Friday, May 20, 2011
I really hope the Rapture does happen tomorrow
... because then all of these obnoxious people will go away permanently and leave the rest of us in peace.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bin Laden is Dead: Some Thoughts and Some Praise
The thoughts first:
Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed by a bullet through the left eye, a bullet fired by an American warrior. The deed was done in the middle of a moonless night, on the top floor of his impregnable fortress, by American warriors who dared to violate the airspace of a sovereign nation, at tremendous personal risk, to hunt down and eliminate the enemy of the United States and of the entire free world.
It was a simple and swift end to the life of the first monster of the twenty-first century. It is altogether fitting to compare bin Laden to Adolf Hitler, the worst monster of the twentieth century. Because of his monstrous deeds, Hitler is famous, but not revered or glorified (except by kooks and hatemongers). The civilized world has put safeguards in place to ensure that nobody like Hitler will ever rise again. Likewise, not too many years from now, the civilized world will adopt measures to protect itself from any future Osama bin Ladens.
The official word is that bin Laden's body was buried at sea, partly because no country would accept it for burial within the prescribed 24 hours, and partly to keep anybody from turning his burial place into a shrine. We have no reason to doubt this story. Personally, I was hoping that they would capture him alive, and that he would accidentally fall out of the back of a C-130 flying a few thousand feet over the Indian Ocean, halfway to Diego Garcia. However it happened, normally a burial at sea is accompanied by a bugle tattoo or a ship's whistle, and salutes from the assembled crew, the last honors to a fallen warrior. Let us hope that the last command given, as the board tilted and the body slid down, was not "Present arms" but "About face".
Now, for the praise:
First, to President Obama, for managing and executing this operation in the right way. One MSNBC article outlined Obama's agendas on the five days he met secretly with the NSC to discuss the operation. You gotta give the guy credit for playing a fantastic game of poker. Even going golfing on Sunday, the day the operation was carried out, was a great ruse -- other presidents would have spent the day holed up in the Situation Room. You also have to give him credit for knowing enough not to meddle in the details. He let the warriors run the war.
Obama did not wring his hands or agonize over the moral or political implications of what he was doing. His objective was clear: to kill bin Laden, not to capture him. His tactics were clear: don't tell anybody about it until it's done. We do this on our own. Get in, do it, and get out, and woe to anybody who gets in the way.
Second, to Leon Panetta, director of the CIA. I blasted Panetta's nomination in an earlier blog entry, lamenting the fact that he had no experience that qualified him to run the CIA. Panetta had oversight over the whole operation, from the day in August 2010 when they got a lead on bin Laden's confidential courier, to the final wrap-up of the operation on Sunday night. This included daily meetings on it for a couple of months, weighing all the options and guiding a herd of analysts, agents, experts, politicians, and military assets -- and talking Congress into giving him the money needed to make it all happen, without letting the secret out. Panetta did all right.
This was also Panetta's final act as DCI. He's now slated to replace Robert M. Gates, who is retiring as Secretary of Defense, while General David Petraeus has been nominated to take Panetta's CIA seat. I look forward to be proven wrong about Panetta a second time.
Third, to President George W. Bush. Let's give credit where it's due. Bush guided the nation through a difficult time, a crisis which may well define the entire century, and laid down the challenge to the world which culminated in bin Laden's demise. He said: "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." Obama was successful because of the foundation Bush built.
I commented in an earlier blog about President-elect Obama's graciousness extended to Bush. In a twist on protocol, the newly inaugurated President (and Mrs.) Obama had escorted the outgoing President (and Mrs.) Bush from the dais where the inauguration had taken place, through the Capitol Building and down the front steps, where a Marine helicopter, one of the presidential fleet, was waiting to take the Bushes on one last trip to Andrews AFB, thence to take one last flight home on Air Force One. I think that was a presidential first.
Obama showed that same gracious character this time. After the operation wrapped up but before he told anyone else about it, including the nation, the president phoned Mr. Bush and told him about the operation in great detail. They had a deep and substantial conversation. After Obama's press conference, Bush issued his own congratulatory statement to the press.
Fourth, to the small group who planned the whole thing, headed (or at least organized) by Vice Admiral William McRaven. Once again, he kept the whole thing secret but, like Panetta and Obama, made it his top priority for months. He chose a good team and gave them everything they needed to be successful.
