Saturday, April 17, 2004


More Cutaways

Click to zoomI did a Google image search for cutaway, because I like cutaway drawings. I came up with the accompanying drawing of how the rescue of a number of sailors trapped in the sunken USS Squalus was accomplished.

At 8:40 AM on 23 May 1939, [the submarine] USS Squalus was just beginning a test dive in the Atlantic, not far from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. All indications were that everything was ready for a safe dive. However, just after she submerged, the engine rooms began to flood -- somehow the main induction valve, a large opening that brought air to the engines while on the surface, had opened. Quickly, the submarine's after compartments filled with water, drowning 26 men there, and Squalus settled to the bottom, 243 feet deep. In the forward compartments, sealed by watertight doors, 33 men remained alive. Their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Oliver F. Naquin, began survival planning. Since the water depth and temperature made ascent with the self-contained 'Momsen Lung' very dangerous, he elected to wait for rescue from above.

Within a few hours, other ships were searching for the missing Squalus, unfortunately in the wrong place. However, in the early afternoon a distant signal rocket was seen from a sister submarine, USS Sculpin (SS-191). Communication via the sunken sub's rescue bouy was soon established...


USS Squalus (SS-192) -- Rescue of Survivors, 23-25 May 1939

Click to zoomHere's a brutally cool cutaway of the F35. Click on the image to zoom it to full-size.

Click to zoomNot exactly sure what this is, but it might be a Fusion Reactor. Found it on Columbia University's Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics site. Click on the image to zoom to full-size. Looks a tad bulkier than the Mr. Fusion reactor featured in the film Back to the Future.

Book Review: Jason Starr's Cold CallerThompson's protege. Just posted the following review of Jason Starr's Cold Caller on Amazon.

If Jim Thompson were a Yuppie, he might have written this book.

Bill Moss is a failed advertising exec living in Manhattan. Restarting his career as a telemarketer (for a lot less money), he and his co-workers are routinely humiliated by a petty and racist supervisor. But things get more tolerable for Moss when a chance lie he tells to the company's President results in a surprise promotion. Then he gathers enough courage to live out his long-time fantasy of an encounter with a 'lady of the evening'. Feeling guilty afterwards, Moss batters the woman.

Then, when his boss threatens to fire him over an unrelated manner, Moss snaps. Now he's got a dead body in his office and a bunch of violent pimps chasing him. And things go downhill from there.

_Cold Caller_ is a seductively easy read that has several exquisite plot points. If you liked Thompson's _The Killer Inside Me_, I can almost guarantee you'll think as I do about _Cold Caller_: it's deliciously good.

Cold Caller, by Jason Starr

Cutaway Drawing #403

Cutaway
In my ongoing series of links to cutaway drawings, the above depicts a 19th century sailing vessel used by privateers and even some navies. Worth noting are the location of the magazine, the infirmary and the Captain's quarters. Click on the drawing to expand the image if you can't make out the captions.

Preparing for a Hospital Stay? Helpful Tips from The Onion!

General Hospital - The Complete ScrapbookThe Onion has some excellent advice for those preparing for a hospital in-patient experience. My favorites:

- If you are going to the hospital for treatment of a severed limb, remember to bring the limb.
- Be forewarned: Hospitals apply a vast mark-up to the items in the in-room minibars.
- Wear clothing that is loose-fitting and comfortable, yet appropriate to bleed in.
- Whatever you do, don't check into any facility called "General Hospital." That place is full of back-stabbing, narcissistic lunatics.
- Pack several extra pairs of slippers. Slippers in the hospital are like cigarettes in prison.
- Bring $500 in fives to "grease the wheels," if you get my meaning. The good mashed potatoes.
- If bruised, find a hospital known to have a good bruise ward.


Preparing for a Hospital Stay

What changes have been made to the refurbished Statue of Liberty?

Whickety whack @ hTmL, beeeoch

The Onion

Friday, April 16, 2004


Architects vs. IT Architects

Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan : The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd WrightI was having an email discussion with "B" regarding my previous blog entry: the "urban cube on a roof". The linked JOS thread had the standard, flip comparison of architects and IT architects. "B"'s quote was worth pasting here:

I don't understand the nuiances of what my architecture friends state, but they are not happy that their millenia old discipline is being slighted by IT people claiming to have a "deep connection" to their discipline. Face it, even the best architects in IT (at Sun, Microsoft, IBM, etc) create stuff that would get you fired, jailed or executed if applied to the world of "real things". By any measure, IT architecture (if you can call it that) is today where true architecture was when people were building grass huts.

