Flutterby™! From 2011-04-01 to 2011-04-29

Took the boat we built at the practice for the Bodega Bay Fisherman's Fest competition out for a paddle. Like it. Now on to style points!

[ related topics: California Culture Boats Machinery ]

Masturbation not only protects against prostate cancer, and hay fever and nasal congestion, it also helps with restless leg syndrom.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Grr. Google Apps has horked itself on my attempt to set up a new domain to migrate Flutterby.com. This is why I run my own server...

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Migrated mail handling for Flutterby.com over to Google Apps. Tell me when you see anything broken.

Pondering the issues involved in finding people to participate in a shared workshop. $20k to build a tiny one, $900/mo to rent a thousand square feet with a certified finishing booth.

Programming, Motherfucker and "Management, Asshole" are a one page summary of brilliantly described concepts.

and a pseudo-related link hyping a book, Programming, Motherfucker.

To be polite in Biz-Dev-Speak, I propose we just call it the "PMF methodology" or I like the option to give it a Pseudo-Japanese name: Puroguramingu, Mazaafakkaa"

[ related topics: Books Software Engineering ]

Sad. The Santa Rosa store closed, just got a "April sale starts today" from "Woodcraft of" with no store location. Ghosts in the machine.

Best tool chest ever! (video). Via Shadow.

[ related topics: Video ]

Hike this AM. Potato bins made, fold-up attic ladder moved, prototype post-workshop bike rack works. Now on to the meat of the day...

[ related topics: Nature and environment Food Bicycling ]

At the Petaluma City Council goal setting meeting I realized I have a new benchmark for "last millenium": People who still use phone books.

[ related topics: Books Invention and Design ]

Matthew Meyer - Irresponsible Journalism - some notes on news coverage of the Japan earthquake and nuclear situation:

Part of the reason I’m so angry with her [ed: CNN's Kung Lah] at this point is because of the shitty reporting done by nearly all of the foreign media that I have read since the disaster; and also because of the past reports she has done which were similarly disrespectful and misinformed. But not just for misinforming Americans about the situation in Japan, I am angry because she and people like her are a very big part of the reason that foreigners take a lot of crap in Japan. People who have lived in a country for 4 years and still do not know how to operate in the society should really take a break from work and enroll in some culture classes. Foreigners in Japan are stereotyped as rude, arrogant, thick-headed braggarts; and a 2-minute clip by her does more to reinforce that stereotype in the eyes of Japan than all of the hard work by the decent foreigners living here does to improve it. Worse, the topic she is reporting on is a seriously big problem and needs to be reported on… but the unprofessional level of her journalism entirely undermines the importance of the issue.

[ related topics: History Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment California Culture Earthquake ]

Anil Dash - Fear, Fukishima and Facts

On April 1^st Google put out their "Motion" Google Mail spoof, showing Gmail controlled by a guy doing silly gestures. It was a matter of a day or two before Evan Suma and the folks in Mark Bolas’ MxR Lab at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California made it for real (almost, it uses a Kinect rather than a web cam).

Today I find Predator: A Smart Camera that Learns, from Zdenek Kalal.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Photography Movies Current Events Work, productivity and environment California Culture Education ]

I'm just gonna stop linking to any "Fukushima isn't that bad" articles, because they all seem to get debunked *hard* within a few hours.

Just got email for a "Rug blowout sale!". Where do we draw the line? "Tire blowout sale"? "Underwear blowout sale"?

[ related topics: Clothing ]

Scaffoldage. Pictures of scaffolding.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Finland's Educational Success? The Anti-Tiger Mother Approach. Shorter school day, more hands-on experiential learning, results that rival the heavy grind drill and practice of the Asian countries:

There's less homework too. "An hour a day is good enough to be a successful student," says Katja Tuori, who is in charge of student counseling at Kallahti Comprehensive, which educates kids up to age 16. "These kids have a life."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Skating Education ]

When NPR fired Juan Williams, I thought it was a step towards bringing back some credibility towards that organization. Here's more evidence that Juan Williams is better suited to Fox: Juan Williams, Fox News Admit to Flagrant Error About Racial Prejudice, the error being an accusation that the WaPo buried a story that actually ran on the front page.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

As Genehack says, this wins the Internets for today http://thebigcaption.com/

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

What if, instead of building more roads, we put those resources into better schools and living near where we work?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment ]

QOTD:

... v^A_max is imposed by engine limitations. One of the objectives of the controllers we design will be fuel efficiency. As a consequence the engine will not have to be pushed to its limitations and therefore v^A_max will not feature in the safety calculations. We will assume v^A_max = ∞ to simplify the analysis. ...

