Why I moderate comments

Many blogs have a rather free-form comments policy. I chose from the beginning to moderate comments on this site. Here's why.

Sometimes comments are inflammatory, or attempt to derail the discussion and take it in a different direction, or are personal attacks on the author or one of the other commenters. That's not what this blog is for. This blog is meant to entertain, to make one think, and to give me, the author, someplace to vent. Once I got an anonymous comment chewing me out royally for saying how I felt about someone — for showing some emotion and expressing an opinion. Um, am I not allowed to have my own feelings or opinions? If that's what you think, then you can go eat rocks.

Many comments say things like "Love your site, glad to hear you talking about this," followed by a link to someone else's site. That linked site is always spam. The comment is basically unpaid advertising. If I were to allow these comments, then anytime someone looked at my blog, the linked-to site would get a boost in its ratings, and some Web users would think that the site was reliable or trustworthy because its link appeared on my blog. I don't want to be responsible for that, and I don't want to give spammers any assistance. So these ones automatically get the boot.

I have approved comments that disagree with something I've written, or provide an alternative viewpoint. I'm not at all afraid to do that.

Most people who discover my blog like what they see. They like to read what I have here. I want to keep it that way, for their benefit. As for the rest, well, nobody's forcing them to read this stuff.

UPDATE, AUGUST 28: I received a comment on this blog entry today. It was a spam comment.

VirtualPilot3D: Not from Australia anymore

When I first started sniffing along the trail of ProFlightSimulator, it appeared to be "owned" by somebody in Australia, at a bogus address along the Sydney waterfront. My original "whois" on the URL showed it registered to a known Internet scammer in New Jersey. Now it points to an anonymous hosting service in Los Angeles, California

This latest version, VirtualPilot3D Tee Em, hides its tracks very well. A "whois" query points to a P.O. box in Denver, Colorado. The disclaimer claims that VirtualPilot3D is "governed by the laws of Sweden".

Never, ever, buy from anybody online if you don't know who they are, and where they are, in the Real World. (Especially if they claim to have FAA Certification.)

VirtualPilot3D: Same Scam as Before

Less than two months after they re-re-re-re-released their scam under the name "Real Airplane Simulator", the ProFlightSimulator people are back with "VirtualPilot3D™". I thought the was a particularly nice touch. It pretends to add credibility to the product. I mean, nobody would trademark a scam, right? That's right. They didn't trademark it. They just added the ™ to the name.

The VirtualPilot3D website looks just like all the other websites: bogus testimonials from people who don't really exist, screenshots swiped from FlightGear and other simulators; Ron-Popeil-worthy prose; a deeply discounted price (for free software published by somebody else and essentially stolen by these guys); a promise of free lifetime upgrades (which the free software also provides); and a 100% satisfaction guarantee which, according to the poor suckers who have tried to exercise it, isn't worth the paper it's (not) printed on. And just like all those other websites, it's a scam.

I've written about this scam several times on Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters. It's a pernicious thing that I know I won't be able to eradicate, but if I can save at least one person from being fooled and ripped off by these crooks, then it's worth the effort.

There's a flood of ads for VirtualPilot3D on Facebook. I encourage you to click on the "X" or "Hide this Ad" for each ad, and tell FB that it's "Misleading". FB hasn't figured out yet that it's a scam, but if they get enough feedback from their users, they might catch a clue.

In the meantime, if you click through on one of those ads, and end up buying VirtualPilot3D Tee Em, then good luck to you. I warned you.

UPDATE: I just reread the VirtualPilot3D webpage and noticed they're trumpeting the product as "FAA Certified." I'll be posting something else about that.

Real Airplane Simulator: Same Scam, Different Dress

I have written before about the solid scam that goes by ProFlightSimulator, Flight Pro Sim, and so many other names. Here's a new twist on the scam. On Facebook and other places, you will find ads and links pointing to http://realairplanesimulator.com/ . That webpage asks for your name and email address (don't do it!)  as payment for downloading a document called "The Easy Guide to Choosing the Best Flight Simulators."

