Monday - 27 March 2000
Kuhio Holiday. Today is Prince Jonah Kuhio state holiday. So, being a good state worker, I'm not at work.
Got up at 6:30am this morning and went walking around Kapi'olani Park (three miles or about 5km). Beautiful day so far. Only an occasional light shower to cool things off. I need to go to the bank and do some stuff. Got back in half-a-hour.
Malibu Networks. Sounds like a web of surfer dudes. Or perhaps washed-up movie stars. But actually, it's the latest way of providing broadband internet access without the copper wires. In other words, wireless high-speed (up to 3Mbs) connections are here. The wireless folks are trying to leap-frog over the telcos who have been slow to roll-out high-speed xDSL or cable modems. And they might just do it. Telcos are not known for their ability to turn on a dime and provide services that people want. For too long they were protected from competition by a web of state and federal laws. Laws which gave telcos huge profits, but did not exactly create new and innovative services. See the Los Angeles Times story here.
No Deal. So, the big settlement that the pundits were trumpeting last week never materialized. Yes. MS faxed a twelve page offer. But no one bit. Thus, the stage is set for the judge to make his ruling (rumored to be as early as tomorrow). Said ruling will then be immediately appealed, which freezes any remedies that the good judge may deign to make. The odds makers are betting that much, if not most of what will be in the ruling will be invalidated upon appeal. We shall see.
But whatever the final outcome, the problem has always been that no one at the Justice Department follows-up and monitors compliance with any rulings. And even if they did, they wouldn't know enough to know whether smoke was being blown in their faces or if MS was telling the truth (probably more smoke than truth). See the latest from the New York Times here (requires one-time free registration, and this link may expire at the end of the day).
Aloha!
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Tuesday - 28 March 2000
Cisco Fries / Routs Microsoft.
Network giant Cisco Systems bypassed MS as the most
valuable company (as measured on the Nasdaq). Cisco, known
for its routers that make the Internet run, is valued at
USD $555 billion vs. MS's $542 billion. Of course, this
after a $40 billion drop in market value due to the
continuing problems with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Speaking of the DOJ. If there is a reason for MS to settle with the DOJ, this is it. By that I mean the market drop is killing MS. Whether this is enough to cause MS to settle is still unknown. But the biggest sticking point to the deal, as it stands, is MS refuses to break in to "Baby Bills". And personally, I agree. But since the DOJ is clueless as to how to monitor MS's compliance with any settlement, it can't come up with anything better. In any case, the end is near.
A Cold Dish. Satellite TV service may be coming back the islands. For awhile, Hawai'i was served by AlphaStar and DirectTV satellite services. But neither was able to make a go of it here and withdrew services (leaving thousands of residents in the lurch). Now comes the DISH network.
DISH thinks they can compete with the local cable company (Oceanic) and still make some money. Basic service, which includes about 70 channels will cost $29.99/month. No local channels will be available, although they say they are working on that and hope to have an agreement in place Real Soon Now. Of course, premium channels like HBO or Showtime are extra.
I'm not sure DISH will be able to attract enough people away from cable (which has a penetration rate in excess of 90% here, I believe). It seems to me the market for them is the last 10% not hooked to the cable and perhaps early adopters who want all digital TV now. But that doesn't seem like a big enough market to make it work.
***** Noon Update *****
Making Connections. So you are looking for a piece of information about something. But don't know where to start. Well, Dave Farquhar's column today (see it here) sort of requested a piece of information about the self-help guru Jess Lair. Specifically, a reader wrote in asking about the status of Lair. And so the hunt was joined (I can hear the hounds speaking in the distance).
First, what information do we have? We have a name - Jess Lair. We have an occupation - author. We have a location - Montana. So, off to ask.com to check on Jess Lair. Not much pops up that would be helpful. So I next search to find the leading newspapers in Montana to see if I can find anything helpful. The search turns up about 10 different newspapers. No help there either. Too many to choose from. A dead end (or so I thought).
So off to altavista.com. I hate using that search engine because the signal to noise ratio is not very high. But sometimes, you got'ta do what you got'ta do. So, I get there and search on Jess Lair. A couple pages into the hits I find something that says Lair lives in Bozeman, Montana. Ha! The listing of Montana newspapers included one from Bozeman. I can smell the blood now, Watson! So back to ask.com and bring up the list of newspapers. Click on the link to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Drill down through their user-unfriendly links to find their site search engine and plug in Jess Lair. And at the top of the list pops up an obituary of one Jess Lair, age 73, author and resident of Bozeman, Montana. Total time from beginning to end? About five minutes. While it is an exaggeration to say everything you want to find out about is on the 'net, there is a whole lot out there. If you can make the right connections...YMMV
Aloha!
