Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Monday, June 14, 2004
local6.com - Weather - Lightning Strike Injures 17 Army Reservists In Wisconsin
One more place we should pull out of. I think we should let those cheese farmers fend for themselves.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US told: charge Saddam or free himMaybe the IRC should elect Saddam to be their president.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Yahoo! News - The Host With the Most: "'It was a speech, I suppose, that with variations, I'd given hundreds of times before,' Reagan wrote in his autobiography. Its themes were as simple as they were unchanging: The growth of government should be restrained; an unelected elite were able to set policies and thwart the desires of ordinary people; and America was on the road toward socialism. 'A government may be the most benevolent, well-meaning in the world, but when it attempts to operate the economy, control production of a country, it must eventually use coercion and force to achieve its purposes,'"
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Monday, May 31, 2004
Sunday, May 30, 2004
MSNBC - Missing: A Laptop of DEA Informants
A store near me sells used computers, including laptops by the hundreds, mostly obtained at government auctions. Some of these systems are in "mint" condition, but all are new enough and fast enough to be still usable systems. Laptops in particular are available to government workers advanced in rank. Some have to "justify" their need for a laptop, others just get them because they hold down a specific job. At my last contracting position, laptops were reported missing from the main headquarters building (I won't say which one) on a regular basis. While the security on the building was fairly tight, it was a matter if YOU qualified to get in or out of the building, they didn't care much what you were carrying. So I had the impression of laptops leaking through the federal bureaucracy like a sieve, being stolen, not by common criminals, but by the bureaucrats themselves, or by contract workers.
Why would someone need to take a database such as this home with them? Why would you trust this data to a laptop rather than securing it on a server? The selling point of laptops is NOT as a storage device, laptop hard drives being among the most vulnerable to damage from being dropped or even bumped at the wrong time.
My guess is that this story does not present the exception, but the rule when it comes to handling data, both sensitive and otherwise.
Saturday, May 29, 2004
The Connection Excellent article. Short response to it:
If I were more a partisan than an American I'd feel tickled pink about this. I'm so tired of arm-chair version of Sherlock Holmes who attempt to draw inferences from headlines alone. Bush family in the Oil business? Then Iraq must be about oil!
The fact is these infantile theories of cause and effect are easy to foist on the American voter, especially one who doesn't spend a whole lot of time doing their own research. "Well, if Move-On put it on their web page then it's good enough for me." And Ben and Jerry's DOES say we are spending too many Oreo cookies on the military. Maybe it's time to go get ice cream!
But there are other speculations that don't come so easy. That doesn't make them any less likely to be true. My wondering always goes quickly to motive, and past performance.
Sadaam had plenty of motivation against th US. He DID threaten the US, Bush Sr. and anyone else who got in his way. That WAS his way. And it won't be surprising to see (eventually) a flood of evidence that he was either behind or at least involved with several plots against the US.
What if this all could have been prevented by going on to Baghdad in the first Iraqi war? Will we get a Mea Culpa from those involved in that decision? More importantly will we get at least an apology from those like Al Gore and John Kerry who are attempting to make so much political hay over the issue? One or both of them might actually be in high office by then, and it would at least be refreshing for those of us who are not convinced yet to hear just exactly what would they be doing differently.
In Sherlock Holmes stories almost all of his inferential leaps are correct, even when he later admits to guessing. In the real world it is hardly ever so.
Time to stop guessing and start planning, and if you don't like the plan that's in operation now, present an alternative! No hand waving, details please.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United StatesPossibly interesting testimony.
Also todays C-Span Washington Journal:
Here.
Chomsky Backpedals on "Silent Genocide" in Afghanistan: "In December, Noam Chomsky continued to spin his 2001 claim that U.S. military action in Afghanistan constituted a 'silent genocide' that would result in millions of deaths in that country. Chomsky wants to engage in Clinton-esque parsing of his words, so lets revisit what Chomsky said prior to the U.S. initiation of hostilities against Afghanistan."
The New York Times Critiques it's own coverage of Iraq: "Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."
Recommendation to New York Times. When a reporter screws up badly, you fire them (remember?) and even in that case (you DO remember don't you?) higher ups "resigned to persue other interest".
So, if indeed, you think you contributed to the Iraqi war, which you now think should have never been started, then SURELY this is an appropriate time to fire someone.
If on the other hand this is just leftist politics as usual, no one will be fired, demoted or even reprimanded. And I'd guess in about a year you will be claiming clairvoyance for those earlier article when WMD are found, in abundance. Your mission right now as is the case with so many others, and as is so transparent, is to defeat George Bush. Accuracy in reporting is the last thing on your mind.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
USATODAY.com - Santa Fe rethinking doggie seat belt proposal Amessage from the road to hell department.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Pew Survey Finds Moderates, Liberals Dominate News Outlets
They had to take a survey to figure this out?
Saturday, May 22, 2004
CRM Daily: NewsFactor Network - Marketing Automation - Gmail Free, But for a Price
Someone needs to start a new list of clueless people and organizations that are buying this concept of a privacy issue with Google's new Gmail.
Let's get this straight: Unless you encrypt your e-mail it's not private, or secure. How many times have you heard that FTP is not secure? If you work with computer networks AT ALL, the answer is: A LOT. Thats because FTP sends your password from the client to the server in un-encrypted form.
New version of FTP correct this by encrypting the password. Similarly, secure web transaction involved the entire page, and everything you type into a form on that page being encrypted.
As everyone SHOULD know by now, things zipping to and fro on the internet are subject to snooping. The bits and bytes pass thought a lot of equipment owned by many different people and theoretically, any one of them could be siphoning off traffic for good or evil purposes.
That means, TA DA: nobodies e-mail is secure or private. Unless, that is, you take measures to make it so, namely encrypting it. How many people encrypt their email? I don't. I don't even digitally sign mine (although I have in the past just to play with the concept).
But at least one air-headed state congressperson from California (of all places) wants to pass a law against Gmail. Duh. And it seems several technical publication (who should know better) seem to not have all their fact straight either. Oddly enough the publication mentioned here is in California too. Coincidence? I think not. Ban California!
Friday, May 21, 2004
Test post by mail
This is a test of the post by mail system.
Had this been an actual post, it would be a lot more interesting.
Or something.
Yahoo! News - A bit of perspective, please: "It is said that the images from Abu Ghraib blur the moral difference between America and Saddam Hussein. This reflects the moral obtuseness of those who say such things. Moral obtuseness, of course, is an art form for many in Europe, who consistently ignore the crimes of terrorists. Such people, in the words of Raymond Aron, are 'merciless toward the failings of the democracies but ready to tolerate the worst crimes, as long as they are committed in the name of the proper doctrine.'"
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
The New York Times > Technology > Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft: "Google's software, which is expected to be introduced soon, according to several people with knowledge of the company's plans, is the clearest indication to date that the company, based in Mountain View, Calif., hopes to extend its search business to compete directly with Microsoft's control of desktop computing."
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
The New York Times > Health > U.S. Speeding Up Approval Steps for AIDS DrugsAs Andrew Sullivan points out, Bush has done more for AIDs research in 3 years than Clinton did in 8, but the left won't give him credit.
Monday, May 17, 2004
IOC gives go-ahead for transsexuals to compete in Olympics: "One of the best known cases of transsexuals in sports involves Renee Richards, formerly Richard Raskind, who played on the women's tennis tour in the 1970s.
Richards, now a New York opthamologist, was surprised by the IOC decision and was against it. She said decisions on transsexuals should be made on an individual basis.
'Basically, I think they're making a wrong judgment here, although I would have loved to have that judgment made in my case in 1976,' she said.
'They're probably looking for trouble down the line. There may be a true transsexual -- not someone who's nuts and wants to make money -- who will be a very good champion player, and it will be a young person, let's say a Jimmy Connors or a Tiger Woods, and then they'll have an unequal playing field.
'In some sports, the physical superiority of men over women is very significant.'"
U.S. athletes told to cool it at Olympics - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - May 16, 2004: "American athletes have been warned not to wave the U.S. flag during their medal celebrations at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens, for fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country's already-battered public image. "
Um... how 'bout we just don't go,
And pull out of Iraq, and Yugoslavia, and Germany,
And stop buying products from overseas,
And Oil from the middeast,
Turn all corporations over to the nearest labor union leader,
Legalize all drugs, and define marriage to mean the union of anything with anything else,
And let the world, including the far left here in the US stew in their own juices for a while?
