March 2006 Archives

I wrote a how-to for work on using encrypted connection strings in ASP.Net. It took me the better part of the day yesterday to get it to work correctly, and I thought that this might help some other people, so I'm posting it online.

It's in Word format, and I honestly feel a teeny bit bad about that, but I want to have the data out there for people to use. I'll put it into a more open format later and add a new link later.

btw - Anexinet is the name of my employer, in case you're wondering why I'm dropping files in that directory.

Enjoy.

http://www.mauricereeves.com/files/ASPEncryptedConnectionStrings.doc

This is the way democracy ends
This is the way democracy ends
This is the way democracy ends

Not with a bang, but a whimper

I got a email from Chad Kultgen, whom I'd blogged about before. His site's running strong, and I think that you should go read a review from him today. Like right now. GO! (Link)

The people who were in the original Star Trek should have been locked up post-Star Fleet...

Last week I was suffering from Shatner's spoken word rendition of Elton John's Rocket Man and now I have this pile of crap stuck in my head. MAKE IT STOP BEFORE I HURT MYSELF.

Nothing says "hi-class" like a large sculpture honoring "pro-life" by depicting a sexed-up Britney Spears giving birth on a bear rug.

I'm going to put it right next to that toilet planter I put in.

I started listening to "The Diner" by James Lileks. Think kind of like a one-man Firesign Theatre, or the Harry Shearer radio show. Here's a link.

My daughter came up with the term "stinky biscuit" today. Whenever someone farts, they become the "stinky biscuit". I hope that makes it into the Merriam-Webster one day.

http://minimumsecurity.net/toons2006/6034.htm

Those are his real numbers, and I suggest you girls give him a call throughout the day and ask him about all the important things in life: tampons or pads, bikini or brazilian, shave it in the shape of a heart or a skull or just clean off, you know, the really important things.

I'm sure he'll be helpful.

The Guardian is reporting on a bill is being presented in Parliament in the UK that would allow the ministers to make laws and without Parliamentary oversight and allow ministers to delegates powers to unelected officials.

While it sounds really scary, it is and it isn't. This moves England more towards what the US has now, which I don't necessarily approve of. In the US, it's possible for Congress to say "We're passing the Clean Toilets Act of 2006" which mandates that all toilets pass certain cleanliness standards to be determined at some later date. It's then up to the executive branch to dictate the enforcement of the Clean Toilets Act, or as it was known when it was being passed USA Surely Toilet Users Prefer Inspectable Derrieres Act. The executive branch would put the enforcement under an existing Department, or more usually, take it as an opportunity to create an entirely new Department: The Department of Investigative Professionals Specializing in Highly Invasive Toilet Searches which are filled with non-elected bureaucrats who then enforce the law with little Congressional oversight.

I do think the key differences here are that the President is not supposed to have the power to rewrite a law at will, as this bill seems to allow a sitting Minister to do, and in the US, the Congress does have the power, if so inclined, to fence in the powers allowed the executive branch.

This British bill does not seem to grant the Parliament the same powers.

Text of the actual bill can be found here.

I had my article posted on Gather.com today and I was very excited, but I wasn't so sure how much attention it would get as it was a very small piece of writing, but I've got 42 comments and a lot of discussion from people, some positive and a bunch negative.

I think the longest running argument in the thread, and the last comment sum up the plight of the libertarian party very well: No one really knows what the LP stands for, and there are a lot of people with very occluded understandings of its key tenants. I think the most important thing for me to do is to keep talking about the party with people, to keep doing more outreach, and to keep the professionalism high while doing that.

I am going to reiterate another point I know I've made before, specifically in regards to the Democrats and Republicans: what is the philosophical basis for the existence of your parties? What informs your legislation, what informs your actions and choice of candidates? I've asked a lot of Democrats and Republicans those questions and I have never heard an answer, good or bad, yet.

Anyway, here's the link to my article on Gather.com.

Arthur Winston, team leader of a bus maintenance crew in LA has decided that today, his 100th birthday is the day he'll retire. It sounds like it should be an Onion new story, but it's not. He sounds like an amazing man. My hat's off to you Mr. Winston. I hope your next 100 years are an amazing time for you.

