2004 September

Beyond Mud-slinging

24-Sep-2004 by Jim

“Make no mistake. These aren’t just a few errant, later-regretted remarks, the kind that people tend to blurt out in the heat of campaigns. As this article shows (free reg req), it’s a calculated and scurrilous effort to suggest that anyone who questions the Iraq debacle is unpatriotic.”

Link: Dan Gillmor’s article in San Jose Mercury News

It boggles my mind how anyone can think that opposing the Iraq war, or at least the stated reasons for going there, is unpatriotic. To swipe a line from Princess Bride:
Bush&Co: Unpatriotic!
Sane People: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Filed Under: Flamebait, Political

Red Hat throws a hissy-fit at Sun

24-Sep-2004 by Jim

If you haven’t heard, Red Hat’s Michael Tiemann has responded to Sun exec Jonathan Schwartz’s blog entries that more or less talk trash toward Red Hat in a big way. It’s all pretty amusing, particularly because a response such as Tiemann’s likely plays right into Schwartz’s hands, and makes Red Hat look pretty childish, too. Schwartz is a smart guy; I’m guessing nothing goes into his blog without prior careful consideration. El Reg has an article/tribute/review of the whole thing here. Oh, and how the heck did we get on the topic of Java when JS’s original, er, flame was about Open Source vs. Open Standards?

Filed Under: Flamebait, Technology

About i-node one

21-Sep-2004 by Jim

Without getting into what exactly an i-node is, suffice to say, simply, I chose it as the site’s name for its geek appeal.

“Okay, so what about the snow leopard (panthera uncia)? What the heck does an i-node have to do with a small, endangered Asian cat?” you say. Or, more likely, you don’t say. More like, “Who cares?!“? Understandable. :) The cat is my totem animal, or spirit guide in some lexicons.

The connection between the two? Me. I spend my working days, and a good bit of my personal time, mucking about in Unix-land, being a geek — surviving — teaching the finer points of “Do what I want, not what I say… argh!” to those lovely, hulking collections of fiber-glass, plastic, solder, and silicon. Along the way I try to do some living — carpe diem, etc — and that’s where the snow leopard helps out. Of course, living in California helps, too.

Actually, living in California helps a lot, but that’s another story . . .

Filed Under: General

Revenge of TikiWiki

20-Sep-2004 by Jim

I should’ve expected as much, really. Post a blog entry in the old blog-place saying I’ve migrated to other software and, the next day, the only other person who uses the site can’t login any more. What’s more, none — and I do mean none — of the password reset techniques works. Well, except one: upgrade to the latest development code.

The latest code allows the admin user to reset any user’s password without the need to know their existing password, which is stored as a one-way MD5 hash; something the previous versions couldn’t do, at least not so directly or easily. There was one trick in the old version that worked once before: use a “hidden” URL and a specially-crafted “old password”, and voila! Too bad it didn’t work this time.

I guess if the development code is good enough for the public TikiWiki site (tikiwiki.org…) it should do well enough for me.

Then again, maybe tomorrow the admin account won’t work any more…

Filed Under: General, Technology

Migrated from TikiWiki blog

20-Sep-2004 by Jim

Apparently I got the “it’s not pretty or fast enough” itch this weekend with respect to TikiWiki, in particular the blog section. Don’t get me wrong; I still love the Wiki part of it. It’s just that it was a bit of overkill for weblogging and it kinda got in the way of itself as a result. I wanted something with a more blog-centric existence, commensurate development, and presentation features/tools. That said, I wish WordPress would grok Wiki markup (I don’t mean the DoubleCaps bit — could actually care less about that). Kinda funky to learn but awfully handy for taking care of the “ugly” HTML/CSS work.

Just finished migrating all my blog entries, and their comments, a little while ago. Not exactly fun but it motivated me to hack a few things to make ‘em easier to do (mostly the Quicktags) and look a little better (tables and CSS boxes). Still not perfect, but close enough for now.

Filed Under: General

Talk like a pirate day!

19-Sep-2004 by Jim

Captain Dave Barry strikes again! In case you didn’t know today is officially Talk Like A Pirate Day. So get to it!

The authoritative site: Ahoy!

Filed Under: General

Everything you wanted to know…

13-Sep-2004 by Jim

…about blogging but were afraid to ask:

simonworld.mu.nu/archives/037779.php…

Filed Under: General

GI Squirrel

13-Sep-2004 by Jim

Cute. That is all. :)

GI Squirrel

Filed Under: blogosphere, General

Wikipedia

12-Sep-2004 by Jim

Made my first contribution to the Wikipedia last night/today by correcting, enhancing and adding to a couple of the pages: one about Yosemite, the other about National Parks which references Yosemite.

Yosemite National Park
National Park

Lots of stuff going around the blogosphere lately about the Wikipedia and how reliable it is (or isn’t, depending on your viewpoint). Probably in a year or two it’ll be at least as accurate as any recent treeware version for non-active entries, assuming publishers of said treeware don’t sue the Wiki out of existence because some people are copying verbatim from the text of their dead-tree version(s).

