Flutterby™! From 1999-04-01 to 1999-04-28

http://www.remotecontrolsextoys.com/ --- I was going to just leave it at that, but then I ran across "Here you'll find sex toys with a twist--Remote Control Sex Toys you and your partner can control over the Internet." Who says technology isn't being used for anything useful?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Some ego-surfing found Sunshine for Women: Abortion With an Attitude with lots of links to abortion information.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

The Fable of the Keys is apparently the original source article for that Economist mention. The 'net seems wonky today, so I haven't gotten there yet.

[ related topics: Web development ]

So I read in the paper this morning that the U.S. military is concerned about the potential shortage of $1.2M air launched cruise missiles. While we're blowing $50M/night on an overdone fireworks show has any thought been given to foreign aid for Albania, where private citizens are paying out of their own pockets for space for refugees? It's not that I think the air strikes are a bad thing, although it would be have been nice if we'd intervened in some non-white European genoiceds sometimes too, but if we're going to step into this struggle at some point we have to understand that this is about people, not politicians.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics ]

Computers in our Schools: This Emperor has no Clothes:

Let's get real - operating a computer on the level we are talking about is a vocational skill, about as challenging as driving a car. The notion that an otherwise well-educated child will be left behind in the marketplace if they don't learn Windows 95 or get on the Internet at eight years of age is ludicrous. But the opposite IS true... a well-educated person (i.e. one with substantial thinking and language skills, and a deeper knowledge of our world and the human condition) is a rare, highly "marketable" individual that will use the computer as an adult when and how it suits their needs at the time, thank you.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

The ultimate Atmel AVR microcontroller resource page

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery ]

Dumbentia has lots of great flyers for fictional products in PDF format.

[ related topics: Humor ]

Some of John's best talk.bizarre posts, including assorted ways to ruin a play in one line: "Sure, she's dead, but that doesn't mean I have to take poison."

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

Genehack points to the awesome Arts & Letters Daily.

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

Via Todd: From Microsoft comes the OFFICE 97 UNIQUE IDENTIFIER REMOVER TOOL AND UNIQUE IDENTIFIER PATCH

"The Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch will prevent the insertion of a unique identifier number into all new Office 97 documents. And the Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool can be used to remove the unique identifier from previously created Office 97 documents."

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Just when I was complaining that the 'net was mined out, here comes Sprogopolis: Baby-powered city of the future. "The only good baby is a working baby."

"Most people, and rightly so, consider babies and infants to be a complete waste of skin. They consume valuable resources, add to noise or other types of pollution, and promote general public disharmony, all without providing any benefit to society. Here in Sprogopolis we have taken steps to remedy the situation."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development Child-Freedom ]

Biblical America Resistance Front, resisting a biblical America. Practical methods for countering the promise keepers. Coverage of Operation Rescue versus Disney.

The Childfree By Choice offers support, anecdotes, and information for those of us who think having kids means sauteed with mushrooms in a sherry sauce with a nice merlot on the side.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Child-Freedom ]

Ya know, the economics of the 'net are just too weird. Here's the full text of The Future Does Not Compute, despite it being available by donation to The Nature Institute. Guess that along with lugging the hardcover around I'm going to have to put it on my Pilot too.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

My German is shakey, but I think I've gleaned his name right. Thom Aust has some awesome sculpture.

Via Robot Wisdom, 3 synopses of Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations (an interesting book, although my personal list derived from his was more like 8 or 9 since many of the differences in his situations are based on familial and cultural differences which I don't think hold universally true). http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/poltisitu.01-12.html http://bricolage.bel-epa.com/etc/drawer/polti.html http://www.heliograph.com/space-1889/Adv/fs-36-plots-long.html

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Interactive Drama Web development Books ]

I've long argued that all we need is a little cooperation and the right leadership to break the domain name monopoly. Several have tried, but many have been really bad. The Internet Namespace Cooperative seems like it might actually be a group of people with their acts together. Worth checking out if you run DNS servers and care about openness on the 'net, although I haven't had time to go through enough of it to unreservedly recommend it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Computer Virus Myths: "Mundus vult decipi".

The Rocky & Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show, a part of Melissa's Rocky Horror Page

[ related topics: Rocky Horror Picture Show ]

Annoying graphics laden design of the day: The Vatican. Favorite goof, that they use Microsoft publishing tools, so with a standards compliant web browser they refer to the "daily account of the Holy Father?s activities"; it's good to know that they're questioning. A handy recurring link is the English output of the Vatican news service.

[ related topics: Religion Microsoft ]

http://www.erotica-newyork.com

[ related topics: Erotic ]

I don't normally feel self conscious about the number of sex links on Flutterby, so I don't know if my reluctance to had this to the list comes from the fact that I was chatting up the site with a lot of people and making it sound more diverse than it probably is right now, or if I really have been focused on one side of things for too long. Anyway, I mentioned Remote Control Sex Toys yesterday, SafeSexPlus seems to be more involved with building an online community around users of this hardware, they've also got a cyberdildonics resources and links page which might be interesting if you want to explore the topics discussed in yesterday's mouthorgan a little more. Remember, from VCRs to the web, porn drives the technology. This could be your chance to get in on the ground floor.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Technology and Culture ]

If you're interested in the Mendocino area, I was talking with King Collins, who runs http://www.greenmac.com/, last night. It sounds like there's probably some cool stuff there.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Y2K: The Myths Addressed!

In order to verify the address before ragging on Memepool in today's rant, I had to check the address. And I did find something useful: Assorted obscene origami

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Desert Blast seems like the portion of Burning Man that I'm the least comfortable with. But if testosterone, jiggling breasts, and lots of things going boom are your thing and you've got something to contribute it might be worth asking for an invite.

[ related topics: Burning Man Interactive Drama ]

Social Issues Research Centre has some reasonable responses to assorted publicity stunts and seems to warrant some more reading.

Via /., here's an RS-232 or parallel port fed demo board for an MP3 decoding chipset

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Music ]

Albert Hoffman's LSD, My Problem Child.

[ related topics: Drugs ]

http://www.kleinbottle.com/

Recreational Christianity.

[ related topics: Religion Web development ]

Frank recommends the Laura Nyro pages, I'm going to have to hook up some speakers and experience her music, 'cause he speaks highly of it.

[ related topics: Ziffle Music ]

Craig Peacock's notes on Interfacing the PC

If you have to ask what Kibo is, you probably won't understand anyway. Slightly whacked, included for completeness.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor ]

the Surrealism Server, including the Surrealist Compliment Generator.

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

More random text sillyness from the Chomskybot

[ related topics: Humor ]

Beam Guides and BaBar: A visit to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

[ related topics: Web development Cool Science ]

Catherine Yronwode has an interesting little essay on that thin line between spirituality and wacko, titled Keyword: Nut-Case.

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

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices Online

[ related topics: Humor ]

On the "Flutterby" theme, that ever incredible finder of useful stuff on the web Marylaine points to the USGS Butterflies of North America page.

[ related topics: Butterflies Marylaine Block ]

How to keep a Windows NT server stable.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

There's a neat Origins of American Animation exhibit at the Library of Congress.

[ related topics: Language Politics Web development Books Animation ]

Turn on JavaScript for the zoomed image pop-ups, here's a great look at the relics of the cold war from CNN, from Cheyenne Mountain to Mare Island to the rusting hulks of test equpment and old airplanes deep in the desert.

Michael Mayne passes along this link to the Center for Distributed Object Computing, if you're into object oriented design and parallel or network processing this is definitely a site to spend some time on.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

Via YAWL, a link to The Dali Museum.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Pornographic Origami.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

One of my favorite comic strips on the web, about the life and trials of a small ISP, has moved: http://www.userfriendly.org/

[ related topics: Humor ]

An investigation toward a program that helps a writer build works of interactive fiction

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Via Camworld, Vivid Studios has Vbay, an eBay parody.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett ]

As we're about to get hit hard by the "Oh, isn't it great that the serial numbers in Microsoft Word documents let us track down the creators" propaganda, it'll help your bullshit detectors if you remember that those numbers are only inserted when the document is created, not when it's edited. So if I open one of your documents and insert the virus, you're hosed. Similarly, all these mutations will point to one person.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

Peter Meerholz mirrors 0sil8's Simply Porn parody of 3Com's Simply Palm advertising campaign. Unfortunately the parody isn't all that far out given what I've seen of the 3Com campaign. All those entrendres involving "Palm Pilot" are nothing compared to what the ad agency cooked up.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

NT peeve of the day:

How in the heck do I abort a WriteFile() call that's trying to talk to a process that's exited? I've tried SetCommTimeouts(), which fails because this isn't the right kind of handle, and while I can set all sorts of flags or whatever in another thread I can't figure out how to cancel this read operation.

In Un*x like operating systems this is simple to do with signals. Unfortunately, NT isn't like an operating system, let alone a Un*x like one.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

A new Suzie Bright column in Salon, about when her daughter's elementary school assignment is a report on her job.

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

CNN reports that some poor sod's been busted for the Melissa virus. I hope there are some computer knowledgeable people on the jury. My favorite "related story" on this link was the "Melissa takes down Marine Corps e-mail", I had a little trouble figuring out the binding of that last "e" given the small font they use.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

So at lunch today the "Do net meddle in the affairs of..." quote came up and we were wondering exactly where it came from. I've always thought of it as "Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins for they are quick to anger and have no need of subtlety", Sam found these:

Gildor the Elf to Frodo the Hobbit:

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

And, from Jerry Pournelle:

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for it makes them soggy and hard to light."

I also found this on someone's page:

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

Speaking of which, I've only got a hundred or two readers... Sam just bought a house and is having an empty house party before he moves stuff in... Wanna impose in his hospitality [evil grin]?

Update on the bumper stickers, John S Jacobs Anderson (www.treefort.org/~jacobs/) asks: Shouldn't the Church of All Worlds slogan be 'I Found Me'? Bumper stickers of note:

Campus Crusade for Christ: "I Found It"

Campus Crusade for Cthulu: "It Found Me"

Church of All Worlds: "Thou Art It"

[ related topics: Religion John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

Salon Magazine has a new layout, more evidence in the argument that readability comes in second to displaying advertisements. I'll see if they've actually got any content under there in a bit.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

I'm reading The Future Does Not Compute by Stephen L. Talbott, the editor of NETFUTURE. Thus far it's an excellent book for those who'd look at what community is and how we interact with technology, he manages to avoid the whining that pervades so many anti-media writers. Quote of the day:

"What hope is there for peace and human rights when I conceive the barriers separating me from my fellows to be mere obstructions on a network technology diagram rather than the powers of darkness shadowing my own heart?"

[ related topics: Quotes Books Technology and Culture ]

More quotes of the day:

"Stupidity used to be a terminal disease; now it's just a chronic condition."

--- Joe Thompson

[ related topics: Quotes ]

Didn't have time to do anything longer on the topic, but those of y'all who celebrated the death and alleged rebirth of the male relative of your diety this past weekend happen to notice that the name of the holiday often celebrated with eggs and bunnies and other symbols of fertility sounds and awful lot like oestrus? Jes' mentioning.

Aviation Week's Roton Rocket critique

[ related topics: Cool Science ]

GENEHACK (the link that didn't take below) points to an Economist article about the myth of the QWERTY keyboard which also mentions counterexamples to those old collectivist myths like lighthouse costs and such.

[ related topics: Web development John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

This is sent blind, I don't have the time right now to check out the web sites and I'm trusting my sources more than I like to, but... Apparently http://www.junkscience.com is advocating a provision that'd make federally funded science subject to lots of Freedom of Information Act issues. Unfortunately this would make things like participants in surveys public, things like that, that are a really bad idea. A Washington Post article about the Shelby Amendment should provide further reading.

[ related topics: Web development Privacy ]

Just passing on the O'Reilly link to The Future Does Not Compute so that I get it in the glossary.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

Oh. My. $DEITY. (or would that be @DEITIES?) (Pardon the Perl jokes) (and the inane parenthesized self-explanations): A Variety article on selling the new Star Wars: "No, try not. Dew or dew not. There is no try." Whether or not the film ends up being decent, I still think I'm gonna hurl.

[ related topics: Star Wars ]

A transcript of the ABC 20/20 piece on textbook errors sticks to the fairly mainstream mistakes. There are some really good reasons for having teachers who actually know the subjects that they're supposed to be teaching, but given the current political climate for central control of the process you'd never tell.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Web development ]

Salon interviews the author of Therapy's Delusions which takes psychotherapy to task. I've gotta like anyone who approaches the subject with the healthy skepticism that "Therapy includes mechanisms to build the client's devotion to the therapy." There are some serious vested dollars in the status quo of the practice, it's good to see someone taking them to task.

[ related topics: Web development Books Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

Like me, y'all were probably hoping to put off knowing anything about this Pentium III serial number business 'til the smoke blew over. Well, it looks like that's not going to happen, and I've had to look at what's true and what isn't, so a few notes. First, here's Intel's document on how to use CPUID to access the PIII serial number (PDF). A few notes:

• The serial number protection scheme has been totally discredited, software which wants to read your serial number will.
• I can't find any references to anyone who's figured a way to change the serial number, that seems to be really burned in at manufacture time.
• The serial number also exists in a few PII laptop processors.

I started out a skeptic but I'm now willing to believe that it might be handy for some copy protection uses, scanning for the CPUID instruction isn't as easy as trapping code looking for MAC addresses or similar semi-unique machine identifiers, and what the CPUID is doing can be obfuscated with a little work.

[ related topics: Privacy ]

I'd point out that Salon bought The Well but most of my readers probably had their brief Well flings back in the late '80s, and Salon is shedding any hint of interesting content in favor of boring mainstream stuff, so chances are good that none of you care.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Electricity from bath water. Summary: Mike Rowe of Cardiff University has a semiconductor based thermocouple that'll provide 100 watts on a 50 degrees celsius temperature difference.

[ related topics: Web development Cool Science ]

/. points to assorted photos by date from the Consumer Reports archives, interesting for the reminders of how recent technologies like freezers are to products that would have serious liability issues today, like the Aerosol-can deactivator from 1971. Remembering experiences as a child with an air rifle and a shaving cream can we thought was empty, I'd love to see the picture in color after the demonstrated position was used on a can of day glow orange...

"Position a thoroughly emptied container inside Saf-Can's heavy metal frame, step on the plunger, and a spike drives into the can. When used out of the reach of children and away from fire, Saf-Can is the most realistic approach we've seen for the safe disposal of aerosols."

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

One more from the Consumer Reports archives, the Mr. Wizard kit for culturing molds and bacteria.

Cameron Barrett's new rant confronts the evils of the world from the clarity of insomnia.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Web development ]

The K Chronicles takes on Martha Stewart with living tips for the rest of us:

Always buy several different colored pairs of socks and wear them mismatched... that way when you start losing them in the wash you won't be as disappointed.

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

Passed on without comment:

    C H E V R O N
04/08/99        12:53
CHEVRON
901 W. CUTTING BLVD.
RICHMOND, CA.
STN          00090103
VISA
xxxxxxxxxxxx5345
Invoice       0326510
Auth           008236
Pump #  5
 16.437 G @ $  1.839
UnlP/Self   $ 30.23
Total       $ 30.23
TOY CARS
   AVAILABLE INSIDE

In Salon this morning, Jean Hanff Korelitz takes two pages to tell us that she's discovered plot, alas the piece goes no further than that. What about the challenges of saying something original within a genre? Gets little more than a sentence. How about using plot to expose character? If her fiction is as flat as her essay this is all I'll read of her.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development Books ]

A call to boycott Swatch over the pollution of the HAM radio band.

A study which shows that women think feminine looking men are more likely to be committed to a relationship.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Vendors matter: Matching Wes's experiences with Buy.com, A ZDNN article reports on Buy.com's shadey business practices.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Peter Meerholz points out that he's been pointing to Arts & Letters Daily for a while too. I'm beginning to think that between the basic list of webloggers we've completely mined the web for the good stuff.

Ouch: Sex in the back seat can get you 3 years in Italy according to a Reuters report. A recent court decision has upped the penalty from a 300,000 lire fine "indecent public act" to an "obscene act".

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Information wants to be free only in the same manner that cars want to be free. That's why we have to put up with locks and alarms on cars and horrible obfuscating ad-ridden layout in HTML.

[ related topics: Web development ]

via Robot Wisdom, a report in the Telegraph alleging that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage for U.S. companies. Even if it's not true it's got another great indictment of patents.

"German politicians still support the rather naive idea that political allies should not spy on each other's businesses. The Americans and the British do not have such illusions"

--- Udo Ulfkotte

"What is good for Boeing is good for America"

--- Bill Clinton

What's really fun is when you combine this with the call for key escrow. I do not trust my government.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Interactive Drama Politics Web development ]

Sam forwards:

The first step to European integration:

EEC Directive 14533-8

'The term "spending a penny" will be replaced with "euronating"'

From a Philadelphia Enquirer article:

A study of 199 low-income U.S. households found that about 1 in 4 contained fewer than 10 books. "We found that half of parents reported that they rarely or never read books or newspapers," says the report, by the American Academy of Pediatrics. "Over half of these households had fewer than 10 children's books; in fact, almost a quarter of these homes contained fewer than 10 books total."

How much you wanna bet they had a TV, and I'll bet within the next decade they'll have a "web surfing" tool of some sort...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books Technology and Culture ]

CarTalk takes on the Ford Valdez... errr. Excursion:

FORD: More than 85 percent of the vehicle is recyclable by weight.

TRANSLATION: And when you're done with it, NAFTA allows us to sell it to Mexico as low-income housing.

The next issue comes out in November and focuses on "the many faces of feminism".

The new issue of Gauntlet has arrived, talking about the continuing (and it seems increasing) legal and social issues surrounding strip clubs and strippers. In case you're not a subscriber, it's a comic book sized (although 110 pages) newsprint magazine dedicated to "Exploring the limits of free expression". I'm particularly plugging them because their last issue had pictures by and interviews with Jock Sturges and Sally Mann, among others, and as a result of this they've been dropped by one of their distributors, Diamond, so if you're used to seeing them in your local bookstore you may have to look further. Last Gasp and Ingram still carry them.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books Sexual Culture ]

Hey, how come we don't have nude magicians out here in the bay area, huh?

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

More impending world doom, possibly in 2027 or 2039. It'd be cool to be around to see...

Whoops, here's the direct link to the Red Herring story about the Palm OS open to hardware clones.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

Goodbye Altavista, for selling hit results to the highest bidder.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Keith Knight bemoans the rising complexity of handshakes

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

Red Herring (alas, no independent link to the story) reports that Palm Computing is opening up the Pilot to hardware clones. I actually haven't looked at the API for the OS, but from an end-user standpoint it's a great implementation and mine is quite useable. It'll be nice to see something to stand up against Windows CE.

[ related topics: Business Microsoft ]

A lifetime of free lunches for a tattoo: Forget web banners, the future of advertising is body modification.

I'm not normally a Tom Tomorrow fan, but his latest has Iowa launching airstrikes against New York and is worth a read.

Tech to watch out for: Bluetooth is a wireless protocol for assorted devices within your home to talk to each other. And at a retail cost of 10-20GBP additional per device that's a competitive price with X10. A Bluetooth special report is low on technical details and high on corporate ego, but still gives some clues on where things are going.

[ related topics: Web development Wireless ]

More Mindcraft benchmark debunking at Linux Weekly News.

[ related topics: Free Software ]

And the Linux Weekly News article points to Eric Lee Green's detailed dissection of the problems which is worth the read if large Intel based servers are in your future or present.

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Web development ]

For those of you who use My Netscape, My Userland or another site which uses the RDF version of Flutterby (don't be shocked if you try to load that file in a regular browser and see nothing, try "view source"), how has it been recently? Am I providing enough link text?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Content Management Dave Winer ]

Apropos Yugoslavia, via Marylaine comes this Human Rights Watch report on Rwanda.

[ related topics: Politics Marylaine Block ]

Quote of the day, regarding that recent suit against ID and similar companies by people related to that teenager who opened up on a prayer group:

"Those games [Doom, Quake, Redneck Rampage] teach shooting skills the way Pac Man teaches us how to eat."

--- Scott Amspoker

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Quotes Games ]

In the "things I need to fix" department, obviously making the glossary matching a little more dynamic would be a good start. Sorry about those italics rather than links down below, sometime around October when I've got nothing better to do maybe I'll rewrite Newwwsboy from the ground up to rerender pages on which links change during updates and take care of all of those other things that I now know would be better done some other way.

[ related topics: Content Management ]

In the "Mick's gotta hate that" department: E-mail to a company mailing list trying to sell tickets to Tuesday's Rolling Stones concert for two thirds of the original price. Maybe the world finally is getting some taste.

Regular sex will make you less susceptible to colds and flu.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Jourdan Shelbourne takes on chat rooms in the latest issue of Clean Sheets, along with a bunch of other updated stuff.

[ related topics: Humor Web development Erotic ]

A wonderful Ziff-Davis critique of those cooked Mindcraft NT benchmark numbers that have been floating around. Gee, what was the first clue that the Mindcraft people were either in cahoots with Microsoft or just drooling idiots, the fact that this test ran counter to every other benchmark anyone's published? That they were apparently trying to run software RAID?

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

Haven't read it yet, but Brad's got a frustrated end-user's lament.

[ related topics: Web development ]

And Pete was on vacation last week, so Sluggy Freelance wasn't updated, but User Friendly should have new episodes.

[ related topics: Humor ]

Via /., a ZDNet article saying that the websites of companies with which the federal government does business must be handicapped accessible. I'm not much on federal intervention in general, but I think all consumers should demand this, and it'll be a great leap forward for web design.

[ related topics: Web development ]

JJG pointed to a Red Herring article in which Network Solutions claims that the .com namespace isn't mined out, and some things suddenly became clear: Much like encouraging artificial shortages on Beanie Babies and Furbies, Network Solutions has a vested interest in keeping the namespace tight and encouraging domain name speculators.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

If you're headed down under, you might want to learn more about the drop bear before you go to Oz.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

This weekend I read Fax from Sarajevo: A Story of Survival (ISBN: 1569713464) and was strangely disappointed. As non-fiction comics go it was a decent read, although nowhere near Maus: A Survivor's Tale (ISBN: 0679748407), simply because it told the story of exceptional people. The hero of the tale was well enough known that he could have hundreds of people around the world lobbying assorted governments for assistance, unlike so many who were forced to stay. Still, as a chilling reminder of how tenuous civilization is. A year or two ago I went to a photojournalism exhibit, and one of the most striking images there was a picture of Beirut, but the only clue that it wasn't Miami or any other beach-laden coastal city was the towers of smoke and the missing parts from the luxury hotels. On the anniversary of the Waco assault and the Oklahoma City bombing (ie: today) it's frightening to contemplate the possibilities.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Florida searching for exotic dancers, because of a request for visas for foreign workers to dance in a club in Stuart, the state is trying to verify that there aren't any potential employees in the state. The job is nights, 40 hours a week, $11/hour. Now it's been a while since I've hung out with exotic dancers, but at $11/hour that's gotta be a pretty small redneck dive.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

I'm also thinking about the demise of the BBS, the withering of several mailing lists I've loved, and how after 16 or so years of championing virtual communities I'm finding that there's really no substitute for face-to-face contact. And that the "Information Superhighway" has had much the same effect as the Interstate highway system in terms of destroying the vitality of small communities and encouraging a warehouse-store sameness to everything.

I'm sure my usual correspondents will give me the "well, duh" response, but... A good portion of my unease over the NATO involvement in Yugoslavia stems from having no reputable news organization covering the situation. We get rehashed Serb press releases piped out via e-mail, we get NATO press briefings barely edited, but there's no one out there trying to figure out what's really going on, they're just republishing the videotape that other sources are giving them. This has been happening for a long time on the local news level, and maybe it's just that I've only recently become so aware of it, but I don't even remember the assorted Iraq fireworks shows having such a discrepancy between stories.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Oh yeah, A Bug's Life was released on video (VHS reframed and letterboxed, and DVD) today. Buy a copy for the sake of my stock options.

[ related topics: Pixar Animation ]

Angus Reid, a Ljubljana-based filmmaker, on the NATO bombing in Serbia.

[ related topics: Politics Web development ]

The Electronic Glasgow Herald reports that the NATO airstrike which killed over 70 was called in on a CIA cellphone by Serb forces.

[ related topics: Politics Web development ]

Clinton proposes further hobbling those of us who choose not to have children, treating parents as "as a protected class with respect to employment discrimination".

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Web development ]

Via /., a very interesting interview of George Lucas by Bill Moyers. It's kind of frightening to see George saying that the myth he wants to tell in his story is "spawn and die and continue the cycle". Is this why I've become so fed up with popular culture, American movies in particular? Isn't there more to life than marching lock-step through the same patterns our ancestors trod? George doesn't seem to think so, and that scares me.

[ related topics: Web development Star Wars ]

May 7^th is National Masturbation Day:

Here's how you can participate: The Masturbate-a-thon is like a Walk-a-thon, but it's more fun--you don't need to leave your house and you won't get blisters on your feet! Between now and National Masturbation Day (May 7th), ask people you know if they will sponsor you for every minute that you masturbate on May 7th. All the proceeds you collect will be split between four great community HIV- and AIDS-prevention organizations across the country (masturbation is safe sex, after all). After you have masturbated for the cause, tell your friends how much money they have helped raise.

I want that "I Came For A Cause!" bumper sticker.

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

Señor Wences dead. "'s'all right? 's'all right."

[ related topics: Humor Technology and Culture ]

Anyone else heard of the documentary The Lifestyle? From the Reuters article on The Lifestyle:

The vast majority of the film consists of commentary from 20 or so swingers -- mostly straight, conventional, homely looking Mom and Pop types from Orange County, Calif., who just happen to be into orgies rather than bridge or bowling.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Via Robot Wisdom, a link to a New York Observer article on the "Dogma Vow of Chastity", a manifesto by a bunch of Danish filmmakers asking:

"stating that films must use hand-held cameras; all shooting must be done on location; off-camera music is prohibited; and any superficial action in the plot, such as murders, must be avoided. Most perplexing at all for an industry where egotism is a prized asset, the director of a Dogma film cannot be credited."

