipod touch. and like the built-in virtual keyboard, the Writing Pad app adds a space after each word you type. across the top of the keyboard on the screen is a list of similar words to choose from if the app happens to give you a word you did not want. what an app. wowser.
pps,
i should explain the use of our favorite apps on the touch.
the reason AOLradio is so cool is that it is better than serius/sm radio and it is free. in the car with our mobile attachment to the bottom of the touch, we get channels that are not available here in barsow through the touch using the AOLradio app.
instapaper is so cool because we can capture any news paper online and save it for reading later. in fact any website can be captured the same way. since the touch only uses wifi and has not always on internet connection like the iphone 3g does, this is an invaluable app for the touch user.
connie uses the flashlight app a lot, after dark, and it is very bright, turning the touch screen into a large LED light.
you all already know about shazam and how it gets the name and the artist of any music that is playing close by. and you already know about our son's two games out on the iphone, but seriously, you have to try writing pad.
more than this, with the new upgrade connie can access both microsoft word files and powerpoint files, with copy and paste - as well as using acrobat files too. before she could only get those on her touch via the emai as attachments she would sent to herself. these attachements would open just fine in the email app, so they could be both scaled and read easily. but this update supplies the final barrier that is to be broken, to make the touch equal in use to the macintosh. with the new upgrade now she can also open and modify these documents as well as open them and display them on an overhead or video screen.
i still wish there were a larger verion of the touch - say the size of a two-handed sony PSP (5 by 9 inches). a larger touch version would still fit in my jacket pocket, and with a bigger screen and an attached real keyboard, it would be just about perfect.
besides, apple might be more likely to come up with a larger touch than the smaller ibook a lot of us want, right?
i appreciate all you guys here. thanks for making my days a lot brighter with all the goings-on at mymac.
regards, roger
From David,
Roger, what exactly are you using on the WiFi-only Touch that allows you to keep in contact with AOL's Internet radio stream while driving in the car?
From Roger
david,
(grin) thought someone might notice that. we park around town both here in barstow and nearby victorville where wifi is prevalent. southern california has so many wifi transmitters, we could almost drive between towns using it. which beggers the question of paying high monthly fees for always-on mobile access to the internet. not every place has 3g out here, so even with the new iphone, service will be slow. wifi is so much faster and free, what with a starbucks every few blocks.
it is not that we are going out to park around town looking for free wifi connections. we have time-warner cable modem here at home, connected to a d-link wireless router. but when we do go out, we happen to find connections for connie's touch all over the place. so we go through the drive-thru at starbucks, or listen to music out under the stars while parking up on the sports complex hill. wifi even works at the local drive-in movie theater. nights here in the high desert are always awesome. but it was the AOLradio app that got us to check it out wherever we might park around town. we do miss the great los angeles radio stations which are not on our car radio dial here in barstow.
(note - some starbucks charge a monthly subscription fee for their wifi usage, or so i have been told. barstow is on the i-15 that runs from los angeles to las vegas, what with all the motels and even the trains and bus station here, all that is needed, is to turn your touch on and connect to some wifi automatically, and/or just call the place you are driving by and ask for their free wifi password.
but most wifi is free here. and it should be everywhere, right?
regards, roger
From David
Robert et al:
If the iPhone is not your idea of fun, you might be interested in this:
News: Apple offers special pricing on refurb 8, 16GB iPod touch
Regards, David.
From Lee
Hey Roger,
We found that the iPhone 1.0 is a great Touch 2.0...it has all the iPhone features (camera, speaker, mic) but since it's now deactivated from AT&T, it's now a great iPod Touch.
If you can find one on Ebay, it's a great alternative.
thanks...Lee
from donny
Roger wrote:
here is the whole point. to me, the touch is the new mac. it has everything the mac has, except a keyboard, but both of us are pretty fast on the finger keys on the screen.
Roger,
I tend to agree. Since I got the Touch I use it more than my iBook for checking email around the house. It is great for when I have the baby sleeping in my arms and nothing to do. I grab the Touch and check email and surf the net. Now with the apps I play games on it, too. We are going out of town next week and I usually take the iBook. I'm just taking the Touch this time. Less to take and will be perfect for the overnight trip!
Donny
from donny
To Staff,
I still think the (touch 2.0) price will drop more in September or at the next iPod event and more features will be added/more storage (although the 8GB model is working fine for me. I still have over 3gb to spare).
Donny
From Roger
dear lee,
my son has the iphone 1.0, although he and his wife just bought the new one (family plan, less than 15 minutes to buy and activate at the apple store). i think the iphone 1.0 is large and clunky next to the touch 1.0. in fact the original iphone now reminds me of the original ipod - what a brick!
the touch is everything the iphone is not - elegant and beautiful. but this is only my opinion. the touch weighs less, it is thinner and the battery lasts a lot longer. nor does it cost as much. what’s not to love?
but then, i have not seen or handled the new iphone 2.0.
is it still not as elegant, light and long lasting as the touch? or are they more alike now? am i the only one who thinks this way?
regards, roger
From Tom
To Staff
This has been fairly interesting reading. Where I'm at right now is 8 GB iPod nano, a 3G, Virgin Mobile USA Snapper phone ($5/mo for service), and a Palm Tungsten C - which I depend on to do my checkbook & also play games, maps, browse, some mail...
The lynchpin in all of this is My Checkbook MyCheckBook
In my wildest dreams (knowing full well I can't have an iPhone with VM), what I'd like to have is a Palm OS II/Nova (coming in 2009) SmartPhone, on Virgin Mobile, to replace both my TC and my flip phone. With that I could still use all my old Palm apps, take advantage of all the forthcoming mobile Linux features (including email & browsing etc. which is far superior to my TC), and have a much better phone.
The thing that tempts me now is the iPod touch. The thing is amazing (games, Safari, Mail, MobileMe "push"), but the wi-fi only could likely limit the data usability for me and there is no checkbook app. As much as I'm tempted to get an iPod touch I just need to wait & see how the app situation evolves; what happens with Palm; and what Virgin Mobile does. I had an interesting email exchange with an exec with Virgin Mobile USA, and they are at least looking at SmartPhones. If they came out with a Palm Centro before the end of the year I'd be tempted that way.
Regards, Tom
from donny
It seems as if iphone apps are being added everyday. I'd keep checking the store.
From Roger
tom,
we use a checkbook program too - an old one from the performa days, on our old color classic. but it seems with the touch, we are going to be abandoning that.
but my bank offers access to our bank accounts online, so we use safari on the touch to see them, and their checkbook features are pretty good, actually, so i can sit down and load in the card receipts from my back pocket to reconcile my account (we don't use checks, but pay all our bills online with the card) these automatic payments already show up in our account, so all that may be missing is the short-term activity from using our card at stores and restaurants. and since i keep all those stupid receipts (and know where to find them), i can actually know what my balance really is, anytime i want to. thi is really getting too easy, huh? scary.
my advice to you would be to go ahead and get a touch, instead of the palm or other devices. my wife already has an older palm trio, a palm lifedrive, and several neat and thin phones we still use from t-mobile (pay-as-you-go, no monthly service charges, 10 cents a minute, etc.). we still use these phones, but the touch takes the place of everything else.
regards, roger
From Roger
John
there is just so much to talk about with the touch and the 2.0 upgrade, it is embarrassing. i wonder if steve jobs knows how people feel about the iphone and the touch compared to their macintoshes?
regards, roger
From John
He doesn't care, Rog, but loads of other people do.
Regards, Nemo
From Tom
The touch could do all of that for me - except reconciling the checkbook and having a secondary register. I know there's a checkbook web app for the iPhone/touch, but it doesn't work the way I want it to - potential security issues not withstanding.
I'm itchy, but still in a wait & see mode. If I got an iPod touch and then Virgin Mobile USA & Palm did everything I hoped for... And then what if StyleTap for iPhone/iPod touch sees the light of day... Or what if Android is really good... Or what if someone comes out with a checkbook app that's fantastic... Too many swirling "what if"s for me to make a move right now, as cool as the iPod touch is.
Thanks, Tom
From John
What do you do (with all them cell phones), put 'em all in a basket by the front door? :-)
I just have the one cell phone, and I still can't add contacts or send a text message without reading the manual. Curiously, I've never added more than my wife to my contacts, and I can't recall that I've ever sent a text message. This phone makes all kinds of clicks and beeps at odd times of the day or night, and I have no idea what's going on.
Eek. I just forgot how to go online. Hey, what is this thing in front of me? MOMMY! Buy me a new plane, will you?
J.
From Roger
About Shazam (a very cool story from my son, Chris)
(Note: Shazam will only work on the iPhone because it needs a built-in microphone to access the music it needs to hear. To use it on the Touch, you need to have a microphone attachment.)
Yea, that was fun. A guy who wrote it was at WWDC, and used it to "cheat" in answering a question during one of the evening events. It was one of the funniest things the whole night of rather funny craziness. They have an event called Stump the Experts where a bunch of long time Apple engineers are on stage, and the audience has a chance to ask questions, about anything to try and stump them. But, the guys on stage get to pose questions trying to stump the collective audience as well.
Microphones are setup around the audience where people can queue up to answer various questions that are presented through out the night. One of these questions was in regards to six songs that were playing over the PA while people were coming in to the auditorium, and just prior to the event starting. The audience was asked to name the songs and the artist. You know random music that is played before large events. No one is really paying attention.
Well, about early on one person was able to identify one song. For half an hour or so, maybe two others attempted to identify a couple, but failed. After a while, a guy who had been standing in the queue for some time, made it up to the mic. He was able to name not only all six songs and their artists, but also the album and year of release. This stopped the entire entourage of engineers on the stage, and silenced the audience. (It was a rowdy crazy night.)
The hosts, also engineers who were rather good comedian, were going nuts. They asked the guy who he was, who he worked for. He gave his first name, and said that he could not say to the later. This created a great deal of excitement from everyone. When asked how he knew, he said, "my iPhone told me!" It took some some time for the cheering to stop, but when it did, the hosts and some others were surrounding him, and he finally caved. He works for a company that does audio pattern recognition, and he was testing his iPhone application that night from his seat.
Needless to say, he was well received by all 2000 people. They also gave him several of the prizes, which ranged from shirts, computer accessories, and rather expensive software packages but Apple, Adobe and others.
Very funny. As soon as I saw the Shazam app Thursday, I was playing with all over the place.
(my wife, connie, chris' mom, also got the FREE shazam app for her ipod touch last night. very cool app.
regards, roger
Shamless iPhone App Plug, From Roger
From Chris to me
Dad
BattleAtSea made the front page of TUAW.com today.. I got a little over 2000 hits so far since 3pm. Pretty cool. And Apple officially accepted the app into the store, so it will be there on launch this Friday.
Thanks, Chris
(This is from my son, Chris Born, for his new iPhone game Battle At Sea, being released Friday for the new iPhone 3G. He already turned down an offer to work at Apple because of his free Five Dice game, which he wrote last year. (He told them ''ask me again next year''). - not to toot my own horn here or nothing. (grin) Also, expect his great Five Dice iPhone/Touch game to be released in about a week. Still only 5 bucks.)
From Chad,
Robert,
My primary reasons for getting touch were:
1. To replace my old 3G iPod whose hard drive had failed.
2. Replace my old Palm V organizer.
My 16G Touch has been a great replacement for both.
I don't use it for photos, so I don't miss the camera feature, but a built in mic would be nice to capture memos to myself a little more quickly. The only thing I really felt it was missing was a good task organizer.
Since the App Store went live, I have purchased the OmniFocus app, and have been very pleased with it. I don't know as I'd buy the full version for the Mac, since I try not to take work home and would rather not spend my evenings organizing work activities at home.
In retrospect, the one thing I wished I would have done is picked up the 32G model. Right now I have only 2G of available space left on this one.
If you don't need the phone features or access to the Edge or 3G, the Touch is just as good a platform as the iPhone, IMHO.
Chad
Sent from my iPod
From Richard
To Staff,
...and that is what I am waiting for...Touch 2.
FIN (for now)
.
The Blue Narwhal - 05.29.08 8:13 am
It was illegal and he knew it. He did not care. He lived for the Hunt. Carefully he guided his tight little ship, "Requiem," into the roaring, stormy, midnight Antarctic Straights, oblivious to the fiercely pounding waves. Tonight, he was meeting Destiny. For here, in this empty sea, he was going to find his most prized victim of all, the Blue Narwhal whale!
The most advanced detection gear, coupled with the automatic firing system for his steel harpoon had been built into, and then carefully hidden in this old, stealthy, Navy pocket ship, along with the latest digital video gear for recording his deeds. She was a hundred-ten long, of solid iron, and could be battened like a submarine. She cost him all he had and then some, but he cared not. This ship was his ultimate tool for the Hunt.
He listened carefully for the sounds of life through his costly sonar gear, coupled like it was to a sophisticated computer with complex interpreting circuits, and routed to his simple headset. The digital view screen and direction finder, glowing in front of him, was also interconnected, so that he could literally see what he was hearing.
He sat in total concentration 'out there', belted into his heavily padded command chair, unaware of his fingers as they deftly played the engine and rudder controls with a mind of their own. It was bitter cold and dark on the command deck, but he never noticed. Nothing hindered his attention to the Hunt.
He heard a voice in his head! Shaken, he listened all the more intently. It could only mean that there was another Hunter out here with him right now!
"Who are you?" He asked tentatively.
"I am She Who Hunts," came the reply.
He again was disturbed. He had been about to give his name to her, but she was obviously into using a code name. Why give away identities out here?
"I am Hunter," he said into the microphone on his headset.
There was a long pause. What was she doing?
"You live for the Hunt?" Her voice sounded closer.
"Yes! Always!" He replied.
"Then we are mates," she said.
He grinned at this. She was not just bold, she was brazen!
He spoke again. "Where are you from?"
Another pause. "I am from the icy North."
She sure was into this code thing! She didn't ask him where he was from.
"Have you found what you are hunting for?" He asked her.
Maybe she knew where to hunt. What did she look like? He could read nothing in her voice. He had to keep this conversation going!
"I hunt for food, but I have hunted for you for a long time." She said.
More code!
"Why do you hunt me?" He asked.
"Because we are the last of our kind, you and I." She replied.
He was ignoring her now. He had just picked up some kind of image, fifteen thousand yards out to Port. He couldn't see her ship anywhere. Obviously hers was as stealthy as his. He wondered briefly if she was a government ship, searching him out. But no! Nobody in their right minds would be in these tempest Straights this time of year!
He eagerly turned his ship toward the faint echo.
"Are you finding what you are hunting for?" She asked.
"Yes. I see it ahead." He regretted saying that immediately. She was so disarming. What did she look like? Savagely, he concentrated the more on his screen. Only the Hunt was really important here. She was just an interference.
"I find nothing yet." She said simply.
So! She had not yet seen his Prey! She must be far away from this area. He would not ask her position, for then he would have to give away his own. Basically he was completely selfish at heart. All Hunters are.
Dimly, he was aware that huge waves were crashing against his hull, as he ran his ship contrary to the winds. His engines whined in protest, as the sea regularly dropped below the stern of the ship, exposing his shielded props. He simply gave no thought to the possibility that this sea could hurt his ship or damage its engines beyond repair. The Hunt was all that existed for him here and now.
The image in his screen was evolving into a single solid form. he recognized its signature! His heart raced. He had found his prize! It was a small Blue Narwhal! "They only exist in the Arctic." He thought to himself. But he had tracked this one all the way down here. This one would bring much gain from those who wanted its parts for delicacies and aphrodesia.
Narwhal were nearly extinct. All the larger whales already were. He hunted them, not for just the bounty, but because these were the best Prey of all. They were oh, so elusive, and uncannily smart! They could almost sense when they were being hunted. If provoked, they would turn on a small boat to protect their mates and young. But he knew, watching the image on his screen, that this one would be no match for this vessel, or him!
Steadily now, delicately, he played the RPM of his engines against the sea. He would not just rush in, but he would creep in, like a wolf, toward his Prey.
"Are you closer now?" Her again!
"Yes. I see my Prey up ahead. I am advancing very slowly, so as not to lose it." He said.
"Yes. That is best. To prolong the Hunt. I find so few any more to hunt at all. How very lucky you are!" She said through his headset.
She understood! He warmed to her. Should he share this with her? Two of them would be more certain of success. "No! The Hunt is mine! I wish to share it with no one!" He made no reply to her.
"Won't you tell me where to find food?" She asked.
He was growing tired of her speaking in this code! He waited a long time to say anything. He concentrated completely on his Prey. The Blue Narwhal was going to the West now.
"I cannot see you to tell you where to come." He finally said.
The silence was somehow sad. It was almost as if she was in mourning over the lack of Prey. How well he knew that feeling!
"Go right and then left. Perhaps we can see each other." He said at last.
"I have been doing so! I have also been sending signals for my position. Why have you not responded?" She replied.
He was utterly shocked by this! Was she broadcasting on radio? That was almost a criminal act to someone locked into illegal activity! Did she want the authorities to find her?
"I was not listening for you." He replied tersely. Then he added, "You should be more careful. You wouldn't want your prey to hear you, or those who would prey on you!"
"Yes. I have been hunted before! Those horrible monsters, who would hunt me down and destroy me! Why don't they leave us alone?" She almost wept that last part. He could hear it in her voice, --or maybe in his conscience.
He had no answer for that. Monsters? He knew that those men who searched for Hunters like him were bureaucrats and nothing more. All those men cared about was upholding the Law. They could never understand him or his kind. She obviously had a much closer experience with them than he had.
"Are you closer now?" She asked again.
"Yes! They are unaware of me!" He exulted.
"Tell me as you Hunt. I want to experience it with you!" She begged.
He carefully guided his ship within firing range, but he wanted a cleaner kill, so he knew he would have to move much closer. His prey moved to Starboard. Silently he followed. The Narwhal was still unaware of him. How he loved the stealth technology of this old ship! The name he gave his ship was going to have meaning tonight!
Again, all that existed in his universe was the image on the screen in front of him, and the sounds of the sea that came from far below as he listened intently through his headset.
"Talk to me! I am so famished for the lack of finding food!" She begged again.
"I am in range. I am still undetected. It will be very soon now!" He was now whispering, barely breathing, not wanting to break the Hunt with a careless noise.
"Soon you will eat! Then you will come and find me?" She whispered.
"What?" He was again completely startled at her speech!
"We must be together! We must mate, after you have spent your lust on the Hunt, you will find more for me!" She whispered again.
He imagined her voice to be throaty, sultry! Yet through his headset, her words were somehow strangely disembodied. They showed almost no emotion. Her words were simply facts, flatly stated. Somehow, something was being lost in her transmission, or in his reception of it.
Briefly, at her words, he lost his concentration. Was she telling him the truth? Was she trying to throw him off with a ploy?
He filed away the single fact that he must find her after the Hunt was done.
Again, savagely, he tore his thoughts away from her once more, and got into the position to fire!
He was totally silent these last remaining seconds. Again nothing else existed but the Hunter and his Prey!
He was waiting now, poised in position. He was undetected by the Blue Narwhal! His ship was well to the left of it. When the whale turned again to Port, he would fire a single harpoon into its heart, just above and behind its fluke. The whale's image was indelible on the sulfurous screen, and on his heightened conscious awareness.
Time slowed to a crawl. He lived completely each one of these few seconds to its full! He reluctantly gave each one up, and was eagerly looking for the next, as they silently ticked away.
"Are you in striking range?" She asked quickly.
"Yes! It feels so good!" He cried out through clenched teeth.
"Soon you will eat, my Love! I wish I were with you, to share in your bounty!" She exalted.
His Prey turned! This was the Moment! The one every Hunter knows instinctively. The one they ever and always dream of!
Swiftly his fingers touched the single toggle switch, off to the side by itself on the console.
On the computer enhanced sonar screen, he saw the harpoon go down to its target on a perfect trajectory!
He had, ....at last, ....tracked and killed the Blue Narwhal! The ship's cameras whirred.
He heard a horrible scream through his headset!
"Oh, my Love, flee! I have been found by those who hunt me! I am mortally wounded! Flee! Find another of our kind for mate! I am no more!"
Utter silence followed.
Numbly he sat there! He was completely stunned! Minutes went quickly by. By now he should have fired the inflating harpoons, and tagged the beast. The processing of its parts would make him rich!
Instead, he simply stared at the screen. Out loud he wondered, "How could you--? I couldn't have know--!"
He quickly cut off his response to "Her" knowing that she was no longer able to respond to him: She had been the Blue Narwhal! She, the wondrous, beautiful, intelligent, and savagely dead, Huntress!
He closed his eyes against the immense reality of it all.
He had killed her, the last Blue Narwhal! Somehow he knew there would be no more of her kind. There had been too many of his kind.
His equipment was too good, he thought idly. It was picking up her sonar voice and sending it translated somehow to his ears. During the Hunt, he had not questioned that she was one of his kind! They were so alike, so very much so! But he hadn't known!
How could he have known? Why hadn't he known?
How utterly stupid he was for not understanding that it was her all along? How stupid, for not understanding from the beginning that all of his victims, his Prey, were just like her!
He felt numb! Deadness! He was dead inside, -- forever! The Hunt was dead to him now. Ashes. He knew that he could never Hunt again! The chronometer on his console ticked off the minutes. They had no meaning to him any longer.
Utterly, finally, he knew that he was dead too. The Hunter had died in that final moment of the Blue Narwhal's death. He had, at last, realized the enormity of his deed!
She had lived to Hunt. She had a right to Hunt, and he did not!
"The Hunter. The Prey! We are all the same!" he whispered to no one.
His ship, with the engines set at idle, was slowly being turned broadside to the advancing waves. He knew he must turn her again or be swamped. His ship, "Requiem." His requiem!
He did nothing.
He sat frozen in place, belted into his heavily padded chair, on his cold, dark and empty command deck, as the single screen continued to glow, faint and empty.
What was Life for him now? He tasted utter defeat for the first, and the final time.
"We hunt only ourselves!" He cried silently at the futility of it.
"Let it come! Let this boiling sea end it for me, as I have ended it for her! I will be joined with her at last, my Blue Narwhal!" He sobbed, as he buried his head in his hands, trying to hide from an empty, wasted life of hunting game; --of hunting Life!
Many miles overhead, a roving satellite picked up an automated distress signal and automatically sent it to the proper governmental authorities to dispatch a rescue effort.
Whatever that ship was, which had sent the signal, as all ships are capable of doing on their own, --it was gone.
How Long Before Apple Does The Ultra Mac? - 04.15.08 7:51 pm
THE ULTRA MAC
Believe me, there is a sweet spot in computing; An ‘ideal’ computer that combines size, price, performance and function to perfection. It has yet to be achieved by anyone, but there are a lot of devices that are close, including the MacBook Air and the iPod Touch. Think of these two devices as hitting a little to the left and the right of the bullseye.
