Monday - December 13, 1999

Is it just me, but last time I looked Sunday was the beginning of the week. So why is it so darned difficult to roll out of bed on Mondays? Sheesh.

I've been trying to check my emails over the weekend and the hot topic is re-direction of the "current.html" page. Now, I know this stirs the hearts of all 13 people who read this since I have had an outpouring of responses to my question </NOT> as to what to do. So maybe everyone should just do what they want and we'll see how things shake out (As it were. Hey Dr. Jim be careful of frostbite:>). As for me, (see here [link removed as the change over was made at the end of this month - Ed]) I think beginning next year I'll do an index page and you, dear reader, will have to manually click on the current posting (sort of like Bo Leuf or Dr. Keyboard. Speaking of Bo, may I say I am impressed by his clarity and depth of understanding of all things electronic. If you haven't read his page yet. Go take a look as soon as you can).

I got the two S-video cables this weekend. And the last two the dealer had, they were. May I start a small rant and say why is it that Sony sells a receiver with three "S" inputs and one output but did not include one stinking cable? Double Sheesh. But I digress. I took the S-output from the digital cable box to the input (video 1) of the receiver. I then unhooked the "S" output of the DVD, which had been connected directly to the input of the TV, and connected it to the DVD input of the receiver. I then used the monitor output of the receiver and connected that to the input of the TV. If this is starting to sound like a web of spaghetti that would not be far from the truth. I now have cables of all sorts snaking all over the place. But in the end, it all works. And works exceedingly well. I celebrated by going out to the local Blockbuster video store and bought "Top Gun" and "Casablanca." She who Can Not Be Disobeyed (did you see the story last night on "60 Minutes"?) rented "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." All are terrific movies. Especially Austin Powers. I laughed out loud (as opposed to laughing without sound?). I really like DVDs and the Dolby Digital/Pro Logic/5.1/dts sound.

On the sports front, the 27th annual Honolulu Marathon was held yesterday. Conditions were not the best, since there was a light rain at the start, but about 26,000 people felt it was good enough conditions to run. And so they did. Congratulations to everyone. Way back in 1984 or so, I walked the Honolulu Marathon. Actually, I jogged the first half in two hours, the last half I walked, step by step, in four more hours. Six hours to cover 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 km). I will never do that again. Ever.

Abracadbra2000, the Hawai'i entrant in the America's Cup yacht race is on the verge of being eliminated from the next round of races. In order to move on, they have to be in no lower than sixth place. Right now, with two or three races to go in this round, they are in ninth place. I guess, $15 million USD is just not enough now-a-days to compete on the level of the America's Cup. But can people continue to spend more and more each competition? Prada spends $30 million USD this time around. What will it cost the next time? $40 million? $50 million? Why are we spending so much on winning a metal cup that doesn't even look that good?

***** Noon Update *****

As Dan Briordy of InfoWorld said "...this Christmas thing is really going to happen." . Truer words have not been spoken. She Who Can Not Be Denied and I went shopping this weekend. Or I should say, she went shopping and I went buying. I knew what I wanted and where to get it. I will say no more.

So we got to the the shopping center before the 8:00am opening only to find a line of cars trying to get in. Being the smart shoppers that we are, we went around to another entrance and found no line and ample free parking. One wonders why people que up in lines when there are other ways of reaching your objective. In either case, the shopping season is definetly upon us but I am just not in the mood. Oh, I think I've finished getting something for everyone on my list but what I've gotten is not very imaginative. In other words, a lot of gift certificates. But hey, isn't that better than having to stand in lines to return the five-pound fruit cake you don't want?

Thinking about making a career move? Then one of the things you may be interested in is how much would you make. Check out the following links first before sending that email to your boss (you know, the one in which you tell them what you really think about them :>).

- Job Star
- Wall Street Journal (click on the Salaries and Profiles in the left-hand pane).
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- WageWeb
- Career InfoNet

Aloha!

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Tuesday - December 14, 1999

My revised current.html page is here [Note. The link has been removed since I have finished making changes - Ed.] anyone wants to take a look. All it is, is my journal index renamed and slightly revamped to conform to Daynotes Requirements 2.03.01.9, step 3. I know there were 212 unique URLs that visited in the month of November so perhaps some of you could let me know what you think. Is this on the right track or not? If not, how could it be changed to be better? Does it really matter to you at all? As always, all mail will be read and answered. The check is in the mail. We're the government, we're here to help. The dog ate my diskette.

