Talibanism in Technology

Joe dropped me a note saying that I'd be interested in the article "Talibanism in Technology: Seven reasons why women in technology remain invisible..." and it appears that he's likely to be right about that. Unfortunately, I can't read it in my browser, as the page reloads every 90 seconds, requiring me to then re-find where I was before I can start reading again. I gave up part-way through, but I'm still interested (although I do have my doubts about any article that uses an Internet survey as source material) so if anyone finds this piece elsewhere on-line, let me know. No, there doesn't appear to be a "print" option.

Calling statistics geeks!

Attention statistics geeks: In this political season, we're all seeing lots of polls, and they all have a reported margin of error (MOE). Now, I think that I understand what that means. But let's look at some numbers reported today from the LA Times Iowa poll:

Dean 30
Gephardt 23
Kerry 18
Edwards 11

The reported MOE is 4%. Now, I understand that means that Dean could be as high as 34 and as low as 26, and Gep could be as high as 27 and as low as 19. But in polls like this, is there any rule of thumb people can use for the likely, "real" result? In other words, I know that the MOE analysis says that Gep could possibly be beating Dean. But how likely is it that he is really doing so? My gut assumption for years when I see polls with a MOE number has been to take the number, cut it in half, assign the result negatively to the guy on top, and positively to the candidate on the bottom. Then I use that as a conservative estimate for where the race is. So far that has seemed to work. But is that just voodoo on my part?

Today's quote

Quote of the day:

Get the right tool for the job. My tools are words, and I have a whole toolbox full. When I need to do a word-job I always try to reach for just the right tool. That way I am able to say exactly what I mean. If I use a word you don't understand, please don't ask me to dump it for one that you know. Instead, ask me what my word means. Then you can put it in your toolbox. Then, when you have a word job, you'll have a box full of tools and be able to say exactly what you mean.
— Utah Phillips

Yeah, right

Normally I'd be thrilled that any president makes a proposal like this one: Bush Plans Missions to the Moon, Mars. But here, not so much. Bush simply can't be trusted to fund this adequately. Remember, this is the guy who stiffed New York City on post-9/11 reconstruction funds. Who cuts veteran reimbursements. Who underfunded his AIDS initiative from the last State of the Union speech. Who underfunded his own signature education initiative, No School Board Left Standing. This is just another political lollipop that Bush will show off to score some cheap points, then his henchmen will quietly use the money for more tax cuts for their rich buddies. It'll be yet another Bush bait-and-switch, mark my words.

Bluetooth printing

Just a reminder for us to follow up on this after we get back from Macworld Expo: Script Software - Bluetooth Print Bridge.

Control Your Mac with Your PDA

Over on MacDevCenter.com, it's Control Your Mac with Your PDA, my first article for the O'Reilly Network. It's material that didn't quite fit into Mac OS X Unwired but I thought was too cool to not tell people about.

Post-Keynote thoughts

A few post-keynote thoughts:

• The iPod mini is cool looking, but I have to say, the price of $249 just ain't compelling for a 4 Gb player. I think that Apple is going to sell tons of $299 15 Gb iPods that suddenly look like a great deal.
• I noticed the iPod on the 1984 ad right away, probably because I have that commercial engraved on my brain.
• Towards the end of the keynote I noticed that someone claimed that they had Wi-Fi access via their bluetooth phone. I have to check that out next time around.
• GarageBand looked waaay cool, even though I've never been a musician and have no interest in being one.
• Under the old iLife plan, you only needed to pay money if you wanted iDVD—all the other apps could be downloaded for free. It appears that iMovie and iPhoto are all now only available as a bundle, either free with new Macs or for $49 as part of iLife '04. But even given that, I think that it's a good deal. iTunes is still free, so long as you go to this link and not this link. The former says "download" and the latter says "buy."
• There's a new product that wasn't announced: the iLife '04 Family Pack, which allows you to install iLife on up to 5 computers, for only $79. That's a great deal.
• My only surprise about this Apple 1984 Poster for sale on eBay is that there's only one.

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Open Source Speakers

Dave at Scripting News quotes Jim Fawcette as writing:

"Why would anyone with excellent computer skills want to work long hours to create code so that millionaire executives at IBM can use it to sell expensive mainframe computers and middleware with six-figure licenses? All for no compensation and little recognition."

Yeah, after all, it makes much more sense to hire the programmers, get them to write code, and then simply NOT PAY THEM. The next time you need programmers, just hire other people. Or does Jim only use this approach with speakers for his conferences, not with programmers?