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December 24, 2003
Pretty amazing offer
I've put off the upgrades around here for too long. One in particular is a new hosting service, if I don't wind up running the server myself, at the least for backup. So I went looking for cheap hosting services, and found that the leading European hosting service, 1&1.com, is trying to break into the US market and is running an amazing deal through January 14th. 500 meg storage email hosting shell and FTP access domain name hosting 5 gig transfer limit per month Perl, Python, PHP, MySQL, CGI $25 worth of Google AdWords ... free for three years!
I've been trying to figure out what the catch is, like do they charge egregious rates if you're over the transfer limit (no they don't, it's $0.99 per GB), or is it some kind of scam (no, it's not, they're legitimate - the largest hosting company in Germany, and nominally, in Europe). You can even limit any overcharges through their admin tool, and set up your site so that it stops serving pages if you hit the limit. (Go to the control panel (https://admin.1and1.com), enter your login/password, then click on the contract that corresponds to the Domain you wish to configure. Go to "My Account", then "Billing Overview", and click on "Cost Limit". Set the Cost Limit to $1.00.)
This is a heck of a deal, and should enable them to establish a meaningful US presence very quickly. Even if you're only thinking about setting up your own web site, you might want to jump on this.
Posted by John at 05:07 PM | Comments (1)
December 23, 2003
And another LOTR story
A graduate student from George Mason takes apart the director's handling of the character of Frodo. Good commentary! It's interesting that although I've probably read LOTR 10 times in my life, I got so wrapped up in the movie that I completely overlooked the fact that the scene where Frodo believes Gollum's lies and sends Sam away is completely fabricated for the movie. That never happens in the book.
Posted by John at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
AdAge's 10 ads America Won't See
These range from the prurient to the obscure, but some are quite humorous and some are very high impact. It's worth browsing the whole list.
Posted by John at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
DEBKAfile does it again
After Debka broke the news on Dec. 14 (reported here - below - on Dec. 16), it's official (at least by modern media standards). Yahoo picked up an AFP story today, entitled Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops. Another spin here. The conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this one.
Posted by John at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2003
LOTR: The Return of the King
Yes, absolutely. All 3.5 hours worth. Now, admittedly, normally with a really good movie I would welcome a chance to see it again ASAP, and here, I think some... seasoning time is required. 3.5 hours is too long, even for a really good movie.
One nifty thing about the whole LOTR saga is that it is so deep, so complex and engaging that lots and lots of peripheral stuff springs up around the movies for us to enjoy. Gollum's acceptance speech at the MTV awards, for example, is just hilarious. As is the contract analysis of Sauron's letter to the Drawf king. I also enjoyed the Russian Spin, "Gandalf the Unilateral" featured at The Politburo Diktat.
Posted by John at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2003
Dirty Santa
Our friends Ruedi and Meg had everybody over to their house yesterday, as the youth from our church got together to have a party and exchange gifts. The game they were all looking forward to was dirty Santa. Everybody draws numbers, and the person with number one picks a wrapped gift, and opens it. Then the person with number two can either "steal" the gift from number one (in which case number one gets to pick another gift), or they can choose anoter wrapped gift and open it. Then the person with number three can steal either gift, or pick another new one, and so on. After any gift gets stolen three times, it cannot be stolen again. We had 17 kids participating, so it took awhile and was just hilarious. A very fun game, and it was interesting to see the greed come out as the kids jockeyed for position on the best gifts.
Last year, some parents contributed a Playstation II to the gift pool, and Travis wound up with it. Of course, all our boys have enjoyed it, and I think they have a certain amount of guilt about it. In stealing presents last night, Colin wound up with a set of "Astro-jax", Matt a pair of giant lime green shoestrings, and Nick a pair of socks with bells on them. I am quite proud of their sense of humor and self-control. Merry Christmas!
Even though Ruedi is Swiss not Swedish, thinking about Ruedi and Meg reminds me of How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons.
Posted by John at 02:08 AM | Comments (0)
Blog lists
I'm not sure why you would hold national blogging contests; the web is, at the least, an international force and good blogging crosses international lines without a moment's hesitation. A language-specific blogging contest might make some sense; after all it's tough for most English-speaking people to read a Chinese blog and vice versa. Nevertheless, there is a Best British Blogs contest sponsored by the Guardian Unlimited that has some stellar winners, as well as the more well-known Bloggies, now in their third year (honorable mention for the best weblog categories, however, goes to the Anti-Bloggies). Hours and hours of good reading material at these links!
