Gathman Happenings

I have tried to reconcile conflicting reports in the Story of Terri Schiavo.

Stuart's class on Roman Catholics and Evangelicals had only 4 members in 2002. However, they were very appreciative; most were repeating the class. On September 20, 2002, we tried a different topic with the book Intelligent Design by William A. Dembski. Stuart also enjoys a local Apologetics Club.

Check out Jonathan's Web Page, and now Jim's Web Page as well as A Musical Offering and Mindi's Web Page! The girls won't give me any more of their writing, but Elissa, Julie, Laura, Daddy have Xangas which they occasionally update.

The Virginia Gathmans have a new cat.

Microsoft XP and Treacherous Computing Warning

While previous versions of Microsoft Windows have had some advantages to offset the problems, the new licensing and Digital Restrictions Management (called Digital "Rights" Management by some) features in Windows XP make it truly a force for evil. Microsoft calls their new DRM "Trusted Computing", but it is actually Treacherous Computing. Microsoft applications with DRM (currently only Windows Media Player), among other things, delete banned documents on demand. Microsoft Word is next to get the DRM treatment, and I hope you can understand the implications enough to shudder. If you have Windows applications that you can't replace, stay with earlier versions of Windows if you possibly can (of course, this will mean you can't read documents produced by later versions). Better, don't use Windows. I use Fedora Linux which runs on the same hardware as Windows (except for some WinModems and other hardware with secret interfaces). One of my coworkers uses an Apple PowerMac. MacOS uses more expensive (but superior) hardware.