Fifth, the brave warriors that comprised the assault force. Most of this is Navy SEAL Team Six, also known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU". They didn't do it for praise or glory. They are motivated by, um, shall we say, nobler ambitions. Only a true warrior can understand that. Even I don't, although I've been honored to get glimpses into it.
These warriors put their lives on the line in a big way to make this happen. They didn't hide behind women, using them as shields, as bin Laden and his cohorts did.
SEALs aren't brainless, testosterone-fueled, killing machines. They are highly intelligent, educated, trained, motivated, moral, passionate, humble, confident, and a bunch of other adjectives that never made it into the Boy Scout Law. If all men had the heart of a Navy SEAL, ... well, the world would be a much better place.
And finally, there's everybody behind the scenes:
The analysts who sifted through mountains of data, put it all together into a coherent story, and kept everybody informed and updated.
The field agents and other covert personnel, on the ground in Pakistan.
The elected members of Congress, who supported the operation and kept the secret.
The staffers and bureaucrats in the White House and in the military, who did all the grunt work or enabled others to do the grunt work, and kept the secret.
The military and CIA personnel who stood in support teams in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean, Germany and all the other critical locations, whose quiet contributions enabled the SEALs to get from Point A to Point B and back again.
Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed by a bullet through the left eye, a bullet fired by an American warrior. The deed was done in the middle of a moonless night, on the top floor of his impregnable fortress, by American warriors who dared to violate the airspace of a sovereign nation, at tremendous personal risk, to hunt down and eliminate the enemy of the United States and of the entire free world.
It was a simple and swift end to the life of the first monster of the twenty-first century. It is altogether fitting to compare bin Laden to Adolf Hitler, the worst monster of the twentieth century. Because of his monstrous deeds, Hitler is famous, but not revered or glorified (except by kooks and hatemongers). The civilized world has put safeguards in place to ensure that nobody like Hitler will ever rise again. Likewise, not too many years from now, the civilized world will adopt measures to protect itself from any future Osama bin Ladens.
The official word is that bin Laden's body was buried at sea, partly because no country would accept it for burial within the prescribed 24 hours, and partly to keep anybody from turning his burial place into a shrine. We have no reason to doubt this story. Personally, I was hoping that they would capture him alive, and that he would accidentally fall out of the back of a C-130 flying a few thousand feet over the Indian Ocean, halfway to Diego Garcia. However it happened, normally a burial at sea is accompanied by a bugle tattoo or a ship's whistle, and salutes from the assembled crew, the last honors to a fallen warrior. Let us hope that the last command given, as the board tilted and the body slid down, was not "Present arms" but "About face".
Now, for the praise:
First, to President Obama, for managing and executing this operation in the right way. One MSNBC article outlined Obama's agendas on the five days he met secretly with the NSC to discuss the operation. You gotta give the guy credit for playing a fantastic game of poker. Even going golfing on Sunday, the day the operation was carried out, was a great ruse -- other presidents would have spent the day holed up in the Situation Room. You also have to give him credit for knowing enough not to meddle in the details. He let the warriors run the war.
Obama did not wring his hands or agonize over the moral or political implications of what he was doing. His objective was clear: to kill bin Laden, not to capture him. His tactics were clear: don't tell anybody about it until it's done. We do this on our own. Get in, do it, and get out, and woe to anybody who gets in the way.
Second, to Leon Panetta, director of the CIA. I blasted Panetta's nomination in an earlier blog entry, lamenting the fact that he had no experience that qualified him to run the CIA. Panetta had oversight over the whole operation, from the day in August 2010 when they got a lead on bin Laden's confidential courier, to the final wrap-up of the operation on Sunday night. This included daily meetings on it for a couple of months, weighing all the options and guiding a herd of analysts, agents, experts, politicians, and military assets -- and talking Congress into giving him the money needed to make it all happen, without letting the secret out. Panetta did all right.
This was also Panetta's final act as DCI. He's now slated to replace Robert M. Gates, who is retiring as Secretary of Defense, while General David Petraeus has been nominated to take Panetta's CIA seat. I look forward to be proven wrong about Panetta a second time.
