Wednesday, April 17, 2002
OK, first three news stories:
- UK reveals bomb plans – I don't know why everyone is so upset about this. At this point (in part thanks to an uncle of mine who got ousted from the scientific community for publishing a no-bullshit how-to article a number of years back — he was part of the team that designed GPS, and was a respected scientist, but now he's a professor of theology of U of T. Big points to anyone who can guess who specifically) that knowledge is public domain. Publishing plans to a fifty year old bomb design isn't going to increase our risk. Building the bomb is the easy part — the hard part is getting the raw materials!
- Was “Ginger” a diversion? – I thought the Segway Scooter was really neat, but not really that impressive or revolutionary… This new patent set of Kamen's though is much more exciting… If he's really managed to design a cheap and efficient Stirling engine, that will change the world. (If you don't know what a Stirling engine is or how it works, here is a “basic” explanation)
- A letter of protest and condemnation to the US ambassador – OK, to be perfectly honest normally I'm not usually much of a Yellowtimes reader. Anyway, the article is worth reading for an excellent insight into the outrage that “the other side” is feeling… And when you read that, it starts becoming clear that both “the terrorists” and “us free people” have a few very obvious common enemies.
While you're there, don't forget to move your eyes to the left and look at the “letter of the week”. I really liked the two questions that were asked:
- Why is a suicide bomber a terrorist for killing civilians, but a soldier who kills civilians is not a terrorist?
- Why do we not compensate those who lost their life savings due to corporate terrorists at Enron while we compensate those who lost their lives to international terrorists at the World Trade Center?
Both very valid questions, in my opinion. I certainly can't see the difference… “Right and wrong” and “good and evil” are universal truths. There are actions that are wrong or evil, no matter what politics or religion or skin colour are put behind it… At our core, we all understand this, but with the “education” of society, we are able to overlook these truths and commit horrible attrocities if they suit the needs of our masters.
Aaaaanyways… I have a few programming tasks, and I'll do at least a small image update today (nothing too big though, sorry, it's going to have to wait until tomorrow). I washed the poor Vette, and tomorrow it goes in to be re-geared (that was supposed to be done last fall, but we didn't have time). Some time I have to redo the interior as well (I hate the 1974 interior, I should never have sold the '77). And now, six pix:
Yay! My Corvette is back! It even started easily, after having not been started since the fall… It's whining a little, but it has to go in anyway to be regeared, so I'm not too concerned. However, let me give all of you a warning — if you plan on lending your little sister your 500 HP Corvette, don't be too surprised when it comes back with a few scratches and a LOT of mud. I'm guessing she drove it through a corn field:
As someone who pays taxes both in Canada and the US, I found this document on IRS civil rights violations quite interesting… To be honest, given their Constitution (and the way they were tricked into it during the war), I'm amazed Americans are even willing to pay taxes at all…
Just had a nice dinner at Cafe 668 with Derek… And later tonight my Corvette will be here! Woo woo! It's coming out of winter storage, at least that's one thing I like about summer. My sister on the other hand is not thrilled I'm sure — up until today she was the 18 year old girl driving an overpowered sidepiped 74 Vette.
Oh, I wanted to mention something else about tracking/userview logging. Iam.code is not the only way to do it. There are lots of online counters and javascript tricks that can track not just your username but your IP number and what users page you viewed before the current one, etc… So there are two ways that I could handle tracking:
- Decide it's “against the rules” and add it to the TOS. Then I could write a filter that stopped people from using Javascript of ANY kind, as well as killing off iam.code, and removing custom layout (since you could make it generate an undetectable Javascript module). However, a clever person could easily bypass this… Which would mean that “honest” users couldn't do it, but any sneaky supervillian could.
- Allow it, and make it so blatantly obvious, that because it's no secret, it's harder to abuse. By taking this route, it also allows people to have Javascript, Custom Layout, and iam.code.
So…. Do you still really want to live in boringland?
PS. I'm very sad that Julien aka Martin didn't make the final cut on Popstars. I was rooting for you! (OK, I know it wasn't really Julien, but it reallllly looked like him, especially if you've met Julien in person).
Finally, I know many of you know my friend and business partner Mr. E (no, not that kind of E)… Anyway, he's spending the next two or three months in Central and South America (and is considering buying land in Costa Rica)… He sent me the following pictures before getting on a boat to spend the next week diving in the Galapagos:
