Why Linux on the Desktop is Still Not Ready for Prime Time

It's been a while since I lit into someone in the PC publishing world for vastly overstating the Linux case, and sure enough, waiting for me online this past Friday was an article from Keir Thomas, author of a number of several books about Ubuntu Linux, published in PC World and referenced on teh intarwebs by Yahoo Tech: Top 7 Reasons People Quit Linux.

It's useful to review this list, especially in the light of a release on the same day that Linux, as a cluster of related operating systems, just recently began accounting for more than one percent of identifiable internet traffic, accounting for just over one-tenth as much traffic as those using MacOS X, and about twice as much traffic as people surfing the web on their iPhones. It makes for a great example of a Linux enthusiast thinking he's making one point, while really making one entirely different.

Reason #1 in Mr. Thomas's essay is "Linux doesn't run a program I use." Mr. Thomas's response is, basically, "Sorry, can't help you."

As a Mac user, I do understand this response. After all, one of the big reasons my friends give me for not buying Mac hardware is that their favorite games don't run on Mac. Gaming is still a problem for Linux users as well, but the real issue Mr. Thomas was addressing is a lack of productivity apps, including most of the Adobe suite of products -- many people use Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe Premiere or some similar product to earn their living, and as such, as much as they'd like to move to Linux, they can't, because they can't find an alternative to run on the OS.

(Oddly enough, Mr. Thomas is one of the few Linux advocates who admits that Adobe Photoshop is a program that can't be replaced on Linux -- not because there isn't any image-editing software for Linux (the open-source GIMP package is a decent image editor), but because most professional workflows have developed to involve various third-party plug-ins and add-ons to Photoshop, which the GIMP can't use. So kudos to Mr. Thomas for at least making that admission, which his more brain-dead cohorts still can't do.)

Macs are clearly ahead of Linux in this category: Apple has itself produced or purchased-and-extended several professional-grade apps for their MacOS X operating system (such as Aperture, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Studio), but also lower-impact consumer versions of those apps (iPhoto, iMovie/iDVD, and GarageBand).

The biggest benefit, though, has been from third-party developers who have helped fill in areas where the MacOS was traditionally weak, such as CAD software. Why can't third-party developers do this for Linux? Because as a general rule, people who don't pay for their operating system don't expect to have to pay for their applications, either -- thus there's little market in producing Linux-based applications except to places that have no choice but to pay, which means specific enterprise-tailored apps that become the property of the company that pays for them, not the people who develop them.

The very fact that Linux is open-source guarantees that it cannot compete with the resources available to a developer for a commercial operating system; thus, while point one is become less and less relevant for MacOS X every year, it will probably always be true of the Linux flavor-of-the-month.

Reason #2 in Mr. Thomas's essay is "I installed Linux but some element of my hardware didn't work!" His response is, in effect, "Then fix it."

As his example, he talked about a time when he installed Windows and not all of his devices were supported in the base install, so he hunted around and found the correct drivers and other bits of techie knowledge he needed to be able to get his system working. Which is great if you want to be a mechanic.

Linux fails on this account because very few vendors are selling hardware with Linux pre-installed, which is how most consumer users expect to deal with computers and operating systems these days. Only a true do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiast or somebody who really needs to build a machine on the cheap will take on the challenge of building a Linux PC from parts, purchasing their own case, motherboard, video card, etc., and then tinkering with the configuration settings in Linux until everything hums like a well-tuned engine.

There are some vendors who will sell Linux pre-installed on desktops and even laptops, but the cost savings of Linux doesn't seem all that significant. For example, Dell sells a version of their XPS laptop line (the XPS M1530n) with Ubuntu Linux 8 pre-installed for $974 after 'instant savings', but the version of that laptop with Windows pre-installed (the XPS M1530) is only $999 after a much smaller 'instant savings' -- prior to the discount, the Windows M1530 is $1108, while the Linux M1530n is $1194. The Linux laptop even ships with an older and slightly slower T5850 Intel Core Duo processor as compared with the Windows version's T6600 processor! The difference is that the Linux laptop also ships with a smaller but quicker hard drive (320 GB @ 7200 RPM vs 500 GB @ 5400 RPM); the distinction is one that most users probably won't ever notice (though the ones more likely to drop $1000 on a Linux laptop just might).

It may have made sense to buy your computer in parts and build it yourself in the 1980s, just as car enthusiasts were modding their vehicles throughout the 1950s, but today, most folks are buying commodity hardware, not building a precious asset. And for those who want what's effectively a new addition to the family, Apple makes the process that much more impressive with a combination of their high-end packaging and their in-store service and support through their retail outlets, a combination so effective that Microsoft is hoping to duplicate it with their own retail efforts.

Reason #3 is "I tried Linux but I had to type commands!" Mr. Thomas literally responds "OMG!" Then he asks, "Are you scared of the keyboard?"

I've already covered this point extensively, but I'll recap by saying, no, Mr. Thomas, I'm not scared of the keyboard, I just don't see why I need to learn UNIX to do a job that has nothing to do with knowing UNIX. Most people's biggest need in a computer is to have something that lets them do their work without getting in the way or putting up roadblocks to productivity, and MacOS X is the acknowledged king of this realm. (Hard-core Mac fans can argue that MacOS X isn't as user-friendly and efficient at the user level as MacOS 8 was back in the day, and I wouldn't argue with them all that much. Even so, MacOS X remains light-years ahead of both Windows and Linux in consistency and usability.)

Reason #4 I'll grant to Mr. Thomas -- "I did *this* and *this* happened. That doesn't happen on Windows!"

Part of the joy of MacOS X is that it doesn't behave like Windows, and I suspect that's part of what Linux fans like about Linux. We're all on the same page here.

Reason #5, however, is spot-on: "I posted a message on a forum, but Linux people were mean to me."

This, more than anything else, is a cultural problem. Mac users are often criticized as being 'elitist' and feeling as though we're better than other computer users, but the culture of Mac use is one where Mac users really enjoy their computers, like sharing information about them, and (in general) enthusiastically welcome new users into the Macintosh family.

Interestingly enough, the same is true to some extent in the Linux community -- but only if you're talking to someone face-to-face. In my experience, if you're on a Linux box and say, "Hmm, never seen that before," you'll have half a dozen other Linux users looking over your shoulder giving advice and making suggestions within five minutes. Go online, however, and Linux users tend to have chips the size of desktop computers on their shoulders -- some won't even bother to say hello unless you've demonstrated that you've read the man pages for the program you're having problems with, completely recited the hardware specs for your machine (and confirmed that they match a specific technology stack for your flavor of Linux), and invoked the spirit of Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman to intercede on your behalf. In other words, anonymous Linux users on the internet display precisely the kind of elitism and self-superiority that people are always accusing Mac users of.

To his credit, Mr. Thomas admits that not everyone online makes a good Linux advocate. Unfortunately, he fails to see how he failed to follow his own advice about being a good citizen with his "Just fix it yourself" and "Are you afraid of the keyboard" comments in his previous paragraphs.

The real biggie, though, is reason #6 - "I just don't like it." Mr. Thomas wishes more people would be honest that this is their reason for abandoning Linux rather than hiding behind one of the above excuses. Unfortunately, in characterizing the people who use this reason as "spooked...so much that they ran back to Windows," he misses the point -- it's OK to like your operating system. For the most part, Mac users can't shut up about how much they like their operating system, and love the hardware that it runs on, to the point where many Mac users I know have given their computers names, just as if they were members of the family.

And this, ultimately, is the biggest reason why Linux on the desktop isn't, and perhaps never will be, ready for prime-time: the presumption of Linux fans that it's up to the rest of the world to change to adapt to their favored OS rather than for that OS to make itself more acceptable, and even adorable, to the masses.

(For the record, reason #7, "I installed Linux and things went honey-nut-loops crazy," is dismissed by Mr. Thomas, and to my mind rightly so -- just because you have a bad experience with an OS or computer company (and I'm talking to you, Apple bashers on Consumerist.com) doesn't mean everybody does. In fact, if you consistently find yourself having problems with companies or people that others seem to get along with fine, there's a poster you should consider buying.)

An Honest Dow Jones News Item

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up just over a hundred and sixty-eight points, and we have no fucking idea why.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Mad Insights

I've begun the slow process of converting Paizo Publishing's "Age of Worms" Adventure path, originally published in issues #124-135 of Dungeon Magazine, into the new 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. As I've been doing so, though, I've discovered more than a few things about adventure design, as well as about general design tenets of both 3.5 and 4.0. And it's surprising what those things have to teach.

***Spoiler Alert -- Though if you haven't already played through the Age of Worms, the odds that you'll do so soon (other than in my own campaign) seems small, given that three of the twelve original issues of Dungeon are now out of print and can only be acquired in PDF format.***

The introductory adventure, 'The Whispering Cairn', takes place in a sleepy yet dirty (in more than one sense) town of Diamond Lake, and the intended motivation for the adventurers to take on the challenge of the cairn is to try to score a treasure large enough to buy their way out of town to someplace where life isn't so cheap. The designers did a solid job of presenting a classic low-level dungeon crawl with a few twists, and in such a way that players who mindlessly min-max their low-level characters are going to be in for a rude shock. (For instance, among players of 3.5-era wizards, the spells shocking grasp and magic missile are agreed to be more useful and powerful, and thus better options, than the spell burning hands. Yet, one very early encounter effectively punishes the party for containing a min-max wizard by throwing an acid beetle swarm -- a creature immune to weapon damage and most spell damage, but vulnerable to area effect spells like burning hands -- at the young turks.) In this sense, in that the adventure is designed to be a challenge for even experienced 3.5 players, the designers should be thanked and lauded.

