Christopher Charles

2009-08-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

Bruce Sterling on the future. Why isn’t it grand? Why isn’t it as fantastically grand as the spectrum of all possibility? Well, why isn’t today grand? Why didn’t we wake up this morning in direct confrontation with the entirety of past and future? The present day is the only day we’re ever given.Sterling's post is also an indirect explanation of what happened to the Cyberpunk writers - their

2009-08-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

Shoal Creek CrossingIt finally rained after almost a month, so I took a walk in the early evening. I walked down to Shoal Creek Boulevard and decided to cross over just to see if there was any water in the creek. As I came up to the 38th Street Bridge, I saw that a trail led down from the sidewalk under the bridge - as many times as I've gone by there, I had never noticed it. So I followed the

2009-08-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

Rediscovering George HarrisonI heard "Give Me Love" on KGSR a few days ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head since:Give me loveGive me loveGive me peace on earthGive me lightGive me lifeKeep me free from hurtGive me hopeHelp me copewith this heavy loadTrying to touch and reach youwith heart and soulAnd I hadn't heard this in years. For all my family and friends:What I feel, I can't

2009-08-04T06:10:00.001-07:00

Lucera, and trying to change my lifeI started a new blog (http://lucera-soft.blogspot.com/) for an open-source product I'm trying to create. I originally posted this on that blog, then decided it was too personal so I moved it hereI love being a software developer. My idea of a good time is still just sitting down and writing some code that works and solves a problem. But after 20+ years of doing

2008-12-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

I'm reading This New Ocean by William E. Burrows, the story of the space race between the US and the Soviet Union and came across this gem:The father of the space suit, the Calvin Klein of astronautics, was undoubtedly Russell Colley, a B.F. Goodrich engineer and frustrated women's fashion designer...Colley invented a rubber pressure suit and an aluminum helmet for Wiley Post, a one-eyed

2008-08-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

The difference between Neo-Cons and the KremlinThe former are stupid and dangerous, the latter are clever and dangerous...I'm commenting on this because I'm watching a faux-objective point-counterpoint exchange on PBS's News Hour between neo-con Fred Kagan and some token liberal about the crisis in Georgia. Kagan's record of stupidly belligerent ignorance posing as tough-guy realism would, in a

2006-03-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

Molly Ivins Calls Progressives To ArmsI don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.Damn straight. I really don't want to vote for Hillary or for Joe Biden or for whatever other stiff that Demo

2006-03-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

Three Years Gone, and Almost Three More Years To GoMonday is the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, as you probably know. The war is bound to continue for some time, but I'm guessing it will come to some sort of close within 2-4 years. The Bush administration cannot afford to withdraw quickly - doing so would destroy whatever credibility they have left on the subject of national security.

2006-01-29T21:33:00.000-08:00

The Triumph of Conservative Economic PolicyMax Sawicky (via Brad DeLong):The upshot is that the triumph of Republican-conservatarian economic policy consists of an expansion of government jobs financed by loans from the Communist People's Republic of China.

2005-12-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

Learning"The best thing for being sad," said Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lay awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of

2005-06-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

In MemoriamMr. Cracker April 1993 - June 25, 2005He was beautiful. He had a gentle grace and dignity that made everyone love and admire him. And everyone who ever petted him remarked on how soft his fur was and how calm and sweet he was. Sooner or later, the same phrase came off of everyone's lips: "Sweet boy".I brought him home the same weekend Sara and I had our first date. He rapidly became

2005-03-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

Only in Santa CruzNews from the land that time and neo-conservatism forgot:Headline in today's Santa Cruz Sentinel:Drug Suspects Rolling in Dough, Deputies AllegeMarijuana, Mushrooms, Hash, Cheesecake, and Cookie Dough foundThe subtitle is only in the print version, not on-line, and I may have not gotten it exactly right. But I'm not making up the cheesecake part. Here's what it says in the 2nd

2005-03-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

More Old-School ThinkingThe very first step towards the management of disease was replacement of demon theories and humours theories by germ theory. That very step, the beginning of hope, in itself dashed all hopes of magical solutions. It told workers that progress would be made stepwise, at great effort, and that a persistent, unremitting care would have to be paid to a discipline of

