Daynotes 1999 week 41

Daynotes: Week of 11 - 17 Oct, 1999

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 41

* Link to: last modified 18:40 GMT+2 on 17.10.1999

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Monday 11 October

From one thing to another... Oh well, at least today, the subject of VBA and VBScript programming in Outlook, my current chapter task, stopped jell(o)ing (quiver, shiver, squirm) and actually gelled sufficiently that my writing began to fall into a structure and seem coherent, even to me.

Part of the problem was that I had not observed the shift in functionality from Outlook 98 to Outlook 2000, so that a lot of the documentation I saw was confusing me by flatly stating that you cannot program VBA in Outlook. That may have been true of OL98, but not of OL2k.

VBA in Outlook (in fact in all Office applications) is scary. Verily. The abbreviation stands for Visual Basic in Applications, but it might just as well stand for Virus Bastardization of Applications. There is virtually nothing a cleverly crafted piece of code cannot do behind your back, and it can be delivered to your system in so many innocuous ways. And VBA is insidious, because it can be running on one application with no apparent effects, all the while pulling the strings in another. By the end of this chapter, I fear I will know more about this than I actually care to...

Something completely different, I wonder why Brian uses the journal title "...for Week ending October..."? I seem to have to read that twice before I am sure which week I am on. Anyway, he's playing with virtual hosting now he has a domain to play with (not the site per se, or his own subweb, but still), and while "simple" when it works, there are enough obscure points about setting VirtualHosting up that he got stuck. I had some hints about this that I hope work, relying on my experience with my own domain hosting on the Web, and the local (wiki) serving on my own system. I think the main problem was lack of ServerAlias directive along with only a single (sub)web specification. Anyway, you should get a domain too, Brian. Can't do decent daygang journal pages without a TLD, now. Uh-uh. No way. <g>

Ring around the roses,
Coronary thrombosis,
Seizure, seizure,
All fall down.
-- contemporary nursery rhyme

Tuesday 12 October

I seem to have missed a day of great giggles in the exchanges I see posted here and there in the daygang circuit. No matter -- I was otherwise occupied until the evening here. It was a "blustery" day, and my cough was not helped by being out in the wind on various physical errands. (There are days when one wishes for all virtual errands.)

Complications with the ordinary phone service -- we keep getting indications that people get our number on their displays when nobody has phoned from our end. The telco tells us that this happens -- the caller presentation can in fact generate false info, reasons unknown. Of course the people who call us wondering why we are calling them won't believe that. Technology is infallible, right? Yeah, right. Telephone technology is taken pretty much for granted these days -- it even works during power outages. It is practically a God-given right. The outcry when for some reason access is cut off is incredible. Internet access is fast becoming the same.

It's interesting to see how fast we are moving to all-cellular service when not at home. Practically everyone has mobiles now, and we are fast reaching the point where it can be a distinct disadvantage (from others' point of view) not to have one. Ask someone for their number today, and you get a whole list (home, work, alternate work, pager number, main mobile, wife's mobile, spare mobile, kids' mobiles, dog's mobile, voicebox number, fax...). You're expected to be available 24/7 for any trivial call.

The flip side is that public phones are rapidly disappearing. Ask to borrow somebody's mobile? -- I don't think so. Mobiles are so personal (and calls so costly) that it is a rare gesture to let someone else make a call on your mobile.

I will be very interested to see how pervasive and ubiquitous Internet access will affect telephony services, and more to the point, pricing. Flat fee access rates to the communication lines are coming, the telcos know this very well (which is why they are so busy building up a services infrastructure for future revenue), the only question is when.

What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax. -- Sam Goldwyn

Wednesday 13 October

I have to wonder about the reports that the US is using concrete "bombs" in the continued bombing of Iraqi positions. The official stance is that it "eliminates collateral damage". Intriguing. How about water-bombing the positions? Chances are that this would accelerate rust, rendering weapons useless, with even less risk of actually hurting anyone.

On the nuclear front, I note that the Tokaimura incident was upgraded from "level 4" to "level 5", with hindsight and in the wake of several later incidents. What has concerned safety officials is that in "a country where the manufacturing sector is built on precision and discipline, well-paid workers casually broke every rule in the book" -- and then they look to the nuclear reactors of the former Soviet and shudder.

