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World Conquest
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because ... well ... why the hell not ...?
it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.
- Friday, March 30th
- 8:24AM
- 8:24AM
- Register unto dummies:
Just in case you get the urge to start up a company, develop a new product, write something with intent to publish, or even name your band, taking a quick moment to do a trademark search on the US Government's Patent and Trademark office site [ http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html ] is a Good Thing™
Not only can you double=check to make sure that nobody has already trademarked the business/product/band name you were thinking of using, you also have the opportunity to be flabbergasted by the things people actually have gone to the trouble of trademarking.
Registering a trademark, while generally faster and cheaper than getting a patent, is a lot more complex, expensive, and time-consuming than registering a copyright. But, despite these hurdles, a quick search reveals that people have gone to the trouble of registering 101 trademarks that include the word "stupid," 215 variations on "beanie," 229 "dummies," and 4149 "Internet."
if, for example, you wanted to name your new delivery system for aerosol non-dairy cheese substitute "Scum Tongue," you'd be okay
But one particular trademark that jumped out at me in a search I was doing is registered to Theodore J. Simendinger of Greenwood Village, Colorado, who has gone to the trouble of registering the following trademark, just to make sure that nobody else tries to use it as a name or label on a competing product:
THE IMPACT PLAYER. BECOME AN IMPACT PLAYER. BECOME AN IMPACT PLAYER TODAY! THE HAPPY ART OF BUSINESS & LIFE ACHIEVEMENT. AMERICA'S FUNNIEST BUSINESSMAN FOOTPRINTS OR BUTTPRINTS? FIND YOUR GREENEST PASTURE. STREAMLINE SUCCESS. MAKE A COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE. BUILD EQUITY IN YOURSELF. EARN THE RIGHT. EARN THE RIGHT TO SUCCEED. EARN THE RIGHT TO FAIL. THRIVERS, SURVIVORS & CHEVROLET DRIVERS. WE ALL TAKE TURNS IN THE BARREL. THE WORRY CIRCLE. MANAGING THE WORRY CIRCLE. YOUR DAILY DOZEN. CREATE YOUR DAILY DOZEN. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK, CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOR, CHANGE YOUR LIFE. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK, CHANGE YOUR LIFE. FIND YOUR GREENEST PASTURE. FIX YOUR LIFE. FIX YOUR LIFE IN LESS THAN AN HOUR. WIN THE ONES YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO WIN AND SOME OF THE ONES YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LOSE. ARTFUL SIMPLICITY. BRILLIANT SIMPLICITY. THE ARTFUL SIMPLICITY OF THE COMPLEX. ACCESSIBLE LIFE LESSONS. LAUGH YOUR WAY TO A RICHER, HAPPIER AND MORE SUCCESSFUL WAY OF LIFE. MY FRIENDS & CO-CONSPIRATORS. SHINE YOUR MIRROR. BE BETTER, NOT PERFECT. NEVER LOOK IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR. LIFE'S WHAT YOU DO BETWEEN SHAVES. LIFE'S WHAT HAPPENS BETWEEN SHAVES. SHARE THE LAUGHTER. YOUR WORK IS YOUR AUTOGRAPH -- SIGN WITH A FLOURISH! WORK IS 24% OF YOUR LIFE -- TREAT IT THAT WAY. ONE NEW THING I CAN DO INSTANTLY TO CHANGE MY LIFE AND WORK. TEDSEZ. EARN THE RIGHT. EARN THE RIGHT TO SUCCEED. AND EARN THE RIGHT TO FAIL. SEE THE END AND WORK BACKWARD. NO STINKIN' THINKIN'! DO MORE & WANT LESS. ROLE MODELS -- FOLLOW ONE, BECOME ONE. IT'S OK TO BE A WILD DUCK. BUSINESS & TALENT DEVELOPMENT. THE EFFECTIVE USE OF HUMOR IN BUSINESS. HUMOR & LAUGHTER WORKS IN BUSINESS. WHAT YOU SAY AND HOW YOU SAY IT -- WORD ENGINEERING. THE POWER OF PERSONALITY TYPES. HAPPINESS, CONTENTMENT AND INNER PEACE ARE FAR STRONGER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN FRUSTRATION AND ANGER. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE A UNIQUE LABORATORY FOR? WHAT HAS YOUR LIFE BEEN A UNIQUELY POWERFUL LABORATORY FOR? KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, LOOK FOR WHAT YOU WANT, AND FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR -- IT'S OUT THERE. DON'T GET PICKED OFF SECOND. NEVER LET A COMPETITOR SURPRISE YOU.
But do keep in mind, however, that trademarks are necessarily industry-specific. So, for example, the (now expired) trademark "SCUM TONGUE" was only registered for "Goods and Services: Tongue scrapper implement for oral hygiene," so if, for example, you wanted to name your new delivery system for aerosol non-dairy cheese substitute "Scum Tongue," you'd be okay.
Legally, anyway. Mentally may be another matter entirely, and we just won't go into that now.
BTW, I don't know what a "tongue scrapper" is either, but that's what's written on the form. (Eeerily, the trademark owner is also in the Denver Metro area; what's going on here?)
The same would apply to Theodore's particularly pleonastic mark above, which just only applies to products and services related to self-help and inspirational seminars and coaching (was there ever any doubt?)--so if you wanted to use that on the packaging of your new aerosol non-dairy cheese substitute, you might just be able to get away with it, at least as long as you didn't go around trying to inspire people with it.
Personally, I don't think anyone would want to use that on their packaging, except maybe Doctor Bonner. So, you might want to double-check the natural food store shelves first before going through all the trouble of typesetting and label-printing.
- 1:06AM
- Mighty Monday Power Surges:
Somedays it sucks more than others that the whole Pons-and-Fleischman "Cold Fusion" technique didn't quite pan out and we don't all have our own personal unlimited polution-free power sources, capable of supplying all one's electrical power needs, despite being no bigger than a blender. (By "blender," I mean a standard kitchen-counter-sized blender, not one of those mini battery-powered gadgets or even a hand blender; not that I have anything against hand blenders, mind you, but they're not quite the size and shape I was thinking of. Glad we could clear this possible misunderstanding up before it had a chance to get all blown out of proportion and then, years later, we'd have that awkward and embarrassing but simultaneously relief-filled moment when we'd happen to meet in a grocery aisle somewhere and only then would the truth come out: "what, you mean all those years ago, you'd meant a kitchen-counter-style blender and not a hand-held blender?" Whew!)
Except for that whole "missing neutron" issue; if it had all worked out like P&F claimed, we'd have to account for where all those neutrons were going, what with the experimenters being sufficiently non-dead to issue press releases and stuff. Maybe the same place where missing socks go.
But, since P&F-style cold fusion (note that I'm being careful to distinguish it from Jones' muon-catalyzed fusion experiments which are a little warmer, but still "cold" by fusion standards--and downright "cool" in terms of overall-scientific-niftiness) didn't pan out, and I'm left without an unlimited personal energy device and the freedom from the local power grid that would entail.
"what, you mean all those years ago, you'd meant a kitchen-counter-style blender and not a hand-held blender?" Whew!
But free I am not, and so at 1:15AM, when the power went out, the computers faced the threat of possible downtime. (Eeep!) At first I hoped that the power would only be out a short while, but after a short while passed...and then a medium while...and then a pretty long while, as these things go, it became apparent that this wasn't about to work out this way.
The backup batteries held out for about four hours--I was starting to figure that merely by filling the basement with storage cells, the power just wouldn't bother going out. I hadn't had a chance to stress-test the UPSs since getting the big ones in, so I guess it was a learning experience and, like so many other learning experiences, darned annoying and inconvenient. Then the fun was shifting everything over to the backup generator, which isn't yet set on automatic start, nor wired into the power system. But it worked, though some of the equipment didn't like its output one bit. Again, one of those learning experience things.
