Monday - 21 Aug 2000
iFeel Your Pain. Coming this fall, to a computer desk near your - iFeel Mouseman. iFeel Mouseman? Yes that's right, Logitech's (see the press release here) newest optical mouse with tactile force feedback. Hmmm. Force feedback in a mouse. Perhaps. But I don't think so.
Internet Privacy. To some, Internet privacy is an oxymoron. Others, don't have an opinion one way or another. But some do. For example, a group called Pew Internet & American Life (don't ask me who they are) did a survey (see it here) of 2,117 US citizens asking them about trust and privacy online.
A couple of the interesting findings are:
86% are in favor of an opt-in, rather than opt-out, policy whereby companies must ask permission to use any personal information about them rather than vice versa.
54% feel tracking of users is harmful because it invades their privacy. Conversely, 27% say tracking is helpful because it "allows the sites to provide information tailored to specific consumers."
Work calls, and school starts tomorrow so I am out of here. Aloha!
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Tuesday - 22 August 2000
Clueless in California. The California Supreme Court yesterday opined that a pre-marital agreement can not be set aside lightly (see the story from the Los Angeles Times here or the actual 49 page opinion, in pdf format, from the California Supreme Court here)
The question before the court was whether a contract between parties can be considered to be entered voluntarily, and therefore enforced under California's Family Code section 1615, when only one party is represented by legal counsel at the time of signing.
The Court found that not having counsel present at signing does not, in and of itself, prove non-voluntary behavior. Rather, the totality of the situation must be taken into account. In this case, the wife, Susann "Sun" Bonds, was present two weeks before the signing and discussed with her then fiance, professional baseball player Barry Lamar Bonds' lawyers the agreement to be signed. Mr. Bonds lawyers urged Sun to obtain her own legal counsel to represent her interests. She failed to do so. During that meeting, they also read to her, and explained, each and every paragraph of the agreement. Including a clause that would separate the income and assets of each during the marriage (and afterwards should the marriage end in divorce). She acknowledged the clauses and did not object to them. In fact, saying that this is how it was done in her native Sweden.
The bottom line? Adults can enter into binding contracts. And when they do, they can be enforced. So if you want to protect your interests in such situations, get a good lawyer. Yes, we joke about all of the bad ones out there. But in the end, you should run, not walk to a lawyer in these situations. Because the law does not suffer the clueless.
Speaking of Clueless. The Survivor TV show will end tomorrow. And who will be the winner? Tune in and see. One of the interesting things about the show was how clueless one of the teams was. While the other team was organizing and planning how to defeat the other, the clueless team did nothing.
What is even more interesting is that the clueless team appeared to be more intelligent, more ethical, and more adept in probably every way. Except in playing the game.
Which goes to show that life is tough some times. And if you are not prepared to take on the bad guys, and there are bad guys out there, you will lose the game.
JHR is back! Just a quick update here to welcome back J. H. Ricketson back into the fold. Take a look at his posting for today and you will see why his voice has been missed.
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Hump Day Wednesday - 23 August 2000
Old and Decrepit. I'm feeling very old this morning. Last night was the first class of my three year ordeal to get a masters degree. To prepare for the class, we were given about 200 pages of readings to do on communications and personality types (Jungian). Once in class (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.), we spent the time discussing the readings.
Once you realize that I usually go to sleep around 11:00p.m. and get up at 4:50 a.m. five days a week, I think you can see that spending 3 hours at night discussing Jungian archetypes can leave one drained.
Speaking of Drained. Spam turkey? No. Not a descriptive term for those who produce unwanted email. But Spam brand turkey meat in a can. Hormel is marketing several new products. One of which is turkey in a can (see it here). They say it is 96 percent fat free. YMMV.
Let's Get Ready to Ruuuumble! The Parents Television Council last month released their list of the Top 10 Best and Worst TV shows for last year (see it here). I love Top 10 lists. But should Sabrina the Teenage Witch be in any Best Top 10 list? And should Will & Grace and Buffy the Vampire Slayer be in the Worst 10 list? Clearly, your mileage may vary.
Mitsubishi to Commit Seppuku. Okay. Maybe not. But Mitsubishi Motors President Katsuhiko Kawasoe admitted yesterday to a scheme of systemic and widespread cover-up of vehicle defects designed to avoid costly recalls. Since at least 1977, Mitsubishi systematically hid from regulators and the public, the number of problems that their vehicles had. Thus avoiding recalls, and in the short-term, giving the appearance of a company that had safer cars than was actually the case.
In the long run, now that the truth is known, their reputation is now mud. Which is truly sad since they have in fact designed and built some very good, and in some cases, perhaps the best of class vehicles (see the WWII "Zero" aircraft). Not to mention, in their other divisions, some excellent computer, audio, and video equipment. See the Los Angeles Times story here.
I have 50 pages to read tonight for tomorrow night's class. And work calls, so I an out of here. Aloha!
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Thursday - 24 August 2000
The Tribe Has Spoken. And that's all I'm going to say about the naked gay guy. OTOH, Go Rudy!
