Posts

The other day I mentioned that one long term solution to spam might be a widespread system of digitally signing emails so that the sender’s identity can be verified (basic web of trust public key cryptography stuff). It looks like Yahoo has proposed an anti-spam system that proposes exactly that. With any such system, you’d treat signed emails as trusted, and unsigned emails as suspect, but if it sees wide adoption, you would eventually be able to treat any unsigned email as spam. Now I’d like to see the technical specifications for Yahoo’s DomainKeys proposal published somewhere online so that the email and crypto geniuses can start poking holes in it before it’s actually deployed. ...

Douglas Gantenbein attemps to explain why Boeing has hit the skids and predicts that unless something changes, the company will be out of the commercial aircraft business in 10 years. I find it truly staggering that Phil Condit could turn a company that once was seen to emblemize everything that was right with American manufacturing and wrong with European manufacturing and run it into the ground. It wasn’t that long ago that people were discussing the demise of Airbus, now the shoe is on the other foot. (And he doesn’t even mention Boeing’s boneheaded decision to move its corporate headquarters out of Seattle. I don’t know how much difference that made to the bottom line, but it certainly epitomized incompetent management.) ...

I remain captivated by the various accounts of the attack on the US convoy in Samarra, mainly because accurate reporting seems so elusive. Jim Henley has a new item that cites an interview with a spokesman for the group that organized the attacks. If the spokesman is telling the truth, there were 12 attackers (not 60), and only two of them were killed. He also makes the obvious point that if the group wanted to steal money, they’d rob a bank, not attack a heavily armed US convoy. (I still have no idea how the attackers would have even know that the convoy was delivering money in the first place. If they were in a position to know, it would be a troubling sign with regard to the intelligence capabilities of the guerillas.) ...

I read today that Comcast is going to start rolling out set-top boxes with DVR functionality, and that they’re licensing the DVR software from a company other than Tivo. That’s a disappointment. I have two DVRs, one of which is a Series 2 Tivo that I love unreservedly. The interface is great, its performance is snappy, and it has all the intangibles that make it a joy to use. I used to have a second Tivo, but I gave it away and subscribed to the DVR service from Time Warner Cable instead. Its advantages are that I didn’t have to pay for the hardware, its monthly fee is lower than Tivo’s, and it has two tuners so you can record two things at once or record one thing and watch another live. (It also doubles as a digital cable receiver so I don’t have to use the weird IR hack that I use with my Tivo and my other digital cable box.) The downside is that it’s much more difficult to use than the Tivo is – the interface is less responsive, more confusing, and more cluttered. It has fewer software features than the Tivo does as well. I’d hate to see Tivo killed off by its inferior competitors, but I fear that if they don’t score more licensing deals, that could happen. ...

I remember listening to some lame EverQuest songs on mp3.com. Now, all gone (or, hopefully, relocated).

I’ve been somewhat fascinated with the Martha Stewart case, mainly because the charges against her are quite different from what any casual observer would assume them to be. Henry Blodget (yes, that Henry Blodget) is covering the case for Slate. His first week of dispatches covers what she’s accused of and what might have actually happened. To me, the case is very interesting for reasons other than the fact that it involves Martha Stewart herself, although I think the fact that she is who she is explains the zealous prosecution given what she’s actually occused of. ...

The great thing about the Internet is that there are usually other people around who are willing to do what you’re too lazy to do yourself, and then post about it. A Metafilter user called the Socorro, New Mexico police about Jorn Barger’s disappearance, and reports that the police made contact with Barger weeks ago, and that he is basically on walkabout.

My initial reaction to the news of our killing 54 of the guerillas who ambushed the money convoys in Samarra on Sunday was skepticism. Honestly, 54 seemed like a huge number to me, and I suspected that we were getting gamed. Other people who actually did more than listen to an account of the attack and response on the BBC have been thinking about it, and it looks like the initial accounts were way off. For example, a writer to Juan Cole expresses some reservations about the official account. Jim Henley gets right to the heart of the matter. Reporters on the scene have said they saw less than 10 bodies, and some of those dead people were civilians. The military says the attackers carried away the bodies, but they also say that the attacks were launched by two teams of about 30 attackers. Needless to say, that means that 6 people carried away 54 bodies while under fire from armor and helicopters. Does that sound right to you? You’d do well to read all of Henley’s surrounding entries; many good points are made. ...

It has been a long time since I looked in on Jorn Barger’s site, and I was shocked to learn today that he has gone missing. Given what I’ve learned about Jorn’s existence over the years, I fear the worst.

It had to happen: Dating Design Patterns.