Monday - 24 January, 2000
Here be Dragons. At least, as of 5 February there will be. That's the Chinese New Year 4698, but then, you knew that right? This Year of the Dragon is particularly auspicious under the Chinese zodiac calendar. The Chinese zodiac consists of 12 animals, the fifth of which is the dragon. And; "So what you say? You also knew that." Well, dragon years cycle through the five elements: metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. And this year is a metal dragon year. Metal represents gold and silver, making it the strongest of the already most powerful of animals. So now is the time to move your life forward. A time for leadership. A time to be strong. Your mileage may vary.
State of the State. For those of you who live in Hawai'i (or even if you don't), and you want to watch the Governor's State of the State address to the Legislature today, go here at 10:00am HST. This is the first time the address will be broadcasted via the Internet (use IE with Media player). Of course, you can also watch it live on four stations locally.
As for me, I brought my Casio JY-10 2.25" (5.72 cm) Color LCD screen TV to work. Casio apparently doesn't make this TV anymore but I got mine from the Sharper Image about two years ago. It still works great and is water resistant so I sometimes take it to the beach to watch the ball games while working on my tan.
***** Noon Update *****
The sound you heard is the sound of dead dust bunnies being sucked through a straw. At least, that's what it sounded/looked like if you tried to view the Governor's State of the State address via the Internet. Or I should say, that's what it looked like when I tried to view it via the web. Maybe you were able to get a signal. I sure couldn't. Maybe it's our firewall. Maybe I didn't hold my mouth correctly when facing the Capitol. Maybe pixelworld.net (a private business not connected to state government) doesn't have its act together. It's a good thing I brought my LCD TV to watch...
As far as the speech. 1. Accountability in education. 2. Digital Island investment profits to be used to invest in high tech at the University of Hawai'i. 3. Increase minimum wage. 4. Fluoridate our water. 5. Use tobacco settlement funds to fund a healthy Hawai'i program, 6. Build a new prison, 7. Eliminate Civil Service System: Repeal binding arbitration in collective bargaining, eliminate/reduce holidays, eliminate job security rules, eliminate/reduce health coverage, eliminate positions. Hmmm. Hard to tell this man is in his second term and can't run for governor again...I would guess many of his proposals will not go anywhere and that's exactly where they should go.
Aloha!
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Tuesday - 25 January, 2000
Frigid Temps Hit Hawai'i. Well, OK. Frigid is a relative term. The overnight low dropped to 59ºF (15ºC). Brrrr. The normal low, this time of the year is 65ºF (18.3ºC). Otherwise, the weather has been absolutely perfect. Nice and sunny during the day and clear at night. Couldn't ask for better "winter" weather. Here's to hoping that other areas recover quickly from their weather related problems. And as we say here; "Lucky you live Hawai'i."
Speaking of Frigid. That's the reception the public had for the state's commuter ferry program, WikiWiki ("quick"). Only 100 people a day are using the hydrofoil catamaran from points west on O'ahu to Aloha Tower downtown. A private company owns the boat, originally from Norway, and runs it under a $3 million USD contract with the state.
And speaking of the dead. Two items. The Fox network announced that "90210", will not be renewed next year. Yes, that icon of the nineties, is dead. Finally.
The second item is related to something Bo mentioned about births:
From: Bo Leuf
To: Dan Seto
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 14:48:38 +0100
Subject: Year of the Dragon
Dan,
> This Year of the Dragon is particularly auspicious under the Chinese
> zodiac calendar.I'd agree with that, since I am one (water dragon) and consistently feel very auspicious. The Chinese BTW are braced for a surge of childbirths during the YotD, regulations or no.
/ Bo
--
"Bo Leuf"
Leuf fc3 Consultancy
http://www.leuf.com/
From: Dan Seto
To: Bo Leuf
Subject: Re: Year of the Dragon
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 06:29:43 -1000Bo "Water Dragon",
On the other hand, its been noted locally that the number of deaths increased significantly soon after the new year. I don't know if its been studied yet, but it appears there is a connection. I wonder if it holds true in other countries and calendars?
As far as controlling births, when it comes to procreation, people will do what people will do. No matter the consequences. So what's another million or two more...
Aloha - Dan "Year of the Monkey"
***** Noon Update *****
Fiber to the Home? The story is a little unclear, but it appears that an up-to-now secret consortium made up of HP, Oracle, Sierra Pacific Power, and TelecommUnity Systems is planning to do just that. The price for a 10MB connection? $13.95 USD/month! Yikes! Double Yikes! The roll-out begins in Nevada this summer. See the story from InfoWorld here.
Yikes!³ I'm not one to pry, [yah right. - Ed.] but all I can say is that Dave Farquhar must be going though some personal problems (see his Tuesday post and last weekends'). Here's to hoping that he sees his way through this OK. It also wouldn't hurt to keep a good thought for him. [ditto from this professional jackass, second class - Ed.]
Sick and Tired. Actually, I was talking about Transmeta. By now, most people are sick of this over-hyped company. But if you want the best summary of what Transmeta can do with its chips, then read John Dvorak's views here.
