Flutterby™! From 2013-10-01 to 2013-10-31

A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.:

Nacchio was convicted of selling of Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company hit financial troubles. However, he claimed in court documents that he was optimistic about the firm's ability to win classified government contracts — something they'd succeeded at in the past. And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract. He reportedly refused because his lawyers believed such an action would be illegal and the NSA wouldn't go through the FISA Court. And then, he says, unrelated government contracts started to disappear.

[ related topics: History moron Economics ]

Ugh. In that phase of the project where I need to sling CSS.

Really, Petaluma Transit driver? You're going to half pass a cyclist and then turn right? Catastrophe averted, but...

[ related topics: Public Transportation ]

What's more annoying than music played through tinny cell phone speakers? Hate based talk radio. The perils of bus stops...

[ related topics: Wireless Music Public Transportation ]

Sonoma County Transit 48X 15 minutes late, took it anyway because no sign of the Golden Gate Transit 80. Need real time bus info..

[ related topics: Bay Area Public Transportation ]

Ah Rodota Trail, the wood smoke in the air from the fires in the homeless camps..

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

Former Microsoft chief privacy adviser Caspar Bowden doesn't trust the company following NSA revelations:

"I don't trust Microsoft now," he said, adding that he only uses open source software where he can examine the underlying code. He also said he has not carried a mobile phone for two years.

[ related topics: Free Software Humor Privacy Microsoft Software Engineering moron ]

It's amusing how you can use "fully complies with the CAN-SPAM act" in an email as a reliable keyword to filter spam.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

Kinda liked this shadow from a reflection

[ related topics: Photography ]

Dear Samsung: I should not have to install software or root my phone to turn off the startup and shutdown sounds.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

Americans don't realize that "Obamacare" is the Affordable Care Act:

Now for the difference: 29 percent of the public supports Obamacare, compared with 22 percent who support ACA. Forty-six percent oppose Obamacare and 37 percent oppose ACA.

[ related topics: Health ]

Another ride, another motorist who tried to kill me, but for some reason today I'm shaking with rage. May the bus ride calm me down...

[ related topics: Public Transportation ]

Yes We Scan poster.. with a quote:

United we progress toward a perfectly monitored society

It's only missing some Fnords.

All the government APIs going dark are a good reminder that we should move data and compute as close to the users as possible.

[ related topics: moron ]

PBS Nova: For Safer Food, Just Add Viruses is about introducing phages to inhibit listeria in sausage making. The MeFi thread it spawned is worth reading if such things interest you.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Nature and environment Food ]

Yes, I am the sort of person who would follow the VXB bearings blog just to see all the cool applications that I haven't run into before.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Topless cyclist turning heads. Stacey Schnee has taken to riding around Leicester Massachusetts wearing pasties.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

The Leidenfrost effect is when a liquid on a hot surface traps the gas of the boiling liquid underneath, causing bubbles of the liquid to skitter around the hot surface. University of Bath students Carmen Cheng and Matthew Guy built a really cool maze using the Leidenfrost effect (YouTube).

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Movies Education ]

"Oh, no, we didn't collection location data"... NSA admits to collecting cell phone location data for 2 year "experiment".

[ related topics: Wireless ]

I'm shocked! Shocked! FBI seizes underground drug market Silk Road, owner indicted in New York. You may have seen this site as one of the "look what Bitcoins are good for!" applications.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Law Enforcement Fashion New York Economics ]

Why Petaluma's Ranier crossing project is fiscally irresponsible: http://northbaydesignkit.blogs...80219656046#c2793633336305770780

Product I want: locally hosted search engine limited to sites my friends blogs have linked to. And lets me forever filter out eHow & Wikihow

[ related topics: Machinery ]

Lunch-time, wandered down to Aqus and had some great conversations. Need to find those on days when I go in to work, too.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

http://copsinbikelanes.tumblr.com/

Jalopnik: This Is What Fiery Tesla Model S Death Looks Like.

ABC News: Police Lineups Need Overhaul, Study Says

“Mistaken eyewitness identification is the primary cause of the conviction of innocent people,” said Dr. Gary Wells of Iowa State University. “If you look at, for example, DNA exoneration cases where DNA came along and was used to test claims of innocence…three out of every four of those exonerations are cases of mistaken identification.”

Basically, if you show the witness everyone at once, they'll pick out the person who looks most like the perpetrator. If you show them people individually and say "is that the perpetrator?" you'll get a yes or a no, but are far less likely to get a false positive.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events Law Enforcement Education ]

NSA director admits to lying about terror plots: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/0...sleading_public_on_terror_plots/

[ related topics: Salon magazine ]

AnalogOne, a wood framed bicycle at LumberJocks.

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling Woodworking ]

A2 square dancing at the Redwood Rainbows commencement

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

Today, several days after your "shutdown", I get two pieces of physical mail, delivered via the postal service from you.

• A large card telling me I can buy stamps on eBay at http://allstamps.ebay.com
• Another large card (openable this time) from FEMA, telling me I live near a flood zone and should consider flood insurance.

This makes me sad, because you wasted a lot of money on postage, paper and printing to tell a guy that is many hundreds of feet above the Tennessee river that he lives near a flood zone. When our house floods, no insurance companies will exist either. eBay could have told me about the postage for much less money.

This is my problem with all of this "digital surveillence": You can't use the easy information and technology effectively how do you think you will use the complex deep data? Or keep it from being mis-used, lost, mis-apprpriated, or jumbled up in potentially (to me) bad ways?

Please Unkle Sam, work smarter and stop wasting our money. Especially when you "run out" while mailing inane materials.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Chattanooga Currency Real Estate ]

Android Bootstrap - generating android app boilerplate.

Mountain biking and blind jumps (YouTube). Don't overdrive your sight lines...

[ related topics: Movies Bicycling Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Ask smart people about Hyperloop, get an education in their discipline about why that was a poorly thought out proposal. Cool!

[ related topics: Education ]

Edward Snowden’s E-Mail Provider Defied FBI Demands to Turn Over Crypto Keys, Documents Show:

In an interesting work-around, Levison complied the next day by turning over the private SSL keys as an 11 page printout in 4-point type. The government, not unreasonably, called the printout “illegible.”

I don't know what Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is doing next, but I think I'll be a customer.

[ related topics: Spam moron Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Cryptography ]

Give me $2.5B/year and let me put cameras in your bedroom or pink elephants will overrun America. Why not? It's working for Keith Alexander.

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

http://rockpaperrobot.com/ makes a maglev table. Video at https://vimeo.com/51625557 shows a set of wood blocks held apart by magnets.

The tables are acclaimed for their capricious, yet sturdy disposition.

Via http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/10/maglev-table/ in which Ben observes that:

What I look for in a table is something that will erase my credit cards and that I can't sit a drink on.

[ related topics: Weblogs Television Video Furniture Woodworking ]

Joining the tobacco companies' campaign against cancer research and the paint companies' campaigns against research into the impacts of lead paint on our environment, a new book, League of Denial, claims that the NFL fought to suppress science linking American football and the dangers of concussions.

[ related topics: Books Nature and environment Invention and Design Sports ]

Using AirDroid to load podcasts on my phone, because apparently the Android 4/Samsung Galaxy S4 MTP implementation is an abomination.

