Cox Crow

Monoculture

One town, one job

5:14:06 PM # Google It!

Isn't the Internet Wonderful?

By way of AllConsuming, I found the City Comforts Blog. My reference to The Geography of Nowhere appeared next to The Death and Life of Great American Cities, linked from Good Speed Update, who linked to City Comforts, which I dutifully followed to the author's blog. Looks like there's a blog for every thing that catches my interest.

12:42:01 PM # Google It!

What Support?

One common argument against open software is that it is unsupported. This is specious. When you buy binary-only software you have no recourse, and so need vendor support. In some cases, this helps; in others, you just made a very bad decision.

Take this site for example. It has been off-line since November 24, 2003. It hasn't been brought back up in a usable state for one reason: the site is built with Microsoft's Active Server Pages. For certain site functions it relies on a third-party DLL from ServerObjects. We can't get the thing to instantiate objects so that we can act on them. ServerObjects has not been responsive. While we wait, we're rewriting the site to not use ASP.

Outages aren't fun. They're even less fun when you can't fix them.

12:11:11 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration

Responding to the Built Environment

AKMA has noticed that New Haven, Connecticut, does not feel like Evanston, Illinois.

Tearing Myself Away.

It’s perhaps a sign of how non-postmodern I really am (or perhaps not — depending on how you define “postmodern,” as usual) that my sense of well-being responds so markedly to geography. Just walking around the few blocks of New Haven that Margaret and I have covered, my feet and the climate and the topography and civic life all contribute to the sense that my life and vocation make sense here in a way they don’t, to the same extent, in some other places.

11:45:08 AM # Google It!

This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record

It seems I need to pony up some cash in order to find out what Experian, et alia, think they know about me. This seems wrong, but I'm not sure why I think that it is. The same goes for my Stasi FBI file, and the apocryphal permanent record with which students everywhere are threatened. Why don't you just tell me what you think you know? Your database is poorly designed, so you're probably wrong.

Is it just me, or is it suspicious that Experian operates under several different front companies?

11:30:35 AM # Google It!
categories: Identity

Secret Military Tests of Flying People

I have come to the conclusion that the United States' armed forces are testing flying suits. I suspect this because it is the most likely explanation for the inappropriate use of the phrase "on the ground" in news coverage.

The aid workers on the ground....

Well, where else would they be? In the air?

Reporters are not, generally speaking, idiots. The military must prohibit discussion of flying servicemen, but the reporters still find it necessary to distinguish between flying personnel and those on the gound.

Of course, until we have conclusive proof, it's highly likely that they're all a bunch of morons.

9:50:33 AM # Google It!
categories: Language