Flutterby™! From 2012-03-01 to 2012-03-31

Indication that Perl has become too much like C++: When $v and "$v" give different results.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

gmancasefile: TSA Fail — a critique of the USA from a (self-identified) FBI Special Agent

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

In contrast to Dan's Building Paranoia, I caught Alec Soth's photography exhibit at the Sean Kelly Gallery in NYC today. The documentary is quite interesting...

[ related topics: Photography Architecture Archival ]

NPR: Thinking Outside The Box, With Our Bodies And Our Brains. No, really, it's literal, thinking "inside the box" is stifling:

As described in Sunday's New York Times, and soon to be published in the journal Psychological Science, this research by Suntae Kim, Evan Polman, Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and their colleagues falls within the field of embodied cognition. Previous studies suggest that how we think is influenced by everything from the objects in our hands to how we move our bodies.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Nature and environment Invention and Design New York ]

Something to think about when looking at transportation options: (SF) Bay Citizen: Why Transit Riders Don’t Report Unwanted Sexual Behavior: Some passengers believe such incidents are to be expected, Bay Citizen survey finds.

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

Difficult to read, and needs more corrorboration, but: Call of Apathy: Violent Young Men and Our Place in War.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: History ]

Science Daily: How marijuana impairs memory, at least, allegedly, on "working memory" in mice:

Marijuana's major psychoactive ingredient (THC) impairs memory independently of its direct effects on neurons. The side effects stem instead from the drug's action on astroglia, passive support cells long believed to play second fiddle to active neurons.

reporting on work by Giovanni Marsicano of INSERM in France and Xia Zhang of the University of Ottawa in Canada in the journal Cell.

[ related topics: Drugs Music Health Work, productivity and environment Education ]

Dear Moen, if your "product registration" web page actually asked about the product I bought, it'd feel a lot less like bad marketing.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

I take it back: the future of public space isn't retail replaced by coffee shops everywhere, it's fitness centers and yoga studios.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy ]

Kickass cart thingy at the corner of 2nd & F in Petaluma:

[ related topics: Photography ]

Tech Crunch: Pair Programming Considered Harmful.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

Having trouble getting up in arms over Limbaugh. For years his advertisers have been working to disrupt fact-based reasoned public discourse

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment ]

Let's see if this works: Post hike breakfast at Covallo Point

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Nature and environment ]

Spending my afternoon squeezing a lot of caulk made me realize I miss @TheBrad, who'd have a witty riposte. #RIP

Shadow passed along Santorum backs nullifying existing gay marriages. I'm mostly totally speechless about the insanity posing as a presidential race that we're currently being subjected to, but this passage really stood out:

"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."

How can someone be so fucking clueless and still get this much attention? For the history of this country we've had 50 different marriage laws. Sure, they fall into 3 broad categories, mostly based on which underlying country the state pulled its legal system from, but how fucking ignorant of basic civics are we willing to let a contender for high political office be?

Oh, and: Rick Santorum.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture moron Sociology Law Marriage Government ]

Jalopnik: How One Bureaucrat Almost Succeeded in Banning Car Radios:

Science fiction writer Douglas Adams once broke down the human reaction to technology thusly: Anything that's existed for as long as you have is normal; anything invented while you're between the ages of 15 and 35 is something you can profit from; anything invented after you've turned 35 is "against the natural order of things."

[ related topics: Writing Automobiles ]

First time running with the guys in months. Not the slowest, but 4.4 miles in 40 minutes ain't screaming.

[ related topics: Sports ]

Media Matters: Who's still advertising on Rush Limbaugh.

[ related topics: Weblogs Consumerism and advertising Journalism and Media ]

RT @mathowie:

Town meetings: when the local newspaper's editorial page is done listening to your brand of crazy, you can always go nuts there.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Pop Culture ]

Really cool SCWA meeting with instrument maker Walter Kitundu http://kitundu.com/

[ related topics: Photography ]

Mark has written an interesting few paragraphs on Socialism, Christianity and the GOP.

And I'm missing dinner with Mark this week because it's so hectic here. Damn.

