Al Macintyre: My Friends and Family

Sun, 05 Jan 2003 18:49:03 GMT

I have been swamped at my day job the last couple weeks, and expect situation to continue for immediate future.

Sun, 22 Dec 2002 08:24:08 GMT

[Bob Morris: The Politics of Water] QUOTE

New El Niño deluge coming to Southern California

Wetter, stormier winter predicted

A stronger-than-expected El Niño system will bring wetter and stormier winter weather to parched Southern California -- possibly even a repeat of the deadly rains of a decade ago, forecasters said Thursday.

The last time L.A. had a serious El Niño, we nearly floated away. The infrastructure of L.A. was not designed with heavy rains in mind. Storm drains are inadequate, streets flood, homes are perched precariously on steep hillsides and vulnerable to mudslides. Streets in the canyons are narrow and twisty and can be difficult to negotiate in heavy rains. Plus, when it rains here, it really rains.

As for a deluge of rain helping our drought. Nope, all our water comes from hundreds of miles away, rainfall here matters not...

UNQUOTE [Bob Morris: The Politics of Water]

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 08:09:43 GMT

I started post here today with my idea for e Bounty Hunting of spammers, virus creators, and other e-unwanteds.

Sun, 08 Dec 2002 08:12:47 GMT

Latest story on my weblog is simply named Macintyre, to help clarify who I am and who I am not.

Mon, 25 Nov 2002 21:29:24 GMT

Picture of Al Macintyre posted to Ryze, for those of you who are interested in what I look like. This was taken in 1998, me at my PC hutch before the PC upgrade, and before my recent furniture alterations, but it is a fiar representation. I use the milk cartons to store papers because you can stack them, and see through the sides what in there, much better than the cartons that computer paper comes in.

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 04:24:02 GMT

85% of young adult Americans don't know where Iraq is. A survey commissioned and published by National Geographic shows that a large majority of young Americans between the age of 18-24 are geographically illiterate. Less than 15% of the subjects could locate Iraq or Israel on a map. Only 17% could locate Afghanistan, even though the survey was carried out after the war. 11% could not locate the U.S. on a map. [kuro5hin.org]

What percentage of people believe

the world is flat?
in UFOs?
everything they see on the Internet?
in forwarded e-mail?
on TV?
in advertisements?

How do such percentages compare to earlier generations?

What percentage of the population is functionally literate?

Define functionally literate ... like is ability to fill out a job application good enough?

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 20:16:33 GMT

[Blogfish] QUOTE

Earth 911. How cool is this:

[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog] QUOTE

"Chris Warner on Citizens and Community. Chris Warner is the Founder and CEO of Earth 911. He is serving as the raconteur for this afternoon's last session. Earth 911 is a web site that gives people information customized to their zip code on where to recycle, what local water quality issues are, etc. The site functions in cooperation with all 50 states in a public/private partnership. The site uses a GET for queries and so its results are linkable. Here is the information customized for my neighborhood."
UNQUOTE [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

[Blogfish]

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 20:08:39 GMT

I started a story on Identity Protection, which collects various ideas on what to do to minimize our risk of someone stealing our credit, and what should be done after an incident, beyond the standard advice.

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 23:03:10 GMT

Over 70% of Hoosiers are non-smokers. This means that a shocking 30% smoke, so we need to think how best to help non-smokers without being too nasty towards our smoking brethern. Americans for Nonsmoker's Rights www.no-smoke.org might disagree with my view. For me, I consider second hand smoke in my face to be as rude and hostile as if I was to piss in the face of a smoker to put it out. But a civilized society needs ways for different cultural interests to co-exist peacefully. Phillip Morris and Monitoring the Future (see links below) indicate that nationwide, perhaps 30% of high school students start smoking.

http://www.smokefreecommunities.org/ is a site, where I live, in Evansville Indiana where you can order a guide to area restaurants that honor a principle of providing smoke free eating. Previously most area restaurants did not get it ... they adjust what part of the restaurant is smoke free, and what part is for smokers based on smoking popularity, irrespective of what an area was previously used for, or which way the airconditioner is blowing the air around. This guide is in essence a directory of restaurants where no smoker is allowed to light up inside.

Stickers are supplied that we can stick on the bill we pay at some other restaurant saying we'd come there more often if in fact it was smoke free.

Allegedly second hand smoke is a leading contributor to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome ... I had a younger brother who died of that, and yes, one of my parents was a heavy smoker. Second hand smoke kills approx 53,000 Americans each year. I have a hard time believing the number is that high.

For related sites and topics, check out

www.cancer.org
www.americanheart.org
www.americanlegacy.org
www.ama-assn.org/smokelessstates
www.lungusa.com
Warning: www.thetruth.com site color combination and design is extremely hostile for older eyes, but some younger people like this kind of thing.
www.who.int World Health Organization http://tobacco.who.int/
www.iarc.fr International Agency for Research on Cancer
www.fda.gov US Food and Drug Administration
www.ftc.gov US Federal Trade Commission
www.cdc.gov/tobacco US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
www.epa.gov US Environmental Protection Agency
Campaign for www.tobaccofreekids.org Allegedly Big Tobacco advertising is still targeting kids, and was successful in the year 2002 in getting 641,571 kids to become regular smokers, and counting.
www.tcsg.org/tobacco.htm Tobacco-Free Older Persons
www.tobaccocontrol.cancer.gov links to research and its results: health risks, changing people behavior, treating victims of dependence, smokeless tobacco FAQ
www.ash.org.uk Action on Smoking and Health
www.nci.nih.gov National Cancer Institute
www.smokefreeindiana.com and http://www.smokefreeteens.org/ are links to recent news stories of interest to people seeking smoke free environments for children growing up.
www.uwci.org/nptrainib.htm United Way of Central Indiana workshops
www.in.gov/atc Alcohol and Tobacco regulations in Indiana
www.in.gov/cji/drug/index.htm Indiana Governor's Criminal Justice effort to curb behavioral problems from drug abuse
www.in.gov/isdn Indiana Dept of Health
www.imhc.org Indiana's Minority Health Coalition
www.voice.tv Youth speak out against Big Tobacco
http://ctb.fsi.ukans.edu Community Toolbox for Kansas Community Health
www.nlcatp.org Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention
www.whitelies.tv Big Tobacco has lied about what smoking costs Indiana, and what you can do about it.
www.itpc.in.gov Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation
- links http://www.in.gov/itpc/resources.asp
www.tobacco.org discussion group
www.monitoringthefuture.org is an interesting site.
- This is an ongoing study of the behaviors attitudes and values of American school children, through surveys of some 50,000 kids a year. There are links here to studies in recent years, such as how pervasive different drug use is among our younsters. How bad is alcohol abuse, how pervasive are illegal drugs, is substance abuse getting better or worse? There is also a link to a similar study on kids in Europe.
www.phillipmorrisusa.com is an interesting site.
- Looks to me like sometimes the site has been assaulted and we need to call 1-877-PMUSA.WEB for the non-Internet version.
- They claim both to make good quality tobacco products for adults who choose to smoke, and be a fountain of reliable information on the serious health effects of smoking, and how to talk to your kids about not smoking.
- Check their cigarette smoking and disease link for a connection to the US Surgeon General's report on what is known about the relationship between smoking and breast cancer. My mom died of this. I suspect stress also had a lot to do with it.
- Check their addiction link for connections to FDA statements on the topic.

For people who smoke and want to try to kick the habit, check out

www.icanquit.org

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 22:16:52 GMT

I take e-Mode tests occasionally just for fun, and sometimes for the goosebumps they give me when seemingly innocent questions lead to answers that I can identify with. There is some wisdom here. Warning, the Inkblot test has some content unsuidable for children. Here's what my results were: (QUOTE)

Alister, your unconscious mind is driven most by Peace

People who have unconscious minds driven by peace tend to be independent thinkers who often prefer to live by their own high personal standards and moral code.

This is just one small piece of how your unconscious mind can affect you in your daily life.

You are driven by a higher purpose than most people. You have a deeply-rooted desire to facilitate peacefulness in the world. Whether through subtle interactions with love ones, or through getting involved in social causes, it is important to you to influence the world.

You are driven by a desire to encourage others to think about the positive side of things instead of focusing on the negative. The reason your unconscious is consumed by this might stem from an innate fear of war and turmoil. Thus, to avoid that uncomfortable place for you, your unconscious seeks out the peace in your environment.

Usually, the thing that underlies this unconscious drive is a deep respect for humankind. You care about the future of the world, even beyond your own involvement in it. As a result, your personal integrity acts as a surrogate for your deeper drive toward peace and guides you in daily life towards decisions that are respectful toward yourself and others.

(UNQUOTE)

Fri, 15 Nov 2002 19:03:31 GMT

Topic: Spam = Unwanted e-mail advertising

USA Today and my local newspaper Computer Business Pages have different stories on recent FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) efforts to protect consumers from inappropriate use of unsolicited e-mail, but not from the majority of this unwanted stuff. Spam is not illegal in the USA federal laws, although it is illegal in a dozen states, but efforts are being made to get rid of those laws. It is a continuing battle between interests that want more spam, and people who want less.

The newspaper stories that I link you to above, include information on those industry associations of spammers that are fighting to legalize much more spam into our e-mailboxes, and make it more difficult for us to filter it out. It is estimated that almost 1/2 of the e-mail today is spam, and the FTC has testified to Congress that the growth in fraudulent spam threatens to undermine consumer confidence in online commerce. Consider for example the 1-900 technology, which had great promise, but its abuse by unscrupulous marketers destroyed all public credibility.

