Randomblings from Rich

Random thoughts and ramblings on news, technology and the life of Rich Gautier.

Randombling - (noun) Random ramblings from me to you

                           Thursday, September 13, 2001

Paragraph #1 from Mike's List: ISSUE 23 * SEPTEMBER 13, 2001 goes like this:
1. Fight bigotry. In the wake of this attack, many in the United States and elsewhere will be unfortunately tempted to vent their frustration and anger on any nearby Muslim or Arab. This is wrong. Islam is a global religion closely related to -- and very similar in many respects to -- Christianity and Judaism. You'll find dramatic ethnic, racial, cultural and, yes, even religious diversity within the religion. The only connection between this act of terrorism and Islam is that the terrorists cling to a twisted view of the religion to justify their campaigns of mass murder. Arabs are simply people who happen to speak the Arabic language. Not all Arabs are Muslims. Not all Muslims are Arabs. Not all terrorists are Arabic-speaking Muslims. And more than 99% of all Arabs and Muslims are totally innocent of violent crimes. We should all vocally reject the use of this horrible tragedy as justification for anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bigotry. The punishment of a group based on the perceived crimes of members of that group is itself an act of terrorism
posted by Rich Gautier 9/13/2001

World Trade Center Survivor Database. If you want the status of someone who worked there, you can look them up here. If someone knows their status, they can enter it here.
posted by Rich Gautier 9/13/2001

                           Friday, August 10, 2001

Are you disturbed by the recent Fruit of the Loom advertisements with the kids grooming in front of the mirror in just their underwear? As a parent of a 7-year old, this commercial disturbs me on several fronts. Before I tell you why I'm upset, let me share with you what you can/should do about it if you feel like I do. You can Contact Them with this feedback form and tell them you won't buy their product specifically because of the advertisement.
The first reason I hate the commercial - Kids in their underwear is a taboo subject. Other people should not be allowed to view my child in his skivvies. No ifs, ands or butts about it. With that said, I do understand it is an underwear commercial...and for some reason, I don't have the same problem with diaper commercials...
The kids are posing in front of mirrors, getting ready for picture day. Pre-pubescent children should not be concerned with their looks. It only sets them up for dissapointment later in life. The extreme of this is the little kids they put on display like that Benet girl. Little children should not be posing at their age...and certainly not in anything close to a 'suggestive' manner.
The commercial forces the viewer into a situation where they are 'clandestinely' watching children pose in their underwear. The viewer is not a part of the action, and the camera angles are such to suggest a voyeuristic angle..lest the children be shy about their posing in front of mirrors, I suppose. This comes WAY to close to pedophilia for me. It's just touching the line....voyeuristically watching children in their underwear! I'll bet I get tons of search engine hits JUST for this paragraph alone...
Pull the commercial, Fruit of the Loom, pull it now, as fast as Calvin Klein pulled down their billboards. And while you're at it, fire your ad executives..
posted by Rich Gautier 8/10/2001

                           Tuesday, August 07, 2001

You know what's odd? I get lots of hits from web search engines. People looking for different things that I may discuss from time to time will hit on my web site up there in the search engine results. I don't use any tricks or anything special, either, like META tags or listing keywords over and over. One example, I got hits from people looking for info about the Magellan GPS mapping system. I talked about that device after we used one on vacation. I just find it really curious that search engines like aol, altavista and hotbot all score me so high on such searches even though my content may only make one or two mentions of the keywords. I'm glad to see the visitors, of course..but I still find it odd.
posted by Rich Gautier 8/7/2001

                           Monday, August 06, 2001

Now, here's a bold site for you! Don't click the link yet. Let's put this in perspective first. I caught a bug in my house. Looks like a wasp, but the 'stinger' has a large bubble [maybe an abdomen?!?] on it. I wanted to identify it. So I typed www.insect.com to see what I got. Imagine being greeted with this Welcome to Terminix! [Go ahead, click it now]. WAY BOLD! I don't think the majority of people who hit this site either on purpose or by mistake will ever get past that page. Click it, see what I mean? Talk about an ASSAULT!?! It's like walking into a hardware store and having the clerk stand in the doorframe and demand your address before letting you enter the store. Sorry buddy, wrong store...I meant to go to Home Depot next door. Whew!
posted by Rich Gautier 8/6/2001

Right next to POTOMAC MILLS Mall in Woodbridge, VA is a huge empty building. Back in 1996, Tandy Corp. shut down its Incredible Universe division. This huge empty building was, at the time, about 6 months old. It held a HUGE Incredible Universe store. Right across the street is a Best Buy, still standing. On the other side of the road, Walmart. Surrounding the building is a huge gaggle of consumerism. It is the perfect location for any store looking for a constant influx of new customers, as thousands of people a week take buses to come to the huge outlet mall right behind it.
Yet, the store has been empty since Jan of 1997. 18,000 square feet of wonderful retail space just off of I-95. Large docking bays for truck deliveries, a beautiful internal layout....there are several shops I would love to see in here. It would be great for Virginia to get a Dave and Busters [D&B]. Or a Fry's Electronics. How about a huge nightclub? This building should be big enough to compete with eCiti Cafe & Bar in McLean. So, I continue to wonder...why no one takes advantage of it. Commercial Real Estate is a constant mystery to me.
posted by Rich Gautier 8/6/2001

                           Saturday, August 04, 2001

As if defying Robert Heinlein and TANSTAAFL, I have found a new webcounter for my website at Stats4You.Com It offers FREE web site statistics, quick stats and visitor tracking. One thing it does even NICER than the previous counter I used is that it allows you to have one account with multiple web sites to allow you to combine and put all your stats together. It also uses less code on the page itself, which is nice considering how much junk I already have on this page.
posted by Rich Gautier 8/4/2001

                           Friday, August 03, 2001

Flash animation may be tacky to some, but it is a really simple way to do animation on your web site. Of course, not everyone with a web site can afford the $399 and up you'd pay for Flash. Well, some time ago, I mentioned a program called SWiSH. Version 2.0 has just come out a few days ago, and the 'new price' is $49.95 (14.95 for upgrades from version 1.5, which I gladly shelled out!). It has HUNDREDS of new features, and it has been totally reworked to allow amateur animators and Flash developers like myself play in the game without diving into the deep end with Flash itself. If you have a website and want to kick it up a bit, I HIGHLY recommend this software! There's a 15-day trial period, after which your registration fee allows you to register the s/w on both your home PC and your work PC.
posted by Rich Gautier 8/3/2001

                           Thursday, July 26, 2001

God, I hate idiots. Yesterday, I was at a Microsoft conference, to learn about how the .NET suite will include a security implementation. At the conference, they showed us the new ISA server. I asked a question of the presenter, since he was showing the filtering capability only displayed IP protocol filtering, of whether ISA would allow you to filter ARP packets. [The presenter wasn't sure]. During the break, a young man approached me and insisted that ISA could do the filtering, and all I had to do was define the IP protocol number that was ARP.
If you know what ARP is, you can see where this is going. It's not a subprotocol of IP, like TCP and UDP. For reference, take a look at Understanding the Internet Protocol Suite. I explained that ARP does not travel inside IP packets. At this point, it gets real weird. The induhvidual tells me that they must, otherwise 'how can they travel over the Internet'. I stated that they do not travel over the Internet. I then tried to explain to him, calmly mind you, what ARP does. He stops me mid-sentence and claims 'I know what ARP does, you don't have to tell me. I know all about ARP and what it does'. Fine, I say, then you know there is no need for it to travel over the Internet. But it does, he states, ARP is a protocol under IP, just like TCP.
I wanted to deck him. My blood pressure was rising, and my fists clenched. He didn't want to listen, he just wanted to insist. I said "Then, this is a pointless conversation." and I walked away. I'm still seething today...some people just piss me off.
posted by Rich Gautier 7/26/2001

                           Monday, June 25, 2001

Oh, yeah, speaking of dropping me a line. I've updated the Email me! link over there on the right. Seems it has been wrong for a while now.
posted by Rich Gautier 6/25/2001

See my mug down at the bottom right of this web page? It should link to my online cam at Spotlife. Notice the big change? Well, if you know me or watch often, you'd see that I've cut my beard. Now I don't look like Grizzly Adams any more. I've cut it down to a goatee. So now I look like Sigmund Freud(sp?) or Nostradamus...what do you think? Drop me a line.
posted by Rich Gautier 6/25/2001

                           Sunday, June 24, 2001

Do you use Ultraplayer, Sonique, Media Player or WinAMP? Of course you do. Do you ever look at what is available in terms of the visualizations? You know, the graphical spectrum analyzers and such that sync to the music? At the WildTangent Web Site you can download a control that has several visualizations that can be activated in these players. One of them is ChristmasDancer, which shows off some really nice 3-d effects! A young woman in Christmassy clothing dancing (to the music?!? depends what you are listening to). The mirror effect and the full-screen DirectX is really nice. Of course, they have a bunch of other visualizations too. Some of them actually sync to the music.
The only problem that I have with the control is the price they want for commerical use of the control in web sites....$1000 for 1 URL for simple 3-d effects such as spinning logos or the like....Considering that alot of people are using Flash to do stuff like this, and they only have to pay one price for the tool, I find use-based pricing just too expensive to be practical. Of course, the tool is free for non-commercial use. I guess they hope that s/w and web developers will get a taste for using the control and bring it with them to work....the control looks like it offers alot for those who are graphically inclined....too bad I'm still on stick figures.
But, in any case, now I have a beautiful dancing girl on my desktop at home while I listen to online radio and the portion of my music collection that I've 'puterized.
posted by Rich Gautier 6/24/2001

Does anyone out there use TruGreen ChemLawn's residential service? I use them to take care of my lawn with regular feedings, but they are always trying to sell me other services. Some of my plants apparently have bugs (spider mites and scales) and they want to 'take care' of them for me. Now, living in a small home, I own about 6 small shrubs total...and they wanted to service them for $29 a pop, 5 times. That's $150 folks, to get rid of some bugs. I told them no way, and went to Kmart to pick up some chemicals to spray with.
If you have any hints for the best way to get rid of spider mites and scales without spending too much money, let me know, will ya?
posted by Rich Gautier 6/24/2001

                           Thursday, June 21, 2001

I just read an article in The New Haven Advocate | News&Commentary section. It's about a company that has the fleet version of GPS in its vehicles, and charges you for every time you exceed the speed limit, $150 per incident. The article talks about Big Brother and how this may be some kind of invasion of privacy. Me, I'm not so sure that the angle on this story is right.....
If I own a vehicle and you wish to rent it from me, and I have the means to protect my assets by providing a monetary incentive for you to not use it in a manner inconsistent with its purpose, I should have every right to do so. Provided, of course, that I make you aware of the device, its intent and the impact it may have on our arrangement, you should have no problem with it. This company's contract had the following text (according to the article):
Vehicles in excess of posted speed limit will be charged $150 fee per occurence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped.

Now, not everyone knows what GPS is and that the technology could be used to report average speeds over distance. So, the contract is poorly written from the get-go. That in and of itself is a problem. Acme should be forced to rewrite this section of its contract to make it clear:
If you speed, we will know, because all of our vehicles have technology installed in them to report violators. If you violate the posted speed limit, you will be charged $150, even if the local authorities do not catch you. The car itself will automatically report these violations to us and you will be fined. Every car we rent has this capability and it is used in every rental we make. If you sign this contract, you agree to pay $150 if you exceed the speed limit, and you agree to pay this amount every time you do so.

Not only should the contract be modified this way, but there should be an 'initial' block next to it because it is out of the ordinary. However, this article takes the stance that doing something like this is somehow wrong. Myself, I think the company has every right to protect its assets by ensuring that it is not abused. And James Turner and anyone else....they have a right to rent from someone else...someone who doesn't use this technology. I can imagine, though, that if this technique becomes normal, such technology may make the daily insurance rate for rentals drop. You know, the $14-$25 a day you may pony up for rental insurance? Perhaps companies that have this installed in the vehicle might offer you that same insurance for $4 or $5 per day? And the risk may be lowered so much that the rental fee itself shows a cost benefit itself. So, there should be adequate monetary mitigation for a law-abiding renter to make the solid choice. I don't know how it all will turn out...but at least you know where I currently stand.
posted by Rich Gautier 6/21/2001

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