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July 27, 2001
Well, folks, this may the
Well, folks, this may the last entry for several days, as we're off to Africa. I'll try to update some from the road, but just don't know about Internet access over there in Johanneburg, Lelongwe and other spots in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Everyone seems to feel obligated to share horror stories of the "a friend of mine went to Nigeria and got thrown in prison for drug dealing, where he contracted Ebola and was exectued" variety, but I'm not worried. I can't wait!
Posted by John at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
Update on the Summer Nationals.
Update on the Summer Nationals. Travis rowed in the 4 yesterday and disaster struck AGAIN. But this time with a better outcome. 300 meters into the 2000 meter race, one of the two starboard rowers' seats came off! The seats in these boats slide forward and back on each stroke, and without a solid seat, the rower has no leverage. He shipped his oar and the remaining starboard rower powered up to compensate... There were four boats in the race, and Marin was in the lead when it happened, and two other boats passed them by. Only the top two go to the finals. In less than two minutes, the disabled crewman was able to get his seat reattached!! The team poured in on with everything they had, with only about 700 meters left in the race. They caught the second boat and got bow-to-stern with the winner. They took second, and are going to the finals. Drama on the high seas! Go, Travis!
Posted by John at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2001
Which direction does your political
Which direction does your political compass point? Simple distinctions of Democrat/Republican, right/left, conservative/liberal just don't capture our more complex political positioning requirements these days. This short test, developed by a political journalist with a university counselling background, assisted by a professor of social history, will plot your position and give you a short analysis of the results. My compass points slightly to the right, strongly Libertarian.
Posted by John at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
Paul Morgan (a.k.a. "Freck") is
Paul Morgan (a.k.a. "Freck") is a man who desperately wants to lead a normal life again. Freck's New Feet [via Dean]. This is a horror story. It's appalling, but you can't help but have sympathy. I'm opposed to it, but admire his courage. You want to say, "There must be alternatives", but it's been 15 years. You might think he's crazy, but he says he plans to have a full psychiatric evaluation done to prove he's totally sane. I'm not sure about any of these things, in the end. After all, it's not a trivial matter when you decide to amputate your own legs.
Posted by John at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
Sure sex is ubiquitous in
Sure sex is ubiquitous in advertising, but can you use sex to sell an operating system? A Microsoft operating system? This ad takes a minute to load up, but it's worth it. [via memepool]
Posted by John at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
The "Dot Kids Domain Name
The "Dot Kids Domain Name Act" would require Internet authorities to establish a new top-level domain name, .kids. This brings to mind the old warning, "Be careful what you ask for..." Aside from the complete lack of any international "standard of decency", who polices that TLD? I can see all kinds of ugly possibilites arising out of this, with parents who may not be the most computer savvy thinking, "well, it's named dot-kids so it must be OK."
Posted by John at 01:18 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2001
From David Moore at the
From David Moore at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA): "On July 19, 2001 more than 359,000 computers were infected with the Code-Red (CRv2) worm in less than 14 hours. At the peak of the infection frenzy, more than 2,000 new hosts were infected each minute. 43% of all infected hosts were in the United States ... A QuickTime animation of the geographic expansion of the worm is available." [via slashdot] I just like the movies... Modem users: don't.
Posted by John at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
Every night my two
Every night my two youngest get sent to bed with a variation on "Good night, sleep tight, and don't let the bedbugs bite." Not that I actually thought we'd ever have to seriously worry about that possibility. But America's hotels are becoming increasingly infested by the blood-sucking insects, raising the possibility of bringing some home on our clothes or in our luggage. University of Florida entomologist Phil Koehler says the bug is "being found more frequently in cities that have an influx of international tourists." I'll just let that comment go without making any snide remarks that might be construed as prejudiced. But you knew what I was going to say, didn't you?
Posted by John at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
Taxi driver in England named
Taxi driver in England named Laurence Pressley who has joked for years that he's related to Elvis finds out that he is. Seventh cousin. Gotta love that.
Posted by John at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
OK, I have all this
OK, I have all this second hand, but the latest is that Travis is enjoying a run of extreme good luck. He was in one of two boats entered in the pairs crew race today, representing the Southwest Juniors at Summer Nationals. More than 1,800 competitors will be competing for national titles in 111 events during the five-day regatta. National champions will be crowned in the elite, senior, intermediate, and junior categories. In his preliminary race, on the way to the starting line, the boat was veering badly to one side. They pulled it out of the water and one of the two fins on the bottom had broken off. They informed the race officials, who jury-rigged a second fin, fastening it to the boat with electrical tape, and were told to go ahead and race. There are some fast pairs this year. In Travis' race, he and his pairs partner Jordan came in 3rd out of 3 boats, with 2 other boats that were slated to race as no-shows. As it turned out, the top 3 boats from each prelim were to go to the finals. Travis and Jordan made it. The other Southwest pairs team did not. Coach Sweitzer was very impressed with the way Travis and Jordan conducted themselves. They didn't panic, they called it to the attention of the officials, and they didn't complain. To cap it off, the coach was so upset at some of the boys for their behavior that he has taken 1 (or more) of them out, and put Travis in the 8 as the stroke. So now Travis is at Nationals representing the Southwest in the pairs and fours races, and is stroking the eight! Godspeed, son... Pull hard!
