Thursday September 30
Free Falling
For those who thought the excesses of the dot.com boom all got washed away in the subsequent bust, the optical fiber telecommunications industry has some disappointing news. Prices for access along the vast expanses of long-haul fiber optic networks built in the late 1990s and 2000 haven't finished falling to earth. Wired News: Bandwidth Glut Lives On.
Posted by glenn at Wednesday September 29
The Costs of War
For years near Madison Square Garden in New York there was a large, digital billboard showing the size (increasing) of America's national debt. Now the liberal Center for American Progress has done the same thing for the War in Iraq, with an Internet billboard showing the costs of the war, dubbed "Project Billboard." It's well worth a look. As of this post, $140.7 billion and rising. (They've put up a real-world billboard in Times Square, but it sadly doesn't have the digital cost figures.)
Howard Dean Reprise
If John McCain can do campaign appearances for George Dubya Bush and not be a hypocrite, then I guess Howard Dean can campaign for John Kerry. That's what he did on Wednesday evening in D.C. at an event I attended. Lots of boring political rhetoric, very green/lefty folks in Bierkenstocks, and a little bit of sharp political calculus from Dr. Dean. And with 300 people jammed into one small bar, it was hot as Hell, too. (My wife and I are standing near the flag....but we're not visible.)
No Bandwagon for '04
Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post sports columnist and co-host of EPSN's "Pardon the Interruption," used to write all the time in the 1980s about the Redskin's "Bandwagon." Well, those days are long gone, and it's quite apparent -- because Tony says so -- that the return of mythic coach Joe Gibbs is not going to change things any time quickly. The Wheels Are Falling Off The Bandwagon [washingtonpost.com],
With charachteristic wit, Kornheiser asks, "What's going to happen first, Gibbs beating Parcells, or Conan O'Brien taking over 'The Tonight Show'?" Well, Jay Leno is set at NBC until 2009. You tell 'em, Tony. This Bandwagon isn't even a Cooper Mini and it's dead on the side of the road without gas.
Tuesday September 28
Email Standards
Standards are good (by promoting interoperabilty) and standards are bad (by deterring innnovation for component products). And there has been an ongoing controversy, lasting decades, about whether "open" industry standards may or should include patented inventions. For instance, ANSI and W3C each have patent policies calling for disclosure and nondiscriminatory or royalty free licensing of intellectual property (IP) included in standards.
Now that same debate has spilled over into IETF, the Internet's standards-setting body. Anti-Spam Effort Killed Amid Patent Row [washingtonpost.com]. This time the standards body killed a proposal by Microsoft for an email "Sender ID," designed to prevent spoofed emails, because the folks in Redmond had patented the scheme. Though the company promises to make the IP available for free, it wants to bar software developers from further licensing it, a restriction that several members of the open-source community find unacceptable.
The end result is that consumers get stuck holding the bag -- in this case, junk emails -- while the engineers and lawyers bicker, perhaps endlessly. So what else is new?
Sick of (In) the 'Burbs
A new study by the Rand Corp. finds that people who live in suburban sprawl, such Atlanta, Denver and many other American metropolitan areas, are more likely to report chronic health conditions than those in compact urban cores like New York or Boston. Feeling Sick? New Study Suggests Urban Sprawl Is Partly to Blame [LATimes.com]. Folks who reside amid urban sprawl showed increased reports of hypertension, arthritis, headaches and breathing difficulties, among other chronic health conditions. Sedentary, car-dominated lifestyles and air pollution appeared to be contributing factors.
So the suburbs may be sickening, really. In contrast, the study found no link between suburban sprawl and a greater incidence of mental health problems. Now that's depressing!!
Monday September 27
Wi-Fi Everywhere
You probably know already that the City of Philadelphia plans to build the largest, municipal-owned wireless Internet system -- a 135-square-mile "hot spot" to serve 1.5 million people -- so that residents and vistitors alike can surf the Web wirelessly. E-Commerce Report: Big Wi-Fi Project for Philadelphia [NYTimes.com]. What you may not know is that this move has sparked a raging debate about whether all of this should be left to private-sector ISPs.
