One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Monday, 22 March 2004

.< 11:57:34 PM >
IPods Beat in Heart of the City

New York and iPods go together like bagels and cream cheese. Just search for the word 'iPod' in New York personal ads, and you get a unique insight into the mentality of the city. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]

< 11:57:03 PM >

In a sure sign of success, satellite radio providers XM and Sirius attract direct attacks from their earthbound competitors. But uncertainties still cloud the companies' financial futures. By Randy Dotinga. [Wired News]

< 11:56:11 PM >

If you've ever wanted to buy a digital camera, this guide demystifies the world of digital photography and imaging—a must-read whether you're a photography enthusiast, a gadget lover, a novice photographer, or anybody who regularly works with images. By Sybex. 0322 [WebReference News]

< 11:09:59 PM >

European regulators plan to levy a record fine of more than $600 million against Microsoft as part of a strongly worded rebuke of the company's business practices. [CNET News.com]

< 11:09:32 PM >

With RealNetworks out of the picture, Microsoft will this week sign a multimillion-dollar deal with the league for live game streaming, the software giant has confirmed. [CNET News.com]

< 11:05:49 PM >

[W]e now have triangulation, between Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, there are two ex-Bush insiders with consistent stories on the nature of the Bush organization. One or two more and even the staunchest Bush supporters are going to wonder if we wouldn't be better off with Kerry. [Scripting News]

< 10:48:03 PM >

< 10:40:49 PM >

"They would do a better service to the American people if they would give honesty to their own budgeting rather than make up ours," she said.

.< 9:46:06 PM >
Apple releases iPhoto 4.0.1 update

If you have the iLife '04 suite installed on your Mac, run Software Update. iPhoto has been updated to version 4.0.1, an upgrade that offers stability enhancements, faster importing, smoother image viewing, easier Rendezvous photo sharing and better thumbnail images. [MacCentral]

< 9:45:08 PM >

Sometimes your iDisk may seem like it hasn't had its morning coffee. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes. Read on to learn about some of the things you can do to help your iDisk perk up. [Apple Computer Knowledge Base Changes for 2004-01-30]

< 2:00:59 PM >

On CBS's "Face the Nation" on March 14, 2004, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that he hadn't used the phrase "immediate threat" to describe the situation in Iraq and that President Bush hadn't either.Thomas Friedman of CBS then presented Rumsfeld with quotes from September 2002 where he did describe the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq as an "immediate threat." Rumsfeld's response was that we may still find that they really were an immediate threat after all.MoveOn.org has a video available which cuts off before Rumsfeld finishes his response.You can also read the full transcript from CBS (PDF), or there is a partial transcript below. [Kuro5hin.org]

< 1:54:02 PM >

"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."

.< 1:33:36 PM >
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Bush attacked on terrorism record
"There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently," Mr Carter told the Independent.

"I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'."

Correspondents say it is very rare for a former US president to criticise an incumbent or a British prime minister.

Former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter speaking.

< 1:26:40 PM >

'Minimizing or hiding the Installer window drops its CPU usage to less than 1% and the Prebinding then gets about 80% of the CPU or so -- quite a difference!' [macosxhints]

Definitely something wonky with the installer. I've often wondered why it took so long to optimize after a software update.

< 1:23:42 PM >

This is a nice detail for PowerBook users. One persistant annoyance with OS X on PowerBooks for programmers has been the way it forces you to hold down the "fn" key to use the function keys as normal function keys. If you d... [macosxhints]

< 1:21:53 PM >

The investigation of the Madrid bombings shows how terrorists continue to exploit advantages against the agents tracking them. [New York Times: International] 'The unfolding Spanish investigation has shown that the terrorists continue to exploit a tactical advantage. The militants operate in an ever-changing constellation of cells, moving freely from country to country across the continent, guided by opportunity and fanaticism. The agents tracking them are constrained by jurisdictional and bureaucratic boundaries. Intelligence is far too infrequently shared, investigators say, often leaving information about dangerous militants woefully incomplete.'

A competent US administration in a genuine fight against terrorism could have helped build consensus in Europe about opening up communication amongst intelligence gathering agencies around the world.

