Rick Chapman Book Review

Shorewood tables talk of fee-based fire inspections

SHOREWOOD — Consideration of an intergovernmental agreement with the Troy Fire Protection District allowing it to conduct fee-based inspections was quickly halted during Tuesday’s village board meeting.

Mayor Richard Chapman asked the board to table the measure after trustees raised concerns about imposing more fees on village businesses and asked questions about wording in the agreement.

“I apologize for it even being on the agenda,” he said, noting that village officials need to meet with fire officials to discuss the matter before giving it any further formal consideration.

According to a memo from Economic Development Director Nancy Roman, village staff and fire district officials began discussions about formalizing an agreement with the village to conduct inspections and enforce codes some time ago. While fire inspectors do review plans for new construction, a formalized agreement is necessary to permit this.

The agreement allows the fire district to conduct plan reviews, but also conduct inspections annually for multifamily, commercial and industrial buildings, she said.

David Myers, the village’s chief building inspector, said the inspections conducted by the fire district are beyond what village inspectors do, particularly when it comes to fire-suppression equipment and enforcing maximum occupancy of an establishment.

The agreement also includes a fee schedule that would be assessed and collected by the fire district for the variety of inspections and permit fees that would be required of businesses. Trustee Dan Anderson, who is a small-business owner, was critical of the agreement because it permits another taxing body to charge village businesses more money.

“Small businesses don’t need to be hit with more fees,” he said.

Roman said the fire district’s fees were much higher in original discussions.

With a variety of fees being proposed, Trustee Dan Gron asked for staff to determine what the total “new” cost would be for village businesses.

Anderson also asked staff to bring the Shorewood Area Chamber of Commerce into the discussions to get input from local business owners.

Two Thirds of a Vulnerability Fixed per Day Implies Many Thousands ...

Well, another “Patch Tuesday” approaches with 22 serious fixes since the last batch, one month ago. If they are fixing 2/3 of a bug per day, how many are the bad guys finding per day? It could be dozens. “7″ has been around for about two years, 24 months. Hundreds of serious bugs have been fixed and many of them were around on Day One just waiting to be found. We could have years more of this bug-fixing and many hundred more exploits to go before “7″ is given a decent burial.

In the last month on my Debian systems, 8 packages had “several vulnerabilities” fixed and many of them were on packages unlikely to be used on a desktop system. They are fixed in a couple of minutes by running a simple command and my whole system is tightened up, not just the OS.

Use GNU/Linux and have more peace of mind about your IT system.

Microsoft has a simple solution to their deplorable security and service record on their operating systems; lower the bar on what is acceptable. Out come the hoards of Astroturfers declaring that other OSs are worse (in some way or another). Then come the “analysts”. The only thing differing them from journalists are a couple of zeros in the check they receive for their work and they write their own copy rather than cut and paste. Finally, we get the bloggers pounding away on their new Acer Ferrari laptops given to them by Microsoft because… well, just because.

If Microsoft cannot perform to what is acceptable in a given system, it simply changes what is acceptable in that system. Their effort will go as far as changing the definition of words. That is the might of their Marketing. Joseph Goebbels would have been humbled at Microsoft’s command of the public mind.

And now some people who I’ve been working with in the past will post some comments here on Robert’s Blog which will add support to my statements in the first paragraph.

“And now some people who I’ve been working with in the past will post some comments here on Robert’s Blog which will add support to my statements in the first paragraph.”

Freankly, ,Mr, Chapman, its hardly worth the effort. You have more than proven that your hatred of microsoft has blinded you to the realities of staying secure on the internet regardless of what system you running. Believe what you want. reality says otherwise.

The Treasury in public policy-making

The Civil Service Commission, 1855-1991, a bureau biography

Petroleum geology

Studies in abnormal pressures

Elements in political science