I kept track of the keynote at the Mac Observer, but some others posted on it before I did. 
I thought it was a bit ugly at first, but after seeing a QT VR movie of it, I like it a bit more. I also like the whole "three-screws" method to remove the back of the computer, revealing the internals! Marvellous!
The prices don't see all that bad, either. A 1.6 GHz G5 processor, 80Gb HD and combo drive with a 17″ screen for A$2199? Hmmm…
Since they fit all of that into a ~ 2 inch thick enclosure, I'm hoping a PowerBook G5 is not too far off!
UPDATE: Someone in the Slashdot thread linked to this image of the inside of the new iMac. Double nice.
It seems GMail has unleashed a whole lot of invites to the users… So… I have 4 left. If anyone would like them, please post a comment below. First come, first served!
UPDATE: Please note that I don't have any more invites, so asking for them in the comments isn't likely to get you one. Sorry!
Jon Hicks posted a link to a new RSS reader in development for MacOS X: Newsfire. I downloaded it, and the iChat-like effects are very nice. It's a different way of reading feeds, and I quite like it. Hopefully it improves in the future, and isn't too expensive!
I was reversing into my car spot tonight, with the rain pouring down outside. Turned around to look out the rear window, and the rear windscreen wiper went on. I checked that I hadn't turned it on myself, and I hadn't.
Obviously, the car turned the rear windscreen wiper on when I put the car into reverse, because it was raining (since I had the front windscreen wipers on).
Nice.
Thanks to Paul, I found out that HP have finally released their iPods. The press release/info page is here.
Not so sure about the designs. I like the simple white and metal finish of the normal iPod, and those look just… tacky. I wonder if the consumers will go for it? It's a good way for Apple to increase its market share, since HP has much larger distribution channels than Apple (as many others have said recently).
As noted on Slashdot, the creators of South Park (Trey Parker & Matt Stone) have a new movie coming out that looks bloody hilarious. There's a Quicktime trailer (large size) here.
Erik's question for the day is:
If you believed your life to be in danger, would you act in self defense, even if doing so meant harming the attacker? (For those not living in the US, please note the legal policy on this issue.)
If someone was attacking me, I would try and defend myself, but only with reasonable force. If someone tried to steal my bag or something like that, I'd probably try and get away. However, if I found someone in my house, and knew that they were trying to rob the place, I'd probably get a baseball bat (errr… make that a cricket bat. Who has a baseball bat in Australia?) and thwock them with it.
If someone was threatening my life, there's no way I'd intentionally try and take theirs. Maim them? Yes. Pummel the shit out of them? Probably not. I see killing someone in self defence as stooping to the level of the attacker. If I can stop them from attacking (be it by knocking them out, tying them up or whatever), then that's a much better option that taking a life. I'd rather let the police deal with the person than having the loss of life over my head.
I just got back from seeing the musical, The Lion King, at the Capitol Theatre. All I can say is… WOW.
Continue reading 'The Lion King'
Scoble made a post the other day about Microsoft shutting down people distributing the Windows XP SP2 update via BitTorrent.
I can understand Microsoft shutting down the unofficial distribution of this update, for security issues, but how about setting up a BitTorrent seed of its own? Once people start downloading from it, it'll speed up dramatically, and save download costs (not that Microsoft would really notice :)). I'm pretty sure BitTorrent does an MD5sum check on the download anyway, so any chunks of the file that don't match the original seed (i.e. are corrupted or have been modified) are re-downloaded, thus avoiding any issues with virii.
Most people using BitTorrent would probably know the difference between a virus and a real download, anyway (unless you claim to be downloading a "demo" version of Microsoft Office 2004 before it's even released… he he he. Now where's that link?).
