06 February 2002

Windows to Mac Like I said a short while back, I'm really seriously considering migrating to a Mac in a couple of months when I finally get to trade in my poor long suffering Dell Inspiron 3200 laptop. More grist to my mill first from ZDNet's David Coursey, who's set himself a "month-long challenge to see if I, long a loyal Windows user, could make Apple the center of my computing universe." Sounds like it's working for him, as the title of the article is Why I love my Mac. If I were to make the change, I'd want to refer back to Mark Pilgrim's notes on how his girlfriend, a long time Window's user, managed her change over to the Mac universe.   5:54:53 PM

One Film to Rule Them All My five year old son just saw Peter Jackson's "Fellowship of the Ring", and he liked it, although he found parts of it a bit scary. I'm gagging to see it too (despite having pointed to a wicked spoof script), and with a bit of luck I'll get to be a wee bit scared too.  I'm all the more impatient for having read Scott Rosenberg's article in Salon this morning on how it manages to 'please both Tolkien nuts and "Lord of the Rings" virgins: "Anyone who watches "The Fellowship of the Ring" with a deep knowledge of the text on which it's based can see -- moment by moment, scene by scene, image by image -- that what's best in Jackson's film is directly drawn from what's best in Tolkien's prose. The film is filled with visual tours de force -- from the way the face of Ian Holm's Bilbo tightens into orcish ferocity when he glimpses the ring he once possessed, to the way the whitecaps on a river flood-tide turn into galloping white stallions as they crest (a scene my colleague Stephanie Zacharek wrote about beautifully in her review of the movie). And every single one of them is a direct screen translation of some special effect that was already present in Tolkien's writing." 11:08:22 AM

Quote of the day "If there's one cockroach, there's always another one.'' Alex Motola, Fund manager On accounting issues like Enron (via fuzzyraygun) 10:46:25 AM

New Palm OS, But Not Just Yet Excellent detail from the Register on the what, why and when of the new Palm OS and Palm's strange strategy in breaking news of it: "Well Palm's got a new hardware platform. It's ARM, and it's cannily rustled up a choice of suppliers. It's got a new homegrown operating system too, which is much more sophisticated than the patchwork manquè devised by Jeff Hawkins as he devised the first, brilliant low-cost Palm. Only Palm's decided that it's not going to tell developers about the new OS, or let them access it, until it quite sees fit. And that isn't now." 10:25:14 AM

Dear George Just to make sure we don't miss the Enron tentacles that still run deep into the heart of George W's administration, Michael Moore lays down a scorcher in this open letter: "The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media just rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on your payroll is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A former advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of Alcoa, whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the your campaign!  Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm representing Enron! Who is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. Thomas White, the Secretary of the Army? A former vice-chair of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal Trade Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man at the White House? He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock. Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal judge in Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the Republican Party, the two Enron officials who now work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets. George, it never stops! My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and there's lots more." 10:14:39 AM