I have heard a little about Project Looking Glass by Sun Microsystems lately, as they recently opened the source code for free use and update by all. Isn’t it pretty?
What I don’t understand is why anyone would care. I see it is pretty. But how does a 3d metaphor make better use of the desktop space? If you use Windows or KDE or CDE or Gnome or OSX, you minimize windows to a taskbar of some kind and you can bring them back with a single click. The programs continue to run and take up next-to-no space. With Looking Glass, you’d spin the window off to the side, where it would continue to take up a small but not negligible part of the main screen. Meanwhile, the content on the window is so obscured by the perspective shift that it is unusable, so why not just minimize the darned thing?
I must be somewhat dense, as I can’t figure out why a window which can be turned on edge is better than the metaphor of the flat desktop we use now, where windows are behind each other or minimized. What am I missing here?
This article (or more accurately, book review) raises some interesting points about the Democratic party leaving the traditional economic stance they were built on, and ending up with no platform at all beyond, “We’re not Republicans.”
When you remove economics from political platforms, all you’re left with is culture and morality. Certainly the once-married teetotaling born again Prez beats out that other guy pretty handily, if that is the measure of the man. I sure hope that’s not the only way people determine their new leader, but history shows otherwise.
Gotta love this new helper object which installs itself into Internet Explorer. If you think your connection is secure because it has HTTPS in the address and the little lock is clicked shut in the status bar, you may be wrong. You could be sending your bank account information to a scriptbot that uses the “helper object” structure that Microsoft so *helpfully* added to IE.
Reminder to all, IE is not the only browser.
“Firefox”:http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
“Opera”:http://www.opera.com
Just a thought.
Supreme Court Affirms Detainees’ Right to Use Courts
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that the campaign against terrorism notwithstanding, “a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.”
What a concept. So, just because we are at war against a concept, we can’t just go arresting people willy-nilly, or looking at their library lending history, or poking cameras in their faces, or telling them they can’t fly because they’re on some secret list they aren’t allowed to challenge? Wow. How revolutionary.
According to this article in the Washington Post, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team is recommending that web surfers stop using Microsoft browsers entirely, at least until the latest virii and worms have been clobbered.
So there, all you Mozilla-doubters!
Predict your love and sex life
It’s pretty funny. Really.
I added a pair of Size Matters stores to my Cafepress pantheon. Not that I actually sell anything, but it amuses me that such items exist. Don’t forget my other designs:
What Would Cthulhu Do?
I’m not wearing any pants (inspired by
Army Girl
Sassy Bitch
Ninja
Eat Me
Get Odd
Mess With Texas
I’ve recently been accosted by some certification companies, and it got me to thinking of the future. IT security is a growth industry, with (according to ISC2) has 12 jobs for each qualified applicant. Combine that with a TS clearance with SBI, it seems that CISSP certification might be a good idea. Just thinking of positioning myself for future opportunities, not planning to move again anytime soon (egad, not again!).
So, anyone know the inside scoop on security jobs? Is the work shitty, are the hours crazy, is it a good deal or not? I’m looking at an average salary over *twice* what I make now, and that’s something I have a hard time ignoring. Taking care of my family is important, and it seems like the job might be interesting, if or when I get there someday.
How is it that it took 3 months before I heard about Reverend Moon’s Coronation at the Capitol? Moon claims to be the Messiah, back for the Second Coming. Yeah, right. But, we’ve got Senators and Congresscritters helping him with crown and scepter. WTF?
Here’s an example of the dissembling and absurd lengths our elected representatives will go to in order to suck up to Moon while claiming that they don’t even know who he is.
bq. CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON (R-PA) – When first contacted by investigative reporter John Gorenfeld, Weldon’s press secretary stated: “I’m telling you, he didn’t go.” When Gorenfeld sent her some links showing Weldon was listed as a primary sponsor of the event, she stated that Weldon “planned to attend this awards show, but couldn’t make it due to his schedule.” When Gorenfeld next produced a photo of Weldon standing with a group of Moon associates at the event, she said that Weldon’s participation was apparently “limited to his attendance.” Soon after, Gorenfeld found a photo of Weldon actually giving the welcoming “congratulatory remarks” from the stage — as a photo was displayed of himself giving a pin to Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy. Gorenfeld, who has extensively covered Moon’s involvement in US politics, said that pin presented last year by Weldon to Khadafy was apparently one of Moon’s peace pins. Okay, back to Weldon’s staff for version #4 of Weldon’s explanation. Weldon’s chief of staff told Christian Challenge that Weldon “was at the banquet for ‘5 or 10 minutes’ to speak about his recent trip to Libya; Weldon neither saw Moon at the event, nor witnessed the coronation, nor heard his Messianic speech … [and] ‘in no way does Congressman Weldon share that belief.'” That he did not know of Moon’s involvement strains credibility (see yesterday’s story) as he and Davis also co-hosted Moon’s Capitol Hill event in 2003 and they praised him by name in the Congressional Record. Weldon later added — not that he has any remaining credibility on this issue — that he did not give Khadafy a Moonie peace pin but, rather, pinned a US flag to the anti-American dictator’s lapel.
