toaster83

First atlas, now odin. Plus, will we be surfing the GoogleNet?

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:12:20 GMT

Sigh. Last week, Sharon was using my computer and called me saying that it had hard-locked, made some weird popping noises (through the speakers) and then magically restarted itself. I figured it to not be a big deal, but, ever since, odin has been increasingly unstable to the point now where I can't get it to boot into Windows successfully. It looks like another motherboard issue, which marks the second ASUS pos to short out on me. On top of their abhorrent customer (non-)service, I'm done with them. I'm buying a different, more stable motherboard for odin now. It's going to be a pain in the ass, but giving ASUS more money for crap mobos would be worse. If you've been wondering why I haven't been online recently, now you know.

In other news, there's an article in IBD from a couple days ago discussing how internet outfits might buy spectrum to do an end-run around AT&T and others who want to create a tiered internet by providing their own wireless service. Not surprisingly, Google is on the top of the short list of companies who would be able to pull this off. The theory is that big internet firms like Google, eBay, Amazon, and others would form a consortium to buy up the spectrum and create a broadband wireless network with it. It's not exactly the most probable thing to happen, but it is certainly possible. The first auction will be in June when the FCC auctions off spectrum in the 1710-1755MHz and 2110-2155MHz bands. The next one will involve spectrum in the 700MHz region, but will only occur after television companies ditch that part of the spectrum for OTA HDTV. That may occur as late as 2008.

For those who think that an internet company consortium forming their own wireless broadband network is a far-out idea, there is some corroboration to be considered. Back in November, Robert X. Cringely wrote some articles about how Google is playing around with putting 5000-processor, 3.5-petabyte servers into 40-foot shipping crates for a worldwide Google network at a cost of around $3.5 billion. The idea of Google and/or others setting up their own network for public dissemination has been circulating in the rumor mills for years. And, unlike the GoogleOS rumors (which are spawned from the fact that Google runs a custom Linux kernel internally), it's a rumor that has some legs. Between their shipping crate servers and purchase of dead fiber, the disappearance of network neutrality may be the spark needed to put the wheels in motion.

So now I will add my own future of Google theory to the melting pot. In my opinion, I think it's a good bet that Google wants their own public network. Google is all about gathering information, but creating very little original information on their own. The ultimate in this is to control the network. With the information that comes from running a network, Google could further optimize their current businesses and services, including their profitable ones like AdSense. Partnering with Earthlink to provide municipal Wi-Fi to San Francisco could serve as a spring board. Google's core isn't running an ISP, so they provide the capital, set up the shipping crates, light up their dark fiber, and let Earthlink manage the ISP aspect of the network. That way, Google does what they always do, hands off what they don't do to someone else, and now collects, disseminates, and exploits the wealth of new information they will receive. And if they decide to provide people with a set-top box or some other internet appliance, all the better for them.

In the end, Google wants to manage the world's information. It's their mantra, along with doing no evil. What better way to do so than to own the pipes that users' information travels over? If they can do that while teaming up with others to flip the bird at AT&T, then the question isn't if they'll create their own network, but when.

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The Week (or so) in Review

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 01:05:31 GMT

The weekend in New Jersey was pretty fun. Marc's Bar Mitzvah went off with approximately the standard number of glitches for such things, which amounts to a success. I had the honor of lugging the Torah around after all the portions were read (it was a mere thirty pounds; not bad for a Torah). Unfortunately, I was near comatose at the lunch after Saturday services because the red-eye I took completely jacked up my sleep schedule. That was doubly unfortunate since I passed out upon returning to Sharon's house, even though Matt and Scott were there. C'est la vie.

I started work this past week. I was going to start reinstalling Windows 2003 Small Business Server on their network, but apparently a predecessor of mine stole their discs. So I had the pleasure of calling Dell to finagle new discs out of them, which was surprisingly easy but came with a one-time-only warning. I installed the new router to decrease their reliance on their server. (Inline sidenote. Whoever set up their previous configuration was a complete moron. What they did would be good for a network with plenty of DCs, redundancy, etc. However, to pin the entire operation of all network functions on a single server, with no backup, is incredibly stupid. That's just asking for huge problems (which already have happened at least once). When I get done with it, no more stupidity like that will exist.) Installing Windows will be one of next week's tasks.

Last night marked my first trip to Commerce in quite a while. It also marks the first session of setting up an actual bankroll, which should be helpful to increasing my poker exploits. I played 9-18 limit for about four hours and came out about 450$ richer for my efforts; so it was an excellent session overall. Sharon accompanied me and played some 2-4 herself with success as well, leaving about 60$ in the black. We saw Andrew there, who had been there since last night, and he was still grinding away at the 100 NL games.

We also say V for Vendetta on Thursday night, which was quite good. In my excitement, I picked up the comic and read it before seeing the movie. The comic has some different plot elements, some nowhere in the movie, that definitely make the comic worth reading if you enjoyed the movie. It's definitely the best movie I've seen in quite a while (granted, I hadn't seen a movie in theatres for four or five months prior). I'll probably write a more detailed post about the movie and comic in the near future, because there areq quite a few interesting concepts and ideas in the story that I'd like to comment on and analyze.

England Prevails.

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One short of a six-shooter.

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:52:26 GMT

Some interesting things have been going on recently. Instead of writing a large diatribe that would probably just turn into one big amalgam of incoherent words and thoughts (can words be incoherent in the context of other words?), I thought I'd just put together a (relatively) brief list.

