Most people don’t know who John C. Dvorak is, so they might be shocked by his claim that “Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone”, those that do know of him, would just consider this business as usual. He has always been extremely skeptic of Apple products but he’s smart enough to substantiate his bold claims with some sort of logic. He raises several interesting points, including:

• It’s the loyalists who keep promoting this device as if it is going to be anything other than another phone in a crowded market.
• [The mobile market] is not an emerging business. In fact it’s gone so far that it’s in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc.
• The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough. These phones go in and out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months.

You may already be sold on the “Jesus Phone”, but the article is worth a read.

By now, everyone that would be interested in a device like this has probably heard of the Xbox 360 Elite, due out April 29. It’ll cost about $80 more, and for that, you get a 120GB drive and HDMI outputs. I’d imagine the new changes are to support the high definition push that manufacturers seem to be making lately. The problem is that while most people listed the price of the PS3 as the prohibitive factor in getting one, it’s now starting to look more and more like Sony got it right the first time, considering they included WIFI, HD movie/game playback and an easily upgradeable drive that won’t void your warranty. So let’s do a little math, shall we?

• PS3 Deluxe Version = $600

• Xbox 360 Elite + HD DVD Addon + Wireless Adapter = $480 + $190 + 90 = $760

Does $160 make up for the fact that the PS3 comes with an 80GB drive rather than the Elite’s 120GB? I don’t think so. So maybe after all this, it turns out the PS3 is the better deal after-all. And if you’re the type that doesn’t need all these extras, you’re probably better off with a Nintendo Wii anyway, which is much cheaper at 250… assuming you can actually get your hands on one.

Increased production of biofuels such as ethanol might help farmers’ bottom lines and address climate-change concerns, but it could inflate food prices worldwide, warns a former White House economist.

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Should have definetly been included in the b3ta phallic logo awards - http://www.b3ta.com/features/phalliclogoawards/

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This is insane, this guy spent days detailing a Vauxhall VXR, including spending over $7,000 on high end car wax , using zero ppm RO water and using a blue light to find and correct scratches. You’ve got to see this, the results ALMOST seem worth it.

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While I’ll be the first to admit that I do enjoy having a cup of hot chocolate from Starbucks from time to time, during the authum and winter, I would never classify myself as an avid Starbucks devotee. This is why I was so amused by this Starbucks Gossip Blog. The posts themselves are written well enough, the fun starts when you dig into the comments, which are filled with comments by Starbucks employees, and boy are they fanatics.

I’ve finally made the switch from Windows XP to Windows Vista on my main PC, against the wishes of Apple, and I think it’s great. After reading countless accounts about how poor an operating system it is, I am actually surprised by just how much I like it. A lot of things that were a pain in the ass in XP (Networking, User Management, Backups, even Screenshots) have been simplified. The security “nag screens” aren’t nearly are instrusive as I thought they would be, they only pop up after you’ve initiated some sort of action so it’s jut one extra click and doesn’t add to load times.

To those who are still on a fence about whether to upgrade or not, ignore all those doubters telling you to wait for the first service pack or telling you it will ruin your experience, the upgrade is entirely worth it. I’ll write a more in-depth article about my upgrade experience at another time, there are still a few core programs that I used regularly on XP that I’m making sure are still compatible with Vista.