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It’s not every day (or is it? maybe it is…) that companies write tech docs re: how to power up[1] their products.

All of their products.

Source.

[1] Turn on. Activate. Engage. Make not-off.

Detailed article digging into the question: are too many Xbox 360s failing? Compares to launch history of other consoles (ex. PS2).

From IGN. Ads.

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Useful list defining various OS X processes. Never again find yourself stymied over the function of pmTool (which not this pmtool).

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This is a step in the right direction for the masses who have been waiting to acquire their first drumming robot and have so far held off for aesthetic reasons.

I’m going to wait until it evolves to match the prowess displayed in the “Metallica Drummer” (video, sound). And I don’t mean Lars Ulrich.

The reality is, of course, that no robot will ever match “Metallica Drummer”… until robot supermen are our superiors.

video from gatech.edu.

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final three tonight - elliot, kat-power, and sam cooke ne Taylor Hicks.

Taylor kind of muddled through up until “Try a Little Tenderness”, which was right in his element. Let’s hope for his finale next week he does “Soul Man”. In Blues Brother getup. Because why not — it’s not only what we all expect, but if done without irony I think it could be pretty awesome.

Katherine seemingly just can’t sing without massive / wild vocal gymnastics and palsies. Maybe this is the way pop singing is supposed to be (I listen to a lot of rock, where lack of vocal skill usually gains the upper hand), and the judges loved her “… Rainbow …” thing. She’s clearly being groomed to lock in for the win. I thought her third dress was hot, and that’s about as far as I’ll go re compliments, because she’ll soon be the AI 5 and frankly she doesn’t need them.

Which brings me to Elliot. He didn’t do anything super-flashy tonight (and never does), but just turned in more of what I value from him - strong, consistent vocal performances.

With that said, unless Elliot has a massive locked-in constituency[1], he needs my vote tonight. As much as I don’t want to see Elliot go home tomorrow, I know the odds are much better than 51% that he will given the competition of Taylor (the Beautiful South is pulling for him, and there’s little denying that he’s entertaining when he’s not over-doing it) and McPhever (Kelly Clarkson + T-2000 offspring).

So, in order to feel like a member of an actual community of people helping EY, I need to vote tonight. Ostensibly to help him win, but mostly so I can’t over-torture myself tomorrow when he gets booted. Too bad this is about as difficult as gaining access to a black vault lockdown.
I’ve attempted to log said vote through all three of Elliot lines for the last 67 minutes solid. Over 220 times, by the count of “outgoing calls” on my blackberry. Busy. Busy. Busy… plus the occasional “nothing leading to dropped call… what did you want to do again?”

I really hope I’m getting airtime charges for all these, so I’m all the more enraged if I wind up never getting through.

This leads to a sort-of-not-really-that-interesting hypothetical question/throught experiment, which is:

> If robo-dialers are calling Elliot’s three lines non-stop for two hours, does the number of votes Elliot receives reach some sort of “maximum possible number of votes over three lines over two hours” number that is a constant, and is that number the same for all three contestants over three lines / two hours?

Farewell, Yamin. You are a true star, and I’ll buy your record from iTMS. Never let down.

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[1] I’ve long since given up attempting to predict what players do and do not have hardcore/diehard fans… other than noting that the South seems to produce a lot of idol-winners.

I just bought an Apple Mighty Mouse. It works as advertised. I really like the scroll ball; it is incredibly smooth and responsive, with none of the sort of soft “clicks” present in the Microsoft BT mouse I once used.

The top-button action is a little tight for my taste, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it / burn 4 extra calories a day in the process.

Really, though: Why did I buy this?

For the simple reason that I’ve wanted Apple to come out with Bluetooth version of the MM for a while, and in buying one today, I’m assuring that Apple will announce said BT version on Tuesday.

“… you will find it is not the spoon that bends, but yourself.” -Boy

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Search, build in, eventually live in Google’s Metaverse. You knew it was coming, and it’s just the beginning, is the end, is the beginning.
I look forward to SketchUp landing on OS X, so I can render the 60 year-old building I live in, and complete my transition into cyberspace.

The Arts

Practical objects

The halls of commerce

wtf?

rds

Or, I finally give last.fm a full-on try. My iTunes Library is backed up.

… read the following with the acknowledgement that I don’t really understand exactly what last.fm does for me… stay tuned and I’ll let you know. Because I’ve never let my complete lack of understanding surrounding a technology stop me from early and rapid adoption, often with associated destruction of my or someone else’s data/hard disk.
Last.fm, at least it has a cool name.
I stumbled onto it last (haha!) November, but multiple threads on various discussion boards indicated that iScrabble or iScrivener or iScabby or whatever the OS X what-music-you’re-playing-brain-sucker-client is called wasn’t quite ready for prime time kept me from locking in full-metal. Specifically the references to iMiniverShevy eating the iTunes Library file left me feeling sick and dry.

Well… by all appearances it’s still not quite ready for prime time (iScripeneyer been going out to lunch on my G5 PowerMac nearly constantly since I loaded it), but it wakes up from its coma on rare occasion and appears to do something. With what reliability still remains to be seen.

Sometimes when I reload my blog page containing my “last.fm now playing links!” they render… and sometimes they don’t! At the moment I write this it does render, but appears to be about 1-2 hours behind in my playlist. Whether this is due to the rendering, something puking in iShatner (which has been “red note” as opposed to “green note” for at least an hour) or the ubiqutous Other Cause is unknown. I’m not in Troubleshooting Mode at the moment; I’m in Let This Run Overnight And See If It’s Still Beating In the Morning Mode. And yes, I have backups.

And about half an hour ago, the last.fm site was unavailable… for about half an hour.

These are all to be expected, though. We’re just getting the party started.

Beyond the social/good-of-music-taste[1] humanity networking elements of last.fm, the primarily selfish motivation of getting rid of Now Playing, which went from sort-of-reliable to completely useless in about two releases (and whose developer hasn’t done new OS X versions recently).

So… I’ve read it takes about 300 songs of brain-sucking before the power really starts to kick in. Allright, God, let me have it!

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rds @ last.fm

ps. ok, I’m a simple creature… ditching Now Playing was half my motivation for finally trying last.fm… and the fact that Malloreigh Suicide[Girl] is part of why-don’t-you-sign-up? marketing kit was probably the other half. Good work, somebody. Check it!

[1] Way too many people (or robots) here apparantly hold Coldplay in way too high regard.

At last. From
The Korea Times

I’ll forgo the obvious / base things I could say regarding this… and save them for a future bit about a more advanced female android.

I just wanted to point out this bit, which makes me laugh every time I read it:

Only Japan was faster than Baeg’s team in making an android as the country developed a life-size female robot in 2003, dubbed ACTROID. It cannot move because it is glued to the floor.

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Commentary and brilliant graphic of Sun’s revised corporate plan for the post-McNealy era @ ars technica.

Just the strategy graphic, for those who are lazy/cool:

Jeremy Reimer / ars technica

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