Adam's Blog

Quite a bit of noise was generated when the beneficiary of the monniker "Dear Abby" announced she supported gay marriage. But for the life of me, I just can't see why this is an issue for people. What is the big deal?? Who are the people who feel so threated by this prospect that this is an important issue to them? The divorce rate in the United States is somewhere between 40% and 60%, Wikipedia has a thorough statistic review. Marriage, as a general institution, may in trouble. The family unit may be in trouble. But it's not because of gay marriage. No, Americans have f'ed this one up all by themselves without the help of the gays. So why would anyone care at all if two gay people want to commit to each other and enjoy the same tax and governmental benefits? How is this anything but defying the Judeo-Christian "Live and let live" doctrine; how is this anything but boldly defying the "love your neighbor" adage? The world needs more peace, but obviously, those who oppose this on religious grounds feel they are worthy of passing judgement. Then there are those who oppose it on political grounds. They...

The time draws nigh, my friends. Madonna dumped Warner, her record label of more than 20 years in favor of a deal with Live Nation, who will promote her concerts and release her albums. Last month, Radiohead announced a "name-your-price" download option for their new album. Amazon.com now offers DRM free MP3 downloads, and even Apple, the creators and maintainers of the world's most common DRM, have rolled out iTunes Plus, which is DRM-free. The record industry is crumbling, as it should, and music is slowly coming back around. If artists make only a few cents per recording, why wouldn't they prefer to charge 25 cents a song and take home almost 100% of that? If "internet piracy" is such a problem, why not reward the true artists who can compel us to see them live, buy their merchandise, etc? Yes, the days of DRM, the RIAA, in fact all record labels are drawing to a close. Mark my words: the music landscape will be dramatically different in a decade.

For a long time, I really liked this unattractive, but incredibly useful website called macfreeware.com. I am not linking to the front page because shortly ago, it was sold and the result is really bumming me out. The new owners decided to make some changes to the site that I personally think are a slap in the face of Mac freeware developers. See, the first thing they did was remove the developers' credit in the RSS feed. Then, they took the developers' info out of the individual pages, and finally, in the final insult, they cloaked the download links so that all of the downloads direct through a form hosted locally, so even if you were crafty, you couldn't find the actual software on the internet without your favorite search engine. I wrote the guys over at MacFreeWare.com - via their generic contact form, since there is no other method of communication available - and told them about this egregious violation of developers, and they temporarily complied, re-adding the developer info to both the RSS feed and the software pages. And yet, today in my Bloglines feed, and once again, the RSS feeds do not include developer info at all...

I stand for peace, love, tolerance, and truth. I stand for science. I stand for nature. I stand for humanity. But have you ever noticed that people who: are anti-science are anti-gay don't believe in evolution don't believe in global warming are anti-stem cell research are anti right-to-choose believe in forced school prayer are pro-war believe there is actually a "war on terror" disregard separation of church and state as envisioned by the American founding fathers ...tend to be the least tolerant and most narrow-minded people of all? Have you noticed these people are sheep who spout uninformed political nonsense, flock to church and swallow the tripe whole, are perfectly comfortable with genocide anywhere but in the US, and then preach about morality? Can you believe that these people dare to call themselves "patriotic Americans" without bothering to even contemplate what that even means? The founding fathers - brave men who stood for honesty, integrity, truth and liberty - would be ashamed of us. It's no surprise these people exist. These people are routinely the least educated in the nation! That's right, smart people voted for Kerry, and dumb, white, fat Wal-Mart shoppers voted for Bush. Hey, don't yell at...

Some time ago, I switched to Google's Picasa Web Albums online photo management software. Although it's simple to use, Picasa Web has been missing too many features for too long, and after Google locked me out of their software for a few days due to a bug of some sort, and their iPhoto plug-in stopped working, I decided it was time to start checking out the alternatives. I have played with a few services, and judged them based on a number of criteria, including these 15 questions: 1. How easy is it to do batch uploads? 2. Are there decent Mac and Windows upload tools? 3. Does it work in all major browsers (Opera and Safari are both important) 4. Will the default display scale to upwards of 2500 photos? 5. How fast does each page load? 6. Is the image scaled down? If so, is the original available? 7. Is it a fly-by-night startup that I can count on to be around? 8. How much does it cost for a pro membership, if anything? What are the benefits? 9. What are my storage requirements? 10. What is my traffic/bandwidth limit, if any? 11. Are there integrated ads? 12. How easy is it for others to access my photos? 13. Is there any sort of privacy? 14. What type of tools exist for me to manage my photos once they are online? 15. Is there some sort of embed/slideshow for my webpages? I've tested the following services: Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Zoto, Zooomr, SmugMug, Photobucket, Facebook, and MySpace. Read on for my initial results.

