Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Owning a hybrid

"Owning a hybrid is all about saying 'Look at what I'm doing for the world,'" says auto analyst John Wolkonowicz of Global Insight. "If you can't say that, the whole purchase is a waste of time."

Grist

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Sexuality bad for kids, violence OK

Put simply, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as allowing states broad leeway in regulating minors' access to sexually explicit material. That is why it is illegal around the country to sell pornography to children. Courts have not, however, said that states have a similar right to regulate media based on violence. (NY Times)

I guess that answers my question. Kind of.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Oldest VW diesel


Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced that, as part of its diesel heritage search, it has located the oldest operating Volkswagen diesel vehicle in America, a 1977 Rabbit owned by Clint Wilson of Tehachapi, Calif.

[...]

In recognition [...], Volkswagen has provided Wilson with a new Touareg V10 TDI to drive for six-months. (VW Vortex)

Wow, that'll be a change. 50 horsepower to 310? Granted, the Touareg is a wee bit heavier, but still.

AppleWorks RIP


So AppleWorks is officially dead. Good riddance. I've never liked its interface, ever since I got my first Mac in 2000 with OS 9. It got left further in the dust with the migration to OS X.

I like a word processor that gets out of the way. I want to be able to turn most everything off, including the rulers, how the text is going to lay out against the margins on the printed page, everything. I just want to see the text with minimal interruption. AW didn't let you do that.

I've picked up a copy of the latest Pages. Here's hoping it lets you do something like that in its word processor mode.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Dollar coin MIA


So has anyone actually seen one of these coins? It's been six months since the release of the Washington coin and I haven't. The Madison coin was released in May. The Jefferson coin will be released tomorrow.

By having a rotating design on the new dollar coins, the Mint is hoping to keep interest high and avoid the famous flops of two previous dollar coins - the Susan B. Anthony, introduced in 1979, and the Sacagawea, introduced in 2000.

Yeah, right.