Chaos Magnet

Is plagiarism a cultural issue?

I'd like to draw your attention to a comment I made over on my InformIT blog. More than once I've been burned by a writer from India who plagiarized material. Now I hear that it's common among programmers, too. With increasing reliance on India programmers, are we creating a monster?

Technorati tags: India | plagiarism | culture | piracy

The IT budget has no clothes

Finally someone who calls it like it is. I've been arguing for years that people are upgrading software just because they can, and not because they need to. Sure, there are people who can benefit from, say, Office's integration with XML. (I can't think of any, but I'm sure they're out there.) But that doesn't mean everybody needs it. Heck, unless I need to track changes, I can usually get by with WordPad. It'd be a waste for me. And it's not just Microsoft, even though people think that's my problem. It relates to any software. You should only have to upgrade if you actually need the new product. It's just that Microsoft is the one that is constantly trying to get people to pay for useless upgrades, so it comes up most often in discussion.

Check this out: Shared Spaces Research & Consulting: Stop! An IT Spending Manifesto

Technorati tags: IT | manifesto | Microsoft |

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

Well, we're finally moved out of the old house, and man, I didn't know so many vinyl LPs existed in the entire world, let alone my house. And that doesn't count the six -- yes, SIX -- old, non-working record players I found in the garage. So I think it's time to turn Sarah's LPs and cassettes into digital media files that I can then transfer to CD.

If I start now I should be done by the next time we move...

US military plans terror attacks at home

First, sorry for the incendiary headline. Just seemed appropriate.

Someone very close to me insists that the 9/11 attacks were planned and supported, if not actually executed, by the Bush administration. I keep telling that person they're going a bit too far. But now I'm wondering.

I'm not going to analyze this ABC News report because I want you to make up your own mind. But here's the lead:

"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba."

Note the date. This report was published on May 1, 2001. So it's not a response to the 9/11 attacks.

Technorati tags: terrorism | Bush

Rebel or terrorist?

I often listen to so-called "liberal" radio -- sort of the anti-Rush-Limbaugh kind of thing -- where they usually describe the people setting off bombs in Iraq as "insurgents", rather than "terrorists". Whenever I hear it, I do think about labels and how we apply them. Here's an interesting 80/20Rule: definition of the difference between "rebels" and "terrorists". Not sure I'd agree with his specific examples, but he does, nevertheless, have an excellent point.

Technorati tags: terrorism | media | Iraq |

Sending the troops a little bit of home -- free

OK, now this is very, very cool. I'm still working (very hard) on getting the old house totally cleared out, and I've got to have a ton of books to get rid of. Now I've got a great place to send them. Check out Give Books: Redistributing Reading. They're distributing books, magazines, whatever kind of reading material to the troops in the Middle East. And Fedex will ship them for you FREE. No excuse now, people, get packing!

Technorati tags: books

ONE

Make a difference.

Thanks to Troy Worman for the link. (And he's also got other great stuff there. Check it out. You won't be sorry.)

Technorati tags: ONE | Live 8 | poverty

Scientific paper heaven

Someday soon (meaning in the next few years) I'm going to go back to school. I never did get that Ph.D. in Physics, after all. :) Anyway, I've found an archive of recent scientific papers on all kinds of branches of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, biology, all kinds of things. Man, I wish I had more time...

Technorati tags: physics | quantum physics | time travel | mathematics | computer science | biology | science | research

The new place

I know, I know, it's been a month since I've said anything signficant here. It's been a month since I've said anything significant anywhere. I have moved. No, not the site, the site's exactly where it's always been. I have physically picked up my family and moved to a new location, and it's been quite an adjustment. To get some idea, we've moved from here to here. I can't even get dial-up faster than 37.2K. That's right, the phone company's not equipped to handle 56K.

It's been quite an adjustment for me, but my wife, farmer girl that she is, is really, really happy in a way that I haven't seen from her in ... well, I don't know that I've ever seen her this happy. Our friends are joking that it's like Green Acres, but with her as Eddie Albert and me as Zsa Zsa Gabor. Eventually, you'll hear way more about it as I finally get around to writing up all of this material I've been gathering about what it's like for a city mouse out in the country, but in the meantime, I thought I'd update you and let you know that I'm just about back into the swing of things, so as soon as I catch up on things, they'll be back to normal.

Technorati tags: moving | personal | Green Acres