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If Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray does nothing else for the rest of his tenure, he will be remembered with great fondness for his foresight, forbearance, and courage—at least by LL.

For he has discarded the most unhelpful, useless, and frankly embarassing piece of governmental cyber-real estate around: The D.C. Council Web site.

Perhaps LL is speaking too soon—the old Web site still still up today. Enjoy one of the few remaining patches of ’90s cyberchic while you still can. (Come on, blinking text? I mean, the <blink> tag was HTML taboo by like 1998! Sheezus!) The site still bears a 1997 copyright and a perusal of archive.org shows no meaningful changes at least going back to 2003, and probably as much as five years prior.

But reporters and staffers were give a preview of the new site at the council press conference on Monday. Only a few pages were shown, and reporters didn’t get a chance to click around on the new site, but boy, it sure looks like an improvement (click to enlarge):

On Monday, Council Secretary Cynthia Brock-Smith, told reporters LL last Thursday that the new site would be ready “in the next few weeks.” Why has it taken so long to get rid of such a universally despised piece of crap? The council maintains its own tech staff and tech budget and is separate from the rest of city government in that respect. So while the Office of the Chief Technology Officer has been pretty good about rolling out site updates and new technologies on dc.gov sites, the council hasn’t been included.

Now whatever gets launched in the coming days will only be the first phase. It won’t include a planned overhaul of the council’s legislative database system, LIMS. Improving that much maligned system is still months away. But Gray is also talking about expanding the scope to the database to the beginnings of the council in 1974 by scanning old paper documents into the system. Right now, LIMS only goes back to Council Period 13, which began in 1999.

What’s the biggest necessity? LL, for one, would like to see dynamic agendas for council and committee meetings, with links to legislation in the council database. He’d also like to see those, along with the weekly council calendars, archived and cross-referenced to the video provided on the Office of Cable Television Web site.

I have some separation issues. I still have sneakers from high school and a ballcap from Little League. But the worst evidence of my sickness is my AOL e-mail address. It’s the first and still only e-mail address I’ve ever used.

Which would be OK if AOL e-mail weren’t such an awful product.

Everybody around me has abandoned their AOL accounts by now. As friends have moved on to Gmail or Yahoo or whatever over the years, they’ve cited the constant trouble sending or receiving music and graphics or any sort of large files, and the fact that sent e-mails end up in people’s spam folders as likely as an inbox, because AOL has such a lousy record of policing such things.

All problems I’ve encountered. And still do.

Yet I’ve held on.

But, I’m at the end of my “@aol.com” rope. I can’t even check my AOL e-mail anymore without big problems. Since mid-summer, when I try to sign on to aol.com using a Firefox browser, most times I’ll get an error message saying “The content you’ve requested is temporarily unavailable.”

I Googled and learned that I’m not alone. The easiest solution I found, other than getting rid of AOL once and for all, was: “Sign on through AOL-India.”

So for months I’ve been using the AOL-India homepage every day. It’s been enlightening. I always thought the Indians were a conservative bunch, punishing folks for public displays of affection and the like. But the India I read about on AOL-India is even trashier and more sex obsessed than the U.S. It’s all barely clad women, all the time.

The news headlines are hilarious. The front page of AOL-India last night juxtaposed “Blasts Tear Up Delhi” with “Most Intriguing Innerwear.” The featured stories included “Priyanka Burns the Ramp Yet Again!” “Sleep Tight for Good Sex…So They Say!” “Why People Like Sex,” and “Binge Drinking and Sex.”

In other words, I really gotta get rid of my AOL account.

And, you know, move to India.

Tim Carman, our food critic, usually gives me copy. He sometimes gives me hairy Asian fruits to try. Occasionally he will bring by his dog, Coltrane Meatsack, to wag his tail in my direction. But this week Tim Carman gave me the koobface worm. I’ll be honest, I prefer the hairy fruits.

The koobface worm is a virus that spreads through Facebook and MySpace. I thought it somewhat odd that Tim, my Facebook friend, sent me a video message that said I’d been caught “making love” and that I really needed to see that video and, oh, also: “LOL.” Didn’t seem like Tim (especially that “LOL” part), but there was his little Facebook picture of the Biscuitville sign and I thought, well, maybe this is some sort of super funny joke.

The joke is that Tim had no control over this thing, it went to all or most of the people on his list and if you clicked on the video and followed some instructions on downloading the latest Flash player, you got wormed. The worm shut down my Facebook account because it sent spam to all or most of the people on my list. It also infected the Google search on my home PC so that clicking on any of the entries will redirect you to wherever the wormers want you to go.

This thing is not exactly new. Yesterday’s New York Times “Bits” column has it beginning in late July. Kaspersky lab has apparently found 27 variants of it, all of them directed toward the two most populated social networking sites. Facebook released a statement that it has “detected and contained” the worm and that “these efforts have limited the affected users to a small percentage of those on Facebook.”

Facebook also e-mailed me that my Facebook account has been restored, although when I login I’m told I’m still an evil spammer. Several messages to them have not been returned. Facebook has a phone number, which instructs you to send them e-mail.

Based on my old-person skills and some limited research, here’s how to protect yourself: Run a virus scan. According to an article on CNET, the best free one for this particular virus is Malwarebytes Anti-Maleware 1.25, which can be downloaded here. If you’ve already got the virus, my understanding is this might detect it and repair it. There is also a list of files that can be deleted if you disable system restore, which McAfee sort of explains here.

If anyone knows of other solutions, please fire away. I miss all those friends I haven’t talked to in 15 years.

Recently, I found myself in the subterranean pedestrian passages of Crystal City, a place I don’t wander too often. There, you will find dozens of advertisements for tech firms and government contractors, including these:

The ads, for an outfit called White Oak Technologies Inc., seem to be intended to recruit software engineers. They depict a fellow whose name seems to be Jeremiah, who likes to dress up in traditional ninja garb and play alone in the woods with his sword. White Oak Technologies seems to think this will convince software engineers to work for them based on the following logic:

(a) Jeremiah is a crazy weekend ninja, THUS
(b) Jeremiah must be a interesting dude, THUS
(c) Jeremiah must have an interesting job, AND
(d) Jeremiah works at White Oak Technologies Inc., THUS
(e) All jobs at White Oak Technologies Inc., must be interesting, THUS
(f) You should work at White Oak Technologies Inc.

For some reason, that’s not what I get from this. (NB: I am not a software engineer.) Rather, I submit the follow logic:

(a) Jeremiah is a crazy weekend ninja, AND
(b) Crazy weekend ninjaism results from an unfulfilling work life, THUS
(c) Jeremiah has an unfulfilling work life, AND
(d) Jeremiah works at White Oak Technologies Inc., THUS
(e) All jobs at White Oak Technologies Inc., must be unfulfilling, THUS
(f) You should not work at White Oak Technologies Inc.

Or another possibility:

(a) Jeremiah is a crazy weekend ninja, AND
(b) Crazy weekend ninjas own swords, THUS
(c) Jeremiah owns a sword, AND
(d) People who own swords are liable to bring them into work, AND
(e) Jeremiah works at White Oak Technologies Inc., THUS
(f) Jeremiah is liable to bring his sword into White Oak Technologies Inc., THUS
(g) You should not work White Oak Technologies Inc.

And then there’s this:

(a) Jeremiah is a crazy weekend ninja, AND
(b) Many nerds love ninjas, AND
(c) Many software engineers are nerds, THUS
(d) Many software engineers love ninjas, THUS
(e) Many software engineers will love Jeremiah, AND
(d) Jeremiah works at White Oak Technologies Inc., THUS
(f) You should work at White Oak Technologies Inc.

That’s the actual subhead in a press release from Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans‘ office. Luckily, the statement redeems itself by presenting some real news (as opposed to the recent “[Kwame] BROWN BAGS IT FOR PROSTATE CANCER AWARENESS“.)

Residents in Shaw have been begging for ShotSpotter since the dawn of the police listervs, or at least it feels that way. Here’s a little sample:

“What bothers me almost as much as the repeated gunfire is that residents (myself included) seem to have gotten so accustomed to hearing it that it may not even get reported. One more reason that we need to get ShotSpotter deployed so that the police aren’t dependent on sometimes not-very-precise reports from residents.”

Now, apparently, the wait is over.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the past year I’ve received something like 10,000 items in my RSS feed about net neutrality. I’ve ignored every single one of them. I feel bad about that—I like to think I’m a good citizen about these things, and every post I’ve scanned and then ignored gave me the impression that this is something Very Important. But holy crap is the Wikipedia page on the subject long. I was hoping that maybe Rock the Net: Musicians for Network Neutrality, a new CD from the D.C.-based Future of Music Coalition might help me out. True enough, it paints a not-so-pretty picture. (Disclosure: Casey Rae-Hunter, a CP contributor, works with FoMC, but didn’t nudge me to write about the disc.) Here’s the indie-rock-pocalypse that’s coming: “The big telecom companies want to charge content providers a fee for the faster deliver of their sites. It’s simply another corporate shell game—do business our way, or don’t do business at all.”

OK, though I get a little skeptical about rhetoric like “corporate shell game.” And Wilco’s no help: The lyrics to “Impossible Germany,” a live version of which is on the CD, are as abstract as anything Jeff Tweedy’s coughed up. So I gather that it’s a corporate battle—except when it isn’t. Help!

Photo from a Canadian net neutrality rally by JasonWalton.

Tired of accessing the Internet through the Internet? Head to calltheinternet.org to, well, call the Internet. On the telephone. Remember those? The Website for calling the Internet lists only a local number—(202) 470-6789—a status—”live” or “offline”—and this description:

Thank you for expressing an interest in placing a phone call to the Internet. The Internet’s phone line is always accepting calls, unless we are assisting other Internet users, or are out of the office. Check the bottom of each page to find out the status of the Internet’s phoneline. Live means we’re in the office and taking calls, if the line is busy, try again later. Offline means we’re out of the office.

I recently placed a phone call to the Internet. Excerpts from the transcript after the jump.

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David Nakamura got a sweet little tip: There’s an abandoned recording of tax scammer Harriette Walters‘ voice still extant on the District voice-mail system. You could (a) call (202) 442-6762 while it remains or (b) listen to it right here:

Want to share medical information with past sexual someones, but just can’t find the words to say? Say it in an e-card! Internet Sexuality Information Services has developed inSPOT— short for “Internet Notification Service for Partners or Tricks”—to help bring pesky STD chats into the realm of belated birthdays and “just because” dancing GIFs. InSPOT provides a variety of virtual cards (Slate’s got screenshots of the e-offerings) complete with cute little phrases like “I got screwed while screwing, you might have too,” “Sometimes there are strings attached,” and “Got laid. Was happy. Got tested. Wasn’t healthy.”

As you might imagine, there are right ways and wrong ways to send an STD notification e-card. According to InSPOT, “If you decide to compose a personal message, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Think about how you were told—what you liked and what you didn’t—and put the best of it into words.” Furthermore, “You can send postcards anonymously or from your email address. Historically, when you tell a sex partner(s) yourself, it’s more likely s.he will ‘hear’ the message and get tested.”

I’m all for making STD notification easier, and if this e-card system helps people take the initiative to get tested, I think that’s great. Still, please do not send me one of these e-cards. First of all, as the e-card subject line reads “e-card from a concerned friend re: your health — via inSPOT,” it’s probably heading straight to my Spam folder, along with p3n1s enlargement notes and overseas investment opportunities. Second, I fear that the “anonymous” feature may encourage the grade school community to abuse the inSPOT system for its own amusement. Finally, while I accept the witless drivel of the e-card on throwaway holidays, I’d really prefer it not be used to impart important information concerning my reproductive system.

Take one inSPOT e-card for example (perfect for the journalist!). It reads: “Who? What? When? Where? It doesn’t matter. I got an STD; you might have it too. Please get checked out.” Actually, it does matter. And these oversized emoticons aren’t helping.

I don’t need to tell you how important your Google is. What comes up in a .18 second search lists, in descending order of relevance, the items that make up your worth as a person and can be seen by anyone who is considering dating you, hiring you, or nominating you for a Nobel prize.

If you Google me, you will read about the home I’m selling for $5.35 million. You will see pictures of me from gala benefit events. You will find out about the nanny scandal (oh heavens me) which ended up costing me $45,000 in back wages I should have paid her in the first place. You can count my donations to Republicans – $70,000 since 2003. Oh, and I went to TomKat’s wedding.

Oh shit. That’s not me. That’s the other Tanya Snyder, wife of Redskins owner Dan Snyder. As much as I object to the Redskins’ name on the grounds that it is offensive to Native peoples, I object even more to the team’s owner’s wife’s name on the grounds that it is mine. And she’s ruining my Google.

The first direct hit for this Tanya Snyder occurs nine listings down, an article I wrote about militarization in El Salvador. And to find the second one you have to go to the next page of search results. Who ever goes to the next page of search results?

In February, D.C. police up and decided that they would watch video feeds from their surveillance cameras live, in real time. Chief Cathy Lanier told the Washington Post she thought her department under-utilized its cameras. “I thought, ‘Why the heck aren’t we watching them?’” she said.

Here’s why: The law suggests that you aren’t supposed to watch. Check out this tidbit from Title 24, Chapter 25 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations:

When CCTV is used to combat crime, recordings may be passively monitored, meaning that the video feeds may not be monitored in real time, and recordings may be viewed by MPD personnel where there is reason to believe that the viewing may help solve a crime.

Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Traci Hughes says the law doesn’t forbid real-time watching.

“The statute says may, not shall,” Hughes told the Washington City Paper. “It’s a matter of legal construction. Because the statute says may, it does not prohibit the Chief from actively monitoring the cameras.”

Art Spitzer, legal director of the local ACLU, doesn’t like Hughes’s reasoning.

“I don’t think any judge would buy her argument,” Spitzer writes in an email. “There is a difference between may and shall, but ‘may not’ means ‘no.’”

Among the week’s big D.C. stories is the effort by the District to put together a network of anti-crime cameras that’ll be routinely monitored.

How many such cameras?

5,000.

Most of them will be monitored by the District’s own emergency-response office. The story, first reported in the Washington Times, hit the front page of the Washington Post this morning, topped off by the following quote by At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who in one short sentence exhibits a masterful understanding of why law-enforcement loves security monitors.

“We don’t want the camera swooping in on a cute girl in a short skirt,” Mendo told the Post.

me: so, i have an idea
friend: k
friend: puts chin on hands
me: there’s this blog
me: called A Prolific Squalor
me: http://prolificsqualor.wordpress.com/
friend: otay
me: it’s all about IM chats
friend:LOL
me: so i was think it’d be clever if I did a blog post
friend: funny
me: that was, you know
me: you and me
me: IMing about the IM blog
me: clever, yes?
friend: lol
friend: you mean all meta and shit?
me: yeah
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Big weekend for news. Here goes:

*Washington Post’s Marc Fisher lets the facts speak for themselves in an astounding child-welfare case.

*The New York Times stages debate between David Carr and A.O. Scott on the meaning of the Oscars.

*The Examiner runs wire copy on Nader’s prez bid.

*The Post tells us that the stadium project didn’t meet targets for D.C. employment—oh, look here, so did another publication, months ago!