The-Asterisk

This week was the week that Apple finally released their iPad, the long awaited and breathlessly anticipated tablet computer. At the 'unveiling', Steve Jobs announced that the iPad (a name scorned by many, but one I think fits well within Apple's iNomenclature) would be based on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform and that all 140,000 applications previously developed for the platform would work on it as well. I think this was a wise decision, giving the iPad immediate access to a plethora of working applications, instead of having to dumb-down Macintosh applications, or worse yet, have to develop a whole new ecosystem around the iPad. Something that was actually shown twice at the announcement (once when Steve sat down and demonstrated the functionality of the iPad and then again when several new iPad-focused applications were showcased) was the New York Times app. I think this is very revealing because for this device to be more than a novelty, it needs the ubiquitous 'kil...

I woke up at 4:30 this morning with my head totally congested to the point that I couldn't breathe. I stumbled into the bathroom in the dark, careful not to step on one of our two Golden Retrievers and found the decongestant that I had just purchased the day before after having to show my Drivers License and sign a declaration along with my home address that I wasn't going to abuse Pseudoephedrine HCl. (That is a subject for a whole 'nuther blog entry.) As I laid in bed waiting for the drugs to kick in and not being able to sleep, my mind started wandering. I started thinking of all of the things that we have now that were unheard of 50-some years ago when I was a child. I started thinking "You might be getting old if you remember when..." Here is a rather stunning partial list, starting with the first item that got the thought going: Nose drops really were drops in the nose. You had to tilt your head back and your mom would drip two drops down each nostril and it...