Cox Crow

One of the interesting changes since the last time we were in DisneyWorld was the addition of finger geometry scanning when you present your ticket for park entry. The intent is to associate a ticket with you specifically so that you will be unable to share your ticket with another, to enforce, through technical means, the non-transference clause in the ticket contract. For example, if you wanted to take a friend to the Adventurer’s Club for drinks with your wife’s ticket while she watches the kids, the finger geometry scan would determine that these were the hands of a large male rather than a small female. This allows Disney to substitute, to some extent, machine judgment for human.

The majority of the time the finger geometry scan failed to work, and the gate attendant would over-ride the turnstile in order to pass guests in to the park in the most efficient manner possible.

Netcraft reports that Apache has overtaken Microsoft Internet Information Server as the most-used SSL server. It’s a small lead, but look at the trend in the graph. Note the inflection point at 2001, after the patent on the RSA algorithm expired.

Ben Laurie should be proud.

John Gruber writes about the far-too-helpful changes to selection, in which Apple added annoyance-level compatibility with Microsoft Windows to Mac OS X.

Stop it.

Zimran points out an essay in Slate wondering whether increasing gas prices make politicians stupid. No, rising prices make them cowards.

It appears that Apple is building a giant NeXT cube in the hole in front of the General Motors building.

The Midtown Book writes of that hole,

The sunken plaza, scathingly detested by a majority of people with strong opinions in the city, is actually not so bad. Initially, it was pretty barren and there can be no argument with the fact that this particular site, the major gateway to Central Park and the city’s most elegant heart, absolutely needed no plaza here, to say nothing of a sunken plaza, a type of space that has met with rare success because it requires extra effort on the part of pedestrians to reach and exit.

But, no, the whole thing will be glass, and a mere entrance to the underworld.

In a March 2, 2005 article in The New York Times, David W. Dunlap reported that the Macklowe organization plans to install a 32-foot glass cube in the building’s Fifth Avenue plaza that will serve as an entrance to below-grade retail spaces much like I. M. Pei’s famous glass pyramid serves as an entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris. “The new plaza will be on a single level from 58th to 59th Streets, framed at each corner by low-wide, L-shaped parapets,” wrote Mr. Dunlap, adding that “two shallow pools will flank the cube.” Dan Shannon of Moed de Armas & Shannon is the designer of the new plaza. At the same time, the building is extended its base 10 feet along Madison Avenue to create a two-story retail space. [link added]

Curbed, as usual, has more.

Krzysztof Kowalczyk prefers Bloglines. I prefer Newsgator Online. We both win.

There should be sufficient data available to the State departments of transportation to describe the impact of variations in fuel prices on traffic. I wonder what the correlation is, and how elastic the demand curve is. I suspect it’s not elastic, and that funds are being diverted from other pursuits in order to provide for fuel.

A couple of years ago I looked for what New York’s fuel taxes were. The Automobile Club of New York asserts that 70 cents per gallon are tax, and has a petition for the State to suspend or cap the sales tax on gasoline. When you look at this map of retail prices bear in mind that a substantial percentage of the price is tax.

The last time I was in West Virginia, I noticed that the price on the pump noted the base price per gallon and the amount of tax. I think this practice should be common in all localities.

Some days it seems to me that the history of the world is a story of brothers: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob.

Jeff Pulver and Tom Evslin have a suggestion for a new FCC regulation [via phoneboy]. Their suggestion has two options: Firstly, that the FCC require that all phone numbers have an associated emergency voice mailbox; or, secondly, that the FCC require that said numbers be easily ported, that is, switched between carriers. Both would only apply in the event of a long-term outage.

Voice mail acts in this case as a reliable store-and-forward message passing medium. Because the mailbox is not physically on the evacuated premises, the probability of its surviving a calamity is higher — unlike answering machines which may be unavailable if lines are down or power is out. I like the observation that telephone numbers served to more exactly identify missing persons, and that voice mail enabled communications. However, I think that providing these mailboxes only in emergency situations will make them mostly unusable. They are not easy to learn to use even without the stress of having a tornado blow your house to bits. Frontier has bundled voice mail with our landline, but we don’t use it.

The second suggestion, of providing for telephone number porting within two hours of a request, is interesting. Some numbers are electronically portable; they can be moved between carriers without involving physical labor. There are, however, numbers still extant that require physical movement of wires. This option would require a facilities upgrade which would reduce the operating expenses associated with number portability. That may not be where the network operator would like to spend capital funds. But the proposal is more interesting than simply setting a time limit for the cutover. In addition, Mr. Evslin and Mr. Pulver ask that the FCC revise the existing portability regulations in order to permit porting numbers across geographic boundaries: it does no good to require fast porting while restricting the transfer to another provider within the disaster zone.

Comments are due by April 27, 2006. You may comment here. The proceeding ID is RM-11327.

Another item turned up by this archeaological dig was Mack White’s comic linking Operation Northwoods with the assassination of President Kennedy, the military-industrial complex to the Persian Gulf War, and Unocal to the destruction of the World Trade Center. The mere chronology of events does not, however, prove cause and effect. More evidence is needed.

I’m cleaning my cubicle. As those who know me can attest, this is more of an archeological exercise than anything else. One of the papers I found was Ex parte Milligan (1866), which I had printed but not read on February 19, 2003.

So I read it. It’s only three pages. You should read it too.

During the late wicked Rebellion, the temper of the times did not allow that calmness in deliberation and discussion so necessary to a correct conclusion of a purely judicial question. Then, considerations of safety were mingled with the exercise of power; and feelings and interests prevailed which are happily terminated. Now that the public safety is assured, this question, as well as all others, can be discussed and decided without passion or the admixture of any element not required to form a legal judgment. We approach the investigation of this case, fully sensible of the magnitude of the inquiry and the necessity of full and cautious deliberation…

(I mentioned that I’d just read this to Rick, and he pointed at his post on the subject from February 18, 2003.)

I have an ineffective stapler, the ACCO 40. I suppose it would be classified as a light-duty stapler, because it can barely put both teeth of the staple through three sheets of paper. I thought, “Let me purchase a Swingline.” Turns out that ACCO owns Swingline these days. No matter, as long as it can put staples through paper.

I’m getting the red Swingline 747.

Martin Geddes wonders whether landlords will bypass network operators to deliver content to their tenants.

Brough Turner points to some slimey ways in which housing developers can keep their tenants hostage to their own private data utilities. You kind of wonder whether apartment complex owners will soon be getting into the business of putting a few racks down in the basement and installing a rack of hard drives every week, bypassing the telco and cablecos entirely.

This is already happening. onShore for one sells multi-tenant data networks in Chicago which only await an enterprising landlord. On the other hand, there are developers who arrange to have a single vendor — usually the incumbent local exchange carrier or cable franchisee — supply CATV, telephony, and Internet access in their new neighborhoods. Meanwhile, it behooves home buyers to be aware of the techniques described in “Master Communications Easements in the Fiber Age.”

Sometimes I wonder about missed opportunities. One day while riding the train into New York, in 1997 or so, I was quizzed by a gentleman in the real estate business who was planning to deploy web servers in basements and wire each apartment with Ethernet.

The Nebraska Legislature has segregated the Omaha Public Schools along ethnic lines, or so The Associated Press reports.

LINCOLN, Neb. — In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted yesterday to divide the 45,000-student Omaha school system into three districts — one that is mostly black, one predominantly white, and one largely Hispanic.

But read past the first paragraph and you’ll find that the intent of the bill, L.B. 1024, is to to provide more local control. Less hysterical coverage is available from the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature itself, from Nebraska StatePaper.com, and others locally.

The amusing part is that the division of the Omaha Public Schools is the result of that district’s attempting to annex parts of adjacent districts.

Paul Victor Novarese asks if Thomas and Friends (Based on The Railway Series by The Reverend W. Awdry) is the best television show ever.

I like the books too.

The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that the Town of Beekman proposes to amend the regulation governing the construction of dead-end roads. The existing law is one sentence:

For greater convenience to traffic, and more effective police and fire protection, permanent dead-end roads shall, in general, be limited in length to 400 feet.

The reasons for the revision are given:

WHEREAS, the Town of Beekman Planning Board has requested the Town Board to enact a revision to the Town of Beekman Land Subdivision Regulations of 1994 pertaining to permanent dead end roads, or otherwise referred to as cul-de-sacs, as the current wording of this section is lacking in definition and has resulted in safety issues due to an increase in new development

A public hearing on the proposed changes will be held on Monday, April 17, at 19:20 EDT.

I was remarking to one of my uncles that it might be fun to work on transportation at DisneyWorld. Given the rising cost of diesel fuel, one would think that a capital investment in extending the monorail might be attractive. Unfortunately, Disney appears only to be looking for an intern.

I like to draw lines on maps and pretend that they represent infrastructure. That’s not much different from being a master planner, right?

(Here’s a not-so-hidden Mickey.)

Witold Rybczynski, writing in Slate, suggests that the Katrina Cottages should be shoddier.

Wood framing, fiberglass insulation, and conventional vinyl siding would have been cheaper. So would asphalt shingles instead of the trendy tin roof.

The designers have aimed at a construction cost of $60,000—a full $10,000 less than the current $70,000 that it costs FEMA to buy a trailer. This is an admirable goal, but they should have aimed lower. The cottages are approximately 650 square feet, and the cost works out to just less than $100 per square foot. That’s pricey. A good production builder can bring in a conventional house, with all the bells and whistles that current homebuyers expect, for under $40 per square foot.

$40 per square foot? That must be the architect’s estimate pre-bubble prices.

Does anyone actually like Daylight Saving Time? As I write this I’m stuck in an artificially illuminated artificial cave populated by cube-farmed troglodytes. Far as I can tell, the day’s a wasting away outside. For all I know though, the weather may be shadows on a wall.