although I swear I had heard about this from someone else beforehand… “the motorcycle-nut daughter of a nuclear physicist in kiev rides around chernobyl with a radiation meter and her camera“

If I was Apple, I would be all over Windows [app] piracy. While Apple has done a fair job convincing people that you can do anything on a Mac that you can do on Windows (ahem. Whether this is a benefit or not depends on your point of view…), but that’s not the biggest roadblock to people “switching”. The barrier is the cost to repurchase software on the Mac platform, which wouldn’t be such an issue if so many people simply don’t pay for the software that they use on Windows. If you paid zero for your copy of Office 2003 or whatever (not me, I’m still on 2000), then paying several hundred dollars for the Mac version (of that, and every other major app you use) is a significant barrier. Ergo: if it was harder to pirate Windows software, more people would buy Macs.

Job notice - Assoc Planner with municipal/urban planning background to assist Town Planner with development and land use matters. Applications accepted until 4/30/04. Send cover letter, resume (work experience, salary history), copy of college degrees and transcripts, list of 5 professional references:

Town of Normal Human Resource Dept
Normal, IL

We were also talking about noise. Frankly, I think we’re all suffering from severe sensory overload. Watching TV for more than 30 minutes or so feels like someone is ringing a bell in my face. As usual, the popular press offers a timely morsel on the matter. Definitely something to pay attention to from a design point of view.

PS — be sure to check out the fantastic public domain orbital images at Earth Observatory — great stuff, brought to you by science.