Flutterby™! From 1998-12-01 to 1998-12-24

An AP report on CNN says that underage drinking saved two lives. Cool.

Robert reports:

I went through several Linux sites over the past few weeks and listed some of the ones that don't suck here http://home.chattanooga.net/~rwilson/linux.html If you have any recommendations, let me know.

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Web development ]

Kirrily 'Skud' Robert has an in-progress list of questions you should ask before hiring a web professional.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Want to know how to use words? The King's English by H.W. Fowler might help.

Haven't looked at any of these, but tom's suggestions are usually worth at least a glance. Unfortunately, the list looks like it contains the same blank marketing crap that dominates white media, but maybe there's a few gems. Anyway, here's a message with "The Best African American Sites on the Web":

Finally, the results of our "Best Af-Am Sites on the Web98," are in. After surveying over 42,000 Af-Am citizens on their favorite sites, we have created the following list of top sites based on popularity, content, design, and navigation. Please forward this message to others who are in search of quality African American programming on the web, and thank you to all those who participated in the survey.

1. http://www.msbet.com
2. http://www.netnoir.com
3. http://www.tbwt.com
4. http://www.aumagazine.com
5. http://www.blackvoices.com
6. http://www.essence.com
7. http://www.vibe.com
8. http://www.blackenterprise.com
9. http://www.wanonline.com
10. http://www.ebonymag.com
11. http://www.everythingblack.com
12. http://www.afroam.org
13. http://www.platform.net
14. http://www.urbansportsnetwork.com
15. http://www.losnegroes.com

Thank You, Courtesy of Black Data Research Incorporated

Some links to constitutions:

http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html The U.S. Constitution stored at the House of Representatives Web Site

http://www.law.cornell.edu/con...ution/constitution.overview.html U.S. Constitution stored at the Cornell Law web site.

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/conmain.html The U.S. Constitution stored at the National Archives and Records Administration.

http://constitution.by.net/ State and Federal Constitutions

[ related topics: Politics Web development ]

http://www.suppenkuche.com/ is supposedly a very German restaurant. Haven't had time to check out even the page yet, but it's getting rave reviews on the SF Linux User's Group mailing list.

[ related topics: Free Software ]

Furry soap opera: Tails of the City, and before you ask, no it's not an Armisted Maupin parody or rip-off, it stands quite nicely on its own.

Michael Mayne points me to http://www.netlib.org/, a collection of mathematical software, papers, and databases.

Another web log, found via CamWorld is the Whump Web Log. I may have to look at their software for the next version of Newwwsboy.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Content Management Weblogs ]

http://www.alienabductions.com/

When you choose an AAI Abduction Experience our doctors, hypnotists, and memory implant technicians work with you in pre-abduction orientation sessions to customize one of our hundreds of stock abductions to suit your personal taste. You can even pick one of our fetishist's specials--interspecies breeding, medical experimentation--it's all up to you.

Whump gets in the xmas spirit with Got Rest Ye, Unitarians

[ related topics: Web development ]

Jeffrey Ventrella has a bunch of stuff on artificial life, including Darwin Pond, a Win32 app developed as a research project at Rocket Science Games, as a free download.

[ related topics: Web development Games ]

A Front Row Seat at the Dan White Trial, Unpublished Courtroom Drawings Shown on the Web by Telenaut Communications. I'd guess I don't have to tell the readership of Flutterby who Dan White is, David Newman, Telenaut's founder, covered the trial in April and May of 1979 as a free-lance courtroom artist for UPI.

Emily Jenkins interviews Lisa Palac in Nerve Magazine about Lisa's new book The Edge of the Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life. For some reason I'm not jumping up to read it, but the interview is okay.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Quote of the day: In an on-line Pixar stock discussion group, someone asked about the possibility of Disney buying Pixar. Here's the best answer he got:

Disney just flies by every Fall and picks up a Movie off of the offering rock.

[ related topics: Pixar Quotes Animation ]

Hokay, back from Seattle, some random notes: On Seattle: The New York Wall Street yuppiedom of the 80's and the Reagan years was fueled by cocaine. The boom of the '90s is obviously driven by caffeine, you can't turn around with your arms outstretched without hitting at least two people serving mochas. Didn't get to spend much time outside, most of it was in meetings, but I did see the mountains once, and it looks like Boeing might be a cool place to visit. Did walk by the original Starbuck's, and there's no way that original logo would play in the midwest or Chattanooga...

[ related topics: Drugs ]

A modest proposal for revamping the AOL software, including a tool bar with "Me2", "Spam" and "Flame" icons. Apologies to my readers who are AOL users, and yes, there are a few of you, but AOL is such an easy target.

From tom comes this note:

Prominent Anarchists and Left-Libertarians

http://tigerden.com/~berios/libertarians.html

The following are all individuals who have distinguished themselves in the past and present by opposing various forms of coercion, authority and injustice, political and economic, in true libertarian tradition.

- see esp. Max Stirner [called "our saint" by Marx] & link to the concept of egoist communism.

[ related topics: Politics Web development Libertarian ]

Dang, on my first pass through Keevah's Kastle I don't see my favorite of her poems. Oh well, I'll pester her, but in the mean time she's one of the few modern poets whose work I can read.

Quote of the day from the proceedings: "This is not an indictment, this is an impeachment", used to justify a lower standard of proof than an indictment. As damning an admission that this is a politically motivated action if ever there were one.

[ related topics: Quotes Interactive Drama ]

Need To Know is out this week, starting with a Doug Englebart quote that got me thinking:

"The real question I've been working these past 50 years on is how to augment the human intellect through collective thinking"

It seems indicative of something that the mouse, as used in point-n-drool interfaces, hasn't really augmented the high end of "the human intellect", it's brought the low end into a world and set of discussions they really don't understand. Couldn't we have just left them with TV? Sorry for the cynicism, the background of politicians talking has that effect.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture ]

Sorry, but these hearings are just rife with material: Can we prosecute any of these bozos for lying when they refer to their political opponents as "my dear colleagues" or even worse "my dear friends from across the aisle"?

[ related topics: Politics ]

Just in case you've been living in a cave and have missed this puppy, it's the South African flamethrower vehicle car anti-theft device as reported by CNN.

A 3d scanner built with a Lego Mindstorms kit: http://www.pobox.com/~benw/lego/probe/

Okay, here's a link to the LA FILM CRITICS AWARDS, but if you don't want to read it, the important part is that A Bug's Life won out over every other full-length animated feature of 1998, including Antz and Prince of Egypt (which will be released at the end of this week), so rather than going and seeing one of those, why not go back and see A Bug's Life again, especially now that the new bloopers and outtakes will be released soon.

[ related topics: Pixar Interactive Drama Web development Animation ]

43 Reasons Why Wired Sucks

2. You can read it! Conde Nast cleaned up the florescent overkill and stopped reversing out the type so that readers over 18 can now actually read the magazine and guess what? There's nothing to read.

Despite agreeing with the article, I do, however, propose one reason that Upside sucks: They use those lousy Microsoft products that insert illegal characters into their HTML.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

I was listening to the radio and they reported that Jewel is being dissed by assorted anti-abortion group because she supports the Zero Population Growth organization. So I went to their web page and decided I'm gonna send them a few bucks.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

SFGate raises an eyebrow at Berkeley City Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek's recent vote against a law that would have outlawed lying or sitting on Telegraph Avenue contrasted with her comments on her recent trip to Cuba where she commented that it was nice that nobody was "sleeping on the streets there."

Okay, I'm pissed off at all of these cheesey marketing slogans. Sun's "We're the dot in .com", whoever the lamers are who are claiming to be "the dot com people". Well, in keeping with our laidback meditative sort of stance here at Flutterby, I here by proclaim us "the 'Om' in .cOm". Any compiler writers out there wanna (mis)appropriate the ".c" part?

A summary of an Interim Study, An Appraisal of the Technology of Political Control, as a coworker said: "Orwell was an optimist."

[ related topics: Politics ]

Cameron Barret has a simple request to movie producers and directors who use computers and technology in their movies.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Web development ]

The LA TImes reports:

He mocked the sanctimony of all who "sermonized about how terrible lying is."

Granted, lies were told, he said, but it hardly makes sense to "label every untruth and every deception an outrage."

