Sasha RIP

I was sorry to hear of the passing of Dr. Pournelle's dog Sasha (see Dr. Pournelle's post here). Sasha had been doing poorly, as would be the case of a dog 16 years old. But the passing of a companion pet is never an easy thing to accept. It is indeed a brave thing to take a part of your family to the vet, knowing that they will not be returning home with you.

Don't get me wrong, it was the right thing to do, but was probably no less the easier to do. Our pets ask little from us - a little food and water, a place to sleep and rest their weary bones. Yet, in return, they give absolute loyalty and unconditional love - their eyes lighting up and tails a wagging every time they see their returning master.

If only we humans could learn such values. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Pournelle family.

Qrrupt to the Qore

It seems a week can not go by without the latest accounting scandal. This one seems to be engulfing Qwest Communications. Qwest announced yesterday it expects to "restate" its financial results back to 1999 due to "accounting errors." They are declining to indicate the direction the restated results will go, but I think you can guess.

Aussies Sweep

The sixth annual Moloka'i to O'ahu paddle board race was swept by Australians this past weekend. Aussies took the top four positions in the 32-mile (~52km) island-to-island race using only a paddle board to ride on and their arms to propel them across the treacherous Ka'iwi Channel. Coming in first, from Queensland, was Jamie Mitchell, second was Aaron Bitmead, followed by Jackson English, and Mick Dibetta. Well done gentlemen. You are a credit to your sport and to your country.

Aloha!

At Any Speed

SWMBO and I were heading into work this morning when a police officer on a motorcycle came flashing past in the right lane. He swerved in and out of lanes ahead almost causing an accident. We guessed he was in a hurry to go somewhere. That somewhere was to pull over a fire-engine red Porsche 911. We guess the Porsche must have gone through a speed trap and got caught. I wonder which was more dangerous, the Porsche or the cop?

Speaking of speed traps, you can check out this site here for a listing of traps in all 50 states. So if you are taking that cross-country trip (hint, hint), the time and money you save may be your own.

Red Light District

Speaking of traffic enforcement, here's a site that says red-light cameras (the ones that take your picture when you run a red light), actually increase rear-end accidents. Believe it or don't, because statistics don't lie - but people do. YMMV.

Fair Play

It seems the RIAA site was hit by a denial-of-service attack over the last four days. The attack, much like the kind authorized under pending legislation backed by the RIAA against peer-to-peer networks, began last Friday and continued through yesterday. See the story from C|net here.

Aloha!

Bare Vote

Leave it to the Kiwis to come clean on voting. It seems four men, commemorating National Nude day, went to the, ahem, poles to vote. In the nude. At least you don't need to worry about a stuffed, errr, ballot. See the story here.

Aussies SCRAM, NASA surrenders

The results aren't in yet, so perhaps it is a little early to start congratulating the land down under, but the BBC is reporting (see the article here) that the University of Queensland (see the HyShot site here) recently conducted the first open atmospheric test of a scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) engine.

There are two major advantages to the scramjet design over conventional engines. First, there are no moving parts in the engine itself. Second, rather than carrying an oxidant, the engine uses atmospheric oxygen, combined with a bit of hydrogen carried on board. Both of these characteristics make for a very efficient engine package.

The downside is that you have to be already traveling above Mach 5 speeds before the scramjet can work. Thus, current designs use conventional rocket engines to boost the scramjet to operational speeds. Obviously, a usable vehicle is more than an engine, but the problems do not appear to be insurmountable. Having said that, the practical use of such engines is probably years, if not decades, away.

Aloha!

Win2K SP3

Fellow Daynoter Robert Bruce Thompson has a link (see his post here) to the new service pack update to Windows 2000. I agree with his judgment that it would be a good idea to wait awhile before installing the update so that you can see if there are any problems with it. If you do decide to download the file, note that it is 125MB so do not do this unless you have a broadband connection (or like to spend lots and lots of time watching blinking modem lights ;~).

Speaking of author Thompson, his second edition of PC Hardware in a Nutshell (see it over at Amazon here) is out. I tried to buy a copy at our local brick and mortar Borders Bookstore but was not able to find a copy. They did have two copies of the earlier edition, but none of the newest. So I used one of their terminals to query their system and found that they were not carrying the second edition on their shelves and that if I wanted a copy, I would have to order one. Hmmm.

I'm no expert on book selling, but it seems to me it is difficult to sell something you don't have. Yes, the economic recession has hit everyone, including booksellers. And I believe Mr. Thompson when he says computer books in particular have taken a hit. Still, I don't understand why they won't at least carry one copy.

Oh well, I'm ordering mine from Amazon. If you need information on PC hardware, you need go no further than this book. In fact, with Christmas just a few months away, buy several copies and give them as presents. Recommended.

Thinking at the speed of slugs

Our phone service is provided by (hawk, spit) Verizon. As you may know, quarterly earnings, announced yesterday (see the article here from MSNBC) is stated as a loss of $2.1 billion USD. Let me repeat that loss for one quarter: $2.1 billion USD. Yes, much of this are one time charges, but that's the big picture view of the company.

What I'm going to talk about is the small picture. That is, the type of service they provide to me.

As is the case with many people, I like to use electronic bill payment. It saves me time and it saves them money. At least, it does when it works. I have had continuing problems with Verizon via their web-based system. When the system is up, which is not very often, response times are measured in minutes for screen changes. Often times, screens do not even come up, after letting it sit there for literally hours. Processes will start then stall.

So I emailed them to ask what was going on. Their automated reply says "The Verizon eCenter will attempt to respond to you within four business days." Four business days. Is this the best this high tech company can do? Four days? Perhaps I should tell them I will attempt to pay my bills within four days after the due date.

Billing has been such a problem that I am seriously considering cancelling land line service and going with my cell phone from AT&T. It's about choice. And the coming of the cell phone has broken the monopoly position of the phone companies. As far as I'm concerned, it couldn't have happened to a nicer industry.

Aloha!

It's Friday!

The Enemy Within

For public education to move forward, the majority of the stakeholders will have to agree to change how they do things. All the specifics as to what needs to change is beyond the scope of this short post but I put forth some things to think about.

First, there are many hard working, dedicated teachers trying to bring about needed educational reform. But it seems the majority, as may be the case in any change effort, are at least reticent, if not actively opposed to reform that will help children learn.

Whether it's accountability, school choice, charter schools, technology, home schooling, or privatization, many teachers are against it. On the other hand, for example, they are for smaller class sizes (i.e., more teachers and less work, which may benefit teachers, but has been proven not to increase students achievement) and certification (which would keep those pesky home schoolers out of the trough). The operative value being what's in it for myself and what do I personally gain from any change?

If greed is a bad thing for corporate CEOs, why is it okay for anyone else? One would hope teachers would see their work as a calling, as opposed to a job. But perhaps that is expecting too much of people now-a-days.

In either case, we have choices. Continue doing what we're doing now and watch as things go down hill. Give more money to schools so that they can do more of what they are doing now and watch things go down hill faster. Change what we are doing now and hopefully improve the educational system. Or give less money to schools and let parents pick the school of their choice.

I'm not going to wade into the morass that is public education other than to say we need to choose change. What that change is needs to be decided by your community. But decide. Now. Before it's too late. Doing nothing is not an option.

Flying Carpets

Our carpet has finally come in so the installers will be working on that on the 16th. I will be home on that day so I probably won't do a post given that I will be moving furniture from the rooms to the outside so that they can lay the carpet. I guess we can now see the beginning of the end of the rennovations to the back house. After we move in, the drywall and painting of the front house downstairs can begin.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!