The R-Word movement to “End The Word” was started by Special Olympics to protect the dignity of people who happened to be born with intellectual disabilities.  The derogatory use of the R-Word marginalizes people on the basis of their disability.

It’s hurtful, derogatory and offensive.  The biggest problem is that most people are completely unaware — I certainly was, and I was seriously taken aback to learn that something I’d thought to be completely innocuous is widely considered to be hate speech.

The English language is positively brimming adjectives that apply negative connotations in completely inoffensive ways.  In fact, the sheer number of negative adjectives at our disposal is rather harrowing.  Roughly 30% of them were invented for use in the criticism of government officials (which, as far as you know, is an accurate and well-vetted statistic).

Here are a few for reference:

• absurd
• obtuse
• foolish
• inane
• sophomoric
• asinine
• incongruous
• preposterous
• askance
• nonsensical
• daft
• cretinous
• ridiculous

Don’t try to rationalize whether anyone “should” be offended by the R-Word, or any other word, for that matter.  Simply accept it.

Furthermore, don’t think of this as an attempt to limit your use of language.  Refer to the word list above.  Do you use all of those words in equal proportion to the R-Word?  Since Oscar Wilde is dead, I don’t think any of us can claim to have so broad a mastery of the English language that we can demand usage of the entire catalog of words.  We can all afford to sidestep the patently offensive bits.

So far, I’ve resolved to drink enough water and re-learn Spanish.  I’m pretty consistent on the water thing, y puedo hablar Español mejor que el mes pasado.

I’m highly tempted to use my monthly resolutions to do something work-related, but I’m trying to keep them in the spirit of health and well-being.  This month, I’m going to start paying more attention to the food that I buy, more in an ethical sense than a dietary microscope sense.

Take coffee, for example.  I used to go to Starbucks fairly recently, mainly due to consistency and convenience.  I can walk into any Starbucks anywhere — including the one spitting distance from my office — and get a predictably acceptable cup of coffee.  It’s not the best coffee in the world, but I know that it won’t be awful; and if I feel like putting sugar in it, I know exactly how much it will need.

We bought a coffee maker for the office, so I don’t go to Starbucks as often; but I was buying their beans for awhile, mainly for the aforementioned consistency.

Then I started looking at some of the labels on other products in the coffee section, and I started to wonder what terms like organic and fair trade mean in the context of coffee, and why Starbucks isn’t organic if they claim to be “100% Responsibly grown. Ethically traded.”

Fair Trade

For starters, I went to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) website.  They describe Fair Trade as a trading partnership with coffee growers, which seeks to ensure that the people responsible for producing coffee are fairly compensated for their work, and not exploited (I’m paraphrasing; here’s an article that goes into greater detail).

Being a savvy consumer who likes to make informed decisions, I’ve decided that I support fair trade coffee.  Unfortunately, Starbucks is not even a member of the Rainforest Alliance, whose label only guarantees that a product is at least 30% fairly traded.  Based on a few articles I read, it seems that Starbucks’ fair trade consistency has wandered between 3-6% over the last few years, and they’re simply not responding to public outcries for improvement.

I’ll blog about my personal opinions on social responsibility another time; for now, suffice it to say that we are not amused.

Organic

In the US, standards for organic certification are set buy the USDA, and certifications are issued by state, non-profit and private agencies approved by the USDA.

There are three levels of organic certification:

• 100% Organic: Products with this label are made from entirely organic materials.
• Organic: Products with this label contain at least 95% organic ingredients.
• Made with Organic Ingredients: Products with this label contain at least 70% organic ingredients.

(Starbucks claims none of these distinctions.)

According to an Organic Trade Association article, “U.S. requirements for organic coffee production include farming without synthetic pesticides or other prohibited substances for three years and a sustainable crop rotation plan to prevent erosion, the depletion of soil nutrients, and control for pests.”  This doesn’t seem like it should be terribly difficult for Starbucks to attain, yet they don’t seem interested.  Apparently, their social responsibility is limited to marketing BS.  Good job snowing most of your customers, but I’ll take my business elsewhere.

And there it is — after about half an hours’ research, I am well-informed enough to confidently make smart decisions.  I just hope my ethical compass doesn’t hit my wallet too hard!

We have a rule at FrogSlayer: Don’t come to work if you’re sick. We’re usually pretty good at following it, but we had a client going public last week with a product we were developing.  The pressure was on, and our dev leads were coming down with fevers.

Here’s where we screwed up.  Our client was urging us to rally our troops, so we called the sick ones to check their status.  We told them that we needed them, but told them we’d manage if they couldn’t make it.

They came to work.  The result?  4 strains of influenza chewed their way through the office last week.  This week, no work is getting done.  We’re not happy, our client isn’t happy, and our employees aren’t happy.  Also, we’re not getting paid.

We should never have asked our employees to break the don’t-come-to-work-if-you’re-sick rule, and now we have to figure out if they came in because they’re a bunch of badass heroes, or if they felt like they had to because we asked.  Either way, the outcome was horrific, and we will never repeat this mistake.

