Flutterby™! From 2002-04-01 to 2002-04-30

Happy Ostara to those of the old ways.

Our parent company AOL/TW has welcomed us aboard and we can now talk about our deal publicly. Please be patient with us as we go through changes on the site. There won't be too much time for posting since in the near future as we will be in meetings learning our new core beliefs to share with you. To make up for lack of content we have been authorized by our new masters to install all new paradigm shifting shiny buttons. Big Deal you say? I say righty'O ...these new buttons play an entire quick time movie for instuction right before dumping you into a very helpful wizard that will step you through installation and configuration.

Ooooh: Via The Jer Zone, the Site Player is a little embedded computer with a serial port, an ethernet jack, and a TCP/IP stack, for a hundred bucks for the dev kit, $30 a piece for small quantities. Put a web server on or communicate via telnet to any serial device. I'm not sure what I'd want to network, but there's got to be something around here I can put on the web... A damned shame the web site navigation sucks.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Cool Technology Embedded Devices ]

From the author of the Perl XML::Simple module comes XML::Simpler.

"...the data structures returned by XMLin() have been vastly simplified. All hashrefs and arrayrefs have been eliminated, and instead the contents of the XML file are represented using a single scalar value which perfectly preserves the fidelity of the original document. In fact the format of this data structure is so intuitive that new users will be able to work with it immediately without reading the documentation."

Also, this implementation note:

The 'utf8' option requires that your system implements /dev/random, however onWin32 platforms the system registry has been found to offer equivalent functionality.

[ related topics: Humor Perl ]

Saturday morning this brazen beast was hanging out in the front neighbor's flower garden. The cats haven't brought any mice in recently, but given the spring infestation of deer I'm dreading waking up to find one of these dismembered in the bathtub.

In other news, Charlene and I went down to Skates on Haight to get her a pair, and while there I discovered how far skate technology has come and ended up buying a pair myself to replace my decade old Rollerblade Lightnings. I think a good goal for the summer would be to have an edge jump or two consistently single-footed, I used to be able to sometimes two-foot something that looked like an axel, but a description of the various jumps indicates I should probably be working on a Salchow.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Bay Area ]

"...57 card-carrying communists in the State Department" Errr... The Axis of Evil is now apparently Iraq, Iran and Syria. Damn, I'm glad we have Mr. Rumsfeld to explain this to us, otherwise I'd be really confused telling the good guys from the bad guys.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

In a sign in front of what looked like a bath products shop on Fourth Street in Berkeley. Maybe there's something cosmetic going on here, but a shop staffed by bubblegum chewing teenagers offering a "complimentary eye care experience" disturbs me.

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

Remember that IE bug that let web pages run arbitrary executables reported here? The Microsoft patch that's supposed to fix that IE bug doesn't. No wonder they're so strongly against security hole disclosure.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]

Help out Scarleteen! Hanne Blank is soliciting your favorite things about labia to help counter the "cosmetic labia surgery" trend.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health ]

Via Ron over on the SHS: the headline screams Prosecutor uses anti-gay sex statute to charge six men in prositution(sic) case, the reality seems to be that a few guys were having sex in an adult bookstore theater and he couldn't find anything else to charge them under. The real gem, however, is this statement so rife with internal contradiction that I'm sure my head would explode if I tried to say it out loud:

"It is not my intention to judge the conduct of consenting adults," Wilkins told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story in yesterday's editions. "This is not about throwing homosexuals in jail. This is about trying to prevent future conduct."

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law ]

The Seattle Times has a story about the NPPA's 2001 first place choice for Photojournalism in the Domestic News category. The award went to a picture of the crowd tearing the clothes off a woman who declined to lift her shirt at last year's Mardi Gras celebration in Seattle. The photo was never published in the paper (and in fact, I don't remember hearing about any reported sexual assaults in the news) but it's inclusion on the NPPA website (with the victim's face obscured) has sparked an ethical controversy.

[ related topics: Photography Sexual Culture Ethics Journalism and Media ]

Here we go again. Some misanthrope kills himself and his mommy sues Sony for a very hefty sum so that they will place warning lables on the game. Let's assume for a minute that the family is not being greedy and going for the corporate deep pockets. Has anyone ever bought a pack of cigarettes and looked at the side of the box and said "Oh my God! these things are dangerous!?!" Why do I care about Sony being sued? Because we all end up paying for it in higher consumer cost. Don't get me wrong, when companies behave badly I think they should be spanked hard but I am really sick of peoples lack of accountability for their own actions. If people like this win, we expend all our capital/efforts wrapping bubble packing plastic around the world and even that won't save everyone.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Technology and Culture moron Sociology Current Events Consumerism and advertising ]

So that Microsoft and Unisys anti-Unix site WeHaveTheWayOut.com went up a few days ago, was revealed to be running FreeBSD and Apache, was promptly replaced with an IIS based system, which is currently returning "403 Access Forbidden". News.com has the story. Meanwhile, WeHaveTheWayIn.com is working fine.

[ related topics: Free Software Business Humor Microsoft Open Source moron ]

Are you Homophonic? check out the Homophonezone. Proof that some people have hobbies more wierd than you.

Keith Knight on things you can learn from Dubya.

[ related topics: Politics Humor moron Comics ]

Via /., an intro to Apache's SOAP module. SOAP may figure prominently in my future, and while that figure might not involve much Java it's good to keep up on all of these things.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Software Engineering ]

Kiki thinks a Utilikilt makes a guy look sexy.

Peter Merholz has an interesting exchange on imbuing meaning and significance into the practical.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

What appears to be a wonderful new book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex is sparking an angry firestorm among conservative and religous groups, who have denounced it as "evil". They have also been calling for the firing of the individuals at University of Minnesota Press who agreed to publish the book - after it had been turned down time and time again by other publishing houses.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books Erotic Sexual Culture Political Correctness Child-Freedom ]

West Virginians and Tennesseeans rejoice! Having offspring with your cousin isn't as dangerous as common wisdom would have it.

[ related topics: Health ]

The new economy: If you're the entertainment industry, cripple everyone rather than serve your customers (in which Jack Valenti admits that the current attempts at legislation are a way to soften the market up for a more limited assault on our rights later) and if you're PetsWarehouse, sue anyone who criticizes your service, rather than, say, fixing your system so your service improves.

[ related topics: Business New Economy Civil Liberties ]

Via CamWorld an erotic story called Geek the Girl. I'm pretty sure it wasn't written by Cam under a pen name (too many spelling mistakes) and I suspect some plagiarism as Allison becomes Sarah for a pargraph<shrug> but it's got a variety kinks that might be interessting to Flutterbiters. The main site has a pretty huge library of stories to explore (warning looks like a major time sink)

[ related topics: Language Cameron Barrett Books Erotic ]

Expensive wall paper perhaps? A company is making a go of trying to sell you stock certificates mounted as art.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

[ related topics: Humor Photography moron ]

"I wonder how to take this" Spam of the moment:

From: "Joke-of-the-Day" <reply-68999101-138@william.monsterjoke.com>

To: "danlyke@flutterby.com" <danlyke@flutterby.com>

Subject: Human Growth Hormone Supplments Work

[ related topics: Spam Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment Monty Python ]

After almost a year I'm considering writing some software. I'm planning to develop an online community for people practicing yoga without the benefits of regular studio visits (and the $$ that requires). I want three levels of users: admin, instructor, student and want to be able to create a bunch of custom code. I hate to reinvent the wheel for CMS but I don't want to stumble over someone else's code while I develop the unique parts of the site. Any thoughts? I haven't seen enough of the schema behind Flutterby to tell if it'll work for my needs.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Content Management Technology and Culture Coyote Grits Software Engineering Writing Work, productivity and environment ]

How did I miss this april's fool prank.

[ related topics: Music moron ]

More than you wanted to know about Gummi Bears (most of the interesting bits are in German). No, really, too much information about the private fantasies of Gummi Bears.

[ related topics: Humor Erotic ]

Via Starjewel (who put a more positive spin on it than me), Ottowa study shows light marijuana use doesn't have negative IQ effects:

Interpretation: Current marijuana use had a negative effect on global IQ score only in subjects who smoked 5 or more joints per week. A negative effect was not observed among subjects who had previously been heavy users but were no longer using the substance. We conclude that marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence.

[ related topics: Drugs ]

Phil brought F'd Companies by Philip J. "Pud" Kaplan to Scotch Night last night, I read a bit of it on the bus on the way in. Entertaining, nothing new to any regular reader of FuckedCompany.com, but it does help me clarify something. When I've gone with a couple of engineers to attempt to find funding in the past, we've looked to the Vulture Capitalists as people who could bring business acumen to our enterprise. Wrong. VCs are people who've schmoozed a lot of rich folks. The best may have a track record, but likely most of them don't, they're generally just a different set of scam artists preying on promising a return to rich old folks who don't feel like they have the acumen to make their own investments any more. To them, we're just a commodity that they're going to have to sell to their investors. Out here near Silicon Valley we have this mythology that VCs have built around themselves, but if we engineers are really serious about finding funding attached people who complement our own skills, VCs are not who we should be looking towards.

[ related topics: New Economy Invention and Design ]

On /. they pointed to a review of BZFlag. With relatively simple commands, it seems like the beauty of BZFlag is that it requires team play to be anything other than a game of chicken. And unlike Counter-Strike it's available with source, and on lots of platforms.

[ related topics: Games Open Source ]

The Chronicle chronicles West Berkeley/Emeryville art corridor, including The Shipyard where Kiki has space. The print version has a cool picture of her, too.

[ related topics: Bay Area Art & Culture ]

In several forums that I sort-of host, here, mailing lists, and so forth, I take extreme pains to not censor anyone who wants to be a part of the community. I think the furthest extent to which I've gone so far is closing off posting to a list to non-subscribers, to keep the spam out. But none of these are huge enterprises. So am I completely off-base when I say that, as a host, replying to questions about your operating mode with "shut the fuck up" would logically lead to having to freeze your discussion servers because the quality deteriorated? Is this a matter of scale? Is it just that my attitude doesn't scale?

[ related topics: Spam Free Speech Community ]

Via /.: The Niles Monorail. I see a Burning Man 2003 project... The /. thread has all the predictable Simpsons Monorail episode references.

[ related topics: Burning Man Cool Science Trains ]

A tutorial on learning Solitaire key generation.

[ related topics: Cryptography ]

From the .sig of Mike Andrews in the Scary Devil Monastery:

How about "suspender snapping three martini lunching mahogany tabled conference room equipped with overhead projector dwelling golden parachute flying bill gates specifying buzzword spewing computerworld and datamation reading trend bandwagoneering meeting going morons". -- Tom O'Toole

[ related topics: Business Humor moron ]

An Article in the Chronicle about "Panic Rooms", secure, often well-armed rooms built into the houses of paranoid people. But what caught my eye was the picture which strongly reminded me of Reba McEntire in Tremors... "You broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't you? You bastards!"

Of course I'm sure Meuon is looking at that thinking "you call that an arsenal?"

