Random Thoughts

I subscribe to the RSS feeds from Lifehack and I came across some good tips. One that was of value to me was their post on procrastinaton . The writer suggests that procrastinators should persistently ask themselves this one question. “What’s the best thing you could be working on, and why aren’t you?” l could not agree more. I am already practicing that piece of advice and it might shame me into doing "the best think I could be working on right now" and that is certainly not blogging. See ye!

According to this NY Times article , there is a consistent correlation between people's religious standings and their positive self-control. I have always suspected that, as have many others, but it is always nice to have your suspicions confirmed scientifically. Why is this correlation of much interest to me? Well, I have self-control and discipline problems that could really use a solution. I am not religious but I may choose to be "extrinsically religious" if that could help. ... That idea, while intriguing is not something I will pursue for many reasons. It takes a certain kind of wiring to be religious and I don't have that. I am (or have become) a rather mechanical and less spiritual person which makes it difficult to engage full-heartedly in anything that has a spiritual dimension. I will keep thinking though ...

I was reading Andrew Sullivan's article "Why I Blog" and started rethinking my approach to blogging. It is not so much rethinking as much as being inspired to adapt a more spontaneous and less polished style. Andrew links to another blogger's advice: Farhad Manjoo has a guide to blogging. He spoke with Ambers: ...the best way to stick to a blogging schedule is to write quickly, and a good way to write quickly is to write as if you're talking to a friend. Marc Ambinder, the political-news maven at the Atlantic, told me, "I've found that I tend to write the way I speak. Short, staccato sentences, lots of parentheticals. That annoys purists, but it's uniquely my own voice, and I think it helps to build a connection with the reader." Also remember that your readers want you to get to the point. "Be clear, not cryptic," Salmon says. "Blog readers have neither the time nor the inclination to read between the lines; blogs aren't l

The death of one Wal-Mart worker on Black Friday has created quite a bit of outrage everywhere . May be the media is depicting the reaction as worse than it really is. May be the current economic struggles all over the U.S. (and the world) make the story resonate more strongly with everyone. What I want to say is that people are overreacting to this incident. They are creating storylines that are not there. This is not the first time someone has been trampled to death by crowds. Hundreds of Muslims die each year during their annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Many Hindus die under similar circumstances (even though I can't produce links right this moment). I would guess quite a few sports fans die in sports stadiums. Quite conceivably, more than a handful of people die worldwide trying to compete for bargain deals in stores. So, why people (perhaps just the media) attribute so much symbolism and significance to the death of one Black Friday shopper is beyond me.

According to Typealyzer which analyzes blogs and gives a psychological profile of the main contributor, I am the mechanistic type. They could not be more right on the attuned-to-demands-of-the-moment part but totally wrong in suggesting that I am the fun-and-adventure-seeking policeman or firefighter. I am not sure if I should take their characterization as a compliment or an insult. ISTP - The Mechanics The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters. Analysis This show what parts of the brain that were dominant duri

Anyone using VMware on a Linux host knows that keeping VMware working after every kernel upgrade is rarely a picnic. So, my problems with VMware 5.5 on Kubuntu 8.10 host were expected. My usual route to solving VMware google for tips and patches. This time, none of those tips quite helped. So, I decided to upgrade the free VMware Player I was using (v. 2.0.4) to the latest version (v. 2.5). Much to my surprise, the new VMware Player bundle has some engine that fixes the usual issues with compiling kernels modules for VMware. The simple solution I just reported has not been posted anywhere on the web as far as I know. So, let me share that nugget free of charge to my readership of one. Just upgrade to the latest VMware player and it might make everything work.

This is probably the most controversial piece I have written here to date. My observation is that African-Americans, despite being victims of racism and bigotry throughout their history, have shown to have views that promote social injustice in recent memory. Cases in point - racial profiling in post-9/11 world and their support for Proposition-8 in California. Racial Profiling in Post-2001 world: Right after the 9/11 tragedy, the U.S. as a whole was very fearful of all Arabs and Muslims. Ordinary Arab-Americans were being arrested and subject to detention and interrogation due to the suspicion that they may have links to terrorist organizations. The U.S. population was split on the legality and morality of the blatant racial profiling against Arab-Americans in the U.S. "According to a Gallup poll conducted shortly after 9/11, 71 percent of blacks, and 57 percent of whites, supported racial profiling of Arabs and South Asians at airport security checkpoints." [3] Con

