Tuesday, January 11, 2000 @ 04:08 p.m. by jra

Tuesday, January 11, 2000 @ 04:06 p.m. by jra

Sunday, January 9, 2000 @ 03:28 p.m. by jra

It seems that a major fuss is being made about the ethics of "outsider" candidate John McCain.

So far, although I've not done my in-depth research (we call that 'due diligence' in the biz biz :-), I like what I'm hearing about John McCain. I'm a card-carrying Libertarian, but I'm also a realist, and I don't know that Harry Browne has a chance to win this time either. I'm sure I'll have made a decision by October, and I haven't decided whether I'll post it or not.

In any event, though, if I think the general press is being stupid in covering the facts, I'll certainly comment on that here, and this is one such instance.

Apparently, McCain sent a bunch of letters, in his capacity as a congressman, to various government agencies. In the particular case of the letter he sent to the FCC, while the topic was in fact an application made by one of his campaign contributors, the letter he sent did not tell the FCC to do something specific, merely to do something.

I can't see how that could be out of line, myself.

For more on McCain:

Sunday, January 9, 2000 @ 02:54 p.m. by jra

That's right... Steven Hawking.

The interview is interesting, although, as several posters in the inevitable Slashdot thread note, the interviewer's approach is somewhat self-indulgent, and takes maybe a tiny bit too much notice of the mechanics. Still, as some other posters point out, you don't get much of that in other Hawking pieces, and perhaps it's a nice counterpoint.

Once.

For more on Hawking:

Friday, January 7, 2000 @ 09:57 a.m. by jra

Her approach to this involves batteries. Was this enough of a hint?

Sex positivism is still not especially a popular topic in America, the American Puritan Ethic is still strong in us... to our detriment, I think.

[ There's a link to an Allan Sherman book that ought to go there, but I'm on the list of people who think that the Amazon One-Click Ordering patent is ridiculous, and I won't link to them. Oh, wait. This is an eBay story...]

Sherman's book is the best exposition I have yet come across of my observation that "the sexual revolution is over: we lost". At least, when we had rules to break... we knew when we were breaking them. Now, you're never sure...

Myself, I'm a heterosexual adult male, with a normal endocrine balance, and I got over being embarassed about it years ago. As a friend points out (in a paean to our Rocky Horror days): "my lust is so sincere".

[ note, as evidence, the last lines of the Meat Loaf and VP's BBQ stories. :-) ]

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 06:59 p.m. by jra

One of my favorite reads is Jon Udell's column for Byte Magazine, "Tangled in the Threads".

Jon's topic is groupware, and he's recently had a book published on the topic, by O'Reilly -- with a very few exceptions, one of the most highly respected technical publishers on the topics of Unix and the Internet.

This issue's column contains, as he puts it, 'philosophical musings' on mind transplants and other such post-millenarian topics.

The thing that I most enjoyed, though, was on the second page of the column, where he delves into the social aspects of advancing technology. Unlike many of the notes in RISKS Digest or the Privacy Forum, his looks are optimistic, and I think we need some of each; it's easy to get mired in the negative possibilites of the future, and allow dystopia to darken our days.

We shouldn't ignore the negatives, but we need to balance them with the positives; intelligently, informedly... and thoughtfully.

That's what I think; how do you feel?

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 04:46 p.m. by jra

One of the nice things about logging: very often, someone said it better than you, so you can just let them say it.

Spotted in Dinah's Metagrrrl [link at left].

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 03:46 p.m. by jra

Here's a Dan Gillmor piece concerning the current furor about the breaking of DVD copy protection. ESR, predictably, also had something to say about it.

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 02:47 p.m. by jra

Computerworld had another flash: OSHA screwed up.

It seems the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had decided if you did any work at home, your employer was responsible for the safety of your house. That was just as popular sounding to people as you think it might have been, and the uproar was, apparently, noticed.

Governments are companies are slowly starting to realize that in the age of the Internet, there are no 'small, isolated "customers" '. There just aren't. You can't afford to be The Phone Company, anymore.

No matter how big you are.

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 01:57 p.m. by jra

Computerworld notes that Leesburg Center decided to follow Nashua down the drain.

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 01:45 p.m. by jra

Stuff the warning label said not to do.

Note: if you do any of this stuff [and hurt yourself], you're even stupider than they said you were. So there. :-P

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 01:18 p.m. by jra

Those of you who listen to country music ("My name is Jay A., and I'm a country music fan...") may not have found the Sarasota station, 106.5 WCTQ yet. They're playing a mix that is quite a bit 'fresher', to my ears, than Q105, and I've pretty much switched over.

