Events

Frank Rich hits it on the head in his column today: At the National Cathedral prayer service on Sept. 14, 2001, President Bush found just the apt phrase to describe this phenomenon: "Today we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called 'the warm courage of national unity.' This is the unity of every faith and every background. It has joined together political parties in both houses of Congress." What’s more, he added, "this unity against terror is now extending across the world." When F.D.R. used the phrase...

Do not take Parker for a car ride right after dinner. Or, at the very least, don't let him sit in the front seat if you do. You'll just have to feed him again when you get home, and find the Fabreeze. If you leave the bedroom while Parker is sleeping on the bed and go to Wild Oats, he won't notice you've left until you return. If you leave while he's holding a ropie toy and looking at you with (literal) puppy-dog eyes, the entire neighborhood will notice you've left immediately. No shoe is safe, on or...

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Star Trek's debut. Live long and prosper, indeed.

I just found out about a server crash at a friend's old company. It seems one of the staff members sent a 2.7 MB graphical file (wrapped in a PDF, wrapped in a MIME email) to 900 people. For some reason, that crashed the Exchange server creating 8.5 GB of transaction logs in just under 20 hours, which overflowed the system drive, which caused the entire server to collapse. At last report, a consultant had cleaned out the transaction logs and most of the message queues, but Exchange was still re-trying...

This weeks Economist has a terrific parody of pre-flight announcements: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of...

It's the kid's first day on the job. I think he's doing fine, but he'll probably be more productive once his nap is over:

Through diligent effort, the Chicago Cubs have achieved something truly impressive. By losing to Pittsburgh yesterday, they exchanged places with the Pirates to gain the bottom rung on the ladder. Loveable? Maybe. Losers? Demonstrably.

Parker and I stopped by my grandmother's place today, and he was a big hit with all the residents. He met about fifty people, let everyone pat him, didn't get crazy (he is only 12 weeks old, so this is huge), and was the sweetest little dog he could be. More than one of the staff suggested he'd make a good therapy dog when he gets older. But after this morning, he's one pooped pup:

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Forget the comedy, this has security implications: An Air Canada pilot who left the flight deck to visit the washroom found himself locked out of the cockpit when he tried to return—forcing the crew to remove the door from its hinges. For approximately 10 minutes, passengers described seeing the pilot bang on the door and communicating with the cockpit through an internal telephone, but being unable to open the cabin door. Eventually, the crew forced the door open by taking the door off its hinges...