Flutterby™! From 2003-04-01 to 2003-04-30

Finally we are getting some relief from the "other kind of terrorist" of course I am talking about telemarketers. The do not call list will not be active until October so here is a counterscript to help defend yourselves until then. Huzzah!

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising Law Enforcement California Culture ]

K, postings have been down so you know what that means. yep punishment link time again. Don't follow this link if you are afraid of punks,hamsters,teddy bears,vikings, the words "gay" or "bar" and certainly not if you lack a sense of humour.

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture punishment link ]

DARPA has issued a challenge. Get an autonomous vehicle from LA to Las Vegas in under 10 hours following a specified all-terrain route. There has been some discussion elsewhere, but I'll leave it said that the solution is not in more accurate position determination (i.e., better GPS). Anyone else interested in a $1M?

[ related topics: Community Maps and Mapping ]

If you're in California, you can pre-register for the national Do Not Call registry. You can list up to 4 phone numbers (residential or mobile lines included, business phone lines excluded). The CA Atty Gen'l will deliver the list once the national registry goes live in July 2003. (The "profit" part comes from the up-to-$11,000 you can petition for in small claims court if your number is on the list and they still call you come September...)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays California Culture ]

A pretty good review of the just released Red Hat 9.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

It's chance for some mirth and distraction from more serious concerns. Here are some jokes. Share your favorites in the comments.

Dan's secret identity

the whitespace programming language

Gnome goes closed source

the evil bit specification

The George Foreman Igrill

Top 100 April Fools Hoaxes

[ related topics: Coyote Grits Software Engineering Net Culture ]

Ever wanted to know the particulars of all those startup programs (in Windoze); what they do, what they're there for and whether you can safely remove or disable them? Pacman has the goods for what ails you.

[ related topics: User Interface Work, productivity and environment ]

Saw an interview last night on CNN (on TV, sorry, no link) about Warbloggers. It was interesting to see news media people talking about what they considered a new, cutting-edge medium. There was much skepticism (mostly on the part of the CNN talking head) about the authenticity of information in a 'blog and how does a reader know if information is correct. What he failed to understand that 'blogs create communities of trust. For instance, I give information gathered via Flutterby greater trust because I know the people who gathered the information and have significant trust in those sources (even if I disagree with the commentary). I actually put less faith in CNN!

[ related topics: Weblogs Technology and Culture Current Events Journalism and Media Television Community ]

Thi is gonna break Meuon's heart, 'cause Dori is already married, but Dori's new office is "a genuine 17' 1957 Airstream trailer..."

[ related topics: Flutterby Meta ]

Mark Morford asks: "is sodomy patriotic?". I think y'all know the answer to that one, especially given that Daze Reader yesterday linked to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article about a porn producer who's offered to send free porn to our troops which had this exchange:

"Do you realize," wrote Drummond, "that one of the reasons the radical Islamic movement so dislikes America is because of its tolerance of pornography? What kind of support will our troops find in Middle Eastern countries if the soldiers are seen as porn-starved trigger jockeys? Your effort will give new life to the allegation that we are not a nation of character, but instead of carnal compromise."

Aaron Gordon has not responded to interview requests about his campaign. But he did reply to Drummond's e-mail.

"With all due respect," he said, "if I were to change anything I did because the 'radical Islamic movement' does not approve of it, then I would have to forgo most of my beliefs in a free society, my way of life in a free society, and together, we would be forgoing the freedom of people who live in this society."

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Civil Liberties War Mark Morford ]

So last night I thought it'd be cool to slap together an NNTP interface to Flutterby. I built a small server that spoke what I thought were the essentials, pointed Mozilla at it, and... I've got group selection and stats working, for some reason Mozilla doesn't seem to like the format that my "HEAD" returns are in, so while it shows me that there are unread messages in the group, it won't show me the group. It also shows me my "215" response as a group. Anyone out there played with NNTP wanna help?

[ related topics: Flutterby Meta Open Source ]

While I'm geeking out this morning, who the heck thought it would be a good idea for Visual Studio .NET to occasionally (and apparently randomly) throw away event handling for forms controls?

[ related topics: Microsoft moron ]

In the tradition of Cassandra Claire's Very Secret Diaries of the Lord of the Rings comes Camelot: The Very Secret Diaries. I was led there by an entry on Utopia With Cheese that pointed to Mary Anne Mohanraj's first take on Arthur's Secret Diary.

[ related topics: Humor tolkien Mythology ]

Other people do the political better than I do. Lyn, over at Medley keeps good track of some of the ridiculousness that our current administration has been foisting off on us. But today I feel compelled to spew a bit.

Often the "who's the greater threat, Dubya or [Osama/Saddam/whoever]" argument comes up. Well, Al Qaeda has killed less than 5,000 Americans. CNN on LA smog says:

Recent studies link pollution to 1,500 to 5,000 premature deaths in the region annually. Researchers recently found that when particle pollution goes up, so, too, do hospitalizations for breathing and heart disorders.

Guess which administration has sued California to make it relax its clean air standards? Bingo.

I'll let you go search Medley for the whole "partial birth abortion" fiasco in which members of the administration have clearly said that the life of the mother is inconsequential, but...

So we discover that even if he's not succeeding, Dubya is indeed a threat. Then it comes out that Dubya wanted to take out Saddam before going after the Taliban. So it sure seems that not only are Dubya and his administration as much of a threat to my way of life as Osama bin Laden and his pals, our leaders really aren't interested in taking out even as clear a threat to me as Al Qaeda.

I think we need to finish in Iraq, but it's definitely time for us Californians especially to try to figure out how to get out from under this larger threat.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events California Culture ]

Building a model airplane using the radio from one of those matchbox-sized R/C cars.

[ related topics: Robotics Aviation Cool Technology Toys ]

Aaargh. I've been wanting to go a little further with electronics, so today I broke out my Atmel AVR development board, looked at the assembly language again, got lights blinking, then ran down to the local hobby shop for a Hitek HS85BB "Mighty micro", the cheapest servo they had in stock.

The spec sheet for this thing is great, it gives pin-outs, voltage ranges, and confirms what I thought: .9mS to 2.1mS +5V square wave every 20mS to select a position. "No problem", thinks I, and I code up a little interrupt routine on the AT90S1200, wire up a little harness to give me two wall warts, one for the servo at +5 and one for the developer board at +12 or so, with a common ground. Write the code with an extra counter to show me the LEDs blinking at a rate that looks right to me when divided by the counter (since I don't have a 'scope to check it in real-time), remove the counter, plug the servo in, and...

Noise. Jitters over a huge range. Large enough that I can't tell if I'm centering on anything.

My guess is that the wall wart is too noisy for the servo and I need to cobble up a battery pack and make sure the ground is common after the developer board power supply filtering. I've tried a pull-down resistor from the signal to the servo supply ground. I've tried all sorts of different delay values.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board, time to get a battery pack holder tomorrow.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Dan's Life Robotics ]

I'd planned to bike over to Bill's house for the hike today, got there fine, but some misunderstandings and Daylight Savings Time meant I cranked up the steep fire road to the top of Big Rock, then we did a fairly strenuous hike. I've got a serious burn going, which is good, 'cause I've been needing this for quite a while. Didn't feel guilty at all about a monster breakfast.

But the cool part is that the wildflowers are out, and the hills are dotted with colorful goodness.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Nature and environment ]

I'd seen computer simulations of flows by the local UTC SimCenter of the vortexes formed off the peaks of the local ridges, this was the best I've ever seen it for real, Early on a rainy Saturday morning the vortexes causes clouds to form right off the tips of the ridges. It was an incredible sight as the early morning risers at Fools Fest sat on the long porch and watched the weather evolve.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Chattanooga ]

Geek Link: Tagged Message Delivery Agent - Looks like a workable strategy and working code for several mail servers for reducing spam.. at least for now.

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

I was going to go see Divine Intervention last night. Based on the previews it looked like a satirical surreal violent love story. But scheduling made me miss that. Remembering Dylan's recommendation, I wandered down to the video store to get Shakes the Clown. Bobcat Goldthwait mostly drops the annoying whine, the movie is well edited, the story moves along in a much more coherent way than many films I've seen recently. No real laugh out loud moments, but it didn't drag hard either.

