Ramblings of a Luddite Geek

Tainted Chocolate For a Scary Halloween

2008-10-29T17:30:00.002-04:00

The melamine that was found in tainted milk could be in the chocolate that's passed out this Halloween.

Please watch this "Candy Product Review 2008 of Potentially MELAMINE Tainted Treats, A SERIOUS Warning By Mike Mozart of JeepersMedia on You Tube" and warn others.

And consider giving out stickers, yourself.

Thank you.

Bailout, Schmailout

2008-10-10T18:54:00.004-04:00

Congress thinks we need a bailout. Wall Street definitely needs a bailout. What do you think?

I'll tell you what I think. We don't need it.

Our economy is self-correcting. Higher interest rates caused trouble for people who were in too much debt. They could no longer pay back their loans. As well, the ever increasing cost for gasoline and heating oil put an extra strain on the entire working class.

But now, the rates on Treasury bills are ridiculously low. This means the rates on home equity lines of credit and the interest rates on ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) have fallen because they're both usually indexed to one of the Treasury bills.

We're also seeing much lower prices for gasoline. Drivers are practically swerving off the side of the road to stare at the prices. "Wait, did that actually read $3.19? No it must've been $4.19. Let me look again."

One big problem remains. Businesses may start to fire workers because they cannot finance growth projects or even payroll. In this case, the appropriate course of action for our government is to finance projects that lead to new jobs.

Imagine how many jobs $700 Billion could start. You could create a whole oil-free energy infrastructure with that amount of money. People would have jobs, and we'd finally be independent from unfriendly oil-producing nations.

But then, what kind of jobs will the greedy Wall Street CEO's get? My advice is to put them on disability -- essentially pay them to not work. We'll all be better off then.

More USA Election 2008 Resources

2008-10-03T22:57:00.017-04:00

Watch the Biden-Palin debate online.

Then skip over to FactCheck.org to find out how accurate each candidate was.

The first Obama-McCain debate also is on Hulu.

Find the FactCheck.org response to it.

I wrote about Science debate two weeks ago.

Check out the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation's "Comparing the Candidates' Technology and Innovation Policies."

Scientists and Engineers for America helps you determine how each candidate voted on energy and technology-related bills while in Congress. (Its database covers all members of Congress):

http://sharp.sefora.org/

Beware Bank Phish E-mail

2008-10-02T12:43:00.002-04:00

Experts predict Spike in Fraudulent Activity Due to Banking Turmoil

Woking, UK. 25th September 2008 An
increase in fraudulent activity is likely to follow the recent events
in the banking sector according to UK Company, First Cyber Security.
Customers with internet banking accounts are urged to take care if
asked to respond to emails from banks which have been named as being
involved in the recent takeovers and mergers.

- First Cyber Security (FCS)

Obama's and McCain's Answers to the Top 14 Science Questions Facing America

2008-09-18T17:05:00.004-04:00

"Science Debate 2008 worked with ... leading organizations ... to
craft the top 14 questions the [Presidential] candidates should answer. These
questions are broad enough to allow for wide variations in response,
but they are specific enough to help guide the discussion toward many
of the largest and most important unresolved challenges currently
facing the United States."

Read the candidates' answers here:

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=42

What Should I Do With This Computer?

2008-09-12T21:25:00.029-04:00

I have an old computer that I'm wondering what to do with. It's a Pentium III, 500MHz, with 256MB RAM and a 10GB hard drive, with only less than 3GB left.

The case is a low profile style, so there's no bracket for an additional drive, which I do have. If I add the second drive, I'd have to attach it with double-sided tape.

The computer is configured to dual boot into either Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0 SP. The NT partition has Office 97 installed on it. It still works. But I'd like to be able to install somewhat modern software on it and use the USB ports.

Three ideas I have:

Reformat the drive with a single partition and do a fresh install of Windows 2000. It would be comparable to the software configuration on my current desktop. This would get the USB ports working. But some programs, such as iTunes, no longer support Windows 2000.

Reformat the drive with a single partition and do a fresh install of Windows XP. Not sure how it will perform on this system, though.

Reformat the drive and install Ubuntu. Not sure what software is available -- maybe just a web browser, Open Office and a PDF viewer. And of course Emacs. Most likely no one else in the house would use the computer. And I wonder if I can get all the drivers I'll need.

The first step is to get the second drive installed, if I can.

What do you think?

Follow Up to "Career Doldrums"

2008-08-25T14:21:00.005-04:00

Just a quick follow up to my previous post.

I was a bit unfair in saying that the book advises you to deal with doldrums by changing careers. That's not all it does. It's also great confidence booster, especially for baby boomers who are worried that they're too old to find a new job.

It explains the differences among the Baby Boom, Gen X and the latest generation (Gen Y. See Wikipedia's List of Generations for generation definitions.) This comparison serves as a foundation to convince the baby boomer that his/her contribution at a new company will be valued. Gen Y wants immediate gratification and frequent rewards, but Baby Boomers don't need that. Gen Y doesn't want to waste time giving their boss progress reports -- they just want to dive in to the work and finish it as quickly as possible.

The generational comparisons also help older workers understand their younger bosses, who come in to the workplace and turn it up-side-down.

So I found it interesting. And it ultimately helped me understand that I might be better off staying where I am.

Resources from the "Career Doldrums" Book

2008-08-24T17:46:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to reading "Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired", which I mentioned in my January 17 post, "Book Recommendations From CareerBuilder.com".

Basically, the Escape involves switching careers. This involves making extreme financial sacrifices and tapping into a vast store of retirement savings. The assumption is that you've already raised your child(ren) and he/she/they've somehow managed to become self-sufficient. For some reason, the book didn't mention playing the lottery.

This is not a book written for my generation.

Anyway, I wanted to record some of the online resources that the book offers:

www.engineeringjobs.com

Occupational Outlook Handbook -- www.bls.gov

www.hotjobs.com

www.jobbankusa.com

www.computerwork.com

www.computerjobs.com

www.dice.com

www.justtechjobs.com

Philanthropy News Digest -- news regarding fundraising and establishing a foundation.
www.foundationcenter.org/pnd

www.idealist.org

www.nonprofitoyster.com

Self Employment

www.betheboss.com

www.money.cnn.com

www.wibo.org "Boot camp" for entrepreneurs.

www.franchise1.com

www.smartbiz.com

www.sbaonline.sba.gov

Enjoy!

How New Blinds and Windows Can Keep You Cool

2008-08-09T22:42:00.004-04:00

I've had the new window shades since November, but I didn't start to appreciate them until the warm weather arrived.

The neat thing about these shades is that they open at the top and the bottom. So do the windows. (The picture is of Bali's DiamondCell - Solitaire 3/8" Double Cell Shade, which is the style of shade I bought and installed.)

So that means I can keep the top of the windows and blinds open even at night without compromising privacy. And the hot air that collects near the ceilings can leak out more easily.

It also helps that the window panes are coated to reflect the heat of the sun.

It's simple things like this that prevents us from wasting energy.

Social Networks for Book Lovers

2008-07-15T21:23:00.006-04:00

I just learned about LibraryThing from reading Sacha Chua's blog post, "Taking book notes." LibraryThing is a social network for book lovers.

The general idea is that you enter books into your library by searching for a title or ISBN. There's also an import tool that will scan a webpage and pull in the ISBNs it can recognize. I used this to import the 106 books that were referenced on my "List of Books I've Read Recently," which I might decide to replace with some references to my library on LibraryThing.

Once you have books in your library, LibraryThing will provide links to profiles of users that have many of the same books in their libraries. You can navigate to their libraries and leave comments on their profiles.

Well, that's just a brief overview. Check out LibraryThing for yourself.

For a more in-depth discussion of LibraryThing and other such sites, check out NPR's All Things Considered discussion of social networks for book lovers.

Help Our Airlines Save Fuel

2008-06-12T22:53:00.009-04:00

Airlines are struggling with the ever-increasing cost of fuel. They've started to charge passengers to check baggage. Let's think of other ways they can stay aloft in this turbulent economy:

Charge passengers a fee that's proportional to the total weight of the passenger plus all his/her baggage, both carry on and checked.

Offer passengers stationary bicycles and other exercise machines to prevent DVT, but secretly use the machines to drive electrical generators, which can power such non-essential systems as entertainment, lighting and navigation.

Offer passengers free refreshments in the terminal. Lace the refreshments with laxatives and diuretics. ^{1, 2}

What can you do personally? Why not leave the heavy luggage behind? Just choose baggy clothing to wear at your destination, and put it all on before you leave your home. Better yet, don't even bother bringing extra clothes. Just buy your change of clothes at your destination.

With lots of creative planning, we can yet again save our beloved airline industry.

¹ Empty passengers are lighter.
² Whatever they leave behind can be used as bio-fuel.

Driving to Optimize Fuel Economy

2008-05-25T01:00:00.000-04:00

In my area, gas prices have jumped beyond $4.00 per gallon over the last couple of weeks. I ranted before about how traffic lights contribute to decreased fuel economy. But I didn't mention that driving technique can dramatically influence fuel economy.

An extreme type of driving that maximizes fuel economy is called Hypermiling. Generally the idea is to minimize acceleration and braking. Unless you're going down a steep hill, acceleration requires more gasoline than just maintaining speed. And braking converts all your car's motion (which came from gasoline) into heat energy. So essentially, braking is like throwing away gasoline.

If this is the kind of topic that gives you goosebumps, you might be interested in the forums at CleanMPG, especially Wayne Gerdes' post "Beating the EPA - The Why’s and how to Hypermile".

And rather than boycotting gasoline for one day, folks should either not drive on that day, or at least drive more efficiently. With the subsequent drop in demand, gas prices would relax.

MySpace Notes

2008-05-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

My pre-teen daughter already has a website and just started a blog. So I figured I should start learning more about MySpace. She's not on MySpace right now, but she might be in a few years.

I've just finished reading "Me, MySpace, and I," by Larry D. Rosen. It suggests that parents open an account on MySpace because there are many areas on the website that you can't access unless you're logged in.

Many websites require users to provide a real name and real address when you open an account. This is particularly true of commerce sites like Amazon.com. So I was not alarmed when MySpace asked for my real name and town, "so other members can search for you." It assured me that it wouldn't display my name, but I cautiously provided a bogus name, anyway.

When I finished entering the required information, it showed me the profile page that it created for me. And there was the bogus name and town displayed in nice bold type. Thanks for preserving my anonymity, MySpace.

Well, anyway, I'm there now, and no harm was done to me.

Some things from the book I thought worth mentioning. This quote, for example:

"Some MySpace young people have told me that they like to pretend to be dumb just to see what other people do and say. One guy got a date with a girl by pretending to be a "C" student and when she met him and found out he was a "brain" she canceled the date."

- page 70

Check out http://www.ypulse.com for trends in the lives of tweens, teens and young adults.

Other resources:

http://www.isafe.org
http://www.parenthood.com
http://www.allianceforchildhood.net
http://www.kids.getnetwise.org
http://www.cybersmart.org
http://www.netsmartz.org
http://www.besafe.com
http://www.protectkids.com
http://www.webwisekids.com
http://www.internetbehavior.com
http://www.safeteens.com
http://www.blogsafely.com
http://www.commonsensemedia.com
http://www.safefamilies.org
http://www.wiredsafety.org
http://www.netfamilynews.com

Autism Awareness

2008-04-15T00:28:00.005-04:00

April is Autism Awareness Month here in USA. Would you be able to recognize the symptoms of autism if you saw them? Probably not.

The latest estimate of the prevalence of autism is that 1 in 150 people in the USA have been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which is also known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD).

If you're in the fields of engineering, computer science, physics or math, the chances are even higher that you, your children, your coworkers or their children could be diagnosed with this disorder. And you should check out http://firstsigns.org/, which is dedicated to the early identification and intervention of children with developmental delays and disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The diagnostic criteria for ASD in children concern development and ability in the areas of social interaction, communication and play. Please see "Diagnosis and Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders," by Lee Tidmarsh, MD, Fred R Volkmar, MD.

Early detection of an ASD is crucial because when interventions are tried at an early age (say at 3 to 5 years of age), they seem to be more effective than when tried later on.

Those who have an ASD and who can communicate say that they don't want to be cured; they just want to be accepted. Thus, it's not they who have the problem, it is society. Nevertheless, interventions can make things easier for children and the autistic adults they grow in to.

What kinds of interventions can reduce the symptoms of an ASD? A change in diet -- avoiding wheat and dairy productions, for example -- can help those with Leaky Gut Syndrome, which can manifest as symptoms of ASD. Another effective, diet-related approach is supplementation with mega doses of vitamin B6, or its active co-enzyme, P5P. Play therapy or Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) has been proven to help. In some cases, mercury detoxification may help. There are many more interventions for a parent to choose from. Then there are interventions aimed at easing the secondary symptoms that accompany ASD such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Depression.

Scientists can spend entire careers looking for signs of intelligent life in the Universe. Meanwhile, medical researchers have overlooked signs of intelligence in people with autism. They assume that people who can't talk and who respond differently to stimuli must be lacking in intelligence.

If you don't believe me, consider the amazing website, Getting the Truth Out, which was originally written in response to an objectionable Autism Awareness fundraising campaign called "Getting the Word Out." Be sure to follow the presentation completely to the end.

If you suspect that you or a loved one is struggling with an ASD, visit the Online Asperger Syndrome Information & Support (OASIS). (Asperger Syndrome is an ASD, and is sometimes referred to as High-Functioning Autism.) As its name suggests, you can get a great deal of information from the site. You can find most of the support by clicking on the Message Boards menu choice and registering for the "OASIS: Asperger Syndrome Forum".

How to Avoid a Recession

2008-03-10T20:47:00.007-04:00

There's a lot of talk about what to do about the economy. One group of economists believes that Federal Reserve Board Chair Ben Bernanke made a mistake in cutting interest rates recently. They think that will lead to inflation.

Most politicians agree that we need some form of tax cut. Some say that the middle class should get a tax break. Others say no, the middle class will just use it to pay down debt, and that businesses need tax breaks in order to hire more workers.

Some suggest that saving sub-prime mortgage borrowers from bankruptcy is the key to bringing about economic recovery.

Many of these opinions have merit, but they fail to address the cause of the faltering economy. The real problem is the rising cost of energy.

The economy depends on energy for growth. You cannot manufacture items unless you use energy. You cannot transport these manufactured goods unless you use energy. And consumers cannot afford to buy these goods if they're spending most of their disposable income on energy.

You might think we'd've learned a lesson from the oil crisis of the 1970s. But our favorite energy source still seems to be based on oil. And as the oil supply tightens, our economy falters.

Imagine this scenario: It's the distant future, and our world is without oil. Where does our energy come from for manufacturing, transportation and consumer use? Solar and nuclear.

Equatorial countries are the world's energy movers and shakers. They get the most intense solar radiation. They produce the most electricity per photo-voltaic cell. Their biofuel is the richest and most abundant on the planet.

So perhaps it's time to cut taxes on oil, gasoline and electricity. Maybe it's even time to think about subsidizing energy costs? It depends on how serious our government is about maintaining economic growth.

Engineers Week

2008-02-24T21:18:00.008-05:00

Engineers Week was last week. One reason the organizers put effort into making and promoting Engineers Week is to get kids interested in engineering. So why does it take place during winter vacation week?

So I'll be belatedly "celebrating" Engineers Week this week by visiting my daughter's elementary school class and talking about electricity. My presentation is titled, "Watt is Electricity?" Get it?

I made a little electromagnet kit for each student. All I did was wind about four feet of solid 22 gauge copper wire around a nail. I placed this in a bag with a D battery, some paper clips and a sheet of paper with this text:

Electromagnet Test Kit
Contains:
4’ 22 AWG Solid Insulated Copper Wire
Steel Nail
D Battery (1.5V)
Paperclips (to test electromagnet)
When electrical current flows through a wire, a magnetic field develops around the wire. By winding the wire into a tight coil around an iron core, the magnetic flux is concentrated, and the magnetic attraction is strong.

Touch the bare wire ends to the battery terminals.

Watch Out – it gets HOT.

How many paper clips can you pick up?

What do you think would happen if:
You unwrapped some of the wire?
You used a 9V or 12V battery?
You wrapped the wire around a pencil?

Science Links for Kids
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/
http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/
http://www.discoverengineering.org/

Those links are pretty cool. Check them out when you get a chance!

More on Traffic Lights

2008-02-21T21:35:00.006-05:00

I was too tired to continue my previous post. So I'll add some comments here in a new post.

I wrote:

If the number of cars on the main road is so great that you need to interrupt the flow in order to let yet more cars on it, you're contributing to yet more traffic congestion.

Actually, about 16 years ago, traffic lights were introduced on entrance ramps to the Long Island Expressway. The idea was to prevent cars from entering the highway during rush hour. That demonstrates an appropriate use of traffic lights -- to improve the flow of traffic rather than to impede it.

I wrote:

It's inefficient to force several cars to stop for the sake of one or two cars that are already stopped. Forcing a car to stop and then accelerate back up to cruising speed is a significant waste of gas. In fact every time a driver applies the brake, he or she "throws away" the fuel that was used to accelerate the car. And acceleration is what uses the most fuel.

And...

Many of these intersections are so small that when cars turn onto them from the main road, the cars trigger the Hall effect sensor that causes the light to cycle. Thus, the light turns red for those who navigate the main road even when there's no car to yield to! More waste!

You can solve both problems simply by installing (or moving) the sensors farther back from the intersection and decreasing the sensitivity. That way the light won't cycle unless there are a few cars queued up. It might be a good idea to change the mode to blinking red-yellow during non-peak hours to allow cars to enter the main roadway whenever it's clear, but then have the light switch to give the right-of-way to the smaller roadway when enough cars are waiting.

I can imagine the day when every intersection will have a traffic light. Hopefully I'll be dead by then. Or perhaps traffic lights will be part of a Intelligent Vehicle System that's designed to route traffic for maximum efficiency. Lights will be used to tell motorists when it's safe to enter the intersection rather than stop other cars to allow them to enter.

The Problem With Traffic Lights

2008-02-16T23:09:00.012-05:00

"'See, I can time them perfectly,' the [traffic] light said with satisfaction. 'I get hundreds of them each day. No one gets through my intersection without paying his tax in gas and rubber.'"
"'Go blow a bulb!' the car growled at the light.
"'Go soak your horn!' the light flashed back."
- from pages 187 to 188 of "Centaur Aisle," by Piers Anthony

I've had this quote in my "Quote du Jour" for several weeks, ready for the day I finally rant about traffic lights.

In my town, traffic lights are installed indiscriminately as a feeble response to town growth. The rich folks flock to buy McMansions in new developments. Then they complain that they can't get onto the main road without waiting a minute or two for a break in the traffic. So up goes yet another traffic light.

There are intersections where traffic lights are needed, such where two main highways intersect.

But why install one at a "T" intersection on a busy main road for a tiny side street? Here's why it's not a good idea:

If the number of cars on the main road is so great that you need to interrupt the flow in order to let yet more cars on it, you're contributing to yet more traffic congestion.
It's inefficient to force several cars to stop for the sake of one or two cars that are already stopped. Forcing a car to stop and then accelerate back up to cruising speed is a significant waste of gas. In fact every time a driver applies the brake, he or she "throws away" the fuel that was used to accelerate the car. And acceleration is what uses the most fuel.
Many of these intersections are so small that when cars turn onto them from the main road, the cars trigger the Hall effect sensor that causes the light to cycle. Thus, the light turns red for those who navigate the main road even when there's no car to yield to! More waste!
Finally, traffic lights waste electrical power all day and night. In fact, they remain powered up even in the wee hours of the morning when no one needs them. At night they're so bright you could read a large-print book under them. Why not reduce the light intensity after dark and save money? True, some lights are set to blink red-yellow, and thus they require half the electricity to light the lamps. But the controllers that run them also waste electricity. So just shut them down completely and get that power consumption down to zero. Drivers know anyway to stop before they enter a main road in the absence of traffic control.

Book Recommendations From CareerBuilder.com

2008-01-17T21:59:00.000-05:00

The CareerBuilder section in our December 16, 2007 newspaper featured 16 career guidance books in its list of "this year's most interesting career books." A few of them look as though they'd be really helpful for me. Unfortunately I couldn't find the article online. I'll list the book titles with links....

"The IT Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen To, and Remember" Maybe?
"Winning Nice: How to Succeed in Business and Life Without Waging War" Maybe?
"Lessons on Leadership: The 7 Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at All Levels"
"Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate With Power and Impact"
"Get Your M.B.A. Part-Time, Fourth Edition: For the Part-Time Student with a Full-Time Life"
"Buzz: How to Create It and Win With It"
"Work Like You're Showing Off: The Joy, Jazz, and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today" Maybe?
"Making a Living While Making a Difference: Conscious Careers for an Era of Interdependence"
This sounds like a good one!
"Get Ahead by Going Abroad: A Woman's Guide to Fast-track Career Success"
"Saving the Earth as a Career: Advice on Becoming a Conservation Professional" This sounds like another good one!
"Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired" Yes, this is what I need!
"Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible" Bingo! (But I suspect the authors don't advocate Spending an hour blogging about career books.)
"Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-how for Business And Career Success"
"College Majors Scorecard" The self-assessment tool sounds interesting.
"The Girl's Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business"
"Career and Corporate Cool" Maybe?

Anniversary Dates for Engineers

2007-10-27T15:52:00.000-04:00

When an engineer picks a wedding date, chances are it has some numeric meaning. It's a fun challenge to come up with a sequence of numbers that forms a date that falls on a weekend. And afterwards, it lessens the likelihood that the anniversary will be forgotten.

Here are some simple weekend dates in MM/DD/YY format that are based on simple multiplication facts: 02/16/08, 12/08/96.

Here are dates based on sequences: 06/07/08, 05/10/15, 09/16/xx. With that last one, the month and day are so good, we'll ignore the year.

Some other nice dates: 08/16/08, 03/14/15, which are the first five digits of Pi.

Are you an engineer that married? What date did you choose?

Emacs: Yet Another Cool High-Tech Thing

2007-10-07T16:19:00.000-04:00

Two years ago, I wrote about Servant Salamander. In that post, I described how Servant Salamander substituted nicely for Norton Commander when I made the switch from MS-DOS to Windows NT.

The other software substitute I made was to replace my favorite text editor, Brief. When I started using Brief, it was by a company called "Underware." When I stopped using it, it had been taken over by Borland. They had no plans to make it Windows-compatible.

I loved Brief's ability to record and playback keyboard macros. It had undo. Its regular expression search and replace capability was powerful. It could cut and paste columns of text. It could be scripted. It supported multiple windows.

I continued to use Brief on Windows NT, even though its cut and paste didn't work with the Windows clipboard. And I recall having display problems at certain video resolutions.

So I set off in search of a new Windows text editor. The minimum requirements were:

Column marking, cutting, pasting.
Undo.
Regular expression search / replace.
Keystroke macros.
Windows compatible.

I wanted an editor that could be scripted. And even better, one with the same keystrokes as Brief, or with a reconfigurable keyboard.

I came across Crisp, Zeus and then Vedit a bit later.

I rejected Crisp almost immediately, even though it seemed to be the ideal replacement. The problem was that it was unstable. Or, more accurately, it made my computer unstable. So I dropped it quickly.

I was mostly happy with Zeus. But sometimes I needed to edit binary files, and one thing I did not like was that Zeus could not handle null characters. (And it wasn't 100% Brief-compatible.) That's why I got Vedit. Vedit did a great job with all kinds of files of all sizes. I was even able to edit EBCDIC files, which helped when I was writing an EBCDIC to ASCII translator. But I never got comfortable with Vedit, so I continued to use Zeus primarily.

One day I decided to try another search for the Ultimate Text Editor. Someone recommended Gnu Emacs.

Emacs was "sort of" Brief compatible. In fact, it was Crisp-compatible with its Crisp-mode Lisp add-on. But in reviewing Emacs, I came across the advice that it's best to learn the native key-mapping. So that's what I did, back in 2001.

It was a bit hard to get used Emacs, and I did have to remap the keyboard a tiny bit. For example, back then, Emacs would interpret the Del key as Backspace, which deletes the previous character instead of the next character. (This is not true of more recent versions.) Also, I stumbled over Emacs terminology. For example, it's not "Cut" and "Paste" but rather "Kill" and "Yank."

But all the effort I put in to it was well worth it. Now, I don't bother to write text-manipulation programs because it's easier (and more fun) to script Emacs to perform that kind of work. I enjoy using Emacs Planner to keep track of tasks and notes that pertain to numerous work projects. And at one time, I enjoyed using the newsreader Gnus with it's wonderful ability to score message threads based on any number of regular expression filters I could come up with.

Emacs is licensed under the GNU General Public License, which means that it's free, not only in the sense that you can obtain it without cost, but also that you are free to modify and distribute the software, provided you pass along this same freedom.

Emacs is amazing. It is constantly being improved by intelligent people who demand great things from their programs. It can run on many different platforms. Try it out!

The Personable Computer

2007-09-05T21:11:00.000-04:00

We call them Personal Computers. But why can't they be Personable?

The other day I was typing an e-mail. I thought I had on-the-fly spell checking enabled. Then I typed the word "triennial" and didn't see the red squiggly underline. I wondered, "Did I really spell that right?" and "Is spell check really turned on?" I decided to run the spell check manually. And it ran, finishing with a disappointing absence of fanfare over my correctly spelled word.

Why couldn't it respond, "Hey, great job at spelling triennial, big guy"? I am an engineer, after all, so I'm supposedly disposed toward bad spelling.

How should that response have worked, exactly, without actually being annoying? Certainly a focus-stealing pop-up would've been downright annoying. And a little checkmark after the word might not have been effusive¹ enough. Perhaps a message in the status bar would've afforded the best trade-off between noticeability² and interference.

The reason computers don't provide this kind of feedback is because of how intensely users loathed Clippy, the default Microsoft Office 97 help mascot. Clippy was best known for saying, "It looks like you're typing a letter. Would you like some help with that?"³ Of course users loathed that. We know how to type a freaking letter. We don't appreciate being patronized by something with half the intelligence of an earthworm. Whoever designed that hadn't ever held a door open for a feminist.

But if Clippy had offered praise instead of assistance (or perhaps in addition to assistance), he/it might've been accepted or at least tolerated. And it would've been better if it weren't so dorky looking.

I'm sure we'll see a return of something like Clippy, albeit well-disguised. It's just too tempting a feature to ignore for long.

¹I spelled this correctly the first time, too!

²But alas, I did not spell this correctly the first time.

³And there are wonderful parodies⁴ of this too, such as, "It looks like you're typing a suicide note. Would you like some help with that? Okay, first tell me, how do you plan to kill yourself? Choose one: Gunshot to the Head; Slash Wrists; Overdose; Jump Off Tall Building or Bridge; Step In front of a Moving Train, Truck or Automobile. Great! Thanks! Next, tell me the reason why you're killing yourself: No One Understands Me; My Lover Left Me; I'm Broke; I Can't Stand This Asinine Clippy... And so on.

⁴See, for example, One Egg Shy's Clippy's Guide to Suicide Notes, or his Clippy’s Guide to Ransom Notes.

Hey buddy, can you spare a few CPU cycles?

2007-03-23T23:40:00.000-04:00

Do you leave your computer running and connected to the Internet? If so, why not donate its idle CPU cycles to scientific research? You could help figure out the cause of Alzheimer's disease, predict climate, or search for evidence of gravitational waves or extraterrestrial intelligence.

The Folding@Home distributed computing project is committed to exploring protein folding. Its goal is to gain an understanding of:

Alzheimer's Disease
Cancer
Huntington's Disease
Osteogenesis Imperfecta
Parkinson's Disease
Ribosome & antibiotics

All it takes to get started is to download and run a small program. Click here for more details. Other protein research projects include Rosetta@home and Predictor@home.

Other things your computer could work on:

CPDN: climate prediction.
SETI@home: the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Einstein@Home: find spinning neutron stars.

Download an installer and join the research!

The True Meaning of Christmas

2006-12-25T21:41:00.000-05:00

It finally clicked in me -- the True Meaning of Christmas.

It was when I heard the Christmas story retold for the fourteenth consecutive time, at last night's Family Christmas Eve service, at our local church. The Pastor had read Luke's Gospel, and then he expounded on it.

He started by describing Luke 2:1-7 in more detail. The reason that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were staying in a stable is that there was no room at the inn. That I've known since I was a child, but nothing more.

The rest of it needs to be appreciated against a backdrop of adult experiences. The child I was did not bother to wonder why they needed to find an inn.

The Pastor explained that Joseph needed to haul himself (and the pregnant woman he was engaged to) 80 miles, by foot, from his home in Nazareth back to Bethlehem in order to be counted in the census. So he could be taxed.

That's my wife and me, Joseph and Mary. Not only do we have to undertake some pain-in-the-ass journey for some poorly-planned government bullshit, we have to do it when we're about to give birth. All for the ultimate pleasure of paying taxes. This is jury duty on a Grand Scale.

To make the story more interesting, Joseph is caring for a woman whose child she carries is not even his.

And this is the way the Universe works. Even God's Children cannot escape suffering the idiocy that this world has to offer.

Time Magazine Person of the Year (What Else?)

2006-12-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

As soon as I heard that Time Magazine's Person of the Year (POTY) was "Me," I knew I had another sarcastic blog entry to write. By now, this entry is but one of many that pokes fun at Time. And if you want to listen to great commentary on the topic, redirect your browser to today's commentary by Bill Langworthy on NPR's All Things Considered.

I'd rather not waste much content on Time. POTY noise actually rewards Time in the end, even if it's criticism. I just want to point out that choosing me as POTY (along with hundreds of thousands MySpace teenagers who are either horny or lonely or both) was plain laziness. If Time had done a little research, they'd've discovered the term blogosphere, which might've led them to this special issue of Communications of the ACM. And somewhere in this two-year-old, well-researched set of papers would be the person or team responsible for creating the technology that enables us POTY winners to blog.

If it sounds like I'm angry at Time, it's because I am. Aren't I supposed to receive some monetary award? Because I didn't. Hello?

Build My Own Universe? Are you Joking?

2006-12-05T23:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, I finally accept that my elementary-school-aged daughter can design her own web page and probably make it look a whole lot nicer than this site. But could the next generation one day build its own universe?

Incredibly, some physicists think so, according to this feature on NPR's All Things Considered:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6545246

This is a cool page, not just for the feature article, but for the related links. The one bit of disappointment I feel is that I wish this came out nearer to April Fool's Day. That way I could fool people into thinking that something is a joke when, in fact, it's actually real.

So I wonder if our Universe was once created by a team of ambitious physicists in a higher level universe? What if they have to shut down their experiment due to lack of funding? Or what happens if a student overheats a Twinkie and in the process accidentally destroys the lab while attempting to redo one of the Twinkie Experiments?

Recommended Website: Pandora

2006-10-08T23:31:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, my favorite thing was to buy a new record from the music store and play it on my home stereo for the first time. Discovering new songs, or hearing played-out songs anew, was magic to me.

So I was thrilled when I found out about Pandora. (Thanks, Tirsden!) This site helps you find music you like. You give it the names of a few of your favorite songs, and it creates a playlist of similar songs. As you rate the suggestions, the resulting "Radio Station" starts to provide you with fresh, enjoyable music.

Curious to know what kind of music I'm into? Check out Hard to Pin Down Classical / Progressive Folk Rock Radio. Some of Pandora's choices are pretty cool. Others are quite a stretch, although it's usually fun to hear them. I guess I can sense some similarity between Blue Oyster Cult and Renaissance. And I had no idea Todd Rundgren jammed like that (The Ikon).

Edited on 2006-10-11 to add this list of Radio Stations...

Promoting the Field of Engineering

2006-09-08T21:53:00.000-04:00

The website TryEngineering.org touts itself as a resource that should help pre-college students decide whether engineering is good career choice for them.

The link that immediately caught my eye was Engineering Life Profiles. The target page is titled "Life of an Engineer," and it sports a list of links to the job descriptions / professional biographies of seven practicing engineers.

As an eletrical engineer, I was curious to read the profile of Carl Allison (Electrical Engineer).

Mr. Allison is employed by Walt Disney Imagineering, which is hardly a typical destination for an average engineering graduate. I'm glad that he's happily employed producing things that entertain people. Unfortunately, many engineers wind up in a cubicle dungeon, spending days just poring over one parts list after another in order to identify and replace pure tin-leaded components with components that have leads plated with palladium silver. And this is for some space hardware hardly anyone will ever see. There are engineers that spend their entire careers studying the long-term reliablilty of resistors, or think of ways to reduce the cost of an assembly by a few cents.

If you're a pre-college student who thinks engineering might be a good career, make sure you talk to a few engineers first. Don't just read glitzy promotional websites and think that's how your life will be. Try to shadow a few real engineers during the summer before your final year of high school. Although the summer camps that TryEngineering has listed are probably too oriented to having fun, they're probably better than nothing. They at least help you determine whether you have the aptitude for cool design and problem-solving aspect of engineering.

The Highs and Lows of Being a Luddite Geek

2006-09-01T21:52:00.000-04:00

It isn't easy being both a Luddite and a Geek. Each encounter with new technology evokes a Dr. Jeckyll / Mr. Hyde response. Sometimes it's quite strong, like the day my new, computer-controlled boiler was installed.

The old boiler was installed when the house was built, about 1950. It still was heating water very well, but over the last few winters, it wasn't maintaining pressure. And a few weeks ago, it started to leak intermittently from the circulating pump.

Here's how both the Luddite and the Geek in me responded to the new boiler.

Luddite:

So the guys took out the 60-year-old furnace yesterday. It was still delivering steaming hot water, as it had always done faithfully (except for the times that the igniter and transformer had to be replaced).

They put this new, computer-controlled thing in its place. After it's all connected, filled with water and pressurized, they flip the switch, and guess what. Nothing. The burner doesn't fire up. Nada. Zilch.

The guy tinkered with it for three hours, until 7:30pm actually, and then said the piece of crap module was bad.

My wife was especially upset. Not only did she not have hot water last night and this morning, her formerly-white kitchen floor is filthy, the light beige carpet on the stairs and landing is smudged with greasy, sooty footprints, and our daughter has a cold and needs a nice, steaming bath.

What on Earth compelled me to buy a boiler with a computer in it? All it has to do is switch two relays on and off -- one for the burner and one for the circulating pump. How hard can it be? I can't believe I spent more on this than my car.

If you ever want to ruin a good, reliable piece of equipment, add a computer to it.

Geek:

Things didn't go too well yesterday, that's for sure. Well, the owner came today. He couldn't believe there was anything wrong with the computer. So he tinkered with it for a while. When he realized he wasn't getting anywhere, he tried to jury-rig it to bypass the computer controller. Fortunately his helper noticed something peculiar about one of the jumpers on the controller. It was not connected! Bingo. Connect it up, it fires right up, and we have burning hot water.

[days go by...]
Over the past few days, I got to go through the manuals that came with this feat of engineering. I navigated the menus and chose one of the week-long day / night programs and altered it to our family's schedule. This will ensure that our boiler won't turn on at night during "summer mode" when it's not needed. And in "winter mode," it will govern at what times the temperature setback should kick in / out.

With its temperature sensors for outdoor and indoor air, plus knowing what the room setpoint temperature is, it's able to taper the boiler temperature as the room temperature reaches the setpoint. It follows one of a few pre-programmed heating curves that adjust based on the outside temperature. And the outdoor temperature sensor can be used to switch the unit between its summer and winter modes. The temperature at which it makes the switch also is programmable.

It delivers hot tap water the same way it heats the house. As the water in the tank reaches the setpoint (which, of course is user-adjustable) the boiler can shut down since it has enough remaining heat to finish heating the water.

I tried lowering the hot water setting to 125F, but I noticed that the dishwasher's heating element was coming on. So I set it back up to 130F (where the installer had left it) to keep the dishwasher's electricity use down.

The first time I took a shower, I was really impressed. It's just like at the health club. No more turning the faucet toward the hot position as the shower progresses. I set it, and it stays. Wow. And forget about turning off the heat ten minutes before taking a shower. The computer will give priority to heating tap water over heating the radiators.

You want to know a secret? I paid more for this boiler than my car. But it's worth it. I'm not queer or anything, but I really want to invite my buddies over for a shower.

OpenOffice 1, Microsoft Office 0

2006-08-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

Today was not a good day, computer-wise. Thankfully, the problem was with my work computer and not my home computer, even though the two are very similar in setup.

First I noticed that Excel wasn't able to use the "Save As" dialog box. I was trying to save a CSV file as an XLS file, something I do regularly. But Excel would just hang when I tried it this morning. It would also not import text files.

It was nearly lunchtime, so I mentioned it to the IT guy. He gets in the driver's seat and I go off to lunch. But first I use another computer to do the Excel job I couldn't do on my system.

After lunch, I see that he's still at it. He says it's not just Excel, but all the Office apps are messed up. And Windows Explorer Tree View doesn't expand network branches, so it's not just Office. But he doesn't know what to do about it.

We've already tried to "Repair Office" and uninstall and reinstall.

So I decide to test his theory that it's more than Office. I tried the Save As in NotePad, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 and Visual Studio 6.0. They all work. So Office is messed up, I'm sure. I don't care about Explorer -- I don't use it anyway.

But then I notice that I can't send inter-office e-mail, whereas before I could. I can receive it, but not reply. And I can't download from my ISP's POP mail servers. So whatever fix the IT tried to apply, it probably broke the mail client. Oh well -- I can live without e-mail for a short while. After all, I am part "Luddite."

But I can't even *save* a Word document, and I need to use it. So I downloaded and installed OpenOffice and easily created my "Word" document with it.

I can get by with OpenOffice only for a short time, though. I do need to create new Excel documents that contain VBA code, something I doubt can be done with OpenOffice.

As I wonder what caused this, I can only guess that it was the new scanner driver and software that I installed on Friday afternoon. Maybe if I uninstall it I might get MS Office to work again. But I'm guessing the mail client is thoroughly hosed....

Cell Phone Angst

2006-07-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

What is it that spurs people to get a cell phone? In our case, it was separation anxiety. More precisely, it was my wife's concern over losing our daughter to School.

As the dutiful family provider, I made sure that this new vital piece of technology was in our hands and working properly before the first day of school.

And I did a great job. I had come across a great online deal from AT&T Wireless back in 2001. I ordered the phone and service sometime during Labor Day weekend and received the phone on Tuesday. I was impressed with this ... er ... impressive service.

The only problem was that AT&T didn't own any base stations in our area. Nor did they have any stores nearby. And customer service was reluctant to give us the address of the nearest base station, perhaps as a security policy. So activating the phone was tricky. Eventually, I drove through various towns until I happened to cross into home territory. When the phone finally connected, it registered itself on the network, and I was able to use it.

The phone worked extremely well in our home, and I saved lots of money on long distance by using the cell phone instead of the land line. I liked the idea of calling my wife from the supermarket to ask her whether Land-o-Lakes Swiss Cheese would be okay to substitute for Finlandia Swiss. Unfortunately, there was no signal at our daughter's school and at our church.

The phone's battery out-lasted the contract, but it did fail. Rather than buy a new phone or get an upgrade, I canceled the service and got a new plan, along with a new free phone. Even though the separation anxiety was gone, the cell phone had become indispensable, at least to my wife.

Eventually, AT&T was forced to give up its wireless service. SBC's Cingular service took over. By then our contract had already expired. But we continued with the new phone and the same service on a month-to-month basis.

By this time, my wife was using the phone as a pager for her new on-call job. She was not hesitant to point out its short-comings, the biggest of which was that she couldn't get a signal inside certain buildings. But it gave her some freedom away from home and allowed her to respond to work calls while gardening or walking the dog.

One day in May, her work place complained that when they called the cell phone, they got a message that the number was not in service. When I called Cingular, they traced the problem to a billing issue. Specifically, the credit card that they were charging to every month had expired. Rather than notify us, they did the sensible thing and shutdown the service. (That's sarcasm, BTW.) After I pointed out that they should've called us before shutting off the service (which is used to provide on-call medical service) I was told that I wouldn't need to pay the $25 reinstatement fee.

So with that behind us and the contract expired, we had only to wait for the battery to fail on this new phone. I was intrigued when Cingular (now owned by AT&T) sent us a upgrade offer. We could replace the phone and increase from 120 to 400 minutes for a one-time fee of only $19.99, probably less than the cost of a new battery. I could see the catch, though. They were hoping the new phone's additional features would cause us to use the service more. The new phone was capable of Internet access and could do IM, both of which require premium service.

It was Independence Day weekend. As I mulled this offer over, my wife's work place called our land line number to tell us that they couldn't connect to the cell phone. Instead of ringing, they would get our voice mailbox, as if the phone was turned off or out-of-range. At first I thought that maybe the voice mailbox was configured to intercept the call. But after navigating the voice mail menus, I couldn't find a problem.

Customer service remarked that there were service problems in our area. They expected that it would be cleared up within 24 hours. But in order to add our account to the list of the ones needing service, I had to give them three phone numbers that failed to ring the cell phone. Well, the work place was One. And our land line was Two. Cingular also tried (and failed) to ring the cell phone. Could they be Three? No. I was supposed to call someone right away and ask them to call me back. On a lovely summer Saturday afternoon. On Independence Day weekend.

The one person I was able to reach directly couldn't actually hear me because of all the noise at the pool. I gave Cingular the number anyway.

After twenty-four hours, the problem still was not fixed. I encouraged my wife to turn her hostility away from me and direct it instead at Cingular. They placated her by telling her it would be fixed on July 5.

On July 5, she called again. This time they explain that the problem is with the phone. It's obsolete. "How old is that thing, anyway?" they ask, oblivious of the fact that they gave it to us less than three years ago. We would need a new phone, and it just so happens that we have an upgrade offer to take advantage of. Isn't that nice? (More sarcasm.)

We complained about the coercive tactics used to get us to upgrade, which pissed off the customer service clerk and got us a reduced upgrade fee. If it were up to me, I'd've canceled the service. But my wife has been brainwashed into thinking that she cannot live without a cell phone.

The new phone, BTW, has only a few ring tones, two wallpaper images, and no free games (other than demos). Of course we're welcome to buy additional content. This is the epitome of progress -- develop new ways of getting more money from the customer.

Outlook "Signature Code" Added

2006-07-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

Back in June of 2005, I bragged about how I spent a few hours to write Outlook VBA code that eliminates a few keystrokes. I had a request for that code a few days ago, so I decided to edit that post to add the code. This link will take you to the edited post.

I should point out that I no longer use that code. I had lost it when my work computer was upgraded, and I failed to back up the source in a reasonable location. Too lazy to re-invent the wheel, I deigned to add signatures the MS Outlook way, using Alt-I S M X Enter. Besides, after a security patch was applied, Outlook would force me to respond to a warning every time I ran that macro. And anyway, when adding the signature to replies, I would always have to move the signature from the very bottom of the message to the point just after the end of my response and before the quoted message. (I'm pretty sure I can fix that, actually.)

So the code you see in the edited post came from an hour-and-a-half session I spent to recreate the code -- a Saturday night pursuit of geeky leisure.

The Ideal Career Path

2006-07-03T11:26:00.000-04:00

I just read Sacha Chua's "On programming as a career" post and had to stop what I was doing and write about it.

I understand the feelings that went into her post. I've been trying to strike a new career path for myself -- something with more of a human element. The thing that thrills me is computer automation, especially applied to design processes, data processing and administration. The thrill has two sources. The first is from overcoming the challenge of making the automation succeed. The second is from seeing smiles when my coworkers experience the relief that comes from knowing they don't have to repetitively point and click through several silly menus to accomplish something.

My ideal Masters Degree would be in "The Automation of Computers to Make Life Easier For the Poor People Who are Stuck Using Them."

It doesn't have to involve computers, actually. I plan to involve them in my career path only because I believe I can make more money in a field that incorporates them. I could be nearly as happy serving as an efficiency expert, helping people to live better.

Suppose someone is intent on making a fried egg for breakfast before going to work. I might suggest that she take the eggs and butter out of the refrigerator first thing in the morning. Then after she has showered and is ready to cook, the eggs aren't as cold and will cook more quickly and will be less inclined to stick. And the butter will be soft enough to spread easily.

But I've learned that not everyone likes being told how to do something. If my wife has any say in the matter, I would be better off staying out of her kitchen and woking on a computer.

How would this play out on a computer? Well, if I knew someone who enjoyed instant messaging with friends on different servers and who liked to keep up with a few RSS feeds, I might suggest they use Miranda IM, the Swiss Army Knife of IM clients. It can work with ICQ, AIM, MSN, YIM, IRC, Jabber and GoogleTalk. Plus there are numerous add-ons, one of which can make it report feed updates. And it's Open Source. The only reasons it's not today's killler app are that it lacks marketing push and it doesn't require a hardware upgrade to run it.

Anyway, good luck to Sacha, and to myself. If you have any advice for either of us, let me know!

Net Neutrality

2006-06-25T22:32:00.000-04:00

The US Senate is debating S 2917: Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which would prevent ISPs from giving preferential treatment to content providers that pay. They are also debating S 2686: Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006, which would greatly reform telecommications laws and allow for a tiered Internet.

Apparently, telecom providers want to compete with cable television providers, and they want content providers to subsidize their effort. The first bill mentioned above would seek to prevent that. The second would facilitate it.

For a really well-fleshed out article on the subject, check out "Speed Bumps on the Information Highway," by Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer. This FreePress page provides more arguments in favor of Net Neutrality.

I recommend this sarcastic article, called "Net Neutrality Has Ruined the Web," for those who understand something about electronic communications.

Recommended Website: Arachnoid

2006-06-11T21:13:00.000-04:00

"Should I have an award for good websites?" I asked myself. If I did, I'd want to give the first to Paul Lutus. Eventually, I decided that giving out awards to good websites should be left to someone a lot more prestigious than myself. So I'll just humbly recommend my favorites. The first one, Arachnoid, was created by Paul Lutus.

I first came across Arachnoid when I was looking for software to perform time synchronization. I think this was way back in 1997. A quick search brought up AboutTime, which I downloaded from Arachnoid. Other interesting downloads include the web page editor Arachnophilia, and his personal finance program, PLCash, both written in Java to be useful on many different platforms. Most downloads are neither shareware or freeware. They are Careware, an idea I very much favor.

Articles abound on Arachnoid. Find out Why are computers so hard to use?. Discover Creative Problem-Solving. Read his opinions on psychology, which include a comparison of Asperger Syndrome and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Learn more about humans from this Interview with an Extraterrestrial.

