September 2001 Archives

I finally saw Enterprise last night. A few more episodes and I'll be able to make a more informed judgement, but overall, I was pretty impressed. I may post a more spoiler-filled entry on some ideas I have about the show, but a couple quick comments for now:

• I didn't believe the opening song could possibly be as lame as everyone was making it out to be. I was wrong.
• I'm sure there's some Important Scientific Reason why the decontamination chamber needs to be kept cold. Really.

Enterprise premiered two days ago, I still have to wait until tomorrow to see it, and somebody's already writing slash. What's worse, it wouldn't surprise me to see someone else dispute their claim for being first. [via 24h]

Thanks to David Chess for the pointer to TruthOrFiction.com, another urban-legend-debunking site you can add to your bookmarks alongside Snopes, The AFU Archive, and About's Urban Legends and Folklore pages. All useful sites in light of the tall tales spreading like wildfire in the wake of 9/11. I expect to get a copy of the WTC Photograph any day now, probably from the same person who sent me Nostradamus's view on events. (Hey, everybody else has expresed an opinion, why shouldn't he?) Update: Yes, she sent me the picture, just like clockwork.

It seems that next week's Very Special Episode of The West Wing will be about Bartlett's attempt to explain an act of horrific violence to a group of schoolchildren who are touring the White House.

To detect 90 per cent of terrorists we'd need to raise an alarm for one in every three people passing through the airport. It's absolutely inconceivable that any security system could be built around this kind of performance.

It's almost a relief to know that proposed face-recognition systems for airports are more of an expensive boondoggle than an effective threat to civil liberties.

Voices of protest on the left may have been a much-needed moderating influence on the Bush administration's reaction to ecent events.

You might have experienced the past two weeks as a blur of intolerant, militaristic jingoism, but I saw a president go out of his way to embrace Islam, a defense secretary talk about the futility of carpet-bombing any country, and a secretary of state urge restraint and delicate multilateralism at every press conference. I can’t help but conclude that some of that rhetorical and strategic parsing was spurred, at least somewhat, by the knowledge that every overly aggressive misstep – the name “Operation Infinite Justice,” or Bush’s cowboy “dead or alive” talk – would be met with howls of protest from people whose voices resonate not just here, but in Western Europe as well.

I'm not opposed to some sort of military action, but I'm grateful for anything that makes our government step back and more carefully consider our reaction.

"It's a terrible thing to say, and it's unfortunate," [White House spokesman Ari] Fleischer said. "There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

I could almost say the same for his apparent lack of respect for principles of free speech.

I may not be able to watch Enterprise for another few days (agony!) but I'm glad to hear initial reports that it seems to be worth watching. Plus, there's one upcoming storyline that sounds particularly intriguing:

Another new wrinkle for the show is a series-long story arc involving unknown time travelers from the future who appear to have it out for the humans. Other Treks have had recurring characters -- mostly notably Q, the race that dogged Captain Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise crew in The Next Generation -- but producers have hinted that the new series will have a continuous story line throughout its run.

And with time travellers involved, does that mean there's a possibility that events in the timeline we all know and love could happen (have happened, whatever — cross-temporal grammar is a pain) differently this time through?

Could the UK be providing an example of how to handle domain name disputes fairly?

Microsoft may finally be sufficiently concerned about Linux to take an interest in *gasp* consumer satisfaction.

With friends like this, who needs enemies? P.S. I can't believe the number of closet fascists who are crawling out of the woodwork in support of this pinhead. We're talking people for whom I didn't think I had any respect, until I lost even more due to their response.

Why is it that every time I seriously consider subscribing to Salon Premium, in order to support a site I read so much, their much-touted "premium content" spews up a piece like this?