2005-02-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

The Future of Software Development - Open SourceI think I've flogged Agile/XP enough, so let's move on to Open Source Software (OSS) development.Once again, this is a subject that's been done to death, so it's hard to say anything new. But I can think of at least two facets of OSS development nobody seems to talk much about even though they're pretty central:The Absence of Senior (Non-Technical)

2005-02-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

The Future of Software Development...Boehm flames Agile/XP 15 years before they exist[As a supplement to my earlier rant about Agile/XP]...evolutionary development also has its difficulties. It is generally difficult to distinguish it from the old code-and-fix model, whose spaghetti code and lack of planning were the initial motivation for the waterfall model. It is also based on the

2005-02-21T22:15:00.000-08:00

New Blogs to AddJoanna Rothman Thomas BarnettI want to find more weblogs like these two and replace some of the popular blogs that everyone reads. Too often, the so-called "top-tier" weblogs are second- or third-hand echoes of the ideas of the really innovative and interesting thinkers out there.Listening to podcasts of the PopTech 2004 conference really opened my eyes to this; here were a bunch

2005-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

Free Trade vs. MercantilismMasahunyam Monani on the how protectionism is a form of tyranny, in Bubble Generation:This is the real scandal of "free" trade today : the vast majority of Ricardian gains are pocketed by a small section of the Western population at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. Developed nation have consistently used the WTO to push the developing

2005-02-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Future of Software Development - A Rant About Agile/XPHere's what really bugs me about Agile/XP.The introduction of every new software engineering fashion to us teeming masses is like Athena springing out, full-grown and dressed in armor, from Zeus's forehead; the new methodology bursts onto the scene full-grown and ready for action. There's no sense of a period of gestation or ancestry. It's

2005-02-20T23:36:00.000-08:00

The Future of Software Development - Thoughts on Agile/Extreme ProgrammingSo much has been written about Agile and Extreme Programming that it's probably impossible to say anything new or interesting about them. But I'll try anyway, because I think there are two things worth calling out.The critical contribution that Agile/Extreme makes to the new software is that it creates a culture of testing

2005-02-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

The Future of Software Development (and my future)...I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately, especially since I'm just finishing up a very intense 4-month development cycle. You can't call a 4-month project a death march, really - perhaps death sprint is a more appropriate term?At any rate, I think that we're seeing the beginnings of a shift in software development. You have to navigate

2005-02-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

Funny/Weird Lyric of the DayI wanna be like Captain KirkGet up every day and love to go workDon't wanna be like Mr. SpockI want to kick out the jams and rock the blockBob Schneider, "Captain Kirk", I'm Good Now

2004-11-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

PopTech 2004 On a less incendiary note, if you really want to hear what smart people are thinking about the present and the future, check out these podcasts from the PopTech 2004 conference on IT Conversations. Strongly recommended: Adrian Woolridge on why connected politics is not necessarily left-wing politics Richard Florida on the rise of the creative class Thomas Barnett on the Pentagon's

2004-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

Night of the (Shrill) Generals I missed this last week on the Shrillblog. Read the whole thing; it's a shocking indictment of the Bush Administration's military strategy by 7 of our most eminent retired military leaders. Here's one quote, from Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, 1997-2000), that really jumped out at me: Rumsfeld proudly announced that he had

2004-11-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

A Little Perspective This thoughtful article in today's San Jose Mercury News caught my attention: Let me say at the outset that if you're one of those people ready to scream because American sensibilities seem to be swinging hard to the religious right, your target is not evangelical Christianity, it's evangelical politics. The problem with missing the distinction: If the left keeps attacking

2004-11-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Yet Another Map This one really illustrates the urban-rural split. Of America's major cities, only Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Denver went red; 32 of the top 50 (by my unofficial count) were blue. (A Tip o'the Hat to Social Tonic).

2004-11-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

The Lighter Side of the Insurgency Juan Cole, after discussing incidents all over Iraq yesterday: On a lighter note, it is hard to avoid observing that al-Baghdadi castigated Bush's administration as "fundamentalist" and "right-wing." When even the Sunni Salafis of Mosul consider you too fundamentalist and right-wing, you have probably gone too far.

