Flutterby™! From 2003-11-01 to 2003-11-27

I was just sitting around thinking -- for example, what did flutterby.com look like on January 22 1999 ?? so I clicked here: Old Flutterby

not bad - first google where we can see all there is now, and NOW The Wayback Machine where you can see anything on the web no matter how old (well back to 1996 anyway)

Way cool - promise to use it only for good - -never for evil...

Ziffle of Mayberry

[ related topics: Ziffle ]

Went down to HallowQueen last night. Got there late after a missed fairyferry and hassles parking, the whole Castro was, of course, shut down for the celebration, and had I not driven down to the ferry building to pick up Charlene we probably would have just ended up Muni-ing in from the financial district, but...

We arrived after the bits about the documentary being made on Carol Queen, the famous sex author, activist and teacher, and her brother John, who's a fundamentalist Christian. Our friends who got there earlier said we didn't miss anything, but that might be because they aren't as familiar with the scene and backstory as we were.

We did, however, arrive in time for the pageant. Mixed results except for Robert as the Baroness Griselda von Beitte-Meihasse, who did an amazing performance to "I Never Do Anything Twice"; engaging the audience, owning the stage, and lip-synching (I think...) flawlessly. And Pretty, Mistress of Ceremonies, had on a really cool butterfly dress and did a reasonable balance between catty nasty drag queen and encouraging some of the obvious newbies in the line-up.

Our costumes got us stopped for pictures a few times, I rehashed the nurse outfit from Kiki's bachelorette party a few years ago, with the enema bag and latex gloves, and Charlene did a split personality thing, a really cool black on one side white on the other outfit.

But as we stepped out of the theatre into Halloween in the Castro in full swing we decided that being packed in with so many people with a relatively high gawker to costume ratio wasn't our scene, so we hiked back to the car and headed north.

[ related topics: Religion Butterflies Sexual Culture Dan's Life Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Theater & Plays Art & Culture ]

Today Charlene and I went over to the Oakland hills to visit the Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. Interesting place, although I'm still a little confused over the folding and twisting that lead to which bits of some ancient caldera being where. Sometimes I think geologists just make shit up to see how gullible people are, other times I can't imagine any other explanation making sense. If we do another visit, I think there'll need to be a little more background material first.

Driving up the Oakland hills was interesting too, especially in light of the current fires down in SoCal. A bunch of places where houses were built on steep hills directly above large eucalyptus groves, leading me to wonder what insurance company would possibly not laugh those folks out of town.

Oh yeah, the picture is Mount Diablo.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area ]

Yet another place we need permalinks: In the October 28^th entry, Violet Blue and discovers the same things I've observed, things like:

After watching more dancers come out, naked and disconnected, sans any kind of actual stripteasing, I began to really understand the resurgence of burlesque.

And sums up the experience with:

But that's just it -- there was no irony, no humor, and certainly no mystery or (even sexier) any hint of erotic danger. No bad music to make you feel cheesy in a good and raunchy way, no words spoken below a shout, and no sense of depth or eroticism from anyone.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

After expressing frustration with my job, some options opened, one of which is a short-term development project that seems interesting and challenging and that seems to fit nicely schedule-wise into current employment projects. I'm currently distracting myself from trying to figure out exactly what the number is that would make me a fool not to take it, and filling in all the numbers for

(salary + equity risk) * (months of job + expected time to find work after) * (1 + self-employment tax rate)

And coming up with numbers for all of those things is damned hard. Especially since after that previous post I had a chat with my boss about some of my frustrations, and we're doing okay for the moment (and we're good drinking and hiking buddies outside the work environment anyway), so... Anyway, one of the really tough numbers to come up with is that "expected time to find work after", I'm up against the fact that in my last few job changes that's been a negative number, but I keep running into folks who are talking double-digit months.

Risk assessment is hard. I've always sucked at the freelancing thing in the past, but I need a change, something to kick me into new ways of thinking, and in the next few years I want to be involved from the ground floor in a guidance role on some innovative product development. No answers, just (possibly dangerously) musing out loud.

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

The Butterflies and Wheels Taboo quiz:

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.03.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.00.

And after y'all take the quiz you can tell me that I'm just wrong.

