Thursday 10 April 2003

Adieu Concorde This has got to be the saddest story of the day. Concorde grounded for good. BA and Air France confirm they are retiring their supersonic fleets after more than three decades of luxury travel. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] I remember when Concorde first launched and it was always my dream to fly in her. Now it seems unlikely I ever will. She really was a triumph of engineering and so elegant. Sadly the world wasn't ready for a supersonic airliner. The original vision was that she would be used on the Australian routes, thus the choice of Bahrain - a potential stop-off/refuelling point - as one of the first destinations to be served. In a way her passing is a symbol of mankind's cowardice. We went to the moon in 1969 only to abandon it after a few years. That same year we introduced supersonic air travel but never really developed it. Those were stirring achievements but as a race we seem to prefer the humdrum. 3:49:35 PM    comment []  Google It!

When is a CD not a CD? Copy protection on CDs is a subject close to my heart. The official CD specification makes no mention of copy protection technology. So music companys like EMI that add copy protection are not allowed to use the CD logo on their products or refer to them as Compact Discs. Lockergnome blogs the experiences of one dissatisfied customer in Australia. Copy-protection: are these CDs or not?. I don't own a XBox or would I consider playing a music CD in one, if you do you better read on. There is a great article about a Gent down under who tried playing one of the so called CDs on his X-Box. His correspondence with EMI shows us... [geeknews] [Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes] 3:24:26 PM    comment []  Google It!

Apple offers Mac OS X 10.2.5 Update CD Maccentral reports that Apple is offering a $19.95 CD with the latest upgrade OS X 10.2.5 through the online store. Unfortunately, this CD is not available on the Irish store. The nearest is an update CD for OS X 10.2.4 and it costs a whopping ?30.25. Even allowing for the fact that VAT is included in that price, there is no comparison between the two prices. 2:50:46 PM    comment []  Google It!

© Copyright 2003 David Stewart. Last update: 24/06/2003; 20:53:39.