This year the FTC ran a test called Spam Harvest in which they setup 250 e-mail accounts that were posted various kinds of places, 175 in all, in association with expressed interests, then they monitored how fast those accounts got spam and of what kinds. They found that it did not matter what you allegedly interested in, you likely to get spam across the spectrum of topics being advertised.

For example, e-mail addresses posted to sites for children, generated

38% of the spam was suitable for adults only
24% was work-at-home offers
10% was for hallucinogenic drugs

As a result of this FTC investigation, they sent warnings to 100 spammers informing them that their messages were fraudulent or deceptive under federal trade laws, while charges were brought against 4 spammers whose messages were designed to induce consumers to turn over personal financial information, thinking it was going to legitimate financial institutions, or other similar schmes.

Chat rooms generate the most spam the fastest.
News Groups and Web pages are close behind.
86% of e-mail accounts planted above were spammed.
Free Personal Web pages, such as weblogs, that placed e-mail addresses in plain sight. Those e-mail addresses became spammed 50% of the time. There is a lesson there to webloggers.
27% of e-mail addresses posted to message board discussion groups got spammed.
9% of e-mail addresses on e-mail service directories were spammed.

Past posts on related information:

Beware of Spam Cop Abuse
Computer Security (Al rules of thumb)
Embedded Chips (in our bodies) benefit risk trade-offs
How To Get Better Laws (in Europe)
How To Stop Identity Theft (in any civilized nation)
How To Stop Phone Spam (in Indiana)
Risk Management
Urban Legends
Viruses and Hoaxes
We are the weakest link (humans in general)

Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:45:57 GMT

I have added Stop Identity Theft which has my proposed solution to a problem that causes grief to far too many people today.

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 10:14:00 GMT

This month I have continued to update many of my stories. Those with the most additions and updates are shown below with links to the respective stories. The most volume of recent input to my stories categorized here as NEW A B C D.

Alternate Realities - This Science Fiction Topic has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging how-to. Here I basically try to explain the Games Dimension, with a few movies, and I plan to do books later. This is NEW in the last few days. It could well be that this concept is so alien for some people, that it is as difficult to explain to newbies as it is to do documentation for weblogging.
Blog Books - still stands at a dozen choices - I have now got my hands on a couple of them, and I have inserted brief overviews of what their contents are all about. C
Blog Money = a few more ideas. D
Blog Software directory - I have not added much in the way of new links to software providers, but rather most of my recent additions have been expanding details about what each has to offer that is different, and links to more info. A
Blog Software Types - this is a NEW story (2 pages long) started today, supplementing my Blog Software directory, by helping understand the fundamental differences that are out there - off-site / on-line / Radio mixture, and stating major advantages and disadvantages with each kind.
BPCS Doc Sources - This has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging. BPCS is the ERP at my day job. Documentation Sources is a recurring hot topic in some discussion groups, so I thought I would create something conceptually similar to Radio Doc Sources, and this is a NEW story (8 pages so far) built up this weekend.
Link Services is a story that I started last month, and periodically been adding to, with respect to syndicating your weblog. D
Heaven Dimension - This Science Fiction Theology has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging how-to. I have been a long time Science Fiction fan of Alternate Realities and I came across a depiction of Religion in a novel that I thought was extremely well done, although to some people this might seem a rather controversial notion. NEW
Radio Doc Sources - directory of links to different people who supply documentation for Radio users ... just a little amount added so far this month. D
Radio Start = a few more links for beginners. D
Search Engine Tips - this keeps growing with links to cool things we can get from different sites. C
Understand Radio Categories = additional nuances. C
Understand Radio News Aggregation got a major rewrite expansion (now 6 pages), to clarify some jargon and concepts that had not previously been spelled out in what I thought was a satisfactory manner. I am now making heavy use of analogies, comparing aspects of this to how TV News shares the headlines. A
Understand Radio Referers - periodically I add additional nuances to this big picture. D

Wed, 06 Nov 2002 19:16:39 GMT

[kuro5hin.org] has started a discussion in which the comments are worth studying because of lots of great links.

Common Errors in English. When writing the most cut and dry articles everyday, one must express that the more importantly exact same phrases as to not encounter dilemmas. Ain't it a shame that you can't find a guide while surfing the internet to help with the problem of grammatical errors? UNQUOTE by Frank Crist at [kuro5hin.org]

The usage guide link above is to something compiled by Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University in Pullman, WA.
Apostrophe Guide
bartleby.com
Economist Style Guide.
Greenrd's Law: Every post disparaging someone else's spelling or grammar, or lauding one's own spelling or grammar, will inevitably contain a spelling or grammatical error.
Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Style
Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Usage and Style
Plurals Guide
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 19:12:27 GMT

I have started a Heaven Dimension story which may be of interest to Science Fiction fans who are not deeply religious, which explores God's dimension within the context of SF's Alternate Realities genre' of Time Travel.

Thu, 31 Oct 2002 21:39:24 GMT

Al's Water Bed

I have enjoyed sleeping in this water bed now for over 30 years.
I am now in the midst of the 3rd incident of a leak. Each time I am somewhat in a mental fog how to cope.
This is intolerable and needs to be resolved, but I not sure what the heck to do.

I am not sure how long this situation has existed.
When I went to bed last nite, I imagined I had cold feet - I now suspect that I had wet feet and was too sleepy to realize that was the case.
When I answered the phone this morning (FOP asking for a donation to help them buy toys for underprivileged kids this Christmas season) I realized I was wet, and upon examination, determined that all around the OUTSIDE of the waterbed, was dirty water that had seeped into the bedclothes

My mind was a blank on how to get the flow started to drain from water bed to drain to bathtub.
I sucked on the air end of the hose and damn near vomited.
Fortunately maintenance was working on the door bell for apartment complex so I asked them for help but situation now is that seepage was removed between bed and liner, a trickle has come out of the bed, and there is seepage again between bed and liner, and I need to be thinking about
when leave apartment - do I leave it pretending to drain or what
I was planning to
pay rent etc.
heading into work whenever & leave it in what condition when I am gone from apartment

The leak seems to be very slow compared to past memories of dripping to carpet below ... I run my hand over carpet and not finding damp spots, but I run my hand under the water bed and it is damp there, so I am going to leave it doing its trickle out, try to sleep on it tonite very carefully which will increase the rate of trickle out I hope, and check around town for Waterbed places for what kind of service available and pricing on replacement.

I have no idea where the leak is.
I figure I will need to hit the water bed stores and educate myself as to what the cost is to replace this vs. whether any of them are able to help me find the leak and repair it.
Paperwork that I have tells me it is better to repair the leak without draining the bed, but I have no idea where the leak is.
I also figure there is the sheer age of the thing.
These water beds cannot last to infinity

The local yellowpages say Waterbed is all one word, and lists 4 dealers in town for me to visit to see if they can fix this, and what the pricing is on replacing, and also review what kinds of features now available that were not part of state-of-art the last time I needed something. The reason I not have a REGULAR bed is because I am a BIG obese person, who has demolished several regular beds in past times

Bedland at 521 South Green River (the river at my house is greyish brown)
Bernie Moll in Mount Vernon
Big Sur Waterbeds 1335 North Green River (I vaguely remember this place - I think they swam to a new location)
www.CrazyLarrys.com at 5310 e Morgan

Sun, 27 Oct 2002 07:53:44 GMT

Web-to-Braille gateway. HotBraille is a webform-to-Braille gateway. Enter a message and a postal address, and HotBraille will convert your message to Braille and send it to your recipient. Link Discuss (Thanks, John!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Don't forget Blind of NH story.

Sat, 26 Oct 2002 18:04:52 GMT

What I personally fear the most about embedded chips is that

If having this chip makes it easier to find someone who has been kidnapped, then at the same time, having this chip makes it easy for would-be kidnappers to find their victims, chop out the chip from the body, and leave it with a ransom note, so that when the rescuers zoom in on the chip, they find what the kidnappers want them to find. Also kidnappers can browse info about people in a crowd, to match up someone easy to seize with someone who is worth seizing, on the basis of what the embedded chip tells them, when they look up the code number.
Some institutions will begin to require that their employees or customers have this embedded chip as part of their security system.
Potential crooks will think the embedded chip is the only thing they need for access to the facility.
Humans will be assaulted for the purpose of chopping off whatever part of their anatomy is thought to contain the chip, so that the crook can then use a human arm with an embedded chip as the key to try to unlock access to whatever facility they want to break into.
- At one college, it is your thumb that the thieves will want to chop off. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,53912,00.html http://www.vortex.com/privacy.html
It is bad enough now that crooks want to steal my wallet, or break into my home and steal property from me, or steal my identity, but with this technology, future crooks will want to chop off part of my body.

Wired Articles on Privacy:
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,55999,00.html

The initial version of the VeriChipID is the size of a grain of rice. http://www.adsx.com/prodservpart/verichip.html It needs to be activated by a scanner. It gives a code number, that when looked up in a data base, gives whatever info the wearer has decided will be in that data base. However, much more advanced versions are in the pipeline, such as Digital Angel, which combines Global Positioning (GPS) system and monitoring service, to help keep track of people with certain medical conditions, school children, where the legal system needs to keep track of them, and potential kidnap victims. Sex Offenders are branded for life in some states, but not yet with this chip. Perhaps some Catholic Priests need to have the Mark of the Beast added to their anatomy, so parents can scan child care providers before entrusting their children to their care.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50004,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,55740,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54604,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53075,00.html

Remember Lojack? http://www.lojack.com/ This is a system used to help the police locate stolen vehicles, that have had Lojack installed in advance. Depending on how large Lojack is, and how obvious it is to thieves who might want to remove it during the theft, before the theft is discovered, some people might want this installed on other products of value ... would it interfere with the operation of a computer for example?

