Monday - 26 June 2000
Mahi Mahi Meunière. Well, almost. This has an Asian twist to it. Instead of parsley, SWCNBD substituted freshly cut watercress. Then mushrooms and Maui onions. And finally, spinach from our neighbors yard. Yum.
As you can tell, this was not a busy weekend. Mostly relaxing around the house. And of course, a quick run to the beach for some sun and sea. Another beautiful Hawai'ian weekend. Sunny with the temperature in the mid-80s (30°C). Life is hard.
Win98 Tip of the Day. Want to speed up network access by 10% (if you are using a NIC rather than a modem)? Well, InfoWorld's Brian Livingston (see the article here) says you can by allocating RAM to your NIC. What? He says the RAM is used to buffer your NIC just as RAM can be used to buffer a hard drive. See the article for the steps to enable this in win98.
Who's the Boss? An interesting ruling from the US Supreme Court (DICKERSON v. UNITED STATES (99-5525) 166 F.3d 667, reversed. See it here). The issue at law is whether or not the so called Miranda warning is always required prior to questioning by authorities. Congress, in its wisdom, passed a little known law which would have overturned this requirement as not being based in the Constitution. However, the Court pointed out that Miranda is in fact clearly based on the Constitution's Fifth Amendment which states in pertinent part, "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
So the case came down to does Congress have the power to overturn the Constitution? The Court ruled, 7-2, no it does not and essentially invalidated the law which attempted to do so. The separation of powers between the three branches of government can sometime become blurred. But every once in awhile, a line is drawn. This is one of those times.
Baikonur, we have a Problem. Actually, many problems. The Los Angeles Times (See it here) is reporting that after two years of delay, the Russian made International Space Station service module, "Zvezda", is set for a July 12th launch date.
The intent of spreading the responsibility for building the space station among 16 nations was to decrease the time and money needed by any one nation to build it. Unfortunately, due to the delays on the Russian end, it will cost NASA an additional $3 billion USD. And even when launched, the quality (or lack thereof) is so severe that the module will require substantial repairs in orbit to make it safe to use.
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Tuesday - 27 June 2000
Happy Leon Day! Today is the celebration of Leon Day. The islands glisten in the sun. Carollers go strolling house to house bringing Leon cheer to one and all. Where, one can hear Bing Crosby singing of days merry and bright. It is a time of celebration and remembrance. May you have a very happy Leon Day everyone!
Believe It or Not! Every once in awhile you see a press release about some new invention that will revolutionize how something is done. However, usually, the actual product is still sometime in the future. So take this announcement found in the UK Register (see it here) with a grain of salt.
Constellation 3D announced that it will be developing a type of CD that will hold up to a terabyte of data. How are they going to do that when the current technology is straining to reliably get 700MB on a disk? Can you say optical multi-layer storage? Ha! You say. IBM sank $100 million USD into that and couldn't get it to work. Well, these guys say by using fluorescent layers, as opposed to reflective as IBM did, you can overcome the signal degradation problem when trying to focus a laser beam through multiple layers of reflective materials.
Missing the Point. The vultures at the Register also report that Apple Computer has forced AdCritic.com to pull the classic "1984" commercial from its site (I referred to it in an earlier post here). The Register correctly points out that Apple is missing the point big time. But copyrights are copyrights. And lack of judgment is lack of judgment.
***** Noon Update *****
Opera 4 Beta 6. The last beta prior to going gold is now available at the Opera browser site here. From what I can gather at the site, when version 4 ships, you will need to purchase it for $39 USD (up from $35 for version 3.62). I do not know if there will be an upgrade path for those who have already purchased 3.62 or not (other than for those who purchase now). In either case, it's still worth the price to have a browser that is standards compliant.
Aloha!
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Hump Day Wednesday - 28 June 2000
Going Home. Maybe. So the US Supreme Court has cleared the way for little Elian to go home. Assuming nothing else surfaces to stop him. But assuming that nothing does, this should end an ordeal that served no one except a group of extreme right-wing radicals who put their political agenda above the well-being of the child.
