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January 30, 2003
"Keelhauling.com!! Come on down!!", Monte
"Keelhauling.com!! Come on down!!", Monte Hall says, "Carol Merrill has put a cash prize behind one of these three doors! Would you like door #1, door #2, or door #3?" You know the scenario. You make a choice and Monte says. "OK, I'm going to show you one of the doors that you didn't pick." Carol opens up one of the doors you didn't pick to reveal some miscellaneous piece of worthless junk. Then comes THE QUESTION. "Would you like to change your answer?"
Well? Would you?
I have done this brainteaser at least 10 times over the last 20 years, and it still doesn't make intuitive sense to me. I have to have it explained to me every time. The correct answer is "yes", you should switch. In fact, you double your odds of winning if you change your initial decision. The thing that finally makes it make sense to me is the same every time. It's the 1,000 doors example. I can't get my mind around a three door example, but the 1,000 doors example is blindingly obvious. Go read it yourself. Play a couple of dozen rounds and test it.
Posted by John at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)
Red Ace Squadron makes the
Red Ace Squadron makes the "Best Of" games list. You have to download the demo, which sets the bar higher to make the coveted "best of" list, but I've been playing this one for six months and it's still fun. [Note: games that require download are listed at the end of the page.] My only complaint: I wish the plane's controls were a little more advanced so you could do barrel rolls and loops. Nevertheless, the detailed graphics of the countryside as you fly around, and the smooth control of your plane's speed, attitude and pitch are mucho fun.
Posted by John at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
Keelhaulers from California, get ready
Keelhaulers from California, get ready to put your two cents in. Well, with inflation, that's 25 cents. Vote on the design for the new California quarter. Click on any of these 20 designs for an enlargement. Some are beautiful, some very stylistic, some way too busy, some are just silly. So far, the tree design is winning. My vote is for this one, but then I'm from San Francisco, and I understand that Southern Californians might object (but who wants "Hollywood" on their money??). [Thanks, Leda!]
Posted by John at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2003
Peer-to-peer! It's not just for
Peer-to-peer! It's not just for music anymore. The Open Content Network establishes a framework, a "controlled content delivery network for legitimate freely-distributable content." On a related note, last week Wikipedia published its 100,000th article.
Posted by John at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
The little magical house-elf character
The little magical house-elf character from the Harry Potter movie, Dobbin, was familiar to me but I just couldn't place him at the time. Now I get it! Vladimir Putin! The side-by-side is remarkable.
Posted by John at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
The buzz today was all
The buzz today was all around Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. I saw a Roper poll that was done immediately before and after the SOTU address, and the response to the question "Do you believe the U.S. is justified in taking direct military action against Iraq?" went from 47% "Yes" to 67% "Yes". I'm glad Bush at least was successful in telling people what to think. Many of us need it, apparently.
Most of the political commentary I've seen on it has consisted of blindingly obvious "insights" into Bush's "agenda". I suggest you do your own thinking, and to facilitate it I offer you a useful framework for analysis, free of charge. Use with caution.
Posted by John at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2003
Outside our New York offices
Outside our New York offices at 90 Park Avenue, I noticed a new street sign. It has the familiar black stick figures on a yellow background. There are two stick figures on either side, and a smaller one (a child?) in the middle. Behind the smaller figure, a car is coming. The text on the sign reads "A pedestrian was killed crossing here. Please cross carefully." As a seasoned driver, I routinely ignore street signs, subconsciously processing the information without it registering in my brain. That one caught my attention, though, and I'm glad it did. I hope it has the same effect on other drivers.
Our lawmakers constantly focus on new safety devices for drivers and passengers. But it is 36 times more dangerous to walk than to be in a car, measured by collision deaths per mile traveled, according to the Surface Transportation Policy Project. How about making it safer to cross the street? There is engineering work that can mitigate these risks with smarter implementations of speed bumps and traffic circles. From the administrative side, fines can be increased for not allowing pedestrian right-of-way. Did you know that in many cases, there is no penalty at all for running down a pedestrian? Laws need to be toughened up, making it more likely that charges of manslaughter can be sucessfully prosecuted. A car is a lethal weapon, and people should be held accountable.
Car makers are commercial businesses competing on product innovation, and consumers value safety. Hence, we have Volvos. (Stylistically, they should not exist, but they do, because drivers want to feel safer.) Unfortunately, we have no such competition driving local governements who implement our traffic control systems. Why could there not be a simple modification to existing traffic lights to indicate that a pedestrian has pressed the "walk" button? Bolt on a flashing blue light or something. Think outside the box.
Posted by John at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2003
Jupiter Research, which made its
Jupiter Research, which made its name during the dotcom boom with insightful analysis of future trends and scores of statistics, is once again at the forefront of technology thinking. Their technology analysts all have weblogs, and they all seem to have corporate sponsorship. Most of them are excellent.
Posted by John at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2003
Also in the current Wired
Also in the current Wired issue, The Race to Kill Kazaa, a chronicle of the recording industry's attempts to pull the plug on peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as Kazaa. It's laughable. Remember, the RIAA are the guys who can't even put up a decent firewall on their own website which has been hacked half a dozen times in as many months.
