Flutterby™! From 2006-07-02 to 2006-07-31

Charlene and I just got back from seeing Cars. The visuals are stunning, and I expect that this is the last computer generated film that I'll call out for the quality of the graphics, because several of the shots were so detailed that this is also the last film that I can see ogling for the visuals that'll actually be shown on film.

The story, on the other hand, was apparently lifted from that old Michael J. Fox film, Doc Hollywood. Filled with cliché after cliché, after a short time I started wondering why I was being lectured on the "escape to the small-town values" thing by a guy who makes a couple of million bucks a year and lives a few blocks from downtown Sonoma. From the moment in the opening race where we hear the setup, "three racers tied in points for the Piston Cup", we know what the rest of the sequence will be about. And, alas, there's little more revelation as that sequence unfolds, so no matter what the occurrences there's no drama. And, alas, the rest of the tale has that same predictability.

So this afternoon was the moment where Pixar changed from a "must see" brand to a "makes good films, but it's okay if I miss one". And as spectacular as the scenery and the graphics were, I'm sure that this is the last time that I'll make special note of how the images in a film were produced.

Not an actively bad film, but one that I think would be improved if it were watched without the audio. Enjoy the pictures and don't let the story distract you from the little sight gags, because there are no surprises in the arc.

[ related topics: Pixar Animation Movies Graphics ]

Heads-down, wigged out and coding fast, so not much time for updates.

Stolen from Brad's Must See HTTP://, a list of Autoantonyms, words that are their own antonyms.

[ related topics: Language ]

You can make coffee now: according to the Guardian, at about 5:30 this morning Greenwich time, asteroid XP 41 passed the Earth at a distance slightly greater than that of the Moon. The size of the body is not known exactly, but at a minimum of 1,000 ft across, a collision would have been catastrophic. Scientists hope to use radar to measure the asteroid and its orbit with more precision.

Apparently this was not a surprise; the near miss orbit of XP 41 was already known to astronomers. In 2029 another asteroid is expected to pass within a mere 20,000 miles. Hmmm...I wonder if we could catch it?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Space & Astronomy Astronomy ]

Friday after work we (Nancy, Joe and Me) drove to San Antonio (999.2 miles), stopping for coffee at Cafe Du Monde at 1am on the way. We picked up a U-Hual trailer, loaded up a new friends stuff, and headed back home (985 miles). Nothing eventful, just lots of fun channel surfing on Sirius Radio. We did make a quick trip in San Antonio to the Riverwalk and the Alamo while there.. but nothing to really make a big deal about, lots of people, food and alcohol mixed together.

Got home, took a nap and watched 2 sets of downtown fireworks from the deck. It's so nice to be home, and yet, I really enjoyed the road trip as well.

[ related topics: Movies Coyote Grits Invention and Design Food Work, productivity and environment Heinlein Travel Pyrotechnics ]

Happy 4^th! I rode the Corte Madera to Fairfax to Pine Mountain across Ridgecrest down into Mill Valley and back loop this morning with Gary and Mark, we pulled a reasonable 2:30 elapsed time, even waiting for Gary on the climbs (I say "even", but Mark has ridden three double centuries this year, and Gary's got his California Triple Crown jersey).

Then we got on a tandem and rode over to the Woodacre Fire Station for the pancake breakfast fundraiser, and hung out for the parade, chatted with friends and acquaintances, and made new ones. Someone commented that it was strange to see this much patriotism in Marin, by which I guess they meant the displays of Red White and Blue, but it got me thinking a bit.

It is living out here over the hill that's gotten me involved in "government". Not necessarily the organization that we vote for, but the nitty-gritty of "who's gonna fix the road" and "what do we do if there's a disaster", and while "patriotic" has as its roots echoes of "the fatherland", there's nothing wrong with celebrating the ability of neighbors to work together.

But on that note, an expansion by "Bacchus" of ErosBlog in Susie Bright's interview of him leaped out at me recently:

As a free person, it's *your* job to figure out how to keep yourself safe. And if your answer is "government", that's code for "I want a gang of thugs to enslave others, take their stuff, and spend the proceeds to keep me safe." Criminal, ugly, violent, and morally bankrupt. Not for me, thanks.

So, yeah, "patriotism" as "rah rah for the fatherland!": I'm not a fan. But a celebration of the fact that we've got something really cool here, and that we are the government, or we've abdicated responsibility and deserve what we get, that we need. Regularly.

Therefore I'll urge every one of you to go re-read The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies and think about it a bit, and then think about what you can do so we can peacefully rectify where

... mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

[ related topics: Politics Bay Area Civil Liberties ]

Ken Lay, former head of Enron, dies of a heart attack. The conspiracy theorist in me asks "who wanted to shut him up"?

[ related topics: Current Events Conspiracy ]

Italians arrest their head of military counterespionage in CIA "extraordinary rendition" case.

[ related topics: Politics Law Current Events ]

While I'm blindly copying news from elsewhere to the front page: Study documents Tylenol liver toxicity: High doses could cause organ damage.

Although overdoses of Tylenol can harm the liver, the study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association is the first to spot hints of trouble in healthy people taking the pain reliever as directed.

"This study shows that even taking the amount on the package can be a problem for some people," said Dr. William M. Lee of University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, who was not involved in the research.

Although the study may be new, we've long known that acetaminophen has an extremely low safety margin, the difference between an effective dose and a lethal does is really low, especially as over-the-counter drugs go.

And while we're looking at painkillers, ibuprofen may not slow muscle healing, but taking it before or during exercise could lead to renal failure. Here's a more consumery rundown on ibuprofen and exercise.

Ibuprofen is an accepted choice for dealing with the aches and pains of daily life. But does it help during a race? Probably not, and it can hurt you if you take too much and become dehydrated. For races and hard training sessions, the risks seem to outweigh the questionable benefits.

[ related topics: Drugs Health Television ]

Susie Bright looks at An Inconvenient Truth:

Mainstream movie reviewers are acting as if this is a fine ecology film from the Audubon Society that just happens to feature an intelligent thoughtful performance by Citizen Gore. But that is disingenuous!

While other politicos are barely web-savvy, Gore has changed the rules of the game— he's made a whole friggin' movie that's supposedly about an "issue," but is really a 90 minute seance with the undeclared candidate.

Where's Hillary's movie? The Devil Wears Land's End?

[ related topics: Politics Games Movies Nature and environment ]

High rates stress Bay Area:

Bagnell also saw his ARMs take off. After being laid off from the software industry in 2000, he went into real-estate investment and now owns two five-unit apartment buildings in Oakland, both with adjustable-rate mortgages. Over the past few years, vacancy rates have been high, so he has not implemented any rate increases because he wants to keep his tenants.

But now his interest rates have gone up two percentage points since July 2005. The mortgage on each building is about $500 more per month.

I hope hope hope (but I'm sure it's fruitless) that when all the schmucks who ran up real estate with their speculation without thinking about reasonable ways to hedge their risk don't manage to screw over us taxpayers by making us bail them out when they start to go bankrupt wholesale. Unfortunately, I anticipate lots of stories of hard luck families squeezed out of "their" homes manipulated by the real estate industry in such a way that the federal government (ie: those of us who were a little more risk averse) end up propping up the bubble.

[ related topics: Bay Area moron Economics Real Estate ]

As the hangover from barbeque and fireworks winds down, a fun link from the 1970's: In 1973 a geographer proposed reducing the number of US States to 38. His idea was to break up the big ones like Texas into smaller bits and consolidate the smaller ones. His new map creates states that make more sense economically and perhaps culturally. For instance, Chicago becomes the capital of Dearborn, made up of chunks from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. This area is a pretty unified economic region, and breaks the heavily populated urbanites of Chicago off from their farmland brethren in Downstate Illinios. Southern and Northern California splits into two other states.

The idea seems to be that by reducing the number of state governments we get the same amount of administration for about 20% less money. It is intriguing that tiny New Hampshire has the same number of government departments as vast Texas. i don't like all the names, tho. Any better ideas?

[ related topics: Invention and Design Food Pyrotechnics Maps and Mapping Economics ]

A little rant I wrote for a mailing list that someone has asked to pass around: Patriotism and Participation

[ related topics: Politics ]

Amish farmer fights milk law after sting:

"You can't just give milk away to someone other than yourself. It's a violation of the law," said LeeAnne Mizer, spokeswoman for the department.

As someone who grew up on raw milk, if your dairy is run well then the bacterial infection is mostly a matter of what happens once the milk is out of your dairy. While the rules against selling raw milk may have been reasonable a century ago when open containers were being shipped unrefrigerated to cities, nowadays it's just bullshit protectionism.

And having had raw milk again recently, I can tell you right out that the reason I don't drink milk as an adult is that the pasteurized crap has no flavor.

But really, what's worse here is that we have an inspector coming and asking specifically for raw milk, it apparently being given to him (not sold), and then busting the poor farmer. If we can't get rid of the bullshit protectionism, then can we at least have an "educated consumer" law, where we as consumers can sign something simple that says that we've educated ourselves about the risks and agree to take them? I know I'd much rather be buying straight from a farmer than going through levels of processor and distributor that I can't monitor myself, but that a paternalistic government believes are necessary to protect me from myself.

[ related topics: Politics moron Consumerism and advertising Civil Liberties ]

Star Trek is leaving it appears - I will miss it - at least up through Captain Picard -- they have changed the writing from 'adventure for thinking beings' to 'what will we do now - its all too much'

So here they are selling off the movie props - wish I could afford one - http://www.christies.com/special_sites/startrek/overview.asp then click on 'Galaxy of highlights' and there is the worlds most advanced computer (is it still?) So Cool!

[ related topics: Movies Star Trek Space & Astronomy Writing ]

The Valedictorian of Mainland Regional Highschool said:

Ladies and gentlemen, the spirit of intellectual thought is lost. I speak today not to rant, complain or cause trouble, and certainly not to draw attention to myself. I have accomplished nothing and I am nothing. I know that. Rather, I was moved by the countless hours wasted in those halls.

The speech is well written, and nicely keeps the real zingers 'til the end while building towards them, so clearly Kareem Elnahal knew that what he was going to say was going to upset the faculty and that he was going to be hustled off stage. Predictably, the principal was not amused, and said of the other students:

“My hope was they did not hear or understand what he was saying. ... He was belittling the diplomas of every one of those kids.”

Yeah, not much more you can add to that, is there? (via MeFi)

Over at Brainwagon, Mark has been ripping into "Intelligent Design", in Darwinism’s great appeal: Empowering the ignorant and More on Intelligent Design, the Future…, exposing some almost shocking desires to not learn. Also making its way through the blog world is this tale of a Jewish family in Delaware forced out of their community, a follow-up has one of those involved saying:

Pogrom? I'm not sure I want to call it that. That is not an appropriate term, however, I am pleased that we had an effect in this case. We have others we want to put up on the site to shame them but have not gotten around to it.

(via Elf)

As long as we have high school principals saying of their students "I hope that they did not understand", this sort of wilfull ignorance and stupidity, which leads to violence and intimidation, is only going to get worse.

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

Much as I have disdain for what passes as culture today it shocks and thrills me when I find something worthwhile.

Well I found one: "House" on TV of all places.

"the hero is an irreverent, controversial doctor who trusts no one, least of all his patients. Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) is devoid of bedside manner and wouldn't even talk to his patients if he could get away with it. (They all lie)"

He is anti religion - "I have trouble with the whole concept of 'belief'" and driven more to find the answer than take time to care about the feelings of the patients - usually. The only patient he said did not lie was the mentally ill one!

This is good writing folks - some of the best there has ever been, in my estimation. http://www.tv.com/house/show/22374/summary.html He reminds me of Howard Roark in a sense - a dedication to objective truth and everyone else be damned.

There are funny moments as where he was hauled before the Medicare billing commitee for his non compliant but brilliant use of medicines - 'but I saved her life'....

Worth seeing and on TV no less.

Ziffle

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Interactive Drama Technology and Culture Health moron Sociology Writing Television California Culture Philosophy Real Estate ]

I was at the computer from shortly after 7 yesterday morning 'til after 7 last night, and it's going to be that way for the next few weeks. However, even with that I've been trying to follow the tour, mostly via email updates from Active.com. These link to Fred Rodriguez's updates from the tour. He's a competitor, but out of the race because of a crash in stage 3, but today's update talks a little bit about what happened in the final meters of stage 5, especially about the team aspects of the race.

If I had a play-by-play of that sort of detail I'd be devouring every word.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Sports Bicycling ]

I feel like I should link to this just because it's an article about sexual culture in the local paper: SFGate: Couples shed inhibitions, tour S.F. strip clubs. So there it is, however...

I've mentioned that my visits to strip clubs have been distinctly un-erotic experiences, and I think that in my old age I'm becoming less and less enthused by the idea of being entertained by those whose hearts aren't really in it, or even more so by people whose sole reason for participating in the activity is separating me from my money. And weblogs like Standing on the Box and Waiter Rant have made me even more conscious of people who work to sustain a subculture that they despise (the former more than the latter).

