Being a liberal has been somewhat disheartening lately. We expected that we would have a revolutionary progressive in the White House making our hopes comes true, but instead got a compromising technocrat even more willing to appease Republicans than Clinton ever was. We expected a supermajority, but got a Congress that couldn’t pass much of anything. We expected solid opposition, but thought they could be splintered just enough to make a difference. So, many of us came to the conclusion that the Democrats were not what we thought they were, that they failed. Seeing little hope, the progressives started losing interest in the elections coming this Fall.

Big mistake. If anything, we should be galvanized, ready to fight even harder than the last election–and with good cause, because this coming midterm election could mean a whole lot more.

First of all, our expectations were way too high. We should have known that Obama was no flaming liberal. Yes, the right-wingers painted him that way, but they would have claimed that Ronald Reagan himself was the most liberal commie socialist ever had he risen from the grave, switched parties, and ran as the Democratic candidate. The Democrat on the ticket could be espousing every right-wing goal imaginable, it wouldn’t make a difference. They claim any Democratic candidate, in every election, is “the most liberal ever.” Not only that, but one of Obama’s big selling points, if you recall, was that he liked finding middle ground, he wanted to compromise as a way of reaching consensus and getting things done. So expecting him to push the nation far to the left was unrealistic.

Then there was Congress. Once Specter had switched and Al Franken’s seat was finally confirmed, we thought we had a super-majority and could sweep in any law we wanted to. Well, that was a stupid assumption. One of those 60 votes was Lieberman, who campaigned for John McCain; to expect him to vote with the Democrats on anything the Republicans pushed hard against was folly indeed. And even not counting him, many of the new Democrats won precisely because they were conservative Democrats, winning conservative states where they would have to pander to conservative sensibilities. We never had 60% in the crucial bottleneck of the Senate; at best we had just over a simple majority, at least when it comes to the controversial stuff.

And then there was Republican opposition. We knew that they would push, but I don’t think that anyone foresaw just how fantastically monolithic and almost hysterically powerful that opposition would be. They pulled no punches and did not give a moment’s hesitation in fear that their total obstructionist frenzy could work against them. With the fanatical single-mindedness usually seen only in the most feverish of zealots, they not only obstructed but poured out a tidal wave of unprecedented, unadulterated hatred and invective, issuing against the president–at all levels low and high–every pejorative one could imagine being used publicly.

With a centrist president, much less than the needed supermajority in Congress, and fanatical obstructionist opposition from the right wing, there was never a chance for much to get done. We should have seen this from examples of the past. At FiveThityEight.com, we get this chart showing the majorities that FDR and LBJ had during formative years that trended to the liberal. Note that they usually had well over 60% majorities in the Senate, while the House was always above the 50% needed there.

In short, to get even part of a meaningful agenda done, we’re gong to need more than we got before. Becoming disheartened and turning away from the polls is nothing short of self-destructive, especially as the right-wingers, tasting Democratic defeat and still possessed of whipped-up, galvanized, angry mobs of tea-bagging fanaticism, are looking at strong showings at the polls this coming November.

We have little hope of gaining the seats we need to get the things we want done. But to give up and lose seats–maybe hand Republicans a simple majority in either house, all they would need to make their scorched-earth goals total and irrevocable–would be just plain dumb.

The Democrats, for all of their weak-kneed, wavering ineptitude, never really had a chance. There were too many Blue Dogs, too much solidarity and hysteria from the right, and not enough single-minded Bush-like drive or disregard for the risks from the White House for this to work.

Had FDR faced this, the New Deal would never have passed. Had LBJ been given these numbers, neither Medicare nor the Civil Rights legislation he got through would have stood a chance.

We fooled ourselves into thinking that we had the numbers to get things done. We were wrong. We weren’t even close. Not just one more vote, but probably five more votes in the Senate may have done the job. As weak-kneed as the Dems have been, that wasn’t what broke the deal. They could have been bolder and stronger and still failed. All that was needed was for Lieberman to vote “no,” and that would be that.

That’s what we have to keep in mind in upcoming elections: More. We need more. We need to galvanize, to get out the vote. Giving up is not an option. Even at my time of greatest disgust, when I couldn’t even bear to watch any more, I knew that I would still be voting strongly, as I always will. But many have simply turned away and don’t intend to vote. If you know someone like that, make sure you turn them around. Make sure you get them their voter registration materials and egg them on to the polls in November.

Even if we don’t succeed, not losing is far better than giving up and letting these frothing, fanatical fascists take back the country and send us right back down the shaft to national self-destruction they had us falling to for the first eight years of the century.

Computerworld, known for their occasional slanted reporting, does it again in style when reporting on the “Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows.” In fact, they just reprinted the list from an InfoWorld article from last October–but what makes it pretty pathetic is that they didn’t bother to fact-check what was roundly criticized as a badly-written article. I swear, there seems to be hardly any more editorial filtering any more.

The list provides a few solid cases of Apple swiping ideas from Microsoft, but some charges are backwards and others so bizarre as to be staggering. A quick overview:

1. Apple’s Finder Sidebar is really the Windows Navigation pane. This is mostly true. Tree Directories are a pretty old concept, going back to UNIX days. What Apple stole was the idea of putting a jump-to navigation area in a sidebar on the left side of file management (“Finder”) windows.

2. The Mac Path bar is a copy of the Windows Address bar. This is at best a stretch. Paths predate Windows, and Apple’s path display is not that much like Windows’. You can only say that Apple “copied” it because it put the information in a file management window. But such a window is the only logical place for such a feature, and Apple varied from Windows about as much as one can imagine in what is essentially a classic OS element. It would be like saying that this year’s Toyotas stole from last year’s Hondas by putting handles on the car door.

3. Apple copied Windows’ Back and Forward navigation buttons in its folder windows. Um, no. Windows took that from its own Internet Explorer, which brazenly stole them from Netscape Navigator, which got the idea from the original hyperlink software. It’s an idea that goes way back. Microsoft put that feature into its OS as part of integrating the browser so deeply that it could not be separated, and in so doing killing off the competition in a rather illegal manner. Not to mention, back and forward buttons are a pretty dead-basic concept.

4. Apple minimizes a window to app icons. Actually, NeXT did this first, and NeXT is the precursor to OS X.

5. Apple has Screen Sharing, copying Window’s Remote Desktop Connection. Um, no, Timbuktu had screen sharing on Apple way before Windows got the same thing, and it was around on older OS software (e.g., Remote Login) before that.

6. Time Machine is really Backup and Restore. Backing up data? Really? Again, it’s like saying that Mazda stole brakes from Ford.

7. Apple’s System Preferences are a rip-off of Window’s Control Panel. This is a real “WTF?” moment. Apple’s original Mac OS had something actually called a “Control Panel” which Microsoft blatantly copied from Apple–in almost its exact form. Then again, older OS’s grouped preferences together, so the idea is not new–but Apple copied nothing from Microsoft here, while Microsoft clearly ripped off Apple’s presentation.

8. Apple has support for Microsoft’s ActiveSync and Exchange 2007. Again, WTF? These are licensed technologies. Apple no more “stole” them than Microsoft “stole” TrueType fonts or support for FireWire.

9. Apple’s Command-Tab rips off Windows’ Alt-Tab. FINALLY, here’s something that Apple blatantly stole from Windows. Probably the only clear-cut theft in the entire list.

10. Apple’s Terminal is Windows’ Command Prompt. Once again, WTF. Seriously. UNIX, anyone? Heck, I think Apple’s first computer, before Microsoft even had and OS, had a command prompt.

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In the world of computers, there is a lot of borrowing and stealing, but creating “top ten” lists equating Apple’s theft of OS ideas from Microsoft to Microsoft’s from Apple just smacks of false equivalencies–trying to be “fair and balanced” by saying “both sides are equally bad” when that is clearly not the case. Everyone ripped off ideas from everyone else, but there is no question that Microsoft is the champion of ripping things off.

Some claim that Apple ripped off Microsoft’s Task Bar with its Dock–but that’s kind of like saying that the Segway ripped off its idea from roller skates. Microsoft, however, did rip off Apple’s Dock in Windows 7’s Task Bar remake. Aero Peek and especially Flip 3D are blatant rip-offs of Apple’s Exposé, and much of Windows’ basic design is stolen from Apple’s original implementation of the GUI.

Some say Apple stole from third parties–most notably that they stole Dashboard and its widgets from Konfabulator. However, Apple didn’t steal it as much as it reclaimed it–Konfabulator “stole” the idea from Apple’s original Desktop Accessories feature. And I would not be at all surprised if that idea had been present in some form somewhere else.

Even some rip-offs are not as much a rip-off as one would imagine. Take the GUI, for example–many would say that Microsoft stole it from Apple, seeing it in the original 1983 Lisa and then rushing to put Windows 1.0 on the market. But then others will point out that Apple ripped off the GUI from Xerox. That’s not exactly true, however–Apple hired Jef Raskin, who pointed Apple to Xerox PARC, but Raskin had brought some of those ideas to Xerox in the first place–and those ideas stem from work done by Douglas Engelbart at SRI as far back as the late 60’s. Engelbart invented the mouse–not Xerox–and Apple paid SRI, Engelbart’s employer, for use of the patented device.

The idea of stealing in the OS world is a bit of a spectrum: on one side of the spectrum, you have features which are natural ideas which would be difficult to do any other way–like expressions of the directory path, for example. These are things that can’t be stolen any more than you can “steal” the idea of some kind of steering device on a vehicle. On the other end of the spectrum, you have either unique features or very specific implementations of basic features which can very much be ripped off. Microsoft happens to regularly inhabit that end of the spectrum, more than just about anyone else. Internet Explorer was nothing but a rip-off of Netscape Navigator. Apple steals, but it does so less. When it does, it is usually either a feature widely recognized as useful, or it is recreated with new functionality. The theft of Microsoft’s alt-tab window switcher is an excellent example of both: it was a feature that was a no-brainer to include, and Apple did a much better job of implementation, both graphically (admit it, Apple’s version looks ten times better) and functionally (e.g., Apple allows you to quit programs while going through the list). Not that they didn’t rip it off, of course–they very much did.

Good News: Apple will start selling the iPad from April 3.

Better News: You can pre-order from March 12, about a week from now.

Great News (for me): Apple’s stock shot up to an all-time high on the news of the iPad release date. It now stands at more than $219, 240% up from when I bought in. Seems like it’s finally popped past the $215 barrier.

Crappy News: Apple Japan’s web site is listing the iPad as going on sale in “Late April.” Argh. Well, on the other hand, I’ll be able to read about everyone’s experiences with the device before sinking my money into it. It’s be nice, for once, to get a new Apple product the same time everyone else does, however.

I went to Immigration yesterday and submitted my application. It consists of my tax records for the last three years and Sachi’s for the past one year; a letter proving employment from my work as well as the gensen-choshu-hyo (the Japanese version of the American W-2 form); a letter stating my reasons for getting permanent residency; a copy of our family registry; my passport and alien registration card; and a 2-page form similar to those you fill out for a work visa. There is also a guarantor form, which they gave me there but is not due until they call me back in.

The process was surprisingly similar to any other visa application–go to the immigration office, fill in the application, submit the forms at the same counter for temporary visas, and then they have you write your address on a postcard to notify you of when you have to come back in. It took about two and a half hours on a Wednesday afternoon, not counting travel time. It was remarkably pedestrian–I expected to meet with an official and to have them ask me questions or some such–I though the process would be much more personal.

As for my chances, I am more or less a shoo-in: a college professor, twelve straight years in Japan (ten is usually enough), and married to a Japanese national. I hear they’ll allow you to get residency after five years if you’re married. Some people say it takes just a few months; one person I spoke to said it took them one and a half years. Let’s see how I do.

