Flutterby™! From 2002-01-02 to 2002-01-31

Happy randomly chosen rotation of a small rock that roughly coincides with the period of that small rock orbiting around a rather insignificant star. May the following period be even better than this one.

I'm a little frustrated, I got very little of what I'd planned on doing done over these days of reduced work. Lots of stuff going wrong, so my schedule's been shot all to hell. Oh well, maybe now that we've done all this stuff it won't be a problem. Right?

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

My call for nominees for a Flutterby weblog awards only garnered a few submissions. Mike Gunderloy had a bunch of good suggestions, several of which I hadn't seen before and need to check out. Mike Kelley nominated his own site for "Best Life Passage", Allan Beatty nominated Joel On Software for "Best Executive Weblog"; Mike Gunderloy had also included Joel's discussion forum.

But I think I'll just let my bookmarks evolve, add links as I find 'em, and, in the mean-time, point y'all to the 2001 Medley Medals for your awards web page jones.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Over the break I was in the car, and tuned to Wayne's World CNET Radio. Not only did I hear Dori interviewed, but I also heard a Segway spokesweasel make the noises I've been waiting for from them: That a good portion of their spending over the next few years is going to be about changing legislation. Time to start developing some compact stand-up vehicles that can take advantage of all those PR dollars; there are some interesting wheel arrangements that could probably handle curbs and the like much better than the Segway system, with lower power consumption and processing needs.

[ related topics: Politics Cool Science ]

Via the Daily Illuminator, which describes it as " a cross between polo and a street fight, with a headless goat instead of a ball", the Afghan sport of Buzkashi. I see a great need for helmet-cams of this sport, if helmets were part of the standard equipment for spectators...

[ related topics: Games ]

Todd has reported some Windows XP stability issues (If I remember right, new Sony hardware, Windows XP factory installed, Windows XP goes boom!), but as part of the whole Xmas break I ended up doing a fresh install of 98 and some tweaking of ME and another 98 install. All that crap about Windows being easier to install and upgrade Linux? Unmitigated bullshit. The only difficulty differences I can see between a stock Debian install and a 98 install is that you have to make lots of application installation decisions with Debian for applications that are completely separate in '98, and there's a good chance that 2.4 kernel drivers might actually work without tens of reboots and lots of tweaking. Oh sure, the 98 install seemed like it was going to be trouble-free, but then I tried to add a sound card to that machine... Sigh.

At least there's credible evidence that Windows XP might be gay (scroll down a page), which would make it much easier to get along with...

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft Todd Gemmell Open Source ]

[Dan's Addition: the Chronicle is on the case.]

Unfortunately I can't find a link for this yet, just saw it on the TV news. KRON (Bay Area station) seems to have scooped everyone on this, but apparently a National Guardsman has accidentally shot himself at San Francisco International Airport.

At first the story made it sound like one guardsman shot another, which would be even more ironic, I suppose.

Seems this guy forgot to use the "clearing barrel" on his way in (that's a barrel full of sand you shoot your weapon into to be sure the chamber's clear). And then he (for some really nebulous reason I haven't figured out) felt a need to draw his sidearm, but caught it on the flap on his holster. The weapon discharged and he shot himself in the ass.

***note: I have deleted numerous bad puns from this space. The least stupid was "Boy, he sure made an ass of himself". You're welcome.***

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Bay Area Current Events Television ]

Will Hilary still be able to run for President with Buddy Gone?

The good news is that alot of you can get jobs in hollywood now. The bad news is that a lot of these films are going to suck. Read about the trend.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

8 New years Resolutions for Dub'ya in the coming year.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events ]

Ok, I haven't seen half the films mentioned in his list but I may have to use his recomendations as a contrarian indicator. His list places LOTR on equal footing with films like Final Fantasy in the honorable mention category, sheeeesh.

[ related topics: Movies ]

Something to compare and contrast with Burning Man: 150 miles east of San Diego, hundreds of thousands party rowdily in the Imperial Sand Dunes, drunk rednecks burning vehicles, shooting each other, doing other variously stupid things.

[ related topics: Burning Man ]

I read a bunch of executive summary level papers on .NET last night. Wow. If you're not funded by Microsoft, run away! .NET is largely a half-baked reimplementation of technologies already available on open source platforms like Apache (the discussion of "compiled ASP" is completely mod_perl--), and Microsoft says, flat out, that if you're using .NET in a profitable market they will try to take that market away from you. What's even more amazing is the amount of acknowledge FUD, the number of places where "this has yet to be finalized" is stunning.

I think there's a lesson here about how humans respond to optimism versus realism, but I haven't worked that out enough to write anything on it.

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft Perl Open Source ]

I was in the bathroom, and grabbed the closest reading material. At least I think that's why it was left in there. The December 26, 2001 PC Magazine, page 132, sidebar on "laser printers versus ink jet printers" written by M. David Stone, says:

If you print just 500 pages a year - one ream of paper - a 1-cent difference per page works out to $75 over a three-year lifetime.

Take bets this guy sidelines as an economist for Dubya?

[ related topics: Politics moron ]

There's some speculation from Dave Winer and Tom Negrino (and Dori Smith in other entries) about the upcoming announcement Apple is supposed to make at MacWorldExpo, that's being hyped as "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond.". Crazy Apple Rumors posits "sexbots" (from Dori), which is appealing, but I think it's going to be an iGinger. Think about it, a Segway which uses some obscure bleeding edge but unlikely to be widely adopted protocols to draw power off your PowerBook batteries, thereby being cute and slim.

