Flutterby™! From 2000-10-02 to 2000-10-31

I've been looking around at airplanes lately and have found that anyone can own an airplane but it takes deep pockets to maintain one. Here's the biggest reason why.

[ related topics: Web development Cool Science ]

In Let's Go Public Kat Sunlove argues that it's time for adult business owners to stop slinking off into the shadows every time grandstanding politicians attack and to leverage the fact that they do have customers in the communities they serve into political clout.

[ related topics: Politics Web development Sexual Culture ]

Via Robot Wisdom, the LA Times sensationalizes .com drug use. Frankly, I haven't seen anything but the usual use of the usual hallucinogens, my experience in other places has been that coke and meth users are assholes and when they start to become involved in a scene the end is near. Maybe this is why I don't seem to click with the South of Market stuff.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger ]

Local Rant: Community Standards is my venting on taking responsiblity for community, trying to tie that to Marylaine's latest, Drifting Into Virtue. I'm still in that angry space so I don't expect it to be completely coherent...

[ related topics: Web development Marylaine Block ]

How many telephone companies does it take to run reliable DSL? Well, clearly, more than one, as our line from PacBell has been up and down more times today than... errr... something that goes up and down a lot.

• First, does anyone feel a need for revision history/audit trail for the main blog comments? I try to note when I do substantive changes and only tweak typos otherwise, but I know there are some strong feelings on the matter...
• I'm working on implementing a couple of new features, including _Aaron Swartz's syndication API_ (http://my.theinfo.org/changed/), but a while back Carl Coryell-Martin and I had talked about a way to cross-link discussion forum information. Anyone else playing with message boards or syndication and wanna share?
• Finally, I'm implementing a book library. A few of us have, at times, chatted about a book equivalent of the _IMDB_ (http://www.imdb.org/), and I'm hoping to let y'all browse some of my library by the end of this week. The problem I've got is that I want a higher quality database than the online bookstores (which pretty much suck, based on my small sample), and I don't know how I want to implement security and audit trails. Suggestions for maintaining large contributor count databases appreciated.

[ related topics: Books Weblogs Carl Coryell-Martin ]

I'm reading Bowling Alone right now. It doesn't strike me as terribly well written, but the data it presents are extremely interesting, and for a book dedicated to the "it was better in the old days" idea shows some interesting ways that that's not necessarily true; the chapter I was reading last night gave some studies which assert that we actually tend to move less now than in the '50s, and I hadn't been aware of just how much per GDP defense spending has been declining, even through the alleged excesses of the '80s. Worth a look, I expect that my copy will be making the rounds when I'm through with it.

[ related topics: Books ]

Ouch, I'm embarassed. Debra Hyde keeps up with bay area resources better than I, to whit her link to Carol Queen's latest column in which a Lusty Lady stripper talks about fisting.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

The Alternatives To Marriage Project has a critique of The Case for Marriage.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Davenetics, I've commented before that I thought that the version of Debian Linux that Corel was distributing was crippled and annoying. I'm not what sure this confirms, but Microsoft just invested a bunch o' dough in Corel.

[ related topics: Free Software Web development Microsoft ]

Also via Davenetics, Albanian mayoral candidate promises brothels if elected. It's politics, either way the citizens get screwed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Web development ]

Interesting article on web site conversion rate modeling that might have implications for your favorite .com stock... The researchers conclude that generating an initial purchase at an online site is relatively easy. Subsequent purchases, however, are not so easy as shoppers become more familiar with shopping at a given online retail site. Over time, a shopper's tendency to buy again declines as the sheer novelty of purchasing at that website wears off. So what does this mean if your business model was, say, selling books, and involves blowing through a couple of hundred million to build brand loyalty? I'm too lazy to go look through the TIME archives and see if they ever named Ponzi "Man of the Year"...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books ]

Last night I stumbled home at 8:30 or so and flicked on the television to see if there was any brain-dead entertainment. Well, my brain wasn't dead, but I did flip past the FOX Sexiest Bachelor in America pageant. I think Brad summed up the bachelor pageant wonderfully. An excerpt: By the time the two-hour special was over, my gaydar was being activated so often, it was causing RF interference with the neighbor kids' PlayStation. Go read it.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Technology and Culture ]

Ok sorry about not getting this up monday but a minor emergency kept me from the office yesterday. As you can see here. Some big yellow whatchamacallits are doing the hokey pokey on the kirby's store. Maybe they didn't pay their rent on time?

