Better Thoughts on Windows on a Mac

I was supposed to go see Silent Hill last night, but by the time we got there it was almost sold out and late enough that we preferred drinking to trying to find another theater. It hasn't gotten the best reviews anyway though, I'm afraid. The rest of my post will still stick to Friday news. Robert Cringely has weighed in one more time on all this Windows on Mac stuff, and his view may be the most radical but the most sensible of them all. What if Leopard implemented the Windows API to allow Windows applications to run natively on Macs without installing Windows at all?! His reasoning is great and claims that they'd allow for alternate options, but using WINE would be too risky (Windows could probably easily break it) and so this would probably be the better choice. This could be what all the "virtualization" rumors for Leopard actually centered around. It would actually complement the monolothic kernel change Cringely supposes, which wouldn't make a difference for most people, but the geeks out there would probably see a performance boost, and I'm not sure if they could implement the Windows API otherwise. If they want to do this, they have to do this now before the Intel Macs spread too much, but I think the added bonus of this is that developers wouldn't have to create versions of their software for Macs if the didn't want to and yet it would still work just as well. Hence, all the more reason to buy a Mac if there's nothing the average person wanted to do on it that they can't, and at the same speed. If you only read one opinion on this stuff, read Cringely's.

Apple may also be changing their chip maker for the iPod, but I doubt that this will affect anyone much (unless their new bidder promises better power consumption, which would be sweet). Poor PortalPlayer never saw it coming though. Another quite intriguing topic today is how eBay, Microsoft, and Yahoo are reacting to the dictatorship of Google. eBay may be ready to strike a deal with the other two companies (public or private) to fend off threats from the company, and while it sounds like just a rumor, would it really be so farfetched? Meanwhile, Microsoft hired the Chief of Ask Jeeves to lead their Internet Unit, which is clearly a move to improve MSN search. Their Live Drive may even launch before GDrive (not sure if someone has beaten Google to one of its own product ideas before). This situation gets curiouser and curiouser. Have you ever considered what things would be like if Microsoft released Vista for free? This blogger has, and while he admits (and I agree) this would never happen, it makes for some interesting coffeetable discussion. If you're a programmer then this little article is a must-read as it details tips on how to best optimize your code. It actually reminded me to download a profile to help out with a problem in a project I'm working on right now using some string matching algorithms, so I thought I'd share it. Lastly, I just thought it was interesting how Nintendo's DS and DS Lite dominate the Japanese console market and dwarfs the PSP.

I dug up some pretty good videos today. I usually don't fall for these sappy romantic movies because they're usually all the exact same, but I'm kind of intrigued by The Lake House because at least it has a creative plot. Moviefone has that trailer. There's also a new Bandidas trailer in another country, but it's all in English and makes it looks like a pretty fun movie. I'm sure it'll just be a B movie, but as long as it's enjoyable I doubt I'll care when I see it. The full American trailer for The Omen is now out, and I think it looks pretty good. Is it just me, or does it seem like we've had a lot of horror movies in the pipe lately? Yahoo Movies has a new clip from MI:3, and it's very teasing but good. They even have some commentary to boot. If you want to read a rather representative review of Silent Hill, check out this one. It sounds like it only appeals to fans of the game, and supposedly lacks character development and good dialogue. Lastly, IGN interviewed Eva Longoria (from Desperate Housewives and The Sentinel), and it sounds like she'd be doing so much more if she wasn't tied down to the shooting schedule of Desperate Housewives.

I just had a few little things to note. I registered for all the classes I wanted to take yesterday (CS 378 was actually waitlisted minutes after I registered for it), and I think it's a decent schedule. I would've preferred to have ended earlier on Fridays, but you can't have it all. BBC had an interesting article about how rock stars are increasing concert ticket prices to compensate for their lowered album revenue (ACL actually went up a few bucks itself), and the so-called rockonomics is actually endorsed by a rather famous economist who I remember from my high school days: Alan Krueger. One last thing, I thought I'd post an interesting postcard from over at PostSecret:



I'm going to try out the Great Pretenders meme today:

If you could spend 24 hours with a celebrity:

1. Who would s/he be?
Probably Jessica Alba.
2. Where would you expect him/her to bring you?
A copy of the Sin City 2 script!
3. Where would you bring him/her to?
My bedroom? A nice restaurant? Zilker at sunset? You pick.
4. What would you like to do with him/her?
This is way too obvious to answer =P Come on, it's Jessica Alba!
5. What's the one thing you'd been always wanting to ask the celebrity?
Do you get tired of people gawking at you?
6. If s/he didn't treat you well, would s/he be your favorite celebrity?
Probably not.
7. What would you give to him/her as a gift before saying goodbye so s/heÂ’d remember you?
Not really sure. I don't have anything all that special to give Jessica Alba.