... Don't worry- I am not about to become the billionth person to dispense advice to Barack Obama. I am here to ridicule those billion-minus-one people before me. As an Obama supporter, I am ecstatic about his victory on November 4th and I am much more optimistic and hopeful about the future of the U.S. and the world with him in charge. What I find strange (or at least noteworthy) is how every one seems so eager to give advice to the president-elect. This is the third U.S. presidential election I am witnessing and I don't remember so many people having so much to share with the president elect. Why? Here are many possible explanations: Many people contributed to his campaign financially (3.1+ million for $600+ million as of beginning of October 2008) and they feel they have earned the right to give advice. People are really engaged because of the gravity of the country's problems. The U.S. is at a critical junction and its citizens are anxious. They are trying to com

It's time Oct 30th 2008 From The Economist print edition America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world ... For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead. ... _________________________________________ The New York Times endorsed Obama, as did The Chicago Tribune and The LA Times . Next up, The Wall Street Journal ??? It would be not be beyond the realm of possibility

I have become quite fond of EnviroInks.com , a company that sells aftermarket printer cartridges in an environmentally friendly way, at less than half the price you would pay for them elsewhere. They reuse the empty cartridges you send them back and they give you recycle credit that you could use on your next purchase. Plus, every shipment includes multiple bags so that you can send them old cartridges and cellphones. I love the company for its overall business model. I have had little interaction with their customer service but I suspect it is pretty awesome. Before I forget, let me put my full endorsement of EnviroInks.

... and ME.

In January 2008, I remember people in the U.S. freaking out about Merrill Lynch and Citigroup being buoyed by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East. Obviously, people had predictably turned paranoid and protectionist at a time when it was assumed that there were options that would not jeopardize American national interests. Of course, these events give the already anxious and fearful population more of a reason to think America is declining. I personally found it ironic that these sovereign wealth funds are allowed to finance the U.S. federal deficit, but people get outraged when these same funds invest in iconic American institutions like Merrrill Lynch. Anyway, the public is fairly ignorant about these issues, so the reaction is not all that surprising. What I wanted to raise in this post is how the American public would react if sovereign wealth funds jumped in to rescue the American financial system instead of the U.S. government reluctantly passing a $700+ bi

Obama and McCain had at one point both agreed to take public financing in September 2007 if they were their respective party's nominee. At the time, they were both long shots to get their party's nomination, but oddly enough they have both made it to the general election. As for their promise to take public financing, McCain decided to keep his promise while Obama opted to finance his campaign through his own fundraising. In doing so, he became the first ever presidential candidate to forego public financing during the general election. In February 2008, McCain started criticizing Obama for not keeping his promise to take public financing. How legitimate are McCain's accusations? That's what I wanted to discuss. According to The New York Times campaign finance page , Obama and McCain raised $401m and ~$150m, respectively, prior to earning their party's nomination. The public financing package is $84m over two months (Sept-Nov). For McCain, whose averaged $7.

In my previous posts, I have argued that democrats have simply been better stewards of the economy in the past, particularly in the last 60 years. Tax-and-spend Liberal My Ass Politics of the Federal Minimum Wage Democrats Have Kept Unemployment Low Democrats care about poor people Truth About Economic Performance of Political Parties In this post, I will discuss a recent graphic that further consolidates the view that the US economy has performed better under democratic presidents than republican ones. As I have noted before, there are many factors that affect the performance of the US economy aside from who is in the White House. Those factors notwithstanding, the whole narrative of a good economy under democratic administrations had been consistently true. Tommy McCall provided a stark graphic at The New York Times called Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants . In there, he compares the performance of the stock market (S&P 90 * S&P 500) during Democratic and Republica

What annoys me most about the presidential campaign is how every candidate and surrogate dumbs down everything to a few campaign talking points. The very intelligent candidates and highly accomplished surrogates never answer real questions and always choose to revert to their stump speeches. That would be acceptable in a Third World nation with a literacy rate of 50%, but not in America. The dumbing down is an insult to the highly engaged and worried public that is looking for solutions.