Aloha!
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Hump Day Wednesday - 26 January, 2000
Web Hosting. Still looking for that "perfect" company to host your web site to the stars? Well, get a grip. There's no such thing as a perfect hosting company. What is good for you may not be good for me. For what it's worth, there is a company which rates various hosting companies and produces the Top 25 List once a month (insert Disclaimer here). Who knows how they do the rating (other than by polling) but if you're interested, the list is here. YMMV.
Weather Update. The weather outside has been frightful on the east coast (as alluded to yesterday). The storm, a thousand miles wide (1,600 km), dropped up to two feet (0.61 m) of snow on some parts of North Carolina. A couple of the Daynoters call South Carolina home but say they are OK. Take care of yourselves guys.
Trust Me. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation became the largest trust in the world when Mr. Bill added an additional $5 billion USD in MS stock. This brings the total assets to $21.8 billion. The former first place was held by the UK Wellcome Trust ($21.4 billion), founded by Sir Henry Wellcome of pharmaceutical fame (see Glaxo Wellcome).
Man Bites Dog. Well, not exactly. But a local man fired for alleged sexual harassment won a $2 million USD discrimination suit against his former employer. It appears that he may have indeed sexually harassed the woman in question, but that did not mean the employer could then disregard its own personnel policies and terminate the man without following a due cause process. Be careful out there.
***** Noon Update *****
Shameless Plug. I reckon that if it's OK with Dr. Pournelle it's OK for me. So, if you are in Hawai'i, and are shopping for a new automobile, please check out Auto Consulting Executives. Disclaimer: It is run by a cousin of mine but I do not receive any kind of benefit, directly or indirectly if you buy through him. This service is for folks who don't have the time or temperament to haggle over price with a car salesman. Note that if you are a good bargainer, you may be able to get a better price by doing it yourself. But again, if you would rather not go through the trying experience of buying a car, check them out.
Them that has the Money. The finals of the America's Cup Challenger Series got underway yesterday. And while I did not get to watch the race on ESPN2, the reports all indicate that it will be a street-dog kind of series. Even before the start of the race, AmericaOne forced Prada into a penalty by turning into Prada's line when Prada, by rule, was supposed to give way to AmericaOne. The penalty is a 270º turn by Prada. And yet, through better meteorological data (finding where the wind was strongest over the course), seamanship (better handling of the sails), and tactics (finding the wind rather than covering your opponent during split tacks), Prada overcame the penalty and won the race by 28 seconds (a boat length or two). Well done. As noted earlier, Prada will probably win the best of nine series due to the above as well as the reported $60 million USD spend on their boats.
Thanks! I've been writing these Misc. Ramblings since October of last year. And as of yesterday, page hits broke through the 10,000/month barrier for the first time. This is very gratifying personally as sometimes I'm not sure if what I'm saying is being read by anyone. Much less having a site with 10,000 hits (and it's not even the end of the month yet). I am also heartened by the fact that my "scope" is wider than just computers and that you have found this to be something you like. Below is the graph showing the numbers (click on it for the full size version - 20K). Note that December's data was lost by my hosting company during the millennium roll over so the graph looks a little strange for that month. But again, thank you very much for visiting. I am humbled by your support.
Aloha!
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Thursday - 27 January, 2000
All Squared UP. What helped America's Cup yacht Prada of Italy win the first match over San Francisco's AmericaOne of the final Challenger series is what jumped up and bit them on the rear in the second yesterday. Prada, ahead at the first mark by over a minute 40, after pulling away from a struggling AmericaOne, made two decisions. Both which turned out to be wrong for the wind conditions of the day. Rather than covering the marks (keeping their boat between the next turning point and the challenger boat) they went off on split tacks. Yesterday, the wind gods shifted towards the American boat and the rest, as they say is history. AmericaOne won by about a minute 30.
Circling Vultures. Even as talk show host David Letterman lays in bed recovering from heart surgery, Hollywood agents are calling CBS to pitch their clients as guest hosts or, heaven forbid, even as replacement hosts. "Late Night" Executive Producer Rob Burnett is quoted as saying; "My friend has had his chest ripped open, and within hours I'm getting calls from people who'd never given us the time of day who (now) wanted to guest host." Sheesh. Sounds like something out of the "Larry Sanders Show." At any rate, it's good to know who your friends are.
Gambling Redux. Don Armstrong sent in the following email regarding gambling (see last week re:opening of the legislature). The email is below. In it is a link to the copyrighted attachment, reprinted with his permission, he refers to (converted to html). Note that even in html, the attachment is almost 25K. It's up to you wether or not you want to read his lengthly response or not. But if you have the time, be my guest. He brings up a lot of good points. [As always, his views are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of management. - Ed.]
From: Don Armstrong
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Gambling
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 23:52:48 +1100 (EST)
Dan, first let me thank you for the title arrangements on your web pages. I really hadn't set out intending to have you re-title them for my convenience, but it IS a convenience. You may notice that some of the other Daynoters (e.g. Bilbrey & Bowman) are doing what amounts to the same thing - a unique and readily identifiable title, followed by date. It does help.