A new Gizmodo article breaks it down exceedingly well. Despite a report in January that laughingly claimed that 75% of all paid apps were pirated and that developers had lost nearly half a billion dollars due to the scourge, the new report, with much more believable evidence, shows what we pretty much expected: piracy is rare, and developers aren’t much concerned about it.

Just got back from the doctors’ this morning. One is helping me with a back problem, the other is my GP who is currently helping me with ocular migraines. Both required an MRI, so I had two taken this morning–one of my back, and one of my head. After meeting with the back doctor (the other I consult in about a week), I picked up my prescription for the medicine helping with my herniated disc. Took all of two hours for the whole thing.

Total cost: about $135 for two MRI’s, a doctor’s consult, and a month’s worth of medication. The medication is working, BTW, just like it did last time–helps with the pain while I recover.

Socialist health care is actually quite good.

This time it involves Apple. The British publication Telegraph printed what appears to be a damning exposé on Apple’s bad business practices. From reading it, for the most part, it sounds like Apple was caught misbehaving, an impression bolstered by tangential reminders of past abuses.

Apple admits using child labour

At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. … Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. … Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple’s rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week. … Apple has not stopped using the factories.

First off, to say that Apple “admitted” anything sounds like it confessed, that it was caught red-handed; that’s not the case, nor is it that Apple used child labor–its contractor did. Despite the article’s insinuation that Apple was being investigated by some outside source, this was a case of Apple investigating its contractors. Instead of turning a blind eye or even being complicit, Apple actually made rigorous checks of the business practices of the contractors, and instead of keeping any violations secret or covering up, it published its findings publicly, with assurances that it is taking steps to end these practices. What the Telegraph article also fails to state is that Apple is perhaps the only tech company which does these checks. Other companies simply ignore the abuses. Many in the comments section, despite the multiple criticisms of bias, state that they now see Apple in a bad light and will stop buying its products–something which might have been the reverse had the article reported the facts correctly and without the harsh anti-Apple slant. As for the past abuses: the workers exposed to the toxic gases, the worker who committed suicide, the reporter who was roughed up–none of these were Apple, they were all contractors, and Apple seems to be trying harder than anyone else in the industry to stop the abuses. Would I prefer that Apple changes suppliers? Sure, but then it’ll have to deal with the next supplier just the same. Maybe Apple could be doing more or better–but at least it’s doing something.

But I guess it makes better copy to falsely intimate that Apple is the bad guy here. Now, I have a pro-Apple bias–I’m a shareholder and fan–but at least I don’t hide it, and try to stick to the facts. Bad form, Telegraph.

Wow. This morning, a big quake–7.3 on the Richter scale–hit close to Okinawa, sending the people into a tsunami scare. This afternoon, an even bigger quake–this one an 8.8–hit between the Chilean cities of Santiago and Concepcion.

And on the premiere movie channel on cable TV in Japan, Movie Plus, two movies are being shown: “10.5” and “10.5: The Apocalypse,” two TV Movies about massive earthquakes striking the planet in close succession.

Spooky.

In what analysts are calling a breathtaking string of coincidences, every single email written by every single official and staffer in the Bush administration, from the very first day it began to Bush’s very last day in office, has been accidentally erased. In 7,538 separate cases of human and mechanical error, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of email messages were erased. Additionally, in each case, backups were also destroyed, and then, in thousands of completely unrelated mishaps, the hard disk drives which once contained the emails and their backups, located on hundreds of different servers at sites spanning the entire continental United States, were accidentally removed and magnetically wiped, and then physically destroyed. In what is being termed a statistical fluke, there were virtually no such errors before January 2001, and have been no such reported incidences since January of 2009; the outbreak of purely innocent accidental erasures is fully contained to a sharply defined eight-year period with no meaningful pattern that anyone has been able to discern.

When asked to comment on the phenomenon, former White House technical staffer Steven McDevitt replied, “Huh. How about that?” After hearing that a question concerning the matter was asked by a member of the media, Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) immediately assailed what he termed “a Liberal-media witch-hunt instigated by known Socialist George Soros, with the clear intention of undermining American values and killing American soldiers.” Upon hearing the news, Congressional Democrats, distressed and fearing reprisal nine months prior to midterm elections, instantly withdrew a variety of bills related to health care, gun control, and education reform, and called instead for renewal of the Patriot Act, after passing a bill exonerating anyone who could have been involved in what were clearly unintended accidents regarding the Bush administration emails, promising to never, ever ask any questions about it, we promise and please don’t attack us.

</snark>

Okay, I exaggerate. But it wouldn’t be funny if there weren’t an element of truth involved.

In 2002, CEO’s from the leading technology companies in America called on the federal government to adopt a goal to give 100 Mbps Internet connections to 100 million homes and small businesses by 2010. This was hardly a pipe dream: Japan’s “e-Japan” policy called for 30 Mbps nationwide by 2005–and they achieved it a year early. 100 Mbps connections are now ubiquitous here, and 1Gbps connections have been available for more than a year now. Of course, this is easier to do in Japan, but hardly impossible to do in America.

Bush gabbed about such goals in 2004 and probably at other times, but never actually did anything. This was typical of Bush where high-minded tech and science goals were involved: taking credit for calling for stuff but then never funding it or moving forward in any meaningful way. For six years after the industry leaders called for a federal plan, Bush did jack about it–and so the U.S. now lags behind lots of other countries, when it should be in the vanguard.

In comes Obama, and a year after taking office, he is doing what Bush should have done eight years ago: actually moving forward with something. The FCC, which under Bush actually hindered progress, is moving forward to demand nation-wide 100 Mbps Internet access by 2020. Yeah, pretty late–but that’s what happens when the previous administration trashes the place: you have to start from scratch. The important thing is, the Obama administration realized that something had to be done, and it is doing it.

