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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!