No matter where you are, WinCustomize hopes you have a happy 4th of July. Have a great day!

Sometimes in my writings I probably come across as unsympathetic to the "less fortunate". That is probably true to a certain extent. Mainly, I'm a crummy writer so I tend to write my opinions in ways that grate. But also it's because I grew up poor -- for an American. I lived amongst other poor people and know from first hand experience what kinds of things makes a person poor and what kinds of things can make someone wealthy.

Of course, bear in mind, in the United States, most people who say they are poor are probably not really very poor, even by American standards. Of course, even the poorest Americans are still well off by the standards of most of the world.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.  I just turned 33. Still reasonably young. Generation X. I've got 2 little ones now. So the story I'm about to tell shouldn't come across as one of those old timers who tells about how things were in the old days.  I graduated from college in 1994. Only 10 years ago.

When I was 4 my parents got divorced and my mom and I moved to Michigan. I was a child who grew up in a single parent household whose mom worked for minimum wage while we lived in a small apartment trying to make ends meet. We lived amongst other poor people. Most of the people who I met who were poor were just losers. I realize that won't win me any compassion awards with the politically correct crowd, but the older I get, the more obvious it becomes that some people are losers. These are people who were too foolish or stupid to live responsibly.  The woman who lived next door paid me 10 cents per bag (when I was 6 years old) to take her garbage out to the dumpster.  Her money came from welfare. In the entire time we lived there, she never got a job. She had 3 kids, each from a different man. She had money for cigarettes though. Money for booze.  But couldn't get a job. I'm sure she would be the first to complain that "the rich" don't pay enough in taxes. Across the hall was a druggie. Usually jobless too.

The apartment complex was full of two types of people -- people on their way up and people who just couldn't get their act together. For the most part, the latter group were people who just didn't want to work, or decided that life was unfair and wouldn't do anything about it, or were just unbelievably irresponsible and short-sighted in their decision making. That isn't to say that all Americans who are poor are lazy or stupid or irresponsible. I also have met people who suffered from physical or mental problems that limited what they could do. But for the most part, the people who were "poor" would be poor no matter what you did for them (and by poor, I'm talking about people who are in their late 20s or older making less than $15,000 per year in 2003 dollars).

Some people aren't willing to work their way up. Those people want propserity handed to them. They say how it's not fair that other people have it so much easier. Well you know what? Life ain't fair. My mother taught me that.  When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. I was willing to take this woman's trash to the dumpster (about 100 meters away from the apartment) filled with the most disgusting stuff, in the dead of winter, so that I could make money to save for college, buy Star Wars figures, and baseball cards. At 10 cents per bag. I took the garbage out for our neighbors too so I could earn a couple dollars a week doing this.  Big money to a 6 year old in 1977.

When I was 14, I got my first hourly job. My summer job was to paint, by myself, a giant chain link fence that surrounded a 5 acre property. In the dead of summer with temperatures in the high  90s, low 100s. But I did it and I got paid minimum wage.  I could describe in detail how unpleasant this job was. The fence itself was overgrown with thorny vines which I had to first remove before I could paint. And did I mention how hot it was?

When I was 15, I worked in a garage cleaning the crap out (sometimes literally) and helping the guys fix the "shovels" and other things that came in (it was a garage for escavation equipment). I worked these crappy jobs because I didn't have a car. So I could only work at places I could either walk to or get a ride to.  These jobs weren't pleasant but you have to do what you have to do. Life ain't fair.

I took some of the money I saved in those 2 years and bought a Chevette for $1,500. Crappy car. Rich kids at school whose parents bought them cars made fun of it.  But with that car I was able to get a nicer job at the mall. Still working minimum wage, it was at least air conditioned and eventually I got raises to making a little bit more. And I learned new skills. The mall job required I wear a shirt and tie. I had to interact with customers, improve my communication skills, and learn to present myself better.

When I was 18, I was able to use my 2 summers working at the mall book store (as "experience" that showed I was responsible enough to be reliable) to get a job at the bank. My first job there was driving a van from bank to bank to pick up the deposited checks to take it to the district bank which gave the checks to the proof machine operators.  It was a highly unpleasant job and mindnumbingly boring. But it paid much better ($6 per hour in 1988 was not too bad). And it helped ensure I could afford college.  I went to Western Michigan University. I was accepted at the University of Michigan but I couldn't afford to go there. So I went to WMU.

