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January 29, 2005
Quote of the Day
The quote of the day today comes indirectly from eBay. A British man trying to sell a deactivated Soviet-era missile on eBay was forced to delete it after Web site staff contacted him for breaching company rules.
But eBay told Richard Moore, from Cambridgeshire, to remove the missile because he broke eBay regulations by listing it alongside its vehicle launcher, which should have appeared as a separate item. Quick, only 7 days left to bring this baby home!
Posted by John at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)
Keeping those doors open
I've had several extended discussions with the boys about school and grades, about how it's *really* all about keeping your future options open. The important thing is to do what is necessary to keep those doors open in the future, some of which you can't even see yet. Paul Graham takes the explanation further, and more eloquently, than I did in his piece entitled "What You'll Wish You'd Known".
[props to Zannah for the link]
Travis, Nick, Matt and Colin, this one's for you. Read this!
Posted by John at 01:33 AM | Comments (0)
50 Things to Eat Before You Die
In March 2004, the BBC asked their readers to submit the list of things they think people should at least try a bite of before they die. I've eaten 46 out of the 50, missing only Moretown Bay bugs, Kangaroo, Guinea Pig and Barrimundi. It will take a trip to Australia to knock out three of those. It's not a "weird food" list; I've eaten stuff way weirder than this. Most of the things on the list are delicious, although I'm all sushi'ed out from years of hobnobbing with Japanese bankers in Los Angeles, and you can add the octopus and squid to my "no thanks" list. And Durian fruit, shown above, is one that is just weird - one bite is enough.
Posted by John at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
Pike's Mozilla Firefox Extensions
A few weeks ago, I linked to some tips to speed up your Firefox browser. Now we have Pike's Mozilla Firefox Extensions page, which contains all the bells and whistles to enable your Firefox install to be all that it can be. "Extensions?", you ask. "Extensions!", I answer. I'm talking about Bookmark Backup, Clone Window, Create Shortcut, Popup Allow, Popup Count, Search Button, Session Saver, Show Failed URL, Show Old Extensions, and Web Search Plus. All the nifty little gizmos you loved in Internet Explorer and Netscape, now available for Firefox. For me, Bookmark Backup and Session Saver are must-haves, while the Search Button and Web Search Plus are real time savers once you learn how to use them.
Posted by John at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2005
On newstands now
What does a well-dressed young majuheda wear to a suicide bombing? The black flats with the brown hijab? Or the subtle plaid abaija that hides the strappy sandals (he won't be able to see your ankles, but you'll know!).
The Italian Information and Democratic Security Service (SISDE) notes that al-Qaeda publishes a monthly Internet magazine for female terrorists called Al Khansa, helping Muslim women prepare to be better suicide bombers.
With its bizarre format including articles on "breathing gymnastics to conquer the passions," evidently essential knowledge for those tempted to have a final fling before strapping on an explosive-laden corset, Al Khansa could indicate that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has made a strategic choice in favor of "women's emancipation through martyrdom," according to the Gnosis report.Clever, isn't it? You want equality between the sexes? This is how. Equality in death.
Of course, the guys who martyr themselves for Allah are supposed to be greeted in Paradise by 72 virgins. I don't see anything that says who the gals are greeted by.
According to the BBC, the magazine says it is published by an organization called "The Women's Media Bureau in the Arabian Peninsula".
The primary audience for this gem of modern literature appears to be jihadistas, the wives of the terrorists who are prepared to die for their cause. The magazine offers useful tips for reconciling a life focused on martyrdom with raising a happy family. Some of the advice comes off a little harsh by Western standards:
"The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering."
Posted by John at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
The Sage of Omaha Weighs In
Two months ago, I wrote a little piece trying to tie together the various economic warning signs that are making me increasingly skittish. This week, Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha who is either the second or third richest man in the world depending on who's counting, is expressing exactly the same concerns.
Buffett is one of the most astute investors, ever. He consistently builds wealth by buying solid companies and growing them. He missed the technology/dotcom boom, but that was simply because he knew the bubble would burst, and didn't know when. How smart is he? Well, just by way of example, he made $646 million today. How was your day?
When people like Buffett talk about the economy, it pays to listen. Nervous yet?
