Flutterby™! From 2008-04-01 to 2008-04-30

Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?, Adams HE, Wright LW Jr, Lohr BA. Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-3013, USA.

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

Via Elf.

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

Third Graders conspire to attack teacher in Waycross, GA. What strikes me about this is no one is asking the students why they went to such lengths to plan the attack. I mean, obviously these students aren't totally rebellious - they were able to find a leader and organize the attack. My guess is the teacher was overbearing and probably just dumb - "veteran educators" tend to be that way.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Since I'll be spending my day tweaking code on this particular platform: Over at Brainwagon, Mark had an entry embedding this video of a "how much can you squeeze into 8k of ROM and 1k of RAM" demo on a microcontroller, with all video signals and timing done in software.

Complete schematics and source code for doing this with your own ATMega88.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Open Source Software Engineering Embedded Devices Video ]

The Christian With Four Aces: Bill Sizemore on Pat Robertson (Via MeFi).

[ related topics: Religion ]

Via SlashGeo, a really cool dynamic map of sub-prime lending from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Both interesting content and a really swank implementation.

[ related topics: Content Management Invention and Design Maps and Mapping New York ]

Waiting on some hardware this morning, so I put a seat on the chair I've been building. Some previous notes on chair construction and some entries over at LumberJocks.

[ related topics: Photography Weblogs Machinery Fabrication Model Building Furniture ]

In a recent thread, I mentioned the idea of creating a folksonomy for Flutterby. A quick Google search turned up very little in the way of easy widgets for building a folksonomy out of an existing database. Anyone have experience with creating folksonomies?

I'd be interested in seeing both folksonomies based on an "extrapolated" ontology of keywords (i.e., common words of significance in the database that are not like "the" or "in") and based on the ontology created by entry keywords (which aren't used uniformly on Flutterby).

The results, of course, would be these ontologies with tags scaled according to either a count in the back-end database or a query on Google (keyword site:flutterby.com) linking to the appropriate search result.

Thoughts?

[ related topics: Databases ]

I would like to be able to tell Google to never show me any results from certain domains ever again. For instance: bizrate.com. I could easily cull shopping.com results from any of the ads on the side bar, too.

The Festool C12 cordless drill in the low range gearing has way more torque than my DeWalt wired drill. Enough that when a big bit, like, say, a 1¼" Irwin Speedbore bit, binds unexpectedly, it can really !@#$%^&* up a wrist.

That is all.

[ related topics: Woodworking Festool ]

It's Spring on Pigeon Mtn. and also National Poetry Month

[ related topics: Photography Poetry ]

[ related topics: Weblogs broadband Bay Area Sociology Journalism and Media Typography Graphic Design ]

Try the Traveller's IQ Challenge. I managed to get to level 6 with 196,290 on my first try... That's better - level 8 with 276,281. Oddly, level 7 was easier than level 6!

[ related topics: Eric's Life Geography ]

I'm primarily passing this along for Chris, although all you other physiology hackers might be interested: Antigravitas had a link to FuturePundit: Brain Willpower Depleted By Use, which, among other things, links to The Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self-Control, Matthew T. Gailliot and Roy F. Baumeister, Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2007; 11; 303, DOI: 10.1177/1088868307303030:

Effortful, controlled, or executive processes require more glucose than simpler, less effortful, or automatic processes, and they are more likely to be impaired when glucose is low or cannot be used effectively. In this sense, effortful, controlled, or executive process are quantitatively different from other processes in that they require more glucose. It is plausible that effortful processes require more glucose because they are somehow qualitatively different from other processes, yet these qualitative differences are unknown at present. Regardless of whether the difference in biological process is quantitative or qualitative, however, the implication is that psychological theories about effortful, controlled, and executive processes, such as self-control, will have to incorporate energy dynamics much more centrally and prominently than will psychological theories that invoke the simpler and more automatic processes.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Physiology ]

Bertrand Russell: How To Become A Man Of Genius.

[ related topics: Humor Sociology ]

There are still holes in the walls, we haven't got the baseboards in, but we want to spend an afternoon sitting in the back yard enjoying good conversation. Come join us, otherwise we'll just be talking to ourselves. We'll fire up the grills and burn some veggies and meats, but other than that as casual and unplanned as we can make it.

We always enjoy people dropping by, but this time we won't ask you to help us lift anything.

Sunday, April 13th, 2008, 4 'til 8 (it's a school night)

Charlene & Dan's house

10 Mission Drive

Petaluma CA 94952

707-765-1321

[ related topics: Children and growing up Aviation Pyrotechnics Real Estate ]

I had seen this on the Tandem@Hobbes list, but Shadow passed it along, and it is worth posting: A Gizmodo snarky look at a face-to-face tandem, and the link I originally saw, same info, less snark.

Although the various back-to-back recumbent tandems seem kind of cool, this one wigs me out a bit. It might be kind of cool for toodling all over a mostly empty bike path or something, but a stoker would have to have tremendous amounts of trust for this to work, beyond just the usual abnormal amounts of trust, and having the stoker right in the middle of the captain's vision just seems... well... I won't be riding it anywhere that I have to worry about any other traffic, or at any speed.

[ related topics: Bicycling Bicycling - Tandem ]

Much linked and worth reading: Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone, and the follow-up, More From America's Worst Mom: 9-Year-Old On The Subway, Continued.

Favorite summary quote came from this SE thread:

I heard an interview with this lady on NPR a couple days ago, and she made a lot of sense to me.

Perceived vs. Actual risk and all that.

If you won't let your kid take the subway alone, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD don't drive them anywhere in a car!!!

[ related topics: Sociology Automobiles Public Transportation ]

'This Is How We Lost To The White Man': The audacity of Bill Cosby's black conservatism.

Then he attacked African American naming traditions, and the style of dress among young blacks: "Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what's wrong ... What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. These people are not Africans. They don'st know a damned thing about Africa- with names like Shaniqua, Shaliqua, Mohammed, and all that crap, and all of them are in jail." About then, people began to walk out of the auditoriam and cluster in the lobby. There was still cheering, but some guests milled around and wondered what had happened. Some thought old age had gotten the best of Cosby. The mood was one of shock.

I'm not sure that as a privileged white guy with no connections to modern day "black culture" (aside from the occasional ironic use of "Damn it's good to be a gangsta") I have any particular perspective, however, I think Cosby's message is one that needs to be applied to our culture, white, black, Hispanic or whatever, en-mass.

Lest anyone think that "gangsta" culture is just a detriment to those of African ancestry, this idiot looks white.

[ related topics: Sociology Current Events Race ]

On the Tandem@Hobbes list I mentioned that it was easy to build a USB device power supply for a hub generator. Thom called my bluff, so I sent a "how to" email with the caveat that "if this works, you have to make a web page". Here's how to make a power supply that runs off of a hub generator. My original description was for a USB device, this is for a plug for a set of powered speakers, but the design is easily adaptable: Just cut open a USB cable, find a pinout for your connector, http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml has a good diagram. Pin 1 is +5, pin 4 is ground, so attach the outputs from your LM7805 appropriately.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Bicycling - Tandem ]

Chris (yeah, I'm gonna have trouble keeping all of the "Chris"s here straight...) forwarded along a slightly older article, How To Trick an Online Scammer Into Carving a Computer Out of Wood. The article is a look at scam baiters that you've probably already got a peek at, but the picture at the top of it has a really nicely carved C64.

[ related topics: Spam Woodworking ]

Larry has been reading AVweb closer than me, 'cause he spotted this entry about the ElectraFlyer battery powered ultralight. Larry's musings are here, they seem to be claiming about two hours of run-time, I haven't kept up with the rules on ultralight aviation, but it seems like it might make a good platform for, say, low altitude aerial photography...

[ related topics: Cool Science Aviation ]

How to make an anatomically correct brain cake, because we haven't had a Cake topic entry in a while.

[ related topics: Food - Cake ]

From the same Chris as yesterday, the RockSim Model Rocket Design and Simulation Software. Yeesh. Back when I was a boy, we had to build rockets with the center of drag in front of their center of gravity, and then dive behind a berm when they started to tumble on liftoff. Kids these days have it so easy...

