I’m not trying to rub anyone’s nose in anything, but I nearly forgot the significance of today. I have to file my corporate taxes by March 15th, so I usually complete my personal taxes by then, too. I spend April thinking about other things. So there won’t be much here about taxes today. Maybe that’s a good thing.
- The Union vote is today, Friday and the buses should be running by Monday, at least. And the big delay is because of large changes in the health plan. I’ll be interested to see how they changed things to get a solution that’s acceptable to both sides. You’ll also notice that the Pioneer Press has started requiring registration. Sorry about the pain. [press-patch]
- Theresa Sheehy says Peter Bell Stood [her] Up! She called his number, got though, and asked him for a ride home. He said yes, and never showed. Shouldn’t be too surprising, but I guess it made for a good enough article that I linked to it, so…
- It seems a Glitch delays buses’ return. But Jim & Timmy Ramone got their pictures in the Daily in this article, so it’s worth linking to. And the Daily doesn’t require registration to read the news. Update 1130: The caption on the photo is wrong. Jim is on the right. Also the sign and bike in the foreground belong to Sara (who some might know as Grrrl). [daily]
- While Jim & Timmy were lounging around Coffman Untion, I was talking on the phone with a senior tech at Cisco, trying to figure out why my PIX 501 was dropping connections. We spent about an hour on the phone, with him connected into my PIX, and at the end of the time, all was well. Basically it turned out that the PIX needed a software upgrade. It’s a real shame that the previous techs didn’t get this and I had to get to a tech in the US by way of the CEO’s office, but once I did get to the big gun, he diagnosed the problem quickly (as soon as we actually saw it happen) by looking at the logs in the box, and then installed the new software for me. This was definitely service above and beyond normal, but even his spending an hour was less time than was wasted by the various techs where their callerID information said they were from Convergys.
- I’m not the only one having problems with my computers lately. Zeldman had the The Great Panther Disaster of 2004, but had never heard of holding the mouse-button to eject a CD. That’s been in the OS since I can remember, and is documented somewhere on Apple’s site, but to plug myself a bit, it’s the first thing listed on my Magical Macintosh Key Sequences page. Personally, I’ve never had an upgrade go so badly wrong, but then I don’t run much in the way of third-party add-ons, either. [zeldman]
- Bruce Schneier says A National ID Card Wouldn’t Make Us Safer, and he’s got a point. Checking IDs gives a sort of
Papieren Bitte!
feeling that reminds me of East Germany around 1980. But more importantly, checking someone’s ID doesn’t prove whether or not that person is a terrorist. It just proves whether or not that person has an ID (which might be fake). It does absolutely nothing to make anyone safer. - Bruce’s April 2004 CryptoGram is up, too. He’s got an article in there about stealing an election, and looks at the Congressional Election of 2002. The conclusion is that voting machines are easily worth attacking. If someone hasn’t already rigged the voting machines, there’s awfully good reason to suspect they will before this year is over.
- Finally, did you see how American Express threatened Brad Templeton over joke on web site? And Brad’s response is priceless. Er. Has no preset-limits. Damn, just go read it and click the links. Brad’s funny, and has a good way of dealing with lawyers. It’s even better because he wins. [boing boing]