Another Microsoft Failure™

There's a saying in the tech industry: "Nobody every got fired for buying Microsoft." The point being that Microsoft may not always be the best choice, but at least it's a safe one.

If you decide to use MS Windows as your operating system, or MS Office as your business-productivity suite, you can be sure that it won't be a dead end. And if Microsoft comes out with some other new technology, and you're not sure whether to support it, or maybe support some alternative from another source... you go with Microsoft. Because... see above.

Not true.

Microsoft has a slew of failed products and services lying in the gutters of the technology highway. Failures so bad that not even the strongest technology monopoly since the Bell System could foist them on us. MS Bob was a "social interface" for Windows - horrible idea, poor implementation - that flopped so badly that the project manager surely would've been sacked... if she weren't Melinda Gates. MS PhotoDraw was a painting/drawing program included in certain versions of MS Office, which was supposed to make Adobe with their overpriced Photoshop tremble. Gone. Windows ME... well, it sold OK, but no tech worth more than minimum wage ever recommended installing it. Ultimate TV was supposed to kill off TiVo and ReplayTV (already based on tricky business models), but instead it failed. Hailstorm was the cornerstone of a new software-as-service model that Microsoft was pushing to programmers. And flopped.

The latest MS Failure is Passport. This was a single-sign-on system that would enable people to create a single account with a single username and password, and use it... everywhere. Eventually. When everyone got on board and made their sites Passport-enabled.

Admittedly, it's an appealing idea. I have accounts at countless web sites, where I read news, post messages, buy stuff, etc. It'd be nice to be able to just use the same username and password on all of them, without having to sign up over and over. But it's all based on trust... and that's something Microsoft simply hasn't got.

(Actually, a "trust" is exactly what Microsoft keeps trying to build: an illegal scheme in which participants agree to unethical business practises for mutual benefit. But I Digress.)

Despite the obvious convenience for users, Passport never really took off. On one hand, people were reluctant to trust Microsoft with all their personal information. On the other, web site operators were reluctant to hand over their membership management to Microsoft.

Some businesses jumped on the MS bandwagon, and Passport-enabled their sites. After all, Microsoft was 100% behind this service, and they were eager to hop into bed wtih Mr. Bill. EBay was a prominent example of this, offering Passport logins as an alternative to their own accounts. But now eBay has dropped out of Passport. Even Microsoft no longer lists its directory of sites using Passport, presumably out of embarrassment at how small it is.

This is important to note, especially whenever Microsoft unveils a new technology or product or service that is supposed to become a de facto standard that everyone will have to support to remain competitive. Don't count on it. The person who decided that eBay would use Passport may not have gotten fired for it, but I doubt that choice helped his career.

So when Microsoft tells Visual Basic developers that it's time for them to switch to VB.NET... don't count on it. Maybe RealBasic (which can convert most existing VB programs, and unlike VB.NET will compile apps for Windows 98, Mac OS, and Linux) is a better, smarter... and even safer choice. Or when they say it's time for everyone to upgrade to a new version of MS Office... don't take their word for it. Maybe OpenOffice.org, or WordPerfect Office, or maybe even the version of MS Office you've been using is a better choice. Heck, I haven't upgraded my Windows computer since 98SE (instead setting up Linux and Mac OS X systems), and it's worked out pretty well for me.

And if anyone working for me ever bought from Microsoft without looking at alternatives from other sources... you can be damn sure he'd be fired.

God is a Terrorist

For God so loved the world that on Christmas Day 2004 (early the next day, local time) he sent a 9.0-magnitude earthquake to the Indian Ocean, creating tsunamis that would kill hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, etc. Similar numbers would be wounded, and millions left homeless, hungry, and sick, as far away as Africa. With one singular "act of God" he easily belittled the result of years of planning and four jetliners by al-Quaeda in 2001.

