Leuf Daynotes MM week 10

Daynotes: Week of 6 - 12 Mar, MM

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 10

* Link to: last modified 12 March MM at 14:13 GMT+1.

The update-link (above) points to where I last added some text -- I have so far not implemented a current-entry page, nor a day per page, but instead stayed with the week-per-page format.

Associated links:

Write me at: bo@leuf.com -- if private, mark it as such!
Posted mail/discussion, see the WikiForum LeufNet
Occasional thematic articles, see "DisISay" LeufOrg

Earlier weeks, see the Daynotes index.

Monday 6 March

Some items in the news...

Internet shake-up starts in Europe. Altavista UK offers unmetered Internet access for £10 per year (plus a sign-up fee of £36) starting this summer -- albeit for a limited number of subscribers (500,000). The NTL cable company also enters the fray Tuesday by offering totally free and unlimited internet access in the UK. There has been intense discussion in Britain for about a month about the cost of metered Internet access. The absence of widespread unmetered access is in many quarters seen as dramatically slowing the growth of the Internet economy.
Other free access providers (both Internet and telephony) have in fact appeared earlier throughout Europe, usually funded by a cut of call charges (e.g. by requiring telephony service sign-up with operator) plus advertising and e-commerce, but most have problems with inadequate resources and data transfer when customers sing up. In addition, users have often reacted to the advertising banners and service limitations.
Although call charges are significant in a metered environment, the biggest Internet connectivity cost is still the initial hardware investment. And once connected, many are put off by line congestion and slow data transfer.
That the Virginia General Assembly last month passed the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act is bad news for many. UCITA is a measure that intends to standardize commercial provisions for Internet contracts, including software licenses.
Microsoft plans to improve its next version of Office, code-named Office 10, by adding new collaborative features and voice technology. Targeted for release later this year, Office 10 aims to better serve workgroup and collaborative applications. (What about: Will it be "Windows certified"?)

Taking the day off, so to speak. Devoting time to discussions with visiting friend.

Tuesday 7 March

Mardi Gras day in New Orleans. And similar festivities in other places around these dates. This year, like Easter (to which it is calendarically connected), it is unusually late. The Rio Carnival is just culminating (4-7 March). Must be a blast.

Daynoter Matt Beland finally realized where the real priorities are (hehe -- see his posting of 6 March). Welcome back to the fun of life on the web, daily updates and grand discussion.

In the local news...

Bus tax hits municipal services. A recent tax raise on busses, "intended to regulate long-distance coach competition with rail", increased the national road tax for busses by factor 10 (to about USD 2200 per bus and year). An "unforeseen" effect has been to hit public transport very hard, because the assumed recompensation for municipal and regional bus traffic has not materialized. A study is promised...
Rain...

More on the O'Reilly-Amazon discussion posted by Tim O'Reilly from last week.

Wednesday 8 March

Rain... Feh! Today I'm mildly disgusted by all manner of things, including the way some people never get back to you, despite reminders. Several issues are stalled for lack of communication.

Speaking of rain and communication, I ran across an article that all mobile phones are about as water-resistant as Denebian tissue paper, much less water-proof -- so don't pull them out in the rain (or have sweaty hands), or they will sooner or later stop working properly. That's assuming they ever did -- fully 10% of the phones sold across the counter today are apparently delivered defective in one way or another and get returned on warranty (mechanical glitches, poor display, sticky switches, lousy reception, ...). That's if you ask the shops -- the manufacturers dispute that figure but avoid giving any figure of their own. Still, they are making them as fast as possible and QC seems neglected in the rush to market the latest models. Not surprising that, because there's no profit in the standard mobiles as such any more. These are more or less given away -- not quite yet as toys in breakfast cereal boxes, but most are bundled with a year or two subscription to an operator so the nominal cost is symbolic (1 Swedish Crown, or just over a dime US). The real cost is subsidised by the operator to lock in the customer.

I suspect the unbundled models that you purchase for USD 100-200 and up have significantly less faults and are comparatively rare in that 10% return group. Though I understand they're not water-resistant either.

Thursday 9 March

Just next door, a row of large trees has been diminished. From the logs and stumps, it is clear that most were rotten to the core (surprising that the recent storms didn't take them down, especially the earlier hurricane-strength one that messed up this region). Anyway, my main reflection concerned the clearing up -- a large truck with log-lifting arm and cradle is being used to collect the remains. (I keep seeing this sort of thing in our highly mechanized way of doing things.) A man sits there for ages, trying to gather small branches with a tool designed to grip and lift large logs. It would be a matter of minutes to get out and toss the branches up manually, but instead he just sits there expecting the machine to somehow cope, meanwhile polluting the neighborhood with noise and diesel exhaust.

Side note. One of the things that irritates me with Windows is the shifting focus when running different things and something generates a screen redraw. If this happens while I'm in a dialog dropbox list, or hierarchical menu, then I have to start over. My dialup shows a infobox, so the most common case is initiating dialup, then going to FTP or browser list, and in worst case have that list yanked out from under the cursor twice -- once when the info box comes up, once when it goes away.

I got up early this morning and seem reasonably alert, so I put the extra time into non-essentials, thus...

Other local news...

A EU directive clears the way for electronic signatures. Sweden's typical all-or-nothing attitude can easily mean that the ordinary, hand-written signature becomes obsolete as a valid form of signing in 2001. The different authorities are now looking into how they will set up routines to manage e-signatures, and (like the banks) are looking forward to even less direct physical dealings with the population.
Given the fact that in this country it has for years been a distinct "disability" not to have a telephone -- in fact certain things became impossible to accomplish for anyone lacking their own phone -- I can easily see the situation in say 2002 when anyone without a computer and signature certificates becomes totally marginalized.
On the other hand, I find that many younger people's handwriting skills (actually block-letter printing -- hardly anyone knows handwriting these days) have deteriorated to the point where written signatures are about as unique as "X".
Police too busy. The local newspaper published a list of reported "incidents" in town that the police never responded to last October. This list was produced by the police in an internal study. In parts it is interesting reading, considering the severity of some of these so-called incidents (including traffic accidents). "Lack of resources..." A major problem is the centralization of personnel, which meant that an attempt to "humanize" the police with more cops on foot duty and stationed locally in the districts (something the policemen themselves want) was abandoned in favor of more car patrols focused on central urban areas.
Train traffic to Berlin disappears? There seems to be a real risk that Scandinavian travellers will no longer be able to reach Berlin by rail. The German rail authority is scrapping the night train, with a view to giving up passenger transport altogether. The once-nightly Malmö-Berlin train has long been a dismal affair, "practically of former East German standard", but there have been no moves to invest in new German rolling stock. Swedish trains are too wide to run on the German rail system. So much for the "continental connectivity" promised by the new yet-to-open Öresund Bridge.
Smile for the cameras. Apropos the bridge, approval was recently granted for video surveillance on the new Öresund Bridge. A total of 88 cameras will be mounted in the first stage, and the recorded tapes will be archived for three months -- the usual limit is 30 days. This extension was motivated by "the need for long analysis time" (huh? -- I thought this system was for realtime traffic monitoring). A curiosity is that the current Swedish approval only applies to Danish police as the end user for the Swedish surveillance. If police, customs and emergency services on the Swedish side want to access the material, then they must apply for own permission, separately.
Alcohol chaos. The EU has signalled that the current dispensation will not be renewed 30 June for Sweden's special duty restrictions on amounts of alcohol brought into the country by returning Swedes. The Swedish government for its part says that restrictions will still apply (15 l strong beer, 5 l wine, 1 l strong spirits), and anyone trying to bring in the EU maximum (110 l strong beer, 90 l wine, 10 l strong spirits) must pay duty and fines of up to (equiv) USD 1000. If this occurs, then the EU Commission promises to take Sweden to the EU court. Negotiations have stranded with considerable irritation on both sides.
VICLAS finds correlation. For six months, the Swedish police has (for free) been testing the Canadian Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System, a refinement of the FBI VICAP software system. Finally, after all this time, something went ping -- the system identified a statistically significant correlation between two rape cases in different cities.
That's it? Yup, no suspect, nothing else, but "a definite link". Gee, ain't technology marvellous?
Fact sheet: VICAP is dedicated for homicide cases. VICLAS allows broader case material: from missing persons to assault. Each entered "crime" requires 168 questions to be answered in a "secret" form. Canadian police gives the software away free to police forces in other countries, and promotes international data exchange and training in its use.

Less local...

For Pamela Anderson watchers (and I understand that these are not just a few, or this wouldn't have been in the news), the good news is that her VIP character (with video clips of herself) will soon come out as a computer game in roughly the same niche as Tomb Raider. Also in the works is a WebTV site as PamTV.com.
(Coming soon to your local game distributors, the boob wars.)
Random close packing. Traditionally, this problem, known since biblical times, and long important for taxation reasons (pouring solid stuff into measuring containers), was assumed to have a fixed "best value" after sufficient shaking and stirring of around 64% volume capacity. Not so, claim researchers (BBC news article). There is a conflict between ill-defined concepts of "random" and "close" used together.
Tiles, marble and white-washed walls trap less pollution indoor than wood, linoleum and fabrics. Live healthy, build a marble palace...
Scotch Brite is toxic. This ubiquitous household blue cleaning sponge contains high levels of a toxic substance used to combat fungi , bacteria and mold, according to chemist in Stockholm. Although no longer used in production, says the maker, there are no plans to recall the existing stocks on the market.
Stephen King publishes online. Riding the Bullet, a 66 page novellette, downloadable for only USD 2.50.
VeriSign buys Network Solutions for USD 21 billion! I thought this headline yesterday had to be a typo, but I then saw that "billion" reported in several locations. Ok, so it's an all stock-funded merger with total value of 15-25 billion, depending on who's counting what. The deal is 2.15 VeriSign shares for each NSI share. Still, this exceeds by factor 2-3 the largest Internet mergers/buy-outs so far.
Microsoft has increased the salaries of its Silicon Valley employees by 15 percent in an attempt to prevent turnover. The turnover rate in Microsoft's marketing group is almost 100 percent following the departure of co-founder Steve Perlman, and there is a marked shortage of engineers.
Getting worried after the W2k release...?
FreeNet being launched this spring. Guarantees full anonymity for users (untraceable IP) and multiple server backups for stored files. Scottish founder and designer Ian Clarke says main concern is to protect free speech from government censorship, but critics say this will just invite rampant piracy. See Wired article.
Company perks. Free PCs, printers, unlimited Internet access, and services for home use -- more and more US companies are jumping onto this bandwagon. Latest is Intel. Their employee offer computer is with 667 MHz Pentium III chips, a 20 GB hard drive, and 128 MB of RAM. The computers will also be equipped with speakers, office productivity software, and one Intel Play product of the employee's choice. Hmm, it might start paying to get a job again.
Computer user surveillance in the workplace. Several sophisticated packages are now available, e.g Investigator and Silent Watch. Once installed, such a program is typically instructed to monitor keystrokes, look for configurable "alert" words, and automatically email documents containing any one of those words to a designated recipient who is then able to review them. The software does not generate any desktop icon and is difficult to find by inspecting the filesystem. Another feature is to on request recreate on a manager's computer screen exactly what is displayed on an employee's screen. This is clearly a growth industry.

Fergh... (Ferengi expletive, showing teeth) I need a cuppa...

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost. -- Stephen King

Friday 10 March

Last night I got into webstats a bit more. I've been lazy and just run a combined access log for all my domains under LeufNet, but decided I really needed to look into separate logfiles for particular domains, along with a redesigned frontend more suitable for clients for the online graphical analysis. (Ok, so another reason was that one of my hosted clients started asking about access statistics, so I figured I had better test this on own domains first.) So first off I set up separate logs for LeufCom, which was kinda interesting since the resulting stats more clearly reveal access patterns of my Daynotes readers. Easier to do than I thought, so I ended up quickly retrofitted my other domains as well.

Speaking of those Daynote stats, one thing that clearly comes out in this domain-filtered presentation is a periodic distribution with peaks about every 7.5 hours. Cool. The combined stats are much more smoothed out, so this must be a result of the regular habits of daynote readers clustered in specific timezone intervals.

While catching up on my hardcopy reading, I ran across...

Solder is not something that anyone thinks much about, yet it is the ubiquitous "glue" that holds together the electronic infrastructure that we all rely on. The lead-tin alloy has been with us a long time, but now there are strong environmental pressures to ban it. Curious, since by most reckoning, solder accounts for less than 2% of the lead we use -- almost all the rest is found in car batteries, a far more serious problem.
Attempts to find replacements has the electronics business worried, because of side-effects from higher soldering heat, poorer connectivity, and greater costs. Research has in fact been going on for replacements because of another lead effect, namely residual alpha particle decay which in today's ever smaller micro circuitry can potentially cause data error, but so far nothing beats the lead-tin alloy. The radioactive problem has instead been addressed by using "old" lead with less decay activity -- from sunken ships and church roofing.
Flying cars à la Jetsons is not a dead concept. The latest such entry is a flying prototype VTOL craft, large-limo-sized, aiming for FAA certification around 2002. The proposed Skycar M400 will initially be a luxury item, around USD 1 million. It sports 8 small engines, 1500 km range at up to 560 km/h. Expect demonstration models in 18 months, says developer Moller International, who claim 100 production orders already. Maybe it's the color that sells? Red. No mileage figures were indicated... clearly YMMV depending on hover and fuel. Given reasonable volume, consumer price would eventually be comparable to a normal luxury car.

I should really be programming, but...

Fear of witches. In a tragic murder case now going to court, a Stockholm couple confessed to systematically abusing and torturing their two young children last Christmas. The reason was that they were afraid that the children were witches and possessed by the devil. The 11 year old girl was eventually suffocated by an open bible pressed against her face. (Some people take their beliefs too far.)
Overtime prayers? The Swedish Church Academics Union, representing the country's Lutheran priests (former state church) are complaining about the lack of overtime pay. Granted that the profession is a call and involves constant duty and inconvenient hours, but the employer must not exploit the situation and deny normal overtime and holiday compensation pay. The employer's representative just says it's all part of the job description. Negotiating climate is "frosty". (Double scale for Sunday service, is that one of the demands? They can still buy wine duty free if I recall rightly. Pay as you pray can't be far off on the horizon...)

God created the world in six days. On the seventh, He was arrested. -- the Unauthorized Version

Oh well, back to programming and bookkeeping.

Saturday 11 March

Rain, then overnight snow, then rain, then snow, then...

Dan Seto raises the interesting point that Daynotes Gang pages contain many interesting links that can be hard to find afterwards, and that only a handful have search engines pointing to their webs.

My own long term approach to this is connected to the Wiki, where I (and others) can enter and update links of interest. I have (somewhat inconsistently) been linking to other sites via a wiki page in later daynote pages -- what needs to be done is a more systematic retrofitting (and checking) of older links.

From the news...

Microsoft enters games console market. Bill Gates says the company is pushing ahead with plans for the X-Box, a console that will offer internet access and DVD: "What's happening here is we've designed the first game console that really takes it into what's going on on the internet, the realism that we can provide, the multi-player gaming, the fact that we've got a disk so you can download game updates."
"It's a product that when it comes out in the fall of 2001 is going to define a whole new experience.
"The new Microsoft strategy talks about multiple devices and one of those devices is going to be in the living room and very entertainment focused and that will be the X-Box."
The X-Box will put MS into direct competition with market leaders Sony, who have just launched Playstation2. It's said that the X-Box will use a new PIII chip, 20 times faster than current PCs, and be in the shops by mid-2001. MS is talking about this being one of the biggest product launches they have ever done. There is an X-Box website.

The thought yesterday was "cleaning tomorrow". Today is however today, so we'll see.

Sunday 12 March

* More scuttlebutt about the X-Box. Apparently this is was a pure skunkworks project, "built by a small renegade group of MS engineers in their spare time". Eventually, the growing perception of the Sony Playstation 2 as "trojan horse" box for the Internet market and a few key internal memos galvanized Bill Gates to bet the next farm on the X-Box as the killer product of the next 5-year plan, and massive resources got thrown at the project.

Believe it or not, the X-Box runs a stripped down version of Windows 200x Professional.

Local news... (wash day)

Counterfeit bills increase dramatically. Most fake bills are made by youths using ordinary home PCs.
Residual radiation still high. Recent measurements of areas in Sweden contaminated in 1986 from the Chernobyl emissions still show local (CS₁₃₇) values as high as 30,000 Bq/m². It's not known the reason for such unexpectedly high readings, but some concentrating factors must be active.
Bank pleads for less ATM withdrawals. A letter to Swedish bank customers asked them to make much fewer ATM withdrawals and not ask for less than 500 Crowns. Each ATM withdrawal costs the bank 10 Crowns, according to the bank. I suspect that soon a fee will be deducted automatically on all ATM transactions.
No increased tax on CO₂ emissions. Promises Swedish Minister of Environment, at least for the next few years. Thanks, we can all continue exhaling now.
Minors in car accident. A 13 year old boy was killed and a 12 year old girl injured in a car crash. Which of the two was driving is not yet determined, since neither was in the car when police and ambulance arrived. Car was not stolen and neither had been drinking.

That's all for now. I'll be making the new week page later.

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