There’s a project to turn the loose documentation of CGI at NCSA into a real IETF-approved RFC. It doesn’t seem like much is going on there, though. I just wanted to say that I can’t wait for Black & White, the new game from Peter Molyneux. If it lives up to its hype (and games rarely do), it looks to be just about the coolest computer game ever. I’ve been keeping an eye on its progress for at least a year. ...
According to a message on a web design mailing list, Netscape 6 was released but then pulled back this weekend. I guess we’ll see it officially released for good very soon. I’m a long time Internet Scout report subscriber, and I’m excited to see that the Internet Scout staff has launched a collaborative weblog containing interesting links that don’t make the report’s cut. A brief rant on the current state of the Presidential election: anyone calling for Gore to concede is a fool or a charlatan. The bottom line is that all of the legitimate votes in Florida have not been received, much less counted. Until the official count of all the votes is out, we don’t know who really won this Presidential election, and calling for anyone to concede before then is just grandstanding. I’m also in favor of them counting the votes as many times as necessary to get an accurate count, across the state if they have to. I don’t think there should be any revoting, but making sure that the stated results are as accurate as possible seems prudent to me. ...
Yesterday, I uninstalled the RealPlayer virus from my computer, and what do you know, today I needed it. Every time I install it I realize just how sleazy RealNetworks is. Amy Goodman (of Democracy Now) got to interview Bill Clinton on election day when Clinton was calling around to radio stations in New York to stump for Democratic candidates. Goodman asked a ton of great questions that big media journalists never bother to ask, and I thought Clinton held his own. He gave Goodman straight answers to all of her questions, although I don’t know how accurate the facts that he stated were. The interview was very wide ranging, and I was impressed with Clinton’s command of the issues given that he didn’t have any prep time. ...
There’s an “analysis” of Microsoft .NET over at JavaSoft, but really the author just writes mean things about Microsoft and the .NET platform which may or may not be true. It’s just pure Java evangelism – boring. CNN has an article on world reaction to America’s electoral uncertainty. The AP has a picture of the real ballot that caused so much confusion in Florida. I don’t know about you, but I find the real ballot much less confusing than any of the mockups of the ballot that I saw elsewhere. I can see how it caused some confusion, but it certainly seems pretty clear to me. ...
The best election Web site I found last night was Voter.com. Their page loaded fast all night, and their coverage is detailed and easy to follow. CNN’s site was very slow (due to its great popularity, I’m sure), and the results were harder to get to. The pulldown menu of state results at Voter.com was incredibly useful. Eazel has announced the first two services they’ll be providing. I’m underwhelmed. I recently bought a new toy: a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. I have issues with Microsoft’s software, not their hardware. I immediately ditched my mouse mat and the fifty cent OEM mouse that came with my computer, and I’m much happier. It’s really a very nice input device, and I never have to open my mouse and clean out a bunch of gunk again. ...
If you were worried about me endorsing Nader but voting for Gore, you can rest easy knowing that here in North Carolina, Nader doesn’t even appear on the ballot. So, it’s give me Al Gore or give me death. What a chilling thought. Think of it as the anti-“West Wing”: Trey Parker and Matt Stone (of “South Park” fame) are working on a sitcom about the next President. Whoever wins today will be the subject of the sitcom, which premieres in February. Let’s hope it works out better for them than “BASEketball.” ...
Found at Q Daily News: a Microsoft Knowledge Base article that enables you to get rid of those stupid branding schemes that are sometimes included as part of Internet Explorer installations. Bill Clinton’s long exit interview with Esquire seems very interesting. I’ve only read the first page or two of it so far. I find Clinton to be incredibly intriguing, both for his successes and for his massive flaws. It will be interesting to see what becomes of him once he’s out of his current job. ...
What the Hell is going on at MathWorld? The author of the information on the site (which I’ve used pretty often in the past) turned the site into a book published by CRC Press. For some reason, he signed a contract that assigned all of the rights to his work to the publisher (I assume that the author was very naive), and now the publisher has a court order that shut down the site. Bad on CRC Press! Bad on the author! ...
Articles like this one scare the crap out of me. It’s a Salon report on a town in Chile directly under the big hole in the ozone layer. People there have to wear protective clothing and sunscreen during daylight hours, and on bad days are directed not to go outside at midday. Some days I feel like we’re all totally screwed. Of course, George W. Bush doesn’t think that global warming is a problem we can do anything about, so I guess I should probably just blow it off. ...
The New York Times editorial page likes the Napster-Bertelsmann Deal. The latest Ralph Nader ad is a parody of the brilliant “When I grow up” ad from Monster.com. I have to say that I’m not very impressed – the ad they parody was already a sendup of corporate America, plus they already parodied an existing ad with their “Priceless” spot (which was great). For some reason, the latest ad just seems uninspired. Salon surveyed ad critics for their impressions of the new ad. ...