billso.com

Hardware: Yes Virginia, there are USB 2.0 storage device drivers for DOS:

The minor miracle here is using a driver file called ‘USBASPI.SYS’ (‘Panasonic v2.06 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage’). Given the right parameter incantations, this 16-bit Panasonic-developed DOS driver will let your system boot good-old DOS -any flavour, maybe even Caldera’s OpenDOS and recognize all USB devices connected to the respective controllers.

US: Who Will Win the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election?: “Two years ago, we discovered the holy grail of Washington D.C., a formula to predict the electability of a presidential candidate before he or she is nominated.”

US: From Ted Rall:

It’s time to stop wondering where the WMDs are. Even if nukes and gases and anthrax turn up in prodigious quantities, it won’t matter. Proof of Bush’s perfidy, unlike his accusations that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, is irrefutable.

US: Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post says that the Democrats are sliding towards irrelevance in DC as the GOP does a makoever on the lobbying industry:

… it’s hard to think of a time in the past half-century — even during the Reagan years, they controlled the House — when the Dems had less power inside the Beltway. The only Democratic weapon of any potency at the moment seems to be a Senate filibuster. And the party is not wildly optimistic about ousting Bush in ‘04.

Now the question is whether GOPers are cementing their hold on power by installing their folks in a sort of quasi-permanent government around these parts: the lobbying community.

Internet: From the NYT, when Bill Gates discusses trusted computing, does he even remember 1984? Personal computers are tools of empowerment, not intellectual property management:

Microsoft denies that it is hatching an elaborate scheme to deploy an ultra-secret hardware system simply to protect its software and Hollywood’s digital content. The company also says the new system can help counter global cybercrime without creating the repressive ‘Big Brother’ society imagined by George Orwell in ‘1984.’

Microsoft is committed to ‘working with the government and the entire industry to build a more secure computing infrastructure here and around the world,’ Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, told a technology conference in Washington on Wednesday. ‘This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time.’