Dave Haxton: The Haxton's

Moved

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 04:44:11 GMT

Well, this may be my last post to this URL - I've managed to successfully move my site to my homepage, using Blosxom. The name has changed, too. MacRaven I've grown to love my Macs, and, well, ravens are just so appropiate. Now I've got to get on AmphetaDesk and get that working so I can post from it. This is gonna be an interesting bit of hacking - especially for an old C coder like me jumping headfirst into Perl. I've been seeing dollar signs and underscores in my sleep lately! Ha! Hopefully this new setup will allow me much more flexability in alot of ways. Fotr starters I won't have to run both the Winbox and the BigMac all the time (Radio runs on Windows - Big Mac runs everything else). And I'll be able to consolidate (and save) posts in a more coherent format: plain text! What a concept... Please check out the new site - and let me know if you find any problems with it (or even if you just think it's ugly as sin: the calendar pluin for Blosxom has more CSS than I've ever seen in one place ...). I did lose all the comments posted here, but the archives are intact. That's one advantage to the new system - comments (writebacks) are stored and archived locally, so I'll always have access to them. They don't notify me when a new one is posted, yet, but that's on the horizon. This blog will stay in place and online at least until February, when I'd owe Userland another 40 bucks. Which I shan't have to pay now. What Userland does with it after than point is anybody's guess. Sometimes those folks seem to be asleep at the switch. Be well, have a good new year, check out MacRaven and thanks for reading The Raven Banner.

Blood is Milk, Deer aren't Ruminants

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 16:46:26 GMT

This article goes into some depth as to how BSE has entered the food supply - and it's a tale of simple, raw greed, and an utter disregard for enything except selling every bit of every cow, despite warnings and signs that this would lead to disaster. Here's a quote from the piece:

But critics say the regulation leaves glaring loopholes. Rendered cattle can be fed to pigs and chickens, which can then be fed back to cows. Cow blood, which cannot be guaranteed free of disease, is widely fed to calves as a "milk replacer." Deer that may be infected with disease can be rendered into cattle feed. Enforcement of the regulation, they say, has been lax.

What's worse, though, is the absolute state of denial about prion biology that the USDA seems to be in:

He said regulators in both countries believed that mad cow illness was akin to a viral disease that "comes from the outside" and can be stopped by putting animals into quarantine.

Prion diseases are only transmitted by eating or ingesting brain matter from infected animals - quarantine won't do a damn thing to keep it from spreading. This is a case of an industry run amok - trying at all costs, including public health and safety, to maintain it's current position and profit margins. It's a recipie for long term disaster. Despite Mad-Cow Warnings, Industry Resisted Safeguards. A look at how the crisis developed also reveals broader problems that could complicate efforts to restore consumer confidence and to ensure that no other tainted meat enters the food supply. By Christopher Drew, Elizabeth Becker and Sandra Blakeslee. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

PETA Goes Over the Top (again)

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 00:45:57 GMT

I heard about this in several places the other day, but was unable to find a link to the actual offensive material. Well, thanks to Gut Rumbles I can now exhibit the latest insanity from the PETA people: Your Mommy Kills Animals

Moving Day Gets Closer

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 00:22:49 GMT

Should be moving the blog in a day or so - I've made it back to March in the archives, cleaning stuff up. Watch this space for details...

Christmas, 2003

Fri, 26 Dec 2003 04:34:36 GMT

What a busy Christmas Day! As usual, dinner next door with the in-laws, and the usual euchre until late. I'm beat... One thing I did notice, however. Due to our financial situation (or rather, lack thereof) we had no shopping to do for this holiday. Rather, we made candies and other craft type products and gave them as gifts. It was not only seemingly better received, but it was a lot less stress on us as well. Some meat went to my mom (fresh bratwurst), some pickled peppers (jalapenos and Scotch bonnets) to my brother in law and some homemade soaps to my sister in law. I gave my daughter Courtney a set of Time-Life books on the "weird and unknown" that she had greatly enjoyed when she was a child - she'll share them with her family now. I managed to talk with and/or see all my children and grandchildren today: family is the true spirit ofthe Yuletide, and that we had in abundance today. Not to sound too trite, but despite the rather grim outlook for cash, I count us still amoung the rich and blessed.

Madness

Thu, 25 Dec 2003 01:35:04 GMT

The amount of sheer ignorance expressed by consumers (and by the reporters themselves) in this brewing brouhaha is nothing short of incredible. For example, it is true that the USDA banned the use of downer cattle carcasses in feed to prevent mad cow outbreaks. Neither article and none of the experts quoted in them even raises the obvious question: why are we feeding cattle meat and byproducts in the first place? They're herbivores, after all, not prone in the natural state to browsing about animal protein. We feed them that way beause, in order to maintain the production level of the "factory farm", we deprive them of nearly all natural grazing activity and force them to slaughter weight in an inordinately short period of time. There are only 5 major feedlots in the US, processing something like 80% of our beef. One infected animal in this enviroment is a big deal - especially since it should be obvious that, with an incubation period measured in years, one known case probably represents thousands yet undetected. I raise Scottish Highland cattle: I have ten beasts on 12 acres, and I rotational graze them with like minded farmers locally. None of our cows is ever fed even grain, much less meat byproducts: they eat what cattle are supposed to eat, the natural grasses and legumes that adorn my tended pastures. None of them, nor any of their ancestors, have ever even so much as seen a commercial feedlot. They're as natural a cow as you can get - takes three years to get to slaughter weight, instead of the 18 months for "modern" breeds and methods. Oh well: I have a freezer full of perfectly safe beef. I can guarantee it because I raised it myself, and hauled it to the local slaughterhouse myself, and supervised the processing myself. My customers can rest as easy as I do with their beef, too, as they can (and most have) visit the farm at any time, and see the entire operation from stem to stern. Open source farming - and like open source programming, it not only produces a better product, but a more secure one as well. We are paying the price for decades of consolidation in agriculture. This is the end result of driving the family farm out of business, and replacing it with corporate entities devoted solely to production at the lowest possible cost. The chickens have come home to roost in the feedlot.

After mad-cow find, concern with prevention. Critics say US can do more to safeguard US beef. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

Diseased Cow's Origin Is Traced as Nations Ban U.S. Beef. Federal officials raced on Wednesday to find out where a Washington state cow, apparently infected with mad cow disease, was born and may have been infected. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

It's Here

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 07:13:09 GMT

This could actually be good news for us. Our cows are safe - we don't feed them ground up downer sheep, as is the common practice in large feedlots! But it'll be bad for the beef industry as a whole, no doubt. We'll have to see how this shakes out... First Suspected U.S. Case of Mad Cow Disease Under Investigation. The first-ever U.S. case of mad cow disease is suspected in a single cow in Washington state, but the American food supply is safe, the agriculture secretary said. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Moving News

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 07:02:37 GMT

Whew! I completed a major redesign of haxton.org today - in preparation to mving the blog over there. Figured I'd take the opportunity to get rid of some of the darkness hanging around - lightened the backgrounds, redid the menus, added all my stories from here to there. I also made it back thru November putting titles on these posts to make indexing in Blosxom easier. What a royal pain! The only time Radio uses titles is in the RSS feed - otherwise they're ignored. Blosxom depends on titles to build it's indices - hence the problem. The export tool by Andy Fragen is quite useful - not perfect, but very, very appreciated! I also managed to get AmphetaDesk running on the Big Mac as a daemon (of sorts). Hacked a little Perl - I'm no Perl God, but I am getting fairly proficient at hacking on Perl sources. Now I gotta do a bit of hacking to get a "post" button for the blasted thing operating, and a bit more to get an automatic "upstreaming" function for my new setup. Lot's to do, but it's gonna be fun.

Perot, Mexico and Moving

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:40:41 GMT

Does memory serve me correctly? I seem to recall Mr. Perot being rather stridently against NAFTA and moving jobs to Mexico when he ran for President in 1992 - but apparently he's OK now (he's still on the board, as far as I can determine from their rather labyrinthine website) with moving jobs to India!

Perot Systems buys out Indian venture. Looking to expand its outsourcing footprint, the software services company purchases a controlling stake in a joint venture with software firm HCL Technologies. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Moving to Blosxom

Mon, 22 Dec 2003 03:10:33 GMT

I'll definitely be moving the blog over to Blosxom, and renaming it in the process. Found a tool for Radio that may do most of the work, except that the first line of posts are considered titles in Blosxom, and I generally don't title posts. Oh, well. I can deal - I have enough knowledge of Perl to be dangerous, and a C compiler if all else fails ...