Well what we are talking about here is a similar concept embedded in human bodies.

A similar chip has been embedded into pets so animal shelters can identify the owners. Three different companies market these devices. There is some controversy over whether the technology works as advertised.

http://www.gcn.com/archives/sl/1997/November/desk.htm

Several versions of this product, from several companies, are being marketed in Latin America with an GPS that keeps track of where the person is, who has the chip. This can help locate people who have been kidnapped, before the kidnappers remove the chip from their bodies, and it can also be used by kidnappers to help them find their kidnap victims. Kidnapping is big business in South America, and the US State Dept has a travel warning on Columbia due to this. A politician in Brazil has volunteered to be chipped, to demonstrate how safe it is to the people. The capital of Brazil is also the kidnapping capital of Brazil.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52253,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50004,00.html

http://travel.state.gov/colombia_warning.html

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50435,00.html

Wherify makes a bracelet that parents can lock onto children wrists, to allegedly track their physical movement, and their Internet travels, to allegedly keep the children safe, until a kidnapper removes the bracelet. http://www.wherifywireless.com/corp_home.htm If the child strays, does not report in when supposed to, the parents can use the internet to identify the child GPS signal on the map.

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54604,00.html If the child encounters a situation he or she has been trained to deal with, like a stranger making certain claims, the child can punch a 911 button to send an alert to the police that is GPS linked. The device can also send out a police alarm if someone tries to forceably remove it, so obviously the criminals have a bit of work cut out for them to jam the signal before they do the removal. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55731,00.html

However, the technology exists such that the parents could have software continuously checking on where the child is in transit, to make a little map of all the places the children have been to, and the speed of transition (implying when in a vehicle in excess of speed limit).

There is a big controversy over what the FDA has to say on the subject, with representatives of Applied Digital Solutions site/ad http://www.adsx.com/ mentioned in the article, claiming that different FDA have been telling them contradictory stories.

I have a hard time believing that the Applied Digital Solutions chip was accurately depicted to FDA personnel who told Applied Digital Solutions that this chip did not need FDA approval, if the company proceeded in a certain way in their advertising claims and statements to the media, because Section 201 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, implants and other devices that "affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" require government approval. http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/fdcact/fdctoc.htm Any foreign object inside human body, for any length of time, has the potential to impact that human's well being, and thus must have FDA approval. Many implants, that have no medical purpose, come under FDA regulation.

However, it is clear from news reports that someone at the FDA did in fact approve the Applied Digital Solutions chip, but not 100%. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55952,00.html

Perhaps we want to invest in Applied Digital Solutions, as there are sure to be lots of people who will want to buy the product, without taking the risks seriously, but suppose there is law suit thanks to major abuse? Be ready to sell the stock real fast. Applied Digital Solutions is also in the news because of conflicts with their auditors, which puts them at risk of being in violation of their restructured loan with IBM Global Credit.

http://www.wired.com/news/ipo/0,1350,52499,00.html

FDA = http://www.fda.gov/ = Food and Drug Administration

Hearing Aids, Contact Lenses, Tattoos, surely are less intrusive on our bodies than embedded chips, but they are in fact covered by FDA regulations. Something does not compute here.
Anything we eat is covered by FDA regulations, with a large chunk of the food chain from agriculture also covered, and packaging of Halloween candy to give to kids
Any medicine we take is covered by FDA regulations
Vitamin Pills and alternative medicine covered by FDA regulations
Medical tools in the home like thermometer or blood pressure measure or know if pregnant are covered by FDA
Chemicals placed on our bodies, like cosmetics, ointments, anti-mosquito repellant, sun tan, you name it, is covered by FDA
Products that emit radiation, are covered by FDA regulations, such as Cell Phones, Lasers, Microwave Ovens, Personal Computers ... but somehow this embedded chip in our bodies which is connected by radio to GPS to track who we are and where we are, is to be exempted from FDA regulations. I have a hard time believing this story.
Safety of nation's blood supplies, from say West Nile or AIDS, is covered by FDA
On-line medicine and imported treatments covered by FDA
Bioterrorism information from FDA web site

FDA Investigator's Concern about potential health risks to humans from having this chip embedded in their bodies:

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55626,00.html

The Jacobs family in Florida got a lot of publicity when they got chipped,

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3372523,00.html

then a week later the FDA announced that it was investigating the company, and as a result NASDAQ temporarily put trading of Applied Digital Solutions on hold.

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384927,00.html

Apparently, during a press briefing of the implications of what had happened with the Jacobs family in Florida, Applied Digital Solutions representatives spoke of the chip being linked to FDA compliant medical data base. The FDA says it is illegal to use the FDA name in such a way that it sounds to be an endorsement of any product.

Any company, that is marketing products that might have government approval implications for some aspects of their products, ought to have its marketing department briefed by appropriate lawyers with respect to what you can say and what you ought not say. It sure sounds like Applied Digital Solutions is not following that safety protocol, which so far has resulted in a whole series of foot in mouth incidents that will probably eventually cost the company millions of dollars in fines, lawsuits, and lost business. I can only conclude that either Applied Digital Solutions management is extremely inexperienced, or deliberately taking serious chances because they think the publicity and scandals will help them much more than any damage.

Additional Links to stories about the Jacobs family.

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384209,00.html

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384016,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,50187,00.html

I have not been following this story in detail, so it is not clear to me what the precise sequence of events are. The news media seems to be implying that of Applied Digital Solutions tried to put something over on the FDA, and the FDA either fell for some of it, or we are already seeing abuses.

Remember Lindows, where that company clicked I agree that everyone has to click to get a product, then in their advertising claimed a relationship that the I agree vendor felt was excessive and sued to have them stop saying that? Well the FDA has a similar gripe, and they are not the only place with gripes.

Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions asked the FDA what they had to do to avoid needing FDA approval, then after FDA told them, they both violated that understanding, and advertised that they had government approval to market the thing. Here is another example of where Applied Digital Solutions actions have triggered a storm of media controversy ... was it deliberate or by mistake?

It sounds to me that if the FDA told them what they had to do to avoid needing FDA approval for the device, and if they complied with those conditions, then they did in fact have government approval from the FDA, and the only problem would be with how they phrased it.

Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions asked various hospitals if they would be willing to provide this chip as a service. 12 hospitals said they interested in exploring what's involved. Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions then claimed the 12 hospitals were now offering the service. http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384209,00.html

This sounds to me to be very sloppy business practice, or outright attempt at fraud, another example of where Applied Digital Solutions actions triggered a storm of media controversy ... was it deliberate or by mistake?

FDA Spokesperson Claim that so long as no medical information is involved in this tracking of human beings, it is not subject to FDA regulation. It is Ok to have it connected to a medical data base, and it is Ok for people to use it to save them in medical emergencies, but so long as the device itself is not gathering medical information about the person it is embedded in, it is not subject to FDA approval.

http://www.newsday.com/ny-fdachip0406.story?coll=ny-homepage-more-breaking-news

The Executive Director of the New York ACLU says that this has enormous potential for benefits at the same time as enormous potential for abuse. I agree with both.

Potential benefit and abuse at the same time

National Identity

Potential benefits

Similar to medical alert bracelet ... you wheeled into hospital unconscious, and this thing tells medical professionals what you would have told them had you been conscious, about your medical allergies for example.
Your child is kidnapped, and assuming the kidnappers don't have one of these scanners to locate and destroy the chip and injure your child in the process, the police use GPS to find your child.
Alzheimer's patients who may get lost.
Some felon is supposed to report to authorities regularly, out on bond, or on parole, but of course this only works for criminals who lack the desire to cut up their own bodies to remove the thing. http://www.ptm.com/
Article listing benefits and claiming no risk to privacy. I do not believe the latter claim. http://www.techtv.com/siliconspin/features/story/0,23008,3375490,00.html The article claims that the data bases will be protected using the full state of art, but I know from past experience and education that the state of art is full of holes. Plus, there are various risks I talk about elsewhere in this post.

Potential abuses

Many concerns stated above, such as the risk to having our arm chopped off if the chip is used for something really critical access, such as security key to get into a facility that terrorists or criminals desire to get into.
You walking, minding your own business. Someone scans you, gets your code #s, looks up the data base, and pretty soon there is in your face advertising, tailored to the contents of your data base.
Suppose you win the lottery. A kidnapper could use the chip to locate your child. Start off by searching the internet for info about you, to determine what kids you have and what the code numbers are of any chips in them, then use portable scanners to look at kids in your neighborhood to see which one has the chip for the parent that just got wealthy.
Go through airport security - it sets off some kind of alarm - special legislation needed to say that people with this are allowed to use the nation's airlines. Ok now the homicide bombers seek to manufacture pieces of weapons that can masquerade as this stuff, then a terrorist team takes turns using the privacy of the airplane toilet to dig the pieces out of themselves to assemble their weapon. The initial version is about the size of a grain of rice and needs to be activated by a scanner. It does not have the GPS feature.
Applied Digital Solutions CEO Richard Sullivan said, in an interview, that this could be used to track foreigners in the USA.
- You show up as a tourist, student, business person, or whatever, and have to have this injected into your body, as a condition of being in the country, then you would be treated as a suspected criminal until you leave. Those of us already here might have to show up to some government office to be injected. This way only the real criminals who smuggle themselves into the country and do not voluntarily go to the government offices would not have them.
- I also expect that some criminals would indulge in identity theft and have injected into themselves one of these gadgets with a forged code number that agrees with the person whose identity they are stealing. I wonder how difficult it would be to change the code number so that on different days the criminal will be masquerading as different people.
- Although the company is now downplaying their CEO's remarks, there has allegedly been an effort in the UN to mandate this for keeping track of refugees and other stateless persons.
Electronic Frontier Foundation Attorney speaks out about Issues and Concerns with the VeriChip in http://www.techtv.com/siliconspin/features/story/0,23008,3375488,00.html
Gary Wohlscheid, President of Last Days Ministries http://www.tldm.org/, is comparing this chip to the Biblical Mark of the Beast. http://www.tldm.org/News4/MarkoftheBeast.htm

Thanks to V. of TYR for bringing these links to Al attention. Discuss this at Tech TV also here and here and here. I may have lost track ... many of the Tech TV articles have at the very bottom, links to other articles that are related, then below that there is an area where people have been commenting on these stories. Some of the Wired articles also have space at the bottom for commenting on them.

