Misc. Ramblings

The philosophers have long debated the nature of man (don't write letters, I'm using the generic sense of the word here). Is he, by nature, good or not?

Some people think that man is good and that there are too many rules. Rules that stifle freedom and ingenuity. Rules that keep people from reaching their full potential. Others think man is by nature bad. Hence, there must be restrictions on his actions because if left alone, he will make decisions that will be a detriment to others, if not also himself. Some people take a middle ground saying man is basically good but has tendencies to be otherwise. For what it's worth, I think we have the capacity to be both.

Whichever way you believe, the serious allegations that came to light last week regarding the treatment of prisoners by U.S. and perhaps U.K. forces in Iraq is very disturbing. Not surprising, but very disturbing nonetheless.

I say not surprising because of the ground breaking 1971 research, I've noted before, referred to as the Stanford Prison Study under Professor Philip G. Zimbardo (see also Professor Stanley Milgram's 1965 experiment with authority and obedience). Basically, what it found was that we all have the capacity to exhibit sadistic behavior. That even "normal people can take ghastly actions." In order to prevent such behaviors, systems must be in place to identify, deter, and if needed, punish such behavior before it spreads.

Another lesson from the experiment is that one person can make a difference. If not for the actions of Professor Christina Maslach, irreparable harm may have occurred. But through the fearless way in which she confronted Zimbardo, the experiment ended well before its scheduled conclusion. If nothing else, this demonstrates both the worst and best that we are.

Perhaps it is through self-awareness of our failings that we can be on guard and therefore avoid these situations in the future.

Aloha!

Date: Mon, 03 May 2004 21:22:18 -0700
From: JHR
Subject: Good (and Evil) May be in the Eye of the Beholder

Dan -

--To thoroughly mix my metaphors.

You wrote: "Perhaps it is through self-awareness of our failings that we can be on guard and therefore avoid these situations in the future."

This implies that there exists a standard definition of "failings" that is not only accepted, but taken for granted by all of humanity. IMO, that is hardly the case. What we may consider horrendous failure on the part of Moslems, Nazis, Red China, the Inquisition, to name a few, had the approval of Church or Government or both at the time they occurred. A devout Moslem sees no failure in murdering or enslaving infidels (you and me). In fact, he/she/it is praised as devout and courageous by Moslem nations and religious leaders.

I have no solution to offer. I only think we should be very careful of ill-defined terms; those subject to many differing valid interpretations. (The word "fair" is another one of my pet words in this category. Obviously - what seems eminently fair to one may be as legitimately UNfair to another. that's why Civil Courts do such a thriving business!)

Yet such behavior as exemplified by the Military in question cannot be ignored because there is no perfect solution. Such is life. We would diminish our personal humanity by ignoring it.

Other than this criticism, I applaud your post.

Regards,

JHR
--

Aloha!

The Legislature is set to adjourn on Thursday so we are carefully monitoring the outcome of the Judicial Salary Commission recommended salary increases [link is to 1.4MB PDF report]. I am checking the status, on an hourly basis, of the concurrent resolution that would disapprove the recommendations.

Speaking of updates, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 is now available. The updated e-mail client is listed as having, among other things, improved junk mail handling [What? They strangle the spammers? - ed.]. The companion browser, Firefox, should also see an update soon so stay tuned.

Speaking of updated browsers, Opera 7.5, Beta 1 is out. I don't know how many betazoids there will be before going gold but it shouldn't be long now.

"Worse than Watergate: The Secrect Presidency of George W. Bush" by former President Nixon White House insider John Dean.

In Dean's estimation, the secrecy with which Bush and Dick Cheney govern is not merely a preferred system of management but an obsessive strategy meant to conceal a deeply troubling agenda of corporate favoritism and a dramatic growth in unchecked power for the executive branch that put at risk the lives of American citizens, civil liberties, and the Constitution.

Aloha!

This article from MaximumPC is a how-to on securing your wirelessLAN. While I kind of agree that security and wireless LANs are oxymorons, you have to do what you can. So I've enabled WEP and MAC address filtering, but have not disabled SSID broadcasting.

As the article indicates:

Most access points, however, include an option to disable SSID broadcasting. It's generally a good setting to disable, but we have had some problems maintaining connectivity when using Windows built-in wireless configuration interface to connect to Wi-Fi LANs with SSID broadcasting disabled. And this problem is exacerbated if other people in your neighborhood have wireless LANs setup.

In my case, I'm not using Windows built-in wireless configuration interface but I'm still having intermittent problems with connections so I've left SSID enabled. I realize this makes things slightly less secure but what's a person to do? With SSID enabled I am always able to connect, with it disabled I get connected less than 50 percent of the time. Perhaps this is caused by other nearby wireless LANs, at least one of which my LAN can see.

But in any case, I've done all that I can do, including adding the wireless router downstream of the main LAN's router. Of course, there is one more thing I've done. I turn off the wireless router when I'm not using it. That gives me 100 percent security.[g]

Aloha!

My back is bothering me again so I'm at home.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

To lighten things up a bit, here's a story about a Swedish company that encases PC peripherals in wood, rather than usual beige or black plastic. You can choose from ash, mahogany, or beech and get your monitor, keyboard, and/or mouse covered in the stuff. Although cases are not yet in the lineup, they are working with a company to come up with some samples. [Hey John D., yet another idea for you!]

Aloha!

Even as we seem to have reached a tipping point in our voluntary adherence to the rule of law, it's heartening to find a story like this one. It seems a father and son where out for a Saturday morning motorcycle ride (they refer to the bike as a Kawasaki quad. I think people here in the US call it an ATV. See some examples here).

Apparently, the pair hit a wedge of wood, suddenly halting the bike and throwing them over the handle bars. The bike followed and ended up on the father, pinning him in place. With his father unable to move and in critical condition, the son, with every rib in his seven year-old body broken, hiked 2km (~1.25 miles) through the brush to tell his mother and get help.

Upon reaching the house and relating the location of his father, the boy collapsed from his injuries.

All the laws in the world don't mean anything if most people don't voluntarily follow them. This is because there just aren't enough police to catch every last person who doesn't pay their taxes, or always runs a red light, or who routinely speeds at 25mph over the speed limit, or burglarize homes, or commit rape, murder, or other mayhem.

There are thousands of other laws, important and not so important to follow with legislatures adding hundreds more per year. Hence, if the great majority of people don't voluntarily refrain from breaking these laws, society as we know it falls apart.

Yes, I know there are people out there that feel there shouldn't be any laws. But fortunately, for the rest of us, they are a small minority. All you have I to do is point to countries in Africa/Asia/Europe/Middle East where the law has no meaning to illustrate the point.

But lately, it seems to me, our state, if not our country, is getting close to reaching a point of no return. A point which, once crossed, will move us into a territory full of worst case scenarios.

Some of the signs are small. Like more and more people ignoring stop lights or stop signs. But some are larger, like people openly taking on the police rather than running when officers arrive to break up fights. Like the police themselves taking the law into their own hands and meteing out a swift justice with their fists.

It's like a veil of restraint has been removed and we are left with the law of the jungle to govern over us.

We do indeed live in darks times and, I fear, the times just got a lot darker.

Sorry. No post today. I had to hit the ground running this morning to do some stuff at work. I hope to have something worth your while tomorrow (Lord willing and the crick don't rise).

Aloha!

Speaking of planning for the worst, while I have supported Jasmine Trias, the sole remaining American Idol contestant from Hawaii, and one of the final four left in the TV show contest, I think her time to leave has come. Clearly, she needed to do very well last night but I don't think that happened.

If she has a problem, it's that she doesn't seem to have a very powerful voice. I don't know if it's because she gets nervous and runs out of breath or if she hasn't learned how to, as they say, sing from the diaphragm. This has caused her no end of problems as the other three contestants either already knew how, or learned very quickly.

I now wonder why she never did. Did her coaches think she didn't need to? Did she think she didn't need? I don't know. All I know is she is the now the weakest singer of the four and will probably have the fewest number of votes and therefore be off the show tonight.

If there is anything that could save her, it is indignation on the part of her fans over the way she was treated by the judges last night. I know the judges are there to stir things up but, for goodness sakes, she's only a teenager and you don't have to be mean about it. And mean they were. So I voted early and often just because I was so pissed off irate at them for making her cry.

Whatever happens tonight, I'm sure all of Hawaii supports her and I hope that brings some comfort to her. Seto out.

Aloha!

The good news is that the Legislature failed to adopt the concurrent resolution that would have rejected the recommendations of the Judicial Salary Commission. This means the salary recommendations became law as of May 6, 2004 and the judges may get their raise on July 1, 2005.

Now the bad news. The Legislature will get one more shot at it during the next session starting in January of next year. It's anyone's guess as to what will happen but rumor is the Legislature may amend or repeal the law that setup the Salary Commission and refuse to implement some or all of the recommended salary increases.

At this point, all I can say is we will take this one step at a time, planning for the worst but hoping for the best...

So the votes are in and . . . Jasmine is safe. In fact, I hear on the radio that so many people voted for her that she came in number 1. All I can say to Simon, Paula, and Randy is "Yo, eat 'dis." Aloooooha.

Now to be serious for a moment. Jasmine will probably be voted off next week and all of the people who hate her because their favorite lost this week will be happy. Or not.

But remember this: Hawai'i is a small state with about a million people. Tuesday night, Hawai'i generated about a million or two votes for Jasmine. At this point, it takes over six million to be safe. Obviously, a lot of other people other than just those in Hawai'i voted for her so don't blame Jasmine or Hawai'i for your loss.

Second, American Idol has always been about popularity. Was Kelly the best singer in year one? Was Reuben in year two? So don't be surprised if year three is won by Diana (who I think is a very good singer but not the best of the final 12).

And lastly, don't ever challenge the people of Hawaii. Even today, we are made up of many immigrant people. Said people have the guts to leave their homelands to better themselves in a foreign land. This type of people can not be described as wall flowers like Simon may think. Rather than shrinking and running when challenged, they will get in your face and punch you in the nose. So back off.

Aloha!

Movable Type has released MT 3.0, Developer Edition. This is a version of the long awaited update to one of the more popular, if not the most popular, "content management systems (CMS)" (can't we come up with a better description than this? -ed.). The ThunderingHerds(tm) are hitting their site so I can't give you much information other than there appears to be two versions: the Developer Edition which costs money, and a version that will be free (but not yet released). Within the Developer Edition, there appear to be two types of licenses: a commercial one costing $299.95 ($199.95 introductory price) to $699.95 ($599.95 introductory price) and a personal one costing $99.95 to $189.95 (introductory pricing $69.95 to $149.95).

I think I'll wait for the free version but even as we speak, I am evaluating other CMS options.

UPDATE: Fellow Daynoter Phil Hough sent the link to the free version:

MT 3.0 Here

Thanks Phil!

The Army Times has an editorial calling for the relieving of "top leaders" from their duties for their failure in leadership in the Iraqi Abu Ghraib-gate (you saw the term here first - ed.) prison scandal. While they do not specifically say so, it seems they include the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, General Richard Myers and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

If that weren't enough, the well respected conservative columnist George Will seems to be at least raising the question as to Rumsfeld resigning.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, after finding out that CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite had turned against the war in Vietnam, said: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." And if he'd lost middle America, he wasn't going the get re-elected.

While I will admit that it is not a perfect analogy, I wonder if conservative sources such as the Army Times and George Will are calling for the resignation of our top leaders that perhaps our leaders too have lost the support of middle America.

Speaking of dissension among the ranks, the Washington Post has an article quoting various military officials saying U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld should resign. While I agree with them, I don't see it happening unless more pictures of prisoner abuse make it to the public eye. Something, so far, that has not happened.

What has happened is exactly what I expected to happen from our Republican Neo-Cons. Secretary Rumsfeld has gone on the offensive attacking his critics and even went so far as to do a " Wag the Dog" moment by going to Iraq yesterday. Thus controlling the story and spinning it in direction away from him. Obviously, the strategy is to stall, deflect, and attack so that his opponents don't have the opportunity to bring him down.

The problem with all of this is that he, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz should resign. They have led us into a war without a clear, honest, and strategically important objective. Moreover, they have led us into a war without a clear understanding of what victory should look like, or what is usually called an exit strategy.

But worst of all, in my estimation, they have led us into a war whereby they have substituted political concerns for military strategies. From the very beginning, Secretary Rumsfeld scripted what I call "War on the Cheap". By that I mean he wanted to use tactics designed to use as few soldiers as possible with as little cost as possible. For example, before and during the early part of the war, the message was Iraq would be rebuilt using money from the sale of their own oil (something that has not happened and does not appear to be something that will happen in the future). Another example was the blitzkrieg strategy to strike quickly as far as possible as soon as possible. All the while avoiding house-to-house fighting. It was argued that victory would come quickly and with little cost of money or life.

Unfortunately, no strategy survives actual combat because your enemies have a way of forcing changes in strategy. The Cheap War has turned into the expensive war. The cheap strategy has turned into one in which hundreds have died since, what was called the cessation of major operations.

It is one thing to invade a land. But it is completely another to hold it.

The bottom line is we are increasingly involved in a war in which we don't know why we are there and don't know how to get out of. You may well think this sounds vaguely familiar to another war in another time and place, but I couldn't possibly comment on that.

All I can say is what I've said before: What is our objective? How do we plan to achieve this objective? And how do we know when we've reached it and can go home?

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

As the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And when it comes to user interfaces, beauty is not a word that usually comes up. Unfortunately for Opera Internet browser users, the interface of the latest version, in my eyes, is no beauty.

Opera 7.5 went gold yesterday. As usual, the ThunderingHerds(tm) were at the trough feeding so it took awhile before I could download the latest version. I was eventually able to get in and I'm underwhelmed. No, let me take that back. I think I'm astonished at this step backwards.

Opera has taken this point upgrade opportunity to change the user interface by moving many of the most used buttons to a panel on the left side of the screen. I don't know why they did this but the first thing I did was to change things back, as much as possible, to how I like it to look.

Also, be aware that the install goes into its own directory, leaving your present version in place. This surprised me as most programs install into directory being used by the current version. Doing it Opera's ways requires you to manual un-install the old version. Not very user friendly unless you are afraid that most people will want to keep the old version?

I don't know if you'll like the changes in 7.5 but feel free to take a look. As for me, I'm using Mozilla Firefox more and more so I guess it doesn't matter that much anymore.

On a lighter note, this PhD candidate was interested in "fundamental models of robot, animal, and human locomotion and manipulation." So he built a robot that could do origami, the oriental art of paper folding.

Aloha!

Dive into Mark has a pretty good posting on MovableType 3.0. MT has never been OpenSource or free. But in Mark's opinion it was open and free enough for most people. But with the coming of version 3.0DE, MT has made a choice. If you want to use it, you have to pay. A lot.

Mark goes on to say, if I understand what he is saying, that commercial software like MT doesn't have a future and that only OpenSource efforts do. I have to disagree with this. If anything, the history of software indicates just the opposite. I mean, most programs OpenSource or not, aren't around very long. But I think people tend to do things that they get rewarded for and if a program is successful and the author gets money for it, he or she will probably continue development of the program. On the other hand, people working on OpenSource alternatives don't get money for their work. Sometimes that doesn't matter. But most times it does since most people aren't independently wealthy and need to earn some money to have a roof over their heads and food on the table. Hence, at best, they may spend some free time working on the program but they will spend the majority of their time on things that pay them money.

Note that I'm not making a value judgment here. It's simply the way things are.

But being that as it may, there are other content management systems. You have a choice. You can stay with MT and support its development or you can switch.

I'm in the process of testing MT 3.0 Developer's Edition. I've installed it but so far am disappointed. The comment registration system, designed to ban spam, works against various robots, but does nothing against armies of low paid people in India hired by spammers to send their drek far and wide.

As Mark notes, he's already received spam while running a beta of the new registration system. Hence, the main reason for going to MT 3.0 is probably void.

Even before MT 3.0 came out, I began taking a look at other solutions. Pair.com, the host to this site, supports two: Blosxom and Geeklog. Either would work, although, for my taste, Blosxom is too minimalist and Geeklog is too fussy.

But another program has gotten a lot of word-of-mouth and is called WordPress. I haven't had much time to work with it so I won't say anything about it yet but if you are looking for an alternative, you may want to check it out (although I'm a little concerned about the dynamic versus static-based page debate).

The bottom line is you have a choice. You don't have to use MT3.0DE. Hence, rather than demonizing Mena and Ben, who are just trying to make a living producing a product people want and are willing to pay for, find something else.

From: sjon
Subject: MT Promises
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 02:56:59 -0700 (PDT)

{quote}If anything, the history of software indicates just the opposite. I mean, most programs OpenSource or not, aren't around very long. {/quote} For a few programs that are crucial to business I agree with you. For others I agree more with Mark. These days -almost- no business survives without spreadsheet. So for spreadsheets there will always customers ready and able to pay. Same goes for text processing, web serving, fire walling etc.

Blogging software -for example- is not a crucial tool. I bet you can go back to notepad/vi if everybody puts a $500+ price tag on their software.) As you mention most programs aren't around very long (except some bug ridden DLLs in Windows of course -EvilGrin-) so when a free program comes along for a noncrucial task all the non-free programs get priced out of the market, not overnight but after a time. At the same time the market grows enormously because lots of new users jump in, free is a good introduction price. When the free program disappears most people either switch to another free program or just stop the activity -blogging- and move on to other things. The result is that very few people use the commercial program which means it either has to raise it's price to survive -downward spiral- or drop the price to -almost- free. Neither strategy will pay the bills. Thing is once people get used to having something free it's difficult to make them pay for the same thing again.

Aloha!

When you decide to steal fuel out of a camper by siphoning it out of the tank, be sure you choose the gas tank rather than the sewage holding tank. See the story here. Eeeeeuuuuuuwwwww.

Leave it to those resourceful Kiwis to come up with a homegrown Wifi antenna using a Chinese wok stir-fry scoop. Check it out in pictures here.

In other legal news, the US Justice Department is enforcing an 1872 law used "when brothels sent prostitute laden with booze onto ships as they made their way to harbor. The idea was to get the sailors so drunk they could be whisked to shore and held in bondage,..." Only, the Justice Department is using the law against the environmental group Greenpeace:

The environmental group is accused of sailor mongering because it boarded a freighter in April 2002 that was carrying illegally felled Amazon mahogany to Miami. It says the prosecution is revenge for its criticism of the environmental policies of President Bush, whom it calls the "Toxic Texan.""

What did the group do when it boarded the ship? They hung up a sign saying, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."

All I can say is when a government no longer represents the People, it is incumbent upon said People to vote them out of office.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. From the US Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776

You have a choice America. Yes, we were told that even if President Bush wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer that he would surround himself by people who were. Like Donald Rumsfeld. Like Dick Cheney. Well, do you want four more years of this? Vote in November.

Aloha!

As further proof that the Bush administration considers the American people to be subjects, not citizens with unalienable rights, read this article from the Washington Post about how the U.S. Justice Department has censored a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on an ACLU challenge to the so called Patriot Act.

