OK, it’s now definite. Windows 7 is gonna suck, and suck hard.
The plausible suspicion all along has been that it’s the Vista codebase with a superficial paint job. Now it appears there are holes in the paint; the public Windows 7 beta describes itself as Vista.

From “200 Laptops Break a Business Model” in the pages of the New York Times:

So who’s up, who’s down and who’s out this time around? Microsoft’s valuable Windows franchise appears vulnerable after two decades of dominance. Revenue for the company’s Windows operating system fell for the first time in history in the last quarter of [...]

Some commenters have asked me to express a position on the war in Gaza.

There’s a classic Warner Brothers cartoon from 1951 1948 in which Bugs Bunny takes on a huge, evil bruiser of a fighter called the Crusher. One of the funniest bits is a scene where Bugs is grunting and straining in an attempt to shift one of the Crusher’s legs. The viewpoint pans back [...]

There was a novice who learned much at the Master’s feet, but felt something to be missing. After meditating on his doubts for some time, he found the courage to approach Master Foo about his problem.
“Master Foo,” he asked “why do Unix users not employ antivirus programs? And defragmentors? And malware cleaners?”
Master Foo smiled, and [...]

One of many hats I wear is that of a lexicographer. In 1990 I began maintaining the Jargon File, still available on my website and released as three paper editions in 1991, 1993, and 1996. At the time, I was a bit nervous about what I might learn if a “real” lexicographer ever [...]

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DRM is a disaster for everyone involved with it, because it cannot do what it claims but imposes large costs in the process of failing. The people who have sold DRM technologies to Big Media are frauds playing on the ignorance [...]