[Edited to Tom Negrino from Dori Smith. Doh! Lack of sleep shows through, I really was trying to get that right after my earlier screw-up]

[ related topics: Apple Computer Dave Winer Macintosh ]

Maybe this is what everybody needs. Lindows will run Windows and Linux apps on the same OS. /. points to a screenshots page that appears to be down. I'm certainly going to look more into this but the one thing I don't get is that " if windows can't reliably run windows apps how in the hell will Lindows run windows apps reliably???"

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Microsoft Open Source ]

Patently Offensive is my latest ineffectual rant on how patents are strangling innovation.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property ]

So, I got a call from our friend Steve last night and he's on vacation from his work in South Africa. One of the things he's done is the website work for Briges and it looks pretty good. The thing that got to me was while mentoring him I always preached Do something you love and are passionate about or get paid a hell of a lot. It's got to be one or the other if not both. Well, he might not be making a lot of dollars but he's definately doing something he loves. When he asked about my work, I whined about whoring myself to Deloitte & Touche and how big companies suck and while my hourly rate is ok they are exploiting my contractor status by just using me a few hours here and there (not 40 hours a week). At the end of my rant I relized I was 0 for 2 of my working criteria. I'm usually not a person to settle but it seems like everyone around me is doing the same. Is this normal nowadays?

[ related topics: Todd Gemmell Coyote Grits Bay Area Work, productivity and environment California Culture ]

Majestic, the game from EA, is no more. "While the game was a huge critical success, it was not as popular with players." Seemed like a good experiment, but was probably partially killed by the WTC attacks, and it seems to me (in hindsight) that those who are willing to let a game become life-encompassing are likely to be a different demographic than would enjoy the sophistication of a deep conspiracy sort of game.

[ related topics: Games ]

Just finished my SIGGRAPH course reviews. 2 days before the deadline.

My pleasure reading right now is Devices & Desires, a history of contraception in America, or at least since roughly 1865, when the first of the Comstock pushed legislation was enacted and birth control became illegal in the United States. There were various devices available previous to this, various semi-effective pessaries have been around since Egyptian times, condoms have existed for centuries, but the fact that the industrial revolution provided an economy where families might not want children, and that technologies were advancing such that rubber was a viable material, makes this a reasonable starting point. And this is a great view too of the birth of modern medicine, and the shysterism that has accompanied health care. This should be mandatory reading for anyone who favors anti-pornography legislation, but is also an amazing reminder that freedoms are temporary, and that we must be forever vigilant. Highly recommended as of the first half.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Health History ]

Mildly disturbing concept of the moment: You'll have to zoom the image to see it, but the cat food cans to the left are labeled "Salmon Formula", "Ocean Fish Formula", "Lamb & Rice Formula" and "Kitten Formula". Made with real ones?

[ related topics: Photography Food ]

Part of the adjustment of Charlene moving in has been her two cats, the wishfully named "Spirit" and "Serenity". Oddly, I get along just fine with Serenity, which causes people who know the cats to cross the street when they see me coming, but with the cold wet weather recently the cats have been wanting more human attention, which makes today's Get Fuzzy strip more an observation of reality than humorous.

[ related topics: Humor ]

I've run into Rayner Garner on the Society for Human Sexuality mailing list over the years. Missed him the few times he's been down to the Bay Area (he lives an hour or two north), but we've talked via email a couple of times. Then Charlene independently ran into Gavin, and showed me GetOrgasmic.com, which Gavin and Rayner run. Looks like it'd be worth some exploration. Except that it sounds so silly and is kinda hard to do since I haven't played the trumpet in a decade and a half, "the buzz" seems like a neat way to take toning to the next level.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture California Culture ]

This morning's hike turned around at Alamere Falls. I've thrown some snapshots up, if you care. I need to go back with the right weather and the big cameras some time, this is the second time I've been to Alamere Falls, but the first time during the rainy season when it was really kicking, and it's gorgeous.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

It runs on water has low emissions and can even handle stairs!!! This device kicks segway's sorry little ass.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

Hey gals! can you believe this guy isn't married. Although he did state he prefers the company of gnomes over women.

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Sociology Current Events ]

Hey Boys & Girls we only have 11 months left to plan for Elevevator & Escalator Safety Awareness Week. Yes yes I know they can be dangerous devices in the wrong hands and please don't send me email about how your aunt was maimed at the mall or I'll go back to using the <sarcasm> type tags or even perhaps a looney toon character shtick.

Note:While googling(thats a verb right?)to fix the above link I found this flash safety movie. A rapping cartoon cat giving safety tips. Prisoners (ala Clockwork Orange) should be forced to watch this...

[ related topics: Humor Technology and Culture Health Current Events ]

How to tell if you have a sexual addiction problem:

• Do you find yourself sucking cock by yourself, or first thing in the morning?
• Do you occasionally suck cock after a disappointment, a quarrel, or when work is difficult?

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture ]

After the thread making fun of Apple's announcement which turned out to be a new iMac, I remembered my brief foray into looking at network appliances, and wondered why the new iMac seems lame to me. Here's why: I've gone beyond worrying about desk space; I now run applications on the servers and use them on the laptop. Thanks to the wonders of 802.11 and X windows, I have all the resources of beefed up multi-processor machines with a display and interface that follows me from room to room. There are still a few synchronization issues about using the laptop untethered from the home network, but it's the idea that the new iMac is a desktop machine at all that I find outmoded.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Wireless Microsoft broadband Invention and Design Macintosh ]

Ok...now, I know the true definitions of conservative and liberal. I know that most of the folks here would consider themselves conservative in the defined sense...wanting to limit governmental influence in our daily lives, maintain our personal freedoms, and not pay unreasonably high taxes. Now...here's my problem.

