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A Still Verdictless Life
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Tuesday, December 31, 2002 |
Can't end the year on a note as depressing as the previous post. So with six hours to go till 2003 circa EST, Happy New Year! In the immortal words of Blue Oyster Cult from the 70's, 2003 will be a good year to get "...OD'd on life, OD'd on life itself...". Life itself ought'a be enough.
2:45:45 PM 
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Perhaps this will be my last DMCA-bashing post of the year. Or perhaps this post will force me, my ISP and Radio Userland (the weblog's host company) to shut down.
This article from Wired is as depressing and frightening as anything I've seen all year. To me, it's every bit as frightening as watching the towers fall on 9-11-01.
The article describes how Dow Chemical took offense to a site making fun of them, and used the DMCA to force the site to shut down. Because of a stupid move on the parody site creator's part, I think Dow was within their rights to do so (the creator registered the domain with Dow's President). What happened next is the scary part. The top-level ISP (Verio), scared of Dow and the DMCA, shut down the entire web hoster and all its clients - it cut them off from the Internet, effectively shutting down hundreds of people and businesses having nothing to do with the conflict. The Wired article included this quote from the web hoster:
"One of my users said it's as if an offensive poster mocking a company was put up on a building, and when the company's lawyers couldn't reach the building owner immediately, they got a bulldozer and knocked down the whole neighborhood," Staehle added.
Freedom of speech is possibly the most powerful political idea ever created. It's possibly the major reason our nation has ascended to the top of the world heap. And yet we have pissed it away in a single law created to protect the music and movie industries - the DMCA. Thank you, President Clinton.
If we generalize the events described in the article just a bit, we'll find that:
- A corporation lampooned by Saturday Night Live or Mad TV could demand that the show or perhaps the broadcast network be shut down
- Individuals using encryption for private email or chat could be prosecuted and jailed
- Public speeches or presentations that use content from a corporation to make a negative point about that corporation could be prosecuted
After that, who knows. The sad irony is that the owner of the site described in the Wired article is looking to re-host the site in Europe. Think about that - in Eurpope! At this moment there's more freedom of expression in the European community than in the US, at least online.
So this will be my one New Year's resolution for 2003: To get more informed and to get more involved in the fight to protect personal freedom in the US, particularly freedom of speech. I'll write, I'll contact Congress-critters, and if I can find an organization that is doing something constructive about all this, I'll join it. It appears to me we've taken the first couple of steps toward becoming a police state as bad as anything seen since the Cold War, and we now have technology that gives a bad law very, very long arms.
I still have faith that we'll get turned around as a nation - that we'll preserve the creative chaos that made us great - but it's a dark time at present.
7:26:27 AM
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Monday, December 30, 2002 |
Spent a great afternoon yesterday at Grayson Lake State Park, 30 minutes from the KY house. We hiked three miles, got some nice pictures (should post a picture later). It was an amazingly perfect day, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-50s. Felt like March, not late December. The big surprise - they've built a championship golf course in the park. It looks great - and it looks tough. Now if they can only get the money to finish it.
As we walked we rousted up four wild turkeys. It's great to see them come back to eastern KY. There's a lot to be said for low population density!
5:27:11 AM
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Saturday, December 28, 2002 |
The SQ (strange quotient) around here is getting pretty high. Eastern KY has always been a slightly off-center place (with slightly off-center people), but lately things are weirder than usual.
First there's the big Powerball lottery winner. Granted, he's from WV, but the winning ticket was bought only 20 miles away from our home in KY. Like it or not, there's no difference between the folks on one side of the river versus the other. It's odd that such a big prize would be won here in sparsely-populated Appalachia. It's also odd that this is a repeat of sorts, as in the summer of 2001 when an ex-con 10 miles away from this same home won one-third of another $300M pot. His story deserves special mention, as he bought the ticket in the same convenience store he once held up at gunpoint. Figures.
