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September 30, 2002
Stuck in Frankfurt Germany over
Stuck in Frankfurt Germany over the weekend, and I've been thinking about Travis and his German class (motivated strongly by (1) his German girlfriend, and (2) his distaste for Latin, having had 3 years of it). It's not just the language that poses a barrier to fluency, it's the culture and the little details. Someone at work in the Frankfurt office this week, speaking English out of courtesy to me, was disappointed in something he heard on the phone and said "I want to shoot myself." I asked him why he was suicidal, and it turns out it's just a saying -- German idiom. Lots of those.
Plus there's all the little things, like you get into an elevator in the US and the buttons read 3-2-L. If you want to to go to the ground floor, "L" stands for Lobby. Get into a German elevator, though, and the buttons read 3-2-1-E-U. If, like me, you didn't happen to notice whether you got on at "1" or "E", what to do? To top it off, there's a helpful plate attached to the wall next to "1" that says "Bad Homberg". [Star Trek moment. You know where the Away Team goes on to the abandoned vessel and they make their way to the bridge, and somehow 45,000 years later the power still works, and they're looking at the control panel which is a combination of triangles and hieroglyphs (aliens love triangles and hieroglyphs)? And somehow - maybe as ordinary 21st century TV viewers we're supposed to assume that they've had some specialized Star Trek Academy course in instantly deciphering alien languages that don't use as ASCII character set - they just start randomly pushing buttons. But purposefully. Like, "don't fuck with me, I know what I'm doing. We're not lost." And somehow, rather than flushing all the breathable air out of the bridge, they manage to get the shuttle bay doors open.] Only, of course, for you and me, it doesn't really work like that. However, since the risk of my causing a warp core breach in the elevator seemed rather remote, I decided not to risk being discharged on a floor with an Ugly Hat Shoppe. I opted for "E", and there were no casualties on the mission.
At least I'm not stuck in Japan. German is much closer to English.
Posted by John at 02:54 AM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2002
All my comments about cats
All my comments about cats have come back to haunt me. In the form of an invasion. A Viking invasion. Viking cats, that is. Set to Led Zeppelin music, even. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ah! [I never took the time to figure out the lyrics to LZ's Immigrant Song before. Now I know, and I am not likely to forget...] This is actually one of the stupidest things I've seen on the web in awhile, and that's going some. It did, however, make me laugh out loud.
Posted by John at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
If you're one of those
If you're one of those people who are complaining that we have no business invading Iraq, it has nothing to do with our "war on terror", Bush is overstepping his mandate and walking all over the United Nations, I have one thing to say to you: 33 lbs. of weapons-grade uranium seized 155 miles from Iraq's border.
Posted by John at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2002
Dr. Jone's (senior) Grail diary,
Dr. Jone's (senior) Grail diary, from the Indiana Jones movies series. Leaving aside the fact that one must be suffering from what can only be called an obsession to get this deep into a movie prop, and I would never part with the cash to acquire one of these handcrafted replicas, I would still relish the chance to flip through one of them. It looks very cool indeed. Check out the snapshots of the illustrations lower on the page.
Posted by John at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
Bookworm is a monster time
Bookworm is a monster time sink. This is what would happen if you crossed Bejeweled with Scrabble. On my second try, I reached "Master Librarian" status with a score of 187,410. I will not reveal how long that took to play.
Posted by John at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
I'm a big fan of
I'm a big fan of optical illusions, and this is a good one. Not really an illusion, though. The squares marked A and B are exactly the same shade of gray. [via Blogdex]
Posted by John at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2002
Great day on the golf
Great day on the golf course at San Geronimo on Sunday. The Second Annual Seafirth Golf Classic was a rousing success. (So was the First!) Great neighbors, great weather, great course, great food. Simply unbeatable.
Posted by John at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2002
Also on that roll of
Also on that roll of film we just got developed were the last ten pictures from Travis' graduation in June. They are now added to the end of the filmstrip on the far right (the last ten pictures), or if you just want to check out the new ones, here they are. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
Posted by John at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2002
Bill Moyers' NOW offers a
Bill Moyers' NOW offers a "How To" guide to setting up a Bahamian shell corporation and evading US taxes. Be sure and click on the picture boxes on the left to get more detailed explanations of how to self-deal, and how to engage in transfer pricing.
