EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy, say so, I respect that. Be aware, though, that I am (usually) human and make mistakes.

Good Morning. Well, I was up too late last night... I took a little time for Brian at the end of the day and played Diablo II for a bit, which stretched into about 4 hours. I finally got to bed around midnight which was not exactly brilliant, but there you go.

During the day, Tom and I hacked through 20 and bits of 27, the chapters we're working on. Both should be in the maw of IDG during the next day or so. Then another two in late this week is the next part of the plan. We're getting close, I can taste it. Also, I managed to finish installing the APC units on Grendel and the HP, and got the monitoring software working on all operating systems. I cleaned up the porch a bit, relegated the AC to the garage until summer strikes again, and took down the squirrel cage, because it was too ugly to leave up. All in all, a very productive day.

News of the world and Linux and such: Bill the Lame Duck heads to Middle East. So the question becomes, can Arafat and Barak decide which man they want to be the next President? Because if Clinton is allowed to "succeed", then analysts think that could help the Gore camp quite a bit. And he needs the help, since the Republicans have about double the available war chest for advertising/campaigning.... OpenOffice slides into home, safe. Formerly called StarOffice, the code for this suite was mostly released under either the GPL or one of those Sun Community somthing-or-other Licenses (you choose, and what code you get depends on your choice). Apparently, both the spell checker and all of the printing code are non-releaseable due to their provenance. This is probably a good thing, especially on the spelling side. It really should use native tools where available, and with ispell loaded on virtually every *NIX system extant (including most Linuxen), why re-invent the wheel. They just need to write a good interface for it. Personally, I'd like to see it make use of the same resources as GDict, the gnome online dictionary tool. That'd be cool.

Now it's time to go, and put in a full-ish day at the office. Take care, peoples.

Mornin'. Not a peachy morning, yet. I'm looking (for ETS) at testing labs, explicitly NRTL's (Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories, meaning they've paid Fed OSHA) or their independent subsidiaries. I went to one yesterday that doesn't ... quite meet the grade. We need not only the same type of safety testing that "UL" provides (but remember, UL is just one of the NRTL's, contrary to what they'll have you believe), but also performance testing to Category 5e standards. This includes NEXT (Near End Crosstalk), FEXT (Far End Crosstalk), Power Sum measurements and other doo-dahs that I don't fully understand unless the spec. is right in front of my eyeballs. This is harder to get than CAT5, and way easier than Category 6 is going to be.

For what? Oh, right, premise wiring equipment: patch panels, punchdown modules, keystone jacks, patch cables, hubs, switches ... the whole channel from machine to machine in modern networks. This is the "legacy" biz that ETS remains strong in, while we're building the audio/video over UTP line (which is going nicely, thank you very much). Anyway, today or tomorrow I am off to see ETL SEMKO, a division of InterTek -- these people should be able to meet our needs. One can always hope... Did I mention that along with MIS, Webmastering, Digital art and copy, mechanical and PCB design, that I am also saddled with regulatory??? <grin>

On the book front, progress is. Do you grok that? Anyway, I'm working on a chapter that is now called Serving Inside the Firewall. I went back to a clean install of Caldera's eDesktop after thrashing things about for security's sake, then resecured to basics. Now I can turn on services as necessary, make adjustments, learn things and write about them.

It's time to prepare for the rest of my day. Take care.

Howdy. Mid-week, no progress on the regulatory front, progress on the new PCB design front, no progress on the new ETS website, progress on a couple of key datasheets.... life goes on regardless. Film at 11.

Also progress on the book side of things - I was struggling away with DHCP, killing my local network, bringing it back to life, killing it again, and so on. Fortunately, Tom came to my rescue with another chapter, so that I had something I had a hope of working successfully with <grin>.

Bob Thompson put up a good post yesterday most "not about the Israeli/Palestinian troubles", but rather about the forcible ejection of American citizens from the Carolinas in order to re-settle unfairly treated Native Americans... OK, annoyingly, all of Bob's work is unusually well thought out, impeccably reasoned, and often (but not always) true. Again fortunately, some read my babble anyway...

Subject: The best thing about walls...
   Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 13:09:47 -0700
   From: Mike Garvey

(...is that there are never enough? )

Brian,

Regarding your statement on Friday,

 >[...]
 >
 >Go in, forcibly disarm everyone, put up a wall, a fence, whatever.
 >Embargo the whole region. Yeah, OK, poke food through holes in the
 >fence. Put'm in jail for being bad planetary citizens. Then, in 25
 >years or so, tear down the fence, and rehab those left standing.

This doesn't work either. Jerry and Niven used this as the premise for
their sequel to "The Mote in God's Eye", "The Gripping Hand". There
will always be those who can and will run the blockade and
"contaminate" the rest of the world with their conflicts of culture.
___________________________
Mike Garvey 

Oh, yes, I know... it's also like the chainlink fence around Niven's
open-air nuclear dump, posted with signs saying "Cross this line and
you will die!" There are those who will do so anyway, and die... 
Think of it as evolution in action, right?

But Bob's post for today put things in an interesting light, too.

Now it's time to head out to the Corporate side of my life. Have a lovely day. Perhaps something interesting will happen in the interim, like I'll figure out how to run DHCP. Oh, check out these numbers..., then explain to me why the stock is headed south, 'cause I sure don't understand! TTFN.

Welcome to the long, slow downslope of the Week. After much puttering and experimentation over the last couple of days, I found the style that should carry the next couple of chapters. This is a good thing, as (with luck) they'll simply fly from my fingertips. Who knows?

I wrote Bob Thompson a harassing letter yesterday about having ordered some book from Fatbrain, and not receiving it (although I avoided mentioning the word "vaporware"). He wrote back this AM, not understanding the stocking situation that the sellers are displaying... ah, well, it doesn't matter much right now. I can't afford the time to read the book, or the $$$ to build a new machine right at the moment - talk to me in a month.

Found one interesting read yesterday, in my copious spare time - this letter from David Brin, scientist and SF author (on my preferred list) about our current crop of political choices, and why he's going to vote the way he does... It's a horrid long download, unless ... wait a moment, let me see if I can give you a revised, fast-loading Slashdot URL version... Here it is, best I can do. If it doesn't work for you, then it'll be a 500K table that downloads before anything displays. But the article is excellent. Now to the mailbag -

Subject: Your Daily Posts
   Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 08:42:40 -0700
   From: "J. H. RICKETSON"

Brian - 

I had occasion to search your site for your Sunday reference to 
Jakob Nielsen's latest.(Also discussed in my today's Web 
Wanderings.) I was in a hurry - but I got the distinct impression 
that there was a lot more content than I see during my daily visits. 
Or did it just seem that way? I'm tempted to go back a few weeks 
and read it all 

- all the interesting things I couldn't remember seeing before. 
And that may be a clue - My memory is far from eidetic - and 
it does not improve with age. 

Regards,

JHR
 -- 
 J. H. RICKETSON
 [[email protected]]
 18/10/2000 8:36:08 AM
 Linuxen do it in a hammock, standing up. By choice. 
 Why? - " We've always done it that way!"

There are times when I look back and find that I've written rather a
lot of stuff... it's like anything else I suppose: The actual work
goes on, and the days go by in a blur, next thing you know, it's
next year, and I've written 5 million words... or whatever.

Fortunately, it's not like perspiration... I don't "work" to put
anything out, I don't edit what I write, I just one-draft it and hit
the save button. If I hate it later, oh well (usually).

Your writing carries that level of "freshness" as well.

Subject: 
   Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 08:26:40 -0400
   From: Chuck Waggoner <[email protected]>

> Oh, check out these numbers..., then explain to me why the 
> stock is headed south, 'cause I sure don't understand! 

  My take is that the ever stronger dollar--especially against a rapidly
falling Euro--presents the same situation as if a tariff on our goods had
been passed by the rest of the world.  Just as stocks climbed on bad
earnings reports for as long as the world market was open to us, now they
are in a slide, as our goods become too expensive for an increasing part of
the world's countries.

  For the last few days, CNBC has paraded CEO after CEO into interviews
where they have predicted no growth--if not a downright loss--in export
sales.

  All part of the roller coaster ride when governments let humans administer
interest rates and monetary policy, instead of tying currencies to gold and
letting the free market take care of it.

  Unfortunately, it looks as if this situation will likely cause our economy
to falter, which will ultimately cause the dollar to fall, and all that will
probably provide a couple years of buying opportunity before the next
upswing--if you've got anything to invest while the economy cools for a
while.

--Regards, Chuck

Hey, Chuck. 

Also, Jack (my boss) thinks that there is this "buy on anticipation,
sell on results" (regardless of the actual results!!!) philosophy 
that is gaining ground among the financial wonks. Sure doesn't make
sense to me.

I bought my first hunk of stock while in High School. Borrowed $1500
from my dad, and put it into Gulf & Western, approximately 6 weeks
prior to the release of Star Trek I. Three weeks after the movie
released, I was able to sell that stock, having doubled my money. 

Then I had an inkling about Lockheed that he didn't buy into, so I
didn't buy that stock... too bad, they shortly after won the
contract to build the stealth fighters, and that stock skyrocketed.

Now, of course, it's more like the hounds baying wildly as they run
off the cliff, and Bugs Bunny leans against the tree, gnawing on a
carrot, muttering "Maroons!"

We'll see. Personally, we're trying to hedge both ends against the
middle, and maintain a position that affords some flexibility
regardless of the market. Only time will tell if our strategy has
merit. You pays your money and takes your chances. No regrets.

Take care,

Bye for now. Later.

TGIF. Another long week is getting ready to blur into the next long week. The difference is that this weekend, I think I'll use the Gaussian RLE blur filter from the Gimp, to get me from Friday to Monday... Last night there was a failed delivery notice from the USPS on the door. Something from O'Reilly, but I am not expecting anything from O'Reilly. Hmmm. More on that later, after I hit the Post Office on my way home tonight. Now for some outtakes and email...

There's a SED one-liners page, handy for specific global edits. Linux.DaveCentral.com reminded me of the window manager Blackbox, which I need to re-try one of these days... just for fun. Finally, the GUI front end for the command line tool we've all been waiting for, TRUTH! This link courtesy of Karsten Self, off the SVLUG mailing list. Karsten's also running for President (of SVLUG) this next month, in competition against current VP Marc Merlin, self-proclaimed crazy French guy.

In an exchange with Bob Walder regarding the Prisoner...

Subject: Regarding the Prisoner...
   Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 08:22:23 -0700
     To: [email protected]

I've watched it the whole series several times over the years, and have
yet to come to any distinct conclusions regarding the meaning of it
all.  I've done the math that numerologically links the 17 episodes of
the Prisoner, the fate of the man known as Number 6, the motivations of
Number 1 and Number 2, and the license plate number KAR120C, it all
comes out to ... 42 ... for some reason.

Do have fun over at http://www.retroweb.com/prisoner.html, there's a lot
of snaps for the viewing.

later, brian

Subject: RE: Regarding the Prisoner...
   From: Bob Walder 

Brian,

If you like the series, I would recommend getting the DVD set - they cannot
do much with the sound other than clean it up (straight stereo track), but
the picture has been restored beautifully.

The question is - was no 6 no 1?

Regards,

Bob

The problem is that I don't think the whole series is out in Region 1 coding yet... Camel dung heaped upon the MPAA. Then there's more from Chuck on the financials...

Subject: RE: your mail
   Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 21:43:12 -0400
   From: Chuck Waggoner <[email protected]>

  Here's the really scary part.  According to a recent analysis I read which
was based on their latest SEC filing, Amazon has total debts of $2.2
billion, has yearly losses of $1.1 billion, owes $120 million yearly in
interest, but possesses assets of only $907.6 million cash/marketable
securities.  How much longer can THAT go on?

  And there are a ton of other well-known dot-com tech stocks in a similar
state--just not quite as many zeros on the end as Amazon.

  Although I haven't checked the math myself, one writer maintains
that--percentage-wise--the NASDAQ has lost more this year than the Dow did
in 1987 and--ready for this?--1929.

--Chuck

I can believe it. Of course, all of the money it's lost this year is
the same dot.com monopoly money it made last year. If you stretch
out the timeline a bit, I think we're probably doing OK...

Of course, I am probably blowing smoke, since I know bupkus, but just have a sense of things from the tenor of the buzz of the biz around me here in Silly Putty valley.

Lazy start to the day... I've been catching up on my Daynotes reading, following a link here and there, fun stuff. In recent days, there's been an animated discussion of the advantages/disadvantages of using a GUI to present the bootloader (aka do for Lilo what Grub has built in). While I have opinions on the topic, I've pretty much sat this one out... However, there was this contribution from the emminently quotable Don Marti:

On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 12:14:59AM -0700, Daevid Vincent wrote:

> By the way Karen, I wasn't cyring to the list for help, I was just jumping
> in to point out that there is an elitist click forming around the Linux
> community and it's not good...

Elitism is one of the best things about Linux.

Information technology projects without elitism pander to bad ideas to
win users, and flounder in a sea of bugs and bloat.

Elitism breeds elegance and reliability. All hail the defenders of the
faith! I trust only software that has been tempered in the forge of
flaming and mockery.

On the specific issue under discussion -- a GUI bootloader -- WTF
are you people smoking? The only reason to have it would be for
dual-booting, and dual-booting is for hobbyists who choose not to
value their time, and for advanced users with special needs. (example:
a company that reboots a bunch of computers as an ad-hoc render farm
at night.) Otherwise, dual-booting is a recipe for frustration. All
together now, "The application you need is always on the other OS."

-- 
Don Marti                                This email brought to you
[email protected]                           by the number 67 and the 
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/                  operator XOR.
whois DM683     Software patent reform now: http://burnallgifs.org/

You can get all the context you like by checking out the original thread, which starts here, and the follow-on thread, which starts over here. Just follow the "Next message" links...

Above, you'll see the unexpected (actually, unremembered) package from O'Reilly, the result of a sign-up at LWCE-SJ2000. Also, note that I still have tomatoes ripening on the vine... <g> Now, following that conversation with Tom, I really must get going. Have a lovely day. TTFN.

While I may appear lazy today, I have already reviewed a chapter for young Mr. Syroid, made the weekly run to Costco (got out for about $50, a new world's record), and more. Don't forget that I am an official O'Reilly Guinea Pig (see yesterday's post), as well.

Meantime, DSL got a little wonky yesterday, effectively no connectivity between about 12:30 and past my bedtime. It was there and fine this morning. I spent a grand total of 2.5 hours on hold yesterday with SBC and PBI support lines... they think it's the inside wiring... what??? When it goes away for 12 hours, then comes back full speed??? I don't think so. But anyway, I have a tech visit scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and I'll be researching SDSL from other providers, though it's considerably more expensive, there are SLA's that come with SDSL.

Now I have a chapter to finish up myself, thank you very much. So I'll be at that momentarily. Maybe back later. TTFN.