A movement is afoot in London of people going out under the cover of dark to rip out old dying shrubs and replanting neglected flower beds while most people sleep. I love the idea of people sneaking out at night and randomly beautifying the world with new greens.

It's kind of like Fight Club in reverse. I'm big fan of that kind of nonesensical randomness in either direction, so this resonates really well with me.

I put up a site on Gather.com as it's an offshoot of NPR and it's aiming to be something like a MySpace for people with taste...I published my first article on there and it's been picked by the editors to be featured on the front page!

Starting at 7.45AM EST it will be on the front page: www.gather.com. I am enthused. My site is http://mauricereeves.gather.com

I'm hoping to use that site as an extension of my stuff here.

Anyway, I'm very excited!

They say it's the first day of spring today, but it's 20 degrees outside and the wind's blowing at 15mph...I stepped out of the house and my left nipple just fell right off.

This is not spring.

On Saturday I was out shopping with the wife and children and we ran into one of the local supermarkets to pick up something that only they seem to carry. Posted right at the front of the store at my children's eye level was a massive display of Elmo cupcakes. I was quick to perform some parental misdirection ("Is that Thomas the Tank Engine buying Lucky Charms?") so the kids did not see them, and disaster was averted, but I know that I will not always be that lucky.

As my children get older, their awareness grows, and my awareness of what they'll latch onto grows, so I find myself planning the most advantageous routes out of stores to avoid having screaming fits and hours of conversations with my daughter. "But why can't I have a puppy Daddy?" "Because puppies are a lot of wor-" "But why?" "Because puppies need a lot of attentio-" "But why?" I don't go down that aisle because it's filled with M&Ms. I don't go down that aisle because it's filled with balloons. That aisle has dancing girls and machine guns, so that aisle might be okay.

The thing is, Giant, our preferred supermarket, doesn't seem to resort to pushing the stuff my kids would gravitate to right at the front. There's no cupcakes or beach balls or Easter baskets or dancing monkies and hurdy-gurdy men. It's all business. This week's specials, an artfully designed replica of the Roman Colloseum built out of cases of generic root beer and newspapers. My son's not going to reach out and point "Ooo dad, the Wall Street Journal!"

If he did, hell, that I'd buy it for him.

From the "Things You Probably Already Knew" Department - Picking your nose after playing with curry powder is NOT a good idea. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to jam some yoghurt up my nose.

Here is someone else's take on DC and Marvel jointly trademarking the word "Superhero".

He's taken to calling the characters of the Marvel and DC universi (?) "underwear perverts" instead of superhero. Sounds fine to me.

Marvel and DC can go fuck themselves. They don't own the word superhero, superheroes, super-hero, or any such combination of the words "super" and "hero". I love Marvel comics, but I'm not going to buy any more of their issues because they don't own superheroes, or the concept of superheroes, or the word "superhero".

That's like Starbucks coming along and saying "Hey, we own the words 'coffee delight'."

Superhero, superhero, superhero, superhero, and Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, and the rest of the staff at Marvel AND DC? Go suck on a supercock.

Apparently I'm not the only one that's thought through who Cthulu will eat first. Read the Cthulu Chick Tract for more information. (Link)

None of this settles what will happen when the flying spaghetti monster returns. Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?

Third Party Watch (warning: annoying popups) and (moreso) Hammer of Truth are trying to make a big deal of Michael Badnarik's campaign spending $2400/month on an office and staff. Michael Badnarik is, if you remember, the 2004 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate. He's now running for Congress in his local district. My question, and apparently others from the questions following the stories is "What's he supposed to be doing, working out of his living room with a staff of full-time unpaid volunteers?"

It doesn't work that way. $2400/month works out to about $80/day, which is really a fine burn rate for a candidate in any type of election.

This is one of the things that frustrates me with other libertarians. They don't seem to have a handle on what it takes to run a campaign, or better yet, to win a campaign. How is someone supposed to get elected if no one knows who they are and what they stand for? I'll often hear libertarians bemoan the lack of good candidates and say they're not voting. It's a classic Catch-22. You won't find any candidates willing to run until people are willing to vote, but the party faithful won't be willing to vote unless there's someone good to vote for.

I wish Hammer of Truth would stop sniping at candidates who stand a chance of winning and throw their support behind them.

---

Update: Two people, including Austin Cassidy from Third Party Watch contacted me regarding my figures above. Yes they are wrong. Yes I wrote them before I had coffee, and I appreciate them for setting me straight. I think it's good that people keep the politicians honest, and it's fine to ask questions in the public forum, but I do still believe that the money burn rate ($900/day) for Badnarik is not out of the norm for a candidate running a Congressional campaign.

We should be cheering for Badnarik. Thanks for writing guys, and sorry for the incorrect assertions on my part.

I dreamt that I lived in Botswana on a ranch with a white family from South Africa. My mom and step-dad had volunteered to be missionaries and I was worried for a safety. The land was always hot and dark. The sky was always a dark purple like rainclouds and thunder was just around the corner. I kept begging for a rifle so I could learn how to shoot and keep us safe.

My dream was probably influenced by a review I heard on NPR.

I know I'd posted this before, but the links to it keep going dead. As I said before, I don't know whether or not the data within is correct or verifiable, I post it only as something that's interesting.

Man the skins are looking good this year, what with all of the acquisitions they've made so far. Looks like a lot of players want a chance to play for Gibbs.

I am waiting to see if the Seahawks will hold together this year in the face of their Superbowl loss. Considering most of my wife's family are Seahawks fans, I kind of hope they fall apart.

The word is that T.O. is going to Dallas. It will be great to watch them self-destruct around him if he goes. They'll need a new receiver now that they got rid of Keyshawn Johnson. Maybe the Eagles should pick up Keyshawn, they haven't really done anything else in free agency so far.

I posted about this article where the guy says that calls to America from Iraq are costing $0.21/minute and they're gouging US personnel over there. The author has since posted twice in addition to his original assertions. (Link and Link)

I'm thinking more and more about what he has to say, and something my buddy Jeff said:

1. They're almost certainly not putting payphones in the PBX as that's a circuit in office buildings that connects phones together to a block of outbound lines and gives offices the ability to do things like give everyone extentions. So probably the term meant was PX.
2. On military bases, they have the Defense Switched Network that allows bases to call each other and enables people to call home for free. It's not only set up to let people call home when serving overseas, but gives the Defense Dept the ability to monitor phone traffic.
3. $0.21 is lower than some troops on nearby military bases to have to pay. Evidence? Two years ago, troops in Kuwait had to pay $0.30/minute. Looks like the deals are brokered by AAFES, NEXCOM, MCCS, et al. Maybe we should be asking them why the prices are so high?

The fact of the matter is that it is not free for someone to call from one side of the globe to the other. I do recognize that a lot can be done to lower the cost of some of these services moving forward, but existing infrastructure still needs to be maintained, and the services of the employees that maintain that infrastructure, etc. I value the work of our soldiers, and if they asked me to help cut their costs to call home by, say, paying more taxes, I'd probably pay it, but I recognize that SOMETHING needs to be paid. There really is no story here.

I can't believe that the Redskins released Lavarr Arrington. I know that he's had a spotty record in the last 3 years, and that his leaving does give the 'skins some room in the salary cap, but it just doesn't feel right, like walking in on your uncle wearing your aunt's Sunday best. It'd be like Johnny Damon playing for the Yankees...oh yeah...

He did great things for the Redskins in his tenure in Washington, and I am going to miss him.

So this guy is running a story on his blog about how AT&T is "ripping off" American soldiers in Iraq because they're charging them $0.21/minute to call home.

He then proceeds to make wild accusations and do a lot of gesticulations that befit his banner at the top which claims that "nothing great in the world has been accomplished without irrational exuberance". And boy does the irrationality abound here.

A quick (30-second) search online shows that for me to call Iraq from my house would cost me $0.91/minute on Verizon, and that's the same rate as AT&T charges residential customers.

Not only that, but this magic figure of $0.21/minute is not a clear number. A journalist came up with that figure: "Their embed reporter, Wayne Wolley is the one who calculated the twenty-one cent a minute rate; charging on the card is not exactly straightforward."

