Monday - 30 October 2000
Sex in Space. I bet that got your attention on this fine Monday morning. Actually, the Los Angeles Times, on the eve of the launch to populate the International Space Station, has a story (see it here) speculating on whether or not sex has been performed in space. They don't think so. Yet. But figure that it's just a matter of time. The Times also quotes a former NASA consultant that NASA did some after hours simulations at the Marshall Space Flight Center and found that two could not tango. But three could. Hmmm. Threesomes in space. I couldn't possibly comment.
Boycott Stupidity Day. InfoWorld's Bob Lewis's column (see it here) this week lists his nominations for the coveted Bureaucrat of the Year Award. Included is the company, as a way of saving money, that cut its order-entry call center (without first checking call volume and wait times). Hint, if customers can't order from you, you can't make a profit. D'oh!
I have to get ready for the presentation tomorrow so I am out of here - Aloha!
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Halloween Tuesday - 31 October 2000
Happy All Hollows Eve. Since it's Tuesday, I'll be in class tonight giving our presentation on the difference between the Gore and Bush budgets. The main differences are that Gore wants to use most of the projected surplus (and yes, it's possible there won't be a surplus given the profligate spending of the current Republican controlled Congress) on paying down the national debt by 2012. The balance would be used to continue the Social Security and Medicare systems. Bush, on the other hand, would use the money to fund tax cuts of various kinds. Included would be the elimination of the tax bracket for the highest income tax payers. Also eliminated would be the estate tax (the so called "death tax"), which also affects mostly well off individuals (right now, those who have more that $650,000 in taxable assets). Left unanswered is how the cuts would be funded once the surplus is gone (cuts tend to be permanent, surpluses come and go) and what to do about the national debt.
Both candidates leave unanswered how to fund Social Security and Medicare in the long run. Both have short term fixes. Gore would use part of the surplus to continue funding for a time. Bush would use all of the Social Security surplus and allow people to invest up to 2% of their deductions in the stock market. According to the actuarials, neither solution will deal with the problem of the baby boomers retiring en masse. Thus, both would have to either raise taxes, cut benefits, or both. Most likely it will be both. But they figure as long as they can delay it for two terms, they don't care what happens. But you heard it here first. Or not.
Speaking of Politics. Daynoter Jerry Pournelle, in a recent post, talked about how when he was involved in politics, you always concentrated on getting out your vote. Well, things haven't changed that much. At least, not here. The strategy here is to be sure your supporters vote. So, you campaign first in your strongest areas. Once that is done, then, and only then, do you canvass areas that are not your strongholds.
Then, on election day, you make sure you have the vans and buses lined up to go to the retirement homes, community centers, and union halls to gather up your supporters and take them to the polling places. Yes, I know, many people now-a-days look down at such things preferring to use "clean" methods like TV adds to get out the vote. But in the end, it's about getting more of your supporters to vote than the other guys. And to that, you have to do it on the ground, in the muddy trenches. Not in the air. YMMV.
Responsive Bureaucrats. There has been a long debate in Public Administration as to whether or not career civil servants should be responsive to public pressures (see Carmilla Stivers). On one hand, you have the trained and skilled administrators. On the other hand, you have appointees. And on the third hand, you have the public. Sometimes, the administrators want to do one thing, and the public another. At those times, it takes the involvement of the politicians to try to settle things.
For example, there are 653 Pearl Harbor casualties buried as "Unknown" in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific inside Punchbowl crater here on O'ahu. A 79-old man, by the name of Ray Emory, has been trying for years to have the name of the ship each died on added to their grave stones. But the Veteran's Affairs people said no and the military said no. It seems everyone wanted the unknowns to stay unknown. But after getting Representative Patsy Mink (D) involved, a proviso was inserted into the appropriations bill which requires the adding of such a designation for those on the USS Arizona (don't ask me why for that ship only). Now, who is to say it is a Good Thing or not. I can see both positive and negatives. But it does illustrate that there are ways, if you have the means.
As noted at the top, our presentation is this evening, and there is still much to do. So I am out of here - Aloha!