Posted by John at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
US role in international relief
Here's a different perspective on the costs that America is bearing in international relief efforts. These are the thoughts and observations of one soldier aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, stationed off the Sumatran coast to deliver aid to victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami. The attitude of the workers from the international relief agencies - using our resources, eating our food, diverting our capacity to deliver aid - is appalling.
Consider the U.N. worker, who, when asked by the treasurer of the ship's wardroom who was going to pay for all these meals the U.N. workers were sponging off the US Navy, replied, "We aren't paying, you can try to bill the U.N. if you want to."
Posted by John at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
Moonbats on parade
How is the democratic party going to recover with the fringe left dominating the news? Here are some lovely pictures of the moonbats, feminazis and idiotarians strutting their stuff on inauguration day, sure to endear them to the hearts of the middle-America voting public they say they want to get "in touch" with.
Meanwhile, chief moonbat Barbara Boxer is trying to position herself as the victim in the verbal sparring during the Condoleezza Rice hearing, when Boxer - flying her true colors - was simply mean-spirited and playing for camera time. Her argument can be summarized as "Hey, she hit back first."
Posted by John at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA
That's the formula for misery, in case you were wondering.
11 months until Christmas.
Short days, long nights.
Overcast, dreary days.
Rain. Cold.
Lack of motivation.
Lack of energy.
Failed New Years resolutions.
School is back in session.
Vacation is over.
Weight gain from holidays.
Crushing debt loads, exacerbated by holiday spending.
...and it's Monday.
These are a few of our least favorite things. All of which, taken in conjunction and mixed in appropriate proportions, conspire to make Monday, January 24th the worst day of the year. So if you've been feeling down this week, suffering from the dread Seasonally Afflicted Disorder (SAD), just know that you're not alone. After all, misery loves company.
I tried to invert the equation to arrive at the formula for happiness, but the damn thing makes no sense. It figures.
Posted by John at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
I will if you will...
Researchers have uncovered that whether at work or at play, humans are among the few animals that are able to work well cooperatively. According to an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, our success at cooperation results from 3 distinct personality types.
"In any given group of people, you find 3 kinds of people: Cooperators, Free Riders and Reciprocators. Cooperators do the most work, and Free Riders do as little as possible, but most of us are Reciprocators. We hold back a bit to determine the chances of success before devoting our full energy to a project," said Robert Kurzban, Penn Department of Psychology. "We found that these traits remained fairly stable among people, and you could reliably predict how a group might perform if you know the percentage of each type of person in that group."The researchers used a series of computer models to extend their study into group behavior. While the study did not offer any insight into why such traits might have evolved among humans, there are clearly theories there just waiting to happen. Reciprocity might - should - have significant societal advantages that we are only beginning to understand.
"Our findings show that the majority of people, 63%, are Reciprocators and in any group you are likely to have a substantial number of Reciprocators. The simplest way to make use of a Reciprocator potential is to keep everyone apprised with information about the successful contributions of others within the group. This way you show them that there is something to gain from their efforts."The researchers gave 80 volunteers money ("tokens"), which if contributed to the group pool, would double over time. At the end of the experiment, the tokens were distributed evenly among all the participants. 17% of the participants could be classified as Cooperators, taking the most risk almost immediately. Free Riders, who prefer not to cooperate, made up 20%.
"These personality traits remained strong through different games no matter which combinations of people were used. Granted, if people are stuck working with a bunch of Free Riders, even the most highly cooperative among them will tend to take the ‘wait-and-see’ approach."
Scientific proof of something that good managers have known for centuries. If you want your troops engaged and enthusiastic about getting the job done, communicate, communicate, communicate.
Posted by John at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2005
Bad Science Alert - Extreme Edition
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
Posted by John at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)
BOOK
Between June 2, 2003 and February 2, 2004, every Monday the BOOK was taken to the post office by one of the four artists, two in New York and two in Belfast. On Wednesday it was received by another of the four, giving him five days to complete a layout in the book. Each layout extending slightly onto the following pages, providing the only communcation between the artists during the project. Thirty-six weeks and 60,000 miles later, BOOK was complete. You may browse at your leisure.
Posted by John at 06:58 AM | Comments (0)
We are, You're not
The strategic consulting arm of the dynamic and visionary huhcorp.com have designed the über-marketing website to end all marketing websites, appropriately titled, "Huh?".