Data points:

16% of world power is today generated by nuclear power, from 434 operating plants. Over one third of Europe's power (it has half the reactors), and of Japan's (36%). Sweden comes in higher at 46%. And France -- well, the French do want to be worst: 76% produced by 58 reactors (and they invested greatly into dodgy breeder technology). The US? -- "only" 19% (but that's 104 reactors).
There has been an average of 8 safety "incidents" per year since 1993. That's admitted incidents.
Most plants worldwide are old and worn. Note that many plants had a design lifetime of at most 20-25 years, but have now been operational for upwards the double. The industry attracts neither the talent nor the funding needed to maintain the initial standards of safety. The years have also shown that nuclear power is more than just another form of steam technology -- materials age and degrade differently in radioactive environments.
There is a consensus that much of the former Soviet nuclear sector was never very safety minded even in the best of years, and that after the breakup is largely out of control. Resources and will to do anything about it are realistically about zero.

It's a subject that keeps coming back to us, either in the form of stochastic incidents, or in the long-term agonizing about what to do with the accumulating wastes.

Seems like a thought: the URL for the Swedish "National Board of Health and Welfare" is www.sos.se. Help...

Thursday 14 October

A reminder that a member-editable list of "Daynote Gang sites" is at http://leuf.net/cgi/wikidn?DaynoteGang. I have just updated it with Brian Bilbrey's new domain(s). Readers are welcome to visit the wiki and edit in an infopage about themselves from the guestbook page.

Another day of perceptive insights, for example Dr Keyboard's diagnosis of:

Daynoters Syndrome - I've forgotten to eat

Rest assured, it happens to us all. More often as the list of interesting daily sites grows. Oh dear, I continued reading his page and completely lost track of what I was going to do, engrossed in Chris' one-thing-after-another notes for Wednesday.

On the future of (tele)communications, I ran across this:

It's going to be like it was in the 19th century. If you're the right person in the right place, you'll have everythin top tier. If you're not, God help you. -- Robert Rosenberg, Insight Research, NJ

The point raised is that the deregulated competition scenario, such as now increasingly experienced in the US, but also coming strong in Europe, does not automatically lead to better overall Quality of Service (QOS). The prediction is that reliability and quality will inevitably deteriorate as services move more and more to wireless -- a tough break for more rural areas. Also on the horizon are higher flat fee subscriptions for access and low or zero rate fees for actual base usage, akin to the cable Internet model. Add-on services will have their own rates. Then of course we have the separate issue of billed charges that are in effect taxes to subsidize one thing or another.

Friday 15 October

Oooo... that got late. I spent the day approaching my current chapter in various ways. It has left me somewhat dazed. At one point I tried the Tom-word-bashing-with-blunt instrument method, advocated by my co-author. Mmmm... this did iron out some inconsistencies, especially when I gave Outlook some of the same blunt-instrument treatment. Problem is, what to do with all the keyboard keys now littering the floor... <sweep sweep>

For many hours I did walk in the Valley of the Shadow of F1, lost in the labyrinth they call "Help" until I figured out the non-linear mapping of help structure to the actual physical files -- it is not a pretty sight. But I guess that does explain why Index searching so often is fruitless. Each fragment CHW-file has its own index scope, but you can't from the main help tree view see these discontinuities. At one point I was thrashing between several torturous menu sequences trying in vain to find a particular overview page for VBA, because I could not recall the context. The I find it, but from two apparently different help files and at very different branch levels. Aha, the one file linked into the other at a given node. However, a third, comparable overview did not, and has to be accessed from yet another context. It's a 3D crossword puzzle.

Then I tried the shake-out approach: Grasp the top window firmly in one hand, tear out and downwards with a firm snap of the mouse hand. <rip> Shake smartly over the desk area -- sure enough, lots of little dialog widgets rained down, followed by a dark mass of squirming bytes. Sort of like shaking bugs out of your infested potted plant. Drop-down lists dropped, buttons popped, and checkboxes lost their checks. The remaining code got cleaner, but not much.

Well, I rewrote large sections of the chapter. Better. Sort of. Getting together some helpful VBA/VBS code and tweaking it to the level of the presentation. Hmmm. Heck of a way to spend the day really. And evening. And night.

I think I'll pack it up for a while.

Brushed up on some current affairs info, because of an interview I saw this morning... (here, the superexecutive summary version)...

International Court of Justice: adjudicates disputes between nations (since 1922, when it was called Permanent Court of Justice. As ICJ since 1945, as court of the UN. Can set up special tribunals to try individuals, but does not do so itself.). Most common cases today consist of border disputes in Africa. Overall successful and well-seen by most nations. Almost all rulings have been abided by (even by such rogue nations as Libya). USA does not in general accept adjudication by the ICJ at all, whereas most other nations do..

Saturday 16 October

History is interesting, at least when you get the versions that are not those generally presented in the history books. Traditional history books are like traditional science books, only more so. In other words, what is presented is a "cleaned up" version of somebody's linear theory of what happened, as opposed to the messy non-linear and far more intrigue-laden version you start to see if you get closer to the sources. Most people never get closer to sources, usually because they don't realize there is anything wrong with the popularized digest version they were taught at some point and have accepted ever since.

The BBC has a fine tradition of making "popular" science and documentary programs that present a more source-compliant version of the respective subjects. These often make good starting points to become aware of the fact that there is more to a given topic than meets the eye. At the very least, these presentations raise a lot of interesting questions.

One of the things that one can glimpse throughout history as it happened, as opposed to as it is described, is that societies must repeatedly restructure and adapt to new situations -- socially and economically. Currently, this process seems to have a "half-life" of some 20 years or so. Look back at the 80s, and the 60s, and then consider what might be the situation around 2020. Right, we really don't have that much insight into 2020, just a in the 80s it would have been difficult for most to predict and see the ramifications of the current surge of Internet connectivity and nascent e-commerce, or in the 60s even begin to see the impact of computers. A society with an infrastructure half-life of just a couple of decades -- is that not an absolutely remarkable thing?

Made a family evening out of it. We rented Patch Adams (Robin Williams), which is a true and really remarkable story. In fact, you can visit the Gesundheit! Institute on the Web and get the latest on the progress of the vision that Hunter "Patch" Adams had/has. The film makes a profound impression, not the least because of Robin Williams' (here more restrained) acting and the superb supporting cast.

This is but one of a series of films of late that make a case for much needed change in the fields of medical and psychiatric care. While we may have come a long way from previous centuries, it is clear that the direction of Western medicine is not entirely successful in terms of treating the person as a whole. A few brave souls keep pushing the envelope in rewarding ways, but the "system" keeps selecting people who are not suitable for the calling. It is not just a medical issue concerning the US, however -- even the largely state-run systems in Europe have much the same shortcomings. Practicing doctors can in various ways gain an eye-opener that the current system is not the best, even given high technical standards. (One such is the "Doctor Bank" concept, see www.RotaryDoctorBank.org, lately gaining currency in other countries as well. Doctors participating in this program, while rightfully devastated at the deplorable technical level of medical care in East African countries, come away marvelling at the human perspectives and the remarkable resilience of patients supported by family and good humour.)

Because of the books by Dr Patch Adams, I also include the links for them here. (Amazon.com Using these links passes a few pennies my way -- in theory at least. So far the accumulated sum has not however reached the amount where it's worthwhile sending a check outside the US.)

Gesundheit! : Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society Through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor, and Joy -- Patch Adams, Maureen Mylander -- order 2nd revised edition
House Calls : How We Can All Heal the World One Visit at a Time -- Patch Adams, intro by Robin Williams, illustrated Jerry Van Amerongen -- order

Sunday 17 October

* For a moment there... I went to amazon.com this morning to track down a book and was met by this:

amazon.com
We'll be right back!
We're sorry, but our Books, Music, Video, Toys, Electronics, and e-Cards stores are closed temporarily. We expect to be back soon. If you would like to be notified when we reopen, please leave your e-mail address below and we will be happy to let you know.

I checked amazon.co.uk and it was still open. Somewhat later amazon.com did in fact come back online. The implications of the multitude of half-formed thoughts that a user goes through when a large commercial site hangs up a closed sign like this are interesting to contemplate. Web e-commerce raises 24/7, 365-day-open expectations, dreaded 404's aside. I actually went and trawled the news services to see if there was anything about amazon there. You know, hostile takeover, injunction served, whatever. Suspend your web-services at peril.

Speaking of Web, I note that Sony is trying to move away from the electronics business and into the content (Internet) business. The plan is to link "gadgets" with music and games, emphasizing the creation and marketing of the latter. I suppose there is an element of desperation here -- after all, neither the PalmPilot nor the ubiquitous mobile were designed by the Japanese. Both are products that given the track record of small consumer electronics one might at first glance expect to have come from the likes of Sony. But then again, innovation has never been the strongest characteristic of the Japanese companies. Their forte has been the perfection of existing technology in eminently portable packaging. More quality for less price. Playstation is nice, but where do the innovative games come from... hmmm? Makes you wonder about the prospects for this content push now...

Speaking of the content business... Because Bertelsmann (owner of Random House, various record labels , media, and other entertainment companies, just to name some) has rather suddenly shifted into a very aggressive pro-Web e-commerce stance, we can expect to see the print-on-demand publishing model very soon now -- in Europe at least. If the world's third largest publisher wants to do it, you can expect the technical and legal details to be ironed out sooner rather than later.

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