A post about tagging (the tool/concept that allows one to identify information based on keywords, and create "Folksonomy") on a friend's (and old nptech colleague) blog made me decide to blog about something that has been sort of in the corner of my consciousness for the past while.

A couple of weeks ago, my old TiBook (that's Apple lingo for Titanium Powerbook, bought about 3.5 years ago, which recently became my only computer) died a horrible, logic board fritzing, hard drive crashing death. It had been warning me of this for some time. The sound would go on and off, wierd things would appear on the screen, and the hard drive would make bad noises. I had hoped to hold out until later in the year, when the iBooks would be replaced with MacBooks, which would be a cheaper alternative to the MacBook Pros.

Those of you who are Apple fanatics like me have already heard the news. Those of you who are just garden variety Apple users should know about this. And the Windows users should perk up your ears. Those of you that run Linux, well, go get some coffee, maybe.

I was chatting with a friend at one point, and he said something like "so you're paying more attention to the Divine than the digital." I kinda like that. Anyway, this post, in a rare moment these days, is about the digital.

I am someone who tends to think that conspiracy theories are sometimes just silly, and generally, gross oversimplifications of a very complex reality. A couple of stories from EFF that came across my e-desk that have made me think up my own conspiracy theory, and it's not pretty. Here's the basic information.

I tend not to like John Dvorak, who some people (for reasons that are not at all apparent to me) think of him as some sort of tech guru. Anyway, this week, he proposes that perhaps Apple will drop it's proprietary OS (OS X) and switch to Windows, now that Macs work on Intel architecture. He for sure gets my "people who are out of their minds" award this week! (He beat out Dick Cheney.)

He says:

I should be reading for a class, but my favorite procrastination technique, by far, is blogging. Be that as it may, I want you all to know that I am slowly, but surely, moving to luddite status. Gasp! You say "Michelle, a luddite? Never!"

Two "events" (I use the term lightly) occured in that world of ones and zeros this week that are worth a mention. I bet that most of you won't care a whole lot one way or the other about either of these, but they are both really interesting object lessons in how the digital world and the real live flesh and blood world interact in very interesting ways.