General

I just closed my account with PHPWebhosting.com after moving MacMegasite to Bounceweb. I did the switch yesterday and it went very smoothly.

Senegal: The Computer’s Choice. Will Argentina win the World Cup? Brazil? Argue all you want: It turns out that a computer may predict the odds more accurately than humans. It has already picked one big upset. By Kendra Mayfield. [Wired News]

Yes! I really want them to win, since I have some friends in Senegal and I really like the Senegalese people.

An accused Opa-locka drug dealer has won a new trial with an only-in-Miami argument: The jury pool contained too many people whose last names start with the letter “G.”

Of 38 potential jurors in the pool, 21 had surnames starting with ”G” and 14 of those were of Hispanic origin: six Garcias, two Gomezes, two Gonzalezes, two Guerras, a Gutierrez and a Goldares.

Quoting William Shakespeare and The White Pages, defense attorney David O. Markus persuaded a federal judge that the panel violated Roderick B. Carter’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury comprised of his peers. Carter is black.

”There is no way Mr. Carter can get a fair cross section of the community. That’s especially true in this case where the overwhelmingly majority of G surnames are Hispanic,” Markus said.

The jury pool featured one black man and five black women.

Markus said he didn’t rely on any fancy statistical analyses to bolster his point, just the phone book.

The ”G” section of the Miami White Pages is 80 pages long.

According to Markus, more than half of those residential listing pages — 43 to be exact — are filled with just five surnames: 14 pages of Garcias, six pages of Gomezes, 18 pages of Gonzalezes, two pages of Guerras and three pages of Gutierrezes.

Heroes.

Navajo Code Talkers Break 60 Years of Silence

“Their tale begins in 1942. After discovering that U.S. military codes were routinely deciphered by the Japanese, Philip Johnston, a World War I veteran and son of missionaries to Navajo country, suggested devising a system from the ancient language that few Navajos had ever bothered to write down.

When tests showed that messages that had once taken 30 minutes to code and decode were relayed in 20 seconds by the Navajos, recruitment went into overdrive on the southwestern reservation that ranges across New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado.

Some 400 code talkers eventually were assigned to every major Marine division, battalion and parachute unit, usually working in teams ÷ one to speak, the other to write ÷ on bulky portable telephones and radios. Despite their value, many also fought as infantry soldiers; a dozen died in the field….

And the irony? The U.S. government’s efforts to assimilate Navajos in the early 20th century included banning their language. Transgressors had their mouths washed out with soap, or worse.” [USA Today]

This article also includes an interesting sidebar that illustrates how the Navajo code worked. A fascinating subject, and hopefully the movie will be an adequate testament to these men.

Links for further information about the Navajo code:

• Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Fact Sheet
• Navajo Code Talkers’ Dictionary
• The Navajo Code Talkers
• Navajo Code Talker GI Joe Figure

[The Shifted Librarian]

I’ve always been fascinated by their history

Here’s my weblog neighborhood.

It turns out the problem I was having yesterday wasn’t the BEFSR41 firmware. Someone was downloading lots of MP3s from my computer. I only put it up there for a few friends and gave them the DynDNS name for it, but somehow the whole world seems to have discovered it.

I’ve taken measures to keep that from happening again, while still making it accessible for my friends.

I just had to clean the first bird droppings off my new car. I’m surprised I made it more than a week, since I park outdoors.

I just downgraded the firmware on my LinkSys BEFSR41 router to 1.40.2 since I was having a problem with my DSL connection slowing down to a crawl. After I’m online for a short time, I’d see ping times of over 4000 ms to my name server.

I just got back from my trip. I had a great time, except for losing my watch at Blizzard Beach. One of the guys brought his pet sugar glider, which is the strangest creature I’ve ever seen. It looks like you shouldn’t get it wet or feed it after midnight.

I’m getting ready to leave for Orlando tomorrow morning. I’ll spend the weekend there, and while I’m up there I plan to see Attack of the Clones on a digital screen.