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Inmate Cites Festivus Belief
A Festivus for the rest of us? A convicted drug dealer in California thinks so. He cited his adherence to the holiday celebrated on a famous episode of “Seinfeld” to get better meals at the Orange County jail.
The Orange County Register reported Monday that Malcolm Alarmo King disliked the salami meals served at the jail, so he used his devotion to Festivus as a reason to get kosher meals reserved for inmates with religious needs.
On Challenger
Gizmodo has a great photo up of the space shuttle Challenger being driven to the launch pad for its first flight ever.
The photo is chilling, considering what would happen just a few years later.
Trivia: I was born the exact day the shuttle exploded, killing all seven onboard. The 25th anniversary is about 6 weeks away.
The End of Delicious?
It looks like Yahoo’s cost-cutting efforts go beyond its recent layoffs. The company plans to “sunset” (i.e., shut down) a number of products including social bookmarking service Delicious, according to what looks like a leaked slide from a company-wide presentation.
The risk of losing data when a company closes a service is a very real part of cloud computing.
Update: Here’s how to move your Delicious links over to Google’s cloud. Which is probably a little more stable than Yahoo’s at this point.
On the Nook Color
Nate Anderson on the Nook Color:
The Nook Color is a nice first effort at an Android tablet from Barnes & Noble, though it would benefit from cutting back on the Christmas cookies. It has the potential to become more valuable still with a well-curated app store in the new year, but hints from Barnes & Noble have suggested that we’re likely to get things like reading-related cooking apps (which pair, conceptually at least, with cookbooks) rather than the sorts of tools that would give the Nook broader appeal.
New MacBook Pros and iMacs in 2011
This seems like a no-brainer. Why is this rumor even making the rounds?
The Multi-user iPad
The individual nature of the UI and user-model of the iPad seems so at odds to me with its form-factor, the share-ability of its screen technology and it’s emergent context of use that I can imagine something (much more elegant) than this coming from Apple in the near-future.
Of course, they may just want to sell us all one each…
[via Kottke]
On Influence
Shawn Blanc, on the Mac App Store:
This is how iOS is influencing OS X. Not by bringing a touch interface to our desktop monitors, but by bringing greater simplification to our operating systems.
Review: 27" LED Cinema Display
I used to be a notebook guy.
In college, I carried a Titanium PowerBook with everywhere I went. I upgraded to a MacBook Pro, which I used for years.
Now, I’m a desktop guy. We have a 24“ iMac at home, and at work, I use my 15” MacBook Pro in clamshell mode almost all the time. I had an older 23" Cinema Display at work, with an Apple Extended II keyboard and Magic Mouse1 hooked up as well.
Dvorak, on the iPad and Adults
I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 30 wanting an iPad. A PS3, Wii, GameBoy, or even a useful laptop maybe, but an iPad? Heck, most people will get a sweater no matter what they ask for.
Furthermore, I do not recall ever seeing anyone under 30 actually using an iPad. It seems to be an old person’s computer.
Am I wrong about this?
Yes, John, you are.
Email Protected by Fourth Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation:
In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.
Gmail Creator: Chrome OS Will Be Killed
Gmail creator Paul Buchheit via Business Insider:
Prediction: ChromeOS will be killed next year (or “merged” with Android). Because ChromeOS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display).