Out with the old, in with the new. Happy New Year!

What if you found a time machine in which you could go back 10 years in time? What business, political, and humanitarian things would you do or prevent? Or more to the point, that you could send a note to yourself 10 years in the past? What would you do? What if you only had a few minutes to decide? So you couldn't do research, you just had to go off the top of your head? Here's what I would do if I were limited to things I could think of in 3 minutes. 1) Buy as much Microsoft stock as pos...

https://www.joeuser.com/forums.asp If you like talking to other people on a wide variety of things, check out the forums here which are becoming quite lively. Blogs created on JoeUser have the option of automatically showing up on the forums as well. Have fun!  

No matter where you are, have a merry Christmas!

Attack of the Clones is on tonight. Oh so wrong. A long while back I wrote a fan-fiction synopsis/screen play of how I imagined/hoped Episode 2 and 3 would be. My Anakin isn't bitchy and whiney and angry. Instead, he's more of a rogue. A Han Solo type. Happy go lucky whose fatal flaw is over confidence. He's so self secure that what leads him down the dark path is his belief that light side, dark side are really just artificial terminologies. But what I imagined Episode 2 being was the ...

In my earlier article on misjudging the American character , I argued that the world needs to give up this notion of demanding that we become introspective about 9/11. They need to stop trying to get us to ask "Why do they hate us?".  It ain't gonna happen.  Americans, as history has shown, will do whatever it takes to overcome an enemy. Whatever it takes. I pointed out that in 1945 the majority of Americans, according to polls at the time, supported the elimination of the J...

All over the blogsphere I'll see people say "You Americans need to start asking yourselves, 'Why did they do this to you.'"  It is a terrible misreading of the American culture. Americans don't care. You can argue all day that they should care. But they don't. I don't. There is nothing we have done that justified the events of 9/11. And those who try to justify the acts of terrorists will be ignored as sycophants and appeasers of evil. After 9/11 the question is no longer "...

Jark has managed to get the transcript of Diane Sawyer's interview with Bush. And he makes a good point that many people on both the left and right have failed to make: Regardless of whether you think we did the right thing by going into Iraq, the bottom line is that the administration certainly seems to have manipulated the public in getting general support for the action. Read Jark's full blog here . I happen to have been one who supported US action in Iraq. But I also never considered WMD ...

When we created JoeUser.com to be database driven we used the existing Stardock.net user database. What that meant is that everything was based by "Handles" (think CB radios). My handle on most skin sites was/is "Frogboy". That's actually more of an accident than intentional as I had intended Draginol to be my handle which is what I used here. But when writing articles on such issues, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable using a handle because it implies I have some pseudonymn. That I'm...

Some people pride themselves on being ruthless in business. Wanting to take out the competition.  For me, I just can't live life that way. Life is short and thinking of everything as "us" versus "them" strikes me as incredibly unhealthy over the long term. Many people who just frequent WinCustomize.com looking for skins, themes, wallpapers, etc. would be surprised to learn that the world's most popular skin/theme site is the main site for downloading content for the...

Man, what a week it's been. It started well. Last week before Christmas and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King starting. But then things went down hill.  One of our competitors on the desktop side, TGT Soft, apparently was feeling festive and decided to file a lawsuit.  On Wednesday Stardock received a lawsuit from TGT Soft that was filed in Louisiana.   It's largely about one of our programs, IconPackager. The world's first and most popular way to change all your icons on Wi...

There are so many reviews already of Return of the King that I won't waste time going over the basic plot point. The question at the end of the day is "how good is it?"  The answer is - very good.  Now, I have some minor spoilers in here so just skip the rest if you're really paranoid. I'm not giving away anything crucial, just tidbits. On IMDB , I gave Fellowship of the Ring a 10. It's the only movie I've ever given a 10 to.  I gave the Two Towers a 9.  I would...

In part 1 I discussed the relationship between Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, and the Balrog. Part II: Of Aragorn, Númenor, and third age Elves... Thank goodness Tolkien wrote his books back when he did and not today. Because in today's climate of political correctness the coolest parts of the Middle Earth mythology have to do with the fact that not everyone is equal.  You see, there are men and then there are MEN. Aragorn, the human hero of Lord of The Rings, is not just "some guy&qu...

One of the things I've come to realize over the years is that our company's management team is incomplete. Much of Stardock's success can be attributed to the incredible talent of our company's developers and management.  But as we've grown, particularly in the past year, holes have appeared.  For one thing, when you're small, having a management team full of specialists is good. I'm the only generalist in the management team. That works fine when you're a start-up.  But as yo...

I've been a Tolkien fan for most of my life. I loved Lord of the Rings. But my favorite stories all take place in The Silmarillion, a collection of stories that take place long before the events of Lord of the Rings. It is in that book you get a much deeper understanding of the various characters.  You don't really get to scratch the surface of the real depth of middle earth in the movies. The books go into a bit more detail, particularly the appendixes at the end of Return of the King. With ...