bruceb news

John Dvorak’s column in PC Magazine today lists ten axioms of modern computing. He recommends simply accepting them; fighting them will make your life miserable. Although tongue is planted firmly in cheek, you will likely recognize more than a few things on the list.

• “USE DEFAULTS. Always let the program choose the default during installation. Give up on the idea that you’re in charge of the machine. While many programs give you the option of choosing a different destination for all those installation files, forget it. These offers are not serious. You can be certain that by choosing an installation location that is anywhere other than the default location, you’ll suffer in some way someday.

[…] continued

2003: A Dave Odyssey is Dave Barry’s annual review of the past year’s most important events. “Some other troubling questions from 2003 were: If Californians hated Gray Davis so much, why did they elect him governor TWICE? Did Gray have photos of the entire California electorate naked? Can we see them?”

Happy new year!

Internet site of the day – somebody with too much free time making really strange pictures of animals.

Life is worth living again! Opus the penguin is returning to the comics pages! Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, creator of Bloom County and Outland, will begin a new Sunday-only strip featuring Opus, starting in November. Here’s the details.

I love stuff like this. For years, a reporter for the Kansas City Star had noticed an odd tile embedded in the street near a favorite restaurant. Made of a rock-hard material, embedded in a way that can only be done with heavy-duty machinery, and displaying the message: “TOYNBEE IDEA IN KubricK’s `2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER.”

This article describes what happened when the reporter did some research. There are more than 130 documented sightings of “Toynbee tiles” in at least 20 cities around the United States, plus two in South America. There’s almost 50 of them in New York, nearly 30 in Philadelphia. […] continued

For the next couple of days, you can get The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy from Microsoft’s free book promotion. (See the news item below on July 4 for details.) Everyone should read THHGTTG every once in a while – this is a good excuse.

If you’re a gamer, you might enjoy reading a review of the most accessible and widely accepted massively multiplayer online role-playing game to date – GameSpot’s review of real life. “Real life isn’t above reproach. In one of the stranger design decisions in the game, for some reason you have no choice in determining your character’s initial starting location, appearance, or gender, which are chosen for you seemingly at random. . . . Player death is a serious issue in real life, and cause for continued debate among players, who often direct unanswerable questions on the subject to the game’s developers, who are apparently (and understandably) so busy that they generally keep silent.”

Looking for an interesting kid present? Think about a subscription to comics by e-mail. Ten bucks buys a year of daily e-mails from one of the largest comics syndicators. You choose the comics you want included from a reasonably large selection – not everything you want, but enough to be satisfying. (The selection includes reruns of Calvin & Hobbes and Bloom County, plus Foxtrot and some other good ones not covered by the Press Democrat.) Plus online access to archives and a few other goodies. It’s a pretty good deal.

Alas! The iLoo is a hoax (see my item on May 8). Microsoft’s computer-equipped, Internet-ready portable toilet is a benign prank by the British MSN division, which probably didn’t expect the global reaction – coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters. Here’s an article about the hoax. (Thanks to alert reader Brian Dent!)

A news item that’s absolutely serious. I can’t think of any jokes that would do justice to this concept. You’ve just gotta love the technology world.

Microsoft’s MSN division in the UK is testing an Internet outhouse, the iLoo – a portable toilet for use at festivals that has a built-in computer for Internet browsing.

“From the outside, the iLoo is little different from other portable toilets. But inside, Microsoft serves up accoutrements that might rival some iLoo users’ home PC setups. A Windows XP-powered computer resides under the sink with connection to 6-channel surround audio. A flat-screen plasma display swivels out from the side of the cabin, and a waterproof wireless keyboard can be placed on the lap for comfort. […] continued