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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Thursday, May 16, 2002
21:55 - Captain on the bridge
http://www.denbeste.nu/

(top) link
Over at USS Clueless, the Cap'n exhorts us to eschew stupid political correctness in favor of having a little honest fun. Hey, don't worry, man-- I'm way ahead of you on that front. (Though politicians aren't likely to follow suit, not when there's stonewalling to do. Remember when Dogbert petitioned Congress to ban the obscene lyrics in opera? "Senator, I think we've found something else to keep us from doing real work!" "Ooh-ooh!")

He also explains what it is that Microsoft really wants from its monopoly-- not the death of rival software companies, but the preservation of their exclusive right to own the desktop. No virtual machines, no meta-environments, no write-once-run-anywhere platform-independent stuff. No portability-- just Windows.

This doesn't exactly make me feel better than if they simply wanted to kill Netscape and Java out of meanness and pettiness. In fact, it's worse. It means they're far more concerned with maintaining the status quo of their monopoly than with innovating-- innovation is something they do only when it suits them, and by this model that's the only way it makes sense. Don't innovate unless it helps to crush a potential threat to the platform monopoly. If that wasn't their focus, it would mean that IE and .NET and the Xbox are all genuine expressions of inventiveness that they just happened to give the leverage of monopoly in order to hawk them. And it seems that's not the case.

One would think that a company this repugnant would have no support at all among the buying public. But, of course, these issues take a lot more thought and effort than simply using Windows like a good boy.

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© Brian Tiemann