October 2004

An idea for Family Controls

October 20, 2004

According to MacinTouch today Apple's next OS, Tiger, will include Family Controls that give administrators more granularity over the abilities of applications. What isn't mentioned there but would be nice are time of day related controls. Something that would allow kids to chat via iChat at certain hours but would limit what times of day it's possible.

Local media

October 19, 2004

As I mentioned yesterday I attended a speech last night called Fighting for Air. The talk used radio as a example of what has happened with consolidation of media ownership and the potential dangers of the monoculture that is promoted by consolidation of media. With anecdotes including Minot, North Dakota where Clear Channel Communications' lack of staffing at all the local stations prevented emergency broadcasts from going out when a train carrying 10,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia derailed and residents could not be warned to stay inside away from the toxic cloud.

Managing large projects

October 18, 2004

Today brings news that FedEx will build a Private Solar System. "We're tired of the current collection of planets and would like our own set of planets. It's much easier than dealing with problems on Earth," said an anonymous company representative.

OK so that is obviously a spoof, but sometimes headline writers should read what they write.

Islam and the West: A Clash of Civilizations?

October 18, 2004

Dinesh D'Souza will be giving a lecture at the William S. Boyd School of Law this Saturday at 10:00 am. The talk, entitled Islam and the West: A Clash of Civilizations? will be given at the Tam Alumni Center.

Fighting For Air: How Big Media Drowns Out Local Voices

October 18, 2004

If you're going to be in Las Vegas this evening it is worth taking a look at the lecture Fighting For Air: How Big Media Drowns Out Local Voices at the Barrick Museum on the UNLV campus. The lecture by Eric Klinenberg, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at New York University will be at 7:30 tonight.

Voting for your boss

October 17, 2004

One of the interesting things about working for a university in a state where there is an elected board of regents is that you get a vote on who will be on the governing board of the institution you work for.

Cheating roomates

October 17, 2004

In a post about Google copying MSNBC Jeremy Zawodny comments that he turned in a roomate who tired to pass off Jeremy's program as his own in college. The comments are amazing, and the number of people who are "astonished" that one would turn in their own roomate. I too had a roomate who was a cheat for a while. I should have turned in him. His racket was a little different, as an underage engineering student from a privileged family he'd provide the beer for "study sessions" at the condo his mommy and daddy bought for him, and then every single time he'd talk one of his "friends" into leaving a paper behind and would spend the rest of the night copying the answers. Don't think I want to travel on any bridges he designs.

It is not the same without Earl

October 15, 2004

We went to eat at the steakhouse at the Gold Strike in Jean, Nevada last evening. It's the third time we've eaten at this quaint upscale joint. The price tags are a bit on the high side for a small place along the highway, but the high end decor and low lighting make it a good time anyway. That is it has been a good time on two of our three visits. Earl the host/waiter gives the place a charming classic feel. Last week, however, Earl was in a car accident and so he wasn't there last night. First there were no tables in non-smoking and we were told it would be an hour and a half wait. We finally got a table in smoking with five people around the table for four. After about 20 minutes of total invisibility the extremely unfriendly hostess told us somebody would be there soon. It was then that she seated the cigar-smoking regulars at the next table. Mind you she didn't put them as far away as possible, rather stuck them right next to the non-smoking party she had just forced into a smoking section. (Although in truth it's extremely that anyone in the "non-smoking" section didn't get the second-hand smoke of the stogies from the next table. As the stogie totting regulars lit up I though this was going to ruin the flavor of the whole meal.

Aircraft security or insecurity?

October 14, 2004

The local news had a segment tonight on a convention of aircraft and small aviation company types (charters, general aviation etc.). One of the self-anointed experts who talked to the media gave the usual "I'd tell you but 'they might be listening'" kind of answer about the security topics they were covering. Now which is more likely - that a potential terrorist is attending the convention or that a potential terrorist is watching the local news in a relatively small market hoping to get some pointers. Gee, I feel so much safer now.

Security of Google Desktop Search

October 14, 2004

What's that you say? Read the manual?

Since I don't have access to my XP box right now I sent Dave Winer a query about how the Google Desktop Search results are included with web results. He suggested it might be a Javascript include. A reasonable possibility but I didn't find mention of a need to run Javascript in the browser to use GDS. There is a page in the manual - who would have thought, actually read the manual - that describes the integration this way: "Wait a minute. How can web search return a page containing both www.google.com and Google Desktop Search results?

When Google Desktop Search is integrated with Google web search, what you're really doing is sending your query to two different programs and places. One copy of your query goes to www.google.com, which searches only the web and returns a page with those results to your computer. Another copy of your query goes to the Google Desktop Search application running on your computer, which searches only its cache on your computer for results. Google Desktop Search also intercepts www.google.com's results page before you can see it, changes it to include the Google Desktop Search results, and then lets your web browser show it to you. Google never knows what your Google Desktop Search results are."

So it appears it's both very cool software and well implemented so as to avoid the insecurity of send

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