As I said at the very beginning of this, the state of the art is to keep the family intact. Barring proof of child neglect or abuse. There being no evidence of such, Elian belongs with his father. And the government should keep its hands off of them. Government has no public interest in trying to separate them. Or to tell them how, or where to live (radical right-wing Republicans to the contrary). #30#
PDA Expo. Err, PC Expo. It does appear that PC Expo should be renamed PDA Expo. At least by the volume of noise coming from PDA manufacturers. For example, Sony is showing a PDA using the Palm OS, has a color screen, and uses Memory Stick data storage. For music jockeys, Iomega introduced its Sensory Science MP3 player which uses a removable disk that holds 40 minutes of music. But there is some PC news. IBM is showing the Transmeta powered Thinkpad 240 laptop (see the press release from Transmeta here).
Pentium 4. So, the official name for the Intel Willamette CPU is Pentium 4. Initial speed will be 1.4Ghz increasing in 100-MHz steps. There will also be a 400-MHz bus. Intel is saying it will be shipping in quantity by the third or fourth quarter of this year. Just in time for Christmas.
Mail Call. Dr. Keyboard had recently posted something about usually using Kingston memory and how, based on recommendations of others, he decided to try Crucial. And a bad time was had by all when he did. Below is my email to him.
From: Dan Seto
To: chris
Subject: From Chateau Keyboard diary
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 15:04:00 -1000
"A lot of people whom I respect recommend Crucial memory, so I've always recommended it myself. As it happens I've never actually bought any - I've always specified Kingston for the important machines and whatever for the rest."
As it turns out, I've been using Kingston memory myself and have never had a problem. Of course, you and RBT probably put memory to the test more than I. But for me, it's good enough. YMMV.
Aloha - Dan
ps I hope all is going well with your top secret assignment. I can't wait until you reveal all to us (ahem, let me rephrase that). I can't wait until you expose everything. Ummm. Oh hell, just let us know when and if.
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Thursday - 29 June 2000
Post Advisory. The outlook for posts next week Tuesday and Wednesday is below 50%. There may be light or scattered reports during the balance of the week. This is due to an upper-level high caused by this being our wedding anniversary and our going on a short vacation to celebrate it.
The balance of this week doesn't look much better. I have a report to finish by tomorrow before I leave. So, things may be a bit sparse around here as I try to finish things.
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 30 June 2000
It's Friday!
The Fat Lady Sings. Well, no sooner than I mention that the Opera ver. 4.0 browser is in its last beta (see Tuesday above) that they go ahead and ship the gold code. Sigh. Just can't keep up now-a-days. Getting old.
So, if you are a registered user, and you still have your registration number, you can go ahead and buy version 4 for $15 USD. If you can't find your code, you can have them email it to you again. Then you can use the online ordering system and (probably) get an updated one. I haven't been able to get them to email me my code yet. If I don't hear from them by this afternoon I'll just go and pay the full price (which through the end of the day is still $35. Tomorrow it goes up to $39). Their home page is here.
Coals to Newcastle. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the US Geological Survey have joined forces to study offshore sand deposits. What?!?! Well, due to the stupidity and greed of some rich people, the sand in front of their ocean front homes and hotels is washing out to sea. So, our tax dollars are being used to study whether or not sand from offshore can be dredged to replenish the lost sand.
They wouldn't have to be doing this if they hadn't built illegal retaining walls at the water's edge. For the most part, it's the waves rebounding off of these walls that cause the sand to move from the shore out to sea. That, and the fact that the sands naturally move from location to location based on the tides and normal wave action. Studies have found that the best way to replenish the sand is to remove the walls. But, these people don't want to do that. And they are rich enough and powerful enough to get others to pay for that decision.
Work on the report due today is going well. If all goes as planned (yah, right - Ed.) I should be done in plenty of time. Speaking of which, I need to get around to it.
Have a great weekend everyone! - Aloha!
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.