July 2003 Archives
Amazon has been doing some really cool things lately. One is adding RSS to almost any search. Which rules. They have also made it easier to create associate links to individual items, like The Two Tower DVD:
The latest Alert Box article tells us the evils of PDF files on the web. They are annoying, they need another app to be opened, and my favorite that isn't even mentioned is that many PDF files can choke a postscript printer. That being said I post a ton of PDF files on the EFF site. Why?
I have lots of reasons. The easy ones are when we are mailed PDFs that other people have scanned or things that we received as faxes. Also when we get paper copies of documents the OCR scan usually sucks rocks and isn't reliable. The other reason does get addressed in Alert Box:
Ideally, companies would reformat each type of information for online use. It's actually not very expensive to, say, create a set of Web pages for annual report information as long as the Web design is done while the annual report is being written. The cost comes when companies have a glossy annual report already finished and then say, "Webbify this."
Ideally. Ah yes, the mythical ideal world. I suppose this is the same ideal world where browsers support web standards. It's the world we all wished we lived in, and yet, none of us live there. I agree that we should do what we can to get as close as we can to the ideal world without going crazy.
Lawyers work in word processing programs. They are never going to write legal documents in TeX or docbook. It just won't happen. Ever. Get over it. Microsoft Word will always spit out horrid HTML. It just will. Get over it. Webmasters will always be handed documents 10 minutes before they just have to be up on the website. Adobe makes a really nice Word plug-in and it creates very nice PDF files. They look right, they have hyperlinks if the Word document had hyperlinks, they are small, and most of the time they even print right.
So how do I handle PDF files? Well as Alert Box says, we have a page that links to the PDF. For PDF files that also have a text layer (ie not OCR scans typically, but ones saved out from the original electronic document) I use pdftotext to make a text file. It's quick and dirty and fits right into the 10 minute workflow timeframe that I typically have to get stuff up on the site.
As with any "tip," you need to put it into perspective of your own site and the needs of your users.
Senate rejects tough new auto fuel economy measure; approves industry-supported alternative
H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
The Senate rejected a proposal to require a sharp increase in automobile fuel economy Tuesday after concerns were raised that it would lead to a loss of auto industry jobs and limit consumer's ability to buy larger cars and SUVs.
By a 65-32 vote, the Senate turned back a proposal offered by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would have required automakers to produce a fleet average of 40 miles per gallon by 2015, a dramatic increase from the current 27.5 mpg now required.
Welcome Marc Perkel, who never hesitates to say or write what he thinks.
Continuing with my graphic heavy posting, I noticed that a lot of people are using iChat AV. The odd thing is, after the first few times, I don't use the audio. I'd like to use the video, but people are typically behind some kind of firewall that kills it.
I'm off to the post office to send two shoe boxes of goodies to two soldiers in Iraq. They are both brothers of good friends of mine. They are stuck in Iraq. I'm curious as to what the "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker people have done, with the exception of paying taxes of course. In that sense, everyone who pays taxes is supporting the troops.
I just tossed this trade paperback of Planetary: All Over the World into the "done" pile. It's good, and I'm hooked and all that, but when's the next Transmet trade coming out?
Previously I had mentioned that "technical nightmares" had been upon me. Well, the cat is out of the bag. I was doing some after-hours side work getting the Movable Type install on Stanfords Cyberlaw server over to Marc's server. Now what was so bad about it? It was MT after all. Move the data files, it was still running in BerkeleyDB storage mode for various reasons, and it should just work. Right? Welcome to Your Wrong night.
By now you are saying to yourself that I'm an idiot, and you may be right, but not for the reasons you might be thinking of. You're probably thinking that I didn't update the db files as it states in the MT troubleshooting docs. Well, it's not quite as easy as that. Well, actually it is, but as I stated earlier, I'm an idiot. There were at least four different db_update versions installed on the new server.
Anyway, did you know that MT will not give you any errors if it can't read the data files? Doesn't that seem a bit...off? Anyway, the long and short is that it was a db version problem and a file ownership problem. I had tried both, just not together. With no error messages I was flying blind. I didn't know if anything I did made any difference. It was amazingly frustrating not to have any meaningful output from my actions.
Live and learn. Off to file feature request for MT to give an error when it can't read the data files...
This bad boy ought to help with the unpacking. It will hold 1,500 compact discs. I should even have space for a few hundred more once all my CD are in the rack. We'll see though.
Better check at EFF's RIAA Subpoena Database page to see if your information is being subpoenaed from your ISP.
Yes, this is why I haven't been able to post much this week, among other technical nightmares which I hope to have time to write about soon. Major props to Dan, Seth, and the talented EFF legal interns for all the heavy lifting.
Who says parking is a problem in SF?
I'm consistently mediocre. Josh leveled out a bit this week as well. Patricia took Josh's place as the EKG machine this week.
Update: Done. Next...
The actual size is 1" in diameter.
CDBaby has inked a deal with Apple and Listen.com to do digital music distribution. The terms for musicians seem quite amazing. You keep all rights to your music. You get 91% of the profit, with only a $40 startup fee. You get paid a week after CDBaby gets paid. It seems too good to be true. What's the catch? Where is the downside?
John Gilmore shares his experience of getting kicked off a British Airways place with Politech. Before I even read the story I was wondering how he even got on in the first place since John will not show any ID for a flight in the US ("Papers please?"). Luckily John answered: "I'm willing to show a passport to travel to another country. I'm not willing to show ID -- an "internal passport" -- to fly within my own country."
After the whole interaction was over, I offered to tell her, just for her own information, what the button means and why I wear it. She was curious. I told her that it refers to all of us, everyone, being suspected of being terrorists, being searched without cause, being queued in lines and pens, forced to take our shoes off, to identify ourselves, to drink our own breast milk, to submit to indignities. Everyone is a suspected terrorist in today's America, including all the innocent people, and that's wrong. That's what it means. The terrorists have won if we turn our country into an authoritarian theocracy "to defeat terrorism". I suggested that British Airways had demonstrated that trend brilliantly today. She understood but wasn't sympathetic -- like most of the people whose individual actions are turning the country into a police state.
It's a sad tale and I hope John wins his Free to Travel case against the government and the airlines. If you don't understand why showing IDs is silly, be sure to read the FAQ
- 1 Whilrpool® fridge
- 2 "kitchen" sized rubbish bins
- 1 Rubbermaid® garbage can
- 1 tube of sealant type goo to fix the leaky shower
- 1 touch sensitive lamp
- 1 50ft garden hose
- 2 spray nozzles (to go with the hose obviously)
- 1 hook for my towel in the bathroom
- 1 60 watt light bulb
- SBC®/Yahoo!® DSL for 12 months
The list of stuff that we still need to buy is three times this length. Luckily it doesn't include any more major appliances. Is it time for the House Warming Party™ yet?
Whiskey Bar: "The left needs to demonstrate that it's fundamentally different from the wing nuts of the right -- ethically as well as ideologically. They have lies and loopy conspiracy theories on their side; we have the truth. This is a chance to show the contrast. So let's stick to what we know, and can reasonably claim based on the public record."
Indeed. This is in regard to the possible death of David Kelly, the British arms expert who may have been the BBC source for the story about the infamous dossier being "sexed up."
See, it's funny because I am getting SBC/Yahoo DSL...hopefully a better line filter will do the trick.
Update: SBC tech guys say it could take "up to 10 days" to reach full speed. We shall see...we shall see.
Mr. McClellan: "But the bottom line is that America is safer, the world is safer, because of the action we took."
Oh really? Is this "faith-based" safety?
NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr: "Mistakes were made."
I love the commentary that Schorr provides. Yes, it typically leans left, but that is not reason enough to discount it if you don't lean left yourself. In this commentary he looks back at Presidents that took responsibility for mistakes and even ones that didn't. Bush clearly will not take responsibility for this latest fiasco. He's being the CEO President he promised to be. Too bad it's the wrong kind of CEO.
load average: 126.12, 124.60, 122.45
There is no explaining Josh. I leave it at that.
Reuters: Microsoft Wins Homeland Security Contract
Well goody goody...this should be fun.
Looks like my Rogues Gallery caption for Condi Rice made the cut over at the Whiskey Bar.
Are you confused by the Bush Administration's attempts to spin the Niger uranium fiasco? Never fear, step up to the bar for a nice, stiff drink...
Whiskey Bar: "It's the media equivalent of a prison riot."
The big move happened this weekend. DSL isn't installed yet, but it should be in by Friday. We're getting a fridge delivered today. We are going to try and do without cable for a while, but I don't know how much longer I can go without The Daily Show or Sports Center. We can't find the hoses for the clothes washer, our wine glasses, shelves to the big book case, and a box of contact lenses. The last three we lost in the last move and we thought we would find them in this move. We aren't done unpacking yet, but it isn't looking like we are going to find them.
