October 2008 Archives

1919: I don't think women should be allowed to vote.

1941: Japanese-Americans are dangerous. Lock them all up.

1963: I don't want black kids in my children's school.

1965: Birth control is immoral and thus should be illegal.

1967: I don't think people of different races should be able to marry.

1972: I want to decide whether you should have a baby.

2003: Certain sex acts between consenting adults are immoral and thus should be illegal.

2008: I don't think people of the same gender should be able to marry.

Instant messages are meant to be instant. That's the whole point. Please don't start instant message conversations with "throat-clearing" phrases. Just say what you were going to say! Specifically:

• Hello or Hi: Wastes time forcing the recipient to write "Hello" back. Ensures that an IM exchange always takes at least a minute.
• Hey Mike: See above. Even worse because the recipient has to either personalize the response ("Hi Joe") or else appear rude by simply saying "Hi."
• You there? or You busy?: My status message has already answered these questions.
• Got a minute?: Irrelevant. Typical instant message exchanges should take much less than a minute.

For the geek crowd: think UDP. Send a message; maybe it'll reach the recipient, maybe it won't. Maybe you'll get a response, maybe you won't. If you're OK with this, use UDP. Same goes with IM. If you're OK with a connectionless protocol, use it. If not, consider using the telephone or email instead. But just as you wouldn't try to implement TCP over UDP, you shouldn't use telephone protocols over IM.

A couple years ago, I wrote a little Firefox add-on for my wife to help her track her progress on her novel during National Novel Writing Month. The add-on seemed useful enough to publish, and sure enough, it ranks #1 in downloads for Firefox extensions... that track writing progress... for NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I just put the source under GPL on code.google.com. Have fun!

Ask a random person what the American Dream is, and there's a good chance you'll get an answer along the lines of having a house with two cars in the garage and a nicely manicured lawn.

This is not the American Dream.

The American Dream is living in a country where you get to go to school instead of working in a factory through your childhood. It's having someone answer the phone when you dial 911. It's getting a job and keeping it in spite of the fact that your religion, race, place of birth, or last name is different from that of your boss. It's having an impartial court instead of a baseball bat to enforce legal contracts. It's starting a business without having to bribe corrupt officials.

The American Dream is not about having. It's not even about earning. It's about living in a place where earning is even possible. It's certainly not about promising to pay a mortgage of $4,000 a month when you earn $55,000 a year because the "american dream" entitles you to do so.

The Housing Crisis Threatens The American Dream? More like a perversion of the American Dream caused the housing crisis.