Racial tolerance

Quick question: can anyone tell me why there are over seventy thousand hits for “racial tolerance” on Google? Racial tolerance is a non-concept — or rather, it should be.

“Cultural tolerance” might be more sensible, because many cultures contradict one another. How many hits for that? About thirty thousand fewer. How about “religious tolerance”? Over a million hits. That one makes sense, given that religion seems to be a, if not the major point of contention between cultures.

But “racial tolerance”? Whilst I’ve always thought it was a stupid, condescending idea, I had no idea it was so widespread! The very concept implies there is something wrong with the race or races in question — something offensive that needs to be tolerated. It seems even more ridiculous when this set includes all races other than ones own.

Ok, so there are some people who actually believe in the ultimate superiority of their own race, but they’re usually held in the lowest of regards wherever they’re found. I’d be willing to bet that most people who describe themselves as racially tolerant actually mean something entirely different.

So if racial tolerance is out, how should we describe a general distaste for racism? Well, it might not be a perfect fit, but “racial apathy” works for me — because it doesn’t affect me if you’re black, white, yellow, green, or some kind of exotic polka dot hybrid of the four; I really couldn’t care less. I guess I can only hope the feeling (or lack thereof) is mutual!

¬x(y)≢x(¬y)… damnit!

Say what? Ok, if that didn’t mean anything to you (or didn’t render properly in your ancient browser), don’t panic! I just wrote it like that because it’s the fastest way to get to the point. Allow me to elaborate (in English) with an example.

1. Let y be some statement. For example, “aliens exist”.
2. Now let x be some function of y. For example, “I believe that y”.
3. From 1 and 2, we can see that in our example x(y) means “I believe that aliens exist”.
4. Consider a couple of slightly more complex statements using the symbol ¬ to mean “not”:
   1. ¬x(y) now means “I do not believe that aliens exist”; and
   2. x(¬y) means “I believe that aliens do not exist”.
5. i and ii are clearly different statements; the former merely states that I have no belief that aliens exist, without making any claim against their possible existence, whereas the latter asserts that aliens definitely do not exist.
6. Using the symbol ≡ to mean “is logically equivalent to” (roughly “is the same as saying”), we arrive back at the title of this post: ¬x(y)≢x(¬y). In our example, this means that “I do not believe that aliens exist” does not mean the same thing as “I believe that aliens do not exist”.

If you found all of that blindingly obvious, then give yourself a pat on the back. If not, then don’t be too hard on yourself; I might have just given a terrible explanation, and at very least you are far from alone! There seem to be a lot of people who either don’t understand or don’t appreciate the difference.

A common example of this can be seen in discussions of theology, or more specifically, the existence of a god. A surprising number of people I’ve talked to about this seem to be caught in the false dichotomy that one must either believe in the existence of a god (or gods), or believe that there is no god. (If you are one of these people, please see steps 1 through 6 above.)

This leads to some impressively stupid displays from atheists (in the sense of strong atheism), who openly mock Christians, Buddhists, and everyone in between for their beliefs, while holding the most ridiculous belief of all themselves. If that doesn’t click immediately, then consider this: a reasonable person could, in theory, have a religious experience that convinces them beyond reasonable doubt that a god of some description exists. On the other hand, it is impossible to disprove in any way the possibility that a god could exist. Therefore, even if you consider both to be unreasonable, it is hard to argue that strong atheism is more reasonable than religious faith.

A further surprise to me has been that a fair few of those who do recognise the existence of other options — that is, those who recognise that ¬x(y)≢x(¬y) — see these other options as “sitting on the fence”. This implies there is a decision that can reasonably be made between the two offered beliefs, and furthermore implies weakness in whoever avoids making this decision. But I’m comfortable to admit that there are matters which are, to me, undecidable! I’m comfortable admitting that often I simply don’t know! Now, where can one really find weakness? In that stance, or in the need to arbitrarily form beliefs in order to make oneself comfortable with the world?

