JJB Blog

on 4/30/2004

. 0 Comments

Wow.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3674355.stm

“The naked prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his genitals was t
old that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, CBS said”

. . .

“The political debate in America has turned now to the issue of the numbers of
US soldiers dying in Iraq.

ABC’s Nightline, an influential evening current affairs television programme, i
s to hold a reading tonight of all the names of the American dead.”

. . .

“Adnan Al-Pachachi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said it would crea
te a great deal of anger and discontent among Iraqis already concerned about se
curity in the country.

But he rejected a comparison with the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib pris
on near Baghdad during the days of Saddam Hussein.

‘I don’t think you can compare the two. Saddam Hussein’s prisoners were not onl
y tortured but executed. It was much worse than what is there now.’

One of the suspended soldiers, Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, said the way the
army ran the prison had led to the abuse.

‘We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of comma
nd for certain things… like rules and regulations,” he told CBS. “It just was
n’t happening.’”

Krugman is pissed

Published

on 4/30/2004

. 0 Comments

Here are some choice selections from today’s Kruman column. This is officially
his “we’re fucked” column.

source: http://
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/opinion/30KRUG.html

“Some say we should send more troops. But the U.S. military doesn’t have more t
roops to send, unless it resorts to extreme measures, like withdrawing a large
part of the forces currently in South Korea. Did I mention that North Korea is
building nuclear weapons, and may already have eight?”

. . .

“And by the way, much of the Arab world believes that we’ve been committing war
crimes in Falluja.”

. . .

“I don’t have a plan for Iraq. I strongly suspect, however, that all the plans
you hear now are irrelevant. If America’s leaders hadn’t made so many bad decis
ions, they might have had a chance to shape Iraq to their liking. But that wind
ow closed many months ago.”

When liberators are worse than tyranny

Published

on 4/25/2004

. 0 Comments

An excerpt from today’s Friedman column, which talks about America’s reputation
in the middle east:

source: http://
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/opinion/25FRIE.html

“Consider what happened in Basra on Wednesday: Some residents spontaneously sto
ned British troops coming to rescue Iraqi schoolgirls who were caught up in the
suicide bombings of Basra police stations. These were our best friends in Iraq
— the Shiites — stoning the British, while they were trying to rescu
e Iraqi children attacked by Islamist terrorists.

That’s what we’re now up against. It is the wrath of a local population that ha
s begun to view its liberators as worse than occupiers — because they can’
t even provide what tyranny does, i.e. control and security, which are the nece
ssary foundations for economic or political development.”

ITP offer of admission declination

Published

on 4/23/2004

. 0 Comments

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:01:59 -0500 (CDT)
From: John Joseph Bachir
To: Dan Sandford
Subject: ITP offer declination

Hi Dan, I spoke with you on the phone today. I'm writing this to formally
decline the ITP offer of admission, due to financial reasons. There's a
good chance that I will be applying again next year, with new box-checking
wisdom.

Thanks,
John

Insufficient disk space; try again later

Published

on 4/21/2004

. 0 Comments

Friendster might want to consider setting up some less embarrassing error messages.

Apple’s Airport strategy

Published

on 4/20/2004

. 0 Comments

Apple has introduced two new products to the Airport [http://www.apple.com/airport/
specs.html
A version of the Airport base station which natively accepts power over etherne
t (power over ethernet is part of the 802.3af [http://www.macupdate.com/i
nfo.php/id/14758
Software to administrate an enterprise of base stations. Configuration files ca
n be uploaded to many base stations simultaneously, and the status of each can
be viewed from one place.

These two things are a great idea. Combined with the Airport’s performance and
ease of use, this makes for a very attractive solution for people designing wir
eless networks.

But there is something missing. The current base stations all have dual Etherne
t ports and routing capabilities, which make them very flexible, easy to use, a
nd economical solutions for home users and small business. Just jack your broad
band modem and a switch into the airport, and you instantly have a wired and wi
reless network. But for someone deploying 50 base stations, chances are that th
ey both (a)won’t need the routing or dual ethernet capabilities for the bulk of
their network and (2)even in the places in their network where they do need mu
ltiple ethernet and routing (like, for example, wherever it is that all the oth
er Airports plug in, which is probably a $400 switch/router from Lucent or some
thing), they will need capabilities far more advanced than what the Airport bas
e station offers.

Apple should offer an “access point” base stations, that has neither dual ether
net nor routing capabilities, and maybe other features that an enterprise might
need. How about, instead of the external antenna port, this version comes with
a beefy antenna to begin with? Then, offer this version at a reduced price. Sa
y, $199 or maybe even $150. A cheaper access point version that still had the q
uality and ease of use of the rest of the Airport family would make for a very
attractive overall solution for network designers.

Then again, maybe the overhead of designing, manufacturing, and marketing an ex
tra product would cancel out any savings had from ripping out the ethernet and
processing hardware.

ITP acceptance acceptance

Published

on 4/19/2004

. 0 Comments

Jeff [http://www.grayfuse.com] who also g
ot accepted to ITP [http://itp.nyu.edu] brough
t to my attention that I can accept the offer now and back out pretty much any
time before the fall, if I am willing to pay the $300 down payment. This neurot
ic, indecisive, procrastinatory, noncommittal solution had never crossed my min
d before. But it’s perfect. The letter is signed and my check is written, and t
hey are happily tucked and sealed into an addressed and stamped security envelo
pe. I suppose there is still a slight chance that the envelope won’t actually b
e sent tomorrow.

What kind of postmodernist are you?

Published

on 4/18/2004

. 0 Comments

Here are my results from the What Kind of Postmodernist Are You quiz. It’s pretty entertaining. I’m not entirely sure what the image has to do with me being a theory slut. I guess she looks pretty hip and with the potential for being pensive, which I relate to. And I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if she had an awesome tattoo on her back, like a telegraph clicker or a Gutenberg press, both of which I aspire to having tattooed on my back. But I’m not sure what that has to do with theory. Also, the word “slut” is in my postmodernist type, and the image is of a scantily clad female. I’m pretty sure that they aren’t trying to make a connection between the common usage of “slut” and the metaphorical one found in the typology. But they risked that ambiguity by selecting this photo. Does my analysis make me even more of a theory slut? I will stop typing now.

(At the end of the test they let you see the entire typology, which I found ver
y entertaining.)

You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the
postmodernists, you collect avant-garde
Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal
articles for breakfast. You positively live
for theory. It really doesn’t matter what
kind, as long as the words are big and the
paragraph breaks few and far between.

What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nader Says Impeach Bush

Published

on 4/17/2004

. 2 Comments

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 21:58:14 -0400
From: volunteers@l&#
105;sts.votenader
;.org

<snip>

Don’t Forget about our Call for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Bush
and Vice President Cheney.  George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be
impeached for two reasons:

   1. They led the United States into an illegal, unconstitutional war in Iraq.
   2. They misled the Congress and the American people with five falsehoods
that led to war.

If you haven’t signed already, please go to
http://www.VoteNade
r.org/get_involved/impeach.php , to sign the petition now.

All it takes is one Member of the House of Representatives to call for an
Impeachment Inquiry to start the process to investigate.  Ralph Nader has
issued a press release urging an Impeachment Inquiry that provides more
details on these points, if you want to read more, visit
http://www.VoteNader.org
/media_press/?cid=15.

<snip>

Apple denies Real

Published

on 4/17/2004

. 3 Comments

Zane sent me this article: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1082142779.html which claims that Apple turning down a relationship with Real is similar to their refusal to license its operating system to other hardware vendors, which many claim is the reason that Apple lost market share in the late 80s and early 90s while IBM clones sprang up all of the place making for a cheap and bundant environment for Microsoft to spread it’s evil seed.

I think the analogy isn’t great. It might be sort of similar from a business point of view, but in terms of technology and user choice, it’s not at all. The iPod can play any old mp3, mp4, wav, or aiff, and they aren’t trying very hard to lock out hackers (people are putting custom stuff, including linux, on ipods). Same with iTunes… there is a Windows version and it plays all the formats from any source.

With the iPod and the iTunes Music Store (ITMS), Apple is #1 in terms of user experience quality, sound quality, AND market share. Which was not the case when they were refusing hardware clones.

Also the whole iPod/iTunes/ITMS system is very flexible. they can adjust their price structure and interoperability at any time.

Not to mention that the whole digital media scene is going to change a lot over the next five years or so, and maybe I am naive, but I get the feeling that Apple is trying to be as unevil as possible while still making money. They do have copy protection built into their ITMS files, and don’t allow anything but iTunes or an iPod to play ITMS files (unless of course you burn them to CD first, then you can do whatever you want with them). But they did build music sharing over a network directly into iTunes, which is potentially a partial “solution” to stealing of copyrighted files. Also they have signed a good number of independent artists to distribute through the ITMS. Don’t get me wrong, I think the music industry is pretty much completely evil and I condone the stealing of music that is distributed by any of the big five. (For more info, see http://www.downhillbattle.org and http://www.whatacrappypresent.com).

But back to the issues of closed platforms and partnerships with other companies. Even with OS X, it is pretty much widely accepted that they have a x86 version sitting around ready if they need it. This is probably the case with all the i-applications too. And my guess is
they even have elaborate xcode support for seamless multi-target development, maybe even with single-binary deployment (if you are running Mac OS X, control-click on any application and select “Show Package Contents”; the apps are structured to contain binaries
and resources for multiple platforms).

Also, Real? I don’t know the numbers but my feeling for a long time has been that they are a flailing company with bad products. The user experience is certainly pretty terrible, at least on OS X. When I have a choice between Real and Microsoft media, I choose Microsoft.