I know tons of people that have had LASIK surgery, and pretty much everyone I know has had a very positive response to the procedure.  Their vision is greatly improved, and I’ve not really heard any of them complain of the complications noted in this article.

However, I can’t help but think that there is always some reason to be concerned about undergoing an elective surgical procedure for something that can be remedied through a much less intrusive means.  I’m not a doctor, but when talking about something as important as my vision, I’m very hesitant to take any action that could jeopardize that.

The only reason I’ve ever felt the desire to think about LASIK is a long-term cost issue.  I’m astigmatic, so my contact lenses are quite a bit more expensive than those for just near/far sightedness.  From a pure economics standpoint, I’d save the $500 or so a year I spend on contacts and solution, and avoid the relatively minimal hassle associated with putting in and taking out my contacts each day.

Is that financial cost worth undergoing a procedure that could result in future long term problems with my eyes?  Right now, I don’t think so.  I’ll continue with the contacts for the time being, and wait for the long term impacts of LASIK to be fully understood (and for the procedures to continue to improve).

I know that this isn’t necessarily the usual subject matter here, but I thought it was interesting, anyway.

That, and I don’t want to end up like the now blind encrusted eyes of Ned Flanders in the "Bart to the Future" episode of "The Simpsons." (from which I unfortunately can’t find a clip to post).

Seems like the rush to judgment against Apple for bricking hacked iPhones with the latest iTunes update may have been premature and, well, completely inaccurate.

Some now disenchanted former members of the iPhone Dev Team (the team that created the hacks that unlocked the iPhone in the first place) are saying:

AnySIM and iUnlock were patched to make a
routine exit with 0 (successful) to unlock the phone. Only problem was
that that routine is NOT only called by NCK but rather by about six
routines total. The other five didn’t expect 00 to be there and were
therefore spammed across your BB during upgrade. In short, the wrong
bytes were patched and now you’re all bricked. No, it wasn’t Apple’s
fault. Rather than figure out how to fix this themselves, the iPhone
Dev Team would rather work on jailbreaking the new 1.1.1 and keep
accepting your donations. We want this fixed — we want them to take
responsibility for their bunk code.

Unfortunately if you want
something done you’ve got to do it yourself. That’s why we’re here.
We’ve got the 1.1.1 jailbreak and are actively trying to reverse the
Dev Team’s damage.

Hat tip: Finis Price, who summarizes the jargon thusly: "it means the original
team’s poor programming created the broken iPhones when Apple’s 1.1.1
upgrade was installed and not Apple’s upgrade itself. It also means
there is hope for any[one] out there who unlocked his iPhone and
cannot use it. … So all of
those 3rd party applications you previously had on your hacked iPhone
are about to come back."

While I certainly understand that folks may want to use an iPhone on some other non-AT&T network, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for folks who hacked their iPhones who might have bricks now.  The iPhone End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) seems to pretty clearly prohibit that kind of activity.  And, you signed on for it, so suck it up.

[NOTE: Second-to-last paragraph added by Brendan.]

This is a somewhat interesting iPhone story. 

Heh.

As you regular readers (and Tennesseans) would know, Tennessee has a newly implemented smoking ban that went into effect on October 1.

All public health issues aside, the new law has already made an immediate impact on a group of Tennesseans:  the under-21 workers who’ve now lost their jobs.

I’ve been opposed to the smoking ban since it was first discussed in the General Assembly.  In the interests of full disclosure, I have previously been a regular smoker, and now consider myself only an infrequent smoker (maybe the total of a pack of cigs in the last 6 months).

The smoking ban is another example of government butting its nose into a situation over which they really have no stake.  While I’ll certainly admit from a federalism standpoint that the State has more business dealing with this issue than the Feds, I still don’t think it’s a situation that requires government involvement.

This is simply another example of government action being taken to make a personal choice more difficult to exercise.  Why?  To effectively ban some conduct/activity it thinks is bad.  It’s nanny state action where it’s not justified.

Smoking is a personal choice.  Choosing to frequent a business that permits smoking on site is a personal choice.  Choosing to work in a place that allows smoking is a personal choice. 

Except for now, when it’s not.

Smoking is a legal activity.  There’s no prohibition against using tobacco, if you’re at least 18 years old.  Yet, an employer who restricts admission to those that are at least 21 years old, you can’t have an employee that’s not 21?  An 18 year old bartender, who can buy smokes of his/her own can’t work in a nightclub where smoking is allowed? 

Ridiculous, stupid, and arbitrary.  Which, interestingly enough, is what you usually get when the government starts meddling in things it has absolutely no business meddling in.

Looks like Apple is bumping the minimum system requirements for the new OS. 

"Leopard will now require Macs with "an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (867 MHz or faster) or G5 processor." Other system requirements include a DVD drive, built-in FireWire, at least 512MB of RAM (additional recommended), and at least 9GB of hard disk space."

