Apple gives everyone free month due to MobileMe problems

Just got an email from Apple apologizing for all the screw ups in Mobile Me’s launch. As a result I’m getting an extra month free. Not bad, considering I haven’t even begun to use the service just yet.

MobileMe services are now available.
We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.
Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.
Thank you,
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Title IX Sex Discrimination being applied to Science, not just Athletics

The New York Times is writing about Title IX, the landmark ruling that requires Universities to spend equal amounts of money for mens and womens’ sports. This has led to a slew of gold medals for the US in womens’ sports and a drastic decline in the number of schools offering mens olympic sports like wrestling and gymnastics. But such is life.

Now it appears that the Department of Education is turning toward the classroom in their application of Title IX to the Science labs.

The National Science Foundation,NASA and the Department of Energy have set up programs to look for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants. Investigators have been taking inventories of lab space and interviewing faculty members and students in physics and engineering departments at schools like Columbia, the University of Wisconsin, M.I.T. and the University of Maryland.

If they thought athletic departments were stubborn, just wait until they meet a bunch of tenured professors guarding their turf. This could get ugly.

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Sympathy grows for Yang and Yahoo amongst billionaires, but no one can find Rupert Murdoch's wedding ring

The NYTimes has an interesting story about the Yahoo deal (with a funny aside about Murdoch’s wedding ring).

The deal was so ridiculous — it called for Yahoo to sell its search business to Microsoft and for Mr. Icahn to take over the board of what was left of the company after assets were spun off and dividends paid out — that when the moguls here started to learn the details, it actually began to change the perception of Mr. Yang’s predicament.

Microsoft and Ichan deny this was the deal.

The conference was a collection of billionaires. The Google guys were there photographed with Yang, and Rupert Murdoch was also in attendance. He lost his wedding ring which resulted in all the other billionaires getting on their hands and knees to look for it under the tables and chairs (they didn’t find it).

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My iPhone Apps

My iPhone screen is getting filled up pretty quickly with all the cool new applications. At the moment I have:

  • Tuner (my favorite radio app but still lacking a few features)
  • VisuaRadio/Allradio (no search makes it difficult to use)
  • AOL Radio (best radio interface)
  • Last.fm (need to add more content to my last.fm profile)
  • Virgin Radio (just one station but quick access to it)
  • Mandarin Phrase Book
  • AIM
  • Remote Control
  • Currency convertor
  • Twitteriffic
  • NY Times
  • WeatherBug (gives you radar snapshots)
  • Imaze (game)
  • Cube Runner (game)
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Gebrselassie and Yao Ming questionable for the Olympics

Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) and Yao Ming (China) are two Internationally known sports stars, but both are dealing with niggling injuries in the final weeks before the Beijing Olympics. Gebrselassie was named to the Ethiopian 10,000m team, an event he’s won in Atlanta and Sydney. He was injured during the Athens games. He won’t compete in the marathon due to asthma and the Beijing air quality, but his return to the 10,000m, an event he is still competitive in, will certainly make that an interesting race. Gebrsellassie was the star of the uplifting movie/documentary ‘Endurance‘ which was released after the Atlanta gold medal.

Yao Ming is better known in the US, and he will be playing in an upcoming basketball tournament in Beijing as part of an Olympics ‘warm up’. Yao has been nursing an injury this Spring and utilizing some ‘traditional Chinese medicine’ as part of his treatment, something Olympic organizers are advising against as some Chinese medicine cures contain banned substances that will appear in the drug tests. We’ll see if he gets flagged when they come a testing.

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