Posted by John at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
In another of the increasingly
In another of the increasingly long line of stupid, inconsiderate, anti-everything-but-American international policy moves, Bush today Rejects an Anti-Germ Warfare Accord, effectively flushing six years of intense negotiations down the toilet. Thanks, GW, for moving aggressively to protect our right as Amurricans to use biologic weapons on our enemies at our discretion, without fear of a dreaded international slap on the wrist. Dubya is an idiot. So now we're stuck with no system for checking that member states are abiding by the ban on making, stockpiling or using such weapons. Why? Because Dubya says our spy satellites can answer those questions anyway! He's on his way to becoming the most reviled president, both domestically and internationally, since Nixon. And he deserves it much, much more.
Posted by John at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2001
Ruthie's Double has a few
Ruthie's Double has a few really excellent, artistic photos. Check out the rest of her site; she can write, too.
Posted by John at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
I consider myself a fairly
I consider myself a fairly well-informed person, borderline information junkie, but I'm continually amazed by the things I miss. I just don't have the bandwidth. I need a staff like Dubya's to complie a "morning report" for me. All of which is by way of saying this is old news, but still important and scary. The Dark Lord himself, BillGatus of Borg, has embarked on a new campaign. He's buying up major photographic archives and mothballing them, and claiming copyrights on them, effectively taking them out of the public domain. Bill apparently does have the necessary staff to sit around and come with these evil schemes for his morning report. Thus he continues to try and erect walls and fences around the free flow of information through electronic media, and revise our history like some cosmic broom sweeping away the free exchange of electronic information that built the Internet. As we march into our ever-more-questionable future, Bill wants to throttle back that information overload for us. You can only see the pictures he wants you to see, and only if he gets paid. Shades of Hollywood! Does this sound like what the major motion picture studios have done to the movie business? Hopefully his Orwellian plans will unravel in court, as it seems to me that scanning and digitizing photographs should not be considered substantial "creative acts", the necessary legal hurdle to designate the digital copies as new and original works. The BookNotes web site has done some background documentation on this scheme. About the time we have to buy all our clothes at the bluelight special at K-Gates and the only restaurant we can find is McGates golden arches, we're going to figure out that Bill is the problem and storm the castle.
Posted by John at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
Got some worthless Internet stock?
Got some worthless Internet stock? If you had certificates issued, you might be able to extract some value as collectors' items on eBay. This worthless Webvan stock certificate is currently going for $127.50. Dr. Koop meanwhile is only fetching $46.00. Heck, at those prices you might even have a profit!
Posted by John at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)
CNet doesn't sound like a
CNet doesn't sound like a fun place to work for the next 6 weeks. Staffing cuts are coming and management has everybody on notice. "Over the next six weeks, senior managers will be reviewing their business units and staffing needs and will issue plans to bring each business unit in line with our financial goals. This process will result in the discontinuation of certain businesses, and the restructuring of others..." Full email to employees here. This is always a sticky issue. Do you tell everybody what's coming and watch employees panic and productivity go down the tubes? Or do you wait until D-day and terminate people with no warning, pissing them off and making the remaining employees nervous so that productivity goes down the tubes? Either way is not good, but I think CNet did the right thing.
Posted by John at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Jimmy Carter disses Bush! "Jimmy
Jimmy Carter disses Bush! "Jimmy Carter has been taking issue with just about everything George W Bush has done in office... and called his proposed missile defence shield a 'technologically ridiculous' idea..." It's pretty rare to see a past president criticizing the man currently in the office, but I think Dubya has earned Jimmy's wrath with his megalomaniacal behavior. Go, Jimmy, go!
Posted by John at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
This is a combination stick-fighter
This is a combination stick-fighter and gun battle Flash game. It's big (1.93MB) and the server is pretty slow, so right-click on this link and save it to your PC for much fun play. [link from MeFi] I can only conclude that I am sadly slow on the draw. I last about 30 seconds in this world, and die 3 times before I get to the Matrix fight scene at the end.
Posted by John at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)
Apparently many people on the
Apparently many people on the east coast got a thrill last night, when bright lights, sonic booms and flaming trails through the sky led people to believe there was a meteor shower. Not so, says the U.S. Naval Observatory, it was probably a different type of natural phenomenon known as a fireball or "bolide." I've never even heard of such a thing... So, of course, I googled it and came up with this from the US Geological Survey site: "What is a bolide? There is no consensus on its definition, but we use it to mean an extraterrestrial body in the 1-10-km size range, which impacts the earth at velocities of literally faster than a speeding bullet (20-70 km/sec = Mach 75), explodes upon impact, and creates a large crater." 1-10 kilometers??!! Large crater??!! If that's supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't. I can't believe they meant that. Ok, they're geologists, not astonomers... let's ask the experts.... hmm... Cosmic Debris by John G. Burke lists a bolide as a fireball that detonates or the break up of a fireball. The Exploration of the Universe by George O. Abell lists a bolide as a break up of a fireball or exploding fireball. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Space defines a bolide as an exploding or fragmenting bright meteor. Whew, that's better.
Posted by John at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
If Julius Caeser had a
If Julius Caeser had a web log, what would he write about? Find out at Bloggus Caesari. [Link from Judith]
Posted by John at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2001
Note to self: Try not
Note to self: Try not to die doing something stupid like rocking a Coke machine back and forth. My mother might put up a web site. Tragic, yes, but also just plain stupid. One more for the "McDonald's coffee is too hot, and I have absolutely no sense of personal responsibility whatsoever" lawsuit file. Oh, and wear clean underwear, you might get in a car wreck...
Posted by John at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
One of the advantages to
One of the advantages to being mega-ultra-über-rich is that you can collect neat cars. The Sultan of Brunei, formerly the world's richest man (and still worth a hefty $10B), has quite a collection. Mercedes, Farraris, Bentley, McLarens, one-of-a-kind concept cars, even the rare Dauer 962, which will do 0-60 in 2.6 seconds (of the 10 made, he owns 6). He's a financial idiot, but I do have to admire his garage.
Posted by John at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Sigh... I just got X-10'ed
Sigh... I just got X-10'ed again. [link from Josh] This time with a link to an ad by the company that directly addresses the voyeuristic tendencies their other ads featuring fresh-faced, young women have always merely suggested. Googling X-10, I came across this article that I think is pretty freaky. It's a trend I didn't know about. That's a different brand of geek than the ones I associate with, I guess. OK, everybody had enough X-10? Fine, let's move along...
Posted by John at 01:29 AM | Comments (0)
C. Wright Mills wrote "The
C. Wright Mills wrote "The Power Elite" in 1956 documenting the inter-connections of the most powerful people in the United States. The situation, the concentration of power, and ever-increasing power at that, has only become more extreme. They Rule. What a brilliant concept. (I only say that because I've mentally created these relationship maps myself many, many times!) I think the UI and graphic presentation need a little work, but this is good stuff, growing by user contribution.
Posted by John at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)
Got a music CD that
Got a music CD that just won't play in your CD-ROM drive on your PC? Here's why. Ripping some songs to make a compilation disk and the drive on your PC just keeps ejecting the CD? Here's why. Years ago, I used to make high-bias cassette copies of every LP I bought, then only play the cassette. The end result is I now have over 1,000 LPs, each of which has been played only once or twice in its life. And the tapes still sound great, even ones I made 20 years ago. But that's not the point. The point is the hundreds and hundreds of hours of FUN I had playing the music, and playing with the music, making car-tapes and date-tapes and party-tapes and dance-tapes and studying-tapes. Making it mine. I'm not out to steal from the music companies. I buy a lot of CDs. But dammit, ripping CDs and making my own car-CDs and party-CDs, taking my music with me wherever I go, listening to it the way I want to listen to it, are all integral parts of the experience of buying recorded music for me. And they're taking that away. That stinks. So I see two options:
(1) I can go back to analog. Rendering digital music into analog is idiotic, but it will work, and I can still copy it to my heart's content.
(2) I can run the CD player jack directly into the line-in on my PC and record it as an MP3. That's not as satisfactory because of the lower quality of MP3 in general, but better than not being able to make my own compilation CDs at all.
You know, now that I think about it, there is a 3rd option... MacroVision says "Reports so far have turned up no significantly higher number of CD returns or consumer complaints..." I might have to buy and return some CDs... Anybody keeping a list of which record companies are playing along on this nasty little scheme?
Posted by John at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2001
Some old friends of Julie's
Some old friends of Julie's Mom and Dad are hosting us for a couple of days in Malawi on our upcoming African safari. We asked what we could bring as gifts, and Julie's Dad was able to find out that they really wanted a home security system. We asked what make and model, and they want... the Amazing X-10 Wireless Audio/Video System with X-Ray Vision and VCR Commander! Arrrgghhh!!!! I can't get away from these things (see entries 7/11 and 6/20).
Posted by John at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
I love photography and I
I love photography and I love old cars. My own old Corvette has been the first real chance I've had to shoot one creatively, and I'm just getting started. Found some really, really nice ones here. If you like old cars, don't miss these beautiful photos!
Posted by John at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2001
Lake Tanganyika in East Central
Lake Tanganyika in East Central Africa is the seventh biggest lake in the world, 400 miles long and 30-40 miles wide. It is also the second deepest lake, 4,777 ft. at the deepest point. The lake is bordered by Burundi, Democatic Rep. Congo, Zambia and Tanzania. Since it's located right on the equator, the sun's ray strike the water vertically and very little is lost to reflection. You can see right to the bottom, almost a mile away. Fishermen there have a unique way of catching fish. They tow boards out into the lake and arrange them into a large square. The resulting shadow extends to the bottom of the lake, and fish inside this virtual "cage" think they're trapped. As the fishermen tow the boards back to shore, the decreasing depth causes the "cage" to shrink and the fish get nervous and panicky. When they reach standing depth, the fishermen get out and surround the fish with nets. The "shadow masters" strike again.
Posted by John at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2001
Bought some domain names for
Bought some domain names for my kids. A lot of the good names are, of course, already gone and I figure by the time they're old enough to want to keep up a web site, they'll be relegated to obscure extensions like .name or .fam, or if they want a good old .com name it'll have to be www.colin-m-parker-9352.com or something, so I went looking... The best I could do with any consistency was www.123travis.com, www.123nick.com, www.123matt.com and www.123colin.com. Still, those are pretty easy to remember, so I'm pleased.
BTW, I highly recommend the combination of 000domains and ZoneEdit. 000domains is bare-bones domain name registration, $13.50 (instead of $35 that Network Solutions wants), with a good, easy to use domain manager for assigning name servers. Automated and fast. ZoneEdit is amazing, offering DNS (name servers) to resolve your domain name to the IP address of your choice, and web forwarding (a service for which Network Solutions wants to tack on another $12), to point your domain name at a specific URL (an existing web page, not an IP address), AND mail forwarding. (This is so that any mail to any address@123travis.com gets redirected to his hotmail mailbox or other mailbox of choice.) All for free for up to five domains. ZoneEdit rocks.
So, after 4 college tuition bills, these domain names may be all the legacy I have left to give them. I hope they enjoy screwing around with a web site as much as I have!
Posted by John at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)
Chitabe (1,2,3,4,5) and Xigera (1,2,3,4,5)
Chitabe (1,2,3,4,5) and Xigera (1,2,3,4,5) in Botswana. (Funny, I googled "Xigera" and got 548 hits, each of which began with "Xigera is one of the Okavango's best kept secrets...") These are the camps Julie and I will be visiting in the Okavango Delta in Africa. In addition to a few days in Johannesburg and several more in Malawi. More to come...
Posted by John at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
If you were to do
If you were to do a study, and you saw results that were certain to increase human misery and suffering if published, wouldn't you just say "Oh, no!" and decide to keep your mouth shut? But nooooo... The Washington Post reports today on studies conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, DoubleClick, the Web Ad Network and MSN and guess what they found? Ads that are bigger, flash, make noise and pop up between you and your target page are more effective. Thanks, Post.
Posted by John at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
A.Y.S.O. bans three adults from
A.Y.S.O. bans three adults from soccer for life, for brawling at a kids' game last month. Excellent! It's about time the youth soccer authorities got serious about this, if only for the sake of the kids, who should not have to suffer through the imbecilic behavior of irresponsible adults. Time to stop this burgeoning trend; it's already out of hand. I hope some jail time is involved for these clowns, too!
Posted by John at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Shakespeare's Insults: Educating Your Wit.
Shakespeare's Insults: Educating Your Wit. "Thou yeasty hell-hated minnow... Thou loggerheaded rump-fed vassal... Thou saucy flap-mouthed lewdster... Thou warped rump-fed miscreant... Thou pribbling shard-borne pignut!" Of course, if you don't want to spring for the book, the web is always here to help out.
Posted by John at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2001
Napster is dead, the body
Napster is dead, the body cremated, the ashes scattered. All that's left are the memories... Yesterday, they announced they're ditching MP3 altogether for a proprietary format *.nap that includes digitial security. Working in conjunction with the record companies. Yuck. So... this is the Internet... how do you route around this little problem? Well, as it turns out, there are lots of ways. I've heard so much misinformation bandied about that I need to put up some guidelines for my friends. Starting with this one: please, please run Ad-aware before you start messing around with file-sharing clients like AudioGalaxy or BearShare. They come with nasty little spyware apps embedded, which run in the background and send out information about you and your PC setup and your files. You need to know about that before you install them.
Posted by John at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)
Tips4Trips.com. [via usr/bin/girl/] International
Tips4Trips.com. [via usr/bin/girl/] International travel tips submitted by people just like you! (a thought which is a little frightening, right there...) Some of these are pretty creative, like carrying ten $2 bills in your wallet whenever you go out of the country. If your wallet gets stolen, have the police alert the banks. That's an unusual enough set of currency to give you a good chance of getting your wallet back, and most foreign thieves won't know that!