A Verified Hybrid Controller for Automated Vehicles, Lygeros, Godbole and Sastry (1997)

[ related topics: Quotes Graphic Design Machinery ]

Slate: Cruel but Not Unusual: Clarence Thomas writes one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever by Dahlia Lithwick.

If you watch only one video of They Might Be Giants performing Edgar Winters' Frankenstein on snare drum, clarinet, accordion and guitar today, make it this one.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Movies Video ]

"Does it seem strange? Unbelievable? Remember, this is the world of 1960." GM exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair.

The Guardian: Experience: I am a 91-year-old bodybuilder:

Then at 85 I had a crisis. I looked at myself in the mirror one day, and saw an old man. I was overweight, my posture was terrible and there was skin hanging off me where muscle used to be. I looked like a wreck. I started to consider the fact that I was probably going to die soon. I knew I was supposed to slow down, but I'm vain. I missed my old body and wanted to be able to strut across the beach, turning heads.

Via Rebecca's Pocket.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Woodworking ]

Off to Vancouver for the weekend. Probably not taking my laptop. Cell is 415-342-5180 if you're there and wanna meet up.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Dinner at http://publiclounge.ca/ . A++ Would definitely travel a thousand miles to eat at again. At least if Zack is in the kitchen.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Food ]

Went down to the Commercial Blvd area of Vancouver yesterday. Reminds me a lot of Berkeley & SF, 15 years ago.

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

Before 1998 computer games were largely developed by small shops distributed throughout the country. One happened to be in Chattanooga, MicroSports, and another was in Knoxville, Cyberflix. Around 1998, the game industry went through a bubble collapse of sorts. Big companies like Electronic Arts, Sony and Microsoft locked up the shelf space at retailers like Electronics Boutique. The small shops were either swallowed up by the big companies or driven out of business. I worked at both MicroSports and Cyberflix. Once the bubble burst, I found myself out of a job with no good options on the horizon.

In 2001, I was working for a dot-com based in Nashville. We were doing some really cool stuff interfacing with the Federal Reserve Automated Clearinghouse. We almost survived the dot-com bubble bursting, but in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the security spot light was directed at electronic banking. Again, I found myself out of a job with no good options on the horizon.

In 2002, partly because I was out of a job for so long, I defaulted on my sub- prime mortgage. Yeah, I was way ahead of the curve on that bubble. Most people, in 2002, had no idea what a sub-prime mortgage was. So I found myself out of a job and a home.

So I went back to school. I did manage to get a decent job on campus to keep money in my pocket as I finished my BS in 2004. The job was nice enough that I stayed on while I pushed through my MS in 2006. I then decided to jump into the Education industry with both feet and start working on a PhD. Last week, I finally defended my research proposal. Not the entire dissertation but a little more than half of it, garnering my the green light to actually do my research.

No I read on Tech Crunch that Peter Thiel, who wealth stems from his famously predicting the dot-com bubble and selling PayPal at just the right time, is predicting that education is the next bubble. And here I am, once again, riding the bubble. I even agree heartily with Thiel. I've been counseling my daughter to take what cash she's managed to accumulate for college and use it to start a company instead.

One of these days, I'll learn how to profit from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because, if you position yourself correctly, it can also be the right place at the right time.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Games moron Work, productivity and environment Eric's Life Net Culture Education ]

Another one from Shadow: The headline says Bristol engineers invent super strong nylon bicycle. It's a 3d printed bicycle, with a rant by the CEO of the company on why he needs government intervention. Which might be another bubble.

Wish there were more on the actual riding of the bike, but I do believe that 3d printing is going to be huge.

[ related topics: moron Current Events Monty Python Graphics Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Charlene and I just got back from a weekend visiting Zack in Vancouver. Awesome hanging out with him, and when he blew us off to go work (the nerve!) on Saturday, he suggested that we head over and hang out on Commercial Drive. So we hopped on the bus and headed to Womyns' Ware, got into a good conversation there, walked up and down for a bit, stopped for dinner at The Reef, had a good evening, and realized that that felt a lot like a combination of Telegraph Ave in Berkeley and Valencia Street in SF. At least a lot like what those spaces used to be, back in the mid '90s. Now they're all gentrified and there's no reason to visit them any more.

Anyway, this was on my mind as I read that another fixture that I used to walk by is being forced out by San Francisco becoming something less than it used to be: The Eagle, Famous Gay SoMa Bar, Set To Close, 4/29.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bay Area California Culture Public Transportation ]

A rather sad piece from Science News: Back in the late 90s NASA proposed the James Webb Space Telescope, which would explore the cosmos in the infrared spectrum from a spot more than 1 million KLM in space. They originally priced it at $400 million, which they knew was a ridiculously small amount. Now more than a decade later they are looking at a $6.5 billion cost, and the JWST is taking up most of the astrophysics budget at the agency, and Congress is turning its instruments on NASA. It appears that a pervasive culture of dubious accounting and deceitful lowballing was allowed to grow, and now Congress is in no mood to give them a second chance. Meanjhile, new missions to search for an ocean on Titan or life in other solar systems are told to cut back drastically. This is exactly the sort of thing that killed the SuperCollider back in the 1980s.

[ related topics: Politics Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Astronomy Current Events Fabrication ]

Markov chaining: http://yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet/

More cool government services: provides near real-time radiation monitoring across the failure mode?

and

Was going to integrate with 2x4s. And go there one of Visual Studio in Rohnert Park. 4H looks like it...

and

Also: If I just a real fan of some shit to which failed to be burned to buy a material with deadly force.

Ya know, I wonder if extending that chain out a few more words might just be able to replace me...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama moron ]

The Amazing Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds is an article about the Kaiser Family Foundation Report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. Of note for Dan and TC's bandwidth bet: TV content (3:41 per day for 8-10 year olds, 5:03 for 11-14 year olds, and 4:22 for 15-18 year olds) and music (1:08, 2:22 and 3:03) still easily best computers (0:46 1:46 and 1:39) and video games (1:01, 1:25 and 1:08).

Interestingly, although 84% have Internet access, only 59% have high speed or wireless, and 13% have a Tivo or DVR. Broadcast media is still kicking serious ass.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Wireless Music Games Technology and Culture broadband Sociology Journalism and Media Television Net Culture Video ]

As we scramble to slash the benefits of public employee jobs, we should be aware of Japan, where regulators are expected to later be paid very well by the industries they were supposed to be monitoring.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

I don't have a subscription, so I can't read it, but James L Huffman in the WSJ writes How Donor Disclosure Hurts Democracy, and is quoted by Jonathan H. Adler over at the Volokh Conspiracy:

A challenger seeks a contribution from a person known to support candidates of the challenger’s party. The potential supporter responds: “I’m glad you’re running. I agree with you on almost everything. But I can’t support you because I cannot risk getting my business crosswise with the incumbent who is likely to be re-elected.” . . .

As previously mentioned, I serve on the Petaluma Technology & Telecommunications Advisory Committee. We committee members are subject to the Brown Act. What this means in practice is that we can't talk to each other except once a month, we have to file annoying financial disclosure paperwork, and, because this is just an advisory committee, we don't actually have any power.

Thus I'm probably just going to let my membership lapse, because as an official member I'm less likely to do anything useful. I've long suspected that most campaign finance and political "sunshine" laws simply entrench the existing power structure, this is yet another example of a mechanism by which that might work.

[ related topics: Quotes Politics moron Work, productivity and environment Sports Conspiracy Government ]

Oh. Dear. Deity. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP7: New Digital Camera Whitens Teeth, Erases Wrinkles and Applies Makeup. I knew this was coming, but look at the before and after pictures...

... and tremble in terror.

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design Gambling ]

Sigh. Anyone remember when Mahir Cagri, not Charlie Sheen, was the subject of internet gossip and meme-age?

[ related topics: Net Culture Marketing ]

Where I'll be April 30th: On one of the SCWA teams at http://www.bbfishfest.org/boat.html

[ related topics: Boats Machinery ]

Clonezilla on a big USB stick (made with Tuxboot) ROCKS - I just invested two days building a "generic" server for a stack of 6 identical awesome Intel Modular Server compute modules. Edited the configs for a non-conflicting set of IP's.. made a clone image on the same flash drive as clonezilla. the next blades took under 15 minutes each, including IP reconfigs and another reboot, Clonezilla has been through some serious cleanups and ease of use enhancements since my last playing around with it, it and it's team deserves some kudos.

[ related topics: Linux ]

Why we have deficit issues (beyond the Iraq/Afghan boondoggle): Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/po...-the-bailout-20110411?print=true

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

I'm coming out of the closet: I have a 101% obviously bogus facebook account that I use to check out those links/events that require me to have a facebook account. It has a bogus looking name and info, and it/he went to a completely famously fictional college that now has about 30 other graduates of.. (according to facebook) and now these graduates are linking to me, complete with bogus completely made-up chatter about classes and instructors and such drivel. Most (but not all) is obviously other people like me with bogus accounts that wanted to look more "normal"... Makes me wonder how much of facebook is the same.

[ related topics: Education ]

Jacob Niedzwiecki: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Revised)

[ related topics: Archival ]

reddit: I like big butts and I cannot lie, but is there some evolutionary reason as to why?

