January 2005 Archives

It was a cold, icy weekend. I stayed in the house almost all weekend long, venturing out only today for a brief expedition to the Apple store to take them my computer. I hope to get it fixed or replaced soon. It's been a mess since the towering inferno incident.

The Icicles from the Carport and the Bushes at the Front Door
(Click to enlarge)

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things that you did.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.”

Mark Twain

Phil Collins' music is fantastic!

I wasn't aware of Phil's “A Hot Night in Paris” album.  It's outrageously cool and has many big band arrangements of some of his vocal hits--without the vocals!  It's hot stuff!  Click on the album title to go to the album at the iTunes store.  Click on the title to go to that track at the iTunes store.

Sussudio from the album “A Hot Night in Paris” by Phil Collins

Very nice!  I was unfamiliar with this version of this track as well.  It's a very nice vocal track.

You'll Be In My Heart from the album “Tarzan Soundtrack” by Phil Collins

Mike, a software UI designer, is a pretty clever guy--especially for an 18 year old!  Check out his blog and his software, Delicious Monster.  His software is great.  I use it.  He recently posted on how to make a poster which is a montage of many (98) pictures through iPhoto.  I'm reprinting his directions here in case he moves his instructions before I get to do this.  It's a great idea.

How to make a Life Poster
Source:  The Mike Matas Blog

After posting photos of my apartment a couple weeks ago I got tons of people asking how I made my “Life Poster” seen in this photo. Here are my instructions to create one in about 20-30 min for about $29. Good Luck!

THE INSTRUCTIONS
Step 1. Make a new iPhoto Album. Fill it with the 98 photos you want in your poster. Try to pick photos with lots of different colors. If you pick all indoor florescent light photos your poster is going to look like crap.

Step 2. Crop all the photos landscape with the crop tool constrained to “4 x 3 (DVD)”. While you are in edit mode make sure to use the new “Adjust” dashboard built into iPhoto 5 to give your photos great color and contrast.

Step 3. Go the the “File” menu and select “Page Setup...”. Click the “Settings” popup and select “Custom Paper Size”. Click the “New” button and then name this paper size “Life Poster”. Set the paper height as 30“, the width as 20” and change the top and bottom margins to 0 leaving the left and right at 0.25 then click “OK”.

Step 4. Go to the “File” menu and select “Print..” Click the “Style” popup and select “Contact Sheet”. Set the “Across” slider at 7 and make sure to check the “Save paper” box. Now, instated of clicking print, click “Save As PDF...”. Saving will take a few minutes since it is saving out 98 full sized photos.

Step 5. Open the PDF file you just saved in Photoshop. When it is opening it will ask you what size you would like to open the PDF at. Set the DPI to 200 and then click “OK”. Go to the File menu and click “Save As...”, click on the “Format” menu and select TIFF then click “Save”.

Step 6. Find the TIFF file you just saved and import it into iPhoto by dragging it onto the window.

Step 7. Select the poster file you just imported and the click “Order Prints” from the action bar at the bottom of the window. Add one 20x30 print to you order and then click “Buy Now”.

That is it. You poster will be at your house in a few days. :)

BTW: These are great gifts. In addition to the one I made for my apartment I have also made one for my mom and grandma for their birthdays. So if you are short of ideas and need to get someone a cool gift I promise you this is a good bet.

I don’t like the sound of this, and I’m guessing you do not either. The Joint Committee on Taxation is debating on wheter it should extend the telecommunications tax to cover data as well. The Committee is trying to justify that with the growth of VOIP and WiFi phones, there will be no way to distinguish between ‘data’ packets and ‘voice’ packets. Personally, it’s all data to me and they just want to get you anyway they can. If you hate Microsoft then you may have a reason to start liking them, as Microsoft is among the top companies that are attempting to keep the IRS from taxing data.

Source:  Gear Live | Home

“Sarcasm:  just one of the services I offer!”

Well, ya know, turns out there really were no weapons of mass destruction.  This fact I'm sure creates the shock and awe of which Bush spoke a couple of years ago when the war in Iraq was won--no, really...it's been over for some time now.  Oh, and it would seem that Saddam really wasn't in cahoots with al-Qaida.  [insert more shock and awe*]  And, oops, the economy is really not doing very well after all.