Posted by John at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
Pictures from Colin's soccer game
Pictures from Colin's soccer game last Saturday. I still don't have the pictures from Matt's game developed yet (film still in the camera, so it may be awhile). This is an area where digitial photography enjoys a huge advantage over slides or prints. I still like the control I have with the 35mm camera, though, particularly over lighting and focus range. I couldn't have shot these with the digital -- I used a 500mm zoom lens for some of them.
Posted by John at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
What happens when a game
What happens when a game show concept gets out of control? Well, we've seen some of the disastrous "reality TV" results, Survivor knockoffs and other heaps of trash dotting the TV viewing wasteland. Can it get any worse? Please don't ask questions like that. Matt Drudge references a Rupert Murdoch sponsored show on the drawing boards, American Candidate. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.
Posted by John at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
I used AOL's Instant Messenger
 | I used AOL's Instant Messenger years ago, and finally turned it off because of too much IM spam. Similar experiences with several other IM services eventually got them taken off my PC as well. Now with Travis off to college, it's good to be able to communicate with him in real time -- and to see if he's online before sending a message. So AIM is back. And my company has now started using Microsoft IM as the internal standard, so that's up on my laptop as well. I knew IM technology was here to stay, and the tide has now become inexorable. Certainly it's popular enough among the kids. So much so that this article refers to them as "Generation Text" [NY Times link, login: keelhauling, password: keelhauling]. It seems the standard abbreviations used in "IM'ing" have worked their way into the offline writing of students, to the shock and dismay of English teachers everywhere. Still, what I like about this article the most is when they go to the ultimate English teacher, Jesse Sheidlower, the North American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. His take on it: There is no official English language. Language is spread not because anyone dictates any one thing to happen. The decisions are made by the language and the people who use the language." r u OK with IM? jesse is. i am. ttfn. |
Posted by John at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2002
Swapping tools with Rich today
Swapping tools with Rich today on email, and I referred him to WebReaper, and he in turn mentioned Raptor and Webzilla for the same purpose -- downloading web sites to be browsed offline (such as on the airplane). I did a quick google to try and find a feature comparison and instead I found WebReaper on a list of software known to contain spyware (Aureate). So... WebReaper comes off my recommended software list and goes into the trash heap. I'll let you know what I find out about Raptor and Webzilla.
Posted by John at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
From my InformationWeek daily email:
From my InformationWeek daily email:
- QUOTE OF THE DAY -
''There are practically no cases of radioactive watermelons this
year.'' - Andrei A. Buyanov, deputy chief of the Moscow City
veterinarian office, commenting on produce turning up this year
irradiated by the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.
Posted by John at 06:56 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2002
OK, back to the drawing
OK, back to the drawing board. Scientists break the speed of light by a factor of 4X, over a distance of 120 meters, using $500 worth of lab equipment. There was a comedy album back in the 1980's by a group called The Firesign Theatre, and the title was "Everything You Know is Wrong". I thought it was a joke.
Posted by John at 01:29 AM | Comments (0)
Having four sons is easy,
Having four sons is easy, relatively speaking. At least for me, as I used to be a boy, and I understand how they think, or more commonly, why they don't. Many of my friends have daughters. Now that we're all getting older, they have teenage daughters, which is a whole different proposition. I always used to joke with Julie that if we had a daughter we would raise the world's first Ninja nun. Now there's a TV show capitalizing on these Dads' anxiety, 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter. Here's the original list that inspired the show. [via Fark]
Posted by John at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2002
Bounceout is kind of like
Bounceout is kind of like Collapse (which is over on my Best Games page), but it lets you group the balls diagonally, too, which makes the game more interesting. unfortunately, it was designed by people who don't have any problem distinguishing colors. If you're colorblind like me, forget it: the game is impossible. I had to try about ten times just to get to level 3, with a high score of 14,000. Pitiful.
