Intel-based Mac mini announced

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, unveiled some new products today at a press conference. The highlight of the event is the new Mac Mini based on Intel chips. For $600 you get a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo, 512 RAM, 60GB hard drive and DVD/CD-RW drive. For $800, your get 1.66GHZ Intel Core Duo procesor, 512 RAM, 80GB hard drive and SuperDrive dual-layer DVD burner.

If interested in trying out Apple, this is a good start. Decent price, decent performance in a nice little package that takes up almost no space. However, gaming machine this isn't. The graphics card, Intel GMA950, uses shared memory. If going to do gaming you would first need to upgrade the RAM to a gig and even that wouldn't help on games where frames per second are crucial. but then Apple isn't know for its gaming. Unless planning on playing Worlds of Warcraft on an Apple computer, its almost a non-issue. For now I am going to wait. The price point isn't sweet enough for me to sacrifice gaming.

Also announced is something called the iPod Hi-Fi Stereo. It basically looks like a black and white old style speaker with an iPod dock on top. It supports the iPod remote (that continues to work only in line of sight). It is also $350 big ones and will connect to your TV. Frankly its not worth it. If going to get a speaker at that cost you might as well go BOSE or a full surround sound system that can play iPod and do much more. Apple is on the right track with sound systems but adding what amounts to $150 extra to the cost because they added "iPod" to the title is a rough start.

Finally Apple also introduce its official leather iPod case...for $99. Yep a silly case that almost costs as much as a Nano. Also calling it a case is being generous. Its actually the same sleeve that comes with iPods only made out of leather. Once again, because it has the name "iPod" attached, Apple is charging about 3x more then its really worth. I guess this is just another example of what an iPod lover tolerates but I will spend my money elsewhere thanks so much.

If want some more info, screenshots and little hand-on information, Engadget.com has all the info.

Nintendo DS news

Gamebrink.com has some hands-on information and lots of screenshots of the new DS Lite that is being released on March 2 in Japan. Not sure what the date is for the US and to lazy to go hunt for it. Anyway for those that are interested in the upgrade, it does have some useful information such as the brighter screens, the longer stylus and the fact that the old style Gameboy Advance cartridges stick out a little. If you are hoping for larger screens, forget it, they are the same size.

"Serenity" profitable thanks to DVD sales

According to a report on Newsarama.com, the DVD sales of Serenity where 2 million plus after about 5 weeks of sales. So box office gross plus domestic DVD sales (foreign not out yet) means that the movie has made an estimated 11 million in profit. Not record shattering or anything, but it gives hope that while a Serenity sequel or reprise of the Firefly series is highly unlikely, the grand experiment of taking a failed TV show and trying to do it justice elsewhere isn't entirely without merit.

Georgia says no to FDR day

The Georgia House Special Rules Committe decided to block a bill that would make an FDR day in the state of Georgia. Why Georgia? Well that is the location of Warm Springs, the place FDR vacationed, where he went to heal, and where he died after serving this country and sheperding us through World War II. His accomplishments are unmatched in our history. By most, he is considered our greatest President. So what did he do to not deserve a special day of recognition? He cheated on his wife.

Now this isn't a good thing by any means, but apparently in the eyes of Rep. Calvin Hill, Republican for Canton, that trumps all else. Apparently cheating on your wife can eliminate all good, any accomplishments, and destroys all that goes with your history. Even worse, this decision is based on a "constituent's concern that it doesn't make a good statement." Thats right, he is choosing to block this legislation because one person told him too. Apparently when Canton wasn't paying attention, this person became the voice for all.

Some may ask, is an FDR day even needed? Probably not. But that isn't the point. This bill wasn't blocked because it was unnecessary or redundant or any other logical reason. It was blocked because one person and their idiot of a representative has decided that an act of wrong eradicates an entire history of accomplishment.

Spider-Man 3 Teaser Poster

Whee black spider-man costume. For non-comics fans, its just purty and different. For comic fans...well I never understood what the big deal was.

Fox News: Civil Wars can be good.

Media Matters write-up

Fold out for Batman & Robin #4 by Jim Lee

Retail Experience should be required

It should be a requirement that everyone, regardless of class, ability, postion, etc should have at least 3 to 6 months of retail, customer level experience, before they can move on to other things. Just like pretty much all jobs require at least a diploma, they should require retail experience. The reason is multi-fold. For one, it teaches compassion. It teaches what the customer level experience is like, especially when on the receiving end. Its a skill and experience that will follow at any job regardless of what it is. It teaches patience. Its teaches control. Most importantly, managers wouldn't make decisions based on book knowledge or theory but actual in the trenches, first hand experience.

