Monthly Archives: April 2003

Movable Type

This entry was posted in Modulator Blog on by

Invisible Adjunct posts a nice piece on the tribulations of the newcomer to Movable Type. Yep, it is not quite the same as starting that first Blogger site: name it and start posting. Movable Type does have a learning curve and Invisible Adjunct speaks for me: each confusing item he mentions hit me as well. The answer may be Movable Type for Dummies. Or, a more complete discussion of this stuff in the documantation. And, I agree Trackback was/is a bit confusing.
Now, on to that 3 column layout. This is my next tweak. I’ve been collecting samples and am leaning toward using a Table to create the structure instead of CSS. Whichever it is will be an experiment and I do plan to use a test blog as a learning tool. I’ll get right on this in a couple weeks when taxes are done.

Socialism v Capitalism

This entry was posted in Economics on by

And a bit earlier in the day Gregory Markle found himself in “..the old socialist/capitalist debate…” and as so often seems to be the case in these discussions it is not at all clear what the participants mean when they use these terms. If the debaters would simply provide a 2-3 sentence definition with their first use of one of these words (plus others like democracy, fascism, liberty, etc) these discussions would become instantly more meaningful to their readers (and I suspect the particpants as well). A link to a more detailed exposition would be even better.
My task, before I get too involved in similar debates will be to write my brief expositions or pick the variant closest to my position from the many that already exist on the web. Then, if I say something like “…was built on the shoulders of capitalist democracy…” you, the reader, might be able to figure out what country/society is being referred to and whether the writer means something like free market capitalism based on protecting individual rights or, as exists today in many variations, a state regulated and subsidized corporate economy (and no matter how many times some form of the latter is called capitalism…it isn’t).

Help Page Humor

This entry was posted in Humor on by

Gregory Markle at American Realpolitik points us to this takeoff on the IE page not found(error 404) message. It is funny. And, perhaps, it also holds a lesson for Microsoft: Help pages really can present useful and relevant information!

More Domestic Impact

This entry was posted in Iraq on by

Spadehammer quotes at length from this Steve Lopez column in the LA Times (free registration). I have raised concerns before about the true motivation of the administration and Lopez plays another frequency

The effort to turn Iraq into a democracy, in other words, is making the U.S. less of one. Our opposition party has disappeared, corporate interests dictate public policy, and the feds may be rummaging through your e-mail.

Aren’t you just a bit concerned?