Posted by John at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
Walk like an Egyptian. Write
Walk like an Egyptian. Write like a Babylonian. [via MeFi again] |  |
Posted by John at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2002
I had to visit the
 | I had to visit the comic strip adventures of Too Much Coffee Man. After JiffyLube sent me a picture of my wife driving my car, I thought I might see myself drawn in the comic strip! Alas. The comic strip archives weren't all that impressive, a couple of good ones, but the name is brilliant. It's a much better name than coffeeuniverse, although the latter contains a bit more useful information and links galore. Learn why Strictly Hard Bean Guatelmalan is my favorite coffee in the world. [1] [2] [3] [4] [and for a little background on what makes good gourmet coffee, read this.] |
Posted by John at 06:57 PM | Comments (0)
Another phrase that doesn't mean
Another phrase that doesn't mean what you probably think it means... This one dates back to the early 1950's (Korean War), and it comes from an aviation term. Entering the Korean War, with the exception of a few jet fighters, most of the available aircraft were WWII propellor-types. The handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture in these planes are often topped with balls for a sure grip. Pushing the levers forward, close to the front wall of the cockpit, delivers the highest quantity and the richest mixture of fuel to the engines, resulting in the highest possible speed. "Balls to the wall."
Posted by John at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)
Next time somebody wants to
Next time somebody wants to talk to me about web site usability, I'm going to send them here: Usable Web - 1317 links about web usability.
Posted by John at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
9/11 wound up being a
9/11 wound up being a day of amazing synchronicity. Of course that date is significant for the terrible tragedy which struck NYC one year ago. However, as you may have heard, the S&P 500 ended Tuesday, prior to 9/11's start of trading, at 911.00. The New York Lottery was drawn as 9-1-1. And my own personal problem, with the parkerfamily.net web site and email bounces as noted below, finally diagnosed through inquiry with my friends at ZoneEdit.com:
"There is nothing wrong with ZoneEdit's DNS configuration, our servers are working and are supporting your domain. However, looking into the whois records for your domain name, it appears that your domain name has expired last 11-Sep-2002."Doh!
To those family members using the parkerfamily.net email web forwarding.........sorry.
www.parkerfamily.net should be back on line by tomorrow.
Posted by John at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2002
A library of online learning
A library of online learning resources, Blue Web'n has: Tutorials, Activities, Projects, Lessons, Hotlists, Resources and Refs/Tools lists for Arts, Business, Foreign Languages, Math, Science and more. Travis, need help with your German?
Posted by John at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2002
Homeland Security Cultural Bureau. Purpose:
Homeland Security Cultural Bureau. Purpose: To protect the interests of the country's national security by employing efforts to direct and guide the parameters of cultural production. [via Mefi] About the only things that give it away as not being a legitimate government entity are the dot.org address (instead of dot.gov) and the whois registry showing the domain registered to joker.com. Very well done, scary, careful-this-is-kind-of-where-things-are-headed web site.
Posted by John at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
Mail to parkerfamily.net seems to
Mail to parkerfamily.net seems to be bouncing at the moment, DNS problems -- if you need to email me or Julie or the kids, use keelhauling.com. Any name @keelhauling.com will get to the right person around here. [Thanks, Tom.]
Posted by John at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)
Here's another little tried and
Here's another little tried and true story that you've probably read before, but it's a good message for contemplating on the weekend. I actually saw this demonstrated by our pastor as the lesson in a sermon he gave. Of course, there wasn't any beer involved...
THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFEA philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the
table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up
a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it
with rocks, about 2" in diameter.He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it
was.So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into
the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled
into the open areas between the rocks.He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it
was.The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of
course, the sand filled up everything else.He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded
with a unanimous "Yes."The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and
proceeded to pour their entire contents into the jar -
effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students
laughed."Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life.The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your
health, your children - things that if everything else was lost and
only they remained, your life would still be full.The pebbles are the other things that matter - like your job, your
house, your car.The sand is everything else. The small stuff."
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued "there is no
room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will
never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay
attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play
with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your
partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean
the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set
your priorities. The rest is just sand."One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer
represented.The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you
that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a
couple of beers."
[Got that one by email from my boss. I think he's actually trying to tell me I'm working too hard. Or not drinking enough. Thanks, Stan.]
Posted by John at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
I was in New York
 |  | I was in New York this week for the first anniversary of 9/11/01, a very strange time in the city. Most businesses gave employees an optional day off, and at a guess, only about 60-70% percent of people went to work in Manhatten. The city was surprisingly quiet. Police had blocked off many of the streets (Bush coming to town), contingents of Marines were everywhere, in parade dress to participate in ceremonies that seemed to take place in every park and open space in downtown and midtown. I liked the ABC coverage that consisted of film footage and the names of those killed being read off. Very nice ceremony. I found out that my friend Rich was the last person out of the North Tower when the attacks occurred. He was on the 90th floor, on the North side. The impact on the North tower was near the center of the North face at around the 95th story, about 5 floors up and 3 offices over from where he was standing. He got burned by the fireball from the exploding jet fuel, and had shrapnel embedded in his scalp. Only 5 people from the 90th floor of the North Tower got out alive. Rich helped a lady from the 90th floor down the stairs and the tower collapsed when they were about five steps outside the door. His story is simply staggering. |
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Posted by John at 02:37 AM | Comments (0)
So how do you preserve
So how do you preserve digital data over the long term? I'm as guilty as anyone in assuming that once the data is digitized, it will be recoverable at any time. Forever. Certainly that was a major factor in my decision to start keeping up our family web site. But the familiar saying "a digital copy is indistinguishable from the original" that has been drilled into our consumer minds by, among other things, the recent recording industry debate over digital music, contains implicit assumptions that could prove fundamentally wrong.
I ran across this last week when Matthew needed a 3.5" diskette to put his homework on - the teacher asked for diskettes. I haven't bought a diskette in years, but we have a big stack of them from years past, so I said "no problem". I found one that contained data we didn't need anymore -- real estate docs from a house purchase in 1992 or something similar -- raked the cobwebs off the floppy drive door and popped it in. Windows Explorer, drive b:, format. "Cannot format disk: unknown disk access error." Hmmm. Tried another. And another. Matt finally found one, but at a guess, 75% or so of those diskettes are unusable. (Most can be read, but can not longer be written to.) Permanent? Hardly.
Is there a solution? I'm not sure. For every technique I can envision, I can think up ways to break it. Magnetic media is out, for sure. How do you combat the random microwave noise background of the universe? You could seal your magnetic media inside ten feet of lead housing, and random solar neutrinos can still make their way in, flip a bit here or there and make the whole thing unreadable. And optical is out of my price range for now. The best I can come up with for a solution is massive redundancy. Certainly, when my web site crashed 18 months or so ago, that proved to be the solution, as 95% of the content was cached on Google! Somehow that doesn't seem to be an acceptable "solution", though, particularly for private, sensitive or critically important data. MIT's Enterprise Technology Review has an article that considers the problem, entertaining in its context of considering how to store classic video games.
Posted by John at 01:54 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2002
Travis, our resident math wiz,
Travis, our resident math wiz, will enjoy exploring the math behind MC Escher prints.
Posted by John at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
Bigmyth.com highlights different cultures' beliefs
Bigmyth.com highlights different cultures' beliefs about how the world was created. Through a nice Flash interface, you can explore the stories by clicking on the appropriate geography. Still not satisfied? You can write your own creation myth as well.
Posted by John at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
On a budget? Love to
On a budget? Love to travel? Got you covered. Here's a handy guide that ranks the world's airports in terms of how comfortable and convenient they are -- for sleeping. Save money on hotels! But note that in order to experience the pinnacle of comfort, international travel is a requirement. Running down the "best of" list, the first US airport is 6th runner up. And it's Pittsburg.
If you would rather satisfy your wanderlust locally, be sure to check the road conditions. Highways.tv gives you up-to-the-mintue status reports. Very comprehensive, San Francisco alone has 10 links.
Posted by John at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2002
Nobody can keelhaul you like
Nobody can keelhaul you like Mother Nature.
PBS' Savage Seas has excellent commentary, photos and video of waterspouts, cyclones, icebergs and other hazards that can manifest on the open water. Complete with a wave nachine and a deep sea simulator for online, interactive fun.
Posted by John at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
Time Travel Fund. Make a
Time Travel Fund. Make a deposit of, say, $1.00, and at 5% interest in 500 years it grows to $39 billion. The money can then be used to fund a time travel expedition to "retrieve" you. Of course, there's a small administrative fee of $10.00. I love the idea, but I have a real problem with the fact that the administrative fee I have to pay will be $393 billion in 500 years. [USA Today hot site of the day] If I don't update this site any more, you'll know why.
Posted by John at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
E. Dehillerin, purveyors of fine
E. Dehillerin, purveyors of fine cookware since 1820. It's all in French, and the navigation is all in graphics so translation engines like AltaVista don't help much, but once you start browsing around the product pages, descriptions such as "Wheel Cuts Vegetables Stainless" get you most of the way there. If you like to cook, you'll love this site! [thanks, Jean-Claude]
Posted by John at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2002
It's crush time in Napa.
