About that iPod mini

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When Steve Jobs made the announcement of the iPod mini during the Macworld SF keynote, I wasn’t overly impressed.

…the biggest news on the iPod mini will be the price — no matter how happy people are about having the smaller player available, and no matter how cool it is, too many people were hoping for the \$100 price point. At this point, the 15Gb full-size iPod is only \$50 more than the 4Gb iPod mini…is this really going to go over well? Only time will tell, I suppose, but I have to say that I’m fairly skeptical. It’ll be a bit sketchy as to whether the smaller form factor and colors will be enough of a draw to offset the reduced capacity.

After thinking it over for a few days, though, I think I need to revise that.

See, I currently have a 2nd generation 10Gb iPod, which I bought for \$399 (it was the midrange model at the time I bought it). I also have an unusually large music collection: upwards of 1200 CDs, which will take up somewhere upwards of 80Gb of space once it’s all ripped onto my computer. Even if I had the money to spring for the top-of-the-line iPod, at 40Gb it would still hold less than half of my entire music library, so I’m not in a position of being able to carry around my entire music collection with me at all times.

Because of that, I’ve been looking at how I do use my iPod — and, quite simply, I really don’t use much more than a quarter of the 10Gb that I have available to me. I’ve gone into my listening habits in more detail in the past, but essentially, I carry around one 1Gb playlist, and occasionally toss one or two other specialized playlists on when I’m in a mood to, and that’s it. Right now, I’m currently using a whopping 2.12Gb of my 10Gb iPod for music, leaving around 7Gb free.

Now, say my iPod dies (heaven forbid). The more I think about it, if I do end up in a position where I need to get a new iPod, the iPod mini is perfect for my usage habits. Sure, it’s “only” 4Gb — but when I’m more than content with using just over half that space right now, why should that bother me in the least? I could spend \$50 more than the iPod mini, get the bottom rung iPod, and have 15Gb available…but chances are, I’d still only use around 2Gb of it for music, essentially wasting the other 13Gb. On the other hand, I could spend only \$250 (a full \$150 less than the 10Gb iPod I have now, incidentally), still have about twice the drive space than I’m likely to use, and have a smaller, lighter iPod that does everything that I use mine for now.

Sounds like a damn good deal to me.

So, contrary to my initial opinion, count me fully in the camp of the iPod mini supporters. If my current iPod ever dies — which hopefully won’t happen for quite a while yet — the iPod mini will do quite well for me.

U.S. Treasury: Anonymous until we change our mind

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I hope none of you sent any comments in to the Treasury if you were actually expecting your comments to remain anonymous:

The U.S. Treasury Department plans to publish nearly 10,000 e-mail addresses on the Web, violating its privacy promise to Americans who used e-mail to comment on a government proceeding.

In March 2003, the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) asked for e-mail comments about a proposal (.pdf link) that could raise the price of malt beverages like Bacardi Breezer and Smirnoff Ice. At the time, the department said that the text of comments would be made public–but assured people that e-mail addresses, home addresses and other personal information of individuals would be removed first.

“For the convenience of the public, we will…post comments received in response to this notice on the TTB Web site,” the initial notice said. “All comments posted on our Web site will show the name of the commenter, but will not show street addresses, telephone numbers, or e-mail addresses.” The TTB is the successor to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, portions of which are now part of the Department of Homeland Security.

As news of the proposed regulations circulated around malt beverage aficionados online, word-of-mouth took over and comments started flooding in to nprm\@ttb.gov. By October, the Treasury Department had received about 9,900 e-mail messages, plus 4,800 comments sent through the U.S. mail or fax–and decided it could no longer keep its promise.

“The unusually large number of comments received…has made it difficult to remove all street addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses from the comments for posting on our Internet Web site in a timely manner,” the Treasury Department said in a follow-up notice (.pdf link), published last month in the Federal Register. “Therefore, to ensure that the public has Internet access to the thousands of comments received…at the earliest practicable time, we will post comments received on that notice on our Web site in full, including any street addresses, telephone numbers, or e-mail addresses contained in the comments.”

(via /.)

Announcing the…iHPod?

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In an unexpected (and potentially extremely lucrative) partnership, Apple and HP announced today that HP will be re-branding and selling Apple iPods and including iTunes pre-installed on HP branded desktop computers.

Working to provide consumers with the most compelling digital content whenever and wherever they desire, HP and Apple® today announced a strategic alliance to deliver an HP-branded digital music player based on Apple’s iPod™, the number one digital music player in the world, and Apple’s award-winning iTunes digital music jukebox and pioneering online music store to HP’s customers.

As part of the alliance, HP consumer PCs and notebooks will come preinstalled with Apple’s iTunes® jukebox software and an easy-reference desktop icon to point consumers directly to the iTunes Music Store, ensuring a simple, seamless music experience.

ZDNet provided more details:

Apple will manufacture the player, which will not have the iPod name but will have the same design and features as Apple’s third-generation iPod players, Phil Schiller, senior vice president at Apple, said in an interview. Also, the HP music player will come in “HP Blue,” he said.

“The way we look at it, HP will be reselling an iPod device,” said Schiller, who noted that the device will display the Apple logo at start-up and will work with all of the accessories made for the white-hued Apple varieties.

I can’t see this as being anything but an incredibly good deal all around. Apple, iTunes, and the iTunes Music Store get a lot more exposure than they had previously with the bundling agreement, Apple also has a far greater potential sales base for the iPod from customers who might not look at something obviously from Apple but won’t mind looking at something with the HP logo on it, sales of both iPods and iTMS songs rocket upwards, and even more people get to experience Apple’s high standards of quality and ease of use. Talk about a win-win scenario!

