Al Macintyre's Radio Weblog

Saturday, August 31, 2002

[Civil Liberties Notes] QUOTING [Privacy Digest and Slashdot] 49%: "First Amendment Goes Too Far". The annual State of the First Amendment survey, released on Thursday, had found that just under half of the Americans surveyed felt that the First Amendment guarantees too much freedom. The 49% figure, according to the center, is a ten percent jump since September 11. The survey found that between forty and fifty percent of Americans supported increased surveillance of religious groups, bar criticism of government actions, and monitor muslim citizens particularly closely. Forty percent also found the press too aggressive in questioning the government in the war on terror. More information at the Sacramento Bee. The report is available for download. [Privacy Digest and Slashdot] FROM [Civil Liberties Notes] From the report QUOTE 40% said they have too little access to information about the war on terrorism, 16% said there’s too much. 48% said there’s too little access to government records, 8% believe there’s too much. Many Americans are unable to name the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. The percentages of those responding who were able to identify individual freedoms: 58% — freedom of speech 18% — freedom of religion 14% — freedom of the press 10% — freedom of assembly/association   2% — freedom of petition UNQUOTE I would like to see a survey that breaks it down by Religion.  What percentage of Baptists think the government needs to be spying on the Catholic Church, what percent of Catholics think we should spy on Christian Fundamentalists, etc. and most importantly, what percentage of people think the government should spy more on their own denomination. Since in this survey, as published by the Sacramento California Bee, QUOTE Republican respondents were more likely than Democrats or Independents to see the news media as too aggressive in seeking war information from government officials. UNQUOTE I would like to see how this compares when it is Democrat in the White House.  Does that reverse their opinions, or do they feel the same way when it is the other political party getting most of the criticism. I agree that loose lips sink ships.  I think that people who publish information that puts lives of our military or allies at risk, or give aid and comfort to the enemy should be prosecuted, but it is a matter of abuse of freedom, which is a slippery slope to define.  There is stuff that is Ok to say one place but not another.  My friend John, I see him across on other side of a crowd, I shout Hi Jack to get his attention.  If this is in an airport, I get arrested. 5:36:21 PM

[Ernie the Attorney] QUOTE Political candidates, your websites may soon be regulated -  It's being considered, according to this article. UNQUOTE [Ernie the Attorney] Reading the Washington Post article, that Ernie has shared with us, indicates to me that some day Bloggers will need a reminder calendar.  The general election is now X days away so STOP writing about the politicians until after the election.  Posting political commentary may become illegal on the eve of elections, whether it is by people inside or outside of politics. Who will be accountable when this law is violated?  There might be a discussion forum with many people talking about many topics, including people in other countries who are ignorant about our election laws.  An innocent comment about some stupid thing seen in the news media, by an e-friend from another nation, could mean a published post that is for or against a particular candidate, ending up on a web site within the X days window when that is banned. They debated, but backed away from, the notion of regulating hyper links to sites that give out information about political candidates.  They may return to this topic again, since deep linking is a hot topic with lots of law suits that will change the fabric of our e-society rules. 5:26:13 PM

See Banking Stories, collection of humorous and unfunny stories of personal experiences, and those of close contacts about things that can go wrong with our bank accounts. I have been getting e-mail bounces when I sent recent stuff to V of TYR, such as the funny story (I think it was funny) about visiting bank that is using those vaccum tube thingies that we see at many drive ins, also for walk ins, and sending the stuff (my stuff, like driver's license I loaned them for identification purposes) to the wrong customer (the guy in the bank booth NEXT to me).  So then V e-mails me to ask if I Ok, she not heard from me in a while (because most this week I had bad indigestion, and now that I almost well, her e-mail can send but not receive), so I voice telephone her to let her know about her e-mail down, perhaps until Tuesday, because of the holiday weekend. She reminds me (good reminder), now that I have more desk space around my PC, would be good idea to have a basket of fruits and veggies nearby, so when I need to munch on something, it is not chips but more healthy stuff.  I have not been exercising like I ought to, but I have been doing more sit down meals at quality places like Red Lobster and less food from drive through places.  My sister calls them outlets of The Greasy Spoon Chain, and V is not that kind.  Most meals at home are Microwaved Healthy Choice that come out of the green boxes. I still suspect that my indigestion this week was food related, but it could also have been nerves from worrying about the new furniture, and accumulated worries over some work-related stuff, that ought to stay confidential.  I don't think I can tell anyone about the UPS adventure without flapping my mouth inappropriately about someone or about several people.  One person in particular does such a great job that it is really cruel to go blabbing to a lot of people about one oops attributed to him. 3:49:31 PM

Al's new PC furniture has been installed and PC reassembled all systems checked out (cable modem, dial up backup modem, printer, mouse, keyboard, speakers).  A few things ended up with some mistakes but this is to be somewhat expected because after checking out many places in and around Evansville that are in the business, and each had some not nice aspects so it was which is the lesser of these various evils, Lesa checked with the place that does office furniture where she works, and they were happy to have my business.  So as some decision was made, it went between Al, Lesa, the Office Connection in Vincennes Indiana (officeconnection@charter.net), HON industries that makes the best office furniture, but originally I did not think I could afford that, but you know, when you carefully look at the catalog and say I not need this that frill, just go for lots of work space, sturdiness, dimensions that are an almost perfect fit in my apartment, we end up with great quality. Earlier this week Normandy Arms Apartments shampooed the carpet where we had cleared out furniture to make room for this.  I told them that getting this big space cleared out is once in a blue moon, and an excellent time to fit in this operation. Hey, it fits fantastic (no error measuring dimensions), all the wall plugs are in use, there is a nice space between corner unit and my old book case on the right, which is perfect size for halogen overhead lamp and waste basket, the computer is working fine.  There is some stuff on the floor, like the UPS but it is not sitting on the carpet but on little wooden things on wheels, and there are more waiting so when the PC tower goes down, it will not be sinking into the carpet.  Patricia found those for me.  They are just great. The Vincennes crew will have to do another visit later because: one of the shelves sticks out too far (what got packed is not what was ordered), and jabs my left side; some cables from back of PC to master control (which needs to be where I can push the buttons) won't reach from where we planned to put the PC so temporarily the PC is on top of the shelf that will have to be replaced ... longer cable coming; a higher chair was suggested but I like the chair I have, so we will be getting an under shelf keyboard tray and perhaps also mouse on it. Overall I feeling great.  The total price was less than I anticipated (because I not remembered exactly right from all the yes no pieces re-thinking).  They assembled it for me, which took longer than I thought it would, they disconnected all cables on my PC and reassembled connections when done, however there is one thing left over that we not know where it goes to.  Everything is working, so speculation is high as to what that for. Hmm, I see a box that we decided not to open because Hon sent the wrong kind of drawer, and Office Connections did not take it back with them.  There may be other follow up.  As I come across odd cables, I moving them all to be one location, so more easy to find spare when need one.  I am going to leave one of my Y2K flash lights stuck in the electric system under the new desk, so the next time I need a PC service call, the spare light is right there for under desk illumination. The back panel is the kind of stuff you can stick thumb tacks into.  Above monitor etc. there are shelves running 13" deep and 40" wide, and there is another just like it, a little wider, to the left above the shelf that will be replaced.  Those shelves are two layers so other stuff can go on the very top.  Basically it is a corner unit, and a left side unit, and I have an old but sturdy book case to the right.  Before ordering this, I visited approx 20 different places that sold furniture suitable for PC, and at some of them looked at several alternatives. I need to do a bit of adjustment to get essentials off the UPS not the surge protector power strips at the back center where wall plug got covered up, but this connection through first.  Then the piles of stuff that used to be on my old furniture, that did not have as much work space, will come back in pieces, as I figure out what will go where, and allow space for growth in various project piles.  I use box lids from computer paper quite heavily, but now if some are going to be on top shelf, I need a heavy marker so end of box lid can have word or two what it is all about. The old furniture was donated to the humane society of Lawrenceville Illinois, to be used or auctioned, at their discretion. Main reasons for this upheaval: The old furniture had done me OK when only use for my home PC was personal entertainment, but now as I am moving into part time work from home, the inefficiencies of a home office designed just personal use was getting in my way. The PC before the current one was not a tower, and it sat on table and ran Ok, then current one is tower on floor, because too heavy for my flimsy table, but I have wall to wall carpet and this is air cooled from bottom and air from bottom, and it sinks into carpet. I had several book cases that were Ok except not super sturdy, so I was like only 1/3 to 1/2 using the vertical space, so there's all this vertical space wasted, and it is all round my PC.  I needed to trade up to sturdiness, where I can use all my vertical space. Down the road when I get my next PC, I want the infrastructure in place so it can be hooked up without the inefficiencies of what came before. 2:17:30 PM