It seems even legal challenges to the Act are illegal to publish about as the ACLU found out when it announced its challenge.

The dispute over the ACLU's April 28 news release centered on two paragraphs. The first laid out the court's schedule for receiving legal briefs and noted the name of the New York-based judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.

The second paragraph read: "The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' "

Justice lawyers said that both paragraphs violated a secrecy order and that the ACLU should be required to seek an exemption to publicize the information, court records show. Justice spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment yesterday.

The Christian Science Monitor has an article that says political appointees in the Bush administration overrode objections to new rules regarding the treatment of prisoners of war put in effect soon after the events of September 11, 2001. It appears these individuals, up to and including Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, rammed through changes that appear counter to the Geneva Convention. This, even after career military officers in the Judge Advocate General's Office strenuously objected to what they considered to be inappropriate, if not illegal, changes to prisoner treatment.

CSM persuasively makes the case that these changes set the stage for the abuse that occurred in Iraq.

As the Bush administration does its best to contain and spin the Iraq prison scandal, the forces against them are not sitting on their hands.

And while the power of the Presidency is far reaching, and getting bigger with a compliant Republican Congress, this UPI story says some in the US Army, the Central Intelligence Agency, and certain "relatively moderate" Republicans [is that an oxymoron? - ed.] are doing their best to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth out.

Right now, the trail leads to at least the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

But for me, unless more pictures that show even more abuse come to light, I don't see Rumsfeld resigning.

The Los Angeles Times has an opinion piece (free registration required) that looks at the corrosive effects of what they call pseudo-journalism. While the article does not focus only on Fox, it is a good example of pandering and how pseudo-journalists can put on the cloak of jounalistic ethics while spreading what may be described as lies, or at least errors of fact.

This got me to thinking about a related situation. Some people love to write long essays full of examples supposedly supporting the point they are trying to make. Only, at least some of the examples are wrong. Rather than simply admitting the mistake(s), correcting it, and trying to check their facts better from that point forward, they do what more and more people are doing. They turn around and attack the person correcting them. These pundits become enraged and call their critics trolls or say the specific example doesn't matter. That is, the correction is trivial and does not detract from their main thesis. Or they simply ignore the error.

Perhaps, at times, they are right. But all the time they are wrong in once sense. They are wrong in the sense that every error is a brick removed from the foundation that is called credibility. Without credibility you are nothing and each error, no matter how small subtracts from that credibility.

Everyone should ask his or herself several questions when reading with a critical eye. The Society of Professional Journalists has a Code of Ethics from which I list several examples: Is the writer or speaker an advocate or a reporter of the truth? Is there a conflict of interest, real or perceived? If so, is the conflict disclosed to the reader? Does the person freely admit to the inevitable mistakes and correct them promptly? Does he or she abide by the same high standards to which they hold others?

If not, then we cannot and should not give credence to anything such a person has to say. Even if the writer is partly right, they are completely wrong if they do not adhere to a strict code of ethics by willfully violating even one of part of the code.

Aloha!

Sorry about the late post but as a precaution I disconnected from the network and reformatted the C: drive yesterday. I did this because someone on the network may have been compromised by a Trojan Horse program.

If this is true, and the only indication we have is from the anti-virus software (an old version of Inoculate) running on their PC, the entire network may be at risk.

I am now back online and am putting my faith in the firewall software (Sygate) and anti-virus software (Computer Associates Int. - eTrust EZ AV) that we are using.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

Not much going on in the Seto Shack today so I'll leave you with this:

He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you stare persistently into an abyss, the abyss also stares into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Aloha!

I've been using either Mozilla email or Thunderbird for some time now but have found an area they are lacking. Namely, exporting. If, for example, I want to export all of my email so I can store it while reformatting my hard drive I'm left up the creek without the proverbial paddle. Neither Mozilla email client can export email. So what are you supposed to do? I don't know. Copy the folders?

Drop me a line if you know of a way of exporting then importing back in. By they way, after using both for awhile, I think Thunderbird runs better. YMMV. FWIW.

Aloha!

My web host (pair.com) is having problems with email so if you sent me something in the past 24 hours I won't be able to respond until they get around to figuring out what is wrong. If there is an emergency need to get a hold of me, feel free to try dkseto at hotmail dotted commercial.

In addition, the specific server my site is on has gone down a couple of times in the past weeks due to "heavy load." So if you can't get to my site, you'll know why. Sort of. And for this I pay over $300 USD a year. Sigh.

If I had my own static IP address and a provider that would allow me to host my own site I would do so. Of course, I would carefully re-read everything fellow Daynoter Brian Bilbrey has on his site and then contact Daynoter Phil Hough since he also hosts his own site...

From: Gary M. Berg
Subject: Pair systems, Thunderbird
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 15:10:39 -0400

Dan,

The Pair systems email problem should be over; one minute it was working and the next it wasn't. I emailed the support folks and they said they ended up undoing some changes they had done on a back-end server (presumably the one that handles authentication for POP/IMAP/Webmail for domain mailboxes). They also lost the ACC for a while, but it was back too as of about 12:45 PM EDT.

As for Thunderbird, the best bet is to indeed copy the folder that contains everything (your "profile" folder). Then on the new machine you will create a new profile and then drop everything back inside of that. I think this will even preserve all of your account information.

I've played with using Thunderbird for POP3 and IMAP access to my Pair-hosted domain, and it works fairly well. I think that Outlook 2003 is a better email client, especially since it can easily be set to not display embedded links inside of "untrusted" email correspondents. Yes, I know about all the potential security issues in Outlook, but the 2003 version does a fairly good job of reducing those problems to a minimum. It's not fair to compare Outlook 2000 (a 4 year old product) to Thunderbird (which is under very active development) as far as security.

I've been using SpamAssassin on the Pair server to flag my mail as to what looks like spam. With a good whitelist on Pair, and a similar whitelist in Outlook 2003, I probably see about 99% accurate filtering of spam with very few messages making it through the double filter of SA on my host and Outlook 2003.

Aloha!

I've updated my public key for mail at seto dotted organization. You should see a link on the right side of the screen at the bottom of the "Links" section. If you don't, you can download it here. If I should ever send an attachment, I will sign the email with my public key. Please delete all previous keys. Thanks.

Vehicle size can help in some situations and hurt in others. Take a look at when size hurts here where you'll see what a MiniCooper looks like after a crash into a barrier at 40 mph versus what a Ford 150 full-sized truck looks like. Draw your own conclusions. YMMV.

Perhaps it's because they are the first on the ground, but leave it to the Marines to tell it as it is. Follow this link to read what General Anthony Zinni, USMC (retired), former commander of CENTCOM, has to say about Iraq and the mistakes that have been made, the processes that could be used to correct them, and what may happen if we don't:

The Mistakes

1. The mistaken belief that containment as a policy doesn't work.
2. We didn't understand the region, the culture, the situation, and the issues, and the effect that what we were about to do was going to have on those.
3. We created a false rationale for going in to get public support.
4. We failed to internationalize the effort.
5. We underestimated the task.
6. We propped up and trusted the Iraqi exiles.
7. Lack of planning.
8. Insufficiency of military forces on the ground.
9. The ad hoc organization, that is, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
10. A series of bad decisions on the ground: deBaathification, disbanding the Army, and lack of dialogue/identification with Sunni and Shia leadership.

The Process

1. Sponsor a United Nations resolution that would allow others to participate.
2. Ask for planning and advisory assistance from neighboring countries.
3. Help setup and train police, border security, and armies for Iraq and neighboring countries to protect the borders and critical infrastructure.
4. Assist Iraqi small businesses to create needed jobs.
5. Define what form of government Iraq will have by helping to create political parties, under UN supervision.
6. Get Iraqis to "own" both the problems and the solutions.

What happens if things continue as they are? The insurgents will continue following the classic Maoist doctrine by

"disabling the infrastructure; frightening the people; attacking the outside interveners; attacking those that cooperate with them. Show them that the local authorities are ineffective. You do this by a series of violent acts, terrorist activities. We saw this in Vietnam. You saw it in classic insurgencies.

"You then move to convince people that the government is powerless and corrupt; that the outside intervention forces are there as powers to dominate colonial powers. And you try to make the case that you are the only viable representative they have. And eventually you move that to civil war. Unless the insurgency completes itself and succeeds, you'll move it to civil war."

Aloha!

The sweet smell of plumeria will always be associated, in my mind, with the month of May. I can remember, when I was in elementary school, stringing lei made out of the beautiful flowers. At that time, almost every yard had a tree laden with the white, yellow, pink, and red blossoms. So near the end of the month, the call would go out to all the homes to bring as many flowers as possible to the schools.

We would then string the flowers together so to make lei each about two feet (~0.6m) end-to-end. While this is usually too short to give to someone, it's not too short for the purpose we were using it for.

Monday is the Memorial Day holiday in the US. A day set aside to honor our nation's sons and daughters who have died while serving their country in the armed forces during times of war.

Each and every one of the tens of thousands of graves in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu will have a plumeria lei laid around their gravestones. It is but a small way to to honor those who gave their last full measure of devotion to our country and a way to teach children that freedom is not free.

I'll be taking the day off and will be back here on Tuesday (Lord willing and the 'crick don't rise) but give a good thought for those who have died for the very freedoms we seem so intent on giving away. We can hope that their deaths will not have been in vain.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

First, the good news. I posted recently about the change to new network cabling which is part of our switch from IBM Token-Ring to Ethernet. What we had was old CAT-3 wires that can't operate at the higher speeds found on Fast Ethernet so out they went.

Now that we have switched over (no pun intended), you can see the results below:

That's a shot from Broadband Reports indicating I got about 6.8Mbps down and 3.0 up. Whoooo and Hooooo. Before the switch over I was getting about 1.5Mbps up and down. Well done to our IT guys!

Now the bad news. Many (all?) of our Windows servers were setup to be accessed via the NetBEUI protocol. Said protocol was pretty snazzy in 1985 for use with Windows for Workgroups. But in 2004, Windows XP doesn't even support it. If you have XP and you need NetBEUI, you can find it on your install CD (see MS KB Article 301041 for installation instructions) so all is not lost.

Or, it is? NetBEUI is non-routable (except in a token-ring environment) and will not cross subnets. The Ethernet side of our network is, I think, segmented and on a different subnet. So, as far as I know, I can't get there from here using NetBEUI.

That doesn't mean I can't get there at all but it does mean it's not as user friendly. With NetBEUI I could browse the list of Windows servers (and there are a lot of them here) and mouse click on the one I needed. Now, I have to use the keyboard and type in the specific server and share I need in the form of \\server\share.

Now the worse news. Even if I do that, what happens seems to be randomly assigned. Sometimes I get a login, which is what should happen. Sometimes I don't get a login but do reach the server. Unfortunately, since I'm not logged in, I don't have the rights to see or do anything on the server. And finally, sometimes I don't have to login but I do have access to all the files.

Fortunately, I don't need to get to that server, which is our Intraweb site, often since I only need it when I update the site. But if things get busy again as far as adding things to the site I'll be in a heap of hurt ("But boss! It's not by fault! It's Netbeeeuuuuiiii!"[insert sound effect of footsteps echoing down a long, dark hall and a scraping sound that can only come from a body being dragged away]).

Oh well, I do have to congratulate our IT people for getting the Ethernet side going and thank all four IT people who came by yesterday morning to try to fix things re: server access.