Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

It's Christmas Eve...I'm about to go off to a family gathering, but wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to all (unless, of course an alternative mid-winter holiday greeting is more appropriate). A special shout out to former 5th grade classmate Dan Brekke and blogging friends / occasional debating parties Nick Rowe, Whited Sepulchre, TarrantLibertyGuy, Stephen Smith, and all the rest! I can't think of a better Christmas sentiment that the following, from the Colbert Christmas special a couple of years back... A Colbert Christmas: Peace, Love and Understanding www.colbertnation.com

Along with holly, mistletoe and Santa, the annual whining about the "War on Christmas" has arrived, heralding the official beginning of the holiday season. First Baptist of Dallas fires what may be the opening salvo this year . My good friend and debating partner The Whited Sepulchre beat me to the punch this morning with a great post about their GrinchAlert website -- a light-hearted (haha) attempt to throw a little more intolerance and commercialism into the season. Don't tell WS that I agreed with him -- it will ruin his day. There's not much more I have to say that I didn't say last year . I'm going to do my best not to allow this sort of nonsense to piss me off this year. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (and Ladies).

I was chatting with a colleague based in New England the other day and the topic turned to Thanksgiving. "What kind of dressing do you make?" I asked. "Oyster?" "No, just traditional," was her reply. I pressed her for details and it turns out traditional for her meant bread dressing. When I was growing up, traditional meant cornbread dressing -- more specifically made from cornbread baked according to my East Texas granny's cornbread recipe. It is *not* the same as the cornbread dressing you'll get from most Thanksgiving venues. Since my wife's family is from Chicago (though she was born in Ohio and grew up in Dallas) her Thankgiving tradition is for whitebread dressing. Hence at my table we have two types of dressing every year. She makes hers, I make mine. One of my wife's best friends makes oyster dressing. Another makes chestnut dressing. This year I noticed (and bought) tamale dressing from the Central Market chef's case....

Youngest son reports that the security check at Dulles was no big deal, contrary to the breathless predictions only a couple of days ago. No protesters, no long lines, no junk. He said he wasn't even scanned. Yet another blown-out-of-proportion story; a product of our 24/7 news cycle and a cynical few on both sides who want to game for their own purposes. Glenn Greenwald, while guilty of ramping up the amps in his Salon article, Government yells "Terrorism" to justify TSA procedures , has some pointed observations to make that pretty much leaves all the actors in this latest bit of Security Theater with eggs on their faces. First the Transportation Safety Administration: This is the all-justifying, cure-all solution for every problem: government officials run to the nearest media outlet they can find and anonymously scream "TERRORISM."  No evidence is needed; the anonymity precludes all accountability; fear levels are quickly ratcheted up; and everythi...

Yesterday the Apple website breathlessly teased us about an announcement to be made today that promised to change our world. Today they revealed the Beatles are (finally) available on iTunes. Are you freaking kidding me? Don't get me wrong -- I like the Beatles, it's just that this has to be one of the lamest announcements ever. While the history of the conspicuous absence of the Beatles audio library on iTunes is interesting, in a geeky sort of way, it's not like mp3's of Beatles songs weren't available on the web in great abundance (albeit through unauthorized channels). Any one possessing a CD, borrowed or otherwise, can rip Beatles tunes to their heart's delight. My iPhone is full of Beatles songs. So what? All this means is now Apple ( and whoever owns the rights to the catalog now ) makes even more money off Beatlemania. Yawn.

Here are a pair of seemingly unrelated links which, upon closer examination, explain a whole lot. America the Ignorant The Unbearable Stupidity of American Voters Depressing... Be sure and actually check out the links before telling me I'm an elitist liberal a**hole.

On the eve of the 2010 elections, I find myself puzzled by the choices of some of my Libertarian friends. They are lining up in droves behind Tea Party candidates: a mixed bag of wannabees characterized by angry anti-Washington rhetoric, mostly around the government spending and taxes (TEA = Taxed Enough Already). I'll ignore for now the obvious question of where these hot-heads were during the Bush years. The Libertarians have always prided themselves on being fiscal conservatives and social progressives. Indeed, the banner from the Libertarian Party website says "Minimum Government, Maximum Freedom." Hey, sounds good to me. Their 2010 platform preamble goes on to say: We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person's right to...