Posted by John at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)
Blogger's Template Design Winners are
Blogger's Template Design Winners are finally posted, two months late. Summary: Surprising lack of graphics. Emphasis on color. A couple of good ones, but nothing that knocks my socks off. Overall, boring.
Posted by John at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Real life X-files. [via MeFi]
Real life X-files. [via MeFi] WKJM radio station in Hartsville, TN (30 miles NW of Nashville) reports some weird stuff. Giant electrical surge that fries computers, phones, and station equipment, but there's no transformer nearby, and monitors on the lines by the power company show nothing. Fried birds all over the property, but no power lines nearby. Flourescent bulbs that light up in your hand. And strange doings at the supposedly abandoned nuclear plant down the road, complete with stealth helicopters and tanker trucks arriving at 3:00am. Me? I'd move.
Posted by John at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2001
This jury award, $90 million
This jury award, $90 million to 2,400 claims adjusters of Farmers Insurance Exchange of Los Angeles, for overtime pay owed due to their incorrect classification as "exempt" (salaried instead of hourly), will be the straw that breaks Silicon Valley's back. Farmers is one of hundreds of companies being sued by former employees for overtime pay. This single award may total upwards of $130M once penalties and fees and interest are added on. California requirements for exempt classification are different than other states', requiring that an employee must spend more than half their time on duties that are intellectual, managerial, or creative and require the use of discretion and independent judgment. Lots of companies out here that are headquarted back east don't know this. Lots of startups and 25-year-old dot com managers didn't know this. Lots of companies in California will be out of business, very shortly. Next up in the dunking booth: Starbucks! If the OT lawsuit doesn't kill them, the fact that the internuts won't be able to afford $3.75 mocha Frappuccinos® will. (Note to self: SBUX at $20.24, sell short).
Posted by John at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
The Webby Awards are tomorrow
The Webby Awards are tomorrow night. Just a reminder. Looks like a good slate of nominations, including many sites mentioned here!
Posted by John at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)
And now Warner Brothers has
And now Warner Brothers has a curse on it. Harry Potter rides his broomstick backwards in the movie, and the witches are pissed. The movie director didn't know the bushy part of the broom goes in front.
Posted by John at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
Another scary little datum on
Another scary little datum on the power of branding. UK newspaper The Guardian runs an ad for 6 days (and puts a billboard ad on a truck) for a non-existent product called "Joy". The ad showed a naked man leaping around in a black rubber ring, surrounded by the words "sing, laugh, drive, sleep, eat, breathe, cry, but do it with Joy". No other information about the product is given. 1,562 people call the number or log onto the Web site and register their interest in Joy. The newspaper is sending them a Joy T-shirt as a consolation prize. File this one under "Be afraid. Be very afraid."
Of course it also occurs to me that this is an example of the power of advertising to suck money out of your bank account with no measurable results. Blow tens of thousands of dollars on an ad for a whole week in a major newspaper (ok, I know those were house ads in The Guardian, so it wasn't real money, and they weren't dollars, either, but you know what I mean), and get 1500 unqualified leads as a result, each of whom will want training and a 30-day multi-user free trial and then they get fired or they're being restructured or they won't buy because their budget has been frozen or cut or the paperwork has to be approved by their boss who's out of town or it needs approval from legal and that could take months, but in the mean time thanks for the free trial and we love your product it's really, really awesome.
Posted by John at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
Bush rests comfortably after surgery
Bush rests comfortably after surgery to implant pacemaker in brain. Salon link, I know, but funny.
Posted by John at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)
New York Circuit Court Judge
New York Circuit Court Judge Danny J. Boggs administers trivia tests to prospective clerks, and they're not easy. The test from last year is here, written up in The New Yorker OnLine. I got 19 out of 71 correct, and some of them are giveaways ("Who is your favorite historical figure (deceased)?"). I wonder if he ever hires anybody. Anybody who could pass this test ought to be winning Ben Stein's money, or answering questions for Regis on WWTBAM, or something.
Posted by John at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)
The New Testament according to
The New Testament according to Dr. Seuss. As if. “One ticket on the express train to hell, please.”
Posted by John at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2001
Alan Greenspan tells a mean
Alan Greenspan tells a mean horror story. All your worst nightmares. "You Morgan Stanley maggots don't scare me...!"
Posted by John at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
By now, you've probably seen
By now, you've probably seen Dancing Paul, but I haven't mentioned him here, so I must, if only to cement his place in the timeline of this weird progression of sites that are called to my attention each day. Paul rocks out, and you call the tune. And the dance moves. And the background. And the backup dancers.