So I’m at work, making a phone call and referring to my Macbook Pro as I do. Just as the service rep comes on the line, my Mac crashes. I restart, but as the call goes on, the gray pre-startup screen (the one with the Apple logo) just grinds and grinds… and grinds. I give up and restart–same thing. 10 minutes later, after the call, the computer still won’t go beyond that very early startup screen. Something is wrong.

I take it home, hoping that I can revive it with the Snow Leopard install disk. Sure enough, it’ll start with that disk, but nothing beyond that–the Disk Utility tells me there’s an “invalid node structure,” and won’t repair it. A quick search of Apple’s forums tells me that such a disk error generally marks the demise of the HDD. An attempt to run a disk repair program on a bootable DVD is to no avail–it starts, sets up, but then immediately shuts down, as if it couldn’t latch on to anything. I try to use the Macbook Pro in Target Disk mode, connected to my 24“ iMac. The ”Macintosh HD“ shows up… and again… and again… until there are no fewer than nine apparent ”Macintosh HD“s sitting on the Desktop–and none work. Nor will the disk repair app do anything with them.

At this point, I was pretty bummed–I hadn’t backed up in more than a month, and most of the semester’s work from school was on that disk. Argh. All the email, my students’ papers and grades, everything.

But finally, late at night, I get a data recovery program on another bootable DVD to work, and the files begin to spill out. Not in the unnamed, fragmented mess you sometimes get, but in pristine form. It takes forever–well, overnight and then some, at least–but I am able to extract most of the hard disk onto an external drive with enough space. I can’t get everything, but hell, before that breakthrough, I swore that I’d be ecstatic just to get the right handful of files off the thing. Instead, I wind up getting most of the disk.

Late, late at night, as the files were decanting, I started looking at replacement drives–my Macbook Pro is 4 months out of its 1-year warranty. While Apple is often generous, it’s not 100% of the time. I find that Western Digital has a widely praised HDD, 500 GB (twice my current drive’s size), for about $90 at Amazon.co.jp.

But just to make sure, I made an appointment at the Genius Bar for this evening. I take the faulty Mac in with me to work (along with the HDD with the backed-up data), and spend much of the day teaching while I transfer the recovered data onto my old Powerbook G4 (coming in quite handy now), and right after work, I head out to Ginza’s Apple Store. I get there in time to wait maybe 5 minutes, and get served by a guy who speaks fluent English. I describe the situation to him, noting the expired warranty. He gets on his computer and confirms that it’s not covered any more, but spends a while trying to make something work–and sure enough, tells me they’ll replace the drive for free despite the lapsed warranty. I am actually almost disappointed–I was getting jazzed at the idea of a 500 GB HDD in my laptop–but I’ll take the free 250 GB replacement disk just fine, thank you.

Seriously, if you can tell me a maker in Japan who will (a) sell English-ready versions of Windows on their machine for the same price as Japanese-language versions (with an option for an English-language keyboard), (b) provide face-to-face tech support, in English, the day after something goes wrong, and (c) will almost as often as not give you free repairs months after the warranty expires, I’d love to hear about it. But outside of Apple, I don’t think anyone does that.

Christopher Hitchens does have a point. At the individual or small-group level, it is possible that sports can lead to greater mutual appreciation and understanding, boosting friendship and strengthening ties. Done the right way, for the right reasons, it can also build character and teach moral lessons.

However, at larger levels, sports rarely if ever does that. Instead, it divides, pitting populations, usually regional, against each other, to the point of starting fights and, as Hitchens shows, sometimes even localized conflicts. As a small example, I don’t recall any San Franciscan and Los Angeleno coming closer or forming any ties of friendship due to their sports teams; on the contrary, it has made casual enemies of two cities which otherwise would not have had much against each other. Same for the Olympics. Traditionally, it has been a showcase for rivalries, for demonstrating superiority, and not for building bridges. This is not to say that anyone who watches sports is aggressive or arrogant, or that one cannot watch sports purely for innocent personal enjoyment of the game–again, that’s an individual-level effect.

But sports at the general level is actually a form of nationalism when you think of it. It should be a civilizing influence, but it’s not.

Bill Maher often does half-assed research and presents a muddled case, but he made an incredibly sharp and cogent point in his “New Rules” segment last night:

Now here’s an amazing statistic. In a recent poll almost ninety percent of Tea Baggers said that they thought taxes had either gone up or stayed the same under Obama. Only two percent thought they went down. But the reality is, taxes have gone down. For ninety five percent of working families, taxes went down.

Think about that. Only two percent of the people in a “movement” about taxes, named after a tax revolt, have the slightest idea what’s going on…with taxes.

That point really does bring home one thing loud and clear: the Tea Baggers are not about taxes, just like the Tea Baggers who crashed town hall meetings last summer screaming against socialized medicine “but keep your government hands off my Medicare” weren’t about health care.

Whether these people are confused, racist, scared, or just downright stupid, they are not about what they claim to be about. They are about hysterical hate and anger and denial. In short, they are emblematic of the right wing of American politics today.

The FBI has officially closed the case on the Anthrax letter case. As you may recall, letters with anthrax were sent to news agencies and the offices of ranking Democratic senators beginning one week after 9/11, killing five people and exposing 17 more. The FBI eventually concluded that it was solely attributable to one scientist working at a military lab.

While I do not doubt that the lab was the source of the anthrax, I do have my doubts about whether it was the work of this individual. As you may recall, the day after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration was focused on pinning the attacks on Iraq, despite knowing that al Qaeda was the responsible party and that they were neither working from Iraq, nor even on good terms with that country.

