For all those people who I pester to use XHTML. Now an easier way; HTML Tidy! For the Mac users out there, MacTidy which can either be used as a standalone application or (even better) as a BBEdit plugin! And for those using other operating systems you can look at the main page - HTML Tidy
Last year, Elizabeth gave me 11 days of birthday fun from August 1st through my birthday, the 11th. This year she is continuing the plan! Yipee! Isn’t she wonderful! So far I have gotten two presents, one in green wrapping and one in purple.
Yesterday, I picked a book shaped object and was rewarded with Body of Secrets. It is a book about the NSA. I’m sure it will make me more paranoid.
Today I picked a CD shaped object as I wanted to have something new to listen to as I worked in the office. I got promise of love by the American Analog Set.
After I opened it, Elizabeth asked me what kind of music it was and I had to answer that I had no idea. I have taken to listening to KCRW at work. KCRW is a public radio station out of Santa Monica that I listen to because they have Morning Edition on an internet stream within iTunes. I soon found their companion internet only music station which rebroadcasts their music shows all day. I particularly like Morning Becomes Eclectic; it is music I have never heard before nor would I hear it anywhere around Williamsburg. When I hear something I like I add the CD to my wishlist on the spot. This CD was one of them, so I had no memory of what it was as I had probably added it months ago after hearing one song. It makes the suprise even better; I don’t have any memory of the music, but I know it was something I liked.
But listening to it now, I am glad I added it. I like it lots. Thanks sweety!
Yesterday I received an email forwarded to me from a student who seemed to take issue with the system I ran. They responded to an email that was sent to all of the student body indicating the system would be down for some maintenance on monday. Read on for the letter.
Date sent: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:03:10 -0400 From: [name removed]@wm.edu Subject: Re: myWM Unavailable Early on Monday To: itadmin@wm.edu Wait, my.wm is going to be unavailable on Monday? Really? Like it was unavailable for a good portion of today, and the day before, and several days before that? my.wm is the most faulty system everyone I know has every encountered. my.wm is the devil. my.wm NEVER works. I have no idea why you bother sending out these emails explaining that my.wm is going to be out of commission on a particular day. We all expect, at this point, that my.wm is going to work very sporadically, and we know, without question, that when it DOES work, the layout will still suck, it will be difficult to navigate, the little System Alert button will pop up when we're in the bathroom and the middle of an email, and even its name is still going to be obnoxiously cutesy. Every professor I've visited in their office has complained about the perpetual annoyance that is my.wm. webmail worked splendidly. It was efficient and easy-to-use. I never had any problems getting into it. Its name was kind of slick and futuresque and I would marry it if I could. Please bring it back and/or make my.wm stop being quite so hideous and painful. Thank you, -[name removed]
President Bush refused today to declassify a 28-page chapter of a Congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks. He said disclosure of the deleted section, which centers on accusations about Saudi Arabia’s role in financing the hijackings, “would help the enemy” and compromise the administration’s campaign against terror. [From NYT Article]
This makes no sense. There are two possibilities here that I can see.
1. The report is acurate. If the information in the report is correct in detailing what countries are directly supporting terrorists then releasing the information to the public can in no way benefit our “enemies.” Why? Because our enemies already know who is supporting them. I am confident that the report can be redacted to remove any concerns of methods and just state the basic facts.
2. The report is inaccurate. If the report is false, and the countries listed are not supporting terrorist activity, releasing that information will not aid the terrorists because those countries won’t help them anyway.
So either way, the report could not help the terrorists. So why refuse to release it to the public. My guess is that option 2 is more likely. If option 1 were the case, there would be no negative effects to the current administration as it would show they had quality intelligence. But given option 2, it would give the named countries a solid base of information to contradict. Saudi Arabia has already made this request and seems to be confident they can dispute the facts if only they are made available.
The current refusal allows the administration to look good by saying “we know who helped the terrorists” but not actually having to prove it.
Next time I play poker, I will be taking the tactic of announcing I have a royal flush every hand but refuse to show it. Give me your money.
A well written article from Salon covering the so called “no-fly” list and it’s newly discovered companion the “you can fly after we screw with you for a while” list.
The events of the current administration have baffled and stunned me for the past several years, but the link below just stuns me. It is so appallingly wrong in a fundamental sense. I am speechless.
Pentagon Plans Futures Market for Events in Mideast
UPDATED: Another story. NYT This is in effect allowing people to wager on events that cost human lives and somehow playing it as if it was some sort of game. I just finished reading a book, Chasm City, in which an upper class of postmortal people would capture and tag people from the underclass and release them to be hunted for sport. This article just reaches too close.
Trying to make predictions on future events is one thing, allowing people to effectively bet on it is another. What the hell are we coming to?
I have been very bad this year about posting pictures I have been taking. Basically I have been too lazy to write the HTML. So I have built a second MovableType website that is just for pictures. It is pretty much set up, so go enjoy!
As some of you may know, I have been in the process of building shelves in the room that will be our library when I am done. I remembered to take a picture today. The construction is done, but I had not started the painting yet. These should give us something on the order of 72 feet of shelf space; I hope it is enough. Click on the image for a larger view.
Today the brain suckers came to campus from Mary Washington. Mary Washington is just starting the same project William and Mary did 18 months ago; to convert their legacy administrative applications to SCT Banner. This is just the beginning of a long painful process; They came to get information from us, we to share the pain.
The meeting started at 10:00 am. 11 people from Mary Washington and 5 people from William and Mary started. In the two and a half hours until lunch we discussed the portal project I lead. I say “we” in the broadest sense, as I answered maybe 95% of their questions. The questions were from all quarters: their CIO, their EIS director (the equivilant of my boss), their Network guys, their UNIX admin.
By lunch my brain was dry. Empty. Lacking in further content. Hopefully they put some of that to use.
Thank goodness there were no questions for me after lunch.
Their project has a much cooler name than ours:
W&M -> Project MAST MW -> Project B.O.B.
Elizabeth and I went down to Newport News today in search of an armoir for her to better organize her clothes. We unfortunately did not realize the excitement we would be having when we came home. When we got home, Elizabeth was being silly with her water bottle as we unloaded the car and was squirting some around. I was getting something out of the back seat of the car when I noticed water dripping on the roof of the car.
I thought it was from Elizabeth until I looked at the ceiling in the garage. Unfortunately, I saw that it was not from an errant squirt, it was coming in slow drips through the ceiling. Directly above the garage is the master bathroom to which I ran only to find a big puddle.
Apparently the tank on the toilet had cracked and had been dripping water for the better part of the time we had been gone. We have no idea how it cracked, but we needed a new toilet.
So off to Lowes we went and found a nice new white (not light blue like the old one, thank god) toilet. Now, I have helped install a toilet before, but this was the first time solo and it had been quite a while. But I didn’t have much choice.
Thankfully it was easier than I remembered and far less unpleasant than I had expected. So now we have a new much more water efficient toilet. Fun on a sunday afternoon.