Delivering a hardware is not a hard thing to do ....

Hmm ... methinks the backers of the zioneyez project will disagree with you here.

I had the pleasure of reading through all the Ian Flemming books last summer. They were really fun reads that hold up nicely (well, some of them do). I think it was The Spy Who Loved Me that really drives home the point about Bond And it's this -

Bond is a villain. The only difference with him is that he's our villain.

In such light, I think Daniel Craig looks perfect for the part. Just my two cents.

If you haven't read Jurassic Park, check it out. I picked up recently and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The article made me think of this passage
----
"But don't you find it boring to wear only two colors?"

"Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing," Malcolm said. "I don't want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports

they might be more likely to do business with other Freemasons

I don't see why your concern is exclusive to masony. What about running clubs? Play-dates? Or hell, even bowling leagues?

they have these requirements to be a Freemason like belief in a Supreme being

Again, there are plenty of other clubs that have similar requirements. The big difference is that masonry is open to people of different religions.

It also bothers me that it's so pervasive.

A lot of things are pervasive. Again, what does masonry have to do with it?

If you're purely doing it to spend time with your wife, does any aspect of it bother you?

I really don't understand that question. Masonry is a fraternal organization.

I'm not sure I understand your hesitations with the organization. I'm guessing you've heard one too many stories. Personally, I think it's a great way for people of different politics and religions to talk to one another in a meaningful way without getting trapped in hyperbole.

I'm not a mason, btw.

Before Disney, you could find a whole variety of animation styles.

Disney was established in 1923. Animation was in its infancy. Filmmaking was in its infancy. Such a statement needs clarification.

But the vision of Disney was to make everything round and smooth and beautiful. Every animation cel was to look like a masterpiece portrait -- because that was the general populace's desired art at the time.

Citation needed. Disney has almost ninety years of animation history with a range of divergent styles. I can't say what 1920's American looked for in its art, but I can certainly say that animation was a novelty at its time.

And that's what Disney was trying to make, animated art.

Again, citation needed. And also clarification ... Disney the company? Disney the man? Disney the man started making shorts such as Steamboat Willie. 1928. The point of this short wasn't to make art, but to entertain. Disney the company has been making a range of animated films for years of many different styles. All can be described as "art". Even Steamboat Willie.

You might have found a sharp edge on a villain like Jafar in Aladdin but the main character would be round and warm.

Now we are in the Eisner era. This needed to be noted at the start of the argument.

Others tried to mimic the stylings and it became a de facto standard mostly because it sold.

What others? And seriously ... do you think Disney was the first to use lines, curves and edges as a way to depict stylistically character? That's a ludicrous statement which needs a citation.

That's just the first paragraph. It may make great banter for cocktail parties, but it means nothing.

I've worked at Disney's home entertainment department and I've had close friends work at Nick (close as in the real sense, not the Hollywood sense).

I think your entire post sums it up nicely in the second paragraph:

I feel like Apple's UI can be compared to Disney's take over of animation stylings.

Yes ... you feel because the rest of ranting has no basis in reality. Not one bit. This is a post that would make Jon Katz proud.

I could go through your post and break it down piece by piece, but every time I start, this comic comes to mind. Let's just say, you need to cite your sources.

hahaha ... I totally missed that!

Nothing like breaking news for those too lazy to scroll down the home page.

I didn't see any mention in the article of the tablet being an iPad killer. There were iPad links, but informational ones. The iPad killer text was either applied by the submitter or the editor as a poor man's way to drum up controversy.

I think Swing looks ugly, and doesn't blend in with the native OS (not exactly the spirit of cross-platform), and I suspect that is the common opinion too.

Native swing widgets looks horrific but you can theme them to make the widgets look and behave as if they were native ones. Just google mac widgets and you'll see what I mean.

Legs, on the other hand, are mediocre at moving fast over well behaved terrain; but scrambling up mildly alarming slopes composed of loose rubble is practically routine...

If you get a chance, you should read the book "Born to Run". It puts forth the argument that we didn't evolve to run fast, we evolved to run over for long periods time. The idea being, we chased our prey until it collapsed. One of Attenborough's documentaries (Earth, I think) actually documents this kind of hunt. It's a pretty interesting read that will make you think differently about running shoes, for sure.

Well, he was actually interviewed on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me a few weeks ago (you can find it online at npr). Evidently, he gets a different haircut for each mission and it was the team who voted him the Mohawk.

It's the other guy - the former rocker turned physicist who managed the landing of the rover - who I find to be the interesting one of the bunch.

But really, I don't care who's getting the camera time. so much as the mission hasn't been forgotten.

I swear, the landing of the rover reminded me of the ending of the truman show. Everyone goes nuts at Trumans escape, and when the show ends, some dude asks, "whats on next?"

It's interesting how no graphical browser of today can cope with that little memory, when back in the day we could browse fine with 4MB.

Back in the day, a good practice was limiting your entire page to under 100kb. Now, you're lucky if a page clocks under 1mb even with all the caching going on. Don't get me started on sites like the Huffington Post or Destructiod.