Flutterby™! From 2003-10-01 to 2003-10-31

I have privately passed around the link of the guy who made his own two-wheel balancing scooter (kinda like a Segway), but it was an entry over at Borklog that pointed to the LegWay that convinced me to put both of 'em up here.

Speaking of which, Meuon, did you run into Loren and Rachel up at Burning Man this year? I need to ping them and see if Loren ever got that balancing porch swing working.

[ related topics: Burning Man Robotics Segway/Ginger/IT ]

I forget where I picked up Sky High Airlines ("The mission of SkyHigh Airlines is to be laser-focused on total customer satisfaction, among many, many other things."), but besides being a funny site, I noticed a number of references to Alaska Airlines, and I wonder if this is the future of advertising. For instance, from the Super Scrimper Fares page:

DISCLAIMER: For those unable to devote 3-4 weeks travel time, you could theoretically try alaskaair.com. They have low fares and Web Specials. And you can fly in a jet. Whoop-dee-doo.

It doesn't occur often enough to make me sure that it's a sponsored site, and yet...

[ related topics: Humor Aviation Consumerism and advertising ]

A few years ago, Tom Duff said something about writing one's own web server, and I thought "why, there are so many out there already?" Yesterday afternoon at 3:30 I realized that for any given request to my motor controller I had 3 select() loops running, one for my controller daemon, one for my CGI scripts which communicated with it, and one in the web server which was running the CGI scripts. And I had reason not to trust the web server.

By 8:30 yesterday evening, including a commute through post-Giants game traffic, a stop at the bookstore to pick up the latest from Neal Stephenson, and dinner, I had the fastest damned web server I've ever seen (it serves all its static pages internally). This morning on the ferry I (think I) finished integrating the motor control code into it.

Something about the way Tom says things often makes my first reaction "that's silly!", and yet every time I've had that reaction he's been right. Thanks for the kick.

[Edit: Made the times Tom's been right more emphatic.]

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

I haven't been checking in on Clean Sheets regularly recently, and I find that I don't read David Steinberg's emails as closely as some web pages (that's gotta chage), but Daze Reader had a link to David Steinberg on the takeover of the Lusty Lady by its workers, and on reading it this morning I need to make sure that the "all sex workers are abused and powerless" in my circle read it. The article is also on Sexuality.org.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

A /. thread on expensive geek toys for dickless yuppies had a link to Recomendo which had an entry on outfitting your vehicle to look like a commercial fleet vehicle. This one's for Meuon if he ever decides the white van look fits his lifestyle again.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

This one's for Alec: C++ code that looks like it's been written by a teenager.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Software Engineering ]

More grist for the "Trial Lawyer Industry" mill: FBI investigating southwestern Mississippi trial awards:

[ related topics: Law ]

Just finished Monstrous Regiment, the latest from Terry Pratchett. I laughed, it was moving, and yet... I had two issues with this one. The first is that some of the humor was set up and executed in a way that made me think I was reading Piers Anthony. The second was that it was too fantastic. The base notions and the associated social changes happened without enough motivation, without enough backstory, to be really convincing.

It feels like he squeezed this one out because it was topical. A damned shame, too, because after Thief of Time I thought he had no place to go, but Night Watch was brilliant. This one was fun, but only in that light entertaining way. Giggle inducing puns, not deep satire.

[ related topics: Humor Books Terry Pratchett ]

Yesterday Charlene and I hiked up Baldy, then came down this strange trail that was very nicely built, but possibly not official. Some pretty small red flowers out near the top, but I'd forgotten my camera, so no pictures. Gorgeous hike, though, and my practice of weights and water is helping make it an interesting walk for both of us.

Today Leo and I walked up Loma Alta, starting from the end of Glen Drive in Fairfax. Actually a much better hike than either of us thought it would be, all the elevation gain you'd want from a just-shy-of 1600 foot hill, a bit exposed and plain because of the fire road, but coming back down, it's clear that during the rainy season some of the creeks along the path to White's Hill are incredible.

The Bay Area Hiker page on Loma Alta has some pictures which capture the flavor.

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

Finally started uploading and sorting recent pictures: a recent caving trip, and this past weekend of camping, music and dancing.. and dancing.. and.. Camping in a new big tent was interesting, After helping a few people with large Coleman and clones, the simple yet effective design of the Eureka Sunshine 11 was a piece of cake compared to the multiple vestibule 6 plus pole tents that required at least 2 people to setup easily. Somehow, someone forgot camping should be simple.

[ related topics: Music Photography Invention and Design Travel ]

It is with heavy heart that I have to endores No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante in the California Gubernatorial election tomorrow. Although I won't think too poorly of you for a "No on recall" and a vote for Larry Flynt. Given that the Davis/Bustamante team seem to have demonstrated complete incompetence with their running of the election, if the recall fails Ahhnuld will win, and it's important that the votes show a preference against the recall. So in these cases even a vote for someone who can't possibly win helps send the right message.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture California Culture ]

Since you're undoubtedly getting it through filters of varying biases (including mine), you should go read for yourself David Kay's Statement on the Interim Progress on the Activities of the Iraq Survey Group. So, through my filter: Lots of use of "potential" and "could" and "committed to", no evidence of Colin Powell's statement of "... on the order of a thousand tons" which I'd think might occupy a little more space than what Kay claims to be looking for when he says:

It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;

I also have to wonder about:

When Saddam had asked a senior military official in either 2001 or 2002 how long it would take to produce new chemical agent and weapons, he told ISG that after he consulted with CW experts in OMI he responded it would take six months for mustard. Another senior Iraqi chemical weapons expert in responding to a request in mid-2002 from Uday Husayn for CW for the Fedayeen Saddam estimated that it would take two months to produce mustard and two years for Sarin.

How long did it take Aum Shinrikio to produce Sarin (and they dabbled in botulin, anthrax, cholera, and others)? Ho long would it take your average high school chemistry department to produce mustard gas? Hell, given a grape vineyard in the off-season (they grow mustard on 'em) I can make a paste that'll reduce a human to blisters and agony with little more equipment than two rocks. (Something my dad discovered by accident when he attempted to scrimp and create a home-made mustard plaster for sore muscles...)

However, for all of my cynicism, neither extreme should take solace in this report. There are remotely piloted vehicles that clearly violate the 150km limit, there was live botulism toxin; even if violations of the letter of the U.N. sanctions have been minor the spirit was clearly trampled. And they're only a few percent through hundreds of square miles of outposts and buildings, not to mention thousands of reams of documents, many of which have been intentionally destroyed.

But while the potential for all of those offensive weapons we were told exist is indeed there, this report makes clear that inspections were working and the sanctions were having an effect. And the current difficulties faced by U.S. forces in Iraq are also a good reminder that for all that we'd like to separate the government from its citizens, governments do not exist without some level of consent from the governed; no matter what the military victories it'll be a huge social change to have the effect on the culture that the administration is now using as its fallback position.

And if enlightenment of the populace is our reason for invasion, we've got a whole lot of countries left to invade. In my mind, South Carolina and Kansas have not yet been removed from that list.

[ related topics: War Dictators ]

In light of my "let's liberate South Carolina and Kansas" comment in the previous entry, add Wyoming to the list: Starjewel had a link to an article about the monument that Fred Phelps is installing in Casper, Wyoming, that revels in the death of Matthew Shepard. It's on public property that the city council previously allowed a 10 commandments statue on, so they have to allow pretty much anything folks want to install.

You'll remember that Phelps was part of creating the climate of hate and fear that drove NewTek out of Kansas, depriving that economy of the benefits of high tech white collar jobs.

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Economics ]

Tests of a male contraceptive are positive:

"This is the first time a reversible male contraceptive that will suppress sperm production reliably and reversibly has been fully tested by couples," Professor David Handelsman, the study's director, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

55 couples, no pregnancies over 12 months. Here's the press release that that article was derived from.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health ]

Sigh. Those wacky Republicans are at it again. This was at the City College of San Francisco entrance over diagonal from The Metreon on Fourth and Mission.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Bay Area ]

What is this picture of? Your worst fears realized... These are three local math teachers in the public school system. I'm really scared now. Here's the article on the University's web site.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Mathematics Education ]

Australian brothels are stocking up on whips and karaoke machines in anticipation of a boom in business generated by this month's Rugby World Cup, a sex industry spokesman revealed.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Sports ]

I assume it's part of an art exhibit, 'cause I can't imagine any way you can get a vehicle like that up there accidentally. This was lying on its side off Mission on the north side of Moscone Center yesterday as I walked back from the hardware store.

[Update here]

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture ]

Over at Not Safe For Work there's an interesting screed against safewords. Worth a read for anyone who likes to play in dangerous spaces:

The BDSM community tries to fetishize safety, and deifies safewords and mantras like "Safe, Sane and Consensual" as if they were some kind of replacement for personal responsibility. At worst, safewords are a PR stunt, a way to try and convince ourselves that what we're doing is softer and fluffier than it is.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Community ]

Because I want to find it again, a quick rundown on how to make things that burn in colors using readily available chemicals, nicked from MetaFilter, the entry and comments have a few more suggestions.

One day last week, parked on the edge of Justin Herman Plaza, was the "California Grown" Zone truck. I thought it odd that for once in this area I didn't see Humboldt's most famous agricultural product.

[ related topics: Drugs Food Bay Area California Culture Justin Herman Plaza ]

The Big White Guy took a picture of the "Virginia Hourly Hotel" in Hong Kong, and one of his readers tells a little more about the culture of prostitution behind it.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Hong Kong ]

Life imitates The Onion: Using the DMCA, SunComm sues Alex Halderman for pointing out that you can bypass their copy protection with the "shift" key. Now anyone who's still got "autorun" enabled on their Windows box is probably tempting fate anyway, but this is yet another reason that we need to find a judge who believes in the first amendment and will blow away the DMCA.

[ related topics: Music moron Law Civil Liberties ]

I don't have time to run the numbers today, but here's an interesting look at correlating candidates with counties using Diebold voting machines (via Ethel the Blog) in the recent California gubernatorial election. Anybody with a little more time wanna check the sources and the math?