A couple of weeks ago, the Globe and Mail had a great piece by Canadian author Douglas Coupland, entitled " A Radical Pessimist's Guide to the Next Ten Years " (see previous post). Easily missed on the web version was Coupland's companion piece, " A glossary of new terms for a messed-up future. " A random sampling: Unwitting Permanence -- The notion that by, say, throwing a Coke bottle off a ship's deck and into the bottom of the Marianas Trench, that bottle will remain there, unambiguously, until the sun eats up the planet. Most of the world's landfills display Unwitting Permanence. Time Snack -- Often annoying moments of pseudo-leisure created by computers when they stop to save a file or to search for software updates or, most likely, for no apparent reason. Deselfing -- Willingly diluting one's sense of self and ego by plastering the Internet with as much information as possible. Frankentime -- What time feels like when you realize th...

I'm in Toronto visiting eldest son for Canadian Thanksgiving. The Globe and Mail had a great piece by Canadian author Douglas Coupland, entitled " A Radical Pessimist's Guide to the Next Ten Years. " Some highlights: It's going to get worse The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness Expect less People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s The future of politics is the careful and effective implanting into the minds of voters images that can never be removed We will accept the obvious truth that we brought this upon ourselves Believe me, you owe it to yourself to read the entire piece . Douglas Coupland has written numerous works of fi...

Today's Dilbert hits a new high for colorful imagery and euphemism: "I'm an admin, you steaming log. The only thing that would inspire me is finding your corpse floating in my worst enemy's drinking water." The man has a gift for words, that's for sure.

Somewhere in Cupertino, a great disturbance in the Force is felt... http://www.padgadget.com/2010/09/30/ipad-runs-windows-95/

It's a sad thing to see stuff you remember as cutting edge now relegated to nostalgia. But better there than forgotten altogether. PCMag.com posted an amusing slideshow / feature entitled 12 Forgotten Online Games a couple of days ago. The kicker was these were all pre-internet "What?" you say. "There was online before the internet?" Indeed. Dial up services and games abounded, not to mention the grandfather of all community access, the BBS. I had, at various times, an AOL account (using the pre-Windows client), Delphi and CompuServe. And tons of BBS accounts. I was never a huge gamer but I recalled several of the games mentioned in the PCMag story, primarily the BBS "door" games; I had an ongoing friendly rivalry with the SYSOP of the Cat's Eye BBS on his Tradewar 2000 game. I also wasted time on LORD (Lord of Red Dragon) and Planets. My eldest son had a demo account (several, really) on The Realm, which he and one of his friends used t...

Oracle is a relentless devourer of technology companies -- especially competitors. One of their more recent victims has been Sun, the floundering purveyor of Java and the sponsor of OpenOffice.org, a popular open source alternative to Microsoft Office. There is apparently little love lost between Oracle and the OpenOffice.org community. No doubt observing the unhappy fate of the OpenSolaris project, the OpenOffice.org folks have jumped ship , taking the project with them and setting up a new umbrella organization: the Document Foundation , and rechristening their application suite LibreOffice . They did publicly ask Oracle to donate the "OpenOffice" name to the fledgling group, but I suspect no one is holding their breath waiting for that to happen. Much is made in some circles about how "evil" Microsoft supposedly is. Compared to Oracle, they're a bunch of freaking panty-waists. Founder Larry Ellison makes no bones about being a bad-ass. To steal a line,...

Who the hell are you calling a Dummy, you son of a bitch? Answer me, before I kick the shit out of you!

Here's a philosophical question for you with real world implications. Given a choice between ONLY one of the following two options, which would you choose? Governed by criminals Governed by lunatics  Speaking for myself, I'd choose the criminal element: they are at least predictable and on many occasions, their ruthless self-interest will align with mine. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to be governed by lunatics...well, you had your chance this weekend to show your support for the local members of the Flat Earth Society .  The choice is yours. PS - Had enough of these whack jobs?  There's hope for reasonable people again courtesy of the most trusted newscaster on television .

In a finding that will surprise no one, a recent Gallop poll finds compelling evidence to support the theory there are a lot of stupid people out there. If it's any consolation, Americans appear to be slightly less stupid than the English or Germans. Need more evidence?

