www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: "But the bottom line is that Kerry is a deeply weak candidate, and it took McCain and Giuliani, almost by simple contrast, to remind us why." For some, maybe. For many people, there was a deep sigh of relief when Kerry pulled ahead during the nomination process. I never thought of Kerry as a strong candidate and the only thing that has surprised me is the number of people who have been swayed even a little bit by his campain. But for those who chant "Anybody But Bush" the words have literal meaning. A warning for future primary voters: Take your blinders off during the primary season, and don't let your hatred for the other party (or candidate) make you sloppy in picking your own.

C-SPAN: WASHINGTON JOURNAL - Judith Colp Rubin & Barry Rubin, Co-Authors, "Hating America"

Apple - iMac G5 WOW!

Are the Browser Wars Back? - How Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer. By Paul Boutin Odd source for this advice.

Remarks by Ron Silver as Prepared for Delivery at the 2004 Republican National Convention on Monday, August 30, Evening Session 7:45 - 11:15 P.M. EDT: "Even though I am a well-recognized liberal on many issues confronting our society today, I find it ironic that many human rights advocates and outspoken members of my own entertainment community are often on the front lines to protest repression, for which I applaud them but they are usually the first ones to oppose any use of force to take care of these horrors that they catalogue repeatedly. Under the unwavering leadership of President Bush, the cause of freedom and democracy is being advanced by the courageous men and women serving in our Armed Services. The President is doing exactly the right thing. That is why we need this President at this time"

Doug Engelbart 1968 Demo: "On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962."

SiliconValley.com | 08/30/2004 | Mulder, Scully assigned to Redmond-area Longhorn mutilation: "Longhorn's release date has been slipping almost since the day it was set, so Microsoft's announcement Friday that the operating system, which was originally expected in 2004, won't arrive at market until late 2006 is really no surprise."

WorldNetDaily: Sleeping with Kerry: "That institutional problem is that the media now trust the very people they are supposed to be watchdogging. In this case, the press may not be sleeping with the elephants, but they sure are sleeping with the donkeys."

Plot thickens after checking records: "B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran himself, received the highest award the Army gives to a civilian, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, for his book Stolen Valor. Burkett pored through thousands of military service records, uncovering phony claims of awards and fake claims of military service. 'I've run across several claims for Silver Stars with combat V's, but they were all in fake records,' he said. Burkett recently filed a complaint that led last month to the sentencing of Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards to 115 days in the brig for falsification of his records."

QandO: Let's Judge Kerry by his Record, as requested.

Yahoo! News - Top Russian Official: Plane Terror Likely "MOSCOW - A top Russian official acknowledged Thursday what many citizens already suspected ? that terrorism was the most likely cause of two jetliners crashing minutes apart, a feeling reflected in a newspaper headline warning that 'Russia now has a Sept. 11.' " "A day after officials stressed there were many possibilities besides terrorism, presidential envoy Vladimir Yakovlev told Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency that the main theory 'all the same remains terrorism.' " Batchelor show tonight revealed that there had been large numbers of package explosions hushed up by Russian authorities.

IHT: Internet lets teen bullies inflict suffering from afar

Is Microsoft's Pipeline Officially Unblocked?: "We agree that Microsoft has some cool products in the pipeline. But the pipeline is so blocked up right now that it's unclear when any of them will be ready to flow into the commercial market. Got any ideas as to where Microsoft can find the silver-handled plunger that will get things running smoothly again?"

Gore gets speeding ticket while traveling in Oregon This seems really odd to me. But then, everything about Gore does.

BW Online | August 18, 2004 | Linus Torvalds' Benevolent Dictatorship: "Q: What makes you believe Linux will continue to gain momentum? A: I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things. I compare it to science vs. witchcraft. In science, the whole system builds on people looking at other people's results and building on top of them. In witchcraft, somebody had a small secret and guarded it -- but never allowed others to really understand it and build on it. Traditional software is like witchcraft. In history, witchcraft just died out. The same will happen in software. When problems get serious enough, you can't have one person or one company guarding their secrets. You have to have everybody share in knowledge."

Circuit City Chooses Linux for Cash Registers in 600 Stores - Computerworld

Microsoft slammed over misleading Windows Linux claims: "An advert it ran compared the two operating systems to each other, but Windows was running on a measly dual 900MHz Xeon configuration, while Linux was running on a z900 IBM mainframe."

My Life As A Fischer

Roscoe Ellis: Online Journal

ABCNEWS.com - Kill Microsoft Word Why the Popular Word Processing Program Should Be Scrapped Commentary By John C. Dvorak PC Magazine A-friggin-men. Not only am I glad to see a luminary finally give MS the trashing it has long deserved, but the problems he mention have been in the product for at least 3 years. Now, if we can just get the Feds to stop using it, or at least stop requiring vendors to use it Word will die a nice quick (relatively) death.