Secondly, you started on gambling last week, and that got me started. I wrote a bit on our experience with it here, and realized as I went that I felt quite QUITE strongly about it - the further I went, the more I realized, and the more strongly I felt. I ended up with 3,400 words which I attach here - I'm working without Word, but I pasted them from another word processor into WordPad, then saved them in Word 6 format. If you can't use them, I understand - it grew GINORMOUS. In the end, I just needed to get it finished because I'd got myself so worked up with what we'd done to ourselves that it became necessary therapy. If it's of any interest feel free. I have asserted copyright because I don't believe I've seen it all put together this way before, and I might later be able to whip it into something marketable somewhere - at least I can dream.
Best wishes,
Don Armstrong
Australia
latitude 33 degrees 52' South
longitude 148 degrees East
***** Noon Update *****
Browser Round-UP. What Mozilla.org is referring to as the first alpha build of the fabled Netscape 5.0 is now available here. I'm not sure why they refer to it as the first alpha release because they've been releasing builds since at least April of last year (this is now Build 13). In either case, it's about 5 or 6 MB. Two steps forward, one step back.
Opera for Linux also hit the wire here. Wait, don't get all excited yet. This is just the "Opera 4.0a for Linux Technology Preview 2." I assume this is also alpha-ware so don't blame me if it blows up into a thousand sparkley pieces. The site is unclear as to the download size but it is somewhere between 700K and 2MB.
Linux Security Advisory. RedHat Linux beat all competitors by releasing their first RedHat Linux 6.1 security advisory of the millennium on 4 January 2000. Part of the text is below. Those that think Linux is immune from attack should remember the phrase; "Root access." Root access is the holy grail of Linux hackers as it allows even the lamest one to over-ride all of the great little security measures built into Linux. Windows everyone? <g>
Red Hat, Inc. Security Advisory
Package: usermode, PAM
Synopsis: New version of usermode fixes security bug
Advisory ID: RHSA-2000:001-03
Issue Date: 2000-01-04
Updated on: 2000-01-07
Keywords: root userhelper pam
<snip>
A security bug was found in userhelper; the bug can be exploited to provide local users with root access. The bug has been fixed in userhelper-1.17, and pam-0.68-10 has been modified to help prevent similar attacks on other software in the future.
2000-01-04: Red Hat Linux 6.0 users will need to upgrade to SysVinit-2.77-2 to fix a minor dependency issue.
Not be left out, Caldera released their first Linux security advisory of the millennium on Jan 25th. See it below:
----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
______________________________________________________________________________
Caldera Systems, Inc. Security Advisory
Subject: various security problems with majordomo
Advisory number: CSSA-1999-039.0
Issue date: 2000 January, 25
Cross reference:
______________________________________________________________________________
1. Problem DescriptionThere are several bugs in majordomo that allow arbitrary users to execute commands with the privilege of majordomo. If the sendmail aliases file contains aliases that invoke majordomo, a compromise of additional system accounts is possible, which may further on lead to a root compromise. An immediate root exploit has not been found however.
2. Vulnerable Versions
Systems : up to COL 2.3
Packages: previous to majordomo-1.94.5-1
Daynotes.com. I don't know if it's just me but I couldn't get to Daynotes.com this morning (from about 8:45am to 10:45am HST). Don't know why. Also, mail being sent to it also seems to be dead. Perhaps they are doing some maintenance to it? In either case, if you were able to get to my site by having saved a link to it earlier - Good for you. OTOH, if you've been coming to the site via the daynotes site, then perhaps you should think about linking to http://seto.org/current.html instead.
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 28 January, 2000
It's Friday! One of our intellectual state senate legislators introduced bills to allow state workers to take a nap twice a day and to provide funds for snacks for those same workers. I'm not making this up. While there is some research to back up his claim that a nap during the workday increases productivity, politically, he is out of his mind. And yet, he will probably be re-elected without any problems.
***** Noon Update *****
Denial of Service. The Register (see story here) is finally ringing the alarm bell regarding the denial of service attacks noted here earlier (see here). It is worth repeating that the DOS attacks can be used against all types of operating systems, including Linux/Unix and NT. And that in fact, some of the first instances of these attacks have been found running on Linux servers.
Win2000. With the official roll-out of Windows 2000 just 19 days away, we are reviewing the software that we have for compatibility. MS is providing a utility (go here) that scans your PC to find software/hardware that have known issues with Win2000. So far, the only show stopper is Lotus cc:Mail. cc:Mail is our corporate mail system and is not something that people would like to change (change being a bad word around here). Hence, we are trying to see if Lotus has a version which is Win2000 compatible. As a contingency plan, MS Outlook, with a cc:Mail patch, can act as a client. But not necessarily with all of the functionality of cc:Mail.
If it was up to me, I would use some of our Novell servers and convert everyone over to either Pegasus Mail and/or the Mercury SMTP/POP server or some other TCP/IP based email system. But then, I only work here and I'm the Government Worker From Hell (GWFH).
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.