Friday, June 18, 2004 Friday, June 18, 200411:26:54 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
We're off to Lake George. Some of the fun things we'll do around this historic lake are listed here.
Enjoy your weekend!
4:40:11 PM # Google It!
categories: Family
Remember, it's for your mental health.
2:20:51 PM # Google It!
categories: Politics
Thursday, June 17, 2004Peter St. Andre points to this essay on purple Americans, which attempts to colorize those of us who are more Classical Liberals than Socialist, who are more libertine than conservative. While there must be more than one person out there who, wanting to be left alone, would leave well enough alone, I'm not sure lavender is their color, nor that they should vote for Bush, though they might anyway.
2:45:32 PM # Google It!
categories: Politics
Sounds like someone forgot to make the LNAME column NULLable.
Mongolians need surnames!. Monogolians, who have customarily used only first names, are now required by law to have last names as well. Unfortunately, most people are choosing "Borjigin," Genghis Kahn's tribal name. The director of the State Library is attempting to fix this by publishing advice on historically accurate surname choices for potential Borjigins. [Boing Boing]
1:19:01 PM # Google It!
Geoffrey Pullum, over at Language Log, tears Dan Brown a new one.
12:32:58 PM # Google It!
categories: Language
Davos Newbies relays the report that the Modern Language Association has introduced an interactive language map using U.S. Census data.
11:13:25 AM # Google It!
categories: Language
To Whom it May Concern:
Please read Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the document which delegates our powers to you. That is an easily parsed clause in English which beginsTo promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts
Please explain to me how making discussion illegal promotes the progress of science and the useful arts?
10:48:49 AM # Google It!
categories: Law
Wednesday, June 16, 2004Ernie and Kasia both discuss the ethical obligations of hosting a site gratis. What it boils down to is this: communication.
11:09:49 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration
Good security questions
What is your library card number?
It can't thread responses from Lotus Domino, but can thread responses from Exchange.
The difference seems to be missing headers. Domino systems don't emit In-Reply-To: or References:, nor does Exchange. But Exchange does include Thread-Index:
12:04:54 PM # Google It!
categories: Identity, Messaging
The American Family Association was kind enough to let me know that, on July 15th, the Senate will vote on S.J. RES. 30, a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.
Defend the sanctity of marriage: keep the government out of it.
11:19:59 AM # Google It!
categories: Law
Tuesday, June 15, 2004The discussion, as it were, on a certain status code dragged me into reading about another situation: the Great weblogs.com Link Rot of 2004. There's a good bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth, in among the thanks and concerns about Dave Winer's health. There's also some misunderstanding about how the Net works.
All things within the weblogs.com domain are not necessarily on the same host.
There are complaints that some sites remain up, while most went down. Those sites have not been co-located with the others for some time now. NetCraft's survey can, perhaps, make this a little clearer.
There are technical solutions to the problem of load that do not require link rot.
They do, however, require knowledge. The problem of imminent failure can be addressed through adequate communication, which will provide the time necessary for others with knowledge to help.
Turning things off and waiting for complaints is standard BOFH operating procedure in situations where the operator does not know who uses a service. I've done it myself. It works like a charm.
4:25:40 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration
Ernie, the attorney, points out that Louisiana State Senator Michael J. Michot is piloting a program to solicit opinion from his constituents.
"In today’s technology-driven world, it’s important to use every available tool when it comes to aiding the public in their interaction with their legislators," Senator Michot (R-Lafayette) said. "With this program, we’ll be able to more accurately gauge how citizens feel about the issues, and which subjects they feel are most important in a cost effective and efficient manner."
This is an excellent development: get some opinion to go along with those polls.
3:14:45 PM # Google It!
categories: Politics
The ITU Strategy and Policy Unit quotes Ovum Consulting analyst Jan Dawson's warning about unclad DSL.
However, although naked DSL is primarily offered as a defensive strategy, it could have nasty knock-on effects on other aspects of incumbents' businesses. Many customers see mobile for voice and DSL for Internet access as the ideal combination, but are forced to maintain both a fixed and a mobile voice subscription in order to receive DSL service. Once this barrier is broken down, we could see rapid abandonment of the PSTN voice line in favour of mobile.
The other hit incumbents will take is from voice over IP. Once users are convinced that VoIP offers a carrier-grade service, they will be able to drop their PSTN lines and use VoIP for their calls from home and office and mobile for their calls outside the home. The combined threat of line losses to mobile and VoIP explains the reluctance of ILECs to make more noise about their naked DSL services.
Let's translate: if we unbundle voice services from the data line, customers will buy voice services from someone else. If they buy voice services from someone else, they'll either buy from a wireless provider or from a VoIP provider. They may even buy the data line from someone else. And where would we be then?
But, customers are already buying the data line from someone else. And they are already buying voice services from someone else. The only customers you retain are those who have no choice. What do you have to offer?
Generally speaking, if you have to force your customer to remain your customer, he'll flee as soon as there is opportunity. There is no pride in being the least respected industry.
1:55:31 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry
Monday, June 14, 2004According 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!
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
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!
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!
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