So, I think it's time for a new terror alert to spice things up a bit and get our minds off of everything that's a real mess!!  I think the nation should go to code red.  Yes, code red indeed.  Why?  Glad you asked:

• George is about to mess up Social Security, destroy it, if his record in Iraq is any indication of his level of competence.  Talk to your senators and congress people.  The link is on the right hand side of my blog.
• And I think Seymour Hersh may have it right, the economy is “going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick. And ... Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. ... We could see something there, collective action against us. ... [There's] going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit. ... We're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, [emphasis added] and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody, is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here. ... We’re going to have some very bad months ahead.

Yes, political capitol indeed...a mandate!

OK, I'm off my ranting and foaming at the mouth for a while.  Mother says to stop writing about politics!

*Reminds me of a t-shirt I saw this week, I'll post about it next.

This week in the news...

Four British citizens have been released without charge from Guantanamo Bay after nearly 3 years in custody, no representation, no charges, no news to family and friends. They are suing the US government for tens of millions of dollars in damages.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General. As White House counsel, Gonzales helped lay the legal groundwork that led to the torture of detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Speaking about Dr. Rice's confirmation to the position of Secretary of State, Republican Senator George Allen of VA said this week,  “Be careful in your criticism ... not to be diminishing her [Dr. Rice's] credibility in the eyes of those in capitols around the world.” 

Excuse me?  Hello?!  Her own record is doing that to herself. 

Are we supposed to pretend she didn't say crazy, stupid, hyped propaganda like:

• her having “conclusive evidence about Iraq's nuclear weapons program”
• and talking of a “mushroom cloud” over American cities,
• and her having “legitimate evidence” of a relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida,
• and that Saddam Hussein may soon think that “it's time to end it on his terms by transferring one of these weapons, just a little vial of something, to a terrorists for blackmail or for worse.” 

This is reckless, grossly irresponsible, and as the world now knows, untrue rhetoric--or to put it more simply, lies!  So Bush honors her and fired those who, in dissent, called for a more reasoned approach.

This week Senator Robert Byrd, the oldest member of the Senate, leveled some sobering questions and analysis of Dr. Rice's record.  He puzzles over why she may have appeared so irresponsible and non-responsive to evidence of a pending attack by al-Qaida in the US just before 9/11.

From Senator Byrd's speech, Standing for the Founding Principles of the Republic, on January 25, 2005:

Instead of being held to account for their actions, the architects of the policies that led our nation into war with Iraq, policies based on faulty intelligence and phantom weapons of mass destruction, have been rewarded by the President with accolades and promotions.  Instead of admitting to mistakes in the war on Iraq and its disastrous aftermath, the President and his inner circle of advisers continue to cling to myths and misconceptions.  The only notion of accountability that this President is willing to acknowledge is the November elections, which he has described as a moment of accountability and an endorsement of his policies.  Unfortunately, after-the-fact validation of victory is hardly the standard of accountability that the American people have the right to expect from their elected officials. It is one thing to accept responsibility for success; it is quite another to accept accountability for failure.

Sadly, failure has tainted far too many aspects of our nation's international policies over the past four years, culminating in the deadly insurgency that has resulted from the invasion of Iraq.  With respect to this particular nomination, I believe that there needs to be accountability for the mistakes and missteps that have led the United States into the dilemma in which it finds itself today, besieged by increasing violence in Iraq, battling an unprecedented decline in world opinion, and increasingly isolated from our allies due to our provocative, belligerent, bellicose, and unilateralist foreign policy.

Thank you Senator Byrd for saying what needs to be said!

(Click to enlarge)

Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, author of the book, Chain Of Command: The Road From 9-11 to Abu Ghraib spoke recently at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York.  If the last paragraph at the end (the paragraph below is the first, not the last) of this lengthy speech doesn't chill your blood, you don't have any.

SEYMOUR HERSH: About what's going on in terms of the President is that as virtuous as I feel, you know, at The New Yorker, writing an alternative history more or less of what's been going on in the last three years, George Bush feels just as virtuous in what he is doing. He is absolutely committed -- I don't know whether he thinks he’s doing God's will or what his father didn't do, or whether it's some mandate from -- you know, I just don’t know, but George Bush thinks this is the right thing. He is going to continue doing what he has been doing in Iraq. He's going to expand it, I think, if he can. I think that the number of body bags that come back will make no difference to him. The body bags are rolling in. It makes no difference to him, because he will see it as a price he has to pay to put America where he thinks it should be. So, he's inured in a very strange way to people like me, to the politicians, most of them who are too cowardly anyway to do much. So, the day-to-day anxiety that all of us have, and believe me, though he got 58 million votes, many of people who voted for him weren’t voting for continued warfare, but I think that's what we're going to have.

As for perhaps the most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the administration has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to locate the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Asked why, Bush said, “Because he's hiding.”

(Click to enlarge)

So, instead, we attacked Iraq, where a fair and legitimate democracy is burgeoning even as I type.

Is Michael Moore right?  Is the reason we haven't found bin Laden because the Bush family has enormous personal financial ties with the bin Laden family?  Why hasn't this been explored?  Where is Ken Star when a republican is in office?!  I have no doubt this issue would have been a carnivorous delight had Clinton been the president!

I'm starting my taxes tonight.  Oh god!  Oh god!

Saw these two bumper stickers on a car in Decatur tonight.  I agree with them both.

“Pride is not strength but is weakness.”

“Jesus was a liberal.”

Nothing profound to say tonight.

In my transition from computer to computer I lost all of my Finale and Vision files.  I had them backed up on an old external Iomega Jaz drive.  But I could never get it to work on my newer computer.

In desperation I sent the Jaz disk off for a free data recovery analysis.  This disk contained thousands of man hours of work spanning about 10 years.

Iomega recovered my data!  The data DVD arrived today.  I am electrified.

Now, does anyone know...

• What's the best MIDI and audio software out there?
• How do people feel about Logic Pro 7?
• What do I need to transfer my Opcode Vision files into MIDI files a current MIDI program can read?

I loved Dave Oppenheim's Vision software.  The man was exceedingly brilliant.  He virtually invented MIDI for god's sake.  I was devastated when he moved on and the management at Opcode ran the company into bankruptcy.  So sad.

I gave my first presentation from Keynote 2.  Guess which feature I like best?!  The presentation mode.  I could see the next slide on my laptop.  This is divine!

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes:

“President Bush has been working hard to promote belief in a Social Security crisis. Unfortunately for him, the numbers refuse to cooperate. The latest numbers from the Social Security trustees show that the program can pay all scheduled benefits through the year 2042 with no changes whatsoever.

An independent assessment from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that the program can pay all benefits through the year 2052. Even after these dates, the projections from both the trustees and CBO show that the program will always be able to pay a higher benefit than that received by current retirees, although not the full scheduled benefit.”

Source:  There Is No Crisis  (Thanks again, Bert)

“Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.”
--Gore Vidal

Thanks Bert

and creative.  I love his blog and read it often.  Mike Davidson is an art director, interactive designer, print designer, and brand consultant in Seattle, WA.  Check out his article, The iPod End Game.  I'll get you started...

I have to admit, the iPod has been one of those devices that has fooled me from the start. I never thought anyone would buy a $400 portable music player, and before you laugh at me, remember how you felt the day it came out. If you bought an iPod within the first few weeks of it being released (or at least would have if it was PC-compatible), you’re off the hook. If not, you were skeptical like the rest of the world.

Oh how times have changed since then. iPod sales have far surpassed everyone’s expectations — including probably some people at Apple — and by the end of 2005, the device could see a market share of over 80%. Possibly well over 80%. An entire book could be written on the rise of the iPod, and in some senses, an entire book already has.

But I don’t want to get into any of that. It’s a huge hit. Bravo Apple. You are shaking up the world again… in a great, great way.

