Flutterby™! From 2004-11-01 to 2004-11-30

Apologies for the lack of anything here. We've moved, from the cozy confines of Fairfax out into the trees of Lagunitas, and in the process I've been the primary motivator of moving two households, at first trying to do everything by myself with volunteer labor, then hiring some day laborers. Got observations on day laborers, garage sales, packing, home decorating, clutter, letting go, and all of that stuff, but... later.

Don't want to count any chickens, but I'm also going to chat with some folks today about a long-term consistent income stream, and I'm optimistic. Then it's back to clean out the old place, and finish organizing the new place. That'll take at least another two days.

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

Augh! In the few days I've been offline for the move, someone's using the Flutterby server as the alleged origin in forged spam. They're putting in dummy received lines pointing back to my server, and my email address in the "From" field, and I'm getting hundreds of bounce messages.

At first I was scared that it was a compromise on my machine (and sorry, John, for killing off your NNTP session, when I discovered this and saw things I didn't recognize in the process table I went for safety first), but since the intervening "Received" lines all point to DSL or cable modem IPs, it looks like some virus writer has chosen me as the lucky recipient of all of these bounces.

Slow excoriation is too good for 'em.

[ related topics: Dan's Life virus Spam broadband ]

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is "Issues in Cartography." The class has compiled a great list of online maps. Here are a few of the best:

Poison Fire USA: An animated map showing "nukie-lerr" events in the continimerous USA. Gets pretty busy from 1960 to 1985, slows down for a bit and then picks up again in 2000...

Atlas of US Presidential Elections: An awesome resource Presidential election. I actually subscribed to his site to save some data compilation time for my final project in the Cartography class.

Fool's World Map: Sort of a WikiMap, except that corrections are made only based on readers' poor geographical knowledge. Good for a laugh, but don't use it to aim your ICBMs!

I will try to post some more interesting maps as time goes on.

[ related topics: moron Pyrotechnics Maps and Mapping ]

I've accepted a job. I'm deliberately not going to say lots about it because, although no part of it is classified, a lot of things are labeled "for official use only". It promises to involve lots of working with cool technologies and large interesting databases. And I'll be doing a lot of work from home.

However, I will tell you that the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis has just made it on to my reading list.

[ related topics: Books Dan's Life Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Work, productivity and environment Databases ]

Back to doing graphics again. Eric might be interested in the Virtual Terrain Project, libraries for managing and displaying terrain and geographical data in 3d, and, among other libraries, that depends on the OpenSceneGraph code.

One question, since I haven't worked in real-time 3d in so long: A lot of people are talking about Z-buffer issues. One of the advantages of a "Quake" style renderer was that it was really pixel bound rather than polygon bound, and I've long (ie: 5 or 6 years) thought that the next logical step was to take all static data and do visibility culling and clipping using a variant of those algorithms. It doesn't solve all of the problems (ie: intersections), but since for most of the problems in geographic data we can easily resolve sort order I'm intrigued by this.

[ related topics: Games Dan's Life Graphics ]

My "Daily Reads" over there on the right side aren't really daily any more. But one of the ones I do drop into more often than others is John Robb's Weblog because he posts the critical observations from Global Guerillas in short snippets. Although I think I'll have to start reading the latter, because I found this beauty:

There is, however, a crucial difference between the chess master and the master intelligence analyst. Although the chess master faces a different opponent in each match, the environment in which each contest takes place remains stable and unchanging: the permissible moves of the diverse pieces are rigidly determined, and the rules cannot be changed without the master's knowledge. Once the chess master develops an accurate schema, there is no need to change it. The intelligence analyst, however, must cope with a rapidly changing world. Many countries that previously were US adversaries are now our formal or de facto allies. The American and Russian governments and societies are not the same today as they were 20 or even 10 or five years ago. Schemata that were valid yesterday may no longer be functional tomorrow.

From Chapter 3 of The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Last night Charlene and I got to talking about the ethics and economics of using illegal immigrant labor (because of recent practical applications, although I took a "don't ask/don't tell" approach...) and this got me to thinking about the economics of outsourcing, spurred on with some of my recent conversations about where and how development is being done, and by conversations with Jeff (who piped in again this morning). I'm realizing that a lot of things are changing globally, brought on partially by the net and reduced international communication costs, and relatively stable shipping, alhtough "terrorism" has an effect on both, and I need some kicks to see economics in a fresh way.

[ related topics: Politics Books Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Ethics Economics ]

....no one can hear you dust. According to CNN,, the Mars Rover Opportunity currently exploring the Red Planet overnight gained a 3-5% increase in the output of its solar power cells. Scientists at JPL speculate that a dust devil blew over the top and cleaned off some of the red dust obscuring the cells. That's what THEY want you to believe...

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Astronomy ]

I'm here at Bloggercon, right now I'm in the session on "journalism" being moderated by Scott Rosenberg. So far I'm not feeling like we're getting any sort of conversation that hasn't been happening online, and I'm much more interested in trying to break out some discussions from the formal sessions, but haven't had much luck with that so far.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Weblogs Journalism and Media Salon magazine ]

In the "emotional life" session here at Bloggercon, I think the best session I've been to here because it's small enough to be a dialog between people, and because it's not just people saying the same things they've said in their weblogs:

Television clearly reaches a lot of people, but none of them is there.

-- Tony Kahn

[ related topics: Weblogs Technology and Culture Television ]

Dump of URLs from the "emotional life" session at Bloggercon: http://kokochi.com http://2020hindsight.org http://momentshowing.typepad.com http://minadeletras.us http://enochchoi.com/thoughts/ http://cmuncey.manilasites.com http://scrinson.blogspot.com http://theredactor.blogspot.com http://julieleung.com http://rura.org/shimon http://afish.typepad.com http://sociate.com http://www.cadence90.com/wp/ http://www.tansey.net/towel http://www.flutterby.com http://susanmernit.blogspot.com

We need a collaborative outliner: We're working on an essay for Charlene's english class, one of those initially trite "is flag burning good or bad" assignments that has turned into an exploration of the history of the iconic meanings of the flag as an advertising symbol, sitting touching each other on the couch, and we're emailing revisions back and forth, across the couch, with less than a foot separating our screens.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Writing Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Net Culture ]

Widely quoted, still not sure how I feel about it. From a BBC article on the preparations for the assault on Falluja:

"The marines that I have had wounded over the past five months have been attacked by a faceless enemy," said Colonel Brandl.

"But the enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him."

[ related topics: Quotes History Current Events Monty Python ]

Ted Taylor is dead. In the 1950s he was the world's greatest designer of atom bombs. Among them were the smallest ever built, the Davey Crockett, which was about the size of a musk melon and had a yield of only 10 tens of TNT,as well as the most powerful non-hydrogen bomb. John McPhee wrote an interesting book about him some years ago, The Curve of Binding Energy. However, this obit from The Times of London concentrates on his most magnificent idea: Orion, a huge spacecraft fuelled by dropping a-bombs behind it and riding the shockwave to the planets. He planned an enormous vehicle that would take 8 men and 1000 pounds of cargo on a 125-day round trip to Mars. The takeoff would have been a bitch,(5 a-bombs to orbit)but damn, what a ride it could have been!

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Astronomy Travel ]

I thought all this foolishness went away years ago with 8 bit operating systems.

"Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/p...04/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

In Mayberry we use paper which is then fed into a reader.

Ziffle

[ related topics: Politics Software Engineering Current Events ]

The local flick arthouse has a program where they ask locals of note to recommend a film that was important to their artistic development, find a print of that film, and then have a little intro and Q&A following about why it was an important film. Michael Ondaatje(of The English Patient fame, among other works) suggested The Hustler, saying that it was the film that made him aware that movies were crafted and didn't just fall from the sky.

We got off our lazy butts last night to head into San Rafael to see it.

It's one of Paul Newman's early roles, and he's backed up by a great cast. Newman plays Eddie Felson, a cocky young poolhall hustler who takes on the great Minnesota Fats(played by Jackie Gleason, and the name predates the real life pool player), and loses. The movie explores comfortable routine against ego and that drive to win, and demands more from its audience (and actors) than modern day films do: understanding the nuance means keeping track of dollar amounts from scene to scene, and there's a lot that happens in long reaction head shots with no dialog.

Ondaatje commented that Walter Tevis, the author of the original book, said that all of his novels were about alcoholism. Addiction is a big part of the story, but it isn't a morality play, which is refreshing in these days of heavy-handed scripts.

I hadn't seen it before, but several people in the audience mentioned that seeing it on film in its full width (I think it was 2.40 Panavision) was a completely different experience than the video. The print was really nicely restored, although since seeing a few films on DLP I'm now totally conscious of gate weave on films that use a lot of static shots, and I'd imagine that any letterboxed version on a home theater would miss some of the detail that comes out in the film.

Anyway, recommended, especially if you can catch it on film. And now we have to rent The Color of Money, and probably track down both books too.

[ related topics: Books Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Movies Bay Area Theater & Plays Video Gambling ]

After emailing documents across the couch (yes, the house server is now back up), I ran across Croquet Project, a framework for network shared environments which uses 3d hardware for its interface notions, and asks:

WHAT IF...

...we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could we go? What kinds of decisions would we make that we might have been unable to even consider 20 or 30 years ago, when the current set of operating systems were first created?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama User Interface broadband Invention and Design Graphics Archival Real Estate ]

After Mark's audio wrap-up of Bloggercon, I sat down to do my own, but... I'm only getting 11dB of signal on the Windows box, not enough to get comfortably out of background noise, and on the Linux machines I'm getting pops that sound like clipping, but not quite, no matter what my gain settings. I've tried two mics, a cheap $8 karaoke mike and a borrowed much more expensive beast, with the same results. Anyone know what's going on?

[ related topics: Free Software Music Dan's Life Weblogs Microsoft Open Source ]

You'll notice that for the most part I'm not posting during the day. I'm on the clock now, and one of the great things about working from home is that I can actually get focused. But I responded to an email from Diane earlier, and I've got something I need to get out. I didn't want to do this on Flutterby, I've been trying to stay relatively non-political, but I need to get this out, and then I'll go back to understanding code.

Last Tuesday, a lot of people went to the polls, it seems to me that most of their votes were fairly counted, and John Kerry lost the election. It was Kerry's to lose, and frankly he and his machine fucked it up. From bad graphic design to an inability to reach out during the debates to just general boneheaded strategy, I feel like every penny I gave to the DNC was wasted.

But honestly, even if Kerry had won we'd still have lost. As has been mentioned before, this is someone who has done things to civil liberties that have made John Ashcroft cringe, and who is proud of those assaults. We could go on and on, but the point is that, yes, we're going to have to suffer through some bad foreign policy and some hideous court appointments, but we would have had to sit through different evils with the Democrats in power.

I didn't think "Better Dead than Red" back in the 1980s, and I don't think it now, although I'll certainly do my best to get the reds out of my country.

Now I admit to taking a certain glee in sites like FuckTheSouth.com (and there was another wonderfully clueless essay from the other side about how the red states should secede on economic reasons, ignoring the fact that Republican states are a bunch of freakin' welfare queens), and I've even been known to giggle over the "Canada annexation" that's in Diane's entry for today, although on that latter point I'm not sure I want sexually subversive print material stopped at the border; even if it's a challenge to keep the First Amendment around, at least we have the basis for free speech in our legal code.

But really, what are we going to do? Move somewhere where we'll be more subject to the whims of American foreign policy? Fuck that, I'm staying put.

The real lesson here is that the politicians will pick and choose their issues so that they can pick and choose their electorate, and we, one of them will do that better than the other and "win", but that's a matter of optimizing inputs, and we're not doing nearly a good enough job at changing the inputs as the "evangelicals" (ie: fundamentalists, but that's another rant) and big-statists are. That means you and me, starting right here, have to do a better job of winning the minds of our fellow citizens. Just as in Iraq, we aren't going to change those attitudes by going in hell bent on alienation and revenge, we have to understand their fears and figure out how we can market freedom and liberty to them based on those fears. We have to stop thinking in terms of political campaigns and start thinking in terms of constant issues advertising. We have to start to bypass a corrupt and manipulable press and find new ways to make and distribute news. We have to be "out", and make sure that our neighbors know that just because we're different we're not necessarily scary.

Besides, the next four years are going to be fucked up. We've got big issues in economic policy coming up, big problems in foreign policy that look pretty intractable to me, potential disasters in domestic policy teetering on the shelf. Who would you rather have take the fall?

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Politics moron Law Current Events Consumerism and advertising Civil Liberties Graphic Design Economics ]

Just a reminder about Veterans Day(Remembrance Day in the UK), and a discovery of a wonderful obituary from The Telegraph of London. Royal Navy pilot Pat Jackson shot a torpedo at the Bismark in WW2. Later during the hunt he and his co-pilot ran out of gas and landed next to an abandoned Lifeboat in the North Atlantic. After bailing out the boat with their boots, they discovered the brandy.... A great story from a heroic age.

[ related topics: Aviation Boats Shoes War ]

We interrupt these long-winded entries with a quick overdone testosterone toy: The Bionic Dolphin, the Innespace pages have construction photos, and there are the obligatory usual press-release rewrites with the same mildly recropped picture: 1 2 3

[ related topics: Machinery Cool Technology Fabrication ]

After my report on seeing The Hustler, we rented The Color of Money last night. Wow, was that a dog. There are times when Martin Scorsese's overdone style of direction, with those dramatic camera moves and synchronized cuts, is appropriate. I enjoyed that feeling in The Age of Innocence. But in The Color of Money it felt like someone had gone nuts with the effects shots and the only thing missing was the checkerboard dissolve and the diagonal wipe. It didn't help any that the story sucked, the screenplay lacked subtlety, and the scoring was melodramatic.

There was one scene where this movie worked, the one where where Paul Newman takes on Forest Whitaker. Straight cuts, two great actors playing off each other. Other than that it's Tom Cruise chewing up the scenery with a completely unlikeable character, and everyone else trying to fit into a screenplay and sense of direction that just totally destroys whatever sense of humanity may have lain in the source novel.

I still want to read the book, mostly because I've heard that the movie is very different from the book. Skip the movie.

[ related topics: Books Movies Currency Gambling ]

While we're quite happy with the new tandem, I'm still going to keep the tandem toys topic populated, in this case with two frame builders.

Bohemian Bicycles makes a tandem with S&S couplers and a DaVinci independent drive drivetrain, that looks very pretty.

And Glenn Erickson has a profile page over at S&S and some very enthusiastic fans who show off some of his gorgeous lug work.

These are bicycles in the same vein as Alembic guitars, I'd want them as much to hang on the wall and have visitors "ooh" and "aah" over them as to use 'em.

[ related topics: Art & Culture Bicycling - Tandem Dan's Life - Tandem Toys ]

With the recent political discussion, I think we should look to the latest Sinfest for inspiration.

[ related topics: Politics Humor Sexual Culture ]

An article talking about the issues of "outing" closeted public figures in light of the gay marriage controversies.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Marriage ]

Some additional ideas that may spark some thinking on the whole internationalization and economics discussions: IT Conversations:Richard Florida on The Rise of the Creative Class (audio).

[ related topics: Economics ]

Sometimes its easier just to read the headlines instead of diving into the stories themselves. Today's exhibits: from the Guardian; "Lard Crisis: Mince Pies Threatened as Supplies Dwindle" and from CNN; "Cocaine Haul Hidden in Giant Squid". Perhaps Captain Nemo was called in to help with the cavity search.

[ related topics: Drugs Food Journalism and Media ]

Yow! Chattanooga makes it on to the front pages with Krystal Square Off® World Hamburger Eating Championship: `The Tsunami' Takes $10,000 Krystal Square Off Cash Prize

"69 Krystals in eight minutes is astounding. Kobayashi is, without a doubt, the greatest eater ever to live upon planet earth," said David Baer of the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

[ related topics: Food Chattanooga Sports ]

We hear much these days about narrowcasting, and increasing attempts to focus programming to increasingly smaller niches of the market. According to the Guardian, the BBC has taken this drive to its logical conclusion: Radio 4's morning man had to ask one sailor to turn off his radio because he was jamming the emergency wavelength.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Monty Python ]

Yes! Another combination of guns and computers, and since you can do it from home, you could even add your own tequila! Live-Shot.com lets you hunt various exotic species from the comfort of your computer desk.

LIVE-SHOT is similar to a trip to the rifle range with one very notable exception. Everything is done through a computer and the internet. A paid membership will allow for access to the range viewing camera(s) at any time. Members can then schedule a reserved session time which allows exclusive control of the shooting system to fire at a choice of various reactive targets. Please note that the shooting range is an outdoor facility located on a secluded ranch in the Texas hill country. Please take this into consideration while shooting is taking place, as weather can affect accuracy.

[ related topics: Photography Theater & Plays Travel Net Culture Pyrotechnics Guns Archival ]

I scanned a few of the better pics from our hike on the Colorado Trail.

Asha and myself working our way through Serle Pass - my first experience about 10,000 feet. I was sick as a dog and carrying 55lbs on my back didn't help.

A beaver pond below Mount Elbert. I never realized just how "constructive" these critters are. The stream coming down from Mount Elbert had a series of beaver ponds that stretched for a few miles.

A mountain vista from Kokomo Pass.

And here we are at the end of the trail. We covered about 350 miles of the 472 total miles of the trail. It took us about five weeks of hiking to do it. And there was just one mosquito...

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Archival ]

A short break from dealing with the hell of Windows(oh, I will be so glad when I get the Linux layer written for this code) and the challenge of understanding code written by a very smart programmer with a different vision of organization and structure than I've got, to muse for a moment on quality.

Over at Simple Weblog there were some essay topic suggestions that were followed up with a simpler call for thoughts on "Money vs. Quality" and trying to optimize for time in that. This struck a chord for me, and I thought maybe crasch would chime in.

The simplest answer is that if money is an indicator of system optimization, then money is quality. But money isn't an indicator of system optimization, there's an awful lot of friction and whim in the economy, so the question is harder. Here's a specific example:

With the recent move, we got rid of literally a truckload of stuff. A good portion was kitchen stuff, over the years the functions of the food processor got replaced with a hand grater and a good blender, that sort of thing. So I'm extremely loathe to take on any more kitchen stuff.

But I've long thought it'd be nice to have a good mandoline. A long board with an adjustable blade and a pusher on rails for consistent cuts of veggies.

Now it happens that I'm pretty damned good with a standard chef's knife. I can whip through things with reasonable consistency, and I could probably turn out, say, 1/8" slices of potato with +-1/16" accuracy. Unfortunately, that's not always good enough. Close, but not quite. But I'm also not sure how often I'd use it, the sorts of casseroles where that's necessary for the right texture aren't normally in my repertoire.

I should also note that I'm on my third pasta maker in 14 years. Beefy hand cranked steel things. I've worn out the bearings on two, the second while Charlene was in my life, and she's not much of a pasta eater. Admittedly, this second one wasn't a Marcato Atlas, but it wasn't cheap, and I got it from Home Chef, which gets rather snooty about quality (although frankly I now believe that most of their opinions and products are crap).

So I was reading March/April 2003 Cooks Illustrated article on "Weekday Scalloped Potatoes", and noticed that they had a side-bar talking about mandolines. And their winners were < $10 plastic things, with a $100 stainless steel one that came recommended with the caveats that:

With some practice, all testers were able to produce perfect slices...

And

requires less effor to operate once the user becomes familiar with it (emphasis mine)

So I look at that, and I wonder, if I'm going to get 10 years out of the more expensive one, will I go through 10 of the cheap ones in that time? And is all of that effort really better than a good chef's knife (which, admittedly, costs me nearly as much as the expensive one)? And they talk about taller testers having problems with all of the stainless steel models, does this mean I'm the only one in the kitchen who will be able to use this tool? What does quality mean in this context?

It sounds like it might not necessarily go to the stronger materials or the longer lasting design.

And, to drop back to the software I'm working on, at what point should we be building code that'll be useful for two decades (and, yes, I have worked on code that still had embedded comments 20 years old), and at what point is "one person can understand it until the demo is complete" sufficient?

[ related topics: Weblogs Food Software Engineering Writing Work, productivity and environment Economics Archival ]

On my way to the ferry this morning I was listening to NPR and it got me wondering: After so many years of ridicule, especially by the right wing elements of our culture, why is political correctness coming back in? Specifically, when did "muslim" become "islamist", "fundamentalist Christian" become "evangelical", and "rebel" become "insurgent"?

[ related topics: Religion Politics moron Sociology Pop Culture ]

Here's a couple o' real winners: A bunch of pseudo-scientists are looking to get their pet projects funded again: Addiction to porn destroying lives, Senate told:

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography's effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn't log off until 5 p.m.

Layden called for billboards and bus ads warning people to avoid pornography, strip clubs and prostitutes.

If three uptight bluenoses can get Fox fined $1.2 million, maybe a letter to your favorite (or at least representative) senator could help shut down these shysters.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Software Engineering Current Events Net Culture Education Public Transportation Archival ]

Whoah! Memes flock: I read about Peter Merholz describe the results of his girlfriend organizing his bookshelf by color, and then I see that Chris Cobb has reorganized San Francisco's Adobe Bookshop by color, pictures here.

[ related topics: Books Bay Area Art & Culture ]

I'm at the office today, waiting for a download, and just ran across a tool that I'm definitely going to have to try out, because it looks like parts of what I was envisioning for the snippet manager: Clever Cactus.

[ related topics: Cool Technology ]

Anyone got suggestions for a local search engine for a web site? I've got one I wrote a few years ago, but I'll bet there are better ones out there and I'm distinctly against reinventing wheels right now.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Finally got around to seeing The Incredibles yesterday. Given the curve of Pixar films I expected to be well entertained with really cool visuals for an hour and a half.

We ended up sitting through the credits, not just because we felt obligated to read off all the names we knew (although, yes, that feeling does occur when I know members of the crew), but because even the credits were just damned cool. And when we left, Charlene, who'd said "do we have to see this one on the big screen?", said "I may have to see that one again".

I don't know what I can add to the accolades already awarded, but one of the things to note is that this is a Brad Bird film, and has some of the same sorts of subversive undertones that Iron Giant did. I'd even go so far as to compare the story to Neil Gaiman's work, and not just because both play with odd takes on superheroes.

But even at the basic level of "a really cool superhero story", this one works well. The visuals are stunning and take advantage of the technology while still saying true to an art direction that feels like a comic book, the lair of the villain has all the neat gadgetry you'd want a supervillain to create, the oft mentioned family and midlife crisis aspects thankfully do not degenerate into a heartwarming sitcom, and I'm going to buy the soundtrack when it becomes available.

If it had been another Finding Nemo I would have said "cute", acknowledged that it was once again visually stunning, but story-wise Pixar films would have dropped off my "must see" list. Instead, this one's very recommended.

Oh, and if the reaction of the kids at the matinee during the credits was any indication, Brad Bird has generated a brand all his own.

[ related topics: Pixar Children and growing up Animation Movies Graphics Art & Culture Neil Gaiman ]

Hey, this is kinda cool: With a "you know you're getting old when...", tom notes that the USS Peterson, the ship he served on that was the "nicest ship i[tom] was ever stationed on - modern & totally air-conditioned, very important in the Gulf", was sunk as a target.

[ related topics: History Machinery ]

This is why weblogs are important: If you've been following this incident where a U.S. Marine shot a wounded person in a mosque in Falluja, you need to know that Kevin Sites was the cameraman who shot that video, and you need to read his Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1.

[ related topics: Weblogs Journalism and Media Video War ]

Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne was holding forth over the weekend about the coming era of space tourism. He mentions that it will be risky, and will result in some "smoking craters in the desert". I suppose there are a lot of us who would accept the risk to get humanity into space. However, I still have some nagging doubts. I watched the Science Channel documentary Black Sky and was completely enthalled. But damn, they were lucky! There were at least three moments when the thing could have gone very bad, including the landing gear collapsing on one landing. This ship is far more like the Wright Flyer than Rutan might care to admit.

TechCentralStation has an interesting piece on how dangerous this thing really is, as well as a spirited riposte by another author. I guess I'm afraid that if Richard Branson gets blown up in this thing that's all people will remember. Of course, if his balloon spring a leak or he fell off of Mt. Everest, everybody would say, "yes, yes, too bad but what do you expect?". Perceptions matter a lot here Certainly SpaceShipOne is only the first step, but I think Rutan has a long way to go before getting a real orbital vehicle.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Space & Astronomy Machinery ]

I was just about to sit down and write a Python "iPodder", when I ran across bashpodder (may have been via Mark V). Not perfect, but probably close enough, especially if I fix the power supply problem on my house server so I don't care about drive space.

So if you've been looking for something that'll look for RSS enclosures and download audio files for queuing up the next day, check that puppy out.

[ related topics: Free Software Music Content Management Linux Python ]

Magic 8 Ball "Signs Look favorable" http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/anol/

I would predict(but not altering bet) that this will be over before 2010. I don't think we stated the stakes yet. I was thinking perhaps a Macallan 18 on my side, what were you thinking on your side (no doubt an Islay smokey monster)

Update #1 http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/7091.html

Original Bet http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/3300.html

[ related topics: Wines and Spirits Archival Dan and Todd's Bandwidth Bet ]

JJG is back with a new weblog.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Okay all you language freaks, here's a 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

[ related topics: Language Sexual Culture History ]

Leave it up to Elf to make my day, as he links to an AP article on conservative views on marriage, including this gem from one Bryce Christensen (emphasis mine):

"If those initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated -- if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness -- then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."

[ related topics: Politics Sociology Current Events Child-Freedom Marriage ]

I'm not much on thanking external entities or processes which I haven't seen evidence of, but here's a big hearty thanks to all of you who've helped make Flutterby one of my favorite sites on the web.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Flutterby Meta ]

I finally added semi-working blogging to my own site and the CybrMall code, so I'll be blogging the more mundane personal stuff there.

[ related topics: Weblogs Work, productivity and environment ]

Life imitates Spike Bike: Bicyclist opens fire on vehicle, killing one and injuring another.

[ related topics: Guns Bicycling ]

Via the ever-informative Borklog: Goth Limericks like this one:

there is no good rhyme for angst

the closest i come is against

   that makes it quite tough

   since my life is quite rough

and I can't show the depth of my paingst

[ related topics: Humor ]

When Debra mentioned that Wired had a new sex columnist, I thought "oh, that's nice", and promptly forgot about it. But Jay pointed to Regina Lynn: Porn Prohibitionists Miss Point, and while there was nothing earth shattering there I might go check out some of Regina Lynn's other columns in a spare moment.

(By the way: Hey, Wired, what is up with those URLs? They were so 1998 in 1998, but in 2004?)

Also in that vein, Columbine mentioned (with usual great accompaniment) that Susie Bright now has a weblog.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Weblogs Sociology Current Events ]

Lyn has redirected Medley to Holidays 2004 at Uncorked.org, where she linked to The Christmas Resistance movement.

This weekend I had to buy some lumber in a place that had the Christmas tunes rolling, and at the mention of the music choices the clerks were already making symbolic suicide-type gestures.

Also in that vein, and I'm sorry, I don't remember who I got this one from, another positive note for the season: Target has indeed banned Salvation Army bellringers from in front of their stores

[ related topics: Music Sociology ]

Via the appropriately named Weird Ass Shit: So you've decided to start an audio weblog, and you need some bumper tunes, but don't have a Mac, so you can't use this "Garage Band: thingie? Then check out The Dirty Punk Fuckin' Anarchy Machine.

[ related topics: Music Weblogs Macintosh ]

S.F. Chronicle: Anti-evolution teachings gain foothold in U.S. schools:

"Evolution -- is that the Darwin theory?" Cashman shook her head. "I don't know just what he was thinking!"

Wow. There's a teacher who needs to be woken up.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Sociology Education ]

Aaaugh. I'm back in that hell of shopping for cell phones. Now that we're out in the boonies, our Sprint phones are roaming (and chew through battery fast). There's coverage from AT&T Wireless, but they're now Cingular, and... wow... even before they nickel and dime you those prices are applied without lube. And everything is a 2 year commitment.

Furthermore, there's the question of GSM, which I'm not sure works out here (everyone I know who's got coverage has an older Nokia phone). I'm not quite sure how it would work, but it sure seems like there has to be a way to make the cell phone buying experience less painful. Or maybe there is, I already have it, and they just don't offer coverage out here; the Sprint site is much clearer than either Cingular or the horror that is Verizon's web site.

[ related topics: Wireless Dan's Life ]