July 2007
Fiction
I was reminded tonight of something Jesse brought to my attention awhile ago: Newt Gingrich reviews lots of books on Amazon.
They’re mostly generic thrillers, mysteries and military novels. The sort of books where characters have strong-chinned names like “Clint Magnum”. A yen for potboilers doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on someone, even a powerful someone, but lines like this are kinda creepy:
“For those who think the world does not possess weapons of mass murder with terrorists poised and ready to use them, this work of fiction is a good introduction to the dark side of the twenty-first century.”
He acknowledges that it’s fiction, but then says we should construct our non-fiction worldview around it. Unfortunately for him, I constructed my worldview around Douglas Adams books long ago. For those who think that mice are merely rodents, Adams’ works of fiction are a good introduction to their hyperdimensional intelligence and power. Be nice to mice, and obey their orders.
No iPhone
No, I’m not buying an iPhone. Apple won’t let any third-party applications onto the device. In other words, it’s not hackable, and I’m not gonna drop $600 on a computer I can’t mess around with. Apple’s current line on third-party applications is, “if you want the iPhone to do something that it doesn’t do, build a website that does it.” I want to play Ogg Vorbis files, run an NES emulator, SSH into my web server, record lectures, act as a remote control for my PowerBook via bluetooth, and make VoIP calls. None of that can be implemented as a website (at least, not without flash).
I don’t care if the applications that do those things aren’t as shiny as native iPhone apps — I need to be able to decide for myself whether installing a program is worth it or not. Apple didn’t design the thing for people with my priorities, and that’s fine, because that’s what Nokia is for. I got a Nokia E70 a few days ago (the iPhone is driving down prices of other smartphones on the secondhand market), and since then I’ve been a gleeful little nerd.