I'd sort of been wanting a netbook for a while. These dinky little toys will leave some disappointed who are looking for a cheap general purpose laptop. Understanding the design focus is on portability and battery life is key. After shopping around, I finally took the plunge and got an Acer Aspire. It had a new-ish processor (the Atom N450), a 6-cell battery, 1 GB RAM (expandable to 2 GB by swapping the chip) and a 160 GB hard drive. As with many netbooks, it came equipped with Windows 7 Starter Edition , a stripped down version for the modestly powered machines. 1 GB occasionally leaves it gasping for air. I'd made up my mind to dual boot to Linux before I'd even decided on a machine. Enter Wubi . Wubi (Windows UBuntu Installer) lets you install Ubuntu Linux using a Windows-based installer. No repartitioning, no finding an external CD/DVD drive, no blowing away Windows. Download the installer in Windows, run it, choose the edition you want to install and sit back...

Two days after getting his iPhone 3GS, my youngest (the reigning alpha geek in the household) had it jailbroken. Why? Because he could. Ever since he's been ragging on me to jailbreak mine. I resisted the urge -- primarily because it seemed more hassle than I was willing to invest time in. Unlike some Apple Fanboys, I had no philosophical or aesthetic objections. And I didn't give a shit that Apple argued it was illegal (a specious argument the courts have now throw out ). The process to perform jailbreaking can be somewhat convoluted, and frankly, I didn't feel like screwing with it. Enter jailbreakme.com . Web-based jailbreaking. Just go there in Safari on your iPhone, and follow the extremely simple instructions: slide the control that says "Slide to jailbreak," and wait. The site cautions you to backup your phone before proceeding: always a good idea. The first time I tried, I was not successful (it happens). Not to worry -- just return to jailbreakme.com ...

The US Courts have declared that "jailbreaking" your iPhone is a perfectly legal activity. Apple has been waving its corporate arms and screaming that jailbreaking is illegal -- citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- and making apocalyptic predictions of "potentially catastrophic" cyberattacks by hordes of iPhone-wielding cyber terrorists. The courts said, "Uh, no." While Apple is free to declare that jailbreaking voids warranties, it's not against the law. I guess all those Android-toting desperados are now free to switch carriers once their contracts run out, since the iPhone is obviously a much better platform for their nefarious deeds. You can thank the Electronic Frontier Foundation for this latest bit of sanity in the world of corporate nonsense.

Perhaps you've read Apple's explanation about the recent  "problem" with the iPhone 4's antenna. After user reports that the signal strength bottomed out (causing dropped calls) when the device was held a certain way, Apple issued a statement that the problem was not with the antenna but instead with the software used to report signal strength. Oh, and there's a patch for that in the works. Not so fast , says Consumer Reports , who declines to recommend Apple's latest wonder because of the problem. Seems their tests reveal it is a problem with the antenna after all. A design flaw, for crissake. Consumer Reports goes on to say problems with dropped calls maybe be more the fault of the iPhone than of much-maligned carrier AT&T. The comments from Apple owners on the story are typically shrill: "Is this an attempt by CR to increase circulation at Apple's expense? It sure looks like it," and "I am so tired of people putting down my ip...

The youngest son had malfunctioning Free Agent external hard drive that had been acting flaky (I will never buy another Seagate drive). Did he pull it without "safely ejecting?" Hell, I don't know. All I do know is the problems started when he started using it with his Windows Vista laptop. Finally it got to the point where his machine and my Windows XP box refused to acknowledge it. Plugging it in would, 3 out of 4 times, cause my machine to freeze.  It had, in fact, become useless. So I offered to try and fix it, and recover the files if possible. The worst that  could happen would be the drive would be unusable. Like it already was. I plugged it into my Linux box (Kubuntu 9.04) and fired up gparted .  Using this I was able to identify the correct device -- /dev/sdb1. Inserting it automatically created a mount point in /media, although it did not automount it. I mounted the drive on /media/FreeAgent using the command: sudo mount -t /dev/sdb1 /media/FreeAgent N...

So of course I had to be one of the first to install the iOS4 upgrade to my iPhone 3GS. Here are first impressions (your mileage may vary). First off, an iTunes upgrade is necessary (of course). That wasn't bad but did fail the first time. I'm wondering if there was a great crush of folks waiting to do this that caused the problem. There are a few differences in a couple of screens I noticed, but since I seldom use iTunes other than upgrading my phone and occasionally loading new music I'm hardly qualified to speak on the subject. iTunes cheerfully informed me there was a new version of the firmware available; did I want to upgrade. Then the ritual acceptance of new terms and conditions.  The upgrade itself was slow but not outrageous. Then came the phone backup. I stopped checking at 5 hours and just set my alarm for the middle of the night. A co-worker later told me that for whatever reason the app "Stanza" can cause glacially slow backups. If you have it, cons...

