Bayosphere

I’ve installed Mac OS X (10.1) on my iBook. Wow.

Apple has come through as promised. The speed improvements are nothing short of stunning, which they needed to be given the glacial performance that Apple had delivered with version 10.0, a product that was blatantly beta, not ready for real people.

With version 10.1, windows open quickly. Applications start up reasonably quickly as well. Scrolling through long lists of files is no longer water torture.

There are a few user-interface changes, too, including some tweaking of the application dock. I still don’t like the dock as well as the task bar and tray in Windows 2000, but you can now move it to either side of the screen.

Unicode seems well-supported. With just a few clicks I was able to get menus in some applications to show up in other languages. The localization potential for this product is just enormous.

I haven’t done much exploring of the BSD Unix under the hood, but it’s cool to know I can get to it easily. Apple has also put a lot of effort into scripting in this version.

The major drawback remains native applications, or their absence. I’m planning to use the machine for music, among other things, and none of the major music-software companies have launched OS X versions, as far as I know. And while I can use a word processor in Classic mode, I still say this OS won’t be done until Cubase and Nisus Writer run natively.

Still, this is a major breakthrough. OS X is truly ready for prime time.

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Flying way under the radar, the World Wide Web Consortium is getting ready to turn its valuable open standards process into a tool of corporate giants, via a “Patent Policy Framework” that is a sickening betrayal of the W3C’s mandate.

This posting in opposition by Alan Cox is as good a description of the problem as I’ve seen. “A patent-encumbered web threatens the very freedom of intellectual debate,
allowing only large companies and big media houses to present information
in certain ways,” Cox says accurately.

Like almost everyone else, I missed this outrageous plan when it was first proposed. It’s all to obvious that the W3C and the companies behind this scheme hoped to make it a fait accompli before the Net community realized what was happening. Thieves in the night are more visible.

Who’s behind it? According to this posting, “W3C Members Apple, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ILOG, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, The Open Group, Philips Electronics, Reuters, and Sun worked on this draft together with W3C Team members.” Do you see anyone in that group representing the open source community, or the public in general? Nope, and it’s not a coincidence.

If the W3C goes ahead with this proposal, a valuable organization will destroy its credibility as an institution that has the public interest in mind. It will be a visible tool of its most powerful members. I fear that the outcome is pre-ordained, but I hope I’m wrong.

Today is the deadline for comments. I implore you to object to this power grab.

Thanks to Tim Bray, Dave Winer, Slashdot, Linux Today and others who learned, however late, of this plot and started warning people.

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AP: Judge tells Microsoft, government to settle antitrust case quickly. “There’s no reason this case can’t be settled,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Friday.

Yes, there is.

Nothing — absolutely nothing — in Microsoft’s corporate DNA or its actions during the past few years should lead anyone to believe that the company has any intention of backing down even slightly from its extreme stance. That is, through words and deeds Microsoft has demonstrated its conviction that that the antitrust laws apply to its software.

Kollar-Kotelly is only the latest federal judge to venture near the legal third rail known as the Microsoft antitrust case. She clearly has no idea what kind of company she’s dealing with here.

A safe prediction: In the unlikely event that a settlement does happen, it will almost certainly involve a thorough cave-in by the government.

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I’ve been proud of the old and new media in recent days. Traditional journalism has, in most ways, been at its finest. But so have the new-media people who are still just beginning to explore the conversation that takes place online.

More in my Sunday column, which is an expanded version of the weblog I posted yesterday.

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Mercury News: Median home price down 4.2% in Santa Clara County. The effects of the Sept. 11 events probably won’t show up in home sales statistics until October or November. By then, it will be clearer whether buyers now are opting to put off purchasing, or are deciding to buy while mortgage rates are low and sellers are in the mood to deal.

Anyone who’d buy a house in Silicon Valley at this point, at these still-ridiculous prices, is either crazy or has money to burn. The uncertainty was bad enough before. Now it’s over the top.

I moderated a Churchill Club panel last night about opportunities in Asia, and the prevailing view was that India and China offer an incredible bargain for U.S. companies that need tech talent. Silicon Valley, in this economic climate, may have priced itself out of many markets.

I’ve been wrong on this before. The housing bubble here never made that much sense to me in the first place. It only made some sense toward the end of the stock bubble — when people were wisely cashing out of potential equity dogs and putting the money into real estate, figuring that even a housing crash that took away half of the value was less risky than a bubble deflation that wiped out the stock’s entire value, or most of it.

I would not buy a house in Silicon Valley today. Period.

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I haven’t much felt like listening to music lately. This morning I put on a CD of Vladimir Horowitz playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B flat major. I’m glad I did.

I haven’t felt much like laughing, either. But I’m glad to see that The Onion is back with just the right mix. The best line on homepage is a caption under a picture of Jerry Falwell, asking, “Is That Guy a Dick or What?”

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Washington Post: Proposed Anti-Terrorism Laws Draw Tough Questions . They also complained that the administration is trying to force the package through Congress without giving lawmakers time to adequately digest proposals that could have serious, unforeseen consequences for rights that Americans now take for granted.

In the superheated political aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in world history, the United States Congress is doing something rare — thinking hard before acting. Legislators are refusing, for the moment, to be stampeded into the most overwhelming abridgement of civil liberties in generations.

In the name of stopping terrorism, law enforcement is pushing a wish list of measures, many of which have nothing to do with terrorism — unless you define all possible crime, and all suspects, as terrorists. This vast overreaching should frighten law-abiding people, because the potential for abuse is overwhelming.

Do you trust the police? You should. The vast majority of people in law enforcement are honorable and honest. They want to protect us and punish wrongdoers.

But sometimes the wrongdoers are police, who wreck the lives of innocent people. The reality is that few bad cops ever get punished for their own wrongdoing. Giving them an array of new powers to invade the lives of innocent people is an absolute invitation for abuse. This is why we have a Bill of Rights, and why we need to hold onto what’s left of it.

If you think this is all alarmist, consider several elements of this legislation. The Bush administration wants information obtained illegally by foreign intelligence and law enforcement services to be legal evidence in U.S. courts. What a cynical end run around the U.S. Constitution. There’s also a provision that could lead to a life sentence for even minor computer hacking. And those are just two of the provisions, among many.

Congress may still pass this legislation. Certainly, another terrorist attack in the immediate future would cause panicky lawmakers to give law enforcement every power it wants. But maybe, just maybe, enough people are thinking hard enough about the consequences of their actions to prevent America from destroying the freedoms that make it a beacon for the world.

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Heading to the Seybold conference this morning — look for an update much later in the day.

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