I've had my Motorola v600 since June 2004. It's a great phone; it has a camera (frivilous, but fun sometimes), Bluetooth, good voice quality, and an aestheticly pleasing and durable form factor. Unfortunately, over the past six months, it's been getting finicky. It likes to randomly soft reset upon opening it and the exterior screen sometimes gets irrevocably screwed up without hard resetting. Also, sometimes people would call me and it would ring on their end but not on mine. I happen to know this isn't a service issue for reasons not worth enumerating here. And most recently, starting about a month ago, the earpiece on my phone got screwed up and I could barely hear anybody on it. That is a deal breaker. So, with it being almost two years since buying it, and since I got a one-year contract instead of two (at the time, there was a rebate program, and I tend to be itching for a new phone in the last few months of a two-year contract -- it *really* paid off this time), I was eligible for an upgrade. So, after looking at phones, I realized that cell phone technology has gone nowhere in the past two years. Not wanting to cough up 200$ for the same technology that I'd be stuck with for two years and after having friends rave over their's, I got myself a Blackberry (with a two-year contract such to be eligible for the current rebate, and it damn well better last at least two years). I was looking at the 7100g at first, but after consideration, I ended going a step up and getting the 8700c. Now I have e-mail and web access over EDGE and a full QWERTY keyboard along with PIM functionality that I need. I am quite pleased with my new toy, but no more of those for a while.

Dan, a friend of mine from my elementary school days, offered me a job to do network administration work for his business along with coding for some interesting stuff. I don't want to say too much, but this should fill my employment void in the near-term. I doubt this will turn into anything long term (over six months), but it should be lots of fun, and it's work until I find another job up my alley.

I would be remiss to not note that today is Pi Day! Sharon said that the math club at UCLA is selling Π/4 pie for 2$. If I had time to go to UCLA today, I'd be all over that. But I will eat a slice of pie today. It's a requirement. And an excuse to eat pie.

Running has been going pretty well. I haven't been quite as consistent in doing it as I would like, but given my fluid schedule right now (which should end soon because of aforementioned job), it's hard to prevent. Upon commencing work, I will have some structure in my life around which I can run on a consistent basis.

I'm leaving for New Jersey on Thursday night for Sharon's brother's (Marc) Bar Mitzvah. I haven't been to one of these in a long time, and I even had to go buy a new suit, because I haven't had the need for a suit in many years (weird, I know). I'll be back Sunday night.

That's it for personal goings-on for now. And I apologize for the title of this post. It won't happen again...at least not for a while.

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And then there were three.

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:44:24 GMT

Originally, there was one -- AT&T, f.k.a American Telephone and Telegraph. Then, in 1984 (somewhat ironically), the split of Ma Bell into its regional components completed. AT&T gave birth to seven regional Bell companies. 22 years after the break up of telephony's "natural monopoly" and ten years after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we are now down to three companies: AT&T/SBC, Verizon, and Qwest. That assumes that the recently proposed merger of AT&T and BellSouth goes through as expected. It appears that Ma Bell is recoalescing back into its former self. This is all in an effort to be a leader in offering the key three-member combination of services: telephone, Internet, and television. This merger will not only bring Cingular Wireless under one corporate roof, but the merger will also further propel the company's roll out of IPTV and FTTP.

It seems to me what we're moving into a world with two main choices in what I call "content services." The first is picking one company to provide everything you need. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Adelphia, etc. all want to give you everything including the ktichen sink. A single bill and discounted service are two big advantages that such a scheme provides. However, are you going to get the best services from such content service conglomerations? Other companies providing a single service want to make sure that doesn't become the case. DirecTV, Dish Network, Vonage, Skype, T-Mobile and others want you to use their services, which are better than the big corporations' since they only do one thing. Somewhat counterintuitively, these individual services are actually cheaper than their counterparts offered by the huge conglomerates.

Only time will tell whether the one-stop shop or the niche companies will win in the oncoming battle over content services.

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atlas up and running!

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 19:58:14 GMT

After reinstalling Slackware, recompiling a 2.6.x kernel, playing with settings, installing drivers, and praying the graphics card wouldn't die, I've got atlas back in its spot underneath my desk. It appears that the graphics card's fan isn't working, causing the card to gradually overheat over time. That explains why leaving it off for a day or two would fix the issue, and why if rebooting would slowly make the situation worse. Fortunately, since I use an SSH client on odin to use atlas, I don't *need* the video card to work correctly or consistently. Despite my victory, atlas will probably not last too much longer. Obviously, the graphics card is an issue, even if I can get around it. I had to borrow one of Sharon's optical drives (out of seaman) in order to install Slack, and the hard drive in there is as old as atlas itself, putting it at 4 1/2 years old.

This underlines my luck with hardware components. I've hardly ever had an optical drive last more than 18 months, but I haven't lost a hard drive to old age yet. In fact, atlas' 80GB drive is in odin. I recently install a new WD 400GB in odin and have moved everything of importance off of the old drive. The next step will be to back up everything important on atlas onto odin, in case of doom.

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Separating Media and Format

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:37:41 GMT

The movie and music industries have figured out how to maintain growth without having to change how their business works. Instead of getting more high-quality content made and released, they just want you to buy the same stuff two or three or four times. How do they do this? Different formats. I can buy the same content on a DVD and UMD as well as via iTunes and cable/satellite service. Music is no better. I can get what I want via a myriad of subscription music services, CD, SACD/DVD-Audio (which, admittedly, have gone nowhere). So how does one avoid buying the same thing multiple times? And without having a vast knowledge of technology? And without breaking the law?

