It's National Hairball Awareness Day.

How would we know about important holidays like this without Fark.com?

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2037425

Random Google Image

I heard the the song "With Or Without You" by U2 and it stuck in my head. So I searched Google images for the word "without". I searched till I found the image I liked best. Okay, I only went through about 27 pages. But I found one and here it is. I might have chosen a different one on a different day, but today I chose this one. Here's a link to the page it is on: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/photo/current/

Cop Lets Seven Year Old Play With Loaded Gun

If a parent leaves a loaded gun on the table and their seven year old picks it up and fires it, they get arrested and the police give the name of the parent to the media. If the parent is a police officer, not much happens.

Link to full story

Happy Sweeet Sixteen!

On April 24, 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched onboard the space shuttle Discovery. Happy Birthday!

Just to Annoy the Easily Annoyed

http://hodja.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/muhammed-smiley/

Speaking of Freedom of Speech...

Censorship Central has sided with terrorists by refusing to allow South Park to show images of Muhammad. South Park fans should skip watching Censorship Central and download the episodes from the Internet. The Trey Parker and Matt Stone should quit Censorship Central and publish South Park online.

Bill of Rights vs. Federal Law

Shouldn't our freedom of speech take precedent over a federal law that "bars harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official in the performance of their official duties."? It seems quite clear to me that the framers our constitution felt that it should. So why is the US Attorney's office prosecuting someone for exercising their rights under the First Amendment? Are we so concerned with not embarrassing international leaders that we are willing to give up our rights? Sounds unAmerican to me.

Here's a link to the story:

China heckler at White House charged

Bush Has High Approval Rating

Well, at least compared to Congress.

link to Washington Times story

Who do you trust?, Part 2

In the post "Who do you trust?" I wrote about AOL, MSN and Yahoo! giving the government information that the courts agree the government does not have a right to have. Yahoo! may have helped the Chinese government convict an online dissident. Yahoo! News has the story.

Democrats and Republicans

Both the Democrats and the Republicans have become useless as defenders of the US Constitution. They are too concerned with bashing each other to do their jobs effectively.

Dan Gillmor wrote:

"It's a commentary on today's America that we have to rely on the courts, and ultimately the rest of us, to protect the First Amendment... "

Remember this the next time you vote for someone because they are a member of the party you like the best.

Common Good

When people work together for a common good they are more satisfied. Seems obvious to me.

forbes.com story

Have we learned anything?

I believe it was Ben Franklin who said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." With the centennial anniversary of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco approaching and New Orleans and the surrounding area still devastated I began to wonder what we have actually done to make sure we are more prepared than we were in 1906 and 2005.

Most Californians don't have earthquake insurance. I have personal reasons for not debating whether they should or should not. Even if I were to debate it, insurance is something you cannot always predict a need for. Typically you "need" insurance when an unexpected event occurs, or when you are obligated to purchase it by a contract or law. According to a recent Reuters article, "Were a temblor similar to the 1906 earthquake to strike the area there would be estimated insured property losses of $80 billion and total property losses would top $300 billion". That leaves $220 billion to be picked up by individuals, companies, government and charities. Can we handle a crisis of that scale?

The San Francisco bay area is not the only issue. Los Angeles is the number one port in the nation in total foreign trade value
(http://www.aapa-ports.org/pdf/2003_US_PORT_RANKINGS_BY_CARGO_VALUE.xls).
If that isn't enough, Long Beach is number three. A quake on the scale of the 1906 quake near those ports would be equally if not more devastating than the same scale of quake in the Bay Area. The traffic could be rerouted to Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, Portland and San Diego. That would suffice if all of those ports could handle greater than three times the traffic they currently have, the next closest port in the top twenty is New Orleans. I doubt New Orleans can handle a massive increase in traffic at this time.

When the next big quake hits L.A. or the Bay Area, the media will blame the current political administration. That's the way it works. The blame really falls on us, the citizens. We can force the politicians to make it a priority, or we can choose not to. We can prepare individually for the inevitable, or we can choose not to.

Irresponsible Journalism

The Washington Post is reporting that is talked to six of the nine US and UK officials and experts involved in a classified mission. That is a cause for concern in and of itself. First those six should lose their security clearance. Second if you are talking to someone about something that you know is classified (the Washington Post reported that it is classified so I assume they know it is classified) is reporting it to the world the right thing to do? I don't think so. The Washington Post should have alerted the US government about the security leak. Then there is the question about validity. Do you place a lot of trust in someone's statements when they are giving you details on something that is classified? Giving a reporter details about something that is classified is dishonest. It's equal to or approaching treason. That should make you question the accuracy of the information. Knowing that the Washington Post is more concerned with publishing a story than national security should make you question the accuracy of the Washington Post.

Normally I link to the original story when it's not too much hassle. The Washington Post requires registration to read a story so here's a link to the BBC News story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4903592.stm

How trigger a JavaScript function from a server-side control in ASP.NET

I had a situation where I wanted an ASP.NET server-side control to launch a JavaScript function, as well as launching the VB.NET code in the code behind. I read a few articles on the web about it and the approach I used is based mainly on information from an article I found on Builder.com.

I prefer keeping JavaScript in a separate file so I can use it for multiple pages without rewriting it. If you need the code on one page, you will eventually need it on another. I used the following line of code in the <head> section of the aspx file to load the JavaScript:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="script/somescript.js"></script>

This made any and all functions within the JavaScript file available to me.

The key to this method is to add an attribute to the control. You have to add the attribute after the code behind is compiled so I added it on the Page_Load event. The code looks something like this:

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e
As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
 btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onClick", "return someFunction();")
 End Sub

You could pass a parameter to the JavaScript function this way:

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e
As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
 btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onClick", "return someFunction(parameter);")
 End Sub

Bogus Patent

Test.com wants to collect licensing fees from anyone who administers tests online. This patent is one of the worst I've heard of. If they get away with it I'm going to patent the viewing of pictures online and retire within a year.

 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a request for reexamination to get rid of this patent.

http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=test

 

Big Easy to Telcos: Stick It

Using donated equipment the city of New Orleans set up a free WiFi network to enable communications after Katrina. The Evil Empires BellSouth and Cox Communications are opposed to its continued operation. New Orleans technology chief Greg Meffert says the system will stay up. "In the end, it takes a federal judge to issue a restraining order," he said. "Until that point, if that point ever comes, we'll keep running it. It's a lifeline to these people."

 

Wired.com has the full story.

The Path of Least Resistance

I often read about web design and programming. One of my favorite sites covering web design is A List Apart. If you're interested in web design, I strongly recommend reading it. A recent article on A List Apart does a good job of applying a basic theory of business to web design. My version of the theory is "Make it as easy as possible for people to give you money." The article is titled " Flywheels, Kinetic Energy, and Friction".

Bright Idea

Loop.pH has developed luminescent wallpaper, and other luminescent materials. This is a great idea for kids rooms, hallways, bathrooms, anyplace you would want to put a night light.  It would be great on the ceiling with a print of the night sky. Essentially a planetarium in your home. You could sleep under the stars every night.