Blackmoor Vituperative

Jim Rapoza at eWeek takes FEMA to task for creating a non-standard web site that is not accessible in standard browsers.

…a surprising number of people respond to my missives against non-compliance with a “Who cares?” attitude. If Web developers want to build sites that only work with Internet Explorer, so what? If people don’t want to use Internet Explorer or are using a non-Windows operating system, they don’t have to do business with that Web site. I mean, come on, it’s not like it’s some kind of life-or-death emergency.

But what if it is a life-or-death emergency?

(from eWeek, FEMA’s IE-Only Form: Just What Katrina Victims Don’t Need)

It turns out the the FEMA aid application form is not accessible to standards-compliant web browsers. In fact, it appears to only be accessible to Internet Explorer (which no one should be using, including FEMA). Not only is this embarassingly bad web design (which is bad enough), it’s also a violation of Section 508, the accessibility law that applies to Federal agencies.

This isn’t 1999. Section 508 isn’t new. Web standards aren’t new. It does not matter whether this was done by federal employees or by contractors: the contract should have stated (and probably did state) that the site would have to adhere to both Section 508 design guidelines and to applicable web standards. Just about every government web contract in the last six years has had those requirements.

This is nothing less than another blatant, avoidable, ridiculous screw-up at FEMA.

One of my hobbies is home brewing. I don’t brew beer or wine: I brew mead and cider. Unfortunately, my last few batches of mead have been extremely disappointing. When it was time to bottle my most recent batch, I was ready to give up on mead entirely if this one turned out badly.

Surprise!

This is the best batch of mead I have ever made. My faith in home brewing is restored. That’s the label over there, by the way. Click on it to get a better look. I went a different route this time with the style. Rather than the Old English or Nordic look I usually opt for, I went for a modern look.

I’m not telling you what the name means. That’s a secret.

Addendum: the recipe

A couple of people have asked about the recipe. In my experience, the recipe matters less than blind luck, but here it is:

Thirteenth Story Mead
Metheglin mead

Ingredients (5 gallons)

5 gal boiled water, cooled to blood temp
1 gal filtered water
15 lbs dark honey
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tbsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp Irish moss
1 cup dark coffee (liquid, not beans)
4 campden tablets, crushed
1 ½ tsp gypsum
2 pkg white wine yeast (I should have used champagne yeast, but it turned out well anyway, so who knows)
3 tsp yeast nutrient

Procedure (5 hours)

1 gal filtered water
15 lbs dark honey
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tbsp vanilla extract

boil all of the above 15 minutes; skim protien

¼ tsp Irish moss

boil another 15 minutes; skim protien
let cool to blood temp
transfer to carboy
top off carboy with boiled water, cooled to blood temp, to 5 gallons

mix together:

1 cup dark coffee (liquid, not beans) (note: should have added this during boiling)
4 campden tablets, crushed
1 ½ tsp gypsum (note: should have added this during boiling)

add the above to the carboy

mix together:

2 cups boiled water, cooled to blood temp
2 pkg white wine yeast
3 tsp yeast nutrient

let the above stand 15 minutes, then add to the carboy

Timeline

Started: 2004-11-20 Hydrometer: 11.66% / 1.092 / 23
Racked: 2004-11-28 Hydrometer: 1.0% / 1.014 / 3.5
Bottled: 2005-09-04 Hydrometer: 0.5% / 1.011 / 3.0
Due: 2005-11-20

Alcohol content

OG: 1.092
FG: 1.011
(1.092 – 1.011) = 0.081 * 131 = 10.6 % ABV
I’m calling it 11%.

Notes

The best mead I have ever made. Smooth and dry (dry for mead, anyway).

Joris Evers at News.com reports that the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) will soon unveil a common naming strategy for new computer viruses and worms.

Well, I suppose someone had to do it.

The Spanish-American War ended 107 years ago. So why are you still paying the 3% excise tax to help fund it?

In 1898, President McKinley imposed the Federal Excise Tax law, or “tax on talk”. The Federal government “needed” money to fight the Spanish-American War, and there was no Federal Income Tax at that time. The “tax on talk” was supposed to be a temporary “luxury tax” on the very wealthy (who were the only ones who had telephones at that time).