U.S. Holds Virginia Man After Taping at Maryland Bridge

LinDVD DVD Multimedia Software Solution for Linux

Weird (but interesting) high bandwidth flash site.

Commentary Magazine - World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win, Norman Podhoretz

LAMP is at the heart of Emergency Response Network Systems and is saving lives. "Few of us realize that the permanent government runs the country, and that's not necessarily our elected and appointed officials. Actually, one even might say that the permanent government doesn't do that work, at least sometimes not efficiently. The permanent government consists of the long-term civil servants who operate in fiefdoms. When someone gets the blame for the failure of a department, its usually an elected official whose inheritance is his or her agency. The Dallas FBI worked to put ERN into place. Here's a part of the permanent government that does work and works for the people. Now, they want to share this incredible software solution with the rest of the nation. Will they succeed?"

Munch's Scream stolen. Again "Edvard Munch's two most famous paintings, The Scream and his erotically-charged Madonna, have been nabbed from a Norwegian art gallery at gunpoint. Not much in the way of a security system stood in the way of the robbers, although a brave female security guard did her best to stop the raid by lying on the floor when asked to. The robbers bagged the paintings, drove off, and police arrived 15 minutes later, by which point the thieves were miles away, toasting their haul with the finest Norwegian champagne." Just about my favorite painting.

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete But read past the headline.

MSNBC-August 19, 2004 There are a number of "issues" with this self congratulatory MSNBC Liberal "blog", particularly when compared to the actual transcript In addition to Chris Mathews' own inferiority complex, Scarborough lets slip his own political views, while at the same time claiming to be unbiased, maybe he IS schizophrenic. Dee Dee Myers on the other hand is having trouble wondering why the American people would be a bit uncomfortable with electing someone who has never had a waking thought not related to how to become President. She of course, worked for such a person, so I suppose has grown immune to the uneasiness many American feel about Kerry.

Google, Finally a Public Company, Faces Huge Challenges, So of Course Bob Tells Them What to Do B-o-r-i-n-g, but a good start. I bet I could come up with another intersting possibility or two.

Amnesty and Pardon Thank you Walter!

Many engineers lack a four-year degree

Bush Plans to Shift U.S. Troops from Europe, Asia But advisers to Democratic presidential rival John Kerry warned the plan could make America more vulnerable. "This ill-conceived move and its timing seem politically motivated rather than designed to strengthen our national security," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark. Later in the day, Bush announced a cure for all forms of cancer. Kerry advisors have warned that this could cause world-wide overpopulation.

Inside Al-Qaedas Hard Drive

Linux Today - New $299 AOL PC Features Open Source Software 'bout time. I expected something like this from AOL around 4 years ago. Top execs at AOL/TW should be HELD BACK!

NewsForge | Circuit City moving to Linux

Kerry: Still Would Have Approved Force for Iraq Yet another reason to wonder why the "hate-Bush" crowd would have nominated someone so... un-different. Do people hate Bush because he has been un-polite to the French? I don't WANT to make nice-nice with the French. I want to have an andministration that treats the French like what they are: A relatively insignificant country in the modern world. They are not a superpower, nor have they been anywhere near being one during the 20th century. We, and they, need to get used to this and stop treating them with deference.

Forbes.com: Reuters to Shift Editorial Jobs to India This is of course, not a bad thing. One might say that the world outsources a lot of jobs to the US for the many years during which most Microsoft employees were stationed here (as they still are). One would expect this to equalize at some point. I heard a radio host talking about this the other day, pointing out that only (an estimated) 2 percent of US jobs had been outsourced overseas being only a small part of the job loss accompanying the recent recession. The radio host then added something like: "If you have a job that involves you sitting at a desk all day, then watch out, your job is subject to off-shoring, otherwise you have nothing to worry about." That got me to thinking how much truth there was to that, and how much of that truth was still not realized. The first thing that came to mind was of course, talk show hosts, or broadcasting in general. That could be done from anywhere in the world. Even if you had a particular on-air talent stationed in the US, the entire operation of the station could be taking place around the world. Newspapers came to mind too, but not just international operations such as Reuters. Many local papers consist of little other than re-hash of articles from Reuters, the New York Times or Washington Post. And what of THOSE venerable institutions? I've noticed parts of the Post getting rather spotty over the years. The Sunday magazine section that I always used to look forward to is thinner than ever these days. Where do you go to find original content? You can't substitute for having a reporter on the scene. But in the future will that reporter work for the Old Grey lady, a local TV station or an Internet based service? Will it be more effective to transmit the story from that local reporter via a van-mounted satelite dish, a laptop hooked into a Starbucks Internet connection, or even a wireless internet connection provided by the local telephone company? Does it matter where that story goes for editing? India, if there are people there that speak better English than those of us in the US? Ah, we need printed copies though don't we? Well, yes, but I'd rather have some local printer, no not one that I own, something in a drug store, grocery store, or gas station where I could go and get a freshly printed copy of the headlines. But not headlines for the day, headlines for NOW. Put in a quarter, get the news summary. Another quarter might get an entire section. As is the case now, the quarter doesn't pay for much, advertising does. Unlike the current situation though, you don't get landfills full of newspaper that has never been read at all. Furthermore you have options like asking for LAST Sundays paper which you may have been too busy to read. Applying Internet technologies doesn't (or shouldn't) mean that we have to sit in front of PCs all day long. Internet technologies can apply to radio, medical activities, car repair and just about everything else that doesn't require two hands and a physical presence. Plumbers, painters and lawn maintenance people are are still safe. Nothing bad about this either as long as we are prepared to lead in this technology rather than just follow. Will we be?

