Vista

Some initial thoughts on my 'upgrade' to Vista:

I now have 3gigs of RAM, but my damned video card is the slow link now. Never thought that would happen.

If you can, don't 'upgrade,' do a clean install. Mine failed both times I selected the upgrade option. After 2.5 hours of installation each time.

When it was finally done:

I guess that most of the improvements are under the hood, because there aren't really a lot of obvious changes. The look and feel is improved - I think this is where the need for the new graphics card comes in. Of course, they are once again copying the Mac OS here.

The sidebar is interesting, and long overdue. Again, a cue from Macs.

They've gone to putting all your personal files in a reasonably placed directory! C:\Users\Name
Wow! It's been since what, Windows 95 that I've been cursing the idiot who decided to hide the path to your personal files. In this regard, they're copying Unix.

I know that security is supposed to be better, but do I really have to go through two pop up confirmations each time I want to delete a file or access a control panel? I need to see if I can turn that off.

So in conclusion, yeah, it looks better, and probably works better, but most of the tangible improvements are just Microsoft catching up to Mac and Linux. But since I'm stuck with Windows, I'll take it.

The Terror

I must admit that my memory of the history of the French Revolution has gotten a bit vague. A lot of my specific memories of studies that I used to be able to call up instantly have gone that way. I shall indeed have to go back and refresh my memory - I had never made the link in my head between today and the Reign of Terror:

Bush's Dangerous Liaisons - NYTimes

I do though, have to wonder if the author made that title, or was it by an editor whose only knowledge of French history is the movie with John Malkovic? It makes no sense to me in the context of the article.

The origin of the word terrorist is indeed interesting...

Ah...(good) beer...

Nothing better than cask-conditioned ale!

“Bush lies” doesn’t cut it anymore.

Why does no one seem to care?

The "Good Germans" Among Us - Frank Rich, NYTimes

If you're surprised, you haven't been paying attention

I find it hard to believe that anyone is surprised by this. Maybe they're surprised that she actually came out and said it publicly, but everyone should know that this is what fundamentalists think of Jews...

Coulter: Christians as ‘Perfected Jews’ - NYTimes

Should I rejoice or weep?

After Years of Being Out, the Necktie Is In - NYTimes

Now I understand the airlines...

Just like the airlines, I try to pack as much into as little time as possible. They produce efficiency with their hub networks and their down to the minute scheduling. When it works, it's amazingly efficient. Of course the problem is, when one problem arises, it creates a series of cascading effects that propagates delays through the system.

Similarly, I try to pack so much into a day, that if one little thing goes wrong with the schedule...

Do you want half, or nothing?

It's the eternal risk/reward question: Do you go for the lesser prize which is the sure thing, or the ultimate prize which is a lot less certain? In this case, it seems a no brainer - the ultimate prize has no chance of happening:

Liberal Base Proves Trying to Democrats - NYTimes


An that brings up another topic - why is it so much easier for me to talk to people with whom I agree on nothing, than with people with whom I agree on much? I think it's because the people on "my" side, expect me to agree with them 100% of the time, which ain't going to happen, and the people on the "other" side know that we've got to talk about our disagreements civilly? I've given up talking to certain liberal friends of mine, because my nuanced disagreement on some issues infuriates them...

It's about time

I think about 8 years of an administration that lets the science go wherever it leads, be that in agreement with the politics or not, would be amazing. Maybe after that, subsequent administrations may find it more difficult to play fast and loose with the data. Pie in the sky? Maybe, but anything is better than the current situation.

The past eight years has just highlighted the fact that scientific freedom and objectivity is something that we scientists have taken or granted - something that I don't think we apppreciated nearly as much as we should have, until it was taken away.

If I can say one thing for the Bush administration, it's that they often did not even pretend to be evenhanded - and when things would blow up in their face, there was no way to deny what had been done. (Not that it stopped them.)

Protecting Science from the Government - NYTimes

Path not taken

Had I been born 20 years later, this is what I would have majored in:

Digital Forensics - NYTimes