Don’t ever ask a sick employee to come to work.  Trust me — you can’t afford it.

I’ve been avoiding the drudgery of switching providers for awhile; but since most of my domains are expiring this month, it was time to either slog through it or give GoDaddy a bunch of money.  Had I seen just how ridiculously sexist their commercials were before I’d originally signed up with them, I never would have done so in the first place.

(FYI, their admin interface sucks too.  Not only was it impossible to find anything, they changed it every week.)

I’m much happier with BlueHost, not to mention richer.  $6.95/month for unlimited hosting?  I was paying that for one site with GoDaddy!  Not a paid advertisement, by the way — just a satisfied customer.

I transitioned this site first just to get a feel for it, and it could not have been easier.  Doing the rest of them this week.

For the last few years, tech forums have been sprinkled with people reporting that periodically, they can get to any website they want, unless it’s a Google-owned site (Gmail, YouTube, etc.).  The problem usually resolves itself after a couple of hours.

What’s going on?

If my thoughts on the subject are to be believed, the ISPs are periodically blocking their DNS servers from redirecting to Google-owned sites.  This reduces the amount of data flowing across their networks, saving them money.

ISPs provide service to their customers in the hopes that they will not utilize high amounts of bandwidth.  Think in terms of an all-you-can-eat buffet: if you pay full price and eat one plate of food, you’ve given the restaurant a higher profit than the World-Hot-Dog-Eating-Champion who can skeletonize a bucket of fried chicken faster than I can come up with a metaphor.

What do I do?

First, set your router to use a Google Public DNS server.  (Due to the variety of commercially available routers, I cannot give you instructions for this — apologies.  Consult the manual that came with your router.  You DO have the manual, don’t you?)

If you’re having trouble reaching Google because you’re presently a victim of this atrocity, they have two server addresses: 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8.  You can also use other public DNS servers, but I can guarantee that these will be able to find Google!

Once you’re back up and running, email your ISP and demand an explanation.  You contracted with them to provide a service, and if they are unable or unwilling to provide the service that they promised, you should be entitled to a credit on your bill.

(Good luck with actually getting a credit, but you’ll be standing up for fair practices when you tell your ISP that you won’t sit idly by while they take your money for nothing!)

Amazon Ponies Up to Microsoft for Linux Rights (Click to read the story at TechNewsWorld.com)

In summary, Microsoft and Amazon are involved in some cross-patent action.  They’re patenting the technology by which the Kindle grabs content from Linux-based servers, and Amazon pays Microsoft for the privilege.  Microsoft has asserted in the past that Linux infringes on their patents, so this patent carries some troubling connotations.

Xerox sues Google, Yahoo over search patents (Click to read the story at CNET News)

So Xerox is seeking an injunction against Google, because they thought up the idea for a “System for Automatically Generating Queries” and a “Method and Apparatus for the Integration of Information and Knowledge.”

The article references the two patents that Xerox is waving around.  I took a minute to scan them, and I’ll give the fine folks at Xerox credit for commiting to the creation of such a long document.  I further praise their ability to wax rhetorical, at length, about not much at all.

In 2001, they came up with a theoretical framework for a search engine. Though it made references to the use of technologies like HTML and XML, neither mentioned the use of PHP, which is really the backbone of the Google search engine (which, for those counting at home, was launched in 1997).

The long-and-short of it, if you believe the assertions of all involved, is that Xerox came up with an idea and sat on it for 10 years, whereas Google delivered a product, from which the entire world has benefitted, that was fundamentally similar to Xerox’ idea.

My Two Cents

I’m going to propose a radical new concept, which I would characterize as both idealistic and pragmatic.  In the name of the forward progress of technology, I call upon the technology community to unite and deliver this message unto the corporate mega-giants: Screw Your Patent.

By getting a rubber stamp on a vague idea, and then using your “ownership” of that idea to hinder the efforts of people who take action and create products, you become the wrench in the gears; and while everyone involved could be directing their efforts toward further innovation, you’d rather they all stop and pay atention to you, while you insist on receiving money that you’ve done nothing to earn.

I say we do away with patents.  Having a good idea is fine and all, but if you produce nothing beneficial from that idea, it’s worthless in a practical sense.  Open source is the way and the light — let’s all start announcing our ideas to the world, and see what happens.  We can still take credit for the things that we produce, and make mad profits — but ideas are worthless without execution.

(My apologies to the person or entity who first thought of doing away with patents and rewarding actual progress — please don’t sue me, I promise it’s not worth your time.)

“Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies.

Net Neutrality is the reason the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online. It protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.”

I could rant endlessly, but the essential aim of the Net Neutrality movement is to prevent the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from severely limiting our access to the internet, and making a bundle in the process. Another quote from Save The Internet:

“The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. And they want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking services offered by their competitors.”

For more general information on the benefits of Net Neutrality, check out the FAQ on Save The Internet.