Downloads are not all you can find at Arachnoid. Check out the tutorials, which cover Calculus, HTML, C++ and even an explanation for why the night sky is dark.

What makes Arachnoid so great is the sense that its author cares a great deal about our world and its inhabitants. He works hard at making the Internet, and the world at large, a better place. Visit now!

Update on Firewalls

2006-06-09T23:53:00.000-04:00

In my post Free Computer Security -- Firewalls, I raved about the free Sygate Personal Firewall (SPF) last year. Since then, Symantec bought Sygate. Unfortunately, this means that the free firewall product is no longer available.

I still have the old SPF install file. I could've installed it on my new computer. But using unmaintained security software is like building a fence with rotten wood and letting it fall apart.

What firewall did I install? I settled on Outpost Firewall Pro. I haven't heard many endorsements for it, but I heard no negative comments, unlike Zone Alarm. One thing about Outpost is that it is not free, although you can download it and try it for free for 30 days. The initial license fee is $39.99, and annual updates after one year is $19.99. (But if it turns out that Germany has the most shutout games in this year's World Cup, I'll get the annual updates for free. See this promotional page to understand why.)

If you're committed to using a free product, you can try Zone Alarm. You can also try Jetico Personal Firewall, which I discovered after installing Outpost. Version 1.0.1.61 of Jetico was given the Gold Award by Firewall Leak Tester on March 11, 2006, based on its ability to pass leak tests. One thing Firewall Leak Tester doesn't do is give any indication of how stable each product is.

While I'm at it, let me give you some firewall testing resources.

Again, there's Firewall Leak Tester, which not only publishes test results, it also offers a directory of tests that you can run on your own system. And there's plenty of advice, too.

The home page of Gibson Research Center, and their Shields Up test in particular.

Various tests on the PC Flank web site.

Amazing New Game Under Development : Spore

2006-05-26T23:20:00.000-04:00

I read about Spore on Brad Neuberg's blog, "Coding In Paradise." This is what he posted about Spore back on April 12:

Spore is shaping up to be one of the most amazing games ever; it's like a serious work of art and science mixed together, artificial life. Check out a video.

Why can't I just quit work and volunteer as a beta tester?

Broadband Internet Access at Last!

2006-05-26T16:36:00.000-04:00

I haven't felt this great since ... since ... since ... I don't know when. The reason is that I successfully installed DSL service on Monday. I verified the download speed to be 2.4Mbps at DSL Reports using their Speed Test. I no longer have to spend about half my online time downloading updates to all my security programs.

The service is provided by AT&T / SBC in cooperation with Yahoo. I signed up at a promotional rate of $17.99 for 1.5Mbps service for twelve months ($29.99 thereafter). The modem was free after a $45.00 mail-in rebate. Installation was a snap. The computer already had the NIC, so all I had to do was install filters on all the analog telephone devices (including the dial-up modem) and connect the modem. The most difficult part was reading the 18-page membership agreement.

I hope this means I'll have more time to post. But I suspect that I'll just goof off and get back into online gaming.

My New Computer

2006-05-17T16:43:00.000-04:00

I bought a new computer, a Dell Dimension 3100. It came with 2.8GHz P4 processor, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD and a 17" flat panel display with 1280 x 1024 resolution. I like it.

But I was a bit surprised (in a bad way) about a few things.

First is that the hard drive is a new type: ATA serial. So the extra drive bay couldn't accept the HD from my old computer. Fortunately I was able to temporarily hook up the old drive in parallel with the CD drive long enough to copy over some documents.

The second surprise is the lack of serial / parallel ports. I had saved $30 by not buying a modem. I have three already. But when I got the new box, I knew I wasn't going to be using them. Two are external modems that connect to the serial port and one is an old internal modem on an ISA card. (The new computer has no ISA slots.)

The absence of serial ports means the mouse and keyboard are USB.

Fortunately, my printer can connect with either parallel port or USB.

I added $30 for a 3.5" floppy drive. I learned (at work) that if you don't order it installed, the case doesn't have a mounting bracket for it. :) I can't live without a floppy -- it use it to synchronize my home and work systems.

It came with Windows XP Home, which I replaced with Windows 2000 Professional after completely reformatting the drive. I'm just not ready for XP. I'll wait until a few more service packs come out. :-)

I do like the system very much, especially the display and the case, which is easy to open and work on. Overall I'm very happy with it. Now I need a new work computer!

Curious Quotations

2006-04-22T21:11:00.005-04:00

Every so often I come across some short bit of text that underscores the stupidity of technology. I enter that text as the "Quote duJour."

Here are the previous selections:

"In a medical breakthrough, a Houston-based team of surgeons, working for seventeen hours in a risky, first-of-its-kind operation, are able to separate a twenty-one-year-old woman from her cellular telephone. She expires within hours, but doctors report that the phone is stable, and they expect its condition to improve dramatically 'once it finds a new host.'"
- from page 124 of "Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)," by Dave Barry

"Feudalism was based on a 'ladder type' of organizational structure, similar to Amway. You started out on the bottom rung, in the position of serf. This was not an easy job, but if you worked hard, followed the rules, did not complain, and were a 'team player,' after a certain period of time you fell off the bottom rung and died."
- from page 2 of "Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)," by Dave Barry

"'See, I can time them perfectly,' the [traffic] light said with satisfaction. 'I get hundreds of them each day. No one gets through my intersection without paying his tax in gas and rubber.'"
"'Go blow a bulb!' the car growled at the light.
"'Go soak your horn!' the light flashed back."
- from pages 187 to 188 of "Centaur Aisle," by Piers Anthony

"...there is a theory -- advanced chiefly by Steven Johnson in his 2005 book Everything Bad is Good for You -- that interactivity with machines and virtual worlds is making people smart in new and important ways.... Evidently, the neurotransmitter called dopamine (associated with craving) responds with high excitement when there is seeking and searching to be done. Johnson is specifically referring to -- and defending -- the attraction of video games, but I think the science applies also to the mental habits that attach to people who spend a lot of time on the internet or learning unfamiliar systems. 'Where our brain wiring is concerned,' he writes, 'the craving instinct triggers a desire to explore. The [dopamine] system says, in effect, Can't find the reward you were promised? Perhaps if you just look a little harder you'll be in luck -- it's got to be around here somewhere.' Games playing may have negligible effects on our morality or understanding of our world, Johnson admits, but it trains the brain wonderfully in decision-making. 'Novels may activate our imagination, and music may conjure up powerful emotions, but games force you to decide, to choose, to prioritize.'"
- from page 80 of "Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door," by Lynne Truss

"Say you phone a company to ask a question and are blocked by that Effing automatic switchboard. What happens? Well, suddenly you have quite a lot of work to do. There is an unacceptable transfer of effort. In the past, you would tell an operator, 'I'm calling because you've sent my bill to the wrong address three times', and the operator, who (and this is significant) worked for this company, would attempt to put you through to the right person. In the age of the automated switchboard, however, we are all coopted employees of every single company we come into contact with. 'Why am I the one doing this?' we ask ourselves, twenty times a day. It is the general wail of modern life, and it can only get worse. 'Why not try our self-check-in service?' they say brightly. 'Have you considered on-line banking?' 'Ever fancied doing your own dental work?' 'DIY funerals: the modern way.'"

- from page 24 of "Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door," by Lynne Truss

"It would be nice if we were taught as children a bit about how to actively use our brains, instead of just carting them around like spine-mounted lint rollers, hoping a few things stick."
- from page 88 of "Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!," by Bob Harris

"I was never even much of an engineer. What formal training I did receive was made useless by time itself. The 'advanced' computer language I studied as a sophomore was obsolete by the time I was a senior. Soon after my graduation, technology had accelerated so much that I might as well have studied Plowing With Oxen, Posing Naked On Ceremonial Pottery, or Things To Do With An Armored Codpiece."
- from page 6 of "Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!," by Bob Harris

"...the day someone pulls the plug out of the bottom of the universe, the chain will lead all the way to ... some bugger saying 'I just wanted to see what would happen.'"
- from page 136 of "Thief of Time," by Terry Pratchett

For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.
- from page 96 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," by Douglas Adams

"Simply fabulous," he whispered, indicating the automatic ticket machines. "Wonderfully ingenious."
"They're out of order," said Harry, pointing at the sign.
"Yes, but even so..." said Mr. Weasley, beaming fondly at them.
- from page 124 of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)," by J.K. Rowling

The following three snippets can be found in The Salmon of Doubt, by Douglas Adams:

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.

TaxFreedom Not What it Seems

2006-03-23T22:55:00.000-05:00

Last year I discovered a way to file my federal income tax return electronically for free using the online income tax forms on the intriguingly-titled website http://www.taxfreedom.com. (Please see this post.) This year Intuit improved the website to support non-IE browsers. But it also imposed a fee for individual taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is greater than $50,000.00.

This fee seems to flow down from the IRS. It's discussed on their Free File page.

Intuit offers two other options. The first is called "Essentials," which costs $9.95. The second is "Deluxe," which costs $19.95 ($39.95 after March 31.)

Unfortunately, after I filled out the free form and was ready to submit the data, Intuit informed me I'd have to upgrade to the "Deluxe" version. It didn't offer "Essentials" as an option.

I suppose it might have something to do with the complexity of the return. I needed to enter some extra 1099 forms of an unusual nature. And as a home owner, I chose to itemize deductions. I later found out that a $9.95 package can be used only for 1040EZ returns.

Well, I need to use an online service. I have little choice. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows NT 4.0 quite a while ago. As a result, tax preparation software no longer supports Windows NT. And paying an H & R Block moonlighter $200 to enter data into their program is an outrage.

Anyway, good luck with your tax-filing endeavors!

One Step Closer to the Computerized Brain?

2006-03-11T00:23:00.000-05:00

In testing my link to IEEE Spectrum, I was intrigued by this month's feature article, Psychiatry's Shocking New Tools, by Samuel K. Moore. The article describes how "electronic implants and electromagnetic pulses are picking up where psychoactive drugs have failed."

Medical science is still in the dark ages as far as I'm concerned. True it's not unscientific to poke at something in a systematic way and observe a result. If it can be repeated enough times, a scientist can establish a new method for obtaining that result. But this is terribly inefficient and inelegant. How long will it be before we know how the brain works and can correct the root causes of mental illness?

The new tools described in the article seem to be nothing more than modern day leaches and lobotomies. I can't wait to see what eventually "picks up where electronic implants and electromagnetic pulses fail."

Bogged Down Blog

2006-03-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

Why is this blog so devoid of new articles? My head is full of ideas. But my calendar is full of _____ .

Yet I've struggled to keep the sidebar up-to-date, especially the reading list. Today I'm excited to announce two blog-like items for the list: a link to Clair Ching's tech blog and a link to editorials by Robert Lucky.

Robert Lucky is the Art Buchwald of electrical engineering's flagship periodical Spectrum. If you have the time, I encourage you to read his latest column, "Wordsmithing." It's real. It's funny. It's crazy. It's life as an engineer.

And what of Clair Ching? Well, I came across many of her posts in the emacs-wiki-discuss list and finally decided to check out her blog. When I read Getting acquainted with stuff on the CLI: Mplayer, my heart went pitter-patter with devotion. Could she be my soul mate? Don't tell my wife.

Introducing The Luddite Geek Award for Dubious Design

2006-01-12T22:54:00.000-05:00

I was so inspired by reading "The Darwin Awards III: Survival of the Fittest," by Wendy Northcutt, I decided to launch my own award.

But I was even more inspired by the first award winner, the Bissell ProHeat 8910 Series upright carpet cleaner, which I purchased in October.

This machine is compact and economically priced. With the cost of 1/2 day rentals approaching $45, this thing would pay for itself after four uses. It includes an upholstery kit that can also be used on stairs. The website proudly displays the Consumers Digest Best Buy award.

So what's the problem?

The tank-in-tank, which enables the machine to be sleek and compact, is the problem. The tank-in-tank is clever, really. A flexible bladder sits inside a rigid tank. Fill the bladder with clean hot water. It expands when full and slowly shrinks as the water is used up and while waste water is dumped into the rigid tank.

At least, that's what it's supposed to do. Unfortunately, the bladder becomes permanently deformed from hot tap water. Once it's deformed, you need a funnel to fill it because the opening has shrunk. And it can hold only about a quart of water, enough to do about eight square feet.

When I complained about this to their customer service department, I was told that the maximum recommended water temperature is 120 degrees Fahrenheit. (By comparison, our home's hot water runs a bit hotter, because we use a dishwasher and heat our home with hot water. It's set to between 180 and 195 degrees.) I requested a new bladder made from a better heat-resistant material. They didn't have that. I explained that the manual doesn't mention any maximum temperature. (And if you check out the web page, it still says that it "...heats hot tap water up to 25 degrees hotter....") We compromised. I settled with them sending me a new tank-in-tank for free. So I cannot complain about customer service, at least.

Now I still have a bad feeling about the cleaner and the company. I can't help it. How am I supposed to make sure the water I put into the bladder isn't too hot? What troubles me even more is what kind of engineer or product designer would consider 120 degree water to be hot? I guess this is the result of out-sourcing. It was probably designed in some village where the water is heated with camel dung.

Is Engineering Boring?

2005-11-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

Lately I've begun to think that maybe engineering is a bit boring. I know that sounds funny to most of you. It's like a member of the bomb squad pondering whether defusing bombs is dangerous.

I associate the words "boring" and "engineering" to an undergraduate class I had with Professor Dourman. (Do I need to mention that's not his real name?) His first lecture seemed very promising. He motivated the course pretty well. But thereafter, the professor would deliver the entire lecture seated next to his desk, quietly reading his handwritten course notes that we all had a copy of.

At least half his students were completely asleep -- the kind of rock-solid, drool-on-the-chin variety of sleep that indicated either serious sleep deprivation or severe boredom. Miraculously, no one snored.

I don't think I ever lost consciousness in that class. I would dutifully fill a cup with steaming hot black coffee* beforehand. And I'd buy myself a large cookie to save for the last twenty minutes, should I still find myself awake by then. I had to time the eating of the cookie just right. If I ate it too soon, I'd most certainly crash before the end of the class from a sugar letdown. If I ate it too late... well, that wasn't ever going to happen, was it? After a month, I started bringing three cookies to the class. So I managed to stave off anything more comatose than a semi-hypnagogic state.

Now that I write about this class, I realize that it wasn't the most boring one. It turns out that the material the professor droned on about was novel and even a bit cool. The really boring classes were those in which I already knew the material.

I'd start the semester in one of these classes fully engaged, hoping to catch the professor's mistakes. But as the semester ground on, and as my workload from other courses increased, I would study other subjects or work on various term projects.

This problem, wherein lack of novelty leads to boredom, was actually a precursor to my current plight -- the ho-hum ordeal of supporting my employer's manufacturing department on the many dozens of products I designed over the last thirteen years.

I don't mind answering an occasional support question. But the product we make is highly specialized and difficult to manufacture. No two parts come out exactly the same. So each part needs to be honed (metaphorically speaking) by a skilled technician, who is supervised by a knowledgeable engineer. This is tedious.

I vacillate between INFP and INTP on the Myer-Briggs scale. I need to express myself creatively, and I need to do so in isolation from others. I do not care to make decisions or reach concrete conclusions. Deadlines don't concern me -- I sneer at them. I care much more about the process than about the outcome. And if I cannot learn while doing something, it's not worth doing.

So cut that manufacturing umbilical cord and let me loose on design work. I might just discover something great, like the meaning of Life, or better yet, how to make engineering exciting.

* The cafeteria sold a hot dark brown liquid that looked just like real coffee but tasted like you were sucking on the sharpened end of a pencil. If the caffeine failed to keep you awake, you could count on the taste to give you a jolt.

