Paul Boutin

By popular demand from Mom, a photo of my new eyewear. Ma, click it for a bigger version.

A photo from our recent Maine road trip. South-West-Northbound just outside Bar Harbor.

From San Francisco’s Apple Store, John Dvorak explains what every tech journalist has always suspected but few have actuallly tested: “First I’d write something that would be semi-innocuous, with just enough insulting stuff to get a lot of attention from the Macintosh community … It would always be done in such a way that I had outs … I would write stuff in kind of a weaslley way … Then I’d get a lot of hate mail .. I would react to it as though I was flabbergasted that everybody misinterpreted me … which would piss them off even more … Then I’d let it simmer down for a while, and then whatever position I took originally, I would change the position to exactly the opposite, and I’d tell the Macintosh people I was completely wrong and they were right all along—and the numbers would go through the ceiling!”

I’m willing to believe some people can’t hear the Mosquito ringtone that buzzes at 17 KHz. But play this mp3 and let me know if you really can’t hear it but your kids can. I’m 44 and despite 25 years of too-loud music I can hear it just fine. It’s really annoying. It sounds like an old cathode ray TV tube warming up, but more painful. I think the “grownups can’t hear it” claim is exaggerated.