Dave says, "Two years ago

Dave says, "Two years ago today News.Com was kvelling about Eazel." Tom often pokes fun at me because he knows more Yiddish than I do, so I did a fast lookup to see if my original take--Dave misunderstands what kvell means--was correct or not. Based on this and this, I was right. So, I can kvell about Sean getting straight A's this term, but unless Eazel was a News.com spinoff (which it wasn't), the latter wasn't in a position to kvell.

And weren't you impressed at the way I managed to so subtlely drop a mention of Sean's grades into this post?

Robert X. Cringely writes "The

Robert X. Cringely writes "The Power of X: How the Best Thing for Apple, for Users, and Even for Microsoft, Would Be an Intel Version of OS X." Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

It's not just Bob; there's lots of people out there saying this, and they all miss something important: Apple is a hardware company. The goal of everything they do is to sell more hardware. How would licensing OS X to Dell help Apple to sell more boxes? It wouldn't. Therefore, Steve will never let it happen.

Apple has always been caught between the duelling alternatives of being a software company vs. being a hardware company. When Steve came back, killed Claris, killed clones, and spun-off FileMaker, it was clear that a decision had been made. Anything Apple does with software now is simply a way to sell more boxes.

Cheese Racing: a thrilling (?)

Cheese Racing: a thrilling (?) new sport from our British friends.

Our cat has an email

Our cat has an email address, which we sometimes put in our books as a joke. When you write to him, you get an autoresponder that says "Meow?" Today, a reader of one of my books sent a query about the book to the cat's email address. Dori forwarded it to me, and part of my response was a sentence I never imagined writing : "In the future, it would be faster to write directly to me, rather than to my cat."

Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie! (image

Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie! (image courtesy the ACME Heart Maker).

Who's we? I think X-Files

Who's we? I think X-Files jumped the shark loooong before last year. If it ain't got Duchovny, I ain't watching it.

Well, at least they have

Well, at least they have a sense of humor about it: Reportedly, one of the titles for an upcoming episode of the X-Files is "Jump the Shark." If you haven't heard of this phrase before, it refers to the point when a TV show hits the wall and begins to suck, as described on this popular site. The classic examples are when Rob Morrow's character left Northern Exposure, or when they killed off Colonel Blake on M*A*S*H. In our opinion, X-Files jumped early last year; we stopped watching it after the first episode this year.

Worried about those mind-control rays

Worried about those mind-control rays from the CIA (or possibly the planet Ignortz)? Always wanted your own Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, but were concerned about the cost and whether you could build this precision protective device? Worry no more! You'll find complete instructions here, and they even get the details right. So many beanie construction sites fail to tell you that for maximum effectiveness, the shiny side of the foil must go on the outside. But with this beanie, you'll be as safe as if you were securely restrained in a caring facility.

Hide and Sneak is a

Hide and Sneak is a good article about Bush's budget chicanery. If Al Gore decides to run for president again, I hope that his campaign puts together a devastating media package exposing how Bush was during the campaign, and has been ever since, the real liar of the two.

You know how you'll scan

You know how you'll scan something quickly, misunderstand it, and snap back to read it again? I just saw this headline on Salon: Treasury Secretary O'Neill lauds Bono, and read the last word as "Bong." I guess those Bush guys aren't that open-minded...

Parity with those Windows users:

Parity with those Windows users: I'm using BlogApp to create this post. It's a new OS X app from the people who did BlogScript, which I tried but didn't especially like. BlogApp gives you a text editing window with Post and Post & Publish buttons, and uses OS X's built-in Services to provide spell checking, and spell checking as you type. Let's see if I continue using it.