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T-13, 2.02: A Love-Hate Relationship

(*heh* Bet you were expecting something about politics. Nope, politics isn’t a love-hate relationship for me. *sigh* You work it out… )

Regular readers probably know by now that I have a love-hate relationship with Me$$y$oft’$ products: I kinda love to hate ’em. *heh* Oh, I use Me$$y$oft’$ products pretty regularly (in fact, I’m writing this post on a Windows 2000 machine–that’s one of only two versions of Windows I don’t habitually think of as “Windoze”), and I do like some features of more than a few of Me$$y$oft’$ products, but… there are more than 13 things to hate about Me$$y$oft’$ products and practices. In no particular order until the last:

13. Feature creep. Oh, every software publisher does it, but with Me$$y$oft’$ products it’s a major element of every “upgrade”: how many unecessary “features” can be added to clutter up the interface and contribute to

12. Bloating. Example: Windows 95 could comfortably (safely, with the full needs of the OS considered) be installed on a hard drive with as little as 100MB free space (by contrast, my first Win3.1 system only had a 100MB hard drive and only about 1/10 of that was the OS). Windows 98 needed 2-2.5 times as much space for a comfortable installation and Win2KPro, nearly 10X as much! XP? 2 gigs of hard drive space is just about right. Have the OSes been 10X-100X better? Nope (although THE sweet spot, Windows 2000 Pro, was many, many, many times better than the old Win 3.1 or Win95 OSes, IMO). The same applies across the board to M$ applications, for example…

11. FrontPage. Vermeer FrontPage 1.0 was pretty good. Nice interface, decent web page output, etc. Bought by M$ and “twiddled with” to brand as M$ Frontpage 1.1. Still pretty good output, easy WYSIWYG editing. Not all that bad. Then M$ began to “tweak” it and add features. By the time FrontPage 98 was out, it was full of “features” that bloated the product and…

10. Fixed things that weren’t broken until they were. Yep. M$’s goal seems to be to remake the web in its own image, and so FrontPage, by FP98, was putting out all kindsa non standards-compliant gibberish (just the kind of thing M$’s non-standards-compliant browser likes). Pretty much ditto with M$ Office: M$ kept adding “features” and changing file formats (probably just to frustrate folks who were using other companies’ products that’d learned to “play well” with M$ Office and inconvenience users of those products). Result: bloatware that did NOT play nicely with others.

9. Active X. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I could do a T-13 just on things to hate about Active X. Start with the security nightmares and extend on to and through its sluggishness, memory footprint and on and on. Hate it.

8. Internet Exploder: the world’s crappiest browser (and that’s exactly how any copy of IE I install or manage is branded: “Internet Exploder, the world’s crappiest browser” *heh*). Heck, I even like Lynx better, and it’s command line only. At least it is pretty safe to use, unlike–still!–Internet Exploder. And is there ANY other modern browser that’s LESS standards-compliant? No. (Yes, I keep copies around just so I can help the poor benighted souls who still use it regularly.) Even in its latest “Me Too!” interation, it’s at least a generation behind modern browsers in both features and standards-compliance. Crappy browser, simply crappy.

7. OS “activation”. Can you say, “We think ALL of our customers are crooks, thieves and liars”? Does it stop piracy? Nope. Scemes to avoid activation abound. All M$’s activation scheme has done is inconvenience ethical users. Hmmm, seems M$ has finally (after what, seven or so years?) twigged to the fact that its activation scheme is stupid: WinXP SP3 will relax it a lot and when Vista shipped, it offered a way to avoid it altogether… Still, it’s a pain in the neck (although my real opinion is that the pain is actually located somewhere south of there) and a slap in the face to millions of honest users.

6. Sloppy code. It’s a well-earned meme: buying M$ “gold code” final products is simply buying “shrink-wrapped betaware” complete with a plethora of bugs and traps and security holes, Oh! My! Only fools (and folks who test software until it breaks on purpose) buy the first iteration of a M$ product version “upgrade,” because it WILL break something on your machine. Count on it. Shrink wrap beta. Wait for the first few patches to come through. Patch one will fix security holes M$ is willing to admit they know about (but not willing to admit they already knew about before they shipped the product, even it it’s true). Patch two will fix the things patch one broke, etc. *heh* Maybe.

