Misc. Ramblings

The Undiscovered Country

Here is this year's version of my daynotes page. I hope it doesn't look ugly in older browsers. I've taken your feedback and re-done the look several times. Hopefully, this one "degrades" gracefully in older browsers. If it doesn't, feel free to let me know. For what it's worth, this page validates as XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.

RANT="ON" As soon as the accessibility police get their act together I'll try to make the pages fully compliant. I say try because some of these people are so out of touch with reality that they truly do not know what planet they are on. For example, one validation service says to write using simple language because in so many words, some people can't read. With all due respect to the illiterate, if you fall into that category, this is not the site for you. Further, I'm not going to dumb down this site, not that I write at a very advanced level now, but I'm certainly not going to drop this to the "See Spot run" level either (which another service would have me do since it counts the number of words per sentence).

I don't know if there will ever be a validation service that is worth the time to use it. The standards, such as they are, are so broad and so badly written that it is very difficult to comply with. Having said that, I want to make my site as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

But there are limits. Just as I don't get too upset if some can't view this page using an outdated IE 2.0 browser, I can't get too upset if their IQ is lower than their age and they can't understand some of the words or concepts discussed here.

As the standards are now written, the responsibility for accessibility seem placed solely on the creator of the web site. Where is the balance to this? Why isn't the viewer given some of the responsibility to have updated browsers, be educated, and be able to think critically? RANT="OFF"

Continuing the Chaos

Another thing I do at the beginning of the new year is resubscribe to Dr. Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor Club. Actually, it's not a club, but it sounded nice when I wrote it. Whichever the case, you can see his main site here.

Dr. Pournelle's observations on things computerish are well known. What may not be as well known ares his deep insights into public policy. While I do not always agree with what he has to say, and sometimes he does get a bit short-tempered with people, it does have value.

Subscribing to his site helps to keep the conversation going. So if you haven't visited his site yet, please do so now. And if you agree it has value, subscribe here.

Thank You!

What's In a Name?

Some words, and what they mean or stand for, are important. Wars have been fought, people have been killed, and long-time friendships have been severed over certain words. But are all words so critical?

For example, there has been a debate among some of the Daynote Clan as to whether what they write should be referred to as a "Blog." Before we get any further, lets define what a blog is. A blog is anything you want to make of it. Okay, now that's out of the way. What is a Daynoter?

The short answer is we are many things, but share at least one thing in common. Some make their living by writing but I don't think the majority do. Some use content management systems like Movable Type or Greymatter but I don't think the majority do. Some spend their time canvassing the Internet to link to the wheat in all the chaff while others post their thoughts on things big and small. But the thing that binds us all is our connection to PCs, in some shape or form.

So what does it matter whether what you write is called a journal, a log, a diary, or working notes? To me, what it is called is irrelevant in this context. The important thing is that we enjoy sharing high quality information. Information that people value. Whether that is learning how to burn CDs under Linux or sauté the perfect shiitake mushroom. Whether that is nodding knowingly about the insights found in raising a family or the tribulations of cars that break down when you are far from home. And yes, it can include the lessons learned from keeping man's best friend - the loyal companion canine.

Unfortunately, there are some who seem to over react to certain things. How else can one explain the firestorm the word blog has created? What does it matter if someone wants to call their site a blog? Does that mean you have to call yours that? Does that mean what you do is somehow defined by someone else? No, it does not.

Am I missing something here? I agree that there are things worth fighting for. But is this one of those things? In my opinion, the answer is no.

Change is inevitable. It happens whether we want it or not. As events play out over the next few days, this community that we have may come unraveled. If it does, old connections will be broken and new ones will replace them. Whatever happens, I'll still be here, even if some of the Daynoters may not. Sigh.

Mr. Case Goes to Washington

The road to Washington, D.C. is often a long and winding one. But sometimes, events conspire to speed things along. For instance, I've talked about former State House of Representative Ed Case (insert disclaimer here as I am very distantly related to his family) before. Especially when he ran for Governor and I considered him the last best hope for change in Hawai'i. He lost that election, by an agonizingly close few thousand votes. I am sure he and his family must have been crushed by coming so close after all the blood, sweat, and tears expended in the race. But fortunately for him and the citizens of Hawai'i, the story doesn't end there.

In the closing months of last year, U.S. Congresswoman Patsy Mink, co-author of what became known as Title IX (see it here and what it has meant to women here), was struck down with pneumonia. She languished in the hospital for weeks before succumbing to this common, but no less deadly disease. From that tragic end, came the possibility of a new beginning.

Her passing opened her seat in Congress. And the way the rules work, a special election would be called in which the winner would take all. That is, no matter how many people ran, who ever got the most votes would win outright with no need for a runoff.

With openings for Congress being as rare as the proverbial hens teeth, you can probably imagine how many people filed to run. In fact, over 40 decided that they were uniquely qualified to replace Representative Mink. One of those was Ed Case.

If you had asked Mr. Case, a year ago, where he would be yesterday he probably would not have been correct. For how could he have known that he would be standing on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, his two young sons at his side, being sworn in as the Congressman from Hawai'i to the 108th Congress of these United State of America?

Driven to Madness

There has always been much to like about HP LaserJet printers. They were built like tanks, attractively designed, and created great output. If there was an Achilles heel to HP, it was their drivers.

From the days of DOS to the present, the drivers left much to be desired. They were buggy. And if you lost the diskettes, you had to order them from HP directly. With the coming of the Internet, some of the drivers were available online, but many were not. And even if they were, you sometimes had to input your printer's serial number to prove you had an HP printer (as if you would bother trying to use their driver for some other brand). It was only after much gnashing of teeth on the part of customers that HP decided to post the latest drivers on their web site.