[ related topics: Photography ]

Finished Bowling Alone, disappointed. An interesting collection of statistics, but in the last half Putnam falls down in proving causation rather than simply correlation, and completely hand-waves over the correlations between intolerance and organizations, and ignores many of the changes between the rather rigid structures of the past versus the loose collaboration of some of the professional gatherings I'm involved in today.

Trying to be cynical but unable to keep up: I listened to a bit of the presidential debates last night while prepping for my evening's socializing. I'm really glad that California is heavily Gore, because I'd rather see him elected, but I'd have trouble choosing him over Bush. It completely reinforced my opinion that the Republocrats and Demicans value the illusion of work over solutions. My fear is that that whack-job Nader, who is as distasteful to me as Buchanan, seems to be popular as a protest, and is going to garner an unreasonable amount of support from people who haven't investigated what he really stands for. I find it interesting that mainstrem media are only paying attention to the seriously whacko third party alternatives.

[ related topics: Politics ]

There's a drive through strip club in Salem Pennsylvania.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Hack The Planet, Tux2 - evil patents sighted provides further evidence of the idiocy of the current patent system. I used to think that patents had a place, but the more thinking on the very concepts of patents I do the more problems I have with them as a method for protecting intellectual property. Perhaps, if properly implemented, they could be fair, but that's about as likely as the whole "government by philosopher king" argument; more likely is that those with the better lawyers will bankrupt the truly innovative.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Web development ]

Went to the Bijou to see The Color of Paradise. It was quite beautiful. Unfortunately the head-cold I've been fighting all week kept me from truly enjoying the sublteties of the plot. I also got confirmation today that my DVD of But I'm a Cheerleader has shipped. Maybe my new DVD player will be here in time for Dan and other friends to come over for a private screening!

I had to go to the cable company the other day to make sure a bill was paid and ended up buying the new digital cable converter and the add-on pack. The main reason is that it includes the Sundance channel. Now I can watch independent films 24 hours a day. Oh boy! I just finished watching Cry, the Beloved Country based on the novel by Alan Paton. James Earl Jones plays a South African minister who travels to Johannesburg to find his son - only to find that he has murdered the son of a white man. I won't go into more plot detail but I will say that it was the most moving film I've seen in quite some time.

Ziffle passed along the ICANN TLD applications lodged as of October 2

[ related topics: Ziffle ]

FasTrak coming to all bay area bridges.

At Burning Man, one of the craziest fuckers on the playa was Dr Megavolt. Yes, he gets between those two tesla coils in a grounded suit and plays with the arcs...

[ related topics: Burning Man Web development ]

Government is an illusion in the mind of the governed: It took the fiction of an election to get to the point where Yugoslavs oust Milosevic.

The new Demotivators calendar is out, but the older Burnout seems particularly apropos for today: "Attutides are contagious. Mine might kill you.", perfect for, among others, "Engineers who interface with motivated salespeople" and "Anyone consigned to use NT".

[ related topics: Humor Web development Microsoft ]

I'm trying to figure out a common factor those of us who view the news media as an unending stream of barely edited press-releases. I had a discussion recently with someone who viewed the New York Times as one of the better newspapers, and I and another participant said "faint praise" and pointed out some of the ways the New York Times has fallen down over the years, from foreign correspondents doubling as CIA operatives to falling all over themselves on the Ron's Angels (don't even know if that site still exists) hoax. The original newspaper reader took us to task for our cynicism, offering that it was "the easy way out", and I'm trying to figure out what the common factors are between those of us who don't believe, and how realistic my perceptions of self-interest and sloth in journalism are.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Somewhat related to my comments below, how is it changing journalism that we can find source material directly? The New York Times has an article about another article, is nearly as long as the original, but doesn't link to it. What value is added when they could just reprint In Defense of the DELETE Key [PDF] directly from The Green Bag? Anyway, In Defense of the DELETE Key is worth a read.

Dave Winer asks about search engines: About web crawlers, they are getting vicious. Tens of thousands of hits a day on our servers. We have a theory that they don't know about virtual domains. When they decide to go back to a server, they should use the IP address, not the domain name. Discounting that I think the addition "Host:" field in HTTP 1.1 was evil and destroyed the 'net, and that I don't know what the real patterns that Dave's seeing are, I don't understand how this would work. They're looking for files accessible on that virtual domain, right? I mean, maybe there's some load balancing to be done, but I don't want Flutterby of the 5 or so virtual domains hosted on this box to be treated better than the rest. When you set up 10,000 virtual domains, you're saying "I want you to think that this is 10,000 different computers", and the search engines are treating it as such. Anything else seems just "you should read my mind, not my actions" posturing.

[ related topics: Dave Winer ]

Virtual Elk Hunting? If you spot an elk in the photo you fill in a form attached to the site, giving the date and time. The first 10 viewers to spot an elk will win a fresh elk steak or other game delicacies. If you read swedish, you can go directly to the elk hunting site.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games ]

Via Robot Wisdom, Harlequin is doing a men's series, action adventurish. This is not a new genre, and the late John Preston has some very amusing accounts of his writing for it in Confessions of a Pornographer. Let's just say that some of those homosexual undertones aren't accidental, shall we?

[ related topics: Jorn Barger ]

Thought for the day: Spirituality is a function of available technology.

[ related topics: Religion ]

Via Bird on a Wire, UPS looking at using helicopters to beat traffic in Seattle. It's not quite as dramatic as it sounds, they're just trying to get 4:30 pickup packages from Redmond to a 6:30 flight out of Boeing Field.

Damn-it, Netscape/iPlanet server authors: ripping out functionality is not "ease of use".

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

It starts out with "Oh, I'll just throw in another SQL query to put the most recent comment activity somewhere near the top of the page" and ends up as "Oh look, new design". Comments, suggestions, flames? I'm not happy with it, but I'm not going to have a chance to do what I really want for at least two weeks...

Oh yeah, I don't know what more I can add to it, but go read the rant Mo Nickels wrote under my questions on cynicism entry.

Ziffle passes along Al Gore, or the Unabomber? I think I've actually seen this one before, in general it's pretty easy, if it looks slightly more rational and coherent it was probably Theodore.

[ related topics: Ziffle Interactive Drama Politics Web development ]

Via the Daily Illuminator, Ace Alibi: Privacy, easy to say, hard to find. We do not wish to see your family life, home or business in turmoil over just wanting some time by yourself or with someone who understands your situation. The Ace Alibi Agency has been established to help you through this difficult aspect of life. We offer a service which helps protect all persons involved and thus helping to ensure that your privacy remains intact.

[ related topics: Privacy ]

British Government ad campaign targets those who give to beggars: "We want to encourage people to volunteer or give gifts in kind rather than stopping to give cash. There may be public goodwill toward these people, but it isn't necessarily helpful to give them money," a government official was quoted as saying.

Since I've had a cactus die of neglect I'm always looking for ways to surround myself with plants without having to do any work. A step in that direction: Potatoes that glow when they need watering.

Those wacky brits: John Hodge, head of the psychology team at Nottinghamshire's Rampton Hospital, says terrorists 'addicted' to their crimes. Insert your own 12-step scenario here...

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

When I first saw this in Salon I skipped it, but Mark suggested it and I went and read it. It's a fluff piece on the studies about Gay Parents: Nobody does it better: "For us to become parents we really have to want kids because we have to find sperm, sign contracts and then justify our decisions 20 times to everyone we meet. It's never like, 'Whoops, we got sloppy with the turkey baster last night.' There is no such thing as an accidental child of a lesbian couple. If all children were as wanted as the children of lesbians, we'd live in a pretty fucking amazing world."

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

Another Salon piece with an interesting topic that doesn't dig deep enough: Purloined Porn talks about writers who put stuff up on alt.sex.stories.* and later find their work being sold, sometimes intact, sometimes the same story edited to change genders of participants.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

'net problems, so I haven't had a chance to check all this yet, but in response to my problems remembering to water plants, Hanan suggested the Flori irrigation computer.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Anti-news: Have sex, stay young.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

I now have in my had a DVD copy of But I'm a Cheerleader. There will be a special "private screening" at my place while Dan is in town. Current plan is for Monday night. Any 'noogans reading this are invited.

Makes that whole hamster rumor seem passé: Richard Gere would like to be Madeleine Albright. Okay, he meant it as respect...

The one nice thing about NT is that it gives me lots of time to surf meaningless news stories: Man with No Hands Fails to Climb Mount Everest. Well, duh! Okay, I promise, no more Reuters Oddly Enough stories today.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

About the death of primary sources, Salon has this article about figure modeling at the University of Idaho which references a story that's on the web, but completely ignores the story! Anyway, the original story is called the naked truth, the only thing recommending it is that it's got a few quotes that show yet again that getting naked is good for mental health and well-being.

[ related topics: Quotes Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Mwwahahhaha... I've got Dan - and I'm not giving him back.... Seriously though, Dan's out this way for The Atlanta Linux Showcase and some time hanging with friends in Chattanooga. Monday night we'll be having a dinner at my place and watching 'But I'm a Cheerleader' - if you can read this and can find my house - you're invited!

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Photography ]

I hate Clowns be sure to see the scary clown of the day...

Local Rant: Visiting the southeast is the first in my chronicle of my current gallivanting around the land razed by Sherman. Including smoked catfish pecan crusted deep fried maki!

[ related topics: Web development ]

QOTD from Christopher Moore's The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove: Freud never identified a stage of development known as "pyrotechnic fascination," but that was only because there wasn't an abundant supply of disposable lighters in nineteenth-century Vienna.

[ related topics: Quotes ]

Noted in my rant about visiting the southeast, I'm ticked off about the lack of OmniSky coverage in Atlanta and points north. What's up with that? Definitely time to ditch the OmniSky Minstrel in favor of a cell phone and a short cable.

[ related topics: Wireless ]

Go read John's latest Genehack entry about how Big Bird must die, if it's scrolled off by the time you read this it should be down in the Genehack October archives. What he said. And I don't even teach.

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

Janell Brown reports that SDMI has been broken, this despite the general boycott. Is anyone out there not yet convinced that there is no technical solution to the problem of bypassing the standard distribution channels and that instead the content brokers need to look at ways to actually provide value to users? Or is that just too revolutionary to comprehend.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Medley via MetaFilter (and a couple of other places, I think I also saw the link at Camworld, Dubya blames the Internet: "But Columbine spoke to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that somewhere along the line we begun to disrespect life, where a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet and walk in and decide to take somebody else's life." Yes, Columbine is a result of cultural issues, but Columbine was not an anomaly when looked at over the past century of violence statistics. Where do we get these clueless morons posing as presidential candidates.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Politics ]

More news from the trek: I need to call a few people and tell 'em my schedule just can't handle it, and I need to get back out here again in a few months. I'm planning backwards from Wednesday afternoon and just not seeing the time. So much for that desire to get a few free hours and go hang out at Rainbow Falls... The Ricochet is pumping out a whopping 6 bytes per second, although that seems to be only a few sites, Flutterby is actually semi-usable, but it's clear that I'm on the edge of coverage. It's weird how I feel like I've lost a sense when I don't have 'net. The south is not the bay area, and in many more subtle ways than the woman with the badge that read "Wanda Turnipseed" who hunted and pecked out all the typos on my ALS badge and the pecan crusted deep fried catfish maki rolls at the sushi place. On the flip side, the trip is reminding me that keeping up those human connections is what makes life sweet. Thanks, y'all. More later, the sun's peeking through the trees and the parents are crawling about and it's time to go be sociable.

The mouth-breathers are winning: Alabama sex toy ban reinstated.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Rainbow flags cause pumpkin farm boycott.

[ related topics: Web development ]

yet more hacking your Cue Cat

Unconfirmed rumor from the Linux Showcase floor: The first christmas that EToys.com lasted through they had zero down-time running on Perl and MySQL. Last year they ran on Java and Oracle and had quite a bit more. I'll work on tracking down sources.

[ related topics: Free Software ]

Via Mouthorgan (which has a bunch of new updates) via CRYPTO-GRAM comes these results of a censorware contest.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

David Steinberg reviews Live Nude Girls Unite

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Well, I'm hacking on Eric's DSL line while everyone in 'nooga is working this afternoon. So Flutterby user name details now show all the entries that a user has commented on.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

I applied to ELoan.com for a loan and checked on the status of it this morning. This is a portion of the information:

"Once you have returned your loan documentation to E-LOAN you will receive an e-mail from Curley Howard inviting you to lock in your rate."

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. I can't help but imagine Larry Fine and Moe Howard sitting in adjoining cubes.

Drinking at the Stone Lion was a good way to finish up the trip. I didn't catch up with a lot o' people, but I got a good number and even tracked down Elizabeth, whom I haven't seen in nearly 6 years. Gonna meet her in half an hour or so, then a final drop by the Virtual Building to say a round to the gang that hangs around Highertech.net (You oughta see their new power system! Way cool! And did I mention that they've got bandwidth that makes most web providers look like total wusses and aren't near fault lines? And they have a fed wire, so they can do ACH transfers and stuff!) and I'm back to Atlanta for lunch with the parents, popped on a plane at 5:05 and after a stop in Memphis I'll be grindin' into SFO and back in the real world. Or am I leavin' it?

In Clean Sheets, a Chris Bridges article titled Chapter and Perverse. Oh, never mind. Just go read it, it's funny.

Cats and small dogs are oddly attracted to thrashing humans and always always always pick the precise wrong time to suddenly lick your face. Also, as a rule: dogs are fantastically interested in sudden new smells while cats are drawn to play with dangly things. Be warned.

Also in Clean Sheets, Lube the World, I Wanna Get Off provides a little inspiration, even 'though evidence so far suggests that I'm a slightly more private person than that and more likely to try it with one person first...

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Personal Lubricant ]

223'9" cranes under 225'6" bay bridge. Too bad low tide on Sunday is 3:00 A.M., this would be something to see. This is also the first time I've seen in print a legend I've heard speculated about for quite a while: The giant cranes of Oakland have fired up the imaginations of passers- by for years. Filmmaker George Lucas, who drove past the port every day on his way to work, acknowledged that they were the inspiration for the deadly Imperial Walker vehicles that the bad guys used for chasing the good guys in the ``Star Wars'' movies.

[ related topics: Star Wars Golden Gate Bridge ]

Debra has just published Strange Bedfellows. I'm gonna drop by my favorite independent bookstore this afternoon to see if they can order it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

On the plane back from 'nooga I read most of Terri Windling's The Wood Wife and finished it last night. I was in a state of severe sleep dep on the flight back, so it may have hit me a bit harder than otherwise, but I loved the way it started, and the finish was good. I need to go back when I've got a bit more spare time and reread it, but right now I recommend it as a good "modern world meets the faeries of Edward Abbey country" love story.

Kiki has strongly recommended The Fourth Turning, a book on social cycles.

[ related topics: Books ]

Via the Daily Illuminator, building a vehicle so that a locust can drive.

[ related topics: Web development ]

So User Friendly plugs Three Trolls and a Baggie, which promptly shoots up the MP3.com charts. MP3.com decides that any group not in their official list that gets this popular must be cheating, and, without warning, removes web pages and other stuff. The whole story is on the message boards, but the rubdown is that the 'net still hasn't really empowered the artists.

[ related topics: Humor Web development Music ]

I think I'm going to set up a separate place for journal type entries, but this is kinda in the middle, and several people have said more images would be better. So I bought a Canon PowerShot S100 Digital ELPH(2.1 megapixel with a 5.4mm-10.8mm (35-70mm 35mm equiv) F2.8-4.0 lens) camera. Cute, small, good for snapshotty things. Bad for disk space. But it complements my monster SLR setup nicely. Image from the Sunday morning hike of the Scotch Night crowd, in one of the highest elevation redwood groves, at about 1,300 feet above sea level, in Novato, California.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Salon looks at BountyQuest, a web site trying to collect prior art information to help break ridiculous patents.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Rebecca's Pocket, Bill Gates gets the alleged digital divide and wiring the third world: At one point, Shuster pressed Gates about the viability of the market of people who make less than $1 a day. Gates paused, and said that this was "not a significant market" before addressing the comment more directly. "Do people have a clear idea of what it means to make $1 a day?" Gates said. "There is no electricity. No power systems. These people are trying to stay alive. There is no need for a PC." Yes, the 'net is a tremendous tool, but slapping computers into every situation without finding the need for them first is plain stooopid. Too bad so many tech people don't get that.

[ related topics: Cool Science ]

Out of context quote of the day: "I'm all over sloppy wet magic."

[ related topics: Quotes ]

Via /usr/bin/girl comes BodyPerks. Just go. Draw attention to your natural assets...try bodyperks^[tm] today! What is it? Let's just say it's a way to enhance the assets that you already have, and for only $20 you can't have more fun! Uh. Yeah... Right.

service may be spotty, I'm upgrading Apache to use mod_perl so that performance on the comment system doesn't suck and I can add all sorts o' cool groovy features.

[ related topics: Free Software ]

you can disregard the message below, we should be back to normal. Please post malfunctions and whatever as comments below this entry, or, failing that, email 'em to webmaster@flutterby.com

Life imitates Warner Bros: Kangaroo spotted leaping around London suburb.

Saw Ghost Dog last night. Strangely unsatisfying, as an example of the craft I thought it was stellar, it's been a long time since I've seen actors up to the task of 30 second face shots without dialog, or a director willing to push them to that, and the layers of characterization were very refreshing. However, I don't know if I'm just a wuss about meaning, but I wish the violence had been less comic-bookish, I think it would have been a much more powerful movie had it been realistic and used sparingly, and although it made me think a bit more about tradition and tragedy I wish the screenplay had made a slightly stronger statement to argue with. I may have also been hindered in my understanding by not knowing much of the Samurai mythology.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

It looks like the politicos in Chicago couldn't stand the competition and have gotten a temporary injuction against VoteAuction.com.

"If it weren't for the 'Grateful Dead' of Cook County in 1960, you guys couldn't have slipped the fair-haired son of ol' Joe the Bootlegger into the Oval Office. As they say: 'There's None So Righteous As the Reformed Sinner.'"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Web development ]

It might take a few tries, but do a whois lookup on Microsoft.com. Also, try Apple.com. Someone's having some fun today!

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft ]

I think something needs to be done to avoid double-posting. I've run into the problem before. This time, I'm not even sure how the second post occurred.

Welp it's that time again. Send in the clowns and let's pick the "least" dangerous of the lot. I must say I am going to be a little pissed if Nader draws enough votes to elect Bush to office. I understand them wanting to get their 5% but not at the expense of 4 years! I have been planning to cast my vote for Browne but will switch to Gore if it's too close to call. I would urge the rest of you to please be practical on election day. Vote often and vote responsibly.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Photography ]

Local Rant: Crane Arrival is a few pictures and notes from freezing my butt off on the Marin headlands this afternoon watching some impressively huge structures come in from China bound for Oakland. Question: How do they offload these things?

[ related topics: Web development ]

Ok so I am working on this super secret internal project for Coyote Grits and I'm trying to put a Flash UI on it(no cat calls please). I played around with Swift Tools for a little bit but it seems that it doesn't support instantiating new objects on the fly (pretty obvious flaw for dynamic content generation). Does anyone know how to do this? Short of starting from scratch with the Specs???

[ related topics: User Interface ]

Heroin. Nicotine. Curry. Yep, Curry is addictive. "Curry gives you a natural 'high' much more powerful than anything you get with traditional British foods," said Nottingham Trent University professor Stephen Gray.

Ok off my politcal soap box and in an effort to not be a complete technophile. We bring you Alison's Pants Cam. It's not just a camera in her pants...she fit a chat system in there too..

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Photography ]

Salon looks at Voyeurweb and user contributed content. Some freelancer obviously fell for a press-release, but it's still an interesting article in that it talks about how easily people can be motivated to participate (Obviously something Todd is better at than I, given Tuesday's political discussion), and that filtering is the issue. It also brings back memories of a web I remember, when traffic and acceptable-use policies were still at a level that popular personal content didn't have to be through some third-party.

[ related topics: Politics Web development ]

Reading Savaging the Civilized gave me a glimpse of some of the incredible diversity of culture that was destroyed as a result of Ghandi's nationalism. Of course I'm taking this completely out of cultural context, but it continues: The Telangana district departments of Information and Public Relations campaign against nude worship.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

This is why I got involved in the 'net way back when: UCLA study says net fosters social contact.

The rainy season probably hasn't really started yet, but we're getting the first indications of what's to come. Overcast and changing colors in the park in San Anselmo yesterday morning.

[ related topics: Photography San Anselmo ]

Nina Paley's non-birth announcement. And an example of good use of Flash animation too.

[ related topics: Web development Animation ]

ignore this entry, it's just there to make sure that I don't send Todd yet more bad advice.

QOTD:Erotic is just one feather... KINKY is the whole chicken

[ related topics: Quotes Erotic ]

Microsoft hacked. Where to start? I mean, first off, they're running NT, right? And they were cracked? Well, duh. From the press reports the intruders must have carefully avoided shipping code, Microsoft spokesman Ricardo Adame said "It appears the hacker was able to view some source code under development", so they may have actually gotten something useful. Those wags at Need To Know posit "so that's why the Kursk sank", and raise some interesting questions about trust of received binaries...

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

Installing Linux on a G4 hmmm I may have to look at apple hardware. BTW have they figured out how to put 2nd button on a mouse yet?

[ related topics: Free Software Apple Computer Web development ]

Want to know where a presidential candidate stands on something? Look at where the presidential candidate invests. And also realize that Nader has been particularly good at hiding his income behind relatives and other fronts over the years. There is a difference between Gore and Nader on this point, at the very least: Nader has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in a fund that owns 15,694,800 shares of McDonald's stock. Gore does not.

[ related topics: Politics McDonald's ]

Well, crawlin', at least. This little dude was going up a tree root on this morning's hike.

[ related topics: Photography ]

The recent Ethel the Blog entries are great. A good analysis of social security (I refuse to use the word "trust fund" to describe a tax), various links and follow-ups to the real stance of Shrub on abortion, statutory rape and perjury ("for", in practice), and a look at defense spending relative to spending by potential threats.

[ related topics: Politics Web development Sexual Culture Weblogs ]

How many times must we fight these battles? Nudism magazines deemed not obscene: The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously reversed December's decision by a federal judge in New Jersey, who concluded the magazines Jeunes et Naturels and Jung und Frei violated federal law against importing obscene materials. Now I agree that sometimes nudist publications are an attempt to give a veneer of respectability to the super-uptight, but doesn't that pretty much automagically make them artistic expression?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Ahhh, those wacky southerners: Oklahoma high school suspends girl for casting spell.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Ok I know what I Want for christmas. It's only been used once but it has high miles so you should be able to talk them down a bit.

USoCal study shows motorcycle lane splitting safer, but still leaves a lot of variables open. However, as a bicyclist I'm interested in some of the implications this might have for alternate traffic rules for cyclists. I've been hit because I stopped for a stop sign, and since as a bicyclist I have no mass if I giveup my speed or make other concessions to posted traffic laws I lose any equalizing factors I may have had I sometimes feel that playing fast and loose with the rules is the only way I have to stay safe.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

Via /., the cautionary tale of an RPI student who had his computers confiscated after he checked out a previously hacked web page. Yes, he tried a little too hard to do a post-mortem, but when judges are ignorant enough to issue warrants based on what he did we've got problems.

Also via /., Larry Wall's ALS talk on Perl 6: A natural language you learn it once, and you use it many times. So you should optimize for expressiveness, not for learnability. I think somebody had told that to the Japanese before they designed their language, and I wish their language was a little easier to learn.