In addition, the designers also don't skimp on the flavor in the first adventure (technically the first two, since both of the first two adventures take place primarily in and around Diamond Lake); Dungeon #124 not only contains the initial adventure, but also a sixteen page section detailing the town of Diamond Lake, and a web-enhancement (which at the time took some effort to get out the door) containing full stat-block writeups of all the major (and a good chunk of the minor) NPCs in the town. If you're looking for a place to begin campaigns with echoes of the classic D&D towns of the past such as the Village of Hommlet, you could do worse than to simply co-opt all the background material for Diamond Lake and drop it, whole cloth, into your own campaign world. Again, in an industry that seems to focus heavily on either flavor (setting) or crunch (rules) at the expense of the other, the impressive balance and extreme plentitude of crunchy flavor makes this an outstanding example of the 3.5 era low-level adventure.

Looked at through the eyes of a fourth-edition player/DM/developer, though, there are some problems, not just with the adventure, but with the overall design ethic of not just the campaign but the underlying game system.

Traditionally, 1st level D&D characters are extremely fragile, especially in any iteration of the rules that allows bonus damage on 'critical hits'. Because of this, most experienced D&D players and DMs tend to start their campaigns at 2nd or 3rd level, to ensure that the players have a bit of a buffer to tide over small swings in ill fortune. 'The Whispering Cairn' gives a good reason why: the very first encounter occurs between the party and a pack of three wolves, one of which is significantly tougher (in hit point terms) than the others. The party should win this fight, unless their luck abandons them entirely, but having defeated the wolves, chances are that the wizard has spent his only offensive spell (or only defensive spell), the cleric has used most if not all of his initial healing spells to bring the party's front-line combatants back to full health or close to it, and the party's 'resources' have been largely drained. Pretty much all they have left are the hit points on their backs, so the question is, press on, or head out to the hideout and rest up for another run tomorrow?

If they press on, they run smack-dab into the aforementioned encounter that punishes them for being min-maxers; while I haven't counted all the TPKs listed in the Paizo Age of Worms message boards, I suspect that this specific encounter is one of the more prevalent areas for TPKs (total party kills), in what is ostensibly the fourth room in the dungeon. Unfortunately, if the party goes timid, then the DM has the stick of a rival adventuring party in the area exploring another cairn that the PCs know is treasureless. The resulting tension is classic D&D 'do I push on and die or withdraw and lose' tension, but not everyone likes to play that way anymore.

That's a big reason why 4.0 characters start with significantly more hit points and other resources than starting characters in previous versions of the game -- to help avoid 'low level minefield syndrome', where you're afraid to step anywhere lest it turn out to be a hidden kobold who crits you with his shortsword and sends you to an early grave.

Another point, and this actually feeds into the first point above, is in the area of treasure distribution. Now, I don't want to give you the idea that treasure distribution is badly done in 3.5 terms in 'The Whispering Cairn'; the dungeon is a place where numerous runs have already been made, the 'low-hanging fruit' has already been plucked, and the party gains significant rewards for pushing through the toughest challenges. This absolutely adds a sense of verisimilitude to the experience of becoming a 'professional adventurer'; if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

In 4.0 terms, though, treasure is meant to be distributed somewhat more evenly -- not precisely one bundle of treasure for each encounter, but most encounters should result in some kind of reward for the party other than just the XP. Done properly, this can actually be of great benefit to the party. Let's use the aforementioned wolf encounter as an example:

The party fights the wolves in a 3.5 setting, defeats them, and claims the treasure of an elven-crafted piece of jewelry (again, excellent design from a 3.5-era perspective, since the party, if they took the trouble to make contact with the elven mine manager in town, can sell the jewelry there for a larger profit, rewarding the players for investing time in role-playing). But jewelry doesn't help them make their decision -- if anything, it pushes them to head back to town, sell the jewel for the cash to buy more supplies and press on the next day. (And, not coincidentally, start rumors about the town as to where these ragamuffin adventurers are finding this treasure, which can eventually leak back to the rival party's ears.)

In a 4.0 environment, the treasure is more likely to be a small number of coins plus a healing potion, which recommends to the party that they can in fact go on. (After all, in 3.5, they're probably planning to sell the jewelry to buy healing potions anyway.) Players spend more time in encounters, and less managing their character inventories, both of which are significant improvements for players who aren't already enamored of inventory management in their RPGs. While this means that the players' 'big' treasure encounters won't be quite as big in 4.0 as in 3.5, since some of the treasure that would have been in the 3.5 cha-ching horde is now littered amongst the rabble leading to the monster guarding the cha-ching horde, it also means that they're more likely to survive to that encounter, survive the actual encounter, and reach that encounter within a single game session rather than two or three -- another factor that aging gamers, who no longer have time to spend an entire weekend gorging on Mountain Dew, frozen pizza, and D&D, tend to appreciate.

Now it just so happens that this entry lets me bang on D&D 3.5 for a bit; I'm sure as I go I'll find things about D&D 4.0 to bang on as well. If you want an even more insightful tour of how Age of Worms helped bring out the worst in D&D 3.5, despite (or perhaps because of) their designers' best efforts, check out this ENWorld essay, "How Paizo made me hate 3e."

Forward Thinking

"I think we will look back in ten years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that which was true in the 1930's is true in 2010."

- Senator Byron Dorgan, November 1999, on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

New Ballpark Blues

There's a new Twins ballpark opening downtown, and the Twins are celebrating with a radio commercial set to the tune of 'Home on the Range' (though the celebration seems a bit premature to me, given that the club still has to sell tickets in the park they've allowed to become known as the cesspit of the American League).

In honor of the Twins sagacity in opening the new park, I've decided to write some alternate lyrics to their celebration song:

New ballpark downtown
Where Mauer and Morneau will play,
Where it's pleasant and dry, except in July,
And in August, and April, and May.

Hey, Consumerist!

You might want to actually do some research before spouting off about how Apple is adding 'DRM' to their new iPod Shuffle, especially when one of the critics you cite in your article recants his own position on the same day your essay is posted. If you're going off that half-cocked over something as petty as a controller chip on a pair of headphones, why should I believe anything you say about more important subjects?

Some Earmark Perspective

I understand that it's popular right now to criticize earmark spending as 'pork', even if you are a Congressperson who brags about bringing federal dollars home during your re-election campaign. Hypocrisy is nothing new in government, so I don't see much point In getting upset about it.

I'll just point out that getting bent out of shape over the earmarks in the just-passed budget is like being offended that a family of four earning $1400 per month (just under $17,000 per year) actually goes out to eat in a restaurant like Baker's Square once a month.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Watchmen: What Lies Beneath

I went to see the movie version of 'Watchmen' this weekend. I'd been looking forward to it ever since I first saw the first preview, and some of the critical reviews that came out over the past few days further whetted my appetite for what I thought would be an amazing movie experience.

When I walked out of the theater, though, I didn't find myself particularly overwhelmed.

When I walked out of the theater after seeing the first Spider-Man movie, I was jazzed -- director Sam Raimi and lead actor Toby Maguire had nailed the essences of both Spider-Man's character and his unique appeal to comic fans. When I walked out of the first Lord of the Rings movie, I was even more excited -- so much so that I couldn't restrain myself from going to pick up Tolkien's full series of books and reading them through to the end, just to find out what happened next. I went back and saw 'Return of the King' in the theater at least five different times, that's how excited I was about that movie.

I expected to have a similar reaction to 'Watchmen', but I didn't. In retrospect, I think I understand why, and at the same time begin to see why Alan Moore is so disparaging of the work derived from his own graphic novel.

(Warning: the rest of this essay will contain a number of SPOILERS, both from the movie and from the graphic novel -- if you're reading this and haven't seen one or read the other and still plan to, be warned.)

The movie started off on an extremely promising note -- an opening montage set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changin'" that catches up the audience with the major events of this alternate universe and gives them some background for the events that will follow. The montage was very well done and left as many questions as answers, with the unspoken idea that the movie would answer at least some of those unspoken questions.

As the movie went on, it became clear that the creators were hoping to capture the same sense of respect versus modification for the source material that the makers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy did with the works of JRR Tolkein; just as the LotR movies completely left out the character of Tom Bombadil (but slyly incorporated the scene where Bombadil saves the four hobbits from an animate tree as a scene for Treebeard to save Merry and Pippin), the makers of Watchmen left out the entire 'Tales of the Black Freighter' story-within-a-story, though they did have a couple of visual references to the characters who supplied the main tie between that story-within-a-story and the main story, a young black man reading a comic book while resting near the newsstand owner from which he had 'borrowed' the book. Of course, if you hadn't read the graphic novel, you had no idea of those characters' significance, and this wasn't the only moment in which this was true in the movie.

The best example I can give of a series of events that were meaningful for those who really knew the graphic novel versus those who'd never heard of it before seeing the movie was in the choice of music for the film. Each of the twelve 'issues' of the original DC Comics series had a title, and each title had a quotation at the end which helped explain the title within the context of the events of the issue. Some of these quotations were taking from songs, and it seemed like whenever possible, the filmmakers used those songs in the appropriate place in the movie. (Example: the issue where Nite Owl and Rorschach go to Antarctica to confront Ozymandias used a quote from Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower", and sure enough, the strains of Hendrix's tune played as Nite Owl tried to land Archie in the ice-strewn wasteland of Antarctica.

These call-outs (or perhaps they'd be better described as 'easter eggs') certainly helped make the movie more interesting for someone who'd already read the graphic novel. (Though I had a conversation with a fellow who obviously hadn't read the graphic novel, and was thus confused over the choice of Jimi Hendrix in what otherwise would be an obvious action sequence.) The easter eggs, though, didn't overcome what would prove to be the biggest problem with the movie -- one that's best described with a somewhat clichéd phrase: following the letter rather than the spirit of the source material.