2004-11-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

Sore Winners: The Winner This loathsome, bile-spewing rant takes first prize. Money quote, as the avatars of the hate brigade like to say: If anyone needs to work to “bring the country together” it’s those on the left who have divided it so badly. Those who sought to destroy this great man should get down upon their knees and beg the victors for mercy. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a few of

2004-11-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sore Winners, A Continuing Series... Here's a two-for-one special. Courtesy of Matt Welch, who's convinced me to wear my coastal elitistism as a badge of honor.

2004-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

The State of the Onion The Onion tells it like it is. Again.

2004-11-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

A Contrarian Viewpoint Paul Graham has a very different take on what decided this election.

2004-11-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

Maps Electoral maps are all the rage these days. But the very best one (aesthetically speaking) can be found at one of truth and beauty's favorite rest stops, the always compelling 101-365.

2004-11-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

Moral Fashion The right-wing meme o'the week last week, coming from everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Instapundit, was that this election was not about gay-bashing. It was about morals and values, and the American people picked the candidate who embodies those morals and values - one of which just happens to be that gay marriage is a threat to the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the nuclear

2004-11-08T23:02:00.000-08:00

Sore Winners, cont. Matt Welch, on the healing voices of the right.

2004-11-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

Electronic Voting Glitches A few isolated incidents? Or the beginning of a steady stream of reports? Note that in the third link, it's a county that heavily favored John Kerry. Not counting votes accurately is not counting votes accurately, regardless of who it helps. There's no evidence of any kind of widespread fraud in the election and therefore no reason to give any credence to loony

2004-11-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

Not Red, Not Blue. Purple This is fantastic. Edward Tufte would be proud.

2004-11-03T23:24:00.000-08:00

What To Expect There will be a smokescreen of uniter-not-divider rhetoric for a short time, but I think it will quickly be replaced by a mean-spirited triumphalism. One of the first manifestations will be an all-out attack on the mainstream media. Here's a clue - keep in mind that these guys are sore winners, too. Now, the mainstream media deserves plenty of criticism for its faux-objectivity,

2004-11-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

This Election, a Coda Damn. Damn. Damn. A few observations: Gay-bashing and fear-mongering is a winning electoral strategy Placing your hopes in voters aged 18-29 is a losing electoral strategy This election was a referendum on the Bush administration, and they won. 51% is sufficient to declare a mandate, especially if you cement your control of Congress. Karl Rove, not GWB or Dick Cheney, is

2004-11-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

The Worst Possible Outcome... The idea that North American society can exacerbate its drive to economic bimodality without serious fissuring, up to and including a constitutional crisis in the U.S., is not likely...W.R. Clements, Quantum Jump, 1998

2004-11-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

The VoteMaster Revealed It turns out the guy behind www.electoral-vote.com is Andrew Tanenbaum, who geeks like me know as the author of the Minix operating system (a precursor of Linux). He's currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (he's American, his wife is Dutch). There seems to be a lot of interesting stuff coming out of the

2004-11-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Keith Olbermann I really like that Keith Olbermann now has his own blog and I certainly hope his intuitions in this post turn out to be correct tomorrow. But doesn't his logo image remind you a little of Thomas Dolby in the Hyperactive video?

2004-10-29T23:31:00.000-07:00

Osama's October Surprise The Medium Lobster says it best: ...only George W. Bush has the pure, hard determination to stand up to terror. And only George W. Bush has the unswerving, unfailing incompetence to allow terror to spread so he can continue to stand up to it. Listen to the words of the mass murderer, and re-elect the man who let him go. It's your duty.

2004-10-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

This Election I'm ashamed to admit that I was one of those people who, in 2000, said "Bush, Gore - what's the difference?". If I'd lived in a swing state I might have voted for Gore, but since I don't I voted for Nader; not because I really liked him, but more as a protest/attempt to help create a viable third party. I found the 2000 election brouhaha amusing and appalling in equal parts, right

2004-10-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Curse It's over. Now, what about the Cubs? And does this mean the the Vikings might win a Super Bowl someday?

2004-10-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

The Curse, cont. Three more outs. Admit it - you're still nervous. You're playing out various scenarios of disaster in your mind. Nobody's ever been up 3-0 and then lost the final four games of the World Series. Could the Red Sox be the first? (They just showed the Buckner play).

2004-10-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

The Curse They're up 3 games to none, they're leading 3-0 in the bottom of the 8th. But they had the bases loaded last inning and didn't score. Admit it. You're just waiting for it go all wrong (again).

2004-10-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

Telling It Like It Is (AKA I Wish I'd Said That) Tony Pierce gets InstaVenom exactly right. Courtesy of Oliver Wills (an honest partisan). Thank you, Tony, for articulating precisely what I've always thought of as Reynold's basic intellectual dishonesty. Now, I'm basically a moderate progressive (i.e., slightly left of center), but I really want to hear thoughtful, intelligent conservative

2004-10-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

Boycott Kodak, cont. Groklaw, of course, says it better than I ever could.

2004-10-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Boycott Kodak I opened up Slashdot this morning and came across this story: Kodak Wins $1 Billion Java Lawsuit Kodak claims they hold patents that Java infringes on, and they want $1B in royalties. They haven''t actually won anything yet, Sun will undoubtedly appeal in Federal court, and it's very possible that the whole thing will be tossed out. Needless to say, Kodak's claims are at best

2004-09-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Seen In Santa Cruz A restored Model-T with a vanity license plate that says "Elect Al Smith" and a bumpersticker that says "Defeat Hoover". A subtle comment on this year's contest, mayhap?

2004-07-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Alternative History During the convention, I read or heard someone say that Bill Clinton would have easily been elected a third time if we didn't limit presidents to 2 terms. I started thinking about that a little. If we didn't have the 22nd Amendment, and if we didn't have a broad consensus against 3 or more terms, what might have happened? It's virtually certain Ronald Reagan would have been

2004-07-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead Besides listening to too much Warren Zevon... 1) Check out Gentoo for OS/X 2) Check out TextPattern 3) Write about what Rhapsody and ITunes really lack (compared to Waterloo Records)

2004-07-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Serendipitous Summer Visitor Departs An unexpected visitor showed up this summer, right next to the Meyer Lemon I planted in the spring: People walking by would compliment us on it, and we'd reply that we hadn't planted it, it had just shown up. It got to be about 5 feet tall, and the bloom was at least a foot wide. I had to cut it down today, because the bloom had faded and the

2004-07-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

The only reason left to use Windows Rhapsody. I'm hooked. Why don't they port it to the Mac? iTunes is great for buying music, but it's terrible for checking out new stuff that you may or may not like. Rhapsody is perfect. It's also perfect for collecting all those stupid songs you like but would never purchase otherwise. And are you noticing how the prices of CD's are starting to come down as

2004-07-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Learning Lisp, continued Learning Lisp is a lot easier than it used to be, because you can get all of these things right off the web without spending a penny, and they all work on your Mac: GCL (Gnu Common Lisp) An online, downloadable copy of Paul Graham's On Lisp An online, downloadable copy of Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition The only quibble is that you may need to download

2004-07-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

#!@&*Blogger What happened to preview mode? I had to rewrite the previous post 10 times before I got it to look right. (And it still sucks, but that can't be blamed on the tool). Blogging tools are the flint axes of software. I use MoveableType at work for an internal blog I set up, and it's only incrementally better. It isn't really fair to compare them to, say, my IDE, since one is a native

2004-07-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Learning Lisp I've decided to learn Lisp. Of all of the new technical kicks I could go on, this seems the least likely. I haven't even mentioned to my other hacker friends, because I'll get quizzical looks and disparging remarks. But I picked up Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters this week at the bookstore (literally - I haven't bought it yet, but fully intend to) and started reading. I've read

2004-07-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

Kenny Boy I just finished reading Robert Bryce's Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron last week, which was by coincidence the same week Ken Lay finally got indicted. Bryce's book is lucidly written, funny as hell, sharp, and incisive. It's in the same league as James Stewart's Den of Thieves. He gives a surprisingly comprehensive look at the entire energy industry as well as a lot of

2004-07-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

War and Peace I felt compelled to write this comment to this post by Brad DeLong about Sy Hersh's assertions that the White House is covering up a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing w/r/t Abu Ghraib: If it's true, why isn't this a front-page article on the NYT, and why isn't it the lead story on the nightly news? If it's true, why hasn't anyone else stepped forward? If it's not true, then why

2004-06-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

War And Peace The Onion gives us the good news in Iraq. "... the vast majority of Iraqis are still alive—as many as 99 percent. While 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians have been killed, pretty much everyone is not dead. According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, of the approximately 24 million Iraqis who were not killed, nearly all are not in a military prison. Bremer said "a good number" of

2004-06-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Come November... A passing comment by Brad Delong caught my eye: But there is an election coming up. If George W. Bush loses it, things may still be OK. Yes, I thought, but what happens if he wins? Let's rewind to 2001. After the election debacle fades, the Bush administration (with the help of a compliant Congress) proceeds to act as if they've been granted a mandate. This behavior is

2004-06-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm back Over three months have passed since my last post, mainly due to the 60-hour weeks I've been working since mid-February. We're all exhibiting the signs of burnout, the most classic of which is exhibiting no more than a dull sense of relief (as opposed to exhilaration (or even moderate satisfaction)) when the last few things come together. The other reason for not writing is that I've

2004-03-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

War and Peace This, my friends, is how the peace will really be lost. Whether or not Chalabi is the titular head of the government or the power behind the throne is probably of small consequence; either way, it's the direct equivalent of, say, installing the Shah on the throne of Iran or helping Pinochet overthrow Allende in Chile. Or supporting Somoza, Marcos, Suharto, the Saud family, etc., etc

2004-02-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

Cynicism and Misdirection There's been a great to-do about last week's proposal by GWB to amend the constitution to defend the sacred institution of marriage by limiting it to heterosexual couples. Over the years, I've increasingly become something of a strict Constitutionalist, as well as believing in balanced budgets and State's rights. In fact, I've become a Republican. A Jefferson/Madison

2004-02-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

More From Yesterday's Paper Buried on Page 18A: “County officials challenge state over voting machines” Santa Clara county officials are pushing back against California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's directive to require security measures to safeguard the integrity of electronic voting systems. Officials in 9 other counties are supporting Santa Clara. All of these counties recently

2004-02-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's Paper Yesterday, I sat down with an actual newspaper (the San Jose Mercury News) while I had a late lunch at my favorite Greek restaurant, and read these tasty tidbits. “Former CEO of Enron may face criminal indictment” Yup, they're finally going to go after after Skilling. Looks like the official announcement will be later this week. “Clinton pushes philanthropy at a

2004-02-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

Robert Glass Doesn't Get Open Source Robert Glass is one of my favorite writers on the subject of software development, and 10 years from now his book Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering will still have an honored place in the "always relevant" section of my technical library. But, alas, he doesn't understand the relevance or importance of Open Source in any way, shape, or form: ...open

2004-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

Weekly News Roundup, with your anchor George Orwell President Bush, appearing on Meet The Press with host Tim Russert: Russert: How? why, as a fiscal conservative as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster? President Bush: Sure. The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the

2004-02-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

SCO Follies continue I never liked Ayn Rand's writing and I was never able to finish Atlas Shrugged. But it occurs to me that Darl McBride is exactly the kind of pseudo-capitalist that Rand railed against. She had a word that she lumped people like Darl under: Looter It's hard to say what Rand would have made of Open Source software. But if you think carefully about it, you'll come to the

2004-01-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

Finally Brad DeLong points to this Washington Post article that reports we're one step closer to bringing Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to justice. Andrew Fastow is going to jail and is reportedly cooperating with investigators seeking evidence against former Enron Chief Accounting Officer Richard A. Causey. The next link in the chain after Causey? His boss, Jeffrey Skilling. It's about time.

2004-01-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

A Comment on Era Transitions vs. Transformations My friend T lends us his thoughts about the state of the era we're in. He also has some thoughts on hosting a good story. Writing about the rapid change of the era in which we are now has become almost trite these days. It was 1970 (the year of this author's birth) when Alvin Toffler put his finger on the idea that people are more behind the

2004-01-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

The Fiscal State and Our State Peter Drucker: The two world wars of this (previous) century transformed the nation-state into a 'fiscal state'...They (nation-states) have all come to believe that there are no economic limits to what government can tax and borrow, and, therefore, no economic limits to what government can spend. Under the new dispensation, which assumes that there are no economic

2004-01-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or does Instapundit seem to be getting a little meaner, a little more ideological, a little more self-righteous, and a little more poorly written as the months go by? It's all very predictable and tiresome. I read blogs to learn something new and/or to get exposed to different points of view, not to be beat over the head with someone else's ideology and agenda. Nevertheless, it's

2004-01-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

LOTR, Pt. III I finally saw the Return of the King. I didn't like it quite as much as the first two - it departs from the book more than I liked - but it's still marvelous entertainment. Some people have complained about the multiple endings, but I liked them (except for the absence of Saruman's scouring of the Shire and its rebirth). It's been raining a lot and when I left the theater I

2003-12-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

Transformation vs. Era Transitions I've been thinking a lot about what I want to write about, and there's something I'd really like to explore over the next few years. I've been strongly influenced by two books - W.R. Clement's Quantum Jump: A Survival Guide to the New Renaissance and Peter Drucker's Post-Capitalist Society. I've written a little about Clement's book here before, but just to sum

2003-12-30T22:52:00.000-08:00

DSL's Back And it only took SBC/Pac Bell 27 days (after I moved a mile and kept the same phone number) to get my DSL turned on. A co-worker just returned from a trip home to India and informed me that Reliance, the big Indian telecom conglomerate, now offers wireless (home) telephone service that they can turn on in 4-5 hours after you order it. Granted, wireless is simpler than DSL. But wouldn't

2003-12-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

Bam, Iran The recent earthquake in Iran is a sobering reminder of how the rest of the world lives. What's only of passing interest here - a 6.5 earthquake 200 miles away that makes your office building sway for 10 seconds - is an unbelievably deadly killer half a world away when it hits a city of 100,000 whose buildings are made out of dried mud and bricks.

2003-12-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

6.5, baby OK, it took an earthquake to get me blogging again. It lasted about 15 seconds or so; I heard something that sounded like some heavy equipment was getting rolled on the floor above ours, then a sound like flakes of plaster falling. I didn't realize what it was until Les, whose cube faces mine, said "earthquake". We all stood up and you could feel the building swaying. I called S. in

2003-11-28T18:13:00.000-08:00

Local Hero Santa Cruz librarian Anne M. Turner wins Jane Magazine's Bad-Ass Loudmouth (scroll down about halfway) award for “reinforcing her citywide policy to shred library records every day in protest of the privacy-invading PATRIOT Act, which gives the government the right to find out which books people check out and anything else they're curious about”.

2003-11-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

Another new blog Terry Teachout's About Last Night, a journal on art in that Big City On The Other Coast. Courtesy of Asymmetrical Information. Apparently, I too would be the The GashlyCrumb Tinies if I were an Edward Gorey Book. "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh..."

2003-11-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

New Blog Here's a really interesting new blog I just discovered, courtesy of Halley Suitt's weblog. Read this and then this.

2003-11-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

More John Adams The thing I don't admire about Adams was his support, however reluctant, for the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Collectively, they were the Patriot Act of their day. Adams let himself be persuaded into signing the bills by the High Federalists (led by Hamilton), his wife Abigail (whose usual good sense was trumped by her anger at the scurrilous criticism of her husband in

2003-11-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Japes, ribald Sweet Fancy Moses is back, just when I'd given it up for dead. OK, it came back 3 weeks ago, and I'm as out of it as ever. But you might find this amusing. Now, if only Suck would come back.

2003-11-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

Desktop Linux David Weinberger echoes my misgivings about Linux as an OS for non-geeks, this time from the point of view of a regular user.

2003-11-20T23:05:00.000-08:00

The Archetypal Patriot I've been listening to an abridged recording of David McCullough's biography of John Adams as part of my continuing reading about the Founding Brothers (as John Joseph Ellis called them). Adams is a fascinating character whose greatness I'd never fully appreciated. While I think that the author is a little too much in love with his subject, and I'd like to have heard the

2003-11-20T23:04:00.000-08:00

Catching Up It's been a while since I've had time to blog. I actually wrote this over a week ago but never published it; but I wanted to contrast it with the post above about John Adams...something about how deeds matter more than words, and how real patriotism isn't a fashion that the self-righteous get to wear. There's something about the prose in this essay that really irritates me, even

2003-10-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

A Home in Paradise Oh, and the other thing that's been keeping me busy is that we just bought a house. This picture doesn't do it justice - it's lovely - so I'll try to post a better one tomorrow Here's the Bougainvilla on the side:

2003-10-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

Too Busy To Blog I've spent most of the weekend reinstalling the Brick (my aging, 4.5kg Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop) because I'd bought a 802.11b wireless card (Netgear MA401) for it and figured I'd finally get around to upgrading to SuSE Linux 8.1 (esp. since 9.0 is about to come out). It's been painful, especially compared to the ease of getting my iMac up and going. Like having to rebuild the

2003-10-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Headlines “Schwarzenegger Elected First Horseman Of The Apocalypse” “Lieberman Pledges To Gloss Over The Boring Issues” “Ashcroft Chases Down, Loses CIA Leak Suspect In Alley Behind White House” “OutKast Universally Accepted” You just gotta love the Onion

2003-10-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

Another Iceberg Sighting Dan Gillmor, from his perch up in the crow's nest, sees it too: It's called the European Technology Rountable Exhibition, but a significant portion of the discussion here has been about the awakened giant to the east. Again and again, the conversation has turned to the opportunities -- and, to many, the threats -- China represents for the technology community. I'm not

2003-10-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

Self-Absorbed Stupidity Ok, I'm reading Instapundit - always a mix of the interesting and the ideological - and I come across this bit: INSTAPUNDIT SHUT DOWN BY AL QAEDA? That's the report -- actually saying that the DoS attack that shut me down, along with some others, last night was aimed at someone else, but came from Al Qaeda-affiliated websites. This was quickly debunked by someone from

2003-10-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Globalization - Another tip of the iceberg China Puts Man Into Space (via Instapundit). Now, I don't believe any Communist government will ever succeed over the long term, and China has lots of problems, not the least of which is circa-1964 Brezhnev-style government corruption. But what if the Chinese someday decide that the Mandate of Heaven demands some form of representative democracy? What

2003-10-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

AppleMania My new 20GB iPod just arrived, so my order from Apple (iMac, Airport base station, and iPod) is complete. I've gotten pretty blase about computer hardware over the years. But I haven't been this excited about a piece of hardware since I got my first 10-MB hard drive in 1986. More later.

2003-10-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

CalPolitics There's a voice in my head that's suggesting that a different result on the recall - one that ended up keeping Gray Davis in office - would have been a mandate to continue the corrupt business-as-usual nature of California state politics, at least until things got so bad that they couldn't be ignored. While I still think that the recall mechanism is a dangerous tool that has no

2003-10-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

Dittoed I despise everything Rush Limbaugh stands for, but I've got nothing against him personally and I hope he's able to recover from his current problems. On the other hand, I'm glad to see ESPN/Disney/ABC with egg on their faces after their cynical attempt to create controversy and boost ratings by giving him a forum. After all, idiots like Limbaugh are easily identified and dismissed by

2003-10-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

CalPolitics So one of Arnie's first acts is to go on the Tonight show. Ahhh, democracy...

2003-10-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

Enron And speaking of energy company fraud, are we ever going to see indictments of Lay and Skilling? There is something happening on that front. And here's one more possible way for it to happen.

2003-10-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

CalPolitics Here's some alternative speculation on what drove the recall. Take it with a grain of salt, pending collaboration from other sources. Believe it if the lawsuits initiated by the Lieutenant Governer against the energy companies are settled for pennies on the dollar after Arnold becomes Governor. Too bad the media is too busy investigating whether or not Arnold can keep his hands to

2003-10-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Globalization This is really interesting: More and more international patients are travelling to India to seek quality health care at a fraction of the cost back home I think this is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

2003-10-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

CalPolitics Well, there's just two days to go until the recall election, and it's looking like Arnold is going to win. I've been waffling on how I'd vote for the past few weeks, but I've finally decided to vote "no" on the recall. I have no idea who'll I'll choose for Governor should the recall pass. I'm sort of leaning towards a protest vote for the ButtMonkey Beer guy because of this quote (

2003-09-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Life Well, it turns out I have to order a Mac direct from Apple in order to get a 160-GB hard drive on an iMac, so it'll be 1-3 days before it arrives. So in the meantime, I'm consoling myself by reading all the stuff on their developers page. Here's what I got: 1.25 GHz iMac w/17" TFT (It's the one with the flat screen that comes out of the pod base) 1 GB memory 160 GB disk Airport Extreme