When we went to look at strip clubs, the only place I felt at all like the women doing the stripping may have been having fun was the Lusty Lady. There's a lot of fun on all sides in the burlesque revival shows, but pole dancing along Columbus left me flat when we went, and I think it'd leave me even flatter now.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bay Area Sociology Work, productivity and environment Burlesque ]

India fighting the patenting of traditional medicines by US pharmaceutical companies.

India claims to have found 5,000 U.S. patents on medicinal plants, 80 percent of them from India. Half of these patents should never have been given to the American drug developers, according to India's government. Europe has also granted a patent to use neem extract for its antiseptic properties. Millions of Indians have a neem tree growing in their gardens. They pick off a twig each morning to use as a toothbrush. It cost millions of dollars to fight the neem patent, which was repealed in 2005.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Health moron Gardening ]

Animal Controlled Computer Games, or "Pac Man" where the ghosts are controlled by crickets. A short blurb with a few pictures.

Come to think of it, while I see the mechanism for making the crickets run away when the power pills get eaten, I don't see what happens to them when they're caught... Could we be evolving a super-race of video game playing crickets?

[ related topics: Games ]

Hot on the heals of my disappointment in Cars, a film that wallowed in film cliché, I'm gonna rave about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a film that revels in film cliché. It's been a long time since both Charlene and I were spontaneously laughing at a film, but this one did it for us.

I'm having trouble figuring out how to describe the film, but at least Jette had similar difficulties while raving about it. It's very film-noir with staccatto dialog, extremely aware of the audience, and while there are a few gruesome bits, every time that standard film convention would require it to get really graphic, it doesn't.

Further, I think that if you're a regular filmgoer there are probably several levels of in-jokes and references that we missed, and we still laughed.

Recommended.

[ related topics: Movies ]

Sunday morning I rode my bike down the driveway and road in front of the house, and took a right UP Signal Mtn Road. While I had to stop and walk some to get the cramps out and the heart rate down, I rode along the brow, well past the W road and then back over to the highway. It was only 10 miles, mostly uphill, my average speed 5-7mph. Then I started back home on 127, rolling hills downhill, and hit a peak of 47mph (GPS and Odometer matched). I could probably go faster, but taking those corners kept me on the brakes. - When I was a kid, I was always building soap-box-derby style carts, and finding what hills I could (in Kansas, and Tacoma Washingon.. Ha!), guess it was a good thing I did not live in really hilly places, something in me just loves gravity powered downhills. Even when I was skateboarding, I did downhills, slaloms.. and more downhills. Some things never change, the toys just get more expensive and you get more attached to them.

[ related topics: Nostalgia History Theater & Plays Maps and Mapping Bicycling Seattle Real Estate ]

Cody's Books on Telegraph Avenue is closing today. They still have the 4^th street location, but it looks like the attempts to "clean up" Telegraph along with the trend towards online sales killed 'em.

Along those lines, Lyn pointed towards ParaPublishing's facts and statistics on the book industry. Among the claims:

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

42% of college graduates never read another book.

80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

[ related topics: Books Bay Area ]

Anybody know anything about ZeroOne (http://01sj.org/) and its week-long festival (ISEA2006, which appears to be in its 13th year)? I mean, heck, it's right here in San Jose, and SRL is doing an event, I probably must attend. Anyone planning to attend? (If so, a gathering will be a must.)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area ]

Video of a young girl riding a bike in ways even circus professionals would admire. Impressive.

[ related topics: Video Bicycling ]

I was just listening to Wish You Were Here on Sunday: Syd Barrett, the member of Pink Floyd you haven't heard of, dead at 60.

[ related topics: Music Pop Culture ]

Federal government spending tax dollars to figure out ways around the Freedom of Information Act.

[ related topics: Politics Privacy Current Events Civil Liberties ]

Tim Patch: The World's Greatest Penis Artist. Acrylics on canvas, with a non-obvious brush.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Art & Culture ]

Novak fingers Rove in outing Valerie Plame's CIA connections. Lucky for Rove the whole "classified" thing is essentially set up by executive order so, as far as I can tell, the President really can decide what state secrets he wants to leak for political gain.

The most amazing thing about this is how disingenous most Republicans are when discussing this issue. The first thing they do is go after Joseph Wilson's character, completely ignoring the fact that he was right.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events ]

In a controlled study with an active alternate, group which got psilocybin reports mystical experiences:

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

[ related topics: Religion Drugs Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

In the context of saying that Happy Dave: A letter to Tessa Jowell, MP for West Norwood and Dulwich is an absolute must-read on the topic of "national ID cards", Dave Goodman quotes Lazarus Long:

"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." - Lazarus Long (Robert A. Heinlein)

I think technology's got a couple of hundred years to go before we can hitch up conestoga wagons to the stars, so for right now we've got to work to fix what we've got here rather than escape it. So, go read that letter, and then look for similar opportunities to sound off to your local politicians on similar matters. Those of us in the U.S. need to be especially conscious of this as "Real ID" rolls out.

[ related topics: Quotes Coyote Grits Space & Astronomy Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Heinlein ]

In the context of a discussion about flag burning, I realized something. In 1953 the CIA helped execute a military coup in Iran that brought the Shah to power. That regime lasted until 1979.

The rationalization at the time was that it was better that there was a government in power friendly to our own than one friendly to the Soviet Union. I'm not going to second guess foreign policy decisions made half a century ago here, the political agglomeration that was the Soviet Union was decidedly evil, the coup in Iran was only a few months after the death of Stalin, so on and so forth.

But it struck me this morning that the "democracy to the middle east" push is a relatively recent one, it's only been possible to use that phrase since the demise of the Soviet Union barely a decade and a half ago, and given that we're contrasting a relatively new stated policy with decades of repressive policy, it's no wonder that the populations over there seem to be preferring repression by their own tribal factions to whatever it is that the system we're supposedly championing claims to offer.

No answers, just a few things to mull on as we as a nation designate foes to fight now that the Soviet Union no longer fills that place in our national discourse.

[ related topics: Politics History ]

Freakin' brilliant: Keep your Jesus off my Penis (video). (Via Elf)

(The artist is apparently one Eric Schwartz, and he's got CDs and more on his site.)

[ related topics: Religion Humor Sexual Culture Video ]

MarkV reviews Beginning GIMP — From Novice to Professional. If you're a Gimp user (or would like to be), it looks good.

[ related topics: Free Software Graphics ]

Consensual sex with a 14 year old in the United States and you're a child molester. But if you rape and kill a 14 year old in Iraq, the news will call her a "woman" (via Medley).

And to follow up the "why are national ID cards a bad idea?" thread, Iraqis turn to fake IDs as protection (via Dave's Picks).

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events ]

It's the battle of the classic paintings of nudes: Choose a nude: which one would you rather have on your wall?

[ related topics: Erotic Nudity Art & Culture ]

Jealous: Diane's bumming around Europe. I'm working long hours trying to replicate Maya behavior. She wins.

On another note: I was at an organizational meeting for the 2006 Marin Century/Mt Tam Double coming up August 5^th, still time to register for the ride or help us out by volunteering (and not only have a really cool day hanging out with awesome people, throwing one heck of a party, but get tons of other cool perks!), and the local ham folks gave their presentation.

Yes, comms central will have a map with real-time support vehicle locations projected on the wall. Life in the 21^st century is awesome! The hard bit is running a few hundred feet of wire so that they'll have a land-line straight to west county dispatch, bypassing 911...

[ related topics: Bay Area Work, productivity and environment Sports Maps and Mapping Gambling Real Estate ]

I'm not the best person in the world at maintaining connections with people. It's been years since I've managed to get a holiday card or letter out, and... well... yeah.

At any rate, there's a list for former Pixar employees, membership is moderated, and I'm one of the admins. So it was cool today to see someone whose work I've always respected request some email address changes.

A hat-tip to Griffon Works Studios. Rikki is awesome at everything she does, and DJ's art is worth wandering about in for quite a bit (and if you've ever looked at Magic: The Gathering cards you've already seen some of his older work).

[ related topics: Pixar Movies Art & Culture ]

Spent the evening/night helping friends attempt to recover a regional medical centers SCO 5 based practice management system.. Ever think M$-Land is bad, play with SCO, attempt to call them and pay anything for support... and keep getting re-routed to the same persons voicemail. Find web pages that say things like: "Plainly there are problems with 'mkdev tape'? " - The problem is, we need to get the tape drive working, to restore the tapes.. which read under Linux, but the proprietary tape format is worthless. We'd love to mount the HTFS drives under Linux, but it seems the 2 sources for CrosStor/HTFS Linux drivers got bought and the driver and support munged into other things (EMC's file systems for one).

No real point to this but to exclaim how bad SCO Sucks, but then we knew that.

Sad comment: apparently others have gotten this practice management system to run under RedHat Linux, but the company won't support it on Linux. We don't have install disks and can't read the tapes under Linux..

Which reminds me: backups should be on a media and format that can be read by things other than the one of a kind proprietary software and hardware many businesses us for mission critical stuff. Dumping data to ISO9660 CD-Rom's is incredibly useful.

[ related topics: Free Software Music Open Source Software Engineering Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Real Estate ]

Congressman Paul's Legislative Strategy? He'd Rather Say Not. (via Dave's Picks).

Mainstream party platforms are riddled with inconsistencies; Paul tries to run what he believes is a straight course through every vote. Smaller government is better. That's why he winds up aligned with the most liberal of Democrats and the most conservative of Republicans.

[ related topics: Politics Libertarian ]

Today's Sinfest: Good. And, seen at Crash's LJ and Medley, Happiness: A User's Manual -- New York Magazine.

[ related topics: Religion Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

Apparently I'm turning up fairly high in searches for bike club info, because people are starting to email me asking me about such things. Here's a response I wrote to one query: Making a bike club work

[ related topics: Community Bicycling ]

I mentioned that the MMWD wanted to build a new water tank, and that that process has been meeting opposition out in the San Geronimo Valley. So I got the report from the MMWD, read through it, found a bunch of other stuff online and elsewhere, and came to a nightmare scenario.

West Marin has a two million gallon storage capacity in an old railroad tunnel under White's Hill. West Marin uses between a million and a million and a half gallons of water a day. Worst case fire scenarios I've seen revolve around a fire getting going north of Sir Francis Drake, near Spirit Rock, and if there was a reasonable burn going and it jumped the road, Woodacre could be gone in under an hour.

So, I thought to myself, what happened if there were an extended power outage, that reserve ran down, and someone with a hot catalytic converter pulled off the road to look at the scenery?

Yesterday it was fairly hot. Northern California had record electricity usage. We had a power outage last night. MMWD is asking that all non-essential water use be curbed:

The Marin Municipal Water District this morning is asking its customers in Marin County to reduce water use today, as its primary water treatment plant in the San Geronimo Valley lost electrical power due to an outage that began Monday night.

I'm over at San Anselmo Coffee Roasters 'cause power is out at home, but on my way back over the hill I'm gonna be really really careful if I have to pull off the road. And I'm hoping nobody hucks a cigarette out a window.

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

I caught this story in the London Times about a civil rights lawyer in China being tried for threatening lawsuits against harsh family planning measures in the provinces. While the story is interesting in itself as a measure of what the Chinese really think about these laws, it brings up a question even more interesting: How much control does Beijing actually have over the interior?

Conservative commentators treat even today's foreign-trade driven Chinese regime as being little different from the old Maost one, but even if you believe that they can run a capitalist economy while maintaining strict centralized party control, incidents like this are strange. Local officials are running their own show, and have local "gangsters" to help them keep control on the locals. The patently fake reports Beijing was getting over the SARS epidemic proves that they can't trust data coming from local officials. The creation of a civil society, even on authoritarian lines, is hampered by obstructionists and petty satraps. Even the central government admits that there are thousands of riots and disturbances each year. I suspect that the jury is still out on whether or not China can keep things running. If the central government cleaned up the local officaldoms they might gain the trust of the people, but can a one-party state admit that some parts are corrupt?

[ related topics: Sociology Law Civil Liberties ]

A little article about Bechtel's role in the Big Dig and other large government contracts, and while we're talking about potential corporate malfeasance, highest paid CEOs appear to have the worst performance.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

I love it when a plan comes together: A-Team Stands for Anarcho-Capitalism:

"The A-team" supports the idea of natural law, rejects the nominalist tradition, rejects relativism both on ethical and epistemological grounds, supports entrepreneurship and free market, praises division of labor and monetary economy, builds its morality on the nonaggression axiom, rejects the necessity for economic regulation, undermines the government itself by demonstration of its failures, and shows how society is shaped by human action.

Worth reading the whole thing (via Elf).

[ related topics: Ethics Television Philosophy ]

Cop's Night Job As Hooker Is Nixed

A New Zealand policewoman has been censured for some unauthorized "undercover" work — a stint moonlighting as a prostitute — but is being allowed to keep her day job after giving up the night duties.

Good for New Zealand for having legalized prostitution, bummer that the police department there feels it necessary to stigmatize the work.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement ]

North Carolina law banning cohabitation struck down:

The law states, in part: "If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor."

[ related topics: Sociology Law Current Events Marriage ]

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" - When the Anti-Choice Choose (same article, different host & formatting):

"In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the 'antis' by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular 'sidewalk counselor' went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter's situation had caused her to change her mind. 'I don't expect you to understand my daughter's situation!' she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to 'murder their babies.'" (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)

(via Sensible Erection).

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Ethics Sociology ]

Google Earth reveals large scale model in China of a region of India's border.

[ related topics: Politics Maps and Mapping Maps & Mapping ]

Ever wondered what really goes on in a Freemason's initiation cermony? Let Betty Boop show you the previously hidden rites. What a pippen!

[ related topics: Animation Movies Conspiracy ]

The recent shed construction started a heated debate between me and a friend who's a designer in the building trade about vapor barriers. She was adamant that they go underneath the siding, I was equally adamant that they go inside the studs (at least in climates where you primarily heat). Several of her contractor friends agreed with her.

My reasoning is that on any barrier between hot and cool, moisture will condense on the hot side. If you put an air permeable insulation (like fiberglass) outside the vapor barrier, you don't have a temperature gradient over the barrier. If you put the insulation inside the barrier, the warm air will be able to migrate through the insulation and deposit moisture on the inside of the vapor barrier, leading to mold.

I don't, unfortunately, have a copy of the building code, but I found numerous sources that supported my notion, including the fact that the California Building Standards Commission has Part 6 of the 2001 California Energy Code online, and everywhere it requires a vapor barrier, it requires it to be on the inside.

A few days ago, though, I found the answer. There's something called a "drainage plane", and it's an air permeable membrane that goes between the sheathing and finish of a house, various manufacturers are trying to sell assorted plastics and paper coated plastics as "building wrap" for this purpose but it appears that the best material apppears to be just tar paper, as the various softeners used in stuccos and various outgasses from popular woods deteriorate the plastic versions over a shorter time.

The idea is that you put on an exterior sheething, this layer, an air gap, and then your external finish material.

The motivation for drainage planes appears to be more modern building materials, prefab fascias, brick facades and such, even metal and vinyl sidings, although they also look like a really good idea under traditional wood lap or panel siding. In fact, although it's hard to tell without a copy of the code in front of me, they appear to be required behind all materials by the International Code Council building code since 2004. I don't see where they first occurred for wood sidings, but there's also a little controversy over this because that air gap with a potentially flammable sheathing provides a ventilated fire space that, unlike the code requires in between studs, isn't interrupted by fire breaks.

One fascinating document I came upon in this is a document talking about changes in the 2003-04 cycle of the International Residential Code - Building, with some cool insight into the politics of how building codes get created.

So, the up shot? What we should have done with the shed is two layers, a layer of 3/8" ply sheating on the studs, tar paper, an air gap, and then the T-111 grooved panel siding on the outside. I'm not stressed over it, it's an 80 square foot building, but next time... In the interim, the solution seems to be to run flashing down in between the sheathing and the side beams, and loosely lay tar paper on the inside of the siding panels. Then put in a layer of fiberglass, and a 6 mil polyethylene vapor barrier, then wallboard.

In the mean time, my respect for a building industry that can't tell a vapor barrier from a drainage plane has sunk further.

[ related topics: Politics California Culture Fabrication Pedal Power Real Estate ]

It's hot. Yesterday evening we were sitting out on the deck, heard a mess of sirens and heavy trucks go by, looked down the valley and, sure enough, a big mess of smoke to the west of us. We were both kind of nervous, but it cleared a bit.

At midnight last night we were washing ourselves down with wet cloths 'cause it was too hot to sleep.

This morning I slapped a tarp over the skylights and we've got the house closed up because it's quite a bit hotter outside than in. And we just had a long string of sirens pass on the road below, heading west.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bay Area ]

Wandered down to the cultural center last night for some music. The Flying Other Brothers took about 20 minutes into their set to come together, but once they did they rambled in darned good jam band fashion. There was a strong Grateful Dead like influence on one side, but with an occasional heavy dose of Pink Floyd. Reading their bios is interesting, too. People who's work you're aware of, some because of their musicianship, some for other reasons.

The headline act was Tea Leaf Green, a Jammy winning group with a following, the crowd clearly transcended the valley regulars, lots of folks in from out of the valley. But after the second song or two we relocated towards the back of the field, and a little further in we decided it was time to wander on.

I've only done Ecstasy once, and my reaction was very much "okay, this is what it's like, I'm already bored with how this is messing with my perceptions, but I'm stuck here for a few hours. ho hum." It struck me that this music was what I associate with X users, electronica goes jam band: sound mix biased too strong towards the bass, but mostly repetitive themes, everything trying to be a hook, and a bass line that simply wouldn't go away.

And, unlike the opening band, the musicians seemed to try for some complex riffs that they just couldn't carry through, so runs got muddled, notes got dropped, and I wondered why we had people driving hours to come see 'em.

So having got our ticket's worth out of the The Flying Other Brothers, we came home. The Flying Other Brothers are a good mellow jam band, a great way to spend a hot evening eatin' barbecue and sitting in the shade listening to tunes. Tea Leaf Green was not our cup, but if you like dancing 5 feet from the speakers and want the bass to move you, rather than listening for the complexities of the interplay between the musicians, might be yours.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Coyote Grits Aviation Food Sociology Work, productivity and environment Pop Culture Fashion ]

A new discovery for me - http://fredoneverything.net strong opinions - Dan may enjoy the Abolish the university because " By sending our young to college, we are impoverishing them, and ourselves, and sentencing them to a life of slavery in some grim cubicle painted federal-wall green".

"I think it is time to close the universities, and perhaps prosecute the professoriat under the RICO act as a corrupt and racketeering-influenced organization."

"If you want to learn to write, for example, lock yourself in a room with copies of Strunk and White, and Fowler, and a supply of Padre Kino, and a loaded shotgun."

So far he seems right on - except I would love to attend a university where ideas were not banned if no PC, like allof our universities today. There may be an Objectivist university on the way http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/09/founders

And the reaction to the Objectivist college: "One thing’s for certain: real content will be taught, rather than every class being a thinly disguised medium the for anti-bush and/or pro-jesus rants of the typical mediocre professor.Academia has dropped the ball, we picked it up. Get out of our way."

I don't know if Fred would like Objectivism but I'll be reading his site from time to time.

Ziffle

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Interactive Drama Politics Objectivism Humor Coyote Grits Invention and Design Current Events Education Race Archival ]

So when you get home from a concert and it's still stiflingly hot, is grabbing the beard trimmer a good idea? I'm still not sure, but I think it might evolve into one.

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

I'm not one for celebrity or sports, but the whole biking thing has me keeping an eye on bicycle racing just so I'm not totally lost in the post-ride discussions (not that I've been a part of a post-ride discussion for quite a while, given work, but the theory is nice).

So: Floyd Landis won the Tour de France. For those of you following along at home, Landis will be getting surgery to get a hip replacement in a month or two, because he's been grinding bone on bone for this ride.

You've gotta love a guy who's described by his wife as "one tough bitch":

"He's in every aspect the toughest man, ever," Amber says seriously. "Physically tough, mentally tough, he's just," now she can't help herself, "he's just one tough bitch."

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising Sports Bicycling ]

Over at Sacred Cow Tipping, Mike linked to an extract from a book called Code Name Ginger (alternate link) about a meeting between facilitated by John Doerr between Dean Kamen, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos wherein Steve Jobs gives a lot of interesting feedback on the marketing and design of the Segway. There are lots of good bits, enough that I think this book just went on my "must read" list, but here's a paragraph about Jobs taking on the notion of doing their own manufacturing:

Partly, explained Tim, because giving our code to someone else would be a great risk. Not a good reason, in Jobs's view, because the code could easily be reverse-engineered. No it couldn't, said Tim. Could, said Jobs. He added that Tim should be spending money and management time on other things, especially since there was no way he could convince any world-class manufacturing and procurement people to move to New Hampshire, for God's sake, his tone implying that only slow-witted rubes could bear such a place. Dean lifted an eyebrow.

Now New Hampshire has its appeals, but if we look at the history of the Segway there are a bunch of lessons, and most of them are about marketing and brand more than technology, although some of the styling issues are addressed in Trevor Blackwell's description of his Balancing Scooter Version 2:

However, I think something can be done about the "homo" part (not that there's anything wrong with that.) It reflects the not-so-masculine soft plastic styling of the Segway. I'd like to see if I can tweak the styling of mine so I don't get yelled at as much. At least mine is metal, but it still looks spindly. I'd like to give it a muscular look with lots of chrome tubing and polished metal surfaces.

(And the fact that Trevor has built a faster lighter version from off-the-shelf parts says something about owning the manufacturing process).

Anyway, the book looks interesting even if the Amazon reviews of it aren't entirely complimentary.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Invention and Design Bay Area Consumerism and advertising Marketing Segway/Ginger/IT ]

Mark Hershberger had an interesting note recently contrasting rural living with the big city: An Urbane Hicks View of New York City. While taking nothing away from his life out in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (a place bike racer Floyd Landis talks about leaving because "...I wanted something else") and rural Arkansas, Mark notes that maybe the big city life may not be all that bad:

I'm still not sure if I'd want to raise my children in New York, but after reading more about the city, after watching children wandering around Manhattan, after seeing a group of 12-year-old skateboarders ride the PATH to New Jersey by themselves, I begin to see the fascinating possibilities.

And in the essay he links to an article that claims that New York is America's Greenest City, talking about how that population density allows for economies of scale that just can't happen elsewhere.

Then in Arts & Letters Daily I run across a link to Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness (alternate link) which points out that a quiz at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center shows rural areas tend to be happy, and Manhattan... well... the author starts with the happiest place in the country, Branson Missouri, and continues:

Nonetheless, I think the results are kind of interesting. Missoula, Montana. Rural Minnesota. Rural Indiana. Rural Alabama. Savannah, Georgia. The Outer Banks. Is there a theme here? There's a theme here. It seems to run through the Bible Belt and go straight up north. And if you want to know the absolutely most miserable Zip Code — and this is based on a very large number of people — it seems to start with 101.

Thats the prefix assigned to many of the office buildings in midtown Manhattan. Staten Island is also miserable, he adds.

This is, of course, something that I've struggled with, and that we've even touched on here with the discussions about quality of life in Chattanooga versus other places.

At a very young age, when we lived on a block of "little boxes" in San Jose, I remember my dad musing about what it would be like if this were restructured with all the families living in one tower in a corner of the block, and the rest of the block as open space. Shortly afterwards we moved to upstate New York, to a house miles from the nearest store, with hundreds of acres of woods around it (ie: It was to where I live now as where I live now is to the small town we moved from a little under two years ago), where we raised our own sheep, goats and ducks, and had a garden that was over half an acre, and was headed bigger had we stayed there.

As an adult living near San Francisco I now look at urban parks and think "that's what my dad was talking about", but somehow it's not, because despite the advantages of population density there's something lost in the madding crowd. Heck, since moving out to Lagunitas from Fairfax I now know more of my neighbors, and we do more neighborly things together, than occurred in the nine and a half years I lived in closer proximity to them. And yesterday a tree fell across our road and someone else got it cut and moved aside in the time it took me to walk home, grab a saw, and walk back. Contrast that to any number of maintenance of public space issues that I've experienced in higher density areas.

I think that part of this is the thing I've come to most appreciate about Chattanooga: When the population density of people like you is lower there's more of a need to cluster together; out here in the Bay Area every little sub-fetish has its own support group, so us generalist weirdos just never find our tribe.

I don't have any answers, but I do know that it's a regular struggle with me to look at some of the career things I might have if I were willing to be more in the thick of things, and yet examine the isolation I find when I get in higher population densities.

How do y'all experience it?

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Bay Area Sociology Chattanooga Architecture New York Real Estate ]

Back in 2001, we linked to "TechnicalVirgin.com", a satire site which promoted the notion that anal sex could help prevent teen pregnancy. On that site, there was a video with a young woman promoting that point of view. Well, that young woman went on to become the host of a kid's TV show on a joint PBS-Comcast venture called Kids Sprout. And then those fuckers fired Melanie Martinez:

PBS KIDS Sprout has determined that the dialogue in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her character’s credibility with our audience. As a result, PBS KIDS Sprout has decided that she will no longer appear as host of The Good Night Show.

Yeah, because those two year olds understand satire and will be watching videos off the 'net, right?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Television Pop Culture Video ]

Just because we can't be too serious here: Evgeni Plushenko ice skating to Tom Jones's "Sex Bomb". Evgeni Plushenko's official site, apparently he did this routine back in 2001-2002.

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Skating Video ]

It's been... well over a decade since I last shaved. Current best of breed technology in blades seems to be the old single blade safety razor and a decent brush, but does anyone have an opinion on blades versus electrics? Are electric shavers faster with decent results?

The world is terrified of hackers, strange, nerdy men with arcane talents to violate the most secure system through eldritch knowlege of computer systems. Unfortunately, the biggest threat is still social engineering, where a smooth talker gets somebody to betray their system for you. At DarkReading.com, a security consultant breaks into a system by "open stealth". He copies a Trojan program onto a bunch of giveaway USB thumbdrives he finds around the office, then leaves them laying around the parking lot of the target facility. People find them when they arrive for work, pick them up, and plug them into their desktop as soon as they boot up. And the passwords come rolling in. As more idiotproof systems are designed, bigger idiots are being evolved to subvert them.

[ related topics: virus Software Engineering security Work, productivity and environment Television ]

Maybe my calling Segway a failure is premature: WSJ: Make Way for the Sidewalk SUV (apologies to whomever I stole this from, I don't remember my source right now):

On a recent afternoon at Walt Disney World, Dennis Robles was cruising around on an electric "mobility scooter" that the park usually rents out to people with disabilities. Mr. Robles doesn't have a problem walking -- he says he was simply saving up energy for late-night dancing.

"I'm pretty healthy," says the 37-year-old truck driver from Brooklyn, N.Y. "Just lazy, I guess."

If all of these "get a scooter for free from Medicaid" ads keep up, then maybe the stigma against using scooters on the sidewalk will be worn down and Segway users won't be seen as lazy dorks.

[ related topics: Health Sociology Segway/Ginger/IT ]

Air Marshalls say that there's a quota for the watch list:

Although the agency strongly denies any presence of a quota system, Las Vegas-based air marshals have produced documents that show their performance review is directly linked to producing SDRs.

How do we communicate to our representatives in Washington that the Department of Homeland Security is a big step in the wrong direction, and that "War on Terror" or not we need to stop the stupidity that's being done in the name of security? And how do we communicate the dangers of all that stupidity to our fellow citizens?

[ related topics: Movies History Theater & Plays Current Events Gambling ]

In response to Michael Pollan's criticisms, Whole Foods is increasing their local agriculture produce.

[ related topics: Food Michael Pollan ]

Michael Klapholz's new website. We have a whole list of Michael Klapholz entries, and I'm obviously a fan, so even though I haven't heard it yet I can tell ya that if you go buy his new CD you won't be disappointed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Invention and Design Archival Michael Klapholz ]

Dan mentioned it, others did and it seemed pretty interesting. So I signed up for an Orkut account (social networking). It was pretty kewl, I even created a few communities there: Caving, Contra Dancing.. seeded/lead some discussions.. tried to make it work.

Recently I've been getting lots of '..has added a note to your scrapbook' and '...has added you to his friends list'

So I login, and delete the incredible amount of dreck on my account, as well as the some in forums I have admin privs for... Mostly spanish porn spammers from what I see. In Contra Dancers, the last relevent post was 6/2004 in Caving 10/2004. Chattanooga, 8/2005... Burning Man, 8/2005

Maybe because it still gives errors like:

Bad, bad server. No donut for you.

Unfortunately, the orkut.com server has acted out in an unexpected way. Hopefully, it will return to its helpful self if you try again in a few minutes.

It's likely that the server will behave this way on occasion during the coming months. We apologize for the inconvenience and for our server's lack of consideration for others.

I hereby declare Orkut DEAD. fdisk that puppy and recycle that hardware.

[ related topics: Burning Man Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Coyote Grits Work, productivity and environment California Culture Chattanooga Typography Graphic Design Community ]

Taking a break.. surfing: pretty wooden bikes.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

Linux Kernal Myths from the OLS (linux Symposium) KeyNotes. Good short presentation/read that cites some myths, but more importantly: provides an good insight into how/why Linux is, what Linux is. Has a nice sense of humor in it, including a FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) graphic.

[ related topics: Free Software Humor Open Source Aviation ]

Being in a serious bicycling town, It's been inevitable that I keep up with le Tour. I just read this morning that one of the riders may have failed a drug screen late in the race - and that it wasn't an American. However, it appears that it was Floyd Landis who showed elevated levels to testosterone right before his amazing comeback from 11th place to win.

BTW, is anyone else annoyed by the way the term "doping" has been applied to all illegal drug use and not just the artificial oxygenation of drawn platlets?

[ related topics: Health Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Joe Kurmaskie, aka Metal Cowboy, just dropped email to say that his new book is out.

From an excerpt published in Men's Journal:

One day beyond MacDonald Pass we were riding a stretch of national forest service road -- so remote even telephone poles haven't taken root along its edges -- when a herd of wild horses appeared behind us from over a rise. The pace quickened, the sound of pounding hooves grew closer. I swallowed back fear. No fences this time. "Keep pedaling. And whatever you do, don't spin your freewheel," I cautioned Quinn, remembering a second too late that you don't tell a kid not to do something in pressure situations.

There's another excerpt that looks like similar passages on his web site.

[ related topics: Books Bicycling ]

Well its got to be addressed - NASA can't be only for the 'Weekly Reader' for ever!

"(Please) tie me to the console and fuck my brains out:" http://www.tinynibbles.com/blo...ves/2006/07/howto_sex_in_sp.html

Nasa denies researching it: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14002908/ but if it did "it's nobody else's business." http://www.jamesoberg.com/sex.html

Apparently men still think about sex all the time in space, while women - well - you know...

The down side is males might see a decrease in penis size - ! due to lower blood pressure - I wonder if they took the blood pressure measurement once the lady was naked and they were in a sleeping bag ? Doubtful.

As for me it would be a lot of fun - I think - do we fall asleep afterwards in the same sleeping bag, dreaming about nothing, hugging like we do here? I think we probably would.

Ziffle in 1.0 gravity this week.

[ related topics: Ziffle Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Space & Astronomy Astronomy Nudity ]

Undercover Oakland police officers chosen to lead protest:

The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is unclear. But in a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."

[ related topics: Bay Area Law Enforcement Civil Liberties ]

Karl T. Ulrich: The Environmental Paradox of Bicycling (PDF), the abstract of which starts:

Substituting bicycling for driving is frequently promoted as a means of reducing energy consumption and the associated degradation of the environment. This analysis takes account of the first-order effects due to the dramatically lower energy requirements of transportation by bicycle relative to autombiles. The enviromnetal benefits of human power are, however, strongly coupled to the environmental costs of increased population, due to increased longevity of those who engage in physical activity. Paradoxically, increased use of human power for transportation is unlikely to reduce substantially the use of energy because of this second order effect.

If you're looking for more paradoxes, CNW Marketing Research looks at the energy cost per mile of popular automobiles... The results aren't what your first reaction might be.

Now to balance all of this off, it's worth looking at various lifestyles and their impacts on the environment in an evolutionary frame. Yesterday evening we were strolling in downtown San Anselmo, looking at some kitschy antiques in the window of one store, and Charlene commented that she'd never stand for furniture like that in our house, 'cause those baroque flowers on the chest were impossible to dust. I agreed, and expressed my appreciation of Shaker style furniture (which none of the top entries on a search appear to be, despite what they call themselves). She said she hadn't heard of it, I said "not surprising, 'cause they're extinct", but I open up Arts & Letters Daily this morning and, surprise: There are four Shakers left, and they're making plans for the impact on this world of their belongings should they fail to attract any new converts.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Current Events Consumerism and advertising Automobiles Bicycling San Anselmo ]

Volunteers needed to help out on Saturday, August 5^th for the 2006 Marin Century/Mt. Tam Double.

If you're in the SF Bay Area and want to spend some time in beautiful West Marin with cool people, heck, if you just want to spend some time ogling hard bodies in Spandex^tm, we need your help. We still need a couple of sag drivers (toolkits provided), some people to help out in the morning at Santos Meadows down near Muir Beach, a number of folks out in the quaint northern California town of Valley Ford mid-day, and a few people in the afternoon and evening at the finish line to help with food and general partying.

This will be a fun day hanging out with cool people in some beautiful terrain. If you've got some time free on Saturday, August 5^th drop me an email or give me a call at 415-488-4053. Thanks!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Nature and environment Food Bay Area California Culture Automobiles ]

Well, it's finally happened: The Kid made good on his intention, expressed a full 4 years ago, and bought a VW van this week. It's a '78 VW Transporter van, complete with no heater, no radio, no interior, and an oriental rug on the floor. It seems to be in decent condition and he got an excellent deal on it. His plan is to fix it up a bit and drive it cross-country at the end of the summer. I recall some expertise here on old VW vans, clubs one could join for solidarity and practical repair help (especially on cross-country trips), etc. -- anyone have anything to suggest? He's also searching online for a manual. Any suggestions happily passed along!

(PS: This weekend I get to play mommy and make curtains for the windows. In paisley print, of course. He hasn't yet decided if he'll be painting on the outside of the van... Check back in a few months and we'll see.)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Dave Winer Microsoft Race ]

• Why Barack Obama can kiss my ass.
• Free Floyd Landis.
• Laservision light display over Hong Kong harbor.
• Graffiti artist does Sistine Chapel with spray paint.
• Piers Allison photography.
• Learn Fancy Napkin Folds.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Movies Food Art & Culture Hong Kong ]

Furniture Porn - Parody site worth a quick visit and laugh. Good reasons geeks should not have digital camera's.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Being the only programmer geek for my #1 geek gig has led me through some interesting wastelands: Java, JavaScript, AICC and now Flash. I really wanted to sub-this out, or at least pay to watch a flash geek do this as the Flash Pro 8 GUI is a mystical icon mode triggered minefield. Deadline Monday (about 8 hours from now.. at's 2am local) and I think I have the basics figured out. It ain't pretty, but my very first flash application is live and ready for a few hours of digital self-graphication to make it look pretty.

My First Flash Game, from scratch, after beating ny head against the wall until the light shone in.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Coyote Grits Bay Area Software Engineering Theater & Plays ]

A few weeks ago I wrote a little ramble about Patriotism and Participation out here in the San Geronimo Valley that got linked a little bit.

Last week Charlene and I were hanging out in San Anselmo, and someone in San Anselmo Coffee Roasters mentioned an incident in Forest Knolls where a woman got dragged by a truck. As I heard more it sounded like she'd blocked the road to yell at the driver, and that others in the area had come to her aid, and I I wondered "huh, white GMC?", because I've seen such a vehicle several times pull stupid maneuvers out on Sir Francis Drake coming down White's Hill.

The Point Reyes Light article confirms this, describing the initial incident, and then the posse which formed and trapped the perpetrator in his house until the police could arrive:

“There’s a lot of low-level crime here and when the vigilantes come around with sticks it’s a good thing,” said Forest Knolls resident Craig Swift.

[ related topics: Bay Area Law Enforcement ]

Military stance on gay servicemembers loses the U.S. yet another skilled soldier, an Arab linguist. Favorite quote:

On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Theater & Plays ]

Since my last plea for helpers for the Mt. Tam Double yielded nothing, I'll make a more specific request: Anyone in the San Francisco/Marin County area willing to go up to the intersection of Ridgecrest Boulevard and Bolinas-Fairfax Road from 6:15 to 8:45 or so on Saturday morning and tell cyclists that yes, really, they're supposed to go down Ridgecrest even if the gate isn't open yet, and help folks lift their bikes over the gates?

I'm guessing the ranger will come by at 7:30 or so to officially open the gate (to cars, too), but a human face up there would make the experience of just under 200 cyclists on the Mt. Tam Double just that much nicer.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area moron California Culture Bicycling Archival ]

Back in 2003 I linked to a story about a guy who went from 100k/year to minimum wage with the .com bust. Today John Robb had a link to a New York Times article about unemployed men:

Indeed, a larger share of working-age men are not working today than at almost any point in the last half-century, which raises the question of how they will get by as they age. They may be forced back to work after years of absence, they may fall into poverty, or they may be rescued by the government. This same trend is evident in other industrialized countries.

The article is disconnected, it conflates those who've opted out (albeit often at the expense of home equity...) because they can't get the more rewarding jobs they used to have with those who aren't looking because they can't get back on their feet after, say, a prison stint, but I think that as a culture one of the things we're going to have to deal with as the middle class shrinks are people who want skilled professional work, but are disappointed that pushing paper (or, hell, brooms) for the government is a better way to retirement.

This popped up on my radar right now because I've been pondering what I do if my current startup doesn't work out, and then I read Larry's comments about leaving his most recent job:

While I love what I do for a living and I enjoy the travel I don’t enjoy the type of travel for the length of time this past project put me through. My family life suffered, my social life suffered and my work suffered from it. What contributed even more to this depression was my realization that I was not being fully compensated for the incredible number of hours I was putting in and billing for.

Recesssions, and depressions, result when people don't think that they're getting anything meaningful out of their work. They stop buying things, businesses stop paying salaries, cycle deteriorates. As that NYT story points out, this is a global trend right now, fueled on by the real estate bubble which has made homeowners feel like they're rich on the backs of younger workers who'll be struggling to buy those homes against inflated values supporting the second mortgages that the current owners have out on them. And, as has already happened in Japan and is likely to happen given the current trends and attitudes of the administration of the U.S., the attempts to pull the country out of the malaise will involve lots of government spending on infrastructure projects that will cost more in maintenance than they'll bring in economic growth.

Making a few politically savvy contractors rich, bringing on a whole bunch of meanlingless unskilled jobs, but doing nothing for the enthusiasm for skilled work that leads to real growth.

Everybody's stuck on "passive income" and real estate rentals and similar schemes, and that's fine, but we can't all be hiring teenagers to do each other's laundry, at some point people actually have to be working hard and innovating, and have to feel like they're going to be rewarded for innovating.

Don't know what to do about it, historically these things end up getting solved when a big war sucks the nation into a state of national emergency and gives everyone a common sense of purpose, and I guess that's what'll happen this time. But it'd be kinda cool if it didn't go that way.

[ related topics: New Economy History Sociology Work, productivity and environment Bicycling Economics Real Estate ]