Friday, April 16, 2004 Friday, April 16, 2004Now that John Kerry is the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, I'd like to reiterate my recommendation that Bruce Schneier be appointed to either of two positions in the new administration:
Of course, in the event of a Bush landslide in the States of Contention, I'd be more than happy if he'd do the same. We need someone in government who actually knows something about security.
11:52:18 AM # Google It!
categories: Politics, Security
I'm reading Dolores Hayden's Building Suburbia, an interesting history of the various kinds of suburbs, showing how and why each was built. The sales methods described in the chapter on streetcar suburbs outside Chicago are not far removed from those still in use, whether to sell the Poconos or time-shares outside DisneyWorld.
Her upcoming book, A Field Guide to Sprawl, should be a handy reference for citizens of all stripes. The built environment is one subject where a picture is worth many thousands of words. The images used in Mrs. Hayden's class, The American Suburb, are an unfamiliar perspective on several areas in Connecticut.
By the way, the fifth sentence on page 23 of Building Suburbia is
Transportation technology enabled rival groups of businessmen to push lines out of the city or pull them into fringe areas in order to maximize their investments in land.
10:57:29 AM # Google It!
categories: Place
Thursday, April 15, 2004Commodity systems, and intense pressure from an intense competitor are working their magic on Sun, but it's hard to say where they'll end up. Frankly, in comparison to Sun, SGI's, HP's and IBM's plans are obvious. Is Sun eliminating SPARC and moving to AMD's X86-64 architecture, or just eliminating the cost of research and development? What role does Solaris play on their hardware?
Sun has kept Solaris/x86 mainly as a hedge option and to satisfy clients who don't like operating systems that only run on one hardware platform. Then last year Solaris/x86 was discontinued for a few months, only to make a sudden re-appearance with the AMD agreement and the introduction of the V20z. Now, despite their assertions to the contrary, I expect Sun to move AMD chips up the line into their mid-range systems — though these entry-level systems are more than competent enough for 90% of applications.
However, the viability of any platform is largely determined by the available applications. Sun attempts to address this problem with the Java Virtual Machine, but the world has addressed it with open source software and Internet standards. Who cares what your mail backend is if it speaks SMTP? Closed-source databases and custom scientific applications are the only things left which cause trouble in the portability paradise. Specifically, does Oracle run as well on Solaris/x86? (The Oracle Database Appliance, on HP hardware running Solaris/x86, was a non-starter.) What competitive advantage, if any, does Solaris/x86 have over Linux?
As far as I can see: none.
12:24:46 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry
Wednesday, April 14, 2004If everybody hates sprawl, who is the Bad Guy?
PLANetizen points to Measuring Urban Form: Is Portland winning the war on sprawl? (Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 70, No. 2, Spring 2004), which looks interesting, even if it does use quantitative analyses.
Meanwhile, over in Charleston, West Virginia, the Charleston Urban Renewal Authority is confiscating property through eminent domain [via David Sucher].
And, in this corner,
The Home Town Advantage Bulletin is a bimonthly electronic newsletter reporting on efforts nationwide to stop chain store proliferation and support locally owned, independent retail businesses.
12:24:19 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
As you may know, SBC Communications' contracts with the Communications Workers of America expired on April 1st. We sysadmins are not seated at the bargaining table, but are able to get both sides of the arguments because of the web. CWA Local 4630 provides local context, while the union leadership sets the tone.
12:10:10 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry
One has to wonder why Enterprise applications are so much less usable, scalable — everything — than Internet applications. Could it be assumption of control?
10:33:00 AM # Google It!
categories: System Administration
Tuesday, April 13, 2004Watching A Farm Picture: Life and Times of Long Island Farms on WLIW, about the disappearing Long Island farm. There is some good wine from the vineyards around the Peconic Bay, but, oddly enough, the liquor store near me only carries a few bottles of the 1998 Pellegrini Encore
10:50:37 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
I noticed "parking is the tail that wags the building" listed among David Sucher's favorite posts. Adjacent to that post on parking is this one about, oddly enough, a parking garage in Staunton, Virginia. It's the big city for us hillbillies from Monterey.
1:10:43 PM # Google It!
I've picked up concerns about the state of the housing market from Zimran Ahmed. The problem apparently is that prices of houses are too high a multiple of the purchaser's yearly income, and that rental prices are not tracking the upswing in purchase prices. A normal ratio is 2:1 or 2.5:1, but the market has ratios as high as 10:1, in Hawaii. The house we're planning to build will be about 4.5:1.
This raises two questions: can we afford it? And, can we expect a return on this investment? On the other hand, now may be the best time to convert our equity.
Add to those concerns the cost of fuel for heating and electricity, and I start to want some assurances in my spreadsheet.
10:01:17 AM # Google It!
categories: Family
Monday, April 12, 2004The Sisters share a common complaint.
No!
They object strenously to getting back in the car. The Little Sister thrashes around, throwing her 21 pounds out of the car seat, arching her back as I struggle in vain to strap her down. The Big Sister has grown past that. She uses passive delaying tactics and avoidance: running around the yard, smelling flowers, not listening, jumping in to the way back, climbing over the front seats.
The objection is not to getting in the car, in the first place — though there is some of that — but to getting in the car again. (The same objections apply to strollers, so it's not just an automobile issue.)
We could sedate them, either with video or a trenching tool, or we could optimize our outings. Most families do the latter. This makes malls and other walk-able destinations more attractive than those which require us to re-enter the vehicle. And yet, for some reason, people design and build things without remembering these little problems.
At the intersection of I-84 and Route 312, in Brewster, New York, lies Independence Way. At the bottom of that road is the Southeast station for Metro-North Railroad. At the top is a new retail development containing Home Depot, Kohl's, Linens & Things, Applebee's, a strip of four or five stores, and some office space. You can walk from Home Depot to Kohl's, if you're willing to brave the slopes, or from Applebee's to any of the stores, if you can run fast enough. There are few, if any, benefits to any of the other stores from being in that location. Once we get back in the car, we might as well drive anywhere.
In Danbury, Connecticut, Olive Garden and
Where is the casual foot traffic that increases retail sales?
3:27:10 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
It's easier to build on an empty lot than on one filled with parking spaces.
It's easier to buy undeveloped land than developed land.
If I own a spot, and want to build something, then why would I buy another spot?
9:31:15 AM # Google It!
categories: Place
Are regions rich in natural resources inevitably subject to certain kinds of government looting?
Compare Alaska, West Virginia, Saudi Arabia, and the Sudan.
8:43:34 AM # Google It!