b.cognosco

Brent Ashley's note on VeriSign made me go back and do a check on my own outstanding domain. Sure enough, even though I'm listed as the administrative contact, the e-mail address is domreg@interland.net -- a mail address no human ever sees.

Why is this? Because the idiots at Interland set up my original hosting account under this domain and they had some smart-ass geekozoid who handled the registrations and setup The Man as the Administrative contact for the domain, using all Interland addresses. Go figure.

Back in April I went through this long, painful scenario of getting forms filled out, sending in proof of identity, etc., to get the contact info changed. They changed everything except the e-mail address. So now I won't get the confirmation e-mails and I'll never get the damn thing moved. Glad I checked now.

FWIW, this is as much the fault of the imbeciles at Interland as it is Verisign. Interland created the mess and VeriSign perpetuates it.

Verisign Slippery on Domain Maneuvers

7:16:11 PM

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I have one domain left with VeriSign and it will be moved out well before it renews in February of next year. Brent has thorough documentation on some of the more slippery VeriSign practices. I've never had them stop a transfer, but only because I have retained every e-mail address I ever had associated with a VeriSign account.

I can confirm that getting any administrative changes made with VeriSign is a nightmare. I wasted months a year or so back sending countless e-mail request forms to some black hole, just trying to get all my domains under one administrative contact. I never succeeded.

How to win against Verisign's NetSol domain Transfer Adventure. I finally managed to get my domain transferred away from Network Solutions, the Verisign company, after multiple unsuccessful attempts. I... [brentashley]

blog cognosco on Law.com

6:39:29 PM

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Not sure why I rated a mention in this quasi-anti-blog review, but author Guy Alvarez has mistakenly grouped blog cognosco with instapundit in popularity. I should be so lucky (or not.) Sadly for me, it just shows Guy's research was a little weak. I have to admit, I used to get a lot more curiosity seekers with the in your face name. But mostly they were sickos prowling Google for trauma pics. (Please! Come back.)

Guy doesn't take an anti-blog stance in the article, and he has valid points about some of the usability issues for readers. But he does miss the boat in reasoning that e-mail is somehow the same thing but different/better. It just ain't so.

Oh, one more thing. For God's sake don't point Dave to this article. Guy discusses the origins of blogs and doesn't even mention Winer or Userland, and I want Dave to keep spending his energy on new features.

To Blog or Not ...
Guy Alvarez
Law Technology News
11-07-2002
So, have you heard about the latest killer app? It comes with a funky dot- com name and the promise to make you famous. You can use it as a Web publisher, a marketing tool, a collaborative platform and a knowledge management system. You don't need to know html and you can get the software for free.
Sounds too good to be true? Well, yes and no. It all depends on your expectations going in and the amount of time and effort you are willing to spend understanding the blog culture. [...]
Some of the most famous and popular blogs are "blunt force trauma" (now retitled as "blog cognosco," see radio.weblogs.com/0109150/) and "InstaPundit" (instapundit.com) owned by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds. [...] [Law.com]

Save Your Theme

2:44:54 PM

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Here's a tip. If you regularly make modifications to your Radio Theme -- say you add macros, change your layout, or add some special links -- go to this page and save your Theme under your own name. Do this whenever you make any significant change to your layout. You can save several versions if you want, just name them appropriately. I knew to do this, but I didn't do it often enough. So when I last engaged in Theme screwage I had to go back, again, and fix it manually. So do as I say, not as I do...

American Eclectic -- Nothing Really Matters

1:04:44 PM

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More eclectic audio from the BBC, courtesy of American Invisible. One of the things I like about AI is their constant search for intriguing content -- not just news or novellas, but genuinely interesting items across the spectrum.

I've listened to only the first episode, but so far this BBC series on mathematics is really good. Having read Fermat's Enigma and another, equally compelling book titled The Mystery of the Aleph about the discovery of infinity, I can say that the world of higher mathematics is indeed intriguing. The literary intelligentsia have nothing on these guys. The intrigue, subterfuge, and politics of their world is amazing. And the pressure they experience when their ground-breaking work is scrutinized is incredible. No wonder so many of them go mad. If you like wonderful human stories both books are recommended.

The first BBC episode is about the discovery of zero, hence my title -- Nothing Really Matters.

BBC

This is a new feature on American Invisible. One of the very best content providers in the world is the BBC. They broadcast some truly excellent material over the web. Here's a small example that I'm going to point to over the next five days. It's a wonderful series of 15-minute shows about mathematics presented by Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem.

Here's Episode 1 of Five Numbers.
[American Invisible, Inc.]

Electronic Voting in Georgia

12:54:13 PM

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Let's give credit where it's due -- Georgia's switch to electronic voting machines could not possibly have been handled any better. People whining about it made absolutely NO effort to learn about the machines, ask questions, or anything else a reasonably intelligent person would do.

Georgia had demo machines at public libraries, staffed by volunteers, for weeks before the election. The polls were staffed with people to answer questions. The first person I saw as I entered the door asked if I needed instructions on how to use the machine. A huge, simplified poster of instructions was placed directly in front of the voter, in the back of every booth. If you still couldn't figure it out there were several people there to help, but Georgia law prevented them from actually stepping into the booth to demonstrate. The state had 500 technicians on call to address any serious technical issues.

I've never seen a more competent technology rollout by any government agency. I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who get spoon-fed, spit out the food, then blame you for starving them.

Usability meets vote-o-matics. A critique of the UI on Georgia's electronic ballot system:

The "ballot box", for lack of a better term, is an approximatly 8 inch by 10 inch LCD screen, placed the long way, and leaning at about a 45 degree angle. Beneath the box and to the right is a "card holder", which was at best a bad place. I'm 5'10", and I didn't see it until I stepped back for a second to find where the card went. On first impression I was expecting a swipe-card situation. But it's a smart card, with a chip inside of it: it writes your choices to the card, so it's got to hold onto it. Not the worst, but mentionable.
On finding the location for the card, I stuck it in... and got nothing for a few seconds. A sticker on the top read to stick it in until the green light goes on. The green light is beneath the card's slot - so you can't see it until it goes in. Icky. Place it on top so people can see it.
I read of reports where people were slipping it beneath the slot, in the space between the slot and the box. I didn't experience the problem... but the elderly woman next to me did have problems placing the card into the box. Couldn't lean over and watch to find out what the problem was, though: that's polling places for you.
Link
Discuss
(Thanks, Ted! [Boing Boing Blog]

Election Results Table

12:38:55 PM

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Have a look at this very nice results table Phil Wolff put together in his weblog. Just waiting to get the final version.

At the starting gate..

AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV WY

Incumbents (going into the November 5, 2002 Midterm Election)

Governors

Republicans 27

Democrats 21

Independent 1

Independence 1

Total 50

Senate

Republicans 49

Democrats 49

Independents 2

Total 100

107^th House

Republicans 223

Democrats 208

(vacant offices) 3

Independent 1

Total 435

November 5, 2002 Midterm Election Results (undetermined = to be elected)

Governors

Democrats 10

Republicans 4

(undetermined) 36

Total 50

Senate

Democrats 36

Republicans 29

Independent 1

(undetermined) 34

Total 100

108^th House

(undetermined) 435

Total 435
The top row was before the election, the bottom row is during the election, stay tuned for after the election.

[a klog apart]

Bookstore Information Architecture

10:41:18 AM

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The online bookstore experience is improving.

B&N Book Browser: Browsing facets that descibe books. I just looked at Barnes & Noble's Book Browser feature, which offers a way to browse books by subject and type of literature. The browser start page shows headings categorized under the different major sections you might find in the book store -- Fiction, Non-Fiction, Business. Each major section has subsections that closely match what I've seen in B&N Stores. After a few clicks the comparison to the excellent facet-based interfaces of Flamenco interface and FacetMap became abvious. [ia/ - news for information architects]

Watch Where You Surf

12:35:19 AM

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Connecticut public libraries bugged by FBI? According to the Hartford Courant the answer is yes -- without notification, without disclosure, and without recourse. On the night of our sacred democratic ritual stop and think. What does this mean? What are we doing here? How did we get an Agency with this kind of power, that would wield it like a bludgeon against every citizen?

Three-letter agency update. It's been a busy week already for TLA news.

The FBI Has Bugged Our Public Libraries
November 3, 2002
by Bill Olds
Some reports say the FBI is snooping in the libraries. Is that really happening?
Yes. I have uncovered information that persuades me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has bugged the computers at the Hartford Public Library. And it's probable that other libraries around the state have also been bugged. It's an effort by the FBI to obtain leads that it believes may lead them to terrorists. [...] [CTNow.com]
via [algorhythm]