My Stuff Expanded to Fill All My Gigabytes, Ergo Got More Gigs

I am old enough to remember floppy disks that deserved the name. They bent. I remember wondering why I might need more than one to back up my files. 360,000 characters was a lot of writing. A full novelette. When I bought my new desktop computer a couple of years ago, I got what I thought was an adequate hard disk: Equivalent to 417,000 5¼" floppies, or room for about 100,000 five megapixel photos. But then I started playing with video. A normal digital video at 640 x 480 30 fps eats 100Mb/min. So my once open spaces got filled in. What to do? I considered adding a second drive. I'd done this on several of my previous computers. It requires remembering what is on which drive for daily use, as well as backing up. And how does one reliably back up such huge amounts? I didn't want to do this, yet again. So I decided to replace my main drive. "What?" you may well ask, aghast. This is not the ordeal it once was. I got a bigger drive, cloned the old one onto it, and then swapped it. Easy, and here's how (assuming you aren't stuck with a single-source machine (Apple)): (Details "below the fold")

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FCC comes through big on net neutrality

Because the citizens keep losing out to the political clout of banks, insurance companies and other well-monied industries, it's especially good to see the People of the United States win one against the telecoms. The FCC came down strongly in favor of net neutrality today. This is an incredibly important day for those of us who believe in grassroots politics and the fair and free exchange of ideas. For those not clear on the stakes, I refer you to my earlier report on the importance of net neutrality based on Tim Wu's explanation at the 2007 National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. Today, the FCC announced two new guiding principles regarding use of the Internet:

- Broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications; and

- Providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.

Here are today's words of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski:
This is how I propose we move forward: To date, the Federal Communications Commission has addressed these issues by announcing four Internet principles that guide our case-by-case enforcement of the communications laws. These principles can be summarized as: Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing the lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network. The principles were initially articulated by Chairman Michael Powell in 2004 as the “Four Freedoms,” and later endorsed in a unanimous 2005 policy statement issued by the Commission under Chairman Kevin Martin and with the forceful support of Commissioner Michael Copps, who of course remains on the Commission today. In the years since 2005, the Internet has continued to evolve and the FCC has issued a number of important bipartisan decisions involving openness. Today, I propose that the FCC adopt the existing principles as Commission rules, along with two additional principles that reflect the evolution of the Internet and that are essential to ensuring its continued openness. Fifth Principle of Non-Discrimination The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination -- stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications.

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Microsoft Practically Admits Vista Sucks

I've recently bought a new laptop, and have been battling Windows Vista for a week to get it to run some of my clients' apps. I had considered paying an extra hundred dollars to retrograde my system to XP. But I figured that the future is coming, so I might as well get a handle on it. Then tonight I saw a commercial: Did I hear this right? Microsoft is practically admitting the Vista nightmare is drawing to a close. The last clause is, "...more happy is coming". When my free upgrade to Windows 7 comes, I hope it solves some of my problems. But I doubt it.

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Reward for Iranian protesters: torture and rape

From the London Times, reports of the torture and beatings of many protesters:

Ardeshir — not his real name — is one of scores, perhaps hundreds, of detainees who have been raped and tortured by their jailers in the past three months in what appears to be a systematic attempt to break their will. Mehdi Karoubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidates, accused a regime, which claims to champion Islamic values, of raping opposition supporters.
Times continue to be tough for those seeking reform, as reported by Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz of Windows on Iran. The battles include cyber-battles, as reported by Dr. Keshavarz, who provided this information in a mass emailing to which I subscribe:

All signs point to the fact that difficult - and decisive - days may be ahead in Iran. But the good news first. For years, Iranians who are ranked as number four bloggers in the world, have been prevented from visiting the sites that the Iranian government has considered containing information contrary to its interests and filtered. Those who devised creative ways to break the filter and get into such sites, are usually in danger of being found and subjected to jail and other punishments. What is most amazing is that the Iranian government considers the existence of undesirable websites as "foreign interference" in its internal affairs.

But there is also some good news of a new work-around to avoid detection and capture (and, often, torture):

Well, this state of affairs may have been ended once and for all. Using Google, an Iranian by the name Mehdi Saharkhiz has come up with an internet tool which he has called the "Green Machine." The Green Machine! Good News for the Greens in Iran

Here is the site that gives you instruction for downloading the Green Machine. According to Mr. Mousavi's facebook, after you download the Green Machine, you can visit any website - filtered or otherwise - without being detected.

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Backroom postal employees paid to do nothing.

The Federal Times has provided a disturbing example of government waste. Situations like these cause many people to distrust the federal government (except, of course, when the government is invading another country with government employee-soldiers).

The U.S. Postal Service, struggling with a massive deficit caused by plummeting mail volume, spends more than a million dollars each week to pay thousands of employees to sit in empty rooms and do nothing. It’s a practice called “standby time,” and it has existed for years — but postal employees say it was rarely used until this year. Now, postal officials say, the agency is averaging about 45,000 hours of standby time every week — the equivalent of having 1,125 full-time employees sitting idle, at a cost of more than $50 million per year.

According to Federal Times article, mail volume is way down (largely because of the Internet), and the USPS can’t keep all of its employees busy. This article states that union rules prohibit layoffs or re-assignment to locations that do need workers. Federal Times reported that postal officials admitted that 15,000 postal workers did least some “standby time” last year, many of them spending entire shifts in break rooms where they do crosswords and personal reading, and some even sleep through their shifts. The article notes that letter carriers are not among the affected employees; letter carriers are being kept busy due to reduced numbers of those positions and increasing numbers of addresses to service. Speaking of mail volume being way down, my letter carrier tells me that almost everything he delivers is advertising, magazines, bills or greeting cards. People are squawking about closing some post offices, but shouldn’t there be even a bigger cost-saving move to reduce deliveries to three per week? Couldn't I possibly wait an extra day for that magazine, for that bill or for that mailer worth 15% off on my next delivery of pizza? Think of all the fuel and money taxpayers could save if we delivered mail to residences only every other day instead of every day . . .

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