Getting you're music in every form one could desire isn't very difficult nowadays. There' s no CD copy protection (any music disc which purports copy protection is not a CD according to the red book standard), which allows fair use without violating the DMCA. You can pretty easily rip your CD to various formats with a plethora of freely available software. What if you don't want to pay insanely inflated prices for music CDs? You're remaining (legal) options are DRM-laden. iTunes is by far the most popular online music service, despite Apple's FairPlay DRM. Of course, the iPod, iTunes' target device, can be pretty versatile nowadays. It's good in your pocket, in your car, and now your home stereo. If you have an iPod, you probably will never notice Apple's DRM. Unless you try to authorize too many computers or play your music via non-Apple software, FairPlay will probably be transparent to you...if you own an iPod. I shouldn't have to own an iPod to use music the way I want.

Video -- movies, TV series, etc. -- is a much hairier situation. All video has DRM "protection" (I use the quotation marks since DRM gets hacked pretty quickly.), which makes it illegal to circumvent for any reason. So if I want to legally watch my favorite movie on my home theatre setup, iPod 5G, PSP, and computer, I have to pay for it three or four times. What if I want to get in HD? I have to wait for either the BluRay or HD-DVD release and cough up more dough. My pocket is being dipped into multiple times to watch the same movie on my myriad of devices. This is the future of music and movies. The RIAA and MPAA are not going to bother to release quality content continuously. They will hook you with your favorites and welcome you to buy them over and over and over again. Prior to the DMCA, this wasn't possible. Now the RIAA and MPAA do an end run around fair use by making it illegal to exercise it.

The situation only continues to worsen. The new high-definition formats, BluRay and HD-DVD, are going to be swamped with DRM. You won't be able to watch content at its full resolution unless you have an HDCP-compatible device. Only newer HDTVs have the necessary connection. Older ones don't and neither do any current video cards on the market. So now to watch the content I rightfully purchased at its full, intended resolution, I have to buy a new HDTV and acquire a new video card when they finally release ones with HDCP on them. In short, if you're equipment isn't adequately secure, you don't get what you paid for. This isn't going to hinder piracy, it's going to encourage it. Why buy a legal copy that I can only view at 1/4 of the resolution when you can download one for free at full resolution? I don't need to pay 3000$ to watch the latest movie release at 1080p. It's just a few clicks away.

Well, you might say, what about the AACS encryption scheme? That will prevent piracy of new content at full resolution. My response to that is simple: name one DRM encryption scheme that hasn't been broken in the face of people trying for a significant period of time. You can't because it doesn't exist. Every DRM scheme for media to date has been broken. And it only takes one hacker from one rip group to distribute pirated movies in full HD resolution for it to permeate the internet. What about when the industry changes the encryption keys? It will get hacked again, and again, and again. There is no reason to think that AACS will actually stop hackers from pirating movies.

So what should the RIAA and MPAA do to not piss of consumers while trying to control the distribution of their content? Separate form and function. Make content as independent from its encoding -- physical and digital -- as possible. Why just give playback devices keys? Give each consumer their own keyring. Then you could have media players play content by decrypting it on the fly, without storing it on the hard drive, and then play the movie using a standard codec (H.264, MPEG Part 2, Divx, etc.). That would make it very difficult to gain access to the unecrypted data, especially with well-written software that would thwart such attacks. When people buy video, they could provide their public key and get the content. Heck, they could buy an encrypted copy online using their player's public key, burn it, and then have a protected, useable media disc to put in their player. As long as the private keys stay guarded, the only risk is that somehow someone figures out how to derive a private key from a public one.

There are some issues with this, of course. Using a public key infrastructure (PKI) like OpenPGP is expensive computationally. It's one thing to wait a few seconds for video to play on a computer. But a set-top box is completely different. Anything much longer than a noticeable delay is unacceptable. Also, there are a hell of a lot of players out there. Do you assign them all the same key or set of keys, or do you give each their own keyring? Practicality issues come into play here. Finally, who is to say that someone won't share their private key along with the encrypted media? You could do what Apple does and authorize a computer to use a key. You could also have the formation of a keyring correspond to a computer, and then allow a person a certain number of keyrings for that number of computers.

While the solution I propose is by no means perfect, I think it is a step in the right direction in the debate on how to balance the rights of consumers while defending against piracy. Legitimate consumers must be allow to get what they paid for in full and without having to pay for it multiple times. Then implement measures that maintain this while thwarting piracy. Jack Taylor, founder of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, started his company on a single principle: "Take care of your customers and employees first, and growth and profits will follow." This is the kind of thinking that will benefit all parties involved.

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Buff and Brainy

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:57:34 GMT

Apparently, your body isn't the only thing being benefited by a moderate exercise regimen. It appears that exercise makes you smarter. While most of these studies were done on rats and mice, they suggest that working out generates neurochemicals that help damaged brain cells and help grow and nuture healthy ones. The article also suggests that exercise may help combat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and rehabilitate victims of neurological injury. This article is the first of a two-part series.

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What do code and legs have in common?

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 00:27:21 GMT

Not much of interest has been going on recently. I've been up to my same old tricks, working on projects at home and still seeking employment. My Firefox extension has been on hold in recent weeks and will continue to be until atlas is up and running again, which should be soon if I can get around the graphics card issue. There are a couple of other projects in the pipeline right now, but those haven't really kicked into high gear yet. I'll probably really get working at the beginning of the coming week.

I finally started up running again on Thursday. My legs were pretty unhappy yesterday and not a whole lot better today. Despite still being a little sore, I think I'm going to go out again before it gets dark. Before I ran on Thursday, I knew I was pretty out of shape, but I didn't quite expect to have as much trouble as I did. With luck, today's run will go better. I'd love to get myself back up to where I was at the end of the first semester of sophomore year at Columbia when I was running at least 6-7 miles four days per week. I was hoping to get some other exercising in after a while, but I don't know if I'll have that much time for working out.

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atlas is down, but hopefully not out

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 20:10:18 GMT

I decided I was going to use swaret to upgrade atlas (which ran Slackware 10.0). However, the upgrade was less than successful. At first, I only thought that, for some strange and unknown reason, that most of the upgrades failed. Well, a couple days later, Sharon couldn't log into atlas because of an error in glibc. Well, sure enough, it appeared that swaret had upgraded bash without upgrading the dependency! In trying to fix the problem, I only made it worse and completely hosed bash. So, what's a good little admin to do but reinstall the OS. Fortunately, I burned the newest version of Slack (10.2) for Sharon recently, so I installed that and went to work. All was well until we rebooted the computer.

For a while, atlas has had a minor display problem that would slightly obfuscate what was on the screen. And it wouldn't always occur. Since I solely use SSH to use atlas, it's never really been a problem. Well, the problem got a lot worse and won't go away now. So now I can't make out what the computer is displaying on the monitor. And, unfortunately, something isn't right with the ethernet or SSH configuration, so I can't just boot it blind and log in from odin. So now both Sharon's and my work has been trapped on there for two days. Fortunately, we made a backup of all data on to her computer (seaman), so the data is accessible, even if seaman isn't quite set up for the task.

What I'm thinking (and hoping) is that the intermittent nature of the problem implies that the problem lay in the GeForce4. If it were some sort of motherboard problem, it would have to be isolated to the graphics card (since I know that all the other hardware in atlas works). That limits the number of problems it could be severely, and none of those I can think of could possibly be intermittent. There are no indications of circuits having blown out anywhere, so that's an unlikely possibility. So Sharon and I are going to try putting seaman's card in atlas and see if we fare any better (assuming atlas' motherboard can support a 4xAGP card, about which I'm unsure at the moment). Then I'll have to buy a new graphics cards (probably a 30-40$ outlay) and see if that remedies the problem. If not, then it's the motherboard, and atlas' time will be over.

In the scenario of atlas' demise, I'd have to consider whether it would be worth the money to create atlas2. Admittedly, I have grown quite fond of and dependent on atlas since it became a Linux box after building and setting up odin. It's great as a development platform, allows me external access to all of my files on atlas and odin, and gives me a local server for various services (httpd being number one on that list). At the same time, I could use odin for development if I found an IDE to my liking, install no-ip on odin for external access, and install Windows versions of almost any service I need. One thing I can't do on odin that I can on atlas is compile programs and projects that just make source available without compiled binaries. I currently can compile Firefox on atlas for bug testing/fixing and such. That wouldn't be possible on odin without cygwin, which I refuse to install because it hoses the hard drive's MFT with approximately 100,000 files. Also, I had plans to hook up atlas to the home entertainment system, and watch video files residing on my computer on the TV. I *could* do that with odin, but it would far more preferable to have a computer independent from my main machine doing that.

Creating atlas2, given my assumptions, would require a new processor and motherboard. Also, while not absolutely necessary, I would be intelligent in getting a new hard drive for it as well. Currently, atlas is running on its original root hard drive, a standard consumer-grade Western Digital 40GB, for 4Â½ years. Generally speaking, you don't want to risk important data on a decently-used hard drive that's much over three years old. If they were made to last over five years, hard drive manufacturers would have given them five-year warranties long before they were forced to. So to put atlas' original hard drive in atlas2 as anything more than auxiliary/emergency/temporary storage would probably be a bad move. Could the drive last eight years? Sure. But it's just as likely that it will fail next week. So, hypothetically speaking, it would cost about 550$ to get atlas2 up and running (200$ for an Athlon 64 3500+, 120$ for a compatible motherboard, 150$ for 1GB of RAM, and 80$ for a new hard drive) on top of the new graphics card. Is it worth it? Well, there are also external factors that would have to be considered, so it's a decision I'll have to make if I need to. With any luck, I won't need to right now.

If atlas does survive this round, it's debatable how much longer it will survive. Sharon and I feel it's unlikely that atlas will make it through to the end of 2006. There aren't many more things that can go wrong without a full overhaul. If the RAM, motherboard, or processor fail, atlas is done. If the hard drive fails, I can put atlas' 80GB that's currently in odin back into atlas, but that's also 4Â½ years old. Even though it was a secondary hard drive and hasn't seen as much use, it's still old and a liability. To summarize, atlas is on its last legs, and it's only a matter of time and chance before atlas is done for good. Having had it since August 2001, atlas has been loyal and faithful, even if occassionally ornery. Considering it came from Gateway, I consider 4Â½+ life span pretty good.

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Best Super Bowl XL Commercial

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:21:39 GMT

The best commercial from Super Bowl XL had to have been the Citi commercial with Macgyver. Why? Because it's Macgyver. And stuff blew up. Enough said.

Oh yeah, the game was pretty good, too. It didn't quite live up to its extra-large moniker, but I've seen plenty worse.

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Staying hungry and wasting time.

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 22:44:48 GMT

Yesterday, I was having lunch with a friend of mine, and the subject of my current state of unemployment came up. He then asked whether I had read Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford from this past year. In replying no, he said that he would provide me with a copy, and, sure enough, he did. As he knows, and you, loyal reader, as well, I tend to be somewhat hard on myself. I push, and, inevitably, I sometimes get pushed back. This would be a fairly accurate description of my attempt at business school straight out of Columbia. And now, I push myself to find a new job, to get my foot in the door, to get back up and push again. But, alas, getting the proverbial foot in said door has been a trying task, one more difficult than I suspected. But, I keep looking, submitting the occasional rÃ©sumÃ© to a potential employer that's offering a job that I'm qualified for, and typically never hearing a single word from them, ever.