The next contributor to the SQ, another instance in which Boyd County makes the national news, is the much-covered fight over the high school's gay club. Sadly, this was my high school, so I feel some guilt over their amazingly dumb handling of the whole thing. Currently, the school board has decided to ban all formal and informal sponsored clubs, just so they won't have to deal with the gay student issue. No beta club, no FFA, no chess club...nada. Perfect. A solution that hurts everyone, not just a few. Democracy in action. So as BCHS squirms in the national spotlight, I'm amazed at how such a small place could spawn such newsworthy happenings.
6:33:46 AM
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Three Movie Reviews
Being the holidays, and being an unrepentent couch potato during them, we've watched more than a few movies this week. Here are some opinions on them.
We Were Soldiers - I thought that another Vietnam war movie would be redundant, but it's not. It's a powerful movie. Mel Gibson plays a Patton-esque Army colonel, without Patton's character flaws. He's a leader any man would follow and die for, and many do. This is the story of the US Army's first major encounter with the North Vietnamese army in 1965, when we still didn't know what to expect. I don't know if it's a true story, or if it's even based on a kernel of truth, but it's a powerful story nonetheless. In the first hour of the story you see these soldiers as nice people, even great people, and later as they're mowed down you get a sense of the real tragedy of war. If you're going to war, there better be a GOOD reason (are you listening, George W?). I also think it's interesting that Mel plays pretty much the same part he played in Braveheart, with pretty much the same plot - just in a different era and place. WWS was written and produced by the same guy as Braveheart, Randall Wallace. Bottom line, if you like war movies, see this.
LOTR, The Two Towers - Another good movie, in fact amazingly good considering the hype and the difficulty LOTR presents in translation from book to screen. I liked it, but I fear the power and the detail of the effects suffered form our viewing in a mediocre theater. I'll have to see it again somewhere with bigger screen and better sound before rendering a final opinion.
Robin Williams Live on Broadway - We bought it for the bit on golf, but the rest of the two hours (!) was great as well. Great, hilarious, and raunchy. RW is a truly unique person. If you're not offended easily, watch this.
6:02:58 AM
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California town sells online for $1.78m. A "fixer-upper" town fetches more than twice its reserve on the online auction site eBay after strong Christmas bidding. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]
What can I say? I think someone got a real bargain. In our part of Socal, tract homes a mere 10 feet apart are going for $1M. For your $1M you get granite countertops and bare dirt on your 5000 square foot lot (~ one eighth acre). These folks got 82 acres and some riverfront property, not to mention their own zip code. And the legend of eBay grows...
5:48:32 AM
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Life is getting back to normal, and I think that's good. First, we're no longer guests in someone else's home. That's always tough for me. While it's nice being treated politely and even graciously, there's nothing like the freedom you feel when you're inside your own domicile. Freedom to eat, sleep, veg out, listen to irritating music - whatever.
Second, I'm getting used to the new computing tools. Moving to the Mac continues to be a journey. I haven't switched, I'm switching. It may take all year before I feel comfortable and competent in the new environment. Add to that the evil email problem I've had for the last two weeks, and just using the computer has been a struggle.
So even though it's cold outside in KY, and I'm on dial access, I'm grateful that these are problems I expected to have. It's the unexpected ones that push you over the edge.
5:42:33 AM
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Friday, December 27, 2002 |
Very light posting this week - busy having a life instead of writing about it. Traveled on 12-24 and 12-25; had logical Christmas on 12-26.
Plus, have spent *much* time futzing around with computers and new software toys. Have launched a new weblog, Pervasive Computing News. It's strictly for work, sort of an online magazine authored by yours truly. It's still under development, but is up and running as beta. ASVL will become strictly for personal/family/life notes.
5:37:43 AM
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Monday, December 23, 2002 |
Grand Junction Colorado must be one of the Christmas light capitals of the US. It's a small town, but fully half of the residents seem to decorate their homes with extravagant light displays. I've seen variations of this all over America, but Grand Junction goes all out.
3:38:09 PM
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Spent the day at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, near Montrose CO. Absolutely spectacular scenery and some interesting geology. Montrose is my wife's hometown, so we did lots of sightseeing and trips down memory lane. The Black Canyon is the steepest/narrowest/deepest in the US - others are larger or wider, but for sheer drops, the Black Canyon is the champion. It's a very cool little national park.
