Cox Crow
Asking the Stupid Questions Since 1971
Monday, June 14, 2004Before Their Time
According to A Look at the Invisible Hand, at the time of the South Sea bubble in 1720, gullible investors bought into such hare-brained projects as
schemes for extracting silver from lead, for melting shavings and casting good boards from the fluid, for the discovery of a perpetual motor, for making salt-water fresh, and for making oil from sunflowers.
Maybe the author should have stuck to things which violate the laws of physics.
10:37:07 PM # Google It!
There They Go Again
Everybody vs. Dave, on the topic of the HTTP status "410 Gone".
Speaking from the sysadmin perspective, we're looking at adding support for 410 Gone so that we can differentiate between sites that are unfound and those that we've deleted because the member cancelled their service. However, this wouldn't extend to an individual resource: We don't know which resources were there. At the moment we don't permit users to reconfigure the web server for their particular space, but that could change. When it does, user agents had better act on it.
4:40:10 PM # Google It!
categories: PWP, System Administration
The Wealth of Nations?
In 1887, Harper's published "A Look at the Invisible Hand," which begins
One hundred years ago the opinion was often expressed that corporations could not succeed, because the practical difficulties inherent in that form of organization of business were too great to be counterbalanced by any theoretical advantages which it might offer.
Today, Kottke notes in passing that 51 of the world's 100 largest economic entities are corporations. Number 87 is SBC Communications. Verizon is not on the list. So there!
4:04:23 PM # Google It!
Implausibilities
The source of all tidbits, BoingBoing, points out Today in Alternate History, from whence we learn that
in 1954, President Adlai Stevenson vetoed the Republican attempt to add the words "under God" to the pledge of allegiance, declaring it against American values. "We can defeat the Soviets without recourse to petty jingoism or invoking the Almighty," Stevenson told a press conference.
3:27:37 PM # Google It!
Backyard Camping
We camped out in our backyard on Saturday, in preparation for the Big Event at Fahnestock.
We had planned to make smores on the grill, but the fossil fuel ran out, so we resorted to using the microwave to melt the marshmallows. (Lesson Reinforced: Charcoal Rules!)
The clouds blew away as night fell, but inside the tent we couldn't see the stars. We lay quietly and listened for strange noises. We heard cars, the pump on the pool filter next door, and the low murmur of voices.
This was the Big Sister's first time in a tent. The Little Sister went to bed, inside the house, at 19:00 EDT, so my wife spent the night inside — though she didn't sleep so well with the rest of us outside. The kids slept well.
10:16:36 AM # Google It!
categories: Family