During times of great economic crisis and debate, the opinions of economists are as important as any other groups. The Economist did a great service to its readers by surveying as many prominent economists as they could and here is what they found out. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither . This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject. A candidate’s economic expertise may matter rather less if he surrounds himself with clever advisers. Unfortunately for Mr McCain, 81% of all respondents reckon Mr Obama is more likely to do that ; among unaffiliated respondents, 71% say so. On our o

Barack Obama has been my candidate of choice from the beginning. I have outlined a few of the reasons I support him . One I didn't mention is the issue of foreign aid. As I discussed earlier, US government's foreign aid as a % of its GDP is one of the lowest for any developed nation. Economic Aid to Developing Countries - The Stats To make it worse, much of the aid is given to two sources: Military and economic aid to Israel and Egypt to keep some peace in the Middle East Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to fight drug The tiny bit that is left goes to countries where the US has foreign policy interests. The aid is used for political leverage. Here is where Barack Obama comes into the picture. He has said that diplomacy and restoration of American image in the world would be the pillars of his foreign policy. One way to improve America's image in the world is to provide more foreign aid, particularly one that is not directly used for political leveraging. Obama promised

This is a continuation of my earlier posts on economic performance of democratic and republican administrations. My earlier posts include: Politics of the Federal Minimum Wage Democrats Have Kept Unemployment Low Democrats care about poor people Truth About Economic Performance of Political Parties I like to think I have shed light on some facts and debunked some conventional wisdom. In this post, I will attempt to examine the tax-and-spend liberal label put on democrats. Republicans often try to label democrats as tax-and-spend liberals who are soft on national security. While the latter point is based on anecdotal evidence, the earlier is amenable to empirical examination. So, I set out to prove or disprove the notion that democrats often tax and spend in a way that does not yield economic growth. The implication of tax-and-spend liberal is one that puts excessive tax burden on its population and finds inefficient (think socialistic) ways of spending that tax reven

In my previous post, I tried to test my theory that democrats care about poor people than republicans by looking at the change in federal minimum wage under democratic and republican presidents. It is somewhat difficult to prove or disprove my theory graphically, so I prepared a little spreadsheet and calculated real numbers. While I was at it, I decided to factor in the role of Congress in determining the federal minimum wage. The results are as follows. It is important to get a general feel for the extent to which the two parties have controlled the executive (president) and legislative (Senate and House) branches of the government. As the pie chart below shows, Democrats have controlled Congress for a lot longer than the Republicans, while Republican presidents have ruled a little bit longer. SOURCE: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm Next item to look at is government control by president, Senate and House majority. The Democrats have ruled t

According to unemployment statistics from 1950-2005, democratic presidents have consistently managed to achieve low unemployment rates while republicans have increased unemployment. Granted there are circumstances that are out of a president's control like Wars, global conditions, natural disasters Congress might have been controlled by a party different from the president to push his agenda The factors above notwithstanding, it amazes me how republicans can claim good stewardship of the economy while they have generally failed to provide people with jobs. The democrats, on the other hand, have kept unemployment low during their administrations. The more I learn about the post-WWII economic history of the U.S., the more I realize how the republican party is the party of fraud and myths, at least when it comes to the economic record.

I think democrats care about the poor and middle class much more than republicans do. Lots of their policies this year are intended to provide relief to a struggling middle class families. I would like to compile tangible proof that democrats care about the struggling and down-and-out. The first case I wanted to look at was federal minimum wages during democratic and republican administrations. During the past seven years, a republican president and congress have blocked some 14 attempts to increase the federal minimum wage. Fortunately, they lost their control of congress in 2006 and were forced into passing law increasing minimum wage from the decade long $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr over the course of a few years. The battle for federal minimum wage increases got me thinking about previous battles of its kind. So, I looked into the all-knowing Wikipedia for stats and I found this : Since my interests were particularly partisan, I looked into how much minimum wage changed under democra

... if you look at racial composition of the delegates at their convention. According to The New York Times , their delegates were overwhelmingly white and male. According to polls of delegates conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, 93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic , roughly the same as at other recent Democratic conventions. The poll also found that men accounted for 68 percent of Republican delegates (compared with 57 percent in 2004) and about half the Democratic delegates. I suspected this just anecdotally from inspecting the crowds on TV. Democratic delegates represent the demographic of the country extremely well while republicans are overwhelmingly homogeneous. I decided to compare these numbers with the general

I always wondered whether the stereotypes of democrats as tax-and-spend liberals and republicans as efficient, fiscally responsible, small government republicans had any truth. Now, I have found the real answer from a variety of sources. First, Jacques Distler a physicist from the University of Texas at Austin evaluates how fiscally conservative democratic and republican administrations have been and what kind of GDP growth they have been able to achieve. He gets into the nuances, but I prefer to present just the summary here. 1. Fiscal Budget Deficits Contrary to the notion that democrats are not fiscally responsible, it is the republicans who consistently put this country deeper and deeper into debt. How this stereotype holds in the presence of such overwhelming data astounds me. It is simply astonishing for such myths to persist. 2. GDP Growth Once again, democratic administrations consistently outperform periods of republican rule in terms of GDP growth by 1%+/year. That is

