Run XP programs within Windows 7!

Did I just say that Paul Thurrott was getting on my nerves?

I take it back.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/24/secret-no-more-revealing-virtual-windows-xp-for-windows-7.aspx

I just wish it weren't limited to the higher-end versions. But on the other hand, how many home users are willing to set up a Virtual PC in order to prevent old programs from crashing? Either way, this is seriously awesome.

Why I don't use Twitter...

I've started reading ZDNet (partly because Paul Thurrott has been getting on my nerves lately). Found this article today: this basically sums up why I've never actually joined Twitter, and I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=1540

OK, so what is sustainability, really?

In honour of Earth Day.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=top-10-myths-about-sustainability

Points #4, #7, and #8 are particularly awesome.

I'm a firm believer in the theory of global warming through CO₂, but I'm not really the apologist I once was. Thing is, as one scientist interviewed in The 11th Hour put it, global warming is not the entire problem. Global warming is a symptom of our inability to live sustainably.

What's more, even if you don't believe that we're warming our planet, sustainability is still a valid topic. Example: whether or not you believe that your Hummer causes harmful emissions, you probably won't be driving it as much when gas is scarce and expensive.

David Suzuki illustrates this well:

While filming a special program on forestry for The Nature of Things in the 1990s, we arranged to interview loggers working in a cut block near Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. When we arrived and set up the camera, the loggers came out of the forest and began to cuss me out as an environmentalist who was threatening their jobs.

The confrontation made for good television, but I was frustrated at our inability to find common ground. Finally I told them, "I worked as a carpenter for eight years, and to this day, I love working with wood. No environmentalist I know is against logging. We just want to be sure that your children and grandchildren will be able to log forests as rich as the ones you’re working in now."

Immediately, one of the men replied that he’d never let his kids to go into logging. "There won’t be any trees left!" he said. And there it was. Those men knew that they were cutting the trees down in a way that ensured there would be no harvestable timber for future generations of loggers, but they saw the trees as the way to put food on the table day after day and make the house and car payments at the end of the month.

Here's the paradox: yes, learning to live sustainably will solve the problem of emissions. But when solving global warming means capturing coal emissions and pumping them underground, or putting loads of mirrors into the sky, we still won't be solving the root problem of sustainability.

I think they’re trying too hard.

Evidently the recession is making SanDisk resort to guerrilla warfare:

Advertising usually tries to convince the consumer that money buys happiness. That’s the nature of the beast, but this ad was just so damned transparent that I couldn’t leave it alone.

To add insult to injury, their website doesn’t display correctly in IE8 either. Seriously, SanDisk, if you expect us to buy your products online, then make sure that your website doesn’t suck in the first place. Even the most ludicrous of ads are best delivered in a user-friendly way.

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I haven’t been blogging too much lately, at least not as much as I had been hoping, but suffice it to say that there’s a lot going on. Lots of projects, and family stuff. Hopefully once things calm down a bit I can really sit down and give this blog some more attention.