There are signs that other computer makers are seeing this too. With all the press and angst going on concerning new ultra-cheap, ultra-portable PCs (EEPC, IBM, Dell, Sony, et. al.), we basically understand the reason for their popularity. It is precisely because they are small, light and cheap, but most of them are not useful for doing genuine and steady work. In other words, they are lacking in either performance or function, or both.
The real question for us is, how long do you suppose it will be that Apple gets a clue about this, and comes out with a handheld or palmtop device that truly hits the mark?
(Note: Most of these $400 ultra-portable laptop and palmtop computers are not seen as competitors to the high-end computer market, but are rather viewed as desirable accessories for computer Geeks, as well as perhaps marketable mainstays for third-world students and businessmen. However, the failing of most of these devices is that they are not true work-generating computers. Instead they must rely on a connection to a real computer to download or upload data or media.)
It might take a while for anyone to make such a perfect device, even though this particular form-factor is the true MISSING LINK in the mind of most computer users. Think about it. Most of us want the best minimal computer in our hand, which we can still use to do real work (workability). This requires a real full-sized keyboard. I suspect that we all want THAT much more than just having a cool portable device, which we have to load up with stuff to watch or read. Even if we only buy such a device to web surf, most of these palmtop devices have screens too small (3 or 4 inches) to really enjoy using. Again, what we are talking about here is performance and function. Given the speed of most processors today, performance is not really the issue it once was. Almost any CPU built today for portable devices can give us adequate video and animation. Function is the other issue, especially with these new ultra-light notebook computers. They seem to be deliberately missing what is necessary to provide us with workability, that is, no (or too-small) keyboard, a too-small screen, and lack of word processing (or office) software.
I only ask this question concerning a perfect computer, because practically forever, I and others here at mymac.com have been hoping for an ultra-light ultra-portable Mac laptop from Apple. You know our ideal specs: a bright 9" screen, a 55 key full-size keyboard, no media drive, and wireless access, all for well under a grand. Most of us would also prefer this device to be folding clamshell, rather than a tablet. The ideal size of such a pocketable device would be about 7” by 4” by a lot less than an inch thick. If Apple made it, this would be the requisite and perfect writing or work-generating device. Call it the UltraMac. (BTW, it would also not hurt if the Ultra Mac were flexible, even bendable.)
We had high hopes for this when Apple announced the MacBook Air in January, but although that Mac is a truly amazing and desirable (but very expensive) laptop, it is not the UltraMac we had in mind, because even though it has true workability (performance and function), it is not truly portable like a small clamshell Mac would be.
Conversely, the very pocketable iPod Touch is also completely wonderful, and the typing (one handed) is fast and intuitive, as well as having the amazing gesture-interface. But the @#$&# thing is way too small for serious story writing, and there is no real WP app available (yet). The whole point of an ultra-portable computer is to do real work; not just upload or download to it. Because of this, the iPod Touch is neither the right size nor the right form-factor to be the ideal UltraMac.
However, since the reality is that Apple may never offer an Ultra Mac, (primarily, I suppose, because Steve Jobs neither uses nor desires one), there are still plenty of choices out there. But only if you can stand to use Linux. Many of these devices will have the Microsoft Windows operating system, if only in their fairly efficient Windows Mobile or PocketPC iterations. But MS is not an option for a lot of us under any circumstances (Been-there-done-that, never-again; life-is-too-short-for-crapware), ahem, because Windows has lately become completely bloated and useless as an OS, as more people are discovering.
Here are a few of the latest iterations of these uber-PCs on the market.
ASUS EEE PC
At two pounds the Asus Eee PC is the first small ultra-cheap ($400) PC on the market. The Eee draws on Asus's long history of great notebook design: It is a solid, minimal machine. The Eee runs the simplified Xandros Linux. Big icons let you launch a web browser, Skype, office apps, and games. However, it only has 2 hours and 20 minutes of battery life, and there is only 1.3GB of free memory. The keyboard is too small for touch typing, and the 7” screen is also too small for work use. The Eee's size and lack of memory mostly makes it a novelty instead of a writing or business tool, IMO. (Workability: No.)
THE SIMPUTER
The $200 handheld palm-top Simputer is designed to bring computing and the information age to developing countries. It has 32MB of flash memory with 32MB of RAM. The Simputer features a built-in modem, an infrared and a USB port, and is powered by Linux, It also has a 240 x 320-pixel touch screen, and works on AAA batteries. For the illiterate, the device supports text-to-speech capability and voice feedback in local language. The user will need to purchase a SMART CARD to be able to access to his stored on-line data, private information such as bank accounts and web access. I do not consider this to be a viable candidate for a true and useful ultra-portable computer, but it does have a voice interface, which none of the others seem to have. (Workability: No)
FUKATO DATACASK
The sleek and well designed Datacask has an 8-inch, hi-res 800 x 480 display, a 20GB hard drive, 512MB of RAM, and uses a Linux-based OS, for a great price of $450. This device sounds pretty good, huh? Small, cheap, and functional, with plenty of performance. The only way to know for sure is to use one and see. Still, neither this cool ultra-portable ultra-cheap laptop, nor any of the others is our Ultra Mac, is it? (Workability: Yes)
Here is a LINK to CNET reviews of nearly all ultra-portable (non Mac) laptop computers currently on the market.
THE APPLE IPOD TOUCH
Obviously, everyone already knows about the iPhone and the lighter and more elegant iPod Touch, so posting a description here is rather redundant. As we said, the Touch is not the ultraMac either, because it is not an instrument that you would use by choice to do serious work on, regardless of the excellent touch screen experience. No physical keyboard, the very small screen, and the lack of serious work-related software preclude the Touch from being the UltraMac. (Workability: No)
You know, my wife has used ultra-portable devices such as these for nearly six years now. She lately used the Palm LifeDrive handheld device, with a 10GB internal hard drive, Palm software, along with a portable, folding full-sized keyboard docking station. The whole setup cost less than $500 and fits in her purse. Before that, she used the Sony Clie’ with a portable folding keyboard. It cost nearly the same amount, but had no hard drive. Who knew she was such a cutting-edge Geek? =) I considered these to be toys, but she used them to take notes in her doctorate classes, as well as to play simple PowerPoint shows and animations for her students. The main caveat to all this is that she could not use these handheld devices to create her work, but simply to upload text or download projects and notes to and from her iMac. But, all this is ancient history to her, now that she has her video-capable iPod Touch. I have never seen anyone type so fast on one of these. Still, her only disappointment with the Touch is that she cannot generate real work on it.
So what do you think? Are you content with a device like the iPod Touch or the iPhone, even though you cannot (easily) generate work on it? Do you see a need for an UltraMac in your future? Are you already using one of the other ultra-portable or palmtop computers out there? Are any of them really useful to you for doing work (workability)?
Comments?
Regards,
Roger Born
“Sorry, No Refunds”
Your mileage may vary.
Film at 11.
.
Using My Powerbook As A Hearing Aid - 04.09.08 5:47 pm
(this is from a mymac staff email thread. the experiment was also tried on two other macs as well, a fairly new imac and an old mac color classic. none of them work for this without some serious work-arounds or specific software, and none of them work well enough to help someone who is genuinely hard-of-hearing.)
to mymac staff,
hear [sic] is the deal - sometimes wearing a hearing aid is a pain in the butt [sic]. the hearing aid sticks in my ear canal, and it stays there for hours at a time. some relief from it would be nice.
in fact, it would be so nice to plug in a microphone to my ever-present powerbook, while i am wearing these really cool, small, loud and very comfortable on-the-ear headphones. i already use these phillips ($20) headphones constantly, to listen to my songs and audiobooks that play on the itunes application on my laptop.
(note: while the ipod in-the-ear headphones are excellent headphones, i avoid them for the same reason i have come to hate wearing my in-the-ear hearing aid.)
to me, all that is missing, in order to use my powerbook for a hearing aid, is some sort of software that can connect the built-in microphone to my headphones on the powerbook, so that a person may listen to live feed through the headphones.
does anyone know of a piece of code, or a script, or a piece of software (free or for-a-price) that can let me do this?
i already know that the ipod is not a good candidate for using as a hearing aid , unless it is the mac ipod touch (or the iphone), because the ipod volume is already too low to hear my music. (therefore i have been using my ipod nano to store stuff, since i cannot hear my itunes on it. - yeah, i listen to my itunes on my powerbook instead, using those headphones i just mentioned).
any thoughts on this one? (definitely off-the-wall) thanks in advance, oh great-ones-of-mymac.com
roger-the-deaf
ps
happy easter to you guys. i happened to guest-preach the sunday morning sermon today at our little congregation here in barstow. thirty-one years ago, my wife was in the audience when i guest-preached in a congregation in huntington beach. she was there when i did the same thing a few hours later at a convalescent home, and again that sunday night. i did not know her then, but she soon let me know that it was hearing me that day that made her decide that we should get to know each other better. tuesday is our 30th wedding anniversary. yeah, we were both young and single back then. weird the time go? she is still just my awesome, beautiful and wonderful mate. (yeah, i know - i am the luckiest [most blessed] man on the planet, for some reason.) -rog
Roger,
I'm uncertain about what you are trying to accomplish. You want to listen to a microphone connected to your mac through the headphones? That is no trick. Do you mean you want to hear the live feed of a microphone over the web?
Chris
chris,
no. no live feed online. i just need to be able to listen to what is around me on the powerbook, live, like a hearing aid. if the mic is directional, so much the better. but the internal mic should pick up anything, right? i would just like to use it to watch tv in my den, where i spend most of my time (being on chemo, and all). i have captioning on the television, but i know some of the movies i watch has great music and sound-effects. i know i can use my hearing aid, but not unless i really crank up the volume on the television. my neighbors complain when i do that. =)
you say it is no trick, but i have not been able to access the live mic on my powerbook, through my headphones yet. you would think this would not be that hard to do. apple should have already planned for this, knowing how many of their customers are getting to be hard-of-hearing. thanks again for any input.
-roger
Roger
Following this with interest. I'm still in the resisting-the-hearing-aid stage, but maybe all I need is a new laptop. :-)
John
Roger,
Try Audio Hijack Pro. You should be able to take the internal mic feed from the laptop and redirect it to the headphones with that - and you can process the audio on the way (increased volume etc.). Just don't turn it on without the headphones connected. The feedback will be extremely unpleasant.
David.
Rog:
I don't know the answer to your question, but I can relate to your soon to be 30th Wedding anniversary. We are on 21 and counting---Congrats...
Rich
Roger
You can do it in GarageBand. Select input to whatever mic you need, and then turn on Monitor with Feedback protection.
Tim
tim,
its interesting that in GB and in QT, the sound levels never get as high as they do in iTunes. I can use iTunes to listen to my music on my powerbook, but even with these great headphones, I cannot clearly hear whatever is playing in GB or QT. odd.
I knew the sound in QT was always low, but I thought that it was a particular movie I was playing. i am beginning to see that the volume in quicktime is a real issue here. sumbuddy ought to blog this one.
I will look online to see if there are any fixes or upgrades for this problem with the volume. perhaps i will blog it too, once i figure out if there are any other deaf/hard-of-hearing mac users out there.
thanks for the input. i will download the demo of Audio HiJack too, to see. it is not too expensive if it works - $40.
-roger
Sure Roger, this is no problem, you can do this with audio midi setup (and also turn up the output for bonus points). It is built right into OS X (use spotlight to find it easily). There you should be able to click the thru box and have the sound from the microphone play through to the earphones. For some reason this works for me in Tiger and not leopard. I'm guessing it is because I have some other stuff installed (sunflower, free at sourceforge) that will do the same trick.
Chris
chris,
so far, nada. cannot hear output from internal mic, no matter how i try to use the audio midi setup. guess it will take another app to make it so i can hear what comes over the mic. unless it is not loud enough for me to hear anything, being mostly deaf as i am.
thanks, roger
Roger,
you using leopard or tiger? Built in or external microphone? Give me specifics and I'll try to recreate your situation and find the solution.
Thanks, Chris
chris,
built-in mic on my powerbook - probably locked out to stop feedback. tiger 10.4.11 is my os. the mic on my G4 800 MHz powerbook is just above the left internal speaker. the sound utility shows the mic is on and working. all sound controls are already dialed to 11. =)
thanks,
roger
staff,
FWIW, neither audio midi setup nor audio hijack pro seem to offer PLAY THRU, which is likely what i need to have the headphones allow me to hear the built-in mic. still looking for SUNFLOWER.
-rog
Chris Seibold to staff
you'll look a long time for sunflower, I meant soundflower, sorry.
Roger,
Do you have GarageBand?
Tim
tim,
yeah. haven't used it that much. hard to hear the tracks.
-rog
Roger,
Yeah, that's not why you want to try this. Set up a new "podcast" session. Select the first Male Audio track and click the record button in the track. (NOT the big red record button at the bottom.) Then set these settings. That will allow you to hear the Microphone.
Tim
tim,
thank you. got it to work. still almost too soft for me to hear. i guess a deaf guy should not be trying to do this. sorry.
-roger
to staff,
i have noted a slight (half-second) delay in what comes out of the headphones when the mic is on in GB. interesting. i know it is because it all goes through the processor and is not live. i just need an extension to GB that allows me to dial the volume to eleven. this is great stuff here.
thanks.
rog
to staff,
on another note about garage band, my raging menace menu meters in my menu bar shows GB using almost 80% of my CPU almost continually. itunes never uses that much, nor does word, photoshop, etc. i guess sound manipulation on a computer does take a lot of processing power.
-rog
Roger!
You *must* wrrite about this crucial topic, once you get it working. Thanks in advance, and to everyone who is assisting, especially long-lost "Sunflower" Siebold.
Nemo
john,
will do. thanks. still working on this whole thing. i think i will blog it instead of doing a feature, since i am not reviewing any software per se.
i can hear a bit better on garage band with a usb microphone, but not by much, and not enough to do it well.
the best set-up i have found so far is to hook my small radio shack 10 watt audio switcher/radio amplifier to the headphone jack on the powerbook. from that, i can use my headphones (with a quarter-inch jack) on the radio shack unit and crank up the volume enough to hear the trucks out on the freeway, a mile away. the sound from the television, however, even though it is cranked up, still sounds muddy. go figure.
oh well, onward! soundflower is next. wish me luck.
roger
gang,
ok. soundflower is great for connecting my internal microphone to my internal speakers or my headphones. that is a done deal, and it answered my original question. thanks. (caveat: soundflower will hijack all your other sound settings in any other app, even after it is turned off. also, soundflower will NOT make your QT or GB play any louder than they do already.)
however, the volume through soundflower is not loud enough to hear things around me like i can with this simple behind-the-ear hearing aid (american made starkey - $600 new)
i am coming to the conclusion that the only setup that will allow me to use my powerbook as a hearing aid (to free me from the pain of constantly wearing my real aid) - is to keep my powerbook hooked into my radio shack amplifier. this is not an elegant solution.
nor can i use my apple ipod touch, since it does not have a built-in mic. the sound output is certainly good enough, in my opinion, using it to listen to my music. however, the sound from the touch does not come out as clear as from my trusty old powerbook.
right now, i can use my powerbook to listen to my itunes collection, but not to watch a DVD, or anything on the web, because the sound level from those are just not loud enough for me to hear what is being said.
this is a frustrating thing, given that there so many good and interesting things to watch and hear on the web. i cannot even hear the sound on the new ironman trailer.
try as i might, i still have not found a reason nor a solution for why quicktime or safari has such low sound output on this powerbook. i do not know if it is because i am on this older model powerbook, or because these apps are just degrading the sound output to protect the ears of its listeners. i do wish apple would fix this. there isn't much out there on threads or blogs on this subject except people like me asking for the same solutions.
i also have come to appreciate my hearing aid a lot more lately. yeah, it is a pain to have that molded piece of lexan in my ear canal continually, but it does work so well, and so much better than anything else. when it is on, my hearing is almost normal, like glasses that give you 20-20 vision again.
the reason that the hearing aid works better than anything else is because the sound is channeled directly into the ear canal just millimeters from the eardrum. the sound output on the hearing aid is very small, so there is no damage to a person’s auditory nerves. but the directed sound is loud enough to work and work well.
what i am trying to do with my powerbook or any other device, will always be of lesser sound quality because first of all, my headphones do not go in my ears, but on the outside of them. as unpleasant as it is to wear a hearing aid for long periods of time, wearing in-the-ear earbuds, like those that come with the ipod, are that much more unpleasant, because they were not shaped to fit my ears.
i guess my next question would naturally be, could an apple iphone with a built-in mic, be made to play the sounds around me into my head phone?
first, could i even hear anything on the iphone if i used an on-the-ear set of headphones instead of the earbuds that come with it?
second, will the volume on the iphone be as loud as it is on my apple ipod touch? (yes, i can hear my itunes music on the touch, using the on-the-ear headphones).
third, is there an easy way to connect the built-in mic on the iphone directly to the headphones?
fourth, can i afford to buy the iphone just to see if this all works? too bad the apple ipod touch does not have a built-in mic. the nearest apple store is a hundred miles away, but i may try out an iphone with my own headphones the next time i am there, to see if it plays anything loud enough, or if i can access the built-in mic somehow, while i am there. (of course all this may change with the new models coming out soon.)
perhaps i need to also look around to see if there is an small external mic that could be bought for my ipod touch, but that already seems to be a kludge-fix having to use a touch dongle.
i hope this little odyssey of mine has helped any reader here who also wears a hearing aid.
the point i got from all this is that apple is great at what it does, but there must not be any deaf or hard-of-hearing engineers in cupertino. someone tell apple about this. you see, the rest of us are on our own out here, trying to make some audio thing work on our macs, when it would be so easy for apple to include certain features or hardware connections to make all us deaf/hard-of-hearing customers feel welcome.
as an aside, apple seems not to have planned to do much of anything with audio on the mac. already they have given microsoft the lead by default, and ms has run with it, as you can see -and hear- with their excellent SYNC voice activated software interface for ford vehicles. what gives with this? apple practically invented the use of voice activation and text-to-speech on the mac, way back in the 1980s. when and why did they give that up?
regards,
roger
‘’sorry, no refunds’’
your mileage may vary.
film at 11.
.
Equniox - 04.09.08 12:03 pm
SONGBIRD
Once there was a woman named Martha.
Martha was discontent, and her life was
full of busi-ness, burdens, tasks, and duties.
A songbird came into her life one morning,
sitting on her window, singing its heart out,
to her and to anyone who could hear.
Praise to the Father of all living.
Praise to the blessed bright morning.
Praise; and thanksgiving for being alive.
But Martha did not enjoy her songbird
for he reminded her that she was bound
to duties and had no time for singing or joy.
Yet morning by morning her songbird sang.
And Martha grumbled that anything could
be that cheerful. Life was not cheerful.
Martha’s heart was full of winter, you see.
Trust in no one or nothing, for they all fail.
Life has no purpose, except to one day to end.
The songbird still came daily to her window.
Spring became summer, and then fall.
Winter came too, with cold wind and snow.
Still the songbird sang for her each morning.
She could have raised her window to warm it
and left some crumbs and fat to feed it, but no.
So one morning she found it dead on the sill.
“I knew it. Nothing good lasts.” So she got rid of it.
Winter was bleak, but not as bleak as her heart.
But life goes on, as life always does.
Spring comes round, as Spring always will.
One bright morning, a songbird sang for her.
Praise to the Father of all living.
Praise to the blessed bright morning.
Praise; and thanksgiving for being alive.
Martha grumbled at its happy noise.
But her bleak winter heart thawed quite a bit.
She was happy her songbird had come back.
“Weren’t you dead? Didn’t I bury you?”
But her newly risen songbird continued to sing
as songbirds always will.
Faith is better than reality, for it is more real.
Life is worth living only with joy and gratitude
and is meant for praise more than work and duty.
.
Gravitons Discovered - 04.01.08 1:28 am
They are called Gravametric Radicals. Dr. Simon Ness of the Physics department at the University of California, Berkley campus is publishing the essentials of his findings. Using a radical new desktop collider, he claims to have discovered the very first evidence of gravity particles, which are also known as gravitons.
"It has long been known that these particles travel at the speed of light, but unlike light particle/waves, they do have a very small amount of mass." Said DR. Ness. His discovery could significantly change the landscape of physics as we know it today, and could even speed the formulation of a final grand unified field theory.
Gravametric Radicals (GMRs) engage matter and space (and possibly time) in what is called Boatine Fritication. Essentially it is the dance between matter, energy and gravity that we are all familiar with. The more mass that is brought to the party, the more GMRs there are as well. Dr. Ness explains that this Boatine Fritication defines the attraction at a distance, but it also shows significant and surprising repulsion at near atomic levels.
Using his desktop collider (the design of which is secret for now), Dr. Ness tried a number of target disks, mostly foils, to collect these GMRs. He thought lead might be the best, but it turns out that the high grade steel of the collider's frame was the place he first made the discovery.
"If you think about it, these GMRs have been showing up around us for a long time now. We just didn't understand that was what they were."
He said that the most likely place any of us notice these gravity particles is when our high grade steel bumpers in the front of our cars begin to collect them. Since GMRs attract other objects of iron and steel at a distance, it is obvious how the effect of these things work.
"You are in your car, driving in rush hour. Your lane slows down because many of the cars in front seem to slow down or stop for no apparent reason. You move into another lane that is moving, but that new lane also begins to stop and the lane you left suddenly begins to move again. Blame it on the GMRs that have become embedded in your front bumper. Over the course of many months, driving at speed across the surface of the earth, the heavy iron and steel elements in your front bumper and frame collect many thousands of these gravity particles.
Dr. Ness is already in talks with the government to begin a program to harvest these gravametric radicals, for the purpose of possible use in various military and space research programs. It is likely that there will be an incentive program to recycle the front metal of most cars on the road today, perhaps on a once-a-year basis.
Already other countries are chiming in on such a mass harvesting of GMRs. Russia already indicated that is has had a program in place for several decades, but said that it is classified. Doubtless they are harvesting GMRs from the metal in their tractors and tanks.
Our Navy has expressed interest in how to find these GMRs, perhaps to see if they are embedded in the bows of their ships. The Air Force also has been seeking the same information.
Obviously, GMRs may turn out to be the primal cause to a lot of unexplained and embarrassing activity and collisions between ships at sea, as well as odd activity of planes in and around airports and landing fields.
Perhaps even other strange phenomenon such as unidentified flying objects may eventually be explained by GMRs - either because of their effect on ordinary metal objects, or because aliens use them to propel their craft.
One wonders if Dr. Ness has completely comprehended the gravity of his new discovery.