The filmmakers took great pains to make certain that those who'd read the graphic novels would see many (if not all) of the moments they'd identify as key to the story -- Rorschach's investigation of the Comedian's apartment after the latter's death; Nite Owl's and Silk Spectre's fight with knot-top gang-bangers during Doctor Manhattan's press conference; Nite Owl being unable to 'get it up' in his own home when seduced by Silk Spectre, but having no problems later after a brief interlude of costumed heroism; Rorschach's time in prison; Doctor Manhattan's internal dialogue on Mars where his origin is revealed, and his subsequent discussion with Silk Spectre while flying above Mars on a grandiose clockwork crystal of Manhattan's own making; Ozymandias's apotheosis. Many of these moments, however, were robbed of a greater thematic impact because of other decisions made by the filmmakers to stick largely to all the details of the given plot. (Not that I can complain too much, given that even with the trimming of much of the thematic elements of the tale, the story still came in at nearly two hours and 45 minutes.)

Let me show you what I mean with most of these moments:

- The gang fight shows us not only that Silk Spectre and Nite Owl are, even after years of inactivity, still able to kick major ass, but also provides a hint of the eroticism that vigilantism means to both of these characters. This is a subject that becomes more obvious later, with the scene in Archie after rescuing the 'civilians' from the tenement fire.

Yet a key quote from the graphic novel, one given by Rorschach to his prison psychologist, is left out of the movie, and suggests that similar if not precisely the same motives drive all the Watchmen: "We do this not because it is permitted. We do it because we are compelled."

- This leads naturally to Rorschach's time in prison. In the graphic novel, the psychologist is a much more fully realized character in his own right -- he initially spends a lot of time trying to get to know Rorschach because he thinks it'll be a boon to his career if he makes a breakthrough and takes the notably sociopathic vigilante and manages to reform him. Instead, Rorschach's tale persuades the psychologist of the inherent bleakness of the human condition, which ultimately costs him his comfortable marriage as he interprets the compulsion he inherits from Rorschach through his own experience as a healer.

In the movie, though, he's a cipher at best, and a spear-carrier at worst; we learn nothing about his own backstory or character, and as such when we see him in New York at the moment of Ozymandias's apotheosis, there's no real impact associated with the knowledge. You have to have read the graphic novel to understand why his death (and those of the newsman and boy at the newsstand, for that matter) have any significance at all.

- This leads us to Ozy's apotheosis, and his master plan. Within the context of the film plot, it makes sense that, instead of a bizarre plot to convince the world of an imminent invasion of aliens from another dimension, instead Ozy takes a project that Doctor Manhattan was helping him with and uses it to convince the world that Doc has turned against humanity. Removing this from the film removes yet another subplot from the graphic novel, and also makes the absence of the Tales of the Black Freighter story make sense.

I have two problems, though, with the way the filmmakers handled this change in master plan. First, the original master plan from the graphic novel required only a single attack, on New York City, to unite the world -- and if you think that's overly optimistic, may I remind you of the initial response of the global powers to the attacks of 9/11, which suggests that Moore was fifteen years ahead of his time in predicting the global response to terror. The new plan required the fake Manhattan attacks to occur all around the world, because an attack by Manhattan on New York City could be interpreted as the good Doctor simply exacting his revenge on the nation that 'used' his services for so long. In addition, in the graphic novel, when Ozymandias proves to the other Watchmen that his plan has succeeded, there are news reports from all over the world announcing plans for peace and cooperation -- in the movie, there's nothing but Richard Nixon talking about the need for peace and security against this new 'evil', which again, if one remembers the neo-conservative response to 9/11, suggests that this 'utopia' that Oxymandias worked so hard and sacrificed so many to achieve could be undone by simple greed and ignorance on the part of government leaders. It's a far less satisfying apotheosis in the movie, because history has shown us that the plan, as presented, might not work as anticipated.

Which itself would be fine, if the second problem didn't exist. In the graphic novel, once Ozymandias has convinced the Watchmen of his triumph, he retires to his orrery to ponder his next move. He's visited by Doctor Manhattan, who explains that he's leaving this universe for one 'less complicated'. In a final admission that he's not as confident as he just portrayed himself to be, Ozy asks Jon if he did all right, if his plan will work out in the end. Manhattan replies, "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends," which leaves Ozy puzzled and disquieted. In the movie, the line is given by Silk Spectre to Nite Owl, and is even prefaced by the phrase, "I know what Jon would say..." The scene happens miles away and some unspecified time after the event, and isn't even completely in the context of Ozy's triumph, which robs the line of much of its symbolic and thematic punch.

Now none of this should be interpreted as me thinking that the Watchmen movie was bad -- I did enjoy it, and would certainly consider seeing it again. And it's very possible that, though I can imagine the movie being so much better than it was, that to get there the thing would have had to have been four hours long, or perhaps even split into two films, with no guarantee that enough people would be excited enough after the first movie to stick around for the second.

It's just that I found myself hoping for an experience like that of 'Return of the King', where I'd end up paying retail to see the thing four of five times in the theater because it affected me that much, and it surprised me that as I walked out of the theater, I didn't feel much affected at all.

The movie captured the letter of the graphic novel, but not its spirit.

Two of These Things...

Watching ESPN in the Ruby Tuesday bar after seeing 'Watchmen', when a commercial comes on for ESPN. That seems a bit odd in itself, though I suppose people like me, watching in a bar, might be persuaded to go home and order cable service, so we'll let that one slide.

The commercial's tag line is 'Follow your sport, which makes sense. Preceding the tagline, however, is a rolling list of items, including Mike Golic and Bill Simmons.

I'm sitting in my chair, wondering what the **** Bill Simmons and Mike Golic have to do with sports.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

My iPhone App list

A story came out some time ago that, when the app-using habits of iPhone users was studied, it turns out that most downloaded apps don't get used much: about 4 of 5 people who downloaded a free app never used it again after that first day, and nearly 2 in 3 who paid to download an app did the same.

My experience: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Here's the list of apps that have existed on my iPhone at one time or another, organized by usage pattern. Note, this does not include the apps that came with the iPhone, which can't be deleted (but can be moved to 'back pages' if you're not making regular use of them).

Not currently on the phone:

Diceshaker (free) - A cool-looking die roller app, I picked it up with the thought of using it to make my D&D die rolls electronically. It had two significant flaws: first, you could only roll one die with it. Second, the die you defined in the setup (you could define a die with any number of 'sides') would never actually roll its maximum value.

It did make for an interesting psychological experiment -- I was in my last days of playing D&D Minis when I grabbed the app, and asked a few opponents if they'd let me use the Diceshaker app instead of rolling a physical d20. Every one refused, and every one suggested that they'd be unable to tell if the program was 'honest'. I knew the program wasn't 'honest', but it was flawed in a way that would harm me (since I couldn't roll a 20, I'd never get a critical hit or automatic success). Still, nobody even considered that as an option.

Eventually replaced by Dicenomicon (see below).

GeoHash (free) - A free app inspired by this XKCD webcomic. The original app was updated after the algorithm chosen by the programmer couldn't handle the Dow falling below 10,000.

Downloaded because I thought it was cool. Removed to make space for apps I'd actually use. It might go back onto the phone, if I found someone like Randall Munroe to go on adventures with. (Though that's really just an excuse, honestly.)

MySpace Mobile (free) - Originally downloaded about the same time as Facebook (see below), because I knew people on both services. Now that everyone I knew on MySpace has migrated to Facebook, I don't bother keeping up with the MySpace part of the interwebs anymore.

Obama '08 (free) - Originally downloaded to piss off my right-wing gaming cohort Mark, this turned out to be an extremely well-done app, combining contact information, web-based data (position papers, mostly), and other features into a seamless whole (at least, as far as I explored it).

Removed after Obama won the election, because we live in a representative democracy, and the guys I voted for, who largely agree with my views on things, won.

Currently on phone - not used in months or not sure when last used:

Google Mobile App (free) - It's not that the Google Mobile App is a bad app; it's just that most of what I do with it is more easily accessed in other apps on the iPhone -- for instance, Mobile Safari has a Google search bar on the browser. Likewise, the Maps app has a search feature that doesn't require you to 'hitch' over from the Google Mobile App.

If I made more use of Google Apps, and specifically the Google Apps set up for the use of our local gaming group, I'd probably get more use out of the Google Mobile App. At the moment, though, it would be the next app to go if I had to make room.

SportsTap (free) - I used this app frequently during the 2008 baseball season to grab scores, check stat lines, and track the pennant chase between the Twins and White Sox. Since then, I haven't had much call to use it, since I'm not a huge Vikings or Timberwolves fan anymore. We'll see if the new baseball season causes me to increase my usage of the app again.

Remote (free) - This Apple app is still on the phone because of the potential of being able to use it to remotely control my MacBook or MacMini if needed. To this point, it hasn't really been needed.

eReader (free) - I like the idea of using my iPhone as an electronic book reader; this is one of three reading-type apps on the phone right now. I originally chose eReader because of its library of free public domain texts; I downloaded and read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'A Study in Scarlet', and haven't really used it since.

WarcraftStat (free) - An app to check the status of servers in World of Warcraft. Not really used much, because it's just as easy to check online when I'm actually at my computer and considering playing. It's still here, because I think of it as a matched set with the Warcraft Characters app, though as far as I can tell they were not coded by the same programmer.

Currently on phone - used within past month, but not regularly:

Warcraft Characters (free) - An iPhone interface to an online database that mirrors World of Warcraft character data. I haven't spent a lot of time in WoW of late, so this pair of apps (Characters and Stat) might go if I decide to give up my subscription again. (Why I feel the need to drop my subscription almost immediately after purchasing an update to the game client is a topic worthy of its own past, someday.)