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 07:56:30 GMT

Anyone stop to consider this guy might be a cop? [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Well now that he has been arrested we know he really is ex-military, All American deadbeat family abuser. I thought he might be media. The trick was not in getting to the attack site, but in being non-suspicious after an attack. What profession can legitimately be in any community at any time, without anyone questioning them? A news media person.

Stick around, wait for the police to descend on the scene. Show up and try to interview them.

But now we know the sniper team was driving around in a personal attack vehicle disguised as an ordinary auto, so when stopped at a road block, the weapon hidden below the trap door.

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 21:53:54 GMT

I took the multiple intelligences test and was told that of the six kinds, I scored highest on Personal Intelligence. The six kinds are:

Linguistic
- I am definitely NOT a word smith able to get my point across with either precision or flair. So what should I do about that?
Logical / Mathematical
- At one time this was my best subject, but it has deteriorated thanks to disuse. Math was no sweat for me in school. Some of the sciences were tough, some easy. Where I fell down was in memorization. When I had the leisure to figure things out, I did Ok. I could visualize multiple dimensions, but they tended to slow down my thinking geometrically.
Visual / Spacial
- A phobia associated with heights and crowds probably impeded my exploration of this part of our world. I can function, but I just try to avoid certain combinations. I have met a few people with photographic memory and am glad I do not have it. What they all had in common was a lack of sympathy for people with impaired memories, an arrogant disdain for normal frailties.
Physical
- I had never before considered athletic prowess as a form of intelligence, but you know, our world values that, and reading this section tells me that this includes craftsmen and artists, who are gifted in non-verbal expression.
Social
- I figure I am probably lowest here, perhaps tied with physical. Both low compared to other people, and low compared to how well I do in the other intelligence areas.
Personal
- Personal intelligence is all about the ability and willingness to reflect on life's big questions:
  - I know that there is such a thing as stable secure powerful computers at affordable prices, so why does the crud drive them out of business?
  - Why did 9/11 happen?
  - Can the sniper get a fair trial and why does that matter?
  - Why does our current enemy hate us so much, and is there a long term solution for the continuing recruitment of new enemies?
  - What should I be doing differently, planning for my future?

When we are communicating with people we need to be sensitive to the fact that different people understand things best different ways, learn things best different ways. Good writing helps. Examples and Analogies help. Illustrations help. Numbers help.

Now one might argue that tests like these need to be similarly crafted with great wisdom. I saw some questions there that I had never before seen anything like it, and some familiar forms. It was a mixture of spacial, math, literary, and common sense questions.

Write your name using the hand you don't typically write with and look at the results. Which is true? I checked that the results looked like they were written by a four year old. Fortunately I was not asked about what my name looks like normally.

Chris is now 2/3 of Ted's age. In six years, Chris will be 4/5 of Ted's age. In 15 years, Chris will be 7/8 as old as Ted. If they are both under the age of ten, how old are they now?

I started with ((Ted now) x 2/3 = Chris now) + 6 years = (Ted then) x 4/5 therefore T x 10 = (T+6) x 12 solving for T now, with result of a negative number. I majored in math in college, but I really have not had this kind of arithmetic since grade school - I suspect I am misinterpreting 4/5 of Ted's age now or then?

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 19:00:14 GMT

[Eclecticity: Dan Shafer's Web Log]

Cyberspace is Not a Place After All!

Judge: Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web. A federal judge says Southwest Airlines doesn't have to make its site more accessible to the blind. The Americans with Disabilities Act, she says, doesn't apply to virtual space. [CNET News.com]

I'm sure glad this well-educated and articulate judge is here to teach all of us ignoramuses what cyberspace is and isn't. As more and more people rely to a greater extent on the Internet for news, connections to other humans, interaction, data storage, and a host of other things, it's nice to know that the U.S. government, at least, won't worry its pretty little empty head about those who have any disability. Let 'em cheat fate! [Eclecticity: Dan Shafer's Web Log]

I expect that someone will try to appeal this. But absent that, some employers may be able to cite this legal ruling as justification for denying access to computers on the job. If the internet is exempt from the disabled, then it is not much of a stretch to say that intranets are also exempt. If you are disabled, and want a job that involves using a computer terminal, which is probably a very large percentage of the jobs that exist today, then tough luck, the law does not apply to computer access. Discuss

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 07:21:01 GMT

www.smokefreecommunities.org

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 08:50:57 GMT

Avoiding the Sniper

Dog News lives in the target zone so I been sending her various thoughts. Here below are some of what I think were my brighter ideas. Some of my ideas may be a bit dumb, but I hope on balance I have shared ideas that Y"all will find worthwhile thinking about. I have updated this mini-essay several times, most recently mid-day Thursday Oct 17. If you want to print it out, figure 5 pages.

She told me about a friend seeing a vehicle that looked exactly what the police were watching the public to be on the look out for, but all the police phone lines were busy, so I suggested calling that into the news media. Have them tail the suspect vehicles until the police clear them. The friend was not able to leave her job, at the time of the witnessing. Another thought is to have standard forms, downloadable from police web site, for witnesses to fill out when something fresh in their mind but access to the police not practical. At the time of the anthrax scare, and at times of bomb threats, we have had similar forms from the police that spell out what should be done when an incident occurs.

Put in perspective that while the sniper has killed 11 people in 11 days, in the same time period there have been 14 unrelated homicides in 5 of the 6 communities where the sniper has been active, while even more people die in traffic accidents (68 a year in DC, 660 in Maryland, 935 in Virginia). This is not really as bad as people in other countries have to put up with all the time. Get a pen pal in another country to understand what it is like for them and see that we might be over-reacting to this latest crime spree.

Is this a good time of year to visit Disneyland? Get away from the daily worries and have a good time somewhere else? Your auto club can probably print out maps of driving routes that take you to interesting places that are not on the sniper past visitations or even close.

If you want to get away for a while, consider that while you have a good job, there are hundreds of thousands of people around the country who are out of work. Perhaps you can organize a trade. You get away and live in someone else community for a while, and someone else take over your job and income until you ready to come home. In academia this is called taking a sabattical. Some Professor and family trade homes and jobs with some other Professor and family in some other city. The University has teacher all the time. Professor and family have nice place to live. Basically they trust each other, something like exchange students.

Say, how about exchange students your kids go live in some other city until DC is safer place again? Travel broadens the mind, so it is educational also.

The sniper is not neccessarily someone with police or military training, because so far all the victims have been people who were easy targets for someone who is a good shot, and desires to continue killing random victims. Ask someone who does have relevant training to suggest to you how to avoid being an easy target.

I think that right now, many people in the communities, that the sniper is preying on, could use a police briefing, not on the kind of stuff that the media is demanding, regarding progress or lack of progress finding this serial killer, because past criminals of this nature have gone on killing sprees that have lasted months or years before they got caught. Rather, what I think the people need is community policing meetings briefing the people on how to minimize risk of becoming a next target, and which of these various ideas are most constructive.

I have in the past suggested that Homeland Security Professionals could benefit from a seminar series put on by professionals from other walks of life - health and computer auditors for example. For other posts by me on security topics see my security category, or ask for copies of one of my Word documents on security issues.

