Got there 10 minutes after they opened (6:10am) and was out before 7. Lines were long but moving quickly. Efficient process and good poll workers, who don't get nearly enough credit for what they do. Scantron-style voting machine (paper ballots ftw). The stuff I expected on the ballot (President, senate, congress, governor and associated state executive, state representative, and a ballot measure) along with a couple other ballot measures I wasn't familiar with but I read through and voted on.

Michigan is a beautiful state. Once you clear Detroit you get a sportsman's paradise with fishing, camping, and hunting in some very scenic and well tended state and county parks. The summers are very temperate (rarely gets into the mid 90's) and the humidity is pretty comfortable.

The winters are...more interesting. Not horrible, but lots of snow and cold.

Exactly what's the impact-level difference between the GPL and software patents then?

Oh yeah, patents expire, and copyright doesn't. Gotcha.

Great PR here guys.

They could try having a product when they have a product announcement. You know, a thing to sell, or pre-order with a solid ship date. I saw the new Nokia phone announcement and was like "that sounds great, I need a new phone now anyway" and looked for a ship date. nothing. Looked for a price. nothing. Looks like a great phone.

Shipping is a feature. Announce when that feature's complete, not other features. Amazon had an announcement, they had products, they had pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're burning through sales. Apple had an announcement, they have pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're selling product and their online store is already on backorder.

Microsoft and Nokia had announcements. They have no product, no preorders, people didn't get any hands on time with what the actual shipping product will be, the phone demo movie was faked up to the point where if they hadn't backed off they'd be looking at criminal fraud indictments, the actual "products" they had for demos were showing powerpoint slides for all they were worth.

Tease launches only work for industry-new products. Apple pulled it off with the original iPhone and iPad because there weren't any competitive products in the space, so the market didn't have an option to go out and buy something that filled that need *right now*. Microsoft and Nokia are trying to do a tease launch, when I can go to the store and buy something very similar for a probably similar price and have it in my hand before Microsoft and Nokia will get around to announcing prices, much less ship dates.

Microsoft is so used to being the industry leader they've forgotten how to act when they're not. Little hint guys: Apple's iPhone business is bigger than Microsoft. Not that Apple is bigger, Apple's iPhone business. Just that one piece of their business. Not that Apple couldn't be taken down by an innovative competitor with an effective marketing strategy, but Microsoft is neither an innovative competitor nor do they market effectively.

So, again, Microsoft is too little and too late to the party, and will be utterly ignored.

I think the IT groups are short sighted and impatient. The rest of the business is trying to get work done, IT staff is trying to implement and preserve policy, and said policy is generally geared towards protecting IT turf and keeping people from getting their work done and is so far from being aligned with the rest of the business strategy that it's pathetic. This is not a new problem.

Why did the PC get popular? To circumvent delays in reporting from IT controlled mainframes, accounting departments bought PC's with Lotus 1-2-3 so they could produce their own reports and do analysis on financial information without a multi-month IT project.

Why did SOAP get popular? To circumvent firewall restrictions on RPC. Getting a firewall rule put into place for different apps is really hard, not from a work perspective but from a process perspective. Dropping in a single web server and making it handle all the requests is a one-time thing and removes the power (and security management) from IT.

Why are cloud services popular? Because IT is trying to keep everything so locked down that people have to use dropbox to get access to their data or share it outside the organization.

All these technologies were huge risks and have, in the long term, created a lot of security and manageability problems for IT. And every problem that was created was created indirectly by IT by not giving people the tools they need to do their jobs. It's raised costs, it's raised vulnerability, and it's increased the IT workload because IT wasn't foresighted enough to realize that, hey, sometimes people do need to share big files with people outside the company, or sometimes people do need to send an attachment through email that's more than 10 MB.

Most people in organizations aren't paid for being in compliance with IT policy. They're paid to get work done. Very few IT departments understand that.

First it was eggs. "Eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, eggs are good for you..."
That cycle took about 20 years.

Then it was high fat diets. Then low fat diets. Then caveman diets. Everything is either good or bad for you depending on what time of day it is. The cycles are getting faster and faster too. 20 years for eggs, adkins style diets went in and out in about 5 years, and caveman diet is the "in thing" for the last several months, probably to be proven deadly tomorrow.

Now alcohol's toxic? I mean, just yesterday I was reading that alcohol was good for me. That one seems to change every day.

Maybe the reason nobody really takes anything scientists say at face value is that it all changes 3 days later when some stupid reporter covers a story as "What scientist X said last week is going to kill you, scientist Y says this week is incredibly good for you!"

Maybe I'll just keep living a life of moderation and ignore all this crap. So far all these folks are doing is making me stress about doing the same things my grandparents (who all lived into their 90's) did all their lives. I'll keep eating vegetables (you know, more people died of food related illnesses last year from eating vegetables than from eating meat?) and meat (Dead Cows and Pigs FTW) and fish (Mercury poisoning FTL) and such.

I'll probably end up getting hit by a truck or something, and then what'd all that deprivation get me?

"We consistently advise users to only install apps they trust."

How the hell am I supposed to know that? Compile and review every line of source myself? Sorry, I have a day job.

Maybe I'll just find some application marketplace where they (1) certify apps are safe and perform well, and (2) don't violate my privacy without sending data around without my permission. That'd be an awesome idea. Some kind of marketplace that would actually verify that the application works on my device, does what it says it does, and behaves itself. That's a service I'd really pay for.

Oh wait, I do pay for that.

Welcome to iPhone.

It's not like it's a forum for political dissidents to post how oppressed they are living in fear of their regime. It's not like it's a forum for victims of child abuse to discuss their thoughts and feelings and get support. Those are places where people need anonymity in order to feel free to share their thoughts and feelings. I can understand all those.

This forum is, however, not that case.

IT'S A FREAKING VIDEO GAME.

I don't understand the need for anonymity there.

I'm completely in favor of yanking anonymity from that forum.

I haven't been to the official forums in YEARS. The quantity of utter crap posted there outweighs any value the forums might have, especially since I can retrieve all the important news from mmo-champion or whatnot. I think that putting real names in there might reduce the impact of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory by eliminating anonymity from the equation. I wonder how much of Facebook's popularity is the custom and practice of using real names? Probably a lot of it. When people don't have anonymity, they tend to act civilly.

There's nothing you need to post to a video game forum anonymously. It's not like you're espousing controversial political positions (and if you are, word of advice, GO TO A POLITICS BOARD) or something.

I think that the current semi-anonymous system works for Slashdot because of the reputation and moderation system. I remember what it was like before moderation, and it was...well, a lot like the WoW forums are now. I don't think a similar system would work on the WoW forums, because the troll:user ratio was nearly infinite when I quit reading the forums.

If they're trying to make the forums more relevant and have a higher level of participation in the community, getting rid of anonymity is the first step. I think Blizzard really thinks they should be hosting the valuable discussions about their product, and not have the real interesting analysis all done at Elitist Jerks. At the point that their game designers had to go read Elitist Jerks forums so they could see how their own products were working they probably realized they had a problem.

You can still post anonymously at wow.com. And I can continue to ignore WoW.com and feel 100% informed about the game.

First, any company bigger than 20 people is going to have an HR person who is screening resumes. That person has no technical background at all. They don't know a good programmer from a good accountant from a good coffeemaker. What they do have is a buzzword bingo card. And they run through your resume, looking for the right buzzwords, and the ones they find get a checkmark, they add up the checkmarks and put the resume into one short stack, to send on to the manager that's actually hiring, and the big stack of rejects.

So you need to get a buzzword compliant resume. If you know C# put that on there. If you know SQL Server, or Oracle, or whatever else, put that on there. Do you know how to program microcontrollers? Put that on there. Break every convention you were taught in writing classes, and put a big list of all of the technologies you know using all the industry jargon you can. This isn't to make you look like a smart insider. This isn't for anyone's benefit but the little buzzword bingo player. You should have a collection of a half dozen or so targeted resumes you can send out, each one tailored to a certain industry and technology set with appropriate buzzwords for each.

That sounds really really cynical. It isn't. It's absolute truth. You must have the skills they're looking for, but more importantly they must be clearly presented somewhere so a receptionist (that's who did it at my first job) can figure it out. When I was looking for a job getting out of school, I went fully buzzword compliant and that's what got me there. Managers do not have time to go through 300 resumes to find the 5 people they want to interview for 2 positions. They delegate that. Delegation is what managers do.

