January, 2006:

I’ve been mislead. While having working drivers, a larger selection of software, and a working audio subsystem are all things that I’ve been dreaming of, Windows isn’t exactly all that the world promises it will be. For your standard, day-to-day, office-type use, it works just fine: email, document editing, web surfing, etc. It even handles playing music and video without issue. But, other than some issues with certain proprietary video codecs, Linux does all of this just as well. The real differences come into play beyond this basic usage pattern: audio / video / photo editing, server software, programming, organization, etc.

A large portion of the free (as in beer, speech, or sex) software that is decent is also available for Linux. Notable exceptions include the Flickr Photo Uploader, Google Talk, Picasa, QCD, and a few others.

The free software that isn’t also available for Linux is largely abandoned or buggy or both. Even those that aren’t abandoned have terrible, cluttered, websites that are quite difficult to navigate. There is little to no community support for these applications.

Even most of the non-free software has odd bugs and terrible interfaces.

Another big issue I have with Windows right now is the culture and mentality around it. If you want to see my point, pull up “MSN Messenger”:http://messenger.msn.com/ side by side with “Gaim”:http://gaim.sf.net/ and take a look at the interfaces. You’ll notice that MSN Messenger is cluttered with “features”, advertisement and other unneeded interface items.

So, unless you’re willing to pay for expensive (and often buggy) software ($700 for Adobe Photoshop, for instance), or pirate that same software, the only real difference between the two is the operating system/core functionality itself. For me, that’s a toss up.

Windows has a bit more spit and polish around every corner. Hardware often, but not always, works better, not because of Windows itself, but because of popular support. Applications mostly share a similar look and feel. Most applications integrate reasonably well with one another. However, along with this spit and polished exterior comes a terribly ugly and disorganized mess inside. Because of this, tweaking with the internals of Windows is not for the faint hearted. Often, if something gets “broken”, a user is more likely to reinstall than he/she is to find a solution to the problem.

With Linux, everything isn’t always as easy as it could be but, but, the amount of power and control you have over what it is capable of often more than not makes up for the spit and polish in Windows. For the very basic of tasks, I feel that both are equally suited. So, for anything beyond that, personal preference and the specific task at hand is going to play a larger role than anything.

Only time will tell which choice I end up making. I’m keeping a list of the things I love and hate about each. Maybe you should do the same. If anything, it’ll give both parties an idea of what to fix and what to add.

I think MySpace is one of the ugliest, most cluttered, unfriendly, complicated community-style websites available today. I can’t understand why it’s so popular.

Not only is it constantly broken, and generally slow, but it is so poorly designed that, until you are very familiar with the service, figuring out how to do something, or even what can be done, is quite difficult. Furthermore, because it allows users to customize their own pages with gaudy background images and blaring soundtracks, most of the user pages look and function even worse than MySpace itself.

It duplicates portions of other Internet platforms like email and instant messaging. It even duplicates itself on occasion: you tell me, what’s the difference between a blog, a bulletin, and a message that I send to all of my friends? And while I understand the difference between a blog comment, a message, and a comment on someone’s profile page, trying to determine which method someone will use to communicate with me or which method I should use to communicate with them is not always easy. I actually had a back and forth conversation with someone using comments posted on one another’s profile page. While it’s easy enough to follow for the people in the conversation, It’s annoying as all hell to try to follow on someone else’s page. So what’s the point of having it there anyway.

All of this is terrible. But the thing that I hate most about MySpace is that EVERYONE uses it and, therefore, if I want to be a part of EVERYONE, then I have to too. Radio personalities, other photographers, wonderful bands, old friends, new friends, potential customers, my sister’s best friend from high school… EVERYONE is on MySpace.

How did something this terrible get this popular?

So, that’s it. I give in, check out my “MySpace Profile”:http://www.myspace.com/revjim and add me as a friend. K THX.

Over the years I’ve heard my fair share of complaints from men about their stay-at-home-moms and the expectations they have from them. I’ve also, equally, heard complaints from stay-at-home-moms in regard to the willingness of their men to help out around the house.

I think that taking care of a child all day long can be a bit more work than someone who hasn’t done it can imagine. As much as you may want to come home, kick off your shoes, have a beer and relax, you may find that she’s hoping for the same thing to happen for HER when you get home. If you’re playing an active role in the care of the child and the happiness of your partner, then this is something you should certainly consider. On the same token, however, is the fact that you also deserve a chance to wind down, relax, and get the day’s stresses off of your shoulders.

I know of stay-at-home-moms who manage to handle a child (or two), grocery shopping, cleaning, the bills, errands, and still serve dinner when their man gets home with a smile on her face and, every now and then, a little somethin’ somethin’ in the bedroom later on. However, I also know of stay-at-home-moms who work hard all day just to keep the child from killing itself, and the chores often don’t get done until he gets home to either help clean, help watch the child, or both.

The truth of the matter is, most any man or woman can handle caring for a child and maintaining a household without outside assistance. Single mothers and fathers do it every day all the time with, in many cases, great success. It’s not the best situation, and the stress levels can rapidly approach a tipping point, but, humans are quite capable when then need to be.

