While I'm on an the anti-MS warpath, wouldn't "Snowcrash" be a great codename for the next Windows version?

"I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."

Just thought I'd share that.

I used to think that being a speed trap cop would suck. Occasionally you get to really help out - respond to an accident and save a life, catch a drunk driver, even help change a tire. Mostly though, you're ruining people's days. Every single day, the majority of folks with whom you have direct contact are worse off for it. I have great respect for those guys because they show up every day anyhow. Deep down they understand (or at last convince themselves) that they are keeping the roadways safe for everyone.

While reading the latest installment in the IE saga, I wondered what it's like to code on IE. You have to know that professional web developers curse your product with near unanimity. You have to know that your users are having their data and identities stolen. You have to know that your product exists not to provide value or innovation, but to prevent the ascendance of other companies that would do so. How on earth do you come to work each day when your "contribution" to society ruins the days of those who travel the information superhighway?

I'm a programmer and I love my job. Our customers voluntarily spend lots of money on our products, then call us to tell us how happy they are with them. I honestly don't know how MS manages to keep their team staffed.

It's been a rough  day  for  Microsoft.

I stumbled into an interesting post-Katrina piece. Highlights:

• "If your conversation partner had flooding and you did not, etiquette dictates that you are now the listener in the conversation, even if your roof blew off and both your dogs died."


• "It's odd that an impromptu autumn of exile that went Houston-Tulsa (tire blowout) - Indianapolis (fuel pump failure)- Philadelphia - Ontario - Boston with a 6-year-old and 18-month-old is considered doing well, but there it is."


• "I tend not to drive on main thoroughfares because we are still sorely lacking in functional stoplights."

Yeah, so moderation is off. I just wanted to duck whatever "new blog created" buzz there must have been that was earning me the attention of the grievers. The set of people who are grievers is unfortunately the same as the set of people who make up a large portion of the internet. Young people have lots of free time -> immature people are bored on the internet.

Opportunity cost of MS?

Microsoft just announced their new OpenXML Developer's Network. OpenXML is the format designed to be confused with the ODF format championed by basically the rest of the tech industry. Pondering the irony in hawking a "standard" with truckloads of non-standard HTML and CSS, I turned to the question of the opportunity cost of MS's hegemony.

An opportunity cost is the difference in value between the potential value of a given situation and the actual real-world value obtained. What then is the opportunity cost of MS? How much better off would we be if the world of software were truly competitive?" Let's take a look.

Where could we be? Well, the hardware industry is competitive. Moore's law still holds. On top of that, we get flat panels, low-energy laptops, Bluetooth, tablets and Wi-fi. Faster, better and cheaper. Which has advanced more in the past 10 years, microprocessors or office software?

Where are we now? We can figure the cost in terms of equipment and man-hours of dealing with spyware, spam from hacked Windows machines, wasting time trying to hack good HTML into a bad browser, staring at a BSOD, etc.

I don't know what the sum would be, but I'd wager that there are more than a few countries whose GDP couldn't match it. How did we get into such a mess? That I suppose is a question for another day.

I read an interesting quote today that can serve as a starting point when evaluating our current GWB:

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

The quote comes from an address by Lincoln to Congress. It got me to thinking that I cannot recall our current President ever having changed his mind on anything. I don't mean give up after failure a la social security privatisation. I mean actually go one way, then voluntarily switch directions when reality failed to meet projection.

Patriot Act, the board game

Someone has created a monopoly clone Patriot Act board game. Instead of purchasing real estate, you attempt to be the last person in the game who still has civil liberties and hasn't been sent to Guantanamo. You can print out your own print out your own copy of the game if you're interested.

The act has been in and out of the courts (see Jose Padilla). It seems that the PA is to the 4th and 5th amendments as gun control is to the 2nd. Preferable would be a broader treatment along the lines of the 1st...

The arguments I've heard for keeping marijuana illegal tend to center around these two issues:

• Continued use can lead to more serious drugs and activities (the gateway argument)


• Use leads to a general lack of ambition and non-productive uses of time (the pothead stereotype)
  

I dismiss the first argument on grounds that most of the "gateway" issue is caused by rather than cause for illegality. The search for an illegal substance such as pot will introduce one to an underground community that traffics in other more serious vices. Any gateway tendencies beyond that could easily be attributed to alcohol, which is legal.

As for the second, in what way is pot worse than say reality television? I personally apply this argument in avoiding both...

Shakespeare once noted that brevity is the soul of wit. Following his reasoning, I have decided that I have a witlessness problem that I'd like to see kicked. Consider this an experiment in that endeavor.