Flutterby™! From 2006-04-01 to 2006-04-29

In an exchange pulled from a mailing list hosted on this server, Leo writes about the problem with "pay to send" email schemes like "Goodmail".

[ related topics: Net Culture Economics ]

Silly Foreigners:

You see, I really don’t want to come-off as making fun of his rather rustic knowledge of American government. He’s really a smart fellow, so I don’t want to make him sound like a country bumpkin by explaining things to him that everyone already knows.

He then asked me why we have a Congress if the Commander-in-Chief can do everything by himself. I know, it’s a stupid question, but I humored him and explained it as you would to a child, who would already know this. ...

[ related topics: Politics Humor ]

This explains Stupid Pothead Stories: On godBlog, Why did God create marijuana?

Think of it as my television. Marijuana doesn't make you smarter, it doesn't make you cooler and it doesn't make you more insightful. It does however make you much more entertaining, to me at least. So to answer the question I put pot on this earth to entertain myself.

[ related topics: Religion Drugs Technology and Culture Television ]

[ related topics: Humor Photography Coffee ]

It's official... I've accepted an offer to enroll in the Doctorate program of the Geography Department at the University of Colorado - Boulder starting this Fall. I am wrapping up my MS in GIS from Northwest Missouri State University as I write this (actually awaiting final comments on my thesis...).

What is most signficant about this is:

1. I'm finally moving away from Chattanooga. I've watched many friends leave, Dan among them. Now it's my turn. Of course, this happens just as Chattanooga really starts to come into it's own.
2. I'm advancing into the realms of education that folks around here usually lambast. I've been holding my tongue through recent debates about the efficacy of education. I now feel I can speak from both contra and pro perspectives and will be contributing an essay that I hope will clarify some of what higher education is about.
3. Even though I will be working with an advisor who is in the top-tier of geographic information sciences, my PhD will decidedly NOT be in computer science. Maybe I'll finally get a life...

[ related topics: Movies Coyote Grits Software Engineering Writing Work, productivity and environment Chattanooga Education Maps and Mapping ]

Recently, I've held my tongue on Flutterby in discussions about the value of education. As I have advanced in my education, I've begun to get a better handle on "what it's all about..." See comments for my essay...

[ related topics: Writing Education ]

Apologies for the outage. There were some breakers tripped the hard way (Living out here in California I've been soft about the devastation that near lightning strikes can cause) at Chattanooga On-line, this box needed to fsck in single user mode, and the paying customers got the love first.

On the bright side, it has made me re-evaluate some of the disaster plans I've got in place [grin]. And realilze just how much I miss my server when it's gone.

[ related topics: Flutterby Meta Chattanooga ]

It was on a hike a year or three ago when someone pointed out that SGI's market cap was lower than the value of their real estate holdings. Coyote Blog points out that GM's manufacturing has a market value of $-16 billion (via Dave's Picks.

I assume you've all seen that GM is having trouble finding bands who will let their music be used in Hummer commercials, but beyond the obvious cheap shots at the overpaid bigwigs this speaks to some potential pain for the regions that their manufacturing plants are in: Why wouldn't some other automaker just do a hostile takeover so that they could repurpose GM's assets? I mean, a plant is a plant, right? Except that you build a plant somewhere to take advantage of local labor...

[ related topics: Business Economics Real Estate ]

So Scalia flicked his fingers under his chin towards a reporter, and later took umbrage at the characterization of that act as "an obsene gesture". I think it's time to revisit the Miller test...

[ related topics: Law Current Events ]

Pushed by this entry over at Sgt Stryker's Daily Briefing about having a first flight in a Stearman in 1962 for "a penny a pound", I found the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Consumer Price Index calculator. I'm not convinced. Back in 1984 there was an ice cream shop in Newtown Connecticut that ended up on the tail end of many of my bike rides. I believe that for $.35 you could get a soft-serve cone, and I think that for $.75 you could get a soft-serve cone big enough that I, a sixteen year old who'd just burned a thousand or two calories, had trouble getting through it.

Can you get a small soft-serve cone anywhere nowadays for $.70?

[ related topics: Economics ]

This morning on her way over the hill, Charlene called to say that there were traffic controls because of a slide. I'm out at a coffee shop with a coworker right now, having driven over the hill and... There was still only one lane open, although there were huge mounds of dirt along the edge of the road, and as they waved me through I saw fairly large rocks continuing to bounce down the cliff. Didn't get a shot of it because I remembered my camera after I was through the zone, and frankly I was quite happy to be away from downhill, but... yow. We'll see if the hill is still there when I head back.

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

Hey, Apple Developer Connection: Passwords may have punctuation in them. I expect this sort of lax coding that doesn't properly escape all characters to whatever subsystem they're speaking to from certain financial institutions, but you guys, of all people, should be able to get this right.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Software Engineering ]

From Jerry Kindall: RentGlass.com, online lens rentals.

In light of that mention of Thomas Henry Moray, I think this submission by Chris (the contributor formerly known as HGR1219) is worthy of further attention: Natural Radio, radio emissions as a result of natural phenomena.

[ related topics: Cool Science HGR1219 ]

Can't remember if I linked to this one: High Times for Brain Growth: Marijuana-like drug multiplies neurons. Is that why stoners are so politically aware? (Hat tip: Chris)

[ related topics: Drugs Bioinformatics Biology ]

Why are unfettered government powers a bad idea? Because the government is made up of people, and people are fallible. NASA exec busted in kiddie porn probe (via Chris), and today, Department of Homeland Security official busted for online propositions to what he thought was a 14 year old girl.

On the latter front, one friend notes that his 14 year old daughter filled out her age on her MySpace profile as 16, so... yeah... if she says she's 14, "she" is at least 35 and male. If she really were 14, she'd be claiming she's older.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture moron Current Events ]

TOOOL: The Open Organization Of Lockpickers. Fascinating reading.

[ related topics: Cool Technology ]

I'm working on a long rant that talks about just this sort of irresponsible behavior, but... it's still funny: Guy claims any stupid website can get two million hits. Girl says "no way" and ups the anté http://www.helpwinmybet.com/

The funny bit is that the earliest implications of this are just starting to sink in:

I just got a notice from my ISP that I would have to upgrade my hosting service due to the increased volume.

This is going to start getting expensive.

Just wait, dude...

[ related topics: Humor ]

Trivia of the day: Porn actor Ron Jeremy appeared in Ghostbusters.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies ]

'bout freakin' time: "Parallels is proud to launch the Beta program the first virtualization solution specifically designed to work with Intel-powered Apple computers!" I'd have figured VMWare would get there first.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft Macintosh ]

An SFGate article about corkage fees and bringing your own wines to a restaurant could lead to some interesting musings about the economics of wine, eateries, and the side effects of laws, like why restaurants might want to support the distributor system.

[ related topics: Food Wines and Spirits Economics ]

Michael S. Cox is a spammer.

I've rambled in various forii (yes, I know, it may not proper latin, but I'm working up to a crack about a second grader with glasses, okay?) about a DNS-like system that would store keys that you'd get from someone you trust, and work in some sort of nebulous way to track other systems in a way that would help compartmentalize the web again. Not sure what I hope to accomplish with it, just that I think there's the germ of an idea there.

Which led me to The Free Network Project, a system to enable anonymous speech on the net by sharing resources. And parts of this are really appealing, and parts of this aren't, and it's making me wonder just how far I'm willing to separate speech from responsibility...

[ related topics: Ethics broadband Free Speech Law ]

Two on erotic entertainment this morning. Erotica finds home in mainstream publishing and Online games replace monsters with sex. The first just talks a bit about the rise of publishers of book form erotica, and how those stories have found homes in large chain bookstores, the second has a little bit of the "giggle, snerk" factor that keeps me from thinking any of the specific companies they talk about are actually going to break this market, but I think we'll see some inroads in the less directed MMORPGs soon.

[ related topics: Books Games Sexual Culture ]

This article on why modern country music sucks is a good start, but I think it misses something else: Subject matter. When Merle Haggard sings "I turned twenty one in prison serving life without parole...", pretty much no matter what your circumstances you think "glad I'm not that sorry bastard". Hell, as much as we like to rag on him, when Garth Brooks does his "...I showed up in boots, and ruined your black tie affair...", I can imagine saying "sucks, dude, have a beer", and commiserate over it at least not ending up a Lyle Lovett "Lights of L.A. County" scenario.

But turn on a Country station nowadays, at least out here in California, and you get weepy little songs about how daddy just said he'd spend more time with his son, sort of a "Harry Chapin lite", 'cause the growing up hasn't yet happened, or a sappy love song that'd make a Motown singer blush at the sentiment.

[ related topics: Music California Culture ]

New company goes public - purpose is hidden - sells out right away - only in the land of Woz

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060315/1133233.shtml#comments

[ related topics: Invention and Design Real Estate ]

I realize this is trite and I've probably already said it before here, but I just finished cleaning out my spam folder and was reminded that the target demographic for Louis Vuitton and Rolex seems to be overweight people with who are insecure about their penis size and have problems with erectile dysfunction and prescription drug abuse.

Explains a lot about the Union Square area, actually...

[ related topics: Spam Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

Two articles (actually, I guess it's the same article, two different sites) on this Florida teacher who had a run in with "Homeland Security" agents: One from Yahoo news (via Sensible Erection), One from WXJT/News4Jax.com (via Chris). Guy's directing traffic as school lets out, car blocks bus traffic:

"I walked up to him and said, 'Sir, you need to move.' That's when he said 'I'm a police officer. I'm with Homeland Security ... I'll move it when I want to.' That's when he started grabbing me on my arm," Pickett said.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Fast cars and fast living at heart of Malibu mystery, or Stefan Eriksson, one of the principles of Gizmondo, an ID proclaiming the him the head of an anti-terrorism police task force, a wrecked Ferrari which lead to several other vehicles of dubious provenance, and... well... yeah, it's as convoluted as it sounds.

When police contacted Karney at the address he had given, they found out it was a luxury yacht -- which had just sailed. The police believe Karney left the country for Ireland.

When they checked out the "Homeland Security" IDs, the police made another odd discovery. Eriksson was a member of a security force for the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority -- a nonprofit organization that used some vans and buses to provide free rides for the elderly and disabled and operated out of a garage called Homer's Auto Service.

[ related topics: moron Law Enforcement Handicaps & Disabilities Public Transportation ]

In light of the PhD discussion with Eric, this passage from McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Nihilist Job Resume caught my eye:

Bachelor of "Science" in Computer Applications, University of Washington

B.S., all right. It tickles me greatly that vapid, hornswoggled employers place so much emphasis on scholastic aptitude and higher education, as if knowing the Pythagorean theorem could shield me from the stygian pointlessness of mortality or the lurid abyss of imminent nonexistence. Of course, I use the word "tickles" figuratively, since I feel absolutely nothing.

The whole thing is funny. (Hat tip to Jeff Pidgeon for pointing it out)

[ related topics: Humor Work, productivity and environment Education Philosophy ]

Fascinating little article on waivers for bicycling events that wanders through contract law and liability in interesting ways.

[ related topics: Law Bicycling ]

In light of my questions about sports drinks, Jay found The Gatorade Conspiracy.

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture Consumerism and advertising ]

A New York Times report on a study about cooperation and punishment in communities:

The study, appearing today in the journal Science, suggests that groups with few rules attract many exploitative people who quickly undermine cooperation. By contrast, communities that allow punishment, and in which power is distributed equally, are more likely to draw people who, even at their own cost, are willing to stand up to miscreants.

Led to Cooperation in Evolving Social Networks by Nobuyuki Hanaki, Alexander Peterhansl, Peter S. Dodds, and Duncan J. Watts that totally looks worth a read.

[ related topics: Sociology Community ]

This is probably mostly targeted towards Eric, but: I've dug up my old Terraserver code, thinking it'd be cool to toss a GPS in my Camelbak and get some information and generate some graphics as I train, and I'm not sure my projection code is working quite right. What's a good source of landmarks easily recognizeable on topos or a few meters per pixel satellite photos with accompanying high res (a few meters) latitude and longitude information? For instance, I'd like to find a number I trust for the east peak of Mount Tam, since I can clearly pick the center of that elevation circle on the topo and see the top of the fire lookout building on the satellite imagery.

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping ]

Many of you know of Mario Batali, the celebrity chef. I know his brother Dana Batali from the computer graphics world. But I just found out that their father has started a company to do cured meats: Salumi, up in Seattle, and I think I could spend quite a while sampling. I'm always a sucker for a good fennel heavy salami, but the lamb prosciutto sounds really interesting.

[ related topics: Food Graphics Seattle ]

Two geeky things:

• I haven't tried this, my Windows machine does weird stuff quite often enough, thank you very much, but this article claims there's a registry entry that will let you control-scroll-lock to "blue screen of death" on demand. (Thanks, Shawn.)
• Chris passes a long a little piece called When Delete Is Not Enough, on the perils of having an insecure delete when the lawyers come calling.

[ related topics: Business Microsoft Current Events ]

Slot machines are better regulated than voting machines.

[ related topics: Politics Gambling ]

Ugh. With the weather the way it's been recently I've been having to work on additional tricks to figure out when I can ride. Two thinks make that possible: The weather.com hourly forecast for Lagunitas is a good start, but the The KPIX doppler radar lets me get a good feel for what the next two hours will be like, once or twice I've hit a break, it's been pissing ropes at the moment, but I've checked that page and gotten ready to go out. On the other hand, yesterday evening and today it's been nothing but greens and yellows to the west of us.

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

Hanging out at the Ward Street Cafe today, their web site is new and they could use a little recognition.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Were I Columbine I'd come up with some grand essay on this topic, but since I'm not, how about an ill-conceived paragraph: When I started Flutterby, one of my thoughts was that I could use it to post longer pieces that I'd written for the various mailing lists I'm on. I no longer have any such mailing lists that engender the community that lead to long essays. We're all off in these little weblog islands, and not getting into the longer better thought out discussions that we used to. Or that I used to.

[ related topics: Weblogs Writing Net Culture Community ]

Interesting to me because I went to a Waldorf school in upstate New York through 7^th grade, here's a Fortean Times four pager on Rudolf Steiner. I have, for the most part, run screaming from Anthroposophy as an adult, but it's interesting that someone who believed in Atlantis and an eventual world encompassing showdown between the archangel Michael and a being called Ahriman developed his epistemology around an objective reality:

What little we know of the Master is that he pointed out some passages in the work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of Kant's most important followers, which helped Steiner in his quest. Fichte's work focused on the centrality of the human ego, the 'I', the locus of consciousness and the self that the materialism of Steiner's day (and our own) argued was a mere illusion. Steiner's spiritual experiences convinced him that this was palpably false and that the 'I', rather than being an illusion, was a concrete, irreducible reality. For the next 20 years, until Steiner's re-invention as a spiritual leader, his work would focus on developing a methodical epistemology proving this fact.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Philosophy ]

You read it here first: Given all of the funky music that people are using for cell phone rings right now, what we really need is an integrated light show to go along with it. Integrate a few laser pointer LEDs and some mirrors to deflect 'em, and rather than being an annoyance when your cell phone goes off in a public space, it's an instant dance party.

[ related topics: Wireless Music ]

Lyn linked to Personal MBA, a manifesto and reading list.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Education ]

Real Live Preacher has a sermon he attributes to Mark 10:17-27 that he recently gave at Sage Chapel, Cornell University that illustrates perfectly what I see as the major flaw in seeking solace through religion. But I enjoyed reading it because it nicely lays out the conundrum.

[ related topics: Religion ]

Obligatory link with optional credit.

[ related topics: Humor Weblogs Net Culture ]

I ran across deflexion.com, a weblog by the proprietor of infinite ink. There's a bunch of interesting stuff up there about managing email, including the Power Pine page, all about making Pine do interesting things.

I'm realizing that as cool as aspects of Opera's email client are, it's just not up to the task of dealing with the quantity of email that I'd like to deal with. It's slow in ways that I don't notice consciously until I start thinking about why certain tasks take me too long, its workflow assumes "clean out your spam filter first", I haven't found a good way to do absolute killfile filtering, and as cute as the "delete from filter" concept is I end up using straight delete most of the time, or not enough. I love the concept, and the execution is a decent start, but it's just not up to what I want to put it through.

So I'm looking about for alternatives. I'm kind of thinking that using Gnus (because my fingers like Emacs now, although I'd also consider switching to XEmacs if it were faster handling attachments) with Dovecot as a local IMAP server is a start, but I guess if I start by building a chain that feeds into an IMAP server I can pick my clients. And I can use rss2email or MyBlogAlerts for the few sites I'm grabbing from those sorts of feeds.

What are y'all using?

[ related topics: Weblogs Spam Software Engineering Net Culture ]

Charles Murray has a suggestion: Replace welfare and other domestic aid programs with $10,000 cash grants for every person in the country. Max Borders interview with Charles Murray on the topic. I see a number of issues with his assumptions, but his proposal puts some of the issues with welfare and bureacracy and self-determination in some pretty plain light, and I think it's worth giving the idea a little bit of thought because it showed me some of the assumptions I've made about the situations of poverty, and how the current systems aren't really addressing what's probably the real problem.

[ related topics: Books Economics ]

This morning I couldn't stand it any more, and scattered showers or not I got out and did the Corte Madera to Tiburon and back on Paradise Drive loop. Nobody else showed up, so it was just me. What was really telling wasn't this spot by Paradise Beach park, something on a scale that we seen on several roads around the area, it was all of the little places where there were semicircular depressions of, say, 6" or so, places where the road was open for the moment, but where that could change at any moment.

Looks like we've got at least one more big storm inbound.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Bay Area ]

Chris passed along Pirate Utopias, a sympathetic look at pirates into the early 1700s:

The blackened and rotting corpse was intended to serve as a very clear reminder to the common seaman of the risks of resisting the disciplines of wage labour.

[ related topics: History Work, productivity and environment Civil Liberties HGR1219 ]

More from Chris:

• http://www.selftaughtgirl.com/ is a journal that looks like it's got some good writing.
• http://www.goatonapole.com/ is a goat. on a pole. And the philsophy that might arise from goats on poles.
• And a quote from http://rigorousintuition.blogs...m/2006/04/money-doesnt-talk.html : "It ocurred to me that under the Patriot Act, it is now illegal to pay Federal Income taxes since that would be sending money to a terrorist organization." But the entry also looks into what could be some institutional money laundering.

[ related topics: Politics Writing Currency ]

QOTD:

What a Flash intro says to me is "I hate my job. What I really want to do is make films. But they won't let me do that because I don't have talent. So watch this Flash intro."

(via More Like This)

[ related topics: Quotes Weblogs Movies Heinlein ]

In light of Eric's assertion about the purposes of higher education, I pass along Language Crimes: A Lesson in How Not to Write, Courtesy of the Professoriate:

Fed up, I resolved to find out just how low the state of academic writing had sunk. I could use the Internet to solicit the most egregious examples of awkward, jargon-clogged academic prose from all over the English-speaking world. And so the annual Bad Writing Contest was born.

The rules were simple: Entries should be a sentence or two from an actual published scholarly book or journal article. No translations into English allowed, and the entries had to be nonironic: We could hardly admit parodies in a field where unintentional self-parody was so rampant.

[ related topics: Books Writing Education ]

Okay, the only reason I'm linking to this is that Tom's rubber chicken broke and he needs a new one. But Sensible Erection had a link to some Rubber Chicken Porn. Seriously in the "WTF?" category, with explicit insertion into a human, so I gotta caution you about actually clicking on it, but there it is.

[Edit: Warning, do not be drinking anything when you read Topspin's poetry in this thread]

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture Birds ]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines...ive/2006/04/01/8372814/index.htm

[ related topics: Business Currency ]

WW2D is an application that uses WorldWind data sets, but it's written in Java and runs cross-platform. It's only 2D (whence the name), but it runs on Linux.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Maps and Mapping Maps & Mapping ]

It always sucks to go back to Chattanooga, because I never get a chance to see everyone, I always miss people, and this trip is especially short. So, here's how I'm going to do it: I'll be at Stone Cup next Saturday afternoon.

And on May 6^th I'm going to do the Wine Country Century 100 mile course. I'm hoping for a better than 8 hour finish time. And then I'm going to Valley Visions in the evening, where I'll be expected to eat lots of food (easy) and dance (won't be so easy).

[ related topics: Food Wines and Spirits Chattanooga Travel ]

TC: If you haven't gotten copious email from me detailing potential lunch plans, call me. 415-488-4053 (land line) or 415-342-5180 (cell).

I suppose XML namespaces wouldn't be nearly so bad if I weren't writing code to do protocol validation with the intent of providing useful error messages. And, yes, "this is technically a valid document but people will hate you for it" is going to be the meaning, if not the actual text, of several messages.

[ related topics: Web development Software Engineering ]

Charlene and I have been wanting to see a good film, and we'd heard good things, so we went out to V for Vendetta last night. While we didn't walk out, we were both sadly disappointed. Why can't screenwriters assume I've got two neurons to rub together to make a thought? Why do directors think I must I be force-fed similarities in character development? I think the creator of the original comic strip, Alan Moore, says it fairly well:

The baby is one I put a great deal of love into, a great deal of passion and then during a drunken night it turned out that I'd sold it to the gypsies and they had turned out my baby into a life of prostitution.

Decent editing could have easily culled it from its two hours and twelve minutes. Decent writing could have introduced some ambiguity, provoked us as viewers to ask questions, rather than simply (and stupidly) portraying the society as one of cowed citizens against oppressive fascism. Decent directing could have let us capture similé without intercut flashback that tried to browbeat us into accepting symbolism. And I don't know if this is a function of the initial comic as well as the screenplay, but the whole Guy Fawkes reference could have been explored as the much more nuanced situation that historically it seems to have been.

I had been hoping for a film of ideas. Instead I got a film of overly melodramatic action sequences, flat characters, and trite political simplicities. Skip it.

[ related topics: Politics Movies moron Writing ]

A fruit salad and poached pears, for a gathering yesterday afternoon.

[ related topics: Photography Dan's Life Food ]

Fun Campari ad with a neat twist (via Filling a Much Needed Void), The Easter Bunny Hates You Too (from Borklog).

[ related topics: Movies ]

Arnold Kling, a Cato Institute libertarian, has an interesting piece in Tech Central Station on being a jury member in a 2nd degree murder case. I've never been on jury, but his description of the intersection of legal verbiage, juror psychology, and the difficulty of knowing what is really true seems pretty sound. Standing above it all is the widespread desire to be fair and just, which is not always the same thing. As he points out, there are problems with the jury system. However, having flawed humans judged by flawed jurors is probably the best way we have, and maybe the best hope for that defendant.

[ related topics: Libertarian Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Law ]

rc3/ofinterest referenced this repeat of a question asked here, "what's the left-wing equivalent of _Atlas Shrugged_". They used the term "liberal", but the resulting discussion is more "left and right wing" than even what we think of now as "liberal and conservative". In thinking about my response, I realized that all of the books that I think of as having that political bent are reactions to the situations of their times, rather than statements of philosophical purpose, which, I think, is core to understanding some of the differences between those sides.

(Note: In starting whatever conversation may arise from this quick comment, I want to make it clear that I in no way think that the Bush administration or the current Republican party in any way epitomizes the ideals that Ayn Rand proposed, and that the current "graft and corruption are okay as long as they're done by big business" attitude is at least as much a part of the "looter" attitude as any cry of "for the people!".)

[ related topics: Politics Objectivism Books moron Community Philosophy Archival ]

Map Gallery of Religion in the United States (Dave's Picks). Some interesting surprises...

[ related topics: Religion Maps and Mapping ]

Just for giggles, and for your Google Earth viewing pleasure: this morning's bike ride in KML format. When I have infinite time, building a better toolchain for this data would be really nice.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Maps and Mapping Maps & Mapping Bicycling ]

Upon reading there do not seem to be any really big differences between Christianity and Islam. They both suck. Adam and Eve, the Rib, God, Many Rules; looking from a distance they are the same.

So what is a good Muslim to do in such a fun world? Christianity became 'Christianity Light' and we can assume the same for Islam but it is sooner than we think.

In the mean time they have a lot of issues adjusting to Western Life.

"My mom and Dad are married for 32Years now.My dad remarried without telling my mom 10years ago.My mom found out about it recently and is devastated and is in deep sorrow.How to handle this problem." http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=15286 <-- This is one I always worry about - I'm serious ! :)

And its corellary "My husband has got married again. i am finding it very hard to cope with..." http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=11227 and a common problem: "I am married, 5 months pregneant,a second wife. can i have my husbands surname, and also change my name, as i am a convert. " http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=10877

"I do not want to marry a relative in india. How do i go about this and tell my dad i do not want to???" http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=14509 <-- Now I thought that was only an issue in Kentucky.

"How do I tell my wife to stop talking to other men." http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=13964 <-- Is that so different from the West?

Here is one I think about as lot: "Can a husband suck her wife's breast?" http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=13329

An altogether reasonable request IMO: "I am going to be engaged at the age of 17 and going to get married at 19 would it be acceptable if we started talking and meeting up without the whole marriage thing just to get to know each other?" http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=12446

And the classic problem for all religions: "In Islam anal sex and oral sex is allowed by doing this nikah remains valid or break. I am doing anal sex also she dosen't have any problem." http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=11873

I think I just realized something; Islam is all about sex. And just as in early Christianity the girls are not that equal, should we say? In the end it will be the girls who force Islam to lighten up, just as they have Christianity, and in that note there is hope that these nut cases will go back to their homes and stop trying to kill or conquer everyone.

Ziffle of Mayberry

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology Marriage ]

SFGate looks at Vik's Chaat Corner, one of Berkeley's two great Indian restaurants (the other is Breads of India).

[ related topics: Food Bay Area ]

Does gender equality equal a better sex life?

Austria topped the list of 29 nations studied with 71 percent of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their sex lives.

Spain, Canada, Belgium and the United States also reported high rates of satisfaction.

The lowest satisfaction rate — 25.7 percent — was reported in Japan.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Political Correctness Civil Liberties ]

Those lovable pervs over at Sensible Erection have gleefully informed us via this article that tomorrow is Love A Teen Day.

Just be aware of any local restrictions...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Current Events ]

Aaaaugh! You know it's bad when a widget set makes you pine for Windows, in this case it's the wackiness of Apple's "Carbon". Trying to redraw a window? You have two different ways to invalidate the region, depending on whether the window is semi-transparent or not, either via InvalWindowRect(...) or HIViewSetNeedsDisplay(...). Of course neither of these is doing anything for the particular control (that's very explicit about tellling me that it doesn't own any of the data it's a view on), because there I have to call UpdateDataBrowserItems(...).

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft Software Engineering Macintosh ]

Dynamic in deed - it chases you around!

http://offsite.wdg.us/mae/Raff...micArt/InteractiveDynamicArt.htm

I'm pretty busy this weekend but I think I'm going to HAVE to try to find some time to take a little side trip over to MakerFaire.

[ related topics: Software Engineering Travel ]

Hey, Eric: My personal laptop developed schizophrenia on the flight, I don't have time right now to fix it, and, alas, I didn't have paper backups of your cell phone number. Would you either email your phone contact info to my work email (the usual prefix at digitalfish.com) or call my cell phone (415-342-5180) and leave it on that?

Wow, some things never change. McCallie and MLK may be two way, and downtown may have lots of new development (I like the way the new addition to the Hunter Museum connects to the Walnut Street Bridge, but did they have to give the architect quite that much leeway?), but Chaco and Eddie still run the coffee shop, KZ106 hasn't changed their playlist one bit ("I'm hot / sticky sweet / from my head / to my feet"), and although Jeff Styles has shorter hair, his show remains the same. It's amazing how much I connect with Chattanooga, and yet... I could see moving back, but it's an entirely different world from Northern California, and the reasons I left and the reasons I'd come back are all pretty much what they were a decade ago when I left.

Congrats to Mike and Nancy, sometime soon I'm going to have to come back and just spend some more time hanging out with cool people, and taking the time to plan get-togethers with all of the people I don't have an opportunity to connect with this time.

A week just hanging out and talking, with breaks to raft the Ocoee, ride the train, go hang out and watch the clouds with occasional human dangling from aluminum and nylon, walk out to Edward's Point, go boulder around Sunset Rock... And then a few days down in Atlanta to meet up with all the folks who've left but didn't go that far... Yeah, I need to talk Charlene into that for a vacation.

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Art & Culture California Culture Chattanooga Machinery Trains Architecture ]

I've been exploring Google Earth a little more lately. I work with GIS tools on a daily basis and I'm impressed with the user interface. I'd have to say that for basic GIS data visualization, you'd be hard-pressed to find something better.

Here are some other tools I've come across that might be of interest to folks around Flutterby:

• MagnaLox provides the GPS interface to GE that Dan seems to be desiring.
• 3DEM gets used to stitch together DEMs because the ArcGIS 9 mosaic to raster tool is SLLLOOOWWWWW. 3DEM is also a handy viz tool - unfortunately it's Windows-only.
• Open Source GIS is an obvious link to a list of OS-GIS tools.
• GPSbabel - like ImageMagick, only for GPS data.
• Proj.4 - same, but for projections.
• GRASS - One of the oldest desktop GIS packages, originally developed by the military. Now freely available as open source.
• MicroImages TNTmips - has a free version of their full suite that works with small data sets.
• OpenGIS - Standards, we've got lots of standards...

This list is not exhaustive but provides a place to start playing. Feel free to add your favorites in comments.

[ related topics: Free Software User Interface Microsoft Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment Graphics Maps and Mapping ]

A /. thread on simple 3d game engines gave:

• VPython, "3d programming for ordinary mortals", a packaging of Python with a few libraries to do simple 3d.
• Cube is an open source game engine with an emphasis on in-game world generation.
• PyOgre is bindings to the Ogre 3d libraries.
• Panda is a Python 3d library with an emphasis on short learning curve.
• Quesa is an open source implementation of Apple's QuickDraw^tm 3d.

Slightly less interesting, perhaps because I haven't taken the time to look at 'em yet or perhaps because they look like yet another abstraction layer or scene tree or whatever:

• G3d looks like a graphics and sockets layer abstraction.
• irrlicht is a free open source 3d application.
• Delta3d is allegedly a U.S. military backed game engine, looks like the usual layering of stuff atop OpenSceneGraph, ODE and Cal3d.

[ related topics: Free Software Games Software Engineering Graphics Macintosh Python ]

One of the things that pissed me off about Tennessee back in the day were the random fishing trips police roadblocks. I got stopped twice in the years I was there, once up in Soddy and once over near 153, and both times I resented both the time spent waiting in line, and the feeling that the officers involved were simply trolling.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has overturned ID roadblocks:

"In their zeal to preserve and protect, however, our police officers must respect the fundamental constitutional rights of those they are sworn to serve," the court concluded. "Entry identification checkpoints of the type used here result in the abrogation of one of those fundamental constitutional rights. Such checkpoints cannot, therefore, be countenanced, no matter how lofty their goals. The ends, in this case, simply do not justify the means."

This wasn't exactly that situation, but a little smackdown to those who believe in the surveillance state is all good. (Thanks to Dave's Picks. )

[ related topics: Law Current Events Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Chattanooga Archival ]

I don't have any grand revelations about human character that I've distilled to easily shareable words, but several experiences of the past year or so have taught me, or at least opened up some questions on, a lot of things about free will and decision making. Heck, I don't want to out anybody, but Saturday evening's discussion about "freezing up" and panic was fascinating with some neat insights, which lead interestingly and coincidentally to a potluck and discussion I went to with my parents on Sunday evening where the discussion topic was "fear", nominally in the context of culturally manufactured fear (ie: the Y2K panic, "peak oil", those sorts of things), but the discussion that evening before about resolve and when and how we make our decisions meshed rather well into it.

In that same vein of "I can't sum it up into a few words, but I found myself feeling like I was gaining insight", here are a set of journal entries by Kevin Smith about his relationship with Jason Mewes, aka "Jay" of "Jay and Silent Bob", and Jay's struggle with drug addiction and Kevin's struggle with friendship: Me and my Shadow Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9. Not just a good read because it's a heartbreaker that (apparently) ends in redemption, but because I found some insight in Kevin Smith's struggles with when he was being a friend versus when he was being an enabler, and love, and forgiveness.

And, yes, as juvenile as it seems, I will be seeing Clerks 2.

[ related topics: Drugs Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health Movies Community ]

Yesterday, Charlene suggested a movie. Still sleep deprived from the trip, I said "sure, get whatever looks good". Charlene likes courtroom dramas, thrillers with twists, that sort of thing. I like silly romantic comedies. We both like movies that look at the non-mainstream. She came home with Partner(s), a movie which manages to incorporate all three.

Jonathan is a lawyer at a large firm. Katherine is his arch rival. In the inciting incident, they're told that there's only room for one more partner from their division this year, and it's fairly clear that even if they're fairly well matched lawyer-skills wise, Katherine has the edge because she's a woman. But there's a twist, a major client dealing with a big work discrimination lawsuit involving discrimination based on sexual preference asks specifically for Jonathan because he thinks Jonathan is gay. Jonathan is sweet on said client's daughter. Hijinks ensue.

It's not a great movie, the dialogue could have been tightened, I found myself distracted during the first half, and I think many story points could have been nicely tightened up. Despite the flaws in the story, however, the characters were endearing, and where it could have descended into trite parody of gay culture clichés instead it focused on the straight world's reaction. And the two emphatically "not gay" assistants got more than a few laugh-out-loud reactions from us.

Predictable, a little slow, could have used some story tightening, but worked pretty well. And nicely scratched both Charlene's "lawyers and intrigue" itch while fulfilling my romantic comedy desires.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies Sociology Law ]

When I was in 'nooga, I "ooh"ed and "ahh"ed over Eric's diesel station wagon. If your tastes run a little less family (or camping or lugging around helium canisters) oriented, Jeff passed along the Hayes Diversified Technologies diesel motorcycles.

[ related topics: Automobiles Cool Technology ]

Simon Costa, the front-man for Ruckus, a kickin' rockabilly kind of band that we really enjoy and have been to enough shows of that he recognizes me, dropped in on me at San Anselmo Coffee Roasters to tell me that they're doing an open mic night on Mondays from 7 'til 9 at Book Beat in Fairfax. An earlier night might make that scene totally approachable, and given that Simon's running it there are likely to be some great performers, the early hour means that it's accessible to the younger crowd as well. If you're in the Fairfax California area I think this could be a fun scene!

[ related topics: Music Bay Area California Culture San Anselmo ]

In light of the recent GIS links I thought it might be worth republishing this from /.: A while ago I was impressed by SketchUp. It looks like Google has a free version of SketchUp, has set up to integrate models into Google Earth, and has created a repository for models.

Now if I can just get 'em to do a pluggable flight dynamics model for navigating the Google Earth environment I can have the helicopter simulator to end all others...

[ related topics: Graphics Maps and Mapping Maps & Mapping Aviation - Helicopters ]

Via Must See HTTP://, Micropatronage, through a different lens. Interesting, perhaps as we re-adjust our notions of what we want out of our journalism we need to change our notions of how recompense occurs.

[ related topics: Weblogs Journalism and Media ]

Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography this year. I'd seen these images without attribution as part of one of those big emails that people send around, but here are all 20 images:

After learning that a family had received their son's posthumous medals in the mail, Major Steve Beck planned an event he called "Remembering the Brave," during which he personally presented medals to families he has watched over. "When you think about what these guys did, it's not easy to look at these medals," he said. "What's the trade-off? How do you say 'This is for your son?'"

Well worth looking at all of the pictures. (Via Genehack)

[ related topics: Photography Current Events War ]

Jim and Kate are a father and daughter bicycling across the country. They have Seven True Facts Learned While Biking Across Texas that are worth a read:

There is an addendum to this fact based on personal observation that suggests that Hispanic men, tending in my estimation to be less aggressive and hostile on the road, are significantly less interested than their cowboy-hat-wearing brethren to run you off the road. Men in cowboy hats with whom I have spoken counter that Chicanos are basically a worthless lot, are likely in Texas illegally, and are therefore likely to be trying to avoid the attention of the law. The fallacy of this argument, it seems to me, is that never once in the whole of the state of Texas has it been our experience that anyone's attempt to run us off the road has drawn the attention of any officer of the law. Officers of the law in Texas, for the record, are generally non-Hispanic men wearing cowboy hats.,,

[ related topics: Sports Pedal Power Race Bicycling ]

An anonymous correspondent who works for a state community college tells me that the preliminary budget for next year contains a line item for CALEA Requirements: "As required by federal law, modify data and voice system so law enforcement can easily wiretap into our electronic communications system. — $ 40,000".

I feel safer knowing that several student's tuitions will be spent on better eavesdropping capabilities.

[ related topics: Privacy Law Enforcement Community Education ]

Musée McCord Museum (sic): Mind Your Manners, The Victorian Period, is a set of questions (in Flash) to help you understand how well you'd fit into Victorian society. They have several other games, but this one leaped out because...

I ran across The American Conservative: Minding Our Manners. Claiming that "Egalitarianism’s assault on class aims to make us all equally rude", Theodore Dalrymple then goes on to, inadvertantly, point out that manners are the imposition of cultural conformity over reason. As I was reading that piece, I couldn't help but hear Merle Haggard's voice belting out "Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee", especially with a few decades of watching what Oklahoma has become versus those denigrated "hippies out in San Francisco"...

The game was a good reminder that such silliness transcends generations.

[ related topics: Games Bay Area Sociology Art & Culture California Culture ]

Via Chris, Bush Reveals Plan to Curb Illegal Immigration Via Giant, Man-Eating Eagles. And they said bioengineering could only lead to disaster...

So does anyone have any good solutions to the immigration debate? I'm more towards the "open up the borders" side of things, but I think that needs to get tempered with some more effective foreigh policy. And part of illegal immigration is that we get the hardcore people who really really want to work; there's no better filter than making people walk hundreds of miles across some of the least inviting terrain around, through various armed regional conflicts, all in order to find a better job, for discovering the people I want in my society. I'm afraid that making immigration easier would no longer supply us with the über-laborers that we're getting now.

[ related topics: Politics Humor Current Events ]

Last night there was a meeting of the San Geronimo Valley Community Center about events that the center could put on to bring in income for the center and involve the community more. I'm more interested in the community aspects, so when the chance popped up to provide some guidance and support for an event for foodies, I volunteered.

If you live in West Marin (or Marin in general) or have an interest in the foods relevant to the area,we're doing a pot-luck at the community center next Wednesday, May 3^rd, to talk about events we might organize. Some thoughts:

• A county fair like event, with judging, to give people a chance to strut their stuff.
• A series on ethnic foods, with an emphasis on cultural associations.
• Various local vendors (Diana's truffles, some of the dairies and cheeses of west Marin).
• How-to (homemade cheese, chocolate sculpture, etc).
• Sustainable agriculture lectures
• Talks on nutrition

If you live in the area, please come. If you don't, I'd love more ideas for things we can do for a relatively upscale community of roughly 4k people that could scale to something that tries to draw from the region.

[ related topics: Health Food Bay Area Chocolate Community ]

Belly fat blues, or why that paunch is worse for you than thunder thighs:

Analyzing data from 27,000 people in 52 countries, the scientists found that BMI measurements were only slightly higher among people who had had heart attacks compared with those who hadn't. But heart attack sufferers had a much higher waist-to-hip ratio (a measurement that reflects abdominal fat) compared with those who hadn't, regardless of other cardiovascular risk factors. This finding was true for men and women in every ethnic group.

And more reason to assume that the BMI is bunk.

[ related topics: Health Physiology ]

Mexico to decriminalize small quantities of drugs:

The bill says criminal charges will no longer be brought for possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine — the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity (though half-size packages are becoming more common).

"No charges will be brought against ... addicts or consumers who are found in possession of any narcotic for personal use," according to the Senate bill, which also lays out allowable quantities for an array of other drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and amphetamines.

However, lest you take this as a license to head to Tijuana and party, 'cause at least one Canadian student is stuck in Mexico because his travel insurance didn't cover injuries due to alcohol (via Dave's Picks).

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Health Consumerism and advertising ]

No, it's not Kennedy's patrol boat, it's a new sex drug. The Observer reports on PT-141, a drug billed as a libido enhancer. But, as with all things biological, it isn't quite that simple:

....Architecturally it was a minor change, but what it did for the females was huge. It let them get away from the males whenever they chose to, and thereby made it entirely their choice whether to have sex. Paredes then observed the rats' behaviour in this altered setting. Here's what he found: the effects of giving a female rat greater personal control over her sex life are essentially the same as those of giving her PT-141. Autonomy, in other words, is as real an aphrodisiac as any substance known to science.

(Again, from Dave's Picks)

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Health Invention and Design Boats Machinery ]

Rush Limbaugh was booked and released to resolve drug abuse charges filed against him.

[ related topics: Drugs Health Current Events ]

Chris passed along the World Naked Bike Ride, coming June 10th to a city near you.

[ related topics: Nudity Bicycling ]