What I want to talk about is how this game will play out. How the rules will change when Microsoft puts both feet in the water. How sales will be affected when consumer tastes change. How new devices and new technologies will help, hurt, or kill the iPod. And most importantly, how Apple may attempt to defend its newfound position of power with a diversification strategy.

Let’s start with a few things learned from Apple’s last SEC filing.

Continue reading Mike's article--it gets even better...

in Paris!

Confirmed stars included:

Audre Tautou (as Sophia)

Tom Hanks, and

Jean Reno

Ron Howard has reportedly received the authorization from the “Ministere de la Culture” to shoot scenes inside the Louvre. French officials are awaiting script details and storyboard images before giving final approval. The Louvre has rarely given permission to film crews to use the actual museum as a set, despite numerous requests. Filming is due to begin in June.

This bumper sticker was on a soccer mom's minivan:

“Get In, Sit Down, Buckle Up, Shut Up, Hang On...”

I love Keynote!  I love Keynote 2 even more!!  I got my copy last Friday.  I love the Media Browser which incorporates iLife 5 right into Keynote 2!  Here's a good review of it...

Source:  MacCentral: First Look: Keynote 2
First Look: Keynote 2

New Themes, Improved Text Handling Highlight Major Update
By Rob Griffiths

When it came on the scene two years ago, Keynote (, April 2003) was really the first viable presentation tool alternative to Microsoft’s PowerPoint on the Mac. While Apple’s offering surpassed PowerPoint in some areas (transitions, graphics handling, professionalism of templates), it fell far short in others (detailed info on slides during presentations, automatic animation options, slide timing). Keynote 2—unveiled at Macworld Expo and now shipping as part of the iWork ’05 suite—aims to narrow the gap, while adding even more compelling features.

Here’s a first look at some of the major changes in the latest version of Keynote.

I spent several hours this weekend going condo shopping, in the $650,000 to $1,000,000 range, with a friend of mine that is considering a move.  You know, a million dollars just won't buy much in Atlanta anymore! 

The property I liked the most was Park Regency across from Phipps Mall.  But a million bucks will only purchase about a 2,900 square foot condo up to the 20th floor.  And, let's not forget the association fee: $1,500 per month.  Oh, and you want a parking space?

Save my soul!

I forgot in which paper I found this.  :o(

(Click to enlarge)

Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER

Published: January 20, 2005

On the eve of President Bush's second inauguration, most Americans say they do not expect the economy to improve or American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House, and many have reservations about his signature plan to overhaul Social Security, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

• 70% thought Mr. Bush would succeed in changing the Social Security system
• 43% percent expect most forms of abortion to be illegal by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House
• 60% were generally optimistic about the next four years
• 66% said Bush would leave the country with a larger deficit
• 47% said a second Bush term would divide Americans
• 80% said it would not be possible to overhaul Social Security, cut taxes, and finance the war in Iraq without increasing the budget deficit, despite Mr. Bush's promises to the contrary
• 49% approval rating as Bush heads into his second term - significantly lower than the ratings at the start of the second terms of the last two presidents who served eight years, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan
• 56% said the country has gone off on the wrong track, about as bad a rating Mr. Bush has received on this measure since entering the White House
• 50% said Social Security is in crisis, echoing an assertion that Mr. Bush has made and that has been disputed by Democrats and independent analysts
• 51% said that while there were good things about Social Security, the system needed “fundamental changes”
• 24% said it needed a complete overhaul
• 50% said it was a “bad idea” to permit workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into the stock market, as Mr. Bush is expected to propose
• 70% said it was a “bad idea” when the question includes the possibility that future guaranteed benefits would be reduced by as much as one-third
• 60% said they were not likely to put their own Social Security money into the stock market
• 71% expect Mr. Bush to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to outlaw abortion
• 71%, support some forms of legal abortion, albeit some with more restrictions than now exist
• 75% said Mr. Bush had no clear plan for getting out of Iraq, a sharp jump up from 58 percent last fall, and a majority said that he routinely exaggerated conditions there
• 75% said they believe a significant number of American troops will still be stationed in Iraq when Mr. Bush leaves the presidency
• 53% of Americans think the war in Iraq will not have been worth the loss of American life if unconventional weapons are never found
• 15% of respondents said that elections would produce a decline in violence in Iraq
• 40% said elections would create more violence
• 54% said investment and interest income should be taxed at the same rate as wages

A majority of respondents said that Iraq, which has been plagued by violence over the last week, is not secure enough to proceed with elections in two weeks, as scheduled.