Third, to President George W. Bush. Let's give credit where it's due. Bush guided the nation through a difficult time, a crisis which may well define the entire century, and laid down the challenge to the world which culminated in bin Laden's demise. He said: "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." Obama was successful because of the foundation Bush built.
I commented in an earlier blog about President-elect Obama's graciousness extended to Bush. In a twist on protocol, the newly inaugurated President (and Mrs.) Obama had escorted the outgoing President (and Mrs.) Bush from the dais where the inauguration had taken place, through the Capitol Building and down the front steps, where a Marine helicopter, one of the presidential fleet, was waiting to take the Bushes on one last trip to Andrews AFB, thence to take one last flight home on Air Force One. I think that was a presidential first.
Obama showed that same gracious character this time. After the operation wrapped up but before he told anyone else about it, including the nation, the president phoned Mr. Bush and told him about the operation in great detail. They had a deep and substantial conversation. After Obama's press conference, Bush issued his own congratulatory statement to the press.
Fourth, to the small group who planned the whole thing, headed (or at least organized) by Vice Admiral William McRaven. Once again, he kept the whole thing secret but, like Panetta and Obama, made it his top priority for months. He chose a good team and gave them everything they needed to be successful.
Fifth, the brave warriors that comprised the assault force. Most of this is Navy SEAL Team Six, also known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU". They didn't do it for praise or glory. They are motivated by, um, shall we say, nobler ambitions. Only a true warrior can understand that. Even I don't, although I've been honored to get glimpses into it.
These warriors put their lives on the line in a big way to make this happen. They didn't hide behind women, using them as shields, as bin Laden and his cohorts did.
SEALs aren't brainless, testosterone-fueled, killing machines. They are highly intelligent, educated, trained, motivated, moral, passionate, humble, confident, and a bunch of other adjectives that never made it into the Boy Scout Law. If all men had the heart of a Navy SEAL, ... well, the world would be a much better place.
And finally, there's everybody behind the scenes:
The analysts who sifted through mountains of data, put it all together into a coherent story, and kept everybody informed and updated.
The field agents and other covert personnel, on the ground in Pakistan.
The elected members of Congress, who supported the operation and kept the secret.
The staffers and bureaucrats in the White House and in the military, who did all the grunt work or enabled others to do the grunt work, and kept the secret.
The military and CIA personnel who stood in support teams in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean, Germany and all the other critical locations, whose quiet contributions enabled the SEALs to get from Point A to Point B and back again.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Trump is "honored" to have been a part of this? Trump is an idiot.
I used to think that a successful CEO of a large commercial entity would be the best candidate for president of the United States. Jimmy Carter was a successful CEO, but he was not a very good president. It simply wasn't the right job for him. After getting out from under that millstone, he became a great statesman and humanitarian. Ross Perot might have been a great president, but he stumbled too many times on the campaign trail. A presidential campaign requires charisma and leadership, which he had in spades, but also diplomacy and tact, which he didn't value and therefore didn't stock up on.
Donald Trump is oblivious to such things. It doesn't matter to him if he inconveniences people and interrupts the workings of the nation, and forces taxpayer money to be spent on trivialities, as long as he gets the spotlight. Here's what he had to say about it, after landing in New Hampshire and taking full credit for getting the birth certificate released to the public: "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue." (italics are mine)
UPDATE, April 28: From this morning's paper, here are the words of the Prez himself: "We do not have time for this kind of silliness .... We've got better stuff to do." And my personal favorite: "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers." Hear that, Trump? He says you're an idiot! And most Americans agree with him.
And here's one final shot from Trump, who wants to go on record as still being an idiot: "I hope it's true so we can get on to much more important matters." (italics mine)
Now we have Donald Trump, with one of the world's biggest fortunes and an ego to match. A week or two ago, Trump jumped on the "birther" bandwagon, echoing the idiots that four years ago started claiming that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the U.S., and therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president.
And Trump wouldn't shut up about it. All sorts of perfectly valid, perfectly legal proofs of birth were brought out by Obama's campaign office pre-election, and by the White House post-election, but those weren't good enough for the "birthers," and loudly not good enough for Trump, either.