The Federal Income Tax has a similar history: originally created to fund the Federal government’s war effort against states which sought to secede from the Union, the tax never went away. Rather, it increased with every new war over the next 90 years, and gradually expanded from affecting less than 1% of Americans to nearly all of them.

The excise tax probably will never go away, although there are some grassroots movements under way to eliminate it. However, there is some hope that the income tax will be, if not eliminated, at least overhauled to be less oppressive. This hope is the Fair Tax.

Simply put, the FairTax replaces the way we’re currently taxed – based on our annual income – with a tax on goods and services. The FairTax is a voluntary “consumption” tax: the more you buy, the more you pay in taxes, the less you buy, the less you pay in taxes.

Everyone pays their fair share of taxes, and with the FairTax rebate, spending up to the poverty level is tax free. The Federal government is fully funded, including Social Security and Medicare, and you don’t need an expert to determine your Federal taxes.

(from Americans For Fair Taxation)

It’s time to write some letters, folks. Get on it.

A short article on the gun confiscations in New Orleans. Check it out.

A recruiter at Microsoft sent Eric Raymond (co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, former member of the board of directors of VA Linux Systems, and contributor to The Cathedral And The Bazaar) an email expressing interest in hiring him. Apparently the recruiter did not know who Raymond was.

Microsoft on Friday issued a mea culpa for not doing its due diligence before sending Linux and open-source luminary Eric Raymond an e-mail expressing interest in having him work for the Redmond software giant. …

Raymond, who posted the entire e-mail from Microsoft recruiter Mike Walters on his blog, informed Walters in no uncertain terms that he was not in the least bit interested in working for them.

Raymond also posted the entire text of his response to Walters on his Weblog which, as usual, pulled no punches.

“On the day I go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.”

(from eWeek, Microsoft Makes a Mea Culpa for Hiring Situation)

Tell us how you really feel, Eric. Don’t keep your feelings bottled up like this: it isn’t good for you.

If you’re not burned out on the horror in New Orleans, you may want to check these out:

NEW ORLEANS: Ken Wayne Reports On Dramatic Forced Evacuations

CNN.com video: Refusing to leave

The thing that flabbergasted me the most was the newscaster who said that police would not physically drag people out of their homes, right after he showed a film clip of police physically assaulting an elderly woman and dragging her from her home.

On the other hand, I liked the lawyer who said he’d leave when he was dead, and not before.

Reason, as it often does, sets out the facts with clarity and precision.

The aftermath of the hurricane has featured prominent stories of citizens legitimately defending lives and property. New Orleans lies on the north side of the Mississippi River, and the city of Algiers is on the south. The Times-Picayune detailed how dozens of neighbors in one part of Algiers had formed a militia. After a car-jacking and an attack on a home by looters, the neighborhood recognized the need for a common defense; they shared firearms, took turns on patrol, and guarded the elderly. Although the initial looting had resulted in a gun battle, once the patrols began, the militia never had to fire a shot. Likewise, the Garden District of New Orleans, one of the city’s top tourist attractions, was protected by armed residents.

…

The Mayor and Governor do have the legal authority to mandate evacuation, but failure to comply is a misdemeanor; so the authority to use force to compel evacuation goes no further than the power to effect a misdemeanor arrest. The preemptive confiscation of every private firearm in the city far exceeds any reasonable attempt to carry out misdemeanor arrests for persons who disobey orders to leave.

(from Reason Online, Defenseless On the Bayou: New Orleans gun confiscation is foolish and illegal)

Personally, I’d leave. We have family and friends in other states we could go stay with. Not everyone is so lucky. I can’t fault people who resist being put into a “shelter”, to be subjected to deprivation, infection, assault, rape, and gods know what other inhuman treatment those people have suffered.

Last week, we saw an awful truth in New Orleans: A disaster can bring out predators ready to loot, rampage, and pillage the moment that they have the opportunity. Now we are seeing another awful truth: There is no shortage of police officers and National Guardsmen who will obey illegal orders to threaten peaceful citizens at gunpoint and confiscate their firearms.