Now they're trying to take on Kazaa, which has transferred control of the software's code to a company which does business off the coast of Britain - on a remote island renowned as a tax haven - and in Estonia, a notorious safe harbor for intellectual property pirates. Ownership of the Kazaa interface went to Sharman Networks, a business in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, another tax haven. Sharman runs its servers in Denmark operating a license for Kazaa's technology. The Kazaa.com domain, meanwhile, is registered to an Australian firm called LEF Interactive. All Kazaa employees are contracted from LEFI. The names of Kazaa investors and board members are under lock and key in Vanuatu, a republic that bills itself as an asylum whose "strict code of secrecy" is "useful in any number of circumstances where the confidentiality of ownership, or control, want to be preserved."
"It's hard to know which one to sue," complains Michael Speck, an investigator with the Australian Record Industry Association.
Hehe. Hey Mike, see this? [ . ] That's the world's smallest violin playing "My Heart Bleeds for You."
Posted by John at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
Snood goes to the "Best
Snood goes to the "Best of" games review page, in the bottom section under "downloads". You have to download a small program to play this game, but it is worth it. Very cute and addictive as you fire funny-faced little blocks from your cannon into the descending wall. The occasional "buy now" pop-up screen on the free demo version is presented as a poem, making it less annoying than most.
Posted by John at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
Dave Barry's blogging now. One
Dave Barry's blogging now. One to watch.
Posted by John at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
The anti-war demonstrations have captured
The anti-war demonstrations have captured the media's attention. Predictably, potentially confrontational exhibits such as these have been latched upon as newsworthy and as a result public perception is skewed, which in turn expands the influence of those groups beyond what their popular support would merit.
Not that their cause is not understanable. Nobody wants to drop bombs on innocent civilians, even if the goal is eradicating vicious terrorists. Any rational person has some doubts. Those chanting "no war with Iraq" characterize President Bush's threats against Hussein as political posturing, motivated by a need to demonstrate concrete action to revenge ourselves for the World Trade Center attacks. But, has anyone thought of the similarities between America in 1942-43, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the America of today after Sept. 11? Or perhaps more importantly, the differences? The world really has changed, and America has changed more than most places.
But is this difference representative of a fundmental shift in American values? Maybe the world was simpler in 1942 - you got hit, you hit back. You weren't drilled in the political correctness of universal acceptance. You did not have to worry that anyone would sue. There was no United Nations forum for the Japanese to try and win the hearts and minds of the American people. Or maybe there is a substantive difference in having an enemy so clearly defined. Japan is an easier target than al-Qaida, more easily identified, regionalized, physical.
But those excuses aren't necessary. The changes since 1942, while profound, haven't weakened the moral fiber of this country enough to allow international terrorism to continue unchecked. At least not when it strikes at home. "Peace at any cost" is not a cause that most Americans are willing to get behind. As a country and a culture we still hold that there are lines you just don't cross. Even in the worst economic decline in 70 years, Bush's approval ratings for his handling of security and the terrorist threat here at home are 71%. And while the headlines report "Bush Popularity Ratings Down", that's down from 90%, where his popularity soared due to his handling of the crisis of 9/11. His father's popularity bottomed out at 29%, and the "danger zone" is considered anything below 40%.
No, I think instead we're seeing the incredible power of instant, all-pervasive media coverage, combined with the youth of 2003 latching on to this initiative as "their Vietnam." There is a natural and understandable desire for each generation of youth to make its presence known, to have an impact, to fight the power. Here in Marin County, California, there is a strong anti-establishment sentiment, second perhaps only to Berkeley right across the bay, that provides built in support groups for any cause in opposition to the government.
But these would-be protesters would do well to remember some history. We can go back to 1942, and look at the horrors of the Holocaust that we helped end. Remember, too, that we did not know the extent of the Nazi persecutions at the time we went to war. We only knew it was wrong, and we -- finally -- had to act. When the Iraqi regime falls and Hussein is dead or imprisoned, don't be surprised at the horrors that are uncovered.
But today, we don't even need to cast our minds back that far. In December of 2000, anti-war demonstrators were saying that we could not take any action in Afghanistan -- even covertly -- without awakening the wrath of the entire Muslim world. They were saying that backing the Taliban leadership into a corner would precipitate persecution among the general populace. They were protesting that we could not attack during Ramadan.
But we could and we did, because we had to. Now Afghanistan is on the road to recovery. The country's infrastructure is still a fragile shell, and personal security is an issue on the back roads and late at night, but more than 1.8 million refugees returned home in 2002, assisted by UNHCR. In addition, more than 250,000 internally displaced persons went home with assistance and another 200,000 Afghans returned on their own.
Anybody do a follow-up study for these anti-war protesters?
Had America been foolish enough to listen to them, Kuwait would be a part of Iraq. The evidence uncovered there shows clearly that Saddam Hussein would have acquired nuclear weapons by now. Bosnia would be a part of Serbia. The Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan, suppressing culture, eliminating music, burning books, oppressing women. If the peaceniks wonder why they can't get their support numbers above 20%, maybe that's the reason. People don't forget.
Posted by John at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2003
When you see artificial intelligence
When you see artificial intelligence engines set free, does your mind immediately go to the futuristic scenes from The Terminator, where the network of the future becomes self-aware and starts hunting down the humans? Or the Matrix, where we've all been turned into batteries serving the machines? Or is it just me?
