Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Thought for the day: The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves. John Locke comment () trackback ()  11:05:53 PM     2nd day of home search yields 150 legal guns [Arizona Daily Star] After a man had a stroke, a cop went into his house for a blanket and saw part of his gun collection. Even though there was no sign of anything illegal, the cops threw his neighbors out of their homes, stole his gun collection, and tore his house up looking for something illegal (which they didn't find). comment () trackback ()  8:44:11 PM     America: A 21st-Century Soviet Union? Supporters of the Bill of Rights should be horrified by what's happening in America. Our government's reaction to criminal behavior has been to turn America into a police state. It really doesn't matter who the criminals are -- Militant Islamic terrorists, greedy Enron, Global Crossing, Arthur Andersen executives or possibly Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Unfortunately, Mom, you're right. Sadly, we are well on our way to becoming a twenty-first century Soviet Union. [FrontPage Magazine] comment () trackback ()  8:31:49 PM     Money in your mobile. Vodafone customers in the UK could soon be using their mobile phones to settle online and offline bills. [BBC News: sci/tech] e-gold apparently has a WAP interface too. Since I don't have a cell phone with WAP capability, I can't test it. comment () trackback ()  8:27:56 PM     Something has changed and it's not the guns.. We don't teach children fear of water, we teach them to swim. Are parents doing their children any favors by saying things like, "I never want my child to ever even see a real gun." We all know the lure the forbidden presents to children. Do we really want to foster this curiosity, or should we teach our children a healthy respect for the things that can hurt them, or others. Are we doing them a favor by completely insulating them from anything that could cut, bruise crush or burn? [FirearmNews.com] comment () trackback ()  8:14:35 PM     More market share numbers, PalmOS down, Pocket PC up [PDABuzz.com] The "all other PDAs" category has just as much market share as the PocketPC, though. I think this trend will continue--Microsoft is at least trying to improve their OS. The Palm OS is basically stagnant. comment () trackback ()  8:05:02 PM     Salon.com Books | Big Brother is watching you read. Increasingly, the government is demanding that bookstores reveal what books their customers have purchased. Bookstore owners and privacy advocates say that's scarier than a Stephen King novel. [Privacy Digest] For people with e-gold accounts, there is a proxy buying service for Amazon called Banana Gold. By using a service like this, Amazon doesn't have any information about the buyer besides shipping address. comment () trackback ()  7:41:48 PM     Chris Double suggests using a dynamic IP service to deal with the changing IP address problem of my cable modem. It's a much easier idea than what I came up with, so I'll look into it when I get home. I might as well pass along my idea as well, though. My home network is connected to the cable modem via a Linksys router. The router is controlled through an HTML interface--just type in the IP address of the router (as seen from inside the local network) to access it. It occurred to me that Radio could access the status page of that interface, which shows the current "outside" address. I could right a script which would check that address and, if it had changed, email me the new address. I don't know if this is practical yet, I'll have to check Radio when I get home to be sure it has the necessary verbs. Presumably it does. This solution (if it works) won't be nearly as useful as the dynamic IP service method--it's inherently limited to situations where a Linksys router and Radio are in use. Fortunately, that's my situation! comment () trackback ()  1:39:07 PM     Amusing comment on annoying San Francisco bicyclists spotted on a mailing list (by John Groth): I have always subscribed to the following traffic principle: M * V^2 = R, where M=Mass V=Velocity R=Right-of-way comment () trackback ()  1:05:22 PM     I got an answer to one of my questions about e-gold's safety. It turns out the actual gold is held by a trust which insulates it from any corporate liability. My main concern with the whole concept had been that the company would go bankrupt and use the gold to pay creditors, but now I'm reassured that there is no such danger. I was also please to see that there is a provision by which trustees can be removed if they are compromised by government action. Very thoughtful! comment () trackback ()  12:31:37 PM     Lately I've been leaving Radio running on my PowerMac G4 at home, and accessing it remotely from work via my cable modem. This morning I was reminded of a disadvantage of this approach. Sometimes my cable modem assigns me a new IP address, so I have to check my router's status page every morning. If I forget to do this (like today, for example) I won't know the new address and therefore won't be able to access Radio! comment () trackback ()  8:48:10 AM

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