Looks like The Onion is back to form. There's been a lot of talk about how The Onion's usual irony isn't an appropriate reaction to the terrorist attack. That may be true, but a lot of people's reactions to the attack are fair and deserving targets:

• Prejudice: "Arab-American Third-Grader Returns From Recess Crying, Saying He Didn't Kill Anyone"
• Media coverage: "Massive Attack On Pentagon Page 14 News"
• And general public helplessness: "Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake"

I won't pretend that it's all in good taste, but maybe we've been treading too lightly around these subjects instead of facing them. Some people, especially those who've lost friends and loved ones, won't be ready to deal with recent events with this kind of bitter humor, but I'm glad it's available for those of us who are. And as The Onion itself expresses, there's not going to be one final point when everything is all right again:

The collective sense of outrage, helplessness, and desperation felt by Americans is beyond comprehension. And it will be years before the full ramifications of the events of Sept. 11 become clear. But one thing is clear: No Austrian bodybuilder, gripping Uzis and striding shirtless through the debris, will save us and make it all better. Shocked and speechless, we are all still waiting for the end credits to roll. They aren't going to.

One of the hardest things for me to do on the web this week is avoid Enterprise spoilers. The new Star Trek series premieres tonight on UPN, but St. Louis doesn't have a UPN affiliate; luckily, the local WB station has picked it up. Unfortunately, that means Enterprise is going to air on Saturday nights (in a block that will also include UPN acquisitions Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Roswell when they premiere) which means I have to avoid some of my regular reads for half a week.

I was always disappointed by my Chinese Zodiac identification as a dog. Somehow, it's a little bit better to see myself as a metal dog, as this script claims, although some aspects are a bit more painfully true than I'd like to admit. [via one of Ezrael's commentators.]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation finally speaks out against the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, the odious bill that would mandate software and hardware copy controls if enacted.

Congress and the courts have always struck a careful balance between preserving incentives for authors while ensuring public access to our cultural heritage. The SSSCA represents an outright assault against this balanced view of copyright. Under the SSSCA, Congress would abdicate its responsibility to protect the public's interest in copyright, leaving content owners to dictate terms to technology companies behind closed doors. The public would be left with no voice in this process, and with crippled technologies that permit only the uses that Hollywood has the unilateral ability to control.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), University professors and visiting foreign programmers are already being legally threatened by the music industry and even criminally prosecuted at the behest of software companies for what always has been and should legal activities such as research and making proprietary formats more accessible. The DMCA was a major step backwards for both the public side of the copyright bargain and the rights of scientists and researchers to study and report on computer security.

Also, The Register tries to contact Senator Ernest Hollings, who proposed the SSSCA, and ends up taking a look at his campaign funding.

An article on women's rights — or more to the point, the lack thereof — under Taliban rule helps to explain some of the radical differences in interpretation of the Qur'an.

When the religion of Islam was founded by the prophet Muhammed in the 7th century, it offered a degree of liberation to the downtrodden women of the Middle East, who were typically considered the chattel of their husbands. Not only did Islam guarantee women status in society as individuals and religious devotees, but it offered them property and inheritance rights. It granted women sexual openness within the sanctity of a marriage. Muhammed's own wives held jobs, fought in wars and lived relatively liberated lives.

The Muslim religion takes the writings of the Quran and the word of Muhammed as gospel truth; ostensibly there is no room for interpretation. However, Islamic law also includes a vast number of "hadith" -- sayings or rules that were collected after Muhammed's death from a variety of people who claimed to have seen or heard him speak. Islamic scholars rate the reliability of these hadith as "true," "good" or "weak." The hadith surround the religion itself as a kind of social policy, or rules for living, and religious leaders sift through them when coming up with guidelines for Muslim devotees.

While the Quran itself may be straightforward in its discussion of women, the voluminous and often conflicting hadith are where extremists locate their sexist rules. Islamic extremists, seeking to advance their radical agenda, will pick out a "weak" hadith that would seem to justify treating women like slaves -- even though the rest of Muhammed's teachings might appear to differ on the subject. Similarly, the ambiguity of the Arabic language is problematic. One particularly confusing passage in the Quran appears to endorse wife-beating, or "dharaba." However, the word could also mean "strike with a feather." Extremists choose the former definition; moderates, traditionalists and feminists, the latter. An uneducated population that hasn't read the Quran simply has to believe what it is told by the religious leaders in power.

"Many of the negative things that were said about women in the hadith are not really true hadith -- they are of the weakest type," explains Sharifa Alkhateeb, president of the North American Council for Muslim Women. "Yet when people repeat them they don't say that. Muslim males who are patriarchal -- who would like to turn women into servants who wait on men hand and foot -- like to repeat these things. But women were never supposed to be treated like that."

This is the first article I've ever seen that explains why a religion like Islam, which seems enlightened in so many other ways, is user to justify the horrible oppression of women in some Muslim countries. Many of us have ignored, or made erroneous assumptions about, that faith for so long that we really need to make an effort to understand it. Dan over at Lake Effect has been posting a number of "Understanding Islam" links lately.

From any other show, I'd expect a Very Special Episode about the terrorist attcks on NYC and DC, especially coming so soon after the event, to be exploitative; when it's The West Wing, I expect good things.

So, I'm driving along yesterday listening to the local '80s station, when they play a pre-recorded speech by the station owner. The first few minutes are the usual patriotic message about the heroism of the volunteers in NYC, the need to be strong in the face of adversity, and the need to punish those who attacked us. Pretty much the same message that every public official or executive with a mike in front of him has said over the past week and a half, Not That There's Anything Wrong With That. And then he starts talking about the upcoming war against terrorism being a two-front war. Not only must we fight the agents of extremism abroad, we must also struggle within our own country... to keep the economy strong. It seems that in this time of economic crisis, Our Duty As Patriotic Americans is to keep the one part of our economy that is still strong, Consumer Spending, running at full speed. So get out there and shop for your country. That's right, boys and girls, Uncle Sam wants you to keep buying useless crap.

Does this seem weird to anyone else yet?

Now, I'm not saying that I'm giving up on the modern American of buying said useless crap, at least any more than I was already trying to cut back to get my personal finances in order. But it still seems like a bizarre, and perhaps sad, commentary on our priorities today. I'm not going to claim that we were attacked because of our profligate ways (though a point could possibly be made if someone else wanted to), but it does seem to help explain why we were caught napping when the horrors faced by much of the world crashed upon our doorsteps on 9/11. It seems especially strange in light of the real sacrifices that most Americans on the home front have made in previous wars to ensure the proper provisioning of our troops — everything from food rationing to "Lucky Strike green is going to war!"

Yes, there are a lot of awful things that are going to happen if we enter a recession; most importantly, lots of Americans may find themselves out of work and find it difficult to afford food, much less keep their homes full of flashy trinkets and cargo. However, for all the talk of a "new economy" and "the end of the business cycle" the last few years of unprecednted growth and profit may have been an anomoly rather than a new norm. Over the past couple of weeks, lots of people have been tossing around variations of Ben Franklin's principle that "Those who would sacrifice liberty for a modest increase in security deserve neither liberty nor security." If those twin principles are truly what matter to us, we need to look at our priorities and decide what isn't as important as our freedom and safety.

"And this one time, at band camp..."

FLUTES IN THE CATS "MEOW" FREE!

No, Pete, you're not the only one getting spam for flute porn.

The computer game I was most looking forward to has been scrapped. Damn. Update: More details on the cancellation of Simsville.

The main problem with Microsoft's new "open passport" concept (mentioned yesterday) may lie in the difference between authentication and authorization.

"There's no common represenation of a 'user' across all systems, sure, but the idea was that you don't pollute the Kerberos ticket with that local system's idea of what a user is," explains [SAMBA project co-lead Jeremy] Allison.

"Microsoft's implementation of Kerberos actually wraps the authorization in the ticket," he says.

"They subverted it and put inside a standard ticket. The result was that only tickets issued on Windows 2000 machines could be useful on other Windows 2000 machines, without a lot of a manual mapping, which is a massive pain and is so tedious that no one is ever going to do it."

I should have been looking more closely for pitfalls rather than getting caught up in more .NET hype. I still think there are a lot of good ideas in .NET, but I'm sorry to say that Passport still presents a number of concerns.

Here's a transcript of President George W. Bush's speech last night, for anyone (like myself) who wasn't watching TV or listening to the radio. (See, Mom? It was easy to find.) Bush still wouldn't have been my choice, but I'm relieved to see that The Only President We've Got can do things well when he's paying attention. Not that I don't have some reservations; "Office of Homeland Security" sounds kind of Orwellian to me.

Give me one frickin' reason why I should give any credibility to an alleged Linux site which not only spams me, but spams me with a frickin' virus. Morons. Update: In retrospect, I don't think that these guys were infected by the virus themelves, but rather left their mailing list (which they used to send out their "newsletter") so wide open that some recipient of their mail sent the virus out to the whole list. It's still the kind of mistake that I doubt true Linux "professionals" would have made.

One of people's biggest concerns about Microsoft's ".NET" package of technologies has been over their "Passport" authentication service. The intent was to allow a user to create a single userid/password that would authenticate them and maintain user data over a wide variety of websites. Originally, it appeared that MSN Messenger was going to be the mechanism for maintaining that authentication, and that Microsoft would be hosting all of the authentication and other data used by the service. Many people were naturally distrustful of Microsoft's stewardship of this data, and of dependence upon a Microsoft service.

It now looks like at least some of those concerns may be alleviated, if I'm interpreting their marketing-speak correctly. They've just proposed what they call a "federated" model for Internet authentication that would establish a network of trusted providers, allowing users to choose who would store their data.

Microsoft does not own any of the data. The data always remains with the user who has the ability now to store that data with the participating Internet trust network provider — such as their own company or a site operator of their choosing. And in the same way that Microsoft and its Passport service today adheres to highest bar with respect to protecting the users data through stringent, 3rd party endorsed privacy guidelines... so too would the participants of this universal authentication network.

The system would be based on the open "Kerberos" standard; naturally, interested parties should keep an eye out for Microsoft attempts to fiddle with the standard this time around. Still, .NET looks like a more honest attempt than usual for Microsoft to adhere to open standards, and I hope they live up to their promises.

In the current political environment, any bill that claims to increase security is likely to find favor with legislators, without a whole lot of close examination. Even if that "security" has more to do with the IP industry's attempts to prevent copying than actually make computers more secure against intrusion. This is a golden opportunity for backers of the SSSCA, especially if groups like the EFF are asleep at the wheel.

We're now in the part of my ASP.NET class discussing web services, and the instructor was showing us salcentral, a directory of services. For some reason, this little gem caught my eye. He also mentioned a free ASP.NET hosting service that might be interesting to fiddle with.

Yes, ASP.NET. I have joined the dark side. I'll explain later.

I guess this is the kind of post I swore off, but I think this is an important meme to spread in the face of anti-Islamic hatred in this country: The real meaning of the arabic word Jihad.

Jihad is not a war to force the faith on others, as many people think of it. It should never be interpreted as a way of compulsion of the belief on others, since there is an explicit verse in the Qur'an that says:"There is no compulsion in religion" Al-Qur'an: Al-Baqarah (2:256).

So much of what Americans believe about the Islamic faith is wrong, as was much of what the terrorists believed about their own religion. [via the Wannabe]

I'm in a class the first half of this week, so things will probably be pretty quiet here.

And speaking of personal obsessions, here's an open letter to Michael Eisner opposing his support of the SSSCA. [via Hack the Planet]

It's all too much.

I've been trying to live a normal life, to relax, to stop worrying about things far beyond my control, but my mind keeps turning back to Tuesday's hell on earth. Everywhere I turn, someone's got their own interpretation of events or opinion on what we should do. I've got my own ideas that I'd like to express, and normally, this would be my place to do so.

But it's all coming together as inchorent noise, from the TV news that can't step away from an event this Important evne though they have no new information to contribute, to the little websites like mine with personal perspectives. Maybe I need to write something, for myself, to help pull my own jumbled thoughts together, but I don't think I can do anyone else any good by posting it here. The most I can do, at this point, is to stop adding to the noise over Tuesday's horrors, and suggest that others do the same.

Not that I'll stop posting anything else I feel like, whether my own little obsessions or the latest meme that's floating around the net.

P.S. I'm sure there are people who have some real information to provide or real experiences to share. All I'm asking is to think about whether you're adding signal or noise.

Actually, Pete, I don't know which spammers are worse: The ones ripping off those who wish to contribute to victims of terrorism, or the ones equating anti-spam advocates with terrorists.

Some movies, TV shows, etc. will be changed or delayed, as I mentioned before, to reflect changing attitudes about terrorism or in consideration of the feelings of those hurt by the disasters. Others will be changed because their settings no longer exist.

In these terrible times, it's good to watch the tech community put its problems aside, and supply what we were all so desperately short of: plenty of wild unsolicited opinions.

Ow. After the last few days of reading people's accounts and opinions of Tuesday's events, contibuting to the endless spewing on MeFi, and venting my own feelings on this very site, I fear that NTK is, as usual, brutally close to the truth.

Still, this weblog has become a useful way for me to deal with my own thoughts and feelings; in writing them down for an audience (no matter how small, or even imaginary) I have to consider my opinions more carefully to put them in words. So I'll probably continue my own mumblings here, mostly for my own benefit; please feel free to ignore me. (As if you didn't already.)

Most of the major broadcast and cable networks are changing their programming in response to Tuesday's act of terrorism. Networks are replacing terrorist-themed movies for the next week or so. The new series "The Agency" is replacing its series opener, which would have featured a terrorist bombing. Even the seemingly innocuous Food Network swapped episodes of "Good Eats" last night; the scheduled rebroadcast of Mission: Poachable would have revolved around a "culinary terrorist" whose "plan is to contaminate the city's water with court bouillon."

I went to the comic book shop yesterday, mostly for the sake of doing something normal and routine. I don't usually buy Superman, but for some reason, I decided to take a look at it. There's been a major crossover in DC Comics over the last month or so, especially the Superman titles, where Earth has been under attack by an alien enemy. This latest issue (which was printed sometime last week at the latest) deals with the reconstruction after the invasion.

On the second page, there was a picture of twin high-rise towers with holes blown in them; when I saw it, all the fear and sorrow that I've been holding back over the last couple of days came to the surface. I just fell to my knees and shook for a minute.

Now, this wasn't meant to be the World Trade Center; the towers were side-by-side instead of corner-to-corner like the WTC, and the caption read "Metropolis". But the image of the wrecked twin towers was just too much for me coming from a fictional source instead of the real-world images to which I've been numbing myself.

(Yes, I've posted this elsewhere, but I intended all along to mention it here.)

The terrorist coverage is getting to be too overwhelming. I just want to see something normal, and good, and entertaining... Thank you.

Robert Wright suggests a scenario in which the U.S. joins together with other nations in a coordinated response against terrorists and those who harbor them:

Consider an alternative. Bush declares that the Afghan government is morally obliged to turn Bin Laden over and that, if it doesn't, it will risk military attack and occupation—and its leaders will themselves risk being either killed or put on trial for complicity in murder. He asks for support from the international community—including military support from NATO in the event of a war with Afghanistan. And he puts all of this in the proper rhetorical context: He is not just retaliating, but rather setting the kind of precedent that the entire world needs to set as we approach an age when terrorists will have nuclear and biological weapons.

In all likelihood, Bush would get military backing from NATO, and, more generally, sufficient international support to help turn the entire exercise, however bloody, into a precedent of lasting value. (Note: If he wants to avoid the bloodshed, he could whisper this threat to the Taliban before announcing it to the world; once public, the threat becomes psychologically and politically harder for Afghan leaders to succumb to.) In fact, as Anthony Lewis suggested this morning (in a column that was a paragon of reason in the face of crisis and nicely counterbalanced Safire's column on the other side of the op-ed page), Bush should seek forceful support from the United Nations; Russia and China, as Lewis noted, have no interest in sustaining terrorism.

For all our wealth and technology, the United States is but one nation, with a mere 4% or so of the world's population. No matter how powerful and terrible our unilateral response, I doubt it will convince committed terrorists that they can't destroy or neutralize us eventually. If, on the other hand, they find the people of the world joined together, and every man's hand turned against them, their hopes become even smaller. [via MeFi] Update: Here's the Anthony Lewis column that was mentioned.

Xenophobia runs rampant today, including some assholes with nothing better to do than threaten Muslim schoolchildren.

I just want to repeat a comment I made on MetaFilter about an appropriate degree of retaliation.

...all the talk of "paving" Afghanistan sickens me. Let's assume for a moment that Osama bin Laden, perhaps even with the tacit approval of the Taliban, is behind this attack. (I agree that's the most likely case, but I hesitate to jump to conclusions.)

Even if action against the Taliban is justified, there are many people in Afghanistan who are victims of the Taliban's oppressive regime as well. Think of all the women being denied basic human rights because the Taliban's interpretation of the Koran makes them second-class citizens. Think of the religious minorities in the nation forced to wear identifying badges. Think of the desparate refugees on that ship that no one would allow to dock last month, and of all those trapped in Afghanistan who would still jump at such a slim hope of escape. Think of the rebel guerrillas still fighting to overthrow the Taliban regime as recently as their attack on Kabul yesterday. Do all of these people deserve our wrath as well?

I understand that if we choose to take military action against the Taliban, innocent civilians will die; while it saddens me, I accept that hard truth. But an act of pure, indiscriminate destruction against an entire nation would be as great an evil as the cowardly attack we witnessed yesterday.

I am sick to my heart of all the xenophobes who want to slaughter anyone with the wrong skin color, or the wrong religion, or who live in the wrong place, for revenge.

Patience is now the hardest thing. Patience is now the most necessary thing. The danger is that our retaliation will be rapid, scattershot and partial. That would be disastrous. Our response, when it comes, should be accurate, convincing and complete.

— Jon Carroll

Life During Wartime is a D.C.-based weblog created to cover the disaster.

All we know is that if you have a small group of people with skills obtained in the civilian world and a lot of commitment, they can (temporarily) bring down the first world's financial system, transportation system, the US military and all three branches of the US government. And probably all for a very low price.

I just heard sirens. Even in a place as far removed from the carnage as St. Louis, it's enough to make my heart skip a beat today.

News websites may be overwhelmed with people seeking information on this disaster, but more direct forms of net communication are proving the most effective way for some to reassure friends and family.

Before assigning blame for today's terrorist attacks, remember how quickly we rushed to judgement after the Oklahoma City bombing. The horrific extent of this crime makes it all the more important that we judge it accurately.

Keep this quiet, but Mercury Center has a decent feed of stories on the ongoing disaster that hasn't been flooded. Yet. [via BoingBoing]

Oh, yeah. The Brothers Barrett are New Yorkers too, and they've reported in. I'm seeing a number of weblogs checking in to assure readers they're OK — including Jason with a more reasonable call for blood.

I didn't link this a week ago when it was published, but it appears that we will now have the enemy we're looking for. Especially if the xenophobes calling into the Howard Stern show (playing in the next cube, not my fault) have their way. My hope that we will limit our retribution to those who are truly responsible fades by the minute, as I hear more and more people calling for blood with little concern for where they get it.

A California woman is taking anti-CD-ripping technology to court.

Another piece on the SSSCA names some of the lobbyists pushing for this bill. Looks like a roundup of the usual suspects — Disney, News Corp, etc.

The draft would in effect turn the Internet into a pay-for-play distribution system by mandating that the industry and government design a certified security technology to protect digital works. It also would criminalize the creation of technologies and products that did not include the technology. Such a technology would have to be developed within two years of the bill being enacted.

The bill, in its current form, would also criminalize those who removed or altered the protections on digital content. It also significantly cuts back the concept of "fair use" to making copies for "time-shifting" purpose only. The ability to save a movie on a VHS tape, loan a book to a friend, or make a backup copy of software are generally considered fair use.

...Cohn slammed what she viewed as Congress's willingness to represent the interests of corporations with large libraries of copyrighted works, rather than citizens.

"Isn't it Congress's job to stand up for the public?" she asked. "They seem to have completely abdicated their job to represent...the audience."

"This is all about bringing the content online; it's not about censoring libraries and academicians," [a Disney lobbyist] said. "I think that some people may be overreacting to a staff draft."

