Calm Before the Storm

This is pretty much how it is before any expansion, really, because everyone is sick of running Kara and PvP is as unbalanced as Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight. The good news is that MMO Champion has all the juicy new details of the beta in case you sold your key, and even better the 3.0 is coming out in mid-October so we'll be in the fun soon enough.

I just hope that feral druids are as awesome as they were when the first expansion came out.

For Dummies

No Bad Press

I think Penny Arcade pretty much sums it up right here. The link to the picture is the news post for the comic on Penny-Arcade's website.

And if you're late to the game:



then

Humpty Dumpty

As more banks are failing, I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the Republican stance on commercial or economic success, or better put how to go about it.

Free markets are a nice thing to have. And as general of a statement that was, it's subvertly saying 'When it works, it works wonderfully.'

Myth #1: Companies want to give you low prices because they want to obtain business.
Fact: Companies get large enough or create enough partners to become a oligopoly or cartel, they don't need to worry about your business because they'll get it one way or another.

See Wal-Mart, OPEC, Time-Warner/Comcast


Myth #2: Giving tax breaks to the wealthy helps the poor by the upper class creating more jobs for the proletariat.

Fact: People with tons of money will put it where they think they get the most reward vs. risk, whether that be business, commodity, housing, or even other financial institutions. Economic downturn is a correction on high prices of a given object, unless artificially inflated and sustained.


Myth #3: An elected President is the one who drives the economy one way or another through policy.

Fact: While having sway over the national party, the President doesn't make the financial calls, Congress does. You want more fiscally responsible government? Then worry about the chuckleheads in your local district on Capital Hill. The problem is they are too busy listening to lobbyists then to their own constiuency, but your email will get read on their Blackberry while they're waiting on their steak paid for by Pfizer, right? Wrong.


Call me a pessimist but there seems to be a lot more work to be done then just to say you're a maverick who votes with the party 90% of the time, or someone who has pretty Change! posters but not enough plan to enact on.

BTW Republicans: Not even your own pundits like Palin.

The War of Attention

Getting software to work for you, the way you want it to.

That's really the goal of anyone who uses software or computers. And to be quite honest, when it comes down to it it's a question of what works for you. I still seem to be at this crossroads with my software solutions, not because of not having enough good choices, but having far too many.

Microsoft, Apple, and now Google all have great applications that beg for your use and attention. Microsoft, bringing functionality to the table, comes feature packed and allows you to do what you will, as long as it's all Microsoft. Same for Apple but the emphasis is not only features but user experience, at the cost of flexibility. And finally Google, where it has no real presence anywhere finds presence everywhere with it's incredibly amazing Email and Calendar services along with anything on the web one would need.

Microsoft's options are the least familiar to me, only because they don't matter much anymore to me. I hated Outlook for Email and Calendar and I have no idea what web services they offer to allow over the air syncing with calendars and contacts.

Apple, having inherited a niche following with high expectations and a panache for excellence in marrying user experience to computing do almost everything you'd want it's services to do. And swear up and down everything it can't are trivialities until they incorporate it into design. For me, I want my Email, Contacts, Calendars, and Documents to sync. When I make a change to one, I want a change to all on any device, connected or not. Apple's solution is an outstanding one called MobileMe. It does the sync of the first three, leaving my documents to the iDisk function where it acts like an open FTP server. (And not to forget web galleries for pictures)

Where it comes short is where Google steps in. Nothing tops Google Docs. Sure both iWork and even Office have amazing templates to do what you need and much more beautifully, but Google Docs, being online, is backed up - to the second - every 3 seconds. And not only to your computer but on their server. Same goes for email, photos, calendar. The downside is you have to be online (with Google Gears picking up the slack in offline mode). Also Google's RSS reader runs circles around Mail.app or Safari and works anywhere I log in. I also really hate Mail applications probably. I've always used webmail, and with Gmail being the best, there isn't really a contest there.

I can't decide. I guess that's the price I pay for wanting my cake and eat it too.