Hard to argue with that.

Cringley on MSFT and GOOG

Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 8 Study Guide (Exam 310-011 & 310-012)I'm going to use GOOG as Google's stock symbol until I'm notified it's incorrect. Anyhow, Cringely had an interesting (and, IMO, somewhat misguided) missive about Sun, Microsoft and Google. The gist of the article is that 'you can compete with Microsoft by ignoring it'. Like Google did. His reco for Sun is to spend the cash from the Microsoft settlement by giving employees a sabbatical and letting them come up with ideas. Like Google does - the sort of approach that resulted in Orkut and Google News.

I contend, however, that this is misguided because Sun is not Google. Their approach, technology, focus on software, hiring practices, etc. etc. are diametically opposed. Sun still hasn't produced a Java IDE that can remotely compete with Visual Studio. How in the heck are they going to invent a multi-billion dollar software technology analogous to Google? Ain't gonna happen, IMO. But I hope they surprise me. I know some very good folks who work for Sun.

Google, unlike Microsoft, actually is a technology company, and this technology extends beyond development all the way to operations, which is almost unknown in the software/Internet space. Google has figured out the best computer power per dollar of investment. They've also realized they cannot and should not scale their support linearly with the number of servers. They've introduced better system management tools and better automation, but with a business objective in mind. Corporate IT everywhere else is still thinking in terms of headcount with the more heads the more powerful the manager. Google is smarter than that. They invested in their data center operations from the start while most companies invest as little as possible and pay more after the fact...

...Google shows, just as Adobe did a decade before, that companies CAN compete with Microsoft. But to do so they have to unlock the intellectual talent of their employees and then USE that knowledge. Bringing this story back where it started, I can't see where Sun is doing this. They do not appear at present to have a culture that can grow the company beyond their present business model...


Shake Your Groove Thing

Thursday, April 15, 2004


Why won't this work?


The Loftcube project. Philo asks Joel:

Why won't this work?

An itty-bitty loft you can park on rented roof space. Since this is so incredibly appealing to me if I were single, I have to conclude there's a reason it won't work.

Since you're in urbia, I figured you'd have some theories...


Loftcube: Why won't this work?

And a surprisingly cogent discussion on ARM's from the inimitable FC message board:

HOUSING TARDS: Please talk me out of getting an ARM mortgage.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004


More on Gmail

Google Pocket GuideFrom Miscoranda, more analysis of Google's Email Beta:

Details, details. Whilst most people are speculating about privacy concerns, spam handling capabilities, and the length of the beta phase of gmail, I'm still busy examining the minutia of the service...

...The second screenshot is what you get when you click on "Compose email", and shows how relevant entries from your personal contacts lists are displayed in real time, updated with each character you type. The JavaScript that drives all of these features is heavily obfuscated, presumably to deter automated interaction with the interface...

...One of the most common class of questions that I've had is whether the service is suitable for professional use. Commercial business use is forbidden by the Terms of Use...


Miscoranda: More Gmail Beta Testing

100 Flicks that Deserve More Love

Night Falls on ManhattanLooking for flicks and sick of the run-of-the-mill crap? Check out CHUD's Top 100 Films that deserve more love.

Straight out of Naptown

Steel Toes: A Novel by Eddie LittleI just posted this review of Eddie Little's novel Steel Toes.

Straight out of Naptown

Picking up almost immediately at the point that _Another Day In Paradise_ left off, Bobby Prine is killing time in a hard-core Indiana youth facility, trying to avoid the next race riot that will either kill him or send him packing to adult prison. On the razor's edge, he determines that only escape will save him from the fate that awaits him in either correctional facility. With a couple of friends, he does manage to flee... the crew makes their way to New York and then Boston, hooking up with a variety of other crime gangs, some of whom are very dubious partners. Prine's small crew manages to fund themselves through a moderately successful set of crimes, ranging from check-kiting to hijacking.

But a truly big score awaits: a Boston museum is displaying a collection of rare coins that a major collector desperately wants -- and he's willing to pay as much as $600K. Realizing that the competing gangs may double-cross his group, Prine tries to set up a triple-cross. But an increasingly serious drug habit and some girlfriend problems have helped cloud his mind. As the violence escalates, the reader feels just as trapped as Prine: can he survive long enough to realize one final, big score? And clean himself up in the bargain?

Little is straight out of the Eddie Bunker school of crime writers: guys who know exactly what they're talking about and wrap you into a near-psychopathic experience. You'll feel the anger, the addiction, the joy and rgaing pain that Prine experiences. Because this is raw, moving and -- ultimately -- stunning material.

Steel Toes, a novel by Eddie Little

Tuesday, April 13, 2004


Google Challenging Microsoft's Monopoly?

Google Pocket GuideInteresting perspective from Mitch Wagner: his contention is that Google is building the world's largest fault tolerant platform. Search, web mapping, web logging, even email are secondary to Google's goal of owning the underlying infrastructure on which billions of folks depend.

"Google is building a huge computer with a custom operating system that everyone on earth can have an account on," wrote Jason Kottke, a web designer and developer, in his weblog, kottke.org, last week...

"Google's money won't be made with search," Kottke wrote in Feb. 2003. "That's small peanuts compared to selling access to the world's biggest, best, and most cleverly-utilized map of the web. And I have a feeling that they know this... but they're just not letting on..."

...The misconception about Google's core business leads to the surprise over Google's challenge to Microsoft. How could an Internet search company challenge a desktop operating system monopoly? But in retrospect, Google's challenge to Microsoft is obvious. Established technology vendors are not generally challenged by competitors doing the same thing, but better and cheaper. They're challenged by companies that do something different that makes the established technology relatively unimportant...

For example, Microsoft itself didn't unseat IBM by making better, cheaper mainframes...


Google Challenges Microsoft Monopoly

Inquirer on Outsourcing

Strategic Outsourcing: A Structured Approach to Outsourcing Decisions and InitiativesInsightful article from the Inquirer on the drawbacks of outsourcing, with emphasis on call-centers. This should (but probably won't) be must-reading for C-level execs:

[Outsourcing of] ...Customer support is a real stretch, in fact it is basically saying that you don’t want to deal with the only source of income you have. Technical support outsourcing is just plain stupid.

Outsourcing your tech support is more or less the kiss of death for an organisation. Dell recently came to this conclusion. It outsourced its bread and butter corporate support to India, and customer satisfaction went into the toilet. It backpedaled pretty quickly, which is a pretty good indicator that it was hurting sales...

...What most people don’t seem to realize is that it is worse for the company that does the outsourcing. There are two reasons for this, neither one of which is obvious. First is an expansion of the "Institutional Memory" concept I wrote about earlier. If you outsource, you effectively destroy the ability to promote from within. The other is that you place your only contact with the customer in the hands of people who have no economic justification to care...

...When you outsource the call centre, this chain of command and ability to promote from within is irrevocably shattered. Those one in 100 people that HR would kill for get washed away in the next bidding cycle. There is no bottom up knowledge and personnel transfer, the bright ones simply go away...




Web Services

Understanding Web Services: XML, WSDL, SOAP, and UDDILooking for a good overview of web services? WebServiceResource is in the process of creating a portal around the topic. Tutorials, books, technologies all play a part. If it's maintained and built out, it could become a very interesting site.

WebService Resource

Monday, April 12, 2004


Blackout!

BlackoutFrom SecurityFocus comes this excellent technical recap of the problems that resulted in the "Big Blackout" of 14 August 2003. Interestingly, one of the key failures was that of a GE Energy automated alarm system (and, no, it wasn't running Windows :-). Read on...

...To nobody's surprise, the final report on the blackout released by a U.S.-Canadian task force Monday puts most of blame for the outage on Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp., faulting poor communications, inadequate training, and the company's failure to trim back trees encroaching on high-voltage power lines. But over a dozen of task force's 46 recommendations for preventing future outages across North America are focused squarely on cyberspace...

...That may have something to do with the timing of the blackout, which came three days after the relentless Blaster worm began wreaking havoc around the Internet -- a coincidence that prompted speculation at the time that the worm, or the traffic it was generating in its efforts to spread, might have triggered or exacerbated the event. When U.S. and Canadian authorities assembled their investigative teams, they included a computer security contingent tasked with looking specifically at any cybersecurity angle on the outage...

...In the end, it turned out that a computer snafu actually played a significant role in the cascading blackout -- though it had nothing to do with viruses or cyber terrorists. A silent failure of the alarm function in FirstEnergy's computerized Energy Management System (EMS) is listed in the final report as one of the direct causes of a blackout that eventually cut off electricity to 50 million people in eight states and Canada.

"There [were] a couple of processes that were in contention for a common data structure, and through a software coding error in one of the application processes, they were both able to get write access to a data structure at the same time,' says Unum. 'And that corruption led to the alarm event application getting into an infinite loop and spinning.'"


SecurityFocus: Tracking the blackout bug

Sunday, April 11, 2004


Linux unsafe for Defense apps?

Linux, Second Edition (Hacking Exposed)Interesting assertion from the head of one of the real-time OS vendors. While he has a vested, business interest in suppressing embedded Linux... one wonders whether there isn't some merit to his statements. The key question: is anyone performing the strict vetting of the Linux kernel and its modules that the Green Hills RTOS underwent?

A storm has erupted in the embedded community, with real-time operating systems house Green Hills charging that Linux is fundamentally insecure and wide open to security breaches by "foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists." ...

...O'Dowd claimed the salient issue is that Linux isn't held to as a high a security standard as is the proprietary "Integrity" RTOS made by Green Hills. "If all they would do is hold Linux to the same standard they hold us to, I'd be happy... At the [Federal Aviation Administration], they have received from us documentation of every single line of source code and tests of every line of code and boundary condition. It costs us $500 to $1,000 a line to review our source code. It would cost billions of dollars to review Linux." ...

...O'Dowd's tough stance may attract attention because he is also taking an unusual public stab at a competitor — embedded Linux powerhouse MontaVista Software. "MontaVista is outsourcing their development to Russia and China. That's not wrong if you're building toaster ovens," O'Dowd said in an interview. "If you're building national security applications, that's a different story. Nobody's even checking if there's anybody putting anything [dangerous] into Linux." ...


EE Times -Green Hills calls Linux 'insecure' for defense

Slashdot followup

When you buy a RTOS, you usually aren't getting compiled executable code. You usually get source code that you need to port to the hardware you are building.

Data sheets like this [ghs.com] implies that Green Hills adheres to this common practice. So all the open source is more trustworthy than a black box arguments don't apply. Anyone who wishes to deploy a system based on Green Hills' RTOS can audit the code, it isn't hidden from them. Also, this PDF [ghs.com] linked says:

INTEGRITY178B has been audited and approved by the FAA for DO178B Level A use.

Which to me implies that it has had a more thorough external audit than most open source packages.

One final argument is that an RTOS is usually very small. Their Velocity [ghs.com] RTOS can run in 3KB of RAM. When the OS is stripped down to something that small, a full audit seems like a much less daunting task.

This implies that he isn't arguing security through obscurity. He is arguing for the cathedral approach vs. the bazaar. Don't get me wrong, he still is spreading FUD. Its just a different FUD than you think. He is ignoring the role that Linus Torvalds and some of his trusted lieutenants like Alan Cox play in planning a direction, vetting ideas, and protecting the stability of the code base. Patches don't just come out of the blue from anonymous sources and applied without any examination, no matter what Dan O'Dowd may think...


Slashdot followup on O'Dowd's assertions

The Rundown -

The Rundown (Widescreen Edition)The Rundown... just posted this review of the DVD on Amazon.

Can't you just imagine the Hollywood pitch meeting that resulted in "The Rundown"?

"Let's see... 'The Rock' will be this really tough bounty-hunter who gets sent to the Amazon River basin to bring back a wanna-be archaeologist (Seann William Scott)... he has to get him out of this hick mining town run by the evil boss (Christopher Walken)... but, in the process, they get lost in the rain-forest! While trying to get back to civilization, they stumble across a priceless treasure and have to keep it from the bad guys! See, it's 'Romancing the Stone' and 'Commando' all in one! It's a can't miss movie!"

Surprisingly, it _is_ a can't miss concept. The lightweight plotting is fleshed out with humor and decent acting by all players. Scott is nothing to write home about, but Rosario Dawson's barmaid character adds beauty and depth. Walken does his usual turn playing the psychotic mine owner. And the Rock has all the requisite charisma, athletic ability and charm to fully justify a 'Rundown 2'.

This is a light, fun action movie that is simple entertainment at its best.


The Rundown (Widescreen Edition)

11 Types of (College Hoops) Message Board Posters

A Season on the BrinkFound a link to this post on the Peegs (Indiana) message boards:

This is off a Big Ten message board, I just thought I'd pass it along.

The 11 Types of College Sports Message Board Posters:

1. John Wooden: The Xs and Os guy who thinks he's the only one on the board who knows what a pick and roll is. Quote: "The reason Wisconsin always get so many foul shots at home is because our inverted swing offense puts opposing players in defensive situations they aren't accustomed to...(bleep). Maybe if you ever played organized basketball you would understand this."
Natural habitat: Iowa City, Champaign, Madison, Lawrence

2. Odysseus: The "classy backstabber." Makes every compliment backhanded. Quote: "Hey guys, congrats on winning the Big Ten from a Spartan fan, even though it was clearly a foul, and your title will always have a asterisk, and your mom's a dirty whore. See you in Indianapolis!!!"
Natural habitat: Madison, East Lansing

3. Blanche DuBois: The pathetic faded debutante holding on to past glory. Quote: "Putting on the Indiana uniform is a greater honor that winning three Nobel Prizes and sleeping with Britney Spears in the same night
Natural habitat: Bloomington, Lawrence, Chapel Hill

4. Fox Mulder: The conspiracy theorist. Quote: "Obviously ESPN is controlled by a secret cabal of Duke grads. I mean, Digger Phelps and Dick Vitale are both 33rd level Freemasons. Put it together, people."
Natural habitat: Champaign...everybody else is in on it.

5. The Voice of the People: The person who always tries to get people to e-mail members of the media to tell them how much we hate them; and why, therefore, they should say nicer things about us. Quote: "Here is Terry Boers' e-mail.e-mail the Score and tell them what a bunch of effing morons they are for not devoting four hours a day to Illini athletics. We need to get the Chicago media behind us!"
Natural habitat: Champaign, Iowa City

6. The Invisible Hand: The person who claims to have intimate connections with coaches, players and recruits. Often creepy. Quote: "I don't want to give away my sources, but I can state with absolute certainty that Shaun Livingston ate corn within the past 24 hours."
Natural habitat: Durham, Lawrence, East Lansing

7. The Fanboy: The seventh grader on his dad's computer. Quote: HEY GUY DON'T YOU THINK PEIRRE PIERCE SHOULD BE TEH BIG TEN POY!!?!??? HE IS TEH SHIZNIT!?!?!?
Natural habitat: Iowa City, Champaign, Ann Arbor

8. Sister Mother Superior: The grammar police, who tries to win arguments by pointing out spelling errors. Often replies using larger than necessary words to show linguistic dominance. Hilarity usually ensues. Quote: "Perhaps I would take "you're" [sic] arguments more seriously, were you to more rigorously adhere to the syntactical rules of the mother tongue. As it is, your (notice how it's spelt) ruminations leave me nonplussed." Natural enemy of: The Fanboy.
Natural habitat: Ubiquitous

9. The CyberLawyer: The person who takes message board arguments way too seriously. Quote:
"If you believe that Devin Harris is better than Deron Williams, please state ten distinct reasons. Cite carefully following Bluebook format. Any failure to comply with these rules will result in me winning. If you use statistics, please include standard deviation figures for each category."
Natural habitat: Madison, Champaign, Iowa City

10. Keyser Sose: The classic hit-and-run artist who gets a password three days before the big game, flaps incessantly, then disappears, never to be seen again. Quote: "Ten Reasons Missouri will beat Illinois:"
Natural habitat: Missouri

11. Rodney Dangerfield: The person who believes that any failure of anyone else to conform to their own rose-colored view evinces a lack of respect for themselves, the program and the United States of America as a whole. Quote: "It's disgusting that the Big Ten coaches didn't put Greg Brunner on the first team. Obviously they don't know anything about basketball.it's a slap in the face to all of us."
Natural habitat: Ubiquito


11 Types of Message Board Posters

Saturday, April 10, 2004

Da-yam

 76, 81 and 92 Screen SizesI need me a monitor setup like this.

76", 81"and 92" Screen Sizes.
Resolutions from 5120 x 1024 pixels to 25X VGA
at 6400 x 1200 pixels.
All-aluminum custom-built construction.
Ultra-widescreen format for simultaneous display of
multiple pages, windows, applications, graphics, full-
screen audio and video applications.
Ultra-Speed™ Display Technology
Lightning-fast pixel response supporting full-motion
high-frame-rate digital video playback.


Grand Canyon Monitors Features
Digital FortressExcellent quote from the director of the NSA.

I am not really helped by being reminded that I need more Arabic linguists or by someone second-guessing an obscure intercept sitting in our files that may make more sense today than it did two years ago. What I really need you to do is to talk to your constituents and find out where the Americans want the line between security and liberty to be."

-- NSA Director Hayden


Terrorism Research Center

Friday, April 09, 2004

False advertising words?

Selling OnlineIs Google entitled to sell search terms that happen to be trademarked? A fascinating lawsuit brought by Pets Warehouse contends that the major search engines (Google, Overture and Kanoodle) have no right to sell trademarked "ad words".

A trademark infringement lawsuit against Overture, Google, and Kanoodle will move forward, after a judge rejected motions to dismiss the suit...

...The suit alleges the defendants infringed on Pets Warehouse's (PW) trademarks by selling its name as a keyword to their paid placement advertisers. It also accuses them of unfair competition, trademark dilution, deceptive practices, and interference with prospective business advantage.

"Not withstanding PW's exclusive right to control the use of its famous Pets Warehouse mark, Kanoodle, Google and Overture actively assists [sic] competitors of PW in what is best described as a 'bait and switch' of PW's actual and potential customers,"
(Ed: fascinating and -- at face value -- accurate description of how 'ad words'-style programs operate)the suit says... consumers clicking on results on the sites might end up buying from competitors, perhaps without even realizing they aren't on the PW Web site...

Suit Against Google, Overture, Kanoodle Moves Forward

Putting a stake in the heart of 'strcpy'

C Programming Language (2nd Edition)It's about time. Microsoft finally whacked strcpy and his friends. I used to have all sorts of cheesy tricks to force myself and other developers working with me to avoid this class of unsafe function. I wasn't worried (at the time) about buffer overflows causing cracks in my security foundation. I was simply concerned about stability. I had one goal for the software I wrote: never crash and never leak (tough goal in ANSI C, I know!). So I used to #undef strcpy and attempt other cheesy tricks. But using sprintf, strncpy and other alternatives to formatting C's ASCIIZ string buffers has always been flat-out risky.

Every once in a while, we all need to do some serious spring-cleaning, whether it's around the house or in our code. And invariably, when we do start the clean-up effort, we wonder where some of the moldy old crud came from, and why we never noticed it in the past. Some things we keep, and some things we toss out. And if you're anything like me, you replace some of things you throw away with shinier, newer versions.

Let's face it, the C Runtime library is in dire need of a good scrub, and I don't mean a tidy-up, I mean getting in there with steel wool and bleach!


Saying goodbye to an old friend

Thursday, April 08, 2004


Behind the Curtain at Microsoft

Microsoft Windows XP Inside Out
<br />From Technology Review:

On Tuesday Microsoft turned on Channel 9, a community weblog designed to give visitors a glimpse inside the software development process at Microsoft. The site's founders, five Microsoft employees, hope to counter widespread resentment and suspicion among outside software engineers over Microsoft's autocratic control of Windows, the planet's dominant computing platform.

Behind the Curtain at Microsoft

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Garmin eTrex GPS (Yellow)In the future, everyone will be featured on a magazine cover. And they complain about GMail. Geez.

When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.

On one level, the project, sort of the ultimate in customized publishing, is unsurprising: of course a magazine knows where its subscribers live. But it is still a remarkable demonstration of the growing number of ways databases can be harnessed. Apart from the cover image, several advertisements are customized to reflect the recipient's particulars.


Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover

Google Pocket GuideT he Secret Source of Google's Power...

Much is being written about Gmail, Google's new free webmail system. There's something deeper to learn about Google from this product than the initial reaction to the product features, however. Ignore for a moment the observations about Google leapfrogging their competitors with more user value and a new feature or two. Or Google diversifying away from search into other applications; they've been doing that for a while. Or the privacy red herring.

No, the story is about seemingly incremental features that are actually massively expensive for others to match, and the platform that Google is building which makes it cheaper and easier for them to develop and run web-scale applications than anyone else.


The secret source of Google's power

And a related, important article that was linked on the above page: a fascinating description (from academia, no less) of Google's server- and file-system organization.

The Google File System

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Google Pocket GuideNow that Google's going into the email business, everyone's wondering: what will the interface will look like? How will it be different and improved from conventional mail? Will ads or related links get in the way?

Kevin Fox is a Google employee responsible (I think) for GMail's user interface. Here are some screen shots:

Fury

Monday, April 05, 2004

Culture and Customs of NigeriaTurns out he wasn't really the widow of General Sani Abacha...

A Nigerian conman who tricked people into handing over money and personal data in expectation of receiving a huge windfall has been sentenced to 20 months in prison by a Welsh court.

Peter Okoeguale, 33, who was arrested in Wales while is the process of committing one such '419' scam, also faces deportation from the UK at the end of his sentence...


Nigerian '419' scammer sent to prison - silicon.com

Sunday, April 04, 2004

Justice League of America Archives Vol. 3
Justice League of America unveils anti-terror reorganization
Superman: "We recognize a compelling need to change."