Why is it that the party that we're told is the conservative party is always the one most ready to infringe on personal freedoms? And willing to do it in the most outrageous and audacious ways?

I mean yes, the Dems certainly do try to get all involved in people's business too, but when was the last time you heard a Dem trying to get the kind of unlimited wiretap access and such that the Bush administration is trying to implement?

I guess the big question that is coming to me is this:

Why do so many of my Libertarian friends scoff at the idea of voting for a Democrat over a Republican if there's no solid Lib candidate?

Do you really think that the Reeps are the party of personal freedom??? The same party that has made the Drug War its backbone for 20+ years? The same party that is presently interning people without trial? The ONLY personal freedoms I see the Reeps defending on a regular basis are 1) gun ownership (good for them, too), 2) freedom from unreasonable taxation (again, rah), and 3) freedom from campaign spending limits (if anyone here thinks that's an idealistic decision...snort...). Freedoms I see them looking to infringe on the other hand, are legion. Three-strikes. Drug war drug war drug war. Legislating morality on everything from abortion to prostitution (and any other sexual issue). Trying to ban music they don't like. How is any of that conservative??? (In the interests of equal time, it was jackass liberals who've gotten Huck Finn banned from most school libraries).

I'm not one to vote a party line. In the last three general elections I have never voted for fewer than three distinct parties for different races. I think the party system's pernicious anyway but that's a whole other rant. I just cannot understand how so many Libertarians can be so gung-ho for the republicans as a second choice. As far as I'm concerned, both parties are equally bad choices, and not just because of the creeping centrism that's turning them into the Republicrats. I don't want to believe that my intelligent friends identify with the reeps because the media says they're conservative. Englighten me.

[ related topics: Politics Libertarian Privacy Sexual Culture History moron Civil Liberties ]

looks the like the O'Reilly bioinformatics conference is the place to be, if you're into that sorta thing.

[ related topics: Business Cool Science Bioinformatics ]

Dave Winer compares the Apple MacWorld hype to the Microsoft CES hype. It was back in the '80s when Philip Schrodt wrote "If Apple ever has trouble making it as a corporation, it might consider applying for tax-exempt status as a religion." Think of Microsoft as a bar, and Apple as a church. Everyone pays lip-service to the latter, but they only go the morning of one day a week, whereas the serious alkies will patronize the former every evening, all the while decrying its evils.

[ related topics: Religion Apple Computer Dave Winer Microsoft ]

I think Salon has just made it off my bookmarks list. It's been increasingly difficult to sort through the chaff, but yesterday's article on Google and the Usenet archives was cool, 'til I saw that the Chronicle covered the Google Usenet archives from a slightly different perspective, but all the info is there. And I've found little else worthy there for a while.

[ related topics: New Economy ]

Not terribly notable in this climate, drunk asshole threatens Southwest flight with a sneaker, except... The guy was from New Orleans. New rule: If you're from freakin' New Orleans and make an ass of yourself because you can't hold your liquor, mandatory life. I can see if you're from, ya know, Fargo or something, and don't know what to do after a few drinks, but if you're from New Orleans you have no excuse. Sheesh.

[ related topics: Aviation ]

Via /.: First it was Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, then it was Wil Wheaton, now Microsoft supporters are engaging in online poll ballot box stuffing, this time with ZDNet UK.

This is not the first time Microsoft has been caught using dubious practices. Last August, lobbyists acting for Microsoft went beyond the grave and dispatched letters to US states' attorneys general from two deceased people as part of a campaign to persuade government prosecutors to lay off the company in the antitrust case. US lobby group the Campaign Against Government Waste (CAGW) posted the letters as part of an attempt to convince attorneys general there was a grass-roots campaign against the case.

But hey, Chicago and Louisiana politicians have been doing that for years.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft Current Events ]

Some of you will remember my previous whining about Solaris versus Linux.The saga has continued, currently my slower development Linux box is outperforming the faster Solaris production box (my guess is because of network performance), and all the alleged problems that were supposed to materialize on the Linux machine haven't; it deals with large file systems fine, yeah, threading clutters the process list a bit, but whatever.Now Linux World claims Sun will drop Intel from Solaris 9. No great surprise here.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Software Engineering Current Events ]

I find this this especially funny since I got into a similar argument with a spammer circa 1997 when I was foolish enough to think I could educate pond scum. It's a little bit of reading but it's the best laught I have had this year! The insults from Matt Hiltner are worth the read alone. I just had to pinch this link from my buddy Cam because it's too good not to share.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Humor Spam moron ]

Today, while I was in savasana after yoga, I couldn't quell an internal debate. I am poised before a period of rebirth. I am about to reach a point where I can erase my existence as I have known it: a denizen of cyberspace, eric@bradway.net. My ashtanga practice has, if anyhting, grounded me more firmly in meatspace. Playing Ultimate and working on my Porsche reminded me that I have natural talents outside of cyberspace. The meaning I am searching for in life seems to be stronger in meatspace than cyberspace. All of my accomplishments in cyberspace to this date have less meaning than a week spent with my daughter. Essentially all of the work I have done professionally has been scrapped for 'bigger, better faster' and if I unplugged my server at Chattanooga Online tomorrow, would anyone really notice?

[ related topics: Chattanooga Eric's Life ]

Most of my experience with watching porn has been at batchelor parties and one of the coolest games (if yer drunk enough) is to play MST3K while the porn flick is showing. Well this is kinda like that.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Games Sexual Culture Macintosh ]

Ummm the map speaks for it's self.

[ related topics: Health ]

I first saw this over on Borklog, the parlor game of trying to find word combinations that don't show up on Google. And it seemed like people were making more of a deal than it should be, although I couldn't remember any combinations off the top of my head, I know I've seen "Your search - ... - did not match any documents" numerous times for fairly short searches. Although some of those were programming searches, looking for specific variable names. Well, the subject came up at Scotch Night last night, and this morning I've got mail from Sam saying:

Too easy. Took less than 5 minutes to come up with

rastafarian yttrbium

and

rastafarian dysprosium

Amazingly, "rastafarian yttrium" and "rastafarian protactinium" each have one match.

[ related topics: Games ]

Hey lot's of people are in a quandry about what to do next. What about signing up for Survivor 4. The next one is on an island near Fiji and it would be really cool to see a creative geek.

[ related topics: Sociology Television California Culture ]

18 year old Mayor swears mom in as a council member. I think there is a conflict of interest here when a council member can ground the mayor and seize control.

Why not start your own country? Everybody is doing it.

[ related topics: Objectivism Humor Libertarian New Economy Civil Liberties California Culture ]

Several happily married folks have asked why I'm so vehemently opposed to marriage. Via the Alternatives To Marriage Project mailing list, an excerpt from Susan Maushart's Wifework articulates a little bit of my feelings, and offers some perspectives on feminism and equality.

The gradual untethering of motherhood from marriage - and, by extension, of childcare from wifework - is probably the single most explosive issue in the debate about the future of the family.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Political Correctness Sociology Marriage ]

Normally I don't link directly to weblogs, especially not brand new ones, but... Tom Lokovic (whom I know from the RenderMan team) has started MonkeySpeak, and so far it's wavering beautifully between Lovecraftian horrors and cool computer hacks. Can you tell the difference?

[ related topics: Pixar Weblogs Invention and Design Graphics ]

Via a bunch of places, an online comic that I'm halfway through and looks very worth the read: Demonology 101.

[ related topics: Comics ]

John Dvorak makes predictions for 2002.

Stop those anoying Pop Up ads. I even went so far as to turn off javascript in my browser because the ads were soooo anoying but I'm going to give this a try.

Who cares what you think?



President George W. Bush, July 4, 2001

I can't verify this but it seem plausible

[ related topics: Politics Humor moron ]

Thinking Outside the Dilbert is this tuseday the 15th at the Churchill Club.

Several women I know have participated in Bay Area Model Mugging and spoken very highly of it. Charlene is showing me her tape of her experiences with it and... well... this looks like a fantastic self-defense program. There's a list of chapters on the BAMM site and a Google search for "model mugging" should show local programs elsewhere in the country. Something like this is even important for those otherwise versed in martial arts, because it teaches fighting from the ground.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Bay Area ]

After my mixed comments on Chocolate, the movie, I'd heard great things about the book. Just finished reading it, and... I so like the conclusions, I so like the basic structure of the story, but I feel like the book was written completely on the nose. There wasn't enough sympathetic about Reynaud, he was a caricature who needed more depth to be truly evil. There are great authors, authors like Robertson Davies, that I can read over and over again. The core story had that possibilities, but in the end Joanne Harris doesn't make Chocolat a book I'm likely to revisit.

[ related topics: Books Movies ]

Lots of people have mentioned this, but Debra linked to a longer version of the "Girl, 9, Charged With Sexual Assault" story. I'm not sure where I stand on the matter. It's clear that the charges are there to get the girl in to the system where she can get "help", but I'm sure there's not enough information in these stories to tell whether she needs help.

"We would love to know, very dearly, where she got this" behavior, says Sgt. John Maston, head of the Manchester police's child investigations unit. Nature, perhaps? And in this case it wasn't (metaphorically) beaten out of her early enough? In the article, he's quoted as continuing "She won't even admit she did anything wrong." Yep, gotta nail 'em with a good healthy dose of shame, otherwise they won't be compliant citizens. At the very least, you can tell she's been raised to not admit anything to a police officer; someone's doing something right.

Mitigating these statements is the notion of the extreme age difference, and the usual question about consent in children's power dynamics. So I guess I don't have a good opinion on the matter.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Woman auctions herself for a husband. Not too much info here but it looks like a Darva Conger maneuver.

[ related topics: moron Current Events ]

Is little Johny chewing gum in the back of class again? Wait! thats not gum

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Prince Harry should hook up with Jenna Bush and party

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

Dan has'nt bought that volvo yet but maybe he should look at the MaxiMog. It has 7 computers running QNX,OS9 & NT plus a horn that generates 137dba!!! Whoa that will make em jump.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Cool Science Bay Area Sports ]

So that suggestion for a "Mystery Science Theater 3k" style porn night has piqued some interest. One of my problems is that I'm not that familiar with film and video porn. Most of the recent stuff I've seen is far enough over the top to defy parody. Over on Mouthorgan there's a link to a brief history of Vivid Video which spawned some interesting discussion on the history of porn. So it seems like '70s porn is what could be interesting enough to be good, but cheesey enough to make fun of. Anyone got suggestions for movies suitable for real-time parody? Particularly egregious bits of Behind The Green Door or Deep Throat itching to be lampooned?

[ related topics: Erotic Movies ]

Diane talks about growing up female, and says:

He told us with his big cheesy greasy smile that he was dividing us into boy-girl lab teams, "... so the boys can do the science and the girls can clean the test tubes." ??!!! I was shocked. I was stunned.

