Month: March 2008

I am the world's only satisfied user of Windows Vista. Honestly. Bugs aside, it's amazing. Yes, that's an awful lot like saying "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?" But this past weekend, as I talked yet another person off the Fuck It, I'm Going Back to XP Ledge, something struck me: why in the name of God is the buying public doing Microsoft's product testing?

Several factors contribute to my status as one of the first and most satisfied Vista users. I build my own computers, and I don't care what anyone says, it makes a difference.
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Big manufacturers use cheap components and load their machines with so much bullshit – trial versions of everything, games, help tools for idiots, ridiculous multimedia software – that even deleting it will cause problems thanks to Vista's flaw of collecting bits and pieces of old registry files.
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For instance, if you delete a trial version of Symantec AV your networking capabilities will be messed up beyond belief. Symantec has created specific tools for Vista users looking to uninstall the programs. Most users probably are not aware of this – they know only that they paid $400 for the damn software and they can't wirelessly connect to the internet.

This is just one example, of course. We're 18 months into its release and they are still finding new bugs and scrambling to fix the old ones. I cannot shake the feeling that Microsoft got very, very lazy here. They figured, "Hey, fuck it. Release it and we'll mop up the few bugs as they happen." Unfortunately it's not a "few." And the average consumer does not expect to pay that much for something half-finished.

Not only is Vista buggy, but frankly most of the machines out there are not powerful enough to run it properly. Microsoft confidently predicted that it would work on "95% of existing PCs" with no modification. Dual-core and newer P4 systems will handle it well, but the kinds of machines that fill computer labs on campuses, public libraries, government offices, middle schools, and so on are not going to run an OS designed to compliment dual-core architecture. We tend to forget this in tech-porn land, but the overwhelming majority of computers in use are old pieces of shit. Their users are not interested in maximizing system performance or keeping the latest and greatest hardware installed. I have no problems running Vista – on a spankin' new Core 2 Duo at 2.8ghz. But I am 0.01% of computer users. I can't imagine installing this on the PCs at your local library or in your dentist's office.

I've never abided the general public rage toward Microsoft but I certainly have cause to question their collective intelligence after this debacle.
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It would have been far more logical to wait another year for the product to be refined and for the end users' hardware to catch up a little. What's done is done, though. Feel free to contact me if you need to be talked off the ledge.
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*Or you could take my advice: back up, format, and do a clean install. There seems to be a growing consensus among Vista users that "upgrade" installs never work.

There's been an awful lot written in the last week on the left side of the blog-o-world about John McCain's involvement in the recent Department of Defense decision to award its contract for new aerial refueling tankers to Airbus (a subsidiary of German-French-Spanish aerospace conglomerate EADS) rather than U.S.-based Boeing. Here is an example, by no means the only one, of the America Should Be Buyin' American commentary. Boeing claims (although I don't fully believe) that nearly 9,000 U.S. jobs could be lost as a result. And what sense does it make for our military to be dependent on foreign suppliers? Valid points, these are.

To which I respond, Where the hell have you been for the past 30 years? You'll find fewer foreign products in Pier 1 Imports than in the hands of the average American soldier.

Italian pistols (the Beretta M9), German submachine guns (H-K MP5), Belgian machine guns (various FN Herstal models), British jet engines (Rolls-Royce)….

the list could go on. And that's not even counting the hundreds of "American" vehicles and products composed largely of foreign parts. The military has traditionally bought only from U.

S. companies as a matter of policy. In practice, the aforementioned foreign companies would simply open up an American office; so we're technically not buying from Beretta, we're buying from "Beretta USA." To say that this is little more than a convenient legal fiction of "American" origin is an understatement.

I regularly get up in arms (pun intended) about the continued exodus of manufacturing work from the American economy, but this case feels an awful lot like trying to close the barn door long after the horses escaped.

Like American consumers, the American military's buying habits focus on superior-quality foreign products and polyglot products made of parts and labor from all around the globe but branded by U.S.-based multinationals. Even if the Air Force "bought American" in this case, the Boeing 767-based entry isn't really "built" in Washington. "Assembled" is the better word – of parts made in the U.S., China, Japan, Britain, Canada, Mexico, and half of the other countries on the damn planet.