What Donald Trump and the other "birthers" loudly demanded was a confidential document, the "long form birth certificate," which by law could only be requested by, and released to, those who had signed the birth certificate. In Obama's case, that's his mother, the attending physician and one other person (not his father) whose identity escapes me.
I imagine that the president wields special powers, because the president requested, and Hawaii's state Director of Health approved, that the state release a copy of the document to him. One of the president's personal aides flew all the way to Hawaii, retrieved the copy, and flew all the way back to Washington D.C. The trip was completed with some haste, and so I don't think it was a commercial aircraft. That means that the taxpayers paid top dollar for this junket.
I'm not faulting President Obama here. I'm faulting Donald Trump, who wouldn't shut up about it, and whose ceaseless yammering about it became, in the words of White House spokesmen (including the president himself), a "distraction," "silliness", and a "sideshow." Every time the president or a spokesman would hold a press conference on one of the serious issues facing the Executive Office, someone would invariably ask a question about the "birther" issue -- and at least one follow-up question. What a ridiculous waste of time.
Try putting the shoe on the other foot. I'll bet there are a few things in Donald Trump's life that he'd prefer to keep private, things he would rather not share in public. What if every time Donald Trump was approached by a reporter, all they could ask him about was his many rumored affairs? Or his publicized and well-documented manipulation of bankruptcy laws? Or whether his hair was a poorly-fitted toupee or just an awful hairstyle?
Here's what White House spokesman Jay Carney had to say about the whole "birther" issue: "The president feels this was bad for the country, that it's not healthy for our political debate." And White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "It was a constant discussion on main stream news organizations."
Donald Trump is oblivious to such things. It doesn't matter to him if he inconveniences people and interrupts the workings of the nation, and forces taxpayer money to be spent on trivialities, as long as he gets the spotlight. Here's what he had to say about it, after landing in New Hampshire and taking full credit for getting the birth certificate released to the public: "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue." (italics are mine)
I hope that Donald Trump gets his nose rubbed in this mess at every campaign stop. I hope that it becomes a distraction to his presidential campaign, to the point that he withdraws completely. I don't want to give the power of the executive office to someone as petty and self-important as he is.
Honored? I wouldn't want to take the credit for pulling off an idiotic stunt like this. He oughta just put on giant shoes, a puffy orange bowtie and a red clown nose. Democrat or Republican, I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last billionaire egomaniac on earth.
UPDATE, April 28: From this morning's paper, here are the words of the Prez himself: "We do not have time for this kind of silliness .... We've got better stuff to do." And my personal favorite: "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers." Hear that, Trump? He says you're an idiot! And most Americans agree with him.
And here's one final shot from Trump, who wants to go on record as still being an idiot: "I hope it's true so we can get on to much more important matters." (italics mine)
UPDATE, May 16: Donald Trump announced today that he will not run for president. Here is an excerpt from his announcement: "I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."
We'll give him props for those last two sentences. Prudence and good judgement like this don't come easily when power and ambition are on the line. (And world domination.)
However, his first sentence, the one that sounds like "yeah, I could win if I wanted to," is a throwaway line. It's an unprovable assertion, the kind of smack talk that comes from a bully or a smartmouth who knows he'll never have to back it up with action. Talk is cheap, especially talk like that.
"So, Brain, what are we gonna do tomorrow night?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!"
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What hurts, part 2
(This is another rerun from something I posted on Myspace when I was a schoolteacher, again from October 2006.)
Sometimes my kids can't concentrate in school or get their homework done at home because their mom is an alcoholic and a smoker and their stepdad yells a lot, and the kids stay awake way past midnight because they can't get to sleep while mom and stepdad are yelling and fighting in the next room, and the only way to get away from it is to stay with their dad who lives and works about 30 miles away, so they have to get up extra early to go to school, and they have to wait for him to pick them up when he gets off work, and so it's either endure the long hours and the 30-mile drives every day or endure the drinking and the fighting at home, and although I take my hat off to honor the dad for doing what he's doing for the kids, it's still a sucky situation for the kids any way you look at it, and it's no wonder they can't get any learning done.
Rather than try to teach them math, I want to give them a blanket, a pillow, some cookies and milk and let them curl up someplace safe in my room for an hour and a half.