The fact that I get more of their airtime than any other three civilians in four counties had nothing to do with it at all; no... :-)

They've recently spiffed up their website, and they actually answer their email(!).

And they've even got a reasonable domain name. I'm very impressed.

But I still think it's Dad decision whether to subscribe the 14 year old to Playboy or not, Mav.

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 11:06 a.m. by jra

Thursday, January 6, 2000 @ 10:28 a.m. by jra

Well, Meat Loaf is playing another show tonight, but I don't have tickets to this one. So I'm going out, as I (too) often do, to Mugs & Jugs in Clearwater, to look at the the Jugs, and drink from the Mugs -- or do I have that backwards? -- and sing the rest of the song. :-} (Hi, Rebecca!)

[Mugsy's, BTW, has a website, but I'm not going to subject you to it, it sucks. It's in the usual place, should you care. --j]

In any event, you're not likely to see anything more tonight. I'm sure, in a few days or so, I'll have decided whether anyone really gives a damn or not, and you'll probably stop getting this much detail about my life.

Until then, cope.

:-)

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 06:00 p.m. by jra

You might enjoy this clock, showing the amount of time "left until the millennium".

[ Thanks to Robert Cannon on the NANOG mailing list for this one. ]

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 05:50 p.m. by jra

Apologies for not posting an anchor for the ESR piece, it's here. Note also the parody below.

Hope you'll find something else you like here, too, though.

If you follow enough of the web, you probably won't find much here; I'm trying to serve as an editor for those who don't live online...

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 04:47 p.m. by jra

Dinah's MetaGrrrl highlighted this Slashdot parody from Suck, which Slashdot readers who haven't left their sense of humor in their other pants will probably enjoy.

As you've no doubt figured out by now, I have very few sacred cows, and Bill Maher is my hero. Well, one of them.

A PSA:

[Tests link, discovers it's an affiliate program. Well, I don't object to Dinah getting the credit if no one else does... --j]

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 04:03 p.m. by jra

Via The Bradlands [link at left (I think)], Doonesbury's Daily Briefing.

DISCUSSION: where, exactly, does one draw the line on this sort of thing. If you're Garry Trudeau, for example? What do you think? Hit the email link...

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 03:49 p.m. by jra

This Slashdot story covers the US Customs Service raid on Ramsey Electronics, who apparently manufacture dangerous wiretapping devices.

I'd say <snicker>, but this is too serious.

Check out the story, and Ramsey's home page, and keep your powder dry.

<sigh> I hate having to sound like a militia gun-nut.

Customs' website contains this pointer to the commissioner, no doubt you can think of something productive, and polite, to say to him.

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 02:14 p.m. by jra

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 01:51 p.m. by jra

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 12:05 p.m. by jra

My sister, who was kind enough to point here gets the favor returned; if you're a Scott Bakula fan, you need to go check her site out; you'll find there a link back to here. But you're smart enough not to take it...

Wednesday, January 5, 2000 @ 11:23 a.m. by jra

Flutterby points to this page on the history of contraception.

On a related topic, I think your teenagers need to visit the Center for Positive Sexuality. If you disagree with me, that's your choice. :-)

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ AM. by jra

One final chuckle for the real Unix heads.

Comments on what depth of this sort of administrivia is really pertinent are welcome, too.

G'night, y'all.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 11:32 p.m. by jra

I'm reading some of the ESR writings I pointed to in an earlier entry, and thinking that, 'well, here's another one I should point out'.

Then I gave it a second thought, and that one was 'no, people will dig around, and find this one without my having to point it out'... and (to coin a phrase) it was then, and only then that I realized...

that I'm probably wrong.

I'm not sure whether it's lack of curiosity, or just an insufficient understanding of how the web works, but I guess I don't think it's safe to assume that most people will, in fact, do the sort of digging around I'm talking about.

So, there's the link. Tell me what you think, though, about the primary topic of this entry. Those initials down there are a mailto: link.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 11:00 p.m. by jra

Nashua Center had a disk go out on them.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 10:47 p.m. by jra

One of my favorite net writers is Eric Raymond, author of, among other things the paper that almost certainly caused Netscape to open-source the development of the 5.0 version of their browser.

He's also a Libertarian, politically. I was poking around his website tonight, and came across an essay of his that I hadn't read before.

I won't be sleeping especially well tonight.

This is why both Eric and I take the position, roughly, that gun control is being able to hit your target.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 10:26 p.m. by jra

On that topic, one of the things I ran across a few weeks back, from either Camworld or Flutterby [links at left], was Jerry Maguire's 'mission statement', if you will. I haven't even seen the movie; this was written as sort of backstory to flesh it out, and I agree with the sentiments of whichever other logger I stole this from: it's a great idea for which to make use of the web, and I hope it happens more often.