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Posted by John at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
I've been playing a sort
I've been playing a sort of a "what if" game, otherwise known as How Can I Retire on What I've Got, Live Off the Income, Travel as Much as We Want, and Still Put My Kids Through College? It's a fun game, and the answers never come out the same twice! Equity in a home in the SF Bay area is a major factor as house prices nearly tripled in the past 5 years, so getting out of the rat race entails cheaper real estate. So we've been playing with things like 160 acres, including two barrier islands at the mouth of the Suwanee River in Florida for $350,000, 54 blufftop acres on the Pacific Ocean in Port Orford, Oregon for $399,000, or more esoteric locales, like 10 acres in County Cork in Ireland complete with a 4BR old farm cottage for $250,000, or maybe starting from scratch with 1.6 acres on the beach on Long Island in the Bahamas for $47,000. Fun to contemplate. Now that they're opening up new frontiers for potential development, though, I'm wondering how much land we can buy, say, on the moon.
Posted by John at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
No matter how hard governments
No matter how hard governments try to regulate things, human beings are ever so clever in finding ways to circumvent such restrictions. Take the blocking of the website Google by the Chinese government. How to beat the Great Firewall of China? With a mirror site. Or should I say a "etis rorrim"? When the mirror site replicates everything in reverse, it naturally passes right through the firewall. Very clever. Too bad we can't see it from the USA.
Posted by John at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
And on the AI theme,
And on the AI theme, the robots are "evolving", and getting freakishly close to human form already. A walking piece of machinery is just... wrong.
Posted by John at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)
Found link on Daypop: Super-Toys
Found link on Daypop: Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, Brian Aldiss' short story that served as the basis for the movie AI. Wired magazine was good enough to reprint the entire story, but when I tried to follow the Daypop link to find out who had uncovered this jewel, it gave me an error message. So... thank you, whoever you are! Great story.
Posted by John at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2002
My little Atomz Search project
My little Atomz Search project is proceeding smoothly so far: "The last index of your web site index completed 10 seconds ago. It took 3 minutes to crawl 242 pages and index 242 pages containing 188436 words for a total of 3530481 bytes. 26168 word endings, 0 synonyms, and 20324 sound-alike words were included in the index."
Posted by John at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2002
Imagine arriving home from work
Imagine arriving home from work one day to find a postcard from JiffyLube awaiting you. You went there because you were overdue to change the oil and they could do it while you got a haircut in the mall next door. Elapsed time since your visit is about 3 months, you're probably due for another oil change soon. They're just doing good followup marketing, right? But see, here's the weird thing. They sent me a post card with a picture of my wife driving my car.
Posted by John at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)
When my brother's system at
When my brother's system at work got hacked - it's just a small business and they had *minimal* security systems, I connected him with my friend Joshua. Josh has forgotten more about computer systems than most "techs" know. He consults to small businesses with his expertise (Spinnaker Technical Solutions, Inc.), and I think I found Josh a new client. My brother says that it's not a good sign when Josh has been on your system remotely for 9 hours and the message he's sending reads, "This is hilarious." Not a good sign at all.
Meanwhile, Josh calls to my attention the following:
Someone (at least I assume one of those two guys) ported pitfall to shockwave and put it up on the web…like literally, truly ported it, not a “look-alike” rewrite. Pretty neat to see what game of the year ’82 looked like.
Posted by John at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)
I'm a sailor, not
I'm a sailor, not a power boater, but there are instances where I might make an exception. This gorgeous 52-footer, named Midnight Lace, would be one of those instances. (Found in a random ad in SAIL magazine.) That looks like one fast boat.
Posted by John at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
Tomorrow's project -- or technically
Tomorrow's project -- or technically later today -- replacing the defunct Freefind search engine with the trial version of Atomz (free for sites with 500 pages or less). Freefind looks like they're still in business, but my search results started turning up empty a week ago. Since my main reason for keeping this weblog is to archive the interesting stuff I come across every day, not being able to find it again when I need it doesn't do me much good, now does it? Eh, Freefind? I can't hear you...
