Month: April 2002 (Page 3 of 4)

If anyone wants to make millions in the computer industry, here’s the way to do it: get rid of the file system. Files and folders made sense when we only had a handful of files on a floppy disk. Now, with thousands of files on these giant hard drives, you have to be a particularly conscientious librarian to keep track of everything.

Even more importantly, the thing that new, inexperienced computer users have the most trouble with is files and folders. Anyone who’s done tech support will back me up on this. “Where did my file go?” For people who don’t even understand the difference between computer memory and hard drive space, this can be an almost insurmountable problem.

So what do we do? I don’t know. I for one would like to have a Google-like search function in Open and Save dialog boxes, but this wouldn’t be enough to solve the problem, especially for inexperienced users. We need some new way to organize things that’s visual and understandable.

See, I just point out problems. I don’t solve them. But anyone who figures this out is going to be unimaginably rich.

Movie That Everyone Else In The Known Universe Hated But I Liked

Joe Vs. The Volcano

What’s yours? Fess up.

Today I sent an Amazon.com e-card to a friend. It was a “congratulations” card, and I noticed just as I was pressing the final “send” button that the card spelled it “congratulatons.”

This is funny both a) because a giant site like Amazon can’t be bothered to spell “congratulations” correctly, and b) because I noticed it.

Well, our pal William Bennett is at it again, preaching about “moral clarity” in this new war on terror. But I found the questions asked in an interview of him on the National Review web site even more repulsive than his responses:

Q: What is it that needs to be drilled into Americans so they can be behind this war effort for the long-term? Is there some kind of mantra we can teach schoolchildren?

This is scary stuff, especially because there’s such a market for it these days. As they said, after all, Mussolini made the trains run on time.

I won’t bother you with my usual rant against Daylight Saving Time this year. I’ll just ask: is there any truly good reason to continue this arcane practice? I mean, a serious, societal reason that justifies this strange group hypnosis? If there is, I want to hear it.

The limits of free speech.

Went to see “The Royal Tenenbaums” at the cheap theater last week with my friend Mike. This was my third viewing of the movie – his first. He loved it, which pleased me. I sat there, drinking in every frame, and being amazed that this film didn’t even get nominated for Best Picture. I guess I should just give up the idea that the Academy would ever recognize a film like this. The script, art direction, performances, everything is packed with good stuff, and it gets richer with repeated viewings. I guess if you didn’t like “Rushmore” (unlikely if you’re reading this page), you won’t like “Tenenbaums,” either. But for the rest of us, it’s a wonderful treat. I’m even listening to the soundtrack as I write this.

I can’t remember wanting a DVD release this badly – especially considering how great the “Rushmore” DVD materials were. Highly, highly recommended.

Learning religious conundrums with The Simpsons:

“Could Jesus microwave a burrito that would be too hot for even Him to eat?”
-Homer, quizzing the pious Ned Flanders

Jodie Foster said on an interview on the TechTV show The Screen Savers last week that “when you have a really full life, you don’t have time for stuff like [surfing the web].”

I hope someday to have the rich, full life Jodie spoke so confidently about. No, just make that rich.

Watched a documentary on Noam Chomsky called “Manufacturing Consent” this afternoon. Chomsky was a well-known linguist before he decided to take on an additional career as a social provocateur starting in the 60s. While I may not agree with all of his ideas, I do agree with his premise that issues and debate over those issues are incredibly narrow in American society. Look at what happened post-9/11. If you were at all critical of anything the government or the administration were doing, you were anti-American. The “acceptable” points of debate were (and still are) few.

Having been one of the media, in an admittedly small way, I have a hard time believing Chomsky’s idea that the mainstream media have some sort of master plan to keep the masses down. But I do think that people need to look at media, and all things, much more critically.

“America is advanced citizenship. You have to want it bad.”
-Michael Douglas, The American President

Above all, I think voices like Chomsky’s should be celebrated, even if we vehemently disagree with them. That’s what a democracy means.