Your pooch pals need to be able to run outside while you remain indoors. I can send you attached to e-mail, some of my joke collections that will have you ROFL so much that you won't care about the real world until this is over.
- If you not have much in the way of a back yard for the dog, where you could have a long cable with the leash to it so dog can run back and forth, find a wooded area where you can walk out of sight of the highways.
When you have to be outside, in the role of a pedestrian, do not remain stationary. Walk briskly, not in a straight line, but zig zag. Wear dark clothing, stay in dark shadowed areas, so that you are not an easy target.
- This is directly opposite to the kind of advice I would ordinarily give a bicyclist. Living in Evansville Indiana, where the crime rate is almost zero, so that we have the privilege of laws like it being illegal to play radio so loud in auto that it is annoying to adjacent cars in traffic, a lot of young people seem to be extremely careless about personal safety. I find pre-schoolers in middle of side streets with no look outs for traffic, wearing dark clothing at night. I see college age kids on bicycles, with no lights, just tiny reflectors, no safety helmet, dark clothing, on limited access highways at night, where the speed of the motorists like 50 mph. These kids are accidents looking for an auto to hit them.
- But when a sniper is around, a person needs to emulate these kids.
Perhaps people going about their business in groups, so you guarantee that if a member of the group gets struck, survivors will have some clues to share. Think group of friends, neighbors, co-workers traveling together like a military expedition, with multiple lookouts in all directions, so if you fired upon, there's someone else looking in every direction. Have the group carry a camera to capture clues to share with the police.
So far the sniper has shot at people outdoors, loading car in parking lot of strip mall retail outlets, waiting at a bus stop, mowing yard, at a gas station. So, you need to patronize establishments that have parking garages attached to where ever it is you want to go. Doesn't downtown have an underground garage? Don't some shopping centers have attached parking garages, where you can walk between car and shopping, and be hidden from sniper view at all times? Is there a safe subway system where you can go from indoors to indoors?
- The 10th incident, Monday nite, sounded like it was in the bottom level of an open air split level parking structure, not a real enclosed garage. When I say to park in a garage, I mean one that when you get out of your car, you are not visible outside the garage to some sniper. For the sniper to get you, also have to be inside the garage.
- In answer to one of my questions, dog news has informed me that several shoppers, inside the split level partially covered parking garage, witnessed a man standing behind his Astro Van, quickly taking the shot, and then getting into the van and leaving.
The 4 gas stations were MOBILE SHELL SUNOCO EXXON
You want to patronize one of those brand names on the assumption the next gas station will be a 5th brand name.
MICHAELS CRAFT STORE was location of FOUR of the shootings, either right there, or in a shopping area that had one.
Look up in Yellow pages where they all located.
Mark on a map.
Do not go anywhere close to any other such store.
- After the sniper is apprehended, use that map to assist in deliberately shopping near Michaels Craft Stores so as to undermine whatever economic purpose was why the sniper was frequenting those areas.
- You can hope that the police have all the Michaels Craft Store shopping areas staked out, and are running simulations what to do if this one is the next place the sniper raids.
If you have a vehicle anything close to the description the police looking for, ask them to move it to police impound lot or other place of their choosing, so as to get similar vehicles off the streets and make it easier to find the one and only one left.

Suppose you are a retail commercial store and you want to protect shoppers visiting your establishment. Did you see the police putting a sheet like on a clothes line to protect the crime scene and victim? A shopping center could put something like that up to protect their parking lot patrons from visibility from the highways. Not a permanent structure, but temporary curtains on a split level parking lot. Put stuff in windows of stores like you batten down the hatches to protect against a storm or a riot, so the customers can be inside, not seen through the windows, and thus safe from sniper, while inside.

Shoppers need to be able to have their cars loaded in an enclosed area as they leave the store. It could be like a tent up against the building. Car drives into the tent, gets loaded, drives out. Someone to move the cars who should be wearing bullet proof vest and heavy plastic helmet like riot police, so that they can see where they going, but their head protected from bullet.

Customers arrive. Stop in tent covered area, give car keys to person in the plastic helmet, at which point there is a receipt that identifies car description and who drove it here, helmeted person moves it to parking area, turns in copy of receipt and the keys to person near cashier desk, with identification of parking space added. Customers ready to leave. Identify selves. One of the helmeted workers gets corresponding car keys, with paper saying which parking space that car located, goes to get it, drives it into tent covered area. It gets loaded. Customer leaves.

Customer is never exposed to sniper, except through windows of car, in the scenario that I have described. The only people exposed to sniper are helmeted people who are wearing bullet proof clothing. The cost for this would be minimal. What do curtains, or tent cost, or block up the windows of a store? The cost is the labor for the people wearing the bullet proof clothing. Hey, the economy could use some more people with jobs. Would shoppers be willing to make a donation to a fund for this kind of protection, so they have places they can go with this added peace of mind?

Do you have a drive in garage at your home that is large enough to accomodate a visiting vehicle? If so, use the Internet to order groceries, alternatives to Pizza, other stuff. Each neighborhood could have a weblog category that announces new businesses that have setup e-business services for their community, then webloggers can subscribe to that announcement category, and use it to link to the new announcements. (See Al's Understand Radio News Aggregation if you unfamiliar with this concept.) Sign up as a customer, specify wants, give directions to get to your home - store phones you before making a delivery to make sure someone ready to accept delivery and make payment. Then when this is all over, e-business has had a boost in your area. If sniper not caught any time soon, you have now setup infrastructure that can be used for Christmas shopping.

Business district organizations need to study how to get people from enclosed parking areas to retail establishments, without becoming exposed to the sniper.

Transit systems like buses and taxis need to review where their people wait for them, and find ways for the people to be enclosed, while at same time the drivers able to see when someone is waiting for them.

Do we need an Amber for Cops? ... someone calls in some alert, and a signal is sent to all police, irrespective of which agency, informing them of where some event occurred, then they react according to their stations relative to that location and type of event.

Employers need to think about this also. Do your employees drive to work and have their cars in a parking lot visible from the street? Do your people arrive and leave at predictable times? What can you do to make your employees less at risk?

Has Halloween been canceled? What does this do for the kids fun, and the economy of the stores that cater to their business?

Think gift certificates, substitute events, e-halloween, and contests in safe areas with top prize being like trip to Disneyland (something kids want, and also get you out of town for a great trip).

Ask Amtrak for a special evening or weekend trip. Kids from the neighborhood are driven to an enclosed railway station and board a train that will go on a special trip out of town, perhaps with a different return route. Many of the cars will be like neighborhood block parties for groups of people who cannot do outdoor stuff while this scare is going on. Kids visit with the various neighborhoods on the Amtrak trip. Can older kids be connected to the Internet from this?

Stores with web sites combine visitor # onto their web site with a program to print e-gift certificates that can be cashed in after the sniper is caught, in one of several special kids party weekends.

Have some quality time parents and children at home on grand tour of kids friendly web sites. Familes vote which is best in several categories (different, wild, fun, educational) and send them (the kids friendly website organizers) e-gift certificates from the local stores, that can be cashed in at national chains that have outlets in your community.

Result - local commercial economy does not get hurt, parents and kids have quality time, internet innovation is stimulated.

Assuming there is a shopping mall where people can drive into an enclosed garage, and there is some security like I been talking about, a shopping mall could have a Halloween weekend, in which extra security is put on for the weekend. Down the middle of the mall have little shoppes selling halloween related stuff, and each of the main stores provide gift certificate discount coupons, in which the kids have something to cash in when the sniper is no longer an impediment to going shopping. Stores know what to do - buy one get one free coupons.

Have a treasure hunt in the mall ... each store may contribute a clue that is related to the stuff they sell. The first 25 kids per hour to come in with the right answer receive a gift certificate discount coupon or something even better.

Are you annoyed by the Gun control people trying to take advantage of the big scare? The pro-2nd amendment crowd can fight back with a Neighborhood NRA watch ... people who have gun permits, and have had appropriate weapons training, could escort their neighbors on errands, prepared to shoot back at the sniper. Have a web site where people can sign up to have the Neighborhood NRA watch provide them with an armed escort. The police would be asked to swear in these people as temporary deputies with special badges showing that they have been checked out and are trusted to be traveling the city with weapons ready to fight the sniper.

[dws.] Asks QUOTE To: Anyone who publishes material related to the sniper in DC, Please do not give the idiot (sniper) in Washington a title that feeds his/her ego. "The Beltway Sniper" is too glamorous. Refer to him/her with a title that is more fitting, and less likely to be bragged about in prison, such as "The Murdering Coward". UNQUOTE [dws.]

Sun, 13 Oct 2002 21:07:23 GMT

What we have here are some links inspired by me visiting places that are visited by people who also visit my site, showing some interests that we have in common.

Christian stories that never happened.
- I'd like to see something similar on other Religions, because those of us who are not believers can sometimes have a hard time distinguishing truth vs. distortion.
Computer Virus Myths - how to spot them.
- Warning - that site disables the back button.
Darwin Awards for people who have found incredible ways to remove themselves from the gene pool. These are true stories, that someone could easily think were made up.
Discuss Urban Legends.
Electronic tour of artistic renditions of Urban Legends.
- I was not impressed with what I sampled, but different strokes for different folks.
Hoax Identification Education
Hoax Kill Service

Once you find out if a message is a hoax you can send it to a designated email address and their software will then extract the addresses of all previous recipients from the message and inform them all that the message is a hoax.

Humor about Hoaxes.
Latest Urban Legends.
Net Lore and Urban Legends.
Norton Symantec Security Response Directory of e-mail Hoaxes.
Researching Urban Legends.
- This might be where my sister got the idea that the volume of visitors to a website, translated into extra charges for bandwidth. Oh! that Is a true story for this site.
Scam Busters list e-mail chain nonsense and other scams, tips on fighting spam, lots of good links, also including links to info on real computer viruses.
Scope of Urban Legends.
Many people think something is a hoax when it is not. See my Sep 20 post about the plight of a Nigerian woman, sentenced to be stoned to death for the crime of being jilted by the husband of her child, in which I got a flood of referers due to people searching Gooble and other engines for information on the hoax details on this story, so their only hits were on sites that both talked about this real life situation, and some unrelated hoaxes.

Fri, 11 Oct 2002 21:23:24 GMT

I took the color test. My Results QUOTE

Alister, your true color is Brown!

You're brown, a credible, stable color that's reminiscent of fine wood, rich leather, and wistful melancholy. Most likely, you're a logical, practical person ruled more by your head than your heart. With your inquisitive mind and insatiable curiosity, you're probably a great problem solver.