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Hump Day Wednesday - 1 November 2000
Survival. So we survived the great Bush - Gore budget debate in class last night. What's ironic is that I was assigned the Bush side. Being a Democrat, it was difficult to not editorialize, but I guess we did pretty good. In fact, I think we did a better job than the Gore side.
Dot Cons. The US Federal Trade Commission, tasked with enforcing federal antitrust and consumer protection laws, has created a list of "Top 10 Dot Cons" (here). The list, in no particular order, is:
1.
Internet auctions (you pays your money but get
nothings).
2.
International modem dialing (your modem is
disconnected, then reconnected to a long distance
international number).
3.
Internet access services (getting trapped into
long-term contracts with big penalties for early
withdrawal).
4.
Credit card fraud (you are asked for your credit card
number to "verify" your age, but instead it is used to run
up unauthorized charges).
5.
Web cramming (you receive a charge on your phone bill
for services you never accepted or agreed to).
6.
Multilevel marketing and pyramids.
7.
Travel and vacation (fraudulent tour packages or hidden
charges).
8.
Business opportunities (promises of big earnings, but
no real chance of actually realizing them).
9.
Investments (the old cons gone electronic).
10.
Health care products and services ("miracle" cures).
CueCat Advisory. The Privacy Foundation is raising the alarm about the CueCat bar code reader. The device, distributed free of charge through Radio Shack, Wired magazine, and Forbes magazine, is a scanner that is used to read bar codes which have URLs encoded within them. Thus, freeing you from the need to type in the URL. The problem is the software used to read the bar code also phones home to CueCat, sending to them not only the URL scanned, but also an identifier unique to you. Hence, CueCat can create a profile of places you've gone to. One assumes they would then sell that information as a company asset. CueCat is planning to give away 50 million of these scanners by the end of next year. Ye have been warned.
I have another presentation to do for class tomorrow (the state budget), so I gotta go - Aloha!
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Thursday - 2 November 2000
Time Flies. I'm a little late, but my one year anniversary of writing this column passed on October 20. What a "long strange trip it's been." But still, it's been interesting. And even though I'm very busy working on my Masters degree I think I'll just keep on truckin before I cash my chips in. Thank you for your support. Y'all come back now, y'ah here?
Speaking of Strange. The Christmas tree ships have been announced. Those are the container ships that bring the majority of Christmas trees to the islands. Most trees are cut in the Pacific Northwest around now and then shipped here. The first ship is scheduled to arrive on November 18th. The next one comes in November 25th. And the last arrives on Dec 2nd. Of course, by Christmas day the trees are brown and are fire hazards but the shipping companies refuse to bring in the trees any later than they do. One of the few problems living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Speaking of Problems. The city of Hilo, on the Big Island, is receiving record levels of rain. In the last 24 hours, they got over 25 inches (635 cm). Streets are flooding and schools have been closed.
And other problems. One of the other problems living out here is the time zone, especially on election day. The national news casts will be announcing projected winners three hours before our polls close. How this affects the national races is probably moot, given the small size of our state, but still...
Speaking of voting. The morning paper has their voters' guide out. So what you say? Well, something like one-in-five voters has already voted, by absentee ballot. In fact, I did also. So I sent off an email to the paper asking them why they couldn't either publish earlier, or at least have an electronic version of the guide on their web site if the problem is production schedules. They replied that next time around they plan to do just that. I hope they follow through because their guide is becoming more and more irrelevant as more people vote absentee. If you haven't voted yet, remember to get out there and do your civic duty. Whether it's Bush or Gore, vote. There is a difference.
KDE 2, Dan 1. I downloaded the KDE RPMs for my version of Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4. Unfortunately, I couldn't get them to install without error. Yes, I have the environment variables set. Yes, I have the latest glibc and Qt loaded. But for whatever reason, it would say it needed either of the two above before installing. Now, I am the first one to say I an a complete newbie when it comes to things Linux, but it seems if you have a pre-compiled version of a program, you shouldn't have to have any other packages pre-installed for the KDE to work. I mean, if you install MS Word, it doesn't require you to have C++ installed does it? The install is complete and includes everything you need to have the program run right out of the box.