The website is very well put together, by the way. The footer includes links for "Terms and Conditions" and "Contact Us," and they sound absolutely legit. The top menu bar includes links to a couple of so-called articles, one of which includes a short video. I don't know for sure, but I think the video was recorded from a different flight simulator, not this one.

If you scroll further down the Real Airplane Simulator webpage, you will see that it's pushing ProFlightSimulator Suite and Flight Simulator Plus, two other incarnations that I've written about before.


But all of this is just for appearance. It's a tissue-paper-thin facade whose sole purpose is to make the whole enterprise legitimate. In other words, it's a sham covering the scam. Don't fall for it.


The downloadable document? Well, Cody Moya or one of his sock puppets (namely, Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti) ripped off a bunch of stuff on the Web, compiled it all with some of his own bogus literature about ProFlightSimulator, and published it in a PDF document, purporting to be the definitive word about the subject.

The definitive word about the subject is not found in this deceptive, self-serving, waste of bytes. It's found in this statement from FlightGear.org.

 If you do fall for their hype and hand over your money, well, I feel sorry for you. But I told you so.

ProFlightSimulator: Getting to the Bottom of the Scam

I think I might know who's behind ProFlightSimulator. I found some interesting clues in an independent statistical report about this blog.

In doing research for a June 7, 2011 blog entry, I found that the PFS website was registered to a Cody Moya, of Short Hills, New Jersey. I didn't think much about it, as a lot of people use bogus entities to register their websites.

But today's statistical report showed that someone had come across my blog by searching for the keywords "cody moya scams." Seeing that name for a second time, especially associated with the word "scams," got my radar buzzing. So I tried the Web search myself.

As the plumber said about the clogged toilet in the cathedral: Holy crap.

It turns out that Moya makes a living out of repackaging and reselling free software. His wares are advertised using websites with a tone and style frighteningly similar to the tone and style of all the PFS websites we've seen. He is not without his detractors or enemies, however. A lot of people have written a lot of stuff about him, none of it good. According to these writers, once he gets your email address, he will send you an endless stream of email trying to sell you more stuff - and once he gets your money, you will never see it again. There's also some speculation that "Cody Moya" isn't a real person - kind of like "Dan Freeman" of PFS.

Here are some comments left on http://www.imreportcard.com/people/cody-moya:

"Products sold on his site are mostly owned by others and are of rather dubious quality. Give your Address mail to sign on as myself and I had to change my mail address because I was constantly bombarded with spam several times a day, otherwise your inbox will become a landfill of spam."

"I think this Cody Moya is not real, and you know everyday my email is full with his offers of spam email, and that is very disgusting. Also his product is a junky product and very, very worthless and I think this guy is a scammer. "

Two years before I ran across his name, an entry on The Scammers Manifesto reported that Cody Moya was nothing but a scammer. It's a short piece, worth reading for yourself.

And here's some of Moya's own advice, from one of his own blog entries called "Churning out eZine Content": (redirected from http://www.codymoya.com)

"Another little known and underused method in getting your own content is via public domains. If you are not familiar with the term “public domain”, “public domain” simply means anything that is NOT protected under US copyright law.

This includes ALL works published before 1923 and, under certain conditions, works published up to 1978. And in this case, we are referring “works” to written materials such as reports, articles and books. Republishing and repackaging public domain information can help you save time and effort from creating new ideas and content as they are readily available. On top of that, you do not have to pay royalties or copyright fees on that work.

If you fancy the idea of publishing content without any writing on your part, this method is for you."

I haven't yet figured out the connection yet between Cody Moya and ProFlightSimulator, but the similarities are convincing: a loudmouthed huckster, carefully hiding his identity and contact information, repackaging free software, hyping it and selling it for as much as he can get away with, then running away with the suckers' money. It's a 21st-century version of a con game as old as civilization.

Flight Simulator Plus: Proof by repeated assertion

If you want to find out the truth about Flight Simulator Plus, you may be tempted to search Google using the search terms "Flight Simulator Plus scam". What you will end up with is hundreds of search-engine-optimized webpages proclaiming that FSP is not a scam. This is what's known as "proof by repeated assertion" - the idea that if you say something often enough, it becomes accepted as truth, even if it really isn't. Politicians and their parrots use this logical fallacy all the time.