Clear majorities disapproved of Mr. Bush's management of the economy and the war in Iraq.

A majority of those surveyed said that they did not expect any improvement in health care, education, or in reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly by January 2009.

The majority said that in pushing for a Social Security overhaul, Mr. Bush was more interested in helping Wall Street than protecting the average American.

The findings, coming after a tensely competitive election, suggest that Mr. Bush does not have broad popular support as he embarks on what the White House has signaled would be an extraordinarily ambitious second term...

Source:  The New York Times > Washington > Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds

I'm back after the 5 day blackout, which created a huge reaction from people:  both very strong supporters of the idea and people who strongly disapproved.  What is most interesting about it all is that I had a record number of hits:  almost 500 visitors hitting the site over 4,000 times in 5 days!  Wow!

And these hits were not from friends and family, which is equally as interesting to me.  How do I know this?  Well, on the internet one can trace the router information that delivered the hit and tell where it came from. 

Additionally, my stats monitor tracks what browsers hit my site.  This week I had a whopping record number (a veritable surge) of Windows users hit my blog.  Most of my friends and family are, naturally, Mac users. 

Well, the great irony:  want to increase the number of hits to your blog?  Simply shut it down for 5 days.  Kinda funny actually...

Did you notice that the search for weapons of mass destruction was called off this week?  They concluded in their final report that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

Bet you missed that one.  They seemed to bury it in the news.  Funny (as in tragic) how conservatively biased our american media has become.

How can we find Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. guilty when the Bush administration was authorizing torture, cutting off fingers, testicles, etc.  This administration is a collection of rogue thugs!

Don't misunderstand me, what Graner did was just as wrong.  But he will be the scapegoat and Bush and his administration will walk away unblemished by scandal.  The Republican party would have tried to impeach Clinton if he had done this!!

These people are evil!

I love this software!  If you don't know it, check it out!

Source:  Wired News: Monster Fueled by Caffeine:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Delicious Monster is the Mac software company behind the hit Delicious Library, a program for cataloging collections of books, movies and games. The software is selling like hot cakes and has garnered rave reviews and awards, yet the company's headquarters is a Seattle coffee house.

Co-founded by graphic designer Mike Matas and programmer Wil Shipley, the company's first title, Delicious Library, was launched in November 2004. It generated $250,000 worth of sales in its first month, and the company has a crowded, popular booth here at Macworld.

But its four main employees meet every day at the popular Zoka coffee shop in Seattle's university district.

“It's cheap rent and a fun environment,” said Matas. “We go down there every day with our laptops and work. It's an incredible place. They have two or three of the top baristas in the country (the awards are on the wall). We pay our rent by buying coffee.... They love us. We're some of their best customers.”As well as creamy lattes, the coffee shop offers wireless internet access and big, bench-like tables that several people can gather around. Often, Delicious Monster's entire seven-person staff will work there.

Source:  Wired News:
This raw image was returned by Huygens after the probe descended through Titan's atmosphere [a moon orbiting Saturn]. It shows the surface of Titan with ice blocks strewn around. The size and distance of the blocks will be determined when the image is properly processed.

(Click to enlarge)

Source:  Andymatic
Est. 5,500 U.S. Soldiers Desert Army

American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam. An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.

Note - it's the morale that's the problem. Again, seeing this as a PR problem - not that the whole war was an illegal military action.

This is so 1960s, when I was a teenager!

Source:  The Apple Blog
Longhorn’s Getting There…Slowly

As Steve put it, Tiger will be here “…long before Longhorn”. I loved that (though was dismayed at the failure to give a hard release date - oh well).

Longhorn was originally slated for…last year. It’s still almost 2 years out at last count. (read Wired’s Vaporware 2004 mention of Longhorn - number 3) And to make things worse (for Microsoft), they’ve decided to scrap the WinFS file system which was supposed to be the Windows answer to Spotlight in Tiger.

But I guess we should give MS a little credit. According to this posting over at Slashdot, Longhorn will be relying much more heavily on the Graphics card to do more heavy lifting.

Correct me if I’m wrong (my wife doesn’t hesitate), but didn’t we get Quartz back in Jaguar? Since then we’ve had Panther, and within 6 months we’ll have Tiger which takes the next steps to use CoreImage at the OS/graphics card level. So what’s that, - like 5 years behind by the time Longhorn ships? I guess it could be worse…

Luckily for all those Windows users, the Mac Mini is now available and provides OS X’s power now.

Source:  MoveOn.org:  Protect Social Security

George Bush and Republican leaders have made phasing out Social Security – through privatization and massive benefit cuts – their top priority for 2005.  We want to deliver 200,000 signatures to Congress to let them know that the American people oppose gutting Social Security. Sign now!

Click to Sign

Just saw the movie--my first digitally projected movie.  Andrew Lloyd Webber's music, which goes without saying, is fabulous.  The costumes and sets were also excellent.  A bit long but wonderful. Check out the music at iTunes.

“You lived here all your life?”

“Well, no.  Not yet.”

Source:  The Apple Blog; Jobs vs. Gates
Jobs vs. Gates

In the past week or so, we have seen keynote speeches from both Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs, and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Gates’s CES keynote was filled with negative comments, including his comparison of “free culture” advocates to communists. Job’s speech, on the other hand, brought nothing but joy and happy-happy feelings into the world. So, I figured I’d do some research and see who really is the more hated man. Using Google Smackdown, I entered various phrases, and was greeted with results of which phrase came up more on a google search.

Round 1 - Evilness:
“bill gates is evil” (171,000)
“steve jobs is evil” (92,800)
Most Evil: BIll Gates

Round 2 - Sucky-ness:
“bill gates sucks” (61,900)
“steve jobs sucks” (31,800)
Most Sucky: Bill Gates

Round 3 - Resemblance to the Dark Lord:
“bill gates is satan” (49,100)
“steve jobs is satan” (30,000)
Most Satanic: Bill Gates

Lightning Round: Corporate Evil:
“apple is evil” (518,000)
“microsoft is evil” (490,000)
Most Evil Corporation: Apple Computer

Over all horrible person: Bill Gates

As you can see, Gates beat Jobs in all of the categories. This is just more conclusive evidence that Bill Gates is truly the most evil CEO in the computer industry.

Source:  MacMinute News
Apple Posts Highest Quarterly Revenue, Net Income Ever

January 12, 2005 - 16:31 EST  Apple on Wednesday reported its best quarterly financial results in the company's history. Apple posted a net profit of US$295 million, or 70 cents a share, for its fiscal 2005 first quarter ended December 25, 2004. These results compare to a net profit of $63 million, or 17 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $3.49 billion, up 74 percent from last year. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had expected Apple to earn 49 cents a share on $3.18 billion in revenue. Apple said it shipped 1,046,000 Macs and 4,580,000 iPods during the quarter, representing a 26 percent increase in CPU units and a 525 percent increase in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

Source:  Apple - QuickTime - Macworld San Francisco 2005 Expo Keynote:
It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: they’re running a few minutes late, but it looks like the big, big, big  keynote is about to get underway at Macworld. We have a couple of reporters there, and barring any unforeseen  technical snafus (the WiFi sitch is a mess, apparently), we’ll be bringing you live updates from Jobs’ keynote as  they happen. Keep refreshing to get the latest.

