Flutterby™! From 2006-03-01 to 2006-03-31

Hey Diane! There's talk of a Bikecentennial reunion!

[ related topics: History Bicycling ]

Working madly. HGR1219 does the web surfing so I don't have to:

• Cowabduction.com: "We have people looking out 24 hours a day for cow terrorism..."
• Skulls Unlimited reminds me of The Bone Room
• The ID Sniper^tm rifle:

It is used to implant a GPS-microchip in the body of a human being, using a high powered sniper rifle as the long distance injector. The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second. At the same time a digital camcorder with a zoom-lense fitted within the scope will take a high-resolution picture of the target. This picture will be stored on a memory card for later image-analysis.

[ related topics: Humor ]

http://www.tlhs.org/xtra.html

It makes me feel kinky - I mean how would handcuffs look with that?

Ziffle - </kinky>

[ related topics: Ziffle ]

For the women of South Dakota: an abortion manual:

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when abortions were illegal in many places and expensive to get, an organization called Jane stepped up to the plate in the Chicago area. Jane initially hired an abortion doctor, but later they did the abortions themselves. They lost only one patient in 13,000 -- a lower death rate than that of giving live birth. The biggest obstacle they had, though, was the fact that until years into the operation, they thought of abortion as something only a doctor could do, something only the most trained specialist could perform without endangering the life of the woman.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health History Physiology ]

Well I just bought Tom and Dori's Java Book and am possibly heading down the dark path of .jsp pages with lots and lots of JavasScript and CSS as well. RollOver's... Ugh.

[ related topics: Books Software Engineering ]

Just had an interesting conversation with a guy who introduced himself by asking if I'd seen Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock. He has some great stories of the scene, and has a program on local public access that we talked a bit about getting online. More on that front when it happens.

Anyway, brain dump of some of the stuff we talked about:

• AfterDawn.com has a bunch of interesting stuff on DVD technology stuff, partially piracy motivated, but if you're into DVD production, especially on the cheap, I think there's some cool stuff to be picked up from there.
• In talking about some of the luminaries of the '60s music scene, Joe Tate's Ambient Power Module (or how to run a digital clock or other low-power device off of an antenna, and how piezo effects may be useful for earthquake detection) came up.
• Which lead to Thomas Henry Moray: The Sea of Energy.

[ related topics: Music Cool Science Earthquake Video ]

Watched Serenity last night, after finishing up Firefly. I have to thank the folks who funded that for not leaving me hanging on so many story lines, and for summing up differences in politics wonderfully (I need to go back and transcribe Mal's "You believe that you can make people better, I don't" speech).

It's a damned shame that the movie wasn't up to the snuff of the TV series (the effects seemed uneven, sound in space, and so on), and I understand why people who didn't see the TV series didn't get it, had I seen the movie without being introduced by way of Firefly I'd have said "ho, hum". My regret is that I won't be discovering new stories with those wonderful characters, but I'm happy to have had the tale tied up so nicely, even if it did feel a bit abrupt and concessions were made to it being a stand-alone movie.

Recommended (and I realize that I'm preaching to the choir here), but try the Firefly series first, in order, to see if it hooks you, 'cause the movie is a pale shadow of the series.

[ related topics: Politics Technology and Culture Movies Television Joss Whedon - Serenity / Firefly ]

Warning: Don't start unless you've got some free time for some puzzles: Alan's Tour.

http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/termites/

Apparently a lot of the debris from Katrina and Rita has been converted into mulch, and sold/hauled off and is being resold as cheap mulch to homeowners. Only you may get a bonus: Formosan Termites. Apparently these hungry critters are also hard to control (read: existing termite control methods don't work). So, if you are buying mulch, be aware from whence it hails.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment Hurricane Katrina ]

I biked down to Sausalito this morning, but given the incoming storm there was little enthusiasm for real hiking. Bill suggested that we go down and explore the area to the southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge, so we did, out to the beach by Mile Rock and back. If you look carefully at the bottom right of that last image you can see an orange starfish clinging to the rock. I tried to get out to take a better picture (I was just carrying the little point-n-shoot), but... well... I'm a wuss and didn't want to get any wetter.

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

Charlene has a knack for finding deals on shoes. So yesterday we hit a shoe store that was going out of business. I've been looking for something knockabout, sneaker-ish, with some top support so that I don't mash my toes on downhills. But despite my tendencies towards Birkenstock, I have trouble paying more than $90 for a pair of hiking boots, shoes that I put at least 500 miles a year on.

So I'd been hitting the bargain racks at Marshall's and such, but hadn't seen a cheap set of sneakers. Yesterday I was running down the close-outs at this yuppie shoe store, almost willing to make a compromise, when I tried on a pair of sneakers that were originally marked $219. Gulp. But going out of business sales are such that I ended up with two pair of snazzy leather Mephisto shoes, essentially sneakers. Further reports as to longevity and such as the year commences.

But it was a good prelude to the evening. We went to the fundraiser for the school Charlene works at, a fairly stock silent auction casino night affair, the theme was western, we had fun dressing up. They had an open bar, something I thought was kind of weird until I realized what happened at the live auction portion.

You see, each class, K through 5, makes a big art project. Said art projects are then auctioned off, bids starting at $500. But there's only one art project per class. So, you know, it's okay if Tommy's parents get the project, because they really love their kid and all, and, mom and dad, I understand that I can't have the project I worked on, really, I mean, we can't afford it even though we live in southern Marin. Right? Yeah, add in some alcohol and... well...

Yeah, that night pulled in well into the six figures for the school play field construction fund.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Bay Area Shoes Gambling Economics ]

Follow the actions of the playful crew: Andy, Ferril, Amanda, Kit, Jordan anna whitney as they Dare to follow the law!

Meditation on the Speed Limit

Oh the Humanity!

Ziffle

[ related topics: Ziffle Video ]

How do you all feel about sex as a youngster - have things become too draconian? Should there be a right to consent to sex? I fear for my children and their friends.

Shall we Consent?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Dan, just saw the Mosquito on the Discovery Channel. Impressive looking machine. I think you and Charlene each need one. - But you have to build your own.

[ related topics: Coyote Grits ]

I don't know if this has been all over the net yet or not, but Dave forwarded it around last week, I skimmed the article, and on Sunday's hike he said "no, really, watch the video". So, 5'7" autistic kid loves basketball, tried out for the team, never made it, so he's the team manager, towel handler, water boy:

But he was so enthusiastic, so committed, that coach Jim Johnson decided to suit him up for the final regular season game of the year. If the team was ahead, he thought, maybe McElwain could get in a few minutes.

So, yeah, the team got ahead, and the coach decided to put him in the game, and... There's five and a half minutes of video linked from this article, and because in a year or two there'll undoubtedly be an overly sappy movie made of what happened next it's worth going and watching this whole thing go down, from the heartbreak of his first shakey airball that quickly transformed into a twenty point streak, of which 6 of those baskets came from deep in three pointer territory.

[ related topics: Sports Video Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Why certain malformed URL's redirect to Micro$oft. prompts me to insert: HTTP into Flutterby. So I did. Sure explains why some of my mistyped/pasted URL's go their from my Linux boxen.

[ related topics: Free Software Spam Open Source Monty Python ]

United Nuclear, a fantastic supplier for educational materials, is having some legal problems:

The United States CPSC has initiated criminal legal action against us and other chemical suppliers. In short, the CPSC would like to ban the public from all access to chemicals. This would mean an end to hobbies such as model rocketry, pyrotechnics and of course chemistry. One by one, our freedoms are slowly being taken away from us - this action must be stopped now.

There's a general trend, from media to physical objects, to keep people from actually doing anything themselves, to up the price of experimentation to the point where individuals can't learn or researchy except in the context of large institutions. This trend must be stopped, and this looks like a good battle.

[ related topics: Law Pyrotechnics ]

From Genehack: perlnow: Emacs extensions to speed Perl development (source), Emacs as Perl IDE (source)

Which brings me to: There are things I love about Opera's email client, but I realized that I'm reading quite a bit less of the various lists that I'm subscribed to than I used to when I used VM under Emacs, and I'm pondering switching back, or switching on to something else.

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson Perl Open Source Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment ]

We report all suspicious activity to the Homeland SSecurity

We are all Nazi's now http://www.capitolhillblue.com...ning_financial_responsibili.html

Some are warning us: http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/forever.html

"Americans have often wondered where the Germans were able to recruit all the people who staffed the Gestapo and the SS. The fact is, however, that sociopaths, sociopath sympathizers, the weak-kneed, and the easily-led form a standard distribution across all societies, in all times. We have just as many in America now as the Germans did in the 1930s. Maybe even more, since Americans have been corrupted by welfare and programmed by the public schools and the mass media for several generations more than were the Germans of that time. Your local TIPS snitch might report that you "fail to display sufficient respect for authority." Or maybe he'll write down that you "laugh upon hearing the phrase 'homeland security'." Think I'm kidding? Try making a joke in an airport."

Online publications for use by our 'protectors' - will flutterby qualify?

Anti-Police Internet Sites, NCJ 212673. Russell Schanlaub; Law and Order, 53, 12, December 2005, 46-47,49-50,52 to 55. (8 pages). http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Searc...wordSearch=internet&fromSearch=1

NCJ Number: 199527

"Although law enforcement authorities admit they are powerless to do anything about most cybercrimes, they are still increasing their efforts to monitor the activities of growing numbers of people who use the Internet, usually without their knowledge or consent."

Where did your country go? It was voted away -

Ziffle

[ related topics: Ziffle Children and growing up Weblogs Aviation Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Net Culture ]

Gotta love the law:

Requiring a criminal defendant to register as a sex offender for life for having consensual oral sex with a 16-year-old is unconstitutional because it treats the crime more harshly than unlawful intercourse with a minor, the state [California] Supreme Court ruled Monday.

However, this article quotes the dissenting justice:

"As any teenager or adult knows, intercourse is distinct from oral copulation, involving a wholly different sexual act that, unlike oral copulation, may result in pregnancy and the birth of a child," he wrote.

"Given this significant difference in the potential real-life consequences of the two acts, the Legislature reasonably could decide that different registration schemes for the two groups of offenders are appropriate as a matter of public policy."

So while I agree with the results of the decision, it's pretty clear that really what's needed is a good smacking around for some legislators.

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

A big ol' "Yeehaw!" for CodeWeavers Crossover Office. This evening Charlene updated our accounts, with QuickBooks, on her Linux laptop. Installation wasn't completely painless, I had to intervene twice (the initial install doesn't work via "sudo" so you have to "su" to root and open up connections to the display, Charlene was unclear on the drive mapping thing where CodeWeavers Crossover Office maps "Y:\" to your home directory), but they're totally getting their money.

They'll be doubly getting their money if Charlene's favorite suite of solitaire card games runs under it...

But, yeah, the essential Windows apps running under Linux, as icons on her desktop. Now, think about what happens when this hits the new Intel based Mac boxes...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Games Dan's Life Microsoft Open Source Work, productivity and environment Macintosh ]

MarkV wants some help with a VOIP experiment, in the process implying (I haven't done enough reading yet to verify) that Asterisk plus VoicePulse Connect! on, say, my home server, might let me use my various laptops as my telephone?

[ related topics: Phreaking ]

A friend in Cambridge interested in such things (no, not my kid... his girlfriend) sent me this notice of a Creative Commons salon in SF. Anyone every been to one, here or elsewhere? Is it worth a trip up sometime?

[ related topics: Bay Area Travel ]

So my new main gig is working for an e-learning company, and while doing work related research I run across: DisAffected - a parady game of doing customer service at a FedEx Kinko's.. How many customers can you NOT serve. There are other games, like Airport Insecurity, and more positive/productive ones as well. But having just had to do a "Kinkos Run", this game struck a chord.

[ related topics: Games Coyote Grits Invention and Design Aviation Work, productivity and environment Education ]

How to debug mod_perl applications using perldb in Emacs.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source ]

As I mentioned, I bought a new bike. It arrived Monday, I've probably put 45 miles on it so far, and I love it. 2005 Cannondale Six13 with Dura-Ace drive train and brakes, TruVativ Carbon Roleur cranks and Easton Tempest II wheels. I tried to find a place to take a picture on today's ride, but the light was always wrong, so here's a pair of badly backlit shots on our deck.

One regret so far is that I got a VDO C2DS computer, and I'm having a hell of a time getting the speed pickup to work right. I should have just gone with a wired Cateye Astrale 8 or over the top to a Garmin Edge 305. I'll have to go back to Sunshine and talk with them a bit, see what my options are.

However, for as far as I can trust said computer, the bike was rock solid at over 40 MPH (and a 140 cadence, I'm still getting used to only two front chain rings and once I'm a stronger climber will have to investigate different ratios there...) coming down White's Hill today, the ride is smooth, the shifting flawless, and... yeah... I'm actually quite happy that you have to add weight to it to make it race legal.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Machinery Bicycling ]

Art Buchwald, the celebrated humor columnist, is dying. He's had a leg amputated, has decided to not have dialysis, and has checked into a hospice. But as he waits (and waits) for death, Buchwald is having the time of his life.

[ related topics: Humor Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

Scott Karp thinks he sees The Coming Search Engine Crash:

This is media economics 101. Ad dollars follow audience. If search only represents 5% of online media time, it shouldn’t have 40% of the dollars, no matter how measurable search advertising is.

How much of a magazine's monthly take do the writers end up with? For that matter, how much of the price of a product does the retailer end up with? Like it or not, producers are largely commodities, delivering the product to the consumer is where the competition can differentiate itself.

There may be better ways to be the gatekeeper to the content than being a search engine, but don't think that just because there's a huge economic disparity floating around that that's automatically a bubble. No matter how much we'd like that to be the case.

[ related topics: Writing Consumerism and advertising Economics ]

Looking for something mindless last night, we rented Rent. Skip it. Flat characters that generated little sympathy from either of us ("Oh, look, talentless deadbeats unwilling to work complaining that they can't make it"), uninspired music and lyrics (yes, the "Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred" bit is the only memorable hook in the show). It was a $2.50 midweek special and felt like we'd overpaid.

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

I'm on the Structured Blogging mailing list, and at some point I'd like to hack some better metadata features into Flutterby, I'm a big believer in publishing more than just what the user can see. But the best proposal I've seen lately is one that suggests that we snark it up:

What I think is missing from this discussion is an underlying framework to measure snarkiness. Doc Searls had the idea of a snarkiness slider; however, how will Technorati and others determine the level of snark?To this end, I want to introduce the HyperText Snarkup Language (HTSL) which will initially be described as simply an extension of XHTML with a namespace. This will allow publishers to have full control over their snark.

The tag set looks pretty simple:

<snarkup:snark target='href' level="low|medium|high" tone="even|sarcastic|abrasive|ironic|unhinged" subtext="none|veiledsuckup|allingoodfun|threatened" >

And

<snarkup:jumpthesnark href='href'/>

[ related topics: Weblogs Community ]

Elf pointed to a a journal entry about the heartbreak of gaming. A long campaign failed because his guild fell apart at the end, and:

But then again, suppose they'd actually bothered to give a damn, and I'd gotten the Elemental Focus Band of my dreams.

Oh, look! For only 160 hours out of my life, I'll do at least 19 more damage on every spell I cast. I just got two percent better.

There is a time when the skills of the game are transferrable. Tag on the playground becomes strength usable in other places. Resource management is transferrable. Heck, even twitches become better reflexes. But at some point I had to ask myself how much of what seemed at first to be immediately enjoyable was transferrable to accomplishing the goals that really gave me long-term joy. When "cross training" turned into "throwaway skills".

It's part of the reason we don't have broadcast TV. It's why we don't watch all that many movies. It's even why my reading has fallen off quite a bit. I could be consuming the stories, or I could be telling them, and there was only so long I could feed myself the fiction that the consumption fed my abillity to create.

This doesn't mean that there's no room to play, it's just that I have to think about what's just twiddling my mind, and what's giving me more options, even if I don't know how I might use those options yet. Because almost always I can find activities that do both, where computer games just seem to feed the ab ility to, at best, play computer games better, and at worst become just learning how to play that specific game better.

[ related topics: Games Technology and Culture Movies Television Education ]

Critics teed off over plans for space station golf stunt:

Although the risk of serious damage is small, critics say, the stunt sends the wrong signal. Instead of a state-of-the-art scientific laboratory, the station will be seen as a haven of commercialized blarney on a cosmic scale.

Uhhh... Isn't that what manned space travel has always been?

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Consumerism and advertising ]

Off to Fresno and thence to Anaheim and back to Fresno and back to here and then down to Fresno again over the next 4 days. Updates will happen when/if they do. In the meantime, HGR1219 takes up the slack:

• House votes to strip local warning labels off of food. If your state has determined that it wants stricter standards than the federal government, this provision will remove that and replace the local control with a federal bureacracy that'll cost a hundred million bucks.
• Building an acrylic aquarium. Because, who doesn't want fish wrapped around a couple of walls? Looks like there's some handy notes on working with acrylic there too.
• Brokeback Grocer was worth a giggle.
• And, finally, there's been resurrection of a Zenith Data Systems - ZFL-181-92. Yep, it's a 4.77 MHz 8088 laptop with dual 720k floppies. If anyone has suggestions on how to make that puppy sing errr... squeak, post 'em here.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Food moron Work, productivity and environment California Culture Community Real Estate HGR1219 ]

She is hot!

http://mohammedpeacebeuponherisawoman.blogspot.com/

Sore. But not hurting. I should probably thank Eric's yoga classes for guys (I stretched first), and a bunch of other factors, but I amazed myself this weekend. No kewl X-Games sports, caving or even epic hikes or bicycle rides. Yard Work. Not just yard work, but rent the backhoe for the weekend, have 300 6x12z16 terracing blocks (I can barely carry them with 2 hands) delivered, tear out retaining walls and wood, shovel footings by hand, and carry and lay block weekends. But wait, this is no ordinary yard, all of this was done on a slope that is nearly impossible to stand on...and the backhoe was unstable and unusable on most of it even from the driveway side. Add chainsaws, hatchets, shovels and big bottles of H20 with electrolytes. Neighbor John helped a little Saturday, Nancy's son Ben helped a little Sunday, but two gruelling days of strenuous labor are over, and the wall looks great. Best part of being exhausted: Nancy cooked and waited on me when we took breaks. It's nice being pampered ever once in a while. I'll add some pics, but right now the camera is too heavy and the driveway too long. But I'm amazed it's 99% done.. in two days, almost by myself.

[ related topics: Photography Games tolkien Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment California Culture Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Ice Towers of 2006. Click the pic and see frame 2, the zoom in. Wow. (via Nancy, and her Uncle).

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Nature and environment Robotics Embedded Devices ]

DOJ: We can't give you the data because it would destroy the computer system:

"Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating," wrote Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department's office for information requests.

Wow. Hope they never have a situation where they, say, need backups... (via HGR1219).

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Law Enforcement HGR1219 ]

One of the pleasures of popping back into a blog community after a hiatus is that non sequiturs are allowed…. So why doesn’t Dan have HBO. I figured the Real Sex documentaries would have been enough alone but not a peep. Now with their latest series Big Love I thought certainly there would be chatter on Flutterby….. <crickets> …… is HBO too mainstream to watch?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Movies Coyote Grits Community Archival ]

I think this came from Rebecca Blood, and it's a little old by now, but a New York Times article on the long-term value of real estate. Like how houses appreciate over four centuries:

But then, volatility is more prevalent in world history than stability, which, as far as Eichholtz is concerned, makes the Herengracht data more, rather than less, widely applicable. "The financial literature has been dominated by America," he said. "And most models are created using post-1950 U.S. data, which give a biased picture of reality. There has been no other country like America, and there has been no other period like that in terms of stability. So I would say that in global terms, Milwaukee is the exception, not Amsterdam."

In a rather upscale neighborhood of Amsterdam, one in which the housing prices doubled shortly after the house was initially built, the house has appreciated 0.2% over inflaction.

[ related topics: Economics Real Estate ]

Even last year when I was updating the "you have to ask me for the address" journal in the other place, there was a struggle I probably only hinted at. Yesterday a judge granted conservatorship of Alan, Charlene's developmentally disabled younger brother, to Charlene and her two older siblings, a process that Charlene spearheaded.

Not knowing what to expect, Monday evening we'd gone through the Handbook for Conservators again, and I had the same reaction as I did yesterday morning when I was watching the court-mandated video on conservatorship (info at the bottom of this): How the hell do you get to the point where you're filing motions with the court without knowing all of this stuff already?

But then this was the culmination of a fight against their mother for Alan's rights, involving lawyers all the way across the spectrum, from competent and honest to downright deceitful, necessitating us carefully reading California's probate law, actions close to kidnapping (sometimes the legal definitions get hairy), and short notice airplane flights.

So, had to put this here because along with being a link dump, Flutterby is a record of my life, and of the recent struggles and successes this is a milestone.

[ related topics: Law California Culture Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Meanwhile, HGR1219 keeps the linky love flowing, with commentary:

• Planet Ark : FEATURE - Scientists Fear Leaping Carp to Invade US Great Lakes: "love the name "Leaping Carp", if I have another son...... he will be a fit companion for Two Dogs...."
• "with the international situation being what it is these days, we could all use a bit of sensitivity training........ thought this might help": The Zompist Phrasebook
• "Dwarfs commanded respect in ancient Egypt... well now they get tossed around in bars........ times change see also: Randy Newman......"
• And Elven like me delves into the community of folks who've long known that they're a little out of step with the world the rest of us inhabit.

[ related topics: Humor HGR1219 ]

Via Borklog, a little choreography that made me sit up and watch: Ryan vs Dorkman.

What began as a friendly rivalry between two effects artists explodes off TheForce.Net's FanFilms Forum and into the real world in a lightsaber battle royale.

[ related topics: Star Wars Art & Culture Video ]

Would those of us using the various syndication formats be okay with me dropping RSS entirely, and using Atom instead?

[ related topics: Content Management Current Events ]

Jeff passed along an article about prep materials for a new test the Netherlands has for potential immigration to make sure that immigrants will fit into the culture. Included is a film:

The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to participate in the liberal Dutch culture.

If they can't stomach it, no need to apply.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Current Events ]

Although she's dropped it because of everything else we had going on, Charlene started taking a sign language class this semester. She's already got some of the basics, it helps to have another communication system when working with autistic kids, but part of sign language is the culture in which the language is spoken. Although it borrows a lot, ASL isn't English. So one of her class assignments involved going to various deaf cultural events.

One of those options was a "deaf day" at Disneyland, and she signed up to take Alan(yes, the timing relative to Tuesday's events wasn't lost on anyone). So last weekend we went through the snow over the Grapevine in Tejon pass (both going and coming) to spend a day in "the happiest place on earth".

It rained while we were there, which was just fine, 'cause it cleared out the lines a bit, and we got rainbows.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Handicaps & Disabilities ]

The New Yorker looks at "The Playmate Book: Six Decades of Centerfolds":

In the nineteen-eighties and thereafter, the artificiality only increased, as did that of all American mass media. The most obvious change is in the body, which has now been to the gym. Before, you could often see the Playmates sucking in their stomachs. Now they don’t have to. The waist is nipped, the bottom tidy, and the breasts are a thing of wonder. The first mention of a “boob job” in “The Playmate Book” has to do with Miss April 1965, but, like hair coloring, breast enlargement underwent a change of meaning, and hence of design, in the seventies and eighties.

(Via Daze Reader). The whole thing is worth reading, and in fact the book may be too, as a chronicle of how our cultural views of sex and nudity have changed over the years, and the article has too many paragraphs that I want to quote.

That, in the end, is the most striking thing about Playboy’s centerfolds: how old-fashioned they seem. This whole “bachelor” world, with the brandy snifters and the attractive guest arriving for the night: did it ever exist? Yes, as a fantasy. Now, however, it is the property of homosexuals. (A more modern-looking avatar of the Playmates’ pneumatic breasts is Robert Mapplethorpe’s Mr. 10 ".) Today, if you try to present yourself as a suave middle-aged bachelor, people will assume you’re gay.

Well worth the read.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Nudity Sociology Journalism and Media Graphic Design ]

It's hard to justify taking the cheap shots at Disneyland, because Disneyland doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. There's no irony, no wink, the only place the facade breaks down is in "Innoventions", but elsewhere this is "the happiest place on earth", and the space believes that with every fiber.

But I thought the "waste, please" request outside of at least some of these shrines to consumption deserved a little notice.

And the fact that there can be big banners proclaiming "We Love Pooh" strung across a store is testament to just how unlike, say, San Francisco this space is.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising California Culture ]

You have probably noticed that it's Girl Scout Cookie time. Alas, a quick look down the ingredients turns me off pretty quick. Luckily, MarkV found a recipe for Thin Mints that doesn't have hydrogenated fats or any of those other nasties.

I've been feeling swamped, but it'd be worth some time in the kitchen to figure out how to make Samoas...

[ related topics: Food ]

Hit Songs of the 1970s and '80s If the South Had Won the Civil War.

[ related topics: Humor History ]

Build your own Pac-Man chasing a ghost wheel blinkies for your bicycle, via The Primary Main Objective.

[ related topics: Cool Technology Bicycling ]

Keeping with the bicycling theme: Max Chen's rideable artwork

[ related topics: Art & Culture Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Schism Emerges In New Intelligent Design Theory: Competing Books Appear On The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).

Henderson's book, "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster," published this week by Villard Books, may herald the arrival of an influential voice within the intelligent design debate plaguing school systems across the U.S. The publication of the competing title by Jon Smith, however, offers evidence that this belief system, like many before it, may well be headed toward rapid fragmentation, or its own evolution. As Smith says, "This is a reformation. Bobby's book is a gospel about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. My book goes one step further and presents words of wisdom and prophecy directly from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Really."

[ related topics: Religion Humor Books Flying Spaghetti Monster ]

Courtesy of Tim Blair, New Wonders of the World after global warming.

[ related topics: Weblogs Travel ]

There's something simultaneously brilliant and wrong about how this looks, but the video is pretty amazing.

[ related topics: Robotics Video ]

Just got home from 75 miles on the new bike with a Marin Cyclists organized ride, Lagunitas to Fairfax, back out through Nicasio to Marshall, down to Point Reyes Station, back through Nicasio back to Fairfax, and home. We had an in-shape tandem team (four of the six folks on the ride were doing a laid-back week before a tough century next weekend), and they pulled from the Hog Island Oyster Company at Marshall down to Point Reyes Station (both at sea level, with rolling hills in between), which made that an incredible run; until the last hill I don't think we dropped below 20 MPH. I need to do some saddle adjustments, and it was kind of disheartening to realize that on the A (10-15 MPH, regular regroups) through D (18+ average with 24-35 MPH pacelines) ride scale, I'm somewhere in between an A and a B...

And while walking my bike back to the car (actual sequence of events was Lagunitas to Fairfax, realized I forgot my wallet, bike back to Lagunitas, get in car, drive to Fairfax) I got two "nice bike", closer look, "whoah, really nice bike", and we got to talking about components and such. So I'm happy with my decision...

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bay Area Bicycling Bicycling - Tandem ]

Over at Brainwagon, Mark's been on a roll with the cooking links. This has lead to the Ready-Made Blog which had links to Beck's Posh Nosh which had instructions for making homemade ricotta and David Lebovitz on doing home-made cottage cheese.

[ related topics: Weblogs Food ]

I had reason recently to go back to March 11, 2003, to find my Iraq war predictions. Here's an Iraq war timeline. It's also interesting to look back to Flutterby's February 14, 2003 link to the Text of U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission Executive Chairman Hans Blix's statement to the United Nations.

[ related topics: History Current Events Archival ]

Via Dave's Picks: Man defies North Dakota law with private refuges.

Cook, who lived in North Dakota as a boy, says the state is not doing enough to protect prime duck habitats. So he got out his checkbook. He is the sole member of two nonprofits that purchased land in the Dakotas and Minnesota for waterfowl protection.

But in North Dakota, the governor gets final say as to whether or not a corporation can buy land, and the governor has refused to approve of the purchases (some done 20 years ago). James Cook could own the land if he transferred it to himself, but the point of having the corporations own it is that he can set up legal structures so that the land is protected beyond his life.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Law Real Estate ]

I carry a water bottle on my bike in addition to my CamelBak, because of the issues of cleaning and drying the CamelBak I don't want to put anything in there that could lead to mold growth. So the water bottle holds the sugar water for occasional sips.

Anyone got experience or suggestions for said sugar water? From the Gatorade beverage chart it looks like the right sugar water is salted apple or orange juice. I've used Gookinaid in 1984 while hiking in the Grand Canyon, and a powder would be convenient (water is usually easy to come by), but I'm looking for a little more info.

But really what I probably need are some good sources on training, like: If I know I'm going to be averaging 14 MPH on a bicycle, that's probably about 650 calories an hour, when I'm exercising my digestive system will absorb roughly 250 calories an hour, how can I best eat before, during and after to avoid achey muscles (and puking on the side of the road)? Since at rest I should be able to absorb more like 800 calories an hour, if I'm, for instance, doing 160 miles with a known elevation profile, I should have a pretty good handle on how many calories I'll be spending through exercise and thus be able to plan out "rest here for half an hour, consuming N calories, then continue, sipping Y calories from the bottle until the next rest point", right?

[ related topics: Food Physiology Bicycling ]

From this /. entry, a .ps.gz paper from 1996: Fleck, Forsyth & Bregler "Finding Naked People", and here's Fleck's more useful html page which links to that.

[ related topics: Nudity Graphics ]

Bill Napoli as a verb, explanation.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

From Mars Saxman, First jet-powered Birdman flight, with video. Guy straps two 18lb jet engines to his ankles, jumps off of balloon with his skydiving suit, achieves level flight (for a little while).

[ related topics: Aviation Cool Technology Video ]

OK, So I'm no expert, but I earned my keep today playing with Java Servers. Not by being a java code dude, and doing what they were doing, but by hooking up a sniffer and actually capturing the communications between two servers, (one ours, one 'theirs') and finding that we were sending the wrong data, that I fixed it (in .java/.class files) and that after fixing it, verifying that it was right, that 'their' systems were STILL borken. It was all worth it when I sent the other guys both sides of the interserver communications (and related management) in an e-mail (they are .net guys) and got a single 1 line e-mail back: "How the F!!! did you get that?" and it reminded me why I enjoy working with people of various disciplines and backgrounds. They live/work in a monoculture, and 'sniffing' is a "hacker" thing, maybe a network weenie thing, and not a tool in a programmers arsenal for troubleshooting.

[ related topics: Spam broadband Coyote Grits Software Engineering Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Guns ]

Bicycle Helmet FAQ. Not like you'll ever get me out of mine, while bike helmets may not do much to avoid major trauma, they've helped me avoid some pretty bad headaches.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

As a response to South Dakota's new anti-abortion law, an Oglala Sioux reservation is looking to open a clinic. What you can do to help.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Current Events Civil Liberties ]

I saw something recently which had been bugging me but I had not yet been able to identify - This article is about 'Continous Partial Attention' or CPA

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11899893/site/newsweek/

We all think we can multitask and we do, but I wonder if we have not lost something... I remember a story about a programmer who had to answer the phone for the whole floor during lunch time - and I wondered at the bugs inserted into the code as a result. I remember not allowing programmers to have phones because I'knew' it would result in loss of focus and therefor slower and more buggy development.

My partner at the time felt sorry for the programmers and got them phones and I was sure that every bug after that was the result of interruptions and distraction.

All Men will stop thinking of their programming when their main sexual partner calls - every time! And that meant bugs inserted in my opinion.

Recently a law professor banned lap tops for the same reason. A good idea if you ask me. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/n...sor-laptop-ban_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

I think the term Continous Partial Attention or CPA is appropriate!

What do you think?

Ziffle

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Software Engineering Current Events Gambling ]

Props to the fine folks over at Digital Warfighter for pointing out this one. In response to a heckler, Condoleeza Rice said (before said heckler was hustled off by security):

I'm also especially glad to note that democracy will now also be alive and well at the University of Kabul and at the University of Baghdad.

Yay democracy! It's what lets conversion from Islam to Christianity be a capital crime in Afghanistan.

[ related topics: Religion moron War ]

A couple of the old school crowd have linked to Beebo's Most-linked Blogs in September 2000. Rebecca blood has a few interesting comments.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Carbon cloud over a green fuel:

Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future.

There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol...

Via Rebecca Blood

[ related topics: Politics ]

Last night we were in the video store and ran across Come Undone, a French film about teen summer romance. Bouyed by the cover quotes and description, like:

Gorgeous, bronzed bodies on the beaches of France and a passionate romance between two French youths are reason enough to love Come Undone, but the bittersweet film also has something poignant to say about gay first love.

and the bright upbeat shots on the back of the box, and looking for something to wipe the taste of the execrable Brokeback Mountain away, we rented it.

It wasn't bad a as a student film, but for something marketed with lots of reds and yellows in the shots on the box, it opens blue and green, and is remarkably downbeat for something that could have been... well... hot. The director was far far too in love with his shots, there were many superflous images, lots of scenes held far too long, and... well... either make the camera a character or get a freakin' tripod, but the held shots were shakey in a way that I don't think were gate weave, and the handheld shots were far too intimate for the scenes they were trying to cover.

Not a great film, somewhat watchable, but not what we were expecting from the box.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies Pop Culture ]

From the comments at Mini-Microsoft: Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!:

You know, I've pondered for years what MS would do in this situation, when it became clear that the OS was a complete train wreck.

Apple was able to buy NeXT, but MS has killed off all of their viable replacements. OS/2, BeOS, PenPoint? All strangled by MS's anti-competitive (and illegal) tactics.

So, here's the way out: MS should swallow real hard, ante up half of what they blew on Longwind, and buy an OS X license from Apple. That would be about $10B up-front, and a hefty royalty. MS would have to assume the burden of making it run on all the crapbox PCs out there, which have had all the quality squeezed out of them, due to MS's having sucked up the lion's share of the profit from all PCs for the last 20 years or so.

The benefit is that MS could finally ship a securable OS, and the users wouldn't have to lose countless hours trying to work around the malware. Meanwhile, the only semi-competent part of the company, the Mac Business Unit, would take the lead in Apps development.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft Software Engineering moron Work, productivity and environment Macintosh ]

Stanislaw Lem dead at 84.

[ related topics: Books Current Events ]

More diary than weblog: Yesterday Charlene and I rode the tandem on a Marin Cyclists twenty miler from Corte Madera over into Mill Valley, out through Strawberry and Tiburon, and back along Paradise Drive, a route I'd done on Thursday. We were out pulling on the front of the pack, so we missed that one of our group went down and was taken by ambulance to the hospital until the end of a long wait at a regroup point.

This morning I did the route again, after a leisurely ride to Tiburon and the regroup at the top of the hill on the way out of town, I put the hammer down and led for a few miles (had to drop back a bit to pick up the pack at first), before I ran out of oxygen, let the two guys behind me by with the hope of trading leads and drafting, but lost their slipstream and got dropped on an uphill. Not sure if it was lack of calories, or just that I was running at aerobic limit for too long.

However, got some assurance that the Muir Beach loop on Thursday mornings was within my grasp. Rain for the next two days, though. Bummer.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bay Area Sports Bicycling Bicycling - Tandem ]

During the New Years Flood we had too much going on out here in the valley to go be lookey-loos over on the other side of the hill. I'd seen a few pictures, and of course saw the aftermath, but today I was poking around for some information on a ride and ran across Handlebar Confessional, the weblog of a guy working on a professional bike racing career who works at whatever the current name of the bicycle store in downtown San Anselmo is. He's got pictures of the flood, pictures of the clean-up, and a dramatic shot of downtown chest-deep in water.

And a few shots and some text about the Ridgecrest and Bolinas-Fairfax Road loop.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area Bicycling San Anselmo ]

Hey, you know the big bad Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui? He says he wasn't part of the September 11^th attacks:

"I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit," Moussaoui, taking the stand in his own defense, said. "I didn't know the details of this."

Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun."

But then he says he was (note that both articles are dateline today):

... Moussaoui testified Monday that he was supposed to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001, with would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and fly it into the White House.

Uhhh... yeah. So he's saying he was involved with another guy who also doesn't fit the profile of the other 19 hijackers, said other guy being a loopy nutcase... While it now seems clear that the U.S. government arrested someone who was dangerous to himself and to others, I'm not at all confident that this is helping anyone dismantle the greater threat.

But I am glad to have him off the streets...

[ related topics: moron Current Events WTC/Pentagon attacks Conspiracy ]

If I were to write an entry on this, I'd just steal everything that Debra has written on the topic, so: Pursed Lips on the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Nitke versus the CDA.

(And, for posterity, just in case that page ever goes away, Barbara Nitke's page on why she brought the suit, John Wirenius (the lawyer involved) on the outcome, Justice Magazine on the outcome)

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Law ]

Hey Nathan, you still reading? Genetic engineering may produce bacon that's even better for you:

Geneticists have mixed DNA from the roundworm C. elegans and pigs to produce swine with significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids -- the kind believed to stave off heart disease.

[ related topics: Cool Science Food Bioinformatics Food - Bacon ]

More clueless parenting: I saw a Marin IJ article on MySpace yesterday in the vending machine, didn't care enough to read the article, but did see:

"This was so hateful and intense, my daughter just started sobbing when we brought up the page," she said. "Kids are really tearing other kids up with it."

I think it's great that this is bringing the politics of the schoolyard to the attention of parents, but this behavior is hardly new, it's just that now the adults can see it more clearly.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Net Culture ]

Over at Medley, Lyn looks at that list of most popular weblogs in September of 2000 that I linked to a few days ago. One of the things I'd missed was that the author says:

There are no political blogs on the list—they hadn’t been invented yet. Actually, I got the impression that many bloggers got a bit shirty when political blogs started up, and started getting popular—politics (and especially right-wing politics) wasn’t what the blog-powered future was supposed to be about. Blogs were supposed to be personal, thoughtful, witty, sincere, not brash and combative.

Lyn has a good rant about what it means to be political, and her points have me thinking a bit about that notion. Although these days we think of "politics" as having something to do with a multitude of blood-sucking creatures, isn't it really about affairs having to do with the citizens?

Recently, Charlene and I went to a disaster preparedness evening. They had a little slideshow on organization, and a hierarchical liason structure to the fire department, and after a little while I realized two things:

1. We already had an ad-hoc structure within our neighborhood that was most of what they were talking about formalizing.
2. While I'm happy to work with the fire department, and might even sign up to be a neighborhood liason, if it all goes to hell we are clearly on our own. Better that I should teach my neighbors about, say, swiftwater rescue, or coordinate with them on moving supplies by mountain bike if we lose the road out, than depend on folks who are going to be way overworked, who've only book learning on situations I have direct experience with, and who think that big 4WD will save them.

Which comes back to Lyn's notion of what counts as politics. If politics means "of the people" or "of the citizens", we shouldn't excuse the current Washington D.C. freakshow with the label. Whether or not we groan or cheer when we read 'em, sites like Talking Points Memo and Instapundit aren't generally about citizens, or at least not about people who comport themselves like citizens ought. Nor are the issues they report on really germane to our lives, while I have a rush of schadenfreude with every Republocrat or Demican who gets taken down for bribery or what have you, the difference is largely that the others haven't gotten caught yet. And while we have a set of civil liberties issues with the current regime, remember that we lost ground on that front under the previous administration too.

And the only thing we can do to change that is to start with our neighbors and the people in our various communities, understand why they continue to vote for these power structures, and help them to understand that centralizing services is a bad idea and that voting for empty promises in a flashy suit is a worse one.

So, yeah, we've had political weblogs for as long as there have been weblogs. Politics should be local, must be local, and diluting the word by giving it to people whose only function is to provide publicity to the dysfunctional freakshow harms us all.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs moron Community Education ]

LED Switching Driver Cuts Current Draw To 3 mA. Just because I'm going to want a super-efficient LED driver sometime in the near future.

The Boston Diaries asks where have all the Salon articles gone?, noting a paucity of links to articles from Salon and wondering if it's a quality issue or an access issue.

I actually joined Salon when they first went pay, but I did it reluctantly, hoping that they'd bring back their former edginess. They didn't, and my subscription lapsed. Instead, so far as I can tell, they've just put the same sort of content and opinion I can find at any of the big Washington DC personality (aka "political") weblogs behind ads for products that I'd run screaming from. But I don't have to search very far to find discontent with Salon's direction back in June of '99.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs moron Salon magazine ]

Philadelphia plumber's union upset over waterless urinals:

In a city where organized labor is a force to be reckoned with, the plumbers union has been raising a stink about a developer's plans to install 116 waterless, no-flush urinals in what will be Philadelphia's biggest skyscraper.

Developer Liberty Property Trust says the urinals would save 1.6 million gallons of water a year at the 57-story Comcast Center, expected to open next year.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events ]

The Craftsmanship Museum looks like it stems from the person behind Sherline wanting to leave a legacy. It has both a physical and an internet presence, and celebrates people who do exceptional crafts scales, from clockmakers to woodworkers, it's worth a poke around. There's some spectacular stuff there.

[ related topics: Art & Culture Macintosh Net Culture Cool Technology Model Building ]

For inclusion in your "Do not Buy" list: the world's worst surge protector. Caveat Emptor!

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Machinery Failure To Connect ]

Felix at BoingBoing proposes a "Kittens not Bombs" t-shirt

It's nice to think of what would happen if we chose to drop kittens, not bombs. People would too happy, too joyful to send their crazy young men at us with airplanes and exploding shoes.

Uhm. Yeah. Two things. First, despite that myth about "always land on their feet" and stuff, I'm guessing that sack full of kittens dropped from a B52 at thirty thousand feet, or even an F-15 at a hundred feet off the deck (but 600 miles per hour), would probably about equal cluster bombs for negative media impact. And second... well... Ya see, we have two cats. If anything would drive me to exploding shoes, that's it.

[ related topics: Aviation Journalism and Media Shoes War ]

Boston Conman: Charles Ponzi would be so proud, on evaluation of Google stock. One of the things wrong with our economy is this disconnect between money and its meaning. There's been some screaming recently about a big box bookstore wanting to locate in one of the malls in Corte Madera, and as a part of that I read that said mall is owned by some organization like the Florida teacher's retirement fund. I'm not sure exactly what it is that connects the Google situation with the ownership of malls, but in both cases you have people saying "I have no idea how to be productive with this money, you do something with it".

When Google says "our IPO wasn't enough, we need another two billion" and people pony up, the message is that something about Google as an institution allows them to use that money more effectively than the investors could in other ways. So what about that institution allows them to create more cool stuff than individuals working in their garages and basements? Corporate culture?

Similarly, were those Florida public employees thinking "San Francisco's culture is bound to lead to more success than ours, let's buy shopping malls out there?"

In both cases I think that the investors involved haven't thought about it, they've handed their dollars off to some fast talker in a suit. Which is fine, except that it creates a gulf between "regular people" and those who handle money. As long as there's a return on the overall fund, it's hard for individual investsors to get too up in arms over shyster CEOs collaborating with the aforementioned fast talkers, because those guys know just how much to leach out of the system.

But there should be opportunity there, there should be room, in between what the money guys are leaching and the investors are getting, to start up innovation outside of the established power structure, and it isn't happening. I'm not quite sure why (although I believe that the ever increasing alignment between that structure and government is a large part of it), and I'd like to understand more.

(Oh, and just so I can find it later searching, this is part of my "401k plans are evil" (even though I participate in 'em) thought processs.)

[ related topics: Bay Area Sociology Work, productivity and environment Economics ]

There was recently a shooting spree in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle (Anita Rowland provided that link and others). In reading more about it, including Joshua Norton's rambling about feeling like the alienated outsider in the rave scene, I ran across "worst in Seattle since the 'Wah Mee massacre'.

Todd Matthews has a fascinating long article on the Wah Mee massacre, an incident in 1983 in which fourteen people were killed in a robbery on an illegal gambling hall. But Todd Matthews goes deeper than just the incidents of the day, delving back into Seattle's history of police corruption, of black market vice (and the necessity of gambling and prostitution to a vibrant economy), and of race relations. I've only read up to chapter 3 of 16 plus an epilogue, but so far it's been fascinating.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Gambling Seattle Economics ]