There's an interesting piece by Charles Mann in Technology Review about why software is so bad. Unlike other industries, where companies with knowingly-flawed products can face massive legal action, people basically accept poor software as a fact of life. Mann thinks more lawyers may be the answer:

As software becomes increasingly important, the potential impact of bad code will increase to match, in the view of Peter G. Neumann, a computer scientist at SRI International, a private R&D center in Menlo Park, CA. In the last 15 years alone, software defects have wrecked a European satellite launch, delayed the opening of the hugely expensive Denver airport for a year, destroyed a NASA Mars mission, killed four marines in a helicopter crash, induced a U.S. Navy ship to destroy a civilian airliner, and shut down ambulance systems in London, leading to as many as 30 deaths. And because of our growing dependence on the Net, Neumann says, “We’re much worse off than we were five years ago. The risks are worse and the defenses are not as good. We’re going backwards—and that’s a scary thing.”

Some software companies are responding to these criticisms by revamping their procedures; Microsoft, stung by charges that its products are buggy, is publicly leading the way. Yet problems with software quality have endured so long, and seem so intractably embedded in software culture, that some coders are beginning to think the unthinkable. To their own amazement, these people have found themselves wondering if the real problem with software is that not enough lawyers are involved.

In case you missed it, the colossal, out-of-control wildfire in Colorado that has burned more than 103,000 acres so far was apparently started by a forest ranger while attempting to burn a letter from her estranged husband. You couldn't write a better beginning for a made-for-TV movie if you tried.

Check out Joe MacLeod's riff on noo-kyoo-lur explosions, Baltimore, and dust mites. via Alt-log.

Writing in Slate, Mickey Kaus makes a good point about the "creepiness" of the word "Homeland" and the phrase "Homeland Security." He makes a number of points, but I think the most notable is this:

"Homeland" is un-American in another way: it explicitly ties our sentiments to the land, not to our ideas. Logically, this step makes no sense (presumably we want to stop terrorism even if it targets Americans and American institutions abroad). It also misses the exceptional American contribution that's worth defending. People throughout history have felt sentimental attachment to their land. We're sentimentally attached to something less geographic: i.e., freedom. Didn't Ronald Reagan make this point with some regularity?

In the end, he suggests calling it the "Department of Doestic Security," which makes a lot of sense to me. Before September 11, I certainly never thought of the U.S. as "the Homeland." Why start now?

Decided to get off the interstate and actually see things on my way home yesterday, so I spent part of the afternoon in Tennessee's Fall Creek Falls State Park. If you follow the link, you'll see a photo of Fall Creek Falls, but unfortunately I never actually found the vantage point of that photo. I hiked around both sides of the top of the falls, but most of the "overlooks" were blocked by foliage. (I suspect late fall or early spring would be a good time to visit.) At one point I ignored the "stay on the trails or you may die" warning signs and crept to the edge of a cliff where I could see part of the falls and also see people splashing around 250 feet directly below me. (I think I was just to the right of the smaller waterfall you can see in picture.) I think perhaps there is an overlook on a different trail that gives you the best view -- something to investigate on another trip. I didn't have the time or energy to hike all the way to the bottom of the gorge and see the falls from below, but there were people splashing around down there, and it seems like it would be spectacular.

I did get a pretty good look at another large waterfall on Caney Creek, which is near the nature center and a little more accessible. I took some pictures, but alas have not yet entered the era age of digital photography, so they are sitting on a roll of film in my backpack. Perhaps I'll post a few if they turn out.

On my way out of the park, I followed state route 30, which winds down off of the Cumberland Plateau and into McMinnville. I imagine it would be a blast in a smaller sports car, but the turns and switchbacks were fun even in my pickup truck. Almost drove off the road once when I was passing through a small town and all of a sudden the road just stopped (or, more accurately, took a sharp right turn with no warning.)

I drove most of the way back to Nashville on back roads, which was a lot more fun than the 75 mph interstate blur. I passed by a woman selling hand-made wooden rocking chairs from a shop behind her house. bought one to go on my patio once I get around to painting it.

