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Computer World Article

Information sharing is great and all, but I’m waiting for spam that says “click here” and have it be a medical records release.

It simply doesn’t seem like enough thought has been put into this, and after the mess HIPAA made of things, I can’t see them being any better about this. It’ll either be too easy to get information from the database (especially for insurance companies – wait ’til their lobby gets involved), or harder than it was previously.

Thankfully, they’re not calling for a centralized database of medical records (running SQLServer! yeah!).

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The Vatican supports denying wayward politicians communion. Me saying, “I won’t attend church anymore” doesn’t mean much (I go to church rarely, and usually only when the mood strikes me).

What I will do is write two churches I’m likely to attend (one at home, and another by my parents) and inquire as to how they would respond. I will also (possibly depending on the response) refuse communion for the near (or long) term.

This does, quite possibly, make me not-so-much catholic – I’m not sure.

Clearly, what the church has done is within its rights. I even understand the angle (and general thrust of the document – which I have not read yet) – I just don’t agree with it. It’s also clear that not all diocese agree.

I’m not sure where I’ll go from here – I ran from the church, only to return years later, only to (seemingly) be driven away again. The Vatican is making it difficult to recall many of the good things the church has done.

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I just finished reading Just Another Empire by Mark Driver. The book is almost exactly what the tagline (Booze. Sex. Anarchy. Assassination. Burritos.) makes it out to be. Actually, it was mostly Booze and Burritos (with brief forays into anarchy and assassination).

Driver is (and has been – at least since I started reading him in 97 or 98) kind of a strange writer. Calling him anti-establishment would be an understatement (and not strange – there are plenty of people who write about the status quo). What makes Driver stand out is that he has fun with his position.

I dislike spoiling too much of a story, but what I can say is that I’d highly recommend the book. And, if you’re bored, I’d highly recommend his occasional essays (which, I guess I’ve been doing that for years).

Anyway. Read it. And the other stuff I linked to. It’s good.

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I’ve got an appropriate apple-related rant, which involves me yelling about data loss and the like – but I’m saving that for a special day (or, at least, a day that’s not this one).

Anyway, today I thought I’d give you a list of software that rocks my socks! This list is pretty useless to anybody not using a Mac. Anyway, it’s a list of really cool software!

  1. GeekTool. Jose pointed me at GeekTool a while ago, and it’s one of the greatest things ever! Currently, I’ve got it displaying outputs from random unix commands on my desktop. It’s handy! and really cool looking!
  2. Desktop Manager. I found Desktop Manager through the Darwin Ports Tree. It gives you multiple desktops in OSX. And it does it in a manner that one could only call “snazzy.” It doesn’t alter the operating system at all, so if it starts acting all fooey (which it apparently does – as the author calls it alpha software) , you can simply turn it off. Stanek has been playing with Space, which also looks pretty snazzy. I’ll have to give it a try sometime.
  3. SideTrack. SideTrack is a replacement mouse driver for Apple laptops. It gives you side scrolling and corner taps. I’ve got it working with both Exposé and the Desktop Manager – the top two corners trigger Exposé, and the bottom two cycle through desktops!
  4. X-Tunes. X-Tunes lets you bring up a simple translucent controller for iTunes. You use a key combination to bring up the controller, and then use a few simple key commands to do things like control the volume, change track, or stop/play.
  5. Markdown. Markdown isn’t OS specific – it’s a text-to-HTML plugin for blogs. I’m using it with Blosxom. One of the nicest things about it is that it seamlessly lets you drop back to HTML when you feel like it. This is the first entry I’m writing using Markdown.

I figured that since I’m using all this great freeware, I should at least give a nice plug for the authors. So, I did!

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I’ve had a few to drink – so, I’m in a fairly charitable mood. Unfortunately, when in one of these “charitable” moods, I really don’t have any othe recourse but to miss people. Said people are coming to visit next week – that makes me happy. It’s actually the highlight of my semester.

It’s sad that I have to get moderately drunk (2 screwdrivers – try it with Absolut Vanilla – it’s like an orange creamsicle, 1 glass of wine, 3 beers) before I feel anything. I guess it bothers me that to say, “person A makes me happy” takes several drinks.

Well, I had fun playing Chez Geek is really fun. I ended up playing a few rounds of that with Big Geoff and Trygve. It was a good time. I may have to pick up Chez Geek (from Cheapass Games) – they’re really good. I’m pondering placing an order from them).

Also, Scooby Doo, Where Are You? is a great tv show.

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Salon recently published an opinion piece on recent happenings in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP). The author is a newly retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who worked in the OSP from May 2002 to February 2003

Salon is making the article free to viewers, because they “thought this story was just too important.” Indeed, the article is particularly damning of the administration, and well-known officials in the OSP.

Unfortunately, the article is published on Salon – and not as a news story, but as an opinion piece. I’d guess this is because no editor worth his salt (or, for that matter, integrity) would be willing to publish the article as genuine news. This is not to say that the story is not accurate, it may very well be. Unfortunately, it is the point of view of one person who is clearly biased, and published on a site with a similar bias (the article starts with an “editor’s note” that welcomes MoveOn.org members).

There was an article in The New Yorker recently that mentioned that one of the problems with journalism today is that journalists are less likely to seek out independent confirmation of their sources, and would likely publish a story based on a single source of information (The allegation is actually from Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff – in an article entitled “Fortress Bush,” from 19 January 2004).

If anything fits the title of ill-researched, this Salon article does – nothing the author says is verified via a third party. I find that a little annoying. Granted, the article is an opinion piece (and is labelled as such), but it’s not presented as one.

This isn’t the only article that smacks of this however. Media coverage of Haiti was similarly bad. News coverage continually repeated the same thing over and over again: “Aristide was a democratically elected leader who the administration allowed to be ousted” (with the clear subtext that Aristide was therefore popular). Not being familiar with Haiti’s history, I had to do a fair bit of hunting around to find more information than that: For instance, Aristide was a catholic priest. He was forced to resign, in part, because he was an outspoken advocate of class warfare in Haiti. He has also been accused of corruption (either allowing it, or outright supporting it).

This is not to say that Aristide was a complete bastard – an interview on NPR noted that he was apparently extremely popular with the poor. My complaint is that none of these nuances are being presented in the media. We’re given a one dimensional view of an issue (sometimes, if it’s a hot topic, 2) and left to digest that. This is insulting – either the reader doesn’t have the mental acuity to process multiple streams of information, or the journalists are too lazy to seek them out. Neither is good.