Fox News has discovered that turning to the right has worked well for a cable news channel, so they’re going to try it on the Web. I just wish they wouldn’t call it news.

One of the more interesting Internet tales that I’ve followed in a cursory manner over the years is phone booth in the Mojave desert. The final chapter in the saga is the removal of the phone booth at the request of the federal government because it attracted too much traffic (the area where the phone booth is now part of a national park). Interestingly, one can attribute the increased traffic in large part to the Web page about the phone booth that I’ve linked to. (Thanks to Lake Effect for the pointer.)

Note to Microsoft employees: delete your email. Some people never learn.

I’d been meaning to link to this letter by Gene Spafford on the dangers of a computing monoculture since it was sent to the Interesting People mailing list, but had forgotten until I saw this nicely formatted version over at the O’Reilly Network.

Want to lose respect for Bertrand Meyer? Just read his essay on open source software. He opens with a lengthy discourse on why Richard Stallman is out in left field — as if everyone doesn’t already know that. Then he goes off on Eric Raymond, not for his views on free software (the theoretical topic at hand), but rather for his views on gun control. He makes a poorly conceived argument about software quality, and then turns back to slamming RMS’s philosophies. The area where I really agree with him is on point 10, where he argues that free software that duplicates functionality from commercial software should acknowledge the work of the designers in creating the software being copied. I also agree with most of the items in his course of action at the end. Ultimately, though, Meyer doesn’t have problems with open source software itself, but rather with some of the personalities behind it. And focusing on that is just as stupid as criticizing Microsoft because you don’t like Bill Gates.

Looks like Judge Jackson is convinced that breaking up Microsoft is the best way to go. As regular readers know, I don’t agree.

O’Reilly has an interesting news story up that attempts to sell their Windows book to Unix users. (Incidentally, it sounds like a book I should own, since I spend more time in Windows than in Unix by far.) It’s not really surprising to me that many (probably most) Unix advocates use Windows whether they like it or not. I’ve been working on a paper listing the things that are keeping me from doing my day to day work in Unix, but I’m not finished with it yet. Maybe someday …

Self-regulation among businesses never works, ergo, self-regulation when it comes to protecting your privacy doesn’t work.

The last sentence in the current Today’s Papers actually made me laugh out loud.

This view at Salon is at least livable.