The Blog From Another Dimension

Visitor Check for June

Well, the end of the month is here, and according to the AwStats on my web site, business is up appreciably. The table for visitors for the year so far is displayed below. Note that I started the current incarnation of this blog in early April:

Month	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Jan 2003	6	6	33	52	592.24 KB
Feb 2003	5	5	17	33	416.12 KB
Mar 2003	13	13	36	90	1.42 MB
Apr 2003	79	120	718	1991	12.53 MB
May 2003	442	679	2445	6178	130.60 MB
Jun 2003	717	1907	4979	33384	749.88 MB
Total	1262	2730	8228	41728	895.41 MB

Not bad growth here--almost too fast, in fact. If traffic increases at this rate, I'll be over my traffic bandwidth limit by October of this year (I'm allowed 3GB/mo. under my current plan). But then again, that's the whole idea of putting up a web site--getting people to visit.

"God Instructed Me"

There was an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz about the peace talks in the Middle East. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas met with President Bush, and told Ha'aretz that, after speaking with Bush about Sharon, Bush told Abbas:

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

Is that scary, or what? And so far, the U.S. press has not seemed to pick up on the story yet. Can you imagine any other president before saying that God instructed him to invade a foreign country and the press not having a field day about it?

One can only hope that the press is at least asking about the quote. Naturally, Bush's people will claim it was a misquote, especially if it wasn't, but if the press doesn't at least partially cover it, this should be yet another proof that the press is covering and shilling for the Bush administration.

Thanks to Sako for the tip on the story.

And the Excuses Keep on Coming

It seems now that the excuses for why we aren't finding WMD in Iraq are as varied as the falsified reasons for invading Iraq were before the invasion. In the months before we sent forces in, we heard that Hussein had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and had reconstituted its atomic program; but now a massive, long-term search has brought up only a few empty trucks that even the U.S. State Dept. doesn't think were for WMD production and a small cache of 12-year-old parts and plans for atomic production, which if anything show that the atomic program was not in fact reconstituted.

So what are the excuses? The weapons are still there, but hidden (said "massive stockpiles" must be damn well hidden to avoid any detection after this time); the Iraqi public and people involved are still so terrified of Hussein they won't speak (right); the weapons were moved before/during the invasion (read: we may need justification for war against Syria); the weapons were destroyed before the invasion (how stupid is that? If they destroyed the WMD before the invasion, why not shout it to the world and avoid the invasion in the first place?); or the WMD were looted (every single last gas canister and document? And if so, why haven't we found even the smallest part of these massive stockpiles in looter's caches that have been found?).

How about this possibility: we were totally lied to.

Hattori Revisited

I wanted to touch on this story as a tangent to the greater current issue of press unreliability and the distortion of truth. It came up in a conversation I was having today having to do with how the view of our world is skewed through the reportage of the mass media. In "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore pointed out how U.S. television overplayed images of black criminals and underplayed white ones. A current version of that in Japan is the kind of crimes committed by members of the U.S. armed forces based here, and how they are amplified in the press--things like a pizza delivery guy getting pelted by a toy plastic pellet gun wielded by someone on an Okinawan base--hardly news, but it gets national coverage because the perp was from a U.S. base.

What might have been the definitive example for Japan-U.S. media distortion, however, was the case of Yoshi Hattori, the young Japanese exchange student shot to death by Rodney Peairs. When it occurred, I was a student at San Francisco State University, and wanting to get the straight details on the case, I accessed the college's LexisNexis account, and found court transcripts and other records which told a much different story than I'd heard popularly--and which put the incident in a completely different light than how it was represented in the press.

When I ask people to recall how young Hattori got shot, the general recollection was that Hattori went to the wrong address, was met by an aggressive, paranoid homeowner who raised a gun and yelled "freeze"; that Hattori thought he said, "please," and walked towards him, and then he got shot. That is the general story that was released in the media, and if you do a search on the story on the web, you will find that even today, the story persists.

But it is far from the truth. Vital facts were left out; the story was abbreviated, and was not told from all perspectives. Here's what I was able to piece together so many years ago from the materials I found.

First off, you should be made aware of two important facts that contribute to a completely new understanding of the case, facts which make the incident and some of its indirect causes far more clear. The greater of these two revelations was that Hattori wore contact lenses, but not on that night: he had lost one lens, and so went without. In other words, his eyesight was impaired. One would think this a fact of great importance to the case, but the press did not touch on it at all. The second fact was the friendly, almost puppylike nature of Hattori himself: when he saw his friends, he had a tendency to run up to them in greeting. This comes into play later as well. You should also know that Peairs' neighborhood was a high-crime area; that police response time was around 30 minutes (indeed, the ambulance that came for Hattori took that long to arrive). This contributes to Peairs' state of mind about whether he should handle the matter himself, or wait for law enforcement to arrive.

Here's what occurred that night, October 17, 1992. Hattori and Haymaker, on their way to a Halloween party, unknowingly arrived at the wrong address (two numbers in the address had been transposed). They walked up to the house and knocked (rang?) at the front door. Mrs. Peairs did not answer immediately because she was putting the kids to bed. She wondered who was at the door that late in the evening, in that neighborhood, with no visitors expected. By the time she got to the front door, no one was there. Hattori and Haymaker, wondering why their friends did not answer, had decided to try the carport door.

Now, a carport is like an open garage, and the door for it is not as "public" as the front door. In terms of personal space and perception, the carport door is somewhat more of an "inside" door, a door strangers do not come to. It is similar to a stranger coming to your side or back door at night--it makes you feel a little insecure. The two boys thought it was OK because they believed it was a friend's house. But when Mrs. Peairs, just having opened the front door to no one, heard the knocking at the carport door, it was far more worrying to her. She went to the carport door to see who it was.

However, by the time she got there, the boys, again wondering at the delay, had moved away from the door. When she opened the door, Hattori reacted as he did when he greeted new friends: he ran to the door to greet them. From the perspective of Mrs. Peairs, however, this was an entirely different event. She opened a private door to her home, saw two young men--one dressed as a bloody accident victim, the other as a disco star--and suddenly one of them ran at her. Her understanding of context--night in a high crime area, nobody expected, putting the kids to bed, strange youths who ditched the front door and came to an inside door--this made Hattori's playful greeting run appear frightening. So she freaked out. She slammed the door, ran to her husband, and told him strange young men were at the carport door, and one ran at her, so get the gun!

It is important in understanding what Rodney Peairs did to know that Peairs did not answer the door originally, had not seen what had happened, and did not lay eyes on either boy until he stepped out into the carport with his gun. He entered the situation knowing only what his wife had told him: that strange youths had come to the carport door and one had rushed at her. This left no room for doubt in his mind; he could not possibly know it was a friendly exchange student. Rather, his understanding of the local context along with his wife's frantic explanation and plea gave him only one clear understanding: young punks outside were threatening his family. Angry and perhaps afraid, he got his gun and went to the carport door.

And here was the critical error, the one that, more than anything else, caused the tragedy to occur--at least the only knowing error: Peairs went out into the carport. What he should have done was to make sure no one had come inside, locked all the doors and windows, called for the police, and waited inside with his gun, using it only if someone tried to enter. Going out and confronting thugs may be in accord with the macho code, but it is tactically unsound and generally unwise.

So Peairs stepped out, expecting that he was dealing with some kind of criminal element in his carport. By this time, Haymaker and Hattori had moved out beyond the parked cars in the carport; Haymaker was trying to explain to Hattori his suspicion that they were at the wrong house; Hattori still hadn't gotten the idea somehow. Then they heard Peairs call out to them, and say "Freeze!" Peairs raised the gun in plain sight.

Here's where the missing contact lenses came into play. Most people wonder, even if he didn't understand "freeze," why Hattori didn't see the gun. The missing contacts were why. He couldn't see. To Hattori, a friend had walked out, and Hattori rushed to greet him. But in Peairs' context, a clear warning had been given, and a gun had been displayed in plain sight. And yet, one of the young thugs he perceived in his driveway started to run right at him, holding some dark metallic object (it was a camera) in his hand. To Peairs, it could not have been more clear at the time. He fired his gun, and Hattori soon died.

Knowing the whole story makes a difference. With all of these facts stated, the Peairs' actions are far more understandable. There was still a tragic error and the fault was Mr. Peairs', but one can see now that Peairs was not the violent, paranoid gun nut he was made out to be in the press. Context and perspective are crucial for a clear view. The public, especially in Japan, was outraged when Peairs was cleared of wrongdoing in criminal court; if one knew the true story, one would not be surprised at all. Although Peairs made the error of stepping outside and was ultimately responsible for Hattori's death, what he did was within the law, especially under Louisiana's "shoot the burglar" statute.

Returning to the thesis of this entry, the distortion by the press was obviously a factual one, but also there was the element of degree: the Hattori story remained in the press for years, and for the first 18 months, Japanese papers ran stories on it several times every week. But, like the stories about U.S. military personnel in Okinawa, the story was run way out of proportion to its actual importance.

One day's second-page layout in the Daily Yomiuri exemplified the imbalance in ironic splendor. I saw it fully a year and two months after the Hattori incident, with Yoshi stories still running regularly. There was a 6-inch article on the continuing Hattori saga, about a planned film project called "The Boy Who Loved America"--talk about you bitterly ironic titles. But right next to it was a 2-inch piece about a death that had occurred just the day before. Somewhere in the Kansai region, a hunter had accidentally shot and killed a 62-year-old woman who was in the hills looking for wild vegetables to use during the New Year's holidays. The story, though fresh, ran just for that one day, and only got those two inches.

Reading these two articles together, it occurred to me that the Kansai story was in many ways identical to the Hattori story. A man, legally owning a gun and using it for legally allowed purposes (hunting, defending one's home), mistakes an innocent, on a holiday outing, for an acceptable target, shoots and kills them. The Kansai killing took place in a country where guns are as rare as gun deaths--and yet the incident barely made a ripple in the press. But the Hattori case, already more than a year old, demanded a story three times the length of the new story.

This is not what one could call "balanced reporting." But then, this is my contention: that the media does not balance, despite their claims to do so. They print what sells. They cater to stereotypes, reinforcing them.

Don't trust what you read. Don't trust that you're hearing all the pertinent facts or perspectives. Don't trust that anything is presented in proportion.

So how do we get the big picture? We don't, and that's what is important to realize: in this information age, we expect that it is possible to get all the facts, but it never is. When you regard an issue, keep in mind that you do not and will never know the whole story. Most people forget this and believe their conviction to be a virtue.

Sawai? Because.

Took a trip to Sawai today with Hiromi. Here are a few snaps from the trip.

Open Eyes

The little piggies are quail-sized now, with open eyes and the beginning of adult plumage. Still ugly as sin, but are looking a bit more like pigeons and a little less like miniature California Condors.

Are They Serious?

The Media is either desperate or shameless, or both. The latest "breaking news" is that an Iraqi nuclear scientist buried in his backyard some parts and plans that would contribute to the building of a centrifuge that would contribute to the building of an atomic weapon. Twelve years ago. And they were never disturbed, until now (when the scientist wanted a deal to relocate).

And this is somehow supposed to make use believe that Iraq was, potentially, at some unknown time in the future, maybe digging up these parts and making a bomb. The media is spinning this as being the tip of the iceberg, and maybe we'll start seeing a lot more after this.

What a crock.

Before the war, Bush and Cheney were making open statements saying that they believed Hussein had or was on the verge of producing atomic weapons. Nearly three months after the war in Iraq, we have found squat--so little that a measly 12-year-old buried cache of spare parts is earth-shaking news.

If anyone in the American public sees this as being somehow justification for the war or proof that Iraq was seriously developing WMD, they deserve little respect.

What next? Will they find a few hypodermic needles thrown out from a hospital 20 years ago and say that this could be the tip of the bioweapons iceberg? Stay tuned.

Or maybe switch to another channel and watch some Star Trek--much better grounding in reality in that show.

Chofu Station Platform

A nice photo of a platform on the Keio line, Chofu Station, a few nights ago. A larger version of the image is here.

Still Pretty Ugly

The chicks are getting bigger fast, but still have closed eyes, and, as you can see, not the prettiest of plumage yet. That ought to change soon; they should be flying from the nest in just three week's time.

G5s For Real -- Details and Analysis

Slightly annoying (to say the least) is that the looped streaming netcast of Jobs' keynote at WWDC is consistently freezing up Quicktime for me, so I woke up at 5am for nuthin'. But it's not like that's the only place to find out about the news--I just would have preferred to see it that way.

Yes, the mistakenly leaked G5 (photos, QT VR) details were indeed true, and some other cool stuff got released as well. The CPU is the new IBM PPC 970, and the top-end model is a dual 2.0 GHz processor, which in terms of hertz alone is at least a match to the 3.2 GHz Pentiums coming out about now. But the PPC has always dome better than the Pentiums in a hertz-to-hertz match, meaning that the new top-end system is closer to a 5- or 6-GHz Pentium system. And the price for the dual 2GHz PowerMac will be $3,000--almost $300 less than the present dual 1.25 GHz G4 system sells for today. The "low-end" system (1.6 GHz) will sell for $2,000. Jobs claims the equivalent Dell would cost over $4,000, but that's probably including software extras whose equivalents come free with the Mac. Still, as I calculate it, the top-of-the-line Dell and Mac G5 will cost about the same, and the G5 will give significantly better performance. Jobs demonstrated the G5 outpacing that Dell 2-1 in a Photoshop test. Even if rigged, you can bet the Mac will still be faster in a more objective test, at least in part because of the new, wider 64-bit architecture, allowing more data to flow through the processor at any given time (like widening the mouth of a bottle to let liquid pass through more quickly).

Better yet, Jobs promised processors up to 3 GHz within 12 months--and it's not clear if that will be the PPC 970, or the next-generation PPC 980, which is supposed to go up to 5- to 6-GHz within the next few years. Without question, the Mac, long in the Motorola doldrums, is now in clear sailing waters. I'll likely wait for the 3 GHz model myself, simply because that'll be in line with my next scheduled desktop buy, and the G5 will be tested and true by then.

Other details on the new system: dual 1 GHz frontside buses, very fast for getting around bus bottlenecks; Apple is finally out of that morass as well, and has jumped ahead of Wintel (max 800 MHz bus). The new bus effectively allows a whole DVD's worth of data to be transferred through the processors in less than a second, if the DVD could be read that quickly! 512K L2 cache, now up there with the biggest that Wintels have. Up to 8 GHz of DDR400 RAM (if you can afford it). Optical audio for Dolby 5.1 surround sound, fast graphics bus, Firewire 800/400, USB 2.0, the works.

Coming out "before the end of the year" (a bit cryptic, but then the G5 came out WAY earlier than expected), is Panther--Mac OS 10.3. Panther will make the new G5 accelerate to full power, as it will be 64-bit compatible. If you buy the new G5 Macs in August, you'll still be getting OS X 1.2 (Jaguar), which will run natively on the G5, but won't give you full advantage of the new chips. All the same, you will get the GHz advantage with Jaguar--it will run natively on the new chip, not in emulator (slow) mode. But Panther will really speed it up. Hopefully for those customers, they will get a free upgrade to 10.3, but you never know.

The new OS does more than just upgrades to run on the new CPUs. It also has a new filing system that catalogs everything on your drives, making a search for a file go amazingly quickly. Up until now, the Mac OS find file feature has run rings around Windows XP, which requires a multi-step process before you can start the search, and the file search itself takes forever. Jaguar introduced the in-window search bar, always visible, which scans whatever folder or volume is open quickly for any text string. Panther will take that further, dropping search times from several seconds to IMMEDIATELY. Fast, no wait, no spinning or waiting cursors. Type in a partial filename and a list will instantly appear, paring down as you type in more letters, just like in Apple's iTunes. This is now system-wide, available to many apps. Other file-handling features will include a safe-erase, where data is overwritten several times when thrown out.

New finder windows will include customizable favorite folders and a slightly better arrangement of files in the window, and this will also be available in open and save dialog boxes, for the first time. And finally! We've got back the Labels ability, so you can customize and sort files by your own definitions. This has been missing since OS X replaced OS 9. They will appear as a colored loop around the file name, a nice touch.

Also made easier will be network connections--they will show up automatically in a new window, instead of having to use the "Connect to" command in the Go menu.

Window control in Panther will also get a nice revision with something called Exposé (if your browser can read that last accented "e"), which allows all open windows to be quickly tiled, highlighted, or set aside to reveal the desktop, using the F9, F10 and F11 keys (keys assignable, Jobs said). I just saw the demo, and MAN, is it nice. On a keystroke or a corner-mouse, you can have all open windows minimize to the point where all windows are fully visible; mouse over any window and you see its title; click on one and that window comes to the front. No more going to menus or trying to select buried windows when too many are open. It's like spreading everything out and just picking up the one you want, but it's all automatic and graphically slick, thanks to Quartz Extreme. Another feature is to make all windows step aside so you can see the desktop; select an icon and drag a little, and the windows come back for really easy drag-and-drop.

iChat will get its long-awaited video upgrade, and will cost $29 for Jaguar when it comes out, but will be free in Panther. You can buy a nice Apple camera ("iSight") set for $150 or so as well, and if you have a good internet connection, you can supposedly get very nice 2-way video conferencing. Apple seems to be claiming you can do it at 56K as well, but I wouldn't expect very good quality.... Audio connections will also work for those without cameras. Jobs demoed to new technology with Al Gore calling him, and Jobs calling Apple reps across the country and the world. Looks very slick, very good quality in the demo.

Other new features include fast user switching, allowing different accounts to not only be used concurrently without quitting apps, but to switch in just a second or so, with a nice 3-D graphic transition to boot. Font control is being vastly improved, allowing you to switch fonts on and off as well as group them quickly and without quitting or restarting any apps. By creating font "collections" and switching each one on or off, you can go from hundreds of fonts to just a few in just a few seconds. That'll be great for me, as I use hundreds, but hate going through the vast list in apps like MS Word.

Rendezvous (remote server browsing in Finder), the Preview app (dramatic speed upgrades, very nice text searching added), the Mail app (thread sorting), Print-faxing, iDisk and (for developers) X11 all will be getting tweaks and upgrades as well. So call it a pretty well-rounded upgrade. And count on paying about $130 (probably $100 street price, maybe $70 academic) for the upgrade. I was going to wait to re-install my OS (gotta do that every year or it gets too buggy), but Panther might not be out till December (though it could be sooner), so I'm doing it in August instead, and I'll just upgrade when Panther comes out.

All in all, a very good step for the Mac. Question is, will it increase the Mac's faltering market share? Hope so...

UPDATE: Finally got the stream to work. Figures, I'll have to leave for work well before I can see the whole keynote. Rrrgg. Extra details include the new Tokyo Apple store in Ginza, which is slated to open "early next year." Jobs showed a rendering of what the shop will look like, but no landmarks to show where on the Ginza it'll be.

He also showed a cute bit from Jay Leno, where an Osama bin Laden double was singing "Big Butts" while listening to an iPod, as a joke ad for the Apple Music Store.

Of Course He Had Them... Maybe

Here's a good blog entry detailing two and a half dozen prominent statements by Bush and his officials swearing up and down that Hussein had massive stocks of all sorts of WMD, and we knew it for a fact including where they were.

Note how, as time goes by in these chronological quotes, there is a wee bit of backpedaling. And of course, you can be assured that this is only a very partial list.

And let's not forget some of the other scary quotes:

"A report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA -- that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need." -- George Bush, September 7, 2002

We know (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons." -- Dick Cheney, March 25, 2003

Freakin' Huge Hairy Spider

OK, I am now officially getting screens for my windows, or else finding some other way to keep cool for the summer. Did I ever mention that large insects completely freak me out? They do. Under a few centimeters in length, I got no problem. But if they're as big as a medium-sized cockroach, I start to climb the walls. Call it a weakness. I just hate 'em.