3:31:57 PM
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Sunday, December 22, 2002 |
I had an epiphany today while in church. It was a good service, full of Christmas carols. I've often wondered why church is so appealing to elders, and so universally unappealing to kids. I don't know of a single child who really wants to go to church. I think the answer has two parts: (1) conditioning, and (2) the comfort of rituals held year after year.
All through the early years, kids are getting the foundation, the conditioning that will pull them back to these rituals later in life. But that conditioning has no comfort - for the kids, it's all pain and no gain. Then as aging takes its toll and we begin to feel out of step with an increasingly complex and unfamiliar world, we embrace the songs that we heard as kids, and take comfort in that small bit of stability. I imagine the architects of each "faith" understood that process very well.
11:33:09 AM
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My email is now officially a mess. The domain "nicholsgrp.com" is somewhere in DNS hell. Verisign *may* be in the process of moving the hosting site, or may just have edited the DNS entry and pointed the domain into the bit bucket. We'll see.
7:47:22 AM
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Got to go target shooting in the foothills near Grand Junction yesterday. Northeast of the town, the edge of large BLM holdings (millions of acres?) makes for great recreation. Hiking, offroading, shooting, hunting and fishing - there's room for everything. And the views...awesome! You simply couldn't avoid becoming an outdoors person if you lived here.
7:43:26 AM
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We're back on the uphill slope! Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, so today will be just a little longer than yesterday, as will every day till June 20. The worst is over.
7:39:37 AM
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Saturday, December 21, 2002 |
It seems I'm not alone in problems transferring domains from Verisign's grasp. From supportem.com:
"It has come to our attention that Verisign (was Network Solutions) has
some 'unoffical' polices to make it difficult to transfer domains 30
days before expiring. Previously VeriSign has tried other questionable
business tactics and has made it very difficult to transfer domains away
from them. We are recommending if you are thinking of moving your
domain away from VeriSign start the process as early as possible to
prevent transfer denials.
Of course you can transfer to any registrar you like but we also offer
domain registration/renewals and are more than happy to help you with
the process.
For some of the sample of issues with Verisign you can read this
article:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/04/15/020415opgripe.xml "
7:00:17 AM
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Adam Curry: "Is it just me, or is iCal an incredibly good looking piece of crap?" [Scripting News]
No Adam, it's not just you. So far, iCal is just that. Disappointing.
6:56:50 AM
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In connection hell today. Have sporadic 28.8 access from Grand Junction, CO. Making matters worse, am trying to move my domains from Verisign to somewhere else, and am getting nonsense from Verisign. Once Verisign gets the domain, it seems to be hard to move elsewhere. More later...
6:53:33 AM
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Thursday, December 19, 2002 |
 This is outrageous but unfortunately now true. We've given up our right to privacy in libraries. One step closer to 1984.
9:34:08 AM
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We're in the last frantic push before leaving for holiday today. Posting will be light today and irregular for the next couple of weeks. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
8:02:50 AM
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002 |
H.L. Menckin: "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard."
Cynical, but applicable in the Bush/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft era. Here's hoping for a less angry and more thoughtful Bush Cabinet for 2003.
10:00:17 AM
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My friend Matt beat me to the punch on this one. According to the NYTimes, the DoD is looking to regulate WLANs, as they might interfere with military weapons and comms systems.. Great, that's all we need - take the one Next Big Thing that tech has produced in the last two years and kill it in the name of Defense. I'm with Matt - if the DoD can't work around 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz, then we're in real trouble.
7:56:15 AM
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 The weather today looks to be beautiful. Partly cloudy, the pure clean air after a storm, and the infinite views that you only get in the West. Not a good day for shopping or sitting in front of the computer, but a great day for golf.
7:51:28 AM
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We leave for our annual Christmas pilgrimage in two days. A week in Colorado (wife's family), then a week in Kentucky (my family). Though I'll really enjoy seeing the families, I long for the day when I can spend a holiday at home. Looking back, I realize that I've traveled somewhere pretty much every major holiday for 25 years. Perhaps it's time to dig in and start some Socal holiday traditions.
