Snappy the Clam

I saw a commerical for Dixie Rinse'n'Reuse, and at first I thought, interesting, a paper plate you can, well, rinse and reuse:

Dixie's new Rinse & ReUse disposable stoneware is the first disposable plate that looks and performs like a real plate. Not paper, not plastic, not foam, it's a unique blend of [XXX]. Soak-proof and microwavable, Rinse & ReUse can hold up to 6 pounds - far above any other disposable plate. It's even dishwasher safe!

But then it occurred to me: what the hell is the point of using paper plates that you HAVE TO WASH? Isn't the whole point to THROW THEM AWAY after you're done? Is this Dixie's attempt to get brides to register for paper plates? Yeesh. I'm also a tad nervous about that [XXX] stuff they're making them out of.

Posted by John at 2:16 PM | Permalink

Via Slashdot: IBM releases a Linux Java 1.3 JDK. Cool. Now let's see 'em release a Java 2 version of VAJava on Linux. I want that badly: a lot of my development projects at work tie me to using the Windows version cause we're using Java 2, and I'd much rather work on my Linux box, esp with the spiffy (X)Emacs integration available.

Posted by John at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Blogs and Blogs and Blogs and Blogs: FEED gets "with" blogging via Jorn Barger and RobotWisdom in Portrait Of The Blogger As A Young Man (Joyce reference - get it?) I'm sure the article'll be endlessly rehashed all over the blogUniverse for as long as it takes the next controversy to arrive. I enoy reading Jorn's stuff, though; it's refreshing to find a weblog that's not about a) the revolutionary nature of weblogging, b) other webloggers, and/or c) the revolutionary nature of your weblogging tool.

Posted by John at 5:02 PM | Permalink

This quote from the Bob Young article caught my eye:

Just ask the question, "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?" and we all answer an emphatic "No." So ask the follow-up question, "What do you know about modern internal-combustion engines?" and the answer for most of us is, "Not much."

Interestingly enough, much of Apple's whole business model could be seen as the customer for all intents and purposes actually answering yes to that first question, while continuing to answer no to the second. Not an exact analogy, but...

Posted by John at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Red Hat's Bob Young comes up with an articulate rebuttal to ZDNet's John Taschek (the anti-open source guy mentioned previously) in an article on ZDNet titled Open source is here to stay

Posted by John at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Good article on Salon on R. Crumb, in their Brilliant Careers series. The documentary "Crumb" creeped me out profoundly when I saw it, but Crumb is one of the real Masters in American comic art.

Posted by John at 11:31 AM | Permalink

It occurred to me recently that most retail establishments should have doors that you pull to enter and push to exit. You usually enter a store empty-handed and thus it's easier to pull a door open; and you usually leave carrying something, so your hands may not be free and it's easier to push (like with your hip). I figured this out this past Sunday while I was clumsily trying to carry a bunch of bags (bagels, groceries, vitamins) out of the local pharmacy.

Posted by John at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The newest anti-Linux meme: the "OSes don't matter anymore" take. This one is a reprise of the "there's no applications for Linux" meme; the last riff on this I saw today, and thus the one that gets the link, is this article by John Taschek by way of LinuxToday.

Then am I to infer that there's no need to upgrade to Win2K? In an increasingly Web-centric world, I get where this sort of thing is coming from, but this is just more standard ZDNet FUD.

Posted by John at 6:08 PM | Permalink