Just Say "No"

2005-11-14T21:32:00.000-05:00

In one of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" works, New York City is described as a place where it's best to answer "No" to three out of every four questions people ask you.* Douglas Adams wrote that back in the early eighties, well before the first "Windows" was released. Yet it applies so well to our modern day Windows operating systems.

Consider what you go through today to install software.

"You must agree to the following End User License Agreement. Blah blah blah... Do you agree?"

"Yes." [Replying no here means you can't install.]

"Would you like to install Active Desktop?"

"No!"

"Would you like to make this your default browser?"

"NO!"

"Would you like to sign up for our mailing list so that we may pester you with annoying HTML emails that contain web tags?"

"NO!!!"

See?

Now that End User License Agreement, or EULA, is a truely annoying thing. The difference between Spyware and "Legitmate" Spyware is that the latter comes with a license agreement that tells you that it monitors your activity and calls home about it. So it's important to at least skim through license agreements before agreeing to them.

And I do. I really do. But it's getting harder to find time to do this, especially since I use many programs that get updated once every few months.

So I was intrigued when I learned about a tool called EULAlyzer (which I first learned about from this CastleCops newsletter article) that "can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases."

I plan to try it out just as soon as I finish reading its EULA. :)

------------------

* Well, I recently re-read all five books in DNA's HG2G trilogy. I came across the "answer 'no' to three out of every four questions people ask" idea in "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". And it takes place in San Francisco, not New York (in which, I suspect, you'd be better off answering no to every seven out of eight questions...), when Arthur and the fetching Fenchurch travel all the way to visit Wonko the Sane. -LG 2006-03-04

Technology and Real Estate

2005-11-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Technology has played a big role in streamlining the process of buying a house. But that's not what this article is about. It's not a subject that interests me. And I don't know too much about it.

Rather more interesting is understanding how technology has changed the desirability or suitability of a house. Actually I don't know too much about this either, but it's fun to think about.

Let's start with the well-known real estate joke. You know the one: What are the three most important things to know in buying real estate? Location, location, location.

But it's no joke. Location is important. And historically, technology has had a tremendous impact on this. Consider how a boon in shipbuilding encouraged sea-faring communities to flourish and allowed colonization of foreign shores. Advances in rail transportation enabled settlers to spread west across the USA. The invention of the gasoline engine and discovery of oil reserves led to whole communities founded near oil wells and refineries.

Our needs for water, food and a temperate climate can be met with technology. The better it is, the more adverse conditions we can overcome.

Today we see major cities such as San Francisco developing wireless Internet infrastructures. This is done as part of a revitalization effort. An Internet user might save about $1000 each year in such a place. A smart home buyer will assess the quality of his cell phone reception when shopping for a new home.

Think about the place you live in. What do you like about the dwelling or area? Perhaps it's near a major highway, railway or busline? Maybe you can listen to several cool radio stations that come in clearly. Or maybe you're like me, you just appreciate reliable electricity and telecommunications services. If so, you can thank technology.

Technology or its after effects can make a location less desirable, too. Pollution can shut down entire communities, as in the case of Love Canal. Pollution also takes the form of excess light and noise, which detract from quality of life. The fear of cancer from electromagnetic radiation discourages people from buying homes near high voltage power lines, which, along with cell phone towers, are an eyesore.

Are there things you don't like about the place you live in? Is it so hazy that you can't see the stars at night? Are your neighbors making lots of noise on Saturday mornings with their lawn mowers and leaf blowers? Are the roads too congested and do they have too many red traffic lights? You can blame all this on technology.

Google Print Beta

2005-10-31T20:57:00.002-05:00

John Moran wrote about Google Print in his most recent column. So I decided to give it a try.

First, I tried to search for an excerpt from the Quote du Jour. It would be nice to provide you with a link to the quote's context, I thought. I entered "Wonderfully ingenious" (sans quotes) into the textbox and clicked Search. I quickly got 1110 separate hits. But the first 40 were not from the Quote du Jour, and I got tired of clicking "Next."

So then I tried, "indicating the automatic ticket machines," which is another excerpt from the Quote du Jour, but I got only six hits, and no keepers.

I suppose one reason Google Print is in beta is because Google hasn't scanned in a complete set of printed material. Or perhaps the reason Google hasn't scanned in a more complete set of printed material is because the service is in beta.

Surely, they've scanned in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books. Well, I tried it out. I entered, "discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here." This returned 51 pages. The first four hits had the exact quote that I had in mind. Oddly, not one of them was from the Douglas Adams book that I obtained the quote from. Instead, the hits were for books that quoted the Douglas Adams sentence. One book, ""Encarta Book of Quotations," had a total of fourteen quotes from various books by Douglas Adams.

It's an impressive start. I hope Google continues to add content. It will tremendously enhance the World Wide Web.

Bankruptcy Law Fails to Keep Creditors in Line

2005-10-16T22:31:00.001-04:00

NPR's report on the new bankruptcy legislation, which goes into effect in less than two hours, piqued my interest.

First, is the timing of the bill. Why now? People have been going bankrupt for years. But now that consumer debt is at an all-time high, and both inflation and interest rates are poised to increase, lenders are worried about losing their shorts unless bankruptcy laws are revised.

Second is how the report mentioned that consumer advocate groups opposed the legislation because it lets lenders off the hook. I agree. You'd think if a company were going to lend money to someone, it'd make sure the person seems responsible enough to pay back the loan. But that's not happening. Just sift through a week's worth of junk mail and count how many offers you get for home equity loans and credit cards. Lenders are saving money by failing to properly screen applicants, and now they've gotten the government to enforce payment.

What the bill/law should do is penalize the "worst" lenders in some way. Here's how. Whichever lender has the "most money" in default should be forced to forgive those debts. By "most money," I mean the highest ratio of money in default to total loan money in any given month. This makes it fair for large lenders.

So in November, when Capital One complains that it extended $1M to customers and $100K cannot be paid back, the government can respond, "Sorry, but no other company has anything as large as 10% of its loans in bankruptcy court. You're an irresponsible lender, and you're not entitled to get it back."

This might lead to a stalled economy. After all, our economy is fueled by irrational credit spending. But it might also lead to lenders that take an interest in its customers.

My Kind of PDA

2005-10-14T00:14:00.000-04:00

This is right up my alley: ULTIMATE POCKET NOTEBOOK. Thank you Kathy Sierra for recommending it on your cool blog.

My Harry Potter Alter Ego

2005-10-13T23:10:00.000-04:00

You scored as Severus Snape. Well you're a tricky one aren't you? Nobody quite has you figured out and you'd probably prefer it stayed that way. That said you are a formidable force by anyone's reckoning, but there is certainly more to you than a frosty exterior and a bitter temper.

Discover your Harry Potter alter ego

...created with QuizFarm.com

List of Books I've Read Recently

2005-10-02T23:25:00.012-04:00

Click to jump to my LibaryThing catalog, which is up-to-date as of August 2008, or view the list below, which I've stopped maintaining in June.

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Fun Things on the Internet

2005-08-10T13:18:00.000-04:00

Let me take a break from road design issues and a write about some free fun things you can do on the Internet.

There are many MMORPGs to choose from, but not many are as free and addicting as Maple Story, produced by Wiznet of Korea.

While you're waiting for that 200MB download to finish, why not play an online game of 20 Questions?

Tired of that already? Give notpron a try. It's billed as "The hardest riddle available on the internet," but to me it resembles a scavenger hunt.

Enjoy!

Avon Mountain Road Design

2005-08-09T23:38:00.000-04:00

Forgive me for obsessing over this, but I'm writing again about the Avon Mountain crash. This time I have an open response to Toni Gold's op-ed piece, titled "Designed to Kill," which was published in The Hartford Courant on Sunday.

Ms. Gold begin strong. A title like "Designed to Kill" certainly is eye-catching. And it actually starts out the way I started a rough draft of my first Avon Crash blog article. "It was only a matter of time before a horrible crash would occur at the intersection of routes 44 and 10 in Avon...." Here's someone whose profession it is to teach "context-sensitive design to highway engineers" who agrees with me.

But as I read on, I realized that she doesn't get it. Her grand "solution" is to replace the intersection with a roundabout.

Yes, that's just what I want to see at the bottom of a steep grade while I careen wildly out of control -- a roundabout. (That's sarcasm you're reading, in case you can't recognize it.)

Of course a roundabout causes motorists to slow down, but only if they have control of their vehicles in the first place. But if a roundabout had been in place at the time of the crash, the truck would have collided with the roundabout's barriers, plus any vehicles that might have been negotiating the circle. If the truck were to have collided with the bus in the circle, it would've broad-sided the bus, and several of the bus passengers would've been killed.

I had hoped that someone who teaches highway engineers how to design roads would have more sense than to propose putting a roundabout at the bottom of a mountain. But this is a case of someone with a hammer who views everything else as a nail. Her "expertise [is] in transportation for livable communities," according to her bio. Unfortunately, the bottom of a steep hill is no place for a livable community, let alone an intersection.

Poor Road Design

2005-08-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

Well, I lost my bet. But I'm glad.

I'm referring to a comment I made in my previous post. I predicted that no one would blame the Avon Mountain crash on poor road design.

Yesterday, callers to a Hartford-based radio talk show echoed certain points I made earlier. One caller said that the only way to prevent a re-occurrence is to move the road. Another caller pointed out that our quaint, winding, New England roads are merely 400-year-old Indian trails that have been widened a bit and paved. They're unsuitable for our modern cars and trucks to cruise on safely. These remarks imply poor road design.

This is encouraging. But the voices that really matter are those that represent the DOT. Yet I doubt we'll get an honest assessment from them, as that would lead to a backlash of litigation. Instead, they'll quietly study their options and make some small changes.

Wanna bet?

What Caused This Devastating Crash?

2005-07-29T19:12:00.000-04:00

The investigation into this morning's fatal crash in a Hartford suburb (alternate link) has only just started. But emergency personnel speculate that a truck that was traveling down Avon Mountain had a brake failure. It lost control and crossed into oncoming traffic.

I can predict what the investigation's outcome will be. The blame will rest on some combination of excessive speed, mechanical failure or operator error.

I bet you no one will blame the road.

The road (and intersection) is designed to produce just this kind of accident. No rational-minded person would decide to place a large intersection at the bottom of a steep hill, just where vehicles would be at their highest speed, and then angle the road in such a way that those cars are aimed at opposing traffic.

In fact the road over Avon Mountain, like many roads in the Northeast, was established back in colonial days. Early settlers used it to get over the mountain. As more powerful vehicles came onto the scene, the road was widened and paved, but not substantially redesigned to accommodate the faster traffic flow.

The governor's response was laughable -- reduce and enforce the speed limit. I'm sorry Ms. Rell, but a truck that's lost its brakes isn't able to do swat about its speed. Someone needs to either move the intersection or flatten the road before the next killer truck descends the mountain.

Media's Portrayal of MGM vs Grokster

2005-07-12T07:39:00.000-04:00

The media's soundbites on the Supreme Court's decision on MGM vs. Grokster would have you think that the movie industry "won." You get the impression that the next news item might be:

Emboldened by its victory over Grokster and StreamCast Networks, the music industry announced two new lawsuits. The first is directed at the Internet. "Grokster's illegal activity was made possible by the Internet," music industry spokesman Don Verrilli said. "It's totally without merit," responded the self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet, Al Gore.

The second lawsuit was filed against the Almighty Creator. "In creating the Universe, the Almighty established certain fundamental constructs, which enabled the phenomena upon which the Internet and Grokster are based. This cannot go unpunished." The Almighty had no response.

In fact, the Supreme Court merely overturned the decision by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled that the file sharing software was legal. The Appellate court's decision was based on the 1984 Sony Betamax case, which the Supreme Court said could not applied to the case.

The Supreme Court's decision doesn't mean that Grokster and StreamCast Networks's Morpheus are now illegal. Instead, it means that the case will need to be retried. MGM will have to demonstrate that Grokster and StreamCast Networks actively induced its customers to use the software for copyright infringement.

For more facts on MGM vs. Grokster and StreamCast Networks, please visit IEEE-USA's copyright infringement policy page.

Note: The articles at the following web pages were referenced for this blog post:

IEEE-USA's News Release Supreme Court Adopts IEEE-USA’s Balanced Position in MGM vs. Grokster Electronic File-Sharing Case: Protects Innovation, While Limiting Illegal Activities

Wired's Grokster Loss Sucks for Tech

Geek Code

2005-06-30T18:50:00.000-04:00

The Geek Code is a succinct code that helps geeks identify themselves. In updating my geek code, I discovered that not much has changed since December of 2001.

This is what My Particular Geek Code looks like:

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GE/CS d+(-) s: a+ C+++$ !U P+ L>++ E+>+++ W++(--) N !o K- w++(---) !O !M !V !PS !PE Y+ !PGP t !5 X-- R tv-- b++ DI+++ !D G e++>+++ h---- r+++ y?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

More Outlook VBA: Toggling Grouping

2005-06-30T18:36:00.000-04:00

In Am I Lazy or What? I described code that I wrote to add one of four signatures to an email message.

On Tuesday, I got tired of navigating the bowels of Outlook's menu system just to briefly turn grouping off and on. Grouping is a new, nifty feature in Outlook 2003.

So I wrote the following code to toggle grouping, and I customized my toolbar to add a button that invokes it. The code uses the XML property of the View object. The XML property is very cool. It looks like I can do a lot with it.


Sub ToggleGrouping() ' (c) 2005 Luddite Geek
' http://ludditegeek.blogspot.com
' Provide a way to toggle item grouping.
' 06/28/05 Created.

    Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
    Dim myOlExp As Outlook.Explorer
    Dim myOlView As View
    Dim strView As String
    Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, n As Integer
            
    Set myOlExp = myOlApp.ActiveExplorer
    Set myOlView = myOlExp.CurrentView
    strView = myOlView.XML
    i = InStr(1, strView, "<arrangement>")
    j = InStr(i, strView, "<autogroup>")
    i = j + Len("<autogroup>")
    n = CInt(Mid(strView, i, 1))
        
    If n = 0 Then
        Mid(strView, i, 1) = 1
    ElseIf n = 1 Then
        Mid(strView, i, 1) = 0
    End If
    
    myOlView.XML = strView
    
End Sub

The code on this page is provided free of charge. The author assumes no liability for any undesired effects it might have. Users may freely distribute the code only if this disclaimer is included. Users may not claim the work as their own.

Marketing + Technology = Featuritis

2005-06-15T22:42:00.000-04:00

While I was desperately trying to find a way to avoid the heat on Sunday, Kathy Sierra was writing Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak, a great companion piece to my Technology as Marketing article. Of course, Kathy has never read my blog, but I'm glad she posted her work. She did a much better job of getting my point across than I could!

Book Review: "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

2005-06-06T23:14:00.000-04:00

At 560 pages, Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is anything but short. That is, until you consider that it really is the history of Everything.[1] In fact, Bryson's gift for understating book titles, as employed for "A Walk in the Woods" (in which he chronicles his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail) is in full swing for this work.

It's a bit of a choppy book. But it's not easy to segue from the formation of, say, mountain ranges to the formation of Life, without sounding like a parody of Airplane.[2] Besides, we seem to lack quite a bit of hard evidence for most of Earth's history.

Otherwise I liked this history a lot. At times, I thought I was reading Douglas Adams, except that the scientists in an Adams novel wouldn't be as outlandish as the ones we owe our understanding of science to. The end, where Bryson discusses extinction, reminded me a great deal of Adams' "Last Chance to See."