Sometimes my kids can't concentrate in school or get their homework done at home because their mom is an alcoholic and a smoker and their stepdad yells a lot, and the kids stay awake way past midnight because they can't get to sleep while mom and stepdad are yelling and fighting in the next room, and the only way to get away from it is to stay with their dad who lives and works about 30 miles away, so they have to get up extra early to go to school, and they have to wait for him to pick them up when he gets off work, and so it's either endure the long hours and the 30-mile drives every day or endure the drinking and the fighting at home, and although I take my hat off to honor the dad for doing what he's doing for the kids, it's still a sucky situation for the kids any way you look at it, and it's no wonder they can't get any learning done.
Rather than try to teach them math, I want to give them a blanket, a pillow, some cookies and milk and let them curl up someplace safe in my room for an hour and a half.
How much is a teacher worth?
(This is a rerun of a note I posted on Myspace in October, 2006, back when I was a schoolteacher. It's even more relevant today than it was back then. Oh, and it turns out that my $45,000 figure was almost right on, for the state of Colorado in 2006.)
Okay, let's do a math problem here.
Let's say that the average teacher makes $45,000 a year. (That's probably a little off, but let's go with it.)
Now, that teacher has to work 182 days out of the year. Maybe 7 of those days are non-student-contact days, which takes us down to 175 days spent with students. That means a teacher makes, um $257.14 per teaching day. Or, to look at it another way, the taxpayers pay a teacher $257.14 a day to teach their kids. (Did everybody follow that?)
Good! Now, a typical teacher sees 80 to 100 students a day. Mrs. D. sees 96 students in three class periods. I see 83 students in three class periods. Let's use 90 as a (very) rough average. Divide a teacher's daily pay, $257.14, by 90 students. You should get $2.86.
That's right, two dollars and eighty-six cents. That's how much the taxpayers pay teachers to teach one student for between 60 and 90 minutes.
Observations:
1. My own students make more money than that per hour, babysitting.
2. At those kinds of wages, why would anyone ever consider teaching as a profession?
3. Those of us who teach do it for more than the money. You kids are a BIG part of why we teach.
4. Now you know why some teachers are so crabby. You would be too, if that's all you got paid for dealing with the crap some kids throw at them ('scuse the expression).
5. Teacher pay is a highly visible measure of the value, or lack thereof, that the American taxpayer puts on education.
6. Any adult who votes down a local school district funding proposal is either very selfish, or has sawdust for brains. Do the math, grown-ups!
Some people say, "Well yeah, but teachers get the summer off, and two weeks at Christmas, and spring break, and so on." Most teachers work another job or take additional college courses, required to keep their teaching license, during their "summer off." And most teachers spend "spring break" at home, grading projects and getting ready for the final few weeks of school. The kids come back from vacation with stories about Cancun, Hawaii and Europe, and the teachers smile warmly and choke down their envy.
I love my students, and they love me. Many teachers aren't as fortunate as I am. For whatever reason, they don't get the affection, the gratitude and the non-monetary paybacks that I've gotten. If you want to make a teacher's day, pick one of the less popular ones and say something nice (like "thanks") to him or her. If enough of you do it, you might just make up for the lousy pay.
Okay, let's do a math problem here.
Let's say that the average teacher makes $45,000 a year. (That's probably a little off, but let's go with it.)
Now, that teacher has to work 182 days out of the year. Maybe 7 of those days are non-student-contact days, which takes us down to 175 days spent with students. That means a teacher makes, um $257.14 per teaching day. Or, to look at it another way, the taxpayers pay a teacher $257.14 a day to teach their kids. (Did everybody follow that?)
Good! Now, a typical teacher sees 80 to 100 students a day. Mrs. D. sees 96 students in three class periods. I see 83 students in three class periods. Let's use 90 as a (very) rough average. Divide a teacher's daily pay, $257.14, by 90 students. You should get $2.86.
That's right, two dollars and eighty-six cents. That's how much the taxpayers pay teachers to teach one student for between 60 and 90 minutes.
Observations:
1. My own students make more money than that per hour, babysitting.
2. At those kinds of wages, why would anyone ever consider teaching as a profession?
3. Those of us who teach do it for more than the money. You kids are a BIG part of why we teach.
4. Now you know why some teachers are so crabby. You would be too, if that's all you got paid for dealing with the crap some kids throw at them ('scuse the expression).