(from Reason Online, Defenseless On the Bayou: New Orleans gun confiscation is foolish and illegal)

Should we be surprised?

Part of the problem with PCGen, and the core of what has enabled third parties to create patches for PCGen which both violate PCGen’s license and break PCGen itself, is the setting for “PCGen System Files” under “Preferences”.

It was a mistake for PCGen to allow third-parties to override portions of PCGen’s system files — particularly when PCGen itself is a LGPL product, and the third-party system files may not be. A third party who overwrites PCGen’s system files with non-(L)GPL code would be flagrantly violating the license (sections 5 and 6, specifically). It is obviously not in PCGen’s best interests to encourage violation of the license under which PCGen is released. If someone wants to create a derivative work of PCGen, they should fork the project and release their own application, not back-door the LGPL by patching PCGen.

License issues aside, allowing third-parties to override PCGen’s system files will inevitably result in incompatible versions of PCGen running around, some of which have standard system files and some of which don’t, causing user confusion and data set incompatibility. A bad scene, any way you look at it. Bad for PCGen, bad for PCGen’s users, bad for everyone.

(Incidentally, PCGen should be released under the GPL, not the LGPL: the LGPL is not appropriate for a stand-alone application like PCGen. But that’s kind of beside the point.)

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the PCGen copyright owner(s) to make sure that third parties comply with the license under which PCGen is released. If they choose not to do so (and it appears that they are perfectly happy releasing PCGen under an inappropriate license, and having third parties flagrantly violate PCGen’s license), then there is nothing that anyone else can do about it.

C’est la vie.

The best that users of PCGen can do is be forewarned: do not install any third-party product which requires overriding the PCGen system files. It will cause nothing but problems.

In the last few days, we’ve been treated to some pretty disgusting defenses of the looting in New Orleans. Pundit after pundit has said that black people are being portrayed as criminals and looters. That’s fatuous and offensive. Criminals and looters have been portrayed as criminals and looters, and victims have been protrayed as victims. Most of them, predators and victims alike, happen to be black simply because of the demographics of the stricken area. I wish people would stop defending scumbags just because their ancestors happen to have come from a particular spot on the planet. That’s despicable. Some of the people taking food from grocery stores and so forth were doing what was necessary to survive: I have absolutely no problems with that. No sane person would. I’d be right there doing the same thing, if it were me and my family. What I have a problem with is soulless dirtbags like this preying on people who can’t defend themselves, stealing food and supplies from people who are just as much in need as themselves, if not more so.

Managers at the Covenant Home nursing center were prepared to cope with power outages and supply shortages following Hurricane Katrina. They weren’t ready for looters.

The nursing home lost its bus after the driver surrendered it to carjackers. Groups of people then drove by the center, shouting to residents, “Get out!”

On Wednesday, 80 residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

“We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days,” said Peggy Hoffman, the home’s executive director. “Now we’ll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot.”

(from Yahoo! News, New Orleans Cops Ordered Back To Streets

Personally, I would have no problem if the National Guard had been given the order to shoot scumbags stealing supplies from a nursing home, regardless of where their ancestors came from — because that’s irrelevant. This is the USA: you are responsible for your own actions. Your ancestry provides you neither privilege nor excuses.

I am also tired of ignoramuses like Bill Maher and George Carlin banging their “blame Bush” drum over and over. Did Bush and FEMA and the rest of the federal peanut gallery screw up? Obviously. But so did the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana, and so did the mayor of New Orleans. They all screwed up. Using this tragedy to ride a partisan hobby horse is just contemptible. Contemptible.

A friend of mine who is a photographer passed along these images, supposedly from hurricane Katrina. Pretty breathtaking stuff.

http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000765_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000766_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000767_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000768_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000769_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000770_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000771_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000772_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000773_big[1].jpg

They aren’t actually from Katrina, of course. These images are actually photographs of tornadoes taken by storm chaser Mike Hollingshead in southwest Iowa in late spring 2004. Most of them are viewable on the 2004 Digital Photos section of his web site (scroll about halfway down the page).