Look closely at some of the webpages pointed to by your search. They all use the same language, often the same bullet points, and even the same poor English. That points to one of two possibilities: either one person wrote a template and all these people are copying it, or THE SAME PERSON (OR SMALL TEAM) WROTE ALL THESE WEBPAGES. I've written about this before.

A hundred webpages proclaiming that it's not a scam doesn't legitimize it. It's still a scam, and it always will be.

For the gentle, honest, rational truth, start here: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Flight_Simulator_Plus .

p.s. My reporting tools tell me that the purveyors of Flight Simulator Plus (or whatever it's called this week) have been reading these articles about their "product" at Zyzmog Galactic HQ.

Cell-Phone Funny

Today I'm going to post a link to another blog. I like reading this blog because the entries are always thoughtful, sometimes deep, and a combination of angst-ridden, pragmatic and humorous that works for me. The author writes about her life, past and present, good and bad, with a candor and a style that are rare among writers today. I wish I knew this author in person. We'd probably be good friends.

Today's blog entry is about a trip to the T-mobile store with a bored six-year-old in tow, in order to replace a 20-year-old cellphone. When she finally got around to leaving, she collected her son, who had been playing with all of the demo phones in an effort to relieve his boredom - and on her way out the door, she noticed his face looking back at her from every one of those demo phones.

Go read it, and enjoy the rest of the story.

Wave At the Bus

Here's a blog kept by a FUN father and mother.  The dad managed to be on the front porch to wave at his (sixteen year old!) son's school bus every schoolday morning for the entire 2010-2011 school year.  The mom took his picture every day and posted all 170 of them, a day at a time, on their blog.  Like the blog featured in "Julie and Julia," this one went viral, and has been featured in international news publications.

I don't know why I didn't find out about it until today.  Fortunately, it's not too late to enjoy it.  It will bring a smile to your face.

Wave At the Bus.

ProFlightSimulator is now Earth Flight Sim - and still a scam

Wow, that didn't take long. Thanks to the FlightGear community's hounding of ProFlightSimulator, and its subsequent exposure as a scam and a fraud (yes, a fraud- numerous cases of them refusing to honor their 60-day money-back guarantee), ProFlightSim has gone underground ...

... and re-emerged as "Earth Flight Sim." I told you earlier that trying to eradicate a scam of this sort was like playing Whack-A-Mole, and this is a perfect example. What makes this one noteworthy is the speed with which PFS disappeared and took on a new identity.

(Actually, PFS didn't disappear at all, and neither did its previous identity, "Flight Pro Sim". They're both still out there, trawling for suckers.)

Another thing that makes this one noteworthy, and insidious, is the similarity of the name "Earth Flight Sim" to "Google Earth Flight Simulator," which could cause confusion for Web users searching for the latter and finding a mess of links to the former. In the Real World, companies sue each other when product names get too similar like this.

This next point isn't noteworthy, but it's always worth remembering: Earth Flight Sim is nothing more than Pro Flight Simulator repackaged, which is nothing more than Flight Pro Sim repackaged, which is nothing more than FlightGear repackaged. And FlightGear is free. Why would you pay a single penny for something you can get for free?

Like its slimy predecessors, the Earth Flight Sim bundle includes many add-ons and extensions to FlightGear, without the original programmers' permission. Its website includes copyrighted images and videos which were recorded using FlightGear (and in some cases, Microsoft's commercial Flight Sim products) and have been appropriated and used by EFS, without permission.

Earth Flight Sim's "Contact Us" page is empty right now, except for the notation "Coming Soon ...". I would guess that Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti is trying to decide what to call himself this time. "Whois" reports that the domain name is registered to Cody Moya, of Short Hills NJ, but most domain names nowadays are registered to a third party, not the entity that actually uses the domain name.