5. Teacher pay is a highly visible measure of the value, or lack thereof, that the American taxpayer puts on education.
6. Any adult who votes down a local school district funding proposal is either very selfish, or has sawdust for brains. Do the math, grown-ups!
Some people say, "Well yeah, but teachers get the summer off, and two weeks at Christmas, and spring break, and so on." Most teachers work another job or take additional college courses, required to keep their teaching license, during their "summer off." And most teachers spend "spring break" at home, grading projects and getting ready for the final few weeks of school. The kids come back from vacation with stories about Cancun, Hawaii and Europe, and the teachers smile warmly and choke down their envy.
I love my students, and they love me. Many teachers aren't as fortunate as I am. For whatever reason, they don't get the affection, the gratitude and the non-monetary paybacks that I've gotten. If you want to make a teacher's day, pick one of the less popular ones and say something nice (like "thanks") to him or her. If enough of you do it, you might just make up for the lousy pay.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Microsoft BizSpark
I bought a new computer last year, and bought Microsoft Office along with it. As part of the installation procedure, MS Office invited me to subscribe to an online newsletter called Microsoft BizSpark.
After a couple of issues, I realized that the newsletter wasn't useful to me. I tried to unsubscribe. I have tried repeatedly to unsubscribe, and haven't been successful yet. BizSpark always responds to my Unsubscribe request with a question. No matter how I answer the question, my response is not acknowledged. I know there's still a live body at the other end of the line, because an ungrammatical period at the end of the question, a ".", has been quietly replaced with a dash. But they keep sending me this stupid newsletter.
I post this here in the hope that some poor contractor or intern at Microsoft, whose job it is to troll the Web on boring afternoons when there's nothing better to do, will see this posting and take care of unsubscribing me. Actually, since I truly did add BizSpark to my spam bucket, I may never know if it worked.
Here's the email trail for you to follow.
1. The newsletter
[... newsletter deleted ...]
Microsoft respects your privacy. Please read our online Privacy Statement.
If you would no longer like to receive this newsletter, please email bzsnews@microsoft.com with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.
(That "Reply-To" address contained enough alphabet soup for a competent server to figure out exactly which subscriber was sending the Unsubscribe request, especially if the subscriber forwarded the whole newsletter to bzsnews as part of their Unsubscribe request, with headers intact.)
2. My unsubscribe request
[... rest of newsletter deleted here, but it was all in my Unsub request, with headers intact ...]
3. BizSpark's response
From: bzsnews@microsoft.com
To: xxx@msn.com
CC: bzsnews@microsoft.com
Subject: RE: Unsubscribe
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:12:53 +0000
4. My response to BizSpark's response, this time
End note: I want to make it clear that I'm not badmouthing Microsoft as a monolithic entity. A lot of people do that, and it's not right. Microsoft is a huge corporation, with business segments and divisions you don't even know about. Some of them deserve praise, and some of them don't. I have praised them in the past, right here at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters. But this group doesn't deserve praise.
UPDATE, Nov 9, 2011: My Hotmail/MSN account dumps directly into my mail readers, and so I seldom go online to see what's in my online InBox, etc. Today I was online and I noticed two pieces of mail in my online Junk folder. They were two identical copies of the Microsoft Bizspark 11/02/11 newsletter. Microsoft's Hotmail had detected them as junk mail, and treated them accordingly. They will automatically be deleted in a few days.
After a couple of issues, I realized that the newsletter wasn't useful to me. I tried to unsubscribe. I have tried repeatedly to unsubscribe, and haven't been successful yet. BizSpark always responds to my Unsubscribe request with a question. No matter how I answer the question, my response is not acknowledged. I know there's still a live body at the other end of the line, because an ungrammatical period at the end of the question, a ".", has been quietly replaced with a dash. But they keep sending me this stupid newsletter.
I post this here in the hope that some poor contractor or intern at Microsoft, whose job it is to troll the Web on boring afternoons when there's nothing better to do, will see this posting and take care of unsubscribing me. Actually, since I truly did add BizSpark to my spam bucket, I may never know if it worked.
Here's the email trail for you to follow.
