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This posting is part of a series from a speech made in 1961 by then-president Eisenhower. It accurately warns the citizens of the Untied States of the times to come, the time when the military and sociological agenda of the Untied States would be dictated by military industry. At the time, this was corporate America. In modern times, this speech rings painfully true as an unheeded warning to the level of control corporate America now holds on our country.

I have chosen to go back to this era, as it seems to be 'where it all went wrong' in modern America. You will never hear these types of warnings again, as it seems that corporate America has finally purchased its way to the top. In reality, it is my sincere hope that this speech inspires any readers of this blog to stand up for what is right, for what they believe in, and to refuse to let the power of money over-run your own sense of morality.

The fears of President Eisenhower to date have been, and are currently being realized. When asking yourself what happened to the United States of the Moon missions, Norman Rockwell, apple pie, etc., consider this speech as it was in 1961: a warning of what was to come.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

You say that Google is essentially the monopoly carrier for information. That is simply not true, especially not in China. There are tons of search engines which produce results that, while perhaps not as brilliant as Google, are certainly good enough for 99% of all searches. In China, this is even more true. Do you know what the 4th most visited site on the internet is? A hint: It's not in english. Just because google is biggest, does not mean it has the monopoly on information.

Now, there is the matter of wheter google should have censored it's results. People are saying that it is in blatant disregard for the "Do No Evil" policy, and it is, as you say, hypocritical. It's not, it really isn't. The googleblog explains this quite well. The only other argument that i've heard is that google should not be laying down to insane Chinese censorship laws, that they should Fight The Evil Chinese Government, and Stand Up For Freedom, Democracy, and Puppies Everywhere. But you know what, that is not for Google to do. Do you think a damn thing would change if Google refused to censor, and would be itself censored in China? No, not a damn thing (as there are Chinese replacements who don't even tell you that stuff is being censored). It shouldn't be the companies who force humanitarian change. It's not the role of Google to make the world better, because they can't! They say that they will collect and organize all the worlds information, and they will do so without resorting to evil practices.

Are you saying that, in addition to that, they should also rid the world of evil?

Get of your ideological high horse, and come live in the real world

Ballmer is a nothing more than a glorified cheerleader.
And if you dont believe me, take it from someone who works at Microsoft.
 
The only reason he has his job is because he was Bill Gates poker buddy at Harvard.

The basic problem is this: String Theory predicts that at some (non-specified) energy E, Stringy effects will become apparent; but the virtually infinite set of physical models which the theory allows (the infamous "landscape") means that there's no cut-off point for E, no realistically attainable maximum energy beyond which it's not worth looking for any Stringy effects. So for any specifically tested energy, e, at which no stringy effects are observed, the String Theorist can always claim e < E, and the effects will be observed at some higher energy.

Some people (quite plausibly it seems to me) interpret this as the non-falsifiability of String Theory.

On the other hand, it's been argued that as a theory that admits of many solutions, String Theory is far from unique: for example, while the tensor equations of General Relativity admit a multitude of solutions and no-one is in a position to say which one is the solution that we actually live in, there is no problem with the standing of GR. (But then, if there was a theory which stood in the same relation to GR as the Standard Model stands to String Theory, perhaps things would be different!)

Some informed and heated debate on string theory is available at Peter Woit's not even wrong (anti) and Lubos Motl's somewhat rabid pro string theory counter-blog

Truth be told, the average age of the Gamer is climbing, in fact, 70 years old isn't too old to be a Hardcore gamer. If games are just for kids, then shouldn't most modern pasttimes be for kids only?(ie. Hockey, Football, Basketball, Golf, Movies, etc)

1) Explain how my inability to travel anonymously prevents my petitioning the goverment for the redressing of grievances
2) Point to where in the constitution they said you were guaranteed anonymity

1)'s a little tricky. It's not so much "prevents" as chills and infringes on.
The right to travel to the seat of government to petition for redress is one of the privileges and immunities protected by the 14th amendment p&i clause.
2) We have the first amendment because Peter Zenger was busted for running a printing press to print anonymous criticism of the king's goons.
Talley v California, 1960, explains that the right to free speech includes anonymity and privacy. Thomas, concurring in McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission, explains the history in more detail.
The other two cases that discuss the constitutional right to anonymity are American Constitutional Law Foundation and Watchtower v Stratton. You can read those cases at majors.blogspot.com or findlaw.com.

google did the right thing. and better yet, they did it very wisely. Read their blog.

> Could Google censorship be happening in the U.S. too?

Yes.

And yes, Chinese regulations will require us to remove some sensitive information from our search results. When we do so, we'll disclose this to users, just as we already do in those rare instances where we alter results in order to comply with local laws in France, Germany and the U.S.

their blog

Like the 270 foreign al qaeda members just captured there?

What anti-American slant?

Here is some numerical evidence the media is slanted against the U.S. in the Iraq war from: here

Friday, 21 January [2005] (Australian time) is an average day as far as Iraq is concerned. Google news indexes the following negative stories concerning Iraq:

2,642 stories about Condi Rice's confirmation hearings, in the context of grilling she has received over the Administration's Iraq policy

1,992 stories about suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks

887 stories about prisoner abuse by British soldiers

2,345 stories about President Bush's inauguration, in the context of the President failing to mention the word "Iraq" in his speech, or indeed discuss the war

216 stories about hostages currently being held in Iraq

761 stories reporting on activities and public statements of insurgents

357 stories about the anti-war movement and the dropping public support for involvement in Iraq

182 stories about American servicemen killed and wounded in operations

217 stories about concerns for fairness and validity of Iraqi election (low security, low turnout, etc.)

107 stories about civilian deaths in Iraq

123 stories noting Vice President Cheney's admission that he had underestimated the task of reconstruction

219 stories about possible military action against Iran

24 stories about tense relations with Syria

118 stories about complicated and strained relations between the US and Europe

121 stories discussing the possibility of American pullout

27 stories about sabotage of Iraqi oil infrastructure

660 stories about prosecutions in the Oil for Food scandal

Then we have 123 stories - ostensibly neutral - about details of current troop deployments and movements. I write "ostensibly" because among that number there are numerous stories about deserters or soldiers refusing orders.

Finally we come to positive news:

311 stories about voter registration for Iraqis overseas. Even here we have to be cautious as significant number of these stories comment on "disappointingly" low numbers registering.

16 stories about security successes in the fight against insurgents

7 stories about positive developments relating to elections

73 stories about the return to Iraq of stolen antiques.

If the media coverage was war, the good guys would be getting slaughtered.

From your link:

Wasn't my link, stupid. I told you who cited it at least twice. Apparently you need more repetition before meanings sink in; you might want to work on that "reading comprehension" thing.

If you wanted my figures, the least you could do is look at them.

The argument over whether or not Ethanol is energy positive will be what determines whether it is a fuel source or not.

Thank you, Mister Irrelevant. Besides the fact that it wasn't my reference, didn't you get the point that, even if you assume no energy inputs whatsoever, the production isn't sufficient to do the job? An EROEI less than infinity just makes it worse.

In fact, sugar cane produces 22.5 gallons per ton of cane. Yields average 30.8 tons per acre with a maximum of 100 tons per acre. Using the national average, this works out to about 693 gallons per acre vs. the best case of 532 gallons per acre obtained from corn.

And at 25-45 tons/ha and 87 gallons/ton from the Iogen process, Miscanthus has a potential from 880 to 1580 gallons/acre.

What you don't realize is that we don't have 300 million acres to spare, for anything. 2004's record corn harvest came from only 73.6 million acres harvested (80.7 million planted). Further, it's very expensive to grow sugar cane in the US (why do you think we have import quotas and price supports?), and it's one of the most polluting crops we've got due to runoff.

What part of, "It's not about efficiency" do you not understand?

What part of "I can't believe you were stupid enough to claim this once, let alone twice (and I was going to let you back out gracefully)" don't you understand?

Of course it's about efficiency. The more efficient you are, the less of any type of fuel source you need. If we could get 4x the efficiency of oil utilization, we could roughly eliminate imports (for a while). If you have X amount of energy source and it meets only 1/3 of your needs if you use it in 15% efficient systems, it will meet 133% of your needs if you can boost that to 60%.

Plug-in hybrids are a nice idea, but they don't remove the dependency on oil.

Well, let's see. A PIH with 50 miles electric range gets me an 80% reduction, while a vehicle running on E85 (20% of the energy in E85 is petroleum used directly, and another 48% to 59% is one or another kind of fossil fuel used indirectly) gets me as little as 21% reduction or as much as 32%. If I don't drive long distances, the PIH doesn't need liquid fuel at all. I can buy or even make make my own "green" electricity, but I can't control what goes into E85. Doesn't look good for ethanol.

There are no panaceas here, just different options to chose from.

And they need to be evaluated on their merits. Without partisanship or mercy.

why not get a Ethanol-powered plug-in hybrid? :-P

Might be worth it, if ethanol (unsubsidized) gets cheaper than petroleum. Otherwise it's a waste of money. FWIW, the PIH cuts liquid-fuel requirements enough that you really could meet the remaining needs with biofuels.

That's assuming you can phase in the new fuels. First you have to convince fueling stations to add the equipment.

Fueling stations? Every hardware store already has what you'd need. It's this remarkable device called an "extension cord".

The Prius+ conversions thus far

This made me laugh out loud:
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/q-our-omnipote nt-president-q.html

Nice commentary on the politics of fear. Whatever happened to REAL American patriots, the kind that would say "Give me Liberty or give me Death!"? The question should have been phrased "Do you approve of the President violating the Constitution and existing laws to illegally wiretap Americans without a warrant?".

"Q. Can the president spy on me without a warrant?
A. The president would never, ever spy on you, unless you're talking to a terrorist.
Q. That sounds reasonable!
A. Or an associate of a terrorist or a suspected associate of a terrorist or a possible suspected relative of a member of an affiliate of a terrorist or someone with a name that's spelled like a terrorist's or someone who's been mistakenly identified as a terrorist by an NSA algorithm.
Q. That sounds like I should look into switching to smoke signals.
A. Well if you want, the president can stop the illegal wiretapping just for you.
Q. Really? Well thanks, that'd be great!
A. And then the terrorists can come and eat you.
Q. Wait! What?
A. Cause without the wiretaps there's nothin to stop the terrorists from eatin you, yknow. The terrorists and their army of bees.
Q. Oh no! I'm allergic to terrorists AND bees!
A. Oh that's too bad, cause now the president hasta stop the illegal wiretaps and let alllll those terrorist bees eat you.
Q. Quick! Put the wiretaps back, put the wiretaps back!
A. No no, you just said you wanna get eaten. Eaten by terrorist bees.
Q. I change my mind! Please let the president wiretap me, pleeeease.
A. I dunno...
Q. Please, I can change! I DO believe in terror, I DO believe in terror!
A. Oh, alright. But just this once!
Q. It's a Nine-Elevenmas miracle!"

The Xooglers Blog has interesting commentary by an ex-google employee on the idea of Google in China, as well as insight into the process behind deciding whether or not to go in. It can be found in the second part of the currently most recent post titled "Come And Get Me Coppers"

http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id =5150
 
...Even as the Times defended Echelon as "a necessity" in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis-use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

"The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high-level sources within federal law-enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians--includingmid- and senior-level White House aides--either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor-friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money."

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

-an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

-intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

-and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping....

First, go read Glenn Greenwald.

"Clinton-haters and Bush-haters asside, I continue to be astonished at our ongoing success at maintaining a democracy in which our rights are so well cared for that the suggestion of a relatively minor perceived infraction of privacy is seen by half the country as a dangerous outrage."

Much ado about nothing, huh? You need to read FISA. Unless electronic surveillance is done according to the statute, the fine is up to $10000 and the prison time is up to five years. Now the American President has said publicly, and repeatedly, that he's not doing surveillance according to the statute.

Get it? Bush's defense of his lawbreaking is that 1) an extremely vague resolution by Congress, the Authorization to Use Military Force, allows him to break the law to keep us safe from terrorist attacks, or failing that, 2) his commander-in-chief powers in the war on terror trump Congress's power of legislation. (Very similar, by the way, to his argument that he can ignore the McCain amendment against torture if he feels like it.)

But if that's true, as Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike have pointed out, what law can't he waive? Since the war on terror is not scheduled to end, won't the President always have these powers?

Bush doesn't veto, he writes signing statements arguing that he doesn't have to follow the law, then he breaks the law and fails to inform Congress.

The reason there is much ado is that a constitutional crisis is underway, however much you want to call it extremist partisan politics.

[Q...] But is it legal for the president to ignore the law?

A. Maybe not according to plain ol stupid ol regular law, but we're at war! You don't go to war with regular laws, which are made outta red tape and bureaucracy and Neville Chamberlain. You go to war with great big strapping War Laws made outta tanks and cold hard steel and the American Fightin Man and WAR, KABOOOOOOM!

Q. How does a War Bill become a War Law?

A. It all begins with the president, who submits a bill to the president. If a majority of both the president and the president approve the bill, then it passes on to the president, who may veto it or sign it into law. And even then the president can override himself with a two-thirds vote.

Bill Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches in 1994:

In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.

On December 20th Glenn Reynolds noted this CATO Institute Report published back in 1997:

The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping...

Bill Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches in 1994:

In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.

On December 20th Glenn Reynolds noted this CATO Institute Report published back in 1997:

The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping...

He didn't provide any facts.

1. a fuel source
2. not a viable replacement for oil
3. has a much lower fuel efficency
4. is still non-renewable.

He... was refuted by respondants.

There's quite a bit of discussion regarding the viability of Ethanol as a fuel.

You've taken our total production and then proclaimed that Ethanol can't do the job. Question? Have you considered that we can increase our crop production?

It's not only impossible, you'd have to be stupid or insane to suggest it. It's far easier to do something about that pathetic 14.9% efficiency figure.

If it was just about efficieny, we'd all be driving electric cars. In fact, it's about range and fuel economy. It's about keeping the transportation system we have.

Replacing our fuel infrastructure and our cars would be one of the most expensive replacements in history.

I won't try to determine your mental state. I just wanted to make the point that, on the scale of usefulness, informativity and insightfulness, your post's quality fell way short of its score. If the mods really want to do their job, they'll make sure that the +5's don't include such examples of failed critical thinking.

The best reporting I've seen on this topic has come courtesy of blogger Glenn Greenwald. He's a lawyer who has gone into pretty exhaustive detail on his site about the nature of the FISA legislation, and his analysis of the administration's arguments.

The short version: he doesn't buy it. More specifically, he has catalogued and refuted pretty much every argument that has been used to defend the adminsitrations actions, ranging from the schizoid("No, really, the surveillance complied with FISA, even though the President himself admits that it doesn't"), to the merely bizarre ("Congress gave its authorization to this program when it Authorized the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against terrorists.")

A quick look back through my posting history will reveal my political bias, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I'm siding against the administration on this one. But Greenwald's work on this subject, to my knowledge, hasn't been equalled anywhere on the internet.

The best reporting I've seen on this topic has come courtesy of blogger Glenn Greenwald. He's a lawyer who has gone into pretty exhaustive detail on his site about the nature of the FISA legislation, and his analysis of the administration's arguments.

The short version: he doesn't buy it. More specifically, he has catalogued and refuted pretty much every argument that has been used to defend the adminsitrations actions, ranging from the schizoid("No, really, the surveillance complied with FISA, even though the President himself admits that it doesn't"), to the merely bizarre ("Congress gave its authorization to this program when it Authorized the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against terrorists.")

A quick look back through my posting history will reveal my political bias, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I'm siding against the administration on this one. But Greenwald's work on this subject, to my knowledge, hasn't been equalled anywhere on the internet.

1. Has a spy progam targeting...
2. US Citizens...
3. Without a warrant or court order...
4. Where existing law passed by congress prohibits doing so...
5. (Bonus) When a perfectly legal, fast, reliable way to do it with warrants exists (FISA)...
6. (Bonus) And Saying it's within your powers to utterly ignore US law becuase of "war powers" in a conflict which is technically not a war and is almost by definition unwinnable. (War on Terror. Terror's pretty hard to kill.) And where Congress has specifically rejected amendments to the Patriot act which would be steps in this direction.

Or knew him. Whichever.

With a Mac port, surely Linux can't be too far away?

Yeah, our Prime Minister here in Australia has had a blog for a few years now.
http://johnhoward.blogspot.com/

It's all about keeping in touch with the little people, keeping
it real, you know?

True dat. The Questionable Authority compared the Discovery Institute's press release output to their scientific output and found they issue 0.44 press releases per day vs. 0.0046 scientific publications per day (and that's being generous with the phrase 'scientific publications').

Xoogler's says CmdrTaco has no idea WTF he's talking about.

What's a surprise.

Google could do one of two things: not be in China or comply with the Chinese government's requirements. Sounds like a no-brainer to me!

Google made the right decision. But go ahead and cue those retarded "Google jumped the shark!" comments anyway. They're always fun.

Booth Babes are a cultural institution.

What Google says on their Website is different than "do no evil":
"You can make money without doing evil"

Just not as much.

http://otherclub.blogspot.com/2006/01/comrade-goog le.html

A new report proves what we've known all along, the lying liberal media is real.

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

[...]

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

A new report proves what we've known all along, the lying liberal media is real.

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

[...]

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

I am an elected official and I maintain my own blog...

http://borocouncilman.blogspot.com/

It's proven to be an extremely useful tool for my constituents. In our small town, the blog is an opportunity to share information on local issues that may be otherwise ignored by the media. As a result, I've gotten great feedback from the community.

That said, not everyone is thrilled with it. The opposition party is actually very unhappy with it. I believe anything that enables our government to be transparent is a good thing.

The real problem is that there is a poor chain of responsibility. Teachers don't get backing from parents or the pricipal. Parents would rather blame teachers than take responsibility for their kids.

I'll never blame the teachers -- I do blame the teachers unions. I offered an idea about separating teaching from grading -- offer teachers the ability to teach a given curriculum, and then let a private organization grade the students. I found out the teachers unions don't allow this. I wish I could grade my own work that I perform, I'd always give it a "C" -- that way I can ask for more funding to try to do better with what I have to work with.

I also blame the government mandates. It is very hard to fire a teacher -- I blogged about this a week ago, and I quoted this recent 20/20 episode:

We tried to bring "20/20" cameras into New York City schools to see for ourselves and show you what's going on in the schools, but officials wouldn't allow it.

In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence.

It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student.

You can download this 20/20 episode via torrent, if you want the link e-mail me.

The teachers are not necessarily to blame, although I do tell my friends that are teachers to leave the union (almost 20% of them have!). Government funding also tends to run up the costs without the actual workers getting the benefit -- more government money attracts more government cronies.

To view the actual Opposition that is being discussed on the blogs:
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006 /01/riaa-argues-merely-making-available.html

Keep in mind this is an Opposition to a motion to dismmiss the complaint that was filed by Barker.

This is all preliminary paperwork - they haven't even made it to court yet.

Ethanol would be a lot cheaper than trying to deploy hydrogen. With the hydrogen route, we have to redeploy our entire fuel infrastructure. Which isn't going to happen as long as most people drive gasoline cars. Ethanol, OTOH, can work in a standard gasoline engine with a few modifications, and can be supplied from the existing fueling stations.

With gas prices being so high, all that's standing in the way of Ethanol is this constant argument over whether or not it's energy positive or not. Of course, this completely ignores the issue that hydrogen isn't energy positive either. You need powerplants upstream to crack hydrogen, just as you'll need upstream energy to supply farming equipment. Even in Ethanol isn't energy positive (which I don't believe for a minute), it's still a better option than hydrogen.

What we really need for Ethanol to take off is a proper hybrid vehicle capable of burning both gasoline, ethanol, and various blends.

"It's difficult to imagine, say, EA or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bothering with this nonsense."

Look at the last post on this blog: http://techbabeasia.blogspot.com/2001_10_01_techba beasia_archive.html

Sure, they're not "scantily" clad, but it is still a hot girl being used to attract attention to a booth. I feel bad that she had to wear that awful outfit...

It's difficult to imagine, say, EA or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bothering with this nonsense.

It's really not that difficult. You just need to open your eyes the next time you are at the Tokyo Game Show to see some.

While this does seem to be the obvious answer, at least in name, this site is not what people expect. It is NOT dedicated to open source, and it does not have anything other than PHP apps, some of which are not CMSes.

If you know in advance you must be using PHP, and you're not sure whether you want a portal, CMS, weblog, etc, then this is a good site.

However, if you have other languages in mind, or are open to a good CMS in any language, you should check other sources. One good reference site is CMS Matrix. Another good source of CMS information is CMS Watch; even though it concentrates on the entire spectrum of CMS systems (including commercial ones) it occasionally has very good articles or pointers to articles about open source products (like this one which I just found).

Take the Jihad on Smoking, for example.

Actually, I blogged about smoking yesterday. The town my church is in is thinking of banning the SALE of cigarettes at all stores. They'll watch their convenience stores go bankrupt as many of them make a decent profit on cigarettes.

Yet I'd rather see cigarettes banned by stupid towns (people will drive a town over) than banned at the state or federal level. The same is true of cocaine, alcohol, porn, whatever -- if you want to ban it, just do it at the local level and I'll avoid your town if it is a product I support.

Change your dictionary.

Both parties are to blame for the rise in power of the central government. These politicians are mandated by the Constitution to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and they've failed that. I have a solution for those that violate the law they promise to abide by or create.

"The home-economics trap involves superior female knowledge and superior female sanitation. The solutions are ignorance and dust. Never figure out where the butter is. "Where's the butter?" Nora Ephron's legendary riff on marriage begins. In it, a man asks the question when looking directly at the butter container in the refrigerator. "Where's the butter?" actually means butter my toast, buy the butter, remember when we're out of butter. Next thing you know you're quitting your job at the law firm because you're so busy managing the butter. If women never start playing the household-manager role, the house will be dirty, but the realities of the physical world will trump the pull of gender ideology. Either the other adult in the family will take a hand or the children will grow up with robust immune systems."

Sounds like a trap that you might have fallen into, and even if you haven't, it's important to be aware of "the butter question" in case you get into this situation in the future.

In case you plan on having kids, I also want to quote this stunning piece (from the same article):

"Bad deals come in two forms: economics and home economics. The economic temptation is to assign the cost of child care to the woman's income. If a woman making $50,000 per year whose husband makes $100,000 decides to have a baby, and the cost of a full-time nanny is $30,000, the couple reason that, after paying 40 percent in taxes, she makes $30,000, just enough to pay the nanny. So she might as well stay home. This totally ignores that both adults are in the enterprise together and the demonstrable future loss of income, power, and security for the woman who quits. Instead, calculate that all parents make a total of $150,000 and take home $90,000. After paying a full-time nanny, they have $60,000 left to live on."

...which is so incredibly true that I'm amazed it's even looked at any other way. Remember that if you stay home to take care of the kid, this calculation assumes that your salary would have remained the same indefinitely -- an invalid assumption for a career-oriented woman.

I sincerely hope you haven't fallen prey to the butter question. However, if you have, now is the time to reassess who does the work in your marriage. Do it like you would any other job -- figure out which parts you can outsource (grocery shopping? You can shop online and get groceries delivered. Cleaning the house? You can hire someone) for very lit

• Implement document.importNode() Workaround: Create your own importNode implementation.
• Support setting of opposite side CSS positioning properties at the same time, i.e., setting "left" and "right or "top" and "bottom" properties on same element. Workaround: Use IE's proprietary "CSS expressions feature" to dynamically calculate width/height of elements (just make sure you account for padding).
• Fix this problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;177378 Documenting a design flaw does not make it any less of a design flaw. Workaround: render IFRAMEs behind z-indexed DIVs that must obscure select field elements. Unfortunately this does not work in combination with PNG transparency (using DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader hack of course).
• Fix other problems with SELECT element, e.g., the fact that it is not possible to add a ListBox-style select to a document using DOM manipulation. Workaround: Create your own DHTML listbox implementation.
• Fix bug where the presence of a vertical scrollbar adjacent to a 100% wide table inside of a CSS positioned element results in a horizontal scrollbar due to incorrect width calculations. Workaround: Limit tables to 95% wide when rendering IE (dirty hack IMHO).
• Fix issue where 100% wide textareas expand to be a bit wider (creating a horizontal scrollbar) once text is entered. This also only occurs if the text area resides in a CSS positioned DIV. Workaround: Don't use percent widths on textareas.
• Correctly monitor the DOM for updates and repaint appropriately. Currently there are cases where IE will not repaint the screen even though the DOM has changed, requiring the developer to perform additional DOM manipulations just to trigger a repaint. Workaround: "Tickle" properties of other elements in DOM that are known to cause update, i.e., set value to something different, then set it back. This problem shows up very rarely but can be very annoying when it does. This solution is even uglier than the problem.
• Fix this completely insane bug (scroll down to a few paragraphs or search for the text "worst bug ever in Internet Explorer 6." Workaround: Fix described in blog entry.
• And last but definitely not least, simply bring the performance up to a level relative to Firefox/Opera/Konqueror/Safari, especially when dealing with reasonably complex and interactive DOMs. Workaround: Keep your DOM as simple as possible (which is obviously a good idea anyway, but nevertheless can sometimes prevent the development of certain AJAX components from being practical.

There's a difference between dealing with a boss's single of isolated bad behavior and dealign with an entire bad-boss personality--the kind who wants to dominate you or get away with something inappropriate. Once you know the personality, you can deal effectively with any behavior. For free advice about dealing with bad bosses, go to http://www.bigbadboss.com./ Check out the "Your Story" page and the "Tips" page. Also talk about critiques of bad boss advice in the news at http://www.bigbadbossbook.blogspot.com./

What IE really needs right now, if it wants to be taken seriously as a platform for AJAX web applications, is proper DOM/CSS support. The following would be a good start (my current peeve list with IE6):

• Implement document.importNode()
• Support setting of opposite side CSS positioning properties at the same time, i.e., setting "left" and "right or "top" and "bottom" properties on same element.
• Fix this problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;177378 Documenting a design flaw does not make it any less of a design flaw.
• Fix other problems with SELECT element, e.g., the fact that it is not possible to add a ListBox-style select to a document using DOM manipulation.
• Fix bug where the presence of a vertical scrollbar adjacent to a 100% wide table inside of a CSS positioned element results in a horizontal scrollbar due to incorrect width calculations.
• Fix issue where 100% wide textareas expand to be a bit wider (creating a horizontal scrollbar) once text is entered. This also only occurs if the text area resides in a CSS positioned DIV.
• Correctly monitor the DOM for updates and repaint appropriately. Currently there are cases where IE will not repaint the screen even though the DOM has changed, requiring the developer to perform additional DOM manipulations just to trigger a repaint.
• Fix this completely insane bug (scroll down to a few paragraphs or search for the text "worst bug ever in Internet Explorer 6."
• And last but definitely not least, simply bring the performance up to a level relative to Firefox/Opera/Konqueror/Safari, especially when dealing with reasonably complex and interactive DOMs.

I've posted this on ieblog before. I sincerely hope that somehow someone on the IE team sees one my numerous implementations of the above list of rants and implements solutions for them. It'll make the professional lives of many AJAX developers quite a bit more pleasant.

"Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery"

http://www.windows-ir.com/

http://windowsir.blogspot.com/

> Does WinXX create a log file of USB insertion - damned if I know! If by WinXX you mean WinXP (or WinNT+), then the answer is yes. When a USB removable storage device is plugged into a WinNT+ (includes 2000, XP, 2003) system, that fact is recorded in the file system (the first time, anyway) as well as within the Registry. Give me an unaltered image of a system and I can tell you how many USB removable storage devices were plugged into it, when each was first plugged in, and the last time they were plugged in. I may even be able to tell you which drive they were mapped to. I may even be able to tie it to a unique device. H. Carvey "Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery" http://www.windows-ir.com/ http://windowsir.blogspot.com/

I have personally experienced Massive's advertising in my favorite game, Planetside. Apparently SOE is using Planetside as a test bed to see if it can viably put advertising in all it's MMO games. I wrote up a full report on my blog. Here's a link my article:

http://wearyman.blogspot.com/2005/08/privacy-lies- and-videogames.html

It also includes information on how to block the advertising. (at least Massive's advertising) I'm sure there are just as easy ways to block advertising from other ad agencies.

Personally, I think that's the best way to deal with these ads. Block them at your PC using the method I describe. Once the game companies cannot collect stats on the gamers, the value and marketability of the ad service drops off precipitously. Once that happens, the ads go away. No money, no annoying and intrusive ads. Simple, really.

I think MS has suffered from unfortunate wording here. The Word document attached to the KB article states:

During much of the development process, signing driver packages is unnecessary. Instead, developers can use one of several mechanisms to suppress digital signature enforcement on test systems. However, when the project approaches the end of a milestone, the package must be signed in one of the following ways:
        Windows Logo Program. The publisher submits the driver package for the Windows Logo Program. Drivers that qualify for the logo receive a WHQL-signed .cat file. Note that publishers should have tested the package that before submitting it to the Windows Logo Program. In order to verify that the driver loads and operates correctly, publishers can sign the driver or driver catalog with the PIC. Note that boot driver binaries must include an embedded signature using a PIC before submission to the Logo or DRS programs.
        PIC-based signing. For drivers that do not qualify for the logo, the publisher can create a .cat file and sign it with the publisher's PIC.

So actually, you don't **have** to have a PIC.
See also my blog entry about this.

Just substitute Apple for Microsoft, Mac for Xbox and Internet for Xbox Live in the following...
Denial Of Service - Putting people at threat:

Want to guess how long it will take?

It is inevitable that someone mucking around trying to get their XBox360 to do something will trip the hardwired Trusted Platform Modules lock down. Effectively turning the trusted black box into a useless dead heap.

It is inevitable that this and other methods discovered will be publicly known, since the discoverer will want to warn others.

It is also inevitable this and other methods will become the basis for a widespread denial of service attack. Firstly through a fake Email campaign ( "Microsoft alert - follow these instructions to secure your XBox" or "Get Free games/porn - do this to your XBox" ) and later through viruses and networked worms embedded in Microsoft's mediaplayer formats.

Soon a worm that locks users out of their Xbox will be spread via Microsoft's Xbox live service.

Then it will be inevitable that criminals adapt the malware to display a message instructing the hapless victim how to make a payment to fix the problem. The messages would soon contain threats that their Xbox now contains contraband installed by the malware that would get the user in legal peril if they choose to take the Xbox back for repair or to the authorities. The potential rewards to the offshore cyber-criminals would far outweigh the risks.

http://itheresies.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_itheresi es_archive.html
Hollywood and the recording industry hold an effective monopoly on a large section of popular content. Both Microsoft and Apple are now offering the ability to content providers to demand that users must use unmodified systems to view said content. It locks you out of parts of your system that will inevitably be abused by third parties wanting to abuse you.

Posted by: David Mohring Posted on: 11/29/05

No.

But, to their credit, that is an extremely hard problem to solve. In many other areas of software engineering, where you "solve" a problem once, the solution is much easier because it is just a technical limitation to be overcome. Spam is different, however, because you're fighting against other people all who have strong financial incentives to defeat your system.

I'd still say "don't promise what you can't deliver", though. As some critics have pointed out, failure to do that just may be a systemic problem at Microsoft right now. Hopefully there will be some internal accountability for this one.