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Steve Jobs in the world. I think, along with many others, that he's a bit of an egomaniac. However, he does deserve credit. He founded and currently runs two highly successful companies, Apple and Pixar. (I supposed you could claim he didn't found Pixar, since he bought Lucasfilm's computer animation division (if I recall correctly), but that's just splitting hairs.) Pixar was just purchased by Disney for $7.4 billion, because Pixar has been doing Disney's business better than Disney in recent years. Now Jobs is Disney's largest shareholder. He's also brought back Apple from the jaws of marginalization with the iPod. With all that in mind, I was eager to read his speech, to find what nuggets of wisdom lay within.

I'll highlight the main points of his speech here that struck me, but I highly recommend reading the entire thing.

[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something â” your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

I've had many people tell me this before, and I don't doubt I'll hear it again. But, for me at least, it's advice that is good to hear over and over again. It's very easy to think that much of what you're doing is for naught; you must trust that your previous experiences will come back in unexpected ways.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith...You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.

I feel I've been hit with a half-dozen bricks over the past few years. But I think one of my strengths is that I can get knocked over by a brick, and get right back up again and keep going. I'm not one to stay idle, which is part of the reason why I really want to find work. Being inert is not in my nature (my need to get back into shape and lose weight notwithstanding).

Don't be trapped by dogma â” which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

For me, this point is actually two. I am definitely not one to be "trapped by dogma," but I do think that I could do a better job of extricating my inner voice in many situations. Not being assertive enough is one of my weaknesses, but one I try to work on as much as possible.

Upon reflecting on all this, I became curious as to what words of wisdom were spoken at my commencement last May. The only speech I could readily find was PresBo's address. While much of it was either not uniquely interesting or addressing concerns facing Columbia as an academic institution, the very first paragraph stood out. Specifically...

We hope you have mastered the art of wasting time well. We know you have mastered the art of wasting time. Certainly, you have mastered the rituals of procrastination - the multi-colored pens, the carefully stacked pile of notes, the ever - sharpened pencils. But, hopefully, you can now distinguish between doing nothing when something could be done and doing nothing while creativity gets its act together inside our mind.

I will keep pursuing work, finding my entrance into the dreaded "real world," confident in my belief that I am not just wasting time, but wasting it well.

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To Do List for My Website and Miscellaneous

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 08:31:42 GMT

So I know I've been less than good about getting my new site all cleaned up. Upon thinking about the work I've been doing this past week, I realized that I've paid no attention to the site, which is fair to neither me nor you. So upon some reflection, I've drawn up a little to-do list. I plan on starting on it this weekend and slowly chipping at it until it is no more. So, in descending order of priority...

Add menu bar to top of pages. This one is important for multiple reasons. First, I intend on having some other pages up here besides blog pages (actually, there are a couple of other pages up that you, my loyal blog readers [all N of you where N is a very small integral number greater than zero], probably haven't found), and I need the menu there first so they can be accessed. Also, it's to make my life a little easier for the next item.

Trash the absolute positioning layout. This is mostly a backend thing, so it won't really yield noticeable changes on the frontend. However, it will make my job of adding/maintaining content on this site much easier.

Fix the incorrectly styled areas of my site. I never completely adapted my CSS style over to all the dynamically generated WordPress XHTML. So I need to finish that up.

Fix some CSS hacks with better styling. This is the spit-and-polish step of my work. This will fix the minutae that annoy me. With the completion of this step, I should be as pixel-perfect as I wish to be.

Restyle search box. It came with WordPress, and I'm sure it's useful. But, I must say, it's damn ugly. So I'm going to make it one with my website.

Write up some new content. I want to add a projects section, pictures section (see next item), links section. There are also a few other things I may decide to add.

Brew up some custom PHP scripts. I want to write some PHP/MySQL code for dealing with some things that I shouldn't have to update manually. For example, my book list should be dynamic and a custom script would fit the bill pretty well (that is, until a project of Sharon's and mine comes to fruition). Also, I'd like to set up a picture database as well.

Eventually, I want do a little face lift work to the site. The basic style hasn't really changed since June 2004, I believe, and there are a few design elements I'd like to change. This was spurred on from whipping together a page for Session History Extension, the style for which took two hours to whip up from scratch. I like some of the design elements and cues I implemented. And, I just recently started thinking up some ideas for a complete stylistic overhaul of my website. But that's a version and a half away, which, in the software development world, is a long time from now.

As a quick aside, I haven't been posting as much about my goings-on as I'd like to recently, mostly because there hasn't been much going on. I'm still jobless and still looking. Right now, I'm spending my days in front of the computer screen, working on projects, paid and otherwise, while listening to CNBC or Star Trek: TNG in the background. There isn't much else going on right now outside my daily routine. I think I'm even starting to get in a bit of rut, which I'd like to get out of as soon as possible.

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It's a bird, it's a plane....

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:58:59 GMT

it's a...HUH?!

Microsoft has thrown UI design out the window.

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 03:27:47 GMT

I read an article yesterday that compares Windows XP to the most recent public build of Windows Vista (build 5270). It looks like it will be a pretty good upgrade to XP, though I have no intention on upgrading immediately upon its release (whenever that may be). However, I got quite upset when I saw a screenshot of IE7. I don't know the IE team has been doing to the backend of the browser, but the UI they've put together is horrific. It doesn't make any sense! There is no rhyme or reason to it.

Let's work from the top down. Under the title bar is the navigation toolbar. First off, there's the new back/forward dropdown, which is now one unified dropdown instead of two (you can't see it on that particular screenshot, but trust me when I say it's there). It's an interesting interface decision, one that I think has the right intent. But this way of showing the user the session history doesn't really jibe with me. Moving on, the first thing that got my attention was the stop/reload button (they merged the two, something that in theory may make sense, but doesn't at all in practice) inside the location bar. Why would you put it there. It doesn't make sense, and it goes against users' expectations. There aren't supposed to be button commands in a dropdown box; it goes against every other piece of software designed. It's isolated from the rest of the buttons on the navbar. It doesn't make sense to have it there, and it certainly makes no sense to separate the back/forward button from the stop/reload button; now I have to look in two separate places for commands in the same set of functionality. (By the way, who at Microsoft decided that we have so little screen real estate as to necessitate the merging of such buttons? I don't think people are so desparate for 30 pixels that they want to lose functionality.) Strike one.

Now for the real horrendous design decisions. Next is the tab/navigation (see the home button?)/favorites/command bar. Again, did users need an extra 30 pixels of browser area so badly that they had to take a bajillion (technical term) different things and put them all on one bar? This design lacks any UI coherence. The home page button should be on the navigation bar. Currently, Firefox puts the RSS and security icons in the address bar. The security icon is an indicator of website security, and that seems appropriate to put in there. The RSS button is an indicator of the availability of RSS feeds, and when you click on it you can add a live bookmark to your bookmarks. Basically, Firefox is using the right side of the address bar for transient commands, the availability of which depends on what website you're currently at. IE7 is putting a nontransient command there where it doesn't belong. And even if some users get used to it being there, that doesn't mean they intuitively expect it to be there. IE7's interface takes away real estate for tabs, which is important if you have tens of tabs open in one window at any given point (I know I'm not the only one.), and for potentially useful tools that are hidden behind the little chevron. And, finally, it just looks like a big mess. It's not clean; it's not svelte. It's really not clear what MS was trying to achieve here.

Oh look what's immediately under the tab. It's not the content space, but the menu bar! Why on earth did they put the menubar there? Does each tab require its own menubar? No. The menu bar is meant for commands which apply to the entire browser, not just one tab. It makes no sense to put it there. There is no apparent reason why MS put it there.

It seems like Microsoft wanted to do something different with IE's UI. While they may have had good intentions, there wasn't really any reason to radically depart from the general web browser UIs of current browsers -- IE6, Firefox, Opera, and their derivatives. I'm reminded of an Apple ad campaign with the slogan, "Think different." That's all well and good, but don't "think stupid."

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Take that Netflix, Wal-Mart

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:17:39 GMT

It appears that the recent Netflix settlement might not be so quickly approved. The proposed class-action settlement, which is supposed to be approved on the 18th, allows current customers to receive one month upgraded service free. So if you currently subscribe to the standard 3-DVD-at-a-time program, you would be bumped to the 4-at-a-time program if you opt in. Those who were customers prior to 15 January 2005 would get a free month of service. The problem is that if you must explicitly downgrade/cancel your service, otherwise you will be automatically billed for the higher/new service after the month is over. Well, somewhat surprisingly, the FTC has filed a brief in the case.

"In addition, even if the terms of the negative option plan were fully and clearly disclosed to class members before they chose to accept the benefit, the use of negative option features poses special problems in class action settlements. In the instant case, the Commission believes that the negative option aspect of the proposed settlement appears dangerously close to being a promotional gimmick. Specifically, the value of the benefit offered each class member is very low, both because those members who accept the benefit receive very little of value and because it is reasonably foreseeable that many class members will forgo any benefit altogether to avoid the negative option. This apparently small benefit to class members, however, provides a larger benefit to Netflix if members inadvertently either continue service at higher prices or re-enroll in the plan and continue beyond the free month based on the negative option. While the Commission has no knowledge of the strength of plaintiff's case, it nonetheless questions whether any settlement in which a defendant benefits potentially at consumers' expense would be appropriate."

Finally, the FTC is looking out for consumers.

In other news, Maryland is considering a bill that would require "firms with more than 10,000 employees spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health-care insurance" is being discussed in the state's General Assembly (Gov. Ehrlich has vetoed the bill; the debate is whether to override that veto). Guess how many companies this would currently affect. That's right, only one: Wal-Mart.

I'm all for forcing Wal-Mart to engage in more ethical business practices, but I have concerns about writing and passing legislation targeted at one company. The fact of the matter is that this legislation would never have passed if any other companies would be affected by it. While its great to force Wal-Mart to give their employees sufficient healthcare, its also important for other large companies to hold the same responsibility. I'd be interested to see the next five or ten largest firms by employee base in Maryland to see how soon they may be impacted by this legislation and what percent of payroll goes toward healthcare in those companies.

This article brings up a couple of interesting points: a later drop in that threshold and interstate competition. The former isn't of great concern in my opinion; legislatures generally need impetus to amend these kinds of things, and I doubt they will get any. The latter is more interesting from a more general perspective. How does mandating minimum spending on healthcare (or higher minimum wage) affect competition with other states? I'll conveniently bypass the economic efficiency arguments by saying that I don't think the employee threshold will drop in the near future or that another company will be soon affected by it. And since this is only going to matter to Wal-Mart, I doubt other businesses will be worried that Maryland is unfriendly to business. So I doubt that Maryland will lose any businesses as a result if the governor's veto is overriden.

