Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Hometest post

My Yard Cam

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Jordan 'was chemical bomb target' It is thought that these chemical weapons came from Syria, and how did they get to Syria? Hmmmmm. Think.

Doesn't this do a lot to explain why nobody at the UN was in a big hurry to depose Sadam? Why wreck the gravy train? Commentary - Special Article: "The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It?"

Australian IT - Banks look at Linux switch (Kelly Mills, APRIL 20, 2004) Two out of four banks choose Linux. Shouldn't you?

The Australian: John Laughland: If it's war you want, then go Democrats [April 20, 2004] Hmmmm, maybe I could be talked into voting for Kerry after all.

USNews.com: Mortimer B. Zuckerman: The U.N. and the Iraq oil-for-food scandal (4/26/04): "Will the investigation be whitewashed to preserve the U.N.'s reputation so that it can replace the CPA in Iraq, or will the investigation get to the bottom of this ugly mess?" Or will it all get cleaned up in time for Kerry to turn our entire foreign policy over to the UN? Well, never mind that, this foreign affares stuff is cutting into our "reality TV" programming. We can't have that.

Hillary Clinton leaves Jamaica Holidayed at Tryall - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM: "According to Observer sources, between her aides, friends and Secret Service protectors Rodham Clinton's entourage occupied 40 rooms." Whoo. Wonder who pays for that? New York I hope.

Downsize Microsoft Interesting rant.

Misplaced priorities . . . with walls - The Washington Times: Commentary: " From the beginning, Ms. Gorelick's appointment to the September 11 commission was problematic. She served not only as Attorney General Janet Reno's deputy but also as general counsel at the Defense Department, jobs which put her at the heart of the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts. Her actions, as well as those of her superiors, are among the subjects this commission is tasked to review. How can she be expected to be impartial when it comes to evaluating her superiors, much less herself? 'During the course of those investigations,' wrote Ms. Gorelick in 1995, 'significant counterintelligence information has been developed related to the activities and plans of agents of foreign powers operating in this country and overseas, including previously unknown connections between separate terrorist groups.' But Ms. Gorelick wanted to make sure the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. "

How much of a world-changing event would it be if they discovered fish scales on Mars? 2M135153456EFF2700P2959M2M1.JPG (JPEG Image, 1024x1024 pixels)

Never a moment of rest forr the control freaks: Security Pipeline | News | California Senator To Block Google's Gmail: "A California state senator will introduce legislation opposing Google's recently-announced Gmail Web-based e-mail service, citing invasion of privacy concerns. Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont and the author of the state's 'Do-Not-Call' law that lets Californians block telemarketing calls, last week sent a letter to Google urging the company to rethink its plan to roll out a free e-mail service." My theory is that the poorly defined concept of what our privacy rights actually are will poison all other laws in this country. The notion that a state senator, or a national one for that matter, needs to potect me from a FREE service that I am not bound in any way to use is simply astonishing. If our legislative bodies would MAKE LAWS regarding abortion, gay marriage, drugs, and a host of other things, then these issues would not so frequently find their ways into courts where the non-existent privacy clause of the Constituion could be brought into play.

I can't help but think that images like this: 1P134753115EFF10CGP2591L5M1.JPG (JPEG Image, 1024x1024 pixels) would give NASA scientists reasons to wish they had crawled out of the crater that Opportunity landed in sooner. I raised this in Slashdot and got countered (by someone very defensive of NASA) to the tune of: "We DID poke our head out and look around (seeing in the process the paracheuttes etc)". But obviously we didn't in that process see that the area around the lander contained other indentations that were NOT craters, and it seems that those might be more interesting in some ways. Anyway, hindsight is 20-20, but If it were me, I would have come out of the crater on day 5 or so and then (depending on what could be spotted) either crawled back in, or moved off to something else (always with the potention of comming back if that didn't work out). Needless to say, its a good thing they are "extending" the mission to 5 months, otherwise the 90 days that they are now making so much of would have been not nearly enough.

Quoting Tim Long, a producer of The Simpsons on why they had not made use of the current President in any of thier episodes so far: Washington Whispers (4/19/04): "'With Clinton, you had the real-estate scam, the [vulgar term referring to the sex scandal]. He was a gift from the comedy gods. With Bush, the atmosphere is much more serious. And he's this clean-living guy. Some people love him and some hate him, but it's hard to get a comedic toehold on him, coming after the greatest comedy president in the last 100 years.' 'I'll be really impressed if you get the words `[vulgar term referring to the sex scandal]' in print,' he added."

IRAQ THE MODELInteresting Iraqi blog found on Andrew Sullivan's website.

The New York Times > Washington > Pre-9/11 Secret Briefing Said That Qaeda Was Active in U.S."The president's critics are likely to embrace the specific and unresolved nature of some of the warnings — particularly a reference to "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks" — as a further indication that Mr. Bush had ample information about a domestic threat, and should have pressed for further action after the briefing." Um, yes, but you would expect the New York Times to point out how nonsensical this sounds as opposed to proping up the argument with even more fact-less partisan grand-standing. Oh wait *cough* Jason Blair *cough*... never mind.

Film on community housing in London area.

The Once and Future King |PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "The final stage I call 'missing the boat,' which involves a significant advance in non-Microsoft technology that Redmond chooses to address by not addressing -- they just dictate that it shall not be so, thinking that as always their word is law. Maybe this last stage has to do with Open Source but probably not. This stage has to be something beyond Netscape's browser or Sun's Java, because Microsoft was willing to embrace those and destroy them. Missing the boat means a zig that threatens the heart of Windows, probably associated with a hardware platform shift. Only this time, Microsoft will be too slow and customers, feeling abused and tired of the treadmill, won't be so afraid. Bill Gates (it will still be Bill, because this will happen in the next decade I am sure) will again turn his corporate supertanker and add full power, but this time the competing ship will not only have a head start, it will be able to accelerate faster than Microsoft." ??? Talk about missing the boat. I think the boat that has been missed here is by the pundits who think that Open Source just showed up yesterday and now they are disapointed that everything isn't going to be Open Source tomorrow. I'm not sure I like this "boating" metaphore either. If we ahve to work with it I'd point out that many big companies are smart enough to not base their future on one gigantic boat at all, but instead start building a fleet of smaller, more manouverable craft. Nothing stops Microsoft from doing that. It just hasn't.

Slashdot is all agog over Cringely's latest pronouncements. I only read him when /. draws my attention to something he says. But now, reading some of his earlier posts I find: PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "There are only two ways for a society to address such taking advantage of a legal system. One way is to drag that legal system into the 21st century, which isn't going to happen in America. The other way is to dramatically simplify the legal system along the lines of nomadic justice where there are no prisons nor even capability for collecting damages, so all correction comes down to death or maiming. That isn't going to happen, either, so Microsoft wins"

old post,still true,needs re-write macblog: "Achordesk - Apple vs Linux vs Windows 2003-06-30 (AM) Interestingly, between the article and the first two posts, all the possibilities (interesting ones anyway) are covered. David thinks that we are all unwilling slaves to the Dark Lords of Redmond. They may make substandard software, but we all all doomed to have to use it FOREVER! Nice Guy thinks Linux will make everything else irrelevant. Andy declares a pox on both Linux and Windows respective houses. You're all wrong! (and right of course). Microsoft has nowhere to go but down, or over. They need to diversify, have tried, and failed, multiple times. Investors are tired of waiting. Microsoft is trailing the tech stock market for a reason. If Linux and Apple disappeared tomorrow they would still be in trouble, a victim of their own success. Linux and Open Source have certainly helped make the software market into a commodity market again, and at about the same time that the hardware market has turned that way. Probably not a coincidence. I think both Apple and Linux will continue (slowly) to make inroads into the Windows market share. Apple has been executing perfectly, and needs to continue doing so without any major missteps. Linux can afford to execute perfectly, or not. Since the Open Source movement is driven by it's users it's hard for it to make mistakes about what users want, at least as far as those of us who use it go. I've taken to using OS X and Linux about equally. I have more computers running Linux, but my iBook is so darned handy to have around I tend to use it more than my larger, heavier and uglier Compaq, which runs Debian Linux, but is also capable of running Windows on those rare occasions these days when I have to. I used to love Windows. When was that? When the only alternative was DOS. Since then, Windows has always been behind (in almost every respect) its nearest competitor. They continued to win by out-marketing rather than out-performing the competition. In theory they could continue to do that now, except they are caught between the rock and hard place of one competitor that is technically better in every way and another competitor that is free. This would even be a manageable situation if computer hardware prices were on the way up, rather than down. Nobody wants to spend up to half of their next hardware purchase on the bundled software that comes with it. Windows prices need to come down, drastically, but thats not something Microsoft can do until is has another cash cow to milk. So far all their potential cows have turned into turkeys. Windows is like Kool Aid, almost all sugar. The young and inexperienced continue to be hooked on it, but those who have been drinking it while they grew up show signs of poor health. The adults watch and shake their heads. OK, I'm all metaphored out, coffee has kicked in. Windows will continue to decline, but so slowly that people like David will pronounce it as invincible for a good bit longer. Apple and Linux will both continue to gain market share, Apple with the US market and with pure end-users, Linux with the more sophisticated techies, third world, second world, and well managed institutions. Don't look for an earthquake, look for wildflowers growing in what used to be a well manicured lawn. Hmmm, maybe I need another cup."

Yahoo! News - Panel Says Voting System Same As in 2000Surprise!!

From the "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy department... Yahoo! News - Enron Ex-CEO Skilling Taken to Hospital: "NEW YORK - Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was taken to a hospital early Friday after several people called police saying he was pulling on their clothes and accusing them of being FBI (news - web sites) agents, a police source told The Associated Press."

Linux.com | Linux breathes new life into old hardware: "ThinkPad 600E units tend to sell for around $300 on eBay. My ThinkPad 600E came equipped with a 366MHz Pentium II Mobile CPU, 256MB of PC66 SDRAM, and a 9.3GB 4,200RPM hard drive. That's theoretically much slower than the 3GHz laptops being produced today -- but notice I said 'theoretical.' Depending on your use, the speed difference can have either a major or hardly noticable impact. For raytracing fanatics, hardcore gamers, and encryption analysts, a ThinkPad 600E is not a suitable choice. For a typical user, however, who surfs the Internet, types papers, listens to music, creates Web sites, prints images from a digital camera, and balances a checkbook, the cost-effectiveness of the 600E is a clear advantage."

Is it Over Rover? Rover Daily Update Spirit Sol 91: "Spirit woke up on sol 91, which ended at 6:38 p.m. PDT on April 5, 2004, as if it were any other martian day, but this one was special. Finishing 90 sols of surface operations since landing day marked completion of the last of the official success criteria for Spirit's prime mission. The rover team at JPL had checked off the next-to-last box for mission success two days earlier, when a drive of 50.2 meters (165 feet) took Spirit's total travel distance over the 600-meter (1,969 feet) mark." This might hint at further cutbacks in rover coverage. From the once daily hour long press conference to daily 2 minute mission controller updates, which now seem to get regularly skipped, we are down to the still daily written summary: Rover Daily Updates I wonder how long it will last. NASA people seem to be in a big hurry to declare the mission over so they can go home. Unfortunate really, since in the beginning when the press was anxious to cover more territory they were told that there was no hurry. The 90 day number was just the MINIMUM life expectancy of the hardware. Now they are changing their tune. The hardware is fine. Seems it is the personnel that is worn out. Or maybe it has just exceeded the American publics attention span. Ever shorter.

Caffeine in Canda Did you know that Mountain Dew sold in Canada is not allowed to have caffeine in it? I just found that out. Following a link though I also found out that other drinks have very high levels of caffeine and aren't even labeled as such. One more example of governments pretending to know what's good for you: Marketplace - Canada's Investigative Consumer Program

Ernie The Attorney

Fox's Yard Cam :)

broadband � Forums � Linksys � So, Linksys can we get a word on BEFSR41 issues?

Microsoft to intruduce temporary version of Windows before next major release named Longhorn.. Microsoft considering update dubbed 'XP Reloaded' | CNET News.com I've noticed this about all commercial operating systems, since DOS that is (DOS was fine). They all get "tired" after a while. OS/2 icons would start to disappear after a few months. You could run utilities to fix for a while, but generally you had to re-install to get good performance again. Same with all version of Windows, particularly since they came up with that *BRILLIANT* registry concept. Then they came out with unofficial registry clean-up tools, then as of 2000 they tell you not to run those or you will screw your system. They leave it to third parties like Norton to provide this type of clean-up tool, but then when the tools don't work, or even make your system worse, Microsoft can say "it's not our problem you ran a third party tool", and the toolmaker says "it's not our problem Microsoft keeps changing things and not telling us". Apples OS X is the same way. I've already had to start running a cleanup tool about once a week or the system gets noticeably slower. If I let it go a month the disk drive starts bashing it's heads up against the enclosure trying to access cylinders that don't exist. It's as though you are working with the temperamental robot in "Lost In Space". Going where *YOU* want to go, but only when its in the right mood. I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but the only other explanation is that the people working on Linux and the BSD systems are a LOT smarter, because those systems don't have these problems, ever. You can upgrade when you feel like it, IF you feel like it, and pay little or nothing (Debian) for the privilege. Maybe this will get better as more people move from "JUNKware" to software. I hope so. I really don't mind paying for software, I just don't want to own any more junk. By the way I'm fairly sure that this release has more to do with revenue projections than technology. MS is in a revenue dry spell of its own creation. This has happened before (Remember Windows ME?) and it will keep happening as long as people put up with it. Maybe there is something Darwinian going on here. Windows: the OS for people who really have no business using computers.

Millions Stolen at Metro Lots (washingtonpost.com) "Officials at Metro, the region's largest provider of parking, say they are uncertain how much money is missing and when the trouble began. But the audit estimates that $500,000 to $1 million was stolen annually. Metro officials have refused to release the auditor's report, saying audits are not public documents." Excuse me? There isn't a dime that has gone into the Metro system that ISN'T public. What part of "YOU'RE FIRED" don't you understand?

Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO

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