Flutterby™! From 2005-11-01 to 2005-11-30

Shelly had some observations about what showed up on tech.memeorandum.com, and Dori expanded on one of her comments, the discussion of which makes me ask: What is it about services like Memeorandum and Technorati that people find compelling?

I think this must be an instance of "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded", and another symptom of the reason I'm not rich, but both of them seem to be following the curve, not leading it. Memeorandum today points out that the big news is... wait for it... that Bush has nominated Samuel Alito to serve on the Supreme Court. Shocker. Like that's not above the fold on newspapers across the country. Further, it tells us that political webloggers have an opinion on the matter. Wow. Isn't it amazing what automated media can do for us?

If we go over to tech.memeorandum.com we discover that, yes, people link to the same stories that /. linked to yesterday, and that Ruby on Rails is hot these days. Wow, kids, color me impressed.

Dropping back over to Technorati gives us a similarly bland view of the world. For instance, I know that Mark has been hacking on the Atari 2600 recently, and I'm wondering who else might be playing with that sort of hardware hackery, so I put "Atari 2600" into the search box, and discover that spam blogs are using that as a search term, and that someone just bought a game cartridge for that platform on eBay. I guess the exciting world of Beenie Babies is passé now.

I feel like what's going on is a "cargo cult" situation: The world at large sees a few smart interesting people doing cool stuff, and starts building mock-ups out of plywood to try to curry favor with the gods which gave those people their technology. And I suppose that if you're someone who's impressed by Microsoft's latest offerings then the runway markers on the rock strewn field make sense to you.

I suppose it's a free country, and they can do whatever they want, but the noise that these people introduce into the conversation just seems to get in the way, and like the younger sibling who just won't stay the hell home and insists on hanging out with you and your friends, I long for a time when we can have a clubhouse that isn't invaded by such mundanity.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs Microsoft moron Current Events Journalism and Media Community ]

Oooh: Fascinating look through Windows XP internals and the new proliferation of malware: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far. Guy buys CD, discovers weird processes on his computer, learns that CD installed DRM software to try to limit his use of such CDs on his computer, DRM software which uses all of the same nasty tricks that malware and rootkits use to try to hide its existence and prevent uninstallation.

And over in the Sensible Erection thread on the link, "NickelJoe" said:

It's sad that it is becoming safer to use p2p networks then to actually purchase cd and dvds.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Music Privacy Microsoft Software Engineering moron ]

In the "almost forgot about this" department, we watched Lords of Dogtown on Friday night. I really enjoyed Dogtown and Z-Boys and was hoping that a dramatization of those characters and that era in skateboarding could be really compelling. But it wasn't; I think I enjoyed it more than Charlene because I'd seen Dogtown and Z-Boys and knew something of the history of the sport and of those people, but the film felt like a set of disconnected vignettes without deep background, and characters that we never really connected with.

For those of you who don't know about this era, it was the 1970s, Dogtown was a run-down rough neighborhood in Santa Monica, and the local surfers zealously protected their breaks under the pier, and hung out at the Zephyr surf shop. A bunch of high school kids aspired to be stoner dropout surfers, skateboarding on the old ceramic wheels down to the beach to surf.

Then silicone wheels happened, and these surfing kids started going to the formerly ritualistically formal skateboard competitions and doing new things; getting low on the board, carving, touching the pavement. Then the southern California drought happened, pools were drained, and bowl skating was born as these guys snuck into back yards while the inhabitants were away at work or school and surfed the hell out of those empty pools.

Promoters discovered the new styles and forms, "extreme sports" were born, skateboarding blossomed, and a bunch of punk kids from the slums were in strong demand.

Dogtown and Z-Boys captures this transformation fairly well from old video and reminiscences, but Lords of Dogtown misses something in the dramatization. By trying to stay true-to-life it loses the strong story arc we expect in movies, but by being a dramatization it loses some of the gritty realness, and in these days of big air and ollies and all sorts of other things that are as foreign to the skating those guys did as what they did was to the manuals and handstands of the ceramic wheels era, the impact of the evolution of those years gets lost.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Movies Invention and Design California Culture Skating Video ]

Top Ten Changes a Catholic Majority Would Make To The Supreme Court Archives.

[ related topics: Religion Law Enforcement Archival ]

Went down to Jeanne and Janine's yesterday evening to hang out and pass out candy. Their neighbor goes whole hog, this year he did up his garage in pirate theme, the entrance to which was a two story skull with glowing eyes, so they at least took an awning out front, covered it in blue and purple lights, and arranged various scary stuff around it.

But we got to talking about next year, and somehow the idea of a gingerbread house came up, where kids had to stick their heads in an "oven" to reach in for the candy... Big milk cartons at the edge of the yard with Hansel and Gretel pictures on 'em, that sort of thing.

Jack talks about making an "Operation game" costume, and he references Felix Jung's Operation: The Costume, and... well... that seems like a fun thing to put kids through to get their candy... '

[ related topics: Children and growing up Games ]

Building a 17' foot wind turbine ( HGR1219, again!).

[ related topics: Cool Technology HGR1219 ]

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.



Robert Frost

[ related topics: Poetry ]

Four years ago I saw the work of Harvey Drouillard, but couldn't find any more. I just got email from him, Harvey Drouillard has a website with naked people in every day situations:

The purpose of my art is very simple, to make people smile.

[ related topics: Photography Nudity Art & Culture ]

Hmmm... I haven't had a chance to read it all the way through, and today's going to be fairly full, but this looked like it might be some food for thought: Flaws in Porn Mythology For Women.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

International Game Development Association: Sex & Games.

[ related topics: Games Sexual Culture ]

What to do when Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X. Put here for posterity 'cause it seems like I need this every few weeks, and the past few times I've reinstalled my OS, which takes much longer than these steps.

Particular symptom: Logo appears, screen goes blue with mouse cursor and never (40+ minutes) gets to the login screen. Happens after I hose something hard enough that I have to power cycle it (ie: leave a network drive mounted and switch networks).

Stage 2 of those instructions worked.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Macintosh ]

Word of the day, from a spam email: Pseudofilarian. As in "Young pseudofilarian Porn Exclusive complimentable". I went over to Dictionary.com, put in "pseudofilarian" and got nothing. So I asked it for a definition of "filarian":

Any of various slender, threadlike nematode worms of the superfamily Filarioidea that are parasitic in vertebrates and are often transmitted as larvae by mosquitos and other biting insects. The adult form lives in the blood and lymphatic tissues, causing inflammation and obstruction that can lead to elephantiasis.

Uhhhh... Wow. I can come up with a number of things this might mean, but I may have to go wash my brain out with bleach if I think about it too long.

[ related topics: Language Spam ]

I linked to Jack's account of making a human sized "Operation" game. One of the travails he had was attaching wires to the disposable aluminum baking sheets he used for his conductive edges. It occurred to me that the SmartClipper (mentioned here previously) would be perfect for this.

I had not done any real cave exploring since I broke my leg 2 years ago, the bug hit, opportunities arose, and so Monday and Tuesday this week I 'played hookey' and visited three caves in two days. Ouch! I am sore, but happy. This pic (and the ones it links to) is from the only place I felt compelled to take a camera, Cedar Ridge Crystal, which is an incredibly beautiful cave just a ways away.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Embedded Devices ]

I mentioned Sony's shrouded system processes for DRM. It has been discovered that having this patch installed this also effectively hides some cheats from anti-cheating software for online gaming. Anyway, Sonly has released 3.4 megabytes of patch that allegedly makes the cloaking go away, but doesn't say what else they do in that 3.4 meg (on top of whatever the original install).

ATO Records: Information Regarding Our Artists' Music, Copy-Protected CDs and your iPod is one record company talking about some of the blowback they've gotten over this (Sony is their distributor):

We also recommend assuring that "auto-run" is not enabled for all discs you use on your PC, and not accepting Windows Updates that include changes to your "DRM" or Digital Rights Management (especially those in Windows Media Player 10), until we can guarantee these problems won't arise. In the meantime, the easiest way around these issues is to use Apple Computer products in conjunction with your iPod.

(Thanks to Dave)

[ related topics: Apple Computer Music Microsoft moron Current Events Civil Liberties ]

One of the disadvantages of voting with an absentee ballot is that when the campaigns kick into high gear there's... well... I suppose it really doesn't work, 'cause I rarely find that late stage advertising changes my mind on anything. It's kind of like some of the issues with corporate ethics I'm running across, there are a few companies that I'm up to not buying any of their products several of hundreds of times.

Tom got a robo-call regarding California Proposition 73, a constitutional amendment that would impose a parental notification rule on abortions for minors. In the comments to that entry, one poster says:

If my kid is going to be having a surgical procedure and the state wants to maintain my legal responsibilty for her health, support, and well being they had better tell me about the procedure.

So I have an idea: How about a constitutional amendment that allows for teenagers with parents who are so wrapped up in their own egos to replace those parents with foster parents who might actually give a fuck about their children's well-being? And while we're at it, if those parents want to insist on a risky pregnancy, how about laying the economic burden of the resulting child back on the original parents?

Maybe this is just backlash against some of the outright evil I've seen in the name of "parents rights", but it seems like at some point we have to start pushing back with a little bit of a demand for parental responsibility, at least in the case of the most egregious defenders. Those offering up "parents rights" excuses for this amendment seem prime candidates.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Health Ethics Law Civil Liberties California Culture ]

Long term use of peyote apparently has no impact on mental function, and marijuana is effective against pregnant nausea, if you're okay with baby's first words being "whoah, duuuude".

[ related topics: Drugs Health Current Events Physiology ]

Brunch the other day was served on the host family's silver. For some reason that got me to thinking about legacies; my parents have a set of silver flatware, but it's never seemed practical to me. True, every Friday night we got out the good dishes and the silver, and I remember those meals, but it doesn't hold the same feeling of nostalgia and legacy to me that, say, the simple pine bookshelf which my dad made that holds my cookbooks does.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen this morning I daydreamed about a company that might help people make heirlooms with meaning: What if that set of silver could be accompanied by an old faded picture of grandpa tipping the crucible of molten silver into the mold for that spoon? What if legacy furniture and furnishings weren't just something your grandparents bought, but if every time the family sat down to dinner they'd know that their ancestors were involved in making that table...

It wouldn't have to be actually making the table, it could be "invite 'em in for a few hours on a weekend and entertain them while they do some sanding" (which you'll probably have to correct later), but it seems to me that it could be a cool selling point to say "don't just leave them things you bought, leave them a legacy."

So I glanced at this article about furnishing that 72,000 square foot fantasy home and gagged. If someone with essentially unlimited money wanted to furnish a home they could do so much better than wandering down to Union Square and delegating the decision. A trip to, for instance, the Amana Colonies could let you not only get furniture that's in those styles, or in much more tasteful and refined ones, but would let you talk with the builders about your specific desires, and would probably result in higher quality materials.

At which point I realized that ostentation is not about quality, and if you're that way your kids will run away to join some neo-communist terrorist cell anyway and your furniture will be sold at soime pennies on the dollar estate sale and there was no sense of meaning for the ages there anyway, and my daydream went "poof".

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sociology Furniture ]

The Military Uses of Silly String.

[ related topics: Cool Technology War ]

I wonder if, with the rise in piracy off the Somali coast as evidenced by a pirate attack on a cruise ship, we'll see a decrease in global warming, thus proving Pastafarianism.

I wonder if, in telephone advertising literature, someone actively thought out the juxtaposition between the "*69" and "threeway calling" services, or whether it just happened.

[ related topics: Religion Consumerism and advertising Flying Spaghetti Monster ]

Judge tosses a blanket on topless protest Breasts Not Bombs told nudity not part of free-speech rights:

"Being topless is not inherently expressive" speech, Burrell said. The group, Breasts Not Bombs, had scheduled a protest for noon Monday. The California Highway Patrol threatened to arrest anyone who went topless.

Doesn't the fact that there's a court ruling on the matter say something about the efficacy of the medium? I think there's some room to quibble about what "inherently expressive" means there.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Nudity Law Law Enforcement Civil Liberties California Culture ]

Waist to hip ratio better indicator of heart attack risk than "BMI". Next they'll be telling us the four food lobbies groups are bunk... no, wait, they already did and replaced that with something based on equally dubious politics science.

[ related topics: Politics Food Consumerism and advertising ]

My mention of the Thorax Cake led to the disembowled succubus cake. In further hopes for inspiration, I link to the Halloween Meat Head.

[ related topics: Food Art & Culture Food - Cake ]

As of late last week, Forest is no longer living with us, but Charlene's out of town, so we got together to play a game yesterday. We both have legal copies (obtained at some difficulty) of Total Annihilation, a great game that's also easy enough on computer resources that it'll run well on my laptop. Alas, we couldn't find the CDs, and it requires the CDs to run, so I did some poking about and grabbed Invasion - Battle of Survival, an RTS based on the Stratagus engine. There are several games that run on Stratagus, and while Invasion - Battle of Survival wasn't quite as lightweight as I'd hoped it did run sufficiently well to give us a little head-to-head, and even team versus computer, action.

[ related topics: Games Open Source ]

First they say the Earth revolves around the Sun and now they are saying Darwin was right?!?! Anybody have any other sources backing this?

[ related topics: Business Current Events ]

Dang it, next thing you know these academics are going to go telling people about prop wash, smoke shifters, and snarks: University of British Columbia researchers Margo Lillie and Tracy Boechler claim that "cow tipping" is impossible, at least when attempted by one person:

More specifically, "a cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people," according to Boechler.

Dr Lillie elaborated: "The static physics of the issue say two people might be able to tip a cow. But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react."

Clearly their model was more complex than simply considering a spherical cow of uniform density.

[ related topics: Cool Science Nature and environment Biology ]

Right to Wife -Why does Judge Alito treat women like girls? (Especially in light of my comments on Prop 73).

And an LA Times article about tens of thousands of people having trouble registering to vote under Arizona's new requirement that you prove U.S. citizenship:

In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, more than 10,000 people trying to register have been rejected for being unable to prove their citizenship. Yvonne Reed, a spokeswoman for the recorder's office, said Friday that most probably are U.S. citizens whose married names differ from their birth certificates or who have lost documentation.

So if you're a woman, and you feel that you must get married, don't take your husband's name lest you be disenfranchised from the political process.

(both stolen from Medley's sidebar)

[ related topics: Politics moron Sociology Law Current Events Marriage ]

Although I still don't trust Diebold and friends, Arnold Schwarzenegger just became the poster child of why the real issue is the PEOPLE involved in the voting technology process. Apparently, "sample names" were still in the system, including his.. So how many sample names were stuck in the system from testing? Just his or maybe 10's of thousands who voted straight Republican (or Democractic) tickets? Oops!

[ related topics: Politics Fashion ]

Coal fired steam filled airships: http://flyingkettle.com/

[ related topics: Cool Science Aviation ]

Many of us have considered writing a novel based on our own adventures. But what would happen is somebody else wrote about your life, and badly? Inside Higher Education, a chatty website for harried college instructors has a charming review of a writer who discovers his high school class was the basis for a notorious 60s era pot-boiler called Campus Sexpot. Its like finding out that you actually lived in Peyton place.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Erotic Writing Education ]

The World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkeling Championships:

This unique event takes place in the famous Waen Rhydd bog on the outskirts of Llanwrtyd Wells, where a trench has been cut, approximately 6 feet deep and 45 yards long. Competitors have to cycle two lengths of the bog underwater using snorkels and riding specially prepared mountain bikes; these bikes are supplied with the tyres filled with lead and water. Wet-suits are recommended and you must supply your own snorkel.

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

	This past weekend, I travelled up to Dr. R. Gary Litchford's place in Piney, Tennessee, to work with my Balloon Aerial Photography system. It's been a little while since I posted about this project, but it has been developing and here are some of the results.
	It was very windy, gusts 10-15 mph. This is not ideal balloon weather and would have been better suited for a kite. But until I get my Sutton Flowform 30 that I've been wishing for, I'll have to fight the balloon!
	I reeled out all 1000ft of my line. I now use 200lb test Dacron kite string since I lost my last balloon due to tether failure. This gondola uses an Olympus Stylus 410. A great little 4Mpix camera that comes with an IR remote (key to the way the system functions).
	I'm not using a picavet-style suspension yet and had a lot of camera spin. We were mostly interested in the drainage patterns in the clearcut lot but I also got some great shots of the Fall colors - which just happened to be peaking that weekend!

More pics and info on Eric's project will be available at the UTC Aerial Photography site.

[ related topics: Photography History Work, productivity and environment Chattanooga Archival Aerial Photography ]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row, /That mark our place; and in the sky / The larks, still bravely singing, fly / Scarce heard amid the guns below..

[ related topics: History War ]

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study:

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We theorize that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

[ related topics: Humor Cool Science broadband moron ]

Some mornings I wake up and discover that someone else has done all of the research. So I'm just going to pretty much steal an entire entry from MarkV. Three on building water rockets, because at some point I want to do some of this destructive stuff with Forest: Water Rockets, Rockets and the Water Rocket Playground.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Cool Science Space & Astronomy Toys ]

Yes.

I was visiting some links and thoughts for a product and went back to what was a major thing in Linuxland a few years ago, the Linux Router Project. We built LRP based routers for a couple of people that ran them for years.. a MoBo, a Floppy Disk and two NICS including the local DA's office and several businesses. Never charged much for setting them up, we were very happy to just solve a problem.

A good paragraph extracted from LRP:

" I am also now semi-retired as a computer engineer. Aside from my general disgust at the computing industry and what the Internet has become, scrambling around for scrapes of work and praying for the next good money project that eventually ends suddenly in a few months, just isn't keeping food on the table. I've looked quite a bit for some stable work, but plumbers make more hourly then Sys Admins in South Florida. Either I move to California (never!) or move on. I am now reserved to do the latter. With LRP remaining an unachievable goal I don't even feel much desire to work with computers anymore. "

Which reminds me I need to add some funds to my PayPal account and send some people some 'Thank You's" for things I've recently use and made a couple of bucks off of, including: Courier and Joe, as well as a few people I should go buy their commercial version of software to support their efforts like: MySQL.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Coyote Grits Food Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment California Culture Net Culture Typography Graphic Design Currency Databases Public Transportation ]

User Friendly and The Register are both discussing latest Amazon's Triple Patent Whammy.

Guess I'll just hope CybrMall and it's derivitives become successful enough get a 'Cease and Desist' order from them.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Coyote Grits Food Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment California Culture Net Culture Typography Graphic Design Currency Databases Public Transportation ]

"perpetual beta" - Feels like a Micro$oft term, but it's being used as a 'Feature Meme' of what people are calling 'Web 2.0' - Trying to get my head ready for this weeks: cre824 web design compitition and conference in Chattanooga and also triggering Flutterby to update to erase my double post.

[ related topics: Chattanooga Marketing Graphic Design Conferences ]

Just don't go into a theater playing Chicken Little to avoid it. Having the heavens crash down on your head is preferable to having to endure this movie...

[ related topics: Movies Food Theater & Plays Birds ]

We're trying to find inspirations for Thanksgiving dinner. Alec's birthday is right in that neighborhood, so we want to make Thanksgiving not be at Jeanne's house, giving Alec a little space between his day and the holiday. Being a truly 21^st century couple, we're sitting at the dining room table with our laptops emailing each other cool links, and jotting down notes as we browse cookbooks.

I want to smoke a turkey ("so, like, dude, I realized I wasn't rolling the wings tight enough..."), so we'll have to make gravy without the drippings. It seems like Mushroom Giblet Gravy might be a good place to start.

We don't remember where, it may have been San Anselmo Coffee Roasters, but Charlene had a sweet potato and cranberry salad that would go well. Here's a sweet potato and cranberry salad.

We want to have a few of the traditional starchy dishes, but go long on veggies. Green Beans with Cranberry-Balsamic Glaze sounds like a start on that. Charlene also said something about sautéed steamed greens & pomegranite seeds, which sounds like it might be similar to the winter greens with currants & pine nuts that I love from Fields of Greens. (We just got back from a trip to Fresno, which included a visit to Charlene's parents, which resulted in a dinner of fresh chard and daikon greens and little else. Yum.)

I'm not sure that there's anything particularly special about this Southern Style Cornbread Stuffing, but we'll keep it around just in case.

For appetizers we've been thinking of drawing on some of Charlene's Armenian heritage. I'll probably end up making some flat breads on the oven tiles, and the Cheese Dip with Za`atar from Sonia Uvezian's Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen. Maybe a Goat Cheese Tart with Marinated Beets and Arugula.

We're playing with ideas for desserts. I love to do chocolate (see my mention of Elaine Gonzalez's The Art of Chocolate), but that's not really traditional. Rather than just have regular pies, a few weeks ago I made a full-on pastry yeast dough, like you might use for a Danish, which would have about the same amount of fat as a traditional pie crust but if pre-baked a bit could make a really incredible base for a dry apple or rhubarb filling. Here's a Sweet Potato–Ricotta Cheesecake that combines pomegranite and ginger with the traditional flavors.

As more come up I'll add 'em in the comments.

[ related topics: Books Dan's Life Food Chocolate ]

Wikitravel. Yet another reminder that I need to automate linking some of the Flutterby services, especially the Wiki, with outside resources.

[ related topics: Web development Travel ]

The Brainfuck Programming Language:

Brainfuck is the ungodly creation of Urban M¨ller, whose goal was apparently to create a Turing-complete language for which he could write the smallest compiler ever, for the Amiga OS 2.0. His compiler was 240 bytes in size. (Though he improved upon this later -- he informed me at one point that he had managed to bring it under 200 bytes.)

[ related topics: Invention and Design Software Engineering ]

So what do you folks think of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement? I'd never heard of it until reading today's article in the SF Chronicle. I've been aware for years of the former ZPG (now "Population Connection", good grief) but this is taking the lessening of human impact on Earth to an entirely new level. At least they have a sense of humor and a mostly rational perspective on their stance.

[ related topics: Humor Invention and Design Bay Area ]

So the big draw at the Cre824 web design competition is that Kevin and Alex of Diggnation were doing a 'live podcast' from Chattanooga. Lots of people showed up just for this 'feature'. I had never heard of them except from this event and it's world, so I wondered what I was missing. Answer: Not Much. This was like Bob and Doug McKenzie talk about beer, technology, beer, websites, beer... Only in person and not as funny or as insightful.

The next expert's topic will be: "The Death of the Future of Interaction: Getting Over Usability & Into the Brand".

I'll never be a "web designer".. and after meeting what is supposedly the bleeding edge of it (at least around here..).. I'm proud to be a geek.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Beer Chattanooga Graphic Design ]

When Otto invented the gasoline engine he no doubt foresaw a new era for efficient and easy personal transportation. However, he probably didn't realize that his invention would also engender huge subsidiary industries producing pneumatic tires, dashboard grammophones, undercarriage neon lights or in-car air fresheners. Simiarly, our brave new world of personal electronic communication devices has spawned unexpected ancillary devices, such as Spongebob Ipod caddies, purses with myriad oddly shaped pockets, and from Anthro Computer Furniture, a handsome $300 wall mounted charging caddy for all your devices. Reminds me of that small table in the front foyer for the (1) telephone in the house, with a shelf underneath for the directory.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Automobiles Machinery Embedded Devices Phreaking Furniture ]

Today at the cre824 web design festival, this Lawyer (Mitra Vahdat) said in print in her PowerPoint slides, and in person, and defended it vehemetly when asked in front of others (by me) that "you should obtain permission before linking to another party's page". Specifically if you link 'deep' into a website to a relevant page or excerpt of the the site as a whole. Specifically, she said, this might cause a loss of advertising revenue, or a copyright/trademark violation.

Talk about killing the goose that lay's the golden eggs.. .

Oops, I just violated that legal advice 3 times.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Interactive Drama Law Consumerism and advertising Graphic Design Copyright/Trademark Fashion ]

Dessert last night: Make chocolate cups. Inflate and wash water balloon sized balloons, temper chocolate (heat dark chocolate to 115°F, but not over 120°F, cool to 84°F, reheat to not over 90°F), dip balloons in chocolate and place on wax paper. Reserve a little bit of melted chocolate to patch the inevitable holes in the bottoms where the balloon sagged down to the wax paper.

When these things harden up, pop the balloons. Something to try a bit more next time that I experimented with a bit yesterday: How to mix in some grated (mandarin) orange rind.

Once the chocolate has hardened pop the balloons: Poof, instant (well, okay, it takes quite a while to do the tempering, but it can be done as a background process while you're in the kitchen anyway) dessert bowls.

We were going to try for a rhubarb mousse, but we were shopped out and our favorite grocery store (and last stop) didn't have any, so we got frozen blackberries and a few fresh for garnish. Mousse was:

• 3 egg whites (we used the yolks in a goat cheese tart that'll come later when I refine that recipe a bit more).

Beaten to soft peaks, add

• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• pinch of salt.

Meanwhile, have heated

• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of water

to 238°F (ie: a simple syrup). With mixer running, pour this syrup into the egg whites.

In a separate bowl, beat a cup of heay cream to peaks, add 2 tablespoons blackberry liqueur at the end of beating, then fold together with the whites and freeze for a while. Soften up a bag of frozen blackberries, fold them into the mousse, and spoon that into the chocolate cups. Garnish with fresh blackberries.

I think next time I might run the frozen blackberries through a strainer to remove the seeds, but the result was very much a crowd pleaser.

However, we're going to stay a bit more traditional for Thanksgiving.

For more hints on how to work with chocolate, I strongly recommend Elaine Gonzalez's awesome book: The Art of Chocolate. If you've got a little more time, for instance, you could put little cocolate roses, or even chocolate blackberries and leaves, around the edges...

[ related topics: Books Food Chocolate ]

Had guests over for dinner last night, and we tried out some of the recipes we're going to be using for Thanksgiving as well as a few others. The turkey was, in the words of one guest, worth being born for:

• 12 lb turkey
• half gallon apple cider
• 5 juniper berries, crushed
• 5 allspice berries, crushed
• 2 fresh bay leaves, crushed
• 1 cup kosher salt
• enough water to fill the brining pot

Marinate in the fridge for 36 hours, smoke with charcoal and hickory chips for 4 hours, have the smoker hit and knocked over by a visitor's car, pick everything back up and smoke for another hour, then get nervous and finish in a 350°F oven until done (180°F). I think you can skip the getting run over by the car thing, and I think I'll have a better handle on smoker temperature on my next run, so we'll smoke all the way through. I'm also going to up the juniper berries by a few.

[ related topics: Food Birds ]

Family incomes are about 75% higher than a generation ago, and an average family spends less on clothing, major appliances and automobiles than 30 years ago. Where's it all going?

A generation ago, the one-income family committed about 54 percent of its pay to the basics—housing, health insurance, transportation, and taxes. That is, the one-income family spent about half its income to make the “nut”—the basic expenses that must be paid even if someone gets sick or loses a job. Today, these basic expenses, including child care so that both parents can work, consume 75 percent of the family’s combined income.

And The New York Times asked if it was cheaper to rent or buy, and, for good portions of California, the northeast, and Florida, found that it was cheaper to rent.

For new home buyers, prices in New York would need to rise roughly another 13 percent over the next five years for the average buyer to do better than the average renter over that span. In Northern California, where the gap between house prices and rents is largest, home values would need to go up about 19 percent by 2010.

(Both via Rebecca's Pocket)

[ related topics: Sociology Real Estate ]

Debra talks about how the revised 2257 has led her to remove content from the web.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Law Current Events Sexual Culture - U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2257 ]

It was 42 years ago today that Oswald, who may have been aided by Jack Ruby, or that Cuban exiles, or the KGB, or the Mafia, or the "Zero Game" folks, or the reduced oxygen organization, or the CIA or FBI, or Robert Kennedy, or ... well... anyway, JFK was shot.

Someone who used phrases like "the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science" and "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" scares the hell out of me, but most presidents do, so JFK is hardly singular in that..

Mostly it's an opportunity to revisit that moment two days later, on Sunday, November 24, 1963, with In-A-Gadda-Da-Oswald.

[ related topics: Politics History Law Enforcement Conspiracy ]

Hey, remember that U.S. Citizen held for 3 years without charges, called an "enemy combatant", because he was plotting to build a device to spread radioactive materials around a city... no, wait, it was blow up an apartment building using a gas main... make that... uhhh... fundraising for foreign organizations.

While I'm questioning the actions of presidents and administrations, I should point out that there was once an administration that looked at a country ripped by bloody civil strife between three ethnic factions that had killed over a quarter of a million people and displaced another nearly two million. This administration decided that the U.N. was moving inefficiently, so it brought together a coalition, helped broker a diplomatic solution, moved in troops... and peace and order have been maintained for ten years with no combat losses amongst the peacekeeping troops. Say what you will about Bill Clinton's administration, but the Dayton Peace Accords turned 10 years old yesterday, and Bosnia has been such a success that they're looking at revising their constitution because it no longer needs to be as sensitive to ethnic differences.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Civil Liberties ]

The iPod has fueled an accessory industry, now including adult toys like: iBuzz, which is the latest iteration of Audio-Oh. But for sheer power: VibeRider might win, and makes a good reason for the guy to buy a Harley (or other motorcycle).

And you were wondering what to get her for Christmas.

[ related topics: Music Automobiles ]

A little fluff piece on Veronica Monet and her new book Sex Secrets of Escorts: Tips From a Pro.

[ related topics: Books Sexual Culture ]

While we all get wrapped up in what there is to eat, and how it was prepared...

Enjoy a moment of simple gratitude and be thankful.

To what? Does not matter. So often we get wrapped up in society induced materialism that taking a look around and realizing how much and who we have to be thankful for makes us realize how overflowingly wealthy we truly are. Thank You!.

[ related topics: Food ]

QOTD:

Web 2.0 is the air for the next bubble

—Paul.Witherow

[ related topics: Quotes New Economy Net Culture ]

Art or Porn?

You scored 9 out of a possible 10

There are two explanations for how you've done so well. 1: You're a devotee of great cinematic art, and recognise key moments in film history when you see them. 2: You have a huge stash of vintage porn.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Art & Culture ]

Surprise dish from our thanksgiving feast: Collards with pomegranate seeds. We did three bunches of collards and the seeds from two pomegranates. Steam the collards, toss with the pomegranates. I might try a little clarified butter and maybe a little extra pomegranate juice, but it was the simplest dish we did and worked very nicely in its simplicity.

[ related topics: Food ]

American Taliban? Black men in suits and bow ties vandalize liquor stores in West Oakland.

[ related topics: Bay Area moron ]

Because I lost it once, and I'm actually not sure that this is the site I had a line on, but they've got some good drawings and detail photographs: Erickson Air-Crane Modeler Zone has drawings and detail photos of the S-64 Air-Crane helicopter, their variant of the Sikorsky Skycrane.

[ related topics: Photography Machinery Aviation - Helicopters ]

NewsCloud - an interesting user interface experiment I got 'lost' into exploring the news. I wish you could designate the keyword in the url, but otherwise pretty interesting. Zoom in as you pick words for deeper searching.

[ related topics: User Interface Current Events ]

I've been working on a database application that would be very nice to do 'real-time' lookups on names from a huge rolodex table. Although I found a possible solution for my current pet project doing live database lookups in: BitFlux's LiveSearch - It did not work just exactly like I wanted, and it was a pain using their instructions. Insert some caffiene, some techno and I finally came up with This Example using some of their code and some ideas from the GoodSounds version and ended up with the example as a matching form, css style, and example PHP search results engine. Works for me!

[ related topics: Weblogs Coyote Grits Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Machinery Databases ]

Hey, has anyone worked with any of the various open source physics engines? I've been thinking more and more about the issues of helicopter simulation, and I'm starting to wonder how much processor power it takes to model the physics (modulo the aerodynamics) of the rotor system with modern CPUs...

[ related topics: Free Software Aviation - Helicopters ]

2257 enables stalkers:

Since June 23, a Justice Department ruling has made it possible for anyone purchasing photographs from an adult content provider to get models’ personal information, including real names, home addresses and telephone numbers.

What's worse is the cavalier attitude towards individual safety and liberty that the Justice Department under the canard of "protecting the childruuuuuun":

The Department of Justice addressed and dismissed this concern in the May 24, 2005, Federal Register. “While the Department is certainly concerned about possible crimes against performers and the businesses that employ them, the necessity of maintaining these records to ensure that children are not exploited outweighs these concerns,” the department wrote.

a lie because the industry has a long history of keeping out underage performers, a lot of motivation to do so, and those who have slipped in have done so with the aid of government documents which were issued without reasonable scrutiny.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Sexual Culture moron Current Events Law Enforcement Sexual Culture - U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2257 ]

Oral histories of long-time Marin residents. Recently we had some folks knock on our door asking to look around; they'd visited their grandmother in this house in the 1940s (and earlier), and told us a bit about the place. A conversation with our neighbors about the fireplaces in three houses along this road got us more interested in what the history of this area was, and Charlene discovered this page.

[ related topics: Bay Area History Real Estate ]

One more helicopter sim-pit link, especially since I like parts of his cyclic mechanism: Yvon Langevin has a fairly complete cockpit, including twist throttle on the collective and the overhead switch panel.

[ related topics: Aviation - Helicopters ]

Forgot where I got this one: Paper models of automobiles.

[ related topics: Automobiles Model Building ]

California Rep Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleads guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes.

[ related topics: Politics moron California Culture ]

A few days ago I linked to WikiTravel, even updated information on a few pages and added some images. My first pass at some of those changes was a more personal style, but after discussion with a few regulars I revised things to match the more community style, even though I thought that those changes made the pages less useful.

In fact i thought that those changes reduced the usability of the system to that of the average travel book: A listing of stuff that'll be out of date in six months with no way to tell if those making the statements have anything in common with me.

Next month I'm going up to Portland Oregon to hang out with my sister and parents for a few days. So I figured this would be a good dry run; I popped up the WikiTravel page on Portland Oregon and, sure enough, found nothing that was really useful.

The Wiki has been a really cool tool on some levels, but the beauty of the web has been in the decentralization tendencies, and a Wiki is almost directly counter to that: Rather than celebrating a diversity of opinion it enforces a bland monochromaticism. This may be useful in cutting down on the flame wars in a service like Wikipedia, but when I'm looking for information that's more personally aligned that lack of color removes the cues that tell me how to relate to the information presented.

The tools that offer the next big leaps in web experience will embrace that diversity and decentralization rather than spurning it.

[ related topics: Web development Net Culture Community ]

Study links promiscuity and creativity:

The research, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in the UK, found that professional artists and poets have around twice as many sexual partners as those who do not indulge in these creative activities.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Art & Culture ]