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Hump Day Wednesday - 29 March 2000
A belated welcome to our newest member of the Daynotes Gang - JH Ricketson here. Don't let his choice of domain name "Warlock" scare you away. On the other hand, perhaps you should be afraid. Very afraid. Succumb to the Dark Side, you may. Read it every day you will.
Hi Ho Silver! The Honolulu Police are thinking about creating a horse patrol unit (no, not to patrol horses). They would be used in terrain which vehicles would have a hard time traversing. They could also be used for crowd control at events such as the annual Spring Break celebration in Waikiki. Liability issues and training schedules still need to be worked out. But in a year, Silver may be on patrol. Making life here safer, and more malodorous. Watch your step ma'am, watch your step.
Hard Landings. So, the Mars lander was 131 feet above the surface and descending when its software told it was on the ground. Good Grief. Who writes their programs? Charlie Brown? Couldn't they have run at least one simulation to test it? I guess not. Sigh.
Say What? In other local news, State House of Representatives member Terry Yoshinaga, a Democrat, wants the Transportation Department to close an off-ramp. So, why is that interesting you say? Because the good Representative says the ramp is used by too many people. What! You want to close an off-ramp because too many people use it? Hmmm. So that means if the freeway gets too congested, because too many people use it, the answer is to close it? Or if too many people vote for you, you should be kicked out of office? Seesh. Bloody sod. Only a Democrat would come up with her kind of logic.
Mail Call:
From: Roger G. Smith [rgsmith@c-gate.net]
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Cisco Fries Microsoft
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 04:15:10 -0600
re: Cisco Fries MicrosoftDan,
Isn't that "Cisco Routs Microsoft" ?
-Roger
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Roger G. Smith
Subject: Re: Cisco Fries Microsoft
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 06:23:15 -1000Yes. That would have been the *EASY* way of doing it. But I get paid the big bucks to make obscure references. In this case, I was referring to Crisco Oil. But kidding aside. Yes that's better than what I came up with<G>.
Anytime you want a job writing headlines, let me know...
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger G. Smith
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Cisco Fries Microsoft
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 12:59:34 -0600
re: Cisco Fries MicrosoftNow _that_ would be a hard job...
In the case of Cisco, I don't see how *everybody* seems to have missed it.<G>
Thanks for your crisp journal
Roger
***** Noon Update *****
Another satisfied customer. Bo Leuf mentioned a BBC news round-up which included an item about a school in Los Angeles, California which is built on an abandoned oil field (see his post here). He mentioned that he could not find a news item on the 'net regarding this (if I understand what he was looking for).
If so, this one was like shooting fish in a barrel (as the saying goes). So, what do we know about this? We have the original news source: the BBC News. And we have the location of the school: Los Angeles. So off to the BBC News, here. A search on the phrase "Los Angeles school" brings up the following link here. A quick read of the story narrows the search down to the "Belmont Learning Complex." So off to the latimes.com site to search on this phrase. And lo and behold, 17 hits pop-up. From the recent resignation of the Environmental Chief for the schools to people worried that trying to float any more construction bonds, given the massive failure, would be impossible. There's definitely information out there. You just have to start digging in the right place.
Now I can take off my red cape with the double "S" on it (Super Searcher, of course) and get back to work. Oh. How long did this take to run down? Less than five minutes. Total. Life is good. Sometimes. YMMV.
And Mail From Bo Leuf:
From: Bo Leuf [bo@leuf.com]
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: LA - Belmont Learning Complex
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 21:34:18 +0200Thanks, I caught the report only in passing and didn't have the names. "Belmont Learning Complex"... no wonder. I was searching for combinations of Los Angeles, high school, oil field, pollution, toxic, protest... and I note that these words are conspicuously absent from the headlines you cite. Again, thanks.
/ Bo
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Seto
To: Bo Leuf
Subject: Re: LA - Belmont Learning Complex
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:40:22 -1000Bo,
You are welcome. But I couldn't have done it without your mentioning the BBC news story. Because you are right, without the "Belmont Learning Complex" phrase found in the BBC article, searching the LA Times on "school", "toxic", or "oil field" would have found nothing. Goes to show that their indexer is not the greatest. Glad to have been some small help.
Aloha!
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Thursday - 30 March 2000
Lakers Win! Lakers Win! Well, so what else is old? The Los Angeles Lakers basketball team is now 60 and 12 this season. They need to win five games more to secure the home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
Mets Win! Mets Win! So we're only two games into the baseball season but the Mets are showing how to have exciting finishes. So, you're in Japan. Part of the first regular season opener there playing against the Cubs. The score is tied one all. It's the top of the eleventh. The bases are loaded. There's two outs. And you are called in to to pinch hit. What do you do? What do you do? Well, if you're Benny Agbayani (from Hawai'i), you hit a grand slam home run of course. Unfortunately, in 10 days, Benny may get sent down to the minors. But even if that happens, he had his day in the sun. Well done Benny. Good luck whatever happens.