Oh, and as of today, Google is worth as much as Berkshire Hathaway. All $140 billion of it.

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Website Administrativa

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 05:22:19 GMT

After considering the comments from my last post, I now have Live+Press installed on my site. Now every post I scribe will automatically cross-post to my LJ (i.e. this one). So there shouldn't be any problems keeping up with my blog via LJ. However, I'm not going to be coughing up money to LJ still for a paid account. So the premium LJ URL will be defunct at the beginning of February, but the standard one will work as normal.

Also, when I get enough time, there will be additional content on my site. I still need to finish off the styling of all the automatically-generated blog pages as well. So expect to see some additional interesting stuff here once I have the time to add it.

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On the (digital) move again...

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 08:40:53 GMT

So just a little more than a month after I moved into a new apartment, I'm moving my website, yet again. This time, to a more permanent location -- http://waymost.net/. My email address is NOT changing in the forseeable future. My LJ subdomain will be up through the end of the month (until my paid account expires), but I shan't be getting rid of the free account. All future posts will be on my new website.

Happy Belated Solstice to All and to All a Good Vernal Equinox

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 19:31:32 GMT

So the holiday season is almost over, but by no means winding down, and there have been some interesting goings-on as of late. First off, I already had my first maintanence request in my apartment when Sharon, in an attempt to make the leaky faucet stop leaking, pushed the cold water handle too hard, causing it to leak more...with scolding hot water. I must say that I was not impressed with their promptness, since they weren't prompt in the slightest. Had I an incident serious enough that flooding started to occur, there would have been a major problem very quickly. But it has been fixed, so my bathroom sink is usable once again.

I have to go out today and face the throngs of people doing last minute holiday shopping since I have some of that to do myself. If I'm arrested on murder and/or assault charges today, you'll know why.

I'm back on the job hunt, now that I've pretty much have my apartment taken care of except for some books, wine, and a couple of evil closet boxes that I refuse to open until I visit Ikea first. But just because I don't have a job, doesn't mean I haven't been coding. If you use Firefox, give it a try. If you don't use Firefox, I would suggest you download and try it. You'll like it...

There is also a couple of recent news stories I'd like to comment on. First is an interesting article put out by the AP entitled Poll: Americans Need High-Tech Gadgets, based upon this poll. The article indicates that Americans "are showing early signs of addiction to the next wave of high-tech toys." That's a pretty bold statement. First of all, the article makes a misleading statement. They say that "four in 10 spend between $100 and $150 a month, according to the poll of 1,006 adults taken Dec. 13-15." Well, look at item 6 in the poll. It's actually about four in ten people who spend between $50 and $150 dollars. But more importantly, item 5 of the poll indicates that people don't actually think they need a lot of this stuff. Older tech, like CD/DVD players and cell phones people have really integrated into their lives, but these are all evolutions of old stuff, so it hardly a surprise that a more convenient version of something people have been using for decades would become a "necessity" in their lives. But besides that, most people don't think they need new high-tech gizmos. They need their computers and even high-speed 'net access, but not the iPods, Xboxes, satellite radios, etc., etc.

Take a poll, misrepresent its findings, get some quotes, stir in hyperbole, chill, and serve.

The second article is an interesting story about new legislation in Congress to get sales tax imposed on the internet. It goes into some discussion of how remotely imposing sales tax is a violation of the interstate commerce clause per Quill v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), and that a compact between agreeing states approved by Congress, Interstate Simplified Sales and Use Tax Compact (ISSTC), was required for those states to collect taxes on residents on the other agreeing states. Honestly, even if it doesn't happen with this particular bill, I think Congress will eventually be forced to impose sales tax on the internet (and, by extension, mail order). If e-commerce keeps growing, the states are going to start crying (if they already aren't) about how their tax revenue is getting eaten up by the intarweb. The author of the article implies that additional property tax (which wouldn't happen since that's generally on the county level) or income tax would be a bad thing. Sales taxes are regressive taxes; the income tax structure in this country is progressive. It would be more fair to have an additional state income tax and get rid of sales taxes. One way or another, money spent on the intarweb will be taxed, whether we like it or not.

Up and Running...

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 08:03:54 GMT

Well, most of my stuff got moved in to the new apartment on the 2nd. Since then, it's been a battle not only against unpacking everything, but also against everything else I have to do. I picked a bad week to unpack my things. Monday, which was supposed to be productive, turned out to be a bust when I locked my keys in my car in the only way possible (by leaving them in the trunk and closing it when the rest of the car was locked). Tuesday through Thursday I was pretty busy but got some stuff done in the evenings. Friday was the first entire day I spent unpacking and today I spent about half of it unpacking, setting up my computers (finally; that should tell you how little time I was able to spend here if my computers didn't get set up for a week!), and such. Hopefully, I'll be predominately finished around Tuesday.

Initial reactions: Everything is going to fit, pretty much. Adelphia cable TV sucks (but I knew that already). Cable internet is far superior to DSL (whether Adelphia cable internet is better will be based on number of outages I fall victim to). The people who installed my home theater setup at the old house did a lazy job of it and cut wires they had no business cutting. Being able to access the backs of my computers easily is a joy. Vonage == cheap + good - 911.

The Way of the Code Samurai

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 06:21:25 GMT

This is a pretty good article about how to code correctly, knowledge that few have and even fewer seem interested in.

Free Programming Tips are Worth Every Penny.

I aspire to be a code samurai.

Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 05:01:50 GMT

So I decided that while I'm still looking for a job that I should get certified in Java. Once completed, this should make me more desirable to potential employers, and it will give me something productive to do whilst I continue to look. If I'm feeling adventurous, I may even go for higher certifications after getting my SCJP.

When will the walls of Jericho fall?

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:41:59 GMT

After what appears to have been mounting legal pressure applied by the RIAA, i2hub closed its doors today. This would seem to mark the end of the main P2P file sharing services that tens of millions have been leeching off of for years. This latest closure is hardly news save for the fact that it finally happened. The MGM v. Grokster ruling has essentially caused all of the major P2P services to temporarily shut their doors until they can concoct a legal version of their software. So it would seem that illegal file sharing has departed from the mainstream or is getting very close to doing so.

The final method of illegal file sharing widely known is BitTorrent. Currently, it's rather easy to search for whatever content you are looking for and finding a tracker website with torrent files for that content. I suspect that more and more of these sites will be shut down until even they are scarce and hard to find. The powers that be will ultimately be successful in getting rid of popular illegal file sharing. However, that won't stop the underground networks or darknets that have been popping up in the news as of late.

The RIAA will never be able to get rid of the underground means of illegal content sharing. IRC networks, which have been around since the P2P revolt began, are still live. The RIAA can't get their hands around the throat of IRC; it's too open, too unregulated, too unknown. So they live with the fact that the computer-elite will know how to share content, as long as the general population doesn't. Darknets are another means of exchange. Can small, private networks of friends sharing content illegally do a lot of damage? It's possible, but yet to be seen.

Despite all of the recent successes of the RIAA against file sharing, their numbers are still down. Fewer people are buying fewer products, and they tow the same old line that the pirates are to blame. The pirates are the only reason it took so long to start losing business. The pirates enabled people to listen to music that they would have never bought in a store had they not discovered it via a free, albeit illegal, download. The problem with the music industry is that the content is old, repetitive, derivative, and just not as good. Confess this, and you may be able to turn yourselves around. All the totalitarian legislation and scare tactics will not remedy the basic issue. The stuff you peddle sucks. Plain and simple.

Sony/BMG == n00b hax0rs

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:21:57 GMT

In case you haven't heard about this in the past day or two, some Sony/BMG CDs that have DRM on them that installs a rootkit on your computer that is nearly impossible to get off. Details are here. Not only does the software install said rootkit, but one could very easily (we're talking script-kiddie easy) use the naming convention to design their own rootkit. And, of course, nowhere in the EULA does Sony/BMG mention that they are, in essence, compromising the security of your computer. They also do not mention that forcible removal of the software (deleting the files manually, since there is no uninstall option provided) will disable your optical drive unless you happen to know how to disable lower filters through the Windows registry. Speaking of Windows, there is no way that creation of such software does not violate the Windows EULA. Unless First 4 Internet, the company who wrote the software, is using all OSS software, they have agreed to Microsoft's EULA on Windows.

I hope Sony/BMG faces a shitstorm because of this. Intentionally misleading the consumer to install software that ties itself into your optical drives and exposes your computer to severe security vulnerabilities, which is nearly impossible to remove without a very high level of technical knowledge or a reformat of your system drive, is wrong and shouldn't be legal.

Donations!

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:11:44 GMT

Dreamhost, my new awesome web hosting service on which my website will be soon, has links to give to two charities that change every two months. To quote, "They are Habitat for Humanity and the FreeBSD foundation... one builds free homes and the other free bsds."

If you happen to be in the giving mood, donate here and they will match your donation.

Special Elections are for Special People.

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 09:20:32 GMT

So we silly Californians are getting the opportunity to flex our democratic muscle once again in a special election to be held on 8 November. In said election, we will get the opportunity to vote on eight specific propositions. Four of them (74-77) are essentially straight from the governor's desk. One could argue (and many have) that these measures shouldn't be decided by the general voting populous and that the state shouldn't be spending approximately $60MM on the venture. Despite your opinion on the manuveur, we now have those and four other ballot items to vote on.

I shan't describe and summarize the propositions at hand. For a rundown, check out here (LA Times) or here (CA Secretary of State). Now on to some commentary on Props 73-76. Due to time constraints, commentary on Props 77-80 will be posted at a later date.

Prop 73: I'm a big privacy advocate, but, even if I weren't, I'd still be firmly against this proposition. Forcing doctors of teens to notify the teens' parents if their daughter is getting an abortion will just encourage kids to seek illegitimate abortions and put them at increased risk. But, more fundamentally, the government shouldn't be what Bill Maher would call "legislating opinion." Just because people think that teens should tell their parents about getting an abortion doesn't mean that they should. And it certainly doesn't mean they will.

Prop 74: One big issue I have with public jobs is that it's impossible to fire anyone, even in light of gross incompetence. Extending the time it takes teachers to become permanent and making it easier to fire them immediately with reported evidence of incompetence is EXACTLY what is needed to increase teacher quality, only one in a group of issues with California schools.

Prop 75: Labor members should be given the right to prevent their dues from going to political causes that they don't want to support. As members of a union, workers should have some say as to what their dues go towards. Also, isn't it suspicious that labor leadership is against this amendment whereas union members are staying very silent about it?

Prop 76: Honestly, I'm not sure how many people in the state of California possess the qualifications to comprehend everything in this proposition, but I'm nowhere close to one of them. This measure really shouldn't be on the ballot; hardly anyone who votes on it will really understanding what they are voting for or against. After reading detailed synopses and arguments as well as portions of the actual legislation, I'm just not going to vote on this one.