Posted by John at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)
A scientific bon mot
New Scientist recently ran a competition for new scientific words to describe well known phenomena that don't have a good name already. Here's a list of the top 20 that's very funny. My favorite:
Incamerafelinity An angst-ridden state characterised by the feeling that one is a cat stuck in a box about to die as a result of the random act of science one doesn't understand and, worse still, that nobody will notice, leaving one stuck in an unresolved superposition for eternity. "I awoke in the same strange room, unable to shake off a persistent incamerafelinity." -- Peter Fyfe, Sydney, Australia
Of course, as a confirmed cat hater, that was an easy pick for me. It should be for you, too. Right? Such a feeling of anticipated doom is only appropriate for a cat. I mean... you know about cats, right? You know the kinds of things they do?
Posted by John at 12:54 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2003
Impressive but creepy
Technically, programming a bunch of robots to "dance" in synch with each other is pretty impressive, but doesn't fall into the "amazing" category. When you actually watch it, though, it has a visceral impact that is pretty powerful. I see the "Rise of the Machines" every time something like this comes along.
Posted by John at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)
I thought he traveled by sleigh
But in the interests of getting you into the Christmas spirit (and maybe firing up your competitive nature), I'll just let you know that I was able to throw Santa 334.3 meters with the Santapult. Update 12/21: 350.4 meters!
;
Posted by John at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2003
Keelhaul them all!!!!
What would you do if you were President? Sure, everybody's ready to be the armchair quarterback, but have you every really sat back and thought about it?
In 2004 you run a winning United States presidential campaign propelled almost entirely by grassroots support. Social software has made it possible for Americans to organize local campaign events, discuss political ideas and share their stories with one another. Gatherings in homes and restaurants encourage strangers to meet regularly and develop political communities. The night before the election, a Zogby poll indicates that 42% of Americans describe themselves as "re-engaged in politics"; a full 65% say they have developed some sort of new relationship with another person as a result of the campaign.That's the scenario laid out at H2O, a Harvard Law School project focused on building an interlocking collection of communities based on the free creation and exchange of ideas. They are also the creators, and distributors under the GPL, of the open source Rotisserie, a documented exchange forum that facilitates group discussion in a manner that has some distinct advantages over community blogs or threaded discussion groups. Go here to register, which I recommend if only to prowl around and explore the various projects, and once registered go here to view the round 1 results of the presidential challenge.When accepting the victory, you seize the hands of two young programmers and deliver the sentence that has served as the message of your entire campaign: "The president doesn't have the power in this country. You have the power." Electrified, your supporters celebrate their win on blogs, listservs, messages boards, and in small groups gathered in living rooms and kitchens.
Now you are President of the United States, a position perceived by many as responsible for the health, safety, financial security and well-being of two-hundred sixty million people, plus the peace and prosperity of the entire world. You are also responsible to the mandate of your campaign -- to change the role of the president of the United States, shifting power from the White House and to the American people. The night after you are elected, you receive 2 million email messages from supporters. Not surprisingly, each supporter seems to believe that he or she has been elected co-president and stands ready to guide your domestic and foreign policy.
How do you, elected on a platform of citizen empowerment, govern? What opportunities and challenges are made possible by the personal relationships and communities that your campaign has established? How will your government be shaped by social software and political engagement? What is your personal role as president?
Posted by John at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2003
And yes, I'll add the snowglobe
Just for fun. Get you in the holiday spirit and all that. Grab the globe and give it a shake!
Posted by John at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
Saddam wasn't hiding after all?
DebkaFile has an interesting analysis of why Saddam looked so unkempt and bedraggled when they pulled him out of that hole. Namely, he wasn't in hiding, but was being held captive for the $25M reward offered by the USA. I like that story even better!
Posted by John at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)
LOTR: The Return of the King, Part I
Well the grand finale opens in theatres in less than two hours, and I am really looking forward to all 3 hr. 20 min. of it. The movie is a shoo-in for the Oscars next year. On Monday it was named best film of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle, made up of newspaper and magazine movie critics from the Big Apple. And this week it was listed in the American Film's Institute's (AFI) top 10 films of the year, alongside the likes of Lost in Translation and The Last Samurai. So it's fitting that we have a little LOTR news tidbit today.
