Dudley the Snow Pug

Snow Bunnies, Don Your Apparel

Looks like the Burning Dog: Pray for Snow Party had it's message heard. There's at least 5 inches of snow outside.

A big first snow is always nice.

Optical Media is Dead

And Steve Jobs has declared it so. Or at least he will in January.

Rumors abound that an ultra-light notebook is coming from Apple in January. Certainly intriguing, as I'd really like a tiny laptop just to surf the Internet on the couch or when I'm on the go.

The big news here is that they will be excluding an optical drive for CD/DVD use. Sounds kooky to most. I'm unsure of exact dates, but I recall that Apple was the first computer company to ship a computer without a floppy drive on the original iMac. I can't even remember the last time I've seen a floppy disk. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the DVD go the way of the floppy, though I think this will take many years longer. In some ways, I still like the idea of a physical DVD to take home and watch.

As one poster from the linked site above put it:

That's why there will not be any Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drives on any Mac Pro. The HD format war is over before a winner has been declared.

Optical media is SO 1990's.

This is Apple's trojan horse for their idea of completely removing any optical drive and distributing everything via digital download. They will be the pioneers of yet another kooky idea that in ten years people will proclaim as genius. I just feel sorry for all the movie rental employees, though I don't feel sorry for the companies themselves. For too long, DVDs have been too costly to rent. $4+ to rent a new release? Are you kidding me?

Another Tease

A behind the scenes preview of season 5 of The Wire: