Archive for August, 2007

Personal data theft

Yesterday I received a mailed notice from Monster.com, stating that their database had been compromised, including my contact information. Fortunately I had not provided them with any information that I consider sensitive.
Given how many such cases of personal data theft or loss are reported, I wonder how many are covered up, and how many [...]

AT&T withdraws Time service, effective September 2007.

DynDNS has announced that their MailHop service will no longer generate NDRs (Non-Delivery Reports, commonly known as bounce messages).  They point out that this is technically a violation of RFC 2821 section 3.7.  I’d observe that it violates section 3.6 of RFC 821, which is the current SMTP standard, as RFC 2821 is still a [...]

Scott Berkun points out that the software industry invents an amazing number of new development methodologies, and proposes a few new ones.  Actually he’s just documenting existing practices.  More are listed in the comments.

First day of class

I’m trying to take an EE class at San Jose State University.  Although I might apply for admission to a degree program there in the future, currently I just want to take the one class.  They have something called “Open University“, which allows most people who are not admitted students there to take a limited [...]

Henry Horn was the editor of HP Key Notes.  He was very well known in the HP calculator user community, and will be missed.

Classified shuttle missions

Ever wonder what was really going on with those classified shuttle missions?  Now, thanks to This Day in Alternate History, we finally know!

Elevator mysteries

In the building in which I work, there are three elevators, two passenger and one freight, all in a row.  There is a set of  up and down call buttons next to the freight elevator, and another set between the passenger elevators.  Sometimes the buttons by the freight elevator work for all three, and other [...]

The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine!
Judge Kimball has ruled in SCO v. Novell that SCO does not own the Unix copyrights, and therefore most of SCO’s claims against Novell are dismissed. SCO has to waive claims against IBM and Sequent, and also owes Novell a lot of money (in [...]

Delayed inheritance

The dream was set in the present day, but my maternal grandparents were still alive.  I was in a library in Kansas City researching the business my great-grandfather and his brothers ran, Benson Manufacturing Company (unrelated to the current companies of that name).  As I was digging into newspaper archives and other sources, I discovered [...]