Have been lounging around at home most of today, but will probably go out and run some errands tonight. Then back to the daily grind tomorrow. Ugh.

Kinder, gentler extortion

I don't know about you, but most parking tickets I've gotten in the past generally strike a pretty authoritarian note: "You are a violator. You are evil," they seem to say. "We will hunt you down and make you pay. You and your little dog too!"

So while I won't say I was happy about receiving a ticket in Asheville, NC, they certainly tried to make it as painless as possible:

BEFORE YOU FILE THIS CITATION IN YOUR GLOVE COMPARTMENT, READ THIS.

No one likes getting a parking citation. But it's the most effective way we have to manage downtown parking. Time limits promote orderly turnover and make downtown shopping and entertainment convienient for everyone.

Avoid the frustration of receiving a parking citation by using one of the three parking garages noted on the reverse of this citation. The first hour is free Monday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. Until 7:00 p.m.

I may not agree with what they had to say, but they sure were nice about it!

So I arrive in today's city du jour and present myself at the hotel for checkin. Only to find out that instead of the plain non-smoking room I reserved through Expedia, they have booked me into a smoking room for people traveling with pets. And there are no other rooms. (In case you were wondering, I have no pets with me. My cat goes into therapy for months at the mere sight of the cat carrier. It would be suicide to travel with her.)

According to one of the front desk guys, I should have called ahead and verified that my reservation was right, since they always screw up stuff like this.

Now I am not an anti-smoking fanatic. But frankly I don't especially like the smell. And I was a bit perturbed by how they didn't really seem to think this was anything out of the ordinary. So since I had a few hours, I figured I'd make a point by finding somewhere else to stay.

After calling several places and finding that they were also full, I found a prospect -- A major hotel franchise had a location only a few blocks from my meeting. (I won't mention the chain's name to protect the guilty, but it rhymes with Less Pesterin'.)

So I get to the hotel and go to the front desk to check in. I guess the avacado carpet and aged stucco should have been my first tip off. But, hey, the desk clerk was kind of cute, and I figured I'll try anything once. I got my room key and headed up the elevator. (Dark pseudo-wood paneling, circa 1970.) I got out of the elevator. (Flourescent fixtures circa home of future 1967 and more patterned avacado carpet.) But I figured, "Hey, I'm renting the room, not the hallway."

Then I went into the room. Picture scary looking lamps in a pineapple-battering ram motif. Picture a tiny porthole of a window, last cleaned circa 1982. Picture noisy air conditioning stuck on the "stuffy" setting. Picture cigarette burns on the couch of the nonsmoking room. If they were going for the fleabag look, they had it down pat.

Now I'm not opposed to roughing it every once in a while. In fact, when I was a starving student, I stayed in some places that made this look like the Ritz. But I guess my standards have gone up just a bit since then. Plus, I was on expense account, so I couldn't even really congratulate myself thriftiness. (For that matter, I've stayed in nicer places for half the cost.)

So I did what any self-respecting creeped out traveler would do: I lied to the front desk guy (the cute chick was gone) and told him my plans had changed, I was leaving town that evening, and could I please "un-check-in" my room. He bought the story. I skeedaddled and found a more expensive but less scary alternative.

I know there's probably a moral here somewhere. Like maybe "Be happy with what you get, because it could be worse." But I'm too busy enjoying my clean sheets and working A/C to worry about it.

I'm traveling for work, so updates will be less frequent for the next few days.

On the plus side, I think I'm finally indexed on google. I can tell by the fact that someone searching for "uncensored lingerie catalogs" hit the site a few minutes ago. I've never really produced such a catalog, but who am I to argue with popular demand. Any volunteer models out there?

Susanna Cornett writes:

I'm for the death penalty, but I think it needs to be very narrowly applied, and more swiftly implemented. I think one of the reasons for the slow drag from sentencing to execution is the concern about whether the sentence is just. When it's used for situations where the crime is obviously egregious, and the evidence highly compelling, the public support for its logical follow-through will increase. Support for the death penalty is a two-step process: Is it morally appropriate? If so, is it fairly and appropriately applied? I think most Americans answer "yes" on the first question, but have been wavering - with good reason - on the second. More careful procedures, and a reduction overall of the types of cases allowed to be prosecuted toward a death sentence, will increase the "yeses" to the second question too.