(Sources: Rohan News, and various.)
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry, No Refunds"
Film at 11.
.
Companion - 03.27.08 7:01 pm
Years ago, I wrote a fictional piece about the "Companion" which was a software program to meet the every need of the user, as a valet, personal trainer or good friend would do. Apple recently filed patents for such a type of software.
"Apple may be developing a digital Companion. A series of patent filings provides an overview of four distinct components that will comprise the system, including an iTunes-like software application, hardware-based heart rate and physiological sensors, a rewards tracker, and a component to facilitate synchronous group activities." (sources: various)
Below, the the story, written in 1999, and originally entitled "2049" talks about this Companion.
Enjoy!
What would happen if you crossed your happy little Macintosh Interface with an industrial robot, and threw in a dose of Artificial Intelligence, too?
Many things are still the same, Suzan, on this warm December day, 2049. I like it out here by the lake. All the walnut trees are so colorful, and they smell so good! OK. Begin... As far as computers today are concerned, they are absolutely everywhere, but you will rarely ever see one! Let me explain.
A long time ago, when I was barely out of college, I taught a computer class and told my students to imagine the future of computing. First we watched an old Star Trek video, where I pointed out to them that the computer was all around the people, but nowhere to be seen. (This was way back in the bad old days, where primitive computers were in big ugly boxes, sitting on office desks and as un-green as possible!)
Then I painted for them a word picture, of a man sitting at an empty table. He was wearing glasses, but he had no computer, monitor, or keyboard. He was just sitting there, talking to himself, tapping his fingers on the blank table, and sometimes absently pointing at the empty wall he faced. A refugee from an asylum? No! He was wearing his computer in his glasses, which had a small ear piece that also acted like a microphone. His gigantic Mac graphic interface was projected on the wall in front of him, and he was typing on the virtual keyboard appearing on his desk, which the glasses projected. Instead of a mouse, he used his finger to touch what he wanted, on his ghostly monitor. He was talking out loud because he was using his voice mail on the Internet.
Strange, Suzan, how close I was to this reality, this year of our Lord, 2049... and how far off I really was! Yeah, it's all come true, but forget the glasses!
How did it happen? Well, a lot of people used computers for much more than just their personal work and surfing the Net. They began to put computers into running their businesses and industries. Almost nobody back then who were using personal computers at home ever noticed. All they were concerned about was Bandwidth! But the really Big Picture was in industry! At first, computers in the factory were doing quality control much more precisely than the most dedicated Quality Assurance employee could ever do. Their complicated, but still primitive computers were used in more and more tasks in manufacturing, as they copied the successful manufacturing techniques and procedures from the computer chip makers. Their products were better and so was their productivity.
Others used their computers in engineering to create better and more cost effective designs. This led to better products and improved sales. It also led to lower manufacturing costs by virtue of precision manufacturing controls and the greater reliability of computer-controlled machinery. This was going on almost everywhere, and in every major business.
Along the line, someone smart decided that they could build really small computers and peripherals if they let the computers build the tiny factories that were needed to build them. Micro-miniaturization was the big thing for awhile, as well as a renewed interest in robotics. Soon those two things merged. Micro factories turned out Microbots. Soon there were little computer robots which could go almost anywhere and do anything they were programmed to do. You needed a microscope to see one.
Another smart person got these Microbots to build still smaller factories, which turned out still smaller Nanobots, and so forth. Finally, the little things were way too small to see, even with a microscope, because they were nearly molecule-sized! Why, a whole supercomputer would be no bigger than a period on a page!
That, Suzan, changed everything!
Nowadays, when you want a computer you go to the store and buy a pill. In that pill are several million Nanobots, much smaller than your body's cells. Don't worry, they're perfectly safe to use. In fact, they do quite a few chores for you once they get into your body. Once inside, they follow a standard, fail-safe program (No, Suzan, not Windows! Hee hee!) A few of them plant themselves in your inner ear, your vocal cords, and in between the rods and cones of your retinas. The rest act out many roles, from data storage, communication channels to the Net, and radio links between all the other Nanobots. A good number of them police your arteries and lungs, keeping them clear of debris, while still others are always on the lookout for pre cancerous cells, or dangerous medical conditions. Thanks to Nanotechnology, people today are a lot healthier and better connected than they ever were in the "dark ages" of computing.
The pill you just took only cost a few dollars. Everything in it was completely manufactured by other computers. Once you took your pill, it was only a matter of a few minutes before you found yourself seeing and hearing your friends on the Net. They could see and hear you just fine, for the Nanobots delivered a '3D model' of you that so closely approximated you that your own mom couldn't tell the difference. This neat trick gives you privacy, so you could still surf the Net even if you were in the shower. Nanobots always keep your 'picture' presentable.
You can surf the Net and answer your email in your car, too! Not to worry, though. Your car's computer drives (or flies) you safely to your destination. In the old days, vehicle accidents claimed many thousands of lives every year, but now, with the computer doing the driving, accidents are a thing of the past.
I have a few other vehicles that are computer driven, too. My Doggy is one. It is little more than a small, secure box on wheels, which I send to the store or the mall when I want to buy something. It really doesn't go there. It goes to a warehouse somewhere, while I go online and visit the virtual 3D store. It is never crowded when I go, and the virtual people there are so very knowlegable and courteous! I just tell them what I want, and how I want it, and their computer tells the warehouse's robots to put it in my Doggy cart, and he brings it home.
Come to think of it, there isn't much in our lives that is not touched, enhanced, or protected by some computer somewhere, because it's all made by computers.
All this has caused many changes in our lives, all for the better. Houses now are built on assembly lines by General Motors Habitations. These are 'living' appliances, which protect and meet the needs of their inhabitants almost before they think to ask for something. Old style dwellings still exist, but whole forests are no longer required to be cut for lumber to build our new homes. People nowadays prefer to live minimally in smaller dwellings. There is a "Zen" about people and computers that sort of transcends accumulating property.
A while back, some chemist put his company computer to work on creating a new plastic out of the most abundant elements on the planet. His computer invented these new water-carbon plastics, which are now used to make almost everything we have, from our vehicles and appliances to even our dwellings and offices. Wonderful stuff, and so colorful! (Reminds me of those first antique iMacs.)
Another physicists found a way, using his computer, to create efficient new motors that run on water. Those motors break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen to get their power. They are also computer controlled and self-repairing too, using Nanobots, of course, and a small onboard supply of metal and plastic stock. Things last longer now, so people upgrade their homes, cars, and appliances just like in the old days when they upgraded their computers.
What else? Oh, television now is only on the Net. Great Bandwidth! Apple Computer, those guys who started it all with Macintosh personal computers, became our biggest entertainment company on the Net. Their programming is all in 3D! It's like walking inside a movie set! The old Networks were bought out by Ted Turner's kids a long time ago. Their programming is all 2D reruns. Yeah, we still have "I Love Lucy" and "Star Trek!" Some things never go away.
Businesses have changed too. Since manufacturing and almost every other business is automated by Microbots and Nanobots, people have much more free time on their hands. So schools and colleges on the Net are a booming business. Seems most people want to keep growing and learning. Especially with the 20 hour work week. Learning is a necessity for people to be successful today. For instance, student engineers study the intricate designs that the computers invented so they can learn how to be better engineers.
Our computers are continually contributing to the great wealth of the world's knowledge, too. It has been estimated that between 1900 and, oh, 1970, man's total knowledge from the last two thousand years doubled. It only took about another decade before it doubled again. Now, all the knowledge doubles every couple of days! Without our computers, we could never keep up, or even make sense of it all! Hooray for those Apple Nanobots!
One interesting change is in the people! Because computers are so prevalent, both the kind you carry and the kind inside, people all over the world are connected to the web. We apparently all talk the same language, because the computers automatically translate anyone's speech or writing immediately. So I am talking to my friends Chen and Ahman, and we are chatting up a storm, when it occurs to me that their words are not quite matching their lip movements. I stopped them and told my companion to quit translating for a minute, and asked them to do the same. Then we tried to talk! How awkward that was for the three of us! We put our translators back on fast, so we could converse again. I've never learned another language, but that was an eye opener. Those two guys are some of my closest friends, but they never would have been if it hadn't been for our computers!
What else? Ah! All the old public schools are all gone now. Good riddance! A good prognosticator named Martellaro once predicted that as soon as people found out that everything you needed to learn was on the Net, they would leave their old paradigms and their hopelessly old-fashioned schools. He was right. Computer Mentors are big now, especially since they can synthesize the vast amount of information so quickly, and then leave it us to pick and choose what we want to learn that is important to us and our interests. Learning is fun now!
People explore more now, and they travel everywhere. Why not? You never have to leave your office or your work behind. People found out very soon in our new computer age that they no longer had to be tied to cities or to their offices. Almost no one has to commute to work anymore since they can telecommute from anywhere on the planet. Man has finally begun to spread out over our big empty planet, instead of hiding in dirty, crowded cities. Travel to the moon and Mars is opening up for those who are more adventurous. They will be taking their computers with them when they go, of course, in all their myriad forms.
This is what typifies our age, Suzan: Man working and playing, always with his computers which are all around him--and inside him--and everywhere he goes!
If computers watch out for us and protect us, then crime is down, right? Yeah! For instance, it's nearly impossible now to sneak up on people and rob them (or worse!). Besides, people don't use money anymore. There is no need. Our computers, keyed to watch out for our health and our surroundings, make it so. The same is true with any forgeries or scams. People wear their computers and their bank accounts in their bodies. What better ID could there be?
But we have a lot of new types of crimes now. They involve Nanobots, of course. Some Pacific Rim groups are having a 'war' with us, so to speak. They learned how to manufacture Nanobots, too! However, their computers are crudely built and they carry trashy advertising. They are programmed to secretly insert themselves into our work and our surfing. Sometimes they are so good at this that we hardly realize that we have just experienced a commercial, or an illicit sensation, until it has passed. We know they're not airborne. We think they are 'caught' by people touching things, so many people wear plastic gloves all the time now! Or they stay home.
A few people believe that those renegade Nanobots only come out at night while we sleep, to inhabit our dreams and fill our heads with compulsions to buy certain products or services! Personally, I think those people aren't infected with rogue Nanobots, but with paranoia. Our own Nanotechnology is very well programmed to deal with any unidentified Nanobots, once they are finally discovered in a host body. The few people who don't use Nanobotic computers (those Luddites!) are immune to any micro miniature devices 'cause they've no internal computers to interface with! But, boy! They're on the Net hootin' about it!
Is there artificial intelligence in our computers now? Well, not exactly. Self-aware computers only exist in old movies and books. But it is uncanny how computers today mimic self-awareness. You know very well, Suzan, that they converse with us, and interact with us, seemingly with a mind of their own. If they are not self-aware, I am hard pressed to prove it. I know, I know! I've read all the material about how they only imitate intelligence and personality, and how they have all the Net to draw from for experience, and how they use complex computer-designed software programs that approximates a synthesis of people's interactions with each other... I know all that, Suzan!
But when my Companion, that artificial personality that inhabits my internal Nanobotic computer is interacting with me, well, she's just like a close friend! I forget who, or what, I am talking to anymore! Besides, what's the difference? If she isn't real, she's the best imitation of a real person I ever met! She never intrudes, but she is always there for me, and she is never selfish, and she never goes away. Why, she even chats with our GM Habitation and with my cars when I'm too busy to talk to her! (I wonder? Does she ever get lonely?)
Now, I'm not someone who talks to his house or his car! I mean, there is a limit to these computerized appliances having an artificial, animated, and intellectual soul! Why, today almost all the toys and teddy bears the kids like are just animated cartoons and characters that move and talk and like to play tricks. But we are adults. We are decent and rational folks. So I keep any conversations with computers strictly to my own personal and internal Companion. It's more polite that way, and it doesn't look quite so silly talking to a toy or to an appliance!
Have I missed anything, Suzan? Probably I have. So much of my life is transparent to me. I might not notice that it is also touched by a computer.
Oh, I know they are everywhere! They perform our surgeries. They grow and protect our crops. They invent things, too! One university computer I saw synthesized Mozart. Imagine that! The Computer became Mozart in order to keep writing more of his music, seeing that he died so young. People have a great debate now about that new music. Is it really something Mozart might have created, or is it just modern trash? I think it sounds pretty good! I hope they do Beethoven some day, or Da Vinci!
Anyway, Companion! You got all this? Good! I'm done now!
I did as you requested, Suzan. I finished this little summary of how computing has changed us these past fifty years. Good thing I still have a good memory! What? Oh, I know I didn't cover the computer enhancements in sports controversy, or the ethics of using nanotechnology in embryos, or a bunch of other things, but I covered the subject you asked me for, right? I know you had me do this little exercise in order to hone my logic and thinking skills. Yeah, it was hard to do, but it was fun! I guess I'm not such an old rust bucket after all! Why, I still have almost a hundred years ahead of me, don't I?
Oh yeah? I knew you were going to ask me to do that! Converse about computing for the next fifty years, huh? That is a much harder assignment, you know! I don't remember it as well as the last fifty. Hee, Hee! Will I get my hour to work on it, just like this last assignment? Hope you kept a copy of what I said. I might like to read it sometime, or send it to a friend. Now where's my fishing pole?
OK, Suzan. Here goes... Begin!
Staff Thoughts On The MacBook Air - 01.21.08 3:11 pm
The following is a continuation of Thursday's (01/17/08) MyMac Staff thread on the MacBook Air.
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I am jumping in late here, but I was very disappointed with the Air. The cost, the non-user replaceable battery, small amount of ram, too small hard disk, and the lousy Intel graphics chip. All at the price of a Pro unit. And after playing with it, I do not want it.
But what bothers me most is that there is a new trend with Apple and other companies where form OVER function is the rule of the day. When did that happen? At the cost of many things, Apple decided that 1/2” of extra height (I talked to the project manager) was too much to put in to give all those extras. And when I questioned him on the issues, he said, and I quote, “..well, on long flights, I guess you will just have to sit in Business or First Class to get the power connection...”
Just how out of touch are these people? I would hope they would have learned SOMETHING from the iPod and iPhone! I guess not.
And for the record, when playing with the 1.8 Ghz model, it was VERY slow in response to the multi-touch panel. I was not impressed.
As for the cost:
$1799.
$300 speed bump to 1.8 GHz, which you will want.
$200 for the external optical disk
$30 for an Ethernet adapter
$245 for the extended warranty, which you WILL want.
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$2574 <-- This is not cheap.
Like the iPhone, I think I will wait for the 3rd version!
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The price of that custom low profile case is that it is sealed, like an iPod, from what I could see. No user access at all.
Just be aware - it is gorgeous and somewhat wallet tugging, whatever the inherent design compromises. It is a heart over head machine, most certainly!
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I think you miss one big point. When flying, one battery is not enough, and on the last 17 trips I have been on, there were not power plugs in coach! I typically carry an extra battery to make it through a cross country trip, and a large battery I plug into the power port is NOT the answer. Not very efficient.
To get feet replaced in San Francisco took them two days. No one in the Apple Stores in the big cities does anything right away. My last repair took 6 days!
And as has been said, you cannot change batteries when you need more power. This IS a deal breaker, because I wanted this and will not buy it!
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Here is an interesting article on the Macbook Air:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131696/2008/01/macbookair_faq.html
I'm not a business traveler. I'm just a nuts-and-bolts technician, but I find the lack or a replaceable battery to be a "near fatal flaw". Not sure how else to put it. Will it fly with people who travel a lot, or will that lack of a replaceable battery sink the product? Wait and see I guess.
Some of you are right, it's not cheap. But don't forget, a lot of people work in companies where image counts a lot. (Part of the "Form over function problem"?) Enough so that the companies will gladly buy their traveling executives the latest gotta-have-it thing, cost be damned. Of course, it could be a little embarrassing when a traveling executive walks into the meeting room, then sheepishly has to ask if there's a place he can plug in his Macbook Air, since the battery is out of juice, because he couldn't get a seat in business class or first class. Yee-hah.
Perhaps a group feature, where Mymac staffers write what they think of the Macbook Air is in order.
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Battery life is less of an issue than is being made of here, IMHO.
1) Without an optical drive, the MBA should have good battery life, even if the 5 hours claimed is hard to regularly achieve. I have MacBooks, Powerbooks, Dells and other here that do not get much past three hours, even with new batteries. So MBA should provide close to best of class on battery longevity, making the fixed power dependence less
2) It will still work fine with external battery devices - I picked up one myself while at MacWorld this time. A disc with an internal battery and standard socket in the middle, it gives around six hours total on my MacBook when paired with the internal battery - so an MBA should be a fair bit better. Yes, it adds to the overall weight, but given what I said in pint one I would not anticipate needing such a device all of the time, just for the longer trips
Working in IT consultancy, I meet a lot of people with laptops. Relatively rarely, I find a person with more than one battery. Even more rarely than that is a person with more than one battery that uses them both regularly.
I am sure the pros and cons of the MBA will be a primary discussion topic on the podcast this week...
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> Battery life is less of an issue than is being made of here, IMHO.
Well friends, that all depends on the battery's performance, doesn't it?
Case in point: MacBook batteries are Scheißelumpen. (I just made that up, but I'll bet our firend understands.) I'm about to buy my third battery in less than two years, and that absolutely sucks at over $120 a pop. When my old TiBook's battery finally crapped out, I bought a Newer Technologies high capacity replacement at OWC, and THAT sucker is incredible: easily delivers almost 5 hours of running time, and that's with full screen brightness.
For some reason, such 3rd-party batteries aren't yet available for the MacBook. Grrrr...
As for the MacBook Air, I think it's a fabulous machine (from a distance). I can see quite clearly its intended use and that's just fine. Even if it doesn't sell, it makes one helluva point: we don' need no steenking DVDs! Um, except when we do, but that's just in these early stages. But I would hate like hell to have to take or send one of these beauties all the way to Albuquerque (six hour round-trip) for a battery replacement. That said, one has other reasons to visit ABQ from time to time, so maybe this is just a stupid gripe.
The original issue here has more relevance (long flights), although in the same situation, I'd be catching 40 winks and not working on the airplane. :-) The few times I do get to travel, I generally regard as periods of dispensation from having to get anything accomplished.
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I've been talking with someone at OWC/Newertech about a MB battery since July of last year. He keeps telling me it's coming soon. I'm on the list to review one the instant it finally shows up. I guess they are working on it...
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I think Apple will do fairly well with the elegant new MB Air, as you and others have said concerning the executive business market and all the people that must have the cutting edge stuff.
But this whole thing is a moving target. In a couple of years Apple will upgrade to the MB Vapor, weighing 2 pounds and utilizing new nano battery technology giving more than 10 hours of use.
A couple of years after that, there will be a new MB Vacuum, weighing only a pound and made of a flexible and indestructable new polymer - it will hardly be there.
But IMO I think all laptops are going in this direction. It seems to be the future. You know how the future is, the future is never what it used to be when it finally arrives. =)
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MacBook Air -- the new Cube (when all I wanted was a MacMini)....
Back around the turn of the century, Apple customers were demanding a nice, small, headless Mac. They wanted it versatile, low-cost, and would accept some limitations in expandability. There are lots of cases where a full sized PowerMac was too much, and an iMac (with it's integrated screen) just wasn't quite right.
Steve decided, as he often does, that customers don't know what they were talking about. So he handed down from the mountain, a high- priced, closed, but ultimately stylish little remake of the NeXT Cube. This one was smaller, classier, and had better graphics. But alas, it had a high price, no real expandability, and was designed for a niche, but not general appeal. That niche was those that didn't have much space, but wanted a display bigger than the iMac, and were willing to pay MORE than an iMac that came with a screen.
Sales were brisk at first, and quickly tapered off to unacceptable. Soon the product was killed.
Rumor is that a program manager risked job and reputation to go forth with what the Cube should have been all along. It was small, it was cheap, and it reflected what Apple had needed; an entry level machine. The cube was shown to Steve, and it was reluctantly agreed, that it was "cute", and wouldn't hurt the brand too much, so the MacMini was born -- the bastard stepchild disliked by many of the elitist snobs in Apple. And it has gotten the attention, updates, and revisions that such a low machine deserves; despite being far more generally appealing, and outselling many other models, in spades. If the MacMini had some more expandability (say a PC-Card slot to allow some adaptation), it would sell even better, and help work against the "Apple is closed" reputation that the company has.
Now enter the MacBook Air. This is Steve's re-attempt to prove the customer wrong again. Customers said they wanted a light portable, with some expandability. They loved the Duo's -- something that didn't have it all with you, but you dock when you needed, priced at a reasonable threshold -- since it comes with less in the way of I/O, it should of course start at a lower price.
Steve decided, again, that form is more important than function. Like the original iMac, he would yank out all ports that he didn't think we needed. He would seal the battery in (in makes things smaller and more rugged, and lowers costs). Like the original Mac128, he'd solder on the memory, it saves some memory, space, and increases reliability. Then like the original Mac, when his engineers begged him to allow more expandability and he didn't (almost destroying the platform), he decided that there shouldn't be a dock port, two USB ports, or things that would make it more broadly appealing -- it would be a niche product. They asked for small, so small was what they would get (nothing else), or else, "no soup for you!" Then, because it was so brilliant, they wouldn't price it based on component costs, or good targeting; placing a more limited machine below more capable ones... they would price it so we could pay homage to Steve's brilliance. Everything would be sacrificed as a design homage to thin. This created one of the sexiest, and most nichey, elitists products ever. You pay more and get less, it's that simple. They couldn't even brand it in a reasonable way and call it the MacBook Mini -- it had to be as vaporous as it's functionality, and be named "air".
What will the results in the market be? I don't know. Steve is a victim of his success. Apple makes some brilliant products, that are still a shadow of what they could have been, if we didn't have some design-fascist cramming his ideal of utopia down the customers throats. The original Mac sold reasonably, in-spite of the limitations of no memory expansion, no hard-drive, no dock expansion, and limited I/O. Once Steve left, and we got the OpenMac (MacII and SE), then sales really took off. Steve created NeXT and the cube, and the idea of a closed box, with his short-sighted and slow optical-only drive, almost destroyed that company as well. The original iMac sold pretty well, but we'll never know how much better it would have sold had he not yanked out the floppy port and allowed there to be a single slot. As someone who sold these machines, I know it would have removed the reasons claimed by 90% of the consumers when they walked away and bought something else. The same for the Mac Cube. And now, we're back to the same old thing with the Air.
