Dear Teacher of Divinity and Theobiology, or Dungeon Master, or Grand Dragon, or Whatever You Call Yourself,

(I know you probably won't even bother reading this, but that's fine-- I'll be posting it publicly so the rest of the Internet can read it instead.)

Did you know that Microsoft runs its Hotmail service using BSD Unix (because it's a lot more capable and modern and a lot less "obsolete" than Windows 2000, which couldn't handle the load when they tried it)? Did you know that about 90% of the e-mail sent over the Internet is transported using software written by gays and lesbians? Did you know that Linux, the biggest "communist" open-source operating system, is what runs about 50% of the servers on the Internet (and rising), and the market share of the Apache web server (another open-source software package) is about 70% of the Internet and rising?

Did you know that members.truepath.com, the server running your own website, is using Linux and Apache and running DAEEEEEMONS?

(How did I find that out? Must have used black magic or hexes or something. WoooOOooOoooo.)

Did you know that approximately 0% of the cutting-edge and inventive software in the computer industry was written by humorless religious people like yourself-- and about 100% of it was written by people who have a sense of humor and a much more realistic idea than you do of what is important in life?

I won't even begin to address the other inaccuracies in your article, because there are so many of them that it's clear you never intended to be accurate. You just wanted a convenient soapbox from which to shout about your ridiculous little conspiracy theory. What scares me is that people are probably going to think you're a computer expert and know what you're talking about. If only they knew.

I know it must really be threatening to you that the people you consider so "evil" are the ones making all the contributions to society and technology, and all you're doing is telling everybody whom to hate and fear. WE'RE busy making the world a better place, and YOU'RE busy making people's lives tedious and hateful and spiteful. Which of us is helping humanity and which of us is just being malevolently paranoid and bitter?

I know you think that as long as you spend your life being miserable and making sure everybody with whom you have contact is miserable too, you will get to go to Heaven-- and everybody who's spending their lives being happier than you are right now will go to Hell. I'm sure that makes you feel very special.

But making other people unhappy because it will benefit YOU in the end-- you know what I call that? Selfishness. And more and more people are realizing that that's a terrible way to go about interacting with the world. I'm sure that scares the hell out of you.

You look fairly old. You'll probably die before you wake up to this fact, but future generations won't be so deluded: Your little role-playing game that you call "religion" is what's obsolete.

Brian

Carney said the popular youth clothing maker had believed the shirts might appeal to Asian-American consumers, and was surprised by the hostile reception they received.

"The thought was that everyone would love them, especially the Asian community. We thought they were cheeky, irreverent and funny and everyone would love them. But that has not been the case."

“Now that humanity completely dominates and influences the natural environment, my vision is to use QuickTime as an artform in the 2000s to help preserve what precious little wilderness is still left.”

So says Erik Goetze, publisher of Virtual Parks, a website with hundreds of incredibly photographed, large-scale QuickTime VR panoramas of North American wilderness.

Let Erik take you from ghost towns to lighthouses, from fields of wildflowers bursting with life, to the eerie, desolate landscape of California’s Mono Lake. Explore the John Muir Trail, or witness the first sunset of the new millennium off Point Lobos at California’s Big Sur.

Browse panoramas by geography, visual theme, best-of-site, or by alphabetic index.

"Originally, I was only able to produce the same result when the user pressed the refresh button," Sandblad said in an e-mail. "I contacted Microsoft about it in November and they confirmed the problem. On Feb. 28, I received mail from them saying that they didn't think the problem was serious enough to fix."

"Later, I e-mailed Microsoft with additional information, describing how it was possible to trigger the same flaw with the back button. A couple of days later I received a mail explaining that they might fix the problem in a future service pack. I told them that I was planning to go public with the vulnerability but that I could wait if they could convince me that they were going to fix the issue in reasonable time. They didn't respond at all."

...

"Why the hell did they put a back button into the browser toolbar if they didn't want me to use it?" Martin Montez, a stockbroker, wondered. "I'm one of the few people in the world who actually reads the manuals and there's no warning anywhere that using the back button could compromise your system."

Microsoft's spokesman said that the company "remains vigilant in our commitment to keeping users information safe and will be addressing this issue in an upcoming release."

We still have a lot of bombs to build before we take out Iraq.

At the end of last year, people noticed that we had greatly diminished our stockpiles of smart bombs and non-nuclear cruise missles in Afghanistan. I recall (but do not have a citation) that the general guestimate was Sept/Oct of this year to build enough ordinance to drop on Saddam.

In the mean time, the US is playing the Israel/Palestinian game to make the rest of the Arab world go nuts. The US supports Israel, plays with Arafat, and hopes to rope a bunch of dopes into our sights when the bombs start dropping. Until we have the bombs we need to end this quickly, we're going to do what it takes to keep the Middle East and the numerous maniacs that inhabit it looking like the evil idiots that they are.

Once we have enough bombs, we'll know who to drop them on and this will come to an end.

President BUSH (FROM TAPE): Yeah. I – uh – heh – yes. There needs to be balance when it comes to freedom of information laws. There are some things that when I discuss in the privacy of the Oval Office – or national security matters – that should just not be in the national arena. I'll give you one area, though, where I'm very cautious and that's about e-mailing. I used to be an avid e-mailer. And I e-mailed to my daughters or e-mailed to my father. And I don't want those e-mails to be in the public domain. So I don't e-mail any more. Out of concern for freedom of information laws, but also concern for my privacy. And, uh, but we'll cooperate with the press unless we think it's a matter of national security or something that's entirely private.

No-one I know defends anyone who gets off on child porn. Neither do I. But that's not the issue involved. The point is that this particular kind of material can be produced without children being harmed. Given that, the Court just decided that Congress could not ban it.

The government's argument, which the Court rejected, was that the existence of this kind of material was a danger to children anyway because it might induce those who viewed it to go out and molest real children. But as soon as you accept that argument, you've opened the flood gates. Does that mean you should be able to ban racist hate speech because someone who hears it might later go out on a lynching expedition? Or ban books about jewel thieves because those who read them might become thieves? Indeed, for almost any kind of expression, popular or unpopular, can't you produce a plausible reason why letting it be expressed might cause someone to commit a crime of some kind?

Anyway, when I did teach morality - and even in the other subjects, since morality came up all the time - I always got very tired of the constant student refrain, "Why should we (fill in the blank)? Why be honest? Why wait until marriage? Why be pro-life? Why care about the poor?

And then one day, I shot back another question in response to theirs:

Why not?

And ever since, it's become my handiest moral decision-making tool, for myself and to share. Try it. Think of your most pressing current moral dilemma or even spiritual growth issues and apply that question. And see if the only answers you come up with don't make you feel like the biggest snake in the grass ever, and move you a couple of feet closer to doing the right thing.

Why not give more to the poor?

Why not tell the truth?

Why not address your children with a little more patience?

Why not apologize?

Why not go to Mass this morning?

Why not pray tonight?

Honestly - aren't the answers coming into your head along the lines of, Because I want more stuff. Because I'll be embarrassed. Because I don't want to make the effort. Because it will wound my pride. Because I don't feel like it. Because I'd rather watch television. Because I'm afraid of what I'll lose.

Sheesh. Can I feel any more selfish? Can I be any more convinced of my need for God's grace to overcome these stupid reasons not to act out of love?

This card has it all, really: a grim joke about murdering your children, frightening cartoon characters, and (just in case you couldn't picture it on your own) a drawing of a boy blowing up.
To anyone who complains that our society has become too desensitized to violence in recent times because images in TV and movies, I urge you to take a close look at the exploding boy in this vintage postcard and ask you to never raise the argument again.

It's finally here.

With a sleek, aerodynamic design, state-of-the-art navigation system, and the most powerful engines in its class; the most-anticipated vehicle of the year is now available... with Force Powers.

HIM: You should join my religion, because it is the One True Way to salvation.

ME: Okay, tell me: Why are you trying to get me to join?

HIM: Well, because only those souls who accept <SAVIOR> will receive eternal reward in Paradise.

ME: In other words, if you do what your religion says, and make sure other people do too, you get to go to Heaven.

HIM: Er, yes.

ME: So what you're saying is, the human motivation to which religion appeals is... selfishness?

Khaled, a hotel worker, spoke in wonderment of a martyr's encounter at the gates of heaven as someone having their file checked: "There will be blessings for 70 of his family and friends. The 72 virgins are real -- their skin is so pale and beautiful that you can see the blood in their veins. If one of these virgins spits in the ocean, the seawater becomes sweet. The martyr is so special he does not feel the pain of being in the grave and all that his family has to do to cleanse his file thoroughly, is to repay his outstanding debts."

Surely, we ask, this view of the Koran should be seen as philosophical? As a parable? But no, there was a chorus of disagreement from a gathering of his friends in the teeming Jabalya refugee camp near Gaza City: "No. This is real . . . this is as it will be," said Khaled, as much for himself as on behalf of younger Palestinians who now talk endlessly of the benefits of death over life in a bombing campaign that has killed more than 200 Israelis in 18 months.

But Dr Rabah Mohanna, whose Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has claimed its own share of the violence - including last year's assassination of a minister in the Israeli Government -- is confounded by youth's lunge for the grave: "Thousands of young men and women are ready to be blown up. It is a new phenomenon -- you have no idea how big it is."

• The computer has to "boot" each time you turn it on, so that it can copy the operating system from the disk into memory.
• When you run programs, the computer has to copy the programs from the disk into memory before they can do anything. When you quit programs, they are deleted from RAM, but remain on the disk.
• When you work on documents in applications, the data exists only in RAM, until you explicitly "save" it-- tell the program to copy it from RAM onto the disk.
• Each time you turn the computer off, everything in the RAM is deleted-- any data in documents you haven't saved, any programs that are running, the whole active copy of the operating system. This means that when you turn it back on, you have to wait while the computer boots, copying it all back into memory again.

In the episode, bumbling family head Homer Simpson is robbed by street kids and kidnapped by an unlicensed taxi driver after his family ventures to Rio to find a missing orphan that daughter Lisa sponsored.

The family runs across rats and monkeys while looking for the orphan. When they find him, he has grown rich working on a television show and pays for Homer's release in gratitude for shoes Lisa had bought him to escape monkeys at the orphanage.

Rio tourism board president Jose Eduardo Guinle asked the board's legal team to look into what action could be taken.

"He understands it is a satire," tourism board spokesman Sergio Cavalcanti said at the time. "What really hurt was the idea of the monkeys, the image that Rio de Janeiro was a jungle. ... It's a completely unreal image of the city."

The big launch finally arrived. On November 14 at 12:01 a.m., Mr. Gates handed over the first Xbox to a dedicated gamer who had waited for hours at the Toys 'R' Us store in New York City's Times Square. Mr. Blackley and his new girlfriend, Vanessa Burnham, were at the scene. He introduced her to Mr. Gates.


"You know, Seamus, I think she could help you get your act together," Mr. Gates said.

"You think so?" Mr. Blackley asked. "Something has to."

"You ought to marry her," Mr. Gates said.

"You think so?" Mr. Blackley replied.

"Yeah, absolutely," Mr. Gates said. "Here's a ring."

"I'll give it a shot, OK, cool," Mr. Blackley said. He got down on one knee.

"Vanessa, will you marry me?"

She laughed, then answered, "Yes."

"Thank you," Mr. Blackley said.

He rose and they kissed. Everyone in the store applauded. Mr. Blackley put the ring on Ms. Burnham's finger. John Eyler, CEO of Toys 'R' Us, presented a stuffed animal to her. Mr. Gates had been briefed, but he had ad-libbed the part about Mr. Blackley getting his act together.

There were plenty of other moments when Mr. Blackley's flair for "morale building" activities got him into trouble. At one internal meeting, he showed an animation dubbed "Survival of the Fittest." It sported a couple of Microsoft's mascot characters at a shooting range. They fired weapons and eviscerated mascots like Sega's Sonic, Nintendo's Mario, and Sony's Crash Bandicoot. He was quoted in a newspaper as saying, "Playing video games is like masturbation; everyone does it but no one wants to admit it."

Homer: Donut?
 Lisa: No, thanks.  Do you have any fruit?
Homer: [offers some of the donut he's eating] This has purple stuff
       inside.  Purple is a fruit.
-- Mmm, purple, "Bart on the Road"

Bart: [sighs] I wasted five bucks on these.
Lisa: Where'd you get five bucks?  I want five bucks.
Bart: Aw, I sold my soul to Milhouse?
Lisa: [incredulous] What?  How could you _do_ that?  Your soul is the
      most valuable part of you.
Bart: You believe in that junk?
Lisa: Well, whether or not the soul is physically real, Bart, it's the
      symbol of everything fine inside us.
Bart: [tsking sadly] Poor, gullible Lisa.  I'll keep my crappy sponges,
      thanks.
Lisa: Bart, your soul is the only part of you that lasts forever.  For
      five dollars, Milhouse could own you for a zillion years!
Bart: Well, if you think he got such a good deal, I'll sell you my
      conscience for $4.50.
       [Lisa starts to walk off]
      I'll throw in my sense of decency too.  It's a Bart sales event!
      Everything about me must go!
-- Great selection and rock-bottom prices, but where is the soul?, "Bart
    Sells His Soul"

We have a government that values tolerance, understanding and sensitivity over justice. They value multiculturalism and diversity over prosperity, patriotism and national pride.

Our Prime Minister and government left most Canadians ashamed in the wake of 9/11. Canadians once fought valiantly for the cause of freedom. Two generations have passed since then. Our current government has no such morality, no such courage. Our government's response to September's tragedy sullied the memory of those who sacrificed their very lives to provide the basis for freedom. They provided the basis for freedom, but could not ensure it. Freedom must be earned each day. Our government, and many foolish Canadians, balk at the price (like the rest of the world, we prefer to let you pay for it). Today's government - although not just Canada's in this case - would gladly devalue to meaningless the sacrifice of our veterans when threatened by something as mildly evil and threatening as the Durban conference, never mind something so morally unequivocal as the World Trade Center bombings or Israel's war against those who wish it annihilated.

Were I Prime Minister in September I would have been in New York the next day - serving coffee if need be - but doing something to help. Our Prime Minister waited weeks and lied by saying that Guiliani's office had told him not to come! Can you imagine the shame of being represented in such a way? You are our very generous neighbour, for which I am ever-thankful. If my neighbour's house burnt down tonight, I would be there immediately to offer whatever help I could. True, most days we barely exchange a nod. I have never had them in my home. But there are times where being a neighbour takes on a different meaning. Canada's response to 9/11 was the equivalent of me standing over the ashes of their home and saying "that'll teach you to play with matches". That you are so forgiving of such "friends" as Canada is one of the reasons American culture is so much sought after, and is one of the reasons it will prevail.

We have a government still trying a dozen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall to show that socialism works, and that government has the answers. We face an incredible tax burden due to a redistributive policy that, if not reversed, will see Canada become another Argentina in a generation. Our government is acutely averse to any policy that de-centralizes governmental power, or reduces their influence on the daily lives of people. They believe that charity does not start at home - it starts with the Prime Minister. Government largesse is doled out - in wildly disproportionate amounts to Quebec and other regions that continue to re-elect the ruling Liberals - with little regard for taxpayers and a belief that individuals cannot make a just society, only government can.

If the U.S. would accept Canadians as political refugee claimants you would have a long line at the border. Our country has ceased to be a representative democracy, and is suffering a slow death which the U.S. itself narrowly avoided. The takeover of our educational establishments decades ago has succeeded in destroying most of the characteristics of Canadian society that contributed to its early successes. The politically correct, tolerant-of-all-at-all-costs, multicultural, compassionate collective result is a country that no longer stands for anything. Nor are we against anything, except perhaps the U.S. Canada is a country that would be unable to define itself were there not an America. We cannot say what we are, or what we stand for, but whatever it is, it isn't what you stand for. Such is our anti-identity. What is going on up here is a people constructing a society whose goal is to avoid all that is right with yours.

In fact, recently I added two more to it, and because it was too long I had to decide to remove one. And it hurt. It really did. Picking someone to take out was hard, and it really came down to a random selection. (I hope he isn't mad at me for it.)

Genndy Tartakovsky is certainly among the very best animators alive today. His first series, Dexter's Laboratory, was a masterpiece. Now his second one, Samurai Jack, is even better and there couldn't be a greater contrast between the two.

It's classic cell animation, and it's being produced by Hanna-Barbera for the Cartoon Network. If you haven't been watching this series, you're missing something special.

The reason the Palestinians have not adopted these alternatives is because they actually want to win their independence in blood and fire. All they can agree on as a community is what they want to destroy, not what they want to build. Have you ever heard Mr. Arafat talk about what sort of education system or economy he would prefer, what sort of constitution he wants? No, because Mr. Arafat is not interested in the content of a Palestinian state, only the contours.

Let's be very clear: Palestinians have adopted suicide bombing as a strategic choice, not out of desperation. This threatens all civilization because if suicide bombing is allowed to work in Israel, then, like hijacking and airplane bombing, it will be copied and will eventually lead to a bomber strapped with a nuclear device threatening entire nations. That is why the whole world must see this Palestinian suicide strategy defeated. . . .

The Palestinians are so blinded by their narcissistic rage that they have lost sight of the basic truth civilization is built on: the sacredness of every human life, starting with your own. If America, the only reality check left, doesn't use every ounce of energy to halt this madness and call it by its real name, then it will spread. The Devil is dancing in the Middle East, and he's dancing our way.

Brigadier General Sultan Abul Aynayn, the head of Arafat's Fatah movement in Lebanon, who has been accused by Lebanese officials of organizing and arming illegal groups, said in an interview in this coastal camp south of Tyre that ''if a hair of Arafat's head is hurt, the Israelis and the United States will be held responsible.'' . . .

Aynayn added: ''Only the Americans can stop this massacre. They can stop the massacre with one phone call. If there is harm to one hair of the head of Arafat, the United States should protect its interests all over the world. We are not like bin Laden, but we have our own style.''

GRAHAM: A lot of Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me. Because they know that I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don't know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.
NIXON: You must never let them know.

The assertion that the State supports marriage through licensing and favourable tax treatment is counterfactual. The assertion that approving same-sex marriage has an adverse impact on traditional marriages is a non-sequitor -- how does it follow that straight people will stop getting married and having children and rasing them in good environments simply because gays and lesbians are allowed to marry and adopt? There's an unstated assumption that homosexuals can't have stable relationships and be good parents, though the assumption comes through very clearly in the argument.

Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.

He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.

That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.

Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on their work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts," you at least got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years. But now, because of this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never gets returned to your family, and can now be sold to the highest bidder.

Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire" provisions in their contracts, and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only "codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't identify sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works for hire," so those contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.

Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is a work for hire. Not making a record.

So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about how government works in my high school civics class.

Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top lobbyist at a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the spelling corrector guy.

...

By the way, which bill do you think the recording industry used for this amendment?

The Record Company Redefinition Act? No. The Music Copyright Act? No. The Work for Hire Authorship Act? No.

How about the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999?

Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was looking, and with no hearings held, is piracy.

The computer whiz then asked the court to identify the plaintiff in the case. Ware explained that the United States was the plaintiff, and was represented by assistant U.S. attorney Ross Nadel. Heckenkamp said he wanted to subpoena Nadel's "client" to appear in court, and Ware asked him who, exactly, he wanted to bring into the courtroom.

When Heckenkamp replied, "The United States of America," Ware ordered him taken into custody.

