'"It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of Intelli- Check, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."'

I wish I could take this guy's computer off his desk. It does nothing that couldn't be done by hand. It doesn't give him any capability that enhances his ability to do business, as long as he has paper, a pencil, some envelopes, and some stamps. So why does need a multi-thousand dollar computer?

Scottish Lass: "Dave, it's supposed to be us girlies that are the teases." Hehe.  [Scripting News]

But does that method of figuring it out count? *chuckle* Been looking forward to this for a while, and it's done in style, too.

[a proposed reaction to the SSSCA:] 'Unfortunately, mass civil disobedience is historically the best antidote to an unjust law.... Bootleg everything you can get your hands on.'

There's a certain amount of validity to the civil disobedience bit; but in every other regard this article totally misses the mark. The problem with the SSSCA isn't that it might prevent bootlegging. That's simply the stated goal. The problem is the lengths it goes to to attempt to obtain that goal, with no regard whatsoever for balance or collateral damage.

Frustration is... staring at your News Aggregator page just before your network connection goes out. It's like being a kid in a candy store, except you get zapped when you try to take something.

A followup to this earlier post: The IETF Draft on Security Disclosure has been retracted. Not sure what to think about that. No agreement would ever have been reached, and debate may or may not have been useful; there's probably nothing to add.

'Microsoft sued Lindows over its name in December. Lindows is capitalizing on the reputation of the Windows brand, the suit said, and its name is confusingly similar to that of the Windows operating system....'

'Microsoft may have received more than it bargained for. Not only did U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour deny the company's request, he also said Microsoft has raised "serious questions" about the validity of its own trademark.'

"...it is wrong to blame today's culture of fear on the collapse of the World Trade Centre. Long before 11 September, public panics were widespread - on everything from GM crops to mobile phones, from global warming to foot-and-mouth.... Perceptions of risk... are shaped by cultural assumptions about human vulnerability."

I blame the news media. Not Hollywood so much, but the Daily Disaster Report that is your local and national news programs. First you hear about the murders and car accidents, then the weather, then next up, because we need to fill time and international news isn't interesting enough for Americans, a puff piece on a local emotional story ("My landlord won't fix my bathtub, and me with twenty-seven kids...") or a puff piece on the next potential terrorist attack. ("Tonight on News 8: Could terrorists be using excessive quantities of CFCs, creating holes in the ozone layer, and KILLING YOUR CHILDREN? Could Al Qaeda operatives infiltrated your car seat's manufacturing plant and compromised your child's car seat, potentially KILLING YOUR CHILD? A leading psychic claims bin Laden's hate aura could be affecting the country's psychic balance, potentially causing a rise in school shootings which will CAUSE YOUR CHILDREN TO DIE A GRISLY, NATIONALLY TELEVISED DEATH! Could terrorists infect your pet cat or dog with infleunza, KILLING YOUR CHILDREN, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG TOO? These reports and more on News 8 at 8!").

The title article is causing a brouhaha about MS licensing practices. Given my reading of the license, I'm wondering if it really means what people are interpreting it to mean. Looking forward to the MS correction, which is likely to come sometime this week.;-)

You might want to see what VNC is. It's a very useful tool to know about. Also, there's rdesktop for various UNIX flavors that allow connection to RDP servers, including the one in XP Pro. In fact, I'm using it to post this message.

I've definately decided to go with the Jabber stuff I described earlier. A few more advantages:

Threading issues are simpler. If the users are responsible for re-establishing connections, there's a nasty time while the system is logging in, but the server will reject any other messages, like I said. If I take control of the re-establishment, it's easy to block these messages. There are also a few misc. places where I could construct a multi-threaded scenario where something bad happened; this reduces, and I think eliminates, those. (I need to double-check the elimination claim, but even if it's false, the consequences of being incorrect are not that critical.)

I just filed my taxes. It took me and my wife half-an-hour, included no redundent steps, and was not at all stressful. (Except at one point where we had to go look up the meaning of "homestead".) The return was zapped off to Michigan and the IRS automatically, and the refunds will be direct deposited to our bank account. I didn't even go to the store to buy the tax software! I did it online with Turbo Tax for the Web, and I even did it all for free because I qualified for the Quicken Tax Freedom Project version.