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THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

Monday, December 12, 2005

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This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending.  (Older columns here.) For more on what this place is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE.

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If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money.  Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
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Monday  February 28, 2000

Leapyear day tomorrow. An unusual one.

Lots of mail. Not much time. More tonight. 

My telephone is out: if you tried to call and got only static, Pac Bell says Real Soon Now...

Well the phone is fixed, the bills are paid, and we're going to a lecture at the Huntington.

I'll repeat this:

You can get The Burning City at:

http://www.bestbookbuys.com/cgi-bin/bbb.cgi?ISBN=0671036602 


The Amazon link, as I think I have said many times, provides me with a small "finder fee" for books bought using that link; I like the notion of getting higher royalties. But that's trivial compared to buying it at all, so if you hate Amazon....

If you LIKE Amazon: The Burning City


"The Rangers thought. . . . that this had become a training exercise for the FBI and they would try almost anything that came to mind," Ranger Capt. David Byrnes said in a July 1993 FBI interview.

From: Congress says it never saw key document
 http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/40993_WACO28.html 

The notion that the Executive Branch can defy a Congressional subpoena is breathtaking. The Speaker ought to send the Sergeant at Arms to arrest some of the FBI people who are dragging their feet, and deliver them to the custody of the DC Jails. Congress has that power...


If you have any interest in what the Chinese are threatening:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001612468322797&;pg=/et/00/2/29/wtai29.html 

 

 

 

 

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Tuesday, February 29, 2000

Bix has a Y2K bug which I believe comes from within VBRUN200: it doesn't believe that February 29, 2000 exists. I believe Microsoft didn't believe that until fairly recently...

Much of my mail is about Amazon and their patent of "one click". My view is indistinguishable from Tim O'Reilly's, who urges Bezos to give this madness up, but declines to join Stallman's boycott. The fact is that Amazon is the easiest to use and most reliable of the on-line book sellers: the others are happy enough when things work at all. I make most of my living with books, and here's a real dilemma: do I support a company that frustrates its customers by making it hard to buy my books, or one that does a good job but then acts in an arrogantly stupid manner over intellectual property rights gone mad?

I recall also that Amazon is publicly traded, meaning that there are weird "fiduciary obligations" which lawyers insist on, and I wonder if this is one of them? That is, the US Naval Institute's lawyers persuaded them that just because they had published HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER they were supposed to try to claim ownership of Tom Clancy's characters, when every one of the board understood that this was an unethical grab and covered them and the Institute with dishonor. But the lawyers told some of the Admirals and Captains on the Board that they personally might be liable if they did not "exercise their fiduciary responsibility" to employ the lawyers trying to make a legal grab for something to which the Institute had no moral or ethical claim whatever, and only a rather tenuous legal claim.

I don't know that this is the case with Amazon: that they have a legal department gone mad; but it's not impossible.

Patents are licenses to sue. The courts will I am pretty sure throw this silly patent out. The Patent Office has been issuing a lot of silly patents. I am thinking of trying to get one on the letter 'P'; I wouldn't charge much, just a hundredth of a cent for each use of my letter...

This was prompted by a bunch of letters like this one:

Dr. Pournelle,

Since you are an Amazon.com associate (of sorts) I was wondering what your reaction was to Tim O'Reilly's protest against Amazon's 1-Click and Associates Program patents grab. You can read the e-mail that he sent to Richard Stallman and Jeff Bezos at

 http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.html, and the open letter that he's offering for customer signature at http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.comments.html .

Ken Jancaitis

In fact, though, Tim O'Reilly has declined to sign the boycott letter circulated by RMS. I am not sure that the 'customer letter' you can reach from the O'Reilly site is going to do any good, but I have added my name to it, as well as sent a note of my own to Mr. Bezos.


http://news.excite.com/news/r/000229/08/odd-nude 


 

 

 

 

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Wednesday, March 1, 2000

The Bix Bug fixed itself when it became March 1 on the East Coast. I wonder how many software packages blew up over February 29, 2000?

Earthlink called to tell me I owe them money. When I pointed out they have been taking what seems to me to be excessive amounts from my American Express card to maintain my wife's web site www.readingtlc.com and our two dialup/email accounts they became confused, because they don't seem to have any record of my paying them at all.  I'll turn American Express loose on this, but the moral of this story is that Internet Commerce, from the ISP down, doesn't have good record keeping, no one sees to know what they are doing, and a lot of money changes hands without anyone knowing why. They have apparently overcharged me for YEARS but recently lost track of my paying them anything at all, which is what caused them to alert me that there was a problem.  If they hadn't called to say I wasn't paying my bills I would have overpaid forever.