< 1:16:27 PM >

Accusations by the former White House counterterrorism czar promised to reverberate this week as the 9/11 commission conducts a public hearing. [New York Times: NYT HomePage] '"The facts are that within six months of the first bombs falling on Afghanistan, this administration was diverting military and intelligence resources to its planned war in Iraq, which allowed Al Qaeda to regenerate," said Mr. Graham, who was one of the first lawmakers to label the war with Iraq a distraction from the fight against terror. "As the people of Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and most recently Spain have learned painfully well, this president failed to execute the real war on terrorism."'

< 1:13:06 PM >

Economic dispatch: The EU is expected to order Microsoft to undergo a series of anti-monopoly measures. Mark Tran reports. [Guardian Unlimited] 'Barring any late surprises, Brussels will require Microsoft to produce two versions for the European market; one that includes its Windows Media Player, which is used for video and music, and one without. The ruling will also require Microsoft to disclose information to competitors that would allow Windows-based computers to perform tasks like printing and file sharing better.'

< 1:09:15 PM >

Mr Clarke coordinated the writing of a report by the CIA, FBI, and his own staff, concluding that Iraq had few links with al-Qaida and no involvement in the September 11 attacks. He said: "We sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the national security adviser or deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer ... Do it again.'"

.< 12:49:28 PM >
Soros presses anti-Bush effort

CHICAGO -- There were gingerbread houses on the tables and lights on the Christmas trees at the White House holiday reception last December, but George W. Bush was haunted by the ghost of a Hungarian-born billionaire. [Boston Globe -- Front Page] 'Republicans, too, have wealthy benefactors who contribute to conservative causes, Soros notes.

So why does one rich liberal provoke such animosity?

Perhaps, Soros's admirers say, it is because Soros acts against type. He made his money through sophisticated investments and yet has been highly critical of the system that enabled him to make so much money.

"Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat," Soros wrote in The Atlantic in 1997.'

< 12:41:22 PM >

Britain and France condemned Israel's killing of Palestinian Hamas movement leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on Monday and said it would only fuel violence. [New York Times: International]

But bombing Iraq unprovoked would not fuel violence?

< 12:40:09 PM >

Yassin killed in missile strike· Mass protests by Palestinians [Guardian Unlimited] 'Palestinian militants today warned of swift and bloody retaliation against Israel after it "opened the gates of hell" by assassinating Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of militant group Hamas.'

Thanks to Dubbya and the War Party Israel can brush this off as an attack on terrorists.

< 2:25:20 AM >

Israeli military raid kills founder of Hamas
The founder and spiritual leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas is dead after an Israeli missile attack in Gaza City. F U L L S T O R Y
[CBC News]

< 2:21:23 AM >

In New York, San Francisco and around the world, tens of thousands of marchers protested the Iraq War and the Bush administration assault on democracy. [Salon]

Just got an email from dad telling me he organized the march in the city where he lives. Cool.

< 2:17:46 AM >

The Fast Company article"Its a Blog World After All" came out today and while it was interesting and it mentioned a bunch of our customers, it didn't attribute those customers to UserLand. Manila and RSS are really starting to happen in the corporate world and it goes well beyond just simple blogging tools into the way corporations consume and synthesize information as well as communicate it - both internally and externally.

< 2:11:58 AM >

I used to love the dock. The Microsoft task bar was the one cool thing about Windows that I missed in Mac OS 9 and below. When OS X came out, the most noticeable difference for me was the dock. However, I have found myself... [macosxhints]

< 2:06:00 AM >

Apple's recent announcement of Spoken Interface has moved speech recognition to the forefront. However, Mac OS X has included speech recognition and synthesis technologies for quite some time. In this article we delve into the often misunderstood world of talking to your Mac. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: MacDevCenter.com]

< 2:05:15 AM >

Did you ever wonder what exactly should be in the /usr/bin directory? Or maybe what goes inside the /usr/local/sbin directory? I found a great resource of the standards for UNIX describing all the directories in a basic UNIX ... [macosxhints]

< 1:48:23 AM >

I've never been seated firmly on the " weblogs are going to change the media forever and replace newspapers and television" bandwagon. That said, what happens here, and on other local blogs, does seem to more and more involve an interesting sort of feedback loop that you don't see in traditional media.

Whether this is truly powerful and interesting, or a self-involved sort of virtual coffee talk, remains to be seen. In the meantime, it is lots of fun. [Reinvented News]

< 1:45:28 AM >

Snow greets the arrival of the vernal equinox in Montreal. [montreal city weblog]