Bizarrely, an error not seen since the early days of IE8 Beta testing has cropped up in, of all things, the IE8 RTM (or, er, RTW – whatever)!

If you work on applications for smart devices (one of my current favorite hobbies) and you try to create a new C++ project for smart devices, you will get the wonderfully explanatory error "project creation failed" in the status bar of Visual Studio.  Thanks for the excellent details, VS team.  Seriously.

It turns out a script error in the wizard (which is driven entirely by the IE platform for some reason) is the cause of all this.  In fact, Microsoft already has a workaround.  A hotfix will be released at some point in the near future.

I'm usually pretty forgiving about software bugs because I know how deadlines and simple mistakes can lead to bad unexpected outcomes.  However, this is just too strange for words.  The entire point of a release candidate is to fix the last outstanding bugs.  Nothing should be done to compromise another feature or which might require regression testing.  You would think that some change in the behavior of the security model (which is responsible for this bug) might have warranted an RC2 to iron out any unexpected kinks. 

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I'm trying to figure out why the so-called "liberal" media keeps asking Senator McCain what he thinks about things.  I don't remember Senator Kerry getting this much post-election loser exposure in 2005.

I'm also trying to figure out why my "liberal" Senator, Kay Hagan, is joining a so-called "moderate" (code word for conservative) group of Dems that plan to oppose Obama on spending plans.  She apparently didn't notice that at the same time she beat Dole, Obama turned a historically red state blue.  Even Clinton didn't do that.  Does she really want to be on the opposing side of the most popular president in recent history?  It's not like Obama is asking to allocate a trillion dollars into the investigation of missing left socks.  He's trying to jump start a very neglected economy and provide health care for all citizens.  How on earth is 0pposing (or reducing) any of that a good thing for Americans, let alone your own constituents who are very deeply affected?  Balancing the budget right now will give us the exact same outcome as when Hoover did it in the early 1930's.  FAIL.

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I keep reading from various sources (I know, weasel words) that the print media is dying (or already dead).  Other than for the purposes of nostalgia, why is this bad?  I can read any number of local, regional, national, or international news sources online from my home computer, work computer, and even my phone.  I think saving a few million trees every year is a good thing, don't you?

Part of the lamenting this change is not nostalgia, however.  There is a genuine concern that without a good print media, there will be no (or at least reduced)  investigate reports, government watchdogs, and checks on power.  This is supposedly due to the fact that print media has the funds necessary to follow-up on leads and develop in-depth stories.  Blogs, on the other hand, supposedly do not have these types of resources.  I disagree with this argument.  First, since 9/11/01, there has been little to none of that from the traditional media anyway!  Remember all those great stories busting open the fraud that was Sadam Hussein's glaring lack of any WMDs?  Yea, me either.  Second, there are blogs that do investigative stories, even if the quantity of investigations is less than a traditional media outlet.  This brings me to my third point: there are far more blogs than newspapers.  You do not need a single blog to do the work of a single newspaper.  A collection of a couple dozen blogs can and do perform as much reporting.  Plus, blogs cross-link and cross-pollinate, so the word gets out fast.  Not all blogs do this, yes.  However, I feel enough blogs are doing this and are doing a fine job replacing the dying print industry.

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