Saturday, November 2, 2002

Raiders Over Niners. Tomorrow's a big NFL game day in the Bay Area as the 49ers visit the Raiders for the first time in a lot of seasons. I participate in a friendly little NFL picking contest every week (and have for four or five years) made up mostly of 49ers fans. I've become more a follower of the Raiders in the past couple of seasons, though I'm still much more a Niners backer. Tomorrow, though, I expect the Raiders to beat the Niners. Jerry Rice and Charlie Garner, two ex-Niner superstars, are motivated to play hard. The Raiders' home field advantage is at least intimidation. And the Raiders have something to prove here, having lost three straight after opening the season 4-0 and drawing Super Bowl speculation. The Niners, meanwhile, are coming off an important win in their division and have four very tough games immediately ahead against the Chiefs, Chargers, Eagles, and Seahawks. I don't think the Niners will look past the Raiders so much as they'll be hard-pressed to focus intensely on that many games in succession. 11:08:35 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]

Headlines vs. Lead-Ins. Starting a couple of days ago, I altered the layout on this blog. I used to separate stories with headlines that were larger than the story type and appeared on separate lines above the stories. I started following the more usual blog style of bold-faced lead-ins to stories like the one at the beginning of this piece. I think I like this approach better. It allows a "screenful" to display more content. It's slightly easier to type. It feels like the lead-ins disrupt the flow of reading less than headlines. Anyway, always trying new things. 11:02:50 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]

Boycotting Micro$oft. Last night, in lamenting the wrong-headed and soft-hearted approach the Federal courts have taken to "dealing" with Micro$oft's illegal operations as a monopoly, I suggested once again that a boycott is in order. I promised more today. Here's the first installment: some links to some sites where you can read as much as you care to about this important topic. Dan Gillmor's "Living Without Microsoft" Discussion This is a good source of largely user-supplied information and ideas on this topic. Gets lively from time to time. [Newsfeed for this discussion] Discussion board at Network54 dedicated to the topic Red Squirrel Headquarters (part of a larger Anti-Microsoft Ring) A single, startling email quoting an open letter re: MS Mideast policy twisty.org page has some good links but also some outdated ideas. (I'm not sure about a page that says Linux is a "great" desktop OS! Even my Linux buddies don't yet agree with that idea.) Email me other links you know about. 10:31:11 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]

© Copyright 2002 Dan Shafer.