This wasn't his first holy-day attack. It was exactly a year (almost to the hour) after he caused a 6.6-magnitude quake in Bam, Iran, killing 26,000. Four decades earlier, on Good Friday, he sent a 9.2-magnitude quake to the waters off Alaska. Erzincan, Turkey lost 30,000 in his 7.8-magnitude quake late on Christmas in 1939. On Christmas in 1932, he killed 70,000 in a 7.6-magnitude quake in Gansu, China. (Where he'd killed 200,000 in an 8.6-magnitude quake in mid-December 12 years earlier.)

He hasn't been limited to seismic attacks, as evidenced by the cyclone he redirected on Christmas Eve in 1974, doubling back and nearly wiping out the city of Darwin, Australia (population 43,500). On Palm Sunday in 1965, dozens of 250-mph-wind tornadoes hit the North American Plains and Midwest, brutally killing 260, injuring 1500, and doing billions of dollars of property damage. Including demolished churches.

Which is not to mention the massacre nearly two millennia earlier, in which countless boys under the age of two in greater Bethlehem were killed in connection with the birth of God's son Jesus. And flip through the Old Testament for more large-scale attacks, hitting the children of Egypt at Passover, the cities of Gomorrah and Sodom, flooding the entire world, etc.

Of course as these last examples show, not all of his attacks have been timed to established holy days. That would make them too easy to prepare for. Instead these "acts of God" often happen randomly. Sometimes, like a human terrorist phoning in a bomb threat, he'll provide some advance warning, as with hurricanes, but that only emphasizes our inability to actually prevent these disasters. It's much more effective when he slaughters an estimated half a million souls without warning, like he did in Tangshan, China in July 1976.

God's followers generally argue that it's not God who causes all this suffering, but his evil counterpart Satan. Which begs the question of who's responsible for causing Satan. Also, the notion that God is incapable of protecting us from Satan is a little frightening. And the notion that God is unwilling to protect us is downright horrifying.

Personally, I find comfort in the notion that there is no such being. Given a choice between believing in a malicious or impotent or indifferent deity, and a universe in which everything happens by mere chance... I'll take my chances with chance.

Person of the Year

OK, so Time magazine has picked George W. Bush to be "Person of the Year" again this year. At first I was disgusted with the choice, making the common mistake of thinking of that designation as an honor. But it's not. The idea is to identify the person who had the most impact on the year's events.

I'm sure GWB and his worshippers are looking at it as an honor. The way Time wussed out and named the suddenly heroic Rudy Giuliani "Person of the Year" for 2001 instead of the more deserving, villainous Osama bin Laden, makes it easy to look at it that way. The news coverage of Time's choice this year (yes, a newsmagazine is being covered by newspapers) makes it sound that way as well, for example pointing out the esteemed company he's in (several popular presidents) for having been chosen twice.

But I'd like to put him in context of some other "Persons of the Year":
* Pierre Laval (French prime minister, collaborated with the Nazis)
* Adolf Hitler (Nazi führer, you know the story)
* Josef Stalin (Soviet dictator, a lot like Hitler just within his own country)
* Mohammed Mossaddegh (Iranian prime minister, took over oil operations and allied with radical Muslims)
* Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet premier, told U.S. "We will bury you.")
* Richard Nixon (U.S. president, resigned in disgrace)
* Faisal bin Abdul Aziz (Saudi king, created the 1970's oil crisis)
* Ruhollah Khomeni (Iranian ayatollah, held the U.S. embassy hostage)

There are other folks on the list, such as Deng Xiaoping, Gen. William Westmoreland, Henry Kissinger, Newt Gingrich, and Kenneth Starr, who aren't quite world-class exemplars of evil, but not exactly heroic role models, either.

The first time GWB was named was for 2000, the year in which his sole accomplishment was to get himself appointed to the presidency. This year that's his chief accomplishment again with even more divisiveness than before, with the added "bonus" of his occupation of Iraq going badly. He truly does stomp across the world stage like a microcephalic brontosaur, and his misdeeds currently dwarf those of any other player on that stage, including bin Laden. "Person of the Year"? Damn right.

