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10/29/2000 · 11/ 5/2000
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Search rbgilbert.com

This is my blogchalk:
United States, Massachusetts, Boston, Brighton, English, Ron, Male, Photography, Nudity.

I Take Another Stab At Political Offensiveness
I'm sure most of you can barely restrain your eagerness for election day, Tuesday November 7. Most of you (I'm guessing) want to get in that polling place and turn your valuable vote over to Al Gore because, after all, finally after all these years you've got a candidate for President who really, really, really represents your views; not to mention that he is the very personification of the ideals expressed in our Constitution. And many others of you are just, if not more eager to go place your sacred vote into the hands of George W. Bush because you know that you've waited your whole life to be led by just such a leader; and besides he's practically synonymous with the American flag itself. And some of you are going to go and use your vote to exalt Ralph Nader because he is the purest of the pure and he needs the purity of your vote so America and the world can admire his gleamingness; plus he is just the sort of pioneering individual who built up this nation. And there just might ev en be some of you who will vote for Buchanan or that other guy in the Party-That-Seeks-Federal-Money. Sorry. I can't think of anything nice to say about that. If you find your polling place, give yourself a pat on the back.

I'm sure none of you will vote for a candidate who does not live up to your standards just because you're afraid the other guy might win.

Maybe that leaves a few of you who are undecided, a few who are really sincere when they say they want lower taxes, who want greater freedom, who want respect for private property, who want tolerance of diverse views, religions, ethnicities, who think a woman's "right to choose" includes a lot more than just the right to choose abortion, who believe women and men should be free to choose what to do with their bodies, what to smoke, eat or drink, who believe that all of the Bill of Rights (all 10 of 'em!) and the 14th Amendment mean exactly what they say -- no more, no less. For those few people who do not revel and exalt in Gore/Bush/Nader/Buchanan/The Other Guy there is the Libertarian Party.

They have a candidate for President: Harry Browne

In Massachusetts they have a candidate for U.S. Senate: Carla Howell

They've got many other candidates across the country for various positions. Check 'em out here.

"The only wasted vote is the one not cast."

I may not be able to update this site as often as I should for a few days as I take off to engage in ritualistic behavior deep in the interior of the continent. But I encourage you all to keep sending me your messages!

There's a handy service at Bostonsweeper for anyone who parks a car on the streets of Boston, Cambridge or Somerville.

Seen on Usenet

Subject: Wallmart in Britain
From: Peter H.M. Brooks
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british, alt.deposit,alt.fan.british-accent, alt.usage.english

In article <2bgqnskv3upafbej74caltjd6jfbpi1d9k@4ax.com>, anna@warman.de.MY_BRA.mon.co.uk wrote:
>
> We drove a 350 mile round-trip yesterday to visit my mother in Taunton
> hospital, getting home at around 11pm last night. There wasn't really
> time to drop in . . . sorry. :(
>

This looks like poor planning to me. How could Bristol not be a a pukka destination in any plan - only lesser places are supposed to be transit points!

Anyway, I though that it was 'Walmart', not 'Wallmart' - a market ('mart' is, I believe, Yank for Market) set up by a fellow called Wal, probably short for Wally so it could have been 'Wallmart' anyway. I suppose that they must save a fortune in sign costs by haveing one less el. If they had any sense they would have called themselves 'W' to save even more - or even '.'. The logical step for a really go ahead company - none of that old fashioned wordy dot com busniess (short for Dorothy Compromised, I believe), but a truly zen job.

If names could be copyright, I think that I could now lay claim to '.' as a company name - pronounced 'dot', 'period', 'full stop', 'STOP' [in telegraphese] or 'half colon'[at least for the medical division]. I bet that nobody has the web site www.half_colon.com or even www...com aka www.dot.com registered.

I think that it could be a jolly useful company with a logo that echoes the company ethos - to put a stop, or at least a half- colon to things. It could flog condoms, anti-biotics, anti-personnel mines, re-cycled CND badges, asteroid attraction devices and chastity belts [to put an end to AIDS].

