Glenn Fleishman is talking with Bob Frankston (one of the guys who invented the spreadsheet) about Quality of Service and bandwidth. I agree, I can already do videoconferencing. I just want more bandwidth so we can pass around videos and music a lot faster (and so I can host my blog at home and not worry that I'll get Slashdotted someday).

Whew, there won't be a NY transit strike. Since I'll be in NY for New Years, that's great news.

Racism is mostly an artifact of fear of change. I grew up in "white" Cupertino. Guess what? It ain't white no more. Even many of the street signs are in Chinese. The racists are dying out and that's a good thing. Change is in the air, and if Republicans want to be elected they better look at the crowds in the malls this Christmas. Guess what? My face is one of the few white ones I see. Lott will get kicked out because the Republicans need to win a few states like California, Florida, and New York if they'd like to win any national elections next time around.

Let me add onto the "Trent Lott is a racist" blogpile. My ex-father-in-law believed many of the same things. They come from a different generation/time (when it was OK to tell black people to get to the back of the bus). Guess what? That ain't OK anymore. Lott needs to go.

Oh, great, did I just become a warblogger?

The other reason we are the world's policemen? Because we can be. Oh, and don't get all high and mighty and think we're God's chosen people. We're not. We are mostly liven on land stolen from other people. Remember that too. It's the American way. We're the bully. We push around other countries because we can. I think the alternative is to be pushed around by some other country. You think Germany wouldn't love to push us around? Iran? Japan? Heh. That's why I go back to our diversity. We've shown the world that we can live together. Not many other countries have. If you're gonna have a bully (human nature being what it is, we'll always have bullies) I'd rather have a bully that has an inclusive streak. I'm wondering what kind of email I'll get from people around the world that think they'd do a better job at policing the world.

This weekend my sister-in-law (who was born in Afghanistan) asked me "why does America think it has the moral imperitive to police the rest of the world?" Well, I've been around, and one reason has to do with our diversity. No other country has the diversity of America. Well, maybe England and Canada, but I think if you look into it America is far more diverse than even those two countries. Why does that matter? Well, if we bomb someone else, we're bombing some of our own citizen's countries. Think about that for a minute. How many other countries can say that? When I visit Germany, I don't see diversity. When I visit China. Japan. Russia. Australia. Iran. Iraq. No diversity. Here in Silicon Valley alone I see more than 60 cultures, all living together peacefully. Yes, that does give us a lot of moral imperitive. The rest of you all would like to kill me (or, at minimum, from joining your country club). Americans say "come join us." At least at some level. Not saying we're perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But, we're a lot further along than almost any other country on the diversity scale.

The press is paying attention to blogs. This is a good thing. Why? Cause on the aggregate big business and big religion can't buy us all off.

Jim Fawcette used to tell me to watch out when I listened too closely to customers. He says he'd like a lot more room in his Porsche's trunk too, but then he'd end up with something more resembling a Volvo and not a Boxter. Good point.

Brad notices he gets more comments when he talks about movies than when he talks about code. Heh. I think he's onto something there. Looking over the past few days the topic that brought the most comments here is my religious thoughts (or lack thereof). Hey, maybe I should point to myss.com too. Did you know that it was a wacko like this that got my mom to move to Montana and build a bomb shelter? Why do humans go for such things? Beware of anyone who says they know the answers. Shit, of course, what the hell am I doing here? Heh. Join my religion. If you do at least you'll have cool toys.

My goal is not to appear on the Radio UserLand Top-100 list anymore. Why? Because I notice that as I move down on the list the quality of blogs available for me to read improves exponentially. I had an unfair head start on the rest of the field (I worked at UserLand) but now that better blogs are coming along, I'm moving down. I started the year at #2 and am now at #21. My 2003 goal is to not be on the list at all. Mom, will you please stop hitting refresh now?

I remember Alan Cooper telling me "don't listen to customers" and the IBM quote demonstrates that perfectly. People don't know what they want until you show it them. I didn't know I wanted a Tivo until I saw one at Dave Winer's house. I didn't know I wanted an XBox until I saw it at Chris Pirillo's house. Of course, I'm gonna get them back. I'm gonna show them one of our TabletPCs soon. Dave calls me a virus. It's more insidious than that. My goal is to get him to be customer #2. You can guess who's customer #1 (I had to sign an NDA to handle the PO, which should tell you something). ;-)

Hey, look at the links and headlines at TabletPCTalk.com. See how Chris is saying something without using his own words? I think it's funny. He's making fun of TabletPC naysayers from those on Slashdot to IBM. Hey, look at this one: "I’ve yet to find a customer that has asked for a Tablet PC." from an IBM vice president. That's good. My phone has been ringing all day with folks who want to be the first to see our TabletPC. Of course, that's what happens when you have the best-of-breed product and Bill Gates is telling everyone that ours is the thinnest and lightest.

Good morning. Mary Jo Foley just wrote me and told me to check out her new Windows News site and promptly learned that Microsoft might be working on a new programming language called X#. Hmmm, Don Box is involved.