For Fathers Day today we caught Toy Story 3 . It was a heck of a show - the guys at Pixar have not lost their touch. We re-watched the Toy Story on blu ray  a couple of weeks ago to prepare ourselves. While the original was groundbreaking in its day, the years since have seen amazing strides in computer animation. Yet despite the technical tour-de-force (see it in 3D if possible), Pixar continues to show the world its real strength is in writing and directing. It's laugh out loud funny. Yet without giving away thing critical, let me say the theater was filled with the sound of choked-back sobs by the end of the show. Hell, I'm not ashamed to admit I was a weepy bastard. We see a couple of sides of Buzz Lightyear we haven't seen before. And new character Ken (Barbie's boyfriend)  puts on some moves I would have never thought possible. And if (like me) you have college students you'll find it especially bittersweet. So go see it - it's a great film. The...

I write to enquire in confidence, that we can jointly do some legal stock transfer trading  together based on a Joint Venture. The principal amount of the POF is $100M I have already worked out modalities to execute the  transfer, hence I seek for your consent if interested. khoza.

Tom Tomorrow (real name: Dan Perkins ), is the creator of the comic This Modern World . Read his recent strip, " What could possibly go wrong? " to understand why we now have millions of gallons of crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. And bitch-slap some sense into the next person who acts like this is no big deal.

Last Sunday was the LOST-o-thon: 2 hours of recap/interviews with cast and producers, followed by the 2 1/2 hour finale.  And if you wanted to hang around long enough, another hour entirely devoted to LOST on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It was exhausting. Reactions have been mixed. Much of Slashdot-dom hated it . They wanted ANSWERS, god-dammit. And while quite a few long time mysteries were addressed, not all were. So freaking what? A lot of how I processed the finale (as well as the show as whole) is based on things I learned and taught as a once and future painter. I've learned to appreciate and celebrate the power of ambiguity. Works of great art (if television can be art) engage the viewer/audience in the creative process. The viewer essentially finishes the work by layering on their personal interpretation or meaning, based on their life and experiences.  Giving people explicit answers shuts off that dialog. In the days that followed, there has been much discussion about ...

Dear God, Don't let stupid people piss me off. Rinse and repeat.

The whole Apple vs. Adobe soap opera continues. When will somebody cancel this show? The latest installment comes from Adobe, who's now running full pages ads in the Wall Street Journal and posting open letters. The latest is entitled, " Our thoughts on open markets ." As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves. Yeah right. This is because (sniff) Apple won't support Flash on the iPod/iPad/iPhone. Oh boo hoo. Guess what: when I use the Lynx browser on the console of my Linux box I get no Flash support either. More significantly, the Adobe EULA for Flash forbids anyone who has installed their Flash tools or plugin from working on Flash technologies. It is a closed, proprietary platform. Closed: not open. As far as open markets, A...

 Ever hear how Amazon managed to patent the idea of " One-Click Shopping? "  That's right -- they were granted a patent for the idea of pre-entering your credit card info so when you clicked on the "Buy Now" button, you didn't have to re-enter all your financial data.  When Barnes and Noble later offered a similar service, Amazon sued for (get this) patent infringement. Years later, large chunks of the original broad patent were thrown out, but not without a lot of money being flushed down the toilet that is occasionally our legal system. The European Patent Office refused to grant a patent. This sort of nonsense abounds. A couple of weeks ago, a new short documentary was released on-line entitled, " Patent Absurdity: how software patents broke the system. " In it, independent filmmaker Luca Lucarini looks at how our current patent system has managed to screw by issuing patents on the flimsiest of premises and the history of how this sorry st...

