Aaron Adams’s Lame-ass Blog

I came across a book at the local historical society that I thought was fascinating. I’d like to have my own copy of it, but the people who work at the society are unable to tell me where to obtain one, or if the company even exists anymore. Amazon, Google, and ebay turned up no information about the book or it’s publisher, so I’m posting these pictures of the book on my page with the hope that someone will recognize them and point me in the right direction.

Title: Greene County, Ohio. Compiled, drawn, and published from personal examinations and surveys.
Author: L. H. Everts & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1874
Reprinted: 1974, The Bookmark, P. O. Box 74, Knightstown, Indiana

If you have any information about this book, please e-mail me using the link at the top right of the front page of this site.

Update! 1.27.2006
This book has been found by helpful reader Justin McGonigle. Thank you very much for sending a link Justin! I can’t wait to read this book.

I’ve been reading some reviews from people who I thought would know better about how “disappointed” (and so many people are always so disappointed when reality doesn’t match up to their fantasies) that the Intel-based iMac is only about 1.84x faster, at best, than the current iMac G5 offering, and that emulating one processor type on another is *gasp* slower than running things natively!

It is true that Apple has used certain CPU-specific benchmarks to highlight the power of the new Intel Core chips, and it’s true that those CPU-specific benchmarks yielded results much better than 1.84x. Let us remember, as Steve said plainly in the keynote, that not all computer parts have undergone the same speed increase as the CPUs, so performance gains system-wide will be different than the CPU-specific gains. I knew that before Steve even said it, and unless these reviewers have warmed-over poo for brains, they know it too. So I don’t understand all the grousing that the new Intel-based machines aren’t ludicrously faster than the G5-based ones that preceded them, just as I don’t understand why some people are grousing that Rosetta, Apple’s PPC-to-Intel emulation layer, isn’t indistinguishable from the real thing. Those expectations are simply unrealistic, and holding any company to them, whether that’s Apple, Intel, or anyone else, is an exercise in stupidity.

Also, let us not forget the primary reasons why Apple chose Intel: Supply and performance per watt. Never did Steve, or any Apple rep I’m aware of, state that Apple was changing to Intel CPUs because they were faster. Apple is now using Intel chips because IBM and Motorola were unable to supply adequate quantities of chips for computers Apple wanted to sell, and because Intel’s new cooler, less power-hungry chips are going to enable Apple to create and market a plethora of non-computer devices in the coming months, as well as (already) updating their aging notebook CPUs. Speed was never a factor, and those who expect to make it one are going to continue to “disappoint” themselves.

For a while now, I’ve considered compiling this list of words and phrases I read on the Internet that immediately destroy the poster’s credibility with me. I’m not going to explain why I’m presenting this list, or why each of these words irritates me or reflects badly upon the writer; I’m simply going to list them. And don’t bother asking me for any kind of justification, you won’t get one. If you don’t like this list, or you use any of these terms, please check out a more appropriate site for your mental abilities.

This list will be updated as I discover new words.
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At MWSF 2005, my heterosexual friend J Curtis decided that he would visit the massage booth on the show floor to relieve some of the muscle aches that inevitably develop after several days of walking on a concrete floor for hours on end. Since I happened to be the person with him at the time, he handed me the video camera and asked me to tape his massage so he could cut it into a funny little piece with some music under it for Your Mac Life. The one fly is this ointment that J didn’t count on is that the only person available at the massage booth at the time was a guy. J got into the chair, the masseur started rubbing his shoulders and neck, and I turned on the camera. It was apparent that J felt a little awkward, and the masseur wasn’t entirely happy that he was being videotaped giving a massage to another dude. When it was over, I snickered, J rolled his eyes, and the masseur probably took a break and called his girlfriend. I dubbed it MWSF 2005’s Most Homoerotic Moment, and then J made me promise not to mention it to anyone, which I haven’t, until now.

Fast forward one year to MWSF 2006. Steve Jobs is on the keynote stage speaking about the Intel transition, and then a cloud of smoke comes from behind the curtain. Paul Otellini emerges wearing a clean room suit and carrying a shiny metal disc. Paul gets right up close to Steve, looks him directly in the eye, and an exchange like the following takes place:

Paul: I’m ready, Steve.
Steve: I’m ready too, Paul.
Paul: Being trapped in this suit has made me so hot…
Steve: Let me hold your wafer.
(awkward pause)
Steve: What’s everybody looking at?
Audience: Nothing!

I never thought Steve was gay. Who knew? It was like Paul and Steve were going to start making out right there in front of everyone. Let’s be honest with ourselves: Steve has a lot of things most men his age don’t: A decent body, a ‘tude, and the coinsss grrrrl. snap snap He can definitely do better than Paul Otellini.

So I hereby dub Steve and Paul’s keynote voyeur show MWSF 2006’s Most Homoerotic Moment.

When you purchase music from the iTunes Media Store, that file is yours to preserve, as Apple does not track which songs you have purchased, and therefore does not allow you to re-download purchased songs that may have been deleted. The need to re-purchase lost songs has been the most frequent complaint I’ve heard about the iTMS. “Why don’t they just keep track of what I’ve bought, add it to a list somewhere, and make it available for me anytime?”

Last week, Apple released iTunes 6.0.2. It comes with a new, easily-disabled feature where iTunes will send information about a currently playing track to a server somewhere, and a response containing tracks from the iTMS that may also interest you is returned to, and subsequently displayed in, iTunes. Approximately 24 hours later, media outlets like Slashdot and some users had already branded iTunes “malware” because it sends information about your choice of music back to Apple.

So which is it? Do we want Apple to keep track of our choice of purchased music so we don’t have to re-purchase it, or do we want Apple to stay away from our tracks because it’s none of their business? We can’t have it both ways. In either case, Apple has the potential to tie listening habits to an individual account, although they don’t.

PS: The title of the Slashdot article, “iTunes is Malware?” is another one of those grammatical horrors I hate. It’s not a question just because it ends with a question mark. The correct form to make that sentence a question is, “Is iTunes Malware?” So close, and yet so wrong. In fact, the poster may have worded that headline badly to make the point that they consider iTunes malware in any case, but they need to appear somewhat more neutral to be taken seriously, so they tack a question mark on the end to make plausible the claim that it’s a question and not an opinion. Very sneaky, whether done purposely or subconsciously.