The engineers and nerds in all of us, know that computers and cars sell based on FUD. I'll buy an SUV in case I want to go camping. "When was the last time you went camping or off-roading", you ask.... "that's not the point!". And the same for the Air. 5 hour battery might be enough, but I won't buy one because I might need a replaceable battery and can't get one. I've almost never used my PCMCIA / PC-Card slot in the MacBook Pro -- but I won't buy a machine without it. I only need 2GB of RAM, for now... but I want the option of 4GB. I might not need a dock, but without the option, I'm not buying a limited second machine. Instead of doing good product design, and figuring out what customers want, and trying to appeal to as many of them as possible, Steve and the Air does the exact opposite. People have to work to justify why they will sacrifice X, Y and Z to get it -- instead of Apple figuring out how they could give it to them.
I know that Apple could afford to charge less, and sell a lot more of them. (Helping the health of the Mac platform and Apple's perception and stock valuation). I know that Apple could have put in a dock connector, or even a PC-Card slot, and that would have reduced the controversy and increase the market share and happiness of the consumers. Instead, I, and many consumers like me, will have to decide if we're willing to make the sacrifices to get a MacBook air. And in the end, I think the Air will sell well, in spite of the limitations. Not because of them.
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I must respectfully disagree. I do feel that the non- replaceable battery is an issue. I also feel that someone here is onto something with is observation about form over function.
I really have no problem at all imagining this scenario:
A hot-shot executive has just traveled from New York to La-La land on the redeye. He has worked on his powerpoint presentation a lot during the flight, making sure everything is perfect. This is an important presentation. He makes it in plenty of time, and strolls into the paneled meeting room with confidence. He opens his Macbook Air, and ,,,,uh-oh. The battery is kaput. He sheepishly asks where he can plug in. The conference table is one of these enormous ones, and the nearest outlet is on the other side of the table, just a few feet beyond reach of the cord. It's a full meeting, with lots of "corporate decorum" He cannot change seats. Oops. The other execs simply open up their various laptops, Vaios, Dells, and standard Macbook pros, with no problem. What happens after that is anyone's guess, but it stands to reason that our traveling executive probably won't make assistant vice president this year. (OK, I'm getting carried away here. )
Can anyone else imagine this happening, or am I just too cynical?
Yes, it's an attractive product. I'm sure it feels nice on your hands. Yes, it tugs at the wallet, as others have noted. But, I'm simply not that impressed. And that is what I think. "Believe it, or not." (Spoken in my best Jack Palance voice)
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There is a shortage of the batteries, which is why NO third party has them yet.
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A shortage of MacBook batteries, after a year and a half??
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No, out of the needed material needed to make them. And not just for Macs. Remember, there was a recall just last year for 8 million laptop batteries.
TO BE CONTINUED
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Thursday Blog On Apple's Service - 01.17.08 3:24 am
On Jan 16, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Bruce B. wrote: I expect it will sell well to the intended market, that being executives who travel a lot. The flaw I see is that you cannot change the battery. Won't this be a deal breaker for many?
where oh where do they get their information? the battery can be replaced at any apple store while you wait. it is the same battery that is in the macbook pro. no messing with the hard drive - deal breaker? not. - roger
On 1/16/08, Bruce B. wrote: Tom Schmidt to staff - how do you know it can be done while you wait at an Apple Store? Apple's page for that (http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair/service/battery/) indicates it is mail in only just like iPod battery replacements they do. They haven't even released the service manual for it yet so I don't have a take apart. I can guarantee you that it's not the exact same battery as the MacBook Pro as that battery has some external casing built in.
bruce, my sources are a few of the people i know who are also writers of the mac - andy ihnatko, for one -
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/ihnatko/2008/01/16.1.shtml "It'll be replaced at the Apple Store. It'll cost the same as a new MacBook battery ($129) and there'll be no charge for the installation." this was from an apple briefing he was reporting on. also, charles moore is saying the same thing, as well as a couple of other, less well known friends. - roger
Apple has posted a page describing the out-of-warranty program, and noting the following: MacBook Air battery replacement costs $130, takes 5 days As previously noted, MacBook Air is the first Mac portable in recent history to lack a user-replaceable battery. Replacing the battery outside of warranty requires service from Apple Apple has posted a page describing the out-of-warranty program, and noting the following: Data preservation "Don't rely on it being preserved. Many repairs require Apple to replace or reformat the hard disk, which will result in the loss of your data." How long service takes "The repair process normally takes 5 business days." - rich
well maybe we are cross-talking here. your citation is for out-of-waranty replacement. if my experience with apple waranty fixes are any indication, where i live, over 100 miles from any apple store, they will bring one to my home and fix it on my desk or table. who would ever buy any mac product without the extended waranty? (sorry, rich, if i called you bruce - or is there more than one thread on this?) - roger
No prob....I'm sure you'd have to ship it somewhere...Like you, no Apple STore near me.. - Tom
in that case, i'd drive to the nearest store and wait for it, politely explaining how far i had to drive... (grin) - roger
On 17/01/2008, at 10:53 AM, Roger Born wrote: >who would ever buy any mac product without the extended waranty? er ... me. I think I've gained in the long run because anything that has gone wrong (rare) has occurred during the standard warranty period, or YEARS later (I keep my Macs at least 5 years). - Carmel
I'd always recommend it on the laptops - too much to wear out over a three year period. On the MacBook Air, doubly so - so much innovation in a product could lead to teething problems in the first six months, and Applecare often leads to a better service than those with the standard warranty. I went through that with the 1st gen MacBook Pro and Macbooks. On the other machines, yes, I see your point, Carmel. A tougher call. - David.
I have never had an extended warranty. Have used Macs since 1984. Never had any kind of failure that would require a component to be replaced, with the exception of the first MacBook I had back in '06 for just a few weeks. That one had a bum trackpad button and Small Dog just gave me a new one. - John
wowser! my first mac was a mac plus for 2 grand. they didn't have extended warranties back then, but they fixed it when the monitor went out - twice, after two years of owning it. my next one was a mac II and it was fixed for a bad motherboard and then bad simms by the guy i bought it from - an educational vendor whom i also worked for. by then I had a 6085 and an extended warranty, which i used for just about every part in that thing. after that, we had a bondi-blue imac and our extended warranty went unused. then i went through a series of used macs, bought from a thrift store at $5 bucks a pop. i had enough of them so that i could always put one back together. when we bought our new imac in 2003, the extended warranty caused them to come to my house out in the high desert to bring first a new power supply and then a new mother board - all gratis. my wife, all during this time, was always on a pc. it did not matter if she had a warranty or not, they were never fixed right, and usually ended up discarded. i guess i know where my comment came from, about never being without an extended warranty, huh? =) - roger
I have never bought a Mac without a warranty. Seems to me like it's the only warranty worth buying. Never used a Mac warranty, but still would not buy one without it. - beth
Thanks for the link, Roger. One thing though - Tom is spelled Tom, not Bruce. =-D - I read through Andy's (he rocks) Q&A & didn't see anything that said "the battery can be replaced at any apple store while you wait". I'm hoping the thing is as ingenious to get into as the aluminum iMac (you pull off the magnetically held glass with suction cups), and not as bad as an iPod nano. It's nice that they will let the retail stores open the thing, so I'm sure they will let us as well. I doubt it will be a 5 minute job, though. I expect we will have the service manual shortly after it ships in 2 weeks.
The thing I notice yet again is the discrepancy on price: The program cost (as published at http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair/service/battery/) is based on your region:
United States = $129
Canada = CA$159
Europe = €139 inc. VAT
United Kingdom = £99 inc. VAT
Japan = ¥15,800
Asia Pacific = AU$199 inc. taxes
so it is £99 inc. VAT, would be about £84.25 without UK tax (17,5%) that's US$165.26 /and/ €139 inc. VAT, would be about € 116.80 without German tax (19%), that's US$ 172.68. So users in the UK have to pay a 28% Apple premium, and users in Europe (Germany as an example) would pay a 33.86% premium. Let's ignore that the pricing structure for the Mac Book Air is similarly mislead, the guys at Apple start to make a mistake, when they try to fool their consumers like that. And please, let's not start the discussion about higher import tariffs and higher cost of delivery, when it comes to an item like a battery it is a non-starting-discussion. It is Apple making an additional profit off their customers with something like a battery replacement, that they have, on purpose, created as a 5 day service case. - Claus
And the Australian price, without taxes, equates to about US$161.00 - Carmel
- TO BE CONTINUED -
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My Impression of the new MBA - 01.16.08 9:51 am
The keynote at this year's Macworld in San Francisco did not disappoint. Steve Jobs introduced a completely new paradigm in computing - the ultra-light, sealed, laptop computer. The MacBook Air (MBA). You can even get it with no moving parts with the Solid State Drive (SSD), which is the whole idea of computers to come. You saw history being made at that keynote, folks.
I love the idea of the thing, being so thin and light. I would have hoped for something a bit smaller, say 11 inches or so. That formfactor would have had the same size keyboard, But something that small would have fit in my lap or curled up with me on my couch, just a bit more comfortably than one with a 13.3 inch monitor. The lighted keyboard is a great feature, though.
Yes the MBA is sealed. but the battery is the same as the one in the MB Pro and will be replaced for no charge by Apple when the time comes to replace it. The cost is about $120. Life expectancy of the new battery is supposed to be exceptional.
Is there anything wrong with it? I think the MBA is very cool and desirable, but my first impression from the SPECS page at Apple is that they will need those 2 GB of RAM because of the iPod Hard Drive. To me, that drive is just not a good fit for a laptop, regardless of the speed of the new CPU, because that iPod hard drive is doggy-slow (4200 vs. 5400 RPM). If I bought one, I would be stuck with the slow HD, because the SSD is $1000 extra smackeroonies!
However, that is to be expected, mainly because the SSD is the smaller version from Samsung. A bigger SSD would only be 5 or 6 hundred more, but then it wouldn't fit in the MBA.
Look for more sealed computers in the future from everyone else including Apple. This is an evolving paradigm that just makes sense, when you think about it, along with the idea of no moving parts. But they are making these computers so reliable and long lasting now, that the only way they will be able to get us to part with them is to make the next generation that much better and more desirable. The same is true for feature sets - things we used to pay a premium for, are now being included in the base model. (like cars used to have options, where they are all now included and expected in the base models). Most of the features you find on the MacBook Pros are on the new MBA.
I have looked around the web today and I am surprised at all the pundents who are whinning (que nasally voice) "oh, its too different" "oh, its too new" "oh, the case is locked" etc., etc.
Seems to me that the case is locked for a reason - that of (1) cost of production and (2) risk of breakage by owners (who are sometimes a bit ham-handed and not so careful with thin and delicate things). Apple is replacing these batteries at cost and without charge for labor, but with trained people. Who knows? Perhaps it will be handled at the Apple Store while you wait? I am sure they are going to bend over backwards not to make it a five day affair. After all, they do seem to have an excellent track record with Apple Care and fixing things gratis, right?
Pundents not withstanding, I maintain that a locked case is the future of computing (and cars). Let us not join all those pundants and nay-sayers just yet, and take a wait-and-see approach to this. The high road, and all that. The cost is so high there may not be many buyers right away, anyway. Does anyone have any data on battery useage, cycles and lifespan with devices that use SSDs? Seems to me that the battery cycle would be much gentler.
One more point about those complaints of all the pundents - The idea of the MBA is that it does everything wirelessly. Think about it. It does not need a media drive since it can get anything it needs from the web, or from another computer, say your desktop iMac. Even adding new software is fast and easy. Apple made sure of it. So why are all these guys crying in their beer because it doesn't have a media drive? They even complain that there are no ports, and no way to bring in audio. Dummies. All of that can be accessed wirelessly too. Or if you must, you can use the USB port that the MBA has. Yeah, I know. new paradigms require new ways of thinking. But once everyone gets over that curve, they are going to love it and never look back. Do you think any computer in the future will have ports at all?
To a completely other point - Randy Newman, not withstanding, Those last ten minutes of the keynote were filler, right? There was supposed to be ONE MORE THING and it did not happen, for some reason. Anyone got some clues what it was supposed to be?
Regards to all you road warriors at Moscone on the home front for MyMac tonight!
All this is my opinon, of course. your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. That's my take on it anyway. Sorry, no refunds. Film at 11.
Regards,
Roger Born
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KEYNOTE Up-To-The-Minute Updates Here - 01.15.08 11:53 am
Shalamar - Thanks so much for all your work here - getting all this on a stream of text messages is amazing - and difficult. I could hear you screaming during that last part, all the way over here in Barstow. Have a great time for me, will you. You remain my best fan - always. ~Roger
STEVE IS SAYING GOOD-BYE WITH RANDY NEWMAN - TIME CAPSULE - iPhone and Touch upgrades - NEW APPLETV - MACBOOK AIR - AWESOME!!!
NEW THIRD MACBOOK - MACBOOK AIR - .76 inches thin - 64 GB SSD or 80GB iPod Hard Drive - 13.3" MONITOR - 3 POUNDS - MULTITOUCH AND GESTURE SUPPORT ON WIDE TRACKPAD - (SORRY FOR THE CAPS - JUST EXCITED!!!) - iSIGHT - BACKLIT KEYBOARD - MAGSAFE POWER PLUG - ALL ALUMINUM BODY IN SILVER - NO OPTICAL DRIVE JUST LIKE ROGER SAID - BUY $99 USB OPTICAL DRIVE INSTEAD - WIRELESS - NO ETHERNET CONNECTION - ONE USB 2.0 - ONE MICRO-DVI PORT - ONE HEADPHONE JACK - 1.6 OR 1.8 GHz CORE DUO CPU - $1799!!!! SHIPPING FEBRUARY.
APPLETV - TAKE TWO - Works without a computer - rent movies - HD - play anything - connect to anything - YouTube - Photos - Music - PodCasts - Everyone onboard - Warner Bros, Sony, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Disney - Everything streams LIVE - NEW INTERFACE - One Menu - $229 SHIPPING FEBRARY- MOVIES ON DISK (BLU-RAY and DVD) SHIPS WITH iPOD VERSION -
iPHONE - 4 million sold - in 200 days - new features - maps - webclips - home screens - SMS - now second place in all cell phone sales.
ROGER: Shalamar is texting me on her iPhone now. Steve showed a new Macintosh commercial - Thanks everyone for a great 2007 - MS Office now native on Intel - new DEVICE: TIME CAPSULE - TC - back up everything - all your computers - wirelessly - two versions - 500 GB $299 and 1TB $599 - campanion to TIME MACHINE.
WHOOPS - FEED CUT OUT
-----------
Steve waiting for the music to end. He is so sexy! All that power and cash, I guess.
KEYNOTE BEGINS:
STEVE JOBS: Welcome to Moscone Center
Quick Overview: iPod/iTunes ...
SHALAMAR: Well, the doors are opened and I am in. the crowd looks tired out already. How can they be so tired so early? I always get up at 5, so the day is already long for me. Good thing they had all thos pastries out there, because it is a long time until lunch. The music is loud. Can't wait to get into that reality distortion field again. It is such a thrill!
(let it be said that Shalamar is such a strikingly beautiful woman that she never needs a badge to go anywhere. People just assume she belongs wherever she is.)
WATCH THIS SPACE for up-to-the-minute UPDATES during the KEYNOTE this morning.
Regards,
Roger Born
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Me, in A Blue Bow - 01.15.08 9:47 am
These bows we wear are dusty blue, a rather deep pale blue crape. One on your head, you're a girl. One around your neck, you're a boy. Our soft furry bodies are the color of coffee with cream, and we each have a white tummy in the shape of a heart. Our eyes are deep blue shiny buttons and our mouth, blue stitching. We are really all alike, bears or rabbits. All except Dexter, whose bow, stitching and buttons are bright red. How we hate him, for he may break a child's heart some day.
Our owners are human, of course. That is, once their owners buy us. We are to be loved and cherished by the youngest of them, for they are the only ones who can really see us for what we are, which are beings to be fiercely loved and prayed to; the first and last of all childhood totems and idols.
It is always bad if there might be animals in the house. A dog might take us and we would end up in the yard, missing an eye or a limb, and thus be discarded and lost to our destiny. Or a cat might mark us, and we would be disdained by our owner or their keepers, to suffer a similar fate.
In either event, it does not matter much. Our young owners might be touched and tainted soon enough by a parent, teacher or relative, and their childhoods be forever abandoned to disappointment, hatred and rage; as we will be abandoned too.
This is the end of the world, you see, so we know our time is short and our chances few. One or two of us might be given to a child who has true faith, and they would never outgrow that, regardless of what happens to them. They were the lucky ones, and so would we be, who hopes in our tiny heart of hearts to find one of them to give them a tiny bit of comfort and hope to their brief lives.
Since it is the end of the world, our young charges are largely illiterate, and their schools places of sham learning, where nothing is taught and less is learned, so our young owners might eventually become gang or war leaders, or canon-fodder, servants or slaves. For it is the end of freedom too.
How could I know all this? Old Jake, the marionette told us about the long ago and how the world was, when it was sweet and wholesome, and our owners were wise and learned, as well as kind and good. For that was the age when we were invented, you see. We could scarce believe him, but his stories are as those of Heaven to come, where we will be reborn and share our lives with those who never die, and whose faith is in a God of love and not in a demon god of hate and revenge.
So this is me, in the blue bow. When you see me, spend the small fortune to buy me and take me home, please. Perhaps I will end up on a shelf somewhere in quiet peace, with an adult owner who is trying to remember. Or better yet, with a young child who believes in me, and who will allow me to love them and be their protector for a time. Who knows? Perhaps together we shall dream of a world of light and love, and overcome this present world of darkening loss and fear.
Remember me.
.
Drives on Computers Are So Over - 01.01.08 11:10 pm
Optical media is so old-fashioned. Handing over a CD or DVD to a business associate for data transfer in 2008 is like using handing them a floppy disk.
If you have to use a device, USB Flash sticks are perfect. Given the amount of data your business transfers, they should consider setting up a VPN-connection with their laptops anyway. Or use their dotMAC account. (BTW, how many companies are now moving to laptops exclusively for their business, and phasing out their desktops? Just curious, because I believe that one day, there will not be anymore desktops - only powerful laptops and portables.)
Over the Internet data transfers are much quicker than CDs anyway. By the time the lead-in on your optical media is written, you should have the most data already on your laptop from any number of high speed online sources. I update and download a number of media over the Net from my Power Mac at home, while I am out elsewhere. I just never bother to carry CDs or DVDs anymore.
Perhaps Apple will do away with all their optical drives fairly soon - not that this is a rumor or prediction, per se. It just seems to make sense today.(However, if you are still on dial-up, I am sure you would disagree with me.)
Imagine how much smaller and more energy efficient laptops would be without their drives? And how much longer their batteries would last? Does anyone deny that this is the direction computers are going tomorrow?
Besides, think about it. Syncing your Mac at the office, especially combined with Leopard's Mac sharing features, means you probably don't use your optical drives very much, do you?
What's that? What about the Hard Drives? Ahem. Yeah, solid state or flash drives are still pricey, but they are a lot cheaper this year than they were last year. And that market is very soft right now, with a product glut and falling prices. Apple is partially responsible for this, since they buy most of the world's supply of chips for their 'pods. Speed before was always an issue too, considering that some flash drives are so slow. However, a year has gone by and flash drives are getting to be much faster than hard drives, as well as about the same price in some cases.
Fact is, it would not surpise a lot of people if Apple came out with a driveless laptop this year, regardless of how much of a price difference remains between small hard drives and solid state memory.
I don't have a clue what Steve Jobs will show us in two weeks from today. I know I just can't wait. Christmas really does come in January nowadays.
My excellently informed son ("No I won't fix your computer") has informed me that there could not possibly be a sub-notebook coming from Apple. Why? Because Steve Jobs does not use one. He says that no product has been brought to market unless Steve uses one himself. I have no answer for this, except to say that an awful lot of people are expecting one in two weeks. I am one of them.
Time will tell. Your mileage may vary. Accept no substitutes. Film at 11.
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. No Refunds."
Am I The Only One Upset By These? - 12.28.07 5:20 pm
It is bad enough when television shows got to be so morally ambivalent over the years, with characters that break the law, regardless of what side they are on, but now all of this seems to have broken the barrier into commercials as well.
Toyota’s newest ads suggest that drivers eager to buy a new Toyota should dump their old car by pushing it off the roof of a parking garage, dropping a steel beam on it, or chopping down a tree so it falls on the vehicle. In one ad, a family works together to roll a boulder off a cliff onto their car.
The Insurance Fraud Bureau and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, in Washington, say the unspoken message is that an insurance settlement from the old car will pay for the new Toyota. Letters have been sent to Toyota urging the company to pull the ads. The watchdog group believes fraud bureaus in other states and some insurers also plan to write Toyota. Toyota has issued no response.
No one believes commercials alone will entice car owners into criminal behavior, but there is research that suggests that toleration of unethical behavior can influence people to act unethically. Commercials can add to that negative environment, far more than some television shows, where people 'expect' the actors to be law breakers or morally ambivilant, regardless of it they are the 'heroes' or not.
After all, the only conceivable purpose for destroying your existing car, rather than trading it in, would be to collect insurance money to pay for a new one. And every scene in the Toyota ads is a crime.
But what do you do when an insurance company’s ad tells you to break the law? A Mercury Insurance commercial on television has the motto: “All insurance companies talk about low rates. At Mercury, it’s a way of life.” And they illustrate that so well, at the airport, when the Mercury middle manager is off the plane, picking up his ‘luggage’ which happens to be filled with his co-workers. See, breaking the law and risking your employee’s lives always should take a back seat to saving money, right? What were they thinking when they wrote that one?
Sure, all of this is just the sign of the times, where lawbreaking and tolerance for personal crime can always be justified by saving a buck. If these ‘little’ things are good indicators of our society, we as a people are in a lot more trouble than we realize. This is my own opinon, of course. Your mileage may vary.
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry, no refunds"
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A Better Use Of Bookmarks In Safari - 11.29.07 10:27 am
A friend of mine who was new to the Mac, and to computers in general, was getting some training, and I noticed that she had complete URLs in her Bookmarks Bar at the top of her Safari Browser. She only had three of them, and she commented that this feature was not such a good idea for a browser to have, since it was so useless.
Supressing a chuckle, I helped her to fix this by having her click on the little book icon at the extreme left of her browser window in the Bookmarks Bar. When the window came up with all her URLs listed, I told her how she could change the name to something familiar to her, without spelling out the whole URL in her Bookmarks Bar.
Then she thought the Bar was rather cool, and she promptly added a bunch more.
This got me to thinking about the Bar too, and when I went home, I changed mine too. The Bookmarks Bar is a very personal thing, and since you already know what these URLs are, why use anything more than a SINGLE LETTER to identify them?
By changing my Bookmarks Bar in this way, I now have more than 40 URLs across the top of my Safari window. I place them in groups, so that they are more readily identified in my mind, and I also place them in sequence in the order that I usually surf these sites each day.
