Insert boring name here.

R. Daneel Olivaw, HLTRE

2005-08-22T21:44:00.000-04:00

Back in the very old days of the Pyramid BBS in Schaumburg, Illinois I used to go by the handle R. Daneel Olivaw, HLTRE. People used to ask me what the HLTRE stood for and I would puff up my 12 year old self and tell them that it stood for "Human Looking Telepathic Robot Extraordinare" of course.

Little did I know that my Asimovian hero doesn't exactly look human yet, and can only just get up after falling. I think we might be a few years away from telepathy.

Constitution Center

2005-08-21T20:57:00.001-04:00

I went to the Constitution Center in Center City, Philadelphia today. I had my 4th Amendment rights violated on the way in, just as I did when visiting the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall with Bob and Denise a few months ago. I just love a good searching before learning about how free I am.

Also, there was only one room in the whole place where you are allowed to take pictures. I wonder if that is because they worry that people will just take pictures of where part of the building fell on Sandra Day O'Connor.

Intelligent Design

2005-08-09T09:35:00.000-04:00

Just in case you wanted the truth about the debate over Intelligent Design.

Testing again

2005-07-28T22:41:00.000-04:00

Let's see if my greasemonkey edits have worked this time. The code was simpler than I thought it would be. I might have to have a go at this myself.

Greasemonkey Testing

2005-07-28T22:32:00.000-04:00

I've got a greasemonkey firefox plugin that lets me add del.icio.us and technorati tags. I'm not really sure how it works though. This is me giving it a try.

It looks as if I need to hack the javascript.

Alien <3's Predator

2005-07-28T21:11:00.000-04:00

Alien Loves Predator is teh funny.

Garret Dillahunt

2005-07-25T20:15:00.000-04:00

The 4400 was driving me crazy today until I figured out that I had seen Garret Dillahunt was the evil razor blade man in Deadwood. It didn't feel right that no one called him a cocksucker. (thanks John)

The Island

2005-07-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

Neelix was really good in The Island. Scarlett and young Obi Wan were ok.

However, the people behind us talked through the whole film. They just wouldn't shut up. I wish people like that would stay home and watch DVDs and leave films to those of us who can keep quiet.

BTW, Mae, I'm excited about a Joss and Warren mashup too.

Geotagging and Flikr

2005-07-18T21:39:00.000-04:00

I've started geotagging my photos on flickr. And I get a real buzz out of the people who comment on my photos. My goodness to I have a fragile and easily inflated ego. (surprise, surprise)

Front Page (not MS)

2005-07-18T21:34:00.000-04:00

Oooh, one more post and all of my pre-Tiger posts roll off the front page. Yes, I am a sad geek.

Madagascar grows cocao, no?

2005-07-18T20:56:00.000-04:00

Mae is mostly on the money with her review of Madagascar. Though I didn't find the animation to be all that spectacular. I don't feel it pushed the boat out the way each new Pixar film does.

I do feel sorry for her about having to suffer through Fantastic Four in the future. Ioan Gruffudd is much better in the ITV/A&E Hornblower series than he is in this. Anyway, didn't he say he didn't want to go to Hollywood anyway so he didn't have to make that kind of garbage?

At least Charlie and the Chocolate Factory looks fantastic. Though the Tim Burton film I am looking forward to this year is going to be The Corpse Bride.

30 Days

2005-07-17T08:59:00.000-04:00
Well it looks as if I have finally found a reality show that sucks me in. After years of resisting I have given in to Morgan Spurlock's (of Super Size Me fame) 30 days.

I unfortunately missed his first show, where he and his wife lived on minimum wage for a month I have caught the shows on living as a muslim, living with a gay man in San Francisco and living at the Dancing Rabbit eco village.

My reaction to these three has been, "Why are these people having so many problems coping in these slightly different circumstances?" Though upon later thinking about it, I'm sure that some judicious television editing could make me look very whiny indeed. As if that would take much. Though living in the Castro looked like a blast and I could taste all of the curry they ate in the Islamic Dearborn episode.

Overall I would say it is worth watching. Hopefully there will be a season 2 and the reruns would be worth catching if you've missed it the first time around. I know that I'm going to try to see the minimum wage episode.

