Getting the hint, and the lead out...

I am almost certain there is some hardware issue that's causing my desktop to keep BSODing me. And it may be related to heat and/or dust, I don't know. What I do know is that I've experienced three unscheduled work interruptions today, as ntoskrnl.exe decided it couldn't handle things any more.

Together with the huge files received yesterday, I got a laundry list of desired items to translate, mostly figures, tables, and the table of contents. At first, when I reviewed what was to be done, I thought it wasn't much and agreed to Do The Whole Thing™.

Today, when it came down to actually doing the work, for a while I had myself convinced I had bitten off more than I could chew. Fortunately, just a few minutes before my desktop BSODed me for the third time, I reconvinced myself that I had the measure of the work, and that future crashes notwithstanding, I ought to be able to deliver the finished product on time.

* * *I sort of forgot to mention it yesterday, but I spent a couple of hours implementing a brainstorm that hit me squarely between the running lights shortly after sitting down to work. It's too long and complex to go into right now, as I am well and sickly tired of sitting at a keyboard, but I figured it would cost no more than $60 to try out (not counting the time investment), so I went for it.

These moments of stark clarity, where everything meshes just so, are rare enough. Typically, though, the technical skills I've spent a lifetime honing start to chip away at the edifice, looking for fatal flaws.

The thing is, it's not the fatal flaws that kill ideas in the end, it's allowing a collection of non-fatal flaws to dim the enthusiam and the passion, bringing you back to the mundane and the humdrum.

In one sense, today was no different: After coming up with a great idea, I started coming up with reasons why it wouldn't work.

In another sense, today was completely different: Having taken the first step (implemeting a prototype and approaching a potential future client with it), some as-yet unused part of my brain began to chip away at the flaws, not in the sense of determining that potential problems don't exist, but in the sense of okay, so, what are we going to do to overcome them?

Despite the buoyant effect, I am one tuckered out puppy. I think it'll be one quick surf around the block and then off to watch some tube.

Cheers...

Oklahoma leads the way!

From the Oklahoma Gazette:

It’s supposed to protect you from predators spying on your computer habits, but a bill Microsoft Corp. helped write for Oklahoma will open your personal information to warrantless searches, according to a computer privacy expert and a state representative.

Called the “Computer Spyware Protection Act,” House Bill 2083 would create fines of up to a million dollars for anyone using viruses or surreptitious computer techniques to break on to someone’s computer without that person’s knowledge and acceptance, according to the bill’s state Senate author, Clark Jolley.

“The bill has a clear prohibition on anything going in without your permission. You have to grant permission,” said Jolley, R-Edmond. “You can look at your license agreement. It will say whether they have the ability to take that information or not.”

Gee, and if it says they do and you don't want to grant such permission, what happens? Will companies like Microsoft allow you to "opt out," or will they simply offer a "accept it or stop using your computer" choice?

Continues the article:

If you click that “accept” button on the routine user’s agreement, the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for “detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act.”

That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel — Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it.

Not be held liable for it?

That phrase ought to be displayed in flaming red letters, because if you think about it, there is nothing to prevent software companies from doing all the stuff called for in the proposed law, and to do it in the proposed manner (via EULA).¹ The difference is that under the proposed law, they wouldn't be held accountable for it.

Can you say "carte blanche," fellow citizens?

Additionally, that phrase “fraudulent or other illegal activities” means they can:

Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month.

Let the attorney general know that you play online poker.

Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn’t pay the state tax on them.

Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number … etc., etc., etc.

Marvy!

Now imagine what would happen if you combine this abortion with the bill proposed recently in New Jersey to make anonymous online posts illegal, i.e., make it illegal to use a computer anonymously (or prohibit any computer requesting Internet access to be operated anonymously, which would address the issue of Linux users, at least in part). The lives of users would be an open book.

(Of course, if you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to worry about, right?)

The demise of typewriters may have been prematurely announced.

Hey, all you Oklahomans: Wake up! Kill this awful bill!

Cheers...

¹ In fact, I seem to recall that some company (was it Microsoft?) tried to go this route, whereby users were supposed to click on a new, improved EULA that let the company analyze the user's hard disk automatically for some purpose (updates?), which ran smack into a Federal law that prohibits those working with medical data to allow machines with such data to be accessible by any third party.