(via MacRumors)

Photoshop CS won’t do money

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Adobe Photoshop CS apparently has special image-recognition code built in that will detect someone attempting to work with scanned currency, and then refuse to work with the image (“login as guest” to read the thread). Instead, it pops up an error message, and directs the user to the Rules for Use website.

We received a TIFF image from a customer, of a \$20 bill. The image does not violate any laws regarding reproduction of currency (it’s not even close to actual-size, and it’s not a “flat” portrayal – it’s wavy, as if it’s fluttering in the wind. Nor is it real-color.

However, Photoshop CS refuses to open the image, and provides an error message regarding the (il)legality of currency reproduction and an “information” button that takes you to the web. (Photoshop 7, of course, has no such qualms).

What the hell is this? In my book this is completely unacceptable – Photoshop is an image editor, not a censor, government policy enforcer or anything else.

Adobe, you’ve got some explaining to do.

Further testing by users has determined that the limitation affects the new US \$20 bill and several European bills, probably through as series of image-recognition algorithms (that, incidentally, must be applied to every image brought into Photoshop), at least one of which is probably the “EURion Constellation” method. Adobe has yet to comment on the issue.

Most likely, though, this was done at the request/strong encouragement of the government in an attempt to prevent counterfeiting of currency. The problem is, while the intent may be noble, this is enforcement at entirely the wrong end of the process. There are many, many legal uses for altered versions of the images on currency (advertising, promotional or informational purposes, parodies, and so on), all of which are covered by the fair uses clauses detailed on the very site where Adobe directs the user.

The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency provided:

  1. the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated;
  2. the illustration is one-sided; and
  3. all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.

Adobe have taken entirely the wrong step with this approach. In an effort to crack down on counterfeiters, they have summarily denied any and all users of their software the ability to perform legal operations on images of currency — and in cases such as that detailed by in the post that started the thread in Adobe’s forums, this can and will cause problems for those people who have a real and legitimate business need to work with such images.

(via /.)

[Update:]{.underline}

A response, of sorts, from Adobe.

I’m going to be an uncle!

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Wow.

My brother and his fianceé just found out that Emily is pregnant!

hello family. here it is. we are excited. we went to the docter yesterday. em is 11 weeks along. this is a big suprise to us. sooner than the original gameplan. oh well nothing left to do but celibrate. i love you all. keep us in your prayers. kevin, em and ?

Many, many congratulations!

A new Hanscom!

This GarageBand is a hit

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Analysts said they expect Apple’s new GarageBand music creation software to greatly benefit sales of Macs in the coming year. “You look at an application like GarageBand — you can’t get that on another platform at any price,” said Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Media. “People will buy Macs on the basis of GarageBand.” Tim Bajarin, an analyst with market research firm Creative Strategies, also thinks the same. “GarageBand might even have more long-term effect on Apple’s sales [than the new iPod mini],” Bajarin said. “Steve has taken the consumer application layer to its next level from playing music to allowing you to be part of making music.”

(ripped shamelessly from MacMinute)

Firsts

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Here’s something both interesting and disturbing (hopefully not the first thing you’re reading this morning). A friend is conducting an impromptu, informal poll on her LiveJournal:

Mostly for the girls. But if the guys feel they can contribute, feel free.

Feel free to answer this one anonymously.

For how many of you was your first sexual experience consensual?

For how many of you was your first penetrative sexual experience consensual?

Just curious and doing my own little impromptu poll.

Me? Neither.

So far, the responses tally like so:

  • Both consensual: 10
  • First experience nonconsensual, first penetration consensual: 3
  • First experience consensual, first penetration nonconsensual: 2
  • Both nonconsensual: 12*

Where both experiences had the same answer, it’s almost — but not quite — 50/50, and the nonconsensual experiences are in the lead. If you combine all instances of nonconsensual firsts into one category, then out of the 27 responses, barely over a third had fully consensual first sexual experiences — and just under two thirds were forced or coerced in some way into their first sexual experiences.

Admittedly, it’s a small sample group to work with, so no real statistics should probably be drawn from this. But I seem to remember hearing fairly often over the years that one out of every three women (people?) would end up being sexually molested at some point in their life. By this sample group, it looks more like two out of every three. Not an encouraging thought in the least.

Just for the record, all sexual experiences I’ve had have been consensual. One of the many things in my life that I’m quite thankful for.

* One comment indicated that both were “technically” consensual, but given the details that were explained, I’ve taken the liberty of adding that tally to this category.

Zeugma

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Cool word of the day: zeugma.

Zeugma is a word for when you make a verb do several functions at the same time (eg. “I left in a foul mood and a black taxi”). Flanders and Swann’s song “Have Some Madeira M’Dear” employes quadruple zeugma in each verse, which is dead impressive; the relevant lines are:

And he said as he hastened to put out the cat,
The wine, his cigar and the lamps

She lowered her standards by raising her glass,
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes.

When he asked, “What in Heaven?” She made no reply,
Up her mind, and a dash for the door.

I love things like this.

Even if it…what?

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This little \$20 app is a must-have, even if it weren’t made by Microsoft.

Without meaning any offense at all to John, this statement (and the accompanying implication that any application from Microsoft is a ‘must-have’) made me laugh and cringe equally.

In all fairness, of course, I often (though not always) have much the same opinion about Apple applications and hardware, which may be just as cringe-inducing to people like John. ;)