IBM goes slow on XP update - News - ZDNet Who can blame them? My methodology has always been to watch the history of updates from a given source. After a couple of years of updates that do more good than harm you trust them enough to apply them almost immediately. I say almost because you at least try it on a few test machines first, but this can be done within hours of the updates availability. What you do after not one, but several bad updates, those that break key components and fix problems that you don't even have, or claim to fix problems but actually don't, that is another matter. Having been burned on an update from any company, I put the company "on probation" and apply new updates only after extensive testing. This is a simple intuitive approach, that I think most users apply to both software updates as well as new product releases, and even hardware purchases. I have my own shit-list of hardware vendors as I suspect most people do. I just don't buy from these companies until they do something to change their reputation. Most never do. It is a true rarity for a company to suddenly discover the value of quality products to their future business. Companies either get it, or they don't. Microsoft has never got it, other than the original release of Windows NT which appears to have been thoroughly tested. From more recent experience this must have been a fluke, or, since NT was such a departure from previous version of Windows they were just uncharacteristically carefull.

Linux-VServer - Linux-VServer Virtual server for Linux.

OpenHosting, Inc. - Linux Virtual Dedicated Server Hosting Interesting Vienna VA company.

MSN Money - Jubak's Journal Good article on the Google IPO, and how IPOs work in general.

Wired News: What, Me Register?: "Maybe, but I don't even see advertising on the Internet. I tune it out, like, say, Yanni in an elevator. I also don't understand why publishers aren't more concerned about the integrity of their data -- unless, of course, all they care about is the illusion of accuracy." Bingo!

Yahoo! News - Microsoft to Roll Out Big Windows Upgrade"The investments we're making in security are ongoing," Gates said, "because the bad guys — who are criminals — are always sort of raising up their style of attack." What's with this speaking style? I thought Bill dropped out of college, not Jr. High.

PCWorld.com - Glitch Locks Out Money Users: "The worst fallout for users, however, may be what they perceive as a combination of Microsoft's attempts to put the best possible spin on the situation and its lack of attentiveness to users' demands for full disclosure. Early posts on the Communities Newsgroup for Money indicate that Microsoft tech support was unresponsive, sending out a canned message suggesting that users bypass Passport authentication. When that didn't work, some users were told to spend $35 on a paid 'support incident' with Microsoft Product Support Services."

"My Beef With Big Media" by Ted Turner This is a refreshing look at the issue of big media. Refreshing because unlike much of what we've seen for the past year or two it doesn't attempt to blame a 30 year trend on the current Bush administration. Big media, like big business in general can operate with economies of scale to overwhelm smaller competition. But elimination of all the smaller organizations depletes the gene pool so to speak and can lead to something like a monoculture.

Charles Krauthammer - Axis of Evil, Part Two

UCF Live Webcam

John Kerry's real tech agenda | Perspectives | CNET News.com: "In last week's convention speech, Kerry talked about restoring the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but it's hardly clear what he meant. His campaign says that 'John Kerry stands by his vote for the Patriot Act. He even wants to strengthen some aspects of it relating to terrorism, such as improving intelligence information sharing.'" Good research here. What gets me is the disconnect between the hate-Bush movement and any objective reality. If the Patriot act is bad for privacy (andit is) it's only marginally so. But in any event how can you base a Kerry vote on being against it? If you are voting against Bush because you don't like his Texas accent, then fine, just say so, and you will be on defensible (though silly) logical ground. Most of the reasons I've heard for being against Bush (and for Kerry) are just plain silly, and don't bear any relationship to the actual positions of the candidates.