It's tempting to try and find somewhere far far away and stop caring,
Or just go to the movies, absorb the propaganda and never come out of the stupor again.
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Yahoo! News - NASA's Finances in Disarray; Auditor Leaves: "That big number -- $565 billion, with a 'B' -- was the result of posting problems, new software and a 'massive cleanup' of 12 years of NASA's financial records, said Patrick Ciganer, NASA's chief for integrated financial management."
No doubt this is an isolated case though. People who keep voting for larger governement wouldn't tollerate much of this would they?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/politics/06HEAL.html?ex=1084766400&en=26bcd8eb6c7ba48f&ei=5070
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0802/081902t1.htm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/BG1282.cfm
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/gov/2002/pd030102b.html
http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php?issue_id=1532
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/itspending/story/0,10801,88509,00.html
... and on and on ...
Booknotes Transcript: The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military
by Dana Priest
"We`re still in the situation where people say this military shouldn`t be doing this. They should be fighting wars. At the same time there`s no one else to send and the U.N. and the U.N. organization is not funded or organized properly and the U.N. is a reflection of all of these countries.
So there is a widespread frustration not only in the U.S. government but in the world community that militaries shouldn`t do nation building but there`s no one else to do it and there has not been the political leadership to build another apparatus that could take that on and that`s the problem."
The book contains stories of rape and murder, American military people serving life sentences as a result. UN fecklesness and corruption. Sound familiar? It should, only it's not about Iraq.
Friday, May 14, 2004
IBM Dreams of Pushing Microsoft Off the Desktop and Stomping its Clinging Fingers (LinuxWorld): "The Workplace Client Technology costs $24 a head a year; the Workplace Messenger and Workplace Document are $29 apiece for each user over three years. IBM is also going to charge $2 a month to support the servers. The price drops in large volumes."
Now, if this happens, IBM will be aiming the products at business users. But at those per-seat costs, Google, or Yahoo could offer them to everyone... as FREE services, supported by advertising.
This notion of centralizing applications (and the data that goes with them) back on a server where they belong (because on the server they are relativly safe from viruses, backed up daily, and can be accessed from anywhere on the net), first surfaced several years ago as the thin-client initiative, promoted among others, by Lary Elison of Oracle. That initiative failed, mainly due to the fact that vendors of the hardware got greedy, often offering the "thin-client" devices at a cost HIGHER than the standard PC they would be replaceing. Needless to say, potential customers were not impressed.
Since then, the idea has surfaced again, about two years ago, when a company called Citrix was demonstrating the possibility of running Windows desktops in a window on Linux, and other Unix machines, or in a web browser interface on just about any computer equiped with a web browser. The system worked so well that Microsft promptly paid Citrix for rights to use the product themselves, afterwhich, the idea suddenly stopped getting mentioned much by either Citrix or Microsoft. Conspiracy theory anyone?
Whereas the above concept would have continued to result in licensing charges being paid to Microsoft for each client system, these new initiatives don't involve Windows at all. Will this prompt Microsoft to pull the Citrix rabbit back out of that hat? Let's hope so. Maybe they too can offer Word and Excel usage for free to MSN subscribers. The average home user, the kid in high school doing a book report, and many dunderheads in business and industry are not nearly sofisticated enough to need a $400 word processing package. They don't do backups, they don't know about firewalls, and can't be trusted to update their virus scanners. The world needs a newer and safer paradign ffor computing. Microsoft has proven that they can't secure Windows no matter how hard they try. Time to give up, all of us, and try something else. Server side computing is the way to go, and if Microsoft wants to play, welcome to the party.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Secrets of the stealth ship: "Carbon fibre is one of the toughest known materials - and that is why it is so expensive."
Economic illiteracy is so rampant it can never be cured.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Monday, May 10, 2004
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Dynix library automation systems, imaging, and cataloging softwareLink from article below. Library software for Linux.
Ultra Cool News! Makes me glad I'm moving to Maryland!
NewsForge | Linux in action: A public library's success story
Yahoo! News - Microsoft Touts Computerized Future: "Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates offered a brief glimpse of a major Windows security update, called Service Pack 2, that is due out sometime this year. But he said that while security 'is a required thing, we feel very optimistic that will be in place.'
