[MyAppleMenu] Dec 25, 2010

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** The Funnies Puts Your Favorite Comic Strips On Your iPad <http://www.macworld.com/article/156708/2010/12/funnies_ipad.html?lsrc=rss_main>
Lex Friedman, Macworld

Just in time for all the iPads Santa’s cramming into stockings, AFK Studio has released The Funnies. It’s an app that lets you enjoy all your favorite comic strips and editorial cartoons, without staining your hands with icky newsprint.

**** Clearing A Network Authentication Hang In OS X <http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20026602-263.html>
Topher Kessler, CNET

**** Set Up And Get To Know Your New Mac <http://lifehacker.com/5717450/set-up-and-get-to-know-your-new-mac?skyline=true&s=i>
Adam Dachis, Lifehacker

You've taken your requisite Apple product unboxing video and boasted about your brand new Mac on Facebook, but now it's time to get down to business. Whether you're new to the Mac or not, here's how to set up and get started.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Panel By Panel, A Graphic Record Of Our Time <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/books/24book.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss>
Dwight Garner, New York Times

Mr. Trudeau entices young readers by giving them a pass on their understanding of recent American history. “This anthology isn’t about the defining events of the last four decades,” he writes. “It is instead about how it felt to live through those years — a loosely organized chronicle of modern times, as crowd-sourced by what was once called ‘the Doonesbury gang.’ ”

**** One Sentence Says It All <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/books/review/Park-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss>
Ed Park, New York Times

“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep,” says the garrulous shoemaker who narrates the Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal’s “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age” (1964), “it’s meant to make you jump out of bed in your underwear and run and beat the author’s brains out.” Thirty-three pages into what appears to be an unbroken highway of text, the reader might well wonder if that’s a mission statement or an invitation. “Dancing Lessons” unfurls as a single, sometimes maddening sentence that ends after 117 pages without a period, giving the impression that the opinionated, randy old cobbler will go on jawing ad infinitum. But the gambit works. His exuberant ramblings gain a propulsion that would be lost if the comma splices were curbed, the phrases divided into sentences. And there’s something about that slab of wordage that carries the eye forward, promising an intensity simply unattainable by your regularly punctuated novel.

**** The Tannenbaum Chronicles <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/opinion/25collins.html?ref=opinion>
Gail Collins, New York Times

The American search for the perfect Christmas tree goes back to the 19th century and Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” the first mass-market women’s magazine.

**** Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/64bccb14-0d51-11e0-82ff-00144feabdc0.html>
Jonathan Bate, Financial Times

We’ve all heard of Shakespeare’s sonnets. But how many of us have actually read them closely and really understood them? The poet Don Paterson begins by ’fessing up: “About a year ago, I decided that I’d stop pretending to myself and to my students that I knew these poems better than I did.” He accordingly decided to re-read them, slowly, carefully, one at a time, noting down his reactions. Are the sonnets what we imagine them to be? Do they represent the experience of love in a way that is recognisable to us? “Is their reputation deserved, or have they simply hitched a ride on the plays?”



SingaporeSurf
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**** Credit Card Applications For The Elderly Rejected By Banks? <http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20101224-254534.html>
AsiaOne

A recent reader's letter to the Straits Times forum which highlighted banks' policies of rejecting credit card applications of those over the age of 55 has brought this issue to the fore.

**** MHA Rebuts Claims Of ex-ISA Detainee <http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_617462.html>
Yap Neng Jye, Ministry Of Home Affairs, Straits Times

Contrary to Mr Fernandez's claims that he was merely a trade unionist championing workers' rights, he was part of the CUF, which was an appendage of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), a violent underground organisation that waged a protracted insurgency for several decades to overthrow the constitutionally elected governments of Singapore and Malaysia.

After Mr Fernandez was released in 1973, he covertly re-involved himself in the CUF with the aim of rebuilding the CUF network to support the then still ongoing CPM insurgency. He was re- arrested in February 1977 but was released after he quickly renounced communism.

Mr Fernandez's portrayal of himself now as a nationalist who had merely struggled for 'democratic rights and justice', and his allegations of being detained without cause and mistreated, have been rejected before and are rejected again here.

**** 脚踏车撞人事件值得关注 <http://www.zaobao.com.sg/yl/yl101225_008.shtml>
郑锦祥, 联合早报

**** Singapore In Damage Control <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/12/25/focus/7679629&sec=focus>
Seah Chiang Nee, The Star

The biggest blow is struck against Singapore’s collective image, making it appear as an arrogant, insensitive society so different from the polite Indonesians and sweet-talking Thais.

“It smacks of national arrogance,” said a businessman. “Our leaders and citizens should be more humble and less cocky to countries which have done less well than us.”