Once again, my recommendation is that you download FlightGear for free and enjoy it. If you want to spend money on FlightGear, then buy FlightGear's own DVDs. Don't waste your money on scams and frauds like ProFlightSimulator and Earth Flight Sim.

ProFlightSimulator revisited: still a scam

It's been over six months since I exposed ProFlightSimulator as a scam. Today, in a brief moment of boredom, I did a Google search for "ProFlightSimulator." Wow.

First of all, the entity behind PFS has snapped up the .org and .net domain names so that nobody else could use them, and has used them to push the product.

Second, they have created domain names like "proflightsimulatorreviews" and "proflightsimulatorreviewz", where they have posted bogus reviews from bogus users, in an effort to spoof the search engines' rating systems and boost their ratings.

Ah, but third, Web Of Trust has branded the main PFS site, and several of their shill sites, with their lowest rating: a red circle. PFS (and the entity behind it) is now officially a pariah.

Web Of Trust is a browser add-on which rates every web page you visit and every search engine entry on four characteristics: Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, Privacy, and Child Safety. If WOT gives a web site low marks or a red alert, that means it's a dangerous website, and you'd best stay away..

Granted, not everybody in the world uses (or even knows about) WOT. Most non-WOT users will blindly click on the links and get themselves in trouble. But WOT's ratings are based on user input, and therefore they represent a good cross-section of Web users; therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that most of the Web by now realizes that ProFlightSimulator and all of its bogus reviews are nothing but a load of kangaroo manure.

ProFlightSimulator: something just doesn't smell right

I saw an ad on the side of my FB page today for a new flight simulator game called ProFlightSimulator. I clicked on the link and read about it, a new product just released (today!) by what looks like a one-man company in Australia.

At first, I thought "more power to him." I still like to believe that indie game developers can make it big in a world dominated by EA, Vivendi, and their ilk.

However, there's just something about PFS that makes me more than a little suspicious.

When you click on the link in FB, it takes you to (how's this for free advertising? You're welcome, Dan.) http://www.proflightsimulator.com/index2.html, an incredibly long-winded advertisement for PFS: page after endless page of screenshots and hype about it. Lots of hype. It's like watching one of those Veg-o-matic infomercials on TV. It has all the sales tricks, like "Used by the pros!" and "But wait! There's more!" and "Now how much would you pay?" and "... all for the low, low price of ..." and "But you have to ACT NOW, or you'll forfeit this opportunity!"

Then, when you get to the bottom, you find out that you're getting $530 worth of material, including a full-sized book, for $49.99. Do you know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true?

Yeah. So then you start wondering about system performance and hardware/software requirements. The FAQ on the PFS webpages lists some very modest system requirements, but for performance like what is advertised, that doesn't seem like enough. The FAQ doesn't say anything about performance. I've developed computer games, and I've played a lot of different flight sims, first-person shooters, role-playing adventures and other game genres that really push the hardware, and I know what it takes to make something like this look good - and play well.

The Jane's flight simulators, for one example, are visually exquisite, and masterpieces of execution, as long as you install them on the recommended minimum hardware and not the acceptable minimum hardware. On the acceptable minimum hardware, they are slow and choppy and tearfully frustrating. This is something you really, really want to know before you buy - even with a 60-day warranty.

I never buy anything anymore without looking at the online reviews first. I pull up my favorite search engine and search for "proflightsimulator review." Surprise, surprise: I find a lot of them out there, and they're all dated November 15, and they're all written (if they have a byline) by the same person. This is a variant of the "blogging for dollars" practice I wrote about in June 2009.

None of the reviews are real, objective reviews. They're just shills. They all have the same, Billy Mays-ish breathless tone of someone reading directly from the marketing literature. They pretend to be objective by listing a couple of negative points of the software, but even these negatives are spun: when the review says "There is quite a lot of data to be downloaded. The main game itself is already 300 megabytes," and suggests that you order the 4 DVDs, the average user thinks, "Wow! I get over 300 MB of stuff! And enough extra stuff to fit on 4 DVDs! What a deal!"