So I went to my 1:00pm meeting yesterday and found the door closed. Hmmm. I went inside, turned on the lights and sat there for five minutes. Thinking at the speed of light through neurons, I reckoned that either the date or time was wrong. Checking the email found that yes sirree Bob, the time was wrong. Figuring I could maybe salvage something out of the walk to the building, I went down to the office of the chair of the meeting. Whereupon I found out that the meeting had been canceled and no one had let me know about it. Very Big Sigh. Setoism #348B:Sometimes you get the bird, and sometimes the bird gets you.

This may be old news but PCWeek, in their print issue of November 29, reports that Red Hat will be making "major investment(s)" in the Mozilla (aka Navigator 5.0) project and Sendmail, Inc. This, as an effort to "lock horns" with Microsoft. Hmmm. Interesting strategy. Take a alpha browser that is months late, full of show stopping bugs, big and slow (relative to Opera) and challenge Internet Explorer. Hey, that makes sense </Double NOT>. "Lord, what fools these mortals be." (Act 3, scene ii)

Sorry, no time for a noon update-Aloha

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Hump Day Wednesday - December 15, 1999

The town is a buzz with talk of a $145 million USD Disney movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Locations are being looked at now with filming scheduled to begin sometime in the Spring. Slated to produce is Jerry Bruckheimer ("Top Gun" and "Crimson Tide") and Michael Bay ("Armageddon") as director. Most of the money is earmarked for computer generated special effects to recreate the actual attack itself. Interestingly enough, they also plan to use the same tank in Mexico used to film Titanic for some scale models shots. How they are going to find people small enough to fit in the models is beyond me ;>

Speaking of a buzz, the Backnoters were comparing the sizes of their networks yesterday. Well, since I work in a government agency that is state-wide, I think mine is the biggest of all. Not that size matters. But we have IBM mainframes that not only could run small cities, they actually do run a small state. So there. ;>

The buzz this morning from the Backnoters is that they hear of something called the Y2K bug. We have learned, from normally reliable sources, that it has something to do with computers and how dates are stored. Now what does the storage of a "dark oval single-stoned fruit" has to do with computers I know not. But this could be serious. We will keep you updated as we learn more </BOB>. ;>

I have to agree with Matt, stop what you are doing and go right now to Bo Leuf's page. Go to the bottom of Wednesday's post and read the fur crying out loud funniest thing on the web today.

For those of you looking for a host for your site, you could do worse than 9netave.com. They host this site and while they have not been perfect, they do well enough given the low cost I pay (paid on a yearly basis). The base plan includes:

25 MB of storage
$14.95/month
10 Mailboxes (POP3/SMTP)
Domain Name Registration www.yourname.com
Configurable, unlimited email address forwarding.
Custom CGI script support via own cgi-bin directory
Detailed web usage statistics & access to raw log files
Real Audio/Video Capabilities
1500 MB of data transfer per month, $0.08 per MB over 1500
$0.50 per Mb on any overage storage beyond the standard allowed disk space
24X7 tech support

There are of course other plans but costs start to go up from there. And no, I do not own any stock in this company.

***** Noon Update *****
So the semi-final participants are set for the America's Cup yacht race in New Zealand. The teams that made it into the top six are in order: Prada (Italy), Nippon (Japan), America True (US), America One (US), Team Dennis Conner (US), and Le Déf, BTT (France). As noted earlier, the Hawai'i team, Abracadbra2000 of the Waikiki Yacht Club, did not make the cut. The team put on a spirited, but ultimately failed attempt to make the semi-finals. Setoism #299: Them that has the money wins.

This just in on the dates vs. PCs Y2K conundrum story first broken here earlier today. Our European correspondents are reporting that indeed, trying to insert "dark oval single-stoned fruit" into the cup holders of PCs will cause the fruit to become inedible. Please do not do this. More as more is known. ;>

Aloha!

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Thursday - December 16, 1999

Internet access has gone south again this morning. So whenever access is restored is when I will post this. Sorry for the inconvenience but the dog ate my diskette.

Brian Bilbrey's post for yesterday said that:

"I fear that I will only have about 5 working days the balance of this year, with the Christmas to New Year shutdown, two days before Christmas, and I will probably take this Friday off as well."

