Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
 
A Homie Too Harsh?

Owen over at Boots and Sabers links to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about a 71-year-old, wheelchair-bound hit and run victim in my old neighborhood in Milwaukee. Here's Owen's post on Boots and Sabers:
    There are some cold, cold people in this world.

      Police searched Tuesday for the driver of a white, late-model Oldsmobile that struck and killed a 71-year-old man in a wheelchair in the 9100 block of W. Appleton Ave.

      The victim, Ernest McNair, was wheeling down Appleton Ave. about 7:40 p.m. Monday when he ws hit by the westbound car, police said. He died early Tuesday morning at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hosptial.

    I sure hope this dirt bag dies a long, painful, and lingering death. I think that may be too good for him (or her). Bastard.
Owen's being a little harsh on the "dirt bag." Here's more details from the Journal-Sentinel:
    McNair was a resident of the Marian Franciscan Center, 9632 W. Appleton Ave. He frequently signed himself out of the nursing home against doctor's orders and did so sometime Monday afternoon, according to information gathered by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.

    A friend of McNair's told an investigator he came by his apartment Monday looking for money to do some drinking, but left when the friend told him he didn't have any cash.

    The circumstances of the accident were sketchy Tuesday, while police asked for any witnesses to contact them.
I don't know about McNair, but I do know that some wheelchair-bound residents of Missouri travel in the road on occasion. So McNair's out, possibly wheelchairing drunk in the street in the dark and he gets hit. The driver runs. Tragic, but not pure evil. The "dirt bag" might be a kid, might be a scared housewife, but the absolute condemnation is wasted, particularly if the circumstances are sketchy.

Full disclosure: The first novel I started in college, entitled Tragedies, dealt with the hit and run accident of a housewife at the corner of Villiard and Appleton in Milwaukee, which is the 9000 block of Appleton. The corner between the Westside Liquor store and what used to be a Sentry foods. The assailants were a couple of scared kids. The tragedies, of course, referred to the fact that all the lives were destroyed. So that's the perspective from whence my bleeding heart liberalism potential for perspective springs.

Of course, running from the accident is wrong, but on the scale of evil, accidentally hitting a hard-to-see object in the dark is substantially less than shouting, "Crippled old man, one point!" and swerving into McNair.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM   0 comments
 
It's Cold Out There, Prosecutors; Don't Forget To Layer Up

More from prosecutorial "layering" of charges indicated in a St Louis Post-Dispatch Law and Order round-up:
    Two men are indicted in construction scams

    Two men have been indicted on charges that they bilked people through home construction scams, the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis said Tuesday.

    One of the men, Jeffrey Thomas, is accused of selling the same property in St. Louis County to three buyers. He collected more than $500,000 on the sales, and did nothing to build on the property, according to the federal indictment.

    Thomas, 36, of the 300 block of Autumn Creek Drive in Valley Park, is charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

    The other defendant, Carlton Dinwiddie, 39, of East St. Louis, is charged with mail fraud and misuse of a Social Security number.

Perhaps I should write to my state legislator, Al Liese (who replaced his own term-limited son in the state legislature by posting signs that looked just like the incumbent legislator's--ELECT LIESE--perfectly gaming the gullible voters), to enact laws against fraud committed for monetary gain, Crimes committed during commission of fraud, Fraud committed during course of a crime, English-language fraud, and Sound-wave fraud.

Double-jeopardy? Hah! We spit upon your double-jeopardy! Prosecutors need flexible and innovative tools to deal with their burgeoning political careers and their appearances as depicted by the media modern con artists.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:10 PM   0 comments
 
Teaching An Old Joke New Tricks

A baby boomer father and son, walking in the forest, come upon a grizzly bear. The father immediately opens a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and begins stuffing glazed doughnuts down his craw.

"What are you doing?" the son said. "You can't earn enough to pay taxes to offset the increased entitlements that politicians are enacting to buy your vote."

"I don't have to earn enough," the father said. "I only have to have a coronary before the bear that metaphorically represents the impending fiscal collapse catches us."

If that's not the zaniest link to a Robert Samuelson column ever, I don't know what is.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments
 
Troubleshooting Blogger

I realize I am but a knuckle-dragging software tester, so take pity on me, oh soon-to-be-IPOed development staff at Pyra Labs Google, but I think I know what's wrong with your permalinking here on my site.

The <$BlogItemArchiveFileName$> server-side variable is not currently including the name of my archive directory, strangely enough entitled /archives/, into the path; ergo, when a user clicks this permalink, it leads them to the archive filename and post number in my root directory, but the archive file is not in that directory. It's in /archives/.

Please translate this into Hindi and have Uncle Ray's friends fix the problem.

Also, if one of my dear readers wants to link directly to my post, please add the archives directory to the URL by hand. For example, if you right-click the permalink link at the bottom of the post and select "Properties," you'll see this URL currently:

http://stlbrianj.blogspot.com/2004_01_04_archive.html#107352521550898577

If you add the /archives/ directory to the URL, like so:

http://stlbrianj.blogspot.com/archives/2004_01_04_archive.html#107352521550898577

It will work.

Undoubtedly, status.blogger.com will acknowledge this problem once they have it solved. In a couple of weeks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments
 
Are You Listening, Ehrenreich?

Donald Sensing's eyes have opened to some of the depravity and hardship suffered by the American poor. The real question is, "Is Barbara Ehrenreich listening?"

Probably not; she's probably enjoying an indiscretion that will keep her from getting any job that requires a drug test.

However, I have a hot tip for her next book:

Half the families in the country earn less than the average household income!

Quick, redistribute the wealth until we're all above average! Vote for Dean Howard!

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:51 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
 
Busted!

Notice this page on my "innocent" wife's blog: cat_recipes.html.

Maybe I should take back what I said about her conmingling cat care books and cookbooks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 PM   0 comments
 
Thank Goodness Software "Engineers" Aren't Civil Engineers

Otherwise, we would see this in the defect tracker:

Defect # 102033
Title: Striking bridge support at speed greater than 60 mph causes bridge to collapse
Severity: Critical
Problem: If a driver strikes a support beneath the overpass while exceeding approximately 60 miles per hour, the support will buckle and the entire span and bridge will collapse, killing the driver of the car that struck the support, the passengers, and any people passing over the bridge when the support is struck.

To recreate:

1. Drive northbound in car at 62 mph.
2. Guide car into support.

Support should not buckle nor should the bridge collapse when struck by such a light object at such a low rate of speed.
Status: REJECTED
Developer's Note: In a real-world scenario, users would not deviate from the approved workflow by crossing the yellow line that demarcates the edge of the roadway. Also note that posted speed limits are 60 mph, so users would not exceed this posted limit.
Project Manager's Note: Rejection approved. Add to construction notes document.


Thank goodness we keep these madmen in ill-lit cubicle cells where they can only harm information and not real people.

Ahhhhh...... Information-systems-industry-venom sacs emptied.....

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM   0 comments
 
Compare and Contrast

In New York, compare and contrast:
  • Giuliani time, with the Broken Windows theory of policing, wherein police crackdown on nuisance offenses to improve the quality of life.

  • Bloomberg time, which apparently features the Flat Broken theory of policing, wherein police write tickets for as many offenses as they can to help the city can balance its finances as taxpayers flee for less strident regimes.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: The Fine Art of Swindling edited by Walter B. Gibson (1966)

The more things change, the more they stay the same, and that goes for stupid is as stupid does and a fool and his or her money are soon parted. This book collects a number of essays and nonfiction pieces that appeared in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and other periodicals or publications. Each essay explores a scammer or a scam in detail, but most of the scams come from around the turn of the century (as the book itself is almost forty years old).

Two things strike me:
  • The heights that the best scammers reached.
    Charles Ponzi, whose very name is synonomous with the pyramid scheme, bought a bank and a brokerage firm with the money he made from working class Bostonians who wanted to earn fifty percent interest in 90 days. Oscar Hartzell lived for over a decade in style in London while purportedly seeking to settle with the English monarchy for the Francis Drake estate--but really he was just after his "investors'" money. That's long jack, my friends. Nowadays, nobody lives that high on the hog with so little production but venture capitalists, their pet executives, and government officials. At least swindlers used their wits and not their contacts.

  • The same scams are still running.
    Three specific examples: The Nigerian scam (help me transfer my ill-gotten gain from my African country); the here's-a-bag-of-money-you-can-hold-it-if-you-give-me-slightly-less-of-your-money-as-a-deposit (which really needs a popular nickname), and the pyramid scheme (now more popular than ever as women's "Gift Clubs"). The population is getting more technologically knowledgeable, but not necessarily more savvy.
Of course, the best swindles aren't in this book, because the best swindles are not reported or solved. Still, the book's an interesting read, but not widely available. I paid $6.00 for this copy....wait a minute...the penciled-in price claims it's a 1966 first edition, but it looks like a book club edition....

Fine art of swindling, indeed. Curse you, Sheldon! Next time I am in your book shop, I am pulling the books out by putting my fingers at the top of the spine.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 PM   0 comments
Sunday, January 04, 2004
 
Two Kinds of Managers

There are two kinds of managers. Those who help pull the load, and those who spend all their time pulling on the horses.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:46 PM   0 comments
Saturday, January 03, 2004
 
I Feel Pretty, Powerful

Meatriarchy leads me to some introspection, wherein I discover I am:

You's a bounty hunter, bi-yatch!
Which Typical Anti-Hero Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM   0 comments
 
Reaching the Outer Limits of Property Rights

Drudge linked to a story (registration required) in the New York Times about how radio broadcasters are exploring a new system, called Radio Data System, wherein the radio stations can push text advertising onto your car dashboards (or other radios, I would guess). Some critics assail the possibility of drivers becoming distracted from their driving, but I'm not so worried about that. I realize most drivers aren't paying attention to their driving anyway, and that the text advertisements might only distract drivers from their phone conversations, newspapers, breakfast, or make-up application.

Instead, I am worried more about property rights slowly but continually eroding, almost invisibly. Because, citizens, when it comes to who holds broadcast or reception rights to your personal property, the answer always seems to be not you.

It used to be that if you bought something and it became your property, you had rights to use it and dispose of it as you saw fit. No one else had rights to use it without your permission, else it would be stolen (or borrowed by your irresponsible sibling, but that's something else). The Constitution even addresses a particular instance of government appropriation, quartering, in the Bill of Rights. You owned something, you could use it as you saw fit, and unless you were doing something illegal, no one could stop you.

Technology changes things. With radio, you bought a device that allowed you to receive information broadcast by another person or a corporation. So you had a personal device through which you could opt to listen to a broadcast, and you could choose among available broadcasts that you wanted to receive. The act of owning a radio and receiving a broadcast require an explicit owner action. Granted, the user had no control over the content, but the user had the control over the reception thereof. The radio broadcaster could not force the user to listen.

The telephone represents a two-way communications device that most people possess as personal property. The telephone allows you to either receive a transmission (a phone call), or it allows you to create a transmission (pick up and dial out). In either case, the owner must explicitly use the device to broadcast. The owner retains the right of transmission through his personal property.

The right of transmission, as I have so eloquently labeled it, should be a fundamental corollary of basic property rights. That once I own a device, I and I alone determine how to use it and when to use it. As technology outpaces understanding and forethought, we're in great danger that this right is being ceded de facto to corporations whose products send and receive data without explicit owner consent--often without owner knowledge.

I see this end-run around the right of transmission in any number of instances, including existing and projected technologies. RFID tags that continue broadcasting their signal after purchase, not for the benefit of the owner but instead for the benefit of the manufacturer, retailler, or their bestest, closet "business partners." Silver boxes beneath your car seat that record what you're doing so that the manufacturer can point its finger at you, not the automobile, if an accident occurs. Of course, the worst offender is computer software.

New Internet-connected software often, without explicit user consent--phones home to rewrite "patch" itself or to "improve the customer experience"--by transmitting information about you and your computer to, once again, the manufacturer and its closest friends. The user's experience improves in that he or she only sees the targetted marketing and reminders to upgrade that the manufacturer thinks the user wants to see, which is probably better than all possible marketing the manufacturer could send you. The software in some cases will contact its home without seeking consent to fix manufacturing defects--"consent" is granted through a single click at some time in the past or a nebulous and unreadable license agreement. Because of its current Wizard-of-Oz nature, the software industry gets away with this because its magic takes place behind the curtain, its functionality apparently wizardry when it works.

But I digress from my thesis with the expenditure from my information-systems-industry-venom sacs. Unlike automobile manufacturers who issue recalls that require a user's specific action to take the auto into the dealership for repair or upgrade, some software manufacturers insist they'll fix it automatically. A person who purchases a house would recognize his or her rights have been violated if he or she came home from work to find the house has had its deck removed and has been painted eggshell blue by the previous owners--however, some software companies reserve the right to refactor and rewrite--that is, replace--private property of its customers. The more they condition customers to accept this as normal, the less customers will recognize the nature of their property rights.

I admit that the article linked above only provided a jumping-off point for thought regarding this matter. I have trouble imagining people will rush out to buy radios that provide an extra benefit for broadcasters and nothing for the consumer. However, these companies do see it as their right to push marketing and to take other liberties with your personal property, and we as consumers and as citizens must stop clicking Yes, signing unread or undisputed contracts, and accepting quietly this usurping of our property rights.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:44 PM   0 comments
 
Holidays Are Over

Put the fruitcake back in the freezer and dig into the cheesecake.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:27 AM   0 comments
Friday, January 02, 2004
 
Suburban Knees Jerk

Memorandum to a neighbor:

Dear sir, and undoubtedly you are a sir and not a ma'am, I understand that the weather was nice in Casinoport, Missouri today, with a temperature reaching seventy-one degrees FARENHEIT, but what on earth prompted you to go to your shed or garage, get out, and start your lawn mower on the second of January?

Pray tell, how much shorter did you want your brown lawn to be?

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:12 PM   0 comments
Thursday, January 01, 2004
 
Step Five: Classified

Fark led me to a set of helpful tips about how to handle giving your old computer to someone else. Here's a summary of what Kim Komando, noted radio computer "expert," suggests as steps or protocols for what you can do to safeguard personal information you might have on the P.C.:
    1. Don't want a big hassle? Give the computer to a trusted employee, friend or family member.

    2. Reformat the hard drive and re-install the operating system.

    3. Buy software and overwrite the disk, again and again and again.

    4. You're totally paranoid, so get out the acetylene torch.
That's it, Komando? That's all you have? What about step 5?

If you don't know what Protocol 5 is, you're not totally paranoid.

I guess not everyone can afford an atom-smasher in the basement.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 PM   0 comments
 
When Frilly Meets Football

As I was reading the Febuary 2004 issue of St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles on the cycle at the gym (and I must have picked it up on the cycle, because for what sort of Man reads such a fru-fru magazine--hey, look, the person who left it here has the same name and address as I), I came across the article entitled "Running for Daylight: A light-filled domicile is where Rams' head coach Mike Martz and wife Julie touch down". As you all know, I don't care for the St. Louis Lambs--I mean, come on, any football team with less than fifty years' tradition in their city is a bunch of tax-sucking mercs. However, I like to look at the pretty pictures of rich peoples' homes had nothing better to do for 20 minutes of intense cardiovascular working. I mean, aside from looking at the scantily-clad, physically-fit women as they sweat, but once you've seen the best, everything else is just furniture.

The text, amid the pictures, included this cute little nugget written by Carla Patton (whose name I included so the next time she Googles herself, she'll read my blog):
    The Martzes arrived here with the Rams from L.A. in 1995; Mike was then the wide receivers coach. With the exception of a two-year stint in the northwest with the Washington Redskins, they have lived here ever since.
You remember those two years, don't you, when the Redskins played the Seahawks sixteen times?

(Note to Carla: The Washington Redskins are the Washington D.C. Redskins.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."