When I was younger, I wavered a lot about the death penalty. After all, most of the people killed had committed egregious crimes. Wasn't this a good way to deter future violence?

During college, however, I became increasingly convinced that the government should not be in the business of killing people. There were many reasons for this. Books such as A Lesson Before Dying, The Chamber, and Dead Man Walking certainly contributed. So did the strong arguments against the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent, the fact that the inevitable mistakes could cost someone their life. and statistical evidence of the unfair application of the penalty.

But most of all, my feeling that the death penalty is wrong is based on the conviction that premeditated killing is never morally justifiable. This is a hard position to take, because you have to fight the urge to apply it selectively. Viscerally, I feel that Timothy McVeigh got what he deserved. But I think that moral principles have to take precedence over gut-level reactions. I just don't think the job of our government should be to kill people, no matter how much we think they deserve it. A true life sentence without the possibility of parole achieves the same societal goals without the moral ambiguity. And if the conviction turns out to have been in error (which happens with alarming frequency) imprisonment is reversible whereas execution is not.

I also don't think state-sponsored execution is justifiable from a religious point of view. (Whenever I see one of those "What would Jesus do?" slogans, I always wonder if the bearer thinks that Jesus would pull the switch on an electric chair.) Most Christians believe that sinfulness is inherent in the human condition, and that ultimately forgiveness, redemption, and judgement are between the individual and God. The murderer will answer for his sins before God -- what right do we have to take a greater action than necesary to protect society from further harm?

The United States is the only major democratic power in the world that still imposes the death penalty. Worldwide, there is an increasing concensus that execution is a basic violation of human rights. Abolition is the global trend. "In 1986, 46 countries had abolished the death penalty. By 1999, 108 had abolished it in law or in fact." (ref)

This is a very condensed version of my feelings on capital punishment, but I figured I'd throw them out there anyway.

Quote of the day, stolen from the .net guy, who in turn stole it from Penny Arcade:

I'd had enough political and theological discussions by the time I was nineteen to figure out that they are functionally inert. No-one convinces anyone of anything, everybody just heaps their baggage on the table and gestures at it wildly.

IMHO, not always true, but probably more often than not.

In the slightly patronizing, but still funny department:

Being single means being good at waiting. It means having patience and not settling for something because you're bored with being single. Being single is often both an opportunity and a commitment to learn from the mistakes of relationships past.

Of course, telling single people they should not fall into the first available relationship is a little like telling aging NFL stars they should not do phone commercials with Alf. They already know it's not a good idea, but they can't seem to control themselves.

From a story in the Orlando Sentinel by Eric Edwards (via the KRT wire)

In case you didn't know, the "frownie" is a legally-registered trademark of Despair, Inc.. The company plans to sell the devices to the public, but supply is constrained due to the fact that the company only has one copy of Microsoft Word.

In related (silly) government filings, check out this actual patent for a method of exercising a cat. If only I'd thought of that one first!

Am very confused -- I edit my template, I save it, and then the edits are gone. I edit my template, I save it, and then the edits are gone. Blogger problem, I guess?

On the off chance that whoever keeps stealing my Sunday paper is reading this... I know who you are. I know where you live. I know how to put a curse on your great-grandchildren. So KNOCK IT OFF!

Just rented the DVD of Spike Lee's film Bamboozled, a biting satire looking at racial humor in popular entertainment. A very strange film. It centers on a black TV executive who, tired of prodding from his wanna-be-black boss decides to get fired by producing the most racially-offensive show he can possibly come up with. But instead the "Mantan: The New Millenium Minstrel Show" is a huge hit.

If nothing else, the film gives you a fairly in-depth overview of the history of minstrel shows, blackface routines, and pickaninny imagery. And it makes you think about the ways stereotypes are still used to get a laugh.