Frustrations

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:15:50 GMT

Due to continuing frustrations with Radio Userland, as well as the upcoming renewal cost (due in February, which'll mark my first complete year blogging), I'm considering moving this blog to a new platform, and consequently a new address. The address thing will also address some confusion - I run a web hosting service behind The Raven Banner, and some folks Googling have wondered whether the Raven Banner is a blog or a hosting company. As to platform, I'm looking seriously at Blosxom. I like the simple, file system like structure (I used a similar scheme in many of my telephony products). I like the very minimalist approach to "flavoring" a site. Plus, it's true Open Source software - unlike Moveable Type, which also requires a database setup and is somewhat more complicated to configure. I'll have to considerably revamp my "publishing system" - including finding a new RSS aggregator (one that hopefully works better than Radio has been of late) and a new system for pinging weblogs.com and other utility functions. Anybody out there have any comments?

The bleeding edge indeed

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:56:23 GMT

I saw this on CNN last night but was too depressed to post it directly. Guess I'm still on the "bleeding edge" of technology after all ... 235,000 Fewer Programmers by 2015 [Slashdot]

You Can Find Anthing on the Net

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 00:55:39 GMT

I'm not sure if this is a what entry or a why one, but at any rate I'm certain the category has to be 'You Can Find Anthing on the Net'... and it does tell us: How It All Began Hint: It wasn't Al Gore.

Silence is Trademarked

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 16:52:57 GMT

Let me get this straight: I can't say I don't use it? Huh? Got Hormones? Not This Dairy. Monsanto hopes to settle its lawsuit against a small Maine dairy that labels its milk as hormone-free. The agricultural giant says the labels hurt its business for Posilac, a hormone that increases milk production. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News]

Out of Stock

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:58:57 GMT

Well, I would've asked for one of these for Yule, but according to the page they're all out of stock.

Trees soak up lagoons full of hog manure

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 03:06:13 GMT

Here's some news and no mistake: Trees soak up lagoons full of hog manure Which will make it easier to close down the 1700 enviromental disasters in North Carolina known as manure lagoons which are awaiting cleanup treatment. Who knows how many of these pestholes exist nationally? The standard treatment is to scoop the stuff out and spray it on fields, then fill in the hole. Messy, and it takes a long time for the soil to recover. Using the trees, it's just cover and run, and the land can be reused in a decade or so. Of course, the real solution to the problem of hog manure lagoons is not to raise hogs in dark, dank, disease infested confinement barns in the first place! Pasture them - they're healthier, we're healthier, our enviroment is healthier and the cost difference is minimal or even cheaper (we sell bacon from our free ranged, pastured hogs for $2.50 to $3 per pound - less than most of the supermarket brands).

On Off Shore

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 02:30:25 GMT

This bit on "off shoring" (moving technical jobs overseas to save money): Outsourcing's offshore myth from CNet so infuriated me that I had to write a response. It turned into quite the rant, so I moved it into my stories section as it was just too lengthy to fit properly on the front page as a post. Here's the link: On Off Shore

Back to Basics

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:12:17 GMT

Nice piece on the efforts in New England to get agriculture back to it's roots. Saving the Family Farm "Innovation" might not be the word that comes to mind when you travel the back roads of New England. And "marketing expert" might not be the term you'd apply to the guy cutting hay. But agriculture is changing, and farms are having to change with it. Witness these four examples of farmers breaking with tradition to survive. [The Boston Globe via MyAppleMenu]

Squabbling Illini

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:33:40 GMT

Ya know, I think I oughta show up outside the Metrodome in Minnespolis for the next Vkings home game carrying protest signs about the teams name and "mascots"... you have no idea how insulting horned helmets and the "big blond" stereotypes are to us European-Americans trying to reclaim our culture! It's just horrible! Why, watching the NFL people would think that the Vikings were all just testoterone driven raiders bent on pillage and mayhem, rather than gentle traders ... If my tongue gets any further into my cheek I'm gonna have another hole in my head.... these "activists" need to lighten up, before they die of an overdose of political correctness. The Squabbling Illini: Rallying Cries Lead to Rift. The debate over mascots with Indian themes is not new, but the case of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois is unique. By Mike Wise. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

BioTerror Down on the Farm

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:10:38 GMT

Ah, the joys of centralized factory farming! Notice in the piece that there are only 5 major feed lots in the entire US! Un-fucking believeable! Maybe if we weren't so busy trying to put the small operator out of business, this kind of terrorist attck couldn't be contemplated. It'd be impossible for the bad guys to hit 50,000 farms, eh? But 5? That's gotta be tempting some wacko somewhere... Keeping Cows Safe From Terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security gives researchers $33 million to study ways to fend off a potential terrorist attack on America's livestock and food supply. By Noah Schachtman. [Wired News]

Home Again

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 04:09:14 GMT

Well, back home again. Nearly 1700 miles (round trip) in three days ... not bad for an old geezer! But I need some sleep before I can make any coherent comments.

Going to the People's Republic of Minnesota

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 17:08:13 GMT

Well, I'm gonna miss a couple of days posting: I'm off to Minnesota to return Premier's equipment and take care of some farm business (trying to kill two birds with one stone, as it were). I wish Kris was foing along, but Kevyn had an operation yesterday, and neither he nor his family is particularly anxious to come over and take care of the livestock. Just bad timing....

Ten Years After

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 04:54:53 GMT

Well, our tenth wedding anniversary! Quite a milestone for me - this one is really for real, and really "til death do us part". Kinda comforting, that. Had a great time visiting a spinning shop in Morgantown today. I think I learned more about wool in an hour talking with their buyer than I have in a year of raising sheep! The guy was really, really good. But there were still disturbances afoot - our favorite restaurant in Indy, Shaffers, has closed down. It'd been there for nearly 30 years. It was a fondue place, and boy was it good. This is the first anniversary we've had that we've not eaten there (except for our years in MN). So we went to Charleston's instead. Very passable prime rib, but the real feature is the salad, and the herbal vingarette dressing. Simply first rate. The service was good, too. Our waitress was a bit older than the average you typically find in such places, and we struck up a conversation after dinner. She asked what I did for a living, and I explained my recent layoff as a developer, and our plans for the farm. It turns out that she spent nearly ten years as a project manager and team leader with Lucent Technologies (formerly Bell Labs) before being laid off a year ago. Waitressing is all she can find... it's grim. I got home to find an email waiting on me from a friend I'm planning on stopping by to visit on my way to MN tomorrow - I called him up to confirm our arrangements only to find myself talking to a very, very sad drunk. He was a fellow developer, mostly doing M$ database work if I recall correctly, and he was laid off today, without any warning whatsoever. Just in time for the Yuletide ... I've got to try and stay focused and positive. Tis the season to be jolly, after all! But this year is gonna be tough - probably the toughest since we lost Harrison in '99. Onward and upward.

Depressed

Wed, 10 Dec 2003 04:21:53 GMT

A very depressing day ... rain, rain and more rain - kinda chilly without being cold. Trying to get the farm organized to actually turn a profit is proving to be quite a task - especially given the time of year. Oh well ... hopefully there'll be some news to comment on tomorrow. My blood pressure could use some raising.

Outsourcing Winners and Losers

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:33:49 GMT

The more I think about this (linked) article from the New York Times, the madder I get.... In the 80's we were told that manufacturing was going where it was cheaper, so we'd better learn to be a service economy: forget learning how to weld and build autos, you'd better get an education and learn a high tech skill like programming. Now, apparently, coding has been reduced somewhat, at least in the eyes of this "project management guru":

It's all about innovation and productivity. As long as we maintain those two engines, we'll continue to have a very high standard of living. Out in the Bay Area there are plenty of folks who would love to create a little bit of protectionism around their I.T. jobs, but we are far better off letting a lot of those jobs go. Low-skill jobs like coding are moving offshore and what's left in their place are more advanced project management jobs.

Somebody better tell this bozo that real innovations come from the people who acutally innovate: not their managers. An MBA does not innovate in the real world: he may come up with a new way of moving money around, but that's not the same thing as designing a program (or building a bridge). Between these imbeciles sending everything that's not nailed down to Third World pestholes where they can use slave labor to make their useless shit for practically nothing, and the thieving lawyers doing their utmost to lock any creative product in a corporate strongbox for eternity, we're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, economically, in this country. Would you like a fast Fourier transform with that burger? Outsourcing Winners and Losers [Slashdot]