5. Speaking of which, how long does it take to fix all those security holes? Take Internet Exploder, for example. Dozens more known security holes uncovered every year and M$ almost always takes months and months and months to get around to patching the damned thing (now, that wasn’t a theological assessment of the thing but a fervent wish). Other browsers, maintained by more ethical support and development staffs, usually plug security holes within a day (or days, maybe in extreme cases weeks) or so of discovery. M$ products in general vs. products from other sources: pretty comparable time scale on plugging security holes. Why? M$ just doesn’t seem to care until and unless enough poressure’s brought to bear to force it to patch its products. See #1

4. Crappy websites. M$-run websites. *sigh* Active X. See #9. Buggy, broken, messy non-compliant html and xhtml. (Yeh, I’m not much better any more, but their coders do this stuff for a,living. You’d think they’d at least try to get it right! Instead of doing it the M$ way. *heh*)

3. Cluelessness. Vista. Need I say more? The most useless downgrade of OS I have seen since Windows Muppet Edition (ME). Extravagant resource hog. Almost all the real feature upgrades promised by M$ missing (cos M$ couldn’t implement ’em and make its marketing schedule for milking the cattle of more $$). And Vista’s just the most recent example oif M$’s cluelessness. For a company with so many really smart people involved, dumb, really dumb.

2. A lot of the above boils down to the fact that M$ does things three ways: the right way (surprisingly often. Seriously), the wrong way and the M$ way. The last two are prevalent enough to seem almost overwhelming, though. *sigh*

And number 1?

Attitude: arrogance. It’s the “Do things the M$ way or screw you,” attitude that really chaps me off. It’s almost as bad as Apple that way. Not quite, but almost. *heh*

Tracked back to the Thursday Thirteen Hub and Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Leaning Straight Up, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and Adeline and Hazel, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Roundup

A brief twc roundup of the contenders in the 2008 race for the presidency.

On the Dhimicrap side of the aisle:

The Hildebeast: trying (and failing) to be her own woman. (Think about that one only as long as your stomach can take it.)

Barak Hussein Obama-Winfrey: all sizzle, no steak.

The Prancing Pony (AKA, The Breck Girl). ‘Nuff said there.

Mr Plagiarism. He’s never outgrown his law school strategy: steal others’ work and claim it as your own. (Makes for a good pirate… or Dhimicrap.)

I’m sure there’s at least one other Dhimicrappic candidate whining and whimpering off in a corner somewhere, but who cares?

Of the Republican’ts,

Snake McCain: Never saw an illegal he didn’t wanna hug (or a lie he didn’t wanna tell about it).

Huckacon: if he were Irish, he’d claim the blarney stone’s always following him around trying to kiss him. (As it is, he constantly acts as though God has him on His speeddial just to check on what He should add to the Ten Commandments.)

Rudy “Wannabe a Bent Nose”: Just looking for more perks and scams and graft (“But I’m death on Islamic terrorists! Yeh, bo! Oh, and innocent babies, too, BTW. Oh, and gimme your guns. I’ll protect you [and the check’s in the mail].”)

The Android from “Whadda ya want me to say now?” (“I fired my illegals when I got caught, what else do you want?”) [I’m just waiting for the bugs in his programming to start being noticed by even the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind.]

“Run away! Run away!” Paul. (Will somebody get his meds moderated? Please?)

And once again, I’m sure I’ve missed some loser, whimpering in a corner somewhere.

Oh, you noticed I didn’t mention Fred Thompson in the collection of candidates offered to this point? Two reasons:

  • He’s obviously not a Dhimicrap
  • Anyone who’s paying attention can see he’s not a Republican’t but a Consistent Conservative *heh*, IOW, a Republican (and not incidentally, a republican, too–there’s often a difference)
  • This post is too short to contain even one of his substantive “White Papers”

Trackposted to Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Allie is Wired, Right Truth, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Big Dog’s Weblog, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Adeline and Hazel, CatSynth.com, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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ACLU and Deviant RINO Make a Good Match

In trackback and email, both John Stephenson and “Jebediah” noted the ACLU’s defense of deviant RINO, Larry Craig.

The ACLU’s argument?

“The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to engage in anything other than sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom…”

The the ACLU’s argument is laughable on its face: “…sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom.” That it’s “supported” by a 38-year-old nonsensical Minnesota Supreme Court ruling is just icing on the cake.

Key word: “public.” Anyone imagine NOT being aware of sexual relations taking place in a “closed stall” one door over, what with four sets of feet, grunting and moaning and all the other acoutrements of getting it off? Pull the other one, doofuses. Heck, you don’t even have any real privacy when just taking a dump. (Splash, splash, gas, gas, “courtesy flush,” splash, splash… ) An “expectation of privacy” in a public facility is only present in folks who are idiots, loons or ACLU. (You guess which ones I consider the Minnesota Supreme Court of 38 years past.)

Now, if Craig had been busted in a hotel room, the ACLU would have had an argument.

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Thought for Today

A mini-micro post inspired by a comment today that got me thinking about politicians *spit*, Mass Media Podpeople and others, from Neal Boortz’s Top Ten Thoughts for 2008:

“Some people are like a Slinky … not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.”

*heh*

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Monday, Monday…

Good morning, Monday!

