Monthly Archives: February 2007

Are the terms WhiteList and BlackList racist??

It’s kind of a simple question, but I can’t find a specific answer. Do the terms, WhiteList and BlackList, that we commonly use these days to block/allow e-mail, web sites and comments have racist origins?

I can’t find the answer. I think about it every time I modify instructions for our mail filtering at work, just waiting for someone to ask me, but I can’t find an answer anywhere on the history of it. I’ve found some things when looking on-line related to hollywood (usually political writing) and on blackballing people (also from work or organizations) but nothing on the origins of the word even in that context.

I’ve seen some software FAQs skate around it with some stupid explanations to avoid the issue, but I think red + green universally mean stop + go so greenlist and redlist makes sense and since we don’t have green people it wouldn’t be considered racist (or even incorrectly thought to be). Maybe this is a non-issue, but I’m wondering what you think. Continue reading

Hand Update.

So I went back to the doctor today to see what the verdict was today. And after a very long wait (I was about to go back up to the counter to remind them I was there, they were shutting down for lunch and I was the only one left not waiting for someone to come out) I got to see him. Unfortunately they didn’t have an answer for me. They can see something that looks like some kind of irritation on the bone, something that looked rough or worn, but nothing that looked broke. So they see some kind of unknown problem. Of course, this doesn’t help me any… Continue reading

Do you use Quantcast?

I’ve been using Quantcast to look at some site statistics. As usual noting is perfect, I know it doesn’t count anything from RSS feeds or anywhere else I might have had info pulled some other way from my site (RSS, my PDA version, AvantGo, etc.) and I’m certain I didn’t get their little piece of code on every page on my site. BTW, you don’t need their code to get information from them, I had information already, this just got me a few bits more but I see I still don’t have any on ‘Audience Composition’ and I’m not sure why.

They have fun data mostly based on the geographic data of the location of people viewing your site. I don’t think I have that many Asian viewers but that out of country viewing has to be allocated to someone. Can we legally get “spammers” declared as an ethnicity?

Palm and Treo DST Updates

If you want your time zones to be correct after the March 2007 Daylight Savings Time change be sure to download this DST update from Palm.

  • Treo 700p, 680, 650, 600, 300, 270, 750, 700w, 700wx
  • LifeDrive
  • Tungsten T5,T3, T2
  • Tungsten C, E2, E, W
  • Zire 72, 31, 21
  • TX, Z22
  • If you’re viewing this page via your Palm OS device you’ll have an option to update it OTA (over the air).

    Roswell

    So some different things got me thinking about Roswell: Quite often Grey’s Anatomy does since Katherine Heigl was one of the stars. So that started me thinking about the TV series Roswell and I started surfing around stumbled along THE video clip (to set this clip up, you need to know that Max and Liz didn’t know each other well but secretly had crushes, two men get in an argument in the Crashdown Cafe, a gun goes off, Liz falls to the ground and Max runs to her side) where it all started . It was a great series but it only made it three seasons, which is actually pretty good for sci-fi.
    Roswell60Th
    And then I remembered that the Roswell UFO Festival is this summer (as always) but this year is 60 years since the aliens crashed there. The biggest coverup since well, since anything else. This is the reason as to why they always dismiss UFO sightings as ‘weather balloons’ because that’s what they accused the Air Force guy of doing, of confusing a weather balloon with a spaceship…

    I’m really thinking of going to the festival this summer, has ever anyone gone? Any tips? Anything from someone whose been there but not during a festival? Maybe a not-to-miss place (museum or restaurant)? Or an alien-theme hotel or maybe just a good but cheap hotel?

    Do me a favor? Go get a Gravatar!

    Do you ever notice that sometimes in the comments you can see an image of the poster? Those are called Avatars. Sometimes they are of the poster and sometimes they are image representing them. Regardless of which one you use anything is more interesting than nothing. It gives a little more recognition / flavor to your post…

    Gravatar has a way to put those on places where you comment. Two cool things about that. One: They’re free!!! Two: They’re retroactive. If you set it up, it’ll automagically show up on any old comments you left on this site and on thousands (and thousands) of sites where you may have already commented! Plus, they’ve just gone back on-line after redesigning their site.

    It’s not a big favor and I never ask you for much so please find a image of yourself (it’ll let you size/crop it) and go sign up! Of course you realize you need to come back here and leave a comment, right? And I’ll need a volunteer or two who already has a Gravatar to leave one so other’s can see how they work…

    Please note: I’ve noticed that after you add an image you have to go to the My Gravatar page and say you want to associate that image with your e-mail address.

    The early bird…

    HA! Never heard that one before!!!!

    “The early bird may get the worm,
    but the second mouse gets the cheese”

    — Wendy’s MySpace Page

    I Googled it and found all sorts of references but didn’t see an original source.

    So I’m at the medical center…

    So I’m at the pace to get a bone scan (actually this was last week, I’m just finishing up this post now). I think I mentioned I’ve had some on and off problems with my hand/wrist, I had a CAT scan the other week (nothing to see) and now I’m up to a bone scan. So this morning I had some radioactive “dye” (something that attaches to phosphates I believe she said) injected and they stuck me in some machine that watched me for a few minutes to see how it flows through my body. Then I had to come back in 3 hours to get more images taken, not so bad except the center is in Ypsi and I work 30 miles away (but I’ve gotten some e-mail done, an order done and picked up some supplies for work at Target).

    Not related to the tests but in the morning I had someone in Nuclear Medicine named Kelly helping me out, now this was odd to me since I had an ex-girlfriend (fiancee actually) named Kelly who worked in the Nuclear Medicine department at a local hospital. A little bit of a coincidence, no…

    So now I’m waiting to go back in. They have WiFi but I can’t get past the “accept their internet policy page”. And I left my book in the car, so I’m really bored now…. Continue reading