How many more have to die before we realize it?

It just pisses me off so much. The concept of people invoking the second ammendment to carry weapons that have no real use what so ever (I am talking about assault rifles et al) is just absurd. The rest who claim that the hand guns are for self protection don't understand that the concept of MAD (mutually assured destruction) just makes the world a sick place to live. I really wish that some law is passed such that it makes it real hard for anyone to own a gun.

What am I so pissed about it? For obvious reasons like the latest killing spree that took 32 innocent lives. I have seen enough of damage and lets not aggravate the situation by pouring more guns into the hands of people (good or bad).

Is Microsoft really that evil as some people say?

I leave that to the reader to make the decision. But I am disappointed with Microsoft on what it decided w.r.to the Gears of war downloadable content. I consider myself a pro gamer loving my XBox360. Most of all, GOW is one of the few games I played twice (Normal & Hard difficulty) and finished it. Having said that, Microsoft's decision to charge folks for the downloadable maps after paying $59.99+Tax for the game is ridiculuous. If Money can buy good brand image or public image, Microsoft should be ranked higher than Google or Apple for example. It is the loyal customer base you stupid Microsoft.

To give you some background, here is what the Epic top brass has to say:

"Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps," said Rein. "So what we've agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That's what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players."

In this case, I side with Epic.

Is Microsoft really dead?

I don't normally miss out on reading Paul Graham's essays as they are very well written and thoughtful. I infact recommend to folks I know who haven't heard of him. But I think in his latest essay he contradicts himself and went down the path of ranting with his essay Microsoft is dead. If his point was to convey why Microsoft doesn't matter anymore because desktop is dead and web 2.0 is taking off, then why go into lengths about why Apple is so great ignoring the fact that it is also a desktop operating system. I did comment on the essay and let me see if it gets any response or gets deleted. Here is what I exactly commented:

Paul, I have great respect for you. But I think you contradit yourself a bit when you say this "..everyone can see the desktop is over. It now seems inevitable that applications will live on the web—not just email, but everything, right up to Photoshop". That by itself is a accuate and I can agree with. But you go on to rant about how Apple has put MS on the run and how you fund people that use Mac etc etc. Don't you consider Apple a desktop too??

Oh, you should watch this!

My everyday ritual is to watch the right wing talk show O'Reilly Factor on Fox and then switch to the left wing talk show by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC to get a fair and balanced view. Note that I consider myself in center left and because of that I am having a world of fun hearing views from far left and far right. I have to admit though that I disagree with Mr.O'Reilly most of the time since he does not reason which is pretty typical conservatism.

This clip of O'Reilly tops everything and you probably have not seen anything like it yet. Have fun watching the hypocrasy in action. I give thumbs up to Geraldo for holding the ground.