[ related topics: Politics Mathematics California Culture ]

Hey, Meuon, I don't know how much of your work involves supporting HTMMS, but just in case you hadn't seen it yet, this /. entry pointed to Free CMMS.

I've been looking for a context in which to link to Columbine's rant about Sandra Lee's "cooking" show. I couldn't really bring up much venom for the comments there, because the last time I saw cooking shows was probably the last time I flew JetBlue and tried to escape the evil which was The Food Network staring out from the seat back in front of me. Obviously there are exceptions, but if you want to talk about style over substance...

With that in mind, go read Emeril vs. Cthulhu:

Another cover removed. A single pork chop lay on the platter. Glops of color had been dolloped on the plate in an attempt to decorate it, but instead had the unfortunate effect of looking like Jackson Pollok vomited on the dish. The pork chop itself was relatively benign. Until the devilcook pulled out a single bottle of Essence. A mixture of several spices designed to destroy the natural flavor of anything it touches, Emeril dumped half a bottle on the pork chop. A brief noise could be heard, as if the pork chop itself was rebelling from this, the last indignity.

Narylhotep shook it's headlike appendage again. It was feeling slightly ill. How could this be? Narylhotep fed on souls and the terror of mortals. No normal food, however vile should be able to bother it. But this...

[ related topics: Food Television ]

Wait, wasn't it Rush Limbaugh who referred to OxyContin as "hillbilly heroin"? Rush admits he's an addict and checks into rehab. Just like those Bush kids, only without the whole "court order" thingie.

[ related topics: Politics Health moron Current Events ]

Why won't I take the promises of John Ashcroft about abuse of the government powers that he wants under the various Patriot Act revisions? ex-FBI agent charged with helping mob kill businessman. They're not all bad apples, in fact I'd say most of 'em are doing good, but until you can guarantee to me that every cop is a good cop, I'm afraid of anyone with more powers than any other citizen.

[ related topics: moron Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Drove down to visit with Diane and crowd yesterday evening, had a great time hanging out. Must do more of same. And she's got some cool and very smart kids.

On the way back I was looking for things to keep me awake, so I hit the "seek" button to take me past my usual fare and ended up listening to KMEL. I've no specific feelings about rap, I enjoy the lyrics of the Marginal Prophets, don't find the rhythms nearly as annoying as a lot of house or techno, and I'm amazed at those sessions where they're passing a microphone around a circle of folks who free-associate in rhyme 'til they lose it. So, some observations from late last night as I cruised along 101 up the peninsula, getting blown by as the street racers took the far left and right lanes...

• It's amazing the things you can rhyme with Hummer.
• That the Hummer is the new vehicle of choice of today's modern gangsta (and [ahem] other miscreants) might be the only thing that'll save the Lexus brand.
• Remember when rap was just about consensual sex and the occasional cop-rapper violence? Now that rap is big business run by the record industry and not home-grown and real, the cops don't even rate, and would be outgunned if they did. A paranoid conspiracy theorist might even posit things about that content shift as it became more commercial...
• Nothin' helps your career like getting offed. A really paranoid conspiracy theorist...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Music Sexual Culture Bay Area History Law Enforcement Pop Culture Conspiracy ]

In early 1999 I gave an ultimatum to independent bookstores. This weekend I realized that that message needs a little reiteration: What the independent bookstores used to offer me was a choicer selection, the opportunity to stumble across something I'd otherwise never find. What I find now is that the independent is easier than ordering from one of the big online bookstores, I won't ever find what I'm looking for in the big chain stores because of too much stuff on the shelf, and the treasured finds will be via alternate channels. The bookstore has become a place I order stuff from, not a place that helps me select or offers me interesting choices. What got transferred to the net, even more emphatically than the commerce, was that sense of selection, of guidance, of discovery.

Nobody yet is making money off of that, but as the rush to fill the weblog space dilutes the value of weblogs, there will be a chance to offer that service as a premium. I'm not yet sure how, but I'm sure there's value in it.

Then again, I was sure that there was value in thin computer books, and nobody seems to be selling many of them. Sigh.

[ related topics: Books Weblogs Space & Astronomy Currency Archival ]

Sunday's hike was the Temelpa again, straight up the side of Mount Tamalpais. Mark, Leo and I started at Mountain Home Inn, biked down to the end of Blythedale Ave where we met the remainder of the group, and hiked to the top and then back down to the inn. Except this time Leo and I went for the really steep way up, along the runoff gully that the switchbacks of the Temelpa trail touch. Great hike, I could do that regularly (at least until the rainy season hits). Breakfast at the Mountain Home Inn, because those with the dissenting votes (including me) were in the rear, my opinions from last time were reinforced, but the view off the deck was beautiful. And the very pretty (but scarily colored) dude on the right was crawling on Dave's napkin. We liberated him over the edge.