"The comments that you are making to the court lead me to suspect that either you are playing games with the court, or you're experiencing a serious lack of judgment," said Ware. The judge added that he was no longer satisfied that Heckenkamp would make his future court appearances.

Heckenkamp had been free on $50,000 bail, and living under electronic monitoring -- prohibited by court order from using cell phones, the Internet, computers, video games and fax machines.

Before two deputy U.S. marshals hauled Heckenkamp away, he threatened legal action against the judge. "I will hold you personally liable," he said. "I will seek damages for every hour that I'm in custody."

New York City was planning to release hundreds of vehicles recovered from the WTC area beginning Monday. In recent weeks, city officials sent owners and insurance companies a letter about how to retrieve the cars from the Fresh Kills landfill...

1. Do you care if a few giant companies control virtually all entertainment and information?

2. Do you care if they decide what kinds of technological innovations will reach the marketplace?

3. Would you be concerned if they used their power to compile detailed dossiers on everything you read, listen to, view and buy?

4. Would you find it acceptable if they could decide whether what you write and say could be seen and heard by others?

Those are no longer theoretical questions. They are the direction in which America is hurtling.

Media conglomerates are in a merger frenzy. Telecommunications monopolies are creating a cozy cartel, dividing up access to the online world. The entertainment industry is pushing for Draconian controls on the use and dissemination of digital information.

If you're not infuriated by these related trends, you should at least be worried. If you're neither, stop reading this column. You're a sheep, content to be herded wherever these giants wish.

But if you want to retain some fundamental rights over the information you use and create, please take a stand. Do it soon, because a great deal is at stake.

3. Banana Republic co-founders Mel and Patricia Ziegler start ZoZa, an "athletic formalwear" retailer, in late 2000. Mel says he expects sales to reach $1 billion within seven years. Gary Rieschel of Softbank Venture Capital invests $16.5 million, telling BusinessWeek, "If you have guts and you have capital, how can you not be optimistic about the consumer market?" Here's how: ZoZa's designers revamp its spring 2001 line, intentionally making their dresses two sizes smaller than labeled. Even the svelte are outraged, and ZoZa's merchandise return rate soars to 80 percent. The company shuts down in May 2001, proving that, if the dress doesn't fit, you must, uh, quit.

7. Last May, Citizens Against Government Waste, a group that received funding from Microsoft (MSFT), is caught simulating a "grassroots" campaign to get state attorneys general to drop their antitrust suit against the software giant. One detail that gives the scheme away: Some of the letters supporting Microsoft are from people who have long since died.

60. Washing Off the Stench of Death, Part 1: Philip Morris (MO) proposes changing its name to Altria, presumably to escape the taint of its tobacco-producing past. It does not, however, stop producing tobacco, which does not stop causing cancer.

61. Washing Off the Stench of Death, Part 2: Making matters even more awkward, the name Altria turns out to be already taken by Altria Healthcare, a firm based in Birmingham, Ala., that is not especially pleased to be linked to a noted producer of poor health.

The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) today announced its enthusiastic support for the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) licensing models recently introduced by Dolby Laboratories. In contrast to the proposed terms for the MPEG-4 Visual license, the approach of the MPEG-4 AAC licensors does not involve royalties on the distribution of audio compressed in the MPEG-4 AAC format.

Much the same right now. We, the West, are much more prosperous than the Middle East because of our ethos (property, secular rule of law, tolerance, blah blah blah), and they see it and are envious. But like Homer, they make no effort to reflect on themselves, choosing instead to seethe at the success of another and suspect that such success comes at a cost to them. Yet there we are, giving them aid in the Carl Sagan ranges, always willing to offer them a free beer from the keg even if it sometimes is mostly foam. Like Homer, given the chance, they would invite us into their homes on the odd chance they could get away with killing us.

"We did it," founder and CEO Michael Dell said. "Back when I started this company, I vowed that I would not rest until we revolutionized the way computers are sold. Well, at long last, that day is here. Bye."

Computing Fallacies [or What is the World Coming To?] - Michi Henning



======================================================================



Fallacy 1 Computing is Easy
	- Teach Yourself C++ in 14 Easy Lessons
	- CORBA for Dummies
	- Complete Idiot's Guide to Win32
	- Java for Morons
	- Windows 98 Unleashed



	[now examining different areas - non books]
	- Brain Surgery in 14 Easy Lessons
	- Bridge Design for Dummies
	- Complete Idiot's Guide to Contract Law
	- Air Traffic Control for Morons
	- Ballistic Missiles Unleashed



We are special in the IT industry in that we can find these fallacies. This
talk is an hour long bitching session for everything that has annoyed me in
the last 20 years.



Fallacy 2 Computers Allow People to Do things They Could Not Do Otherwise
	- All you need is a good work processor to create a great doc
	- All you need is a great spreadsheet to make accurate sales predictions
	- All you need is ...



