Mindful Musings

I believe that I have managed to change my own mind (again) about the digital camera that I would like to purchase. This time I am fixated on the Nikon D70 digital SLR. This camera is a better value for money, in my opinion, that the Canon EOS-300D. Here are some of the better features:
The shutter buffer is 17 frames in full 6.3 megapixels for the Nikon while the Canon only offers a 4 frames buffer before dropping to the “one frame per second” buffer.
The Nikon comes with a Nikor DX lens which has much better edge manipulation for digital pictures that any regular SLR lens. The Nikon will take regular Nikor SLR lenses as well. One disadvantage of the Nikon is the price. The Canon would have gotten me a 70-300 AF lens for the same price as a 28-70 DX lens for the Nikon.
The other advantages of the Nikon include a better body, better flash, MUCH faster shutter release, a quieter shutter and USB 2.0 connectivity.

All in all, a $100 increase in price is worth all of these extras, especially the larger shutter buffer. The icing on the cake is the brand. I frankly like Nikon better than Canon. Personal preference.

On continuing my personal search for education and all things cool, michel led me to Russian Ternary computers from the turn of the century. The idea is really cool and seemed like it would work at the time. The basic principle was that instead of working with binary numbers, they worked with ternary numbers. Brousentsov’s Ternary Principle suggested that “the result of some weighing is expressed in the ternary number system by using three numerals namely: 1 (the positive unit), 0 (zero) and `1 (the negative unit).” The number base three idea follows from the original Fibonacci equations and formulae and were actively followed in Russia.
For those of you interested in this arcane yet extremely interesting computational mathematics, you can read more about it in “History of Computing in Russia and the USSR“. Apparently, Moscow University spent a great deal of money and resources looking at just this idea.
This would also make it easier to compare and come up with three pronged logic problems which require nested if and while loops (or extra temporary variables) to solve with our present implementation of binary numbers. I wish I could come up with a better example, but it completely alludes me this late at night.
Enjoy!

Why did I get into a master’s degree program? I had hoped to learn new technology, learn about the insides of existing technology and to learn and practice some advanced programming. I have been in the program for about two years now, and I can safely say that every bit of my education that has to do with recent technology, has been from work that I have done outside of school or at least outside of classes taught in school.

That is a sad revelation. I am on the second highest level of Computer Science education possible. I have learnt little in school. Where are the professors and classes that pertain to real world computing? Why are all the gurus and technology innovators outside of educational institutions? Where are the Mark Pilgrim, Phil Ringnalda, Joel Spolsky and Jakob Neilsons of the educational world? Why are we teaching classes about Ada and Cobol instead of classes on (developing) programming standards and .NET? Let me give you some examples.

I only signed up for classes which sounded interesting to me. Two of the most fun classes were advanced database systems and wireless networking. However, if I had stuck to the information taught in the class, I would have learnt very little of present technology. In our wireless networking class, we learnt about call centre routing and advanced prediction systems for wireless networks. We were told that these were the basic constructs of wireless networks and it was really important to learn before jumping into contemporary technology. I played along till there were only four weeks left in the semester. We had not talked about any present technology yet. I finally decided to make up my own project so I could learn something of consequence from the class. I did some work on 802.11b and Bluetooth co-existence problems. But where is the beef?

I could go so far as to say that if I had worked with Phil Ringnalda, Joel Spolsky and Matt Mullenweg for the past two years (instead of going to school), I would have learnt more and would be a much, much more capable computer scientist. (I already have learnt lots from them just from associating with them) My physics education tells me (and furiously prompted me) to work with the cutting edge of technology. I had been pushed to find new ideas to explore and forced to think outside the box. I worked with three seperate research projects while at The College of Wooster. All three of them dealt with cutting edge technology either from NASA or from OARDC. I was learning about things which we talked about and heard about everyday. I have compeltely missed that in my present education.

There is another arguement often used. Higher education is designed to be supplemented with real world knowledge and the more you learn outside, the richer your own educational experience. That is a load of crock coming from people that have stopped learning themselves and are unwilling to work any harder to learn the new technology and adpot it in their teaching. If a student is forced to learn everything that is worthwhile on their own time, what is the point of going to school? There needs to be some serious rethinking of education and educational objectives!

So, are we producing truckloads of “dumbed down computer scientists” (with arcane ideologies) who are supposed to lead the technological future of this country and of the world? Are computer professors and scientists worried about the usefulness of their work? Am I spending oodles of money to just get the “masters degree stamp” on my forehead? Is the computer science profession on its way out? To be replaced by the free-thinkers and self taught gurus?

I might be jaded because I went to school that is really short on money and does not have a very good computer science program. Are other Universities the same way?

I have installed an interesting application – BlogJet. It’s a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”—Pablo Picasso

This can be very interesting at times. I would really like to rewrite my phone blogging script so I can send voice messages over my phone to my blog. I might work on that next week after my thesis defense (if nothing seriously goes wrong).
We had a really good time tonight! I never realized that wine tasting with friends could be this much fun. I might take my mother and my father to one of these events this summer. The wines that I really liked tonight included “Black Tower Riesling, Germany” and “Chiarlo Moschato De Asti, Italy“. They were fruity and very very tasty! Try them out if you would.
Jennifer was our Designated Driver and there was very nice finger food there. Linda, John, the other John and Kelly were just a perfect match for Jennifer and I. I have not had such a good time with friends for a while now. Wine tasting is good, clean, fun!
I just wish I had a good cigar to go along with it.

I found a couple of very interesting brain usage profile pages. I also ran across a very fun Windows program that tests left brain over right brain dependance etc. I am not very sure how accurate this is, but it sure is very fun. You can download the Brain Usage Profiler here. Just a word of warning, it is about 1.5 Megs.

In other news, I made some definite boo boos and deleted a couple of my posts including the one about the Canon Rebel. I am beginning to think that I am not supposed to get that camera after all! I coded a little on a gallery hack for WordPress and am about to work for a couple of hours on some comment code. The rest of the day is going to be spent working on my thesis defense presentation.

Jennifer and I along with John and Linda are going for some wine tasting tonight. Jennifer is going to be our designated driver and it should be a good time. The weather was supposed to be nice this weekend, but they are calling for rain now.

I am back from New Jersey and I have to say that I had a really wonderful time. The only regret that I have is that I could not take Jennifer with me, she would have loved it! I went to a small beach front town called Spring Lake, New Jersey. Even though the beach was desrted, the quaint little town balloons to a huge beach goers’ paradise in summer. I had dinner with a good friend and his wife in the evening and we went for a walk along the beach at night. The houses are of colonial style (and very expensive of course) and the restaurants are very well catered. New York City is less than a stone’s throw away and the Garden State Parkway is a total mess. A nice place over all. I have made some observations about my trip which I will discuss at length at a later time, but till then, enjoy some of the pictures from the trip.

I am off to New Jersey for a couple of days. I will be away from blogging, my blogs and everything computer (including email) until I find a Hot Spot. This withdrawl will be very good for me…right?

Anyways, if you try to contact me during this time, you will not get a reply. Try again soon!

Boo-yah! I’m going to keep nagging Jason until he applies this weekend’s test code site-wide. No legacy tags, beyotch! Oh, and… “This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!” I’m not sure if I wanna play with a fixed-width or stick with the variable. Doesn’t look great on anything less than 1024×768, but those folks are in the minority. Hey, I got it to look fantastic in all the major browsers on all the major platforms – that’s gotta count for something. Props to glish for the guidance. So, what did I use for my editor? Notepad, baby. Metapad, actually (the best clone around). Thanks to everyone else for the virtual ass-kicking; you accelerated the inevitable.
...excerpt from: http://chris.pirillo.com/archives/2004_03.html#009547

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English (Some of these are surprising (not “suprising”).)
...excerpt from: http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html

Interesting essay by Clive Thompson in NY Times Magazine arguing that the Internet generally makes people more honest: a Cornell…
...excerpt from: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/21/145505.php

I was asked this question over email and this was my long(ish) answer. Enjoy!

If you can afford it, get a Macintosh. You will never, ever look back! Macintoshes are designed and built to elicit “Oooh’s and Aaaah’s”. They are rugged, are very, very user friendly, and are perfect for home and office use. The new Macintosh OS X based operating systems are very intuitive, fast, stable, and are just a pleasure to get around in. In addition, almost every piece of software that is available for the “PC” is also available for the Macintosh. If I could afford another machine, it would be a Macintosh.

Many of the WordPress developers (if not all of them) secretly desire to buy a Powerbook at some point of time. There are many “Oooh’s and Aaah’s” that I talk about and here are some examples of peoples’ reactions to opening a new Mac (or browsing through one at a store) for the first time.

I couldn’t find the articles I was thinking about, I will add then when I do.

Cons for PC users switching to a Mac:
Well, there are many. You will have to invest in new software for your computer such as word processors, multimedia, etc.
There IS a learning curve for longtime PC users to switch to MacOS. A lot of people will deny it, but it does happen and can SOMETIMES be frustrating.
You might have to give up some notions of “normalcy” about your computer and using it. You will have to learn new tricks to fulfill your needs.
You will spend more money than you ever did on your PC.

Pros for PC users switching to a Mac:
You will start hating other PC users as they whine about their computers.
You will start enjoying the time you spend with your computer.
You will become one of the few who are fanatical about their machines.
Tasks will be a lot easier to do.
Hardware will work a lot more easily than ever before.
You MIGHT spend MORE time on your computer than ever before.
More probable than not, you will JUST LOVE your new Macintosh.

Here are some of my recommendations, depending on your budget and tastes:

1) Low/Medium Budget, An IMac of some sort: These are design marvels that are prefect for the small home or office desk and are zippy as can be. Make sure you add up enough RAM to build it up to at least 512 megs. On the other hand, get the lowest RAM possible and buy a lot more (at a much cheaper price, from other Mac RAM vendors) yourself and put it in. You will thank yourself later on. They are “pretty” for the lack of a better word. Truly a design to be reckoned with.

2) Medium to medium high budget, get a Power Macintosh G5: These machines are fast, and I mean extremely FAST. Again, get lots of RAM (same trick as before) and a big hard drive. I dont think they sell a Macintosh with a bad video card. Really powerful machine with lots of bells and whistles and just a pleasure to use. I own a Blue and White G3 and I LOVE it!

3) Medium High budget and space constraints/need a laptop: Get a 17” PowerBook: Oh the beauty of this object! Very well packaged with a very wide screen. Perfect for ANY laptop power user and just very, very appealing. Good all round machine.

4) High budget/dream machine calibre: Get the dual G5 Power Macintosh: This is what dreams are made of! This baby flies like you would not believe. Argueably, one of the fastest desktop computers on the planet and just oodles of everything. Get lots of RAM and you have yourself an incredibly fast, powerful, useful, versatile, stable, need I say pretty, and friendly machine. This is the Zenith of the Macintosh computing world.

In spite of all my pressure to buy a Mac, if you still want to get a PC, here are some recommendations

1) Dell still makes a very nice desktop machine. Get something with LOTS of RAM, at least 60GB Hard drive space, a 64 Meg (at least) video card and DO NOT GET A CELERON. I would buy an Athlon without batting an eyelid, but Celerons are a NO NO.

2) Laptops manufacturers and models are abound but I trust only a few. Dont get an HP/Comaq…period. Toshiba and Sony laptops are nice and reliable with good customer service. Dell laptops are nice but pricey and you get more for your money elsewhere.

Not much else exciting about PCs’

Hope this long lecture helped you somewhat. I know I wanted to post some articles about Macs that I cannot find right now. If I do, I will add them to this post.

Six Apart recently launched their new “TypeKey” comment registration system. I have some serious problems with that system.

1) I agree with Matt and see a real problem with any centralized system that has no local component except for a closed API (more about that later). As has been discussed over and over again, any centralized spam prevention system is doomed to failure right from the start. Six Apart has many more resources than I can ever hope to have and will probably be able to handle all the traffic, but they leave the service open to all kinds of DDOS attacks from spammers which they could NOT handle. (as many other email blacklist servers and services have found out the hard way) If people say that comment spam is probably never going to reach email spam proportions, I will have to disagree. Once there is enough legislation to stop or stem email spam, blogs will just be the natural step down for spammers. But that is an arguement for another day.

2) I dislike that company’s elitist propaganda. Here are some excerpts from this TypeKey page:

“And TypeKey will work with TypePad weblogs as well as other tools and services soon after that.”

They expressly state that there will be a product “launch” and then …

“At that point, there will also be information about what is required to make use of TypeKey services in commercial applications.”

Six Apart is a growing company with many talented individuals who have defined blogging as we know it today. BUT, they are not Gods and never will be! Microsoft-esque promotional documentation language is just annoying and feels very elitist. Just for that I refuse to use their service.

3) How is typekey different from forcing users to register on a blog and only then allowing them to comment? What if I sign up for typekey and then post all kinds of junk?? who says whether my stuff is spam or not?? Some big shot blogger might think that my opinion on their “learned” topic is spam and decide to report me to TypeKey. Would that mean I could not comment anymore? Is one person’s comment another person’s spam?

4) This is proprietary software folks. Nothing to see here. There will …

” ..... be information about what is required to make use of TypeKey services in commercial applications”.

5) What about trackback spam? How will TypeKey prevent trackback spam? Get rid of trackbacks completely? Is there another component? No solution there at all.

6) As Michel points out, what about identity theft? What if someone signs up as Mark Pilgrim with a different email address and posts all kinds of junk? Who is to say that Mark’s email address is blah@blah.com and not bah@blah.com? Centralized solutions of establishing identity break down without getting really personal information involved. I better make sure I am the first to sign up with all my names and nicknames!!

“TypeKey helps ensure that people who comment on a site have a verified identity, keeping conversations on track and helping to prevent abusive or offensive content (comment spam) from being posted.”

– Nah! Doesnt work right and I aint givin you my credit number neither!!

With cautious optimism and glee, I would like to say that I might have more time to dedicate to a job search and coding now.
As for the items on my plate, the more important ones are:

Promoting my Peace and Unity Meme (see above, please)

Applying for jobs for at least 2 hours a day (I have to be regimented, or I lose track)

Writing a very simple MySql based wiki’ing system which is designed to be intgrated into other systems (primarily WordPress)

Fixing my threaded comments hack to be compliant and non-javascript (and other little issues with it)

Writing some code to support a LiveJournal mod of WP which would allow more control over the posts (might take a while)

And of course, cooking and spending time with my Jennifer

My parents are going to here on the 12th of April and that could not happen a day too soon! I have not seen them for almost a year and a half!! Jennifer Luckey will get sooo spoilt (again) !

I am organizing a Meme called “The World’s Loudest Mouse Click”. Here is what this means. I am trying to get a “LARGE” number of people to click on their mouse buttons at the stroke of midnight on the Fourth of July. I will define stroke of midnight as “zero hundred hours NY standard time on the 4th of July”.
A bunch of purposes will be served through this meme:
1) It will symbolize peace, unity and solidarity
2) It will bring people together and could serve to be a catalyst for other ideas
3) If marketed properly, it could set a world record
I am passionately requesting my readers and friends to read through this post and embrace the idea. If you like this idea and would like to help promote it, please make a link to this post (trackback if you like) and write on your blog or website about the idea. You could either link back to this entry or you could simply suggest the time, the idea and add your own thoughts. I do not care whether you mention me or my site on that entry. I am The World’s Loudest Mouse Click unimportant in the scheme of this meme. I would like to see this happen. If you do decide to promote this idea, I only request that you not maime the original thought of peace and unity. Other than that, you can change and promote it any way you please.
Expect to see a page about this soon.

So let us all get together and try to bring more people together.

I pray for Peace, Unity and Solidarity in our world.

Some comments so far that have really made my day:
As from MyDimension:

An endevor to symbolize peace. I think this is a great idea, to see the internet unite for one moment, with a single purpose. Even one so simple as clicking a mouse button.

My domain names have recently changed and I would really appreciate it if incoming links to my blogs were updated.

They are:
Mindful Musings: http://mindfulmusings.net/weblog/
Weblog Tools Collection: http://weblogtoolscollection.com/

Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience.

Very interesting (and tehnologically advanced) test of what kind of people you would like physically. I found it while reading through MoryDD’s blog.
I would take the test without worrying about whether you are attached or not. I believe it got most of my information right and gave me some wonderful insight into my own social behaviour. Give it a shot yourself.

A Japanese toy-company is shipping a water-powered, 19cm-long car that “uses hydrogen created from the electrolysis of pure water” to run itself.Link (via Engadget)

...excerpt from: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/03/14/waterelectrolysis_to.html

Microsoft Word fucking sucks ass!! I am so sick and tired of trying to coax this fucking program to do simple word processing tasks. I cannot believe that microsoft word makes it so difficult to have different page number formats for different pages, and does not fucking allow the modification of footnote formats beyond a certain point!! There is simply now way to have different footnote formats. Period. You COULD break down your 200 page document into itty bitty (and buggy) sections to TRY to change the page numbering schema, but good luck when you do that (and save everything) because your document might suddenly become 400 pages long without any warning!!

I cannot believe that a billion dollar company like Microsoft, putting out “top of the line word processing software” makes such a shitty product and everyone continues to use the damn thing!!

I dont like Latex that much either and now that I have come this far in writing my thesis, I really cannot turn back. A word of advice to all that are trying to write some serious documentation (anything greater than 20 pages) using Microsoft Word, Fucking Forget It Start using some other word processor right from the beginning and you will be saved a LOT of frustration later on!!

Things I hate about Microsoft Word (not listing everything, that would take up all day!):

Page number formatting
Lack of referencing schemas
Lack of control over “automatic features”
Twenty thousand temporary copies of your document
Page break mechanism
The built-in drawing package
The lack of a good equation editor
Lack of contemporary formatting ideologies
The twenty thousand “viewing modes”
Exceptionally bad inter-Microsoft Office collaboration
HUGE file sizes (my 200 page thesis is 3 MB!!)
I HATE the auto-correct feature!!
Auto-page formatting is sucky!
Heck, Auto-EVERYTHING is sucky

Among other things…

I am SO getting rid of Word when I am done with my thesis

What does the email author and the email receiver have in common that the SPAMmer does not? They are related by some sort of a social network. Leaving the obvious examples aside, if someone from the WordPress or the Drupal forums wanted to email me, they would already be a part of my social network.
This process could be used to check all email. You could have a web interface (much like orkut) where you setup your email accounts to be checked through one interface. Once they are setup, instead of whitelisting or blacklisting email addresses, you would add or delete someone from your own social network. In order for an email to be accepted for delivery, the social connection would have to be developed first. This could be as simple as adding someone to your own list of social contacts once you receive an email and have not categorized it as spam. You could receive emails from people in networks which are close to yours such as your co-worker or friends. The power of this method is hidden in the fact that no-one really wants a spammer to send them email. So even if a spammer wants to get invited into a network and start spamming, they would be kicked out very soon by the users.

Look at the way you read your email. Wouldn’t you rather read the messages from your closest group of people than those from a diamond miner in Uganda? So this system would arrange emails according to your closest circle outwards. The last circle consisting of completely unknown people who are probably sending you spam anyways. As you delete these messages, you tag them to be removed from your network and add them for a master blacklist of emails to be NOT allowed to join these networks.

The recently came across a web based email system that allows for their emails to be recalled after being sent, to be viewed only once and to be accounted for after they have been sent. That concept has always been very interesting to me and there have been many instances where I would have loved to be able to perform thos tasks with my own email. That led me to orkut which allows users to send emails to groups. I find that most of these emails from groups are what I consider SPAM. If I had a way of notifying the system that those messages are spam and the system had a way of warning the user sending those emails (and finally removing them from the group) the spam issue COULD be brought under control (in orkut).

That led me to thinking about social emails in general and how social networks work in particular. Who would want a spammer in their social network? If all incoming and outgoing emails of a society are controlled by a central authority, that central authority would have a much better understanding of all the emails sent and received. If the policing of SPAM is done using constructs of social networking, would human engineering work to our advantage? Could there be easy ways to break the system?

I would really like to work on setting up such a system for testing. However, I sometimes think that my own ideas a really off the wall and tend to shy away from making them a reality. Would anyone be interested in discussing this with me? Do you think this would work? Where is Orkut when I need him!

While the rest of the blogging world is off to SXSW (Interactive Festive at Austin, Texas) including Matt, Tantek and many others, I am stuck here at Toledo sitting in front of my monitor (which every righteous blogger should be doing anyways!) Even though I have not really expressed my desire to attend, it sure would be a hoot to actually meet some of the people I deal with everyday and dabble in cutting edge Interactive Media technology!
I am very close to being done with actually writing my thesis and it couldnt have come a day too soon! I am going to have to put the last few finishing touches over this weekend, send it for one last look-see to Dr Makki and then off to the printers we go. I will have to submit printed and bound copies to my secondary advisors for review on Tuesday and then get down to designing and putting together my thesis defense presentation, which will take place on the second of April.
Once this mess is done, I can concetrate on getting my resume out and finding myself a job to support myself. That is another adventure to come. In the meantime, I really look forward to getting back to coding. I plan to have a new version of WuhWuh and a new standards compliant version of this site out by the time WordPress 1.2 is released (probably in the next couple of weeks) In the meantime, if you are visiting SXSW (which, by the way, stands for South By South West), dont forget to tout WordPress 1.0.2, the most stable version of the WordPress stable.

The new BMW has a cheat-code built into the shifter, which disables a road-safety feeature intended to prevent 5000RPM jackrabbit starts.

There’s a cheat code in the software running the BMW M3’s sequential manual gearbox (SMG): Press the right buttons in the right order and the car will launch you from a stop after revving the engine to 5,000 rpm. But don’t look for a how-to in the owners’ manual—this feature is undocumented, an inside joke of sorts…

But there is a catch. In Europe, where the feature isn’t so hush-hush, doing more than 15 launches voids the car’s warranty. Federal laws prohibit such stipulations here, so BMW has turned down the wick. U.S.-spec cars are programmed to wind to only 2,500 rpm—and our test car topped off at 1,800. That’s why you have to ask your dealer to install the European software. Most will happily oblige.

...excerpt from: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/auto/article/0,12543,358540,00.html

I believe, I believe we (“Code is Food“, and others) made a difference!!

