billso.com

As I gear up for the fall semester, this morning’s news bucket brought me two stories about databases.

Local legislator Wll Espero wants to create a registry for violent criminals. It’s similar to registries that track pedophiles and rapists. In dribs and drabs, other Hawaii lawmakers have announced their support. Norman Sakamoto made a statement yesterday, and Clayton Hee spoke up a few days ago.

Databases are not force fields!

The ACLU has pointed out that these registries cannot keep a convicted criminal out of a neighborhood. Privacy concerns take a back seat when momentum builds for “feel-good measures that do not increase public safety”, according to Hawaii ACLU legal director Lois Perrin.

Local supporters of these registries believe these databases will only help them. But what happens when a local government compiles a database that invades the privacy of “upstanding citizens”?

Every couple of months, some local group or politician suggests building toll roads in Honolulu, in place of a train. These efforts are laughable. There’s little space to put new expressways in Honolulu, unless the new lanes are stacked on top of existing highways. That’s a poor idea on a volcanic island. Tunnels won’t work well on an island, either.

New highways only add more cars to our roads

Mass transit makes much more sense. It’s difficult to get across town or find a parking space in Honolulu. Oahu’s economy already suffers from the thousands of cars that flit back and forth to work, home and school with only one or two passengers in each vehicle.

Many mainland toll roads offer electronic tags or E-ZPasses that let drivers travel through an express lane at tool booths. These systems let drivers prepay their tolls and avoid long lines that seem to stretch forever as other drivers fumble for paper money and change. Monthly and online statements let E-ZPass users review their journeys. That’s an excellent aid when filing for corporate reimbursements or income tax deductions. It’s also a great way to monitor fleet drivers.

Chris Newmarker of the Associated Press reported today on a growing trend in divorce cases – subpoena a spouse’s E-ZPass records to see where and when they were driving. When a spouse says they were in Pennsylvania on business but their E-ZPass account shows a tool transaction in New Jersey, credibility flies out the window.

Cheating spouses think no one will notice if they are somewhere else

Some states will not release E-ZPass transaction data to a civil investigation. These logs make excellent evidence in some criminal cases. Melanie McGuire was recently convicted of murdering her husband, cutting up his body, loading the pieces into three suitcases and dumping his remains in the Chesapeake Bay. Prosecutors used her E-ZPass records in court to describe her travels. She could have left her E-ZPass at home and paid cash, of course.

UPDATED 13 August 2007 11:05 HT: Dave Shapiro seems to agree with me.

The Honolulu Advertiser ran a front-page article this morning about the growing parking problems in Chinatown. I’ve worried that downtown businesses and colleges might face problems as more customers face longer waits to find that elusive parking space.

Companies keep moving downtown, and they sometimes wind up with more employees than dedicated parking spaces. The solutions range from shared parking spaces to subsidized bus passes!

Too many vehicles? Or not enough mass transit?

Recent figures indicate that there are 734,270 registered vehicles on Oahu. Another article in this morning’s Advertiser indicates there are 1.13 million vehicles in the state, while our population is 1.28 million people. Of course, the large rental car fleets on our islands are a part of this total, but it’s still alarming that there’s so many vehicles in our state.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported yesterday that more Honolulu drivers are riding alone to work. Today’s Honolulu Advertiser explained how ridership levels on The Bus have rebounded after the 2003 bus drivers strike. The Star-Bulletin printed a chart with some interesting figures: on Oahu, the number of people driving along went from 61.4% to 67% between 2000 and 2005, while carpooling dropped 4 points. The Advertiser’s graph showed bus revenue from almost US$20M in 1993 to US$41.5M in 2006.

“Telecommuting one day a week, working at home, cuts down demand on roads significantly… It doesn’t cost anything and immediately saves money.”

Panos Prevedouros, an engineering professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, provided a puzzling quote that closed the Star-Bulletin’s article. Here’s my brief list of reasons why telecommuting isn’t free.

1. The employee may have to provide her own computer if the company hasn’t done so.
2. The company should provide secure remote access for employees. A VPN to the office network is essential.
3. The employee’s computer should be clean and free of viruses, malware, spyware, keystroke loggers and zombies. Think of the telecommuter’s computer as an extension of the company’s network. How does the company’s IT department profile off-site computers?
4. The telecommuting employee has to provide her own utilities and amenities, including furniture, electricity, Internet access, and air conditioning.
5. There’s the psychological costs of remote work. Some employees may prefer to work in an office environment. Working from home is one powerful way for an employer to exert more control over an employee.
6. Working offsite can be distracting. it’s tempting to turn on the TV or chat on the phone while working from home.
7. Schedules may become too flexible. Add “just one” errand or “only a few” chores into an offsite workday, and the telecommuting employee becomes less productive and attentive.

I’m assuming that Dr. Prevedouros is thinking of commuters who work in an office environment provided by their employer. Some of the items on this list would be different for commuter who owns their own business, and this article does a nice job of covering various tools that a business owner might use.

Tech: A research study indicates that it’s difficult to talk and drive at the same time:

A new study, released on Sunday, measured what happened when drivers were sent out into traffic and given a variety of mental tasks to perform. The researchers found that internal distractions — that is, what was going on inside the driver’s head — could impair visual skills while driving as much as external distractions, like a baby crying in the back seat. But they also found big differences in the amount of interference caused by different kinds of mental activities.

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.