(Previous Flutterby "Baby Got Back" mention)

[ related topics: Archival ]

I'm currently reading a novel about the Troubles, the period of the 1970s in Ireland when sectarian battles between various sects of the Irish Republican Army and the Protestant Ulster Defense Force deteriorated into bombings of public places and murders in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. One particularly vicious group were called the Shankill Butchers. This gang was not formally affiliated with the anti-Catholic Loyalist militias, but killed random Catholics (and a few Protestants) in a shockingly brutal manner, torturing their victims with butcher knives before cutting their throats. So horrible were their tactics that eventually both the IRA and the Orangemen cooperated in stopping the carnage.

What intrigues me is that politics or religion had little to do with the motivations of the Butchers. Instead, they were more of a thrill-kill gang, serial killers who used the Troubles as an excuse for their savagery. The "official" sides of the war were brutal enough, but this went far beyond the pale. It also makes me wonder how much of the sectarian violence in places like Iraq and Pakistan is actually serial killers who have found the perfectly lawless environment in which to prey. And how would we tell?

[ related topics: Religion Politics Books History ]

If the TSA doesn't disclose how much radiation the pornoscanners use, does that make it Mystery Science Security Theater?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays ]

Anyone know of a docx<->wikimarkup (or markdown) translator? I'm getting sick of OOo, and would rather do Emacs than run Office '07.

Needs more exposure: Steam Lisp and Where Lisp Fails: at Turning People into Fungible Cogs.

I predict that no tool of any kind which too greatly amplifies the productivity of an individual will ever be permitted to most developers. In this they shall follow in the maximally deskilled assembly-line footsteps of their grandparents. ...

Whence the popularity of Visual Studio. Via BrainLog.

Relatedly, I recently ran into someone in a coffee shop who said "I've got a client who needs to do a sortable searchable HTML table". A few minutes with Perl, Spreadsheet::Read, jQuery and DataTables and I had a solution. Unfortunately, that solution runs under Linux, and I'm not at all sure how I'm going to deploy it in the guy's Windows environment. So a few minute hack (for me) that I'd have been happy to do in exchange for lunch is going to turn into a couple of hour consulting gig (expensive for him, a pain in the ass for me 'cause I like to bill in days or months, not hours) while I try to figure out how to shoehorn automation into his closed commodity environment that's built for holding cogs in their place, not for creative activity.

[ related topics: Free Software Weblogs Microsoft Perl Open Source Nature and environment Work, productivity and environment Furniture hubris ]

Even the Pentagon is saying "more on education, less on military": http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/13/the_y_article

[ related topics: Education ]

Eight and a half million lane miles in the U.S.. Quarter of a billion highway vehicles in the U.S..

It would seem that you could then spend 30x per mile of road as on mile of car to automate the process, however: If you automate one vehicle independent of road upgrades, that vehicle is instantly usable on all of that road. If you automate one mile of road, none of those vehicles are yet usable on that road.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Mathematics Automobiles Currency Furniture ]

One of the things that I'm having to reorient myself to is that perhaps, in my volunteer and community service work, and in my career, work that feels pointless because it's not going somewhere may be valuable because it can show people that pursuit of a given path is misdirected and isn't going to have results.

This musing brought to you by Seth's Blog: What's the point? via left hand blue: Work on stuff that matters.

[ related topics: Weblogs Work, productivity and environment Community ]

Hey, Larry, off-the-cuff idea that I haven't dug into yet: Would the Fair Tax apply to financial transactions like the buying and selling of stocks and other finance instruments? [he said, steepling his fingers and raising his eyebrows suggestively]

I might support replacing the income tax with a national sales tax or VAT that applied to all transactions, suddenly a flat rate becomes progressive and we clamp down on some of the speculation that drains so much of our economy.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs Economics ]

If it were possible for the current players to envision the future, they would have already innovated. Look elsewhere for revolution.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

RT @stevelosh: My mailman is so lazy. He just left a bag of phone books at the door instead of walking the extra 30 feet to the recycling bin.

[ related topics: Books ]

BNET: Will Write E-Porn for $1 Million, on author Selena Kitt.

And there's another famous author, who may also be a participant here at Flutterby, Amanda Hocking, who's sold a million young adult novels as e-books (NY Times story on converting that success to a sale to a conventional publisher).

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs ]

You don't get to a respected academic position without being able to explain experimental results in a way that justifies further research.

Attention everybody: If you are going to use a gratuitous naked woman to sell an underwater digital camera, this is how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fatTxKKoHU (via Tom Negrino).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Movies Nudity ]

Bwahahaha! "Birther" bill passes in Arizona legislature:

Democratic state Rep. Ruben Gallego complained the legislation makes Arizona look "backward," the Republic reports. "You might as well change Arizona to Alabama," he said.

Hat tip to Larry.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

QOTD:

[self-driven automobiles are] "...like horses. Today, the only use for a horse is for sports."

--- Jim Hall

[ related topics: Quotes Automobiles ]

How come data mining doesn't involve explosives?

Gadgetbox - 10 deadly do-it-yourself gadgets.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Charlene's doing a paper for her ecology class on whales. One of the big political points of 2010 was whether the IWC should lift the moratorium on whaling, imposed in 1986, to bring the "scientific" catch that Japan has been taking in huge numbers every year since then back under the IWC's auspices.

In the process of researching this, we've been reading the IWC's papers on this, and various transcripts of diplomatic meetings and press conferences, and, of course, Greenpeace's various rantings on the topic. And we've come to the conclusion that Greenpeace has pretty much become the definition of "institutions come to preserve the problems that they were created to solve" (and we've actually come to like the directness of Sea Shepherd, "fuck it, we're gonna go sink some boats!").

Anyway, Shadow fowarded along this article about the Jewish Defense League Canada protesting at Pride Toronto, and it looks like the JDL-C is totally in the "Wait, people don't see Jews being defamed! We're losing donations! We need to incite some defamation!" mode.

Institutions come to preserve the problems they were created to solve.

[ related topics: Religion Politics moron Civil Liberties Boats Machinery Conferences Archival ]

Took the bus out to Bellevue last night to meet up with some friends to see Atlas Shrugged: Part I. To spare you the details, the movie was precisely what you'd expect from an independently film based on a book with a large, passionate following that features deliberately shallow characters. Oh yeah, there were CG trains.

Details: The film is the first of three parts. So it ends right as things really start getting interesting. I won't say where because that would be a spoiler and really is unnecessary (other than Dagny and Hank do get together).

The casting was exceptionally good. Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggert, Grant Bowler as Henry Rearden and Graham Beckel as Wyatt Ellis, did a really good job of keeping the movie from being a total cornfest. I think if the screenplay writers had allowed themselves a little more creative freedom, the leading characters could have carried across Ayn Rand's message with a little more depth. Some characters were introduced but are obviously going to be expanded on more in parts two and three. Francisco D'Anconia (Jsu Garcia) and John Galt are both obviously important but not given enough lines to really understand what their role is. If you aren't familiar with Rand's characterization (more Plato than Tolstoy), you'd probably walk out of the movie either completely lost or demanding your money back.

I mean it has better character development than a porn flick, but it's definitely on that end of the spectrum. But like a porn flick, you aren't watching the movie to see if the characters develop. You're just watching the intercourse of two (or more) opposing positions (top/bottom, independence/collectivism, etc.). The obvious roles of the independent-thinking industrialist heroes surrounded by all kinds of collectivist villians... The only non-obvious character is D'Anconia, a fact that you aren't allowed to forget.

The CG was fun - especially since it involved overlaying trains on top of sweeping vistas of Colorado. One of my friends had just moved to the Pacific Northwest from her childhood home of Colorado. She knew exactly where every scene was shot. I knew several, but she had probably walked or rode a horse across every rail line in the movie. We had fun noticing that every scene was fall (you can tell because the aspen have turned) but was shot long enough ago to not feature the widespread browns and reds as the Western Pine Beetle savages most of the trees in Colorado.

The one big disappointment was that the trains never blow up. Isn't that a requirement for CG in movies? They do make up for it in the final scene. But I won't say any more. If you like Ayn Rand, catch it in the theater so we'll get to see parts two and three. If you're not a much of a fan or never have been a fan, wait for the DVD. In fact, wait for all three parts to hit DVD and watch them together.

[ related topics: Objectivism Books Erotic Movies Writing Trains Philosophy Government ]

Among the 70 things TSA screeners are supposed to look for is "Very arrogant and expresses contempt against airport passenger procedures.".

Al Qaeda training manual suggests blending in.

Concerning the issue of clothing and appearance (appearance of true religion), Ibn Taimia - may Allah have mercy on him - said, "If a Muslim is in a combat or godless area, he is not obligated to have a different appearance from [those around him]. The [Muslim] man may prefer or even be obligated to look like them, provided his action brings a religious benefit of preaching to them, learning their secrets and informing Muslims, preventing their harm, or some other beneficial goal."

Via /..

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama broadband Aviation moron Television Education Clothing ]

Here's the abstract for The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth by Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, PhD in the journal Pediatrics. I'm having trouble finding a link to the articles that have been spawned by it in a place that I think they'll stick around, most of 'em are AP articles, but they, such as Daily Mail: Teen suicide attempts 'more likely if you live in Republican area', says Columbia researcher, mention an interesting little bit that I don't see in the abstract:

Attempts even by straight children are more common in GOP areas where schools lack programmes supporting gay rights, a Columbia University researcher believes.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Sexual Culture Nature and environment Theater & Plays Current Events Television Civil Liberties Pop Culture Education ]

Follow up to my whine about the FBI Art Crime Unit being unable to do anything about Jeff Koons: Jeff Koons Must Die!!! is a coin-operated console arcade video game:

The game is set in a large museum during a Jeff Koons retrospective. The viewer is given a rocket launcher and the choice to destroy any of the work displayed in the gallery. If nothing is destroyed the player is allowed to look around for a couple of minutes and then the game ends. However, if one or more pieces are destroyed, an animated model of Jeff Koons walks out and chastises the viewer for annihilating his art. He then sends guards to kill the player. If the player survives this round then he or she is afforded the ability to enter a room where waves of curators, lawyers, assistants, and guards spawn until the player is dead. In the end, the game is unwinnable, and acts as a comment on the fine art studio system, museum culture, art and commerce, hierarchical power structures, and the destructive tendencies of gallery goers, to name a few.

Brilliance! Via SE

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Animation Space & Astronomy Sociology Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Art & Culture California Culture Currency Video Archival ]

Regarding that Jeff Koons must die link (and Exit Through The Gift Shop, and...): A story I've heard from several parents is that moment of sitting in he elementary school talent show and realizing that all the white kids are lip-syncing and dancing to Madonna (/'N-Sync/Lady Gaga, choose your generation), and all the Asian kids are playing Bach on the cello.

I'm doing a lot of looking at advanced technologies. A recurring story there is the guy who patents something, sells it to a group of lawyers while retaining a small share. Fifteen years later, the lawyers find the people who actually managed to implement and be successful with the process, take it down to that venue in Texas that consistently finds for the litigant, and extract a few tens of millions out of the implementers.

The path to riches isn't to build stuff, it's to write some strategic patents, file 'em, sell 70% to one of the professional litigation groups, and hope for a payoff in a decade nor so.

So if the idea is so much more important than the execution, as in Jeff Koons or MBS hiring armies of art students to actually build the art, or as in all of these folks writing nebulous broad patents and waiting for someone else to actually do the heavy lifting, what's the matter with lip syncing? Concentrating on the presentation and leaving the actual musicianship to someone else?

Maybe those elementary school talent shows are just reflecting an understanding of our intellectual property and cultural landscapes that we'd rather not admit.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Music Sociology Writing Art & Culture Television Race Archival ]

Re S&P U.S. debt rating: So the guys who lied about credit default swaps & derivatives to funnel money into Wall Street have branched out?

[ related topics: Currency Economics ]

Thinking about running an [NF-like, you know who you are] IRC or similar server. Anyone interested, got suggestions?

[ related topics: Sports ]

This last weekend I repainted the bathroom. In the process, we removed some tacky plastic paneling. That same paneling is also around the tub. Charlene and I have looked at a number of materials to replace that, we've been kind of leaning towards large tiles, but we've seen some really spectacular bathrooms that have wood walls.

Seems like a maintenance nightmare.

However, a few notes that might help:

• If we can get the wood for the paneling green, and not kiln dried, treatment with Polyethylene Glycol-1000 (PEG) can stabilize the wood so that humidity changes don't cause extreme shifts in size. This usually involves soaking the green wood in a PEG solution at an elevated temperature (105°F to 150°F for a couple of weeks). More in USDA Forest Service: how PEG helps the hobbyist who works with wood (1972, PDF)
• A commenter on this discussion forum thread says that he had spec'd out, but never built, "teak strips over Kerdi, the adhesive was to be Bostiks Best." Schluter®-KERDI is a polyethylene membrane with a surface you can glue to, Bostik's BEST is a "one-part, trowel-applied, tacking moisture-cure urethane adhesive" used for flooring. I'd assume you'd do them tongue and groove.
• Jeffco Painting and Coating is a local (okay, Vallejo/Mare Island) company that was recommended to me as knowing a lot about elastomeric epoxies.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Community Economics Woodworking ]

28 Pin-Up Girls and the photographs they were drawn from. (Via)

[ related topics: Photography ]

A few months ago, after having essentially ignored the site as "the place where old-school bloggers who've abandoned their own blogs go", I finally broke down and bought a Metafilter account. I've participated a little bit.

Today I realized that the Metafilter culture is horrendously hostile to anything Ayn Rand, and Ask Metafilter is overrun by people trying to figure out their enabling behavior towards dysfunctional people who can't live without them.

"Hmmmm", he said ponderingly, raising an eyebrow.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Objectivism Theater & Plays Sociology California Culture ]

The new DHS National Terrorism Advisory System has been released, which replaces the old goofy color coded terror alert system.

The new system has two threat levels, "Imminent Threat Alert", which is reserved for the weeks immediately preceding an election, and "Elevated Threat Alert", which I think has something to do with the way they used to run urban light rail.

As Lyn pointed out: "Elevated compared to WHAT? If it's *always* elevated, doesn't that mean: 'normal threat'?" and John replied: "THIS ONE GOES TO 11!".

Some day I hope I can speak freely about some of the government idiocies I've seen recently. Let's just say that ya know how I've kinda swung away from my rabid Libertarianism that I once held? Yeah, I still think the Tea Partiers are generally unintelligent dupes of the Koch brothers, but damn there's some constructive thumping that could be done by way of a suitably sized clue stick.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama John S Jacobs-Anderson Photography Invention and Design moron Trains Douglas Adams ]

Perl 6. Jade 7.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Sean Conner writes about doing Twitter (and OAuth and all of that) from the command line at JWZ's blog.

[ related topics: Weblogs Software Engineering ]

Wish we could end the misogyny of dismissing Lada Gaga (& Madonna, etc) as "manufactured", as if they had no agency in their own success.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Broke a mirror during the bathroom repainting. Local glass place wanted $135 to replace it. Freecycle came through in under an hour.

(Slightly out-of-context) QOTD: Microsoft's corporate vice president for Microsoft’s U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group Ron Markezich:

Every dollar you spend on software from Microsoft, you spend $6 trying to get it to do anything.

Relatedly, next time I hear some relatively able computer person ask why some relatively simple operation using Windows or Apple (lookin' at you, JWZ) is so hard or keeps failing randomly, but then complain that Linux is too much work... well... there aren't enough body bags. But the amount of self-delusion over how much hassle people are putting into their existing systems, and how that comfortable familiarity is causing huge long-term costs vs just sucking it up and changing to the superior solution is pretty damned huge.

[ related topics: Free Software Apple Computer Quotes Humor Microsoft Open Source Software Engineering moron Work, productivity and environment Currency ]

RT @ rachelreese : WHY HAVE NONE OF YOU TOLD ME THAT 1337% OF π IS 42?!

Bummed about missing @WhereCamp today and tomorrow, but too much cool stuff going on.

Picked up Terry Pratchett's Going Postal again because I needed something mindless to read. One of the story threads is about the "clacks", an optical telegraph system which is failing because a set of investors bought it and stopped maintenance in order to extract maximal profits from it before they ran it into the ground.

I present to you Pacific Gas & Electric's management admitting that they've basically done the same thing.

[ related topics: California Culture Terry Pratchett ]

Thanks(?) to the Rev Hasty: Earth Day leader killed, composted his girlfriend.

Ad on Craigslist Materials for an "electric penal meter". Undecided as to whether I prefer to see that as a typo, or not.

QOTD: MeFi user eriko on the entry about the Amazon EC2 failure:

Can we all stop fucking saying "cloud" now?

Remember: Clouds are made of vapour.

[ related topics: Quotes Books ]

Shadow forwarded along this news report which led to Vancouver Sun: Comedian, Vancouver restaurant ordered to pay for insults against lesbian:

Amateur standup comedian Guy Earle has been ordered to pay $15,000 to Lorna Pardy, 32, who filed the complaint last year after she and her lesbian partner were taunted at Zesty’s Restaurant on Commercial Drive on May 22, 2007. Restaurant owner Salam Ishmail has been ordered to pay her $7,500.

It's important to note that Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't have the equivalent of our First Amendment, something that queer authors have been painfully aware of for years.

But I'd also note: This guy insulted a lesbian, on Commercial Drive, in Vancouver British Columbia?^[1] And they let him live?

Wow.

^[1] If you've never been to Vancouver, that's like Valencia Street in San Francisco.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Food Theater & Plays Current Events Civil Liberties Java ]

Conchis: What would you have done? / Urfe: God Knows. / Conchis: God never has to choose. You and I do.

[ related topics: Religion ]

An interesting look at censorship: In China, the government issues weekly list of stories that papers or websites are either forbidden to cover, or must limit their coverage to official statments. The list itself is a perfectly precise rundown of what worries the Inner Party leadership; if I were a radical journalist I'd use the list as the table of contents for my underground paper. For example, the Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Department (I think the new mayor of Chicago is opening one of these) declares no stories about a lavish banquet thrown by the local Red Cross.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Free Speech Invention and Design moron Journalism and Media Furniture ]

Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies. Guy discovers used book sellers on Amazon using competing algorithms to do pricing. One is trying to price just below the high seller, the other is pricing as though they'd buy from the first and mark it up. Hilarity ensues.

Via MeFi, where comparisons to automated financial instrument trading is made.

[ related topics: Books Weblogs ]

Californian children shown to have higher levels of fire-retardant chemicals. Well, at least our kids will burn less easily.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Pyrotechnics ]

Paid a visit to @TaraFirmaFarms this morning. Pictures: http://www.flutterby.net/2011-04-24_Tara_Firma_Farm_on_Easter

[ related topics: Photography ]

It's an AP article, so I link to it warily and note that it won't stay around for long, but this note on a Buffalo NY man whose home was invaded by police with guns drawn based on claims of child pornography that may have come from his network connection underscores the potential problems of being kind to neighbors and passers-by that can come from law enforcement.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture broadband Current Events Law Enforcement Guns ]

Kentucky man builds bourbon powered car:

It took Nilsson approximately six months to manufacture the vehicle which actually runs on a $24 (EUR16.5) Makers Mark bottle of bourbon. “The car will run on almost any bourbon, but she really purrs on Maker’s Mark,” said Nilsson.

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

You know what, I've decided that I flew off the handle and don't have enough supporting information on this. I'm going to move the original contents to the comments.

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Invention and Design Current Events Work, productivity and environment Phreaking Archival ]

I guess it's a good think Dan got out of Fairfax. It seems Jesus has risen and has been arrested for spousal abuse in Marin County.

[ related topics: Religion Humor Bay Area Marriage ]

Yay! Switched to Sonic.net from AT&T! Still need to figure a few things about my ZTE ZXV10 W300 router config & multiple IPs, though.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

The next children's book gifts will be from @Dulemba. Next one for a parent: http://www.amazon.com/Go-Fuck-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255 HT @columbina

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

Study estimates that illegal immigrants paid $11.2B in taxes last year, unlike GE, which paid zero. My sister, who is fluent in several different Central American Spanish dialects, posted on her Facebook wall that:

The woman I became friends with while translating for a migrant project a couple of years ago showed me her paystub one day: $70 for the amount of peppers. $35 to the farmer, $35 to "her." 50% of "her" pay was withheld for "taxes" net to her- $17.50. whether or not the "tax" actually went to the IRS is another issue.

[ related topics: Politics Food Government ]

Charming: Yahoo made me use my AT&T DSL account as my sign-in there. No longer with AT&T, can't recover my Yahoo account. Bastards.

[ related topics: broadband ]

Bwahahahaha: Wall Street Journal: philanthropist offers $300m for not using Frank Gehry:

"Don't get me wrong, I like iconoclastic, swoopy structures that look like bashed-in sardine cans as much as the next guy," says the philanthropist, who wishes to remain nameless for fear of enraging close friends in the art world. "I like Czech dance halls that look like a 747 plowed right into the façade as much as anybody. I bow to no man in my admiration for an architect who can design an art museum that looks like a intergalactic recycling center. I just thought it would be nice to give the second-most-famous architect in the world a shot at a payday. Whoever he is. I know I've got his name here somewhere."

[ related topics: Art & Culture Architecture ]

Science Fiction Timeline of Inventions (listed by publication date).

Mention of an interesting new idea: US veterans of the Iraqi and Afghan wars are showing more Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because its expected of them. The author wonders why British vets seem to have so much less PTSD, even though they are having as horrific experiences as their Yank comrades. Also, why wasn't the US overwealmed by non-functioning, acting out vets in the late 40s? Certainly the men who fought at Iwo Jima or Omaha Beach underwent as terrible experiences as men in Khandahar or the Sunni Triangle, without the possibility of rotating home after 6 months.

Of course, when pretty much every able-bodied man was in the WW2 army, pretty much every jailbird, wife-beater or drunk in 1948 was likely to have seen combat, so maybe we didn't notice it then. Or maybe people didn't expect to get PTSD, so they just got on with their lives.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality War ]

Nephews are in town. We've spent the past two days building toys. http://www.flutterby.net/2011-04-28_Building_Toys

[ related topics: History ]

Bolefloors: manufactured hardwood flooring with naturally curved lengths that follow a tree’s natural growth.

aka: What happens when you apply a lot of image/pattern recognition processing power with a wood flooring company.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

DC Folk: Got a guy looking for a Python+Mapnik geek inside the Beltway. If you know someone who might know someone, email me.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Monty Python Python ]