Also, Consumer Reports has renewed my "membership" which I cancelled a year ago because I wasn't able to figure out how to USE any of their information. I logged on there to see about information about a car, but discovered there was more and better information all over the web and free. I let them keep a year's worth although I never was able to use it; they seem to have assumed they have the right to roll that over although I told them at the time (or attempted to, their web site isn't clear about much of anything) that I wanted nothing more to do with them, they could keep the original money but they could also forget I exist. It's not a lot of money but it is annoying all the same.

And getting IBM.NET to respond to anything including the fact that they were sending me thousands of copies of a spam turns out to be nearly impossible.

In this age of communications no one can communicate with anything but a machine and the machines don't know what's going on. 

Here endeth the rant, but there must be something that can be done.


Rigoletto tonight, in modern dress: it's about Duke, a Producer, and Rogoletto, a crippled twisted toadying agent, and a stuntman who doubles as a hit man, and...

Loved it. The party was nice too. Now if I can get some time to do the pictures.

 

 

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Thursday, March 2, 2000

Roberta is off to the beach house. I have appointments tomorrow and it's column time, so I'll stay here and hold the fort. The rains are over. It's pleasant enough here. Rigoletto last night was a hoot. There will be a lot of mail before the day's over.

I have solved the last plot points to Mamelukes and I know where the story is going. so I should be able to gin that up. Don Hawthorne and John Carr have done a new War World novel, about Galen Dietinger and his Second Rank; very good, and I'm supposed to do a final edit although truth to tell there's little to edit. It should go to Baen in a couple of weeks.

Niven and I will be starting BURNING TOWER as soon as we clean up some solo works.

And did I mention it's column time? I've been asked by a number of readers to do more games analysis; perhaps I will.

 

Byte.com Audio Review

Ain't that purty? Anyway it leads to the mp3 broadcast for the week. I'll try to figure out how to find it in the other format. I have some problems with mp3 myself when the net is at all congested, which is to say 99% of the time. Typically I get "your listening to:" and then a long silence, and a bit more, and more silence and it's just not worth it. But if you have a fast connection, it can be pretty good. The voice quality is good.

Today I never get past "You're listening", and I don't think this is ready for prime time. It just sits there after "You're listen--" and spins its wheels. Useless. 

 

 

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Friday, March 3, 2000

Well, the awful blotch on my face isn't melanoma. It's what Dr. Phelps calls a "barnacle", and it will go away now that they froze its buns off.

The following is LONG, and was put up in good faith. Later I got another letter with different information. It illustrates the principle that you ought not hear just one side of a cause before making up your mind. To skip over it all, click here.

I got the following from a reliable source, so I have no reason to suppose it is anything but what it appear, but I have not seen any other references at all.:

The account below speaks for itself. But see also "Lingua Franca," March 00, pp 6-7, for an account of how "academic freedom" is understood at TAMU's "George Bush School of Government and Public Service."

It all kinda makes me wish that TAMU's administration had been standing atop that pile of logs during that infamous demonstration of Aggie structural engineering prowess.

 

NL

---------- Forwarded message ----------

>From "Shara Pradhan" <spradhanprinceton.edu> Shara Pradhan ’01 Princeton University 67 Spelman Hall Princeton, NJ 08544 (609) 258-7201 spradhan@princeton.edu

February 26, 2000 To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Shara Pradhan. I am a junior at Princeton University. I write this letter with a sense of great urgency, in the hope of saving my Dad, Dr. Dhiraj K. Pradhan, from going to jail in less than two weeks.

He was a tenured professor, world-renowned in computer science, at Texas A&;M University. Within a period of three years he has been illegally searched, secretly audited, suspended without due process, lied to by the University administration, and wrongfully dismissed. He is now facing imprisonment for up to 10 years.

My Dad’s story is representative of the social injustices that continue to be prevalent in our nation: the violation of academic freedom of expression, racial prejudice, and the abuse of local authority to silence an opposing voice.

I certainly don’t expect you to believe the scenario I describe here based on my word, but I would beg you to investigate the case. I believe you will find it worth your time, and that the attention you may bring to my Dad’s case is almost certainly his last hope. My Dad can be contacted at 409-690-6539.