What brought this up is this post here. The point of the post is basically how Best Buys mistreated him when he refused to go through the reciept check process. The way he was treated was wrong. It shouldn't have happened. Thats a no brainer. What bothers me though is his refusal and inability to see anyone's else's perspective on it. An Best Buy employee gave a step by step explanation of why the reciept policy is in place, explained how insane customers can be, explained why it ulimately helps the customer and he basically dismisses it because there was a contradiction in the letter. He also, only at the end of the letter, points out that he always dodges the receipt check. Doing that is an indication of his ego and nothing else. He is basically proving what we already knew, that he is an asshole. To be "right" was more important to him. Right about what I don't know because its simply not that important.

The person who wrote this thread, I guarantee has no retail experience. For anyone that has retail experience and face to face customer interactions will tell you, the employee is on the nose. The first rule that you learn when dealing with customer is that they infact are almost always wrong. However, say this to them at their own risk. Customer service really comes down to one skill...ego stroking. More then anything, all the customer cares about is hearing the phrase "you are right." Doesn't matter if taking about the price of lipstick or a plasma screen. Its a gigantic ego stroke where the customer doesn't usually even know what they are talking about.

My overall point is this, retail is a thankless job with poor pay, poor benefits and poor results. Try to treat those that help you with the same dignity you expect yourself to be treated.

Bush and United Arab Emirates Port Deal

As reported by CNN.com and pretty much everywhere else, President Bush supports allowing a United Arab Emirates company to take over the administration of 6 US ports. My understanding is that Coast Guard and other agencies would still handle security. I find it interesting the President "security above all else" Bush supports this.

I am suprised that Frist is even taking pause over the idea. He generally follows Bush around like a dog on most policy decisions. If Frist has doubts, an alarm should be blaring in your head. It doesn't take a genius to figure out this is a security nightmare. Call it a sterotype, but usually companies tend to hire those of their same culture and belief system. Look at any Indian, Korean, Chinese, etc owned business for that. The assumption that things will not change once a new company comes on board is naive at best.

Lawmakers who have called for the deal to be blocked need to "step up and explain why a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard," Bush said. He has a point. Its not fair and assumes to much. Well to bad. Bush doesn't seem to mind squashing civil liberities in the name of security, why does this give him pause? Why is he all politically correct when his drive on security suddenly effects his friends business interests?

Just from the Danish cartoon fiasco and uproar that is so far far far far far disapportionate to the "crime", I wouldn't allow an Arabian company to take over those ports. Its too big a gamble not only from a security standpoint but its a politically correct nightmare to enforce. If I was that company, everytime there is an accusation, investigation, etc, I would claim racism to protect myself. It would work to. In the end, considering what a fantastic gateway that ports represent to get pretty much anything into the country, the risk doesn't seem worth the rewards.

David Letterman's Cheney "commercial"

A funny little "commerical" called "A Big Bowl of Bad" aired on David Letterman last night. It shows how the whole shooting thing with Vice President Cheney isn't that big a deal.... Click here.

From Don: No greenlight...yet

Another monday, another Don Murphy message board update. Have to give him credit for that. Most, including me, can't be bothered to do that. Anyway, its more of a re-iteration of director Michael's comments, ie hear desire for orginial voices, greenlight is coming, and shooting starts towards end of May. The decision on voices being used is business needs and film goals vs nostagia and desires of the fans. At least everyone is being heard and acknowledge. They might not follow fandom's advice but at least they hear it. I still am sticking with my thinking that they will get recast. A shame really, especially Megatron and a few others, say Starscream and Soundwave, who voices where truly distinct and unique. Optimus Prime and really all of the Autobots are more interchangable.

Sony UMDs not selling

In news of the "Duh" kind, recent reports indicate that the UMD format for movies, only playable on the PSP, are not selling well. Let us count the obvious reasons why not. To begin with the average UMD is $20. The average DVD is $15-$20 depending if on sale or not. On top of that, the UMD has limited space. The result is you get just the movie. None of the extras like commentary and behind the scenes stuff. On top of that, UMDs can only be played on the tiny PSP, while DVDs can be played...well anywhere. So basically you pay more and get much much less buying a UMD. Usually that means a price difference, but in the pretend world that Sony lives in, less equals pay more. If Sony is truly serious about this format, they will compete in the one area they can, the price. The price point must be in the $5-$10 range to stand a chance. If they can't do that, they might as well give up on the format.

Sam's Story

In Superman/Batman #26 is a the plot written by Jeph Loeb's Sam who died recently at the age of 17. Its a who-whos of the comic industry and worth reading and definilty worth buying as all money is going to the Sam Loeb College Scholarship Fund. Click here for all the details about the project.

Dick Chenay Shooting Rant

This is my rant about Vice President Dick Chenay being the first VP since that nations founding to shoot a man while in office. Not so much about the shooting itself but the continued cluster-fuck in handling by the administration and others. What specially gals me is it didn't need to be handled this way. Shit happens. Especially with incompentent "hunters". It would have been a joke on the late night shows for a few days and gone away.

I have yet to hear an explanation for the 22 hour news blackout. There is simply no excuse for it. None. I don't care what was going on. If Cheney had time to go have dinner after the shooting, he had time to get his people working on getting the news out. What he was doing was hiding facts plain and simple while waiting for the guy to die or not. Can't admit that, but basically that is the only thing that explains the wait.

Finally, again no explanation for the gall of Cheney's buds blaming the victim. They repeatedly blamed everyone but the guy that pulls the trigger. Finally Cheney admits he was a fault and even then the ego-maniac felt a need to add a "but..." invalidating everything.

Long story short, this shooting summarizes everything that is wrong with the this administration. Even in cases that are clear cut "shit happens" they feel a need to hide the truth, to dissemble, to avoid responsibility and blame others for their own actions. Its pathetic. Its cowardly. Its un-presidential and stinks of bad leadership.

In addition to this, we have Fox News. They get the interview with Chenay rather then a press conference. Understood, they want a softball interview and Bret Hume is the man to go to for that. He and the job description of "journalist" don't belong together and haven't for years. What is reprehensible is are supposed to report the news and the truth and here they are caught actually hiding information. They withheld pertinient facts for an interview, not only cutting it from the broadcast but then cutting it from the website transcript of the interview. The White House transcript, that describes Chenay knocking a few back a few hours before the shooting, is more complete. Its that isn't gross negligance, I don't know is.

Nintendo DS: TV tuner and Web browser add-ons

Nintendo is planning on adding web browser and a TV tuner to the Nintendo DS sometime around Wednesday, at least in Japan. Both of these add-ons will cost in the range of $30 so unlike the PSP, its not free. It seems Nintendo either made a boo-boo by not making the DS firmware upgradable or they are business geniuses.

The browser will be based on the Opera-based which is typically used on Apple and Unix machines. As for the tuner card, well limited only to "One-Seg" broadcasts rather then analog signals. Since the One-Seg protocol is just now beginning to launch in Japan, I wouldn't hold my breath on the TV capabilities ever making it statistics.

In other news, more Tetris DS shots. This game, especially because of its online capability, will be the must have game of the year. Planned release is still in March and hopefully will stay there.

Playstation 3 September 21, '06 and harddrive-less?

Well the next gen rumors in regards to the Playstation keeps coming out. However, unlike many, this one may have legs. Apparently not only is the Playstation 3 coming out in September but it will not have a harddrive.

The scoop from Next Gen and reported on joystick.com indicates that the PS3 US launch is planned for September 21st. In addition, Sony will launch a service nearly identical to Xbox Live called the Playstation Hub. This indicates that Microsoft is a bigger threat then Sony wants to admit as you don't tend to copy the ideas that are bad. Like XBox live, the use of the service will not be free but hopefully for competitive sake it will not be all that expensive. Out of my ass guess, $15.95 per month.

As for the second rumor, well it seems more like fact as it comes directly from the specs posted on Playstation.com. As the pic above shows, no harddrive but I guess you will be able to buy one to add in the future since it accepts laptop harddrives (which while small are also more expensive then desktop counterparts).

The price point has still not been announced but now that is it without a harddrive, I am going with a $299.99 price tag.

Bush Released his $2.77B Budget

A bit late but wrote it so posting it.

Well, its out. Bush's proposed budget for the next year or so. It all a mess but it comes down to give more to military, spend more in general, cut "entitlement programs" including education and make the rich tax cuts permanent. So its par the course, spend more, take in less cause god forbid he anger the rich folks why we throw aways billions just on interest every month for his debt. Would think someone would point out could do an even bigger for the rich cut if didn't have a deficit to pay off...but then that would require real work.

Either way, the Republicans are still cowards so what you see is what we get with the usual "bridge to nowhere" type porks added on of course.

Danish Muslim Cartoons

Thanks to muslimcartoons.com and humaneventsonline.com for the pictures.






As the violence continues, Bush and Rice condemn it, one is left with the feeling of "what the fuck!?!?" As this excellent cartoon shows, Islamic leaders and citizens have better things to worry about. Instead they worry over a cartoon rendering of Muhammed by a Danish “infidel”. So here we are.

I think, more then anything over the last 50+ years, the violence over some pretty crappy cartoons shows just how different Islamic world compared to the Western world. Not even Christianity, which has shown a frequent liking of censorship, would advocate this kind of violence. Shoot not even advocate, not only would they condemn it but I don't think it would even occur to most to react in such a violent manner.

It shows that not only is the War on Terrorism futile, but that Bush's grand plan to bring democracy to that region is doomed to failure. For that to succeed, it assumes they define freedom, religious tolerance, and many of our western values the same. They simply do not. They don't want democracy, they want theocracy. They don't want freedom to choose. Nor do they want freedom of the press and ability to express one self.

For the US, until recently anyway, freedom was as defined by the Constitution. For Islam, its defined by the Quran. We get our viewpoints from our government leaders and sadly from our celebrities. They get it from their religious leaders and sadly their terrorist leaders. We define freedom as "I will defend to the death your right to say it". They define freedom as freedom to kill for saying whatever they disagree with (which can very from sect to sect). We try, and sometimes fail, to give equal rights to all. Their Quran finds that concept absurd and therefore so do they.

This incident proves in a way that is both ridiculous and tragic that the Western way is not nor will ever become the Islamic way. The ideas, beliefs, and viewpoints are completely incompatible. It not only summarizes and reinforces all the hatred and stereotypes we have for Islam but it also re-enforces our failure to try to understand them and them us. We are using Iraq as a test lab for democracy. The problem is it’s our version of democracy, not theirs. It’s our ideas, not theirs. It’s our playing field, rather then theirs. We want peace, but we want it on our terms. As a result, the grand experiment will fail. Tragically, if Islamics are willing to kill over cartoons, I hate to imagine the death toll when the Grand Western Democratic Experiment fails.

Fiscal responsibility my #@$

The republicans have started the new year right for them anyway by cutting the budget for "entitlement programs" by $39 billion. Wow, the republicans finally live up to what they used to be, they are going to try to get back to balanced budgets and all that right? Of please, of course not. Don't be naive. This is them just hating any program that doesn't help the rich. For that they have the next bill ready to go: a $60 billion dollar tax cut for the rich. All those cuts for them for the last 5 years, this bill would make em permanent. So while the US spends and spends and spends, the republicans feel steps must be taken to decrease amount of money taken in to pay for the spending. On top of that Bush is asking for additional $120 billion for his various wars.

So we have $39 billion cut over five years:
- Student loans with higher interest rates
- Medicare cuts that have higher premiums
- Medicaid cuts with reducing amount will pay for drugs, increasing premiums, and increasing co-payments
- Pension change, that is actually decent as it penalizes companies $3750 per employee fee for terminating plans, of course that is still cheaper then keeping the plan so don't expect to impact anything.
- Welfare reform that continues freeze on funding.

In return we get:
- $60 billion permanent tax cut for the rich
- $120 billion in spending for wars
- $18 billion for hurrican relief (most of which goes to Halliburton and other Bush related companies who contracted to do the work but instead get paid so much they contract out the work to another contractor who tends to get an additonal contractor who then might actually do the work...eventually)
- $2.3 billion for a mythic bird flu epidemic. Wish they put this much effort in cures such as cancer or AIDS. Drug companies will never come up with those cures, its simple not in their best interests to. More money is made by keeping people on their drugs for years then a one time fix that a cure or vaccine represents.

If followed the Republican example of monetary policy, i would quit my job and then go out and buy a new car and house.