Thursday, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer came down with yet another case of foot-in-mouth disease:

"Google is not ahead of us" said Ballmer, "In the area of search specifically, Google would lead."

I'm not sure where he's coming from, but if it has just about anything to do with the internet, then Goodle is ahead of Microsoft:

• Advertising
• Online Applications (Google Apps, Blogger, Google Analytics, etc.)
• Video (YouTube)

It's not like Microsoft doesn't rule the roost with it's other moneymakers like Windows, Office and other PC-based application.  However, to think they are even coming close to competing with offerings like Windows Live is just ridiculous. 

It's one thing to be confident in your current strategy, but to not even be able to see things for what they are is what would make me nervous as a Microsoft employee.  This is the kind of attitude that leads to loss in market share and missing developing opportunities.  Whereas Google tends to purchase innovative companies and strengthen them by bringing them into the fold, Microsoft often seems to try to replicate the success of these innovators, leaving them behind the curve.

It's a dangerous road to travel, even with all that extra capital behind you...

In case you missed it, Bill O'Reilly recently went on a rant about how technology divorces people from people from reality and causes anti-social behavior. Of course, this is coming from the guy who's "no spin zone" regularly demonstrates how out of touch with reality he is himself. We'll just add another tally mark to the board for this one.

But don't you love how these news show yammerers like to jump on the bandwagon of a small minority and then get out their biggest paintbrush to paint the general population with. When I have kids, remind me to block Fox News and CNN so that my kids don't become idiots themselves. Heck, Teletubbies are more educational!

Well, election day has just wrapped up and the nation's leadership for the next few years has been chosen. Now, whether or not the Diebold machines got it right remains to be seen. But it brings me to a point, or set of points about elections, which I'll open with the following statement:

I didn't vote today.

Now, there are several reasons I didn't vote, including not having registered as a Pennsylvania citizen yet (still switching things from Ohio slowly). However, even if I was registered, I'm not certain I would have voted today. The primary reason is simple: there's nobody worth voting for.

I've heard it rumored that one people voted for the person who was most qualified/suited for the position or the person who they thought represented them best. I'm not sure how long ago that was, but in my lifetime the goal has usually been to elect the person who is least corrupt.

Some of this comes from the awful smear campaigns that have become standard fare for an election year. Some of this comes from the great ways that some politicians conduct themselves. Add to that the poor job that most politicians do (especially thanks to Lobbyist influences) and the minimal accountability that they have, and it's no wonder that politics has become so synonymous with corruption.

Then there's the growing frustrations with the current two-party system. While the two parties definitely have their lines drawn, people are beginning to see that the two behave amazingly similar in most cases. A lot of news is made when the House or Senate has a "power shift", but the average person typically sees few changes. It's amazingly frustrating to just watch the system perpetuate as is.

So, basically I've been told that by not voting, I'm not making my voice heard. Well, to me that's the point. I'm not willing to support a candidate that is not worthy of their elected office. In my opinion, it's time to reform the system, and it's not going to be done by playing within the system.

I'm not sure if you've heard about (RED), but it's a project going on combining the efforts of Motorola, American Express, GAP, Emporio Armani, Converse and Apple to help raise money for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS and awareness about the AIDS epidemic. My wife first heard about it with Bono's appearance on Oprah. It's a noble cause that most of these companies are offering special products for, and a portion of the proceeds go to the cause.

However, I think the Apple product missed the boat. About 3 weeks after the new and redesigned iPod Nano's were released, they came out with a Red one for this project. Now, that may not seem like a long time, but for any technophile, 3 weeks after an initial release can be an eternity.

For example, my wife and I had just upgraded her dying iPod Mini to one of the new Nano's about a week after they came out. When she found out about this project, she said to me "If I had know the red ones were coming out, then I would have waited and helped support the cause". I'm sure she's not the only one who feels this way. Essentially, Apple missed supporting the (RED) project with any money from the early adopters. I just feel that's a shame, especially with a project such as this one. If they had planned better, they surely could have done a lot more good.

So, out internet was out at home for more than half the weekend as Comcast was working on transferring our local Adelphia branch to Comcast. We've known it was coming since the sale over the summer, but it was out much longer than expected. Some spotty outages on Thursday, and then from early Sunday morning through at least 9:00AM this morning we had pretty much nothing.

Nothing like a smooth transition.

Hopefully things will be back to normal when I get home from work today.

BTW, does anyone remember what we used computers for before the internet came along?

Well, I submitted a story to ProBlogger's recent "How To" group writing project from my IfJesusHadAWebsite.net site, and to my surprise, it quickly became a hit. I got more Diggs than any other article I've written, and have had more comments than on any other article.

The article?

How To Ineffectively Use Your Church Website

It's a very tongue-in-cheek look at how to drive people away from a church website.

It's a pretty cool feeling to know that people are actually reading and appreciating your work.

With all the money that goes into video games and their next-generation hardware, it's nice to see that PS3 owners will be able to volunteer their gaming units to help process complex calculations over the internet.

PlayStation's serious side: Fighting disease

And it's not only an independent venture, but Sony is helping to make the processing program available to any PS3 owner who wants it. That's really nice to see.

Just doing some browsing today on del.icio.us, and I came across a list of hillarious domain names. This is why it's important to read over your choices again, and then have someone else look at them (Sean Connery from SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy would be a good choice).

I came across an article the other day about a "skin sensing table saw", and decided to check it out because I was curious how it could be done. Not only did I get a good explanation (and a neat video), I also found out about all the struggles of the inventor as he tried to market his innovative safety mechanism in a business more than happy to stick to the status quo.

The article, more accurately titled Man on a Mission, talks about the motivation behind the safeguard, overviews of the development process, and then documents the setbacks faced by inventor Stephen Gass over the past seven years. It's the classic story of a man sticking with an invention he believes in until he sees it come to fruition. Gass still has a ways to go, but the wheels are finally turning thanks to increased government safety regulations/recommendations.

It also shows that anyone can be given the inspiration of innovation, in any field at any time. Just ask the former patent attorney.

I've come across several articles recently that caught my eye about this world of technology we're in:

Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later? from Slashdot takes a brief look at how Big Brother is watching us all today. It does seem like everything is being recorded anymore, but the question has to be "Is anyone ever going to go back and look at it all?".

Photograph Police, Get Arrested from Slashdot has two links to stories about individuals who got arrested after either recording police on home security cameras or taking pictures of public-area police activities on their camera phones. It's kinda scary when the law and police can't even get things straight. But just imagine if these police departments were just as gung-ho about preventing actual crimes!

Craigslist + footballer with a taser = PR Disaster from TechCrunch talks about an electronics "buyer/seller" who has been luring other buyers and sellers to in-person meetings where he could rob them and stun them.  Sure, it may look bad for Craigslist and other online classifieds-type sites, and someone will undoubtedly clamor that the interweb is to blame, but the same thing could have easily been done though the classifieds in the local paper.

Sadly enough, these things will probably continue as long as there are technophopic people around who blame the technology for the problems, and not the people who are using that technology.