February 2005 Archives

I have mentioned before how this website get thousands of hits every month for a photo I have posted. It's a doctored, phony photo of a ship sailing toward a hurricane. I have no idea where it came from, though it is obviously bogus.

I posted it because of all the times it was sent to me by people who were impressed with this amazing capture. They so wanted to believe. And, why would anyone post something so untrue?

The ship isn't the only phony photo. There's the one that surfaced shortly after 9/11 of a man standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Center with a jet heading directly toward him. There are so many things wrong with that photo, yet people believed.

Today we have the latest episode. An Arab website, aligned with the Iraqi insurrection, published a photo of a soldier. He had been kidnapped they said. The photo was sad to see. The soldier, a young black man, sat on a concrete floor, his hands behind his back. He was wearing a vest with some sort of ammunition. The website said he would soon be beheaded, unless the United States met their demands for prisoner release.

We have seen these photos before. Unfortunately, they are often the precursor to an actual beheading. But the Pentagon said they knew of no missing soldier.

The photo is a fraud.

What looked like a soldier is actually a doll. This is so strange, it's embarrassing.

In fact, looking at the package, the doll had been dressed in all the provided accessories. An automatic weapon pointed at his head was from the package too.

This story got lots of play earlier today - and this payoff will probably get play too. I'm more worried about what will happen in the Arab world.

I am told by a friend who is quite conversant in these things that al Jazeera will probably not admit this story was bogus - though they reported it all day. Saving face is very important and there's no upside to being wrong here.

Like the hurricane ship and the guy on the World Trade Center, there will be people who continue to believe this American soldier has been kidnapped and will die. And they will be pleased. What a shame.

I've just checked aljazeera.net. The story is nowhere to be found.

My first commercial flight was a trip from La Guardia Airport, New York to Boston's Logan Airport. It was sometime late in 1967 and I was flying to my interview at Emerson College.

There are few things I remember about that day. I remember (after it was over) thinking the interview was worthless. I remember riding the "T" from the airport into the city, transferring to an underground trolley for the final stop in Back Bay.

I also remember flying the Eastern Airlines Shuttle. If you don't remember it, click here for one of their classic print ads.

Back then the airline business was very different. It was heavily regulated, guaranteeing airlines a profit and little real competition. It was also very special. You didn't get on an airliner unless you were well dressed.

There was no security as we know it - no magnetometers or guards. Anyone could walk into the terminal. At Kennedy Airport there were even outdoor terraces where you could watch the planes as they came in and out. A coin operated radio was available to listen to the tower.

The Eastern Shuttle was something very different. If you walked up and paid your fare, you were guaranteed a seat. If the plane was full, they'd just roll out another one and put you on board.

That first flight¹, I flew on a 'student fare,' which has half off. That also put me at the back of the line as far as boarding was concerned. As it turned out, the flight was full.

True to its word, Eastern brought out another plane. Though the one I missed was a jet, the 'second section,' as they called it, was a Lockheed Electra - a four engine turboprop.

This is a long time ago, nearly forty years, but I do have some vivid memories.

There were only 3 or 4 of us on this plane. I remember looking down as we flew over the Connecticut countryside thinking how slow we were going! I expected more. I stared out the window at those engines with their spinning propellers.

I remember very little about the interior of the plane, except there was a step about halfway down the cabin. It seemed strange at the time, and does today, that the cabin's floor was not all at one level.

Oops - I almost forgot why I was writing this. It's in Wednesday's New York Times. The Shuttle, as I knew it, is no more.

Of course Eastern Airlines is gone. USAir, which runs what was the Eastern Shuttle stopped this policy a while ago. Delta, which runs what was Pan Am's route, doesn't have much choice. They're all bleeding money.

The days of dressing up to fly are long gone. And now, the era of walking up to the counter and knowing there would be a seat for you is also gone.

I think I paid $16 each way back in 1967. A walk up tomorrow for Delta Shuttle would be $488 round trip. I wonder how much longer that will last? How much longer will it be before Delta, USAir or United disappear?

¹ - I had flown in a 2 seater from Flushing Airport before this much more sophisticated trip.

There is unanimity of opinion. The Eagles will get blown out by the Patriots. As an Eagles fan this is disheartening.

Of course I choose not to believe that.

This opinion is widely held by the sports intelligencia but repeated by everyone who has ever seen a game... and many who haven't. People feel obliged, knowing I'm an Eagles fan, to make sure I know. Thanks.

I will say this. The mouthing off of Freddy Mitchell and Terrell Owens' possible return are both distractions. The Pats seem cool and collected while the Eagles are acting as if they've snuck into a bar with a phony ID.

It is surprising so many Connecticut residents are ready to back the Pats. Have people already forgotten how Robert Kraft played us like the discard in a high school love triangle? What he did to Connecticut was mean spirited, to say the least¹.

Luckily none of this matters. Only what happens on the field will be meaningful. I think (hope) the Eagles are up to the task.

¹ - Astoundingly, Governor Rowland's press release on this matter is still posted on the web. How could the highest officials in the state have been that naive?

With the winter soon over (isn't that nice?), we've decided to schedule a spring vacation. We enjoy Southern California, have been there many times, and have decided to go again.

There's a lot to be said about California. The weather that time of year is dependable. We have friends and relatives there. There's lots to do. As long as the ground doesn't shake too much, we'll be happy.

Planning a vacation is different now than it once was. There are so many ways to make reservations and plans. We wanted to get the best and pay the least. That makes sense.

But how do you know? You don't, is the simple answer! In fact, in many ways the best deals are structured in such a way as you know nothing - or close to nothing. You are buying blind.

Our plane reservations were a breeze. Southwest Airlines is very different from the other carriers as far as using free tickets is concerned. I can't imagine being able to get three tickets 'only' six weeks before a flight on USAir or United or Delta.

We're flying to Burbank¹ instead of LAX. Burbank should make for an easier arrival and departure. LAX can be totally crazy and I'd like to avoid that.

Hotel reservations were another story.

Helaine had perused hotwire.com and found pretty good prices in the area we wanted to stay. Of course they don't tell you what hotel it is they're advertising, so there has to be a great deal of trust in deciding if your idea of a 4.5 star hotel is the same as theirs.

After looking and searching and looking again, we decided on a hotel we thought was either the Century Plaza or Park Hyatt in Century City. Good guess. It was the Century Plaza. Even if you've never been to L.A., you've seen this hotel on TV. It has a very distinctive sweeping look.

We got it for half the price the hotel advertises - though a friend immediately told me he could have gotten it for less. Nothing is simple. Nothing is foolproof.

Next step is to start lining up the places we'll visit. That's where my friends come in. This is their department in their city. Last time in, my friend Paul got Steffie into the first row on American Idol. They are not without influence.

¹ - Burbank Airport was the actual location for the final scene of the movie Casablanca. Pretty much everywhere you drive in Southern California, you're going to come across something you recognize from the movies or TV.

Just a few minutes ago I got a 'phishing' email. You know the ones... update your PayPal password before we shut off your account. Of course it's just a way to 'phish' for your data.

The destination address was obscured by breaking it down into its component ASCII numbers instead of using letters. It looks like junk to us, but it's totally readable by your browser.

Normally, I just delete these, but I'm feeling good tonight and thought I'd break it down. It didn't take more than a few seconds to find the website, made to look like PayPal, where the data would be dropped.

Normally these are overseas - most often in China or Korea. Not tonight. The address led back to apollohosting.com in Austin, Texas. They have 24/7 tech support on line!

In the general scheme of things this was like changing deck chairs on the Titanic. Any 'phisher' worth his salt has numerous sites, probably paid for with stolen credit cards. At least I did my part.

Blogger's update - I just retunred to the site a moment ago and it's still there. Maybe I'm not so smart after all.

I can't believe the faux PayPal site is still up and running. I have dropped a note to Apollo Hosting to see if there's an explanation. This is very strange indeed. Apollo looks like a legitimate company. Why let this site remain up, possibly trapping innocent people?

Maybe they have an explanation?

Blogger's Addendum - This page sat with a brutal error for 363 days! "Phisher" had been spelled "Phiser" - making me #1 on Google if you happened to be searching for Phiser.

I just received a response from Apollo Hosting.

I have checked again. The site is gone. Wonder what took so long?

After Apollo Hosting took the phishing site down, I got another email.

Just curiosity... and too much free time, I suppose. I researched it while I was playing poker¹

The IT guy from Apollo went on to say

And, of course, I will.

You and I only see the tip of this iceberg. It is straining, not only web hosts, but credit card companies, businesses and people who get scammed and watch their lives get turned upside down.

¹ - $20+$2 tournament - came in 2nd for $36... or $14 net winnings.

Wow - what a game. I thought the Eagles would be able to pull it out, but you know... Hold on. Let me double check. Oops - they haven't played the game yet.

I am a lot more sensitized to the predictions this time around. After all I am a nearly 30 year Eagles fan. But, c'mon! Everything I read, everyone I watch, all say the same thing... and it isn't what I want to hear.

The Vegas line puts the Eagles as a one touchdown underdog, but Las Vegas is probably the most charitable place on Earth for the Eagles this week!

This is the best Eagles team I have ever seen. They make very few mistakes. They are focused. There's no doubt they have top notch players and an excellent coaching staff. People are selling them short.

I can't guarantee they'll win. In fact, I won't be surprised at the outcome no matter which way it goes. I just want people to stop talking as if it were the Patriots versus some walk-on squad for a scrimmage.

There must be some reason they play the game.

I went out to dinner last night with Noah Finz. He's our sports director at the station, a very nice and smart guy, but a technophobe.

We got to talking about where technology is going, especially as it concerns communications. I was surprised at how interested he was... or how well he feigned interest.

With that in mind, I thought I'd write a little about where I see things going. Please remember, the past has taught us it's really tough to accurately predict the future. This is even tougher than weather prediction because this part of the future will not replicate past events. And, remember these predictions are coming from someone who loves technology. I'm trying to hold back my bias.

To me, the key to the future is not in speedier processors nor more memory and storage, though certainly those things will enter the picture. The big deal is bandwidth. It is the 500 pound gorilla in the room.

Bandwidth limitations is why you 'only' receive 150 TV channels. Bandwidth bottlenecks are why your computer often waits while it is plucking data off websites or the Real player takes so much time caching those first few seconds of video before it starts to play.

With enough bandwidth, television can become a one to one medium - unlimited video on demand. Any show or any video source can be run when you want it. Desperate Housewives Tuesday at 8:41 AM. Why Not?

Already, even if you're not in their home market, you can still watch your favorite baseball team play, because nearly all the games are available over the Internet. CPTV, here in Connecticut, sells a package of UCONN women's basketball games for out-of-towners with high speed Internet access.

The radically changes the paradigm of commercial television. Without a mass audience watching the same commercial at the same time, television begins to lose its unique sales appeal. There will have to be another way to pay for this.

It could be commercials, maybe a subscription, or maybe both. We're not limited by what we've seen in the past. Sending video as a digital stream rather than analog allows for the integration of other info.

This ability to receive the programming you want, when you want it, will turn television into a narrowcast medium rather than its current broadcast model. There is a demand for shows on knitting or cars or computers or... well you get the idea. Those sharply targeted programs¹ will steal audience from today's broadcasts.

In the pre-cable days there were a lot of shows that, today, look like they were 'going through the motions' to fill the time. I'm afraid we'll look back at what's on TV now in the same way, as soon as the floodgates open in this new communications world.

The days of high production cost TV production are limited. Gresham's economic laws will be seen affecting TV. We're already seeing some of that as networks run more 'cheaper to produce' reality shows and re-run more of primetime TV.

Is there a long term viable business model for shot-on-film hour long dramas? I'm not sure.