End of a Youth Group

This evening I went to a somewhat awkward event. It had nothing to do with the holidays, and it wasn't particularly joyous. It was the final meeting of the local lesbian/gay/bi/trans/whatever youth group.

The group was founded nearly 20 years ago, and I got involved shortly thereafter. I was on the upper end of the group's target age, but I was very newly out. I guess the facilitator felt I was a good contributor to discussions, because Mike asked me to stick around as an assistant facilitator when I got "too old". Later he had to drop out of doing the weekly meetings, and became just the administrator for the group, mostly applying for grant money when we needed it. I was the main facilitator (with help for a while from a supportive straight woman), took over the phone line, and became the local gay community's de facto youth advocate.

Running the group meetings was simultaneously a huge source of satisfaction and a huge burden. I'd usually walk away from them feeling good, but the preparation - both in terms of planning, and psyching myself up for it - was stressful. I'm not an outgoing person, and I'm awkward in conversation. I'm the kind of person who tries hard not to be the center of attention. But facilitating a meeting of this kind requires doing exactly that, whether it's engaging the interest of disaffected teens and young twenties in the evening's activity or discussion, or maintaining a semblance of order when their hyperactive attention deficit kicks in. I made a much better sidekick than leader.

The youth group meant a lot to me. During those days I was one of the youngest people involved in the "grown up" gay activist community here in town, and I'd also "grown up" in the youth group. I was doing a lot in those days, but "gay youth" was my thing. Not in the predatory ephebophilic sexual sense (I was perhaps overly cautious about that), but as a focus for my community activities. Outside of the youth group itself, I was involved in a statewide group working for LBGT youth services, I tried launching a post-teen group, etc. I really wanted to be good at it, to make it work. It was too important... to the young people, and to me.

But it was more than I could handle. I'd been burning the candle at several ends, and also trying to have a relationship and do a full-time-plus job, and I had to quit. I quit a lot of stuff around that time. The relationship went south (both figuratively and literally). I got fired from the job. And I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth, as far as most people could tell.

Fortunately, the original facilitator found a woman who was well suited to take over, and she did. And putting both him and me to shame, Kim stuck with it for over 11 years. But she's only human as well, and she decided recently that she had to let it go. As she talked about it tonight, I could understand all too well: It's a source of strength, but a source of stress.

Apparently neither she nor Mike could find someone to take it from here. The local gay community center (which was established after the youth group got started) is finally planning to do a program for youth, now that no one else in town will be doing it, which is encouraging. I'd hate for there to be nothing for them.

At lot has changed since the mid-1980s. "The love that dare not speak its name" has become "the love that won't shut up". There are other resources and the world in general offers more hope and inspiration for gay youth. Likewise, the group in recent years has been a bit different from when it started. Instead of most participants being closeted, most today are already out... to their families, to friends, etc. The bad news is that the group has been dealing a lot more lately with substance abuse and similar problems. My own hypothesis to explain that is that in "my" day, the folks with those problems weren't even making it to the group, and the comparatively well-adjusted youth (like me?) might not be bothering with it today.

The meeting tonight was officially a postscript for the group, the last regular meeting of which was last week. This week was for good-byes, thank-yous, and best-of-lucks. In keeping with my short tenure as facilitator, I kept my remarks to the folks there brief, thanking Mike who'd started it and Kim who'd picked it up and run with it, and telling the two dozen young women and men there to see to it that the gay community center took it from here, since they (the kids) are the experts who know how to make it work. To a large degree, they always have been; I know I was no expert.

It was nice to be invited to this terminus, to have a chance to see what had become of the group I'd once been largely in charge of. It's hard to see it end, though. When I quit, I took comfort knowing that it wasn't the end. I'd been a successful caretaker, and it would continue beyond me. This feels a bit like my legacy has been cut off.

But in talking with my colleagues this evening, reminiscing about the old days and a few of the people who'd been in the group back then, I'm reminded that some of my legacy is still out there. Last week I ran into one of the members from my "assistant facilitator" period, and he seemed to be doing well... some 15 years older than the last time I'd seen him. Not that I can take credit for his well-being in particular, but I do know (because they told me or showed me) that I made a difference in some people's lives, and that difference is still out there.

It also made a big difference in my life. It was through my involvement with the group that I met Andy, another youth advocate, who became my boyfriend. Although that relationship ended sadly (the low point of the multi-year emotional meltdown that included my quitting as facilitator), I cherish the memory of it. It made me a better person. In many ways I'm a fucked up mess of a human being. But I'd be even more fucked up if I hadn't been a member of that youth group, and if I hadn't stretched myself to co/facilitate it for a few years.

My thanks to everyone involved.

Humbug?

I just watched Patrick Stewart's TV adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" from a few years ago. Not that I usually go in for Christmas specials, and I already know this story pretty damn well... but Star Trek: The Next Generation was a big part of a good period of my life, so I have a certain fondness for Mr. Stewart.

Since this was the first time in many years that I've seen the story played out, I had a somewhat different perspective on it than in my younger days. The main difference is that I saw some of myself in old Ebenezer Scrooge. After all, here I am: getting on in years, still nursing a broken heart over a lost love, single and childless, not particularly social, very careful with my money, and (yes, that's right) inclined to view this whole Christmas thing as bothersome as a humbug.

On the other hand, in many ways I am not Ebenezer. I have never been fixated on business or the bottom line. I've never been a "boss", but if I were, I would never treat my employees in any way like Scrooge did to Bob Crachett. Back when I had more money, I was more than happy to spend it on other people, and I still get mail solicitations from dozens of organisations I used to give money to on a regular basis.

Dickens' basic message was that if we can make others' lives better, and they can make ours better, if we open our hearts to them. I get it. Always have. That's why I still keep in touch with my family throughout the year, celebrate birthdays and holidays with them, buy presents for my sisters' kids, etc. But the notion that I - like Scrooge - might die alone and largely unmourned... doesn't bother me much. I'm pretty much figuring on it. My closest relatives will be equally-elderly sisters and a couple nieces and a nephew, and I don't expect them to drop in on me much when I become a "shut in".

That's OK, because I generally like being alone. I liked being in a relationship, but that was a strain at times, and something I'm definitely not up for these days. If in my later years I develop a wish to be around other people... well that's what overcrowded nursing homes are for, right?

In the meantime, I'll go on the way I have been. I won't go around squawking "Merry Christmas" at people, but when my nephew says "Merry Christmas, Uncle," I'll answer "Merry Christmas" not "humbug".

A Series of Unfortunate Jim Carrey Scenes

my rating: Nathan's rating:

It was through a series of unfortunate events that I came to see Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The movie that Nathan and I had intended to see had been canceled due to a projector failure, and our second choice wasn't going to be showing for another hour. So we went to see ASoUE.

It's not a bad film. It's more like two films - one good, the other abysmal - spliced together. One film was a kind of subtle and dark comedy, about three children whose parents are killed in a suspicious fire, and their struggles to deal with the world on their own. The other film is a Jim Carrey comedy, in which a rubber-faced slapstick screwball actor chews the scenery.

I haven't read (or talked to anyone who has read) any of the Lemony Snicket books, so maybe that wacky stuff was in there. But I suspect it was more a matter of the producers being worried that a story about children surrounded by murders and other unfortunate events would be too "heavy", and the humor derived from the narration too "dry"... so they let Carrey do his moronic overacting schtick every so often.

Those bits actually drew a fair amount of chuckles from the audience. But the chucklers were probably bored in between. I, on the other hand, got tired of Carrey just after seeing the bits from the trailer, in the early scene in which his character meets the kids. The irony is that Carrey plays several different roles over the course of the film, supposeldy giving him a chance to show off the different characters he can do. But they're all just the same generic cartoon character he plays in his screwball comedies... in costume with accents. What makes it especially ironic is that Carrey can play other roles effectively. (I loved Truman and Eternal Sunshine.) But not this one.