Lightsaber Unleashed (free) - The first app I ever downloaded for the iPhone, back before LucasArts either purchased or claimed IP ownership of the app and re-vamped it as a tool to sell 'The Force Unleashed'. Still cool to swing the phone around and hear the lightsaber sounds, though.

Careerbuilder.com Jobs (free) - A great idea for an app, but the combination of a crappy job market coinciding with the recession, plus some significant limitations in the app (you can't simply browse job listings in your area - you're required to enter a keyword to search on if you want to search the job listings) have kept me looking for a replacement for some time. No luck yet.

Dicenomicon ($3.99) - A far superior dice rolling app to Diceshaker. Gives the ability to roll multiple dice, to group dice in multiple 'pools' (so you can roll all the dice you need to create a D&D character with one shake), and the ability to program specific types and numbers of dice to match just about any game system. The 'help' screens are incredibly helpful, especially the section for specific game systems which contains formulas for use with D&D, AD&D, Storyteller (Vampire and similar games), and the HERO system, plus others.

Absolutely worth the money in terms of functionality; only problem is, like Diceshaker above, most DM/GMs don't want you rolling electronic dice, assuming that you've skewed the program somehow to cheat. Ah, well, I guess it's only human nature.

Shakespeare (free) - This app is used infrequently only because, even with my theatrical background, I don't have the need to consult the complete works of William Shakespeare on a regular basis. Still very cool, though, especially the program icon.

Bonus points: With the addition of a Search feature, this app becomes a great companion for the Canadian television series 'Slings & Arrows'.

AP Mobile News (free) - This used to be an app I'd access multiple times per day, during the election season. As time has gone on, though, the people coding this app have seen fit to try to make it more 'bells and whistles-y', including (most depressingly) banner ads to help pay for the development cost. I loved this app when it was a simple, no-frills interface to the day's news; every update gets me closer and closer to trying to hunt up a new app to capture that old minimalist feeling.

Stanza (free) - Another e-reader application, this one came recommended along with a promotional set of e-book downloads, one of which was from a writer I knew and admired - Laurie Notaro. Since that first e-book, I haven't been motivated to go pay for another.

Currently on phone - being used regularly, but too new to tell if it'll last:

CBS TV.com (free) - Grabbed almost entirely based on the reports in the Mac press that the original Star Trek series could be accessed via the app. There are a few other CBS shows that I might follow (How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory) if I got into the habit, but since I'm long out of the habit of watching actual television, it's hard to tell how eager I'll be to consume it on (to borrow a phrase from Yahtzee Croshaw) 'teeny-weeny eyestrain-o-vision'.

iBlogger ($0.99) - I've made a couple of short posts to this blog from iBlogger, but I can already tell that my preferred long-winded style including the occasional hyperlink won't translate well from the iPhone's tiny keyboard. I now understand why Twitter clients for the iPhone are so popular.

The Weather Channel Weather App (free) - This one probably has the best chance to stick around -- the app is far more detailed than the included Weather app, and can provide much more in-depth information about upcoming weather conditions. It would be slightly more useful if I were still taking the bus to work, as it would help me to always have an umbrella handy for potential downpours. Even so, a very useful and information-dense app.

Currently on phone - used frequently:

Now Playing (free) - Originally called 'Box Office', but apparently that name is being used by someone with deeper pockets. The guys at AP could learn something about iPhone development from Cyrus, the developer of this app. New features are added, but they're generally either useful (ratings of movies taken from Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, links to trailers, links to movies and showtimes based on proximity to your current location or default location, ability to 'favorite' a movie for quick access to info on it) or can be turned off if desired (upcoming movie and DVD releases). I don't go to a lot of movies in the theater, but it's not an exaggeration to say that since I got Now Playing, I haven't seen a movie without checking it in this app first. I think that's pretty high praise for a free iPhone app.

Currently on phone - used multiple times per day

Facebook (free) - I don't need Facebook; I suspect most of us don't. But it's odd the way it helps me stay in at least nominal contact with folks I otherwise would go months or years without hearing from or about. It lets me keep up to date with major events in my friends' lives, and even lets me plan some events days before they happen. And it gives me the chance to try new things in the guise of trying to reconnect with old friends -- I went to a new-age health and wellness expo last weekend based on the Facebook invite of a woman I had a crush on in junior high. I'm not sure whether it's an advantage or a drawback that the iPhone app doesn't allow access to third-party Facebook apps (save in the sense that apps that put notifications on your Wall will show up in the app's notifications list); my gut feeling is that I'd rather the app be a no-frills gateway to my Facebook contacts and conversations (and it still needs a few tweaks to do that seamlessly), much like I want a news reader to give me news and not videos on 'hot philologists'.

I don't need Facebook, but my life would probably be duller without it.

--

So most of the apps I've ever downloaded end up in a virtual dustbin; that's not too surprising, I guess, given Sturgeon's Law. (Ninety percent of everything is crap.) Still, if one out of ten iPhone apps I try become apps I use regularly and get real value from, I have to consider that to be a really good ratio.

Note To Conservative Media Critics

There hasn't been a 'liberal media' in this country in over ten years.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

A Liveblogging Proposal

I understand why people who are 'liveblogging' (making short blog posts during an event) do so with the most recent posts on top -- it makes it easier for people following along to find the new stuff.

What I don't understand is why they leave it that way, which forces people stumbling onto your blog after the fact to read through the thing bottom to top to figure out what the heck is going on.

Be kind. Rewind your liveblog.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Test, testing, one, two

The inimitable Twins Geek referred to an iPhone blogging app in his latest post, so I picked up the app myself - here's the first effort.

How's it look?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Here Come the VIGs!

GenCon badge registration opened on Sunday, so today I wandered over to GenCon's new virtual registration digs and signed up. While I was doing so, I ran across something intersting: an offer to purchase a 'VIG' pass instead of the regular 4-day pass. The kicker: the VIG pass costs $500.

I was intrigued, and wanted to know more.

After finding the page that describes the VIG program, I decided to do a mental calculation to see if it were possible that the VIG pass would make any financial sense at $500. Here's what you get:

- A 4-day pass to GenCon.

Duh. If the VIG pass offered less access than the regular 4-day pass, nobody would even consider it.

Value: $68

- A specially-designed badge holder.

This is described as 'a mark of distinction', and to a degree it is. If you simply order the 4-day badge and have it mailed to you, you also receive a clear plastic card-holder and a thin rubber cord with which you can put the holder around your neck. (Here's a picture of the late Gary Gygax modeling the classic, no-frills GenCon badge holder.) There's nothing strictly wrong with the no-frills holder, but folks who attend GenCon regularly tend to eventually gravitate toward a more rugged, permanent type of holder which also contains storage space (basically an extra pocket, which is more useful than you might think). Since it's theoretically an item which the general populace won't have access to, I'll give it a small bump in value.

Value: $20

Sub-Total = $88

- 10 complimentary generic event tickets

If you've never been to GenCon, the entire process runs on tickets -- tickets are used to determine how many people will be allowed into a given event, and you need to pay to get the tickets. (Never having been an exhibitor or game master, I don't know how the money trickles back to the people running the event, if at all.) If, however, someone buys a ticket and doesn't show up for an event (which means there are no specific event tickets available), the game master for the event can allow you to join in if you have a sufficient number of 'generic' tickets to cover the event cost. Because of this, unless you already have your entire GenCon planned out in detail, it's generally a good thing to have generics on hand to facilitate spur-of-the-moment gaming opportunities. The downside is that you probably will have extra generic tickets in your pocket when the convention is over.

In 2007, generic tickets were $1.50 apiece, while in 2008 they cost $2 a pop. I'll assume the price of generics isn't going up again this year, though there's reasons to think that they might.

Value: $20

Sub-Total = $108

- VIG Mixer with Peter Adkison

Probably the least compelling bullet point for me on the list, though I can see possibly showing up if there's nothing else going on Thursday night; after all, there will be food.

Peter Adkison was one of the founders (probably the most significant founder) of Wizards of the Coast; Adkison left Wizards some time after the company was purchased by Hasbro and eventually bought the rights to GenCon, creating GenCon LLC to run the convention. For some, the opportunity would probably be huge: a chance to ask Adkison about what it was like to run Wizards, how GenCon LLC navigated bankruptcy (and recently emerged from it), to sign a treasured copy of "The Primal Order", WotC's first-ever product.

I'm on the fence. I will admit, though, that even though I'm not excited about the opportunity, the thing still has some financial value. Since you can purchase a 'guest ticket' for $35, I'll put the value of the free invite at that level as well. (And for that price, I hope the appetizers, at least, are complimentary.)

Value: $35

Sub-Total: $143

- VIG Lounge

Possessing a VIG badge gives you access to a private VIG lounge with a number of amenities:

• VIG Will-Call

Pick up your badge and show bag without having to wait in line with 500 other gamers. Though in all honesty, when I went to pick up my badge and bag on Wednesday night for the 2008 show, I didn't have to wait at all.

• VIG Event Registration

On the other hand, registering for events in a special line where no more than 100 people have access at any given time? Huge potential time-saver.

• VIG Coupon Book

The main show bag contains a coupon book with some money-savers for general convention-goers. In order to be a 'value-add', I'd have to imagine that the VIG book contains vendors who aren't in the main show book, and possibly also contains larger discounts from vendors who are in the main show book. Depending on who's in the book, this could be of tremendous monetary value, though I have to admit I can't remember actually using any of my regular show coupons in either of the two years I've attended.

• Complimentary beverages

Possibly the biggest item on this list. A 20-oz bottle of Coke from a vendor or machine in the Indianapolis Convention Center during GenCon is a $3 purchase. I could easily see myself saving nearly $100 just from the convenience of not having to buy Coke.