METROPOLIS (UPSI) -- Saying the terrorist attacks of September 11 "marked a turning point for the Justice League," acting director Superman unveiled a dramatic reorganization marking a change in the JLA's priorities from crime-fighting to preventing terrorism. The association of crime-fighting super-heroes, consisting of Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Aquaman had been criticized sharply in recent months for failing to protect the American public from terrorist attacks.

After September 11, said Superman, "It had become clear that we had to fundamentally alter the way we do business." The super-hero outlined a series of steps designed to change the Justice League from its former crime-fighting stance to one aligned against terrorist groups. The head of the JLA also acknowledged that its earlier anti-terror efforts were flawed, bowing to strong criticism by the press.

"It's no secret that (former JLA counter-terror head) Aquaman had undergone counseling for a substance-abuse problem," Superman stated, "he did not meet our expectations for counter-terror leadership. And let's be clear about all of our activities prior to 9/11: Lex Luthor and the Joker are not the threats they once were... they live in retirement homes." Superman, who took over as acting head of the JLA only a week before the attacks, unveiled a list of Justice League priorities, the first of which read, "Protect the United States from terrorist attacks."

"When I replaced the Flash as acting head of the JLA," the man of steel stated, "the terrorist threat was not in our normal scope of operations. In fact, on 9/11, I myself was flying from New York to an undisclosed location for a class reunion.

[Story continued on page A12]

Friday, March 26, 2004

The Code BookOne of the soft drink companies -- that shall remain nameless -- is imprinting ten character alphanumeric codes on each bottle top. By entering the codes into a web site, you can collect points which are redeemable for prizes.

As an academic exercise, one could investigate how these codes might have been generated. Consider that you might use the alphabet (A through Z) and certain numerals (say: 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9). Those numerals might have been chosen to prevent ambiguity during data entry (e.g., the number "1" might look too much like the letter "I"). Anyhow, that range of alphanumerics allows 32 discrete values or five-bit patterns (2 to the fifth power).

Imagine further that, embedded within each code there might reside a random, time-based key. Using the time-based key, one could decrypt the remaining five-bit "bytelets". It might even be possible that a check value would also be embedded within each code to ensure its integrity. For example, a checksum, a CRC or a truncated hash (such as an MD5 value) could be generated and encrypted as part of the code string.

If one could imagine how this was all accomplished then one could theoretically co-opt this "virtual currency". However: given the fact that publishing an algorithm of this sort might technically run afoul of any number of new-fangled laws like the DMCA... even if one were able to deduce the algorithm used for code string generation, it would be highly risky to employ it for evil purposes. So there... you're warned. :-)

BTW

Simon Singh's The Code Book is not just one of the best books on cryptology and "code-breaking" ever written... it might be one of the best historical, non-fiction books of any type ever written. It's startlingly good. Highest recommendation.

Week-long Hiatus

This blog, which has been regularly updated since November, will probably be going on a week-long hiatus starting tomorrow. Mr. T has promised to Tivo the Sopranos for me. My prediction: a Mr. Johnny Sac is going to be sleeping with the fishes quite soon....

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

PHP 5 and SimpleXML

You'd be correct in guessing that there isn't a book out on PHP 5 and XML... thus, we'll revert to version 4 in this link! Whickety whack!Talk about simplicity. I was just reading over Andi Gutman's summary of new features in PHP 5. The Simple XML and SOAP examples struck me as indicative of PHP. Pure, unadulterated simplicity. No language on the planet (that I'm aware of, anyhow) reduces logic so dramatically.

From Andi's new book: Probably when looking back in a year or two it will be clear that SimpleXML has revolutionized the way PHP developers work with XML files. SimpleXML could really be called "XML for Dummies". Instead of having to deal with DOM or even worse SAX, SimpleXML represents your XML file as a native PHP object. You can read, write or iterate over your XML file with ease accessing elements and attributes.

Consider the following XML file:


<clients>
<
client>
    <
name>John Doe</name>
    <
account_number>87234838</account_number>
</
client>
<
client>
    <
name>Janet Smith/font></name>
    <
account_number>72384329</account_number>
</
client>
</
clients>


The following piece of code prints each client’s name and account number:

$clients = simplexml_load_file('clients.xml');
foreach (
$clients->client as $client) {
    print
"$client->name has account number $client->account_number";
}


SOAP: ...the following calls SomeFunction() defined in a WSDL file:

$client = new SoapClient("some.wsdl");
$client->SomeFunction($a, $b, $c);


What's New in PHP 5

Whither the Television Commercial?

