13 August 2008

Honor and Remember Flag


Well, it appears that some radicals are championing another worthless and time-wasting cause. They are attempting to get a flag (above), called the Honor and Remember Flag, officially recognized by Congress. The flag will honor fallen servicemen and servicewomen. Unfortunately, the concept itself is very un-American. For generations, patriotic Americans have stuck to the American flag as a symbol of national unity and remembrance of the past. The flag itself has its roots in the Second Continental Congress, meaning that the design precedes even the Constitution. The flag's thirteen stripes recognize the thirteen colonies that are the roots of the United States, but the stripes abstractly recognize all that has come to form our current union. Fallen soldiers have fought on behalf of this flag for generations, and todays soldiers proudly display it on their right soldier. Should the fallen soldiers of the United States not be honored by the flag that they fell upholding?
In addition to the flawed ideology behind this project, the Honor and Remember Flag itself could use some aesthetic improvements. The predominantly red background and large yellow star are reminiscent of one flat that many American servicemen fought to obliterate.

In conclusion, Americans of all walks of life and duties have lived under Old Glory. The flag is a symbol of everything American, and is proudly displayed on uniforms, on buildings, on Olympic uniforms, on space ships, on cars and on coffins. No group should try to create a fallacious facade for fallen warriors, no group should steal time from Congress that could be used to save the lives of current American soldiers, and no group should try to deface the glorious symbol of the United States of America.


06 August 2008

"Blog Posts Poke Holes in ‘Taste Test’ by Microsoft"

In a New York Times article entitled, "Blog Posts Poke Holes in 'Taste Test' by Microsoft", the author discusses a test by Microsoft where consumers who hadn't upgraded to Windows Vista were shown the Vista operating system under a new name and given the chance to test it. When it was revealed that the operating system was actually Vista, people suddenly fell in love with it based on ten minutes of usage. 
Many have already criticized this test. I find it reminiscent of the "New Coke" that was a miserable failure. Coca-Cola tried to reformulate their Coke recipe to beat Pepsi in blind taste tests, but the new recipe was rejected by consumers because it wasn't as appealing to drink more than a few sips of. This Vista test acts in a similar way- consumers will like the eye-candy of the operating system when they have no pre-existing prejudices against it, but once they have to live with it and find their own drivers and the like, then they will become dissatisfied with the operating system.