But Adamseque examples appear even earlier on in the book. When Bryson discusses the 1918 flu epidemic, he describes an experiment in which 62 prison inmates are purposely exposed to people infected with the deadly strain. Not one even came down with the flu, yet the doctor who conducted the study became ill and died.

If you're the type who tends to worry about things that can go wrong, this book definitely will send you over the edge. Not only is our tiny planet the only place in the Universe we know of that can support our form of life, there are actually very few places on Earth that are hospitable. Even worse, though, is that the Earth is overdue for a spell of inhospitablility. And there'd be very little time to even prepare[3] and no escape. What are these things we're overdue for? A collision with a big asteroid, the blowing of a huge volcano in Yellowstone National Park, a magnetic reversal[4] are just a few of the things we have to look forward to. And it's not as if we can just run on over to Magrathea to pick up Earth Mark II if anything breaks.

[1] Everything scientific, that is. Imagine if he decided to include the history of religion, art and the Rolling Stones?

[2] Like when the guy says, "What happened? Tell me everything from the beginning." And the goofy guy says, "The Earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came...."

[3] You might ask, "How would you prepare for an asteroid strike? Put a paper bag over your head? You can't do anything about it." Well, you could max out your credit cards buying all kinds of crazy stuff. You might bump into me at Walmart buying out their line of lava lamps.

[4] "What's so bad about a magnetic reversal? You can just turn your compass around 180 degrees when hiking," you might say. Actually the magnetic field shields us from harmful solar winds. The reversal might be a slow process, with a gradual decline of Earth's magnetic field to zero, and then a gradual increase in the strength of the opposite sense field. We might have enough time to build up an entire industry around radiation-proof clothing.

Am I Lazy or What?

2005-06-01T12:38:00.000-04:00

Sunday's Dilbert cartoon might strike a nerve in some engineers. But why? A good engineer is a lazy engineer. The computer was invented because Charles Babbage got tired of calculating logarithms by hand.

Having written that, I'm proud to announce that I spent the last three hours automating something that used to take about five seconds. Yes, I know, but I do it a lot. Those five seconds add up. And now it only takes one second.

Here's the deal. My employer upgraded Outlook from 2000 to 2003 yesterday. But it didn't upgrade the other Office applications. I had used Word as my Outlook message editor, and I used its AutoText feature to add signatures to my emails. Since Outlook 2003 doesn't use Word 2000, I was forced to investigate Outlook's signature facility.

Outlook was thoughtful enough to allow for multiple signatures, and I thank the developers for that. But they failed to allow a proper method for selecting them with a keystroke. I was able to use keys, but look at the sequence involved: Alt-I S M x ENTER (where x is the first letter of a signature name.)

So I wrote a macro that allows me to choose one of my four signatures from a listbox. So now it's either Alt-S ENTER (for the default signature) or Alt-S x ENTER, a savings of two or three keystrokes. And that means extra time for blogging. :-)

The code for this automation can be entered into two text files called module1.bas and userform1.frm. I recommend first adding the module and creating the user form in the VBA editor. Add a listbox and two command buttons to the form. Their names should be listbox1, commandbutton1 and commandbutton2, and the form should have the name userform1.

Here's what should go into module1.bas:


Option Explicit

' Supporting code for selecting message signatures.
' Copyright 2005 - 2006 by Luddite Geek, luddite.geek@sbcglobal.net

Sub SelectSig()
Load UserForm1
UserForm1.Show

End Sub

Function HTMLize(strBody As String) As String
' Replaces vbCrLf with <br />
HTMLize = Replace(strBody, vbCrLf, "<br />")

End Function

Here's what should go into userform1.frm:


Option Explicit

' Signature Chooser Code
' Copyright 2005 - 2006 by Luddite Geek, luddite.geek@sbcglobal.net

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
' Based on http://www.outlookcode.com/codedetail.aspx?id=141

    Dim objItem As Object
    Dim thisMail As Outlook.MailItem
    'On Error Resume Next
    
    Set objItem = Application.ActiveInspector
    If Not objItem Is Nothing Then
        If objItem.CurrentItem.Class = olMail Then
            Set thisMail = objItem.CurrentItem
            If thisMail.HTMLBody = "" Then
                thisMail.Body = thisMail.Body & ListBox1.Text
            Else
                thisMail.HTMLBody = thisMail.HTMLBody & HTMLize(ListBox1.Text)
            End If
        End If
    End If
    
    Set objItem = Nothing
    Set thisMail = Nothing
    
    UserForm1.Hide
    Unload UserForm1
    
End Sub


Private Sub CommandButton2_Click()
    UserForm1.Hide
    Unload UserForm1

End Sub


Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
UserForm1.Caption = "Luddite Geek Signature Chooser"
CommandButton1.Caption = "OK"
CommandButton1.Default = True
CommandButton2.Caption = "Cancel"
CommandButton2.Cancel = True

ListBox1.ColumnCount = 2

ListBox1.AddItem "Work"
ListBox1.List(0, 1) = vbCrLf & _
                      "Work Signature Line 1" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Work Signature Line 2" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Work Signature Line 3" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Work Signature Line 4"

ListBox1.AddItem "Home"
ListBox1.List(1, 1) = vbCrLf & _
                      "Home Signature Line 1" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Home Signature Line 2" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Home Signature Line 3" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Home Signature Line 4"

ListBox1.AddItem "Blog"
ListBox1.List(2, 1) = vbCrLf & _
                      "Blog Signature Line 1" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Blog Signature Line 2" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Blog Signature Line 3" & vbCrLf & _
                      "Blog Signature Line 4"

ListBox1.TextColumn = 2
ListBox1.ColumnWidths = "60;0"
ListBox1.SetFocus
ListBox1.ListIndex = 0

End Sub

Edited on 2006-07-06 to add requested code samples.

Movie Review: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-05-30T22:08:00.000-04:00

I didn't have high expectations for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HG2G). When I finally saw it, I loved it immensely. It's so much more enjoyable than the other movies I saw in a theater recently: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (awesome, but too serious), The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (too long and far-fetched), Million Dollar Baby (too serious, too long and way too depressing), Whale Rider (too average). HG2G is the gold standard, AFAIC. Any movie that doesn't poke fun at something every ten minutes or so is too out-of-touch for me to relate to. If you're a screen writer and you can't find at least a dozen things to poke fun at, especially with Life The Way It Is, you can't consider yourself too clever or perceptive, can you?

One concern I had prior to seeing HG2G was that it would leave out important bits. Well, it did, of course, but it didn't seem to matter. One omission is the lovely quip about hyperspace that Ford makes to Arthur in previous versions of HG2G. They've just hitchhiked aboard the Vogon spaceship and are about to leap into hyperspace. Ford, trying to prepare Arhtur for the unpleasantness of hyperspace, says, "It's a bit like being drunk." Arthur asks, "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Go ask a glass of water."

But there were also new things, such as the Point of View Gun.* In one of the best of Trillian's scenes, she wordlessly fires the gun repeatedly at Zaphod. With each blast, he tells her how she feels about dragged throughout the galaxy with the idiot who was responsible for blowing up her planet. But her face conveys her despair more eloquently.

As well, Arthur's daring rescue of Trillian on Vogosphere brought to mind the stark scenes in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, right down to a battle with a beaurocratic behemoth.

Little gems are sprinkled throughout, in some cases literally. The jeweled crabs that Vogons love to smash to bits are wonderfully portrayed as tiny, emotive, sentient critters. When the Heart of Gold pod lands, one delightedly scrambles over to greet (or perhaps be rescued by) whomever might emerge, only to be crushed by the hatch that swings down on top of it.

Compared with the BBC series, the new Trillian and Zaphod characters are far better. NPR's review cleverly compared the half-brained Zaphod, President of the Galaxy, with George W. Bush. It's a great, topical device. And the BBC's Trillian was never developed properly. So the new Trillian is a welcome relief.

The new Arthur has more depth, too. When Tricia tells him she wants Arthur to go with her to Madagascar, you really squirm as you sense Arthur's fear of giving up his comfortable (but banal) existence for the girl of his dreams.

The reviews I've come across praise Alan Rickman's role as Marvin as the real star of the movie. Well, the new Marvin was fine, but I think the BBC Marvin was very well done. And if you don't blink too much, you might get a glimpse of him on the shop floor in Magrathea. Likewise, I didn't see much improvement in the new Ford Prefect.

So go see HG2G if you haven't already. And if you have, see it again!

* The Point of View Gun might have been featured in the HG2G Radio Series.

Universe 1 - Me 0, or How Not to Upgrade a Hard Drive

2005-05-06T18:05:00.000-04:00

Back in the good old days of DOS, upgrading to a larger hard drive was a breeze. All you had to do was this:

Physically install the new drive as a slave.
Do FDISK to create one or more partitions.
FORMAT /SYS the primary partition.
FORMAT the extended partitions (if any).
Copy all the files from the old drive to the new.
Physically swap the drives, setting the new one as master.

The word "reinstall" was not in the vernacular. There was no such thing as a registry.

Windows 95 changed all this for the worse. The upgrade procedure became:

Perform a full backup of the hard drive.
Physically install the new drive as a master.
Insert Windows Setup CD and run it.
Install a minimal OS.
Install backup/restore software.
Perform a restore.

Well, okay the number of steps is the same. But the equipment list grew to include backup software and media, and a Windows Setup CD.

Back in the early days, backup software wasn't robust enough to handle the registry. And the backup / restore process can be as much as one hundred times slower than directly copying from one hard drive to another. So folks just started over from scratch, reinstalling all the applications and then copying data files from the old hard drive.

I suspect this inconvenience is by design. It prevents casual software piracy.

Since Windows 95, Microsoft has released Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows 2000, which is what I'm using at work. Microsoft has pointedly ignored all these opportunities of making things right.

By now you've guessed that I'm about to rant about my attempt to upgrade my computer's hard drive. You guessed correctly. I was at zero bytes on C:.

I know a little bit about the administrative tools that come with Windows 2000. Disk Manager has some nice features. It allows you to remove, create and extend partitions. You can reformat drives and change drive letters. You can even mirror drives. With all its capabilities, I was sure I'd be able to upgrade the hard drive without agonizing over a backup / restore procedure.

So I wrote a thirteen step procedure that would safely and quickly move three partitions (including the boot partition) from the current disk to a new disk. It looked great. The IT guy nodded enthusiastically. And it worked flawlessly, up until the very last step.

That's the thing that bothers me about the Universe. When it plays tricks on you, it waits until the last possible moment to steal the cheese from the end of your maze. In my case, everything went exceedingly well until it came time for me to create the mirror. You see, Disk Manager will mirror disks or partitions only for the Server version of Windows 2000. Users of Windows 2000 Professional (of which I am one) who wish to create a mirrored set will instead wail and gnash their teeth.

And the thing is is that practically each step in my procedure required a restart of the computer. In two cases, there's even a complete shutdown and power down to reconfigure the disks. Just imagine the time it took for me to get to step thirteen!

But not all is lost, I convinced myself. (Or maybe the Universe convinced me.) A fall-back plan presented itself. Having successfully moved everything over from the other two partitions, I could delete those partitions and extend the boot partition.

I am soooo clever.

Now to use Disk Manager to extend a partition, you first need to convert the partition from a Basic partition to a Dynamic partition. That's because only Dynamic partitions can be extended. The thing is, though, that once you convert a disk / partition to Dynamic, you can't go back.

But why would I need to go back? I proceeded to convert the disk, clicking OK to a rather ominous message about having to live with whatever consequences might arise from doing the conversion because it can't be undone, and "are you really completely sure you want to convert, because it really can't be undone? I really mean it this time, too." And so on. "Oh give me a break," I retorted, rolling my eyes. I am not a wimp.

Still, I was a bit unnerved by that message. There has to be a reason for the grave tone of the warning. I thought about this while waiting for what I thought would be the final restart. I mean, people get paid a lot of money over at Microsoft. They're not going to waste it by writing a grave warnings unless they're really, really warranted, right?

With the restart complete, I logged back on and breathed a sigh of relief. "There, everything's working," I consoled myself. Now to fire up Disk Manager, extend the partition, and bask in the glow of a larger boot partition. Sigh, life is good. I love being clever. I get such a sense of satisfaction knowing that I can work around every conceivable obsta....

What's this? "Extend Partition" is still grayed out. There must be some mistake! It's a Dynamic partition. It says so. Determined not to let the Universe get the better of me, I opened Disk Manager's help file (for the first time) and felt my neck and spine contort as I read the following paragraph from the section titled "To extend a simple or spanned volume":

You can extend a volume only if it contains no file system or it is formatted using NTFS. You cannot extend volumes formatted using FAT or FAT32.

You can extend a simple or extended volume only if the volume was created as a dynamic volume. You cannot extend a simple or extended volume that was upgraded from basic to dynamic.

You cannot extend a system volume or boot volume.

Arrrrrgh! Are they serious? I cannot extend a boot volume?!? What's the point of providing an option to Extend a Partition if it won't work on a boot volume? That's the only kind of partition you'd need to be able to extend!! Arrrrrgh!

I compose myself before heading over to the IT guy, the guy who assured me that I'd be able to extend the partition. After all, if I strangle him, there won't be anyone to backup / restore my hard drive.

"Um, Andy? It says I can't extend boot partitions." "Uh huh. Well, you could use Partition Magic, as long as it's a Basic disk. Partition Magic doesn't work on Dynamic disks."

I was silent. Silent in the manner of someone who's busy containing an exploding mind.

"Um, Andy?" I was surprised at how calm I sounded. "You told me to convert the disk to Dynamic so I could extend it."

I don't remember his response. I wasn't able to hear anything with all that exploding going on in my head.

So I went back into Disk Manager and asked whether it was even remotely possible to undo that little conversion to a Dynamic partition. It would be okay, right? I did only a few hours ago. The paint isn't even dry yet.

That's the Universe you hear laughing.

Then I confirmed that Partition Magic indeed does not work on Dynamic partitions. Actually, I thought it was nice of the Universe to let me confirm that so quickly. I guess It felt sorry for me and decided against letting Partition Magic start up, offer an "Extend Partition" option, and proceed to wipe out the hard drive. Although it would have been hilarious, I'm sure.

To describe in detail how I finally got more space on the boot partition would be disappointingly anti-climatic. And I don't want to appear too smug, lest the Universe find a bit of cheese that it forgot to steal from my maze. I'll just briefly mention that I was able to move everything over to a new drive with nearly ten times the capacity of the old. I used Norton Ghost to avoid the tedium of backup / restore. The fact that Norton Ghost needed to be installed on C:, which was already filled to capacity, was a nice touch, don't you think?

Well, everything seems to work just fine. Nearly everything. I just can't seem to run the defragment utility. But I'm sure I can work that out some how. After all I'm clever, and I'm not a wimp.

The Hitchhiker's Guide Personality Test Results

2005-05-04T12:54:00.000-04:00

Zaphod Beeblebrox
DON'T PANIC

You are perfect and nothing bad ever happens to you! You dirty, rotten liar. Your brain is obviously only there to keep you from recognizing the boring realities the rest of us call life. Hopefully you have installed a second head; someone has to be your friend.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 11% on dentity

Link: The Hitchhiker's Guide Personality Test written by donquixotic on Ok Cupid

Free Computer Security -- FireFox

2005-04-30T00:15:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of ranting to catch up on. But I just read John Moran's FireFox recommendation, and I had to concur. We'll somehow manage to work it into this Free Computer Security series.

Yes FireFox certainly is free. And it provides security in the same sense that a Volvo provides safety. Driving (or riding in) an automobile is not safe. But if you have to do it, do it in a Volvo. Similarly, browsing the World Wide Web is not safe. But if you have to browse the Web, FireFox is a good choice.