He also condemned the "disconcerting and distasteful whiff of moralism and institutional self-righteousness" that led Congress to conduct hearings on the deceptions coming from the White House and he denounced the result as "a witch hunt."

So said the House Republican who led the defense of the Reagan administration during the Iran-Contra hearings, the same Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois who is leading the impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Help User Friendly's Dust Puppy beat Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf at Time's Man of the Year poll.

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

CNN reports that a bug in Microsoft's Exchange server delays impeachment. Perhaps Bill's a Democrat?

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

Salon points out that yesterday's bombing of Iraq was a great chance to test what happens when various news organizations' web servers get high volume. If one keeps track of which places run which operating systems, the results should be obvious.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

So my office-mate has been inflicting the House Judicial Committee proceedings on me. My first reaction is that we shouldn't limit ourselves to the D.C., we should nuke both Maryland and Virginia, it's the only way to be truly sure. Does Mr. Shipper's (sp?) standard of truthfulness apply to himself? Then what about all those mistruths he told about the consequences of postponing the Paula Jones case? And the "we've got lots of stuff I can't show you" intimations? Not that I'm siding with the Democrats, I've just been subjected to several hours of intimations and innuendo claiming to be a case. But really it's a fruitless waste of time, everyone on that committee has known for weeks (if not months) how they'll be voting.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

In its first article this week of any interest, Salon points out how Microsoft is using its position as a publisher to rewrite history.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

January 18^th is hereby pronounced A World Day o' Goofiness.

On Monday, January 18th (the birthdate of Oliver Hardy and Danny Kaye), take part in a Day of Goofiness. an attempt to get everyone to stop taking themselves seriously for a day. Turn your every move into performance art. Put a "Get Goofy" banner on your website. Come and tell us all about what you're doing to make this world a little bit Goofier.

Need To Know strikes again. And as usual, they say it better than I could:

"Software expands to fill the space available. If it didn't, it wouldn't be designed properly."

- NATHAN MYHRVOLD explains Microsoft's design philosophy

...within 4 hours we estimate NT will have consumed much of Washington State: after 16 hours, the entire Western seaboard. It'll reach New York by 3am tomorrow morning...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

Another toy gives it's life in the pursuit of science! http://www.phobe.com/furby/

At Clean Sheets is a review of I Am My Lover: Women Pleasure Themselves which is well worth reading, and which I'm going to have to browse next time I'm in Good Vibrations If you haven't checked back in at Clean Sheets recently, it might be worth a look. A few more book reviews, erotic stories, and another exhibit of photographs. Along those lines, on Good Vibrations Pat Califia has written a new Quickies.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Good Vibrations Web development Books Erotic Sexual Culture ]

A new Need To Know today which, among other observations, points to this report that David Siegel has recanted on his awful web "design". Well, on reading the article, not completely. On other fronts, I've run across at least one page today that gave me only a black browser window with JavaScript turned off. Needless to say they get no link here.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Ummm...

Richmond, Ca, Friday December 4.

In perhaps the most desperate stroke of their recent box office battle, SKG principal Jeffery Katzenberg called in a favor from God to try and literally wipe Pixar Animation Studios off the map. Apparently pleased with the free marketing he's receiving from the forthcoming SKG animated release, "Price of Egypt," God obliged and unleashed a magnitude 4.1 earthquake on the unexpecting city of Richmond, Ca.

Sources close to Katzenberg say that he was expecting more from the Creator. Local geologists estimated that at least a 6.0 would have been necessary to disrupt business at the Richmond-based studio responsible for the record-breaking new film, "A Bug's Life" ($46.5 million last weekend), the only percieved box office threat to SKG's "Prince." However, they also estimate that anything greater than 6.7 could have threatened operations at the home office of SKG partner Pacific Data Images in nearby Palo Alto, Ca. A local priest who follows God closely said, "God's pretty savvy, especially when it comes to his own media representation. Good advertising is hard to come by, and 'Prince of Egypt' may be the only taste of the Bible the kids today will get. God's been losing the world's attention to the likes of Disney and Pixar in recent years, you know. I think he just wanted to remind everyone who's the boss."

[ related topics: Pixar Religion Children and growing up Animation ]

So I got to the list that tom pointed to, and my first impression is that for a bunch of so-called libertarians (whatinthehell is a "libertarian-socialist" anyway?) they sure are a life-hating unhappy bunch. Or at least the write-ups portray them that way.

[ related topics: Politics Libertarian ]

An article entitled Microsoft and 3D Graphics: A Case Study in Suppressing Innovation and Competition talks about Microsoft's attacks on OpenGL. I don't need to recount my tales of FUD at that "Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference" where the alleged technical presenter doing the Direct3D dog and pony show didn't know why you'd want a separate normal at each triangle vertex.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

As soon as I heard about how Microsoft's "new" ClearType system works I thought "Hey, that's how hi-res mode on the Apple ][ worked!" Apparently PC Week agrees with me.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Web development Microsoft ]

Gratuitous Ayn Rand quote:

A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and destroy his mind.

[ related topics: Objectivism ]

In Salon Magazine, Keith Knight's The K Chronicles addresses being a part of that oppressed minority: a lefty.

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

CNN tells us that Madam Tussaud's wax museum in Sydney Australia has a problem. The exhibitor's general manager Vicky Brown reports that "The figures are very accessible and people tend to get up close to get their photographs taken. We were finding that every time we went past Bill Clinton the zipper was undone." Relatedly, my office-mate and I have been listening to the House Judiciary proceedings. Boy, what a bunch of posturing windbags. There's no fact discovery here, just a crowd of losers trying to trip each other up so they can say "nya nya nya". Like watching kids squabble in the sandbox, voting only encourages them. I guess at least in Washington they can't do any real damage.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics ]

Ego gratification: An old post of mine to rec.arts.int-fiction about why abstraction is necessary in computer game design.

[ related topics: Games ]

More ego gratification from DejaNews, this time a simple C implementation of the Animals game from "back when AI was cool."

[ related topics: Games ]

Gulp, /. points to this gem from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Be afraid, be very very afraid:

The FDIC is proposing to issue a regulation requiring insured nonmember banks to develop and maintain ``Know Your Customer'' programs. As proposed, the regulation would require each nonmember bank to develop a program designed to determine the identity of its customers; determine its customers' sources of funds; determine the normal and expected transactions of its customers; monitor account activity for transactions that are inconsistent with those normal and expected transactions; and report any transactions of its customers that are determined to be suspicious, in accordance with the FDIC's existing suspicious activity reporting regulation.

For the Pointy Haired Bosses in your life, here's Six Lies about Linux

[ related topics: Language Free Software Books ]

On Upside there's an article by Sam Williams about mentoring homeless kids, and trying to make people conform, that's well worth reading:

"The discussion wasn't about career paths anymore. This was personal. This was Joe vs. the Beehive, and the Beehive was buzzing for retribution."

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

In Salon this morning, there's a reprint of a David Steinberg article that's already scrolled off of Flutterby. It's good that Steinberg's getting paid, bad that the mainstream press (which Salon is most emphatically a part of) is so far behind the real world. But Salon's been particularly lame recently anyway.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

The use of children in political speech making, much like the trite use of fawns or cute dogs in movie making, should be banned.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics ]

Yay! Susie Bright's back in Salon, this time asking "what's wrong with strippers at teenager's parties?"

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development Sexual Culture ]

For you IF fanatics: Andrew 'Zarf' Plotkin's home page has moved to http://www.eblong.com/zarf/home.html

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

In SFGate, there's an AP report that an anti-drug campaign backfired. Specifically, pencils with "Too Cool to Do Drugs" on them had the "Drugs" side towards the eraser, so the obvious phrases appeared as they were used. But, you know, that original phrase isn't exactly unambiguous, because, well, it might imply that doing drugs is just too cool. What, do these anti-drug people leave their brains at... wait, don't answer that.

[ related topics: Drugs ]

Microsoft hater? Here's the O'Reilly book for you.

[ related topics: Web development Books Microsoft ]

Lost in all of the noise, there's a new NETFUTURE out.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

So I'm reading Jane Healy's Failure to Connect. So far I'm disappointed, although the damage done to young children by replacing reality with some computer generated attempt at facsimile during their formative years is obvious, Healy intersperses her critique, which at times is pretty darned vague, with suggestions for parents who still feel that they absolutely must integrate "edutainment", which in the next chapter she'll link to autistic-like behavior, into their child's upbringing. So I'm disappointed. Except that /. points to an article by Martin Vermeer in Linux Today which proposes that Unix is a critical part of computer literacy, and perhaps the problem we've had is that Windows makes it a little too easy to be illiterate and still make pretty pictures.

[ related topics: Language Free Software Children and growing up Web development Microsoft ]

Surprise, surprise... In this world of cynical advertising and gullible consumers it's not like this doesn't happen all the time, but Techweb reports that Divx fan sites are apparently inside jobs. Which isn't really that surprising, I mean after all how many consumers who like Divx actually have the mental competence to brush their own teeth let alone put together a web site?

Cam's Technology Predictions for 1999

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Web development ]

Yes! It's been a good year. Credit in a blockbuster movie, a growing readership for Flutterby (Thanks, Cameron, I feel like I've gotten a boost from your references), and, now, Philip Greenspun, web god, has quoted me in his new book, Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing in the Learn to Program HTML in 21 Minutes chapter:

It has been four years since I wrote my "Shame and War" paper. Has there been any progress since then? Yes and no. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is being standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Described by Dan Lyke as "the subset of SGML that Microsoft's developers could understand", XML addresses the need for semantic markup but not the requirement that publishers agree on a common set of classes for semantic markup to be useful.

[ related topics: Religion Cameron Barrett Web development Books Content Management Microsoft ]

No My Word's Worth this morning, but you can check out Marylaine's column at Fox news instead.

[ related topics: Marylaine Block ]

Cameron Barrett talks about The Great Unethical Advertising Beast, the encroachment of ads into what was formerly time for previews in videos and movies. Those don't bother me nearly as much as all of those ads in the movies, all the product placement that can get at least as annoying, and is much harder to fast forward over. I don't get to the movies much, but the Pepsi plugs in Antz were really jarring.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Web development ]

My Anal Retentive's Guide to Burning Man Survival is, at long last, up. I need to size the images, but at least the stuff is finally up.

[ related topics: Burning Man ]

I want one: Cloneshop 1.0:

Not just cloning, Digital Cloning - and soon you'll be able to clone right out of your PC or Mac, just the like the pros. As soon as Dr. Seed successfully clones himself, he and Adobe will make home cloning available for the low price of $699.99.

It's User Friendly. With Our Typical Drop Down Box Format, You Can Alter Your Clone Any Way You Like

[ related topics: Humor ]

From Celestial Reviews 297 posted to alt.sex.stories.moderated. #1 is lame, but I like the other ones:

Third note: Top Ten Things Men SHOULDN'T Say Out Loud in Victoria's
Secret:
10.   Does this come in children's sizes?
9.    No thanks.  Just sniffing.
8.    I'll be in the fitting room going blind.
7.    Mom will love this.
6.    Oh, the size won't matter.  She's inflatable.
5.    No need to wrap it up.  I'll eat it here.
4.    Will you model this for me?
3.    The Miracle what?  This is better than world peace!
2.    45 bucks??  You're just gonna end up NAKED anyway!!
And the NUMBER ONE thing that a man should never say out loud in
Victoria's Secret:
1.        Oh Honey, you'll never squeeze your fat ass into that.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Watch what you do and where you do it: a group of people at a private party were arrested because "the state has an interest in maintaining morals and standards of decency." http://www.detnews.com/1998/metro/9812/23/12230100.htm

News.com has a postmortem on Network Associate's recent publicity stunt regarding the MCI WorldCom virus.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

In Salon, the worst books of the year. ##### 1998-12-25 00:00:00 quickies Good Afternoon! (Catherine says "Merry Christmas!") In the 390s, the Christians decided that despite evidence that Jesus' birth didn't happen in the middle of winter they needed to coopt the celebration of the return of light, whence Christmas. However you celebrate the lengthening of the days, have a good one.

[ related topics: Religion Humor Web development Books Dan's Life ]