After McCain picked a relatively unqualified and inexperienced Sarah Palin, many people gasped at the possibility of Palin having to take over the presidency in case something happens to McCain. I think McCain dying in office is overstated considering he appears healthy and fit despite the recurrence of a malignant melanoma. Plus, he has been getting great healthcare due to his status and will continue to do so whether or not he wins the presidency. That said, it would be nice to get numbers on chances of McCain's survival as a function of his age. Thankfully, that information was provided by Alex Burns at Politico . The odds of a 72-year-old man living four more years, or one full White House term, are better. But for a man who has lived 72 years and 67 days (McCain’s age on Election Day this year), there is between a 14.2 and 15.1 percent chance of dying before Inauguration Day 2013 , according to the Social Security Administration’s 2004 actuarial tables and the authoritati

Check out the Google Trends for the VP choices McCain was considering. MITT ROMNEY TIM PAWLENTY TOM RIDGE Then look at Palin's. SARAH PALIN Apparently, there has been little to no interest or knowledge of her until McCain named her his VP.

As the reasons for rejecting Palin's VP candidacy mount, I went looking for unusual pictures and this is what I found. She is indeed more of he same . Sorry, I couldn't resist. One interesting point is Sarah Palin being MIA from the public scene since her introduction to the national stage. I think she is so unqualified to hold her own in the national stage that she is hiding somewhere cramming McCain's policies and talking points into memory. It is shameful that McCain would select someone so unfit and unqualified for this stage. Another interesting development is McCain campain's attempt to turn the population against the media's coverage of Palin. Her many flaws and lack of qualification which apparently were not vetted by the McCain campaign are becoming public, thanks to the media. But McCain's campaign is crying liberal media bias, which is real, but totally justified in this case. Standing on the platform that Hillary Clinton built, the McCain campai

As in, can she withdraw from the race for one reason or another, making way for McCain to choose someone else? I don't intend to read the rule books to figure that out, but it should be something McCain might have to consider for many reasons. If she does withdraw her VP candidacy, she probably will need to do it before accepting her party's nomination in their convention in a few days. That is unlikely, so this whole post is a futile exercise. Nevertheless, I would like to list the many reasons Palin is the wrong choice for McCain. Her apparent inexperience in anything non-Alaskan - She has demonstrated that she has no clue about international affairs. Over the last year, she has admitted that she pays little attention to national and international issues because she is too busy governing Alaska. Untested nationally - She has not been tested on the national stage like Romney and Huckabee. Making the transition from being a 20-month governor of a state with a population

I occasionally collect funny cartoons and pictures. Here are a few of mu favorites. Please don't sue me for not giving the rightful creators credit. For now, I hope the mere disclosure that I have no artistic or comic abilities and that I couldn't come up with anything this funny in a lifetime is going to have to suffice. This is what comes to mind when I hear the many job titles I see people have. Is so much overhead and organization needed for the world to function? Apparently it is. Part of me still thinks a lot of those middlemen could be weeded out to create a more efficient system. But then, what do I know about the real world? Not much. Classic. Not much more to say. While I am from the blogging generation, I never had a penchant for online warfare. Unfortunately, here are lots of people who love online flame wars. Anyway, it could be worse. Harmless online warfare pales in comparison to real life warfare. Trust me, compiler. SEGFAULTs are not go

PROBLEM: Audacious on K/Ubuntu Doesn't play my mp3s:: On my kubuntu 8.04.1 audacious is not playing any audiofile. I've tried to run my mp3s with amarok and it works. Also audacity is playing mp3s. SOLUTION: Click on Preferences in Audacious; Select Audio Tab; Set the 'cCurrent output plugin' to 'aRts output plugin'. __________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: File associations in Firefox 3.0 disappear in Kubuntu SOLUTION: Install firefox-3.0-gnome-support . . . more to come

The state of IT business/jobs in the US is quite confusing. You have got two points of view and it is becoming very hard to either reconcile them or choose the more realistic view. The Optimist's View On one side, you have those who claim that it is an information age and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So, the demand for IT workers would grow along with their wages. BusinessWeek says technology (including IT) is where the jobs are . It says that the number of tech grad is declining while the economy keeps creating more and more tech jobs. The result would be a rich IT job market for new grads and veterans alike. What does all this mean? There's still a labor shortage in tech. And if you took Economics 101, you know that's good news for paychecks. Already, tech wages are 87% higher, on average, than in the rest of the private-sector job market. Tech wages are also growing faster, by an average of 4% a year—double the 2% reported for private industry as a whol

