Anyone that knows me knows that I favor almost unlimited free speech. I'm uneasy with restrictions on what you can say and when you can say it; I'm all for allowing protesters to protest even if I disagree with their causes; I know that the outrageous idea today might be the banner for tomorrow. But even I find the protest of military funerals to be a despicable and unpatriotic act, outside the realm of the 1st Amendment and it's intentions.
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11:20 pm | Comment (3) | Print | Categories: Bizarre, Politics

This entry might be better titled "How I was stupid enough to catch the first known Mac OS X Trojan horse" but I decided to go with something nicer to myself. Yes, I caught one. The very first known trojan horse for Mac OS X. I was surprised, too...I generally stay away from sites that are considered "suspect" (porn, software downloads, warez, keygens, etc) but I caught it from a video posted to a Mac forum on Leopard. Quicktime told me it couldn't play the video and offered a "helpful" codec (a video decoder) that turned out to be a Trojan.
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9:23 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Technology

If you ask that question of the Washington Teachers' Union, they don't give you a very good answer. See the Washington Teacher's Union opposes turning school district employees not currently represented by the union into at-will employees - a move that would allow them to be terminated immediately if they perform poorly.
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10:20 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Education, Washington, DC

For those of you who recieved morning e-mails from the new email processor, you may have noticed some bugs in the delivery system. I know I certainly did, and I do apologize for those bugs. New technology is hard to deploy on a mass scale, since when run in a controlled environment it's easy to manage, but when run in "the wild" it's harder to predict what will happen.
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8:25 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Technology

10:24 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Contemplation

According to this special report from a Canada-based news organization, most geeks don't know what they're talking about when it comes to comptuer repair. 7 out of the 10 technicians they hired weren't able to correctly diagnose the problem. The video, after the jump...
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2:37 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Technology

The headline really says it all regarding my feelings towards Comcast. They really are a monopolistic bunch of jerkoffs who don't have anything better to do than raise their prices and provide crappy service.
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12:12 am | Comment (5) | Print | Categories: Technology

This is for all the orchestra geeks everwhere who had to play Pachelbel's Canon in D...
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1:31 am | Comment (6) | Print | Categories: Uncategorized

Finally, it's fall here in Washington, DC!
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1:15 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Weather

A few weeks ago I blogged about how CACI was sending me to training for my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certificate. Well, as it turns out the certification program doesn't qualify under CACI's tuition reimbursement rules, so I had to drop the class (since I couldn't afford to pay for it on my own).

Instead I bought the books that would have been used in the class and I'm preparing to take the exams on my own. While it's a dissapointment that CACI wouldn't pay for the courses it does open up considerable opportunities once I've earned the degree, since my certifications won't be tied to CACI for a period of time (had I accepted their money I would have been required to stay for 12 months).

So with intense study hopefully I'll be able to obtain these certifications in the same time frame as the Georgetown course. Here's to hoping, right?

1:11 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Continued Learning, Education, Jobs

For those of you who have friends or family in San Diego, or who are just following the fires, Google Maps has an interactive map that shows the fire boarders and evacuation areas. You can find the map here: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=114250687465160386813.00043d08ac31fe3357571. For a full reckoning of the devestation, view the map in hybird mode close to the ground, where you can see the towns and structures inside the burn zone.

9:58 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Natural Disasters

Washington Post has an article about constituent services in the District of Colombia, discussing how many council members receive requests from constituents who are asking for more than the filling of potholes and replacement of street lamps. These constituents are asking for help paying for some of life's necessities: rent, groceries, and even funerals.
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7:57 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Politics, Washington, DC

in 2008, China will host the world for a series of Olympic games. These games will generate millions if not billions in tourism dollars for China, as well as legitimize a totalitarian regieme. It is for these reasons that the United States, and all freedom-loving nations in the West, should boycott the Chinese games.
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8:51 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Olympics, Politics

Steven Colbert, now candidate for President.

11:36 am | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Bizarre, Election '08, Politics

The Washington Post published an outrageous opinion piece in the Metro section in the middle of last week entitled "Why Flying Now Can Kill." Without the gory details, the article basically blamed U.S. Airways for the death of a passenger in Phoenix, who became agitated when she was denied boarding of a flight (everyone in America by now has heard of this woman). The editorial tries to pin the blame on U.S. Airways by claiming U.S. Airways overbooks flights, and that was why she was denied boarding.
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1:48 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Travel, Washington, DC

Protesters clash with police in Georgetown on Friday, October 19th. Photo by Washington Post.

9:30 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Politics, Washington, DC

Mayor Adrian Fenty has decided: DC cabs will install time-and-distance meters, bringing them in line with the majority of U.S. cities.
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10:31 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Taxicabs, Washington, DC

Photo By Chris Morran.

2:31 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Politics, Technology

Travon Price and his son. Travon found and returned my Treo.

1:21 pm | Comment (4) | Print | Categories: Good Samaritans, Phones, Washington, DC

Protesters in Manassas, VA. Photo from the New York Times.

11:34 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Election '08, Immigration, Northern Virginia, Politics

America need not worry about Washington politicians making a mess of education. It seems that local schools are doing a fine job of that themselves.
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11:57 am | Comment (4) | Print | Categories: Bizarre, Education

Hey open government fans: if you thought your government was open, think again. At today's Senate Commerce Committee Hearing, lobbyists paid ordinary citizens $60/hr to stand in line so that they could be assured a seat in the hearing on cell phones.
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2:07 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Politics

A common question I get about Almost Georgetown is why the e-mail says every day that you must log in before you can read the blog posts I've posted, when most of them are public anyway. The answer is because the notification is a form e-mail that gets sent out when I post new entries, and sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not.

However, I don't recommend that you all stop logging in; there are regularly postings that are private and in fact you logging in tells me that you've read the blog. That helps me to understand readership and know the patterns of the site, as well as to know how many readers are subscribers and how many are not.

In the coming week I will be developing a new series of programs that will let you better control your e-mail settings. They will let you receive a daily e-mail of all the blog postings, or a notification of new postings as they happen, and a variety of other features that people have asked me about.

I appreciate you all, and I thank you for being faithful readers. In fact, 77% of you log in the day after a blog e-mail gets sent out about new postings. That's pretty impressive by any scale.

I'll make another announcement about the new features once they've been completed. If you have any you'd particularly enjoy, feel free to leave them in the comments!

5:55 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Statistics

DC Taxicab Zone Map.

1:27 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Taxicabs, Washington, DC

A couple of weeks ago, I covered a proposal in California that would change how electoral votes are apportioned in the California general election for President. I described how the system was inherently unfair, and I recieved some remarks regarding the system and how it would be "more" fair than the current system. I wanted to address some of those complaints here.

The Electoral College was a good system for the time it was designed. It was designed to let the states select the President. Our Republic was designed to give the people a limited influence; in fact, the people are limtied to electing the House of Representatives. It is only through history that the people have been given more power to elect Federal leaders; typically the perview of the Federal government was international affairs and the states handled domestic issues.

Our country has changed. We now directly elect our Senators, individuals who were supposed to represent their states' interests to the Federal government. We also directly elect our President, even though the Constitution doesn't require that our state legislators allow us to do so. The electoral college's purpose of providing states the ability to elect the President no longer serves its purpose. Thus, it should be abolished.

I am in favor of a system that would elect a President through the popular vote directly. It would not be such a system where one candidate with 12% of the vote could become President; in the event of a candidate not garnering 50% of the vote, the top two candidates would face a runoff. Surely if we can hold primaries we can hold an election and a runoff.

If we are truly interested in a democratic system that fairly represents the popular vote, we should use the popular vote. The electoral college allows certain states to carry more weight while others carry none at all, rather than all states being in play and a President having to make promises that affect ALL of them, rather than just some of them.

9:04 am | Comment (10) | Print | Categories: Election '08, Politics

Wreckage in California highway accident and fire.

5:28 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Metro, Politics

Inside are photos of my apartment when I moved in last week. Of course I've furnished it since then but I will post photos of that once I've finished decorating. Enjoy!
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10:38 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Apartments

A screen shot of my statistics program.

12:19 am | Comment (4) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Statistics

Al Gore, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming.

10:42 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Politics

The problem with fare increases for services like Metro is that someone always ends up getting the short end of the stick. Always.
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11:52 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Metro, Politics

Have you ever had a bus drive right past you? Just completely skip the stop you're at? It's not a whole lot of fun and certainly makes Metro look bad.

And these people want a fare increase...sheesh...

7:49 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Metro, Mobile Post

(Picture from www.nbc4.com)

3:51 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Northern Virginia, Traffic

Ever heard of the Dozier Internet Law firm? Probably not...rumor has it they're pretty bad at their jobs. In fact, so much so that they don't even understand simple copyright laws. Like ones that make posting a Cease and Desist letter permissible under fair use, if not permissible under the First Amendment.

Dozier Internet Law sent a Cease & Desist letter to InfomercialScams.com, who had posted comments on a retailer known as DirectBuy. You'll probably recognize DirectBuy as those people who tell you that you can save thousands and thousands of dollars by buying furniture directly from the manufacturer, and they'll let you have access to their warehouse for $2,995 a year! Yeah, right.

At the end of the Cease & Desist letter, which itself is absolutely absurd, the law firm claims that "...this letter is copyrighted by our law firm, and you are not authorized to republish this in any manner. Use of this letter in a posting, in full or in part, will subject you to further legal causes of action."

Apparently Constitutional Law isn't taught at whatever law school this guy attended. Not only is a Cease & Desist letter NOT copywritten, the copyright is not registered with the Copyright and Trademark Office here in Washington, DC. Good luck with that one, buddy.

If you want a good laugh, feel free to read the letters and posts below:

DirectBuy's C&D
The Public Citizen Litigation Group's Response
Donning Copyright Cloak, DirectBuy Forbids Posting Of Cease And Desist Letter Sent To Consumer Opinion Site (Consumerist.com)
Consumer Law & Policy Blog

5:32 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Bizarre, Politics

I am moved in. It was a long day with lots to do...$900 later I've got furniture, kitchen stuff, and other stuff. Pictures of the new place are coming soon. It's late; I'm off to bed.

12:42 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Apartments

The New York Times has a good article about a bad proposal in today's edition. The proposal is a proposition out of California that would change the presently unfair winner-take-all system into an almost-equally unfair Congressional district apportionment system.
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12:03 pm | Comment (3) | Print | Categories: Politics

There's no doubt about it: America is a materialistic nation. We are enthralled with greed and lust after bigger and better things. We've defined our American dream as a big house with lots of cars and beautiful women (or men, or both, depending on your preference). Where did we go wrong?
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9:02 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Politics