Peter Suber has a good look at John Bohannon's article about open access journals in Science Magazine.

Via MeFi.

I run Xubuntu, so I haven't run into the horrors of Unity on Ubuntu Linux, but... http://fixubuntu.com/

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

Just saw an announcement for "An Introduction to Penetration Testing" class, and thought "don't test that, ask for enthusiastic consent!"

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

most disturbing thing about 20 years since the Battle of Mogadishu: that the U.S. intelligence community apparently learned nothing from it.

[ related topics: Community ]

RT Evan Light ‏@elight

Considering starting a support group for techies with terminally ill SOs. Ping me via contact info at http://tripledogdare.net .

I've been following Evan on Twitter and on his podcast, and if you're in those circumstances, caregiver for an SO, I think he'll be a great core of a strong helpful resource.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Hey, go watch my good friend Phil's presentation to the NASA Asteroid Initiative Workshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INBt1iLJk_Q

[ related topics: Movies Space & Astronomy Astronomy ]

A Sonoma County bail bonds guy muses on California giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants: An Accidental Alchemist: Drivers Licenses for Undocumented Aliens

[ related topics: California Culture Economics ]

Punk band Get Shot! films porn film on the lawn in front of Westboro Baptist Church:

“ The Phelps family and Westboro Baptist Church are ridiculous and do nothing except spread hate and cause controversy. As a bisexual woman and the bass player of a ridiculous punk band, I wanted to spread my legs and cause controversy.” - Laura Lush, Get Shot!

Video is here: http://www.xvideos.com/video59...32/westboro_baptist_finger_bang_

Via Gawker.

[ related topics: Religion Music Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology Video ]

What if you were the evil villain in a Power Rangers™-like universe, and didn't know it? Rolling Bomber Special (YouTube)

(Via MeFi)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies ]

NSA copied EFF document explaining Tor into presentation, classified it Top Secret.

[ related topics: Free Speech Net Culture ]

Association for Psychological Science Past President Elizabeth Loftus, University of California, Irvine, gives a TED talk on false memory.

Via.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality History California Culture Education ]

Kayaking down a drainage ditch (YouTube).

[ related topics: Movies ]

How do we know that the war on drugs has been a failure? A man attempted to pay his Deltona Florida water bill with crack cocaine, because apparently if you have that stuff it's so valueless that you just can't convert it to cash.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Health History Current Events ]

http://www.wimp.com/rockingchair/ Awesome hand hewn (no power tools or nails) rocking chair.

[ related topics: Furniture ]

cell phone nannying me about the volume of my headphones, turned up so I can hear my podcasts over the passing traffic. #carculture

[ related topics: Wireless ]

Mount Diablo summit

[ related topics: Photography ]

Creepy crawly thing

[ related topics: Photography ]

Hangin' by the river

[ related topics: Photography ]

Go go security theater! 9 year old runaway flies from Minneapolis to Las Vegas without a ticket after spending a day messing with luggage and airport staff. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/06/us/vegas-flight-child/index.html

The same story at http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/226665421.html which I got Via JWZ.

[ related topics: Aviation Theater & Plays Gambling ]

Now it becomes clear: The moderate GOP is using the Tea Party as a smokescreen to funnel Social Security to defense contactors.

Shadow forwarded along this article about Georgia Rep. Carl Rogers, R- Hall County, pushing to tax bicyclists and put license plates on bicycles.

Larry points to the cosponsors, Lee Hawkins (R-27th) and Emory Dunahoo (R-30th), and notes that they're also proposing that cyclists always ride single file in groups of no more than 4.

I... I... I don't even know where to start.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs Current Events Pedal Power Bicycling ]

The Kwiggle Bike is a cute little folding bicycle with 8" wheels that folds down to almost nothing. Via.

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

• New York Review of Books: The Shame of Our Prisons: New Evidence, which looks at Bureau of Justice Statistics publications Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12: National Inmate Survey, 2011–12 and Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2012: National Survey of Youth in Custody, 2012, and points out that the vast majority of those who commit prison rape are staff. (Via Reason)
• Appeals Courts Give Misbehaving Prosecutors The Privilege Of Anonymity, in which it is noted that prosecutors who are found by the courts to have committed misconduct have their names kept secret by those courts. And this doesn't count the prosecutors whose lies aren't challenged and uncovered.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Invention and Design Law Enforcement Mathematics New York Archival ]

And here's a bar graph, we're hoping you don't notice that the units are different. No numbers, lest you call "hogwash" on our sources..

If you're a police officer gonna get involved in a sex scandal, the last name "Beavers" is ill-advised: Darrell Beavers, Cincinnati police officer indicted on charges involving nude photos of teen, fake substation

In an interview with 9 On Your Side's Jay Warren, apartment manager Marti Burcham said Beavers approached her earlier this year and asked if she would like a substation.

For Burcham, the thought of extra police security was a no-brainer.

"Two weeks later, he came back and said, 'yes, we were approved’ and we had to furnish an apartment and the electricity," Burcham said.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Cool Science History Nudity Current Events Law Enforcement Pop Culture Real Estate ]

it's a good thing to think of the children first thing in the morning, get that out of the way so I'm not misled by bad policy arguments

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Fusion breaks even - but what happens when "magnetic containment" is lost? We can't eject the warp core into space. Awesome event for science. Just wary.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Space & Astronomy Current Events Monty Python ]

To meet some contract requirements, I've installed the Oracle MySQL Enterprise Monitor to monitor some systems, provide an IT manager a pretty dashboard. The agent for the servers, and the "monitor server" require Java. They install Tomcat (java server) as part of the process. Sigh.. My idling server load is way up and I feel like I need a bath. At least this server won't be on a public network. It is pretty, and I can see why a pointy haired IT manager type would love the minions monitoring this. Lots of dashboard charts and metrics. It belongs on a big screen next to CNN and the weather channel, with a few xterms tailing log files in a very small font.

[ related topics: broadband Open Source Software Engineering Typography Graphic Design Databases ]

Via /.: Business Insider reports on mysterious electrical surges, shutdowns and damages inside the NSA's new data center. Similar article at Ars Technica and IT World article.

Total uninformed speculation: Wonder if this is a reverse Stuxnet attack... Or, since this is an NSA operation getting coverage, a false-flag reverse...

Kieran Healey looks at The Chronicle of Higher Education reporting on a new ranking of “Faculty Media Impact” conducted by the Center for a Public Anthropology. Keiran notes:

... As you can see from the screenshot above, the ranking found that the top unit at MIT was the Sociology Department. This is fantastic news in terms of impact, because MIT doesn’t actually have a Sociology Department. While we’ve known for a while that quantitative rankings can have interesting reactive effects on the entities they rank, we are clearly in new territory here.

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Current Events Journalism and Media Graphics Education Archival ]

Applying government shutdown logic to the baseball playoffs: Shut down Major League Baseball until the Braves are declared winners of that game with the Dodgers...

[ related topics: Games moron Sports ]

So there's this incident in New York City where... the initial reports I've read vary, apparently a whole bunch of motorcyclists were riding around a family in an SUV, one of the riders was struck by the SUV at which point the motorcyclists blocked the roadway. The driver of the SUV spooked and attempted to escape, was chased, the motorcyclists attacked the SUV, pulled the driver clear and beat him. NY Times: After Motorcyclist Is Struck, Driver Is Pulled From S.U.V. and Beaten, the Police Say.