So imagine my joy at laying in bed tonight, and seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. On the wall across from my bed, a 12-cm-span spider, I kid you not, is crawling right along near the ceiling. As advertised, I freak out. Not enough to kill my instinct for good blog fare, so I grab my camera and venture as close as I dare to snap the thing's picture. Between further attacks of the Willies, I run to the kitchen to get a large metal bowl and something thin and hard (a plastic hand fan does the job). I come back, and in a feat of stupendous bravery (or sniveling cowardice, depending on how you define it), I trap the spider underneath the bowl and toss it out the window.

It was either him or me, and I pay the rent here. I mean, really, look at the picture. Look at the FANGS on that thing!

YyyeeeEEEeessshh!

Full Nest

Mama bird is now almost constantly setting on her two chicks. When I come out to take a peek and a telephoto shot into her nest area, she stays put--except for the very occasional times when I hear more than the usual flutter of wings an no one is there. That's when I got the second pic. Both chicks look fine so far. Papa bird comes in to land from time to time, and seems to be the one doing the feeding--he ducks down under mama bird before taking off again.

Hatch: Oops!

Senator Orrin Hatch made news recently when he proclaimed that those guilty of downloading copyrighted material from the web without paying for it should have their computers trashed.

But web critics quickly discovered that Hatch's own web site used at least one and possibly more copyrighted software scripts without following the license agreements required by the maker.

In addition to that embarrassment, a broken link on Hatch's site was found to lead to an X-rated porno site.

Oops.

G5s--News Seems Confirmed

Now everyone is reporting on the apparently accidental release of the specs on the G5 computers by Apple, and more and more people are accepting it as fact. At first, it was thought to be a hoax, but details about how difficult such a perpetrations would be along with Apple's silence on the matter, are enough to convince almost everyone by now.

Wired News carried an article on it, and noted something interesting:

...experts say a PowerPC 970 has the potential to perform as well as Intel-compatible chips running at two to three times the clock speed of the 64-bit chip.

If true, then the Dual-2GHz model running OS 10.3 aka Panther could equal the performance of a 5- or 6-GHz Pentium 4. Even at a slightly higher price than new 3.2 GHz models, a Dual-2GHz PowerMac would blow away the Pentium device and be a boon to people who need processor-intensive tasks done--including photo- and video-editing as well as 3D-games and other rendering.

Not to mention the brag factor...

Hatching Time

OK, not everybody is excited about new pigeons coming into the world, but nevertheless, it is new life, and despite the common perception, I believe any kind of bird is a wonderful creature. I heard mama pigeon fly away and so I quickly jumped out to the balcony to see the nest's status--and lo, one chick is out, and by the look of the cracking on the other shell, number two is not far behind.

New G5 Mac Models -- Apple Accidentally Spills the Beans!

Apple Computer has always been very tight-lipped about new models coming out, saving their presentation for Steve Jobs' keynote speech, and at this years WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) Jobs was due, according to rumors, to unveil the biggest upgrade to the Mac hardware and software in many years. But it looks like the element of surprise may be gone, and probably some poor web site developer will lose his or her job at Apple, because the specs for the new G5 Mac computers were accidentally posted on the Apple Store web site.

The page (captured here) shows mostly details from present models, but the text graphic in the upper left area would be for the newer models. Presumably, what happened is that the new graphic was accidentally uploaded and replaced the old one, and no one caught it soon enough. Maybe the graphic was accidentally given the same name as the old one and over-wrote it.

HOWEVER: The details of the new machines almost seem TOO good, meaning that it could have been a prank, a hack by someone to get all the rumor sites and customers juiced up only to be let down. But for such a hack to happen on Apple's own web site is also a bit much to ask--especially since Apple, so far, is not shooting this one down, which you think they would do immediately.

For those of you who Want To Believe, and want to know about the new machines, here are the juicy details:

* New CPU: PowerPC G5 (presumably IBM's fast new 970 chips)

1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz or Dual 2.0 GHz models!
The high end dual system would almost certainly blow away the fastest Pentium.

* Up to 1 GHz processor bus

That means the speed that connects the CPU to the RAM, and 1 GHz is amazingly fast;
Apple has always been hobbled by slow bus speeds.

* Up to 8 GB of DDR SDRAM

If true, this would increase RAM by four times previously
If, of course, you have the moolah to buy all that RAM!

* Fast Serial ATA hard drives
* AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
* Three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots
* Three USB 2.0 ports

This would mark the debut of USB 2.0 on the Mac

* One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
* Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready

Meaning you have to add them, but there are slots for them.

* Optical and analog audio in and out

OK, now for a little analysis...

There are some reasons to doubt this was authentic. A 1 GHz bus speed goes beyond what anyone was thinking of as possible. (Update--maybe I'm wrong on this one--apparently a bus at half processor speed is not too much to ask... but I don't know.)

The graphic that caused the hullabaloo does not exactly match the existing graphic's styles--it is a bit larger, a bit darker, and has a few wording changes that are non-standard. One hopes that it is not a prank, but one must be realistic.

But still hopeful.

If these specs are true, then the Mac will once again blow Windows machines away, and with a new OS that will beat Windows out by two years on many features, it could be a home run for Apple.

Discussion on this can be found at:

MacRumors.com
Apple's Discussion Boards
Ars Technica MacAch Forum
O'Grady's PowerPage

Look for updates and more info to come soon--if not Monday at the WWDC.

Suntory Brewery Tour

Last Saturday, Hiromi and I spent the early afternoon at the Suntory Brewery in Fuchu, Tokyo. Hiromi called ahead of time and got us reservations for the 10:30 tour; apparently, you might be able to get in without an appointment, but since many of the tours fill up, you might have to wait a while if you don't get one in advance. The number to call for tours is 042-360-9591.

You go to Bubaigawara Station, a station which has two train lines crossing (the Keio main line and the Nambu line, running between Tachikawa and Kawasaki). Right outside the exit (I was told there was only one exit), to the right, there is a pedestrian overpass taking you to the bus terminal on the South side of the station. If you walk around the depot, you'll see a yellow sign at one end which shows where the Suntory bus will stop and pick you up.

The free shuttle bus (beer yellow in color, of course) will take you to the nearby brewery, dropping you off at the registration center. You have to fill out a form with your info before taking the tour.

Once the tour starts, you're taken upstairs to a movie room, where, frankly, I expected an informative little film showing the brewing process. Nope. It was a 5-minute long beer ad, mostly showing fields of malt dancing in the wind, along with beer being poured to the sound of a thirsty person chugging a cold one down. "Ahhh!"

Then you get the tour, where they show you, one by one, their main ingredients: malt, hops, and water. Yes, water. Mesmerizing. But then you get taken through various parts of the brewery, showing the vats where fermentation takes place, the tanks where the beer is stored (you walk through one of them), and the filtration area. That part is actually quite interesting; they hand out the filtration paper, and I swear it looks just like regular paper, albeit a bit smoother, and the beer passes through a multitude of the things. Hard to believe they can actually filter any liquid through it, but they say they do. In fact, they claimed that if milk is put through the system, it comes out clear.