If you define "overreacting" as not falling for Disney's party line, of course.

The Ghost (check) is in NYC these days, as are Anil (check, sorry about the okra crack) and World New York (check), obviously. Sapphireblue (check) and the Ratbastard (check) are D.C. based. I think randomWalks (multiple checks, hopefully all) has members from both cities. And that's just out of my regular reads, the ones for which I know a location. (And MeFi's been running out of Jason's digs, hasn't it?)

Damn, I just realized how deep in the shit Jason, as a doctor in NYC, must be. If anyone I know (even via the web) needs my prayers, it's probably him.

I don't wonder anymore why everybody on the radio keeps babbling whether there's any new information or not; it's an attempt to hold off the Fear. More explosions, fires, collapsing buildings, and now a suspicious plane heading for D.C. — the gates of hell are being cast wide open today, and the best anyone can hope for is a controlled release of panic.

The old rule says, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." But then, two planes into the World Trade Center were clearly more than coincidence, even without a third plane crash — into? near? — the Pentagon. Naturally, every significant news site in existence is overwhelmed. I'm midway between two radios in neighboring cubicles, but it sounds like everybody's repeating the same news over and over because they need to say something. I'm just waiting to see if we get through the day without declaring martial law.

I doubt an online petition against the SSSCA will make much difference; you're probably better off looking up your congresscritters and sending snail-mail.

For Pete's sake, the correct way to deal with okra is to deep-fry it.

As you might expect, The Register isn't any happier about the SSSCA than anyone else outside the IP Industry.

It would close all the irritating little loopholes in the DMCA right around the necks of consumers, where, the industry reckons, the pressure rightly belongs.

Conveniently, and by design, the words "fair use" appear nowhere in the draft. The industry lobbyists never liked that troublesome phrase in the DMCA, so now it's gone.

One assumes that the threat of boycotts and mass violence would keep our venerable software and media giants from temptation along these lines, but there is no technological barrier to rendering new hardware incapable of playing, say, an older CD with no DRM features, or to rendering new, DRM-enabled media unplayable on older hardware. In that case, buy one and you've got to replace the other -- and surely, it's only a matter of time before you'll be buying one.

Once again, the media distribution industry (i.e. the people who own "intellectual property" rather than producing it) escalates its war against its customers with the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act. Apparently, the goal is to criminalize the possession or use of any piece of equipment capable of copying any form of digital media without the express permission of the intellectual property industry.

The SSSCA and existing law work hand in hand to steer the market toward using only computer systems where copy protection is enabled. First, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act created the legal framework that punished people who bypassed copy protection -- and now, the SSSCA is intended to compel Americans to buy only systems with copy protection on by default.

The SSSCA says that it is illegal to create, sell or distribute "any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies" that are approved by the U.S. Commerce Department. An interactive digital device is defined as any hardware or software capable of "storing, retrieving, processing, performing, transmitting, receiving or copying information in digital form."

This looks like the biggest and most blatant step to date towards the dystopian future imagined by Richard Stallman, where an all-powerful IP industry has absolute control over what private citizens can read. [via MeFi]

The infamous "Low Bullshit Guide to St. Louis" has long since vanished, but I just stumbled across The Lowlife Guide To St. Louis, and it might be worth a look.

A closer look at Coca-Cola and The Olive Garden's anti-water campaign. And by the way, If you thought Dasani, Coca-Cola's brand of bottled water, was spring water, think again. [via 24h]

I didn't watch the MTV Music Awards, so I only have one comment.

Viacom ordered WWF to move its high-rated "SmackDown" tonight on the Viacom-owned UPN so it wouldn't compete with young male MTV viewers. (VMA ratings were off badly last year and Viacom was taking no chances.) WWF complied and moved "SmackDown" to Tuesday this week, where it promptly won its lowest ratings ever. Ouch.

I can't believe that there would really be that much audience conflict between two shows that are so radically different. One show is a choreographed spectacle which attempts to maintain the appearance of authenticity, even though winners are selected in back rooms in order to create a sense of drama and cheap titillation rather than on the basis of performing talent. Professional wrestling, on the other hand, hasn't pretended to be authentic in years.

The ridiculous CueCat barcode reader is finally losing one of its biggest supporters. Aww. What a shame. The head of the company that produced the cat isn't letting reality bring him down, though: "I'm confident – ultimately, down the road – you'll still see cues in newspapers. I think the convergence between online media and traditional print is inevitable. It's going to happen." Real soon now, you betcha. [via Media News]

Shawn lives in fear of his microwave, ever since he learned that superheated water in a smooth container can exceed the boiling point, and then explode into a boil when agitated. I was just watching one of my culinary heroes, Alton Brown, explore the mysteries of tea, and he offered a possible solution: It seems that if you leave a bamboo skewer or wooden chopstick (probably any similar object would do) in your water as it heats in the microwave, the irregular surface allows bubbles to form; therefore, the water will come to a visible boil at the proper temperature. I haven't yet run the experiment myself, but it may be worth a shot. Update: I've tried it now, and it worked; I still don't know if I can make any guarantees about how consistently it will work, so be careful.

The Link Machine turns up the website of Count Dante, the Deadliest Man Alive (well, back when he was still alive, anyway) and his Black Dragon Fighting Society. And I'd been assuming he was just a figment of Robert Rankin's imagination.

A long article on the history of computer games starts off well, but descends into sneering contempt for games as a mass-market artform at the end.

Joss Whedon talks to The Onion A.V. Club about Buffy, high school, and the worst line of dialogue in the X-Men movie:

Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand. [Adopts casual, bored tone.] "You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Then, after he gets electrocuted, "Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else." But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona. [Strident, ringing voice.] "The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!" That's the thing that makes you go crazy. At least "You're a dick" got delivered right. The worst thing about these things is that, when the actors say it wrong, it makes the writer look stupid.

And do not miss the extra material that had to be cut from the print edition. (That is, if you can actually get a page from their overburdened server.)

For the record, I have no business getting into a frickin' canoe. Rafts are fine. Rafts are wonderful. Rafts don't tip.

And as the fascinating coloration of my left leg demonstrates, I have no business whatsoever even looking at a rope swing.

It looks like today may be shaping up into "Pick on The Register Day" here on WCH, so I'll combine as much as possible into one post.

Is AOL really denying technical support to subscribers who use the full-blown version of Internet Explorer instead of the stripped-down version built into AOL's software? This sounds more like the confused response of a rogue tech to me.

Another confusing oddity from The Reg: They claim that CompactFlash manufacturer SanDisk is using its own unique definition of megabyte. Unfortunately, use of such prefixes can be consistently inconsistent within the computer industry:

Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in magnitude) -- for example, describing a memory in units of 500K or 524K instead of 512K -- is a sure sign of the marketroid. One example of this: it is common to refer to the capacity of 3.5" microfloppies as '1.44 MB' In fact, this is a completely bogus number. The correct size is 1440 KB, that is, 1440 * 1024 = 1474560 bytes. So the 'mega' in '1.44 MB' is compounded of two 'kilos', one of which is 1024 and the other of which is 1000. The correct number of megabytes would of course be 1440 / 1024 = 1.40625. Alas, this fine point is probably lost on the world forever.

Hard drive manufacturers usually seem to to advertise decimal capacities on the box, and try to obfuscate the discrepancy with OS-reported binary capacities. On the other hand, RAM manufacturers seem to be pretty consistent about advertising their capacity in binary units.

In better news, it appears that Microsoft may be loosening up even further on its Windows XP Product Activation boondoggle. Now it seems you might not run into trouble unless you swap out more than six major system components within a 120-day period, and I suspect even most hobbyists will be hard-pressed to stay that busy. Multi-computer licensing hasn't improved much, although they may offer a token (disgustingly small, IMHO) discount on additional copies under a new "Famiy Licence" scheme. I'm still not happy about WPA, but I may eventually back down on my own objections to Windows XP sooner than I wanted to, especially if MS's next generation of development tools — Visual Studio.NET — will run under XP.