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January 29, 2004
Cool search engine map
The Search Engine Relationship Chart is actually quite useful for determining who is doing all the work behind the scenes, and where you are likely to encounter search ranking bias due to paid results. Study the color-coded legend at the bottom to understand the interrelationships.
A couple of these I have heard of but never used, and am anxious to see how they do on complex searches where Google's more literal approach fails. It's also interesting to see how ubiquitous the ODP from dmoz has become, how it has permeated (dominated!) the category filtering.
Posted by John at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)
Columbia Disaster Explained
This Newsday article extracts heavily from a new book, "Comm Check ... The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia," by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, two veteran space reporters. It chronicles what NASA scientists have discovered about the breakup of the shuttle over Texas on Feb. 1 last year. It is surprisingly well written, and I'm anxious to get my hands on the book. Exciting, alarming, thrilling, terrifying, it reads like a good suspense novel.
"On the flight deck, shuttle commander Rick Husband and rookie pilot William "Willie" McCool remained oblivious to their ship's ongoing destruction. They might have noticed the elevon movement on their forward computer displays, but the adjustments were small and would not have caused concern.
Columbia finally crossed the coast of California north of San Francisco at 8:53:28 a.m. at an altitude of 45 miles and a velocity of 15,800 mph. By then, the orbiter was in severe distress."
At least we have confirmation that the elapsed time from the point where the alarms started going off, and the astronauts' deaths (which by all accounts would have been near instantaneous) was relatively brief. I can't imagine the terror of being locked inside a falling tin can, traveling at 20 times the speed of sound, and knowing that it's coming apart around you. True heroes:
- Rick D. Husband, Commander
- William C. McCool, Pilot
- Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander
- David M. Brown, Mission Specialist 1
- Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2
- Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4
- Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1
Posted by John at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2004
Piracy on the rise
And no, I'm not talking about music piracy. Actual piracy. You know, "Arrrr!" and stealing booty and burying treasure, eyepatches, the whole shtick.
You get one guess as to what I think the right punishment is.
Posted by John at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
Little Brother
Seven free MP3's from a North Carolina hip-hop group called Little Brother. Read the full entry here.
Posted by John at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2004
What is it with the parrots?
First it was Churchill's parrot, still cursing the Nazis after all these years, now we have a parrot that can talk. Big deal? Well, how about a vocabulary of 950 words, and the ability to use them? Here on Keelhauling, we're avowed fans of these bright birds, but the ability to say "shiver me timbers" or "aye, Cap'n" or maybe an occasional "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" is really all that's needed. Who wants to have a discussion with a bird? Apparently this African grey, named N'kisi, even has a sense of humor. (But this article is in the BBC News, so that would be a sense of humour.) (BTW - they did debunk that story on Churchill's parrot. It wasn't his parrot after all. It wasn't even a parrot - it was a macaw.)
Posted by John at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)
Traversing IKEA
IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings.Traversing the 5 awesome worlds of IKEA may seem like an impossible task at first, but with determination, and this guide, you will prevail!
Posted by John at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
Bush Conspiracy Generator
Saves time reading the massive amounts of uninformed anti-Bush propaganda out there. Like the latest Howard Dean tripe. Simply generate your own random conspiracies. I like the footnote: "This tool may not be used to create Democratic presidential candidate speeches or generate content for MoveOn.org without the express permission of Buttafly.com."
Posted by John at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2004
Moving day
Moved the entire Parkerfamily.net site over to 1and1.com today. Their free 3-year offer including 500MB of web space was about right. I used 485.63MB. That seems a tad excessive, so I'll be doing some cleanup over the next few months...
The good news is that includes a bunch of pictures, which I can now add to the photography page.
I also moved from using FrontPage to using Dreamweaver, which is a more sophisticated HTML editor that includes an FTP interface. It has some nifty features like testing the integrity of your site in terms of both valid URL links and well-structured HTML, JSP or CSS. It found many, many things wrong with my site [sigh...]. Including over 11,000 broken links. I'm slowly repairing things around here, but if you find anything important that I need to take care of, please let me know in Comments below.
Posted by John at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2004
Your Amazing Brain
Your Amazing Brain is a site dedicated to understanding the brain. It was created by At-Bristol (sort of a British version of the San Francisco Exploratorium) with support from the Wellcome Trust, and their vision for this site is that it will grow over the next few years taking experiments, debates and elements of the exhibition to people around the world. They're off to a great start. I especially like the quick quizzes on things like handedness, facial recognition and memory. Nice optical illusions, too.
Posted by John at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)
Sidewalk chalk
Yeah, just like I used to do when I was a kid. Not.
Notice the guy on the left in the first picture. I overlooked the fact that's he drawn on the sidewalk at first. I love the businessmen falling down the hole. There's more at the bottom of the page.