A [puzzle] here ... has someone defaced Radio Userland home pages to say something not nice about RU?  No, someone has created a category by that name to say something not nice.  I wonder how many people will look at this and think this is really published by RU?  I think this sort of thing at best is in bad taste, and should not be encouraged.  It is one thing to voice a negative opinion about some product or someone else opinion, that's freedom of e-speech.  But to make a site look like it is RU saying that RU products are no good, that is malicious mischef.  Doing it at start of a long weekend means RU might not see it right away.  I only saw it because I checked recent updates for interesting site names to visit. 2:06:36 PM

Check [City of Winona now taxes rain water] for full details and the role the Federal Government played in this, so you can figure how likely it will be that this measure will soon pass to other cities around the country.  The deal is that water that gets into storm sewer drains in front of people property can carry various contaminents like pet poo poo, and it has to go through some kind of city filtration to clean the water.  So the tax rate for each property is based on the total amount of water that drains into the city system, irrespective of how contaminated it is.  Water your lawn, clear snow and it melts, rain water, all of that will be taxed.  Now I think the cheap solution might be to put some barrier at edge of your property to invite the water to puddle and irrigate your front yard in the dry times. 1:57:16 PM

Friday, August 30, 2002

[dws software he uses and reccommends] shares this [Tip from John Robb] QUOTE If you are using Radio (and it is running right now) and you are interested in customizing your site's theme:  here is a list of handy macros you can use.  They are pretty powerful, particularly if you need specific things automated.  If you are a developer and have built macros that we can add to the list, please let me know so we can add them. They are really easy to use.  For example:  if I insert  <%navigatorLinks%> which is a macro that publishes the links I have in my menu on the right, in the editing box when it is in "source" view (the little toggle switch at the bottom of the editing box), I get this: Home My Bio Singularity Scripting News K-Logs Radio Docs UNQUOTE [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 11:58:10 PM

[Radio Free Blogistan] QUOTE The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines - Stanford University. Reading Spartaneity drew my attention back to Stanford'sWeb Credibility Project where you can read detailed explanations of and research behind these guidelines: Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. Show that there's a real organization behind your site. Showing that your web site is for a legitimate organization will boost the site's credibility. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site. Make it easy to contact you. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose). Make your site easy to use — and useful. Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently). Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers). Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. Most of these seem to boil down to (a) showing the human beings behind the site, and (b) taking your site seriously and demonstrating your commitment to its quality. QUOTE [Radio Free Blogistan] Thanks - I am always in the market for suggestions how to improve what I do. 11:51:45 PM

Random blogs worth another look. Down left side of [follow me here] is definition of Weblogging with powerful links. Here's another photography enthusiast. http://www.staceygraham.com/ I like the icons here illustrating each of the topics. http://www.wanderlost.org/ramble/ Here is someone experimenting with Radio theme redesign and advising others on the topic.  http://mrp.peircecentral.com/lcweblog/  I like the mixed photo array across the top.  This individual has both learned how to import images, and layout around them in an eye-appealing way. I love [Pamela Joy] general layout and clicking on various windows of house.  She now has a tutorial on how to do this kind of ODP editing thing. Thursday topics: Artistic sites; Computer Security; Humor; Links; Politics.  I also updated some stories and categories (access my collection via Radio url number system).  The indigestion problem seems to have largely passed, and now I just feel a little dizzy. 12:22:24 AM

Thursday, August 29, 2002

[Brown Eyed Girl] seems to be collecting horror stories from real life.  QUOTES Danielle Kousoulis, 29, worked on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower as a vice president for Cantor Fitzgerald. She signed a lease on a $2,500-a-month loft apartment 10 days before a hijacked plane crashed into her workplace. In a letter this month, landlord Denise M. Lyman claimed she was an unpaid creditor and threatened to take Kousoulis' family in Haddon Township, N.J., to court. The New York Daily News reported that one of the complaints against the dead woman was that she failed to give three-months notice that she was leaving." UNQUOTE [Brown Eyed Girl]   11:59:25 PM

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE Jediology big in Australia. "More than 70,000 Australians identified their religion as Jedi, Jedi Knight or Jedi-related in last year's national census." Link Discuss (Thanks, Howard!) QUOTE [Boing Boing Blog] There's a lot of this around the western world, partly in protest to the notion that a person's private beliefs should be a matter of public record. 11:02:28 AM

[Blogfish] QUOTE Uncover the real WINNT killer. Last Friday I got to work and was greeted by mr. blue screen. After rebooting a couple of times only to see the message "kernelos32.exe is either missing or corrupt" I asked our sysadmin for help. "Your Winnt directory is missing" he told me. What? "It's not there. What were you doing that caused this to happen?" That last inquiry has propelled me into a virus hunt that will uncover the real WINNT killer. Just jotting down one possility I saw on FuzzyBlog: Microsoft said Thursday that "critical" security lapses in its Office software and Internet Explorer Web browser put tens of millions of users at risk of having their files read and altered by online attackers. The world's leading software maker said that an attacker, using e-mail or a Web page, could use Internet related parts of Office to run programs, alter data and wipe out a hard drive, as well as view file and clipboard contents on a user's system. I never thought viruses actually wiped out hard drives. I never even knew someone who knew someone who had an aunt whose entire hard drive was wiped out. Does this really happen? QUOTE [Blogfish] Alison You need to Check the anti-virus hoax pages to find out what your exact situation is.  There are viruses that say you have some problem other than what you really have.  There are virus hoaxes that say there is this file that the anti-viruses can't detect & if you find it on your system you need to delete it, but it is really a file you need to run your system, so you follow the hoax instructions, delete the file, and now your system really is crashed.  Even though you may be too wise to fall for this, some co-worker might not.  Millions of dollars have been ssiphoned from American Businesses because the Nigerian Scam is sent out very much the same way as computer viruses are distributed.  Anyone who can fall for a hoax, can fall for a financial con game.  I have a lot more faith in the anti-hoax anti-virus vendors than I do in the outfits that supply the software, or the people in charge of computer systems in corporate America.  http://www.vmyths.com/ Truth About Computer Virus Myths & Hoaxes Check my guide to the basics of personal computer security posted Aug 15.  I can send you by e-mail attachment the Word document I am referring to.  I just do not want to put into general circulation a working document that has tons of links where I have not asked permission to quote people, and do in fact quote without attribution, because I figured out netiquette after I started on the document.  Ask me to send you my Computer Security Myths document.  I try to avoid sending people as e-mail attachments something I think would be of interest to them, because of the high risk of a virus in any attachment you were not expecting. I have a few other Security documents I can share.  Mac Policy doc is a barely begun outline that spells out the philosophy of what I want to accomplish with my Computer Security Essays.  There are some risks that I must not detail because the cyber terrorists have not yet figured out how to do those things.  I want to communicate at a level that anyone can understand, non-technical or technical, not talk down to people, avoid bashing any vendor, and avoid getting in an arguement.  I will let someone else's documents bash vendor practices that put us at this kind of risk.  Getting this work to the web was one of the reasons I started my Radio Weblog.  I wanted to learn what could be done, get good at it, then select presentation method.  I leaning towards a separate category on a separate host with Instant Outlining. There is one that I downloaded from Europe that explains Banking practices and why Identity Theft is so prevalent.  Ask for my e-fraud document.  I did a series of messages (#s 3258 3261 3293 3314 3341) at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TYR basically spelling out that the situation with a lack of Internet Privacy has been permitted to deteriorate a lot worse than most people realize, but for each hazard there are things that people can do to mitigate the risks. I was planning to expand on these but then thought that my Computer Myths approach was a better way to hopefully contribute to customers of computer systems putting an end to this idiocy. I also plan to incorporate these TYR posts into my eventual FAQ on Computer Security Common Sense. An earlier effort was via http://www.TechRepublic.com/forumdiscuss/thread_detail.jhtml?thread_id=20600  go to the archives of http://www.year2000.com/ecommerce and search for the post I made called "Computer Myths" When you are past this crisis, go visit Internet Storm Watch http://www.incidents.org/isw/iswp.php  Basically they have software so that people's Firewalls can send copies of Intrusion Logs to this outfit.  They merge logs & sort by where the trouble is originating & notify the ISPs of the hackers & work with law enforcement to track the hackers down & put them out of business.  This is a beautiful concept & I betcha a lot of people are not aware that this is going on, such as the people making federal government pronouncements these days about computer security.  http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/epl-by-vendor.html There is such a thing as a secure computer system. There is such a thing as a computer system that can be made secure. Various government agencies, such as the military, have some standards for security that computer systems that they buy & install need to meet.  Then a new bunch of people get elected and want nothing to do with the work that was done by their enemy in the political party that was in charge before, and they reinvent the wheel. Here is a directory of secure systems by vendor. Some vendors are conspicuous by their absense. Some vendors that are here, I would study the small print with great interest. There are technical documents here explaining ..if you get such & such a system that can be made secure ... how to go about doing so. If you reading this and you really in government, politics, law enforcement, and saying Oh Al, you too cynical, but this stuff is constructive, then prove to me you really are in a position to change policy or to go after the computer criminals (I not going to send some of my stuff to malware creators pretending to be cybercops), I could send you as an e-mail attachment collection of some posts I have made to Government sites soliciting Security Tips, such as what I think needs to be done about Terrorists and Airport Security.  My Air Security to FBI document is what I posted 10 days after 9/11 after I calmed down and checked phraseology and elegance of my writing. My Security Gov document has what I sent to the Gore commission back when there were all the arsons of Black Churches, the terrorist attack in Atlanta GA, and some suspicion that an American airliner had been brought down by a surface to air missile. My Cyber TV Word document has collection of places allegedly selling illegal consumer electronics, through spam, which I want to share with any law enforcement that really wants to crack down on such places.  When I see spam that seems obviously for some illegal enterprise and they stupid enough to give name of place to send money to, I think in terms of starting such a collection of places to share with law enforcement, if we can ever figure out how not to drown them in millions of spam forwards. Lobby inside your corporation to get a real computer security audit, or to have your annual financial auditors do a computer security audit.  It does not matter if you run your biz on Microsoft Operating System, one of IBM's, Unix, Linux, etc.  You can get a competent audit.  There are audits designed for major ERP packages.   Check out  http://www.pentasafe.com ... basically IS security management lets them load this thing that rattles your computer door knobs and gives a report on how many insecure entrances you have, and makes computer security policy reccommendations based on where your biz is most at risk.  It does not provide any info that would help the bad guys, and it communicates at a level understandable to non-technical management. Here is a place for computer security technical professionals http://groups.yahoo.com/group/e-com-sec/  http://www.ifccfbi.gov There is a depth to this computer fraud complaint operation that goes beyond what is apparent to most consumers.  Law enforcement individuals doing investigations can post here that they are interested in a particular business, web site, suspect, etc. then there are regular searches to see if two or more policepersons expressed an interest in the same suspect, within the last 24 hours & an e-mail is sent to introduce them to each other.   Computer crime is global.  The victims are global.  Law enforcement personnel could be working in duplicate investigations except for this cooperative venture.  http://www.icsa.net/html/labs/  I think I have the right link here.  I found this outfit when researching what firewall to get for my home PC.  They have firewalls from 40 some outfits on PCs connected to the internet & they continuously bombard them with every piece of nonsense the malware people come up with.  What they are doing is quality testing the fact that the firewalls really do what they are advertised to do.  Many popular brand names are conspicuous by their absence from the list of firewalls that do in fact do what they are advertised to do. One of my computer security e-mail contacts sent me his Computer Security Glossary that spells out his honey pot strategy for keeping an intruder distracted long enough to back trace him.  I personally feel people time better spent keeping the intruders out in the first place, but my view is a minority in the West today. Another contact sent me copy of Halcrow's draft policy on corporate Computer Security Policy. I am collecting goodies like these, and then can share some with other people making similar collections. 10:33:08 AM

I have been trying out RandomFreshBlog from [Philringnalda] and if this stuff is truely representative of the broad spectrum of everyone who blogs, then I agree that the overall quality is rather high.  However, I think we need a variation on this software so that we can opt out of stuff that is in a foreign language, and stuff that the randomizer already hit in the last hour. 2:23:51 AM

[Bruce's Computing Category] passes on news of Radio's change to referrer visibility.  QUOTE A tiny change in Radio's aggregator makes referer logs more interesting. Please read this if you provide an RSS source for Radio users, and you watch your referer logs. Updated. [Scripting News] Well I don't watch my referer logs every day, but I do check them from time to time. UNQUOTE [Bruce's Computing Category] [Bruce's Place] shares a story QUOTE Dead Men Tell No Passwords The man in charge of some of Norway's most precious electronic documents died without divulging the way to access them. A plea to hackers to help crack the system is out. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News] UNQUOTE [Bruce's Place] If the security works, why break it?  If the documents cannot be accessed, and the only person who knew how to access them died, then it is as if the data was in the man's head and he died.  There is something wrong with this picture.  Where I work, I have some computer security responsibilities, but they are not exclusively in my head.  With each new boss, I ask if I can give a briefing on what kind of computer security we have, and what to do if I get run over by the proverbial union truck.  One of my suggestions is to provide on paper, a list of the most secret passwords to get into such things as computer security itself, then that paper is to go in an envelope in the safe of our corporate lawyer or auditor or some outside firm that we have some confidentiality agreement with, then if anything happens to me or my boss, there is this backup of the most important corporate stuff that is in our brains.  When I change the master security access codes, I tell my boss that I did so, and why I did so. After a new boss has been on board a year or two, I ask if I can give a briefing on the strengths and weaknesses of our computer security.  We do get intruder alerts, and I notify the managers involved.  For example, executives are out to lunch, and some unknown person is in their office trying different password combinations, then the computer security kicks in and pulls the plug on that work station (you only get a certain number tries to forget your password, then computer security makes certain automatic assumptions), then a few minutes later history repeats at the next office down the hall.  Then a few hours later, I am reviewing the system message logs and discover the fact that this was happening.  I have made some changes to the system logging so that we discover this kind of stuff faster. 1:55:33 AM