Fallacy 3 Computers Increase Productivity
	- The sound effects in this presentation will make all the difference
	- It only took five hours to format this memo
	- The shading on this pie chart is simply superb
	- The icons on my desktop are lined up perfectly
	[sound of car screeching to a halt for each bullet point]



We still produce exactly the same amount of letters as in 1945. Back then it
was okay to have 3 or so typos per page without re-typing the entire letter.
Nowadays, we rewrite the letter many, many times, changing fonts, format
etc. We are no better off in terms of letters produced.



Fallacy 4 Programs Help Their Users
	- What can we do that will force an upgrade?
	- What can we do for the next release that might sell?
	- How can we kill the competition?



Fallacy 5 If It's Graphical, It's Easy
	- Single click, double click?
	- Where is the #$%^@!! menu??
	- Which part of the UI does *not* do something?
	- With a GUI, anyone can be a
		- System administrator
		- Programmer
		- Typesetter
		- Accountant
		- Statistician
		- ...



Double clicking is politically incorrect in terms of RSI. We have to
re-learn to use single click or to type on ergonomic keyboards.



There are so many UI features that we only learn by accident eg. double
clicking the title bar, dettaching the toolbar.



Why is the minimize button beside the close button on the title bar? This is
equivalent to have the eject seat button right beside the light switch in an
aeroplane.



Let me introduce you to a friend of mine. M$ paperclip. Eyes start to follow
Michi as he walks back and forth across the stage. [Histerical laughter].
It's in principle a really good idea, something that monitors your progress,
but when it starts to interrupt your work, by telling you a joke, it is
ethically wrong to release this to millions of people.



Fallacy 6 Computers are Getting Faster
	- How long does it take for your PC to boot?
	- How long does it take to
		- start your word processor?
		- load a web page?
		- compile a program?
	- how long did it take
		- five years ago?
		- ten years ago?



We have come along and destroyed all the gains we have made in hardware.



Fallacy 7 Programs are Getting Better
	- How often do you need to
		- animate your fonts?
		- embed live information from the web in a document?
		- perform a Fourier analysis?
		- create a pie chart with alpha blending?
		- create a pie chart?



99% of all documents are written to be printed on paper.



His wife was trying to save a 2.2MB for a 2 page Word document on a floppy
disk. Plain text, default font, left aligned. There was one email address,
underlined. After 17 minutes of searching, he found a way to turn off this
email address highlight off. The document was then saved at 800KB.



Fallacy 8 Programmers are Getting Better
	- Average education time 2 years?
	- How many students coming out of university know what a core dump is?
	- Written an Excel macro? You are qualified!
	- Average retention time in a job 18 months



Great programmers have a greater amount of short term memory slots. Most of
these people will have written some assembly at some stage in their lives.



Fallacy 9 Programming is About Date Structures and Algorithms
	- How many times have you written a linked list?
	- How many times have you used STL?
	- How many books have you read about HCI?



We spend so much time designing our API's, but who taught us whether we
should return a boolean or an integer as an error? We are not taught to
design.



Fallacy 10 Open Source is the Answer
	- Economic model is doubtful
	- Source code is useless
	- Motivation for Open Source is inappropriate for most software
	- Nerd culture is counter-productive



We write software for peer recognition. We write fancy structures because
'it's cool', but not particularly useful.



Fallacy 11 Standards all the Solution
	- Usable standards are created only years after the fact
	- Standards are foul compromises



Fallacy 12 We are Making Progress
	- Progress in data structures and algorithms have been remarkably slow
	- Progress in management techniques has been remarkably slow
	- Progress in quality assurance has been remarkably slow



We put all the not so good programmers into quality assurance, when really
it is the hardest part.



Fallacy 13 The Industry Knows Where it is Goling
	- Today's clever hack is tommorrow's solution to take us into the next
	  millenium
	- There haven't b een any new ideas in a decade
	- We have run out of ideas, so we rehash old ones



Oh My God! It's All So...Depressing!



So What Do We Need?
	- 'Progress' is detrimental to progress
	- Focus on design
	- Realistic growth expectations
	- Legislation
	- Code of ethics
	- Growing up!



The best UI people on the planet are those working in the car industry.



We need to make it a criminal law to change certain API's. There are
potentially huge impacts. When we produce a new drug, we can't just release
it to millions of people without some sort of testing.



We have to stop doing things just because they are fun. Nerds are not the
people to run this industry.



Useful Reading
	- Donald Norman 'The Design of Everyday Things'
	- Alan Cooper 'The Inmates are Running the Asylum'
	- Alan Cooper 'About Face'

Gorman: He made it through the crash, but the wing of the plane was blocking his only means of escape.

Stanley: This plane was at an angle and the wing hung in my office door 20 feet away.

I cried, I prayed, and the entire ceiling came down. The furniture was mangled. The tables, the computers, the walls, the ceiling -- everything came down.

And I prayed, saying, "Lord, send somebody, anybody." And out of this smoke I saw the light. It was a flashlight somebody had.

