Ever wonder why fundies in the US have such a woody for Israel? Puzzled that the Bible belt indigent elected a rich boy to 2 terms? Someone asked me this question and I finally found the answer, so I wrote it here.

In the 80's a person might have had a single home computer over which they had complete authority. Now it's unlikely for me to go 24 hours without touching at least 4 different computers with different operating systems and capabilities. My authority over them is often limited. If I struggle with someone else's weird setup I am readily forgiven, but if I mess up using vi or Word I look incompetent. Most time-saving components require configuration, personalization, and training. Experien

In the 80's a person might have had a single home computer over which they had complete authority. Now it's unlikely for me to go 24 hours without touching at least 4 different terminals with different pointer devices and key layouts. My authority over them is often limited. If I struggle with someone else's weird setup I am readily forgiven, but if I mess up on a extended keyboard & mouse I look incompetent. So I personally use the most common types of input devices in order to get g

The claim: Bookmarks help you keep track of internet sites that are important to you.
The truth: Bookmarks make it painful to switch browsers (save Mozilla), operating systems (favoring Microsoft), and computers (favoring ISPs).
Update: the advent of del.icio.us, pbwiki, and other means of global bookmarking via Internet server have solved this problem.

Copyright creates a false scarcity in order to inflate the value of items of small worth. The greatest works of information stand on their own, they need no prop and cannot be "stolen". It is foolish to consider items of small worth your culture, for you see yourself in relation to your culture and its worth. Copyright does you, humble member of society, a favor: you are rescued from further saturation of our worst works that would crowd out our best ones.

You vote without proof that your vote is counted or protected from misuse. You do it because the government promised you that. You declare for your faith without proof that it is the one way. You do it because your religious text or authority promised you that. Now compare the track record of promises kept by your religious faith against those kept by your government. BTW, if the government comes out ahead, then the government IS your religion.

People use a dictionary word to help them remember the sequence of characters they need to type. Why not just pick a sequence of characters that is easy to remember, given the position of the characters on a keyboard? Try typing "mnbvcxz" and you'll see what I mean. For paranoid password programs you can include numbers and special characters without much difficulty. For learning purposes, you can write the first letter on a sticky and then draw the shape with a line and arrow thus: <-

Badly. The WWW, IM, music, photos, telephony, and now sadly, ringtones exist just about everywhere I visit. The convenience of modern telephony ensures that people will call without thinking through their questions first. What's left is small talk and not urgent. The ability to leave messages for oneself seems intriguing, but the technology is surpassed by that of an 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper-- it stands up to abuse better, is more user-friendly, and requires no monetary contractual obli

When I don't want to be bothered, I turn the telephone ringer off. When I pick up the phone to make a call, the handset alerts me to any voicemail messages. I then skim my voicemail, which sometimes eliminates the need to call. After I call I'll turn the ringer on, if I feel like it. I do not own exclusive rights to the 10-digit number sequence that is my telephone number. But the handset is mine, and I will choose whether to answer it or not. I set my boundaries-- I choose when I will talk a

Imagine your manager switching to Linux. Imagine him asking you lots of questions at inopportune times. Imagine spending a lot of time at his computer, educating him over and over about the dangers of running as root. Imagine upper management putting together policies to govern the frightening liability risk caused by this do-anything system. Imagine IT co-opting the Linux rollout in order to provide "better service". Imagine Red Hat 5.1, because IT has the manual for that distro. Imagi

This comment represents the point of view of many I have talked with. I decided to set down my thoughts about it here.

First let me address the pro-life readers. Consider who gets a late-term, partial birth abortion. You have the people who couldn't come up with the money right away because of genuine financial hardship (i.e., homeless people). You have the people who could have done it sooner but refused to get their priorities straight until they became inconvenienced by the pregnancy (i.e., crack whores). You have the people who didn't realize they were pregnant for 6 months (i.e., mentally challenged)