Disqus - Latest Comments for astorg

Re: Golda Meir on “Palestine”

astorg — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:18:42 -0000

@Paula: You can argue that what she says isn't helpful or constructive. But it's factually accurate, often overlooked—and certainly not racist.

The tendency to indiscriminately label anyone whose views you don't agree with as "racist" probably contributes a great deal more to preventing conflict resolution than a lot of people imagine.

Re: The four tradionalist bishops: were they ever validly excommunicated?

astorg — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:53:10 -0000

Update: Mgr Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX, in an interview with Genevan newspaper Le Temps, has distanced himself from Mgr Williamson:

- Do you condemn the negationist declarations of Bishop Williamson?

- [Fellay:] It does not belong to me to condemn them. I do not have the competence for this. But I deplore that a Bishop may have given the impression of involving the Fraternity with a view that is not ours.

Re: The four tradionalist bishops: were they ever validly excommunicated?

astorg — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:55:19 -0000

@John from Atlanta: You have a point about the dichotomy between the two decisions (1988 and 2009). But neither decision was made for political reasons. Indeed, the Holy See's position in 1988 was that the decision was not its own to take, since the bishops would have become excommunicate ipso facto, entirely by their own doing.

In reality, the double standard applied to the Chinese Patriotic Church after 1951 and to the SSPX many years later shows that the John Paul II's Holy See was being slightly disingenuous. Ultimately, the grounds invoked were disciplinary (lack of submission to the Pope) rather than theological, and in the matter of discipline there is rather more room for flexibility. Put otherwise, times have changed and by 2009 it was obvious that the disciplinary perspective has shifted dramatically.

Regarding Mgr Williamson's views, I was not suggesting they should be brushed under the carpet. Being a negationist is neither grounds for being excommunicated, nor even—we don't like it, but it's the legal position—a justifiable reason for subsequently remaining excommunicate if one has already been for other, theological or disciplinary, reasons. It's a completely separate, unrelated issue. On the other hand, it is certainly unacceptable for anyone in a position of authority, especially moral authority. So it is to be hoped that the SSPX, which has already expressed its displeasure, and possibly the German courts, since Mgr Williamson's latest comments appear to have been recorded in Germany where such comments are against the law, will take the appropriate action.

Re: Review: Marsedit 2 vs. ecto 3 Beta

astorg — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:32:20 -0000

A fair review: ecto's support of custom fields, which are incredibly handy in the new version of WordPress, is another factor in its favour, although I'm sure D. Jalkut will add it in the next version of MarsEdit.

Re: Facebook Connect vs. OpenID

astorg — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:54:29 -0000

Hm... I might just take you up on that you know!

Re: A Week with MobileMe: Final Day • Evan Sims

astorg — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:09:52 -0000

@Evan: Regarding the Windows/webmail/Mac issue, I guess we just have differing perspectives, not incompatible ones. I can easily believe that MobileMe is less than satisfactory for WIndows users, although that's something I can live with!. I still suspect it isn't as unsatisfactory as using Exchange is for a Mac user...

Regarding using Gmail with MobileMe, I have been doing so from the start: of course, you can't use Gmail on the webmail interface, which is probably what you would have wanted to do... but you can use it with the MobileMe clients (Apple Mail, iPhone). They support SSL and IMAP. I use Google Apps with my own domain fro email, and MobileMe for calendar and contact items. Integration is perfect since all the mail is on IMAP and on the rare occasion when I need to access my email on the web... well, I just use the Gmail web interface.

Apart from (1) poor spam control and (2) lack of support for personalized domains (I find it unacceptable being tied to a generic email address), MobileMe mail is actually pretty reliable (plus it offers push for those who need it). When those two major flaws are corrected, which I suspect they will in a future release, the product in my view will justify switching away from Google altogether.