I said, "Lord, just this one time more. If you give me the strength, I'll be able to do it."

I stood up, and I felt so powerful that I could have done anything. When Samson got up and shook off his enemies, that's how I felt. And I said, "This wall is no match for me."

I started clawing my way, climbing, climbing, punching, hitting until the man on the other side saw my hand and my head. And he said, "I can see your hand." I said, "As soon as you can see my head and hand, you just grab and yank me through."

Brian Clark, afterwards I got to know his name, he grabbed my hand and my head and he pulled with all his strength, and I squirmed my way through to this opening.

Gorman: Stanley and Brian miraculously made it down to the lobby, but the entire concourse was engulfed in flames.

Subject: Are you and your family protected?

Several companies such as IBM and Compaq have been offering integrated flat panel computers with offerings like the NetVista and iPaq.

Apple Computer, with the introduction of their latest iMac, has gone one step further, and committed itself to producing a line-up of flat panel computers.

Ahh, a semantic attack! Cute. Microsoft "hotfixes" -do- follow the filename convention used above. Q216309 is the ID of a support centre article. Microsoft do issue security bulletins to interested parties by email (though they use PGP signatures... as if anyone'd check those!) It's a very convincing semantic attack, in fact. It's probably a trojan horse attack rather than a virus. Funny thing is, I can see a lot of Microsoft employees falling for this one ;)

From: "Microsoft Corporation Security Center" <rdquest12@microsoft.com>
Date: Sun Mar 10, 2002 09:32:10 PM US/Pacific
To: "Microsoft Customer" <'customer@yourdomain.com'>
Subject: Internet Security Update
Reply-To: <rdquest12@microsoft.com>

Microsoft Customer,

this is the latest version of security update, the known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer and MS Outlook/Express as well as six new vulnerabilities, and is discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-005. Install now to protect your computer from these vulnerabilities, the most serious of which could allow an attacker to run code on your computer.


Description of several well-know vulnerabilities:

- "Incorrect MIME Header Can Cause IE to Execute E-mail Attachment" vulnerability. If a malicious user sends an affected HTML e-mail or hosts an affected e-mail on a Web site, and a user opens the e-mail or visits the Web site, Internet Explorer automatically runs the executable on the user's computer.

- A vulnerability that could allow an unauthorized user to learn the location of cached content on your computer. This could enable the unauthorized user to launch compiled HTML Help (.chm) files that contain shortcuts to executables, thereby enabling the unauthorized user to run the executables on your computer.

- A new variant of the "Frame Domain Verification" vulnerability could enable a malicious Web site operator to open two browser windows, one in the Web site's domain and the other on your local file system, and to pass information from your computer to the Web site.

- CLSID extension vulnerability. Attachments which end with a CLSID file extension do not show the actual full extension of the file when saved and viewed with Windows Explorer. This allows dangerous file types to look as though they are simple, harmless files - such as JPG or WAV files - that do not need to be blocked.

System requirements:
Versions of Windows no earlier than Windows 95.

This update applies to:
Versions of Internet Explorer no earlier than 4.01
Versions of MS Outlook no earlier than 8.00
Versions of MS Outlook Express no earlier than 4.01

How to install
Run attached file q216309.exe

How to use
You don't need to do anything after installing this item.

For more information about these issues, read Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-005, or visit link below.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/default.asp
If you have some questions about this article contact us at rdquest12@microsoft.com

Thank you for using Microsoft products.

With friendly greetings,
MS Internet Security Center.

----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Microsoft is registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
Windows and Outlook are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

These things would not have happened in WW2 - again, you can ponder the matter and figure out why, but the fact is that no one would have thought to make this complaint. The nation was at war; the idea that singing a patriotic medley that contained “God” and “Prayer” would be divisive and offensive and cannot be allowed at a RED CROSS MEETING would have struck most people as absolute lunacy. I know there are people who think that the Red Cross decision is a good thing, that we're better off because the kids didn't sing “God Bless the USA,” but all I can do is plead ignorance because the reason escapes me completely.

I can, however, find another charity.

And the money seems to be the explanation here. A Wired article on the hearings noted that in the 2000 election cycle, the entertainment industry gave Democrats a whopping $24.2 million in contributions compared to $13.3 million to Republicans.

So championing the cause of the little guy only counts until the bidding gets high enough.

This partiality is a betrayal of principle. As such, it represents a real political opportunity for the Republicans. Democrats do like to portray themselves as the friends of the little guy and the protectors of ordinary Americans against greedy big business — as demonstrated by their posturing over the Enron collapse. But as Ken Layne pointed out last week, the entertainment industries make Enron’s management look like Boy Scouts.

"Keep your grubby laws off my computer" sounds like a pretty good slogan, and it’s one that Republicans could use against Democrats nationwide. A few smart Democrats, like Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, realize this. As Boucher puts it, these companies are "seeking to use their copyright not just to obtain fair compensation but in effect to exercise complete dominance and total control of the copyrighted work...I have told the heads of the major labels I think this is a major mistake that will engender a major public backlash." Unfortunately, Boucher seems to be a voice in the wilderness within the Democratic Party, which has forged a symbiotic relationship with the entertainment industries over the past few decades.

