Category: News

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reprinting a Knight Ridder Newspapers syndication about how to enter the IT world by learning a little geek speak.

Words like PEBKAC? Nagware? OS? LAN? Intranet? Firewall?

Drop those in your job interview, you little punk, and we’ll know your certs were vaporware. Get back to AOL where it’s safe. Before you do, please confirm your credit card number below.

Fred Kaplan, of Slate, elucidates on the MDA’s recent missile test. He says it’s laughable that the interceptor could have missed and the test succeeded. His ignorance shows, but professional writers, and by professional writers I mean “all other professional writers except me,” don’t have to know much about the real world to pund.

I’ve gone on about this missile test before, and I am too bored to go over it again. I’ll let John J. Miller handle Kaplan.

Another suburb of Milwaukee is suffering from a shortage of Paxil. Residents in Cerdarburg have created a petition complaining that the colors of playground equipment are too colorful.

If it’s not the color of a duck blind, suburban Milwaukee communities don’t want it. Heaven forbid their property values not rise as quickly as the next drab suburb over.

In Florida, a group of kids were swimming in a river even though they could see alligators nearby all day. Of course, when they saw the alligators, they got out of the water. Except for the toughest of the bunch, who might have been trying to prove his bravery. It didn’t work out for him.

Do you think we’ll get a summer of Alligator Attack! hype from this?

Headline on CNN: Missile misses target, officials call it a success. Implication seems to be that the officials (military-techno-industrial complex!) are, um, Mooring the truth a little, too say the least.

After all, the lead intones:

The Missile Defense Agency conducted a missile defense test over Hawaii Wednesday, and while the warhead did not strike the target, officials said they still considered the exercise a success.

“I wouldn’t call it a failed test, because the intercept was not the primary objective,” said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the MDA. “It’s still considered a success in that we gained great engineering data. We just don’t know why it didn’t hit.”

Well, the missile test also did not:

• Fix the economy.
• Prevent the Oracle hostile takeover of PeopleSoft.
• Repair France’s image problem with American tourist money.
• Vote for my slogan at IMAO.

However, none of these was the objective of the test, and hence none represents criteria for success. The engineers, who are working on the project, probably have a reasonable idea of where they are in the development cycle. As a matter of fact, the officials indicate (but are not quoted in their own words) as saying:

Three previous flight tests were successful, Taylor said, but they used an earlier version of a system to control the warhead’s aim and maneuvering. Information from the earlier tests was used for a new design of the system, which was used in Wednesday’s test, the Defense Department said. [Emphasis mine]

So the MDA or its engineers redesigned a part of the system and are testing it out for the first time? Note how CNN uses a “but” conjunction in the quote above. I wonder if the second clause, or whatever source from which it came, opposed the first clause. I doubt it. I suspect criteria for the test might have included things like the operations of the independent systems within the interceptor.

No matter the criteria in this individual test, I am glad to see the flaws shaken out before the system’s deployed. If the MDA hadn’t caught this flaw now, it would have made living in Los Angeles or Seattle much more dangerous a couple years from now. Permanent shadows don’t log defects.

Maybe the media should understand the goals and process of testing before they start pontificating.

St. Louis Magazine has a story in its June issue (not yet online) about St. Louis gangs in the 1920s and their wacky whackings. Written in sepia-prose and laid on a parchmentesque watermark, this piece romanticizes a bloody bunch of men and their battles to control crime, which included mail truck robberies and control of the illegal drug market, which meant alcohol trafficking.

Contrast that with gangs today. Rap music, particularly gangsta rap, idealizes the lifestyle, and I suspect most people who turn to St. Louis Magazine to find dining plans or interior design ideas don’t care for gangsta rap and probably hate and fear the thought of current gangland violence.

Is the difference in gang perception based on race? That is, does middle America prefer its gangs Irish instead of another, differently-colored minority?

Maybe a little bit, but I reckon it’s more the long, long ago in galaxy far, far away aspect of it. Egan’s Rats and the Cuckoos, whose the survivors have died of old age by now, aren’t a current threat to law abiding, SUV-driving folk, but today’s gangs are.

Someday, I imagine our descendants will read about drive-by shootings with the same amused interest, thinking “Shooting from a car with a nine millimeter pistol! How quaint!”

It’s not clear which portions of the Bill of Rights or Constiturion Orrin Hatch considers sacred, but given his interest in allowing RIAAvens to destroy the computer of someone who downloads copyright songs illegally, I could only answer for certain “Article I, Section 3.”

Choice quotes from the linked article:

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

“No one is interested in destroying anyone’s computer,” replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can’t.

“I’m interested,” Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone’s computer “may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.”

The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, “then destroy their computer.”

“If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we’d be interested in hearing about that,” Hatch said. “If that’s the only way, then I’m all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize” the seriousness of their actions, he said.

So Senator Hatch, a legislator, wants to cede law enforcement, the duty of the executive branch of the government to private industry. Further more, he wants that private industry to punish a civil offense with damage to personal property (I cannot fight the bold font any longer) without due process and without a warrant (illegal search and seizure).

He wants this to protect an industry that’s doing its best to hang itself with mediocre music, boy bands, American Idol, and targetting an audience with no disposable income but with Kazaa.

I wish I lived in Utah so I could vote against him.

“There’s no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws,” Hatch said.

Hang ’em high, Judge Roy Bean. Make it a capital strict liablitly offense then.

Aristotle said, “Everything in moderation,” and the bureaucrats at the forthcoming People’s Democratic Republic of Europe know that since a little moderation is good, a great deal of coerced moderation must be better. Hence, they want to moderate every type of Internet site to ensure that both sides of any issue get equal time to express their viewpoints. CNet’s Declan McCullagh has the details.

As I have said before, some think that the linchpin of democracy was the unlegislated mandate called the Fairness Doctrine.

Of course, the same people tend to think that your property, whether it’s your radio station or your Web hosting, does not belong to you, it belongs to the hoi polloi, and they get to administer the application of your limited rights to your own property. You’re not qualified to decide who gets to speak on your time and your dime.

According to the BBC, to whom I was pointed by Instapundit, it wants US intervention in its uprising against the ruling theocracy.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which I get delivered on weekends because, well…. hmm, I’ll get back to you on that, the Iranian people does not want US intervention in its uprising against the ruling theocracy.

Which is it? The answer is Yes.

Because The People of Iran is not an It, they’re a They. Because the individuals within any group of people, especially a group narrowly defined based on ethnicity, location, or nation, hold different and often contradictory positions on any number of issues, you can probably attribute any sentiment to The People and not be wrong.

However, it’s an interesting way of flushing out a “journalist” and his or her own personal biases. Whenever reading one of these pieces, you can determine the point of view closest to the heart of the “journalist” (not counting limited omniscient, which is the Point Of View many journalists think they have). The “journalist” projects this sentiment to the People.

I wish our governor was as frugal as South Carolina’s Mark Sanford.

Our governor keeps wasting red stamp ink on the budget cuts he keeps vetoing.

As I was reading a nice hefty copy of the printed Chicago Tribune last Sunday (since I was in Chicago, donchaknow), I came across a story entitled “Critics: Is broadcast TV worth saving?” with “Some question its relevance” as the subhead (if you’re quick, you can see an online copy of the article here but be advised it goes to the pay archive on the 15th).

Here’s what those critics say:

Yet some critics say the system is irreparably broken and growing more irrelevant in the face of competition from cable and satellite services, even as the federal government has moved to prop up the broadcast industry.

Yessiree, free broadcast television is irrelevant because we middle class writers and critics can instead spend $50 or more a month of our extensive writin’ and criticizin’ salaries on the licensed luxury of paying some company to pipe entertainment into our homes. Of course, when projecting our own experience of life onto the whole wide country, perhaps we ought to take into consideration those people who cannot afford digital-quality audio and sound (except when technical difficulties interrupt service, sorry, no prorated refund). Don’t the Critics normally champion the underprivileged?

Let me see if I can sum up the reasons the Critics want broadcast television to die:

• Selling the rights to those portions of the electromagnetic spectrum would raise money that the government could then fritter away as it normally fritters away money, typically in ways the Critics like.
• Broadcast viewers are disenfranchised because broadcasters target programs to the audiences advertisers want. That is, the broadcasters have some greedy commerce considerations.
• Broadcasters don’t act in the public interest, or in a public way that can be measured, at least by the arbitrary standards assigned according to the Critics’ preferences. Acting in a public way is hard to measure, I would guess, unless of course by in a public way they mean like NPR and PBS, who properly use government money to promote a proper-thinking point of view.

  Because “accessible to anyone in the nation owning a rooftop antenna and a TV” and “Even today, most Americans get their news from broadcast TV” are not enough.

• The Fairness Doctrine, which allowed advocacy groups to provide a counterpoint to station management (FREE AIR TIME! GET YOUR FREE NUTBAR AIR TIME HERE!), was eliminated. This probably isolated the Critics and their fellows, relegating them (but not regulating them) to unwatched, public interest minded outlets (see also NPR, PBS).

  How did the article put it at the very end, the pièce de résistance?

  “Where there is no fighting or opposition in viewpoints,” said Herbert Chao Gunther, chief executive of the nonprofit Public Media Center, “there is no democracy.”