I know this is no big deal here, but hey, if it makes your day easier, go ahead and make your own custom Bookmarks Bar. If nothing else, it will make your co-workers go nutts when they see some cryptic thing at the top of your browser. They might even think you are a bit cooler than they realized.
BTW, here is a list of what the URLs are in my screen capture (above). These are most excellent sites, and you might find some of them worth keeping for yourself. A warning, however. A few of these are great time-wasters.
http://borngraphics.com:2095/horde/login
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://www.verseoftheday.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/messages
http://mymac.com/
http://news.google.com/
http://digg.com/
http://reddit.com/new
http://slashdot.org/
http://gizmodo.com/
http://appleinsider.com/
http://www.macdailynews.com/
http://engadget.com/
http://www.gizmag.co.uk/
http://inhabitat.com/
http://www.mocoloco.com/
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/
http://autoblog.com/
http://jalopnik.com/
http://www.airliners.net/
http://rogerborn.com/
http://ueba.net/
http://www.redferret.net/
http://www.mentalfloss.com/
http://www.eurekalert.org/
http://reubenmiller.typepad.com/
http://eternalsunset.net/
http://www.time.com/time
http://www.secondspring.co.uk/
http://www.abarim-publications.com/
http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/
http://writing.borngraphics.com/
http://www.sciscoop.com/main/
http://definr.com/
http://www.physorg.com/
http://www.9to5mac.com/
bookmarks folder “CMC” (comics - listed below)
http://www.weshow.com/uk/index
http://www.flightlevel350.com/
http://www.straightdope.com/index.html
http://heroeswiki.com/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stargate_SG-1_episodes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stargate_Atlantis_episodes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_Voyager_episodes
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
http://www.webshots.com/
http://www.railpictures.net/
http://www.familyradio.com/
http://www.wired.com/
http://www.cardesignnews.com/
http://www.sffworld.com/authors/b/born_roger/fiction/
http://www.cbsnews.com/
http://www.comics.com/comics/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/comics/
http://www.gocomics.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/comics/index.html
http://www.joyoftech.com/
http://questionablecontent.net/
http://www.basicinstructions.net/
http://xkcd.com/
http://www.jeffcohenstudio.com/bagoftoast/
http://www.transmogrifier.org/ch/comics/search.cgi
http://www.garfield.com/comics/
http://www.cartoonbank.com/
http://topwebcomics.com/
http://www.boltcity.com/comics.htm
http://www.hockeyzombie.com/
http://www.comicweb.com/onlinecomics.htm
http://www.robertweinberg.net/index.html
http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/
http://www.metafilter.com/
http://www.myextralife.com/index.php
http://ignatz.brinkster.net/index.html
http://www.animationarchive.org/
http://monsterblog.oneroom.org/
http://www.wetherobots.com/
http://www.meatsandfishes.com/
http://www.thehungersite.com/
http://thepaincomics.com/archives.htm
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. No Refunds"
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Secret Songs - 11.21.07 11:42 pm
Perhaps the eternal question about the Baby Boomer generation will be why we would love (and sing) songs that we haven't a clue as to what they really mean.
The Rolling Stone magazine has an article out concerning a few of the secret songs that typify our boomer generation. It is pretty inane, in my opinion, which is surprising considering the source.
What do you know about the ''secret songs'' from the 60s, 70s and 80s? (And why aren't there any secret songs from newer generations?)
Do you know the meaning of lyrics of these songs, or their background?
Do you know who a particular song is about?
Do you have a song not on this list that you would like to understand?
If so, share it with us so that we too might, at the later half of our lives, finally know what the heck the songs we've been singing mean after all these years!
Here are a few of the secret songs, in no particular order -
The Kingsmen - Louie Louie
The Kinks - Lola
U2 - One
Bob Dylan - Rainy Day Women
The Beatles - Please, Please Me
Elvis Costello - Alison
R.E.M - One I Love
Stevie Nicks - Edge of Seventeen
The Who - Pictures of Lily
Nirvana - Polly
The Beatles - Hey Jude
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
Tommy James - Crystal Blue Persuasion
The Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight
Tiffany - Always Thought I'D See You Again
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Jesus and Mary Chain - Some Candy Talking
Springsteen - Born In The USA
Nirvana - Pennyroyal Tea
Iron Butterfly - Inagodavida
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
Anything by the 13th Floor Elevators
Grateful Dead - Casey Jones
Grateful Dead - Easy Wind
Grateful Dead - Velvet Underground
Moody Blues - In Search Of The Lost Chord
Eagles - Witchy Woman
Beatles - Martha, My Dear
Randy Newman -Short People
Rod Stewart -You’re in My Heart
Rolling Stone - Ishmael
Rupert Holmes - Pina Colada Song
Credence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
The Buoys - Timothy
Janis Joplin - Down on Me
Adam -Blink 182
Donovan - Mellow Yellow
Carly Simon - You’re So Vain
Dylan - Mr. Tambourine Man
Peter, Paul, and Mary - Puff the Magic Dragon
Springsteen - Blinded by the Light
Neil Diamond - Shilo
Guess Who - American Woman
Mamas and Papas - Monday, Monday
The Doors - 5 to 1
Dylan - Everybody Must Get Stoned
ZZTop - Pearl Necklace
Nirvana - Polly
The Eagles - Hotel California
Pink Floyd -Comfortably Numb
Norwegian Wood - Secret
Marty Balin - Miracles
Springsteen -Pink Cadillac
Don McLean - American Pie
Bon Scott - Whole Lotta Rosie
Police - Every Breath You Take
Byrd - 8 Miles High
Elton John - Pinball Wizard
Cindy Lauper - She Bop
The Carpenters - Superstar
Anything by Jefferson Starship
Regards, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Roger Born
Lord of the Nanosphere - 11.08.07 9:48 pm
(start of recording) (file) (erase) (new) (retrieve) (print) (close) (quit)
This is how the legend began, lost in antiquity, my sons and daughters. They say our history began with an Apple. There are dozens of stories and fables surrounding that. Some of them must be factual. One of them must be true. But there are a few things we can be fairly sure of concerning the very beginning of the Computer Age.
Centuries ago and light years away on the fabled Earth stood a lone individual who had a burning vision of what the Nanosphere would one day be. He is the one who began it all. He was already a fantastic designer and inventor of marvelous works of engineering, art and computing.
It is written about him that he led the way for all others, at the very beginning of the age of computing. His computing devices were the very first that people could own for themselves. We cannot either confirm or deny this, but we know He and his Engineers created the first of hundreds of the primitive computing devices of that age. They even created that first majestic "Interface" which all such devices used, and possibly still use today, if our history is true.
He surely must have been greatly admired in those early days, for the surviving relics and holograms of his computing devices that have been found are still considered beautiful works of art and of imminent usability.
The man is known to us only as "S." The original language has changed so much over the centuries that we cannot be sure of his full name. However, he was an amazing individual. A few histories maintain that there were two "S"s at the beginning. This issue is confusing but it will not go away. There are many proponents on both sides.
What do we know about "S?" No image of this man exists. He might have been reluctant to appear in public. The only thing we know for a fact is that we honor him for creating the first device that began the final rush to nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is credited with saving the planet Earth from self-destruction in those early times.
This we know, after twenty years creating incredible computing devices, "S" and his people had a breakthrough. It was not just another insight or discovery. In that primitive age of technology, there were breakthroughs almost daily, if you can imagine it.
What "S" did, was to introduce on an unsuspecting planet, THE breakthrough.
We know that from that one machine came all that we are, and all that we have accomplished, in the Nanosphere.
What we have concluded is that there was much unnecessary rivalry back then. But that rivalry led to intense competition between all the many builders of computers. When one got an advanced design, the others soon followed. It was within this milieu that "S" created the one device that was the key to the rest of computing (and Mankind's) history.
It was just a simple pod, small, transparent, and very powerful for its time.
It was an advanced device that was so small and well crafted that it instantly made obsolete all the other computing devices of its day. The pod was called a "Mac." It was also called an MDC, but the meaning of these acronyms are lost to us now.
Historians say it took some time in catching on with "Users," and "Customers" However, all the other makers of computing devices instantly understood its unique power, and thus competition was again fast and furious to make a better and smaller one.
The whole path of computing changed with the Pod. After it was introduced everyone was creating smaller and smaller devices in rapid succession.
A dozen years after the Pod, inexpensive, wearable computers (WCs) were the norm.
After WCs, an even shorter period of time was all it took for the IMDs, or Insertable Micro Devices to supplant everything else.
Eventually, these IMDs evolved into the Implantables. Thus began nanotechnology.
From what we know of the primitive economics of Earth, a world wide synthesis occurred. Costs of the MDCs and WCs came down, so everyone could own one.
With the advent of Implantables, computing devices no longer required the two century old global wire and cable communications system to be connected to their primitive global web. Inexpensive, low flying satellites were used for wireless communication with everyone's Implantables, regardless of where they stood on the globe.
I cannot begin to tell you how revolutionary this was to the people of that first planet.
After that, it is safe to assume that Implantables got smaller and smaller. Then there reached a point where they cost nothing to own or manufacture. Soon everyone on the planet was wearing them, for it was the popular thing for everyone to do. Primitive people liked to be popular.
This produced some amazing results for that first world. It has never been repeated in Man's history.
Illiteracy became a thing of the past.
Old national boundaries eventually were discarded.
Since the whole world was becoming one in thought and passion, everyone shared in the newfound wealth. Prosperity was something remarkable then, which the world had never seen before. Everyone on the planet became a "consumer," driving a world wide economic expansion.
War and poverty, hunger and homelessness vanished forever from the Earth.
There were still many differences between people, including language and culture. By then they welcomed the differences, rather than using them to divide from one another. We are not sure why this happened, except that it had to do with something called "Mail." Somehow, people bridged the gap with the meeting of their intellects, rather than their face to face confrontations. It did help that the early computers did all the translating between their languages, just like they do for us today.
Thereafter, the remaining centuries of Earth were marked with open inquiry and research, which was carried to its Zenith. When Mankind finally left his cradle planet, he was most wise to take nanotechnology with him.
Of course now our Nanosphere is nearly complete. It spans the known Galaxy. With it we can instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere. Everyone has access to all of modern history and every known advancement. The Nanosphere is a living organism comprising all of the molecular elements inhabiting all people everywhere.
We also credit the Nanosphere with giving Mankind long life, and saving us all from war, hunger, poverty and ignorance.
Our young children are simply schooled in its use, and in thinking and reasoning. From then on they use the Nanosphere to learn everything else, for no subjects are forbidden or proscribed to us. Since we all participate, carrying the essential elements and components of the Nanosphere within our bodies, Mankind knows a complete freedom from the tyranny and oppression than plagued his cradle home Earth.
So we have begun to fill this wide and mighty galaxy with knowledge and passion, and with ourselves. We could not imagine life without the Nanosphere.
I firmly believe that our life never would have happened. Without that little Pod and the resulting early NanoNet, the people of the Earth in those last few centuries would have surely destroyed themselves with war, famines, Atomics, or engineered plagues.
As best we can determine, the Nanosphere as we know it came to exist in the fourth century of our leaving Earth. By then we had all partaken of the standard molecular implants that gave us both speech, hearing, sight and touch, within the complex Web that connected all our planets and outposts.
Increasingly, this web of communication and information became overburdened, hard to access, and utilize. This was a troubling time for us. Had we reached our limit? Should we separate and divide up, going our separate ways? Would Man loose his new found unity?
We all know what happened. It was like an Intelligence appeared within the matrix that connected us all. Soon it was speedily meeting our requests and supplying us with all the contacts and the facts we were needing.
Before long, many of our leaders and scientist confirmed that the nanoweb had become self aware. We call it the Nanosphere today because it defines the globe of our expansion throughout the galaxy. In fact, the Nanosphere designed and developed many machines that have greatly expanded our exploration. New organic molecular devices were developed that helped the rest of us utilize her many powers, even those whose bodies could not accept the mechanical nano implants. It is many of those same implants that cleanse our veins and arteries, and police our bodies, protecting us from invading parasites and bacteria, or removing cancers and such. Therefore we credit the living Nanosphere for our long and productive lives.
I suppose I digress. Sorry. When you get to be nearly a thousand, you have certainly earned the right to do it!
I, of course, am recording all this for posterity, having lived near the beginning of Man's outward journey. You can access this for reference at 3M3.41S.apple.
Where was I? Oh yes. I was talking about "S," wasn't I?
Is he a myth? I don't think so. I believe he was a real person who stood at the crux of time and events which led to where Man has gotten to today. Without realizing it, he created our future.
Was he two people? Perhaps. It is hard to imagine that one person could be both an inventor and a creative artist.
What about the Apple? What did it mean? Some say it was the name of his computing devices or his company. Others say it is part of the story of Eden. Which ever it is, the symbol of the Apple is perfect for the beginning of the computer age.
It certainly is a powerful symbol, even today. Why, we don't open any planet for habitation without first planting an Apple tree to symbolize our beginning in the age of computing.
Will we ever know the true facts of our beginning? Not until we perfect time travel, if that ever happens. These are exciting times to be alive, aren't they, children?
All right, my little ones, my time with you is completed. Off you go to your studies and projects.
Next time, I will tell you the story of old Earth, about a powerful villain and his evil empire, called "MS."
(end of recording) (file) (erase) (new) (retrieve) (print) (close) (quit)
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If Apple Corporation Built A Car - 11.08.07 3:55 pm
Future Toyota Prius?
It is notable that two Apple products ended up in Time magazine's Products of the Year - the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
It is also interesting that Microsoft has entered into an association with Ford Motor Company to include their Windows voice activated SYNC software for Ford cars (with a vary similar product most hated on the new BMWs).
We already know that Apple has a lock on the paradigm of design excellence because they take great pains to make sure their products are not only perfect, but that their user interfaces are beautiful, completely functional and stellar in every detail.
It would be very easy to port all this to an automobile, you know? Perhaps a lightweight conveyance utilizing a small four-banger diesel-type engine that can take advantage of multiple fuels, including tandem. However, your mileage (and taste) may vary.
Either way, we are talking a completely new automotive paradigm here. Starting with a fresh clean page. such small vehicles would qualify for car pool lane usage, and would bypass completely all the angst of the big three with their overblown staffing/bureaucracies/antiquated assembly plants/ultra-expensive unions, etc. Believe me, such a new paradigm in creating and producing such a new conveyance could only be done by someone like Apple.
Citi Car (Time Magazine)
But where an Apple Car would shine would be inside, with the driver interface. There would likely be no voice commands (which Steve Jobs seems to shy away from, since the current technology is still so buggy). Instead, the tactile-touch controls would mostly be in the steering wheel, and you already know would be vastly more intuitive and useful than could be found in any current car on the market.
Future Hyundai
In fact, all of the electronics would be in one self-contained POD before the driver. This pod would include (outside) headlights/signals, side and rear view cams, windshield, wipers, (inside) electronic steering/gas/brakes, heating/air conditioning, airbags, radio/phone/speakers, and interior lighting - as well as the digital dash instruments (a genuine Mac Tablet). Wiring would be greatly simplified and the whole self-contained unit could easily be built in its own in-house facility.
Wheel, motor, drive units, suspension and axels could be identical front and rear, and bolted as twin units to the shell-space frame of the car, and again, built in its own facility in the factory. The tiny sealed engine/inter-cooler/heat-exchanger/fuel tank unit ditto.
Obviously the seats and interior, as well as many other niceties would need to be top-flight, even if the Apple car were to be small and 'cheap.' Take for instance the instruments on the 'dash.' I for one, love the OPTITRON Toyota LED instruments. By far, they are light-years ahead of any other manufacturer's instrumentations. The Apple car could easily top these by providing the user/owner with the ability to change the design of their instruments at will. Dash Widgets anyone?
Nissan Van concept
I picture the Apple car coming in one base color - white. However, it can be electronically changed to any color or shade by the on-board Apple software using the new paramagnetic 'paint' built into the body of the car.
You noticed that there were no tail lights on that dash module, did you? No problemo. The taillights are 'painted' into the back of the car's body and activated through the same wireless electronics that power the paint color. In fact, you the owner, get to choose the design of your taillights and many other design features of your new Apple car.
And, since OIL is hitting one hundred dollars a barrel about now, the Apple car should provide the user/owner with a hundred MPG, right?
Someone's Mini
I don't know what you think, but Apple is setting on about 25 BILLION in unused funds right now. What could they spend it on? What, I wonder? (And what to do with that big new campus, huh?) Imagine. A tentative new Apple car product introduced at a future keynote in San Francisco some January would definitely knock everyone's socks off, no?
Anyone have Steve Jobs email addy? Please let me know if you do. All replies in complete confidentiality. (or just send him this blog - thanks in advance.) =)
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. No Refunds"
All photo sources posted in and through the rights of Creative Commons on the web - Single use, November 2007
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ADDENDUM
Quick and Dirty Sketch of the DashPOD (for a Tandom)
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We Have A Pill For That - 11.01.07 6:56 am
(Sultry VO) Take O'RIDE, for the times on the plane or train you can't have your iPod or iPhone. Take O'RIDE, for the times you have to spend with relatives or friends, and you can't pull out your MacBook mini. O'RIDE, the side-effect free pill that helps you through all the empty spaces of your life. Now available everywhere, without prescription. Take O'RIDE!
Well, whaddaya think of the commersh, boss?
We will make a billion, Ross!
No, we will make BILLIONS off of this product, boss!
But is it really safe? We don't want another GENE2 fiasco. That cost us some coin, didn't it?
O'RIDE is perfectly safe. We still have our own test groups on campus.
(a third voice) But there are side-effects!
Bill, you don't know that. This is not the time...
What does he mean, Ross? Should I let him speak?
Bill is VP in charge of the test groups. We just disagree about this. It's not important.
But what is it? Let him talk Ross. I want no surprises now, do I?
Boss, there are no measurable physiological side effects at all. All our tests are good.
(the third voice) That is true, but the people who take O'RIDE have lost their personalities. . .
There is no proof of that, Bill. Why bring it up?
You are right, it is not something measurable, but look at them. They just sit there until we tell them what to do. They have lost their drive to do anything independently on their own. In fact, they only respond to our commersh, if we play one for them.
What does he mean, Ross? That sounds ominous!
Boss, relax. Our test group has 400 people in it, from all walks of life. They just haven't gone home yet, that's all. We haven't been able to get them to leave. Isn't that right, Bill?
(the third voice) We don't know what it means yet. No, they haven't expressed a desire to leave, or to eat, or do go to the bathroom, or anything. They just sit there, waiting for another commersh.
That is not entirely true, Bill. They eat if we give them something, and they go to the bathroom if we tell them to.
Sybil is the only one who left. Her family texted her and told her to come home, so she did. She's in her car at the guard shack, waiting to be let go.
Well go bring her back, Bill. This is too important to let into the public yet.
What do you mean? What does he mean, Ross?
It means that we have a bunch of freakin ZOMBIES on our hands, boss! They will only do what we tell them to. They will only respond to our messages if we put them in our commercials. We could tell them what to buy, or who to vote for, and they would!
(the third voice) But we are talking about their personalities here! Who are they anymore? It is like they are fully functional and healthy, but they are a blank slate, waiting to be told what to do.
But won't their families and friends notice? What will they say, Ross?
Don't worry about it, boss. What if your wife or friend suddenly became compliant to your every request? Would you complain about that? Would you tell anyone else about it?
Ross, we need to study this test group some more. Take half of them off of O'RIDE, and see if they recover. And test the hell out of the others, to see how much they will obey what we tell them to do. Don't you think we should do that, Ross?
Right, boss. I already thought of all that, and it is being done. The first thing I had them all do was to sign new non-disclosure and new air-tight no responsibility agreements. But none of this will stop tomorrow's release date. O'RIDE is already sitting on the shelves and our first commersh is ready to be aired tonight on all channels.
But Ross, what if someone complains?
(Ross grins) We have a pill for that.
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Apple ~ Where It Is All Going - 09.22.07 11:58 pm
Everyone and his three uncles are talking this weekend about the new, soon-to-be-released Macbooks. But I want to ask some more basic questions about Apple and its future.
Apple most definitely has a long-term game plan that likely goes far beyond Steve Jobs' tenure at the helm, If you were Steve and could lay out a road map like that for the most innovative and successful corporation in the world, wouldn't you do that too?
To be sure, that roadmap has a lot of convergence in it. Think about it. It won't be long before the laptop has both the power and speed of any desktop, and there might only be one kind of Macintosh in your future. If so, it will definitely be a laptop and not a desktop computer. This is not to say that there will not be many variations on that theme, in both configurations, features and colors. Apple is very good to make sure about those, right?
Frankly, I suspect that Apple will be hard pressed to keep more Mac features out of the iPhones and the iPods of the future, and will have to hobble them in some significant way in order to keep them from stealing sales from their Macintosh computers.
But size will no longer matter in the future of computing, let alone in Apple's future. Long gone will be hard drives and media drives, replaced by solid state memory chips and blazing fast wireless routers. It is not inconceivable that the ultimate Mac will not even be a laptop at all, but will resemble your current iPhone or iPod Touch. (Unless of course they figure out how to put it all on a chip that is powered by your body heat and directed by your thoughts - then they will just inject it under your skin, or sell it to you in a pill.)
But in the near future, either Apple will be selling small devices to hook to every monitor, media device, and printer in your house, or they (and others) will be selling you those products already configured for effortless and fast wireless connection to your Mac and your iPod/iPhone.
In this not-so-far-off future, your ultimate trusty Mac will be small enough to fit in your pocket, but will sport a monitor that is much bigger than on the laptop of today. In fact, your future clothes may come with ways to power your computing devices and to help you make use of their myriad features.
In the future you'll be sitting in any room in your house and your trusty Mac will display your desktop on any handy flat screen available for you. And you will be beat-boxing your verbiage too, with voice texting, voice commands, in-the-air gestures, or keyboarding on your ultimate Mac, as you please.
But to be sure, Life is not only about the destination. It is also about the Journey. So enjoy all the iterations of Macs that are coming your way today. Don't hold off and wait until your perfect Mac comes along. If you do, you will miss the new MacBook Pros, the Mac Pros with their fantastic Cinema Displays, and all the delicious iPods that are out there right now.
But what of the immediate future for Apple, say, this Fall or next January?
Is it time for Apple to release to us new MacBooks, and/or MacBook Pros?
Will they have new, thin aluminum frames? Will those frames come in iPod colors?
Will they feature the new flat keyboards, like the newest full-sized keyboards Apple just released for their iMacs and Mac Pros?
Will their monitors be scary-thin?
Will they finally feature solid state memory chips for near instantaneous boots? Or will they offer new solid state drives to replace power hungry hard drives?