Not sure I'm for the credited thing, but the other parts could lead to some interesting films, for a change.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Music Photography ]

Robot Wisdom has a link to a Rocky Mountain News article about the Trenchcoat Mafia. What grabs me about this story is that except for the Hitler thing (we were too well informed about that, but pick any other random source of evil), I had a bunch of friends in high school who were just like that; "extremely bright, but not good students", the weapons interest, the black trenchcoats. Some of 'em went military, one of 'em tried to commit suicide and last I heard (it's been years) was laying low to avoid some coke dealers he'd crossed, some of us went into 'puters. And it seems to me that this whole deal (which isn't really significant in isolation, so ignore some of my kneejerk response) could be easily reformed by making high school a useful institution rather than just a holding pen for that period between having the physical attributes of adulthood and being brainwashed enough that they can join the lockstep of the rest of the spawn-n-die culture.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Children and growing up ]

In the "doh, why didn't I think of that" department, here's an awesome patent (If you go, be sure to read the full descriptiong) for a "Photon push-pull radiation detector for use in chromatically selective cat flap control and 1000 megaton earth orbital peace-keeping bomb".

But if light comes in indivisible "photons", as shown in Figure 2(A), ifyou are one such photon, how do you decide whether to go on through, or bounce back, or reflect or, in other words, "Does God play Dice with the Universe?" I am informed by a Professor of Physics that there is "no one on Earth", who can explain this simple problem for me.

[ related topics: Religion Intellectual Property ]

A teacher teaches the difference between penalty and punishment.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development ]

Oh yeah, last night there was comment about putting a target frame in my links so that links opened in a new window. I pointed out that on the operating systems I generally use the middle mouse button does that. The person who made the suggestion (who shall remain nameless) said "Cool, I'm going to have to try that." Just in case you didn't know. I'll keep on leaving the user interface decisions to the end-users.

[ related topics: User Interface ]

Meta: Advertising on the web. My ad in Clean Sheets apparently started running on Friday, last weekend was my first weekend over 100 distinct visitors (95/88 for the weekend before, 126/122 this weekend), first two days over 200 viewers (weekdays are normally 145-160, Friday the 16th was 200, Monday 179, Tuesday 210, today at 171 and climbing), out of about 5870 impressions so far. I don't have referrer info in my logs, so I can't pinpoint where the extras are coming from, but I haven't said anything profound or gotten any other press (which usually accounts for booms in readership). I expect the next week to be interesting 'cause they update on Wednesday, so today should be a big boost.

[ related topics: Erotic Flutterby Meta ]

The new Mouthorgan has no sex, instead it talks about the Columbine High School killings. It's amazing how much this incident has affected me. Anyway, some good notes, and some good comments.

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

Jack Murighan on Sex in the Bible in Nerve Magazine.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

An interesting day on CNN Custom News: Subsidizing sports arenas not as good an idea as team owners would like us to think, they generally "fail to generate economic growth and new jobs" and in Paris the Galeries Lafayette has been forced to move its live lingerie display indoors.

Segfault is sometimes hit or miss, but they hit with the Scared Civil program for persons found guilty of harrassing tech support staff:

"Help desk technicians like the program because it saves them years of therapy. Companies like it because it saves them insurance costs. And religious customers like it, because it saves them from going to hell."

[ related topics: Humor Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

The anti-virus maker's PR machine swings into motion with the announcement of the CIH virus. Note from this account particularly the amalgam of ways it supposedly spreads: It's an EXE file; no wait, leave your e-mail attachments unopened; no wait it actually infects other EXE files and sits dormant; no wait, it infects floppy disks (boot sectors?).

[ related topics: Web development ]

Making your wedding comfortable for gay and lesbian guests:

You've probably been choosing vows, color schemes, photographers, food, and music. But have you given any thought to making your wedding more accessible to the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT) members of your family?

[ related topics: Music Sexual Culture ]

A DSP-based decompressor unit for high-fidelity MPEG-Audio over TCP/IP networks Master's thesis for the M.Sc. Eng. Phys. degree By Björn Wesén

[ related topics: Music ]

Sorry y'all about the late updates this morning, we spent the weekend at a wonderful workshop and I'm still recovering.

[ related topics: Religion Web development Sexual Culture ]

Salon takes on the lack of nudity in American cinema. I've got a whole lot of commentary I'd like to make on the topic but I think I'd better wait a while, let some recent experiences sink in a bit, before I start rambling. Anyway, a teaser, pushing the limits of "fair use", to get you to read it:

"If female moviegoers are the ones who are made to feel uncomfortable at the sight of a naked actress on-screen, they should also consider that cultivating a climate in which women's bodies are kept under wraps, revealed chastely and tastefully or not at all, isn't the answer to making them feel better -- if anything, it's only likely to make them feel more objectified."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development Sexual Culture ]

Via Robot Wisdom, the Lassez Faire City Times presents a scathing analysis of the Columbine High School incident. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it is a refreshing alternative to the usual "we should ban black trenchcoats" mainstream press:

But documentary films made in Nazi Germany during the 1930s establish clearly that the real Hitler Youth were athletic, clean-cut, flag-waving "patriots," not unlike the brainless Columbine jocks that Eric despised and wanted to defeat.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Children and growing up Web development ]

QOTD:

"Your god and I have a basic philosophical disagreement. He thinks he should be in charge. I think he should be brought up on charges." --- Author unknown

[ related topics: Religion Quotes ]

Todd passes on the Mind Reading Markup Language.

[ related topics: Web development ]

A new explanation of the refugee situation in Yugoslavia (tongue in cheek).

[ related topics: Politics ]

via Cameron, some trenchcoat mafia advertising parodies.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Children and growing up ]

I generally dislike Jon Katz's writing style, but his recent pieces on /. on the Littleton shootings have been dead-on. Jon's current piece on the repercussions of Littleton is well worth reading if you'd forgotten just how bloody clueless high school administrators and law enforcement officers tend to be.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama ]

In Salon, an exploration of the connection between grad school and masturbation.

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

Via Robot Wisdom comes an interview with Milton Friedman in Forbes.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger ]

QOTD: In an ABC News article on children in airplanes Jerry Clavner is quoted as saying:

"Traveling on a domestic airline with children on board is like traveling with a Chihuahua with diarrhea"

[ related topics: Children and growing up Quotes Web development ]

And an excerpt from A Next-Generation interview with John Carmack ( http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/6471.html):

NG: Does the quality of your work, and Id's work, in some part stem from being on top, from not having to pay a lot of attention to what else is happening in the industry?

John: I do think there's a lot of benefit to be had from having enough confidence in your own decision-making process to go ahead and forge forward.

The interview is worth reading.

[ related topics: Web development Games ]

Mark Hughes pointed out the similarities between two interesting quotes:

"If you want my advice, Peter, you've made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

-- Howard Roark in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

[ related topics: Quotes Objectivism ]

Awesome analysis of MFC and how lazy programming has lead to bloatware of incredible proportions, using a megabyte when 45k would do just fine.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

This one was forwarded to me several levels down, I've tried to give credit where credit's due. I've seen similar cluelessness from a Microsoft product manager before, at a Direct-3D conference the presenter didn't know why you'd want per-vertex normals. Anyway, what follows is a good story, even if it does end up being apocryphal:

I've been attending the USENIX NT and LISA NT (Large Installation Systems Administration for NT) conference in downtown Seattle this week.

One of those magical Microsoft moments(tm) happened yesterday and I thought that I'd share. Non-geeks may not find this funny at all, but those in geekdom (particularly UNIX geekdom) will appreciate it.

Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager (henceforth MPM), was holding forth on a forthcoming product that will provide Unix style scripting and shell services on NT for compatibility and to leverage UNIX expertise that moves to the NT platform. The product suite includes the MKS (Mortise Kern Systems) windowing Korn shell, a windowing PERL, and lots of goodies like awk, sed and grep. It actually fills a nice niche for which other products (like the MKS suite) have either been too highly priced or not well enough integrated.

An older man, probably mid-50s, stands up in the back of the room and asserts that Microsoft could have done better with their choice of Korn shell. He asks if they had considered others that are more compatible with existing UNIX versions of KSH.

The MPM said that the MKS shell was pretty compatible and should be able to run all UNIX scripts.

The questioner again asserted that the MKS shell was not very compatible and didn't do a lot of things right that are defined in the KSH language spec.

The MPM asserted again that the shell was pretty compatible and should work quite well.

This assertion and counter assertion went back and forth for a bit, when another fellow member of the audience announced to the MPM that the questioner was, in fact David Korn of AT&T (now Lucent) Bell Labs. (David Korn is the author of the Korn shell)

Uproarious laughter burst forth from the audience, and it was one of the only times that I have seen a (by then pink cheeked) MPM lost for words or momentarily lacking the usual unflappable confidence. So, what's a body to do when Microsoft reality collides with everyone elses?

--
Chastity is curable, if detected early.
Peter deFriesse                   UNIX Systems Administration
Email: peter(at)oit.umass.edu     [All standard disclaimers apply:]

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

Marylaine's Fox News column weighs in on the Littleton shootings, another quiet voice saying "look at the social conditions" in the hurricane of sounds crying out for blood and against video games, pornography, homosexuality, or any other sacrificial lamb du jour.

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

Keith Knight on geeks versus jocks We just got our invite to this year's Adams Gallery landscape photography exhibit at the Mumm Nappa Valley vineyards. They haven't updated the info on their web page yet, but it opens on May 8^th and runs into September and if it's half as good as last year is well worth going to see. We'll probably be going to opening night and then at least once more.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Web development Photography ]