NBC and Microsoft have formed an intricate partnership in which Microsoft serves to expand and maintain NBC's presence in the online news and entertainment market while promoting its products. NBC online integrates many of Microsoft's products. MSNBC is co-owned by GE's NBC universal and Microsoft. I have no problem with the partnership, except for the way Microsoft pushes people to use Microsoft products while other alternatives do just as well or better. Let me provide some examples. You can't access NBC online videos unless you have a Windows media plugin. What about using Flash like everybody else. If you want to access Olympics games online at NBC Olympics, you better be using a Windows or a Mac because Microsoft does not have a Linux version of the Silverlight plugin that it is pushing hard in competition with Adobe Flash, the industry standard. Suppose you are using Windows, you pay a huge penalty for not using Internet Explorer!! Try watching videos with In

According to Political Calculations , one of my favorite blogs, the likelihood of you earning the federal minimum wage or less decrease consistently with your age. While 21.6% of 16-19 year olds make below the federal minimum wage, that number declines to 1.4% for those who are older than 65. On top of that, you could be cashing in Social Security checks while having most of your medical expenses covered by MediCare. Your 401(k) and IRA could also be yielding a nice supplemental income too. While you are at it, you can use reverse mortgage to generate extra income on your home. Boy, getting old doesn't sound so bad afterall.

I found this interesting graph on The Economist . For some reason, it is difficult to find data on salaries and revenues of European soccer leagues, teams and players. On the contrary, similar data is readily available for American professional sports leagues. As a big Serie A fan, I am disheartened to see the Italian league losing out on the revenue race. Serie A is not only trailing in terms of money, but also talent and level of competition. The English Premier League and Spanish La Liga are clearly the best in Europe with Serie A being third. Despite the large revenue, the German Bundasliga is probably a distant fourth. Why is that? My suspicion is that Germany does not have the appeal of an Italy or Spain. May be the fact that Bayern Munich is leaps and bounds above all the other lubs in Bundasliga has had an adverse effect on the league as a whole. In England, you have four teams( Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal) always closely competing for the top spot.

Does cost always correlate with quality? That would obviously depends on the commodity in question. People have researched this topic as it pertains to water(bottled vs. tap, bottled vs. bottled) , wine , and vodka . Blind tastings for water, vodka and wine have largely concluded that the average person can't detect the difference between most cheap and expensive brands. The answer to whether expensive wine, vodka, and bottled water are really better has been an emphatic no. But, the mere thought of drinking something expensive elicits a better sense of enjoyment. Of course, connoisseurs have developed a more refined taste for what is good and what is not. But for the average Joe, expensive=better is simply a placebo effect. I am a heavy coffee drinker and I have evaluated whether my preference for certain Starbucks blends over generic brands (Folgers, Maxwell House ...) was real or an object of my imagination. It turns out it is real. I can tell apart generic brands from

During the housing bubble from 2001-2006, the vacancy for rental properties went up from about 8% to 10% as people chose buying over renting. With the large number of foreclosures and tight credit markets, more people are wisely renting homes instead of buying. Once the inflated home values drop to their intrinsic prices, I expect people to start buying homes again. Of course, the economy and job market would have to be healthy and credit would have to be available

Most people remember the Dot-Com bubble of the 1990s that peaked in 2000 before bursting in 2001-2003. Considering how the NASDAQ composite lost more than 60% of its value by 2001 alone, the country was about to go into a recession. The 9/11 attacks made things worse too. As the impact of 9/11 and Dot-Com bust were about to pull the country into a recession, another bubble came to the rescue. It was the housing bubble that deferred a sure recession and kept the US in an era of faux prosperity. It gave Bush a reason to soldier on with flawed economic policies as the housing bubble gave the impression that the good economic progress of the Clinton years were being sustained through Bush's years. This time though, there does not appear to be another bubble ready to bail the US out of the recession it is in. After suffering through the I.T. and housing bubbles in just a decade, I don't think investors and people in general will be adventurous enough to create another bubbl

As I was looking through the Department of Homeland Security's report on refugees and asylees , I came across this amazing plot: What accounts for this huge decline in refugees entering the US? I seriously doubt it is the decline in the number of people seeking refugee protection because the world has had quite a few humanitarian and political crisis. People I talk to tell me that countries like Canada and Australia have been more accommodating of refugees throughout the world with the help of UNHCR. Has the US been reluctant to fully participate in such programs? The explanation given on the report is as follows: 9/11 has certainly had an impact, but the numbers have been declining since the 1990s. Asylum admission , on the other hand, had been rising in the 1990s and declining since 2001. Number of people granted asylum in the US is now half the number of those given refugee status. In the 1990s, the ratio of refugees to asylees was much larger. I will certainly tr

I am going to start posting interesting graphs from the web and discuss them in a new section called GRAPHS. The first installment comes from The Economist . Boy, Americans have not felt great about their country's direction for most of the last 8 years. The current economic crisis which could easily last for another two years will only add to people's blues. I think a possible Obama presidency could give this country a mild jolt of happiness and optimism. But, as long as this country remains mired in its unsustainable ways, the blues are here to stay.

I found some data on the market share of OS 's, browsers , and search engines by the major players. I was particularly interested in the market share of Linux in the OS realm. The data is collected using web hits for the month of June 2008. First the OS data. Operating Systems Assuming the data is reliable, it is surprising that Linux's market share is less than 1%. Considering how much more user-friendly Linux has become, the many distros that are available for people's choosing, and the great stability Linux has achieved, it is disappointing to see it failing to make serious inroads. May be vendors need to provide customers the option of buying machines with Linux pre-installed. Better yet, computer vendors should provide the option of buying a computer without an OS. Search Engines The other piece of data I was curious about is the search engine market shares. Google is clearly the leader and its dominance will probably continue for some time. I expected MSN

The Onion characterizes Bush's tax policy as follows: One would hope McCain and Obama have better policies. As a "number's guy," I wanted to see real numbers showing how the tax proposals of the presidential candidates really look. Luckily, the Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center has crunched the numbers and summarized their findings . For the more graphically-inclined, this picture might help better. 2009 ----------- 2012 The bottomline is that Obama's plan clearly favors helping the poor and middle class while McCain's helps the rich a lot more than it does the poor. If an individual's tax burden is a key factor in determining who people vote for, I can't imagine 80+% of the country voting for McCain over Obama. In plain terms, Obama's plan favors 80+% of the population while McCain's fattens the richest 20%. Those who justify McCain's plan using principles of supply-side economics should realize that there are plenty of instances wher

SuSE 9.2 was my first OS I installed on my laptop 3+ years ago within an hour of getting my much-awaited notebook. SuSE 9.3 lasted me for almost a year before Novell's decision to fork a version of SuSE into the community-supported OpenSuSE. Like most SuSE fans, I tolerated the buggy and unstable nature of OpenSuSE for a short while before ditching it for other distros, particularly Ubuntu. Thus, the announcement of the highly anticipated OpenSuSE 11,0 was a very welcome news. Having played around with OpenSuSE 11.0 for the last five days, I am very convinced that SuSE is back to where it used to be -- leading. Here is a brief review. The installation is very easy and smooth. I performed a network install without a hitch from the TDS mirror in Madison, Wisconsin. YaST doesn't break as easily as it used to. At least it hasn't happened yet. Installing software repositories used to be a pain. One would have to look up the info about the repos and enter it manually. Mos

Obama has been accused of being a flip-flopper for his dubious stands on NAFTA, gun control, FISA, and public campaign financing. I for one don't mind the flip-flopping, if you can call it that. Obama has always claimed to be a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Instead of clinging to very liberal positions to please a narrow base of hardcore activists, he has decided to take more practical positions that will appeal to democrats as well as independents and perhaps disgruntled republicans. If he keeps this pragmatic approach, I think he will get a lot done once he is elected president. Pols in Washington will hopefully learn to take on less partisan and more practical approach to their work as well.

I don't care much for politics and the only reason I blog about it is because I like Barack Obama. Today, I found a side of politics that could appeal to a "numbers guy" like myself. Paul Krugman cited the Poole-Rosenthal-McCarty model to determine how liberal or conservative Obama and McCain really are. Given the general perception that Obama is a big city ultra-liberal and that McCain is a centrist republican, a well-thought model was necessary to substantiate/debunk these perceptions. Instead of defining liberalism and conservatism on the basis of a person's stand on abortion, gun rights, gay rights, ... etc, I want to see a comprehensive study of all economic and social values. That's why I love Poole-Rosenthal-McCarty model. I read that Michael Dukakis' (1988) and John Kerry's (2004) lost in their presidential bids mainly because republicans labeled as elite, liberal, unpatriotic and out-of-touch. Apparently such labels really turn off the Am