Will Apple finally get rid of the SuperDrives from their laptops? I mean, with a cable modem, wireless downloads of software, music and movies are really fast today. Who even uses their Superdrives anymore, unless it is on an older Mac? It just makes sense that the least used and most power-hungry device should be deleted from the laptop. Don't you agree?
I will play Dvorak here and ask, will they even be called "Macs" anymore or will Apple call them something new? Just how far will this convergence go between the new Leopard and the iPhone and iPod Touch interface? And how far is Apple going to move away from traditional computers to push other devices.
Yeah, the future is not what it used to be. We don't have jet packs and flying cars, and we are not living on the moon, but then we have the most wonderful and beautiful computers and media devices that anyone could ever imagine, don't we?
The future is always rushing toward us, but with Apple, it might be here much quicker than we think.
Regards,
Roger Born
“Sorry, no refunds.”
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Looking For A New Job And A Place To Live? - 09.22.07 10:48 pm
BLOG
Well, it seems that the California company I work for is having money issues and has decided to completely refocus away from the consumer market. Guess which department I work for? My department is now toast, and I am once again looking for work. SIGH! I suspect it will take some time, so I may be up for more writing here.
In any case, if anyone know of people looking, or hears of technical management leads, let me know.
BLOG
I'm sorry to hear that. The IT field is certainly volatile.
BLOG
here are the regular leads we follow in california. there are certainly lots of jobs in this area. most go begging and a few have bonus sign-ons with larger salaries and even moving coverage.
http://www.monster.com/
http://www.federaljobsearch.com/California.asp
http://www.caljobs.ca.gov/
http://www.volttechnical.com/
you already know this, but almost all job openings are online, and there are only a very few places worth using. you will never need to pay a fee or give sensitive personal information to legitimate job search sites, but there are plenty of other sites that will seek to milk you of info and/or cash without giving you any jobs leads other than the several i already posted above.
as for a resume' those are necessary too, but mostly (or only) in electronic form. skip the fancy paper resume packet. monster makes you use their form, while others (for some jobs) allow you to post your own text or pdf files to their search sites.
actually, what is required now for the better jobs is a cv - curriculum vitae which will list exhaustive job tasks as well as skills and/or transcripts of education and training (these do not have to be 'sealed' transcripts from your universities - yet). obviously, the more complete and professional your cv, the better your chances of catching the eye of employers. this part of the
job search is the most important, and usually the least used by job seekers.
buzz words on your resume, while vital to be included, are also sometimes a detriment to finding that just-right job. what employers look for now are fresh, original approaches to work that shows creativity and self- reliance from a take-charge person.
some employers also look for continuing education in your profile and also some movement into management if you have long experience in a field.
things can happen quickly in this new online job search. my last job came minutes after i posted my first cv, and the next day i was working, but in a new town. sometimes you have to be willing to move/commute, and say so in your profile.
hope any of this helps, but likely i have given you way too much info, as usual - all the best,
BLOG
Good luck. I left my company in June after 17 years...we were acquired by another company and I just hated the new company. Was tough getting back into the job market again after all that time. On Monday I begin a new job with a new company...better pay, better benefits.....so I'm sure there is something out there for you, perhaps something better. Check the job boards and your contacts....and be aggressive.
BLOG
as far as job security and retirement, my dad's generation both expected and got retirement pay after decades on the job. my generation saw the destruction of that, when companies routinely offed long term employees to keep from having to pay their retirement. my generation also saw the massive early death of retirees, less than a year into their retirements.
we no longer expect to work for a company our whole life. in fact, most employees spend less than five years in any one position. there is also the expectation of being out of work for as long as a year in most careers.
schooling is also expected of us - long term schooling, but not full time. anyone who works today should understand that to keep being competitive, you have to stay in school or training to keep up.
about half of us also change careers at some point in our work life. the other half are expected to move into management or a higher tech position as part of their career path. those that don't usually find that younger (cheaper) people will take their place.
our generation is far more mobile too. more than half of the people in most companies commute weekends home, and live more than 200 miles from their weekly jobs. also most employees spend more than 60 hours a week on their jobs. management is expected to do more than this.
obviously burn out is a key reason most people switch jobs. a great number of them also become their own bosses and work outside of the corporate structure. this is a great way to get rich or go broke.
as for retirement, a lot of people now have their own retirement accounts. many invest their own accounts as well. a great number of people place their nest egg in their land, homes or property, but that is increasingly risky and is not the profit maker people hoped it would be.
otherwise you have to be in the service industry, a union or a teaching position to expect any real retirement income.
as you can see, it is tough out there.
BLOG
I don't think it's any tougher now that it was...just different.... Wishing you much success with finding a new job.
BLOG
Back in 2000 I left a job in St. Louis, at the time my world came to an end, as it had been a painful process to get the visa and the manager had been my worst nightmare. While my world came to an end, I also felt relieve - a chapter closed. No sense to look back. In the end leaving was the best thing I ever done in my work life. After just two weeks that I needed to leave the US (US immigration isn't nice to us foreigners when we quit the job that secured our visa) and relocating to Spain. I started to look for new job. A friend told me about a small Italian company looking for someone with my skills.
I risked flying to Madrid at my own expense to go for a job interview - it impressed that company. So much so that they ended up paying the expense I had incurred. I was told a day later that they'd like to hire me. Was it worth it? Absolutely, the job was better paid, a million times nicer boss, and I am slowly, but surely working my way up the latter.
So for me it was a wakeup call that helped me realize my potential. Truly, I hope that this is just one of these wakeup calls for you that will help you find another employer, who sees the potential that is in you and brings you happiness in a new challenging environment. Best of luck
BLOG
In my case, I have yet to figure out what my Guardian Angel has in store for me next. Things like this always work out! They will.
BOLG
The corporate process of scanning resumes has changed. A scannable resume, like any other resume, is designed to help you get a job. Many companies use this type of resume to search “keywords” and “keyword phrases” when seeking qualified candidates for employment. The coloring in your paper resume/parchment paper may complicate the scanning process, so stick with the basic stuff. A rapid-scan resume format is essential because recruiters rarely read resumes, but instead seek key words from their database that your resume now resides in, which means that if your resume has that particular word or phrase, the data base will kick out your resume to them for review.
BLOG
Sorry to hear this. I have indeed "been there and done that". My place of biz is looking for smart people. I've been there ten years now, and like it just fine. Of course, -It would mean a move to the east coast. Killer housing costs. A lot of young, well educated people are leaving because of it. -Cold, snowy (usually) winters that go on into May. You've heard of the Santa Anna winds? We have the "Montreal Express", and it is not a reference to a hockey team. Although we did have a very mild winter four years ago. -Corrupt, morally bankrupt politicians, but I guess every place has them. -Traffic that now rivals anything in L.A. And you should see what happens when you toss in a few inches of snow. It's not a pretty sight.
I agree with what you're saying. NH drivers do indeed know how to drive on snow. MA drivers do not. Observe the rather large number of SUV's that always wind up on their sides or roofs, after it has snowed a mere five inches. The first measurable snowfall is always the worst. NH also knows about proper snow removal. MA public works departments use a unique snow plow design: It gouges up large chunks of the pavement, and leaves behind the snow. Truly a feat of engineering, designed to keep body shops and tire/wheel/alignment shops happy.
Heck, NH is someplace I would want to retire to. All the things you mention, plus it seems to be a nicely governed, well-managed state. ( I still mourn the loss of "The Old Man" though. He will never be forgotten.)
Our friend is a California guy, and I'm just trying to let him know a few things, should he think about coming east. That aside, I do tend to look at the world "through a glass, darkly", something I readily admit.
BLOG
"Clean, cold fresh air, the smell of the pine trees, the beauty of frozen rivers and the glory of Springtime.....Summer and the forests, lakes abound with Bass & trout, mountains if you want to seek solitude. The coast of Maine can be breathtaking"
You're absolutely right. I've spent a lot of time in New England and Maine. Some family ties. Spent the summer of 1970 helping friends build log cabins near Claremont, NH. We pulled logs through the woods with draft horses and an International Scout. You're making me miss all the green. :-)
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..and as the summer draws to a close, the GREEN is everywhere!! The orchards are open, Macs and delicious apples are being picked by young children brought out to the fields in horse drawn carts.....you can smell the apple cider and the chimney smoke on the now cool nights...the Monarchs are just spreading their wings in the fields, and county fairs are in full bloom... It's great to be alive in New England....
I have some cousins in Massachusetts who have a vacation home in South Bristol, Maine, right on the water. What a lovely spot, and how amazing that back in the early 60s, it was still possible, on a schoolteacher's salary, to be able to have a second home (mind you, my cousin built the house almost entirely by himself, with the assistance of other relatives and his children--he did the same with his primary residence in Lakeville, MA).
The view from their back porch is truly a million dollar view, gazing out over the Damariscotta River. What a lovely part of the world.
BLOG
it is ironic that the entitlement generation (us baby boomers) have almost none of the benefits our parents had (those who fought the second world war). think about it. our parents could buy a home on a salary of less than $4-7000 a year. homes cost well under $25000 and cars were well under $1400. gas was a dime. milk and bread were a nickel, as were the movies. for $.25 you could buy a macdonalds burger, fries and a shake. college was free to all, and if it was a university, your education cost you well under $10000, or free with the GI bill.
of course most of the roads in the united states were unpaved, and there were no freeways. penicillin was new, but there were no radical surgeries, no heart surgery and no chemotherapy.
but then there was almost no cancer to speak of, nor was there any real pollution. our clothes fabrics and furniture did not come with chemical fire retardants, nor noxious and possibly hazardous additives. except for los angeles our air and water were not polluted either.
on the other hand, your college education was then was equivalent to our kids learn in high school today. and our university education has subjects and knowledge that was unheard of then.
entertainers were ladies and gentlemen then, and entertainment was real and original, as was the art, music and literature (my opinion - i will not comment on what passes for art and entertainment or music today).
today our life is different, but it remains to be seen if it is better than the life of our father's generation (except for macs and ipods).
i know back east is nice at certain times of the year. those of us on the opposite coast would claim that our year-round summer and abundance of greenery is better, but don't forget, californai is lala land, where the only place that has more nuts and kooks is way south of ya'll down in florida. (grin)
i much prefer the high desert, which is populated by iconic, noble folk - good people, with a sprinkling of libertines, libertarians (same thing), pot-heads, loners, and yankees. the heat keeps us honest, and the clear awesome nights are worth it all.
BLOG
Now friend, I'm a boomer, and I had most of those benefits: My fabulous University of Texas education cost me only $75/semester ('63-'68)! Tuition was $50 for a full load for Texas residents. My first new car, a '67 VW, cost about $1,200. My car payments were $36/mo., the same cost as married student housing. When I got my first junior college teaching job, my salary was $6,600/year. I took home less than $600/mo., we paid $75/mo. for a beautiful rental house, and I couldn't spend the rest!!! Even at that level, money piled up in the savings account. A visit to the doctor (no insurance!) cost $5. I could go on, but it hurts.
Osama bin Laden Dead? - 09.14.07 12:08 pm
NEWS BRIEF ~
"On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new video, his first since prior to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004. In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality." (Source: C-Net News)
You can read the entire blog about this HERE.
The source is Dr. Neal Krawetz, who is doing the analysis of the video, and his work seems excellent and thorough. He claims that the video is from clips from videos previously released since 2004. He even compares a later image of bin Laden from another source, were bin Laden has a gray beard, but is wearing the same colored clothing and sitting in front of the same background.
About the only thing Dr. Krawetz has not analyzed is the voice, since he does not speak Arabic, and cannot tell if there is a voice-over or not, or just a series of voice clips from previous bin Laden tapes.
If the video analysis is true, he says "bin Laden is as alive as Elvis."
HERE is the additional write-up from C-Net News.
BUT THE BIGGER NEWS MAY BE HERE ~
Question: If Dr. Krawetz can do this, why hasn't the CIA, the State Department and other branches of the government done this analysis also? Or have they done it and know the tape is fake, but they do not want the American people to know bin Laden is probably dead, since that information would likely affect the war effort?
Comments?
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The Memoirs of Sully Braxton - 09.12.07 2:32 pm
Life is a journey I have already traveled. I know not how or why, but I see clearly what is to come and what is to be, and I am unmanned by it!
I am an American, and proud to be one, regardless of what is coming. I am writing this from the year 1953, in Illinois. Right now we are in great conflict with an Asian nation given to Communism, but we will win that war, so to speak. Actually not. Instead, there will be a truce that will last for the next eighty years, only to end at the time when our great nation is removed from the earth.
In the early 1960s, there will be a great president, one beloved by the people, who will bring a sense of wonder and hope to the nation, but he will be assassinated by men desirous to take his office, and to thwart his openness to the East, which they see as a threat to their power. His directives cause our nation to land men on the moon before the beginning of the next decade. His presidency also marks the beginning of freedom for many oppressed American citizens. But that will only be achieved through social strife.
Afterward, there shall come a war in Asia which we cannot win, and after a decade of military spending and great loss of life, we will leave that place in shame, neither having victory nor defeat. In this, a president shall leave office in disgrace, but his predecessor will pardon him.
In the 1970s shall come great social revolution and immorality, accompanied by the rise of a great world-wide epidemic of a sexual disease, and lasting financial recession, while a new threat to the world will begin from the Middle East with the fall of a king. This threat will be from a fascistic religion and will be fought with bullets and bombs.
In the 1980s the world will see the fall of Communism and the rise of another great president, a much older man, also beloved by the people. He will be fearless and steadfast in his economic fight with the East, and will prevail over them, while surviving an assassination attempt. His policies will also rekindle economic growth for the next decade.
In the 1990s, we will have a president who fights the first conflict with the rebels of the Middle East. He will provide us with an easy victory, but this will only set the stage for greater conflict to come. He will be followed by a president known for his lies and his promiscuity, but he will be popular and preside over great economic growth.
In the 2000s, we will see the son of a president take office, but his presidency will be tainted with scandal and deceit. However, the people and the military will trust in him to deliver them from the terror of the Middle East, who will destroy a great sign of American world power in our greatest city, with great loss of innocent American lives.
At the end of his terms, his successor will take office amid great political opposition, and in the midst of great struggle over the world against the Middle Eastern religious rebels. Along with this shall come a great economic collapse and joblessness. Many shall lose all their possessions, but the government will provide for them at the cost of their freedoms. Our nation will be continually at war and under martial law.
In the 2010s, a woman shall take the office of the president, and bring great reforms, although she and her people shall not recover the economy. At this point the rest of the world will become involved in the great global war against the terror of the Middle East, but at the cost of the ruin of two of our cities. The Middle East shall be laid waste, and the world will seek out the rest of those who promote terror everywhere, until they are all killed. Afterward, there will be an uneasy peace in the world because of the rise of fascism in America, and concern about our Imperialistic expansion. A new, strict morality shall overtake our nation as well, and many shall die in pogroms.
In the 2020s, an ineffectual man will take the presidency, and will use the military to continue to enforce America's internal new economic and social policies. But he will put an end to our overseas expansions, and abandon many nations to thieves, criminals and despots. We will no longer have any allies at all remaining to us, and foreign trade shall cease. Under him, morality shall become lax and a new age of promiscuity shall arise.
In the 2030s, there will be a succession of leaders, none of which claim to be President, and America will be largely isolated from the rest of the world. Foreign travel will be greatly restricted, but world trade will be restored, and the world shall greatly prosper from this. Many of our strongest states and cities shall have independent self-rule. There shall be a great number of American citizens who flee to other countries, and these shall be largely without possessions, but will maintain themselves with their technological expertise and will teach knowledge to their new friends. Incidently, all of our navies and troops will be home, since we shall be 'uninvited' by the rest of the world.
However, all of this ends, as I have said at the beginning of this prophesy. It ends eighty years from now, in April of the year of our Lord, 2033. It ends, not with war or plague, but with fire from space.
Two thousand years ago, a star exploded. It had burned all of its Hydrogen, and began to burn Helium and other elements. But after a time, this star exploded and shrank, expelling most of its outer surface into space, as most Pulsars do, in a great beam of matter and energy, expelled from one of its poles. This beam of light and star-matter, three thousand miles in diameter, flew from that star at nearly the speed of light, and it was aimed toward our solar system.
Of course, the journey of that beam took two thousand years, and the date of that star's death is significant too, since it was also the year in which our Lord was crucified. For those two millenniums our world's history continued, and finally, after the Renaissance, our continent was discovered and populated, and our dear American nation was born in honor and majesty, and planted with wisdom and goodness. We continued then in our own history, varied with war, blood, and great advances - and mixed with the rise of pride, godlessness and evil within us.
Did God punish us with this burning? Or was it just fate that such a beam of energy happened to touch our world for less than an hour, as it swung through space like a searchlight, never to come to us again? You must answer that one. It is beyond me.
Think of it. Star matter, at above ten thousand degrees, sweeping from one ocean to another, and wiping clean a continent of all life, while removing every sign of civilization in the process. The beam was so hot that it burned through three hundred meters of soil and rock, removing all signs of our great nation. No more concrete freeways, monuments, or edifices, and all of our homes, all of our rivers, valleys, and great beauty gone in flames. Even the new moon temporarily turned dark red, reflecting the light of that burning, and was one of the indicators to the rest of the world that we were gone.
It said somewhere that a third of all life died in that singular event. A third of all the life in the seas; a third of all animals, birds and insects; and a third of all green things as well. Water was turned bitter all over the world, from the ashes of that burning. Many people elsewhere died from that. Therefore, they named the star Wormwood (GRB330423)
But it was the rest of the world that suffered too. Men's hearts melted in them from great fear, over God touching the world with his finger. God didn't actually do that, did he? But men thought so. No, Wormwood's coming was just an act of Nature - an accident of chance. After all, there are lots of Pulsars in the universe, aren't there?
What happened afterward was that suddenly there was a great gap in the economy of the world, because, as always we were the breadbasket of the world, as well as the provider of everything the people of the world wanted - technology, inventions, iPods and Macintoshes, goods, luxuries, entertainment, porn, and the bodies and souls of men. Without these, all the merchants of the world stood afar off and mourned us in our burning, since we had made them rich, and we never would again.
One more thing happened to the world after that. America was the one who stood for democracy, freedom and liberty in the world, even though those things were gone from our own people. Once we were taken out of the way, the rest of the world fell into slavery, poverty and want. Liberty died in the world, taken from us by the rise of a new world leader, who promised that there would be food, peace, and that never again would any nation die as we had died. Since he is Divine, most people trust that what he says is true.
Thus ends my prophesy, and my own personal hell on earth, having to bear the burden of this knowledge. This is all pointless, you know. There is nothing you or anyone else shall ever do about it, regardless of knowing that it is all coming. What could you do? You will never see that awful light until it upon us all. But, you may always pray. Pray for our nation. Pray for our world. Pray that all of this is just the delusional dream of some madman scribbling away on notebook paper at three in the morning!
May God have mercy on our world, and on the United States of America!
(signed) Sully Braxton, Illinois, 1953
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Doctor Demning here: Our young American patient, Sully Braxton, shows not the slightest sign of recovery. His mind is gone, in my professional opinion. His latest missive shows that this is so, since he obviously thinks of himself as a man who is living in the past.
It is therapeutic I assume, for him to write this way. Herr Braxton is one of thousands of Americans who survived the sudden fiery destruction of their nation. But that is only by the fact that he was here in Germany, and not in the States two months ago. He lost his wife and children there, although he had planned to bring them and had saved money for their travel here. A month ago, he became useless to the company which employed him, and it was they who recommended him to our care. I honestly do not know that I would not have done the same things as he did and become as he is now, were I in his shoes. I pity the man.
But, never mind. Our great Leader has decreed that all such people such as our patient be euthanized as quickly and as painlessly as possible, in order to put the memory of such a horror as the death of that once great nation behind us. It is also now a verboten subject.
Beloved Oberon promises that the future will soon be much better, and that we all will be much safer and prosperous under his Devine leadership. Of this, I have no doubt.
(signed) Dr. Demning, Chief Evaluative Psychotherapist, AHPB, Berlin
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Apple's Convergence - 09.05.07 11:12 pm
Nothing big or earth-shaking here. Just (un)common sense, if you think about it. Apple has always been about cutting-edge technology, but for the purpose of creating the perfect product with the perfect human interface. It (almost) never goes out the door until it is absolutely perfect (at the time it was created).
This is why, after so long a time, Apple's computers and iPods are becoming mainstream stuff and gathering ever increasing marketshare.
Which means that now, more and more people are able to predict where Apple's products are going, and be pretty much on the nose about what is coming in the next keynote.
If you noticed, there was a lot of press about all the new iPods and the iPhone, and all of it rumors, to be sure. And most of it was spot-on accurate.
So? What is the reason for this? Are people, notably journalists, are becoming smarter? Not likely. It has to do more with product cycles, you see.
When any product is within its product life cycle, incremental improvements are predictable - smaller size, longer battery life, larger drives or solidstate memory, etc. Features such as better screen resolution and software improvements also trickle-down to cheaper models as well.
Apple seems to be well within this normal phase of its most excellent products, just as most any company would (like to) be.
But, since Apple also has one of the largest, best financed R&D divisions of any company, this sudden gift of prediction we all have gotten will be of little use in prognosticating completely new products to come.
We all have our favorite future toys, don't we? To a large extent, some of us got a few of them today - a wide screen iPod with WiFi, and a video Nano. Sweet.
The rest of us have to wait a while, before there comes a small Mac Touch Tablet, or a wireless AppleTV/Mac mini broadcasting content to all our monitors and televisions.
I have wondered aloud on this forum before about a solid state, driveless MacBook. That future may be closer than we think.
I also wonder when there will only be one kind of Mac - one that replaces both the desktop and the laptop both with computing power and portability. Time will tell. Such new products are new directions, and have little to do with today's cutting edge, world-class Apple products, just revealed this morning.
Comments?
Regards,
Roger Born
The Cardboard Jungle - 09.03.07 9:36 am
The Cardboard Jungle. (O.K., Foam Core maybe.)
(Three men, trekking over lots of rocks at night)
(Moranis-type, wearing a Fedora): Snakes! Why'd you kill it? It was just laying there asleep?
I din't kill it. It was just a prop. See. Made you turn green, huh?
What is this place? It looks like Nebraska.
According to the GPS, we are now in the Amazon.
That's not a GPS. It's an iPhone.
The Amazon? How'd we get here without Passports?
NAFTA. We just drove our semi down, remember?
Nope. I wus asleep, remember?
You sure this is not Nebraska? Looks more like Canada.
So? Where's the bathroom?
- - -
My fist went right through that wall. What's it made of?
Oh, this and that. Brick-a-Brack. . . . Cardboard, mostly.
If that's what all this is made of, what's holding back the river?!
Sheetmetal.
- - -
At long last they found it.