The company mission statement could be the first paragraph of that speech from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake that talks of 'Full stoppers and semicolonials' that was clearly written with just this purpose in mind. It is a pity that semi-colon has already been used to mean something quite different from half-colon as it sounds far better. Maybe sub-colon, truncated-colon, descending-colon or upper- arse could be used instead.

As chief executive, president, director and big cheese of the new company, I would probably have to show willing and change my name to '.' too, which might upset my parents, so I am not completely sure of this plan. Of course, the company spokesman would have to be called ',', pronounce 'comma' or 'speech bubble'. One of our first jobs would have to be to convince the IETF to allow our e-mail addresses .@..com and ,@..com. That under our belts, the rest should be fairly straight forward. Of course, if we failed, we could then lay moral claim to be the only company that not only didn't indulge in the production of spam, but was logically incapable of so doing.

So, now that the strategy has been outlined, any venture capitalists out there are welcome to shower me with millions to set up. We could then start with a merger with Walmart - just think how the adoption of minimalism in nomenclature would help in marketing their strategy of minimalism in pricing!

Gus Hall Dead
"If you want to take a nice vacation, take it in North Korea."
Wow! Like, who even knew he was still alive? Here's the NY Times obituary, or if you don't want to log in to the NY Times (it's free!) here's a copy of it.

Do you know about about "Corn Maizes?" Maybe you ought. There's only one in Iowa. But lots more around the rest of North America.

You can download a useful free little utility that is an improvement on the Windows Character Map from here. It's called "ExtendedCharacterMap".

Let's Do Some Netscape Bashing!
This is from http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-10-12.htm
You can find Langalist at http://www.langa.com/
Go to http://www.langa.com/newsletter.htm to subscribe to the e-mail newsletter

3) Trimming Netscape's Oinkage, Part I
I haven't spent a lot of time talking about Netscape lately for the simple reason that all current released versions of Netscape browsers are quite obsolete and are about to be replaced. That's not bashing; it's just a fact that Netscape itself admits.

(If the background doesn't interest you, please skip down three paragraphs after this one.) Netscape dug itself in a deep hole a couple years ago, and tried to enlist the Open Source movement to build a better browser. Netscape gave away its source code in the hopes that talented volunteer programmers would be able to make it better, in much the same way that volunteer coders built Linux.

Netscape's volunteer coders spent the better part of a year trying to get Netscape's code in shape before they simply gave up. They *threw the old code away* (that's how bad it was!) and started over from scratch. Two years have since passed, and the results--- which will be called "Mozilla 5" by some and which Netscape will call "Netscape 6"--- is in its final or near-final beta. When it's finally released, it will be about three years later than originally promised.

In the interim, Netscape was acquired by AOL. Netscape/AOL has rolled out new versions of the old, bad code in an effort to (1) build in hooks to all the AOL-mandated branding and doodads and widgets; and (2) to correct serious security problems. I suspect they've also rolled out some cosmetic changes just to try to make it look as though the browser is still fresh and current. But make no mistake: Under the covers, it's still the old, obsolete code that Netscape's Open Source programmers threw out two years ago. The shipping Netscape browsers are now the *least* standards-compliant of the major browsers, by far.

Because all the shipping Netscape browsers are so out of date in supporting current standards, I haven't invested much time in figuring out its guts. That's one of the reasons why the Cleanup batch files ( http://www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm ) focused on cleaning up Internet Explorer's "oinkage" --- needless and fat files--- while not doing anything for Netscape's similar files. I'd planned to take a fresh look at Netscape when Mozilla 5/Netscape 6 ships.

But many readers still use Netscape browsers, and several have not only explored Netscape's current guts, but have very generously shared the results of their explorations with us. For example, reader Daniel D. Gill was the first to suggest this:

With Netscape Communicator, if one uses Netscape Messenger......it keeps a mass copy of everything ever placed in a Messenger folder, in one file. E.G. there is a 'trash' file, in which, if opened, you can read every letter ever placed in the trash - regardless of whether the trash folder in messenger is clean or dirty. [It's the same for the Inbox and Sent folders.] These files can get BIG. I freed up over 200 megabytes when I figured this out.

The path to the folder with the files is [usually] C:/program files/netscape/users/[there may be additional subfolders here]/mail. Note that all folders, 'trash' an an example, have 2 files, such as 'trash' and 'trash.snm.' The .snm files stay small regardless, but the files without an extension are the one that can grow considerably.

Thanks, Daniel! Just make sure there's nothing in the folders that you want to save, because deleting them *really* deletes them--- completely.

Please also see the next item for more Netscape oinkage-removal.


4) Trimming Netscape's Oinkage, Part Two
Donna B. Yeaw offers this Netscape Cookie-trimming tip:

The only reason I want cookies saved is for logins. IE makes it easy to maintain since each site has it's own cookie file (at least in 5.0 which I'm using). Netscape maintains it all in a single file with a HUGE warning at the start to not modify the file. Well, being the adventurous sort, I tried maintaining it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But I found a great work-around that I use regularly. It requires a little work to get started but next to nothing after that.

1) Rename your cookie file (usually found under users/[profile name] in your Netscape directory) to cookies.bak

2) Open Netscape

3) Go to the sites where you want to preserve the login information. Yes, this does require you to login to each one all over so be sure you know your login/password.

4) Once you have visited all the sites, close your browser.

5) Find your *new* cookie file that contains the login information you just created and copy it as cookie_sav.txt

6) Now as often as you want you can delete your bloated cookie file, copy cookie_sav.txt as cookie.txt and you're all set!

Tuesday, October 10, 2000
Joe Blundo
Dispatch Accent Columnist

For those who don't have time to watch the presidential debate Wednesday night, I've prepared this transcript of what will be said:

Jim Lehrer: Welcome to the second presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush. The candidates have agreed on these rules: I will ask a question. The candidate will ignore the question and deliver rehearsed remarks designed to appeal to undecided women voters. The opponent will then have one minute to respond by trying to frighten senior citizens into voting for him. When a speaker's time has expired, I will whimper softly while he continues to spew incomprehensible statistics for three more minutes. Let's start with the vice president. Mr. Gore, can you give us the name of a downtrodden citizen and then tell us his or her story in a way that strains the bounds of common sense?

Gore: As I was saying to Tipper last night after we tenderly made love the way we have so often during the 30 years of our rock-solid marriage, the downtrodden have a clear choice in this election. My opponent wants to cut taxes for the richest 1 percent of Americans. I, on the other hand, want to put the richest 1 percent in an ironclad lockbox so they can't hurt old people like Roberta Frampinhamper, who is here tonight. Mrs. Frampinhamper has been selling her internal organs, one by one, to pay for gas so that she can travel to these debates and personify problems for me. Also, her poodle has arthritis.

Lehrer: Gov. Bush, your rebuttal.

Bush: Governors are on the front lines every day, hugging people, crying with them, relieving suffering anywhere a photo opportunity exists. I want to empower those crying people to make their own decisions, unlike my opponent, whose mother is not Barbara Bush.

Lehrer: Let's turn to foreign affairs. Gov. Bush, if Slobodan Milosevic were to launch a bid to return to power in Yugoslavia, would you be able to pronounce his name?

Bush: The current administration had eight years to deal with that guy and didn't get it done. If I'm elected, the first thing I would do about that guy is have Dick Cheney confer with our allies. And then Dick would present me several options for dealing with that guy. And then Dick would tell me which one to choose. You know, as governor of Texas, I have to make tough foreign policy decisions every day about how we're going to deal with New Mexico.

Lehrer: Mr. Gore, your rebuttal.

Gore: Foreign policy is something I've always been keenly interested in. I served my country in Vietnam. I had an uncle who was a victim of poison gas in World War I. I myself lost a leg in the Franco-Prussian War. And when that war was over, I came home and tenderly made love to Tipper in a way that any undecided woman voter would find romantic. If I'm entrusted with the office of president, I pledge to deal knowledgeably with any threat, foreign or domestic, by putting it in an ironclad lockbox. Because the American people deserve a president who can comfort them with simple metaphors.

Lehrer: Vice President Gore, how would you reform the Social Security system?

Gore: It's a vital issue, Jim. That's why Joe Lieberman and I have proposed changing the laws of mathematics to allow us to give $50,000 to every senior citizen without having it cost the federal treasury a single penny until the year 2250. In addition, my budget commits $60 trillion over the next 10 years to guarantee that all senior citizens can have drugs delivered free to their homes every Monday by a federal employee who will also help them with the child-proof cap. > >>Lehrer: Gov. Bush?

Bush: That's fuzzy math. I know, because as governor of Texas, I have to do math every day. I have to add up the numbers and decide whether I'm going to fill potholes out on Rt. 36 east of Abilene or commit funds to reroof the sheep barn at the Texas state fairgrounds.

Lehrer: It's time for closing statements.

Gore: I'm my own man. I may not be the most exciting politician, but I will fight for the working families of America, in addition to turning the White House into a lusty pit of marital love for Tipper and me.

Bush: It's time to put aside the partisanship of the past by electing no one but Republicans.

Lehrer: Good night.

Here's something you may not have known you needed: the official federal list of all the recognized Indian tribes in the U.S. Maybe you're a teacher and your bright kids have whipped right through the states and their capitals. Have them memorize the Indian tribes. Don't say it can't be done.

I came across a site today where they complain that the recent Banned Books Week was a weak and spineless bit of windowdressing. It's easy to defend Tom Sawyer and the opposition to Of Mice and Men has never been serious, but why don't they try to defend something seriously offensive like ... well, you go there and you find out what they say. But what I say is Yes of course, the ALA's banned book week may be a bit diluted. Those librarian guys are just like you and me, working for a living, mostly thinking about what time lunch is, and when the next time sex might be had. They are not bomb tossers and 99.9% of them (maybe more) are totally sane.

I would tell you my moose turd pie story here, but it's not mine, and while I will abuse copyrights, I don't want to plagiarize. Suffice to say that if you don't like what someone else is doing, if you don't like what they are saying then YOU go out and you do it and say it better or different. Don't sit at your keyboard and whine that the ALA isn't taking care of your political needs.

Here's a weird site: The Payphone Project. Lists of payphones all over the U.S. Wanna make the payphone in front of the Coop in Harvard Square ring? The number's there. If you lack for hobbies you can become a collector and reporter of payphone numbers and locations. Pretend it's constructive. It can't be worse than trainspotting.

Wouldn't you know it, someone owns the domain jesus.com, but it's neither a church nor a Puerto Rican. Go see. Be offended.

How well have you been keeping God's laws? Not real sure? Go here and get an objective score.

Are you familiar with "Chick Publications?" You probably are, but may not recognize the name. Does this ring a bell?

Yes, this guy is still around and has a website! He runs his mail orders out of Ontario, California, of all places. VERY convenient!

But be ye not weak nor of poor faith, for there is a site for parodies of Chick. Go and be heartened! Especially check out "The Holy and the Homo."

Myanmar
I found out today that Rangoon has one cyber cafe, but it has no internet access! I'd like to include a link to its website here, but ya know...

Myanmar has one (1) ISP (mpt.net.mm). I went to their main page. Maybe some of you will be pleased to know that it has no advertising it, but it still has a banner.

You wanna feel paranoid? Go check out Echelon Watch! This is some of the most extremely paranoid stuff I've seen that I think might be real.

There is, I'm sure you're aware, "censorware" or "nannyware" that is supposed to filter out obscenity, pornography, hate speech, and so on. But it seems that all of it in practice is crudely executed and ineffective. There's more info about this at dfn.org but to illustrate, here are some words and phrases that will trigger some censorware (with some of these you may need to remove spaces and/or look for an embedded word):

• high
• Hillary Anne
• Dick
• bondage
• Heather
• www.plusexam.org
• www.accessexcellence.org
• Surplus Exchange
• cucumbers
• analyses hits
• gizmoo
• Essex
• pissanos.com
• golden
• mate
• homosexual (but not heterosexual)
• adult
• bitchy
• teen
• Fibonacci sequence (no discernible reason)
• scoop (no discernible reason)
• rum
• Scunthorpe
• analysis
• class
• Matsushita
• Babcock (although "Babpenis" was allowed)
• Dickinson
• Cummings
• Assissi

Microsoft Sucks - Again!
Who's in charge there? Ya gotta go check out this page: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q131/1/09.asp