And now the story starts to come out: One of the attackers of the SUV, who is seen on video shattering the back window, was an undercover police officer. Less damning version of the story at the NY Post, although that story was apparently written before all the video became public. And, that latter source being the NY Post (For you non-New Yorkers, the first link I saw was the Daily Mail version of the story, which I definitely wouldn't link to, and I kinda put the Post in the same category...), they also managed to get the most inflammatory quotes possible...

[ related topics: Quotes Humor Invention and Design Sociology Current Events Law Enforcement New York Video Bicycling Woodworking ]

That thing where the USAA rep's tone of voice changes when I use the International NATO Phonetic Alphabet rather than whatever words come to mind

Among other things we're playing with in the shop, this is destined to be a puzzle for Amanda

[ related topics: Photography ]

Great, not only does YellowPagesOptOut.com not work, we're getting spam about it from @ZipLocal asking us to reply, w/a bad return address.

[ related topics: Spam Work, productivity and environment Monty Python ]

Nothing terribly new in EFF: How The NSA Deploys Malware: An In-Depth Look at the New Revelations, but I thought it interesting that the EFF is now doing a full-court press to get you to run ad blockers and install things like Click to Play per-element (Firefox) or use the native Chrome/Chromium tools to do the same.

I have long said that JavaScript is a tool of the devil, and I still believe that, but a big concentrated push could get us back to a web where we have reasonable fallbacks to non-JavaScript web-based applications again. That'd be pretty damned cool...

[ related topics: Open Source Free Speech Invention and Design ]

Transit data OTD:

• Marin Transit monthly monitoring reports.
• Golden Gate Transit transportation committee reports.
• National Transit Database.

In case, like me, you occasionally find yourself wondering "what's the fare box recovery and passenger miles per gallon of that bus route?"

[ related topics: Bay Area Law Databases Public Transportation ]

Sigh: Saw the "don't parse HTML/XML with regex" question again: http://stackoverflow.com/quest...except-xhtml-self-contained-tags

The first answer was cute, but I was reminded that anyone who thinks you can parse HTML or XML without doing some serious regex fix-up first has never actually used any XML or HTML in the wild, where the parser answer is almost always "this isn't valid XML and I can't deal with it, sorry!", and can just ST-right-the-FU.

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Woodworking ]

The New Yorker: How Lavabit Melted Down. Interesting look at the various back-and-forths between Lavabit founder Ladar Levison and the FBI. Looks like the fight wasn't over tapping the unnamed-but-presumably-Edward-Snowden suspect, it was about blanket access to keys which would have given the FBI access to all Lavabit mail, trusting them to filter just for the target.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Enforcement ]

Stored here for the next person who posts that stupid Ashley Dionne "Obamacare has 'raped my future'" letter:

Kaiser Family Foundation subsidy calculator for the Affordable Care Act for a 21 year old living in Michigan with an income of $8/hr at 32 hours a week. Her premiums actually go from her claimed current of $75/month to a subsidized $22.34 a month, not $319 a month, although the max out of pocket could be as high as $2,250 a year, but definitely not a $6,000 deductible.

The Affordable Care Act isn't perfect, but it is a step towards getting the freeloaders insured. And even if we can't get our healthcare outcomes generally up towards those of the rest of the world, it'd be nice if we can get the portion that we pay to cover the currently under and uninsured down to something closer to reasonable.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Sociology Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Gambling hubris ]

Bug: Government occasionally shuts down - Issue #3 https://github.com/WhiteHouse/fortyfour/issues/3

ceejayoz commented:

We could probably reassign this back to

And

shelleyp commented

Don't write the bug report unless you're willing to work on the patch...

[ related topics: Photography moron Work, productivity and environment ]

Susan Kitchens went to see Eric Schlosser talk about Command and Control, his new book about nuclear weapons and their mishaps:

And this: The author got his information through many many FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. He said he could make out some of the censored material by comparing documents. He had two copies of the same document, each with blacked out portions made by different censors. He was able to find out what was censored. Was it information pertaining to the safety of the nation? Safeguarding some nuclear secret? No, the censorship was there to protect the nuclear security bureaucracy from embarrassment.

There should be criminal penalties for that. Because that, exactly that, is also what much of this NSA bullshit is about.

And Schlosser's book also looks worth a read.

[ related topics: Books Privacy Movies Free Speech Invention and Design Civil Liberties Guns Government ]

Tee hee hee:

meladoodle: me after sex: hey how much exp did i just earn

nooktoobomb: not enough but that’s okay we can just keep level grinding

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Interestng: Karma WiFi Hotspot, from $99 with a gigabyte included, $279 with 20 gigabytes, $14 for additional gigabytes. Uses the Clearwire (Sprint?) 4G network, and a cursory look doesn't show coverage anywhere I'd want to use it, but what's really fascinating is...

According to Popular Science: Karma Review: Finally, A Wi-Fi Hotspot That Isn't Trying To Screw You, if someone else is in range they can connect, they're asked to log in using Facebook (without posting privileges), and they get 100MB free and you get an additional 100MB free. So whatever demographic data they're grabbing from your Facebook login is worth $2.80 to them...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama broadband Journalism and Media Marketing ]

I don't wanna out him or nothin', but our very own Meuon is featured in From Jamaican Streetlights to Kilowatt Currency, on Utiliflex which provides solution for pay-as-you-go electric metering.

[ related topics: Currency Energy Monitoring ]

It May Get Easier to Air Condition Your Exurban California McMansion. Not content with subsidizing the rest of the infrastructure necessary to maintain the suburban sprawl heading inland, California AB 327 looks to put a fixed infrastructure charge on our electric bills, thereby subsidizing those who choose to live in places where it's more expensive to maintain the grid, ie: new low density developments.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Theater & Plays California Culture ]

I wonder if anyone's realized that clicking "Skip this ad" on YouTube after 5 seconds is an indication that you're engaged, and not off in another tab waiting for the spew to end...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

LaRae Meadows has a good run-down of how "appropriate" becomes a weasel word when implementing policy:

If you are ever reading policy and you see the word appropriate, just substitute the outcome that would be most convenient for the person having to live by it.

LaRae is active in foster parenting situations, and having been through the system as a foster child has a very different view of that world than me. My exposure has been almost entirely to foster parents who are very engaged. This is apparently not universal.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays ]

"...Get on up / Stay on the scene / Get on up / Like a FAX machine..." <--- I hate my brain sometimes.

Deriving collective nouns from Twitter: http://all-sorts.org/

http://all-sorts.org/what_is_this

[ related topics: Language ]

University of Florida researchers find that ‘peanut butter’ test can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Patients with Alzheimers were less sensitive to the smell of peanut butter in their left nostril than their right one.

[ related topics: Current Events Education ]

Careful using Bing if you're on Windows: Some ads are delivering malware. http://thenextweb.com/insider/...ing-malware-security-firm-finds/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

Scientific American: You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential

One of my first clients was a little boy w/ PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Delays-Not Otherwise Specified), a mild form of autism. When we began therapy, his IQ was tested and scored in the low 80s—which is considered borderline mental retardation. After I worked with him for about three years— one on one, teaching in areas such as communication, reading, math, social functioning, play skills, leisure activities—using multimodal techniques [pdf] —he was retested. His IQ score was well over 100 (with 100 considered "average", as compared to the general population). That’s a 20 point increase, more than one standard deviation improvement, by a child with an autism spectrum disorder!

Basically, it boils down to: Continue to find new challenges, and pursue them.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs Invention and Design Journalism and Media Mathematics Education ]

Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who introduced the PATRIOT Act to the House, calls for the prosecution of James Clapper, head of the NSA:

"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution," said the congressman.

Of course we have to ask WTF he thought was going to happen with the PATRIOT Act...

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

Tara Calishain has a new blog: http://metriestowork.com/

I've enjoyed http://researchbuzz.me/ , but I think http://metriestowork.com/ is more up my alley.

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design ]

I have often thought it interesting the way that "guilty" and "innocent" are legal states, in a way curiously disconnected from whether or not the person in question in fact did the thing they are accused of, and even then only as those actions are filtered through the legal process.

Turns out "dead" is also such curious legal state: Man who appeared in court is "legally dead", judge says:

Donald Eugene Miller Jr. was declared dead in 1994, eight years after he disappeared from his home in Arcadia, the Courier reports. On Monday, Judge Allan Davis of Hancock County said Miller is still legally dead because a death ruling cannot be changed after three years have passed. UPI and Yahoo News noted the story.

Dude apparently went on an 8 year bender and disappeared, is trying to be declared "not dead" so he can get a driver's license and reinstate his Social Security number, but this raises questions about the death benefits for his children, and...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Law Current Events Beer ]

I don't run AdBlock because I like the reminders that my demographic is sought after by mortgage brokers, penis enlargers, and poop perfume.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Marketing ]

Just hit me: we complain about vertical format video because we aren't watching it on our tablets or phones. Yet.

[ related topics: Video ]

Must-read: Katharine Viner, deputy editor of The Guardian: The rise of the reader: journalism in the age of the open web:

I was recently conducting a job interview for a Guardian role, and I asked the interviewee, who had worked only in print journalism, how he thought he'd cope working in digital news. In reply he said, "Well, I've got a computer. I've been using computers for years."

His answer was funny, but also revealing: clearly he believed that digital is just a technological development; just a new kind of word processing. In fact, digital is a huge conceptual change, a sociological change, a cluster bomb blowing apart who we are and how our world is ordered, how we see ourselves, how we live. It's a change we're in the middle of, so close up that sometimes it's hard to see. But it is deeply profound and it is happening at an almost unbelievable speed.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Theater & Plays Current Events Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Heinlein ]

Wait, the talking heads calling for Syria intervention were defense contractor shills? This is my surprised face. http://public-accountability.o...of-interest-in-the-syria-debate/

Via Metafilter.

Okay, these are awesome: Mammo-grahams for breast cancer awareness month.

Pause, for a moment, from the absurdities of the debt limit rhetoric, and realize that these people have been making our laws for years now.

[ related topics: Government ]

Stuck in a maze of Perl inheritance hierarchies, trying to figure out how to extract XML from a SOAP call under 4 layers of abstraction #sob

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Perl Open Source hubris ]

Told that it's National Coming Out day, which means y'all can assume that I'm not hitting on you mainly because I'm monogamous. Sorry.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Skinvestigation claim: Detective gets 130 lap dances, makes no arrests. For some reason apparently the FBI, a national law enforcement agency, is going after prostitution in some Seattle strip clubs:

Tvedt also alleged that one undercover detective visited Talents West clubs more than 160 times during the investigation, paying somewhere between $16,835 and $18,170 to the clubs. The officer, Tvedt claimed, received "over 130 documented VIP dances and an undetermined additional number of undocumented dances."

Those dances, she claimed, did not prompt a single arrest.

Kinda gives an answer to what law enforcement is really going after when they make a big noise about wanting to clamp down on "trafficking".

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Enforcement Seattle ]

Charlene got a gift card, so we're sure a Starbucks, where there's a recent issue of North Bay Bohemian opened to an article on Acre Coffee

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Charlene and I have decided that "Oh man!" is the singular of "amen".

And are "Sippy Cups" named after Mrs. Sippy?

I like projects that can be done without a hardware store run by raiding the parts box...

[ related topics: Photography ]

I did a hand-dovetailed box, but I think the tray milled from a solid block works better.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Putting the California prop 65 warning on your allegedly chewable-toy-safe wood dye does not inspire confidence.

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture Woodworking ]

All you folks complaining about Google+ using your profile info next to ads know that you can upload your own pictures, right?

[ related topics: Photography ]

Looking South

[ related topics: Photography ]

Playing with food coloring as a wood dye...

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Alex Howard: How The First Internet President Produced The Government’s Biggest, Highest-Stakes Internet Failure.

Yep. I've done various government work over the years, for companies who were contracted through Booz, because they're the ones who can jump through all of the acquisitions paperwork.

[ related topics: moron Work, productivity and environment Net Culture ]

Reverse engineering a D-Link Backdoor. Short version? Set your browser's user agent to "xmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtide", there's a good chance you can log in to your recent DLink device without needing the admin password.

But the "how he found it" is a good read.

Another pic from yesterday

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Embedded Devices ]

So the BART strike is delayed, but we don't have any idea by how long? There's a public transit joke in here somewhere...

[ related topics: Trains Public Transportation ]

The most amusing thing about this $60 Banks stunt is how art nerds still seem to not see how they're being trolled.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

Wow. Tapping your wrist to signal asking for the time is an artifact of a pre-cellphone epoch...

Neil Irwin in the Washington Post: What’s happening in the Treasury bill market today should terrify you.

Or: Short-term T-bill rates are skyrocketing because of the shutdown. Big ol' serious "duh", and it's amazing how much money the "fiscal conservatives" are costing us all. Bastards.

[ related topics: Currency Economics ]

Been a while since I re-read 14th Amendment. Re Section 2: why don't we tie the number of representatives to voter turn-out/# of votes cast?

RT Stephanie McMaster ‏@Smethanie:

They should make piñatas shaped like Native Americans for those who want to celebrate Columbus Day authentically.

RT Columbina ‏@EccentricFlower:

Y'all need to read this. No, really. http://www.avclub.com/articles...f-fifty-shades-of-grey-l,104172/

The Onion: Charlie Hunnam pulls out of Fifty Shades Of Grey, leaving it begging to be filled.

And that, friends, is how you write a movie casting story.

[ related topics: Movies Food ]

"Hey vendor, how come these numbers are wrong?" "Well, when we use the test version, numbers are different. The API is working as designed."

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

I don't mind the occasional leaky abstraction, it's when they spew like a dropped firehose that I grumble. Consider sprintf SOAP generation.

That new "Common Core" standards set that's essentially a mandate to make more school districts buy Pearson company standardized tests and other curriculum products? Yeah, one of the side effects is that elementary students learn keyboard typing ahead of new Common Core tests. The picture is great: Kids staring at screens, mouse in hand, with headphones on. The writing tests happen in third grade, but the basic computer skills stuff apparently is happening as early as kindergarten.

“Writing is a critical skill, and young students should have the opportunity to write frequently about meaningful topics,” Slover said. And when the writing tests are administered online, that means the students will be using a keyboard.