There is an alternative to PFS and all other commercial flight sims: it's a very capable, absolutely free and public-domain, downloadable package called FlightGear. FlightGear is a lot of fun, and a simulator that I've played with, on and off, for years. If you start reading up on FG, either on its own webpage or on Wikipedia, you'll begin to notice a lot of similarities between FG and PFS.

Uh-oh.

A lot of similarities. The list of available aircraft for PFS is a subset of those available on the FG website. Both lists include such off-the-wall flying objects as Santa's sleigh and a Willys Jeep. I don't think that's a coincidence.

And then you see this picture in the Wikipedia article on FG:


This same picture appeared in the advertising for PFS.

Uh-oh times two.

Then you go back and click the "Screenshots" link on the PFS webpage, and a lot of those screenshots appear to have been ripped directly from the FlightGear pages over the years. Anybody who's played FG for more than a day will recognize the yellow helicopter with the medical symbol on the side.

Uh-oh times three.

No wonder PFS is so generous with their licensing. Their webpage says that you can buy one copy and install it on as many computers as you like. And that you get "100% free updates/upgrades for life." That's because you can install FlightGear on as many computers as you like, and FlightGear gives you 100% free updates/upgrades for life. These guys are just selling FlightGear.

Like I said at the beginning, I'm all for indie developers going up against the big boys and winning - Marble Blast, for one notable example. (You can buy Marble Blast here, or you can download it for your iPod/iPhone/iPad from the App Store.) But I'm not too keen on entrepreneurs taking free and open source software, wrapping it up in a package and selling it as their own work.

Nice try. You almost got me.

Three New Superpowers! Good or Bad? Please Comment.

My first entry at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters talked about the conflict between my fascination for, and my rejection of, new technology. I'm often heard to exclaim, "I love living in this century!" There is a lot of exciting stuff going on, and I enjoy being both a spectator and a participant in the onrush of technology.

At this point in the 21st Century, technology has granted us three superpowers that didn't exist a short time ago. Many high school students can remember the days when they didn't have these superpowers. Let me list them for you.

The three superpowers in the early 21st Century are:
1. Infinite mobility.
2. Infinite access to information.
3. Infinite connectivity.

Infinite mobility means the ability to go anywhere in the world -- and even into orbit. If you have enough time (and money), you can travel anywhere you want. In the pages of Outside, National Geographic Explorer, Men's Journal and other magazines, you can read about fantastic voyages made, not by diplomats, politicians, soldiers or spies, but by ordinary people like you and me. You can watch TV stories about those voyages on the Travel, Discovery, and National Geographic channels.

Infinite mobility probably reached its peak in August 2001. It's still possible to travel anywhere; it's just more difficult now. Okay, North Korea is still next to impossible to visit. And some places are dangerous to travel to, but this superpower gives you the ability to travel there and get into trouble if you're stupid enough.

Infinite access to information means that nearly the entire assembled body of human knowledge is now at our fingertips. The popularization of the Internet, followed by the invention of the World Wide Web, and finally the introduction of search engines like Google and knowledge bases like Wikipedia, have done for modern man what Gutenberg's printing press did for mankind in 1440. For one thing, they have fundamentally changed the way I conduct both business and research. Even in closed societies like China and Iran, anybody with enough desire can get access to this universal fount of information. The One Laptop Per Child initiative is an effort to make this power not just infinite, but universal.

At first, we were worried that this infinite access to information would lead to infinite dissemination of falsehoods and lies. Granted, there's a lot of that out there, and there always will be, and now it's even more accessible than when its dissemination was confined to mimeographs and backwater printing houses. But the social experiment that is Wikipedia shows us that a public knowledge base can be self-correcting and self-policing, over time.

Some oppressive governments, pseudo-religious groups, and other entities that live on power and paranoia may try to squelch this infinite access to information, but they have not succeeded yet, and they will not succeed. The genie is out of the bottle.

Infinite connectivity: I'm certain there are still people on this planet without an email address. You're not one of them! Even more ubiquitous than an email address is a cellular phone. In some families, even children as young as 8 or 10 have a cellphone with all the, um, bells and whistles (sorry). In countries that cannot afford the infrastructure and costs associated with what we now call "land lines," it seems as if everyone has a cellular phone.

