Fallen Into Knowledge

This is a test of Journler’s post to weblog function.

If this works, then I may have found, at long last, my note-taking / digital junk drawer program.

A little background, in hopes that it does work (of course, if you can see this, it has worked). I have long wanted a note taking program on my laptop in particular. A program that was free form enough for me to draft blog posts, write out theological reflections, take notes while studying, and so plethora of other verbal activity. Of course, while the program has to be free form, it also has to make it easy to retrieve that information, and to help me make new connections between my notes: that means meta information, key words, smart folders, and searching.
Journler is doing that all, and it also claims to be able to post those thoughts directly to my blog.

Does it?

{edit} It does, mostly

Okay, so OS X has a set of “services” which allows users to perform a bunch of different actions on text and what-have-you. One of the services is called “Summarize,” which summarizes text. What’s the first thing I wanted a summary of? The whole New Testament, of course. Conclusion? Perhaps the feature works better on genres that are not “narrative”
Seriously, though. I have been thinking about the uses of technology in analyzing the text of the Bible. There are certainly dangers here: see John Updike’s novel, “Roger’s Version” as one example and a whole slew of whacky number based mumbo jumbo as more examples. But, even still, there may be some good reasons for using technology as a tool.
Technology can isolate word clusters as a way of pointing toward authorial emphasis. A machine doesn’t approach a text with a pre-understanding of what a text “means.” A machine isn’t cognizant at all of “meaning,” only analysis. This is both our strength, and a big weakness: we think we know what it means and therefore subconsciously filter out anything that doesn’t conform to our expectations. A computer does no such thing.
The sort of analysis I am thinking a computer could do well have to do with finding instances of intratextuality - places where the bible alludes to itself.
Anyhow, here are the (less than) glorious results of the “summarize” tool in OS X:

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I don’t know what will happen as a result of this, but assuredly, something will happen. The fallout will be huge.

A list my ten most used applications, roughly in order of use:

1: Safari.
Internet browser. I know Firefox is cool, and I really like some of the plug-ins available for it - greasemonkey and adblock come readily to mind. But, on the Mac, safari is still my favorite browser.

2: Mail.
Email. It just does email, but it does it well. I really like the rule-based filters. I have a list of nine filters that evaluates incoming mail and highlights some mail based certain criteria, filters all incoming mail through a white list, then a black list, and then a Bayesian filter looking for junk. the result is that the mail I want to see quickly is highlighted, and the mail I don’t want to see I don’t.
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Well, it looks like I had better not switch careers and become a prognosticator of future apple technology:  my record isn’t too good.  That said, I would like to point out that all the things that did happen in the keynote I had predicted.  Its just that I also predicted about thirty things would happen that did not.  Leopard, iLife, and iWork were absent, although the version of Keynote that Mr. Jobs used in his presentation had features that are absent from my version.  HD was not the focus of the apple TV, though it was mentioned; it has Pre-N as I thought it would.  The “real video iPod” and the “iPhone” were both released (well, sort of released - we still have to wait until June), its just that these are the same thing.

Having said all of that, I want an iPhone.

If you are even vaguely interested in technology, you know that Macworld is upon us, and you know that Macworld is where Apple releases a passel of new products. You might also be aware that rumors of those releases abound before the big event, and although nobody really knows anything - Apple is is famously tight-lipped about future product releases - everybody has their guesses as to what Apple has in store for us. Here are mine:

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So, the dates for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) have been announced (August 7-11, if you are curious), and those of you with good memories will remember that in addition to announcing the Intel switch Steve mentioned that one of the topics to be discussed this year is the next release of OS X, Leopard.  I jumped the fence about a year ago now, with a purchase of a 15” Powerbook.  I write this on a new 20” iMac, and I will say this:  the grass is greener on the Apple side of the fence.
Which isn’t to say that the Mac leaves nothing to be desired; in fact I have some pretty specific desires for the next version of OS X.  I’ve even gone so far as to make a list of them:
1> iChat needs some improvement.  for starters an instant messenger should only take two windows in text-chat mode:  one window for the contact list and one for the open chat(s).  iChat needs an Adium-like tabbed chat window.  Also, having to have three windows open to see all of my contacts is silly:  iChat needs to integrate the AIM, Jabber, and Bonjour contacts into one contact list.  Secondly, iChat needs to be multi-protocol:  that means Yahoo and MSN support needs to be added to iChat.  the new Macs (like my iMac) are coming with the video camera built-in: for me this means either snubbing my family (who use Yahoo) to use iChat, having multiple chat programs open, or using a program like Adium and not using the camera.  None of these are ideal solutions and I am sure there are others in the same position as I.
2>iSync syncs my bookmarks, calendar and address book information between my iMac and the Powerbook:  the process is seamless and happens in the background.  I want the same feature to be available for files and folders:  intelligent syncing of documents between two computers. Here is how I want it to work:  I get home from class; set my Powerbook down on the coffee table and open the lid:  I want the iMac to notice the powerbook (via bluetooth or airport) and automatically start to sync the files that have been changed since the last sync - in either direction:  if a file has been changed on both computers  - then notify me of a conflict (just like it does with address book).  Of course, I don’t want to mirror all of the files on the iMac to the Powerbook, so I also want to select the folders that I want to sync.  All of the technology is available for this sort of thing and the number of people who have both desktops and laptops grows all of the time.  In fact, most pro applications are licensed in a way that assumes that the user has both:  syncing that “just works” is long overdue.
3>This one has more to do with iWeb - but really would be helped by some OS work:  iWeb needs a better blogging engine  and built in FTP: publishing a new blog comment should be quick and painless. Also, a commenting system needs to be included

Okay, I am done … for now - any other ideas?

Great picture, right?  Some have declared that this is evidence of Apple’s social consciousness, that they honor Rosa Parks on the front page of their website.  But is that what’s going on here?
Notice the picture choice; it shows Ms. Parks sitting in a bus, harkening back to the event that made her famous - her refusal to yield her seat to a white man, refusing to yield to dehumanizing laws.  The picture is black and white, and neither of the figures in the picture looks at the camera.  That the sole characters in the picture are a white man and rosa parks in an otherwise empty but also suggests that this might have been staged.  The picture has been edited, though.  Added to the left side of the picture, at the bottom is the name of Rosa Parks and her years of birth and death.  Added to the upper-left hand corner of the photo are Apple Computer’s Logo, a silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out, by now an almost universally recognized brand.  Below this is the tag:  “Think Different;” some will remember that years ago apple ran a very successful add campaign that played on that tag, and which featured the likes of Einstein, Bob Dylan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others.  This instance of the “Think Different” tag uses the same font as that original ad campaign, and one can only assume that the similarity is intentional.
The addition of the Apple logo and the tag dramatically change the companies implied relation to Rosa Parks.  Rather than change the format of their website; perhaps to give homage to this great woman by describing what she did; Apple, by applying their logo to the Photo of Ms. Parks insinuates that there is a similarity between the Ms. Parks’ actions on that Montgomery bus and Apple Computer.  Just what relationship is implied? Implied, because the message is not spelled out, but left to the viewer to piece together.  But the tag “Think Differently” gives the reader a direction toward which to bend their thoughts:  “Rosa Parks did not follow the mainstream of culture, neither does Apple Computer, if you want to be like her, buy a computer from us.”
This isn’t a very profound reading of this ad (that is what it is, you see; not a tribute).  In fact, the ad really is pretty straight forward.  I am bothered by it though, because Ms. Park’s action were not merely that of a person who bucks that social norm, but an act of peaceful resistance to social injustice.  Rosa Parks, and the Civil rights movement in general, was not about being counter-cultural, but about transforming an unjust social system into a just one, and that without violence.  Does buying an Apple computer an act of justice?  No, with respect to justice, buying an Apple Computer is just like buying any other computer:  they are all made in factories overseas under similar conditions.  Buying an Apple Computer may place one in the minority (Apple, reportedly having about 5% of the market share), it may make one cool; but Rosa Parks is not great because she was cool, or simply in the minority, but because she struggled for justice.
I think that this picture, as presented on Apple’s website, far from offering tribute to a great woman, in fact diminishes what she represents, and veils just what she stood for.  Apple is not offering tribute at all, but attempting to co-opt this great woman for their own economic gain.  Shame on them

The weatherman in hell is reporting snow flurries:

Apple Switching to Intel (News)

Or, to hear it from the source, watch the Keynote