In other words, Apple is no different than MicroSoft.

I know it's not exactly earth shattering news, but still, it's very interesting. To me it is anyway.
From Wired's "compiler" blog:

In an effort to make Firefox 3 faster on a Mac, Mozilla developer Vladimir Vukićević stumbled across several private, undocumented APIs used by competitor Safari. The good news is that Vukićević was able to fix the Firefox 3 bug he was after using a publicly documented method, but the existence of the hidden APIs have already led many to conclude the Apple is unfairly crippling non-Apple software.

To be clear, that’s not what Vukićević thinks, but with Microsoft having long been accused of doing the same, it’s not surprising that the conspiracy claim is making the rounds on Slashdot and elsewhere....

Slashdot conspiracy theorists aside, Vukićević has point when he writes that developers have much “more reason to complain when they use something undocumented that changes in the future, vs. using something that’s explicitly documented to be subject to change.”...

Bullshit! I says: Bullshit! The word "conspiracy" may not be applicable here, but it does seem kind of like the exact same thing that Apple, Netscape, and others were whining about circa ten years ago with regard to MicroSoft and Internutz Exploder.

awesome vintage German pop culture, found by me via Chunklet

source link

and another thing

I know I neglected to lament the other recent university campus shooting spree, in DeKalb, Illinois. (The "s" is silent... and the "l" in DeKalb is silent if you are from the South.) I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say about it... I feel a little numb.

And I feel conflicted. I don't own any guns, and I don't plan on ever owning any either. But I know people (who aren't crazy, and who do so legally) who do. I also want to be able to go to a shooting range and have at it one of these days.

On the other hand, it seems like the rather limited controls we do have are not uniformly applied throughout our grand republic, far too often resulting in tragedy. If accepting even more limits on our "right to bear arms" means we could avoid these sorts of mass killings, then I'm all for it. It's been said probably millions of times: if it can work for England, (and others), then why not here?

To paraphrase an anonymous classmate from my undergraduate years (the class was theory and practice of argumentation and debate):

I don't think our founding fathers intended our right to bear arms to enable us to be able to reenact the Revolutionary War in our back yard.

I agree.

From the Onion

... so you know it's true! (wink) Or, as Henry Rollins dramatized it during his lengthy monologue the other night (talking about the allegations of Diebold™ machines "erasing" votes and other recent electoral shenanigans, me paraphrasing):

"What the fuck happened to my vote?"
"You voted for the wrong guy, that's what the fuck happened to your vote! You voted for health care and literacy... Gayboy!"

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

more on Nader...

It seems that indeed, the majority of left-leaning "progressive" folks do think that Nader is a doofus and should not run.

Statement by “Ralph Don’t Run” on Nader’s 2008 Candidacy Announcement

We’re saddened but not surprised by Ralph Nader’s announcement. The important point, however, is this: only one person can make Nader relevant in 2008. Hillary Clinton. If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, Nader will be even more invisible and irrelevant than he was in 2004. The ultimate irony of the situation is this: both the Republicans and Ralph Nader are desperately rooting for Hillary Clinton as their best hope for 2008. We hope, and expect, that both will be disappointed.

-John Pearce, Director, RalphDontRun.com

What an asshole!

I hope he's not really a spoiler, because apparently, Ralph Nader has decided to run for president again. One thing's for sure, if, god forbid, the Democrats don't win this year, he'll get the blame again. Maybe someone, or perhaps a campaign of concerned citizens emailing him, may convince him to withdraw... but I doubt it.

I went over to Nader's campaign website and sent a message asking him to withdraw immmediately, and explaining the obvious reasons why I think he should (McCain is all to happy to stay in Iraq forever, let alone bomb Iran, we finally seem to have enough momentum to make a Democratic victory in November inevitable, etc.) I'm really not sure it will do any good but I am convinced that it can't hurt. To the five or so people that read this I urge you to do the same, go there and send him a message asking him to withdraw for the good of our country.

read the reader

The five or so of you who visit my humble blog regularly will no doubt have noticed by now that on the right hand margin of the page appears a list of links labeled "model consumer's shared items".

