Archive for the 'blather' Category

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ping pong

Monday, March 10th, 2003

Simon notices that weblogs.com pings don’t seem to be working from my site. Odd, I had it clicked on in MT. I’ve clicked blo.gs as well now and trackback and all. Let’s see how it goes.

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degrees of separation

Saturday, March 8th, 2003

Funny that this evening I happened to be yakking with Shane McChesney for two and a half hours and then check my news to find that Scott blogged about both of us on the same day. Could be eerie coincidence, but maybe it’s the Canadian connection. Umm, eh.

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Casting off the shackles

Sunday, February 23rd, 2003

Poor Tim has been grappling with the fucknuts at Network Solutions. I’d laugh, but it’s a domain I share with him.

Further to my XP trial recently, I’ve decided to ditch Microsoft altogether for my new primary workstation. I went out to my neighbourhood Staples store this weekend and bought Mandrake Linux Power Pack 9.0. Just $79.99 Canadian for 7 CDs packed with Mandrake plus all sorts of commercial and open source applications. I’ve got it up and running very smoothly indeed. There will be a couple of things I’ll have to either run on my old machine or set up to work with Wine, but I think it’s gonna be a good experience – certainly not one for the faint of heart or those lacking in nerdiness, but I’m the poster-boy for such things, so no problem here.

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Eh-oh, Windows! Eh-oh, Po!

Thursday, February 20th, 2003

I finally gave XP a try on my new machine.

The bold primary colours, the fonts and pictures, the icons and widgets that look like alphabet blocks, the condescending tone of the prompts, the wizards that assume you’re an imbecile, the Teletubby landscape background, the automatic password-free signon, the invitation to hold on to the MSN rope so you don’t get lost – it’s a FUCKING KINDERGARTEN.

Yes, I know it’s essentially Win2k underneath, if you can dig through all the sugar and crap to get to it. And even then, I’d never be quite sure that some handholding automaton isn’t going to come along and readjust my environment “for my comfort and convenience” after I’ve set things up Just So.

That partition only lasted 35 minutes. Buh-bye Tinkywinky. Buh-bye Po. Good morning Windows 2000, thanks for not trying to wipe my ass for me.

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In order to Serve You Better, we’re going to invade Iraq

Wednesday, February 12th, 2003

The US’s War On Dissenting Opinion continues unabated on any number of fronts. There’s no sense voicing any sort of contrary position or encouraging meaningful discussion; their course was decided long ago.

Albert Delgado commented on a previous blog post by quoting Herman Goering from the Nuremberg trials:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

It’s not so much that I disagree with the end result they’re looking to achieve. I’m mostly insulted by their ridiculous diplomatic sleight-of-hand meant to fabricate premises for action and draw our attention away from the real core agendas driving their actions.

Please, give me credit for understanding and supporting a long-term strategy of protecting oil resources from control by irrational interests, or of nipping a potential nuclear terrorism or cancerous fundamentalism problem in the bud before it ever has a chance to take hold. Just don’t feed me prevarication and spin.

It reminds me of all the bullshit store signs I’ve ever seen that start with “In order to serve you better”, or “For your protection and safety”. You absolutely know what follows is going to be something that reduces your choices, infringes on your rights, or costs you money. I’d rather they told me up front that they really mean “In order to reduce shoplifting”, or “To keep our insurance costs down” and allow that I might have the sense to see that that will be to my longterm benefit to go along with it.

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JS Object Inheritance

Monday, February 10th, 2003

Kevin Lindsey has a great Javascript Object Inheritance tutorial [via Eric Costello]

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Misplaced donations

Monday, February 10th, 2003

Chris Pirillo’s setting up a paypal fund for Doc who it seems got his (ouch – unbacked-up) laptop stolen from a downtown-parked car.

Same thing happened when lost his camera some time back.

Didn’t someone come up with a new AirPort Base Station for him when he left his at a conference?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Doc is a major stand-up guy, and he’s not digging for these handouts – others offer them up freely. But why do you and I waste dough on insurance?

Hey, Chris! Whaddya know, I happened to leave my new uninsured 17″ Powerbook on a city bus. Gosh, whatever will I do?

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Clue-free zone

Monday, February 10th, 2003

I’m trying to find where I can get a Canadian price for Funk Software’s Steel-Belted Radius authentication server software. There’s no “Where to Buy” link on their site. The closest I can get is the reseller area of their site, where they say:

Funk Software actively encourages fulfillment of our products through the reseller channel.

Geez, what a load of tripe. What’s wrong with “We don’t sell directly to the public – contact one of our resellers”.

Then they say:

In this area of the site, you’ll find a list of our authorized distributors, how to contact them, and how to order.

Ain’t no such list. Or if there is, it’s FAR from obvious where it is. Finally, after going through their Site Map, I reach their reseller search form. It returns me the names and phone numbers of resellers in my area. No web links – I have to find them myself.

These guys need to read Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think book.

Do they really want me to buy their product, or are they only interested in business from the resellers and are relying on them to sell it? Those distinctions mean nothing to the consumer. Nonexistent customer relations from the manufacturer will turn end users off just as quickly.