Drool
Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to see this?
Bada-Bing
Wanna know why ‘The Sopranos’ is so good? Check it: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/arts/02TVWK.html Note: NYTimes login required. This is probably the first time I’ve actually planned on watching TV 3 days in advance.
The Dynamics Are Changing
News from VeriSign, the people that control .org among other things.
“The agreement calls for .org to be ultimately returned to the exclusive use of non-profit organizations. Although .org stands for organization, anyone could currently register such names.
“Officials have yet to determine what would happen to names already claimed by companies and individuals under .org. Existing owners may have to give them up ‘after some appropriate transition period.'”
So what happens to sites like this? And what exacly is an ‘appropriate transition period’?
Youthful Design, Great Music
Apple has a new commercial from a band I really like. They take The Ataris’ “The Radio Still Sucks” and chop it up a bit and threw it into a commercial. Its intent is to tell people that the radio sucks (doesn’t take too much persuasion) and that burning your own mixes is the way to go. It’s not a bad commercial, using one of those fractal type plug-ins used in MP3 players. (– It’s actually from iTunes, the software Apple is selling in the commercial. iTunes is a repackaged, reskinned SoundJam MP. –kev)
On a related note, a band with a couple of my friends was used in a whole bunch of Apple commercials a few months ago. Unfortunately Apple took their name, Limbeck, and made it the Garage Monkeys. Apple offered them G4s as compensation but instead they decided to get a touring van. To each his own.
Ti-morrow
So my TiBook G4 ships tomorrow. Fucking sweet.
A random thought
It occurs to me that the movie “eyes wide shut”, about a secret society whose members- all of privilege and wealth- gather to engage in ritualistic nihilism and (sometimes violently) defend their organization from both scrutiny and infiltration, was stanley kubrik’s last great joke on us all.
With it being in the news lately, it recently wandered through the dusty field that is my brain that he managed to recruit two of the biggest stars in the world to star in a movie that, while based on a short story that surely didn’t intend to do so, perfectly depicts the money-based faith corporation that is Scientology.
And he got Tom Cruise to come on TV after Kubrick passed away and defend the
picture’s
artistic statement.
Fuckin’ beautiful.
The choice of a GNU generation?
Uhm. I thought this was a joke. And it is… but it’s really funny. It’s an open-source soft drink called OpenCola. And I heard Microsoft used cocaine in Windows 1.0 in order to get you to keep using it.
Maintaining the iMac's girlish figure
An interesting and insightful view (scroll down to the bottom) on Apple’s limb-going-out-on new iMac cases:
Salomon Smith Barney analyst Richard Gardner doesn’t get it either. “We are concerned that these bold new patterns will appeal to a limited audience at a time when Apple needs to broaden its appeal.”
That “limited audience” of 8 to 17 year-olds, perhaps heavily female, just happens to be the future. And the future of the PC is what Apple seems to be wisely staying focused on.
Jesus Missles
MSNBC has been hacked. Pretty good job. Link via MetaFilter.
For too long, military planners have been denied the use of the supernatural in attempting to protect American citizens from attack, Bush declared today in a speech to the National Association of Amateur Submarine Captains. There is no reason why we cannot maintain a healthy separation of church and state while still calling on divine intervention for the Pentagon budget.
Heh. Here’s a screenshot (105k) of it, if they take it down.
Its Almost Spring and Family Trees are Blossoming
The Mormon Church has just released the bank records of thousands of people freed just after the Civil War. I find this to be really interesting because it opens the window for millions of Americans to look back at their geneology, which may have been shrouded in a haze. The entire database is available really inexpensively as well, which makes this all the more valuable. This really peaked my interest because about a month ago my parents sent me a huge book tracing my own family tree. Although no one was famous, its still really interesting.
I’m just curious why the Mormon Church undertook this enormous effort, they seem to have no real relation to the issue at hand. I think it is a really noble thing to do though.