Every person is different. Different people will be comfortable with (notice I didn’t say “capable of”) handling different amounts of work and stress. I, for instance, work very well under stress, but have a hard time dealing with menial tasks. Thankfully, Jess is the opposite in many ways, so, we work well together.

Part of the point of being in a loving, caring relationship is not to load as much work on one half as possible so that the other can live in the lap of luxury. It’s about sharing the load. I feel that the ability for a relationship to “just work” is dependent on the amount of concern each member of that relationship has for the other’s happiness. However, I also feel that that concern must be mostly equal or the relationship will be off balance.

It is quite likely that, some day, my wife will be a stay-at-home-mom. I know that, just as she did as a stay-at-home-wife, she will do her best to put as much effort into our household as I do. Sure, she’ll slack off some days. But, that’s no different than my slack-off days at my job. There are some days that she wont feel like getting out of bed, but she will anyway because she knows it needs to be done. I have days like that too. There are some days when she’ll surprise me with a clean house and dinner on the table. There are some days when I’ll surprise her with a pre-arranged sitter and a night alone at the movies. There are days when she’ll want to be alone. There are days when she’ll want my company regardless of whether or not I want to be alone.

What makes the relationship successful isn’t who does what and who gets what time when. What makes it happen is that we both consider each other’s happiness to be of the utmost importance. That seemingly small things keeps us in check with one another and with ourselves. It keeps me from planning a night out for coffee alone, without checking to make sure that she doesn’t need some company or some help this evening. And it keeps her from being selfish and saying she needs me home when, really, she can handle it on her own.

Along with this desire to make one another happy comes an understanding that, sometimes, we will be misunderstood, grumpy, disgruntled, selfish, cranky, or moody. We know that, during the times when the other is feeling this way, we have to fill in a bit, lift them up, and reassure them of our love and support and appreciation.

We also know that communication is always open. If she doesn’t feel I’m helping out around the house, she can say so without fear that I’ll be upset. We can talk out why she feels that way. Maybe I was preoccupied with something she didn’t know about. Maybe I have been slacking and need to get my butt in gear. Maybe she’s just being utterly unreasonable. Maybe I think she’s spending too much money, or that she’s going out too often. Maybe I think she’s not going out enough. Whatever the case is, we know we can talk about it with one another openly and honestly, because we both know deep in our hearts that, regardless of how the words may sound, our intent is not to upset one another, but only to make each other happy, and to clear up any misunderstanding so that we can go back to making each other happy.

Of course, not every one is capable of this level of understanding, honesty, and the mutual desire for each other’s happiness. If that’s the case for you, then I don’t know that I can offer much in the way of a guideline to fairness. However, I can say that, unless your job is waaaaay up there in levels of stress and workloads (think, President of a Small Nation, Brain Surgeon, etc), then chances are if you work your day job and she does everything else, that’s probably not too fair unless, maybe, you’re also paying for daily child care and a maid twice a month.

If you have any doubt, let me know and I’ll arrange for you to watch my brother’s two children for a weekend. I’m sure they’d enjoy a nice little vacation.

“THOSE WHO WOULD SACRIFICE LIBERTY FOR SECURITY DESERVE NEITHER.” — Ben Franklin

This paraphrase of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin had been scrawled in capital letters on a white sheet requiring four protesters to hold it up.

Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, didn’t acknowledge the sign nor did he stop his speech attempting to defuse criticism of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program as 22 protesters stood with their backs to him during the address.

As far as civil disobedience goes, this is truly beautiful.

(via “Veeter”:http://dammti.blogspot.com/2006/01/those-who-would-sacrifice-liberty-for.html.)

Mail in Rebates SUCK. It’s just that plain and simple. Companies make us jump through these hoops and do these tricks just because they are counting on us to screw up. They assume we either won’t fill them in, we won’t get it done in time, we will make some mistake, we will forget to include something, we’ll lose the receipt, accidentally throw away the box, something will get lost in the shuffle, or, if all else fails, they’ll just flat out lie and say that something was missing.

The only reason they do it is because, statistically speaking, some percentage of people purchasing a product will, for one reason or another, fail to get their rebate. They are relying on our stupidity, forgetfulness, and inability to follow through in order to trick us into buying their products.

You may be thinking that you are one of the few who always fills in the rebates and always gets them back. You know what? I am too. I always get my rebate money back. Well, except that one that I bought the day the rebate expired not realizing it. And that one that I lost the rebate receipt for. Oh yeah, and that one that I threw the box out for before cutting out the UPC. Oh, and that one I bought as a gift and then realized afterwards how cheap I’d look giving a gift with the UPC cut out. Oh, and that one that I just plain forgot about until it was too late. Oh… wait… I guess I *am* one of those people. You probably are too.

I’d love to boycott all mail in rebates but, without a lot of people to join in the cause, It’ll only hurt me financially in the end and no statement will be made to companies using rebates as “incentive” to buy their otherwise overpriced products.

The next time you buy a certain product based on the mail-in-rebate it offers, think real hard about what that company must thinks of you, their customer, and then decide if you still want to do business with them.

(Inspired by “Jillithian”:http://jillithian.livejournal.com/328569.html.)