Imagine you were a guitar player. You're no Leo Kottke, but you can hold your own on open mike night at the local bar. How would feel if you discovered, buried in the fine print in the owner's manual that came with your Martin D-15, something that said you could only perform with said guitar for "personal use and non-commercial" purposes? Or suppose you were an artist - a painter - and discovered the brushes you used to paint your last masterpiece came with the same restriction: for "personal use and non-commercial" purposes only? Or a writer, with the same restrictions on anything that came out of your word-processor? Freaking ridiculous, eh? Guess what, all you photographers shooting digital video, your camera may have the same restriction. It's about the technology used to encode the video (the "codec"). OS News (one of my favorite technology sites) has a long article about the licensing restrictions placed on one of the more commo...

News flash: the sun rose in the east.  And in other headlines, a  survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality finds that Tea Partiers are "racially resentful." Is this a fancy way of saying black people piss them off? Which is another way of saying they are racists? Hmm...I wonder. Tie this with the recent poll which found this same group of grumpy white people thought "the Obama administration favors blacks over whites."  Newsweek has more information , if you are finding this hard to believe. Just to show they don't play favorites, the TP'ers also disliked Latinos. 

This just in: a clever person out there has managed to successfully hack his iPhone so it will boot into Google's Android OS (which also means -- he's made it boot into Linux!). Apparently he's only got this working on an older iPhone (not 3G or 3GS) but by golly -- the fact he's done it at all is pretty astonishing. There's an embedded YouTube video that demos this unnatural act in all its perverse wonderment. Somewhere there is a great disturbance in the Force. Thanks again to Slashdot for bringing this to my attention.

In an oddly serendipitous set of circumstances, Gizmodo "found" what they claim is a prototype for the new iPhone in a bar in Redwood City.The real deal is scheduled to be launched this June. By the time they got their hands on the prototype, the owner had remotely killed it, but they do have a number of photos, as well as descriptions. My impression is the styling is heavily influenced by the iPad, including an aluminum band around the perimeter. Although I won't be rushing out to buy one (not until my AT&T contract expires anyway) it appears to be a handsome device. I will be upgrading to the 4.0 firmware once they make it available for the 3GS. Check it out , fanboy! In other iPhoney news, the beta release of the 4.0 firmware has already been jailbroken .

The latest CBS/New York Times poll reveals this shocking information:  people who identify themselves as members of the Tea Party movement are, for the most part, angry old white people who watch Fox News. In other news, scientists expect the sun to rise in the east tomorrow. Here's a snapshot of your basic Tea Party sympathizer/supporter: 75% are over 45 years old 95% identify themselves as Republicans  or "Independents" (ha!) 73% say they are conservatives 89% are white 63% say they get most of their political and current events news from the Fox News Channel More interesting takes on reality from the Tea Party: 92% think the country is on the wrong track 59% think President Obama was born in another country (30%) or say they don't know (29%) 52% say too much is made of the problems facing black people 25% think the Obama administration favors blacks over whites When pressed for why they objected to Obama, 19% said "they just didn't like ...

" The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. " -- H. L. Mencken , American journalist, essayist and social critic. Consider that next time you find yourself watching anything on the Fox Network.

Former Arkansas Governor/Baptist Preacher Mike Huckabee has the "aw shucks" act down pat. He can spew the most incredibly offensive drivel imaginable and still sound like a reasonable, well-intention person. I bet if he'd been in Salem, Massachusetts he'd have convinced those poor women they deserved to be burned as witches. Brother Huckabee recently compared efforts to legalize same-sex marriage to legalizing incest, polygamy and drug use. He's quoted in The Perspective ( student publication of The College of New Jersey ), as saying, "You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal...That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them." Afterwards, Huckabee took...

Omigod! Against all that I thought possible, Apple has approved the Opera Mini browser for iPhone (presumably an iPad version can't be far behind). Omigod! I'm downloading it now !

Latest rumor in the continuing soap opera that is Flash vs. the iPhone: ITWORLD has an article that says there are reports that Adobe is planning to sue Apple in a couple of weeks for Flash non-support. The problem is apparently with the new Apple SDK ("software development kit" for you non-geeks) license, which locks Flash out of the iPhone (and iPad!) even tighter that it previously was. I can picture some Suit at Adobe sputtering, "But they have to have Flash! Everybody uses Flash!" Having a version of a site with Flash and one without is going to be a pain in the ass for the average web developer. Guess which one they'll go with if they want to woo the iPhone/iPad user? Although I use (and like) products from each company I have no great love for either Apple or Adobe -- from a corporate point of view they are both arrogant pricks as far as I can tell. So I'm going to enjoy this pissing contest immensely. Word to Adobe: few if any technology battl...