A couple lil thoughts to start your day:

“I certainly regret the disgrace that’s been thrust on me tonight…I certainly have lived, or have tried to live, my life so that I would never become a congressman…and I am just as ashamed of the fact I have failed as you are. And to have the commission presented by a senator is adding insult to injury.” (Will Rogers on being made an “honorary congressman”)

“History has tried hard to teach us that we can’t have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of the government couldn’t be wise.” (Mark Twain, New York Herald, 8/26/1876)

“This is not the time to elect a president who needs training wheels when it comes to foreign relations.” (Fred Thompson on Huckacon’s need for a couple of days’ ducking and weaving to give his controllers time to come up with foreign policy answers.)

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Brew Report

Mr. Beer 3-Beer Mix Variety Pack

Mr. Beer 3-Beer Mix Variety Pack

OK, right up front, I confess I am a tyro, a beginning home brewer of the most elementary class. Sure, I’ve made one batch of experimental “Georgie Porgy” molasses small beer from scratch using a fermenting “keg” I made from odds n ends (“Kitty Litter Beer”–*heh*) that turned out to be more than just drinkable, but the other four batches I’ve made to date (well, the other four drinkable batches–I did make another experimental batch I ruined, but more about that later) have all been from Mr. Beer kits.

A word about the Mr. Beer mini-micro-brewery. I’ve read comments on several lists that diss the Mr. Beer kits and the brews they output. I can unequivocally state that the naysayers were full of crap. Every single kit batch I’ve sampled has been up to the standards of some of the best micro-brews I’ve bought from the package store, and better than most, frankly.

The key? RTFM! That’s ab-so-de-lute-ly THE key. Read the directions and follow them to the letter. Seriously. Oh, I did a few things (like actually measure the temperatures of the water, the wort, etc.) that weren’t included, but only to check myself against the temps mentioned in the directions. I guess the Mr. Beer folks thought an adult would be making the stuff and so left out the simple things like that.

My failure batch? Not a Mr. Beer kit batch, an “experimental” variation on the molasses beer recipe I had previously made. What did I do to screw things up?

1. I opened the fermenter to check on floating floculant (since that fermenter’s opaque).
2. I let the airlock go dry.

Yep. Introduced something nasty that spoiled the batch. My fault. And it wasn’t a kit batch and not in the Mr. Beer keg, so no connection to the kit at all.

So, of the four different (kit) brews I have made to date, which turned out best, has been my fav?

The one I had last. *heh* Really, all of them have been excellent. But as a point of comparison, Son & Heir is quite fond of Grolsch lager. One batch (the third) was “Octoberfest’s Vienna Lager” (a Mr. Beer not-quite-lager beer, using an ordinary ale yeast, not a lager yeast). Son & Heir pronounced it better than the Grolsch, and I agree. It’s a deeper amber, is fuller flavored with a much more flowery hops presence. Very, very nice.

Of course, I have NOT used the minimum “one week in the fermenter, one week in the bottles” instruction set but allowed each of the brews adequate (maybe ten days) time in the fermenter and about the same time (or more) in the bottles before refrigeration. It’s allowed for in the kit instructions, but I imagine most folks are as impatient as I am but don’t have the impulse control I have been trying to develop, and so take the shortest time in fermenting and bottle conditioning the instructions allow. If that. *heh*

All-in-all, the Mr. Beer kit has been a very good intro to brewing. I will continue to use it–and the ready made beer ingredient kits–even as I branch out and make more “from scratch” beers.

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Passing Shots

Saw this some time ago. Can’t remember who to credit with a hat tip:

*heh*

On the road the other night. Saw a semi with a company logo with a motto that read, “Employee owned; customer driven.” Huh! They send the customers out driving those big rigs? That explains some things…

And while I’m on the road, did you ever notice that the idiots are really thick at night? Don’t believe me? Next time you’re out at night, just count how many folks can’t find their dimmer switch.

Anyone ever tell you, “Practice makes perfect”? If that were so, politicians would get it right at least once in a while.

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Just another one of those days…

Some days, I mourn for a once-sharp mind and able body. *heh* Already this morning I have:

  • lost my hat (it was on my head)
  • been unable to find my glasses (they were where I put them, but I couldn’t see that without my glasses, now could I?)
  • lost my coffee cup (with warm coffee still to drink–and yeh, it was where I’d put it, no gremlin-coffee-hiders stalking me)
  • and something else I forget… *heh*

Ain’t life grand?

Need. More. Coffee. (Now, where’d I put my cup?)

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America’s NEW Drug Problem

Gee, I wonder why the statists who are all over The Soccer Mom’s Prohibition (AKA, “The ‘War’ on Drugs”) have let this one slide… *heh*

(Yeh, yeh, I know it’s fake and I know it’s been around since May of 2007, but when Faithful Reader Hugh sent it to me, how could I not post it? Especially given the Hildebeast’s recent slide in polls. *heh*)

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Wake Up America, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.