Ranting and Roaring

My contribution (via The Agitator): The two things about developing software:

1. You can only choose two of time, money, quality.
2. 0 + 0 = 0

If the later point seems mysterious, read on (as Steve would say).

Don’t forget to send your favorite entries over to Darren at his weblog, for this coming Tuesday’s CotC!

If you’re interested in hosting a Carnival, send me a note at greenflash /at/ davidjanes /dot/ com. CotC needs women: surely it’s not only men that are interested in doing this! ALSO: all postings related to CotC — include the most up-to-date schedule — can be found at this link.

Interested in finding out more about the whole Carnival concept? Check out this posting for lots of related goodies.

From Avalanche Company (via The Meatriarchy):

94. Crucifixes do not ward off officers, and I should not test that.

95. I am not in need of a more suitable host body.

124. Two drink limit does not mean first and last.

125. Two drink limit does not mean two kinds of drinks [yes it does — dpj].

126. Two drink limit does not mean the drinks can be as large as I like.

130. ‘I’m drunk’ is a bad answer to any question posed by my commander.

142. ‘Calvin-Ball’ is not authorized PT.

Such as…

Sure, she’s good-lookin’. She’s also crazy. Crazy as a shithouse rat. Run for your life

… and lots more.

Good god man, get away from the computer.

Welcome to the world, Alma Lutas. And having gone through what “TM” has — including the whole (watching the) C-section thing — may I add: thank god that’s over with. I still say that all the time. I was a wreck by the end of Joanne’s pregnancy.

Yahoo shuts its Scandinavian operation, because computer using Scandinavians prefer to use the English language (US) site.

Alan hands out an award, a lifetime achievement award for a worthy place and hints that next week’s CotC host Darren should pick up the idea of an award of the week too (hint hint).

Via Joey, I’ve learned that Cory Doctorow thinks that some Flash nonsense from Ben of Ben and Jerry’s fame is “one of the most effective pieces of political advocacy I’ve ever seen”. Ben suggests something or other to save social programs in the US. Here’s another suggestion: why don’t you hippie boomer losers fuck off down a hole somewhere — but before you do, pay back some of the goddamned money you’ve been draining from society for the last 40 years? What, are we supposed to keep you in Depends now too?

Ben’s point is there’s not enough money for “social programs” (such as “World Hunger”) because we’re wasting money bayoneting babies, or something like that. Isn’t there a War on Fat now? Can we have the ICC drag Ben up on crimes against humanity, genocide of children or something like that for the tubs of shit he sells to tubs of shit?

Anyway, I’ve taken the picture he’s sampled and added in the 10.45 trillion dollar GDP, just to give you some scale. Enjoy!

According to Yahoo:

A new wireless technology with enough bandwidth to carry cable television signals from a wall-mounted outlet to a TV anywhere in the home could be on the market as early as next year, an industry group said Tuesday.

The Multiband OFDM Alliance, led by Texas Instruments Inc, the world’s top maker of microchips for cell phones, said it would publish standards for the technology in May. The group said it expected products with the technology, known as Ultra Wideband, to ship in 2005.

Ultra Wideband operates at a lower power than the wireless local area network standard known as WiFi, but is capable of handling much larger amounts of data, including streaming video.

[...] Harris said consumers might also be able to transfer images from a digital video camera to a personal computer with the wireless technology.

In corporate offices, Ultra Wideband technology could replace wires in data centers.

[...] The group said it planned to ship sample silicon chips in the fourth quarter of 2004 and integrated modules in the first quarter of 2005. It expected products using Ultra Wideband technology to come on the market in the second quarter of 2005.

Note that there’s also talk using UWB to do signalling across wires, which could massively increase the bandwidth available on copper twisted-pairs.

Carnival 007 is up at Alan’s GenX at 40. Go check it out!

This is a interesting idea. I’ve been mulling over a very similar idea for Canada for the last year. Essentially, it would go like this:

• For every child in Canada, the government would put in $X per year into a “savings account”.
• The government may make only a limited number of payments — say five — but the intent would be to make the payments as early as possible.
• Provinces should be able to “top up” the amount of money in that account.
• Ideally, the amount of money ending up in the account should be similar to what the government would spend on a university education for that child.
• Families may be able to make an additional contribution, and possibly this will be tax-free.
• Investment of the money should be up to the child’s family, under a set of rules similar to RRSPs.
• The money can be released at any time (or after the age of 16) for one of the following purposes:
  1. A contribution to a locked-in RRSP
  2. To pay for university education
  3. To help pay for a house
  4. (possibly) something entrepreneurial, under some controls
  5. (possibly) can be spent on drug medication

What does this system get us?

• It will replace RESPs.
• It will start citizens on their way to self-controlled a pension plan, increasing the stability of the “pension system”.
• Teaches and encourages responsibility and all that.
• It will help make the choice of whether to go to university (or post-secondary schools) more rational (I can explain this further if need be). This is also fairer to people choosing not to go to university.

And on the subject of Canadian blog postings, check out BlogCanada’s new group blog: Blogging Canada’s 2004 Federal Elections. Very reminiscent of the very successful Last Chance City there a few months ago. I may have to get involved, but I’ll probably wait for an election call first. I’ll keep my policy wonking to myself for now, saving my energy for the sprint at the end.

Don’t forget: Carnival #7, Tuesday 27 January 2004 is at Alan’s GenX at 40 tomorrow. Get your posts in there!