For the scenes in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the epic battle at the end of the movie, the directors wanted the battle details as realistic as possible so they had the programmers create intelligent agents for 200,000 digitized soldiers and 6,000 horses, enabling to "think" for themselves and act independently.
"So each of these computerized soldiers is assessing the environment around them, drawing on a repertoire of military moves that have been taught them through motion capture - determining how they will combat the enemy, step over the terrain, deal with obstacles in front of them through their own intelligence - and there's 200,000 of them doing that."Of course, you bring in the magical Middle Earth beasts such as the enormous elephant-like Mumakil and the soaring Fell beasts, and the computerized soldiers behaved very intelligently. They ran like hell.
Of interest to the technically inclined, the battle required 3,200 processors running at teraflop speeds through 10-gig pipes. More technical specs here. I fully expect the conclusion of this awesome trilogy to be technically flawless, but the appeal of the LOTR trilogy has really always been emotional. I am really interested to see whether Peter Jackson has pulled it off.
Posted by John at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2003
How does your garden grow?
If it grows like my tiny garden did once I figured out the controls for all the little widgets, Morticia Adams would be right at home.
Posted by John at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
Free anti-virus scanning tools
Ad-Aware and Spybot - Search & Destroy are superb free programs we use all the time to keep the computers clean, and we used Housecall - a free online service that will scan your hard drive over the Internet - when Travis got a bad virus. I was looking for updates and other services and dropped by to visit Wilder.org Security Advisors, providers of the excellent SpyWareBlaster download blocking tool. On their website, they provide a compilation of free anti-virus, anti-spyware and Internet security tools from various sources. It's the most comprehensive list I've seen.
Posted by John at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2003
Not All Americans are Stupid
...but this test certainly is. It purports to be a test to prove that the reputation that Americans have as the international intellectual weakest link is not warranted. They then present 20 questions - a smattering of geography, math, science, literature. Nothing too challenging - it's an education test, not an intelligence test. Their agenda isn't revealed until the end, when the test authors' disdain for Americans is revealed. I got 17 out of 20 questions right, and was greeted with:
You have an impressive understanding of the world for an American. It is likely that you feel intellectually isolated in your home country, and often have to hide your opinions from others. Deep down, you realise that your country is the single biggest threat to world peace in modern times, but you have not yet summoned up the courage to emigrate.To the redundantly inclined idiots at "netcartoon.net" that host this test, I have an intellectual challenge for you. Try and find the hidden meeting in the following phrase: EM ETIB.
Posted by John at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2003
Another idea I had that became reality
You know that weird feeling when you see a new product and it exactly mirrors an idea you had weeks, or months, or even years ago? I thought of the 360-degree camera lens at least 15 years ago, when I started seriously playing with 35mm photography. Voila! It looks exactly as I had envisioned, right down to the center-lens mirror!
Posted by John at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2003
Fan and Ball
A little shockwave fun for a Tuesday afternoon. Look, don't blame me; it's not my fault if you can't keep your attention on your work. A little self-discipline is in order here, you know. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Internet.
Posted by John at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)
Carjacking in Nebraska - a bad idea
Leaving aside the inherent incompetency of the female police officer who allowed Patrick Brew to take her handgun after she had him down on his knees with her gun drawn and pointed at him, you have to admire the two passersby who took it upon themselves to Mace the offender and beat him senseless.
(When I first read "...Mace the offender...", I had a vision of a guy swinging a spiky ball on a chain and whacking this crook with it, and I thought "wow, you really don't want to be stealing cars in Omaha!" And 29 priors! Is the only judge in town his dad?? Still... big ups to these guys for helping out the cop.)
Posted by John at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)
OK, maybe just one more test....
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Curious that the prepackaged link which I copied and pasted above does not include a link to the text about Gaius Caesar Germanicus, a.k.a. Caligula. It was a nice, pithy summary of a rich and full lunatic's life, so I've included it here.
Posted by John at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
Spectacular photography
Any list of the "best" photos of 2003 is problematic, of course, but here are 18 candidates that are all worthy contenders for any such list. Wow.
Posted by John at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2003
Oh, for the good old days?
To all the critics of the US war on terror: read this.
