[MyAppleMenu] Feb 19, 2012

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** Messages Is Really, Really, Really iChat ****
<http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2012/02/messages-is-really-really-really-ichat/>
And Now It's All This


> Note that Messages’ Name & Extension is iChat.app.

And it seems to mess up LaunchBar.
(I am using Alfred, and it seems to be able to handle the naming.)


**** VLC 2.0 First Look: Video Player App Features New Single-window UI And Robust Media Support ****
<http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/18/vlc-2-0-first-look-video-player-app-features-new-single-window/>
Kelly Hodgkins, TUAW


> This latest version is a major update which features a completely re-designed UI, full-screen support on Lion and experimental support for Blu-ray discs.






MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Choosing Our Final Resting Places ****
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/resting-places-going-ashes-or-dust.html?ref=global>
James Atlas, New York Times


> Cremation has its hazards: I’m always hearing about parents’ ashes left in a closet. Or you can get the wrong box from the funeral home and end up reciting “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” over the urn of some unknown person who it turns out thought Dylan Thomas was a drunken blowhard. Then there are the hazards of disposal: In Meghan O’Rourke’s “Long Goodbye,” the family gathers on a Connecticut beach on a blustery December day to scatter her mother’s ashes; the wind comes up and blows them all over her brother. “I’m fine,” he reassures everyone: “I just have Mom in my eyes.”

> Burial, though, is somehow too ... real. In the final scene of “Humboldt’s Gift,” Saul Bellow’s novel about the fictional genius poet Von Humboldt Fleisher, his friend Charlie Citrine attends Humboldt’s funeral. Citrine observes the process with dispassion: “The coffins went down and then the yellow machine moved forward and the little crane, making a throaty whir, picked up a concrete slab and laid it atop the concrete case.” But then the question to which we all know the answer bursts from his unconscious: “How did one get out? One didn’t, didn’t, didn’t! You stayed, you stayed!” Learning to tolerate this eternity of eternity is the biggest challenge of our lives.



**** The Death Of King Arthur By Simon Armitage – Review ****
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/19/death-king-arthur-simon-armitage-review?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fbooks%2Frss+%28Books%29>
Kate Kellaway, The Guardian


> Long poems about battles have never been my thing. When I studied Anglo-Saxon at university, I remember complaining that whenever I wasn't sure of a word, it turned out to mean "spear". The number of words meaning spear seemed infinite. Perhaps I had Simon Armitage's <i>The Death of King Arthur</i> coming to me.






SingaporeSurf
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**** Is The Goods And Services Tax Really Fair? ****
<http://theonlinecitizen.com/2012/02/is-the-goods-and-services-tax-really-fair/>
Ghui, The Online Citizen


> I am not suggesting that there be a blanket exemption of GST on all foodstuffs. There is clearly a difference between caviar and bread. However, I do believe that there should be a list of GST exempt foodstuffs.

I disagree in that I do not think the government should be in the business of determining what is and what isn't essential food items.


**** Realism As S’pore ‘Warns’ US ****
<http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2012/2/19/columnists/behindtheheadlines/10758944&sec=behindtheheadlines>
Bunn Nagara, The Star


> At one level, Singapore’s latest statement confirms a shift from former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s pro-US slant following his retirement last May. For half a century, Lee had championed an alliance with the US over other powers like China, lately much of it because of a rising China.

> At a more substantive level, Shanmugam’s statement well indicates Singapore’s new and belated efforts to woo an ascendant China. In seeming different now, Singapore is merely reaffirming its standard pragmatism based on an acute sense of self-preservation.



**** Coney Island Set To Become Nature Park ****
<http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_768347.html>
Kezia Toh, Straits Times


> Coney Island, off Punggol in the north-west, will be home to Singapore's ninth nature park, said the National Parks Board (NParks).



**** Opposition Parties Weigh In On Budget Measures ****
<http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC120219-0000023/Opposition-parties-weigh-in-on-Budget-measures>
Teo Xuanwei, Today