March 31, 2003
A librarian speaks out against the USA Patriot Act.
And surprise! The USDOJ and FBI are drafting a sequel to the USA Patriot Act that would authorize even broader powers to infringe on civil liberties. An interesting provision would add a minimum of five years to criminal sentences for knowingly using encryption technology while committing a crime. This would likely discourage use of encryption for legitimate purposes.
On that tangent, I just came across WinPT, a collection of GnuPG tools for Windows.
March 30, 2003
I've always assumed that obfuscating email addresses on web pages was an exercise in futility. Something like HiveLogic's Enkoder is probably quite effective, but simple things like replacing each character with its equivalent HTML entity (e.g. e for e) can't possibly be. I figure we have to give some credit to the spambot writers: they can't fall for trivial deceptions like that forever, and no doubt some caught on years ago.
A recent study demonstrates otherwise. They set up hundreds of email addresses, each used for a single purpose, and tracked the received mail over a six month period. As expected, addresses made available on public web sites received the most spam. What very much surprises me is that email addresses obfuscated either using HTML entity or human-readable equivalents (e.g. "username at domain dot com") received no spam.
This is bound to change, but it still catches me off guard. Of course, in the situation I face at work (dozens of people maintaining web sites over which I have no control, no chance of using either of these techniques consistently), it really doesn't matter. I figure I could either filter email addresses on all outgoing pages, which isn't worth the overhead, or write something that periodically spiders the site and "fixes" pages. Neither option is really worth the trouble. What I can do is try to prevent spambots from hitting our sites in the first place. Lotsa fun to be had there.
Hey Matt, if you're reading: how about this for a discussion at April's meeting?
March 30, 2003
We went to see Paul Hintz play at Black's Ford in Wayzata last night. Paul is my favorite local guitarist, actually one of my favorite guitarists, period. When I worked at the Roastery and we had musicians play weekend nights, he was the only one I made sure I was there for. He's great.
Turns out he plays Black's Ford about every month, so I have something new to look forward to in our remaining time out here in the 'burbs.
Oh. The food's great, too. I've been there for lunch a number of times, but never for dinner. They used to have the distinction of being the only place in Wayzata you could get a good espresso (Maravonda). I have no idea whether that's still true, but their dinner specials were spectacular.
Good food, great jazz guitar. Could it get better?
March 26, 2003
As if the Total Information Awareness office's logo weren't bad enough, Ready.gov's icons are just plain awful. Or maybe they're hilarious, as demonstrated here.
Hmph. That's two days in a row that I've described something as hilarious. Gotta get me a thesaurus. Either that or stop reading funny things.
March 25, 2003
These Weight Watchers cards from 1974 are hilarious. I just kept laughing and laughing and laughing.
March 23, 2003
Lawrence Lessig writes about MIT Press requesting permission to publish single lines from 12 different songs in a book being released this summer. They requested permission and received 10 forms and two replies.
One reply, from the representatives of the Kinks, demanded $1500 … for permission to reprint a single line "help me, help me, help, me sail away" from the song "Sunny afternoon," and $10,000 for a more extensive quote.
The other reply, from representatives of the Kobain estate (which I assume is within Courtney Love?s control) forbids him from reprinting the line "polly says her back hurts? from the Nirvana song "Polly."
MIT has nonetheless decided that these words are protected by fair use, despite these demands.
Sounds about right to me.
March 23, 2003
The Farscape series finale aired in the US a couple nights ago. If every episode were that strong, I'd miss the show. Phenomenal. One of the things that I really liked about Farscape was that it did not often talk down to the audience, repeatedly banging viewers over the head with explanations for what was happening. Star Trek: Voyager did that all the time, drove me nuts. Instead, Farscape often started an episode mid-story, leaving it to us to fill in the blanks to figure out how the crew had gotten themselves in a jam this time, or even what the jam was. The finale did this, and I am glad.
I just wish they'd ended it about a minute earlier. Call me sentimental.
