Apples and Oranges

John Gruber dismisses the old Apple Adobe merger idea. Reasonable stuff. I stroked my chin and wondered something different a month ago, but even Microsoft's lurching gambit has evaporated in the meantime. The spring's couple was instead Apple and PA Semi, a deal whose consequences are no less than intriguing.

I'm more confident about this one!

Tail End of an Angry Dog

All right, so perhaps there is something about where this campaign's been going of late as identified by Fake Steve:

I guess I never realized this. But 80% of the people I talked to today I'm sure do not read a newspaper on a regular basis. Furthermore, many of them could not read a newspaper and comprehend the meaning of the stories. I don't mean that they're illiterate. They could probably read most of the words, as long as they didn't have more than three syllables. What I mean is they could not really understand what the stories mean. Also, I doubt most of them could focus long enough to finish an entire newspaper article.

And yet they vote. This terrifies me.

Actually, it's a view of middle America sadly popular over here in gleefully condescending Europe too, and although amusing it hardly rings as definitive. Instead, I'll turn to another liberal doyenne whose metaphor seems a touch more haunting:

It’s hard to believe that this Hillary is the same Wellesley girl who said she yearned for a more “ecstatic and penetrating mode of living.” What would that young Hillary — who volunteered on Gene McCarthy’s anti-war campaign; who cried the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed; who referred to some of her “smorgasbord of personalities” in a 1967 letter to a friend as an “alienated academic,” and an “involved pseudo-hippie”; who once returned a bottle of perfume after feeling guilty about the poverty around her — think of this shape-shifting, cynical Hillary?

She’s so at odds with who she used to be, even in the Senate, that if she were to get elected, who would voters be electing?

Obama is like her idealistic, somewhat naïve self before the world launched 1,000 attacks against her, turning her into the hard-bitten, driven politician who has launched 1,000 attacks against Obama.

As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly, it’s as though she’s crushing the remnants of her own girlish innocence.

As for my own reaction to Indiana and North Carolina last night – or indeed the next morning over here – it's at least something Clinton didn't win them both. Ever since her resurgence in Ohio and into Pennsylvania I've been getting a bad feeling about this. Let's hope I'm wrong again!

It's just painfully obvious that all she needs to win is a single vote: Barack Obama's concession. The convention is still so long away and the race, no matter what now, helplessly deadlocked. Clinton's shown all the merciless determination. Worse yet, my gut feeling is that she'd be continuity president even above the overlooked recurring Republican rebel McCain.

Bloody Hell Boris

All right, so I was wrong. Phew.

Looking at the figures though, I was on to something. It did indeed go to a second round; and Boris got less transfers than Ken Livingstone. Fortunately it was still fairly close (48% to 52% by my numbers) and far too little to overturn his widely expected first round lead.

One of the BBC's better analysts, Nick Robinson, has an interesting take on Boris's victory.

I agree that this is a huge test for the Tories. Fascinating that it should be via their well known outlier, right in the media's very den. It's being said a lot at the moment that David Cameron may come to rue this particular success; I doubt that myself. People underestimate Boris. I think this could prove to be brilliant.

Certainly, the biggest political schism in terms of image and supposed clout, is now plain to see in Gordon Brown versus Boris Johnson. I just so happen to think that Boris's style and defiantly odd empathic talent will outshine and out-manoeuvre old Gordon in dramatic and even mythic terms the media won't be able to resist. One bites his lip and tries to usher public opinion about as though his pent-up anger weren't writhing in every motion. The other apparently bumbles on, ineffably affable, as though put there just to taunt him. Cameron may just have had his most effective lieutenant placed into position.

Now: is it Boris's dad who wins the by-election?

I've Got a Bad Feeling About This…

The polls close in the hour.

Not here, north of the border, but down in some of England and London in particular. The new yet old Prime Minister faces the usual round of presumed bad results; to be shrugged off by repetitive and disinterested lieutenants in the media tonight and tomorrow. Nothing ever changes there. Add to this however the London mayor election and what was otherwise just a teacup of a contest becomes, by the media's local eye at least, something of a storm.

I don't think Boris will win though.

