Flutterby™! From 2004-03-01 to 2004-03-31

Sutro Tower in the fog, from a hike up Hill 88 the Sunday before last. I need to play with it a bit, the images I've uploaded have a lot of JPEG artifacting that detract from the surreal feeling; I took the picture sideways and it took me a few moments to figure out which direction I should rotate it.

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

Two from this morning's hike up Cataract Creek to the top of Bolinas Fairfax Ridge. It was Rebecca's last hike before she moves, and the first waterfall hike she'd been on in her too short time hiking with us.

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

I'm finally building that DCC model railroad throttle I've been threatening to do, and I wanted to have a power supply that will deliver decent current without costing an arm and a leg, and I need 5v for Vcc and 12v for the signal, so I'm starting with a transformer, a bridge rectifier, and a monster capacitor, and working up from there.

I am unused to dealing with real current. It is not good to short things that have real current behind them. Luckily I've only made funny flickering lights and popping noises, and not fried anything yet. Yet.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Dan's Life Embedded Devices Trains Toys ]

San Francisco imitates Chicago: 5 dead voters cast absentee ballots in the last mayoral election.

[ related topics: Politics Bay Area Current Events ]

I've seen a bunch of references to this Salon article about working in a tech support call center. Summary: People are tossed in to a pit with phones, no training, and judged based on how many calls per hour they field, not whether or not the customer's problems are solved.

What has been bothering me about this is: Next time someone asks you to fix their computer, whether it's attaching a scanner or un-fuxx0ring Windows, realize that this is the end result of some sleazy company pushing the economic load of supporting their crappy products off onto you, rather than taking it out of their own bottom line. And, enabler that you are, you're standing still for it.

[ related topics: Microsoft Work, productivity and environment Salon magazine Economics ]

Fascinating thread over at Sgt Stryker's Daily Briefing about military accuracy in movies and TV. The funniest bits are the notes on how Down Periscope was actually one of the more militarily accurate recent films...

[ related topics: Movies Television Military ]

I'm spouting lots of expletives and am about to explode for reasons that are easy to explain: I'm being subjected to the Windows XP experience, and it's leading to lots of explicit language and exposing just how bad that "operating system" is. Luckily, I was able to use Knoppix to recover the data off of the laptop I'm trying to repair, so it's just a matter of getting it working now. FSVO "working".

[ related topics: Microsoft Work, productivity and environment ]

Diane talks about some phone issues related to her remodel, and comments that:

And I must report that it goes a long way when you bring a bagel and cream cheese and a Jamba Juice to your telephone repair guy when you get some for yourself and your kids, too. What goes around comes around, y'know? I'm just sayin'...

Getting on good terms with your telephone guy is a very good thing. These are the people in the phone company who actually know something, and especially if you're likely to be hooking up bizarre hardware to the phone line are the ones from whom you can get the answers you need. I'm sure Meuon has the war stories...

[ related topics: Phreaking ]

DEA approves trial of MDMA in treating 12 trauma patients.

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Health Current Events ]

Daze Reader had a link to Safe For Work Porn despite the fact that all the shots are fully clothed, I'm not sure that even in this office I'd want people seeing that on my screen, and some of those poses are danged thought provoking.

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

On the ATMP mailing list, "lenps" forwarded along this modest proposal:

With all the debate on marriage, I thought we might turn to the bible for inspiration.

Subject: What is a marriage? (please distribute widely)

The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be honored by our government."

Any good religious person believes prayer should be balanced by action.

So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on Biblical principles:

1. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.)
2. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron11:21)
3. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
4. Marriage between a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden.(Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
5. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
6. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut25:5-10)

[ related topics: Religion moron Sociology Law Marriage ]

Bwahahahahaha! We're wondering what it would take to make our app run on top of the Oracle rather than Microsoft SQL Server. Probably nothing, but we should test it before we promise our customers that. So I go to the Oracle website, and note that they have a 0% Easy Lease that...

...lets you acquire the Oracle solution you need today--without an upfront capital investment.

"No Credit? No Problem. You can drive off the lot with no money down! Here at honest Larry's used software...". They even have a Software Investment Guide, because buying software is always an investment in your future.

[ related topics: moron Consumerism and advertising Databases ]

11. found this one - linked from the Aerosmith site, no less: Obscenies.

"Too Cute To Be Nasty."

Saw Jerry Springer the Opera last night, an actual opera, with singing Valkyries, God, the Devil.. a cast of southern-ish rednecks.. The English have a strange view of the States, and we've done it ourselves exporting our worst TV shows to their society. - I'll be in London until next week..

[ related topics: Religion Technology and Culture Television ]

In the comments to Scoble's entry about Microsoft getting blowback about dropping the "Windows Classic" design from Longhorn, someone mentioned that the Teletubbies look has a name: "blobject". Apparently popularized by Bruce Sterling, who credits "blobject" to Karim Rashid. Karim Rashid is a designer of dubious talent, but the Amazon reviews of his book have given my my new favorite word for describing the "design over function" school of jelly-bean shapes: "Nurbsturbation" (from one "ti-mo", London, UK).

But the whole Teletubbies look in Windows XP made me realize that we need to get the old look back as the default: It'll stop all of those marketing guys who keep screaming "again, again!".

[ related topics: Books Microsoft Invention and Design moron Consumerism and advertising Marketing Graphic Design ]

The headline screams: Research: oral sex may result in cancer. Violet Blue has the lowdown on a possible link between HPV and oral cancer, but the short answer is: It's related to HPV, chances are you've already got it, don't worry, be happy.

(Speaking of which, does anyone else find it slightly disturbing to run across swingers proudly proclaiming "100% disease free" who seem to be completely ignorant about HPV? Not that it's necessarily reason to alter your behavior, but anyone who's had any number of sexual partners claiming that status is either ignorant or lying.)

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health ]

Remember all the controversy about whether or not Dubya stuffed his flight suit when he was prancing about on the aircraft carrier with the "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him? Vikki had a link that she says she purloined from Fleshbot that settles this presidential penis size issue once and for all. And John Kerry is hung like a horse elephant.

[ related topics: Politics Humor Sexual Culture ]

As I read through the installation docs, I think I've realized that the answer to why DBAs tend to walk through life looking slightly dazed and why Oracle seems have something over other database systems: Clearly Oracle feeds off the souls of those who administer it.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Databases ]

As political conditions continue to deteriorate in Zimbabwe, groups opposed to dictator Robert Mugabe use every means at their disposal to talk back to power. Acording to Yahoo, the latest method is condom packets emblazoned with rebel slogans. I particularly liked "Get up, Stand up!"

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events ]

A lot of folks have been pointing to the Wired article about the Blog Epidemic Analyzer that purports to track link trends as they propagate:

The most-read webloggers aren't necessarily the ones with the most original ideas, say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs.

Duh. What would be interesting is tracking more situations where mainstream media copies text verbatim from weblogs (Thanks, Lyn).

[ related topics: Weblogs Sociology Journalism and Media ]

Just finished reading Charles Gatewood's Photography for Perverts, from Greenery Press, ISBN 1-890159-53-0, which I'd ordered after I noticed mentions of it on Good Vibrations Magazine.

My complaints are all related to my expectations. As a motivational tool, this book is great. It's got some good "go get 'em, tiger" pep talks, a bunch of good pictures with a number of different styles that should motivate you if you're into heavy fetish imagery, and a few light suggestions about equipment. And the URL list at the end of the book is probably worth the price of admission.

But while there are a few suggestions which might help hone an artistic vision, this book won't necessarily help you take better pictures of your lover. He has a sample dialog with a model, but it's not a "here's why I said 'Don't stand flat footed'", it's more a "here are the sorts of things you can ask for from your model."

So on reading this, I'm motivated to develop an artistic vision and find some people to help me create some cool images. But while I feel like taking those pictures is in reach, I'm still casting about for the sorts of images I'd like to make.

In fact, I think if he's done anything it's encouraged me to go buy the David Steinberg edited Photo Sex: Fine Art Sexual Photography Comes of Age for the variety of images, so that I can start to investigate why I do and don't find each sort of image compelling.

[ related topics: Good Vibrations Books Photography Sexual Culture Art & Culture ]

Last night at the emergency room I finished up Passage by Connie Willis. I think I'd picked this up in response to some of the comments I had when I was pissing about the state of speculative fiction in September of last year.

Synopsis: Researcher looking at "near death experiences" falls in with researcher who was running some sort of real-time brain imaging on a patient who had a heart attach and who has discovered drugs which trigger the same brain patterns. Both team up to look at what these experiences might mean, while hiding from hokey guy who writes religious books about the afterlife.

I've got mixed feelings. The ending was effective. The "whoah, that was unexpected" was, in fact, completely foreshadowed even though it took me tens of pages to convince me that what had just happened had really happened.

But somewhere in the 550 pages that Willis takes to get to the real story I found myself starting to question the setup. Had she gotten down to the meat of the tale more quickly I would have been willing to discount the ways in which her fantastic world differed from mine, but in the end the revelations weren't worth the half a K of pages that the setup took. We didn't learn more than a hundred pages worth of what the characters were about, why they did what they did, and in that excess space I started to wonder about some of those differences in ways that made me question the story.

So a read which got me to think about a few things, but one which was trying to hard to be mainstream literary, and in the end I can't recommend it because of that.

[ related topics: Religion Drugs Books Physiology ]

I couldn't find the original discussion for this (although the Search system seems to be working much better :-), but Jesus Castillo has finally reached the end of the road (http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000146.shtml). In 2000 he was arrested for selling an adult comic book to an adult police officer. The prosecution's entire case was that comic books are a medium exclusively for children, and therefore Mr. Castillo was selling obscene material to minors.

The final nail in his coffin came recently when the Supreme Court denied his petition (which was no surpise to experts, but killed what little hope there was).

- Shawn

I've been playing about with ideas for an über information manager, and as one step along the way I've been thinking about a new email client. I currently use vm, which runs as a part of the Emacs editor, and recent Debian releases have had the integration with the Big Brother Database messed up, and I don't see HTML email right, and...

And then Mark goes and links to a "day planner" mode and a Wiki mode and I realize that most of what I was rewriting already exists as a plug-in to the super powerful editor of which I'm already enamored, I just need to take a little more time to work out some of the bugs and issues.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment Databases ]

Hee hee hee. Sorry, this one has meaning probably less than 1% of y'all, the rest of you can skip ahead or take it for a straight tech story: So what has our favorite ping pong player been doing recently? The headline says "Topspin Brings Boot Capability to Infiniband". (Thanks, for the heads-up, Larry, pandering to your wider audience is for weenies.)

[ related topics: Dan's Life Cool Technology ]

World Sex News Daily mentioned this short Q&A with Elisha Cuthbert about The Girl Next Door, which contained this gem:

Can you talk about the movie's nude scenes?

That was a body double. I was only 17 at the time...

What is the current legal status of "simulated child pornography"?

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies Law Current Events ]

Stolen from Borklog: The Bovine Rectal Palpation Simulator. Yep, it looks like a fiberglass hind-end of a cow, with internals, and assorted computer sensors to help the teacher help the student make sense of what the student is feeling experiencing.

[ related topics: User Interface Cool Technology Physiology ]

Actor and storyteller Spalding Gray confirmed dead. If you never had the pleasure of seeing one of his monologues in person, rent Swimming to Cambodia or find some of the old Gang of Seven CDs that had his work on them.

[ related topics: Movies Current Events ]

Does anyone have the audio of this? Sounds like we need a dance remix version to counter the excessive use of the Nixon "I am not a crook" cut. Talking Points Memo had an entry pointing to A bush press conference back in February of 2001:

"Our budget is fiscally responsible. If enacted, it will reduced(sic) the deficit by an unprecedented amount over the next four years."

As was noted over at Talking Points Memo: "Bad budget intelligence from the CIA?"

[ related topics: Politics Humor moron ]

Conspiracy theorists, start your engines: Man killed during initiation at Masonic Lodge. How many times do we have to tell you, kids (well, not exactly, the responsible party appears to have been 76 years old): The gun is always loaded, and you don't fire it unless you intend to kill.

[ related topics: moron Current Events Guns Conspiracy ]

Anti-news: Study finds teenagers who pledge abstinence contract STDs at roughly the same rate as those who don't:

One of the problems, researchers found, is that virginity "pledgers" are less likely to use condoms.

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

An entry in Daze Reader to the Colonel Angus SNL skit, alerted me to Saturday Night Live Transcripts. I set out to find my old favorites: Willie Nelson doing Great Moments in the History of White Trash, Part 1:

Carl Starkwell: Well, you know.. you drink more than my sixth wife. Boy, is she a loser!

Jolene Starkwell: Well, I'll make you forget all about her. What do ya say we drive up to Lookout Mountain and have ourselves a honeymoon?

(I thought for sure I remembered a reference to the old "Lookout Mountain Adult Hotel", but maybe it was just implied to us Chattanoogans) Part 2 and Part 3.

[ related topics: Humor Chattanooga red neck culture Marriage ]

Via Mark Morford's Daily Fix, a quick note about sexual objects from the pre-Christian culture in Peru.

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Sociology Mark Morford ]

I assume y'all have seen that Indonesia is trying to pass a ban on kissing in public, and that Daytona is arresting women there for Bike Week who expose their breasts, but it was the conflation of two entries over at Daze Reader, one after the other that reminded me that this is a continuum, and if we cave to those pushing for the arrests in Daytona they'll soon be pushing for bans on public kissing. Don't let the theocons win.

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Current Events ]

Okay, I feel like I'm just passing on links this morning and not offering anything substantive, but this one warmed my heart: Son of the man who wrote the California proposition which banned same sex marriage just got married in SF.

Atop the grand staircase of City Hall's rotunda, [David] Knight and Joe Lazzaro of Baltimore exchanged rings and were pronounced spouses for life one month after Sen. William "Pete" Knight, R-Palmdale, proclaimed San Francisco's same- sex marriages "nothing more than a sideshow."

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Bay Area Sociology California Culture Marriage ]

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. Well decided to come back and visit the Flutterby universe and stir things up a little as it looks like you all are agreeing far too much. Well a little discord is healthy.

I'd like to thank you all for praying for John Ashcroft but obviously we are not praying hard enough. I think we agreed on a stroke NOT Gallstones c'mon people lets try harder.

Brokaw 2004? Well It would be interesting, I actually think he's a pretty smart guy and YES he's very likeable and that translates into power. So far the Govantor has been the most effective head of state to take office. Kerry looks like a dreadful democratic choice and has no chance of winning especially with the republicans secret weapon Ralph Nader

GOTD(Gadget of the Day) http://www.mobileplanet.com/pr...P250277&listing=1&dp_id=MP250277

SOTD(Sport of the Day) Only one qualifier so far??? WTF c'mon people http://www.redteamracing.org/

[ related topics: Politics Health Bay Area Current Events ]

Just in case you thought the use of oddly spelled names was a recent phenomenon, Archivist George Redmonds found reference to the name "Diot Coke" in 1379:

Researchers at Britain's National Archives believe that the little girl, born in West Riding in Yorkshire, was the unfortunate victim of the corruption of the name Dionisia. One of the diminutives derived from that name on its path to the modern day Denise was Diot.

The girl's surname is believed to be a variation on the name Cook.

I'll drink to that. I'm trying to work in some sort of "Diot of Wurms" Luther-ish reference here, but it's not working out.

[ related topics: History ]

Mark has a new addition to his wishlist: The VersaLaser is a line of USB interface laser cutting and etching machines. And if none of those cute desktop machines work for you, check out their big brothers over at Universal Laser Systems.

[ related topics: Cool Technology ]

Interesting entry over at Life with Alacrity: The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes, or some arguments that the size of effective groups of humans is about 60.

[ related topics: Sociology Net Culture ]

For me it's a relatively slow day today. I've built up a new test machine, offered some suggestions for some training materials, but mostly I'm on eggshells waiting for stuff to break so I can dive in and fix it. All of which is my excuse for...

Well, okay, that's not strictly true. Todd also forwarded me a job opening for an IS manager over at Good Vibrations, and after some hemming and hawing back and forth encouraged me to apply. I think I'm quite a longshot for the position, information systems management would be a bit of a stretch for me, but it could also be really fun and rewarding. So last night I wrote the "this will either show them that I'm the perfect fit, or get my resume roundfiled posthaste" intro letter, and today I was reminded to go poke around the site for a bit, see what they're up to online. All of which takes me further from:

Someday I'll formalize my thoughts enough and protect the privacy of those involved in such a way that I can write up an explanation of why I'm no longer interested in exploring the spiritual aspects of sex with the neo-Tantra movement. And yes, Eric, it has a little to do with your "care bear" comment, but not nearly as much as you'd think.

At any rate, over at Good Vibrations Magazine (this is the noughties, baby, what is with those funky-ass URLs?) Arlo Tolesco takes on "sacred sexuality" in the context of a visit to The Erotic Temples of Khajuraho. Every other travelogue I've read about India makes me not want to go there, this one makes me ready to endure every downside I've heard of.

[ related topics: Religion Good Vibrations Erotic Sexual Culture Dan's Life Todd Gemmell Coyote Grits Sociology California Culture ]

Yes, it's lame, but I'm poaching a link from /.: Life after the video game crash enumerates a lot of the reasons I'm no longer interested in computer gaming.

Wow. If game makers continue to focus on multiplayer they'll have a whopping 28 million customers to sell to by 2008.

That's a big number... until you realize it's a shocking drop from the more than 90 million PS2's, GC's and X-Boxes that were sold.

There was a time when I thought that building a cool immersive environment with computer generated storylines would be the next big thing. As Todd and I explored that space I realized... well... read the article, and then add the factor that part of what makes movies popular is the sense of shared cultural experience.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Movies Todd Gemmell Sociology ]

Happy Grand Challenge day. As of right now the Status Board shows Team DAD leading as still running at 6 miles, with Red Team and Sci Autonics II disabled at 7. And a bunch more still running.

[ related topics: Robotics Cool Technology ]

This morning Charlene said "let's go whale watching". So we did. More details later, the guy on the left was typical of what we saw, these things aren't nearly as dramatic as our orca experience, but we're going to try to find more opportunities to look at 'em. On the right are a couple of sea lions and birds that were sunning themselves on the rock just outside of Bodega Bay harbor.

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

As promised, further updates on the whale watching: After a lot of searching about, we discovered that the Oceanic Society owns the search engines. Their phone number just lead to an answering machine, but their 1 PM trip leaving from Bodega Bay said "reservations recommended", and we figured that just a Saturday doodling up Route 1 to Bodega Bay wouldn't be wasted, so we headed west out Sir Francis Drake to the coast. We drove into the Porto Bodega Marina, who directed us to a bait shop, which said "it's too rough today, we're not going out, but the boats leave from...", which left us at another bait shop (that appears to only be open from 5:00 to 8:00 A.M.) that had a tattered flyer for whale watching, 707-875-3495. One "1 bar, roaming rates apply" call later and we had reservations on the 65 foot New Sea Angler, for $25/person.

While we waited we wandered down to the bird viewing area at the south end of town and saw this little guy sitting on a tree, still for an amazingly long time.

It turns out that the Oceanic Society trip was full, so we made the right call. But they had a naturalist who seemed to be giving a lot of the background on different whales and a whole song and dance. We had the captain (and owner) and a crew member, and not much ongoing patter. The large size of the boat was a mixed blessing, the waves once we got out into the ocean were pretty big, and this boat was large enough to bridge some of them, which means that standing on the bow we got a lot of vertical action. It was impossible to stand without holding on, and I got a lot of that ticklish feeling that accompanies extended periods of sub 1 g.

We picked up one whale just out of the harbor, past the rock pictured in yesterday's entry, fairly close to shore. We tracked him for a while north, seeing the occasional spout (same image from yesterday on the left), and then headed a mile or two out and turned south. After a while it seemed like the captain was desperate to show us anything, we got up close views of assorted drifting shrimp with clusters of birds, when suddenly a cheer went up. We saw a couple of spouts, and turned back north to track along with them a while.

I don't know what normal is, when we went orca watching up in the San Juan Islands we saw one full breach and lots of backs and fins and they were apologetic that the whales weren't playful that day. This day we saw a lot of spouts at a distance, and a few backs. No fins. Don't know if that was the rough weather or the different type of whales.

In the end, our 3 hour trip turned into probably closer to 4 and a half as we tracked these guys for quite a while northwards, and then hung out behind the rock with the sea lions for a while coming back in. We definitely got our money's worth, and I'd ride the New Sea Angler again, but before I did I'd take a more expensive trip with a naturalist to give me a little more background. It's clear that seeing whales is not like a trip to Muir Woods to see the redwoods, there's a lot of chance involved, and if you're serious about seeing them (and especially about getting pictures) you'd need to spend a lot of time out there, something you want to do as inexpensively as possible, but if you've only got one day out a good patter from a guide can make up for a lot in the viewing experience.

While we were fairly comfortable out there, as we rode back the sun was at a low angle behind us, so the bow was pretty chilly. Once we docked it was into the car, and go find a place with hot clam chowder. We settled on the southernmost of the two on the water restaurants. Charlene had a bowl of the clam chowder and a somewhat lackluster salad, I had a cup and a pot of the "fisherman's stew". I've had great seafood stews, this wasn't one of 'em, but it wasn't bad. The fish wasn't overcooked, the shellfish were fresh and tender, but the broth was lacking a little something.

But overall, a nice day out.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Nature and environment Food California Culture Travel Boats Birds ]

How Californians see the United States.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

White House suggests Kerry 'making up' claim that foreign leaders back him. If Kerry does this, what do you think are the chances that we can get the Whitehouse to come forward with the secret backers of the Iraq invasion?

[ related topics: Current Events War ]

Trying to get Flutterby into my regular rhythm so here's a link of a visit to an Erotic museum in Japan. While semi on the subject, we were chatting about Dan's party panties at Scotchnight and their possible use in clubs and all the parlor tricks you could pull (send a wave of pleasure through the crowd or various synchronizations with music and lights. My initial thought is this would be a lot fun to hack. See that girl that looks bored over there? Watch this.....

[ related topics: Music Erotic Movies Art & Culture ]

I sent a query out for that MIS job at Good Vibrations that I mentioned, and they sent back an "our hiring committee starts by reading answers to these 8 questions" list.

So it was a really good exercise in running through my work experience and discovering where I'm weak, how I can spin parts of my experience better, and then I got to the place where they'd re-attached the job description, and this version had a salary range on it.

I guess I won't be getting the opportunity to fix their URLs after all. But the exercise of answering those questions was darned good for me.

[ related topics: Good Vibrations Sexual Culture Dan's Life Work, productivity and environment ]

Two stolen from Sensible Erection. HighGrow is a marijuana growing simulation:

You'll be able to manage and control the plants' environment by watering, fertilizing and by adjusting the light height and photoperiod. You'll also be able to control and improve growth by pruning growing tips. Finally, you'll decide the exact moment to harvest your crop.

When you harvest your plants, the dry mass, health and final potency (measured in %THC) of each plant is calculated and compared with each other (and with other plants from previous efforts).

It looks like a pretty serious attempt at simulating the effects of cultivation. On the other hand Dope Farmer just looks silly:

Become a dope farmer! In a game that combines the mechanics of Harvest Moon and the theme of Dope Wars, plant, grow and sell crops, synthesize illegal chemicals, and keep an eye out for the man!

[ related topics: Drugs Games Nature and environment ]

Scoble had a link to Jason Mauss: Fawcette and other TechPubs: The writing is on the wall, about how weblogs are killing technical publications.

Probably a decade and a half ago I was writing an article for Dr. Dobb's Journal, and as we went through the revisions I realized that the editors were asking me to remove the style of writing that I wanted to read. The money was something of an influence, the article brought me about a week's pay, but mostly my wanting to get published was an ego trip. Now I have other outlets for the ego trip, so I'm no longer interested in writing for such publications, and I get better technical information written in a style I prefer from other people who write in similar forums to my own.

The paper has become irrelevant, and it turns out that the editor had value primarily on getting things to paper, not on content advice.

Mauss suggests solutions like switching to producing instructional videos (uhhh... I'm not likely to watch in real time something I can read about much much faster) and doing surveys on more than just salaries (Is "Cowboy Neal" going to be one of the options?), but he's missing the point: I'll still pay for good filtering, but the editor has to be knowledgeable in the field, and has to stop making the writing flat and lifeless. To stay knowledgeable in the field, the editor can't really be full-time editor.

Which means that the collaborative filtering mechanism of weblogs wins.

[ related topics: Weblogs Writing Work, productivity and environment ]

For all of you embedded Linux geeks out there: fnord is yet another tiny web server. Since my experience is that the bugs in these things show up in as people try to add features and optimize performance, I'm always on the lookout for the simplest servers possible for playing with embedded systems.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Embedded Devices Embedded Devices - Linux ]

Over at Backup Brain Dori pointed to the Spinsanity debate: Al Franken vs. Rich Lowry. It's a must-read, not so much for the content which you've probably already seen before, but because it's a great side-by-side illustration of the debating tactics and rhetorical techniques employed by both sides. Fascinating.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

Sometime back in November of 1999 I poached a link from Pursed Lips. So I've been following Debra's writings for quite some time, including keeping up with her journal. And parts of the journal get pretty explicit, I've seen some pictures that make me flinch, and when Debra opens up about her family I've seen some amazing glimpses into struggle and humanity.

But this one deserves a separate entry, because it's one of the most touching and intimate online diary entries I've read in quite a while (although context may count for a lot): An old habit, set aside... His name is Thomas.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Writing ]

Happy St.Patrick's Day

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Dayton Tennessee is trying to alter state law so that it can keep homosexuals out of the county:

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture moron Law Current Events Chattanooga ]

I'm over at Polly's, helping her with web pages and cleaning out a messy computer (she was a friend pre-Flutterby as many of you know). and she asked if we had ever had a meeting of the Chattanooga Flutterbarians.. I did not try to explain Chia.. which may fire up again soon.. - But it is a neat idea, maybe we should all get together for some food, drink and socio-political incorrect discussion in synchronous real-time with full kinesthetic and auditory communications modes operating. Either lunch.. or an evening event. heck, Saturday breakfast even. I'm posting it.. but I'll let Polly coordinate.

(And in case you are wondering.. Nancy knows I'm over here. {Nancy is why I have been busy and not posting much })

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Food moron Law Chattanooga Pyrotechnics Community ]

Inspired by Meuon's call to meet folks, we're going to need some gatherings for those of us who cluster out here by Baghdad by the Bay. I'm always up for lunch for those of you in San Francisco around noon-ish, but we should have some gathering for the wider ranging, especially those of you I haven't yet met in person. I know Starjewel recently landed down in the South Bay, who else is out there, and when's a good time?

[ related topics: Flutterby Meta Bay Area ]

Every time I drive up I-5 north of Sacramento, I look to the east and wonder about that small mountain range that rises out of the nothingness of the rice fields of the central valley. Today there's a Chronicle article about the Sutter Buttes, and a recent state purchase to turn some of those mountains into a park.

[ related topics: Nature and environment California Culture ]

An article about a mid-air break-up near Reno (from which the pilot parachuted safely) prompted me to a Google search on the Skybolt from Steen Aero Lab, which lead me to quotes like:

"The Skybolt is probably the best combination sport/acro plane..."

- Budd Davisson

Which reminded me of being an air-struck teenager and reading Budd Davisson's pilot reports of various exotic airplanes, which lead me to Bud Davisson's Airbum.com which lead me to his Neat Sh-t page which lead me to a write-up about a quarter-scale (13" long, 8 lb) water cooled V-8. Apparently Replica Engines is where the serious model builder goes for motive power.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Aviation Current Events Machinery Cool Technology ]

I like Hong Kong. Daze Reader had a link (with pictures) to this article on a sexuality museum opening in Danxia Mountain in Shaoguan City of south China's Guangdong Province that meshes museum faire with interesting rock formations that look phallic and vulvic. An associated article on Danxia Mountain makes that region look incredibly beautiful, here's the official park page with more pictures. I think that next time Cathay Pacific has a special Charlene and I need to scrounge our lunch money and spend some time.

(Oh crap, Best Travel Store has round trip SFO<->HKG Cathay Pacific flights for $605.)

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Art & Culture Travel Hong Kong ]

Yeehaw! Lyn over at Medley has an entry which discusses this text version of this CBS transcript of Donald Rumsfeld caught lying. Remember when certain apologists were getting by with the "they never actually said 'imminent threat'"? Well, if the phrase isn't exactly contained in:

some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.

And

No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

You'd have to be the worst sort of postmodernist weasel to assert that the semantic meaning wasn't the same.

Something else that strikes me here... I've tried to stay away from the comparisons with Weimar Berlin, because I think that's a little outlandish. After all, Hitler waited for several years to unnecessarily open up a second front.

(Now, shall we go into all of the conservatives praising the Taliban in the late '90s? The cites are out there...)

[ related topics: Politics moron War Dictators ]

Kinda of a cool tool till you realize who is it's master.

http://netscan.research.micros.../Static/author/authorProfile.asp

I guess it's like finding out your neighbor has a really cool telescope then finding out the incination is never greater than 5deg and azimuth only moves across a row of neighborhood homes......sigh...

[ related topics: Humor Privacy Microsoft Cool Technology Databases ]

One of the joys of working downtown is the drone of the helicopters when the anti-war protesters come to town. This morning was the first time I actually saw a relatively large group of 'em, I came up behind the mob when I got off the ferry, ducked through the Embarcadero BART station, and got ahead of 'em. If you counted the photographers and helicopters, I think the reporters outnumbered the protesters. SFGate reports 8 arrests so far.

Coming up at the west end of the BART station there was a fantastic string quartet playing on the far side of the turnstiles. I considered backtracking and going around to drop some money in their cases, but that would have brought me up the stairs right in the middle of the crowd. And, alas, their sweet tones were drowned up by the drums and brass of the rally above as I ascended the escalator.

[ related topics: Music Current Events War Public Transportation ]

In HO scale only, so I'll have to build my own in N scale: Sex scenes for HO scale model railroads (scroll down) (from NTK, which said "not just model trains plunging into tunnels").

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture Trains Toys ]

I've turned off the referrer tracking for individual entries because there were only a few legit entries in the huge maze of syndicators (which I'm okay with) and referrer spammers (which I'm not). But one of the things that struck me is that I had no real reprisal against the schmucks who were spamming, putting them on a "wall of shame" just gives them more hits.

I realized that this is a place I might actually agree to use filtering software, that my web browser could give me a "these people are assholes, don't ever buy from them" if I tried to go to a web site that advertised that way. Short of a tactical team operating above the law which left enough blood at the scene of the reprisals to act as a deterrent, anyone got a better way to deal with those who abuse our trust?

[ related topics: moron Net Culture ]

I don't see mention of the 21 page memo on the U.S. Supreme Court website, but according to this AP article on the Scalia memo about the Cheney case, "Big Tony" and I agree on something:

"If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined," Scalia wrote...

Amen to that, brother. Alas it ain't the fault of those asking the question.

In the "weblogs aren't real journalism" department: Yet another reporter has been discovered making up stories out of whole cloth. USA Today fires longtime journalist Jack Kelley for lying.

Interesting Christian Science Monitor article on the state of Iraqis now versus before the war, and an update on Bush administration calls for funding:

On April 23, 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. "The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."

That turned out to be off by orders of magnitude. The administration, which asked Congress for another $20 billion for Iraq reconstruction five months after Natsios made his assertion, has said it expects overall Iraqi reconstruction costs to be as much as $75 billion this year alone.

I'd really like Kerry to come out with a strong statement about not pulling out before reconstruction is finished. Now that we're in, we'd better be in for the long haul, but not getting into another bad situation like this seems like a priority for the next presidential term.

[ related topics: Politics Law Current Events Journalism and Media War ]

The Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics.

[ related topics: Cool Science Pop Culture ]

Columbine nails why I don't like Nerve.com in I Mocked it for Science.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

I'd recently gotten some strange e-mails, not spam. And tracked it down to 'meuon' being an "urban legend". Heck, I even have a line of clothing. I created the word 'meuon' years ago, looking for a short unique word that did not exist on the 'net. Later found a very small island named it, but this is the first other reference I've bumped into. The 'net is getting crowded.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python Clothing ]

I blame Meuon. He was describing the gathering in Chattanooga on Friday, which will probably be a recurring thing, on the Chugalug mailing list as " Geekdom Politics, Sex, and Food!", someone who undoubtedly wishes to remain nameless wondered about Tux in a smoking jacket with a martini glass, and... well... in between helping Charlene clean up the back yard, doing a dump run, and helping my neighbor solder the fixtures in place for his darkroom, I couldn't leave well enough alone and slapped this together.

Damn. I meant to put a little tux logo on the jacket. Oh well, next time.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Chattanooga Linux ]

A picture in today's SF Chronicle jelled in my mind why there's opposition to gay marriage: There's Gavin Newsom standing in in between two women, but we know they're just married to each other so that whole three-way prospect thing disappears. The opposition to gay marriage is really just about the maintaining porn fantasies.

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Sociology Current Events Marriage Gavin Newsom ]

Just when you despaired of watching cable TV and still maintaining a clean lifestyle, Jacuzzi comes out with the first multi-media spa . Cleanliness may not be next to Godliness, but does God feature a floating remote control?

[ related topics: Religion Technology and Culture Television ]

http://home.earthlink.net/~pgw...ristianOrigins/PaganChrists.html an interesting minimal comparison of Attis, Jesus, Krishna, Mithras, and Osiris.

[ related topics: Religion Humor ]

Mark Morford mentioned this one in one of his Daily Fix newsletters, and David Chess has now mentioned it twice, and for some reason this time I got to the third screen, and... If you liked Myst in that meditative click around see what happens sort of way: http://www.freshsensation.com/samorost.swf

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Mark Morford ]

Dave Winer asks about C programming tools for Windows. While the responses have a lot of "you've got money, just buy VisualStudio .NET " answers, there are also jewels for cheaper tools, both open source and not. Some resources there for next time someone's trying to get into coding on the cheap.

[ related topics: Free Software Dave Winer Microsoft ]

What reporters want.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

The Chronicle article GOP gays place ads opposing amendment is unremarkable, except that:

Former Rep. Michael Huffington, a Republican from Santa Barbara who says he is bisexual, said Monday that he has donated $100,000 to the Log Cabin Republicans in part to help pay for the media campaign.

I don't wanna be snarky or anything, but having been married to Arianna Huffington is not necessarily credibility in the "bi" camp.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Marriage ]

Wow. The San Francisco Fire Department recently had a fracas where a few firefighters were busted for drinking on the job. Whistle-blowers called snitches in union newsletter. The Local 798 website doesn't have a current issue up, so I don't have the primary source, but the article quotes extensively:

...union official Tom O'Connor, denounces "a separate subterranean group of 'leaders' (who) appear fixated on bringing down the Fire Department in the public eye."

"The new generation of 'snitches,' " O'Connor wrote, is focusing on "destroying all that this department stands for . . . all just to advance their own interests.''

I really hope this guy was quoted out of context, but having read assorted union newsletters in the past, I'm fairly sure that he was voicing the worst of interpretations that could possibly be laid to his words.

[ related topics: Politics Bay Area moron Work, productivity and environment ]

Bash.org strikes again:

<fooz> In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penisses, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

[ related topics: Quotes Humor Sexual Culture Net Culture ]

Had an interesting morning, met with the owner of a '1 to infinity' gifting (MLM-ish) site and e-marketeer. He needs a new system, a little database work and some changes made to evolve and 'stay legal'. He also sells and uses 'marketing databases' and teaches his downstream to use 'stealth mailers' and similiar techniques to recruit prospects. Claims to have made 200k+ last year. But can barely afford to pay for the development of his next system. Searching for his domain name (I'm keeping him anonymous for my own protection), finds lots of spammish e-mails pointing back to his site and it's cloned/replicated derivitives...

And then, while I was toying with doing it anyway (it is potentially good paying work, after all), Nancy e-mailed me an e-mail that contained: "..authoritative enough to defend what is true & just." - It was the clincher.

After spending years working on the 'white hat' side of the 'net, some things just aren't worth any amount of money. Adding my level of internet related technical, e-commerce, business and database expertise to the scummy underside of the 'net would make me feel like a barnacle, and right now life is too good to play with the large shipload of bad karma this thing has.

It was interesting hearing it from his perspective. But all of a sudden I need to take a bath.

[ related topics: Spam Coyote Grits Invention and Design Law Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Net Culture Marketing Currency Race Databases ]

Note to self: Next time you see a "you really should install..." note, but discover that things work, you might want to really install whatever it was. In particular this was installing CUPS on Charlene's desktop machine, and thinking that because we were getting reasonable output from her HP Deskjet 960c that everything was fine. But I recently tried to print out some photos and was getting horrible resolution, everything looked like a really bad newspaper dither pattern. Installing the HPIJS driver, and then using the OpenOffice.org Printer Administration facility to import the PPD file from /etc/cups/ppd/*.ppd has turned this from a reasonable word processing machine to a photo-printing monster.

[ related topics: Free Software Dan's Life ]

Atlanta Journal Reports that genital piercings, on FEMALES, are illegal. Looks like a case of good intentions (female genital mutilation) being taken to extremes by conservative religious ideologies. Of course, the good quote:

"The original intent of the amendment was to make illegal the voluntary piercing of female genitalia for decorative purposes," said Rep. Bill Heath (R-Bremen). Heath said that while some piercings do fall under the category of involuntary genital mutilation, he is fine with banning the voluntary procedures as well. "I just don't think it's appropriate," Heath said. The bill only regulates female genital piercings. Heath said he doesn't support male genital piercings, but won't draft legislation to address the issue."

And, just to be clear: I wonder what life (and sex) would be life with an intact foreskin... It was not MY choice, and given one now, would not be.

[ related topics: Religion Law ]

So every once in a while, when I'm really ultra certain about something, I add an entry to my .procmailrc rules which filter a message to /dev/null. This morning I erased my download log and started fresh. Since this morning, I've received 158 emails. 23 of them have been gotten by these rules. The slimeballs at "bestdailydeal.com" and "moosq.com" seem to be the worst offenders, especially since I've tried unsubscribing from both of them. Lying scum. I'm actually shocked and amazed that those slimeballs don't try to hide any better, but I'm glad that they're so easy to filter.

[ related topics: moron Net Culture ]

I don't know if this was covered but I am so proud of Michael Newdow - read his arguments before the supreme court - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03...7a6&ex=1080882000&partner=GOOGLE

He is a physician and became a lwayer I think for this reason, possibly. He stood in front of the supreme court and said "I deny the existence of god" - I wonder is this a first? We should note this day and make it a holiday - maybe someday we can cast off this tyranny of religion over life in the US.

Outstanding - It helps me to know there are people like Dr. Newdw.

Ziffle of Mayberry

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Interactive Drama moron ]

20 minute oral HIV test approved.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health Current Events ]

Busy busy busy the first few days of this week, so updates on the weekend's trip will have to wait. To tide you over, something that looks like a "must-read" that I've not yet had a chance to pursue too far. A little link lovin' to Jerry Kindall who had a link to Good Tempered Creatures, which is an article about breeding for domestication which, among other links, pointed to Early Canid Domestication: The Farm Fox Experiment (HTML, no pictures) (but see PDF version with pictures) which describes a 40 year long experiment to breed foxes for domesticity that found that many of the traits we find endearing, like floppy ears, appear to be a side effect of breeding for behavior.

More grist for the "beauty may not be only skin deep" mill...

[ related topics: Nature and environment Sociology Physiology ]

A pic of sunrise from the bedroom window I just have to share.. (and show off) - Life is good and Nancy and I are off on another adventure, more pics and stories when I get caught up with Life 9.1.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Embedded Devices ]

Did Dan Brown rip off The Da Vinci Code from Lewis Perdue's The Da Vinci Legacy? Makes me want to read the latter to see if there was a real story somewhere under that somewhat contrived thriller...

[ related topics: Religion Intellectual Property Books ]

Gotta love this city. I mentioned the incident where a San Francisco cop allegedly mugged a guy for his fajitas. His father was the chief of police, there were allegations of conspiracy and cover-up. In the "saw that coming" department, Alex Fagan Sr. (the chief of police during the fajita incident) is being investigated for lying to cover for his son's involvement in a drunken brawl.

Meanwhile, Scottsdale police made public 22 pages of reports Monday that provide new details of the actions of 53-year-old Fagan Sr. at the Chaparral Suites Hotel, where his son allegedly assaulted a hotel manager. (To read the reports, click here.)

[ related topics: Bay Area Current Events Law Enforcement Conspiracy ]

'Twas only a matter of time: latest Nigerian scam e-mails are datelined from Iraq. Somebody has been watching reruns of Three Kings.

[ related topics: moron fraud ]

Harvard professor scams $600k, gives it to 419 scammers.

While the future for Xu appears to involve breaking rocks, and plenty of 'em, one fundamental question remains: what is currently the minimum IQ required for a Harvard professorship? We suspect that the answer is double figures - or less.

[ related topics: moron Education ]

Over at Eros Blog Bacchus had a link to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Teen who posted own photo charged with child porn and World Sex News Daily pointed to USA Today Teen girl charged with posting nude photos on Internet:

She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.

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

Out here in the Bay Area there are big posters offering large cash rewards for information on bail bonds companies taking compensation other than cash or playing similar games. The Erotic Lady reports that things aren't that way elsewhere....

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bay Area Chattanooga Economics ]

Boing Boing has a link (direct to the WMV) of a group of Sony's QRIO robots dancing. ASIMO eat your hear out.

[ related topics: Robotics Cool Technology ]