Monday, February 4, 2002
I'm really annoyed with the way Mac OS X encodes information about a file's type. It's not so much that I don't like seeing all these .txt and .app extensions on the end of my file names. I don't like that, but what I really don't like is that it's not immediately obvious what the real file name is anymore. If I create a new file and save it as Untitled.txt, then that is its real name. But if I save it as Untitled, then its real name is Untitled.txt, only the .txt extension is not displayed. I don't like that. At least in windows there's a global option for whether file extensions are displayed. If we have to encode file types using file extensions (and that seems to be the trend), at least there could be some consistency about it. grr...
Mac OS X: Breeds of Programs, Part 2
Mac OS X also supports the public Unix and Java APIs that provide access to a plethora of cross-platform programs, including many types that aren't available in Classic, Carbon, or Cocoa. This week we're going to concentrate on the wide variety of Unix applications that you can run in Mac OS X; we'll save Java for the next installment.
Mom and Pop, or Huge & Impersonal?
The atmosphere in a warehouse club may leave a lot to be desired, but it has what I want and the price is better than right, so that is where I go, just as I go to Home Depot and Trader Joe's and Target. If I want a book, I go to Borders or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com. So, in all likelihood, do you. It's the future, like it or not.
Jonathan Yardley mentions the Barnes & Noble in Rockville, which is the store that (when I lived there a few years ago) finally sold me on the virtues of the big chains. It also got me drinking Starbucks coffee because the two stores were connected and it was a simple matter to pass freely between them. (Note - this was a real Starbucks, not one of those lame B&N Cafe's that proudly serve Starbucks coffee
. The first time I tried the coffee at a B&N Cafe I almost spit it out it was so bad. Burnt, stale, yuck!
Options and Other Accounting Scandals
Enron has ended the belief that American markets aresafe. Safer than most, yes. But at the end of the day, Enron took advantage of U.S. accounting rules to disastrous results. Investors are now terrified of the next Enron, and punishing companies with even a hint of accounting irregularities. This is a good thing.
Studies Raise Questions about Climate Change
Climate prediction just got trickier, according to two new studies appearing in the current issue of the journal Science.
Partnership for a Drug-Free America
What was the deal with those Super Bowl ads?
John Robb
We support terrorism more through the purchase of oil than drugs.
David Kurtz
I almost choked on a pretzel while watching the Superbowl. Twice.
Renzo Riga
The Boston Globe didn't update their page all night. Talk about missed opportunities and not knowing how to capitalize on new media.
Odd... this wasn't my experience at all. I was happily clicking away at all the newly posted stories late into the night.
Philips Burning on Protection
Electronics manufacturer Philips has been fanning the flames in the fight over copy-protected music CDs, threatening to undermine the record industry's attempts to tinker with disc formats in order to thwart music pirates.
DIY Web Services with Radio 8
Dave Winer
Let's have fun!
Radio Userland 8
Jon Udell
Dave's premise, and mine too, is that the Web has been in a state of arrested development since shortly after its birth. It was meant, from the start, to be a two-way collaborative writing environment, not a one-way publisher-to-reader environment. Tim Berners-Lee's ur-browser was, like the W3C's testbed browser Amaya still is, an HTML editor as well as viewer.
The Libertarian Enterprise
Laura W. Haywood
I read Barbara Cunningham's letter on the termpro-lifewith great interest. I agree with her completely that one cannot bepro-lifewhile favoring the death penalty (or bombing other countries).
But I think the term used by the other side -pro-choice- could also use a little work. Except in instances of rape, the pregnant lady has already made her choice. No birth control method is 100 percent reliable. If you want to be 100 percent sure you don't get pregnant, you don't have sex. If you have sex, you've made your choice.Pro-choiceshould be changed topro-second thoughts.
National ID
After all, if you don't have anything to hide, why would you object?
Hollywood Hegemony
Intellectual property law has long since crossed any reasonable boundry, when it's used to attack hapless customers and programmers. There are grave questions regarding whether current electronic data will be even accessible by future generations as computing platforms evolve. In a grotesque perversion of copyright laws originally intended to protect artists of all stripes and encourage artistic development, the tables have been turned to protect the revenue streams of huge corporations in perpetuity.
Councils of War
James Fallows
In practiceopen-source resourcesmeans what the best foreign correspondents and embassy political officers have always tried to keep abreast of, but on a bigger scale: reports in local papers, sudden changes in what's available in stores, snippets from the radio.
Discussion at Slashdot.
Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVI
They're better than the best
Cinderella may have moved to Foxborough this year, but the New England Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl last night for any reason other than they deserved to win.
Fans revel in first title
That howling you heard last night was New England sports fans celebrating the end of a 16-year championship drought.
Champions!
Patriots win Super Bowl, 20-17, on Vinatieri's last-second kick
Patriot Nation
The victory of the Patriots last night in one of the most dramatic Super Bowls ever was a special treat because the team had been pleasantly confounding football writers and fans for the last four months.
Vinatieri and Patriots are Superheroes
The termImpossible Dreamhas a new meaning in Boston sports lore.
Eric Schmidt
Schmidt spoke with Globe technology editor Robert Weisman on a visit to Boston last week.
The man Artery commuters love to hate
Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that the lane closure is a state ploy to purposefully slow traffic and make drivers better appreciate the coming glory of the Big Dig.
Catholics, stung by abuse cases, urge reform
Boston-area Catholics, reeling from the ouster of two more priests accused of sexual abuse of children, yesterday returned to church expressing a mixture of pain, anger, and disbelief.
Emergency in Waltham
Despite the dire condition of Deaconess Waltham, the state ought to try to save it, in acknowledgement that state policy bears partial responsibility for the overall hospital decline. Since the advent of rate deregulation in 1991, Massachusetts has lost 19 hospitals.
