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July 30, 2003

Bush wants to codify marriage as heterosexual

``I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own,'' the president said. ``I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts.''

``On the other hand, that does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage,'' he added.


A couple of things that I don't understand about this:

  • Isn't this one of those things that's meant to be left to the states? Why are people who are in favor of smaller government attempting to legislate this? The only explanation I can think of is that this is Bush letting the religious right know that he hasn't forgotten them - it seems especially significant in light of the upcoming Massachusetts case that may result in legalization of same-sex unions, which has a number of conservatives up in arms.

  • Second, what aspect of Bush is "someone like me" referring to? The POTUS? The fundamentalist Christian? The hetersosexual? All of the above? None of the above? The wording seems a bit strange.

  • Third, the statement overall sounds like that old canard "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Which is a standard way of making your prejudices seem somewhat less hateful.

Posted by John at 2:29 PM | | Comments (1)

Brookstone update

An update on my attempts to unsubscribe from the Brookstone email newsletter: this morning, 2 copies appeared in my inbox. They listen real, real well at Brookstone. I may actually have to call them on the phone and yell at them.

Posted by John at 11:21 AM | | Comments (1)

July 25, 2003

Daily link

meg reports on the state of personal wireless in NYC

Posted by John at 3:38 PM |

July 23, 2003

And Tyler too


BBC SPORT | Other Sport | Cycling | Tour de France 2003 | Hamilton clinches courageous win

Tyler Hamilton clinched his first ever Tour de France stage win after a solo breakaway on Wednesday despite riding with a broken collar bone.

This is Merckx-level stuff. He may be even out-Lancing Lance.

Posted by John at 11:04 AM |

July 9, 2003

Write the next Emacs

From Simon Willison: Implementing Text Editors

Excellent to see that the out-of-print Craft of Text Editing by Craig Finseth is now online, with the publisher's permission. I have been looking for a copy of this for a looong time, having dabbled in programming text editors now and then.

Posted by John at 11:31 AM |

July 8, 2003

Maybe you should go back to poliblogging

Matt Richtel in the NY Times: The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive? Several people wrote pointing me to this piece...Sorry, but I'm not going to sit here and have human curiosity — our need to know, our intellectual passions, our extreme generosity with knowledge and knowhow... or hell, just doing our jobs (which have always been frenetic, one way or another) trivialized and dismissed as yet another addiction.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]

It's so predictable you almost wonder if over on 43rd St. they say, "Hey, let's bait that Searls guy again and see if he works himself up into yet another self-congratulatory lather over the One True Medium. What this time?"

I mean, really. Check "our extreme generosity with knowledge and knowhow." Also the condescending bone thrown to librarians in the last paragraph (not quoted).

Here's what's on TV right now: Nothing. Trust me. You can store it for later suckage off your TiVo, but it'll still be Nothing.

Here's what's in your magazines right now: Lots of stuff you're not interested in. Same with your newspapers.

As for radio: Forget it, unless you're an amen-corner conservative, a sports junkie, an NPR addict, or in need of a traffic report in the next fifteen minutes.

Here's what's on the Web right now: yet more complainage (Note to Doc: this "-age" thing is getting sooooooo old) and blogorrhea from a buncha control freaks who are hugely incensed that the press doesn't say what they tell them to, and doesn't recognize them for the far-reaching genius revolutionaries they are, and actually may not gasp! agree with them.

Note to Old Media (like you're reading this): anything you report on these guys which doesn't consist entirely of unvarnished praise will result in this sort of egotistical spleen. Just wait for the logorrheic aneurysms we'll see when AOL Journals do everything Horribly, Horribly Wrong. Jesus. I am so sick of these hypemeisters dressing up business opportunism as altruistic rebellion that I actually feel sympathetic for AOL Time Warner. I never thought I'd see the day.

Posted by John at 12:09 PM |

July 3, 2003

Brookstone's poor customer service

This past Christmas, I bought my wife a Tempurpedic pillow from Brookstone. When I bought the pillow, I made the mistake of opting in to their email newsletter. Well, I've been getting it ever since, and when I found myself writing a procmail rule to move it to the trash, I realized it was time to unsubscribe. So. Standard procedure, right? Scroll to bottom of newsletter to find the instructions for unsubscribing.

