Blog of Talmage 2003/4

Trackback me, baby, eight to the bar

Thanks to Georg, creator of PyDS, for explaining Trackback to me. It's a neat hack that provides notification between web sites. For example, if you make a comment about something on "Blog of Talmage", you can make the comment on your own blog and use the trackback URl from my article to give notice of your comment to my Blog.

See my first article on retrocomputing ( April 7, 2003 ) for a comment notification via trackback.

Apparently, I am French.

More on retrocomputing

On a NetBSD mailing list that I subscribe to, an author asked about interesting hardware on which he could run NetBSD . Among other things, I suggested that he try the VAX version of NetBSD on the VAX flavor of Bob Supnik's simh, the historical computer simulator.

Lo! and Behold! Clever Lars Brinkhoff is already doing it and he has provided detailed instructions for doing it yourself.

I just want to say that I tried it and it works! It took a long time to install NetBSD into the VAX emulator on my Toshiba Libretto L1 subnotebook but it was easy to do. The emulator runs NetBSD effortlessly.

Things to do in my copious free time:

• Install simh-vax + NetBSD port-vax on onespeeddave.com
• Install NetBSD port-amiga on the Universal Amiga Emulator on my Libretto

Genetic Engineering

I wondered why anyone would be against labeling foods that are genetically engineered. It seems to me that any consumer ought to be able to make an informed choice about the foods [s]he eats. Then I read the remainder of the article:

The full text of the bill reads:

1. A local government may not impose a requirement for the disclosure or display of information on a food label.
2. If a food is subject to a federal requirement for disclosing or displaying information on the label, a state agency may not impose a labeling requirement regarding the same information that is more stringent than the federal requirement.

Now it's looking like a states rights issue, where the state is voluntarily bowing to the national government.

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, we have the Dillon Rule (or rule of statutory construction). It limits the powers of the counties and cities to all and only those delegated to them by the General Assembly. Clause 1 appears to be the Oregon legislature asserting its right in that regard.

The Dillon Rule might prevent counties, cities, and towns from inflicting tyranny on their citizens but it doesn't prevent the Commonwealth from doing the same. For example, no municipality in Virginia may extend domestic partner benefits to the same-sex couples. Arlington County passed a law permitting it in 2002 only to have the court strike it under the Dillon Rule.

I think I'd rather take my chances with local tyranny than have the Dillon Rule remain the law of Virginia. There are ways such as local elections and the court system to combat local tyranny. Those avenues are open at the state level, to be sure, but it's harder to work because of the greater inertia of the state system.

For more about the Dillon Rule, see or http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/gov/omb/fcpos/Middle_School/11_dillon.pdf.

Regarding clause 2, why would a state voluntarily deny itself the right to require more stringent laws than the federal government? Is it an issue of commerce in the case of food? Would fewer companies ship their products to Oregon if they had to label in accordance with Oregon's stricter-than-national law? Or is it to avoid a morass of state laws, no two alike, that could lead to more label than product if taken to its logical extreme?

Librarians Join the Fight Against The Patriot Act

Go librarians!

According to the Patriot Act, public libraries must surrender information about their patrons to the FBI on request. It is a felony for them to refuse or to inform a patron that his records have been given to the FBI.

The "New York Times" article referenced on "Slashdot" tells of the actions of the Santa Cruz, CA, libraries: they are shredding discarded paperwork such as written requests to the reference desk and logs of computer users. Furthermore, they are informing patrons of the Library's responsibilities under Patriot Act.

The article doesn't say when a patron's borrowing record is purged. Fairfax County Public Library, my local library, has a public policy of the confidentiality of patron records. They destroy the borrowing records the books are returned.

A couple of the Slashdotters provided some interesting links in their comments on the Times article.

• Librarian.net for activism among librarians
• Signs I wish all libraries would display
• Registration-free version of the article. Apparently, http://archive.nytimes.com doesn't require registration. Substitute 'archive' for 'www' in Times URLs.

You might want to visit the American Library Association.

Anti-war Demonstration Repressed in Oakland

This is crazy: Police firing any kind of weapons at unarmed, peaceful protestors. According to reports you'll read in the article or articles it references, the projectiles were

• bags of beans
• wooden beads
• rubber bullets

The protesters said that they were on the dock to blockade American President Lines, a corporation that profits from the war. Because of the overreaction of the police, the ILWU have shut down the Oakland docks.

One of the articles recommends docummenting your injuries if you're assaulted during a demonstration.

I think the police reacted out of fear.

Retrocomputing

Wouldn't it be cool to have an Alto? Lots of people play with old hardware. It's called 'retrocomputing'. Take a look at Eric Smith's Retrocomputing page.

On onespeeddave.com , I have a PDP-11 simulator running BSD Unix. Feel free to ask for an account. E-mail me. Tell me your name, e-mail address, and what you'd like to do with your account on my faux PDP-11. Also tell me the userid you want on the PDP-11 and your initial password.

Xerox Alto Computer 30th Anniversary

Happy birthday, Alto! The Alto is what started it all. Apple's renditions of the Alto were the Lisa and the Mac. Microsoft Windows obviously borrows from the Alto.

Alan Kay's current project is Croquet.

9-year-old boy rides across the USA with his father

Nine-year-old Will Cushwa and and his father, Dave, are riding a semi-recumbant tandem from Los Angeles, CA, to Jacksonville, FLA. What an adventure! Along the way, they're raising money for two charities in Illinois.

I wish my dad and I could have done that when I was a boy. Neither Dad nor I was all that athletic when I was nine. Dad took me camping a lot with the Boy Scouts after I began the sixth grade. We went to summer camp for a week at a time with Troop 85 of Elsmere, NY. I don't think that my troop exists any more. It folded when I was a junior or senior in high school because our numbers had dwindled and I wasn't willing to take an active role in leadership. According to legend, my troop was created from Troop 58 when that troop grew too big.

Quote from the web site entry for 3/9/2003:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) Humorist and writer

I found this site while poking around the rumors on Bilenky Cycleworks.