And they call me a government worker! I'll have you folks know that I have ten more working days (as of today) through the end of the year. [In my best Backbencher voice] Hrumph! Hrumph!

In fact, this year, we will not have the traditional half-day off for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. This tradition has been in place for as long as I can remember and was an administrative sort of way of giving a Christmas "bonus" to government workers (seeing that no monetary bonuses could be given). Now even that is no more. [Ramp up the sound of violins and gentle weeping]. Blimey, as some would say.

And now this from France. The morning paper is reporting that the French Parliament approved legislation to create a 35 hour work week. Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin is quoted as saying that this will force businesses to hire additional help to cover the lost hours. The story also noted that France has an 11 percent unemployment rate. This goes to show you that the US is not the only place with morons running the asylum.

Speaking of the morning paper. This Saturday is the annual Honolulu Advertiser Jingle Bell Run. It's a race for a couple of charities and runs through the downtown area of Honolulu and ends at the famous Aloha Tower. It starts at about 6:00pm and passes buildings and trees that have been decorated for Christmas. This is the 5th consecutive year I will be running/jogging/walking. There are also contests for best dressed runners, best singers, and of course - best dressed dogs (yes, the dogs run in the race also). The prize for best dressed runner is a trip to Boston for their Jingle Bell Run.

Tom "Nanook of the North" Syroid's Wednesday post lets Matt Beland and myself know what a "parka" is. You know, I've heard of such things. I've even seen pictures in books. But did you know, parka is an Aleut word for RUSSIAN. Ha! ha! ha! ha! I kid you not. Look it up (assuming your dictionary gives word derivations). Gee, I think I'll go to the beach this weekend and work on my tan. Now where's my sun tan lotion, its around here somewhere. Mustn't get a sun burn. Ha! ha! ha! ha!

Speaking of Russians, we now have confirmation from our Russian correspondents about our earlier story on the Y2K and dates problem. The Russians report that you can preserve the "dark oval single-stoned fruit" in tightly closed jars after heating the fruit at high temperatures. They recommend the use of a 700MHz or better Pentium III to do the heating and caution users about possible spill over onto the motherboard if you are not careful. Users beware. Do not do this at home. You have been warned. ;>

***** Noon Update *****
A quick look at mozilla.org finds that build M12 should be on the wire Real Soon Now. The bugzilla status, as of 10:40am PST, is two P1 show stopping bugs. Once those two are clear, M12 should show up soon after. According to their milestones, a beta-class version (sounds like something out of Star Trek:    Keptin! There is a beta-class cruiser off our port bow! Good work Mr. Sulu. Red alert! Come to battle stations!) should then be the next step or so. Your mileage may vary.

Hmmm. Something is not right. When I came in this morning there was no mail from the Daynotes Gang. Strange. And now that I have been at work for five hours, still nothing. As they say in all those old WWII movies; "It's quiet. Yes, too quiet." Me thinks something is afoot, Watson.

Aloha!

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Aloha Friday - December 17, 1999

I've also modified my home page. If you want to get a preview of it you can click here [Preview deleted since the changes have been made]. Note that it is a work in progress and may change from time to time until the first of next year. You will also notice that it is not that much different from what it looks like now except for some color changes and omitting four of five jpgs. This last change, probably more than the rest, will shorten download times. I am also experimenting with cascading style sheets. And while there are some cool things you can do with it, it also can increase the amount of html instead of decreasing it, depending on what you are doing.

I checking in with Tom Syroid about the lack of email, the Daynotes Gang headmaster and sometime dust bunny soccer player said people are just too busy to come out and play. Well, alrighty then. I'll just go off to this corner and play with Bo's cat. At least he/she knows how to type. Although, it sure does shed a lot of hair. I may need to go out and get a new Microsoft Natural Pro keyboard <g>.

And speaking of mail, I can receive mail, but apparently, can't send right now. Sigh. The Judiciary hasn't gotten around to officially having its own mail server. So what I do is use the University of Hawai'i server to send mail out. Right now, all attempts to connect to the server to send mail are failing. So while I can receive mail from my ISP account, I can not send. I will try using another of their relay servers to see if I can get out that way. And yes, it seems to be working so mail is now going out. Whew.

