So Far on Sunday

Woke up early -- the flower_cat said later that she slept like a log. Makes sense. Even if I don't quite wake up, I notice when she's restless. I've discovered that I feel better on dark mornings if I turn on the main lights in the kitchen and dining room rather than trying to be frugal and use only the spot lighting.

Found a bouncy super_star_girl who had apparently gone to bed early, woken up way too early, and been reading quietly in her room until she smelled coffee. Now, if only she'd do that on school days... She offered to make pancakes for breakfast.

Went out for a walk about 10:30. Stayed on the South side of W. San Carlos this time, walking around our immediate neighborhood via a couple of streets I haven't been on in years, if ever. Not a pretty walk, particularly, but interesting.

When I came back from my walk I found all the leftover ribs and soup gone, and the family watching Madagascar on DVD. For some reason I find it annoying rather than funny, I think because a lot of the humor comes from the exaggerated accents. To me it just feels like making fun of people -- in some cases people like the ones I grew up with -- because they talk funny. I'll pass, thanks.

I made myself a large batch of hot tofu, and crawled back into my hole.

Annoying Beeps, part 3

About a week ago I was plagued by an intermittent, loud beep at intervals of about 10 minutes. It seemed to be coming from somewhere near the kitchen, which ruled out one of the UPS boxes complaining about a dead battery. Besides, they all looked happy. So did the old portable phone, which runs down its battery rather quickly if left off its charger.

It stopped after a couple of days without my having had the patience to track it down.

Today I rediscovered the third source of beeps: the fire alarm down the hall from the kitchen, complaining about having been silenced. Guess how I discovered that.

DOD Bans HTML Email

FCW.com - DOD bars use of HTML e-mail, Outlook Web Access

Due to an increased network threat condition, the Defense Department is blocking all HTML-based e-mail messages and has banned the use of Outlook Web Access e-mail applications, according to a spokesman for the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be a permanent measure, but it's a good first step. From slashdot.

Vista security spec called "longest suicide note in history"

Vista security spec 'longest suicide note in history'

VISTA'S CONTENT PROTECTION specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history, claims a new and detailed report from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

"Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor as I will have to switch to a MAC or a Linux PC. These draconian dicta just might kill the PC as we know it."

The actual report is here; I originally found it on cryptome.

World Domination 201

Good article by Eric Raymond and Rob Landley about why 2008 is a hard limit by which the dominant OS for the next 30-50 years will be chosen, and what Linux has to do to be the one.

The industry-wide switch to 64-bit hardware is opening a critical transition window during which the new dominant operating system will be determined. This window will close at the end of 2008, a hard deadline. The last such transition completed in 1990, the next one cannot be expected before 2050.

The three contenders for the new 64-bit standard are Windows-64, MacOS X, and Linux. The winner will be determined by desktop market share, the bulk of which consists of non-technical end users.

This paper tries to answer a number of questions: Why is 2008 is a hard deadline? What is the current state of the three major contenders trying to become the new 64-bit standard? What are the major blocking issues to to each platform's desktop acceptance? What specific strategies and tactics can Linux use to cope with its most pressing problems? We close with a sober consideration of the costs of failure.

(From slashdot.)