December 2003

Are you your stories?

December 31, 2003

Dave Winer asks a question on Scripting News today. The question is a bit of a different form, but one that I've often contemplated. What is reality? Is your "reality" and my reality the same? Is each person's reality so shaped by their perception and experience that is is unique? Dali asks the same question in this painting. Is it possible for people to be more than the sum of their stories. Does anything other than your stories, those you have lived, show you the swans first or the elephants?

12 or 15 inches?

December 29, 2003

The 12-inch powerbook stayed at home this trip. Instead I brought the 15-inch machine. All around it is a great machine. It is obviously not as compact. Since I recently recovered the drive from a client's Ti-Book that had suffered from a glass of water on the keyboard I am more sensitive to liquids around the computers these days. This brings me to the observation that one of the advantages of the 12-inch is that it fits on the tray in an aircraft with room for drinks and snacks beside it. With the 15-incher you're left to hand hold your cup and can of soda or bottle of beer while the machine is out.

Departing for Denver

December 29, 2003

In Las Vegas at McCarran Airport awaiting the winged chariot to carry us home to Denver. It's been a wonderful few days. I didn't get as much done on some of my PHP projects as I should have but I'll catch up on the flight and at home tonight. Still have a broken knob on the fireplace so there will be no fire, but there will be dogs to keep the feet warm. I'm trying to upload pictures now but they keep stalling. Some pictures show Las Vegas as the city prepares for the New Year's celebration. It's been cold out west. The longer we stay the colder it gets. The song of the moment is Simon and Garfunkel's Homeward Bound. Less than two MB has transfered and it says it's getting all of 2.3KB/s.... pictures will have to wait until later. Otherwise I've been pretty impressed with the cell connection this trip.

Rainy Christmas in the west

December 25, 2003

Back in Indian Springs for the first holiday in more than a decade. Rain is coming in fits and starts. Stepping off the plane in Las Vegas yesterday it was actually cooler than when we left Denver. A beautiful and quiet day. The last of the leaves are being blown from the nearly barren trees. Holiday greetings are being sent.

Merry Christmas everyone

December 24, 2003

Paraphrasing Dickens' Tiny Tim: "Merry Christmas, everyone." Christmas morning has already made it's way to Australia and New Zealand among others. Having always celebrated Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere thoughts of going to the beach for Christmas are still a little hard to reconcile. It's been a long year with many sad times and many times to celebrate. As we gather with family for the holidays, listen to beautiful music, and share special times with friends there will be so very much to remember. Christmas will take me to the family homestead for the first time in many years.

The orgin of candy canes...

December 23, 2003

A friend sent me a note today about the orgins of candy canes. According to the note they orignate from a desire to create a symbol of Christianity. Here is a pretty well reasoned description of what their true orgin likely is.

Internet Explorer and img align tags

December 22, 2003

Anybody know why the <img align="right" (or left for that matter) causes images to not show up in this page? I'm thinking it must be something to do with a quirk in CSS but don't know for sure. It is making a "hole" in the text the right size for the image, but not displaying the image.

The value of orange

December 22, 2003

This morning on a Search and Rescue mailing list we recieved the following message:

FYI . . I have an defective orange jacket made by Blauer that I needed to replace, seems they are not making the jackets in orange any more? Below is the information that Blauer sent to me why orange is not longer available

In 2004, Orange will not be an ANSI certified color by OSHA. This means
that the uniform manufacturers have already done as we have and eliminated this color from most of their lines. REASON BEING THAT 17% OF THE POPULATION IS COLOR BLIND AND CANNOT SEE THE ORANGE COLOR.

Interesting, my dog's shabrack is orange, guess they will have to hear her coming? Most of my jackets are orange also. Will be interesting to see if they change hunters clothing???

Ninth Circuit rules against administration

December 18, 2003

"...[W]e simply cannot accept the government's position that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement.

A portion of the decision handed down today by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the confinement of enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.The

Using Proxy.pac in OS X 10.3.2

December 18, 2003

Having downloaded OS X 10.3.2 today here is how to setup a proxy.pac file.

  1. Go to the System Preferences
  2. Select the Network panel
  3. Select the connection you want to edit and the network port you are wanting to edit.
  4. Select Proxies from the right tab at the top of the window
  5. Scroll to the bottom and select "Automatic Proxy Configuration"
  6. Enter the address of your proxy.pac configuration file (usually something like (http://servername.com/proxy.pac).

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