I'm sorry I haven't been posting to this blog as often as I should. I will try to get back into a regular habit.

One reason this is so is because I haven't had much to say. There are many reasons behind this:

* Family stuff
* Addicted to Star Wars: Galaxies online game
* Stopped working on my Visual Studio 2005 book

Anyways, the “family stuff” is now taking much less time (for now). And I am thinking about giving up SWG. That should give me more time. I hope.

You have to hand it to Apple. I mean, when they get something right, and the market responds with millions of units sold, they deserve all the money and accolades that come along with it.

I am now the proud owner of a brand, spanking new iPod. I guess my wife got tired of me staring at them lustfully in Best Buy and decided it was time to just buy one already.

My one problem right now is that I have been purchasing music in Windows Media format from PureTracks. And the only way to get that into my iPod is to burn it to CD, and then rip the CD to MP3. (Or buy it again from iTunes.)

I own a license to the music, but it's damn difficult to get it into iPod...

I am actually starting on a Visual Studio 2005 project at work. The thing is barely in Beta 2, but enough people here are excited about the new features in the .NET Framework that we've been told to use that as the platform for our next project.

(Of course, it will have a SQL Server 2005 back end.)

I. Can't. Wait.

I read an interesting article that speculated that, at some point, Apple will stop making Macs and just focus on iPods and iTunes (iPictures, iMovies, etc.).

That will be quite the day. Not because I have some affinity for the machines (or have ever even used one), but because it is the kind of thing you could not have predicted even 2 years ago.

If it works, it will be a brilliant move. Almost everyone these days has a Home PC. The need to buy a new computer every few years will soon be over, as computers today are more powerful than the tasks they are being asked to perform (Word, Excel, Email, Web Browsing). The only need for power on the PC is games, but that market might soon move away from the PC.

So where is the growth in technology? Portable PCs. We have seen the rise and fall of the PDA - clearly noone wants to be able to create Excel spreadsheets on the bus. But have you seen the latest things from iPod and Playstation Portable (PSP)? The PSP, for instance, has games, movies, music, and wireless networking all bundled into one.

But you're not going to watch movies with your family on a PSP. So I think the home entertainment console is undergoing a lot of technological improvement to become the central technology device in the home. The XBox might be the gaming station, DVD player, email reader, web surfer, and more... all wrapped into one.

So where does that leave the PC? Well, I think people still need one. But why buy a new one except when the old one breaks? Assuming gaming moves to the Home Entertainment Console, what new killer app will there be to spur an upgrade in PC power? None can be seen at the present time.

Of course, this could all collapse and Apple's move away from the PC could be suicide. Who knows?

Some American politicians (and protesters) have labelled the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay a concentration camp, and have drawn parallels to how Nazi Germany treated prisoners during WW2.

Those type of statements are ludicrous, laughable, and no further time needs to be spent thinking that what the Americans have set up is a concentration camp. Clearly, it's not. American's don't hate Arabs and wish to extinguish them, as the Germans felt towards the Jews.

Instead, people should be asking themselves, “What is the Guantanamo Bay prison? What is it for? Why does the U.S. need a prison 50 miles off the coast of Miami?”

The answer to this is quite clear. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5 decades ago, that any prisoner kept inside the United States has the full protection of the constitution, including the right to counsel and the right to a speedy trial amoung others (called “due process“). It also ruled that U.S. prisoners kept outside the borders of the United States are not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see the 1950 Supreme Court ruling in Johnson v. Eisentrager).

Guantanamo Bay Prison is a perfect legal no-mans-land. It is under the full control of the U.S., yet it does not belong to any country. Some terror suspects are being kept imprisoned on U.S. Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf - similarly they are in international waters (not on U.S. soil) and do not get constitutional protection.

So that, there, is really the issue. The U.S. has found a legal loophole in the constitution. A place where it can detain people, yet reject their right to a lawyer, a trial, to talk to their families, or even to acknowledge that someone is in custody. It can stretch the boundaries by treating prisoners in a way that is not legal inside United States prisons - keeping them awake for 2 or 3 days in a row, verbal and mental abuse, etc.

The U.S. is not about to close this handy loophole it has found. I don't think prisoners are being physically tortured there (not in the Abu Gharib sense), but having a prison that has no rules certainly has its benefits in other ways.

Here's a nice editorial at Canoe that sums up how I feel about the U.S. Grand Prix exactly.

Had they REALLY cared for the fans, they would have found a way. Had they REALLY cared for the fans, there would have been 20 cars on the track. Had they REALLY cared, the future of Formula One racing in America would not be in doubt.

Basically, I don't blame Ferrari for not wanting to bend the rules to allow the Michelin cars to compete. But the fact that some compromise could not be reached inflicted a mortal wound into the sport. Ferrari apparently refused to go along with some proposed changes, while the FIA vetoed the other ones.

“Just drive slower” was the only possible solution the FIA would accept. I think that letting them switch to safer tires would have been the ideal solution for everyone.