Here are some bits on Mike Gravel: "The only thing worse than one soldier dying in vain is more soldiers dying in vain." (On same-sex marriage:) "This country – and this world – needs more love. Love trumps morality, morality trumps politics." "Our country needs renewal -- not just of particular policies or of people, but of democracy itself." he War in Iraq: Immediate and orderly withdrawal of troops followed by aggressive diplomacy Iran: I firmly oppose a military confrontation with Iran and advocate a diplomatic solution to the current situation. National Initiative for Democracy: Empower Americans and turn every citizen into a lawmaker by enacting a national initiative. A Fair Tax: Eliminate the income tax and replace it with a progressive national sales tax. Global Warming / Climate Change: We must reduce America’s carbon footprint in the world by passing legislation that caps emissions and improve energy efficiency while generating more energy from low-carbon sources. Universal Healthcare Vouchers: A National Health Care Voucher plan will provide health care for all Americans. LGBT Rights: I support same-sex marriage and oppose both the Defense of Marriage Act and the military's 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' legislation. Prison/Drug Reform: We must de-criminalize minor...

Every season or so, I change my DVR to record a different sitcom for late night viewing - a show I watch as I fall asleep. Previous sitcoms include Seinfeld, King of Queens, The Simpsons, Frasier, and Newsradio. Recently, I went back to Friends. Like most of the above shows, I watched Friends when it was on, but a few years ago I felt like I had seen them all too many times, so I removed it from the Tivo. I just phased it back in and I'm puzzled by one question: How the hell did Ross get such good looking girls? We all know he ended up with Rachel, so let's start there. Um... WHAT? You're telling me that the best Rachel, who, by this point, was a succesful lady in the fashion world, could do was... Ross? One look at this twit in his eighties college getup, one earful of his horrible organ music, and any self-respecting woman would run. Ross may have ended up with Rachel, but shortly after he got her pregnant, he somehow attracted the gorgeous Mona? Mona only dumped his ass after he lied about his marriage history, lied about Rachel's pregnancy, and then...

Shame on Apple. As a huge Apple supporter, I am shocked and dismayed by today's news that Apple will be "bricking" - or fatally breaking - iPhones that are either unlocked or contain third party applications with their next update. Even more shocking is the comment section of this article on tuaw, where Apple fans are actually supporting Apple on this matter! I can understand entirely Apple's decision to break unlocked iPhones. Apple probably gets a nice cut of at&t iPhone plans, for one, and they cannot be expected to support your iPhone as you move it to another carrier by changing the very nature of the hardware. However, by voiding the warranty of those who have installed "Installer.app" and third party applications, they are making a very silly move. For one, Apple is biting the hand that has fed them so many users and in all actuality, market viability. OS X is only truly useful because freeware and shareware development has really ramped up and brought us an amazing array of Mac apps, enough to complement OS X and provide that elusive "Google it and you'll find an app that does that" level of prevalence. In the meantime, they...

ReCaptcha thinks it knows me, huh? It started calling me names today.

Whilst reading Bruce Byfield's "Divining from the Entrails of Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon" today, I began pondering the evolution of Ubuntu. Ubuntu began live as Warty Warthog back in 2004, and rose quickly to fame. Its biggest selling point was that it was user friendly Linux, the best, most accessible Linux distribution to date. Now, just a few short years later, Ubuntu has truly conquered the Linux market with an estimated 30% of the field, and suddenly, there is some pushback. I've seen a project take this path before, but project was Mozilla Firefox. The Firefox devs suddenly turned their back on their userbase in favor of catering to a wider audience. As a result, I - an obsessively dedicated Firefox user since at least Phoenix 0.2 - have sworn off the software completely. Enter the "equal accessibility paradox." I see this often with software projects especially, but it exists in all sorts of arenas, from websites to cell phones, cameras to iPods, from cars to TVs, even in restaurants and stores. The problem exists as such: you have two distinct groups of customers, one who prefers additional options or features even if it introduces complexity; and another, possibly larger, audience...