Macworld Expo schedule

If you're going to be at Macworld Expo, come on by and see us. Here's our schedule:

Monday:

• 9 am - 5 pm, Web Design and Delivery Power Tools session (Dori)
• 7:50 - 11:30 pm, Return of the King at the Metreon

Tuesday:

• 9 - 10:30 am, Steve Jobs's Keynote
• 11 am - 5 pm, Web Design and Delivery Power Tools session (Dori)

Wednesday: 2 - 3 pm, Book signing at Peachpit Press booth (#1917) (Tom and Dori)

Thursday: 3 - 4 pm, Book signing at O'Reilly and Associates booth (#2143) (Tom and Dori)

Friday: Noon - 1 pm, User Group Lounge (#250-262) (Tom and Dori)

Mars Landing

Susan is watching the Mars landing from Pasadena. We're watching it here on NASA-TV. She's getting her info a minute or two before we are, so reading her page while watching the TV is like checking the answers in the back of the book. But it's been handy, as otherwise we'd have fingernails as short as hers.

Geek Lunch

I had a great time at today's Geek Lunch, and thanks to all who drove out to the boondocks to my little town!

Roger, if it's your camera that got left behind, I have it, so contact me.

Geek lunch info

The Geek Lunch referred to previously is ON. Details:

Where: Center Street Deli in Healdsburg
When: Saturday noon
Who: Robert and me, at least. And you, hopefully.
Why: Why not?
Afterwards: Possibly wine tasting, possibly office tours. The latter is about a block away and the former has about half-a-dozen options within two blocks.
Contact info or for more details: contact me at either the dori.com domain (for email) or the mac.com domain (for aim) with the username "dori".

Directions from the south: go north on the 101 to Healdsburg, which is about 15 miles north of Santa Rosa. Pass the first Healdsburg exit and get off at the Central Healdsburg exit. Go straight off the offramp and through two signals, about 1/2 mile. The third signal will be Matheson Street, which will put you at the southwest corner of the plaza. Turn right on Matheson and go one block to Center St. (the southeast corner of the plaza). Park anywhere you can on Matheson or Center; the restaurant is at 304 Center St.

And if you're wondering how to get to be Guest of Honor (Robert's description) of a Geek Lunch, it's simple: invite him to lunch. At least, that's what I did.

My wildass Expo prediction

I'm not believing the iBox rumor, though I'll be happy to be wrong. Instead, I'm going to go way out on a limb and predict something that I haven't heard about anywhere else: new form factor iMacs. My rationale is that the 20-inch flat panel is about the end of the line for the current units. They can either put G5's in iMacs, or change the line altogether. As of January, the flat-panel iMac design will be 2 years old. Guess we'll see on Tuesday.

Engagement congrats

Many congratulations to Christine and Mike on their engagement!

Tim's 2004 Wishlist

Tim O'Reilly has published his 2004 Wishlist. Mine includes wishing people would, in 2004, learn that the "w" in Macworld isn't supposed to be capitalized. People, like, say, Jonas Salling (winner of a 2003 Macworld Eddy award) and Tim himself.

And yes, I'm also annoyed by grammatical errors, but there's plenty of folks keeping an eye out for those.

Cheesy Lights!

How come I only find out about things like Cheesy Lights in January? Between now and next December, I have to pick up a couple of strings of their Airstreams.

Wine Country Geek Lunch

Scoble says one of my favorite phrases: he wants to buy me lunch. We're talking about a geek lunch this Saturday (Jan. 3^rd) at noon. Location still to be determined. I'm happy to drive south, but it'd be great to have it here. Hey, if it's here, I'll even throw in tours of my office.

Pippin II, again

Two years ago, I predicted that Apple would release what I called the Pippin II:

The original Pippin was a game controller that came out about the time 3DO self-destructed, taking a large part of the entire game industry down with it. The Pippin, though, was pretty cool: it could play CDs and Mac games and surf the net as well. IMO, it was way ahead of its time.

What I'd like to see tomorrow is something that "goes where no PC has gone before": in my entertainment center. I want a PVR, an MP3 server, a DVD player, and an 802.11b base station all in one stylish looking box with Firewire and Ethernet, plus S-Video and coax in and S-Video and digital audio out.

The remote will be included, but the wireless keyboard and game controllers will be extra. Of course, it should be able to play just about any Mac game, too.

It's now a year later, and the pre-Expo rumors are starting up: Exclusive Insider Information: Apple iBox in production. Sounds a whole lot like the product I predicted, doesn't it?

Oh, and if any of the rumors about a low-end iPod do come true, I know one 15-year-old who wants one the day they ship. Currently, he's got Tom's old 96 Mb Rio stuffed in his pocket, and he's using my iPod earbuds to make the other kids think that he has an iPod.