Re: A Week with MobileMe: Final Day • Evan Sims

evansims — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:57:20 -0000

Thanks for your comment, astrog. I appreciate your opinion, but I have to disagree. I own several Macs, and am painfully familiar with Entourage. However, for the purposes of this experiment I decided to approach the product from a Windows users perspective. Apple markets MobileMe as a powerful tool for Windows users just as much as it does Mac users, so it seems logical to approach it as such. The very fact that it has considerably more features under Mac than Windows was one the points I tried to bring into perspective.

Also, Apple has heavily touted MobileMe's "next generation Web 2.0" UI, which is why I approached that side of things so strongly in this series. I did test it under Outlook as well, but with luke-warm (at best) results. The problem with MobileMe's Web UI is that it flat out does not work in many regards, and Apple has yet to admit or face that problem.

I certainly understand where you're coming from with your opinions, but I think you're missing my problem with MobileMe as a service. I love Apple products. I'm not a hater by any means. But they let me down terribly with MobileMe, and given the press it's gotten elsewhere I don't think I'm alone there.

Out of curiosity, how do you use Gmail and MobileMe together? I was hoping to do this myself when I started this experiment, but MobileMe Mail does not support SSL nor IMAP importing, so I was unable to connect the services.

Re: A Week with MobileMe: Final Day • Evan Sims

astorg — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:51:21 -0000

Evan, I actually think you're being unduly harsh. MobileMe is much more powerful for Mac users than WIndows users. But have you ever reflected on what it is like using Exchange (which is the only competitor around) on a Mac? It means using Entourage which is basically a second-rate version of Outlook and is completely obsolete in a huge number of ways.

You seem to have used MobileMe primarily on the web, with a heavy focus on email, and view the choice as being either Gmail or MobileMe. In reality, Mobile is primarily designed, like Exchange, to be used with a desktop or mobile client, ideally the Apple Mail/iCal/Address Book and iPhone combo, with data being synced seamlessly to the cloud and the web interface being used as a backup when you aren't actually using your own machine. Far from ruling out Gmail or any other IMAP-compatible mail server, it actually makes a lot of sense to use MobileMe in combination with Gmail, which is exactly what I do. See a record of my experience here.

Re: The new France

astorg — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:47:51 -0000

@Bretzelman: Hey glad you liked it and I agree about it being ambivalent and i didn't ask him personally whether he was praying, kissing the ground or just resting. Regardless of what the guy is doing, though, he shouldn't be doing in it on his national flag, a flag should never be dropped on the floor.

Lying on a flag is one thing; kissing the ground is another. Regarding the pope's practice of kissing the ground, inherited from his rather theatrically minded predecessor, my own private view is that the practice is undignified and best confined, like most of John Paul II's innovations, to the dustbins of history.

As for my source, haha, I forgot to say, but I actually took the pic myself but modesty precluded me from announcing it.

Re: The new France

astorg — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:51:31 -0000

@Andrew Min: I don't believe the picture was very widely circulated in France (which is why I posted it here, something I normally don't do on this site) so, no, there hasn't been one.

Re: Powerful clever MobileMe

astorg — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:48:47 -0000

@Andrew Min: Offering a basic email hosting service for custom domains is very simple, yes; it basically just involves fiddling with DNS, like you said.

Developing a fully-fledged competitor to Google Apps—because that, basically, is what Apple would have to do if it wanted to enter that segment of the market—is another proposition altogether. There would be much more than meets the eye in it, although I actually think Google's Premier package is a rip-off at $50 compared with Apple's $79 for MobileMe. Apple has the essentials of the package thrown in already and could actually move in pretty soon if they dispensed with offering the Office-equivalent suite that Google includes in Apps (and which I think is very overrated).

Re: FriendFeed Activity Widget

astorg — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:56:38 -0000

It would be nice if the plugin could be used to display on a page as well as in a widget. Having said that, it does look quite cool in my sidebar too.

Re: Back…

astorg — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:03:08 -0000

This is a test comment.