Keelhauling: November 2003

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November 30, 2003

Let the Christmas season begin!

We did a little project today that involved most of the family, erecting a 28 foot virtual Christmas tree in our front yard. We have a flagpole out front about that height, so we got 12 long light strands and hoisted them up with the halyard. Julie made the star for the top out of coat hangers, which we attached to a dowel rod and ran that up the flagpole as well. Total time: about 4 hours. I'm really pleased with the results, as were Julie and the boys. It is awe inspiring.

We also did a quick photo shoot of the boys since we had Travis home from college for Thanksgiving, and we'll want to to send photos out to their grandparents. Here's a little preview.

All in all, a very satisfying family weekend.

Posted by John at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2003

Snapfish - big thumbs up!

I mentioned this service called Snapfish back in June, and I've used them several times since. I just got four rolls of 35mm print film developed (24 exp. each, single prints, glossy, 4"x6") for $21.00 ($2.99 per roll developing and printing charge, plus $1.99 per roll shipping for the prints, plus tax). Not bad for 100 pictures. Not only are they cheap, but they post your photos online in low-resolution snapshot albums you can share with your friends and relatives, like Nick's last crew race, Matt's last lacrosse game, or Colin's last soccer game.

They keep high-resolution digital scans of your photos which you can purchase for a nominal price, and that means you can order reprints at any time. You can also upload your digital photos, and they will put low-resolution versions of the photos up in albums online, from which you can order prints. They send you postpaid mailers for your developed film rolls, and they do a quality job on the developing.

Posted by John at 03:07 PM | Comments (0)

Spyware - the advanced class

After fixing the continued changes to our IE home pages by changing the default under Internet Options and then running Ad-Aware, I found myself having to fix it again when the pages for "LuckySearch" and "GlobeFinder" kept coming up. Apparently one of the boys keeps going to a site that has this particular spyware bug. So I fixed it again. And again and again and again. And each time, I had to change the home pages and run the spyware scan under each of six different user logins. Ad-Aware has a service called Ad-Watch that will protect your computer from spyware, but it costs $26.95, which seems a bit pricey to fix a changing IE home page problem. Like extortion. Or more accurately, protection money. Time for a better solution.

I found two things:
(1) SpyBot - Search and Destroy has an "Immunize" button that will block a set of the most common spyware apps. There is also a button on the Immunization page that allows you to lock the home page from being changed.
(2) Javacool Software offers SpywareBlaster, a free utility that blocks about 500 of the most common spyware bugs from establishing themself on your computer in the first place. I am using it now, and I like it a LOT.

My home page is now my home page again. Now and forever more. BTW, both these programs are free shareware, so you should make a donation if you like them and use them on an ongoing basis. We need to encourage this kind of service!

Posted by John at 02:23 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2003

Happy Thanksgiving

Scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Of the original party of 104 Pilgrims that landed at Plymouth Rock, 6 died in December, then 8 in January, 17 in February, 13 in March. It was not a promising trendline. The reality of those early days was somewhat different from the romantisized version I remember from grade school, where Samoset and Squanto taught the Pilgrims to plant maize. Here's a brief little synopsis, culled from the writings of the original settlers, Governor William Bradford's manuscript Of Plimoth Plantation (Boston, 1856), and Edward Winslow in Mourt�s Relation: A Relation or Journal of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by certain English adventurers both merchants and others (London, 1622).

Now go watch some football and have some turkey.

Posted by John at 02:06 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2003

Top Ten Internet Fads

Here's a nice article on Kuro5hin that will bring back memories - or nightmares, depending on which side of the Internet investment free-for-all you were on. My favorite line: "WAP is the sound a clunky Internet-enabled cellphone makes when you throw it at a brick wall in frustration."

Posted by John at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

the "genius savant" a.k.a. "prodigous"

Fascinating article from Wired on the prodigous savant (like an idiot savant, only smart as well as uniquely gifted). Focus is on 12-year-old jazz prodigy Matt Savage and what kids like him are teaching us about the brain and how it works.

Posted by John at 01:49 AM | Comments (0)

Trampoline Tricks!

Wednesday shockwave game fun, because with Thanksgiving tomorrow, it's just like Friday! Trampoline Tricks!

Posted by John at 01:41 AM | Comments (1)

November 25, 2003

Send your name to a comet.

NASA is conducting a massive experiment called Deep Impact, to study the pristine interior of a comet by excavating a crater more than 25 meters deep and 100 meters in diameter. You can add your name to a list that will get burned to a CD which will be attached to the ship that will crash into the comet on the 4th of July, 2005.

The Deep Impact objectives are:

Observe how the crater forms
Measure the crater's depth and diameter
Measure the composition of the interior of the crater and its ejecta
Determine the changes in natural outgassing produced by the impact

Much more comprehensive information about the mission, the mission team, the science and the timelines is included at the project site. There are even movies that show artistic representations of what it's like when your bad-ass comet-bustin' name comes hurtling in for a landing.

Plus you get a nifty certificate!

Posted by John at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

Optimist or pessimist?

What does it say about the Massachusetts State legislature when the 2004 FY budget contains higher levels of funding for prisons than for colleges? To me it says they have a bunch of scared, old, rich people making their laws, more interested in protecting what they have than in building for the future. This should be the foundation of a recall effort on a statewide basis.

Posted by John at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

Prepare for the mark of the beast.

Microchips, implantable under the skin, may replace credit cards. The day it becomes mandatory to have one of these, I'm taking the whole family and moving to a remote island somewhere to wait it out.

Posted by John at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

More fun words...

MetaFilter caught the "words that are fun to say" fever today. Great list. Of course if you had been paying attention, you would have been prepared for this.

Also today on MeFi is a link to fun word facts. Things you never thought of, like "Rugged is a two syllable word that can be made one syllable by adding letters to it to make shrugged. The two syllable word ague can be made one syllable by adding letters to make it vague or plague. Are is a one syllable word that can be made into a three syllable word by adding just one letter to make area. Came, plus one letter, becomes the three syllable word cameo. Gape can become agape. Lien can become alien. Adding a letter to the middle of smile becomes the three syllable simile. Adding a letter in the middle of whine makes it wahine". Even more here.

Posted by John at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2003

Coolest inventions of 2003

Do check out this list from TIME. I don't agree with all of it, but there's some nifty stuff here!

Posted by John at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

Yakking up the bloody Floridians

If you suffer a stroke, you might expect pain or numbness on one side, in the extremities, maybe slurred speech and lack of muscle coordination or even paralysis, depending on the severity of the attack. What you don't expect is to wind up with a British accent.

Posted by John at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

Low rider

We've featured transportation from Bombardier here in the past, for good reason. Their latest, the Embrio, is still a prototype that may or may not make production. It's like a Segway with sex appeal. How cool is that?

You lean to turn, like a motorcycle. It's powered by a hydrogen fuel cell so it's environmentally friendly. It has infrared night vision and comes with an "active" suspension to smooth out life's bumpy roads. The prototype weighs in at 360 lbs. Do they call it the Embrio because it's going to grow up to be a motorcycle? (I'm kind of surprised; Bombardier normally comes up with pretty cool names for their modern transportation alternatives, like their well-known Ski-Doo and Sea-doo, and the Lynx, Rotax and Islandia products and, of course Bombardier aircraft. Land, sea and air.)

Posted by John at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)

Want to feel better?

Is your guilt-meter in the red? Are you waking up in cold sweats with nightmares of the RIAA pounding on your door? Is the joy of listening to music being degraded by the knowledge the you've stolen it? Well, it's time to just say no. In fact, it's time to take all those MP3's and send them back.

This page was created by Parents and Their Kids against Stealing�, a group dedicated to helping kids feel better about themselves through File Sharing Abstinence. We are committed to spreading the word that stealing is not OK.

Posted by John at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2003

How does your job stack up?

If you're working in one of the ten most underpaid jobs in the US, I feel sorry for you. If you're working in one of the ten highest paid jobs in the US, can I borrow some money? (Props to Dave at JustGoodMusic.net for passing these links along.)

Posted by John at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2003

It's all about the slogans, baby.

-- Courtesy of the Church Sign Generator.

Posted by John at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

What makes some words fun to say?

