The Daily Parker

We got back from Miami late Friday. Parker, happy to have us home, wanted to keep us as close as possible Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, for example, he kept close to Anne even while Anne was off doing other things:

Also, my project start got pushed to either Thursday or next Monday (I'll find out later today). That means Parker came to the office with me this morning, and will probably come back again on Wednesday. He loves coming to the office. Of course, he seems to love just about everything in life, which I think is an attitude worth emulating.

The New York Times picked up the ongoing story of botnets, networks of computers that spammers and other miscreants have taken over:

According to the annual intelligence report of MessageLabs, a New York-based computer security firm, more than 80 percent of all spam now originates from botnets. Last month, for the first time ever, a single Internet service provider generated more than one billion spam e-mail messages in a 24-hour period, according to a ranking system maintained by Trend Micro, the computer security firm. That indicated that machines of the service providers' customers had been woven into a giant network, with a single control point using them to pump out spam.

Users, ISPs, users, software vendors, and users contribute to the problem:

Serry Winkler, a sales representative in Denver, said that she had turned off the network-security software provided by her Internet service provider because it slowed performance to a crawl on her PC, which was running Windows 98. A few months ago four sheriff’s deputies pounded on her apartment door to confiscate the PC, which they said was being used to order goods from Sears with a stolen credit card. The computer, it turned out, had been commandeered by an intruder who was using it remotely.

Note that Winkler's computer probably ran slowly because it had already gotten infected, and the ISP's security software had a lot of work to do because of this.

At least with the Times picking up the story, perhaps more people will notice.

That's the 10th St. Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. As I write this the sun is coming up over Lake Michigan. It's just 20°C (36°F) colder there, is all.

Wal-Mart will soon start scheduling employees based on predicted customer loads, requiring the employees to be more "flexible:"

The move promises more productivity and consumer satisfaction, but could demand more flexibility and availability from workers in place of reliable shifts and predictable pay checks, the Journal reported.

Wal-Mart started using the system for some workers, including cashiers and accounting-office personnel, last year, the paper also reported.

This is an example of software developers forgetting their work sometimes has human consequences. The idea of micro-managing employees through software didn't occur to Wal-Mart just recently; in fact, I worked on a system that would have scheduled call-center employees' potty breaks down to 6-second increments almost 10 years ago. I quit, because I thought the software, however profitable, was immoral.

Perhaps I have an extreme view, but really, I think a company has to believe its employees are no more than cattle to treat them like this. Absolutely companies need software to predict customer loads and marketing approaches, and I'm happy to assist. Scheduling employees to this level of precision just goes too far.

The thing is, the people writing the software, like the people paying for it, would never tolerate that kind of control over their own lives. Tell the CEO of a company that he has to take a potty break between 10:15:06 and 10:15:42 and he might clock you (no pun intended). Make his salary dependent on that kind of intrusion and she'll simply go to another company.

The people affected by this kind of scheduling don't have as many options; that's why they work for Wal-Mart. Once Wal-Mart has crushed all the other businesses in the area, the only thing between the employees and indentured servitude might be the state's anemic minimum-wage laws.

What Wal-Mart is doing is legal, but only possible because twenty years of Republican legislatures and right-wing propaganda have stripped workers of the power they accumulated in the 20th Century. It's the early industrial revolution again, with working people getting shafted in new, high-tech ways.

The huddled masses yearning to breathe free live here now.

Today's Chicago Tribune asks, "Who needs Florida?":

Balmier days are forecast to continue in Illinois over the next few days, a result of warmer air masses flowing in from the west and southwest and the effects of an El Nino year.

While no records are being broken—back in 1876 it was 65°F (18°C) on Jan. 2—temperatures in coming days are expected to remain mercifully above the historic average high of about 30°F (-1°C).

I find this funny because I'm sitting in shorts and a polo shirt by a pool surrounded by palm trees, a light 24°C (75°F) breeze cooling my sandal-clad feet, looking at Chicago's weather report, which tells me it's 1°C (33°F) back home—with a wind chill of -4°C (25°F).

I really can't answer the question "who needs Florida," but I can say the weather's a lot better here than in Chicago.

Anne and I are someplace warm (see second photo), but Parker is never far from our thoughts. Here he is New Year's Eve in what we must assume is doggy heaven:

At the moment, we are in people heaven, so I can't guarantee any more postings until Saturday. I hope everyone else is, if not as warm as we are (25°C, 77°F on the beach), at least as happy.

Weather Now is all new.

We're ecstatic to roll out a completely new visual design by Katie Zoellner. It's actually been lurking as a Beta site for several months. We didn't roll it out because not all of the features from our old site (see http://old.wx-now.com/) are complete. But today is the first day of a new year, which we thought an appropriate moment to finally give Katie's design some exposure.

(Nearly-)Total Internationalization

Notice the flags along the left side of this page. Is one of those flags from your country? Click on it. Almost everything on the site will automagically show up in your country's main language.

We're still working on a lot of the translations, and some of them are tragicomically wrong. If you find a mistranslation, please let us know. We have plans to add a few more languages (does anyone speak Japanese, Mandarin, or Hindi?), as well as to make the site better at guessing your preference.

Also notice that you can now change easily between International System (metric) and English measurements. The site will get better at guessing each visitor's initial preference here, as well.

Vastly improved flexibility

All of the data pages use XML and XSL to provide the data you're looking for. This gives us much more flexibility, and allows us to vary the content much more than we've done in the past.

Take the home page, for example. Each of the sections is independent of the others. Soon, you'll be able to mix and match them as you'd like, or choose from one of the themes that we'll offer.

Lots more under the hood

The Site now uses the Inner Drive Extensible Architecture™ throughout. The Idea™ underpins all Inner Drive Technology applications, of which this is our biggest demonstration.

Stay tuned

We have a lot more cool tools planned for the site, including a massive upgrade of the geographical gazetteer that holds all of our place information and some neat things to do with your mobile PC.

Richard Clarke reminds the Administration (751 days, 2 hours) that Iraq isn't the only problem we face, even though it's consuming all of the Administration's bandwidth via Talking Points Memo):

National Security Council veteran Rand Beers has called this the "7-year-old's soccer syndrome"—just like little kids playing soccer, everyone forgets their particular positions and responsibilities and runs like a herd after the ball.

Without the distraction of the Iraq war, the administration would have spent this past year—indeed, every year since Sept. 11, 2001—focused on al-Qaeda. But beyond al-Qaeda and the broader struggle for peaceful coexistence with (and within) Islam, seven key "fires in the in-box" national security issues remain unattended, deteriorating and threatening, all while Washington's grown-up 7-year-olds play herd ball with Iraq.

Clarke's list of crises that merit attention, but haven't gotten any from the White House, will surprise exactly no one who has paid attention for the last five years.

I'm an hour late getting in TDP, for which I'm sorry. Today was the last business day of 2006, and possibly Parker's last day in the office for a while (I'll be working downtown starting next month). Fittingly, here's Parker, doing what he does best: being a good office puppy.

The ParkerCam will return!

(Possibly tomorrow...)

It's time to update the sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.)

Notice that in 2007, Daylight Saving Time lasts a lot longer than in years past: from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. This actually makes the autumn a little darker, as you can see from the chart.

You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.