Geek Beauty & everyone else's poetry and eye candy, except for the porno-lovers of course.  I just love this stuff.  How much disk space do pictures take up on servers?  The equivalent of 1 k words I suspect.  Here is a site with art collage inspired by the X-Files, and since this site identifies picture of self, it probably has a human helper, because where is a keyboard paws-friendly? That reminds me of some humor about our furry friends. Cat Physics Presented at the Institute of Theoretical & Applied Cat Physics, forwarded to Al by iVillager Graceanne and Gary.Holliday 1. Law of Cat Inertia A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force, such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse. 2. Law of Cat Motion A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction. 3. Law of Cat Magnetism All blue blazers and black sweaters attract cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric. 4. Law of Cat Thermodynamics Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat, all heat flows to the cat. 5. Law of Cat Stretching A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken.  6. Law of Cat Sleeping All cats must sleep with people whenever possible, in a position as uncomfortable for the people involved as is possible for the cat. 7. Law of Cat Elongation A cat can make her body long enough to reach just about any countertop that has anything remotely interesting on it. 8. Law of Cat Acceleration A cat will accelerate at a constant speed, until he gets good and ready to stop. 9. Law of Dinner Table Attendance Cats must attend all meals when anything good is served. 10. Law of Rug Configuration No rug may remain in its naturally flat state for very long. 11. Law of Obedience Resistance A cat's resistance varies in inverse proportion to a human's desire for her to do something. 12. First Law of Energy Conservation Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will therefore use as little energy as possible. 13. Second Law of Energy Conservation Cats also know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping. 14. Law of Refrigerator Observation If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat. 15. Law of Electric Blanket Attraction Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light. 16. Law of Random Comfort Seeking A cat will always seek, and usually take over, the most comfortable spot in any given room. 17. Law of Bag / Box Occupancy All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond. 18. Law of Cat Embarrassment A cat's irritation rises in direct proportion to her embarrassment times the amount of human laughter.  19. Law of Milk Consumption A cat will drink his weight in milk, squared, just to show you he can. 20. Law of Furniture Replacement A cats desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture. 21. Law of Cat Landing A cat will always land in the softest place possible. 22. Law of Fluid Displacement A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed. 23. Law of Cat Disinterest A cat's interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest him. 24. Law of Pill Rejection Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity. 25. Law of Cat Composition A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn't Matter. 26. Law of Selective Listening Although a cat can hear a can of tuna being opened a mile away, she can't hear a simple command three feet away. 27. Law of Equidistant Separation All cats in a given room will locate at points equidistant from each other, and equidistant from the center of the room. 28. Law of Cat Invisibility Cats think that if they can't see you, then you can't see them. 29. Law of Space-Time Continuum Given enough time, a cat will land in just about any space. 30. Law of Concentration of Mass A cat's mass increases in direct proportion to the comfort of the lap she occupies. 31. Law of Cat Probability (Uncertainty Principle) It is not possible to predict where a cat actually is, only the probability of where she "might" be. 32. Law of Cat Obedience As yet undiscovered. 1:37:47 AM

[Delaware Law Office] tells us that the reasons the FDA is suing the RED CROSS include QUOTE the Red Cross: -- "Continues to accept donors who have not completed the health history questionnaire, including those who leave unanswered the question designed to detect those at high risk for HIV/AIDS." -- Accepts blood from donors with very low blood pressure and those who have given within the past eight weeks, putting them at risk of adverse reactions including anemia. -- Has "lax inventory control," including "losing blood products" and "distributing unsuitable blood products." I'm wondering that, if not for the press reporting about the lawsuit, would we have heard anything about these ongoing troubles between the FDA and the Red Cross. posted UNQUOTE [Delaware Law Office] This on top of all the coverage by Fox News and others about how the Red Cross apparently has a disconnect between who they are collecting donations to help, and whol actually gets their help. 1:30:08 AM

The Bush administration is calling for a centralized Network Operations Center (NOC) to coordinate cyber-security warnings, says this week's e-week.  Previously Computer Security has been voluntary and optional, but the feds want corporations to disclose what they are doing, if anything, towards that goal.  The feds do not know if there is any such thing as secure wireless technology, and if none, no federal agency is to buy any.  I wonder what the military will do to communicate with planes in the sky and ships at sea, if this ban goes into effect. Wednesday = no posts except updates to some stories and categories (access my collection via Radio url number system) because my health was temporarily impaired (I suspect a new food allergy ... as we get older, our body discovers new things to complain about). Tuesday topics:  Blog Education; Computer Illiteracy; Current Events; Politics; Quality; Tara Sue Grubb vs. Howard Coble; 12:44:55 AM

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

[Philringnalda] is looking at random blogs and drawing some interesting conclusions.  QUOTE Three ways to surf blogs at random: NextBlog! gives you a random recently updated Blogger-powered blog. random blog gives you a random blog from the blo.gs database (updated in the last seven days). RandomFreshBlog is my version of the weblogs.com version of NextBlog! that Dave wants - I'm using the blo.gs changes.xml file rather than the weblogs.com version, since blo.gs's file is a superset of weblogs.com's. To use any of those, either save the link as a bookmark or drag to your Links bar/Personal Toolbar, then give it a click whenever you get bored. My thoughts from a fair bit of random blog surfing the last couple of days: The overall quality of blogs has gone up quite a bit since the last time I did much random surfing. Dorothea's right, there are way too many people using unaltered default templates. Including me. It takes more than using Blogger's "Sports Cut" template to become InstaPundit. I need to get out more - there are a ton of people doing interesting stuff that I'm missing. I've been around - pick a random blog out of the last 500-900 to update, and it's amazing how high the odds are that I've read it at least once, or know/know of the author, or (my favorite by a mile) it's using one of my archive scripts or I've helped the author with some sort of problem. UNQUOTE [Philringnalda] I imagine that with the flood of new people getting into the Weblogging hobby, the number who have not yet figured out how to do things will outweigh the number who have learned enough that their site begins to look sophisticated.    However it is much easier to learn about content packaging from how other people are presenting information, than it is to learn how to change the appearance of your site, so the learning curve on quality content will go a lot faster for many people than the learning curve on changing the default rules. In talking about template changing, several people have mentioned that they have made so many changes to their template, they lost track, so changing the Theme is out of the question.  Well that reality is a stage in our learning.  At a later stage we will know how to find all our changes, place them in some file, change our Theme, re-apply our other changes. Can the Weblogger Search Engines, that I talked about Aug 22 (check the calendar), look for something other than content, such as template variants ... find me a site which does NOT have certain stuff?  Yes Weblog, exclude those that are just defaults.  Perhaps one of the random deals can do that as one of the options in the future. 3:04:53 PM

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE Doonesbury runs for Congress. Garry Trudeau's college roommate -- partial inspiration for Mike Doonesbury -- is running for Congress. Link Discuss (via Fark) UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog] Can the Ms Grubb supporters get the technology cartoonists to put in a word or two of support? Dilbert is an extremely popular character, subscribed to by both the kind of worker that those cartoons of Scott Adams represent, like geeks and engineers, and people whose work space is a cubicle, but also masses of people who can identify with the silly stories.  Ask Scott's secretary to answer a letter about Coble-Grubb, and it will reach millions of people, who will forward it to millions more. I had suggested that a link to that Scandal Map should go on Ms Grubb website.  Now that is something that children who understand the issues can communicate to their older family members.  Do you really want these people to remain in charge of our lives and retirement incomes?  The guy who originally created it, Mark Poyser, says it is soon coming out in the form of a wall poster.  Now I can imagine children, who are accustomed to selling candy to support their football band, selling the Scandal Poster to raise money for a candidate who is opposed to this sort of thing, who stands for accountability for people actions.  The Scandal Picture communicates on a level that reaches out to people who do not know how to program a VCR, and may have inadvertently forwarded e-mail with a computer virus attachment. 11:25:45 AM

