It’s interesting how Mac culture is really starting to become mainstream, something which I would say has only really started to happen in the last couple of months. Take You Tube’s new interface for example – the selection of videos offered at the end of any av story of a dog miming along to a Romanian folk song whilst slipping over on a banana skin is remarkably similar to the Mac OSX Dock. I see the BBC has no fear of embracing this copycat culture either – check out their DJ page – now what does that flash movie remind you of?! Did someone say the word ‘coverflow’…?
The unfortunate thing is, is that as Macs become more popular, so threats to their security will increase. It seems that Macs aren’t necessarily safer, it’s just that until now they haven’t been targeted. This was demonstrated by the release of Safari for Windows earlier this month, which within hours was revealed as having numerous security holes. Was it simply that it became less secure when ported to Windows, that these flaws were Windows flaws? It would seem not. Rather, the consensus is that the tools to discover and exploit security loopholes on Macs are yet to be developed to the extent of those that exist for Windows systems. But who would want to hurt a Mac anyway? (strokey strokey)
I’m a bit peed off with myself for being so excited by the iPhone, especially considering it’s not even available on this continent and I won’t be picking mine up until late 2008. And the fact that I dislike mobile phones.
Sucker.
Oooohhh, but look, I can pinch my photos!!
Let’s hope that by the time it makes it to Japan it has at least a 3.2Mega pixel camera, and an expandable memory slot.
I could do with one of them myself.
Incidentally, have you seen the spoof of the Microsoft Surface computer thing? They’ve used the original Microsoft video, but dubbed over it. Rather amusing.
And did you know, that in Japanese, “Dubbing” means “to copy a DVD”. This really confused me when I was lent a DVD last week and told that I wouldn’t be able to dub it. “Why would I want to do that?” I wondered. It was only when I copied it with Mac the Ripper that I realised that it had copy protection on it (thus dubbing must mean ‘copy’). Of course I would never do that with commercial DVDs…
Then there’s the Bourne Ultimatum Trailer 2 which went live earlier today. I am far too excited about that film.
And why all this excitement? Because I have exams next week, and a ridiculous amount of revision to do for them. It’s at times like this that anything and everything not related to my studies becomes wildly exciting. And I attempt to make bread again (it’s looking good this time, having risen into a beautiful plump monster).
This is the kind of revision I’m doing. It’s not all that hard, but does require that one actually looks at it in order to do it. Rather than websites etc.
Crikey. I’ve just eaten a whole pack of American Double Choc Chip cookies. This is bad.
Does anyone have a scanner to sell, or do they want to buy a Canon printer?
Ok, ok, enough. Just do it.
That revision is Japanese I haven’t studied yet… >_< Thank you for the kick up the backside - I've been resting on my laurels since my friend came to visit a few weeks ago, and forgot the mission I was on to actually get to some level of competency in Japanese before returning to a place where my marks actually matter. I don’t suppose you have any idea what non-kanji expectations our teachers will have for us next year? Grammar feels like something of a black hole right now. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to the time when I can focus on improving my Japanese without having to worry about official assessment.
I’m afraid I don’t, but I’ll try and find out.
I know that if I was to have learnt everything we’ve been taught at Rikkyo we would have covered everything up to JLPT2.
I look forward to non-assessment too! I hope *Twinkle* and I don’t just slip back into English though. She uses it in the office, and thus it’s creeping home. And worst of all, after all my work to develop her nice British English, she’s now starting to pick up an American wine!!
(note to US readers: joke).
Taku does that sometimes, but on purpose to enjoy my look of despair and Darth Vader-style “Nooooo…”
I’ve been using JLPT 2 as my rough guide for expectations, but my teachers aren’t, so we’ve studied a mixture of level 2 and level 1 stuff with a scattering of things we had covered in Sheffield, hence my disorientation and very realistic fears now it’s time to go home.
I think part of this semester’s feedback will be suggesting they structure the grammar points studied in class to take us through JLPT rather than following whichever textbook they’ve decided to use. Obviously I’m not expecting that to come to fruition, but they used a new textbook this semester that actually contains some of the same grammar points we studied in the far superior textbook last semester. Not amused. Hopefully that’s not a problem everyone else has had, but it’ll be interesting comparing notes when we get back.
Thank you for the reply! Sorry for the lateness of my own response, I’m only managing to get on the internet briefly once or twice a week right now. I’m looking forward to chatting with you more back in Sheffield, it seems like we’ll have a lot to talk about next year!