Just to see if I can email in a blog entry. You know, sort of that
exciting feeling when technology is doing what you want it to. And
you don’t have to pay for it. Nice.

I was asked today how many kids, grandkids, and great grandkids my grandmother has. And I had to do some figuring, but the end result goes something like this: 10 kids, 48 grandkids, 50ish great-grandkids. For crying out loud, that’s over one hundred people! And that’s not counting her brothers and sisters kids, who are my second cousins once removed.

So Steve was thinking that I should start up a site (like Steenhof.info) to keep all the relevant relative information on. And then we could gradually expand and it could become a veritable encyclopdia of the Steenhof family. Although Oma’s pretty much comatose right now, so we won’t exactly get to hear her little bit of the story.

Last night, coffeehouse was at the Zandstras. As in Pete and Laurie’s. My drum was tuned up too high. Nick’s sense of rhythm needs help. I taught them how to play the alt tune to “Take My Life and Let it Be”, which is a cool song, except that Nick’s guitar was tuned down two steps and it made it sound like we were a choir of bullfrogs. Pete Westerveld was there. So were all the younger YP children, who look like they’re about five. But that’s neither here nor there.

Okay, so I don’t love Microsoft. But there’re some pretty interesting articles that come out of there every once in a while (not to mention leaked memos, even more interesting). Try Twenty-One Rules Of Thumb which attemts to describe how MS gets software to market on time. In the article it says “great” software, but I think we’ll forgive them that bit of hyperbole, unless of course you’re refering to MS-DOS, which really wasn’t that bad.

I copped a few snippets from the article. These are somewhat classic, and use words that no one uses.

Democracy really depends on the people of said democracy being informed and communally minded. At least as far as I can see. The sort individualism that North America espouses lends itself not so much to democracy as dictatorship, or perhaps a constitutional monarchy.

Think about it: our countries have no long-term goal and vision unless there is a truly exceptional leader. Our rulers live life in four-year terms. When the people become sheep blindly choosing whichever candidate promises the best candy, the system devolves in to a power-trap. You can’t lose control, so you have to promise more, better, farther, bigger. And of course you do this with the people’s money. Governments have a vested interest in gaining more control and more power — and keeping it — than letting civil liberties exist, because like a corporation, their main supply of income is made from the very people who seek those liberties. Loss of power entails loss of control, and loss of control entails in the end loss of that income. Generally.

On another note, it seems that TV producers are doing a good job right now with reality television, and by good job I mean that they make a crapload of money for a tiny little investment. Well, compared with a normal drama, that is.

Of course, they realize that they can’t saturate the market with all these shows that are — face it — generally variations on the same theme without pissing off viewers. They realise that there’s a need for normal drama, action, adventure, sci-fi. I personally find reality tv to prey on all the worst aspects of North American psuedo-culture: sex, power, sex, and more power. It’s like they play only two cards. To me, these things are unwatchable. Survivor is stupid. It’s base. It’s bad entertainment on every level. Fear Factor is either unwatchably boring or indescribably disgusting. The Aprentice is like caging animals and watch them bite eachother. Donald Trump is the ringleader. The only thing I can think of worse than that is watching another episode of Big Brother. And I’m not even on the cutting edge, thank goodness. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

Yeah, here’s last night’s meal in a bowl, still warm from me throwing it up. And it’s probably better for you than reality TV. I’m angry, alright?

It’s interesting how we’re taught from youth that romantic love is like Hiroshima, isn’t it? Video, audio, hard copy; it all informs me that it’s like a great tsunami (sorry about all the Japansese similes) that just cannot be stopped.

And life, of course, is different. I never cease to be amazed at the capacity of the human mind to believe what it wants in the face of what is obvious. Sometimes love creeps up on you like your own shadow, and you don’t realise it until it’s already underfoot. Sometimes love is both things, rainforest and desert.

It makes me wonder. What do you do when you walk out of a rainforest and a mood changes, and suddenly you’re in the middle of desert? When the emotions of the thing seem different? The answer is ridiculously simple, I think, but utterly difficult to actually implement. The answer is trust, and committment. You trust that it won’t be like that forever, trust in the love of the other person. You commit yourself to not abandoning things merely because they don’t fit your expectations.

Of course these things have their limits, and they’re by no means easy or even exclusive things.

Sometimes love is quite honestly seeking the best for another person. Sometimes love is denying yourself the safety of hideaways. Sometimes love is braving the long deserts, knowing that paradise is on the other side. And yes, sometimes love is like a tsunami, like an atomic bomb going off. I know. Right now I feel as if I’m on the borderland of a dry spell. Like I’m close to a place that will test these things in me. But not only in me. Maybe it’s just an errant wind, or maybe trouble really is brewing.

Who knows. But I refuse to let something die so young, to kill it slowly with a thousand tiny divorces.