Our main consulting strategy is to convince clients that we do stuff they can't do themselves, and that we deserve lots of money for it. The best way to do this is to always look good, and always sound like we know something you don't. Because we do.Aaaack! Shades of the dotcom era! My eyes! My eyes!
Posted by John at 06:51 AM | Comments (0)
NOVA ScienceNOW
The science mavens at NOVA, the popular television show, are introducing a new magazine-format show covering the very latest developments in science and technology. ScienceNOW will air five times in 2005, starting tonight. It includes segments on the potential catastrophic flooding that threatens New Orleans, the "booming sands" of Death Valley, a profile of "swarm-robot" pioneer James McLurkin, and a special report by veteran NOVA science reporter Robert Krulwich on the brain structures called "mirror neurons," which may affect everything from language evolution to the visceral appeal of spectator sports.
If your New Year's resolutions including learning something new this year, this might be a good place to start.
BTW, on the page linked above, there's a quickie quiz on hurricanes that's pretty interesting. Try your luck. I got 4 out of 5.
Posted by John at 06:47 AM | Comments (0)
More Goodies from Google
Two new search-based applications debuted today for beta testing on Google Labs:
Google Suggest guesses what you're typing in the search box, and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "progr," Google Suggest might offer you refinements like "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse.
Google Video searches recent television programs. Just type in your search term (for instance, ipod or Napa Valley) or do a more advanced search (for instance, title:nightline and Google Video will search the closed captioning text of all the programs in the archive for relevant results. Click on a program title on your results page and you can look through short snippets of the text along with still images from the show. Visit the "About this show" side panel to learn when this show will air next. The library is still pretty thin, since they've only been archiving material seince December 2004, but it will be growing over time.
Posted by John at 06:03 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2005
Squashed Philosophers
I'm getting a kick out of Squashed Philosophers, the Cliff Notes on all the big thinkers. After all, where else are you going to get the essence of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in 21 minutes?
There is no taking-part in the 'Great Debate' of Western civilisation, the debate about who we are, how we should be governed, how we think and how we ought to behave, without some familiarity with the, remarkably few, thinkers in whose language and idiom the talk is conducted.Nick has a philosophy class this quarter. This just made it an easy "A".Unfortunately, life is rather short, the little storeroom of the brain doesn't have extensible walls and the greatest of thinkers seem to also be among the worst, and the lengthiest, of writers. So, most knowledge of Plato or Hume or Aristotle tends to come second-hand, unfortunately too often through masters more filled with pompous pleasure in their own mastery of complexity than with knowledge of their subject. Which is a pity, because your Prince, whether they call themselves President or King or Prime Minister, has almost certainly read Machiavelli. Your therapist is steeped in Freud, your divines in Augustine. Lawmakers take their cues still from Paine, Rousseau and Hobbes. Science looks yet to Bacon, Copernicus and Darwin.
So, here are the most used, most quoted, the most given, sources of the West. The books that have defined the way the West thinks now, in their author's own words, but condensed and abridged into something readable.
Posted by John at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)
Screencasting
Check out this screencast of a Wikipedia page on the "Heavy Metal Umlaut" (think Motörhead, or Blue Öyster Cult), complete with a narrator describing the changes in the wiki page over time. It's an interesting time-lapse view of the evolution of pages in Wikipedia, and a nifty demo of the screencast technology. It's clearly a Flash player, but I'd like to know what software was used to capture the screen movie and audio.
Posted by John at 06:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2005
Ta-Da Lists
A lightweight version of the list management tool included with Basecamp, Ta Da Lists is a pretty simple concept. Create lists online, so you can get to them from anywhere. Password protect them, so you can control who sees them. And it's free!
Posted by John at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
Google fights comment spam
Google is stepping up by incorporating a functional improvement to their search engine, enabling links on websites that are followed by a tag ("rel=nofollow") to be ignored. The major blog tools are signing up, and incorporating this into their comments function, so that any link that gets left by a commenter on a blog or jouranl or guestbook won't get counted by Google search bots. This doesn't prevent comment spam ("Please visit some information about A HREF="http://online-poker.com/"), but it does ensure that spamming people's blogs with these commercial links won't raise the spammers' visibility in the Google search paradigm, thus removing the incentive for comment spam. Which is a beautiful thing. Just today, I returned from a week traveling and I had 89 spam comments in Keelhauling that had to be cleaned up. Thanks, Google!