Credit Card Scam Warning

2005-07-14T22:46:00.000-04:00
A work colleague was taken in by a credit card scam. Here is her story and how to avoid having the same happen to you.

I was a victim of a credit card scam the other day. I'll tell you the scam, but more importantly, how to never have this happen to you. I suggest that you tell everyone you know this story.

Scam - short version: Nice lady calls to inform me that uncharacteristic charges appeared on my account today and she is just verifying that I made the charges. Of course I had not. And, having had experiences like this before, I knew how this worked so I was not shocked or suspicious. She cancelled my card for me, gave me the new card number and exp date, took off the charges, and was going to send me the new cards and a fraud affidavit...she had my address (probably from the internet)...and was sending it UPS for a signature...so I (being so smart) said no one would be home to sign so please send to my work address (so she now had that)...and lastly just verify my mother's maiden name (the thing she was really after)...which I did. I should have the mail by 12 on Thursday and she would call me at 1 to ensure everything was in order. She actually had an 800 number for me to call (which I've been told the sophisticated scammers have), so that if you call, you get the scammer answering as the bank. Within the next half hour, she added her name to my account and bought a wire transfer.

What I should have done: If a bank, credit card company, or insurance company ever calls YOU (not you call them)...the correct response is to say thank you...I am going to hang up and call the company (always usingthe number on your card, statement, etc., not the phone number given to you by the caller).

I always knew that if someone in authority unexpectedly comes to my door and wants in, even a policemen, I say, let me call the company first...not using the number given by them, but the one in the phone book. I always knew that if a policeman tries to stop me on a deserted road, I was to drive very slowly to a well lit area. But, I never, ever, heard that I should always call the number on the stmt or
card...even when they call me and leave the number on my machine (itcould be a scammed number).

Lovely emacs and Mac OS X Tiger

2005-07-14T21:40:00.000-04:00
Thanks to Apple I have emacs running again. I can't get the version in cvs working at the moment. I can get it to compile, but when I drop the Emacs.app in my Applications it just doesn't start up and I haven't found a way, yet, to get it to give me some debugging output as it fails. I'll keep trying, but I've more Common Lisp to learn at the moment via Practical Common Lisp.

Silent(?) but deadly

2005-07-14T21:36:00.000-04:00
Today, boys and girls, we learned that the 252 million years ago 95% of life on the planet was killed by the earth letting rip with a massive fart. Either that or an exploding star or two.

Mae is a LIAR!

2005-07-12T22:37:00.000-04:00
It isn't true. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't!

38. IS SANTA CLAUS REAL?
Sadly, I don't think so. (Sorry, Bruce.)

RSS Digest for del.icio.us

2005-07-12T22:01:00.000-04:00
Hmm...my rss digest for my del.icio.us links appear to have died. I've gone back to Big Bold and try to fix it.

Alien and The Thing

2005-07-12T21:46:00.000-04:00
"What's it key off of?"

"Micro changes in air density."

I'm rewatching Ridley Scott's excellent Alien and noticing how similar the alien detector in this movie is to the way the geiger counter (now there is an coincidence) is used in the great Howard Hawks 1951 version of The Thing from Another World, which is one of my favorite Red Scare science fiction movies of the '50s.

Alien is a mash up of The Thing (the original not the John Carpenter remake, which is about AIDS not the Red Scare) and It, the Terror from Beyond Space.

ITTFBS is fun for the scene where all of the men on the mission to Mars are sitting round the table smoking while the women are clearing the table. One of the women is the ship's medical officer as well. Often when I watch science fiction films from the '50s and early '60s I realize how much the Women's Liberation movement was necessary. I don't think I could have handled being a woman for a day in the '50s or early '60s.

Longwood Gardens photos on flickr

2005-07-12T21:10:00.000-04:00
I've been uploading some of the photos I took at Longwood Gardens outside of Philadelphia. I particulary like this one.

State legislators

2005-07-11T22:28:00.000-04:00
It appears as if my state senator is Republican Stewart Greenleaf and my state representative is Republican Eugene McGill. I suppose I shall have to pester them about silly Academic Bill of Rights nonsense.

The Machinist, a short review

2005-07-11T00:04:00.000-04:00
A working class Fight Club without the laughs or social criticism. The "Tyler Durden" isn't as pretty either and the reson for madness is a little less interesting.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is an ok replacement for Helena Costume Drama though.

One thing I will give it. The industrial accidents were completely, crawl out of my skin unwatchable.

I'm starting to worry about Christian Bale though. He's played American Psycho, The Machinist and The Batman. Is there something he's trying to tell us? Is this a cry for help? Enquiring minds want know.

Can Tom Cruise help Christian Bale out? Given that I don't know much about the history of psychiatry (from Freud psychoanalysing his family, to BF Skinner's boxes) I wouldn't want to recommend he see a shrink. Maybe with some work on the e-meter Tom can help Christian become an operating thetan.

The Machinist

2005-07-10T21:22:00.000-04:00
I'm having two problems watching Mr Bale play the Machinist.

Number one: He is way too thin. It is painful to look at him.

Number two: In one scene he says to the woman serving him pie in the airport cafe, "Do you know how I am?", and all I can answer is "I'm Batman."

Cool, it works

2005-07-10T21:18:00.000-04:00
Hooray! The dashboard blogging widget works! Now all I have to do is just do some more writing. I'll just keep dribbling here and see what happens.

Testing from Mac OS X dashboard

2005-07-10T19:32:00.000-04:00
I've recently (yesterday) upgraded Mac OS X 10.4. That would be Tiger to you. It has a lovely blogging widget that I thought I would give a try. So here goes anyway.

The problem with the President

2004-11-30T13:58:00.000-05:00
According to the BBC the President Bush won't address the Canadian Parliament "apparently because of the risk of being heckled."

I think Bush would be eaten alive during Prime Minister's Questions in the UK. Is Bush so precious that he can't take a bit of heckling? Does he need to live in a bubble where no one criticizes him?

I voted for John Kerry today

2004-11-02T21:48:00.000-05:00
Well, I did my bit for John Kerry in Horsham, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA today. I'm helping him to win the Philadelphia suburbs. PA hasn't declared yet and I don't think it will for a while as it is an important swing state with a close race. I'm hoping that everything will go my way.

London Calling the Lazy Web

2004-10-29T10:15:00.000-04:00
My friend John is in London. He could really use a hotel that has broadband in the rooms. Can anyone help him out?

I would link to John's specific post, but he doesn't have permalinks yet. ;-)

Update: This page seems to be a start.

Hobbits

2004-10-28T09:50:00.000-04:00
I think I like Ken Macleod's take on the Indonesian Hobbits the best. There is so much that we haven't discovered and haven't figured out about the planet, let alone the universe we live in.

Gizmodo : Panda Z HamGear

2004-10-19T20:50:00.000-04:00
Hamster piloted giant giant robot.

gnome-blog

2004-10-12T20:44:00.000-04:00
This is the home of the gnome-blog tool, or rather this is the repository that I retrieved the rpm from. Shame that the blogging tool isn't really posting to blogger properly. Looks like the last post had the title mangled.

2004-10-12T20:38:00.000-04:00
Gnome Posting Tool
Well, this is cool. Gnome has a little tool bar applet that allows me to post to my blog. Fedora Linux has been a good upgrade for me so far. Just got to add the right repositories to your yum.conf. More on that later.

Politics, War and Terrorism

2004-10-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

Had the CIA's recent conclusion been reached two years ago, either within the administration or by Congress, the case for going to war would have been greatly weakened. In fact, as NBC News reported last March (and as almost nobody has picked up since), the Bush administration had several opportunities to bomb Zarqawi's camp well before the war. On at least two occasions the U.S. military drew up plans for an attack. But the White House rejected the proposals—mainly because shutting down Zarqawi's operation would have removed a key rationale for invading Iraq. This was a jaw-dropping bit of cynicism: Bush sold, and continues to sell, the war in Iraq as a major campaign in the global war on terrorism, yet he repeatedly passed up the chance to neutralize or kill one of the most dangerous terrorists (Zarqawi has spent much of his time lately chopping off the heads of foreign contractors) for fear of weakening the case for war.

from Slate.

