The new iMacs are shipping with USB 2.0 in addition to Firewire. My read is that Apple is reading the tech tea-leaves and betting that adoption of Firewire isn’t going to spread much past Apple (the creator, AIR) and Sony. I may be speaking prematurely; I checked a couple x86 computer manufacturers, and they all had machines with both USB 2.0 and Firewire, but my bet is that consumers are going to gravitate towards one or the other.

My guess, based on consumers’ natural tendancy towards gross laziness, is that firewire will die a quiet death as folks realize that USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with all the crap they’ve bought already. Firewire requires a whole new set of extension cords and hubs that USB 2.0 doesn’t absolutely need.

I noticed that in a comment on this board, Jank posited that the current federal tax structure is close to ideal (NTS, in his opinion). Paul Krugman has a must-read piece on how that came to be, but I’m really looking for a solution to the problem.

Happy 96th Birthday to Fay Wray , the Original Queen of Scream.

(and now following the theme of Notebook Graffiti…)

No separation of Church/State in Europe, apparently. The EU has decided to force a 1,000 year old monestary to allow women on the premesis.

I go to a church which happily ordains women as ministers; however, if the monks over there in Greece want to, and have continually worshipped without women’s participation, I do not think that the state should be allowed to force them to change their beliefs. This is somewhat a special case; a 50 KM long island off the Greek coast with a rich historical tradition.

Maybe it’s my aversion to having my own children (though other people’s reproduction is fine), but this kind of creeps me out.