Saturday, June 26, 2004 Saturday, June 26, 2004Naperville, Illinois, Rick Klau's home town, lets you look up a property using their GIS data. Here's a Starbucks on West Ogden Avenue. The Westchester County, New York, publishes their GIS data as well, but it's not as usable.
Closer to home, the Putnam County Sheriff's Department uses XOOPS, and an RSS feed, to publish the blotter. This is an improvement.
You'd think that with New York's large population of Internet literates, some of the government bodies would manage to get their systems online in a usable fashion.
12:14:41 AM # Google It!
categories: Place
Friday, June 25, 2004There are holes in the information available to buyers. They need to be filled. Generally they're filled by realtors, but how do you know that the realtor is not selling you a tale?
This development is the sort of thing the buyer wants to know, but the journalist's recitation does not demonstrate the extent of the development, nor allow the buyer to judge whether or not this will impact his decision to purchase. The buyer asks, "Does it change the character of the town?"
11:33:13 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
Wednesday, June 23, 2004In this BBC interview, Bill Clinton mentions his job description. That would be the Oath of Office, folks.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
I'm glad this brouhaha has caused some people to read that document. But these debates on legalism and morality, or the lack thereof, miss something that I thought would be so obvious:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
5:01:25 PM # Google It!
categories: Law
Slate puns, describing Clinton's My Life as "957 turgid pages."
4:48:06 PM # Google It!
categories: Language
At least somebody noticed that Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man, though apparently no one told the Cannes Film Festival.
3:31:14 PM # Google It!
3:02:42 PM # Google It!
categories: Messaging
The Little Sister likes to play with my phone. She carries it around, saying "Cheese!" and talking on it. In her pushing of the buttons, she sent the phone into "Manner" mode and then into "Silence All" mode, which I wasn't able to exit without reading the manual.
The phone should be usable without the manual.
12:34:05 PM # Google It!
Tuesday, June 22, 2004My wife gave me this trip, and some kind of velcro baseball throwing set. The Big Sister made a picture book for me, because I like books. The Little Sister gave me hugs, and ran around being generally cute and adorable.
The Holiday Day Inn Lake George remains excellent, and has improved its service by offering an Ethernet connection in each room, with free Internet access. I made a conscious decision to travel without my laptop, and so enjoyed the inability to test the quality of this service. Instead, I read The Years of Rice and Salt.
We walked.
We swam in the lake, and at the hotel.
We rode in a horse-drawn carriage.
We cruised the lake on the Minne-Ha-Ha.
We played miniature golf, because the Magic Forest closed early on Monday.
We ate at Giovanni's, Shepard's Cove, Adirondack Pub & Brewery and Shepard's Cove again. I drank unfamiliar beers.
11:03:18 AM # Google It!
categories: Family