Technology

I’ll try not to turn this in to another obsessive Mac fan blog, but let’s just say that I’m beginning to realise what I’ve been missing. I’m not going back. [Simon Willison: Mac-tastic]

Finally getting around to learning a bit about Photoshop – had it for nearly a year on the desktop and laptop, hardly ever used it.

Thanks to an article in Mac Design Online I learned today how to turn photographs into sketches and cartoons. Very neat!

Tried doing this with some different photographs and such – seems to not work too well with images of people, so tried one of the house from summer 2002 – worked great. Enjoy!

Everyone thinks they know what the mob is like. It’s something you learn from watching The Sopranos and GoodFellas, something that involves Joe Pesci, baked manicotti, and a dead guy in the trunk. But that’s not what I’ve seen during my two years working for organized crime. My sense is that the mob works a lot like GE or Time Warner. It’s more Jack Welch than John Gotti.

But that’s not all I do. I’m tech support for the mob. From the moment I started this gig, I realized just how behind this gang is when it comes to technology. Forget about the paperless office. These guys are buried in pulp. But when they want to revamp their systems, it’s not like they can call McKinsey for advice. That’s where I come in. [Wired]

Ok, this is just a bit strange.

Stay away from my iPod…

In a story on Wired, entitled Feel Free to Jack Into My iPod, an iPod owner shares experiences he has had with other iPod owners, namely the plugging of his headphones into a stranger’s jack. It began when a woman in her 30’s walked up to him while he was on a walk, unplugged her headphone jack from her iPod, and motioned for him to plug his in. They then listened to each other’s music for about 30 seconds. He has then shared with about a dozen iPod listeners, with most of the strangers reciprocating. According to the article, the practice has also cropped up in other communities. Listeners acquire tastes for different kinds of music, just like on internet/LAN file sharing networks. An interesting read.” [Slashdot]

AT&T on Thursday fired the latest shot in the escalating Web patent wars, filing suit against PayPal and eBay. AT&T issued a press release alleging that the PayPal and BillPoint payment systems infringe on AT&T’s 1994 patent for the mediation of transactions by a communications system. Besides e-Payments, the AT&T patent purports to cover e-Voting, e-Auctions, e-Gifts, e-Donations, e-Wishlists and e-Referrals. e-Yikes! [Slashdot]

Fuck this web patent shit. Give me a break.

Apple’s iTunes.

Time Magazine has spoken.

And I agree.

I am totally fed up with Microsoft Entourage’s shitty support for anti-spam measures. So I installed SpamSieve today – we’ll see how well this works out.