Thanks to Gary and Chuq, I blew water out my nose when reading this. Highly entertaining.
You can always count on programmers to be logical. (Well, good ones, anway.) Gary Robinson sallies forth:
Saddam is today in a position where he is very, very likely to be attacked, and he is still not giving inspectors the facts. If he is not doing so now, the trivial added circumstance of the U.S. having the Security Council’s permission is obviously not going to make a significant difference to Iraq’s choices.
(via Michael)
MacMinute notes a c|net report that Hilton Hotels, Borders Books & Music, and McDonald’s are partnering with Intel to deliver WiFi (802.11b) wireless network access in various hotels and stores around the country.
Though I’m sure they’ll try to charge separately for something they should simply build in to their costs, the latter of which would help attract consumers, the only mention of pricing thus far is from McDonald’s: one hour of free access when you purchase a combo meal.
One of my favorite pieces of software has been updated. WeatherPop has been revved to version 1.7. The Advance version is only $8 and gets you:
- National Weather Service forecasts for the United States
- my.aol.com and wunderground.com forecasts for US and International users
- 3 to 5 day forecasts depending on your location
- Beautiful color icons and realistic moon phases
- Up to 3 favorite locations in addition to the your main location
- The best darn easy-to-use Mac OS X-savvy interface they could design
- 14-day trial period so you can decide if you like it before you buy
I refer to it often throughout the day, checking out other locales where I have friends and family as well. Great piece of software, so download it, register it, and support a Macintosh developer.
John Gruber makes an outstanding case for one of the few things I don’t like about Safari.
One thing that Safari has gotten wrong ever since it debuted is that it applies anti-aliasing to all typefaces, including small monospaced fonts such as 9- and 10-point Monaco.
Yes, yes, the Mac OS X zeitgeist is such that anti-aliasing is everywhere. But small-point monospaced fonts are the exception to the rule, for good reason. Monospaced typefaces are an anachronism, a throw-back to the typewriter era. They are, for most purposes, ugly; their metrics contradict the basic precepts of proper typesetting. With regular (non-monospaced) fonts, small punctuation marks such as commas and apostrophes fit snugly next to adjacent alphabetic characters; punctuation is intended to be subtle. But with a monospaced font, every character consumes the same amount of horizontal space on the line; it’s downright silly that an apostrophe should consume the same space as an “m.”
Downright silly, perhaps, but I find a certain elegance in monospaced fonts. After all, look at my logo and tagline!
I differ with Gruber only in his observation of Geneva in Camino versus Safari: I think Geneva looks better in Safari, though, I admit, at the same point size, it is slightly less readable than in Camino.
I’m finding more and more stuff that makes me antsy for my forthcoming MessagePad 2100…
One day before the NHL’s trading deadline, the Stars make some moves to set themselves up for their run for the Stanley Cup. Currently second overall, Dallas traded big Sami Helenius (and “future considerations”) to Chicago for playoff-experienced Lyle Odelein. Prospect Mike Ryan and a 2d-round draft pick go to Buffalo in exchange for Stu Barnes.
Brian and I agree that the Stu Barnes trade is a good one, and the gritty forward will help fill the gap left by an injured Bill Guerin, as well as add depth to Dallas’ lines. We’re a little torn over the defensive trade, as we’re both big Sami fans. He has a great presence on the ice, and it’s unfortunate that the Stars will have to face off against him in the future. On the plus side, there is young John Erskine waiting in the wings. Erskine exhibits very Hatcher-esque qualities, qualities that have made the Stars’ captain one of the top defensemen in the league. Erskine has been up from the minors a few times over the past two years, mostly to fill in during injuries to starting defensemen, and has shown he is a force to be reckoned with.
So, nothing huge in the way of trades, but that’s not surprising when it comes to the Stars. They pretty much have had all the major pieces they need for a playoff run, and just needed to fill in some gaps. Go Stars!
My new favorite n3rd reports that his mobile phone weblog has a new and permanent home: MobileTracker.net.
Jon also shares this insight on the T68i, which is fast becoming my next mobile of choice!
Sent to me by Michael and noted by Jon, the UK’s Sunday Mirror is reporting that Iraqi soldiers have already begun to surrender:
Terrified Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces–because they thought the war had already started.
[…]
The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender.
It’s both funny and sad. I hope these guys do the sensible thing when the shooting really does start; Saddam’s not worth dying for.
Lee notes a Wired story on a lone PowerBook user in the Third Infantry Division, currently operating out of Kuwait.
As someone who almost became one of those military officers, I must take exception with Lee’s “smarter-than-the-average-automaton” crack observation. Despite how they may be portrayed from the Hollywonk perspective, by and large your average military officer is a highly dedicated, smarter-than-the-average-citizen, master’s degree-holding professional who does what he does out of love for his country. Because even the officers aren’t getting a whole of lot of kit in their kaboodle when it comes to pay.
As far as computing choices go within the military, those front-liners have about as much say in the matter as your average Fortune 500 cubicle dweller does within their corporation. Kudos to Major Weed for getting the TiBook cleared through channels.