February 17, 2001
I've decided to join the Browser Upgrade Campaign sponsored by the Web Standards Project. In their own words:
The Web Standards Project (WaSP), a grassroots coalition fighting for standards on the Web, today announced a Browser Upgrade initiative aimed at encouraging developers to use W3C standards even if the resulting sites fail in old, non-standards-compliant web browsers.
The hard-core particpants won't allow non-compliant browsers (mostly the 4.x versions of Netscape) to even view their pages. I'm going middle-of-the-road. Visitors to WOIFM using non-compliant browsers will see the following announcement above the main text of the page. Compliant browser users, who are just about everyone else, won't ever see it again after this entry scrolls off the front page. Here's the announcement:
Approximately 10% of visitors to this web site use browsers that do not support web standards, including all 4.x versions of Netscape.
THE WHOLE WEB MAY LOOK LIKE CRAP to you if you use a non-compliant browser - including this page. Please upgrade to a standards-compliant browser. If your tech-support people won't let you, swear at them until they do. W
» posted by Mike
February 16, 2001
Since January 20, homlessness has skyrocketed... in the media. W
» posted by Mike
Quoth the new president:
I am not talking about a 'quickie' or temporary tax cut, nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years that our present tax system . . . exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peacetime--that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power--that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk taking.
- John F. Kennedy, 1962. W
» posted by Mike
February 15, 2001
Michelle comes out for tax reform. As bracket creep pushes more and more barely-getting-by urban folk into the ranks of the "rich" look for this sentiment to grow. W
» posted by Mike
February 14, 2001
Ever have a crush? You're not alone. Find bittersweet tales of unrequited love at crush.nu. W
» posted by Mike
Heartless? Lots of stunning graphics - icons, desktops, and graphic schemes (oh, my!) can be found at Blue Sky Heart Graphics. W
» posted by Mike
February 13, 2001
Martindale-Hubbell, the legal directory folks, have redesigned their web site - what a success! It appears to be XML-based, and they've added tons of functionality to the popular Lawyer Locator tool. They also moved the Locator to the front page, instead of burying it under loads of crap like they had before. W
» posted by Mike
Bookmark: the scoop - a weblog about journalism, etc. W
» posted by Mike
Bookmark: BlogFinder, a blog-based Google-like search engine. Seems to work pretty well. W
» posted by Mike
Bill Clinton has given up trying to force the taxpayers to pay roughly $800,000 per year for ultra-posh offices at the top of the Carnegie Building, instead choosing more modest space uptown, near the Apollo Theater, for just over a quarter of the price. Al Kamen reports that Clinton is not the first ex-president with big time New York dreams who had to settle for less:
The 37th president hoped to set up shop in the historic Chrysler Building. But the government balked at the price and sent Nixon packing to the nondescript federal building in Foley Square, a decidedly unhip neighborhood on Manhattan's southern tip.
Right now the law entitles an ex-president to "suitable office space, appropriately furnished, as determined by the Administrator [of General Services]" (3 U.S. 102, note). It seems pretty clear that some sort of discernible limit ought to be enacted so that Clinton's successors aren't tempted to abuse the system. Incidentally, the $800,000 rent would be more than all the other living ex-presidents combined pay for their office space. W
» posted by Mike
February 12, 2001
The scene: Friday night, dinner. Discussing the imminent demise of Napster as a file-sharing system with Don and Brian, among others. Napster's vulnerability to legal challenge is that it maintains centralized servers to enable searching. Gnutella's biggest flaw is that it does not maintain centralized search capabilities. (That, and total lack of Wintel-friendly client software according to Brian, which some may not regard as a flaw.)
It then occurred to me: what if there were a [group of] central database[s] that kept moving around? There would be no single company or individual to serve as the target of a legal action. searching would be nearly as efficient as with Napster, although not quite. Here's how it would work: when a new user links up with the network, the existing clients poll each other to determine the optimal database hosts, based on connection speed, uptime, and other relevant factors. More than one machine, of course, could serve as the host. Whenever a database host drops out of the network, that client initiates a new poll, and passes the database on to a new host.
Alternatively, some sort of pre-set algorithm could determine who, among suitable hosts, hosts the database at any given time, based on IP address, geographical location, or whatever. That way, a new user signing in would be able to immediately find the database host[s] based on the algorithm.
Although I'm not very well informed on this sort of thing, I'm sure there has to be a way to implement it. Anyone? W
» posted by Mike
My workplace got hit with the same virus Rick did because some lawyers still don't know not to open attachments labeled "Anna Kournikova" at work.
Immunize yourself from this type of thing - if you insist on using MS Outlook, or don't have the option of switching e-mail clients, at least turn your scripting off. W
» posted by Mike
John, here's the difference between high tech drug searches and the Superbowl scan controversy. You don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your face when you go out in public. You do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in what goes on behind closed doors in your home. (And I happen to believe that heat scans of people's homes are, in fact, a violation of the 4th Amendment).
In fact, one of the very first cases to test the tort of invasion of privacy involved a guy who called in sick from work to attend opening day at a baseball game. Lucky bastard caught a ball. The local newspaper caught a picture of him catching the ball, and printed it on the back page. Unlucky bastard got fired for lying to the boss. The guy tried to sue the paper for invasion of privacy, but the Court didn't buy it -- said he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his face at at a public sporting event.
Same issue applies here. Your face is going to identify you, and if you don't want to be identified, don't show it in public. Simple as that. W
» posted by Dineen
Does Zannah know about this?
The James was on Chris Matthews' Hardball program the other night and said he would "never stop talking about Florida."
And why the heck wasn't she invited to appear? W
» posted by Mike
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