Rant

Thicker Skins? We Don’t Sell Those Here

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MSNBC: A 16-year-old boy who police said made an announcement at Walmart ordering all black people in a southern New Jersey store to leave was charged with harassment and bias intimidation, authorities said Saturday.

When this story broke I thought “Huh?” and didn’t think much about it, seeing as it was so far away and unimportant. A week later, the story is back in the press and the kid has been arrested.

I would say I’m torn over this one, but I have to be honest: I’m not torn. But I do see two different issues at work here. The first one is that the kid was arrested. That’s fine by me. Actions have consequences and experience is a good teacher. Was a law broken here, by using the intercom? Maybe. Either way, while you have freedom of speech you have to take responsibility when you exercise that freedom. Certainly a reoccuring theme on this blog.

But then there’s the other issue that I see here, which begs the question: if this is the molehill, where the hell is the mountain and how big can that be? Either way, I expect to find Al Sharpton at the top of either the mountain or the molehill. I simply cannot believe this has made the national news. Twice. No one got injured. No stampede at the door. No stock prices were impacted. No one had threaten WalMart yet; why should they? For not keeping the mic locked up? For having an intercom system? “The kid acted on his own” and “we don’t know if it was premeditated”… oi. Would he have been arrested at all if he had yelled “FIRE!” into the intercom system? Not likely. And that is a dangerous thing to do to people not to mention illegal. What if he had said “All people wearing green leave the store?” What if he had said “All guineas leave the store?” “All the old people leave the Depends aisle?”

What the rollback price for over-reaction anyway?


Rant

Tea Baggers Go Mainstream?

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MSNBC: Tea Party movement lights fuse for right

Looks like what was once just a meme on MSNBC has gotten some momentum (and thankfully have since dropped the “I’m a Tea Bagger” slogan.) Don’t remember this thing? It was started by Republicans as a gimmicky “We’re not going to take this – we’ll rise up like we did in Boston!” during the Revolution and then quickly dropped out of sight. Now it’s back, but it’s not a Republican thing anymore… people that are now part of the “Tea Party” are pissed at both sides of the political game, Democrat and Republican alike. They want a smaller Federal government, something we haven’t had since the days of FDR in the mid-1930’s.

Simply put, our Federal government has never been as powerful as it’s been for the last 70 years and while America has only ever had two powerful parties in government, we haven’t always had the two we have now. The parties have ebbed and flowed over the years… these people are looking to return to a simpler time of smaller federal government (and likely more powerful state governments) and a change in political parties – which was the main cause of the US Civil War and one of the sticking points of the original Congressional Congress.

Should be interesting to watch where this goes. One thing is certain: these people are not part of the current party system and they are not going to stand for either current party aligning itself to them. Their goal is to hold true to the exact working of the Constitution, which makes no provision for bailout packages or even Social Security. The Constitution is truly a Capitalist Manifesto: if you can’t hack it, that’s your problem – very different than how our Federal government behaves today… After all, Thomas Jefferson believed that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” much in response to both American and French Revolutions; he was also a firm believer in a restrained central government, to the chagrin of Alexander Hamilton.

History repeating itself? It looks like it so far.

GeekStuff

Windows Phone 7 Series

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After having seen the videos today of the Windows phone 7 Series prototype device, it brings me back to a device that’s already in my pocket: the Zune HD. Same layout, same font, same “I want to go here so I’ll click there” UX flow… it works very, very well as a media device. Looks like it might work well as phone, but I guess we have to wait until Holiday 2010 for that… at least I know I’ll be too busy to notice the time pass, what will all the Xbox stuff going on!

If you want an early preview of the Windows phone 7 Series [music/video] UX will likely feel like go get a Zune HD and play around with it.

digital pity

What’s the Buzz?

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I’ll admit it: I don’t have a Gmail account. Sure – I have a Hotmail account, but that’s because I didn’t know I could use my own email account when I needed a Passport Windows Live ID. Since then, I’ve fixed that, and migrated all of my Windows Live (and Xbox LIVE) services to a different mail account. I’ve also got a Yahoo! Mail account, but that’s because when I had DSL in Connecticut, SNET SBC AT&T required one. Same thing with Comcast. These are accounts I don’t use so they don’t exist to me.