My cloud status just went from 97 to 96 % of my 40 Meg being free. 3:11:49 AM

[NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence} provides this link to Robert Kaplan's article in [The Atlantic] on where Iran is headed. 2:42:16 AM

Tara Grubb is running in North Carolina against the sponsor of the bill to give Hollywood the right to hack into anyone's computer that they only suspect of violating copyright of music etc., use whatever technology like computer viruses they like to attack such suspected pirates, and if they damage anything else in the process, then tough.  This is like saying to retail stores that if you suspect a person who lives in a building of shoplifting, it is legal for you to set the whole building on fire, and ruin the lives and residences of everyone else who lives in the building.    It is like giving someone the right to do drunk driving, and too bad however many people get killed. It is like granting the right to someone to start forest fires. They will be authorized to do anything, to any computers, in the name of fighting people with no proof of them doing anything wrong. Here are some links to stories about her candidacy: http://grubbforcongress.manilasites.com/directory/12/press My suggestions to improve her site - I posted a bunch over the weekend then Radio ate them & I blamed Hollywood, since Tara's opponent is sponsoring a bill to let Hollywood do anything to anyone's computers (not even Congress computers exempted), so then I posted to some of Tara's comment areas with some of my suggestions.  Here are some more. Post a link to the Libertarian Party platform and indicate which of their positions Ms Grubb supports, has a somewhat different stance on. This will help educate those people who think she is a one issue candidate. Clarify is she for P2P copyright violation? A person can be for P2P but opposed to piracy. Post statement how much money the election laws allow an individual to contribute to a candidate. Does this apply to a family? Can husband wife and their children individually give up to the ceiling? Post links to how much money Hollywood is paying to buy votes. I think Al Gore was pro-Internet at one time, but Hollywood may have swayed some politicians. Post a rebuttal to specific statements Coble has made. Example, he says with reference to an untrue e-mail rumor QUOTE The internet will remain unregulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Postal Service. UNQUOTE The rebuttal should show specific places where the Internet is already regulated by the FCC, such as anti-spam and opposition to consumer fraud and other criminal activities conducted through the Internet. Possibly indicate those areas of FCC regulation that Ms Grubb approves of. The rebuttal should quote specific sections of the Coble bill in which the government will put control of the Internet into the hands of companies that will now be authorized to hack into anyone and to distribute computer viruses and etc.  Indicate other areas where the Coble bill, if passed and signed into law, could be disruptive. Millions of people all over the world get hurt by computer viruses, and authorities try to crack down on the creators. A perfect defense for those people can now be that they claim they were writing software for Hollywood. The anti virus companies may have to go out of business because they providing a service that is in opposition to this new law, legalizing computer virus creation by Hollywood. Web sites get hit by cyber terrorism. Today we suspect enemies of the USA, but now it can be oops, Hollywood made a mistake, but they are legally protected from criminal negligence.  Tomorrow al Quada can attack the USA such as the nuclear power plants computers, Air Traffic Control. Tomorrow Hollywood can attack the same stuff, if they suspect people who are using those computers of engaging in computer piracy, or if those computers are on the same networks as their suspects. Could Y2K have been solved had this been the law of the land a few years ago? Get some statistics on the benefit of e-commerce to the economy, and how much this will disrupt it. Has the office of budget made any kind of estimates of what this will do? Will this disrupt EDI? What will be the impact of legalized computer viruses on wireless computing? Will it be like electronic smog which killed several people in Japan? Example:  The doors on bullet trains opened when they passed certain high rise buildings, and the decompression sucked passengers out, like in an aircrft disaster. Cause: Lack of safety interlocks in the Bullet Train design, and poor shielding on the electronics of both the bullet train and consumer electronics - all those kids playing computer games in the apartment buildings generated electronic interference which the bullet trains interpreted as signals telling them to open the doors. Reach out to the average voter. Computer users who understand technology, are in a minority. Reach people by means in addition to the Internet. Reach out to youngsters, children, in her district. Children are more computer savvy than their parents. They understand the significance of legalized cyber terrorism. But can they explain this to family members? Children have more energy than adults. There's an army of enthusiasts there, waiting for marching orders from an inspiring leader. What you want, is for them to: download from their home computers, print some literature promoting Ms Grubb's candidacy; go door to door in their neighborhood, delivering to every household; do this in a way that does not put the children at risk. Think about that - the children should go in a group, an adult watching them. Do you want to invite them to talk to strangers? Look at halloween (younger children typically involved than those you inviting to help) safety tips. It is similar to kids collecting money for Unicef, a good cause. As a youth, I participated in this, and then I got cynical. We have very bad situations in those countries, there have to be other solutions. But Unicef got me started thinking about the reality of growing up in those other countries. Having a pen pal with someone in another country hits home how good we have it here. We live in a society where not everyone has a home computer. a lot of people not know how to program a VCR. very few people read the click through contracts that come with software. most people receive a scam in the e-mail, believe it, send it to all their friends. look at how computer viruses get spread. those people votes are needed for Ms Grubb. The kinds of Internet issues that might appeal to the person who struggles with home computer operational issues are oten the very same issues that are problematic to people who know a lot about computer innards. When will it be safe to vote from your home computer at the on-line ballot box? Does Motor Voter Registration really work? 2:22:32 AM

[The National Review] has a weblog. This weekend I posted something like this about The Wall Street Journal but Radio ate it. My working theory (Hollywood comment was intended in humor) is that Radio uses Cache to store our posts, and lacks (Radio Wish here) an easy way for the end user to copy from Cache to permanent storage, so if we have any kind of idiot PC problem, like Bill Gates Blue Screen of Death, Radio can lose the Cache which means it ate the work we done for the last 1/2 day or longer. Another thing Radio ate this weekend was my link to an MSNBC blog where someone asked If Firefighters fight fires, what do Freedom Fighters fight? 1:24:59 AM

Monday's Topics: Etiquette; Multi-Author; Navigation; e-Organization; e-Planning; Terminology. I need to move some of the longer posts to stories. I need to be nicer person when being critical of a behavior pattern and I see one person engaged in it. I need terminology coined for the phenomena of. Person A says X. Person B quotes it. Person C quotes it. Person D reads it but can't tell that it is Person A being quoted. When there are a whole string of people finding something interesting, who should be given credit and how? I believe that when a person's words are used, we must give credit to that person. I believe that if we found something interesting because of a post by someone, we must credit that person. But should we also try to credit all the people in between the original post, and the person we got it from? 1:18:42 AM