It's your basic surreal violent drunk clown cult film. I can't recommend it without reservations, but if you have a need to see clown-on-mime violence, or just want to see what clowns are like when they're not on stage, it's a reasonable take on the subject. If you see only one alcoholic clown movie this year, this is the one.

[ related topics: Movies Video Clowns ]

Via Borklog: Accordion Guy discovers that blogs save lives. Writes an ode to his new girlfriend on his weblog, reader contacts him to tell him that all may not be as it appears, soap opera follows. More power to living a well-exposed life, even if it's painful in the near-term.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Because a number of you have asked, here's how to build a Compact Flash Linux Install for Embedded Applications. Like, for instance, if you wanted to use a Via Eden board to build a silent media player.

[ related topics: Open Source Robotics Embedded Devices Embedded Devices - Via Eden Embedded Devices - Linux ]

Okay, I wanted a lighter-weight way to say the Flutterby Wiki could have something on this, without making a huge italicized link. The little looking glass icon is the new Flutterby way of saying "more here". I need to come up with some CSS way to differentiate links as well, but I'd appreciate it if y'all could give me some feedback on that.

[ related topics: Flutterby Meta ]

Saved for regular reference, because I'm starting to want a few more advanced mountain biking techniques, especially here in the land of 15MPH fire road limits where I often find myself taking the rockiest sections of the trail for the challenge: How To Ride Trials.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bicycling ]

A true triumph of style over substance from the Telegraph of London: a curiously mannerly obituary for Chemical Ali.

[ related topics: History Current Events Journalism and Media ]

From the 6^th street area south of Market in San Francisco, I noticed this juxtaposition. "One of these things is not like the other..."

[ related topics: Humor Photography Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

I tried to exercise restraint. Waited a day. But in the end I stole this one from Jay: Brits consider using laser guided concrete against Iraq. The idea is that if you take out the explosive payload and replace it with concrete you get more localized destruction. But what kept running through my mind was "I bet that'll hit them like a ton of bricks." Sorry.

[ related topics: Current Events War ]

This page on Font World has me really wishing I could read German. Apparently, I have to be registered to download the fonts. (Snagged from Daze Reader.)

[ related topics: Erotic Typography Graphic Design ]

Just when I thought that over-the-top self-parody had been done too much, I got this in my inbox:

It is with heart full of hope that I write to seek your assistance on the subject below.I am Mr. Bernie Ebbers the former Chief Executive, WORLD COM, I got your contact address from the chambers of commerce and tourism and I was convinced of your excellent reputation and trustworthiness towards your business relationship worldwide.

I don't know whether to be pissed off at the spam, or applaud.

[ related topics: Dan's Life New Economy Spam moron ]

I've been quietfor a while.. had moved the Fender computer speakers up the the apartment where I rarely got to turn them up to 25 percent.. For various reasons it was time to move them back to the Virtual Building.. get some work done. Cranked 'em up at 3am.. Techno/Trance LOUD - And got into a groove I had not been into in months. The smell hit me, something was warm.. no.. something was hot. The amp (already fan cooled with a huge heat sink) on the Fenders was toasty warm. Having just seen Apocolypse Now Redux the smell made me think: I love the smell of hot amps in the morning! . I have determined that music under certain conditions is a drug and much be treated as a mood altering, behavior altering drug.. ie: Loud fast music can be used as speed - Soft new age or acoustical ambient is a calming downer.

[ related topics: Drugs Music Work, productivity and environment ]

The Surveillance Camera Players conducts free tours of cameras in Manhattan.. protesting eroding privacy..Which I applaude, yet I'm guilty.. we have a camera on our front door that also catches glimpses of the hookers, crack dealers.. and decent people walking down E. Main to work. I point it out to the scum.. 'politely' telling them they are on camera, and they stay away from the front of our building. Are we justified? (note, there is currentlly no recorder or monitor plugged in..)

[ related topics: Photography Privacy Coyote Grits Current Events Work, productivity and environment ]

If nothing else, I just have to be tickled that the war (and CBS) has brought us this quote:

"History... is a lot like pornography"

[ related topics: Quotes Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Just a tired mixed message which I'm sure you've all seen better examples of, at the bookstore just north of the Metreon. Been busy, but wanted an update of some sort. Worked from home yesterday to get stuff done, but of course that's when the "critical error that looked like a software probelm but was really a user issue" cropped up, so I spent time on the phone ironing that out.