On the other hand, while I have not done exhaustive bandwidth tests yet with my Road Runner account at home, here are the results of what I have done. Note that the testing was done at 7:00pm in the evening which is when the load on the system should be growing to or near its peak. Note also that the tests were done using the MSN URL at http://computingcentral.msn.com/topics/bandwidth/speedtest.asp. All the regular caveats are in effect.

Average=3,171 Kbps
Median=2,250 Kbps
Maximum=6,800 Kbps
Minimum=940 Kbps
Standard Deviation=2,267

Obviously, there is a lot of variability in available bandwidth at any particular time. Notwithstanding that, these numbers are higher by at least 200% than any number I've recorded at work using our T-1. So for $39.95 USD per month, I'm satisfied. Your mileage may vary.

***** Noon Update *****
What with all the fur flying from Bo's cat, I went out and bought the new MS Natural Pro keyboard (USB/PS2) and also the new MS IntelliMouse Explorer Mouse (USB/PS2). The keyboard seems OK although the new layout will take some time to get used to. In fact, there are at least three different layouts for different versions of the Natural Keyboard. One that I have at work, one the SWCNBD uses at home, and now the new one that I am using at home. Sheesh.

If you are using Win98 and your PC has USB ports, you can hookup the lead from the keyboard to the PC's USB port and have that port replicated on the back of the keyboard and one more to boot. So you get two ports for the price of one. Of course, whether or not you want to have USB cables running out of the back of your keyboard is something else entirely.

The new mouse is also different in that they've added two new buttons on the left side of the mouse. That will also take some time getting used to because that's where I used to put my thumb. So expect a lot of unexpected results because of that. I noticed it is also a lot lighter than the Intellimouse Pro that I had been using. And actually, I prefer a little weight in my mice (I think Salem likes'm big and juicy also) so this too shall also take some getting used to. What is improved is the scroll button. The scrolling motion is much smoother than it was before. The last thing I noticed, actually it's the first thing I noticed, is that the sound of the click is both much louder and higher in pitch. This is very annoying in a large office with many cubicles situated nearby. Still, it looks really cool, glowing red on the desk. In fact, if you turn down the lights it looks even better in a cheery Christmas sort of way. But I digress. I think the keyboard is a definite recommend but I will have to reserve judgment on the mouse. Perhaps I should of gotten one of the other Intellimouses (mice?) instead.

Oh, by the way. This is the first mouse that I know of that comes with a warning in the manual that "Use of controls or adjustments or performance of procedures other than those specified herein may result in hazardous radiation exposure." Hmmm. Maybe I should get welder goggles or maybe even one of those lead-lined shields that they use at the dentist when you need to have X-rays done.

But in no case should you allow your cat get anywhere near it! Here kitty kitty. Here kitty kitty. I wonder if you can do feline laser surgery with this mouse? Now where did that darn'd cat go to now?

The January 2000 issue of Road & Track magazine has a listing of what they consider to be the top 100 best cars of the past 100 years. You have to give them credit for having the cajones to come up with such a subjective list. Based on their 100, I've chosen what I consider to be the 15 best/most influential/ground breaking/enduring automobiles of the last 100 years (in no particular order).

1. Ford Model-T
2. Volkswagen Bug
3. Jeep
4. Chevrolet Corvette
5. Mercedes Benz 300SL
6. Porche 356
7. Jaguar E-Type
8. Porche 911
9. Ford Mustang
10. Datsun 240Z
11. BMW 2002tii
12. Honda Accord
13. 1978 Lotus 79 F1
14. Range Rover
15. Any Ferrari ever built

It's interesting to note that five are German, four US, three UK, two from Japan and only one from Italy. Hmmm. I need to change that. Add a 15a as the Lamborghini Countach and 15b as the Aston Martin DB5. Then, a 10a for the Mazda RX-7 and 10b for the Datsun 510. Any list is subjective. And this more so than many. But these stand out the most to me and of course they tend to be towards the performance end of the spectrum.

Although I've owned none of them, I have driven the Bug, 'Vette, 911, Mustang, 240Z, 2002tii, and the Accord. The one(s) I lust after the most is any Ferrari. As long as it's red and has 12 cylinders! But to get back to earth, I think a BMW would do nicely. If not that, then a Lexus or Mercedes Benz. Oh, you want to know what I drive now. Well, it's a 1999 Toyota Camry LE V6. Before that, I had an 1986 Acura Integra RS. And before that, a 1978 Chevrolet Z-28 Camaro (I miss the torque and power of that one).

Aloha!

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