I visited [A QA Guy's Radio] because I am interested in the interrelationship between a company's ISO and its computer, because the ISO standards that I have seen seem to focus on the form of something on a computer, as opposed the the content, or how easily someone can manipulate it.  As far as ISO is concerned, the way to assure accuracy is to use the forms consistently, totally ignoring the computer security and corporate standards with respect to not spoofing data. Well, this guy is just like us computer geeks struggling to figure out how to effectively use technology, and along the way gain some insights. [A QA Guy's Radio]  QUOTE Are there some basic incompatibilities between testing and managing? As a tester, you go right for the weakest areas, trying to determine defects and faults. As a manager, you find out what each person is capable of, and build on strengths. You most certainly do not keep poking at the weak spots of your staff. How much of a problem is this dichotomy?   UNQUOTE [A QA Guy's Radio] [James Robertson], in Australia, has similar writings on general topic of software testing and design issues for Knowledge Management.  I ask what is the difference between Information Architects (IA) and Usability?  He asks why there are so few blogs on intranets, when there are an estimated 300,000 out there.  Well I think the reason is that weblogging and intranets have not really met each other yet in a big way, so there are tons of discussion groups about intranets, within the context of whatever software or Operating System is used to drive the intranet.  There is also the problem of finding another outfit to share how to with, that is not really in competition with your company.  The traditional way I have seen this done is through the local user groups associated with a particular type of computer system, so people get together from manufacturers, schools, banks, police, stores, public utility companies, and so forth, to discuss how to get the best value out of whatever computer system they all have in common, sometimes with tours of each other facilities to see the cool stuff they have implemented, and how it is done. 12:58:46 AM

Monday, August 26, 2002

I was just admiring Alison Fish's Glossary of Weblogging Jargon, and I sent her an e-mail defining some of the terms she planned to define some day, but had not yet posted there, and here comes someone else thinking about how to communicate these concepts. [Dixiblog] illustrates a problem with how some people fail to properly credit their sources. We see this a lot in humor forwarded by e-mail ... who was the original writer? [Ray Ozzie] wrote a great piece on how blogs are better than discussion forums. [High Context] commented on it. [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] commented on it thanks to [High Context] link. [Dixiblog] quoted this, but did not make clear which content was from [Ray Ozzie]  [High Context] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] Part of the problem is a lack of weblog standards for how best to show that. Many people, such as myself, are experimenting with some, but we not really happy yet. Can we learn from the Journalists profession? Another problem is that most people are linking not to the actual quoted area, but to the home page of the person who posted something, so we have to scroll down a bunch of pages to see what they are referring to. In other words we have people who are struggling to figure out how to use this technology, and in the process are making it a struggle for other users, like people on the public highways who are highway illiterate - they do not know what the double yellow line in middle of highway on a curve means, they do not know what the speed limit signage means, they just do their own thing, and the result is anarch. [Dixiblog] QUOTE blogs vs. discussion forums UNQUOTE [Dixiblog] actually the following statement was from [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] QUOTE On the difference between blogs and discussion forums.  (Al insert clarification: this is hyperlink to [Ray Ozzie] article) Some people do not seem to be able to get their heads around the difference between blogs and discussion forums. To my mind, although at a surface level they have some similarities - at a deeper level they are fundamentally different. There are two dimensions to their differences - the first the psychological dimension and the second the technology dimension. One of the major psychological differences is that you own your weblog - it is YOURS - and it represents a history of YOUR thinking - so you take pride in its ownership - something that does not make a lot of sense in a discussion forum. UNQUOTE [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] says this is from [Architecture Matters: The Rebirth of Public Discussion by] by [Ray Ozzie] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] QUOTE some interesting conversation on the blogging vs. discussing. but it doesn't seem to directly address the question of comments in blogs, although if you trace the source far back enough, maybe. UNQUOTE [Dixiblog] Well [Dixiblog] certainly illustrates how to cloud the topic of copyright by quoting someone and not crediting the fact of who is being quoted. As a person who has participated in Internet Forums, Discussion Groups, e-mail discussion, telephone tag, business meetings, team projects, and other attempts at a meeting of the minds, I see a progression of technology to help improve our ability to communicate effectively and in context.  Weblogging is to Discussion Groups what the Personal Auto is to The Horse and Buggy. Both the Personal Auto and The Horse and Buggy serve people as transportation. The horse has some sanitation problems, and it only goes so fast, but is inexpensive, and for those people who hate technology, totally natural. Both Weblogging and Discussion Groups serve people as communications. With discussion groups there are problems with context and agendas. We post something, and someone misconstrues what we said. We try to correct the misconception. Turns out that some people deliberately misunderstand everything you say because they want an arguement. You have to put up with those people as a cost of using the site. In both realities, if we make an honest mistake, someone can tell us and we can fix it. There is a concept of noise to signal ratio. Noise is these people who want arguements. Noise is when people ask a question that has been answered, so we answer it again. Noise is when person-A posts a bunch of stuff, then person-B is commenting on one element of person-A post, but instead of quoting just the context that they are commenting on, they quote the whole thing. Noise is today when I sent a post about the Scandal Map to a discussion group. It went to the discussion server which added a bunch of header info to the message. It went to one of the other people on the list, whose company has anti-virus software, which transcribed the message, adding a bunch of lines and replacing every one of my end of lines with its own characters. Then it went into the company's e-mail server, which added some stuff. Then it went into the e-mail client of this guy, which further messed it up. He forwarded the result to me which was absolutely garbage. For every line of text I had keyed, he got 5 lines of stuff. Noise is flames. Noise is when someone misquotes you by accident and then other people are on your case because they think you really said that bad stuff. Noise is when you have a discussion group for one purpose, and someone does not get it and we have a lot of off-topic posts. Signal is the good information that is new and interesting that you wanted to see. Most discussion groups have a high noise to signal ratio. Weblogging can also have a lot of noise getting in the way of signals, but it is much easier to tune out the noise with weblogging than with discussion groups. 11:28:49 PM

He's back [Russ Lipton Documents Radio] QUOTE I bought Eastgate's Tinderbox. This is a cool and extraordinarily powerful product. Mark Bernstein is another amateur. I want to use it. I want to master it. Honest. It could complement Radio/Frontier beautifully. But are there enough hours in the day? When it comes to those precious few hours, my real brainstorming returns to Radio and the notion of packaging a real book (online, natch) for ordinarily intelligent people getting into Radio for the first time - 180-200 pages? I will rework pages already done on this site and elsewhere and add another 100 pages ... with significantly more polish and care. UNQUOTE [Russ Lipton Documents Radio] 10:32:11 PM

[Radio Free Blogistan] QUOTE EPN World Reporter: Top Blogs. Here's someone's idea of some good blogs to check out. What interests me is this assertion: Further, the distinction between web diaries and web logs continues to become more blurred. Which, ultimately, makes for better reading. UNQUOTE [Radio Free Blogistan] How do we define top blogs?  Popularity, staying ahead of the crowd by dreaming up cute things to do, good writing? [EPN World Reporter] tackles some terminology.  QUOTES So long as the diary includes a healthy log of other sites and a log of events, it constitutes a blog. Writers’ web diaries could be described as the ultimate form of intellectual voyeurism. UNQUOTE Link to info about alleged time travelers. 10:29:36 PM

Radio Wishes: Pull on sides of Home Page Editing Box to make the size more harmonious, like I can do with many Windows Application boxes within boxes. When I have Posted something but not yet Published it, some icon flag color indication on my desk top editing area that tells me THAT post has not yet been published, or that it has been edited and posted, without the final version published yet.  Also put some counter near top of home editing area to remind me how many posts are in that condition. Top Command Menu include Categories.  Or perhaps make this a menu selection in the Cloud Links Status area down right side. When I click on it, would take me to something structured like Stories.  A chart of all my Categories, like the Categories Page. Calendar addition of a phrase to tell us which Category we navigating through. Use Calendar to navigate through posts to a particular Category post on a particular day, or that of the Home Page. When I learn how to have Navigator Links to my Categories, on right side below the Calendar, I would like an interconnection between Calendar and Categories. For example, suppose I am looking at Calendar for posts made to Home or a Category for Aug 20th.  I might want some icon to appear beside some other Categories to show that THEY also had some posts on THAT DAY. Or, suppose I am looking at Calendar for the month.  I might like some indication associated with individual days to show that there were posts those days for categories other than the home. Perhaps an expanded chart available that shows week horizontally and categories vertically and in the spread sheet intersections are links showing that for that day and that category there was one or more posts.  Click on the link to get to them. 12:34:22 PM

