National Holiday

No post today.

Long Weekend

Yesterday was a national holiday in the US (President's Day) so we had a long weekend. I spent yesterday morning working on some flood lights we have at the front of our back house. The lights are used to keep the place lit up at night. Unfortunately, every once in awhile, one of lights will burn out and trip the electrical breaker for that circuit.

Now, I don't know if the act of burning out causes the trip or if something else is causing the fault, which also burns the light out. In either case, I replaced the lamp housing, which was not weather proof and would let rain get to the electrical wires, with a weather tight version. I don't know for sure if this will solve things but it couldn't hurt.

Around lunch time I went up to our sun deck and got some sun. I haven't had the time to do that lately, and when I had the the time, the weather would not cooperate. So it was nice to just lay in the sun and relax for awhile. As summer is fast approaching, I hope to make more use of our recently renovated deck.

Speaking of renovations. Some work was done to our back house last week. The carpenters started building the closet in the master bedroom upstairs and began converting the half-bath into a walk-in closet. They also spent some time in the kitchen measuring for the new counter tops. Right now, the place doesn't look like much but we can imagine how things will look when everything is done.

In optimistic preparation for the completion of the project, we've begun shopping for carpets. So many types and colors! We've pretty much narrowed down the choices but are still shopping for a good company to do the installation. We hope to have a couple of estimates done soon but we realize we have a ways to go before the carpets can go in.

Aloha!

Good Guys 2: Bad Guys 0

Score two for the good guys. First up is the conviction of a former police officer of manslaughter. The officer, while off duty and after having had at least seven beers and one shot of whiskey, ran a red light and crashed his car into cross traffic. He killed a 19-year-old student heading home from her part-time waitress job.

The first thing the officer did was file a civil lawsuit against the estate of the deceased female student to try to recover the cost of buying a replacement for his totalled car. That law suit was summarily thrown out.

When his criminal case came up his defense was that it was the deceased that ran the red light. It was the deceased that was speeding. It was the deceased that hit the officer. The officer was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash because his liver had become so used to being flooded with alcohol that it was able to eliminate the alcohol at a super human rate [sort of like saying he was so used to being drunk, he couldn't get drunk anymore. Or as if to say the more you smoke, the stronger your lungs get. If that we so, all of the elite marathoners would be five pack-a-day smokers - ed.] and if anyone was impaired, it was the deceased because we all know they take drugs. The officer doth protest too much, methinks.

A jury of his peers, after deliberating for about a day-and-a-half, convicted his cynical okole of the maximum allowed. Bail was revoked and he is now sitting in jail, waiting for sentencing.

The second instance is the continuing saga of the private company providing enforcement services against speeding (insert disclaimer here, these are my opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer). The first hundred tickets issued by the new system were heard in court yesterday. All, as in 100 percent, were thrown out with prejudice, based on a lack of certification that the person who took the picture at the time of the incident was certified/trained to do so. After the state fixes that, the next challenge will likely be that the pictures may show the license number of the vehicle, but not necessarily who is driving. That will be a little more difficult to overcome but not impossibly so, although using the system at night would be next to impossible, since they now take pictures of the back of the vehicle as it passes (since taking a flash picture of the driver, at night, tends to cause accidents, not avoid them).

So much of this could have been avoided had the Hawai'i Department of Transportation gone out for public hearing to get input. Instead, they continue to act as little Hitlers and insist they, and only they, know what is good for you. Let me tell them a little secret. Most crashes are caused by distracted or impaired drivers. While the fact that the vehicle is moving is part of the equation (if it was parked in your driveway the probability that you will cause a crash is relatively low), keeping people at the posted speed limit, it my opinion, will do nothing to reduce the rate of accidents per mile driven. And if this is true, then the only reason for their insistent support of this abomination is to make money.

And if that is true, then we have to ask ourselves should that be the main objective of government? Should government, like private businesses, be focused solely on making money? Or is government supposed to be looking at other issues first? Issues like justice, impartiality, transparency, and public accountability? Things that private businesses do not, and probably can not, do. Think about it.

Aloha!

Qualities of a Good IT Department?

InfoWorld's Chad Dickerson has a column up saying the qualities to look for in a good IT department are: laziness, impatience, and hubris. Whoa there, pardner. Laziness, impatience, and hubris? Laziness because they don't want to fix the same problem over and over again so they take the time to fix it right, the first time. Impatience because they know that there is a better way of doing things. Without impatience, everything would stay the same and there would be no progress. Hubris because they take personal ownership of projects and build them so no one can say bad things about it, or them. See the column here.

Asleep at the Wheel

A couple of weeks ago I talked about how one of the bigger recent scandals was the sleeping watchdog auditors and regulators failing to audit or regulate Enron (See it here). Now it looks like the US defense/security system may not be far behind for failing to react quickly to the terrorist attacks of September 11 (see the story here).

It is only now that people are beginning to ask the questions as to how this happened. Yes, this was an unprecedented attack. But the people who are paid to defend this country have run scenarios which include having to protect the cities from attack. So why weren't those plans put into effect?

Why did all those people have to die in the Pentagon, more than half-an-hour after the second plane slammed into the WTC? Why weren't squadrons of fighters in the air providing protective cover over Washington, D.C.? Hadn't anyone thought there were targets in Washington? Of course they had, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise you will know they are blowing smoke in your face.

I can even remember reading recent reports saying the closest available fighter aircraft were hundreds of miles away. Can you say Andrews Air Force Base? Can you say 10 miles (a distance an F-16 can easily cover in one minute)? Can you say cover up? So the question comes back to where were the watchdogs and what where they doing (or not doing)?

Aloha!

It's Friday!

Daniel Pearl

From what I've read in the papers, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was not a thrill seeker. For example, he stayed out of Afghanistan because he felt it was too risky, especially since his wife was pregnant with their first child. But apparently, evil went looking for him.

And I can't find any other word to use to describe the individuals who did this other than evil. All I can say is their time will come. Thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.

Mail Call

From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 10:45 PM
Subject: Politics! bhwa.

<quote number="1"> ... keeping people at the posted speed limit, in my opinion, will do nothing to reduce the rate of accidents per mile driven.
</quote>

But accidents, or rather the results of them, are different. If, being inattentive, you jump a red light and a car hits you in the flank the difference between 40 mph or 60 mph can be the difference between life and death. So taking down the top speed will reduce the number of grave (pun intended) accidents.

Also remember that as the speed goes up the time between spotting a sudden obstacle (like a car moving out of a parking spot) and the moment of impact gets smaller so the faster you go the less time you have to react and brake. Add to that that stopping distance increases with speed. So taking down the top speed will probably reduce the number of (light) accidents a little.

The idiotic thing (around here at least) is (real life example) that the max speed gets reduced from 90 km/h to 70 km/h. There is almost no control so everybody keeps speeding at 9or over) 90 km/h. So there are still severe accidents. Result : in stead of enforcing the existing limit there is a call (by politically active people) for a further speed reduction, to 50 km/h. Which will not be controlled of course, so everybody will ignore the speed signs.

BTW
In some counties ('gemeente' in Dutch which is probably a bit smaller than county but I don't know the right translation) there was a poll recently. The result was that no speed reduction was chosen but more enforcement was selected as the preferred action. Of course the councils did ignore the result and implemented a lower speed limit without extra enforcement.

Politics ! bhwa .

<quote number="2"> ...Can you say cover up? So the question comes back to where were the watchdogs and what where they doing (or not doing)? </quote>

Add a question : What is being done now? Why is Enron being investigated now and not the DOD?

Politics ! bhwa .

Regards,
Svenson.

From: Dan Seto
To: Jan Swijsen
Subject: Re: Politics! bhwa.
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 06:50:02 -1000

You are correct that the gravity of an accident is reduced as the terminal speed is reduced (puns intended). But as you note, if 70km/h is good, then 50 would be better. Right? And if 50 is better, then 25 would be even more so. The question has always been how much are you willing to risk? As I noted in one of my posts, if your car is parked in the driveway, the probability that it will be in a moving accident is rather low. But, if speed alone were the problem, how is it that the statistics clearly show that the safest roads to be on, per mile driven, are the highways?

Life can not be lived without risk. So you have to weigh the risk versus the benefits and make reasonable decisions.

">Of course the councils did ignore the result and implemented a lower speed limit without extra enforcement."

It's easier to pass a law than hire more police...However, lack of enforcement breeds contempt for the law and the council. Not a Good Thing in a civilized society.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!