http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog Charles Merriam writes up radical inventions about technology, politics, and society Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:50:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "chown", "chgrp", "ln", and "chmod", behave oddly on fat-32, vfat, and ntfs file systems.  The "Operation not permitted" message may mean "This type of filesystem does not support that operation". Here's the example:  I want to create a file and own the file.  I can't seem to do it. Step 1:  Confusion!  ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2009/12/operation-not-permitted-and-the-fat-32-system/ Dear Honorable Representative Honda: Silicon Valley needs an absolute immunity that limits damages for auto-driving cars to $10 million per death or injury. Silicon Valley is looking for another trillion dollars worth of growth to fuel.  One great idea is limited by the absence of barely-controversial legal framework.   You could ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2009/06/open-letter-on-autodriving-cars-to-representative-honda/ Some follow-ups, corrections, and expansions.  Being correct takes effort. First, someone very knowledgeable on the internals noted that I was sloppy with the terms 'datastore', 'GBase', 'GoogleBase', 'GQL', and 'BigTable'.  Mea culpa.  Datastore is the most generic term and the specific one for Google App Engine is referred to as the ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/08/7-minute-talk-follow-up/ [I gave this talk at the BayPiggies Meeting on August 14, 2008.  The 'Newbie Nugget' talk ran about seven minutes and used only spoken words.  This is my recollection of what I said.] I drove here today.  I got in my car, used the six speed manual transmission, steering wheel, and ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/08/google-app-engine-7-minute-talk/ For those few brave souls working on KDE 4, this is my list of bugs I noticed in the first couple hours.  Some may be viewed as belonging to other subsystems.  This is installing KDE 4.1, 32 bit, on a new T-6836 laptop. On live CD, font on "read me" ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/07/kde-bug-list/ 80% of effects come from 20% of causes -- Pareto Principle by Vilfredo Frederico Damaso Pareto, 1906 90% of Everything is Crud -- Sturgeon's Law by Theodore Sturgeon, 1956 100% of Everything is Crud -- Linear extrapolation of above, 2006. There seems to have been a natural tendency for us to look at past as ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/07/kde-4-crud-and-the-quest-for-the-one-last-and-true-windowing-system/ I went out and bought a new laptop, having succesfully proven that driving over a laptop is not a good idea. First, I watched SlickDeals for a reasonable, cheap system.  I've found that laptops have a short obsolescence period, and buying near the bottom end is best.  Second, I went to ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/07/buying-a-new-laptop/ In hopes of making a more productive utopia, I share this tip: DO NOT RUN OVER YOUR LAPTOP WITH A MOTOR VEHICLE. This has caused a noted decrease in my productivity.   A corollary for advanced production specialists follows: DO NOT RUN OVER LAPTOP IN THE  MORNING WHEN THE BACK-UP DRIVE WILL BE DELIVERED ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/07/todays-productivity-tip/ Problem: Sometimes frozen food melts and refreezes. Refrigerated trucks don't.  Freezer doors stay open.  The freezer case goes out.  Groceries get left in the car for a long trip.  The power company decides to play power line roulette.  Later, the problem is fixed, and the food freezes again.  It's hard to ... http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/05/freeze-test-ice-cubes/ Problem: People Fail To Understand the Whole "Gays Can Marry" Thing Solution: A T-Shirt!  It's Always The Solution FIRST THE COLOREDS... THEN THE WOMEN... NOW THE GAYS? LIBERALS AND THEIR "RIGHTS" http://www.charlesmerriam.com/blog/2008/05/t-shirt-for-rights/