The main thing that really didn't like the experience was the Livingston Portmaster; it went down and stayed down, taking the dialup lines down with it. Took until this afternoon to get it even back up to "kinda-sorta" working, with a bunch of side trips along the way as I tried out a lot of equipment that I'd had lying around that hadn't been put to use because even testing it would have required taking down the dialups.
The biggest excitement was getting the previously nonfunctional USR/3com Total Control system torn down and reconfigured into something functional. So, now I've got one of those things I'd longed for all this time, a digital modem bank. (Oooh, ahhh.)
It does simplify the cabling.
Still have to improve the terminal service end of things, but that'll wait until after I get a little sleep. On the plus side, it looks like Amazon's getting their database and tracking issues resolved and, not only are they starting to update their stocking information, I discovered I was even back up to #2 on the alternative/gothic/industrial download charts.
Okay, that might not sound like much, but it's better than having your terminal server blow up. Trust me on this one.
- Sunday, March 25th
- 10:02AM
- To Serve You Better, the cookbook:
Those of us who write webpages by hand are pretty much used to kicking off HTML documents with a "<HTML>" at the beginning and a "</HTML>" at the end. Once in a while, I've run across "web designers" who haven't quite grasped this concept and sometimes still don't get the idea even after vigorous and repeated prodding. Case in point, there was one event last year where they persisted in putting up the schedule without any of the ending "</BODY>" and "</HTML>" tags, which, at least when combined with the other failings and errors on their pages, presented Netscape users a pleasing view of their logo and nothing else.
At least they didn't overlay it with javascript for popping up a bunch of windows opening onto broken links with each and every mouse click. I'm still uncertain why the leading e-marketing philosophy these days is "if it's not broken, break it; if it is broken, make it more annoying. When in doubt, do both."
I did get a t-shirt from that event, plus some of the other promo stuff that was left over (almost all of it); as much as people were enthralled by a clear and unencumbered-by-distracting-textual-information view of their logo, the lack of schedule and directions on the display may have created some logistical difficulties that negatively impacted attendance.
Uh-oh, I may be in danger of picking up a marketingese accent myself; gotta keep from spending too much time skimming through the annoucements of how such-and-such company is proactively embracing a new translucent-colored paradigm in hopes of locating some hint of meaningful technical specs.
Which is what I was heading towards with my original comment about HTML beginning and end tags. This morning I realized that marketing materials, press releases, and company newsletters are written in MMML (Marketing Material Markup Language), in which tags like "<HTML>" and "</HTML>" are replaced with "<FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE>" and "<TO BETTER SERVE>".
It's probably a good thing that they do include these MMML tags in their newsletters and annoucements, because if they didn't, you'd probably never guess, if you looked only at the content in the middle, that there was anything about it that was either convenient or that improved service.
For you, anyway.
As it happens, for my convenience and to better serve me, Amazon.Com has screwed up their inventory system and, for consistency's sake, the bio/background page on me. I probably shouldn't complain too much, since they are selling and shipping everything from my CDs to the comics (issue #4 of "Lazarus, the Many Reincarnations" was even one of their featured selections last month), but it's still annoying to be trying to track down why they're showing some items (like said CD) as "on order" only to find that their inventory system is hosed right now, "to better serve you." Maybe it's just so I'll appreciate their on-line inventory system more when it's back on-line again instead of taking it for granted.
But Amazon did fix the problems with their "free downloads" section, [ www.amazon.com/
exec/obidos/ ] so at least that part's working.tg/stores/artist/-/ digital-music/213003 I think. Well, you can always give it a try and find out.
- Friday, March 23rd
- 6:02AM
- NetWeek:
It's been another network hardware week, but then, aren't they all?
Hardware is another one of those things that's "feast or famine" or, more often, both at the same time. CSU/DSUs are one of the best examples--back when Nyx was first moving out on its own, I had the most difficult time gettting any kind of T1 CSU/DSU. I even went through the adventures of tracking down several and, repeatedly, the sellers had managed to lose or misplace their units, they turned out to have a unit that was proprietary and not compatible with any other unit (and, in particular, not with standard telco hardware), the unit they had turned out not to be a CSU/DSU at all, but an entirely different kind of hardware, or they just never quite got around to shipping it, month after month, and I never did find out what happened.
Eventually, I did manage to track one down at the last minute, which usually means paying more for it than I should have, and so it did.
And a few months later, I ended up getting a shipment of more than twenty T1 CSU/DSUs that I liked better anyway at a net cost of around $5 each--total cost on the lot far less than the single unit that I'd had to work so hard to get had been. And a month or two later, I got another, slightly smaller batch ... and since then I've gotten more mixed in with one batch or another, so now I have over fifty of them sitting around in the warehouse.
The latest adventure involved more network equipment (natch), notably a small stack of Cisco gear, including a couple of 25xx routers which might not be the most high-powered things out there, but I'd been using a 2501 router for a few years without having any spares and that's the kind of thing that makes me nervous. I like spares; I'm weird that way.
So I've gotten to where I can put a Cisco router on the bench, upgrade the memory, get past any passwords, wipe out the old configuration, and install a new configuration in just a few minutes. The only thing I couldn't find out any information about was whether you got any benefits or advantages from upgrading the memory, but I figured, hey, why not?
At least nothing has blown up.
So far, anyway.
"404 not found" pages that were clearly superior to their competitors' ordinary, technologically-inferior "404 not found" pages
But it's extraordinarily easy to find all the information you want about what cool features networking products have and why their manufacturers think their products are better than anyone else's, so much better that they don't need to burden you with meaningful benchmarks and confusing details like that. 3com, Cisco, and HP all had some great papers on why their products were leaps and bounds ahead of the competition; namely, 3com, Cisco, and HP--at least where the divisions that made or theoretically supported those products hadn't been spun off in the previous quarter, in which case they only boasted "404 not found" pages that were clearly superior to their competitors' ordinary, technologically-inferior "404 not found" pages.
The lack of meaningful benchmarks and performance specifics not only complicates the matter of comparing products that you don't already own, it also makes it confusing to optimize the performance of those you do. Sure, the SolarPlexus NerveNet-1000rx includes "selectable therblig management proactivity," but is this option a good thing to use, or is it merely one of those "features" like the "turbo" switch which merely allows you the option of having your system performance drop like a rock at the touch of a button so that the manufarcturer can boast how much faster it operates with the "drop your system performance like a rock" option not selected.
But after swapping in the new Cisco routers and taking the old one down for its own tweaking and upgrading, it was time to work on the network backbone.
Not that I have that much of a "backbone" here at the treehouse network--it's not like I'm providing streaming video-on-demand to millions; at my pretty modest level of service, it's dozens at most.
There is a lot that does go on here, and the traffic does pile up a bit on the way in or out, and I do what I can to cut down on the elbow-jostling between the packets as they make their ways in and out through the data lines, and the Cisco routers (mentioned above) are among the tightest bottlenecks and don't get high marks in the "plays well with others" space on their report cards.
They're working, which is a big plus in my book. I'd been using the 3com 1100 switch for the external network for a few weeks now and had been pretty darned happy with it. I also had a 12-port 3300 and, as I'm sure you know, no matter how many network ports you have, you always need just a few more.
As is the way of things surplus, what I didn't have was the "matrix stacking cable" to interconnect the 3300 and 1100, and give me, if not the best of both worlds, at least the ports of both switches. Unlike a surprisingly large number of "stacking" hubs, the 3com SuperStack II series actually are stackable and aren't merely cascadable, which is really not synonymous, no matter how many manufacturers seem to think it is. No, having an MDI port wired in parallel to one of the MDIX ports is not sufficient. nor is having the rubber feet on the bottom of one unit match up with indentations on the top of another.
I did order in the proprietary matrix stacking cable for the 3coms, and (speaking of "the way of all things surplus") this particular piece of wire with its proprietary interconnects cost me more than I'd spent on both the 1100 and 3300. Not that I didn't have several proprietary stacking cables for other switches already, I just didn't have the switches that they went for.
If I had to make a choice, on the whole, I'd rather have the switches than the cable, yes I would, if I only could, I surely would....
There's a folk song there somewhere, but we'll get back to the technical part instead for now.
So I had to pull the 1100 to configure the units to use the stacking cable, not only because this is not a hot-swappable option, but also because all units in the stack have to be configured with the same management firmware. In the same batch of hardware I'd gotten the Cisco routers in was a Calalyst 1924, which is Cisco's product aimed squarely at 3com's 1100. In fact, they're almost identical except that the 1100 has a couple of option slots and where the 3com has its matrix port, the Cisco has an AUI. (oh, boy)
Both Cisco and 3com have "white papers" specifically detailing why each one's offering is better than the other's. 3com wins on the "best use of extremely selective testing protocol" front, whereas Cisco is clearly the leader in the "best slanted language to imply that the other product is inferior without actually saying anything meaningful" department.
So, this was my chance to do my own, very informal testing while I took down the 3coms to install the upgrades and stacking options. Despite Cisco's claimed advantages for this kind of application, the only respect in which I saw the 1924 having any edge over the 1100 was in the detail of the port statistics reporting. Surprisingly, despite its support of "Cisco discovery protocol" which enabled it to recognize its sibling router on one of its network ports, the connection between the 1924 switch and the 2425 router was the link that showed the poorest performance compared to the 3com's, no matter what options I tried with their "enhanced congestion management" and backpressure (the router being the device most in need of full-duplex support while also being the device that doesn't have it).
The real-world, subjective performance difference was small enough that I doubt anybody not watching the network statistics would have noticed it, but in the meantime, while the Catalyst 1924 switch was doing its turn at bat, the upgrade of the 3com units proceeded without a moment of difficulty or weirdness, and they've been doing just fine since being put back into service.
Except that the little pictures of the switch units themselves on the management interface display are a different color now. I hope this isn't some harbinger of any future plans 3com may have to come out with switches in transparent jelly colors or to release its management software with "skins" and "visualizations."
Okay, "visualizations" could be interesting, but only if they're actually informative of network loading, errors, and performance. I just don't to start seeing a whole lot of features start getting hideously bug-ridden and/or stop working completely as the focus of network management software efforts are shifted entirely over to making the interface look like a hybrid between an Art Deco TV set and E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.
- Tuesday, March 13th
- 21:36PM
- This just in: the world did not end.
Yesterday was a great day for getting calls from friends who were still disappointed that the civilization and/or the world's economy did not crash with the Y2K disaster-that-wasn't. This time, they knew that Monday's tumbling Dow was the first step in the impending "economic collapse that would make the Great Depression look like a picnic," just as they'd predicted.
. . . except for it being a little bit after January 1, 2000 at this point.
But that, you see, is merely because they'd been more farsighted than I'd previously given them credit for.
Oh. Okay.
But the bottom didn't fall out of the markets today, so maybe they're even more far-sighted than I'd imagined, even yesterday.
The most important thing for fortune tellers is to never be too specific, and if you are specific about some details, be even more vague about the rest. Think Heisenberg here: the more you let yourself be nailed down about what will happen, the more vague you need to be about when it'll happen.
The other important thing, which I just inadvertently discovered myself, is that if you're wandering around the house with a handful of crackers in one hand and using the other to do a little picking up of out-of-place items along the way, and you happen to pick up the 128 Meg compactflash card that happened to be sitting next to the laptop, meaning to return it to the digital camera that's still sitting on the tripod in the room where you were last using it, don't absent-mindedly toss the wrong small, flat, square object into your mouth and start chewing.
As it happens, a 128 Meg compactflash card that's a little warped and has noticeably visible teeth-marks will work, believe it or not, but I still don't recommend it.
