Computer obsolescence Dec 22, 2005
I got a laptop in college in the fall of 2000.  It was a Compaq Armada E500 with a Pentium III 650 MHz processor, 10 GB hard drive, 128 MB RAM, Windows 98, and Office 97.  Within a few months, I upgraded to Windows 2000 and Office 2000.  After a few more months, I bought a PCMCIA wireless card and was hooked up to the then-brand-new idea of WiFi.  In another year or two, I upgraded to Windows XP and Office XP.  At some point along the way, my hard drive crashed, but it was under warranty, so I got a new one.  Five years later, this laptop was still running great and was pretty up-to-date.  Sure, I couldn't run any graphics-intensive games or extremely processor-intensive programs, but I could run everything from email to office applications to Unreal Tournament to SolidWorks.  My point is that my computer didn't really go out of date.  And it's still not completely out of date, although it's no longer with us.  It passed away from an unfortunate illness. 

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when computers would become obsolete.  Back in the days of Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS, a brand new computer became completely obsolete in about 2 years.  And there was nothing you could do about it, unless you were super-smart and could replace major internal components.  The differences between a 1990 computer and a 1992 computer were unfathomable.  No new 1992 programs could run on a 1990 computer.  There wasn't enough hard drive space or RAM. 

These days, a computer from 1998 can keep up with the times because of the internet.  Without upgrading any hardware, a Gateway Pentium II 400 MHz computer (my parents' old computer) could still work.  Sure, you could get a computer that's about 10 times faster/better/bigger for about 1/5 the price.  But the point is that technology isn't progressing as quickly as it used to, and computers aren't becoming obsolete as quickly as they once did. #technology
Without the www (1) Dec 22, 2005
Yesterday, I changed a little part of my site that should have no effect on anything whatsoever.  I changed the official location of my site from "http://www.ddhr.org" to "http://ddhr.org".  The one with the www will still work, but all internal links on the site won't contain the three w's.  This shouldn't change anything, but I guess we'll see what happens. 

The reason I made the change was because I went to the trouble of getting a short domain name for a reason:  So it would be short.  Those three w's aren't really needed for anything as far as I know, so there's no reason why they can't be removed. #technology
Bills (2) Dec 22, 2005
The first bill I ever got was a phone bill in my freshman year of college.  As soon as I got it, I figured out how to pay it online.  Since then, I've tried to use the internet to pay every bill I get.  That's what was so cool about paying my traffic tickets a few weeks ago.  And that's what's so not cool about people/companies that require you to mail in a check.  It hardly ever happens, but every once in a while, I have to mail a check to something or someone.  But even with those things, I try to use my bank's BillPay system.  In reality, there's no need for actual paper checks.  A check is just a written notice that says I'm agreeing to transfer money from my bank account into another bank account.  I think it's pretty easy to do away with checks.  I'm just waiting for my church to agree with me. #money
PigeonRank Dec 22, 2005
If you've ever wondered, "How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does?"  The answer is PigeonRank.  The idea is that "low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) [can] be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms."  Google founders Page and Brin "developed groundbreaking technology for converting poop to pixels, the tiny dots that make up a monitor's display. The clean white background of Google's home page is powered by this renewable process." #technology
Strike revisited (4) Dec 22, 2005
I mentioned my strike breaking idea to someone, and it was brought to my attention that many of the transit workers are on strike against their will.  And they're being fined daily for it.  They were forced to go on strike because otherwise they'd be kicked out of their union and never be allowed to work as a transit worker again.  That's a shame.  Seriously.  But if I were in a powerful position (which I'm not), I would get rid of that entire union and hire back everyone who actually wanted to do some work, starting with the people who were originally in the union. 

I realize that many people in unions don't really want to be a part of their union, but were forced to join as a requirement for the job.  That's the case with my mom (now retired).  She was a secretary at my high school and was forced to be a part of the evil teacher's union.  I understand why unions exist and I realize that they can promote some amount of good.  But she received little to no benefit from being a part of the teacher's union.  She worked more hours.  She worked summers.  She worked winter breaks, spring breaks, and teacher convention holidays.  But she was still forced to fork over some of her hard-earned cash to some big, litigious body that didn't care about her. 

I was listening to the radio this morning, and I found my new hero.  In 1981, President Ronald Reagan gave a 48-hour warning to the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, which was on strike because they wanted more money for doing less work.  After the 48 hours, he fired all 11,359 of them and replaced them with people who wanted to work.  That's awesome.  It just goes to show that it's a relatively feasible thing to do.  However, it was only feasible because the replacements were some of the people who weren't on strike and also some military personnel.  Hiring 33,000 new transit workers might be a bit difficult. 

So in conclusion, I feel bad for the transit workers who don't want to be on strike.  It sucks for them.  But I don't feel bad for the people who want to make more money for doing less work.  I hope that the people who deserve a raise will get a raise, and the rest of the people will be replaced by people who are willing to work. #business