Today, local television stations serve two general purposes. They produce and distribute local programming, like news, and they act as a distribution channel for nationally networked and syndicated shows. With video on demand, I can't see why these program producers will need local stations.

Local stations will be forced to be local stations. Those who don't will be marginalized out of profitability. This has happened in radio over the last 40 years.

That doesn't mean the economic model of local TV is gone. It just means stations will have to better understand how to produce more content for local consumption. I also think they'll have to shift their focus from producing programming to fill their air time to being producers of programming for anyone who will distribute it.

Today's TV stations will have to turn out video streams the way Chinese companies, like Twinhead, turn out laptops. The majority of Twinhead's products are produced for others with other people's brands on them. You might be using one now, with no way to tell. Twinhead's expertise is production... as is today's TV stations.

A newspaper in Wilmington, DE is already producing video webcasts of local news. The New York Times is expanding their multimedia content online. I think, in the mature model, newspapers will provide the news and a company with video production expertise will package it for them.

All this is happening and we haven't even hit our stride as far as bandwidth is concerned. My cable modem at home now brings in data nearly three times as fast as it did a year or two ago. It's getting to the point where it will soon become faster than my home network can handle!

The price of this bandwidth will do nothing but fall for the foreseeable future. There are many factors at work here.

First, there is the onrush of technology which promises to deliver bandwidth wirelessly. That should add another level of competition for the cable and legacy phone companies.

Next, there is a vast network of 'dark' fiber - glass lines that have loads of capacity but have never been used. My guess is, the intercity capacity of unlit fiber is a multiple of what's currently in use.

The people who really need to be worried are the incumbent wireline phone companies. More bandwidth is their enemy. Already they are facing competition from broadband VOIP companies like Vonage, with cable companies jumping in.

When there are wireless access 'clouds' of connectivity over most areas, portable VOIP phones will trump cellular and wired phone networks with cheap and probably unmetered, flat rate, phone service.

It is a very exciting, very different world of telecommunications that's right around the corner.

¹ - I am having trouble using the word program here because it describes something that might not be. When content becomes very narrow and the viewer becomes very focused on its content, the formality of a 'program' may vanish altogether.

I'll admit it. For the first time ever, the Super Bowl has really gotten me. It is driving me nuts. I had trouble getting to sleep because I was thinking, and worrying, about it and the Eagles.

It will be a shame to have come this far without getting a win. But nearly everyone says a win for the Eagles is out of the question.

Of course for die hard fans, hope springs eternal. We see all the good, none of the bad.

Six thirty can't come soon enough. I don't want any more 'pre.' I want it to happen. I want it to be over. I want to be able to celebrate.

The Super Bowl is over. The Eagles lost. It is sad for the Fox family.

We sat together through most of the game. When things got somewhat out of control in the 4th quarter, Helaine went upstairs to watch by herself with the sound turned down. We all got back together after the Eagles brought it within three points. It was too late.

I'm sure I'll have something to say later. Right now, I'm going to try and concentrate on happier things... like watching a lecture in my thermodynamics course.

If I hadn't double checked the routing, I wouldn't have believed the email I just received from ebay was real. After all, who is 'spoofed' more than ebay? But it looks like they're making some major structural changes in the way they deal with their customers.

This includes:

Wow!

However, don't read everything at its simplistic face value. When they say:

Still, this seems to be movement in the right direction. I'm not sure what moved them from their prior position of being aloof and tough to reach, but I'm glad. Now all they have to do is take a little more responsibility with fraud protection.

This is much too painful to talk about - much. I'm not sure if the season wouldn't have been easier to take had the Eagles gone down in an earlier round.

As someone who has watched Philadelphia play all season, I can tell you the team out there last night was not indicative of what I had come to know. I'm not talking about forced errors by the Patriots. It's really all about McNabb's inability to accurately pass.

Maybe it was jitters. I would be nuts under a similar circumstance.

What was astounding for the Eagles was the performance of Terrell Owens. I can't say enough about how much of a gamer he was, especially coming back with pins and a plate in his ankle.

On the other hand, I wonder if we'll ever see Todd Pinkston as an Eagle again. He left last night injured, but how injured? This season, it seems he has avoided contact.

After the Super Bowl, I sad the McNabb I saw was not the McNabb I had watched all season. Something was different - and it wasn't something forced by the Pats.

Now there's this:

It really doesn't make any difference. The Eagles still lost the Super Bowl. Now the question is, what happens next year?

I just got the tip on this tonight. Something news from Google and it's very cool. They have added their own maps site.

As I remember, until today, entering an address in Google would bring you links to other map sites. Now Google does it themselves... or at least brands it as their own.

The big difference is, this is the first map site that seems designed for higher resolution screens and broadband. There are no little cluttered maps to be found. These are the nicest looking street level maps I've seen on the web.

Here's an example - a map of where I grew up in Queens, and directions from there to my TV station.

If you point and drag, the map follows your mouse. If you click on any part of a trip's directions a new close-up map appears. It's quite elegant.

From a web standpoint, the specific information for any map is easily coded into its web address, making this a boon for web designers. On the other hand, it looks like the right mouse button is turned off while you're over a map making it difficult to 'scrape' their content.

There's a storm coming, beginning tonight. It's a forecasting challenge and I've really sweated this one. Depending on where in the state you are, you will see radically different weather.

Normally, I don't second guess myself by looking at the competition¹. But, this morning when I woke up, as I was tuning around on the TV, I hit the Weather Channel in mid-forecast.

I'm sure this isn't what they meant to put on the screen. It is what you can get if there aren't actual humans watching what goes out on the air... and with their local forecast, there aren't people watching at the local level.

I feel bad for their viewers who tuned in to see the forecast.

¹ - Maybe this statement isn't 100% true. I do read the Weather Service's technical discussions which are often very well thought out, insightful and hint at what their actual forecasts will say. I seldom see the forecasts themselves.

It didn't snow today. Oh, it will later - but that's too little too late.

Yesterday, in the face of reality wildly deviating from my previous forecast, I was forced to change snow to rain. Sure they're both storms, but this is like going from the Enquirer to the Times.

On the air I stepped up and admitted the radical shift. I'm not sure I've ever hidden from that kind of mea culpa, but I can understand why some forecasters do it. I think viewers are more likely to forgive if I take responsibility... just as long as I don't do it too often.

In the past, I've read technical forecast discussions where consistency is talked about... as in leaving a wrong forecast up for one more cycle because the new data isn't consistent with the old data. That I don't understand.

In thinking about what transpired, as I write this entry, I realize my own expectations for accuracy have changed. This forecast change was made long before the onset of the precipitation. It was Wednesday and the snowiest and stormiest weather was never expected before Thursday. Five or ten years ago, that correction would have been a coup.

I can't quantify it exactly, but I think what I used to expect in 1-day accuracy is now what I expect two days out.

Where have I gone wrong? I kid around when I make speeches to organizations. "We know the laws of physics. They are inviolate. So I'll never make a mistake." Cue the laughter.

What upsets me is how far off the temperatures were above the ground, especially in the two to thousand foot level. That was really what changed this from a snow to rain event. The rain snow line was way north - into central New England, not along the Connecticut shoreline.

Yesterday, a few friends and co-workers consoled me. "Everyone" had gotten it wrong - not just me. As far as that goes, it was nice of them to say. It is, however, no consolation at all. I want to be (and I'm sure I'm not alone) better than the others, with more insight into the future. Getting it right or wrong is an individual thing, not a group effort.

Anyway, the good thing about forecasting is, I get to go back and try again today.

At some point I will look back, or read some scholarly retrospective on this or a similar storm, and have a "Eureka¹" moment where it will all make sense. Right now, it does not.

¹ - I have used the phrase "Eureka moment" before, and realize not everyone knows where it comes from or why it's fitting. "Eureka" was the word supposedly exclaimed by Archimedes when he discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular solid and, in doing so, determine the purity of a gold object. It was a scientific breakthrough that opened the door for more in the future.

I read an interesting story on news.com about a plan for Steve Wynn's new casino in Las Vegas. The gambling chips will each contain an RFID chip.

RFID or radio frequency identification is the technology that allows E-ZPass customers to drive through tollbooths without stopping and enables Mobil's Speedpass. A sensor 'polls' the RFID chip which responds with its serial number, vouching for its authenticity.

Putting RFID casino chips is an interesting concept since it allows the casino to watch for fraud much more easily. It also lets casinos do a much better job of tracking players.

I'm not sure I like this much scrutiny of my actions. I'm not sure I like carrying something in my pocket that could very well broadcast who I am, where I am and what I did.

It is not a simple black and white proposition. There are both good and bad points to be made.

I thought this would be an interesting topic for Slashdot: "News for Nerds."

I emailed a little write-up and it was quickly accepted for posting. There was only one problem. The editor added his own comments after mine, and to me, they looked las if I was still speaking. They were words and thoughts I didn't feel and wouldn't wouldn't say.

Starting with the word "Having," it's the editor and not me speaking. On the Slashdot entry my words are in italics, his are not. Regular Slashdot readers might see that distinction. I did not - and I go to Slashdot everyday.

It's an interesting concept, and I'm glad to get the story on. I just hope no one is confused.

I called my friend Wendie this afternoon. She must have already been on the phone because her voicemail picked up before the first ring.

I can't remember all of her outgoing message, but I do remember how it ends. If you need to speak to someone at the assignment desk, "press zero and then pound on your phone."

Pound on your phone! How cruel to the little telephone.

This is now the 21st century equivalent of, "Eat And Get Gas."

On the right side of this web page is... well, is too much, I have too much there. That aside for a moment, there is a listing of the current conditions from Connecticut's official weather reporting sites. Our wind is currently gusting at 25-35 mph.

You can hear it whistling through tiny spaces in the house. You can hear the rustle outside as anything not tied down flies down the street.

Today is also trash day.

Last night Helaine took our three trash cans to the curb. This morning, before dawn, they were emptied and left about where they were.

When she went to retrieve them there were three cans but now only two lids.

It's possible we'll find that third lid. It, like those shoes you see along the side of a road, has tried to escape in the past. It has hidden in the tall grass until someone went and fetched it. It has come close to the end of our street and freedom.

Let's say, for the sake of this entry, we don't find the lid. How do you get rid of a trash can? You can't just leave it at the curb - they'd never understand. I think it might well be impossible to dispose of a trash can without some form of disguise for it.

We'd better find the lid or be stuck with one empty can for the rest of our lives.

I found the trash can lid along the side of our street, in the grass, under a prickly bush. Like a scene out of Good Fellas it is now immobilized in my trunk.

I took Helaine on a date this afternoon. The idea was a romantic movie... I know, 3:30 PM, how romantic could it be?

We headed down to North Haven to see "Hitch," the new movie with Will Smith and Kevin James. More on that in a minute.

I wanted coffee, but I felt it would be uncool to bring a container of Dunkin' Donuts coffee (my favorite) into the theater - plus, I had seen coffee there before.

Bzzzz. Wrong! No coffee.

Instead, I ended up paying $4 for a large Diet Pepsi. $4! A 2-liter bottle costs 99¢.

I admit it. I am the fool here. I'm the one who paid the $4... and didn't get my coffee to boot.

On the other hand, though movie tickets now cost $9.50, we got ours for $6. This is one of those strange, hidden benefits of being a AAA member. Yes, you have to buy them in advance, but they don't go bad (or if they do, they do it slowly enough that it's never been a problem).

The newspaper said the movie was scheduled to start at 3:30. Not quite. Between a few commercials, promos and coming attractions, it didn't get starting until sometime after 3:45 PM.

Hitch is the story of Will Smith, a relationship counselor. He takes hapless schlemiels, like I was when I was single, and gives them the advice necessary to meet the woman of their dreams.

His clients are sweet and earnest, though not classic catches. He is principled - the unexpected attribute for someone in that line of work, and the pivotal element creating the emotional tension that carries the movie.

Ask me what Will Smith does for a living? He is charming for a living. Sure, he acts... but he's always acting as Will Smith being charming. There is a very good living doing that - obviously. And, quite honestly, it is a role I enjoy seeing.

His main pupil through the film is Kevin James, an accountant in love with a beautiful heiress who is a client of his firm. He lives a life where they are physically near each other, but she never see him.

In this movie, Kevin James was my surprise. I know he's a comedian, has a successful sitcom (which I've never watched), and does a pretty good Jackie Gleason. He was very good.

Kevin James strongest point, was he never overwhelmed the character he played. It was never over the top. This was a nice guy, a good guy, not a beautiful guy.

His restrained physical comedy combined with his timing and interplay with Will Smith are what made the movie for me.

Smith and James love interests, Eva Mendes and Amber Valletta, are pretty and appropriate, but it's the two guys and New York City that carry the weight here. New York is an integral part of the story and I am glad to see it playing itself instead of seeing Toronto or Vancouver as some wimpy New York wannabe.

The city was portrayed with the same kind of loving charm that Woody Allen brought to Annie Hall and Manhattan.

Even at 4:30 in the afternoon, this was a great date movie. We both loved it. It will be huge at the box office.

Blogger's note - This is entry 1,000 in my blog. It is a milestone I never thought about... never expected. Thanks again for stopping by to read my words and thoughts.

I turned on the computer this morning and found this email:

Dan is right. Luckily I have some protection, making the job of removal easier than it could have been. I use a program that allows me to cut off comments after a certain number of days. I must run it manually... and it's not my first choice to ever cut off comments. So, only the last 10-12 days were hit. Unfortunately, each was hit multiple times.

This was also a more sophisticated method of "comment spamming." The links had only been registered in the last day or two. There were dozens of them. They all led back to a very nicely designed, benign looking home page. There were even flowers on it! It was the same exact page design on each individual site.

Looking at the links in the comment spam gave you a better idea of what was going on. The links were to inside pages and contained an embedded user name and password.

So, it seems, this spammer was trying to pick up money by sending people to sites that use affiliate marketing. And he was able to 'tag' each link with his user name so he could get paid.

Instead of selling something himself, he was selling traffic to other sites.

This is very sophisticated. The fact that these spam comments came with so many different domains and in such a random fashion, shows decent programming skills and planning. The homepage on each site (which was not meant to be seen, except randomly) was also well designed.

I'm afraid this is not the last of this character.

I am working tonight, so I can't watch "Boston Legal" as it airs. It is on here at work¹, and I keep seeing it in monitors as I move around.

I am pleased to see Henry Gibson on tonight's show. It looks like he's playing a judge, but with the sound down, who can know for sure.

What makes Henry Gibson so interesting is, you can't say his name without saying "Laugh In," and that show hasn't been on TV in over 30 years (1968 - 1973)! That his name is so well known, even now, might have something to do with his poems, which began, "A poem, by Henry Gibson." So, he was not only seen, but identified by name.

I wonder if he minds being remembered this way and if, over time, "Laugh In" has been good or bad for his career?

¹ - One of the seldom mentioned benefits of working at a TV station is virtually everyone has a TV at their desk.

I am now in my eighth of nine semesters of broadcast meteorology at Mississippi State University. Other than driving through, I've never been to Mississippi. Even then, I've never been to Starkville¹, home of MSU.

Of all the school courses I've ever taken, going all the way back to 1955, I am currently taking the toughest - Thermodynamics. It's heavy on theory, often using examples that don't or can't exist in the real world.

I've always been good at looking a theoretical problems from a real world perspective and using that to shape my understanding. So far in this course, that doesn't work.

I will pass this course. In fact, I hope to do well in this course. The first homework test was a killer - exceptionally tough. Because it was a homework test, I had unlimited amounts of time to formulate my answers to the questions before I opened up the timed portion, I was able to get a 96%.

Trust me, it was still crushingly difficult. I'm petrified about the midterm which is timed but without the opportunity to answer the questions in advance.

This is one course where there would be an obvious benefit to being in a classroom where I could raise my hand and say, "What the hell are you talking about?" Getting my lectures on DVD makes that impossible.

I'm not sure where my knowledge of thermodynamics will lead. There is probably a good purpose for this which will become obvious later... or not. Sometimes a school's curriculum just doesn't make sense. The academic and professional worlds are often far apart.

I have become more sensitive to this course and others I've taken, because of a proposed law in Texas. I'm not going to fool you, this proposition is already dead. Still, the fact that someone tried to push it through is pretty upsetting to me.

Under this proposed legislation, my 53 college level credits in meteorology and related subjects would mean nothing! Behind the scenes, it looks like this was pushed by a degreed meteorologist who didn't feel my coursework was enough... and probably didn't want to compete with the likes of me.

There is no doubt I am a biased observer. However, I can say absolutely, this course will give me enough knowledge to call myself a meteorologist and much more knowledge than I'll ever need to be on TV. It was actually devised to pass the scrutiny of the American Meteorological Society and their Broadcast Seal program. Like academia, the AMS is also sometimes out of touch with the professional world.

When I first started the course, my wife asked if I had learned anything new. When I said yes, she asked, "How important could it be if you didn't need it for the last 20 years?"

This summer, after all my courses are finished, I will head to Birmingham, AL². Birmingham in August - pinch me.

After a few days of on-site seminar lectures I will be done with my schooling. Hopefully no one else will make an end around and try to change the rules.

¹ - Here's a town name right up there with Marblehead, MA and Peculiar, MO. Starkville is, I would assume, the opposite of Pleasantville. At some point someone looked at what surrounded him and the best word to describe it was, "stark!" Or, it's named after someone whose last name was Stark... though my explanation is so much more fun.

² - Birmingham is being used because of the size of our group. In some ways I'm disappointed. Who wants to finish their college career without once seeing the campus?

If God is good, Steffie will inherit Helaine's teeth and not mine. I'm not sure where else there is to work in my mouth. My fillings must have fillings by now.

A few months ago I had a root canal performed. Now comes the next stage - a crown.

I'm not sure why, but I made an 'early' morning appointment. OK, 10:30 AM is only early morning for me!

I like my dentist. There's really no way for me to judge his work. I hope he's good at it. I sense he is because he's smart, methodical and organized.

Really, the only way to know is if another dentist says, "don't go there anymore." I speak from real world experience in this regard, because it happened to me.

I had become friendly with a dentist and started having lunch with him and his friends - all dentists. One day at lunch one of them took me aside. He knew who I had been seeing (not my friend by the way). He said I should never return to that office again... that the dentist was a "butcher."

Yikes! That was one scary conversation. But I wouldn't have known had I not been tipped off.

I figured today's procedure would be simple. Take a mold. Make a crown. Then I looked down. In the dentist's hand was a syringe. I was about to get shot.

Maybe it's my experience, or maybe the doctor's skill, or where in the mouth it went, but the shot wasn't that bad. Sure, no one likes to have part of their mouth temporarily paralyzed, but I'll put up with it. What choice did I have?

This is but half the battle. I only have a temporary crown. Next time it's the real deal.

Soupy Sales was right. Be true to your teeth or they'll be false to you.

Over the past few days I've been thinking a lot about the aggregation of information. How databases are compiled and kept on all of us.

I think most people understand their credit histories are sequestered somewhere, but not the rest of what gets kept. So much of what we do now is digitally linked. Use a credit card or a cellphone, buy airline tickets, even go to the grocery store, there's a record.

I read in an article where it's claimed Wal-Mart can recreate your sales receipt from any purchase made there. That's each individual item associated with you, your credit card, the time, location - everything. They keep the data because the data is valuable to them.

We are now entering an era where even more data will be kept.

In my car is an E-ZPass. It lets me buzz through toll booths without stopping. The little plastic rectangle is silently polled and responds to an unseen sensor. My Mobil Speedpass works the same way. I carry it with my keys. I hope the only time it's polled is when I'm getting gas, but I just don't know.

Speedpass and E-ZPass both use RFID technology. There's a little transponder in the device which listens and identifies itself. These two examples are not where RFID will end. The U.S. Customs Service has proposed putting RFID chips in passports. Some cars use them to verify the authenticity of an ignition key.

The use of these devices can be to our benefit. Speedier, more accurate payment. Who wouldn't want that? But, there's no way for us to know they've been polled... and who has polled them.

The data from any of these sources, by itself, is mostly harmless. But when all of these (and more I haven't thought of) are put together, the implications are huge.

How much about yourself do you want known and by whom? Our laws are pretty well defined in this regard. Data does not belong to the person described. It belongs to the aggregator - the person doing the collecting.

That's why newspapers and TV stations can print accounts of ballgames or speeches. The person producing the information is not in control - the person compiling the information has the rights.

That's one reason a news story from a few days ago is so important and scary.

ChoicePoint ended up telling 35,000 California residents their personal information was divulged. I'm not sure if there are more... though there probably are. California has disclosure laws which made the notifications necessary. They are the only state that does!

Here's part of what ChoicePoint has said:

I am upset that there are "legitimate businesses" who can buy all this information. If it were my choice, I wouldn't want anyone to have my Social Security number and the other information without asking me first. It's not my choice.

Worse than upset, I am incensed that ChoicePoint took so little care that people 'posing' at legitimate businesses were able to walk off with it. Here's their full press release on the subject.

Still, you have to wonder how much care they took... how much checking was done to confirm the legitimacy of these clients of theirs. It is more expensive to protect information on me than not - or to protect it thoroughly.

Let's take all of this where it might logically go. Certainly the fear of identity theft is there. After twenty plus years together, Helaine and I have a great credit history that any crook would want to steal.

There are other uses which, while not as shady, are troubling. You apply for a job. The prospective employer looks and sees you take some prescription drug... or maybe sees someone in your family died before their time because of an illness. Might that prospective employer make a decision based on your impact on his insurance premiums? Is that ethically right?

Meanwhile, the ChoicePoint theft is not an isolated instance. Information is power, and money, and people will try and get to it. From today's L.A. Times:

Will I ever have control of the information on me? Will there be protection against disclosure without my permission, as I believe there is in medicine? I doubt it. Or, if protections are afforded, they will be weak.

It is likely the people on whom these electronic dossiers are kept are the least represented parties in this affair.

Earlier this evening, while writing my entry about the data improperly revealed to scammers by ChoicePoint, I suspected there were more involved than the original 35,000 Californians they admitted to. There are.

MSNBC has been way out in front on this story. Here's their follow-up.

I was sitting at my desk when the Instant Messenger window opened up. It was Dave Brody. He had been our executive producer at SciFi when I hosted Inside Space.

Dave was excited about an announcement that had been made and exclusively reported by space.com, where he now works:

Here's the full space.com story if you're interested. Dave and I have been through similar announcements before; specifically the Allen Hills Meteorite ALH84001¹.

It is because of Dave that I actually got to hold that meteorite, safely sealed in a controlled environment, through a port in my rubber gloved hands

It would be astounding if life were actually found today, living on Mars. But hold on. To quote George Harrison, "What Is Life?" What these scientists consider life and what you and I probably think of when we hear the word are totally different.

I typed something like that back to Dave, who replied with his best read on what the first extraterrestrial life discovered might be. "Pond scum. Extremeophile² Pond Scum."

When scientists start talking about extraterrestrial life, they're not talking about ET! They're thinking about forms of life that I consider more chemistry that biology.

Still, Dave has a very important point that applies... even to the most rudimentary forms of life. "If it has our DNA, it means "they is us" (as Pogo once said)."

He's right. I guess, that changes everything.

