Monthly Archives: June 2007

Liberal Warmongering

This entry was posted in Iran on by

Scott Lemieux gets this mostly right:

It’s very simple. When it comes to Iran, “liberal hawks” need to either 1)explain in concrete terms what the threat to American interests is and — this is important! — what kind of military action can advance American interests and why, or 2)enjoy a delicious frosty mug of shut the fuck up. (And given their recent record of assessing American security interests and the efficacy of military force, perhaps some slinking away in shame would also be in order.)

Sorry, a threat to American interests, or anyone’s interests, is quite a stretch as a legitimate casus belli and reeks of pre-Iraq bushism.

If there is not a blatant act of violence or at least a force headed your way that is going to wreak destruction take option 2 above.

Apple, Where’s the Beef?

This entry was posted in Apple Computer Marketing on by

Last Tuesday Apple announced their new line of MacBook Pro laptops. An announcement I have been eagerly awaiting for months: the time would be right to make the case for a migration both at work and at home.
I was ready to buy but needed to touch one of the new beauties. The specifications were about what I expected. Now to touch one; see one; take it through its paces.
Wednesday at lunchtime, with great nervous anticipation, I headed over to the nearest Apple dealer, the local University Bookstore. Hmmm, the Apple stock seems a bit sparse compared to what I usually see there. Not a full compliment of laptops. I check in with customer service: “We have them on order and expect them in 10 days or so.”
Disappointed to say the least.
I give them a couple more days and on Friday I stop by a real Apple Store. They appear to have a full compliment of laptops; even some new literature but their preprinted spec sheets still describe the old versions of the MacBook Pro. There is a 17″ Pro open so I move in and start checking it out: cursor response sucks, iPhoto is really slow bringing up pictures. Hell, I’d never buy this machine. A 15″ opens up. Ahh, this is better. Something must have been broken on the 17″ machine. Why, though, would they leave a machine in that state out where customers would touch it?
Yet, something seems not quite right. The monitors look the same as the old models, there just isn’t the sense of pizazz that I expected. There was one young clerk there. I asked him if they had the new MacBook Pro yet. “No, we should have them in about a week.”
As I walked out even more disappointed I mentioned to the guy who was eagerly telling his girlfriend how much he wanted the new 15″ model that, well, that’s not one of them. Another disappointed potential customer.
I suspect this story has been repeated 100s, no, thousands of times since last Tuesday.
How hard would it have been for the Apple marketing folks to have shipped, prior to announcing the new machines, a set of the laptops to each of their stores for folks to come in and see. A birght marketeer would have made sure that each of their retail stores had a sign up sheet to place orders for the new machines for delivery in x days. A bright marketeer would have made sure that each of their clerks was trained to extract that order from everyone who walked through the door.

I’m not so sure Apple have bright marketeers on staff anymore. As for their retail stores, they could learn a thing or two about customer service from Radio Shack. Or, for that matter, from the University Bookstore I mentioned above. Their retail clerks pop out to help you almost as you are walking through their front door.

Friday Ark #142

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Pets Weekend Cat Blogging Weekend Dog Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

Dogs

Birds

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 167th edition, 6/3, is up at Justin’s Random Thoughts. The 168th edition will be hosted on 6/10 by The Scratching Post . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #105 hosted on 6/9-10 by What Did You Eat?. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 50th edition is up and hosted by A Blog Around the Clock. The 51st edition will be hosted on 6/14 by The Birdchaser.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 21st edition is up and hosted by 10,000 Birds. The 22nd edition will be hosted by TBD.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Big Stuff

This entry was posted in Astronomy on by

I am frequently brought to pause thinking about the size of the earth: it’s mass is around 5.9736 X1024 kilograms. This is minuscule compared to the sun which has a mass equal to 332,830 earths.
So, when I read about a star with 114 solar masses, well, let’s just say I’m a bit awestruck!
Oh, it is part of a binary system. The other star is a paltry 84 solar masses and their period of rotation is 3.77 days.

I’ll stay off that dance floor, thank you!