Vote Early, Vote Often

I did my civic duty over the weekend and voted in the primary via absentee ballot. For those local people who are interested, all eleven of you, I voted the Democratic slate (yes, I know, shocking news) and chose Ed Case for Governor and Matt Matsunaga for Lt. Governor.

While Mazie Hirono will probably win the Democratic race for governor in the primary and go on to meet Republican Linda Lingle in the general, I believe Ed Case is probably the last, best chance for Democrats to choose their own destiny.

Being a one-party town since 1954 has its downsides. Hawaii's Democrats have become complacent. We have looked the other way too long as some of us have broken trust with the public. We have swept too many problems under the rug in the name of unity (sometimes known as conformance). We have become the status quo when what we need is to make the hard choices. We have come to the point that it is more important to stay in power than to exercise that power for the greater public good, come what may.

But a new wave is coming. It is based on a public fed up with politicians who are afraid to make decisions because that may offend one group or another. It is based on a public who wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

So why Ed Case instead of the Republican candidate? Because Case is the agent of change. He is willing to take the heat and stop the ever increasing cost of government by deleting programs, worthy as they may be, that we simply can not afford.

Case realizes that while we must keep a basic safety net of social services for our people, that the "engine" that supplies the resources for these programs is the economy. Hence, the way to keep the net strong is to have a strong economy. Therefore, he would create more government-business partnerships to provide the services needed, while at the same time using market forces to keep costs to a minimum, and choices to a maximum.

On reforming education, Case would decentralize the ossified bureaucracy of the state Department of Education by abolishing the central Board of Education and replace it with seven regional councils. For higher education, he would break the chains of legislative tinkering and influence mongering and give full autonomy to the University of Hawai'i.

And finally, Case would restore trust in government by being inclusive, by making decision making transparent, and by breaking the link between campaign contributions and government contracts.

Unfortunately, if the general election were to be held today, rather than in November, the Republican would probably win. I say unfortunately because said candidate has already sold her soul to the power broker, special interests on the mainland (where the great majority of her filthy lucre millions have come from). A vote for her would be a vote to return to a plantation mentality we left behind fifty years ago. A mentality of promise them anything to get elected, then once in, do what you want. A way of doing things that is dishonest (she hired her own husband on a non-bid government contract while she was mayor), slipshod (the transportation systems and infrastructure on her island was in a shambles), and based on lies (we can avoid raising taxes while at the same time paying for all the ever more expensive government programs - see voodoo economics).

So I voted for Ed Case, even if it means my job gets deleted in the downsizing because he is, I believe, the right candidate, and perhaps the only candidate, who will make the hard decisions that in the end will make this special place an even better place to live.

Mail Call

From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 8:36 PM
Subject: 10 or 11

<quote> There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. </quote> [from last week Friday - ed.]

Should have been :
"There are 11 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary those who don't and those who don't understand the line."

<quote>
Signs You're Becoming a Geek
</quote>

12. Sorry, LCD screens don't give enough radiation for a tan.

11. Or switch over to the PDA

10. Laughing down at RIAA, get exited at MPDOOP (multi-path-distributed-OOP)

7. Sorry, wall covered in manuals, does a glass penguin statue count?

6. What prom?

5. Living alone with 7 functioning computers will do.

4. Nice for a vacation, real life need 3D Tron

3. Yes, the IP and usernames are in the PDA (what is a black book?)

2. In some languages, yes

1. Yep, say board and think jumper

0. Font's? No. Too bad the registry doesn't allow some characters like <>/# though.

Regards,
Svenson.

Happy Yom Kippur - Aloha!

Digital Demands

Our cable system, Oceanic Cable, is in many ways similar to other monopoly cable systems. Namely, it sucks. But at least it sucks by trying new and innovative ways of making more money from its customers.

I've told you in the past about how you can order Pizza via your digital cable box. And how you can purchase OnDemand movies via cable that you can stop, rewind, or fast forward through. But now comes an all ads all the time channel. That's right, a channel with just classified ads. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

If that isn't enough, using those same digital addressable cable boxes, they will soon begin showing ads on the regular channels based on your particular geographic location. In fact, if they wanted to, they could tailor the ads to your specific TV. Imagine that, ads chosen specifically for you. Are you getting the creeps yet? Have they gone too far?

Another new service coming in the next few months includes the ability to choose from one of six camera angles for University of Hawai'i football games. So if you ever wanted to play camera director, nows your chance. Also coming will be interactive polling where advertisers could ask your opinion about their products. Am I thrilled or what?

Hmmm, this is progress?

Diary of a Smart House

Found on the 'net: Diary Of A Digital Homeowner, version 2.0

Nov 28: Moved in to my new digitally-maxed out beach house at last. Finally, we live in the smartest house in the neighborhood. Everything's networked. The cable TV is connected to our phone, which is connected to my personal computer, which is connected to the power lines, all the appliances and the security system. Everything runs off a universal remote with the friendliest interface I've ever used. Programming is a snap. I'm like, totally wired.

Nov 30: Hot Stuff! Programmed my VCR from the office, turned up the thermostat and switched on the lights with the car phone, remotely tweaked the oven a few degrees for my pizza. Everything nice & cozy when I arrived. Maybe I should get the universal remote surgically attached.

Dec 1: Had to call the SmartHouse people today about bandwidth problems. The TV drops to about 2 frames/second when I'm talking on the phone. They insist it's a problem with the cable company's compression algorithms. How do they expect me to order things from the Home Shopping Channel?

Dec 8: Got my first SmartHouse invoice today and was unpleasantly surprised. I suspect the cleaning woman of reading Usenet from the washing machine interface when I'm not here. She must be downloading a lot of p0rn from the binary groups, because packet charges were through the roof on the invoice.

Dec 3: Yesterday, the kitchen CRASHED. Freak event. As I opened the refrigerator door, the light bulb blew. Immediately, everything else electrical shut down -- lights, microwave, coffee maker -- everything. Carefully unplugged and replugged all the appliances. Nothing.

Call the cable company (but not from the kitchen phone). They refer me to the utility. The utility insists that the problem is in the software. So the software company runs some remote telediagnostics via my house processor. Their expert system claims it has to be the utility's fault. I don't care, I just want my kitchen back. More phone calls; more remote diag's.

Turns out the problem was "unanticipated failure mode": The network had never seen a refrigerator bulb failure while the door was open. So the fuzzy logic interpreted the burnout as a power surge and shut down the entire kitchen. But because sensor memory confirmed that there hadn't actually been a power surge, the kitchen logic sequence was confused and it couldn't do a standard restart. The utility guy swears this was the first time this has ever happened. Rebooting the kitchen took over an hour.

Dec 7: The police are not happy. Our house keeps calling them for help. We discover that whenever we play the TV or stereo above 25 decibels, it creates patterns of micro-vibrations that get amplified when they hit the window. When these vibrations mix with a gust of wind, the security sensors are actuated, and the police computer concludes that someone is trying to break in. Go figure.

Another glitch: Whenever the basement is in self-diagnostic mode, the universal remote won't let me change the channels on my TV. That means I actually have to get up off the couch and change the channels by hand. The software and the utility people say this flaw will be fixed in the next upgrade -- SmartHouse 2.1. It's not ready yet but will be out Real Soon Now.

Finally, I'm starting to suspect that the microwave is secretly tuning into the cable system to watch Baywatch. The unit is completely inoperable during that same hour. I guess I can live with that. At least the blender is not tuning in to old I Love Lucy episodes.

Dec 9: I just bought the new Microsoft Home. Took 93 gigabytes of storage and 10 gigs of RAM, but it will be worth it, I think, as soon as I add another 10 gigs of RAM. The house should be much easier to use and should really do everything. But I had to sign the new EULA 6.0 which says I have to give my first born to MS, but I guess that's a fair trade.

Dec 10: I'm beginning to have doubts about Microsoft House. I keep getting an hour glass symbol showing up when I want to run the dishwasher and every time I try to start the blender I get a BSD. I waited three hours on the phone waiting for their support tech and when I finally got in he said, now wait for it, this was a feature, not a bug. And in either case, it was fixed in the next version which will be out, that's right, Real Soon Now.

Dec 12: This is a nightmare. There's a virus.....

Outrage of the Day

A public service commercial. Fade to white. Pan up from the floor showing a young woman. She pulls a piece of crack cocaine out of her pocket and says you helped fund terrorists. Superimposed below is her name: Noelle Bush. No, the daughter of Florida Governor (R) Jeb Bush did not make this commercial. But perhaps she should have.

Read the Salon story here about something that should be creating outrage in every citizen of these United States. Is compassionate conservatism reserved for only their rich and pampered children? Do we have two tiers of justice, one for the poor and a very different one for the rich and well connected [Well, yes we do - ed.]?

Why is Governor Bush decreeing jail time for poor, first time non-violent drug offenders, while putting his daughter into rehab?

Now is not the time to debate whether incarceration is always better than rehabilitation, but whichever the way it pans out, which you get should not be based solely on who your father is.

Much to do and little time to do it so I gotta go - Aloha!

Bits and Bytes

Lindows 2.0 is out (see it here). The $99 USD Linux distribution endeavors to be the Linux for the rest of us by having some of the look and feel of Windows [hopefully not all of it though - ed.].

Feeling Run Down? Your laptop that is. There is a race on to bring to market power sources that can run your laptop for longer periods (see the story here). One of these sources is the fuel cell. The cells, which could provide power 10 times longer than today's lithium-ion batteries are scheduled to be on the market sometime next year.

Before you run out and buy one, note that the fuel for these cells are either hydrogen or methanol. And therein lies a problem. Hydrogen is explosive and methanol is flammable. Whether airlines would allow either on planes would be problematic, although manufactures say this is merely a packaging problem. A problem they say they can solve.

Also, while I'm no chemist, I seem to remember fuel cells have by products that they produce as a result of the main chemical reaction. In some cells, the by product is in the form of water. Now, having water come out the exhaust of a car doesn't usually cause a problem. But I could see some potential pitfalls of water coming out of your laptop. YMMV.

A Long and Winding Road. Pretty Good Privacy, also known as PGP, has morphed into a new company. The new company, PGP Corp. (see it here), has purchased PGP from the previous owner, Network Associates, and has announced a new version 8.0 of the popular cryptographic program scheduled for release in November. Note that this is the commercial version of the program.

The free version (follow the link from creator Phil Zimmerman's site here) is still available.

Like Minds

I was about to do a post about the problem of "Windows decay." That is, the junk that accumulates over time when using the Windows operating system. Junk being defined as changes to the registry, addition of new programs that are incompatible with the OS or other programs, or programs that are full of bugs themselves. Said junk can slow even the most speedy of machines to a crawl, if they boot at all.

Fortunately, fellow Daynoter Dave Markowitz already did it for me (see his Tuesday post here). The solution is of course to reinstall Windows. Dave did what I usually do on my systems every six months, format the drive and reinstall from scratch. In my most recent case, though, I did a variation of that. Let me explain how and why.

The PC I've been trying to revive over the last two nights is my step-daughter's only machine (a P5-166 with 64MB of RAM and 2GB HD). She's been using it for over two years using Win98SE/MS Office2000 and never did any updates to the OS or programs (other than, hawk...spit, AOL). Neither had she ever done any backups and there were files she would rather not lose.

Unfortunately, Windows had become so unstable that I could not run any diagnostics or even make any rudimentary changes (like using Add/Remove programs) without the system locking up.

Objective one was to run Norton Anti-Virus (NAV) on it to check for any problems on that front. The version of NAV on her PC, even if I could get it to execute, was as old as the installation. Virus writers being as they are, using a virus scanner from several years ago would not catch any of the newer ones out there. Hence, I needed to run the latest NAV from CD. But in order to do that, I needed, so I thought at the time, to boot off of said CD. I have since been told you can boot off of a Win98 Rescue disk with CD-ROM support and then execute NAV, but I digress.

The Award BIOS on the Shuttle (now Spacewalker) HOT 569 series (see it here) of motherboards provides for various boot devices. For example, the floppy drive, hard drive, or CD-ROM. The default configuration is A: then C:. I needed to change that. Unfortunately, the BIOS was password protected and no one knew the password. Since most motherboards have a way of overriding, or clearing the BIOS, I went looking for the process to do that.

In my case, it involved finding jumper number 40 and moving the cap from pins 1-2 over to 2-3 for a few seconds. This discharged the BIOS returning all settings to default. For those who may have to do this one day, you may want to make sure you have your settings written down somewhere because without the password, you can't get in, and using this method, you can get in, but at the cost of losing any changes to the default BIOS settings you have made up to then - which itself may make the system unusable.

Once in, I changed the boot sequence to have the CD-ROM scanned first and rebooted (with the Norton Anti-Virus CD in the drive). I started NAV up and let it run. And run. And run. It took almost two hours to scan a 2GB drive. When it was finished, I wasn't sure if I should be happy that nothing was found because I had wasted so much time and effort to get to that point gained such rich experience in the process.

Since the system was so unstable, while at the same time she had all kinds of files all over the place she wanted to keep (making it difficult to just copy the files to floppies) I decided to install Windows over the existing installation. That is, rather than reformatting the drive and then installing, I decided to install over what was there. The advantage is all the files she wanted saved would still be there. The disadvantage is that doing this kind of install does not guarantee a functioning system (not that there is one either way). But heck, I have nothing better to do with my time.

So I did the install and all seems to be well. Everything works and all her files are there. Next time this happens though, and there will be a next time, I think I'll just reformat the drive...

Stuff on the 'Net: MS Windows TV Dinner, Revised 2.0

You must first break and remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is. If you do not like the dinner, you shall not report, divulge, or otherwise disseminate any negative information or comparison tests to other TV dinners.

If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using these keystrokes: \mstv.dinn.// 08.5min@50%heat///.

If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner.

If you have a Linux oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of the dinner (found on the package label), the weight of the dinner, and the desired level of cooking. Then enter: <ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\|/yumm~yum:-)gohot#cookme and press start. The oven will calculate the time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your specification. You must be root to enter the commands. Remember also to chmod the executable first.

Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter <ms.nodarn.good/tryagain\again/again.rats!

This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact the hardware vendor from whom you purchased the oven.

Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are empty. These are for future menu items and for ingredients that MS will be using but not revealing to competitors. If the tray is too large to fit in your oven you will need to upgrade your equipment.

Dinners are only available from registered MS outlets, and only the chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call MicrosoftHelp and they will explain that you really don't want another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need.

Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger family size and will require a yearly upgrade license to use.

Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging, and of course, can not be given away to non-licensees.

Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after the next version of XP. However, that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in advance.

Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.

Addendum to MS TV Dinner News, from the Chief Technology Officer

Microsoft's New TV Dinner Product

None of this will be an issue for MS TV DinnerXPlus! (code name: Longhorn). A paradigm shift has changed the way we think of TV dinners and microwave ovens, and the new MS interface to TV dinners now owns the entire Microwave desktop(tm), which will be henceforth known as the ActiveMicrowave*(tm). This will allow a wide bandwidth for merchandisers and financier markets to gain a new and unique foothold on the consumer, providing access and services to every user in every home, right next to the julienne sliced carrots, corn bread and refried beans. Low-level interfacing with Web TV is now being beta tested in a local market of barca-loungers.

As before, the new EULA 6.0 requires handing over of your first born, but this is not seen by MS to a problem and ensures all users that the children will be well cared for. Have a nice day.

Aloha!

Can't Get There From Here

Internet access is down again so this will get posted when it gets posted

Rain Man

I've caught up on my reading of fellow Daynoter Dr. Keyboard and now understand why updates have been sparse of late. What with flooding (and then hosting visitors soon after) I am sure he had his hands full.

Having lived through two hurricanes (not counting the one I am too young to remember - other than the sound of the Civil Defense warning sirens going off) I can appreciate what you have to go through when you don't have electricity for days at a time. Not a fun thing to go through.

Our thoughts and best wishes to the good Doctor and his community.

Aloha Festivals

The Aloha Festivals Week Waikiki Ho'olaule'a is this evening so that's where we will be. Things will be a little hectic as I have a meeting from 11:00 to 2:00, then class at U.H. from 3:00 to 5:00, and finally dinner at 5:30 in Waikiki before the Ho'olaule'a starts at 7:00pm. If I can just make it through today...

As to the Ho'olaule'a, Kalakaua Avenue, the main street through Waikiki will be closed and the street converted to hold 11 stages for music/hula and others for ethnic foods. The party goes late into the night and thousands of people pack the street so tight it is difficult to move. But a good time is usually had by all and we enjoy the Hawaiian music and dance.

The Participatory State

According to B. Guy Peters, in his book "The Future of Governing", there are four major models of governance reform: market, participatory, flexible, and deregulated. I'm going to focus on the participatory model to use as a lens to make some observations on the Canadian effort, known as PS 2000, to reform its government. This is heavily based on an article by Alasdair Roberts, as published in the journal "Canadian Public Administration." (see the pdf here)

Background - The second reform movement in the Peters book is called the Participatory State. The main assumption underlying this reform is that "governing should be about finding out what the public wants and finding ways of delivering those services." (Peters, 50)

This movement argues that the way to do this is to focus on the line-level employees and the clients and/or greater public they serve. (Peters, 51) These groups would be given much greater involvement in decision making because by doing so, you make use of their collective knowledge and experiences that can be used "to solve complex dynamic and diversified problems." (Peters 58) Problems no one person, acting alone, would be able to solve. Further, by involving the public, it is hoped that this reform would reverse the trend of distrust, dissatisfaction, and alienation reported by pollsters in relation to satisfaction with the level and types of government service. (Roberts, 2)

However, as pointed out by Peters on page 65, empowering these groups may require, in some people's minds, review of their decisions to "ensure that public laws and financial restraints are adhered to faithfully" and that employees do not act in a capricious and arbitrary manner. This might be done to make certain that values such as accountability, responsibility, fairness, and uniformity are not ignored. Herein lies the dilemma that Canada faced.

Canadian Public Service 2000 The theme of the Roberts paper is not that the control lobby was wrong and the reformers right, but rather that the reformers should have anticipated the concerns of the control lobby and had effective responses to it.

These reforms, based on the participatory model, aimed to deregulate and empower line managers and staff. Rules regarding hiring, budget, and procurement were substantially removed. Further, line agencies (e.g., Education, Health, and Social Services) were allowed to purchase services that heretofore they had to get from central agencies (e.g., Human Resources, Purchasing/Accounting, and Budget).

Along with these structural changes were changes to government's core values with the objective of changing the focus from unthinking adherence to rules and procedures and "worry more about the quality of the services which they produce" (Roberts, 1) Put another way, the Canadian bureaucracy was heretofore concerned more "with process than with getting results." (Roberts 1)

Another objective was to have managers to become more like entrepreneurs, that is, to foster more experimentation and innovation.

However, the discussion on these reforms soon became centered on fears "that public servants would abuse the discretion that had been given to them, waste money on frivolous expenditures, and use the power of government to [financially] harm citizens." (Roberts, 2)

Roberts calls the people who were saying this the "Control Lobby" and it included the Canadian "Office of the Auditor General, many legislators, public service unions, the media, some industry associations, and perhaps auditors and financial administrators within the public service." (Roberts, 2)

The lobby pointed to past abuses of power and indicated the reason for many of the rules the reform movement wanted to repeal were to as a result of these abuses.

Through these efforts, the reform movement slowed, and in some cases reversed, particularly when the implementation required legislative action since legislators were sensitive to charges of lack of accountability.

Lessons Learned

• Reform leaders need to be more effective in shaping public debate over reform. "Opportunities to explain the reforms, the reasons for adopting them, and the benefits which they have produced, must not be overlooked..." (Roberts, 40)

• A lobby for reform, including non-governmental organizations, must be assembled. (Roberts, 40)

• The effects of the reform should be explained in terms of how they benefit the public, not the bureaucracy. (Roberts, 40)

• The reformers failed to realize that the lobby would focus on the possible misbehaviors or costs of reform and not the benefits. They did not realize that the lobby would do so in a systematic and coordinated way and that the "attacks sometimes reflect well-entrenched suspicions about the trustworthiness or competence of managers in the public service." (Roberts, 35)

• The reforms did weaken legislative branch control over resources, human and monetary. Thus, shifting power from the legislative to the executive branch. But the reformers did not foresee the need for, nor provide a mechanism to replace or at least mitigate the real loss of accountability.

• The reformers did not present hard evidence pointing to successful implementation within or outside of Canada and did not push for strong program evaluation (the lack of which did not engender trust). Conversely, the control lobby had concrete examples of the dangers of loss of fiscal control that had occurred in the past. Thus, the lobby was able to dominate and control the debate.

• The proposed changes to civil service rules, such as limiting open competition in hiring, provided for greater flexibility, but also seemed to remove the long held merit principle and could result in a situation where the "public service will become a vehicle of patronage and abuse of power" through lack of accountability for which the reform side did not have an answer. (Roberts, 19)

• The press "manifested a propensity, given two equally plausible interpretations of a situation, to favour the interpretation that confirmed their suspicion about the ability of public service managers to police themselves properly". This should be anticipated and rebutted (Roberts, 28)

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!