I thought this BBC article was fascinating. Apparently Microsoft is considering pulling out of China for humanitarian reasons. Yeah, right. I don't doubt Microsoft is considering the current political climate, but it's got nothing to do with protecting bloggers. After all, why aren't they pulling out of Saudi Arabia or Iran? I think it's obvious the real reason is China's lax IP laws, rampant software piracy, the go

It's beginning to occur to me that some things that are happening in the industry of late that I've been tracking separately are, quite possibly, directly related. IBM is pushing for Wintel independence. Apple is pushing for video through iTunes. Sony is pushing the PSP and PS3. But really, aren't these things intertwined? And do they hint at some back-room collusion between these three companies?

Yeah, I was one of them. It was me. I'm sorry. I'm one of the people who predicted the demise of Apple in the 90's. It was a guilty pleasure, I watched their downward spiral with anticipation, eagerly awaiting that day they'd finally close their doors and no one would be able to stick their nose up at my PC again. Ha!

What I love about this election is that when all the political pundits had had their say, they agreed that the deciding factor in this election was "moral issues." The war in Iraq turned into a big red herring, with both candidates promising more of the same, but Kerry promising little more than to feel bad about it. The election came down to gay marriage and abortion.

Well, I didn't want to put anything in writing while I was still hopeful that Bush may not win another four years, but now that it seems at least fairly likely I will put my opinion to paper. Or, electrons....

I went into this election with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I knew that either Bush would be upset and the world would be a bit safer for four more years, or that Bush would win and the fall of the American Empire would be dramatically hastened.

In the seven million years since Homo Sapiens evolved, our grasp of science has increased exponentially. We have mastered fire, the elements, engineering, physics, the atom, and relativity.

This article absolutely fascinated me because it was the first really smart thing I've seen from Microsoft to combat the threat of open source. They're planning on offering their developer tools, and other tools as well, as "open source". I put quotes around the phrase "open source" because they obviously won't use the GPL, but I trust them when they say they'll use some form of free license. And why not? It's a

Today while mowing the lawn I started thinking about the relative absence of good political satire in the US. Sure, there's good satire to be had, but here in Canada you can turn on the TV just about any night of the week and hear our leaders being mocked, sometimes mercilessly, on prime time. For example, there is a show here on the CBC named "This Hour has 22 Minutes" that is absolutely biting political satire. No politician comes out unscathed.

Based on my beliefs about evolution, the preceding headline must sound shocking. To clarify, I don't doubt that the Milky Way is teeming with life, however I think it's unlikely that there are any other highly advanced races in our vacinity. While I don't doubt others will appear, I suspect that we're the first. The reason is because of the exponential nature of evolutionary progress. To illustrate, here is a short timeline of history:

Dude Where's my Country? - Michael Moore

I don't think I agree with the conventional wisdom that it's an incredibly remote possibility that life could appear spontaneously, and that only the most perfect conditions could give rise to it. Nor do I think the Second Law of Thermodynamics is necessarily the sworn enemy of life or complex systems.

When I read this article today I decided it was time for another one of my technology predictions. It really surprised me because I saw hard facts, figures, and prices for true utility computing coming from the champion of specialized, high-cost computing, Sun. What's going on here? Pay-per-gigabyte NAS? Sliding price scales for underdeveloped countries? IBM is the compa

I spend a lot of time thinking about the computer industry. I work in it, so naturally it's on my mind, and the sordid goings-on between Linux, Microsoft, SCO, Novell, IBM, and Oracle make your average soap opera seem boring. I spend a lot of time trying to guess how the whole story will play out (will Darl find out that what he thinks is his baby is really the illegitimate love child of Linus and PJ?!?!) And usually my guesses are pretty close to the mark. Which is why I was so surprised

If forced to describe myself politically I'd probably be a fiscally-responsible leftist or a republican with a conscience.