Random thoughts

Apparently the channel formerly known as SciFi will soon have its own cooking show that has nothing to do with science or fiction. (The channel's name was changed because it wasn't dumb enough, and it needed to be dumb to match the new programming they're showing now.)

Don't watch Syfy? Don't worry, pretty much no one does any more. This show won't help.

The NCAA tournament is expanding, but to 68 rather than 80 or 96. The AP reports that the NCAA hopes to "eliminate the stigma of a what outsiders have dubbed the tourney's 'play-in' game".

News flash: having eight 16-seeded teams playing instead of two is not going to remove the stigma. Nice try. (At least they didn't screw up the whole thing.) Also, all games will be televised at once (as opposed to only one per area). Yes, it took CBS about 25 years to figure out you should televise every game. Why does the NCAA continue to waste time with over-the-air networks? Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what this does to DirecTV's March Madness package. If you get the four networks showing games, in theory you wouldn't need a pay package ...

Remember back when Apple was the little guy and Microsoft was the big bad wolf? Yeah, Microsoft still is the big bad wolf, but there are probably plenty of you out there who don't remember when Apple really was The Little Company That Could. (Of course, technically this was before Microsoft was big ...) Those days are long, long gone, as Steve Jobs is so happy to prove on a regular basis.

Why can't you use Flash on Apple portable devices? Because he says so. Of course, everything he says is partly or totally wrong, and as Lifehacker points out, most of it is true of Apple as well. Yeah, if you were one of those people in the '80s saying "If Apple were ever that big, they'd NEVER do anything like that!", well ... you're wrong too.

Apparently someone "lost" one of the new new iPhones (still in testing, not ready for release), and of course Apple fumbled that one as well. Not that it takes much to get lambasted by Jon Stewart, but still ...

And of course you already know that Apple will reject some apps for the App Store just because they want to. Steve Jobs saying anything about a "closed system" ... whoa, I nearly got hit by an irony train. Yeah, they're willing to reverse themselves when publicly embarrassed, but only after that point.

And that's really why Jobs won't allow Flash on the iPad. Because he can make that decision. Apple is big enough now to make stupid, unilateral decisions that are difficult to reverse, and they still have enough brand loyalty that most people won't question them publicly or consistently. But the mistakes they're making are bigger, costlier, and more visible ... when something happens to the iPad, whether it's sudden, sweeping changes to the App Store, incompatibility with popular websites, or some other issue that is bound to pop up, expect the same thing to happen in Cupertino. Apple will deny all responsibility until their face is rubbed in the problem.

No, they wouldn't be just like Microsoft. They're worse, because for a long time, they were fighting Microsoft, and they should know better.