Catching shill-bidders on eBay used to be one of my hobbies. I would regularly stumble-upon suspicious confluences, start examining auction and bidder histories, and from them often assemble proof that there had been shill-bidding, which proof I would then send to eBay and to the victims. I'm sure that I wasn't the only person engaging in this sort of detection.

But eBay began choking-off the data available to us. With decreasing information, it became ever harder to make the case. It became impossible even to see some of the confluences that would have triggered suspicion in the first place.

For an honest auction firm, there may be an optimal amount of shill-bidding to allow, simply because of enforcement costs. (A perfectly secure trading environment would be prohibitively expensive.) But for a dishonest firm the question is of balancing the gain that otherwise comes from allowing ending prices (and hence fees) to be thus increased, against the alienation of users who consequently reduce their spending. Access to information which both empowers volunteers to catch shill-bidders and alerts users more generally to the occurrence of shill-bidding is, as such, not in the perceived interest of a dishonest firm.

BTW, the changes that reduced our abilities to spot shill-bidders, and which made it more typically impossible for us to prove a case of shill-bidding (as well as other changes that enabled eBay to be more easily used by thieves) were primarily effected while Margaret Cushing (Meg) Whitman, now the Republican Party nominee for governor of California, was eBay's President and CEO.

My father has a pair of Microsoft® Xbox 360™ systems. He spends a fair amount of time on one or both of them, by himself and with my brother.

(My mother reports that my father's interest in the Xbox developed after I sent to him links to the Rooster Teeth Productions Red vs. Blue machinima videos.)

I have more than once been impressed by video games as programs, and wouldn't mind doing such programming, but I've never been much for playing them, unless one counts Rogue and NetHack as such.

And I really loathe the Xbox controller. It strikes me as a product of path-dependency, rather than otherwise optimal design. The particular path was begun by a controller for the 1983 NES (an 8-bit gaming system with a clock-speed of less than 2 MHz and accordingly limited possibilities), with understandably little consideration as to the effect of the design on the future. Each subsequent controller design was affected by the desire not to impose too much change upon users, and perhaps in some cases by a need for compatibility with existing and anticipated gaming systems. Were controller designers starting with an understanding of the information that players would now want to be transmitted, but otherwise fresh, then the designs would be radically different.

But it discernibly saddens my father that I don't join him on his systems when I visit. So I have purchased an Xbox 360™ wireless controller for Windows and a copy of Halo®: Combat Evolved for Windows, so that I can practice using controllers of that d_mn'd design, with a game of the sort that my father plays. (My computer does not have enough umphf for some of the newer video games.)

I'm also then being compelled to boot-load Microsoft® Windows in order to play the game. So I'm running an operating system that I hate to play a game that doesn't appeal to me to familiarize myself with a controller that I hate. Maybe I'll stop hating the controller. (I sure won't stop hating the operating system!)

I mentioned this matter to the manager of the apartment complex in which I live. She noted that there are far worse things in this world than feeling obliged to play video games. That's certainly true.

And it's even true in the face of something that I didn't mention to her, which is that something about the game — beyond the awkwardness of the controller and the usual objectionability of Windows — adversely affects my mood. Perhaps it's that the fictitious world has been one of emptiness punctuated by violence.

I don't much like being limited to using the characters found on my key-board or in the ASCII set.

In some contexts, the resolution is to enter an escape sequence, such as those for HTML or those for Java. In other contexts, the best that I can do is to copy-and-paste the character from somewhere.

With that in mind, I cobbled-together a utility qua webpage for my own purposes, character.php. It's a PHP page because it uses server-side code to generate a table on-the-fly of Unicode characters from U+0020 through U+07FF. (Most of these characters will not be well rendered on most systems, though.) Before that table, it has an assemblage of characters that I frequently want (or that I see as otherwise belonging amongst such characters), such as Greek characters and Latin characters with diacritical marks. And, before that assemblage, it has a couple of JavaScript applets; the first of which converts amongst hexadecimal, characters, and decimal; the second of which converts ordinary strings into strings of HTML escape sequences.

Anyway, I began creäting the page with my own use in mind, but I've extended it a bit to make it more useful to others. I might not implement suggested changes, but I'd certainly consider them.

If you're actually trying to install another version of Firefox, then click on the Firefox tag, as there may be an entry on that other version.

Since a fair number of the hits to this 'blog are from searches as how to install Firefox 3.5 under RHEL 5.x or as to how to install Firefox 3.0 under RHEL 5.x, I'm going to infer that people are and will be surfing the WWWeb for instructions on how to install Firefox 3.6 under RHEL 5.x. Here are the steps that I recommend:

1. Download the archive, firefox-3.6.n.tar.bz2.
2. The tarball contains a directory, firefox, which should be dropped-in as a sub-directory of something. If you want to ponder where, then study the FHS. As for me, as root, I put it in /opt:

   tar -xjvf firefox-3.6.n.tar.bz2 -C /opt/

   (Replace that n with the actual number from the archive that you downloaded.)
3. Make sure that you have compat-libstdc++-33 (a Gnome C++ compatibility library):

   rpm -qa | grep compat-libstdc++-33

   If not, then as root install it:

   yum install compat-libstdc++-33

4. To avoid conflicts with SELinux, as root run

   chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /opt/firefox/libxul.so

   (If you didn't install the directory in /opt, or renamed the firefox directory, then you'll need to modify the above final argument to chcon accordingly.)
5. You'll need a .desktop file for Firefox (though you may already have one). As root, edit/create /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop, ensuring that it reads

   [Desktop Entry]
   Categories=Application;Network;X-Red-Hat-Base;
   Type=Application
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Name=Firefox
   Comment='WWW browser'
   Exec='/opt/firefox/firefox'
   Icon='/opt/firefox/icons/mozicon128.png'
   Terminal=false

   (Again, if you didn't install in /opt, or changed the name of the firefox directory, then you'll need to change the above accordingly.)
6. Log out and back in or restart the system (to up-date the GUI).

For a couple of weeks, I have been in the process of changing the e.mail address that various parties have on file for me. Initially, a considerable amount of each day went into this chore. Now, it's just a few minutes here-and-there, when I am reminded of somewhere that I need to effect a change.

I think that it would probably bore the reader to relate the history of my e.mail addresses, so suffice it to say that I greatly value having a persistent e.mail address, and have had the same address for something on the order of 15 years, but it has been provided by a firm, AT&T, with which I can no longer comfortably do such business. I'll be using oeconomist.com for my email domain now, and hope that I can do so for at least 15 years.

I am visiting my parents because they were using the same firm for e.mail and for their webpage hosting, and are leaving it for similar reasons. I handled configuration of accounts and of e.mail handlers, and transferred WWW content.

I had been using that same firm as my ISP for about that same span, and as my land-line service provider since the acquisition of AT&T by SBC Communications. I have had my land-line disconnected, and turned to Sprint, my cellular telephone service provider, as my ISP. I'm using a Novatel Wireless™ MiFi™ 2200 Mobile Hotspot to connect to the 'Net. For about $100 more, I could have got a Sierra Wireless™ AirCard® W801 (AKA Overdrive™ 3G/4G) Mobile Hotspot, but Sprint doesn't provide and doesn't seem scheduled to provide a 4G network anywhere that I expect to find myself for a few years (after which time there will be new choices in such devices).

If you’re actually trying to install another version of OpenOffice, then click on the OpenOffice tag, as there may be an entry on that other version.

My suggested procedure for installing OpenOffice 3.2.x under RHEL 5.x is essentially the same, mutatis mutandis, as that for installing OpenOffice 3.1.x:

1. If you don't have a JRE installed, then install one. As I write, OpenOffice and Sun are in-synch at update 18, but check with Sun for a more recent version when you are installing OpenOffice. (I suggest that one use jdk-6uxx-linux-xxx-rpm.bin or jre-6uxx-linux-xxx-rpm.bin, rather than jre-6uxx-linux-xxx.bin.) The remainder of these instructions assume that one has a JRE installed.

2. Remove any earlier installation of OpenOffice. As root, enter these three commands:

   rpm -qa | grep openoffice | xargs rpm -e --nodeps
rpm -qa | grep ooobasis | xargs rpm -e --nodeps
rpm -qa | grep fake-db | xargs rpm -e --nodeps

3. Unpack OOo_3.2.x_LinuxIntel_install_wJRE_en-US.tar.gz (or the version appropriate to a devil-language, if you use one of those) to your filespace.

4. Go into resulting OOO32x_mxx_native_packed-x_en-US.xxxx/RPMS/ (or to the OOO32x_mxx_native_packed-x_xx-xx.xxxx/RPMS/ corresponding to your devil-tongue).

5. As root, run

   find . -maxdepth 1 -name "o*.rpm" | xargs rpm -U

6. As root, run

   rpm -U desktop-integration/openoffice.org*-redhat-menus-*.noarch.rpm

   (NB: You may need to log-out and back-in for the Applications menu to be up-dated and list the latest OpenOffice components. Your previous version may continue to be listed on the menu.)

7. As root, run

   rpm -U userland/*.rpm

8. Tell OpenOffice which JRE to use:

   • Launch OpenOffice:

     /usr/bin/openoffice.org3

     (It may not be listed on the applications menu unless you have logged-out and back-in. Before then, you may be able to launch it from the menu by way of a listing for a previous version.)
   • Select

     Tools | Options… | OpenOffice.org | Java | Use a Java runtime environment

   • Choose one of the environments that is then listed.
   • Click the OK button.
   • Shut-down OpenOffice. (The selection of JRE will be in effect upon next launch.)

When one installs rar in Red Hat Linux,

yum install rar

and then attempts to run rar or unrar, one is likely to get a failure with the diagnostic

rar: /lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.7' not found (required by rar)

In various fora, the recommendation has been to install a newer version of glibc or somesuch. Such updating would be a signally bad idea, likely to disable the operating system.

Instead, note that the rar package came with rar_static. Use that in place of rar. (If it makes you happier, you could delete rar and rename or alias rar_static with rar.)

By way of zenicurean I learn that Google has announced its horror that the Chinese regime has, in fact, not much respect for the right of political dissent.

---

There's a sort of underground, which is perpetually trying to draw attention to the fact that various corporations from the United States and elsewhere provided support for Nazi Germany prior to relevant nationalizations or declarations of war. For example, IBM supplied information technology, which was subsequently used for such things as tracking-down Jews.

But the Nazis didn't have the first or the last regime to violate human rights, and the firms that sold the means for them to do so weren't the first or last folk to try not to think too hard about whom they were helping. American firms sold war equipment to both sides during the First World War. After the Second World War, businesses sold resources and technology to repressive regimes, variously communist or anti-communist; the United States government often subsidized or otherwise promoted such sales, depending upon what soul-less pragmatists thought to be in the national interest. And it isn't as if American sales have to be to foreign states to support repression.

We need to judge the present and the past with a perspective that doesn't lose sight of either, to understand that doing business with Hitler or with Stalin is part of the same sort of behavior as doing business with Hu or with Putin, and vice versa. We need to see that there isn't some simple discontinuity of acceptability that places Hizzoner on one side and der Führer on the other.

I'm not here telling anyone whom to condemn and whom to excuse. Rather, I'm saying that one should be reluctant to try to draw lines of any sort on slippery slopes. As to one's own behavior, I suggest that a line be drawn before one is on the slope at all.

Do not use Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader to open PDF files got from untrusted sites.

If your browser is configured to use Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, rather than some other PDF reader, then disable Javascript now or install something such as NoScript (and then open PDF files only from trusted sites).

Alternate PDF readers may be found listed at PDFReaders.org.

As previously noted, back at the end of April 2008, when WordPress version 2.5.1 was the latest stable release, I reported a bug in the handling of nested q[uotation] elements by WordPress. The bug was scheduled to be fixed with version 2.7. Then, as the release of version 2.7 approached, the bug-fix was rescheduled for version 2.9. When I discovered this rescheduling, I wrote

And there seems no assurance that, about half-a-year from now, that target won’t be reset to version 3.1.

Well, that was actually more than 11 months ago, but two days ago, with version 2.9 in beta, the fix was rescheduled for Future Release, which is to say that it really isn't scheduled at all.

I don't really want to dive into the code to fix the error myself. For one thing, I've been thinking of writing an independent software package that would contain some of the same functionality as that of the package in which the bug resides, and I neither want to license the code of someone else nor face challenge as having perhaps cribbed said code. Further, I'd expect to have to invest significant effort to understand the code before I could properly patch it, and might have no use for the understanding after the patch.