Then you get taken to their recycling display. They claimed that all aluminum and glass they use is recycled, and the PET bottles that they use to produce their other products (like CC Lemon, for instance) are shredded, treated, and turned into clothing. All the jackets worn by the brewery workers are made out of the stuff. They pass around one of the jackets, and it is impossible to tell that the thing ever existed in the form of plastic. After that, you are taken through the canning area, and get another video, but soon after, the real reward comes in: the bar.

Yes, as a reward for coming in and suffering through the 40-minute beer commercial, you are treated to free samples of their products, including their Diet and Premium beers, if you want them. You only get 15 minutes or so before you are ushered out for the next group to come in, so some guzzling may be required to get full value. Hiromi and I were able to put down three glasses each before the rest period ended, and we didn't really drink incredibly fast. I could have eked in a fourth one...

And what would beer be without some snacks to wash it down with? They give you some nice munchies, including senbei, peanuts, a bit of cheese, and some snacks I couldn't identify--but they were all very good.

Kampai!

The tour's web site with time information and the telephone information is located here. If you live in another part of Japan and want to see if there's a place to tour there, try this page.

Enjoy!

Note: 100th Entry...

Gloves Off in War Against Online Piracy

The record labels are going nuts.

First they sued Napster to shut them down--understandable, Napster was a centrally identifiable organization with a direct hand in piracy. Then they started suing people, from those that produced pirating software to those who put copyrighted material on the web. Harsh, maybe heavy-handed, but still legal and understandable.

Then they started going just a tad overboard, creating a computer virus and intentionally infecting computers with it. Now, Orrin Hatch and others are getting mean, too--escalating the threat from "damage" to "destroy." Under the proposed legislation, if you downloaded, say, three Beatles' songs from KaZaA, you would not be sued or imprisoned--instead, your property would be trashed.

Now, I am not trying to argue that online piracy should be allowed, but there is such a thing as going way too far to punish people for it. It is equivalent, for example, to creating a car that, when stolen, would burn down the thieve's house; or a shoplifting tag on clothing that would, if taken out of the store, melt your entire wardrobe. Those who are stolen from have the right to try to catch those who steal and retrieve their stolen property. They do not, in my humble opinion, have the right to destroy other belongings that person holds.

This is just the next step in an escalating war on music piracy that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is trying to take, and if you ask me, it stinks to high heaven, undermining our principles of justice. If you steal my bicycle, I have no right to trash your garage. I get the evidence and present it to the police. But the RIAA feels they are above us all on this one, that they can not only take the law into their own hands but also go beyond normal standards of decency.

And the reason? Online piracy is destroying their sales, they say. Baloney. Record sales started falling when the economy started to tank. Before the bad economy, people were downloading like crazy from Napster, and yet record sales increased throughout that period. The record labels--and anyone who looks at the figures and does some simple correlation--know full well this is true. But the labels, despite knowing they don't lose much, want to protect their property entire. But they know full well that consumers will not swallow these "protections" without good cause, so they hold up their sagging sales as the justification. But the justification is false.

The RIAA has to be held to the same standards as the rest of us. I don't pity the pirate who gets trashed, but I do fear the corporation or organization that believes it is above the people and can infringe on their civil rights.

Not to mention, hackers will likely find a way to get around the trashing scheme rather quickly--so what will the RIAA ask for next?

Update: This Kuro5hin article says it all beautifully, much better than I could.

Eyelid Twitching Is Hot

NOTE: "Eyelid twitching" is getting zillions of Google hits. I wrote an update that will be more helpful, and more entertaining, to twitching sufferers.

By the way, I wrote the article below before I knew that it would attract even more search engine hits by re-stating the most popular search terms. Oops.

-------------------------------------

I love going through the web stats feature on my web site, provided by the web host. It keeps track of how many visitors I've had, which pages are most popular, which OS and browser my visitors are using (useful for design!), and which pages people followed links to my site from. I find, for example, that I'm getting about 50 visits a day and about 450 unique visitors each month, that Google is doing the best job of listing and linking to me, and that the pinging to blog lists is working, bringing in quite a few visitors.

Another point the stats list is what searches are being done on my site. Here are the top searches:

twitching eyelid (7)
eudora 6 (5)
eyelid twitching (4)
matrix reloaded shibuya station (2)
cartoons of people loading coke machines (1)
permission denied mt blog (1)
neo merovingian (1)
matrix reloaded oracle message (1)
matrix reloaded hover ships (1)
bizarro comic halliburton (1)
self-service gas station (1)
floor does neo meet with the merovingian (1)
restaurant sagamihara hashimoto (1)
blog stylesheets (1)
matrix revolutions spoiler brother wachowski (1)
in times of war the law falls silent (1)
software freeware blog rss (1)
interesting places of sendai (1)
jessica lynch story fact fiction (1)

At first I was a bit confused at the eyelid twitching searches, until I realized that I posted a little blurb right when I started the blog about how that had been happening to me, and now I get hit when someone looks into that problem using a search engine.

If the stats are right, I should start writing a lot more about twitching eyelids! Anyone else out there with twitching stories?

Coming Soon: Suntory Tour

Don't have time for extensive photo editing and posting tonight--got a midterm to write and a stack of papers to grade. But in a few days, when I have time, I'll be posting on a recent tour Hiromi and I took to the Suntory Brewery in Fuchu. The tour is free, and after a 40-minute walk-through with a guide, they treat you to several glasses of beer (you have a choice from their varieties) with a basket full of munchies to wash down with it.

A View from a Height

Hiromi and I climbed the local observation tower atop a nearby hill for a view yesterday; that's me, with my apartment complex in the background.

It's a really nice location--in front of us, you get a nice view of Tokyo, and to the back, noting but wooded hills for a few kilometers. But it's not too "inaka"; it's only a 30-minute train ride into Shinjuku--though it's a 5 minute bus ride or a 20-minute walk to the train station. But I love the green, the parks, the wide open areas, the feeling of escaping Tokyo without getting too far from it.

And this isolated pocket of apartments up against a hill is priced right, too--I pay about 130,000 yen per month, but I have an 84-square-meter apartment for it. That's an 8-mat bedroom (all the rooms are hardwood floors despite the tatami size measurement), 8-mat living room, 5-mat dining room, 4-mat kitchen, a 6-mat room off the dining room, and a 4.5-mat guest room--not counting the genkan, bath and toilet rooms and a walk-in closet thrown in for good measure. Try finding that downtown without breaking the bank!

Tokyo Streets

A few street scenes from today.

It Was Supposed to Rain

Not that I'm complaining! A few showers now and again, but more often we had weather like this. Very nice!

