General

Software / Internet — 1 Comment
23
Jun 04

Making the switch

I’m thinking of switching from Movable Type. Why? Well, a couple reasons, purely personal.

I like to try new things, and I’d like to extend this to blogging software and see what else is out there.
The Ben–Mena–SFO–MT-cutesy-hipness annoys me, maybe simply because I’m not a part of it, but it annoys me nevertheless. I’m contrary like that. It reminds me of having to like the popular kids in school.
MT 3.0’s new fee structure is too high. I think it represents San Francisco prices for a non-San Francisco world. Add to this the fact that MT is popular and successful because it was free and because people were encouraged by its cost and accessibility to use it. MT is a great product. Do I like it enough to want to shell out 70$-100$ for it? No. They do have a free personal version, but their terms limit how it is used, even for individuals, and who knows how long even this accomodation will last. I am not a fan of limits put in place simply to pad their bottom line. Should people pay for MT at all? Well, it is arguable. You should certainly support MT if you want to and appreciate it, however should you extend that same sense of appreciation to wanting to help build their company?

I think they should have adopted a different strategy: build out Typepad‘s services and subscriptions slowly while developing an enterprise level edition of MT that is different from the core popular product. This is not the case now. Keep MT free for sites without advertising revenue. Commercial sites should encouraged to upgrade to the enterprise level product which could natively support ad banners, etc. It seems like they wanted to start making some money right away and were willing to lose users in the process. That is a bad way to do business. Instead of restricting current features of MT to encourage upgrading to a paid license, restrict only newer features and newer versions. At the same time, allow any bugs in the older free versions to be patched for free. Users should not be forced to upgrade to a paid license to benefit from bug fixes. That being said, none of the restrictions in the personal versions are hard-coded, so you could violate the personal license and have more than one author, but then you would be in violation of the license.
Oh yeah, WordPress is open source, which means it essentially belongs in the public domain.
Here are some rather extensive technical reasons to switch to WordPress, the likely candidate of the moment.

International Pol. — 4 Comments
23
Jun 04

It seems to me very likely that Iran will get a nuclear weapon. Any ruling elite in the global south with bad relations with the US can look at the difference between how the Bush administration dealt with Saddam and how it has dealt with North Korea. The difference seems mainly to be that North Korea already had a couple of nukes, whereas Iraq was not anywhere close. So Khamenei would look at that and decide that his government needs a couple of nukes to avoid being overthrown by the US, especially since Bush telegraphed his intention to do just that. I don’t see how it could be stopped militarily; the US is overstretched and in no position to attack and occupy Iran.

Comics — Comments Off
23
Jun 04

Cat and Girl

Cat and Girl, the best comic strip online, is officially five years old. Yay! Here’s a little tribute I drew in a two minutes and scanned in. See if you can make out what it is. The idea isn’t so great but I was trying to go to bed since I’ve been in this bad habit of going to bed too late. And, judging by the way things are going tonight won’t be any different.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing handwritten blog entries. Do you think that’s a good idea? I think it would dovetail well into the idea of the site being named “Letter Never Sent” and besides the way someone writes can be as expressive as the content of their writing. It’s an idea.

Military and defense — Comments Off
22
Jun 04

Pentagon Seeks U.S. Spy Powers

From Wired.

Law / Psychology — Comments Off
21
Jun 04

Food for your mind

MODERN MONEY MECHANICS: A Workbook on Bank Reserves and Deposit Expansion. A pamphlet once produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Now out of print.

Five personality dimensions and their influence on information behaviour This was an interesting paper regarding how neuroticism, openness, emotional stability, etc. relate to information seeking. Thanks to Jody for the link.

International Pol. — Comments Off
21
Jun 04

Israel and the Kurds

According to this article in the New Yorker, Israel is operating hundreds of Mossad agents within the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq. The hope being to have influence with the Kurds in the likely event that they seek greater autonomy or independence. This is due to their outlook on the future of Iraq:

The former Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged that since late last year Israel has been training Kurdish commando units to operate in the same manner and with the same effectiveness as Israel’s most secretive commando units, the Mistaravim. The initial goal of the Israeli assistance to the Kurds, the former officer said, was to allow them to do what American commando units had been unable to do; penetrate, gather intelligence on, and then kill off the leadership of the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies in Iraq. (I was unable to learn whether any such mission had yet taken place.) “The feeling was that this was a more effective way to get at the insurgency,” the former officer said. “But the growing Kurdish-Israeli relationship began upsetting the Turks no end. Their issue is that the very same Kurdish commandos trained for Iraq could infiltrate and attack in Turkey.”

The Kurdish-Israeli collaboration inevitably expanded, the Israeli said. Some Israeli operatives have crossed the border into Iran, accompanied by Kurdish commandos, to install sensors and other sensitive devices that primarily target suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. The former officer said, “Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way; as balance against Saddam. It’s Realpolitik.” He added, “By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.” He went on, “What Israel was doing with the Kurds was not so unacceptable in the Bush Administration.”

International Pol. / Military and defense — Comments Off
21
Jun 04

Braindrops

Interesting interview with Vincent Cannistraro on some of the background events of the 1980’s and terrorism from Frontline.

Personal / Software / Internet — Comments Off
20
Jun 04

Duethosting.com

I’m starting a little hosting business on the side. If you sign up for an account now, you’ll get free setup with your second month free. In all honesty, it’s a good deal. Check out everything here. Also, check out the site and tell me if everything is working okay.

Literature / Personal — Comments Off
12
Jun 04

Brown-out

This old place is plagued by brown-outs. Any time it’s just the least bit nasty outside the power hiccups for a split-second and down go all the clocks and computers, all appliances flashing midnight. During the last bout a few hours ago I was in the middle of writing down another one of my navel-gazing, micro-epiphanies for this humble website. Losing everything I wrote didn’t bug me so much since I was writing on a subject I’ve almost got beat to death…me, and how I fit into the universe. It was specifically about fear, security, and habit. It’s not that what I was writing was bad or boring, just that I knew I didn’t have to worry about covering the same ground again later.

The thing that is bothering me is that my computer doesn’t want to boot up completely. It gets to a certain point and seems to just black out again. That’s frustrating, but I don’t have time to dick around with it now.

I’ve been reading The Prince of Tides off and on all day today. When I have a book that grabs me I will keep a vigil of reading until I finish it. I did finish it, twenty minutes ago. When I finished reading, I closed the book and sat there for a while feeling all the emotions and people I had experienced in some small way, feeling also a mixture of happiness and longing. When you get involved in a story that touches you down deep, a part of you hopes that the story and characters are somehow real because then everything can live on even after the small part you shared has been played out. Realizing that the story was created by another person diminishes its magic.

This may sound arrogant and overly exhuberant, but I think this is the book the more talented version of myself would write. So many feelings about childhood, love, and family rang true. This is the kind of book I would give to someone who wanted to understand me better. I have rarely felt so much like an author has captured so much of the person I am. In many places I felt like it would be impossible for the author to fabricate these experiences he was describing because they reminded me so perfectly of insights and experiences from my own life. So much so that I would have been able to detect the slightest hint of artifice. It’s amazing to me that powerful books have this knack of coming along just when you needed them.

Letter Never Sent