I am on the left of the American mindset, I admit that. One of the few areas that the left and right wings agree on these days is civil liberties. The things that have happened at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib make me sick. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about this recent case where a judge ruled that law enforcement could put a GPS tracking device on a suspect's car without a warrant. Here's a link to the article. Maybe we've thrown out the whole concept of "innocent until proven guilty" for the more acceptable "innocent until you do something suspiciously guilty". There was also a recent study which said that %43 of Americans think civil liberties of Muslims should be restricted. I guess we'll soon be getting rid of that pesky First Amendment too.

If you didn't notice, I made some tweaks to the style on my blog, just because I was bored with it. It's not really that much of a change and it's not that good. At some point I need to do a major site revamp, but HTML frustrates me so much that it takes a while. I also really need to make my site more modular so I can move it off my home server. The HTTP hits I'm getting on my home machine(which aren't really that many) sometimes interfere with my bandwidth when I am playing Counter-Strike.

Apple released several new products at Macworld. I think the iPod Shuffle is a great idea. Apple created the whole portable digital music player with the original iPod and iTunes. They took a bold move and it paid off. Now they are attempting to parlay their digital music dominance and brand and move into the flash mp3 player market. The flash mp3 player market has almost no differentiation currently, and the shuffle is the right size, price, and style. I think it'll be huge for Apple.

I am not so sure what to think about the MacMini. It of course doesn't have the horsepower of a comparably priced PC, but that has never been what the Mac is about. These days though the software doesn't need that much hardware anyways. With the advent of the net, the system requirements for desktop machines is decreasing relative to the power of the hardware. Most people just need a web browser, some simple multimedia, and a word processor. A toy mac has enough power to do what almost all users need. Will a low priced Mac actually be able to sway a significant number of Windows users? People love OSX, and I ought to give it a try. I admit I have a tiny temptation to buy one, but Steve Jobs disillusioned me so many times in the mid 90's that I swore I wouldn't buy another Mac. It's been 10 years though and I can forgive him eventually. Not quite yet though I don't think.(The ipod mini I got was a gift).