The Price of an Opinion

From Newsweek:

When did we become so polarized that we lost our ability to have a civilized discussion about complex issues?.... Remember when we were kids and one of the most common comebacks was, "Hey, it’s a free country!" I haven’t done a survey of school-yards, but I kind of doubt kids say that as much now. They probably know that it might not be entirely true.

Amen to this. I think we all like to be right, but when did it become a necessity, and when did anyone who disagrees with you become an idiot? I wish we, as a people, could find this place again.

Take That, RIAA!

From CNET News:

A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales. For the study, released [March 29, 2004], researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.

This is a little old, but it just goes to prove what I've been saying all along. I've bought more far more CDs in the last few years than I would have if I didn't have the ability to download the CD, listen to it, and then either delete the MP3s or buy the CD.

I Can't Take It Anymore

All this arguing (about whether Kerry was fired on or not when he won the Bronze Star, whether the injuries for which he won the Purple Hearts were serious or not, whether he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 or not) is a complete distraction and is intended to mire the discussion in unimportant details.

The basic facts are these:

• Kerry was in Vietnam, "in harm's way" (as my Dad used to like to say).
• He was decorated at least 5 times.
• Upon his return, he took advantage of his First Amendment right to speak out against the war.

Other than that, who cares? If I said to someone, "That man over there claims you shot him, stabbed him, and then spit on him," and that someone responded by saying "I didn't spit on him," we all can see that this answer is just misleading and distracting because it starts an argument about the least important charge.

Arguing about the details of John Kerry's service just distracts us from the larger issues affecting us now. Instead of talking about whether one of those Purple Hearts was undeserved, let's note that Kerry was there, Bush wasn't (for whatever reason), and move on.

I'm Rubber and You're Glue...

I've been wanting to "weigh in" on politics here, but with the mud-slinging climate and the avalanche of bullshit, where to begin? This seems like a good place to start. (Note that the LA Times requires registration, but there's always BugMeNot.com to deal with that.)

I've been listening to Air America a great deal, and although Janeane Garofalo's shrill, unsubtle "commentary" is really grating (more on this later, perhaps), I do have to agree with her assertion that the only reasonable explanation for a vote for "W" is a character flaw in the voter.

How to Remove Spyware and Malware from a Windows PC

Michael Horowitz has done an excellent job of summarizing the steps necessary for removing malware (i.e., spyware, adware, viruses, etc.). He also provides links to required resources. He seems to fall into the "Reinstall the OS" camp.

Whenever I hear someone say "Reinstall the OS," I get a little hinky. Because I've done it enough and know what a pain in the ass it is, I generally regard it as a last resort. I know some people reinstall the OS once a month, but they must have more free time than I do.

Anyway, this is a good starting point.

Sign #423 of the Impending Apocalypse

From Wired News:

If someone you recently tried to pick up at a bar told you to e-mail them at a papernapkin.net address, don't get too excited about your forthcoming romantic prospects. That's because any e-mail sent to any papernapkin.net address returns the following bad news: "Nice to hear from you. Ha ha, just kidding. Actually, this is a rejection letter. The person who gave you this email address does not want to have anything to do with you."

Why do we have to take the fast food approach to everything!? Are we so lazy and lacking in compassion that we need to do this? It was bad enough when people gave a fake telephone number; this just adds insult to injury. If I were given one of these rejections, I would take comfort in the fact that the person who gave it to me was so clearly (a) developmentally stunted and (b) not worth my time.

Realty Bites

From Slate:

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," a character in a Shakespeare play famously remarks. I have a different suggestion: Make it realtors.

I've never bought a house, or anything that requires a mortgage (or anything with a monthly payment over $300, for that matter), but I've always wondered why realtors are involved at all, especially at such a premium. This article says that the average realtor sells 6 houses per year—6!—and, based on the figures in the article, those 6 houses can net the realtor about $150,000 in commissions! That's crazy.

It's Just the "internet" Now

From Wired News:

Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net.

Cool beans, man. I'm all about this. Seriously.

New HD

Hitachi 7K60

I'm thinking of upgrading the HD in my laptop, because I don't quite trust the existing one, given recent crashes and questionable XP event log entries. It may be going up, so this seems like a good time to get a newer one. I could get an 80-GB drive at the same speed, but I'm attracted to this 7200-rpm drive that's the same size as the current one. I only use about 15 GB of the current one, so size is not an issue, but speed always is.

"Racist Like Me"

From Slate:

In a nation riven to its very core by race, I appear to be the only remaining racist. Off and on, I'm homophobic and anti-Semitic, too, but mostly, I'm racist. Yet unlike the rest of you, I'm honest about it.

Kind of interesting article from the other side of the race divide, so to speak. She's right though—I was almost ashamed to begin reading the article, to even entertain the notion that someone who admitted to being racist could have anything worth saying.