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment ]

Man demonstrates why TSA body scanners are worthless for security purposes, Direct YouTube link of the guy carrying metallic objects through several airport pornoscanners.

To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store...

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Aviation Embedded Devices Currency ]

The Big Coloring Book of Vaginas. The Big Coloring Book of Cocks.

Via this article, sent to me by someone who can out zirself if zie wants to.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books Sexual Culture ]

Oh, look, the Gnome 2 keyring manager has horked up a hairball. *There*'s a big surprise. "rm ~/.gnome2/keyrings/login.keyring", again.

Attorney General Eric Holder explains under what circumstances the government is allowed to kill you without due judicial process, but promises not to hunt citizens for sport.

Via JWZ.

I guess the good news is that if you can hear the drone, they missed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs moron Law Current Events ]

Building your own transcranial direct stimulation device (and why that circuit doesn't work). Via last Word On Nothing: Better Living Through Electrochemistry, via JWZ: Tasp.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Exotic Dancers of the 1890s.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

I got an interesting e-mail from my partner at work. It said:

"Saw interesting hearing on cspan. AT&T head of security testifying before congress. Said largest problem is software. He said it almost universally sucks. All of it sloppy with attack vectors. His point was that U.S. programmers need to be retrained. Related point was that complexity leads to risk. You can't manage what we don't understand. We make stuff too complicated. It was like hearing [you] testify, except of course, fbi would never let you get that close."

I laughed and smiled..

[ related topics: Politics Spam Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Woodworking ]

A look at the complexity behind that Kony video everyone's forwarding: http://tumblr.thedailywh.at/po...i-honestly-wanted-to-stay-as-far

Also: http://pomee.tumblr.com/post/1...2012-causing-more-harm-than-good

[ related topics: Video ]

Now we know why Dan built that shop:

http://www.wimp.com/smallesthelicopter/

Awesome.

Today John Carter (of Mars) opens in a theater near you. From Boing Boing I found this illustrated version that shows the characters as Burroughs described them--Naked (NSFW). Deeja Thoris has a bust that could only work in reduced gravity.

[ related topics: Astronomy Nudity Work, productivity and environment Comics Pop Culture ]

Next person I see implementing phone number input as 3 separate fields (so you can't paste into it), gets a serious smacking.

Atlantic Cities: The Surprisingly Complex Art of Urban Wayfinding, and Guerilla Wayfinding In Raleigh.

Via Dave Alden.

[ related topics: Weblogs Art & Culture Graphic Design Maps and Mapping Maps & Mapping ]

"(Reuters) - The Dictionary of American Regional English has finally reached its final word - "zydeco" - as researchers wrap up almost 50 years of work charting the rich variety of American speech."

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Scientists reviewing data from various Lunar orbiters report some large magnetic anomalies on the Moon, which they attribute to crashed asteroids. Of course, there may be another explanation.

[ related topics: Cool Science Astronomy Current Events ]

The [NDA] rep just left, having configured some test [NDA] on my home [NDA]. Oooh, can't wait 'til this hits the market...

[ related topics: Economics ]

Some really space efficient housing designs. Check out the 258 sq ft NYC apartment and the smallest California legal apartment.

http://www.theatlanticcities.c...-looking-photos-tiny-homes/1443/

[ related topics: Photography Space & Astronomy Law California Culture Graphic Design Real Estate ]

Annoying: My new 2 Wire modem/gateway binds machines to interfaces, so I can't hop WiFi networks between house and shop. Grrr.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Real Estate ]

Finally got this fan project finished up: http://www.flutterby.net/2012-03-10_Heart_Dovetail_Fan

Crawling under the house to replace the thermostat wire, discovered major leak in the house plumbing. At least I found it fairly early.

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

Clearly, it's time to re-plumb the house. Anyone got input on the copper vs PEX issue?

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

NPR: To Cut The Risk Of A High-Fat Meal, Add Spice. About A high antioxidant spice blend attenuates postprandial insulin and triglyceride responses and increases some plasma measures of antioxidant activity in healthy, overweight men..

[ related topics: Health Food ]

The Washington Post interviews Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau over the current kerfluffle about his strips dealing with abortion.

And one of the papers pulling the strips is in Portland, Oregon? Hey, newspapers: You want to know why you're dying in the Internet age? It's that we can bypass you to get to meaningful media, and you spineless weasels don't have the guts to step up and address the issues that are important.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Journalism and Media Net Culture ]

[redacted] logged in as root [redacted] production machine [redacted] writing and testing code [redacted]

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Writing Work, productivity and environment ]

Why do I spend the extra for organic locally grown agriculture? The externalities of conventional agriculture are having huge impacts on farming communities in California:

In addition to health risks, tainted water will exact a growing financial toll, the report said. The researchers project that utilities and citizens in the two regions will pay $20 million to $36 million per year for water treatment and alternative supplies for the next 20 years or more.

It looks like the report will be at UC Davis Report for the SWRCB SBX2 1 Report to the Legislature.

[ related topics: Health Current Events California Culture Community ]

Attorneys look at the 20^th aniversary of My Cousin Vinny.

Which I've never seen, and which Charlene and I should see because I like comedies and Charlene likes courtroom dramas.

Michelle Joven, proprietor of Mama's Kona Coffee, which has sold me some of the tastiest coffee beans I've ever had the pleasure of roasting, brewing and drinking, posted on Facebook her "Opposition to HB280/HD1 (Repeal of Mandatory Coffee Inspection & Certification)". I asked for permission to repost her comments here. I'll put them in the comments.

Kyle Misner on security:

If banks were honest they would call a "Sercurity Question" a "Back Door"

"Make your account more secure today with a Back Door!"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia:

Results: Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae. In both applications, the patient had complete cessation of nasal bleeding within 24 hours, and was discharged within 72 hours after treatment.

Conclusions: To our knowledge, this represents the first description of nasal packing with strips of cured pork for treatment of life-threatening hemorrhage in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Health ]

How come cellist, pianist and bassist all describe someone who plays an instrument, but assist means 'to render aid'?

[ related topics: Music Graphics ]

Drivers help set variable speed limits along I-80 in Wyoming

If there are surface or visibility problems, the center’s supervisors slow down the traffic.

Garcia said the driving conditions are safer when everyone travels at the same rate of speed.

If some drivers are traveling 55 mph and others 80, the goal is to pull the outliers into a middle speed, or a pace speed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Current Events ]

In the Chicago Tribune, David Allyn points out that moralizing and bad economies go together.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

SF Weekly: Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD

But, as a 1976 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities noted, there was no medical pre-screening. "Paradoxically, greater care seemed to have been taken for the safety of foreign nations against whom LSD was used abroad. In several cases [overseas] medical examinations were performed prior to the use of LSD," the committee reported. "The [domestic] program ... demonstrates a failure of the CIA's leadership to pay adequate attention to the rights of individuals and to provide effective guidance to CIA employees. Though it was known that the testing was dangerous, the lives of subjects were placed in jeopardy and their rights were ignored during the 10 years of testing that followed Dr. Olson's death." Although it was clear that the laws of the United States were being violated, the testing continued.

[ related topics: Drugs Politics Bay Area Software Engineering Current Events Work, productivity and environment Civil Liberties Race Government ]

Beware the Ideas of March.

What kind of god could allow something like this? Nature.com on attempts to make a coffee plant that produces caffeine free beans.

[ related topics: Religion Nature and environment Current Events ]

RT @NikoLasco:

Earlier today, I asked if we could make a local variable into one that was also organic and fair-trade

And on that note, Highly toxic feed additives found in Taiwanese pork products:

Traces of two highly toxic feed additives were allegedly discovered in sausage products from T-Ham and Hsin Tung Yang. Salbutamol as well as cimaterol, feed additives promote lean meat, are much more toxic to humans than ractopamine.