On the other hand, my gut tells me that the service will have some flaws (most likely issues with keeping beverages stocked); so I'm going to go with a very conservative monetary value here and hope that the organizers will dazzle me once I'm there.

• Free Wi-Fi

This is also a bigger deal than you might otherwise think. You can get Wi-Fi service within the convention center, but only by paying the local service provider's $10 a day fee (or spending nearly that amount for a month-long period of access you'll only use for four days). Given that I expect to get free Wi-Fi at whatever hotel I'm staying in, that means bringing the laptop will again be filled with win, and at significantly less expense than last year.

• Possible promotional items from exhibitors, etc.

The program page makes it very clear that swag is not guaranteed and will be based on availability, which means basically 'don't count on this'. On the other hand, I suck at bagging swag at conventions, so anything that creates the possibility for me to bring back cool stuff for the guys who couldn't go to the con is a plus. Not a huge plus, mind you, but a plus.

• Concierge Phone Service

Meh. I have an iPhone for this.

Value (mainly from Wi-Fi and beverage service): $100

Sub-Total: $243

- VIG Reserved Event Seating

We're moving heavily into the realm of VIG benefits where the value of the benefit is more along the lines of convenience or opportunity. Because of this, it won't always be easy to assign a precise dollar value to the benefit. (Technically the Adkison mixer also qualifies, but the guest ticket helps quantify a price in a way that other items farther down on this list aren't quantified.) Nevertheless, something difficult to quantify in money terms isn't necessarily valueless.

For instance, one of the guys I'll be going to GenCon with is a fan of Hickman's Killer Breakfast, an event sponsored by noted fantasy author and game designer Tracy Hickman. He generally shows up an hour or so before the event itself in order to ensure he gets a decent seat -- though there are only so many tickets sold, the seating is first-come, first-served, and the closer you are to the action, the better.

Well, VIG's will get reserved preferential seating, available up to 15 minutes before the start of the event. What's a half-hour or more of extra sleep, prep time, what-have-you worth?

On the other hand, say it's worth exactly $7 to you. That brings us only up to about half the cost of the VIG package in total value, unless some things on this list are far more awesome than I anticipate.

There are a few other advantages: the page describes VIG-exclusive events (not just the Adkison mixer) which might be worth checking out. Also, there's a special block of hotel accommodations that have been reserved specifically for VIG members, making it possible that signing up for the program will, for the first time, allow me to get a room within walking distance of the convention center. That's not an inconsiderable benefit.

Lastly, the most intriguing part of the program is the ability to purchase $100 VIG Companion badges. The main benefit of the Companion badge is access to the VIG Lounge, which we've already estimated as being about $100. Plus the Companion badge acts as a 4-day GenCon badge, which means the Companion badge might be the best value at the convention. (Conversely, it might mean that my estimation of the value of the Lounge is wildly overstated -- see my concerns over the beverage service, for starters.)

On the whole, I feel the VIG Badge is a worthy gamble, and have signed up for it to give it a whirl for at least this one year. More reports as events warrant.

Bookley - Year One

Almost exactly one year ago, I purchased my first-ever laptop computer: a MacBook Pro which I dubbed Bookley. I had been tempted to wait until the new product announcements at MacWorld Expo last year, in order to avoid buying a computer that would immediately be out-of-date, but desire overcame my caution and I ended up sauntering into the Apple Store in Southdale to make my purchase.

As it turned out, waiting wouldn't have made much difference -- the MacBook Pro line was announced for an update later in January, but only for a small increase in processor speed and a slightly larger hard drive. The 'Book I'd bought was hardly rendered obsolete by that refresh.

Now, after a year, if I had to describe my MacBook Pro experience in one word, that word would be 'convenient'. Though I could likely survive just fine without Bookley, he makes my life easier in a number of ways:

Work

I work for a company doing application support, and once every three to four weeks have to be the on-call person for emergency weekend or overnight calls. Once I was able to configure Bookley to use the company VPN to allow remote access to my work PC, I no longer had to worry that any call would require me to hop in the car and drive to work just to see what the problem was. In fact, the ability to remote into work was more convenient than just connections from home -- I was also able to connect from activities like the Tuesday night bridge group or the Friday gaming sessions without having to completely remove myself from the event. The money, time, and gas I've saved just in the last year is probably enough to justify Bookley's cost right off the top.

Of course, all good things must end -- our new corporate parent, in accordance with their network policies, is going to shut down remote access for all employees at our site, so the single biggest advantage of having Bookley is about to go out the window, for no fault of mine or my laptop's. C'est la vie.

Play

Bookley enhances my free time in a number of ways:

- My current desktop machine is a MacMini from a few years back, when it still ran the G4 processor. While this is good in a number of ways (it allows me to continue to use the backward-compatible OS 9 layer to run my really old Mac software), the bad part of using the Mini as my main machine is that many new games and other software programs are being released for Macs with higher end processors. (Civilization IV was one such title.) Bookley lets me run those programs.

- By setting up a partition on which to install Windows using Boot Camp, I can also participate in games with no Mac client. The main advantage this has been for me is in interacting with Wizards of the Coast's software development arm, who has tied themselves to Windows development as the smallest investment leading to the largest possible payoff. When I boot Bookley into Windows Vista, I can run Magic Online and the beta of the D&D 4.0 Character Creator with no problems. (I've also been playing City of Heroes on the Windows side, but with NCSoft's announcement of an upcoming Mac client, I'll be switching from PC to Mac for that game soon!)

- By using scanning and OCR software, I'm able to carry most of my D&D 3.5 reference books on Bookley's hard drive rather than in an arm-breaking pile of physical paper. This makes it a lot easier to find a relevent spell, rule, or other piece of gaming minutiae on demand in the middle of a fight at our Friday D&D sessions.

Bookley also helps me keep up with this blog, with the additional aid of the MarsEdit blogging package, a drop-dead worthwhile purchase if you plan to do any significant online writing. I use MarsEdit to connect both to this blog as well as put in my share of work on The AL Central Blog (though we'll see how that blog fares in the off-season).

I was even able to take Bookley on the road and make a few posts from far-away places, like GenCon 2008.

Not everything I've done with Bookley has been filled with win -- I got into the preview for MobileMe and discovered that I didn't use it nearly enough to justify the $100 per year price tag, for instance. On the whole, though, owning Bookley has been a great experience, and well worth the price.

Still, my resolution for 2009 is to do something so significant with Bookley that I'll feel compelled to finally set up some kind of backup regimen for him.

Another Linux Advocate Loses Grip On Reality

Even though I'm still a fully functioning Mac Bigot (TM), I've largely gotten out of the habit of arguing my chosen platform's superiority on Internet forums (fora, for those of you who still take Latin classes). Part of the reason why is that I've decided the very practice of arguing on the Internet is unhealthy -- it's geek-meth. It gets you completely wired and hyperactive, even to the point of missing sleep and arguing incredibly trivial points (was it the WA-150 or the WA-100 that first allowed you to use a non-powered stylus?), while the addiction slowly drives you away from friends and family and ravages your physical and mental health. In the end, you'll abandon your own sister's wedding for one more chance to defend the Apple Newton again on ZDNet.

Which brings me to the point of this essay -- there are some places where I just don't bother to go for tech information, but I can go to get a chuckle out of the natives. These places feature writers who are, for the most part, true believers, utterly unfettered by the bounds of reality as they defend their own pet opinions and activities as blessed by the Holy Writ of St. Linus, not to mention that it's healthy to realize that there people out there with less of a life than I have. Among the places I go solely to chuckle over the natives' misunderstandings of all things Apple*: Gizmodo, Wired, and ZDNet.

* - This is not to say that every writer at Gizmodo or Wired is an anti-Apple jihadist or ignorant Linux-worshipper; sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised at the intelligence of a given writer and end up following his writings even against my normal distaste for his home digs. Sometimes, as in the case of John Siracusa of Ars Technica, a single writer can single-handedly rehabilitate a site I thought was hopelessly awash in inanity and ignorance.

Today's spit-take worthy batch of self-delusion dripped from the virtual pen of Jack Wallen of ZDNet, in a blog entry entitled, "10 things Linux does better than OS X". Rather than going point-by-point, which would suggest a dangerous relapse into geek-meth huffing, I'll just hit the highlights:

- It may sound strange, seeing as how OS X is based on a Linux variant...

Um...excuse me? The problem with this claim isn't its sheer ignorance and easy disprovability, but that it's far from the first time I've heard it, which suggests that some Linux evangelist out there is deliberately spreading misinformation that the supposedly bright Linux community doesn't bother trying to correct.

Saying that Mac OS X is based on a Linux variant is like saying that the Ford Taurus is based on a Chevy Volt variant -- not only did Linux enter the scene far later than the UNIX flavor used at the core of Mac OS X, the two operating systems don't even operate on the same set of core code.

First, a quick history lesson:

While Mac OS X is a relative newcomer to the field of computer operating systems, having been first released by Apple as Mac OS X Server in 1999, its pedigree can be traced back quite a ways. Mac OS X's direct ancestor is an OS known as Nextstep, developed by NeXT, a computer company founded by Apple founder and Mac co-creator Steve Jobs after he was removed from the leadership of Apple in the mid-1980s. Nextstep was itself derived from previous 'Unix-like' operating systems, primarly the Berkeley Standard Distribution and variants of that 'flavor' of OS. The Berkeley distribution (also known as BSD) was the first alternate 'flavor' or distribution of the original UNIX operating system developed by Bell Labs during the 1970s; however, though BSD is often referred to as a UNIX OS, and one of the original creators of UNIX has suggested that many OSes derived from UNIX are effectively UNIX systems, the actual designation of an operating system as a UNIX system can, today, come only from the trademark owner, The Open Group, which requires any OS which seeks to use the UNIX trademark to abide by the Single UNIX Specification, an interoperability standard developed in response to the explosion of commercial UNIX systems after the then-owner of UNIX, AT&T, allowed the OS to be licensed for use by other vendors.