March 23, 2003
An organizer of yesterday's "support our troops" rally at the State Capitol expressed frustration at the pro-war stance of many who attended. It's frustrating, yes, but not surprising. I haven't come across many who make the distinction.
It doesn't help that "support" is so nebulous. Have you given much thought to what it means? I haven't. Do I wish for our soldiers to come home safely? Yes. In fact, I wish they'd come home now. Am I saddened when I hear of soldiers dying in this war? Yes, deeply. Will I spurn those who return, angry at their participation? No, of course not. Does this mean that I support the troops? You tell me. Am I aware of and grateful for the sacrifices they've made in the defense of this country? Yes. Do I think this war in Iraq is in defense of this country? No. Do I oppose the war? Wholeheartedly. Does this mean that I don't support the troops? You tell me.
I'm not going to write a whole lot about the war. It angers me too much for me to be rational about it, and there's nothing that I would say that hasn't already been said hundreds of times elsewhere. For now, let it stand that I oppose the war. I do not accept the Bush Administration's rationale, and I fear the path that they are taking this country and the world.
I do not say that lightly: I fear this path.
If you don't understand why, I suggest that you read Fareed Zakaria's excellent essay, "The Arrogant Empire." While you're at it, Gary Kamiya's elegant "Sleepwalking toward Baghdad is well worth your time, as are the remarks by US Senator Robert C. Byrd: "The Arrogance of Power."
Oh, one more thing. If you didn't read the whole article about the rally at the Capitol, you missed the closing paragraphs:
The only speaker who received a hostile reception was N. Ruby Zigrino, a Muslim from Minneapolis. She was initially cheered when she said she supports "ousting a tyrant regime."
But she then read passages from the Qur'an, suggested that a new Marshall Plan will be needed in Iraq, and said administration officials should study foreign-policy failures to avoid repeating them.
Her listeners responded with boos and shouts of "Screw Muslims!" "Screw the Qur'an!" and "Go home!"
Reading this makes me physically ill.
March 23, 2003
Remember the Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force"? Kirk and Spock discover a Nazi-like regime headed up by Kirk's old Academy professor John Gill. Turns out that Gill is being heavily drugged and used as a figurehead Führer, kept in a small room and forced to give speeches to rally the people of Ekos in a war against the nearby planet Zeon.
That's what I'm reminded of whenever I see George Bush delivering a speech on television, especially when he's speaking from the Oval Office. The expressionless, fish-eyed stare, the way his head doesn't move, how he doesn't seem to understand what he's saying… it wigs me out.
Lest you misunderstand me, I'm not reacting to the war by taking personal jabs at Bush. Give me some credit. It's just that I honestly have a hard time watching him deliver a speech.
March 16, 2003
Catching up on my weblog reading, I notice an interesting coincidence: iBooks don't get thirsty and a cute picture gone horribly wrong. Ouch.
March 16, 2003
Fugu is a graphical frontend to SFTP and SCP for Mac OS X. It can even set up an SSH tunnel. Excellent.
I felt weird just now writing those in all caps.
March 16, 2003
I'll probably raise the ire of more than a few by writing this, but I'm kinda glad that Farscape and Buffy are coming to an end. Both were excellent but have been on the decline the past year or two. I've enjoyed very little of either show's past season. I've continued to watch because I have held out hope that things would improve, but in my heart of hearts I've just been wishing that the shows would end while they were at least moderately good.
Farscape in particular seems to have been suffering from jumpy, uncoordinated writing. On the other hand, the last couple episodes have been rather good, and although it hasn't aired in the US yet, it seems the series finale was excellent. Too bad that it was supposed to be just the season finale. So maybe there was hope, but… oh well.
March 15, 2003
Seems the parent company for publishers Glasshaus and Friends of ED has been declared insolvent, so everyone's shutting down. Damn shame. Wrox, too. Yikes.
March 11, 2003
It hasn't appeared on their home page or available through Amazon yet, but it looks as if O'Reilly has published the second volume of the "Best of the Perl Journal" trilogy: Web, Graphics & Perl/Tk. Woo-hoo!
March 11, 2003
Among those critical of President Bush's unilateral action against Iraq is the other President Bush.
In an ominous warning for his son, Mr Bush Sr said that he would have been able to achieve nothing if he had jeopardised future relations by ignoring the UN. "The Madrid conference would never have happened if the international coalition that fought together in Desert Storm had exceeded the UN mandate and gone on its own into Baghdad after Saddam and his forces."
March 10, 2003
I was out sick on Friday, but it's not like I stayed offline over the weekend, so I don't know how I missed it. Larry Wall's released his latest Apocalypse, covering subroutines in Perl 6.
March 10, 2003
My father refuses to connect his computer to the Internet. Not for email, not for the Web, not for anything. Because he's computer-ignorant? Hardly, he was a programmer for many years. In that time, though, he developed a healthy paranoia about networking. Maybe because he worked on a lot of highly sensitive military projects, which skewed his perspective (or enlightened it, depending on your perspective). Donno. Either way, the only time we had his blessing for a computer in our house to connect to an external machine was when I was a little kid and he connected to the mainframe at work to do work-related things and to let me play games. (That, by the way, is how I learned to type, read, and play blackjack all at the same time.)
Mind you, we did it anyway. My younger brother ran a BBS or two on the sly (housed at a friend's place), and I spent a whole lotta time on local BBS, Usenet, and Fidonet. We just did it with our own computers late at night, when Dad wouldn't notice the phone line tied up.
All that was years ago, before the Internet exploded into public consciousness, and my dad still doesn't connect up. Considering this is how I make my living, I view this with an odd mixture of bemusement and respect.
When I read this email message from Nathan Steiner's father, I thought that maybe it's a very good thing that my dad remains an Internet hermit. At least I don't get email like this. Just the occasional weirdly erudite voicemail, quoting from Genesis to support or criticize something or other. Then I got to thinking that my dad would never write email like that. It's more like something I would do.
Oh god. I'm going to write things like this to my son.
March 09, 2003
This photo of Owen and me reading is one of my favorites. He loves so much to be read to, and I love reading with him. I think it really comes across in that picture.
Apparently others agree. It's now on the home page for St. Cloud State University's Department of Child and Family Studies.
March 09, 2003
A couple months ago I started using Smarty, a templating system for PHP. It's something that I'd meant to do for a long time but kept getting distracted by other things, namely an overwhelming workload. Finally, an opportunity to work with a student intern gave me the excuse I needed to make the time. It's been an interesting ride.
Read more about Smarty… I moved this entry there because I was tired of futzing with the markup within Movable Type.
March 04, 2003
Email's been down at work the past day or so. If you've been trying to reach me there, I'm not ignoring you. I'm just enjoying the feeling of being out of touch, tinged with the dread of what awaits me when the server's restored.
March 01, 2003
The oddly named Nemesis Project looks like something to bookmark: a good collection of information and links for CSS and XHTML.
March 01, 2003
I keep coming across mention of how important it is for dads to read with their kids. Since I read to Owen every day, I never gave this much thought except to wonder why the big push for dads in particular.
At early childhood class on Friday, Kiara found out why: studies indicate that by the time boys are in third grade, they get the idea that reading is a girl thing and resist doing it. Encouraging fathers to read with their kids is an effort to counteract this trend.
Kiara, bless her heart, did not mention just how compulsive a reader I am. I'll grab anything in sight, especially at breakfast: cereal boxes, of course, but it might just as easily be magazine subscription cards or terms of service for her brother's cell phone. She caught me at the breakfast table the other day reading the inside of a roll of masking tape. Hey, there was nothing else within reach! I can imagine the discussion:
Teacher: …so it's important for fathers to read.
Woman: Even if it's a fishing magazine? That's about all he reads.
Teacher: Yes, even that's good.
Kiara: Masking tape rolls?
Teacher: Er, say again?
Kiara: Because my husband won't read anything unless it's from 3M.
