Sorry Microsoft, I’m Done
Update: The reason behind this blog is undoubtedly that Microsoft may be dropping Vista in favor of Windows 7. Excellent. Let Vista rest in stagnation because there are too many issues by users crying out to be fixed or give options to adjust certain annoyances. Ah, well. Windows 7, for me, will be the answer, but I feel sorry for consumers everywhere that invested in Windows Vista. This includes the latest expensive productivity software when earlier purchased versions should have sufficed and brand new Vista certified hardware.
Everyone has that one friend in their lives that never seems get things right, but try their best. They may imitate others because they probably have this crazy notion they aren’t good enough on their own. What’s worse is that they make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Though, I wouldn’t call this friend lazy, but he or she will sit on a resolution for months, or years, before attempting to repair the error. This kind of friend is not just a teenager, but is displayed through all spheres of life. This friend is quite literally everywhere you go. At first, regretfully, when you lose contact permanently, you seem to become a better person.
In my spheres of life, Windows has been that friend of mine. Microsoft has never learned from past mistakes, which has led to serious security compromises. We all vividly remember the Blaster worm and numerous other exploits. Well, here is a lovely little networking flaw that can be abused to crash Vista systems. It can allow rootkits to be hidden and DoS attacks to create chaos for your daily computing needs. Meaning that your Vista machine could be exposed to damaging attacks.
Well, I’ve been trying to keep up with Windows and stay optimistic, but I have to finally admit, Vista was a failure. Windows 7 seems more and more like what Vista would have been if they let it stay in the oven a couple more years. Windows 7 is going to be a failure as many people who already painstakingly upgraded to Vista now feel they will be pressured into upgrading to Windows 7. Though, Windows XP will not be retired for quite a while until Vista/7 get their game together; you will not be able to purchase XP in stores on preconfigured manufacturer computers. Only online through the same retailers.
I was sad to hear that Microsoft will address this vulnerability in their next service pack. There is no estimated release date for SP2 and I feel it will bring little to the table to resurrect Vista. The damage has been done and so many Windows users have felt cheated by a half-finished product, which is clearly evident now with videos displaying Windows 7 features and technology. Sure, it may be feature rich, but just like Vista, there is nothing that changed the productivity and convenience for Windows. Well, aside from easy to use parental controls.
Sadly, I’m telling Microsoft I’m done defending and supporting them and now it seems the once proud software giant has taken a knee during an important play. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have two more days to wait until the official release of Fedora 10. With a speedy GUI boot process and many other amazing changes, there will be no reason I will have to do anything Windows again besides emulate Windows XP. Come to think of it, I don’t recall the last piece of software that won’t install properly with Wine. Hell, even recent big name MMOs install under Linux now.
I used to actually enjoy Windows with the amount of customization and choices. Even though Windows XP wasn’t quite “good” until Service Pack 2, that does not entitle M$ to give the same treatment towards Vista. At least try to hammer out security flaws when found. Albeit, Mac OS X is full of security flaws, at least Apple will hot fix them as soon as when it matters.
Brian Azzarello’s Joker Graphic Novel Review
Contains minor opinionated spoilers.
I was excited for this graphic novel. Brian Azzarello has done amazing work with 100 Bullets and Lee Bermejo has a very unique style. Never have I been so excited to see the Joker in a one-shot story before, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the excitement stemmed from The Dark Knight. The interviews that I’ve read and the scans I’ve seen made this seem as it were more of a sequel to the Dark Knight instead of a story revolving around the Joker. After reading, I feel that we have been misled.
Not divulging too much information, the best spoiler I could give without spoiling the story is the premise of the story. Joker has been released for reasons unknown from Arkham Asylum with a clean bill of health. Though, a lot doesn’t make sense in this story when you begin to realize that the fact that he was released was simply a plot device to speed the story up. No daring escapes, he simply walks out the front door.
I don’t mean to sound incredibly negative about the story, as a lot of liberties were taken with a few villains, such as Killer Croc, but I did like the ideas. Croc was stripped down from his mutant visage to his more original circus attraction persona. Albeit, I did like some of the ideas, don’t even get me started about the Riddler. I did find Brian and Lee’s vision of the Batman-verse fitting with a more human approach to the Gotham villains intriguing, the biggest change had to have been the Joker’s scarred and chemically ruined mug.
At first, like many, I immediately made the connection to the Dark Knight with the Joker’s permanently etched smile, but this artwork predates Christopher Nolan’s motion picture by at least three years. The Dark Knight was kept under wraps for a very long time with very little released revealing the Joker. Needless to say, this is a very good coincidence for the Joker graphic novel team. Sadly, it does not play as a sequel anymore than it plays a classic story of a once great, now washed up crime boss trying to regain his former glory.
