Archive for May, 2009
Zune HD
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
Zune HD pictures, video of the UI, and a quick review from Gizmo.
Pretty compelling at first glance. I’d love to see some sort of integration with Amazon’s mp3 store, but I suppose they can just offer the same content through Marketplace. (Marketplace already has my visa for XBox content, so it’s not that big a deal, but they need to match the content base.) I’ll bet the games on this will kick ass. Nice to see Microsoft isn’t giving this up without a serious fight, and me thinks they may have a contender here.
The device is tighter and more physically beautiful than the iPod Touch and it’s got a better UI, the main menu’s scrolling so natural through the swipe gestures.
Did Brian Lam really say that? 
The Dysfunctional State
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
ON MAY 19th Californians will go to the polls to vote on six ballot measures that are as important as they are confusing. If these measures fail, America’s biggest state will enter a full-blown financial crisis that will require excruciating cuts in public services. If the measures succeed, the crisis will be only a little less acute. Recent polls suggest that voters are planning to vote most of them down.
The occasion has thus become an ugly summary of all that is wrong with California’s governance, and that list is long. This special election, the sixth in 36 years, came about because the state’s elected politicians once again for the system virtually assures as much could not agree on a budget in time and had to cobble together a compromise in February to fill a $42 billion gap between revenue and spending. But that compromise required extending some temporary taxes, shifting spending around and borrowing against future lottery profits. These are among the steps that voters must now approve, thanks to California’s brand of direct democracy, which is unique in extent, complexity and misuse.
A good outcome is no longer possible.
Without bubbles the state of California is fiscally screwed. No doubt some form of drastic change will likely come out of this. I’m glad I won’t have to deal with it. What’s interesting (as the article points out) is that California is a mixture of a representitive and direct democracy, and that system has apparently completly failed to work. I’ve always kind of liked the idea of more direct control by the people over government, but clearly there are flaws, as the mess in California shows.
Quantum of Solace
Friday, May 8th, 2009
Greatest Bond film, ever. The way they’ve modernized the series, it’s just great. The high def version just showed on on XBox Live this week, if you didn’t catch it in theaters, go download it now.