Posted by John at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Point Sur Light StationSt. Simons
 |  |
Of course it requires you to establish yourself as a non-profit organization, or community development organization (with appropriate state articles of incorporation), but that isn't all that complicated. And the "transferred at no cost" part is pretty interesting. Current Notices of Availability include the lighthouses in Monterey, California and St. Simons Island, Georgia shown above, two gorgeous seaside getaway spots.
Posted by John at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2003
Don't let your IMs and
Don't let your IMs and emails suffer from smiley face provincialism. It's like knowing that in Mexico the man's family name is the second-to-last name, mastering the Japanese two-handed business card presentation with the card facing him or knowing to remove your shoes before entering Thai homes.
| Western emoticons are read horizontally. | :-) |
| Eastern emoticons are read vertically. | (^_^) |
Posted by John at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Regulations.gov is the U.S. Government
Regulations.gov is the U.S. Government web site that allows you to comment on any proposed rulemaking. The site links to The Federal Register for pending legislation and most of the Federal agencies for administrative rules. This is a laudable effort to open governmental processes for public inspection and feedback, utilizing the Internet. Now if only they had a link to the Supreme Court so we could tell them what we think of the cases on their docket.
Posted by John at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
The coming "death of the
The coming "death of the music industry" is foretold in this insightful piece from the current Wired magazine. One very pithy line really resonated with me: " ...at a time when bold thinking is required, the industry, once the province of entrepreneurial risk-takers, is increasingly managed by bean counters focused on short-term survival." That is absolutely right on target. The business model for recorded music is being ripped right out from underneath the "big five" studios, and they refuse to acknowledge or confront it. The music won't go away, but unless there's some radical change in the business soon, there's going to be a period of chaos when the walls finally come down.
Posted by John at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
Scientists have modified ink-jet printers
Scientists have modified ink-jet printers to use cells instead of ink, and are painting up a storm. "Tubes of living tissue" is a visually evocative phrase, n'est pas?
Posted by John at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2003
A truly beautiful web site.
A truly beautiful web site. All of Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo in one place, unabridged and thoroughly annotated. [MeFi again] Oh me. Oh my. This is going to take weeks to get through! Wonderful.
When we talk about the power of the Internet to enrich and inform, this is what we have in mind. The calendar is very helpful as well for placing the documents in the right historical context. Some of Vincent's drawings are also shown here, at the end of each letter in which a sketch was included.
Posted by John at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
David - this one's for
David - this one's for you. I was whistling the other day, and one of the boys asked me what the song was. I had to stop and think before recalling that it was one Dad used to sing when he was puttering around the house. I never even knew the name of the song; I always just thought of it as 'Queenie the Cutie". Turns out that it is called Strip Polka (Johnny Mercer) (info, lyrics, 30-second sample) and it was popularized by the troops in WWII. It was hard to find info on the song, particularly as there are several versions and the largest hit was by The Andrews Sisters, which has different lyrics.
That got me to thinking about other songs he used to sing, like Ragtime Cowboy Joe (Grant Clarke, Lewis Muir and Maurice Abrahams) (30-second sample). It's also the fight song for the University of Wyoming Cowboys. (RealPlayer) Now Joe was actually from Arizona, although Dad always sang it with him as an Okie, and he's apparently not the only one under that impression. But more important than the OK/AZ dichotomy was the sort of sidebar comments he added to some verses ("pretty good horse" comes to mind). Narrowing down the searches appropriately, I stumbled on a Russian web site with the lyrics the way Dad used to sing them. I don't know if it's more peculiar that I found the lyrics from these circa 1940 songs at all, or that the only site this one showed up on was in Russia.
Asleep in the Deep is another one he used to sing a lot, with great enthusiasm, probably a holdover from his days in the Merchant Marine. (Words by Arthur J. Lamb, Music by H. W. Petrie) midi version (no lyrics, bad piano). Around our house, we grade musical performances on gusto, not pitch.
The only one I haven't been able to find so far is Old Aunt Mariah. I don't even know the correct name to the song. You may recall her as sitting by the fire, with her tomcat sitting by her. She wants a drink of gin, but she knows it is a sin.
Posted by John at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)
AnimatedAtlas.com's Growth of a Nation
AnimatedAtlas.com's Growth of a Nation gives you U.S. history in a 10-minute movie. [via MeFi] Very nice presentation - low tech, but jam packed with information.
Posted by John at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
The amygdala is an interesting
The amygdala is an interesting little part of the brain. Among other things, it is responsible for the "fight or flight" reaction when danger is present, flooding the neural pathways with hormones. It is also, therefore, primarily responsible for the post-action response set - guilt, shame, pride, etc. Mainstream media is finally beginning to understand the dilemmas posed by science fiction writers 50 years ago, as our ability to manipulate the brain through chemistry and physics improves. This article from The Village Voice on the guilt-free soldier is an entertaining read, but mostly I just wanted an excuse to post this nifty see-snake-and-run picture.
Posted by John at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2003
We reported 10 days ago
We reported 10 days ago that the speed of gravity was equal to the speed of light based on some new experiments, but now it looks like we have a debate, and that may not be the case. Gentlemen, start your calculators!
Posted by John at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)
Streetsigns on the road to Hell #1
Imagine if you will, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, huddled in her chamber pondering the nature of X-Men action figures. Are they intended to represent humans? Or something else? Because, you see, if they are models of humans that makes them "dolls" under the U.S. Customs Service import duty rules. If something else, then they are simply "toys", which have a lower duty. And the classification would be applied retroactively, so millions of dollars are at stake. So how did she decide? Well, despite the fact that many of these characters are married, have children who attend public school, rent apartments in the city, hold down jobs at the university or the local newspaper, and most importantly -- are sworn to defend and protect a society that fears and persecutes them -- they are officially "something else." Ironically, the taxation angle had Marvel arguing in court that the X-Men were not human, and the government arguing they were.
Streetsigns on the road to hell #2
Then there's the movie ranking this week. The assault on our senses just doesn't stop:
1. 'Kangaroo Jack,' $17.7 million
2. 'National Security,' $15.7 million
3. 'Just Married,' $12.5 million
Posted by John at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2003
SkyscraperPage.com features 996 cities, 5,881
SkyscraperPage.com features 996 cities, 5,881 buildings, 1,648 photos and 7,444 drawings. One of the things that makes the web so wonderful is the ability of people to explore their magnificent obsessions in all their glory. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing. I like the poster they have for sale, too.
Posted by John at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
American Mile Markers is an
American Mile Markers is an amazing photographic project of Matt Frondorf, with 3,304 pictures, one for every mile from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge. Very well done layout by Kodak.
Posted by John at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)
Of course the newspaper headlines
Of course the newspaper headlines are all focused on the anti-war demonstrations, despite the fact that nearly 70% of the public is behind the Bush administration on taking action against Iraq. Well, I guess if the overblown media coverage doesn't satisfy them, they can at least take comfort from the fact that they have influential people in their corner.
Posted by John at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
As with a low sucking
As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed -
“Almost rather I had seen Moby Dick and fought him,
than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!”
“What was it, Sir?” said Flask.
“The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships
ever beheld and returned to their ports to tell of it.”
-- Moby Dick and the Sydney Morning Herald
Posted by John at 08:08 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2003
The White House Greetings Office
The White House Greetings Office will honor citizens with special presidential greetings and acknowledgments for 80th and subsequent birthdays, 50th and subsequent anniversaries, the birth of a child, Eagle Scout or Girl Scout Gold awards, weddings, bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, and it will send sympathy cards for a death. Past presidents also accommodate these requests:
Bill Clinton, President Clinton Transitional Office, Washington, DC 20503-0730. (It will be forwarded to Clinton's NYC address.)
Office of George Bush, P.O. Box 79798, Houston TX 77279-9798
Ronald Reagan, 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Jimmy Carter, Carter Center, 1 Copenhill, 453 Freedom Pkwy., Atlanta, GA 30307
Gerald Ford, Box 927, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
If you have family celebrating one of these occasions, it might be a kick to have 3 or 4 cards arrive from the President and several ex-presidents.
Posted by John at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
The San Francisco Chinese New
The San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt on February 15 looks like fun. Travis will be home from college with his girlfriend Claudia, maybe something fun to do. Tickets are $15 and it sells out every year, so time to order online if you plan to be there. 2003 is the Year of Ram, so we need a good team name.
Posted by John at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
I knew there were some
I knew there were some commonly requested burger fixings and combos that are not listed on the menu at In-N-Out, but I had never taken the time to find out about them. It came up at dinner with some guys from my company again yesterday. Well, here they are, along with a listing of all the Bible verses that appear on the food wrappers, cups and so on. Next time we go to In-N-Out, I'm ordering a Double-Double "Animal Style" and Fries "Well Done".
Posted by John at 03:06 AM | Comments (0)
I like penguins so reading
I like penguins so reading this article leaves me feeling in a weird mixed emotion limbo - suspended between funny and depressing. All the penguins in the zoo have decided it's time to migrate to South America, so they're swimming around the pool "like tuxedos in a washing machine." I'm further depressed by the fact that I find it funny, and it's even funnier that I find it depressing. There ought to be a word for that particular mixture of emotions, like schadenfreude, for taking joy in someone else's misfortune, but if there is I don't know it.
Posted by John at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)
Nice Saturday diversion: the Top
Nice Saturday diversion: the Top 20 Ad Campaigns of the Last 20 Years, from your friends ad AdWeek.
Posted by John at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)
Image Gate is the catalog
Image Gate is the catalog of over 80,000 digitized images from the New York Public Library. It's not complete yet, but it's already amazing. Works range from accumulated artists collections to thematic studies. Check out cigarette cards from the 1930's, an interesting study of the future in retrospective.
Posted by John at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2003
John Le Carre exposits on
John Le Carre exposits on his pacific position in the Times in an article entitled, "The United States of America Has Gone Mad."
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
This is really interesting only from two perspectives, neither of which Le Carre intended. The first is that simply because the article is by Le Carre, people will read it. He has an enviable skill of expression, an ability to manipulate the language for highest impact on the reader that is unparalleled. The second reason is that Le Carre certainly has to take some ownership of the casual acceptance of violence in society. He is among the guilty parties that have desensitized the populace -- worldwide, given his distribution! -- with books like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Smiley's People, and A Perfect Spy.
The article ends with a smarmy "tucking daughter in at bedtime" dialogue that is a disgrace to his philosophical position and his writing skill. I can understand and even share some of his concerns, but I come to totally different conclusions than the broad and sweeping generalizations he proclaims in this puff piece for the anti-war agenda. I'm just glad he's not Britain's PM.
Followup from Saturday: Jame Lileks does a nice job of taking Le Carre apart for this piece of drivel.
Posted by John at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2003
I wonder why some people
I wonder why some people find different tongue twisters difficult. Is it attributable to different shapes of peoples' mouths, muscle development, or is it just variations in natural tongue dexterity? I, for instance can say the ever-popular, "she sells sea shells on the sea shore" all day long, but I had to try three times to say "red leather, yellow leather", and I still can't say it three times really fast. This site would be great fun to explore with a friend! I'll try it with the kids when I get home.
Posted by John at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2003
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scaliais
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scaliais is complaining that courts have gone overboard in keeping God out of government. Looks like the "separation of church and state" has finally resulted in them being too far apart. It's about time someone in a position of power and influence threw the flag on the whole "one nation under God" issue with the pledge of allegiance.
Posted by John at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)
An obstinancy of buffalo, a
An obstinancy of buffalo, a glaring of cats, a pandemonium of parrots, a parliament of owls, a turmoil of porpoises and a crash of rhinoceros. I've always like the strange and wonderful names given to different groups of animals. Metafilter carried a thread mentioning the newest and best reference source for such names, AskOxford, from the folks at Oxford English Dictionaries. It is, however, organized behind an alphabetical directory that makes it impossible to browse without at least 26x2 clicks, which is too much trouble for my short attention span. Still it's a reference source if you ever get into a dispute, and now you know it's there. I prefer simple lists I can scroll down.
Posted by John at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2003
Don't miss The Young Man's
Don't miss The Young Man's Book of Amusement, a compendium of ill-advised science experiments from 1854. It's a good thing I didn't find this when I was 12-13 years old. Because I tried at least 25% of these without any guidance, much less an instruction manual. [via memepool]
Posted by John at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
If nothing else, you have
If nothing else, you have to give them credit - it is a new look. A computer made of wood. I'm just not sure there's enough market demand to warrant starting a business to make them.
Posted by John at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2003
RIAA - 0wn3d by.... ;p
RIAA - 0wn3d by.... ;p
oooh riaa want's to hack Filesharing Users / Servers ? - better lern to secure your own server...
Much as I despise hacking as a sort of computer terrorism, it couldn't happen to a better bunch of folks than our fine friends over at the RIAA. Their site is down... AGAIN... hacked for the 4th time in as many months (seven times in six months!).
Posted by John at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)
I received an anonymous email
I received an anonymous email from someone kind enough to send a link to Daniel Burnham's Jetboard page, which contained a link to this page, Powerboarding.com. Presumably it was all my "wish list" toys -- flying boats and personal air transportation links -- that prompted it. I really got a kick out of this. Jet powered surf boards, sand boards, all-terrain skateboards, powered snowboards, it's all here. Scroll down the page and check out some of these crazy machines. Plus the site logo is just groovy, baby.
Posted by John at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
E.Digital's WeDigMusic.com music site has
E.Digital's WeDigMusic.com music site has over 3000 royalty-free tracks from independent artists. Registration is required, then you can start downloading. The service is free right now, but will probably be pay-per-song in the near future, so you might want to check it out. Soon. There are some real gems here -- set up your login and try Do You Know Me by Eve Selis, for example, or Medgar by Jeffcoat Band, or Promised Land from the Gurus, or (shades of Hendrix!) All The King's Men from Roy Cox and the BluesKnights. [Links at the bottom of each page.] Not bad at all.
Posted by John at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2003
If you've never seen a
If you've never seen a flying snake, you might want to check out this series of movies by a snake researcher, Jake Socha. [link via MeFi]
Posted by John at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
How much are airline tickets
How much are airline tickets to Sandusky, Ohio, if you buy them way in advance? It might be worth a quick trip to ride the world's tallest, fastest, scariest roller coaster. 420 feet tall. 120 mph. Can we do it again!?
Posted by John at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
Microsoft introduces a watch which
Microsoft introduces a watch which can provide weather information, text messages and other data, and is controlled through a wireless interface with your PC. [NY Times link, registration required keelhauling/keelhauling] Fossil, Citizen and Suunto will manufacture watches using this technology for release later this year, with target prices on the least expensive models "under $150". They will also require a subscription to a data service, which Microsoft executives said might have a fee of $5 to $12 a month or might be included in the price of some watches. They will have a LCD screen enabling them to receive messages, and will synchronize weather and time to your locale as you travel. It will also be able to retrieve your calendar, which will presumably include an interface to Microsoft Outlook.
Posted by John at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)
Speed of gravity = speed
Speed of gravity = speed of light, in case you wondering. It's maybe not something you've thought about, but nearly everybody subconsciously has an opinion. Ask yourself the question, if the sun suddenly disappeared, would the earth keep going around in a circle, or would it fly off into space in the direction it was going at the moment the sun disappeared? Nearly everybody guesses the second, which implicitly assumes that gravity travels faster than light. Actually, from the test results, it looks like the earth would continue on its circular orbit for 7 1/2 minutes or so, *then* fly off into space.
Posted by John at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2003
You'll probably hear more soon
You'll probably hear more soon about Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, the first online novel to be launched under the Creative Commons license mentioned here several weeks ago. Cory is a science fiction writer, and co-author of the popular BoingBoing weblog, which you will see linked over on the right (=>) as one of my favorite sites. Cory did an interview with the folks from Creative Commons where he explains why he chose to release the book this way. Visit the site, download the book for free, a savings of $16.07 over the retail price at Amazon!
Posted by John at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2003
Have you seen the "ten
Have you seen the "ten men in a restaurant" analogy for how our tax system works?
Posted by John at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
Did you buy any CDs
Did you buy any CDs from January 1, 1995 through December 22, 2000?
Need $20?
Posted by John at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)
We take you now to
We take you now to the Oval Office. It is the day after Hu Jintao was named chief of the Communist Party in China.
George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the UN on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
(Condi picks up the phone.)
Condi: Rice, here.
George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get Chinese food in the Middle East?
______________________
[Thanks for email, Miguel! That is beautiful.]
Posted by John at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2003
GeoURL maps web addresses
GeoURL maps web addresses to physical locations. The link here should let you check out Keelhauling and our neighbors. This has interesting potential, although there aren't many sites up yet. (For instance, as of 1:30am on 1/8/03, Keelhauling is showing up on the "near San Francisco" list as #8, and I'm 10 miles away. That will drop rapidly over the next day or two, I'd guess. Gotta give them credit though, the ACME mapper is right on target.)
Posted by John at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
Fortune's annual 100 Best Companies
Fortune's annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list is out. Mine's not on there. Of course, yours probably isn't either, since collectively these 100 companies have 1,713,238 employees, or only 1.20% of a total civilian US workforce of 142,733,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 2002). Not many surprises on the list - Edward Jones wins the number one slot again.
Posted by John at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
William Gibson, futurist and visionary,
William Gibson, futurist and visionary, technology commentator and author of several of my favorite books, has started a Blog, complete with a message board. He may not be the "reclusive quasi-Pynchonian luddite" that he fears he is reputed to be, but I thought it was interesting that his site is powered by Blogger, just like Keelhauling. It may not be state of the art, but it sure is easy. Congrats to William. I'll be stopping by regularly.
Posted by John at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2003
If the Kill Bill movie
If the Kill Bill movie trailer got you in the kung fu fighting spirit, you might want to try out The Way of the Exploding Stick. [Two things: The way my website is set up, it's using a webforward service from keelhauling.com, which essentially wraps the whole page up in a shell that has the www.keelhauling.com URL on it. I do this since my web space is at my ISP, and the direct URL is just too long. So when you click on a link, often it will still say "keelhauling.com" in your address bar. Very infrequently, this causes problems with a site. This is one such. After each game, simply hit the "back" button and then click on the link again. This problem will go away if and when I get my own server set up. Thing two: my high score after 5 games is 2162. "Master Bruce move over." Beat that if you can.]
Posted by John at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)
Kill Bill, the new film
Kill Bill, the new film by Quentin Tarantino, looks like major fun. Uma Thurman does sassy real good. Uma Thurman in a yellow skin-tight leather bodysuit swinging a Japanese samurai sword while semi-levitating around the room Crouching Tiger-style, that's Sassy. Apple has the trailers for the movie up (Quicktime). Here's a little extra you won't find on the Miramax web site: the script written by Tarantino, also available in PDF format.
Posted by John at 02:39 AM | Comments (0)
Making some minor tweaks to
Making some minor tweaks to the layout, improving the archives. Blogger's template arrangement is extremely frustrating. Four out of five times, it doesn't save the changes I make. Looks much better now, especially the archives.
Posted by John at 02:39 AM | Comments (0)
You probably think I'm paranoid
You probably think I'm paranoid about all the misuse of technology aimed at discovering our buying, viewing, reading and communicating habits. Spybots downloaded on to my computer through web sites I visit, or more usually, web sites that my kids visit, are just one example. My friend Steve told me yesterday that he had restricted his kids from using the same computer he does, because the peer-to-peer networking programs they were using to share music were so riddled with spyware that it was slowing the machine's performance to a crawl. I told him about Spybot - Search and Destroy; hopefully it will save him the $200 in tech repair bills next time.
The privacy-invasion technology is getting more sophisticated all the time, and more intrusive as well. Here's some nice commentary on the goverment's increasingly obtrusive privacy invasions under the guide of the USA PATRIOT Act, which is serious enough that the newspaper in Roakoke, Virginia is comparing the USA today to Nazi Germany. Yikes. I can rationalize some portion of that, though, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and yes, I am willing to forego some "freedoms" for the sake of safety -- like the freedom to fly on an airplane without having my shoes scanned. There are some privacy invasions, though, that are just unacceptable. And consumer privacy invasion, information invasion, that I cannot rationalize and will not excuse.
Aside from the dangerous, there is also the annoying. Banner ads gave way to pop-up windows which gave way to the newer javascript ads that actually cover up the content on the web site you're trying to look at, and persist on the screen for a predefined amount of time with no way to close them. I read the other day that the licensing agreement for Kazaa (another peer-to-peer file sharing program) includes an explicit agreement to allow a spyware program to "utilize your unemployed processors and hard drive space", in other words they feel free to move right in and take over your computer. I haven't had a chance to see if that's still true (the article I was reading was a couple of months old), but it wouldn't surprise me. You can always delete the spyware after you download it, but if you don't agree up front it won't let you download the Kazaa software. And I'm just not comfortable having it on record anywhere that I ever, at any time, agreed to let some company access my computer without my knowledge and consent.
I feel the same way about the RIAA, who keeps trying to put restrictions on copying digital music. I like to play my CDs in my computer, and some of them just won't work in the PC because of this technology. (Apparently I'm not the only one not happy with the RIAA. They've been hacked six times in six months.) I like to play MP3s in my car stereo, and swapping disks in a convertible going 80 mph is just downright hazardous. One of the CDs could take off like OddJob's hat and decapitate someone at those speeds. I can put 150 songs on one CD in MP3 format versus the 10 songs on a typical CD, but some CDs won't let me record the music from them because of this technology. It's ridiculous. I own the CD, I ought to be able to do anything I want with it other than make money off of it without compensating the record company and/or the artist, which is certainly not something I plan to do.
And if that isn't bad enough, now it's coming to your TV. I learned something from this article. I didn't know this technology was already in place in Europe and Asia! I quote:
Take Thomson Multimedia's SmartRight technology, a copy-protection scheme that's gaining momentum in Europe and Asia. Every time you watch a movie or transfer a video from a digital TV to a PC, it reports back to the copyright owner.
Posted by John at 12:56 AM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2003
Tech writer Po Bronson spent
Tech writer Po Bronson spent a year and a half interviewing people who changed their careers and lives in search of satisfaction and a more meaningful life, and then wrote a book about it. Fastcompany.com has an article that is excepted from the book, What Should I do With My Life?. It's a good, long, satisfying read, although anyone who lived through the dotcom boom will remember Po as the author of numerous articles lauding the entrepreneur hero, which of course runs pretty much directly counter to his current thesis. Bronson rides whatever wave is highest at the moment, and with the economic contraction we've suffered the past two years many are experiencing the "traumatic life changing event" of having lost their job, which always precipitates a period of reflection and self-evaluation in anyone with more than a shred of intelligence. Nevertheless, the article makes some good points and does hold up some metrics by which we can begin to evaluate our own success and self-fulfillment. I'm sure there's a New Years resolution in there somewhere.
Posted by John at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2003
New Year's resolution #1 fulfilled.
New Year's resolution #1 fulfilled. I got rid of that annoying javascript error that popped up whenever you tried to go visit the archives. That was admittedly one of the easy ones, but you've gotta start somewhere, right?
Posted by John at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
Bush's Total Information Awareness program
Bush's Total Information Awareness program lost that creepy logo that freaked me out two weeks ago. Guess I wasn't only one that got chills from looking at it. Meanwhile, Wired has a piece explaining why the various government surveillance programs promulgated under Bush are like the all-seeing eye of Sauron.
Posted by John at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
Today is J.R.R Tolkien's eleventy-first
Today is J.R.R Tolkien's eleventy-first birthday. You may recall at the beginning of book one of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo Baggins has an enormous party celebrating his eleventy-first (111 years old) birthday with half of the Shire in attendance. Tolkien fans are invited to drink a toast at 9:00pm to "The Professor". [link via Zannah at user/bin/girl] We just got the DVD for The Fellowship of the Ring in the mail from Netflix, so I think we'll watch it tonight in his honor.
Posted by John at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
It's been a long time
It's been a long time since I looked at any stocks, having punched out of all our major holdings nearly two years ago. CNN ran a "Dogs of the Dow" story today that caught my eye though. Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy whereby you purchase, each year, the ten highest yielding stocks in the Dow. High yields means low prices, and since they are widely followed Dow stocks, the theory is that they are likely to eventually recover. The strategy is not news - it's been around at least 20 years. But long term it beats the major maket averages which is the benchmark of a successful strategy. The thing that caught my eye, though, is that while the Dogs of the Dow stocks are usually industrial and utility-related or commodity stocks, the market has been so bad the last couple of years that we're seeing names like JP Morgan Chase ($25.52, yield 5.35%), General Electric ($25.12, yield 2.98%), Eastman Kodak ($37.47, yield 5.02%) and AT&T ($27.81, yield 2.78%). Those yields sure beat what I'm seeing from the local banks on CDs, too. Dogs of the Dow, eh?
Posted by John at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2003
Looplabs is major fun, satisfying
Looplabs is major fun, satisfying the DJ urges you've suppressed for so very long. Crank up the speakers, it's a house party! This site joins Silophone and Le Pianographique as the most fun, interactive music sites on the Internet.
Posted by John at 06:21 PM | Comments (0)
Pong, the movie. It's a
Pong, the movie. It's a tale of lifelong competition culminating in road rage run amuck, when the destructive instincts of two hardened competitors finally spin out of control. Confronted by their destiny, their roles as mere tools within the gestalt of a video game become manifest, and they are humbled. The reconciliation is beautiful but belated, for the universe has cruel tricks it can play at any time...
Posted by John at 02:22 AM | Comments (0)
Einstein's Theory of Relativity, in
Einstein's Theory of Relativity, in words of four letters or less. From the muppetlabs.
"Say you woke up one day and your bed was gone. Your room, too. Gone. It's all gone. You wake up in an inky void..."
Not that this is really important or anything, but I like it because it illustrates that the concept behind relativity is so simple even a child can understand it. If you've ever played Mad Ape, or tried to write a story or a message in words of four letters or less, you'll know it's not that easy.
