Import Update for Mac People

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No, not Mountain Lion, though that’s kinda important, too. (Official Heathen rec: As with all major upgrades, wait 3-6 months.)

I mean the all-important question of “what virtualization platform to use?” Since the Mac platform migrated to Intel chips, it’s been possible to run Windows in a window at near-native speeds — I do it all day, even running SQL Server and IIS locally, with completely acceptable performance.

Now, your needs probably aren’t my needs, but few are the Mac folks who don’t have at least one Windows holdout program they can’t quite get rid of. (For my mom, it’s Quicken, for example.)

Up to now, the go-to options for non-techie types were VMWare Fusion, from a company that made its name on server-side virtualization in high-availability environments, and something called Parallels (no link; keep reading for why) from a company that just does Mac desktop virtualization. For me, that choice has always been pretty simple: Go with the guys who do this for a living on lots of levels. They know more.

Historically, Parallels has performed pretty well, too, and in some areas was actually better than Fusion (mostly graphics, which doesn’t matter to me). I generally gave no recommendation to folks beyond “pick whichever of these is on sale.”

That’s no longer true. Parallels, apparently, actively spams its users with in-app advertisements and sales pitches, and makes it very difficult to turn this off, even to the point of deleting messages on their support forums sharing the command line (!) required to do so.

Their statement on the subject is a cornucopia of weasel-words and bullshit:

We use in-product notifications to share several types of information with our customers. First, and most importantly, we share information about product updates which are generally related to compatibility with OS X, new features and product enhancements. Second, we occasionally share special offers from Parallels or other third party companies who provide special deals for our customers. Many of our customers rely on the information about product updates and appreciate the special deals for products that are of interest to them.

Individual notifications can be turned off by clicking the “don’t show this again” button. However, because customers need to receive important product information, there is not a mechanism for customers to completely disable notifications.

This, of course, is a lie; there IS a terminal command you can issue to disable it. That line is:

defaults write com.parallels.Parallels\ Desktop ProductPromo.ForcePromoOff -bool YES

Parallels isn’t shareware or freeware. It costs real money — typically about the same as Fusion, which is nearly a hundred bucks. It’s absolutely inexcusable that they’re insisting on this spamming behavior, and doubling down by (first) lying about the fact that it CAN be disabled and (second) trying to keep people from discovering this truth.

Do not buy Parallels. Send your dollars to VMWare. They’ve had plenty of time to address this; it’s clear this behavior is deliberate, and that they have no intentions of changing. Vote with your money.

(h/t: Fireball.)

Somehow, I missed this AWESOME FACT

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In this great behind-the-scenes short from the Hobbit, I discovered that Sylvester McCoy is in the film as Radagast, another of the wizards, i.e. a peer of Gandalf.

McCoy is of course already immortal in fandom as the 7th incarnation of the Doctor back in the 80s; his tenure — the 24th, 25th, and 26th seasons — closed out the original TV series, though he went on to do a TV movie in 1996.

(Giant Nerd Alert: Note that, in Tolkein, wizards are not human beings. They’re closer to angels or demigods.)

Surprise, surprise: Cops abuse the powerless

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I for one am shocked — shocked! — to learn that the Border Patrol behaves like this.

Oh, wait. No, I’m not.

Again, the only that that will produce greater accountability in law enforcement is civil and criminal liability for the actual officers. The problem with CBP is even bigger, since their victims are essentially powerless, which has clearly led to a situation where they feel they can get away with anything they want — with predictable consequences.

Welcome to Houston!

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You know, I really DID miss the sorts of storms that we’ve been enjoying the last week or so, but I really don’t need them to be so dramatic as to zap my power.

On the other hand, this is the first power outage of measurable length — 35 minutes and counting — that I remember since Ike back in 2008. Let’s hope this one doesn’t go for 4 day.

Also? All hail iPads with keyboards and 3G.

Dept. of Guitar Geekery

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Here’s the widely linked video of an employee of the Chicago Music Exchange playing 100 rock riffs chronologically in one take, which is entertaining in its own right, but real music nerds will notice that the truly impressive bit is that he retunes on the fly a couple times.

Anyway, enjoy.

About those new NSA docs…

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You probably heard that there were new docs released regarding 9/11. Here’s Salon’s coverage thereof, but the real takeaway point is this, as articulated by Wil Wheaton:

The thing that I think a lot of people are missing when they read this story is that intelligence worked the way it was supposed to, but Bush the Incompetent didn’t pay attention, because he didn’t care. He was a lazy and stupid son of privilege who was too busy being on vacation to take his responsibilities as president seriously.