By Mallard's account, as told to police, she had been drinking and using Ecstasy that October night and was driving home when she struck a man. The impact hurled him headfirst through the windshield, his broken legs protruding onto the hood.

She panicked, she said, and with the man lodged in the windshield, she drove a few miles to her home. There, she parked her 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier in the garage and lowered the door.

Biggs pleaded for help, she told police.

He got none. Not then, or for the next two or three days, as he remained lodged in the windshield, bleeding and slowly going into shock, police said.

Mallard told police she periodically went into the garage to check on the man. She said she apologized profusely to him for what she had done but ignored his cries for help.

When the man died, several of the woman's acquaintances helped remove his body, putting it into the trunk of another car and driving to Cobb Park, where they dumped it, police quoted the woman as saying. Two men found the body Oct. 27.

But there's more! I found this website via Fark today, and it just depressed me unutterably. The following excerpt is pathetic and sad, on so many levels. See if you can figure out what this is. The language is rather fractured because it's translated from the Arabic, and I won't make fun of that since I speak but one tongue, and hence have no business joshing at those who are less than expert in a second language. But the ideas come across intact:

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story.

"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this."

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended.

That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.

"The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.

"When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded.
The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her -therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist.

"Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

The lioness puzzled wildlife experts, game watchers and villagers in Samburu after it struck a friendship with an oryx calf, escorting and protecting it around the game reserve for 15 days.

Tourists and game workers had watched in disbelief as the lioness and the tottery brown baby oryx walk side by side and lay down to rest with all the intimacy of a mother and calf.

She even permitted the calf's mother to nurse the baby before resuming her guardianship. Experts believe the lioness had bonded with the calf after both had been abandoned by their own kind.

The calf was eventually attacked and killed by a male lion while the lioness was napping. She howled in mourning for hours afterward before vanishing into the bush for a time.

"For two to three minutes there will be a massive surge of positive consciousness. It will be a moment to bring healing, a moment to bring peace," [Israeli psychic Uri Geller] said.

Asked how he would co-ordinate the meditations of his followers around the world, Geller said:

"I would appreciate everyone concentrating in GMT [Greenwich Mean Time], but if you can't do that, take a moment when you can ... The message is be positive, be optimistic and believe in yourself."

Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.

Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

"Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."

Diplomats from Syria denied they were jealous over being excluded, although they conceded they did ask if they could join the Axis of Evil. "They told us it was full," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"An Axis can't have more than three countries," explained Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "This is not my rule, it's tradition. In World War II you had Germany, Italy, and Japan in the evil Axis. So you can only have three. And a secret handshake. Ours is wickedly cool."

International reaction to Bush's Axis of Evil declaration was swift, as within minutes, France surrendered.

Elsewhere, peer-conscious nations rushed to gain triumvirate status in what became a game of geopolitical chairs. Cuba, Sudan, and Serbia said they had formed the Axis of Somewhat Evil, forcing Somalia to join with Uganda and Myanmar in the Axis of Occasionally Evil, while Bulgaria, Indonesia and Russia established the Axis of Not So Much Evil Really As Just Generally Disagreeable.

With the criteria suddenly expanded and all the desirable clubs filling up, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, and Rwanda applied to be called the Axis of Countries That Aren't the Worst But Certainly Won't Be Asked to Host the Olympics; Canada, Mexico, and Australia formed the Axis of Nations That Are Actually Quite Nice But Secretly Have Nasty Thoughts About America, while Spain, Scotland, and New Zealand established the Axis of Countries That Be Allowed to Ask Sheep to Wear Lipstick. "That's not a threat, really, just something we like to do," said Scottish Executive First Minister Jack McConnell.

While wondering if the other nations of the world were serious, a cautious President Bush granted approval for most axis, although he rejected the establishment of the Axis of Countries Whose Names End in "Guay," accusing one of its members of filing a false application. Officials from Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chadguay denied the charges.

Italy, meanwhile, insisted it didn't want to join any axis, but privately,world leaders said that's only because no one asked them.

Shares in Be rose 2 cents, or 20 percent, in Nasdaq trading.

UPDATE: Matt Robinson informs me that "buckle" actually comes from the French word. Okay, okay-- I admit I didn't do the etymological research to make sure the example I had to hand was a good one. But the fact is that I could name a dozen others off the top of my head: cederóm, for instance, the word for "CD-ROM", or the weirdness of seeing "kitch" in a French sentence, as it was in another article in the same magazine (to say nothing of "sandwich"). And when the best translation they can do for a column called "Counter Culture" is "Le Challenge du Chef"... :)

I want a relaxing driving game. I want to start in New York and end up on the Santa Monica pier, and I want to stop at motels, watch local TV, step outside and hear the crickets before I go to bed. Flight sims give you this sense of real-time ordinary life; why not driving games?