But Linux doesn't work that way. And as far as I can see, it's due to the non-standardization of Linux. So installing programs are more than Aunt Minnie could possibly be expected to do.
Since the RPMs didn't work, I then downloaded the sources and compiled them myself. Which worked fine. Although it took as much as two hours per module (utilities, libraries, admin, base, documentation, graphics, games, multimedia, network, office, and PIM). Yes, I know my Dell Optiplex GX1 P2-333 with 128MB of RAM is not the fastest PC around. But two hours per module? Sheesh.
However, once everything got done (./configure, make, make install) KDE came up fine. The new look is pretty snazzy. And of course, the new browser is miles ahead of Netscape (hawk, spit). It's still not as smooth as IE or Opera, but then, you don't have a lot of choices right now.
Unfortunately, due to my experimenting with various configurations and programs, most of the applications are now broken. So it looks like I'll be doing yet another install of Linux to get things unbroken. Sigh. One step forward, two steps back.
Our presentation on the state budget is tonight, so I gotta go - Aloha!
Late Addendum. I had not intended to say anything about the "Microsoft Shill" statement thrown at one of our fellow Daynoters. I figured the best thing to do in these situations is to ignore the person who made the obviously wrong statement and move on. But since a couple of other Daynoters have made comments, I might as well also. Before saying anything else, let me say I support your constitutional right to free speech. But free speech is tempered by your responsibility to not libel, incite fights, or yell "fire!", when none exists.
While I am no lawyer, the publication of the above article probably violates all three of the above. And as been noted by others, it ultimately does more harm to your cause then good. I may not agree with everything Dr. Pournelle says. But that does not mean I do not have the greatest respect and admiration for him. And I am ever grateful to him for his service to our country.
So, when someone comes along and goes beyond disagreeing with what Dr. Pournelle has to say (and his right to say it), and specifically attacks his integrity, then perhaps things have gone too far. Still, the best thing to do is just forget about it and move on. It's not worth the time and trouble to do otherwise.
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Aloha Friday - 3 November 2000
Supernerd Wins! No, not that kind of nerd. Rather, a chess playing one. Russian Vladimir Kramnik defeated Garry Kasparov 8.5 to 6.5 in the 15th of 16 scheduled games. Kramnik, age 25, wore down the older Kasparov with his relentless attacking. So, even though Kasparov was technically ahead in some of the games he eventually conceded, Kasparov was too mentally and physically fatigued to fight back. See the play-by-play here.
So, if your Higgs boson leaves tracks in your particle accelerator, what do you do? Other than clean it up with a mop? You go around saying you've seen the "God particle." A rather bold statement that some scientists say is hogwash. See the complicated story about sub-atomic particles here. May the (unseen) force be with you.
Mayor Bubba. Up around Dan Bowman's neck of the woods is the farm capitol of California - Fresno. And if you believe the polls, the good people of Fresno are about to elect an actor to be mayor. No, not Clint Eastwood or Ronald Reagan. Alan Autry from "In the Heat of the Night" (described, in true Hollywood fashion, as "hulking"). It seems the outsider is felt to be a better mayor than someone with experience. Perhaps this reflects a growing cynicism or discontent with the status quo. Or perhaps they just liked the TV show. <G>
Mail Call
From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Subject: christmas tree.
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 09:44:21 +0000>One of the few problems living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
You do however have the opportunity to hang the decorations and presents on a ...
... palm tree.
--
Svenson.----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Jan Swijsen
Subject: Re: christmas tree.
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 06:22:13 -1000Thanks for that <g>. Leave it to you to find the positive in any situation. And of course, once done decorating the tree I can go to the beach, go swimming without turning blue [among other things - Ed.], and work on my tan!
Aloha - Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: christmas tree.
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 18:13:20 +0000Remember I work in a corporate environment. Finding positive things in hopeless situations is a survival skill.
And what do you mean "work on my tan"?? Over here that is work indeed but there? You're not really fooling me.
--
Svenson.
I love this guy! Check out his site here (if you haven't already).
Have a Great Weekend Everyone! - Aloha!
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.