Second, if you don't have the buzzwords (C#, Java, .Net, SQL Server, etc) get them. Find an internship. If you're getting ready to graduate and you didn't do that, you screwed up. Internships are how you get jobs. Or summer jobs. Or part time jobs. Or something where you can learn something practical in a real office environment. You still have time. Go pick up a "Learn C# in 30 days" book and figure it out well enough to write some code and make sure it's prominently displayed on your resume.

Third, know your market. If you tried to apply for a java programming job here in Kansas City, you'd be out of luck because Sprint's been laying off Java programmers by the bucketload. But trying to get a job using C# or VB.Net or as an entry level systems person on Windows Server would be pretty easy.

Finally, just remember, it does get better. The first job is the hard one to find. The rest get easier as you meet people and develop contacts. That's the key really. After you do your first blind job hunt, you never have to do it again, because you'll know someone. That means you need to build a reputation as someone who's really good at doing what they do while being extremely easy to work with and get along with.

I know it sucks, but really it's pretty much the last thing that sucks.

Yes, and when a bad ad hits my radio, it doesn't cause my radio to give out my credit card number. When a bad ad hits my PC, it installs a keylogger.

Do you use a DVR to skip commercials?

If so, please explain how that's different from using adblock.

Now I'll tell you how using a DVR is different from using adblock. I haven't seen a TV commercial that an infect my TV and make it quit working or invade my privacy or steal my identity. I have seen very widespread Flash advertisements on web pages that will do exactly that.

Agreed. If there was a flash block extension and an extension to un-animate animated GIFs and such I'd use chrome. I don't mind Google's ads. Until then, I'll make do with Firefox.

That covers nearly everything I was going to post.

There are a lot of little things that look like total bullshit that really make a difference. I can say that, I've been married for almost 15 years now. So I have a little cred here. Always, every single night, ask her how her day went, and ask questions as she goes through it. You know you're doing this right when you can name her boss and at least two co-workers she interacts with daily and describe their personalities to some degree. Once again, sounds like bullshit, but it's a big impact.

There are two styles of conflict resolution. Some couples use direct confrontation, and some negotiation. We negotiate. They key is to find consensus, something you can both agree on completely. If you reach a decision and realize that you didn't win, she didn't win, but you won as a couple, then you're doing it right.

I think it was Heinlein who said "If you're wrong, apologize immediately. If you're right, apologize even faster." A bit harsh, but what he means is don't celebrate when you're right, and downplay it quickly. The problem is, that if you look victorious, she feels like she's lost. And that's not going to end well.

Every day, try to sit down to one meal a day together. Even if it's at McDonalds or something. This is where the "how'd your day go" conversation should happen.

A lot of people will tell you to do everything together. They're wrong. Do what you both enjoy doing together. Do what you don't both enjoy doing apart. I play video games. She knits. I ride my bike. She watches tv. We do cook together, go on road trips together, and a bunch of other stuff. But don't do stuff together just for the sake of doing stuff together. One of you will look bored, and the other will try to rush through things and not enjoy it. And that'll end badly. So just decide to do stuff apart sometimes.

I voted for obama too, but....

Really, what the fuck did you expect?

In a campaign financed with big money from actors, musicians, movie studios, producers, and so on, nobody has any RIGHT to think anything but this would happen. THE MAN HAD BIG NAME MUSICIANS ON STAGE PERFORMING BEFORE HIS SPEECHES. They weren't doing it solely out of the kindness of their hearts. And if you think they were, PLEASE STOP VOTING BECAUSE YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Seriously. Anybody who expected an "information wants to be free" pro-copyright-reform president is way out of their fucking skull and shouldn't be voting.

He's got to do this, and copyright enforcement is going to be a very big priority for the incoming administration, just like anti-porn enforcement is for the outgoing administration. They have to pay off their constituencies. That's how the game is played. The game didn't change, no matter what the slogan was.

So why'd I vote for him? Same reason I ever vote, lesser of two evils. They would have done the exact same things economically (none of which will work) and spent the exact same amounts of money causing the exact same amounts of debt, pulled us out of our foreign expeditions at the exact same time. McCain would have put pro-life creationists on the Supreme Court, and Obama won't. That's the only difference worth voting on.