[ related topics: Games Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

This rave about Manhattan nails why I don't like it:

But, what they've missed is that living in NYC is the pre-eminent Peter Pan lifestyle. It is the ultimate my-parents-are-out-of-town-lets-have-a-big-kegger kind of existence. In The Big Apple, being single and owning little of value allows you to extend your adolescence indefinitely. Some may call this existence shallow. Others may call it vapid, immature, and pointless. But you're all just jealous because I?m having more fun than you.

Manhattan is that for all of the cheerleaders and jocks. The Bay Area has a little more for the goths and the geeks and the weirdos who spent all their time in the art room.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Art & Culture California Culture New York ]

Horrible possible discovery of the moment? Compile a Windows application using database stuff on a machine with Microsoft .NET 1.0, run it on a machine with Microsoft .NET 1.0 and 1.1, it might crash horribly. "Solution to .DLL hell" my ass.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Microsoft moron Databases ]

If a man is fondling himself in a bathroom and nobody is there to see it, is he guilty of indecent exposure? A Miami cop thought so. A security camera filmed the man using the bathroom. (He says he was simply urinating. I guess the "more than two shakes" rule can get you more than sidelong looks from other patrons now.) The charges were eventually dropped and the man is suing for invasion of privacy and false arrest. (Link from Billy Wildhack.)

[ related topics: Privacy Sexual Culture Law Enforcement ]

Also via Wildhack, woman breaks in to prison to have sex with boyfriend. Does this qualify as "unlawful oral copulation" and "unlawful communication with an inmate"? Sure, but should she be branded a sex offender??? According to court documents, she will if she's convicted.

So now having sex with a consenting adult means you could spend the rest of your life not allowed to be alone around children, driven out of your neighborhoods, etc.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law ]

Sunset from the ferry this evening.

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

Stolen from Daze Reader (original link), a must-read transcript of a discussion in an L.A. obscenity trial:

"Q: Would it influence your opinion as to the changed community standard if I were to show you that as the percentage of movies released that contained urination and masturbation, that the number of sales either stayed the same or increased?"

"A: No."

"Q: So is it correct that consumer consumption of a particular content in your opinion is irrelevant to the issue of community standard?"

"A: Can I answer that other than 'Yes' or 'No'?"

"Q: Let's start with 'Yes' or "no,' and then go on from there."

"A: Okay. No."

I'll be looking for information on "People v. Shoemaker et al", this looks fascinating.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Community ]

Wow, we've been doing a great job at being not too nerdly here at Flutterby for the past few days, although we are still mostly (Hi Bunni!) keeping that "boy's club" attitude (Sorry, Lyn).

So, in the pretending I'm more super hip and connected than I really am department, the grapevine just delivered a request for male models for erotic art photography:

Want hot boys! Ripped would be good, but like all body types. Can give them a copy of what I use. There is not pay involved. I can also do vanity shots for their purposes as well.

I don't think I've met the photographer, a friend who knows him sent the note along to me. And part of the urgency is that the location for the shoot is going away soon. In the Bay Area and a bit of an exhibitionist? Here's an opportunity.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Flutterby Meta Bay Area Art & Culture ]

The best argument I've seen yet for legalizing prostitution: Accused Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway in the proceedings of his guilty plea:

"I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up, without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing."

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Current Events ]

Saw Matrix Revolution tonight with friends.. more of the same. Which is incredible and blaise at the same time. The problem is we expect the change in paradigm (loving buzzwords tonight) that the original movie was. It can't be, the shift has been made. Matrix II, III (and future Matrix spinoffs) simply was and will be more digital masterbation of the original movie. Worth seeing just because, but it's like taking a drug, you never get the sensation of the first time, when it blew your socks off. The question is, what will? Kill Bill (Part 1) was 'art' of a sort. It's time to get back to the basics of a good story and acting. Of course, this is Chattanooga, where I'll have to order such movies on DVD.

[ related topics: Movies Art & Culture Chattanooga ]

So on reading that Microsoft is offering a bounty for the capture of worm and virus writers, was anyone else reminded of that episode of Boondocks where Huey calls the terrorist tip line to finger Reagan? (If you're a My Comics Page subscriber, it's 2001/10/04).

(Speaking of which, I'd put off paying $10/year because I figured that the interface would suck more than my current "open all these in new window" method. I was right. Why can't people building pay services on the net build useful pay services?)

