February 2005

Rather disturbing

February 16, 2005

The New York Times has an article that retells how blogs played a role in forcing Eason Jordan resignation from CNN. The most disturbing part is buried at the bottom of the story. The comments Jordan made were at a session that was officially "off the record". Honestly, I haven't followed much of what was going on with this because it seems a non-story.

It is, however, disconcerting that a journalist, be it citizen journalist/blogger or professional journalist, does not respect the idea of being off the record. Stop for a minute and consider if Deep Throat had any reason to believe that Bob Woodward would not keep his word and protect the source would he have talked?

So which is it?

February 15, 2005

This article in the Las Vegas Sun discusses the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by District Judge Don Mosley claiming that he was improperly penalized by a disciplinary committee.

The third paragraph reads "Mosley, asked today whether he would appeal the ruling, said he is considering his options and "a decision should be made fairly soon."" And the seventh paragraph reads "Mosley was out of town and could not be reached for comment."

Wait a minute here, which is it? Is he saying that he'll make a decision soon or that he's out of town?

Concerned about online identity theft?

February 13, 2005

The Better Business Bureau recently released a report that indicates identity theft is more frequently committed offline than online. The report found that in spite of rising fears about identity theft and online fraud that old-fashioned physical loss or theft of wallet, checkbooks or credit cards accounts for nearly a third of all identity theft. Thefts stemming from online sources including computer spyware, online transactions, computer viruses & hackers, and phishing scams combined accounted for less than fifteen percent of all identity crimes.

Another important finding of the study is that people who use online methods to keep track of their accounts are likely to find out about identity crimes much sooner than those who rely on paper statements. The average loss for those monitoring online was $551 compared to $4,543 for those who rely on paper statements.

Dialup - or how Ground Control managed to make my connection not work

February 13, 2005

WIth thanks to the folks at Ground Control and Direcway I'm once again using a dialup connection for the next week or two. Having had plenty of problems with the "Web Acceleration" of Direcway causing problems I decided to place a call to the satellite provider's 24x7 tech support.

First off it took several hours and in excess of twenty calls to have a single conversation. Every time I'd talk the satellite voice over IP connection on the other end would die and that was it. Once we got through that it turns out that the unnecessary "reset your DirecWay 4020" request was not only unnecessary, but also prevented my connection from working. So I was promised a call back in half an hour (the customer service manager and DirecWay's help desk were both not responding according to the customer service representative). Two hours later still no call. Being one to give the benefit of the doubt I thought maybe it was taking longer and waited until this morning.

A very rude customer service rep did everything but claim I'd been out moving the dish all night and instead of offering any sort of apology for the inconvenience and damages caused by Ground Control's errant attempts to solve a problem related to the cache on DirecWay's server, I'm now without connections. Once the problem is resolved I can share my customer service experience with Satellite World in Henderson, Nevada.

He could not seem to grasp that a user might expect a company which claims: Ground Control maintains an internal staff of highly trained satellite technicians. We know business satellite Internet. should be expected to not cause more problems. If, as the person this morning claimed, the problem is because of a "moved" dish then prior to starting the procedure, which again had nothing to do with the problem, that this procedure could fail if your dish has moved in the slightest.

DirecWay and XML-RPC

February 11, 2005

Last month I posted about DirecWay problems with MarsEdit. It occurred to me today that the problem may instead lie with the way DirecWay does "Web Acceleration" and that it could be interfering with the XML-RPC calls.

A quick search reveals that this indeed seems to be Direcway XML-RPC problem. The author of the WordPress article suggests it is related to latency. I'm not certain as it was working for me at one point over the satellite connection. I noticed, however, a problem with DirecWay's cache last night. At one point it attempted to load this site and munged the .css files associated with it. From then the only way I could load the site was to power-cycle the DirecWay box and load it before the Web Acceleration kicked in.

So I called Ground Control tech support and they say there is nothing that can be done. They recommend contacting the author of the software to have the problem with their system fixed.

Half-time controversy

February 11, 2005

This year's Super Bowl half-time show is causing complaints for the FCC. By Monday the FCC had received four complaints about the half-time show amongst 33 comments overall. Last year's Janet Jackson half-time show generated only three complaints compared to the four about this year's show. According to MediaWeek people complained about the reference to California grass in McCartneys' song, suggesting it is a reference to marijuana and two others felt the show was boring or unimpressive.

Nevada political happenings

February 10, 2005

The Committee to regulate and control marijuana is unhappy with Nevada Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins' comments at the opening of the 2005 session of the Nevada Legislature.

Meanwhile on the National scene The Red State Rebel takes issue with the GOP's anti-Harry Reid memo from earlier this week. Among other things the memo labels Reid's efforts to block conservative judicial appointments as blocking a Republican "talkathon," on delaying tactics.

Back in the Air (Sort of)

February 10, 2005

I got to fly again today (sort of). We have been planning a multi-ship mission all week with the intent to fly it in a sophisticated multi-person simulator called the AVCATT. We had a practice flight today.

The AVCATT consists of two trailers. Within the trailers are six rooms, each of which simulates a cockpit. There is also a conrol room where the Battle Master Commander (BMC) can control every aspect of the mission environment. He can add enemy or friendly forces, change the weather, bring in artillery, or create aircraft malfuntions. It makes for an experience very much like a really cool video game.

I was the pilot in charge of my aircraft because I was paired up with a Luitenant who had never flown a Blackhawk at all. Compared to her, therefore, I was a veteran. It was fun to try and teach her a little bit about the hawk while flying the mission. We brought a load to troops to the LZ, returned to base, picked up HumVees on sling loads, and then brought them back to the troops we had dropped off.

We did not have to worry about enemy activity today since we were just practicing. Tomorrow will be more challenging.

We the people

February 10, 2005

It is not too uncommon to see the West Wing television show have some important points about governance and the process of governing. With the help of Lawrence Lessig last evening's show made a very important point about constitutional democracries. It is the culture not the document that matters. There is a critical lesson here for Iraq. One country, group of people, military, etc., no matter how well-meaning can choose the form of government for another people. Perhaps the most important phrase in the United States Constitution is "We the People," not you the former subjects of an evil dictator, not you the people of China, but We the People.

Science gives way to hype

February 9, 2005

The Hubble telescope is coming to the end of its run. Next year will mark the 15-year life-span originally planned for the super-important craft. NASA says it will move on in favor of return trips to the moon and beyond (Mars). It is unfortunate, while the idea of going to the moon again may have a popular appeal, the money spent could be used to do much more, truly scientific work that has substantial value in uncovering the history of the universe.

Pages