There’s no real problem with big sites. Some of the biggest are amongst the best. A bad example is Wikipedia, and a good example was Ars Technica.

Latin is by far my least Favorite language, right next to English. But since my mother tongue is English, I feel more than qualified to translate Latin to English, back again, and brutally mutilate both in the process.

That gives way to my favorite Star Trek-based Latin. “ex astris scientia” meaning “from the stars, knowledge.” Of course, this is also the best site for star trek information, be it imagined or real – http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/

 But now let’s get back to Ars Technica. It’s the art of technology. And who can deny technology as an art? And really, who would say Ars Technica ever provided less than the best commentary on our modern technology.

A trillion years ago, had they existed, Ars Technica would have been covering the coin (had it existed) and the fear of predators. Oh, and a healthy dose of actual information!

Here’s the big problem. Condé Nast is unaware of art or technology. Hell, they own Wired.

Yes, the same “Wired” that publishes Leander Kahney’s, who (really, this happened) wonders why Steve Jobs refused to comment on a story about him (oh, could it possibly have something to do with calling his company’s customers cultists? nah!), blog “The Cult of Mac.” Better than Kayney himself, is his side-kick Mortensen… This guy thinks Apple should hire a man who’s iPhone was run over by a truck. Yah, Apple should hire him. Uh, why? Because he dropped his phone, it was run over, and still worked. Yes, our hero, and next Apple employee.

No offense intended to Ars Technica, but you guys could not have made a significant portion of what Condé Nast offered you over say the next 10 years? Cause, really, with the quality you publish, 2.5 million per year doesn’t seem that far fetched. Well now it does. 

Take a look at Peter Mortensen. He’s a possibly respected nearly journalist. He thinks that the guy who dropped his iPhone on an interstate where it was subsequently run over by a semi-truck should be hired by Apple. Uh, WTF?

I’d like the Mythbusters to put this one to the test. Even if the phone survives, I got one better.

When I was about 8 my Dad bought be a roulette game (yup, I started gambling young.) We were on a road trip back from Vegas, windows down. I had my little coin operated roulette wheel in hand and the paper table on my lap. Get this. Seriously, I couldn’t believe this happened. The paper table blew out the window! I yelled, screamed at my Dad to go get it. The great Dad he is, he pulled off the road and then ran up and down the highway to find that piece of paper. And by god he found it! That piece of paper, probably printed in China survived being sucked out of the window of a car doing about 80Mph. It had some tears, but I rolled up my window and kept gambling.

The company that printed that piece of paper should have hired me. And hell, my Dad too.

Let’s move on though, to the guy who wrote this “An iPhone Knockoff So Godd It’s Probably Being Made In The Same Factory”

Thanks Philip. But, do tell, exactly how did you come to the conclusion that it is probably made in the same factory, as I presume, the iPhone is made in? Oh, and, thanks, Godd.

I think what I love most about Philip’s posts is how he the photos he uses come “courtesy” of other sources, yet he never links back to those stories.

An important part of journalism is qualifying what you say. Give a source for what you say, or at least how you came up with it.

There are THREE subjects in every story that you write. The first subject, is of course, the author. The second subject is that or whom the author is writing about. But the most important subject of any story is the reader. Ask yourself the questions you think the reader may ask, and answer them.

I’d really rather skip the anti-Google rhetoric and the anti-Microsoft rhetoric too. Oddly, I don’t know of any reason to be against Yahoo, except that YIM crashes a lot.

But we are looking at something that may eventually be a major turning point in online services, or it may not matter. Right now it seems big. I’m not so sure it will count for shit in a hundred year though.

Let’s talk about now. Google has been on it’s “do no evil” mantra for years. However, it slips. I remember a year, or two, back when Google made an agreement with the Chinese government to censor some Google search results.

Most recently, one of Google’s free apps, an RSS client from what I understand, started spewing out private user data due to a policy change.

[Update] I am waiting for more informed information on the two prior topics. That information will go here.

And Microsoft. Gee, shit. Has Microsoft really denied being an uncaring corporate entity? Has Yahoo! for that matter?

The way I see it is that a common enemy creates a friend indeed (Gimme the quote, Gruber?) Both Microsoft and Yahoo have an enemy in Google. But here we have two giants with a similar goal “win by being better.” While neither alone may be better, they’re fighting an enemy whose goal is “win by doing higher math, oh, and, being bigger.” It’s not hard to be better when  you’re yahoo and microsoft. And, I look forward to it.

Let me back up a little first. I’ve never actually bought anything from iTunes. Never even considered it once. When iTunes plus was announced my feelings went from “I will never buy anything from iTunes” to “I might consider considering buying something from iTunes.” Then Amazon MP3 came along and I was back to the stance that I’ll never buy from iTunes.

I currently have a Product (RED) 4GB Nano, a black 80GB iPod and a silver 160GB iPod Classic. I’ve owned countless iPods before these as well. I have over 700 CDs on my shelf and over 8,000 tracks in iTunes (all ripped from these CDs.) I’m not adverse to paying for music. I’m adverse to paying for something that isn’t really mine (read: DRM,) and I also like having a physical disc as back-up.
I’ve had a $25 iTunes gift card sitting on my desk for a few months with no real plans to ever use it. When iTunes movie rentals came along I thought “I’ll finally get to use this gift card.” And since something I rent was never going to be mine, the DRM shouldn’t bother me. And really, it didn’t. This is essentially a free rental since the gift card was free (thanks Apple!) But what it came down to, and why I’ll be renting the movie from Hollywood video tomorrow, is this… features and flexibility.

With a rented DVD I get extra features such as commentary, bloopers and deleted scenes. With iTunes I’ll get just the movie. Hollywood Video also gives me five days to watch it. With iTunes, once I start, I get just 24-hours. With my job, and my own inability to stick to something, the 24-hour limit worries me. I don’t anticipate it being a problem, “but what if it is?” I’d rather pay for a “full” rental, than get a free, but more “limited” rental.

The iTunes movie rental proposition isn’t a bad one though. In fact, had just one thing been different I’d have rented from iTunes. That’s if they had it in HD. Why would HD have been worth it you may ask? Basically just for the experience. I’m pretty sure that I will rent from iTunes when the right HD movie comes along.

I did realize one thing while writing this. iTunes movie rentals are designed to compete with Pay-per-view, another something I’ve never spent a single cent on.

Back to MacBook Air — it’s perfect! It’s exactly what it aims to be. It may not be what I want, but that’s because it’s not targeted at you or me. It’s targeted to people with a very strong sense of style (rightfully or wrongfully so) and way too much money. This is a very succulent market for Apple.

Think Paris Hilton (ugg, I know). Apple’s goal here may very well be to put Macs in the hands of high visible and highly emulated people. What’s that computer Paris is using? A Mac? I think I’ll get one too. Although I think a diamond encrusted iPhone would have worked just as well. OK, maybe not…

Now on to Vista. You know, the OS I threatened to switch to. I can sum it up pretty quickly as well.

• Best version of Windows ever!
• Worst operating system ever!

I  can hear you now; asking “what about Linux?” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, Linux is an absolute joke. Even the best end-user distribution (that’s Ubuntu) is a pile of mis-matched code. And the best developer-centric distribution (Slackware) may very well require a computer science degree.
All told, I’d much rather have FreeBSD.

Oh, right, I was talking about Vista. Let me tell you an old joke I once heard.

The US and Russia (I’m sure at the time I was told this joke it was the CCCP) have a car race. The US car wins, barely. The next day in the papers the headlines are… in the US: “US wins race, Russia finishes last.” and in Russia it’s “Russia comes in second. US finishes next to last.”

Where was I? Vista? OK. Vista is the Russian car. I’d love to just go on with the car analogy, but it would become far too esoteric. All told, Vista is a great OS but it’s not Leopard. I just thought of a great way to describe Vista… someone hits me in the knee with a bat and gives me a really shiny hat. Hey, the hat is nice, but now I can barely walk.

In the end my decision was easy. Learn Vista or get stuff done with Leopard.

My iMac which has worked flawlessly for just over a year recently developed some display issues. I took it to my local Apple Store for repair. It’s been there for two weeks now:

This is unreasonable. Apparently, they’re “waiting on parts.” I’d really like to know which parts. Because if this were a Dell, I could quickly and cheaply get a new graphics card and new display. But since it’s a Mac, I have to wait for Apple. Ridiculous.

And Bob… I’ve never dealt with a stupider genius in my life. Completely unrelated to my iMac issue, my wife’s MacBook, the most recent revision, is having the well known keyboard issue (where it stops responding for several seconds to minutes). Apple has released a patch which did not fix the issue on her MacBook. So, we take it to the store (having an appointment and all) Now, the genius that was helping us was new so he asked Bob for some help.

He tells Bob what we told him about the keyboard and asks Bob “Have you ever heard of this?” Bob’s response was insulting. Bob says “I’ve heard of everything. I’ve heard the moon is made of cheese.” He goes on to list five other ridiculous things he’s heard. Let me tell you what I heard “What you say your machine does is as ridiculous as the moon being made of cheese.”

Thanks Bob, but how about trying to fix the problem instead of telling us how ridiculous it is. In an effort to help, Bob tells us we have several options and asks “Do you have a back-up.” I respond “yes, we have a back-up and we’ve already tried restoring the system from the discs.” But no, that wasn’t what Bob was getting at, so he cuts me off to tell me that his plan is not to restore the system. He tells us to “go home and call AppleCare.” Excuse me? “They’ll give you a box to ship it.” Well how convenient. I wish I had thought of that before I drove to the AppleStore, that’d have saved me the annoying experience of dealing with you.

I could go on about Bob and how awful dealing with him was. I had really hoped to avoid him. I’ve been in that store several times buying things and overheard him dealing with other customers. He talks to everyone like they’re five years old. I know some customers need that sort of thing, but part of customer service is identifying your customer. I overheard him help one woman with a problem having iPhoto find her camera. He went on about all kinds of crap, such as telling her not to put icons on her desktop because they take up RAM. I have no clue what that would have to do with her camera. But that wasn’t enough. He started to explain what RAM was, and then he went on to something about the System folder and how some icons aren’t really icons they’re aliases and on and on and on and…

At any rate. Given the shoddy service and recent increase in hardware problems (the iMac was my last Intel-based Mac that hadn’t had a repair) I’ve had, I don’t see myself buying more Apple computers. I find Vista to be a very good OS to spite what some people may say about it. It may not be as nice as Leopard, and the hardware it runs on is mighty ugly. But, it’s cheap, and when there’s a problem it’s quickly fixed without dealing with Bob. As my Macs start to break down and need replacing, I’m pretty sure I’ll be replacing them with PCs.

There seem to be quite a few people out there arguing whether or not the publisher, Nick Ciarelli, was a journalist. I don’t think that’s the point really. For argument’s sake we’ll just say he was. Then the question becomes whether or not he published information knowing his sources were breaking an NDA. Let’s just say he didn’t. In fact, let’s just say he’s completely innocent of anything illegal.

So why would Apple pick on an innocent? The answer is simple, they owe it to their shareholders.

Imagine if Think Secret continued to publish Apple’s product plans in advance of Apple’s official announcements. Shareholders will lose faith in Apple to maintain it’s trade secrets. Apple will lose the benefit of it’s own marketing buzz. And let’s not forget that when Think Secret gets something wrong, Apple suffers as well for not living up to expectations.

In short, even if Think Secret weren’t breaking the law, Apple had to do something. Apple owes that to its shareholders, and that is a law.

I think what bothers me most is how people often referred to Mr. Ciarelli as a “college freshman.” As if that’s some excuse to break the law. What if Nick were a elderly grandmother living on social security? Should Apple say “well, she’ll die soon so we’ll just let it slide?” Of course not. If anything, being a student at Harvard should have instilled an increased respect for the law in Nick, not given him an excuse to break it.

As if you couldn’t tell, I believe Think Secret and Nick Ciarelli guilty of illegal activity. It’s unfortunate that he was probably paid to stop publishing, instead of being sued in to the poor house. Paying him off was probably cheaper and faster than a lengthy court battle. Apple lived up to its obligation to its shareholders, and that’s what matters in the end.

Title: Whatever you do, don’t get a Core 2 Duo!

Core 2 Duo processors are in a lot of computers these days, including Apple’s Macintosh line. There really are plenty of good reasons to hold off on getting one — I’m not just a sellout.

• Intel is going to come out with new processors next year. The new ones will be a lot faster, trust me, I know.
• They just released new compilers and your current software isn’t optimized with those compilers yet.
• You don’t want to fry your motherboard trying to overclock your new Core 2 Duo.
• Wait for a new competitor to show up. Other companies are always trying to make new chips and those could be faster and cheaper.
• Just get a Celeron.
• Wait for IDF, there could be a new heatsink specification… or something.
• No matter what, visit my site, it runs on a Core 2 Duo.

I realize that my headline may not meet with Gizmodo’s editorial guidelines if these recent gems are any indication:

T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home is Like an Awkward, Pimply Teen that Can’t Score

Polarized Mirror LED Watch For the Self-Obsessed

Wii Attracts Roaches Like Week-Old Pizza, Your White Trash Cousins?

Anti-Social College Kids Build Autonomous Foosball Table

Canadian Hoser Runs Up $85,000 Mobile Phone Bill

Should my headline not meet to Gizmodo’s high standards I offer up this alternate: “Only socially-awkward, egotistical, acne-laden losers that can’t even get a hand job from their incestuous trailer-trash cousins buy Intel processors.”

And if AMD won’t cough-up some cash see if Intel will. I can easily re-work my article to trash AMD instead. First bullet: “AMD can’t be found in any Macs. Macs are really cool, trust me, I know!“