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft virus moron Comics ]

I had ignored Naomi Wolf's article The Porn Myth, subtitled "In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites—it turns them off the real thing", because I didn't see the need for more "waaaah! we're still victims!" whining. In the past few days everybody (Eros, Doc, and many others) has been linking to Eric Raymond's rebuttal, the gist of which is:

There is one truth buried, oblique and nearly invisible, in Ms. Wolf's informants' reports. Sex with a real woman trumps porn, but porn trumps women who dangle sex in front of men and don't deliver.

Which I think is an overly simplistic answer. Debra Hyde, however, comes through with responses to the real issues. Go read it, if only for the pointing out of the obvious when she says:

Last, I'm annoyed by Wolf's repeated mention of porn interfering with a woman's ability to "hold a guy." Why, I ask, are we still focusing on holding onto a guy? If a man's too shallow to let go of his ignorance and self-interest to admire a woman's natural body, maybe he should hear repeated and from many women, "Sorry, if you can't appreciate me as I am, get lost."

Somewhat relatedly, a bunch of folks have sent me Mark Morford's rant on The Whitehouse "Protection From Pornography" week proclamation. Worth reading, as are Columbine's take and Debra's take.

But both of these provocations simply show us that there are people out there who are far more interested in control than coexistence, who want to drag others back with false accusations rather than solving real problems, and who want to do that by pandering to existing prejudices rather than enlightening. That Wolf does it on one side and Bush does it on the other shows that in most cases for people like me alliances with or voting for those along the the "left/right" affiliations can only be matters of political expediency.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture History moron Current Events Mark Morford ]

Adam Curry had a link to Dutch May Ban Foreigners from Cannabis Coffee Shops:

Responding to international pressure, the Netherlands is considering a proposal that would prohibit foreigners from patronizing the country's cannabis cafes, the Drug War Chronicle reported Oct. 31.

Because, by $DEITY, if our citizens are exposed to drugs they might learn the truth turn into listless slackers who don't march in lockstep to be exploited as workers.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Health History Theater & Plays ]

QOTD: Starjewel:

I may be a bitch, but I would never wish a lack of bandwidth upon anyone.

[ related topics: Quotes broadband ]

Unclear on the concept: Bush says "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country" days after signing the "partial birth abortion" ban, an act which clearly devalues the lives of women. Luckily we have a judiciary which isn't so cavalier towards life.

[ related topics: Politics Privacy Sexual Culture Current Events Civil Liberties ]

Chronicle article about burlesque in San Francisco.

"What makes it so amazing and so important right now is that it's not entertainment for men," Laura Herbert says. "It's not your grandfather's strip tease -- it's very much entertainment for women."

Some local performers estimate that depending on the venue, women may comprise 50 to 75 percent of the audiences. "Women really appreciate the art of burlesque, the costumes, the music -- everything that goes into burlesque," Von Slut says. "To me, it's flattering."

[ related topics: Music Bay Area Art & Culture ]

In Arthur C. Clarke's 2010, the Monolith ignites Jupiter into a small sun, in order to melt the ice on the moon Europa and thus accelerate the evolution of a sentient life form found in the oceans there. Now, according to Richard Hoagland, leading proponent of the Face on Mars claims, NASA may have actually done it! Watch the Skies!!

[ related topics: Movies Space & Astronomy Astronomy ]

Greetings from Cary, NC. I'm sitting in Java Blü reading my email. If anyone's got questions about the economics of a cheap DSL from Speakeasy and a WAP, these guys are going to get at least $15 in business from me, an out of towner who'd otherwise be breakfasting at the Waffle House, over the next three days because they let a computer consulting company buy some free advertising.

Yesterday's flights were Delta. There's a rant about airlines bubbling up here, but it's not at the surface because the differences are subtle.

The movie was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. How do movies like that get made? Horrible screenplay, but really baaaaad directing. Just because you have the special effects budget doesn't mean you should try to use it.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Movies broadband Consumerism and advertising Economics ]

Wow. The geometry of Raleigh's streets is distinctly non-Euclidian. Took me much longer than I thought to get there last night, although I saw most of downtown in the process. I had dinner with Chris and a bunch of coworkers from Marketocracy. We started at the Hibernian and wandered over to Flying Saucer (200+ beers on tap), had lots of fun conversation in between. I've met a bunch of cool people here, but I'm also very conscious of being in strip-mall culture.

After some minor panics yesterday which we've resolved, back to (TC)² today to finish the display. I've laughed about the 2000 minutes that Charlene and I have on our cell phone plan, because I don't think we've ever used more than 30 before. I think I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday, and this morning I've had two calls while I'm trying to write this entry. There's some venting about work I need to do, but it wouldn't be prudent to do it here.

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

Tired of seeing sweaty brutes kick each other's behinds? For a real change of pace, ESPN2 is covering the 2003 Man vs. Machine Chess match between Gary Kasparov and a program called X3D Fritz. On move 16, Gary spent 20 minutes considering his move. Fritz spent all of one second considering a small move of his rook. The crowd went wild.

[ related topics: Games Cool Science Software Engineering Artificial Intelligence ]

It seems fitting to post this here first. I started 'Higher Technology Services' in 1989, with Debra Brown, whom I later married. Around '93 I coerced Dan Lyke to work with me and we ended up forming Chattanooga Online, a regional internet company. Time passes, Dan moves to SF. Years pass.. Deb and I divorced.. yet still ran HTS together. Today, I sold her my interests in Chattanooga Online (HTS, Inc.). She's got a good crew, and I wish them the best of luck. In a weird karmic twist, one of my first business customers in 1990 was Bradley Memorial Hospital in Cleveland TN. Tomorrow, 13 years later, I'll be making what I hope is the final presentation for a middling sized software development project to the same people. I had joked that my recent life was 8.x, I hereby declare November 14th as the release date of Life 9.0. I've got incredible friends in this region and in CyberSpace, some spare change in my pocket, some paying work lined up, and right now life is looking pretty good. I'll be doing future business as GeekLabs and you can track me down there.

[ related topics: Coyote Grits Software Engineering Sociology Work, productivity and environment Chattanooga Net Culture ]

Wednesday afternoon the rest of the team arrived and we rehearsed and made an Office Despot run and stopped for coffee at a place across the street from the hotel before regrouping to look over some Power Point stuff and noticed that the cutely bear themed mass-market pseudo deli in which we bought coffee right across the street from the motel advertised free internet access.

And of course Thursday morning we were pressed for time and rather than drive the extra miles out to Java Blü we went across the street.

Mistake. Not only was the coffee not as good, it wasn't really internet access. Celito feels it necessary to insert some sort of moralizing and b0rk3n proxy server in the process, one which blocked World Sex News Daily with an ominous "this violation of our terms of service has been logged" and broke a couple of my other daily reads (some of which have underscores in the domain names, others couldn't load their CSS). Of course I only discovered this later when the laptop was off-line and I flipped over to those tabs to read 'em, otherwise I'd have just turned on the encrypted proxy browsing to my colo box.

But I was reminded that I can't take shortcuts, that the crappy mall culture will seem just as good, but then will bite me in unexpected ways.

Which brings me to a difference in culture note. Years ago I'd mentioned to a visiting friend that Marin didn't have strip-malls. In the years since I've looked around, and seen strip malls, and wondered what I was talking about. This week in Cary I was reminded. Cary has some sort of local zoning look, and every store looks like some large corporate deal, the same beige color character-free architecture in every strip mall, the same style of illuminated signs and so forth. Wow, that monoculture is... frightening. Last night we went out for barbecue and I was reminded that finding a good barbecue joint is like finding good chinese food: If all the light bulbs in the sign are illuminated and the place looks like it would pass a health inspection, go elsewhere.

The problem is, with everything that squeaky clean and bland I'd have to try every place in town to find the ones that were any good.

So to tie this all together:

I was asked to wear a tie for my few minutes of exposure to potential customers thursday morning. Those of you who knew me in 1991 or so remember that at one point I used to dress up fairly regularly. There were a few months where I was doing tie and leather soled shoes every day.

Leading up to this morning I've been thinking about why I'm so resistant to that sort of dress-up now. It's not just that I don't like the way I'm treated when I'm dressed "up", although I've been reminded of this as I've been through airports and on flights with the wool pants, dress shoes and white oxford shirt, it's that a tie necessarily starts out a relationship on the wrong foot.

With a tie, you're meeting people while voluntarily wearing a noose. This can only have one of two meanings:

1. You're automatically willing to be the subordinate in the ensuing relationship.
2. You're not, but you're willing to look like you would be, so you're a damned liar.

