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June 30, 2001
This has potential to be
This has potential to be entertaining: "HR-nightmare.com". Has just the right ring to it, doesn't it? [Link via Ernie at LYD.] Giving inexperienced people authority over other people as their "manager" without training or instruction is roughly the equivalent of delivering hand grenades and chainsaws to a pre-school. It can get messy. And expensive. My bet is that 95% or more of the entries on this site will be from dotcom companies, where the rash of young and inexperienced managers was most pronounced.
Posted by John at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2001
Google's Image Search. Search engine
Google's Image Search. Search engine for images on the web. Over 150 million images. I've been looking for something like this ever since Scour died.
Posted by John at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
You're about to get some
You're about to get some letters. The 1999 Financial Modernization Act allows financial institutions to share your personal financial information with other institutions without your permission. But, they are also required by law to inform you of your rights by July 1st. These companies are scrambling to get the letters out the door. You can opt out of this, but you have to notify them in writing. This includes banks, brokerage firms, credit card companies, etc. Here's a sample opt-out letter, provided by Ralph Nader. (And since the question's already come up, you can opt out at any time; the 7/1 deadline is for them to notify you.)
Posted by John at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
The Mayon volcano eruption in
The Mayon volcano eruption in the Philippines that started 10 days ago is still going on, with two more eruptions today tossing rocks the size of minivans over a mile high. So far, no damage to the villages at the base of the mountain, and everyone's been evacuated. Good picture library on Yahoo.
Posted by John at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
A British scientist working at
A British scientist working at CalTech has documented thoughts, emotions, memory, and reasoning... occurring after brain death. We're talking flatlined, the needle's not even twitching, Gonesville. He postulates that our brain is basically a souped up radio, and that "real" consciousness may reside elsewhere. Of course, you can find a better and more comprehensive explanation of this phenomenon in a book that was written hundreds of years ago. The book is called "The Bible". Maybe you've heard of it? Highly recommended.
Posted by John at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2001
The Battle of the Virtual
The Battle of the Virtual Bubblewraps. Do you prefer VBW or Snapbubbles? Where do people find the time to design these useless little bits of Internet fluff?
Posted by John at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)
Ever hear of Bob Kolody?
Ever hear of Bob Kolody? You will, I promise. Actually, I'm pretty sure you will hear that name again, either in conjunction with the news of a massive lawsuit against Coca-Cola, or as one of the cleverest Internet meme hoaxes yet. I kind of hope it's true, not necessarily wishing anything bad on Coke (third-world cannibalizing, child-corrupting brand vampires though they may be), but if it is actually as represented on the linked site above, the entertainment value on this story is going to be huge.
Posted by John at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
News headlines this morning came
News headlines this morning came up from virtually all sources, "U.S. Appeals Court Vacates Microsoft Breakup!", touting it as a huge victory for the evil empire. But, hold on... read the full case summary issued by the Court. Maintaining an operating system monopoly? GUILTY. Microsoft's actions in integrating Internet Explorer with Windows violating antitrust laws? GUILTY. Using its monopoly powers to exclude competitors? GUILTY. Illegal exclusive contracts with PC vendors and Internet service providers? GUILTY. Illegal business tactics in dealing with Apple Computer and Java software developers? GUILTY.
The court did reverse the finding that Microsoft had illegally tried to monopolize the Internet browser market. And it sent the case back to the lower court on whether integrating Windows and IE was "illegal tying". But they also affirmed in no uncertain terms that Windows was indeed a monopoly, and that many of Microsoft's routine business practices were illegal attempts to maintain that monopoly. Micro$oft will, of course, appeal parts of this ruling to the Supreme Court, but this ruling was certainly no victory. It reads more like a stay of execution.
Posted by John at 03:07 PM | Comments (0)
Also, FYI, Lemonade Stand is
Also, FYI, Lemonade Stand is a hoot. Showed it to Julie and Matt last night and they had a great time with it for about an hour. It's a good game for the kids, too, since it gives their do-the-math-in-your-head skills a workout. This one went right to the "Best Of" page.
Posted by John at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)
Anagramation, or something. This excellent
Anagramation, or something. This excellent anagram generator can find word combinations you never knew existed. Kind of fun! My name, for example, generated 3,035 anagrams including: "Eel jar John's wry perk", "Ark's jewelry per John", and "Wry peer John jars elk." Hehe.
Posted by John at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2001
"My son went to the
"My son went to the Henley Royal Regatta, and all I got was this lousy mug." Well, OK, I didn't get a mug (yet), but Travis did get invited to Henley. He left Monday afternoon, and will be in England for 2 weeks. The Henley regatta is the oldest annual river rowing competition in the world. Founded in 1839, the Henley features "knockout" draws with only two boats racing in each heat. (I hear Tina Turner's voice shouting "Two boats enter, one boat leaves!") Over 100 races, starting at five-minute intervals, are run over the five days July 4-8. This year 451 crews qualified. Marin Rowing Association where Travis rows is one of the 66 foreign crews from fourteen countries.
The people along the bank along the Thames River probably aren't rowing fans for the most part, though. The races are part of "the Season", a veddy, veddy British series of posh events attended by the who's who of England's upper crust. Lady Noelle, a writer for Harpers & Queen magazine, says, "Henley is the main event that people don't watch. It's very hard to see anyway, and there are a lot of people who just go there and picnic with their backs to the river." There is always a crowd awaiting the possible visits of members from the Royal Family (but they don't show every year). However, 4 years ago, when MRA last sent a team to jolly olde England for the Henley, they wound up having lunch with the old gal.
The team is also participating in the Redding Regatta, a smaller race that many of the teams compete in as a warmup. Results this weekend! Travis is having a great time so far, hated the long flight and isn't eating any beef. Eat, Row, Eat, Row, Eat, Row, Sleep. Eat, Row, Eat, Row, Eat, Row, Sleep. That seems to about sum it up. Cheerio!
Posted by John at 01:52 AM | Comments (0)
Stumbled across this today: The
Stumbled across this today: The Decline and Fall of the Classic Breakfast Cereal. This short piece documents the unchecked proliferation of shapes and colors and flavors showing up in our breakfast bowl each morning, and laments the bygone days when things were simpler. I couldn't agree more.
Posted by John at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2001
Finally got some pictures of
Finally got some pictures of my classic 1961 Corvette up on the web site. Went out on Sunday afternoon with Julie in the car, ostensibly to take photos for the insurance company. We drove into downtown Tiburon. It was a beautiful day. Click on the pictures at the upper left of this page and Enjoy!
Posted by John at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2001
"The 60's were a quiet
"The 60's were a quiet time...", at least according to my mother. Travis interviews her for a history assignment about the 1960's.
Posted by John at 01:09 AM | Comments (0)
There's an old saying, "To
There's an old saying, "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Well, the corollary for me, today, is "To a man living in California, every passing truck feels like an earthquake." For about the 10th time in the 4 years since we moved back to California, at about 10:45pm this evening I felt a rumble, my chair vibrating underneath me, and I thought, "Oh boy, here we go." It quickly subsided and I was left wondering whether it was something local (like a passing truck) or a real earthquake. This is important, as I have learned living in California, because the big ones are sometimes preceded by smaller "foreshocks". So I did the logical thing for a web-savvy guy, I went looking for a real time seismographic readout from a local geological station. And I found one, which is now linked from our family web site home page so I can quickly refer to it in the future. Must have been a truck.
I first moved to California in 1982, and while I knew earthquakes could be devastating, my mindset at that time was that most Californians were hypersensitive to the possibility and the anxiety was overdone. We had some tremors during those years, and the main sensation I had was "Cool! I'm living in California." Then, at 7:42am PST on October 1, 1987, an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale struck southern California, with the epicenter in Whittier Narrows. While this was by no means a "major earthquake", it was centered 10 miles from where we lived. It was a Thursday morning and I was just waking up when the bed started bouncing underneath me. It took me about 10 seconds to figure out what was happening, and then my first thoughts were of my family, where is everybody, are they safe? Our son, age 3, was in the bottom bunk of a pair of bunk beds and it occurred to me that the top bunk might bounce off and land on him. I ran down the hall, ricocheting off the walls as the floor shifted beneath me. Scooped him up and ran to my wife, who had been sitting the living room. She was 8 1/2 months pregnant. I grabbed a radio and our wireless phone from the kitchen, and we got outside and went to the park across the street. Car alarms were going off everywhere around us, traffic lights were out, and people started stumbling out of the buildings around us as if in a daze. Two minutes later Julie and I both got a bad case of the shakes form the adrenaline. The radio started delivering informal damage reports within 10 minutes. We called our friends on the wireless phone and made sure they were OK, called our parents and told them we were OK, and sat in the park and rode out the aftershocks for the next few hours.
There is something fundamentally upsetting about a big earthquake, when one of your primary implicit assumptions gets challenged. The earth is not supposed to move. It's like gravity suddenly decided to go up for awhile, or the air was suddenly no longer breathable. Things like that are the whole basis for our understanding of the world and how it works. We don't even think about it, or think to question how much we take it for granted. When one of those building blocks gets ripped away, there is a physical, visceral reaction to your complete mental disorientation. My attitude about earthquakes changed that day.
Posted by John at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2001
StrengthCoach. Games. Lots and lots
StrengthCoach. Games. Lots and lots and lots of them!!!
Posted by John at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2001
Hmmm. It's a little slow
Hmmm. It's a little slow to respond, and you're missing the front-to-back control, but overall it's pretty good implementation of Galaga. I wish I had a 36" computer monitor.
Posted by John at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
Go. Vote. Stand up and
Go. Vote. Stand up and be counted. Remember Florida? The Webby People's Voice awards are in the voting process right now. Go vote for Blogger, the *free* service that makes this weblog possible. (Blogger has been nominated in the Personal Site category, and is currently winning, although it's close so your vote counts). It takes about two minutes (really). Evan Williams has busted his butt keeping the Blogger service up and running, even through the parent company meltdown. He deserves your support.
Posted by John at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
A cautionary note. More freaky
A cautionary note. More freaky big brotherness. This guy rents a car, and the rental company monitors him via GPS and bills him $150 every time he goes over the speed limit. Yikes! I would owe Hertz, Avis and National all my earnings for the rest of my life! [Link via MeFi]
Posted by John at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
And no, just for the
And no, just for the record, that's not me. And as bad as that is, it's not as bad as www.julieparker.com. [I was going to say "and that's not my wife", but then when I called up the JulieParker.com site there was a picture of a dog. Apparently the woman owns four golden retreivers and has enshrined them on the web. If I mention my wife's name and link to a picture of a dog, you can just go ahead and call out the Coast Guard to start dredging the San Francisco Bay for my dead body. And nobody wants that.] Besides, our dog is prettier.
Posted by John at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
Somehow I missed this when
Somehow I missed this when it was actually going on last year, but it is so cool and amazing that I have to tell you about it. Imagine, if you will, a real, live functioning Tetris game 14 stories high that can be seen for miles. VLSI art!
Posted by John at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2001
Lara Croft was the biggest
Lara Croft was the biggest film in the theatres this week, despite the bad press. Sometimes I think that if your job is to be a movie critic, it is de facto impossible for you to understand why most people go to the movies. Anyway, you've probably heard the miscellaneous news and rumors about what a complete wacko Angelina Jolie is. Well, not only were they probably true, but I'll bet you haven't heard it all. This article details some of her... issues. It starts out weird and just keeps getting weirder. Don't worry, I'm not about to start linking to a bunch of celebrity gossip; I hate that tripe! But weird..., well, weird I like.
Posted by John at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Network TV executives can ruin
Network TV executives can ruin anything. I feel confident in saying that after hearing every single great song from the 50's and 60's rendered into an ad for a fruit drink, potato chip or automobile. What, you don't think they can ruin a classic character like Superman? Check the video clip, and understand that they chose it because it's the best of what you're going to get! The movie poster at the bottom of this page is pretty sharp, but I think it means Spidey's going down for the count as well.
Posted by John at 01:28 AM | Comments (0)
With dotcoms littering the landscape,
With dotcoms littering the landscape, and something like 30,000,000 registered URLs out there, you would think that a significant percentage of the roughly 100,000 domain names that have expiring registrations every single day would not be renewed. Thus some juicy *.com names ought to be available. But every time I find one that has expired, the name hasn't been freed up to InterNIC. Instead, it's sitting with the registrant listed as the "Unpaid Names Department" of Register.com or Network Solutions. ICAAN was supposed to create guidelines prohibiting cybersquatting by registrants, but the expiration dates on some of the names I've looked up go back to February or March! Who's policing the police?
Posted by John at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)
Regarding the previous entry you
Regarding the previous entry you should know that I did already receive my supply of "Get Out Of Hell Free" cards, so I won't be joining you there.
Posted by John at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
Another Parker in the news,
Another Parker in the news, albeit less auspiciously than brother Fess. Trey Parker, one of the creators of South Park, had an episode of his marginally funny show air last night called "It Hits The Fan." [Link via MetaFilter] Comedy Central called it "the biggest moment in television history", because the word “sh*t” was broadcast unbleeped for the very first time. And the very second time. In fact, 168 times in all. I believe the only appropriate response is "Where are we going, and what's this handbasket for?"
Posted by John at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2001
This entry is especially appropriate
This entry is especially appropriate for Parkerama, as it features Fess Parker. "Davyyyyy, Daaaaavy Crockett, king of the wild frontier", now real estate developer and vintner of fine Cabernets, Sirrahs and Merlots from California's central coast. This started with an SFGate article in my email this morning with the tongue-in-cheek title, "King of the Wine Frontier." Started doing a little digging and it got interesting. The reason I was digging: Davy Crockett was a mythic TV figure from my youth. The original Disney movies (3) were made in the late 1950's, so by the time I saw them even the spinoff TV show was in reruns. I distinctly remember that the opening credits on the TV show gave me feelings of inadequacy. "Kilt him a bar when he was only 3." The picture of the child actor with the musket twice as long as he was, firing it with a tremendous explosion and tons of smoke into the roaring bear standing in the door of the log cabin, is indelibly etched in my mind. I mean, I was five years old, and I certainly hadn't killed any bears yet. How was I ever going to measure up to Davy? Especially in a residential subdivision, where a bear would definitely stand out. Fess Parker got typecast by that incredibly popular series and went on to do another frontiersman TV show, Daniel Boone, which ran from 1964-1970 and nailed my demographic right on the money. It was squarely aimed at young boys, with lots of gunfire, river rafting, fight scenes, and braving of rapids. I actually wanted a coonskin cap. But Fess Parker, as it turns out, has been involved in winemaking (must read!) for a long time. Interesting factoid: remember Boone's Farm wine? Teenager's drink of choice in the South (if you're from the North or the West, think MD 20/20 or Thunderbird, respectively, and you've got the general idea). That started out as "Daniel Boone's Farm Apple Cider", made by accident on his front porch.
Posted by John at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
No, it's not Locutus of
No, it's not Locutus of Borg. It's Lansing Evans, project manager for Nomad, modeling Microvision's first commercial retinal scanning display product. "A single-pixel laser beam moves so fast across the eye that the light creates lingering images which become as much a part of one's vision as scenery in the background." In other words, it doesn't block your normal vision, just adds additional information on top of it, like the "heads up" displays in a fighter jet. What? You don't want laser beams being shot into your eyes?? Luddite. The article also says "staring at a fluorescent bulb in the office would likely be more dangerous." The future is here, and it is cool.
Posted by John at 01:38 AM | Comments (0)
And you thought people talking
And you thought people talking on the cell phone while driving were hazardous? Volkswagon is rolling out the first mass-produced Internet-enabled car, a special edition "eGeneration" Golf. [Link via Rebecca's Pocket] With email capability. You can "check e-mail, do banking, check directions or call up information about the weather, traffic and the stock market while under way", says the VW spokesperson. You'll find one at the rear-end collision nearest you.
Posted by John at 01:34 AM | Comments (0)
And NO, I don't want
And NO, I don't want to buy "X-10's Amazing XCam2 Wireless Camera." The pop-under window ads are extremely annoying.
Posted by John at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
Planetarium. A puzzle story in
Planetarium. A puzzle story in 12 weekly installments. Episode 1: In which the girl receives a love letter from her future, and the mathemagician rolls a riddle around his mind. You register - for free - and get access to a new installment each week. They'll even email you a reminder, but no peeking ahead is allowed.
Posted by John at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
Creative Labs NOMAD jukebox, released
Creative Labs NOMAD jukebox, released late last summer, is about as close as I can imagine to a perfect consumer music product. The only thing I didn't like about it was the design, which they engineered to look exactly like a CD player. (With the price down under $300, I would have already bought one if not for the clunky design. This device is so radically different, though, with a 6GB hard disk that can store nearly 100 CDs worth of music in MP3 format. (Their advertising says 150, but that must be at the lower 64 Kbps data transfer rate, which sux. You definitely want to go to at least 128. Still, 6GB gives you 100 hours of music at 128 kbps. That's about 83 CDs if each CD is maxing out the available disk space.) Now, it looks like they're fixing the design (and expanding the hard disk into the 9-12GB range). Also, if you don't have my design issues with the current Jukebox, you might want to check out the 20GB upgrade. 20GB!! That's my entire CD collection! At least the ones worth listening to... Anyway, yeah, the new design. The current issue of Sound and Vision magazine has a picture of the new design, set to be released in October. (Sorry, I couldn't find the picture online. But worth a look if you're in the bookstore.) It looks like a TV remote control with an LCD screen. And it looks like it will fit into a pocket. Definite add to the Christmas list!
Posted by John at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2001
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is coming on DVD, October 16th. Looks like they are planning a double-disk release with over 6 hours of additional material. Total running time 480 minutes. Look, I like Star Wars and all, but... that seems appropriate only for people who want to dress up like Wookies and go to conventions.
Posted by John at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
You probably know Ask.com is
You probably know Ask.com is the former AskJeeves.com, featuring Jeeves, the Internet butler who answers all your questions. Or rather, you ask a question and then Jeeves tells you all the questions that sound similar, to which he has answers. Jeeves is far and away the gayest search engine mascot on the web. Go to the site and ask "Are you gay?" and then click on the link that says "[ASK] Is Jeeves gay?"
Posted by John at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Liam O'Donnell cleaned up the
Liam O'Donnell cleaned up the foul language on his Kick-Ups game, so now you can send your kids there with a clear conscience. Good for him! I suspect he was surprised by how popular that game became, and how quickly word of it spread through the Internet. And hey, he's selling his skills as a Flash programmer, so why not make it more marketable and broadly appealing? Besides, I got enuf stress in my life without a freakin' game giving me lip.
Posted by John at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)
Watched Antitrust on DVD last
Watched Antitrust on DVD last night, The Skulls the night before last, and it seems to me that the developing message here is that we don't have anything to worry about because the forces of evil, while they grow more advanced technologically and more capable of monitoring and controlling the lives of good guys like us, are also unbelievably stupid, so much so that they persist in videotaping themselves performing acts of violence. So, if there is a crime being perpetrated, and you're being victimized by a malevolent organization that is incredibly rich and influential, don't go to the cops, just find the videotape! Anyway, both these movies are pretty good. Just keep saying to yourself, "Gary Winston is not Bill Gates" when you watch Antitrust, and when you watch The Skulls, say "Skulls is not Skull and Bones". The "ivy league school" where the movie takes place isn't named, but there are lots of students running around with blue "Y" sweatshirts, and in the crew race when they are checking off the teams they name every ivy league school except Yale. But ignore that. Go see The Skulls for the beautiful campus shots, and especially the crew race footage, in which the closeup work is extraordinary. Go see Antitrust to feed the geek within you. You'll see Linux on PCs everywhere with the GNOME desktop; and even Linux from the command line in at least one place. There's a surveillance shot of someone at a computer wearing a red fedora(!) and brief appearances by Miguel de Icaza (GNOME) and Scott McNealey (Sun Microsystems). Skullbocks.com, a web site named in the movie, is owned by MGM but just has the Network Solutions "under construction" page at that URL. Darn! I wanted to download that source code....
Posted by John at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2001
Queue is an interesting strategy
Queue is an interesting strategy game, where you push differently shaped playing pieces in from different sides to cover up matching squares on the game board. It's simple and fun through the first dozen or so levels, then, well... don't even try this if you don't have at least 10 minutes to see it through to the brutal end.
Posted by John at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Everybody knows Java Magic 8-Balls
Everybody knows Java Magic 8-Balls are inherently untrustworthy. Even as technology marches forward and you can get WAP-enabled Magic 8 Balls for your cell phone or PDA, it's just not the same. Someone has remedied that, with Robots, webcams and a real, genuine Magic 8 Ball. Shaken and displayed in response to your questions.
Posted by John at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)
All you ever wanted to
All you ever wanted to know about European stone circles, dolmens, standing stones, cairns, barrows and hillforts.
Posted by John at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2001
Bruce Lee, starring in his
Bruce Lee, starring in his first posthumous role, in a little Flash movie. [linked by /usr/bin/girl]
Posted by John at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2001
It's been a bad week
It's been a bad week for Wall Street analysts. First, there are Congressional hearings into Wall Street double-talk, investigating why they say "Hold" or "Market Performer" when they really mean "Sell. Sell now." This leads to headline business stories like:
Wall Street analysts investigated for giving biased advice,
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been an Analyst?
and U.S. Probes Analysts' Alleged Bias
Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Baker's staff had wanted to call Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget and Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker to testify but was told by the firms that the analysts were "unavailable". Unavailable? Is that all it takes to duck out of a Congressional committee hearing? I thought they had subpeona powers. This could get interesting.
Then a study by four California academicians from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, UC Davis and Stanford points out that you don't want to listen to Wall Street analysts anyway. Quote from the article: "The study concludes that stocks most highly recommended by analysts last year fell 31.2 percent below the performance of the U.S. stock market. Their least favorably recommended stocks outperformed the market by almost 49 percent." That's really amazing. You could make a fortune going the other way.
Posted by John at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2001
"If ads can get people
"If ads can get people to believe they had an experience they never had, that is pretty powerful." This study by Univ. of Washington memory researchers used ads to subconsciously influence people to remember that they had met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. Since Bugs is a Warner Brothers character, I imagine they must have pulled up along side him in a van with blacked out windows and yanked him off the street. Disney people could do that. Disney execs could approve it. They scare me. This study scares me.
Posted by John at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)
Neat-o! The Bell Labs Text-to-Speech
Neat-o! The Bell Labs Text-to-Speech (TSS) system will let you type in anything and read it back to you in a simulated human voice. In the Advanced Interface (requires java-capable browser) you control the gender, pitch, speed and other parameters. It will generate files in *.aiff, *.wav or *.au formats (which you can save and send to your friends), and "reads" American English, German, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, and (new) Canadian French. This has some very interesting applications! Thinking of computer-generated voices I have heard before, I typed in "Shall we play a game?" and the playback freaked me out. Hmm... let's play... Global Thermonuclear War. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Posted by John at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
The news is all over
The news is all over the web. Homer Simpson's "Doh!" exclamation made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, being British, they misspelled it. They cite references to the phrase as far back as the year 38 P.H. ("pre-Homer". That would be 1952 for you non-Simpsons-indoctrinated readers. You can brush up on your knowledge here.) Historical misspellings do not lend any credibility to their case, in my opinion. It's supposed to be "D'oh", and that's all there is to it. Various items of official Fox-sponsored merchandise -- beer steins, trading cards, etc. -- all spell it that way.
Posted by John at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
Hey, I forgot to mention
Hey, I forgot to mention we went to see Shrek, um, two weekends ago, and it was good. It was funny, well-written, gorgeously rendered and I thought it was a hoot. Others apparently don't feel the same way. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they're called movie "critics"? What would their reviews look like if we changed their job title to movie "encouragers", or touts or promoters, or even something neutral like "reviewers"? The author of the above review goes to the movie, critically examines the film's technical special effects, finds them exceptional in the execution and the level of detail, then complains because the movie's technical special effects are so distracting. D'oh!
Posted by John at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2001
Meg at not.so.soft links the
Meg at not.so.soft links the best game of the year, so far. Mini-golf from Electrotank.com (official site launch today), a.k.a the productivity terminator. This one goes directly to the "best of" list.
Posted by John at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
Romania is building a theme
Romania is building a theme park. Dracula Land. And a group of businessmen from Florida and California has approached the Roslin Center in Dublin (where they cloned Dolly the sheep) about disinterring and cloning Vlad the Impaler. Capitalism takes hold; Romania sounds like California. [Link swiped from MetaFilter.]
Posted by John at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2001
What is it about us
What is it about us humans? anil dash posts a link on his site that says "Do not click this link." It's the entry on June 10 and, no I'm not going to relink it. If you're that curious, go look it up yourself. "No, I'm not kidding", he says in the note following the link. So what to do? I mean, with a teaser like that, I've got to know why, don't I? Anil, of course, knows this. Anil is a bad, bad man. You go do what you've gotta do. I'm not responsible.
Posted by John at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
On a happier note, the
On a happier note, the latest round of photos included some good ones from CJ's back on May 21. Julie and I drove up to Sacramento to see one of Travis' races, which they won, and I took a few pictures while we were there.
Posted by John at 01:45 AM | Comments (0)
Oh dear. I just picked
Oh dear. I just picked Travis up from the plane (10:45pm last night) on his return from the National Crew Championships (see entry below from 6/7). They posted the second fastest time of all the lightweight teams there, but didn't make the final, and so didn't medal. In these races, especially at Nationals, the psychological pressure is intense and every rower's nightmare is that they will "catch a crab" and stop the boat halfway through the race. "Catching a crab" is rower's slang for an incorrect stroke. It can range from a skip where the blade of the oar doesn't cleanly enter the water, so it skips off the surface or twists in the rower's hands, to dropping the blade too low on the backstroke which allows the water to "grab" the oar and slams the handle back into the rower, burying the blade next to the boat. Severe crabs can knock rowers right out of the boat.
Travis caught a crab. 200 meters from the finish line. And they were in first place. They finished third, as it took nearly 10 seconds to recover from the crab and two boats passed them. Since only the top 2 from each rep went on the finals, the MRA Lightweights didn't qualify. This is what is euphemistically referred to as a "character building experience." For reference, 2000 meters in 6:23:83 (their time in the Petite Final) is 11.65 mph in land speed terms, which is a high speed at which to have an oar jammed into your stomach, particularly with the momentum of a 65-ft. boat behind it.
The MRA team acquitted itself in true professional style. Recovering from the crab, they sprinted like madmen for the finish but were already a full boat length behind -- too much lost time and not enough racecourse left to make it up. They competed in the "Petite Final" for the boats that didn't make the final, and won by 16 seconds. Their time was faster than 5 of the 6 boats in the final, and since they had such a huge lead in the Petite, they weren't even pulling as hard as they could. My heart goes out to Travis. Most of us, at one time or another, have experienced the critical misstep, folded under pressure, or just had a spot of bad luck at the most incredibly inopportune time. Travis hasn't caught a crab in a race in nearly 4 years. His teammates were disappointed, but no one said a single negative thing to Travis. His coaches reiterated to him what an excellent stroke he is, and his teammates were happy to post a faster time than GreenLake. They knew that Travis was being harder on himself than they could ever be. MRA is a class act.
They did at least seem to have a good time. Most of the lightweights have to work to make the weight limit of 155 lbs., so after they got knocked out in the rep they had a contest to see who could gain the most weight back between weigh-in this morning before the Petite Final and the time they got to the airport this afternoon. Travis' gain from 154.5 lbs to 159 lbs seemed pretty good to me but the biggest guy on the team, who consequently has to work the hardest to get his weight down, gained an incredible 8 lbs in one day!
Posted by John at 01:28 AM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2001
It looks like Travis' boat,
It looks like Travis' boat, the Marin Rowing Association Lightweight 8, didn't make the final 6 at Nationals. Saw the race results results posted at racetrak.com, but we never got a phone call from Travis after this race. I hope he's not too upset, because we are super-proud of his accomplishments. These were the top 10 Junior Lightweight teams in the country, after all. Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. I hope he's enjoying himself anyway!
Posted by John at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
Dang it! Zannah at /usr/bin/girl
Dang it! Zannah at /usr/bin/girl has linked another neat-o little game, called Upo Upo (kind of like Tetris, from the 7-up.com web site) that I can't play because I'm color-blind. Atomica is another one that looks fun, and I can play it on the first few levels, but then they start introducing more colors and it gets impossible for me. These games may be fun, but they aren't making it onto my Recommended List.
Posted by John at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)
Wow. What a rich and
Wow. What a rich and convoluted and variegated and bizarre web we weave, indeed.
Monsters. (the reference site)
Roller Coasters. (the database)
Museum of Unnatural History. (weird science)
Schrödinger's Cat Webcam. (the experiment - and I like the warning, "Do NOT try this at home, your cat may theoretically die." I'd say the odds are 50-50. Hehe.)
And, finally, the worst color combo on a web site I have EVER seen. And I have seen a few. This one makes my eyes water. I don't normally link things I don't like or find interesting (and BTW, the rest of the site is an amazing 116-frame online comic book), but this front page is so bad you have to see it for yourself.
Posted by John at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
Sidebar oberservation: The pricey houses
Sidebar oberservation: The pricey houses in my 29-home-neighborhood were originally occupied by doctors. Managed care and HMOs came along, and the doctors moved out and lawyers moved in. Then the flood of law school graduates arrived and the lawyering market softened, and they started selling out to financial markets professionals - stock and bond traders, investment bankers, portfolio managers and others of their ilk. The financial markets didn't really collapse, they just got completely outrun by the dotcom entrepreneurs who successfully played the "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" game. Prices got bid up by over 100% in less than 4 years. Out with the finance guys, in with the dotcommers and the venture capitalists. Now there is a sizable contingent of those dotcom and VC guys who had the courage of their convictions and have watched their instant fortunes just as instantly evaporate. It's like a microcosm that perfectly reflects the economy. I wonder what the pedigree of the next batch of neighbors will be?
Posted by John at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
I was kind of hoping
I was kind of hoping having my remains put on a rocket and fired into the sun after I shed my mortal coil would be the solution, but hey, it sucks living at the bottom of a gravity well. At least this means I can check "Zombie master reanimates my mouldering corse to terrorize local villagers" off the list of things I have to worry about.
Posted by John at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
June 08, 2001
Cloudmakers - the group dedicated
Cloudmakers - the group dedicated to solving the mystery of the murder of Evan Chan, a promo web meme set up and administered by the makers of the new movie, "A.I." -- and their readers might enjoy the parody site Troutmakers, who are investigating the murder of Evan Chin. OK, that's probably the worse sentence construction on Parkerama to date. But hey - try to stay with me here folks, it only gets more complicated. I have high hopes for A.I. the film due out 6/29; it has impeccable creds. It was Stanley Kubrick's unfinished project, and was directed by Steven Spielberg for DreamWorks. And the Troutmakers game is quite addictive.
Posted by John at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
The Internet equivalent of the
The Internet equivalent of the old saying about the rich getting richer seems to be, "The big get bigger, and the small file Chapter 11 or get acquired." Here's a piece analyzing the Media Metrix study recently released on Internet consolidation. Quote: "The number of companies controlling 60 percent of all U.S. minutes spent online fell from 110 in March 1999 to 14 in March 2001, an 87 percent swing." Time Warner/AOL has a commanding lead in this analysis. Be careful though, as these numbers can be misleading. "Minutes spent online" includes AIM (AOL Instant Messanger) and email, which account for 2/3's of AOL's "traffic".
Posted by John at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2001
No fat, no cholesterol, only
No fat, no cholesterol, only 12mg of sodium in a cup -- Beer is Better Than Milk. This is really an interesting war that has developed between PETA and MADD. The battle of the hyper-extremist acronyms. PETA's fighting milk consumption, presumably because dairy cows aren't afforded the kind of La-Z-Boy and widescreen TV existence that PETA thinks they're entitled to, and MADD thinks ... oh, never mind. PETA even sent MADD at $500 donation, which they spit on and sent back. Read the letters the organizations wrote to each other, it's hilarious.
Posted by John at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)
Well, I can officially say
Well, I can officially say that Internet-related advertising spending is not dead. At 5:36pm about 150 motorcyclists on all big Harley Davidson bikes roared down Howard Street, south of market in San Francisco. Each had a 6-foot flag on a wooden pole attached to the back of his bike. The flags said Sun Microsystems. Think it has anything to do with the fact that the 2001 JavaOne Conference is underway at the Moscone Center, two blocks down Howard from our office?
Posted by John at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)
Here's one I missed. Travis
Here's one I missed. Travis in the Men's Varsity Single heat in Sacramento, cruising to an easy victory.
Posted by John at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)
The body count is still
The body count is still rising in the Internet slaughter that began last May. WebMergers' official stats:
Posted by John at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)
Travis took off yesterday, for
Travis took off yesterday, for the US Rowing Youth Invitational Championships, June 9-10, 2001, in Cincinnati, Ohio on Harsha Lake. He'll be calling us with race results over the next few days, and coming home Sunday night. Check the local weather here. He's posted as the stroke of the Men's Junior Lightweight 8+ (there are no Junior Varsity races at Nationals). Best of luck, Trav!
Posted by John at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2001
Lots of posts this evening
Lots of posts this evening because Blogger now has a second server up and it will post 'em as fast as I can type 'em!
Posted by John at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
Bill Gates (a.k.a. Billgatus of
Bill Gates (a.k.a. Billgatus of Borg) must be beside himself with joy. Not only is Micro$oft launching -- this week -- a whole host of new software from games to networking to office productivity, but just for the little maraschino cherry on top, Netscape rolls over and plays dead. Good summary on Slashdot, from the "company-formerly-known-as-America" department. Me, I'm learning Linux. GNU will prevail. Ok..., survive. Maybe.
Posted by John at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
The United States Supreme Court
The United States Supreme Court Bitch Slap game. After they elected Dubya to be our President, I can only say, "It's about time."
Posted by John at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
A fifth-grader, taken out of
A fifth-grader, taken out of school in handcuffs after his teacher discovered pictures of guns he had been drawing. [..Link found on MetaFilter..] Now, never mind that every boy that age draws guns. I would have spent my entire youth in handcuffs. Never mind basic fifth amendment rights that -- apparently -- our nation's fifth graders don't get to enjoy. This is just getting ridiculous. After all the nonsense with the dodgeball Nazis, and the alarming discovery that boys and girls tease each other, I am left just shaking my head. My poor kids. Some things I can understand. I mean, after all, we're a little bit more sensitive to other's feelings these days, so if a gym teacher objected to the kids calling dodge ball "smear the queer" or "murder ball" like we did when I was growing up, I would be OK with that. But they are trying to deny the basic human instincts of little boys and girls who want to grow up to be men and women, not faceless, androgynous automatons. I remember an article -- many years ago -- by a mom who was determined that they wouldn't buy toy guns or toy soldiers for their boy, until he ripped one arm and one leg off his sister's Barbie doll, bent the remaining arm sideways as a handle and went around the house shooting his family. She wisely gave up her anti-toy-gun position and equipped him with Nerf guns and ammo so at least he wouldn't break anything. This kind of overanxious paranoia can only wind up confusing the kids - I mean, how much damage to that 11 year old's self-esteem have they done by hauling him off in handcuffs in front of his friends and neighbors? He may wind up visiting McDonald's with a high-powered rifle after all, but it won't be the pictures in his school notebook that drove him to it.
Posted by John at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
Amazing full-color pictures of Russian
Amazing full-color pictures of Russian life, circa 1910. In the early 1900s Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) formulated an ambitious plan for a photographic survey of the Russian Empire that won the support of Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population. His unique images of Russia on the eve of revolution--recorded on glass plates--were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948 from his heirs. Prokudin-Gorskii invented a process to produce positive glass slides for his illustrated lectures about the Russian Empire. He then projected the slides through the red, green, and blue filters of a device known as a "magic lantern" which superimposed the images onto a screen resulting in a full-color picture.
I don't know about you, but I find it kind of strange how the fact that they are in color makes it difficult for some part of my brain to accept that the photographs are that old.
Posted by John at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2001
Following up on Travis' rowing
Following up on Travis' rowing accomplishments, he brought the plaque home today but his name isn't engraved on it yet. Soon to be mounted on the boathouse wall for posterity. Also, check this out:
| The picture's fuzzy, because it's cropped and zoomed from one frame from one of the movies listed below. The camera pans from the front of the boat to the back and as it gets to Travis in the stroke position (right in front of the coxswain), note the bend in the oar as he hauls it back. These guys pull hard! |
Posted by John at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
While the cat's away... in
While the cat's away... in other words, while I'm off at the salt mines, slaving away to earn my meager wage and put bread on the table for our family, Julie's off to the Gold Country as one of the adult volunteers on Matthew's field trip, exploring old mines and rappelling down the mine shafts. Me, jealous?
Posted by John at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
Uselessknowledge.com is a treasure trove
Uselessknowledge.com is a treasure trove of interesting factoids. Fun reading.
Interesting facts such as: when a mosquito hits the windshield of a car going 60 mph, it slows the car down by 1/1,000,000 of a mph. The most common street name in the United States is Second Street. This is followed by Park Street and Third Street. Main Street doesn't even make the top ten.
Counterintuitive facts: A car that shifts manually gets 2 miles more per gallon of gas than a car with automatic shift. A person uses more household energy shaving with a hand razor at a sink (because of the water power, the water pump, and so on) than he would by using an electric razor.
Funny facts: What is called a "French kiss" in England and America is known as an "English kiss" in France.
Obscure facts: A "funambulist" is a tight-rope walker. The telephone area code for a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean is 871.
Even scary facts: A study of American coins and currency revealed the presence of bacteria, including staphylococcus, E. coli, and klebsiella, on 18 percent of the coins and 7 percent of the bills. According to the federal Trade Commission, there are 20,000 television commercials made each year that are aimed exclusively at children; of these, 7,000 are for sugared breakfast cereals.
Posted by John at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)
There are now videos of
There are now videos of the Marin Rowing Association teams up on the web site. Here are three with Travis in them from the Southwest Regional Junior Championships. Travis was in the Varsity Lightweight Heat (which they won) and Final (which they won, but no video) and the Men's Junior Varsity A Boat Heat (which they won), and Final which they, uh, won. At the MRA Awards Dinner on Sunday night, Travis was awarded "Most Improved" rower at MRA for the 2000-2001 season, a signal honor which he was unfortunately not there to receive since he was playing saxophone at another engagement. Still, he has the plaque to prove it.
Posted by John at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
Who's the biggest player in
Who's the biggest player in e-commerce? The answer may surprise you.
Posted by John at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2001
I've been looking for something
I've been looking for something like this for quite some time. All the concerts in the San Francisco bay area, all on one page.
Posted by John at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2001
Close on the heels of
Close on the heels of Dubya's forging an alliance with the Taliban, the fundamentalist regime has now forbidden television in Afghanistan. Watching "R" rated movies gets you three years in a Taliban prison, and TVs and VCRs are being confiscated at gunpoint. Dubya's really starting to piss me off. Apparently, it's OK to shelter anti-US terrorists, enslave the women and girls, and destroy all the ancient art in your homeland. Dubya's administration will still embrace you.
Posted by John at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
Another free service bites the
Another free service bites the dust. San Francisco - based provider of free data storage space, MySpace, is shutting down their free service. You have, ummm, 4 hours to download your data. After that, it's gone. Deleted. I am so glad I didn't ever use that "service". Increasingly, in this environment of decimated Internet company valuations, you're getting what you pay for. And only what you pay for.
Posted by John at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
