As reported by CNN, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated just hours ago by a suicide bomber.

This’ll stir up an area that’s already a tinderbox.

Yipes.

The New York Times has an interesting article (which I read through news.com) about the battle between Microsoft and Goolge, Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft.

What struck me about the article was how much of what Google is doing that is not getting ready to rumble with Microsoft.

It’s more like Google realizes what they are doing might step on MS’s toes (Gmail, Google Docs) and so that’s a reason to tread lightly, so they don’t get MS’s hackles up until Google is in a position to not have to worry (too much) about the MS reaction/retaliation.

To me, it’s MS that’s reacting to Google, not the other way around. Before Google, search and online advertising weren’t on MS’s radar: Desktop software was. Now MS is fighting back, trying to take back some of this relatively new territory (that Google virturally [pun intended] owns).

Take Gmail, for example: While I’m sure MS was in the minds of everyone at the GooglePlex, that wasn’t the why of why it came about.

It came about because it was a natural for what Google does best – cloud-computing apps. And it had the benefit of giving more ad impressions.

Yes, it was ding on MS and Outlook/Exchange, but that was just gravy, to me.

Google was just building something only they (at the time) could. It could have well ended up in the Google dumpster, such as other highly promoted Google projects. Remember Froogle? Few do…

Remember Netscape – the browser? It didn’t come about to kill MS – it came about to harness the power of the new-fangled thing called the internet.

It appeared to be a threat to MS (remember all the talk about browser-based apps, which are only today becoming real), and MS – to its credit – turned the huge company around very quickly to address the internet.

But that was not the reason for the Netscape browser.

Ditto for Google in general. Google is moving on its own, following its own continually evolving agenda, towards something it’s not quite sure of.

Along the way, it may stumble across developments that threaten MS, but Google is not (to me) targeting MS. Google is just aware that it may cross MS along the way, be it with apps like Gmail, which compete with existing MS apps, or online advertising, which MS is getting into to “get ready to rumble” with Google.

To paraphrase Othello, “It is not the cause.”

As you can tell from the plethora of posts (or lack thereof) here the last few days/weeks/months/year, I’ve been busy (the desire to post is still strong; the time to do so isn’t).

So – just a quick hit of new music I’ve been listening to lately. Not necessarily new music, just new to my ears.

That’s the one nice part of spending a lot of evening/weekend time in front of the computer: iTunes with my ripped music playing to make the time (a little) less stressful.

Without any further ado, some sounds I’ve been sampling:

• While Chalk P.J. Harvey – Probably my favorite new singer; this is a new album, but I’ve been backfilling her older material over the last six months or so.
• Challengers The New Pornographers – Currently my favorite new CD.
• Kismet Jesca Hoop
• Children Running Through Patty Griffin – As with P.J. Harvey, this is a recent album. I’m busy getting all her older CDs, as well
• Faithless Street Whiskeytown – I had never heard of this band until a couple of months ago; man, I’ve been missing some good stuff.
• Across the Universe Movie soundtrack – Gets better with each listen,
• Gold Brick Jon Langford – Purchased for “Lost in America” (one listen on the radio and I was googling for it and purchased less than a half hour after first hearing it); at least two or three really strong songs on here, as well.

Yes, another powerful demonstration of Symantec/Norton’s ineffectualness: My auto-renew sub for Norton email notification ends up in … the Norton Spam Folder.

WTF?

Is it just me or is this a little crazy??

Obesity rates in U.S. leveling off.

In other words, we can’t get any fatter…

I’ve been a big fan of Norton Utilities and so on (now Symantec); I’ve used the products since my 286 days.

Like MS Word, each new cut of the product has had more features but way more bloat, most of which I will never use. And finding the stuff you need to find is, today, almost impossible.

A couple of days ago, I renewed by subscription to Norton Internet Security (virus, spam, ad blocking etc – the suite), and the email confirming it took two days to arrive.

And that email ended up in the (irony alert!) [Norton] spam folder.

Next time I think I’m going to look for a different solution…

Just take a look that new, opaque government we’ve been governed by the last half dozen years or so, and counting…

Bush Admin: What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Us, 2007 Version (Via Josh Marshall/TalkingPointsMemo.com.)

This is an effort to compile all the programs cancelled/classifications added and so on over the past year or so.

While the title is deliberately paranoid, I think we all realize that there will be changes to programs, to the classifications of programs and so on. That’s a given. And we (taxpayers) won’t always be given a reason for these changes, and we’ll often think something is fishy where it really isn’t

But still.

Take a look at the list, the volume of such, and the strangeness of some – closing EPA libraries for budgetary reasons, when a recent study showed these programs produced a surplus of funds, for example. Can’t have it both ways.

Just doesn’t pass the smell test.

And when you lump them all together, well, paging George Orwell…The Ministry of Truth is alive and well.

And when President Bush – and others in the administration – talk about bringing democracy to Iraq and the rest of the tinderbox that is the Mideast, is this the type of democracy they envision? One of disdain for judicial oversight, for classification of potentially embarrassing/damaging reports, for a more imperial presidency?

Or the one of our founders, based on the lively exchange of dissenting view, of checks and balances, of “advise and consent”?