TiVo Series2 80-Hour Digital Video RecorderFrom MIT's Technology Review Blog: a brief missive on the 'death of the TV commercial'.

Mailblaster is an online newsletter targeting those who do business with or have an active interest in what’s happening on Madison Avenue. More and more, the newsletter is focusing on alternatives to the 30- or 60-second commercial. They are predicting an evolution from zapping (that is, changing the channel to avoid commercials) to skipping (that is, using your digital video recorder to skim past commercials) to “opt-out“ (that is, being willing to pay extra to watch the show without commercials)...

...One recent article identifies a broad range of alternatives to traditional advertising that are being tested in what many see as an experimental period for the future of branding and marketing. Most of these involve some further blurring of the line between commercials and content, including product placements, programs based on ad campaigns, short interstitial movies, pop up ads on the bottom of your television screen, even the prospect of a whole channel devoted to content generated by a particular sponsor (if this seems unlikely, see if your local cable company is getting the Hallmark Channel, which mostly programs the four or five decades of content generated by the Hallmark Hall of Fame)...


That was so 30 seconds ago

GoogleFight

I would like to suggest the following GoogleFight matchups (hint: use double quotes around each phrase to get a more accurate 'punch count'):

Chevrolet Vega vs. Ford Pinto
Robert Parrish vs. Kevin McHale
Deviled Eggs vs. Potato Salad

GoogleFight

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

A bit more on Richard Clarke

Click here for a surprise, whickety whackHoly Toledo! The Imus program had Laura Ingram or someone on (don't recall who offhand) who was livid over the fact that CBS didn't disclose their financial interest in Clarke's book! The chain she described was: CBS owns Viacom, which owns Simon & Schuster, which published Clarke (again, apologies if I'm mistaken - that's from memory). In any event, an egregious conflict-of-interest, especially if it wasn't disclosed on the program. Uhm, yeah, CBS, we can certainly take your reporting seriously now! CBS' bias was a joke before this. They're simply a historical footnote after this.

CBS News' "60 Minutes" has raised eyebrows in journalism circles for failing to disclose its corporate connection to an upcoming book by former White House terrorism official Richard Clarke that was the subject of a segment of Sunday's edition of the newsmagazine... Clarke's "Against All Enemies" is published by a unit of Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster..."

'60 Minutes' Book Segment Creates Stir

Feech, you Magnificent Bastard, I read your Book!

Sopranos complete 4th seasonI have a new signature that I'll be using on all of my public postings from this point forward. Or at least until I come up with a better one.

Proud Graduate of the Feech LaMana School of Anger Management

Outstanding episode of the Sopranos this Sunday (the only television show I watch, other than the occasional NCAA basketball contest)... unfortunately, events are conspiring to take me out of pocket for the fourth episode. Apparently, one of the "main characters" is destined to get whacked. I've heard that either Silvio (unlikely, IMO) or Johnny Sac (much more likely) are on the chopping block.

NJ.com: 'Sopranos' Forum

Out of pocket... definitely out of pocket

Eastern Caribbean

Day Port - Arrival and Departure Times
0 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida - 5:00 pm
1 Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - 8:00 am 4:00 pm
2 At Sea
3 St. Thomas, U.S. V.I. - 8:00 am midnight
4 Road Town, Tortola - 7:00 am 6:00 pm
5 At Sea
6 Nassau, Bahamas - noon 7:00 pm
7 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida - 8:00 am

Monday, March 22, 2004

Click here for a surprise, whickety whackI find it quite an amazing coincidence that Richard Clarke's accusations (that the Bush Administration was hesitant to act against Al Qaeda) were delayed until his book was published. Seems as though the former counter-terror head wasn't concerned enough to raise a stink until he could make some money off of the deal. But leave it to CBS to position Clarke's book tour as "news".

Condoleezza Rice: "This retrospective rewriting of the history of the first several months of the administration is not helpful... to somehow suggest that the attack on 9/11 could have been prevented by a series of meetings -- I have to tell you that during the period of time we were at battle stations..."

...Rice pointed out that Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism efforts in 1998 when U.S. embassies in African were bombed and in 2000 when the USS Cole was bombed, as well as during "a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11th were being hatched."

...Rice said the only time she recalls Clarke asking to brief the president was in June 2001 -- and it was on the issue of cybersecurity...


CNN: Rice rejects Clarke charges