The company urged hardware makers to devote resources toward supporting Microsoft's vision of a future rife with multiple electronic gadgets. "
Was he wearing very dark glasses and tapping the ground in frount of him with a stick too? Did they also predict the eventual emergence of VHS tapes over Beta? We'll start thinking about getting advice on the future from Microsoft when they demonstrate that they actually have mastered those fundamentals mentioned in the article. So far that doesn't seem to be the case.
In the mean time the vision for the future of electronic gadgets will probably come from Japan, China, India. Credit goes to Microsoft for giving away America's tech lead while we all fiddled with blue screens rather than doing real technology.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Monday, May 03, 2004
WSJ.com - Stopping Sasser
Why doesn't MS provide a firewall program for Windows 2000, and even the 9X variants? They are willing to jeopardize the entire network, and even subject their own current users from various forms of continual attack just to prive a MINOR incremental advantage to Windows XP?
If their products are inovative (taking them at their word) then mere security fixes should be available from Microsoft for all security issues, particulalry those that broadcast infections to others. This is simple good citizenship. What's wrong with the people at Microsoft that they cannot see this? Something to ponder.
Looking through my web statistics I get curious about some of the search strings. Seem I am the number one authoritative web page on something at last:
Google Search: dog getting electrocuted owned
Well, at least for the next few hours. Of course I don't have anything on the subject of dogs getting electrocuted, owned or otherwise. These days you have to be more and more carefull with your searches to find what you are after.
Finally!
BBC introduces flexible TV with online trial
The idea of video content (or audio for that matter) on demand is long overdue. People I talke to about this
almost universally say something like "Why would you want that?" at which point I blow as gasket. Maybe some live demos
will get the idea going.
Not necessarily bad news:
The New York Times > Science > U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences
Yahoo! News - Sasser Worm Strikes Countless PCs Worldwide: "Finnish bancassurer Sampo (SAMAS.HE) temporarily closed all of its 130 branch offices on Monday as a precaution.
In Australia, Westpac Bank (WBC.AX) said it was hit by the worm, and branches had to use pen and paper to allow them to keep trading, The Australian newspaper (http://www.theaustralian.news.com) reported."
Seems that somewhere along the line, letting one company decide where we were going to go today we have lost track of where we wanted to end up. Surely this is not that place.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
FWoTM Award
- For endless grandstanding during the on-air portions of the 911 hearings,
- Using up his 10 minutes to give a speech and then complaining that he had no time left to ask questions,
- Repeatedly calling Dr. Condoleezza Rice "Mr. Clark",
- Showing up on every talk show or comedy program that would take him to politicize the committee,
- Demanding that the President must testify before the committee and then,
- Leaving presidential testimony an hour early to meet with another senator at a Capitol Hill bar.
Former Senator Bob Kerry:
Monday, April 26, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
Monday, April 19, 2004
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Jordan 'was chemical bomb target'
It is thought that these chemical weapons came from Syria, and how did they get to Syria?
Hmmmmm. Think.
Doesn't this do a lot to explain why nobody at the UN was in a big hurry to depose Sadam? Why wreck the gravy train?
Commentary - Special Article: "The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It?"
Australian IT - Banks look at Linux switch (Kelly Mills, APRIL 20, 2004)
Two out of four banks choose Linux. Shouldn't you?
The Australian: John Laughland: If it's war you want, then go Democrats [April 20, 2004]
Hmmmm, maybe I could be talked into voting for Kerry after all.
USNews.com: Mortimer B. Zuckerman: The U.N. and the Iraq oil-for-food scandal (4/26/04): "Will the investigation be whitewashed to preserve the U.N.'s reputation so that it can replace the CPA in Iraq, or will the investigation get to the bottom of this ugly mess?"
Or will it all get cleaned up in time for Kerry to turn our entire foreign policy over to the UN?
Well, never mind that, this foreign affares stuff is cutting into our "reality TV" programming. We can't have that.
Hillary Clinton leaves Jamaica Holidayed at Tryall - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM: "According to Observer sources, between her aides, friends and Secret Service protectors Rodham Clinton's entourage occupied 40 rooms."