7:42:55 AM
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Sharp piggybacks WLAN for PDA voice service. Cool [The Register]
I really think this is the architecture for the future. WLAN is the perfect last mile connection, and why not pipe voice *and* data through it? Cable companies and telcos should be slugging it out to offer the best neighborhood WLAN possible if they want to be the transport for the future. And, they won't have to dig up our streets again.
7:37:46 AM
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Saw Star Trek: Nemesis last night, and was really, really disappointed. I've been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid. I remember sneaking down the hall after bedtime and watching the show from around the corner, because it was past my bedtime and my parents were unyielding on that. I remember watching Star Trek every afternoon about 5pm with my friends in the UK Honors dorm one year (yes, we were incredible nerds). So I'm prepared to give Nemesis every break, every bias, but...it sucked. I think it goes all the way back to the screenplay - everything about the movie was awkward, clumsy, formulaic. I predict that Nemesis will neither live long nor prosper.
7:24:45 AM
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Tuesday, December 17, 2002 |
Here's a cool new thing in the world: Froogle.
6:21:32 AM
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Monday, December 16, 2002 |
Just for the record, the Cats' schedule for the rest of the season:
Sat 12/21/2002 Indiana @ Louisville, Ky. CBS 5:00 PM
Sat 12/28/2002 Louisville @ Louisville, Ky. ESPN 12:00 PM
Mon 12/30/2002 Tennessee State @ Lexington, Ky. UKTV-L 8:00 PM
Thu 01/02/2003 Alcorn State @ Lexington, Ky. UKTV-D 7:30 PM
Sat 01/04/2003 Ohio @ Cincinnati, Ohio UKTV-L 4:00 PM
Wed 01/08/2003 Tennessee @ Knoxville, Tenn. JP Sports 8:00 PM
Sat 01/11/2003 South Carolina @ Lexington, Ky. SEC TV/FSS 7:00 PM
Tue 01/14/2003 Vanderbilt @ Nashville, Tenn. ESPN 9:00 PM
Sat 01/18/2003 Notre Dame @ Lexington, Ky. CBS 2:00 PM
Wed 01/22/2003 Auburn @ Lexington, Ky. SEC TV/FSS 7:00 PM
Sat 01/25/2003 Alabama @ Tuscaloosa, Ala. ESPN 8:00 PM
Sat 02/01/2003 South Carolina @ Columbia, S.C. JP Sports 1:00 PM
Tue 02/04/2003 Florida @ Lexington, Ky. ESPN 9:00 PM
Sat 02/08/2003 Mississippi @ Oxford, Miss. JP Sports 3:00 PM
Tue 02/11/2003 Georgia @ Lexington, Ky. ESPN 9:00 PM
Sat 02/15/2003 LSU @ Lexington, Ky. JP Sports 1:00 PM
Wed 02/19/2003 Arkansas @ Fayetteville, Ark. JP Sports 8:00 PM
Sun 02/23/2003 Mississippi State @ Lexington, Ky. ESPN 2:00 PM
Wed 02/26/2003 Tennessee @ Lexington, Ky. JP Sports 8:00 PM
Sun 03/02/2003 Georgia @ Athens, Ga. CBS 4:00 PM
Wed 03/05/2003 Vanderbilt @ Lexington, Ky. JP Sports 8:00 PM
Sat 03/08/2003 Florida @ Gainesville, Fla. CBS 2:00 PM
7:40:57 PM
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On my way to play Santa a couple of days ago, we listened to an old Springsteen disc, Tunnel of Love, from 1987. All in all it may be my favorite disc by the Boss. Every song is good, some great, but one of the tracks in particular chokes me up every time. It's Springsteen's love song to his Dad, Walk Like A Man. So for Dave Winer, who's going through a tough time with his father, and for everyone who cares about their dad, here's some pure poetry by the Boss...the last verse does it to me every time.
