2004-12-31

Cool SF artist site

Just found the web site of an interesting science fiction and fantasy artist, Stefan Martiniere. Never heard of him before, despite having a long-time interest in SF/F artists such as Michael Whelan, and it turns out I have been seeing his work a lot. He's worked on books, animation, films (such as the recent I, Robot and The Fifth Element, theme parks and rides, and more. Busy fellow, according to his résumé

2004-12-30

Feeling overstressed? I resemble this remark

If you feel overstressed, overworked, and wonder why the wonders of modern technology haven't made the world a utopia, you're not alone.

Technology is good....but can be used badly.

Examples are everywhere (and no, i don't just mean Mac vs Windows ;-)

2004-12-29

One big reason why I use MacOS and PalmOS

An article in the BBC points out today one big reason why I prefer Macintosh computers and PalmOS PDAs to Windows PCs and WindowsMobile/PocketPC PDAs:

The number of viruses. Which doubled in 2004, and exceed 100,000.

"The last 12 months have seen a dramatic growth in almost every security threat that plague Windows PCs.

The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%. "

The current virus tally for the MacOS? Zero (OS X, that is. OS 9 and before had a few wimpy-ass virii that never did much.) Sure, the Mac has only a few % of the market (installed base is far larger though) but with 4 million new Macs sold every year, and older ones kept running and passed on to friends and family instead of being pitched like most Wintel PCs seem to be, there's a LOT f Macs out there (50 million maybe, I'd estimate) and that's GOT to be a big enough target for the virii writers. THere have been proof of concept works and virii for the Mac...but it's still next to impossible for them to spread, due to the inherent security of the OS compared to Windows....which has always been and still is a sieve, despite Microsoft's so-called best efforts.

And the success of the iPod is encouraging more switchers than Apple's "Switch" ads ever did. Not to mention constant, repeated press coverage of such switchers and articles by PC pundits who've tried the Mac...and liked it, some even staying switched or at least going cross-platform (often with a Mac-laptop, widely knows as among the best along with the IBM Thinkpads)

Here's to a kick-ass 2005, Apple. (Palm, you'd better start doing some ass-kicking yourself...or just rename yourself to "Treo"...or Microsoft's going to do to you what they did to Apple in the 80's and 90's.)