• The NES That Never Was

∞ Permalink

iChat, you’ve had a good run — well, a decent one, at least. But Apple’s desktop messaging system was never quite so user-friendly as the one offered up in iOS. So, rather than trying to make iChat more like iMessage, Apple is simply swapping one out for the other. That’s a theme you’ll see here across these updates — where Apple found a shortcoming in OS X, it didn’t rejigger the existing app or attempt to start from scratch; it simply ported functionality over from iOS.

Also, goodbye Growl.

• Apple OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) in-depth preview

∞ Permalink

So now you know why wine isn’t sold in your grocery store.

They go on to conclude that higher wine consumption decreases traffic fatalities, but I don’t think it’s that simple.

• The case for cheaper wine, in one chart
• via The Awl

∞ Permalink

Wasn’t there an option here for freezing the display of the RGB values?

The results put me in desktop land and it asked “why don’t you move over to web apps?”

Then I tried to install the Amazon Windowshop app, which presented me with a pretty good reason:

It’s also sketchy that I need to sign into my Google account to install free web apps.

I know people who feel the decision is homophobic, and I’ve wondered what the argument from health organizations is regarding the decision. I’ve never heard it explained and I can’t believe there wouldn’t be some logical reasoning behind it.

According to the CDC, as of 2006, males who have sex with other males (MSM) make up more than half of new HIV infections.

This commenter has what appears to be a good summary of why gays and bisexuals can’t donate blood:

This is straightforward risk management.

About 50% of HIV/AIDS cases are related to male-to-male sexual contact. I’m no homophobe, and think homosexual males are about 5% of the population (under assumption 1 in 10 people are homosexual). Thus a random homosexual male has a 20 times increased chance of having AIDS. Even if the risk of false negatives is small (say 0.1%) for an HIV screening, its 20 (2000%) times riskier to accept blood from gay males to get only 5% more blood, which is not worth it.

So what’s the big deal? Isn’t all donated blood screened?

Well, yeah – but it’s not that simple.

It is all screened. The problem is the screening test looks for antibodies. If someone is in the very early stages of the disease, the test may come back negative. The chance of the virus getting through the screen process is small, but if blood is allowed in from high risk individuals, it increases the risk of infected blood making it through and infecting someone else.

Blood.co.uk also has a page of explanations I’ve never seen before:

How can the National Blood Service justify a policy which discriminates against gay men?
The policy is in place for the sole purpose of protecting public health by minimising the risk of transmission of HIV and other blood-borne viruses to patients through the blood which we supply to hospitals. Men who have ever had sex with men are at a higher risk of carrying such viruses. Since it is specific sexual behaviour which places individuals at risk, rather than their sexuality, there is no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with another man, nor of women who have sex with women.

It’s nothing personal.

When the artwork switches in the artwork viewer it’s all Core Animationy or something. There’s a fading transition.

The artwork view switches from Now Playing to Selected Item when something other than what’s playing is selected.

Grid view scrolls like butter. 3803 albums in my library and it feels like iPhoto now.

In Coverflow, albums without artwork used to be black. Now they’re blue.

First iPad sync made me think something was very very wrong. Took forever, got beach balls.

Many ads and sponsored polls are written in a way that make it unclear who’s behind them. If I click this where will I go? What’s going to happen with the data I provide?

Here’s a good ad:

It’s clearly from Mailchimp. Mailchimp is a full company name mentioned in the copy and in the image. And you could win a wrestling belt.

Here’s a bad ad:

WTF is FBI? Not that FBI, I think.