Late Movie Reviews

On the cruise ship we were on last week, they have some movie channels, and change the movies every day. I saw two movies that I'd missed from earlier this year, and here's my capsule comments:

The Hours: Some fine acting here, though I think that Meryl Streep's acting is often more about inspired tics that make her look like a real person than about being a real person, if you know what I mean. But the movie, overall, was not a triumph. The oddly-stilted dialog, the plain unlikeability of virtually all of the characters, and the look-at-me-I'm-so-clever direction and editing never jelled. The not-so-subtext, that to be heterosexual is to doom yourself to an empty life of misery, is simply offensive; the opposite point of view would be rightly seen as gay-bashing. So why is straight-bashing any more acceptable? But the main annoyance is that all of the main characters are selfish, tortured, and not at all sympathetic. Clarissa wastes years of her life taking care of the dying Richard, whom she loves in a pathetic, hopeless way. Ed Harris as Richard is so underwritten and played as a deranged jerk that we really have no idea why Clarissa should give a shit about him (yeah, he's a talented writer, but are we to believe that Clarissa puts up with his shit for the sake of his art?). Julianne Moore, as Laura Brown, plays her part of a 50's housewife too numbly; we know she's tortured, but we can't really see why. She has a husband and son who adore her; gosh, that's a rough life, Laura. There's a scene with Toni Collette that is meant to tell us that if Laura could just be a lesbian and ditch her empty suburban existence, things would be OK, but when we see Laura towards the end of her life, there's no payoff; it appears that she left her family for nothing. Her choices did not liberate her; rather they brought her more years of pain. Nicole Kidman is excellent as Virginia Woolf, though I hated the character. Let me get this straight: Virginia would prefer death rather than continue to live in a lovely country house in Richmond, but would consent to continuing to stay alive a bit longer as long as she gets to move back to London. Gee, thanks, Ginny! Of course, what you want is the only thing that matters; let's just ignore the fact that your family has been trying, at great cost, to take care of you by removing you from London in the first place. As a final mark against the film, the wonderfully-talented Allison Janney is wasted as Clarissa's lover, Sally. In sum: this movie is Attempted Art.

Going to the opposite extreme, we have Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. To say that this was a piece of shit is to insult all shit everywhere. Directed and cut with a "More cocaine! More!" rhythm by the over-rated and talentless McG, this tawdry waste of time is bad on just about every level. Incoherent script, lit and shot as if for video, bad use of effects. Look, it was a movie that couldn't even be saved by repeated shots of Cameron Diaz's ass. That's really saying something.

Hess Events List

It's that time of year again, so it's the Hess Memorial Macworld Expo SF '04 Events List. I really wish that Ilene allowed syndication or had an RSS feed—"License to distribute this page is available for US$1M. Posting without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms." Huh?

Swinging the Bat

Howard Dean looks like he's getting set to break last quarter's record. What's most impressive (to me, at least) is that if you divide the amount he's collected by the number of contributors, the result is only about $100 each.

If you're concerned about the direction this country's going, please consider clicking on the bat to the left and contributing whatever you can afford. If you do it today, your money will help to count towards his Q4 total. Thanks!

Apple Offering PowerBook G4 Trade-in Program

Apple Offering PowerBook G4 Trade-in Program: I don't know whether to be more miffed that I missed this because I bought my new AlBook too early, or because my 667 MHz G4 TiBook doesn't qualify due to buying it as a BTO from the Apple Store. Via Al.

Macworld Expo call for papers

Interested in speaking at a future Macworld Expo? They're now accepting proposals for the Boston 2004 show, which will take place July 12-15. The deadline for proposals is February 6.

O'Reilly Emergent Democracy Forum

Last month, I bitched about how the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference wasn't covering what I consider to be the most important emerging technology—the one that's changing politics. They've now announced that they'll be holding the O'Reilly Emergent Democracy Forum in conjunction with ETech. Nope, I'm still not speaking at it, but I understand that they've got some good folks involved so I'm sure that it'll be worth your while if you can make it.

Alleged security

Having just done some flying, I was struck, as usual, by how much of the security measures aren't actual security -- that is, they don't make things really safer -- as they are the appearance of security. The idea is to annoy the public with security measures so that they believe that valuable things are being done and that justify the outlay of time and money. For example, yesterday I saw a screener ask that a woman remove her obviously non-lethal hoop earrings only so that the metal detector wouldn't go off. That didn't maker her safer; it only made his life a little easier. Still, there's plenty of room for even more dumbass alleged security measures and warnings: FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs. Yep, now if you have an almanac, you just may be a terrorist plotting an attack. I hope someone tells those well-known al-Qaida stooges, the editors of The World Almanac and Book of Facts.

We're Back

We're back, but posting will probably be light for a few days anyway; both of us seem to have come back with an upper-respiratory pestilence (and I think that I picked up a case of pink eye, too; I'll see my doc about that tomorrow). Whee. At least we seem to have avoided the other pestilence that was on the ship; some of the passengers and crew came down with the Norwalk virus, and got a bout of 48 hours of spewing from both ends. The folks three cabins down from us were quarantined in their cabin the last half of the cruise. Even though we've been feeling a bit icky for a few days, we had a nice time, though I was bummed that my parasailing trip on Saturday was cancelled because the wind was too strong. I still look forward to trying it someday.