UNQUOTE

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 21:43:32 GMT

I just added another bunch of stuff to my story on Search Engine Tips. If you print it out, it now runs to about 4 1/2 pages with almost 50 significant links on such topics as:

Links to other people evaluating Search Engine Choices.
How to get your weblog listed on tons of Search Engines.
How to get a Search Engine on your Radio Weblog.
Navigating other Weblogs by a variety of criteria.
Locating directories of Weblogs.
Locate someone e-mail address, or phone #.
Search non-public websites.
Subscribe to alerts notifying us when a popular search query changes.

As I add additional stuff here, the volume of loose ends that I want to untangle continues to grow.

Sun, 06 Oct 2002 00:33:13 GMT

Check Brain Exercise in "Al Categories" where I struggle to understand what The Economist is telling me about where the Western World Economies are headed and if there is any hope for a decent recovery any time soon.

Sat, 05 Oct 2002 07:40:20 GMT

Hosting Questions

I am now at 80% of my 40 meg is free, so at some point I will need to buy more than the 40 meg that we get for our $40.00 Radio purchase, probably from http://store.weblogger.com/addOns since that is the only hosting option url I know of so far, so my first question is if anyone has created a directory of where there are alternative hosting options for Radio Weblogs and the pricing. Ideally I would like to keep the same url with just more than 40 meg.

My sister Susan has not yet started her own weblog. I told her about Radio, but because each of the music files that she has written, composed, and performed, that she wants to put on her site for people to download from her, take up a lot of disk space, 40 meg just does not cut it.

Her questions were one of the reasons I started my story on Blog Software. I feared that Radio 40 meg constraint might not be easy to resolve, and perhaps one of Radio's competitors hosting options more easy to figure out.

QUOTING Al's sister Susan

I’ve been told there are extra charges if your web site has more than the allotted number of visitors. Also, music files are about 3 meg each and then I’m not sure about software to play the files…I guess the user could be expected to have that on their machine? At any rate, I would need quite a bit more than 40 meg.

UNQUOTE

I told her that I had never heard of any such thing as pricing based on numbers of visitors, but it does make sense that there is a relationship between a site's popularity and the bandwidth advisable.

I advised her that, in my opinion, software to play the music on her web site would be preferable so that people could sample what she had, and perhaps less hassle with what needs to be compatible for visitors. She is a school teacher doing this somewhat for recreation, giving friends and relatives copies of her music such as audio tapes to play in automobiles, which is mainly Modern Christian Music.

I warned her that it is possible that changes in laws due to Hollywood lobbyists may make it illegal for musicians to share their work on the Internet, or using audio tapes, but I do not think she believes me.

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 23:27:00 GMT

Radio Tip

I have recently updated several of my stories and added some new ones.

Blog Software MT and RU started in the middle of August 2002 as a collection of links to what different people were saying about the pros and cons of differences between Moveable Type and Radio Userland, to which I periodically have added more stuff to help us understand important nuances of what the challenges and benefits are for using the competing products. I had thought that later I might do another with some other abbreviations at the end for what was being compared.
Blog Software started in beginning of October 2002 and is a directory of over 50 different weblog software places, that tries to be impartial, and help newcomers to weblogging see what their choices are. Near the top are links to tools for comparing what the different vendors have to offer. I have been adding to this story every day since I started it.

First goal is just list names of the outfits so someone can search engine find these places.
Then add links
Then more info about some of them
I'd like to get at some market share statistics

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 23:07:44 GMT

Radio Tip

I have recently updated several of my stories and added some new ones.

Etiquette On-Line is a collection of thoughts that I started some time ago, and keep adding to, most recently links from the e-mail community.
Stop Phone Spam is good news for people living in Indiana.
Editing Symbols is just one topic for now, sharing a solution to a problem that several people recently have experienced.

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 22:51:37 GMT

Radio Tip

I have recently updated several of my stories and added some new ones.

Search Engine Tips - I started this story at the end of Sep 2002 and have been adding to it almost every day with dribbles of new links and nuances. It has links to my previous posts and to other weblogger posts with information about using search engines and related directories to just access weblogs, or news sites, or your weblog, or whoever is linking to your website, or whatever. If you print out a copy, it now runs to 3 pages with approx 3 dozen links.

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 18:56:00 GMT

I got a standard e-mail from Stephen Carter who is the Attorney General of the State of Indiana (I live in Evansville which is one of approx a dozen cities that claim to be #2 in size in the state, behind Indianapolis #1) which you can read in my story on how to Stop Phone Spam (in Indiana) - this story is not really complete yet, but this is an important e-mail for me.

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 19:44:43 GMT

I just read one of the latest Anne McCaffrey novels (now in paperback with about 450 pages) The Skies of Pern. This Science Fiction world continues to develop. The above link is to the author's web site - check the links to Rukbat as seen by present day astronomers on Earth.

The early settlers technical know-how was recovered thanks to the AI computer, so that they could put a stop to the traditional menace from the skies, so now people are wondering what will become of the traditional professionals who have protected their planet, and provided essential services. The central theme is a big rock splashing into the ocean setting up monster tidal waves, and what to do about that patterned after our own real world, except the Pernese solution is the marriage of Dragon telepathy and teleportation into a third ability telekinisis. We also have hints of disaffected troublemakers plotting future surprises.

For those of my friends unfamiliar with this SF series, there is a friendly controversy as to whether it should be categorized as Science Fiction or as Fantasy, and I believe it is both. Traditional SF has to explain how the presented science is other than what our current reality understands, and I think Anne does that satisfactorily. The problem for some readers is that they equate Dragons and Psychic Phenomena as Fantasy, and do not read the explanations. Traditional Science Fantasy is to have a fanciful world filled with engaging characters who go on adventures, and we thrill to join them. The Pern series is that also. So it is both SF and Fantasy in my mind, and high caliber both.

The Pern series might be read in sequence (also see her website / books / series / Pern): Dragonflight; Dragonquest; Dragonsong; Dragonsinger; The White Dragon first two chapters only; Dragondrums; The White Dragon remaining chapters; Get off the Unicorn; Moreta's Ride; Dragonsdawn; Chronicles of Pern; Dragons Eye (Red Star Rising); The Girl who heard Dragons; Renegades of Pern; Masterharper of Pern; Runner of Pern (I think I missed this one); All the Weyrs of Pern; Dolphins of Pern; The Skies of Pern; Atlas of Pern; and I have probably missed a few, but anyone who reads more than a few of these will soon fall in love with the series and get them all. There are also several games and SF Fandom activities based on the Pern series, and some information on Anne's site about how to avoid violating her copyright by such activities.

Anne McCaffrey is a prolific author with many series.

I also enjoy the Pegasus series, which explore moving ESP and Psychic Phenomena into Science and Engineering that lead mankind into the exploration of our Universe.
I enjoy the Ship who Sang series, which provide a wonderful technological adventure life for humans whose disabled bodies are an impediment only in our current real life.
Decision at Doona, with a few sequels, is a kind of down to earth grass roots first contact series.
Dinosaur Planet, and sequels, is a great way of showing how Science Fiction reflects the reality of the author and publisher as our reality marches forwards in the development of equality for women in our society. You can see how in her early writings this was truely a Science Fiction concept, but now it is fully accepted.
So if you enjoy Science Fiction, Fantasy, Good Literature, seeing how SF truely reflects our recent reality, are interested in fiction about where genetics and biotechnology might take us, or mental powers that science today does not consider credible, Space Opera, then there is entertainment for you in the writings of Anne McCaffrey.

I still read pretty fast - I purchased this book Sunday night, had a hard time putting it down, then finished it up the next day. I probably spent 6 hours reading it, which is not quite 250 pages an hour like I did when I was younger, more like 75 pages an hour, so I have slowed down in my middle age (I am almost 60 years young), but I suspect I still have considerable mental capacity, and will continue to enjoy great literature for many decades. When I was in Bob Evans last nite on my way home from Borders book store, the waitress asked if it was a good book, and I also told her about my first visit to the Borders in Evansville, saying that it does not have near the size of collection that is in our Barnes and Noble, but the layout is very similar to Books a Million, except they have much more Audio Books and good stuff for Children, although not as rich as Barnes and Noble (whose Evansville store is almost a city block in size).

She did not understand the appeal of Audio Books, so I explained that when I am driving long distances, like to another city, it is a nuisance trying to pick up whatever Radio Stations are a changing, but this is a great way to get the contents of a novel, provided we have a sufficently high quality sound system that we can hear the novel without losing touch with traffic noises. I also sometimes listen to fact books when sitting in traffic jams. I consider that better than reading a newspaper which can sometimes distract me from the fact that the traffic has started to move again.

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 18:10:19 GMT

Friday, I shared news of the Lindows PC selling at Walmart for $200.00 that uses Linux to provide all the services that people are accustomed to paying a whole lot more from Microsoft, except Microsoft sued to stop them from saying what their PC could do. Now comes AOL with a lawsuit and the comments on this article are also worth a review. Apparently the marketing about some relationship with AOL Netscape was merely clicking I Agree to AOL fine print when making a copy of the new AOL version of free Netscape browser. Thanks V. of TYR for passing on this link to me.

Sun, 29 Sep 2002 22:58:14 GMT

Inspiration shared by my sister Susan via e-mail.

Inner Strength

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things,

Then you are probably the family dog.

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 20:33:10 GMT

Gary Krakow of [MSNBC] reviews the $200.00 AOL Lindows PC, selling at Wal-Mart.com in which Gary labels this as a very promising work in process, in which it remains to be seen if the Linux community embraces this product that is in bed with AOL. The $200.00 price tag might be just right for people who want to experiment with what can be done outside the Microsoft world, but are not ready to experiment on their primary computer.

