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Monday - 18 November 2002

Electricians Working

No post.

Tuesday - 19 November 2002

Shocking Times

As mentioned earlier, we had an electrical short which burned through some wiring for our sump pump. It took two weeks to get an electrician out to take a look at it and then a full day for two of them to complete repairs. So I was at home yesterday watching what they were doing as well as doing some more moving.

To Boldly Go

Actually, you can follow this link here to look at one man's top 10 list of grammatical mistakes. From it's/its to ending a sentence with a preposition. Check out the list and see how many you come up with.

Implode This

I guess if you look hard enough, you can find almost anything on the web. For example, this site here that is implosion central. The site maintains a gallery of those buildings that have been brought down by controlled use of explosives. From manufacturing plants to public housing, see it all on the web.

Aloha!

Wednesday - 20 November 2002

Publishing Potemkin

The publishing business is a very difficult one to make money in. Although, as the number of publishers decrease, the price of books seem to be increasing (we got a Christmas catalog from one of the major book sellers and they have the open-faced greed market skills to ask $40 for a paperback edition of a best-selling biography). But I digress.

As difficult as the book business is, the magazine end of the spectrum is full of every kind of reading you could imagine. Add in to that, the pull of the Internet, and you have a recipe for declining revenues. As a result, many print magazines went electronic, or are thinking about it.

But going electronic didn't save them because, while the cost of printing went to zero, it was awfully difficult to sell ads to companies based on a cyberspace version of a magazine. The Second Wave response to the problem has been to sell subscriptions. However, save for a few exceptions (can you say p0rn?), this business model hasn't worked any better than the first.

And yet, hope springs eternal when you are grasping at straws </mixed_metaphor>. Such is the sad case of the granddaddy of computer magazines: Byte.

The paper edition went belly up a couple of years ago but was revived in name as an electronic edition at www.byte.com. Sadly, as their announcement notes (see it here), they will be switching to a subscription service next week.

I say sadly because this may be their last gasp before they go down. Why doesn't the subscription model work? Because of, to use an economic term, the free rider problem. That is, the Internet is full of information free for the picking. While it is true that no one knows you are dog in cyberspace, quality wise, if someone tries to sell something that can otherwise be gotten for free, why pay?

And so Byte is in the unenviable position of trying to sell information that can be found for free. </Byte>

Aloha!

Thursday - 21 November 2002

Hot Time in the Old Town

I went to the doctor yesterday for a checkup and found I was running a fever of 101F. It seems I may be coming down with a strep throat so I'm here at home, taking my antibiotics.

Speaking of doctors, some are experimenting with the use of femtosecond lasers (see the story from Science News here). As the name implies, these lasers have very short pulse durations, measured in femtoseconds.

A curious property of such short duration pulses is the clean cut it makes. These cuts can be used in everything from very precise medical operations to the manufacturing of fuel injection nozzles for car engines.

Speaking of curious properties, the city of New York is apparently looking at housing some of their homeless on cruise ships (see the story here). No word yet on whether the WB network will be creating a new TV series called "The Hobo Boat."

Speaking of chemical reactions, comes yet another story about fuel cells. I'm kind of getting tired about all these stories about how fuel cells will be available Real Soon Now. So maybe I should just skip this one. For those who are still interested, take a look at this article (see it here) about the latest advances in bringing the cost down.

Aloha!

Aloha Friday - 22 November 2002

It's Friday!

Slavery is Freedom

As the U.S. travels down the road to totalitarianism, let it not be said that the warning cry is not being made. Thoughtful people everywhere are trying to get the public's attention and to get them to understand that there is no such thing as total safety. And even if there where, the price of that safety would be the loss of all freedom.

The latest to raise the alarm is George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley (see a copy of his LA Times editorial here). Turley, referring to the new Information Awareness Office says:

It has been the dream of every petty despot in history: the ability to track citizens in real time and to reconstruct their associations and interests.

He notes this is yet another nail in the coffin that was our ability to live free without fear of our own government watching every move we make. And yet, I would not be surprised that if you took a poll, most people would approve of the new office.

Professor Turley concludes:

A government's desire for "Total Information Awareness" of its citizens is nothing new. Our founders understood that the quality of government is determined not by the powers given but by those denied to it. A free society cannot be maintained under the continual surveillance of its government.

DARPA has finally brought us to a constitutional Rubicon. Yet all that is required is for citizens to do nothing. DARPA will do the rest.


© 2002 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved. Disclaimer


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