Ok, so we’ve done aliens, and we’ve done religion. I’ll finish up with a recap of these, and a couple more examples. Remember that x(¬y) is what is falsely being claimed as the opposite of x(y).

x(y):	“I believe that y.”
y:	“Aliens exist.”
x(y):	“I believe that aliens exist.”
¬x(y):	“I do not believe that aliens exist.”
x(¬y):	“I believe that aliens do not exist.”
Note:	¬x(y) makes no assertion against the possible existence of aliens.

x(y):	“I believe that y.”
y:	“A god exists.”
x(y):	“I believe that a god exists.”
¬x(y):	“I do not believe that a god exists.”
x(¬y):	“I believe that no god exists.”
Note:	¬x(y) makes no assertion against the possible existence of a god.

x(y):	“It is wrong to y.”
y:	The act of eating meat.
x(y):	“It is wrong to eat meat.”
¬x(y):	“It is not wrong to eat meat.”
x(¬y):	“It is wrong to not eat meat.”
Note:	Most meat eaters would argue that ¬x(y); unlike the question of the existence of a god, this is an example that is rarely confused! It doesn’t quite fit the same model as the initial example (y isn’t a statement in this case) but it still works.

x(y):	“There is proof that y.”
y:	“He lied.”
x(y):	“There is proof that he lied.”
¬x(y):	“There is no proof that he lied.”
x(¬y):	“There is proof that he did not lie.”
Note:	Absence of proof is not proof of absence, and vice versa. A guilty man who avoids conviction due to a lack of evidence will speak as though the court proved him innocent, when in fact it only failed to find him guilty.

I’m glad we had this talk. No, no, I’m not mad at you, just… try not to do it again.

UPDATE: I just had to add this one from a friend:

x(y):	“I’m interested in y.”
y:	Clothes.
x(y):	“I am interested in clothes.”
¬x(y):	“I am not interested in clothes.”
x(¬y):	“I am interested in a lack of clothes.”
Note:	Oh, my!

I see what you did there

I’ve written before about some of Connex’s failures as a rail network operator. Today, however, I have mixed feelings. I’m talking about their latest trick to avoid contractual obligations, as reported in The Age Online this morning.

In summary, they are dodging the performance requirements in their contract by running services that officially do not exist. How does this work? Well the Department of Infrastructure dictates that a certain portion of scheduled train services must run on time. The problem?

1. The rail network is extremely crowded in peak periods.
2. Adding more trains makes it hard to keep all services on time.
3. Late trains equate to more fines for Connex, and unhappy customers.

Their solution?

1. Axe a few services here and there.
2. It is then easier to ensure remaining services run as scheduled.
3. Insert extra, unscheduled services whenever possible between the official, scheduled services.
4. Trains are less crowded, scheduled services run on time, and (almost) everybody wins.

The obvious downside here is that there are less reliable services, so commuters that were depending on the axed services to get to work will be unhappy. Some of these people may have to catch earlier trains. But I imagine the number significantly inconvenienced by this would be pretty low.

The other problem is that the practice seems a bit dishonest; Connex still tells customers informally that there are services running at about x time on most days, but because they’re not officially scheduled, there are no penalties for late or missing services.

But is it really all that bad? At least they’re not pretending that these services are reliable. And yes, they can only do it because of a loophole in their contract, but if they’ve come up with a model that works better for customers, should we really care? The effect of this strategy is that officially scheduled services will be more reliable, and Connex will be able to make better use of the tracks, dynamically allocating extra services wherever possible. This should reduce crowding at peak times, and actually get commuters where they want to go faster.

As little as I like to admit it, I think they’re really onto something here. So what can I say? Bravo, you sneaky bastards!

Guilty

I’ve done exactly this on more than one occasion. Should I feel ashamed?

OOXML? What’s that second ‘O’ for?

This was originally intended to be a comment on Dmitri’s post on the topic, but it quickly outgrew what I felt would be a polite size for such a comment. Oops!

OOXML hasn’t lost quite yet, and it did come dangerously close to passing in its first run through the Holy Gauntlet of the ISO. With any luck, voting parties will be better informed when its next chance comes around.

OOXML is just the same old formats, along with the same old problems, encoded as something vaguely resembling XML. I doubt Microsoft will clean up the spec enough for ISO to accept it; legacy crap has been a hallmark of their formats since the beginning, and if they haven’t managed to fix that problem yet, I can’t see them fixing it now.

However, even if they do rework the spec into something useful, an even bigger problem remains: Microsoft has shown no intention of using OOXML in a standard fashion; that is, the file formats actually used by Microsoft Office products may be based on OOXML, but it is unlikely they will ever be standard.

This means that there will be no improvement over the current situation, in that there is no guarantee that documents written in Microsoft Office products will be usable elsewhere.

