The previously mentioned plan to change when DST is in effect was also mentioned in the latest RISKS digest, and the author points out an aspect of the plan that will be especially problematic:

Regardless of whether you actually think daylight saving is a good idea, there are definite risks when you decide to change the rules on how it works. In this case, the proposal is to have the change take effect this fall. I’m curious if Congress realizes that just about every single computer system would have to be updated so that it would keep the correct time.

The Fourth Amendment, that is:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Since it seems like quite a few elected officials and public servants are having trouble remembering it these days, you might want to just go ahead and pick up a bag or some other item to remind them of what they’ve sworn to uphold.

via the boing and the other boing.

We went out to the Apple store last weekend, to buy a computer for TheChild. There’s been an older Intel desktop in the living room for some time that’s been nominally “hers”, but it was a bit slow and more than a bit noisy and generally just not very convenient to use. Plus I’m still not convinced that the hypothesis that Windows use causes long-term cognitive damage is untrue, and I’d rather not take the chance.

The original plan was to buy a Mini, and recycle the monitor that we were using with the previous system. The original plan was scrapped on encountering the iMac G5 and realizing that the part-time teaching I do at JHU makes me eligible for an educational discount, which lowered the price that critical amount necessary for psychological buy-in.

We also dodged a bit of a bullet: two days after our purchase, Apple announced changes to the Mini line — primarily a bump in the standard RAM, a bump which I would have paid for had we gone with the Mini instead of the G5. I suppose that’s what I get for going in to buy Apple hardware without researching the rumor sites first…

Reminder: Today is Sysadmin Day. Leave gifts and tribute in the usual places.

Welcome back.

The Housing Bubble blog picks up a WaPo story about the cooling DC area real estate market. Here’s hoping it deflates slowly, rather than suddenly popping.

Bow before the grammar god…

Mark Morford nails scandal-o’-the-week “Hot Coffee” right between the eyes in ‘There’s Sex In My Violence! What’s this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent “Grand Theft Auto”? I am outraged!‘:

Shouldn’t someone be outraged over the fact that 17-year-old virgin geeks who play endless hours of ultraviolent video games might somehow be tainted to their very cores by two minutes of badly animated sex, despite how you are, as a typical American teen, so regularly co-opted, so viciously pummeled by crass product placement and violence on the news and wicked misinformation about everything from marijuana to abstinence to cafeteria food, well, it pretty much makes the tepid and completely unarousing sex on GTASA look like outtakes from “Shrek III: Now We’re Just Whoring It”? You’re darned right there should!

Read, as the saying goes, the whole thing.

It looks like the move to extend the hours of daylight savings time is going to succeed. Signs you are a big geek #4578: your first thought when you hear this is, “But what about all the embedded devices that are going to switch clocks on the wrong day now?”

Well, technically, it’s not closing so much as it’s changing hands: Brig is selling the weblog portal. (The weblog portal, that is.) Thanks for all the work over the years, Brig.