Truly, why can't we have some outraged directed in places that really deserve it these days and not this steaming pile of shit? There really is nothing to see here; move along.

I have been watching the giant stinking pile of shit that has been the outrage over the Dubai Ports World deal for 3 weeks now and I'm frustrated. I don't see what the issue is. I keep hearing the same few complaints:

1. UAE is an Arab country
2. Port security is lax and handing over control to an Arab country would open us to attack
3. UAE is an Arab country
4. The ports are vital to our national security policies and control of them should not be handed over to the "enemy"
5. Them there A-rabs are bad people
6. etc....

So, the UAE currently has several US military bases on it. They've worked closely with us allow us to house troops, planes, and naval ships in their country, which doesn't exactly make them popular in their neighborhood. Secondly, as far as security is concerned, Israel, yes, ISRAEL, has a port run by this company. If Dubai Ports World can run a port in Israel and the Israeli government trusts them to not be a security risk, what the fuck are we worried about? Also, consider that at some existing military bases, KBR, the subsidiary of Halliburton is already partnered with a Dubai-based firm to provide security for naval ships. Oh, and let's consider that one of the ports in New York that the 10th Mountain Division uses to deploy is owned and operated by high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party in Bejing. Why do we trust them and not a company from Dubai?

When people gave into this hysteria, it fed the fires of hatred for the US around the world. It furthered the divide between the US and Muslims countries because it makes it seem like we just don't like Arabs, and maybe that's true for most of the US, but I don't prefer our foreign and economic policies to be informed by our worst xenophobic and jingoistic tendencies.

But it's also bad for another reason. Our current trade deficit is $68.5 billion. That's HUGE! We're practically just boxing up stacks of money and shipping it overseas. Those dollars have to get spent somewhere, and usually they're spent buying American goods, American companies, and investing in the US. Some countries and investors are going to get wary of wanting to do business with the US if we keep acting this way, which means that it hurts our economy further. Economist Bruce Bartlett, had a great discussion about this on NPR not long ago. (Link)

I'm really distressed that this fearmongering bloviation reached such heights that DPW has put the deal on hold. We had a chance to show the world how open a society we really are, and how good an economy we are for foreign investors and we spit on both ideas. The democrats took it as an opportunity to exorcise the perceived demons that they're weak on security and the Republicans in Congress ran as hard as they could to jump on that bandwagon that, like usual, the facts got left behind.

They should have done what was best for their people and let the deal go through, not block the deal to bolster their re-election campaigns.

Until now, South Dakota's state motto has been "Under God people rule" but I heard on NPR that they're going to change it in honor of outlawing abortion to "South Dakota: the weather's nice, the living's cheap, and women are chattel".

Classy bunch up there.

My wife and I were talking about the fight to ban abortions in the US, and she raised some more good points:

• When abortion is banned, how are the people going to handle the spate of women who try to force themselves to have miscarriages because they don't want the baby?
• When abortion is outlawed, how will the states handle the growth in the number of children in the state foster care system? We already can't find enough parents for the kids that exist now. And the State foster care systems are running out of money, replete with corruption, and terrible things keep happening to kids in foster care.
• By definition, a child that a woman wanted to abort was an unwanted child. What will hapen to these unwanted children? Will there be a rise in abuse cases? Will there be more neglected children? Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics would believe so. Doing a statistical analysis of crime rates and abortion rates he tried to show that crime has been dropping in the US due to mothers aborting the children most likely to turn into criminals: the neglected and abused.

Let's further my vision of the world after the abortion ban for a minute: Not only are there abortion clinic stings set up, with women being thrown into maternity prisons, but you've got a state actively taking the children from them and putting them into a swollen foster care system where they will be raised as orphans, wards of the state, without many of the benefits of a good upbringing. Women will hurt themselves trying to cause miscarriages, sometimes permanently. Some states will start increasing taxes to pay for the expanded food and health care they must provide. Lots of children will "fall through the cracks", turning to whatever support systems exist for them, including gangs.

Is this what is meant by "compassionate conservatism"? Is this what is meant by "a culture of life"? In all of this, I do not see compassion, only a larger and more intrusive government, that is not only content to illegally tap our phones, watch our activities in the library, and seeks to undermine the Bill of Rights, but now wants to tell women what they can and cannot do with their wombs. Big Brother indeed.