To The Embassy

For those of you who haven't heard, you might want to take note of the requirement for U.S. citizens to file your 1040. Most expats assume that since they get deductions and credits that effectively wipe out any tax debt, that they do not need to file. That's not true. In fact, in order to get the deductions and credits at all, you must file on time. You can do this by mail, or by visiting the IRS office at the embassy or one of the consulates. Expats get an automatic 2-month extension on filing, so our deadline is June 15th. If you want another 2-month extension up to August, there's a form you can file, and another form if you want another extension after that. But you do have to file sometime.

The forms to file are your 1040 and the 2555. The 2555 is the one to get you the $80,000 deduction (does not cover income from U.S., such as interest income or dividends). After you file the first time, the IRS sends you the book and the forms. You can also get them online; here's the 2555.

The Tokyo embassy is located in Akasaka. The closest train station is Tameiki-Sanno, on the Namboku and Ginza lines, or you could go to Kokkai Gijido-mae, on the Marunouchi and Chiyoda lines. (Here's a fairly good English-language subway map, by the way.)

You can expect a pretty sizable security contingent, of course. A good number of police vehicles are always camped out nearby (above), and the entrance has several security personnel for both pedestrians and vehicles. At the main gate, you will be asked for an I.D. and your bag(s) may be checked.

You can then walk into the main compound. The first doors you will come to are for the visa services; pass those by and go up the stairs until you come to the second entrance. A U.S. marine is always on guard there in a bulletproof station; you have to give him I.D., which he holds while you're inside, and he gives you a visitor pass.

A Japanese security guard then takes your bags and belongings through a scanning device, while you walk through the metal detector. Various items are not allowed inside, like cell phones, cameras, etc.--there's a list right there. I just lump everything I have into my backpack, except for the forms I'm filing, then have the guard check it at his station, and pick it up when I leave.

Once through the entrance, you have to wait while the IRS staff member comes to take you to the office; no visitors may walk unescorted in the building. You might have to wait until a number of people come through before he leads you all to the office. In the office, the staff will check and then certify your 2 copies, and you're done. You can also visit them for forms or other materials.

Once finished, you wait until the staff member escorts you back to the door, pick up your stuff, and then you're done.

This visit, I was treated to an interesting sight--a sole demonstrator outside the embassy entrance. A fellow in his 20's, he was holding up a photo placard of injured children (presumably from Iraq), and was shouting stuff like "THERE ARE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!" and "YANKEE GO HOME!"

Never seen that before at the embassy, but in light of recent events, I'm kinda surprised it was just one guy.

Darn

Guess I'll have to wait until it's on sale again.

The Other Cart's in the Shop

Here's an example of one of the carts I mentioned the other day. For some reason, only a few are riding in the cart and the rest are walking. Usually it's just Kids in Carts.

Whatever the transport mode, they're cute as hell.

OK, Now There's a Nest

Remember the feathered squatter? Well, I took another look while no one was roosting, and lo and behold, there is indeed a nest now, and there are indeed two eggs right there on my balcony.

Wonder how long until they hatch?

Worst Job of Proofreading Ever

Either that, or they're huge Monty Python fans.

A Gaggle of Schoolkids

Here's a Norman Rockwell, Japanese style. Note the classic yellow hats and the raised hands while crossing. These kids must be one grade up from the younger kids who get corralled five or six to a cart and pushed around town. For some reason, I always see two such carts filled with kids, never one or three.

Anyway, I wonder where these kids are going from and to? Are they going to a school? And from what gathering place? Or are they going home, and if so, why all together?

Probably it's just a field trip of some sort, or something to do outside so they don't get too antsy....

Looking For Godzilla

Saw this from Koshu Kaido near Hachioji the other day.

Birthday Break

Took a day off from blogging for a birthday break yesterday (39, if you must know). It was a nice day; I got several gifts I did not expect, both at work and at home. I watched videos and had a nice dinner with a friend. Yum. Very nice, laid-back day.

Costco Haul

It's not much, but then I shop here quite often. A couple pillows (why is it so hard to find pillows in Japan that aren't tiny and don't have the bean-bag stuff on one or both sides?), lemons, a juicer (works pretty well, tried it last night), some peppers, and that's a chicken bake in the wrapper.

In case you hadn't known, Costco opened its third branch in Japan in western Tokyo last year. This is after their first store in Fukuoka and their second in Makuhari, Chiba (#4 is slated for Osaka, then #5 in Saitama, by the way). The west Tokyo branch is located in Tama-Sakai, one station east of Hashimoto on the Keio-Sagamihara line. From Shinjuku or any other station on the Keio line, go to Chofu and transfer to a Hashimoto-bound train (one that stops at every station, or take the express to Hashimoto and double back). If you're north, west or south of there, you can take the Sagami or Yokohama lines into Hashimoto and hop the one station to Tama-Sakai.

At Tama-Sakai, it's a 15-minute walk to the Costco; directions, though straightforward, are a bit hard to describe, but if you ask someone local they're pretty sure to know the way. Most people drive there, and there's a lot of parking. If you buy too much or want to buy something you know you can't carry, don't worry--there's a takkyubin desk in-store behind the registers, and they will deliver almost anything you buy there, except maybe the really big items (like the jacuzzi, for instance).

Also, bring a backpack and/or bags--they don't give you anything but spare boxes to carry stuff away, they presume you'll bring your own. Not the most upscale of shopping experiences, but where else in Japan can you buy stuff like Polish sausages, 4-cheese ravioli, real bagels, or an assortment of other stuff including clothes, electronics, toiletries, vitamins, liquor, meat fruit and vegetables, clothes, books, DVDs, power tools, soaps and detergents, so forth and so on.

Not to mention they have a big food court that sells pizza, chicken bakes (try one), churros, and other stuff, with free-refill drinks.

And it's all cheap, cheap I tells ya!

Feathered Squatter

I'd been hearing an excessive amount of cooing outside my windows, and had noted pigeons hanging out there a bit--but now it seems I've got one nesting out on my balcony. I have an old, beat-up metal shelf rack out there with the bottom covered over with a tarp. Last night I went out to clean some stuff out of there and was just a bit more than slightly surprised to have a pigeon suddenly panic and fly up into my face!

Well, it came back, and is now comfortably resting there. Nothing there but a few bags with rags and throwaway stuff, but it seems quite content roughing it. I was surprised that it let me get within a few feet of it to take these shots. I've checked during the day when it's gone--no nest, no eggs.

So there it'll stay. Always thought pigeons got a bad rap, with them being called "rats with wings" and such. They're basically gray doves--in fact, the species name is actually "Rock Dove." Come from Europe, where they roost on ledges of cliffs. You wouldn't mind of a dove nested on your balcony, now would you?

Shinjuku Backstreets

A little lull in blogging, due to a heavy work schedule. Here's a nice image, though, of a Shinjuku (East side) back street just before sunset.

In Case You've Been Depending on the U.S. Media...