And I promise you an update on the "my life is like an Adam Sandler movie" comment that some of you wrote to me about; no, it's not bad, but it is requiring some adjustments.

Other than simply parroting the latest "if you run Windows the world can format your hard drive" warning from /. I haven't had much to say, so carry on and I should get back into the swing of things in a bit.

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

Okay, one software engineering comment. I remember being really excited about discovering Finite State Machines. It was while coding up an "is this a valid MS-DOS filename" application, and a table driven solution reduced the problem to a tight loop and an easily modified and understood array. But do we have to give them a new buzzword name to sell them? The mostly content-free /. review of Practical Statecharts in C/C++ seems to indicate that not only has computer science teaching not improved much since I quit (and we'll leave off the number of alleged "software developers" who think that systems analysis is superfluous), people find it necessary to wrap up old ideas in new buzzwords to keep their consulting businesses going.

[ related topics: Books Invention and Design Software Engineering ]

This month(?)'s Ask John feature over at Anime Nation has a good editorial response to the question "why does hentai exist?", which was followed by an even better discussion in their forums.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Animation ]

Finished Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports, and we're going to go (with a few boys in tow) to the book signing on Saturday evening down at Fort Mason. Recommended. I'd wondered about the politics behind Robot Wars and Battle Bots, I'd heard that the founder had gotten pushed out, and I'd always wondered why Survival Research Labs wasn't more involved. This book told that narrative, was a quick read, inspiring, talked about the philosophical rift between the combat robots community and the FIRST folks, and pointed out that remote control ain't all there is. Well worth a read.

[ related topics: Books Robotics Bay Area Community ]

The next time someone goes on about "should weblogs adhere to the same standards as professional journalists?", I've got another point to add to my "hell no!" stance: Both Sgt Stryker's Daily Briefing and Weird Ass Shit had links (SSDB entry and discussion, WAS entry and discussion) to The New York Times editorial: The News We Kept To Ourselves, which ends:

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

So Eason Jordan chose to just pimp the Baath party all those years rather than pull out and say "this is so horrible that we can't condone what's going on there". Instead, apparently, it was more reasonable to just keep feeding the entertainment from Baghdad. I'm not sure that's any less disgusting than what Saddam Hussein stands accused of.

And I'm not sure this article is any less disgusting than the "war is over" statement from Mohammed Al-Douri.

[ related topics: Weblogs Current Events Journalism and Media War ]

The new Trailer is out and the film looks like it will be a lot of fun. This is (of course) the kind of film you expect to WOW you with the fantasy and special effects it can spew. Warning the trailer is 100+ MB compressed.

[ related topics: Movies Cool Technology ]

The levels of gloating and whining are pretty high right now, so I offer some sarcastic humor to help take the edge off. Both sides should enjoy.

[ related topics: Humor ]

I've pretty much dropped any references to Salon. I'm fine with supporting lost causes, but I so rarely find anything of value there that I've just stopped looking. But...

An interview with Dian Hanson, editor of Taschen's new "best of" Jaybird magazine. Jaybird was a "nudist" magazine that crossed heavily over into sex mag as a way to break down some of the barriers of the Comstock Act, and apparently was successful. There's the Taschen page on the Jaybird collection, this one looks like I'll have to keep my eyes out for it.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Salon magazine ]

Dave Patrick looks at the new book Horny? San Francisco. Not an unbiased review, he's a contributor, but it still looks like I'm going to have to get it to stay up on the local culture.

[ related topics: Books Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

C|Net News is reporting that the Senate has approved the new Amber Alert bill with another go at virtual child porn tacked on. Reading through the text, it appears that their core (only) argument for needing to outlaw virtual depictions of children is because they can't (or maybe don't want to make the effort to) prove that a given image isn't that of an actual child. Guilty until proven innocent.

Also, I don't know about the previous incarnations, but this bill includes "...visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting...".

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Free Speech Art & Culture Civil Liberties Graphic Design ]

From the suburban pages of the Chicago Tribune:

"Police said Friday that the fact that a body that washed up on a Wilmette beach had two left thumbs could help them identify the man.