Between the flights on Delta, with their Dasani ("Enhanced With Minerals For a Pure, Fresh Taste") co-branding and for-charge bags of chips and nickle and diming when you're used to the services and amenities of allegedly "cut rate" airlines like Southwest and JetBlue, and in-flight magazine "Sky" with its plebian pretensions that would make GQ blush; and the week in strip-mall monoculture, I've had a really strong lesson in just how cynical I've gotten.

I now look at attempts at cachet as an indication that you're a damned liar. In fact if I can't see flaws I assume you're being dishonest up-front. Is anyone else plagued with this? I wonder what opportunities I'm missing, what products that claim to be "new and different" might actually be, and whether this blind hatred of the glossy is holding me back.

Anyone found a good compromise?

[ related topics: Business Sociology Fashion Economics ]

Went to Dark Kabaret last night, with The Lollies and Kitten on the Keys, Bob Hartman doing some really cool puppetry, and Paul Nathan as the MC. More cabaret than burlesque, but still a hell of a lot of fun. Nice venue because everyone was there for the show, unlike some venues where the back is all chattering loudly. The only down-side to that was that there wasn't as much hootin' and hollerin' for the burlesque as there can be.

Again tonight in Mill Valley at 142 Throckmorton Theater, and on the 21^st at the Great American Music Hall.

[ related topics: Humor Music Bay Area Theater & Plays Burlesque Paul Nathan ]

SF Chronicle article on moving IT work overseas, pointing out that not only are there hidden travel and communications costs in moving data centers to India, the fact that there are now jobs there is driving the cost of labor up at 20%+ per year.

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

Ya know how there's all that press about how we need these "sex offender" registries because we need to know when dangerous criminals who prey on our children move into our neighborhoods because "sex offenders" are never really cured? Apparently it's hoohey: Sex offenders have lower recidivism rates than other incarcerees. Variations on the same AP article Boston Globe, Washington Post, ABC News.

Perhaps there are a lot of troubles with that interpretation, the study covered one year of releases, three years from release, and I can't seem to find the press release or related material on the U.S. D.O.J. site.

Speaking of the U.S. D.O.J. site, have y'all seen the ironic LifeAndLiberty.Gov? The very first advancement of the Patriot Act listed is:

1. The Patriot Act allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking

ie: It isn't about terrorism at all, and we're totally willing to define "terror" in any way that suits our purposes. Don't you feel safer?

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Y'all have probably seen this already, but Bombardier has one-upped the Segway, only this one really looks like sci-fi: Bombardier's Embrio concept vehicle is a hydrogen fuel-cell powered unicycle for motorcycle type scenarios.

Link from More Like This and FactoVision.

[ related topics: Segway/Ginger/IT ]

I'm a big fan of heavy blankets. I've said a couple of times that I'd love one of those radiation shield blankets that dentists use if they made 'em in comforter sizes. On last year's Thanksgiving trip we stayed at the Felton Crest Inn, where the comforter on the bed was amazing. We talked to Hanna (the proprietor) about it, and she mentioned that it was really a feather mattress cover. Well, yesterday we were in the store looking for a shower curtain and got our holiday gift to ourselves early this year.

It ain't cheap, especially once you add a duvet cover to protect it (we just went with cotton because we couldn't find the color we wanted), although it's actually cheaper than a good down comforter (this is mostly feathers, not down), but... Oh. My. I try not to be a size-queen, but that was 6 inches of weighty goodness that I won't be regretting any time soon. And there'll be no more "did you remember to turn down the heat?", because that's now a survival necessity. And all that weight is totally delicious.

Wow. I'll give an update once we've got more than a night under it (it might be too warm for this climate), but if you like heavy blankets this is way on the "highly recommended" list.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Travel ]

Wow, the PR flacks are working overtime: Gates gets serious about spam, security. Bullwinkle: "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat."

[ related topics: Animation Microsoft Spam moron Conferences ]

With the subject "word for the day: ecdysiast", George passed along this article about La Ribot, a modern dancer who works nude:

After studying modern dance in France, Germany and New York, La Ribot returned to Spain where she co-directed a dance company, Bocanada. After three years, however, she became discouraged with the vicissitudes of collaborating with dancers, composers, choreographers and costumiers.

"One day I realized this way of work, I didn't like," recalled La Ribot. "I stop the company completely. I was trying to look for another language, another way to work in dance. That's when I put 'La' in front of my name and started to work alone, naked, in silence."

More on La Ribot.

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

A request: A bunch of weblogs, Billy Wildhack is the one on my screen right now, have been pointing to news stories like this one talking about the ads on Washington, D.C. buses claiming better sex with legalized marijuana. It doesn't bother me that no professional "news" organization has linked to Change The Climate, I expect them to do their best to hide their sources, but it bothers me that no weblogs have. So here's the ad campaign they're talking about, and here's a previous campaign that ran in Washington, D.C. that's worth looking at. And next time you link to an article on a 'blog, how about tracking down the source material too?

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Sexual Culture Weblogs Current Events Public Transportation ]

I'm trying to mend my packrat ways; having this much stuff is costing me money and sanity, and I'm going through my posessions looking at each object as though I were making the decision to buy it, right now.

I have a boatload of books. Especially a lot of computer books. Everything from the classic language books (Programming in Prolog by Clocksin and Mellish, Timothy Budd's A Little Smalltalk, Seymour Papert's Mindstorms) to hardware references (80486 System Architecture, Third Edition), to graphics books (from Newman & Sproull forward), both academic and mass-market.

I hate to dumpsterize all of these, I fear if I drop them on my local thrift store I'll just be saddling them with objects they don't understand, and my local used bookstores are of the "fiction 6 months old or less" variety. Anyone have suggestions? Anyone willing to take a shipping crate and figure out what to do with its contents? Does anyone care about the classics like Kernighan and Plauger's Software Tools any more?

[ related topics: Books Dan's Life Software Engineering Graphics ]

Larry is one of the more soft-spoken guys I know. So when Larry says "this is bullshit", I sit up and take notice: Money charges eyed against Limbaugh, apparently some prosecutor has decided to go after Rush for money laundering because he made many withdrawals just under $10k, possibly in the process of purchasing the prescription drugs to which he's addicted.

I don't suppose there's a chance that Rush Limbaugh will start thinking clearly on the War on Drugs, though.

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Law Current Events Consumerism and advertising ]

Over at SSDB there's an observation that your HMO may be sending you to India. Makes a lot of sense, if the costs of airfare are wildly overshadowed by the savings in procedure costs, why not?

[ related topics: Health ]

How are things doing at the giant anti-Bush demonstrations in London? Instapundit gives a link to a webcam surveying Trafalger Square. Last time I looked, at about 3:30 PM GMT, things looked pretty quiet.

[ related topics: Politics Monty Python Video ]

In talking with Charlene yesterday about the occupation of Iraq, the Marshall Plan, and building civil societies, I realized that we still have troops in Germany, so we shouldn't expect a pull-out of Iraq any time soon. Unfortunately, those troops haven't yet been able to do anything about the great evils encouraged in Germany (thanks, Borklog ) (be sure to read some of the reviews).

[ related topics: Politics Music Current Events War David Hasselhoff ]

What the hell, pre-announce everything, work the bugs out later. Remember ages ago when I announced that Flutterby had an NNTP feed? And then I asked what NNTP feeds from other sites should look like? I'm baaaaaack...

If you'd like your weblog NNTP syndicated, simply add some classes to various elements in your HTML templates. Multiple classes can be assigned to the same element as a list separated by spaces, for instance <div class="oneclass weblogentry anotherclass">, so even if you're using CSS this isn't a big deal.

weblogentry

Goes in an element surrounding the entire weblog entry, including title, archive and author links. Might be a <div class="weblogentry">, if you use tables probably a <tr class="weblogentry">.

weblogentrytitle

Around the weblog entry title or whatever text you want to make the subject. Might be a <h2 class="weblogentrytitle"> or even a <b class="weblogentrytitle">.

weblogentryarchivelink

In the "a" element that has the "href" attribute that points to your archive entry, ie: <a class="weblogentryarchivelink" href="http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/.

weblogentrybody

Around the main text of the weblog entry. Often a <td class="weblogentrybody"> or a <div class="weblogentrybody"> if you swing the CSS way.

Then email me with the URL of your blog, the newsgroup name you'd like under news://www.flutterby.com/flutterby.blogs.* and the email address you'd like as the "From:" on the NNTP posts (could be bogus, I'm not picky), and once an hour we'll do a minimal check to see if we need to re-get your page, and then syndicate it. Right now this only allows for one "From:" address per weblog. If there's call for more I'll figure something out. And no comments or threading yet, with comment spam becoming an issue I don't quite know how to go about implementing this (and weblog tools should be pushing, I shouldn't be polling). One-way comments from your weblog to the feed should be fairly easy, even if that's kludgey and I hate the concept.

I'm sure we'll do at least one hierarchy reorganization, and if anyone else has a server they'd like me to feed this stuff to please speak up. Let's do our best to supplant the idiocy that is RSS and bring some real syndication to weblogs.

[ related topics: Content Management Weblogs ]

Rafe had a link to The Irony of Outsourcing. It starts out with:

Question: Since 1995, two million American manufacturing jobs vanished. How many manufacturing jobs did China add during the same period?

Answer: None. China lost sixteen million manufacturing jobs since 1995, a higher percentage of their manufacturing workforce than the US.

And goes on to point out that:

As far as the economy is concerned, it has exactly the same effect on workers and consumers if we use a boat marked "to Japan" or a fantastic new technology invented in Silicon Valley called the "wheat-to-car-converter".

I'm going to ignore the big questions, things like "what does it mean that they're getting better at building stuff and we're getting better at growing wheat?" and "how much do farmers make, anyway?" and flip to a "I guess I'm not explaining this right" sort of "aha" moment: Humans have a symbiotic relationship with machines.

Now it's kind of weird to use "symbiotic", 'cause we don't think of them as alive, but we help them (don't anthropomorphize machines, they hate that) reproduce, and they help us reproduce. In fact, we live in an awful lot of climates in which we could not reproduce without the assistance of assorted mechanisms.

Bill Joy realizes this, and it scares him, and we all made fun of him and blew his assertions out of proportion to make him look silly, but it's the truth: Right now the machines need us to reproduce, but the machines are improving a lot faster than we humans are.

We can't stop the tide, but we can try to figure out how to be the humans who help the machines reproduce. This doesn't necessarily mean building robots, in fact it probably mostly means finding applications which the machines can do more efficiently than humans so that we have reason to build systems to do those tasks, but it does mean we should be conscious that even though it's not "alive" in the conventional sense, the technology is part of the ecosystem.

[ related topics: Robotics Invention and Design Sociology Consumerism and advertising Economics ]

Yesterday Alec introduced me to Bash.org, quotes found on the Internet. Like:

<skrike> I think the people above me are having sex

<skrike> either that or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.

And:

<h|tler> HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU TELL THAT I'M 13 BY LOOKING AT WHAT I'M WRITEING?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

And the Lord's Prayer in 1337 5p3@k. The Top 50 is worth a few snorts and chuckles.

[ related topics: Religion Quotes Humor Net Culture ]

It's been a tough week, sanity-wise. Charlene was just doing some web research that took her to some pages on autism where I saw symptoms of "head banging, groaning and grimacing". I realized that some people think that there seems to be a prevalence of autistic children among computer programmers.

Something clicked: These kids are just modeling the only rational response to working with users.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Dan's Life Work, productivity and environment ]

Tired of using that old-fashion chemistry set to make stink bombs or some crystal meth? Discovery.com now offers the DNA Explorer kit, which allows you to do elecrophoresis studies and maybe figure out if your dad REALLY is your father. And imagine next year's science fair, when you clone your sister!

[ related topics: Biology Cool Technology ]

Lapdancing for charity, but they can't give the money away:

Four nonprofit organizations representing San Francisco's homeless, poor and cancer-stricken turned down a $4,330 gift from Gasperec's Penthouse Grille and Broadway Showgirls Cabaret topless club in North Beach over the past several weeks, saying they have reputations to protect.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Bay Area History Theater & Plays California Culture Currency Burlesque ]

Woah: DoNotCall.gov appears to have lost my phone number registration done back in July or whatever it was. That's why the slimeballs are still calling me. Worth re-checking.

[ related topics: Politics ]

A /. link to: Man arrested for "spam rage". I'll donate to his defense fund, and I think we need to start a letter writing campaign to ensure that he gets pardoned. Meanwhile, we need to start looking to the legislature to make it legal to cap a spammer.