Slightly more seriously, though, I do wonder about the replacement of tangible objects with simulation in education, and I hope that, since they're selling classroom packs, any teacher who incorporates something like this into the curriculum also suggests building a few of the bad designs so that students learn to check the simulations and compare (and contrast) the physical reality with the software.

[ related topics: Nostalgia Children and growing up Software Engineering Space & Astronomy Education ]

Blue Jean Cable's president, Kurt Denke, a former litigator, responds to a cease & desist letter from Monster Cable. Truly a thing of beauty.

Further, if any of these patents or trademarks has been licensed to any entity, please provide me with copies of the licensing agreements. I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable's principal US entity pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on those portions of its income; my request for these licensing agreements is specifically intended to include any licensing agreements, including those with closely related or sham entities, within or without the Monster Cable "family," and without regard to whether those licensing agreements are sham transactions for tax shelter purposes only or whether they are bona fide arm's-length transactions.

Via MeFi (and elsewhere).

[ related topics: Humor moron Law ]

Do not try to get the big roll of cable to the second floor on the escalator (quick YouTube video).

[ related topics: Humor moron Video ]

Continuing yesterday's tradition of linking to marketing materials, the Melodyne Direct Note Access video is interesting to watch, some folks are doing some amazing things with pitch detection and deconstructing musical recording back into its components.

[ related topics: Music Consumerism and advertising Cool Technology Video ]

Mark Atwood has some musings on MySQL User Defined Aggregate Functions, in which, 12 hours before he was supposed to give a talk on how to use them to speed up processing, he discovered that they're 3x slower than built-ins.

But the addendum is:

It turns out to be a MacOS thing. On Linux, the performance penalty is less than 10%. Further research will surely be done.

Yep, that's my experience. Those proprietary OSs will kick your butt when you least expect it.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Macintosh Databases ]

I have an interface issue question: We have a hot water recirculator. We have buttons in various places to prime the hot water system. I've been trying to figure out how we label or mark them so that their function is obvious to visitors. The house shouldn't need an instruction manual, and this is probably the first of many enhancements and tweaks we'll be making like this, technologies to things that people aren't necessarily familiar with, so I'm trying to figure out how we can start building interfaces that don't need pages of explanation and all sorts of signage.

[ related topics: User Interface Real Estate ]

You know who you are: http://HowToBuildAnAKTypeRifle.com/

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

Walt Whitman Robert Frost was obviously not a fan of the Leave No Trace ethic.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

When our goverment swoops in and takes hundreds of happy children for no reason its time to take stock. Polygamy is ok with me. What is wrong with our government? Has it been taken over by idiots?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Invention and Design moron Current Events Civil Liberties Graphic Design Machinery Trains Economics Marriage ]

B3TA interview with Wes Cherry, the guy who created Windows Solitaire, probably the most popular computer game of all time. (Via)

[ related topics: Humor Games Microsoft ]

Here in Mayberry gas (high test) is now $3.69; diesel is $4.09. I am not used to that.

My main car used to get about 18 mph around town and that was fine; and NOW it gets ONLY EIGHTEEN MILES PER GALLON and its NOT ACCEPTABLE!

Funny an ounce of gold buys as much gas now as it did 40 years ago. Could it be that a debased dollar is the problem? that our money is so deflated that the oil producers do not want it?

Yes, Viriginia its true. and the culprite is our government. George "more war now" Bush thinks we can spend trillions of dollars and no one will notice.

I miss gasoline, my old friend. He does too. he is right - it smells good, if you are not a girl (unless you are a female river guide I presume). Its so handy. Clean the floor, burn the brush; wash your hands.

When I was a young boy I read "Penrod" by Booth Tarkington Jr. They loved gas too - it was romantic.

[ related topics: Nostalgia Interactive Drama Politics History moron Automobiles Currency Douglas Adams ]

On Saturday we went up to Davis to have lunch with Alec. Great lunch, great time hanging out and chatting with him, we walked downtown where it was "Picnic Day" at UC Davis, which basically meant that the streets of downtown were filled with teeming hordes of drunk students.