9:11am PST - Steve Jobs arrives on stage, starts talking up HD projection, he’s showing off their new Apple store  in London, it’s their largest store to date, and the second grossing store they have worldwide.
9:14am - Recapping the year, the iMac G5 launch “The most beautiful desktop computer.” The best selling Mac they  have.
9:15am - Mac OS X update, “The world’s most advanced operating system, 12,000 native apps, 14 million users.” Tiger  on schedule to ship first half of this year with 200 new features. Any process will be able to address 64 bits of  memory.
9:16am - New Tiger features. Automator, collects and accomplishes routine tasks. Most important new feature is  Spotlight, desktop search allows you to find anything. Photos, PDFs, docs, integrated into OS and applications.
9:17am - Microsoft will be building support for Spotlight into their Mac apps.
9:21am - Spotlight just instantly searched 250,000 files, can sort by people.
9:22am - Spotlight offers searching within Corbis images.
9:23am - Steve just crashed Spotlight photo viewer! “Well, that’s why we have backup systems here.” Force quit and  recovered.
9:25am - Demoing “smart folders” in the finder. “View this week” everything opened this past week is shown. Searched  results actually show up in a spotlight effect. Very nice effect.
9:27am - New version of Mail for Tiger. Softer UI, no more brushed metal look. Can search across all mailboxes using  Spotlight. Steve showing demo with 100,000 emails.
9:28am - Smart mailboxes“ monitor anything with the search phrase. If someone emails you a bunch of pix, there’s a  ”slideshow“ button attached to the message. Can dynamically create slide shows from emails. Nice ”expose“ type ways  to view multiple photos. Once in slideshow view you can automatically save any of the pix to iPhoto library. Slick  transparent ”genie“ effect to add photos to iPhoto.
9:30am - QuickTime 7 - 24 channels of surround sound, support for high-def. video, live resizing. Full screen  overlay. One button audio and video recording. More transparent onscreen controls. Using H.264 as codec so it could  transcode movies for PSP.

He told the world about weapons of mass destruction.  But there were none.

He announced that the war in Iraq is over.  No, really, it is.

He insists that free and fair elections will be held in Iraq at the end of this month.  Hah!

Today he says Social Security is going bankrupt.  He's lying once again!

Now he has stooped to taking advantage of the poor and elderly.

Disgusting beyond belief!

Evil

iTunes is hot, hot, hot!

Remember you heard it here first:  Tomorrow Steve will announce an iMac for less than $500.  It will have no screen.  It's designed to snag those PC users that hate their machines and the Windows operating system that hates them.  This is what the new iHome will look like:

(Click to enlarge)

But, shhh, don't tell.  You aren't supposed to know yet.

The day started out with a lot of energy.  I even wore my new vivid lime green shirt.

This evening was one of those special, unusual evenings.  On the way home from work the temperature was probably in the 60s.  Yes, it is January here in Georgia.  The sky was sufficiently overcast as to diffuse the light.  The shadows of the evening sun were so diffuse as to not really exist.  The evenly-cast light made for a smooth, relaxed, balanced look.

I ate dinner at one of my favorite little local hangouts.  They have now (2005) been a family owned and operated business for 60 years.

After a tough workout, I am pooped.  Nite, nite.

Well, Kermit served me well, for almost 250,000 miles!  I bought him at the end of 1993 when the new model had just arrived.  He was named Kermit because he looked “frog-esque.”  He now goes on to live in another pond and will be missed.

(Click to enlarge)

One of the ladies I work with has one of these on her desk for the holidays.  I always thought it was “cute.”  It dispenses jelly beans, chocolate ones that are brown, from...the rear.

So, I was given one from Christmas!

(Click to enlarge)

OK, when I replaced the candles on my mantle, I decided to go for a different look.  My previous candles were all very colorful.  The new ones are rather monochromatic.  They are the new Paddywax Linen series and have a very different textured look.

(Click to enlarge...no, I mean really!)

which I purchased with great doubt in 1989 because all MIDI software was written for the Mac only.  I gave it to my father, who loved the machine, in 1994--the 10 year anniversary of the original Mac.

The Mac IIc

Bill Gates Touts 'Digital Lifestyle' in Keynote Speech at Int'l Consumer Electronics Show

LAS VEGAS Jan 6, 2005 — Despite suffering technical glitches that prompted jokes and guffaws, Bill Gates promised Wednesday that Microsoft Corp. would help millions of consumers stay seamlessly plugged into a world of digital music, movies, video games and television shows.

