Carpet Bomberz Inc.

Category: media

Anything relating to writing about technology or the media and or the blogospherical.

  • Lucky!

    Tonya Engst over at Tidbits was the happy recipient to a brand new copy of Mac OS X 10.5 ‘Leopard’. She purchased her copy through the Apple Store and no doubt elected the most speedy delivery option. However I in my infinite foresight decided to support Ric Ford of Macintouch and pre-ordered at Amazon back in July. Each time the ship date for a new OS comes ’round I always try to opt for the speediest most sure method of getting boxed product into my hands.

    Round 1: Back in the days of Cheetah, I stupidly waited the day of release for 10.2 to purchase said item at our Local CompUSA. By the time I got there on Saturday morning, they had a waiting list 150 signatures long. So I bailed out, and decided to purchase at University computer store.

    Round 2: Panther, I pre-ordered through the Apple Store, but elected to get the next day shipping. However the next day after the release on the Apple Store website delayed the shipment until the following Monday. Again, I was feeling a little taken advantage of by Apple as they lured me into the more expensive shipping, but didn’t deliver the earlier receipt of the product. So I gave up on the Apple Store.

    Round 3: Tiger, I pre-ordered through Amazon but not through Macintouch and hoped to get the pre-mature all to early shipping that some Amazon customers had claimed they had gotten with each release. For 10.3 and 10.2 I kept reading that Amazon purchases always got shipped early. Apparently Apple went out of its way to curb this unwarranted reward to Amazon customers. So Amazon closely hewed to the Apple Rule of Law and I paid a high price to get 2nd day shipping again. And I didn’t receive merchandise until 5 days later from the release date. Worse yet, co-workers got it the day of release due AppleCare UpToDate program.

    Today: I pre-ordered again, through the Amazon link on Ric Ford’s website back in July. I originally chose to get FREE shipping. I figured if I don’t get early shipments on the day of release, I might as well get it at the lowest price. $109.00 tax free, shipped to my door within 5-7days of release was good enough for me. Then my selfishness got the best of me. Apple Stores worldwide were going to have boxed product ready to go at 6pm on Friday evening. I was again going to be the last one in line to get the new OS X release. So I realized, “Hey I can change the shipping on my order right?” So I made it next day Air, and paid the premium price of $17.25 for the premium shipping. And still no sign on Amazon’s website that it has shipped. Oh, woe is me.

    So to Tanya and Adam Engst I say, good for you. Hopefully all the years of editing and maintaining tidbits.com has probably paid off handsomely in getting new products on time. I just wish I could once in my life get the new version of the OS early

  • FRONTLINE: showdown with iran: analysis: the “grand bargain” fax – a missed

    You have to ask yourself as we slowly gear up for more military action, this time aimed at Iran, how did we get here? In this line of questioning some very important players answer some questions about olive branches offered by Iran leading up to the Iraq invasion and just afterward. Was Iran willing to broker some kind of peace with the U.S.?

    read more | digg story

  • KPBS to the Rescue

    San Diego area affected by Fire Thanks KPBS for using Google MAps to it’s maximum possible good.
    At a time when the federal authorities are desperately tied up with firefighting, information becomes all the more important. This was especially true for people in the middle of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and anyone in Manhattan during Sept. 11, 2001. I applaud this PBS station in its effort to get the information out there for EVERYONE to see. This mash-up on Google is by far the best use of a public Web 2.0 app that is more or less free. People need this info in one place, updated regularly until all the fires are contained. It gives the sense that somebody does know what’s going on, and that panic isn’t the only logical response to such a widespread emergency. My heart goes out to everyone who has been evacuated, who has lost property, who has lost a pet, who has lost a family member. Fire crews will contain these fires, there is hope, it will end.

  • Epigenetics way more interesting than genetics

    Your environment has an effect on your genes. It’s been proven by medical studies treating cancer patients with drugs that remove the methylating groups from their genes. This is without a doubt the truest benefit from having sorted out the genetic code. First we learned the code, now we understand the operating system the runs above that code. You might consider the Human Genome project a big deal. But the epigenetic enterprise is truly the biggest dividend being paid today by the work done by Craig Venter and the National Institute of Health (NHS).

    read more | digg story

  • Tokyo International Forum




    Tokyo International Forum

    Originally uploaded by Stéfan.

    Next time in Japan, I’m taking a swing by the Tokyo train station and walking a few blocks over to the Forum. I’ve seen so many pictures I feel like it would be pretty cool to see it in person as well.

