Steve Jobs
According to the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs had a liver transplant while on his 6 month leave of absense for health reasons from Apple. We will see but he is scheduled to return at the end of the month and Apple seems to have done alright without his day to day oversight.
UPDATE: It is confirmed – He really had a liver transplant! The Dr. at the Memphis hospital spoke at Jobs “ok” . More on CNN.com
Tagged: can you believe this, could be bullshit
Ok – the title below is dumb – KindleGate – but the read is interesting on how unreasonable the methods of DRM and eBooks are and will continue to be. DRM is making pirates out of all of us, just to use what we own.
KindleGate: Confusion Abounds Regarding Kindle Download Policy | Gear Diary.
Summary from the blog :
You are able to redownload your books an unlimited number of times to any specific device.
Any one time the books can be on a finite number of devices. In most cases that means you can have the same book on six different devices.
Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it’s only one device.
At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book.
According to the customer rep, there is a project to try to get that information available to the customer but it’s not yet available.
Finally, when you have reached a limit of six devices and you swap one older device for a new one, it does not automatically reset the number of licenses so you can add the new one. Amazon can release all of the licenses which will remove any given book from all of the devices and then allow you to re-download it that same number of times.
Tagged: Books, can you believe this, could be bullshit, Geek, kindle, Technology
My last few trips to the DFH brewpub have resulted in poor timed “between good stuff” visits. Last night was a different story; I tried 3 brews that were “new to me!”.
“Trained in the ancient art of Sah’tea…….”
Catherine decided to give this one a whirl with very little knowledge of the brew. Our waitress was not very knowledgeable, pleasant – but read the descriptions from notes. When it arrived in a small, thin challis style glass the first sip was a little confusing. Catherine defined it well “I am not sure this beer knows what it wants to be”. I headed to the rest room and on the way back saw the promo flyer for Sah’tea on the wall and brought it back to the table. The description there was much more helpful trying to pin down the brew. The brew is “confused” but I think a better word is complex. REALLY complex. Catherine felt better about her pallet when she read the description with the combo of rye, German Weizen yeast, juniper berries foraged directly from the Finnish country-side along with a sort of tea made with black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper. CRAZY! On top of it, the wort is hot rock boiled. You say “what?!” I say “They’ve got video!”
Catherine liked it enough to order another.
I heard about this infamous “blend” of the 60 and 90 minutes IPA a little while ago. When I saw it was on Cask for the evening – I was already ordering! The sticky sweet IPA was a delight! Served at “cellar” temperature in a pub glass this brew was amber in color with a 2 finger-thick head. It was a great match for the 60-minute IPA battered Fish & Chips I had. The hops on this was up front and strong but mellow and sweet. The balance was there and enough alc. to warm but not take away from the smooth mouth feel. WIN!
After having the waitress go ask the bartender what this was, I decided to try one. This was a complete surprise and a very nice brew. To give you a description, I will rip off some copy here from DFH:
Alter Boy is a Belgian Dubbel that is being aged in Bourbon barrels, it will be 7% alc. when finished. It’s a very balanced malty beer that uses Belgian Pilsner, Biscuit, Munich, Special B, and Vienna malts, as well as Belgian Candi Sugar in the recipe. The Bourbon barrels will add notes of oak, bourbon, vanilla and caramel that will really complent the the maltiness of the beer. The beer has been aging in the barrels for over a month and has really come together nicely.
I dig Dubbels and the bourbon barrel aging adds a real upfront “bourbon” blast. This one grew on me as I worked through it discovering the malty sweetness and bourbon hints and alc. combination making a nice sipper. I almost would see this as a cool weather brew verses a summer one, but good is good. I can see this being enjoyed in October on a cold rainy day. That would rule.
More at DFH’s site about the Altar Boy
Tagged: Beer, behold the power of beer, coolness
The City and The City by China Miéville
The City and the City can be seen as a departure for China, but I really think it continues his “city as character” writing style.
His other works all feature the location as a significant, defining element. His “trilogy” of Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council all take place in Bas-Lag, while Un Lun Dun, his young readers book, features London and “Un Lun Dun”. The City and The City is no different in that capacity, featuring the cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma. that nearly share an identical footprint and intersect and are highly patrolled to control “breaching” this boundary.
The story focuses on a murder and the pursuit of capture. The dual-city makes for odd-politics when these types of things happen. The resulting story is a straight up “who dunit” throughly mixed with a wacky city existence set in a version of our world. The pacing is right on for a mystery, and the vocabulary high, as typical for Mieville’s writing. Read More
Tagged: book review
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman