General – Page 28 – The Wacky World of Chris Knight

2007/06/212007/06/21

Did they have civics class back when Bush and Cheney were in school?

The Raw Story | Cheney tells agency that Vice Presidents office is not part of the executive branch
The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney told an agency within the National Archives that for purposes of securing classified information, the Vice Presidents office is not an entity within the executive branch according to a letter released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Click the link. Read the story. There is nothing more I can add except that I am shaking my head and applying for immigration to New Zealand.

-Chris

2007/06/07

Irony, it’s not just for breakfast…

Feds to Suspend Border Passport Rule
By MATTHEW LEE and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers
Thursday, June 7, 2007

(06-07) 21:59 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) —

The Bush administration is poised to suspend a major post-9/11 security initiative to cope with increasingly angry complaints from Americans whose summer vacations are threatened by new passport rules.

A proposal, expected to be announced Friday, will temporarily waive a requirement that U.S. citizens have passports to fly to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda, provided the traveler can prove he or she has already applied for a passport, officials said Thursday.

I disagree with 95% of the new laws and regulations that are supposedly designed to thwart potential terrorist acts. I also feel that if a law/regulation passed with that intention can be suspended because it is too much of an inconvenience than the politicians who promoted it must not feel it was that important either. If we trade liberty for security we are fools; but if we trade liberty and security for convenience then we are roadkill on the highway called ‘Survival of the Fittest’.

-Chris Knight

2007/06/06

RAID aware, buyer beware…

So, I was on the NewEgg site looking for external hard drive enclosures… For my mom’s new computer; yeah, um, not for me… And I found what looked like a nifty dual-drive external enclosure that has FireWire 800. It has built in RAID, which I will not be using; but I figured I would see if they had a manual on-line so I could make absolutely sure I could use the enclosure as a dual-drive no-RAID. What I found on the manufacturer’s site convinced me that I don’t want to buy their enclosure, because I can’t trust the company:

3500MGB-RAID Galaxy Series
Specifications
When it comes to raw power there is nothing to beat the dual-bay 3500 Metal Gear Box Raid. The 3500MGB-Raid is built strong and rugged, offering more than enough capacity to store all your digital media files. Not only that, the 3500MGB-Raid can also back up and secure all of your data thanks to RAID protection. Great performance, great protection and great looks â€“ only in the 3500MGB-Raid.

Twice in the ‘specifications’ they mention the protections this device offers as a
result of its RAID technology: “the 3500MGB-Raid can also back up and secure all of your data thanks to RAID protection” and “Great performance, great protection“.

The only problem is that this device does not offer any RAID levels that provide any level of data protection! In fact, since it only supports two different modes of RAID-0, this enclosure actually increases the chance of data lost due to a drive failure. (With RAID-0 striping a single drive failure wipes out the entire array.)

They can not say that their enclosure offers any level of protection unless it provides at least RAID-1 (mirroring). And yet, they do. Which is horribly misleading and (I hope) down-right illegal under US truth in advertising laws. I can’t do business with a company that misleads its customers so blatantly.

I’ve written their sales folks, but I will be extremely surprised if I hear back.

-Chris Knight