Month: December 2006

is this a meme waiting to happen?

Chad asks “What was your first Amazon order? (and why George Jones matters).”

I looked mine up:
1Stamazon

It’s interesting that they’re both photography books, since I seem to have taken it up again, but I don’t think those are my first items purchased. I’m pretty I bought some stuff earlier than that, because of where I was working at the time. Of course, this was back when Netscape Navigator was made by an outfit called Mosaic Communications and was still in .9x release numbers and Amazon didn’t sell anything but books 😉

According to this article, it was founded in 1994 and here it’s listed having opened for sales in 1995. That makes sense.

Anyway, it’s interesting to consider how long Amazon has been around and how much things have changed as a result.

Scott Adams is an idiot

Scott Adams is an idiot:

A wry commentator on office life, he may be, but he should probably reserve his opinions on politics. His assessment of the Presidency:

I doubt Bill Gates is considering a run for president right now, largely because it’s so hard to make a difference from that job.

You’d think that Adams had been living under a rock these past six years. There are several million people in Iraq who I’m sure would be happy to tell him how big a difference George W Bush has made in their lives.

… to say nothing of the families of the WTC victims and the families of the 3,000+ serviceman and women filled in Iraq and the tens of thousands wounded.

<update: added the link to the original Adams piece> I think there have been some holders of that office who made a difference (the two Roosevelts come to mind, Lincoln as well). So the idea that the executive branch is a poor choice for a dynamic leader to aspire to is bunk, especially when you consider how much power the incumbent has amassed. Imagine a leader who could cut defense spending to something less that what the rest of the world spends combined, and plow the rest into stuff that doesn’t kill people: I expect there is more to be gained from that than the Gates Foundation can dream of.

links for 2006-12-01