1. The newsletter
Subject: | Startup success with Windows Azure, Windows Phone 7 and Internet Explorer 9 announcements, Twitter news and much more! |
Date: | Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:10:45 -0600 |
From: | |
Reply-To: | |
To: |
Microsoft respects your privacy. Please read our online Privacy Statement.
If you would no longer like to receive this newsletter, please email bzsnews@microsoft.com with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.
(That "Reply-To" address contained enough alphabet soup for a competent server to figure out exactly which subscriber was sending the Unsubscribe request, especially if the subscriber forwarded the whole newsletter to bzsnews as part of their Unsubscribe request, with headers intact.)
2. My unsubscribe request
From: Xxxxxxx [mailto:xxx@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 7:47 PM
To: BizSpark Newsletter
Subject: Unsubscribe
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 7:47 PM
To: BizSpark Newsletter
Subject: Unsubscribe
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: | Startup success with Windows |
3. BizSpark's response
From: bzsnews@microsoft.com
To: xxx@msn.com
CC: bzsnews@microsoft.com
Subject: RE: Unsubscribe
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:12:53 +0000
What is the Company Name you are registered under in the BizSpark Program – we need that info to process your unsubscribe request.
[... and they left my entire Unsub request intact, even the attached newsletter ...]
4. My response to BizSpark's response, this time
You tell me. You're the ones with the big database of subscribers and all. Besides, I've already told you three or four times. (Check your email records; you'll see.) Why didn't you pay any attention those other times?
At least this time you fixed the grammar in your canned response to my Unsubscribe request.
You know what? I'll do your job for you. From now on, anything from bzsnews@microsoft.com goes into my spam filter.
It's an MSN/Hotmail/Live spam filter.
Brought to you by Microsoft.End note: I want to make it clear that I'm not badmouthing Microsoft as a monolithic entity. A lot of people do that, and it's not right. Microsoft is a huge corporation, with business segments and divisions you don't even know about. Some of them deserve praise, and some of them don't. I have praised them in the past, right here at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters. But this group doesn't deserve praise.
UPDATE, Nov 9, 2011: My Hotmail/MSN account dumps directly into my mail readers, and so I seldom go online to see what's in my online InBox, etc. Today I was online and I noticed two pieces of mail in my online Junk folder. They were two identical copies of the Microsoft Bizspark 11/02/11 newsletter. Microsoft's Hotmail had detected them as junk mail, and treated them accordingly. They will automatically be deleted in a few days.
One great app for iPad
UPDATE, 25 SEP 2017: The Jot! app has become an orphaned app. If you have it on your device, keep it. It will never be updated. If you don't have it, I'm sorry. I don't know of a suitable replacement. The link to the author's website contains a short explanation for its discontinuance. The link to the app store points nowhere. I've left both links intact.
Unfortunately, the two screenshots in this article have also disappeared. Blogger detected an HTTPS issue with them and offered to fix the page for me. I accepted its offer, and now it won't give me back my pictures.
I have already written about the fact that, although Apple's App Store has thousands of apps for the iPod, iPad and iPhone, the vast majority of them are junk. Because of this fact, I have been very choosy about the apps that I download. But I finally found a really good one - two, actually.
Autodesk made their name and their fortune on AutoCAD, arguably the most well-known CAD software on the planet. They added to their product portfolio over the years, through clever R&D and through judicious acquisitions. I never thought of them as players in the app market.
This week I was looking for a quick and easy sketching app. I found one called Jot!, which works very well. (I think the exclamation point on the name is stupid, but everybody else likes it...) I'm increasingly pleased with it - the more I use it, the more I like it. It's simple and it's well executed. It's uncluttered. It's fast. It has some limitations, but for the purposes of brainstorming and doing quick sketches, it's fine.
Jot! comes in three flavors:
The "Express" versions of SketchBook go far beyond Jot!'s simple capabilities. I like both Jot! and SketchBook. They were written for different purposes: Jot! for simple sketching tasks, and SketchBook for serious artistic creation. There is considerable overlap between the two.
Unfortunately, the two screenshots in this article have also disappeared. Blogger detected an HTTPS issue with them and offered to fix the page for me. I accepted its offer, and now it won't give me back my pictures.
I have already written about the fact that, although Apple's App Store has thousands of apps for the iPod, iPad and iPhone, the vast majority of them are junk. Because of this fact, I have been very choosy about the apps that I download. But I finally found a really good one - two, actually.
Autodesk made their name and their fortune on AutoCAD, arguably the most well-known CAD software on the planet. They added to their product portfolio over the years, through clever R&D and through judicious acquisitions. I never thought of them as players in the app market.
This week I was looking for a quick and easy sketching app. I found one called Jot!, which works very well. (I think the exclamation point on the name is stupid, but everybody else likes it...) I'm increasingly pleased with it - the more I use it, the more I like it. It's simple and it's well executed. It's uncluttered. It's fast. It has some limitations, but for the purposes of brainstorming and doing quick sketches, it's fine.
Jot! is delightfully intuitive. It's meant to replace a pencil and yellow pad of paper in a meeting, or even the Expo markers and whiteboard at the front of the conference room. It doesn't try to do more than that, and that focus on simplicity is the key to its success. And then the fact that you can share Jot! sketches with other Jot! users around the globe, or that you can email them as PDF files to anybody in the world, serves to make it universally useful.
 |
| A Jot! screenshot. Yes, it really is that simple. |
Jot! comes in three flavors:
- Jot! for iPhone, $2.99
- Jot! for iPad, $4.99
- Jot!Free for iPad
- SketchBook Mobile, $0.99 for iPhone/iPod Touch
- SketchBook MobileX, free for iPhone/iPod Touch ("X" for "Express")
- SketchBook Pro, $7.99 for iPad
- SketchBook Express, free for iPad
The "Express" versions of SketchBook go far beyond Jot!'s simple capabilities. I like both Jot! and SketchBook. They were written for different purposes: Jot! for simple sketching tasks, and SketchBook for serious artistic creation. There is considerable overlap between the two.
The current "Express" versions of SketchBook also have a couple of serious bugs. For one thing, if you try to import a photo into SBX, or SBMobileX, the app crashes. Eh. So don't do that. If you pay real money for the Pro version (come on, only 8 bucks for the iPad, one buck for the iPod), you avoid those limitations entirely.
The SketchBook user interface takes some getting used to - about ten minutes the first time you use it, and about two minutes every time after that. That's not much. Serious artists may be frustrated by the limitations of the software, which are naturally dictated by the limitations of the hardware. Eh again. Go find a real Mac with a full-size screen.
Jot! is from a two-person company called Tabula Rasa Labs. I know it's not even fair putting them in an article alongside Autodesk. That's like putting a jet ski in a photo next to a cabin cruiser - or an aircraft carrier. Honestly, I sat down to write an entry extolling the virtues of SketchBook Pro, and Jot! just kept working its way into the article. So even though the title of this entry is "One great app," I'm not averse to endorsing two great apps which, on the surface, do pretty much the same thing but which, after a closer look, are vastly different in scale and horsepower. I say get 'em both.
p.s. Remember, I'm not a shill. My opinions are not for sale. I only write what I feel like writing. See my "blogging for dollars" entry if you're not sure you believe me.
The SketchBook user interface takes some getting used to - about ten minutes the first time you use it, and about two minutes every time after that. That's not much. Serious artists may be frustrated by the limitations of the software, which are naturally dictated by the limitations of the hardware. Eh again. Go find a real Mac with a full-size screen.
 |
| A SketchBook screenshot. The real thing looks a lot better than this. |
Jot! is from a two-person company called Tabula Rasa Labs. I know it's not even fair putting them in an article alongside Autodesk. That's like putting a jet ski in a photo next to a cabin cruiser - or an aircraft carrier. Honestly, I sat down to write an entry extolling the virtues of SketchBook Pro, and Jot! just kept working its way into the article. So even though the title of this entry is "One great app," I'm not averse to endorsing two great apps which, on the surface, do pretty much the same thing but which, after a closer look, are vastly different in scale and horsepower. I say get 'em both.
p.s. Remember, I'm not a shill. My opinions are not for sale. I only write what I feel like writing. See my "blogging for dollars" entry if you're not sure you believe me.
p.p.s. Friday, March 18: After using Jot! at home last night, I revised this article this morning. The more I use Jot!, the more I like it. I still can't believe I sat down to write an article about SketchBook Pro and ended up with this article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