Via TC over at Walnut Keep.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Food Current Events ]

Stealing from MeFi:

• Tim Morgan's answer to Quora: What do all the controls in an airplane cockpit do?, Via MeFi.
• Sexual Deprivation Increases Alcohol Intake in Drosophila, original paper (costs $), via MeFi: Dateless Drosophila Drown Dating Dejection in Drink.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Content Management Aviation ]

Using a SOAP API to duplicate the display from one web application in another. Would have been way easier to just spider the HTML.

Ira Glass retracts (that link isn't working for me right now, Waxy has republished the press release) the "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" episode of "This American Life":

During fact checking before the broadcast of Daisey's story, This American Life staffers asked Daisey for this interpreter's contact information. Daisey told them her real name was Anna, not Cathy as he says in his monologue, and he said that the cell phone number he had for her didn't work any more. He said he had no way to reach her.

"At that point, we should've killed the story," says Ira Glass, Executive Producer and Host of This American Life. "But other things Daisey told us about Apple's operations in China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt him. We didn't think that he was lying to us and to audiences about the details of his story. That was a mistake."

Mike Daisey's response reads, in part:

I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity. ...

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Wireless Weblogs Current Events Work, productivity and environment Woodworking ]

Cool dynamic Web2.0 database backed graphs? Check. Unwinding the horrendous CSS mess that this has to integrate with? Uhhh...

[ related topics: Databases ]

flot - Attractive Javascript plotting for jQuery. Various examples.

Coupled with DateTimepicker (DateTimepicker on GitHub) and a little bit of:

options.xaxis.min = $("#fromdate").datetimepicker('getDate').getTime();

I think this will rock.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

Wil Wheaton: "When L.A. painted a 1.5-mile strip of Spring Street neon green last year, it was hailed as a major step in the city's effort to have cars and bicycles coexist. But the lane has been criticized by the film industry, which frequently uses the stretch of Spring as a stand-in for other cities and eras."

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

NY Times: "I was a cookbook ghostwriter"

Seems like a cultural trend is that we're recognizing people for being famous. Their skills are often entirely outsourced, what matters in terms of money-making ability is their ability to garner press. Total disconnect between ability to produce things and remuneration.

[ related topics: Sociology Currency ]

Had a really nice weekend hanging out with Charlene for her birthday. At last year's Bodega Bay boat building challenge I'd won a stay at the Flamingo Conference Resort and Spa. It's only half an hour away, but anything can be a vacation if you approach it right, so... We went up on Friday night after doing the first 4H "Junk Drawer Robotics" project meeting, and crashed out. Saturday morning we went and wandered down Santa Rosa's 4^th Street, where someone said "I'm going to The Imaginists Theater Collective's re-envisioning of The Wizard of Oz". We checked the web site, and it said it was sold out, but after bouncing around Railroad Square and a few other places we got seated, and thoroughly enjoyed the goofiness of the show.

After just catching the kitchen still being open at Rendez Vous Bistro, where they happily went off the menu and made Charlene a big bowl of veggies, we headed back to the Flamingo, hoping for some dancing in the lounge there. Last time we were there there was an absolutely kick-ass band, and on Friday night the band sounded pretty good but we were worn out after 4H and crashed.

So we had high hopes when we went into the bar, where the act was Decadance, a DJ sort of thing. Which sucked. Let me count the ways:

• They were playing that style you sometimes here in passing cars where there's that sub 60Hz thing that's just about vibrating your body. Okay, but unfortunately I think it was some sort of add-on filter that the guy had running on his laptop, and rather than being texture over the songs it quite often just stuck on for measures, making the whole experience like being caught in a malfunctioning assembly line rather than getting pleasantly teased.
• The guy managed no beat matching, and in between songs there was often a few measures of down-time, which would have been acceptable had the next song had either a reasonable counter-point or kept the energy at a similar beat. Instead it was either something with a complicated rhythm that took another few measures to settle in, or was otherwise different, just sucking energy out of the dance floor.
• The smoke machine was run to excess. Cool lighting effects? Awesome. Choking on the smoke? Less awesome.
• The club had a fairly reasonable gender mix. The dance floor was largely male. Occasionally the women would start out on the floor, but then there'd be one of those song breaks and the energy would just disappear.

We tried to hang out for a while, but ended up heading back to the hotel room to move a little to the clock radio, played softly. A reminder to check out the music before we commit to a club.

But the Sunday brunch this morning was awesome, so all-in-all a great weekend.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Robotics Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Heinlein California Culture Sports Travel Boats Machinery Trains Conferences Aviation - Helicopters ]

Elf Sternberg: Our country runs on elevator pitches., in which he has breakfast with a Congressman:

"The first year, you don't know anyone. So you try your best. Sometimes, though, since the Republicans are in charge, we might get fifteen minutes warning that a vote is about to take place, and they'll hold the floor open for only two minutes. They give their own people plenty of warning, but the rest of us have to just be present in case a vote happens.

"So you learn who on your side knows anything about anything. When a bill comes up that's their speciality, but not yours, they usually signal in advance how they'll vote. If their vote doesn't make sense to you, you have about five minutes to go over there and ask them why they voted the way they did, and make up your mind about if their decision makes sense."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama tolkien Law ]

Everyone else has been linking it, and, yeah: It's worth it. 9 year old on a ski jump. http://www.youtube.com/watch?f...re=player_embedded&v=ebtGRvP3ILg

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Sports Embedded Devices ]

Worth a read: Aaron Badey: The Jimmy McNulty Gambit.

Mike Daisey wasn’t the first person to make up a false personal story as a way of raising the kind of “awareness” that will necessitate change, nor was #StopKony the first hyper-successful campaign to take a massively complicated political-economic-military problem and reduce it to the narrative of a great white savior.

On making things up to grab public attention.

[ related topics: Politics moron Race Economics ]

Grrr: SFGate.com: Idea that rains delay BART trains may be all wet

BART's system performance statistics back him up. During the past two rainy seasons, 92 to 93 percent of trains were on time, and passengers arrived at their destinations on schedule about 95 percent of the time. BART's standards call for passengers to arrive on-time 96 percent of the time and to have 94 percent of trains on schedule.

With no mention of what the baseline statistics were. The only way I can read this is that BART never actually lives up to its standards.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

David Brin: Total Information Awareness and Crime Reporting Apps

The chilling thing about the new NSA facility is not how much better it will let government “protectors” see, in order to better protect us.  The scary thing is that there won’t be officers of a uniformed and independent Inspectorate, roaming the halls on our behalf, making sure that protection is the only thing going on.  Or better yet, dozens of randomly chosen citizens (with security clearance) whose universal-access badges give them the right to poke their heads in any door and ask any question.

[ related topics: Invention and Design moron ]

I was digging about for useful JavaScript visualization stuff, and on the d3.js (Data Driven Documents) page I found this really cool d3.js demo visualizing the Population Pyramid. Use the arrow keys to explore the effects of medicine improving to allow women to survive their childbearing years, and the gender disparities of those killed in various wars.

[ related topics: Beer ]

If we can bypass Hollywood and get bidirectional high speed net (fiber?) to the home, what will that generation's Facebook look like?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Today: A Director of IT and his consultant attempted to question my understanding of IP addresses, DNS and firewalls.... So I pulled up rdesktop on his primary domain controller, from remote, and logged in as administrator. In front of them both, and they still did not get it. (yes, they use plain text email protocals internally)

The true measure of a man is what he does, when he knows what he does is truly unknowable.

Damn personal ethics, someday there just might be enough cash on the table. It's not that I'm honest, I'm just not cheap.

[ related topics: Ethics Furniture ]

Some beautiful 4x5 Kodachromes from the American World War 2 efforts.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: History ]

QOTD: pavel_lishin on a JWZ entry:

I like that the present looks like the future that comic books described to me.

[ related topics: Quotes Books Weblogs Nature and environment ]

Reading about workflows, where, apparently, NDA means "non-deterministic automata" and FSM means "finite state machine". Weird.

Analysis of the Human Birdwings

[Edit: Video creator admits it's fake.]

Highly recommended from lunch:

• The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”, part of http://www.ribbonfarm.com/ which seems like it's got a lot of great writing.
• #AltDevBlogADay: Float Precision From Zero to 100 Digits.

[ related topics: Writing Boats ]

"I can't be bothered to learn how to use a screwdriver, teach me how to drive these screws with my hammer!": 90% of computer GUI questions.

[ related topics: Fabrication ]

I keep promising myself that there are a few things, like homemade ricotta, that I'm going to do, and then I don't get around to 'em. NPR: Doesn't Take Much To Do It Yourself In The Kitchen has a few of those.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Gambling ]

Scalzi: Guest Post: A Doctor on Transvaginal Ultrasounds.

I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as “rape”. If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health ]

Things a homeowner didn't want to know: the hot water heater straps were screwed in to 1/8" masonite.

[ related topics: Photography ]

PSA: Thank your mailing list administrator for quietly junking the invite mail from LinkedIn, G+, etc, that shows you're ignorant of email.

[ related topics: Television ]

The Real Katie — Lighten Up. On being a woman and a programmer.

Recently, I was asked why a woman that loves coding would ever leave the field. It's true: at one point in my life, I decided that coding would be something I'd do only in private. I was only slowly pulled back into the fold.

[ related topics: Weblogs Software Engineering Gambling ]

RT Christopher Moore @TheAuthorGuy:

Reacting to faith-based orgs being able to deny birth control coverage to employees, Blue Cross goes Christian Scientist. #SuckItMedicine

[ related topics: Religion Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment ]

There has been talk lately of supressing publication of papers on Bird Flu that might suggest ways to weaponize the disease. Be that as it may, we don't really know how complicated it would be for a terrorist group in the Tora Bora or some basement in Ossetia to pull off a biological or chemical attack. A paper referenced by BoingBoing tells how it works in real life, sortta. This longish PDF from the Center for a New American Security analyzes the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway carried out by the apocalyptic Aum Shenrikyo cult in Japan. It's a fascinating story of a group of technically savvy people who worked for years developing biological and chemical weapons to hasten the end of the world. Fortunately most of their attacks failed, but they did kill a number of people even before the fianl attack, which killed 13 and injured 6,000.

Oddly enough, the main problem isn't technical, but managerial. If you want to keep the projecdt secret, you have to limit it to the inner circle, even if they don't have the primary skills to pull it off. This will surely hold up an Al Queda plots.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Public Transportation ]

Cardboard Box Vortex Cannon (YouTube video).

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

What she really said: Fighting sexists jokes the geeky way

Hat tip to Dori.

Aside: There are really not that many "that's what she said" moments where "that's what he said", possibly with a little swish, doesn't also work.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Facebook press release warning off potential employers from asking for passwords.

[ related topics: Privacy Work, productivity and environment ]

Fifteen hundred dollars later, PEX supplies acquired. Groan.

A few questionable participations recently, I'm letting them stand because the "links to participants" section is all rel="nofollow"ed. FYI

Life is suffering? Apparently Buddha was a homeowner.

Traditional Indian sari weavers have found a cheap lube for their looms - from condom packets.

The weaver and his three adolescent sons visit the local health center every week to collect a stack of condoms. Every morning, they neatly stack the pack of condoms in a box before they start weaving intricately designed saris, tablecloths and brocades for their customers in Europe, America and Asia.

[ related topics: Health Personal Lubricant ]

I spent last week in mercenary geek mode with a couple of accountants, an occasional auditor and IT people for a latin american utility, in Spanish and Spanglish, tuning up the system for multi-company and multi-currency accounting.

At some point, I got a big smile on my face, because my brain slipped into the a strange parallel world where what I was doing was a lot like playing NetHack. It was arcane, lots of twisty passages, seemingly randomly created levels, and a smattering of Grues and Wumpi. The SQL prompt reminded me a NetHack-ish prompt with arcane commands and abstract descriptions of the room I was in.

All enemies were slain, some friends made, and only a little of my blood on some bones levels. The accountants are happy (as happy as accountants can be).. whome are responsible for bestowing golden coins. Soon, we will be exploring some more arcane corners of the dungeon together. Hopefully there are no Barney Doom characters lurking.

