2005

Macworld: Got a lot of repetitive tasks in your work life? Automate them! We’ll show you how. All month long, Macworld has been taking a look at Automator, the built-in Automation tool found in Mac OS X 10.4. As part of that look into how to use Automator workflows to handle the repetitive jobs on your Mac, we’ve lined up an interview with Sal Soghoian, product manager of Automator at Apple. I talk to Sal about how Automator is different…

Slate: Since high school, I’ve been a student in three very different environments—Afghanistan, where I’ve been spending my summers; Diablo Valley College, a community college in Pleasant Hill, Calif., about 20 minutes from my home in Concord, Calif. (where I spent most of my life); and Yale, where I transferred this semester as a junior majoring in economics. So, when the professor asked who you shouldn’t mess with, I immediately thought of something I saw in the summer of 2002.…

1) They’re not covered under Apple’s one year hardware warranty. 2) If you ask for open-box AC adapters at any Apple Store, they can be had for $29, instead of $79.

At a fundraiser for none other than Sen. Hilary Clinton @ Crobar on Tuesday December 6.

Personal Note: My Iranian father is a secular Muslim, my paternal grandmother a religious Shi’ite Muslim who has been on hajj to Mecca. For what it’s worth my Iranian father has said that our family is seyyed, or descendant of Mohammad. In addition, I was raised as a Presbyterian, under the guidance of my maternal grandfather, who is a Presbyterian minister. I was baptized at the age of three and under family pressure was told that I had to become…

Craigslist: 1997 Ford Expedition XLT, in excellent condition. Champagne color (beige), power steering, cruise control, antilock brakes, dual airbags, power windows, power mirrors, multi-disc CD player, tan color leather seats, illuminated running boards, alloy wheels, rear stereo and A/C control, roof rack, rubber lip container for the trunk, chrome bumpers. Single owner in Southern California, mostly freeway miles, regularly serviced and maintained, service records available 121,949 miles; $4,995 or best offer.

Slate: On a certain level, it’s hard to blame Anglophone critics. Your junior-high être et avoir won’t get you very far with the torrents of slang that fill French rap. Even most French-speakers find it hard to follow along. Many MCs deliver whole songs in Verlan, the ingenious, dizzying slang in which words are reversed or recombined, turning arabe (arab) into rabza, bourré (drunk) into rébou, bête (stupid) into teubé, and so on. (Verlan is itself an example of the…

1) From the WTF!?!? Department: NYT: WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 – The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured “enemy combatants” at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts. 2) From the Good Explainer Department: NYT: PARIS, Nov. 10 – Semou Diouf, holding a pipe in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood amid the noisy games of…

See Jack Shafer’s slaughtering of Judy Miller for why. NYT: The New York Times and Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for the paper, reached an agreement today that ends her 28-year career at the newspaper and caps more than two weeks of negotiations. Ms. Miller went to jail this summer rather than reveal a confidential source in the C.I.A. leak case. But her release from jail 85 days later after she agreed to testify before a grand jury and persistent…

Wired: By Joshua Quittner October 1994 I’m waiting for a call back from McDonald’s, the hamburger people. They’re trying to find me someone – anyone – within corporate headquarters who knows what the Internet is and can tell me why there are no Golden Arches on the information highway. It’s true: there is no mcdonalds.com on the Internet. No burger_king.com either. Yet. “Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?” asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful McDonald’s media-relations person,…