Red States: Beneficiaries of Tax Revenue? || kuro5hin.org

Red States: Beneficiaries of Tax Revenue? || kuro5hin.org: "Of the 31 states that GAIN wealth from the federal government, 25 (81%) voted for Bush. Of the remaining 17 states that LOSE wealth to the federal government, 12 (71%) voted for Kerry. "

Would you have guessed this? I wouldn't have.

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

It may be neat, and certainly useful for making overseas calls cheaply, but I've failed utterly to get anyone I know to sign up and use this. My family isn't geeky enough. So who really uses this? Based on the people trying to call my wife, I'm guessing young, male students in Eastern Europe and Turkey.

Boing Boing: Cory responds to Wired Editor on DRM

Boing Boing: Cory responds to Wired Editor on DRM

This neatly sums up the arguments against digital rights management and copy protection. It's a credit to marketing that so many ordinary users accept it, and even defend copy protection, because they think it is the "right thing to do." Piracy is wrong, but so is DRM. The two aren't related.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview

Whether you agree with him or not (I'd be surprised to see a UN "executive" going over well in some circles), it's good to see U.S. military people applying some serious thought to increasing security. We're still in the putting-out-fires stage at the moment.

What Microsoft should do with Linux

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Imagine this: What if Microsoft did what Apple or Sun Microsystems did. By recognizing that the value it provides is a user interface and cool software, albeit somewhat buggy, it could start concentrating on its strengths and leave the increasingly commodity stuff (the operating system) behind.

For example, Apple ditched its own operating system, adopted a free, open-source version of Unix, and built their user interface on top of it. Similarly, Sun is giving its latest operating system away for free, using an open-source license, and concentrating on what it does best: make great computers. Apple has certainly benefitted. Mac OS X is far more secure and easier to use than Windows, while it's too early to say if Sun (which has loads of other problems) will benefit.

Microsoft already does something like this with the Mac, and has for many years. It provides Microsoft Office for OS X, in a version that's more or less closely in synch with the software on Windows. The next version of Windows is supposed to depend for its user interface on a graphics system that could easily (I think) be moved to other operating systems. What if you were able to buy that interface, or parts of it, or Microsoft Office, or .Net or other Windows components for Linux or FreeBSD? Call it Microsoft Desktop, competing with, or building on, something like Gnome. The NT and CE base operating systems are very good.

I'm guessing that, after an initial period of some loss, Microsoft would end up with a net gain as it adds application sales on other operating systems, eliminates the suggestion that it is competing unfairly and puts the company in a far better position for the future. It will be able to take advantage of all sorts of advances in operating systems without having to steal it or develop all of it itself.

MoCo Loco: Hanse Colani Rotor House

MoCo Loco: Hanse Colani Rotor House

I'd live here. I wonder if it's easier or harder to keep something this small clean?

Progressive Libertarians

Progressive Libertarians

Chris Nolan makes a lot of sense. I could support a progressive libertarian agenda. Small government, fiscal responsibility *and* tolerance. Sounds good to me.

http://www.adamyoshida.com

http://www.adamyoshida.com

It's eerie reading stuff like the following, from a popular right-wing blog. It's like something from another planet. Have I really been out of the country *that* long? I actually liked Bush Sr. and I respected Reagan. I think Michael Moore is an over-the-top propogandist that sometimes makes watchable partisan documentaries. In short, I'm what I thought was a center-right person with an open mind.

What has the Republican party become? Curb-stomp the bastards? What the...

"My life’s goal is to see the Democratic Party virtually obliterated and left as a rump of people like Stephanie Herseth who both mostly agree with us anyways and are easy on the eyes. That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women."

"We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and out [sic] boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards."

"Those who didn’t support Bush can go and perform a certain anatomically impossible act. They lost, now they can sit in the back of the bus."

Oh my God.

With Echoes of 2000 Vote, Ohio Count Is at Issue

With Echoes of 2000 Vote, Ohio Count Is at Issue

Oh, come on. Concede already. The Democrats need to come up with a plan to convince truckers, farmers and waitresses in the Midwest that supporting tax cuts for millionaires isn't in their economic or political interest. Support from the cities and suburbs just isn't enough.

They just failed this time. Again.

Left, Right, Bush, Kerry

"Confused yet? You're not the only one."

Yes, I am a conservative. And the Republican party isn't.

Presidential�Enblogments�2004 :

Presidential�Enblogments�2004 :

Update: I wrote something earlier about fiscal whatever. Who am I kidding. It's the war. Saddam was evil, yes, but the war was a big strategic mistake that did nothing to make us or the world safer. Bush's father was a lot smarter about this and did the right thing -- cripple Saddam and contain him. I don't think Kerry isn't going to have a lot of leeway in cleaning up, but he strikes me as *somewhat* more rational.

Correction in the Wall Street Journal yesterday

"NEWS CORP.'S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause."

Gosh. How did that one slip by the editor? They're obviously Kerry sympathizers.

World Series

Boston Wins Series:

"It was actually happening. The nerd was kissing the homecoming queen. Paper was beating scissors; scissors were beating rock. Charlie Brown was kicking the football. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees for the American League pennant."

-New York Times

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

This is, without doubt, the most interesting blog to follow lately. Andrew Sullivan (no relation), a conservative, is getting more and more rabid in his support of Kerry. I don't think he's alone. I've met a few life-long Republicans who are relunctantly voting for Kerry -- mostly fiscal conservatives (voting against the budget deficit) and those from the libertarian wing (voting against the scaling back of civil rights).