Now that I think about it, I likely do have a Gmail account, but it’s like the Hotmail/Yahoo! thing: I wanted access to a Google service at some point and they gave me a mailbox for free… the only time that I’d want a Gmail account is when I’d want some anonymity and even then, I’d question Gmail as a viable choice: it’s a well documented “feature” that they scan your email for “targeted marketing reasons”. I know people will tell me “They say they can be a business without being evil!” but call me careful… I’d rather not take the chance if I really wanted to re-invent my digital self.

Then Google Buzz hits. I thought “what the hell happened to Wave anyway?” and took a look. Oi… another social network to join? Not interested. Then the fallout started from people that “signed up” for it. Google opted-in everyone that has Gmail – and touted look at our numbers Facebook and Twitter! – and then went on to set the default privacy settings to be “show the world everything.” Sounds harmless? It’s not. It’s caused some people a number of issues. Serious “real life” issues and all of it without their concent. When people are hit by viruses or phishing, I look at the user and say “You dumb ass! You downloaded what and thought it was OK? Get your porn on a DVD from now on!” because that required their active clicking… Buzz issues/problems? Were totally pushed to users in the dark. Totally silent.

This release plan was either completely stupid or completely diabolical, depending on how evil you think Google can be and today I’m very, very thankful I don’t use Gmail.

Rant

It Just Works, My Ass

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Apple finally released their much awaited Windows 7 drivers today. They were due to ship by the end of 2009; when they slipped past that deadline, we were told “they will ship when they are done.” While I know that when 99.44% of the industry says such things that they will be burned alive, Apple’s community says “Aw, gee, thanks! When you tell us it’s ready, we know it will Just Work.” I know that. I don’t have a big problem with that, however annoying it is, but my bigger problem is about “How long do I wait and what do I do in the meantime?”

On top of that, the Windows 7 64-bit installer simply doesn’t work.
Continue reading It Just Works, My Ass →

Rant

Park vs Parking vs Prophecy vs Profit – Full of Loss

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Over the last year or so I’ve been watching both the Seattle and Washington government with a muted interest. OK, maybe it’s less than muted given my blog posts, Facebook comments, and general flailing of arms when talking about this in person. But still: I’ve been watching WA law makers quietly work their way to a statewide income tax and they’re actually quite close now. And it won’t be like CT, where the sales tax dropped as the income tax was added – no, I expect WA wants to ask for money with two hands, rather than one. What’s even more important is that they’ve got tree hugging citizens that are applauding them for it.

Sad, really.
Continue reading Park vs Parking vs Prophecy vs Profit – Full of Loss →

GeekStuff, Windows

Variations On A Theme – aka GodMode

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There’s been a bunch of press lately about the “discovered” GodMode that’s in Windows 7. Basically, this is neither new or God-like. The GodMode name was used by the person that “reported this discovery” but the truth is that the “new feature zOMGBBQPEWPEWPEW!!1” was originally introduced in Windows 95.

Basically, you create a new folder in Windows Explorer, you name it SomeFunName.{ShellFolderGUID-from-Registry} and that new folder will be a “shortcut” to whatever namespace you gave it. In the case of naming a folder GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} you end up with a folder named GodMode that opens to “all tasks” as is defined by that GUID. On my PC, I named the folder All Tasks.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} which named my folder “All Tasks”. Windows 95 used this same technology with fonts in the form of Fonts.{93412589-74D4-4E4E-AD0E-E0CB621440FD}

What is nice about the All Tasks folder for me is that I’m able to make shortcuts to any of the tasks there; I could put “Add or remove programs” on my desktop now… what it’s is either an Easter Egg or a newly hidden feature in Windows 7.

Nice thing about this is that I wanted to post the GUID so I don’t have to go dig it up for new machines!

digital pity

Welcome Back To The Future

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Gizmodo: The Google Phone could be a ploy to upset the wireless industry, or it could be an expensive niche device. Either way, it’d be a bid to take Android back from the companies that seem hell-bent on destroying it. Android’s most serious problem right now is fragmentation: with each new phone, it seems, comes a different version of the OS. In theory, these differences are superficial, and come down to handset manufacturers’ and carriers’ custom interfaces, which sit atop a mostly unchanged Android core. In practice, it’s much worse.

Welcome to the troubling world of Windows Mobile.
Continue reading Welcome Back To The Future →


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