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

A few days ago, Rafe pointed to Arnold Kling's critique of Paul Krugman's arguments on the Bush Administration wackiness, the jist of which was that there are two types of arguments, those that attack the credibility of the source, and those that attack the conclusions of the source. My frist thought on reading that was "wow, the Republicans are asking us to consider all viewpoints, no matter how wacky or unsubstantiated, as valid, how fucking politically correct and postmodern of them". Now Rafe points to someone essentially making the same argument.

[ related topics: Politics ]

So, speaking of books, I've decided that I need to do a big culling of my bookshelves. I'm not sure quite how far down I want to dig, but some questions:

1. Should I keep my copy of Newman & Sproull? How about the other classics that I don't have a reason to go back to, Aho, Sethi & Ullman's Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools, Clocksin and Mellish on Prolog, Kernighan and Plauger's Software Tools, the classics that probably most modern geeks haven't heard of? Some of these might be useful for archivists some day, looking at the Human Interface Guidelines for the Apple Desktop Interface could show some interesting things about how GUIs evolve, but should I care?
2. How about books for obsolete APIs and hardware. Any reason to care about COM any more? How about Norton's Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC?
3. And process books? From Jane M. Healy's Failure to Connect to Steve McConnell's Writing Solid Code to The Inmates Are Running The Asylum, many of these were lauded, some I liked, some I didn't, will I ever have a reason to go back?

And, perhaps the most important question: On the ones I don't see a need to keep, should I throw 'em out, or does someone out there want 'em?

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Software Engineering Writing Archival Failure To Connect ]

Sometimes people wonder why I suffer from ennui: In light of Vicki discovering FuckingMachines.com, Bacchus writes:

Vikki, where were you when I first posted pictures of some of these fucking machines? Just think, if you had been a faithful ErosBlog reader back then you would have known about them seven whole months ago!

I scoff, scoff at your puny seven whole months. We're talking just a few days shy of two and a half years. And I believe that I overheard the guys who run FuckingMachines.com while lunching in Patisserie last summer.

Flutterby. We're so far ahead of the curve nobody remembers we were on the damned road.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Dan's Life Flutterby Meta ]

More pictures from Sunday's hike. On the left there is one of those views that's just a heck of a lot better in person when you've got the adrenaline pumping and stop to look back. To the right there's Leo putting a hand down for stability while climbing the gully, and the revamped crosswalk sign across from the Mountain Home Inn.

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

An article over at Cool Tools (Formerly "Recommendo") touted the benefits of boxed wine. I used to keep boxed wine around for cooking, for many of the reasons listed in that article, and I recently heard some winery shill say something like "well, everyone knows that wine in glass bottles tastes better...".

Whenever I hear someone say something like "everyone knows", my bullshit detector pegs. Kinda like the whole "tearing lettuce bruises it less" and "mushrooms absorb water if you wash them"[1]. And my experiences in tasting and learning about single malt scotches have taught me that there's a lot of the irrational collector experience going around in the alcohol connoisseur; I'll bet a bunch of these folks are the target market for Monster Cable phone cords.

So, anyone out there have experience with this? I haven't looked recently, are there mid-range wines available in a box so that a blind taste-off could be arranged?

[1] There may be other reasons to not tear lettuce (the aesthetics of straight cuts) or wash mushrooms (surface texture, for instance), but Harold McGee has offered up some pretty convincing experiments that you can do in your own kitchen (and I've done enough of to convince myself that he's right) that both of the stock explanations for these things are hogwash.

[ related topics: Health Food Wines and Spirits Economics ]

At some point in my life, someone used the phrase "fuck a duck", I made quacking noises, and shortly thereafter the discovery of a duck with a 16" penis turned it into a recurring gag. That might stop. Over on jwz's journal, there was a link to abstract Deinsea 8-2001 C.W. Moeliker, "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)":

On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an `Attempted Rape Flight' that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.

With pictures. I need to go buy some pumice soap so I can take a shower now.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Nature and environment ]

Celia Farber http://www.nypress.com/16/42/news&columns/feature.cfm says what I can only hope - that political correctness is over. Can I now say I hate Muslims? Weirdos? Christians? Or is all that still hate speech? In Canada I would be arrested - Am I still safe in the US? Not all cultures are the same or of the same value to me -

Of course the Objectivists see it clearly - http://www.stanford.edu/group/...archives/eventPostModernism.html and maybe cracks are occuring elsewhere -- I like http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/reason/critical/index.htm Tom Van Gelders Critical thinking essays - especially the Political Correctness stuff - like: All Cultures are not equal http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000006D90C.htm

I am fairly tired of Islam'ists - how do we make them go away?

sigh...

Ziffle of Mayberry

[ related topics: Ziffle Politics Bay Area moron Writing Current Events Education Archival ]

Hardware question: Okay, I know a few of you out there are smarter than I am in the hardware department. I'm driving a stepper motor with an array of TIP120 transistors, each of which has a diode back to the driver voltage to handle the back current from the motor. When the motor is manually rotated, this drives the voltage up high enough that the overvoltage protection in the power supply kicks in.

I'm in the process of testing right now, but I apparently screwed something up so other things aren't working, but: Is there any downside to just putting diodes that allow current to flow from the emitter of the TIP120 to the motor, but not back? This seems to keep the power supply voltage stable, but I haven't verified that everything else is working.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Dan's Life Robotics Work, productivity and environment ]

Found this out there - try it!

http://www.pornolize.com/cgi-b...2F%2Fflutterby.com&submit=submit

Ziffle

Via Metafilter, (comment thread here), a Milwaukee strip club puts art on the walls, gets designated a "Center for the Visual and Performing Arts,", so that it can admit those under legal drinking age. Alas, it appears that the Milwaukee Common Council's Utilities and Licenses Committee has reversed the decision. Damn.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Current Events Art & Culture ]

Two notes from the Supremes. Yesterday, they left in place a ruling that struck down attempts to revoke the licenses of doctors who discuss marijuana with their patients, and today we learn that the man who said:

"Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal."

(thanks to David Chess for the pointer) Has removed himself from the U.S. Supreme Court hearing the challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance. My estimation of Justice Scalia just went up. Still close to epsilon, but it's up.

[ related topics: Religion Drugs Law ]

Saying: "I'm surprised I haven't also seen this on Flutterby", Utopia with Cheese points out the PyroPumpkin. It's worth poking around ExtremePumpkins.com a little more, we usually don't do much for Halloween, but some of the high concept ideas could be disturbingly hilarious. In fact I have a spare pump at home that I could dedicate to the Carrie pumpkin with pumping blood, but I think given that most of the neighborhood kids are preschool, the gunshot wound pumpkin would be a little over the top.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Sigh. Okay, it's time to find a new job. Can't elaborate on all the frustrations, and some of 'em are my fault, but ... aargh.

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

For quite a while I've tried to keep Flutterby away from the "weblog meta" crowd, staying away from in jokes, staying away from the politics of RSS... err... RSS... I mean RSS. And I think a lot of the modern "weblogs will transform the world" stuff is hoohey. So when I heard about the Friends Of O'Reilly camp, and looked at the attendance list, I thought "probably fun, but I'm not jealous of the invitees".

And in all the post-camp coverage, I've had the same impression. Except that Danny O'Brien came away with some insights on public, private and secret conversations, and how they relate to weblog space, that are a must read, and Simon Phipps amplifies the point (Thanks, Scoble).

Essentially, the weblog is private conversation, like you'd have in a coffee shop between friends, but just like conversation in a coffee shop the point in a weblog is to invite others into the conversation. As the space of newsgroups and mailing lists expands out to be unmanageable, the personal and often mundane content of weblogs serves as a way to filter down from the madding crowd, to drive away the large audiences that would make the conversations public.

More later, I just wanted to get some content up for today.

[ related topics: Weblogs Journalism and Media ]

A few "must read"s:

• What if it were Clinton and not Limbaugh addicted to painkillers (from Value Judgement)
• That pinko-commie left-wing publication, Stars and Stripes has reports on morale in Iraq. Via a Washington Post article, can't find the place I found that link.
• Ex Powell aid says Powell mislead the country (from RC3)

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

Nothing of import to say today, got some stepper motors doing stress testing in the other room while I play around with AVR-GCC and see if I can get my servo code ported to C for easier maintenance and some more interesting acceleration curves. So for lack of anything better: I ran into Christopher at San Anselmo Coffee Roasters last Saturday, and I think we were both still pretty happy with our respective laptops. Although I think if my business involved a lot of video editing, his would indeed be cooler.

And (via Borklog), even though Sucks Right Now is having negative experiences with Apple and their hardware, his explanation of why he won't go back is pretty damned compelling, even to a Un*x weenie like me.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Hardware Hackery Bay Area Video San Anselmo ]

Yesterday morning Charlene and I went down to the Marin Headlands and hiked up Hill 88. Lots of low-level fog, cleared up dramatically as we climbed.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area ]

After the trek to the photography exhibit, we wandered over to Hotel Utah, heard the last bit of a surf band (which was way too loud), saw that they had a bluegrass band on at 8, and figured we could start to pass that time up at Good Vibrations. On the way up there, Charlene was flipping throuhg SF Weekly, noticed that Bubba Ho Tep was playing at the Lumiere. We arrived just as it was starting, and the poster for Girls Will Be Girls caught our eye.

With a tag like "an actress needs a meaty part", we weren't shocked at all that the audience seemed predominantly gay. This is a send-up of diva-hood at its bitchy nasty campiest, with, like original Shakespeare, all of the female roles played by men.

Evie (Jack Plotnick), an aging disaster movie actress drinking herself into oblivion, and Coco (Clinton Leupp), who wants to have a child with the doctor that performed her abortion, take on a third roommate, Varla (Jeffery Roberson), a country girl with dreams of making it big and a big eating disorder.

Even with a mostly empty theater, the guffaws were out-loud and infectious. As we stumbled into the street after the show Charlene asked what I thought. I replied with something on the order of "I'm not sure if I liked it, I need to stop laughing first." Because it is nasty, cruel, with just enough of a story to make the barbs that much more biting. There is no subtlety, no character pulls any punches, and just when you think a joke has played its course they manage to take it in yet another direction that takes the audience to new... errr... somewheres.