Happy Birthday Tom! May you have a good one and many more to come.
***** Noon Update *****
Daynote Proliferation. Gee, every time I turn around there's a new Daynoter added to the list. The latest victim, I mean inductee, is Frank McPherson (see his page here). So many Daynoters. So little time. Sigh.
Speaking of Daynoters. Bob Walder has a nice remembrance of cats past (see it here). The feline kind, not the play. I'm not a cat fancier myself. But they have their uses. Especially when the field mouse/mice population gets too large. And then, they also serve as nice mantle pieces. Suitably stuffed of course. [Now this is a joke. Maybe not a good one. But a joke nonetheless. So back off bucky ball. - Ed.]
To Your Health. MSN.com is featuring yet another life-span calculator (see it here). You know. The kind where you answer some questions about your life-style and it gives you your expected life-span. If you've never tried one of these, give it a shot. The life you extend may be your own.
As Seen on TV. So your pair of Miracle Magnetic Insoles are worn out and you can't remember where you got them. Well, have I got a site for you. Just visit the As Seen on TV web site here and buy a new pair. Everything from the Flowbee Hair Cutting System to the George Foreman Fusion Grill (I didn't know that George had gotten into the nuclear physics field). YMMV. Proceed at your own risk. No endorsement is implied or intended. The cat ate my homework.
Congratulations Phil! A hearty congratulations to Daynoter Phil Hough who will be joining the ranks of the employed (otherwise known as the Land of the Living Dead - <g>). Well Done.
From: Phil Hough [phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk]
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: Good Luck on Job Interview
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 21:33:40 +0100 (GMT)On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Dan Seto wrote:
>>"I've got the second interview for a job tomorrow, starting at a
>> Chinese restaurant at lunch time.">Good Luck on your second job interview (if you haven't already done
>it). As John Doucette counseled me last week, relax and be your self.
>On the other hand...<g>>I'm also curious about the venue for the interview. A Chinese
>restaurant? Hmm. Have the dim sum.Thanks for the wishes. I've just heard that I got the job, so I'm happy. The interview went fine, hugely relaxed, so I couldn't really be anything but myself.
I did have the Dim Sum, and very nice it was too... although I'm not handy with chop-sticks :)
ATB.
Phil
____________________________________________________________________________ Phil Hough - 4th Year Computer Scientist Out of memory. E-mail: phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk We wish to hold the whole sky, Phone: <snip> But we never will. WWW: http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~houghp6 ____________________________________________________________________________
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 31 March 2000
It's Friday!
Browser Wars. This round of the browser wars started when Robert Bruce Thompson decided to take another look at the Opera browser. He apparently downloaded the program and then used it to browse www.byte.com, which did not render as he thought it should. Note that I said it did not render as "he thought it should." At this point, that is all that can be objectively said about Opera.
Far be it for me to explain what Opera is doing. But I think Opera is endeavoring to create a browser that is compliant with standards. But. There are two "problems" with this.
First, both Netscape and MS "embrace and extend" HTML. They did this, as far as I can see, to differentiate themselves from other browsers and therefore to gain a competitive advantage and thereby gain a monopoly. Notice, the reason for the non-compliance is to gain a competitive advantage. Not to make a "better" browser (however that is defined).
The second problem, as is the case with all "standards", is that you can interpret words in many different ways. What may seem patently clear to you may appear unclear to me. And even if clear to both of us, given a choice between several ways of implementing something, reasonable people may do so in different ways.
So, is MS IE better than Opera because MS IE can display byte.com in a way that you think it should and Opera does not? Not necessarily. For the reasons stated above and the fact that Byte's home page does in fact give fits to the W3C Validator (here). As Bo Leuf mentioned, the validator lists over 200 "errors." I say errors in quotes because many of the errors, such as not using the "alt" tag where appropriate, does not affect how the page renders in a browser. Don't get me wrong, they are still errors, but not ones that would cause the problems RBT saw. Other listed errors are of the embrace and extend type and are what I would call "true" errors. But it appears that even if you correct all 200 errors, Opera would still render the page differently from MS IE.
While I have not spent that much time dissecting Byte's home page, the only problem I can find that is causing the difference in rendering is how the embedded tables are displayed. And at this point, I'm not sure that difference is a bug or not. Perhaps it is. But I don't know for sure and I don't have the time to try to find out. As an aside, Byte, in my opinion, is misusing style sheet tags. They're supposed to be separated into a style sheet (well, duh). Not embedded in the HTML as Byte has done. But I digress.
