Great words from great presidents

... plus one other guy at the end.

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, March 4, 1933: Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, January 20, 1961: And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, January 20, 1981: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, June 12, 1987: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

George Walker Bush, September 14, 2001: I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

Barack Hussein Obama, January 19, 2011: This bit of news... under a new agreement, our national zoo will continue to dazzle children and visitors with the beloved giant pandas.

Full text of Obama's speech

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"



(applause)



He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought...

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.



(applause)



And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!



One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.



(applause)



"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.



'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



(applause)

Speechin' and talkin' and such

Seems that Microsoft is banking on computers not using keyboards anymore. According to an AP report, Bill Gates thinks that touchpads and speech will be how folks use computers:

"It's one of the big bets we're making," he said during the final stop of a farewell tour before he withdraws from the company's daily operations in July.

In five years, Microsoft expects more Internet searches to be done through speech than through typing on a keyboard, Gates told about 1,200 students and faculty members Thursday at Carnegie Mellon University.

Speech?

That don't work well.

Not for me anyway.

I got OnStar in the car. And it includes a hands free phone.

You ever try to call someone on one of those things?

I was in the car and tried to call my sister. The Mean One.

Here's how it goes.

I press the OnStar phone button.

"OnStar ready."

"Dial."

"Please say the number you wish to dial."

I give out my sister's phone number. All 10 digits.

OnStar, when it isn't sure what number I say, uses "0" (zero).

It says, "9-0-0 0-2-0 3-0-0-5. Is this correct?"

It wasn't.

"Please say the number you wish to dial."

I try again.

OnStar says, "5-0-2 0-2-0 0-9-0-9."

That's even worse.

"Please say the number you wish to dial."

Once more, I try.

And OnStar thinks I said "9-1-0 4-0-0 0-4-5-9."

Which is wrong. Almost got the area code right.

"Please say the number you wish to dial."

Again, I give it a try.

And OnStar gets it all wrong again. And again. And again.

And this goes on and on for several tries.

OnStar doesn't seem to like my South Georgia accent.

It thinks 9s are 5s. Or sometimes, it thinks they are 0s. And, every so often, a 9 is a 9. But it's a crapshoot.

Other numbers, it doesn't like the way I say them, either.

Now, I may be wrong, but I suspect that OnStar has pretty good technology. And it has trouble with the way I say some numbers.

So, how will Bill Gates' technology work?

About as well as Windows Vista, I suspect.

And Windows Vista is one of the reasons I bought a Mac.