Mercedes Armored. What's $153,950 for safety? Or at least, feeling safe. Mercedes-Benz will sell, in November, an armored version of their S-series called the S500 Guard. While this vehicle is new to the US, it's already available in Europe, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico (places, given the sales of this model, you perhaps do not want to be living in).
It has run flat tires, polycarbonate windshields, and steel armor plating. Bring a big gun if you want to stop this car. It's supposed to be able to protect against .44 cal. firearms. No word about how it survives against shaped charges.
Speaking of Cars. Would you like a Chevy with your copy of Nuclear Submarine Operation and Repairs for Dummies? Amazon.com is (which strangely enough, was not reachable this morning from here) is partnering with greenlight.com (which is reachable, but requires Java and cookies, hawk, spit) to offer you the sale of new cars via the Internet.
Greenlight apparently contracts with dealers around the country to provide the vehicles and says the price will be within 10% of the best deal available in your area.
However, the idea of selling cars over the Internet has not exactly caught on like wildfire yet. Last week, carorder.com., the latest company trying to do that, went under. YMMV.
And yes, Amazon does own part of Greenlight. And yes, Amazon is, one guesses, doing this to try to prop up its, last I heard, still unprofitable book selling division.
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 25 August 2000
It's Friday!
Hey buddy, Got a Spare Mindpixel? Robert X. Cringley's column for the week ( here) talks about the quest for thinking machines. One such effort is Mindpixel. So, what exactly is a mindpixel (explanation from here)?
A Mindpixel is a binary statement of consensus fact such as "Water is wet" or "It is difficult to swim with ski pants on". The idea behind this project is to collect as many such statements as possible from the world wide internet community and validate them. The database will then be used to train neural net based systems to mimic a human being when presented with Mindpixels.
In order to contribute your own mindpixel, you must register. Now I don't know these folks from Adam. So I can't say that I trust them. Or don't trust them. This means you will have to decide for yourself. But I think it's an interesting concept. Thinking machines. Who'd a thunk it?
Speaking of Contributions. I recently renewed my subscription to Dr. Pournelle's site. If you haven't subscribed, or renewed, I encourage you to do so. It helps to keep his site up and running. And a worthwhile site it is.
Oh, by the way. If you do subscribe via online and use your credit card, make sure you check your credit card statement when it comes. Mine was charged twice. Dr. Pournelle does not know why this is occurring (it doesn't happen every time), but he is looking into a better method. Until then, just double check.
Speaking of Charges. A couple of weeks ago, another site ranted about the time and money he spent to run his site. Well, I just paid my 6 months charges for my site. And at $166, I'm pretty sure I'm paying a lot (about two to three times) more than he is:
+----------------------------------------+----------------------------------+ | Customer ID #XXXXX | Payment Due: Aug 31, 2000 | +----------------------------------------+------+--------+------+---+-------+ Item Period Thru Rate Dsc Balance -----------------------------------------+------+--------+------+---+-------- Webmaster Account "XXXXXX" |25 day|00/09/01| 28.95| 4| 22.42 Webmaster Account "XXXXXX" | 5 mon|01/02/01| 28.95| 4| 161.38 Virtual Domain (seto.org) |25 day|00/09/01| 1.00| 4| 162.16 Virtual Domain (seto.org) | 5 mon|01/02/01| 1.00| 4| 166.96 -----------------------------------------+------+--------+------+---+--------
Guest Book Spam. There was some back channel talk about Spam (the unwanted, unsolicited commercial email, not the mystery meat in-a-can) yesterday. This reminded me that Spammers can get your email address from your signing an online guest book. How do I know this? Two ways. First, I got a Spam email which said it was specifically gotten from a guest book. And second, the email address that was used was one I specifically set-up for use in that guest book only. So I'm pretty sure I know where the address was harvested from. However, this is not to reflect negatively in any way the site from which the address was taken.
So beware when you fill-in someone's guest book because the Spammers will find your address. Even there. Big Sigh.
Build a Better Mouse. IBM has a new mouse called the ScrollPoint Pro (see it here) that replaces the scroll wheel with a nub not unlike the one they have on some of their keyboards. But in this case, it's shaped in the form of a "saddle." The nub allows moving in all directions. As opposed to the wheel which moves the cursor either up or down. It sounds like a trackball to me, but in the form of a mouse. YMMV. Available only for right handers.
Yo! Flipper. In an article published today in the journal Science (see the article here if you are a paid subscriber) researcher Vincent Janik reports that dolphins communicate one-to-one by matching distinct whistles.
The whistles seem to serve as a form of individual identification (or "signature") and are developed almost from birth. His observations, based on recordings made from microphones laid on the seafloor in Moray Firth, Scotland, indicates dolphins mimic the whistles when they seem to be addressing a particular individual. Much as humans call a person's name out when they wish to get the attention of another person. The author states the main point is that the findings give a hint into the development of speech. He notes that of the mammals, only dolphins and humans are able to mimic sounds. And that having this ability indicates an evolvement required for the beginnings of speech.
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.