The chances are, it was the work of an individual, possibly but not certainly the accused researcher, who wanted to carry out the attacks for whatever reasons an individual can imagine. However, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the anthrax attacks played right into the hands of politicians, making the 9/11 attacks seem like part of a larger plot, and providing the grounds upon which to base an invasion of Iraq, something that the Bush administration wanted from day one. Now, the 9/11 attacks themselves did this as well, but that does not mean the Bush administration was behind them. But the timing, nature, and especially the source of the anthrax attacks makes it more difficult to completely count out the possibility that, soon after 9/11, someone high up concluded that it would help their cause to have something like this happen. It could be just coincidence that the timing was right, that the nature of the attack–biological weapons–was something Iraq was highly suspected of, and that a government facility was the source of the material. But when coincidences start piling up, so do suspicions.

Of course, the conspiracy-theory elements of this assure the fact that no one in power or in any position of influence in the media would even dream of forwarding this theory. But knowing what we do about what the government will do (torture at a black site at Guantanamo) and how convoluted such secret operations are (profits from illegal sales of weapons to Iran used to fund counterinsurgencies in Central America), to completely rule out this scenario would be stupid. Such things do happen.

Did they happen here? I would be stunned if we ever knew for sure. All we do know is that the answer that the FBI is “satisfied” with is far from air-tight.

The above is an actual billboard located on I-35 near the town of Wyoming, Minnesota. It’s been garnering quite a bit of attention, and has become the new big gag among the right-wingers. Do a Google Image search of “Bush Miss Me” and you’ll see that it’s been reworked as one of those “motivational posters” and slapped on half the wingnut blogosphere.

Considering that half the stuff people are “tired” of are direct results of actions taken by the Bush administration, and the other half are the result of right-wing hysteria and Republican obstructionism, the suggestion of “missing” the Bush era is more akin to blackmail than a call to better times.

It’s like a kid who wants to sit in the front seat of the car on a family trip, and when he gets put in the back seat does nothing but scream, kick, and throw things until everyone else just gives up and gives him what he wants.

The difference is that with the punk kid, he eventually gets tired and shuts up.

Named only as awkwardly as Microsoft can name a thing, the new Windows Mobile OS is out, and making quite a bit of a fuss in the gadget community. What strikes me is that virtually everyone on the major tech sites is raving about this, saying it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread–and virtually no one is panning it. Looking at all the major sites, I can’t find a single person saying, “I don’t like this.” Which is immensely suspicious, because somebody always hates something new, and it’s not like there’s nothing to criticize about the new mobile OS. It’s almost as if people feel obligated to give the product raving reviews, either out of guilt (I don’t want to seem unfair after praising Apple’s products), relativism (this is great because it’s far better than WinMo 6.5!), or simply because it’s not by Apple.

The WPS7 (seriously, what will become the shorthand for this thing?) is based on the Zune, using its interface style and including the DAP within the new structure. Notably, Microsoft doesn’t want these to be called “Zune Phones,” for obvious reasons. Not that the Zune HD was bad–it was Microsoft’s first good version of the machine–but it was way too little, way too late, after having established a very bad image for the brand name. They have not banished the Zune name, but they are definitely burying it somewhat.

Microsoft definitely did a several things right with this OS. The design elements are very well done, taking the best from the Zune and adding more good stuff. The elemental colors are a Microsoft standard, but they are done with a classy, understated elegance which is hard to dislike. There are cool animated transitions that dazzle, at least at first. Microsoft seems to be adding Office functionality, but not much is out on that yet–if you can view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on this, it’ll be a huge plus (albeit difficult on such a small device). But Microsoft’s smartest move is making the phone integrate seamlessly with social networking features, bound to be a big hit with the younger crowd–the one especially into the iPhone right now. And that’s a big giveaway–this is not aimed at Microsoft’s usual business crowd, this is a broadside directly aimed at the iPhone’s user base. Centering the OS around activities, defined under ‘hubs,’ Microsoft is trying to make this a user-centric, experience-based machine.

So, is it as good as everyone is raving? One very telling point is found in all the praise. There are several recurring themes that are common to the gush:

It’s not the piece of crap WinMo 6.5 was. This should be damning with faint praise–almost nobody liked the previous version of the OS. A blind chimp with Tourette’s could have designed a better OS for a touchscreen phone. But the improvement is commonly touted as a big deal, though usually with the added note that, “it’s not only not a piece of crap, it’s actually pretty good.”

It’s got great graphics. Fair enough–a lot of people loved the iPhone for similar reasons. The thing is, the same people now in love with the eye candy were the same ones dismissing it with the iPhone. The iPhone persevered because it functioned well in real use, something that only a few people issue caveats about concerning WPS7.

Praise for the same things the iPad was knocked for. Many are praising the WPS7 for borrowing an existing (Zune) style and functionality, something the iPad was criticized for. Nobody is saying, “Oh, it’s just a phone version of Zune” like they’re saying that the iPad is just “an oversized iPod Touch,” despite both going well beyond the original models in functionality. Similarly, people are avoiding criticism of WPS7 for things they gnash their teeth at where Apple’s products are concerned. No multitasking? We’ll mention it, but not whine about it like we’re doing with Apple’s gear. No Flash? Oh, who cares? In fact, nearly all potential points of criticism are muted, where they were highlighted not just with the iPad, but with the iPhone since it was first announced. Paucity of apps? Lack of an SDK? No details on major elements of the product? These were major complaints raised again and again after the iPhone was announced, and yet no one seems to mind or care much with WPS7. Why not? Then there’s the ecosystem: a major complaint about Apple mobile gear is that Apple controls it. Well, WPS7, with it’s hub-rather-than-app focus, seems designed even more to lock in control by Microsoft–but nobody’s getting on their high horse about it. Why not? Why fall all over Apple for all of these things, and then just a few weeks later have no objections when Microsoft comes out with a product with the exact same features? just about the only criticism I can find about WPS7 across more than one site is for the name. Even under the incredibly positive hype when the iPhone originally debuted, there was still far more focus on the negatives than Microsoft is getting now. Is this an IOKIYM deal?

