Apple watchers are trying to guess the meaning of “There’s something in the air” on Apple’s tantalizing Macworld banners. Here are some possibilities.

1. Apple is buying Adobe and adding AIR to the iPhone and building it into OS X
2. Wireless syncing of iPod & iPhone with Macs
3. Rent movies wirelessly directly from the Apple TV
4. Bluetooth headphones for iPod & iPhone
5. Subnotebook will have built-in 3G or EVDO
6. All laptops will have built-in cellular modem
7. Wireless tablet Mac
8. Wireless charging for iPhone & iPod
9. Mobile TV on the iPhone
10. Beam Technology to transfer data, faster than bluetooth

A little bird just tweeted that the macbook nano is coming.

Sez Meowy Christmas!

Today’s xkcd comic was one of their best ever.

Via Boing Boing: A simple game of Godwin’s Law. Guess whether each of these quotes is by Hitler or Jerry Falwell.

1. My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.
2. This ‘turn the other cheek’ business is all well and good but it’s not what Jesus fought and died for.
3. Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith…. We need believing people.
4. I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
5. Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
6. We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
7. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press. . .we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess.
8. This the national government will regard its first and foremost duty to restore the unity of spirit and purpose of our people. It will preserve and defend the foundations upon which the power of our nation rests. It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our people and state, under its firm protection….May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our people.
9. Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.
10. We’re fighting against humanism, we’re fighting against liberalism … we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today .

Answers below.

CARS: “Just days after Apple’s announcement that it had sold 100 million iPods, Microsoft’s Zune celebrated a milestone of its own. According to a press release issued by the company today, its 100th Zune was sold to 13-year-old Dieter Ebersbacher in Shreveport, Illinois, and is a sign of its success in the marketplace.

‘The sale of the 100th Zune is a sign that it has captured a secure foothold in the market and it totally doesn’t suck,’ said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen

A brilliant comic from Everybody Loves Eric Raymond that perfectly captures the essence of OpenSUSE 10.2, one of the most bloated Linux distros I’ve seen (via Ubuntu Blogs)

Here’s an interesting Windows bug.

1. In a new window type “bush hid the facts” (all lower case, no quotes)

2. Save the document.

3. Reopen it.

Where did the text go? Windows mistakenly identifies the file as Unicode rather than ASCII if you create a document with certain text. Almost any 4 letter word followed by two 3-letter words followed by a 5-letter word will have that effect. (via Newsvine; more details here)

A major research institution has just announced the
discovery of the densest element yet known to
science.

The new element has been named “Bushcronium.”

Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons,
75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons,
giving it an atomic mass of 311.

These particles are held together by dark forces
called morons, which are surrounded by vast
quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

The symbol for Bushcronium is “W”.

Bushcronium’s mass actually increases over time, as
morons randomly interact with various elements in the
atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons
in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some
scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed
whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical
Morass”.

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium
activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates
orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent
noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many
morons. (via Newsvine)

(via xkcd.com)

Here’s a very funny article about Windows Vista features that didn’t make it into the RC.

Some of the features:

• Mimesweeper
  
• Safe Delete
• Start Menu Action Field

This is a great mash-up of a Windows Vista presentation audio with a Mac OS X demonstration.

I found these tests at Glenn Reid’s blog:

Via defective yeti:

Rovenge (rO-’venj), n: Politically motivated retribution. The White House sought rovenge against Joseph Wilson.

Visit cronyjobs.com to secure a lucrative career both decrying and luxuriating in the spoils of Big Government! No experience necessary!

Bush writes a note asking for permission to take a potty break during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. (via MetaFilter)

Via Global Voices Online: The Simpsons in Arabic

(via towleroad)

A great item at The Onion (via Boing Boing):

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University…
Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

“Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the ‘electromagnetic force,’ the ‘weak nuclear force,’ the ’strong nuclear force,’ and so-called ‘force of gravity,’” Burdett said. “And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus.”