I'm no stranger to drunk 20 year olds, but the particular nature of... well... I must be getting old, because I wept for our future.

We then headed the additional hour and a half up to Grass Valley because another of the kids who pops into our life occasionally has been working with the Nevada Union Theatrical Society on a production of The Boys Next Door(here's the Wikipedia entry), a play about 4 developmentally disabled men living in a group home, and the evolution of the life of the social worker who watches over them.

That restored my faith in the youth of today. If you're around Grass Valley this week or next it's well worth an evening.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Theater & Plays Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Food rationing hits the U.S. (Via SE).

[ related topics: Food Current Events ]

The Fiscal Costs of Marriage and Divorce:

Many of the gains from marriage that they count are gains mainly from forcing poor single women to live with others, thereby realizing economies of scale. If there is a fiscal case to be made for encouraging such behavior, the same fiscal case suggests we should encourage them to live with just about anyone - a same-sex lover, a polygamous family, or even with good friends. Yet for some reason, the advocates seem reluctant to extend their argument to its natural conclusion.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Marriage ]

The Wall Street Journal looks at the statistics behind gun ownership happiness. Barak Obama said:

They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Can't speak to religion or bigotry or a stance on immigration, but apparently he was wrong about guns:

Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling "outraged at something somebody had done." It's easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn't true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

Via BoingBoing: Gun owners are the happiest people in the U.S.. In the comments, Sister Y observes:

... there's a positive correlation between gun ownership and suicide. That may be our answer - the gun owners left alive to answer the question are the happy ones. ...

[ related topics: Religion Sociology Guns Economics ]

I have a question that I thought I'd be able to answer on Photo.net - but I can't figure out the semantics for the search... I am putting together a cookbook. Almost all of the photographs in the book were taken by my mother-in-law specifically for the cookbook. That is, she setup a place with good lighting, arranged the photo and took the picture, with only one purpose in mind: the cookbook. Her name is going on the front of the book as "Photography by ..."

However, we have about a half-dozen or so images taken by myself and others. These I thought I would credit on the copyright page. There is one picture of my wife and I that was taken with my camera by an anonymous bystander. How do I credit this photo?

References to discussions on other forums would be helpful. Educated guesses, less-so.

[ related topics: Books Photography Community Copyright/Trademark Marriage ]

I created -X-, software that brought new life to company -N- and it is doing well, happy customers, growing business, all based on the use and resell of -X- or things made and managed by the use of it. It's a real business, employees a handful of people and -N- is 100% owned by a decent guy in far-far-away who paid for the development of -X-. I've been without formal contract, -N- is apparently ran under contract by -S-, who's been paying me, after he gets the check from the man from far-far-away. I've always operated under the assumption that I was working for -N-, the code was work for hire for -N- and all was fairly decent. My original 90 day agreement (2+ years ago) was with -N-, I thought.

I'm trying to (re-)negotiate a contract, with -N-, for less money per month and and for less time, so I can pursue other things, yet keep -N- running. Having a legit contract helps me manage, well, long term cash flow... pay bills.. everything.

-S- wants the contract to be with his company, I think so -S- can own the code, and I fear, keeping it from the owner of -N- from far-far-away (in the USA), -S- is in interesting condition, ie: rubber stamps wife signature on checks, etc.. hires lots of family for things... while -N- and specifically it's owner is a respected large business. The more I think about it, the less I want to have to do with -S-, legally anyway.

Conversations with -S- leave my head spinning, often in disbelief. Yesterdays quote: "I'll pay you (double current rate) to train a friend of mine from Texas (who doesn't do web app work) to do what you do, as he'll work for -S-."

I feel like a pawn in a weird chess game, It feels like 1999-2001 again. - Any thoughts?

[ related topics: Games Invention and Design Software Engineering Sociology Work, productivity and environment Sports Machinery Trains Currency Marriage ]

Crash has some links to one of my favorite places on earth: Las Pozas. Including a like to a YouTube Video of it. I spent almost a week in Xilitia MX, and two days exploring Las Pozas. Cavers know it as: The Birdhouse. It's much stranger than the video can portray.