The product is on the bare-bones side, using a free version of Linux OS which they used to say did everything Microsoft Windows does and more, until Microsoft sued to make them stop saying that, but Microsoft was unable to stop them from providing more than Windows provides.
- Gary Krakow tested this assertion by installing his Microsoft Office 2000 onto Lindows 2.0 ... a PC that did NOT have any version of Microsoft Windows there, but Office 2000 ran flawlessly.
- Apparently many Microsoft products work fine, and some do not work properly, but hey that is just like the real Windows environment.
If you have not purchased a PC recently, this could be more than you now have.
- 800 Mhx C3 chip (Cyrix) Energy Star certified
- 128 Meg of Ram (expandable to 1 Gig)
- 10 Gig hard drive
- 52x CD-Rom
- 10/100 Ethernet connection (modem is $30.00 more)
- keyboard
- 2 button wheel mouse
- pair of speakers
For $100.00 more (price goes up from $199.86 to $299.--) you can get Microsoft Windows on it, but you do not need Microsoft Windows to do all AOL stuff, use the new Netscape, Instant Messaging, e-mail. Some tweaking required to make this more user-friendly.
For $99.00 per year you can download any additional software from the Lindows web site (1,300 titles offered) and for a limited time, that buys you and extra year of this.
- For example, Sun's StarOffice suite is a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office, that normally retails for $75.00 so it is a great deal that is one of the 1,300 offerings.
Al thanks V. of TYR for bringing this story to my attention.

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 05:19:51 GMT

Check out the comments on http://www.sammydman.com/ - this 15 year old was almost expelled for the horrible crime of having a Weblog, and only escaped that punishment by signing a full confession of what an on-line journal is and providing a list of all other students that he happened to know of that were also doing the same kind of thing.

Apparently any use of school computers for a purpose that the school administrators do not understand, is a serious academic crime, and soon there will be a mass trial of all the children who are suspected of the felony of being Internet Literate, who will also escape being expelled by naming names of others they know of. Does that remind you of something? Can you get out of this by naming top officials of the government? That's how the McCarthyism was stopped - someone named top Generals of the Army and top officials of the White House.

Sammy is now doing his weblogging from home.

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 21:45:52 GMT

[Chicago Sun Times] shares a couple stories about Zero Tolerance of Modern School Administrators:

A Nebraska 7th grader found some marijuana in his classroom and turned it into to the office. He was suspended because, the act of picking it up and carrying it to the authorities constituted possession of marijuana.
A Florida sophomore honor student saw a bag of pills on school grounds and did not follow the example of the Nebraska student because she was afraid of getting in trouble for possession of the contraband in the short distance of carrying it to the authorities. She has been told she will be expelled for failure to do so.

This reminds me of in Illinois where youngsters are encouraged to clean up the environment, but it is illegal for them to remove beer cans and alcohol bottles from the road side, because that means that those empty containers inside their garbage bags constitutes possession of those containers by a minor.

The lesson for these kids is to

Do not touch the illegal substance - drugs, guns, whatever.
Carefully write up a statement of where you saw this illegal substance, in a report to the authorities.
Make sure your report is addressed to the authorities before you leave the scene, so that if an undercover officer sees you seeing the illegal whatever and not picking it up, your statement is part of your defense.
Make a copy of your statement before you turn it in, so that if you later get hassled, you can take your statement to a lawyer, the news media, or where ever your parents think will most embarrass the school authorities into backing down.

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 07:35:56 GMT

[Chicago Sun Times] mentioned that Shaw's Crab House now offers its menu in Braille and various languages of international clientele. I am wondering how many restaurants have menus in Braille to make themselves accessible to Blind and visual impaired customers.

Sun, 22 Sep 2002 10:38:59 GMT

Topics this last week on Al Mac's Weblog (a review to help see what Categories are needed):

This last week I increased my Categories to:

400 on Radio Dial: IBM 400 Interests ... connections to user group activity and lists.
Brain Exercise: Space for future reviews of favorite books.
Brain Food: Where I trying to learn new stuff (for me) from other people tips.
- Perma Links and Images, with help from Alison Fish and Rick Klau.
- Outline to help general beginners to Radio.
Brain to Brain: Techniques for more effective human communications.

Etiquette of all this.
I need to review this whole area of doing a better job with writing; accessibility; credibility; etc.

e Law: Changes in the legal landscape within which we all dwell.

Useful links to commentary grappling with hot topics.

e Radio Ideas: my input to dws.Radio.FAQ to add to the body of How To.
- Continued misc. thoughts shared.
- "Radio Doc Sources" = Index to the people who have documented Radio.
- Tools for enhancing Radio.
- Al's Radio Wishes.
- "Understand Radio Categories" with occasional additions.
- "Understand Radio News Aggregation" ditto.
HisTech: Comprehending History of General Technology Evolution.

Latest: reversal of autos and pollution; real antimatter; computer history; anthrax spread by photocopy machines; and more.

Laugh Track: Miscelaneous Humor.
- Sad but True Banking Stories.
- I basically created this for future posting of humor that used to go on the Home page, and started it out with copies of all humor that previously went there.
My Friends and Family: Stuff of interest to people I know more off Internet than on.

Plight of a Nigerian Woman.
"Blind of NH" Real World Challenges.
I need to fix my pictures.
Personal stuff.

Security: Computer Security; Homeland Security; Other Security.
- Report on a user meeting whose topic was on Security Testing.
- Links tips opinions and news, on hot topics from a spectrum of sources.
SF: Science Fiction interests.

Technological advances into reality with concepts that until recently were Science Fiction, and where various nations space programs are headed.
Web sites for SF fans.

Home Page and Stories.
- New Story on some Chess Variants.
- My essay on the Y2K of copying (Mon Sep 16).

Sat, 21 Sep 2002 05:47:18 GMT

I started some new categories today, and went through my archives assigning some stuff to also be in the relevant new categories ... check out what I have via http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/Categories/

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 23:11:37 GMT

I recently shared e-mail that I got asking me to sign an Amnesty International Petition to send to the President of Nigeria asking for clemency for Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman convicted of adultery and having a child outside marriage, and who has been sentenced to death by stoning by the court, the sentence to be carried out after the baby can be rescued from this.

Yahoo's Virus Hoax Busters have some things to say on the subject similar to my views.

This Nigerian woman has in fact been sentenced to death for allegedly bearing a child out of wedlock (the father denies responsibility, so the woman is automatically guilty). This is real. This is not a hoax. We agree on that point.
Internet petitions do not have much impact in the West, let alone on this Nigerian culture, says the moderator of the discussion.
Well we do not exactly agree here. I think this effort raises public awareness of the work of Amnesty International, especially when it results in the European Parliament voting to boycott Miss World contest in Nigeria, and the President of Mexico making a special trip to visit the President of Nigeria to appeal on behalf of the woman's case.

I passed this appeal on to some people who are into that kind of thing, while I seriously doubt Amnesty International is going to get significant change in nations supporting death sentence for violation of Islamic Law, even though they have collected over a million signatures so far (what does this say about the billions of people who have not signed the petition?). I think Amnesty International power is when a nation says one thing and does another, so by illuminating duplicity, the exceptions can be stopped. This is not duplicity. It is Nigerian law and policy.

Here is a directory of links to current Amnesty International themes:

Stop Torture
The Death Penalty
G8 exporting tools for use in Human Rights abuses
Police Accountability in Human Rights
Human Rights Education
Human Rights impact of Economic Activities
International Justice
Health Professionals
Child Warriors before Emotional Maturity
Guatamala History Repeats
Diamond Trade's dark side.

Anyhow my referrers are showing someone doing a Google search on the notion that this is a hoax. I found a ton of searches for variations on the woman's name, Nigerian woman, hoax, Amnesty International petition, and all the hits were either on my site, sites about this woman's plight, or Google combining different posts that contained individual words of the search. It is possible that there are a bunch of people doing similar searches. The sad thing is that this happens to many women around the world, and is so alien to our western culture that many people receiving the e-mail appeal info about the petition, their first reaction is to wonder if this is a hoax. So I am looking at some of the other posts on the topic that were in the Google searches, and finding some interesting sites.

Another Nigerian woman, Safiya Husaini, was also sentenced to death by stoning, but an appeals court let her live. But it is a continuing problem because Nigeria is deeply divided between Muslims and Christians, who have different moral codes.

The President of Mexico will be meeting with the President of Nigeria, and this injustice is one of the things the Mexican President will be arguing against.
- QUOTE
- The man Lawal identified as her baby's father denied the accusation and was acquitted for lack of evidence.
- UNQUOTE
- One would think that a gene test could prove or disprove it one way or the other, and the fact that no such test was done substantiates the complaints of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA).
Other nations are protesting this at top government levels.
- Australia
- Britain
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) labels this as injustice in the name of Islam.
- The punishment for zina (fornication) by unmarried persons is a certain number of lashings, not stoning, and very stringent conditions are needed to verify the crime. For example if Amina became pregnant through rape, then she is innocent of any crime.
- The IHRC has Action alerts on Amina Lawal (Nigeria) and Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (USA). In the latter case, this man got a life sentence in which they are arguing many inconsistencies in the lack of evidence that the right man was convicted.
Women's Rights Watch update # 2 on the continuing story of the Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal.
- QUOTE
- The judge has declared that Amina should not be executed until 2004, if she loses her appeal, so that she can look after her 5-month old baby daughter Wassila.
The Nigerian Justice Minister has joined the fight all the way to the Nigerian Supreme Court.
Here is a Canadian source that seems legitimate to me.
Exclusive Interview with Amina Lawal published in UK's Mirror.
- QUOTE
- On Monday, an Islamic court in Nigeria upheld the sentence of death by stoning on Amina. She should be taken, buried to the neck in the earth and perish beneath a hail of rocks, half-bricks... anything conveniently to hand.
- Summoned before the tribal elders - who traditionally settle matters before police intervene - Yahay accepted paternity and promised to pay medical expenses for Amina and her baby.
  