The origins of Linux rest in the foundation of the GNU project in the 1980's by free software advocate Richard Stallman, at least partly in response to the growing commercialization of UNIX itself. GNU is a self-referencial acronym, which supposedly stands for 'GNU's Not UNIX'. Though Stallman's goal was to produce a complete UNIX-like operating system based entirely off of free and open-source software, the hardest tasks in the process, the development of device drivers and the kernel -- those parts of the operating system that interact directly with computer hardware -- had not been certified nearly a decade after Stallman started the project. Because of this, Scandinavian programmer Linus Torvalds wrote his own kernel and released it under the GNU Public License. Though this release was not immediately accepted by all open source advocates -- Torvalds famously (in *nix circles, anyway) engaged in energetic discussions on Usenet with MINIX founder Andrew S. Tenenbaum for some time after the release of his kernel -- eventually the Linux kernel became the popular choice and was married to the rest of the GNU OS in a conglomeration that has become known to the world as Linux, but is properly referred to (and even officially referred to by some distribution vendors) as GNU/Linux.

So while Mac OS X is technically younger than Linux, the core pieces of the operating system existed as part of the Berkeley distribution before Richard Stallman even began GNU, to say nothing of Torvald's own development of the Linux kernel. Interestingly, while neither BSD nor GNU/Linux meets the Single UNIX Specification, Mac OS X 10.5 does, and as such can be referred to as a UNIX operating system -- something Linux cannot technically claim.

Mac OS X is no more a variant of Linux than Linux is a variant of Mac OS X. The two grew from completely different development trees, though the original UNIX was the godfather to both OSes.

- Although most OS X users would balk at this (saying they have no use for the command line), most power users know the command line is crucial to serious administrative tasks.

Here lies one of the biggest misconceptions that Linux advocates have about computers.

I will freely admit that, for people whose job is to operate and administer computers, the various flavors of UNIX and *nix are generally more powerful and effective tools in meeting the challenges posed in those jobs.

Here's the problem: most people don't operate computers for a living. Most people use computers in an attempt to perform a job that has little to do with computers themselves. They're salespeople, or administrative workers, or service workers. Even in a company whose reason for existence is to operate or administer computers, there will be numerous people who don't actually have that task in their job description. The receptionist at ORACLE headquarters, for example, doesn't need to know squat about how to program a SQL query, and Steve Ballmer's executive assistant at Microsoft doesn't need to know how to troubleshoot ActiveX.

These people don't need the command line and the 'power' it provides. These people need an operating system that simply stays out of the way of them doing their actual jobs. In other words, most Mac OS X users don't actually have any use for the command line, especially as learning the command line involves learning way more than is strictly necessary about how *nix computers work than those people need to know in order to do their actual jobs.

Here's an analogy that I like to use to illustrate where I think the computer industry is going:

In the early part of the 20th century, the automobile was invented. While the earliest automobiles were largely curiosities, some folks found them useful; most people, however, couldn't imagine doing anything with the very early cars that they couldn't do with their already ubiquitous horses. However, as manufacturing processes grew more sophisticated, eventually an explosion of manufacturers and models ushered in the automobile's first great era, the era of the Chalmers, lasting through the end of World War I. War and economic woes helped narrow the range of manufacturers, but the coming of peace and prosperity, and the deliberate development of the US Interstate Highway System, helped regenerate the automobile industry, causing it to enter its true Golden Age in the 1950's. In those days, it seemed that every family owned a car, and every man was at least a passable mechanic. As time passed and car ownership went from a family to a personal experience, though, the needs of car owners slowly began to change. American car companies were slow to pick up on those changes, including increased passenger room on the one hand and increased fuel efficiency and reliability on the other (the latter at least partly triggered by the oil shocks of the 1970s). Though the Chrysler Corporation declared bankruptcy during the 1980s, American car companies comfortably went back to what they thought they knew best, designing big, 'manly' cars and other vehicles they thought the public should want, rather than the kinds of cars that the public actually needed. Another economic sea change later, and all of the Big Three are lined up at the Capitol Building seeing handouts to stay in operation so that they won't finally fall, victims of their own hubris and presumptions regarding what a car should be.

Though the parallels aren't perfect, the analogy is pretty striking: the earliest days of computing were very much like the earliest days of the car, with computers being considered expensive curiosities except in limited environments. Once proven in those environments, though, advances in manufacturing allowed for the first great explosion of 'personal computers', including the IBM PC, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore PET and C-64, and the Apple II and even the earliest Macintoshes. Though they served the purpose of educating a generation of computer mechanics, most folks at the time viewed these early machines as little more than expensive toys (save for the few that could be used for serious business tasks), and it took the development of the Information Superhighway to kick-start personal computer adoption both in homes and smaller businesses. Today's computing society is much like the automotive society of the 1960's -- those who know the most about computers tend to assume that what they like about computers is not just what's good about them but what is actually meaningful and valuable about them, ignoring a growing segment of users who don't use or need to use computers in the same manner they do.

In the 1970's you could seemingly find a mechanic in every gas station. In the 2000's few gas stations have garages associated with them, and few drivers see the need to be able to tune an engine or tweak plugs and points themselves.

By the time the twenty-somethings of today posting and writing for Gizmodo and ZDNet about the wonders of open source software start considering their own retirement, they'll be wondering how the world of computing left them so far behind, and why it is that nobody cares what flavor of *nix is being run on the latest gadget.

So much for that idea...wait...

I went to the D&D Experience in Washington DC back in 2007, and sat in the audience as Scott Rouse, head marketing maven for the D&D brand, told the assembled crowd at the designers' keynote that Wizards of the Coast was hoping to make the convention the D&D equivalent to the MacWorld Expo conference held annually in San Francisco. It would be a place where gamers could go to celebrate all things D&D, from the role-playing game to the then still-fairly-new tactical miniatures game. My main reason for attending the 2007 D&DXP was to try to win the Limited Championship in that miniatures game; though I didn't succeed, I did end up qualifying for the 2008 Constructed Championships, so the trip was still, from that perspective, a tremendous success.

Not quite two years later, and perhaps the plan needs to be modified, as Apple today announced that 2009 would be Apple's last exhibiting at MacWorld Expo. Some very smart Apple commenters have noted how this might allow MacWorld to become an even better convention, though the general consensus seems to be that MacWorld is likely doomed without the presense of Apple as a flagship sponsor, and that's probably not all bad.

(Aside: the Apple-centric blogs, as well as the Apple-centric media (MacWorld magazine, Mac|Life, etc.) are focusing on what this means for MacWorld Expo, but the MSM, so to speak, has decided it's more interested in talking about Steve Jobs' health rumors...again. *sigh*)

So what does that mean for D&DXP? Well, Wizard has already ended their official support for the skirmish game, handing the reins to a volunteer organization called the DDM Guild. So you might say that, in a way, Wizards beat Apple to the punch by a couple of months.

When the D&D Experience was primarily a convention supporting the Role Playing Gamer's Association's tabletop roleplaying games, it was called Winter Fantasy. Perhaps that name will come back now, given that RPGA stuff appears to be all that will appear at D&DXP beyond 2009.

Gastric DRM

"When political action gets to be as much fun and games as it got to be for Abbie Hoffman and some of his friends in the late 1960s, a huge bawdy confused drama in which you have a rousing revolutionary-hero role and the whole world is watching, you don't really have to have tangible political victory to feel 'empowered.' You are already getting a kind of gratification that is the envy of millions of others who would love to get themselves so solidly into the act. The drama becomes an end unto itself."
- Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used To Be

If the Vietnam War provided a generation with the opportunity to, as Anderson would write, cast themselves in the role of revolutionary hero against a corrupt, evil establishment, then it's possible to argue that digital rights management (or DRM) serves much the same purpose in this generation. The leaders of the movement are as well-known as the leaders of the anti-war movement were in the '60's -- it's hard to argue that Cory Doctorow isn't as well known among intellectuals today as Abbie Hoffman was then. And like the '60's, the '00's have spawned a whole host of DRM-agitators who cast themselves as revolutionary heroes fighting an evil establishment who wants nothing less than to control how you purchase and view media.

They're all horribly misguided, of course, reducing a complicated issue down to simple catch-phrases and good-guy/bad-guy Manichean thinking. (Heck, even the Wikipedia page on DRM is a giant advertisement for the anti-DRM argument and those who champion it.) Not that you can convince any of them of that. But maybe I can convince you.

First, a quick review of the concept. Digital rights management is a catch-all term that refers to any number of technologies with differing implementations but similar goals -- trying to protect the rights of content creators and distributors to profit from their creative work by making it difficult for people to enjoy protected work without paying for it. Put in those terms, which are generally the terms that DRM apologists use, the concept doesn't sound so bad. After all, the right of creators to profit from their creations is also an American ideal -- so much so that the U.S. Constitution specifically grants Congress the authority to pass laws to protect this right, at least for limited periods of time. (This also, ironically, makes the right of creators to profit from their work one of the few actual rights enumerated in the Constitution rather than in the Bill of Rights.)

DRM opponents, meanwhile, argue that once you purchase a work, you should have the right to enjoy that work in whatever format you choose. Buy a CD with a song, and you should be able to copy that song to your MP3 player to take it 'on the go' with you, and even burn it to a different CD so that you don't have to play your valuable CD in your car stereo, where it might be damaged by sun if it sits out on the passenger seat too long. Now, these arguments aren't in themselves bad arguments, even if they're not entirely 'portable' arguments, either. (Does your purchase of a book entitle you to make photocopies of every page so that you can leave the actual book in your personal library and only consult the loose-leaf copies when you want to kick back in the hammock on a summer afternoon?) The big problem I have with these arguments is that...well, they're misleading. DRM opponents like to portray the big media companies as hoping to milk consumers out of every last dime purchasing and re-purchasing the same content they've been buying for the past 5, 10, or 25 years, simply in different formats. In some cases, they'll accuse the media companies of forcing consumers to repurchase content they just bought ten minutes ago, when it comes to digital media.