If you would take a few moments to consider his situation, I believe that you will find it both disturbing and newsworthy. I have enclosed a more detailed review of the relevant events. Also please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Shara Pradhan ‘01

My father, Dr. Dhiraj K. Pradhan, was hired in 1992 as the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Texas A&;M University. Unknown to him, Texas A&;M University had a history of mistreating its professors. Until 1988 it was one of a very small number of schools nationwide blacklisted by the American Association of University Professors. (Please also see the February 8th, 1998 article of the Bryan/College Station Eagle by John Kirsc.) His first (comparatively minor) experience of trouble was the University’s failure to take action when he was confronted with racial slurs and harassment within the department.

After a few years as chair of the department, my father realized that TAMU was applying to administrative purposes an inappropriate proportion of the Chair accounts, and my father learned that the school was trying to impose a post-tenure review on all Texas faculty. He spoke promptly to other faculty members concerning the policies, concerned that they would degrade the quality of academics, and went on to voice opposition to them in what he referred to as a “public forum.” Within 24 hours of the forum (October 1996), while my father was out of town on a trip to Washington D.C., the University had the computer in his office confiscated. It contained not only his own personal data but intellectual property belonging to his students and to colleagues with whom he was working. When he sought a reason for the confiscation he was told it had been removed for repairs. Meanwhile, obviously without his knowledge, the data from the computer and his office files were delivered to the FBI and the District Attorney.

In November of 1996, disturbed by the length of time his computer had been missing, my father tried to exercise his legal right (under the Texas Open Records Request) to obtain the real reason for its removal. The school did not respond. Instead he received a letter from the District Attorney informing him that the Attorney’s office was proceeding against him with an indictment for misallocating funds. Thus rather than bringing the matter to my father’s attention in order to actually address it, TAMU immediately took it to the local authorities in what my family believes was a gesture designed to intimidate. He requested a meeting with the administration several times without success. For over two years, the University refused to divulge its grounds for conducting the audit, which supplied the basis of the indictment. These allegations were never made known to my father until August 1997. At this point, he was suspended from his tenured position, without due process of law or any opportunity to address the allegations. The suspension was also in violation of TAMU procedures. At some point during this period the University let him submit a written response to the allegations against him. Then, without his consent, TAMU released it to the FBI and the District Attorney.

Also in August of 1997, my Father received a Fulbright Chair in Europe, but the University implemented travel restrictions which forced him to forego it. The National Office of the American Association of University Professors intervened on his behalf in September 1997. In a letter to President Bowen of TAMU, Robert Kreiser, Association Secretary of the AAUPA, questioned the University’s right to restrict my father’s travels. "We fail to understand," he wrote, "why, if (Professor Pradhan) has no duties or commitments at the University, he should not be free to spend his time where and how he wishes."

In March 1998, the formal indictments were brought against my father. The law he had allegedly violated was a Texas law called the "Specific Law of Abuse of official capacity." This law forbids conducting non-University business on trips made primarily for University purposes. The vague wording of this law has been challenged by my father in an appeal filed in August of 1999 and refiled in December of 1999.

Up to this point, the local newspapers and media had been unfavorable in their portrayal of my father, who is married to a Jewish woman in a southern small town. He felt it was unlikely that he would be able to secure a fair trial because of their coverage. At the same time he was concerned that the vagueness of this law left room for a possible conviction. Therefore, after legal counsel, trying to act in our family’s best economic and long-term interests, he plead guilty to one count of abuse of official capacity with 28 examples. Professor Robert S. Boyer of the University of Texas testified on behalf of my father's character, adding, "Pradhan is a distinguished fellow in two computer science faculty societies. He is a highly ranked professor. He has been grotesquely harassed in my opinion." At this point my family and I just wanted to pick up the pieces of our lives and move on.

Meanwhile, in August 1998, in the hearing under Judge Sam Spar in Austin’s Federal Courts, the Judge found A&;M guilty of abuse of due process. He ordered the University to reinstate my father immediately, effective September 1, 1998. After a few months of reinstatement, a University hearing in March 1999 completely disregarded the Judge’s rulings, this time by firing him. At that hearing my father’s students presented glowing testimonies about him. Despite these and various testimonies from professors around the world to my father’s professional character, the University dismissed him in June of 1999, effective August 10, 1999.

My father had filed a lawsuit against A&;M for violating his 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments and for wrongful termination. In October of 1999, he added the Board of Regents to the suit. Then during Christmas break, in what my family suspects was a retaliatory move, my father was arrested for photocopying charges he had incurred, for no personal gain, after his termination, in violation of his probation. (He had the Head of the Department's oral permission, though the Head is now claiming "not to remember"). My father had not realized that he was violating probation.

TAMU decided to push for jail time. My father was taken to jail without bond and incarcerated for three days for photocopying over Christmas! Local authorities confiscated his U.S. passport, and he has been unable to travel to India to fulfill a prior commitment to teach a class.

The University has not responded to over 500 letters by professors and scientists worldwide trying to protect my Dad from undue punishment. The Committee of Concerned Scientists and the American Association of University Professors have involved themselves, to no avail.

My father holds the prestigious Humbolt prize in Germany and had been named a fellow of two distinguished computer societies (IEEE and the Association of Computing Machines). He is world-renowned in his field. I mention these accomplishments because, obviously, the last three years have been disastrous for a career which he worked very hard to build.

My father’s lawyer, Charles Osborn, has summarized this situation thus: "(Pradhan) urged the formation of a labor union for professors at A&;M to fight the new law of post-tenure review. Within 24 hours, the Vice Chancellor of Texas A&;M began an intense witch hunt to try to find accusations against Pradhan." The only way for my Dad to lose his job was for him to have to go through this witch-hunt.

Already, this situation also seems to be well known within the Academic world.

** Hired 8/92 as Chaired Professor in TAMU's Computer Science Dept.

** Enjoined to make that department 'world-class'.

** Suffers racial slurring/harassment within his department; department &; university do nothing.

** Brings in MUCH research $$ for department &; TAMU.

** TAMU tries (unsuccessfully) to retroactively attach a review clause to

Pradhan's contract (all other TAMU Chairs have review clause).

** Reveals to other Chairs the disproportionate % of Chair accounts TAMU helps itself to.

** Vocalizes opposition to proposed merger of CS Department with Electr. Engr.

** Vocalizes opposition to Texas imposing Post-Tenure Review on all TX faculty.

** Away at conference, Pradhan's office computer is seized by TAMU (10/96).

** Internal audit of Pradhan commences.

** Without due process OR following their own guidelines, TAMU suspends him.

** Federal District Court judge orders TAMU to reinstate him.

** Indictments brought against Pradhan (3/98).

** Pradhan plea-bargains (11/98).

** Civil suit filed against TAMU by Pradhan

** Pradhan fired (8/99).

** Pradhan files appeal to overturn all criminal charges against him.

** Board of Regents members added to civil suit (fall, '99).

** Arrested/jailed for photocopying charges allegedly incurred post-termination (12/16/99).

PRADHAN SEEKS RESOLUTION FROM A&;M The Battalion January 17th 2000

Former Texas A&;M endowed professor Dhiraj Pradhan claims Texas A&;M still holds on to some of the same racial grudges that he believes to be part of the prejudiced history in the state of Texas.

"Texas A&;M had me jailed on trumped-up charges of using the copy machine," Pradhan said. "Bizarre it may sound -- but this is the old South. They don't like me, so they sent me to jail."

Pradhan, who at one time was the highest-paid computer science professor at A&;M, said although it has been years since original allegations were brought against him by the University, his case remains unsettled and A&;M refuses to offer any kind of compromise.

Last week, Pradhan said he was looking for employment outside of the United States but had to forfeit job interviews in Europe and India because his passport was seized on Dec. 17, 1999 and has not been returned. He currently resides in College Station.

In January an independent investigation National Science Foundation exonerated Dr. Pradhan of all wrongdoings. Texas A&;M Dean of Engineering Dr. Peterson says" We were bit surprised with this final report issued by NSF. A&;M had assumed that NSF will corroborate the audit report issued by A&;M earlier".

Pradhan said the investigation began only after his outspokenness about racial harassment, diversity, and post-tenure review. He claims that Sam Sparks, a federal judge in Austin, found that A&;M proceeded illegally when he was suspended, and Pradhan was immediately reinstated after having been on leave with pay.

Pradhan said he simply wants to be left alone. He said the University has brought five criminal charges against him in the past two years.

"They are squeezing blood out of a stone," Pradhan said.

Pradhan said the Southern attitude of faculty, staff and administration is one of the driving forces behind the University's discriminating harassment against minority staff members.

"I don't think my story is unique," Pradhan said. "There have been many cases like mine -- mine just got too much press."

Pradhan believes false accusations were made against him based entirely on his ethnicity. He sent an email message to 600 faculty members in October 1996, rallying to form a labor union for A&;M professors.