... and later continues:

Nowadays, a teacher would never get away with saying something like that, even if he thought it inside.

[And it'd be just like me to pervert the spirit of her words as a segué to another attempt to stir up the comments board with controversy misguided rant. So:]

While I admire the optimism, I'm not so sure it's justified. Women are still being denied equal educations based on their gender, it's just disguised under the conflation of "female" with "mother". As we see the "women's rights movement" (a fractured stereotype for which I apologize) stray further and further from "equal protection" towards a system which hobbles those who choose not to have children, are we doing the cause of women's equality more harm than good?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Political Correctness Civil Liberties ]

Meuon has an updated "you have two cows" to encompass a few .com bombs.

[ related topics: New Economy ]

As long as you're not driving erratically, it's okay to drive stoned in Idaho.

[ related topics: Drugs Current Events ]

I realize that this is mostly propaganda put out by his parents to sway public opinion away from heavy punishment, but if John Walker was a bumbling idiot, affecting Arab accents and committing cultural gaffs [also: SF Gate article], where the hell was the CIA? For a while they've been whining about how it was "oh so hard to place moles and operatives", and here comes this boorish stereotypical ugly American who, if the U.S. P.R. machine is to be believed, waltzed right in to hear the highest secrets of the Taliban. Well, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Tenet, how can we get some accountability?

[ related topics: moron Current Events WTC/Pentagon attacks ]

Not getting enough Rat in your bread??

Dozens of women were stripped bare by an angry mob because they were wearing trousers or short skirts and not adhering to "smart casual" dress code.

More reason to keep repeating the mantra "latex and lube": Lubes kill HIV. Well, not all lubes, Astroglide (aka Silken Secret), Vagisil and ViAmor, and only in the lab, and the guy publishing the paper is pretty cagey, claiming he'll reveal which preservative it is when the paper hits the streets.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health Personal Lubricant ]

One of the upshots of hardware incompatibilities and the gift-giving of the season was that I ended up with a spare Lego Mindstorms set. So Charlene and I were diddling with devices to terrorize the cats last night, and I downloaded Not Quite C to program it. Typed "make", plugged the IR port in, did "bin/nqc -d test.nqc", and it worked. Comes in Windows and Mac flavors, as well as C source for Un*x boxes.

[ related topics: Photography Microsoft Macintosh Lego Mindstorms ]

It's Tako the Octopus and his cooking show Deep Fried Live which requires flash and some bandwidth but a rather well produced cross between Iron Chef and Wayne's World. be sure to click on the various links and tips. The cooking info is genuine and helpful. The links are real useful for those that cook. If your not laughing at the end of this, I'm truely sorry for your condition.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Movies broadband Food Theater & Plays ]

Dan Hartung over at Lake Effect has a quick backgrounder on how Somalia deteriorated, providing a rebuttal to Alex Cox's take on the Black Hawk Down backstory.

[ related topics: Politics History ]

Via MonkeySpeak, those wacky folks at Sandia have created an incredibly tiny chain drive.

[ related topics: Cool Science ]

I had only been been slightly impressed with Elinor Burkett's book The Baby Boon. When I ran across the Atlantic interview with Burkett about her latest, Another Planet, it sounded interesting. On a whim I ordered it, and I have not been disappointed. Following the Littleton Colorado ("Columbine") incident, Burkett spent a year in a high school in Minnesota. I'm in the middle of the book now, and it's taken me back to all those awkward social dynamics of high school, reinforced many of my views of how adults seem to be clueless in addressing the pressures of adolescence, and has give me one of the funnest takes on school since Up The Down Staircase.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

Ziffle passed along a Georgia lawmaker wants to make it illegal to answer the door naked (State Rep. Dorothy Pelote who claimed to have psychic visions of Chandra Levy). Now I don't know about y'all, but the only people it'd "protect" in my neck of the woods are door-to-door beggars (excuse me, "people soliciting for poorly documented charities") and missionaries, sometimes the two get conflated, so surely we can take this woman down on separation of church and state issues?

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Current Events ]

Music For Hackers sounds for compromising a remote host

[ related topics: Music ]

Europe's first brothel for women goes bust. The owner was recently arrested trying to mug an elderly couple with a toy gun to keep the doors open.

"He told us his brothel had gone bust. If they'd operated like a normal brothel and made sure they got the money before the sex, they would have been all right," said Peter-Georg Biewald, a police spokesman in Waldshut, southwestern Germany.

"But they didn't ask for money until afterwards and the women only paid for what they thought the service had been worth."

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events ]

From the Squid List, on Sunday, March 31^st, Power Tool Drag Races at the Shipyard. An event announcement well worth reading, an event that might be fun to attend, and... well... if there's a bit of "oooh, single rider modified... I've got an old rotary saw..." in you, then I think it's a moral imperative that you participate.

[hee hee hee: The categorizer saw "moral imperative" and chose ethics. I think I'll keep it!]

[ related topics: Cool Science Ethics Bay Area Art & Culture ]

I'm now polling weblogs.com every three hours to grab updated times and stuff them in the links down there in the right. Hopefully they'll fill in over the next few weeks.

But diddling with the stuff on the lower right brings up questions about where on the continuum between personal site and community site Flutterby wants to be. Still not sure about that.

[ related topics: Weblogs Flutterby Meta ]

Normally I manage to put aside some of my distaste for the politics of the Winter Olympics to enjoy figure skating and moguls skiing, and perhaps some guilty "wait for the car wreck" pleasures from luge (although "skeleton" seems a little over the top in that regard). Now some killjoys are complaining that figure skating has gotten too suggestive. Oh yeah, like they haven't imagined Kristi Yamaguchi slathered in... um... Hey, what's everybody looking at?

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Sports ]

David Steinberg writes about Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom challenging the CDA.

The complaint claims that, in the absence of a clear definition of which community standards apply to the Internet, CDA has the effect of chilling all Internet expression since questions of the legal obscenity of Internet material might well be judged by the values of the most restrictive communities in the country.

[ related topics: Privacy Sexual Culture Law Civil Liberties ]

Updating my earlier notes, I've written a slightly longer review of Another Planet. It was a great summary of a high school that felt a lot like mine, and while it provided no solutions, it gave me some steps towards understanding the problems.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

AOL is reportedly negotiating to buy Red Hat.

Does this mean Linux will get an ALL CAPS version?

The rumors are getting stronger and more frequent that AOL will be acquiring Red Hat. I was going to write a rant about this but it was full of technical terms like bad and officious and stoooopid but I found a much more eloquent rebuttal penned on the O'Reily Site

[ related topics: Free Software Business Weblogs Open Source moron Current Events ]

Via /., a Business 2.0 article talking about how prices from internet vendors aren't necessarily low. The article's pretty fluffy, but... Charlene and I both want to get new inline skates. My venerable old Rollerblade Lightnings are showing their age, it'd be nice to get something with stiffer trucks, and I'm even considering something with grind plates (although that's a big compromise on road skating ability), and she's been using rentals. So we did some web searches, didn't show up many skates under $300. Went down to Skates on Haight before skating in Golden Gate Park, and had trouble finding anything over $250. I'm sure they're different brands, but that the range of skates offered on the various sites that showed up on net searches all seemed to be extremely high end seems indicative that looking in meatspace is the better start.

[ related topics: New Economy Bay Area ]

Gack! Just discovered that somewhere a bunch of mail got lost from my inbox. If you sent anything and I haven't replied to you, please send it again.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Flutterby Meta ]

Charles called me up for some quotes on Linux for an article he's writing. The sound-bite I should've given him:

What high-level decision makers should realize is that Linux is already being clandestinely deployed in their server rooms, not for cost reasons, but for functionality reasons. Open Source may actually cost more than proprietary software if you're customizing it and adding patches back to the code and using it in the spirit that it's written. But the point is that you can't save your way to profitability; at some point you have to be able to do things better and quicker and more reliably than your competitors; cheaper just makes you the next KMart.

[ related topics: Free Software Quotes Open Source Software Engineering Writing ]

Occasionally I think I should be reading The Onion more often. Via Howard's Musings, Black Gospel Choir Makes Man Wish He Believed In All That God Bullshit. Yep. That's me. There are some absolutely fantastic voices and melodies out there that I have to consciously try to tune out the lyrics to listen to, otherwise they grate harshly on me. Sigh.

[ related topics: Religion Music Dan's Life ]

We've seen lots of evidence that a good part of sexual attraction is about smell. Dr.s Carol Ober and Martha McClintock of the University of Chicago have found that smell lets people choose mates based on genetic similarity.

A further twist in the study, which was based on having women sniff T-shirts that a man had worn for two days, is that their preferences were based on the man's genetic match to each woman's paternal genes, not genes from her mother.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bioinformatics ]

I've been refactoring the Flutterby CMS to a database schema that's more conducive to a common editor (for rich linking), for tying to things like the Manila API and the Blogger API, and for implementing workflow. Via Scripting News, Mark Hershberger has an Emacs interface to the Blogger API. Now if I can just find someone else willing to slog through my code to help me build this into a system useful for more than just me; I really do want to create a more general CMS out of it.

[ related topics: Content Management Weblogs Flutterby Meta ]

It's harder than you might think. You get to see the beer bottles (with beer in them) and no lables and try to guess the brand from multiple choice answers. I got 6 out of 12 so I guess I flunk as a beer meister but I haven't drank most of those kinds of beers(rice adjunct)since I was in my teens.

[ related topics: Beer ]

Proof that we are in a global recession. I think the brits have the right idea about how to cope <giggle>

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Current Events Monty Python ]

On Objectionable Content there's a link to and some discussion of an essay called The Myth of the Rule of Law, which says, in part:

But the myth of the rule of law does more than render the people submissive to state authority; it also turns them into the state's accomplices in the exercise of its power. For people who would ordinarily consider it a great evil to deprive individuals of their rights or oppress politically powerless minority groups will respond with patriotic fervor when these same actions are described as upholding the rule of law.

My recent jury duty experience has me thinking more and more about this, about what jury nullification means. Unfortunately, what starts out as a good essay loses direction because the author, John Hansas, doesn't get that law is an expression of implied violence.

[ related topics: Law Civil Liberties ]

Last night at the Weblogger Interest Group shindig, Ev said that How the Wayback Machine Works was a good read, a look at building a 100 terabyte database, mostly with basic commodity hardware.

So if a book is a megabyte, which is about what it is, and the Library of Congress has 20 million books, that's 20 terabytes. This is 100 terabytes. At that size, this is the largest database ever built. It's larger than Walmart's, American Express', the IRS. It's the largest database ever built. And it's receiving queries -- because every page request when people are surfing around is a query to this database -- at the rate of 200 queries per second.

[ related topics: Free Software Cool Science Open Source ]

Never play cards with a man named "Doc", spar with an elderly Asian man, or play soccer with a southern European.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Sports ]

There are all sorts of comments to go along with this, but in the end I'm going to have to let y'all write your own: Girls, ages 11 and 12, posted their own naked pictures on the web.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture ]

David Chess talks about his daughter's science class, asking:

is there any respectable linguistic community for whom "battery" is a subset of "generator"?

Several things come up: I was leafing through some materials from my childhood, and came across notes from a session on fractions. There, carefully laid out and obviously memorized, were terms that I have never heard as an adult.

And in related news, Alec learned the lesson: He talked to the right people and got a different math teacher, and hasn't called me for tutoring help even when I've offered.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Mathematics ]

Bill Kearney has said that he's going to be able to use geographical information in Syndic8. So in the section of the Flutterby page, there is now:

<meta name="geo.country" content="USA">

<meta name="geo.placename" content="Fairfax, California">

<meta name="geo.position" content="37.988428;-122.582952;120">

I realize that not everyone wants to give out targetting coordinates, but it might be cool to add this as a start towards a standard for search engines. I know I'm going to try to add it in my pages which describe a specific place. Anyway, if you don't have a GPS, Bill suggests checking Map Blast (which is what I used, registration required) or the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names.

[ related topics: Web development Weblogs Flutterby Meta Maps & Mapping ]

Penryn Pennsylvania Police boycott YMCA triathlon security because of Harry Potter readings.

[ related topics: Religion Books Law Enforcement ]

Loki Games is shutting down January 31st and it's a sad day. Scott talks about their demise and what's next in this article

[ related topics: Games ]

I've been wanting to build a Battle Bot for some time but it seems that time (and or)money keeps me from taking the plunge. While watching the program on TV the other night I noticed Mouser Mecha-Catbot not only has it's own website but now has it's own music video!! It's rather fun to watch and the music reminds me somewhat of Siouxsie and the Banshees. I guess I need to go find a music video producer before I start building.

[ related topics: Music Technology and Culture Movies Software Engineering Television ]

Scotch Night last night rocked! It was my fault that we ended up with a Scotch Night schism, half the group ended up at Beckett's in Berkeley, half the group at Hotel Mac in Point Richmond: Phil, Dori, Kiki, Nathan, Julie (of Neanderdolls fame) and me. Alas, Dori left a little early, and the discussion took some time to get going, but we ranged from porn on cell-phones (Phil has an awesome cell-phone+Palm device), Burning Man, relationships (Julie's days away from finalizing her divorce from Klaus Flouride), lube and condom brands, and the joys of children (yes, even I participated in that one). Oh yeah, and the joys of shooting bottle rockets out of one's ass. When we left I figured it was about 8:30 and it was 10:30.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Personal Lubricant ]

Perl fans, Apocalypse 4 is out.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source ]

Yesterday Phil and I dropped into Cody's Books at lunch, and ran across this gem. From Sybex "Quality Computer Books & Software", it's XML Complete, "1000 pages only $19.99". Well, I guess that's "a quality". This has actually been a common refrain from authors I know, and I think it's the reason that Wrox dropped me as a reviewer: Publishers want shovel-ware. Are there really so few of us out here who think that the value of a good author is that they can pare down the subject to the critical bits, and who value our time highly enough that a 100 page book is worth much more than a 1000 page book?

[ related topics: Books ]

Study shows moderate drinking can ward off dementia, although short term it's obviously no proof against being a blithering idiot. Apparently the type of alcohol wasn't important, while red wine may be good for cholesterol, anything's good for dementia:

By the end of the study in 1999, 197 of the participants had developed Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Those who fared best were people who drank between one and three drinks a day. They had a 42 percent lower risk of developing dementia than the nondrinkers.

[ related topics: Health Wines and Spirits ]

Stolen from Monkeyspeak, a great Scientific American article on the science of television addiction.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Television ]

Dave commented on my use of Weblogs.com date feeds, which prompted Dori to ask why Backup Brain wasn't in that list. That list down there on the right is derived directly from my Opera bookmarks list. It should be pretty much impossible to get http://www.backupbrain.com (note the lack of trailing slash) into the address that a browser finally reports getting, and therefore that it puts in the bookmarks file. I've noticed there are a few other pages missing updates too, I need to figure out what's going on there. And I believe that Dave has blocked Large American Penis from the weblogs.com update list, I'd love to be pulling this from the aggregate of several update checkers. Anyway, let's see if the new code does any better, if I've got a few spare minutes maybe I'll try to fix the current database as well, rather than just waiting for it to update.

[ related topics: Weblogs Dave Winer Flutterby Meta ]

There's a Salon article on E.J. Bellocq's pictures of New Orleans prostitutes that's really pretty unremarkable, except for this piece of amazing cluelessness:

Another mystery concerning Bellocq's photos are the defaced women. Roughly a dozen negatives have the models' faces rubbed off in a black swirl. The resulting prints look as if Jackson Pollock has doodled over the naked women's faces. "Why are some of the faces scratched out?" Lee Friedlander asks rhetorically. "Nobody knows. I think Bellocq did it himself, but there is no way to know. Some people think his brother, the Jesuit priest, did it, but I think that's silly. I don't really know."

