Fri Dec 30, 2005
I've started a LiveJournal (
http://www.livejournal.com/users/capj/)
as a continuation of this weblog. See
http://www.livejournal.com/users/capj/366.html
or
http://www.livejournal.com/users/capj/2005/12/29/
for the first entry. See
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=capj
for my introductory user page.
Sun Sept 4, 2005
Here's the Livejournal (
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor)
of a man who stayed in New Orleans and kept an ISP running downtown
using an onsite power generator -- quite an "Omega Man" story, or
scenario. They had a live cam going the whole time, plus a guy going
around taking pictures. They didn't seem to be in a flooded area in the
CBD (Central Business District).
Here are some retro postings from before the inception of this blog:
Mon Aug 8, 2005
I don't usually write about political matters on this weblog,
but this news is too good to keep quiet: The first 25 years of Access
to Energy (AtE) is now online!
http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/atearchive/
Fight the watermelon meme-virus! See
my
Science page.
Thurs Aug 4, 2005
Interesting article on work and productivity: "What Business Can Learn
From Open Source":
http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html.
"The basic idea behind office hours is
that if you can't make people work, you can at least prevent them from
having fun."
That one prompted an instant laugh from me.
Sometimes
it certainly seems that way. In work, not only do you have to be
productive, but you have to be there at 8:00AM and be productive even
if you are dead tired. It's pretty tough.
One thing that the article doesn't mention is that the "employee model"
that ended in about the 1970s -- in which someone would work for one
company his entire professional life -- was dependent upon capital
accumulation. The increasingly business-hostile climate which has its
roots in the 19th Century finally broke that model by about the 1970s.
Now we are going back to a model of individual artisanship which
existed before the time of significant protection of individual
property rights. By "significant" I mean that the government wouldn't
come after you if you started to make over hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year (in today's money). Of course the government has been
doing this via income tax, antitrust suits and "regulation" (real
regulation is a function of the free market) since the 19th Century.
You can't raise up the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer!
Today, the belief is "If it moves, tax it. If it's still moving after
that, "regulate" it. When it finally stops moving, subsidize it." Is it
any wonder that it's hard to get a job today?
Wed Aug 3, 2005
The email forward to end email forwards (
http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~sivann/pub/swf/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf)
- also posted on
my
emailfwds page (which link has succumbed to character duplication
-- it is supposed to be "emailfwds/emailfwdss.htm#FwdToEndFwds" and any
character duplication in
that
should be clear).
Tues Aug 2, 2005
Added link in the Queen Of Wands section of
my Humor page (QofW) to illustration which
expresses a pet peeve.
Mon Aug 1, 2005
Here's a little puzzle from the July/Aug
Analog (
http://www.analogsf.com), "The
Keeper's
Riddle":
A CHILD SHALL LEAD,
A CHILD MUST READ.
ONCE IN LIFE AND TWICE IN RESURRECTION.
IN WIND AND IN FIRE.
THE BEGINNING AND
END OF STARS.
WHEN IT LEAVES TIME.
IN WORDS BUT NOT WISDOM.
WE ENTER.
It's intended to be figured out by the first child or young person
capable
of doing so, in order to specify an eight-character password. Then it
unlocks
"The Keeper" and gives the child more knowledge, and system access.