I'd like him to. I've been voting against Labour (and their Liberal cohorts) for a decade now, ever since I was old enough to vote, and yet so often it's come to naught. Their social democratic whim – albeit sometimes held behind a supposedly Margaret Thatcher shaped fig leaf – went against my principles, and it still does. Their recent shift from governing hegemony to shaky angst, is not alas due to an ideological tide among the public. It's a simple absence of the one thing which made Labour New back in 1997, and which troubled them so once 2003 invited an issue called Iraq to stay. Tony Blair of course. Gordon Brown is no Tony Blair. He's not even the Gordon Brown many of his supporters inside and outside the media had talked up for years to a supposed fever pitch of expectation. Instead, after his first fumble so soon in office, he came across as exactly the grumbling, resentful, inarticulate and indeed stereotypical jealous Scotsman as his enemies had predicted. I never believed the former line of bullshit myself, but even I have been impressed with just how obvious is his fumbling and just how loathing is reaction to all those outside his inner coterie; electorate and all.

But today is no general election. It's just some locals, and a rivalry between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone. Indeed, in London: if only it were just that. But as I understand it, there's proportional representation at work again. Howard Dean would be proud.

So, as its close, here's my prediction just before it's too late: Boris will get more votes, but just like Al Gore in 2000 and maybe even Barack Obama in 2008, the other guy will win.

Bloody Liberals.

Jackpot!

Finally, somewhere good on Princes Street!

Curse You, Speedy Analyst!

Daniel Eran Dilger prove his prowess yet again today in Why Did Apple Buy PA Semi? Long before I did too. He's pretty much got the important points all covered to head on over to see what I was just about to say about PowerPC v Intel v ARM and all the rest of it; quite likely better stated too.

Like some commenters also wonder: how can someone this on-the-ball be publishing on his own non-commercial site when there's so much guff passing for journalism both online and in old media? I for one am delighted to read his articles whichever way. Sometimes I wonder if some in Apple HQ don't make a point of it too!

videoGaiden do America

As far as I know, the only place videoGaiden ever aired was in Scotland. And even then, I only noticed it when the Christmas Special just so happened to bring the venerable Dominik Diamond – with appropriate fanfare – to my screen while channel surfing. “What on earth is this?”

Way back in the 1990’s: GamesMaster was teenaged geek’s must see TV. I remember complex discussions the next morning in German class at school about whatever games had been dealt with in the last night’s episode. That must have been 1992! It only seemed natural that gaming deserved its own early evening blockbuster. It had the shelf space at the newsagents, and the cavernous bunkers in the high street record shops, so why not? And yet when the show was finally axed after its seventh season, there would not be a replacement. There still isn’t.

Despite the thriving place gaming has today, you have to go online to see it talked about.

Meanwhile, for the last few years, BBC Scotland – the local division of everyone’s favourite state-run media conglomerate – had been sneakily airing this little gem where I’d never notice it. It wasn’t just me either: you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’s aware of its existence even in Scotland! The special which I fortuitously saw was itself on at some daft time, and our meeting was pure coincidence. But it didn’t take long at all to realise there was something to this that I liked. Best of all, they keep all their stuff on the website. (If your IP address is in Britain, apparently, or of course YouTube may be able to help.)

Another new fan of the show just so happens to be Stephen, the friend who made last month’s machinima with me. After going through the show’s archives – and its online-only predecessor Consolevania too – we had enough to go on to give The Movies another try. Hunter and Rayorg in particular inspired our little endeavour, if you’d like to check it out.

Do beware though: the in-jokes for those not already familiar with Jeff Gerstmann’s infamous departure from GameSpot (and subsequent project: the Giant Bomb), Rab and Ryan’s games critique style, and said Hunter and Rayorg’s great saga; may prove mildly bewildering. We did though ensure that the Scottish dialect component was up to scratch, so if you can put up with twisted textual swearing: have at it.

A message to BBC Scotland: if you keep us plied with videoGaiden, I can forgive you Newsnight Scotland. Do not try my patience! Perhaps putting it on sometime a little less daft – and maybe advertised before its last / maybe even last ever episode – could help bring in those rare viewers? Just a thought.