Author: cosmo

I have a terabyte of storage on my main (home) data server, and it’s almost full. It’s funny– a few years ago when people said “terabyte” the natural reaction was “that’s more space than you’ll ever be able to use!” Now it’s practically commonplace in the server world.

Clearly I need a bigger hard drive.

So Tony and I are working on a web site that integrates with a third-party site delivering searchable content. For the last little while, the other site has been completely broken, with every page reporting the following error:

Microsoft JET Database Engine error ‘80004005’
Unspecified error
/ContentServerTest/includes/dbConnect.asp, line 78

Whoops. Someone’s probably scrambling over there to resurrect the database and get the site back online.

But what’s more interesting– to me, anyway– is that it’s using the Microsoft JET Database Engine. That’s a fancy term for “Access”. Whoa… they’re running an entire web site on Microsoft Access? That’s pretty 1997; Access is a terrible choice for anything in production, especially a high-traffic web site that should be responsive to requests.

More than likely this is a case of “someone wrote this code in 1997 but he left the company a year later and no one else understands it and it works so we don’t touch it”. I suspect that happens pretty often. Still, come on guys…

Proof that statistics are awesome.

A funny/sad commentary on the all new even higher! government debt limit:

“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”

— Elbert Hubbard

“There are two very clear options: Get everybody out by midnight tonight, or get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.”

— Seymour Hersh, a journalist for the New York Times, when asked what to do about Iraq

Kyra, Zack, and I played a game of Monopoly this morning. It’s so funny to watch Zack snap up properties– he’s particularly interested in the railroads, and for this picture he wanted to show off the fact that he owned three of them.

The really cool thing about our Monopoly set is that it came from my grandma’s house, and I’m pretty sure it dates back to the early 1940’s. (The game itself was first published around 1935.) So all of the pieces are wood, and the money is so old that it doesn’t even feel like paper any more– it’s has the feel of a soft (but somewhat brittle) piece of cloth. It’s pretty interesting to think that these playing pieces are almost seventy years old, and that they were used by my dad and his friends when they were kids.

“As yesterday’s positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”

— President George W. Bush, in a speech yesterday

Not only is this a vapid and meaningless statement, he really said “childrens”. Bonehead.

Geek protest.

Welcome to the surveillance society.

Chicago just made news by hiring IBM to manage thousands of video cameras posted throughout the city with a sophisticated computer system which can automatically process the feeds and identify… well, evil stuff, I guess.

Quoting from an article in The Register:

That’s scary. The People in Charge really, truly believe that the “only way to protect citizens” is by using cameras to spy on them. And of course they bring up the specter of terrorists, as if Chicago is facing grave threats from roving gangs of them. It’s a great catch-all, though, and I’ve grown infinitely tired of hearing it pulled out to justify the latest Big Brother technology. I’m also tired of names like Operation Virtual Shield, which I suppose come as a result of a multi-million-dollar study to find a name that makes it sound like it’s just a friendly protective blanket to keep all of us safer.

Interestingly, the article also had this to say:

Hmm. If it’s unlikely (statistically, anyway) that cameras don’t help reduce crime, then it’s hard to justify this sort of intrusion into privacy.