Vote with your wallet

Target recently apologized for giving money to an right-leaning candidate after boycotts were discussed.  Although the term vote with your wallet is nothing new and readily visible in politics today, now companies are starting to directly target a politically divided group.

Enter Creedo mobile, a cell phone company that takes pleasure in pointing out AT&T has given millions more to Republicans than Democrats.  AT&T has been tacitly advertising for Creedo since its not hard to find ways in which AT&T is a morally compromised company, but how far does this go?  Should I buy "lefty" toothpaste and carrots?

Although its nice to be able to use more than a ballot box to vote, one danger is that if consensus and goodwill are achieved politically, this could be bad for business.  A group or company born of conflict seems to disappear if that conflict ever goes away, so those companies have a vested interest in stoking the flame.  While the fire doesn't appear to be going out anytime soon, its disturbing to imagine a group whose bottom line is impacted by how much people hate each other.  C.S. Lewis wrote a book about this sort of thing.

Home Depot recycles CFLs

Very happy to find a place to recycle compact fluorescent bulbs.  The mercury contained in them is poisonous, but until this point, its been a tradeoff between much more expensive LED bulbs or more emissions and more trash caused by inefficient incandescent bulbs.

Related:

An LED bulb I've been very happy with.

Why Yahoo went nowhere

Yahoo purchased its mail service tools, then purchased its mail service upgrade, and never did anything to improve or update either one.  They've been 2 steps behind every other internet company for more than 10 years.  A great article on Yahoo's rapid ascent and then next step into nowhere.

Here's hoping they can shift back into relevance.

Interfaith relations in 2010: Mosque near ground zero

A mosque two blocks from ground zero would be a fantastic way to promote healing and understanding 10 years after the 9/11 attacks and would be a huge statement to the world that as well as a clear statement that the US is not at war with Islam in the Middle East.

Instead, the opposite has been pushed.

Even though Timothy McVeigh was Christian, a long list of people of Muslim belief were killed in the 9/11 attacks, and our country has its own violent Christian fringe terrorists, Christian Pastor Terry Jones still describes Islam as "a violent and oppressive religion" (source).

The issue has become a lightning rod for drawing political favor by Newt Gingrich:

"Gingrich said that he would push for legislation to prevent states from adopting sharia law even though none are proposing it and there is no likely prospect of it happening" (source).

That said, does Islam need to make a better statement to its opponents?  Has the news just not covered Islam's attempt to heal the divide created by the hijackers?  Has there been such an effort?

Update:

• Article on one of the people behind the mosque, Daisy Khan, who sees it as a healing effort.
• A good contrasting article comparing the building of a convent near Auschwitz.  This brings up an obvious question: if centers of worship too close to places of mass death is insensitive, what distance from lower Manhattan is acceptable?  What about St Paul's just across the street from ground zero, built well before the towers?

Update 2: 

• Olbermann makes some interesting points, especially about how businesses around Ground Zero have floundered.  Unfortunately he starts with a comparison with the Nazis, which is a little too Glenn Beck for my taste.

Searching for why gay marriage is wrong

Whatever your side on an issue, accepting the status quo is always dangerous.  Ignoring your opposition is myopic and the equivalent of keeping your fingers lodged firmly in your ears while singing.  As such, the search for strong arguments why members of the left should oppose gay marriage has begun.  This is not a static article: it will be updated with better opposition.

The best argument so far is that gay marriage is a political wedge that will always energize the Right against the Left.  It seems if you want to lose elections, just talk about gay marriage.

Other arguments have not been very compelling:

• Voters have consistently voted against it - ("against the will of the people") I have little doubt that if there was a vote to keep slavery legal in the South, that wouldn't make it something you should advocate.  Part of the problem of democracy has always been preventing the majority from bullying the minority.
• Most religious groups opposite it - same problem as above group; many religious groups also favor it.  Even if the majority is in favor of something, that doesn't make it right or wrong.
• Courts should not decide this issue, the people should (source: Brian S. Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage) - counter example: Brown vs. Board of Education; courts decided against discrimination, few on the left thought this was a bad idea then or now.
  
• Marriage is for children - this may have been true 100 years ago but clearly isn't accurate now. 
  
• Bad for families and children - research on this isn't compelling.
  
• Its unnatural - sounds too much like the argument against interracial marriage.
• Slippery slope - people will marry animals or inanimate objects.  This is easily addressed since there's a fallacy named for this.
• Fundamental change to social institutions should happen slowly - the left loves equality and feels changes since the 50s have been for the better.
• Gay people are fundamentally unequal - This is probably the weakest argument given some of the greatest thinkers in history.  A few examples include Da Vinci, Wittgenstein, Francis Bacon, the greatest American poet (Whitman) and a math genius who probably had a lot to do with winning World War II for the Allies (Alan Turing).

Stronger arguments involve attacking bad arguments by the left:

• What is really advocated?  This is a tough one.  Lefty groups should be clear why they do or do not support polygamy, which is not an unthinkable next step.  The focus now is on equality in the eyes of the state, but those advocating for gay marriage are tacitly suggesting a definition of marriage as only between two people while they dismiss a definition that excludes same-sex marriage.  Two women who love the same man may wish for the same equality.  Are there polygamous Leonardo Da Vinci's?  Is one necessary to give group its rights?
• The Left is advocating marriage by disparaging it.  One of the frequent tactics is to point out that if famous morons can get married and divorced at the drop of a hat, Marriage isn't so sacred after all.  This makes for good late-night monologues but is ultimately self-defeating.  Its like arguing that voting is meaningless to avoid giving advocating women's suffrage.
• Anyone who doesn't want gay marriage is a bigot.  If your beliefs do include marriage only as a union between a man and a woman, that does not make you a Nazi.  Bigotry is a "person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices" (source), which is something anyone can be if they don't consider contrasting positions.
• Hospital policies against non-family members during possible end-of-life moments. This is a problem with legal issues / hospital policies.  You should be able to decide you want or don't want at your side when you're dying.  Marriage is connected to this but not the only solution.
• There is enough war and death in the world without telling people they can't love each other.  A meaningless emotional argument, it is similar to the hospital argument in that its both true and obvious, but marriage is not and was never a permission to love.  On the other hand, taken together they represent a legal challenge to a long list of other anti-gay laws that may represent a challenge to one's right to love someone of the same sex.  If the state allows union, it will be forced to contend with many other issues of equality and equal protection.