FireFox may not be completely invulnerable to exploits. Just read the FireFox 1.x bulletins at Secunia to see. But at least it's not tightly integrated into the Windows OS as Internet Explorer, the Yugo of browsers, is. That means Spyware is less likely to take root and germinate.

FireFox's ability to suppress unrequested popup windows means you don't need a separate popup blocker program.

Many exploits involve tricking users into thinking they're on a site other than the malicious site they're actually on. So the SpoofStick extension was created to address this. SpoofStick displays the domain name of the website at the top of the browser window in bold, green letters. (The font color and size are configurable.) This makes it easier to tell if you've been redirected.

But remember, the safest computer is one that's not connected to the Internet[1]. If your tolerance for risk is very low, you'll not have a modem or NIC in your box.

On the usability side of things, I happen to prefer FireFox's tabbed browser concept. If you've always used Internet Explorer, tabbed browsing might take some getting used to. Here's how it works. Instead of having one button on the TaskBar for each open web page, there's just one button on the TaskBar for the main browser window. If you have multiple web pages open, you select the one you want by clicking the appropriate tab or cycling through them with Ctrl-Tab. Microsoft Excel can be configured to work this way. Microsoft calls this Multiple Document Interface, or MDI. I call it cool. (Just one thing. To make Ctrl-Tab switch to the most-recently used tab rather than the next tab, install the LastTab extension.)

Give it a try!

[1] Actually, the safest computer is the one that's never turned on.

Book Review: "Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology"

2005-04-25T00:23:00.000-04:00

A funny thing happened when I went to the local library to look for "Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology," by Eric Brende -- the computerized card catalog database was inaccessible. I guess the situation was more ironic than funny. Either way, it had me longing for those arrays of oak drawers filled with index cards.

Eventually the librarian was able to look it up and put it on hold for me, not without remarking on the irony of the situation.

I don't usually go to the library to look for books. Instead, I look for what I want online and go just to pick it up. But I was there with my daughter and decided to take a look-see.

I first read "Better Off" a few months ago. My wife had checked it out accidentally, thinking it was something else. Then she gave it to me to read.

The main idea behind the book is that technology places a barrier between a person and the outcome of his effort. When that barrier is removed, the person finds meaning and even euphoria in his labor. A minor point is that any time that's saved by using labor-saving devices is either wasted or is spent in maintaining (or paying for) the technology that saved you the time.

After absorbing numerous books that poke fun at technology, I enjoyed reading one that when so far as to do something about it. The author turns his back on it and lives for eighteen months in an "Amish-like" community. (I sometimes wonder if he thought about subtitling it "Flipping the Bird on Technology.") The fact that he wrote about his experience made me want to write about my experiences with technology. So reading the book partly inspired me to create this blog.

But this book left me puzzled, so I decided to re-read it. I hardly ever re-read a book after only a few months. But I can't help thinking that the author was suffering from burn-out from his graduate studies and thesis work. As well, just before completing his program, he was involved in an accident that was severe enough to leave him temporarily debilitated. This, too, I believe explains his romance with (and eventual marriage to) his live-in caretaker.

The other reason I wanted to re-read it because I came across a study[1] recently that seemed to suggest that such conditions as ADHD and autism were non-existent among the "native" Amish. But the only commentary on youth is that their courtship is scripted and predictable. And with the exception of one child who was born with a genetic disease, there seems to be no need for medical care.

He seems to suggest that people would be better off with the lifestyle he chose. But the people he lived with relied on products that were made with the help of modern technology. Such products include the metal in their gardening tools, for example. Watch steel-workers and miners leave for the farm and wave goodbye to your ability to work the soil.

So he flips the technology switch off, but keeps it within reach for when it's needed.

[1] The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly, by Dan Olmsted.

Technology - No Place for Wimps

2005-04-12T23:11:00.000-04:00

My co-worker gave me this hat a few years ago. The hat is resting in front of my flat screen monitor at work, on top of a 120GB hard drive and a Sandisk Flash Card Reader. Below it lies a sticky note with an address and some part numbers and a neat American Wire Gauge slide rule reference of wire sizes.

That KDS monitor is nice and clear, BTW.

Free Computer Security -- Firewalls

2005-04-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

Any computer that's connected to the Internet needs a firewall. It doesn't matter if you have only a dial-up connection. I'm on dial-up, and my computer sometimes is targeted for port scans. In fact, my first two computer calamities probably were caused by malicious Internet activity.

I was running Windows 98 back then and playing an online RPG. I'd leave the computer connected to the Internet several hours at a time while I played or downloaded updates. One day the computer failed to load Windows, and I discovered that the SYSTEM directory was empty.

I repaired the system and went back online. About six months later, the computer suddenly became very sluggish, and a program that I was unfamiliar with (probably a service) was maxing out the CPU.

Then I did two things. First, I set my hard drive up to dual boot Windows 98 and NT 4.0. NT would be my primary OS, while Win98 would be for my daughter's games. Second, I installed a firewall.

At the time, three free firewalls were popular: Sybergen Secure Desktop, Tiny Personal Firewall, and Zone Alarm. Zone Alarm seemed to be the most popular so I installed it. It was easy to use and hid my computer's ports from the Internet. And I haven't had an Internet-related problem since.

But the astute reader will notice that I referred to Zone Alarm in the past tense. I almost hate to mention this, because Zone Alarm is a very good program. But remember how I wrote that I was playing an online RPG and that I was on dialup? I discovered, through a lot of trial and error, that Zone Alarm interrupted the connection to the game every thirty to sixty seconds for about five seconds. And its "disabled" mode didn't change that. The interruptions went away only after I uninstalled Zone Alarm.

So that prompted me to try Sybergen Secure Desktop. That program was just about as easy to use, hid my computer’s ports just as effectively as did Zone Alarm, and it didn’t interrupt my gaming experience one bit. I recall running a port scan while playing. Everything worked fine, and I’ve kept it on my system.

Sybergen Secure Desktop now is called Sygate Personal Firewall. And it still runs on WinNT 4.0 (SP6).

Once you install Zone Alarm or Sygate Personal Firewall, you’ll need to configure it. Configuration is an ongoing process since these products will block a program’s access if that program has been changed. But I like to tweak things even further. I find that the default settings for "allowed" programs is too relaxed.

First, I like to restrict the remote port numbers that things connect to. For example, my web browsers are allowed to connect only to remote ports 80 and 443, which are standard ports for HTTP and HTTPS, respectively.

Second I like to set everything to client-only communication so that any remote-initiated attempts to communicate with these programs are rejected.

Third, I use FireFox as my default browser, but keep Internet Explorer for those ASP-type pages that are unreadable with anything else. (Internet Explorer was required to file my income tax claim at TaxFreedom.org.) When I need to use IE, I get the website’s IP address using Ping and then allow IE to access only that IP address. Otherwise, IE stays blocked. Ditto for Outlook, since email gets routed through a couple of proxies before arriving at Outlook. (These proxies will be the subject of another installment of Free Security Programs.)

I’ll post the URLs of my favorite sites that do port scanning in the comments section, below. But not right now – later, when I stand a good chance of keeping my eyes open.

(Psst: I never did try Tiny PF.)

Geek Test Result

2005-04-02T22:37:00.000-05:00

I didn't score as high as Tirsden, but that's probably because I don't have time to be a gamer....

The Deviant Geek
You answered 76% of the questions as a geek truly would.

You're a geek and you know it. You've got all sorts of fringe hobbies and socially unacceptable tendencies. Chances are, whenever possible, you hate to be grouped with other people and sometimes go out of your way just to be different.

You're smart too. You're more willing to depend on your own brainpower to solve problems, instead of relying on others to pull you through life. You probably read a lot, and generally enjoy learning new things.

So what's it all mean? You may be considered by some to be uncool, but you probably don't care either. In social situations you may be either slightly passive or slightly loud (geeks always fall into the extremes). In a nutshell, you answered enough questions correctly supporting a geek philosophy to be considered a more potent geek than 60% of the population.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 68% on geekness

Link: The True Geek Test written by ambientred on OkCupid Online Dating

Cool High-Tech Thing -- Free Computer Security

2005-04-02T21:29:00.000-05:00

Securing your computer might be tedious, but it need not be expensive. In fact there are a number of excellent free security-related applications to make you and your computer feel at ease.

Let's start with Anti-Virus. Grisoft delivers a free anti-virus solution with its AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, which is free to home users. I had switched from Symantec's Norton AntiVirus (aka NAV) for these reasons:

The Annual Virus Definition Subscription Fee. Paying this entitled the user to download virus updates for one year. But if you ever reformat your hard drive within that year (which I did twice) you'd either have to pay the fee again or you'd have to contact customer service to receive a special unlocking code in order to download more updates.
Sluggish Performance. NAV slowed my system down quite a bit. It was so annoying, I wound up disabling its real time mode of operation and its email scanner. So I used it only for performing manual scans. Even those took a long time.
No More Support for Windows NT 4.0. The home edition of NAV fails to list NT on it list of system requirements. In fact, just before I switched to AVG Anti-Virus FE, I'd been using the Enterprise Edition of NAV, which apparently even supports DOS. (Sometimes it helps to have a friend in the IT department at work.)
"LiveUpdate" Blocked by Firewall. Every time I wanted to update the virus definitions, I had to download the entire 5+MB universal virus definitions file and install it manually. That's because the program's internal updater, called "LiveUpdate," failed to make it through my computer's firewall. If only they'd give me a range of IP addresses to open up (aside from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255). But they had too many different servers providing the updates.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition can be downloaded installed and registered for free. Users can easily get differential updates for free. It runs crisply on my Windows NT 4.0 OS. In fact, scans take so little time, I was at first skeptical that it was anything more than a program that popped up a message box to say the file has no viruses.

Coming next... free firewall discussion.

Deadly Body Odor

2005-04-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another example of misuse of technology -- the Genetically Altered Scent project.

Researchers discovered a way to modify the DNA of a common bacterium so that the waste it produces has a pleasing scent. The idea was to introduce this strain of bacterium into the armpit regions of test subjects, who would be required to forgo deodorants, antiperspirants and anti-bacterial soap for a ten day period. At the end of the study, the subjects would don a cotton pad under each armpit and perform some light exercise. The pads (along with pads from a control group) would be sniffed by another group of participants who would designate each pad as either "pleasing" or "disagreeable."

If the study was successful, Genetically Altered Scent, or GAS, would usher in a new line of designer fragrances.

Unfortunately, the study had to be halted due to a complication. About thirty percent of the participants who hosted the modified bacteria developed a severe rash. A few of these actually had to be hospitalized and undergo intravenous antibiotic therapy. Apparently one of the modified genes turned the bacterium into an aggressive organism, similar to deadly flesh-eating varieties. Luckily no one died or suffered permanent damage.

Cool High-Tech Things

2005-03-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

When I made the leap from MS-DOS to Windows NT in 1997, I continued using the DOS version of Norton Commander for a while. Norton Commander (NC) was a wonderful file manager for DOS, and even the clunky DOS version was more useful to me than Windows Explorer. NC would display the contents of two directories side-by-side and provide a command prompt. (Cygwin provides something similar called Midnight Commander.)

However, one big problem was that NC wasn't made for a multitasking environment. When other programs tinkered with files in a focused directory, NC blithely ignored those changes.

Symmantec no longer supported NC, so it was time to search for a Windows file manager to replace it.

I found one of the most awesome pieces of software -- Servant Salamander, by ALTAP, which is short for Alternate Applications.

I've been using some version of Servant Salamander daily for about seven years. It's stable, intuitive, feature-packed and useful. ALTAP continues to add features and just released Beta 8.0 of version 2.5 on Friday.

I have a lot of cool programs on my computer. Servant Salamander is one of the coolest.

Weather in New England

2005-03-26T23:52:00.000-05:00

If I had to rank things in order of increasing slippery-ness, I'd put snow at number three, mud at number two, and ice at number one.

During yesterday's backyard Easter egg hunt, I had a chance to compare all three. Fortunately, no one fell, and the dog and house are still fairly clean.

Douglas Adams on Technology

2005-03-26T23:17:00.000-05:00

Here's some brief, witty commentary on technology from Douglas Adams. These snippets can be found in The Salmon of Doubt, which I just finished reading.

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.

How to Prevent School Shootings?

2005-03-24T23:50:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of every tragedy, it's natural to ask, "How could we have prevented this?" Many schools installed metal detectors after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed fellow students at Columbine High School nearly five years ago. But the metal detector at Red Lake High School didn't prevent Jeff Weise from killing seven classmates last week.

Is the answer more technology? There are those who will advocate for more.

I hear that Jeff Weise fit a profile. He was a quiet loner. That will lead scientists to wonder whether there's a genetic marker that predisposes someone to such violent acts as mass murder. If we can identify at-risk youths, we can prevent the next tragedy.

This is preemptive thinking. We were preemptive in getting rid of Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and its non-links with terrorists. What's to stop Patriot Act proponents from preemptively detaining a bunch of Goth school kids?

Of course this cessation of rights won't start with school kids. It'll start with the lowest of criminals, a class of criminal even the ACLU won't want to defend -- the sexual predator.

John Couey, who confessed to molesting and killing 9 year old Jessica Lunsford, is the ideal poster boy for genetic testing. "Hey before we put you in prison you need an exam. Just wonder what a bit of your DNA might look like in my handy Genome test kit?"

Perhaps this is already being done on numerous sexual predators nationwide. Once the data is collected, a correlation is made. And then you start being preemptive.

The Human Genome project wasn't initiated with the idea of segregating people based on their DNA. But that's the way it goes with technology. Once you put it out there, you can't control how it gets used.

So now I hope you'll excuse me while I rid my wardrobe of every article of black clothing I own....

Why This Blog (Part 2)

2005-03-17T23:30:00.000-05:00

At the end of Part 1 of Why This Blog, I referred to our daughter. Here's an excerpt of my journal that features our daughter:

On Saturday (12/15/01), my wife and I took our daughter to The Farm to have breakfast with Santa Claus and the Grinch. We called in advance to buy tickets, and we were thrilled that "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was broadcast on television the night before; furthermore, we were happy that our daughter seemed to enjoy certain parts of the animated special.
We arrived and were told that we should gather eggs in the chicken coop. The "snowman" showed us to the coop, which was about the size of a large living room and was filled with chickens and straw. Our daughter collected the eggs and placed them in the basket that my wife held. I just walked around a bit and took pictures. After we got outside, a strong wind blew the snowman's hat off, and our daughter chased after it. I picked it up and gave it to her, and then she gave it to the snowman.
We took the eggs to be graded. Our daughter placed them on the machine one-at-a-time. Then we washed our hands and went to have breakfast.
I sat down with her while my wife went to get three plates of food. There were scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes. As we ate, the Grinch came in and foraged in the garbage can for food! Our daughter was hysterical with laughter! "The Grinch eats garbage! The Grinch eats garbage!" she shouted between fits of laughter.
Then Santa came over and said hi to us. He asked our daughter her name and what she wanted for Christmas. "A hobbyhorse," she replied. That's what we've been brainwashing her into wanting for about a month.
Soon after that, the trolley ride was announced. The Grinch drove the tractor that pulled the trolley. He drove by his "reindeer", which were panels of wood cut into the shape of reindeer and painted appropriate colors. After the seventh reindeer, we came upon Rudolph. This was a deer-like mannequin suspended on a wire so that it "flew" as we rode past. The red nose blinked.
After the trolley ride, we visited the animals. We've seen the horses, emu, llamas and sheep before. But this time there was a goat with two babies. They were black and about the size of our puppy, but taller and less long. But they were shy and agile, so it was hard for us to get a good picture with them.

Stay tuned for Parts 3, 4 ....

