General

Morons in the News: Oklahoma Governor: Racial Profiling is Spiffy. The governor of Oklahoma is proudly insisting that racial profiling is the way to go when tracking suspected terrorists… [Morons Dot Org]

I ordered an Airport card for my G4 so I won’t have to run Ethernet cables in my new home. I already have a base station & an airport card in my iBook.

I plan to put the G3 server in a corner of the spare bedroom, along with the DSL modem, router, and base station. The G4 will go someplace more convenient & comfortable to work.

Satire: American Family Association Causes Fall of Roman Empire. The American Family Association has announced that it alone is solely responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire… [Morons Dot Org]

I have a pet peeve with Apple computers, one that I haven’t commented on at all over the years – why in the hell do Macs all come with a single-button mouse? Sure, control-clicking gives me access to a lot of the features that a two-button mouse would offer, but I cannot think of a single reason why Apple still sticks with a one-button mouse. Are we who buy Macs not nimble-fingered enough to use a two-button mouse? [Mac Net Journal]

Yes! For every Mac I’ve bought, the mouse has always stayed packed away in the box. Years ago I used a Kensington Thinking Mouse. Lately, I’ve used a Logitech Mouseman Wheel & a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. I now use a Logitech Cordless Wheel mouse.

I just realized that RDF has a lot in common with MARC, the standard catalogging format for library data. Both categorize similar types of data and maintain similar pieces of information. MARC was developed long before the web, but there’s now an XML standard for MARC records.

Specialized software is used to catalog, maintain, and browse MARC databases. It would be interesting of RDF and/or XML can replace MARC.

BTW, I used to work for that company and helped develop a client application for the Mac, which was discontinued after I left, since they couldn’t find another Mac programmer 🙂

Sickening: Two shops in Vancouver were raided last week for selling counterfeit DVDs. Along with the standard “billions and billlions of dollars lost each year” figure, the Motion Picture Association lawyer trotted out the connection that the profits from the sale of these illegal DVDs may help fund organized crime and terrorists. [via Lawrence]

Morbus: whaaa? that doesn’t even begin t… sigh. [Aaron Swartz: Secret Agent]

I figured it out. The government’s (and everyone else’s) new code word is “terrorist”. If you don’t like something or want to instantly sway public opinion against something, call them terrorsts, or claim that they help fund terrorists.

drug dealers == terrorists

counterfeit dvd sellers == terrorists

music or software piracy == terrorists

I don’t think people are really stupid enough to believe that crap.

Do drugs = terrorism?  A tenuous link between the drug trade and terrorism was made in two Super Bowl commercials.  David Kurz doesn’t think it holds water and I, like most people, concur with him.  We support terrorism more through the purchase of fine oil products than drugs.  FWIW, I think the group responsible had heard about Afghanistan’s opium production (heroin), and thought they finally had a way to tie the war on drugs with the war on terrorism.  A perverse twist to this logic is that the Taliban effectively banned the production of opium in 2000, so by eliminating them, we have probably paved the way for Afghanistan to regain its former 80% market share in the drug. [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]

One series of commercials are worth noting. I believe they were run by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. They linked drug use to terrorism. The premise is that terrorist organizations are funded by selling drugs which make their way to the US. So when you buy illegal drugs, you may be funding terrorism. They were careful to say “may” not “are.”

What’s coming next. A link between abortion and terrorism? A link between voting Democratic and terrorism? A link between being black or jewish and terrorism? [Scripting News]

Sheeeeeeeeeeeesh!

Hmmm… It didn’t work. The web services folder wasn’t created automatically, even after updating radio.root (which didn’t add any new parts).

<%params = {"Dave"}; xml.rpc ("127.0.0.1", 5335, "radio.helloWorld", @params)%>