Steve Ballmer

Interesting story on Yahoo! Tech Blog yesterday. Here is a link.

Christopher Null blog

Also see Reasons to Avoid Microsoft

Meanwhile the reviews are statring to come in on Slackware Linux 13.0

Interesting marketing strategy from Microsoft. Our previous operating system was so bad that you should upgrade to our new operating system right away. Apple has picked up on this with one of the funniest ads running on tv.

PC: Hello, I’m a pc

Mac: Hello, I’m a Mac

PC: Windows 7 has been released and it will not have the problems that Windows Vista had.

Mac: …remembering …

PC: Windows Vista has been released and it will not have the problems that Windows XP had

Mac: …remembering …

PC: Windows XP has been released and it will not have the problems that Windows ME had

etc … etc … back to Windows 3.1

Posted by The GNUinator

Monarchs WNBA Champs 2005

OK, I admit it. My so-called guy friends give me tons of grief when I tell them that I like the Sacramento Monarchs and watch their games.

“You actually watch that?”, one friend asked.

“What’s wrong with the Monarchs?”

“Well, they are a bunch of lesbians”, was the best he could come up with.

My Yahoo! home page lets me know whenever there is a Kings game or a Monarchs game. They don’t always get it right. Sometimes, very infrequently, Yahoo! will make a mistake regarding a Kings game. Wrong starting time, wrong score, whatever.

The Yahoo! track record for the Monarchs is much worse. Again and again Yahoo! reports the score as 0-0 after the game has been played. Or they will report no game when there is a game.

This has happened so often it cannot be a coincidence. The message Yahoo! conveys is that women’s sports is not as important as men’s sports. The WNBA is not as important as the NBA. Is that fair? Certainly the audience for women’s sports is smaller, but that is a different question. And I’d be the first to admit that the WNBA game is different than the NBA game. Still, those ‘lezzies’? are as competitive and as tough as the guys. I love a down-to-the-wire close game with plenty of lead changes. And that’s what I get from the Monarchs. Given the fact that the Monarchs won a WNBA championship (2005) and the Kings didn’t even make the playoffs this year I say go Monarchs. I’ll be watching provided Yahoo! remembers to let me know.

Yahoo! failure to assign resources plays right into the hands of misogynistic men who diss woman’s sports as an acceptable? way to be passive-aggressive. They can’t express disrespect to their wives, girlfriends, sisters or moms without being in trouble. So they diss woman’s sports instead. This makes them feel better. If Yahoo! fails to assign adequate resources to update their web content it must mean that the WNBA is inferior and not worth wasting time on. Heck, nobody’s watching anyway.

The remedy, I think, is for men who don’t hate women to squawk about this.

Complaints from women could be dismissed since they might be coming from [gasp] lesbians.

Yahoo! failure is a failure in sports scores reporting just as serious as it would be for them to consistently get it wrong regarding Kings scores and schedules. And men should speak up.

Posted by Gypsy Chief and Veronica