Articles


Day 5-Kelceys Bush to Otago Peninsula

Date: 05.11.2003 Start Location: Kelceys Bush Vacation Park S: 44° 42.255' E: 170° 58.451' End Location: Portobello Vacation Park Distance Driven 332km (1,218km) Summary: Time: 05:30 Location: Kelceys Bush Vacation Park S: 44° 42.255' E: 170° 58.451' Name: Sunrise photo session Description …

Day 4-Mount Cook to

Date: 04.11.2003 Start Location: Mount Cook S: 43° 43.44' E: 170° 05.512' Alt: 2534 ft End Location: Kelceys Bush Camp Site S: 44° 42.255' E: 170° 58.451' Distance Driven 296km (880.6km) Summary: Time: 05:30 Location: White Horse Campgrounds Name: Sunrise over the …

Day 3-Lake Tekapo to Mount Cook

Date: 03.11.2003 Start Location: Lake Tekapo S: 43° 59.873' E: 170° 27.663' Alt: 2492 ft End Location: Mount Cook S: 43° 43.44 E: 170° 05.512' Alt: 2534 ft Distance Driven 143km (584km) Summary: Time: 06:30 Location: Lake Tekapo Name: Rise & Post Description: After …

Day 2-Rakaia River to Lake Tekapo

Date: 02.11.2003 Start Location: Rakaia River Mouth S: 43° 54.179' E: 172° 11.663' End Location: Lake Tekapo S: 43° 59.873' E: 170° 27.663' Alt: 2492 ft Distance Driven 188km (441km) Summary: Time: 07:00 Location: Mouth of the Rakaia River Name: Sunrise walk Description …

Day 1

Date: 01.11.2003 Start Location: Christchurch, NZ End Location: Rakaia River Mouth S: 43° 54.179' E: 172° 11.663' Distance Driven 253km Summary: Time: 03:45 Location: Christchurch,NZ Name: Breakfast Description: I awoke this morning at about 3:45 to make some calls back to the States …

New Zealand South Island Trek

In October of 2003, Mike Wellman and I decided to head to New Zealand's South Island to take an extended look at the expanse of untamed wilderness and beauty that is New Zealand. Owing to a streak of "good luck" we were both unemployed at the time and it seemed …

Wacky SCO folks say GPL is bunk

SCO, in its reply to IBM's suit, has basically declared that they believe that the GPL is bunk and that therefore they don't need to follow it, according to an article from net legal site, Groklaw. According to the interpretation by the folks at Groklaw, the SCO folks would like …

LoC grants minimal exemptions to the DMCA

According to a story on CNet, the Library of Congress has issued the new exemptions to the DMCA and they are minimal. The exemptions allow for the removal of copy protection systems in four specific cases: obsolete software that requires security dongles, e-books that don't provide for handicapped access (specifically …


George Washington's whiskey rides again

An article from the New York Times tells the tale of the best whiskey makers of the present getting together to raise money for Mount Vernon by doing what they do best. A much more detailed article from the Washington Post also discusses it. Our first President, according to reports …

Warfare at the speed of light

The Oakland Tribune has a good article detailing work at Lawrence Livermore National Lab to create laser weapons that is bearing fruit. The question, as with any new weapon, is whether a new weapon makes us safer or less secure. As people ponder the efficiency and accuracy of laser weapons …

Day of the Weasel poll results in

The Dilbert Day of the Weasel poll results have been posted. Weaseliest organization: RIAA Weaseliest company: Microsoft Weaseliest person: GW Bush Weaseliest country: France (beating out second-place USA) Weaseliest behavior: Blaming fast food companies for making you fat

iTunes for Windows hits 1 million downloads

In half the time that it took Mac users to embrace the music service from Apple, Windows users have hit the 1,000,000 downloads mark for the iTunes application, Apple announced today. Apple has also sold 1 million songs since the Windows announcement on Thursday, but there is no …

Up to their level or down to ours?

An interesting article from the New York Times brings back my favorite equality question. The title "Everything a Man Can Do, Decapitation Included" aptly describes a trend for women to long for equality by proving that they not only can do anything a man can do, but should. Don't get …

1990's investment and 2000's recovery

I was interested to see this article from the New York Times discussing the effect of the overcapacity created during the 1990's on the economic recovery in the post 2000 recovery. In particular, the problem is industrial capacity. In the 1990's, with the tech boom and the creation of an …

Review: Runaway Jury

Runaway Jury is the latest John Grisham book to be made into a movie, and by some accounts this movie may even best the book. I haven't read the book, so I can't make a first hand comparison, but unless it was quite good, there's a decent shot because the …

Nebraska county court rules father shouldn't "speak Hispanic"

An article from the Washington Post tells the unfortunately not-quite- unbelievable story of a judge in Nebraska who ordered a father "not to speak the Hispanic language" around his daughter. At the crux of the case is the defendant's relationship with his 5-year-old daughter from his girlfriend. It appears that …

Vonage prevails in Minnesota VoIP regulation case

In a setback for regulators and an advancement for competition on Voice-over- IP telephone services, Vonage has prevailed in a case against the State of Minnesota Public Utility Commission, according to an article from Wired. The decision from the US District Court for the district of Minnesota on October 16th …

Verisign sells off Network Solutions

According to an article from Wired, Verisign is selling off Network Solutions' registrar unit to a private organization. Verisign will be keeping the underlying registry and control of the systems and contracts that maintain the .com and .net domains.

Fastap keyboard for mobiles

Thanks to Todd for passing along a pointer to Digit Wireless who are making an interestingly small keyboard layout for mobiles, PDAs, and other devices that require a small keyboard. As far as I can tell, there aren't any takers yet, but the dual-height mixed- mode keyboard may well be …