I read a great article about the reason that Microsoft Windows is a dangerously naive operating system from the ground up. It was built with a different paradigm that pretended that everyone would be nice and that there were no other operating systems or application developers (save it’s own licensed mob-family) that were even in existence!

Okay, it’s a little bit strong. But read this summary and then the article for yourself…

As a Linux desktop user himself, system administrator Chris Spencer did not relish having to clean up his wife’s infected Windows PC after it had become compromised. By the time he’d solved the immediate problem, Spencer had become so fed up with spyware, trojans, viruses, and spam, that he decided it was time to write a letter to the world. It’s a simple message: it’s time to switch from Windows to Linux. “The letter serves as a guide,” Spencer explains, “taking you through some of the history of Microsoft right up to this present day.”

You probably won’t believe this, but here is a story about a grandmother’s household where her three grandsons were staying. One night four burglers broke into the house while everyone was home and they probably thought the tenants were no match for them. Well the grandsons at the time were playing Grand Theft Auto, a console video game notorious for it’s violent and sexual content. In the midst of the game, police scanner message often blurt out to give it more realism. When the burglers were in the middle of their burgeling, the game shouts out “Stop, this is the Police! You’re surrounded!” Thinking it was real, the crooks jet the scene and end up getting caught by real cops. This is going to be on the violent video game advocate’s books for a long time. Me? I just find it ironic.

I just read a very thorough and (In my humble opinion) accurate article about what’s wrong with the patent system in the United States and a pretty solid plan to bring the system back into balance.

As an example of the patent system run awry, notice that Microsoft patented the “Double-Click“. Now, in the ideal world if you can show prior art (meaning that it’s been done in the public domain before) then a patent would be thrown out faster than you can sneeze. But obviously the system which examines patent claims for the existence of prior art is broken. People were using the double click before Microsoft’s operating systems even made use of the mouse. I believe Apple even beat them to it, too. :-)

This is only one of the problems with the current system. Believe it or not, the mess we have was actually the result of trying to fix even greater problems back in 1982.

I was just reading an article about the incredible websearch engine Google. Not only is it terribly useful, but it’s an incredibly clean design both outside and inside. The guys who built this thing and made it grow were incredible. Read an article here that marvels at this 8th wonder of the world:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/0,39023769,39168647-1,00.htm

Here’s a quote that I particularly liked. They were talking about how prepared they are for system failure with their redundancy and easy of rolling out new data centre’s in times of crisis.

A new data centre can be up and running in under three days. “Our data centre now is like an iMac,” said Schulz.” You have two cables, power and data. All you need is a truck to bring the servers in and the whole burning in, operating system install and configuration is automated.”

Notice, Our data centre now is like an iMac. Whoa! Apple’s iMac is now a standard of ease, simplicity, and robustness. I’m proud to be on the Macintosh team. :-)

While browsing the net looking for info about the holocaust I stumbled on an interesting article:

Triangles and Tribulations: The Politics of Nazi Symbols

The gist is the author is concerned about how the gay/lesbian/bisexual community is using the Pink Triangle as their symbol to rally around. It’s a very informative article that revealed more about the inner workings of the Nazi regime than I realized before. Colored shapes were used to mark people in different categories. The familiar Star of David was used to denote Jews. Pink was used for homosexuals. Each group was then rounded up and dumped in their respective concentration camps. I never knew there were more groups than just Jews who were collected and tortured. A telling failure of our education on these issues, most likely. Many people I know have never heard of this either.

But here’s the interesting part. The author is somewhat concerned that the Pink Triangle would be adopted as a chrished symbol given it’s history. Observe:

Why has the rebellious color become pink and not lavender? Why not two male symbols or two women’s symbols? The answer, in part, may be historical ignorance. It may also be internalized heterosexism; the willingness to embrace the very symbols of one’s destruction reflects an incredible degree of hatred and self-contempt. In an age of AIDS and historical revisionism, it is frighteningly coincidental that the current identifiers are symbols from a period of death and totalitarianism.

Internalized heterosexism. Hatred and self-contempt. In this day and age where we are so sensitive to make sure that we don’t offend minority groups, it’s interesting to note the level of alarm this article raises. This was published in the Journal of Homosexuality by the way.

Speaking of minorities, I’m an INFP which makes up only 1% of the general population. :-)

There’s an urban legend floating around about a guy who straps a bunch of ballons to a lawnchair to see if he’ll float in the air. When he cuts the lawnchair free, he shoots up in the air way to fast and dies of starvation and fright several miles up. Well, it’s officially been done. Kind of.

This dude here strapped scores of huge helium baloons to himself and documented the experience very well. There are some sweet pictures that you must check out! Here’s the site…

http://www.clusterballoon.org/

Part of me would really love to do that.