I've started using Google Reader, to keep track of a few different blogs/news sources (some of them I don't consider blogs as such). It's excellent. The idea of syndication/news readers is brilliant in and of itself, but Google, as usual, has a very good web-based implementation of it. So, those links represent items I've read (or at least scanned attentively) that I thought were rather interesting. Feel free to either share these with me, or ignore them, as you see fit.

sometimes...

I feel like I'm still in high school.

I finally did it...

...and I hate myself for it. (Well, not really). I joined Facebook. Why did I resist for so long? Well, because I'm already on MySpace and it already takes up too much time. Why did I join Facebook? Because some of my less enlightened friends are on Facebook but not on MySpace. So why should my stubbornness and laziness let their ignorance stop us from the endless joy and instructive life experiences that only interaction via internet social network can provide? (Can you tell I really really think that Facebook is lame and MySpace is way (well, let's say relatively) cool by comparison? Good. Mission accomplished.)

So go ahead and add my my Facebookian friends. I'm one of you now! Except that I'm also on MySpace.

While we're on the subject. I've been meaning to delete my Friendster account for a while now because it really blows (Friendster, not my Friendster profile) and nobody uses Friendster anymore.

Also, apparently Google has some kind of social network thingy now and I'm intrigued bigtime by it. I'll have to wait until I'm in much less of a hurry (got to wrap this up and get to work pronto) to check it out, but you can rest assured I'll be posting about it here when I do.

why why why?

Why are people so mean sometimes? I really just don't fucking understand it at all and it just makes me so mad.

"Don't take your guns to town..."

And keep them off my campus too please.

Another post-secondary educational institution shooting incident, breaking news:

"A female student shot two other women and herself Friday morning inside a classroom on the campus of Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, authorities said..."

Thus, as a college instructor (I know, can ya believe it, me? a college instructor? that's crazy talk!), I am far more concerned about ways to stop nuts like these from shooting up my workplace (and potentially me, my colleagues, and students...) than I am with "fighting the war on terror in Iraq", etc. How can we stop these? I tend to think that we should have some kind of gun control, since it seems to work in England. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to sane, rational (i.e. people who aren't "gun nuts" or stereotypical NRA supporters) who want to have the right to own and carry a firearm so long as they comply with all the relevant laws. My understanding of the issues that affect this issue barely scratches the surface, so I really don't have much to say. I wonder if these mentally unstable people that go on shooting rampages have legally obtained their guns or not...

some random thoughts...

1. I'm glad that we're about to elect a woman or a black president. However, I'm a little tired about the historical weight constantly being thrust on our shoulders. After two terms of Bush II, the worst president ever™, all I want is a Democrat in office. History will take care of itself, but elections are almost never a sure thing. Unless they nominate a religious nut like Huckabee or Romney.

2. Last night on the Daily Show, Chris Wallace, a relatively affable and un-douchebag-ish guy, from Fox News was the main guest. During the interview, a the subject of Karl Rove joining Fox News came up, and Jon Stewart got off a few zingers like "Do you think that now that he's there that Fox will finally have access to this administration?" and if Mr. Wallace will ask him "Does lying feel bad?" and my favorite, "Can you hire a felon? Or is that- no, that's Libby."

Anyway, they also talked about Super Tuesday and what not.

Here's the interview in it's entirety:



3. Those Boca breakfast wrap things are really pretty good.

recent music listened to and enjoyed:


"Vampire Victim" from the album Lost Light by Old Time Relijun.

Good news!

noticias

1. I've decided to start up a second blog, dedicated to more serious or more academic-ish postings. I eventually will link it up to a UGA personal webpage (which I haven't created yet) so for the purposes of anonymity, I will not be linking it here. If you are interested, email me, and I'll email you back the link. Of course, I haven't really posted much of anything there just yet.

2. I'm quite stoked to be sending off my passport renewal application today and am sincerely hoping that our (Holly and me) plans of traveling to Mexico over the summer break can come to fruition.

Stupor Oozeday

I'm a big fan of the so-called Australian Ballot, i.e. one that is marked in SECRET, so I won't tell you who I voted for today, except that his first name begins with an "O" and ends with "bama."