Walk Like A Man
I remember how rough your hand felt on mine on my wedding day
And the tears cried onmy shoulder I couldn’t turn away
Well so much has happened to me that I don’t understand
All I can think of is being five years old following behind you at the
beach tracing your footprints in the sand
Trying to walk like a man
By Our Lady Of The Roses we lived in the shadow of the elms
I remember ma draggin’ me and my sister up the street to the church whenever
she heard those wedding bells
Well would they ever look so happy again the handsome groom and his bride
As they stepped into that long black limosine for their mystery ride
Well tonight you step away from me and alone at the alter I stand
And as I watch my bride coming down the aisle I pray for the strength to
walk like a man
Well now the years have gone and I’ve grown from that seed you’ve sown
But I didn’t think there’d be so many steps I’d have to learn on my own
Well I was young and I didn’t know what to do
When I saw your best steps stolen away from you
Now I’ll do what I can
I’ll walk like a man
And I’ll keep on walkin’
6:50:18 PM
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The much-heralded storm has finally hit Socal. I'm set to work the day away at home tomorrow, so I hope it pours. We need the water.
6:33:42 PM
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Just finished Dean Koontz's book, One Door Away From Heaven. I remember redaing Koontz's early books thinking he had a good imagination, but the stories and characters were a little awkward. Things have certainly changed. This was as good a book as I've read this year - once all the loosely connected threads came together in the last 150 pages, I couldn't put it down. Literally. I didn't want it to end.
To top it off, Dean has a nice site.
9:54:00 AM
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Sunday, December 15, 2002 |
Keeping Track of John Poindexter. Online pranksters have turned the tables on the man behind the government's controversial Total Information Awareness effort. They are posting his personal information on hundreds of sites. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]
This seems a little harsh, but it sure gets the point across. TIA is a nightmare; 1984 come true. Our best hope is that the work being done on TIA will take 10 years and become mired in government procurement and management processes.
7:57:55 AM
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Saturday, December 14, 2002 |
 Busy, busy today. Playing Santa at 11am, then two Christmas open houses to attend. The suit should come in handy.
As a veteran air traveler and a part-time Santa, I hope to avoid the unfortunate intersection in time and space pictured here (courtesy of Poddy's.)
8:31:04 AM
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Thursday, December 12, 2002 |
Doc on blogs:
"Anyway, pardon me for being a humanities major and all, but what blogs are about isn't complicated.
Simply put, they're journals, and the category they're changing most is journalism. Here's what I said about it to a Stanford class not long ago in an interview.
Of course I might change my mind after this conference we're talking about. I have no idea, which is exactly the idea."
I like the way this guy thinks.
7:58:23 AM
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Bloggers and Loggers
This is pretty wild. A blog originating from the top of a tree in Nocal, where the author is protesting the cutting of old growth forest by camping out in the canopy. Not your usual "the weather today is fine..." personal blog, to be sure. Worth following.
7:55:12 AM
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Met two ladies yesterday who share a job, and it was a surreal experience. They've been doing this for quite a while - each one works three days, and they overlap on Wednesdays. The cool thing is their job is a knowledge worker kind of job, not answering phones or assembling widgets. They've developed all sorts of little methods to transfer knowledge and context to each other at the weekly handoff. But the weird part was talking with them, together. They always say "...we think this...", or "...we feel very strongly about...". They finish each others' paragraphs. They act as a single person, only in two bodies. Weird. Everybody refers to them as EMB, for "Elaine and Mary Beth". There's a doctoral thesis in here somewhere.
7:24:02 AM
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Something's been wrong with the Userland news aggregator lately. Nuts. I've come to depend on its distillation of things that interest me. Back to manual surfing.
7:05:28 AM
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Wednesday, December 11, 2002 |
Here's a recommendation on The Fish House in Palo Alto. Don't bother. Bad service, mediocre food, long waits. They managed to take the comfort right out of comfort food.
7:21:34 AM
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Lots of good news in Silicon Valley News. My favorites:
Related, I met a guy yesterday who has the same setup as me - a Winblows laptop for working with clients, and a Mac OSX box for himself. At least it makes sense to one other person.
7:20:09 AM
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UK 76, Tulane 60. Sweet.
7:12:57 AM
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002 |
Jon Udell: Scripting Groove Web Services. [Scripting News]
For all those who say web services aren't real or ready for prime time, read Jon Udell. This is the future of enterprise computing, period.
It's great when you see the future so clearly. Doesn't happen often.