One has only to go to, say, Voyeurweb, to see that the digital library of the future will have lots of images with defaced women and men, exhibitionists who'd rather remain anonymous. Are the critics and commentators so caught up in their subject that they've forgotten that these things happen within a culture? Yeesh.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology ]

Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking, died. She was 94.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

At least he isn't blowing them up with grenade launchers: John Ashcroft has ordered breasts on statues in the Justice Department building covered. The irony of obscuring "The Spirit of Justice" seems apropos. In other news, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is setting out to teach high school kids morals, saying he was dismayed at the response of high schoolers, here and abroad, to the September 11^th attacks. "Our purpose, our mission is to share democracy with the world," he said, while failing to explain why our foreign policy in the middle east has been antithetical to that mission.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement WTC/Pentagon attacks ]

I've really enjoyed Alfy's in San Anselmo, really good food served with style, but noticed that they seemed to be getting pricier and pricier, until even without wine it was hard to get out for less than $100 for two. Whether it's from the .com crash and the end of expensive expensable meals, or the alleged post-attack slowdown (which seems largely mythical, and if there was a dip all the local indicators I've got say it's over), Alfy's is gone.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Food Bay Area San Anselmo ]

Whyte's Booksmith, in San Anselmo, is my bookstore. At the last Scotch Night, one of the topics was bookstores, and it was remarked that I got books as fast as Amazon could ship them, whereas with the chain stores all orders took weeks. Charlene had gone in to Booksmith to order Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, and they'd told her it wasn't available from them. I went in today, and they said "Oh sure, it's a publisher order and won't be out 'til March". This is why I like small vendors; it's possible to develop a relationship and get superlative service, but it requires building that trust, and knowing that I'm a customer who will be there for them.

[ related topics: Books Dan's Life Bay Area Consumerism and advertising San Anselmo Whyte's Booksmith ]

From an article about Cheney defending the administration's stonewalling on Enron meetings, in which it's acknowledge that the GAO is going to have to take the Bush administration to court, comes this gem:

"After all of these years, can you imagine an FDR or Teddy Roosevelt, in the midst of a grave national crisis, dealing with the problems we're having to deal with now, over here on the side as a matter of political expediency, trading away a very important fundamental principle of the presidency?"

The bit about "Praise Allah for giving me an excuse to change the subject" apparently didn't make it on camera.

[ related topics: Politics moron ]

Dan's idea of an ergonomic workstation.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Work, productivity and environment ]

High School Senior Toby Hocking brought Playboy Playmate Petra Verkiak, Miss December 1989, to his "winter formal" dance. She's 35, so there's a bit of an age gap, I wonder how this went over with his peers?

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

While conservatives are lambasting Marin for its children, those whacky Bush children are just being kids. Via just another johnson, (which has worthwhile commentary and links) this time it's Jeb Bush's daughter busted for trying to buy Xanax with a forged prescription. Somewhere a bunch of Democrat spin meisters are saying "We got off easy with Roger and Billy!"

[ related topics: Drugs Children and growing up Politics Health ]

The text of last night's State of the Union speech. Yawn.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

Burning Bird introduced (1, 2) me to taking that whole "finding search terms with no results on Google" thing (aka Googlewhacking) to a new level with Google Instant Messaging. Which makes me wonder how long before we find terrorists passing notes via Disturbing Search Requests?

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Doc Searles is having trouble with his Cox cablemodem switchover, the disk with all the stupid "upgrade" software (including IE with a different logo, oh boy) didn't work. Luckily my switchover with AT&T Broadband wasn't as bad, but I still get this crap occasionally where when it can't resolve DNS for a web request it gives some alternate address and a web page giving upgrade instructions. I don't know what the web browser is doing differently in DNS resolution that's triggering this.

But this leads to a wider question: What's with the extraneous crap? Why can't we trust that at some point users will be able to step through the facilities provided in the operating system, and so we've got to add three or four levels of awful complexity to make things "easier", thereby making it much tougher for anyone with more neurons than fingers to actually use a service? Is forcing a user's default home page to some crap portal really worth that much? But then I guess that's what @Home's business model was based on. Yeesh, it's almost enough to make me spring for iDSL, despite the lower speed, just so I can work with someone on the other end who knows I want a freakin IP address and working DNS, and then gets the hell out of my way.

[ related topics: broadband Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment ]

Rob Morse has a great rant, including notes on Jesse Jackson selling out to Ken Lay that says:

No comment dept.: "I need someone to take the CPA ethics test for me," said an ad on www.craigslist.com. "Local CPA candidate has no time to study; will PAY you to tkae the ethics exam for me!"

Rob Morse has a great rant, including notes on Jesse Jackson selling out to Ken Lay, that also says:

No comment dept.: "I need someone to take the CPA ethics test for me," said an ad on www.craigslist.com. "Local CPA candidate has no time to study; will PAY you to take the ethics exam for me!"

[ related topics: Ethics ]

It's little more than a press-release hype thingie, but here's a neat folding boat, one of which is being carried to high altitudes on an Everest expedition to cross some late-season melt.

"Shut up, Dan!" More whining about why I hate Macs, some of the frustrations of trying to get Catherine's Performa 550 working again last night, just there for posterity so someone will make me eat my words when I'm blathering about how much I love MacOS XXIV.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Macintosh ]

Well, I guess I'm going to break down and do it. I need a Windows XP machine. I have a license for XP, given to me by Microsoft(so my conscience is less troubled), and I don't want to pollute any of my existing working machines with it. So I'll be motherboard shopping tomorrow, and this weekend doing a few shufflings to get a Linux box off to my Dad and an XP box so I can diddle with .NET. Alas, this is going to mean descending once again into the hell that is Visual Studio; obviously I've got mixed emotions about this project actually coming to fruition. Maybe in the midst of all this I'll get printing working on Linux and move Charlene away from the Windows ME box.

[ related topics: Free Software Dan's Life Microsoft Open Source Work, productivity and environment ]

The White House is spending $3.4 million on Stupor Bowl commercials to convince you that terrorism and drugs are linked. I think it's necessary to point out that I am a patriot, and I only smoke it if it's locally grown.

[ related topics: Drugs Politics ]