After so many lies and blunders how can anyone support Bush.

Go give money to John Kerry. This has all got to stop.

Diffrerent Branches of the Human Evolutionary Tree Touched

2004-10-06T13:24:00.000-04:00
The BBC has an interesting article on how studying two different types of head lice might mean that two different species of humans had close contact. Think about that the next time you get out the nit comb.

Brown of the Dead

2004-09-27T08:12:00.000-04:00
It appears as if the Britsh Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who usually has a texture like sun, is promoting Shaun of the Dead's premier in the US.

Never a frown, with Gordon Brown.

Daily Show viewers more informed

2004-09-26T21:00:00.000-04:00
It appears as if viewers of the Daily Show are more informed than most people on American politics.

Thanks to Adam Mordecai

BTW, does anybody know what happened to Have I Got News for You on BBC2?

Lucas shot first

2004-09-24T09:20:00.000-04:00
As if changing whether Han or Greedo or both shot first wasn't bad enough, now Lucasfilms has put malware on the latest Star Wars DVDs. Makes me glad that I'm not really a Star Wars fan any more and that I won't buy an Xbox.

Man Bags

2004-09-23T20:29:00.000-04:00
Engadget is looking at man bags. The Timbuk 2 bags look rather good. I'm mostly working off a system of pockets in my cargo trousers at the moment, but a good bag is useful for those larger items.

British Troop reduction in Iraq

2004-09-23T20:27:00.000-04:00
Are British Troops going to be pulled out of Iraq?

RSS Digest

2004-09-23T20:25:00.000-04:00
Thanks to RSS Digest for turning my del.icio.us bookmarks RSS into a lovely and includable bit of html.

If you want different, choose different

2004-09-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

Even though the president has a slight lead in this poll, when voters were asked what they would want in a second term for Bush, 58 percent say they want major changes, compared with only 9 percent who say they want his second term to look a lot like his first term.

Wow, what a poll. Even the kids in Bush country want Kerry, though they may not know the name of their wishes.

I want a different next four years from the last. That's why I'm going to vote for John Kerry. 58% of people want a different next 4 years as well, so why are the polls tied when people are asked who they want to vote for?

Celebrity Death Match: Jon Stewart vs Katie Couric

2004-09-23T19:54:00.000-04:00
Was it just me or did Katie Couric accuse Jon Stewart of the The Daily Show of being a racist and a sexist? Check out the video and tell me. I can't remember whether it was before or after Jon Stewart accused Katie Couric and the rest of the media of reusing Republican talking points.

YAFMB

2004-09-17T18:46:00.000-04:00
Jane and I have started Yet Another F***ing Movie Review blog over at Everyone's got an effing opinion.

Republicans: The party of regressive taxes and class war

2004-09-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

In the past nearly three years of economic recovery, the distribution of economic growth has become more skewed than at any other time in modern memory. Currently, 47 percent of growth is flowing to corporate profits, by far the largest share than that in any of the other eight post-World War II recoveries. Fifteen percent goes to wages and salaries, the smallest share of economic growth in more than 50 years. To make matters worse, the share of compensation that is devoted to health and pension benefits is far larger during this recovery than in any other, representing a further squeeze on the wages and salaries of ordinary Americans. In 2004, take-home pay as a share of the economy dropped to its lowest level since 1929, when the government started keeping records.

From The New York Times.

How long are we going to say that all of the indicators are looking good for a jobs recovery without actually seeing a jobs recovery. My industry, IT, has lost another 200,000 jobs since the "recovery" started in 2001 and over 400,000 under Bush. These are the high paying, high skill jobs that we were all supposed to train for because manufacturing was dead in the US. What am I supposed to train for next?

More del.icio.us-ness

2004-09-14T22:43:00.000-04:00
Now that I have become complete addicted to del.icio.us I think I have to rethink how I use my blog here.

I had been using blogger as an online link repository. It was a bit frustrating sometimes to come up with enough text for the things I found interesting and the lack of classifications. Sometimes I just want to say, "Oooh, cool tool. Gotta link that so I don't forget it. del.icio.us is so much better for that kind of thing.

So maybe I'll have to become more conversational on this forum. Who knows, I might have to get a LiveJournal account if I become too personal. ;-)

I think I'll still have fun rants about politics though and some longer thoughts on all things kawaii, programmerish and geeky. I think it will just be a case of using the right tool for the job. Now I just need to figure out how to back this site up too.

Expect to see some del.icio.us links in the sidebar as soon as I can figure out how to bolt my RSS feed into here.

del.icio.us

2004-09-13T22:35:00.000-04:00
It appears as if I have gone del.icio.us-ly mad. I needed some place to jot things quickly and blogger has been a bit flaky of late.

It is more of a raw feed than the stuff here. It does allow me to have the same links at home and at work though. Some people prefer furl though as that seems more private. I'm pretty happy with having my stuff posted ot del.icio.us and I certainly like to have other people augment my tags when we get tag name collisions. It is a bit like a haphazard wiki that way.

Nobel Prize economist warns on offshoring

2004-09-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

As an example, Mr. Bhagwati pointed to the often-repeated estimates that, because of the Internet, as many as 300 million well-educated workers, mostly from India and China, could now enter the global work force and compete with Americans for skilled jobs.

In their paper, Mr. Bhagwati and his co-authors write that such an assessment of the education systems of India and China "almost borders on the ludicrous." In an interview, Mr. Bhagwati said, "You have a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they are qualified. That sort of thinking is really generalizing based on the kind of Indian and Chinese people who manage to make it to Silicon Valley."

I think that I will have to agree with Samuelson on outsourcing, or more importantly offshoring, does not always benefit the US. I think that Mr. Bhagwati is relying on people in China and India not being as educated or intelligent as American workers and I don't really think that we can rely on others incompetence to succeed.

David Neiwert on Dick's scaremongering

2004-09-09T13:45:00.000-04:00
Orcinus has more to say on Dick's statements that I fumed about earlier.

The role of anthropology in Software Design

2004-09-08T11:51:00.000-04:00

Over the next decade, I expect that software companies will hire people trained as anthropologists and ethnographers to work on social interface design. Instead of building usability labs, they'll go out into the field and write ethnographies. And hopefully, we'll figure out the new principles of social interface design. It's going to be fascinating... as fun as user interface design was in the 1980s... so stay tuned.

Joel Spolsky has some interesting thoughts on social interfaces to software. I have a feeling that many of his ideas are reasons why wikis and blogs work.

Paul Graham on Essays

2004-09-07T21:43:00.000-04:00

If you want to notice things that seem wrong, you'll find a degree of skepticism helpful. I take it as an axiom that we're only achieving 1% of what we could. This helps counteract the rule that gets beaten into our heads as children: that things are the way they are because that is how things have to be. For example, everyone I've talked to while writing this essay felt the same about English classes-- that the whole process seemed pointless. But none of us had the balls at the time to hypothesize that it was, in fact, all a mistake. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting.

The always interesting Paul Graham writes about essays.

Dick crosses the line

2004-09-07T21:15:00.000-04:00
Well, at least now we can see the Republican scare mongering out in the open from the highest levels. See also the follow on post about the announcement about Iraq casualties and a terror threat.

The Numbers of the Bush

2004-09-07T16:59:00.000-04:00
The Independent has a collection of very interesting numbers related to the Bush administration.

Networked Advocacy

2004-09-07T16:50:00.000-04:00
There is an interesting article on World Changing about how Networked Advocacy could and should change the world of NGOs.

Islamic Terrorism on the Rise

2004-09-07T13:55:00.000-04:00
Just in case you were wondering whether or not "America is safer" under the current administration, here are the facts and some analysis.

Another Muslim speaks against Islamic Terrorism

2004-09-07T13:41:00.000-04:00
Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the General Manager of Al-Arabiya Television delivers a stern rebuke to those who would commit terrorism in the name of Islam.

I don't agree with him that all terrorists are Islamic, but I do applaud his bravery to stand up to the extremists who claim to be acting in defense of their and his faith.

Space Stunts

2004-09-07T13:29:00.000-04:00
It looks as if the people involved in some helicopter stunts for XXX and Hulk will be catching parts of NASA's Genesis Probe which has been collecting solar wind for over 2 years.

They'll be catching the collection matrix so that it doesn't get damaged by hitting the ground. This is the first extraterrestrial material returned to the Earth by human means since the 1970s.

Hello Kitty Hoover

2004-09-07T11:46:00.000-04:00
Shiny Shiny, my new favorite gadget blog, points me in the direction of a Hello Kitty Desk Hoover.

A diary of the everyday

2004-09-07T11:13:00.000-04:00
Samuel Pepys has nothing on these guys. One is a call centre manager and the other works at Morrison's Supermarket.

British Big Brother

2004-09-03T10:55:00.000-04:00
London appears to be the CCTV Capital of the World according to CNN. Some are happy about it and some aren't. The statistics don't seem to really support it either, but there are a number of instances that seem to make the public favor them. At least under the Data Protection Act you are allowed to see the videos taken of you.

There is even an interesting and level headed slashdot discussion about it.

Movie about 9/11 Hijackers

2004-09-03T10:39:00.000-04:00
The Guardian and The Telegraph both review a controversial movie that Channel 4 in the UK are doing about how the 9/11 hijackers went from well educated middle class people to mass murderers. The reviews are here and here.

Testing 1 2 3

2004-09-03T10:37:00.000-04:00
Hey, is this thing on?

We seem to be working now. Things were a bit b0rken for a while there.

No more ad words?

2004-08-19T18:54:00.000-04:00
I was starting to get disappointed when I only had adwords, but not related searches. Now it appears as if the adwords have disappeared altogether and this strange blogger banner has appeared at the top of my page with an odd next blog button.

What will I do without the advertising at the top of my page. I feel cut off from the greater globalised world of capitalism! Is this some kind of smart mob thing?

The big Three Oh for D&D

2004-08-19T16:03:00.000-04:00
Happy 30th Birthday Dungeons and Dragons. There is a great series of articles on the history of D&D over at gamespy.

I have to say that I'm really enjoying playing Neverwinter Nights at the moment. I've really got to try out the Linux Client.

Run, Rabbit, Run!

2004-08-13T12:29:00.000-04:00
This flaming rabbit is allegedly a first. I guess that Smokey Bear wasn't completely right. Only you and rabbits can prevent fires.

BTW, Happy 60th Smokey!

Them!

2004-08-13T11:18:00.000-04:00
It appears as if one of my favorite irradiated insect movies is happening in Australia.

I'a I'a Cthulhu fhtagn

2004-08-12T09:50:00.000-04:00
Great H.P. Lovecraft story remixed as a LiveJournal.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart

2004-08-11T11:23:00.000-04:00
That bastion of socialism, Fast Company have a delightful article on what we are doing to US business by shopping at Wal-Mart.

Blinded by tradition?

2004-08-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

And studies show that Americans trust corporations more than they trust their government, so they're more likely to give companies their information freely.

I really don't understand this. Wired has a good article on how private companies are sharing their data with the government. I miss the good old Data Protection Act in the UK. Government and Business should be limited in the data they can hold on people and it should be their responsibility, not ours, that the data is accurate.

Work prevents Alzheimer's

2004-08-10T11:44:00.000-04:00
From the department of use it or lose it, the BBC is reporting that mentally taxing work that increases in life might stave off Alzheimer's.

So I suppose I need to learn that second language, do crossword puzzles and work until I die. Should be fun.

Refactoring Thumbnails

2004-08-10T11:34:00.000-04:00
Just to be geeky for a moment (or a lifetime?) - I really like this site on refactoring thumbnails, that shows in a nice graphical format how some common refactorings work.

Lynndie England in Court

2004-08-03T15:56:00.000-04:00
It looks as if Private Lynndie England is going to get her day in military court for her role in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. She claims she was following orders. I don't feel that this excuses her, but I do think that it means that more should share the responsibility.

9/11 Comission Omissions

2004-08-03T14:19:00.000-04:00

After almost three years the American people still do not know that thousands of lives can be jeopardized under the unspoken policy of 'protecting certain foreign business relations.' The victims family members still do not realize that information and answers they have sought relentlessly for over two years has been blocked due to the unspoken decisions made and disguised under 'safeguarding certain diplomatic relations.' Your report did not even attempt to address these unspoken practices, although, unlike me, you were not placed under any gag.

From FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

Why haven't the media picked up on this? Is there any substance to what is being said here? If so this is outrageous.

Bush not implementing 9/11 recommendations

2004-08-03T13:58:00.000-04:00
Just in case you were dazzled by the president's linguistic legerdemain, he is not supporting the recommendations around the National Intelligence Director as analyzed here and here.

Sending Messenger to Mercury

2004-08-03T11:48:00.000-04:00
It looks as if the Messenger Probe has been able to successfully take off after Tropical Storm (now Hurricane?) Alex.

QOTD

2004-08-03T11:46:00.000-04:00
From Alan Kay

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

Found on Avi Bryant's Blog.

A clean chain is a happy chain

2004-08-02T16:21:00.000-04:00
I do wonder sometimes if I ought to get a real chain cleaner.

It might make my 13 miles of biking a day a bit easier (6.5 in, 6.5 back). I'm looking forward to winter commuting on a day like today. 0 degrees fahrenheit was much more pleasant than this 100% humuggity.

New Cell Phones

2004-08-02T16:18:00.000-04:00
I can't decide if I want to wait for the new cell phones coming out this winter or go for a Treo 600 now. Oh and someone please save me if I shouldn't be going with Cingular.

Bad News and Good News

2004-07-30T14:25:00.000-04:00
From the David Brent school of business news we present the following peices of bad and good news.

The bad news is that between 1972 and 1992 the minimum wage dropped 17% in real terms.

The federal defecit has reached record levels combined with a slowing growth rate in Quarter 2.

There were 345,000 new jobless last week and consumer spending has dropped for the second straight month. This is the same consumer spending that is supposed to buoy up the economy.

Income fell 9.2% in the first 2 years of the Bush presidency, which is the first time since 1953.

But the good news is that corporate CEO pay in the S&P 500 went up by 22.18% in 2003.

At least some of the mainstream press are starting to see this as a problem.

An International Catalog of Superheroes

2004-07-28T15:42:00.000-04:00
This would probably be better done as a wiki, but this is an interesting site none the less.

Start of Bipedalism

2004-07-28T15:23:00.000-04:00
Plastic is looking at the debate around the start of bipedalism. Did it start in the savannah with Lucy or earlier in the trees?

This isn't London

2004-07-28T09:44:00.000-04:00
For all of the "true" information about London I suggest you go here.

Hello Kitty Crop Circle

2004-07-22T20:37:00.000-04:00
Thank you, Mae for pointing out the best crop circles evah!

Mike on pee rehydrated food

2004-07-22T16:32:00.000-04:00
Mike says:

Of course, I'm sure you're already aware that rehydrating your food with (filtered/distilled) pee is nothing new to NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast02nov_1.htm

I would think the bigger problem with "dirty" water would be how you get at the food after the rehydration process. For example, if this is a pouch that you soak in a pot of contaminated water (gathered from the local river or whatever), the microbes may not get in through the pouch, but then how do you open the pouch? Do you use your hands, thereby getting the same microbes on your hands? Do your hands then touch the food, passing the microbes right along? Perhaps the quantities of
infectious materials are sufficiently reduced through these successive steps, and perhaps the chemicals in the water are a bigger concern, but then why not just filter the water in the first place, before it ever gets near the food pouch? Why not just have a handy reusable membrane filter, and run your water through that in order to get clean water for general use?

Oh well. They probably have a scientist or two working on this. They will have thought of these things. But given the explanation in the article (designed to make sense to non-scientists), it sounds like they didn't cover all the relevant details.

And I'm guessing that famine-struck regions would be more able to afford actual fresh or non-perishable food, rather than expensively processed dehydrated food with expensive membrane pouches. But maybe I'm just a pessimist.

I agree with Mike on many of his points above. I think that the microbes from your hand going into the food will be less than the microbes from all of the water going into the food.