[Alison Fish of Blogfish] shared from [Seb's Open Research] Lessons learned from a large scale K-logging implementation. Most people don't like to write. We've had a difficult time designing interfaces that encourage adding information instead of just reading. There's no substitute for good, accessible writing. We have several people who write consistently for the system. The logs show that postings from one writer get far more attention and prompt far more linking than those from the other writers. " [Seb's Open Research] [Alison Fish of Blogfish] QUOTE I suspect that beginning bloggers and kloggers are often inhibited.. If we set up a k-logging community for our company intranet, I suspect there will be an initial _hump_ of hesitation among the employees. Maybe having a few designated posters at the beginning would ease the transition. Must think on this. UNQUOTE [Alison Fish of Blogfish] Al's suggestions Recruit co-workers who you think share your enthusiasm for the idea of having a KLOG on the company intranet, and would be good power users to serve as a kind of help desk and cheerleader squad when you launch it. With them, setup a system patterned on dws.Radio.FAQ model to discuss what needs resolution before implementing this, and inviting in the mass of users, so as to maximize odds of getting great value out of his project. Do so outside company intranet until you nailed down everything needed for implementation. That includes both technical know how and management approval. When management says Yes, they often expect results soon. So you use this outside discussion area to identify pre-requisites and get them resolved. Assuming you are the moderator Your team use a Category name like Radio Plot Twists which performs role like Radio Questions input to dws Your aggregation, like dws.Radio.FAQ, have name like The Plot Thickens Ask your co-workers if y"all want to invite into your discussion any non-employees from outside the firm Think Radio enthusiasts who have written relevant documentation Think other firms personnel trying to organize an company KLOG in which those people are not in competition with your company Just as dws has Topic headings like Radio Wishes Radio Tips Radio Questions Radio Alerts Your multi-author discussion would have its relevant Topic headings like Documentation and Tutorial Flow Chart of Learning Curve Topics that co-workers need to learn to be proficient in this. Will you want to host a seminar class to help people get up to speed Will you want to mirror some Radio documentation on your intranet Examples of KLOGS worth emulating Initially you just want anything that illustrates the concept Then you want some that are close to what you want for your company Implementation Challenges to Solve What OS does Radio Frontier etc. work on What OS are most heavily in use at your company People working from home PC and from work PC updating from either location Management Personnel Topics Distinct from documentation for users and Implementation issues This will eat some disk space and other resources There will be executives slow to accept some communication methods Everyone still needs to communicate with them by their preferred methods Paper, Fax, e-mail, whatever 12:15:47 PM

Sunday Topics: Copyright; Humor; Radio Education. Sunday Topics lost in Radio PC problems: Current Events, Deep Linking. Purpose of tracking this stuff is to Help navigate my overall site ... near each day break is directory of prior day topics. Help me work towards breaking up my stuff into categories. Help visitors see what I am into, before I learn better ways to communicate that. 11:06:29 AM

Sunday, August 25, 2002

I posted a piece Fri Aug 23 about improving how we present our weblog material, which Alison Fish commented further upon.  Steven Levy Has A Blog About Writing About Blogs. says [Ernie the Attorney] Steven suggests that we need to be more self displined about our categories, separating different kinds of writing: Sharing interesting links and insights. More or less original content. Pundit commentary on what we see in the news. UNQUOTE [Ernie the Attorney] from Steven Levy original source. For the moment, Al's focus is on separating stuff by type of subject content - computers, history, using this technology, etc. Another focus is trying to get away from habit of long essays that might have only limited interest to people. Aug 20 I showed what I am calling John Patrick's technique worth emulating, then I used it here and here. I need to get into the habit of using good techniques like this. [Alison Fish of Blogfish] QUOTE I love the three styles of weblog writing listed above. What would be really cool is to come up with a way of formatting the weblog posts that indicates which of the three types of posts it is (sharing link discoveries, original content, pundit commentary).  Oh, so much to do. Save this goal for a later date. UNQUOTE [Alison Fish of Blogfish] I like the original idea from Steven shared by Ernie, and I like Alison's suggestion also. Perhaps this is a template theme style topic. Elsewhere in Radio Wishes, I have noted that people can lose track of changes made to our Templates - a tweak here, a minor change there, then we are afraid to experiment with alternative Themes, or Radio upgrades, because of how they might conflict with our changes.  Well I want a net change tool.  Our Radio software knows what base theme we are using.  Radio Userland knows where that base theme is stored with the standard stuff that comes with it.  The net change tool would compare our template settings with the default settings for that theme, and place it in a special place as a form of backup.  We then try out alternative themes, against which we can apply all the changes that are sitting in our special place.  With this technique, we could then apply changes that are like themes and tools. Below our radio posting box there is a set of categories to check off WHERE this is to go. Above our ratio posting box there is a set of style control boxes. One place or the other, we need a new set of check off controls (I favor up top). This next text is a quote - please apply my style rules for quoted material. This next text is my original text - please apply my style rules for my original text. This next text is intended tongue in cheek - please adorn it with smiley faces. There would be a page in the preferences for us to select style rules from several suggested standards. 6:35:20 PM

V of TYR told me about Crop Circle Communications? 5:53:01 PM

I have a new theory for how come my Radio Weblog had a major melt down this weekend.  People have been inventorying which Congress Critters: Seem to be in favor of the Hollywood hacker virus legislation; Have accepted campaign contributions from Hollywood lobbyists; Are coming up for re-election; Have opposing candidates who are pro-Internet. Tara Grubb is getting support because of this. Her weblog is getting a lot of hits by pro-Internet people. I had link to her weblog on mine but that was one of the things lost in the melt down. Hmm, I wonder if Hollywood had anything to do with that. They probably did not like my remark about Horse and Buggy Entertainment Industry. From now on, when my PC has problems, Hollywood is added to the list of suspects. 5:49:20 PM