Today a Honda Accord (built in Ohio and Indiana, containing 65% domestic parts) is a foreign car while a Chevy Aveo (built in Korea, containing 4% domestic parts) is American. If it hasn't already become so, the concept of American- or foreign-made is on the fast track to becoming completely meaningless. The reality of this situation is no different than the reality of your consumer purchases. Do you make yourself buy a Ford out of a sense of duty to the country? Or do you remind yourself that American cars are merely cheaper – and in every other way inferior – on your way to the Honda or Toyota dealership? Let's can the phony outrage at the idea that the military is doing exactly the same thing. If Boeing's creaky, four-decade-old design had anything going for it other than "It's cheap!" and "You're honor-bound to buy 'American'!" we might not be having this conversation.

The muckrakers over at Pravda USA have provided yet another example of their unique brand of hard-hitting journalism, running a non-sequitur "story" entitled "List of Thwarted Terror Attacks Since Sept. 11" apropos of absolutely nothing. Even for the average FoxNews.com copy writer this must have required several bouts of pride-swallowing. Such a difficult job – they must continually propagandize about how much safer we are thanks to Our Leader (and waterboarding!) while simultaneously reminding us that we are in great danger. But let's leave that little inconsistency alone for the moment.
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Note the introductory copy: "The following is a list of known terror plots thwarted by the U.S. government since Sept. 11, 2001."

And then the first entry is Richard 'Shoe Bomber' Reid. Um, if my memory serves, Reid was "thwarted" by two things: the fact that he's apparently unable to operate matches and a doctor/passenger who sedated him. By what stretch of the imagination and poetic license did "the U.S. government" thwart that attempt? Why let reality interrupt a propaganda narrative, I suppose.

This list appears to consist of either unsubstantiated charges (note Jose Padilla, who is "accused of seeking a dirty bomb", a charge so baseless that it was not mentioned once in the criminal trial or conspiracy charges of which he was convicted) or the sorriest excuses for "terrorism plots" that we could imagine. It's sad and pitiable how desperate the right is to wave around some War on Terror / Patriot Act / Wiretapping / Waterboarding success story. It has them digging up every nutcase who ever dreamed of committing an act of terrorism and hoping that we won't object to how low they set the bar for defining a realistic or credible threat.

Let's see, there's Dhiren Barot, who "plotted" to bomb financial centers. He was arrested with no funding, no promise of funding, no vehicles related to an attack, no bombs, and no bomb-making materials. Who could forget Iyman Faris, the Brooklyn Bridge terrorist:

Faris' investigations into obtaining the necessary tools for the dual-operation involved asking a friend where he might purchase welding equipment, and researching the structure of the bridge on the internet. He concluded that the operation was unlikely, and sent a message back to Pakistan calling off the plot.

Looks like he "thwarted" himself! But not before he engaged in detailed planning like typing "Brooklyn Bridge" into Google and asking a friend where he might purchase a blowtorch. America may never know how close it came to tragedy. The list goes on to dredge up FBI "successes" like the so-called Sears Tower Plot and Fort Dix Plot. Nevermind that those two groups of beyond-amateurish retards couldn't have successfully planned and executed a fucking 7-11 robbery. They talked about blowing up the Sears Tower, ergo the threat was REAL! If you had a spare two hours to research each of the items on the list, you would come away with a very different perspective on the nature and extent of the threats these incidents actually posed. But Fox News knows that you won't.

The right-wing media's zealous efforts to convince you that you are in imminent danger have officially jumped the shark. Their narrative would have you believing that America was on the cusp of tragedy in these instances, saved only by George Bush, Waterboarding, Domestic Spying, School Vouchers, and No Child Left Behind. Personally, I don't think "fear" describes how I feel when I read about a guy who did some Google/Wikipedia reading and became convinced that he could not in fact destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. "Amused" might be a better term.
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