In the past, people used Microsoft’s de facto standards, and accepted this, because they didn’t know otherwise. Now, a lot of people understand the problems of closed, proprietary formats, and some progress has been made. If OOXML is standardised, people will believe that the problem has been solved, and not as many will care about seeking alternatives.

The standardisation of OOXML would cause a serious regression. People will still be using closed, proprietary formats in Microsoft Office products, but now it will be under the guise of openness. A brilliant, disgusting deception.

Not a cloud in the sky

I know this isn’t news, but it’s something I’ve dreamed of for a long time. Finally, a group has taken it upon themselves to make it a reality for an important software project.

The Linux Weather Forecast.

I’m commenting on this because I think every project should have something similar. And I’m not just talking about software projects, either; this kind of thing is equally relevant to any project, regardless of size or type.

Key things to include:

• The current state of the project
• Where the project is headed
• Where the project is not headed
• Where the project might be headed

All of the above should be broken down for any sub-projects. Now, what have I left off? Notably the high-level goals of the project, and its background. I’m not suggesting that these are unimportant, but they can go elsewhere.

Why is this so important? It gives a great overview of what the project is, and what it aims to be in future. It gives potential developers a lot of information at a glance that they can use to decide whether they might be interested in contributing, and how they could go about doing so. Developers from other related projects can more easily see how it might relate to their project, and how they might better work with your project. It can generate interest and exposure, and stop your project from being a confusing black box to outsiders.

Note that the Linux Weather Forecast doesn’t read like an advertisement. Its purpose is to inform — not to boast about how great Linux is, how it can lower your TCO, or any other such waffle. It is simple and to the point, and that’s why it is so great.

With any luck, other large projects will notice this and follow suit.

The GIMP’s gimp

One example of a highly successful free software application is the GIMP. It is, however, also one of the more widely criticised of such applications, with many users citing its interface as a source of great frustration. A lot of questions are asked along the lines of “why doesn’t the GIMP do X like Y does” or “what were they thinking when they designed Z?”, but I think they’re missing a much more important question:

Where is libgimp?

Ok, so I know there is a library called libgimp, but that’s not what I’m talking about — in the words of GIMP hacker Sven Neumann, there is “no image manipulation functionality in libgimp”. What I’m suggesting is that there should be, or rather that the majority of the GIMP’s functionality should be split out into a library, whatever the name.

Why? Well, one of the best things about free software (in my opinion) is the frequent sharing and reuse of code, which often prevents pointless duplication of effort — a hallmark of the proprietary world. However, this brilliant opportunity is all too often wasted when software is not designed with re-use in mind.

Sure, the GIMP is extensible insofar as its interface is scriptable, but that’s not the kind of modularity I’m after; you’re still bound to use the full GIMP even if you only need a tiny subset of it. Take, for instance, the task of implementing a simple paint program. Gpaint seems to me like a brilliant example of how not to do this. But would vastly superior alternatives exist if the (potential) developers could tap into a powerful libgimp for most of the functionality they need? Would said libgimp (and in turn the GIMP itself) benefit from the increased interest? Would other types of programs such as video editors benefit also? I can’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet on all three.

From what I can see, the GIMP is far from alone in this; it’s just one example that’s been on my mind recently, along with a couple of others:

• GNU Debugger (GDB) — I can’t seem to find out how this is coming along, but at present, the way in which front-ends interact with GDB is worrying at best, with text-based hacks all over the place. See here for some insight into why this is such a problem.
• TeX — Somewhat like the GIMP in this aspect, TeX is usually extended through its macro language (the most popular extension being LaTeX) and also like the GIMP, I think this is woefully inadequate. TeX contains a host of clever technology that might be useful if other applications could tap into it easily.

The most curious thing about the current situation to me is that GIMP developers have already seen first-hand the benefits of splitting parts of a product off into independent modules. The GTK+ widget toolkit has its roots in the GIMP project, and look how far it’s come since!

Maybe it’s time to learn from past success and try to do the same with the GIMP’s image manipulation portions?

Dear America

When the time comes, please elect this man.

Thanks!

Speak free

First things first: if I were to say I hated Japan (I don’t — it’s just an example), this would not be racism. No, it’s not particularly constructive or even coherent in that form (am I talking about the government, the culture, or something about the islands themselves?) but it’s certainly not racist, either.

If I said in earnest that I hated Japanese people, on the other hand, this would be pretty severe racial vilification. Anyone reading or hearing such remarks could conclude fairly quickly that I was a reprehensible moron and act accordingly. Therefore, however hurtful such racist remarks can be, I don’t believe that racists should be prevented at law from showing their true colours; I’d rather have those attitudes out in the open than festering unseen.

