Sunday, 9 September 2007 by marstinson.

Well, it’s finally official (and I don’t mean my non-abandonment of this blog). Fred Dalton Thompson finally stopped pussy-footing around and decided to officially run for President. Go get ‘em, Fred.

Personally, I don’t know enough about Fred to have much of an informed opinion one way or the other. I like his Arthur Branch character on “Law and Order” and I suspect that a good deal of the character’s believability comes from Fred, but I also keep in mind that what I’m seeing on TV isn’t Fred. It’s Fred’s interpretation of what the writers and directors have put in front of him.

The media hype seems to be trying to position Fred as being the next Reagan. Aside from both men having had modest success in Hollywood and both seeing themselves as being political conservatives, I don’t see much commonality. But what I do appreciate about Fred is that he really seems to “get” the whole idea of federalism. And that seems to be at the root of many of his more “controversial” stands. I don’t have an inside source, a psychic link or anything, so what follows is me spouting off on the issue. If we’re on the same sheet of music, great. If we’re not, I hope we get there some day.

One of the great fallacies that seems to come out of our public classrooms today is that states are somehow offspring of the national government. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The national government is the offspring of the original 13 states. Consider, for example, the Declaration of Independence (the actual declaration part - the rest is mostly propaganda for the masses with some nice ideas thrown in for spice).

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.[emphasis mine]

Note the constant usage of the plural. After Britain’s agreement that the colonies were no longer subjects of the Crown, we have thirteen independent countries sitting on the Atlantic seaboard, not one. They are “states” only in the sense of being political entities, not in the sense of being subordinate units of a larger entity. This is probably where the confusion sets in: the same word is being used to mean two different things. These countries recognized that their common interests far outweighed their differences and that it would be in their best interest to form a political union of some sort rather than having to face the world on their own. Not that there weren’t a few hitches along the way. There was that argument between Connecticut and Pennsylvania over some land in what is now Ohio that had some folks talking war (which would have been really interesting for people in New York). It was eventually worked out, but the idea soon caught on that a functioning national government of some sort was required.

So, between May and September 1787, these thirteen countries managed to hammer out a framework for a national government that was more or less palatable to all of them and, following some really heated arguments over just how palatable, the Constitution was eventually ratified. In order to create that national government, the thirteen countries had to give up some of the political powers they had won through the Revolutionary War. The powers that those thirteen countries gave to the national government alone (called “delegated powers” for all you budding political scientists out there) were those powers that the framers believed were necessary for the national government to deal with national problems and issues. The remaining powers (called “reserved powers”), the thirteen countries (OK, “states” might be appropriate at this point) kept for themselves.

The idea was that the national government should deal with national problems and the states would deal with everything else. And that’s how it went, at least until someone started mucking around with the idea. Who did it, what they did, when they did it and why they did it is the stuff of which doctoral disserations are made. And since this isn’t one of those, we’ll just have to settle for the fact that it happened. “What happened?”, you might well ask. The answer is simple enough: somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that almost every problem was a national problem and the states, instead of being somewhat equal partners in this federal venture, were relegated to the position of being employees. Not even mid- or lower-management in a lot of cases.

I understand the rationale of the people who like this situtation. First, it provides at least a modicum of consistency throughout the country. This would generally be considered a “good thing” by those who like consistency; not so good from the individualistic side. Second, you only have to convince 270 people (218 Representatives, 51 Senators and 1 President) to solve a problem. That’s about twice what you would have to convince in Texas since our state government is significantly smaller, but you’d have to repeat the process for every state in order to achieve consistency. I guess from a more cynical standpoint, it’s cheaper to bribe (OK, “influence”) 270 people than a few thousand.

But you solve the problem at the expense of the liberties that are maintained by the constant bickering of the states and the national government. See, the Founding Fathers had the right idea. If you want to preserve liberties from the encroachments of a powerful government, you divide the power to abridge those liberties among competing groups. Since the groups compete, they’ll seldom agree and even then it will only be on important things (which is what you want in the first place).

So, Fred, I hope you’re remembering the second question: is it the national government’s problem? For those who may have missed it, the first question would have been “is it a problem in the first place?” If the answer is “no” to either question, that’s why they invented the veto. Go get ‘em!

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Sunday, 31 December 2006 by marstinson.

Newsflash: Uproar in the blogosphere over Microsoft tactics.

Seems that the good folks at Redmond had an idea. What about sending Acer Ferrari laptops to some of the bloggers on The Hive? For those of you who might not know, The Hive is a web community more or less dedicated to talking about Microsoft products and technologies. Microsoft provides the servers, web access and some of the content and the community does the rest. Anyway, the selected bloggers can take the final version of Vista out for a test drive on some decent hardware and then tell the world what they think about it. Afterward, they can do whatever they want with the laptops: keep ‘em, hold a give-away contest, or send ‘em back. If you think of the cost in terms of a single 30-second spot during the Super Bowl, it’s negligible, and the target audience is the people who are most likely to want to know more about Vista anyway.

Sounds like a great marketing idea, doesn’t it? Microsoft is pretty confident that Vista is going to meet most of the hype, so they’re expecting that they will get good (or at least neutral) reviews. And for those few reviewers who might have major complaints, well, it’s something that Microsoft might be able to fix in SP1. After all, the general rule for a sizable chunk of the business environments is to not deploy a new Microsoft OS until SP1 is out. But, no! Sending laptops to bloggers sounds too much like bribery for some folks.

With a few caveats, I’m not one of them and I don’t see much of a problem. If there is a problem, it’s one of perception.

Bloggers are not journalists as we typically think of them. I do not mean to imply that they don’t report news because in many cases they do, nor do I believe that their opinions are not their opinions or are invalid simply because I might disagree. But journalists are supposed to operate within certain ethical boundaries. If they stray too far from those boundaries, they will find themselves looking for new employment, probably in a new career field. Some do stray, as evidenced by a few notable scandals over the past couple or three years, but the vast majority do not. Bloggers, however, are not bound by those ethics. Within certain legal considerations (copyright and libel, for example), they can write pretty much whatever they want about whoever or whatever they choose.

So what’s the big deal about sending out a few laptops? Perception, mostly. If a blogger who has received a laptop from Microsoft (these are $2000+ machines, by the way) writes a glowing review of Vista, was it because Vista is actually that good or because they got a freebie laptop out of the deal? How about if the blogger writes a glowing review of Vista on their own machine and with their own copy of the OS? That last is strictly hypothetical as Vista has not been released for public consumption yet. And how are you, the reader, supposed to be able to tell the difference unless the blogger tells you where he/she is coming from?

From Microsoft’s point of view, the issue is pretty simple. They want people to write about Vista. But Vista’s hardware requirements are pretty hefty if you want to get the full Vista experience. So to make sure that the reviewer gets the full experience, they are willing to provide the appropriate hardware along with the OS. If you go down and look at my comments on the Beta 2 build of Vista, you’ll note that I couldn’t get the Aero Glass effects because my laptop’s graphics card was not up to snuff. But I also told you where I got the OS and that it was a Beta release so you would know the basis of my comments. It seems to me that if Microsoft wants people to write good reviews of their new OS, then it would be in their best interest to make sure that the reviewer can get the full experience of the OS without forking out a wad of cash to upgrade their current system or buying a new one. Note that professional reviewers (like “PC World,” “PC Magazine,” “Comuter Shopper,” and the like) keep their test machines up to date so that they are able to evaluate the full potential of a piece of hardware or software. Bloggers probably don’t have the budget to be able to do that. So is it bribery or making sure that a reviewer can actually see what the OS can do?

And even looking at it in the worst possible light, is it really bribery? Although I’m sure there are some people out there who will switch to a new OS simply because their favorite magazine or blogger said it was way cool, most of us will switch to Vista for a few very concrete reasons: it does something that we want/need to do and can’t in our current OS, it will come preloaded on a new machine, or we’ll upgrade just for the sake of running the latest and greatest. Reviewers have virtually zero influence with people who are going to switch for the first two reasons and people who are going to switch for the third are going to do it anyway. The only things that a review can influence in that regard are whether the switch takes place sooner rather than later and, perhaps, the version that the consumer decides upon.

Microsoft, I’m sure, is hoping for “sooner” (first quarter earnings and all that), but “later” is still money in the bank. If my understanding of Microsoft’s licensing terms to manufacturers is correct, you won’t be able to buy a box with XP on it after January 2008, so “later” is not that much later. As for the version, anyone want to take bets on the sales of ”Ultimate” versus “Home Basic” and “Home Premium”? Speaking from the gaming perspective (which is probably the better reason for going with “Ultimate”), there is currently only one graphics card out there that is built for DirectX 10 (the GeForce 8800 from nVidia, though I’m sure that ATI won’t be too far behind) and zero games that can actually take advantage of it. Even “Halo 2,” which is being tailored specifically for Vista and is not supposed to run on XP, is sticking with DirectX 9 so that players will not have to fork out $500-$700 for a new graphics card to play it.

So let’s see… If people are going to switch OSs because they need or want some new functionality, a reviewer isn’t going have much of an impact on the decision; the OS either does what they want/need or it doesn’t. If people are going to buy a new computer that comes with the new OS, a reviewer isn’t going to have much of an impact on the decision because the computer manufacturers are going to make that decision for the consumer. So that only leaves those who are going to voluntarily switch OSs either through a clean install or an upgrade of their existing OS (assuming, of course, that their hardware can handle it). And the odds are very good that these folks are going to do it anyway.

Frankly, I don’t see a major problem here. This is not a case of “here’s a new car, now say something good about it and you can keep it.” This appears to me as a case of “here’s a new OS and some hardware that will let you see what it can do. Kick the tires, take it out for a spin, and tell us what you think about it. And you can do whatever you want with the hardware when you’re done.” As for the ethics of doing it, I still don’t see a problem. I cannot count the copies of software that I have received from various vendors using a “try it; you’ll like it” approach. So it’s not like this is some new tactic fresh from the “dirty tricks” department at Redmond. The only difference that I see is that in this case the vendor made sure that the hardware was up to spec.

Get a grip, people.

Posted in News and Politics, Vista | No Comments »

Saturday, 9 September 2006 by marstinson.

On their “Free Speech” segment, the CBS Evening News ran an item on the  Congress being out on vacation again and how everyone should get to take as many days of vacation time as they do. More power to ‘em, I say. Think about it - if they aren’t sitting there holding useless hearing, making speeches, and generally making nuiscances out of themselves, they’re raising your taxes, eroding your civil liberties and generally making your life miserable.

Bah! Let ‘em stay on vacation. Think we could maybe pay them to NOT work? It would probably be cheaper in the long run.

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Monday, 4 September 2006 by marstinson.

Many years ago, my parents gave me some old books that had been laying around the house and no one had read in years. For the most part, they were books containing important pieces by various philosophers from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century and were not the sort of thing that a young buck would find terribly interesting. But I’d dig into them from time to time just to give the synapses a workout. Among these philosophical writings was “The Manual” by Epictetus, sometimes called the “spokesman” of the Stoic philosophers. At the beginning of “The Manual,” Epictetus first introduced me to the concept of binary thinking.

For the non-geeks out there, binary only contains two states: 1 and 0. Something is either on or off, true or false, black or white, greater than or not greater than, etc. There isn’t any middle ground because the number system doesn’t permit anything other than one thing or its opposite. Here, then, is the introduction to “The Manual”:

Of all existing things some are in our power, and other are not in our power. In our power are thought, impulse, will to get and will to avoid, and, in a word, everyhing which is our own doing. Things not in our power include the body, property, reputation, office, and, in a word, eveyrhing whcih is not our own doing. Thing in our power are by nature free, unhindered, untrammelled; things not in our power are weak, servile, subject to hinderance, dependent on others. Remember then that if you imatching that what is naturally slavis is free, and what is naturally another’s is your own, you will be hampered, you will mourn, you will be put to confusion, you will blame gods and men; but if you thing that only your own belongs to you, and that what is another’s is indeed another’s, no one will ever put compulsion or hinderance on you, you will blame none, you will accuse none, you will do nothing against your will, no one will harm you, you will have no enemy, for no harm can touch you.

Essentially, everything that happens falls into one of two categories: it’s either something you can control or it’s something that you can’t control. In many ways, it’s the serenity prayer: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

To put it in modern terms, Epictetus is essentially saying that everything comes down to what you choose it to be. Think about it — if there’s a meteor hurtling toward your home at this very red-hot moment, there isn’t anything you can do to change that. The meteor will do what it will do and all you can control is whether you and your stuff are going to be there when it hits. If the company is looking at downsizing, you can’t control the decision on whether you’ll have a job tomorrow or not. All you can do is influence the choices of the person making that decision: is keeping you on the payroll more beneficial than not keeping you on the payroll? But in the final analysis, that decision is completely out of your control. “Mandatory” meetings? Same thing. You don’t have to go. But is the bit of extra free time you gain worth the job you may lose? “Do these jeans make my butt look fat?” (Personally, I think you’re hosed either way.)

This is something that my students have a hard time getting their heads around: “Mister, do we have to do the assignment?” Answer: “No, of course not. The only thing you have to do is be born and die; everything else is optional and comes down to choosing the consequence that you prefer.”

So, all of this begs the question. If we are what we choose to be, where does this leave non-protected speech? If I choose to phrase something in a particular way and you choose to take offense, is that my problem or is it yours? Granted, if my words are calculated to get a rise out of you and I get a punch in the nose for my efforts, then I suppose that I got what I wanted. But if I tell a joke that you find offensive, is it not your choice to be offended rather than to see the humor that was intended? Why am I, then, responsible for your choice?

 So rather than, “You have insulted me,” should you not be saying, “I choose to give you power over how I feel”? Or, perhaps more precisely, “I choose to be insulted/offended because in this way I do not have to expend any effort to control myself or understand why I feel as I do.” It is a heady feeling to know that I, a simple techno-geek, can have such power over others. But it must also be true that I have that power because someone gave it to me.

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