- Saturday, March 10th
- 10:22AM
- Snowy Saturday Morning:
Snow flurries, anyway; the ground hasn't gotten past the "moist" stage. It's a good thing, though, that I'd gotten all the power tools back out of the courtyard and put away yesterday, because I seem to recall that they don't like being being moist all that much.
But speaking of power tools (not moist ones this time), I was surprised how hard it was to get a bandsaw blade for the Visible Barbie Project; turned out that it was a lot easier to get a whole new bandsaw--which is okay, because I'd been meaning to do that anyway. I use a bandsaw quite often: that's what I use for making everything from chainmail links to custom enclosures for engineering prototypes because it makes a very clean cut and is a lot faster to use than a jeweler's saw for most large-scale projects.
Bandsaws, however, are a bit like networking equipment, notebook computers, and automobiles--every manufacturer has to design them to use parts that are just different enough to be incompatible with everybody else's designs...and their own designs from the previous year. In the case of bandsaws, there's not a lot of variables, just blade length.
- so, of course, everybody has to make any given bandsaw model take a different length blade than the rest of 'em.
Even so, I wouldn't have expected this to be a major problem--hardware stores, for example, do make it a habit to carry drill bits, wrenches, screwdrivers, and other tools and parts in varying sizes. Apparently, however, this is not generally the case where bandsaws are concerned: stopping at five different hardware stores, four of them carried only bandsaw blades in the size used by the one or two models of bandsaws that they stocked at the time. The lone exception was the place where I actually purchased the bandsaw (because it had the best prices by a large margin) where they only carried one size and type of blade...but not the size that fit the model I'd bought. Hmmm....
right now I have to get the rest of the hair out of the bandsaw
- Friday, March 9th
- 7:34AM
- Doing strange things in the name of science:
Quite possibly my most sick and twisted science project to date:
the Visible Barbie Project - [ http://www.trygve.com/visible_barbie.html ](Sorry I haven't written a lot this week. I've been working on a few longer projects which I should have up soon, but right now I have to get the rest of the hair out of the bandsaw.)
- Saturday, March 3rd
- 23:44PM
- Hornswoggled:
Did a couple of benefit shows for the grand opening of the Smithsonian's travelling exhibit, "Vikings, The North Atlantic Saga" [ http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/ ], now on its third stop at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science [ http://www.dmnh.org/ ]. One of the interesting things about the exhibit, the other speakers, and the educational materials is that pretty much everything starts out by covering that all-important topic, "Vikings did not have horns on their helmets."
changing a helmet into a cranially-mounted sword-catching device
Unfortunately, it's a little more difficult to get historically accurate helmets than it is to get the horned ones, and I hadn't gotten any in for the performances at the museum. That wasn't a major problem, except that somewhere in between the first and second performances, it crossed my mind that, while the audiences had probably heard, read, and seen mention of the non-horned-ness of the Viking's helmets, I hadn't seen anything explaining why having horns on one's helmets (as they've been portrayed since the 19th century) can be a Bad Thing[tm] in an actual combat situation.
Having the advantage of a small band of warriors armed with swords, spears, axes, and shields, it was possible for me to demonstrate in a simple and graphic manner the tactical disadvantages of placing horns on one's helmet, where they are ideally located for the purpose of changing the function of a helmet from a protective device designed to intercept and deflect blows from weapons, into a cranially-mounted sword-catching device that transmits the force of blows--even those that would have otherwise missed our helmeted hero's head--directly to our hero's neck.
And with only two live performances, there was no serious risk of running out of performers.
Then, afterwards, I discovered that the Museum gift shop and even the special Viking gift shop attached to the travelling exhibit carried an extensive line of Viking helmets, figurines, and other assorted knick-knacks ... all of which featured prominent horns on their helmets.
If you're curious, you can see a few of the 100% helmet-horn-free highlights of the show at [ http://www.trygve.com/viking_saga.html ]
- Sunday, March 25th
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