Praise for nothing new. “You can see how many emails and phone messages are waiting right on the main screen!” Um… that’s been on the iPhone forever, dudes. “It’s minimalist!” Same deal. “It has a touch screen, multitouch no less!” Uhh…“It has cloud computing!” OK, maybe all of this belongs under the “It’s not the piece of crap that WinMo 6.5 was” category.

Unreserved Praise without hands-on. In contrast to people hating the iPad despite testimony that you need a hands-on to appreciate it, people are gushing about the WPS7 without really experiencing it. From Microsoft’s “Mojave” campaign, we know full well that Microsoft is very good at making their product look 100% better under strictly controlled conditions.

Finally, one should note what is absent from the praise: the OS’s functionality and ease-of-use. Everyone is talking about the appearance and the features, but no one seems to be talking about what it would be like to use it. Nobody is saying that it looks like it’s easy to use. Nobody is mentioning the smart design of the menus, or how simple it would be to navigate. All this despite the essential information on that being out there in full view. And I think the reason is because functionality seems to be the major flaw in this device. It’s designed to look cool, not to function well.

This is where the iPhone excelled: ease of use. Turn it on and there are the buttons. Flipping the screen to the next page is easy to learn. That’s it–the user takes over from there by adding the apps that they want and arranging them how they like. The iPhone is designed to be easy to understand, easy to use. It’s designed to simply function and then get out of your way. Lest we forget (and it looks like people have), that was the revolution that the iPhone brought: smartphones made simple.

The WPS7 seems to be oblivious to the design philosophy.That stands out right away: both the iPhone and the WPS7 OS try to be cool, but the WPS7 OS tries to be cool for the sake of being cool, at the expense of functionality. That’s a big no-no. When Apple has cute animation features, it stays within the confines of functionality; for example, when you scroll to the end of a list on the iPhone, it goes a little beyond the end so it can “bump” against the bottom and spring back. That’s a cutesy animation, but it is also functional and stays within good design parameters. It’s a visual reminder that you’ve reached the end of something, and it doesn’t detract in any way. When you want to rearrange app icons, they shake. Again, cutesy, but functional–it tells you that you’re in layout mode. Look at almost every animation in any Mac OS, and you’ll find that it conforms to this basic philosophy: in some way, each animation dovetails with the function.

Looking at the WPS7 animations, I see something comepletely different: cutesy animations purely for the sake of looking cool. For example, sometimes you tap on something, like a name, and it moves in an arc to a new location on the screen. For what purpose other than to be snazzy? Not much. How does that inform you about what you’re doing? Not at all. Then there are the too-wide scrolling screens, with five or six times more content than can show on the phone at once, where you have to wipe back and forth several times to see what’s there. the number of panes is not standard for any area, so you’ll be constantly wondering how far it goes. Worse, there’s no index from which you can jump to the part you want, nor any indicator to see what all the parts are. Then there’s the thing about a sliver of the next area being visible at the edge–which to me feels like a design flaw, not a feature. It’s a counter-intuitive way of handling what is essentially a bad design idea: presenting too much information in too small a space.

Then how about navigation? The WPS7 seems to have a steep learning curve–you have remember what’s buried in the too-big panels and get accustomed to a non-linear fashion of moving around. It does not look like the simple, easy interface that makes the iPhone stand out. Again, that was it’s big point–before the iPhone, smartphones were a dizzying maze of functions that took forever to learn. Most users didn’t access even a small percentage of the features for that reason. The iPhone was a hit not just because it looked snazzy–that was a plus, not the main point. It was a hit because it made using your smartphone easy.

People seem to have bought into the criticism that the iPhone depends primarily on eye candy, and Microsoft seems to have completely forgotten the simplicity part of the equation. While people who hate the iPhone or love social networking may be willing to accept WPS7’s design flaws, it could be that many will not. Or perhaps I am overestimating the apparent complexity of the OS. But I still ask the same question: why aren’t the tech sites talking about this? Does Microsoft get a bye simply because they’re not sucking as bad as usual? Is it the Apple guilt syndrome?

One last note: everybody is oohing and ahhing the animations now. Will they still be smitten when they’ve had to use this interface for a month or more? Like the “blink” tag, animated GIFs, and Flash animations, such overstated cutesyness is initially fun or even impressive, but after using them for a while, they positively grate on you. I can see the WPS7 animations doing the same thing–especially since they are not in the least bit functional. Hopefully, Microsoft will give you the ability to turn them off if you prefer.

As I’m sure someone will point out, this review will be suspect coming from me. I have a long history of liking Apple and not liking Microsoft, and own Apple stock to boot. So by all means, take this with a grain of salt–but that means to question it rationally, not to dismiss it out of hand. While I have been described as a “mindless” Apple fanboy, I beg to differ–my enthusiasm for the iPad has been expressed in great depth on this site in very specific terms regarding the design, function, and potential of the product. Far from just, “Oooo, something new from Apple, it’s gotta be kewl!,” I looked at it with the same initial skepticism I did with the Apple TV, with pretty much every Apple mouse that’s come out, and with Apple Mail app. If the WPS7 phone is much better than I think, please explain in terms as specific as those expressed above.

To help get a better idea, you might want to see this live demo, under less-controlled circumstances but still without letting non-Microsoft hands touch the device. Even with a trained and practiced Microsoft rep handling it, note how much trouble he has. Not a good sign. Microsoft does, of course, have 10 or 11 months to work out the kinks (huge lead time, that). Also note how the guy ignores a few specific requests to show features.

You begin to wonder if right-wingers actually believe their own claims against global warming. I know that many of these people are simply knee-jerk reactionist idiots, but even idiots can figure out simple stuff from time to time.

They know as well as anyone else by now that “global warming” does not mean that it never, ever gets cold enough to snow anywhere.

They know that warmer average temperatures means more water evaporates.

They know that more water evaporated means more precipitation, and that where it gets cold enough, more snow.

So they know that global warming can cause greater snowfalls. Snowfalls like the very one they claim disproves global warming.

The question is, are they really so astonishingly stupid, or are they fully aware of their BS and are astonishingly dishonest? If one were to give them the benefit of the doubt, which way would it go?

As people talk more and more about the ups and downs of the Apple ecosystem–the closed nature of the App Store on the iPhone and soon the iPad–one theme always comes about: Apple is being oppressive and controlling. This viewpoint, however, comes from the perspective of what we have had up until now, which is not entirely objective–nor is it without its own ups and downs. It helps to step back and take a look at the bigger picture, trying to understand the forest instead of noting vague shapes beyond the individual trees we’ve come to feel comfortable around.

Think of the current system and then the App Store ecosystem as societies. Our current setup is, to be frank, kind of like a Joss-Whedon style dystopian anarchy with overtones of corporate oligarchy. Competing major corporations (Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.) offer the only real structure to what’s happening, and the denizens of this society often align themselves with these organizations. However, most of society is independent, trying to live freely on their own in the anarchy that exists outside the immediate corporate structures–but they can’t escape some level of corporate control as they depend on what the corporations produce. They grumble about the prices they have to pay to the oligarchy and they way things are run.

For that reason, many join the pirate culture, stealing from the corporations because they can, and because they feel they have paid enough already and are entitled to. But anarchy means that it’s not just the pirates stealing from the corporations–lawlessness abounds everywhere. Most people are beset by malware and scammer crime, and live amongst mountains of spam littering the streets lined with gaudy neon Flash billboards. They must hire anti-virus bodyguards and yet still watch their wallets and not fall prey to lures. Once in a while you may even be targeted by a professional hacker, god help you. Just as the anarchy allows you to be a pirate without much fear of punishment, the anarchy lets the element aimed at you work just as freely. Some avoid this by living closer to the oligarchy and paying full price for everything, others attempt to inhabit the Apple and Linux islands of relative stability. The Apple island has high rent, but it’s even easier to be a pirate and you’re safer from the anarchy pointed at you–but you get branded as an elitist snob who is a willing slave to Apple. The Linux island is sparsely populated and not well-supplied, but has more independence and is less stigmatized.

At some point, Apple declares that they’re forming a new state, the App Store Federation. It’s a territory pioneered by the iPhone contingent, soon to be joined by the iPad population, and who knows where it will expand to next. This new state has a rather structured form of government, introducing regular but not too excessive taxes–you’d be paying about the same most of the time in the anarchy anyway, unless you were really good at working the system just right. Apple is the government, and the OS is the constitution. They exert a certain amount of control, and they make the laws. It’s not a Democracy, it’s more like a benevolent dictatorship. But it’s clean, safe, and simple to live in. They’re not oppressive–they don’t arrest you or impose fines for misbehavior–but they do try to make you live the way they feel is best. You may not agree with what the government dictates, but most of the time it’s pretty good. There’s a certain amount of censorship to go along with it.

The society is nice, modern, bright. and relatively clean. As with the Apple island in the anarchic oligarchy, the rent is high. However, food, clothing, and entertainment are pretty cheap–mostly cheaper than you paid for before. It’s harder to be a pirate, but there’s also a police force to keep you safe. While there’s still quite a lot of spam litter and some scam artists lurking around, government regulation keeps Flash ads from making things seedy and the police force keeps most of the crime under control. You feel safer walking the streets. It’s a more comfortable life, but those who enjoyed the freedom under the anarchy feel chafed by the level of control exercised here. That’s the trade-off. If you don’t like that level of control by the government, you can always go back to the anarchy–but you lose the benefits of living here. There are some in the anarchy who try to replicate the Ecosystem without having the control, but they tend to be expensive themselves, and as copycats trying to get a quick buck, they tend not to be as stable, with shaky foundations and only superficial wealth. Google is making the best go of it, but is a bit disorganized and split between their Chrome and Android personalities.

But people often want the best of both worlds–they want the nice, clean, safe, and modern lifestyle the Apple ecosystem provides, but they also want the free-wheeling, independent, live-as-you-like and do-what-you-want lifestyle the anarchy afforded. So a splinter group formed the Jailbreak community, setting up in the foothills just outside the Apple ecosystem, living off the controlled lifestyle but at the same time sticking it to the man–who discourages the practice and tries to cut off their supplies from time to time, but otherwise just kind of lets them be. Most people commute, living partly in the Apple Ecosystem and partly out, so the control isn’t so bad even for those whom it chafes. But people can foresee a time when they may have to choose permanent residency, and are wary about what that would be like.

Apple is experimenting with a new computing culture, and computing society is reacting to it, forming new communities around it. The other major corporations are looking on warily, knowing their most of their business is still safe at the moment, but also aware that this could grow into something bigger later on. If enough people are drawn to the Apple ecosystem, it could become the new paradigm, replacing the old anarchic oligarchy with something new. Google is trying to set up its own ecosystem, but they’re less organized. Microsoft, meanwhile, just wants to maintain their current dominance in the oligarchy, but is willing to change systems if they see that things are moving that way–they’re used to watching Apple’s lead and moving in if there’s profit to be had.

Expect Apple to eventually bring the Ecosystem culture from the mobile community to computing at large–either by bringing it to laptop and desktop computers, or by having mobile devices become primary computing machines. I doubt very much that they’ll want to stop with the iPad–this system is too good for them, if they can make it work.

Where would you like to live in this world?

The iPhone-style app environment is another aspect of the iPad which tends to be overlooked. In fact, many cite this as a complaint about the iPad, saying that it’s not a “real” computer, that Apple has “locked” you in or out, that it’s an oppressively controlled environment. Sure, it has its down points–a famous one is Apple’s sometimes arbitrary (not to mention self-serving) censorship and lagging delays for app approvals, but that is something that users are barely even aware of.

The truth is, the environment, for all its foibles, works. People have accepted it for the iPhone, but few have looked forward and really thought out what this will mean for the iPad, which is much closer to being a “real” computer.

