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cats rule
nogutsnoglory blog-
If, during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organization, and I think this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to the high geometric powers of increase of each species, at some age, season or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite variety in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being’s own welfare, in the same way as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. [Charles Darwin (1859) On the Origin of Species]
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“It is essential to such a government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.” James Madison -
All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it. -Benjamin Franklin - IO9
- This breathtaking short film is becoming a TV series June 19, 2013In Arrowhead: Signal, a mercenary named Kye crash-lands on a desert world, where survival will take everything he's got — and he's not alone. This cool-looking short film was intended to lead to a full-length feature, but instead it's spawned a brand new TV series, appearing on Australian TV.Read more... […]
- A map showing the original meanings of place names in North America June 19, 2013Now this is impressive: It's called the Atlas of True Names, and it reveals the etymological origins and translations of familiar place names whose original meanings we've mostly forgotten. Looking at it, you'd think North America was some sort of fantasy novel.Read more... […]
- Every zombie headshot ever assembled into one glorious supercut June 19, 2013There's not really much else to say. Screen Junkies found every single zombie headshot in the entirety of movies and television, and created one 120-second video of nothing but exploding zombie heads. It's simply enchanting. Notice any they missed?Read more... […]
- Pixar's latest short will make you believe your whole city is alive June 19, 2013If you see Monsters University this weekend, you'll be treated to Pixar's newest short: The Blue Umbrella. It's love story between two umbrellas who meet on a rainy evening, with a supporting cast of all the faces you see in the city's inanimate architecture and fixtures.Read more... […]
- With Current Budget, NASA Will Never Get to Mars June 19, 2013At today's House hearing for the NASA Authorization Act of 2013, witness Thomas Young was asked how long it would take the Agency to put a human on Mars with its current budget. His response was unambiguous: “Never.”Read more... […]
- This breathtaking short film is becoming a TV series June 19, 2013
- Make Blog
- Bringing a Classic Marklin Z-Scale Model Railroad to Life With Arduino June 19, 2013
- Call for Manufacturers: 3D Printers and 3D Scanners June 19, 2013
- It’s News: Maker Movement Currently Alive and Well in Asia June 19, 2013
- People Over Megahertz June 19, 2013
- Ontario Makers “Occupy” Kitchener City Hall June 18, 2013
- Weird Universe
Category Archives: technology
Stefan Gets the Last Word
One of the elements in play on Google+ is vigorous Apple hating. Google and Google fanfolk have replaced Microsoft and its Win nerds to become the ideologically situated antagonists of all things Cupertino. It’s amusing.
What’s curious is how pitched the competition is when looked at as a race between arrogant juggernauts.
I am not very tempted by Android because Chrome is such a laughably incapable browser. For example, for four years users have been requesting Google make it possible to sort bookmarks in Chrome. When the developers accomplished this feature this year, did they provide a way to sort by date? No. Ever tried out Google’s open source support?
Meanwhile, Apple has for almost a decade been working on making their system software across all their platforms user-unfriendly and more opaque.
Etc.. Neck and neck.
The Jobs of a Lifetime
So we went to Atari and said, `Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, `No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, `Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’ Steve Jobs
My friend Pilch laid an original Macintosh on me in 1985. He had received the cube-shaped computer as a gift from his employer, Burroughs, taken it out of its box, played around with it, and then, upon giving it to me, pronounced it “a toy.”
I used my freebee Macintosh for seven years. In 1988 I met its designer, Jerry Manock. He was a customer of the high-end seating company I worked at. He tried to convince my boss to junk the office IBM PC. No dice. The only benefit from this episode was that I learned MS-DOS. I could always go home to my computer, the one you could just turn on and get to work/play.
Over the years I went back and forth this way, between the office PC and the home Mac. (Through the nineties I also kept up with Apple’s technology by using the computer center at Middlebury College stocked with up-to-date machines.) I cannot imagine anybody being in this situation and not favoring the easier-to-use Mac computer.
Still, ‘whatever floats your boat’ was my attitude. After returning to Cleveland, I used hand-me-down Macs supplied by mom, Macintosh Plus, LC, LC III; my partner’s PPC 638; a Powerbook 140 given to me by a friend. Finally, in 1998 I bought my first brand new Apple computer, a G3. My first recording was produced on it in 2000-2001. Next, in 2003, came a refurbished Mirrored Drawers dual-boot PPC. It was the platform for my second recording, and my first OSX machine. I used it until I bought my first Macbook in late 2009.
That Macbook died a horrid death last year when I plugged its charger into a shorted house circuit. Yet, I ran out and picked up a MacBook Pro laptop, upon which i am typing this recollection.
Except for the MacBook I slaughtered, and the G3 that I scavenged for drives, all my legacy computers remain in my personal Apple Museum, and, presumably each one of the six could be started up tomorrow.
I will always associate Steve Jobs with Apple Computers rather than with the revolutionary media appliances and vertical industries he helped bring forth. When he returned to Apple in 1997, he, soon enough, saved the company, and, in effect, saved it from itself. Given this personal association, the contemporary 12 core Mac Pro at $5,000, draws the line all the way back to the original Macintosh, with its 128k of memory, and 400k floppy discs.
Yet, revolutionizing computing while sitting won’t be the capstone on his legacy.
