Apple is the company that makes the computer known as the Mac. The company is not called “Mac.” Thus:
– You cannot “order a computer from Mac.”
– You cannot “call Mac” about your recent order.
– You cannot hear about “what Mac just announced.”
– You cannot “watch Mac’s stock price.”
Please, call us Apple.
That is all.
I realize that there may be people who really don’t want to know the gender of our child, because they don’t want to spoil the surprise when it’s born in September (or thereabouts). If you are one of those people, you should realize that one day you’ll just stumble across it accidentally in one of my blog posts, or while conversing with me, so you should probably just give up. But if you can’t give up, and you simply must resist knowing beforehand, you should stop reading this entry immediately.
Steph and I went to get an ultrasound a couple weeks ago to get everything checked out. The doctor measured its femur and its cranium and a few other things, just to make sure that everything was going smoothly. The baby’s parts all measured correctly for a baby at 16 weeks and 3 days except for the head, whose size was closer to the average at 17 weeks. So I guess baby’s got a big head. Excellent!
Anyhow, during the examination I asked the doctor if she could discern the gender of the child. She maneuvered around for a couple minutes, and then said, “Ah, look here. I think I’ve got it.” We were greeted with this image on the TV screen while the doctor explained that we were looking at the baby from the bottom. The blur on the right is a leg, and the one on the left is also a leg. That bright spot in the center is a scrotum, and the shadow above it is a penis. I know this woman was a professional, but looking at the foggy graphics on the screen I had to ask, “How sure are you that you’re right?”
“Well, legally speaking we can’t give percentages on this kind of thing,” she explained, “but I’ve never seen a girl with a scrotum and a penis. Granted, I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life, and I don’t get up to The City very often.” Everybody’s gotta get into the act. When she’s not practicing medicine, she’s down at Rooster T. Feathers.
So, there you have it. We’re going to have a son!
I’ve long held the belief that John Gruber of DaringFireball.net is the C.S. Lewis of technology. His thought is so clear, well researched, and absolutely solidly correct that it is astounding. He’s changed my mind on various topics, and done so on more than one occasion. And he’s able to do it all with a bit of wit and occasional sarcasm that just sets the reader on fire. (Not to mention his targets.)
I hope you’ll trust that it’s much easier to understand how I feel if you read his writing yourself. To that end, I submit a recent article to you: Some Facts About AAC. Please, go check it out. It’s an absolutely immaculate article, and it gets at the heart of what excites me about Apple and even about technology in general.
Don’t blame me if you start playing Desktop Tower Defense and are no longer able to hold down a job, have friends, or go to the bathroom.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Dang, that’s a really fun little game.
Steph is on a baby-related newsletter, and occasionally redirects them to me so I can get the facts. (This week, my baby is about the size of an avocado.) On one of these recent emails, they had a link to an article called Seven fears expectant fathers face. I can definitely feel the “security fears” (e.g. “Will I be able to protect and provide for my family?”).
I don’t mean to mock anyone here, but there’s one that really sticks out to me that I can’t identify with: “paternity fears.” The article says, “About half the new and expectant dads I interviewed eventually came around to admitting they had fleeting thoughts that they weren’t really the baby’s father.” I kept waiting for them to drop the punchline with, “The other half admitted to fathering the first half’s kids.” But no, men really fear this, I guess. It never even occurred to me to fear this.
But since announcing the baby’s existence recently, I’ve had some light shed on this fear. Two different guys I know each asked “Who’s the father?” when they heard the announcement. I know they were just making a joke (in poor taste, I might add, so don’t say this to your friends when you find out they’re expecting a baby). No women said it, just two guys. It struck me that they’re probably some of the ones who would actually posses this fear in the first place. When they asked this question, they were probably just voicing their own internal fears without knowing it.
I never realized how psychological having a baby would be. And it probably just gets deeper and stranger from here. Interesting stuff!
If you haven’t read Apple’s press release head over there and do that right away. I’ll wait.
The gist of this whole thing is that for 30¢ more than a “normal” iTunes song, you’ll get one at twice the encoding quality with no DRM restrictions on it. That means your music will sound better (especially on a good set of speakers) and you’ll be able to move it around, convert it, and play it on just about any player. I can’t stress how huge this is, guys. To me, this is the announcement of the year, if not decade.
Many people don’t realize how bad DRM is, and certainly haven’t thought of how bad it could become. Think of it this way: with DRM, someone else owns the key to your filing cabinet full of music you paid for. True, they might be trustworthy, but do you really want to risk that? But now that DRM is being stripped from the music, the key is being given back to you. If you start voting with your dollars now and start buying the DRM-free, higher-quality tracks, the other record labels will get the idea and follow suit.
I’ve got some very, very exciting news. Stephanie and I are going to have a little Baby Lewis, and it’s due on September 17th.
Exciting, I know! Honestly, I’m very excited in spite of the fact that I’m pretty scared too. I can’t tell you how amazing it has been to see the ultrasounds live and in-person, see my tiny child in there, sucking its thumb, moving its arms and legs, or just sleeping. To see that tiny heartbeat. To see that gigantic cranium. That’s amazing. I got tears in my eyes the first time I put my hand on Steph’s belly and felt it move. That was just a week or two ago. It’s like a little alien in there.
We’re 15+ weeks in right now, so we’re well in to 2nd trimester. That’s good news because miscarriages are much more rare (although not impossible) at this stage of gestation. We feel pretty confident that this one’s a keeper!
We don’t know the gender yet, but I’ll probably keep you all up-to-date on the latest news of the baby as it progresses right here on this blog. I think I’ll have a hard time shutting up about it, honestly.
Yes, we have names picked out. No, we’re not telling you what they are. They’re set in stone, and we’d rather reveal them at launch than pre-announce anything. What kind of Apple employee would I be if I didn’t do it that way? I mean, we’ve gotta build buzz here!