Consider this, though: all the laws passed in the aftermath of 9/11, including the PATRIOT Act, that we were told were absolutely necessary to save us from The Terrorists™ just aren’t. The system was working the way it was supposed to work, and the 9/11 plot should have been stopped, but we had an incompetent jackass president who didn’t take it seriously.

This is hilarious.

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Unhappy with their ex-label, it appears that Def Leppard are re-recording their biggest hits to release electronically instead of agreeing to let Universal release the originals.

Think about that for a minute.

TechDirt’s post ends with this probing question: “Makes you wonder if there are any acts who feel they weren’t screwed over by their major label…” My guess is “no.”

What were they thinking?

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Apparently, it’s possible on some Android devices to allow Facebook to take over and manage your address book based on your friends list.

Yeah, I know, right? What a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE IDEA.

If you reacted as I did, it should come as no surprise to you that this turned out to be a horrible, horrible idea.

Don’t outsource that kind of thing, people. Especially don’t outsource it to a “free” service that makes billions by selling information about you, and that has a financial motive to push you away from normal channels of communication and towards methods that rely on a private service.

Facebook will fuck you if you let them. Keep as little information there as you can, and don’t let them worm their way into other aspects of your life. It’s not worth it.

Hey Heathen! How do YOU use Facebook?

Glad you asked.

Lock down your profile
Only some friends can see my activity. I decided long ago that I’d accept requests from most people I know, or have known, but most of those distant connections go into a group that can neither see nor comment on any activity on my wall.
Sanitize the info in your profile
I keep essentially ZERO personal data in my profile. Not my job, not my real world address, etc.
Never use your Facebook login on other sites
This ought to be easy. Doing this gives Facebook access to all your activity on any site that uses your Facebook credentials. Seriously, don’t do this.
Use a dedicated browser
This is the biggie. I don’t go to Facebook with my regular browser. I use Chrome for most of my web activities, and I allow Chrome to store some limited login information about various sites. That makes my life easier. On the other hand, Chrome is also configured to explicitly block most ads as well as nearly all site-to-site tracking methods.

This means some sites won’t work right for me. I’m okay with that. When I run into a problem site, I switch over to Safari, which is set up with much more permissive settings — but it’s also set up to purge all local cookies and data every time I quit. Chrome runs for weeks at a time on my laptop, but Safari is quit and restarted every time I need it to protect my privacy.

Because Facebook is so craven and shameless about snooping on its members, I only ever visit Facebook with Safari.

You may be laboring under the misconception that Libertarianism is about personal freedom

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It is not:

Libertarianism is a philosophy of individual freedom. Or so its adherents claim. But with their single-minded defense of the rights of property and contract, libertarians cannot come to grips with the systemic denial of freedom in private regimes of power, particularly the workplace. When they do try to address that unfreedom, as a group of academic libertarians calling themselves “Bleeding Heart Libertarians” have done in recent months, they wind up traveling down one of two paths: Either they give up their exclusive focus on the state and become something like garden-variety liberals or they reveal that they are not the defenders of freedom they claim to be.

The Health Care Omnibus Post

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There’s been lots of smart things written about the ACA ruling. Here are a few I found particularly on point:

  • from Forbes, who are not known for their lefty politics: Don’t Buy the GOP Narrative That Obamacare Is A Tax On The Middle Class — It’s a Lie Designed to Mislead

  • Wil Wheaton points us to a Daily Show bit wherein Romney is quoted as promising to a few changes (via repeal) to American health care policy — all of which are already part of the ACA. Romney is transparently scaremongering here, and it’s shameful.

  • Also via Wheaton: What exactly is Obamacare, and what did it change? Seriously, read this.

  • Finally, John Scalzi has some very smart thinking on the issue of Roberts’ vote in this case. He closes with “I don’t think there’s any question that Roberts is a conservative judge; a look at his track record and even at his ACA write-up makes this abundantly clear. I don’t think there’s any question that Roberts will continue to be a conservative judge. What the ACA ruling serves notice for, perhaps, is that Roberts is following his own conscience and reasoning regarding what it means to be conservative, rather than taking his cues from the the current right-wing orthodoxy. Ultimately, that’s what sending the right wing into their rage about Roberts: That now it’s possible he’s his own man, not theirs.” (By the way, the fact that Roberts has a chronic condition may well have played a role in his thinking here.)

Well, shit.

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Salon is looking to sell the Well, and has apparently already laid off its staff.

That’s been my online home for a really long time. Dialog there is better than on 99% of the web. It’s never been anonymous, which is probably one reason why. Before there was Facebook or social media, the Well was having gatherings and parties and picnics — like, in the 1980s.

With fewer than 2,700 subscribers left, I wonder how long it’ll even exist now — I mean, short of some deep-pocketed angel coming along to save it for the sake of saving it.