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I should preface this post by saying I am not, in any real way, an open source developer. I feel no compulsion to distribute the source of my work for others to modify and distribute on their own without proper monetary compensation. In fact I am revolted by anyone who suggests that I have a moral obligation to do so. This is the talk of looters who wish to steal the works of others for their own purposes without the producers consent. [Read More]

I just love to see the stories about Oklahoma that hit the international news wires:

Oklahoma highway users wishing to call the state about electronic payment passes were mistakenly directed to a sex hotline.

Via: Yahoo! News - Oklahoma turnpike number exits at sex hotline

World Record Attempt [Read More]

Following up on my little rant of yesterday, I had started to write my original piece about the eagerly offended agnostic. However, what do I find, but that the ever eloquent Mr. William F. Buckley has once again stolen my thunder (though while talking about a completely different subject): The opposition to nativity scenes at Christmastime, or to the singing of songs that focus on the manger and the stilled star that hung over it, embraces a wide group of people. [Read More]

With all of the hype about the security improvements in Firefox there is one thing that they overlooked which is being pointed out by Peter Torr over at ASP.Net: I personally don’t care if people choose to run Firefox or Linux or any other software on their computers – it’s their computer, after all – but we’ll never get past the spyware / adware problem if people continue to think that installing unsigned code from random web sites is A Good Idea. [Read More]

Some people will forever be chasing the chimera of better government. This shields them from the idea that the only option is less government - Peter Gordon.

[Via Samizdata.net]

[Listening to: Bad Businessman - Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot (03:48)]

Joel of Joel on Software has another fabulous article out on his website, this time on software pricing. It’s well worth a read even if you could care less about pricing because he’s a pretty funny guy when it comes down to it. For example: I’m going to start with a little economic theory, then I’m going to tear the theory to bits, and when I’m finished, you’ll know a lot more about pricing and you still won’t know how much to charge for your software, but that’s just the nature of pricing. [Read More]

By a weird coincidence, I discovered a solution to a problem via a blog at the same time I was wrestling with it. I accidentally deleted a document that I was working on which sent me into a conniption fit about having to recreate it entirely. However, a blog post from Crooked Timber popped up at the same time which solved all of my problems. If you have Google Desktop installed on your system (if you don’t, you should), you can find historical version of your documents in its local cache. [Read More]

Man, this is just starting to get real funny to me. Here’s another great quote from a newspaper editor furious about the increasing popularity and pressure from the online publishers: In July, he [Randell Beck, executive editor of the Argus Leader] explained to readers that “true believers of one stripe or another, no longer content to merely bore spouses and neighbors with their nutty opinions, can now spew forth on their own blogs, thereby playing a pivotal role in creating the polarized climate that dominates debate on nearly every national issue. [Read More]

Well it took long enough, but finally the fight is over. Maybe now they can all be friends:

Reuters - Business software maker PeopleSoft Inc. has accepted a sweetened $10.3 billion acquisition offer from rival Oracle Corp., ending a bitter, 18-month hostile takeover battle, the companies said on Monday.