Last year, the new computer buzzword was cloud computing, and its herald was the netbook, a minimalist computer that keeps all of its programs and data in the "cloud" instead of on a local hard disk. The trend towards cloud computing continues this year.

Then there's the phenomenon known as social networking. One day social networking, though out of style, will define this decade the way shag carpet defined the 1970s and sideways ponytails defined the 1990s. Today, though, social networking provides an important service by allowing people to maintain and to renew social and family connections. Facebook was not the first social network, but it is currently the biggest fish in the pond. The pocket-sized social network known as Twitter was hot for a while in 2008-2010, but it seems to be fading fast, a flash in the fad pan. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

This infinite connectivity does have a dark side, though: people will always know where you are. Your cellular service provider can track your location, either through your phone's built-in GPS, or through triangulation of your phone's position relative to two or three nearby cellular towers. The GPS capability in the newest phones can be remotely activated without the user's knowledge. Radio navigation, or triangulation, has been used by sailors and aviators for 100 years.

Another facet of this dark side: in this digital age, the right software and the right Internet connections can allow anyone to track your every move in cyberspace. By assembling all of your comments on Facebook and on blogs, all of your private (or so you thought) emails, and all of your search patterns, they can write a story of your life so detailed, so graphic, and so honest that it will scare you. All of this increased connectivity means that if you're not careful, your words and your deeds, good or evil, can (and will) be shouted from the rooftops. In some ways, this infinite connectivity leads swiftly downhill to complete and total loss of privacy.

--

So I want to know: what do you think? Does your having these three superpowers make your life better, or worse? Alternatively, does humanity's possession of these three superpowers make the world better, or worse? Please tell me what you think, and why.

All comments on this blog are still subject to moderation. This is just to keep the kooks out. Most comments will be approved instantly, and the rest (as long as they don't sound like they're from kooks) will be approved within 24 hours. Please avoid foul language and personal attacks, and stick to the subject at hand.

Political extremism and lengthy partisan diatribes are frowned upon and may also be rejected by the moderator. (Whew! Have I become one of those "power and paranoia" entities? I hope not. I just want to encourage a civil and rational dialogue.)

E' il mio gioco; le regole, le faccio io.

Blogging for Dollars

It's recently become common knowledge (which means that before now, it was uncommon knowledge, also known as "duh, obvious to anyone with more brains than a turnip") that an increasing number of bloggers are shills. That is, they get paid to write blog entries promoting products or services that someone else is trying to sell.

(Go look it up: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shill)

Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. However, I will never do that at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.

I would love to get paid to do product reviews for computer hardware and software, backpacking equipment, or books. When I get to that point, I'll set up another blog, and point to it from Zyzmog Galactic HQ, but this site will not change. I like this site just the way it is: independent, honest, unsolicited, and not for sale.

And eclectic.

I guess my readers like it, too. According to MapLoco, my readership is constantly increasing, and I have regular readers from all over the world. That's gratifying. I'm glad that you find my words worth reading. If you like what you read, please pass this site's URL on to your friends.

Okay, yes, I do have Google Adsense ads on my site. These ads are part of an experiment I'm trying. As far as I know, the ads contain nothing objectionable and are based solely on the content of my blog postings. I'm interested in seeing what they come up with. Please, feel free to click on the ads if they interest you.

Some of the matches Adsense comes up with are pretty funny. One time I posted about "clogging" and Adsense put up an ad for drain cleaner. Another time I wrote about the recent downfall of Detroit and the car companies, and how it's their own fault, and Adsense put up an ad for the Ford F-250 pickup truck.

First Post

Actually, it's my third post. The other two posts couldn't wait.

Several people have encouraged me to write a blog in the past few months. I guess that some of my family letters turned into essays (or rants) that deserved a bigger audience.

Or something.

Blogs are versatile tools. Some of the best blogs are used to keep family members updated with news and pictures. Other really good blogs present an exposition or analysis of current events, either events that Big News picked up, or events that Big News missed (or ignored) but whose Story Still Needs To Be Told. Some of the worst blogs are poorly-written screeds, created by people who want to feed their egos but don't have what it takes to get published in a legitimate book or periodical.

I guess it's up to you, the reader, to decide where this blog belongs, on the continuum between family newsletters and ego feed screeds. This blog is long on words and short on pictures. If you want to see pictures, you can go to:
http://ray.datech-net.com/family.html
http://ray.datech-net.com/mtn_rat.html
http://ray.datech-net.com/lori_recital.html

Even without pictures, I'll try to make this blog worth your time to read it. If you like what you see here, please tell your friends about it.

Call me a Luddite

I like tech toys. Normally, I'm a first adopter of the newest technologies. However, I have resisted a few tech toys, and will probably continue to resist them until I am forced to use them.

First: PDAs. I owned an HP100LX Palmtop PC way back in the late 1990s. It was a nice machine. I installed WordPerfect 5.1 and some other good DOS programs on it. I wrote and published a book using (mostly) the HP100LX. I replaced it with an HP Jornada, another so-called "palmtop PC." At one point, I totally replaced my paper day planner with the 100LX and the Jornada. After two and a half years, I went back to the paper day planner. I have steadfastly refused to own or use any of the palm/stylus/fingertip based products that have come and gone since then.

Why? Well, I can find names in a paper index faster than in an Address Book application on a PDA. I can see more information at a glance about an upcoming meeting, or past meeting notes, on paper than with a PDA. But most importantly, paper doesn't spontaneously reboot, abort memory, scramble memory, or run out of juice at critical times. And the ROI isn't there for a PDA, compared with the cost of paper refills, pens and other day planner supplies.

Second: Blackberries and other fancy cellular phones. I just use my mobile phone to talk with people. I don't text that much, I don't take very many pictures, and this latest cellphone wants me to pay to play a full game of Tetris. I admit that I do covet the Apple iPhone, and I would love to have one, but I would mostly use it as a classical telephone.

Third: MP3 players and iTunes. No, I don't want one. I can tell the difference between CD sound quality and MP3 sound quality. I prefer the CD sound, thank you -- or even a good, high quality cassette tape, played on a good player. I'm not such a Luddite as to say I prefer vinyl records (you know, the big black CDs that use a contact stylus) over CDs, because a well-mastered CD has sound quality equal or superior to the best vinyl record. But MP3s don't really do it for me.

Fourth: (until today) Blogs. I'm about four years late getting into the game. I've had my own website for a long time, but I've resisted setting up a blog until now. There are several reasons, and maybe I'll go into them another day.

So, you ask, why am I a Luddite?

I work with computers every day. I used to make computers and printers, or at least the components that went into them. I write video games. I'm an accomplished computer programmer. You'd think that I would be all for technology, as far as I can push it.

No. Why balance your checkbook electronically, when a paper one will do? Why buy special recipe management software, when a handwritten recipe book will do? Why buy an electric toothbrush, when a manual one will do? Why spend all that extra money buying an electronic anything, when you can save money and do just fine with the non-electronic, or non-electric, alternative?

I used to drive a 30-year-old Ford Mustang to work. There's something infinitely satisfying about controlling the car, and feeling it respond, through the mechanical linkages rather than through a central computer and electrical wiring. When I mashed down on the accelerator pedal, a jet on the carburetor squirted raw gasoline into the intake manifold and opened the carburetor's throat wide. When the cylinders got that raw gas and took a big gulp of air, the car jumped forward like a lion on the attack, with not even an instant's hesitation. With the new electronic cars, you have to wait for the central computer to intercept the motion of the accelerator pedal and decide what to do about it. And if today's car runs rough or has trouble starting, you can't open the hood and fix the problem with a big screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

I've always been a supporter of Project Gutenberg, and I've read several classic works as ebooks, downloaded from http://www.gutenberg.org/ . But I get eyestrain trying to read for too long from a computer screen. Paper still works better than electronic displays for long periods of reading. And there's nothing as satisfying in the tech world as curling up on the couch with a comforter, a mug of hot chocolate, and a good book.