So this period where students should be interacting and exploring the world and we set 'em down in front of boxes and walk away. Dismal.

Related: Penn State University: Too much homework can be counterproductive. Yep! Kids should have time to do self-directed exploration.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Invention and Design Writing Education ]

Sure, there have been 42 failed votes to kill the ACA, but how many times are @SenFeinstein and @SaxbyChambless going to try with CISPA?

Currently fighting the difference between <tag></tag> and <tag/> (want to send the latter) in Perl SOAP::WSDL. Sob.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Relevant to an entry at Larry's blog about suppression of creativity, I read Ask MeFi: Who said "culture is the rulership of the dead over the living"? and saw this from G.K. Chesterton.

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

[ related topics: Weblogs Sociology California Culture Woodworking ]

Rebel Metropolis: It's Time to Stop Sharing the Road. A bicyclist call to arms.

The burden of mortality is always on the person riding a bike, yet the burden of responsibility for killing or maiming a person with a car virtually never falls on the driver. If that pisses you off, it’s time to start acting like it. We’ve come to a point where all the soft-ball pitching of our needs has failed to deliver streets that are safer. Asking for permission to ride without fear doesn’t work – motorists don’t care, or they can’t hear you. It’s time to start adopting principles of two-wheeled liberation.

BBC: Apes comfort each other 'like humans'.

Kyle Misner on Facebook: "Apes don't have liquor stores and vacant lots. #badscience"

[ related topics: Nature and environment Current Events Monty Python ]

Dear advertisers: How can I help you get my personal impression to conversion rate to 1? (and no, this does not mean me buying more stuff)

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

The Twitter Android app keeps giving me a big "Trending: TV. View Related Tweets" button. They have the data, they should know me better.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Television ]

Signs of Aging: Woot has a Razor RipStik for $30 today, and I didn't jump on the chance to learn how to ride a 2 wheel skateboard.

Given the lack of Salt Lake City jazz traditions, why aren't they called the Utah 3.2%? Or something else in-line with the state?

Yay! Broker's open house at the newly refurbished 12 Mission next door!

[ related topics: Photography Real Estate ]

Lisa Congdon: My Art Was Stolen for Profit (and How You Can Help) - wholesale holiday decorations company "Cody Foster" ripped off Lisa.

[ related topics: Weblogs Art & Culture ]

RT Christopher Moore ‏@TheAuthorGuy

Woman removed from House for yelling crazy Jesusy shit. Whoa, gonna be a lot of empty seats if that's a thing now. http://www.sfgate.com/news/pol...g-vote-escorted-away-4902293.php

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Current Events Real Estate ]

Russian email provider fined after refusing to give up customer data. In other words, Mail.ru cares more about customer privacy and government intervention than U.S. telecom providers.

Via Larry's Log, among other places.

[ related topics: Privacy Weblogs moron ]

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[ related topics: Privacy Weblogs moron ]

TSA admits in a leaked document that there is no evidence of terrorist plots against aviation in the United States. But we're still gonna keep the security theatre firehose turned solidly on.

[ related topics: Cool Science Aviation Theater & Plays ]

Via Shadow: imgur: I design and make furniture that's held together completely by tension... What do you think?.

Cool work, and I found some of the comments amusing...

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Graphic Design ]

Yes, I had to create a custom SOAP serializer to prove that the solution suggested by API support doesn't actually work. #gaaaah

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

DropzoneJS is an open source library that provides drag'n'drop file uploads with image previews.

[ related topics: Language Free Software Books ]

Fuuuu... 48x is nearly half an hour late, and bike rack is full. Waiting on 48. Need to find a way to commute less.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing carved out of wood.

At an asking price of €5,850 I'm seriously wondering what chassis has a similar wheelbase, because...

[ related topics: Automobiles Woodworking ]

Disney Queens:

"So, there’s a Disney Princess line…There should be a Disney Queens thing too?"

Me: By golly, you’re RIGHT! I must rectify this post haste! *draws the above piece*

"Wait, what? NO!! I meant, like, the Queen of Hearts or the Evil Queen from Snow White. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

Me: You mean what is RIGHT with me. :3

[ related topics: Art & Culture Race ]

Catherine the Great's erotic furniture.

Via.

[ related topics: Erotic Home Improvement ]

I want to forever banish the phrase "a recent study". Cite it, or GTFO.

So the current media drug scare of the moment is this "imported from Russia" drug "krokodil" that, if you believe the headlines, is allegedly causing people to turn up in emergency rooms with their skin falling off. No links, because it's largely the product of bored news directors trying to find something to run, and probably an "anti-drug" organization finding that they need a new moral panic to keep the funding sources flowing.

Yeah, if you have people synthesizing desomorphine from codeine using strong alkalis, and things like gasoline and red phosphorous, trying to determine the end of the reaction by scent and visual observation, and then injecting it without sterile equipment, you can get necrotizing fasciitis, MRSA and other nasty infections. Go figure.

Anyway, International Journal of Drug Policy: Breaking worse: The emergence of krokodil and excessive injuries among people who inject drugs in Eurasia, Grundemail, Latypov, and Harris (2013) if you want to know more about it.

Via a Metatalk.MetaFilter thread talking about how user "gingerbeer"s comments in a thread were what made the thread keeping around, starting with this comment.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Health Ethics Invention and Design Current Events Journalism and Media Douglas Adams ]

Another from Shadow: Twisted Bookshelves. I think I've seen this design before, and I'm not too keen on his final finish, but it's cool to see the construction pictures.

[ related topics: Photography Graphic Design Machinery Fabrication Model Building ]

The British Home Office sent 40k texts which read "Message from the UK Border Agency. You are required to leave the UK as you no longer have right to remain." and, of course, many of those who got the texts were in the nation legally, some were citizens.

I can't help but thinking that in the way that Germany seems to be interested in going out of its way to be not Nazi, that the Brits kinda think they get a free pass for having been not Nazi...

[ related topics: Current Events ]

WaPo article on Health Quality Partners, a Medicare trial program that's having amazing outcomes by just having regular in-home nurse visits to elderly patients "If this was a pill, you'd do anything to get it":

This, too, is a legacy of a health system built for acute care. Hospitals make money when they do more to patients. They lose money when their beds are empty. Put simply, Health Quality Partners makes hospitals lose money. “There’s no doubt that it’s a hit to the bottom line,” says Rich Reif, the former CEO of Doylestown Hospital, which worked with HQP.

But there's lots more in there, it's worth reading the whole thing, and don't miss the graph.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Software Engineering Currency Furniture ]

I have been watching all of the new watch start-ups flow by and been thinking "who cares?" I have a watch which I can interface to and reprogram the firmware of, and which has cool sensors, and it sits unused. The cell phone is fine for telling time, and does more cool stuff.

But this? Kickstarter for an Oscilloscope Watch.

[ related topics: Wireless Movies Invention and Design ]

The Atlantic: Are Private Schools Worth It? is an interview with authors Sarah and Christopher Lubienski, authors of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools.

Studying the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, they have found that, when controlling for demographic factors, public schools are doing a better job academically than private schools. It seems that private school students have higher scores because they come from more affluent backgrounds, not because the schools they attend are better educational institutions.

