So I tried the Skyrim Apple Cabbage stew.

Well, the recipe that can be found here.  I went with the ‘use bacon grease and add the cooked bacon’ option: the whole thing came out very nicely, although I probably made a mistake at putting the cooked bacon in before I let it simmer for forty-five minutes.  My wife isn’t sure about that; she liked the general of-pork flavor of the dish.  It is not a zesty stew as described, though: salt and pepper at the least, possibly more spices.

I really should revisit Skyrim at some point.  See what the modders have been doing with it since the last time.

I’m already finding the latest software for the iPod annoying.

Could it really hurt for Apple to just ask me how I want my iPod configured? I mean, seriously, I’m an adult. I can decide this stuff for myself.

Grr.

Moe Lane

PS: I’d like to meet the software person who figured out that you can make people update the software by making it impossible to sync the iPod with iTunes until you do. And by ‘meet’ I mean ‘yell at.’

I gotta admit, I endorse this sentiment.

I mean, yes, people who didn’t like the album or U2 should have had an easy way to remove it.

But that can issue – and in fact was – settled with a simple, albeit loud, “HEY! Knock that off!” Besides… has anybody involved ever actually read Apple’s EULA? They can pretty much brick your hardware just because they don’t like your face. Amazing that that didn’t set people off, but this did. Humans are weird.

Apple’s Tim Cook’s tiresome Greenie hypocrisy.

(Via Instapundit) Two things about this story:

At a shareholders meeting on Friday, CEO Tim Cook angrily defended Apple’s environmentally-friendly practices against a request from the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) to drop those practices if they ever became unprofitable.

NCPPR put forward a shareholder’s proposal asking Apple to disclose how much it spends on sustainability programs. If those costs detracted from Apple’s bottom line, the NCPPR demanded that Apple discontinue the programs and commit only to projects that are explicitly profitable. Cook apparently became angry at the group’s request.

…reportedly, Cook said “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”  We’ll get to that in a second, but first off: Continue reading Apple’s Tim Cook’s tiresome Greenie hypocrisy.

More on Apple and the Mighty Anti-Trust Hammer of Maximum Fun.

The entire post by BeldarBlog analyzing the law decision behind Apple’s antitrust spanking is well worth perusing in full, so do so. But here’s a taste.

[Apple CEO Steve] Jobs was bragging in public about the price-fixing conspiracy that his company had organized and executed to fix ebook prices. The reason the publishers were threatening to withhold their books from Amazon altogether was because that was the key term in the conspiracy that Apple was proposing. Unless Amazon agreed to knuckle under to the “agency pricing” model that Apple wanted (because it would eliminate retail price competition in ebooks, to Apple’s benefit, and let Apple compete with Amazon on the basis of hardware, never price) — Amazon wouldn’t be able to sell ebooks at any price.

———–

This whole fact pattern would never make a good exam question in an antitrust course in law school. It’s way too easy. There’s an arsenal of smoking guns. It’s like no one at Apple ever heard of the Sherman Act.

Continue reading More on Apple and the Mighty Anti-Trust Hammer of Maximum Fun.

Hey, did you notice how Kindle ebook prices suddenly dropped a couple of bucks?

Yeah, it was very sweet: Amazon.com apparently got together with the major publishers and they all agreed that the smartest thing to do about this entire electronic publishing thing was to admit that e-books were simply cheaper than dead-tree versions and that pricing should reflect that, because it’s the reader that they’re all here to serve and yes, I’m just bullshitting you; the publishers all settled out of court because the Mighty Antitrust Hammer of Maximum Fun was descending upon all of their heads.  But not Apple!  Apple decided to stay and fight it out.

Silly, silly Apple. Continue reading Hey, did you notice how Kindle ebook prices suddenly dropped a couple of bucks?

Use Buycott on *your* sweatshop smartphone to identify corporate malefactors!

Wait.  What?

[Buycott] itself is the work of one Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo, who has devoted the last 16 months to Buycott. “It’s been completely bootstrapped up to this point,” he said. Martinez and another friend have pitched in to promote the app.

Pardo’s handiwork is available for download on iPhone or Android, making its debut in iTunes and Google Play in early May. You can scan the barcode on any product and the free app will trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company, including conglomerates like Koch Industries.

So, basically, you can find out via this app that some company likes to invest in cheap energy or improved crop yields.  You will not find out via this app that the typical user of Buycott is quite hypocritically happy to use an electronic device made in a Chinese sweatshop – but then, we already knew that. Continue reading Use Buycott on *your* sweatshop smartphone to identify corporate malefactors!

Good afternoon, Apple Computers.

I just wanted to tell you something: once you sell me one of your computers, you do not have the right to tell me what I will do with it.  I understand that your standard customer may be happy enough to allow you to choose FOR them, but I come from a more, ah, self-confident tradition. I don’t need your patronizing – and, quite frankly, provincial – attitude getting in the way of my work. And if I say that your iPads are computers that have been artificially chained down to fit a curiously stunted intellectual ‘vision,’ then they are motherfucking computers and I SHALL break my own one to my will.

Which I have done.

Have a nice day.

Moe Lane

Steve Jobs retiring. Or switching career tracks. Or something.

No, I’m not jumping up and down in joy: it’s probably medical in nature.  Besides, he’s now chairman (Tim Cook is CEO), so it could also just be a reorganization.

But I still want Flash on the iPad2*, and the ability to use a variety of cameras in iMovie for the iPad2.  Frankly, the iPhone is virtually useless for guerrilla video.  And, while I’m on the subject of iPads: may I point out that the question “Can I get an USB hub for this thing?” should not result in a blank look and a scratching of the head?  – Well, I’m going to point it out anyway.

Moe Lane Continue reading Steve Jobs retiring. Or switching career tracks. Or something.