Iconic

Just a note to myself, in case I ever need something like an LJ icon: start with this image. And when I add that the caption would be "Don't piss off the geeks," Tom will know exactly what's there without even looking at it.

More shinyness!

My Serenity Countdown widget (now at version 1.1) got mentioned on WHEDONesque. I am jazzed.

That nice dinner

Speaking of that nice dinner (as Tom was below), I want to remember that tonight's was courtesy of Zin Restaurant and Moshin Vineyards. It was all wonderful, especially the 2002 Pinot Noir Lot 4 Selection Russian River Valley from the latter (which I'm finishing off as I type this).

But best of all was the company. Happy anniversary to you too, sweetie.

Up with stupidity!

This post over on Daily Kos regarding the "debate" being held in Kansas the last few days between creationists and sane people regarding the teaching of evolution in Kansas schools gets it exactly right:

My problem with this debate is that this isn't about being pro-religion or anti-religion or faith-neutral; it's about institutionalizing stupidity as a valid lifestyle choice.

...

But if you are a creationist, or a believer in the identical but more pompously named intelligent design, your views on acceptable and unacceptable science will not coincidentally be delineated precisely along rather personal lines:

• If I understand it, it's science.
• If I don't understand it, God did it.

...

So for a creationist, God and magic are roughly indistinguishable. The boundary lines between God and science, however, are always exactly laid at the limiting lines of the practitioner's own education. Fancy that.

And yet, these dunderheads think that they are capable of deciding what information should be taught to Kansas children. As one of the commenters on the post said: "While we have people who want to institutionalize medieval thought, other countries are busy trying to turn out scientists and engineers, and they are going to eat our lunch one day soon."

Look, I have no problems with religious people believing whatever the hell they want about anything they want. But when they try to impose their superstitions on people who don't believe the same way, it's time to fight. Claiming that superstition is science doesn't make it so.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

On this day, four years ago, Dori and I were married in a terrific ceremony here in our little town of Healdsburg, with dear friends and family cheering us on. We followed that with a wonderful honeymoon cruise in the Mediterranean. This year, we're working hard on books, so all we'll have time for is a nice dinner out.

Having Dori in my life is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm happy and proud to be with her. And I'd marry her all over again.

Go break something

Okay, some more thoughts along the lines of last night's post.

I read up on what's going on with Channel 9 and Team 99 (which is what Scoble was talking about). I have to laugh, because there's all these people there talking about how they want on this team, and they're such evangelists, and they talk about nothing but Longhorn, Longhorn, Longhorn, and they bleed MS colors, etc. Me? The last thing I posted MS-related was that I thought that Bill Gates sucked. I don't do evangelism just because I'm invited into a beta program, and if you ask my opinion, you're going to get it. Hell, even if you don't ask my opinion you're likely to get it.

So, here's my take on MS and their future, and if it gets me un-nominated, that's fine with me:

I think that Microsoft is boring. I think that Microsoft software is boring.

Whenever I talk to someone from Microsoft, all I hear in response to whatever I'm asking for is, "We can't do that." They can't do that because it would hurt backwards compatibility. They can't do that because it would hurt Office sales. They can't do that because it would hurt Windows sales. They can't do that because the Mac product needs to work with the Windows product.

They can't. They can't. They can't.

The fact of this business is that disruptive technologies happen, whether you like them to or not. If you create them yourself, you've got some control over how/when it happens. If you refuse to create them yourself, you have no one to blame but yourself when you become obsolete. It's the difference between good products and great products.

So Microsoft — go break something. Then you'll be interesting.

The kind of day it has been

Yes, it's nearly 11 pm and I'm still in my office and I haven't had dinner yet. It's been that kind of day. But any day that I turn a chapter in is a good day.

OTOH, being around this late and finding Scoble taking my name in vain, could be, hmmm, interesting. I'll have to think about this one and what trouble it could get me into.

Dashboard-Dev mailing list

From the day I started messing with Dashboard, I wanted Apple to set up a mailing list for Dashboard developers. I was told to have patience, and that as soon as Tiger shipped, it would happen. Tiger shipped Friday, and yesterday Apple started a list: Dashboard-dev Info Page. Sign up and join the fun!

Serenity Countdown widget

Oh, come on, talk about your stupid widgets! Who really thinks that you need something on your desktop that says how long it is until Serenity is released?

That would be me, I guess. And if you have any problems with it, let me know.

Republicans: Heartless Bastards. But you probably knew that.

I don't think you can find anyone who thinks on the merits that giving food and medicine to poor people rank number one -- or even close to number one -- on the list of dubious government projects that ought to be on the chopping block. So how is it that these particular programs wound up being the ones to get the ax? Well, it's not too difficult to understand. These are programs that benefit poor people who can't hire lobbyists and who, therefore, lack clout in a Washington, DC run by a Republican Party that's decided to outsource policymaking to K Street.

There are a few lessons to be learned here. One is that Republicans are bastards. Another is that this is what will happen to Social Security if it's transformed into a welfare program instead of the universal social insurance program it is today. The third is that every conservative who promises that no such thing will ever happen but who isn't exactly speaking out forthrightly against these "soak the poor" cuts (i.e., pretty much all of them) is not to be trusted.

Check out his stuff through Wednesday.