¹ - From Wikipedia - A 4500-million-year-old meteorite found in the Allen Hills of Antarctica (ALH84001). Ejection from Mars seems to have taken place about 16 million years ago. Arrival on Earth was about 13000 years ago. Cracks in the rock appear to have filled with carbonate materials between 4000 and 3600 million years ago. Evidence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been identified with the levels increasing away from the surface. Other antarctic meteorites do not contain PAHs. Earthly contamination should presumably be highest at the surface. Several minerals in the crack fill are deposited in phases, specifically, iron deposited as magnetite, that are claimed to be typical of biodepositation on Earth. There are also small ovoid and tubular structures that might possibly be nanobacteria fossils in carbonate material in crack fills (investigators McKay, Gibson, Thomas-Keprta, Zare). Micropaleontologist Schopf, who described several important terrestrial bacterial assemblages, examined ALH84001 and opined that the structures are too small to be Earthly bacteria and don't look especially like lifeforms to him. The size of the objects is consistent with Earthly "nanobacteria", but the existence of nanobacteria itself is controversial.

² - Extremeophile seems to be an alternate spelling for extremophile.
An extremophile is an organism, usually unicellular, which thrives in or requires "extreme" conditions. The definition of "extreme" is anthropocentric, of course. To the organism itself its environment is completely normal. Non-extremophilic organisms are called mesophiles.

I'm still playing poker, and currently doing pretty well. From time-to-time I'm also playing Scrabble online.

This is a really different animal. There is no pretense of a friendly game. You are playing against others who know what they're doing and usually do it well.

My 'sweet spot' is a 10 minute per side game. I had (until tonight) done pretty well at it. My rating, which had gone to the low 500's was around 625. After three awful losses, it's 600.

Tonight's first game was a four minute game. What was I thinking? Four minutes per side to go through all the tiles. And, if you thought quickly, but not accurately, there were challenges.

Ask the man who was challenged... and lost.

Here's the part that will sound odd. When played for speed against good players, this is a very exciting game! There is no time to screw around. There is no time to think. You'd better memorize as many little words and connector words as you can.

At the moment, I'm 44-52 with a 286 point per game score. Many of the losses came early on. I will get better.

50 Cent, the former drug dealer, hopefully former thug and current rap multimillionaire, threw a party last night at his mansion in Farmington last night. My invitation must have gotten misplaced.

This was a major deal. Lots of ink, lots of air time.

A friend, one of many, at a Hartford radio station sent me this.

With all the RIAA kvetching of the past few years, I can't believe how much money there still is to be made in recordings. Call me old - I just don't want to say music in this case.

Yesterday I wrote about the announcement that two NASA scientists were ready to publish a paper claiming live may currently exist on Mars. Today, it's a different story. From MSNBC:

If this were a 'real' news site, I'd never say this. But, since this is nothing more than a venue for my opinions, I'll say it. This so smells of politics!

Friends, closer to NASA than I am, say they've already heard chatter from others that this speculation was quashed from above. Again, in real news this third hand info should never see the light of day... and I'm telling you know I have this on very shaky authority.

Still, based on whatever experience I have, something doesn't smell right.

In the late 60s, one of my favorite pastimes was listening to albums from the Firesign Theater. I'm not sure how to explain them... nor if it's possible.

My Cousin Michael just told me he tried to play one of their albums for his wife, Melissa. She took to them the way most woman become Three Stooges fans. It was painful.

Sometimes their routines were peppered with what I thought was nonsense words. For instance, from "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?"

I had not thought of the far-flung Isles of Langerhans for twenty years... maybe more. And then, it all came rushing back at me, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

Sorry - that's their line, from Nick Danger.

From the New York Times:

You're kidding! I can't believe they worked pathology into their albums. These guys were good.

I would be doing much better at poker if I didn't play any multi table tournaments. Of course they're very enticing because it's possible to win a lot with very little at risk. On the other hand, it's really tough to make it to the few who get paid. Even then, the payouts are heavily weighted to the first three finishers.

It doesn't happen often... certainly not for me.

For the past three nights I've been playing in a $3 + rebuy tournament. It looks like it should only cost $3 - and it could. Realistically it costs $9. For many people it costs even more.

As long as you have the $1500 in tournament chips (what you're given to start) you can rebuy another $1500 in chips for $3. So, as soon as I start, I rebuy. That way, if I should win the first hand, making me intelligible to rebuy, I'm already set.

At the end of the first hour you can 'add-on'. That's $2000 more in tournament chips for $3.

In tonight's 11:59 PM tournament 646 entered. There were 1305 rebuys¹ and 367 add-ons for a total prize pool of $6,954. That number is in real dollars, not tournament chips.

Unlike most tournaments, in this one the prize, which went to the top 32 finishers, was an entry into another tournament. The entry is valued at $215 in a weekly tournament guaranteed to pay out at least $350,000!

These tournaments are interesting because there are waves of different play as the field is whittled down. If you're in 25th place with 35 players left, do you dare risk busting out... even with Aces? There's really no advantage to finishing high once you're in the money.

Tonight, I played for 4:31, squeaking in and winning one of the 32entries. It was tough play and I was tempted more than once toward the end to go in with a good hand. I resisted.

As exciting as the $350,000 tournament sounds - it's a bit rich for me. I've already taken the $215 entry fee and put it back in my account where it will pay for a lot of much smaller games.

¹ - If you bust during the first hour, you can rebuy. Because of that, a lot of people play recklessly in the first hour, hoping to double or triple their chips..

I went to dinner by myself last night. Helaine and Steffie are away. At work all the usual suspects were otherwise engaged. I headed to the Greek Olive.

After my omelet, I schmoozed a little with Tony, the owner. Somehow we got to talking about computers and he showed me an old laptop he had which he had been told was incapable of going on the Internet.

Sheesh! This is such a big crock. The amount of money spent on new hardware for little purpose amazes me. Usually it's a machine that has slowed down. The owner figures it's worn out. It doesn't work that way.

There's no doubt, in today's environment this machine is slow. But, for Internet surfing and reading email, it's fine. Well, it's nearly fine. It needs about $20 in additional memory. I'll get to that in a minute.