Rings and things, glinting in torch light. Jade. Ivory. Gold, among the rocks.
Guys. This isn't right. We should go now.
(people come out of the shadows, surrounding them)
Ow! Stop with the poking already! We give!
Somebody turn on the lights.
Lights? This is the jungle!
(Lights come on - Luminaires, on poles and tripods)
What you poke me with, Jamaican?
Curare. You will feel your legs again - in about a month. (laugh)
Curare?! Shouldn't we all be dead?
Nah. Just Novocain. We need you guys to haul all this stuff for us.
At what rate?
- - -
Nah. We planted that story. There's no treasure here.
Cool 'adventure' though. You aught to charge admission.
That's not treasure - We bought that stuff at the flea market, so you could find it.
I thought that looked familiar.
Oh, not me, when I was a kid, my mom and aunt dragged me to flea markets.
That bag you're carrying to put the treasure in - I could get a cool million just for that.
Gucci?
- - -
I don' want any of that. I just want Vanessa!
Vanessa? Sweet Vanessa? (laughter) She runs this place.
- - -
Gone was the picturesque village. In its place was a high mound of dirt, with a couple of fires up at the top.
So, what's in this trailer we been hauling down here?
Take a look - Cardboard sets for an Inca Temple.
It's not Inca - It's Aztec.
It's not Aztec - It's Mayan!
It's not Mayan - It's Foam Core!
- - -
If this is a jungle, where's all the trees?
They were all cut down for your bookcase.
Just a pile of dirt. Not even a temple here. No trap doors.
(they fall through a hidden trap door into a metal room)
What's all this?
(Major Mayforth) Strategic Air Command.
SAC? Here in the jungle?
Well, its not SAC. Its the Army, actually. We are chasing drug lords.
You're Canadian, aren't you?
Oh, you'd noticed?
So? No missiles?
Nope. Just metal rooms with coke machines.
I could use one of those about now. Anyone got change?
- - -
So, the villagers got their temple. I got the girl. There was no treasure, just Pick N' Save. . . . What was all of this for?
(All) Tourists!
They bring the trees next week.
And hire Jamaicans to be the tribes-people. They look more authentic.
What about the villagers?
Oh, they all dress up in suits now, to work in town.
Quebec?
Yeah, Montreal.
- - -
(Fade to credits)
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The Resurrection of Peter Rabbit - 08.30.07 7:11 am
oh no! my little friend is dead!
what? how? let me see.
take a look. see, he just lies there.
yeah, he sure appears to be dead, doesn't he?
what'll we do?
well, if he is dead, we have to get rid of him.
but i need him, you know?
are you sure he is dead? what if he is just out, or something?
well, what could we do to tell?
let me see if i can wake him up.
ok, but take your time. it might take a while.
yeah, i can tell. he is so small and helpless, isn't he?
no, not the big guy. he used to be o.k.
i am trying to rub him, but it is not helping.
try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
o.k. give me a little time here.
oh look, he seems to be waking up!
keep going. perhaps this will work.
he is getting to be big and strong like before.
maybe he will be alright now, you think?
i better keep this up, we don't want him to die again.
if there were only some place cozy and warm where he could rest.
i happen to know of just such a place. will it help him?
let's see. bring that over here and we will put him in.
o.k. is he feeling better yet?
oh yeah. he is bouncing up and down with joy.
i am sure he will find a way to thank you for helping him.
i hated the though of him being dead.
and i hated the idea of losing him.
such a cute little guy.
no, a cute big guy.
you wish.
The Current Prohibition Era? - 08.29.07 11:41 pm
A certified non-copyrighted article,
Treason checked for plagiaristic content (software permit license number #4B2420216)
Author ID #7965539 Licensed to write, March 25, 2021
This Article is Certified Government ProForm Compliant by Editor ID #66166882
WARNING:
This article may not be factual, but is given temporary permission for permitted non-offensive levity and satire content, pending final certification by the National Writer's Political Archive before dissemination.
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As per the National Directorate, this single copy of this article (no other copies allowed or permitted) is permitted to be recorded on 1 single hard drive (ID # 2261-46892) of 1 privately leased computer (compliant for Anti-Trust Inspection) Ð Machine Number 760-371-2268 -- Current operator Writer/Author ID 7965539 Licensed to write, March 25, 2021
BEGIN GOVERNMENT OWNED WRITING SPACE - NO OTHER USE PERMITTED.
I know that this article will be heavily edited and sanitized before it ever gets to public consumption, so I will say what I want here. You editors already know that I know this, and I am a few points ahead on my demerits this month, so I do not mind speaking about the current era of reading and writing prohibition. You doubtless will make your own article here to replace this one.
How did this "Current Era of Prohibition" come about? Details are sketchy, but Congress sometime in the last decade wrote some sort of copyright law into the Constitution. Since neither of these things (the copyright law nor the Constitution) is web search permitted, it is hard to do anything but speculate about what these things were, and what they mean.
I have been around a few others who remember these things, but they are currently banned from proper society and not permitted to speak of such things. There are rumors, however. Something called the RIAA and a cartoon animator named Disney caused Congress to make these changes in the Law, and all the rest just seemed to follow.
I know this is very sketchy, isn't it? Current Authorized Books and Journals on American History contain nothing on this subject, and all attempts at research that I have done on my own have become dead ends. It is apparent that there might not even be such a prohibition in existence, despite the many rumors to the contrary.
Even this word, "Prohibition" is a non-word and is not allowed in published works unless it pertains only to the previous century concerning the use of alcohol, and if it is used in a completely non-offending way. (I do not think, my dear Editor, that I have offended anyone yet, so put away your demerit calculator.)
The official position of the Government is that there is no Prohibition of any sort at all. Everything is as it should be. Works of art and all the great writings are still available for viewing for people who are willing to sign the forms, receive the background checks, and pay the fees for seeing them.
Of course books, movies, plays, music, and works of art are not permitted to be privately owned, nor have they ever been. Ownership by private individuals would be anarchy, and our Government would never permit such individual ownership of any copyrighted works. Yes, this is a minor prohibition, but obviously not to the extent that we could all it an era or even something that smacks of overt government intervention in our free society.
The Copyright is one of the most fundamental tenets of our nation, and the rights of the copyright owners are sacrosanct in every way. Else why would the major entertainment corporations of this country be the only ones permitted to own copyrights? Of course they have the right to charge for viewing, and to check and maintain proper background data of all individuals who view their contents, so that no one would secretly reproduce them in any form or media, even from memory. Such guardianship costs are high, so fees for public viewing on such copyrighted material are also high, as they should be.
Remember too, that our national copyright holders and owners also support the thousands and millions of artists, writers and musicians who generate all this material for these successful corporations to control and disseminate to the paying public.
The right of the citizen to view copyrighted material is also sacrosanct in this country. All citizens, regardless of permitted rank, status, or class level, are freely permitted to view such works during regular viewing hours, and in any authorized viewing center.
The only exception to this are the academic centers across our country. They alone are permitted Web access to a few controlled copyrighted works, but only at authorized campus viewing centers, and only during those times scheduled months in advance by teachers for their student's viewing.
Such freedom our citizens, students and faculties have in this great land!
The single thing that causes certain dissident individuals to talk about "Prohibition In The Current Era" are the required licensing and registration of all media recorders such as radios, music recorders, video recorders, music and video players, and game consoles. Only those fully controlled devices that are permitted to be used, and fully licensed to the proper individuals are allowed in our society. Even hand phones are controlled devices, as many of them can both record and play back sights and sounds. Of course none of these devices are ever permitted near any copyrighted repositories.
So why should some individuals use this private leasing of media recorders as an attempt to stir up resentment in our citizenry? Their motives are obviously not healthy ones for society, even our free and open society, and something should be done to silence them.
These anarchistic individuals have even spread rumors that, before this century, people were both permitted to have private ownership of any recording and playback devices, and there was no registration enforced for any of them. They even wildly speculate that these things were prevalent in people's homes and transports, and were for sale in public places! More than that, they say that there used to be privately owned little printers and scanners that every computer owner used to make their own copies of anything, regardless of its content or copyright status! Amazing!
I had to look that one up: computers. Surely they do not mean our free Web viewing devices, do they? These Web devices are incapable of storing or recording anything at all. I think they mean that people once owned personal computers and those machines had the capability to store and record anything at all, and even had programs that allowed the user to modify or change anything they stored or recorded. These devices were even hooked up to the Web and people supposedly exchanged unlicensed copies of all sorts of copyrighted material! Fantastic!
The final straw, in my opinion, and the one that should guarantee that these anarchists be permanently put away, is their troubling stories that private people once owned books, and what is worse, copyrighted books! Can you imagine?
If such a state of anarchy could have ever existed, it obviously would have been a major threat to every copyright holder, and it is little wonder that Congress quickly passed strict laws with high punishments to save our nation from this total lawless anarchy and chaos.
How fortunate we are to have both a benevolent Congress and such open and accessible National Entertainment Corporations, both of which are bulwarks for the continued safety of our great nation.
This concludes the informative article on the supposed Prohibition of the Current Era, dated 2020. We are duty-bound to keep our citizens informed.
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So Where Does Your Keyboard Take You? - 07.05.07 10:45 pm
You can call me lazy or just computer literate, but my keyboard allows me to go where I want with just one key-stoke, most of the time. Yes, I know about Tabs, and about the Bookmarks Bar in Safari and other browsers, but why grab the mouse when where you want to go is just a single key away?
(Yes, you have to first type in or click on the site you want, but after that, you can just type the first letter and it will automatically pop up for you.)
I guess what got me started on this subject was watching my wife type in an addy in her browser - "www" . . . "google" . . . "(dot)com." I told her you don't need to type the "www" or the "(dot)com" since the browser is smart enough to fill that in for you, so just type the name of the domain and hit "return."
Then I noticed that she moused everything, where she could just use the keyboard instead. For instance, she would go to the scroll bar on the side of the window on the monitor, instead of using her arrow keys on the keyboard.
If you think about it, you can pretty well surf the web in Safari (other browsers, not so well) without ever touching your mouse at all.
Here are my single key connections to my favorite websites. Of course, the main row of the keyboard (ASDFG-HJKL) is my main thing, so we will start with those:
A is for AUTOBLOG.COM (or AIRLINERS.NET for Owen)
S is for SLASHDOT.ORG
D is for DIGG.COM
F is for FARK.COM
G is for GIZMODO.COM
H is for a church forum I write for
J is for an investment site I attend
K is for KINGFEATURES.com
L is for LIVEPAGE.APPLE.COM
The other keys are all useful too, as in the top row of letters:
W is for my webmail server (so I can get my mail from anywhere)
E is for ENGADGET.COM
R is for ROGERBORN.COM (shameless plug)
T is for (Critical Thinking) WRITING.BORNGRAPHICS.COM
U is for UCOMICS.COM
I is for IMDB.COM
O is for WEBELEMENTS.COM (Oxygen - Since I teach Chemistry)
P is for PAYPAL.COM
Let us not forget the bottom row of letters:
Z is for ZDNET.COM
X is for X-PLANE.COM
C is for COMICS.COM
V is for VERSIONTRACKER.COM
B is for BOINGBOING.NET
N is for NEWS.GOOGLE.COM
M is for MYMAC.COM (Last, but not least!)
So you see, it is so easy to just click on a single key to go where you want to go. Once in a while, you will need to click on two keys, if say, several of your sites uses the same first letter, but all of this is still much easier than draging the cursor around to the Bookmarks line, or using the Tabs. And for naviagation across the page, you cannot beat the ARROW keys for tight control - much better than the mouse.
So? What are some of your favorite sites? And do you have any short-cuts to share?
Regards,
Roger Born
"Never Squat With Your Spurs On"
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iPhone Interface On The Mac - 06.26.07 10:04 am
Watch the new iPhone user on their Macintosh, as they begin to touch the screen with their fingers, trying to move the icons or images there. Listen as they grunt in frustration, because they cannot touch their data, the way they so easily can on their iPhone.
The new iPhone doesn't have the traditional Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the Mac. Instead, the iPhone has a Tactile User Interface, (TUI). The TUI in effect, allows you to reach through the glass screen and manipulate your data, music and pictures with your fingers. History may well mark this as the second great paradigm of computing. Again introduced to the world by Apple and Steve Jobs, who gave us the Mac.
This new iPhone interface is quite enticing and seductive. Apple will soon have to bring it to the Macintosh, because people will notice right away that their laser guided digital mouse and their adaptive touchpads are no longer the state-of-the-art devices they were a while ago, before coming of the iPhone. Once you can touch your data with your fingers, why would you want to go back to using a fumbling tool to do the same thing? That is like being asked to touch the face of a beautiful woman, while wearing construction gloves.
What will the new Macintoshes look like with this new Tactile User Interface? Expect new a MacBook tablet computer, with a slideout keyboard for touch-typists. Or perhaps an Apple add-on, in the form of a thin screen, mounted over your Apple monitor to give you your TUI fix. And expect anything new with a montor from Apple to have the TUI fuction, in place of a mouse or touchpad. This will include AppleTV television monitors, as well as computer screens.
Imagine a world without computer mice? And if they ever get the voice thing figured out, imagine the world without computer keyboards too. The world then will be essentially populated with iPhones, for the iPhone is really a tiny Macintosh running OS X, isn't it? The future has suddenly gotten a whole lot more interesting, don't you think?
Comments?
Regards,
Roger Born
"Who sponsors your feelings?"
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Welcome To TUI, Your Next Computer Interface - 06.21.07 12:15 pm
People who start using the new and coming iPhone are going to begin to exhibit strange and bothersome side-effects. Oh, not anything to worry about, but just watch them as later, on a computer or laptop, they begin to touch the screen, trying to move the icons or images there, with their fingers, and they will likely grunt in frustration that they cannot touch their data, like they can on their iPhone.
You see, the iPhone does not have a Graphical User Interface, or GUI (Gooie) like all our computers have. Instead, the iPhone has a Tactile User Interface, or TUI (Tooie). The TUI in effect, allows you to reach through the glass screen and manipulate your data, music and pictures with your fingers. (Later, history may mark this as the second great paradigm of computing - again, introduced to the world by Apple and Steve Jobs.)
It is quite enticing and seductive, this new interface. I fully believe that Apple Incorporated will soon have to bring it to their computers, because people will notice right away that their laser, digital mouse and their adaptive touchpads are no longer the state-of-the-art and the leading, bleeding edge devices that they were a few moments ago. Because once you can touch your data with your fingers, who wants to go back to using a fumbling tool to do the same thing?
What will the new Macintoshes look like with this new Tactile User Interface? Well, we might finally get a new MacBook Pro that is primarily a tablet computer, with a slideout keyboard (sort of as an afterthought, and as a bone to all us touch-typists out here). Or how about an Apple add-on, in the form of a thin screen, mounted over your big Apple monitor, which will give you your TUI fix?
Imagine a world without computer mice? And when they get the voice thing figured out, a world without computer keyboards too. The world then, will likely be populated with iPhones (and the iPhone is really a Macintosh running OS X). The future has suddenly gotten a whole lot more interesting, don't you think?
Regards,
Roger Born
"If it doesn't work out the way you want it to, it will work out the way its supposed to be."
These Boys Are Hitting Their Stride - 06.13.07 5:41 am
Nitrozac and Snaggy are the long-time creators of The Joy Of Tech, which is not just a cartoon series (you should visit their SITE).
Their cartoon today (June 12th), is perhaps their funniest and best cartoon of all time. (My personal opinion, of course - your mileage may vary.)
Take a LOOK (If you are reading this at a later date, it is the cartoon created on June 12th, 2007).
The fact is, great cartoons, anywhere, are a strange and wonderful amalgam of art, critical thought and humor. Nowhere is this more evident, than with our friends here. So, naturally, their subject would include the Macintosh, and their spreading fame is well deserved.
Well, I will not bore you with a commentary on today's cartoon at Joy Of Tech. Go read it for yourself.
Regards,
Roger Born
"Never squat with your spurs on."
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Who Is Better? Spiderman or Ironman? - 05.02.07 5:08 pm
I think Ironman, the movie, will be as big or bigger than any Spiderman movie.
TAKE a look.
Now why would I say such a thing?
1. Iron beats bugs any day.
2. Tony Stark is less of a wuss than Peter Parker.
3. Spidey's power comes from a radioactive spider, while Tony's power comes from good old American ingenuity.
4. Tony's whole story is a better one than Parker's.
5. Stan Winton is a better costume designer than Jim Acheson.
6. Gwyneth Paltrow will make a better heroine than Kirsten Dunst (whom I admit is a very beautiful redhead).
Of course, the real winner here is Marvel Comics, who have released 27 feature films based on their characters over the years, from Howard the Duck, Nick Fury, Blade, the Punisher, Elektra, Daredevil, the Hulk, Ghost Rider, and the X-Men series - which is by far the best of all of them (IMO).
I wonder? Has Marvel made more from its comic books over the years, or from these new movies? And I wonder if Art Arkum, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others ever get any more income out of their writing of these marvelous (PI) stories, which have been so successfully adapted to movies, as the did when they were "just" comic book writers?
Regards,
Roger Born
"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." - W. C. Fields
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All You Zombies - 04.30.07 6:57 pm
I am alone.
There are no more people like me - rational, discrete - still able to think.
I am not even sure how or when this happened.
But I began to notice everyone around me was somehow different.
I began to chat about this, with a few of my good Mac friends online.
I told them I thought everyone around me, everyone I knew, were becoming Zombies.
They asked me what I meant. Were people becoming flesh-eaters? Were they rising from graveyards and attacking people?
No, I said, nothing so blaze' or stupid. It is because they are all doing irrational, thoughtless things.
What things, they asked?
They all buy whatever is told to them to buy on television. They all are going into terrible credit debt to do so.
More than this, they believe whatever the newspeople tell them, and even believe whatever our government says, without question.
Worst of all, I said, they all seem to elevate and worship people with no talent whatsoever.
How can all our people do this? It is like they have lost the abilty to think.
But soon I got no answer from my few friends on the web. It is as if they too have become Zombies.
Which is why I am now alone.
I used to think all these people must be Republicans, but I have begun to find that this affliction is affecting millions of Democrats too, so this could not be some politically motivated pandemic, which has been cast upon us all.
Are there any of you still out there? People who possess their own thoughts, and do not do and think what they are told? Do any of you still exist, who are still masters of your finances and fortunes?
I tell you, if you still exist - it is terrible to be alone, to be the last of your kind to succumb.
What do you think, if you are real?
- Do you see everyone going along with horrific and dishonorable happenings in government, without so much as a stir of patriotism or a cry of alarm? (Oh, there seem to be a few cries, but they are as the mewings of kittens - insipid, and without any fight, fire or desire!)
- Do you watch your friends and neighbors continue to buy, buy, buy, regardless of all the signs of warning of a coming world-shaking impending economic crash?
-Do any of you still cringe over Maddona, Britney or Sanjaya?
Can anyone hear me?
Is there anyone out there still capable of responding?
All you Zombies out there -
ARE YOU LISTENING?
.
Who Stopped The Rain (and Killed All The Bees)? - 04.15.07 6:51 am
Bad enough we discovered that our US Navy ultra-low sonar underwater broadcasts have supposedly permanently deafened all the whales and dolphins, but now scientists are finding that WE may be the very ones who have killed off all the bees too.
HERE is the link.
It is all our Cell Phone Towers, transmitting, that may have caused all the little buggers to lose their way home and die forlorn in an endless search for the hive.
Most likely, our Airport and wireless WiFi zones are not helping either, if such is the case.
Goodness gracious! Without Bees, we are not just without Honey, there is no one left to pollinate all our food crops, orchards and gardens. Without these things being pollinated, there will soon be no crops at all. (It is not just increased prices at the supermarket that we should be worried about here, folks.)
Stopping the rain, (and causing the heavy Spring snows, rising seas and rampant Desertification) with Global Warming (supposedly caused by Man), is one thing, but nearly instant STARVATION is quite another.
Can you say the word Irony? This may not be just another Urban Legend, or a cheesy B-movie Science Fiction plot. This one may be for real.
Oh well, we can all talk and text about this on our cell phones, while everyone starves to death.
Film at 11.
.
Yancy and Mir - 04.12.07 6:25 am
Off somewhere in the land of Paradise, lived Yancy and Mir.
Yancy was smiling fine young fellow, callow and tan.
Mir was island girl, thin and beautiful, dark and wise.
On their island was a Tiki hut, serving as a tavern.
Above the bar was a broken surfboard someone painted.
A painting of the sea, dark blue above, light blue below.
Divided by a thin white line of surf, a few lines for seagulls.
Mir would dream on that painting, day by day. Island Fever.
To cross that sea to Babylon, be a waitress or beautician.
Yancy saw only wealth and fortune beyond the sea.
Now Yancy and Mir loved each other since childhood.
They always knew they would wed and make fine children.
But Island Fever, even in Paradise, can drive one insane.
Yancy was the first to go, in an old dingy, driven south.
Not long after, Mir caught a boat stateside to her dream.
Island got lonely, quiet nights, fine hot days, empty surf.
Yancy never found treasure, but avoided pirates and slavery.
After many years, he returned to Paradise, older but no wiser.
Mir was gone to her dream, never to be heard from again.
But she had a younger sister, Riki, who walked the beaches.
Riki, who was content with her smiling tan callow fellow.
They and their children played and grew old in Paradise.
And they burned that surfboard with its painting of the sea.
.
April Fools - 04.01.07 7:20 am
Birth! Life! Squalling, bloody, fidgeting, Life!
You perceive.
You exist.
Yet, you - want/need/must have; so you begin to cry, to wail . . . and your need is met in soft, sweet wholesomeness and nourishment, and you are Content.
- - -
Your strange existence seems perfectly normal to you, a world of wonders. It is really all powered by the nearby iron sun, you know. Fusion and fission in superabundance of light, heat and gravity churn merrily to produce multiple quadrillions of ergs of energy rushing to meet the needs of your world, revolving in the cold Emptiness. Your world is iron too, or at least the center of it is, a rather warm molten core. But all this is so utterly unknown to you, isn't it? You rarely think upon any of it, because you are more enmeshed in something much more tangible and urgent, which you call the Horrible Present.
For you, your perception of Reality began when you were very young, watching a tiny fly caught in the electrochemical mesh of surface tension in the water of a teacup. You watched entranced, as the poor fly could not leave that water's surface, somehow being trapped in its smooth surface, regardless of all its frantic efforts to free itself. Eventually the fly became still, having drowned in the water's surface.
Your life now, upon continual reflection of that small event, seems also to be trapped, just as inextricably, in the overwhelming surface tension of the Present. You chide under its forces. You hate it. You seem to have no control over your Life at all. Ever increasing Events conspire to deny you choice of movement. You hate your work, your family, your options, your very Life.
The Present is an interesting phenomenon, you know. It is a tidal-force of all of Space and Matter (Bound electromagnetic, luminescent energy, really, in a local sense). It is also called Duration, Causation, and sometimes referred to as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Events happen. They transpire, all on a Line, running along a largely predetermined path. This wave-front of Reality is what we perceive of as the passage of Time, but what should really be called the Present, and you are perfectly correct: It is a mesh-mash in which you are completely stuck. And so you will be - we all will be, until the End.
You have sought refuge in Verne, Wells and Asimov, haven't you? You dream of Other Places, Other Times, and other Realities, maybe with a touch of Burroughs, hum?
You dream. Why not? Millions thoughtlessly dream via the Boobtube, don't they? What is wrong with wanting OUT?
Do you really, really want Out? Are you sure? I am your conscience, your Muse. Your Alter-Ego, perhaps, for I am the maker of your Dreams, and the sole source of your Discomfort, in this ever Present Reality. And I can take you there, if you really want to see it.
So? Do you passionately, urgently want to See? You want to know what it is really like, Outside? You wish to be truly free of this overwhelming, inextricable Present?
Come. I will bring you there - Out.
And perhaps, if you are good, I will bring you back again. That is, if you ever want to come back to your mundane, useless and pointless existence in the Present.
Give me your arm, now. That's right. Let us pull the poor fly free from its prison of the surface tension of the Present.
What? Your arm is gone? It feels numb, non-existent? Nonsense. It is still there.
No, you are not having a heart attack. This is more like what you would feel if you had advanced cancer, and your body was being pumped full of morphine. But, relax. You will soon be free. Trust me.
You are close, now. Just a leg and a foot, to pull free from the Present, as its tidal force holds onto you so relentlessly. Are you afraid? Is it getting Dark? Just a final, final, letting go, and you will soon be free of Reality.
Elsewhen!
It was that final SNAP, and now you dimly feel yourself falling, falling.
Darkness. Or the absence of light.
Silence. Or the absence of sound.
Your perceptions are on fire. There is, for the first time, nothing for them to feel or perceive. Nothing to touch, taste, smell, hear, or see.
Fear comes at you.
But you wanted to see it. You wanted to come, didn't you? You said you would be unafraid. You had to know what it was like. You needed to experience it for yourself. You supposed Eternity was filled with worlds unknown, all yours to explore at your leisure. But I told you, didn't I?
Here is nothing you could imagine. This is Outside.
In the dimness, you suppress your panic. Gazing around, you notice that you are on the threshold of a doorway. It is the dimensions of it that shock you. If you had a body, your lungs would be pumping air in gasps of sheer terror at the impossible size of it all. You are facing inward to a room, thousands of feet across, and hundreds of feet high: An utterly empty room. In the ultimate dimness, for there is no light here, you see the shadows of the far walls, immutable with dark samelessness.
You hurriedly glide across the threshold of the impossibly large doorway, into the room, because you suddenly sense the Outside behind you, and the thought of that horrific, impossibly empty immensity frightens you even more. You need shelter, so the fearfully large room seems a tiny comfort, and so you enter its nearly equal emptiness.
In the dry, vacant dimness, you see some lines, threads, or something tangible. Your curiosity finally comes to the fore - the thing that drove you here to begin with. What are these lines, these pulsing threads? You follow one, trying to get close to it, for it seems to be full of pulses of slow moving light.
You perceive that the thread you are approaching is the Present Reality you just came from. Like looking into a prism, you can vaguely see the bright throbbing Present, but it is moving rather rapidly along the length of the tread, now as large as a cable, and the point of light you want to cling to, skitters off rapidly into the distance.
You reach for the thread to cling to it, as it goes dark, but you find you have no hands.
That's right, you say to yourself. All that is Here is your consciousness, nearly empty, and newly divorced from the Present. Devoid of Choice.
Again, in near panic, you try to find the cable-thread again. But instead, you see that there are many of them in the room. Thousands, millions of them.
Wonder again excites you, and you look around for more, trying to understand it all.
Floating across the vastness of the empty room, you see other doorways, always open, doorless entryways into other equally impossible rooms. What does it all mean?
Those threads, are sometimes dormant and dark, and sometimes dimly pulsing with movement and light. Where do they go? What are they for?
You float through endless halls and rooms looking at the threads, and you finally perceive that these are all your Life, your Reality - your ever, never-ending Present. It is like you are looking at your Life as a gigantic worm, flowing back and forth across a finite world, folding and redoubling back upon itself, as you move in and out of your tiny place and station in the ever moving Present - years and years of it. Decades.
Elation comes at you, for you think you can see all of your Life, from your Birth to your End, and you can enjoy it all again and again, here Outside the Present.
But. But.
There arises in you a hopelessness. How can you experience anything here? How can to touch the Present, as it everlastingly slides away from you? How can you fashion any device to nail down the ever moving Present when you find it?
Vaguely, you begin to hunger for Reality. A body. Breath. Breathing. Touch.
You remember, don't you? You remember being embedded like a fly in the Present.
How you hated it. How you wanted to be free of it. How you yearned for Eternity, and the power to simply go anywhere and anywhen, as your imagination of it fired your dreams.
But here you are. Outside of the Present. It is not at all what you thought it would be.
Emptiness: Utter, complete, soulless, dead, Emptiness.
Hell could be no worse (but you would be wrong).
Back. Back. Got to go back to the place where you were before. Again, panic. Utter, complete, total Panic.
For now you perceive, in the dark empty dimness, the ultimate horror.
All of this is not impossibly large empty rooms, with a few cables of threads laid across the floor. Those are only your own life; your own personal brief Existence.
There are also all the Others Here. The other lives. The other souls, locked into the ever moving Present. Their threads completely fill these vast empty rooms of Time as well.
If you had a voice, you would scream in terror, for these rooms of the recent Past and the near Reality are not empty at all. They are impossibly filled to overflowing with the Threads.
You choke. You need air, but there is none here. Nor do you have lungs to employ breath, remember?
Reality, the ever moving, ever Present, is filled with all the 'coulda/woulda/shouldas of your Life. Go. Stay. Left. Right. Up. Down. Slow. Fast. Yes. No. Choices you made in the Present. Continual choices. Some you took. Some you abandoned, neglected. But they are all Here, in this timeless Outside.
You see it now, how your threads diverge, emerge, divide, combine - not just within your own existence, but with every other soul you ever contacted, connected with.
How shall you escape? How can you leave these cloying, lifeless, impossibly filled rooms? To be trapped forever within all the lines, these never ending lines.
Back. Back! BACK!
You must leave this emptiness. You can no longer abide Here. Outside.
Dizziness. Darkness. You finally feel the utter sweetness of Oblivion.
- - - -
See.
I told you I would take care of you.
I told you I would bring you back again. That is, if you really, really wanted to come back from all that wonderful Eternity - Didn't I?
Where was that place? Well, actually it was more Under than Out: The near non-existent substructure of Reality. Duration and Chance happen to all men, you see. Where you were was a place big enough for Everything to happen that is/will/might Happen. There is no farther Out than that, don't you see?
So. Welcome back to the ever moving, ever changing Present. Try to enjoy it - while you still have it, hum?
- - - -
This Sunday, April Fools Day is supposed to be a day of joy, of remembrance, a reminder of all the things that don't exist: A remembrance of all the good things that you have and hold, and cherish - in your own private, Present Reality.
You really do have choices, you know. You do have Absolute Freedom. You can chose to do whatever you want - if you have the courage to Live Life. Life favors the Bold, doesn't it?
And also, next Sunday is place in time called Easter. They do not always coincide like this. Why not go meet a man who comes from a far more permanent and free Reality than this one? I am certain you will enjoy that trip far more than our recent little jaunt.
Happy April Fools Day!
~ Roger
.
The Gonna gettus - 03.30.07 12:08 pm
This is big news for evolutionists. Evidence of a newly discovered species of insect and its attendant micro-organisms that may have possibly evolved along side of Man.
Microflora, mostly virii and bacteria always seem to adapt to whatever we throw at them to remove them from our bodies. However, almost none of the parasites that infest our skin and our bodies have evolved or changed at all from their ancestors that inhabited the ancient hosts of fossilized primates.
HERE is the link.
The link talks about the fact that the head (Pediculus humanus) and pubic (Phthirus pubis) lice* that infest us are also those which infested our supposed common ancestor with the Gorilla. The studies conclude that the genes of these lice have somehow never evolved at all, over eons of time, while man has seemingly evolved from tree dwelling, fruit eating creatures to those who walk on the moon.
If you are looking for the whole point of this article, look again at that second sentence in the first paragraph, at the world "almost."
You see, for a parasite like the body louse to evolve would mean that it would become something more than what it was when it was living on our ancestors. There has been no evidence of that - until now. People who have gone to doctors and hospitals to be treated for certain ailments** have caused doctors and specialists to begin looking for something new, some kind of parasite that couldn't possibly exist.
But it does exist. In fact, they have found samples of these super-evolved parasites, which they have named the Gonna, after a non-existent east African monster which is the equivalent of the one thought to be hiding under beds and in closets when we were children. (the 'gettus' name comes from their special get, live young and/or eggs.)
The Gonna gettus, like their lice cousins, have the ability to suck our blood, but they also leave rare and horrific bacteria behind which over time, controls, ages and debilitates the host. This is something very new, and for a long time, no one could find the vector - the carrier of these bacteria, for it certainly was not present in any of the unevolved parasites (lice) that are common to man.
When the Gonna were finally found, the research scientists were completely astounded. Gonna have transparent bodies, and even their eggs (nits) or live young (get) are glass-like and hard to see. What's more, the Gonna seem to be nearly invisible, blending in with whatever type of skin they happen to infest.
But even beyond this sophisticated cameleon-like talent residing in a microscopic insect, the Gonna are also completely resistant to the common pediculicide used to eradicate their unevolved cousins.
What is also not known is how these ultra-bugs move from one person to another. Lice generally die when they leave the body, but Gonna seem to have their own source of body heat and perhaps some means of dormancy, because they apparently can live indefinitely off the body.
Scientists are now studying them to discover if they have means of travel, such as stage wings, because tracing the outbreaks of bacterial infection in unassociated human hosts have led them to believe they may be able to fly. Unevolved lice however, can only come to a new body by close physical contact with someone already infected.
The final astonishment about the Gonna gettus is the fact that they have also been found in the hairs of the head, the ear and nostril hairs, and the eyelashes of the people who have the pubic hair infestation. Normal lice infecting pubic areas are a completely different species from the lice that infect head hair. Apparently, these evolved Gonna can live anywhere on our bodies.
But the ultimate mystery is that the Gonna gettus program their intestinal bacteria to help control the host, by causing them to ingest certain compounds and nutrients essential to their growth and survival. These super lice deeply bury their scat under the skin of the host, bringing the specialized bacteria to the bloodstream. From there, the bacteria seem to cause a craving for certain alkaloids and acids in the host. (Which could possibly account for why certain coffee houses are so wildly popular, dispite of the questionable quality and wholesomeness of their product.) The unfortunate consequence of the presence of these bacteria is the aging and debilitating long term effect they have on the host.
What do we do with these new bugs, now that we have discovered them? How do you treat a tiny, nearly invisible, multi-legged cameleon, which is able to live away from the body, and has its own means of transport - and is resistant to all known human-safe pesticides? Biologists are baffled. Apparently there is no known treatment for this evolved bug.
How can you tell if you are infested? A simple blood test for those rare debilitating bacteria will confirm it, but the test is very expensive. There is almost no way anyone can see these new pests with the naked eye, or even with close microscopic examination of head or pubic hair. All common treatments for lice infestation have no effect. The only thing you will feel is a very mild sense of itchiness or unease, or perhaps a random rash about the area infected, along with perhaps a growing sense of tiredness, or a few new facial wrinkles where there were none the day before.
You don't have any such symptoms, right?
Regards,
Roger Born
"What? Me worry?"
Note: Of course if you believe in some variation of natural evolution, you most likely already have an infestation of these prolific Gonna gettus, or perhaps one of their cousins, yet to be discovered. Remember, there is no treatment for these new bugs. There could be hundreds, even thousands of these nearly indetectable micro animals, right? But, if you don't happen to accept any of the theories of natural evolution, the worst you can expect is an unwanted hitch-hiker in the form of a louse or two. To protect yourself, just avoid intimate bodily contact with a carrier, and/or use the easily obtained and effective pesticide. ~rb
* Lice are considered to be near microscopic six-legged animals, but the Gonna gettus are no longer thought to be related to such insecta at all, but now are considered to be their own sub-species, possibly related to any and all eight, ten and twelve-legged like crabs and sea lice, There are literally millions of variations of these species, most of which are yet undiscovered - which include sea crabs, lobsters, whale and fish lice, land crabs, arachnids, and various animals and insects all closely fitting the same physical characteristics. HERE is a link. And HERE is another.
**Escherichia aerobactin, Gardnerellus vagisillum, Clostridium difficile, Siderophoria coli, Impossibilicus enterica, Necromancia sillium, Toxoplasma gondii.
FAIR LIFE - Edict Number One - 03.10.07 2:40 pm
(For a few people in this brave new world, this all comes as a major culture shock. For the rest of the world, it is business as usual, with perhaps fewer shortages and a little more to eat.)
The new paradigm of Fair Life for all people of Earth is now in effect and will be strictly monitored and enforced by your world government, so that all remaining benefits of this world's life-giving products may be equally divided among those who remain alive at the present time. Failure to follow these guidelines will be punishable by immediate death.
From this time forth:
All dwellings shall be divided for maximum occupancy. Individuals are allowed 100 square feet of living space. Families, 400 square feet. Families are considered to be three people, and no more. Extra people may be granted individual living quarters, as deemed fit by the Politboro. Otherwise, suck it up.
As for all the new immigrants around you, make them welcome and learn their language. Where they came from was far worse than where they are now. Learn to get along with your neighbors. Disputes will be handled by the local authorities. Major infractions will be met with maximum force. Everyone will do well to work for peace, so that all may have Fair Life.
Food will be granted on a daily ration of 1000 calories consisting of 30% protein and 70% carbohydrates for all individuals of adult age. Children over the age of 10 are allowed 80% of adult rations. Children under that age are to be fed from the rations of their parent. Where and when available, the child/parent ration may be increased to 1200 calories daily.
In all cases, people are encouraged to grow and harvest their own food, but they will be allowed to keep 10% for themselves. The rest must go to the common stock.
Clothing will only be of the recommended fabric and style set by the government, which is of optimal environmental construction and fabrication, and serviceable for the climate. No more than two sets of clothing will be allowed per individual. Shoes are optional, and must be provided by the individual where required or needed.
Electrical power is immediately restricted to 1 hour per day per household. Individuals will share that one hour with three other individuals, so that no one will be a selfish consumer. Know your power schedule. These will be rotated on a monthly basis.
Water is strictly rationed, and should be considered undrinkable unless treated in one of the many ways prescribed by the government. One gallon per day per individual adult is the current allocation. Safety straws will be available as they are manufactured. Water for bathing or clothes washing will be allocated on a monthly basis where available.
Work is offered and required by all able-bodied individuals regardless of age or sex. Where possible, work experience, talent and education will be taken into consideration when assigning work parties and/or management functions, but all jobs are honorable and are necessary for the continued survival of all, and all work will be accomplished.
Transportation from now on will be by foot, bicycle, or public transportation where and when available. All private conveyances are to be confiscated for immediate recycling and/or for use as dwellings. No exceptions.
The use of money is immediately forfeit. Wages are counted electronically, and administered as required on an equal basis for all families and individuals. There will be no exceptions to this rule. All valuables, monies and property will be immediately turned over to the state for recycling and/or equal distribution. There are no exceptions. State monies and wages may only be spent at authorized consumer warehouses. No exceptions.
Your world is in crisis. For any of us to survive, we all must be able to survive. Understand this, and fight for our right to exist. This is FAIR LIFE.
Fair Life means life for all. All are equal. All are valuable, and the survival of each of us is understood to be a basic requirement for the survival of us all and of our world.
All you 'Had Everythings' will stop complaining about the past. You all say that you were poor and homeless, and lived under an overpass, but all of your new neighbors, the 'Had Nothings' will only respond to you with anger and malice. Count yourself lucky that you are still alive.
Everyone must forget the past. Dwell on the present and your current assignment. The rampant excesses of the few in the past are the major cause of the present distress for all of us. That way of life is ended. Get over it. Fair Life is for everyone living now. Fight for your world and its remaining resources. Always find ways of saving food and material goods. Continue to look for ways of improving and improvising. If you have any gods, pray to them for our continued survival.
This notice is to be posted in every corridor and entrance by order of the government.
.
Time To Panic Yet? - 02.25.07 5:13 pm
No, I am NOT given to panic and excess worry about doomsday scenarios! I do have a healthy and busy life, with a lot of interests in many good and noble things. However, I am also a student of history, and what I am seeing these past few years is giving me cause for some alarm. I wonder if you are getting the same sense of things as I am? If you are, take a look - after all, it is only five years to 2012.
Any one of these 'forecasts' by experts and by people who seem to know what the score is, may be devastating by themselves. But taken together, they become an overwhelming foregone conclusion that in the immediate future, perhaps less than a decade away, things are really going to hit the fan. Any one of them seem to spell doom and gloom for Mankind, but taken all together, they sure seem to approach total annihilation, don't they?
Take a couple of minutes to read some or all of these. But don't panic yet. There are things you and I can do about them. (And there is more to the story...)
Vast areas of the oceans of the world are now devoid of life, causing fish and birds dependent on them for food to also perish. It is estimated that this will have a drastic effect on earth's climate, as well as its food chain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
The greatest underground source of water for the Midwest, breadbasket to the world, is drying up at an alarming rate. It is estimated that the Midwest will soon become another dust bowl.
http://www.bearforum.com/
All the equatorial glaciers that supply water to rainforests are going away during the next two decades. Without the world's rainforests, the effect on the world's weather and its ability to produce food is incalcuable. http://www.blueclimate.com/
http://www.responsibletravel.com/
The population of the world will hit 7 billion in the year 2011. But it is not known if the present state of the world's overburdened food can supply such an increase as this.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php
The outlook is grim for containing a possible world-wide pandemic such as Bird Flu, which continues to claim more victims and leapfrog continents. Its victims are ususally under 40 years old.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/
China and India will overtake the United States as the world's biggest source of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the next decade, furthering and accelerating global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Arctic wildlife is dying off due to melting polar caps, which is also affecting other areas. Vast extinctions are expected in the next decade. Inuit sue Congress over this.
http://www.animalaid.org.uk.pdf
World oil production is already at peak capacity, and there is no more room for future growth. Which means greater gasoline prices, and/or less oil and gas for everyone.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
It looks like the Second Great Depression may have already begun, with America vastly in debt to foreign governments, with our housing and stock market tettering on the brink of collapse.
http://www.informationliberation.com/
Odds are very favorable that some combination of plague, world war, or famine will wipe out much or most of the world's population this century.
http://humupd.oxfordjournals.org.pdf
Yes global warming may trigger great increases in the world's deserts, and/or cause major extinctions of plants and animals. Yes the seas may rise and wipe out most of the costal lands of every continent. Yes global warming may or may not be real, and/or may or may not cause a sudden ice age, or make the world largely uninhabitable - but all this may be decades away, and we are only looking at things that may affect us in the near future of five years or so. (Also not covered, the next species extinctiion astroid strike, the World Bank Conspiracy, the Public School Conspiracy, and the coming New World Government. And no, we have not covered the rapid erosion of our innate freedoms guaranteed to us under the Constitution, which is a whole other major problem facing our country's continued existence today.)
REASONS NOT TO PANIC (YET)
Although things in the near future do look bleak, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Hard things, but doable, if you really want to do them. Try not to get too mad as you read these, because any one of them will put you out of your comfort zone, but they might save your life.
Perhaps now is not the time to buy that new house/car/boat - whatever. Perhaps now is a good time to pay off all your debts. Perhaps you can sell your big house and move into a smaller one that can be easily and quickly paid off. After all, the first casualties in any bleak economy are things you bought with credit. Homelessness or living in your car is not fun.
You might also wish to stock up on some dry goods and canned goods for a hard winter and/or a hot, dry summer. Better invest in a bike or moped too, while you are at it, and learn to walk or ride places, rather than drive. Get yourself a portable power generator which doesn't require gasoline, and something to filter tap water to make it drinkable. Also buy and keep well stocked a good home medical kit, some hand powered flashlights and a portable shortwave radio.
And perhaps consider getting rid of your TV and investing in some good books. (At the very least, you will help us save the fuel that supplies our electricity) and you may become a better informed individual with an increased ability to think. The idea is to become a part of the solution, instead of the problem, by becoming a public advocate or activist for 'something,' instead of a useless-to-the-world couch potato.
And if you decide to try to make a difference in the world, pick a problem - there are so many: rampant world hunger, widespread homelessness, dwindling fresh clean water sources, intrenched denial of basic human rights, rapidly expanding mass extinction, world-wide pollution of air, land and oceans - the list is long and getting longer.
If you have kids, consider keeping them at home and schooling them yourself or in a home school association. Better still, if you don't have children, plan on not having any of your own. Why bring innocent young children up in such a future? Or, better yet, decide to adopt a one or two of the millions of orphans in the world that already face a much worse future than you do.
Print out a copy of the United States Constitution, the American Bill of Rights, and memorize or become very familiar with them. Reading these, and looking at the present situation in the country and the world should make you mad as hell. If you aren't, you don't know what is going on.
Everything you do, no matter how insignificant you think it might be, can help us all to survive the new world order, whatever it is going to be.
The very last thing you can do is to read up on all of these issues. (You do know how to Google, right?) Do not take my word for anything, or even the word of those who write the articles at these links. The idea is to QUESTION EVERYTHING. You may come to some different conclusion than I have. (If you do, and if you think the near future of the world is going to be rosy, tell us so.) After you have become your own expert on these things, tell eveyone else you know to do the same. There is still great power in the mass of any population to make changes in the world. And right now, your world needs you more than ever. Become proactive. You can continue to be a part of the problem, or you can become a part of the solution. (And if none of these things happen, think about how much better off you and your family will be, because you became a more proactive and involved person.)
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. |
![tandem](blank">compressed air</a>. The output of the engine could power batteries or fuel cells which in turn could drive small motor/brakes in each wheel.<br />
<br />
<center> Volvo Tandem Concept <br />
<img src="http://www.mymac.com/img/blog/volvotandem 11-08-07.jpg"></center><br />
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For my own taste, I would prefer a small four-wheeled <a href="http://www.motortrend.com/future/concept_cars/112_0408_volvo_tandem/" <br />
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