LIBERTY: Ahh only the gooferment can “do” roads

Monday, April 16, 2007

http://www.nj.gov/roads.shtml

NEW JERSEY ROAD CLOSURE REPORT

***Begin Quote***

{Lots of Data Extraneous Deleted}

Rt. 1 & 9 N&S MP 58.35, N. Bergen Twp., Hudson Co., All lanes closed

{Lots more data Extraneous Deleted}

***End Quote***

Roads are often described as the “third rail” of Libertarians because people can’t conceive of private roads. As if no one has ever been to DisneyWorld, DisneyLand, or other amusement parks. Or, as if no one has ever been in a gated community.

I think that roads are a great example of the gooferment at work. As an injineer, it amuses me that the Gooferment would build a road and not take into account weather in the design.

Amazing as is sounds, Disney World doesn’t have flooded roads into their park. How did they do that? I bet they grabbed the design engineer by the throat (or any other suitable part of the body) and said “we want the turnstiles turning regardless of weather”. To which the design engineer said “No Problem, Mister Disney, sir. We have this novel concept of “drainage”. We just guesstimate the average rainfall, move the decimal one position to right, and allow for that amount of water. If you want, we can move two places but that would cost you Big Bucks and is twice the amount of rain in a monsoon. OK?”.

Yup, private roads might be the “third rail”, but the Gooferment’s performance is up to its usual standard — down right terrible.

I had to laugh at the State Road Guy on the radio saying that “they just had to allow the roads to drain naturally”. Argh! It’s not his fault that the road designer made every exit ramp dip below sea level.

And, no one takes a spear for it.

On Wall Street, Disney World, or any organization seeking to make a profit, there would be some one held to account. With the Gooferment’s roads, it’s just the taxpayer who gets stuck.

Stuck, and stuck, and stuck!

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: I made RISKS again!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I MADE RISKS AGAIN. (Maybe Peter is getting soft in his old age. Or my humor is growing on him!)

http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt

Subject: Risks Digest 24.63
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Sunday 15 April 2007 Volume 24 : Issue 63
ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

——————————

Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 09:50:17 -0400
From: “r @ reinke”
Subject: On “proving NON copyright infringement” (Re: Dellinger, RISKS-24.61)

This sounds like a case for “watermarking”, “stenography”, or a good old fashioned notary?

I am surprised that the concept of a “digital notary” has not taken off for just such situations. (Maybe there’s a web20 application for me make into the next google? I could be rich! And, get a life, instead of reading ezines, blogging, and commenting.) Maybe it has and I just haven’t heard of it!

While the Internet Archive is a good idea, one has to wonder if push came to shove (i.e., think RIAA as the model for a Pyrrhic victory) if that would be acceptable evidence in a legal proceeding.

I’d envision the digital notary as a website that:

CASE#1 — takes an url, “photographs” it, computes a digital signature, saves and encrypted copy, sends you a receipt, and publishes the checksums. The disadvantage is that you have exposed your content on the web.

CASE#2 — takes anything you send it and do the same. The disadvantage is you’ve shown it to a nosy notary like me.

CASE#3 — takes a file from you that you want to keep secret and “seals” it as well in a similar fashion.

[NOTE: I need two key pairs. Call them FERDINAND and REINKE. I’d envision that I’d take my secret treasure map (MAP) to the Lost Treasure of the Sierra Madre and encrypt it with my REINKE private key. WORK1=ENCRYPT(MAP,REINKEPRIVATE) Anyone who had that file could read the map
using REINKEPUBLIC. Then, I’d encrypt it with my FERDINAND private key. WORK2=(WORK1,FERDINANDPRIVATE) Anyone who had this file would know there was a file and it was mine by using FERDINANDPUBLIC. Then, WORK2 goes to the notary. The notary decrypts WORK2 with FERDINANDPUBLIC, and ENCRYPTS with NOTARYPRIVATE and returns it to me. Then, since I am getting old I promptly forget all my passwords, lose the keys, and the LOST TREASURE stays lost.]

The digital notary would seem to be a useful service for such disputes.

Now all I need is a PowerPoint deck and some VCs. And a spare checkbook to put all the money in.

Ferdinand J. Reinke, Kendall Park, NJ 08824

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Posted by reinkefj

XPfails – luggable – Recovery?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Well, dodged a bullet today. (Maybe?)

The registry was reported corrupt and the pig won’t boot. Repair didn’t.

Argh!

I had tried the rescue disk that came with the platform from Dell. It didn’t do anything good for me.

So I dusted off one of my XP installation disks and ran “repair” using that. It threw the box up into checkdisk, which ran. Didn’t report any errors. May or may not have fixed anything. But it did then allow the box to boot into WXP. (Yeah!)

On the theory that this might be my last chance to visit with my data. I pulled out my WDDRIVE with WDSYNC on it and took a back up. (I usually do my weekly backups on Monday!)

Now, I fearlessly did a cold restart.

That worked but it wasn’t not connecting to the home lan. I tried using WXP, the Intel ProSet Wireless utility, and the VWBBIE (Verizon Wireless Broadband utility also manages the WiFi). Nothing worked.

Argh! Squared!

So I power cycled everything in sight. Ran the Intel Wireless debugger.

Couldn’t think of anything else to do, so on a hunch, I changed the WiFi SSID. Shouldn’t have made any difference. Changed the password as well. (Big deal. Any script kiddie can bust this “security”!)

Disabled PGP. Disabled ZoneAlarm.

Power cycle everything.

Argh! Tripled!

Verified that the BackRoom DELLDESK could connect thru the wifi router to the net. Verified that the OLDDELL notebook could get to the net via the wireless.

So it made me focus on the LUGGABLE as the problem.

Deleted all the Intel configurations. Went to the DELLDESK, changed the SSID and password again. Rebooted the router. Power cycled everything in sight again. And then readded the Intel configurations.

And, voila, the pig put on its roller skates and took off!

So, that wasted a Sunday. Sigh.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: World Revolves Around Me

Sunday, April 15, 2007

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/tools/ept/
contribEditorPost.html?post=16

http://tinyurl.com/27zo7q

The Savvy Networker
Liz Ryan
The Case of the Pushy Lady

Liz Ryan is a 25-year HR veteran, former Fortune 500 VP and an internationally recognized expert on careers and the new millennium workplace. She is the author of “Happy About Online Networking,” creator of the Career Bound workshop, and founder of the global women’s organization formerly known as WorldWIT.

***Begin Quote***

My eighth-grader daughter refers to certain people in her social group as “maybe a little WRAM.” What does WRAM mean? I asked her. It’s an acronym, she said: it stands for World Revolves Around Me. There are a few networkers I could affix that label to without much trouble. Don’t be one of them: networking is supposed to be a two-way street, and the more you focus on helping your fellow networkers, the more good things will come back to you — trust me.

***End Quote***

You can avoid the WRAM objection bu anticipating the question that anyone will ask WIIIFM (what is in it for me). Just like on the resume, your advertisement FOR a job, no one wants to hear YOUR objective. They want to hear how you will satisfy THEIR objectives.

So you turn WRAM into WRAY. The world revolves around YOU!

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Posted by reinkefj

XPFAILS – LUGGABLE: Catastrophic error

Sunday, April 15, 2007

The registry reports corruption. The pig won’t boot. Repair doesn’t. Argh! Operating from old desktop. Standby for news.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: JL Kirk down the chute

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.making-ripples.com/2007/04/clueless_law_fi.html

04/12/2007
Clueless law firm takes client JL Kirk down the chute

***Begin Quote***

JL Kirk is the kind of executive recruiting firm I would warn readers to avoid at any costs. Their operating procedure is to interview you and charge you thousands of dollars and help you write a resume and then hopefully place you. You pay first and then hope that they place you. Wow! Isn’t that a great business model?

***End Quote***

The reported 4.5k$ demanded for “placement assistance” is a joke. You probably could “buy” the best resume writer’s first born child at those prices. Heck, big old turkeys are available at one tenth the price. Hard to believe that after not making the “sale”, the bozos got lawyers involved.

My bet is that this will be like gasoline on a wildfire across the net.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: Then write a book

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north524.html

Misunderstanding Higher Education
by Gary North

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WRITE YOUR WAY IN

If you are not good enough to write your way into your calling, then you need to read more. Then you need to write more.

Start a blog. It’s free. Start here.

You can create a website after you have mastered blogging.

Begin with posting book reviews. Then, after a hundred or two hundred published book reviews, start writing annotated bibliographies.

Once you have put a large number of reviews on-line, start specializing in one topic. Create another blog site. Keep up to date with whatever is going on inside this field. Do handy summaries of the latest publications.

Save readers time. People want to save time. They want others to do their leg work for them. Word will get out if you’re any good.

Then write a book. It need not be creative. It can merely introduce newcomers to a field. Post it on your blog site for free in PDF format.

Make copies available in printed format by using Print on Demand technology. If you can get sales, a third-party publisher may pick it up.

The book becomes a calling card in your career plan.

Then write another. Write enough books in a field, and you will establish your reputation. Even self-published books are impressive to a prospective employer.

Add CD-ROMs, screencasts on YouTube, and DVDs.

This was how I made my reputation. I started writing for The Freeman magazine and a dozen other magazines to put myself through graduate school. My Freeman articles got me my first full-time job: at the Foundation for Economic Education, which published The Freeman.

My Ph.D. degree got me nothing. I never had a single job offer based on my degree. I even wrote my way into the one full-time academic job I ever had. It was in a different field from my degree.

***End Quote***

Here’s a road map that really makes sense. I’d recommend the strategy to all the complacent “paycheck drawers” out there. Use your “breathing room” to “become” a recognized expert. It can’t hurt.

As a side note: I still remember the one fellow who interviewed with me for a job and left me a copy of his book on the topic we were looking for help with. He didn’t take our offer; he took a much higher one. I have never forgotten the impact of that tactic. I’m planning to use it next time I am out. I hope to have 4 choices by the time the axe falls. AND, it always does.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT:Taxation is really “voluntary”? Yeah right!

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard148.html

 

Tax Day
by Murray N. Rothbard

This unsigned editorial, written by Murray N. Rothbard, appeared in the April 15, 1969 issue of The Libertarian (soon to become The Libertarian Forum).

*** begin quote ***

April 15, that dread Income Tax day, is around again, and gives us a chance to ruminate on the nature of taxes and of the government itself.

The first great lesson to learn about taxation is that taxation is simply robbery. No more and no less. For what is “robbery”? Robbery is the taking of a man’s property by the use of violence or the threat thereof, and therefore without the victim’s consent. And yet what else is taxation?

Those who claim that taxation is, in some mystical sense, really “voluntary” should then have no qualms about getting rid of that vital feature of the law which says that failure to pay one’s taxes is criminal and subject to appropriate penalty.

*** end quote ***

It’s humorous that the gang in the District of Corruption slide the due date to the 17th. Couldn’t have taxes due on Emancipation Day! Might as well as have it on Independence Day! Or, how about Election Day!! No secret why it’s 6 months away from election day. So people will forget. And, they do.

I’m crazed!

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Gooferment seems to get special status

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

WRITEN FROM POV OF THE STATIST SOCIALIST MEDIA

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Islamist insurgents and Somali clan militias in Mogadishu clash with government forces, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers as casualties continue to mount months after the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union.

*** end quote ***

What is the “government” but yet another gang of thugs claiming the mantle of “authority” to rule over others? Who made them the anointed? The UN! Please don’t make me laugh. Another gang of bad folks claiming to be out betters.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: An unnamed service has a bug

Saturday, April 14, 2007

FROM AN EXCHANGE OF EMAILS WITH A DEVELOPER

***Begin Quote***

From: A DEVELOPER
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 10:49 PM
To: r @ reinke
Subject: RE: Where did my name go?

Try clearing your cache and cookies and then restarting your browser (I see “reinke” within the green badge and after “Profile:..”.

If that doesn’t work, please reply back.

*** and ***

vs: Still the same. Wanna try sacrificing some chickens next? ;-) Like I hadn’t tried that or seen at a different computer. Why does every PC support person insist on a cold reboot? BTW, since last night was my night to do “microsoft maintenance”, I was forced to do a cold restart. So, perhaps there’s some crud in a table somewhere on your side of the wire?

***End Quote***

If I have learned one thing in testing software (which I think is “fun”), it is don’t annoy users with obvious stuff that has no hope of solving the problem. Or, at least ask it, or propose it in a way that is “softer”. Remember I am unpaid help, or worse I’ve paid for this mistake. At least with “free software”, you haven’t paid to debug someone else’s code.

It’s like that nameless isp that always wants you to power cycle your setup when it’s obvious to the world that they have a dns problem.

About the only thing worse is having paid no support at all. Buying a product and getting no support like IBM, Nuance, Microsoft, and that ilk! (There’s special circle in hell for them.)

Sometimes it would be better to have no support than long phone queues, “dumb” people (Yeah, I know they are working from scripts!), or autobots that just fire back meaningless canned answers.

At least with the new web20s services, you can usually get to SOMEONE.

Argh!

The next round of email I included a screen shot where I MSPAINTed three big orange circles about the problem. (I’m getting pretty handy with that tactic!) That exchange ended with “we have a bug”! Yeah, DUH, you do! I think I said that. Double Argh.

I deliberately didn’t name the SERVICE since they are trying. Let’s give them some time to work before we award them a negative review. Fair is fair.

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Posted by reinkefj

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