...then you may not have heard much about Private Jessica Lynch. Not much having to do with reality, that is. She was the one who, according to the Pentagon, was shot, stabbed and captured by the Iraqis, who took her to a hospital where her injuries were ignored and she was slapped around by Iraqi soldiers, until a valiant squad of American soldiers staged a nighttime rescue mission during which, under enemy fire, they got Private Lynch out of danger and onto a chopper that brought her back safe. We even saw parts of it on TV.

Sadly, it's fiction. Practically science fiction, in fact. The BBC broke the story that Lynch's rescue was a staged media event. First of all, she was injured when her vehicle overturned, and was not shot or stabbed--this confirmed by U.S. doctors, who added that her wounds had indeed been properly treated, not ignored. Apparently, Lynch was given the best possible treatment in light of the situation, and local doctors donated their own blood. She was not, it turns out, slapped or even interrogated in any way. In fact, Iraqi forces deserted the hospital many days before the "rescue," and Iraqi doctors even tried to deliver her back in an ambulance--but were turned back when U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint opened fire on the vehicle. The "rescue" a few days later was unnecessary, no one fired on the American troops, though the U.S. troops did fire many shots and set off some explosions in the hospital. They were even offered a master key so they would not have to knock down the hospital's doors, but for some reason declined to accept it. And the video we saw was shot by the military, was carefully edited, and the original tape is still under lock and key--the administration refuses to release it. Now a Democratic contender, Dennis Kucinich, is demanding the full and unedited tape be released. Like that'll happen soon. It's likely resting comfortably in a secure, undisclosed location next to Cheney's transcripts of energy policy meetings and President Bush's full criminal record.

And now, everyone involved has shut up. An Iraqi lawyer who gave intel for the attack was rewarded with asylum in the U.S. and refuses interviews. The soldiers who were involved in the raid also refuse to recount what happened, Private Lynch has "amnesia," and her family says they're "not supposed to talk about it" (but if Lynch has amnesia, what could they possibly say?).

The media, which gave endlessly repeated coverage to Lynch's plight, rescue, and aftermath, is now quiet as a church mouse about it. The main media outlets cover the story only laterally, usually in reference to some other story like an attack on the BBC's reliability, or in the form of a Pentagon denial. More stories appear on newspaper web sites, but usually laden with refutations by military analysts and "experts" which make the Iraqi doctors sound like liars. The L.A. Times had a reasonable story on it, and I'm sure some others, but most others carried the standard AP Newswire feed--and what coverage there has been of how we were lied to is massively overwhelmed by the coverage given to the fiction.

The TV people will certainly make sure you get the more palatable version. A&E has already broadcast a documentary about the false version of events, and NBC (which gushed about the rescue in this "news" story) has a made-for-TV movie coming out later this year. Think they'll go for the BBC account?

So THAT'S Mugabe!

From last week's The Onion, in the "What Do You Think? column (Question: What do you think about the spam epidemic?). Put it on your list of regular sites to visit, it's great.

Seasonal Fair-Weather Daylight Enforcers

Oops.

The guy at right is probably not as ashamed as you might think, depending on his particular crime. There's a very good chance that he was pulled over for something that was safe, reasonable, and yet still illegal.

Japanese traffic police are an interesting breed. If we were to class them as we would a species of bird, we would note that they have a very specific range--in this case, primarily along major thoroughfares, especially at intersections or at the exits of underpasses. Their "diet" is primarily motorcycles or other two wheeled vehicles; they might occasionally snack on cars or vans, but they never, ever go after trucks, no matter what crazy thing one might do. And they are most definitely diurnal; you will never see one out after dark. In fact, they never go out when it rains or snows, either; they apparently have a very delicate constitution.

OK, ornithological analogies aside, Japanese motorcycle cops are not exactly doing the job they are supposed to be doing, which is--and I'm making a big reach by presuming this--protecting public safety on the roads. In fact, their mandate is likely closer to what it is for most police in Japan, which is to make a good show of law enforcement without really getting involved, except for high-profile cases.

As I mentioned, Japanese traffic cops have poor habits for enforcement. First, they only venture out onto the big roads, like Koshu-Kaido, Ome-Kaido, and so on. With the multitude of smaller roads and blind corners where traffic disobedience can present real dangers to the public, you might think they would normally patrol these areas as well, but they don't. Even on the bigger roads, they hang out at major intersections and at the exits of underpasses only. Why? Because it's easy to catch people there. Seriously. That's where people slow down, making it easier to pull them over. Also, you can find people violating technical rules there more often, rules that do not necessarily endanger anyone but make for juicy traffic fine fodder.

One example: I knew a guy who rode a 50cc scooter. At one intersection, he got into the right turn lane (in Japan, you drive on the left, so a right turn at an intersection means crossing the opposite lane of traffic), and he got pulled over. The officer gave him a ticket. Why? Because in Japan, if you are riding a scooter under 51cc and you make a right turn at an intersection with two major lanes of traffic and a third turn lane, it is illegal. Why? No good reason whatsoever. They just made the law that way. If you know how Japanese traffic works, you will know that there is no earthly difference between a 50cc and a 70cc scooter making that same turn. A 50cc bike is allowed to drive in any lane of traffic, no matter how many lanes there are. When you go from the rightmost lane into the right turn lane, you slow down, meaning 50cc vehicles have no problem there. Making the turn itself is no problem. There is no part of that maneuver which is not perfectly safe for a 50cc vehicle. But the police can write lots of lucrative traffic tickets for it.

Another profitable spot is at the exit of two-lane underpasses. Why? Because such underpasses always have lanes separated by a yellow (no-cross) line. Why is it there? I can't think of a logical reason. But bikes will often cross it, and they're easy to catch on the straightaway or traffic light right after. Also, the cop can hide easily there, as he can at the intersection.

In addition, they go after motorcycles far more often than any other vehicle, far out of proportion to offenses committed. And I have never seen them pull over a truck. One time I saw a truck make a sudden and extremely dangerous lane change, over a no-cross yellow line, no less. A traffic cop was right there, watching. He did nothing. A minute later, a motorcycle crossed the yellow line, in a completely safe way. He got pulled over.

There is also a season, by the way--traffic campaign seasons, multi-week stretches (usually 2 or 3 times a year) when traffic cops are at intersections and underpasses everywhere, writing tickets like mad. Why the sudden enthusiasm? They get paid extra for every traffic ticket they write.

Traffic cops seem to have a good union, because they are never out at night, nor do they come out in inclement weather. Which are, naturally, the times when traffic violations present greater dangers than usual due to lack of visibility and control. But I concluded long ago that cops in Japan are more about show than safety. One example: I have only seen one speed trap (a guy seated on a folding chair with a radar setup, in radio contact with traffic cops at the other end of the street) set up in my years in Japan. It was along a riverside road. The road itself is ludicrous: half a kilometer long, the river on one side, a huge building on the other; no intersections along that stretch, no houses, no pedestrian traffic, just a nice, long unbroken straightaway. So of course the speed limit is 30. That's Kph, not Mph. It comes out to just under 20 mph. Someone would have to be insane not to "speed" there. They put up the trap there precisely because of that, and because it's easy as pie to stop people. Does it help public safety? Not in the least.