Posted by John at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)
Amazing Yo-Yo tricks
This is not for the faint of bandwidth, as it is a 12MB .wmv movie file of the 2003 Japanese Yo-Yo Nationals, and is over 7 minutes long. <View> in <Full Screen> mode for the full effect. I always fancied myself pretty competent with a yo-yo, the product of many wasted hours in my youth. Now, however, I comprehend how weak my pathetic attempts at yo-yo tricks really are, and I retire in stunned amazement.
Of course, the Japanese don't hold a candle to the Chinese when it comes to laundry folding. I wish I could as easily retire from that in stunned amazement. (In all fairness, Julie handles 99% of the laundry folding around our house, so I have no cause for complaint, but I don't think even she could a candle to these folks.) Note the important step of shaking the shirt after crossing over to keep the fold neat! This looks like the way shirts come folded in the package from the store...
Posted by John at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
A Little Culture for the Masses (that's you)
Time to class up the joint a little bit. Herewith, my latest masterpiece entitled "Scene of the Crime", courtesy of Mr.
Picassohead.
Posted by John at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2003
Trivia question of the day
I saw a figure stating the US population at 290 million and I thought that was low, so I went to the CIA World Factbook to check the latest figures; it turns out that's correct. But reading through the listing on the United States I learned a few things.
How many US dependent territories can you name? Dependent territories are defined as "nonindependent entities associated in some way with a particular independent state". You know there are 50 states and 1 district, and you might be able to name one or two of the dependent territories, but there are 14 of them!
Posted by John at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
Best headline of the day
Today I got a chuckle out of a post on Fark. The link is to a Yahoo story on Tori Spelling being mean to her co-stars. The link from the post was entitled, Tori Spelling calls Gary Coleman and William Shatner "has-beens." Phasers on irony.
Posted by John at 01:46 AM | Comments (0)
Streetsigns on the road to hell #3
The Big Game this year features Team Euphoria and Team Dream, wearing "uniforms" of matching lace-trimmed bras, panties and garters, with the players' numbers sewn over the left bra cups. Former Sports Illustrated swimsuit babe and ex-Sylvester Stallone fiancé Angie Everhart is the captain of one team. Model/actress Nikki Ziering captains the other.
Posted by John at 01:40 AM | Comments (0)
The Science of Gift Giving
Scientific American has their top 25 Sci/Tech gifts for Christmas. Several of them have been featured here at Keelhauling! But alas, there are only about 4 on this list that I would like. The list is, overall, pretty lame. All this stuff is in the leftover bin at ThinkGeek, where they have a much more extensive inventory of much newer and cooler stuff. SciAm missed the Tapwave Zodiac, the Vectron Blackhawk, the Draganflyer IV (basically a wireless RC version of the Blackhawk), or even general purpose Klein bottles. I guess my boys will have to be happy with the million-volt Tesla field generator we're getting to improve our cable modem throughput.
Posted by John at 01:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2003
Can you dig it?
Check out this picture from England, West Yorks, where workmen are laying an extension to the A(1) freeway and they dug up a charioteer from 2,500 years ago. At least this makes me feel better about my commute today, a record 2 hours, 27 minutes to get home from work. It could be worse...
Posted by John at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2003
The Miami Model
While I am generally OK with most of the increased security measures that have been implemented in response to the terrorist attacks of 2001, and think that a lot of left wing liberals have overreacted to perceived breaches of their civil liberties, there is no doubt that we need to be watchful of the trend of increased government power and control and that it can go too far. Metafilter has a great front page post about "The Miami Model", gestapo-style suppression of non-violent protesters and excessive use of force by police.
It's a paramilitary group. Thousands of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms with full black body armor and gas masks, marching in unison through the streets, banging batons against their shields, chanting, "back... back... back." There were armored personnel carriers and helicopters.
There is excellent documentation and some good photos behind the links in this post. Powerful, powerful stuff here. (Check out the video clip of police officers using a Tazer on a peaceful demonstrator.)
While Miami has had a reputation for violence, particularly among the hardline Cuban exile community, dating back to the 1970's (remember the guy who fired the bazooka at the Polish freighter from off the MacArthur Causeway?) through the 1980's radio station and cigar factory bombings to the Elian Gonzalez deportation fiasco in 2000, somehow I don't think establishing a police state is going to improve the city's image.
Posted by John at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