  • Would notebook’s clues have headed off 9-11?

    WASHINGTON — Two numbers scrawled in a notebook that belonged to terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui could have given the FBI a chance to identify several of the Sept. 11 hijackers before they struck six years ago, according to officials who are familiar with the bureau’s massive investigation of the attacks.

    read more | digg story

  • WeBWorK Ramps Up Online Homework Tool

    A preview of upcoming features in the open-source math, science and engineering software tool for instructors. No better tool than this exists for Electronic disbursement and collection of math homework.

    read more | digg story

  • Sell, sell, sell

    A cautionary tale by your friend the Wing Commander.

    Let’s say you knew somebody that had a business, something they started themselves. They put their whole lives into it so they could escape the corporate rat race. Then as is the case with most people, you lose interest, it becomes a job and you want to cash out. The time to sell is now. But things are always as clean, wrapped up, and straightforward as all that. No you have a period of inactivity, fallowness where you’re waiting to hear back you’re trying to wrap up, trying to transition. And your buyer is still trying to get their act together. They’re not ready yet, they’re floating along you’re floating along. And as long as your customers are still making orders and are happy it’s still a business right? But your heart isn’t in it anymore and it’s a grind, kinda like that corporate rat race you escape years ago. Me, I’m no different. I’m the same way. But I made a conscious decision never to try and escape the corporate rat race. I don’t care how bad it gets, I’m staying put. But you should never let your decisions affect all aspects of your life. I am going to take action. I’m profiting by the example of others and dumping the things that I let float along far too long. Say goodbye you crappy stocks. I’m finally dumping those dogs I purchased all the way back in 2001. Now tell me there’s no such thing as loyalty when it comes to a stock market. I was dumb I know. But now I’m getting my act together. No more Blue Monday.

  • Nakagin Capsule Tower

    Just Look at all the pictures of the Tower

    I thought I might be one of the first, but in the age of the Interwebs, it appears I may be one of the last or middle to take pictures of the Nakagin Capsule Tower and post it on Flickr. There are no less than 113 images, all different posted to Flickr. And not surprisingly, there are about 10 images that are far better than ANY of the pictures I took. While social software may allow all kinds of discoveries to be made, the one you don’t want to make is that you are one of the teeming masses of photographers. Oh well. I guess now I will be more of an editor than a photographer in this case. I’m going to pare back the number of photos I was going to post to my best 5 or so images of Nakagin. Then I should go and caption all the photos with something interesting historical, wikipedia like in its completeness. Maybe that’s where I can differentiate my Flickr photostream. Regardless, I will soldier on and share my photos all the same, but just try to be a better editor this time ’round.

  • The Deader the Better

    http://www.deadmedia.org/modest-proposal.html

    You probably already know about this website. We got on the topic of Ditto Machines at work today. Who can forget the ultimate utility of the Ditto machine. 500 copies at a maximum before they faded too much to be useful. For a class of 30 kids, no problem, nice neat sharp copies bright blue or purple in color. Why I even remember that I got to make a Ditto master in this class they put me in called ‘Enrichment’. It later became the accelerated class for kids who were somewhat less academically challenged than most. Anyway, I screwed up make the master two times in a row, because I didn’t remove the barrier sheet that separated the original from the Wax Master. I was give two shots at it and finally the teacher had to copy over my work herself. My hand-writing was not all that good anyway, so much the better for everyone that had to take the Enrichment Class.

    But, I also go an email from a buddy who went to art school talking about early days of removable storage on the Mac. Bernoulli Drives were the cost leader at the time and you paid around $120 for 90MB worth of storage. I recounted my days in art school when Graphic Design folks were doing the removable storage too. The professor who was requiring students to purchase the storage had bet heavily on Magneto-Optical drives with disks that priced out to $128 for 128MB of storage. Not too bad for 1990 right? Soon after the same company started selling disks that held 256MB worth of storage and were backward compatible with the same external drive units. I think the drive itself was rather expensive though (maybe around $1500 by the end of 1991). Think about the dead storage technologies, the dead computing technologies. The burn rate is ever increasing. It goes from the desktop to the personal. Now we had dead Music Player technologies. Who among us knows fanboys who had each and every new MP3 player before the iPod hit the market, then sadly went on a run at Apple iPod treadmill. Dead dead dead, all dead.