Now, how long do I wait before hopping on the Leopard train?

For those of you who’ve already seen the Britney breakdown of Chris Crocker on YouTube, here’s one for the straight male Mac enthusiast.

Heh.

No, this isn’t a rehash of the story from a couple of weeks ago where the Mountaineers went to Ann Arbor to pull the upset of the century in college football.

Today, ASU was the upset victim. The brave players from Boone saw their 17 game winning steak snapped at the hands of….WOFFORD?

Oh well, all good things must come to an end, I guess.

Since this blog (or at least some incarnation of this blog) largely made its national name during Hurricane Katrina, I thought it might be appropriate to provide my thoughts on the new series on Fox this fall, K-ville.

As you might be able to gather, K-ville is shorthand for Katrinaville, not an affectionate nickname for Knoxville.  The show is set in current day, two years post-Katrina New Orleans.

On the surface, it seems to be your garden-variety cops vs. bad guys drama, focusing primarily on officer Martin Boulet (Anthony Anderson).  Officer Boulet is a resident of the Ninth Ward, where he is the gung-ho leader of the "Let’s Rebuild It" movement.  Unfortunately for him, he seems to be the only one interested.

During Katrina, his partner punked out on him in the middle of crisis, and he’s been twisted because of that, too.  I’m shocked, really.  A cop, with a lot of stress and problems, in a TV series.  How novel.

His new partner Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser) is an ex-military man from Cincinnati.  Needless to say, this raises red flags with Boulet.  Talk about adding coals to a fire.  Give a man with trust issues someone new that he has to trust and let’s see what happens.

The initial story in the pilot is one that isn’t exactly new, either.  Evil corporate types trying to keep the Ninth Ward from actually being built back, so they can profit from the cheap prices on the dirt.

From a cinematographic perspective, the show looks a lot like Blackhawk Down or Syriana, with a gritty, grainy quality that makes it truly seem like a battlefield.  The scenes of NOLA in the show are clearly focused on the destruction from Katrina that remains uncleared.   

There are a number of opportunities to take jabs at FEMA et al., and in that way it ham-handedly makes its political statement.  This, like so much of K-ville, seems very forced and contrived.  I know it’s a work of fiction, but it just tries too damn hard to get to where it’s going for my taste.

Lots of shoot-em-up scenes, interspersed with post-Katrina wreckage,
capped off with the personal trials of Boulet, pretty much takes the
whole hour.  It could be an OK cop drama, but I don’t know that it’s going to hang around long enough to evolve into something really good.

Overall, it’s something like a C+ at best. 

Is, well, the MacBook Pro.

But really, why would one want to run Windows on it?  I tried XP with Parallels for a little while.  Then I deleted it.

[Hat tip: Insty]

As most of you should know by now, Steve Jobs announced the price reduction of the iPhone down to $399 earlier this week, and the elimination of the 4GB model.

Well, if you’re a cheapy-cheap, and want the tech but don’t need the storage, the Apple Store (at least the online variety) is offering the 4GB iPhone for $299.

and now I get to be on TV with Oprah!

Or at least according to Steve Jobs.

Seems like a large revamping of the iPod line from Jobs today, with the Nano getting a serious overhaul that makes it look completely different, but handle video and also uses cover flow.  The traditional iPod has a new name "iPod Classic" and seems like top capacity has been bumped to 160 GB.

Of course, the one that everyone’s been jonesing for is the iPod Touch, which looks exactly like the iPhone, but without the phone portion.  It’ll sell in 8GB and 16GB models for $299 and $399.

Seems like the iPhone has an improvement, as the 4GB model is a thing of the past, and the price on the 8GB model (now the only model available) has been SLASHED from $599 to $399.  Of course, no word as far as I can tell on a 3G model.

Also, a new Wi-Fi iTunes store as well.

Coach Charlie Weis names Jimmy Clausen as starting ground beef..err..quarterback for ND.

The folks at MGoBlog have, ahem, retooled their website.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: I’m bumping this post to the top of the homepage because I think it’s freakin’ hilarious, and also to point out that we just passed a car on I-90 with a Michigan bumper sticker on it, whereupon I pointed at it and said, “Ha ha!” :)

Well, I’m the lone Mac in my office, and everything else hanging around is a Dell product with Windows XP SP2.

Today, my secretary was working when her Dell spontaneously shut off.  Not shut down, not blue screen of death, no "Windows needs to shut down,"  just a stone cold, power off.

Hmm.  That’s weird, so restart, which it does back to the main Windows screen, same thing in just a few seconds. 

Any of you PC types have any idea what could be going on here?  I’m thinking it’s likely a hardware failure of some sort, possibly a power supply.  But, then again, I know just enough to be dangerous around children and animals.

BTW, I told the attorney I work with that he should replace it with a Mac and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  Die and forget it all.