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March 30, 2005
Windows Anti-Spyware
If you haven't tried the free Windows AntiSpyware beta version, grab it. You should use this in conjunction with AdAware and Spybot: Search and Destroy. Use all three, as noted here before.
Posted by John at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
What Religion Fits You?
I'm hardly surprised by my test results, at least as far as the primary conclusion goes, but that "Satanism 13%" has got me worried. Where the hell heck did that come from?
 | You scored as Christianity. Your views are most similar to those of Christianity. Do more research on Christianity and possibly consider being baptized and accepting Jesus, if you aren't already Christian.
Christianity is the second of the Abrahamic faiths; it follows Judaism and is followed by Islam. It differs in its belief of Jesus, as not a prophet nor historical figure, but as God in human form. The Holy Trinity is the concept that God takes three forms: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost (sometimes called Holy Spirit). Jesus taught the idea of instead of seeking revenge, one should love his or her neighbors and enemies. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to save humankind and forgive people's sins.
Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com |
Posted by John at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
Iraq - turning the corner?
Apparently, since the elections in Iraq, the number of attacks against international targets (including our troops) has declined significantly, while the violence against locals (police, military) has continued unabated. Now, however, those locals are getting tired of it.
Maybe it's too early to call this one, but this article fosters a sense of hopefulness for Iraq, my hope is that this trend continues.
I remember hearing one of the "embedded" journalists in Iraq on NPR, asked what it would it take to change Iraq into a peaceful, productive international citizen. His reply was right on, which I can only paraphrase, but it was something like this: "Time. They need time. They need to experience living in a society where terror is not institutionalized and authoritarian abuse is not the norm, where they have rights and the government acts to protect them. Only with time in such an environment will expectations change; only with time will they view such behavior as unacceptable, and react with what we see as the appropriate outrage when it does raise its head."
Posted by John at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)
Waking Up is Hard to Do
Do you hit the snooze bar too many times some mornings? I used to break alarm clocks, but I've calmed down in my old age. I've turned into a snoozer abuser.
Clocky solves that problem. After you hit the snooze bar, he rolls off the table and on to the floor, and then rolls away, bumping into obstacles and changing direction until he finds a resting place. Then when the alarm goes off again, you have to get out of bed and find him.
Put this together with MrWakeUp.com, and I think this problem is licked.
This reminds me of when I was at MIT. We made Tribbles, the little furry creatures from Star Trek. They purred when they were moved, thanks to a AA battery and small transistor set. They were even more furry than Clocky, but they were cuddly. I think we had to make at least 100 of them - one for every girl in the dorm.
Posted by John at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)
FREE iPOD!!
Got your attention? That's the ploy. And you might be surprised to learn who is sponsoring these advertising scams for "free iPods" that end up netting you nothing but tons of spam. Names like AOL, Bertelsmann, Blockbuster, Citibank, EarthLink, General Motors and USA Today, to name a few. David Lazarus of the SF Chronicle did a good piece of investigative reporting to uncover the mechanics of the scam.
Posted by John at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2005
Global Warming - The real deal
Global warming is one of those divisive issues that generally seems to find people - at least the people I talk to - in one of two camps. Either it is the most pressing environmental issue of our generation and GWB has done us all a tremendous disservice by refusing to sign the Kyoto treaty, or the evidence is not compelling given the large variations in temperature in the history of the planet and the relatively small measured change (0.6 ± 0.2°C since the late 19th century ). It is an issue with many layers of complexity, many disparate factors which influence both historical results and predictive models, and separating the signal from the noise seems to be the primary problem.
Part of the problem is that everybody who talks about it has an agenda. As always, I like to go to the source material to see if I can figure things like out for myself. I found a good source of source material - as close as I'm likely to get, anyway.
RealClimate.org is a site maintained by nine scientists from various organizations (NASA, the British Antarctic Survey, The National Center for Atmospheric Research, various universities, etc.) who are working on the problem of global warming. It is not affiliated with any agency, government or official body - they do it in their spare time. In their own words:
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.The site has been up for about five months now, and has a nice backlog of articles and opinion pieces that are very well informed and educational. Go figure it out for yourself!In order to limit the scope to those issues where we can claim some competence, the discussion here is restricted to scientific topics. Thus we will not get involved in political or economic issues that arise when discussing climate change. The validity of scientific information is completely independent of what society decides to do (or not) about that information. Constructive comments and questions are welcome, as are guest articles from other scientists who may choose to contribute on an occasional basis.
Posted by John at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2005
Never Eat Alone
Keith Ferrazzi was born into a lower middle class family, son of a steelworker and cleaning lady. He currently enjoys the title of youngest elected partner at Deloitte Consulting. He was profiled by Inc. Magazine in 2003, and he's published a book, Never Eat Alone, that is currently #3 on the business best seller list. The current issue of Inc. excerpts extensively from Chapter 15 of the book.
The term "networking" certainly carries its share of negative connotations, but Ferrazzi has it right and his life is proof that this approach has merit. I think the thing that most explicitly called this to my attention was using LinkedIn, a free business networking service that lets you establish a network of your own contacts, and through them, to reach a more extended network - for job opportunities, hiring potential candidates, finding people with specific niche knowledge you may need, or simply keeping your network alive and well.
I'll bet Keith is a member. Hold on, and I'll check..... yep, he's there, and he has 64 connections. I have 67 contacts on LinkedIn, and through them, am networked to 751,700 people. Of course, Keith's contacts include CEOs and COOs and sports figures and movie stars, and mine... don't. (Well, OK, a couple of CEOs and a part-time rock star). Plus, since Keith became known for networking, he probably got overwhelmed with LinkedIn requests; now his LinkedIn profile says, "Keith is not currently receiving requests for contact". Even so, I can find almost anybody I need to through LinkedIn, and have fielded dozens of requests as the "conduit" for friends of friends to get together.
Several of my friends and contacts have more connections than I do. Four of them have over 200. And yes, they do tend to be the more "connected" people, people who are likely to know people. This is an incredibly valuable skill to have. I've had many jobs over my career, and have found roughly 3/4 of them through my network.
I hope my kids learn this skill, start developing those networks early and keep them current as they move into their professional lives. The dividends this approach will pay are enormous.
Keith also has a blog, where he writes with some frequency about his thoughts and experiences, and he also has a weekly email newletter he sends out. I like his style, which comes across as very up front and open and honest, and am interested to hear what he has to say.
Posted by John at 09:55 PM | Comments (1)
Living Will Registry
The U.S. Living Will Registry enables you to put your Advanced Healthcare Directive in an online database that is accessible by hospitals and healthcare providers online, 24x7, through a secure provider network. The AHD is a legal document that specifies your healthcare preferences, which among other things enables you to avoid the nightmare scenario of being hooked up to life-support machinery for an extended period of time.
Simply register your advance directive with the U.S. Living Will Registry by filling out a form that gives the Registry permission to send a copy to any health care provider. Registration is free. You must agree to inform the Registry if you ever decide to change your advance directive, and you must register through a member Health Care Provider or a Community Partner.
This makes a lot of sense, and I'm going to do a little more research on it. I have an Advanced Healthcare Directive, and copies on file with various relatives and at home. But in an emergency situation, it would be really good to have it accessible by the hospital. This service would be especially valuable for single people and those who do not have a family support network.
Posted by John at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2005
American Mania - The Book
This book is next up on my reading list. The problem is one you'll recognize: "In our relentless pursuit of happiness, we have overshot the target and spawned a manic society with an insatiable appetite for more."
The author, Peter Whybrow, M.D., is chairman of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association. In 1996, he was awarded the Gerald L. Klerman Lifetime Research Award by the NDMDA.
The book excerpts I've seen are impressive (see below), and I see tremendous potential in the insight that can be gained from the scientific, medical approach to understanding what is fundamentally a morality and values problem. Even the comments from readers on Amazon.com are good!
Whybrow seems to argue convincingly that modern consumerism has driven us insane. One reason I am hopeful about this book is that several reviewers have noted the differentiation Whybrow makes between pleasure and happiness, an important distinction that we as a culture and a society deliberately ignore. Why? Because the root causes of the two are completely different, and any analysis of where we stand on the spectrum between the two reads like an indictment of our modern consumer culture. Is the sacrifice of social relationships worth the fulfillment of our collective consumption desires? Big questions.
We seek more than we need because consumption activates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which rewards us with pleasure, traveling along the same brain pathways as do drugs like caffeine and cocaine. Historically, he says, built-in social brakes reined in our acquisitive instincts. In the capitalist utopia envisioned by Adam Smith in the 18th century, self-interest was tempered by the competing demands of the marketplace and community. But with globalization, the idea of doing business with neighbors one must face the next day is a quaint memory, and all bets are off. [...]"Neurobiology teaches us that we're reward-driven creatures on the one side, which is great," he said. "It's a fun part of life. But we also love each other and we want to be tied together in a social context. So if you know that, why aren't we thinking about a civil society that looks at both sides of the balance rather than just fostering individualism? Because fostering individualism will be great for us and it will last a little bit longer, but I believe it's a powerful negative influence upon this country and it's not what was originally intended. Should we be thinking about whether this is the society we had in mind when we started this experiment 200 years ago or are we perhaps moving too fast for our own good?"
Posted by John at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Stealing Letters
"Someone keeps stealing my letters" is a fun little game until you get more than 30 people online at the same time, when the fighting over letters just gets ridiculous. I think the audience is a bunch of 12 year olds, though, given their fascination with profanity. [via Zannah]
Posted by John at 08:08 PM | Comments (1)
March 20, 2005
Progress!
Archives on the new and improved Keelhauling are functional, as is the Search button again.
This restores the viability of the original purpose of this weblog envisioned back in 2001, namely, as an online bookmark list of things that I found interesting and/or useful. Once the dust subsides from all the construction work around here, I plan to narrow the focus of Keelhauling a bit. More on that later.
The Search and Replace feature under Movable Type 3.X is a godsend. I was able to restore a bunch of dead links that were still looking at my old ISP web storage space for the pictures. Huzzah!
Now, however, since the web page main column space is somewhat narrower, I have a bunch of pictures that overflow the boundaries and kind of mess up the page layout. Click on the monthly archives if you want to see what I mean - you won't have to click on more than one or two to get an example.
So the next tasks are (1) resizing old pictures to fit the new layout, and (2) revamping categories for the entries (e.g. music, new technology, family, humor, etc.) which will enable me to put up category-based archives.
Oh, and thanks for your emails on the Song of the Week, I know it's already turned into a "Song of the Month", but that's just a function of all the repair work going on at the moment. I will update it this week.
Posted by John at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)
March 19, 2005
Anatomy of a Rocket Serve
Colin, this one's for you.
How does a 6' 2", 190 lb. 22 year-old hit a 152-mph serve? This site analyzes Andy Roddick's serve and points out the importance of sequencing in the serve.
To understand sequence, think of a tennis player as a rocket, putting the racquet head in orbit around his body in order to smash the tennis ball. Like any rocket, a tennis player is built in stages. The biggest stage is the one on the ground, and the stages get smaller as you go up. Stage one is the legs, stage two the hips, stage three the trunk, stage four the arm and stage five the hand.
Posted by John at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2005
free graph paper
Useful for those last minute homework assignments. Free graph paper in assorted dimensions that you can print out.
Once I get the search feature working again [sigh], this will be easy to find in the future.
Posted by John at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
Happy St. Pattie's Day!
The Catholic Church won't give you any recipes for green beer, but they've got the scoop on the real St. Patrick, originally a young Briton named Patricius, kidnapped by marauders from 5th century Ireland, who ultimately converted the country to Christianity and died an Irishman named Patrick.
Posted by John at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Watch it Shred
SSI makes some tough equipment. The shredding of the steel drums and the washing machine are quite impressive.
Posted by John at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)
Turntable Timmy
This kinetic rap-rhyming tale of self-motivation is sure to move both body and mind. Simultaneously, it plants the seeds of self-esteem and positive aspirations in the heart of every listener.Turntable Timmy (Free Will Press) ISBN 0-9701771-7-8; $18.95 (retail), Hardcover, 11" x 11" 32 pages; 3 track DJ Qbert audio CD enclosed in every book.
Posted by John at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2005
New and Improved
Well, I finally got the new site design far enough along that I can cut over. You can still see the old site at 2004index.html if you're feeling masochistic. I like this one better, and I'm particularly happy that so much of it is done in CSS, which will make future design work much, much easier.
Still many things to do, and the usual flotsam and jetsom that accompanies such a redesign - lots of broken links, badly formatted entries, and quotes and pictures. Just close your eyes and plow ahead - we'll get through this together.
On the to-do list still:
Reduce the number of categories
Recategorize old entries
Create monthly archives
Create category archives
Modify the picture posting template to include right margins and text wrapping
Plug in a more sophisticated Flash player for the song of the week (SOW)
Fix the text wrapping around the SOW entry
Get the javascript comment library working on the CSS-generated header background
Create a categorized link list for the links page ("Coming Soon")
Create a weblog-based photo entry system that will show thumbnails for the photo selections
Create a password-protected section of the site to store the nuclear launch codes
Put a "type the distorted word you see" entry on the comments section so that I can stop having to moderate and delete all the spam.
Those are the major things - there's a couple hundred smaller ones. Drop me a note and let me know what you think.
Posted by John at 02:53 AM | Comments (0)
March 08, 2005
Wintertime wind down
With old man winter slowly, reluctantly packing his bags and preparing to depart for another year, we might as well get our last dose of cold weather fun. In today's news, it's a double-feature. First, the 2005 International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado, has pictures of some amazing snow carvings for your enjoyment. Second, a gentleman in Fairbanks, Alaska left his water pump running all winter to create a 150-foot-tall, 80,000 ton tower of ice. The link takes you to a page for the Alaska Alpine Club that shows the tower in it's early stages. To see it now, and get some idea of the scale of the thing check out this page. It's taller than any man-made structure in Fairbanks, and it's still growing...
Posted by John at 07:36 AM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2005
Optimus Prime R.I.P.
The leader of the Autobots, dead from prostate cancer at the age of nineteen.
Posted by John at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