Why is the room I am in all softly padded?

[ related topics: Currency Databases ]

It's "election season"? I need to go talk to the Department of Fish and Game.

[ related topics: Games ]

Daddy, tell me a scary story. Tell me about home improvement before we discovered the Sawzall.

Thanks to some late night help from Alan, we are showering this morning on PEX plumbing.

Nina Paley sat down with a group of 15-17 year olds to talk with them about copyright and how they'd like to support the artists whose work they enjoy.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Weblogs Work, productivity and environment Art & Culture Copyright/Trademark ]

RT Canis Pornivorous, @DogWatchingPorn:

We can probably solve the pro-life/abortion debate by putting more unwanted babies in hoodies.

RT Yanick, @yenzie:

Salmon deployment: when a piece of code is modified in production environment and makes its way back to its native repo to spawn.

RT Scott Hanselman, @shanselman

An engineer walks into a bar and orders 1.0E20 root beers. Bartender: "That's a root beer float." Engineer: "Make it a double."

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Nature and environment Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Beer Boats ]

TSA forces Bruce Schneier off of congressional testimony panel.

[ related topics: Weblogs Cryptography Archival ]

That the users are implementing solutions without regard for how the system works indicates a problem in the system, not the users.

TC links to a subscription only site and talks about Utah following in Iowa's footsteps, prohibiting taking photographs or videos on a farm without permission.

If your food producers need special protections to keep you from knowing about what's going into your food, it's time to find new sources.

Food Safety News on the Utah law, Food Safety News on the Iowa law, the latter includes a little bit of background on why these videos have been important.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Invention and Design Food Current Events ]

Census Bureau says that California cities are the most densely populated in the U.S.:

Los Angeles is the nation's most densely urbanized area, with a population of nearly 7,000 people per square mile. The 3.28 million people living in and around San Francisco and Oakland are runners-up, with a density of 6,266 people per square mile.

What I find interesting about these definitions, which are based on boundaries which take into account things like commute patterns, is that those spaces are kind of legendary for not having well functioning mass transit systems. Sure, the Bay Area has BART, but it also has CalTrain, and LA... well...

So what population density does it take to support an efficient mass transit system?

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

The "Paying To Work For Free" VFX Business Model. On how Digital Domain is creating the Digital Domain Institute, in which students (and the state of Florida) will pay for students to attend and, in their junior and senior years, "gain experience" by working on actual Digital Domain films.

Ouch.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

And, just having gotten my permit for the plumbing rework this morning, it looks like the 20 year old water heater is dying.

And mumbledy hundred dollars later, the new water heater is installed. Should probably pull a permit for it before the plumbing inspection.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Ars Techica — Death of a data haven: cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, and the world's smallest nation. On Sealand and HavenCo, and a few lessons the seasteading folks might want to pay attention to...

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Skip Bernet of Surly Bikes writes "Some answers to just about any bike forum post I’ve ever read"

No bike does everything perfectly. In fact, no bike does anything until someone gets on it to ride.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs Community Bicycling ]

Branch Cofounder Josh Miller Returning to NYC Because ‘San Francisco is Just Too Nice’

"The nature is too accessible, the architecture is too Victorian, and the weather is too perfect. The quality of life here is unrivaled. But I feel like I haven’t earned that yet. One day, I’ll bike across the bridge and meet my family at Mill Valley Beerworks."

[ related topics: Nature and environment Bay Area Sociology Beer California Culture Architecture Bicycling Woodworking ]

Comcast isn't counting streaming from their own network towards the Xfinity bandwidth cap. Via /..

