Apple does Windows

Convergence is coming: Last week, Apple Computers released Boot Camp, a program that allows a Macintosh computer to be able to load up Windows on Apple hardware after a reboot. Thus, an Apple user could also have Windows on their machine so they could run Windows programs in Windows itself (as opposed to a slower-than-molasses emulator inside the Macintosh operating system).

Since there are quite a few programs (including most games) unavailable on the Macintosh, this is a pretty big deal, enough so that I could see switching to an Apple in the next few years. A lot of my fellow gamers are saying the same thing. A more attractive computer, a generally less suck operating system, a system with far fewer issues with viruses and spyware … what’s not to like? The only real issue is the relative cost of the hardware and the relative difficulty upgrading. The former isn’t a big issue for gamers, who tend to buy higher end computers anyway, and the latter is only periodically an issue, and only for a relatively small number of users, all things considered.

My family’s first computer was an Apple ][e, which was laughably thought of as a portable computer back in the early 1980s. By “portable,” it’s meant that it was (slightly) heavier than a portable electric typewriter, which was a monster to lug around. (My family had one of those, too.) We had a little green monochrome monitor (later replaced with a fairly substantial color monitor) and my brother and I loved it. We had a little dot-matrix printer and a handful of games. My brother and I used it to write our papers on and my parents finally sold the whole kit and kaboodle after more than a decade of owning it (for something modest, like $50) after my brother and I were in college.

At Virginia Tech, all the engineering students (including my first roommate, Paul Kachurak) had to have IBM PS/2s, which seemed a quantum leap forward in computing power, although I’m pretty sure my Treo 300 phone is more powerful now. But there were programs I had never seen before, much less had access to, and as my college career progressed (with me just mooching the use of others’ computers or working in the campus computer labs), I saw relatively few Macintoshes, and those that I did were clearly falling further and further behind the curve of what was available for them and, due to their higher costs, simply didn’t measure up in most ways to the IBMs. By the time I was living in the fraternity house, the only tangible thing Apple was really contributing to computing (via my roommate Todd Baucom’s computer) was the mouse, although his Windows 3.0 version was using a two-button mouse, something that the folks in Cuppertino would take a decade more to embrace as a notion.

So my computers, starting the summer I graduated college, have been Windows machines. (I was given strict instructions to write the Great American Novel by my parents when they got me that first one. I’m working on it, I swear!) The only time I have used Macintoshes, for the most part, have been chronically underpowered work computers (the nature of work computers anywhere outside the gaming industry, in my experience), which did little to woo me back to the Apple fold.

But now, with the current Macintosh operating system no longer playing catch up with Windows (sorry, Macheads, things like using more than one mouse button and being able to resize a window from anywhere along its frame were innovations ignored for too many years out of a misplaced sense of pride) and the realization that nearly all of the programs I use regularly (Firefox, Thunderbird, Word, iTunes, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, World of Warcraft) are either available for the Mac or run natively on it (World of Warcraft, like all recent Blizzard titles, actually ships on a hybrid disc with both versions on the same disk), my reasons for not going back to Mac are dwindling.

I’m hoping that the commentators on This Week in Tech are right, and that the next version of the Mac OS will actually not require a dual-boot system, but simply automatically run Windows software within the Macintosh OS, using the secondary processor on a dual processor system to run Windows under the hood for just such occasions. If and when that happens, it might be time to kiss goodbye to Microsoft, as I have to most of the rest of their software at this point.

I wonder if I’ll be able to get a nostalgia copy of Ultima III or Swashbuckler to run on it when that happens, as a “welcome home” gift to myself.

Walk the Line

For the most part, Walk the Line is simply a standard-to-good biopic, but the performances — especially by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter — elevate it to another level.

The film is a lot of fun for fans of classic rock and roll. Playing “spot the future icon” is a lot of fun when, say, Elvis is recording his demo song (one that few music fans would immediately recognize) or offering young Johnny Cash some uppers, in a moment of dubious historical reality, but great foreshadowing for the King of Rock and Roll.

Likewise, while the music isn’t quite as good as the originals — sometimes dramatically not as good — it’s credible enough and a lot of fun to listen to.

The film’s heart, though, is Witherspoon, who conveys with a glance knowing Joaquin Phoenix’s Cash for years, not the months the film took to make, and who subtly portrays a woman older than herself without relying on ridiculous special effects makeup or dialogue cues. Her portrayal of “the other woman” agonizing over her place in Cash’s marriage is believable and touching. I suspect her days of films like Legally Blonde II are behind her.

A great deal of fun and strongly recommended for fans of Reese Witherspoon or classic country or rock and roll music.

The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold

I thought I had seen awful movies. I’d seen Highlander II. I’d seen Deep Blue Sea. I’d seen Instinct. But I never truly looked into the face of the abyss until I’d seen this movie.

This film makes me doubt the existence of a benevolent God.

Under no circumstances see this movie.

Always check your math

From the California Department of Education:

The 2005 Similar Schools Ranks that were released by the California Department of Education (CDE) on March 21, 2006 are being revised because of a calculation error.

The error is limited to only the 2005 Similar Schools Ranks. The 2005 Statewide Ranks, Academic Performance Index (API) Base, and Growth Targets are unaffected.

The error was caused when the variable other/unknown ethnic was inadvertently left out of the calculations. The Similar Schools Ranks compare a schools API to 100 schools on the following characteristics: pupil mobility, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, percentage of fully credentialed teachers, percentage of English learners, average class size, whether a school operates a multi-track year-round educational program, percentage of grade span enrollments, percentage of students in gifted and talented education program, percentage of students with disabilities, percentage of reclassified fluent-English! -proficie nt students, percentage of migrant education students, and percentage of students in reduced class size for a full day.

The 2005 Similar Schools Ranks for all schools have been removed from the CDE Web site and will be reposted in approximately three weeks as the recalculated data become available.

There’s a whole lot of school districts across the state quietly taking back a whole lot of cheering.

Sarcoidosis journal

Pills, when they come in familiar orange bottles, tend to be 30 at a time. My medicine is actually four weekly packs of seven days worth of pills (21 per week). My insurance company, perhaps ignoring the fact that I don’t have an orange bottle specially filled by my pharmacist, won’t refill my prescription until the date matches the one last month when I last got my prescription refilled, so I’m on a pill vacation for a few days.

The good news is that I’ve now determined that the pills are, in fact, keeping my blinding pain in my feet and arms at bay. There’s also the lovely icepick that’s been inserted beneath my left shoulderblade. The bad news is how I’ve learned this information.