Apple wants me to accept a revised license agreement for the iPhone developer program.  Generally I want to save copies of all such agreements that I accept.  The web page as a link for a PDF copy of the license that I could save, except that when I click on the link, I am told “You do not have access to the page you requested.”

I saved the URL and accepted the agreement, hoping that I’d be able to download the PDF after acceptance, but it still tells me that I don’t have access.

Yesterday I went to the theatre with friends and their children.  Partway through the trailers, a woman opened the side door of the theatre and held it open.  After a minute of that annoyance, I went over to the door, said “execuse me”, and started pulling it closed.  She pointed out that there was a burning smell in the theatre, and pointed to the back of the theatre.  I stepped just a few feet in that direction and noticed that she was right.  There was no fire in evidence, but the burning smell was fairly strong further back on one side of the theatre.  Someone had gone to alert management. I went back to my seat, and noted that we were fairly close to another exit.

Nothing happened for a few minutes, then the projector stopped just as the trailers finished.  Everyone started talking loudly.  Finally a manager came ito the theatre and started talking, but we couldn’t hear him over the din.  I’m not sure why they didn’t use the P.A. for an announcement.  He was gesturing toward the exit, so everyone filed out.  It was a large theatre, so there was immediately a huge line for the customer service desk.  I told my friends that they could leave their ticket stubs with me and I’d collect the refunds, so that they could take their children home.

The fire department arrived.  They had a hard time getting waiting cars to move out of their way in front of the theatre.  Some people are amazingly stupid.

When I finally got to the head of the line, I found that they were giving refunds along with passes good for future admission.  However, our tickets were purchased on Fandango, and they said that they couldn’t refund those.  I would have gotten upset, but they quickly offered to give me two passes for each ticket stub.

Is my calendar malfunctioning?  It says May 29, but surely today must be April Fools Day.  NASA just issued a draft of a Constellation Program Management Directive which will establish “English” (imperial) units as the controlling units for nearly everything, as opposed to SI (metric) units.  Are they trying to set up to lose a manned vehicle the way they lost the Mars Climate Orbiter?

Last week I saw a commercial for some kind of toothpaste dispenser that was supposed to eliminate toothpaste messes.  I commented that it was a solution for a non-problem, but a friend said that she actually did manage to make toothpaste messes, though she didn’t want the dispenser.  I don’t recall ever making a mess with toothpaste, though I wouldn’t be too suprised if I’d done so as a child.

On Friday, though, I very nearly had a toothpaste disaster of my own.  Well, disaster might be too strong a word, but definitely a fiasco.  I had just started using a new tube of toothpaste two days earlier. and when I used it again on Friday I noticed that I’d somehow gotten some toothpaste on the end of the tube, and wondering how I’d managed to do that.  Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the end of the tube was not sealed at all.  It had been presssed flat, but when I’d squeezed the tube, the toothpaste started squeezing out the end.  If I’d squeezed more vigorously, or if I squeezed the middle of the tube, I would have gotten toothpaste everywhere.

I use Colgate Total Whitening Gel, with which I’ve been quite happy.  I formerly used Aquafresh, and every time I went to the dentist for a cleaning, he or the hygienist would complain about how much plaque I had and how hard it was.  Finally a few years ago the dentist asked if I was using an anti-plaque toothpaste.  I said I was, but he said to switch to Colgate.  Since switching, I’ve had no further problems with plaque.  I’ve very happy with Colgate, other than this unsealed tub, which presumably is the result of a malfunction on the production line.

When I see the frequent news stories about theft of personal data, such as the recent theft of medical records of more than 160,000 individuals from the University of California at Berkeley, I start to fear that Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun, may have been correct when he said “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

Computer and networking technology has allowed private data to be stored in databases to make it readily accessible to those who have a legitimate reason to access it, but in the process have made it entirely too susceptible to unauthorized access.  It is easy to blame this on programmers for writing shoddy software, and there certainly is some truth to that, but no matter how good the software is, there will still be problems with the people authorized to use the databases making mistakes such as using weak passwords.

Even if it’s a losing battle, we should fight tooth-and-nail to try to hold onto privacy.  As Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.  [...] Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

A WIsconsin appeals court has issued a decision (HTML, PDF) that it is acceptable for the police to surreptitiously plant GPS tracking devices onto the cars of suspects without getting warrants, because doing so is not a search or seizure.  Apparently the court doesn’t think that doing so violates anyone’s constitutionally protected rights.

That being the case, presumably they wouldn’t have any problem with citizens surreptitiously planting GPS tracking devices onto police cars.  WIth suitable distribution of the tracking information via the internet to mobile devices (e.g., smart phones), that could be quite useful for people that want to avoid speed traps, etc.

The appeals court did write that “We are also concerned about the private use of GPS surveillance devices. [...] Consequently, we urge the legislature to explore imposing limitations on the use of GPS and similar devices by both government and private actors.“  I think the outcome of that is predicable.  The legislature will impose substantial limitations on the use of GPS trackers by private actors, and minimal or no limitations on their use by the government.

A New York appeals court just reached the opposite decision (PDF), that the police should not plant GPS tracking devices without a warrant, citing Supreme Court Justice Brandeis’ dissenting opinion in Olmstead v. United States:

“The protection guaranteed by the Amendments [the Fourth and Fifth] is much broader in scope [than the protection of property]. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.”

yawnomatopoeia, n. — words that sound like gibberish because you’re too bored to listen to them. [Savage Chickens]

And that was just from SFO to Tokyo.  Add another four from Tokyo to Guam, and one more from Guam to Saipan.  Plus about eight hours waiting in airports, an hour and a half of ground transportation, etc., and it works out to about four hours of sleep in a 50 hour stretch.  I’m no good at sleeping on planes.

The best thing about an eleven hour flight is it made the subsequent four hour flight seem mercifully brief.

I finally got to my hotel room just before 4 AM local time Sunday.  I was ready to hit the sack when my colleague showed up at the door.  He’d driven to the airport to meet me, but I didn’t know that he was planning to do that, so I’d taken a taxi to the hotel.  I ended up going to bed around 6 AM.  I woke up around noon, and fortunately the project schedule doesn’t require me to do anything until this evening.

The airlines have already damaged my new suitcase, but the suitcases did their job of protecting the contents, and it looks like everything made it intact.  Except the book I was reading, which I managed to hold onto for thousands of miles and then leave in the taxi.  I can replace the book easily enough, but I had a page of handwritten notes stuck into it that were moderately important to me.  Sigh.

I didn’t get to see anything scenic in Tokyo, Guam, or Saipan last night, but the view from my hotel window is gorgeous.

Naturally when I desperately need to print my travel itinerary for a flight tomorrow, and a contract that I need to mail, and it’s well after any stores that might have the right ink cartridge for my printer, is exactly when the printer “decides” that the ink cartridge is “empty”.

I use quotation marks for “decides” and “empty” because it’s all part of the printer ink conspiracy.  The cartridge actually still contains more than enough ink to print the few additional pages I need.  The manufacturer has cleverly designed the printer to stop printing when it thinks the cartridge has run low, and doesn’t provide any way that I can force it to continue.  I’d far rather have a manual override and try to get the rest of my pages printed, even if the quality was less than ideal, than just to be completely out of luck.

This time at least it actually was the black ink that ran out.  Last time it was the yellow ink, and the oh-so-clever printer refused to even let me print a black-only document until the yellow ink cartridge was replaced.

Anyone who thinks gasoline is expensive should try computing the cost per gallon of inkjet printer ink from any of the major printer manufacturers, or even from the relatively inexpensive refill suppliers.

They’ve gone completely insane!  They’re laying off Bob Pease!

“… a disaster of biblical proportions… real wrath of God type stuff…  Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies!  Rivers and seas boiling!  Forty years of darkness!  Earthquakes!  Volcanoes!  The dead rising from the grave!  Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”
— Ghostbusters