Bluebird House

2005-03-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

Bluebirds are making a comback in the Northeast. Some have been spotted in our town. So my wife, who just started a new job, bought a bluebird house today, just like the one pictured on the right. This is made by Woodlink. It's from their American Tradition Series, and it's called simply "Bluebird House."

Edited to add:
I mounted the little house on the trunk of a yellow birch tree. The ground is too frozen to drive a special pole into, which is what's recommended.
Check out the North American BlueBird Society's website.
Copyright to image of bluebird house most likely resides with Woodlink.

Why This Blog (Part 1)

2005-03-15T23:07:00.000-05:00

Many events led up to my starting this blog.

Journal writing is in my blood. My first handwritten journal entry appeared when I was in the seventh grade. How long ago was that? I just did the math in my head. It can't have been that long. Thirty years?

My first attempt at putting my journal on a computer failed almost immediately. It was back in the mid 1980's, before we even had personal computers in my department at work. The popular home computer at the time was the Commodore 64. And that's what I bought. The word processor it ran could display only half a screen at a time, 40 of 80 characters. Switching from the left of the page to right wore me out very quickly.

What I really wanted to do was write sections of text and then link to them from other sections of text. I hadn't heard of HTML yet. But if I did I would have wanted to use it.

Another ten years went by. And then my employer's LAN became established, and we had dial-up Internet access. If you think 56K is slow, imagine 56K shared among ten people. Despite the slow access, I established my first web page. A lame first attempt, it merely consisted of a list of links.

It wasn't that I couldn't think of content. Rather, I couldn't think of a way to bare my soul and remain anonymous. (As soon as I finished it, I sent an announcement to everyone.) So I let it collect virtual dust.

As our daughter started to grow and do interesting things, I became more interested than ever in journaling. I committed myself to writing it on computer. This time I had HTML to work with, and a wonderful text editor that understood HTML syntax.

Product Warnings for Physicists

2005-03-14T23:46:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of versions of this list of funny product warnings for physicists. Here are two that I found using Google:

http://www.ucolick.org/~de/humour/product.html

http://www.goshen.edu/~calvinfs/humor/physwarn.htm

Enjoy!

Technology as Management

2005-03-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

I work for a company that proudly bills itself as a lean manufacturing company. That's a euphemism for "a company with too few managers because we're too cheap to hire more." So at every opportunity, they manage with technology.

One example is how they decided to limit Internet access and game playing among the hardworking, hourly workers who assemble and test our products, and upon whom our livelihood depends. The big boss doesn't want them to fritter away valuable time. Time is money, and all that. He also prefers to sit in his office rather than walk among them.

At the time, I was a "sort of" member of the IT team. The first thing we did was install Microsoft's System Management Server (SMS). We did this not to address the time frittering issue, but because SMS was really cool. We loved playing with SMS.

My favorite aspect of SMS was the way it would run programs at certain times on remote computers. I used it to deploy virus updates, before we switched to an enterprise virus tool.

SMS could also restrict certain users from running certain programs at certain times of the day. So we used it to restrict Internet Explorer, Solitaire, Freecell, Minesweeper, and so forth.

Of course, it was easy to circumvent SMS restrictions simply by renaming the restricted file names. One could rename IEXPLORE.EXE to MSACCESS.EXE, for example. I knew this at the very beginning. I'm not sure whether the other IT guys did. I didn't bother to mention it. I felt that anyone smart enough to figure this out should be rewarded. I knew that the big boss didn't know this. He seemed satisfied that we had an answer to his issue, a technological answer in fact.

So we went on like this for a good while. And I'm proud to say that we had only one case of virus infection (Melissa), and I shut the email server's service before it spread to other computers.

But SMS was a resource hog. If the network was busy or the server was slow, we'd experience a frown-inducing delay before running any application because the computer needed to wait for SMS to say, "Yes, you can run the program this time (but don't make a habit of it.)" So when we hired the full time IT guy, he brought in an enterprise virus tool and eradicated SMS.

The new guy approached this issue differently than we did. He took the request seriously. He was determined to make his solution work. What he did was this. He renamed IEXPLORE.EXE to something else, and set its folder's local permissions to deny access. He omitted the standard games from the installation. And he set peoples' local accounts as user accounts as opposed to administrator accounts. That's to prevent them from installing games or other web browsers.

By then, programs had evolved to offer HTML-based help, which required IE. Restrict IE, and you restrict access to help. Although I mentioned this to him, it wasn't until I told him I needed everybody to use IE that he came up with a new idea. He set the IP address of the default gateway on certain computers to a bogus value. The default gateway is the address of the computer or router that traffic needs to go to in order to get on the Internet. If that address is not known, a computer cannot access the Internet.

This is the current method of limiting Internet access. IE is free to open local files or network-based files. Yet no programs can access the Internet. So it has the added benefit of preventing "malware" from "phoning home."

As nice as this seems, there's still a problem. Suppose someone who's allowed to access the Internet needs to use one of the restricted computer? No dice.

Anyway, this "locking the cookie jar" technique of barring Internet access really does ensure people won't waste time on the Internet. That's because they'll be wasting time figuring out how to gain access! As well, it sends the message, "We don't trust you to do your job. We'd rather micromanage your job rather than support your growth." It's how you treat children.

Why not be smart about this? If people are so bored (or addicted or lazy) that they'd rather fool around on the computer and risk losing their jobs, treat the boredom (or addiction or laziness.) Have a merit-based reward system in place. Make sure they always have work to do (but not too much).

Technology as Marketing Follow Up

2005-03-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

Frivolous technology that's used as a marketing tool results in an Arm's Race of Technology as manufacturers try to out-do their competitors. We consumers encounter expensive, feature-bloated products instead of the basic, trusty, inexpensive things we've grown up with. It may be that eBay will turn out to be a Luddite's best friend. Some of those quaint, clever gadgets we're so familar with are no longer made. Expect to see eBay affiliates opening brick-and-mortar shops soon.

Technology as Marketing

2005-03-05T23:39:00.000-05:00

I'm about as suspicious of technology as I am about email from Nigeria. That's because technology is the snake oil of the twenty-first century. Adding new "bells and whistles" to something, regardless of whether they're needed, is considered a good way to get consumers to buy something they already have.

For example, if you manufacture coffee makers, there are a limited number of circumstances under which people will buy your product:

0. Their old coffee maker broke and needs replacing.

1. They finally moved out of their parent's house (or divorced) and need one of their own.

2. They need to give a practical gift.

3. A new one will make life much easier.

Over the first three circumstances you have little control. (Well, actually, you could ensure that their old coffee maker breaks if they bought your old model and you made it cheaply enough. But then who would be daft enough to buy the same brand of coffee maker that broke? Then again, if all your competitors also made their coffee makers nearly as cheaply as yours, all you'd have to do was make sure the thing outlasts the warranty. Or you could simply market the same coffee maker under a few different brand labels.)

Where was I? I seem to lost my train of thought. So while I'm looking for my train (and wondering where my luggage has gone off to) let me explain the business with starting the above list with zero.

I wanted to present content in this blog with a good balance between Ludditism and Geekiness. But I'm a bit concerned that there may be much more Luddite than Geek here. Of course, the fact that this is a blog should help balance things out. It's not like I'm scratching this into parchment under candlelight with India ink and a nib. No right-minded Luddite[1] would dare go near a computer let alone build a blog using one.

What does this have to do with my zero-starting list? I think I can answer that. Starting at zero is something programmers do. If we have a list (or array) of ten to "iterate" through, we go from 0 to 9, not 1 to 10. I do know the precise reason for this, but to explain it would diverge even more from coffee-making than ever. So let me wrap this up by convincing you that programming habits pervade my being to such an extent that they leak out into daily life, if you could call this a life. And thus I am a geek. QED.

Now then, I was leading up to the idea that if you want someone to buy your coffee maker, and that person already has one, you have to convince that person that yours will make his/her life better. In the absence of technology, you might achieve this by making the coffee maker look more attractive in some way by some combination of redesign and advertising. You'd pay a gorgeous model to appear in a commercial while using your coffee maker. Then you'd pay her some more to make bedroom eyes to a bleary-eyed man who was using your coffee maker during another commercial.

Or, you could use technology. It's cheaper than a model. And some people are tired of gorgeous models, especially the homemaker who has to get up a 5:00am each weekday and get three children off to three different schools before racing to work, hopefully remembering to drop the fourth child off at daycare on the way.

So what you do is hire a couple of engineers to add a few features, like the ability to tell the difference between a weekday and the weekend in order to automatically brew at 5:00am on the former and, say, 5:10am on the latter. (Don't forget, her kids have soccer on Saturday and Sunday school on Sunday.) And you add another feature where it knows if any particular weekday is, in fact, a holiday. And another feature that keeps the coffee maker's clock synchronized to the NIST atomic clock in Boulder CO. Because you know and I know that Super Mom doesn't have time to set her coffee maker's clock every time junior presses the GFI Test button and cuts off the power to it. More importantly, she knows it.

But what she doesn't know is that your coffee maker doesn't know the difference between really important holidays such as Memorial Day, and those lesser ones such as Veteran's Day, with the difference being that her work place doesn't open on Memorial Day but does open on Veteran's Day. She also doesn't know that the coffee maker will utterly fail to synchronize with the NIST atomic clock because the signal is too weak. Worst of all, she doesn't know that if she forgets to add the water one night, it'll try to brew anyway the following morning, turning the hot plate on under an empty pot. And that night will happen to be the one that the kids are sleeping over at their Gramma's house so that Mom can sleep until 8:00am. Except that she'll awaken at 6:37 when her smoke alarm pierces her precious sleep.

But that's a good thing, because then she'll need to buy another coffee maker!

[1] "Right-minded Luddite" is, of course, another oxymoron.

Cool Low-Tech Things

2005-02-26T22:53:00.000-05:00

I get excited by simple, effective solutions to problems. Items that can be taken apart easily, and that have replaceable parts that can be found in any hardware store, give me a thrill. Such items rarely become obsolete and are good investments.

They make me want to shout!

So this blog will feature an on-going list of Cool, Low-Tech Things. (I was almost going to make it a top-ten list of things, but then I remembered how I don't like such evenly numbered lists of things.)

The first item is a wonderful personal care item. Anyone with problem sinuses or asthma should have one. It's the Neti Pot. I have the ceramic Neti Pot from the Himalayan Institute, which I bought at our local health food store.

Here's why it's so cool. First, there are no moving parts to wear out. Second, it doesn't require special expensive chemicals that must be purchased from the manufacturer. (It can be used with ordinary kosher salt or sea salt.) Unless I drop it or lose it, I'll be able to use it my entire life. Wow! But best of all, it really works. Treat yourself with one right away!

NPR's "Drafting a Genetic Map of Human Diversity"

2005-02-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

In "Drafting a Genetic Map of Human Diversity," NRP reports that a new genetic map "will help determine who will benefit from drugs and who won't." What if researches find out that no one will benefit?

This NPR audio track discusses the ethical implications of the new map as much as its medical applications.

TurboTax -- Angst and Euphoria

2005-02-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

My home computer runs Windows NT. It serves me well. But I get nervous every time I need to update a program. Why? Microsoft stopped supporting NT quite a while ago. So I've become adept at locating that little "System Requirements" section on packaged software.

I've used TurboTax to file my federal taxes for 2001, 2002 and 2003. But when I sought out the latest version for 2004, I noticed that Windows NT was absent from the "System Requirements" section.

I bought it anyway. I'm sure they didn't mean to imply that it won't run on NT. They just left it off because ... well, nobody has NT anymore. Besides, perhaps it is time to buy a new computer. Or at least I'll buy a new hard drive and install Windows 2000 on it. And if I don't switch to Windows 2000, I can always run TurboTax on my office computer.

Before I cracked open the shrink wrap, I decided to check out the TurboTax website to verify the system requirements. After a mere six mouse clicks, I had my answer:

System requirements misprint on the Welcome Back CD packaging

The TurboTax Welcome Back CD packaging incorrectly lists Windows 95 and NT as supported operating systems. You can review the actual system requirements with the links below.

Then I got mad. This is all the fault of a lazy Intuit IT department and a team of inconsiderate programmers. And because of them, I have to invest time and money updating a perfectly good computer. I decided to rebel. I would do my taxes by hand.

Just before I clicked on my browser's close button in a huff, I noticed an inconspicuous link called TaxFreedom. "This looks interesting," thought I. In my rebellious mood, I envisioned a site that would show me how to give the IRS a virtual middle finger. If I could blow off doing my taxes, I won't need software.

But the link led me to another TurboTax site that offered to "Prepare and e-file your federal return FREE and get your refund fast!" Well, I wasn't born yesterday. I know nothing's for free. What's the angle? Apparently, they do your federal taxes for free, but you have to pay for having your state taxes done. That's okay. My state taxes are a breeze to do.

The system requirements (yes, I checked that right away) informed me that this would work only with Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. I did have the right version. But I've configured my firewall to block IE from the Internet. So I spent some time figuring out what IP addresses I needed to allow in order to get IE to work.

After I convinced myself that it was for real, I decided to give it a try. "I'll just enter my name and address," I told myself. It was nearly midnight.

Well, by 1:30am I had completed both my federal and state taxes, the latter by filling out the form at my state's website. My cost? Zero. And I believe it took less time than if I had been able to install and run TurboTax, since it's necessary to download several megabytes of TurboTax updates before filing.

Incidentally, I got a nice refund and I returned TurboTax with no questions asked.

So maybe I can keep using NT for a few more years....

Douglas Adams

2005-02-11T17:43:00.000-05:00

Many events and influences led to my starting this blog. As this is day number 42 of 2005, it seems appropriate to mention Douglas Adams.

Mr. Adams is well known in geek circles for authoring "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." What I like best about his works is that they're filled with humorous examples of how technology fails. The more sophisticated it is, the more utterly infuriating it becomes to operate. And it fails us at the most inopportune times.

One of my favorite examples of this is the motion-activated radio on board the Heart of Gold. You don't even need to get up to change the channels or mute it. On the other hand, you have to sit awfully still if you don't want to change it inadvertently. Obviously the engineer who came up with that idea wasn't too fond of dancing.

If you think that's silly, consider the earliest CD players. (And at the risk of showing my age, remember their precursors, vinyl?) You certainly couldn't jump around too much without causing the player to skip. So audio equipment was anchored to walls, and the individual components placed on foam isolators.

Another example. How many of you cell phone users have repeatedly said, "I can hear you. Can you hear me?" Pretty soon we'll see phones equipped with the popular ICHY button, which will automate this. Come to think of it, why stop there? Why not have these buttons, too:

"I'm fine. And you?"
"Hi! How are you?"
"This is true."
"Cool!"
"Whatever"
"Can't make it then. How about next Tuesday?"
"Bye"
"See you, later."
"Take care."

If those last three seem vaguely familiar to you, does the term "sig" or "signature" help?

Before I end this entry, I'd like to encourage you to point your browser to the online Guide, hosted by the BBC, which you'll find here.

Bye. See you later. Take care. Whatever.

What the heck is a Luddite Geek?

2005-02-10T23:16:00.000-05:00

From WordNet (r) 2.0 :

Luddite
n 1: any opponent of technological progress
2: one of the 19th century English workmen who destroyed
labor-saving machinery that they thought would cause
unemployment

From Jargon File (4.3.0, 30 APR 2001) :

geek n. A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance. Geeks usually have a strong case of neophilia. Most geeks are adept with computers and treat hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves - and some who _are_ in fact hackers normally call themselves geeks anyway, because they (quite properly) regard `hacker' as a label that should be bestowed by others rather than self-assumed.

Well, that should give you an idea where this might be headed.