"Within 24 hours, the vice chancellor of Texas A&;M began an intense witch hunt to find accusations against Pradhan," said Charles Orsburn, Pradhan's Houston attorney, in a Jan. 21, 1998 story in The Battalion.

Pradhan said two other University professors -- Dr. Richard Wysk and Dr. Ignatio Rodriguez -- felt it was imperative to resign from their positions at A&;M and continue their work elsewhere.

Wysk is now a professor at Pennsylvania State University's Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

Rodriguez is employed by Princeton University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Rodriguez said since he left A&;M, he does not care to comment on what was still taking place here.

He said most Indians are treated as second class in his experience of 30 years in the United States.

"Indians will never admit this because they are too busy bragging about making money," Pradhan said.

Pradhan said basic rights were violated throughout the duration of the accusations and litigation. He claims his rights to due process were violated, and that he was subjected to illegal search and seizure.

On Oct. 28, 1996, Pradhan was in Washington D.C. at an academic conference. His computer, computer records and files were seized from his office.

Pradhan said he was arrested at his home on Dec. 15, 1999 and no Miranda rights were read.

Cynthia Larson, executive director of University Relations, declined to comment on Pradhan's case -- citing the University's policy of not commenting on cases that are still in litigation. Pradhan's attorney was not available for comment.

"I may have made mistakes, but it is time to call it quits," Pradhan said. "I dearly feel bad for what has happened, but I just want to be left alone."

Does anyone know more about this? Has Texas lost its mind or is there something left out of the story?  This is a major university?

 

My secret is out: I let my readers do a lot of my research for me. And LO:

As you said, there may be more to this than meets the eye. Please take a look at

http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/news/stories/99/CAFRT99.htm 

for the report of the Faculty Review Committee which recommended his dismissal in March of '99.

I'm not coming down on either side of this case, only pointing out that there may be more than one viewpoint.

RL

Indeed, the report seems conclusive, and I'm going to remove the whole thing.

If you later find a big hole above where you thought you had seen something about a controversy at Texas A&;M, don't worry about it. I'll either move it to a separate page or fling it all on the grounds that there's no obvious reason for me or my readers to be concerned... The report certainly establishes that there were charges far different from those mentioned in the original letter, and practices quite different from any standard university practice I am aware of.


The new Netwinder (Rackmount) is in place and working now. See column for details...

On a somewhat less serious note:

Gee, I think somebody got hacked...

http://www.drudgereport.com/walls1.htm 

<<MATT DRUDGE -- DRUDGE REPORT 2000®.url>>

Chris Morton


And now it's clear that the new Rebel.com Rackmount Netwinder is working properly, all my servers are in the cable room and there is even one fairly orderly corner in that monster-infested place, and all is well.

 

 

 

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Saturday, March 4, 2000

I'm going to leave the long bit about the professor at Texas A&;M, because it's pretty illustrative that things are not always as they seem. I have some more correspondence now. Let me urge you, if you read the long letter by the young man, do also visit the web site where the faculty committee report resides. I will go up and put in a couple warnings above.

Working on the column. The Burning City continues to sell well; keep it up! We're hoping to hit the NYT Best seller list...

 

 

 

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Sunday, March 5, 2000

Continuing the column.  Niven and I were going to do a working hike -- we get a LOT of our work done on hikes -- but it's raining like crazy so that won't do.

Working on Sauron Armageddon, a novel by Hawthorne and Carr that I'm now editing. Mostly they need to show, not tell: here and there things are done in narrative that ought to be done in scenes. We'll fix that...

And there's a long screed on jury nullification over in mail.

I have converted the LINUX and ARCHIVES folders to sub-webs. This may or may not make it difficult to access them; I haven't tested the links. With luck all will work.

Later: It seems to have worked just fine. A few links may have vanished but in general all the early views and mail have moved over to the archives sub-web, and it ought to be much faster getting things updated here. If you have problems with the new structure please be quite specific about what problems you see.

As part of the new reorganization I looked at some FrontPage reports on the site, and discovered that a few places haven't been linked to. In general this is stuff I put in hidden areas and I then told subscribers in mail how to find them. Every now and then I put that sort of thing out where the world can see it.

For instance, there is a walk in the hills above Chaos Manor that subscribers have seen, now I'll put it where everyone can see it.


The A&;E Channel's Nero Wolfe tonight was extremely good; very accurate in characterizations and flavor. I am sure that Rex Stout would have loved it.

The "What good is Linux" discussion in mail is very good indeed.

 

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