Posted by John at 11:54 PM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2005
Global Dimming
Are you aware that the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of our planet has declined by 22% since the 1950s?
22%
!!!
I had no idea. Pollution, apparently.
Posted by John at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)
Picasa.2
Picasa is the nifty photo album tool that was picked up by Google last year. I can't recommend it highly enough. And now, Picasa 2 is out. With the ability to store photos in more than one album (without physically making copies on your disk), the ability to add ratings (stars), labels, and to create password-protected photo collections. Picasa is an elegant tool, and its most powerful feature is that it remains free!
Posted by John at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
Tagging the web
Technorati has an interesting page that picks up pages from anyone who includes a simple HTML category tag using the "rel" statement (<a rel="tagnamehere" href="pagenamehere">). This, in effect, makes the contributed pages self-organizing. Technorati has gone one step further, setting the font size to reflect the number of linked tagged pages, so that visitors to their page can immediately see which categories get the most traffic. This is an interesting concept, extending the wiki metaphor to encompass independently authored content in broad categories.
There is an obvious limitation (and some problems, such as tag links for both "blog" and "weblog") in the current structure of the directory, and it is in no way optimized for finding information, but this is offset at least in part by the fact that the content is self-organizing, i.e. if enough people tag with a new category, I presume it would get picked up on the link page. If someone would take the time to create a tag directory structure and encourage people to use it, this could be a Google contender. (Note: the logical place for this would be a collaboration between the blogging tools - Blogger, Movable Type, Radio Userland, Tripod Blog Builder, LiveJournal and Typepad would be a good start. If they all built the same base set of category tags into their tools to make them easy to use, this could accelerate into a useful research tool in months instead of years.) The schema would, of course, have to be customizable and extensible, enabling people to use it for their own content organization purposes, but a sound base structure could add layers of information to this content organization technique.
There's been much discussion around several hot topics that this idea bears on pretty directly, such as (1) where do people get their information from? (2) in an era where everyman can - and often is - a publisher, how do you know which information to trust? (3) do we gravitate to sites that reinforce our current opinions, i.e. does the internet polarize opinion, or more broadly inform users on issues? (4) in the flood of information that is available on any given issue, how do users make *quality* assessments as to the veracity of the source? I see a role for tagging in providing partial solutions to all of these problems, perhaps in combination with user ratings, content grading, relevance, link-to metrics or other reader-generated, automated site and page metrics.
Posted by John at 09:52 PM | Comments (2)
January 15, 2005
World Record Coaster
If you're tired of seeing the "world's biggest roller coaster" records shattered by a few feet at time, you may be pleased with this.
In February 2000, Six Flags Magic Mountain opened Goliath, featuring the world's longest drop of 255 feet. Later the same year, however, Cedar Point introduced Millennium Force, breaking 10 world records as both the tallest and fastest continuous circuit roller coaster. Only a few months later, Nagashima Spaland in Japan unveiled Steel Dragon 200, a 300+ foot coaster even taller and faster than Millennium Force. At a height of 318 feet, reaching top speeds of 95mph, and with a track length of 8,133 feet, Steel Dragon 200 broke all the records as it became the new tallest, fastest, and longest continuous circuit roller coaster.
It took Cedar Point 3 years to respond, and they did so with the Top Thrill Dragster in 2003, which - until today - was the tallest (420 feet), longest drop (400 feet) coaster in the world.
Jackson, NJ - January 14, 2005 - Six Flags Great Adventure "topped off" (placed the apex, or top piece of steel track) the massive, 456-foot-tall tower of Kingda Ka - the tallest, fastest roller coaster on earth. An enormous crane, towering more than 500 feet in the air, hoisted the final piece of steel track into place, completing the record-breaking roller coaster tower yesterday.Go Six Flags! You can check out all the record holders throughout the last ten years or so on www.ultimatecoasters.com.Kingda Ka's tower stands 151 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty and dwarfs London's Big Ben.
Kingda Ka will shatter existing world records for speed and height, launching from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds, and reaching a maximum height of 456 feet. It is the cornerstone of the new Golden Kingdom, an 11-acre mythical jungle...
Posted by John at 09:12 PM | Comments (2)
Digital Piracy and Digital Irony
Today's news tidbit is worthy of literary allusion, so I will offer some arthur Miller, to wit:
"A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance-you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke."
The elegant beauty here is in the layers of irony, with a Chinese company accused of pirating a book. The book is about piracy and protecting intellecual property on the internet in China. It was written by a Chinese scholar. The book was first offered digitally on the internet, by a company, the one now being sued, called Scholar Digital.
Posted by John at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
Ripping music - a guide
Note to read later. The ars technica guide to ripping and encoding music. Right now, I use EAC to rip to lossless Monkey's Audio, and I use LAME to encode the WAVs to MP3 format at 192kb variable bit rate, then I delete the WAVs. So I have an archival copy I can always restore the original from, and a good MP3 for the iPod.
But I'm always open to better solutions, and the ars technica writeups are always right on the money.
Posted by John at 01:57 AM | Comments (0)
Your salary clock
The death clock was an interesting Internet widget, first mentioned here four years ago, now faded into the land of This Page Cannot Be Displayed. (I wonder if it knew its time was running out?)
The salary clock is much less depressing.
Posted by John at 01:50 AM | Comments (1)
I look like my dog
Just a quickie, the "Winners of the 'I Look Like My Dog' Contest".
Posted by John at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2005
Tackling CSS
Undertaking a bit of site redesign, and there's just no getting around it: I'm going to have learn CSS - Cascading Style Sheets, for you non-web-developer types. CSS attempts to separate the design of a web page from the content. Instead of tagging each individual element - headers, footers, backgrounds, sidebars - on an element-by-element basis, CSS enables you assign these to different "classes" and set the design rules for each class.
This solves several problems. One is that if you don't use CSS changing the look and feel of a web site requires going through page after page of HTML code and individually changing fonts, sizes, colors and so on. With CSS, you can change one line of code - asssigning the formatting for a whole class of elements - and voila!, a new look and feel. Second, it allows for cross-platform consistency in presentation. And by cross-platform I don't mean Internet Explorer and Opera and Firefox, although they are covered as well. I mean desktops, laptops, PDAs, cell phones, TTY, TV, braille, projection and even the LCD screen on your intelligent refrigerator, plus thousands of devices that we haven't even envisioned yet.
The technology is moving fast. The $50,000+ machines that built the Internet, Sun E10000s, are available on eBay right now for $1000 or less. NASA can no longer even read their Viking spacecraft data, crica 1976. They have no machines left to read the tape format. Researchers examine Mars data via paper print-outs that older scientist hadn't thrown away. We have to separate the content from the format and the presentation.
What makes it mandatory for me is that I have already been using CSS without even knowing much about it. I modified the default templates provided by Movable Type to create this website, and the settings were all in a separate .css file. Here, for example, is www.keelhauling.com without the CSS formatting. Notice all the content is intact. The borders and columns and much of the text formatting is gone, but the page still lays out and is readable. That's the another advantage of CSS. Even if the device attempting to read it can't parse the CSS, the content is still there. Doing a site redesign without using CSS at this point would be a tremendous step backward, and a ton of extra work as well.
The final compelling reason is that managing the other web pages that are part of this site, notably the Games and Photography pages, would be much, much easier if they were CSS-enabled, and the design consistent with the main page. Right now, they are hard-coded in HTML. Those additional pages are only going to get bigger and more complex over time, so the time to consolidate styles and rationalize the design is now. My plan is to set each page up as its own weblog in Movable Type, enabling me to manage them on-the-fly from anywhere I can access a browser. Matt Haughey of Metafilter fame has done some interesting thinking on MT as a web design base, and I'm planning on leveraging his ideas.
So... if you're wondering why everything is screwed up around here, that's why. Lesson #1 - back up all your index files and existing templates before starting work. And be patient, it may get worse before it gets better!
Posted by John at 11:24 AM | Comments (2)
January 06, 2005
Legal at Last...
Happy Birthday, Travis!!
It's too bad you couldn't be here with family to celebrate, but I guess you'd rather be gallivanting around Madrid with your fiancee. Hrrrmph.
I cannot believe you're 21. Not that you aren't adult enough to be 21. You were more adult at age 7 than lots of adults I know. It's just that it makes me, well, kind of old. Not that there's anything wrong with being old, of course, because there isn't. I know lots of old people who are fun, happy, mentally alert, self-propelled, not drooling. And I mean, I know you're 21, because I was there while it happened, you know?
You've been old enough to drive a two-ton automobile at lethal speeds for 5 1/2 years now, old enough to die for your country for 3 years, and now, finally, old enough to (legally) enjoy a beer. By all means, do so, you've earned it. My goal, revised repeatedly over the years as my experience with raising you boys has grown, was to have you turn out to be good men - educated, worldly, critical thinkers with large hearts, love of God and country, and healthy senses of self-awareness and humor. Guys that I would like to hang out with. So far we're batting 1000. All the credit goes to your mother, of course. I'm proud of you, son.
Enjoy the day. We'll celebrate when you get home next week.
Posted by John at 11:31 PM | Comments (1)
World Question Center 2005
As noted here last year, the Edge Foundation hosts the World Question Center, whose mission 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. At the end of each year, they pose a question for general discussion and commentary. Last year, you may recall, the question was "What's Your Law?" [Note: Parker's Law and Corrolary 1 to Parker's Law both still stand.]
This year, the topic is "What Do You Believe is True, Even Though You Cannot Prove It?". So far, there are 120 contributors, including luminaries from the worlds of science, literature, medicine, philosophy, and the arts. Fascinating reading. The answers span topics from science, religion, love, literature, sex, human behavior, technology, web design and the functioning of the human brain. The answers reveal a lot - more, perhaps, than the authors even intended - for the question is evocative, calling forth the most deeply held beliefs, those which rely on faith. Some of the answers are, to me, blindingly obvious. Some caused me to stop reading and just think for awhile, casting new light on old topics that I had comfortably filed away. Some of the answers clearly arise from people with deep intellect, who have thought long and hard about certain topics and developed passionate belief systems around their core ideals. Some of the answers make you wonder how the author ever passed a drivers license test. Great fun!
Posted by John at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
Blog Power
Sites like Daypop and Blogdex track the most commonly linked-to pages in the blogoshere. I noticed an interesting thing today. Out of the top 25 linked-to sites among bloggers worldwide, a clear trend emerges:
6. "Disasters Emergency Comittee (DEC)"
7. "UNICEF"
10. "Save the Children UK"
11. "CARE International"
12. "United Nations' World Food Programme"
14. "Canadian Red Cross"
17. "Oxfam"
19. "Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders"
20. "Save The Children"
21. "British Red Cross"
24. "donate! (Doctors Without Borders)"
I tell you, it makes me proud. Go, bloggers, go!
Posted by John at 06:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
Something Wicked This Way Comes
When the Pineapple Express weather system coming in from the west collides with the Arctic Express weather system coming down from the north, they are going to have some company, namely "an unnamed warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already-saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys."
A little inclement weather is nothing to get excited about. But the meteorological modeling systems are flipping out about this one.
"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction-center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who has been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."We've all learned to take the weatherman's predictions with a grain of salt. But this year, with the hurricanes hitting the east coast and the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis, nobody is taking early warnings of Mother Nature's impending wrath lightly.
The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing — especially in the West — was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. Seattle received 21 inches of snow, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale, Calif., was the scene of an unusual tornado.The forecast right now is for possible showers, but I'm betting it rains buckets tomorrow and Saturday, then starts raining harder. Just to be on the safe side, I think I'll pick up some firewood and extra batteries tomorrow. Couldn't hurt.
FYI, you can see the weather patterns from the Pineapple and Arctic Express systems moving in on the NWS National Doppler Radar Loop. You can get local radar loops on the drop down menu at the left. Bay area radar loop here.
Posted by John at 11:17 PM | Comments (1)
Now Go Away, or I Shall Taunt You A Second Time
You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts. I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
You and your "Mickey D's". I fling octupi in your general direction.
Posted by John at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
Recycling songs
I've been listening to NPR's All Songs Considered radio show on the way home from work; it's a music-focused spinoff from their popular show All Things Considered. It's been a great way to get familiar with some off-the-ClearChannel-radar-screen sounds.
Yesterday ATC ran a piece on the similarity between a lot of pop songs on the radio, featuring Mikey Smith, a college student who took two of Nickelback's songs, How You Remind Me and Someday and ran one into the right channel and one into the left channel, creating a new song - think of it as How You Remind Me of Someday. He did this to prove that they were, in essense, the same song. You can listen to the radio show featuring this piece. It's about 8 minutes long, and well worth it. Mikey takes great offense at this, accusing the band of ripping off music consumers.