[ related topics: Spam Sociology Writing Law Current Events California Culture ]

Have I mentioned recently that I hate CSS? I have a new look for Flutterby I'm mostly happy with, I have something that works in real browsers and doesn't suck too much in IE, but having text entry boxes in variable width <div>s seems to be... well... I haven't found a way to make it work well, and "clear: both" only works on floating elements, not page fixed ones of variable length. Sigh. And so the redesign gets stuffed back on the back shelf yet again.

[ related topics: Web development Dan's Life Flutterby Meta ]

NY Times Story or listen yourself from here.

Seems the next job replaced by computer/robot will be singing. Several articles mention it is targeted at background voice roles. Although truly amazing and better than some of the soloists I've heard in church, the demo of "Amazing Grace" needs the background organ and sound effects. I don't understand the Japanese, but their versions sound better. Of course, they may not understand the English inflections as well. Still, the pop/techno/rock music world may have a new star. The future will be interesting.

[ related topics: Religion Music Robotics Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Heinlein ]

I've been asked a LOT on why I sold my half of Chattanooga Online to Deb. It just got reinforced by Comcast. In 10 minutes I got cable TV hooked up, and 3mb down, 280k up (tested several times). $19.95 for the first 3 months, $46/mth afterwards for the 'net and modem and $8 (or more for more channels) for TV. - On another list Dan and I are on, we've been talking about 'net archeology.. and in 1993, Dan and Debbie both screamed when I got 128kbps from Sprint for almost $3k per month. Bandwidth has become the commodity utility item we geeks had hoped and worked for. As I've been looking at finding a place to call 'home' for both myself and GeekLabs, I've been pleasantly suprised that getting bandwidth to even remote places has not been a problem. In fact, some of the remote mom and pop comunities have really done a great job (Kudos Ringgold Telephone and Trenton Telephone). This leaves the big question dangling that we are all wondering: What is the next big leap for us technophiles?

[ related topics: Technology and Culture broadband Coyote Grits Television Heinlein Chattanooga Phreaking ]

Hee hee hee: Go to All Things Considered for November 20^th and look for "Commentary: The Draw of Sports TV Ads". Says things I've long suspected about sports fans, based on the sort of advertising sports draws. Hmmmm... No wonder they're screaming "Go Giants", it's all about compensation.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Consumerism and advertising Television ]

Among the many things I hate, tracing an occasional signal back to using the wrong pin for signal ground on a DB-9 connector because I'd accidentally read the DB-25 spec for that.</geek> Sigh. Among most favorite things: Fixing that and discovering that everything works right. Yay!

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Dan's Life ]

Remember that Navy Chaplain who was allegedly sneaking plans of the base to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and doing all sorts of other seditious things? They just charged him. With adultery and storing pornography on a government computer. I'm not sure what all's going on, but it sure sounds to me like you've gotta have that "posession of pornography" thingie in the military rules in case the higher-ups make a mistake and feel the need to bust ya for something.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture moron Law Current Events California Culture ]

The New York Times has a fluffy little rundown on the hows and whys of table setting.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Food ]

So, I was seeing (no, I wasn't watching it - K was) the American Idol Christmas Special the other night when Kelly Clarkston came on in a tight red dress (the thumbnail links don't go anywhere, but these were the best I could find without spending way more time than I should). My first thought was one of mild surprise - knowing our society's body image regulations - that the outfit actually showed a [perfectly natural and normal] small hump of belly. She was still too scrawny for my tastes, but I suspected the rest of the public wouldn't see it that way.

Confirmation of my suspicions came the very next morning, when a popular morning radio show laid into her appearance. The words "fat", "disgusting", "gross" and "huge" were spewed loudly and often throughout the roughly five-minute diatribe. And, no, they weren't being satirical (at least, they sure didn't sound like it).

...sigh... Will we ever outgrow this nonsense?

[ related topics: Clothing ]

And today, is a day to give thanks to $DIETY or just because sometimes being humble and thinking about what you are thankful for is a good thing. Today I am very thankful. I'd especially like to take a moment to thank my friends for being friends: People whom you like, love and respect and return that friendship and love with no other agenda than enjoying each others company and sharing each others lives. A few Flutterbarians are especially included in that: Dan, TopSpin... and to some degree, those of you I barely know: Todd, Diane, Shawn, Mars...

Thank You!

[ related topics: Todd Gemmell Coyote Grits Astronomy ]