Nothing worth doing

Today I'm going to share a quote I found on another blog. Yes, it may be the epitome of laziness to copy from another blog that was itself copied from something else. But it's a good quote.

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Silverlight

A while ago when I visited the Microsoft website, it tried to get me to install something called Silverlight. I turned it down and looked up a bit more information about it. It turns out that Microsoft finally made a product to compete with the Adobe Flash browser add-on that almost everyone has.

I'm not militantly anti-Microsoft, but I would like to see them lose some of their market dominance. Generally, I don't think monopolies are a good thing, so I like to support Microsoft's competition, especially free high-quality programs. But where does Adobe fit in here? Adobe is one of the few software companies that truly dominates the market for software that almost everyone has. How many computers have you used lately that don't have Flash and Adobe Reader installed?

So in the Flash vs Silverlight battle, who should I support? Until now, Adobe had a virtual monopoly in that type of software, but if somebody has to have a monopoly, it's nice if it's not Microsoft. On the other hand, competition can encourage innovation. I ended up installing Silverlight, and I think its video quality is better than Flash's, so I see innovation happening already.

What would really be nice is if websites didn't tie people to certain products. If Flash and Silverlight could be replaced with an open standard and anyone could make programs that support that standard, then I wouldn't need multiple products that basically do the same thing.

Hockey Night in Canada song

So there was a big uproar when CBC decided not to renew the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. It looked like this could get bigger than that time they weren't going to renew Ron MacLean's contract.

On the way home from work today I heard that CTV/TSN got the rights to the song. When I got home, I checked my email and found out that someone invited me to a Facebook group called "Boycott CBC until they bring back Hockey Night In Canada's theme song!" Umm. It might be a little late for that. I don't think CBC can legally get it back for a while.

I think I know how the Conservative party can win a majority government. Just get Don Cherry fired and make it look like Liberals pulled the strings.

The house is filling up

Last weekend a co-worker of mine moved into my house, so now I'm not all alone here. It's nice to have another person here, and the extra money doesn't hurt either. It will take some time to get used to each other's schedules and not having the entire fridge to myself, but it should be a good thing overall. Besides, this gives me some more motivation to clean up and throw some junk out.