On the other hand, there is a small street I sometimes walk on, one of those very narrow two-lane streets you often see in Japan, but this one with lots of blind corners and heavy traffic. A straightaway, no stops signs or lights for a 200-meter stretch. People crossing the street all the time, cars coming out of the blind intersections. The speed limit on that road is 40 kph (25 mph), and people speed quite often. It's one of the most dangerous streets I know of. Furthermore, there is a large police station right smack at the end of the street. And yet I have never seen a speed trap there, nor any cop watching traffic. Go figure.

This all jibes with what you hear about Japanese police in general. Someone stole your wallet/purse/whatever? Sorry, we can't help you, in fact don't even bother us by filling out a report. Bosozoku (hot rodders on scooters and motorcycles) racing up and down your street at 2 a.m., endlessly revving their engines at artificially-enhanced noise levels, breaking traffic laws left and right? Don't bother us.

But if you see a guy on a 50cc scooter going at safe speeds making an orderly right turn on a 3-lane street, by all means, report it immediately. We don't want a menace like that going unchecked.

Update: I have encountered two more speed traps like those mentioned here. Both were in almost identical circumstances--not dangerous at all, but well-placed to catch safe drivers in technical illegalities. But I have also seen two instances recently which made my eyes pop: a truck and a taxi (not at the same time--different days) pulled over and ticketed. I have never seen that before, either one. Not because they drive safely, especially not taxis, but, I believe, because cops give them a break, either because they share a common background or simply because taxi and truck drivers depend on driving for their livelihood.

Full-Page Ad about FCC Move

Thanks to Mani for providing more links to the FCC story, including one that led me to find the following full-page ad taken out in major U.S. papers recently:

The ad is downloadable in PDF format.

Payoff Complete

As expected, the FCC decided that one person or corporation may own wider and broader swaths of the media than ever before. Already lacking voices outside the mainstream, the big 6 television media owners are already moving to consolidate ownership. Forgive me if I sound like I am beating a dead horse, but I feel this is important: there can be no free press if that press is monopolized. Just as there is no real competition in the OS market because Microsoft controls 95% and dictates to everyone what they must do, so will it be with the media.

We own the airwaves, but politicians run it, and they've been bought. And the media, which buried the story except for a brief flurry the weekend before the closed-door FCC sessions (when it was too late), has again started burying the story. Only those who read carefully through business sections or search deliberately for the story will find it. What stories are appearing downplay the damage done, suggesting that Congress will be watchdog to untoward media sales (har!) and There's Nothing Really to Worry About.

We've just lost a very important battle for our freedoms, which are based upon the free and fair dissemination of knowledge--and, ironically, because we are already deprived of said dissemination to the degree we are, most people are not even aware of it.

[exit public gloom mode]

Hamster Cam

A current (10 minutes ago) photo of Mocha, hamster of the house. She is currently happily rolling around in her hamster ball.

Below: earlier in the day, poking her head out to see if the coast is clear.

Browser Wars: Microsoft Wins in Win98 Redux

Remember how, back when Windows 98 was released, there was a big scandal about how Microsoft integrated browser technology into he OS itself, making it difficult if not impossible for Netscape and other browsers to compete? Remember how MS was forced to leave Internet Explorer as a stand-alone app? Remember how Microsoft was on the verge of being brought to a well-deserved justice when, at the last minute, Bush was elected and had the courts do a 180-degree reverse on the issue with the brakes on full?

Well, here's the latest chapter: IE will no longer be a stand-alone app, according to this CNet News.com article.

Immediately after paying off AOL, the present owners of Netscape, three quarters of a billion dollars and other considerations to effectively shut up about MS's monopolistic practices, and after starting a campaign of aggressive pricing aimed to cripple any chance of Linux getting any market share and edge out new open-source version of Office Suites, MS now announces its next step in its plan to further dominate and monopolize the market.

What's it to you? Aside from broken competition and major price hikes down the road, you might also find that this will help implement Palladium, and Microsoft will have a private key that will let them into your computer and be your own personal cybercop. Sounds nifty, right?

Eudora 6

The beta version of Eudora 6 is now available for download. The major revision in this version, as one might expect with the recent trend in email clients, is a spam filter. Apple's Mail app probably took a big chunk of the Eudora market for the Mac, and other Windows apps may very well be doing the same.

Eudora's response so far seems a fairly good one. I had been waiting for Mail to become more feature-rich, and then switch to them full-time, but if Eudora's spam filter works well, I'll stay with them. And so far, after a bit less than a week, it's been doing well--the filter seems well-trained, and is doing a good job of sorting. Time will tell on that, though.

For the Mac, a new mailbox drawer will pop out the side of any mailbox window, allowing you to easily select a different mailbox for that window to display. It is a lot easier than going up to the menu bar all the time, and deal with multiple windows. They also say that something called "Content Concentrator will be available for both Mac and PC versions, and a format painter will be available for the Windows version.

Eudora has always been a very strong email client, flexible, good interface, very configurable. The down side is that in the past, the address book and filters have been a bit buggy for me. Let's hope those have been improved some. Also, as with prior Eudora betas, this one has an extended settings control panel, with lots of extra controls you don't get in their standard releases. I wish they kept the longer list, but hey...

Eudora comes in free and paid modes. The main difference is that the free mode puts up a small ad window (140 x 150 pixels) that cannot be moved from the periphery of the main monitor. If you have a small, low-resolution monitor (like with the old clamshell iBooks), this may be too big to stand, but with a better monitor (like the 1280 x 854 monitor on my Powerbook), you get so you hardly even notice it.

Playing With Stylesheets

OK, now I'm having a bit of fun... You may have noticed this page looks different than it did before. I've started looking more into what are called 'stylesheets.'

Stylesheets are a way to format web pages so that certain things always appear in a certain way, to give the page, and the site, a more standardized look. Stylesheets are different files from the web pages themselves.

For example, you might create a stylesheet, and inside it you define a category to be "articleheader"; you can give that definition certain formatting, including text size, color and style; background color, border, underlines, link colors, margins, indents, etc. Then, when you make a web page and you want all of those styles to apply to something you've just typed, all you have to do is refer to "articleheader" and the stylesheet is referenced for the formatting information.

Movable Type, which is the software that controls this blog, has a standard style sheet, which you can then play with, changing all sorts of attributes. So I made wider side margins, colored the backgrounds, shrunk and centered the calendar, indented the entry text, changed the links' hover-color, so on and so on.

If you're interested in looking at a style sheet tutorial, visit WebMonkey's guide. It's always fun to figure out yet another layer of doing stuff on the web.