DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I’ve seen two interesting anti-Microsoft articles this week:

One Dead Opossum, in which Applelinks.com’s Del Miller compares Microsoft’s impending domination of the Internet to an attack by a diseased rodent.

A revolutionary pursuit: Freedom from Microsoft, in which the San Jose Merc’s Dan Gillmor compares consumers’ migration away from Microsoft software to the Revolutionary War, and the 13 colonies’ battle to reject the foreign rule of the British government.

I find the metaphors remarkable: Microsoft is a software company, but it has been compared to vermin and to an oppressive government. Think that through… according to these writers, you cannot afford to ignore Microsoft, or (like an infected rat, or an evil bureaucracy) it will harm you personally. Apathy is a dangerous thing.

Miller’s article addresses one of the most frightening aspects of Microsoft’s newest line of products: the subscription fee model. You will no longer be able to “buy” software from Microsoft; you’ll be forced to “rent” it, through expiring software and forced upgrades. I figure that within 3 years most of you will get a bill in the mail every month with this logo on the envelope.

I won’t pretend I had anything to do with it, but I’m happy to report that the problem of “browser hijacking” has been addressed in Mozilla 0.9.2.

I ranted about this issue last February: with increasing frequency, websites take over your web browser by spawning all sorts of popup windows, often containing advertising. I suggested that browser manufacturers allow popup windows to be enabled or disabled by the user — and this is just what the Mozilla team has done.

So, if you hate popup advertising windows, switch to Mozilla.

See the Release Notes and Mozilla’s Configurable Security Policy.

The New York Times Magazine website hosts a series of interesting How-To articles. Some are practical, like How to Multitask. Some are fanciful but potentially still useful, or at least instructional, like How to Catch a Fugitive or Harvest a Live Organ. Some are tongue-in-cheek, such as How to Back-Flip a Motorcycle, which has only been done once, and not by anyone who reads the NYT Magazine.

But some are beyond fancy, beyond tongue-in-cheek; they’re works of fiction. I can tell because the tasks described therein are, how-to manual or not, completely impossible: How to Salvage a NASDAQ Portfolio and the related How to Run a Successful Silicon Valley Business.

Bernd Steidl is the best guitar player you never heard of. He released a single album (on Shrapnel, which might tell you something) during Mike Varney’s tenure (which might tell you the same thing), featuring Atma Anur on drums (which might tell you the same thing a third time).

The album, Psycho Acoustic Overture, came out in 1992. If you enjoy virtuoso performances on guitar, harp, and drums, in a symphonic, neo-classical context, check it out. Steidl is a shredder, but he does it on a nylon-string acoustic guitar. He is amazing.

Yesterday I made a happy discovery: Steidl has a new website, and he released a new album in January. Here’s a review. Here are the samples. Now get clicking, before he takes another 9 years off.

San Francisco’s Exploratorium will host a webcast of Thursday’s total solar eclipse. Tune in at 5:30 AM PDT. Totality begins at 6:11 AM.