the thing about spoon feeding infants is that they can be unpredictable, suddenly snapping at the spoon full of organic apples and apricots like a mongoose at a cobra's spine. this is particularly likely if you have been encouraging carnivorous behaviour by rolling his cheerios across the table and only allowing him to eat the ones he catches.

Whew! haven't had internet or personal email access more or less since friday night. I am away from home right now and count on work for these things(and who wouldn't prefer a t3). The problem stemmed from some "interesting" things that novell netware does under specific conditions when configured a specific way. Note that this is a newly documented "feature" of novell. In fact the novell geeks are still documenting now. Now that our valiant IS department has done battle with the great dragon there is a great deal of butchering and descaling to be done.
But due to their efforts for the last 5 days straight, I now have internet and email access again. However all our remothe users will be out in the cold for a while longer. When something like this happens It is frequently cause for much abuse of the IS people. So for just a moment please take the time to see it from their POV.

You've worked 15 hours or more each day for the last five days to root out a problem that has never happened to any ever before, it doesn't respond to the sum of your and every smart person you know's collective knowledge. the people who wrote the software have been here for three day with all their "helpful" thoughts. and some person from Marketing calls you up and says "I can't get my network printer to work, when are you idiots gonna get your act together?" Try not taking a hostage right then. So you know what I did? I wrote the entire darn department a thought out and sincere thank you note. even though they aren't finished yet

Zowee! Forbes has a spiffy article on Tempest (VanEyck type Phreaking). A relatively intelligent piece on it too.

I was recently alarmed by the Navy's decision to use windows 2000 to run C and C (command and control for those of you out there that don't speak Acronym) on the next three aircraft carriers our fine nation will build. Anybody who thinks that Microsoft hasn't figured out the lobbying thing needs to rethink that notion. Turns out that they will also refit 7 other vessels as a part of the deal. <Shudder>

"Blue Fox wave off and keep out twenty miles, We have a blue screen error and aren't sure we turned off the Phalanx. You'll have to wait till we reboot the servers and stations here, should be about 50 minutes. Conserve your fuel because we can't get a gas bird off the deck either. Communications out while we reboot."

But as I picked up the Aug/Sep issue of Professional Mariner( which I just noticed has a website. I can't check it out just now as I am on the palm) to check out the Maritime casualties column, I became concerned about fly by wire in general. For those of you (probably most) who don't know already, The maritime casualties column is a place where they detail as much of every commercial marine accident they can with causes and conditions. The intent is to provide a sort of "forewarned is forearmed" prophylactic effect and prevent repeat accidents. This time around I noticed two accidents DIRECTLY caused by fly-by-wire failures.

The worst one had one of the sleazy/slick casino gambling boats in Miami. They rammed a ro/ro( rollon-rolloff, they sacrifice capacity and stability for WAY convenient loading). They lost their engine AND steering controlls upon leaving the dock and the Princesa kept right on steaming in the direction and throttle position she last had. Right in to the ro/ro Seaboard Venture which was moored the the Dodge Island terminal. Both vessels were damaged, no fuel leaked and no injuries reported.

Now here's the deal:

The controls (Kobelt, who unfortunately had the quarter page ad only a few pages away) run on a 24 volt DC system, pretty much standard stuff. They will operate normally with voltages as low as 16 volts but when the voltage drops below that the units default to what ever rudder and throttle position they last recieved. In Kobelt's defense the units can be manually overridden in in the engine room by the engineer who can recieve voice communication from the skipper (pretty much the way ships have been doing it since we first put engines in them(or for that matter even before that, the work was done in the rigging instead of the engine room)). Princesa's skipper just didn't happen to do that( I suspect that he had no one in the engine room). On Princesa the switch controlling the battery charger for that particular bank was in a broom closet. Yup, a broom closet. Have any of you out there every carelessly chucked a broom into a closet and not payed attention to any switches it may have flipped. I know I have. Pretty stupid design. Somewhere there is a Naval Achitect whose feelings are hurt by that statement. Tough. Any way the controls happened to have just enough voltage left to get away from the dock and get her pointed at Seaboard Venture. The investigating Coast Guard officer reported that this was the company's ninth incident in 18 months.

The other incident was a board a twin Z-drive Tug in Anchorage. Z-drives are an Incredibly cool innovation in the towboat industry. They provide a prop with however many thousands of horsepower behind it with the ability to swivel a full 360 degrees. You can put the power in what ever direction it is most needed( incidentally this issue also has a lenghty and informative article on deciding just that). The cold hard fact of Z-drives is that they have to be fly-by-wire. There really isn't any other way to do it. In this particular incident two wires came loose and the Stellar Wind backed into and destroyed an unoccupied catwalk in the harbor. No apparent harm done the vessel in fact the picture shows the wheelhouse virtually unscratched. The wires were terminated on the block with spade-type terminals. Very convenient terminals in that they can be slid in to place easily. However the reason that they are specifically Forbidden by the ABYC is that they can slip out almost as easily. They have since switched all of the terminals to much more sensible ring terminals. Had Stellar Wind not been designed to hit things hard and repeatedly there would have been much worse trouble from two little wires.

Yeah Right, where you gonna find a hundred of those?

well I think that more of us regular(not rich,morally bankrupt, or sucking on the tit of campaign fundraising) people should think about not just voting but actually running. all of the decisions seem to be made much earlier in the process. there is no decision to be made in nov. unless we all show up en masse and vote nader and his like into office. But even that is difficult because most of us have no options at all for House members or Senators.
the time to get involved is at the primary level. ignore the spin and vote for who you trust not who you think your favorite party(There used to be a band called ScrewRadio and my favorite tune from them was called "The Republicrats"I don't ever remember them being played on the radio but that probably wasn't the point) wants you to trust. We've been told to believe in this nonsense of a two party system. and here is the big news flash.

We don't need it!
it could make electing presidents a little more difficult, but we don't have a prime minister type system so having a genuine MULTI party system won't hurt us in the coalition government crap. In a congress with 15 or twenty parties a piece of legislation might have to stand on its own merit. I can imagine the synergy now. I don't really have a problem with a congress that gets virtually no laws passed. I'd like to see fewer laws passed and the ones that do go under more scrutiny. slice out the pork and stop tacking appropriations on to a piece of law for something completely unrelated.

The only hitch to all of this is that we would have to actively become involved with our government and this is the weak point in all schemes of a democratic nature. Maybe democracies need a period of fascim every fifty years or so to remind them of why we should vote.

In keeping with Keith's theme. I have a grumble about the folks at my health care provider(which is unfortunately blue cross of california). They are denying coverage to my infant son. They have done it to each of the older boys in a more or less similar fashion. On one of the older ones( i can't remember which) they covered my wife's hospital stay and denied the child's costs. They sent us a letter stating that we had not proprely informed them that we were going to have a baby. Eight pluss month's of prenatal care they covered and they need a friggin registered lett stating that we expect a baby? I swear they must make up crap like that as they go along and hope we buy into it so they don't have to pay.

This time I did send them the letter. So they covered the hospital costs and none of the doctor visit's, shots, and care since. Evil bastards. If I am going to get fucked with every time I'd almost rather just budget the money and pay it myself. except there is always the risk of something really bad happening. My wife doesn't get sick very often, but when she does it's usually at least 80K to get her back from the hospital and then the evil bastards know they have me.

For all the lies, exaggerations and propaganda about the canadian healthcare system, I can say this:

My uncle wrecked a Honda Goldwing just north of Barrie, Ontario on our way north for a camping/canoe trip. He is a Canadian citizen, and an Ontario resident. After leaving the hospital with a spiffy new titanium and teflon hip and quite a bit of other minor work and several weeks stay in the hospital he was presented with a bill.....

for his long distance phone calls.

I am not saying we have to model theirs exactly but I am quite positive our system isn't working.

My doctor has more people working for him trying to get paid for his services that he does providing services. That's just wrong.

My Insurance company spends much of it's time trying to trick me out of coverage that I have paid for. That's just wrong.

Keith's Insurance company has a person making decision's about Fiona's health that doesn't know the meaning of congenital. That's wrong and DANGEROUS.

What would it take to overpower the lobbying might of the insanely profitable insurance industry and get something that works. something short of armed resistance I am sure. I am thinking more along the lines of a hundred or so decent scrupulous honest congresspeople.

All this talk of tires on suv's has got me thinking about Sport Ute's and a question a friend of mine asked me.

"If you had to pick a vehicle to drive from Montreal to Rio what would it be?"

Immediately in my head I started building a very custom vehicle. He put a stop to that by saying it had to be a production vehicle. So I started thinking about it.

It sure as hell wasn't going to be a ford explorer. They are a fine car if you just can't bring yourself to drive a minivan and happen to live in a lake effect snow belt, and Never take it off-road. Like the rest of ford light trucks the frames just aren't strong enough(over 1 tons they are ok)

Blazer/Jimmy have ok frames but some other serious usability issues. So they are out. The full size versions are just too big. Don't even think about a suburban.

Likewise the Hummer.

Pathfinders suffer from the same things as the explorers. The Xterra has some promise and is very well designed, but needs a few more years in the field before I trust it.

I really like Isuzu troopers. The dealer network is really too sparse and when the break you could be stuck someplace for a long time.

A strong case could be made for the mitsu Montero being the world's toughest suv. They have the highest percentage finishers at Paris-Dakar for something like the last two decades. This, however, isn't a high speed run across thousands of miles of open deserts. It is a high speed run across thousands of miles of well paved interstates followed by thousands of miles of poor, unimproved, and awful roads through the jungle.

Range Rovers are just too posh. Too much overhead to run just to get someplace. The assorted no-frills Land Rovers? Well I just never got over the whole Lucas electric thing.(At a vintage car race I once saw a t-shirt that had on it "the real reason the English drink warm beer" with a picture of a Lucas fridge).

Dodge Dakotas. Snurfle giggle snort. At least they look cool.

Which leaves us with the Jeep Cherokee. Not the big one, the little one.

In '94 Jeep gave up on the vaccuum shifted axle, removing its last major weakness. You can get parts for it nearly anywhere in the world. Its road manners are nearly as good as a car. Its close quarters, rock crawling, hill climbing, and usable lowend power are second to no other vehicle. Its high speed, gravel road performance is fantastic.

If I had to drive it off the lot and go, I'd get the:

Two door
31.5 BF Goodrich TA/AT tires on steel wheels.
Full size spare w exteral carrier.
4.0 liter straight six.
5-speed manual.
Air-conditioning w/optional rear vent/console
Manual locks and windows
In dash cd player w/ weatherradio
skidplates
the 25 gallon gas tank
posi rearend.

that would be as good as it gets from the dealer. I have a further list of modifications I would make if I had a couple weeks to prep it. I'll post those if anyone shows any interest.

an interesting little tidbit. after I posted my interpretation of events at bellatlanticnowverizon, someone whose ip address reverse dns resolves out to be inside the bellatlantic firewall spent 15 minutes and 6 pageviews on my site. no cries for help from the union leadership yet though. show who is on top of their game though doesn't it.

On the plane out to San Jose sunday evening, I had the curious fortune to be on the plane with a bunch of Adobe geeks coming for the annual tech conference. and one very sorry Macromedia geek. Bad news folks. In the estimation of everyone (even the poor lost macromedia guy) on that plane the only sorrier more bug infested piece of crap any of them have ever come across than the current release of adobe golive is shockwave. They are embarrassed by it. but apparently powerless to do anything about it. I bet it's been a fun conference this week.

I don't know if any of you out there have noticed but there has a been a distinctive lack of pop up windows and banners on mysite the last month or so. They used to really piss me off, but I am a sole breadwinner for a family of five(and lately my darling wife has been nearly the sole care giver of a family of five) and I can't really justify the cost of a domain name and hosting for a vanity project like this. But the banners really irritated me.

REALLY irritated me

Irritated me like ford contours

For the last month or so I have been the combination canary/guinea pig for Blogphiles. I can honestly say that the canary is still breathing the guinea pig is not squealing, I have yet to be denied ftp access, the server has always been available to my few readers, and you just cant beat the price. A year can be settled up for the price of movies and popcorn.
If you are interested by all means visit the place and get on the list for when it goes live

I've decided not to post the piece about BellAtlanticNowVerizon that I wrote this weekend. Suffice it to say that I have been lied to quite enough and after five days of this finally have phone service again. As far as getting my DSL turned on? Don't hold your breath, I'm not. I'm not about to start my own lawsuit but I'd happily join a class action on the subject. I've got meticulous records if you're interested.

Instead, I thought I'd discuss for a few moments what is at the root of the troubles those evil bastards face. If you look at the front page of today's mcNewspaper you will discover that the CWA is striking for "wages, benefits, and working conditions". Well that is not exactly it. In fact it's not really even close.

First we need to look at some history. Let's go back a few decades. We have the US in a boom before the depression. Some people are making money hand over fist. The stock market is soaring, and it is the age of industrial giants. A very few men control most of the nations resources. The people who work for them have serf-like lives.

At this point in history labor unions are mostly guerrilla/terrorist organizations. "give us fair wages and livable working conditions or we'll take possession of your plant and keep you from earning money till you do". They actually had to be able to back it up with almost military tactics because what they were doing was illegal, and the mighty industrialist would sic the police, national guard, or worst of all the Pinkertons on them as soon the union made a move. It was all cloak and dagger and esprit de corps back then.

Over the ensuing years the Unions had some notable victories and traded some of their power for respectability, job security, and health care (unintentionally getting us into the hellacious mess healthcare is now). The had public corruption scandals, image issues, and outright malfeasance in recent years. The have made poor long term decisions for short term gain. They have looked after the needs of current and high seniority members while all but forsaking the prospective and low seniority members. The end result of all this is that the unions have put themselves in a position where they still have to battle the same evil bastards while facing low public support, declining membership, few prospects for growth, and all while staring at battered rusty ploughshares that used to be shining swords. Not a real good place to be.

Now to the current situation. BellAtlantic has just pulled some cute chicanery/merger and changed the whole damn company's name to what used to be the wireless division. Neat trick, and some people made a killing on the deal. As we all know, immediately following a merger companies do some nasty stuff to their employees. They fire as many redundant positions as they can. The ones they can't fire outright they transfer across the country or destroy their QWL, or whatever it takes to make them go away. This is pretty much routine and somewhere there is a textbook describing howto in much more detail.

Well the CWA has read the book too, and they know how it ends. What they want is some involvement in who gets bent over. What they also want is access to the jobs in the wireless and tech sections of the business. When the company renames itself after the nonunion part of the business, it is pretty much saying that is where the growth is and we are now formally in union-busting mode. Just as sure as sending Pinkerton's in with lead pipe and sawed off shotguns.

The CWA has the opportunity here to be the first union to really get the tech economy. It also has the opportunity to make the same stupid mistakes it has been and ensure the death of the union and ultimate triumph of the robber barons.

Let's all hope it goes the right way.

Oh and if you are a union leader who got the message but aren't sure what to do next, email or page me. Let's talk.

Some notes on roofing:

There are very good reasons for the rule in most modern building codes that allows no more than three roofs on a building.

Having the right tools makes incredibly unpleasant tasks merely unpleasant. For ripping five or more layer of roofing off a 180ish year old house here is a good start:

flat bars similar to the stanley Wonderbar

spade forks out of high grade steel w/ash shafts and a d-handle

magnetic sweeper with a long mop handle and some Serious magnets

high power ratio tinsnips(or airframe shears)

hat

sunscreen

water bottles with the pop tops that you can open with your teeth

non skid nail buckets

industrial push brooms

20oz straight claw hammers

worm drive circular saw

lots of sheets of plywood and assorted 2x4's to make slides and funnels to the dumpster

high quality cordless drills

file to keep forks and flatbars sharp

Whatever your high school history teacher told you about nails being precious in the early 1800's in rural america was a bald faced lie. Those bastards nailed those cedar shakes on half inch centers.

If any one out there has a use for 70 or so pounds of 180 year old square nails in startlingly good condition let me know.

Walk carefully on 180 year old roof planking.

Asphalt shingles lose a lot of strength in August heat and sun. Sometimes this is good sometimes not.

If it's hot enough to melt shingles, drink lots lots of water.

left my palm in the hotel today. was a little tired. had a really hateful post obout BellAltanticNowVerizon. I'll post that tomorrow. and a wonderful post about the joys of removing five plus layers of roofing from a 180 ish year old house. they'll come tomorrow. today I thank the folks that left me email and stuff.sorry I blew you off this weekend but not only didn't my DSL get turned on on thursday but in the process of attemping it the morons in charge actually managed to turn off my regular phone service. which still hasn't been turned on.

yup that's right my wife is at home with no phone and three boys. fortunately my uncle live a few houses down and my parents only a tiny bit further.

I n a few short hours I will go to my dreaded nemesis the SFO airport. I will board a very full plane where now inspite of the fact I have enough miles to get the unlimited free upgrades to first class I won't be getting into first class because the redeye out of SFO is so full every night of Novell guys going of the fix some damn mess that there are never any seats to upgrade into.

some notes on the process.

Am I the only one who giggles when I type NWA.com and get an airline website?