Note: This article was edited on 9/31/2010 for clarity and adding the "stronger arguments" section and the bit about gays as fundamentally unequal.

iTunes Lite (Windows)

Two recent nightmarish experiences with iTunes:

1. iTunes for Windows is incredibly bloated and takes forever to either install or uninstall.  A mysterious error meant I had to call in backup using Revo Uninstaller (free version).  Still took almost a half hour.
   
2. A friend's daughter lost all her music when she lost her iTouch device.  Evidently there was no backup on the computer she was using, nor could she re-download the music from Apple for anything but the full, original price.
   

Unfortunately, if you really need this software to talk to your music player, you're stuck.

For problem #1 there is fortunately a trick.  Its not perfect and Apple still needs to pay attention to the bloatware its producing.
For problem #2 the search for a fix continues.  For now, Apple's far too short website entry.

Related:

• iTunes is Apple's Internet Explorer 6

Nerdiest court ruling ever

Often people talk about legalese like its indecipherable, but when court precedent and reasonable doubt are put into comic book terms suddenly its obvious (ignore the comic at the top).

If you've read Spawn, you would know what the judge was talking about.  Of course McFarlane is guilty.

I look forward to them going after the awful Eragon for being a near carbon-copy of Star Wars.

(thanks switch)

Share not lest ye be shared

A good article on PC World about a recent security problem in Facebook.

Although the information gathered is already openly available, this is a great reminder about just how important it is to monitor your privacy, much like the "please rob me" application and the ACLU's "Pizza" presentation.

Adulthood difficulty

Some of us have trouble moving into the next phase.  The images describing this transition, though simplistic, are wonderfully accurate. (thanks switch)

Simply the best

A bold, artistic move.  Only Picard spin-kicking Jabba the Hut on the top of Mount Doom could hope to compete. (thanks Kim)

Stuck in a Groove

A disturbing, beautiful, and very unique video about if a remix of perfect or imperfect moments lasted for eternity.  An interesting visual and thought experiment.

From the amazing Live Visuals blog.

Zimbra email client review (part 2)

See Part 1

This is review is my attempt to take a second look at this program.

BAD

• God awful memory cluttering (over 100 megs!).  I'm thinking it runs an entire web server to operate this single application.  Surely they could turn a few services off to cut that down a little.
• Contacts and calendar don't plug in right to my work email.
• New messages notification in task bar never goes away even after i read everything
• Indent email is a two-click process.  I indent A LOT of email so this is painful.
• Search is somewhat slow
• "Notebook" doesn't work or sync with Outlook's "notes"
• Very annoying: won't exit memory unless you say "Shutdown Service" rather than "Quit".  Just sits there taking up a TON of ram.
  

GOOD

• Best feature may be that when a time is mentioned "Yesterday, Tomorrow, Next Week" it automatically highlights this and asks if you want to make a calendar instance from it.  This is beyond cool.
• Cleaner, simpler, easier to search my messages ... will even search my entire public folders directory, which helps me track down weird/obscure company information.  (include "in:inbox" if you dont' want that to happen)
• Collects messages into a "conversation" / gmail-style box
• Skinable
• Connects many different email accounts

Verdict: Would rather use Thunderbird and just forward everything to Zimbra.

Processor premium

A friend pointed out that Apple charges a big premium on their top-of-the-line Intel i7 processors.  Some digging shows that although many operations go about 30% faster from i5 (the next step down in Apple's offering) to i7, it may not be worth the money.

Its a persistent problem in computers: a premium both Apple and Intel both put on the "Ferrari" versions of their products.  In this case, users can save $400 by getting the i5 and a slightly less powerful graphics card.

Not included in the product price is what many users will need to get the very latest versions of software often necessary to get the optimized speeds.  For Photoshop users, that can be a cool $1,000 more.  You don't just pay for the processor, you pay for the software optimizations to use it.

This graphic is from a few years ago but as the article suggests, its unlikely the Core 2 Quad ($550 at the time) was 3x faster than the Core 2 Duo Conroe ($180).

Edit: was listing i9, but the highest processor sold by apple at the writing of this article was the i7 processor.

(Thanks Kimberly.)

Movie Review: Legion (2010)

An awesome B movie unfortunately ruined by moments of awkward, out-of-place, and terrific acting.

Picture the producer talking to the studio heads:

"Think machine guns and angels! ... We've got [insert good actor/actress] already signed up.  Its just like that Christopher Walken movie The Prophecy, except this time both God and all the angels are all pissed."

There's a flicker at the beginning of Army-of-Darkness-style Sam Raimi genius, but it quickly fades into a story that takes itself too seriously.  There's no flow in the actors or dialog from scene to scene, so its impossible to care about the characters, even when their copious talents are put into some outstanding monologues.

This movie should have embraced how absurd it was and pushed it over the top at every opportunity with the zeal of a teenager on too much caffeine.  Maybe next time, captain angelface.