I suspect a lot of you did not get up at the crack of dawn to see the demolition of Texas Stadium. Here's the video (selected after pains-taking reviewing of numerous candidates ). One of the fascinating things about this sort of thing is the surgical precision in which the operation is carried out. This is a controlled implosion, not an explosion. Timing, as they say, is everything. ...By the way, Arlington Taxpayers, you'll be hosting a similar event before you know it.

Wisconsin Republican District Attorney Scott Southworth sent a letter to 5 school districts opining that teaching children younger than 16 about contraceptives could be construed as contributing to the delinquency of minors ( PDF of his letter -- warning: big file ).  Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, author of the bill authorizing the sex-ed classes, said, "I think this is about trying to intimidate school administrators and teachers into staying silent." Interestingly enought, Southworth, a member of the Wisconsin National Guard who served in Iraq, s ued the University of Wisconsin, Madison back in his student days, saying he shouldn't be forced to pay student services fees ("segregated fees") because a percentage of them might end up supporting campus organizations with whom they disagreed ideologically or politically. The US Supreme Court said, sorry, it doesn't work like that. Refreshing to know that my home state of Texas has no monopoly on bone-head R...

It's funny how we can be responsible for something much large than ourselves. Case in point: the late H. Edward Roberts . He's well-known in a somewhat narrow context and yet I'd be willing to bet the next 10 people you see have no idea who he is. That being said, he's directly had an impact on you if you are reading this. Ed Roberts developed and sold what was arguably the first commercially successful personal computer, the Altair 8800 , way back in 1975. Just as significantly, he hired a couple of bright, ambitious college dropouts to write a version of BASIC for the Altair 8800: Bill Gates and Paul Allen . Gates and Allen went on found a little software startup called Microsoft. Perhaps you've heard of it? Roberts came out of the hobbyist electronics world. MITS, the company he started, initially designed and sold telemetry devices for model rocketeers, the moved to selling kits for programmable calculators (back when these were enormously expensive). The Janu...

I'm not sitting here (like some colleagues) eagerly awaiting the arrival of an iPad. I have an iPhone which I like a lot, but I don't see the iPad as being that much of an improvement. It's an interesting device but, as is typical for Apple, is overpriced and over designed. Still, I'm hoping it's wildly successful for one reason, and one reason alone: it has no Flash support. Confused? Let me explain. Full confession: I hate Flash. Or rather I hate how it's used by lazy designers to build non-compliant non-accessible websites which are only visible to a subset of the web population. Don't get me wrong: Flash is a tool, and like all tools, there are somethings it is very well suited for. But mostly it is used by ad agencies and design firms to add sizzle and sex appeal to their presentations to clients so they can sell services. Its use contributes to what I once heard referred to as "bandwidth drunkenness." So, the iPad won't support this bli...

The existence of a birth certificate that reveals President Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii has created a firestorm of controversy in the nation's capital. Fallout from the previously unknown document has escalated to the point where many have publicly stated Obama has lost the ability to effectively lead the nation. Among the shocking revelations: Obama was actually born in Havana, Cuba and that his birth name was Jesus Ernesto Guevara. Ann Dunham, who the world thought was his birth mother, actually adopted him. The birth certificate lists his father as Juan Guevara, an aide to Fidel Castro. Opponents are now saying this is what drove his decision to impose "Cuban-style" socialist healthcare on Americans. In a further shocking revelation, Obama/Guevara revealed he'd been having a torrid eighteen month affair with one-time opposition running mate Sarah Palin. "It's true, you can see Russia from her bedroom," he said. The White House press offic...

I noticed my blog images have been busted today (I use Blogger). Apparently Google, who owns Blogger, is having issues with some or all of their images servers. This is intermittent: sometimes they'll be busted and sometimes not; no doubt this is because they are massively clustered. Blogger (in case you were not aware) uses Picasa Web Albums as their back-end image server, which means when you upload an image for Blogger, it's stored on a special Picasa Web Album associated with your blog. Update -- looks like their tech wizards have this fixed.

Slashdot reminds us that this week would have been the 15th birthday of Microsoft Bob . For a look back, see the Bob Chronicles on Technologizer.com -- worth a visit! Enjoy!

