January 2001

• Microsoft: Silence of the Flaks looks back at the PR response to Microsoft's servers being unavailable last week.
• Couple catalog their junk mail and come up with almost 500 pounds of mail-order catalogs.
• VenturaLand is a new comic devoted to the doings of our governor. He's thinking of suiing them, since he's trademarked his likeness. The Jesse Ventura Page has all the stories.
• I've lost so much interest in major-league sports over the past few years that I didn't even bother to find out the score of the super bowl until this morning (and then I didn't try, but I knew it would be impossible to avoid it and still check the news on the web). For that matter, I didn't even try to check out the Superbowl Ads.

  I'm currently reading Coming Apart at the Seams which discusses the labor troubles that led up to the baseball strike of 1993. Which happened after I'd started going to Saint Paul Saints games. I think I've been to four or five MLB games since that strike, and only two were in Minneapolis. The rest were in other cities, and mostly to see a park that was going to go away. I make it to over twenty Saints games every year.

  I really hope Major League Baseball gets their labor and financial problems sorted out before the contract expires (at the end of the 2001 season) and there's another major strike or lockout, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. But there are only 17 more days until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training 2001.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 29, 2001     January 29 in History

• I posted some of the pictures I took at Como Zoo - 2001-01-21 and some pictures of the Old Federal Reserve Building in Minneapolis taken on the 25th.
• Despair trademarks frowny emoticon and plans to sue over 7 million Internet users. Oh, and to clarify things, if you read to the end of the article, you'll see the text: Articles and items appearing in our "Recent Spin" are satirical and are not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the persons, companies or events depicted within them.
  On the other hand, the USPTO seems to have fallen for the joke, too. see Despair Registered Trademark.
• Shades of Big Brotherism - UK police plan to DNA test everyone.
• John Gilmore of the EFF explains What's Wrong With Content Protection. And Ron Rivest (the R in RSA) thinks it's a good education.
• The Strib ran a list of Laws Minnesotans would change. They've missed quite a few, but any laws that get taken off the books will be a start.
• The Bancroft Arnesen Expedition continues to plug across Antarctica.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 26, 2001     January 26 in History

• North Metro Humane Society Closing

Weather in Minneapolis for January 24, 2001     January 24 in History

• I have a new political essay looking at The state of the Bill of Rights. It ain't good.
• The fast fall of VirtualFund.com describes a company I used to work for.
• The DOJ's Cybercrime Guide for Searching and Seizing Computers is interesting reading. As Bruce Schneier points out in his most recent Crypto-Gram, it's fun to search the document for keywords like palm, pager or trip-wire. The DOJ doesn't seem to think much of the 4th Amendment.
• Scarfo case could test cyber-spying tactic. A case where the FBI used a keyboard- sniffer to get around PGP encryption. They may not have had a valid warrant, but when has that stopped 'em? The sad thing is that Scarfo knew he was being watched (they'd already seized one of his computers) and still got busted. He clearly assumed that software security without physical security was good enough. And it wasn't.
• Stringent Steps Taken by U.S. on BSE. Now. Ten years after the initial regulations were put in place.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 22, 2001     January 22 in History

• Two new printing-related essays on the Polaschek Computing website: The smoothing algorithm in the LaserWriter and A printing class for classic and carbon
• A roomful of computer with a handful of power. The oldest surviving intact computer. It lives in Australia.
• Software patents are Patently idiotic.
• The Register launches VultureFone[trademark]. A cool little hack. Sadly, my provider ain't listed. Boo.
• Things to Say When You're Losing a Technical Argument.
• Apple matters, just not as much as it used to. Written before MacWorld.
• Prostitutes used to tempt IT staff. No word of this behavior having spread to the US.
• Does dsniff spell The End of SSL and SSH? The article dsniff and SSH counters by pointing out the Man In The Middle attacks aren't new, and the protocols do include mechanisms to prevent MITM attacks. But they're usually disabled for the sake of convenience. Finally The End of SSL and SSH? Follow-up fires back with more practical considerations that cause problems.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 19, 2001     January 19 in History

• I've updated my page of Dave's Photos to collect links to the various pages of pictures I've put on the web. I also updated the Vacation 2000 and Downtown Minneapolis pages.
• Crosstown Hwy. will be closed for repairs beginning in 2002. This is one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in Minneapolis currently. I used to have to drive through it every day. I'm much happier now that I don't have to. Segments of the interchange now carry more vehicles than they're designed for 14 hours a day. Oof.
• Stillwater bridge plans halted. While the current situation in Stillwater isn't very good (downtown is often jammed with cars trying to cross the river), I'm not sure that putting in a new bridge is the right answer, either. It'll make a large part of Wisconsin an easier commute, which will lead to increased development there. And none of the plans for a new bridge included provisions for anything other than cars, usually with just one person in each of 'em.
• After years of study, Light rail is a go in Twin Cities area. Which is a pretty good thing, since construction had already started on the first line. In all, this was an encouraging process. Yes, it's still taking a ton of federal money, but the county and state made big commitments first.
• Sprawl Watch
• Smart Growth America
• Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy
• Loss of rural land accelerating in MN. But there's still a lot of open space left.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 15, 2001     January 15 in History

• I put up a quick and dirty page with my Vacation 2000 photos. I'll flesh it out later, but it was time to get something available online.
• I've also put together pages with pictures of Downtown Minneapolis and A walk by the river I took last fall.
• How Washington Thinks reminds us that a corrupt society has many laws.
• Tourism corrodes soul of Cuban revolution. Poor Fidel.
• CCOPS' Letter to George W. Bush. CCOPS is Concerned Citizens Opposed to Police States. They have some suggestions for President-elect Dubya.
• Reporters should be Treating politicians with due respect. Well, unless there's a bucket of hot tar and some feathers handy.... Wait. That is due respect.
• Gun groups call for AOL boycott over the company's firing of three employees for having guns safely locked in their vehicles while parked at work.
• Have you read Jeff Cooper's Commentaries? The Colonel is a fine example of a grumpy old man. Today a bachelor's degree from a prominent university is not nearly as significant as a high school diploma was 50 years ago. We have millions of degrees today, while the onrush of ignorance threatens to engulf us. and every hunt is a qualified triumph, whereas every election is a qualified disaster. Amen.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 12, 2001     January 12 in History

• New year on ice is an ode to ice angling. It's that time of the year again, though the above-freezing temperatures the past few days make me wonder.
• Huh! I just discovered that the Minnesota Center for Book Arts is just across the river from me. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a membership there sometime soon.
• Hugs For Homeless Animals has a list of an awful lot of animal shelters. If you live in a metropolitan area where there are multiple shelters, this is probably the quickest way to find 'em all. And maybe find yourself a new pet.
• Boardwatch had a feature on the Unsung Heroes of the Internet. History a lot of people don't remember (or never heard in the first place).

Weather in Minneapolis for January 8, 2001     January 8 in History

• Darling, Will You Spend The Next Six To Ten Years With Me?
  A proposal, Onion-style.
• Brass Knuckles Webzine - The Firestone tire of the information superhighway There's some decent humor here, and it's a pretty catchy slogan.
• Something Awful has some good humor. The Touring Mexico Guide was what caught my attention initially.
• GeekPress says it has Tech News, Sifted and Summarized. I'm not sure about that, but it's hardly the worst site out there for a quick news fix. And at least they're not as serious as The Register.

Weather in Minneapolis for January 5, 2001     January 5 in History

• As the new year opens, I find myself wondering about the point of this exercise. I find links, and a few folks seem to enjoy 'em, but I'm not finding as many brand new sites as I used to. I'm finding links to items within sites. And I find myself wondering if this is because there aren't new voices out there on the net, or whether it's a matter of me having gotten too lazy to actually hunt out the new stuff.
• BBspot - Your Tech Humor Source
• HowStuffWorks.com is pretty cool. Not only that, it started with one guy writing all the articles. Now it's a real company. I hope they manage to make enough money to keep it running.
• Mandate for Net filters debated - If Texas public schools don't block porn from their computers, they could lose as much as $123 million in federal money. Once again, the US government is regulating by extortion. And of course, it's in the name of protecting children.
• What we can do after Wakefield is allow law-abiding folks to carry firearms. Well, or just shoot the idiots who abuse firearms in public, but it boils down to the same thing.
• The Register's Everything you wanted to know about CPRM, but ZDNet wouldn't tell you is a quick overview of what's bad about the proposal to add copy protection to generic hardware. CNet suckered by CPRM spin gives you a picture of the spin that's going on.
• Pentium 4 Slower Than Its Predecessor - it's at the NY Times, so you need to register, but it's nice to see the mainstream press finally notice that there's more to speed than megahertz.
• Alan Bock is Waiting for politicians to catch up and lead in ending the war on (some) drugs. Ahem. Prohibition worked so well in the thirties. And why are we trying it again?

Weather in Minneapolis for January 1, 2001     January 1 in History