Monday, January 16, 2006

You're Never Safe

My meeting tonight ended early so I decided to do my post after all. Before I start though I just have to share my excitement that I got a call this morning from Texas Instruments. I'm going to Dallas next week for on-site interviews, and I'm excited because I've never done that before, though it means missing two classes. It was definitely a pleasant surprise for my first day back in Austin. Onto my topic though: I made it ambiguous to purposely freak you out (I know, I'm lame sometimes), but I really mean with regard to your computer. A BBC columnist put up a good editorial about how Mac users are mistakenly complacent in their little Mac world. In fact, Mac OS X is built on Unix, which has some very well-known flaws. Windows is still much worse, but maybe that's just because people like to push it around more and the higher volume of users puts its problems in the limelight. There's no doubt that viruses spread much slower to Mac machines, but they do exist and users should use the built-in firewall and scan for viruses weekly just like everyone else does. The more users that are smug about it, the more they're taunting malware writers to come after them, so watch yourselves Apple lovers!

I promise, only one more Apple article today! There's just been a lot of media coverage on them lately. MSNBC caught up with Steve Jobs to get his thoughts on the new chip, and his responses are pretty predictable, but I'd like to point out that he mentioned the power consumption issue for the first time. He said that they'd match the PowerBook G4, but I was personally hoping that it would be better than that. Also predictably, Intel has decided to drop the Pentium brand line, which I thought was getting ridiculously long when they came out with the Pentium 4. I think a new chip does them some good because there are too many chip brands to keep up with. Mozilla has announced that they'd release a version of Firefox for the new Intel-based Macs in March, which is good news for those users who are sick and tired of dealing with Safari. Lastly, you can find a great collection of some of the best free content Google Video has to offer over here. Being the sad person that I am, I've seen a number of them before, but the last one on the first page really caught my attention as being especially cool.

I have to correct what I said yesterday about the box office yesterday: Hoodwinked pulled in first place today for the three-day weekend to just barely inch Glory Road into second place. At least Hostel only dropped to 5th place. Could this lovely lady to the right be the next bond girl? Click to enlargeMI:6 seems to think that she's the favored choice, and she may not be really hot, but I thought she looks pretty good as Briseis in Troy. They also found out who two of the villains are, but I didn't recognize either name. I would've put up the first picture from Bobby, but it makes Emilio Estevez look pretty bad. I reported about some new Superman Returns pictures yesterday, but I didn't know that the rating may be dropped from PG-13 to PG! It had better give fans something to drool over or there's going to be some trouble. Superhero Hype found out that Vinnie Jones (Juggernaut in X3) will be involved in Brett Ratner's next project, Rush Hour 3, and has agreed to participate in future X-men films. Now all he has to do is not suck in X3. The Golden Globes were tonight, but I was only excited about Lost winning best series and Steve Carell getting best actor in a comedy series. Lastly, you can take a look at the best (and worst) posters of 2005 over here, if you're interested.

And now, it's time for some Monday Madness:

1. Before I walk out the door, I always check to make sure I _______.
turned down the thermostat. I don't care if my furniture gets cold.
2. I can't seem to catch up on my _______.
reading! I have so much Stephen King sitting on my bookshelf crying out to me.
3. The one surface in my house that always seems to get cluttered fast is _______.
my computer table. I'm really just a lazy bastard and put random stuff on it.
4. If I sleep past _____, I feel that I've slept in too late.
noon. Even after long nights, I try to be up at noon.
5. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to _______.
stop cluttering!
6. I hope to have my income taxes done by _______.
whenever my dad usually hopes to get them done. ;)
7. This year I'd like to make more time for _______.
socializing. I need to put myself out there for a change.

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