Personally, I’m not too worried about the Wiki’s authority because no one should rely on a single Internet-based source for accurate information; two or three sources, at least, should be considered good practice, just like with non-Internet-based resources. The people that do rely on Wikipedia for 100% authoritative info are probably the same people who rely on television or print media, both of which tend to get their info from the same one or two sources these days, for accurate information.

Filed Under: General, Technology

How to stop procrastinating

09-Sep-2004 by Jim

Link: merlin.blogs.com…

Perfect for the geeks in the audience but likely applicable to anyone with a fondness for procrastination.

Excerpt:

The Problem with â€œstuffâ€

Getting Things Done succeeds because it first addresses a critical barrier to completing the atomic tasks that we want to accomplish in a given day. Thatâ€™s â€œstuff.â€ Amorphous, unactionable, flop-sweat-inducing stuff. David says:

Hereâ€™s how I define â€œstuff:â€ anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesnâ€™t belong where it is, but for which you havenâ€™t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17]

Stuff is bouncing around in our heads and causing untold stress and anxiety. Evaluation meetings, bar mitzvahs, empty rolls of toilet paper, broken lawn mowers, college applications, your big gut, tooth decay, dirty underwear and imminent jury duty all compete for prime attention in our poor, addled brains. Stuff has no â€œhomeâ€ and, consequently, no place to go, so it just keeps rattling around.

Worst off, weâ€™re too neurotic to stop thinking about it, and we certainly donâ€™t have time to actually do everything in one day. Jeez Louise, what the hell am I, Superman?

So you sprint from fire to fire, praying you havenâ€™t forgotten anything, sapped of anything like creativity or even the basic human flexibility to adapt your own schedule to the needs of your friends, your family or yourself. Your â€œstuffâ€ has taken over your brain like a virus now, dragging down every process it touches and rendering you spent and virtually useless. Sound familiar?

Filed Under: blogosphere, General

A Girl’s Guide to Geek Guys

08-Sep-2004 by Jim

This is basically correct, although I’d argue (as those who know me would expect) that a geek is “a nerd with social skills”; what’s described in this article is essentially your average nerd, or something in-between. Nonetheless, the more insight women â€” that is, potential mates â€” have about the Geek Species, the better.

Link: www.com…

So, your crush on the bass player from Vibrating Sandbox has finally died a whimpering death and you’re wondering where to go from here. All the sinister dudes are either dating a series of interchangeable high-school riot girls in baby doll dresses and an overdose of manic panic, or permanently shacked up with some bitter old lady who pays all the bills. Which will it be, a wifely prison or a humiliating one night stand? Into this void of potential mates comes a man you may not have considered before, a man of substance, quietude and stability, a cerebral creature with a culture all his own. In short, a geek.

Filed Under: blogosphere, General, Technology

The purpose of education? Not education.

07-Sep-2004 by Jim

Link: slashdot.org…

Chris Acheson writes, “John Taylor Gatto is a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. The whole time he has been an outspoken critic of the school system. Nine years after leaving his career, he published The Underground History of American Education (full text available here), in which he puts forth his insider’s vision of what is wrong with American schooling. His verdict is not what you’d expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate. Skeptical? So was I.” Read on for the rest of Acheson’s review.

Filed Under: Flamebait, General

Web browser security test

05-Sep-2004 by Jim

Link: Browser Security Test

Test your web browser for common security issues. It can run tests for all known problems or only those specific to the browser you’re using at the time.

If you’re using Internet Explorer (IE), please do the world a favor and run these tests on your machine. NOW. Pretty please. biggrin

And stop using IE! There are plenty of other, far superior browsers available: Mozilla/Firefox and Opera to name two.

Filed Under: blogosphere, General, Technology

Uh.. what was that about size?

05-Sep-2004 by Jim

Link: www.valtio.org…

According to one of the comments, it’s a all-in-one canal excavator. For BIG FREAKIN’ HUGE canals! Holy crap. 8-)

Filed Under: blogosphere, General

George W. Bush $200 bill

03-Sep-2004 by Jim

$200 Bush Funny-money

No, really. A store clerk in Pennsylvania took a $200 “George W. Bush” bill, despite almost nothing about it appearing genuine.

Filed Under: blogosphere, General

More writing for the web stuff

02-Sep-2004 by Jim

Since I just spent 45 minutes debugging the firewall, smtp server, and dns server on the machine hosting this site I don’t have time to write much about any of these sites. Nonetheless, I’ve read some or all of them and the info looks useful so I’m putting it here to remind myself to go look at it again and maybe mentally digest it too.

Phil Windley — How to Start a Blog
Features: Gar’s Tips on Sucks-Less Writing

Filed Under: blogosphere, General

Beyond Mud-slinging

Red Hat throws a hissy-fit at Sun

About i-node one

Revenge of TikiWiki

Migrated from TikiWiki blog

Talk like a pirate day!

Everything you wanted to know…

GI Squirrel

Wikipedia

How to stop procrastinating

A Girl’s Guide to Geek Guys

The purpose of education? Not education.

Web browser security test

Uh.. what was that about size?

George W. Bush $200 bill

More writing for the web stuff

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