I've voted already, so now the whole thing is just entertainment.

Nothing

I'm not mentioning that baseball team. The one that plays near where I used to live. Nothing. I'll only jinx them. Sports teams in my old hometown have only benefited from our departure.

Great city

I had today and yesterday off. Spent it doing nothing in particular. Took a walk today with Theresa and two dogs -- Dude and Bran, a friend's dog (half the size of Dude and twice the energy). We walked in Ruislip Lido, a wooded area just 15-minute drive north of us. London is unlike most U.S. cities in that you don't have to go far and suddenly you're really in the country -- muddy, dreary and chilly country, granted, but still. We walked through the fields, just north of the forest. It came with it's own herd of cows, who seemed very used to dogs. They all turned to face us as we approached and just looked, calmly, while the dogs leapt about at a safe distance. Our brave canine friends ran off yelping if the cows so much as moved one of their ears.

Without a Doubt

Without a Doubt

''Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want.''

And what is that?

''Easy certainty.''

Demystify

My three older children go to Saint Joan of Arc school in Rickmansworth, a secondary school that (among other things) is known as a specialist in information technology. The school has only just received this designation, but I don't know how. I do hope it brings some benefits to my children. At the moment they know Microsoft Office and can use a browser, and that's about it. And that's probably much more than kids at other schools learn.

It's arguable that learning Windows, a browser, Word, Excel and maybe PowerPoint is adequate. More than 90 percent of the computers the children will encounter when they leave school will have just that. And, really, is their education any worse than mine? Did learning Basic and Pascal on an Apple IIe, learning to type on an IBM DisplayWriter and doing my homework on a bank of overused Macintosh SEs actually make me more or less prepared for the future? About the only skill I have from those days (and an extremely useful one) is typing. And I didn't need computers for that.

So what should kids be learning today? If I were given the task of designing a computer curriculum for "normal" secondary school-age children (not computer science majors), what would I teach?

• A bit of history. I think it's important to learn where computers came from, what has been tried before, what did and didn't work, etc. It doesn't have to be deadly dull, just some basics. How many children today know that a "computer" used to be a job title for a human being? That computers were first used to calculate trajectories for cannon fire and codebreaking? Or know any of the personalities that invented computing, boolean logic and the Internet? That the first programmer was a woman? How about the mouse and windows? Or the first person to come up with the idea for hypertext? Those are ideas that were ridiculed at first, but went on to change the world. Learning about it demystifies the process.
• The hardware. I'd have them build a computer or two, to demystify the PC. I'd also take apart a few specialist computers -- a Mac, a high-end server and a handheld PDA -- to show the things they have in common and where they diverge for particular applications.
• The operating system. I think it's important, early on, to instill the idea that Windows isn't everything -- that there's a world out there, put together by people not much older than you. For fun. You can learn this by putting Linux or FreeBSD on the computers that we build. I'd show them around the Mac's OS X, how DOS and Windows work and something behind the philosophy of each: "Small is beautiful" for the Unixes, "It Just Works" for the Macintosh, and whatever the philosophy du jour of Windows is at the moment.
• Some programming. I still think it's important to learn programming, and it doesn't matter much what you use. Today, I'd choose Python instead of Pascal and Basic, because it's super easy to learn, doesn't limit what you can do (OOP, for example) and runs absolutely everywhere, from mobile phones on up. For graphical user interfaces, I'd use wxPython for the same reason. I've found that learning to program has benefits that go beyond computers -- helping in math and general problem solving, for example. Again, learning that you can write software also demystifies the process. I want them to think, "hey, I can do that."
• Networking. You wouldn't have to go into all of the layers, but a basic understanding of how the Internet works would be a very useful. I'd have them put a Web site together, telnet to the Web port and see exactly what happens underneath the level of the browser and write some basic Web pages. I'd show them how e-mail works and introduce them to the concept of a firewall. Again, the idea is to demystify, make them feel like it's no big deal and show them that a world-changing system is built on some pretty simple concepts.
• System design. The grand finale would be to split them up into small groups to solve a problem -- run a small office in a particular industry, an on-line shop, factory, whatever. The idea is to get them introduced to some of the basic concepts -- the management of data over the long-haul, ease of administration, keeping the price to a minimum, etc.
  

Music in the kitchen

For the last couple of years, I've been on a quest to get music throughout the house. Not any old music -- for that, I can just buy a bunch of cheap radios -- but my music. Specifically, the 1,556 songs and 215 albums that I have stored on my computer. I want to be able to play it anywhere -- out back, on the patio, in the bathroom while I'm showering, whatever. I want to do it cheaply. I can't afford to buy several copies of gadgets like the Squeezebox (no matter how cool).

But I'm getting there, slowly. I have three computers in the house, any of which can play music and have speakers of some sort attached. The big challenge with a large collection of anything is making sense of it: finding the best songs, organizing them into playlists, etc. I've tried numerous programs. The best right now is Apple's iTunes, which works on either Windows or the Macintosh. It doesn't, however, work on Linux.

One solution I've tried today is to use the free software that you can download from the Squeezebox site. The SlimServer software installed easily on my Windows XP-based PC and automatically uses iTunes playlists. You control the software from anywhere using a Web browser and play the music on anything that can play MP3 streams -- Winamp, xmms on Linux, etc. -- not just a Squeezbox. So far, it's working great.

Critical Section - The Tyranny of Email

Critical Section - The Tyranny of Email

Some excellent -- and some unworkable -- points about email. Geared toward programmers, but applicable to any knowlege worker.