Posted by John at 01:23 AM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2002
As 9/11 creeps ever closer,
As 9/11 creeps ever closer, the horror of that Tuesday morning one year ago is inevitably going to be revisited, and the wounds reopened. I have an overwhelming inclination to stick my head firmly in the sand and avoid the coming media storm. New York will have memorial ceremonies all day, and I have to be there on 9/11. I know the ceremonies are necessary and appropriate, but I am just not looking forward to being in the city then. At least I don't have to fly into NYC on 9/11. That would be... a bit much.
Some of the most insightful observations about the terrorist attacks -- and the US response -- come from overseas, where distance affords the observers a degree of objectivity that's hard to find stateside. Today's piece in The Guardian is a good example. The author, Stella Rimington, is the former head of MI5, Britain's Security Service. Her recommendation: "...in their public response politicians should use words of scorn, rather than the rhetoric of revenge. All rhetoric plays into the hands of terrorists but talk of revenge breeds yet more hatred in a never-ending cycle.". I am still a long way from the Christian ideal of forgiveness, but maybe I can forego hatred for scorn. Scorn I can manage.
Posted by John at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)
Time for a little redesign.
Time for a little redesign. The old color scheme was wearing on my nerves. This one may be boring, but at least it isn't offensive. Plus it works better at 800x600 and doesn't look like crap on a Mac. :-)
Posted by John at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2002
The video links cause my
The video links cause my browser to seize up, which is a shame, but the pictures are cool. And although there are franchises around the world, there are none in the US -- yet -- which is a shame. (Here's that business opportunity you've been looking for - this would be huge at Manhatten Beach in L.A. for example!). One look and you too will experience the irresistable power of the Zorb!
Posted by John at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
I thought the redneck neighbors
I thought the redneck neighbors I referenced several months ago were bad, but I guess that's my proventialism showing. If you're in Turkey, the standards for a "bad neighbor" are ... different.
Posted by John at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)
Only 23 days until Blickenlights'
Only 23 days until Blickenlights' Arcade project comes to Paris. I wish I could be there to see it...
Posted by John at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2002
I think we're up to
I think we're up to 5 remote controls downstairs -- 2 for TV (it came with one large full function remote and one compact remote with channel changing and volume), 1 for the VCR, 1 for the DVD and 1 for the cable box. The large TV remote is broken from hitting the floor once too often (again - this is the second one at another $70), and the VCR remote case is cracked and taped in multiple places. I've looked more than once at so-called "universal remotes" to replace this mess, but the prices generally start at about $100 and most don't have the right combination of preprogrammed components, and I really don't feel like dealing with trying to "train" the remote (especially with a non-functional TV remote as the "trainer"). The solution is clearly within view, but given our propensity to drop the remotes on the tile floor from time to time, in order to convince me to make that move prices are going to have come down. A lot.
Posted by John at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COLIN!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COLIN!
Posted by John at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)
I can't believe I haven't
I can't believe I haven't recorded this link. Tunak Tunak Tun!!! That link is solid gold. It is to a music video of Daler Mehndi, one of India's hottest pop stars. I HIGHLY recommend putting your video player settings on "full screen" for this one. It is one of the funniest things I have every seen. It is also delightful, energetic and amazing. Four minutes and seventeen seconds of goodness. Who knows? You may decide to go out and buy one of his CDs, like 'Bolo Ta Ra Ra Ra' or the more current 'Dardi Rub Rub'!
Posted by John at 01:59 AM | Comments (0)
The Salon piece on Mr.
The Salon piece on Mr. Anti-Google is getting a lot of web-play these days, but it all kind of boils down to this: How much have you paid for using Google lately? Nothing? You mean zero, nada, zilch? Well, then, quit yer whining and learn to turn off cookies in your browser if you're that paranoid. In IE6, you an even turn them off for specific sites, like, say, Google. I will say that most of his points are valid - it doesn't make any sense to me that Google would need to save cookies on my machine for 35 years! But this is the same information that is saved in the referrer logs of most major corporate web servers. So if Google wants to try and gather some info on me in exchange for providing the best search engine on the planet, well go ahead. And here's another piece of advice, Dan, stay off the pornography sites and you won't have to be afraid of Google tracking where you go.
Posted by John at 01:47 AM | Comments (0)
Simwork! Find the fun 10
Simwork! Find the fun 10 things you can do every day at work. Excellent 3D Shockwave rendering and manipulability.
Posted by John at 01:36 AM | Comments (0)
