Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Weird Florida News

Posted on June 3, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Bumper crop today.

Just another day in Florida.

Which is good, because I needed something to distract me from the latest US-troops-get-barbaric allegation: Iraqis claim troops framed victim.

Posted in Florida | 1 Comment

What if Katherine Harris Were Running for Senate?

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

OK, since the horrible video I blogged earlier has apparently taken down all of YouTube, here’s an alternate horrible video hosted elsewhere. This one isn’t quite as horrible, but it’s pretty darn bad: The Rejected Katherine Harris Campaign Video!.

Not for the weak, or even the strong (I didn’t make it to the end, as my flesh started to creep out of the room).

Posted in Politics: US: 2006 Election | 2 Comments

Firefox and Thunderbird Updates

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

While we wait for super-fast Firefox 2.0, here are updates hot off the press: Firefox 1.5.0.4 and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4.

Posted in Software | 3 Comments

Links We Wish We Hadn’t Followed Dept.

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

One of the dangers of spending a lot of time online is that sometimes you will follow a link to something that you really wish you hadn’t.

So don’t say I didn’t warn you, that only two clicks away (I’m not linking to it, I’m just linking to a page that links to it), is one of the most evil mind-rotting videos I’ve had the misfortune to see … well, since whenever I last saw Bush speak, and possibly much longer. You really don’t want to view this, and if you do you will be sorry.

Don’t click. Really, don’t click. It will upset you.

And if you do, don’t blame me.

Update: Youtube.com, which hosts this video, appears to be down. Karma! [further update: the problem seems to be in the Bellsouth DSL network]
Update3: Bellsouth is up, YouTube is down, at least from here…

Posted in Internet | 3 Comments

One More Reason I Should Switch to WordPress

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Six Apart, creators of Movable Type and, more recently, owners of LiveJournal, have decided to harrass LiveJournal users whose default icons depict breastfeeding.

Private censorship is a pain, but we can vote with our pocketbooks. Public censorship is much worse — voting with your feet is much harder (and meanwhile they cart you off to jail).

Posted in Civil Liberties, Internet | 2 Comments

Dreamhost Lightens Up on CPU

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Since I’ve posted before on Dreamhost’s unfortunate CPU-throttling measures, it’s only fair that I note their announcement relaxing the policy,

Well, we’re sick and tired of people being sick and tired of getting disabled for “cpu minute” overages! ESPECIALLY when we don’t even have any real set “cpu minute” levels for plans, or a tab on our web panel where you can track your usage.

So “guess” what?! We’ve changed our “cpu minute” “policy” “for the better!” We no longer HAVE any limits on “cpu minutes”. Maybe it’s just semantics, and maybe it’s just “crazy overselling”, but as long as your site or scripts aren’t causing problems with the server, you are IN THE CLEAR!

Let’s say you’re not IN THE CLEAR though.. don’t worry! We’ll work with you! We’re adding a BUNCH of new servers to help “get” the average load per web server down, and we’ll work with high-load people to get their usage down or their butts onto a new server that can handle it.

… although according to the Unofficial DreamHost Blog, exactly how this will work in practice isn’t 100% clear. I hope this isn’t just a PR gloss on the same old policy, but since they told me I was stressing the server when I ran into the CPU limits…

Posted in Discourse.net | 1 Comment