No, God would not have approved of gay bishops
[Original Link] A well-considered argument in favour of the church's traditional stance from Matthew Parris, whom one might not expect to take this line.
Quentin Stafford-Fraser's blog
One should always have something sensational to read on the net...
[Original Link] A well-considered argument in favour of the church's traditional stance from Matthew Parris, whom one might not expect to take this line.
[Original Link] The EU is going the way of the US, and the whole patent world is in danger of becoming a farce. It's good that, in the midst of this, people can write such well-thought-out articles as Kieren McCarthy.
[Original Link] Iraqis weren't the only ones looting and vandalising, according to this Time report.
[Thanks to Denny for the link]
[Original Link] Well, I don't generally promote products here (other than Apple's!), but on my brother's recommendation I've just tried Somersets Shaving Oil, and it's remarkably good. Replaces foam/gel/soap and you just use three drops per shave, which means it comes in a very small bottle. Ideal for travelling, and amazingly good results. I have no connection with the company except for being a satisfied and surprised customer!
...as the Monkees would say.
Today I had a high-quality video conversation with a friend in California. Here's how I did it:
I plugged a camera into my Mac. (A camcorder, in my case, but almost any Firewire camera will work and quite a few USB ones.) A camera icon appeared in my instant message window. I noticed that my friend also had one, so I double-clicked on it. And there we were, smiling at each other.
Now get this - I had done NO previous configuration. I hadn't told my Mac I was about to connect a camera. I hadn't installed any drivers. I had only just bought the camera and hadn't plugged it in before. I hadn't configured any bandwidth options or considered the fact that I was behind a firewall. It just worked. This is why I love Apple.
A Mac with an iSight camera costs less than an ISDN video conferencing solution did a few years ago, and it's a darnSight easier to use.
[Original Link] John's ponderings on a recent trip to Berlin. Update, 2012: link changed - article now here.
[Original Link] Agreed. I've been wanting this.
An Open Source group in Australia has filed a complaint against SCO, complaining of "unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money".
"They're basically saying 'you owe us money'. But if someone asks 'why do I owe you money', they reply, "we can't tell you why, but you have to pay us anyway',"
[Original Link] I was in the States last week and turned on the TV in my hotel room to see Tony Blair addressing Congress. Now, I am no great fan of our Prime Minister, and particularly of his recent activities, but something in his speech made me proud to be British.
Michael Kinsey's article in Slate gives me some insight into why that was.
Danny O'Brien, as an aside while talking about something else, makes a wonderfully resonant statement:
One of my big bones with MS stuff is that it always makes me feel like I'm eating out of the trash bins outside a cubicle farm. All of their software is designed to help busy executives plan their lives. Everyone I know uses it to try and write birthday cards and chat with their friends. When people use Microsoft Office they use it anywhere but in an office. Microsoft knows this - but it also knows that the money comes from their corporate clients, so there's a limit to how much it can bend its software toward a wider customer base. Ultimately when you use MS software, you're not the end user MS perceives at all: we're just living off the scraps Microsoft leaves out after feeding its big customers. This is especially true of their super-smart agent tech. Every demo I've seen presumes so much about how it's going to be used in an office environment that I can't imagine using it anywhere else.
Part of what I like about what Apple is doing with Mac OS X is that they've redefined "productivity" away from the office and towards helping people do other things with computers: photos, music, videos.