If you like over-the-top humor, the whole bitchy camp thing and aren't afraid of a few "eeeewww, I can't believe I'm laughing at this" moments, it's worth a watching.

[ related topics: Good Vibrations Humor Sexual Culture Movies Bay Area ]

Went down to the "Six on Sex" exhibit at the studios of Mark I. Chester yesterday. Six photographers, Mark I. Chester, Michael Rosen, Charles Gatewood, Phyllis Christopher, David Steinberg and Michael Blue, displaying work ranging from skin suspension to rope bondage to couples looking into each other's eyes.

There's a certain style in erotic imagery that I first became aware of in the work of David Steinberg. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but the effect is that of unselfconscious interaction of the participants in the sex act, with the camera. It's not posed, and yet it's not a messy photojournalistic kind of candid. Michael Rosen's Lust and Romance manages to capture it as well.

Anyway, we came away with a few intellectual "oh, that's a good picture" experiences, but no "wow, that was really hot".

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture ]

A few more pictures 'cause I didn't want today to be all prose. The left is an early morning last weekend, I think, when the weather was clear, the right is another from Saturday's jaunt. And we'll finish this up with some fog rolling over the hills from the Pacific, flowing in to Mill Valley, and one of the cyoote widdle bunny wabbits on the old military road up to the missile batteries (fetch me the holy hand grenade):

Hey, Meuon, I appear to have just lost SSH into my colo box. Since everything from my laptop in is encrypted, this is a moderately big deal. Did y'all have a reboot and I'm suddenly at the whims of someone's idea of what a good hosts.deny is, are you mucking about with your router, or did I get rooted?

Gulp.

[Update: Call off the panic, it's only semi-serious...]

[ related topics: Dan's Life Flutterby Meta Cryptography ]

In the first great miracle of the second quarter century of his Papacy, Pope John Paul II beautifies Mother Theresa!!!

[ related topics: Religion Television ]

A follow-up to the truck on its side from a few days ago: The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (besides having completely lame browser compatibility tests) is apparently doing its best to rip off Burning Man artists. They have the obligatory boat sinking in to the concrete on the other side, the sign next to the now smoking truck on its side reads "This is not an accident, this is art. Do not call 911."

While I realize that it's sometimes difficult to tell the smoking wreckage and burning trash from art, it's only the most pretentious who have to actually post signs with explanations.

To the right there is some antidote to the triteness, or maybe not. The sun rising over the Bay Bridge this morning was stunning, my picture less so.

[ related topics: Burning Man Photography Bay Area Art & Culture Boats ]

The future is now. According to Wired, a Texas company has introduced the Slightest Touch(c), a device that allegedly brings women to a "pre-orgasmic" state through tiny electrical pulses sent through the ankles. No information on what happens if you place the electrodes closer to home plate.

[ related topics: User Interface Erotic Cool Science ]

Hey, anyone out there in the Raleigh area want to get together the evening of November 11^th or thereabouts? The schedule's still being finalized, but I'll be installing some hardware at (TC)².

Being touted as a message from god: Actor playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ is struck by lightning on the set.

(Link courtesy of Different Strings, courtesy of Fans!)

[ related topics: Religion Movies ]

Spent the weekend up in the Sierra. Full trip report coming soon. The title is from Friday night, after taking some pictures of the sunset from the trail up to Loch Leven from Rainbow Road we retired to the bar, and then for dinner. The toast became "to altitude!" when we realized just how much effect the little alcohol had, that morphed into "to altitoad!" as more wine was consumed.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Nature and environment Wines and Spirits California Culture Travel Dan's October 2003 Sierra Trip ]

record number of women childless, according to the Census Bureau. Sounds like they need to find some better ways to slice their samples, though:

Non-high school graduates and those with bachelor's degrees were most likely to be childless. Also women with higher incomes had the highest childless rates, in part a reflection of the increased professional options available to them, said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project, a research group at Rutgers University.

So does this imply a correlation of "non-high school graduates" and "those with bachelor's degrees" with "women with higher incomes"?

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

Apologies for the gamma issues, these actually look pretty good on an LCD: To expand on yesterday's post: This weekend we went up to Rainbow Lodge, just shy of Donner Pass. Had an awesome dinner on Friday night, Rainbow Lodge has an amazingly varied menu, especially for being where it is, hung out and learned to play euchre into the evening. In the morning, after gawking at the foliage to the left (and yes, I'll be adjusting gamma and tweaking these images, they were taken "raw" with the Canon D60 and the conversion software isn't compressing the extended contrast range as nicely as I'd like), we packed up (for reference, that was my full camera bag, including tripod, and a good quantity of water), took Bill's brand new Honda CRV 'f'roadin', or at least down some pretty rough forest service road, to the trail head. Bill stayed back at the lodge to write, secure in the knowledge that he's now got at least minimal SUV cred, but the rest of us hiked from the 7,600 feet there up to Castle Pass where we joined the Pacific Crest Trail, down to Round Valley, back up around Basin Peak.

We scrambled up to a ledge overlooking Paradise Lake, gasped for a while, and, convinced by the topo and a description in the book, Dave, Leo and I decided to skirt the edge of the bluffs and try to descend down a ridge to Paradise Lake, while Sonja and Phil went down the switchbacks of the Pacific Crest Trail. As Leo later reports, we misread the book. When we found the right passage, it says:

"...skilled mountaineers can descend north along the west side of an impressive buttress that descends to the southeast shore of Paradise Lake. Although relatively safe by climbing standards, this is a Class 3, somewhat exposed, route that invites serious consequences for the unqualified."

Not too bad, but there were a few "when I say 'don't fall', what I mean is: 'don't fall'" moments, at least one traverse on a sloping ledge where slipping would have meant finding a body.

Paradise Lake was gorgeous. A little fall color around the edges, high mountain, surrounded by granite, lake. We were still early for our rendezvous, but the going was moderately tough, gaps between rocks slowing us down, so we wandered around the edge, found the trail down to the lower lake where we were meeting, and, amazingly, got to the intersection within 10 minutes of each other, an hour before the "implement plan B" time.

It's darn good to know I can still do 13 miles at altitude with a fully loaded pack. Dinner back at Rainbow Lodge was, once again, spectacular. More euchre and talking late into the night. Sunday morning an early breakfast, then back to the Bay Area.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Nature and environment California Culture Dan's October 2003 Sierra Trip ]

Beauty isn't just at 8,000+ feet: Larry visited Tallulah Falls. Some days I miss the southeast.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

Among my few regrets, not dating all of my writing is pretty high up. Ages ago I pondered screwing up, in the context of Jessie Sharp running Niagara Falls in a C-1. As most of you probably know, an adult recently swam over the falls and survived. Columbine has some short thoughts, but it was today's Farley that made me have to mention it.

And in searching for an article on that, I found a review of Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper and Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill. Sounds like the latter might be worth a read.

[ related topics: Books Nature and environment Writing ]

I said that I didn't participate in weblog meta in-jokes, but this morning that asshole, Dave Winer, really puts his foot in it when he says: "And Linux ships with every security feature wide open."

Dave, get a clue: A particular distribution might do that, Linux is a kernel, not an OS, and many distributions don't ship wide open. In fact, it appears that he was talking about Red Hat, several years ago. Sigh.

[ related topics: Dave Winer Open Source moron ]

Back in the day we used to have more fun figuring out the latest copy protection scheme on the Apple II and Comodore 64. The games were boring by comparison...

I guess modern gaming is going the same way, or at least the game creators are think so. I was helping my neighbor straightent out her computers. She's a lawyer and has two computers downstairs in her office for work and the kids have separate computers upstairs. Of course, mom's computers are faster and they used the better machines to play The Sims and all kinds of other games. As many of you know, letting your child go crazy installing games on your computer is a good way to get to see the BSOD more reliably. So I spent an afternoon wiping the machines and installing from scratch - with the advice of keeping the kids off the downstairs computers and buy them a big new one for Xmas (for a law office, the two machines downstairs were plenty fast enough).

So I start helping the girls get The Sims installed and offer to make a copy of their disc because it was very scratchy and hard to read (or so I thought). So I try to show the girls how easy it is to make a copy of those precious original CDs that have to be used to play the game. After a few hours, I was steaming. And did some research. Evidently the game industry has forgotten the lessons of the 80s and have started making out-of-spec CDs to flaunt copying the games (even for legitimate resons). A little bit of searching turned up Alcohol 120%. It figures out the copy protection scheme used and makes a copy with the appropriate problems. Of course, it took a little over eight hours to copy one CD... But that's beside the point!

[ related topics: Apple Computer Children and growing up Music Games Coyote Grits Invention and Design Software Engineering Law Work, productivity and environment ]

You probably know that Southern California is on fire right now, huge wildfires, at least a thousand homes destroyed, assorted deaths. This is fire season, it's that time of year when we get a late summer as the winds reverse and blow hot air from the interior desert back to the coast. Here's a photo that's the most dramatic demonstration of that I've ever seen.

[ related topics: Photography Current Events California Culture ]

So yesterday's mention of "Class 3" in relation to hiking brought me to description of the Sierra Club System and Yosemite Decimal System, which says, among other things:

• Class 5
  
  : Rock climbing. A roped belay is a must. Class 5 is further broken down from 5.0 through 5.14

And I got a little confused 'cause back when I spent time on rope we didn't bother clipping in at all 'til it got to 5.6 or so. Well, okay, that's a little hubris, but now I know where the silly "5" came from...

[ related topics: Nature and environment Sports Yosemite ]

A quick note on dealing with digital camera "raw" files under Linux.

[ related topics: Free Software Photography Open Source Graphics ]

One more Sierra trip picture, this was a rock along the trail up to the Loch Leven Lakes, at sunset on Friday.

[ related topics: Photography California Culture Travel Dan's October 2003 Sierra Trip ]

Made concrete plans to go to Mexico on a 14 day caving trip last night.. 7 or 8 of us.. 1400ft+ drops and climbs. Will be going right after Santa Claus day. Any advice for being in rural Mexico?

[ related topics: Travel ]

Interesting article on kickbacks, slotting fees and other enticements in sales.

A thornier problem arose when the company's first big account (a very large hotel-cleaning-products distributor that makes up 50 percent of Harry's total sales volume) asked Harry to "shelter" income by printing invoices at a higher cost than it was paying. The distributor requested this fudge because it resells the products to a company that pays "cost plus" -- just 10 percent on top of the invoiced cost -- which means the distributor's profit is small or nonexistent.

[ related topics: Business Ethics Economics ]

Two must-reads stolen from RC3:

• Washington Post: Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat. Remember those aluminum tubes? Yep, rocket casings. But this goes deeper, following a lot of the hogwash we've been spoon-fed recently. (From Rafe's observations on Cheney.)
• Saying "the pervasiveness of performance enhancing drugs all but eliminates my interest in sports", he also linked to a fascinating article by an amateur cyclist who took such drugs. I guess it doesn't take too much watching football to understand that physical risk is part of sport, and if the athletes choose to play fast and loose with body chemistry is that any different from risking paralysis from physical injury?

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Health Sports War ]

Aaargh. Helped a friend get her Comcast cable-modem working last night. Remember when this stuff was easy, you went to the network adapter and clicked "Obtain an IP address automatically"? Well, now they've got some stupid install system which appears to exist solely to make you click through the service agreement. Although the actual mechanics are hidden, in the process of tracking down that their registration servers are woefully underpowered and prone to crashing we discovered that it's just a bunch of web pages displayed in a browser window which tries to hide that fact from you.

Over an hour on the phone with tech support because rather than making the user experience easier, you morons made it harder than you could admin. I'd love to know what sort of business processes led to the decision to implement that crappy install.

[ related topics: broadband Work, productivity and environment ]

Giggle: Beth Lisick gossips about tit-prints at a benefit at Good Vibrations:

My favorite part of the event came when I realized that even though it may seem like every San Francisco resident and her mother embraces the same groovy sex positivity, there are still people who get a little embarrassed around so much rubber.

I watched at least five partygoers trip over a royal-blue cyber-skin Ecsta-Sleeve, a men's masturbation toy shaped like an anus, that had fallen onto the floor from its display case. Each person, after stumbling, regarded the item on the floor as if they just might pick it up, but decided against it. I finally lunged in and placed it back on its Plexiglas platform. It was really soft.

[ related topics: Good Vibrations Humor Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

There are good and bad elements of the time shift: On Monday evening the 5:20 was arriving just as the sun was going down, and as we came past Mount Tamalpais the last color of twilight was disappearing behind the hill.

[ related topics: Photography History Archival ]

Where are they now: Mary Carey is working in a strip club.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Current Events Work, productivity and environment California Culture ]

Just because it's what I do right now, and because I've recently gained some knowledge that will send me off in search of trousers that actually fit me: An article on Levi's changing the fit of 501 jeans.

[ related topics: Fashion ]

We got invited to the QTV birthday month bash (press release) last night at Hotel Adagio in honor of Dear Diva getting the Clarence E. Swiggins Humanitarian Award. A very nice get-together, mostly the hard-working folks who put together QTV, great conversations with people who believe in their community. Very nice evening.

Got me thinking a bit about community too, QTV was once a daily show, now its monthly, and I'm wondering if part of that might actually be due to their success. Part of what brings a community together, like the gay community, is shared struggle. Much of the success they've found, from QTV reporters going on to mass-market jobs to the explosion of "queer culture" in the national sense of style, could mean that the need for a niche market is gone. Which is a damned shame, because there were some great bits playing on the tapes they had there.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bay Area Sociology Television ]

RC3 has a link to Gary Wolf pondering the worst Wired story ever. Well worth reading as a retrospective of the '90s, and makes me wonder how we can generate buzz for a revolution a month here at Flutterby...

[ related topics: Archival ]

As if the tripe funneling from the Whitehouse weren't enough, here's a pronouncement that it's "Protection From Pornography Week". Sigh. This was stolen from today's Daze Reader, which also had this long bit on the Brawny Man makeover. I'd wanted to say something about this when I saw the mention of the change on PR Bop, but the best I could come up with was "In 20 years, that look is going to be cheesey too".

Daze Reader pulls together a couple of sources and is worth reading on the matter.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events Marketing ]

Two high school football coaches agreed to let a quarterback complete a pass so that he could end up in the record books. Quarterback learns of this and asks that the record be removed.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Ethics Current Events Sports ]

So has anyone out there finished Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver? I'm about two thirds of the way through, unless something completely amazing happens I'm already pretty sure I don't care about the next two books in the series, and I'm trying to convince myself that it's worth finishing this one.

None of the brilliant prose that defined Snow Crash. None of the great ideas of The Diamond Age. The wonderful descriptions of processes in Cryptonomicon have been replaced with scenes that'd make a sitcom writer cringe.

And Bill tells me it doesn't get any better by the end.

[ related topics: Books Writing ]

Yes, this morning is starting very slowly. So one more: Catholic schoolgirls kick and punch man who exposed himself.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Sexual Culture moron ]