The Fulcrum
Friday, August 12, 2005
Apple Season
It's actually still much too early here in upstate New York for any kind of apples. But I'm typing this on the sweetest looking Apple ever. If you haven't seen the new iMac you're in for a sweet treat:
That's the whole computer. All of it except the keyboard and mouse. It comes with built in wireless networking, Bluetooth and a CD and DVD burning Superdrive. Of course the entire suite of Apple's digital lifestyle programs comes with it as well: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand and lots of others. This means that, unlike most Windows machines, there's nothing else to buy to immediately begin creating amazing digital content. It's blazingly fast with a 2.0 GHz G5 processor and 1 GB of RAM. It was easy to set up and easy to work with and - like all Apples - beautifully designed.
The new operating system, OS X v10.4 is more beautiful than the machines it runs and makes Windows look and feel like an awkward kludge. It works. All the time, every time.
The combination is an absolute joy to work on.
Now I'll stop gloating.
That's the whole computer. All of it except the keyboard and mouse. It comes with built in wireless networking, Bluetooth and a CD and DVD burning Superdrive. Of course the entire suite of Apple's digital lifestyle programs comes with it as well: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand and lots of others. This means that, unlike most Windows machines, there's nothing else to buy to immediately begin creating amazing digital content. It's blazingly fast with a 2.0 GHz G5 processor and 1 GB of RAM. It was easy to set up and easy to work with and - like all Apples - beautifully designed.The new operating system, OS X v10.4 is more beautiful than the machines it runs and makes Windows look and feel like an awkward kludge. It works. All the time, every time.
The combination is an absolute joy to work on.
Now I'll stop gloating.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Too Disgusted to Blog...
There's so much going on right now that disgusts me, worries me, angers me that I can't settle on a subject. So I thought I'd let someone else do the blogging for me. So here comes my first Liberal Coalition Blogabout in a long, long time...
Mustang Bobby at BBWW gets a little riled up over NARAL's ad taking probably future SCOTUS member John Roberts to task.When you're done checking out these folks, doing the blogging so I don't have to, go through the rest of the blogs on the Liberal Coalition blogroll. You won't be disappointed. Honest.
Over at Dohiyi Mir, NTodd's getting an early start on Friday Dog Blogging.
Liberty Street's Kathy decries the conditions in Baghdad - so bad that soon the entire professional class will have fled. To where is not clear, but who'll be running things when the last engineer heads for the hills?
Norbizness takes on Rumsfeld's September 11th March and Country Jamboree with his usual subtle and dry wit here.
Friday... Baby Blogging? Now Rivka at Respectful of Otters has gone too far, no?
And finally, Steve our resident Yellow Doggerel Democrat, tells it like it is about Cindy Sheehan's little camping adventure in Crawford, TX.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Peter Jennings; Signing Off
Last night, succumbing to lung cancer, Peter Jennings died after a much too short fight.
You can read the details at ABC's site, but this was a guy who earned his news chops the hard way; despite an early appointment to the anchor desk. In the retrospective shown on ABC this morning, I recognized his reporting from all the major news events of my life. Most vividly, his was the calming voice and focused manner that I remember during the confusing and horrific days immediately after 9/11 in contrast to the shrill and sometimes ugly reporting at other networks.
It is a sad commentary on the times that the message boards at ABC are already being peppered with comments from people you just know were sent there by right-wing bloggers and followers of that "network which must not be named." They are repeating the lie of a liberal bias in the news while damning him for his idealism, his reporting and his Canadian background.
If you enjoyed his reporting or you care at all about common human decency, if you value the independent voices of the news networks, already mostly gone, leave your message of condolences to the ABC family and help to balance the shrill voices of the right.
You can read the details at ABC's site, but this was a guy who earned his news chops the hard way; despite an early appointment to the anchor desk. In the retrospective shown on ABC this morning, I recognized his reporting from all the major news events of my life. Most vividly, his was the calming voice and focused manner that I remember during the confusing and horrific days immediately after 9/11 in contrast to the shrill and sometimes ugly reporting at other networks.
It is a sad commentary on the times that the message boards at ABC are already being peppered with comments from people you just know were sent there by right-wing bloggers and followers of that "network which must not be named." They are repeating the lie of a liberal bias in the news while damning him for his idealism, his reporting and his Canadian background.
If you enjoyed his reporting or you care at all about common human decency, if you value the independent voices of the news networks, already mostly gone, leave your message of condolences to the ABC family and help to balance the shrill voices of the right.
