I saw a commercial this week that started with a voice-over about a man who thought that Christmas was an excuse to get people to spend their money. Exactly!, I thought.

As the commercial went on, I found myself agreeing more and more with the sentiments of this man.

Then, it said: “Tonight at 8pm, Dicken’s A Christmas Carol“.

Canada is debating the decriminalization of the personal possession of small amounts of marijuana. I heard a representative of a police association on the CBC the other day make an argument that I recognized from my Practical Logic philosophy course.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a link to the original quote, but the argument was roughly this: 100% of heroin addicts in Canada started with marijuana. The implied premise here is this: therefore, smoking pot leads to heroin use.

This is called affirming the consequent. If A then B. B therefore, A. It’s wrong. All leprechauns drink Guinness. You drink Guinness, therefore you are a leprechaun.

I know this isn’t a new argument, in fact, it’s quite obvious. That’s exactly why I thought it was notable. It was so obviously a logical fallacy that I was amazed that it was stated so simply.

Perhaps we should be teaching the basics of arguments and fallacies in grade school.

The intellect of individuals in a group decreases exponentially as the number of individuals in the group increases.

See Garrity’s Law of Eponymous Laws

I have a friend and co-worker who is, among other things, a recovering lawyer (where is there a snare drum and hi-hat when you need it?). Writing about the recent Canadian Supreme Court ruling denying a patent on a genetically modified mouse, he tells me that “each ruling usually has a key paragraph upon which it turns.”

He was kind enough to cut through the 30,000+ word ruling for us and send the following key excerpt. It’s fascinating to see such a formal institution walk the line between the practical and the metaphysical. I think they did well.

163 It also is significant that the word “matter” captures but one aspect of a higher life form. As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, supra, vol. IX, at p. 480, “matter” is a “[p]hysical or corporeal substance in general…, contradistinguished from immaterial or incorporeal substance (spirit, soul, mind), and from qualities, actions, or conditions”. “Matière” is defined by the Grand Robert de la langue française, supra, vol. 4, p. 1260, as “[TRANSLATION] “corporeal substance `that is perceptible in space and has mechanical mass'”. Although some in society may hold the view that higher life forms are mere “composition[s] of matter”, the phrase does not fit well with common understandings of human and animal life. Higher life forms are generally regarded as possessing qualities and characteristics that transcend the particular genetic material of which they are composed. A person whose genetic make-up is modified by radiation does not cease to be him or herself. Likewise, the same mouse would exist absent the injection of the oncogene into the fertilized egg cell; it simply would not be predisposed to cancer. The fact that it has this predisposition to cancer that makes it valuable to humans does not mean that the mouse, along with other animal life forms, can be defined solely with reference to the genetic matter of which it is composed. The fact that animal life forms have numerous unique qualities that transcend the particular matter of which they are composed makes it difficult to conceptualize higher life forms as mere “composition[s] of matter”. It is a phrase that seems inadequate as a description of a higher life form.

– From Harvard College v. Canada (Commissioner of Patents)

I’ve intentionally avoided posting about politics and policy here on Acts of Volition over the past two years. I’ve done this mostly because I don’t like hearing other people’s half-baked arguments, and figured people didn’t want to hear mine. We’ll, I’m not sure why this situation is any different, if it is at all, but grant me some leeway, it won’t happen often.

Today, Roy Romanow released his government-commissioned royal commission report on the state and future of health care in Canada. The ridiculously short summary of the results go something like this (note: I haven’t actually read the report yet – I’m just relying on journalists):

Public health care is good; let’s pay for it.

I completely agree. The classic demands on government go something like this: more stuff, less tax. Politicians (if you’ll permit my gross generalization) are infamous for promising just that. However, let me be at least one person who’s willing to say I want more stuff, and I’m willing to pay for it. I want a strong public health care system and if you need to, raise my taxes.

The most common response I hear to increasing taxes for funding programs like health is that there is so much waste in government, that they should clear that up and they would need to increase taxes. This is probably true (again with the gross generalizations), but it’s a crutch. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. Health spending and general inefficiency in government are two separate issues. We need to pay for the health care we want.

In his introductory remarks, Romanow stated that medicare is a “moral enterprise, not business venture” – that speech writer should get a raise.

Some links and references for those interested in the report:

• The Final Report: Building on Values: The Future of Health Care in Canada (2.4MB PDF – approx 350 repages)
• CBC special coverage of the report
• Romanow introduces the report (8 minute RealAudio)

The application I use most, besides a browser and email client, is probably Notepad. I have the shortcut to Notepad on my Quick Launch bar and I use it every time I have to take notes of any kind. When I get a phone call at work, it has become second-nature for me to open Notepad before picking up the receiver.

This works quite well. I run into trouble, though, when it comes time to reboot or shutdown. I’m running Windows XP on a laptop and I don’t often reboot (I use the suspend status when moving between home and work). It’s a good nod to the stability of 2000/XP that I’m confident leaving notes unsaved in Notepad for days at a time. However, when I do have to reboot for some reason, I’m forced save all of my open notes. I end up having to litter my desktop with temporary files and folders. I’m also forced to name each of the notepad files (usually ending up with useless names).

I want a Notepad that has no Save command. I want everything to always be saved, all the time.

Some argue that the whole concept of saving files is vestigial and should be scrapped. There is definitely something to that. The most common counter-argument to that position is that it limits the ability for experimentation with files (you can try things out with a file without saving). This is bunk. Reverting to saved versions of files is not a good model for experimenting. That’s what universal undo/redo is for. Allaire’s ColdFusion Studio allows undo beyond the last save. Adobe Photoshop (version 6 & 7) implements a history system that works well (despite some nasty implementation quirks).

