Dave Mancuso dot Com

I got Virtual PC for OS X on Thursday. I really like its features. It’s a little slower, I think–I’m not sure. I heard that Connectix said VPC OS X is actually hampered by preemptive multitasking–the app can’t monopolize the processor in X the way it can in OS 9. I’m not sure if that’s true–I’m just happy to have a native version on my system. I came up with a way to kernel crash my system using it, though. If I go home and switch to my home location, VPC will crash when I start up a PC config (virtual machine). I mean crashing big time–debugger lines on my screen and everything. It seems to be looking at my wired ethernet connection, and dying on the vine when it doesn’t find a network. I can fix it two ways: I can change the VPC prefs to wireless 802.11 from [default], or I can disable the ethernet port in my Home network location in OS X.

Still, it’s a cool app.

I got OS X native Corel Draw (and Photopaint–the whole suite). Hey, if Adobe is dragging its feet, I’ll move another way. Big opportunity for Corel here. One more app to prevent me from rebooting into OS 9. At this point, I’m almost OS 9 free. Long live OS X!

John Dvorak wrote a good piece on blogging here. It pretty much sums up the phenomenon (or fad, depending on your perspective). The good thing about blogs, in my opinion, is that they require ongoing interactivity from the blogger and his/her/its readers, if any (Hello? anyone out there?).

Heard about a funny new website just starting up–Hoser C. McSweeney’s True Tech Support Stories. It posts true (not urban legend) help desk support stories.

I’ve run across several references to memes in the last couple of days. To me, a meme (“meem”) is a concept or idea that takes on a kind of reality (or even an actual reality). Urban legends are memes. Kaycee Nicole Swenson was a meme last year. That Tourist Guy won meme of the year the other day. I guess a meme can be real as well, but reality is pretty irrelevant when it comes to memes.

The first reference I ran across regarding memes was a scifi novel I read last year by John Barnes (Kaleidoscope Century). That kind of meme was a nanoprogram that infected your mind and put its own personality in your head.

Dave Winer doesn’t like memes. I think a lot of people don’t like the idea that memes are fictional and deceptive, and seductive. I just think that we’ve applied a new term to the fact that ideas can be more powerful than reality. What’s so threatening about that? It’s not a new concept on the face of the earth. I think some people are disturbed by the discovery of how we all create our own realities–true reality is a null concept.

Even the idea of a meme is a meme itself. Check out this site–is this the new Celestine Prophecy fad in the making? I’m curious to see how big an industry this might become.

I guess the media and the Internet and all the other things that bring our collective consciousness together make memes more powerful. Maybe that’s why people feel threatened by memes. I guess you really have to work hard at life today to make it real and valid and substantial for yourself.

My wife didn’t understand why I was into Wil Wheaton Dot Net. then she realized it was Wil “He was Wesley Crusher” Wheaton but she still didn’t get it. Here’s a good article about why I read Wil. I like to read Wil’s site because he’s a regular guy with kids just like me (except my kids are little, and one’s a girl, but you get the point). But this regular guy has a great connection to–and perspective of–life in general and the entertainment industry in particular.

You rock, Wil! Keep it coming!