Posted by John at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
The San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Mercury News reports today that John Doerr "publicly apologized Sunday for his famous statement that characterized the Internet as 'the largest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet'." So it took him 18 months to figure out that he made a mistake. Wow. Well, thank goodness he apologized. That makes it all better. Speaking to the New Democrat Network at the Fairmont Hotel here in San Francisco, Doerr, a principal at Kleiner Perkins and one of the venture criminals, er, I mean vulture capitalists behind Netscape and Amazon (among many others), acknowledged that his widely publicized statement probably helped to drive Internet valuations sky high. So, at the meeting, he threw up a new slide with the same quote, adding the words "(and evaporation)". Which is wrong on so many levels. It isn't "evaporation". And it isn't even close to the largest. One wonders if he's so ignorant he's never heard of the great depression, or so myopic he's forgotten about the savings and loans.
Posted by John at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2001
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Vaccinations
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Vaccinations in preparation for our upcoming African safari trip (more on that later). Actually, our very excellent doctor's office takes the doses out of the prepackaged syringes and uses their own, smaller, sharper needles. On the pain scale it was a "1". As Julie said, "all that dreading for nothing."
Posted by John at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)
I like the SubTitle, "Cranky
I like the SubTitle, "Cranky New Yorkers Take Hug Break."
Posted by John at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
I remember seeing these when
I remember seeing these when they first came out, and they cracked me up. Just got them in an email again, and this time, I'm keeping a journal so I have a place to put stuff like this. 26 Things Not To Put On Your Resume.
Posted by John at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2001
OK, let's be clear. What
OK, let's be clear. What I want is this user interface: WebBrain on this content: Yahoo.
Posted by John at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
A study on the effects
A study on the effects of celery on loose elastic. A very cool, fun and funny examination of the paintings of 1950's artist Art Frahm, focusing on the tendency of the ladies' underwear to fall down whenever there is celery present in the scene. Just another one of those things science can't explain for us, I guess...
Posted by John at 01:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Atlas of Cyberspace is
The Atlas of Cyberspace is a collection of the attempts of various experts from industry and academe to categorize and classify the Internet. There are some very cool topologies, UI's that facilitate tracking links and relationships, and even three dimensional models of the Internet and the web. Martin Dodge in the UK, of the Centre for Advanced Spacial Analysis, has been pulling these together for about 5 years, and it's impressive.
Posted by John at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)
Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi
Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has the answer to curbing the country's AIDS epidemic. Don't have sex! For at least two years, he humbly requests. My bet is that HE won't be re-elected.
Posted by John at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
I must be doing something
I must be doing something wrong... A Brazilian playboy has to take his first job at the age of 85, and this guy romanced Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield and Rita Hayworth along the way.
Posted by John at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
The Human Race has just
The Human Race has just had its collective, widely accepted, history... revised again. We've been around at least 0.8 to 1.4 million years longer than we thought - maybe. The discovery was made in Kenya by two Ethiopian scholars: a UC Berkeley anthropologist, and a geologist from UC's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, "root-man ancestor," apparently walked upright based on the toe bone they found. Radioactive argon dating places the bones and bone fragments at 5.4 to 5.8 million years old. Many anthrological pissing matches are about to begin.
Posted by John at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
I heard from Travis at
I heard from Travis at Development camp last night. He's made the team! 10 of the 20 young men at D-Camp, who are all selected by their coaches at rowing clubs throughout the Southwest, are chosen to represent the Southwest at Nationals. That means one more week at D-Camp for Travis, then he's off to New Jersey for a week. Races are the weekend of July 28-29.
Posted by John at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
I saw the best sig
I saw the best sig line on a message board last night: "In a world without walls and fences, there's no need for Windows or Gates."
Posted by John at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2001
I'm not the only one
I'm not the only one who's tired of the amazing, tiny, wireless X-10 video cam. Apparently the company has gotten enough complaints that they are offering a link that will set a cookie to disable the popup ads. Just click here for their "official" adkill. Now, one of the wonks on MetaFilter noticed that the cookie has the daycount for the kill instruction built in, like this:
http://www.x10.com/home/optout.cgi?DAY=30&PAGE=http://www.x10.com/x10ads1.htm.
So, theoretically, if you alter the daycount to something more reasonable, like 999, you should effectively kill that ad for years. Click here to try it:
http://www.x10.com/home/optout.cgi?DAY=999&PAGE=http://www.x10.com/x10ads1.htm
[Note: It seems to work! Yay!]
Posted by John at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
The South. When and where
The South. When and where that semi-mythical concept intersects with reality is the topic of John Shelton Reed's The Tears Spoiled My Aim. [link via Memepool] Maybe you live there, maybe you've visited, maybe you're just thinking about it or maybe it's near and dear to your heart. If you've got questions about Dixie, this excerpt is a great place to start.
Posted by John at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
Feeling a little out of
Feeling a little out of sorts? Out of gear, wings clipped, guns spiked, no wind in your sails? Out of joint, done up, dead beat, dog weary? You're not alone. Combine that with a sense of powerlessness, throw in a little frustration, and you have the classic vouloir rompre l'anguille au genou. But there may be hope.
Posted by John at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
All 5 of the other
All 5 of the other resident Parkers are off at camp, 3 different camps in fact. Which has given me time to post up a few more pictures, and even my first movie. And may I say, just for the record, that the QuickTime Pro user interface sucks and their "online help" is no help at all?
Posted by John at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2001
In the credit-where-credit-is-due dept: Best
In the credit-where-credit-is-due dept: Best photo of 2001 so far goes to Michelle, who plies her trade as sapphireblue, and who also has one of the prettiest site designs around. While I have no desire to have my site look so girly, my envy of her programming and design skills (not to mention sense of style) is palpable. Sometimes being colorblind does suck after all. [Sigh.] Anyway, she's just pulled this photo out of her basement and on to the front page of her site, and rightly so. That road sign would give me a chuckle almost every day on my drive to work. Unless I started the day depressed. Then it might make it worse.
Posted by John at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results are in! This year's winner is Sera Kirk, a 44-year-old legal secretary from Vancouver. Herewith, the winning entry:
"A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea."
They have the runners up and the winners from all the various categories posted, temporarily on a different server (link is there). Go. Read. Laugh.
Posted by John at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2001
The search engine of the
The search engine of the Muppets' swedish chef (no official affiliation that I can tell), kind of like Google, only different. Bork, bork, bork! English-to-swedish-chef translator here.
Posted by John at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)
Demotivators from Despair, Inc. Dumping
Demotivators from Despair, Inc. Dumping a little rain on that unrealistically sunny disposition of yours. "Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it."
Posted by John at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
If your kid wants to
If your kid wants to grow up to be James Bond maybe you can send them to the CIA's home page for kids for starters. Warning: they might turn out like George Bush...
Posted by John at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2001
Regrettable Food. Sort of a
Regrettable Food. Sort of a culinary rogue's gallery. The best ones are the food company ads using the company's products in unexpected ways. (Hot day? Kids love a frosty Bacon Milkshake!) You couldn't pay me to eat anything on this web site! Gotta love the catchy slogans, such as "Oscar Mayers Great New "Sack-o-Sauce in a Can-o-Meat". And the commentary is wonderful... I quote, "The pictures in the books are ghastly - the Italian dishes look like a surgeon got a sneezing fit during an operation..."
Posted by John at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
Remember my post from 6/25
Remember my post from 6/25 on earthquakes? Had one today. 4 miles east of Rohnert Park, which is less than 30 miles north of us. At 08:31:07am PDT, a magnitude 3.7 quake struck. Want to see what that looks like on the seismograph?
Posted by John at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
This bit of fluff [link
This bit of fluff [link via MetaFilter] from a couple of bored Harvard students gave me a chuckle. Squirrel Fishing!
Posted by John at 09:06 AM | Comments (0)
I haven't been able to
I haven't been able to even get to the computer these last couple of days. Julie and the boys are all playing BridgeBuilder. BTW, this game only works on a decent computer. I suspect it needs the math coprocessor. So, if you're having a hard time navigating because the mouse "jumps" instead of scrolling smoothly, or if the train seems to run at about 1 mph, you need to either upgrade, or move on.
Posted by John at 06:19 AM | Comments (0)
Things are shifting around a
Things are shifting around a bit here as we undergo a little web site housecleaning. Please excuse the mess. Remodeling to serve you better... Step 1 is to delete extraneous graphics and try to speed up the page load. As I sweep the dust bunnies out from under the home page, close all tags and eliminate the dead links that are starting to smell, I'll try and improve the navigation too. And I'm not a web designer (in case you haven't noticed)...so, be patient.
Posted by John at 06:06 AM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2001
More from CNN... Excellent investigative
More from CNN... Excellent investigative journalism on LBJ's 1942 Silver Star medal in WWII "combat" for "gallantry in action." Said gallantry turns out to be one, 1hr and 17 minute plane ride. As an observer. In an airplane that had to turn back because of generator trouble and jettisoned its bombs into the ocean before landing. And was on the ground back at home base 2 minutes before the rest of the squadron engaged the Japanese Zeros. Now, I think it's fair to say LBJ was no coward. He was, after all, the first member of Congress to enlist in the military when WWII broke out. But, as Roosevelt's protege, he certainly had the inside track when it came time to hand out the medals, and when Gen. Douglas McArthur awarded him that Silver Star he played it for all it was worth in his campaigning. I wonder why it took so long for this to come out?
Posted by John at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
CNN does an in-depth special
CNN does an in-depth special on Mars exploration that's pretty interesting, including the best photo by the Hubble space telescope so far.
Posted by John at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2001
Oh wow. BridgeBuilder. Got caught
Oh wow. BridgeBuilder. Got caught up in this one and stayed up way too late. You've got steel beams and a budget, and many rivers to cross. I got to Level 7 before I had to hit the hay. You have to download this one, but it's miniscule, 122K. (And check out the Level builder tools and speed hack on the home page.) Apparently, these guys are involved in a trademark dispute over the BridgeBuilder name, and the site keeps going up and down. Email me if you can't download it and I'll send it to you.
Posted by John at 02:21 AM | Comments (0)
We found out yesterday that
We found out yesterday that in all likelihood, Travis won't be rowing in the Henley, that he is instead slated as a reserve in case one of the rowers gets injured. And nobody's hoping for that! I am so pissed at the coach for stringing Travis along, telling him (and us) that he would get a chance to row in the Henley. My read on it is that he just wanted to have a backup in place in case the worst happened. While that's understandable, it would have been better all around if he had been honest and upfront about it, instead of "tricking" us into paying for Travis to go to Henley to watch the race. Not to mention that his grandmother made a special trip out there (for a week!). I feel personally responsible for her waste of time and money. This is awful. Travis gives himself heart and soul to the MRA club and his rowing, and then to be treated like this... I am Seriously pissed.
Posted by John at 01:01 AM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2001
Harry Potter is taking over
Harry Potter is taking over the world. At least, my world. Right outside my office at the corner of 2nd Street and Howard, there's a movie poster for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Which is no big deal, except that it's 40 feet high and 70 feet wide, and covers most of a five story building. Yikes! 135 days, 22h:58m:20s until movie launch (Nov. 16) according to the countdown timer on the site. I hope that's not indicative of how long I have to endure that poster. Just released, the second movie trailer, much better than the first.
Posted by John at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)
Wondering how all those spammers
Wondering how all those spammers got your email address? Maybe you've got web bugs. Tiny, invisible 1x1 pixel images placed on web sites that snoop out info about you when you go to those sites. Bugnosis is a company offering free software that detects web bugs [Link via Dean]. I can't vouch for it, since I haven't used it yet (although I probably will), but I figure it's better to know than not know when somebody's collecting information on you. Install the Bugnosis software and it makes the web bugs visible; like this:
(this is one of several GIFs you can choose)
Posted by John at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
I was looking up the
I was looking up the exact wording of the Miranda warning for that entry below (the exact wording isn't specified in the court's ruling), and it got me to wondering about this Miranda guy. Who was he? Well, to make a long and sad story short, Ernesto Miranda was a chronic offender, an 8th grade dropout, who was arrested in Phoenix for kidnapping and raping a mildly retarded 18-year-old woman. He signed a confession while awaiting trial, but his lawyers argued that he didn't know about his 5th amendment rights protecting him from self-incrimination. On appeal, it went to the Supreme Court, who overturned the conviction. The verdict was the basis of the Miranda process followed today by police departments throughout the country. Ernesto was retried without the confession being used as evidence, and convicted anyway. He served 11 years and was paroled in 1972, and then was killed in a bar fight. A suspect was arrested in his murder, but chose to remain silent after being read his rights, and was later released for lack of evidence. No one was ever prosecuted for Ernesto's murder.
That's a little different spin than they give you in law school. "Ernesto Miranda, a poor Mexican immigrant..."
Posted by John at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2001
A good one to add
A good one to add to your daily reading is Chuck Shepard's News of the Weird. You've probably seen it online or in print, as it's syndicated nationwide to over 300 different publications. Nothing starts my day off better than reading about people who are stupider than I am, getting themselves in hilarious trouble through inappropriate behavior. But then, maybe that's just me...
Posted by John at 01:03 AM | Comments (0)
OK, money can't buy happiness...
OK, money can't buy happiness... But can you name the top 10 reasons why people want to make money?
(For the record they are: (1) security, (2) the ability to support a family, (3) to increase purchasing power (huh?), (4) pride, (5) leisure time (6) freedom, (7) to be able to behave more impulsively, (8) charity, (9) to "show off",' and (10) to overcome self-doubt.)
Researchers from the Univ. of Maryland, in a study released in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, concluded that people get unhappy when they try to accumulate money for the wrong reasons. I just want to know, is there a "Duh" award? Besides, they forgot the number one reason you need to have some cash, which goes like this: "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will appointed for you..."
Posted by John at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
You WILL take vacation this
You WILL take vacation this week, Compaq says to 30,000 of its 33,000 employees, following similar moves by Sun Microsystems, Applied Materials, Xilinx and Adobe. This week is looking to be a slow one in the business world, as the economic slowdown is forcing some stringent belt-tightening moves. Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard says you will take a vacation AND a paycut, or else a bigger paycut.
While it seems to me that the excess air has already been let out of the economic bubble, and Fed's moves to lower interest rates are (finally) beginning to have the desired effects, it's clear that the wounds haven't stopped bleeding yet.
Posted by John at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
