Philonoist.net

Whether or not you’re sold on all the products, face it: Tuesday was the most exciting day for Apple since the release of the iPhone (or even its announcement 1 year ago). 4 majorly big things, culminating in what had long been common knowledge on the Internet: the release of the ultra-thin Macbook Air.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the Macbook Air since Tuesday: who is it for? Why buy it? OMG Apple fails, right? After all, it’s no power machine, running on an oldhat processor. Many people point out, correctly, that upgrading the basic Macbook to 2 gigs of RAM would produce a computer with nearly equal specs at a significant price reduction.

Folks need to learn: it’s not what the product is, but what the product does. And what the Macbook Air does over the Macbook is provide ultra-portability to the masses: for the first time, a 3(!) pound notebook that just works is available. True, there are what can be described as design flaws: a lack of audio in and ethernet ports may come back to bite this thing. But both of those can easily be converted (at a cost) into USB. Stereo speakers would have been nice, too, but in an ultra-portable with a headphone jack, they’re not absolutely essential. Sure I would have liked to see a MacTablet, but this is pretty darn close.

Another thing: it’s not what this product is, but what the next product is. Pity on you if you can’t see the convergence of form factors happening. Apple devices are slowly moving to the singularity: a full on computer in a package the size of the iPhone is years, not decades, away. The limiting factor is the screen dimensions on which they show the eye candy.

And here’s the kicker: I don’t even think the Macbook Air was the killer app on Tuesday. For all the talk of Time Capsule and the iPhone/iPod Touch refreshes, the defining Apple moment was the iTunes Movie Rentals. In the span of about 20 minutes, Steve Jobs killed Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and most of Netflix. With high speed internet reaching ubiquity, over-the-ether movie rentals were inevitable. But take it one step further.

What Apple should do is copy the iPhone apps/widgets business model to movie rentals and music downloads for independent filmmakers and musicians. Aspiring artists can Radiohead the mainstream record labels and upload songs, albums, or indie films onto iTunes. Your movie’s or album’s world premiere could happen in hundreds of living rooms at the same time. Apple could even take a rake on the distribution and first-time filmmakers might still achieve the holiest of Hollywood grails: profitability.

There’s thousands of aspiring filmmakers who just became more enamored with Apple: a whole distribution mechanism could be coming soon to a home theater near you.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, MacBook Air

Filed by Adam College at 10:13 pm under Technology
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Just in case you were wondering…. that ICBM’s gonna have to stay outside, mister!

Taken in the Bahamas.

Tagged with: Photos

Filed by Adam College at 11:38 am under Everything Else
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NEW YORK—A popular romance novelist alleged to have lifted work from other texts acknowledged that she sometimes “takes” her material “from reference books,” but added that she didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources.

“When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,” Cassie Edwards told The Associated Press, speaking earlier this week from her home in Mattoon, Ill.

Edwards then asked her husband to get on the phone. He told the AP that his wife simply gets “ideas” from reference books.

“She doesn’t lift passages,” Charles Edwards said, adding that “you would have to draw your own conclusions” on how closely his wife’s work resembles other sources.

Tip: if you’re going to copy from somewhere (like I did with the above from the Boston Globe) it’s probably a good idea to cite that source. Because a pox o’er your head if you don’t. That pox is Google, which knows everything. When somebody reads your work, and then reads something similar that predates your work, it’s over, man. You’ve lost.

I don’t buy the “I didn’t know I had to” defense from Mr. and Mrs. Edwards: successful artists, filmmakers, and writers know full well the intricacies of copyright law. Think your readers would have been dismayed to see a bibliography in the back of your *historical* romance? Cite your sources, come up with your own language: you’re selling a story, not a collection of other people’s work connected by a thin “romance” plot.

Much more on the story at (*sigh*) Smart Bitches Trashy Books

Technorati Tags: books, cassie edwards

Tagged with: Books

Filed by Adam College at 10:35 am under Everything Else
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Common Sense, the pamphlet by Thomas Paine, was published this day in that most weighty of American years, 1776.

IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

Technorati Tags: History, Common Sense

Tagged with: Books

Filed by Adam College at 10:30 pm under Everything Else
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Take that, bitches.

Technorati Tags: Rickrolled, Mario Paint

Tagged with: Videos

Filed by Adam College at 2:26 pm under Everything Else
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Jared Diamond, he of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame, had quite the interesting opinion piece in today’s Times:

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.

Wow. When you put it like that…

Technorati Tags: Consumption, Jared Diamond

Tagged with: News

Filed by Adam College at 9:02 pm under Everything Else
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Daisy the Labradoodle: October 2004.

Technorati Tags: cute dog, cute overload

Filed by Adam College at 6:34 pm under Everything Else
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Now I want to watch The Rock:

Technorati Tags: Radio Play

Tagged with: Humor, Videos

Filed by Adam College at 12:47 pm under Olin
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Something new for 2008: I’m going to try and ask some trivia questions at least twice a week. No cheating or Googling, you either know it or you don’t. Respond in the comments. First correct answer for each gets the stated number of points (leave your name to get credit)

And away we go:

Q1: For 1 point: name the subject of the photo.

Q2: For 2 points: name the photographer, famous for this photo and others of people jumping.

Q3: For 2 points: Name the photographer.

Q4: For 1 point: This photo is referenced (almost parodied) in a movie from the late 90s. Name that movie.

Q5: For 3 points: Name the subject of this photo. As a hint, the subject shares a name with a character in another film by the same director of the film in Q4.

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: Trivia

Filed by Adam College at 3:04 pm under Trivia
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I’m celebrating with one of my favorite movie scenes. Have I mentioned how much I love the Art Institute of Chicago? Or how much I love Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?

No?

Then here is the obvious (nay, obligatory) YouTube link.

Technorati Tags: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Art Institute of Chicago

Tagged with: Videos

Filed by Adam College at 2:02 pm under Everything Else
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