Boing Boing has gone and made fun of MSN Spaces. Naturally, unlike self-managed blogging systems, the Microsoft one takes itself very seriously and helps you be a better person through censorship. Of course, if you had actually read the Terms of Service, Code of Conduct, Privacy Policy, and any other legalese-dense things you have to agree to in order to use the service, you’d know that they’re fully within their rights to do so.
So no whining. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Microsoft today introduced “MSN Spaces” as an additional MSN service. The marketing copy reads:
With MSN Spaces, you can easily create and manage your blog from your computer or your mobile phone. It’s a great way to share information and photos with your friends and family. And best of all, it’s free!
# Create blog entries and publish your thoughts for the world to see.
# See what visitors to your space say about your blog.
# Search other people’s blogs to find the information you want.
# Upload photos from your mobile phone to your blog.
# Create and manage your space from a mobile phone.
All well and good, I suppose. Lord knows the internet needs more blogs (oh, the irony).
Remember to read the Terms of Use, Code of Conduct, and Privacy Policy carefully, tho…
MSN collects personal information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. MSN may also collect demographic information, such as your ZIP code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites. Information collected by MSN may be combined with information obtained from other Microsoft services and other companies.
…
You will not use the MSN Web Sites in any way that is unlawful, or harms Microsoft, its affiliates, resellers, distributors, service providers and/or suppliers (each, a “Microsoft Party” and collectively, the “Microsoft Parties”) or any customer of a Microsoft Party, as determined in Microsoft’s sole discretion.
…
For materials you post or otherwise provide to Microsoft related to the MSN Web Sites (a “Submission”), you grant Microsoft permission to (1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission, each in connection with the MSN Web Sites, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Microsoft will not pay you for your Submission.
…
Microsoft may monitor your e-mail, or other electronic communications and may disclose such information in the event it has a good faith reason to believe it is necessary for purposes of ensuring your compliance with this Agreement, and protecting the rights, property, and interests of the Microsoft Parties or any customer of a Microsoft Party.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Having read all this now, I think I’ll stop using MSN for IM as well. As for my “blog” *ahem*, I think I’ll stick with this happy little GPL’d package hosted on a personal (albeit shared) server. Oh Microsoft, you’re so adorable.
“President Bush was traveling Wednesday to Nova Scotia to give the Canadians a belated “thank you” for helping Americans in their hour of need – a gesture aimed at warming frosty ties between the neighboring nations.”
And then he just kinda blew it by suggesting that “Canada should take a more active role in his ‘war on terrorism’“.
“Three years after the worst-ever attacks against civilians on American soil, Bush said Canada had a duty to step up its part in offensives against potential threats to North America.”
Luckily, Mister Martin seems to have his head on straight, at least for the time being. I really don’t want to have to protest in the snow :P
So, as far as I can tell, Mr Bush came up to Canada in hopes of mending relations, but, in spite of the smiles and handshaking, Mr Martin held discussions to the key items related to cross-border trade and security. No discussion of Iraq (except what Bush brought up at the press conference), no discussion of the Air Missle Defense system (except what Bush brought up).
Demonstrations were typically Canadian, which is nice to see. Everyone I saw at the protest seemed to be in a good mood and was having a good time. Police presence was limited to a bunch of bicycle cops in yellow, and a fair number of “soft hat” OPP walking along with the group.
I have no idea whether Mr Bush knows or even cares about the protests, but I was glad to see a significant group of people (estimates range from 5 to 13 thousand) out there keepin’ it real.
All in all, it was a quiet day. President Bush is still here, of course, probably over in Quebec right now waiting for the Secret Service to finish doing a security sweep of the Museum of Civilisation (and surrounding neighbourhood) so he can hunker down with the PM for a nice meal of Alberta Beef and…er…squash. Or whatever they’re serving up over there tonight.
The security downtown was minimal from what I saw, other than the “security bubble” that followed the pres around all day. As far as I can tell from the news reports, basically nothing was accomplished, and Bush has remained wilfully ignorant of the general dislike and distrust Canadians feel towards him. Whatever.
Winning sign of the day: FREE BEER!
Winning protest group of the day: Belly Dancers Against Bush.
I’m really not looking forward to tomorrow. There are going to be thousands of protestors in and around the downtown area, which is where I happen to work. The noon event is at Confederation Park, and then a 5pm candlelight vigil at Parliament (it’ll be dark by then and might be quite a sight).
This is probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and it speaks so loudly of the power of civil disobedience. There are no guns, no riots, no beatings, no screaming. Just a country full of good, decent, normal people who are saying “No, stop, this is not right”.
And it’s working.
Benefits system hit by IT chaos
Pension and benefit payments face disruption after what is being described as the biggest computer crash in government history left as many as 80,000 civil servants staring at blank screens…
A routine software upgrade on a small number of PCs last weekend is believed to have gone disastrously wrong when an incompatible system was downloaded on to the whole network.
The punchline: they were experimenting with WinXP on a small number of machines. The outage lasted four days. They had to fly MS consultants in from the US.
FIRED! FIRED! FIRED!
Retailers consider it important to lure the crowds on Black Friday as this could influence shopping habits for the rest of the holiday season, when Americans are expected to spend about $220 billion, according to NRF.
For the record, “the holiday season” is November and December (2 months totalling 61 days), and $220 billion is over $500 per living citizen (all ages) in the US of A. Black Friday in 2003 saw $7.2 billion dollars in sales.
U.S. threatens to cut aid over court / Congress wants immunity accords for Americans
Dudes, you’re not really coming across in a favourable light these days.
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