Going Wireless

I’d like to make my home completely wireless, but to tell you the truth, anything to do with networking gives me head cramp.
For example, one of my really good customers has been working with me for months on connecting to their VPN. I can’t figure it out for the life of me.
A couple of years ago, I bought an iBook and an Airport wireless router, and love them both dearly.
Then, earlier this year, after months of indecision, I bought an Inspiron 5160 laptop with a wireless card, and have grown to love it, too.

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Flash, Bloody Flash

My web designer buddies love Flash, and I trust them to know what they’re talking about from a technical perspective.
But as a website user, I hate the Flash-driven ads that distract from news stories and research articles.
In fact, it was the recent spate of ugly American Airlines ads that finally motivated me to de-install Flash, once and for all.

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Kindergarten Assignment

Yesterday, one of my neighbors showed me her son’s kindergarten assignment: he was asked to draw a picture of his family, and to write the names under each picture.
I wondered about the purpose of this little exercise. Is the point of it to “out” children with same-sex parents? To solidify latent bigotry against the children of single mothers? To see if tell-tale names like “Shaun” and “Moira” entitle kids with ethnically neutral last names some special privilege? Or the reverse, to see if there’s a “Moishe” attached somewhere to a “Brown”?

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Thank You, Senator Schumer

The loathesome Chairman of the Federal Reserve is at it again, suggesting that the mortgage finance companies on which so many middle-income families depend, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reduce their portfolios.
This is one more assault by Greenspan on the middle class, one more chorus in his sychophantic Swan Song.
Greenspan has become the Bush Administration’s financial poet laureate, ensuring that as he approaches retirement, he will retain the favor of the power elite who slaver over the obliteration of the lifestyles of folks like you and me.
Silent on the financial devastation of the Iraq War and the resulting unimaginable Federal deficit, the erosion of the dollar, the ever-worsening balance of trade, Greenspan’s assaults on Social Security and now Fannie and Freddie is, in my view, motivated by nothing more than the self-interest of a too-powerful civil servant who looks forward to reaping obscene rewards as he returns to a grateful private sector.

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