[ related topics: Quotes Movies Guns ]

Via Cam an addictive panasonic jingle. I know there are a few anime fans out there Hi-Ho Hi-Ho

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Bay Area ]

Via Jerry Kindall, Neal Stephenson's first novel is available online: The Big U. Obviously a first novel, the first chapter is really rough, subsequent chapters get better. I haven't finished it yet, but despite the sharp corners it's better than some widely published stuff I've read recently. I also remember reading (was it Columbine?) that if you get the in-jokes it's even better, but as a basic send-up of college it's got some nicely turned phrases.

[ related topics: Books ]

Had my first Amtrak experience on Friday, took the train down to Fresno. Left Oakland on-time, got into Fresno on-time, for about what gas costs, less time than it takes to drive it, and probably less than it would've taken to fly given airport security today. Passengers were an interesting mix, it's a cut above Greyhound, but the guy the conductor cut off from the alcohol was kinda unsettling. I'll be trying rail travel again, since they use equipment suited to each line I'd guess the Coast Starlight has a different feel from the San Joaquin, but this particular run was cheap transportation, not about the romance and allure of rail travel.

And the Amtrak website sucks! Trying to check on the status of a train means a set of pull-down forms to select a date and time, which then returns an "Invalid Date Format" error message. And navigation is not tuned to the casual browser.

[ related topics: Bay Area Travel Trains ]

Remember when childhood involved actual learning, with construction of physical devices and uses of chemicals now considered too dangerous even for adults? Go check out Lindsay's Technical Books, reprints of old classics.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books Machinery ]

U.S. Mint ceases production of dollar coin. Duh. Do we really have to go to Washington and use the railgun of clue implantation? The only thing they did differently from the Susan B. Anthony dollar was make the edges unridged. I've probably spent less of these as quarters than I did the Susie B.s, but they made my wallet bulky, they still required visual ID to tell from quarters, and they were named after a traitor who sold out her people. Of course they didn't catch on. Sheesh.

[ related topics: Politics Currency ]

I mentioned talking with the guy who built the solar powered bed last year at Burning Man. At the time, along with recommending Innovation First motor controllers, he'd mentioned that the only arc welders he thought worth buying were from Miller. Yesterday Kiki forwarded her "favorite on-line porn": Miller's TIG welders, specifically the Syncrowave 250 DX, although in conjunction with a torch to pre-heat, the Millermatic 135 MIG setup looks like it might fit my needs, and might even (barely) run off my Honda EU2000 for portable pedal-powered vehicle fabrication.

[Edit 2004-08-11 per request from Miller to keep the links updated appropriately]

[ related topics: Burning Man Robotics Fabrication ]

Speaking of subs no! not that kind again(sheesh you should all find an outlet for those feelings) anyhow it looks like Kentucky wants a sub to to sink casino boats. Now I'm not saying Mr. Burch's fetish for sinking casino boats is any less valid than what your all thinking but do tax payers have to share the burden of his kinks?

[ related topics: Politics moron Boats Machinery ]

Do you ever fantasize about having your own sub. No! not that kind. I'm talking about the kind that you can ride.... and direct... in an adventure of exploration and go deep into places you have never gone before... Subs like this ...oh yeah baby.

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Sexual Culture Cool Science California Culture Boats ]

Modern kid's names disturb me. On Wednesdays we play soccer near a playground. I can handle most of 'em, but hearing some frantic mom trying to get control of "Destiny" sends me for a loop.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Dan's Life Sports ]

I got an email today from Salon telling me that they were going to auto-renew my subscription. I went to user preferences and turned off the recurring billing. It's time to stop beating that horse, they've run out of ideas, and rehashed political commentary that's available for free elsewhere does not "premium content" make.

[ related topics: New Economy ]

Sun sucks. The StarOffice 6.0 Beta that Charlene's been using expired. They sent me a patch notice, which I forgot about. Today Charlene fired up StarOffice and couldn't work. I went to the URL sent in the patch notice. It says "Portions of sun.com are temporarily undergoing maintenance. During this interruption, these service-related sites are available:". I go search for "StarOffice patch". I get a single StarOffice 5.2 sell sheet. I go to www.StarOffice.com and click on "Download". It pops up a new window saying "Sorry! We couldn't find your document."

I like this product. I've used it enough that now I want to buy this product. But Sun won't freakin' let me. A clue: If your hardware is massively overpriced and your OS is getting its clock cleaned by a free alternative, consider making the products you sell that don't suck available to potential customers. Your shareholders will thank you. Off to go see if OpenOffice has Windows binaries to get Charlene working again.

[ related topics: Microsoft New Economy Work, productivity and environment ]

David Steinberg visits Hank Wolny's Foot Fetish, which shares space with the very cool Felicity's Fetiche (which I'm sure I've mentioned before, but can't find right now).

[ related topics: Erotic ]

Group hugs increase profits. I'd think that would be highly coworker specific...

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Anti-news: Psychology Today claims wine experts influenced by bottle, unable to tell red wine from white. I've wondered about this, and would like to figure a way to do a comparison on myself sometime to see what I can tell.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Wines and Spirits ]

Markoff, in the New York Times, claims Hailstorm is dead. Meanwhile, Microsoft is claiming it needs input on the direction of web services while pleading for charity from independent developers: "We bet the company on .Net, but we can't do it alone. We need your support". Dave Winer is claiming a post-mortem on hailstorm. Remembering the lessons from Men Against Fire, getting projectiles down-range keeps the heads of the enemy down and lets you move, and is the simplest fastest way to increase combat effectiveness. Fire and move. Anyone who thinks Microsoft has forgotten this isn't paying attention.

[ related topics: Business Dave Winer Microsoft Current Events Microsoft Hailstorm ]

Meta-blogging usually bores me, but today when John Hiler asks "Are Bloggers Journalists?", my feathers got ruffled. My response in general has been "no, and thank the deities for that!" He uses as an example his piece on "Google Bombs", which got mangled into the BBC abomination "Google hit by link bombers". A short pause here while we remember who the professional journalists are. He then goes on to link to a whole bunch of codes of ethics of various professional journalism organizations. I'll bet that on any given day I can disqualify at least one piece in the New York Times or the Washington Post under at least half of the terms laid out in those standards.

Yes, sometimes personal publishers don't track down all sides to the story, but don't go spreading this bullshit attitude that somehow the professionals are doing anything better than we, collectively, are. Remember, somewhere there's a terrorist or a drug kingpin reading the paper saying "This technology article is really interesting and full of facts."

Reading further, he proposes a blogging code of ethics that I think are rules that we should assume is what everyone is publishing under:

1. Amateur Journalists are inherently biased.
2. Caveats are critical online.
3. Blogging doesn't magically make you immune from Libel and Slander.

To which I would add:

4. The only difference between a weblogger and a professional journalist is that they're willing to make pests of themselves and track down original sources. As a personal publisher, you should be prepared to do the same.

[ related topics: Weblogs Ethics Journalism and Media ]

Via Metafilter, truth in advertising on eBay: "Polk Audio Computer Speakers- Man they suck!".

[ related topics: Music Consumerism and advertising ]

Google has SOAP APIs. Up to a thousand queries a day for free.

[ related topics: Web development Cool Technology ]

I'm starting to get hyped about Burning Man, and even though I'm in a slight cash crunch right now (friends in need and all that) and should be just fine with what I've got and stuff I'm building, the allure of new toys is strong. A few days ago in the Jer zone there was a link to Christian Jedinat, who sells juggling novelties, including flaming balls. But he's overseas. I did a little searching, and discovered that Serious Juggling, in Oregon, has a fire and knives section, including flamimg balls. Might be worth a couple minutes a week to bring my skills back to the point where walking around with flaming balls would be easy.

[ related topics: Burning Man Dan's Life Pyrotechnics ]

Via Need To Know, captioning kitschy Christian art.

[ related topics: Religion Humor Art & Culture ]

This proves you can tell stories well without great animation skills. Start with this one so that you get the lore in the proper order. They get progressively more funny.

[ related topics: Humor Animation Writing ]

America's new weapon on terror. Yes it's a sandwich

[ related topics: Invention and Design Current Events Monty Python Guns ]

For Diane: Via Anita Rowland, Raggy Rat Rucksacks.

Meuon whipped up a Buzzword Bing card generator.

Charlene and I watched Airborne last night. I'd seen it in Chattanooga, and remembered single framing some of the stunts to improve my footwork. It only came out in '94, and now I'm amazed at just how much the skating has aged. Part of that is the influence of skateboarding on inline skating, and how much grinds have become a part of the scene, but a lot of it is just how much the inline skate folks had to learn from ice skating and the old style side-by-side truck roller skate crowds. And the plot... well... the Onion suggests that:

Airborne's poster boasts that it is "The World's Only Rock 'N' Rollerblade Movie," and despite the power and influence of the Rock 'N' Rollerblade movement, it's likely to hold onto that distinction for a while.

[ related topics: Movies Chattanooga Skating ]

Sigh. Taxes appear to be over. Better and worse than I expected. TurboTax beats the heck out of that lame-ass system I used last year. Assorted unplanned expenses this month and last mean I'm procrastinating on running out and buying the D60 (which wouldn't be so bad, except that it implies a large CompactFlash card, and another flash, and the remote unit for the flashes and...).

[ related topics: Politics Sports ]

Hey, Alec chose to do a school project involving clay animators. This afternoon we're looking for biographical information on Walter Williams (of Mr. Bill fame) or Eric Fogel (of Celebrity Deathmatch) that goes past the basic filmographies we've found on the web, but if you've got info on any other clay animator (aside from Nick Parks, whom they've already got stuff on), Alec would appreciate it.

[ related topics: Children and growing up History ]

Wow! a new cable channel 24hrs day 7 days a week about nothing but games. G4 launches April 24th. There is a story about it on the CNN website

[ related topics: Games Invention and Design ]

This one is for Dan so he doesn't feel like the only strident child hating reprobate on the planet.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor ]

I can't remember if this has been seen around here. The Bible retold in Legos with ratings!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

I've been shopping for a cheap digital camera since my Canon S100 seems lost in Canon's repair facility (I sent it in, didn't pay for the repairs, they were supposed to send it back, I moved and haven't seen or heard from them since). I'm going to spend the requisite hour on hold today trying to track it down, but in the meantime, OfficeMax has the Olympus D370 for $119. From what I can tell, except for using SmartMedia cards and only having 2MB of RAM initially, the D370 is a decent entry-level digital camera. My experience with the S100 is that any digital that costs less than my VW bus is going to provide about the same quality as a point-and-shoot. And I always used 640x480 mode on the S100 as my images were always destined for the web and only provided for illustration purposes. Thus the 1.3megapixel CCD in the D370 is adequate and cheaper than what Canon wanted to clean the beer and sand out of my S100!

I'd like to supplement the cheap digital with a decent manual 35mm for the shots that really matter. Anyone have suggestions there?

[ related topics: Photography Beer ]

One of the frustrations of this year's taxes was realizing how little of what I gave to worthy causes was deductible. Scarleteen, that wonderful sex information site for teens affiliated with Scarlet Letters needs some money so that it can become a non-profit so that our money can go much further when we help support it. Go. Now. Help Scarleteen.

[ related topics: Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Currency ]

Yay Kiki! It's official, Egeria is the keyhole project at this year's Burning Man. Now she's just got to figure out how to make a 10' copper bowl... And I'm going to be trading out spotting duty on The Cauldron, if anyone else wants to spend an evening reminding people that their hair is flammable, more spotters are better. Besides you get to bask in the glow of a cool project for the investment of a few hours of being a host. And playing with fire.

[ related topics: Burning Man Art & Culture Pyrotechnics ]

Via Doc Searls, more evidence of the suitability of patents to protect intellectual property Patent 6,368,227: Method of swinging on a swing:

A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other.

Find published prior art. Or start paying license fees for your kids.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Children and growing up moron ]

Without comment or context: Jarvis Products makes devices such as the automatic hog splitter and the bung ring expander.

Some musings on the paradox that all software sucks, some software sucks more, but no software sucks less. The full thread isn't available 'cause the denizens of the Monastery are pretty good about "X-No-Archive"ing their posts.

[ related topics: Humor Software Engineering ]

Yay! Supreme Court strikes down ban on virtual child pornography. It's hard to tell from this article, it seems like they didn't make any judgements on the illegality of the act portrayed (which would have opened up some really interesting cans of worms), but this skirmish in the attack on overly broad speech restrictions seems to have gone in freedom's favor.

[ related topics: Privacy Sexual Culture Civil Liberties ]

Damn. I've been wondering how long this would take. Looks like someone's taken the Counter-Strike concept and updated it to use the more modern Quake 3 engine: Urban Terror.

[ related topics: Games ]

Yesterday, /. linked to a Scientific American article on the death of D.I.Y. science. But it's not unique to science, on my Fresno visits I get exposed to Armenian food. Since I haven't found basterma (or pasterma, often with a trailing "t"), a spiced dried beef, locally, I've been looking at ways to make it. I've found two differing recipes for chaimen (one, two), the spice mix used to season it, both of which end up with off flavors. I've found several dead-trees references, but none as specific as those web pages. And as we've seen with the changes in The Joy of Cooking, there's a whole lot of kitchen lore we've passed off to factories (although apparently first edition reprints are available!). Do it yourself everything seems to be tapering off.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Food ]

Also via /. (discussion here), one of the reasons for going to college is to surround yourself with peers interested in learning, to share ideas with them. Nope. At Georgia Tech it's an honor code violation to discuss some classwork with fellow students.

[ related topics: Education ]

Blogrolling seems like a kinda good idea to help tie the community together.

[ related topics: Community ]

Alright! you guys have been posting way too sparsely. So I am punishing you with this David Hasselhoff video. It's very hard to keep a straight face while watching.

[ related topics: David Hasselhoff ]

Majestic was a different kind of game. I had planned on trying it myself but lacked the time when it launched. The postmortem isn't very kind but I hope it doesn't discourage developers from taking chances and trying wacky new ideas, less we all be condemed to play first person shooters till lemon-soaked paper napkins become available again.

[ related topics: Games Invention and Design Douglas Adams ]

A flash game where you hide your stash before your parent bust you...dude

[ related topics: Games Bay Area ]

Still not posting eh? This page will really hurt you. Fire this baby up in a crowded office and anyone that doesn't recoil is obviously not human.

Petronius forwarded on a short article linking Noam Chomsky to Holocaust revisionists that... I'm not sure how to interpret. It's too short and too vague to be very conclusive, and I'm definitely a Chomsky detractor, but... well, submitted for comment, perhaps I'll try to organize my thoughts a little better this weekend.

[ related topics: Religion Political Correctness ]

When I started Flutterby, I wanted to make it a site that I'd like to read. I've turned on the ability of a few more people to post to the front page, hopefully they'll try to turn Flutterby into the site they'd like to read. It's an experiment, I'm hoping that the Flutterby feel will remain, that people with more to say than this site can hold will maintain or start their own blogs, and this place will evolve to become more collaborative and surprise me. I'll probably have to add main page filtering and a few other features, all part of the evolution.

Despite John's assertion that it's a weblog, Flutterby is going non-weblog directions, and it's time that I let it become the community I think it should be and put up a vastly more personal site elsewhere.

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson Dan's Life Weblogs Flutterby Meta Community ]

I'm jealous: Diane went to see Annie Sprinkle. I saw a quick presentation by Annie at the Sex Worker's Film Festival a while ago, and keep wavering between "she's brilliant" and "she's a ditz with an annoying voice".

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Movies ]

A Glossary of Terms for critiquing Science Fiction. I'd like to add a few like it was better than cats or sucks asteroids through capillary tubes but in general seems to cover a wide spectrum of expression.

[ related topics: Astronomy Writing ]

Via Journeyman Onanist, studies which claim Ecstasy is harmful are apparently flawed. Party on, raver dudes.

[ related topics: Drugs ]

In light of the recent idiocy of the recording and movie industries, who could solve all their problems with a few well-placed civil suits against individuals, I was actually cheered that the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers pressed Amazon.com to alter its marketing of used books, to put the new books first. And I was confused by Tim O'Reilly's affirmation of Jeff Bezos' statements on the matter. Now Eric Flint provides some compelling numbers that suggest his book sales went up when he put them on the net.

I'm a person who feels kinda guilty about sharing paper books, because I like to see artists get their due, but it almost sounds like with a few well placed pushes shareware could come back into the limelight.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Books Movies Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

I am trying to find the perfect 'bedroom system' - built in - like book shelves behind your head, hidden compartments, angled back for pillows, side tables-stand, 'captains bed' drawers under the bed (- instead of the bloody box spring which serves no purpose I can see - and wastes space) and such.

I have about a 12 or 13 foot wall - I want - you know - contemporary, cool, well done. Wood or laminate or maybe even some chrome or mirrors, with subtle lighting built in .

Across the room I have a half height wall where I want drawers and a hidden TV that rises up out the furniture at the push of a button so I can see easily, but disappears by pressing 'another button' when I don't want it.

Any ideas where I might find this? What else is possible in such a system?

[ related topics: Books Technology and Culture Space & Astronomy Television Furniture ]

I consider myself somewhat of an Ellison fan. While I have never read any of his books. he's written some of the best Star Trek & Twighlight Zone episodes to ever air. I think he saved the Babylon 5 series but when you find crap like this it's shock to the brain.

Among the terms of the settlement, Critical Path will develop software that allows Ellison immediately to delete unauthorized postings of his works of which he becomes aware.

Holy Crap! I'm in the twiglight zone. Stupid precedence is very very very bad thing. Now any ambulance(errr red herring) chasing liar(errr lawyer) can point to this settlement and say seee censorship is a good thing. I'm not saying people should be able to post copyright material on the net but giving people big red delete buttons is worse.

[ related topics: Business Books New Economy Star Trek Free Speech Software Engineering moron Space & Astronomy Law Civil Liberties ]

On this morning's hike I met Mark Wrabel, who had a recording session with a thirty-some-odd piece orchestra yesterday to finish up the soundtrack for Hindenburg. He doesn't have a distribution plan yet, but this sounds like it's going to be a piece to see. Compared to Titanic,

Hindenburg is shorter, funnier, and produced without the pesky constraints of trained actors and a multimillion dollar budget.

[ related topics: Humor Movies ]

In the Scary Devil Monastery, William Browning Spencer's Résumé With Monsters was described by someone as as accurate a portrayal of office politics and interactions as Bruce Bethke's Headcrash. Pretty high praise, so I picked it up. That's true for life as a temp perhaps, but more than that it's a reasonably paced homage to H.P. Lovecraft, where madness results from the gradual perception of reality, as the veil of comfort we impose on ourselves to make the universe makes sense fades in the face of reality. Not a great book, but one that stands out from the dross enough to make it a cult classic. From White Wolf Publishing, who explicitly asks that you pass it around. Who's next?

[ related topics: Books Work, productivity and environment ]

Hey Kids! it's time to get ready for Cinco de Mayo. And what would your dream party favor be? Why a talking Osama Pinata of course. Actualy my favorite would be a John Ashcroft Pinata and I did look for one but to no avail.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Charlene and I went to see Amélié on Saturday evening. We were both disappointed. Long blocks of exposition and narration that were peripheral to the story overshadowed the moments of brilliant editing and directing. Maybe this was an expectation management issue, but it isn't on my list of "must see".

[ related topics: Movies ]

What do online gamers want? A good article about this fickle bunch.It would seem the only proven demographic is hardcore D&D nerds.

[ related topics: Games Software Engineering Marketing ]

There must be more to the story. There's been a bill introduced to make it film someone for a "lewd or lascivious purpose" without that person's consent. This bill would also push websites with "material deemed harmful to minors" off to a ghetto domain. But my real confusion came from:

Landrieu said she wrote the bill after hearing from Wilson, a Monroe, Louisiana, homemaker who found hidden video cameras above her bed and in her shower nearly four years ago.

Wilson found she could not pursue criminal charges against the voyeur because secret video taping, unlike audio surveillance, is illegal in only a handful of states.

So trespassing isn't a crime in Louisiana? How'd those cameras get there?

[ related topics: Photography Privacy Sexual Culture ]

Given that the Segway lobbying machine is going to override concerns about motor vehicles on sidewalks and get bills passed to allow it, it seems to me that building a 4 wheeled version with similar leaning control could be a profitable endeavour, and probably end up with lower energy consumption. I'm still a little unsure on all the details, but I've got some ideas...

[ related topics: Segway/Ginger/IT ]

California employers that provide free parking must compensate non-driving employees similarly. The law applies only to companies with more than 50 employees that also lease their parking, the California Air Resources Board Parking Cash-Out Law page has more details. I biked in this morning, and I'd settle for a shower.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment California Culture ]

"He told a telemarketer trying to sell him an alarm system that he was robbing the place but suggested the man call back later. "

He called telemarketers (attending a convention) at 5am - they hung up on him!

link here (no longer works).

Oh. My. Via RC3 and Genehack, umm... Well... Christie Kerr... oh, just follow the damned link.

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson Erotic Current Events Sports ]

Every once in a while I get a little depressed about the California situation. Land that costs 4 million bucks an acre. Dinky houses. Then markpasc.blog points to something like this: Breakfast Tuesday prepares for "Fillin' Finley" Stadium religious rally. Do these guys spend their weekends brainstorming on ways to make Chattanooga less desirable to technological development?

[ related topics: California Culture Chattanooga ]

MetaFilter fall down go boom. At first I didn't know what to think. Then I thought Matt was doing the server upgrade he mentioned in MetaTalk (down, naturally). I start looking around for info. Then I noticed that Jason Levine's site, q.queso.com, is also down. Hmm. A.wholelottanothing.org, down. Megnut.com, down. No mention on kottke.org. Haughey.com is up, but just as informative as always.



I suppose I could email him since haughey.com is up, but commiserating seems like more fun.

Scoble's friend says finding key workers is harder, which matches my experience; the opportunities are starting to appear again. Bay Area home sales appear to be up. It seems there are signs that perhaps the recession is over, and yet... I still see way too many ex-vice presidents of web development firms that aren't serving lattés. I'm going to dance out this limb a bit and predict that we haven't seen the recovery yet.

[ related topics: New Economy California Culture ]

Roar! looks like Suzanne Somers has a stealth product line for girls that really want to buff up. Ok so the above is fiction. Dan and I were having lunch yesterday one of the conversation tangents was about the variety of porn spam that shows up these days. What kinda spam makes you giggle?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Spam Coyote Grits Monty Python Television ]

I'm going to steal liberally from an entry from RC3. There's a Salon interview with Robert Young Pelton, best known for writing The World's Most Dangerous Places, that's a must read to make sense of the news that we're getting out of Afghanistan, and is a wonderful critique of modern jouralism.

[ related topics: Writing Current Events Journalism and Media ]

Naked Wood Nymphs For AshKKKroft. Relatedly, Jesse Helms is scheduled to undergo open heart surgery. I assume that this is news because it means that they've finally found that he actually has one.

Over on /. there is an interesting discussion going on about the duplication of music CDs. Somebody has posited that the existence of a generic "duplication" device (which allowed anybody to duplicate anything) would destroy our [economic] society. Others are poking holes in his assumption. Some interesting points being made.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Music New Economy Consumerism and advertising ]

Via /., a multimedia player application - RadLight - is now not only detecting, but uninstalling software intended to detect and remove bundled spyware.

This practice of installing and uninstalling software that is not part of the core package is becoming a disturbing new trend. Somebody needs to stomp on this, and quick.

[ related topics: Privacy Ethics Software Engineering security ]

You Bay Area dwellers may want to make a special place in your schedule to stop at Fairfax Scoop next time you're headed to the Marin beaches or trails. Fresh ice cream and cones, made in the shop. The vanilla honey lavender is amazing. Odd flavors like avocado still work. The cones are good and strong without being tough.

[ related topics: Food Bay Area California Culture ]

David Steinberg looks at Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. Yet another one to add to my way too long already reading list.

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

A review of Sex and Humor: Selections from the Kinsey Institute sounds like that book would make a good alternative to traveling to Bloomington Indiana to see the exhibit from the Kinsey Institute at the Indiana University School of Fine Arts gallery.

[ related topics: Humor Books Erotic Sexual Culture ]

<giggle> ... Drunks around the world

[ related topics: Humor ]

So Long INS

"Sept. 11 taught us that immigration and border security issues are too important to be ignored and mishandled," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass

you gotta wonder how effective the solution will be.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

This explains a lot to me. Stolen from Cam

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett ]

Via Need To Know, someone's taking Counter-Strike a little too seriously. Wish I could read the captions.

[ related topics: Games ]

While teaching Charlene how to inline skate, I've been working on my own moves, practicing my single-footed transitions, braking and maneuvering in close quarters when we get on a hill or surface that's beyond her current abilities. In between helping Alec with his homework, he and I have been talking about programming, he's trying to learn. And a few days ago I loaned a camera to John, who's been taking photographs professionally for probably two decades longer than I've been alive, and tried to walk him through quickly learning an interface that he's not familiar with, even though it was just controlling processes that he knows cold.

All of this has made me much more conscious of the process of learning, and of just how damned hard teaching is. It's an interesting experience to remember the hours of practicing to get the coordination of lifting heel and toe to be able to do smooth 180 degree turns at any speed while providing stability to someone else which now come easily, or to flash back on my first experiences typing in listings to play Lunar Lander on a KIM-1, and wondering why it didn't work, it was only one or two numbers I'd mistyped, after all. No great revelations, just a reminder that sometimes I forget that few things come easily. And that I haven't been learning nearly enough recently.

[ related topics: Nostalgia Photography Dan's Life Software Engineering Skating Education ]

[ related topics: Food Embedded Devices ]

Do you suspect your little ones are smoking Lucifer's tobaco? Are they idolizing other drug users like Geroge W. Bush & PrinceWilliam Harry? Here are the warning signs of drug use. It seems to be pretty informative except I suspect the author has some latent fantasies involving fire hoses and children.

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

Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh seems to think video games should not enjoy the same protection as something like a movie. I wonder if this guy is related to any other infamous limbaughs. This stupid ruling is destined to be overturned by a higher court but hold your nose until then.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Movies moron Law ]

We can all relax now. The energy crisis has been solved and hey! it's even easier than cold fusion in your living room. Perhaps they will spend some of that Nobel prize money on their website. Link and some sarcasum stolen from Tom over at Monkeyspeak.

[ related topics: Cool Science moron Currency ]

Charlene and I went up to Petaluma to see the Ruth Bernhard (Google search)exhibit at the Barry Singer Gallery. One of my problems with the "art scene" is personality often overshadows accomplishment. As we looked through some very nice images, but then looked at $5k price tags, I was struck by how I could spend a hell of a lot less to get images that would provide me at least as much enjoyment and support currently practicing artists.

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture ]

There have been times my attitudes have been referred to as "right wing asshole" by my father, so I tend towards the "personal responsibility" label fairly often. I'm also wary of involuntary commitment rules, I'm loathe to offer meddling relatives the opportunity to throw someone in treatment because they don't like a lifestyle. I have no idea what the solutions are, but Matier and Ross tell of a homeless man in San Francisco who's been picked up 128 times, and when given the option between jail and rehab, chooses jail because he'll be out in half the time:

"They'd be dogging me too much in a program. I'm too old for that," Sanchez told us when we visited him in county lockup.

When someone like this is spreading feces and urine all over a business district, what do you do to prevent reoccurences?

[ related topics: Politics Dan's Life Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Bay Area ]

An interesting discussion of abstraction, and how it is used it to deal with complexity, and where have all the tinkerers gone - I think they watch too much TV and go to to progressive schools. http://www.disenchanted.com/dis/technology/prefab.html

[ related topics: Children and growing up Technology and Culture Movies Television Community ]

Argentina is melting - I am suprised there are no armed rebellions.