Joker is told through the eyes of Jonny Frost as he witnesses the man he idolizes attempt to regain what he thinks he rightfully his: the throne of Gotham City’s underground organized crime. The bloodshed, carnage, and psychotic dialogue that ensues does seem a little over the top as, to me, the Joker isn’t necessarily about cold blooded murder. I can justify a few of his actions that are Joker-like, but Frost seems to justify more of what he witnesses first hand than a reader might want to acknowledge.
I feel the pedestal the Joker is placed in the eyes of our main character is a bit much and gets a little grating at times as he does not seem to understand the Joker, let alone truly relate to him. There are times I felt that the Joker wasn’t really the main focus of the story, but placed there because there is no other criminal as feared in the Batman series. It’s obvious why Frost is telling the story as what goes on in the Joker’s head undoubtedly frightens God himself. The writing in a first person Joker graphic novel would be twisted, bleak, difficult to write, and very mature.
I mean mature as in that the ideas and beliefs that the Joker has about life, religion, God, innocent lives, death, and what truly lies in the heart of a human being are all mutated and insane thoughts. To attempt to map the brain of a serial killing psychopath with a calling card like the Joker would be an incredible feat. Ultimately, the story would fail regardless because that is the Joker’s nature; the mystery should always remain behind those terrifying eyes. I do applaud Azzarello for passing the view to a nobody that wants to be a somebody, but the story feels overdone and uninteresting.
Looking back, I feel that anyone could have been given the Joker’s position and the story would have been the same. A lot goes unexplained and the ending doesn’t end with a punchline quite like other Joker one-shots, ie., The Killing Joke. After flipping the last page, I heard a dull thud resembling a rubber mallet. While the illustrations were beautiful and extremely well done, I felt that the story was a recycled mob short with special guests Batman and the Joker. Although, I feel that it is unfair of me to compare this to other Batman related one-shot stories. I admit it is interesting to see another side of Joker that we normally do not receive, which is the hardened criminal side with an extremely dangerous anti-social spin, there is no over elaborate scheme and very few lasting images.
I might have set my target too high for this to hit the mark given the recent success of The Dark Knight, but I would like to believe if it wasn’t for the movie, I would have felt the same regardless. The Joker is a difficult character to manage and to try to show a side of Joker that isn’t all about Batman and his over the top crimes was a ballsy move. I respect the ideas and artwork, but felt unsatisfied with this gory Joker vehicle.
Deep job cuts at AT&T, DuPont, Viacom
Telecom to cut 12,000 jobs, while the chemical maker plans to reduce payroll by 2,500. The entertainment company will lose 850 workers.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/companies/ATNT/index.htm?postversion=2008120409
Best Windows Gaming Feature Ever?
“This week, Microsoft unveiled one of Windows 7’s new features, which will allow games and other DirectX 10 and 10.1-based applications to run fully accelerated on obsolete graphics hardware, and even on systems with no graphics acceleration at all.
Dubbed Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform or WARP, the new graphics layer for Windows 7 will utilize the system CPU as the graphics engine to assist old graphics cards, and take over completely in some cases.”
This means that all those fancy video games that require a heavy duty 3D graphics card can be run on the most basic setup. The benchmarks look really promising. Microsoft released specs benching Crysis on low settings.
How No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Screwed Next Gen
It’s obvious that the first horror of NCLB is that schools begin to look at kids as a statistic instead of caring if they actually learn, as long as they test well. Though, there are errors in the schools way of thinking that make them think that if a child doesn’t test well, but still passes, the average test score will drop. Because of this, kids are being hassled and put under a phenomenal amount of stress at an early age. So much for being a kid these days, right?
Now, that is definitely not the worst aspect of this atrocious act. There are many statistics and articles how the NCLB Act fails minorities by increasing the margin between whites and minorities. Not only that, but how are failing schools supposed to progress if their funding is cut by a ridiculous amount? Schools that are already failing from overcrowded classes because of a lack of teachers and new books are being punished enough as it is, they do not need further financial cuts.
Though, perhaps the most devastating section of the No Child Left Behind Act is the provision that grants the Pentagon direct access to public school records. These records contain all student information to allow contact for military recruitment. This is a big change from the rights students used to have prior to Bush Jr. Just like Big Tobacco, the Pentagon’s motto is “Get’em While They’re Young”.
Obama has more to do than most people can imagine. McCain would have continued a lot of these constitutional breaking laws, acts, and provisions either out of laziness or the fact he does not care about the rights and well being of the general public.
Now for the inevitable Bush Family related scam regarding the No Child Left Behind Act! The Bush family benefits directly for NCLB! Neil Bush started a company that provides software to help students take standardized tests. Ignite, Inc. wanted 30 dollars-per-year-per-student for its software for this deal, netting 60 million dollars. “Having one brother selling something to help students on a test spearheaded by another brother and sanctioned by the president doesn’t look good.”
English