When I was 19 and 20 I got "promoted" to being a proof machine operator.  When you get a canceled check back in the mail, you'll notice at the bottom of it is a computerized number that takes your chicken scrawl amount you wrote and makes it into something that the computer scanner can read. Back in 1990, that meant some poor schmoe (like me) had to actually look at your check, make out what you wrote, and type the number and account information onto a keypad and run your check through the proof machine.  I did that for 40 hours per week. I still have occasional flashbacks to that as it was incredibly repetitive. 

But partially because of that job, I also became incredibly fast at typing. My typing speed got up to 100 words per minute by that point (still not at the 120wpm it is today).  This acquired skill would do me well in the future.

But despite working at the bank, and working all those jobs and having saved money all my life, I couldn't get much aid for college. Why? Because my mom had lived responsiblily and hadn't piled on huge debts.  I had a scholarship thanks to my high ACT scores but it wasn't nearly enough.  So I started a company selling computers to the faculty.  I knew how to get computer parts wholesale and could then undercut the local computer store.  I called the company "Stardock Systems".

In 1992, OS/2 came out and I felt I could get a competitive advantage by pre-loading OS/2 onto the computers I sold. I became quite familiar with OS/2.  In early 1993, I thought there would be demand for an OS/2 video game.  The only problem was that I didn't know how to program.  So I bought a book called "Teach yourself C in 21 days" and a book called "OS/2 Presentation Manager Programming".  With those two books I learned how to program and wrote Galactic Civilizations.  Anyone who ever played the game and also knows programming can verify that only the techniques in OS/2 PM programming are in that game.  What that meant is that all the "graphics" were merely iconic windows, not real images because OS/2 PM programming didn't include chapters on how to do graphics programming and I couldn't afford any more books.

Even still, my plan, once I graduated, was to go work at some cool company. I sent my resume to Texas Instruments and tons of other big companies. No response.  I later learned from a friend who worked at Ratheon at the time that these big companies won't look at resumes from minor colleges like WMU.  He got in because he went to (wait for it) the University of Michigan, the school I was accepted at but couldn't afford (my friend's parents paid his way through and drove a firebird).

So while failing to get a job, the little game I made did really well. Except that I didn't get paid any royalties. Our publisher ripped us off and because I was poor and couldn't afford a lawyer, I was screwed. If you bought a copy of Galactic Civilizations for OS/2, that's cool but I never got a penny of it.  But the game was such a success that I was able to use the good publicity to build Stardock up with other products while I waited to see if I could get a job anywhere. 

Because I worked 3 jobs during college my gradepoint was only 2.6 so I was at a competitive disadavantage. But that time allowed me to keep working on Stardock stuff which led to Star Emperor (a GalCiv derivative I wrote for IBM) and Object Desktop for OS/2 which I teamed up with a fellow OS/2 fanatic Kurt Westerfeld to bring to market.

And the rest is history. By 24 I was a millionaire. And during the stock bubble, my company's valuation was ridiculously high (wish I could just stick with that number ) which fortunately coincided with my 10 year class reunion!

So what's the excuse of able bodied people who are poor? I'm not particularly intelligent. I don't enjoy working any more than anyone else (just ask my mom).  But I did what I had to do.  And now I pay 6 figures in income taxes of which a large percentage of it goes to other people.  If I can make it, why can't others? If you are able bodied, what's stopping you?

I think Americans are very generous people.  As a nation, we spend more on programs to help the poor and downtrodden than any other nation.  We provide more aid to the poor of the world than any other country. 

If you find yourself thinking that other people are "just lucky" or that you are constantly being singled out by the boss or some other authority figure or that life isn't fair, then you need toughen up and quit looking for scapegoats. Look inside. In the United States, hard work, more than intelligence, more than inherited wealth, will win the day in the long run. You may not become a millionaire. But you won't be poor. And by poor, I mean real poor, not "I can barely afford a new DVD player" poor (hint: if you have a DVD player, you're not poor but if you think you are, consider the choices you made to buy a DVD player in the first place rather than how you might have used it otherwise -- my mom and I didn't even have cable TV until I was in highschool and no VCR until college and this is the 90s we're talking!).

Our country is rich in opportunity for those willing to work for it. Often that work is mindnumbingly crappy but opportunity lurks for those who are persistent.  Don't let pride be your downfall. I got my start taking out garbage for welfare mothers and worked my way up to painting fences in the blistering heat and so on today. If I can make it, anyone can.

 

---

 

Epilogue: I've gotten a lot of comments pointing out that I did have the advantage of having a mother who instilled her values into me. That is true.  I had my share of advantages. My dad helped steer me into computers, for instance, by giving me a Commodore 64 for Christmas. And my mom was adament about the value of learning skills and planning for the future.  But that's really the point isn't it? That people can succeed by having these kinds of values. A parent giving me a computer instead of a game machine or a parent that taught me that there is no such thing as a job that is "beneath" you are the kinds of things parents can do for their own children that can make a big difference. Too many people who fail in life are people who think they have no control over their own destiny. How often have you heard some welfare recipient say they won't "flip burgers" because they feel those jobs are demeaning? Or the person who spends their money on frivelous things instead of things that can lead to a better future?  Becoming "successful" doesn't happen overnight. It's the result of a series of decisions and actions that lead to a better life.  Too many people want success handed to them or look to blame others for their misfortuntes. As soon as you give over your destiny to someone else in the form of blame, you're doomed. 

On the way back from vacation my mild summer cold turned into ETD. Eustachian tube dysfunction.

What is ETD? It's basically where fluid behind the eardrums gets locked in there usually due to swelling or some other blockage. The net result is that your ear is plugged and it's very annoying. It's like having water in your ears but not having a way to get it out.

I've now had it for 5 days and it's driving me crazy.  On Friday, I'd finally had enough. We called the doctor's office and I got in an hour later (those of you living in countries with socialized medicine eat your hearts out <g>).  Sure enought, ETD. 

So what can you do to treat it? Unfortunatley, not much.

The doctor suggested I continue to take decongestants (like Sudafed) and try to sleep on my other ear.  He also prescribed a steroid nasal spray that may help over the next few days to bring down the swelling.  The spray is essentially the same thing as an Asthma solution which tells me that they don't have a very good solution for this kind of problem yet.

If worse comes to worst, they can put a small hole in your ear drum to equalize the pressure and let it drain but that would be a very last resort since it is a surgery (getting tubes put in ones ears which I have had before when I was very young).

The problem is that I've been told that this kind of problem can last for weeks if not months. That's certainly not acceptable since I can't fly while this is occurring.

 

 

Thanks to the tip from our friends at www.OSNews.com, we have some screenshots of MacOS X Tiger.

In a comment to an article about racism, someone from Australia made the absurd claim that Australia is the most multi-cultural country in the world.  Not to be outdone, someone from Canada claimed the mantle for Canada.  What's next? Someone from Japan making that claim?

Here are some statistics on the racial make up of a few selected countries:

Australia: Caucasian 92%, Asian 7%, aboriginal and other 1%

Canada: Canada has diversity if you count various types of white people as diversity. http://www.statcan.ca/english/census96/feb17/eo1can.htm

United States: It's about 62% white, 14% Hispanic (white can be counted as white if you want), 13% African American, 4% Asian. 

Getting into a debate about what is the most multi-cultural country in the world is futile because the definition can be played with until it becomes meaningless.

I tend to view the US as pretty multicultural because it has multiple racial groups (defined as people who physically look significantly different) that represent significant percentages of the population.  African Americans, Latinos, Whites (various European ancestory), and Asians all make up significant percentages of the population as well as having high enough populations to reach a critical mass.

4% of Americans being Asian represents arouns 12 million people (to put it in perspective, the entire population of Australia is 19 million).  13% of Americans being black means nearly 40 million people (Canada's population is around 30 million total).

When you have those kinds of raw numbers representing a pretty significant percentage of the population, it means each group has to deal with the other in a very real and practical way.

Australia, for instance, being 92% white, claiming to be multicultural is akin to some all white high school claiming to be multicultural because there are 3 Asians and an African in one of their classes.

Europeans who smugly talk about American racism have no idea what they're talking about.  Besides the fact that Europeans only recently tried to wipe out one of their own racial minorities in death camps for apparently not being white enough (I tend to think one of the reasons why there's relatively little anti-semitism in the US is that we jsut don't understand it. When you have neighbors and coworkers whos ancestory is from India and Japan and China or African, it's hard to really notice the differences between some guy whose ancestors are from Poland who happened to choose a slightly different religion).

But given how much under observation Americans are, when you have 300 million with minority groups that would be the majority population in most other countries you are bound to have incidents where one group doesn't like another.

Koreans and African Americans in LA notoriously don't get along.  I have no idea why. But it's widely reported. African Americans and Jewish people don't get along in New York for some reason. No idea why. And African Americans and some White southerners don't get along. I do have an idea what caused that at least!

But when you mix around so many different cultures and races so much, you're always going to (statistically) have cases where there is conflict.

In Europe (or apparently Australia) cultural diversity means being a slightly different type of European. But in the US, the threshold is much higher. If you're from Europe you're white. Italian, Pole, English, French, whatever, doesn't matter.  And if those Europeans who complain about that when they arrive are bound to be eventually rebuked by the Korean or Mandorian Chinese or other type of Asian who says "Hey, welcome to the club, our cultures have been lumped together for centuries by you Europeans!"

 

In one of the multitides of Michael Moore related blogs, one Moore defender essentially argued that unless you could debunk Moore's various conspiracy theories then we have no reason not to believe them.

Their position, essentially, was that crackpot theories are true until proven false. Which is absurd. It's much easier for crank out a crackpot theory than to spend the time debunking it. In my opinion, Michael Moore's books and films are little more than well produced and polished crackpot theories that feed the gullible and weak minded. 

I asked one of our IT people today how hard it would be to implement a feature where the answer to poll question would automatically prevent them from commenting on my blogs.  Basically, the poll question woudl be "Do you believe Michael Moore's assertions to be essentially correct?"  The preson woh says yes is basically telling me that they're too dumb to comment on articles I write.  I enjoy discussing topics with people who disagree with me (that's half the point after all). But I don't want my time wasted by...well dumb people.

But like I said, it's tedious and time consuming to actually put togther a good fisking or debunking of a crackpot assertion.  But the blogsphere is a wonderful thing and someone actually has taken the time to put together a reasonably thorough debunking of Fahrenheit 9/11's biggest charges.  It doesn't cover it all (no single article does) but it does cover a lot of it which is a good start to help bring those who have enough gray matter to at least be skeptical about some of the kooky theories and connections espouse d in the film.

Check the link below to visit the article. He has more time and patience than I'd ever have.

I'm back from vacation. It was great to go to the gulf of Mexico with the wife and kids. We had a blast. Coming home was a bit of a pain due to weather and my summer cold came back to haunt me. My right ear is totally plugged up.  Lots of crazy stuff happened last week. Apple announced MacOS 10.4 code-named "Tiger" with a feature called Dashboard. Dashboard is similar to DesktopX but it is really a knock-off of a Mac program called Konfabulator. Not that the Apple-does-no-wrong zealots will admit to it. In their mind, Konfabulator is just a derivative of Apple's long defunct desktop accessories or even Active Desktop on Windows. Whatever. In the Apple zealots world, only Apple innovates. Next time Apple users bitch that Windows users are "stealing" some idea, remind them of Dashboard.

Meanwhile Arlo Rose blasted Apple over their borrowing so much from Konfabulator. I can't blame him for being ticked. But based on what I've seen from Apple's defenders, they don't get it. They don't see why Apple should be held to a different standard as Microsoft. After all, Microsoft borrows from its ISVs and regularly competes with them (IE, UXTheme, WMP, Instant messaging). But the reality is, Apple isn't Microsoft.  When someone develops for the "underdog" one tends to expect to be shown a little appreciation. Or, at the very least, not blatantly do things that ruin their business.

I mean really, what's the point in developing software for the Mac if Apple is just as likely to eat your lunch as Microsoft despite the risk being much greater in the first place for the Mac? No one has really talked about that but I think that goes to the heart of the matter.  Apple shouldn't be pulling this kind of crap, especially given how loudly they bitch and moan when others borrow their ideas.  After all, these are the guys who sue computer makers for having their cases too similar!

I know people at Microsoft who just loathe Apple or at least their culture because they know something most people don't -- if you think Microsoft is nasty, Apple is much worse. Apple does things that Microsoft would get clobbered over. When a program breaks between versions of Windows, Microsoft, who legitimately tries to ensure compatibility, gets accused of all kinds of malicious intent.  Meanwhile, Apple, who seems to almost go out of its way to break third party programs between fixes, gets a free ride.

Not that it ultimately matters to me. I don't write for the Mac. I'm harping on this becuase I've gotten hundreds (if not thousands) of nasty email from Mac fanatics over the years claiming how we or Microsoft or the boogeyman stole our ideas from Apple. Whether that be them retroactively claiming that the Mac had alpha blended shadows first (WindowFX had them first) or the various claims that WindowBlinds was a rip off of some Mac program despite the fact we were "skinning" OSes back in 1994.

Mac zealots always seem to think that Apple is some huge innovator. But they're not. They merely take other people's ideas and polish them up and introduce them to the mainstream. That doesn't make Apple a bad company. It makes them a smart one. But I get irritated when the ignorance of Mac users of the wider world causes them to think that Apple comes up with all this stuff from scratch.

So next time you see some Mac zealot claiming Longhorn "stole" some feature from Apple, remind them that Apple has no room to talk.

 

I'm back from vacation. It was great to go to the gulf of Mexico with the wife and kids. We had a blast. Coming home was a bit of a pain due to weather and my summer cold came back to haunt me. My right ear is totally plugged up.  Lots of crazy stuff happened last week. Apple announced MacOS 10.4 code-named "Tiger" with a feature called Dashboard. Dashboard is similar to DesktopX (which, btw, predates Konfabulator) but it is really a knock-off of a Mac program called Konfabulator. Not that the Apple-does-no-wrong zealots will admit to it. In their mind, Konfabulator is just a derivative of Apple's long defunct desktop accessories or even Active Desktop on Windows. Whatever. In the Apple zealots world, only Apple innovates. Next time Apple users bitch that Windows users are "stealing" some idea, remind them of Dashboard.

Also last week Microsoft made a new visual style for Windows XP Media Center edition called Royale. We updated SkinStudio 4.3 yesterday so that it can convert this visual style seamlessly to WindowBlinds format. I don't know why anyone would run it, it looks hideous in my opinion. It's basically a gradiated version of Luna. Meanwhile, with the GUI Olympics now complete and the prize patrol about to begin, the visual styles, skins, and icon packages are being migrated over to WinCustomize.com. Go here to get the WindowBlinds skins.

With the GUI Olympics skins added in, the WindowBlinds library at WinCustomize.com has grown to 2,990. It'll probably hit 3,000 within the week which is quite a milestone.  Many good WindowBlinds skins are also at deviantART.

Meanwhile, work continues forward on ObjectDock Plus. We're running an internal beta of it. It has a lot of really cool features such as tabs, system tray support, really good auto hiding, plugins, etc.  What I think makes it stand out is the usability features. Pity those won't show up in a screenshot. Regular ObjectDock remains (and will continue to remain) free. ObjectDock Plus will be like CursorXP in that it isn't part of Object Desktop but will be a stand alone program.

Getting back to DesktopX for a minute, version 2.2 is nearly done.  DesktopX 2.2 is going to lose a feature though IconX.  We've determined that one of the coolest features of DesktopX should really be its own program.  So IconX will become its own program (part of Object Desktop still). Current DesktopX registered users will get a free license of IconX of course.

On the games side, Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy (the expansion pack to GalCiv) is doing really well.  Stardock has also signed a bunch of games to go onto Drengin.net which will soon be rechristened. Will have more on that soon. The games side of things is really going to get interesting in the next few months as the technology back end for Object Desktop and WinCustomize gets applied to games.  I don't know how many of you are gamers but for me, I get frustrated when a game isn't available at the store. After a few months, most games disappear from the shelves and many good titles never see the light of day on the shelves.  That's where we're going with electronic distribution. We want to make it so that people can just press a button and download the game. And from then on be able to redownload as many times as needed. No DRM, no copy protection nonsense, no wrappers. Stardock Central 2 would handle the "activation" once and off you go.  For me, that's the key, I lose CDs and I don't want to have to back up huge games to DVDs or something. I want to know that if I buy a game that 3 years from now if I format my drive and I lose the game that I can download Stardock Central and get all my games back in a few clicks.  I don't know how many copies of Total Annihilation I have but I've bought several over the years because I've damaged CDs, lost them, misplaced serial #s, etc.  That's something Drengin.net will address and I think will open the door for mainstreaming electronic distribution (just a note: there are places that will let you purchase and download a game but they come in wrappers and once you have it, it's yours, I'm pretty sure if you lose it you're up the creek, there's no sort of account management).  The big thing about Drengin.net isn't just that you can purchase games one by one but rather that you can pay a fixed price and get everything.  So for $100 you would get a dozen, two dozen, whatever games.

Well that's all for now! More soon.

Most of the propaganda peddled in Michael Moore's new Fahrenheit 9/11 basically boils down to playing tricks with the old 6 degrees of separation concept and crude manipulation of statistics. As I wrote in my other article, I don't tend to have a lot of patience for gullible people. People who buy into propaganda strike me as weak minded. If someone buys into some crackpot conspiracy theory I don't tend to feel like I should put in the effort to debunk it. It's a lot easier to fabricate a bizarre theory than it is to debunk it and the gullible aren't worthy of the time involved in providing that debunking.  Moore's film is full of, IMO, crackpot theories and crass manipulation of statistics.

Early in the film, Moore claims how Bush has not been working 45% of the time.  This statistic is really representative of the entire film in many ways because it is true and yet misleading.  If you count weekends and Bush's working vacations (i.e. where he meets with foreign leaders, does press conferences, etc.) and work the timing just right, the statistic is true.

But like all statistics, it can be abused.  I tend to work 60 hours per week. But I only work around 40 hours at the office. With these two data points all kinds of interesting statistics could be created.  If I work 5 out of 7 days of the week (full time) I automatically have 30% of the time off.  Since 9/11 occurred just after Bush finished his yearly vacation, there were only 8 months in the work year for the President thus far (because he was inaugurated in late January).  Now bear in mind, if he worked every day without a day off between his first day in office and 9/11 he would already have 30% of the time off.  Throw in some vacation days and voila, you're at 45%.  Moore's statistic came from a Washington Post article that indeed counted weekends as time off.  This is, by no means, the worst distortion of F 9/11. It is simply representative of the kind of intellectual dishonesty throughout.

In 2002, a full year after 9/11, Moore claimed in a TV interview that Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Yet, in his movie, he jumps all over Bush because Moore's hero, Richard Clarke, allowed Saudi and Bin Laden family members to return overseas. What about innocent until proven guilty? Error #1 in the movie - those people left AFTER the airspace was reopened not before as claimed in the movie and they were interviewed by the FBI contrary to claims in the movie (source: 9/11 commission).

The 6 degrees of separation stuff really comes into play when Moore tries to use the Carlyle group connection to tie Bush, Bin Laden, and the Saudi Royals.  This is akin to arguing that if you have stock in Exxon and Bin Laden has stock in Exxon that you two are tied at the hip.  Newsweek has a pretty good article debunking a lot of that nonsense.  One has to wonder at the gullibility of people who buy into the oil connections alleged here.  Are there really people out there that think there is some vast conspiracy between the Bush family, the Saudi royals and Bin Laden? Apparently it's a conspiracy so vast that the 9/11 commission, which investigated into these kinds of connections in exhaustive detail, must be part of it and covering it all up.

Which brings us to Moore's other premise which is that essentially unnecessary American wars are started by elitist rich white men whose own sons are safely insulated from the action while the poor and downtrodden of America are left to fight it out.  In the film, Moore is sympathetic to the poor underclass who gets sucked into the rich man's wars. This is an absurd argument given that our military force is all volunteer.  Moore plays with people's emotions while hoping to get viewers to forget that most jobs in the United States have particular demographics involved.  Ever looked at the socio-economic background of most fire fighters? Or police officers? Should the "rich elites" of the world have their children assigned to be policemen or firemen?  Somehow I suspect Michael Moore would be quite pleased if the government were there to assign everyone what their job should be. But in a free society, people are free to choose what they want to do.

All of which brings us back to a fairly basic problem with the film: It has no point. It's just a long pointless diatribe. It's criticism without alternatives.  Moore, who opposed US action in Afghanistan and claimed it was all for an oil pipeline anyway, later in the film argues that Iraq is a distraction from Afghanistan. Well which is it? Serious people have to make serious decisions. If Moore had had his way, the Taliban would still be in power and so would Saddam.  This is a good thing? Can anyone honestly say that we're not better off with Saddam and the Taliban gone?

Personally, I don't think Moore really cares that much about these issues. I think it's about the money. He says outrageous things (such as once saying to the former Mayor of New York that he doesn't see why Americans think of Terrorism as a "big deal" as we're more likely to get struck by lightning than to die in a terrorist attack) to raise controversy and awareness for his books and films.  The difference between Moore and any other obnoxious hyperopinionated ideologue is that Moore happens to be a pretty talented film maker. 

As time goes on, I am sure there will be collections of distortions from his film listed on the net just like there was for his other "documentary" Bowling for Columbine.  But I suspect that like last time, Moore will get away with his propaganda largely unscathed because so many people want to believe what he says.  After all, the terrorist group Hezbola has endorsed it and hopes to distribute it as far as it can. That really says it all, doesn't it?

Interesting Links:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5251769/site/newsweek/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/site/newsweek/
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/k/k-misc/king062704.htm
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

Interesting Statistics:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
(Iraq only exports ~$7 billion annually. Any argument that the war in Iraq was to get Iraq's oil represents a profound ignorance of global economics. Iraq simply isn't valuable enough to justify going to war there to steal its oil).

Let me start off with admissions that 1) I am a registered user of Konfabulator and 2) I work at Stardock which makes DesktopX (www.desktopx.net) which if there's a Windows version of Konfabulator would be Konfabulator's primary competiton.

Arlo has shown real poise and restraint. Much more than I would be able to show if roles were reversed. So let me tell you why I think it's so crappy for Apple to do this:

It's gratiutious.

Apple isn't going to sell more copies of MacOS 10.4 because of Dashboard or at least not enough to justify screwing over one of its most innovative developers.  Apple harming its ISVs ultimately harms Mac users and Apple itself in the long run.  Konfabulator got a LOT of media coverage that the Mac otherwise wouldn't have received. When third parties thrive on a platform and make innovative things, it helps everyone.  Believe me, no one was more conscious of just how much media exposure Konfabulator got than me. But it was media exposure that put the Mac in a good light.

Konfabulator is not $200. It's $25.  For any Mac user interested in extending their environment with widgets, $25 is nominal.  It helps build up third parties who might be able to grow and do even more innovative things in the future. It helps build more user communities.

But now Apple is squelching that.  Will it "kill" Konfabulator? No. I'm sure Arlo will be able to extend Konfabulator to appeal to users who need "more" than what's built into MacOS X. But it is going to take away a lot of "low hanging fruit" sales.

And to what end? What exactly does Apple gain by adding in Dashboard? Can anyone who tends to upgrade their MacOS versions anyway honestly say that Dashboard is going to make them more likely to do it given that the upgrades are typically >$100?  Let's face it, most of us would get Tiger anyway and if not Tiger, the one after it. 

It's just a gratuitious slap in the face not just to Arlo but to ALL ISVs.  With Sherlock it was an anomaly. With Dashboard, it's a pattern. Make something that is remotely unique and innovative and watch out, Apple may just throw it into the OS.  In the long run, it hurts the Mac and it's just shameful business.

Now, read a counter argument here: http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator