Jan 11

Blogger woes

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Blogger has been experiencing problems lately. For a couple of days this week, publishing (the step in which new content you’ve posted is actually copied from Blogger’s database to your Web site) was only intermittently available. Blogger’s servers were overloaded, and as a temporary measure, rolling blackouts were implemented: only half of the users could post at any one time, with the ability rotating every five minutes. This situation was resolved by the installation of new servers, but it was unnerving for those of us who depend on Blogger to maintain our sites.
Today publishing seems to be unavailable again — trying to do so generates an inscrutable error message. The online help page says that this can be fixed by logging off and back on, but I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. There is some kind of software problem that will have to be fixed at Blogger’s end.
Such problems are always corrected, but it sometimes takes a day or so, because Blogger is currently a one-man operation. Evan Williams does an excellent job of keeping the service running, if you ask me, but he can’t be on duty 24 hours a day. This is why I wish Blogger were not operated as a free service. Evan may be able to pay the operating expenses with the money he gets by selling ads, but how long can he continue to run Blogger by himself? Eventually he’s going to have to hire some help, and that will require more money. Personally, I think he should charge for blogs that don’t have ads, even if they’re not hosted at blogspot.com. But perhaps he believes that will drive away his users, which would reduce the amount of interesting content, which would reduce traffic, which would devalue the ads and cost him revenue. And he might be right.
But at the very least he should make it easier for his users to give him money if they want to help support Blogger. Why not implement a “tip jar” like the ones Glenn Reynolds and Virginia Postrel have? Right now, the only way to give Blogger money is to pay $12 a year to have the banner ads removed from your blog, but those ads only appear in the first place if your blog is hosted at blogspot.com. If your provide your own server space (as I’m doing by hosting my blogs at Road Runner), the ads never appear, so you can’t pay to get rid of them.
I’ve been grumbling about this to myself for weeks: I want to give this guy some money, but there’s no way to do it! But there turns out to be a loophole. You can get rid of the banner ad on any blog; it doesn’t have to be your own. So I paid to remove the ad from Jen’s blog. Victory at last! Now let that be a lesson to you, Blogger. The next time I want to give you some money, don’t try to stop me!
Oops. I just realized I was so intent on beating the system that I never bothered to tell Jen what I was doing. Maybe she liked those banner ads. I hope she doesn’t get mad at me.

Dec 31

The year everything changed

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It was the year of fire.
The year of destruction.
The year we took back what was ours.
It was the year of rebirth.
The year of great sadness.
The year of pain.
And the year of joy.
It was a new age.
It was the end of history.
It was the year everything changed.
— Voice-over from Babylon 5 fourth-season titles

Nov 30

Heroes

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Newsweek has reconstructed, as best they can, the events that took place on board United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11. There are still some unanswered questions, but by inteviewing the people who received phone calls from the passengers, reviewing the tape from the Cockpit Voice Recorder, and researching the backgrounds of the people known to have been on the plane, the magazine has put together a fairly complete account of what happened. Amazingly, the passengers very nearly regained control of the plane (and had among them a pilot who probably could have landed it). It’s now clear that Flight 93’s hijackers had no chance — there were some very tough, smart, competent people on board, and once they learned what the terrorists were trying to do, they were determined to stop it at any cost. And they did.

Nov 18

Falling stars

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I’ve just come in from watching the Leonid meteor shower with my children. The peak was predicted for 4:00 to 6:00 a.m., so I set my alarm for 5:00 and we spread a blanket on the front lawn and lay down to watch the show. The weather was perfectly clear, which helped to make up for skyglow we get from Raleigh and Cary. I knew that these were less-than-ideal viewing conditions, but hoped that the meteors were sufficiently bright that we’d be able to see them anyway.
We weren’t disappointed. They were bright, and we saw several per minute the whole time we were out there. It was chilly, but not terribly cold, and eerily quiet even for Holly Springs; normally, we have the sound of vehicles passing on Highway 55 as background noise even when nothing else is audible, but at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, traffic was virtually nonexistent. The only sounds were the growling of my stomach (which was obviously ready for breakfast), the three of us breathing, and occasional exclamations when an especially spectacular meteorite zipped through our field of vision. Most of those exclamations came from us, but we could occasional ones from neighbors who were watching the show too. It was that quiet.
According to the CNN article that tipped me off about this event, the last time the Leonids put on a show like this was in 1966. I may have seen that shower. I can’t be sure of the exact date, but I distinctly remember lying on a blanket watching meteors with my father on the lawn of our house on Lionel Street in Monroe, Louisiana. We lived in that house from (I think) 1965 to 1970, so that’s the right location for a 1966 memory. I’ll have to ask my Dad if he can confirm this when I see him at Thanksgiving.
I did notice a couple of differences from the 1966 experience. My vision was a lot better back then; I didn’t even need glasses yet, let alone bifocals. And I don’t recall my joints complaining about lying on the ground. Even my Dad was younger back then (by about five years) than I am now.

Nov 15

Media drivel addendum

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Retail sales shot up 7.1% in October. Yeah, American consumers are definitely cowering in their basements, all right.
A closer examination shows even more evidence that we’re not the Nation Paralyzed By Fear that the journalists would have us believe. Sales of automobiles and parts skyrocketed by 26.4% in October. That’s the biggest October increase since 1968. And sales of building materials rose 2.8%. A general increase in spending could perhaps be explained away as a fatalistic “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” reaction to terrorism and war. But if people are investing in new cars and home improvements, that means they expect to be around to enjoy them. These sales figures depict a nation that is optimistic about the future.
The article tries to dismiss the increase in auto sales as a response to interest-free financing, and claims that “people told consumer surveys they were miserable, but they were willing to borrow money to pursue a bargain.” But I just don’t believe it. Consumers aren’t that easily manipulated. For evidence of this, look at Japan, where the economy has been stagnant for years and shows no sign of recovering. The Japanese central bank has reduced interest rates all the way to zero, but consumers still refuse to borrow or spend money. They don’t believe things are going to get better any time soon, and prefer to save as much money as possible. This is not happening in America.

Nov 14

Kudos

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Let’s hear it for Al Gore, who showed true statesmanship this week when he urged Americans to stop rehashing last year’s election. “The presidential election of 2000 is over,” Gore is quoted as saying. “And of course, right now our country faces a great challenge as we seek to successfully combat terrorism. I fully support President Bush’s efforts to achieve that goal.” This statement was in response to study of the election that suggested Bush probably did win. Gore didn’t have to say what he did; he could easily have either denouced the study or simply ignored it, making no public statement at all. Instead, he chose to not only say it’s time to move on, but also to express support and solidarity for the president he ran against. Whether you voted for Gore or not, you have to admit that this is a classy thing to do.
And while I’m cheering, hooray for Vladimir Putin, who is going well beyond the call of duty, at considerable political risk to himself, to cooperate with the U.S. on issues like nuclear arms reduction and the fight against terrorism. Like Gore, Putin didn’t have to do this. But he seems genuinely determined to make Russia a partner of the U.S. in these worthy endeavors. If he keeps on like this, he may end up rivaling Gorbachev in the history books as a leader committed to moving beyond the Cold War and building trust between Russia and the West.

Nov 14

Media drivel

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Even before September 11, I didn’t hold the news media in very high esteem. But since then, my opinion of them has plummeted to an all-time low. Their hysterical, overhyped handling of the hijack attacks and the anthrax-by-mail story thoroughly disgusted me. Now, in the wake of Monday’s plane crash in New York, they’re busily squandering what little credibility they had left.
This CNNmoney article is a perfect example. There’s not a single fact in the entire piece; it’s nothing but guesses, conjecture, and idle speculation. The crash might affect consumer spending. The holiday season could be in trouble. People may stay at home instead of going to the mall. And so forth. The article is full of statements like “at this point in time it’s hard to predict what will happen” and “the impact of this latest crash has yet to be determined.” In other words, we don’t know anything. But we’re not going to let that stop us from blathering on for 19 paragraphs about how everything is going to get worse.
The low point of the article is this statement: “Americans, who have been shying away from malls and other large public places since Sept. 11 for fear of another attack, could hunker down at home even more now that another plane has crashed, experts said.” I have been reading claims like this for the last two months, and as far as I can tell, they are completely false. I’ve gone to malls, restaurants, and movie theaters numerous times since 9/11, and they have been as crowded as ever. I can only recall one exception: at lunchtime on September 12, the parking lot and food court at Prime Outlets near Research Triangle Park were semi-deserted. But that was no surprise, because most of the lunch business at Prime Outlets comes from the nearby airport, which was closed that day by federal order.
Other than that, I have seen zero evidence that people are avoiding public places. In fact, on November 11, I drove a friend to Crabtree Valley Mall, where she was meeting someone else. I tried to park in the lot at the Hudson Belk end of the mall, but that lot was completely full. So I tried parking in the lot in front of Toys ‘R’ Us nearby, something I normally only have to do during the holiday shopping period. There was no parking there either — not a single space. I ended up having to drop off my passenger and leave without parking at all. Does that sound like people are “shying away” from Crabtree? On the contrary, I took it as evidence that holiday shopping has started early this year.
The assertion that Monday’s plane crash will prompt people to “hunker down” at home is particularly stupid, since the plane crashed in a residential area. This means that people on the ground were killed because they were at home. If this disaster prompts people to change their behavior at all (which I doubt), it will make them avoid their homes and spend more time in public places, not less. But that’s a logical conclusion, and I don’t expect logic from journalists any more than I expect facts. They’re too absorbed in their mission of telling us we should panic and predicting economic disaster to waste time on such things.

Nov 13

Idiotwatch

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Now that The New Republic has retired its Idiocy Watch feature, I’m going to steal the title (with a slight modification) and use it here to report dumb actions and statements that come to my attention from time to time. And I already have an introductory item. In an Associated Press article published today, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Brian Cowen is quoted as saying, “We must reject a world order in which the 200 richest people have greater assets than the two billion people at the other end of the spectrum.”
Huh?
If they are the 200 richest people in the world, then by definition they have greater assets than everyone else. That’s what the word “richest” means.
I don’t know what qualifications are required for the position of Foreign Minister in Ireland, but apparently a high verbal score on the SAT isn’t one of them.
Update: It’s been suggested to me that Cowen was trying to say “the combined assets of the 200 richest people exceed the combined assets of the two billion poorest.” OK, perhaps that’s what he meant — but it’s not what he said.

Nov 07

Dust motes

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Sitting in a status meeting this morning, I found myself staring at the particles of dust illuminated by the beam of the overhead projector. They were all moving in the same direction — toward the lens, like moths drawn to the light. And I realized that when I’ve watched dust in a projector beam in the past, it has always moved in that direction. There must be a physical reason for this.
Here’s my theory: The projector heats the air around it, which rises. Cooler air then flows toward the projector to replace the departed warm air. Therefore, once a projector has been on long enough to heat up, the air in front of it will always be moving toward the lens, carrying dust with it.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to test this theory. The simplest way would be to light a couple of cigarettes, hold them near the projector, and observe the behavior of the smoke. But you can’t do that where I work. A bowl of dry ice would probably work just as well, but how do I explain bringing that to a status meeting? Guess I’ll have to figure out another method.