coComments related to Dispatches from a Small Business

Ron Paul: Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the United States Gold Commission. I think that does a pretty good job of explaining why he wants a “gold standard” — and why all honest people should also want it.Another good explanation.

jsalvati: You must be young. W

2007-11-13T17:57:59.147+01:00

jsalvati: You must be young. We remember the days of double-digit inflation even during a recession. The professionals at the fed know how not to do that, but they knew that much even in 1968 – there is only so much the fed can do when Congress and the President go nuts on the spending side.

A contrasting account from the

2008-09-03T12:14:57.013+02:00

A contrasting account from the reality based community. It certainly seems there was politics involved.January 15, 2006 Scorched Earth By ROBERT L. PARKNASA has quietly terminated the Deep Space Climate Observatory, citing ”competing priorities.” The news media took little notice. Few Americans, after all, had even heard of the program. But the entire world may come to mourn its passing.Earth is growing warmer. Even the most strident global-warming deniers have taken to saying that a little warming is a good thing. If the trend continues, however, it will have catastrophic consequences for life on this planet. Correctly identifying the cause could be the most important problem facing humanity.Most scientists link global warming to unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, which shrouds Earth in a blanket of carbon dioxide, trapping the Sun’s energy. Others, backed by industries that spew pollutants into the atmosphere, insist that greenhouse emissions are not the problem. They prefer to attribute warming to natural variations in solar output. Scientists are skeptical, but they don’t deny the possibility. The issue cries out to be resolved.Even in a world wracked by wars, battles are not fought over scientific disagreements. In science, nature is the sole arbiter. Disputes are resolved only by better experiments.The better experiment when it comes to global warming was to be the climate observatory, situated in space at the neutral-gravity point between the Sun and Earth. Called Lagrange 1, or L1, this point is about one million miles from Earth. At L1, with a view of the full disk of the Sun in one direction, and a full sunlit Earth in the opposite, the observatory could continuously monitor Earth’s energy balance. It was given a poetic name, Triana, after Rodrigo de Triana, the sailor aboard Christopher Columbus’s ship who first sighted the New World.Development began in November 1998 and it was ready for launching three years later. The cost was only about $100 million. For comparison, that is only one-thousandth the cost of the International Space Station, which serves no useful purpose.Before Triana could be launched, however, there was a presidential election. Many of the industries favored by the new Bush White House were not anxious to have the cause of global warming pinned down. The launching was put on hold.The disdain of the Bush White House for Triana goes much deeper than just a desire to avoid the truth about global warming. Triana began life in early 1998 as a brainchild of Al Gore, who was then the vice president. Mr. Gore, the story goes, woke up one morning wondering if it would be possible to beam a continuous image of the full Earth back from space to inspire people with the need to care for our planet. The 1972 portrait of the full Earth, taken from the Moon, had inspired millions with the fragile beauty of our blue planet. Why not beam the image live into classrooms, allowing students to view weather systems marching around the globe?Scientists had dreamed of such an observatory for years. They hoped Mr. Gore’s influence would make it happen. Mr. Gore’s support would end up destroying it. Those who hated him, hated Triana. His dream of inspiring environmentalists and schoolchildren served only to trivialize the project. It was ridiculed as ”Gore’s screen saver.”Triana is terminated, but global warming is not. Someday, there will have to be an observatory at L1. Perhaps the most important lesson from our exploration of the solar system is that the most terrible place on Earth is a Garden of Eden compared to the best place anywhere else. We must find out how to keep it that way.Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, is the author of ”Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud.”

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2009-05-14T11:55:47.663+02:00

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2009-01-23T22:42:43.942+01:00

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Manned spaceflight won Scal

2007-04-17T08:24:36.194+02:00
Manned spaceflight won Scaled Composites a $10 million dollar prize. It probably goosed Richard Branson to launch Virgin Galactic.Generating a government subsidy isn’t the same thing as being productive. The $10 million prize was a government research grant. So the money didn’t go to NASA – it’s still a government investment. Not that I dislike government investment in research; quite the opposite. But you make it sound like Scaled Composites made $10 million because of some practical product or service.I don’t know what the profit is for the Russians but every tourist they send is $20 million gross.How about none. Negative. The $20 million doesn’t even pay for the flights the tourists ride on.I’m not a partisan one way or the otherDebatable. – but the cheaper it becomes to launch to orbit the more manned activity will make sense.The cheaper it becomes to launch to orbit, the more *any* space activity will make sense. I’m all for manned spaceflight. It’s very cool. But let’s not pretend that people are needed to sample the rocks of Mars, or to drill holes in Europa. If we send people to Mars, it’ll be to say: we sent people to Mars.

It’s fine to cite failed gover

2007-04-16T19:24:54.953+02:00
It’s fine to cite failed government projects to back up your anti-government theories, but at the same time you’re purposely ignoring government projects that do work. How about the Interstate highway system? And here in Chicago, I am quite happy with the publicly-run commuter rail service. Always on time, comfortable, convenient. Maybe a private company could run it better, but so far, I’m happy with the way it’s going, and I’ve been taking the train for nearly five years. I’m not saying the government always does things best – obviously that’s not the case. But it’s easy to simply overlook examples that don’t support your theory.

I live just outside Washington

2007-04-16T19:24:44.953+02:00
I live just outside Washington, DC and experience the Metro on an almost daily basis. The thing is a mess. Just last year, they announced that they were removing the carpet and plastic seat cushions from many of the trains because of lack of funds. But at the same time, they’re adding Spanish signs to go along with the English ones. I guess “Ballston Metro” doesn’t mean the same thing in the two languages.Lately, they’ve started taking corporate sponsorship of the train cars and buses and have further increased rates. Apparently, getting gas tax revenue from MD, VA, and DC wasn’t enough. I’ve heard it time and time again “I can pay 2*X to take the Metro into the city or I can just drive and pay for parking.” To me, I appreciate getting some of the time back to read, but I see their point.The only saving grace is the people. Other than the food-police, the bulk of the staff is great. They’re polite, helpful, and generally seem to enjoy what they do. Then again, last week we found out that a huge number of the drivers are making $100k+ – on a $60k base – due to overtime. I’d be pretty happy if I had that deal too…

There are companies that do th

2009-02-11T17:07:13.872+01:00
There are companies that do this for profit. The manual review and reporting part. A simple list of Google results still has to be reviewed by a human. One of the companies is the weirdly named cymfony d-o-t com. I hope this mention, doesn’t violate the rules for your comments. I don’t have any financial interest in the company, but I know someone who works there. PS. Loved your book.

I’d think this service woul

2009-02-11T17:07:07.310+01:00
I’d think this service would be pretty valuable, certainly saving money over having employees manually troll blogs and comment boards. I do that on behalf of my ‘employer wo does not pay a living wage (yet)’, LiftPort. I might have some perspective here …At some point you’re going to want to do something with the clippings – act on them, comment on them, forward the complaint somewhere. Wait more than (guess) 36 hours and with most blogs the post is off the main page. Commenting at that point is going to be good for the blogger but no one else is going to see it. All a clipping service could do is abstract a layer between the people who need to act and the people they need to interact with.…..But it’s somewhat labor intensive. Trolling the web for our company name and some related topics takes about 90 minutes a day, if there are replies to be made. If nothing is happening, only 20 minutes. But LiftPort isn’t a big deal (yet). Were we to grow and should we want to keep that effort up I can see it occupying a good chunk of a work day.So we’ll break it down. Designate a SME for a series of category, split the feeds based on smart filters to the SME .. and I’m talking through my hat here – and that might do it.But if you want to do it .. and I think it’s pretty important .. well you gotta do what you gotta do.

“I can see why Crandall and ot

2008-12-14T19:31:12.126+01:00
“I can see why Crandall and others have called for “re-regulation” of the airlines. The old boys are scrambling to figure out how to run their business let alone how to make money doing it.”Crandall hasn’t run an airline for 8 years. He should be ignored.Southwest Airlines has figured out very well how to run an airline and make money. Had the government not subsidized much of the industry – through post-9/11 loans and assumption of pension plans – the industry would be more right-sized than it is today. Not only Southwest but also Alaska, JetBlue, and Continental would be making money. I don’t think any of them are asking for reregulation.

Like others have said, how did

2008-10-25T12:11:12.590+02:00
Like others have said, how did they not anticipate the problem? My guess is that they have it in their heads that the flight attendants can handle policing duties. Look at it before this, everytime I flew I seemed to see one or four people bringing a bag onboard that was clearly too big or they actually had 3 bags. Clearly this wasn’t going to work. And the system before was letting all the crap slide until it reached the flight attendants. Looks like they’re still doing that. Too bad.I don’t mind charging for the bags, especially a 2nd bag. I didn’t like the 1st bag charge just cuz so many of us could see some yocals trying to bring too much onto the plane. That cost needs to be built into the ticket. Maybe they can lower the weight limit on it to 30 – 40 lbs to help raise some cash.When I flew how last Christmas I shipped things back by UPS. Same with a bunch of the stuff I got for Christmas. It’s cheaper and in many ways easier. I didn’t have to carry it from baggage claim to the bus to the lot to the car and then into my place. It was already there waiting for me inside.I can see why Crandall and others have called for “re-regulation” of the airlines. The old boys are scrambling to figure out how to run their business let alone how to make money doing it.

UPS is already doing this:
2008-07-25T04:53:30.107+02:00
UPS is already doing this: http://www.theupsstore.com/products/shi.htmlCheck Your Luggage at The UPS Store Save Time With increased airport security and most flights operating at full capacity, airport check-in lines take more time than ever. Shipping your luggage before your trip with the help of The UPS Store can actually save you time. Plus once you arrive at your destination, you won’t have to wait at baggage claim.Don’t worry At The UPS Store, we ship your luggage using reliable UPS shipping and tracking because when you’re traveling, you have enough on your mind. Let The UPS Store ship your luggage!

Wow Saskboy – so many ill-advi

2007-08-13T09:58:35.958+02:00
Wow Saskboy – so many ill-advised comments and so little time to refute them. Let me hit your “lowlights”…Because someone involved in a narrative might forget that the point of all of this science is simply to show how urgently we need to be reducing our pollution. If some of the scientists conducting the tests are doing it wrong, it doesn’t remove the primary purpose of testing for the damage we’re doing.What point is the science if it deliberately gets the results wrong? I say “deliberately” as the guidelines state not to site these instruments where they have been sited. So either the people who are doing it are either A) doing it on purpose to influence the result or B) morons. Take your pick.Going further you said;The only people who are saying global warming isn’t happening are people with a vested interest in seeing humans continue to pollute at least as much as we are today, if not more.]/i]I could counter with the same logic – the only people saying that Man is warming the Earth are those with a vested interest (government grants anyone?).

Saskboy, Climate change is/ha

2007-08-11T22:44:46.253+02:00
Saskboy, Climate change is/has been/will continue to be happing all the time and to be so arrogant to think that we humans can alter the climate, other than locally, is akin to the way they thought in the dark ages about everything revolving around us (the earth not the sun). I know it’s a stretch for someone with a “global warming faith” mind set to think that we (humans) are pretty insignificant in the global climate scheme. But to deny the growing science that is debunking the “human global warming connection” is just that faith/gut feeling, not science at all.

Not only is this not the worse

2008-07-31T12:23:06.771+02:00
Not only is this not the worse music video in the world, it isn’t the worse music video by a former Star Trek star. This one is. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3555292747376962161&q=william+shatner+singing&total=49&start=0&num=10

The same thing applies to the

2007-12-20T20:57:18.959+01:00
The same thing applies to the paper and cardboard that gets recycled. It’s made of carbon – bury it deep! Perish the thought they have to plant more trees for pulp production.It’s rather ironic because when environmentalists complain about the “full” landfills, they will often trot out the example of the 50 year old buried newspaper that has been dug up and is still readable. Hmm, sounds like long term sequestration to me.

So far, to date. Oil crunches

2009-04-01T12:44:27.281+02:00
So far, to date. Oil crunches are a self imposed problem caused by government mandates, taxes, and restrictions on refining and development. Mainly caused by the policies of light rail supporters (Not so much because of the light rail, but other policies those people support). Such as Ethanol, wind energy mandates, bans on nuclear power development, restrictions on increasing refinery capacity, carbon type taxes, CAFE standards, etc. When you mess with supply and demand like that, the only possible result is high energy prices. Duh!!! Only we feel the pain now, rather than later.It’s the only way to force toy trains on people that otherwise wouldn’t want to pay for them. Force the above mentioned government mandates, and you artificially create a crisis. People are only willing to fund something this big, if there is a crisis. If energy prices were low like they would be in a free supply and demand society. We wouldn’t be wasting our money on these trains. Instead, we would be spending it on alternatives that actually show promise .

Sorry Bob Smith but your asser

2008-05-06T00:20:27.731+02:00
Sorry Bob Smith but your assertion that “Few trips in the Chicago metro area are likely to have Chicago in between their beginning and ending points” is both just an assumption on your part — and also poorly defined. Yes, almost certainly the majority of travel in the Chicago metro is not between downtown and elsewhere, it is inter-suburban. BUT a lot of travel IS between downtown and the suburbs during rush hour. That is because there are still a huge number of jobs downtown. That is why there are all those office skyscrapers — they are full of jobs.Chicago has an advantage in that it is a rail hub for the country. Rail freight runs through Chicago between East and West. So there is already a need for a rail infrastructure. And yes that freight does run on the Metra tracks too. So Chicago didn’t need to build rail just for passenger traffic. The advantages of passenger commuting by rail in the Chicago metro are many: (1) Don’t need to pay $20/day to park in the Loop. (2) Each rail passenger is one less person clogging the road net during rush hour. Chicago metro rush hour is one of the worst in the country — it can take 60 to 90 minutes to travel 30 miles. Dump that extra 100,000+ people per day on the roads and you would see multi-county gridlock. (3) It is pretty cheap. It IS subsidized but doesn’t need to be. I pay less than $150/month for monthly ticket plus parking. But if I drove my monthly costs would run north of $600/month for parking, gas, tolls, and auto maintenance. So I would pay more for the train — happily.

OK, Brian – but using your arg

2008-02-05T21:56:31.774+01:00
OK, Brian – but using your argument, I could also could say that as a guy who almost never travels to Wisconsin, why should I subsidize the roads for that state (as I do by paying federal taxes for highway construction)? Why do roads get a pass while rail is held up as an easy target when people talk about waste of taxpayer money?Conceivably, a lot of the goods I buy come through Wisconsin on trucks that use those roads, which would justify my having to pay taxes for them (although the interstates were originally designed with civil defense in mind). But if I could prove that few or none of the goods and services I use are dependent on Wisconsin roads being in good shape, couldn’t I argue that there’s no reason for me to pay for those roads?If we did succeed in building numerous copies of Chicago’s Metra system around the U.S. in different cities, and those rail systems resulted in keeping many cars off the roads (saving wear and tear and also making trucking faster and more economical) as well as in less energy use, lowering gasoline costs for everyone, isn’t that something we should all feel comfortable paying for?

As a suburban Chicago commuter

2008-02-05T20:37:26.995+01:00
As a suburban Chicago commuter, I want to back up SunSword’s fine post. The system works great, and it keeps cars off the road. If you are a person who commutes on a highway to work, think twice before bashing the idea of commuter railroads, because without them, your commute would be a lot worse.Also, I think commuter rail may seem to some like an expensive and unlikely notion for cities like Milwaukee. But realize that all it would be doing is re-creating a system of electric railroads that 100 years ago did a great job moving people around many cities in the days before everyone had a personal automobile. Now, you can joke about the cost to taxpayers of paying for a commuter rail system, but it’s no joke to taxpayers how much it costs to buy and maintain an automobile – thousands of dollars a year. And the pollution and energy use of hundreds of millions of cars is beginning to make the nation less liveable and, with energy supplies becoming depleted, less economically realistic in the years to come.

It would seem that the majorit

2008-08-23T00:14:58.317+02:00
It would seem that the majority of the respondents to this catastrophy in the making, are woefully misinformed in the concideration of the End Times scenario depicted in the Bible. Specifically, Revelation, chapter 8, verses 8 and 9, where it say’s, “And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was csst into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died. And the third part of the ships were destroyed.” It has been reported that over 100 million gallons of oil a year is deposited into the Pacific annually. Surprisingly, about 67% of that is of a natural occurance. Oil bearing rock layers in the ocean! The other 33% is from tankers running aground and platform accidents. Mixing the plastic island with the oil and a little spark from above and you’ve got the barbeque of all time. For further info, check out “Recipes For Lean Times”.

Wikipedia has an article on it

2007-10-24T22:23:55.800+02:00
Wikipedia has an article on it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_GyreSays that the ‘Size of Texas’ thing is an exaggeration. Obviously anyone can write anything on WP, but the references could be useful to dig through.Enviromentalists have an unfortunate tendency to gross exaggeration – not realizing that it makes their message less believable, not more.

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Just in case anyone didn’t fig

2008-08-23T10:28:05.245+02:00
Just in case anyone didn’t figure it out, the menu bar, with the ‘file’ ‘edit’ and so on is there in explorer and IE7…some tips:1. press left alt and it pops up 2. in windows explorer, press left alt->tools->folder options–>view tab…under the ‘advanced settings’ the second thing down is ’show menus’ do this and then be sure to press the button above it ‘apply to all folders’ and press ok at bottom (which is the same as apply if you’re closing the window) 3. right click in the menu area, and one of the check boxes is for the menu to stay on the screen, I think this is for IE 7 in Vista, not sure but it works somewhere……so, I like everyone else, find Vista very very annoying…I’m a system engineer so I need to know how to use it, but even with the ‘vista hp driver’ for my all in one, I can’t get my hp printer to print in Vista…have to have my XP notebook do it

Unfortunately Microsoft’s usab

2008-01-14T02:57:08.270+01:00
Unfortunately Microsoft’s usability labs focus on how people unfamiliar with the software deal with tasks. The result are changes made that frustrate existing users.“File” is a lousy title for that menu and it’s only there as a legacy. I mean what does “exit” have to do with “file”? And “print”? Well, you are exiting or printing the file. A lot more logical grouping than I’ve seen in other programs. One Windows program, which wasn’t even a draughting package, made you go to “Edit -> Plot” to print.

This is a constant problem wit

2007-09-27T07:07:41.588+02:00
This is a constant problem with Microsoft – they set user interface guidelines for other developers, and a whole lot of time of a whole lot of people is spent learning the ‘Windows way of doing things’. And then they break their own rules for their own products – and generally not for a good reason, not because they decide that the new way is so much better than the old in terms of usability that it should over-ride sticking with the old way of doing things – but because it LOOKS COOLER. Microsoft can uniquely get away with doing things like this because, since it also develops the operating system upon which the apps run, it can use undocumented features of the system to do things that other developers can’t do – certainly can’t do without risking their applications breaking the next time MS does an update.However, MS isn’t the only one. Apple has also made a habit of unveiling new, cooler looks for its own apps at the cost of consistency with others – iTunes being the biggest offender.

>> Only from installing

2007-08-22T00:10:12.694+02:00
>> Only from installing my wife’s Mac this last weekend do I realize that for some reason MS is emulating the little Apple-shaped logo in the Mac OS where they put file commands.The Apple menu in the far left is for system-level commands (like Shut Down); file-related commands in an OS X app are (supposed to be) in menu labeled… “File”.

Isn’t that cute… I answered ev

2009-02-06T06:49:57.830+01:00
Isn’t that cute… I answered every question as green as possible (not actually physically possible, but the greenest answer available), and got down to -15 tonnes produced per year. Somehow, I became a net consumer of CO2 – I guess their goal is for everyone to be a vegetable. And at the end, my little piggie flew up to heaven instead of exploding, and they said I could live forever.

Brad,I too saw that if your fl

2009-02-06T06:49:19.370+01:00
Brad,I too saw that if your flying is work-related, you’re charged more carbon – anyone know why that might be? They already ask how many miles you fly (or kilometers), so I have no idea why flying for one purpose vs. another (after controlling for distance) should make any difference.

I have argued often to not rec

2008-04-28T09:43:41.025+02:00
I have argued often to not recycle paper to the ‘Church of the Environment’ members. It is a great concept, and if nothing else makes a good and interesting argument. The last person I was seeing was a member of the C of the E, and we went rounds when I told her I didn’t recycle paper, and why. (Not seeing her any more.) Same with other CE members here at work. There seems to be a contradiction in the morals that tell them to both save trees by recycling, and also to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.Oh, interesting rumor going around – That money is made from Old Growth forests, and hence, evil. No clue where this came from, but it is made of 25% Linen and 75% cotton. It was an interesting argument, when I brought up that there wasn’t wood in money, and that old growth forests don’t get turned into paper (for the most part) and that wood is a crop. I am surprised at how much more a non-environmentalist knows about the environment then those who are part of the movement. Or, maybe it isn’t. Josh

So Brian, you PAY the garbage

2007-09-20T22:08:09.853+02:00
So Brian, you PAY the garbage monkeys to come and pick up your refuse, yet when YOU don’t sort it out as they demand, they refuse to do their job. Fantastic. I own a supplement/smoothie store, I wonder if that would work in my business…“What? You want strawberries AND bananas in your smoothie? No way, that combination is too acidic in our opinion, and no, you can’t have a refund — you pre-pay for the smoothie whether we make it for you or not. Have a nice day”Sounds like a plan.I distrust anything done for “the common good”

funny stuff – recycling is so

2007-08-15T04:11:34.658+02:00
funny stuff – recycling is so big now and everybody thinks they’re saving the environment.

Is it silly to give tree farme

2007-08-15T04:11:24.658+02:00
Is it silly to give tree farmers an incentive to replant trees? Increasing demand for paper will increase the demand for pulpwood, which will induce tree farmers to plant seedlings. Recycling paper – or going paperless – does not save those carbon gobbling trees. It does exactly the opposite.

“If a group of people want to

2009-05-05T08:38:35.182+02:00
“If a group of people want to pool their money for health goods/services . . . ” – - – -That would be a refreshing change from the usual situation, where a group of people want to pool MY money to pay for their health care goods and services.

Does anyone have a particular

2009-01-07T21:03:33.449+01:00
Does anyone have a particular argument with that?I have a problem with it. Well, only of a fairly trivial kind. Who says healthy eating and exercise are “good” and high calorie food is “bad”. That makes sense only if you define good as being whatever prolongs life, and bad whatever shortens it. But that’s simply a matter of personal taste. Is there any reason not to think the choice to eat high calorie food and not exercise is simply the product of a rational cost-benefit calculation. The great thing about that choice of lifestyle is that you get to go straight home or straight out after work and eat and drink whatever it is that you feel like.Personally, I enjoy that lifestyle about half the time. The other half I am in the gym and eating healthy. I have a year on and a year off. Who but me is to say which cycle is good and which is bad?

Hm, I’m not seeing my post and

2009-01-07T19:37:18.485+01:00
Hm, I’m not seeing my post and I had a sentence to add at the end, so here it is again.If you ask me, there’s villain music playing when she says that.You can link directly to any point in a youtube video by adding this anchor to the end: #t=3m0s (for the 3:00 mark). For example, here’s me linking directly to the neat magical carriage at 3:54 –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTyfNBFnOk&feature=related#t=3m54sI don’t know how to do this for embedded videos, though.

If you ask me, there’s villain

2009-01-07T19:37:08.485+01:00
If you ask me, there’s villain music playing when she says that.You can link directly to any point in a youtube video by adding this anchor to the end: #t=3m0s (for the 3:00 mark). For example, here’s me linking directly to the neat magical carriage at 3:54 –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTyfNBFnOk&feature=related#t=3m54s

What else is there to say? The

2009-01-07T19:36:58.485+01:00
What else is there to say? The thing is, any lie the socialists give about caring about “real choice” or “real freedom” (or equivalent nonsense that ends up violating individual rights for the sake of the group), can be met by the fact that in a free market any consensual contract can exist. If a group of people want to pool their money for health goods/services, and in return want a regulatory body that restricts what they can eat or how they live (so long as they willingly abide by the contractual stipulations), then go for it – no one should use force to stop you from letting another person hold your hand through life.The irony is that these government programs are claimed to be needed because people don’t care enough about others to ensure their well-being. And yet these socialist schemes are predicated on twisting people’s natural care for others (you don’t want uninsured to die in the streets, do you?) in order to implement force over all. They have learned from history; there’s no need for a military coup or personality cults and prison camps. Just enslave people by using their good intentions against them. Of course it helps to make sure the main source of education fosters uncritical thinking toward government, which makes public schooling a definite success by that measure.If there can be any sort of justice when health socialism is implemented in the US, it’s that the family of those who hold the levers are the ones left to sit in the emergency room for 12 hours, because the supply/demand curve has been ignored. But we all know their needs will be cared for. Because although everyone is equal, some are more equal than others.

Dear Sirs,The online environme

2007-11-30T18:07:19.152+01:00
Dear Sirs,The online environment is psychotic. There isn’t one “IT professional” in a thousand who has any idea why they do what they do. How often do you really need a password? Why do you need a password to access public information? Why do you need a password to continue on to an article on the LA Times website? Why should password metrics be enforced when the site has no need of security?You do need passwords when there are potential consequences for fraud. I use a password for my online banking. My bank enforces a minimum and maximum length but really doesn’t care what’s in there. That’s up to me. The same pertains to my online payments. Brighthouse, Bell South, FPL, etc. all let me use my universal password (*******). It is very convenient and suitably secure for major corporations processing large volumes of financial transactions. Then some game website wants me use “at least one numeric and at least one uppercase character”. Sorry Charly, I won’t be back. I don’t like your attitude.Lest you believe that this is an uninformed rant I might mention that I started on vacuum tube computers, was intimately familiar with a number of national security systems including the launch protocols for ballistic missiles and was in the field for 45 years. In the beginning there was KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. Turing’s children are lost in the wilderness.Regards, Roy

I’m wrapping up writing a gene

2007-11-30T18:07:11.652+01:00
I’m wrapping up writing a general validation library at work right now; that’s right, I do programming for a living. I don’t have any fancy degrees but a cornerstone of the generic validation stuff is using terms like that. If I hadn’t used them properly at least one or three of my peers would’ve called me out on.It’s too bad you weren’t a bit more quick on your toes. When you were told the web designer had a PHD in english you had so many possible replies :a) Well then, please transfer me to their extension so I can tutor them on what alphanumeric really means. b) A PhD in English? Well that explains it. People need a Computer Science degree to do programming. c) Are you telling me that only one person worked on that entire web site? Are you that careless with everything else you do?

Our security requirements stat

2007-11-30T18:06:28.152+01:00
Our security requirements state: All passwords must be at least eight characters long and must contain characters from at least three of the four categories listed below: 1). Must include [at least 1] Number (between 0 and 9) 2). Must include [at least 1] Special Character (!@#$%^&*()) 3). Must include [at least 1] Upper Case Character (ABCDE…) 4). Must include [at least 1] Lower Case Character (abcde…) Their specified requirements were vague and the rep clearly wrong. To me alphanumeric would mean any combination of letters and numbers and needn’t include both.

(1) For what it’s worth, I thi

2007-11-30T18:06:20.152+01:00
(1) For what it’s worth, I think you’ve got the right definition. Anytime I see “alphanumeric” used it is referring to a token composed of symbols from the set of letters and numbers. (2) Having a PhD in English is entirely irrelevant to your ability to define a word, especially one belonging to a technical jargon. English PhDs aren’t awarded due to mastery of definitions and more than Economics PhDs are given for figuring the right tip for the pizza guy. (3) A simple way to defend brute-force attacks is to require a time delay between entering the incorrect password and re-trying. Even a two second delay will make force attacks pretty unattractive without disrupting the user experience much, especially if you enforce the delay in the time between submitting the password and reporting the result back to the client. Better yet, link the delay to a geometric series, so you have to wait maybe twice as long between successive attempts, throw in a CAPTCHA after the first few misses, and your black hat is going to go looking for some lower hanging fruit.

1. I agree with the others –

2007-11-30T18:06:12.152+01:00
1. I agree with the others – alpha-numeric means from the set of alphabetical and numrical charactrs, but doesn’t require both.2. Its an indication of the ridiculous amount of importance we place on degrees that a guy who spent all that time and effort to get an English degree is actually making money designing websites.3. Seriously – an English PhD? What sort of remotely quasi-original work could a student do in this field?

Your argument is correct. They

2007-11-30T18:05:30.818+01:00
Your argument is correct. They’re problem is that they’re miscommunicating their intent. That’s all moot, because you’d be crazy to do business with an organization who hires a PhD in English to design their web site.Generating “good” passwords is a wonderfully complex subject because password generators for brute-force attempts have gotten pretty damned smart. We’re just about to the point where there’s no good way to have passwords that are easy to memorize and capable of withstanding a reasonable brute-force attack. IHMO, at this point the focus needs to shift to preventing brute-force attacks. This is a fun subject too, because the most obvious answer (”disable the account after n attempts”) allows someone to easily perform a denial-of-service attack on whatever service you’re trying to provide – they can effectively shut you down by deliberately locking people’s accounts with bad attempts.I’ll stop rambling now, but the point is that they’d (and you’d) be better off if they made their login process smarter rather than worrying about how many characters of this or that you have in your password.

I have found a related page! V

2008-12-25T18:21:23.472+01:00
I have found a related page! Visit http://newfileengine.com/I find it very useful when you try to find something quickly!

It’s not really an island, but

2008-11-02T06:44:21.263+01:00
It’s not really an island, but it is a really large area that’s pretty dense with floating plastic. also, a lot of the plastic is in really tiny pieces.Here’s the article you need to read.http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Trashing-Oceans-Plastic4nov02.htm

Does anyone have the approxima

2008-07-18T08:30:16.845+02:00
Does anyone have the approximate coordinates of the Pacific Trash Vortex? I wonder if there could be a view of it in Google Earth.

This is a problem that i think

2008-05-25T20:53:14.636+02:00
This is a problem that i think should be more urgent than some blog subject