The Haphazard Blog

From what I heard on Monday, it seems pretty clear that Ben Roethlisberger settled with his accuser to avoid prosecution.

From the facts stated by the district attorney, something happened in the bathroom, but the accuser decided she didn’t want to pursue the matter and Roethlisberger was not going to speak with investigators any further.

After the district attorney announced his decision, Roethlisberger made a statement to the media and took no questions. There was a very big difference in his tone compared to what he had to say when he was hit with a civil suit for sexual assault. He denied all of the accusations in no uncertain terms and even his teammates echoed similar sentiments. He was telling everyone it wasn’t true. This time, he did not apologize for any of his actions. He made no denials. He only spoke of the prosecutor’s decision being right, about himself and football.

From this, I gather there was a confidential financial settlement in which Roethlisberger paid some money; he agreed not to attack the accuser; and he agreed not to deny the allegations. The accuser agreed not to pursue charges and did not have to recant (and perjure herself). The final proof will be no civil suit will be filed. Given the evidence and facts that the district attorney laid out, Roethlisberger would’ve had a hard time winning that case.

He still has the other case to deal with. I would expect that during any depositions, he would be asked about a settlement in this case and would have to answer. So it may just be a matter of time before we all know if he settled and how much he paid.

My wishlist was worthless. Actually, it was more than worthless. I had assumed it was a given that the refresh would have Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 chips and the 13″ MacBook Pro had no such upgrade.

So, my tally: no higher resolution display, no RGB backlighting, no blu-ray, no USB 3 and the same weight.

What did Apple do?

• Sped up the CPU from 2.26 GHz to 2.4 GHz and left it a Core 2 Duo, one whole speed bin!
• Doubled the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB
• Increased the hard drive size (160 GB to 250 GB)
• Upgraded the video processor

Every upgrade on that list is useless to me. It’s barely faster. You can buy more RAM for a lot less from anyone but Apple. I was going to get a smaller hard drive (SSD, faster and silent). Not sure what impact the upgraded video would have (I didn’t plan to play games on it and the UI seemed plenty snappy when I played with one at Best Buy).

I shouldn’t be shocked by this. Maybe they’d rather I buy an iPad? That will never happen. If I get a Windows 7 laptop, it’ll be years before I consider a Mac again.

It’s been a long time since I really used a Mac. Probably going back to grade school and using it for things like Print Shop, games and talking to other students at other schools over 300 baud modems.

I thought about getting a Power Mac a couple years back around the time Apple switched to Intel chips. The most appealing part of OS X was it was built on a Linux core and that provided a very good foundation. Developers (mostly non-Windows) were using it and really liked it.

My laptop is now over 5 years old and it’s about time to get a newer one. I’ve been waiting for the new MacBook Pros to come out for a while. Rumors are they are coming tomorrow. Without an event planned, I wouldn’t expect to see any major changes. With that in mind, I’d like to see the following in the new 13″ MacBook Pro.

• Higher resolution, 16:9 display instead of 16:10
• RGB LED instead of White LED backlighting
• Blu-Ray drive
• USB 3
• Lighter (< 4 pounds)

The upside to no major redesign is I’d avoid what seems like early adopter problems that plague Apple. Also, I hope they fix their problem with 3rd party SSD drives (although I’d get an Intel one anyway).

All in all, I want a light and silent laptop. If this refresh is crappy, I’ll be giving the Dell Vostro V13 a hard look. I thought I’d see a lot of people try and turn them into Hackintoshes by now. Why hasn’t anyone tried?

I’ve watched the first three F1 races this season and there has been a good mix to this point.

The first race had three new teams (six cars) and some rules changes. They took out KERS (I wish they would’ve kept it as an option) and banned race refueling. I like the safety implications of banning race refueling. I’d complain that it makes all the cars have the same weight throughout the whole race, but I don’t think it really mattered since they went back to a single tire manufacturer. So the race felt somewhat like a parade. It was relatively boring at the front of the field. Most changes in position occurred via pit stop timing or attrition.

The second race was a rain affair. Rain always makes a race interesting. Somehow, the tool Jenson Button managed to win the race with pit strategy. Sebastian Vettel once again was leading the race before he had another problem. That is two races for him. That is the kind of problem that could cost a driver a championship.

Today’s race was the best of them all so far. Two of the top teams (McLaren and Ferrari) royally screwed up qualifying. They started near the back and had to get their way to the front. The driver I’m supporting this year (I seem to pick a team and/or driver to get behind a couple races into the season), Lewis Hamilton, was able to get through the field. He was able to pass guys that no one else could in the beginning of the race. I think this also displayed a huge flaw in the cars. We would see guys like Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso gaining up to two seconds a lap on the guy in front of them, but as soon as they caught them, they were unable to get past them. I feel like they should be able to get by with that kind of advantage. They still have work to do with the aerodynamics and get even more mechanical grip. My other (minor) complaint is that they warned Lewis Hamilton for excessive weaving. There’s no question he was weaving side-to-side, but he was the lead car. The FIA consistently lets people block by weaving with no warning. Hamilton wasn’t making the move in reaction to another car, so I don’t get the complaint.

In the end, Vettel finally got the win that alluded him in the first 2 races. I want to see a race where the fast guys qualify as expected and the race is dry to see if the first race was an aberration, or if that was a preview of what the majority races will bring in 2010. Also, I’m surprised we are 3 races in and there haven’t been any technical controversies.