Mikeology

My friend Walter wrote recently to me, in search of recommendations for a new Windows-compatible laptop computer.

A few years ago, I considered buying a new Dell or Toshiba widescreen; both brands offer high-quality components, reasonable costs, and good customer-service records. If I had had extra cash, I would have bought an IBM ThinkPad with its drop-proof, virtually indestructible hard-drive technology. But price and appearance mattered, so I bought an aluminum/chrome Dell laptop that looked like a MacBook but cost $1,000 less. With a wide screen and oversized, high-speed hard drive, the Dell served my combination of home and work needs well for a couple years — though I came to realize that large laptops are heavy to lug around and do not fit well on small tables at cybercafes.

But one year ago, after a few too many Windows Vista crashes and XP security bugs, I switched. Not just one, but both machines– my desktop and my laptop. Out with Windows. In with Macs. With no regrets.

I am not religious in my conversion to Apple; I do not bow before the Genius Bar or trust blindly that Great Leader of Cupertino will lead Apple and its devotees to an eternal promised land. In fact, I am already configuring myself for a hardware-neutral future. I am moving my mail, my documents, and my applications off the client machines and putting them online so that they are accessible anywhere.

But not everyone can do that. In particular, people and companies with heavy professional investments in Microsoft development tools and software can move to “cloud computing” only slightly faster than Microsoft’s tools and APIs permit them. And some people and companies simply need the privacy and security advantages that are offered by client hardware-based computing.

So, for my friends who aren’t as enthusiastic as I about losing their client hardware, I welcome suggestions:

What low-cost, high-quality laptop computer brands and models do you recommend for someone who rationally and reasonably lives and works in the Windows universe? Which mobile chips are fastest? How much RAM and hard drive space is sufficient? Do you find it difficult to downgrade new machines from Vista to XP? Speak now.

PC Magazine writer John C. Dvorak nails the root cause of the decline of the U.S. newspaper industry.

It’s not the Internet. Not TV.

People stop reading newspapers due to a self-perpetuating decline in quality, driven by executives who believe that profit margins can be sustained by cutting quality and removing value.

The dwindling quality of daily metro newspapers has been evident to readers and journalists — since the mid-1990s at the now-defunct Knight Ridder, and even earlier at newspaper chains such as Gannett and MediaNews.

Communities once counted upon newspapers for the local news and deep investigation that fully ad-dependent TV stations could not afford to provide. The information age could have empowered newspapers to do more local news and investigation, more cheaply than ever. Instead, newspapers slashed local reporting and printed reams of old wire stories that were available elsewhere eight to 12 hours earlier, for free.

I once agreed with Knight Ridder management that the solution was to liberate local newspapers from obsolete workers and ancient technology — specifically, from blue-collar union workers who manually and mechanically assembled pages that, in the mid-1990s, should have been assembled digitally. I even supported management in defeating a strike at one newspaper, in the hope that savings would be invested in worker retraining and new technology.

That newspaper did get new presses, but the hoped-for cost savings never materialized. Writers were cut, local news took a back seat to wire copy, and fast-rising college graduates wrote stories that lacked insight necessary to expose local problems and empower local readers to demand solutions. Readers lost interest in the newspaper.

Dvorak sees light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t just yet. Instead of increasing writing staffs to add value to their web sites, MediaNews and Tribune Co. continue to slash newsroom staffs and replace local content with wire content.

Perhaps I will see light at the end of the industry’s tunnel, when a major newspaper chain or independent newspaper group doubles reporting staffs, slashes management and print costs, and proves through deed — not mere marketing — that it has recommitted to local news and to aggressive oversight of government and business.

The prime directive of a culture warrior is to violate the Golden Rule: Don’t treat others as one wishes to be treated.

The second directive is to project one’s own flaws onto one’s supposed opponents, so that one can be proud of one’s newfound flawlessness instead of humble about one’s shortcomings.

To achieve these directives and become a successful culture warrior, just follow these three easy steps:

1. Assert your own superiority. Tell half-truths about your own virtuosity and more half-truths about others’ supposed flaws.

2. Claim to uphold “values” even though you’ve just violated the golden rule and halved your own truthfulness.

3. Ask your peers to respect your own harmful choices — even as you criticize your opponents for making choices that you deem to be harmful.

Follow these steps, and you’ll never need to confront or overcome your flaws and mature as a person. Why be humble, after all, when you can be proud at someone else’s expense?

This parody of Wonder Woman is well worth watching, especially if one remembers how campy the Seventies TV series was.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_zModF-RI&rel=1]

Sorry for not posting more often. I promise to start posting regularly, even if I’m just writing about babes in bad costumes.