why does this bother me? because i’m scheduled to have covad come over on friday. that’s right boys and girls, if the planets align properly, i will gladly partake of the broadband pipe once again. it’s been a long wait after being cast out of paradise when i moved out of the reaches of att.
i’m giddy and i hope that if i think good, happy thoughts then the bad things just won’t happen. in with the good air. out with the bad.
in today’s davenet their’s a link to an article that highlights a point that is so obvious that it becomes easy to miss – we can’t count votes precisely. we can’t now and we probably won’t anytime in the future:
“Because ballots can be bought, stolen, miscounted, lost, thrown out or sent to Denmark, nobody knows
with any precision how many votes go uncounted in American elections. For weeks, Florida has riveted the nation with a mind-numbing array of failures: misleading ballots, contradictory counting standards,
discarded votes–19,000 in one county alone. But an examination by The Times in a dozen states from Washington to Texas to New York shows that Florida is not the exception. It is the rule.”
it may be one for the record books. i live in woodstock, illinois, which is “just outside” of chicago in the sense that everything is “just outside” of chicago. at least as far as chicagoans are concerned. in anycase, we’ve been getting some weather [as they used to say in maine where i grew up] and it vaguely reminds me of the “noreastahs” that would blow “downeast” maine. nasty, but fun. my ever gracious employer even ordered us to leave today. will wonders ever cease? for the record:
now
“Blizzard Warning in effect… at 635 pm…radar indicated a band of moderate to heavy snow stretching from Morris and Joliet…northeast through the downtown and the south side of the city of Chicago. Thunder snow was even reported in downtown Chicago at 630 pm. This heavy snow will continue to move across the southern sections of Chicago through 730 pm…and will affect lake and Porter counties in northwest Indiana through 9 pm. An additional 2 to 4 inches of accumulation is possible in these areas as this band passes through. Northeast winds gusting at 20 to 30 mph will cause significant blowing and drifting of snow…making travel treacherous across northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana tonight.”
tonight
“Windy and very cold with snow and blowing snow creating local blizzard conditions. Total storm accumulations 9 to 13 inches. Low 5 to 10 above. North winds 25 to 40 mph becoming northwest. Wind chills occasionally dropping to near 40 below.
yup. that’s right. it calls for temps to get down to -40 overnight. i hope our 50 year-old furnace doesn’t decide to go on the fritz.
“In a keynote session at XML 2000 Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the Wide Web Consortium, outlined his vision for the Semantic Web. In one of his most complete public expositions of the vision to date, he explained the layered architecture that he foresees being developed in the next ten years.”
when and why something will catch on never ceases to amaze me. of course, shopping bots have been around for awhile, but it seems that they are seeing increased usage because of the popularity of ps2:
“Amazon.com, Gohastings.com and Kmart’s BlueLight.com are among the online merchants selling PlayStation 2 consoles that have had outages or slowdowns while featuring the popular, and scarce, toy. While Amazon has said its troubles are unrelated to heavy traffic, BlueLight and Gohastings, the Internet arm of Hastings Entertainment, say shopping bots are at least partially responsible for their technical glitches.
“We sat there and watched the site get 80,000 hits in a period of minutes,” said Dave Karraker, spokesman for San Francisco-based BlueLight, which has suffered periodic delays in doing business because of heavy traffic. “It’s clear to us that there are people using bots to scan the site for the PlayStation 2.””
i’m betting that in one year or two the bots will engage in the virtual equivalent of racing to the aisle and engaging in less than scupulous tactics to ensure that it’s owner actually gets the product.
“For two weeks, I’ve been trying to write about the Blogger phenomenon. Make coffee, turn on the computer, check e-mail, stare at Microsoft Word for a while, and look at some Web sites for inspiration.
And then, instead of writing this column, I would add a bunch of nonsense to my Blogger buddy. It’s freakin’ addictive. So, if you write for a living, don’t read this, and don’t try the Web-log game. It’s too easy, and it will Suck Your Soul Away.”
and is it a coincidence or not that dave points to a new blog by newsweek reporter deborah branscum – who is definitely not pulling any punches:
“Earth to execs: Your quotes are bullshit. You know it. We know it. Don’t force your PR folks into fiction writing. Why not quote a customer or supplier—and then only when there’s some actual news-related development? Or be really wild and quote an unrelated credible third party. Finally, consider quoting this
person saying something that meaningful or, at the very least, plausible. Otherwise, just stop it. Please, I’m begging you.”