Briefly noted: Ted Pillsbury, director of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1980 to 1998, passed away at age 66 on Thursday, March 25 of an apparent heart attack. During his tenure he was responsible for numerous important acquisitions and major exhibitions, turning the Kimbell into a world-class museum along the way. The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram both have good overviews of his life and career. There's also a 1998 interview with him on the KERA TV site. Late update: Family members are now reporting Pillsbury's death was a suicide. The Dallas Morning News has more information .

The news is now out that Opera Mini for iPhone was submitted to the iPhone App store yesterday. Opera has a page where you can sign in and win a bright shiny new iPhone by guessing when Opera Mini will be approved and available for download. I signed in but didn't see a choice for "when Hell freezes over." Because - seriously - that's going to be the winning guess. Anybody remember the ugliness that erupted over Google's Google Voice app? Expect a repeat. Actually compared to what this will no doubt morph into, the GV business will look like a love fest. Which is a shame because Opera makes a fantastic browser, especially the Opera Mini. I've used versions for the various Nokias I owned for years and loved it. By the way, if you're tired of IE, add Opera 10 to your list of alternate browsers to install.

I first saw Leo Kottke at UTA about 35 years ago. He opened ( opened! ) for poor unsuspecting Jesse Colin Young. Baby-faced Leo came out armed with nothing but a couple of acoustic guitars and astonishing virtuosity and left the crowd howling for more. One of the notable tunes from this period was "Vaseline Machine Gun." That pretty much described Leo's playing. After the intermission, Jesse took the stage only to discover half the  audience had deserted him. Guess what -- they hadn't come to see him. He was visibly annoyed. I saw Leo Kottke tonight at Bass Hall in downtown Ft. Worth. Fortunately Los Lobos, who he opened for, has a pretty loyal and enthusiastic audience. But it was plain to see there were a lot of folks there (like me) for whom Leo was the main event. The lights went down and gray-haired figure wandered to the front of the stage bearing a guitar. Gone was the baby-face, but the goofy grin remained as did the astonishing virtuosity. I was sitt...

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, a Canadian Libertarian and resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute has this analysis on how Republicans (and other opponents of the recently passed Obama healthcare package) blew it. Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994. Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law. Further on he observes: We followed the ...

Slashdot reminds us that March 15th will mark the 25th anniversary of the first ".com" domain registration. That would be March 15, 1985, for those of you who chronologically challenged. On that date Symbolics computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts registered the domain Symbolics.com (sold last year). Back in those days, registrations were handled with enormously complex paperwork by the National Science Foundation , a U.S. government agency. Network Solutions , for those who care, was the first (and only) domain registrar from 1993 until 1999. I registered my first domain in 1997, using Network Solutions (I currently uses SRSplus , a NetSol subsidiary, as my sole registrar). The article has a few other amusing factoids as well.

Air Force Sgt. Jene Newsome was working at the base when Rapid City, S.D cops showed up at her house with an arrest warrant for her partner on theft charges in Alaska. According to the AP report, she declined to immediately come home, so when they peeked in her windows and saw a marriage license from Iowa (where same-sex marriage is legal), they outted her to the Air Force . She was then discharged. "It's unfortunate that Newsome lost her job," said police Chief Steve Allender. "It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information." An internal investigation by the Rapid City Police Department has ruled the officers who spyed into her house acted appropriately. Newsome, a 9-year Air Force veteran, said, "I played by 'don't ask, don't tell.'" Of course, the simple answer is to finally get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell so crap like this can no longer take place, but considerable i...

Slashdot had a link this morning to an article entitled " The Secret Origin of Windows ," written by Tandy Trower, who was the Microsoft Product Manager responsible for Windows 1.0. A fascinating, if not geeky read. Thanks, Slashdot ! Enjoy! Update : after posting the above, I remembered The GUI Gallery - which has a vast collection of screenshots of operating systems you've never heard of.

Because not everyone needs or can afford Photoshop, here's a quick round up of some of the better free web-based image editors. All will allow you to upload an image and do basic photo-editing: resize, rotate, crop, correct exposure, color-correct and sharpen. Some do one thing well, others may do another. Most are Flash based. Your mileage (as they say) may vary. In no particular order: Picnik - no registration needed but free registration gives you additional features; premium ($) version available. Just acquired by Google, so keep your eye on it. PHIXR - unregistered logins good for 3 hours; free registration lets you save, etc. Same basic corrections as above, plus some holiday effects (goofy) and text tools. It has a quasi-Photoshop-like interface. Pixer.us - no login or registration required. Some interesting effects. No text tools. You can play with some of their default images if you don't want to upload your own. FotoFlexer - no registration required. Good r...