When I’m typing longer items, like this post, I usually use Microsoft Word. I have the Save command keyboard shortcut burned into my brain (Alt+F+S). I press it instinctively after almost every sentence. Can’t a robot do that for me?

Bill Gates smells my desire (that sounds obscene, but it’s not) and his minions are on the case. At Comdex this month, they previewed a new app called OneNote (say it out loud: wa’note – I’m not yet sure if this is clever or stupid). It won’t be available until next year (I’m signed-up for the beta in early 2003).

I won’t rehash the description of OneNote here. For details, see the WinPlanet article, Steve Gillmore’s InfoWorld article, and the official Microsoft OneNote site featuring a video of the announcement (300Kb/s Windows Media) worth watching if only for the terrible ‘acting’ by the presenters. If you can get past the embarrassing presentation, this video does a good job of demonstrating OneNote. You really have to see it in action as the benefits are difficult to explain.

Of interest here is a notable omission from the OneNote toolbar: no Save icon. As stated in the WinPlanet article: “The program always launches or opens to your most recent page of notes, while an auto-save function reduces fussing with filenames.” Yup, that’s what I want.

On a bit of a tangent, OneNote is an interesting step towards the “universal canvas”. The ‘canvas’ is powered by the Office apps (Word, Excel, etc.). I see (very) faint glimmers of Jef Raskin’s Humane Interface here. Let’s just hope it isn’t big, bloated, and stupid.

Today we have a lesson in how to screw up a good thing. I’ve been a long-time user of instant messaging. It started with ICQ, and though it was mostly a novelty at the time, it was clear that this was a major shift in online communications. I still use ICQ primarily, but sneaking in as a default install with XP, MSN Messenger was slowing winning me over. I would have switched completely, but the lack of an archive of messages was a deal breaker.

This was MSN Messenger 4.x. When Messenger 5.0 became available, I updated. It was a mistake. Here’s why.

1. Tabs that are really hard to eliminate.
   In 4.x, turning off the annoying tabs (that I presume no-one uses) was easy. Go to the Tools menu, and toggle the Show Tabs option. In 5.0, I didn’t think it was possible until I stumbled across an obscure setting in the Privacy tab (?) called “This is a shared computer so don’t display my tabs“. I’m not using a shared computer, but this did exactly what I wanted.
2. Popup Advertising!
   Everyone knows the world is going to hell – old people have been telling us this for centuries. I plan to tell young people this when I get old. However, I didn’t realize how bad it was until Messenger 5.0 gave me pop-up advertising when it loads (screenshot). This is not a trivial annoyance. Consider that for most MSN Messenger users, the program loads at start-up. This means a pop-up ad every time you boot your computer; totally unacceptable. I’ve since learned that you can turn this off by un-checking the “Display MSN Today when Messenger signs in” option; still totally unacceptable.
3. New sounds.
   I’ve always thought the audio in Messenger 4.x was some of the best audio design in any application. The default ‘user-is-online’, ‘message-sent’, and ‘message-received’ sounds were subtle, distinctive, hard-to-miss, and easy-to-ignore. Perfect. The sounds may grow on me, but it feels like the like the new sounds are the audio equivalent of the visual changes between Windows 2000 and Windows XP; from sharp and subtle to soft and a bit garish. Of course, the real test comes in every day use, but for a quick comparison, here are the sounds of both versions (links are WAV files):

   New Message:	4.x	5.7
   User Online:	4.x	5.7
   New Email:	4.x	5.7
   News Alert:	4.x	5.7

4. Icons – branded to death.
   The icons in Messenger are important, as they are one of the new icons that are always on the screen. The new 5.0 icons include the MSN Butterfly. For the record, I’m not totally anti-butterfly. The full-size MSN Butterfly icon included in system32/shell32.dll in XP is absolutely beautifully rendered. However, the tiny butterfly added to the 16×16 pixel system tray icon is too easily confused with the offline or away status indicators. It is too small to decipher, and just adds clutter.
5. Easy to dismiss items
   In 4.x, you could right-click on the alerts (the boxes in the bottom-left corner of the screen that tell you a user has signed-on), and dismiss them quickly. It is an obscure feature, but totally non-intrusive and handy for those who use it. This doesn’t work in 5.0

I’m a confessed upgrade junkie. Sometimes it burns me.

Microsoft’s UI design teams seem to need to implement an entirely different interface scheme for every product line. Take a look at this comparative screenshot of version 4.7 and 5.0 (also note one of the new improvements in v5.0 – the better layout of the My Status area at the top of the Messenger window). Office and XP look different and all of the MSN stuff seems to be happening in a bubble somewhere (a heavily bevelled bubble, I would imagine).

This reminds me of the politics and positioning that takes place between federal, provincial/state, and municipal politics. There is only one tax payer. There is only one user.

Amazon is now taking preorders for Segway Human Transporters!!

Those things are real! And this March you’ll be seeing doctors, lawyers, and trendy internet punks screaming everywhere.

If you want one, it’ll set you back about five thousand American dollars. I’m not sure if that’s a good deal for a human technoscooter or not. Perhaps a stink should be raised on the topic of them being a monopoly.

Sadly, I feel I’m in the wrong environment for said scooter. If they can put skis on it for slushy swampy environments, I’d love one. Perfect for a tiny little town or campus.

But 5000$… I guess we’ll have to start up with X10 popups on AOV.