I think Mikey errs in two ways. First, even exactly the same music becomes a new song when different lyrics are sung. So I don't think the argument about consumers being ripped off holds any water whatsoever. There's certainly no "plagiarism" involved when it's your own music. Second, maybe Mikey isn't all that familiar with music (or maybe he is, and is just using his familiarity to create a fuss), but any two songs with the same tempo, played in the same key, are probably going to sound very complementary when played together. Particularly if, like Mikey, you slow the first song down a little bit to get it to exactly synch up with the second song.
The final argument against Mikey is simply this: what are you going to do about it? Regulate it? How, and to what standard? Market forces will correct this problem if it ever becomes egregious. Imagine a band releasing an album where all the songs sound the same. Talk about your one-hit wonders.
I like both of those songs independently of each other, and have no issue with it. How about you?
Posted by John at 06:26 AM | Comments (6)
January 02, 2005
ToothpasteForDinner
OK, that's a great t-shirt. One of several at toothpastefordinner.com. Not that I have anything against Canada, other than it's too cold. I mean William Gibson (I'm currently re-reading Count Zero), Dan Ackroyd, Bryan Adams, John Candy, Jim Carey, John Kenneth Galbraith, Margot Kidder... the list goes on and on. But there's enough America-bashing directed south across that border that I freely admit to a smile at this shirt.
Posted by John at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Banished Language
Last month we got William Safire's list of the newest, most happening, up-to-the-minute words (or, at least, the best a 75-year-old white guy could muster). It frankly didn't do that much for me, since I have two teenagers in the house and heard all those many months ago. But interestingly, LSSU has now come out with their list of words and phrases that need to be summarily banned from the English language. The interesting thing is that there's some overlap between the two lists! Which ones are old and busted, and which are the new hotness? You decide. (LSSU is Lake Superior State University, a fact which I would never have guessed.) My favorite on the banishment list:
ZERO PERCENT APR FINANCING – sending a dollar to do a nickel’s worth of work. Michael Hehn, Ferrysburg, Mich. “They could just say ‘no interest.’In a similar vein, Paul at CNT has come up with a downloadable utility that will scan your HTML for forbidden words. The forbidden words dictionary also has some overlay with the lists above, but not the same ones! Isn't this exciting? Forbidden words include: absolutely!, action items, all-natural, bling bling, botox party, death tax, dialogue (v.), dope (adj.), dubya, exit strategy, extreme, fair and balanced...
Posted by John at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
Blog stats show strong growth
From the latest PEW Internet Study on Blogging:
Blog readership shoots up 58% in 2004What is a blog? "You're soaking in it."
6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators
But 62% of online Americans do not know what a blog is
Meanwhile ABC News voted "Bloggers" as 2004 People of the Year. I'd like to thank my wife, Julie, and my mom (Hi mom!), and my four sons, and my brother, and my friends from work and from school...
Posted by John at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2005
Fixing Mom's Computer
My brother got Mom a new computer for Christmas, so hopefully we won't have to go through this fire drill again for awhile. But if you do, here's a pretty good checklist of how to get Mom's computer back up and running.
Posted by John at 01:40 AM | Comments (0)
Tsunami videos
We had a wonderful New Year's party with some friends, and one of the topics of discussion was the personal videotapes of the tsunami, and the fact that so many people were - and are - cut off from power and communications, that only now are some of the videotapes coming out. For reference, the best compilation I've seen so far is at Cheese and Crackers.
The best consolidated source of information on the earthquake and accompanying tsunamis is at Wikipedia. There are also links to some videos at the end of the encyclopedia entry. I've been a follower and contributor to Wikipedia since 2001, but this Indian Ocean earthquake is the first time I've seen one of the inherent advantages of a encyclopedia wiki in action - namely, that it is a dynamic entity, evolving and growing over time and sometimes - as now - in near real time. This is a huge advantage over traditional encyclopedias.
Another topic that came up was iPods - how to best use them, tips and tricks, etc. I shared a few of mine, but if you want the real deal, check out ipod.hackaday.com, where you can learn to boot up your iPod with Linux, use it as a recorder, watch movies on it, even make an iPod holder out of a milk jug!
Happy New Year!
Posted by John at 01:11 AM | Comments (1)
