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I am tearing my hair out. I got a new thinkpad a few days ago. It has something running in the background that is causing the window that I'm typing into to lose focus at random, sometimes as often as every couple of minutes. I tried installing tweakUI and its feature to prevent apps from stealing focus, but it's had no effect. So, I type away, and I lose characters if I'm not watching like a hawk. Surely there is an app I can install that would sit around and, when something tries to grab the focus, would say "gotcha!"

The December 2006 issue of IEEE Spectrum carries an article about the life and tragic death of Jack A. Morton, of Bell Labs: How Bell Labs Missed the Microchip. It includes "On integrated circuits in particular, Morton exhibited serious blind spots that cost the parent phone company, AT&T, dearly--and may have contributed to its eventual dismemberment."

Those of us with past ties to Bell Labs can get rather wistful on reading this....

(Rejected posting. I thought this one would make it!)

Dave Patterson, President of the ACM, has the "Curmudgeon" piece in the 11/05 issue of ACM Queue, which has finally made it into their online edition. It starts with "I'm sick of hearing all the whining about how outsourcing is going to migrate all IT jobs to the country with the lowest wages" and continues from there to say that actually IT jobs in the US are growing and "Despite the rumors, the facts say that IT outsourcing is not the job-sucking vampire that everyone has been whining about." He accuses people of fear-mongering. Is he right?

I've heard of random acts of kindness, but this is ridiculous.

David Isenberg has a great, great blog, one of my favorites. Today he referred to two, count them two, quotes by President Bush that really make me go "hmm". I have trouble believing them, but if so ... he's in a lot of hot water. On Leno, if noplace else :).

1. "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
2. "I don't give a goddamn. I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."