"It's definitely going to help us in figuring out who he is," Wilmette Police Cmdr. Kyle Perkins said Friday."

Ya think?

[ related topics: Nature and environment Law Enforcement Heinlein ]

Went to the QBOX party in honor of Gearheads this evening, with Zack and Forest in tow. Bunch of vehicles from BattleBots, a few folks with some interesting contraptions from the Robotics Society of America. The coolest of these was actually the smallest combat robot, a carbon fiber wedge with an aluminum or stainless plow and spike device. There was also a hexapod walker that just did tank action for turning, but was nicely autonomous for a small creature, and the like.

And I got to ride a Segway. Zack didn't get the picture, so I can't grace you with that, but it was actually rougher than I expected. At first there's a feedback loop that gets the thing wiggling weirdly, seemed to happen for almost everyone. It wasn't the place to stress test it, but it was basically what I thought it'd be. It did get me thinking about possibilities for a really cool two-wheeled side-by-side vehicle, however. I'm still stuck on the idea of one without that silly stick, and I might have an idea of how to do it. Too much else going on to pursue it right now.

[ related topics: Robotics Segway/Ginger/IT ]

A few of you expressed concern over the "my life just became an Adam Sandler movie" quip in the comments to the "blogs save lives" entry. Here's the high concept: a 34 year old who considers W.C. Fields a personal hero, and has made some pretty emphatic decisions about his attitudes about having children ends up with a 9 year old. Hilarity ensues.

I'm waiting for the hilarity.

Charlene's sister is going throug some life changes, and her son, Forest, is staying with us for a few 'til things get settled out. Charlene's taking the brunt of this, 'cause her work is mostly at home, but this morning, on the last dregs of my cell phone battery, I called my mom and thanked her for every time she didn't drive away from a rest stop while I was in the bathroom.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Dan's Life Movies Child-Freedom ]

Declan McCullagh summarizes the Mike Hawash situation. Mike Hawash is an American citizen with a wife and three children who's being held without charges and without bail by the U.S. Justice Department as a "material witness".

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Law Enforcement ]

I finally figured it out! Weblogs.com blocks wget. The error message is entirely non-intuitive,

Your crawler is hitting our servers too hard. Please slow down, it's hurting the service we provide to our customers. Thanks.

and I'd been trying to figure out why I was getting the error sometimes and not others, and from different IP addresses. Sigh. Oh well, lacking a clue bat I guess I'll have to code up something simple that gives a personalised client name in Perl.

[ related topics: Weblogs Perl Open Source Software Engineering ]

It's April 15^th, and that means the launch of the Penis Blog project. Think you know your penises? Match the penis to the 'blogger, win prizes!

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Weblogs ]

So the acquital of cops who were video taped beating you after a traffic stop spawns riots that kill 55 people, injure thousands, and cause a billion dollars in property damage. Pleading "can't we all just get along?", you become a national symbol for tolerance. What do you do with your life next? Well, if you're Rodney King, you get busted for beating up your wife a few times, for dancing naked on an ice chest while tripping on PCP, and crash your car into a house at a hundred miles an hour. Makes a long-haired hippy wanna go down to LA and give those cops medals.

Speaking of "where are they now?", Philip Greenspun does a quick rundown on Idi Amin. I guess I should have figured that he's living out his years in luxury as a guest of the Saudis. Sigh.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement Automobiles Video Dictators ]

For various reasons, we're going to try to be a one car household for a few weeks. Should be an interesting experiment. For one thing, today it meant taking the bus all the way into the city rather than catching the ferry, because I could've made the ferry with the car, but missed that shuttle bus. Golden Gate Transit is planning some service cutbacks, possibly in the frequency of route 24 as far west as we live, so this could also start to mean that I end up biking more. But I think it'll be good for us.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bay Area Automobiles Bicycling ]

Jeanne and the rat boys gave us a night off from Forest yesterday evening, so to celebrate we went out to Mama Theresa's in San Anselmo for dinner. This is the restaurant that replaced Alfy's(that replaced Creekside). The service was spotty, very courteous and calming yet we got offered a special which they were out of, and one server said "I'll bring a selection of teas", the second delivered our "sweet chamomile". And Charlene's mixed greens salad was a little old, my shrimp bisque was good, but a little overspiced. The veggie lasagna was okay, but not $14 okay, and Charlene's chicken cardinale was passable but not an excellent rendition. Like the quiet atmosphere, but next time we'll be looking elsewhere.

[ related topics: Food Bay Area San Anselmo ]

I've started a Wiki for the topic dotNet sucks. First up: Forms, and combo box selected item behavior.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Nuala O'Connor Kelly, formerly of DoubleClick, new Homeland Security Privacy Czar. Uhhhh... Isn't this like hiring Henry Kissinger to do "fact finding"?

[ related topics: Politics Privacy ]

Golden Gate Transit is facing a $202 million over five years budget shortfall, and is considering extensive service cuts. Apparently they're starting with the engines on the ferry, the Del Norte was running on 3 out of 4 again this morning.

[ related topics: Bay Area Current Events ]

It's just one of those things that make you go Hun?. The SEC is no doubt going to try to figure out his source of info but what a fun story. I waiting to hear about Berkeley's city council passing and ordinace banning time-crimes within the city limits.

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

After months of 'takes' that didn't quite work, finally they got it: That Honda Ad. (Flash6 required.) Tres cool. All live action, no computer animation involved.

[ related topics: Animation Coyote Grits Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment ]

For those of us up here in Seattle (or who occasionally visit), Paul Allen is apparently planning a sequel to the Experience Music Project.

[ related topics: Music Art & Culture ]

Discussion about my reactions to Forest yesterday:

"5 years from now you'll look back on this as a learning experience."

"I hope the parole board buys that."

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

From the Dallas Observer, another story of a mother (and father) who've lost their kids to an overzealous photo development employee and CPS.

Jacqueline Mercado, a 33-year-old Peruvian immigrant, took a few photos of her young children at bath time. A week later, Richardson police were rummaging through her house for kiddie porn, and a state child welfare worker came to take her kids away.

[ related topics: Photography Law Enforcement Civil Liberties ]

Spring's been especially good for business this year, so I decided to see why. I found some flora and fauna of interest along the John Muir Trail today.

The pinkie? It belongs to a lady who knows her salamanders.

[ related topics: Photography Health ]

Forest: "Look, a daddy longlegs. I wonder why he's not climbing the walls?"

Dan: "Ummm... Yeah. Me too."

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

Phil pointed me to ExpressPCB. Download free software to design your schematic and layout your circuit board, press the "order" button, pay for the boards. At $62 for a minimum order, and I'll bet you could duplicate a circuit once or twice on the board for that, this is competitive with a whole lot of "single board computer" circuit boards, except it's custom. Probably not the cheapest, but looks like a cool implementation.

[ related topics: Free Software Software Engineering Graphic Design Embedded Devices ]

On April 14th I mailed in my taxes, and a large check. It deducted from the bank on April 18th. Obviously they have optimized the receiving/opening mail and getting a check deposited process.Wow!

[ related topics: Politics ]

In the "further abuse of end user license agreements" department, apparently the EULA of Visual FoxPro says that it's illegal to run the generated apps on anything but Windows. This apparently applies to the generated executables, not to the development environment, so at least you can develop Visual FoxPro apps under Linux, but clarification is being awaited.

[ related topics: Microsoft Open Source ]

A simple H-Bridge motor driver, saved here for future reference. As soon as I catch up on building these jigs for the sewing machines for Charlene's business I want to build a simple robot. Actually, I'll probably start with a better throttle for my model railroad, probably with some animation controls and a servo driver of some sort for the turntable (perhaps just stepper with a home switch, maybe some sort of optical encoder and a gear motor).

[ related topics: Dan's Life Robotics Trains ]

Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything".

To this end, we dedicate ourselves.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Current Events ]

I think we're going to send Forest back to his mom this weekend. We're not getting anything accomplished in our own lives, and this really isn't the right environment for him; to be fair to him we'd have to be willing to make a longer term commitment to hold onto him so he could develop friends, and we'd make certain choices about his upbringing in different ways than his mom has, changes that we can't really implement in an open-ended few weeks.

With that as a theme, Tara Calishain (of, among other things, Research Buzz fame) passed along confirmation that not having children doesn't make you lonely in your old age (yes, excessive use of "not", consider myself chastized), and a new permanent conception control option approved by the FDA back in November of last year that's being pitched as less invasive than tubal ligation, coils implanted in the fallopian tubes, brand name Essure.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Dan's Life Health ]

Up here the King County Journal is reporting that county libraries have reluctantly agreed to abide by new laws that require them to turn over information about what patrons have checked out or viewed over the Internet - despite a computer system that regularly purges such data. A note from the article:

To date, neither the county libraries nor the Renton library has been served a request for information under the Patriot Act.

has me asking; I thought the dictates of the Patriot Act stipulated that they couldn't tell us even if there were.

[ related topics: Law Law Enforcement Civil Liberties ]

So this is old news now, but the recent report of DARPA cancelling funding for OpenBSD has me wondering. How will this affect other Open- projects? How closely linked is, say, OpenSSH to OpenBSD? I don't expect them to die overnight if OpenBSD stalls in its development, but how well will they be able to shift focus if their core platform starts falling behind? Or will they want to do something else to keep OpenBSD afloat?

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

Spent the morning like I do most mornings: Waiting for Microsoft. Except this morning it was standing in the rain for the 2003 .Net launch festivities. Waited in line (they had the registration information, you'd think someone would run a histogram on last name distributions and optimize the badge distribution process?) for my badge, then wandered around the vendor areas while everyone was waiting for the big morning session.

Whooo, boy. Microsoft is the COBOL of a new generation. If there's going to be any revolution to rival the PC or Internet eras it's not going to be started in that corner. But at least they'll build business forms like nothing else.

After a while of hanging around that mob, I decided that watching Steve Ballmer ("Dance, monkeyboy, dance!") wasn't going to do it for my day, so came back to the office to do stuff this morning. I'll go back for the "technical" sessions later.

("Technical" in quotes because of my experience at previous such events, notably the Direct 3D one where the alleged tech guy was pitching FUD about how they didn't use OpenGL because conformance required some things to be slower, although at the time their OpenGL implementation was faster than their Direct 3D implementation, and couldn't answer an audience question about why you'd want a normal per vertex.)

Yesterday went to the Embedded Systems Conference. I'm working up a longer report with lots of links from that, it was both less and more than I expected.

[ related topics: Microsoft Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment Graphics Net Culture Embedded Devices Conferences ]

The first paragraph says it all, really:

A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography.

Apparently the push for harsher government restrictions on morality is a reflection of the "I can't help myself, I'm a victim of my biology and environment" attitude that's so prominent among conservatives today.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture moron Current Events ]

Took a day off to go visit NeverSink with Pam and Clem, a pit owned by Cavers, incredibly beautiful with lots of salamanders. A micro-environment, lush ferns, moss.. and peaceful.

[ related topics: Photography ]

What happens when Keebler Elves go to a Chemical Bros concert. Well, you get Elf Trance yeah thats what you get. Warning:while not really a punishment link this does have gratuitous flash/rave music/silly cartoons and may be a bit of a time sink.

[ related topics: Music Net Culture Graphic Design Conspiracy ]

See Tim Blair for the latest in the fight against creeping monopolization in mass communications.

Of late I've been wondering what it gains me to be a programmer. I mean sure, I can enjoy my work, and I make a decent living, but if I become rich through my efforts towards innovation it will only be a shadow of what someone else makes while navigating the legal IP minefield and the marketing battlefield in taking my efforts into the world. Philip Greenspun looks at showing his students Ken Burns documentary based on the book by Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air, noting that they're "teaching them to become Lawyers":

The only people in the drama who made millions without taking tremendous risks, working very hard, and occasionally going bankrupt, were ... the lawyers in the patent and regulatory disputes.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Books Software Engineering History Law Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Marketing ]

Last week we were walking over in Lagunitas and saw a sand pile with some cool erosion patterns in it. More here.

[ related topics: Photography ]

This morning's hike was up from Deer Park, over Baldy, back down to Phoenix lake, then back to Fairfax for breakfast at the Coffee Klatch. On the way up we saw this dude on the post, and 'til he moved there was some question about whether someone had half-finished a totem pole. I debated carrying a big camera, decided against it, so this was cropped from the little S100 in less than ideal lighting conditions. The rest of the images, including the source images.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Bay Area ]

It was barely a year old, brought forth unto this world shortly before Burning Man 2002.

April 27th, Meuon's Sony CyberShot 707, plummetted 170 feet to it's demise at NeverSink Canyon in Alabama, where dispite, a Pelican case inside a padded pack, it did not survive the fall. Related casualties include the burst Platypus bag, a tripod, a bent stainless steel rapelling rack, a bent QAS (Ascender) and the pride of the owner, whose shameful stupidity is directly responsible for this loss.

Already mildly famous for pictures published on the 'net at several web sites, and in printed media (for Burning Man), this camera's work is about to be seen worldwide on T-Shirts on Junkyward Wars (the TV show) (Kiki and Crew!).

It was survived by the owner, meuon, who will be living cheap for a while in order to quickly afford bringing it's sibling into the world to continue the good work of it's predecessor and the mission of Downloadalife.com for upcoming events.

[ related topics: Burning Man Photography Cool Science Technology and Culture Coyote Grits Law Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Art & Culture Television Clothing ]

(Finally) saw Spirited Away last night. I was underwhelmed. Perhaps it was the usual anime problem of cultural background, or maybe it was the perfunctory voicing, or maybe my expectations were raised too high by Princess Mononoke, but the story was unconnected and the motivations of the various characters were muddled and unclear. A bunch of pretty pictures and cool ideas (the Luxo, Jr tribute was totally surreal), but not a coherent whole. Go see Totoro or Princess Mononoke again instead.

[ related topics: Movies Sociology ]

From the Chicago Tribune:

Illinois needs a law to prevent convicted arsonists from serving as volunteer firefighters, says St. Clair County State's Atty. Bob Haida.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Law Enforcement ]

One night at Millenium we had an incredible rosemary fig pastry, which I later tried to recreate (with limited success) in a flourless and sugarless version for a specific meal. I need to try again with less restrictive parameters, Mary Anne Mohanraj has a rosemary fig confit that might make a good starting point.

[ related topics: Food ]

if security is such a big concern at Microsoft, what are there so many leaks of upcoming systems. I contend it's marketing and beta testing, but it is scary anyway.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Business Humor Microsoft moron Current Events Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

Via Arts & Letters Daily, a must read: Prevention Programs And Scientific Nonsense.

[ related topics: Politics Political Correctness Sociology ]

Damn, I may have to learn Python. The transcript of the Emerging Technologies Conference presentation on Chandler makes Chandler look like a product I've been dreaming about being able to tweak for years and years.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Databases ]

Chattanooga experienced an earthquake at 5am this morning, a 4.5 (Richter) centered near Menlo Alabama. Shook me in bed enough to wake me up. Freaky feeling. In the lean and mean news business, the local 1-2 person Web paper Chattanoogan.com was quickly updated with a story, while the big newspaper may still be considering doing a story on the earthquake, two hours later.Web centric journalism rocks!

[ related topics: Current Events Journalism and Media Chattanooga Earthquake ]

Yes they may be puerile but I find it amazing the amount of information you can emote in just a couple of bytes. I look at these and txt msg spk (not to be confused with l33t sp3ak)and wonder what trade offs are in the current evolution of language? Are we giving up fidelity for speed or is it just an improvment and I'm just resistant to change?

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Net Culture ]

You probably don't need reminding that May is National Masturbation Month, and I just saw on the Squidlist that The Center For Sex And Culture is sponsoring a Masturbate-a-thon on May 2^nd! Masturbate-a-thon.org also has dates for other cities, if you're not blessed with a Bay Area address.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Bay Area Sociology ]

Better Living Through Software has some interesting thoughts on the differences between Williams Syndrome and Downs Syndrome. Specifically, that the differences

represents two extremes of a dichotomy that is useful for categorizing all people

I think I lean more towards WMS. How about you?

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs ]

Dorothy Rabinowitz provides us with a teaser of her book No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times in a short OpinionJournal essay:

I did not know then that a core of prosecutors' witnesses--verifiers of abuse--all worked from the same list of alleged abuse crimes and symptoms. Not for nothing did the "secret room" the well-traveled bad clown, the magic juice drink and the rest all make their appearance in the trials held around the country in the 1980s and the early '90s.

[ related topics: Books Writing Clowns ]