I also agree that fresh food in many cases may be a cheaper alternative to dehydrated foods, but I can see some instances, say with long travel times and poor water sources where this might be a more suitable alternative. I don't think it is a panacea for food provision, but it is good to have it as an addition to the available remedies.

Rehydrate your food with pee

2004-07-22T14:16:00.000-04:00
The US Army has new de-hydrated food packs that can be re-hydrated with dirty water or even human urine. The filter doesn't get rid of urea though, so don't do it too often.

Actually, dehydrated food that you could re-hydrate with dirty water would be really good in places with famine and clean water problems.

New Apollo 11 pics

2004-07-22T14:15:00.000-04:00
NASA has just digitized some photos from the 1st Moon walk. They are beautiful and available here. I'm so used to seeing the grainy black and white television images that I thought these photos were from a later landing at first.

A return to the Old Deal

2004-07-22T14:13:00.000-04:00
Billmon has some interesting thoughts on inflation wages and the growing gap between rich and poor, which is finally being seen as a problem by the bastions of capitalism. Read him here.

Tripod Tips

2004-07-21T15:32:00.000-04:00
Create your own bottlecap tripod with these nifty instructions.

The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources

2004-07-20T14:55:00.000-04:00
Ah the joys of open source and free software. Lots of goodies here.

Social Simulation

2004-07-20T14:15:00.000-04:00
Simulation for the Social Scientist is available online for those of us who are techie, yet still like the complexity of the real world. The book is availiable from Amazon.

Also of interest is Calendrical Calculations, which is useful for finding out those interesting dates and periods.

Maybe my Doctoral thesis lurks in one of these?

Academic Whuffie

2004-07-19T14:33:00.000-04:00
Cory Doctorow has found an interesting academic paper on whuffie.

Who is contributing

2004-07-19T14:23:00.000-04:00
Find out who is contributing to the candidates in the 2004 election at Open Secrets.

Good mothering improves behaviour

2004-07-19T13:53:00.000-04:00
in Rhesus Monkeys. Who knows how important it is to humans.

Water on Mars for Eons

2004-07-19T13:46:00.000-04:00

Surface water on Mars existed across a significant span of time, not just for years but eons, suggest new findings made by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity.

See the article at New Scientist.

Netflix

2004-07-19T13:16:00.000-04:00
I don't think we are going to become as housebound as Mike, but we are enjoying our Netflix subscription.

There is an interesting article here about how they need to open up to compete against Walmart and Blockbuster.

Heck there is even a Hack Netflix weblog.

Rainzilla vs. The Talking Chimps of Doom

2004-07-16T14:12:00.000-04:00
Jane found me some interesting articles to look at.

200 year software

2004-07-15T14:19:00.000-04:00
So, if we get Dan Bricklin's 200 year software will we need Vernor Vinge's programmer archaelogists rather than developers?

Life on Mars?

2004-07-15T14:15:00.000-04:00
The BBC is reporting that there might be some evidence for life on Mars.

Da coach won't run

2004-07-15T12:40:00.000-04:00
It appears as if Mike Ditka won't be running for Illinois senator after all

Don't eat the white bread

2004-07-13T18:55:00.000-04:00
It will make you fat. Can we find the glycemic index on our food now in addition to grams of carbs. Will we see low glycemic index foods on the menu next to the Atkins foods at Applebee's and Uno's?

Hello Kitty is marketing Zen

2004-07-12T10:20:00.000-04:00
Thank you Gizmodo for pointing out the wonderful Hello Kitty Robot. I want one to go with my Hello Kitty blanket.

Intelligence Report

2004-07-12T08:57:00.000-04:00

one of the most devastating intelligence failures in the history of the nation. We in Congress would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now. Leading up to September 11, our government didn't connect the dots. In Iraq, we are even more culpable because the dots themselves never existed. Tragically, the intelligence failures set forth in this report will affect our national security for generations to come. Our credibility is diminished. Our standing in the world has never been lower. We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today than ever before. - John D. Rockefeller - (Democrat, West Virginia)

He speaks as he finds. More analysis and links here.