Apple’s WWDC starts next week and the rumor sites are uncharacteristically quiet even though Steve Jobs’ keynote is only four days away. It’s very unlikely we’ll see any talk about 10.5, since 10.4 just shipped and there are a ton of wrinkles to iron out. I’m expecting to see a lot of new hardware development, or else a two hour buzzkill Tiger demo. There are 18 TBA sessions scheduled including at least one in the big room, so something new is likely to be announced.

The past year seems like it’s been a good for hardware innovation. Now that AMD and Intel both have multicore and 64bit chips in the market the G5 doesn’t seem as competitive as it was two years ago (not to mention being two years overdue for 3ghz). IBM’s Cell Processor is another unknown, but arguments could be made about cramming one into a PowerBook. A friend with reasonably good contacts thinks we’re going to finally see a G5 PowerBook. I hope so, and my credit card is ready to go. Hopefully we’ll at least get that Powerbook HD referenced by the typo in the current PowerBook manuals. And maybe PowerBooks will do a little better to close the speed gap with desktops (or at least iMacs). According to MacRumors Buyer’s Guide, Powerbooks will be 126 days into their product cycle and iBooks will be overdue for a refresh at 230 days. Seems like a good time to announce new portables, especially since nearly everyone at the conference is carrying one.

The tracks seem a lot more technical this year, which is good. The previous two years I ended up in several sessions where I was bored or didn’t learn anything.

My primary goals for this year are a bit more modest than last year. First, I’m focusing on related technologies to FXScript, FCP and graphics stuff. This includes all the pro-video apps, especially Motion and the Shake SDK, plus the Quartz Composer labs. I’m still very interested in CoreImage and CoreVideo, but there aren’t very many of those sessions scheduled.

I have a feeling I’d be bored by too many Dashboard sessions since I’m pretty good with JavaScript and CSS and don’t really have any ideas for widgets that haven’t been done already. Unix scripting and shell commands will be a focus, I’d like to see how other people work with them since I taught myself and feel like I’m often stumbling around.

The best thing I got last year was better programming practices, so I’ll be making a more deliberate effort to be in sessions related to source-code control, development tools and better working methods.

Aside from that, I’m hoping to pick up a bit of Cocoa, get over the AppleScript Studio hump, and find more fascinating stuff that doesn’t fly too far over my head.

Wednesday’s Brown Bag Lunches are a problem because I want to attend three of them; Python Today with the language’s creator Guido van Rossum, PHP on a PowerBook with that language’s creator Rasmus Lerdorf and the MySQL and SQLite lunch with author Brian Jepson. I’ll probably be at either the PHP or Python lunch, PHP because I’ve done a lot of work with it, Python because I’ve been meaning to learn it. Thursday I’m going to the Advanced Scripting with brian_d_foy, who I’m looking forward to meeting.

I’ll also be attending Buzz Andersen’s WWDC 2005 Weblogger Dinner on Monday night. Looking forward to meeting a bunch of people there.

Jeff Harrell at Shape of Days is posting a great set of very personal, insightful travel essays from his vacation/voyage through the Florida Keys. Here they are in order:

• Arrivals
• Stopover
• Provisioning
• Departure
• Anchorage

• Bill Briggs’ AppleScript Primer a collection of essays covering basic concepts about the AppleScript language. Useful reference, lousy Googlerank.
  tags: applescript programming scripting +
• Quartz Composer samples from Futurismo Zugakousaku Interesting samples and exaples of what’s possible with one of the coolest free tools in 10.4 that very few people are talking about
  tags: animation graphics macosx programming quartz +

• Cartoon Skeletons A fantastic set of conceptual drawings by Michael Paulus (thanks Gilbert)
  tags: art bones cartoon charliebrown drawing flintstones hellokitty peanuts skeleton +
• Improv Everywhere: Even Better Than The Real Thing Fake U2 plays real concert across street from real U2 concert (brilliant)
  tags: comedy improveverywhere nyc prank u2 +

My copy of FCP 5 finally arrived on Wednesday but I haven’t had a chance to open the box yet. It weighs twice as much as Noemi does (and doesn’t smile at all). I’ve gotten a few reports of minor changes to FXScript rendering resulting in small, apparently aspect-related distortions, but no one has complained that Joe’s Filters stopped working. So that’s good. I’m looking forward to getting under the hood and seeing what’s changed.

My parents are in town this weekend with my brother Ben, to see their newest granddaughter and enjoy a long-overdue vacation. I’ll be playing tour guide for most of the weekend, and I’m psychologically preparing myself for not getting much any work done over the next few days.

Times Square was beautiful tonight.

You are the only one person I know that will remove every plank of wood off of a ship to see when it would sink. And then happy beyond belief when you figure it out.

–Bruce, via IM.

At some point today I stumbled across a link to an article about an archaeologist claiming he’d located the Ark of the Covenant, Kabbalist Blesses Jones: Now’s the Time to Find Holy Lost Ark. Well that’s cool.

The archaeologist, Vendyl Jones is hard to pin down. Apparently the inspiration for Indiana Jones, I found plenty of links about him on conspiracy sites, right next to UFOs and the Illuminati, including a much cited story about him having three kidneys? But I kept reading because the story is long, well told and fascinating.

The center of this story lies in the contents of the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls which Vendyl has been studying for some 30 years. Though some think the whole scroll is a hoax, many believe it contains an inventory of the treasures of the First Temple, hidden away to keep them safe from the Romans. Vendyl’s story of piecing together the information in the scroll makes for very interesting reading.

The story of the Blue Aura reminded me that I once found that exact phenomenon at the bottom of a parking garage in Pasadena. There was a small hole between concrete slabs which was open for six or seven stories to the sky. At the right time of day, pure blue light would stream down. I went back several times and have never forgotten the quality of that light.

Further poking around in Vendyl’s site lead me to the story of Haym Salomon, a key figure in the American Revolution, who was Jewish, and whom I’d never heard about before. I got there reading a Jones essay titled “A Real National Treasure” in his foundation’s self published Researcher Newspaper (pdf link, page 9). The bulk of that essay was a fascinating Kabbalist breakdown of the symbolism in the Great Seal of the United States, based on the possibly erroneous belief that Haym Salomon designed the seal (The US Department of State’s official Great Seal pdf booklet doesn’t mention Haym Salomon at all). Usually the seal is explored via the symbolism of the Freemasons. According to the often dubious Wikipedia entry on Haym Solomon, he might or might not have also had a hand in crafting the US Constitution. I’m not sure how much to believe here, but the anti-Semetic conspiracy fringe seems to believe Salomon is responsible for all sorts of things. Those people would be funny if they weren’t so frightening.

I’m not sure what to make of Vendyl Jones, he seems like the sort of character who is either prophetically correct or consumed by madness. I don’t think anyone’s eyeballs will melt from their skulls if does find it, but discovering the actual Ark from the First Temple with a clearly described historical lineage would have a significant impact on the course of world events and all followers of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam.

Crazy stuff, fun to think about.