But even if you got the latest driver, using it was not the easiest of things. For example, we have the LaserJet 2200d here. It is fast (19ppm) and sharp (1200X1200). It even comes with both a parallel and USB 1.1 interface. And this is where the fun begins. We defaulted to using the parallel interface because some employees, and I know this is shocking, are still using Windows 95. As you may know, Windows 95 is not compatible with USB. But since I'm running Windows 2000 Pro, and my Dell OptiPlex GX1 has USB ports, I decided to switch from parallel to USB as the connection to the PC.

I figured this change should be easy. Turn off the PC and unplug the parallel cable. Turn on the PC, wait for it to boot, then plug in the USB cable. Windows recognizes the connection and automatically loads the drivers and Bob's your kissin' cousin from Tennessee. Nothing to it. Except it won't print.

Okay, open the Control Panel/Printers and take a look at the PCL 6 driver. Click on the "Ports" tab and behold, it is still defaulting to LPT1. Well, it seems simple to click on the DOT4_002 port as this is the one I need. But doing so only gives me an error messaging. Sigh. I read the manual and uninstall the current drivers and reboot.

The manual says the driver for Windows 2000 is on the CD in the /2000_XP directory. So when Windows comes back up and says it has found new hardware, point it to that directory for the driver. Only, the directory does not exist. There is a directory labeled "2000", but it doesn't have the USB driver. How do I know this? Because when I pointed it to that directory it found only the parallel driver. That, if I didn't mention it already, did not work.

Okay, let's try letting Windows scan the CD for the right driver. And thank goodness, it found it. In the /98ME_USB directory. This got everything going and I am a happy camper.

Now if HP would only put back the status panel on their LaserJets I would be really happy.

Cracks in Time

Our houses have been plagued by poor construction techniques. Whether it's plumbing, electrical, or drywall all the work is of very poor quality. So it should come as no surprise that we continue to have problems.

Our shower/tub is one of those all-in-one fiberglass jobs (see an example here). Unfortunately, whoever did the installation did not prepare the under floor to accept the tub. As far as we can determine what they did was to place the tub on the floor, then randomly spray some expanding insulating foam here and there. This is not the way to create a solid foundation for what is a thin piece of fiberglass. Over time, with the weight of people standing in the shower, the fiberglass will begin to crack. Which is exactly what we found yesterday.

I am now looking at various repair kits. But it is not that easy to find and the repaired location will be quite noticeable when done. The alternative would be to replace the entire enclosure, but not being independently wealthy, I think we will have to wait on that. Although, the time will come when we will have to spend the money. Sigh.

Aloha!

Back in the Saddle

Class doesn't start until next week Wednesday but our Capstone group met last night for over two hours to start planning the last part of our study of the Hawai'i Employees Retirement System. We have far to go and not much time so things may get a bit sparse here and there until graduation in May.

Stone Cold

The temperature last night on this rock in the middle of the Pacific plunged to bone chilling 63°F (~17°C). Get out the blankets and long jammies it's cold (at least for Hawai'i. Of course, anything lower than 70°F makes headlines here).

Where Palm Trees Sway

Las Vegas that is. It seems the Palm Casino has installed strip-club like poles in two of their suites. Having never gone to a strip club, I understand that dancers use the poles during their routines.

I seem to remember that it wasn't that long ago that Las Vegas was trying to change its image to one being family friendly. One wonders what kind of entertainment the casino will be offering next and how Ma' and Pa' Kettle will explain that one to the kids. See the story here.

At the Speed of Gravity

You know, I don't stay up nights worrying about what the speed of gravity is. But there are those who do. So you can follow this link here and read about how radio telescope observations were used to determine that yes Virginia, gravity does move at the speed of light.

Aloha!

It's Friday!

Which Way is Up?

The Internet is a marvelous place on many different levels. For example, there is the old parody of an advertising campaign that says, "On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog." But the truth in the parody is you are who you present yourself to be.

On the 'net, you can portray yourself in ways that your friends would not recognize you. You can create a wild, flamboyant presence that is totally different from you in "real" life. Or you can come across as an ivy league university educated deep thinker when you didn't get past the eight grade.

But the main point is we have the power to choose how we appear on the web and this is very powerful indeed. Part of the recent BackChannel debate was whether using content management software (CMS)(e.g., Movable Type, see Tuesday's post above) was a Good Thing(tm) or not.

To me, the question has to be qualified with, "Good for what purpose?" As readers of this site can see, I've changed the look over the years because nothing is perfect and I can always improve how it looks. This year, I would say it's pretty minimal by design and, as always, written to the W3C standard. I do this for two reasons. For myself, I believe in the old adage that "less is more." But in addition to that, less means it downloads and display faster, something I highly value since I don't like to waste time waiting for sites to display.

Personally, the values of speed and compatibility outweigh the benefits of convenience. I like to keep things simple. I am not one who likes to hear the sound of my own voice so when I write, I like to keep things short. This does not mean I don't appreciate people who can take a topic and weave an essay pages long. I marvel at their ability to do that. However, for myself, I reckon if something can be said in a couple of paragraphs, why take several pages to come to the same conclusion?

Likewise, why should I use a CMS that will create a 100K web page before I even write a single word of content? I've seen some sites where their basic code is almost 200K (although, some of that is their gif banner). I figure these people must have cable modems or DSL because why else would you create such heavyweight pages? Further, why should I complicate things by installing bloated middleware when I can do things directly without it?

But that's just me. And so we come back to my original point, you have the power of choice. You can use whatever means you wish to create and manage the content of your site. No one solution will work best for everyone and no solution is perfect. Hence, it is your responsibility to know what is important to you and then search for the best way to meet your needs. But only you can decide.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

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