One counter-example to this argument can be found on the recently released Special Edition DVD of Pixar's WALL-E. When you purchase the Special Edition DVD, you also get a code. Insert the DVD into a computer loaded with iTunes, and the DVD allows you to enter the code and access the iTunes store to download a copy of WALL-E at no extra charge. The copy you download is the same as any other iTunes movie you might purchase -- it can be played on any device you've authorized your iTunes account on, so if you have a desktop computer, a laptop, and an AppleTV unit, all of which are authorized to play iTunes purchases, any or all of them can play WALL-E even if you don't have the DVD handy.

I suspect DRM opponents will at least tentatively applaud this feature, even if they decry the use of iTunes DRM that limits the ability of the downloader to make copies of the movie at will. They might even suggest that other media companies follow Pixar/Disney/Apple's lead. (It's no big surprise, and yet another ironic turn in this tale, that both Apple and Pixar are run by Steve Jobs, who himself is on record as saying he's not a fan of DRM even as Apple's iTunes store is lambasted as one of the largest purveyors of DRM-protected media in the U.S.)

Here's the irony -- this is the future of DRM. This is what every media company would love to do, if only they could be certain that the extra copies they're giving away are only going to people who've already paid for one.

Allow me to make an analogy, and by doing so, change the subject for a minute.

Prior to 1967, morbidly obese people had few options when it came to losing weight. They could hope to have the willpower required to diet themselves to a healthier weight, or become gravely injured or diseased. The former is rare even today, and the latter is so dangerous that there's no wonder that no medical industry appeared appealing to the obese and offering to infect them with tapeworms. Then, in 1967, the first gastric bypass surgery was performed. (Today, gastric bypass is but one class of what's called bariatric surgeries, but for the purpose of this analogy we're just going to look at the gastric procedure.) The first surgeries were effective, but fairly brutal -- my mother had one such surgery, and though she did lose an astonishing amount of weight, she has also lived ever since with an evil-looking scar running down her midriff from near the base of her sternum down to her navel.

The procedure evolved, and today most gastric bypasses are performed laparoscopically -- that is, using a number of smaller incisions to introduce instruments (including cameras so the surgeon can see) instead of one large open incision. My sister had a laparoscopic bypass in the 1990s, and also lost significant amounts of weight, and has significantly less visible scarring than Mom does. Someday, perhaps, when medical procedures are performed the way Dr. McCoy does them on Star Trek, there may not be a need for incisions at all.

The evolution of DRM is much like the evolution of gastric bypass. Recording technologies have always been looked at with skepticism by rights distributors, and some have even taken legal action to prevent the spread of new technologies, but there was really no other way for a rights owner or distributor to protect their investment in the pre-DRM days.

Currently, we're in the pre-laparoscopic days of DRM, where the technology simply isn't advanced enough to allow for truly delicate and refined uses. DRM in this era basically acts like a blunt instrument or a gigantic scar across the content of your digital media -- not because companies want to prevent you from enjoying your media (certainly no more than 1970's surgeons enjoyed giving people massive abdominal scars), but because that's just the state of the art of the process today.

Pixar/Disney/Apple's DRM on WALL-E shows what a laparoscopic DRM might look like -- with confidence that only authorized purchasers are using the special feature of the DVD, you can now put that DVD on multiple different devices perfectly legally. More to the point, you don't have to figure out how to do that -- the content distributor has done that for you, as a way of differentiating that media from other media in the marketplace. People clearly want to enjoy their media in multiple formats -- that's why the DRM opponents' arguments are at least partly valid -- so media companies want to provide that flexibility, just not at the expense of swallowing a digital tapeworm (which is the only current alternative if you decide you don't want the scar of DRM on your media).

Perhaps some day (though hopefully not as long as the 24th century), DRM will be nearly invisible, allowing people who've purchased the right to do so the ability to port media to unlimited different formats and platforms. For today, though, the existing DRM is what we have.

You might think, as long as I'm being an apologist for Apple, the RIAA and MPAA, and any other group that wants to restrict 'digital freedoms', let me also say that I think that the 'pirates' who specialize in breaking technological encryption and DRM schemes are in fact doing more good than harm. They're not entirely blameless, given that the focus of new DRM systems tends to be more on how to make the systems more difficult for pirates to defeat rather than on how to make them more accessible to more media platforms and formats. But still, if the pirates simply gave up tomorrow and surrendered to a specific flavor of DRM, there would be far less motivation for existing content distributors to invest in new DRM systems. Given that the pirates see themselves as heroes, though (much as Doctorow and the Electronic Frontier Foundation do), I expect that I'll tweak a few noses by saying that, rather than being heroes, they're really no more than a necessary evil in the larger story of the development of better and better types of DRM. (And if you want to go after me for the use of the term 'pirate' in describing these technologists, let me remind you that the aforementioned Jobs flew a pirate flag over the building at Apple Computer where the first Macintosh was being developed -- it's not just a pejorative term of art in this discussion.)

Though given Anderson's quote at the top of this essay, DRM opponents and pirates don't have to actually win the fight against DRM to be gratified by their role in the fight. So in effect, we all get what we want out of the process in the end.

Setting Sun

In the mid-1990's, when the Internet was just beginning to expand from the domain of tech-literate nerds, I got into an argument with a friend about the similarities between Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems. His premise was that Apple and Sun were very similar companies, but that Sun had a more viable forward-going business plan, and that Apple would be doomed if they didn't adapt their own business plan to be more like Sun's.

Fast-forward to November of 2008: Apple, Inc. (the company dropped the 'Computer' from their name during 2007) continues to see extremely strong sales of its flagship Macintosh computer, while Sun Microsystems seems locked in a death spiral, having lost over 95% of its stock value from its Internet-bubble peak, and being the subject of seemingly weekly speculative articles about which other tech giant will step in and snap up the struggling company (or not).

How did we get here? And why was my friend so wrong in his prediction? To understand the present, it helps to look back at the past -- in this case the distant past of the 1980s.

The Internet as we think of it today didn't exist back then, but computers were still fairly common, if not quite as ubiquitous as today. The two most commonly seen computer lines, both in homes and in schools, were built by two different companies: Commodore Business Machines (whose PET became popular in schools after its introduction in 1977; the Commodore 64, introduced in 1982, was more popular in homes), and Apple Computer (whose Apple II line, also introduced in 1977, seemed equally popular in homes and schools). It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to suggest that the people who built the Internet largely grew up on Apple and Commodore machines (though other models, such as Radio Shack's TRS-80, had their proponents).

A trio of Stanford University computer students founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 after one of them, Andy Bechtolsheim, developed the SUN1 workstation from spare parts as a graduate project (SUN, at least with respect to that computer, stood for Stanford University Network). Apple, under the direction of founder Steve Jobs, developed the Macintosh during this period, releasing it for sale in 1984. (In the first of a number of similarities between the two companies, both companies' computers ran on Motorola 68xxx processors.)

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, both companies found additional innovations that contributed to additional success for each. For Apple, the introduction of Macintosh System 7, which allowed Apple to increase their dominance of the desktop publishing market, combined with the introduction of the first PowerBook in 1991, one of the earliest and most popular 'laptop' computers (as opposed to the luggage-sized 'portable' computers of the 1980s) allowed Apple to surge into what some observers would call their first 'golden age'.

Sun's innovation, meanwhile, would not come from within, but from without -- in 1989, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee had proposed a system of linked documents over a computer network and even developed a prototype of how that system would function, in effect, developing the first web server. (Ironically, Berners-Lee used hardware and software produced by NeXT, the company founded by Steve Jobs after he was ousted from Apple in 1985.) While Sun continued to produce workstation-class machines (the company's stock symbol during this period -- SUNW -- stood for Sun Workstations, after all), the company also aggressively pursued a place in the emerging market for server-class machines, and successfully became one of the best-known server hardware manufacturers of the time.

Sun still employed a number of very smart computer engineers, however, and in 1991, one engineer began a project which would ultimately be released to the public in 1996 as Java, a new programming language that intended to be platform-agnostic (the philosophy behind the language, 'write once, run anywhere', was very popular with the nerd-crowd). By this time, the Internet was beginning to take the world by storm, and the two companies, superficially very similar**, were moving in very different directions -- Sun was selling servers as fast as they could manufacture them, while Apple was struggling with the baggage of their legacy workstation-centric operating system and trying (and failing) to update it with internal re-invention projects.

** - Both Apple and Sun derived the lions' share of their revenue from hardware sales, but by late 1996-early 1997, both companies were arguably far better known for their flagship software products -- MacOS and Java, respectively -- than for their hardware. In addition, both companies were seen as hardware specialists -- Apple in desktop publishing and to a lesser degree in education, Sun in server hardware -- though both also had designs on a broader base of hardware sales. Lastly, both were seen as competitors of Microsoft Corporation, despite the fact that Microsoft was not itself a hardware company -- MacOS was seen as a direct rival to Microsoft's Windows operating system, while Java was seen as a product that could eventually make operating systems like Windows (and MacOS) obsolete.

It was at this time that my friend and I had our argument, and while his side of the argument continued to look good for about another five years, in the end his side of the discussion fell apart due to nothing more complicated than an unwillingness to think beyond the current business cycle. In fact, by the end of 1996, the seeds of both companies' 2008 fortunes had already been planted -- it would simply take time for each set of seeds to bear fruit.

