Coasting down the mountain into Geneva my Prius averaged 99.9mpg for a full 10 minutes. It was the highlight of my journey and improved my overall average fuel economy by a full 2mpg. But it was not enough. For all my defensive driving, slippery bodywork and hybrid technology, my average fuel consumption was 48.1mpg. I’d lost to a Beemer and I was disappointed; I had never driven so slowly or carefully for so long in my life. I’m considering buying a V8 Range Rover and opening my own oil well in protest.

(Via Instapundit.)

Major Brian Shul: “I loved that jet”

Valleywag

Endgadget

TUAW.com

Ars Technica

CNET

Gizmodo

MacDailyNews

Fake Steve Jobs

I don’t expect a 2nd generation iPhone yet… but do think a refresh to the current model is likely.

1st Prediction: iPhone RAM increase to 16 GB.

Looking at Apple’s history with the iPod, they followed the initial model design with a smaller version. I think this is likely with the iPhone, for a few reasons. First, some folks just don’t need the Internet access. Second, a lower-priced model would expand the market.

2nd Prediction: iPhone Mini (my name, yeah it sucks, I’m sure Steve and company will come up with something cool)

Lots of press about iTunes movie rentals. This seems likely, so I’ll go along with the crowd.

3rd Prediction: iTunes movie rentals (although I can’t see the reported 24 hour time limit being right, that’s just too short).

But just doing rentals with the existing hardware (iPods, iPhone, AppleTV, and of course Macs) seems incomplete. I think there will be something new here, something using AppleTV and FrontRow, but more interesting to a larger, iPod-savvy market. DVR technology is cool, but the technical issues for Apple to provide a solution that works with OTA, cable, and satellite are significant (witness Tivo’s struggles).

4th Prediction: An AppleTV line, probably three sizes of flat-screen, that includes the existing AppleTV functionality plus much larger hard-disk, and tight integration with Leopard and iDisk.

How about you? I’ve opened comments… Let’s have some fun!

I observed that the Microsoft Sync Manager was consuming large quantities of CPU frequently as well, and made a guess that Entourage calendar synchronization might be the root cause.

So, I rebuilt the Entourage database, deleted the Entourage calendar from iCal, relaunched Entourage and waited a few hours for it to reload all my email and calendar, re-enabled Entourage calendar synchronization, and now performance has returned to the previous speedy levels – just a minute or so.

Yet another justification for avoiding Microsoft products whenever possible. Unfortunately not possible in this case, as my employer uses Exchange, and refuses to enable IMAP email access — preventing me from using Mail.app. So the Mac users are forced to use Entourage. Yuck.

At least I can use OmniFocus for project management, Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentations. All far, far superior to the Microsoft offerings.

After years of development, a new class of weapon that uses computer-controlled electronic ignition instead of primers to fire projectiles may be finally taking its much coveted place in the U.S. military inventory.

Brisbane, Australia-based Metal Storm has delivered a four-barrel weapon to the Naval Surface Warfare Center for testing that uses a small electrical current instead a conventional firing pin to deliver stacked rounds at an astounding rate.

How astounding? Try 1 million rounds per minute.

Check out this video:

Via Instapundit.

For the second year running the Zune and its anti-Apple pedigree squanders its unique position to chase after the iPod-disenfranchised; it offers nothing special to ex-iPod owners, nor anything innovative to the proto-geeks looking to buy just about anything but an Apple product. It doesn’t do much anything better, cheaper, or all that differently from its primary competition, and it’s further behind today’s leading edge devices, like the 605 WiFi and the touch, than the original Zune line was last year. When we really look at the product, perhaps FM radio aside we can’t think of a single compelling reason to recommend it to an iPod user that’s ready to upgrade or switch — and we don’t even have any particular affinity for iPods.

Jack-O-Lantern is a screen saver that displays a carved 3D pumpkin. The pumpkin is recreated in loving detail right down to the flickering candle inside. Several carving designs are included, and you can even create your own to be displayed. No getting your hands dirty carving the real thing. Artificial pumpkin smell not included.

I’ve got it installed on my MacBook Pro, works great on the built-in screen as well as the external 20″ screen.

Get it here.

Leopard BSOD

This is gonna leave a mark.

Releasing stuff on Friday is great, if it works, but then again, there’s always that danger of the Monday morning headline – APPLE’S NEW OS BRICKS THOUSANDS OF MACS.

Probably not going to be that bad, but it might be close.

Wow. You’d think after some of the buffoonery with the iPhone, the last thing that Apple needed/wanted was to put out something that would immediately annoy a significant number of people.

Well, they have. OS X 10.5 Leopard has…issues. Primarily, the upgrade installation option (which, after carefully reading the accompanying material, a LOT of people will try right off the bat) has a very, VERY nasty habit of leaving you staring at one of the last things a recent Apple user expects to see.

A Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Well, not really a true hallmark Windoze BSOD, with indecipherable HEX included. It just . . . hangs. And refuses to start.

(Via Instapundit.com.)

I checked Macslash and some users there are reporting issues as well. I’m glad I decided to wait, hopefully Apple will sort this out quickly.

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Wow.

Alas, with the iPhone, a new solution was needed, as SplashID isn’t available for the iPhone, and hasn’t had much attention on the Mac in several years.

I’ve been beta testing a cool utility called 1Password, which manages passwords, credit card, and other personal/private data. The UI is very nice, the features good. Full integration with all the usual Mac Web browsers, and data is maintained in the OS Keychain, fully encrypted and safe.

I’ve been beta testing the new 2.5 version the past few months. This version adds clever support for the iPhone. To work around the current inability to create an approved native iPhone application, 1Password creates a Safari bookmark that has the entire database encrypted and embedded, as well as a nice Javascript-based UI for accessing the data.

Version 2.5 is now shipping, if you are an iPhone user, give it a look. 

WolframTones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music

Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe

“The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science.”

And checkout this JunkScience.com analysis.

Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, writes that there is a climate of fear and intimidation present:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

Hopefully the movie will stimulate debate, rather than stifle it.

Google Maps Plugin for Address Book

They’re available for viewing on the Apple Web site:

http://www.apple.com/getamac/

I like ‘em… hip, cool, and to the point.

xCuts:

As amazing as it may seem, until now the Dashboard has been missing a key utility that will be especially welcome by recent Windows or Linux switchers as well as other newcomers to Mac OS X. xCuts finally puts a full reference of Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts at your fingertips in the Dashboard.

This widget is powered by an external MySQL database that will be updated periodically with new information, allowing you to easily browse or search its contents. The xCuts are organized by Category, Scope, and Object, and you can even drill down to a second cross-referenced level if you need to. Or just use the fast live search form!

xCuts includes tips on the use of certain shortcuts, and it’s designed to let you copy and paste shortcuts to external documents. This resizable widget uses Ajax and the terrific Script.aculo.us (http://script.aculo.us) effects library to work its visual magic. When you’re done, click the title to compact xCuts down to a tiny lozenge for later use.