Anil Dash thinks Walt Mossberg (and by extension me, since I agree with him) is being paranoid about Microsoft’s ability to make any word on any web page link to whatever they want. (See previous post.) But as they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Month: June 2001 (Page 5 of 6)
As if we needed further proof that Microsoft is evil.
I miss my Mac. About 18 months ago, I went over to the dark side, mostly because my employer was an all-PC place, and I began to work in Cold Fusion, a PC-based programming environment. And, I admit, I like to play games, and most games are for the PC. But Windows is a steaming pile of doo-doo which crashes my machine multiple times daily. Beyond that, even after this many months, it just feels wrong in a way that’s hard to explain in words. When I sit down in front of my (admittedly very nice) IBM Athlon, I tense up; when I sit in front of my Mom’s iMac, I just feel a sense of relief. I’m almost beginning to feel that owning a Mac is like belonging to the ACLU – a small gesture to stem the tide of the dark side, one person at a time.
Dell is apparently going to design a computerized voting system to try to eliminate errors in the current chad-based tabulations which caused so much hoo-ha in Florida last year. What’s alternatively funny and horrifying to me is that I believe it will be impossible to design a system that a fair number of people will not be able to screw up. Some of those Florida ballots may have been slightly confusing. But if you can’t figure out how to make your mark for Bush or Gore, should you really be voting at all?
And as Jimmy Fallon said on Weekend Update, “Oh, that’s a good idea. We know how much elderly people love computers.”
Invention idea: someone should build a combination phone/answering machine with a “movie” button, which would mute both the ringer and the message speaker for two hours. That way, you can avoid the distraction of the phone, and not have to remember to turn everything back on again. I always want to “let the machine get it” when I’m watching a movie at home, but then hearing the answering machine (right smack in the living room) is more disruptive than just answering the phone. Someone could make millions on this. Millions, I tell ya!
I’ve been distracting myself this afternoon with my new collection of Before & After design newsletters, which came in the mail yesterday. Great publication. So I saw a tutorial on 3-D boxes and had to try it. What do you think?
Blogger is the manic depressive web application. When it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it makes you want to throw yourself out of a speeding train. It’s hard to criticize, because it’s done so much for you; but it’s hard to praise something you depend on that gets into so much trouble. You’d like to help it get better, but you can’t. You realize that most of its problems aren’t its own fault, but sometimes you wish you could just move on.
In the past I’ve made fun of the NRA infomercial where Charlton Heston raises a musket above his head and shouts “From my cold dead hand!” Well, amazingly, they’ve topped themselves with the latest infomercial, which hypes the clearly evil U.N. (!) as the instigator of an equally evil plan to take your guns (and muskets, and armor-piercing bullets) away from you. This outrageous “one world order” business is the same sort of stuff which led Tim McVeigh to drive his U-Haul. In the commercial, they’re constantly cutting away to a (rather boring) shot of the U.N. building, the same way you would cut to the Joker’s underground lair. All that was missing was a video effect to surround it with the orange fires of Hell. The gun (and anti-government) obsession of these people is truly breathtaking.
I’m a ‘user experience professional.’ I want my $67,000.
There’s been a lot of those online personality tests floating around weblogs these days. One of the best personality tests is: who’s your favorite minor Simpsons character? (For example, if you say Homer, there’s your answer right there.) “The Road to Springfield” lets you vote on your favorite characters, one head-on matchup at a time. There’s a new matchup (today: Lenny vs. Gil) every weekday.
My favorite, bar none: Dr. Nick Riviera (“See you in the operating place!”)
Speaking of dogs, Tuesday has aroused my ire by writing some rather slanderous words about my favorite breed, the bulldog. We had bulldogs all the years I was growing up, and I love them. They are incredibly affectionate and have an indefinable something that makes them wonderful. Words fail me. I confess that maybe slander is the wrong word, since bulldogs are ugly by conventional standards; but I think they’re so ugly they’re beautiful.
My father used to try to train one of the bulldogs, Emily, to stay at the curb and then cross the street on his command. He would try to get her to sit at the curb, even pushing her behind down to try to impress upon her his command to SIT. She would always pop back up again. Push, pop. Push, pop. We would stand at the living room picture window, looking on and sniggering as he tried to “train” Emily. Eventually, she would get tired of standing, and sit (just to take a load off, mind you).
“Good dog!” my father would say, relieved.