You just have to love the understatement of the cop in this story.
bq. We consider these deaths to be very suspicious
Yeah, suspicious. They’re bound together with nylon cord and tied to *sandbags.* That’s suspicious. Wow. He must have been tops in his class at State the Obvious U.
Sixapart is once again Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type. Go figure. I don’t see a huge difference, myself. With a paid license, you no longer have any limits on number of weblogs created, but there are author limits. With the free version, you’re still limited to *one* author, which seems silly for many people.
I only have one person authoring anything on my site, but that depends on your definition of site. I host “Lysa”:http://lysa.andysocial.com as well, so does she count as another author and weblog? Or, would she count as a separate installation? It’s kind of irrelevent to me now, since I’ve moved to the Open Source “WordPress”:http://www.wordpress.org for my weblog.
My biggest heartache with the pricing scheme they have at Sixapart is this: one piece of software costs different amounts for different people. It’s the same bundle of code, yet if it’s used by one person it’s free, by two people it’s 70 bucks, and by six people it’s a hundred bucks. Why?
Again I look at other software and think, “huh?” If I buy Adobe Photoshop, it costs the same for me to use it or for me and five other people to use it, on a single installation. It’s the number of installations that matter, not the number of users.
I got another great Faux News Alert moment just a few minutes ago. First, some background. When I was a G.I. here, we watched CNN Headline News in the break room, or History Channel or the occassional South Park episode on swing shift. Now, they invariably have the Fox News Channel on. Could there be a more blatantly biased network? Fair and Balanced, my eye.
Anyway, this morning the news anchor was talking to another journalist by remote. The remote journalist was discussing the recent polls in Iraq which indicated that the average Iraqi would really like the U.S. troops and _coalition_ to leave so they could get on with their sovereign government work. The anchor interrupted (!) the remote so he could burst in with, “How reliable is this poll?” The answer: It was conducted by the coalition authority, so it can’t be much more reliable. “Well, the next question you have to ask is if the Iraqis would prefer to have Saddam back in power.”
No, that’s *not* the next question, unless you’re a simpleminded twit. The next question is, “How quickly can we get out of Iraq while not leaving the country in anarchy or civil war?” Of course they don’t want Saddam back, they’re not children. That doesn’t mean we need to be just a little better than a psycho; we need to be near-perfect. We haven’t been.
CNN has a quick article about a fresh challenge to ‘Fahrenheit’, Michael Moore’s anti-Bush movie. One person who is trying to get people to write movie theaters protesting the movie’s release says he’s in favor of free speech. So why not let the market be the speech? If nobody agrees with the movie, nobody will go see it and it will close faster than a J-Lo and Britney double feature.
Of course, what the Move America Forward (blatantly neocon group) spokesman really meant to say was, “I assume my neighbors are idiots and I must tell them what they are allowed to see or hear. Political comments which disagree with me are wrong.”
Now that I’ve settled into a decent WordPress and LJ combined posting system, there’s one more item to address. Those of you reading this via Livejournal, would you prefer to have the separate LJ commenting system as it is now, or would you prefer to jump into the main comment setup on my site (as demonstrated by the link at the end of each dual-posted item)? I’m flexible, but I know some of you are hidebound and anal. 🙂
Somali Native Charged in a Bomb Plot, Ashcroft Says
bq. “Current credible intelligence indicates that al-Qaeda wants to hit the United States and to hit the United States hard,” Ashcroft said.
That required some real top-notch intelligence gathering, I suppose. In case we were wondering if perhaps al Qaeda had decided to lay off the U.S., since we’re not fun to pick on any more.
Looks like General Karpinski isn’t going to just go away and be a good little scapegoat. She actually spoke to BBC News and spilled some fun little details.
She claims that she was ordered to treat the prisoners like dogs. Nice, eh?
This still doesn’t take away any of her responsibility. The buck doesn’t get passed along so easily in the Army. I’m ashamed to be a veteran associated with people who let these kinds of things happen, no matter how proud of my service I may be otherwise.
In a widely awaited decision, the Supreme Court has rejected the Pledge of Allegiance challenge. Of course, they rejected it not on its merits as a case, but because the man who brought the suit was not legally allowed to do so. So no actual resolution of the issues involved, as is par for the Court it seems.