Steve Jobs: Hypocrite?

A former Microsoftie chides Apple for blatantly copying its Media Center interface. I've criticized Apple for the same thing, though in this case, it seems especially egregious.

In most cases, Apple at least improves the technology -- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Not this time.

Boing Boing: Amazon Unbox to customers: Eat **** and die

Nice rant against Amazon's new video download service. I tried it, too, but the software was so buggy I uninstalled it about five minutes later. Cory Doctorow's complaint is much more specific, but he absolutely right.

Windows Live Local

Freaky. You can almost see the ducks at my apartment complex.

Where have all the sound effects gone?

New York Times' David Pogue blogs today about cultural artifacts of obsolete technology, specifically, cartoon sound effects:

What about the needle-scratching-across-the-vinyl-record sound? It’s still used everywhere, in cartoons, movies and so on, to represent a rude awakening, an abrupt interruption of a scene’s mood or the main character’s reverie. But today’s children have never even seen a record player. Isn’t the record-scratch sound totally lost on them?

And what about “ka-CHING!”? Cash registers don’t go ka-CHING anymore–they go beep!

I'd add to that the whole notion of "dialing" someone's phone number on your cell phone.

 

A classic straw-man argument from the Decider-in-Chief

"Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone," Bush said in an Oval Office address.

Again, completely missing the point. Not a single person has suggested leaving Iraq so the "terrorists would leave us alone." No, critics suggested not invading in the first place because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and has become a major, intractable distraction in the war on terrorism. Is the president intellectually dishonest or just an idiot?

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Cheney: Govt did "helluva job" since Sept 11 - Yahoo! News: "The government has done 'a helluva job' guarding America, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday, as President George W. Bush prepared to visit Ground Zero amid an election-year debate on whether the country is safer five years after the September 11 attacks.

Yes, even after Katrina, the administration is still tone deaf.