[ related topics: broadband Video ]

Erika Christakis: A modest proposal: the case for fair trade porn

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Law ]

Beautiful data visualization: Animated map of current wind in the United States (wait for it to load). Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Animation Maps and Mapping ]

CBS New York: Exclusive: The Stunning JFK Airport Baggage Scandal; 200 Thefts Per Day — Sources: Baggage Handlers, Jetway Workers, Security All In On Ongoing Scam

[ related topics: Invention and Design Aviation History moron New York ]

The things we learn: I gave up NNTP and Usenet news for dead sometime circa 2000. Sure, I had a brief fling with an NNTP interface for Flutterby, and tossed it around as a better solution than RSS for blog syndication, but overall the spammer and "Eternal September" quotient got so high that newsgroups lost their value over a decade ago.

Thus it was rather surprising to me to find that ISPs not only go out of their way to host local Usenet servers, rather than simply buying subscriptions for their subscribers to EasyNews or another Usenet provider, and that this effort to transfer around and store amazing amounts of data, is that having these machines in an ISP's data center actually reduces external bandwidth use.

Huh?

Turns out there's a file format called "NZB", which is an XML based format for associating search terms and titles with a set of NNTP Message-ID records. There are people out there who have automated systems up to record off of broadcast or cable sources, post those video feeds encoded to Usenet newsgroups, and post the NZB files to various places (I haven't gone looking for them).

People looking for topical data could possibly BitTorrent this information, but a Torrent involves less anonymity and more external network traffic. So there are tools which grab those NZBs, download the (presumably MIME or UUencoded) NNTP messages, reconstruct the original files and present users with their TV shows.

Grist for the Dan & Todd bandwidth bet, and for thinking about broadcast vs on-demand network effects, and all sorts of ethics and legal issues discussions.

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Weblogs Technology and Culture Ethics Todd Gemmell broadband Law Current Events Television Net Culture Cryptography Video Clowns ]

Paste this up everywhere: Schneier on Security: Harms of Post-9/11 Airline Security

[ related topics: Weblogs Aviation Cryptography Archival ]

Project Sentry Gun, an open source automatic targeting and firing system.

[ related topics: Free Software Guns ]

The purpose of the university system, as with any guild, is to suppress productivity in order to keep prices high.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Education ]

Woman at the register just said "I'll take you right here!". Blush.

Judge rules, again, that blogger Crystal Cox is not a journalist. You know why? Because she ISN’T a journalist. Interesting essay on Oregon's journalist shield law, libel, extortion, and bloggers.

[ related topics: Writing Law Journalism and Media ]

Sometimes a MeFi entry says everything and has nothing to trim. So I'll steal it wholesale:

Back in September of 2011, a group of protesters from Defend Life, held a demonstration in front of Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, MD. The daughter of Todd Stave, the landlord for Reproductive Health Services in Germantown, attends this school. Todd Stave, no stranger to having protests targeted at him, decided to fight back. He founded the group Voice of Choice, to calmy call the people who call the homes of abortion providers and those with other connections to clinics. Their stated goal is to "[use] peaceful methods to neutralize those who use bullying tactics."

The take-away is the article on Todd Stave founding the group:

Soon after that, the harassing calls started coming to his home. By the dozens, at all hours. Friends asked him how they could help. He began to take down the names and phone numbers of people who made unwanted calls. And he gave the information to his friends and asked them to call these folks back.

“In a very calm, very respectful voice, they said that the Stave family thanks you for your prayers,” he said. “They cannot terminate the lease, and they do not want to. They support women’s rights.”

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Health Todd Gemmell Sociology Civil Liberties Furniture ]

Woohoo! I just won 3 pints of Petaluma's own @threetwins Ice Cream! (Yes, I can be bought. Cheap!): http://www.threetwinsicecream.com/

C. Glenn Begley, former head of global cancer research at Amgen, led a team to try to replicate 53 "landmark" cancer studies/publications, and they couldn't duplicate the results of 47 of them:

"It was shocking," said Begley, now senior vice president of privately held biotechnology company TetraLogic, which develops cancer drugs. "These are the studies the pharmaceutical industry relies on to identify new targets for drug development. But if you're going to place a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million bet on an observation, you need to be sure it's true. As we tried to reproduce these papers we became convinced you can't take anything at face value."

Via MeFi. Here's Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research, C. Glenn Begley & Lee M. Ellis, in Nature.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Health Invention and Design ]