I'd heard this and scratched my head... Ron Paul, long-time Libertarian hero and current U.S. Representative from Houston (Republican) is facing a trio of  Tea Party infused challengers in Tuesday's Republican primary . They say he's "gone Washington." I thought only the Democrats ate their own kind. It's a funny old world...

I often get myself in hot water. But not since yesterday. In the morning I appreciate a good parboiling before I begin my day. Yesterday's shower was, at best, lukewarm. I went upstairs to investigate. Uh oh. So today I'm working from home, waiting for the plumber. That 40 inch HDTV I'd had my eye on just turned into a new water heater.

Reading some of the sentiments in the blogosphere coming from the "Patriot" fringe, I am reminded of Sinclair Lewis's overlooked masterpiece, It Can't Happen Here . In it, a populist is elected President and America slips into fascism (hence the title). Written half a dozen years before we went to war with Nazi Germany, it is a disturbing and fascinating conjecture on the tenuousness of our grasp of liberty. While there are some obvious differences in the political climate between now and 1935 when it was written, it still has a lot to say to our current situation, in particular the rise of the so-called Tea Party movement. Haven't heard of it? Give it a read. You can find a free electronic copy of it over at Feedbooks (which I heartily endorse): PDF , ePub and Kindle.

Would-be Texas Governor Debra Medina continues to trot out her Tea Party infused alternate universe. The latest glimpse of her [ cynicism/ignorance/crazy ] came when she finally commented on last week's airplane attack on an Austin IRS office. The Dallas Morning News quotes her as saying the decision of a man fighting the IRS to crash his airplane into a building in Austin reflects "the hopelessness many in our society feel." Perhaps remembering the uproar that resulted from her fuzzy answer about the 9/11 bombers, she gave a half-assed assurance that she was not actually sympathizing, adding weakly, "I grieve for him. I'm very sympathetic for his family, for the families of those innocent victims in that building." I call bullshit. Coming from an avowed Tea Party candidate this strikes me as more than a little pandering to your base : anti-government soreheads and miscellaneous sociopaths . Joe Stack, the pilot, had a history of anti-tax zealotry ...

WebDesignerDepot.com has a great story entitled 20 Years of Adobe Photoshop . It is a mark of the ubiquitousness of this amazing piece of software that it has become a verb: " photoshopping " (as in digitally manipulating an image -- usually with the intent to decieve). The Knolls brothers originally called their program Image Pro when they released in it 1988. After unsuccessfully pedaling it to both SuperMac and Aldus, they finally hit paydirt with Adobe Systems, a little company founded to market the page description language known as PostScript. Version 1 was available only for the Mac. The first Windows version was 2.5. The first version I owned was version 3, which I got bundled with a scanner; it introduced layers. The rest, as they say, is history. The WebDesignerDepot.com story has lots of screenshots of early versions as well as video clips of interviews with the creators. Thanks to Slashdot for mentioning the story. Enjoy.

According to the news media (not always reliable, but there you are) we easily set a new record for snowfall yesterday -- 11.2 inches, easily breaking the old record of 7.8 inches set back in 1964. I'd decided before I went to bed last night I wasn't going into the office. I still got up at 6:00 AM (I'm a creature of habit), and went to check the school closings. Our DirectTV stopped working at one point yesterday, so I had to go online. It appears every school (including colleges) and school district is closed for the day. There are a few optimistic organizations that are bravely claiming they'll start at 10 AM or noon. We'll see.

Well, it managed to snow gently but continuously for most of the day. A neighbor told me we hit a new record for today: 7.9 inches. Dang! I've already decided to work from home again tomorrow (and have informed my boss of same). The school where my wife works has already announced they'll be closed tomorrow, primarily because all this wet, mushy stuff is going to re-freeze tonight, with predictably awful results. Here are a few more snow shots from around the house at various times of day. Above, looking towards the back porch from the studio. Above, looking towards the street from the front porch. Looking down the street from the sidewalk. By morning this will likely be ice. The sidewalk in front of the house.