Finally, as to any "speed" differences. I'm not sure what is being referred to. Or, even how you would measure this difference. All I can say is that both Opera and MS IE initially come up in about the same time (that is, much much faster than Netscape). But that overall, when accessing web pages, Opera is usually much faster than MS IE. Sometimes many times faster (i.e. one or two seconds vs. never for MS IE). YMMV.
So in the final analysis, it appears to me that it is premature to off handedly dismiss Opera. On the other hand, when you compare a program that cost money vs. something that is "free", you expect more from the one that cost you something. But you have to remember why MS is making IE free (to gain monopoly position so it can drive others out of business and thereafter start charging as high as they can want).
If for no other reason than to avoid total domination by MS, although I think Opera is a fast, efficient browser, I will continue to pay for and use Opera. You decide what you want to use. Whether IE, Opera, Mozilla, or any of the other 10 or so browsers out there (see a C|Net comparison here).
And now for something completely different. This one is for Brian Bilbrey. I sent email to the Gang and the copy for you got bounced:
Received: from localhost (localhost) by mail-backup.rcsntx.swbell.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with internal id QAG26108; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:08:19 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:08:19 -0600 (CST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem &$60;MAILER-DAEMON@mail-backup.rcsntx.swbell.net> Message-Id: &$60;200003302208.QAG26108@mail-backup.rcsntx.swbell.net>To: <dseto@itool.com>
The original message was received at Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:49:35 -0600 (CST) from mail1.itool.com [207.113.118.44]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<bilbrey@pacbell.net>----- Transcript of session follows -----
554 <bilbrey@pacbell.net>... Service unavailableReporting-MTA: dns; mail-backup.rcsntx.swbell.net
Received-From-MTA: DNS;
adsl-216-102-56-234.dsl.sktn01.pacbell.net
Arrival-Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:49:35 -0600 (CST)Final-Recipient: RFC822; bilbrey@pacbell.net
Action: failed
Status: 5.5.0
Remote-MTA: DNS; mta3.snfc21.pbi.net
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 595 Spammers not welcome here
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:08:19 -0600 (CST)
Given the diagnostic code, which should never be believed, relayed mail may be blocked by pacbell?
That Darned Cat. I, ahem, forgot about my readers who happen to be cats when I mentioned what I thought cats are good for. Sorry Salem.
From: salem s [salem@leuf.com]
Organization: world domination in 5
To: Dan Seto
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:40:57 +0200in bad taste -- if i wasn't de-powered i turn you into a pineapple with a hairball problem
---
a cat with attitude
72 years to go----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: salem s
Subject: Re: joke
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 06:19:19 -1000I stand corrected! I should have said; "except for Salem of course." You would never look good stuffed. Although, as Jan Swisjen put it: "Of course, once a cat is suitably stuffed, with freshly caught mice, it likes to retire to a high and dry, warm spot.
Yah, that's the ticket. That's what I meant. Yah.
----- Original Message -----
From: salem s
Organization: world domination in 5
To: Dan Seto
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:39:09 +0200i should think so, although i look fairly ok stuffed with good food -- not mice, shudder, rather something more five-star, but failing that any good take-out will do
***** Noon Update *****
Like Minds. I write my morning update prior to reading the other Daynoters. Partly because many times I will get interested in something they say and end up spending a LOT of time reading. This is counter-productive to getting around to my own post. But also, I don't read the others first because I want to say what I want to say without being influenced, one way or the other, by what others have already said. So, sometimes, what I say mirrors what others may be saying. Not because I copied them, but rather, because we may be thinking the same thoughts about a subject.
So goes what Bo Leuf and Jan Swisjen (aka Sjon Svenson) said about the web browser Opera. Both use Opera (as I do). And perhaps JH Ricketson is right to stay out of this one. But sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do. On the other hand, I've found trying to convince Robert Bruce Thompson is wrong about anything is like trying to get Salem to like dogs. After all the fur settles, all that is left is a dog with no fur and a cat with a smile on its face and furballs under its claws.
Notwithstanding the above, Opera, running on Win9x is still faster than IE. A download of the program still fits on a single floppy disk. Opera still costs you money. And RBT saying that he doesn't care if a browser is standards compliant as long as it renders a page the way he wants is the same as saying he doesn't care if O'Reilly pays him in Iranian figs as long as he get's paid.
Standards do matter. And just because many sites, don't have code written to the standard, doesn't mean it's OK to do so. What it means is that many people are either unaware of the standards, or just don't care. I'll leave it to you to decide which they are. Oh. By the way, my index.html page is W3C compliant.<g>
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.