Author: cosmo

For those who are counting, the net worth of all of Canada (people, businesses, and land) is roughly US$4.5 trillion. That’s about half of the debt of the United States.

In January, the Department of (in)Justice requested a million search queries from Google, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL. The latter three companies complied immediately, handing over their data without much question. Google, however, refused to do so. I applaud them for that move. The government, which these days seems to believe it is entitled to whatever private information it asks for, pressed its case and sued Google in an attempt to seize the information. Never mind that it is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Rather than write a lengthy analysis of the case, I’ll just fast forward to today, when a federal judge ruled in favor of the government. U.S. District Judge James Ware says that Google is required to hand over 50,000 web addresses and 10,000 search queries posted by users. Apparently he feels this is okay, because it’s “scaled down” and is more “reasonable” than the original list of one million. I guess the Fourth Amendment only applies to gross abuses of the search-and-seizure rules– smaller numbers are okay.

In his ruling, Judge Ware makes the astounding statement:

That phrase should give anyone pause. Apparently a federal judge, when faced with a difficult decision, believes that in such a situation the government should be declared the winner simply because they are the government. If there’s anyone who I think should not be given the “benefit of the doubt”, it’s the government!

This is how liberty is eroded: one small thing at a time. It may not seem like a big deal that Google is being forced to hand over confidential company information at the behest of a government, but it is just one more example of how the groups running this country continue to shove aside the rights and freedoms they have sworn to protect in order to obtain short-term (and short-sighted) goals.

It will only end when there is nothing left to take.

Got your green?

Yesterday Zack went for his first drive.

Keep in mind that Zack is four years old. And yes, he actually drove Laralee’s car.

According to her story (corroborated by witnesses), Laralee had pulled up to a friend’s house where Zack was playing. She left the car running and went to the door to get Zack. He climbed into the car while she chatted with her friend. Finally, she said something like, “Well, I should get going before Zack decides to drive off without me.”

At that moment– you couldn’t have planned this any better– Zack slipped into the front seat, put the car in “drive”, and started down the street. Laralee tore after him, catching the car and frantically grabbing the door handle to get in.

Zack had locked the doors.

So here’s Laralee, running alongside the car, screaming at Zack to unlock the doors. He’s steering the car (mostly) and just smiling like a devil. The car is on course to smash the fence of a neighboring house. Laralee is frantic.

Zack finally concedes and unlocks the door; Laralee jumps into the front seat and orders him to the back. Just as the car is about to hit the fence, she slams on the brakes. Zack, in the midst of climbing into the back seat, is thrown forward and knocks himself right on the dashboard. There is much wailing, compounded by the stern lecture about don’t you ever do that again and so forth.

Parenting is such a hoot.

There’s a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert is defragmenting his hard drive or something, and he comments about how happy he is that his computer is running smoothly, and how he’s entered a transcendent state. Dogbert calls it “Nerdvana”.

That’s a great word. I don’t know if Scott Adams invented it, but it’s such a perfect word to describe someone who has passed beyond mere “geekiness” into a whole new level of technologic bliss. I can say that I’ve probably done so.

Today I finished reading Linux Server Hacks, which contains a hundred tips and tricks to tweak your favorite Linux server. The scary part is that (1) I learned a bunch of new things, and (2) I’m excited to test them on my servers. The key word there is “excited”. Yes, I’m actually looking forward to hacking my servers to get another few clock cycles of performance out of them, or to shave a few seconds off the time I spend monitoring them for problems.

Truly, I have achieved Nerdvana.

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”

— Elbert Hubbard

Craig strikes again with a graph showing how a particular project at work is sucking his will to live.

According his calculations, he can only work on the project for 0.7 hours before he has to switch to something different or risk losing his will to live.

Today’s political wrap-up:

Bush: Dubai rules! Give ’em the ports!
Congress: Blow it out your ear, Dubya.
Bush: I’ll veto it. I swear.
Congress: Fine. Here’s your $90B bill for the war. Notice that attached clause about the ports.
Bush: Hmm. Crap.

And in related news:

Rumsfeld: Where’s our $90B for Iraq?
Congress: What’s up with the civil war breaking out?
Rumsfeld: Umm, what civil war?
Gen. Abizaid (head of U.S. Central Command): Open your eyes, Rummy.
Rumsfeld: No, really, there’s no civil war. *

* Actual quote: “There is a high level of tension in the country, sectarian tension and conflict. But it has not yet become a civil war by most experts’ calculation.”

Sheesh. Watching this kind of stuff is like craning your neck to see the car accident on the side of the freeway.

I’ve been ordering a bunch of servers from Dell lately, and the huge shipping boxes have been piling up in the basement. The kids, seeing an opportunity, asked if they could have (1) the boxes, (2) my pocketknife, and (3) some masking tape.

The result: Alex built a car (complete with a steering wheel made from the packing foam) and Kyra built a trailer. Although they look pretty much like… Dell server boxes. But they do have windows, and the kids love them. Hey, who am I to complain? I think I’ll order a few more servers and see if they can build a spaceship too.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien