THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 126 November 6 - 12, 2000

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This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending.  (Older columns here.) For more on what this place is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE.

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Highlights this week:

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I've spent half the day in bed and the other half pounding out this column, which keeps getting bigger and bigger. But It Will Be Done.

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L. Sprague de Camp, RIP

Sprague and Catherine were old friends. The biography referenced above is good if cold. Sprague claimed to have no sense of humor whatever, yet he wrote some of the funniest stories ever done. He said he did it by sheer intellectual analysis of what other people found funny. Most of us didn't believe it, but we were never sure.

They were of Mr. Heinlein's generation and manners, and I am proud to have had them as friends. All too many old friends are going away now. I'll miss Sprague and Catherine.

The column is pretty well done. Now to shake off this cold/allergy before COMDEX.

Election: I think Bush will win, but so will Hillary Clinton. The Democrats will either take the House or come close. The country likes "paralysis" in Washington. But those are merely educated guesses done at 1500 Pacific Time.

Thanks to subscriber John Bartley for alerting me. I sent a security alert mailing to subscribers.  One thing: the instructions for fixing your system to be more secure at one point tell you to RESET. Don't. That just puts things back the way they were.

For details on this go to

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/fq00-081.asp 

then

http://www.guninski.com/javacodebase1-desc.html where you will see a demonstration of the problem.

This one is serious.

And from a reader, a pointer to an article about cyberwar in the Mideast:

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If I had written it as a novel no one would believe it. A recount in Florida to determine who shall be Commander in Chief.

Well, well, well. I think it worth while collecting the identities of people like this:

"We are very up front about what we do and how we do it," said Cajunnet general manager Eugene Wanless. "I think a lot of people consider it spam. We'll send out between 5 (million) and 20 million emails at a time and take a lot of heat from people whining and complaining. Eventually our ISPs wind up turning us off."

Wanless said Cajunnet's previous providers included AT&;T and Sprint, and that UUNet had just discontinued service Friday.

We have a DSL modem, but the line isn't set yet. Maybe, just maybe...

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With luck I'll be able to go to COMDEX, but I sure don't feel wonderful.

It seems to take longer to recover from colds and stress now than it used to.

Considering that Palm Beach went 30,000 votes for Reform in 1996 and more than twice that in 1992, why is it so astonishing that there were 5,000 Reform votes in 2,000? Or have I missed something?

Let's see: "We were not smart enough to figure out the ballot, so now we want to be the ones who in a new election decide who shall be President of the United States."  Surely that's not the argument?  Or is it?

I do know that no one would have believed this as science fiction.

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I am off to COMDEX tomorrow and I doubt this page will be updated for about a week. Given the election situation I suppose that's just as well.

What we probably ought to do is have another Presidential Election, straight and down, a runoff with only the two candidates. That would at least produce a single winner. It won't happen.  Barring that, we have had an election, and even the President has said "the people have spoken." It's now time to discern what they said; but they have already said it.

Having revoting here and there and yonder picking and choosing who gets to vote again is probably the worst possible solution. 

One reader proposed that the two VP candidates resign and the electors choose one President and one VP from Bush and Gore, which would require them to work together. That won't happen either, but it makes a certain degree of sense.

When I was a lad before WW II, who was president wasn't really more important than who was county sheriff. Would we were self governing again and Washington were not so important in our lives, but that won't happen either. Well, the world of technology moves along...

I do note that there will be the inevitable move to abolish the electoral college in favor of direct election -- and that the suggestion will come from those representing large states. It would require a constitutional amendment, and I doubt seriously that  2/3 of the Senate would approve or 3/4 of the states would ratify it, since the least populous 1/2 would be losing influence, and the least populous third very much so.

Charleston, WVa (CNSNews.com) - The "Butterfly" voting system, currently under intense national scrutiny in Florida, is similar to the voting system used in several counties in West Virginia and is nearly identical to the one used in Cook County, Illinois - home to Gore campaign chairman William Daley.

Ah, but mountain people in Appalachia are smarter than Florida flatlanders...

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I am off to Las Vegas for COMDEX. Robert Thompson says:

If your readers are looking for something new to read, I'll be regularly updating my own pages at http://www.ttgnet.com/rbt/thisweek.html  and http://www.hardwareguys.com  while you're gone.

I think I am about to have DSL. We will see when I get back.

Well I have made it to Las Vegas and got connected. I doubt we will have too many updates here but www.byte.com will have show reports starting Monday. I should be filing one on Gates's speech tomorrow night. It's journalism time again...

Georgia second-graders have no problem with butterfly ballot

The Associated Press Web-posted: 2:57 p.m. Nov. 10, 2000

LEESBURG, Ga. -- That so-called butterfly ballot may have been confusing to the grown-ups in Florida, but some second-graders here made it look like child's play.

School psychologist Ron McGee asked the 8-year-olds at Lee County Elementary to vote for their favorite Disney character, using a ballot similar to the one that has caused controversy in Florida's Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach County ballot listed candidates in two columns, with a space down the center where the voter could mark his or her choice.

Hundreds of angry Palm Beach voters have said the format was so confusing they mistakenly voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore.

But McGee said not one of his 74 young voters marked a choice they did not intend to mark on the ballot, which instructed them only to "Check the box for the one you choose."

I think I need to deal with this in my upcoming book on high tech wars....

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Late. Gates did an interesting performance as usual and I have some good notes including an interview with Dan Bricklin. I'll try to write it up for www.byte.com when I've had some sleep. I used to be able to keep going until I filed the story, but not tonight.

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