How can it be possible that IDG and Apple can’t seem to come to terms over MacWorld? First, IDG said they were moving the summer MacWorld back to Boston from New York, then Apple said that if IDG did that, they wouldn’t exhibit at the show. Now, IDG is making noise about barring Apple from the winter MacWorld in San Francisco. Something tells me that after a few more rounds of brinkmanship, these two will kiss and make up. ...
The Economist ran a bit of a report card for the high tech industry this week, stating that results are mixed. Some companies seem to be doing well, but there are plenty of others that are still down in the dumps. Sun’s travails make sense to me – I honestly think Sun is going to have a very hard time in the future. Sun’s best technology, Java, is free. I don’t see Sun making any money off of it in the years to come. (On the other hand, Java is a bell cow for IBM, BEA, Borland, and plenty of other companies.) How Sun managed to create this great language, and a fine industry around that language, and yet not turn it into a profit center is baffling. I don’t see there being great growth in the market for Solaris boxes, myself. Linux keeps storming ahead – where I work we use Linux for almost everything on the server side, running on nice, rack mounted Dell servers. Despite the occasional confounding kernel bug, it has worked out really well for us. Since we don’t need big iron, there’s just no reason for us to look toward Solaris. ...
The Economist dismisses the idea of President Bush as someone above partisanship in an article this week. The facts are clear: The laid-back Mr Bush is, in fact, a whirlwind of partisan energy. He has spent more time on the campaign trail than any of his predecessors, and raised far more money for next month's elections ($140m and counting). He plans to hit the road for 14 straight days before the election, sweeping through as many as four states a day and visiting all those with tight Senate races. Mr Bush has used a disputed election victory to push through a strikingly radical agenda, on everything from tax cuts to military pre-emption. At the same time, he has refashioned the Republican Party in his easy-going image, urging it to swap the angry snarl of Gingrichism for the smiling face of compassionate conservatism. Previous presidents have used placemen to keep an eye on the party machinery. Mr Bush has centralised control of the party in the White House. Karl Rove, Mr Bush's closest adviser, has a hand in everything from shaping high policy to choosing local candidates. Unfortunately, as the article points out, it seems to be working out well for him. ...
Remember how earlier this year we were fighting a war in Afghanistan? Then after we won and set up the new government, we said that we wouldn’t support peacekeepers outside Kabul because we expected to help Afghanistan build a national army that would keep the peace? Well, things don’t seem to be going as planned. That national army doesn’t seem to be coalescing like we might hope, and American forces there aren’t doing much to help out. Instead, we’re handing out the weapons we capture to warlords that are helping us out on the wild frontier. Of course the trouble here is that if Afghanistan’s future in any way resembles its past, the warlords that we’re arming today will start shooting at each other the second US forces pull out. Not only does it seem we’re doing as little as possible to give Afghanistan a chance at being a viable nation, things like this make it seem like we’re actively undermining those chances. If we do go to war with Iraq, what happens after we win? Judging from our performance in Afghanistan, I don’t see us committing thousands of troops, billions of dollars, and several years to rebuilding. ...
At the beginning of the Bush administration, I was quick to criticize President Bush’s stance on North Korea. (Basically, he didn’t trust them.) As it turns out, he was completely right not to. Just setting the record straight here. On the other hand, we’re going to see a lot of criticism of Clinton and Carter for striking the deal they did back in 1994 that theoretically ended North Korea’s WMD programs. I don’t think anybody was prepared to go to war with North Korea back then (least of all the South Koreans, who would take the brunt of the punishment), and the agreement was a way to defuse the situation and perhaps even get North Korea to comply. Obviously, the United States knew that North Korea wasn’t playing along nicely, that’s why they never got any of the nuclear reactors that we agreed to give them as part of the deal. Even now, when we have more proof than ever that North Korea does not bargain in good faith, the Bush administration is pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the situation. Nobody wants a war on the Korean peninsula. ...
Judging from recent posts on Craig’s List, San Franciscans will do anything, yes, anything for tickets to see their beloved Giants in the World Series.
Mozilla 1.2 beta is out. I’m giddy. OK, has anyone else noticed a big bug in the Mozilla 1.2 beta (under Windows)? The new version won’t download any .zip or .exe files for some reason. Maybe it’s a bad interaction with Windows XP.
I swear that when I came to work this morning, I was going to rant here about the use of the word “idiotarian.” I hate that word. It pisses me off. I often read things that I don’t agree with (on purpose). I read things that I think are stupid, or dishonest, or sadly, pathetically based on misinformation. I even read things that reek of bigotry and ignorance and make me grind my teeth. And yet I somehow resist the temptation to make up words that smugly express my contempt for those people that write them. Words like “idiotarian” are a crutch. If someone is wrong, prove it, or argue it, or just ignore it and move on. Flinging moronic terms at them as some sort of in joke for the fellow denizens of your echo chamber is, to be frank, pathetic. Anyway, Anil wrote his own rant about “anti-idiotarians” and “pundits” today as well. I promise I’m not copying. I don’t know what lit a fire under him, but for me it was Eric S Raymond. ...
Back in 1994, we struck a deal with North Korea under which they agreed to suspend their nuclear weapons program and we (and some of our allies) agreed to supply them with nuclear reactors for power generation that could not be used to create the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Well, we never delivered the reactors and now North Korea has admitted that it was still working on nuclear weapons anyway. So much for that agreement. Unfortunately, this is a real pickle. We’ve got our hands full with Saddam and now North Korea has served notice that it’s either nuclear capable now or plans on being nuclear capable soon. Is North Korea’s bizarro ruler any less psychotic than Saddam Hussein? He’s certainly shown his preference for starving his own people over trimming down military spending. ...
Oh, Microsoft Outlook, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. Can anyone explain why Microsoft Outlook 2000 on a powerful PC takes about 60 seconds to open an email message with a large attachment, even in preview mode? Just about everyone in corporate America is forced to use this miserable application, and in the world of business, people are nuts for sending around huge files via email. This seems like a problem that merits attention. (Perhaps it is fixed in Outlook XP and I’m just behind the times.) ...