Posted by John at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
Ascii movies
File this under "things that people with way more time than I will ever have do with that time". I've seen a few of these before, but nothing as detailed as some of the Matrix, Spiderman or Hulk movies found here. [via Zannah]
Posted by John at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2004
Real Men of Genius
Bud Light salutes Real American Heroes & Real Men of Genius. If you've heard or seen the commercials, you know what a crack up they are. And here are all of them in one place for your convenience.
Posted by John at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)
January 21, 2004
Weapons of Math Instruction
Got this one in email today. I know it's indicative of my geekiness that I find this hilarious, but nevertheless...
At New York’s Kennedy Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult", Ashcroft said, "Their mode of operation is to seek average solutions by extreme means , and frequently go off at a tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like "x" and "y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined there is a common denominator in this axis of medieval which brackets all these fractions together. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘there are 3 sides to every triangle’."
Ashcroft further declared. that when asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "Read my ellipse. If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. The pubic should be aware that cos your government has given a sine of intent by protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," adding: "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line. These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex."
If there is one absolute principle to be certain of, or not, it is ‘that we will not be subtracted from our purpose and although they continue to multiply, their days are numbered, and we will add to their instruction by dividing them as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks.’ “
Posted by John at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2004
Charlie wants a cracker
F*** the Nazis!
Churchill's parrot is still giving them hell. She's still down on the Nazis, and down on Hitler as well. Some things you just don't get over, I guess.
Still, it's impressive to get a little attitude from a bird born in the 19th century. I love the line from the article:
If truth be told, Charlie is looking a little scruffy but she is very popular with the public.
Posted by John at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
Showstoppers
Showstoppers is a good opinion piece from the Weekly Standard, which asked the question, "Why, prior to 9/11, although there had a been a series of terrorist attacks (WTC bombing, embassy attacks, the USS Cole), were our elite counterterrorism units not used to hit back and prevent further attacks?" The author asks a number of senior officials in key positions, and uncovers some of the hard truths about bureaucracy and entrenched attitudes in the administration and the military. This is the side of government we don't usually get to see from the outside.
Posted by John at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2004
Music hath charms...
Since reworking the site design for justgoodmusic.net, I think I'll test the trackback functionality by referencing the latest entry and this article I wrote a couple of months ago.
Posted by John at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2004
What's Your Law?
The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society. The Edge Foundation hosts The World Question Center, where large-scale questions are posed and answers from insightful minds are considered.
The first entry for 2004 is "What's Your Law?"
There is some bit of wisdom, some rule of nature, some law-like pattern, either grand or small, that you've noticed in the universe that might as well be named after you. Gordon Moore has one; Johannes Kepler and Michael Faraday, too. So does Murphy.Within this universe of 164 submissions, including laws submitted by such luminaries as Freeman Dyson, Richard Dawkins, Ray Kurzweil and Bruce Sterling, you are sure to find some pearls of wisdom.
My own submission, if requested, would be Parker's Law (discussed in greater detail back in 2001), and Correlary 1 to Parker's Law, to wit:
PARKERS LAW
There are very few areas of study that are so inherently complex that they cannot be understood by the average layperson. Specialized vocabularies emerge within fields of study, however, that effectively "lock out" non-specialists by rendering the language opaque. These specialized vocabularies are necessary and efficient for precision in terminology, and are required to advance the field of study. If you want to understand a subject, first learn the vocabulary.
Correlary 1 to Parker's Law
The best information, the most in-depth and comprehensive data from the most authoritative sources, is also the most likely to have its meaning enshrouded by specialized language and terminology, and therefore is the least likely to be understood by the average layperson.
Posted by John at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2004
The Death of Accountability
The following email was forwarded to me last week, and I did get a kick out of it.
Subject: Humor: I can't believe we made it!I Can't Believe We Made It!
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's or even the early 80's, probably shouldn't have survived.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
We had no childproof lids or locks on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day! No cell phones. Unthinkable!
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surroun d sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends! We went outside and found them.
We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out any eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts ! and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of parents bailing us out if we got in trouble in school or broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the school or the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk takers, problem solvers, and inventors, ever.
We had freedom, failure, success, and
responsibility --- and we learned how to deal with it.And you're one of them!
Congratulations.
Of course anyone over the age of 30 has had similar thoughts, given the complete lack of personal accountability that our screwed up legal system has encouraged.
I was talking to my brother in Georgia and he mentioned the story about the guy who bought a Winnebago, set the cruise control while going 70 mph and went into the back to make a cup of coffee. After the accident, he was awarded $1.75 million and a new Winnebago. Now I was flabbergasted at the stupidity, and of course went online to check it out. It turns out that it is an urban legend. But what does it say about our culture that I COULD believe it? I mean after all, consider the track record:
According to the July 10, 2002, Akron Beacon Journal, ''Two carpet installers who admit they read the label of an adhesive they used, admit they understood the adhesive was flammable and should not be used inside, used it inside anyway, caused an explosion, were burned badly, sued and won $8 million dollars.''