10:11:16 PM
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Where did the year go? Same place as the decade, I guess. Every year I wonder how it got to be December, and I'm struck by all the things left undone. Forget money, forget forget power - time is the ultimate currency. We only get so much, and we squander almost all of it.
But not all of it. This weekend I do one of the few really selfless things I do all year - playing Santa for a group of orphans. Every year I'm scared to death of the event. It's too much like acting or dancing. I can give a speech in front of thousands, but acting....no thanks. And every year, once I get over the fear, it's great. I can hardly imagine the challenges those kids have been through and have yet to face, so it feels good to try and give them a little.
10:07:42 PM
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Looks like I've got the OK to run with Groove as the collaboration tool for the new project. Cool. Now if the tool lives up to the hype...
9:58:07 PM
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Blogging has yet again taken a back seat to work. It's tough to be reflective and/or creative when you're working from 630am to 6pm. And yes, I'll have a little cheese with that whine.
9:54:15 PM
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Monday, December 09, 2002 |
In between phone calls and real work, am attending the Supernova conference by proxy, tuning into Dave and Doc's real-time blogs of the proceedings. It's not as good as being there, but it's a damn site better than reading the post-conference articles.
Better, I can check the blogs tonight when I get to my hotel - I can "attend" in timeshifted mode. Feels like Tivo.
11:18:33 AM
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Sodomites overrun Amazon.com [The Register]
I had to read this just for the headline. You gotta love The Register.
There's a more serious story here for geeks. Personalization engines are dumb, really dumb. They make recommendations with way too little data. It's as if you met someone wearing a green jacket and assumed you knew about their religion, tastes in wine, and sports affiliations because you know those things about someone else with a green jacket.
6:46:00 AM
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After working hard on my golf swing yesterday, I've discovered a new medical condition to fear/hate: sciatica. More here. Ouch!
6:39:47 AM
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Sunday, December 08, 2002 |
There's a new trend out there, driven by innovation and integration of wireless networking and digital imaging. Consider:
- This camera from Ricoh, combining digital camera, web server, and WLAN link (via John Robb)
- This camera, setting a new size record (small) and truly cool new imaging technique
- The millions of phonecams now in use by teenagers and geeks, used for IM-like communications via images
All this JPEG content being driven onto the web will be the replacement for the bandwidth demand we lost when Napster and p2p music died. This content and bandwidth demand will grow geometrically, so in a year or two...wow! Now if the ISPs carrying the bits can just get healthy with the new demand.
7:15:17 AM
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The multiple time zone shifts really knocked me for a loop this week. Just now getting back on some kind of regular sleep schedule. It'll be nice to be in one time zone for this entire week.
6:34:46 AM
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Thursday, December 05, 2002 |
Report From The Front
It's 7am in Boise. Watching the local "news team", and they break away for a LIVE traffic report from I84, the freeway in Boise. The Traffic Cam focuses on the busiest intersection, and yes, yes, I think that's a car. And there's another one! Right there on live TV, I see at least five or six cars trundling down the six-lane superhighway.
I think I'll make it to the office with no delays. Whew....that was close.
6:17:29 AM
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002 |
 We dodged a bullet by leaving KY yesterday. Tonight's forecast calls for 3-6 inches. Ho-ho-ho.
6:10:37 PM
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I saw something on the news last night that really angered me. The latest commercial airline scare is of course the threat of attack using shoulder-launched missiles. The "experts" all agree that such an attack on US flights is inevitable. The statistic and opinion that angered me was an estimate that it would take $14B to create a solid defense around major US airports, and that such an expenditure was unlikely. My take: SPEND THE MONEY. We're the wealthiest nation on earth, we piss away billions for bad causes both conservative and liberal. We're going to spend more than $14B to widen freeways in San Diego the next few years at $1B per mile. We have a Defense budget exceeding $400B, we spend as much on Defense as the next 20 countries combined. Spend the money. Carve it out of Homeland Security or some other dubious budget item, but here's one thing on which we could spend our tax dollars that doesn't escalate tensions abroad, that will protect our citizens, that will help right the wrong we created by inventing and selling said missile launchers. "Unlikely..." - now that's irritating. Just spend the money.
Perhaps instead of Air Marshals, we should put a Congress person on every departing flight. That'll make spending the money to make air transport safe more likely.
7:24:23 AM
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One result of last week's KY golf outing was a set of new golf stories. The best of the bunch is from one still-crazy friend who plays a lot in the evening. The course we played is really rural, carved from a deep forest. He told me that earlier this year he was playing alone at dusk, he walked to the back of a tee box and was surprised when a big buck burst out of the brush practically in his face. The buck was spooked and lowered his antlers, and my friend grabbed the rack and twisted hard to avoid getting gored. Both parties retreated, but only after a tense moment.
I didn't ask him how well he hit his drive, but I imagine he either hit it a mile or missed it completely.
7:10:48 AM
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What a life. Here I am at 35,000 feet, 7am, on my way to beautiful Idaho. And that's after flying from Cinncinnati to SD last night. Home for 11 hours.
I remember reading stories of the New York-Connecticut commuters when I was a kid, commuters with a 2-hour train ride each way. I thought that would be hell. Yet here I am on a weekly commute that takes 5-6 hours each way, and is much less comfortable (and safe) than the rides taken by the captains of industry from NY. That's progress?
7:03:31 AM
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Tuesday, December 03, 2002 |
MS servers cheaper to operate than Linux?! IDC has sold their soul with this report, just out. They key is that it's a "sponsored report", meaning that MS paid for the research and the foregone conclusion.
I remember the TCO wars of 1994-1995, wherein NT replaced Novell as the defacto network operating system platform in corporate America. This time the MS foe is a little tougher - a federation of companies with IBM at the front. It'll be an interesting fight.
7:38:36 AM
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What a great story! Thanks to SJMN for covering it. We need some good vibe coming from the tech sector.
However, the good vibe is negated by this story about air travel dangers. Shit.
7:05:12 AM
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Today is the end of our extended Thanksgiving holiday. We decided to travel on Tuesday to miss the crowds. And after a week in KY, I have a few more things to be thankful for:
- In Socal, places to shop other than Walmart
- The weather (duh)
- My ever-patient wife
- Broadband. I'm so-oooo tired of dial-up speeds.
- The quality of Boeing engineering. (Please, please promise you'll never put Windows in a 7x7!)
5:17:56 AM
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Also found via Doc Searls: Geekmaids. I'm not sure what to think about this. First reaction, cool. Second reaction...why? Simply a result of the dot-bomb? If so, they give a whole new meaning to "...we also do Windows".
5:05:57 AM
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 This definitely makes my Christmas list.
4:48:45 AM
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From Doc, just heard the new acronym that describes the base technical architecture for cost-effective systems: LAMP, for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and (Perl or Python or PHP). I find it interesting that we're now in the age where we specify the software platform rather than the hardware - it wasn't so when I started out, at the dawn of computing.
4:37:39 AM
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Sunday, December 01, 2002 |
I can't stand it. I'm watching the local real estate channel, and I guess this explains why many people choose to live here (or the equivalent all across the country). How about 150 acres, an old farmhouse (restorable or scrapable), timber rights, no natural gas rights but 100% free natural gas forever, adjacent to a pristine 2300 acre lake - for $115,000! Unbelievable. For $115K in San Diego you can get a 900 square foot condo in a bad part of town.
8:00:35 AM
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Spent time with Em last night refining the college list. Here they are, as well as I can remember. The list is evolving, as are the criteria, but it's looking good.
The A List
- Berkeley
- Stanford
- Amherst
- Dartmouth
- Cornell
The B List
- William and Mary
- Rhodes
- Brown
- Butler
The C List
- U of Kentucky
- Whittaker
- UCSD
I'm thankful she's willing to consider schools based on their merit, not simply how close they are to home. That's a common mistake of bright kids from small towns - settling on a school simply because it's safe, convenient, close.
7:34:53 AM
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Twenty degrees. Snow on the ground. Dark by 430pm. How does so much of the world deal with this for months on end? I think I've lost my weather rhythms by living in Socal so long. Thankfully, better weather is only a plane ride away.
7:26:09 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Jeff Nichols.
Last update: 12/31/2002; 2:45:51 PM.
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