Something I noticed recently – on both my home and work computers – is that CNN.com is pegging my CPU.

I noticed this at work today. I usually have at least two Firefox instances open, each with 5-10 tabs open.

Firefox was consuming my CPU.

OK, I closed and restarted Firefox (some memory leak?).

Still bad.

So I began the “scientific process” – close a tab at a time; see what appears to be the culprit.

It’s CNN.

Same here at home tonight.

I’m guessing it’s a Flash issue, but I’m not certain. But all I have to do is close CNN and my CPU use goes from 98-100% to 10% or so.

I’ll monitor, but it’s not much of a loss. CNN used to be my fav site for news online, but it has gone downhill dramatically recently.

Just not news.

Doubt me? (As you should.)

View screenshot from now (11/01/2007 9:10pm CDT), below. Look at all the yellow that is NOT news. This is CNN’s TOP page. A sweepstakes? Oprah cutting hair?

I thought there were a bunch of wars going on…

I can’t recall where I ran across this link, but this ZDNet blog entry was in response to an article titled, Eight Reasons Windows Users Don’t Switch.

And here is my response to both.

Yes, welcome to the echo chamber.

Here are the reasons that I, a Windows and Linux user (and a former photographer – a potential Mac advocate), haven’t switched (in somewhat descending order of importance):

• There is no reason to switch: Can Mac do this or that better? Yes. Can Windows do this or that better. Yes. It’s a coin toss. I believe that – bottom line – Mac OS trumps Windows OS, but mainly in ways that don’t matter to the average user.
• Standards rock: As the internet has taught us, standards are everything. HTTP, TCP/IP, Ethernet… With ~90% of computers operating Windows, MS is a de-facto standard, like it or not. I still have Mac users at work forwarding Excel spreadsheets to me because they can’t open them on their Mac (yes, insert your own conspiracy theory). While the Mac interface may be easier to learn than the MS interface, people have already learned the MS interface. That’s huge.
• Speaking of work: Unless you’re doing graphics or some sort of publishing, the computer on your desk at work is a Windows machine. Makes using a Windows machine at home more reasonable.
• Apps: If someone (Apple) would give me – for free – replacements to all the apps I have on my Windows machine (HTML editors, Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, CuteFTP and so on), I’d probably switch in a minute. But that’s not going to happen. And if it (sorta) did, it would be “we’ll give you equivalents….”. Hey, I’ve run a zillion FTP programs over the years; I like CuteFTP. Yeah, Fetch works just as well, but I don’t want to have to learn the idiosyncrasies of new programs when the old ones (on Windows) are well understood.
• People are creatures of habit: There must be a compelling reason to switch. Right now, beyond slick graphics and so on, there isn’t (if we were all forced to accept Vista, I think it would be compelling).
• Macs are still more expensive: There are a lot of ways to measure this, but all I can say is that every time I’ve priced out a Mac and a comparable Windows machine for myself, Mac always lost, and big time. Your mileage may vary… (Example: I just priced out a RAM update from 2G to 4G on a MacBookPro: $700. On a high-end Dell XPS laptop, same upgrade $375)

I’m not a die-hard MS fan – pretty much the opposite. But XP on a (relatively) cheap Dell box just works beautifully. It’s what I know; it delivers what I expect.

And I’m not bashing Apple at all – I love Macs. Owned in the past; worked on them at several workplaces.

I’d like to buy one right now.

But I just don’t need to get a new desktop/laptop.

And if I did – depending on my need – Apple would have to compete with both MS and Linux (with Linux scoring a lot of Apple points [secure; unix based] with a much lower acquisition cost). That said, if I did did need a laptop in the near future, it would probably be a battle between a MacBookPro and a Windows ThinkPad.

Bottom line: I have never “resisted” switching; there was just no compelling user case or cost savings that made switching a must. For both cases, staying with Windows made more sense, actually.

All that said, the next computer I buy will definitely have a Mac in the contender race. With OS X (and all its upgrades), the Mac is getting more mainstream.

Final Note – I’ve left the whole security issue out of this discussion. Yes, Mac trumps (big time) Windows. But Linux or AIX or (pick your Unix flavor) beats all.

Part of the issue is architecture – Unix architectures (including Linux and Mac OS X) were built as networked environments; Windows was built as stand-alone computer OS. Windows – now understanding the ‘net – still has a 90% installed base.

*Insert magic wand*

Linux/Mac has 90% of installed personal computer base over the last 10 years.

Linux/Mac will have 90%+ of security issues. Sorry, that’s a reality. The problems might well be less severe than we see today, but that’s where the Blackhats will focus their interest. Best bang for your buck…

Beware of thoughts that come in the night. They aren’t turned properly; they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources.

— William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways (opening lines)

I should be in bed now – it’s nearing 1am and it’s been a long week, but the later it gets, the more thoughts that come.

Untuned or not.

It’s a cerebral version of Joyce’s or Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness prose without the prose.

It’s the actual stream-of-consciousness, but focused. Zoned in.

It’s addictive, which is why I’m passing up sleep for a strange mix of tickler entries, code bug fixes and mentally revisiting long-ignored possibilities.

I’m going to hate myself tomorrow, but tonight is “what if?…” night.

Indulge me.