Danny ChaiI too have thought about the fate of Apple, and I’m pretty impressed with what Steve Jobs has done. He made an announcement yesterday talking about the future of the Apple OS, and it sounds pretty good. They had software developers pretty excited and saying good things. The new one, OS X, will be the successor to the current OS 8 and Rhapsody, which was supposed to be some high-power OS. But the plans for the new OS sound pretty exciting. And hopefully revolutionary, which he promises. That it will be the most revolutionary thing in OSes since 1984, and the introduction of the Mac.
The reason I’m impressed with Apple is because they’re like a company that doesn’t know what they are. They’re not a hardware computer company. And they’re not a software company. They are basically linked together. So you can’t talk about one, like the new 333 Mhz whatever hardware they use because it doesn’t matter that it’s fast, it matters that it’s a fast Mac. So it’s inherently dependent on the Mac OS. And similarly the OS is linked to the hardware, at least now. The licensing thing was screwy because that put Apple almost in a place like Microsoft, so the only way they could capitalize was to use their OS to push their own software, the way Microsoft has done, but they can’t do that because they’re not strictly a software company. So the licensing thing was weird. And they can’t very well make computers that run Windows or OS2 or anything either. So it’s just an odd position for a company. These are my own thoughts, at least.
Anyway, Steve Jobs is doing a good job. They just gotta not lose the education market now or they’re really screwed.
Microsoft is so evil it’s amazing. I mean, they are really evil. I have more to say but I must sleep.
The newest web browser is called Opera and it’s available at www.operasoftware.com if you have Win95 or NT 4.0. You’ve probably heard of it, but the idea behind it is to make a browser that’s really small (a meg big) and really fast. I was pretty skeptical, but I tried it out, and it is dang fast. No joke. And it is small. Anyway, try loading espnet.sportszone.com on it. On Mac, it takes forever, even with a 300Mhz G3 processor with backside cache. A little faster on Win95. Faster still on lynx. But it was fastest on Opera, at least with my little informal test. Same with CNN. Interestingly enough, it’s also fast on Charlie Chang’s home page, which has about 700 images, and takes forever to load. So it’s not just Java it’s fast with, it’s also with images. That’s pretty cool. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll use it, but it’s nice to have some competition out there. Other cool things: there’s a clock in the browser window so you know how much time you’ve wasted. Also, you can adjust the size of the document in the window from 20% to 2000% if you don’t like the default font size or whatever. Anyway, it’s won a bunch of awards and stuff. Interesting.
I have not really said anything about the amendment at church, but it has disturbed me a little bit that the talk of representation keeps coming up. I will not say whether I was for or against the amendment, but the church is not a democracy, and it bothers me a little bit like people feel they have to get their say. I know in my youth group, the pastor pretty much appointed everyone and everyone was cool about it. It’s only when I got a taste of elections and stuff like that that the old appointment system seemed odd. But whatever. There are plusses and minuses either way, but there is no such thing as the right to vote in the church. We may choose to do it, but there’s no right.
These 4 years at Stanford have made me a highly intellectual Christian and that bothers me a lot. Because what stimulated my Christian life a lot is thinking and not doing. I remember when I first got here I was kind of surprised at how intellectual it is here, but I think I got acclimated to it and didn’t realize it until I went to KFBC and realized how intellectual I’ve become. It bothers me because I don’t think that’s really the flavor of Christianity outside of the college setting. I think wherever I go, I’ll have to get used to a church that’s not as intellectual as it is here. I guess basically I feel that Christianity at Stanford isn’t really indicative of what it is generally like in the world. I’m just reacting against four years of being in the Stanford shell, that I don’t like it when things here aren’t like the real world.
Last Friday I went to a revival at KFBC, my old church in San Jose. Lots of interesting things, but one interesting thing was there was this Samoan church there. They weren’t invited, but of course welcome. But the pastor goes up and introduces himself and says how are you and they say, “Nervous.” When he asks why, they say they’re nervous about singing. I guess they prepared a song to share without having told anyone. But it was all good. Anyway, you know, there are stereotypes about Samoans being big and all. Dude, it’s all true. These guys were just big, it was astounding. Wow.
Last night the FiCS seniors went to the ballet. I really really enjoyed it, which was surprising. I’ve always enjoyed the symphony, but I never really liked ballet or opera. Maybe I felt it distracted from the music. At any rate, I pretty much hate opera, but I like ballet a lot. I think taking Social Dance has given me a new appreciation for dance. It’s kind of interesting. Anyway, I came away from Swan Lake with 2 principal impressions. First of all, it must have been a while since I went to the ballet, because I forgot about the male costumes. “Tights” are a major understatement. Yike. I mean, you could see every fibrous muscle in their leg. Not to mention their butts. I mean, they really stick it up there. All these vertical smiles looking at me. Comfortable. Anyway, it was ultra-wedgie to the max. Unbelievable. I tried not to laugh but Dave Hong and Dave Choi did so I couldn’t help myself.
Second thing was these male ballet dancers have got some mad hops. I mean, they really jump high. There was this one jump in the 3rd act. There were five guys, Eddie, Leo, Dave, Dave, and me in my row, with me on the end. When he made this jump, I looked over at the other guys, and every single one had a stunned expression on their face. It was hilarious. Anyway, the man could jump.
I recently dropped a class so that I wouldn’t have to do a problem set. Even though it put my graduation in jeopardy. Luckily I was able to weasel through the department and will be able to graduate. But I suck.
I made two purchases today at Gospel books. One was the book Love Must Be Tough by Dr. James Dobson. The chapter of the same name in his book Life On The Edge was very very good, and I wanted to know what he said about it in a whole book.
My second purchase was Michael W. Smith’s new album. I’ve only heard the first four tracks, but I really really like it a lot. The fourth song really gets to me. Here are the lyrics.
I have been unworthy
I have been unrighteousness
And I have been unmercifulI have been unreachable
I have been unteachable
I have been unwilling
And I have been undesirable
And sometimes I have been unwise
I’ve been undone by what I’m unsure of
But because of you
And all that you went through
I know that I have never been unloved
I have been unbroken
I have been unmended
I have been uneasy
And I’ve been unapproachable
I’ve been unemotional
I’ve been unexceptional
I’ve been undecided
And I have been unqualified
Unaware– I have been unfair
I’ve been unfit for blessings from above
But even I can see
The sacrifice you made for me
To show me I have never been unloved
It’s because of you
And all that you went through
I know that I have never been unloved