Someone in my Facebook feed today had one of those someecards pictures with a quote attributed to Joseph Sobran: "In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greein high school to teaching Remedial English in college." I suspect we can probably attribute this change to the fact that we're sending more kids through high school and into college, and most of the actual learning is either innate or taught at home.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books Photography Heinlein Marketing Education ]

Storing this Men's Wearhouse - The Walk of Fame commercial here because there are some many times I want to point to the ephemeral nature of fashion, and how how whatever's trendy right now will inevitably be superceded.

Blue jeans and command lines never go out of style, though.

[ related topics: Movies Nature and environment Consumerism and advertising Fashion ]

So the real lesson isn't that the EPA found a 16 year old can of soup in its refrigerators during the shutdown:

From the e-mail: “During the shutdown, we made every effort to water accessible plants. And of necessity, the refrigerators were emptied of all perishable foodstuffs last week. The oldest food found? A can of Campbell’s soup dated 1997! So, please remember it is everyone’s responsibility to keep the refrigerators clean.”

it's that... wait a minute... is a 16 year old refrigerator Energy Star compliant?

Via SFGate.

[ related topics: Spam Food Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters Gardening ]

Hackers demonstrate how Apple's iMessage surveillance flaw lets them not only read messages, but intercept and change them. Apple attempted some ass-covering:

However, in a statement to AllThingsD, Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said: "iMessage is not architected to allow Apple to read messages. The research discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so."

but apparently there are demonstrations actively exploiting those "theoretical vulnerabilities".

Here's Quarkslab's page on the Apple iMessage exploit

[ related topics: Apple Computer Video ]

I got side tracked after reading a WAPO article Dan linked to and was reading another article on Yelp reviews of Prisons. Something in the article hit a nerve, completely unrelated to the article. Stephen Whitmore, spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, stated:

"You’re doing time for committing a crime."

I suspect that's a common perception held by prison administrators. But people in prison are "doing time" due to a change in legal status. That change in status is not actually due to the commission of a crime. Rather, it's the result of a legal proceeding.

[ related topics: Erotic Law Archival ]

git pull origin hamster

One of the issues that any serious student of Objectivism eventually struggles with is the notion of truth as force. If I deliberately lie to you, I'm using force. So what happens if I withhold information? Is that force too? Misrepresent information?

National Journal: The Truthiness of Rand Paul:

"Actually, I do," said the ophthalmologist-turned-senator, who stays sharp (and keeps his license) by doing pro bono eye surgeries during congressional breaks. "I never, ever cheated. I don't condone cheating. But I would sometimes spread misinformation. This is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important."

Also interesting that he very much espouses a zero-sum winners and losers game rather than a cooperative winners and winners game.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Objectivism Games ]

Yes, it's the NY Post, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble finding good links for a republication of this press release (and it's clearly a release), but: Gal finds success as a male model.

Here's Elliot Sailors' Facebook page.

Basically, woman with successful modelling career realizes she's aging out, gets a butch hair cut and starts showing up for casting calls which want men.

And a little eyebrow raise for those of us who look at much mainstream portrayal of masculinity and think "that's kinda femmy"...

David Levinson has a neat set of posts on why and how people don't take the shortest routes when they drive. Starting at Transportationist: People and their Paths 1: Do People Take the Shortest Path?.

In Transportationist: People and their Paths 4: Time and its Mis-perception, I'd also like to see some data on modal changes and how that impacts perception of time on public transit.

[ related topics: Public Transportation ]

RT bruce lawson ‏@brucel:

Yes, yes Java updater "3 billon devices run java". 14 million people have syphills, too, but that doesn't mean I want it.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

Signs you're a woodworker: see "100 olive trees felled in West Bank", think "I hope that lumber doesn't go to waste!"

[ related topics: Nature and environment Woodworking ]

When did "relaxed fit" come to mean "I have testicles"?

[ related topics: Erotic ]

Anti-news: Internal TSA Documents: Body Scanners, Pat Downs Not For Terrorists.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Oglaf is usually extremely NSFW, but today's is safe, and I giggled: http://oglaf.com/assorted-fruits/

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

Disturbing number of new Mercedes showing up for the open house next door. Didn't think this neighborhood could gentrify any further...

[ related topics: Invention and Design Automobiles Real Estate ]

Working towards calling a square dance singing tip for the Oct 8 November 9 disco dance fundraiser. Will be completely sick of Anita Ward shortly.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

ACLU posting about outrage over a naked statue demonstrates Facebook censorship: https://www.aclu.org/blog/tech...ls-one-thing-facebook-censorship

Via Eros Blog: Pornocalypse comes for the ACLU.

[ related topics: Weblogs Free Speech Nudity ]

Krebs on Security: Experian Sold Consumer Data to ID Theft Service.

Yeah, as you suspected, security theft isn't just shady Russian web sites, it's also the same people who are trying to sell you "identity theft protection services" out of the other side of their mouths.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

Michelle L'amour performs "BUTTHOVEN'S 5TH SYMPHONY"

Via, and described by Cosmopolitan: Burlesque Dancer Twerks To Beethoven, Which Is As Amazing As It Sounds.

[ related topics: Current Events Burlesque ]

That seething rage where you discover that CPAN code is just quietly dropping the critical parameter in the API abstraction.

[ related topics: Perl ]

RT Jay Ashworth ‏@_Baylink

Android owners smarter, less gullible than iPhone owners - FB Ads On iPhone 1,790% More Profitable Than On Android: http://google.com/producer/s/CBIw3JKlsAM …

[ related topics: iPhone ]

LumberJocks member "Shipwright" goes to Paris to visit St. George & Co, a veneer sawyer. The money shot is this YouTube video of the veneer saw in action. Man that looks like the sort of shop from another era that you could lose a limb or two in...

[ related topics: Weblogs Movies Currency Video Woodworking ]

Whoah, is this the tipping point? Netflix passes HBO in subscribers.

Netflix has 31 million subscribers, HBO 29 million.

[ related topics: Dan and Todd's Bandwidth Bet ]

Melissa Hunter's YouTube feed has episodes of Adult Wednesday Addams.

"Attention to detail is a primary quality I look for in an accomplice."

"You mean... a boyfriend?"

"Semantics."

[ related topics: virus ]

Gawker: My Life With The Thrill-Clit Cult:

This was the first night of OMXperience, a three-day August conference meant to "kick off the industry of orgasm," with speakers including Naomi Wolf, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Sara Gottfried, and Robbie Richman, the former "culture strategist" at Zappos. Roughly 1,400 people had paid between $200 and $400 to attend.

"...industry of orgasm"? Really? Because we don't have nearly enough commercialization and commodification of sex, and we need some sort of large social structure with which to institutionalize the economic exploitation of orgasm?

Color me dubious.

Via JWZ.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Invention and Design Sociology California Culture New York Conferences Economics ]

Streetsblog: MIT Study: Vehicle Emissions Cause 58,000 Premature Deaths Yearly in U.S.. The MIT study is behind a paywall at: Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005. But the takeaway is simple, vehicle emissions sourced air pollution costs us almost 700k years of life per year:

... Air pollution-related mortality shortened the average victim’s lifespan by 12 years, the study estimates.

