More info on the Microsoft "switcher" astroturf brouhaha: details and a timeline.

Behold! The evolution of math education in America!

BWA-hahahahaha! Hee hee hee! I'm absolutely dying! Hooray for the Scots!!!

Hear hear! Eric S. Raymond (nearly) hits the nail on the head with his "Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto". I would have left of the mention of the big-L Libertarians as they're so insignificant in numbers and influence that I can only read this paragraph as a plea from the pulpit. Aside from that, however, right on baby!

I don't get it. Are they asking to be next? Or is this an indicator of their willingness to institute their own change of regime in order to forestall our forcible regime change? Hmmm.

Well, dang. It's really going to be difficult to convince the missus to let me spend a few bucks on a new rig for 3D modeling now that the secret is out.

I don't have any suggestions on how to make it work, but damn me if I don't want to help this woman get what she's asking for. I'm hoping that our showing in Iraq will cause something to happen spontaneously there. If not, well, poop. Maybe another alternative will present itself.

BWA-hahahahahaha! That'll teach 'em!!!!

BWA-hahahahahaha! I had been contemptuously dismissive of Apple's "Switch" campaign, mostly because of the universally dweebish character of the "professional" users they trot out as spokesvermin (as opposed to Tony Hawk and Kelly Slater, who have day-jobs not involving computer crap). It must have been effective, however, because Microsoft came up with their own "Switch" campaign showing how "easy" (read: painful) it is to switch to Winders from a Macintosh. The problem? The whole thing was a lie.

Way back when MS was in court trying to claim, with straight faces, that they weren't monopolists but were philanthropists of the first order, they claimed that the people were on their side. To demonstrate, they pointed to a "grass roots" effort to petition the court to stop picking on Microsoft. Unfortunately for MS, the artificial nature of the campaign was winkled out in an amazingly short time, and the online world crafted a new name for that kind of underhandesness: "astroturf". (Get it? Artificial grass? Hee hee!)

Right on schedule, MS demonstrates that they continue to think their job is to LIE TO THEIR F*CKING CUSTOMERS!!!! Is there anybody who still believes that Microsoft is out to do anything, and I mean anything whatsoever, besides increase their market share and/or earnings? Other corporations have to limit their predations upon their customer base because the customers could go somewhere else. If IBM lies to you about WebSphere, BEA will cheerfully sell you a Weblogic license. If Oracle lies to you about their security-hardened database, well then IBM will sell you a DB2 license. Microsoft doesn't seem to have that limit; if Microsoft lies to you about a security vulnerability (cross-site scripting, VBA, HTML mail in Outlook, etc etc ad nauseam), then you can, um, piss up a rope.

I can only hope that a security breach so extreme happens somewhere that insurance firms will either raise the premiums for, or stop insuring entirely, companies which use Microsoft products as their infrastructure. I don't see any other path down which the U.S. would cease their reliance on Microsoft products, damn it all.

This article states that the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" campaign starring Steven the Dude moved a lot of product. His likely reward? A pink slip! Will they work that into the commercial? He's making his "Dude, you're getting a Dell" comment to some schlub, and his manager towers over him and says "The vocal minority of hipsters find you unspeakably bourgoise, and so you're being downsized! Piss off!"

Ralph Peters (yes, that Ralph Peters), writes a short essay on why the bombing in Bali represents the fading power of Islamic Fundie terrrorists, and not any sign of a resurgent strength. (Unfortunately, the WSJ in general and the Opinion Journal in particular occasionally require a free registration to read their articles. Sorry about that. Register if you want to read it, or not if you don't)

Maybe it's just me, but perhaps a lifetime of teaching yourself to talk to imaginary friend(s) doesn't really prepare you for the kind of scepticism needed to survive in the U.S. these days? I mean, it seems that any schmuck can say "it's God's will" and you've got nothing to check against, because after all the ways of the diety beyond mortal ken (or some such). To paraphrase Queen Victoria, "just lie back and think of Heaven".

(You have also got to be a bit of a moron to fall for this.
A fool and his money are easily parted.
Lee)

I'm not usually one to put stuff on my car (mostly because I don't have anything to say to random strangers that can be captured in an icon), but I might have to make an exception or three.