What if I were to say I despised the Indian caste system — would there be anything wrong with that? There’s nothing racist or discriminatory about it, so where does that leave us? Well, it’s ‘culturally insensitive’, for one. But the suggestion that I should refrain from making such criticism in the name of cultural sensitivity is insane; surely no idea should be held above criticism, especially by virtue of its origin!

I have a right to make these statements. So do you.

The equally ridiculous counterpart of this “foreign equals sacred” attitude is the “local equals sacred” cry of so-called patriots. How many times have you heard the term un-American abused? In recent years, it seems to have become increasingly popular to berate United States citizens who criticise their government or country in any way. Funny, that; I could have sworn that the US was founded on dissent.

Moving right on to religion. Secular states make up a large part of the developed world. A disappointing number of these states’ citizens and even leaders seem confused about this, but thankfully many of us do still have some measure of religious freedom. In spite of this freedom, however, religious criticism is far too widely considered taboo.

I’m sure it’s no easy job limiting the mayhem with so many religions coexisting — not when the majority are quite clear on this point, offering all sorts of lovely graphic suggestions on destroying one’s religious enemies. But let’s not cover it up; let’s hear it if Betty thinks her invisible friend can kick Bob’s invisible friend’s arse, so to speak. Yes, that was deliberately inflammatory; I’m trying to make the point that in a secular society, I’m not expected to hold something as sacred just because you do.

From the largest religious organisation (the Roman Catholic Church) to smaller cults (such as Scientology); from fledgling western cultures to the oldest ways, past down through hundreds of generations; scientific theories; economic models; philosophies; governments; whatever — let no idea be held above criticism. The best way to protect your freedom of speech is to exercise it liberally.

If you agree with all I’ve just said, then that’s great! If you think some or all of it’s rubbish, then that’s fine, too; tell me. I might not respect what you say, but I sure respect your right to say it.

MIT OpenCourseWare rocks my world

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is doing great things with its OpenCourseWare initiative, the existence of which reflects an attitude I can really respect. Take a look at the Wikipedia article for some interesting background and commentary.

Meanwhile, my place of study seems to be heading in roughly the opposite direction (DEAD LINK), and are pulling a lot of material that used to be publicly available.

UPDATE: The original page has now been removed from their public website, and moved to a private internal site. I can certainly understand the move; if I were them, I wouldn’t want the kind of organisational attitude revealed therein known publicly! Monash students and staff can view the new page here.

A heads-up on any other open educational resources like OpenCourseWare would be greatly appreciated!

This post has been an exercise in getting to the damn point. :)

Oh, for the love of reason!

I realise this makes three rather exasperated posts in a row, so I’ll try to keep this short, and I promise to follow up with something a little more on the positive side.

I was reminded the other day of a pet frustration of mine whilst reading this CBS News article. To be honest, I thought the whole thing a bit trite, and by no means would I trust the figures quoted, but one question in particular caught my eye: that of whether it is “still possible to start poor, work hard, and get rich”.

Tiny little alarm bells started ringing in my head before I had even read the answer, not because of the topic of the question itself, but from the way in which it was asked. Of course it’s still possible, I thought. Perhaps a better question could have been based on how likely respondents thought it is for this to happen now, relative to some previous period. What a waste of a question, I thought.

Maybe not so.

Apparently 18% of respondents offered a negative response to this question. Now my question is this: did all these people truly believe in the answer they gave, or were they simply displaying a form of stupidity that is all too often the norm? And remember, given a less polarising question, the portion of respondents in this category would likely be far greater.

I know a lot of people who would criticize that statement, saying I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s just common usage, they’d say. Don’t be so pedantic.

But is it really that trivial? Sure, it doesn’t help to waste time getting too hung up on minor technicalities in everyday conversation, but this isn’t exactly complex, it’s far from rare, and it’s more important than most of us care to admit. To accept and employ such broken reasoning — in this instance gross oversimplification — is to voluntarily corrupt one’s ability to reason.

Once you embrace this sort of corruption, you’re going to make poorer decisions. You’re going to be easier to deceive, and easier to manipulate, because you’ve discarded your defenses against these attacks. In turn, you’ll be more open to further corruptions of your mind, completing the vicious cycle.

And it will start with the small, ‘unimportant’ things like this.

With the United States’ Independence Day looming, I’ll finish up with a plea to all Americans: don’t think like the respondents of that survey. Take some responsibility for your thinking, keep yourself informed of the world around you and the actions of your government, and once you’ve done all that, go and exercise your right to vote. If you don’t, then come the 4^th of July next year, there might be nothing left to celebrate.

The war on what, now?

There are a few subjects that will inevitably recur on this blog, as they underlie many of my interests and passions. One of these subjects is that of freedom, so from time to time I’ll comment on ideas, people and organisations that promote freedom, and those ideas, people and organisations that strive to oppress.

My first victim is one of the latter: the so-called “War on Terror” waged by the United States of America (by which I mean the government thereof). I won’t go into too many details; most of what I could say here has been said before. Rather, I’d just like to reiterate a few key points.

My first recommendation is to read the Wikipedia article I linked to above; it offers a good primer for further contemplation.

Secondly I’d like to present a couple of choice quotes from this rant on the topic, which largely echo my sentiments:

Terrorism is a tactic. It makes no sense to launch a war against a tactic.

No, it certainly doesn’t, especially when many of your own military tactics, such as those employed in the initial shock and awe assaults bear such frightening similarities to the tactics of terrorism, which you so claim to despise. Hypocrisy aside, however, the quote says it all: you can’t wage a war against a tactic. You can’t defeat a tactic, because a tactic is an idea.

The only way for a tactic to be ‘defeated’ in any sense is for its proponents to reject it as a valid course of action, and I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Combine a people sufficiently passionate about a cause to fight and die for it with a population insufficient to match their enemy man-for-man, and terrorism will continue to present a very appealing opportunity.

The other problem with declaring “war” against a tactic, of course, is that there's no reasonable point at which the subjects of the war-making government can expect that “war” to end.

This presents the biggest problem of all: when a nation is at war, its citizens are generally more willing to sacrifice their freedoms in the short-term in the hope that supporting their government will help end the war quickly. In short, they become much easier to manipulate.

This is always a worry, but it is especially so in a war that has no attainable goal, and therefore no visible end. The United States is oppressing its own people in the name of a war that they can sustain for as long as it serves their purposes.

I find it terrifying that they’ve managed to get away with all this so easily, and for so long, but when you look a figures like these, it at least becomes a little easier to understand how they pulled it off.

Connex, wherefore art thou?

About three years ago, Connex assumed full control of Melbourne’s suburban rail operations, and so far they don’t seem to be doing a particularly good job. I haven’t criticised them significantly in the past, because I’ve been well-accustomed to poorly-run public transport since I started using the system as a child. It’s what I’ve come to expect. Recently, however, I’ve realised that the failings of past management don’t excuse Connex’s current failings; if anything, Connex should have learned from their mistakes.

First are the overt, quantifiable failings: The Victorian Department of Infrastructure’s last quarterly bulletin shows evidence of a steady decline in the level of service and customer satisfaction over recent months. To give you an idea of the current level of service, let’s take a look at the monthly bulletin for May this year. The report shows only 92.5% of their scheduled services running on-time.

The DOI defines on-time trains as those “[arriving] at their destination not more than 59 seconds before or not later than five minutes and 59 seconds after the scheduled time in the timetable”. I’m going to assume they actually meant that an on-time train cannot be more than 59 seconds early or five minutes and 59 seconds late, since the actual wording suggests that all trains qualify as ‘on-time’ (correct me if I’m wrong, but I would have thought a train can’t be simultaneously early and late)!

In all my years of using public transport, I’ve seen plenty of buses running early but I’m yet to see an early train. This suggests to me that almost one in every thirteen trains are at least six minutes late. I don’t know about you, but that falls a fair bit below my expectations.

Then there are the problems which don’t show up directly in monthly reports: a ridiculous ticket sales policy and severe overcrowding, to name two. I’ll address these two briefly to give you an idea of what I mean.

Melbourne’s suburban rail network is currently divided into two zones. I travel mostly within only one of these zones, so I usually carry a monthly ticket. However, when I do want to travel into the other zone, I require an extension ticket to allow this.

The first part of the problem here is that ticket machines will refuse to produce a ticket for zone 2 if you are in zone 1, and vice versa. This is not a stocking issue, as the tickets stored inside the machines are generic, and only obtain their identity when they are requested by a customer.

The second part of this problem is that staff aren’t authorised to be much more useful than the machines. The stated policy is that to buy a ticket for another zone, you must first prove that you have a valid monthly or yearly ticket for the zone in which you are making the purchase.

Now, I don’t know for sure whether this is some half-arsed attempt at reducing fare evasion, or simply another way to double-dip into customers’ pockets by forcing them to buy dual-zone tickets, but either way, I find the policy downright insulting. It often prevents buying tickets in advance, makes it difficult to travel between zones without shelling out extra money for a service you’re not getting, and sends a clear message that they don’t trust their customers.

The second problem is simply that Connex aren’t providing enough services during peak periods, so trains are overcrowded to the point that some people waiting on platforms literally can not fit in the train when it finally arrives.

That said, I don’t think all the blame lies with Connex. It’s also largely the Department of Infrastructure’s fault for implementing a privatisation model that clearly doesn’t work. They need to enforce higher levels of service if they expect them to be a reality. They need to charge steeper fines for consistently late trains. They need to crack down on senseless policies that serve only to hinder customers. The obvious rebuttal here is that being too strict on commercial providers will make them unprofitable, and they’ll withdraw their operations. But if this is truly the case, then the solution seems pretty obvious to me: the government should buy the rail network back.

It seems to me that one of the major responsibilities of government is to allocate money to services that are not commercially viable, but are important enough to operate anyway. If the Department of Infrastructure can not find a private provider that can offer a quality service at a reasonable price, then surely the train network falls under this category.

All this leaves me with a single unanswered question: why are Connex still running our trains?

Friends of the Family

With Linux distributor Linspire’s recent announcement of its new arrangement with Microsoft, I thought it would be a good time to take a step back and consider what these deals mean for Linux and the free software community in general.

First, though, a refresher. The following companies have already signed up with Microsoft’s protection program. If I’ve forgotten anyone, please let me know.

You may have noticed that I’ve taken the liberty of updating the Linspire logo to better fit its peers.

Now, these three companies, by agreeing to pay protection money to Microsoft, are essentially legitimising its — as yet completely unfounded — claims that Linux and various other free software violates its IP rights. While (as I understand) these deals pose no legal threat, that’s far from the point.

Microsoft have already clearly stated that they don’t intend to sue anyone over the use or distribution of Linux. Admittedly this isn’t a promise not to sue in future, but in combination with their refusal to date to substantiate their claims in any way, I think it’s safe to say the whole thing is no more than FUD.

What’s the big deal, then, you ask? Well, the problem is that FUD works. Microsoft are (or at least should be) terrified of Linux and other free software offerings winning even more of the desktop and server markets. Free options are only getting better, and in recent years Microsoft have been hard-pressed to produce anything even remotely innovative.

Their only viable option now seems to be to scare companies and end users away from using Linux, and pretending that the open source community has somehow wronged them is a good step in that direction. Saying they don’t yet have any plans to start suing people — but not ruling out the possibility — is another. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the insignificance of their claims was more widely understood. In the unlikely event that Microsoft could produce a single valid patent genuinely violated by Linux, the ever-vigilant kernel maintainers could write around the problem in mere hours. This is why Microsoft don’t want to name specific patents; they know their claims are bunk. What they want is to maintain a general feeling of suspicion of the world outside Microsoft to keep people from venturing too far from the flock.

So what role do these protection deals play in all this? Well, from where I’m standing, they appear to be serving a dual purpose: maintain the FUD, and keep the tributes coming in. These tributes aren’t just because Microsoft are greedy. Oh, don’t get me wrong: Microsoft are greedy, but I dare say it’s even more important for them to remind each of their new so-called “partners” that they are — for lack of a better term — Microsoft’s bitch. And who knows: if enough companies show the same pathetic submission, then a lot of otherwise sensible people might start believing Microsoft’s claims!

Personally, I’m still hoping the heavy use of inverted commas around the word “better” in Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony’s letter on the topic is a cryptic indication that this is all actually an elaborate hoax. But if that’s the case, then really, Kevin: surely you know even joking about this can’t be good for business!

The Post

I briefly considered entitling this “Obligatory Introductory Post or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog”. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to bounce the thought off Google, first. Apparently there are around 16,400 other people who had the same brilliant, unique idea as I.

But that hardly matters; whatever the title, you can consider this my official declaration that I have indeed given in to public demand, and will now proceed to blog in earnest.

I currently have a backlog of roughly ten topics that demand attention (a large part of the reason I’ve finally penetrated the blogosphere). I’ll begin to address these over the coming days.