Mac vs Microsoft

Jason Snell, the editor of Macworld, wrote a very sensible editorial on how Mac and Windows users can co-exist.
I’ve met a number of Linux jocks, all of whom learned their trade in very expensive schools, like MIT. That, as far as I can figure out, is how most people get their entree to UNIX and UNIX-derivative world, which has always struck me as ironic.

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Massive CF

Politico.com, the co-sponsor of tonight’s Republican Presidential candidates debate, has egg all over their faces.
They announced on the broadcast that their website offers the opportunity to vote on questions to be asked of the candidates.
Unfortunately, the site only works in IE. Understandable, perhaps, since MSNBC is the other co-sponsor.
What isn’t so easy to understand is that the site has a couple of major bugs: when you try to submit a question, the site displays an error that the submit was cancelled due to a disallowed HTTP verb.
Further, when you try to refresh the site, you are denied access to the “vote on a question” page.
Wanna bet that the site development was offshored? Or that someone’s kid designed it?

At Last, the Truth

From the Boston Globe’s “Quiz on the Modern Family”, an article by Patricia Wen on a report from the Council on Contemporary Families:
Younger People Have It Right
“Men have changed their ideas about what they want in a woman, seeking an egalitarian mate who can contribute financially to the home” and
So Much for Marriage as the Foundation of Society
“Married people are less likely (than singles) to help neighbors or friends, join community events or take part in politics….Single never-married people were most involved in their extended families and communities….Marriage often isolates spouses from their extended communities.”

My Next House

If I were to win the lottery this weekend, I just might buy another house, a sweet waterfront cottage in Pocasset, the same village in which I work.
I’ve been restless about the neighborhood where I live now ever since I moved here over five years ago.
It’s a “family” neighborhood, which means couples, which hereabouts means if you don’t drink and/or make passes at other people’s husbands, you don’t fit in.

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Whose Salary Do You Not Mind Paying?

An awkward question, but this is tax weekend for some of us, and going through my invoices and pay stubs, it brought to mind how very hard I worked last year. You probably did, too.
So, I was wondering whose salary, on either the State or Federal level, you resent (or don’t resent) funding with a hefty slice of the 2006 income that cost you so much blood, sweat and tears?
Here’s a list to consider:
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Dr. Condolezza Rice
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
John Kerry
Ted Kennedy
Your state rep (mine is Jeff Perry)
Your state senator (mine is Bob O’Leary)
Your governor (mine was Mitt Romney in 2005)
Well, except for Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), no one at the national level comes to mind as worthy of my life energy (= money).
Locally: I am very happy to pay Jeff Perry’s salary.
That’s two people. What’s your tally?

Talk Radio

I sometimes listened to Don Imus on the way to work, especially for his interviews with high-profile political and media personalities.
I listened in spite of the ridiculous locker room conversations between him and his “boys”, men old enough to be grandparents acting like vulgar reform school wanna-be’s.
What’s surprising, then, is not that he and his pal Bernard grotesquely insulted the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. Rather, I’m amazed that anyone called him on it.
If Imus comes back from his suspension with a classier show, that would be good for everyone.
But something tells me it’s not that easy for an old dog to learn new tricks. And it’s a shame: Don Imus can be a good “listen”, politically savvy, intelligent and astute.
He felt it necessary to pander to the lowest common denominator with a craven attack on a bunch of high-performing young Black women, and that’s a shame.
One gets a sense that the man is better than that.