12:00 PM Greetings, and welcome to another work week.

For those of you who missed it, I actually posted something on Saturday. Ain't it amazing? I gotta start doing that more often, since (in theory, at least) I have more time on weekends than during the week.

Today is in a bit of disarray; my office furniture is all being ripped out and replaced. I'm not particulalry happy about it; the work is being done by a couple of "gentlemen" who, although they seem competent furniture assemblers, are working on the theory that it's best to remove all the furniture from several offices first, then put in the new furniture. On the other hand, the new furniture is much nicer; a much larger desk, quite a bit more storage, and it fits the room better; I will no longer have to thread my way through a maze to get behind my desk. Well, at least not until I start scattering boxes everywhere - say about Tuesday.

Three things caught my eye this morning in the news; the first is Bob Thompson's decision, apparently, to move to Linux for his desktop. Some of you may know (you should, by now) that I work with Linux on a regular basis; I may or may not have mentioned that I also work with *BSD, Solaris, and, from time to time, other OS's. I also work extensively with Windows, which is still my preferred desktop platform, especially in an ofice environment.

I think (and I could be wrong; I'm not Bob) that Bob's decision is not being made on technology, but on politics; he's not happy with what Microsoft has been doing with the EULA and the changes made possible by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, among other laws. I don't disagree; Microsoft has pissed me off with this, too. I use Ghosting (like Kleenex, a brand name that has come to mean a general task; I actually use ImageCast) and I rely on it to roll out new machines. I don't have the time or the resources to roll out custom workstations for every new user. Even if I did, I wouldn't want to; being human, I tend to make small errors or changes as I go, and those can result in serious problems down the road. Nor do I think it reasonable that Microsoft can require me (or my company, rather) to pay for an extra license to create those ghosted installations.

I also don't think it will last. Microsoft is arrogant, bloated, and some of their products are bloated and stupid; but one thing they are not, as a whole, is stupid. They face a serious challenge in the server market from the various *nixes; not Linux, specifically, but Linux is forcing the other, more Enterprise-driven *nixes to adapt and improve. The OSes that used to be only for huge mainframes and massive, expensive networks with large, well-trained staffs are now accessible for smaller business, smaller networks, and non-guru admins. (Being a guru helps, but it's not as important as it used to be.) At the same time, although no one can yet match Microsoft on the desktop, it won't be too much longer; the new version of KDE, the new version of GNOME, more and better administrative tools... within the next 5 years, it will be possible to sit down Mom & Pop in front of a Linux/FreeBSD/*nix box and put them straight to work.

In other words, Microsoft has some serious competition. In the face of this competition, moves like the latest round of registration/licensing issues are foolish and doomed to failure. I just don't see a company like Microsoft not realizing their mistake - eventually - and correcting it. And Microsoft has the pockets and the resources to make a mistake like this and continue on. Once.

In short, I believe that "This Too Shall Pass". One way or the other.

The second thing that caught my eye was an article on The Register; basically, a report by the Giga Information Group states that most companies still aren't switching to Windows 2000. Interestingly, although they describe the changeover process as "painful", they also seem to agree that the upgrade, properly implemented, is worth it; something I happen to agree with, particularly in a corporate environment. The report, overall, seems to be very good; there are things I disagree with, and one or two - especially the security "bad points" - that had me saying "WTF??", but overall, it's well thought out. The response to the report contained in the article is also very well thought out; a little too enthusiastic, perhaps, but not too bad. Definitely recommended.

And the third item is a major news story. It seems that a Russian Oscar II SSBN, the Kursk, has suffered some sort of major damage and sunk in the Berents Sea.

What's interesting is not the sinking, nor the continuuing rescue effort, but the coverage of the incident. I first noticed it on CNN; from their initial reports, it was impossible to tell what was going on. In the same story, they said that the crew were in mortal danger, that rescue was nearly impossible - but that a rescue bell was already attached to the sub, implying that rescue had already commenced and would likely be easy to accomplish. The same story said that the damage was from a failure of the torpedo tubes, flooding the torpedo room - and, in another paragraph, that the sub had suffered from a collision. They explained that the sub could safely support the crew for up to 100 days - but repeated that the crew were in imminent danger of death.

Now granted, some of the confusion came from the fact that there was conflicting information from the scene, and from Russian Naval Headquarters.

And some of it likely came from the confusion certain to attend any major problem like this.

But you know, the BBC's initial story wasn't that confused. It had wrong information in it, but it was clear, it pointed out the contradictions, and essentially said "This is the information we have, some of it is obviously incorrect, but we don't know which yet."

As of this writing, the CNN story has been revised three times; it's still incorrect and confusing.

CNN is widely considered to be among the best in the news business. A quick look at ABC News, MSNBC, Salon, and a few other news organizations show stories that are remarkably similar to the CNN story; confused, poorly written, and lacking in detail and coherency. If these are the best news organizations available... and they're screwing up a story this badly... what does that say about their general news quality? Only ONE major news organization, the BBC, is handling this story in what I would consider a professional manner. They seem to be willing to say "hey, look, we don't know. This information is the best we have, and it doesn't seem to be accurate." THAT's news reporting. Sure, the facts are screwed up. That's going to happen. But pretending that all the "facts" in your hand must be true when they contradict each other... c'mon, guys, didn't you pass junior high? I thought you actually had to go to SCHOOL for this stuff, didn't they teach basic logic?

Anyway. Looks like I'm going for the record in length of a post, so I had better wrap this up and get it posted. I should be able to post the final code for my Downtime modifications tomorrow; there're a few bugs left to squish, but nothing horrendous. Talk to you later.

11:45 PM It's still technically Tuesday... <G>

Short post; today was spent running in circles trying to track down information that no one seemed to have. Somehow, the end of the day rolled around, but I'm not quite sure how that happened. Tomorrow it's off in the Big Silver Birdy for Seattle; I have no idea if there will be any updates from Seattle, connectivity is uncertain. There may be an update tomorrow, there may not; time will dictate.

However, before I go, I wanted to post this link. Yes, as promised, there is the latest version of the Downtime script, with my modifications. I will be sending it to the original author, but I can't seem to email him at the moment; I can't connect to his site and email is bouncing. Tomorrow.

The script as written works perfectly on my machine; this means absolutely nothing regarding your computers, of course. You need a Unix box of some sort, with Perl5 or better installed, and an X10 controller and software. Originally, it required Heyu; that's no longer true. As long as you can stop and start your modem/router from the command line, you will be able to do so with this script.

And now, off to finish packing...