Author: Rory

There’s been a thought bouncing around in my head for the last few days, patiently waiting for me to get around to properly formulating it into some idea that other people might understand. Since I don’t anticipate that I’ll ever actually write something coherent I’m just going to throw it onto the page in whatever form it takes and hope that it’s understandable. Like vomitting alphabet soup, only without the rank odour.

Essentially the thought is this: I’ve been comparing software to religion and, in particular, open-source to atheism. Most importantly at this point I should point out that the only reason in this analogy that open-source is atheism is that those happen to be the aspects of these two fields that I support. It’s nothing, so far as I can see, to do with Godless communism.

Here’s my take on open-source: I support it, I want it to succeed, and I think that the world wouldn’t be a bad place if all software was open-source. I aknowledge the improbability of this, so I take heart in the fact that real competition in software tends to create an environment where open-source can thrive. When Microsoft controls most of the office productivity software, with Word as the de facto standard, it creates difficulties for Open Office and other packages. They have to work harder just to work at all. When most people use Internet Explorer to browse the Web, and consequently many websites only work with that browser, it makes it harder for other browsers to compete. When there’s competition, from Firefox, from Opera, from Safari, developers are forced (eventually) to code to standards. Imagine the number-two browser right now was Opera instead of Firefox, so the market was still controlled by closed-source prorietary software vendors. Wouldn’t it still be creating a better environment for the open-source browsers?

So that’s where religion comes in. I’m finally coming around to the idea that it’s not the religion that’s bad, it’s the monopoly. Fundamentalist Christianity holds a monopoly on American religion; Catholicism has the same thing here. If that monopoly was to be diminished somehow, by atheism or otherwise, it would be good for atheists. When people have to live and work with people of different or opposing faiths, it’s not a huge leap—or indeed any leap at all—to start behaving themselves in the presence of people without faith too.

Because James Ben seems to be very keen on getting this Google bomb up to the top spot, and because I hate pseudoscience as much as the next man (unless the next man is PZ Meyers or Richard Dawkins, in which case I may not hate it quite as much but only because I haven’t had as long a run up as either of them) I bring you Penta Water, or at least the Guardian’s Bad Science take on it.

I noticed during my endless window-staring on the cursed 84x in to college this morning that a few of the shops I passed were closed. There weren’t that many, but seeing as it was about 10 o’clock on a Wednesday morning I was surprised to see any shops closed. You have to wonder why their proprietors chose not to open up this morning. Of course I didn’t wonder, because the reason was immediately apparent from the fact that all of these mysteriously-closed establishments were off-licences. Ash Wednesday. One of the (thankfully) few days left in this country when it becomes okay for the Catholic majority to opress the rest of us.

Last time I checked—which was, incidentally, just a few moments ago at the census website—over 11 percent of the population of Ireland was composed of non-Catholics. Maybe I should be thankful I’m still allowed to eat meat (note to Catholics: fish is meat).

I have four installations of Firefox—one each on Windows and Linux in college and at home—each with slightly different settings, extensions, and bookmarks. None of them (until just a few seconds ago) had a bookmark for the posting page for SoylentRed. This may be part of the reason for my infrequent posting. Alternatively it may just be a symptom.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of
the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly 224 million miles is an utterly insignificant little grey rock by the name of Douglasadams.

Recent exchange with the brother (male sibling, not a member of a particular ethnic group or religious faction):

Brother:

In the sentence "The user can update the patient’s details…"

Me:

Before the S

Brother:

Okay

It’s about the only thing I’m ever asked these days.

20 million Firefox 1.0 downloads. Cool.

Okay, it’s not in the nightlies yet, but Scott MacGregor has released a Windows build of Thunderbird with the new inline spell-checker he’s been working on for the last few weeks. Since it’s built into the core editing component rather than tacked on as an extension this should ultimately be less buggy than previous attempts (read: not buggy at all).

It’s still in the early testing phase; it’s not even checked into the nightlies yet, but it’s a good indication of what’s to come. If this gets ported to Firefox for its text fields I’ll be very happy indeed. Actually that’s not unlikely as Asa was lamenting the lack of features in Firefox’s editing controls.

Via Anil Dash, More Scientific Truth in Product Labels:

PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe.

and a bureaucracy marches on its 26-page recipe for oatmeal cookies and chocolate-covered brownies (military specification). Courtesy of the US armed forces.