To me, seeing an unused computer is like having a puppy follow me home. I am unable to help myself.

The first thing I normally do is look for the computer online to see if anyone else has any advice which will make my job easier. A label on the cover says "Viva Book Hand Technologies." That was worthless. Nothing showed up on Google.

Imagine how obscure a laptop must be to not even show on Google! After all, this is Google, where even typos can bring thousands of hits.

The bottom panel of the laptop had a little more info, including the FCC ID number. That wasn't much help, but it was some. The manufacturer, long since gone, was located in Taiwan. The laptop had been sold under a few names including ILUFA and Chaplet as the M175.

It has an AMD K6 processor running at 300 mHz. There is 32 mb of RAM. That's very little (which is why I'll order Tony some more). The hard drive is 3 GB. That's tiny, but only if this machine is going to be loaded with programs. As a barebones mail and web machine, 3 GB will suffice.

I copied the license information down and reloaded the operating system from scratch. Then I went to Microsoft and ran all the updates.

Though the laptop is the computing equivalent of one of my Dell laptops, it was very sluggish. I 'borrowed' a 64 MB memory stick and threw it in. Still sluggish.

When I scrolled the screen it was painfully slow. Text rippled from top to bottom instead of smooth motion. That is a warning sign that the video driver is no good. I went to the Device Manager in the Control Panel and, sure enough, a generic video driver was being used and a warning was posted.

I installed Belarc adviser, an excellent program that scans and reports on your hardware and software. It could identify the video system. Then I looked at what was being reported to Windows. Just some gibberish and coded data that I couldn't uncode.

If the manufacturer were still alive... or if this had been a popular model, I'd be able to go to school based on other people's queries. There was nothing.

I went to Drivershq, loaded up their Driver Detective and hoped for the best. Bingo! The video system was an old Chips and Technologies device. C&T doesn't exist anymore, but their drivers live on.

Before long I had the drivers going and the screen responding pretty quickly. Make no mistake. This is not a speedy machine. It's an 'it will do' machine.

Right now, I'm finishing up by installing Flash, Java, Adobe Reader and a few other things Tony will need. Then I'll go back and 'strip' the operating system, turning off programs and services he doesn't really need which only serve to make a system like this more slovenly than it needs to be.

This will never be a P4 3.8 gHz machine - but it doesn't need to be. On the Information Superhighway it's a 1996 Chevy Cavalier - and most of the time that's plenty.

When you're a fan... a rabid fan... you will move heaven and Earth. I guess that's the best way to put Helaine and Stef's trip to Rockford, Illinois into perspective. They are rabid Rick Springfield fans. You remember, the Jessie's Girl, Don't Talk to Strangers guy?

I'm not sure I would travel to Rockford for the 'cup of coffee and danish' period of time they were there. On the other hand, I don't hang out online with people who decided to call it "Rickford" or "The Rickdom." They do.

Tonight they're back home.

For Rick Springfield, the venues are no longer giant stadiums and arenas. However, a dedicated. screaming crowd - mainly women - is still there and as Helaine's license plate frame says, "Rick Rocks." He has moved into the retail world of rock and roll where the contact with fans is a little more manageable and the touring a little less frenetic.

I'm not sure how Rockford got involved in this, but the classic and freshly refurbished Coronado Theater was chosen to be the site of a concert/DVD taping. Steffie and Helaine could not resist.

I have asked them in the past how many of the attendees of a Rick Springfield concert have been to see him before? Most. How many have seen him a dozen times or more? Lots.

I know for this concert, women were traveling from all across the US and parts of Europe. That's rabid fans!

Over the past few years Helaine has gotten more involved in the infrastructure of his fan base, becoming a "Street Team" manager who helped in the promotion of his last CD. For this concert, Helaine and Amy, the Street Team national manager, organized a charity luncheon for 150 guests.

I watched over the last few weeks as faxes and emails and phone calls moved back and forth from the hotel in Rockford¹ to our house in Connecticut. The fact that Helaine is extremely organized and probably could visualize what she wanted, didn't hurt.

It was a thing of beauty. Helaine is modest and very talented in this regard. I'm not quite sure how she did it, but I'm proud she did.

Stef pitched in, helping register the attendees as they came in... and finally associating faces with some of the names she's seen online.

From what I hear, the luncheon went off without a hitch and with the money collected through raffles and auctions of Rick Springfield oriented 'stuff,' around $18,000 was raised for the Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

Helaine says Rick, who came to the luncheon for a few minutes and ended up spending around an hour, was taken aback by some of the prices paid for tickets and 'meet and greet' access.

They said the concert was great -- but they always do! The proof will be in the DVD, whenever that's issued, and the HDTV concert that will also be broadcast.

I think 'being' Rick Springfield is a good and lucrative business. He has to look at it differently than he did when he was a soap star and avoiding having his clothes torn off. He understands what his product is and who is buying, and he delivers. In the few times that I've been around, he seemed to genuinely enjoy what he's doing.

When people find out Helaine and Stef are big fans, they are often surprised. Rick Springfield is no longer a household word. Who would expect a 21st century fan base? In fact, in this morning's New York Times his name was used as a contrast the modernity of today's MTV.

It was not meant to be complimentary.

The problem is, even without the hits, he's a talented guy who was a musician before he was a soap opera star. His success is now different, but there's no denying, it's still success.

¹ - You would think a hotel in Rockford would be thrilled to get what amounts to convention-like business, on a weekend, in the dead of winter. They did and I'm told it showed.

I saw this just a moment ago on wired.com:

It's a sort of funny, ironic story. Except for me, now over 20 years a non-smoker, it hits home.

It had to be 1969, wintertime, and a Saturday night. I was living in Boston, making believe I was attending Emerson College and working as a talk show producer on the Steve Fredericks Show at WMEX.

Being a talk show producer sounds more glamorous than it really was. WMEX was a second rate station with an awful signal. It was owned by Max Richmond, a larger than life caricature of himself. Everything he did was done with an eye to