This could happen here, easily. Another reason to keep a lot of cash on hand, and lots of ammo around (I guess I'll need to buy a gun then too) - the most valuable thing to have in times like that are bottled water and a gun. Look at it this way: you can't get money to buy food, your family is hungry, and you can't get paid. What do you do?

And the lies continue: "The government continues to release statistics indicating that inflation has risen by 3%... 4%... a trip down the grocery store aisles tells a different story. Everything has risen in price. Most items by around 35 percent, others by much more..."

Time to re-read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand http://aynrand.org/ - Who is John Galt?

Ziffle

[ related topics: Objectivism Food moron Sociology Mathematics Travel Guns Currency ]

Sundays, Chattanooga attempts a 'new age' farmers market at the Cricket Pavilion. Dan and I filmed this place back in the 90's before it was all rebuilt into a stadium and a pavilion. Besides climbing a short tower and mounting an antenna, chilling in the pavilion listening to a blues bank and eating sushi (from Sushi Nabe) was the highlight of the weekend. Organic veggies, spices and more permeated the air. The smell of the strawberries alone was worth it. The kicker was the admission.. not that I care about the 'buck', but I talked to the guy at the door, and found at the biggest reason to charge admission was to 'keep the riff-raff out'. It's a public place, paid for by private money donations and lots of our tax dollars. It just irks me, and next time I go, I'm going to look really really grubby, use lots of small change for the door and see if they let me in.. If he'd have said it goes to the band (and they were good) I would have had a different response.

[ related topics: Politics Invention and Design Chattanooga Pop Culture Currency ]

Quote of the day: "There are a lot of off-by-one errors in that code, but I won't tell you who the one is", a programmer (not me) who shall remain anonymous.

[ related topics: Quotes Software Engineering ]

Via Metafilter (discussion here) Keep Your CEO Out Of Grad School.

Think formal education helps in business? Think again. Chief executives who went to graduate school don't seem to make any more money for their shareholders than those with no advanced degree. MBAs may actually do worse than those with no advanced degree, although they fare better than lawyers.

[ related topics: Business Education ]

Today was a beautiful day and Terri agreed to visit Desoto Falls and Little River Falls with me. It was a day for leaps of faith. These young'uns were doing the 40-45ft leap from Little River Falls for the first time. I was talking about commitment with Terri. Sure, it's dangerous, but there's that exhilaration of falling...

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Chattanooga ]

I am getting megabytes of this damned Klez virus. If you know someone who is still using Outlook, please do the world a favor by reducing their computer to crumpled bits. Collateral damage to the user will be ignored. Thank you.

[ related topics: Microsoft moron Current Events ]

Bush calls for insurance to cover mental health disorders like any physical ailment. If you've helped anyone with pre-existing conditions shop for health insurance lately, you know that having non-functioning thyroid or similar conditions requiring constant medication isn't nearly the deal killer that any evidence of mental health disorder is. So how is this not going to have the net effect of making more people uninsured?

[ related topics: Politics Health ]

Via Daze Reader, over at Hoot Island a step-by-step guide to making your own home porn videos, including ways to coax a reluctant lover into being filmed:

Offer her points (but on net, not gross; no reason to be stupid about this).

Let her do the audio commentary.

Do not, however, offer to let her best friend stand in for the close-up penetration shots.

[ related topics: Humor Erotic ]

A New York Times article examines Harris Mirkin's assertion that the panic over pedophilia fit a pattern of public response to female sexuality and homosexuality, both of which were once considered deviant.

"I don't think it's something where we should just clamp our heads in horror," he said of pedophilia. "In 1900, everybody assumed that masturbation had grave physical consequences; that didn't make it true." "These things that you're sure of," he added, "you really ought to check out and test."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture ]

Frontier House is amazing and must see for all you Survivor fans or backwood Libertarian nuts. Really great TV! Basicly it's 3 families go to montana for 5 months and live on homsteads with 1850s tech only!

[ related topics: Politics Libertarian Technology and Culture Theater & Plays Television ]

Displays of the Ten Commandments in three Hamilton County court buildings are not religious but are secular reminders for citizens to obey the law, county attorneys told a federal judge yesterday.

http://www.tennessean.com/loca...791597.shtml?Element_ID=16791597

A local TV show had a debate/discussion about this one pro one against - both were religious 'scholars'

Ever wonder what they mean when they say 'Dr.' such and such - what did the study?

Since there are no gods, you have to aks yourself if they are all nuts.

But since the 10 Commandments are not religious, I guess we are ok.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Technology and Culture Law Television Chattanooga Community ]

Driving along America's highways and byways, I've wondered where this kind of art comes from. The art cars are neat as well..

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

Zimbabwe Declares National Disaster Over Food Shortages

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAMUBMWN0D.html

_...the World Food Program says farm disruptions caused by a government program to seize white-owned farms for landless blacks has also contributed to the problem._

Lets see, kill all the farmers or take away their land - then there is no food - any connection? Until they stop trying for human rights and grant individual rights, this will never stop. Kill the thinkers, and you can't eat. Shades of Atlas Shrugged.

[ related topics: Objectivism Food Software Engineering moron Civil Liberties ]

When I was a kid my grandparents rented a cottage out in Cutchogue, Long Island every summer. The summer I learned to sailboard, Pequash Bay was completely overrun by jellyfish, which made for a great incentive to stay up. In a similar shift in the cycle of life, the beaches of Marin are currently covered by velella velellas jellyfish.

[ related topics: Nostalgia Nature and environment Bay Area Current Events ]