  But he recanted after his family allegedly convinced him that his acceptance would bring shame on them.
- UNQUOTE
- Amnesty International says that death sentence by stoning is prohibited by two UN Treaties that Nigeria has signed:
  - the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
  - and the Convention against Torture.
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has appealed to Nigeria on behalf of Amina Lawal.
The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) is protesting that this Sharia legal code, as implemented in Northern Nigeria, is unfair to women.
- QUOTE
- In the three cases of conviction for adultery which attracted public interest, the women were convicted while their male associates were discharged with ease.
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has listed this appeal on their page of Violence against Women, although the problem here is that of Islamic Law's attitude towards women, whether they behaved in a manner that religion considers immoral, or were a victim of rape.
The American Women's Self Defense Association (AWSDA) has a link to this appeal (on upper left corner of their home page).
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) On_Line forums has a link to this appeal.
The USA National Organization of Women (NOW) is protesting a couple who were sentenced to death by stoning (both husband-to-be and wife-to-be) for making love before they got married.
This stuff is no hoax, it is normal Nigerian legal system, and Nigeria is not the only nation like this.

Global Feminist News Wire has several interesting relevant links

Amina Lawal's stoning is on schedule, rules the appeals court, after the central government provided her with a lawyer to help her fight for a lesser sentence, which sounds almost as barbaric. Several contestants will not be participating in the Miss World contest in Nigeria, as part of the protest.
- In a related link, the European Parliament has called for all of Europe to boycott the contest, in protest.
South Korean Sexual Slavery to benefit US Servicemen in the last decade.
Rwanda's Female Minister is the first woman to ever be charged with rape as a crime against humanity. This is because of her alleged complicity in war crimes.
Catholic Church continues to be mired in scandals.

Here is a link that indicates that the Amnesty International effort is no Hoax, but some people searching on Google find the site because they looking for the name of the victim, and the word hoax, which are two separate topics on the same site, because lots of people write about both problems like this, and the problem of e-hoaxes. http://crawfurd.dk/africa/index.html#amina

[Crawfurd] shares lots of info about Nigeria such as QUOTE

Hoax Letters / E-mails from Nigeria

Several people has received e-mails with a friendly and very polite business suggestion from someone apparently living in Nigeria (I certainly have received a few of these scams myself). Many of these mails originates from Nigeria, but lately I have also received one which seems to be sent from D. R. Congo. The sender usually claims that he has access to a large sum of money (usually from the government or some private company). The sender asks for help to transfer the money out of the country. This is said to be risk free transaction and you will receive a large sum of money for helping him out. Don't even think about it! Follow this link if you wish to report a scam or read more about this subject: Nigeria - The 419 Coalition Website.

UNQUOTE

I know about this. It is an international scam to get access to your bank account numbers for the purpose of draining them. Honest people should see through the scam, and struggle to figure out which is the correct government agency to report it to (US Secret Service in the USA, because this is a Currency Crime). Unfortunately some big corporations have dishonest clerks, which have led to the corporations bank accounts being drained.

Another very interesting site linked by my reverse searching review, that I want to explore more some time: Crime on the Internet

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 22:09:11 GMT

forwarded to Al in e-mail from V. of TYR

QUOTING the forwarded e-mail

Subject: Amina Lawal -- Please support this woman

This is not a hoax.

Look in any search engine for reaction around the world, such as a boycott of the Miss World Contest by women and nations that disapprove of this Nigerian sentence.

You have probably heard about Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman convicted of adultery and having a child outside marriage, and who has been sentenced to death by stoning. The appeals court has approved this sentence. The judge has decided that she should be stoned to death as soon as her 8 month old baby daughter is weaned. Amnesty International has organised a petition which you can sign on line and which will be forwarded to the President of Nigeria. You can Sign it by clicking here:

<http://www.mertonai.org/amina/>http://www.mertonai.org/amina/

Go to the right hand side of the page and click the please sign our

letter. Please sign and pass on to other people - it seems the least we

can do for her.

UNQUOTE - I updated some of the text to help make the post a bit more readable.

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 21:23:16 GMT

e-mail pass along

Subject: SUNRISE OVER LOWER MANHATTAN

No one will see this again.

This picture was taken by a lady returning on a cruise this past summer (July 28, 2001). It is a sunrise over lower Manhattan.

SHE Writes: As I watched the beautiful skyline of New York City float past me I noticed the sun was about to line up just behind the twin towers. I was lucky enough to snap the picture at exactly the right moment. If you look at the sun rays it is almost prophetic. a little spooky.

When I show this picture to anyone they almost always asks for a copy. I just want to share it with all who want it. Please take this picture and share it with anyone and everyone who likes it. I've been printing them like crazy on my home computer to give to those that want a copy.

[file:///C|/Program%20Files/Radio%20UserLand/www/images/image0016.jpg]

[http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/images/TwinTowers%2016.jpg]

UNQUOTE

Al is having trouble getting this picture so that other people can see it on Al Weblog. Someone tell me if the second url above shows you the image (apparently the first points to Al's hard drive) ... I got to this by looking in Radio Folder / Images / locate which image I had called it when I dropped it into my PC path corresponding to the MY PICTURES in Prefs as suggested by Alison Fish, and I see she has enhanced her how-to since the last time I looked at it.

Here is a copy of it supplied by Paula Allen. Thanks Paula.

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 05:50:46 GMT

I have been laid low several days with a Kidney infection. More details in e-mail to some e-buddies.

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 04:24:19 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

God lashes out. Aggravated with banal roadsigns that purport to represent His PoV like these:

Let's meet at my house Sunday before the game. -God
C'mon over and bring the kids. -God
What part of "Thou Shalt Not..." didn't you understand? -God
We need to talk. -God
Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer. -God

God has created a site with his own responses:

I never said, "Thou shalt not think." —God
Okay, you've got multiplying down. Now let's try replenishing for a while. —God
I don't care who started it. Just stop it. —God
If you seek to know my ways, read a damn science book. —God

Link Discuss (Thanks, Bill!) UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 03:07:27 GMT

I was born in Aberdeen Scotland
- (I am a legal immigrant with a Green Card).
- Aberdeen is on the North East Coast of Britain, about 1/2 way between the border of Scotland and England, and a tourist attraction known as the Loch Ness Monster.
I now live in Evansville Indiana
- (I am in the phone book).
State of Indiana recently been in local news due to:
- Bureau of Motor Vehicles change in rules for identifying people who qualify for a Driver's License;
- Training lapses that led to misunderstandings by Bureau employees;
- Public misunderstandings about the new rules;
  - I told some friends about the new rules and was told No Al, those rules apply to someone getting Driver License for first time, not for simple renewal. I went back to BMV web site and either my friends are wrong, or the site is wrong.
  - I have read several news stories that agree with my friends.
- Inaccuracies on some web sites;
- Quest got contract to redesign BMV forms;
- People can have their driver's license suspended and not be notified it happened, and it also be kept a secret from your auto insurance company;
- Law Suit by Indiana Civil Liberties Union;
- Latino community alleges that the new rules are discriminatory;
- Rules being changed again to address some of the complaints.
Here are links to what the rules are in each state in the USA.
- Have other Indiana Driver rules and guidance changed?

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 03:01:20 GMT

I think I am running a mild fever. Symptoms: achy; chills; runs. In last week or so I have had intermittent indigestion, which I had presumed was combination of stress, no exercise, eating habits.

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 19:59:28 GMT

e-mail pass along

Subject: 9-11-01 (email not broken)

This has not been broken since 9/11/01, please keep it going...
This has been kept alive and moving since 9/11.
In memory of all those who
perished this morning; the passengers and the pilots on the
United Air and AA flights, the workers in the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, and all the innocent bystanders. Our prayers go out to
the friends and families of the deceased.

IF I KNEW

If I knew it would be the last time
That I'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
and pray the Lord, your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time
that I see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss
and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time
I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would video tape each action and word,
so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time,
I could spare an extra minute
to stop and say "I love you,"
instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would be there to share your day,
Well I'm sure you'll have so many more,
so I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there's always tomorrow
to make up for an oversight,
and we always get a second chance
to make everything just right.

There will always be another day
to say "I love you,"
And certainly there's another chance
to say our "Anything I can do?"

But just in case I might be wrong,
and today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you
and I hope we never forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance
you get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you're waiting for tomorrow,
why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes,
you'll surely regret the day,

That you didn't take that extra time
for a smile, a hug, or a kiss
and you were too busy to grant someone,
what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today,
and whisper in their ear,
Tell them how much you love them
and that you'll always hold them dear

Take time to say "I'm sorry,"
"Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay."
And if tomorrow never comes,
you'll have no regrets about today.

Please send this on. Thank you.

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 18:45:21 GMT

Radio Userland Problem Solved. (= Radio Lesson)

Earlier I reported on JVT and his Calendar problem.
It has been solved.
It was not solved by re publishing his whole site.
It was yes solved by re publishing his whole site twice.

Instructions how to do that here.

So Radio Tip for those people struggling with Radio Userland Mysteries.

If you don't succeed, try try try again.
(Old Scottish Proverb)