Source:  ABC News: Gates Touts 'Digital Lifestyle' in Vegas

Pathetic!  Apple has been talking about this for YEARS now.  Bill is behind the game with an operating system that is an unstable rip off!

Bush's Counsel Sought Ruling About Torture
By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 5, 2005

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 - Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain a legal ruling on the extent of the president's authority to permit extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security, current and former administration officials said Tuesday.

Mr. Gonzales's role in seeking a legal opinion on the definition of torture and the legal limits on the force that could be used on terrorist suspects in captivity is expected to be a central issue in the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings scheduled to begin on Thursday on Mr. Gonzales's nomination to be attorney general.

The request by Mr. Gonzales produced the much-debated Justice Department memorandum of Aug. 1, 2002, which defined torture narrowly and said that Mr. Bush could circumvent domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security.

Read Entire Source:  The New York Times > Washington > Bush's Counsel Sought Ruling About Torture

Edge:  “To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.”  If you are unfamiliar with this site, I encourage you to explore it.

To start off each year, a question is asked of the Edge membership. This year's question is: “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”

So, what do you believe is true but can not prove?

Did Quake Speed Earth's Spin?
01:51 PM Jan. 04, 2005 PT

LOS ANGELES -- The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

Continue Reading Source:  Wired News: Did Quake Speed Earth's Spin?

I was dreadfully caught off guard today when a teacher on my staff asked me if I knew what “Moof!” was.  He stated that it was some obscure Mac/Apple thing.  I had heard of it.  I had seen it on a car tag in Atlanta.  Yet, I had to confess I did not know.  :o(

I did an internet search and hit this page of what appears to be a detailed,  factual, and definitive explanation of “Moof!”

Moof! is the sound the dogcow, named Clarus, in the classic MacOS print dialog box makes, obviously a combination of “Moo” and “Woof.”  The dogcow was originally born as a character in the Cairo font set developed for the original Macintosh by Susan Kare in the early 1980s.

Below is the original dogcow on the left and Clarus, from the print dialogue box, (enlarged 2x) on the right.

Below is the original print dialog box featuring Clarus the dogcow who goes “Moof!”

I just feel much better, as if I have passed through a rite of passage, knowing all of this.  Moof!

I heard on NPR today that the “Living Wage” in Atlanta is $10.50 per hour.  An association of businesses has determined that for a family of 3 to be able to live in Atlanta and not need food stamps to survive, the family must have an hourly income of $10.50 for 40 hours per week. 

Compare this to the $5.15 minimum wage!  In other words, if the mother and father both worked at minimum wage, they still would require food stamps in order to raise a child in Atlanta.  This is outrageous!

DigitalGlobe have a series of before and after satellite pictures of areas hit by the tsunami. The two below will open into huge full-size images which will probably require scrolling around a bit to see it all.

This is the Banda Aceh Shore back on June 23, 2004:

(Click for huge enlargement)

This is the same region on December 28th, 2004:

(Click for huge enlargement)

The Google Zeitgeist 2004 is an interactive graphic presentation of the world's top internet searches by month for 2004.  Each month features the most popular queries, picture searches, and news searches.  So what was on the world's collective mind anyway? Interesting!

I didn't want to post about anything too serious tonight.  I worked in the yard yesterday, worked out at the gym tonight, and feel like I'm about to crack into pieces.  A colleague at work sent this in an email.

Click here to have a laugh.

Worked in the yard almost all day, with a lot of help.  Heavens!  It was a mess!!  It looks a lot better today.

Heading back to work tomorrow after almost 2 weeks off.

I've never had an experience quite like it!  If ever a blackmail picture existed of me, this would be it.  Amazingly, this charcoal masque shrinks the skin big time!  I had to pull my eyeballs out of my ears when I washed it off!

(Click to enlarge)

Last night would have been my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.  As it turned out, they spent 42 years together before my father died rather unexpectedly in 1997.  Here's a celebration to commitments that last for 42 years!

Here are a few pictures of the latest episode of Tim's Towering Inferno which mostly featured melted candles and dead house plants:

(Click to enlarge)