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Pervez Musharraf has been a dictator for as long as he’s been in power, so to say that he’s moved further toward dictatorship would be incorrect. However, what today’s constitutional amendments enacted solely by Musharraf show is that he’s wielding his dictatorial powers ever more brazenly as time goes on. Many people (myself included) were willing to give Musharraf the doubt because despite the fact that he’s a dictator, he seemed willing to face down the Islamist elements that wield so much power in Pakistan. However, it seems that he’s just a plain old tin pot ruler. I fear what will replace him, though, when the time comes. ...

Microsoft may have taken down the core fonts, but they’re still available via SourceForge. (Thanks, Po.) By the way, the instructions on that page worked to perfection for me under Red Hat 7.3.

Microsoft no longer allows you to download their core fonts for the Web. Can we assume that this is because pretty much everyone now has a computer that came with them in the first place? In any case, for those people that downloaded these fonts to use under Linux or whoatever, this pretty much sucks. I wonder if this is Microsoft’s thumb in the eye to them? Any further details on this would be appreciated for sure. ...

Danny O’Brien wrote up a nifty new technique for marking email as non-SPAM that can be legally enforced using existing intellectual property law. It’s both fiendishly clever and seemingly feasible, which is quite a combination.

My view of the world is so skewed that when people say as a matter of course that vim is difficult to use and has a steep learning curve, I react with confusion. Some people tell me that the computer books I write are OK in spite of this fact.

The XHTML 2.0 spec has been released, and it drops compatability with XHTML 1.0, HTML 4.0, and everything else. What does this mean for practical Web developers right now? Nothing. No browsers support XHTML 2.0. What does it mean for browser makers? Mainly more work – it’s not as though they can drop support for everything that currently exists, deprecated or no. Google has an index of 2.5 billion Web pages, and not a single one of them are written using XHTML 2.0. Most likely, nearly none of them will ever be converted to XHTML 2.0 or even XHTML 1.0. Certainly XHTML 2.0 carries many advantages for developers, but until we can start coding our pages to that standard, we have to wait for browser makers to release browsers that support it and for the critical mass of people to start using those browsers. In the meantime, keep using XHTML 1.0. ...

Henry Jenkins, a professor at MIT, gets in the last word regarding his appearance on Donahue defending the video game industry in Salon today. His behind the scenes take on what it’s like to make an appearance on one of the talking heads shows confirms any suspicions you might have about the fairness and intellectual integrity involved. The actual points he wanted to make about violence in the media and actual violence are well taken, but weren’t news to me and shouldn’t be to you either. ...

Do you think that 20 or 30 years from now, Republicans will still be trying to blame Bill Clinton for our problems every time things go wrong?

This month’s Crypto-Gram is really good. Oh, wait, every month’s Crypto-Gram is really good. This month’s edition features articles on Microsoft’s Palladium technology, arming airline pilots, and the legislation that would have allowed media companies to attack computers suspected of trading in copyrighted files with impunity. Schneier’s explanation of why arming airline pilots creates more problems than it solves is typical of his exceptionally well reasoned approach to just about everything: ...

Abu Nidal, at one time the most feared terrorist in the world, was found dead of gunshot wounds in his Baghdad apartment. While it’s hard to feel any sympathy for a cold blooded terrorist, you have to wonder what stories will go forever untold now that he’s dead.