According to the April 18, 2003, Indianapolis Star: ''A convicted robber is suing the convenience store clerk who shot him as he fled after a holdup. Willie Brown, 44, claimed the clerk acted 'maliciously and sadistically' in firing five shots as Brown ran out of Zipps Deli with money from the store's cash register.'' Brown, who has earlier convictions for robbery and burglary, pleaded guilty to robbery and was sentenced to four years in prison.
In Galveston, Texas, a jury awarded $65 million to the parents and estate of a woman who drowned after her car rolled off a boat ramp. She couldn't disengage her seat belt. The jury found Honda of America Manufacturing Co. and Honda R & D Co. Ltd. 75 percent responsible for the death of Karen Norman, even though her blood-alcohol level measured at nearly twice the Texas legal limit (.17). Fortunately, an appeals court threw out the award, which a trial judge had previously reduced to $43 million.
Then there's the infamous McDonald's case, where Stella Liebeck purchased hot coffee, placed it between her legs, spilling it and scalding herself, and was awarded $2.9 million for her troubles.
And, in the current events file, this week a Wisconsin man threatened to sue his cable company because his wife is overweight and his kids are lazy. He claims he is "addicted" to cable, and this is their fault because he's requested that the service be disconnected and they haven't turned it off.
This type of story is almost routine, and that should scare us. The parade of idiots abdicating personal responsibility seems never-ending.
Posted by John at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2004
Process automating Christmas
One of the many wonderful things about Christmas is receiving Christmas cards from friends and family around the world. In our house, they go along the window rail in the kitchen, creating a warm and festive display reminding us of friendships and relations. More and more we're getting customized photo cards, so we can watch our friends kids grow up, and smile back at the smiling faces we see portrayed.
One of the un-wonderful things about Christmas is sending all those cards out. In the past, we've simply signed cards and shipped them, but that has been unsatisfactory. We've written the generic family one-page update and enclosed it with the card, and had people get insulted about it. We've done it right, individually addressing and writing comments to everyone (and I'm talking over a hundred!), and it takes hours and hours, and gets both Julie and me in such a mood that, well, let's just say the Christmas spirit takes a leave of absence.
But one thing I've learned is the futility of complaining without suggesting a soltuion. So, here's one possible way to put the joy back in the process and still get all the cards out on time. It's called Fontifier. You print out the form and write in the characters, scan it and submit the GIF file, and it turns your handwriting into a computer font. So... you can write out the general news info and save it, and simply add a few lines of customization to each card and run it through the printer. Now, I haven't tried this yet since our scanner is on the fritz, but it looks promising. You get detailed and customized cards out to everyone on your list in an hour or two, and you can even feed the envelopes into your printer and have them all addressed.
"Have a holly, jolly Christmas, it's the best time of the year..."
Posted by John at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2004
Online Etch-A-Sketch
This very realistic Etch-A-Sketch emulation will throw a log on those fires of nostalgia smoldering in the back of your brain.
Posted by John at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
9 Drawings from an Acid Trip
I think the title pretty much says it all here. Allegedly from the 1950's government studies on psychotropic drugs. You get a pretty good feeling for it if you load all the images, hit the back key to return to page 1, then forward rapidly through the drawings.
Addition 1/11: The Neuroscience Art Gallery, where you can also check out the paintings and drawing of raving lunatics.
Posted by John at 02:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2004
Business Goofs of 2003
2003 was the year of the corporate ethical debacle, and the latest column from Smeal College of Business Dean Judy Olian outlines some of the most egregious offenders. File under "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't."
Posted by John at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
Niche Searching
One of the main problems with the otherwise magnificent Google is the irrelevancy of so many of the search results. You're often still left searching page after page of links to find what you're looking for.
To address this, a class of niche search engines, self-restricted by content type, valid sources, results type or other parameters is emerging. A sterling example from Pennsylvania State University is SMEALSearch. Named for the PSU Smeal College of Business, SMEALSearch is an academic business search engine that returns academic articles as well as commercially produced articles and reports that address any branch of business. It also automatically gathers and indexes specific research information such as author, title, abstract, and citations.
SMEALSearch is also set up accept submissions from users, so it should get better over time.
Posted by John at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2004
CalTech Bad Science Alert
I mentioned last year the "bad science alerts" that frequently go off in our family room, particularly during prime time television viewing hours. Now, Michael Crichton, one of the primary offenders in the writing venue, sounds a klaxon of his own in defense of pure science in a speech at CalTech.
Now, I've read all Crichton's books. Airframe was good solid science (and therefore probably the least enjoyable of his books? Does one necessarily follow from the other?) Andromeda Strain was not bad science, just, well, strained. But it is more than a little ironic that the author of works such as Sphere, Jurassic Park, Timeline and most recently, Prey, should be on the lectern talking about the need for integrity in science.
Which is more harmful, the encroachment of matters of policy and public opinion into the sterile halls of factual science, or the tendency of writers like Crichton to write pure speculative fiction that masquerades as having some basis in hard science? Either does science a disservice, I think.
But I can understand power and the desire of those who have it to maintain the status quo even to the point of repressing or denying potentially disruptive scientific discoveries. I resent, however, the "dumbing down" of science for popular consumption in sensationalist novelization. It's bad enough having the author rely on the implied ignorance of the reader for the excitement - the tension - the very storyline. That's insulting, but the real danger is the exposure of people with no training or experience in any of the hard sciences to such novels. That is a travesty. Deliberate miscommunication of scientific facts will influence the public perception of the sciences and scientific research. Far too many people will walk away from Crichton's novels with false fears and incorrect assumptions and perceptions. Some new technologies are indeed dangerous, and those are the ones we need to be treating with caution, with fact, with qualification -- hey. like scientists!
I do like Crichton's writing, by the way, I just think he ought to quit pretending there's any element of scientific validity or even sociologicial trendline predictivity to his works, when all he does is extrapolate new technologies immediately to the wildest, scariest possible outcome, shortcutting - or detouring around - any practical constraints on such outcomes.
I have to stop writing about this now. All the sentient nanotech machines that are occupying my body are causing more and more pain in my posterior the longer I write. Ow! Ok, ok. OW!
Posted by John at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
Stealitback.com
Posted by John at 05:31 PM | Comments (2)
Simpsonophile obscura
If you're interested in knowing things like the fact that Sideshow Bob's prisoner number when he's in jail, 24601, is also Jean Valjean's number in Les Miserables (from Episode: 8F20, The Return of Sideshow Bob), there's only one place for you.
Posted by John at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2004
Starting off the new year
Browsing back over my brand, spankin' new archive pages, there are a handful of sites that crop up each year right around this time plus a couple that are seasonally pertinent, so rather than drag it out with a whole series of entries, here you go:
What's In and What's Out for 2004 (Washington Post)
A few technology predictions (UK Independent)
Even more technology predictions (Kuro5hin)
Plus some technology trends for 2004 (San Jose Mercury News)
New Year's Resolutions and How To Keep Them
Dave Berry's 2003 Year in Review
Google Zeitgeist - Internet search trends for 2003
Yahoo's remarkably similar "top searches" of 2003
Top 10 Stories of the Year from AP and CNN
And if that doesn't satiate you, try the List of Year End Lists.
Posted by John at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
Brave New Keelhauling
Happy New Year! Keelhauling launches into 2004 in grand style, with a whole new back end based on Movable Type and a MySQL database, thanks to the kind free hosting offer from the folks at www.1and1.com. Even I get frightened at the thought of me mucking around with Perl and PHP scripts and configuring a MySQL database, but - as I told Julie when I took over the cookie baking last week - even I can follow directions. All 1,487 pages are now in a real, honest-to-goodness database.
I literally just got the Blogger entries over into the database, so a lot of the links are broken and pictures are not showing up, and the sidebar list of links is gone, but those are minor glitches we'll work out over the next few days. Movable Type has a lot more flexibility in what you can do with the site, and most importantly, I am no longer running at 800% of my allotted web storage space from my old ISP (and thereby subject to massive bills or Sudden Website Unavailability Syndrome).
Keelhauling will remain my personal collective Post-It note for all things good and wholesome and interesting and kinky and weird and useful. But you may notice a change in tone over the coming weeks as we implement our New Year's resolutions, one of which includes testing the thesis that I actually can write if I put my mind to it.
Movable Type also has integrated Comments functionality, which I've turned on to allow you to vent your frustration that the "Keelhauling Games Hall of Fame" link is gone. (Don't worry, it's coming back shortly.)
The site is now also standards-compliant, and has a real RSS feed, for those of you who like to compile your news and views for concentrated reading sessions. Note, however, that the direct link to the site has been changed. It is no longer at http://www.neteze.com/jparker/Blog/blogger.html. It is now at http://s92443876.onlinehome.us/MT/keelhauling/.
I'm glad I tackled this project. I learned a lot along the way, enough, perhaps, to also commence the move for our group weblog at JustGoodMusic.net from Blogger to an open source community weblog program I've been playing with, Metaphilter.
Here's wishing you all the best for a healthy and happy 2004!
Posted by John at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)