After congress raked them over the coals over the detroit fiasco Northwest has become a lot like Elise's mythical Dareya Air. they even have taken to distributing a little pamphlet that says something like "we don't promise to get you or your bags anywhere ontime or even in one piece, but we do promise to feed you or at least tell why we aren't giving you food, and If we do make the decision to feed you and your bags into the chipper with the squirrels we'll definitely notify you at least fifteen minutes in advance."

Will one of the morons who has been dumping money in tech companies left and right and thereby royally screwing the real estate market in northern california( i have a friend who lives in a chicken coop and pays nearly twice what I pay for a three bedroom place on over an acre in WNY) please throw a few million Billy's way?

I am going home for a few days and will be spending some quality time with my wife and kid's and putting a roof on my parents' place so I probably won't post much or at all till monday. Have a good weekend and fill my box up with email.

About two weeks ago I came to the conclusion that I wasn't brought out here to actually fix this project. I was brought out to scapegoat. A worthy and venerable position, scapegoat. However not one suited to my job skills and temperament.

So! You say, what exactly are your job skills? Slacker, you obviously have enough time on your hands to do this.

This I do in the spare time I would be sitting in the hotel by myself wishing I was home.

Back to the skills. What can I do that is really special.

I trouble shoot human systems. Nearly every system has weak points. I work on human ones. Your retail store/warehouse/ department/etc. not profitable? It is probably a human based problem. I'll tell you what it is and how to fix it. Give me the freedom and authority, I'll even fix it for you. The problem probably isn't what you think and I'll bet the solution isn't either. I've got a remarkable record and if you trust me you'll have happier, more productive employees, lower training costs(and more training), less turnover, and most importantly, a fatter bottomline.

Now how do you put all that on a resumé when the the stockholders cannot be allowed to know projects you work on are even necessary let alone successful. I think this is why spooks so seldom retire from the CIA or NSA.

All that aside, I have other skills that may prove to be marketable, but they are also difficult to put on a resumé or they are things I would be morally incapable of. For instance I have the skill set to be a world class contract killer, but I lack the emotional and moral makeup requisite for the job. And just how do you put on your resumé that you can nurse about any kind of sorry, neglected heap of machinery far past its intrinsic limits in really poor conditions. If your life depended on driving a '71 monte carlo, firing on five cylinders, and riding on bald tires through a snowy mountain pass while people took potshots at you with large caliber rifles, I'd be the guy you'd want at the wheel. But how would you know? And would I want to? How do you put on a resumé that when in possession of a clear and barely attainable goal I can get other bright people on the bus with me and ask them to follow the path with cult-like fervor. Where's the checkbox box for that on the application?

Instead I have:

Special Projects Manager
present to two years ago

Regional Inventory Manager two to three years ago

Manager/Store Liaison three to four years ago

Store Manager four to six years ago.

"Ya load fifteen tons and whadda ya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don'tcha call me cuz I can't go.
I owe my soul to the company store!"
I can't remember the songwriter. I learned the song many moons ago when my father got us a scholarship to the UAW's Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center. Great People there, even better library. Histories of unions and guilds. And the collection of folk music. Oh the collection! Makes you wonder how they got so corrupt and irrelevant.

in fact I particularly love the candidate analysis. This is what I've been saying all along presented in a nice neat but tongue fully in cheek checklist. Neither one is a viable choice. but they have sucked in all the money to run and advertise. And look at the sorry ass nazi the reform party has served up for us. And even though I am going to throw away my vote on Ralphie, he's not going to be elected.

As humans what have we learned by experimentation this century? Communism doesn't work(people starve and get sent to camps and get corrupt). Fascism doesn't work(people starve and get sent to camps and get corrupt). Free for all go for the jugular capitalism doesn't work(remember the 80's). Managed capitalism works great for the richest people(but has mediocre at best and deadly at worst results for the other 99+% percent of humans on the planet.)

What other thing might we try. Here's a couple ideas.

Twice a year we all get to vote on the two most corrupt congresspeople. No electoral college no filter just straight public vote. They are then taken to the middle of the Mall and Shot on public television(after the kids bedtime please!)

Before you are allowed to hold public office you must work at least four years in some hard physical labor public service. (think Habitat or the thirties work camps) we might even get our interstates back in shape

A constitutional monarchy with a once a year vote of confidence. failure same as for the corrupt congresspeople.

I am sure other people out there have ideas feel free to Email

I apologize for the bloodthirsty nature of todays post. For rather obvious reasons, I get crabby when I am away from home for too long.

today's politics link. get this Jello is performing in sync to the bush coronation. zowee maybe I was on the right track after all.