Software is a strange thing. It cost money to create, but almost nothing to reproduce. As in, a great deal of the cost of software is developmental; a very small fraction is in actual deployment. There’re always advertising cost to consider, but let’s factor those out. They’re implicit in almost any venture nowadays, even the Novell/IBM/Redhat Linux ventures, based on Open Source though they be.

The wierd thing with this is that stealing software versus hardware become a convoluted issue. Think about it: you steal a CPU from Dell, for instance, and you’ve actually removed something from their factory that has physical value. You’ve decreased their actual profits by that one CPU. On the other hand, if you burn a copy of Windows and install it on your friend’s computer, you’ve not actually stolen anything pysical. What’s you’ve actually done is stolen “intellectual property” that has no existential real-space value. You’ve stolen potential profits from Microsoft.

But where stealing a computer from Dell doesn’t exactly extend Dell’s branding, where piracy of physical objects doesn’t often help the object’s maker prosper, Microsoft is in the unique position of actually benifiting from piracy, at least in developing countries.

You see, when someone installs a Windows system, even if it’s free or pirated, they’re joining an ecosystem of computing, or a culture, if you will. Microsoft’s culture of computing. A culture they work very hard to sustain, though often through dubious means. And once you’re part of that culture - legally or not - you have bought into an ecosystem that’s hard to transition from, and intentionally so. In that sense, comparing Microsoft to a drug dealer isn’t that far of a stretch. You give away your product for free (which, by the way, Microsoft pretty much does in developing countries), get the users hooked, and once they have your system, the next series of upgrades (with better piracy controls) assure you that the profits begin to roll in.

Which happens, partially. It’s no mistake that Windows 98 was practically a pirate’s dream operating system. It had no controls whatsoever, except for the usual “certificate of authenticity” number, which are so freely available on the internet, still, that it’s not funny. But the inevitable point comes where you can either upgrade you system to another pirated one (a Windows that has implemented systems that are more difficult to circumvent), or pay retail and upgrade from there. Which is where Open Source comes in. You see, Linux is a great transition point when you decided you want something that you can for free, legally. Something that’s stable, doesn’t have more than two or three know viruses (despite widespread use in Apache servers, and desktop systems), and is fully supported by a wide base of knowledgable users who know more than “well, restart Windows, and see if it works.”

Hooray for pirates!

Well, when it comes to integrity and trust, the word “Microsoft” doesn’t spring to many sane minds. And along comes a document detailing how Microsoft funds anti-Open-source “thinktanks” to rub it in a bit further. This on top of a suspected finger in the SCO pie, and a suspected finger in the Alexis de Toqueville Institute’s blistering bit of FUD. And on top of things like the Halloween documents. And taking out every single conceivable patent they can regardless of prior arts and the impact these patents will have on the IT community at large.

One problem with the United States (among many, many problems) is that it’s just so darn big. Japan, on the other hand, doesn’t have that particular issue, although you practically have to be rich to breathe there. But imagine for a second actually stringing fibre optic cable all over the USA, versus all over Japan; it’s no wonder they have broadband internet access nearly everywhere, and the US is nowhere close to that. Here in Canada (bigger than the US, with way less people! Yay!) it’s limited to major urban centres: I have some friends who live just fifteen minutes out of a medium-sized city, and they’re restricted to dialup because no one really cares about the five people living on their street. It sucks. Everywhere I go I have broadband. I can’t wait for pages to load up on a 56k modem. That’s like driving 40kph down a highway.

So yeah, The Register is reporting that about a third of US adultsa are currently rejecting the internet for one reason or another. Which is interesting, because who knew there were so many Amish to go around? Goodness.

Okay, so railguns (guns that use microwave, laser, and electromagnetic-kinetic energy to destroy or injure their targets) aren’t exactly common. But you can build your own with a few handy tips. So it’s not the most user-friendly thing around (or, for that matter, hostile-friendly), and it requires a bit of technical knowlege, but I forsee a time when railguns of all sorts begin to proliferate the market. So when the neighbor’s dog is barking in the middle of the night, you FR4G H1M with your R41L GUN. Take that, little dog. You’ve been 0wnz0red!

I just dropped an entire board of tools (which were, thankfully, simple and undamaged for the most part), cutting my hand in the process. Yes, folks, this is what I get for working in a machine shop: long hours, hot days, immobility, and a the death of a thousand cuts. Darnit. Oh, I also get payed more than most people.

In other news, Yahoo is reporting that SpaceShipOne’s almost pristine sounding first flight and brief entry into space didn’t exactly go as well as you may have thought.

If you don’t want to RTFA, here’s a snippet: “Melvill said he leveled out the rocketship, but then experienced trim problems during his climb outside the Earth’s atmosphere — an issue that he dealt with as he made his way to a desert runway landing. During SpaceShipOne’s climb, Melvill said he also heard a surprising bang, coming from the engine area where a fairing holding the craft’s nozzle buckled.”

Please be aware that fair use laws indicate that this quotation in entirely legal. *grin*