[Ernie the Attorney] QUOTE By the way, his article is copyrighted.  That means you can read it, examine the ideas, and discuss them with your friends.  You can't reproduce his words in any significant part without permission from him.  That's the way copyright works.  Pretty much only he is allowed to make money off of his words, but you can examine them if you'd like. UNQUOTE [Ernie the Attorney] Do we need enhanced multi-author derivative copyrights?  Here are some cases to illustrate my meaning. A non-profit club newsletter is copyrighted.  After publication, copyrights revert to individual authors.  How is someone to know that is the situation if they want to reprint something?  Safety is to see permission from both individual article writer and editor publisher. Similar situation with Internet discussion group.  You want to reprint something, and keep it legal.  Is the copyright that of the individual person who posted what you want to reprint, or the owner moderator of the discussion.  Like the club newsletter, it appears shared.  This is obvious when there are multiple people writing into the discussion you want to reprint.  Copyright is shared by all the contributors. There are many analogies in other kinds of copyrighted material. Someone creates a copyrighted work. Second person adds to it. The addition is also copyrighted. You cannot use the second piece without also using the first piece. Examples Software Package or structure developed. Additional programmers add additional features to the core application. End users can't use the new features independently of the original art. They can run the original without the new features, but they want the enhancements. Original package can compete better in the market place, if it is enhancement-friendly. In other words, the original copyright holder makes things easy for people to improve the product. Music or Poetry May other people add verses beyond what the original artist composed? The original artist might think some parody demeans their work. Original artist may demand approval before add on person's stuff is published. Game Design purchased by many enthusiasts who meet to play and discuss. Some players add new rules, scenarios, variants to enhance their enjoyment. They publish their suggested improvements and try out other people's ideas. Part of the fun of the game is figuring out how to grow it from the basic original. Fact Essay Commentary, more opinions by other people. May in fact be hostile counter point to original author. Novel creates a set of characters in a universe or reality. Another author writes a sequel. I think the new author needs permission from whoever created the story universe. Not copyright law, but publishers seeking to avoid any lawsuits. Compare result of rules imposed by original copyright owner on people who would add to their software creation worlds. Microsoft is somewhat Open to anyone writing any software that will run on their Operating Systems, but it is Open Season on what will continue to work.  In any future MS upgrade, surprise, MS changed the standards, now something that worked on the old MS version does not work on the new, and it may be that only parts of an application got broke.  So for the end users, things are fragile, and we do not know why collisions are occurring between parts of our PC software.  For the developers in the MS world, it is like quicksand, the foundations, that you build your applications upon, are at risk of collapsing under you without warning. IBM is somewhat Open to anyone writing any software that will run on their Operating Systems, but IBM imposes rigid standards.  IBM guarantees to their customers that any software written by an approved vendor will not break their computer.  Everything will run fine, or we will fix it (IBM and the software vendor), guaranteed.  What is an approved vendor?  One that obeys IBM's standards. Now there are vendors out there that break IBM's standards.  IBM warns its customers.  If you install that vendor's stuff on your IBM computer, then your IBM contract is null and void.  If it breaks, we won't fix it, unless you agree to have that vendor's stuff removed from the computer. Do new upgrades of IBM operating systems drop support for stuff that was in earler versions.  Yes, but they announce in advance to their approved vendors what aspects are going away, so that the vendors know what to re-write, and the customers are given a list of what will no longer work, so they have choice of not doing the upgrade, or replacing the software. It is a different world, and it is governed by the behavior of the original copyright owner, within framework of what the government allows, to permit other developers to add to their worlds, and set rules for the additions. 2:03:03 PM

I have Re Published the whole site, and republished pieces.  My half dozen posts and additions are not coming back.  Radio Education lesson from this seems clear: If I key something in, and I see the post in the Desk Top editor, print a reference copy, so that if it subsequently disappears, I have ammunition to help me with later reconstruction if desired. 1:47:59 PM

Warning - this post is extremely geeky stuff related to something that went wrong that I am trying to figure out if it is fixable. Sigh, Microsoft IE lost connection to my Radio site, which is not unusual thanks to quality of PC software and Internet connection sometimes blips out and does not reconnect, so I ended IE session, exited Radio, rebooted PC, and now I find that I have also lost the last half dozen posts, including tons of links on humor, ASCII art, my revised home office info (what's there is a shell of what I had posted through rewrites), deep linking news, approx 3 pages worth in which I did not print a copy of all that I had done.  I wonder if it lost my updates to Radio documentation, since I had added half a dozen links wee hours of Sat Sun to additional sources.  Well that looks intact - I have 21 different places, including the latest additions: Alison Fish; Mark Pilgrim; Phil Wolff. Saturday Topics (before the big loss) included: Al (me), ASCII art and e-pictures in place of 1 k words, copyright, e-organization. The week's topics (before the big loss) that I had posted on multiple days of the week, included: copyright, current events, history, humor, great links, e-law, e-organization, radio education.  Sunday Topics lost included: Deep Linking news, English language grotesque humor, history, interesting sites that I had found through blog surfing, the latter was just Posted, not Published, since I though I might find some other entries before finalizing that post.  Of extreme annoyance is that I had e-mailed some people about the fact that I had posted reviews of their sites that I was waiting on them to upstream, and now that stuff is part of what is missing. I looked in Scott Johnson's http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/stories/2002/08/20/scottsRadioRadioExposedOrIDelveDeepUnderTheHoodOfRadio.html to try to figure out where the stuff might be that I could cut and paste what is missing before it is totally lost.  Well what I am seeing is not the way he is illustrating it.  But I do not know for sure if my problem is the same one he is describing.  I am finding a bunch of items in the root that it thinks were posted 8/25 except I am not seeing them on my site.  I need to Open Radio -> Radio -> Re Publish entire site and cross my fingers.  I suspect this will take a while to execute, since I am using 2% of my 40 Meg.  Since I have lost stuff and rekeyed it multiple times in the past, I wonder if the lost posts will now be duplicated here.  Sigh. Well I went through that process and it hasn't fixed anything.  I sure could have used some kind of progress indicator that was more meaningful than alternating time periods of hour glass vs. arrow for my mouse pointer.  Call that another Radio Wish.  Event log shows TCP/IP error code 10054, so it is possible it never finished the job. 2002-08-25 root shows Radio: 01 has 5 items; 02 has 21 items.  I wish I knew how to read this stuff.  I suspect there is some way to recover the missing posts.  I wonder if 01 is for 1 am, 2 for 2 am etc.  Window Weblog Data Root ... I looked through those and found several patterns, 136 was last one for 8/23, 137-140 were posts for 8/24, 141 is 8/25.  I had a Microsoft Blue Screen of Death while exploring this stuff.  Just my luck.  I'll try another reboot then Open Radio -> Radio Re Publish just this month. 2:05:16 AM

Saturday, August 24, 2002

Al's new hovel sweet hovel furniture for the PC corner is now scheduled for delivery Fri Aug 30, which means everything will get disconnected for at least a day.  The furniture guy is also a PC guru, who I connected with through what once upon a time might have been called the old guy network, but it was actually a couple of sweet ladies who told me about him. For my new e-friends who are unfamiliar with my hovel sweet hovel, I owe much of the arrangement to ideas suggested by one of those ladies, Patricia Thurman, who is one of those people gifted with things totally outside my world of literature and the Internet. I have a one bedroom apartment in which the living room has been renamed Al's library.  Down the middle, back to back are 4 sets of sturdy book cases (actually 8 sets), each with 5 shelves and more stuff on very top, with halogen lamps reflecting off the white ceiling. 9:35:16 PM

Friday's Topics were: Copyright; Integrity; e-Organization. 9:26:56 PM

Remember Aug 21 scandal map link?  Well in linking to Larry's other adjacent posts, it seems evident to me that he originally got this from Mark Poyser, and incidentally, Mark's site is also well worth exploring to see other great cartoons, with some guidance on how to print this stuff.  When it was originally copied, the copyright credit should also have been copied, or more clearly stated, a scenario which may need to be better spelled out in my e-Etiquette Guidelines.  In addition to the great cartoons on Mark's other pages, don't forget to check out  Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow's Blog, which I found out about thanks to an article by Steve Outing.  You know how a picture is worth a thousand words?  Well there are people who are gifted in communicating using the pictures rather than the 1 k words, and I want to find and rejoice in more such examples of how software can be used to better fulfill the promise of GUI, which Xerox invented and Apple Mac popularized and now is almost a PC standard.  Click on any door or window of Pam's house, then when you see what she has done, start mouse exploring the whole page for other links.  Be sure to return from time to time, because the picture changes with the time of day and seasons of year. I have a Radio Wish Dream of how computer software documentation could use Pam's model.  You see a picture of a Radio website populated with all the goodies.  Move mouse over individual ingredients and there are links that work differently based on right or left mouse click, that connect you to right terminology for this feature, documentation on conceptually how it might be used, and how to implement it on your site. 8:40:38 PM

Stories added to Al's weblog, off the home page, include: Blind of NH Raw stuff about e-Accessibility and plain old Accessibility. Tons of links for folks interested in helping resolve Accessibility problems.