Apple's did so first (if you'll pardon the labored analogy). By the end of 1996, Steve Jobs had returned to Apple when then-CEO Gil Amelio decided to purchase NeXT to acquire the NeXT operating system with the intent of using that OS as the core for the new Macintosh operating system. By mid-1997, Amelio had been removed as CEO and Jobs was back, and just over a year later, Apple released the product that would signal the beginning of their comeback: the iMac. Jobs also cancelled projects that Amelio and former CEO Michael Spindler had initiated to make Apple look similar to other PC manufacturers, including a period where Apple agreed to license the Macintosh OS to third-party hardware vendors.

Sun's failure at first looked like success, as the continued Internet Boom led to massive sales of Sun Microsystem's server hardware, driving up Sun's stock price to about $250 per share. Seeing the momentum building behind their Java programming language, Sun used their profitable server hardware business to bankroll the development and maturation of the Java language, and though the company did not choose to give away ownership of the Java language, they committed to the concept of 'open source' software (though they also continued to be the expert and made most of the significant advances and improvements to the language).

By 2001, it was clear that both companies fortunes had reversed -- Apple had released MacOS X, the 'modern' operating system the company had been trying to develop for nearly a decade in different projects and flavors (Copland, Rhapsody, etc.). Apple also opened their first retail stores, ending a long-time practice of serving as supplier to small, expensive 'boutique'-style proprietors. (Apple had already opened their online store back in 1997 when the iMac was released.) Steve Jobs buried the hatchet with Microsoft, long seen as an Apple competitor, by setting long-standing lawsuits with Microsoft and announcing a partnership where Microsoft would agree to continue to produce Microsoft Office for MacOS in exchange for $150 million in investment capital. Last, but obviously not least, Apple introduced the iPod -- seen by longtime technology pundits as 'just another MP3 player', the iPod did what previous models didn't: establish a default brand and configuration in the minds of non-tech-savvy consumers, turning Apple from a commodity tech hardware company into a true consumer electronics company.

Sun, meanwhile, was just beginning to see hardship. The sudden deflation of the Internet Bubble hit Sun's hardware sales hard, as companies that had purchased large 'farms' of brand-new Sun servers declared bankruptcy and sold those same servers for pennies on the dollar to budget-conscious rivals. Unlike Apple, Sun embraced the role of Microsoft antagonist, not just via Java (which was the source of another large number of lawsuits brought against Microsoft), but through Sun's acquisition of the StarOffice office productivity suite to serve as a direct competitor to Microsoft's other flagship product, Microsoft Office. Lastly, Sun's market position as a server vendor was beginning to be challenged by competitors which a much more focused hardware strategy, specifically IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.

Since 2005, my friend's argument has been strangely inverted, with Sun beginning to perform actions that Apple was doing or had already done in an attempt to remain profitable. Sun settled its long-standing legal arguments with Microsoft, supplanted its proprietary SPARC-based workstations and servers with products using Intel Corporation's CPUs, and even began aggressively seeking new markets to enter. Unfortunately, the company has had just a handful of profitable quarters since that time and, as noted above, has been hemorrhaging money and stock value so badly that many think that Sun is ripe for a takeover bid. Yet the most significant thing of value left in Sun's portfolio, the Java programming language, was simply given away by company executives in late 2006 when they chose to license the language and related code under the terms of the GNU Public License. Though Sun may have intended to prevent Java from being swallowed up and buried by a hostile takeover, the reality is that even Sun, the creators of Java, will now have difficulty turning a profit from it.

The two companies have one final, interesting similarity -- as of mid-2007, the two companies had very similar numbers of employees: Apple employed approximately 32,000 workers, while Sun reported having just over 33,000 employees. The similarity ends there, however -- Sun's 33,000 workers produced just $13.8 billion in revenue in 2007, and $408 million in profit over the same period, while Apple, with fewer employees, generated $32.48 billion in revenue and $4.83 billion in profits during the same period. In the first quarter of 2008, Sun posted a loss of $1.68 billion dollars, while Apple posted a record $1.58 billion profit over the same period.

The two companies are once again rapidly moving in opposite directions, and this time, it is Sun that looks like the company on the road to oblivion.

Prejudice -- By the Numbers

So apparently you can now download a video podcast of the entire Rachel Maddow show, complete with no commercial interruptions. That's just five different kinds of awesome in a nice tasty blend, but that's not the subject of this note. It was while watching Maddow's first podcasted show that I stumbled across a statistic that floored me -- exit polls suggesting that approximately 70% of African-American voters in California voted in favor of the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8. As anyone who knows me can tell you, once I get ahold of one interesting number, I like to juggle it up with some other interesting numbers, and as it turns out, this is one really interesting number. Let's start by saying, in order to keep the examples easier, that nine in ten African-American voters in California voted for Barack Obama for President. (That's probably a bit on an underestimation, as exit polling suggests that about 94% of African-American voters in California voted for Obama, but as you'll see, underestimating this percentage won't change the conclusion.) Using a very simple statistical formula, if you know the percentage of one thing that happened, and you know the percentage of another thing that happened, you can determine the percentages of those two things happening together, assuming those two things are independent. For instance, let's matrix up the Obama vote among California blacks:

   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   0
1  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
2  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
3  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
4  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
5  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
6  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
7  x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   .
8  #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   +
9  #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   +
0  #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   #   +

The horizontal axis here represents the percentage of votes for Obama, while the vertical represents the percentage of votes for Prop 8. Each different marker, thus, represents one of the four possible outcomes: x - voted for Obama and in favor of Prop 8 (63) # - voted for Obama and against Prop 8 (27) . - voted for McCain and in favor of Prop 8 (7) + - voted for McCain and against Prop 8 (3) The total adds to 100, as you'd expect. What you wouldn't expect is that a significant majority of African-American voters who voted for Obama also appear to have voted in favor of Prop 8. Of course, it's not that simple -- I say 'appear to have voted in favor' because it's clearly not the case that these two outcomes are independent, as they would need to be for the numbers to be completely valid. All you have to do is look at the exit poll data for yourself to realize that support for Prop 8 wasn't exactly the same across party lines. But here's the thing that makes the numbers interesting -- let's say we tweak the numbers so that every McCain voter voted against the amendment. That allows us to change those three + votes into . votes, but it also messes up our original assumption, because now more than 70% of African-American voters are supporting Prop 8. To put the accounting right, we have to change three supporting votes for Obama to non-supporting votes, which then allows us to move three x votes into the # vote column, and leaves us with this: x - voted for Obama and in favor of Prop 8 (60) # - voted for Obama and against Prop 8 (30) . - voted for McCain and in favor of Prop 8 (10) Now the original assumptions are back in place, but we've still got African-American Obama supporters voting 2-to-1 in favor of the amendment. Unfortunately, there's no more juggling that can be done with the numbers -- unless you want to argue that the exit polls are simply wrong, this result is fairly close to the reality of the voting on this issue. (Two other points. Perhaps you can now see why underestimating African-American support for Obama wouldn't change the outcome, because now, for every voter we've identified as a McCain voter who actually voted for Obama, we can't actually change how they voted on Prop 8, and we're assuming *every* McCain voter voted for Prop 8. Changing McCain to Obama votes now only increases the margin of support for Prop 8 among Obama voters. Also, our assumption that every McCain voter voted in favor of Prop 8 is actually less realistic than our assumption that the support was identical by party affiliation -- while the same exit polls show that 64% of Democrats voted against the amendment, only 82% of Republicans said they voted for it. If that breakdown is similar to the breakdown among African-American voters for Obama and McCain, then again, we're identifying fewer Obama voters who voted for the amendment using our quick-and-dirty method than actually exist.) One more chart, for the benefit of those preparing to argue that white voters also voted in favor of Prop 8, which is absolutely true. For this chart, we'll assume that 60% of white voters voted for Obama, and that 60% voted in favor of Prop 8. To further show the case for racial equality, we'll use the same legend as in the charts above:

   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   0
1  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
2  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
3  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
4  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
5  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
6  x   x   x   x   x   x   .   .   .   .
7  #   #   #   #   #   #   +   +   +   +
8  #   #   #   #   #   #   +   +   +   +
9  #   #   #   #   #   #   +   +   +   +
0  #   #   #   #   #   #   +   +   +   +

x - voted for Obama and in favor of Prop 8 (36) # - voted for Obama and against Prop 8 (24) . - voted for McCain and in favor of Prop 8 (24) + - voted for McCain and against Prop 8 (16) Again, we know that these two positions are not truly independent, and that more than 60% of Republican voters voted in favor of the amendment. If we assume that the percentage of McCain voters in favor of Prop 8 is closer to 80% (as noted above), then we can move half of the 'against' votes into the 'for' category, and to balance the scales, move the same number of Obama voters from 'for' to 'against', leaving us with this: x - voted for Obama and in favor of Prop 8 (28) # - voted for Obama and against Prop 8 (32) . - voted for McCain and in favor of Prop 8 (32) + - voted for McCain and against Prop 8 (8) We now have a slight majority of white Obama voters voting against Prop 8. If you take into account that the actual percentage of white voters supporting Obama in California was closer to 50% than 60% (51%, according to this same exit poll), it becomes clear that white voters seemed more likely to vote against Prop 8 than to vote for Obama, which might be construed as prejudice in the opposite direction. The difference, however, isn't nearly as dramatic as that for the African-American voters noted above. Again, these are really just quick-and-dirty estimates based on one set of exit polls, and might not actually reflect the underlying reality. It would certainly be easy enough to simply dismiss the poll as flawed. The next question, for someone of a scientific mind, would be to ask if there is additional data that can either confirm or refute the hypothesis suggested by this data: that California African-American voters appeared significantly more prejudiced against gays and lesbians than their white voting counterparts in the 2008 election cycle.