| Sunday,
February 23, 2003 I guess I have senile dementia: I can no
longer understand anything Microsoft is doing.
I used the MobilePro 780 to create some answers to mail today. I then
moved the .pwd files over to a Windows XP system, and tried to open one in
Word. I got:
This
is a Microsoft Pocket Word document.
*
*
To view this Pocket Word document in Microsoft Word, you will need the
*
Pocket Word Converter for Microsoft Office. For further details visit
*
the Microsoft Windows CE web site, at
*
*
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce
I went there, I couldn't figure out what was going on. Eventually I found
a page to download converters. I did. I installed them. I got a message that
says Word can now use the converters. I attempted to open my pwd document. I
got
This
is a Microsoft Pocket Word document.
*
*
To view this Pocket Word document in Microsoft Word, you will need the
*
Pocket Word Converter for Microsoft Office. For further details visit
*
the Microsoft Windows CE web site, at
*
*
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce
I can find nothing whatever on using the stupid converters, and examining
the web site I am advised to go to yields no information of any use to me.
I have no idea what is going on here, which makes my doubt my
intelligence: surely Microsoft hasn't got THIS bad at explaining
things?
There's a lot of mail, some
worthwhile, including a short essay that includes Isaac Asimov.
And from Roland:
The Red Team.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/focus/
The_next_space_race+.shtml
-
Roland Dobbins
And we have this:
=======
PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL'S "STUPID SECURITY"
COMPETITION
We've all been there. Standing for ages in a
security line at an inconsequential office building only to be given a
security pass that a high school student could have faked. Or being forced
to take off our shoes at an airport that can't even screen its luggage.
If you thought the accounting profession was bad
news, just wait till you hear how stupid the security industry has become.
Even before 9/11 a whole army of bumbling amateurs has taken it upon
themselves to figure out pointless, annoying, intrusive, illusory and just
plain stupid measures to "protect" our security.
It's become a global menace. From the nightclub in
Berlin that demands the home address of its patrons, to the phone company
in Britain that won't let anyone pay more than fifty pounds a month from a
bank account, the world has become infested with bumptious administrators
competing to hinder or harass you. And often for no good reason whatever.
The sensitive and sensible folk at Privacy
International have endured enough of this treatment. So until March 15th
2003 we are running an international competition to discover the world's
most pointless, intrusive, stupid and self-serving security measures.
The competition is open to anyone. Winners will be
announced at the 13th Computers, Freedom & Privacy conference in New
York on April 3rd.
Guidelines
Nominations should be submitted to stupidsecurity@privacy.org
by March 15th, 2003.
Nominations should be as specific as possible,
mentioning the name of the guilty parties, and wherever possible,
including evidence and references.
Any government or private sector initiative or
action can be nominated. Legislation and technology can also be nominated.
The judges welcome nominations in the form of
narratives and anecdotes.
Judges Panel
Declan McCullogh, journalist and agent provocateur,
Washington DC,
Dr Ian Brown, Privacy International Trustee and
Director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, London UK
Dr Peter Neumann, Principal scientist, SRI
International Computer Science Laboratory and all-round security guru, USA
Jerome Thorel, journalist and privacy activist,
France
Dr Barbara Simons, past president of ACM and
Consulting Professor in Science, Technology and Society, Institute for
International Studies, Stanford, USA
Stephanie Perrin, Digital Discretion, former CPO
Zero Knowledge Systems, Canada
Tim Dixon, Solicitor, and spokesman for the
Australian Privacy Foundation
Charles Platt, former senior writer for Wired
magazine, and author of Anarchy Online and countless other works, USA
Erich Moechel, journalist and principal troublemaker
for Quintessenz, Austria
The information in this transmission is intended to
be totally
worthless and devoid of any benefit to anyone with
the
exception of, possibly, the intended recipient. If
you
received this communication in error or if you
accidentally
read it when it wasn't addressed to you, then please
immediately delete all of your saved game files and
email
addresses and then energetically beat yourself about
the head
and shoulders with a recent technology publication
of your
choice. All other more intelligent actions taken in
response
to this information are prohibited, so there.
Clarke Myers
Which promises to be, uh, interesting.
I had intended to write an essay on Varieties of American Conservatism,
inspired largely by the current issue of National Review. I'll try to get
around to it, but I am running out of energy. Answering mail will do that
sometimes.
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