[MyAppleMenu] May 8, 2009

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** Heavy Reading Made Light <http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b1d39f8cc54a0f4a6f5c64282722b696>
by Roy Furchgott, New York Times

The iPhone app “Classic” puts 20 great books on your phone for 99 cents.

**** Speed Up IPhoto '09 Operations On Some Macs <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=5d079a19e9865b543409b99f7b1f4dc0>
by Rob Griffiths, Macworld

A simple tip could speed up iPhoto operations for those with older hardware and/or large iPhoto libraries.

**** Nine Inch Nails IPhone App Update Approved, Reports Reznor <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=de3b4312464ef2890b94a33304134fa9>
by Macworld

Apple has approved the update to Nine Inch Nails' iPhone app.

**** Safe Sleep And The 'White Screen Of Death' <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=80ae1a81ac7fe8f75f83fa1f06c1c107>
by Derik DeLong, Macworld

When your MacBook wakes and all it shows is a white screen, it may not always be a failed hard drive.

**** Mailplane 2.0.9 <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=e3704dc09aa68122f49524b92af1356a>
by Dan Frakes, Macworld

Mailplane gives you the unique features of Gmail in a standalone e-mail client.

**** App Store Submissions Now Being Reviewed For IPhone OS 3.0 Compatibility <http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/07/app-store-submissions-now-being-reviewed-for-iphone-os-3-0-compatibility/>
by MacRumors

In an e-mail sent out to registered iPhone developers a short time ago, Apple announced that starting today, all applications submitted for App Store approval will be reviewed using iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure compatibility with the forthcoming operating system.

**** Google Confirms FTC 'Discussion' Pending Over Schmidt-Apple Relationship <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10235896-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20>
by Tom Krazit, CNET

Google confirmed that the Federal Trade Commission plans to hold discussions with the company over a possible conflict of interest due to CEO Eric Schmidt's participation on both Google and Apple's board of directors.

**** Horror Game The Path Arrives For Mac <http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/horror_game_the_path_arrives_for_mac/>
by Brad Cook, The Mac Observer

**** impossible2Possible: Inspirational Expeditions <http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/impossible2possible/?sr=hotnews?sr=hotnews.rss>
by Dustin Driver, Apple

Nothing gets kids motivated like a grueling expedition across the frozen wastes of Antarctica. That’s what extreme-distance athletes Ray Zahab, Kevin Vallely, and Richard Weber discovered during their 2008 South Pole Quest, a perilous 680-mile, 34-day trek to the South Pole — on foot.

Of course, the team didn’t actually bring any kids with them. They live-blogged the whole thing via MacBook Pro-equipped base camps, so kids throughout the world could join the expedition virtually.

**** BBEdit 9.2 Adds Sleep State, LassoScript <http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/05/07/bbedit.92.released/>
by MacNN

New to v9.2 is a Sleep option, which remembers the exact state of the application from when it was last used.

**** CopyWrite For Writers Has The Write Stuff <http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/review/copywrite_for_writers_has_the_write_stuff/>
by John Martellaro, The Mac Observer

Lightweight, simple, focused, and devoid of anxiety inducing complexities that can stymie the creative writing process.

**** Apple's Pricey Notebooks: Time For A Change <http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/05/apple_pricey_no.html#more>
by Stephen Wildstrom, BusinessWeek

The problem for Apple is that the company’s position in notebooks seems unsustainable if it wants to maintain or grow its market share and stay a significant player in the mainstream market.

**** 4 Ways To Stay In The Loop With Your iPhone <http://www.macworld.com/article/140486/2009/05/iphone_media_tricks.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Dan Moren, Macworld

Media-loving apps that connect you to news, radio, and your blog.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Soap To Ploughshares <http://www.slate.com/id/2217890/?from=rss>
by Ruth Rosen, Slate

How to return Mother's Day to its original meaning.

**** There's No Klingon Word For <i>Hello</i> <http://www.slate.com/id/2217815/pagenum/all/>
by Arika Okrent, Slate

A history of the gruff but surprisingly sophisticated invented language and the people who speak it.

**** Why Darwin? <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22694>
by Richard C. Lewontin, New York Review Of Books

It would be wrong to say that biography is the sole, or even principal, present pathway into an understanding of the history of science. Certainly since Robert Merton's founding of modern studies of the sociology of science in his 1938 work on seventeenth-century English science, the social milieu in which the problems of science arise and the institutional structure of scientific investigation have been central to our understanding of the history of scientific work. There are, however, occasions on which there are orgies of idolatrous celebrations of the lives of famous men, when the Suetonian ideal of history as biography overwhelms us. For Darwinians, 2009 is such a year.



SingaporeSurf
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**** Singapore's JI Leader Mas Selamat Arrested In Malaysia <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/427691/1/.html>
by Channel NewsAsia

Mas Selamat Kastari, Singapore's Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader who escaped from Whitley Road Detention Centre on February 27 last year, has been arrested.

**** I Care About Family Too <http://thinkingbetterthinkingmeta.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-care-about-family-too.html>
by Sam's Thoughts

I too value family like Madam Lim, but I believe a family is more about function than form; a family is not defined only by its make-up, but by the support, care and love.

**** Taken Unawares <http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13611576&fsrc=rss>
by The Economist

A bloodless coup instigated by a septuagenarian “feminist mentor”; a death threat sent to the new president’s husband by a self-proclaimed “jihadist sleeper”; a 3,000-person showdown. The tiny world of Singapore’s usually timid NGOs has never seen anything like it.

**** Where Is The “unique Singapore Advantage” To Protect Our Workers? <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/05/where-is-the-unique-singapore-advantage-to-protect-our-workers/>
by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen

Labour chief should stand up for S'porean workers more.

**** Accountability, Not Celebration, Needed In The Mas Selamat Saga <http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=2967>
by Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net

**** Singapore Resists Calls To Open Books <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wsj/xml/rss/3_7013/~3/M0kOuzUC9h0/SB124172570308697401.html>
by Wall Street Journal

Singapore will resist pressure to open its books in the global transparency push.

**** Christian Coup Foiled In Singapore Women's Club <http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1863&Itemid=195>
by Asia Sentinel

Right-wing Christians rout a women's group's leadership, only to be re-ousted.

**** MOE Not Making Changes To Core Sexuality Programme In Schools <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/427845/1/.html>
by Channel NewsAsia

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said it will not be making changes to its core sexuality education programme, but warned that external providers offering programmes to supplement the core component should comply with the ministy's guidelines.

**** Singapore To Rein In Its Dollar <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124169890739995817.html#mod=rss_asia_whats_news>
by Costas Paris and P.R. Venkat, Wall Street Journal

Singapore is ready to intervene in the currency market to brake the local dollar's rise, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday, while the central bank reaffirmed there is no change in its policy for the currency.

**** Some Singaporeans Express Doubts Over Mas Selamat's Capture <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/427852/1/.html>
by Zaki Amrullah, Channel NewsAsia

Although many expressed relief at the capture, some urged the government to be more transparent this time round.

**** Discrepancies Between Reports Mas Selamat's Capture In Malaysia And SIngapore Media <http://wayangparty.com/?p=9088>
by The Wayang Party Club

CNA seems only to eager to whitewash Singapore’s humiliation and to replace it with sycophantic adoration from a misinformed Singaporean.

**** 'Right' To Be Concerned <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_374050.html>
by Theresa Tan, Straits Times

Senior minister of state for education S Iswaran said parents are 'quite right' to be concerned by some parts of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) sexuality education programme.

**** Why Public Not Told Earlier <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_374034.html>
by Straits Times

The Singapore government did not inform the public earlier of the capture of wanted terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari because of the need for secrecy, said deputy prime minister Wong Kan Seng on Friday.

This is not right; it may be true that revealing the arrest may jeopardise further actions, but that's the police's problem. If we allow them to keep secret this time, they can keep secret every time they haul other people into prisons in the dark.

**** Get Your Values Out Of My Face <http://blogs.straitstimes.com/2009/5/8/get-your-values-out-of-my-elite-uncaring-face>
by John Lui, Straits Times

If there is one lesson that the Aware saga has proven yet again, it is that parents have an inflated sense of their own worth in society.

Your rights to keep your child ignorant about sex ends where my tax dollars start to fund public medical programmes for STDs, juvenile delinquency schemes and prisons for people screwed up by being born to poor teenage mothers.

**** Pay Won't Keep Up <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_373981.html>
by Michelle Tay, Straits Times

Salaries in Singapore will tend to rise by less than the inflation rate this year - so real wages will actually shrink.

**** The Suspension Of Reason <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/05/the-suspension-of-reason/>
by The Online Citizen

MOE’s flip-flopping has set back efforts to improve sex-education in Singapore.  Undoubtedly the ministry wanted to avoid confronting a vocal group of rejectionists, but it could have tried harder to make a case for the CSE with the wider public rather than allow that group’s simplistic and histrionic arguments to carry the day without reply.  The likely outcome of this sad episode is that it will leave more youths vulnerable to the fallout from making uninformed choices about sex.

**** We Need More Anger And Passion In Singapore, Not Less <http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/component/content/article/2343-we-need-more-anger-and-passion-in-spore-not-less>
by Gandhi Ambalam, Singapore Democrats

If there are lessons we can learn from the Aware episode it is that passion and anger in politics is not taboo. In fact in an authoritarian system such as the one we have here we need to stand up boldly – and loudly – in order that we may not be bullied and cowed into submission.

**** Sex, Suicide And Poetry <http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2009/05/sex-suicide-and-poetry.html>
by Mr Wang Says So

The fact that a topic is controversial is a bad reason to avoid discussing it. It might even be said that the more controversial a topic, the greater the need to openly discuss it. We should bring the topic out into the light; analyse the facts; study the theories; and share our views. We should work towards gaining more clarity and understanding, instead of doing the ostrich thing and sticking our heads into the sand.