Author: Aaron Weber

Lyrics

You’ll never hear me talk about one day gettin out
Why put a new address on the same old loneliness?
Everybody knows where that is,
we built that house of his,
and when he’s not home someone else we know always is
If Heaven’s really coming back
I hope it has a heart attack…

Songs: Ohia

Ongoing Wine Tastings

Negatives! We’ve had very good luck so far, but we have managed to find two wines we actually didn’t like:
Roccaducale Rosso di Montefalco 1999: Big, sort of, but mostly dusty and with a weird aftertaste. Not very good. Copertino something or other, thin and acidy and just not very good at all.

Tonight however, we’re drinking something completely marvellous and completely random: Moscato del Solo, from Bonny Doon’s Italian-style label, Ca del Solo. Hey, it’s Saturday night, instead of going out let’s open a sparkling dessert wine. This would be great for a Sunday breakfast– it’s relatively low in alcohol and bubbles, and heavy on fruit and sugar. My father would probably think it’s too sweet, but I love it.

Seriously now

I know this is an unaccustomed bit of sincerity here, but this is actually important.

If you had a gay child, would you love that child as much as a straight child? If you’re a decent human being you would. And you’d want that child to have the same rights and responsibilities as any other child. So if you live in Massachusetts call your legislator and demand that they do what the court says: grant equal rights to same-sex couples.

The Catholic church ’round here is fulminating against it, and I’m almost glad: the more they do, the more apparent it is that their objections are inherently religious, and therefore should be discounted by civil law.

Linux on the Desktop

Linux desktop advocates question whether it can happen, but I think it can. I know it can, because it’s what I use, and it’s what I’ve managed to persuade my girlfriend to use, and it works fine for her. And I’ve seen the way Windows users get screwed by popups and things, so I know there’s better out there.

Of course, technophobes are always going to be weird about technology and make mistakes because of their fear. But I think that, given a little encouragement like we’re getting from Sun and IBM and Novell, the Linux desktop is here to stay.

Yet more open letters they won’t respond to

Dear PC Magazine:

In your reviews this month (Feb 2004) you gave your highest rating to Outlook 2003, despite the fact that its flaws are one of the major reasons junk mail can spread so easily and so rapidly. If you are serious about stopping junk mail, you will o more than suggest spam filtering tools: you will suggest that people stop using Outlook and start using more secure email clients.

In other words, you should suggest Ximian Evolution, especially since it’s free, secure, and includes (as of v. 1.5) jumk mail filtering in addition the address book, calendar, and to-do-list tools.

Mono

Someone sent me a copy of Mono Kickstart, which I had admired at LinuxWorld Expo. I’m not sure who sent it, but I’m quite grateful. I had been hoping someone would write a book like that, and fearing the prospect of having to write it myself. Very exciting news for Mono: means that it’s catching on…

Dissonance in the age of connectivity

Charlottesville airport has free wireless– I’d grown to expect that to be missing in airports, because everyone wants to make it for-pay, but putting it in tends to make the airport experience better… as they say, what’s the ROI on the bathroom? Nothing, but you need one anyway.

So here I am, happily ensconsed in the waiting area, checking my mail, and I get viral spam with a spoofed return address: Ettore Perazzoli.