The Great Big Book of Tomorrow should be hitting the amazon shelves any second now. Grab it.
Ari, according to BBC political editor Andrew Marr "very senior sources" in Whitehall have virtually ruled out the possibility of finding WMD. This seems to directly contradict President Bush when he said on July 7 that it was only a "matter of time" before the weapons are found. What do the British know that we don't or what do we know that they don't that makes the President so confident about finding WMD?
Also a second question, House majority leader Tom DeLay said it was "very easy to pick one little flaw here and one little flaw there" in regard to the botched Nigerian uranium report, but that the overall case for the war against Iraq was "morally sound". When will we hear that the was about about morals and also when can we expect to hear that the war was never about morals?
Whiskey Bar: "If Keynes were alive, he'd be banging his head against the wall right now."
Senate Armed Services Committee
"To receive testimony on 'lessons learned' during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and to receive testimony on ongoing operations in the United States Central Command region."
There have been a number of articles about this testimony already. Read it for yourself: Download PDF
Not sure why....just because I guess.
Josh scores a 200+ game! Amazing. Simply amazing. His part of the chart continues on a EKG like "curve."
Please welcome the newest members to the Home Owners Club of America, Pat and Kat Berry!
"Nothing but lip service" takes President Bush to task for speaking out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to supporting the troops. The editorial seemed to vanish a few days ago, but now it's back. Good. We wouldn't want any revisionist history going on now would we?
Man, Herbert Hoover hasn't been in the news this much since...well, since he was alive I'm sure. The Bush Bubble is starting to deflate and all I can say is that it's about damn time.
Image alignment and links. The anchor is around the image and the linked text and the underline of the text goes right on through the image. Other browsers do not exhibit this behavior, although I'm not sure if it's a bug or not.
- here is some text that acts as a title or something
Download PDF (60k)
Behavior goes away when you put a separate anchor around both the download text and the image:
- here is some text that acts as a title or something
Download PDF (60k)
Update: It's not a bug. Thanks to Dave Hyatt for clearing this up.
Reuters: "Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format," said Mark Reiter, with Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and several other artists.
Funny that of the 22 Iron Maiden albums available on the Apple's iTunes Music Service I cannot purchase even one full album. Why is this? It is probably because of licensing deals, and of course, the very nature of what we now call copyright.
Apple continues to brag about how sales of full albums are very strong, claiming that "46 percent of the songs have been purchased as albums."
This situation is so screwed up it's very hard to wrap your head around. On one hand you have "artist" talking about how their art is being co-opted and used in ways in which they didn't intend, from being sold on a song by song basis to being available on P2P networks and on the other hand you have a multi-billion dollar industry with millions of customers clamoring product and innovation. The industry claims that the customers are bipolar as well, asking for more product for free. This is of course a bogus argument, but one that is very easy to make, as are most fallacies.
The market has spoken roared. Stop blaming the services that have sprung up to fill the market void created by the RIAA for the "death of the album." EFF says "Let the Music Play!"
Pat Buchanan: "The Court has now virtually stripped states of the power to legislate in the realm of sexual morality."
Mr. Buchanan goes to to explain how the Lawrence v. Texas decision of the Supreme Court will lead to repeal of just about every law on the books. "By creating a right of consenting adults to engage in homosexual acts, the Court has also put in jeopardy all state laws against incest, gay marriage, prostitution and pedophilia, assuming the youngster consents."
Yeah Pat, the Supreme Court is trying to destroy laws against pedophilia. Get real. I would have though a real conservative would have seen the huge win for privacy and keeping government out of people's private lives. I guess making sure everyone has sex in the "approved" way is far more important. Ah, but I forget the main flaw in the "small government" conservative stance...it's only small government for them and more government for "others."
It's been extra-hectic around the office as of late. The RIAA is about to start suing thousands of people for file sharing. Now no matter what your feelings are on the topic, one thing that almost everyone can agree on is that copyright is hosed, for everyone. Copyright isn't structured to foster creativity anymore. It's structured to foster litigation. Artists aren't getting paid and less art is available to people.
So EFF says "Let the Music Play" and let's get some copyright reform going!
Is consistency in my future? We shall see...
