"The Future Of Mac"

Tom and I were at NCMUG's Mac Computer Expo today. The two of us were asked to sit in with Rik Myslewski (Editor-in-Chief of MacAddict) as the members of a keynote panel. Tom Bridge took notes, which he's posted over at The Future Of Mac: A Discussion. If you weren't there, go read his report.

We had a great time punditizing, and a number of people came up to us afterwards to tell us that they'd found it interesting and fun. Thanks for inviting us, Rik!

Serenity tonight

Looks like we're not the only folks going to the movies tonight. Why am I not surprised that the Joy of Tech folks are fans? And I should point out for the record that Dori actually owns a Blue Sun t-shirt.

Update: Saw it. It's great. Expect joy and sorrow.

Give it up for....God!

I just love the writing of Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, who covers legal matters and the Supreme Court, and occasionally writes colums on other subjects. This piece, Mind the Gaps, hilariously explains how intelligent design isn't just for evolution anymore; it can be used to explain all sorts of things that we just don't know. For example:

But the critics are missing the beauty of this new theory. Because the really great thing about intelligent design is that it takes all the awkward uncertainty out of science. It says, "You know those damn theoretical gaps and conundrums that send microbiology graduate students into dank basement laboratories at 3 a.m.? They don't need to be resolved at all. Go back to bed, sleepy little grad students. God fills those gaps."

See, it's not just me

Quote of the day, from limon, by Laura Lemay, on apple scripting languages and pain:

But it seems like every time I delve into Applescript I rapidly descend into complete madness, ending up hours later phrasing and rephrasing the same line trying to get it to do something trivially simple in any other language and screaming at the computer in fury. It is not a language for humans to program in. It is a gross deceptive horror of a language. It makes no sense. You read AppleScript and you think, OK, it's like english, and you try to write it and no, its not like english at all. It is a happy fluffy pink bunny hiding a jar of acid behind its back. I hate this *@&#(@&*# language.

It's nice to know that it's not just me. There's a reason why I refer to AS as the programming language "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike English." What I really wish Apple would do is make JavaScript available within AppleScript Studio (then they could call it Scripting Studio instead of ASS!) so that those of us who prefer to write in JavaScript can. But that'd take someone inside Apple to champion JavaScript, and I don't see that happening. Dammit.

Post-Katrinia New Orleans

Harold Baquet is the University Photographer at Loyola University, New Orleans, and has been a photojournalist for over 25 years. Here's some of his post-Katrina work.

For astronomy buffs

Pretty Pictures is a page listing many astronomy photos, images, and videos. Tons of good stuff linked from this page.

(Hat tip: Paul Music.)