Today's software tips: Prefer composition over inheritance, prefer explicit vs implicit references. #aaaargh #maintenance

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

With efficient lighting solutions sweeping the market, how will the lava lamp of the future work without an incandescent bulb?

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Economics ]

Cup of quinoa, toasted tan in the pressure cooker (stir liberally). Add 2 cups boiling water, cook for 10 min, let stand for 10.

[ related topics: Food ]

Back when we lived in Fairfax, we used to ride the tandem over to College of Marin for Charlene to take a night class. This bicycle light grid projector would have been awesome.

Thanks, Shadow!

[ related topics: Bay Area Education Pedal Power Bicycling Bicycling - Tandem ]

I've been in Guyana doing server upgrades, and realizing how much even I have become used to mega-bandwidth. Its taken 3 days to get a Redhat server updated, all the cpan modules and other things needed installed. And I carried a lot of RPM's on a USB drive with me. My average download is under 20kB/s.

For those of you developing web apps for wide use: be kind to the rest of the world.

[ related topics: broadband Perl ]

On this trip I ran into "Joe", a proud politically active ex-cuban whom is proudly a little right of center. Spent a couple of solid hours talking with him. Listening mostly. He summed up something I hadn't understood: Why the cuban/latin culture in S. Florida was so Republican. "We've lived under communism, we came here to get away from it".

While I didn't agree with all of Joe's (Jose?) ideas, I was impressed with his concepts of ethics, his passion and breadth of knowledge. It was the most enjoyable 2+ hours I've spent in an airport. He's considered running for local Miami elections, but like many of us had a good time as a young man and fears he would not be electable. I'd vote for him. He also said many interesting/good things about Marco Rubio (Senator from Florida), and I need to do some research. I loved his spiel about how he was much less corrupt that other Miami politicians and then went on a rampage of the things others have been arrested for.

It really made me miss Friday "chia" lunches with Dan and friends, talking politics, religion, sex, technology, life...

[ related topics: Religion Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Ethics Aviation moron Sociology Heinlein California Culture Sports Travel ]

Wow! The PD gets it right: PD Editorial: An unfortunate victory for more secrecy. On closed session labor negotiations and the Santa Rosa City Council, and some lessons that other cities should probably take a look at.

Open Whisper Systems: Winter Break of Code.

Winter Break Of Code is an opportunity for designers, developers, writers, and creative thinkers interested in privacy and security to spend some time contributing to privacy related projects in a retreat-like setting with other co-conspirators. Think of it as an extended hackathon, but with your travel expenses paid, and with breaks for surfing, hiking, swimming, and just generally being in Kauai.

Just tell 'em how you want to build a better more private Internet.

[ related topics: Privacy Weblogs Nature and environment Writing Net Culture ]

They're making holes across the street.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Reason #1 why both the fiscally conservative and the anti-abortion folks should be working as hard as they can to make contraception options freely available and socially acceptable: Guttmacher Institute: Births resulting from unintended pregnancies cost Federal and State governments $12.5 billion in 2008.

Although to put that in perspective, it is just, what, half a shutdown?

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

None of these are really square-danceable, but I'm enjoying the various songs linked to in Ask MeFi: I wanna do bad things with you:

A friend of mine is looking for "awesome, sexy, scary, dark, Halloween-type songs that [she] can do burlesque to." She's thinking along the lines of the theme song from True Blood, although she's already done a routine to that song. So please, you masters of mixes, give us your scary-sexiest songs.

[ related topics: Burlesque ]

RT Franklin Harris ‏@FranklinH3000:

We've banned and restricted so many things "for the children." It would be much easier just to ban children.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Whoah! How come I wasn't aware of this home automation on a Raspberry Pi system? Must use! http://thethingsystem.com/

RT Bored Elon Musk ‏@BoredElonMusk:

"Bump" for car crashes. When two or more vehicles crunch into each other, insurance info gets sent automatically to phones of each driver.

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

Note: I will happily endorse you on LinkedIn, but because of the spam issue will no longer endorse unsolicited. You have been warned.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

Relationship between milk intake and mucus production in adult volunteers challenged with rhinovirus-2. Pinnock, Graham, Mylvaganam, and Douglas (1990(!)):

... Those who believe "milk makes mucus" or reduce milk intake with colds reported significantly more cough and congestion symptoms, but they did not produce higher levels of nasal secretions. We conclude that no statistically significant overall association can be detected between milk and dairy product intake and symptoms of mucus production in healthy adults, either asymptomatic or symptomatic, with rhinovirus infection.

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

Raid 1 = Drive Mirroring = Extends the time that IT staff respond due to complete drive failure(s) and system outage.

I went to the 2nd location of system today to find the backup database server blinking merrily "drive failure".. probably been that way for months.

[ related topics: Databases ]

Two JavaScript libraries of the moment:

• DropzoneJS is an open source library that provides drag'n'drop file uploads with image previews.
• Snap.svg The JavaScript SVG library for the modern web.

[ related topics: Language Free Software Books ]

So a lot of people have been outraged over U.C. Davis police officer Lt. John Pike, famously photographed directly pepper spraying non-violent protesters, being awarded $38k in worker's comp damages over (the reaction to) that incident. Consider that despite his willingness to follow orders without thinking, he's also a victim of a command hierarchy which clearly didn't train him to deal moral situations. It's a damned shame that his superiors, all the way up to the chancellor, aren't feeling much more pain. http://www.sfgate.com/politics...ficer-awarded-38-000-4920773.php

[ related topics: Politics Ethics Food Law Enforcement Machinery Trains ]

RT J Wolfgang Goerlich ‏@jwgoerlich:

My daughter said she needed a skeleton for school. Yet she was shocked and appalled when I handed her the shovel. Kids these days.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Eric's Life ]

RT ‏@cjoh: "I'm going to be a large federal IT project for Halloween. Kids will come to my door nobody will answer, but all their candy will disappear." https://twitter.com/cjoh/status/393422074607185920

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Reservations for http://www.squeezethehive.com/ in progress, including caller school beforehand. You should come and dance next July!

[ related topics: Children and growing up Travel ]

While we're talking about inefficient government IT projects, I'd mention that the shoe bomber was stopped by other passengers, not the NSA.

[ related topics: moron Shoes ]

So in light of that Santa Rosa shooting, why aren't criminals just painting the front inch and a half of their firearms bright orange?

If your testicles are still dangling at the usual level and you haven't had your dose of OMGWTF?!?!!1! yet today, may I suggest a gander at: GoPro: Backflip Over 72ft Canyon - Kelly McGarry Red Bull Rampage 2013 (YouTube).

Via both Shadow and Jeff.

And a question: When did Mountain Dew blink on this stuff?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Movies ]

So you'd like to make a map using Python. An intro to IPython, Pandas, Numpy, Matplotlib, Basemap, Shapely, Fiona, Descartes, PySAL and such.

[ related topics: Monty Python Maps and Mapping Philosophy Python ]

NPR: Government Takes A U-Turn On Warrantless Wiretaps:

The Obama administration recently discovered that it unintentionally misled the Supreme Court last year in a warrantless wiretapping case involving U.S. citizens. Now, the Department of Justice is changing its policy to comply with the law and assurances it gave the high court.

"Unintentionally misled". Gee, if you were a private citizen who committed perjury and obstruction of justice, would "I'm going to change my policy to comply with the law" work as a defense?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy moron Law Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement ]

Hee hee hee: Former NSA director Michael Hayden gives "off-the-record" interview. On a train. Whoops. http://knowmore.washingtonpost...und-interview-on-the-train-oops/

[ related topics: Machinery Trains Fashion ]

It's that day: If we are mark'd to die, we are enow / To do our country loss; and if to live, / The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays ]

Elizabeth E. Coker, Judge on the 258th District Court of Polk, Trinity, and San Jacinto Counties in Texas, has resigned "...in lieu of disciplinary action..." for texting instructions to prosecutors on how to better obtain convictions.

[ related topics: Law ]

Manchester UK police claim to have seized 3d printed gun parts, turns out they were parts to build another 3d printer.

In a meta sort of way, I suppose they weren't wrong, but...

[ related topics: Graphics Law Enforcement Guns ]

Roundhand Lettering Demo by Glen Weisgerber (YouTube). Amazing free-hand lettering with a paintbrush.

[ related topics: Movies ]

"How do you feel about eating in the near future?"

"The dystopian cyberpunk future? Sure. But not the sprawling space opera future."

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy ]

I'm writing an exception error message. What's the Unicode for a big middle finger glyph?

[ related topics: Writing ]

http://imadethisthing.net/riker/

Ignore me, testing UTF-8: ╭∩╮(-_-)╭∩╮

And more testing:

ლ(╹◡╹ლ), ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, ಠ_ಠ,

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

Word has it that 12 Mission has gone into escrow! New neighbors by Thanksgiving?

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Dude, why you gotta send him an NYT lifestyle article? You could be gentle and send tubgirl or lemonparty, or just Rick Roll him.

Presidio Yacht Club for the Funkanauts at Monsters I'd Like To Funk

[ related topics: Photography ]

DHS and Police Search for "guns" is actually after investigative files - There used to be a Constitution with a thing called the "4th Amendment" against unreasonable search and seizure.

[ related topics: Law Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Guns ]

The meaning of "Primary Colors"has apparently changed

[ related topics: Photography ]

In Fresno. In a Wal-Mart. Across from a Starbucks. So: In Fresno.

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Translation didn't quite work

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐ This variant is my new favorite.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Dressed for square dancing and Halloween

[ related topics: Photography ]

Closer shot of that hands mask that I carved for Halloween

[ related topics: Photography ]

Okay, you've probably seen this, but I LOLed: /r/Portland: Homeowners: How do you keep local sous chefs from harvesting urban edibles on your property? And yes, read the comments.

It doesn't matter when it's, you know, U.S. citizens, but Feinstein is against NSA spying on U.S. allies. See also NSA angers Feinstein, one of its key allies in Congress.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Sometimes Compilers are Cute. Interesting look at a couple of little idioms to swap a 32 bit value and how clang and g++ treat them.

[ related topics: Weblogs Archival ]

One of those things that makes me want to find a big ol block of wood: Abortech has a fantastic carving of a woman that one of their customers did.

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Every industry needs something like this: Clients From Hell.

[ related topics: Content Management Interface issues ]

Argh. Okay, the tableflip emojii doesn't work, but

╭∩╮(-_-)╭∩╮

should now work everywhere. Gonna rewrite everything in C so it's got sane Unicode handling. Grrr.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

This looks cool: http://littlebits.com/ is little electronics modules that snap together with magnets that look awesome for prototyping little electro-mechanical thingies, and, if parents had the budget for it, would probably make a kickass junk drawer robotics platform.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Robotics ]

That church looks like a penis! (Google Maps link).

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Maps and Mapping ]

Free to download U.S. military manuals. Probably worth setting up a mirror when they get the Bit Torrent feed working: http://www.liberatedmanuals.com/

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Psychiatrists under fire in mental health battle: British Psychological Society to launch attack on rival profession, casting doubt on biomedical model of mental illness.

There is no scientific evidence that psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are valid or useful, according to the leading body representing Britain's clinical psychologists.

It's one of those "I'm not rooting for anyone..." events.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health Space & Astronomy Pyrotechnics ]

Stupid programmer tricks and Star Was GIFs, or automatically generating captioned GIF animations from quote files.

[ related topics: Software Engineering Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters hubris ]

I had chalked it up to bad floor mat design, EDN says Toyota's accelerator problems were bad firmware: http://www.edn.com/design/auto...-Bad-design-and-its-consequences

[ related topics: Graphic Design ]

I'm Sorry: PaaS will always be a company that sells Easter egg dyes, not "Platform as a Service" #lameacronyms

Still amazed at all the economists claiming "nobody saw the meltdown coming", and marginalizing those who actually got it right.

[ related topics: Economics Woodworking ]

Realization: Congress is the Prisoner's Dilemma writ large. We can't vote our slimeball out or other slimeballs will have seniority.

[ related topics: Politics ]

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...-drone-victim-testimony-congress

Now I prefer cloudy days when the drones don't fly. When the sky brightens and becomes blue, the drones return and so does the fear.

[ related topics: Politics Sociology ]

Radley Balko in the Huffington Post profiles Salt Lake City police chief Chris Burbank:

"I just don't like the riot gear," Burbank says. "Some say not using it exposes my officers to a little bit more risk. That could be, but risk is part of the job. I'm just convinced that when we don riot gear, it says 'throw rocks and bottles at us.' It invites confrontation. Two-way communication and cooperation are what's important. If one side overreacts, then it all falls apart."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Nature and environment Law Enforcement Heinlein ]

The Cynictrain Manifesto.

It has now been fourteen years since the Cluetrain Manifesto. I have updated it to reflect contemporary reality and society.

"Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing. "I hope you publish this," one of them said."

washington Post article on this.

[ related topics: Photography broadband Archival Woodworking ]

Whoah: AAAS Science magazine requires that contributors make data and source code available to readers:

Data and materials availability All data necessary to understand, assess, and extend the conclusions of the manuscript must be available to any reader of Science. All computer codes involved in the creation or analysis of data must also be available to any reader of Science.

This could be big, and is a huge step towards reproducibility and verification. Kudos!

[ related topics: Open Source ]

Thinking about hacking the "Cloud To Butt" browser plug-in to add disclaimers, like inserting "(discredited former economist)" after any mention of Alan Greenspan and "(lied under oath to Congress)" after any mention of Keith Alexander.

[ related topics: Politics Economics ]

"We remain close to fully penetrated among teens in the U.S." Facebook CFO David Ebersam creepily talking about Q3 earnings

[ related topics: Theater & Plays ]

Sixteen years difference in life expectancies between the nicest neighborhoods in Walnut Creek and the worst neighborhoods in Oakland. I'm actually surprised the difference is that small.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Bay Area ]

Al Jazeera America: Revealed: NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance

Via TechDirt: NSA's Talking Points On Snowden Leaks Say To Emphasize 9/11, which points out that that the "over 50 cases" of dealing with "terrorist events" has been totally debunked.

And I'd just like to point out that these shysters are still pushing this line despite the fact that it was passengers who stopped the shoe bomber.

[ related topics: Shoes ]

RT haroon meer ‏@haroonmeer

Remember when Google discovered they were being hacked by gov-funded attackers & pondered leaving that country? http://googleblog.blogspot.com...10/01/new-approach-to-china.html …

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]