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

Anti-news: Smog contributes to premature death

[ related topics: Health Current Events ]

For some projects we're looking at: Johnson Hardware: manufacturers of sliding, folding and pocket door hardware. Figure out how to attach this stuff to tempered glass and I may have some really cool ideas...

Jeff forwarded along a movie on the web pages of Hugo Haazen. Rather that hot-link directly to a 16 meg WMV file, I'll tell ya that the "Video clip Radio controlled B-29 (16Mb)" is really cool if you're into model aircraft, it's a B-29 dropping a Bell X-1. Also a bunch of shots of just flying around, but waiting for the spin is worth it.

[ related topics: Aviation Video Model Building ]

Via /., Sony's buying Gracenote for $260M notes. Hopefully hands are wringing over this announcement and not slapping foreheads...

[ related topics: Music Current Events ]

Masturbation may prevent prostate cancer:

The researchers surveyed more than 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer, and 1,250 men who had not. They found that men who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to get cancer. Men who ejaculated more than five times each week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer.

I think we've talked about this study or a similar one before, because I remember considering that ejaculations from partner sex had higher risks from other factors, which is why masturbation caused such a huge spike.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events ]

As reported previously, the Bush administration has been trying to downplay evidence linking smog to deaths. Now, further evidence that the Bush administration is killing Californians, the new Bush fuel economy rules attempt to override California's attempts to protect its citizens:

Tucked deep into a 417-page "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" was language by the Transportation Department stating that more stringent limits on tailpipe emissions embraced by California and 17 other states are "an obstacle to the accomplishment" of the new federal standards and are "expressly and impliedly preempted" by federal law.

[ related topics: Politics Nature and environment California Culture Automobiles Economics ]

A lot of you know that I'm a fan of Festool products (as Phil said when I pulled out the saw and the rail and showed him the system while touching up one of his tables, "why would you buy anything else?"). Festool used to be called "Festo", and although I haven't found a direct link, I think that means they're a spin-off brand of Festo industrial and automation products. Chris had a link and embedded video of the Festo air jelly remote control blimp/dirigible/something (stand-alone link to the YouTube video) and a link to the Airshipworld write-up. Here's a page in German on the Festo website.

Well worth a look.

[ related topics: Robotics Aviation Embedded Devices Video Festool ]

Supreme Court guts the 4th Amendment:

David Lee Moore was stopped by Portsmouth, Virginia, officers five years ago for driving his vehicle on a suspended license. Under state law in such incidents, only a summons is to be issued and the motorist is to be allowed to go. Instead, detectives detained Moore for almost an hour, arrested him, then searched him and found cocaine.

At trial, Moore's lawyers tried to suppress the evidence, but the state judge allowed it, even though the court noted the arrest violated state law. A police detective, asked why the man was arrested, replied, "Just our prerogative."

[ related topics: Drugs Law Law Enforcement ]

Ludicrous question: Anyone got suggestions for a places to find something like 1/8" x 1/2" nickel silver metal strip? Or another metal that'd be electrically conductive on its surface, and not prone to corrosion or oxidation?

The trains could end up on a shelf indoors, but if they do they'll never run. We're not likely to have parties indoors, the house is too small, but we've got a nice back yard, and we've got a strip along which we're planning to plant things on a trellis. I've also recently gotten a line on scraps of some great wood for outdoor use (in deck usage they'll warranty it for 25 years without a finish), and though I have yet to take a router to it to see how tough it is to machine, I'm thinking that it'd be cool to do an S-gauge model railroad track loop either at about a foot off ground level, or at eye level mounted to this trellis structure.

And it seems like the right way to do this is actually to just route track grooves into the supporting boards, and inset rails into silicone. Use Sipo Dominos as the joiners, finish the thing with Penofin, and have a place to run the trains in a space we like to hang out.

[ related topics: Machinery Trains Toys Real Estate Woodworking ]

For thr decadent child in your life: Absinthe Lollypops.