Ready for a re-redesign? I am. A long time ago (in a galaxy quite close to ours), Stephen and I were working on a very basic shell for Lockergnome. I took that code and started tweaking it this morning. The elements are falling into place, but it’s far from clean. Meryl’s helping me tweak it this weekend, but my hope is to lay something into the official site before next weekend. My aim is to stay clean, fast, and efficient. You may wonder why we even bothered to roll out the (current) White Album? A new backend, pure and simple. We’re dev’ing our own CMS that’ll help us create newsletters, syndicated feeds, Web pages, etc. In order for other processes to begin, we had to put something different online. The result was a bit… dirty. But hey – this is the f*cking Internet. Just have a little patience, eh? The results will be well worth it. If you’d like to collaborate, just let me know; I’ll be cracking code for the next X days.

...excerpt from: chris.pirillo.com

This is kind of personal, thus it shows up on my personal blog.

I was brought up as a kid with a very clear message from my parents. Discuss everything very openly, be aware of the consequences, be accountable for your actions, then make your own decisions and be ready to face the music as and when you bet on the wrong thing. I was taught that I needed to be completely accountable for what I said or did, more so that any of the other things above. If I said I was going to make my bed or finish math homework, it had to be completed by the end of the time allotted. If I said that I would do something or uphold something, I would have to do the task no matter what. I was taught never to make idle threats, never to say things I did not really mean, never to yell unless extremely necessary and to talk about everything and dicuss the pros and cons.

I have followed this path for as long as I can remember making my own decisions and though I have made many, many mistakes, never have I been without an acceptable solution for a very long time. I always expect people to keep their promises, to mean what they say (no matter how vile or derisive) and to stand by their word and their decisions. If you tell me that you are going to kick me out of the house, you better know that I will be looking for a place as soon as I can step outside the door. If you tell me that you agree to help me move my furniture, you better be ready to come over on Saturday morning when I expect you at my apartment. I would rather you tell me now that you just dont feel like waking up that early on Saturday, than just decide to just not show up and make a stupid excuse later.

Do you (or anyone you know) make a lot of idle threats? Do you spend a lot of time yelling and bickering and then forgetting what you were yelling about? Do you find yourself making promises that you really dont want to keep and end up changing your mind afterwards? Do you find yourself lying to others to make it appear as if you really did not mean what they thought you said (however white the lie may be) ? Do you find yourself backpedalling a lot? Do you get a lot done or many issues solved in this way? Are you happy with everything in your family/relationship? Do you like to let a problem linger on forever, letting grudges and fears rear their ugly head now and then, resulting in frequent outbursts of anger? Do you hate confrontations and avoid them like the plague? Are you angry a lot with your family, friends or in your relationships?

Here are some things to remember to try when you come upon unpleasant situations:

Own up to your mistakes. Say you are wrong and that you apologize. Apologizing can be very relieving and can reduce a lot of tensions. If you know you are wrong and there is no way out of the stupid arguement that you have gotten yourself into, say you are wrong. Dont make it worse for yourself by making up other lies and spinning more web. Stop.

Make a strong commitment to discuss things and to talk, however unappetizing that might sound when you are really angry with someone. If you cared enough about that other person 10 minutes before you had the arguement, chances are you will care just as much about them AFTER your anger has subsided. Try to remember that at the first signs of anger and discontent.

If you are going to make a threat to make your point, think about the threat, think about how the threat is not going to help the situation at all and back down from your position. Regroup. Threats only make things worse. Think about how messy and unpleasant (not to mention cruel and just plain stupid) it would be to ACTUALLY kick your daughter out of the house for smoking pot in the bathroom. So you were not going to REALLY kick them out, you just thought it would scare them a little and make them think. Well think again, Macbeth. They know that your threat is idle, for the most part. They also now think that you are cruel, dont care about them and they stop trusting you. They value your opinion, judgment and your words even less as a result of each new confrontation. A complete backfire. Well, why not replace the major threat with a smaller one, like “well, you smoke pot and you dont get to use the bathrooms in this house for a week!” Easy to follow through and painful for the recepient!

Everytime you say something strong to make your point, think about the consequences and try to remember how hard it will be to keep those promises. If you have the slightest doubt that you might not be able to stand up to those expectations, back down.
If you are faced with a very difficult situation where the other person is going to go ahead no matter what, make them aware of the consequences in plain and simple terms, make them aware that you (and the rest of society) WILL hold them responsible for those consequences, however painful or unpleasant, and that the choice is theirs at that point.

Let anger and frustration be replaced with discussion and talk. If you are angry at someone, instead of yelling a few nasty words at them, sit down with them, make a list of things that have made you angry and go through the list in detail. Analyze your anger methodically and you will realize that the reasons for anger were not that important after all. Anger makes us impulsive. Would you drink a lot of alcohol and then go mountain climbing? Differences of opinion and issues that create anger between people are very touchy and delicate situations which require careful thinking and a stable mind to hash out the possibilities. Anger is just a dessicant for an already bad situation.

Our lives have changed drastically in the last couple of decades. Old ideas and conservative ideals do not work in this new world. Peace and love in the family (work, relationship, kids, friends…anywhere) are not the norm but the extraordinary. Instead of expecting things to fall into place or expecting things to always go our way, we should actively try to find solutions to acheive those goals. These solutions are getting harder to acheive and are almost impossible to attain in every case. However every little bit helps make our lives a little more happy.

Stop. Think.

Here is a link to Matt’s post about “Code is Food“.
I absolutely adore the “one more won’t break the web” analogy coming from some of the people who have left comments on that post! That embodies the difference between people willing to get off their asses to make a difference and people trying to justify the problem and ignoring the issue at hand. Sweeping the problem under the rug because all the cool kids are doing it” is not an acceptable answer for a programmer, technologist and/or a web solution developer.
This post represents Matt’s opinion. He believes in clean, compliant code and works dilligently towards promoting the cleanliness of code structure and most of his work is representative of the same. My refute to the people against Matt’s views is that, LockerGnome has a large viewership and should be on the forefront of web technology, embracing rather than deprecating the nuances of proper web coding procedures.
There were some other really interesting comments on that post, some coming from people that I had a fair amount of respect for in the past. Some wanted to rewrite WordPress in Java (I say, go for it!). Others expressed their derision of WordPress and PHP. However, the most interesting comments are the ones from people actually standing up for LockerGnome and the lack of web standards in the new design.

All of that having been said, I will blushingly add that my own code on this blog is not standards compliant. I have no interest in staying up late nights to make it standards compliant. If it happens, it will happen in its own sweet time. However, I also do not run a website that is considered to be one of the fore runners of computing technology, nor am I that famous or important.
I know … excuses, excuses … maybe once this thesis is done.

This online data chart released today by the Center for Disease Control shows that lack of physical activity and poor nutrition are catching up to smoking as a top cause of death in the United States. There’s an analysis in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (link), and a summary here from AP.
...excerpt from: http://boingboing.net/2004_03_01_archive.html#1078871388117048

Nice interview with Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh project at Apple and bOING bOING contributor.

very confused as to its use and when I was designing the software for the Macintosh, in designing the interface, I figured that if there was only one button, there would never be any question on what you have to press the number of ways of using a one-button mouse. I think this was probably a mistake, in fact there is an appendix in my book which discusses why I think this was a mistake and what I think I should have done. One of the reasons I made the mistake is that there is a certain school of industrial design dating back to the Bauhaus which says that designs have to be simple, uncluttered, and clean. In particular, don’t put writing on it except for brand names or logos. If we had had a multiple-button mouse with two keys, labeled something like “select” and “activate,” it would have been much easier to use, but the idea of putting writing on keys did not occur to anybody, including me. So if I was designing one today, it would have two buttons and they would be labeled. The labeling also the other good effect of forcing software designers to use them as labels otherwise it’s clear that they are being misused.

Link
...excerpt from: http://boingboing.net/2004_03_01_archive.html#107886930266706926

I have been working on my thesis for a long time and I wanted to give everyone (especially my parents, who have been antsy to read it) a glimpse of what takes up most of my time nowadays.
Here is a part of the Introduction…

The concept of paying for goods and services electronically is not new as some part of almost every payment that we make is completed electronically either through the Internet or through private communication networks such as telephone lines or dedicated networks. Since the inception of modern computer networks early in the 1970s, there have been many proposals and schemes for payment systems that span across electronic communication networks [ ]. Although many of the concepts of these schemes were incorporated into later production systems, most of these schemes never got off the ground. The problem was that these methods were useless for merchants and businesses that were not directly connected to the private network of that financial institution. These private networks were expensive to implement and maintain and thus out of the reach of small and medium sized businesses. The advent of the Internet removed this obstacle to the progress of e-payment systems. The freedom of communication through the Internet was a great boon to the e-commerce industry.

The Internet is a network of networks which was put together late in 1970s as a method of sharing information between computers. This small and relatively unknown technology has grown exponentially into a global medium. Figure 1.1 is a good estimate of the Internet’s growth in the past few years. By January 2003 the estimated number of computers hooked to the Internet had increased to over 170 million. One estimate from NUA Internet Survey Group puts this total number of unique Internet users at a little over 600 million people worldwide [ ].

This growth can be attributed to the availability of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the ease of information retrieval that the WWW offers. The integration of multimedia, the simplicity of point and click operation and the false sense of anonymity are also considered to be prime factors for the increase of the webs’ popularity. Surveys of Internet users suggest that the average Internet user has a much larger spending power now as compared to a few years ago and people are much more willing to spend their money using the Internet today [2]. This fact is well understood and exploited by businesses and industries as they try harder to woo a global Internet audience [3, 4].

With the growth of the Internet, businesses that are trying to sell merchandize on the Internet have also increased at a large rate. The most popular goods sold on the Internet are computer hardware and software, books and CDs and travel [4]. This financial marketplace that exists between businesses and consumers is known as the Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce. In the United States alone, B2C spending was estimated to be about $7.7 Billion in 1998, $17.3 billion in 1999 and $28 billion in 2000 [2]. Another type of online business that sells and purchases to businesses is termed Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce. These on-line marketplaces focus on bringing together companies which need goods and services from each other. This sector has grown larger than B2C in the last few years2. Some reports suggest that B2C e-commerce generated over $226 billion dollars worth of business in 2000 and an estimated $2 trillion dollars in 2003 [ ].

Early commerce on the Internet was performed through offline payment methods. As the industry and the web has matured, websites and vendors have found many different methods to gather information about credit card and payment details for their sales from forms embedded in web pages and process this information through electronically through organizations setup for the purpose of collecting and remitting credit card transactions. These organizations have come to be known as Acquirers. In many cases, the payment data from forms were downloaded to merchants’ servers without much regard for security of the clients and were processed through conventional methods before the purchased merchandize was finally shipped. This was a very precarious method of accepting payments and with the growth of marketplace and the lack of proper security procedures, crime and theft related to credit card transactions became more prevalent.

The first edition of Electronic Payment Systems was published in 1997. This publication contained various new electronic payment methods that had been developed in academia and industry. Some of these early systems were quickly launched into the market but they failed to become popular enough to be widely accepted. The market leaders of these systems included companies such as First Virtual Inc., Cybercash Inc., and Digicash. These payment systems saw extensive deployments and were thoroughly analyzed by the media. However, most of these companies failed to turn profits and were forced to go out of business, thus rendering their systems obsolete. Partly due to the failure of these alternative methods of accepting payments on the Internet and partly due to the popularity of credit cards, credit card issuing banks and credit institutions funded research into development of credit cards transactions over the Internet.

Credit card based e-commerce was integrated into B2B and B2C financial transactions. Conventional card processing methods were modified to suit the online community and new online credit acquiring companies were started. Along with credit cards, a few of the electronic payment pioneers managed to make their niche in the e-commerce markets. Most recent e-payment developments include the use of mobile phones and handheld wireless devices such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. This method of paying for purchases using mobile phones or wireless devices is called Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce). M-commerce has the potential of becoming a very large industry and many payment technology providers are already in the process of implementing very viable solutions which are secure and easy to use.

According to BizStats.com, there are close to two million web pages on the Internet accepting currency through the electronic medium and offering their services to online customers from all over the world. Neilsen//NetRatings Online published that online consumers spent over $18.5 billion during the 2003 holiday season. This spending was up 35% over that in 2002 [ ]. According to analysts and financial advisors, this is the third straight season of record growth of online sales and commerce which indicates that online retailers are doing a much better job of appeasing their customers and making good use of their advertising and security resources. According to another report by Goldman Sachs and Harris Interactive, in the course of 2003, overall satisfaction levels for online shoppers increased five percent over satisfaction levels from 2002. During the technology hype of the recent past, electronic commerce flourished to unprecedented levels to become one of the most preferred methods of doing business. Businesses are considered to be less productive if they lack an online presence and an e-commerce storefront. The freedom, speed, anonymity and global accessibility of the Internet promoted real-time business which can be conducted from the comfort of a living room with people from across the world. This is fueled by tremendous advancements in information technology accompanied by increased versatility and permeation of online financial transaction tools such as PayPal and Discover Online.

However, this popularity of the medium also promotes criminality. The versatility and permeation of e-commerce systems in our society puts personal information at a greater risk of being covertly gathered, analyzed and misused. A recent article published on Internet.com reported from The Federal Trade Commissions report that online scammers and thieves robbed Americans of more than $437 million in 2003 [ ]. Most of this money was misappropriated using stolen identities, fake Internet auctions, and fraudulent shop-at-home schemes. There were an estimated half million complaints during the 2003 financial year and this was a 40% jump over the 2002 number. This article also suggests that a large 40% of these complaints were due to identity theft. This estimated number is considered to be less than the real statistic because a 60% of those affected by online fraud do not contact the proper authorities to report the theft. However, the part of this report that is most relevant to our discussion is that the most common identity theft perpetrated was related to credit card fraud and through stolen credit information. Figure 1.2 displays some the other statistical figures from the FTC and Internet.com report.

Fraudulent credit card transactions cost online merchants many millions of dollars annually. This raises the losses and thus increases the cost of doing business online. The increased risk of online business makes it more expensive to assure a certain level of security and consumers and merchants are more wary of each other as a result, thus reducing the propensity of doing business.
Internet-Related Fraud
Complaints by Consumer
Age, 2003
19 and under4%
20-2923%
30-3927%
40-4925%
50-5916%
60-695%
70 and over1%
Note: Percentages are based on the total
number of Internet-related fraud complaints
for the year whereconsumers reported their
age (115,433)
Source: FTC
Top Products/Services for
Internet-Related Fraud
Complaints, 2003
Internet auctions48%
Shop-at-home/Catalog sales20%
Internet access services8%
Internet info and adult services6%
Foreign money offers4%
Computer equipment/software2%
Business opportunities2%
Note: Percentages are based on the
total number of Internet-related
complaints for the year (166,617)
Source: FTC

Figure 1.2: Internet Fraud Statistics [4]

Credit cards are the preferred method of modern consumer payments. These credit card transactions exchange sensitive financial information through arcane channels which were designed for face to face transactions. However, with the changing nature of business, the recent growth in technology related crimes and the hesitation of people to release personal information on the Internet, the demands on research and development for new, further secure, easier and more anonymous methods of accepting payments on the Internet, has increased tremendously.

This thesis proposes the development of a smart card based credit card system that protects the privacy of its users and increases the security of card transactions by reducing the exposure of purchase information to third parties. This system allows a user to pay for merchandize with a payment system that actively protects their privacy. Our system combines existing smart card technology with cryptographic elements to reduce the amount of information exchanged in order to validate a credit card transaction. The design idea for this system focuses on the hesitation of consumers to spend their money on the Internet due to the fear of having their identities stolen. A report from GartnerG2 published in 2002, shows that over 60% of online adults in USA do not do business through the web because they fear for their financial security and privacy [ ]. The Information Technology Association of America found that over 70% of Americans are very concerned about the dangers of online purchases and fear that their credit card numbers and other personal information might be stolen in the process [ ]. So, online credit card security concerns are very real and they prevent a large percentage of users from using this technology to buy products and services over the Internet.

Failure of smart card based credit card systems is attributed to the complexity of the systems and the up front cost of implementing them [1]. Smart card based credit card systems also raise new questions about credit card laws and regulations because of the new algorithms and hardware involved in such transitions. Smart card solutions that are already in use are proprietary in nature and are not valid beyond certain geographical boundaries. This turns users off from these systems. Further research is required to develop payment systems which are easy to use, work well with existing technology, retain some of qualities of existing payment methodologies and reduce the risk of fraud.

To address the rising crime against credit card transactions, VISA and MasterCard have jointly developed the Secure Electronic Transaction Protocol (SET) in 1997 which was later refined into the 3D SET model [ ]. Though the development of SET was well accepted by the credit card community, the implementation of this protocol is still lacking [9]. Complexity of the system and cost of implementation have been the limiting factors. Various publications in past few years denounce the data aggregation properties of the original SET and have proposed revisions to the protocol [ , ]. These revisions range from stronger encryption [9] to modified routing methods [10] to prevent data misuse. These revisions are directed at modifying the transaction process to increase security. However, they still depend on using imprinted credit cards which do not contain and cannot independently process electronic data to increase security.

Here is a part of the history of credit cards…

Origin and Development of Credit Cards

Early in 1914 Western Union gave some of their prominent customers a metal card to be used in deferring their payments without interest on services used. This card became known as “metal money” . Till the beginning of World War II, department stores, oil companies, communication companies and travel and delivery companies issued cards to their customers in exchange for a promise of deferred payment. The Second World War saw a decline in the credit card industry as credit cards were banned during the war.

However, at the end of World War II, credit cards became more accessible to the general public. With the general increase in spending through charge cards for travel and other services, banks became interested in the prospect of credit cards and saw them as a preferred method of processing money lent out to consumers. In 1951, the Franklin National Bank of New York issued the “Charge It” card which could be used at local and retail establishments. These card transactions were authenticated by the bank at the time a purchase was made. The vendors were reimbursed for their sale and the debts were collected from the card-owners at a later date. Soon after, Diner’s Club released their own charge card which could be used for travel and entertainment. These Diner’s Club cards were designed to attract traveling business people who did not want to carry a lot of cash with them in their travels. Diner’s Club allowed its cardholders up to 60 days to make the payments for their purchases.

Most of these credit cards were limited by their payment options until the first “revolving” credit card was offered by the Bank of America. This card was called the BankAmericard and was marketed all across the state of California. This card gave card holders the option to either pay for their purchases in bulk at the end of the month or pay in monthly minimum installments with interest. The concept of repaying a loan in small monthly installments for purchases made with a credit card became popular with the cardholder population and fueled the credit economy.
By the mid-1960s the process of issuing and processing credit cards had become too much for the banks to handle by themselves, as a result of which, bank card and credit card associations began to emerge12. The most prominent among these credit card organizations were the InterLink Association and the Western States Bank Card Association. The increasing complexity and volume of credit card transactions also led to the increase of credit card fraud. Early in the 1970s, electronic authorization methods for credit card were introduced to merchants and vendors for the first time. Electronic authorization allowed credit cards to be used internationally and most transactions could be completed within minutes and at any time of the day and night. This added to the popularity of credit cards and increased their scope and versatility. The early 1980s saw the introduction of ATM or automatic teller machines which could be used to deposit and withdraw cash 24 hours a day throughout the nation.

In 1970, Bank of America gave up control of the BankAmericard program. BankAmericard Issuer banks took control of the program, creating National BankAmericard Inc. (NBI), an independent non-stock corporation, which would be in charge of managing, promoting and developing the BankAmericard system within
the U.S.

Outside the U.S., Bank of America continued to distribute licenses to banks which allowed them to issue BankAmericard. By 1972, licenses had been granted in 15 countries. In 1974, IBANCO, a multinational member corporation, was founded in order to manage the international BankAmericard program. In many countries however, there was still reluctance to issue a card associated with Bank of America, even though the association was entirely nominal in nature. For this reason, in 1977 BankAmericard became the Visa card, retaining its distinctive blue, white and gold flag. NBI became Visa U.S.A., and IBANCO became Visa International.

No Credit History Credit Cards can help you build, rebuild or re-establish your credit.

I might have to switch hosts. I have been looking for sometime now and would really like to switch to a dedicated server somewhere with root access. However, with my present financial restrictions, that is not possible (lowest price for a well known dedicated host I found was $49/m with $99 setup fee) I have narrowed my choices down to IXWebHosting They seem to have a pretty good plan and will cost me $20/m with a $20 setup fee which I can afford. I really dont want my cable modem to be turned off because of all of this web traffic. Here are some of the features of the “Gold Plan” that I am looking into:
Advanced Domain Hosting
+ UNLIMITED Disk Space
+ Host up to 6 Domains & 30 Sub Domains
+ 6 dedicated IPs, 30GB Data Transfer
+ SSL Hosting & Shared SSL included
+ CGI-BIN, Perl, PHP, SSI, FrontPage Extensions

3 FREE Domain Registrations

Additional Hosting Features
+ UNLIMITED Email Services
+ UNLIMITED FTP Users
+ 6 MySQL & 6 PostgreSQL databases

This will give Jennifer and Justin personal FTP access to their domains and they can have their own emails setup. This also gives all of my hostees unlimited web access and I get 3 free domain registrations! Looks like a winner to me.
I will start the purchasing process and then the laborious transfer in a couple of weeks. I will have my server up for sale at that point. Here are the details of my server, please email me if you are interested in purchasing it. I will ship it to you for free through UPS.

1 Ghz AMD Athlon processor
468 Mb 133Mhz RAM
10 GB IDE Hard Drive
40 GB IDE Hard Drive
CDROM, Floppy
32 MB Nvidia video card (needs replaced, graphics fuzzy in Linux)
Nice mid-tower case
Sound card, 56K modem
2×100 MBit NIC

Hand built from scratch and has run flawlessly (knock on wood) for over three years of non-stop usage. I am asking $300 for it. Negotiable.

Now back to the regularly scheduled thesis thumping!

Jon Udell points to one of the major reasons US workers are vulnerable to offshoring:  corporate health care expenses.

“When you move the work to India and China you get an immediate $6,000 savings right there,” he says. “It’s huge.”

...excerpt from: http://jrobb.mindplex.org/2004/03/06.html#a4388

Report identifies two aides as the ones behind obtaining and leaking Democrat’s files. The pair obtained files from open shares on a Senate computer system.
...excerpt from: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1078475076.html