In any case, recommended reading... and thinking.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 08:55 p.m. by jra

use WebTV. This is why.

(Spotted via Slashdot.)

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 08:50 p.m. by jra

One of my favorite weekly (or so) reads is the RISKS Digest; more properly the "Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems". It's an irregular newsletter, available on Usenet, the web, and by mail, moderated (amusingly) by Peter G. Neumann at the Stanford Computer Science Laboratory.

For over a decade. This is, of course, about three centuries, in 'Internet years'. One read will give you a good line on what territory it covers, and you'll likely hear about new issues here, because there's always something in there I feel the need to comment on.

(Commenting on things is one of the things I think I do best; that's why you're reading this...)

In any event, it seems that the New York Times had a small problem.

102 years ago.

But don't worry; it's fixed now.

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 08:40 p.m. by jra

CNN wants to know. Funny, I'd thought this topic was already settled.

:-)

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 08:20 p.m. by jra

Dan Bricklin's Log notes this piece in The Boston Globe about real estate, and who's buying.

Interesting, for a telecom geek like me. Got any old buildings in your portfolio?

[I note that the Globe, which used to be fussy about people 'deep-linking' into their stories, apparently no longer is. I'm glad to see they've gotten religion.]

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 11:48 a.m. by jra

Scott Kurtz draws a comic strip called Player vs. Player. A Slashdot piece this morning points to a rant he's written about User Friendly [link at left], another comic strip about technical support types.

Seems he doesn't think they're funny.

"Anyone in the world, can learn how to work in tech support. It's basic memorization, there is no real math or intelligence skills required", he says.

Yup; I've talked to some of those people.

I hope never to do so again. Now, admittedly, I'm biased; I do know more than many tech support people, and the first liners waste my time just the same way many non-technical people would be wasting the time of a second level engineer if those were what answered the phone.

That's another rant, check back later. But the point here is, who is the audience of strips like User Friendly? I believe Scott thinks it's the average computer user, and I think he's wrong. Rich Tennant's Fifth Wave, familiar to readers of Computerworld magazine and the low-self-esteem books, is similar material, but it's funny to a wider range of people.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Any group that considers itself to be somewhat small and specific, with 'insider knowledge' will tend to create humor based on that, and share it. Either Scott doesn't realize this, or doesn't think that UF is aimed a smaller than general audience... or perhaps I merely think that, incorrectly.

His fundamental complaint, though, is that he thinks the strips aren't funny. Perhaps they're not. But Peanuts wasn't always funny, either...

One other thing: "[computer games aren't funny.] However, jokes about the people that play computer games are." doesn't jibe really well, for me, with "First and foremost, I find that tech support jokes are just plain cruel." Most jokes are cruel, to someone. Do some research on the basis of humor.

On a positive note, he also posted a link to 13 email facts you should know; excellent reading for all y'all (as a favorite phrase from an old Fidonet buddy has it).

Cheers,
-- jra

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 10:31 a.m. by jra

Meat Loaf was on VH1's Storytellers a while back, and, as the liner notes would have it, enjoyed himself so much that he not only bought the release rights to the show for an album, he decided to take the whole damned thing on tour.

Well, that tour hit Tampa Bay last night, and a couple of friends accompanied me to the show at Ruth Eckerd Hall. And it's a good thing they were there, or no one would believe me. :-)

"Ask any question at all", he said. So I did: "On your Storytellers album, you did "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad"... but you didn't do the bridge. What's up with that?"

"Well," he said, "if you wanna make sure you hear it tonight, why don't you sing it?"

"Oh shit", I said, approximately.

"Ok", I said aloud, and was taken down in front by the ever-lovely Kristi Storm, from Thunder 103.5.

The problem with the show, it seems, was "fuckin' television". The average ST segment is 4 and a half minutes. And we all know how many Meat Loaf songs are that short.

Right.

So, anyway, something had to go, and that something was the bridge. So he sang the song, and sure enough, about half way through the bridge, walked over and handed me the mic.

My friends say that he looked impressed; I was shaking too bad by that point to be paying any attention, but the audience seemed to like it. :-)

In any event, it was a killer show... and if the pretty girl named Keri (or something like that) who was on top during "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is looking for a date for this weekend... call me. 'K?

Cheers,
-- jra

Tuesday, January 4, 2000 @ 09:19 a.m. by jra

Monday, January 3, 2000 @ 04:42 p.m. by jra

Monday, January 3, 2000 @ 03:14 p.m. by jra