[ related topics: Drugs Antidepressants Personal Lubricant ]

I haven't been doing much Perl recently, I've been slinging C for the ATmega16 or, now, working in C#. However, I ran across Myth: Moose is an unnecessary dependency, and was reminded of how cool Perl is.

On C#, I was recently asked: "Is .Net development a hobby or a job and a hobby?", and I answered:

I'm just not goth enough to do (still) notYet as a hobby. Maybe when cutting myself and ad-hoc tattoos and piercings wear thin I'd consider doing Windows development for fun.

[ related topics: Microsoft Perl Open Source Embedded Devices ]

Video of the Palax Power100S Firewood Processor version 02. Logs in one side, firewood out the other, cool mechanical stuff in between.

[ related topics: Machinery Video ]

Saturday was "Butter and Eggs" day in Petaluma, an annual celebration of the town. I walked down to the Lion's club breakfast with Phil, and then hung out for the cow chip throwing contest, and walked back past the five and a half blocks of floats lining up, and there was a whole 'nother street of that.

That afternoon I played around with hanging our new front door, while the old warbirds circled the parade overhead, I did more of that yesterday, and this morning I whipped up some visualizations so that I could see what kind of trim we might like to put up there.

[ related topics: Dan's Life History Woodworking ]

When I click on the little network icon on my Ubuntu laptop, some of the wireless networks listed have little icons next to them indicating that they're locked, some don't, indicating that they're opened. I have wondered why not replace that icon with a little clock symbol, indicating how long it'd take to break the encryption? That way if there's no open access point locally you wouldn't have to go through the list, looking at the encryption scheme that each of them uses, to find an available way to get to the internet?

XKCD looks at the logical extension to this system for accessing WiFi anywhere.

[ related topics: Humor Wireless broadband Net Culture Cryptography ]

A couple of disconnected notes. The first is the usual disheartening observation from a semi-local elementary school talent show, made by a friend: The white kids all think talent is lip-sync to some pop music, the non-Caucasians think it's playing Beethoven on the piano or violin.

The second is that yesterday I went to the hardware store and the bike store, and in the process walked through an antique fair. One of the vendors was selling a "soap box derby" car. A few decades ago, a town like this would generate a surplus of 20-30 of those a year, now they're a collectible.

Which brings me to Clay Shirky: Gin, Television and Social Surplus:

So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, "Okay, we're going to have a conversation about authority or social construction or whatever." That wasn't her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."

I'm not sure what I think about Shirky's assertion yet, but it's worth pondering.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Music Technology and Culture Television Fabrication ]

Toolmonger has a note about a gasoline truck driver who died because nobody had a pen knife to cut his seatbelt. I realized I stopped carrying my Gerber multi-tool when this whole "war on terror" security theater thing meant it was a hassle whenever I was going through some silly checkpoint (ie: into Disneyland or SF city hall or whatever). In the comments, there's a mention of the Swiss+Tech Utili-Key, a pocket-knife/multi-tool that folds up into a key shaped device. I think I'll get two.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

Chocolate from beans to bars, at home.

[ related topics: Chocolate ]

I remember pausing before I starting looking at my first desk top computer and asked myself - If I was to design a computer how would I do it? I never really answered that but I have to say I was a little dissappointed once I realized what a digital computer really was. Two states, off or on. Now we make them go faster and faster but you know its really not awe inspiring how its designed.

I read 'Chaos Theory' and he used an analog computer he found in the basement of UCLA (?) to do testing. I always wondered how it worked and was it any more inspiring than digital.

Analog Computers

Add to this my disappointment when I first heard CD music and how it leaves out all those notes and I am not really enamored by All Things Digital

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Graphic Design ]

I have to admit I am a little naive at times, so when I started hearing about Camel Toes years ago I simply thought it was some new perfume or song or overseas adventure.

Boy was I wrong. Camel Toes - its a whole culture.

Until about a year ago, I'd never heard of "camel toe" but significant other explained it was a popular culture description of the crotch of a woman's pants that was inordinately defined due to wearing pants that were too small. Ha! I knew immediately what he was talking about, we've all had that experience. Although it's difficult to quantify this sort of thing, I think camel toe has become more common over the past 10 years. By that I refer to camel toe becoming more frequent among women who are not wearing their pants too tight. This is something I've been meaning to write about for a long time because if there is one thing I know, the fitting problem known as camel toe is not caused by women wearing their pants too tight. No, no. Most of the time, camel toe is rarely the extreme you see on certain websites; it's more subtle than that. Most of the time, camel toe is caused by wearing pants that are too big -in one specific area- making a reciprocal area too small. It's an engineering problem, not a weight problem. In fact, here's a skinny mannequin. If she's got a camel toe, everyone else will too.

The link discusses further how Camel Toes are being engineered into the latest fashions.

There's Star Trek, Yoga, Chinese and Russian Camel Toes, Camel Toes in Advertising Camel Toe Songs "Baby it looks all right so let it show ..." Exercising and even real Camel Toes

I am for one now Camel Toe aware and its a whole new world, in Mayberry.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Star Trek Invention and Design History Space & Astronomy Sociology Consumerism and advertising California Culture Fashion Clothing Archival Aviation - Helicopters ]

Sloppy Version Control always fails in the end.

Creator of ReiserFS over comments his code.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Current Events ]

Holy cow, this may be the one time ever that I link to Rush Limbaugh without scorn or irony: Limbaugh looks at Reverend Wright's impact on the Obama:

So it appears to me, if you look at Reverend Wright, listen to what he says and analyze it from the context or perspective of what's best for him, which is clearly all he's interested in, what's best for him is that if Obama loses, because then it's easy for him to say, "See, the white power structure doesn't want a black man to rise to the pinnacle of power in the United States of America." It would certainly fuel Reverend Wright's future and continue to help him raise money and keep people whipped up into a frenzy. He's not helpful. Whatever he thinks he's doing, it is not helpful to Barack Obama.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Race ]

Sometimes those "Rube Goldberg" videos, especially when they're part of marketing campaings, get old, but the "Clustarack" intro video made me laugh.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising Marketing Video ]

Ad on Craigslist "Fixed Gear Death Trap":

I'm selling a complete fixed gear. It is totally ready to ride and will probably kill you.

At least the price is right:

I paid $80 for it 8 months ago in Buffalo. Considering we're in San Francisco, the asking price is $350. I think that's only fair.

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

Computer Languages and Facial Hair - Take Two, yet another look at the positive correlation between computer language popularity and facial hair.

[ related topics: Humor ]

Ideas of what to do with a lot of old computer parts. Artisticly.

Shadow passed along this YouTube video of a rocket powered bicycle, which was cool in the "wow, that guy's nuts!" sort of way, so I did some digging. Apparently it's the Genovois Alec Benet on a bike built by Exotic Thermo Engineering, with a top speed of 242.61KPH (150.75MPH). With upright bars.

Exotic Thermo Engineering has a host of silly Hydrogen Peroxide powered applications.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Cool Science Cool Technology Video Bicycling ]

Albert Hofmann, "father of LSD", dead at 102.

[ related topics: Drugs ]

Teenager who "...had used his cellular telephone Monday night to call his mom and tell her he tripped, broke his leg and was lost..." was found, stoned off his gourd, sans broken leg, after a search in the Santa Cruz mountains. Normally something I'd just skip over but for this quote, from Cal Fire Capt. Bill Finch:

Finch says the teen "was really gorked" when rescuers found him standing at the bottom of a ravine. The cost of the search was estimated at up to $10,000.

In other news, People of Lesbos take gay groups to court over use of the term "Lesbian":

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.

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

Ya know how anyone claiming to be a teenager in the internet is either a younger kid trying to look cool or an adult with... ahem... issues? Apparently, there's a good chance that the "adult with issues" is actually a child: "Kids in the west of England are pretending to be paedophiles in order to settle playground scores."

Giggle. (Via)

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

Because discussion of gold standards has come up before in the context of gas prices, and I didn't find enough historical data to make the really compelling graphs I wanted to make: US retail prices of gasoline in mG of gold, and gasoline prices 1918-2006, inflation adjusted. Via this MeFi thread.

[ related topics: Economics ]