There weren't any. Just links to request a catalog.

OK, off to the website. See the sign up for our newsletter form. Look for a corresponding link about the newsletter, maybe leading to an unsubscribe link. None. Click on customer service. Click on "Contact us." Generic "send us a message" form. Click on FAQs. No "I want to unsubscribe from the email newsletter" question. Finally, click on "Policies." Buried in small type is the following:

The information you supply to us is added to our customer database. We may also send you catalogs or emails to inform you of new products, services and special offers, special promotions or upcoming events. If you do not want to receive such mailings or e-mails from us, please click here.

Which link takes you BACK to the generic "send us a message" form, where you now know you can fill it out with the message "Take me off your mailing list." Followed by "I will never buy anything from your company again."

Posted by John at 10:12 AM |

Brookstone's poor customer service

This past Christmas, I bought my wife a Tempurpedic pillow from Brookstone. When I bought the pillow, I made the mistake of opting in to their email newsletter. Well, I've been getting it ever since, and when I found myself writing a procmail rule to move it to the trash, I realized it was time to unsubscribe. So. Standard procedure, right? Scroll to bottom of newsletter to find the instructions for unsubscribing.

There weren't any. Just links to request a catalog.

OK, off to the website. See the sign up for our newsletter form. Look for a corresponding link about the newsletter, maybe leading to an unsubscribe link. None. Click on customer service. Click on "Contact us." Generic "send us a message" form. Click on FAQs. No "I want to unsubscribe from the email newsletter" question. Finally, click on "Policies." Buried in small type is the following:

The information you supply to us is added to our customer database. We may also send you catalogs or emails to inform you of new products, services and special offers, special promotions or upcoming events. If you do not want to receive such mailings or e-mails from us, please click here.

Which link takes you BACK to the generic "send us a message" form, where you now know you can fill it out with the message "Take me off your mailing list." Followed by "I will never buy anything from your company again."

Posted by John at 10:12 AM |

Dyne:bolic: A broadcast studio on a Linux CD

There are Linux distributions galore that target office, home, and server systems. But a new Linux distribution promises to provide a multimedia studio -- complete with the ability to transmit Webcasts worldwide -- without ever installing any software on your hard drive. Sound impossible? Not for a new Linux distribution called Dyne:bolic. [Linux.Com: NewsForge Reports]

I find this really interesting. DIY webcasting in a box, or in this case, on a CD. Aside from the convenience of not having to to suffer through installation and configuration, what could also make this interesting is its mobility - you could move your "station" from computer to computer pretty much at will, making detection and location that much harder. Might also have some interesting mobile audio blogging capabilities, given a laptop and readily available wifi. Online gypsy pirate radio, anyone?

Posted by John at 9:10 AM |

Corporate "Artists" Spurn iTunes Store

Reuters reports that the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are among the list of bands that have refused to offer music to users of Apple's iTunes Music Store. A spokesman for the company that manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and other acts said that his clients "would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format." [MacCentral]

But the demise of the album format is exactly what a lot of people, myself included, love about the iTunes store. Much easier and consumer-friendly to be able to buy the one song that I like than to have to buy a whole album containing filler. I recently bought a George Thorogood album at the iTunes store, mainly to get one song that was only available by buying the album. I ended up with maybe 3 good songs out of 10. A waste.

Apple's own sales figures indicate that something like 40% of sales are albums anyway, so it's a little early to be sounding the death knell for the album just yet. Regardless, what's good about the ability to buy singles is better customer choice, which is always a good thing.

Posted by John at 8:54 AM |

July 1, 2003

Uni-platform posting to MT

Via Anil's Daily Links:
Zempt :: Multi-platform posting for Movable Type :: Zempt

Um, how exactly does "Windows" equate to "multi-platform?" Might want to hold off on saying that until you actually deliver on at least one other OS.

Posted by John at 1:07 PM | | Comments (1)