Author: Mithrandir

Carlo Giuliani: From Lyncher to Martyr

The dailies in the central European city where I’m writing this comment are full of bloody photos and articles decrying the “massacre.” Meanwhile here on K5, someone said he’s turning his homepage black in Giuliani’s honor. What folly!

I too was horrified at the imagry from G8 in Genoa. I don’t know if the article has any merit, but it does pose a slightly different viewpoint on this situation, and warrants a look-see. Is it possible to mitigate such a gut-wrenching act of violence?

From the register:

“Performance is let down, however, by the system bus speed which is limited to 66MHz. Desktop Macs and the PowerBook G4 have a bus speed of 100MHz, and the performance difference is evident in tests. Although fast, the iBook is slower than a similarly rated iMac, and the PowerBook G4 easily outperforms it ? but then as it costs �1000 more you would expect it to. Nevertheless, the iBook is fast enough for most tasks and applications you care to throw at it. Our only other complaint with regard to system specification is the amount of supplied RAM. Of the four iBook models available one ships with only 64MB, while the other three are stocked with 128MB. Given that Mac OS X – Apple’s next-generation operating system – which is to be preinstalled on all new Macs, needs a minimum of 128MB to run, this is very poor. ”

Amen brothers! Let us pour on the RAM! It is cheap, and cometh from the heavens to speedeth our computing needs!

OK, sports fans. I have long been an advocate of thin-client solutions. Furthermore, i think that Apple has a really good opportunity to help themselves out. Think of this: a NIC like thin client, with an LCD and the usual hookups, tied intoa MacOSX server, netbooting, and with NFS mounts over either gigabit ethernet or wireless (all of which Apple has demonstrated). Kinda like the stuff
Sun is doing, but with MacOS and Mac::Office. No company wants to switch over completely to Sun, but what about Apple? hmm…..

This could be the era of thin clients. Of NFS and netboot. Low TCO and logging in from anywhere.

I am a big advocate of this technology in the educational market and workplace. Think about it: why does a sales guy or a kindergarterner need their own computer just to do simple stuff? It is time to consolidate our computing power and use it wisely.

To follow up on my last post, i just saw a link on pricewatch that has 256 megs of Mac memory for $32. Sorry, considering going from a 500 Mhz chip to a 600 Mhz chip is about $100, but QUADRUPLING by memory to insane levels is about $32….. it is so foolish for Apple to sell anything less than 256 megs of RAM in any of their products.

I know that RAM is supposed to be an upsell, but heck, why not make SURE that everyone has plenty of RAM, and upsell things like digital cameras and other accessories that *gasp* use memory.

If I didn’t already have 160 megs of memory in my iMac (which, if you are not using classic, feels likea decent but not awesome amount) I would buy a big ol’ 256 megs stick of RAM and have 384 megs….

A great article on why MacOSX seems slow. I gotta tell you, not just as a Mac Bigot (which I am) but also a Linux bigot (which I also am), I love MacOSX. It is WAY too cool for words. However, some operations do seem slow… I tend to avoid moving windows as much as possible.

The solution given in the article? two things: 1) Get Apple to optimize OSX (which Apple is doing and will just take time). 2) get more memory! MacOSX is very memory intensive, but is speedy when it has memory to gobble.

Which leads me to my point. Why the HELL doesn’t Apple just sell 256 megs of RAM with every single machine they sell now. The system requirements for OSX is AT LEAST 128 Megs of RAM, and yet that is the base for most computers (and some actually sell with 64 megs of RAM). It is like the original iMac that required at least 40 megs of RAM to have OS8.x up *and* Netscape…. immediatelys sending anyone with only 32 megs of RAM into virual memory and feeling slow. Given opening Netscape was the primaty purpose of the machine to 99% of the people who bought it, this was unacceptable.

RAM is cheap. RAM is super cheap, and it is the most cost-effective way to make a machine feel zippy even when its processor is a little old *cough g3 cough*. Apple should base everything on having 256 megs of RAM and be done with it.

GPS = Gotta Pay for Speeding

When Turner signed Acme’s rental agreement last October, he didn’t notice the warning at the top of the contract that read: “Vehicles in excess of posted speed limit will be charged $150 fee per occurrence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped.”

So now we live in a world where a Corporation can impose fines (as defined in the fine print of their User Agreement) if a user breaks the law using their product. The bitch is that the “law” is arbitrarily defined by the Corporation (i.e. they can set their threshold to consider 35MPH speeding). Bend over folks. How long before M$ teams up with the RIAA to issue end users fines if they have “illegal” media files on their PC? And don’t even get me started on the ethics of tracking and recording my physical movements while in my car.

Bring the Family home on DVD

It was announced this week that the complete Godfather trilogy is set for DVD release this fall. The 5-disc set includes all three movies with full audio commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola, and a huge suite of extras.

An offer I can’t refuse.

My Political Compass:
Economic Left/Right: -5.92
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.75
I guess we all basically think alike 🙂

My Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -5.51
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.49

Could have predicted this one. According to this test, I’m a little right of Fozzy, but still firmly in the Libertarian Left. Although I couldn’t help but feel like a lot of the questions were loaded.

Clean underwear for Disney workers

“Some workers complained about receiving undergarments that were stained or smelly and Mr Steverson said there have been three cases of costumed workers at the Magic Kingdom getting pubic lice or scabies during the past two years.”

That’s might big of Disney. Unbelievable. Is this not the 21st Century, or do we have to re-write The Jungle?
via Zgeek