Begin by thinking about the issues with installing apps in Windows, on a netbook or any other such platform. While many apps can be downloaded from the Internet, those tend to be shareware/freeware apps, and must be screened for malware of all sorts–not all of which can be caught by anti-virus software, which must be bought or acquired and always represents a drag on the system. Most vital software must be bought, usually at a significant price, either at a store or by mail order, and then installed. Almost all such apps have serial numbers that have to be entered, and many have “activation” procedures; in short, a legitimate purchaser is treated with suspicion by those who sell to them, as if they were guilty until proven innocent. Then there are software learning curves as well as frustrating documentation (or lack thereof), not to mention facing the interference often times thrown up at the user by the OS itself. Windows is also notorious for losing stability with repeated installs and uninstalls; I recall once installing software on an office PC to test it out, and having someone who worked there become furious at me for it–as a Mac user, I was completely blind to this person’s concerns.

Now move forward to the software paradigm for the iPad.

One-stop Shopping: for all the complaints about Apple’s control, it means that searching for and finding software is a heck of a lot easier. It’s all in one place, categorized, searchable, and with a good number of user reviews right there which give you a good idea of what you’ll think of it after you buy it. Demo software will likely be included this time.

Abundance of Software Titles: Ironically, this is the major reason people used to give for why they used Windows over the Mac–that Windows had all the titles, and the software they wanted just wasn’t available for the Mac. Well, now the tables will be turned: developers are going full-speed to develop for the iPad (even Microsoft hinted today that it was “looking at” porting Office to the iPad–c’mon, you know they’ve already started working on it). The App Store for the iPhone already has 140,000 titles available (OK, maybe only 40,000 which are actually what you’d call a “useful” app, but that’s still a huge number), and that number will explode when development for the iPad gets truly underway. “There’s an app for that” is more than just a catchphrase. If you ever used the “more software” argument for Windows, then you can’t not use it to argue for the iPad.

The iPhone ecosystem opened up software development like nothing before. I used to know one, maybe two people who developed software; now I know at least a dozen who do so for the iPhone, including people I never suspected of belonging to that club. And although my own progress has currently stalled on this, I fully intend to continue studying programming and joining that club myself–something I never expected to do before. Certainly I never expected to be able to sell anything I could make.

Cheap: prices on the App Store will be lower than what you would normally pay for equivalent software elsewhere, to a great degree because there will be less piracy, but also because of the legacy from the iPhone store, as well as from outright competition. Seriously, a commercial office suite (iWork) for thirty bucks? Expect to buy apps for maybe half or a third of the price you’d pay elsewhere. (Question: will Apple’s iTunes Store policy of authorizing up to five machines for iPad apps? If so, that solves the “family pack” issue.)

Secure: Anti-virus? What’s that? It’s already redundant on the Mac platform, it will be meaningless for the iPad. A huge advantage of a controlled ecosystem is that it’s controlled.

Fast and Dead Simple: You want an app, you find it in minutes and install it in seconds. No serial numbers, no activation, no install wizard. At most, you type in your iTunes Store password, and bam, it’s loading. Uninstall is even easier, won’t corrupt your system, and the app will always be there waiting in your account if you want to re-install it (no more “where did I put that install CD?”). Using the software will also be simpler: the iPad environment is geared towards intuitive, easy-to-use apps. Think about your iPhone: how often do you have to resort to the instruction manual? Same principle. The multitouch UI will make computing easier just as the GUI did.

The iPad will be a cheap, mobile computing device with a big enough screen to run most of the software you’ll need, and will have all the advantages of a multitouch UI. The software for it will be cheap, abundant, easy to find, a snap to install, and easy to learn, free from worry about malware. Tell me that this description is (a) inaccurate, or (b) not a huge plus for the device.

And if you prefer having more control over your computer, or secretly wish to pirate your software rather than buy it, then just wait a few weeks–maybe even just a few days–after the iPad is released, and get the jailbreak software. I guarantee you, it’ll be there. Of course, you’ll lose many of the advantages listed above, but if that’s how you swing, then so be it.

Jason Schwarz at Seeking Alpha thinks the iPad will explode in the business sector, becoming Apple’s “flagship product.” He explains:

The iPad is Apple’s upgraded version of a netbook, only it’s better than any netbook ever built. Netbook computers took the market by storm in 2009 by growing over 100 percent year over year to sell approximately 34 million units. The real game changing element of the iPad is that it’s the first computer ever designed to be held with one hand. This simple fact is a very big deal. Because of this, the iPad is primed to usher in a new era of mobile computing efficiency that will take the business world by storm. Nobody is talking about the iPad as a must have business device but that is exactly what it is.

Anyone who previously relied on a notepad or clipboard will adopt the iPad. Doctors will use the iPad as they move from room to room and interact with patients, teachers will use the iPad as they lecture, coaches will use it as an in game video/scouting tool…think of all the real estate agents and other salesmen who operate at point of sale. Anybody who walks around at work will want an iPad to hold directly in their hands.

I’m not sure if such enthusiasm is warranted, but I do know one thing with a fair amount of confidence: it will be popular at colleges. It will make e-textbooks far more widely used, and will be the best tool that a student or teacher could hope for. I would not be surprised if it is adopted campus-wide at some colleges.

Meanwhile, there’s talk of Apple lowering prices for TV shows to $1 per episode in time for the iPad release. This just makes sense, and not just for the iPad, but in general. $2 for a single TV episode has always been a ludicrous price, and the main reason I don’t even look at their offerings. Almost every TV show becomes available on DVD (and Blu-Ray) soon after the season concludes, usually for a total price that comes to less than $2 per episode (Lost’s Season 5, for example, costs $23.50, about $1.50 per ep.), and is stocked with a plethora of extras, including commentaries, bloopers, and deleted scenes. To pay more for that without any of the extras is just dumb. If the episodes were available via Apple at a reasonable resolution for $1 an episode, it would almost certainly more than double sales–not just drawing in more customers, but getting existing customers to purchase more content.