Posted by John at 01:33 AM | Comments (0)
Doctors in West Virginia are
Doctors in West Virginia are on strike this month in protest of higher insurance premiums. Surgeries are being delayed and deferred, and state health care officials are calling it a state of emergency. Pennsylvania apparently narrowly averted the same thing. It's hard to work up a lot of sympathy for the doctors in this case: "Yes, doctors do make a lot of money" opines Samuel Licata, M.D. in the article. Now they're upset because at $50-$100,000 per year the insurance premiums are starting to have an impact on the old W-2.
The doctors, who have been squeezing the general public with their ridiculously high fees for decades, have finally met somebody more greedy and rapacious than they are -- insurance companies! First the insurance companies put the squeeze on the doctors through the preferred provider networks, HMOs and "generally accepted" treatment costing, and now they're coming at the doctors from the other side - as providers of malpractice insurance. The solution the doctors want is simple - levy taxes on the general public to subsidize their malpractice insurance fees. Or in other words, if you can't get the people to pay the exorbitant fees voluntarily, make it mandatory and make everybody participate. Just don't go trying to cut my $500,000+ annual income, or we won't be able to have Missy's debutante ball at the country club this year. Boo hoo.
On the other hand, insurance companies are evil. No, make that Evil, capitalized. They have more money than they know what to do with already, and they routinely victimize everybody - their own customers, suppliers, providers -- anybody and everybody. In this case, they have the doctors over a barrel and know the doctors can afford it, so they're squeezing them, hard. In the end, we -- the consumers of medical services - pay for it anyway. So, from the insurance company perspective, that makes it OK. This reminds me of recent Presidential elections; I can't decide who I despise more, doctors or insurance companies.
Run that plan for nationalized health care by me again. I need to take another look at it.
Posted by John at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2003
300 Miles High. A photo
300 Miles High. A photo journal of high altitude pictures, some of the most amazing and beautiful I've seen.
Posted by John at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
Do you like beautiful old
Do you like beautiful old maps? The University of Georgia has put their Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library collection of more than 800 historic maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century, online. The maps are incredible, scanned from microfilm negatives at 2400dpi. They are very large files, with an average JPEG size of 400k (not for dialup). The collection is heavily focused on the State of Georgia and the eastern seaboard. There are several old map sites I like to prowl around, but this one is new to me and is extraordinary.
Posted by John at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
This picture was captured by
This picture was captured by telescope from the ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. And it's not Saturn. It's Uranus, and those rings... they wobble. NASA has posted a time-lapse movie from Hubble showing the wobble in the rings. Very cool. [via MeFi]
Posted by John at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
A couple of links I
A couple of links I just want to record here so I can search for them later when I want to find them:
Fireworks. This one is just for fun, and is running very slowly right now, as the site is getting heavy traffic (8 million hits since July! Most of them recent. Hopefully it recovers soon.) Fireworks II is a little better right now.
And the online wine shopping search engine.
Posted by John at 03:20 AM | Comments (0)
Growing meat in a lab
Growing meat in a lab dish. This is progress? Come on, where's my flying car?
I took one of those online health profiles the other day, where they try to determine by a relatively straightforward list of questions how your lifestyle choices impact your longetivity. (Get more exercise was my result. Surprise.) But what was really interesting was that in the dietary section (where Julie takes good care of us - we all get our RDA of everything, every day), they had a question about how much red meat you eat. The thing that struck me about it was the way it was phrased.
How many servings of RED MEAT do you eat per WEEK?
· None
· Less than 1 serving per week
· More than 1 serving per week
Now since they are clearly making some value judgements about the healthiness of your diet here, the implication is that 1 serving of red meat per week (or more) is - relatively - unhealthy. One a week?
Well, I thought, we're way over that limit. But at least these days we eat more chicken than red meat. Then I saw that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is down on chickens in a major way as a health risk as well. Sigh... I already know all the good fish contains mercury. Conclusion: The health Nazis are trying to turn us all into vegetarians. Well, I ain't gonna do it. You can have my hamburger when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Fries too. Now, back off.
Posted by John at 03:02 AM | Comments (0)
We celebrated New Year's with
We celebrated New Year's with some friends over at our house, dinner (flank steak off the grill, Julie's homemade brownies and ice cream for dessert), champagne for the adults and Martinelli's sparkling apple cider for the kids. We greeted 2003 on Eastern Standard time, watching the ball drop in Times Square on CNN. This gave us the opportunity to get the kids to bed shortly after 9:00pm, and the kids were still awake enough to enjoy it. They loved it -- party poppers and noisemakers going full steam, setting Maggie off into a frenzy of barking like she was ringing in the New Year with us. The surprise treat, though, was that Miguel and Diana brought a bottle of 1994 Brut Cristal, which was simply the best champagne I have ever experienced, even better in my opinion than the Dom Perignon and Krug vintages I have tasted.
The Underground Wine Journal
Volume XIX, No. 8
Score: 91, Voted One of the Top Ten Champagnes
Beautiful brilliant pale straw color with elegant little bubbles. Tantalizing, clean and complex aromas on the nose of freshly sliced ripe pear and golden delicious apple spiked with brown spice, toast, pineapple and quince. Good mousse and acid on the palate with exciting flavors of pineapple upside-down cake, lemon custard and red apple. The finish is good and long with nut, lemon and peach flavors that keep going. This is well made well-balanced Champagne that has the potential to age beautifully.
Not any more, it doesn't. We drank every drop. Thanks, Miguel and Diana!
Posted by John at 02:16 AM | Comments (0)