In New York, the city government recently awarded contracts to six wireless contractors, who paid a total of $23 million for the right to use 3,000 city light poles as bases for cellular and, possibly, wireless Internet service for paying customers. In contrast, Phildelphia says that government cannot just "let the market do this because there are societal needs that aren't inherently part of the capitalist system. We need to be sure no communities n Philadelphia are excluded, whether there's an ROI [return on investment] or not."
This mirrors the debate over municipal ownership of telcos generally, something to which conservative think tanks and the local monopolies (like SBC and Comcast) object vehemently. Yet USA Today headlined recently that "Small Towns Tired of Slow Rollout Create Own High-Speed Networks." I tend generally to agree that government should stay out of competition with private firms and that the market will produce more and better products than a government-run cooperative. But where the market is not responding, why should economic theory or idealogy stand in the way of the people giving themselves what they want? If Philadelphia is wrong, about demand, or costs, or otherwise, it is entitled to make its own experiment and mistakes, since no one else will be footing the bill.
Besides, having ubiquitous Wi-Fi would be way cool and would solve the perplexing question of whether, and if so how, private-sector Wi-Fi providers -- like T-Mobile at Starbucks -- can create a sustainable business model. Since the market ain't happening, at least just yet, more power to Philly!!
Sunday September 26
Fantasy is Reality
I have been playing fantasy football for more than 20 years, since long before the days of computerization and the Internet. Well, today I caught up with technology, following the Hungry Homers -- the fantasy team my son and I operate in an NFL-sanctioned fantasy league -- with Web-based, real-time scoring while watching all the games on DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket.
Way cool. Oh, the Homers lost by 16 points when our opponent scored four TDs in the late games. "On any given Sunday" is as true in fantasy-land as it is in real life.
Thursday September 23
Web Withdrawal
Yahoo! has released the results of a fascinating survey showing serious "web withdrawal" for people deprived of Internet access. The Internet Deprivation Study concludes that for some people, carrying on a normal routine without the Web is almost impossible, because the Internet's tools and services have become firmly ingrained in their daily lives.
Well, one can only experience withdrawal if one is addicted. I love the Internet and obviously am actively connected almost always. But there's a time and a place for everything. Web withdrawal is as bad as heroin withdrawal only because some folks have succumbed to the temptation of the wickedness of cyberspace.
Seriously, you can't be "wired" all the time. With a little down time, there's no addiction and no withdrawal. Some of these users should get psychological counseling, IMHO.
Wednesday September 22
Costly Nipple
It's bullshit, of course, but today the FCC levied a fine on CBS and its owned-and-operated stations of $550,000 for the Janet Jackson "nipplegate" affair during the Super Bowl. TV Stations Fined for Janet Jackson Breast Flash [Reuters.com]. (You can see the not-very-indecent photo here.) So if one breast is worth half a million, how much would a Full Monty of Miss Janet cost? With her hot new bod, it's most likely very expensive -- but well worth the price.
Monday September 20
Windows and Open Source
It's hard to believe that anyone would be fooled by this miniscule Microsoft change, but many have. The press trumpeted that Microsoft was making a major policy shift towards open sourcing the code for its Office suite. Microsoft's Open Sesame Moment [washingtonpost.com]. In fact, all they are doing is allowing some federal government agencies one-time access to look at the code for security purposes. Open source and Microsoft are at the far ends of the economic spectrum; it's going to take far more than just a few lost government sales to get Redmond to change its stripes.
Sunday September 19
Same As the Old 'Skins
Every year the Washington Redskins vow they will become winners again, and every year the New York Giants beat them handily in an early-season game. Positive Start Is Wiped Out By Turnovers, Sloppy Play [washingtonpost.com]. Last year the 'Skins blamed it on officiating, now on turnovers for a 20-14 loss to the G-Men at the Meadowlands.
They always manage a lot of excuses, just no too many Ws. Conversely, as USA Today says, former MVP Kurt Warner, brought in to play quarterback until rookie Eli Manning is deemed ready, showed he still has good football left in him, completing 22 of 33 passes for 232 yards with no interceptions and a pretty 38-yard TD. Go Giants!!
Friday September 17
Hold Them Accounable
I have blogged frequently on the lack of responsibility and accountability in American politcs today and its application to the Bush Administration's approach to the War on Terrorism -- more specifically the Administration's rather inept handling of the post-invasion occupation and nation-building in Iraq and the defensive, obfuscating, equivocating and evasive response to the 9/11 Commission. Here's a site that captures and develops a lot more of these thoughts, from a partisan perspective by The Fight Back Campaign, Inc. at HoldThemAccountable2004.org.
Now I would like to ask Lee at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast and Carl from No Oil For Pacifists -- both of whom I read, link and generally (well, maybe grudingly) respct -- to explain why these are not legitimate questions and why Dubya is runnning far away from them. That Kerry is a flip-flopper who idiotically has not counter-attacked with the same claims for Bush is not an answer, by the way. But it is hypocritical for Bush to maintain that he has been consistent or thoughtful in his Iraq policy and that "standing tall" merits relection. Real leaders accept responsbility, especially for errors, instead of painting a rose-colored indifference to reality in sound bite rhetoric. George W. wouldn't -- or worse, perhaps couldn't -- even answer a question about whether he would concede "any mistakes" at his one and only news conferece on the subject.
Thursday September 16
Icing the Money
This is idiotic. The National Hockey League owners have "locked out" the players -- and will likely suspend or cancel the entire hockey season -- because management and the players union cannot agree on salary cost controls. Two Sides Prepared for Long Lockout [USAToday.com]. These NHL players now make an average of about $2 million per year, with the highest paid (Jaomir Jagr) at $11M yearly. Basketball and football have both prospered economically with a salary cap, while baseball -- the only other major US professional sport without cost controls and which has had a recent, almost-disasterous labor stoppage -- is in real financial trouble.
But baseball at least once was the "national pastime." The NHL never was in the America and hockey just cannot recover, at least not in its present form, from another work suspension. Ted Montgomery puts it best, writing that "a compelling case can be made that this lockout was premeditated and heavily orchestrated by both sides. That shows an alarming lack of concern for the average hockey fan. It smacks of a fan-be-damned attitude that won't soon be forgotten by those who pay the exorbitant ticket prices to indulge their passion for hockey."
I am one of those who paid those exorbitant prices and have no intention of doing so again until sanity is restored to this sport.
Wednesday September 15
21st Century Foxes
By a lopsided vote of 356 to 166, the British House of Commons today decided to outlaw the centuries-old tradition of fox hunting in the UK. Tally-No to Fox Hunting [IHT.com]. The vote followed an emotional debate between supporters, who called fox hunting barbaric, elitist and hopelessly outmoded, and opponents who accused the government of intruding on people's civil liberties and trampling on their rural way of life.
Well I for one think this is just stupid. It's not like foxes are an endangered species. I am not a hunter, but it is indisputable that hunting is mankind's principal occupation -- that which distinguished us from the apes and led to all of human evolution -- so what's the difference between hunting deer with high-powered rifles and hunting foxes with dogs? (None, actually, and so the British IFAW animal welfare group crows about polls showing that 76% of people said they wanted hunting with dogs to be banned and 82% said deer hunting should also be illegal.) Societies everywhere raise domesticated animals (cattle, sheep, etc.) solely for the purposes of killing and eating them. Isn't it just as barbaric to raise animals that are destined never to live and only to be slaughtered, in cold blood, so human beings can eat? At least the foxes have a sporting chance, which is more than one can say for cows.
Meanwhile, the whole controversy has spawned threats of civil disobedience by hunters, security breaches by protesters in Parliment, and a looming constitutional crisis -- since the House of Lords has repeatedly rejected bans on fox hunting. As Frank Furedi of spiked.com puts it well:
Tuesday September 14
Top Gun Retired
An era in military -- and movie -- history came to a close in Tucson yesterday. [Arizona Daily Star]. The original F-14A Tomcat, the "sexy," two-seat Navy warplane that co-starred with Tom Cruise in the 1986 hit film "Top Gun," officially was retired when the last of them landed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on Monday. Oh well, even sexy planes can't last forever. And the movie itself's a little dated, but still hot.
Russian Democrat or Autocrat?
Today the Christian Science Monitor's lead editorial, titled Back To The USSR, cautions that "Vladimir Putin's announced changes to better secure Russia in the wake of the Beslan hostage tragedy work more to secure his own power than his country." Well, nothing new here, except the sophistry that Putin is a democrat (small "d").
Fact is that this is an ex-KGB fellow who longs for the good old days of the Politburo, has had his political opponents kidnapped and executed, and otherwise sought to subvert direct presidential and legislative elections in Russia. So the sad irony is that Mikhael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin -- both graduates of the hard-line Soviet school -- were better democrats in the old USSR than the only democratically elected president in the new Russian Federation. As Yeltsin prophectically said in 1995, "We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it."
Putin came to power on a specific pledge to destroy the power of the "oligarch," the mafia gangs that control most Russian business. Yet four years later, behind the smooth facade of a president firmly in control, oligarchs, obstinate regional leaders and corrupt ministers still obstruct efforts at modernization and reform. Now Putin is reversing course on the democratic reforms, first unleashed when Yeltsin stood on that tank in front of the Kremlin in 1991, by which he took power in the first place. Much more like Lenin than Lennon. National Public Radio asks whether Putin is "using incidents of terrorism as a pretext to finish what his opponents say has long been his plan, to become a dictator even as he claims Russia is building a new democracy?" The answer is obvious.
Monday September 13
Opening Day
Twelve years after he last roamed the sidelines for the Washington Redskins, Joe Gibbs directed a group of modern-day players to a grinding, 16-10 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yesterday before a franchise home record crowd of 90,098 at FedEx Field. For Redskins, That Old Feeling [washingtonpost.com]. In the NFL opener for both teams, the coach who stunningly retired in 1993 won his first regular season game since his return to football as the Redskins overcame a disastrous third-quarter turnover, their own offensive liabilities and a Buccaneers defense that gave up 291 yards but only one touchdown.
Here in DC, the pundits are boasting of the return of "smash mouth" football and an attacking (not read-and-react) defense. That's all well and good, but I was at this game, and the Redskins were lucky to win. They should have been up by several touchdowns, but failed to put the ball into the end zone. If you take away Clinton Portis' first run from scrimmage (a 60-plus yard TD), there's not much left except a great sack on the last play of the game to keep the Bucs out of field goal range.
It's been the same 12 years since the Redkins were a good football team. With or without Coach Gibbs, the wait continues.
Saturday September 11
Guns Don't Kill Elections, People Do
Flip-flopping twice in seven days, democratic presidential candidate John Kerry this week proudly held up a deer-hunting rifle in Western Pennsylvania and than lit into President Bush for not extending the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons. Kerry Says al Qaeda Benefits from Bush's Gun Ban Stance [SFGate.com].
This is way over the top. It was box cutters, you fool!! Automatic rilfes have little if anything to do with terrorism and nothing at all to do wth al Qaeda's attacks on 9/11, in Madrid and the like. Vulnerability of domestic police forces to drug-gang violence, yes. But the jihadists use suicide bombers, IEDs and the like. It's the sure sign of a dying campaign when its leader -- who ignores the real political and international defects of Bush's terorism policies -- is reduced to making such a transparently idiotic and pandering charge. No wonder that Bush is trouncing Kerrry 56-29 in polls for "taking a clear stand on the issues."
Friday September 10
Accounting for Abuse
I've posted previously on the subject of the lack of accountability and responsibility in American politics in general and relative to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in particular. Today's New York Times editorial, No Accountability on Abu Ghraib, gets it precisely right. "After months of Senate hearings and eight Pentagon investigations, it is obvious that the administration does not intend to hold any high-ranking official accountable for the nightmare at Abu Ghraib."
Donald Rumsfeld today defended the military's actions, despite internal investigations laying the blame suarely on his shoulders, by asking "Does it rank up there with chopping off someone's head off on television? It doesn't." This is correct but just dumb, internationally devastating and a farce. And unfortunately par for the course from these Bushie bozos.
Thursday September 9
Good for the Goose
The Bush campaign, in concert with the self-titled "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," started the sordid debate now raging over the presidential candidates' respective military service -- or lack thereof -- during the Vietnam War 30 years ago. But today the tables were turned, with new Freedom of Information Act requests resulting in the tardy release of Pentagon documents suggesting that Dubya did not report for duty to the Alabama National Guard, failed to take a required physical, and used political pressure to get into and stay in the Guard, thus avoiding the draft. Memos Say Bush Was AWOL While Vietnam War was Waged [Independent.co.uk].
Kerry never counter-attacked, but Bush can't complain, since his own supporters initiated this unseemly war of innuendos. You can't have it both ways. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Thursday Night Madness
Tonight starts the 2004 National Football League professional football season -- America's true national religion. (No offense intended to the faithful, it's just that millions more people watch and attend the NFL on Sunday mornings in this country than church.) Now is not the time, however, to reflect on football's place in society or the NFL's shizophrenic relationship to sex and beer. Instead, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots have won 15 straight games and play in the season opener tonight against Peyton Manning and the Colts. Are you ready for some football?
Update: The Patriots won 27-24 in a tremendous game, with the Colts turning over the ball twice inside the 5-yard line, including a devastating end zone fiumble with less than 1 minute to play.
One Device Nirvana
I still don't think they've got the combined phone-PDA-camera "all in one" device right, but this one looks like it's getting closer.
Wednesday September 8
Eye of the Beholder
With two downed airliners, a bombed train and an exploding school filled with hundreds of children, Russis has seen its share of terrorist attacks in the past week. Russia Bites Back After Siege [BBCNews.com]. Most of the discussion has been of internal divisions within Russia over treatment of Chechnya and its rebels, with Russian president Putin shouting yesterday at Western reporters.
But the more important question is whether the Chechen separatists are revolutionaries fighting oppression or just terrorists. Are they part of a worldwide jihadist movement against Western society and interests, or rather an illustration of more historically routine efforts to achieve self-determination? In the long run, it matters greatly, although one man's terrorist is another man's "freedom fighter." And one man's ceiling is another man's floor.
Tuesday September 7
Newton Anyone?
Newton Nuts Show How It's Done [wired.com]. I was once an Apple Newton fanatic, owning the original and every subsequent model Apple shipped from 1993 through 1997. This is a little much, though. Give it a rest!
Frances
Just spoke with my mother, who lives in in Lake Worth, Florida and has been without electricity, phones or gasoline since Saturday in the wake of Hurricane Frances. Today power outages still affect 2 million homes and businesses -- about a quarter of the state's 16 million people -- and topped a list of concerns as tanker loads of gasoline arrived but could not be pumped because there was no electricity at most gas stations. Out-Of-State Power Crews Return to Fla. [Forbes.com].
She says civilization has not broken down and folks are being generous and civil to each other, for instance in navigating streets when all traffic lights are inoperable. I saw the same phenomenon last year, after a post-hurricane (Isabel) storm felled hundreds of trees in the Washington, D.C. area, knocking out power and blocking roads. Remarkable. But why does it seem to take tragedy or loss to make people behave nice to each other these days?
Long Live Floppies
Like the penny, the floppy drive is hardly worth the trouble, computer makers say. Dell stopped including a floppy drive in new PCs in spring 2003, and Gateway has followed suit on some models. Floppies are available on request for $10 to $20 extra. Floppy Disk Becoming Relic of the Past [Yahoo.com].
Well, tell me something new. Apple stopped using floppy drives way back in in 1999 with the original iMac. Tiny USB drives have made floppies, Zip catridges and all sorts of external storage devices all but irrelevant. The march of technology goes on. Floppies are dead; long live floppies.
In many ways this is history repeating itself. Twenty years ago, PC users laughed at Mac users about those tiny, incompatible 3.5" floppy disks. "Still no 5.25" floppy drive." And they laughed about SCSI, which wasn't as "standard" as all those MFM and RLR drives and proprietary hard cards known in the DOS world. Eventually the Windows world embraced the 3.5" floppy. And many of the best performing PCs of only a few years ago used SCSI for best throughput, not the poky old IDE drives that had become dominant on less expensive clones.
I think they just don't like change -- especially if Apple invents it.
Sunday September 5
Lucky Man
This is the lead to an article in Xinhuanet, a Chinese online publication from the Xinhua News Agency, the official state and worldwide news agency in China.
Probably the most sympathetic, informative and human coverage of this story in any media outlet. This heart disease stuff really can and does strike without warning. Bill is indeed a lucky man. And even communists have a sense of humanity from time to time. Maybe it's the flip-side of their political cult of personality, but they do care about people in a way that the mercenaries in U.S. media don't. Most media here just wondered whether Clinton's recuperation and inability to campaign for John Kerry woud change the presidential elections. But wonder of wonders, even Dick Cheney has a heart.
Friday September 3
Sleeping Prosecutors
Judge Gerald E. Rosen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has reversed the conviction of two Arabs -- the first to be charged with terrorism-related offenses after 9/11 -- after the government conceded misconduct in its handling of the case. "The prosecution's understandable sense of mission and its zeal to obtain a conviction overcame not only its professional judgment, but its broader obligations to the justice system and the rule of law," wrote Rosen in his opinion in United States v. Karim Koubriti, et al.
Lest one think this was just liberal judging, the Court emphasized that 9/11 represents a "monstrous apparition of fanatical terrorism that presents to our Nation -- indeed, to the whole civilized world -- the gravest threat of the first decade of the new Millennium." And it was the government itself, concluding that exculpatory documents had been withheld intentionally from the defense (a clear constitutional violation for more than 40 years), that confessed error and moved to dismiss the indictment.
Last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft heralded the Detroit convictions as a clear message that the United States would work diligently to disrupt and dismantle terrorist "sleeper cells" at home and abroad. “Every victory in the courtroom brings us closer to our ultimate goal of victory in the war on terrorism. The Department of Justice will continue its aggressive battle in the courts to ensure the safety and security of all Americans," Achcroft crowed in June 2003. Well, it seems as if it's the Justice Department's own lawyers who were the real sleepers in this case.
Straight Talk Express
"Straight Talk Express" was the name of John McCain's campaign bus during the 2000 Republican primaries. He's known as a straight-shooter. And now McCain has proved it again.
When asked this week on CNN how long the U.S. military is likely to remain in Iraq, Senator McCain replied "probably" 10 or 20 years. "That's not so bad," he said, adding, "We've been in Korea for 50 years. We've been in West Germany for 50 years." Heads in the Sand [NYTimes.com].
I don't agree that 10-20 years in Iraq is a good thing, but McCain's continually refreshing candor certainly is.
Thursday September 2
Morons of Eagle County
So the local Colorado prosecutors have dropped their rape case against Kobe Bryant, saying the victim -- who has filed a civil lawsuit for damages -- does not want to testify. But the reality is these guys botched up the case from the start and then hid evidence from their forencic pathologist that the victim's injuries were inconsistent with forced sexual assault. Case Promised Only Defeat, Disgrace[MSNBC.com].
In the end, our system of justice put a rich, superstar public figure athlete under the media spotlight display for a year, forced him to spend millions of dollars in legal fees, and possibly ruined his reputation, on a case that never should have been brought in the first place. And because the criminal investigation and suit were overseen by a bunch of Keystone Cop proscutors, they ended up trashing Bryant's rights so badly that they eventually just gave up. Something's wrong with this picture.