January 2010 Archives

In the end, we're all in the information business. Just because the bosses don't get the picture doesn't mean information has to be pretty. E-mail, for example, seldom requires pretty fonts and colors. I don't value the information in e-mail more because it has strange fonts and arrives in color and Microsoft RTF--which is not true RTF.

Google is universal. Gmail did relent and allowed some colors and fonts. It's a streamlined version of what Geocities used to be. Personalized expressions in information transmission. Add to that, voice, documents and project collaboration. But we were brainwashed on a platform whose future is clouded by complex licensing schemes and is inflexible.

While Microsoft is constantly band-aiding its creations, Boeing's defense systems are moving forward with a fine-tuned step-child of Linux. And I moved on from Windows Mobile Smartphones, which crashed and hung so often that it was worthless.

It is amazing that dozens of teams, many of them the brightest in their field, on Microsoft campus couldn't perfect an operating system. That speaks to the corporate culture, a top-down mindset that hampers development.

Can ornate Bing ever Google? All signs point to no. Not when you want businesses to fork up hundreds of thousands of dollars for incomplete products.

[Update: and someone's upset in general--about Google, Adobe and god knows what else. It's amazing that Jobs didn't take on Microsoft. He must be in the same business camp.]

There is a skill to wrapping spring rolls with these wafer-thin rice-and-tapioca wrappers. And I don't have it. My crumbled spring rolls resembled regurgitated food, with undigested vegetables.

As instructed here, I soaked the brittle spring roll wrapper in water for a few seconds. It eventually soaked up enough water and became chewy and taut. The burrito method didn't work, and the rolls unwrapped themselves.

I'm sure there's a trick, a secret. What is it?

A woman walked into an office. She had suffered an acute cerebrovascular attack, or stroke, and speaks and walks with great difficulty. She had to be helped to her car and over the threshold of the office entrance. When everyone wondered how she got to the office, there was her husband.

Her husband was a tall man--a little hunched over but definitely commanding in his seat. He walks with a severe limp of unknown origin. He could not see much of anything in front of him even with glasses. And he could not remember a phone call from 15 minutes ago.

And he drove her to the office.

Her hematoma was a sure sign she had fallen recently. This time she took him down with her.

It is sad that couples like them don't receive much help. Scarier, they are out driving.