Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Breaking the Internet

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This is a ‘nerd post’ for nerds and aspiring nerds (though it might be nominally interesting to non-nerds as well) . . . just to get that out in the open right away.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is part of the core functionality of the Internet and was central in making it usable for mere mortals. Basically, without DNS, web site addresses would look something like ‘209.85.171.99’, which is a bit harder to remember than ‘google.com’, the name under the DNS system for the exact same place on the Internet. To oversimplify, this is how the system works:

  • Google has a ‘nameserver’ (probably something like ns.google.com). That nameserver has been set up by Google to know that ‘google.com’ really means ‘209.85.171.99’.
  • The Domain Name registrar that Google uses to register ‘google.com’ to them has been set up to know that if people ask for google.com, they need to talk to ns.google.com to find out where to go.
  • The ‘root’ DNS servers on the Internet pretty much know the right other nameservers for pretty much every domain name, and update that information periodically.
  • ISPs that people use to access the Internet have nameservers too, which talk to the root servers to figure out where their customers go on the Internet when they type in ‘google.com’.

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A Half-Second of Nipple Is Not Indecency

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The Associated Press reports (via WTOPNews.com) that a federal appeals court has tossed the half-million dollar fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against CBS for the brief (9/16ths of a second) display of Janet Jackson’s right nipple on national television in 2004. The court ruled that a brief exposure unintentionally broadcast does not amount to actionable indecency.

I’ve said it a few times before, but I’ll say it again: Janet Jackson’s nipple didn’t hurt anybody. It might be news to the censorship brigades at the FCC and elsewhere, but most people—even children!—have nipples, know what they look like, and aren’t particularly bothered by them.

Having said that, CBS and the NFL should have used discretion when green-lighting a halftime show that was pretty raunchy (and vacuous, even by halftime standards) to be broadcast to potentially millions of children. I concede that point without debate. But poor discretion and an unintentional 9/16ths-of-a-second display of a nipple on national television is not an actionable offense for the FCC to issue fines over. Adults can choose to not watch, nor let their children watch, CBS programming from now on if it’s really that big an issue.

Better yet, talk to your children. Teach them. Don’t focus so much on ‘protecting’ them from reality, try teaching them how to handle reality. That’s how they grow up to be well-adjusted adults, unlike those who went crying to mommy-government-FCC when they saw a nipple on TV for a fraction of a second.

Site Connectivity Issues (Resolved?)

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So, the issues affecting access to the site yesterday seem to be fixed (I think). I’m still not sure what happened. I have access to three networks for testing connectivity to the site: my home network (Verizon Avenue DSL), my work network (PaeTec Communications), and my wireless phone network (AT&T 3G). The site stopped working on my home network some time yesterday and wasn’t working again until this morning.

What’s strange is that the site, the whole time, worked just fine from the work network (I logged in through the VPN) and my phone. Most of the rest of the Internet was working from home, so it was something about the unique combination of Verizon Avenue DSL and my web site.

My first inclination was that there was a problem with the Verizon DNS servers routing my connections to the wrong place. But I confirmed that all my connections were hitting the correct IP address. Just to be extra sure, I switched my home network to point to several non-Verizon public DNS servers and had the same problem with each, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a DNS problem.

All I can figure is that, for some reason, Dotster (my hosting provider) was actively blocking Verizon Avenue DSL connections, or Verizon Avenue DSL was actively blocking connections to Dotster. I’m not sure why either would do that, and neither tech support office has responded to my inquiries. Weird.

Let me know if you have any idea what might have been going on, or if you had any problem accessing the site (and what ISP you use to connect to the Internet). Thanks!

Feeling Cheery? Have Some Meat Juice!

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Melissa and I had dinner last night at a nearby Thai restaurant that we enjoy, and had to have a laugh at the drink menu. In fact, I just submitted this photo to the ever-hilarious English Fail Blog. I can’t decide which part I find more humorous: the twice-misspelled word ‘cherry’ (printed as ‘cheery’) or—the part I didn’t even notice until reviewing the photo at home—the ‘Coconut & Meat Juice’.

Regardless, I can’t harp on them too much. Their fried rice was excellent, and a fair argument can be made that the quality of English in the menu is inversely proportional to the quality and legitimacy of the food in ‘foreign’ food restaurants.

Update 7l27l2008: My picture was posted on the English Fail Blog! Woohoo!

Windows Mobile Software Roll-Call

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Since last summer, I’ve had an AT&T 8525 wireless phone. This phone, also known as the HTC TyTN HERM100 (say that three-times-fast) originally shipped with Windows Mobile 5, but an official ROM update ups it to Windows Mobile 6 Professional. I selected the 8525 as the lesser of many smartphone evils. At the time, the iPhone (which had just come out) did not support third-party software, Blackberrys had no reliable synchronization software available for Mac, Palm OS was hopelessly antiquated, and no Symbian smartphones were available through AT&T. Windows Mobile was my best choice at the time.

Today, with the iPhone supporting third-party software and Missing Sync available for Blackberrys, I might have selected a different phone. But this is what I have, and will continue to use until I’m eligible for a cheap upgrade in December. I can say, however, that my experience with Windows Mobile has been much like my experince with Windows on the desktop: it’s capable and powerful, but hobbled by reliability and usability problems. With smartphones across the industry upping their game, I’m unlikely to subject myself to Microsoft’s operating system again come December. Preliminarily, I’m looking at the iPhone, Blackberrys, Symbian, or—assuming they’re available in time—Android-based phones.

I can’t recommend Windows Mobile at this time. My phone shifted all my scheduled appointments by an hour when the time changed in the spring, periodically forgets to repeat my repeating tasks, and has a number of other goofy problems along those lines (mostly with simple PIM functions that even free Motorola phones can handle). But through the addition of various third-party products, the phone can be made pretty usable and, occasionally, even awesome.

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.