The NYT is reporting that Canada has fewer online shoppers (than the US). E-Commerce is actually down over the last two Christmas shopping periods. Interesting. I’m not at fault: I’ve discovered online shopping in a big way and I’d get everything from Amazon.ca if I could.

Here’s a word for you: Monoculture. Anyway, I’m just posting this to remind myself to do this some day (or get Kathy to do it for me). Via Danny.

magnabuck.

On the negative side, I am not one of Jay‘s favorite bloggers nor I am not one of Cosh‘s, although I’m inferring that I may be in his top 5 for Ontario or that he’s using some mysterious collation strategy that’s not immediately apparent to the human eye. On the plus side, I didn’t make Mark’s worst blog postings of 2003 list either, so I got that going for me, to misquote Bill Murray. Perhaps this year my ship shall sail. I missed Fromage 2003 this year, but weisblogg’s list is not a bad substitute, I guess.

On the New Year’s resolution “for others” side of things, I declare that Cosh should get a real CMS-like-thingy for his blog and I implore Mark to get some damn permalinks. And while I’m at it, I recommend that you check out the (improbably named) TMLutas‘ half of the Flit blog. A hidden treasure of Hyperactive Catholic Libertarianism!

Does this remind you of anyone you know. If you live in Ottawa, I bet it reminds you of everyone you know!

What do we have here [in Canada]? Crony capitalism, and every 50-year-old with a graduate degree still left in the country, running around under the big Ottawa money tree, hands grasping at a nice six-figure gov’mnt job with travel allowance, car, driver, and big entertainment budget. The highest form of Canadian accomplishment: to spend your 60s living high off waitresses in Kamloops, discussing impenetrable and useless things. Just as long as they are so boring that no one notices.

• Carnival #7, Tuesday 27 January 2004: Alan at GenX at 40.
• Carnival #8, Tuesday 3February 2004: Darren at his eponymous weblog.
• Carnival #9, Tuesday 10 February 2004: Brett Lamb at the Blamblog.
• Carnival #10, Tuesday 17 February 2004: Your blog goes here.

If you’re interested in hosting a Carnival (next year!), send me a note at greenflash /at/ davidjanes /dot/ com. CotC needs women: surely it’s not only men that are interested in doing this! ALSO: all postings related to CotC — include the most up-to-date schedule — can be found at this link.

Interested in finding out more about the whole Carnival concept? Check out this posting for lots of related goodies.

Raiding the home of a reporter at 3 am in the morning, dragging her out of her house, driving her to the edge of town, pushing her in a ditch and shooting her in the back of the head sounds more like the Gestapo to me. Raiding Juliet O’Neill’s home with a search warrant sounds merely like very poor judgement on the part of the RCMP.

F*ck.

Opinion Journal, Best of the Web:

All this may mean that the Democratic Party isn’t as far gone as some of us had thought it was. Whatever his shortcomings, John Kerry is an adult, and unlike Howard Dean, it is possible to imagine him as president. This doesn’t mean he’d have an easy time beating President Bush–the last Democratic nominee from Massachusetts carried only 10 states against the last Bush–but the likelihood of Bush winning a landslide re-election is certainly lower than it was 24 hours ago. And to be fair, Kerry is more lifelike than Michael Dukakis.

Here’s Matt’s take. I didn’t watch it — I mean, I support the war on terror and all that, but there’s only so much I’m prepared to do…

More drug testing for teens! More PATRIOT Acts! Less gay marriage! More centralized databases, for everything! More abstinence! Less separation of church and state! More God, o Lord, much more God! What deficit? What brazenly irresponsible spending? What stupendous costs, in American lives and U.S. dollars, of irritable, crowd-pleasing anti-multilateralism?

Mike (welcome back) follows up on my Auschwitz post. I wasn’t really planning to go into this, but here’s a few reasons why the allies wouldn’t do bomb Auschwitz.

The simplest argument is this: the Germans could have just rebuilt the camps, further away if they wanted to stop the bombing, or closer to England if they wanted more!

Furthermore, the best favor the allies could do for anyone is win the war as quickly as possible. While many military decisions made during the war may be questionable, hey, we weren’t there, so second-guessing is only going to get you so far. One has to assume some level of good faith on the part of the commanders sending kids out to die. How bombing concentration camps would destroy Germany’s will to fight is something of a mystery (bombing Dresden holds no such mystery for me at all).

Auschwitz is far away from England. Here’s an equidistant projection centered somewhere in south-eastern England (52N, 0W) — a reasonable guess for where planes would have to take off from. To get to Auschwitz (approximately at the red dot, 19.23E, 50N) they would have to spend most of their time flying over Germany and Czechoslovakia — not exactly conducive to survival of the air crews in the least.

Finally, on the 13th of August 1943, Vienna was bombed by B-24 bombers. Since this is a similar distance as Auschwitz, one can use this a rough rule of thumb for the earliest date that concentration camp could have been bombed (for what that’s worth). The range of the B-24 is 3500 km — the outer yellow line on the map above is at 2000 km, making for a moderately (very?) tight round trip.

Update: I realize there’s a lot of redundancy between what I’m saying and what Mike said. Such is the Internet

Update: I think I messed up the map — the red dot should be about 3/4 cm to the WSW of that location. Will check the maps again when I get home tonight.