07:59 PM 
Designing Fool typographi.ca is back!

typographi.ca is back online! It was derailed by the Canadian crackdown on .ca domain registrations and I'd read in someone's blog that they had a Canadian resident to sponsor it but it's been offline for ages. In cleaning out my bookmarks, I happened to click on it and there it is!

Although I'm not entirely sure it's the same site, but at least there's something there.

02:58 AM 
Designing Fool Microsoft tells everyone to violate copyright

Microsoft says:

A good way to settle on a design layout is to find and copy another page design, one that meets your needs. There are many design ideas on the Internet.

Never mind that they're espousing tables as the best way to layout a site, where were the Microsoft lawyers when the idiot who wote that decided to tell everyone to violate copyright????

Pay no attention to the stupid people at Microsoft. PLEASE.

Thanks to Nate at wg for spotting that beauty. If you'd like to tell Microsoft what you think of their support for violating copyright, steal their web design! No, really, instead go to the article, scroll to the bottom of the page, click on "NO" and tell them they need to update their page so it's not encouraging illegal activity.

08:35 PM 
Fandom My car is broken, please fix it.

I like helping people. But the most frustrating thing in the world is this kind of email:

Help! I can't get my story uploaded!

or "I can't get to the story page" or "the website is broken" or some similar thing that tells me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and leaves me unable to help at all.

Would you take your car to a mechanic, simply tell him it's broken and expect him to fix it with no further info? You wouldn't do that, you'd give him more specific info, "it won't start" or "it starts but then it makes this grinding noise" or "it won't shift into drive" or "when I turn a corner, there's this weird sound" or "when I hit the brakes, they feel squishy" or something.

So please, treat archivists (and anyone else that you're asking for help) like your car mechanic - give us details - did you get an error message and what did it say, if no error message, what happens, if it uploads, is there something wrong with the way it looks, in the archive, in email, what browser are you using, did you try a different browser, have you checked the FAQ. All of that (and more) will help me help you. And that's what I like to do.

And one more thing - if you visit an archive and some essential thing, like the upload page or the search page or something important is broken, PLEASE tell the archivist! Even if you are certain that 50 people have already told the archivist about the problem, tell the archivist anyway! I'd much rather hear from 50+1 people than hear from no-one at all.

It's the old story about the fire, this guy meets a fireman and tells how once he and his buddies were sitting in their office and saw a fire break out in a building across the street. They watched and waited and it took 20 minutes for the Fire Department to come! He asks the fireman why it took so long, the fireman looks at him and says, "Did you call the Fire Department when you saw the fire?" The guy says, "Why no, there were lots of people down on the street, we figured one of them had called." The fireman shakes his head and says, "That's what everyone on the street was thinking too."

Now a broken page on a website isn't as important as a fire but still, the point is there, never assume someone else reported the problem. :)

(Of course, if there's no contact info on the site at all, then obviously there's nothing you can do, but if it's one of my sites, you'll find both contact pages and contact email links because I want to know!)

12:11 AM 
Weather Pigs are flying by....

Oh.My.Gawd. The cat just curled up next to me...because she wanted to get warm. And she's right, it is cool out tonight! But this is Houston aka the World's Biggest Sauna and it's AUGUST! And the high today was only in the upper 80's! The world has turned upside down!

Hell's frozen over too, hasn't it?

01:47 AM 
Politico Horizontal, not vertical, communication is what's needed

Decentralized Intelligence - What Toyota can teach the 9/11 commission about intelligence gathering. By Duncan Watts

An insightful article about what needs to be done (but I doubt very much that our government can sufficiently dig itself out of politics to actually do it). The solution - horizontal communication, not vertical, is one that's been touted before, mainly in business, it's been shown that encouraging free communication between employees can lead to all sorts of good stuff - for the company.

01:16 AM 
Politico Economics lesson for the day

Swapping sales tax for income tax isn't likely soon - Aug. 11, 2004

Sounds enticing, doesn't it? Do away with our annual stress test called April 15th and just pay extra sales tax, sounds simple, doesn't it?

Think twice. Think thrice and realize exactly how much income you'd lose.

Most middle class people pay about 15% to 30% tax on their net income each year. Change that to a 30% sales tax on what you spend, not your net income and suddenly you're paying at least double what you have been. And if you're spending more than you make (thru loans and charging on credit cards, you get to pay more tax on money you haven't even earned yet!

For the poor, who usually pay no tax (this is people making less than $15-20,000 per year), suddenly they're 1/3 poorer than they were last year. People who make minimum wage right now don't make a living wage - minimum wage on a full time job is just over $10,000 a year, you try living on that - and with a national sales tax suddenly they're making only $7,000 a year??? They might as well go on welfare and unemployment, then they'd be able to eat and pay rent.

And guess who makes out like a bandit on a national sales tax? Yep, that's right, good ole boy Bush's fatcat friends - people making tons of money would pay tax only what they spend - rather than their income. Right now, they're paying around 40% on their net income. Rich people don't spend all their money, they sock it away in investments, it's in partnerships and companies, donations to politicians - so they'd get a tax cut, they might end up paying as low as 10% in taxes.

Gee, I wonder why Bush supports a national sales tax instead of income tax?

(and the idea that companies would magically cut the prices on all their products to make up for this national sales tax? pewwwww! That bullshit sure does stink up the joint. My personal favorite is the idea that we'd all work harder to earn more if we didn't have to pay income tax - as if we're all laying about the house goofing off right now - gimme a break.)

Just some food for thought whenever anyone says that a sales tax is better than an income tax.

01:10 AM 
Politico 28 years ago revisited

Barbara Jordan's Keynote Address to the 1976 Democratic Convention

This isn't so much about which party you belong to or who you're voting for - it's about the lack of a fundamental belief in doing the right thing - simply because it is the right thing.

Politicians are supposed to be public servants, that is, to serve the public. I know there's always been pols who wheeled and dealed and were there only for what they could get for themselves, for being the big honcho and doling out favors to their friends who then paid them back many times over.

But still --

We used to have politicians that would say things like this:

The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.

We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community.

We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation...but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America. We are attempting to fulfill our national purpose; to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.

Twenty-eight years ago. She said that twenty-eight years ago, long before 9/11, long before the Gulf War, long before the dot-boom and the dot-bust. What has changed? Nothing...except we're short a few Barbara Jordans and all the poorer for it.

What happened to political eloquence? I guess it's been reduced to sound bites and again, we are all the poorer for it. It's become so much about simply winning so that the politician's own agenda can be carried out. I never voted for Reagan or the first President Bush, but I do believe they believed, believed they could do something good for the country. Their idea of good for the country was different than mine, but they were honorable in their intentions. Sure, they had friends and buddies and hangers-on who benefited by their stays in office but on the whole, they were honorable men. But today...

Many fear the future, Many are distrustful of their leaders, and believe that their voices are never heard. Many seek only to satisfy their private work wants. To satisfy private interests.

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

If that happens, who then will speak for America?

Who then will speak for the common good?

This is the question which must be answered in 1976.

And still must be answered in 2004. Look how we have not come far at all, still standing in the same place. As I watched Bush the second get elected in 2000, I knew we were going to Iraq, from the moment, he announced he was running, I knew. This isn't me boasting about my foresight, I'm talking about his lack of a belief in doing the right thing for the good of the country. He's had his own agenda for a very long time, long before he became Governor of Texas even.

After Bush the first lost to Clinton in 2002, I read a behind-the-scenes look at his campaign. He may have hated campaigning but he was a good man, an ethical man who did believe in being a public servant in the real meaning of the words.

But his son. Second generations in rich families often have a hard time, it's not restricted to just Bush or Republicans, the Kennedys have had their share of problems in the sons and daughters of John, Robert and Ted who were actually the second generation but their father pushed them so ambitiously, he made them work for something and so it fell to their children, the third generation, to wander about and try to find themselves and give some meaning to their life.

That has afflicted Bush the second as well, so his goal became one-upping his dad. His dad never got Saddam so Bush the second would be greater than his dad by getting Saddam. And of course, enjoying the good life, buddying up with the right people, after all that's how he got elected Governor of Texas, why stop doing something that works? And the good-ole-boy network here in Texas suited him well, pal-ing around with them, watching baseball games from a skybox, taking private jets, vacationing in friends' houses. It's just how bidness gets round here.

Doing the right thing for the good of the country doesn't fit in with any of that. And we are all the poorer for it.

...a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

Who then will speak for the common good?

I find myself more and more drawn into this election. I will vote, I always vote, but I tend not to get emotionally invested. After all, it's four years, eight at the most, a drop in the bucket of time. And what happens, happens.

But so much of the last almost three years now lays so heavily on me. We suffered a trauma on 9/11, a part of us was chopped off and destroyed when the towers fell. But it seems that much of what has been done by our government since then has only compounded the wound, not healed it. A war that has cost many lives and injured many more, physically and mentally, has dishonered us with images of smiling torturers as our President grandly pronounces that we have made the world safer since 9/11. Safe from what? Saddam's weapons of mass destruction which have now been proven to not exist? Saddam's connection with al-Qaeda which has been proven tenous at best and non-existent at worst?

Even the atrocities that Saddam did perform in his prisons has been overshadowed by what we, the great savior of the world, the great protector of millions of Iraqis yearning to breath free, have done there in Abu-Ghraib. Lyndie England says she's a scapegoat and she's right. She's a scapegoat for the mindset of an administration that fostered the idea that she and her boyfriend should do those kind of things, that it was okay to treat people like that.

And the count of dead American soldiers in Iraq continues. The administration thinks if we don't see coffins, we won't remember them, they won't even exist, it'll be some sort of bloodless war. And the detainess on Guantanamo continue to be held with little or no legal recourse, merely the visible tip of the iceberg that Bush and Ashcroft have created with their Patriot Act and internal orders that overturn years of legal precedents meant to guard our rights and protect us from people like Bush and Ashcroft.

While on the homefront, the terror warnings increase - I thought getting rid of Saddam was supposed to reduce terrorism? And Bush cuts taxes for his friends, his good-ole-buddies who helped him get elected and who are desparately trying to make sure he stays in office for another four years so they can continue to ride on the gravy train he lays out for them.

He is a man without honor. Without ethics. Without truth. Who does not seek the good of the country, but only the good of himself.

Who then will speak for the common good?

John Kerry? Do I think he's some sort of saint, a godsend who will make everything right with one mighty whack of his silver sword from atop his white horse? No. But he is a more honorable man than what we have in the White House now. He's been thru hard things in his life, he's been a public servant for almost thirty years, raised by an activist mother, he's believed in causes and been disillusioned by them too, a good leavening of reality never hurts anyone.

He won't make everything perfect, but it's a start.

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.

We cannot stand by and let the lies continue. The lies that getting Saddam solves everything, the lies that Americans would never torture others, would never treat prisoners unfairly, the lies that we would never lie about weapons of mass destruction or ties to terrorist organizations. We must participate.

In this election year we must define the common good and begin again to shape a common good and begin again to shape a common future. Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling t participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.

We must participate.

...what are those of us who are elected public officials supposed to do? We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good. More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

A vision of the future -- good, bad or indifferent as long as it's not lies.

It's worth repeating....

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

If that happens, who then will speak for America?

Who then will speak for the common good?

This is the question which must be answered in 2004.

---

(Thanks to Dargie for talking about smart, savvy women which got me stumbling across Barbara Jordan's speech. I'd heard excerpts in the past but never read the entire thing before. Congresswoman Jordan was a great speaker, I can hear her distinctive voice rumbling in my head.)

09:41 PM 
Observatorium I live in a really stupid state

CNN.com - Battle over Texas sex-ed textbooks - Aug 5, 2004

"Texas educators are debating what will be taught in new sexual education textbooks for its high school students. The 15-member Texas Board of Education is considering and will likely approve four books, all of which extol the virtues of abstinence. Three make no mention of contraceptives at all while one makes passing reference to condoms."

and of course the above would have no bearing on this:

According to Centers for Disease Control figures, Texas has been among the top five states in the country for teenage pregnancies for several years.

Remember how teens in the 1950's thought you could get pregnant just by kissing? Apparently that's rocket science compared to these books:

...one textbook under review advises that a good way a teen-ager can prevent a sexually transmitted disease is to get plenty of rest so he or she can have a clear head about sex and choose abstinence.

Getting plenty of sleep has nothing to do with raging teenage hormones! I got plenty of sleep in HS and I can verify that it had no effect on my choices about sexual activity.

This is merely a part of a larger battle:

The education board has been at the center of many political and religious battles over the years including a recent proposal by evangelical Christian groups to have the state's textbooks include items debunking evolution.

It's still 1925 here in Texas....

I guess I shouldn't expect any better, this is the same state where Governor George W. Bush decided that a strictly voluntary plan was the best way to get manufacturers and refineries to spend millions of dollars for compliance with the 1990 Clean Air Act because, of course, these companies would do it out of the goodness of their teeny tiny rocks shaped like hearts. (We're still in violation of that act and Houston's air is now rivaling LA for smog.) (And guess who donated tons of money to GW's presidential campaigns?)

[Speaking of 1925, here's another site that debunks some of the myths of that famous trial.]

11:46 AM 
Internet Oh my, that's reassuring (NOT)

Thursday, email from owner of server host: Open a support ticket and give us your server password, the datacenter is changing IP addresses in six days and we need to add the new IPs to your server.

Okay fine, file support ticket, give them all the info. Hope they get the new IPs in soon as I'll have to change my nameserver IPs too and that takes a day or two to propogate as well.

Friday, reply to support ticket from webhost, "do you want me to assign this ticket to (name of their main admin guy)?"

Eeesh. I was fairly polite in my response but sometimes I really want to take a baseball bat to their stupidities. (And the result of my reply is that they moved the ticket to the Dedicated Server Support department which is a new one they added after they told me to open a ticket to the Migration department.)

10:01 AM 
Observatorium The Superhero Supply Company

What a brilliant idea! The Superhero Supply Company - go inside to the back and open a hidden door to find.... a volunteer tutoring center! The name invites both adults and kids to come in and get interested. (At the site, there's a link to a news article about this wonderful idea and how it started.)