Move Along
Sorry, no post today. I'm drafting some testimony in support of the Salary Commission's recommendations so I have zero time to post anything. Come back tomorrow. Thanks.
Aloha!
« February 2004 | Main | April 2004 »
March 31, 2004
March 30, 2004
Bots Be Gone
If you use Spybot Search and Destroy to remove tracking cookies, hijacking programs, or other detritus left by businesses trying to get your attention on the Internet, you may also want to use Spyware Blaster from Javacool Software. The Spyware Blaster site says the program:
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Prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted pests.
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Blocks spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox.
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Restricts the actions of potentially dangerous sites in Internet Explorer.
Spyware Blaster works with Spybot Search and Destroy although it can apparently run as a stand alone program. How ever you run it, it blocks some stuff that Spybot Search and Destroy doesn't. It also protects you if you use Mozilla, something Spybot can't do. Check it out, it could keep you from descending into the hell of hijacked browsers.
A Ride Through Chernobyl
Speaking of hell, here is a site that says she rides through the Chernobyl area. On her motorcycle. More than once. And lives to tell about it. With pictures. Why. Am. I. Writing. Like this [watched too much of William Shatner - ed.]?
Most of the pictures appear to be hers although some look like she copied them from other sources and one wonders how she got photos of herself if she was the only one riding [tripod and self-timer? - ed]. In any case, it's interesting to look at. In a creepy sort of way. Enjoy.
Aloha!
March 29, 2004
Who's Your Boss?
Whether you are in the public or private sector, each of us has many bosses. Each of these bosses have different wants but in some ways they are alike: they want to be paid first and they want to be paid now.
For the private sector, the question is how to balance the business versus the stock holders. That is, there is an ongoing tension between investing in your business/employees and paying out dividends to stock holders. As a large business owner, if you get the balance wrong, you go out of business. So it is important to get it right.
But sometimes, the stockholders forget that the money is generated by a well run business. Indeed, if the business is not running well, there will be no stock dividends. Nonetheless, the stock holders want money and if they don't get it from business X, they will get it from business Y.
One interesting comparison is this article from the Wall Street Journal comparing warehouse giants Costco and Sams/Wall*Mart. The first pays their employees a living wage and good medical benefits (as a government worker, I pay three times more in medical costs then Costco employees) but doesn't pay that much in dividends to investors. The other, pays as little as possible to its workers but keeps its investors happy by paying steady dividends.
This is not an easy question to answer and I can't say one way will always work over the other. But in my opinion, if you have good employees, the long term prospects are better for them then the one that squeezes the life out their workers.
Has It Come to This?
When a culture declines to a point in which it is totally lost, that is, when it cant' find its own way, then the tendency is to grasp at anyone who says they know which direction to go. Even if that person is as blind as everyone else.
Such is the case in this CNN article about a self-described "psychic's tip" that a bomb was aboard a plane. Government employees, being ever careful to cover their hind regions, canceled American Airlines flight 1304 while they used a bomb sniffing dog to search the plane. Of course, no bomb was found and hundreds of people were delayed by the cancellation.
Trust Me
Speaking of the blind leading the blind, this listing from the American Progress site is a humorous look at a serious subject. Namely, why did the US invade Iraq?
March 26, 2004
looF lirpA Central
Today is a state holiday commemorating the birth of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole.
This article here from Israel is a proof of concept that pigeon enabled internet is faster than ADSL. The birds, using TCP (transmission by carrier pigeon), transmitted 4GB of data faster than an ADSL could have in the given time.
In the News
Date: Thursday, 1 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0100
From: Petri Ojala
Subject: Press Release: McDonalds and EUnet join to offer Global "Internet in a Lunchbox"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
McDonalds and EUnet join to offer Global "Internet in a Lunchbox"
Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- April 1, 2004 -- McDonalds, Inc. and EUnet, Ltd. today announced an agreement which will allow people to access the Internet in virtually everywhere. Access to the Internet is fast becoming a requirement for leading businesses who wish to communicate globally at any place, any time.
"Our restaurants offer the market's most cost-effective solution for daily food substance requirements and together with EUnet we take this small step for our businesses but a great leap to the mankind", says Kechap Mustard, senior vice president for marketing at McDonalds restaurants. "The Information Superhighway will be a significant part of our future and we want to participate in building it. Every highway needs restaurants and together with EUnet we will meet the great demands of the new information society", he adds.
EUnet, the largest commercial Internet service provider in Europe, will together with McDonalds install wireless Internet connectivity via WiFi to every McDonalds restaurant. A revolutionary CRC-free product, McEUnet, will be used to provide access to the Internet for everyone, from small children to senior citizens. "Later we will offer our customers a complete McEUnet-meal with a png of the month. Together with the planned McEUnet birthday party service we will provide a full range of solutions to our customers who need wireless access to the Internet", said Mustard.
"Way to mans heart goes through his stomach and together with McDonalds we can get there. EUnet's goal is to bring the Internet to every dining table and now it's finally for real. McDonalds restaurants are also children's favorite and now we make it possible for children to learn the Internet before they can even read or write", says Glenn Kowack, EUnet CEO. "We haven't accomplished Internet to the belly button yet, but we are very near a breakthrough. Our research staff is already working hard to create recyclable access to the Internet to save the nature. CRC-free McEUnet IP addresses are already recycled", Kowack describes the new service.
###
All brands, products and service names mentioned are trademarks or registered service marks of their respective owners.
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In other news, software giant Microsoft Corporation (MS) announced today that the Windows GUI (code name Foghorn Leghorn) has been ported to Unix and will be on sale next week Thursday, April 1st. Noting that MS had already ported Office to run on Apple's OS X, based on a variation of Unix, MS founder William Gates III (hereinafter SRW: Sir William of Redmond) said it wasn't that difficult to do. SRW went on to say he was sure that MS would soon dominate the market for GUIs running under various versions of Unix and Linux and that both KDE and Gnome would soon be a thing of the past.
Mail Call
From: Peter Thomas
To: Dan Seto
Subject: XDS
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 01:16:47 -0500Dan
I think you're being a bit hard on the XDS Modula system.
Having installed it, it has VERY much to me the look of an older, DOS based environment, and thus, it would not be happy with either a directory with spaces in it OR one that is longer than 8 characters....
Peter
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!
March 25, 2004
Modded Up
My trial of Excelsior's Native XDS-x86 for Windows has come to an end (see Tuesday's post here). I found that even when I got the IDE to recognize a test module as something that could/should/had better be compiled/made/built, clicking on the menu choice to do so would result in an error message saying the program could not be found.
I can only guess this is an artifact of the install where even though it gives the impression that you can choose the directory to install the program, you REALLY should use the default of c:\xds. Installing ANYWHERE else will mean nothing works. This includes the uninstall due, I suppose, to hard coding the default directory.
I have a long standing rule that any program that can't install to anything other than the default will probably have other problems. Problems I don't need to deal with. So I manually deleted the directories and scoured the Registry for all instances of the program.
It's just a guess, but I wonder if this program wasn't written in another environment and they blindly ported to Windows without an extensive testing program (if there was any testing at all). In any case, should you decide to install this program, remember to use the default directory. YMMV/Don't blame me if it doesn't work.
It Begins
Speaking of religion, this just in from the looF lirpA news network:
From: looF lirpA News
Subject: MICROSOFT: Bids to Acquire Catholic Church
Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004 7:16AMMICROSOFT Bids to Acquire Catholic Church
By Hank Vorjes
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- In a joint press conference in St. Peter's Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.
With the acquisition, the Pope will become the senior vice-president of the combined company's new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT Chairman Raymond V. Gilmartin and CEO Steven A. Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman and Chief Software Architect William H. Gates III (or Sir William of Redmond as he now prefers to be called).
"We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years," said Sir William. "The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people."
Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company's on-line service, "we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time" and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. "You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution, keep Windows from Blue Screening -- even reduce your time in Purgatory -- all without leaving your home."
A new software application, MICROSOFT Church 2004 (code name Third Horn), will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.
An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter's Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello -- in character as Father Guido Sarducci -- hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide and via the Internet using Media Player 666 technology.
The Pope said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, "Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats," the crowd roared, but the pontiff's smile seemed strained.
The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican's prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors' access to these key intellectual properties.
"The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures," said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. "You take the parting of the Red Sea -- we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene."
Stung by the criticism, MS "Evangelist" Robert Scoble said "Wait until Third Horn ships and you run it on a TabletPC."
But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. "The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience," notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church's market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.
Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church's mission is to reach "the four corners of the earth," echoing MICROSOFT's vision of "a computer on every desktop and in every home".
Gates described MICROSOFT's long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired -- "One religion, a couple of different implementations," said Gates.
The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market. Messages left on Linus Torvalds answering machine asking for comments were not returned by press time.
KBviaNewsEDGE
Copyright (c) 2004 Night-Rider / Tribone Business News Received via NewsLEDGE from Desktop Dodo, Inc. and Parody Communications: 03/25/04 19:20
And Finally
This picture of US troops trying out a new game for physical training. It's called mortarball. They use a reduced charge to propel the ball at a low enough speed so as to be able to hit it with the bat. An earlier try came to an unfortunate end when a full charge was used. However, the trooper, now called "Lefty" is doing well in a hospital in Germany and should be able to return to duty in a week.
Aloha!
March 24, 2004
Mail Call
From: Jon Barrett
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Installing into Root
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 15:45:43 -0500That changed, actually, with FAT32, when they allowed even the Root directory to be extensible. It's also not an issue with NTFS. It's not a terribly good idea from the standpoint of disk clutter, and an even worse one to not allow you the choice of installation points, but any system that's in danger of running out of root directory entries is probably going to run out of storage space first.
Jon
Jon Barrett
Kensington, MD
In addition to the information from Jon above, Microsoft FAT16 has a maximum of 512 root entries. For FAT32, entries are apparently limited only by the size of the drive/partition (or 32GB under FAT32 in Windows 2000 and 32 terabytes under NTFS).
So the moral of the story is if you are using FAT 16 under Windows 95 or Windows 98 you are limited to 512 entries in the root directory. Hence, it makes sense to keep the root directory below that number at all times or, if otherwise possible, switch to FAT32 or upgrade to NTFS.
By the way, for those of you out there who think no one would have that many files/directories in root it is obvious you have never been involved in PC support because I've seen it several times. I've seen users install programs directly into root and I've seen users saving their data files in root. And then, to top that off, when they needed more space, they simply deleted all of the files in root. The consequences of which are for another post.
Needless to say, there are probably millions of people out there still using Windows95 so this information is still relevant to a lot of people.
Thanks to Jon for reminding me of something I knew at the time but have since long forgotten.
Aloha!
March 23, 2004
Mod Hatter
Every once in awhile I seemingly loose my mind and decide I want to learn another computer programming language. This time around, just for laughs [kicking self in head], I chose Modula-2.
Excelsior is nice enough to offer something called Native XDS-x86 for Windows. It's advertised as a "complete development system that supports full cycle of software development for Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) platforms using Modula-2 and Oberon-2 programming languages."
Unfortunately, getting it installed has not worked out well. First, be aware you have to give them a working e-mail address to which they will send the download URL. I guess harvesting your e-mail address is considered the cost of giving you their software.
After downloading you run their install utility. Said utility defaults to installing in the root of your C: drive. I haven't seen a program try to install to root since Lotus Notes so I was surprised to see it here. Installing into the root directory is not a good thing because there is a limit to how many directories can be created there. In addition, it just clutters up the root directory. So I changed the location to C:\Program Files\Modula\. Everything appeared to install correctly but when I tried to execute the program via the Start Programs menu, Windows could not follow the link created by the install program. So I deleted the links and manually added them to the Start Programs menu.
Once over that hurdle I tried to write and compile a program. Actually, what I did was simply paste an example module that was part of an Internet tutorial into the Integrated Programming Environment (IPE) or Integrated Development Environment (IDE). But having done so, I found I could not run or compile the code as all of those types of options were grayed out.
So, to the help file I went. The first thing you apparently have to do is manually create a project directory. The help file says to issue a command line sequence that will run part of their program and create the required sub-directories after you've created a directory. Hmmmm. It sure would be nice if that was taken care of without having to drop into the command line to do it. Little did I know that apparently a lot of things would need to be run from the command line. But I digress.
So I create a directory for projects and then go to the
command line and type in xcwork
which creates the sub-directories. That appeared to work fine
so I exited from the DOS box and tried to compile/run the
code. Nope. Still grayed out. Sigh.
About then is when I ran out of time and patience. I'll get around to reading the help file some more to figure out just what I need to do to get this program to run in Windows (I know you can run the compiler from the command line but that defeats the purpose of having "a complete development system...for Microsoft Windows..." You may as well have a machine running DOS 5 or some such for all the help that this Windows IPE/IDE program gives.
Out of Commission
A Wall Street Journal article on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US, a commission looking into the events of September 11 to determine who did what and when, indicates that to this day, there is much confusion as to what happened.
Confusion, after this type of event, is not a surprise. In fact, if the Commission finds that there wasn't any confusion, I'd be very suspicious of their findings. Unfortunately, the President, Vice President, and some of his officials are trying to spin the story to make it appear that Government responded in a coordinated, rational, and planned fashion. The truth is, this is far from accurate.
In any case, the next attack, when it comes, will probably use a different vector. Hence, a plan designed specifically to respond to civilian planes flying into buildings will have little value.
Hence, I hope the focus of the Commission will be on what general lessons to learn, that is: What were the impediments to getting good information on which to make decisions? What were the emergency plans in place and how could they be improved? What were the defensive military/civilian assets available and how could they be better deployed? In other words, how could the system be improved to quickly identify a threat and coordinate an effective response to said threat?
The report is due out on July 26th but I am not encouraged by the spin the White House is taking on this so I would be surprised if the Commission's report will have anything of value. If this turns out to be the case, an important opportunity to prepare for the future will have been lost.
Aloha!
March 22, 2004
Out of the Blue
If you are in business, and most of us are in one way or another, you have to focus your efforts. But sometimes its possible to focus on the wrong thing. Like profit, for example. As a business person, if all you focus on is profit, you may get some, for awhile. But in the long run, you will go out of business because business is not about profit, it's about serving customers.
It's about finding a customer need and fulfilling that need in a way that customers are willing to pay you money. Out of those individual decisions comes your profit.
Most business people intuitively know this because, at one time or another, we are all customers. We all know how we want to be treated so it is not a huge leap to understand how to treat your own customers.
But as businesses grow and mature, it is easy for the CEO to lose his or her focus on the customer. Life becomes an endless round of meetings. Mergers. Proxy fights. In other words, the customer is no longer the focus.
But it doesn't have to be that way. For example, this article from Inc. on an airline called JetBlue. The CEO, David Neeleman, regularly flies his airline not as a passenger in first class but as a flight attendant. He goes row by row personally meeting the needs of his customers.
By doing so, he stays in direct contact with who his customers are and what they need. When was the last time Bill Gates was at your local CompUSA getting your feedback on MS WindowsXP? Or when was the last time Scott McNealy sat down with you to discuss how Sun Microsystems could better meet your needs? Never?
Guess which company provides better customer service? I'll wait while you think that over. In the mean time, the profits are rolling in for JetBlue.
Does all this mean JetBlue is infallible? Not in your life. This is the same company that released
the names, addresses and phone numbers of its customers in September 2002 in response to an "exceptional request from the Department of Defense to assist their contractor, Torch Concepts, with a project regarding military base security." [See the full article here]
JetBlue have much to explain for that misstep, but they understand it was a mistake and will pay for it.
It is one of the paradoxes of life that the more you focus on profit, the less profit you will get. You decide where your focus should be.
Aloha!
March 19, 2004
Home Again
I'm having some medical tests done so I'm off today.
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!
March 18, 2004
Wait One
I'm now in a holding pattern as the powers-that-be decide whether we need to amend the salary recommendations sent to the Legislature earlier this month. However, the time available for these changes are rapidly running out. I hope to know for sure what will be happening by the end of the day.
March 17, 2004
Round 2
Things are getting busy around here again. We may need to amend the Salary Commission Report. It would be inappropriate to say more so I gotta go.
Aloha!
March 16, 2004
Notes to Self
Remember to backup the Popfile spam filter before formatting the drive (although I may switch to using the one built-in to Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail program). Also, remember to write down the iTunes login. And delete all default links in Opera before importing otherwise you will get duplicate folders and links (Opera should check for duplicates and delete them when importing).
Wooden You?
Fellow Daynoter John Dominik has started up a side business of making pens out of various kinds of wood. From the pictures, they look beautiful. I've asked him to make a rollerball in burl. When the particulars are worked out and he sends me one I'll try to post a picture of it here. But knowing John, I'm sure it will be beautiful and worth the price (he has introductory pricing so put your orders in soon!).
Feeling a Draft?
I guess it was just a matter of time, since the number of people in the military doesn't seem to be sufficient for the mission(s) it is being used for, but it looks like a trial balloon is being floated for a "limited" draft program.
This article here says the Selective Service System ("the draft") is in the planning stages for promulgating rules and procedures to draft people into the military.
This is being defined as a "special skills" draft designed to get people with linguistics or computer science backgrounds. These two groups would be added to the already set-up system for health care professionals.
Everyone is taking great pains to say this is just for planning purposes and that no one expects a draft to be implemented.
In other news, the Selective Service also announced a program to lease the Brooklyn bridge to indigenous peoples under the SPWBA Act of 1924.
Say What?
Speaking of the need for cunning linguists, the yourDictionary.com site has a list of what they say is the top 100 most mispronounced words. From Arctic to zoology, get the right stuff there.
Happy Easter!
Speaking of it being just a matter of time. I've posted before about how automobiles are becoming platforms for computers running various operating systems. So I shouldn't be surprised that the programmers for the BMW M3 sequential transmission would create an "Easter egg."
This article from Popular Science says if you press the right buttons in the right order the M3 will rev its engine to 5,000 RPM before launching you into hyperspace. Well, okay you aren't launched into hyperspace but you could end up in jail if you do this near a speed trap.
Oh, by the way, if you do this in the garage, please remember to be pointing outward with the garage door open. YMMV. Use at your own risk. The door is ajar.
However, as noted before, as we get closer to April 1st one must keep a certain detached attitude about the veracity of some of the reports above...
Di-Hydrogen Monoxide
Like for example, this story here about the poor folks in Aliso Viejo, California (I've never heard of such a place) who were set to ban di-hydrogen monoxide from their fair city. H2O, sometimes known as water, is used in the manufacturing of many products so this would not have been an easy thing to do.
I don't make these stories up folks, I just report them. Well, okay, on April 1st I have been known to make up a few but only on the 1st. Really.
Aloha!
March 15, 2004
Back at 'cha
I'm over due to implment my semi-annual deep cleaning of my c: drive. I had to wait until my salary report was done before blowing everything away. But now that I'm done, my drive has been wiped clean. Hence, it will be a day or two before I can do any surfing for your viewing pleasure.
Hopefully, by tomorrow I will have things back to near normal and I can do a regular posting.
Aloha!
March 12, 2004
Max Headroom
Speaking of hoaxes, the one about a woman killing her boyfriend with an iPod is a hoax. The mast head is HeadLined News.com. First, this is a parody of CNN's Head Lines News. Second, the URL for the site is liquidgeneration.com, not HeadLinedNews.com. Clicking on their terms of service or contact us takes you to their home page, including an animated intro featuring "I'm too sexy for my shirt" background music.
Building Dreams
Whether this story about a robotic, very large scale XY-plotter that can print your house using concrete squirted out of a tube is a hoax is anyone's guess. But the closer we get to April 1st the higher the probability any story is.
ETA No
Prayers and Thoughts to our friends in Spain - Aloha!
March 11, 2004
Strange Happenings
You know, sometimes when I read stuff on the Internet I have to wonder if it's just an elaborate hoax (the stuff, not necessarily the Internet - ed.). For example, ZDnet has a story that says a company is set to launch a service that would counter-attack anyone doing a DDos or hacker attack. Left unsaid is how the company would identify the source of the attack as many DDos attacks operate through so-called zombie machines hijacked earlier.
On the other hand, the story on the Internet about the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the new Iraqi constitution is a hoax.
Charmed Life
If you're like me, you probably don't know your bosons from your femions. For those few of you out there that do, here's an article that talks about what may be the first observation of the Higgs boson, sometimes called the "God Particle." In related news, I hear Sophia Coppola and Mel Gibson are in talks with the researchers for the film rights. No word yet whether Marlon Brando will be cast but Al Pacino says he definitely wants in. [g]
Aloha!
March 10, 2004
Lightfast
Burn a label after burning a CD? With HP's new LightScribe system and DVDs/CDs you can burn music on one side and then flip the disk over and burn a silk screen-like image on the other. The drive is reported to cost about $10 more than other drives and the blank DVDs/CDs could add about 10 cents more per disk. See the story from PCWorld here.
Cho 'Nuff
It seems Jennifer Balderama will be moving on to another venue, so until she shows up again I'm reading Margaret Cho. Know that Cho uses strong language and is passionate about causes that you may disagree. Having said that, her blog is a series of short essays about things. All kinds of things. Some funny but most are serious and insightful into the feelings of this Korean-American stand-up comedy queen.
Aloha!
March 09, 2004
Where in the World?
So the Salary Commission's report is complete but I need to make a bunch of copies for the Legislature so I'll leave you with this:
Pentagon officials believe they have been unable to locate Bin Laden because he has found a place to hide out where: (1) It is easy to get in if you have the money; (2) No one will recognize or remember you; (3) No one will realize that you have disappeared; (4) No one keeps any records of your comings and goings; and (5) You have no obligations or responsibilities.
Pentagon analysts are still puzzled, however, as to how Bin Laden found out about the Texas Air National Guard in the first place.
By the way, Dr. K is back to posting. Two days in a row, in fact.
Aloha!
March 08, 2004
IE7
Microsoft's latest browser? Nope, just some guys attempt to make IE 5.5 and above compliant with Cascading Style Sheets. I haven't tried this so your mileage may vary, but at least there are people out there trying to bring IE into the 20th century. Wait. We're in the 21st century? Well, never mind, feel free to use a 21st century browser like Firefox or Opera instead.
Today's the day that the Salary Commission votes on the recommended salaries for state judges for the next eight years. This will be a busy day for me so I gotta go.
Aloha!
March 05, 2004
Reporting In
Monday is the last scheduled meeting of the commission. The report, including about 50 pages of appendices, is 77 pages long.
The problems with these types of reports are at least two-fold: (1) No one reads past the executive summary, and (2) No matter how rational and well written it is, the question is political.
First, people are busy. Legislators are even more so. Each year, thousands of bills are introduced (Bill SB2763 meet Bill HB2264). No one has the time to read each one, much less understand the complex issues involved.
Hence, when a 77 page report hits legislator's desks they have to rely on others to read, understand, and report to them. Sometimes these others are his or her own staff. Sometimes it is the committee report from the committee the bill is assigned. Sometimes it's from interested members of the public who give testimony before the committee. And sometimes it's from lobbyists paid to put forth a particular point of view.
Second, in the Legislature, all issues are political. This is not a Bad Thing. Politics has been described as the art of the good deal. If a deal is good, then by definition all parties can live with the consequences of a bill. In order for that to happen, everyone must be listened to and accommodated. This is a cornerstone of a democracy, not a barrier to it.
Having said that, deciding who gets helped and who gets hurt is not an easy task because no matter what you do, you will be making someone angry at you. Perhaps angry enough to vote against you and perhaps angry enough to persuade others to follow their lead.
So, even though I think the Commission has done an excellent job of discussing the issue of judicial salaries and even though I think I've written a report, based on objective data and criteria that reflects that discussion, I'm not entirely sure what will happen at the Legislature.
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!
March 04, 2004
Dual Divas
So, there are now two singers from Hawai'i in the American Idol TV show contest. The first was Maui's sultry Camile Velasco and now comes young Jasmine Trias. Both have amazing voices but the question is whether they have that "star" quality that the producers are looking for. So far, they haven't shown their best but if they want to get into the finals that is what they must do. Good luck to all but especially these two. All Hawai'i is proud of their accomplishments.
Oh, by the way. For those of you calling in to vote for your favorite singer, here's a free secret tip that will increase the chances of getting in. After you finish dialing, if you hear a ring tone, hang up. The American Idol phone system is setup such that if you reach their number, it picks up immediately, without a ring. So if you hear a ring, what you are hearing is the phone system queuing you up to hear a recording telling you all circuits are busy. So remember, if you hear a ring, hang up and dial again. Really.
Camile Velasco and Jasmine Trias
Aloha!
March 03, 2004
Shipped Out
I've talked about the problems with shipping items to Hawai'i before. But recently, things have gotten even worse. Many Internet businesses no longer ship to Hawai'i. This is because their automagic order systems only have look-up tables for the 48 contiguous states. What you have to do is call or fax your order in if you want to ship to Hawai'i or Alaska.
Obviously, this should cut down on customers from here, although I'm not sure why they would want to decrease their sales. I can only blame the shippers like UPS and FedEx for these problems as they, as far as I know, provide the data in the first place.
All I can say is the U.S. Postal Service provides more reliable, fast, and cheaper service than either of the two above. The problem is, most businesses don't like to use the postal service. I have no idea why, other than the postman comes only once a day.
In either case, two recent orders from Amazon both came via the postal service and each arrived within two to three days. Not bad considering its price is about half the cost of the other two.
I still have to wonder though, why companies write off customers from two states?
Get Your Hot Bagels
ZDNet has an article up about variations of the Bagel Worm released this past weekend. While shipping items may be a problem, sending worms across the Internet to Hawai'i is not. I've gotten two infected emails in the last few minutes. Both had return addresses of fellow Daynoters so I assume a bot has come along and scanned the addresses and is using them as fictitious return addresses.
The new variations also insert the domain name of the receiver into the body of the message as a way of trying to make the email look more trustworthy. They also try to get around virus scanners by archiving the payload as an encrypted .zip file. The use of encryption is interesting because it keeps virus scanners from automatically opening and scanning the file.
Nonetheless, SpamAssassin correctly flagged the mail as containing the Bagel virus, although it failed to also flag it as spam!
In any case, never open an attachment. I repeat, never open an attachment.
Aloha!
March 02, 2004
Can't Get There from Here
Since sometime last week, I've been unable to reach the Daynotes.org site, Dr. Pournelle's site (Chaos Mannor), Brian Birlbrey's Orb Designs, or Robert Bruce Thompson's site. I did an IP address lookup and found all are using 64.246.16.16. I know some changes have been made to the firewall at work so I reckoned it was too much of a coincidence to be a conincence - if you get my drift.
On a hunch, I decided to check the major spam blacklists and found a site that did a meta-search of several such lists. Iplugged in the IP address and came back with a hit at a place called Blars.org. I have never heard of this site but if he lists you on his black list you have to pay him to have your IP researched and perhaps removed. If it turns out he was mistaken he will refund you money but you have to pay upfront first.
I have no idead if this is why our firewall is blocking access to 64.246.16.16 or if there is another reason (I'm getting a time out error).
Until this is figured out, all I can do is telnet to my Unix account on the mainland and use Lynx to view the text of their sites or view them from my connection at home. Sigh.
Aloha!
March 01, 2004
Not My Cup of Tea
Dr. Pournelle is fond of saying everything on Macs are either easy or impossible. Well, you could say everything on *nix is either impossible or done on the command line. Okay, so I exaggerate. A little. Personally, I think if Apple can tame the wild Unix beast, why can't the same be done for Linux? Yes, the desktop on Linux is getting easier to use but fonts and printing are still problematic.
For example, this guy has a long, well documented posting on the problems of using CUPS to output through a printer attached to another networked PC - something trivial to do in Windows and supposedly Macs. He also includes my pet peeve, "Help Screens" and "how-tos" that provide no help (or worse, actually give information that is wrong). But I digress.
Before you send all kinds of emails about how there are thousands of man pages on how to set-up printers, which any b00b should be able to understand, I'm talking about using a desktop, not dropping into a command line interface. The day Linux can give you the functionality, via the desktop GUI, to do what you need to do without editing configuration file may be the day that Apple OS ports to Linux. <g>
Aloha!