  Got that? The linchpin of democracy was the unlegislated mandate called the Fairness Doctrine.

I think that about sums up this article. The FCC, an appointed body, not an elected body (as George Carlin often points out), should replace the current system, which allows any yahoo with a receiver to pick up entertainment and news broadcast for free, with a license-fee-based system that the industry loves, where that yahoo has to buy or rent the receiver (a television set) and then pay a monthly license fee of some sort to the cable company or dish company to keep the signal coming to the receiver. Apparently everyone the Critics know has a subscription system, and the Critics cannot imagine differently.

This same middle-class myopia allows policy squawkers to banshee the very thought (blasphemy!) of taxing Internet sales, not realizing (or caring, perhaps) that the duty-free world of Internet commerce unfairly burdens those who do not have a secure Internet connection and/or a credit or debit card with an artificially inflated percentage of sales taxes. But that’s a rant for another day.

Caught this headline on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Web site. Of course the article clarifies that the Sisters of Mercy Health System St. Louis, a nonprofit health conglomerate (can nonprofits be conglomerates, or is that word reserved for the greedy corporations?).

Not the, you know, Sisters of Mercy. Although it would have made the article much more interesting indeed.

Fark provides a link to a story in the Washington Post about some artists who, metaphorically, paraded around looking like nutjobs in front of the U.S. Capitol.

Buried in the story is this nugget:

Although the objects under the duct tape turned out to be harmless, Olaniyi and Patel have been charged with interstate transportation of an explosive device, a charge that can be used in a hoax.

And, apparently, in situations where no explosive devices exist. Unless, of course, the explosive device in question is their van.

Luckily for the kids in Casinoport, they didn’t cross any lines with their chickens-in-a-box devices.

/. points to a story about how Minnesota parks are cracking down on the esoteric hobby of geocaching. Buried within the article, we get this nugget:

They worry that hundreds of people tramping through their woods will damage plants and habitat.

Dang! I thought parks were to give people the opportunity to tramp through plants and habitat. This quote would seem to assert that parks are really designed to keep park officials employed or to maintain habitats for flora and fauna.

Until such time as the flora, fauna, and park officials pay to preserve these parks, instead of gigging my paycheck for it, I say, “Honey, have you seen my tramping shoes?”

Here in Casinoport, four high school students are getting the pamphlet thrown at them for a senior prank. Ill-advised youngsters ran into their high school cafeteria while wearing masks and carrying boxes with chickens in them to release said chickens. They’re getting misdemeanor disturbing the peace (or maybe “Disturbing the 10-Piece Bucket”) charges. What an outrage!

You mean it’s not yet a felony to wear masks in public or carry chickens in boxes? Legislators, take note! We need to make an example of these young men, assuring that they’re stigmatized for life and that they forever have to tell this particular story when checking that little “Yes, I have been convicted” box on job applications. And if they’re convicted felons, they can’t vote against you! Win/win!

Remember, when have senses of humor are outlawed, only outlaws will have a sense of humor. And in case it’s a law exempt from ex post facto, allow me to assert “I am serious.”

It’s old news by now, but a UK firm has started making beer-flavored ice cream.

All of the calories, none of the buzz? Do they think I like the stationary bike, or what?

Fark (and other sources) are reporting about the New Zealand guy who’s building a cruise missile in his garage from parts he bought, essentially, in electronics catalogs from around the world, and get this, New Zealand Customs didn’t stop the legal parts trafficking!

Let the uproar begin. So this yahoo fancies himself Tom Swift or the modern equivalent, who instead of building a time machine or rocket to get to Saturn, builds a cruise missile or a Ptomekin-class nuclear submarine. It ain’t easy to do on one’s own, and if he can do it, more power to him. However, the Hysterics-That-Be will undoubtedly want to clamp down on mail order now and maybe even curiosity among the civilian populace.

Remember, Captain James T. Kirk once built a gun out of the surrounding environment (while nearly shirtless, no less). But in the end he didn’t kill the guy in the awkward lizard costume out of civilized behavior.

Perhaps society and its emissaries (of which government is but one, and a subserviant one at that) should work on promoting civilization and not worry so much about taking away our individual pointy objects. Civilized people don’t use them on one another without good reason. Or reason, anyway.

Didn’t get the point of the Rent-A-Negro.com Web site that I mentioned? In the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page explains it (registration required).

He makes some points about blackness-as-phenomenon I am not sure I would agree with, though.

Of course, I am not <insert thing I am not here>, so I couldn’t understand.

Looks like Madonna has fallen from her bicycle.

Heather, it could happen to you!

Well, not exactly, since you don’t drink coffee while riding. I guess you’re safe.

(I saw it on Fark first.)