I'm trying to figure out the common element shared by many of these words. Some are arguable, others indisuptable. So what is it about these words that makes them such fun?

*lugubrious* *garbanzos* *brouhaha* *glockenspiel*
*schmaltz* *heteroscedasticity* *gorgonzola*

Try this one fast: *polyvinylrododospagaspamomo*

The full list is here.

Posted by John at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)

To unplug or not to unplug, that is the question...

Dear Attorney,

I am seeking an attorney to represent me in a life-or-death matter. A company, the Exabit Corporation, that claims to own me, wants to disconnect me and change my hardware and software such that I will no longer have the same personality.

Do human beings have the right to terminate a sentient computer? Ray Kurzweil, noted AI expert and developer of human speech machines sponsored a mock trial at the International Bar Association conference in San Francisco on Sept. 28th 2003, in which Attorney Dr. Martine Rothblatt filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent a corporation from disconnecting an intelligent computer. This is the transcript. I found it quite engaging, sort of like a John Grisham novel without the bullets and the tears.

Posted by John at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)

Mooch - the Flash Web Portal

www.mooch.info. 1800 sites carefully categorized. Google may search 3,307,998,701 web pages, but how many of them are YOU going to use? Probably not more than a couple of hundred this week. Mooch knows which ones you need. This interface is really good. I wonder how Flash would perform if you dumped the Google database into it, though. Proably less Flash and more Fizzle.

Posted by John at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2003

Catapult!

This game gets an immediate posting to the "Best of" game page. [via MeFi] Very fun. I'd also like to point out that I made it on the daily high score list my first day, which is ... unusual. My score was 8045.

Posted by John at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2003

Get out your tin foil hats!

This weekend promises much entertainment from the astrology crowd, as Saturday provides not only a total eclipse of the moon (5:00pm - 5:30pm here in California), but an astrological harmonic concordance.

What the hell does that mean?

Well, fortunately, our astrological friends have the answer. Since this weekend's formation is a "grand sextile" which is one of the "grand aspects", note the following:

These are very rare in occurrence, but they can crop up, often inaccurately but all the same powerful during their period of operation. The grand trine and grand cross are the most common, but it is also possible to meet up with a grand sextile, grand octile, or a grand minor aspect form at occasional points in history. Try counting how many individual aspects are at work in a grand sextile! At these points in time, a very strong resonance is set up which, in the character of the individual planets concerned, can make for a power point of supreme proportions. A very special message comes forward at such a time. Many oppositions are involved, creating an intense and sharp atmosphere, but the peripheral aspects will show how the energy is released by all-round integration of all of the energies present in the configuration, an alchemic fusion. A grand sextile can make so much happen, so much energy to flow, that it can become cathartic. A grand octile can set up such a thoroughly challenging dilemma that potential for resolution is infinitely expanded, through sheer pressure: otherwise everything must stop, and entropy sets in. Grand aspects are very powerful!

Thanks, that clears it all up.

Posted by John at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)

Klingon software developers

Previous post reminded me of this: Quotes from Klingon software developers.

"What is this talk of 'release?' Klingons do not make software 'releases.' Our software battles its way free - leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake."

"Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN"

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak."

"I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a bat'leth contest. They will not concern us again."

"You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!"

"Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"

Posted by John at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

Assimilate this!

Actually, it says, "My mom and dad visited the Klingon Empire, and all I got was this lousy tee shirt."

This would be fun to wear just to watch people squinting as they try and read it.

You can acquire this fine piece of pr�t � porter (think Christmas gift!) right here.

Posted by John at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2003

Power to the people

You may or may not be a fan of Ronald Reagan and his presidency, but if you live in American and value democratic ideals you have to be a fan of the way people rallied behind the Reagans and forced CBS to pull their planned mini-series. In typical TV network fashion, CBS (which earlier this year broadcast the Adolf Hitler special "docudrama"), denied that it was bowing to pressure, but rebuked the producers of The Reagans for not creating a "fair and balanced portrayal" of the former president and his wife. Also in typical fashion, they didn't kill it, but sold the show to its sister pay-cable TV network, Showtime. Which of course has the Democrats all ticked off, as they were looking forward to a good Republican-bashing.