Whoo. Wonder who pays for that? New York I hope.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Misplaced priorities . . . with walls - The Washington Times: Commentary: " From the beginning, Ms. Gorelick's appointment to the September 11 commission was problematic. She served not only as Attorney General Janet Reno's deputy but also as general counsel at the Defense Department, jobs which put her at the heart of the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts. Her actions, as well as those of her superiors, are among the subjects this commission is tasked to review. How can she be expected to be impartial when it comes to evaluating her superiors, much less herself?
'During the course of those investigations,' wrote Ms. Gorelick in 1995, 'significant counterintelligence information has been developed related to the activities and plans of agents of foreign powers operating in this country and overseas, including previously unknown connections between separate terrorist groups.' But Ms. Gorelick wanted to make sure the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. "
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
How much of a world-changing event would it be if they discovered fish scales on Mars?
2M135153456EFF2700P2959M2M1.JPG (JPEG Image, 1024x1024 pixels)
Never a moment of rest forr the control freaks:
Security Pipeline | News | California Senator To Block Google's Gmail: "A California state senator will introduce legislation opposing Google's recently-announced Gmail Web-based e-mail service, citing invasion of privacy concerns.
Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont and the author of the state's 'Do-Not-Call' law that lets Californians block telemarketing calls, last week sent a letter to Google urging the company to rethink its plan to roll out a free e-mail service."
My theory is that the poorly defined concept of what our privacy rights actually are will poison all other laws in this country. The notion that a state senator, or a national one for that matter, needs to potect me from a FREE service that I am not bound in any way to use is simply astonishing.
If our legislative bodies would MAKE LAWS regarding abortion, gay marriage, drugs, and a host of other things, then these issues would not so frequently find their ways into courts where the non-existent privacy clause of the Constituion could be brought into play.
I can't help but think that images like this:
1P134753115EFF10CGP2591L5M1.JPG (JPEG Image, 1024x1024 pixels)
would give NASA scientists reasons to wish they had crawled out of the crater that Opportunity landed in sooner. I raised this in Slashdot and got countered (by someone very defensive of NASA) to the tune of: "We DID poke our head out and look around (seeing in the process the paracheuttes etc)". But obviously we didn't in that process see that the area around the lander contained other indentations that were NOT craters, and it seems that those might be more interesting in some ways.
Anyway, hindsight is 20-20, but If it were me, I would have come out of the crater on day 5 or so and then (depending on what could be spotted) either crawled back in, or moved off to something else (always with the potention of comming back if that didn't work out).
Needless to say, its a good thing they are "extending" the mission to 5 months, otherwise the 90 days that they are now making so much of would have been not nearly enough.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Quoting Tim Long, a producer of The Simpsons on why they had not made use of the current President in any of thier episodes so far: Washington Whispers (4/19/04): "'With Clinton, you had the real-estate scam, the [vulgar term referring to the sex scandal]. He was a gift from the comedy gods. With Bush, the atmosphere is much more serious. And he's this clean-living guy. Some people love him and some hate him, but it's hard to get a comedic toehold on him, coming after the greatest comedy president in the last 100 years.'
'I'll be really impressed if you get the words `[vulgar term referring to the sex scandal]' in print,' he added."
The New York Times > Washington > Pre-9/11 Secret Briefing Said That Qaeda Was Active in U.S."The president's critics are likely to embrace the specific and unresolved nature of some of the warnings — particularly a reference to "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks" — as a further indication that Mr. Bush had ample information about a domestic threat, and should have pressed for further action after the briefing."
Um, yes, but you would expect the New York Times to point out how nonsensical this sounds as opposed to proping up the argument with even more fact-less partisan grand-standing.
Oh wait *cough* Jason Blair *cough*... never mind.
Saturday, April 10, 2004
The Once and Future King |PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "The final stage I call 'missing the boat,' which involves a significant advance in non-Microsoft technology that Redmond chooses to address by not addressing -- they just dictate that it shall not be so, thinking that as always their word is law. Maybe this last stage has to do with Open Source but probably not. This stage has to be something beyond Netscape's browser or Sun's Java, because Microsoft was willing to embrace those and destroy them. Missing the boat means a zig that threatens the heart of Windows, probably associated with a hardware platform shift. Only this time, Microsoft will be too slow and customers, feeling abused and tired of the treadmill, won't be so afraid. Bill Gates (it will still be Bill, because this will happen in the next decade I am sure) will again turn his corporate supertanker and add full power, but this time the competing ship will not only have a head start, it will be able to accelerate faster than Microsoft."
???
Talk about missing the boat. I think the boat that has been missed here is by the pundits who think that Open Source just showed up yesterday and now they are disapointed that everything isn't going to be Open Source tomorrow. I'm not sure I like this "boating" metaphore either. If we ahve to work with it I'd point out that many big companies are smart enough to not base their future on one gigantic boat at all, but instead start building a fleet of smaller, more manouverable craft. Nothing stops Microsoft from doing that. It just hasn't.
Slashdot is all agog over Cringely's latest pronouncements. I only read him when /. draws my attention to something he says. But now, reading some of his earlier posts I find:
PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "There are only two ways for a society to address such taking advantage of a legal system. One way is to drag that legal system into the 21st century, which isn't going to happen in America. The other way is to dramatically simplify the legal system along the lines of nomadic justice where there are no prisons nor even capability for collecting damages, so all correction comes down to death or maiming. That isn't going to happen, either, so Microsoft wins"
old post,still true,needs re-write
macblog: "Achordesk - Apple vs Linux vs Windows
2003-06-30 (AM)
Interestingly, between the article and the first two posts, all the possibilities (interesting ones anyway) are covered.
David thinks that we are all unwilling slaves to the Dark Lords of Redmond. They may make substandard software, but we all all doomed to have to use it FOREVER!
Nice Guy thinks Linux will make everything else irrelevant.
Andy declares a pox on both Linux and Windows respective houses.
You're all wrong! (and right of course).
Microsoft has nowhere to go but down, or over. They need to diversify, have tried, and failed, multiple times. Investors are tired of waiting. Microsoft is trailing the tech stock market for a reason. If Linux and Apple disappeared tomorrow they would still be in trouble, a victim of their own success.
Linux and Open Source have certainly helped make the software market into a commodity market again, and at about the same time that the hardware market has turned that way. Probably not a coincidence.
I think both Apple and Linux will continue (slowly) to make inroads into the Windows market share. Apple has been executing perfectly, and needs to continue doing so without any major missteps. Linux can afford to execute perfectly, or not. Since the Open Source movement is driven by it's users it's hard for it to make mistakes about what users want, at least as far as those of us who use it go.
I've taken to using OS X and Linux about equally. I have more computers running Linux, but my iBook is so darned handy to have around I tend to use it more than my larger, heavier and uglier Compaq, which runs Debian Linux, but is also capable of running Windows on those rare occasions these days when I have to.
I used to love Windows. When was that? When the only alternative was DOS. Since then, Windows has always been behind (in almost every respect) its nearest competitor. They continued to win by out-marketing rather than out-performing the competition. In theory they could continue to do that now, except they are caught between the rock and hard place of one competitor that is technically better in every way and another competitor that is free. This would even be a manageable situation if computer hardware prices were on the way up, rather than down. Nobody wants to spend up to half of their next hardware purchase on the bundled software that comes with it. Windows prices need to come down, drastically, but thats not something Microsoft can do until is has another cash cow to milk. So far all their potential cows have turned into turkeys.
Windows is like Kool Aid, almost all sugar. The young and inexperienced continue to be hooked on it, but those who have been drinking it while they grew up show signs of poor health. The adults watch and shake their heads.
OK, I'm all metaphored out, coffee has kicked in. Windows will continue to decline, but so slowly that people like David will pronounce it as invincible for a good bit longer. Apple and Linux will both continue to gain market share, Apple with the US market and with pure end-users, Linux with the more sophisticated techies, third world, second world, and well managed institutions. Don't look for an earthquake, look for wildflowers growing in what used to be a well manicured lawn.
Hmmm, maybe I need another cup."
Friday, April 09, 2004
From the "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy department...
Yahoo! News - Enron Ex-CEO Skilling Taken to Hospital: "NEW YORK - Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was taken to a hospital early Friday after several people called police saying he was pulling on their clothes and accusing them of being FBI (news - web sites) agents, a police source told The Associated Press."
Linux.com | Linux breathes new life into old hardware: "ThinkPad 600E units tend to sell for around $300 on eBay. My ThinkPad 600E came equipped with a 366MHz Pentium II Mobile CPU, 256MB of PC66 SDRAM, and a 9.3GB 4,200RPM hard drive. That's theoretically much slower than the 3GHz laptops being produced today -- but notice I said 'theoretical.' Depending on your use, the speed difference can have either a major or hardly noticable impact. For raytracing fanatics, hardcore gamers, and encryption analysts, a ThinkPad 600E is not a suitable choice. For a typical user, however, who surfs the Internet, types papers, listens to music, creates Web sites, prints images from a digital camera, and balances a checkbook, the cost-effectiveness of the 600E is a clear advantage."
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Is it Over Rover?
Rover Daily Update Spirit Sol 91: "Spirit woke up on sol 91, which ended at 6:38 p.m. PDT on April 5, 2004, as if it were any other martian day, but this one was special. Finishing 90 sols of surface operations since landing day marked completion of the last of the official success criteria for Spirit's prime mission. The rover team at JPL had checked off the next-to-last box for mission success two days earlier, when a drive of 50.2 meters (165 feet) took Spirit's total travel distance over the 600-meter (1,969 feet) mark."
This might hint at further cutbacks in rover coverage. From the once daily hour long press conference to daily 2 minute mission controller updates, which now seem to get regularly skipped, we are down to the still daily written summary:
Rover Daily Updates
I wonder how long it will last. NASA people seem to be in a big hurry to declare the mission over so they can go home. Unfortunate really, since in the beginning when the press was anxious to cover more territory they were told that there was no hurry. The 90 day number was just the MINIMUM life expectancy of the hardware. Now they are changing their tune. The hardware is fine. Seems it is the personnel that is worn out. Or maybe it has just exceeded the American publics attention span. Ever shorter.
Caffeine in Canda
Did you know that Mountain Dew sold in Canada is not allowed to have caffeine in it? I just found that out. Following a link though
I also found out that other drinks have very high levels of caffeine and aren't even labeled as such. One more example of
governments pretending to know what's good for you:
Marketplace - Canada's Investigative Consumer Program
Monday, April 05, 2004
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Microsoft to intruduce temporary version of Windows before next major release named Longhorn..
Microsoft considering update dubbed 'XP Reloaded' | CNET News.com
I've noticed this about all commercial operating systems, since DOS that is (DOS was fine).
They all get "tired" after a while. OS/2 icons would start to disappear after a few months. You could run utilities to fix for a while, but generally you had to re-install to get good performance again. Same with all version of Windows, particularly since they came up with that *BRILLIANT* registry concept. Then they came out with unofficial registry clean-up tools, then as of 2000 they tell you not to run those or you will screw your system.
They leave it to third parties like Norton to provide this type of clean-up tool, but then when the tools don't work, or even make your system worse, Microsoft can say "it's not our problem you ran a third party tool", and the toolmaker says "it's not our problem Microsoft keeps changing things and not telling us".
Apples OS X is the same way. I've already had to start running a cleanup tool about once a week or the system gets noticeably slower. If I let it go a month the disk drive starts bashing it's heads up against the enclosure trying to access cylinders that don't exist.
It's as though you are working with the temperamental robot in "Lost In Space". Going where *YOU* want to go, but only when its in the right mood.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but the only other explanation is that the people working on Linux and the BSD systems are a LOT smarter, because those systems don't have these problems, ever. You can upgrade when you feel like it, IF you feel like it, and pay little or nothing (Debian) for the privilege.
Maybe this will get better as more people move from "JUNKware" to software. I hope so. I really don't mind paying for software, I just don't want to own any more junk.
By the way I'm fairly sure that this release has more to do with revenue projections than technology. MS is in a revenue dry spell of its own creation. This has happened before (Remember Windows ME?) and it will keep happening as long as people put up with it.
Maybe there is something Darwinian going on here. Windows: the OS for people who really have no business using computers.
Millions Stolen at Metro Lots (washingtonpost.com)
"Officials at Metro, the region's largest provider of parking, say they are uncertain how much money is missing and when the trouble began.
But the audit estimates that $500,000 to $1 million was stolen annually.
Metro officials have refused to release the auditor's report, saying audits are not public documents."
Excuse me? There isn't a dime that has gone into the Metro system that ISN'T public. What part of "YOU'RE FIRED" don't you understand?
Friday, April 02, 2004
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)