Interestingly, most of the action in the movie was shot using consumer-grade Mini-DV cameras and edited digitally. The idea that you can use this type of equipment to produce a studio-grade movie release is very exciting. Movie making is becoming less mystical and easier for anyone with an idea to try. Hopefully at some point this will result in a wider variety of material making it into the local multiplex.

An interesting comment is buried in the director's voiceover on the DVD. Spike Lee says:

In my opinion, this gangsta rap is the 21st century version of minstrel shows. And what's sad is these brothers don't even know about it.

Susanna at cut on the bias points out this story about the refusal of the Birmingham News to cover or accept uncensored advertising for the hit off-Broadway play The Vagina Monologues, making it one of the only papers in the country to make such a decision. The reason? Advertising director Bob West says the paper "didn't want to risk offending anyone." Well, I'm offended by murder, but I certainly don't expect my newspaper to stop covering it. Grrr.

As you may have grokked out from a previous post, I am slowly working toward a master's degree in Technology Management. Right now I'm taking a class on Project Management, which is turning out to be pretty interesting. So far, I'm really liking the textbook, which seems to be much more down-to-earth than some of the other management books I've used. Here's today's quote:

To be frank, we do not know how to cure or prevent micromanagement. It is practiced by individuals who have so little trust in their coworkers that they most control everything. Micromanagers are rarely likable enough for anyone to try to help them. Our considered advice to PMs who are micromanaged is to request a transfer.

Came across a link to this amusing article on phobias at Missives Anonymous. Who knew there was such a thing as Papaphobia (fear of the Pope)!

Here's a little nugget gleaned from today's paper:

CROSSVILLE, Tenn. — A would-be rapper from Mt. Juliet has been charged with holding up the Alpine Lodge in Cookeville and is a suspect in two similar motel robberies in Crossville and Carthage, police said.

Earl Raymond Vantrese, 22, of Mt. Juliet, was pulled over on Interstate 40 Thursday after a clerk was held up at gunpoint at the Ramada Inn in Crossville around 6:30 a.m. that day, police said.

After stopping Vantrese's 1981 Buick Regal near Monterey, police said, they found numerous rap lyrics and a boom box in the front seat, along with a Victoria's Secret lingerie catalog, a video camera and pictures in the back seat of Vantrese stomping on the American flag, along with $812 in cash.

Now I know as an aspiring rapper you gotta keep up a certain image. But listen up, buddy boy... You got nerve stomping all over the American flag while still partaking of the cultural bounty of America! Do you think they even have Victoria's Secret catalogs in places like Iraq or Libya? Sheesh!

OK, this really ticks me off:

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — The Ten Commandments have been removed from Hamilton County court buildings, ending an episode that may cost the government as much as $80,000.

[County Commission Chairman Bill Hullander] said he believes a drop in Hamilton County's crime rate can be attributed to the posting of the Ten Commandments. [...] The ACLU submitted a bill this week for more than $50,000. Hamilton County's attorney estimates the county owes between $30,000 and $40,000 for outside legal fees.

Many of the quixotic chumps pushing this crap are the same ones protesting big government and wasteful spending. Well, here's a perfect example of waste in government. (the article goes on to say that the county commissioners who voted to post the commandments originally said public money would not be used to defend the decision, but it fails to state where else the $80,000 in legal fees might come from.)

Before the bible thumpers track me down, I should point out that I have nothing in particular against the 10 Commandments. But I also believe in the Bill of Rights, which is designed to keep government out of the religion business. Say we post the 10 Commandments. Well, what happens next week when Satanists want their manifesto posted in the courthouse?

And the idea that this is some sort of deterrent to crime is absurd. I can just see it:

HEAVILY ARMED ROBBER: Stick em' up. And gimme all the money from the register before I blow your brains out.
SCARED CONVENIENCE STORE CLERK: You know, according to the 10 commandments posted in the county courthouse, holding up convenience stores is wrong.
HEAVILY ARMED ROBBER: Really? I had no idea. I'll be off now -- I'm so terribly sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day!

I wonder what the $80,000 spent on this travesty could have purchased if it were put toward improving schools or building affordable housing...