Porn billing processor iBill leaked 17 million of its customer's records to hackers to be sold on the black market.

This is just one of many security breaches that have occurred in the last two years concerning people's private data on the web. I don't believe that this type of fraud is unique to the web, as there have been investigations of gangs that get members hired at banks to steal money from customers and more importantly to get personal information on customers so they can steal identities.

What makes this theft interesting:
1. The scope. 17 million customer records is huge
2. The nature of the theft. In this case, no credit card numbers, no social security numbers, or other such identifying data was found, just addresses, emails, and the like.

Those two features speak to it being an inside job.

I have been advocating for a while the practice of encrypting data in customer databases so that it would be much harder for someone to pull of this type of job. If you leave everything in cleartext, and have lax security rules (which a lot of computer companies do have) this is going to keep happening. If, however, you by default encrypt everyone's data as it comes in, someone can't just peek in the database and extract people's information.

This does make development more expensive, and it would slow down some activities on the web, or even over the phone as we deal with customer service reps on the phone, but I'm willing to eat both costs, because think if someone inside Amazon got disgruntled and pulled down their entire customer database and sold it on the black market! How expensive would that get for everyone?

For the record, I believe that Amazon probably has very strict security rules for their customer data and is probably encrypting quite a bit of data to begin with.

Atrios has a great exchange between Chris Matthews of Hardball and Pat Toomey, who is running for senate in my fair Commonwealth.

Matthews pushes Pat Toomey to describe what he thinks would be an appropriate punishment for a woman who would have an abortion if Toomey had his way and had all abortions outlawed. Toomey flat out refuses to answer. He continues to go back to punishing the doctor.

Does that mean that if a woman has an abortion and refuses to implicate which doctor performed it she'd be tossed in jail? Would we have a "War Against Abortion" with taskforces and black-clad SWAT teams kicking in the doors of hidden clinics and throwing doctors in jail because they're suspected of performing abortions? Would we have sting operation clinics where women who came seeking an abortion would be arrested and shown on Cops and the evening news, their swollen bellies stamped with the words "State Property"? Would John Walsh show up on America's Most Wanted: "Tonight on AMW we highlight Dr. John Reed. This disgusting pervert killed two babies. He claimed he was helping their mothers, saving their lives, but we all know the truth, and tonight they're all on the run. You can help us catch them and bring them to justice."

Maybe we should start building maternity prisons so we can lock up the women until they've had their children so we make sure they don't have abortions.

The fact of the matter is, women WILL get thrown into jail when abortion is outlawed. Are you prepared to lock up pregnant women over this issue?

I posted about the people I'd like to see Cthulu eat when he reawakens. I've got a new one!

Travis Frey, a real dickhead of a husband from Iowa, tried to force his wife to sign a contract that outlined her wifely duties. This included oral sex on demand, excluded her from wearing anything to bed, and a warning to not do anything "half-assed" or she'd lose her "good behavior days". When his wife balked at signing the contract he tried to kidnap her and a child, he assaulted her, and he's been downloading child pornography, because I guess building a marital prison for his on-demand sex slave just wasn't sexy enough for him.

Cthulu, please eat this fucker right away...or better yet, I hope his cellmate in prison gives him a contract outlining his duties as a bitch. I'm willing to bet many of the provisions on both contracts will be the same.

I hope Travis likes thongs and giving out oral sex.

In my house we're avid American Idol watchers. Heather enjoys the auditions more than the final competitions, but I like watching the singers progress and change as the final 12 are picked and they move on to the finals, but something we've both agreed on: we want Kellie Pickler to win.

There's just something that's so adorable and wonderful about her, it almost feels like we're watching a Southern My Fair Lady every week...I mean that in a good sense.

Anyway, we love her, and I hope she goes all the way.

A retired schoolteacher from Texas decided to do the right thing and pay down his J.C. Penny's Credit Card so as to not keep paying the interest. His check of $6,522 to the bank did not, however pay down the balance. It did get him noticed by the Department of Homeland Security, which apparently takes issue with people paying off their credit card balances. (Link)