Blogger now allows captchas as a requirement for adding comments to a post.
I've also turned off anonymous posting. (It isn't that hard to setup a blogger account to post).
I'm just getting too much comment spam...
Saturday, August 27, 2005
The Rumors are True
I have a serious Herring problem.
Pickled Herring in sour cream, with white vinegar, onions and sugar
that is.
Somebody stop me.
spikes! spikes for everybody!: "
The Anti-Sit Archives is a gallery of photos of pigeon spikes for humans: steel teeth to make it impossible for you to sit on anything. Those things really make me sad.
They're even worse than pigeon spikes, and those are pretty awful, too. It's so pathetic when you see a building that at one time had some attention paid to its architecure -- that looks like someone might have cared about it, by adding some ornate detail or other -- and then someone glued a thousand wire scrub-brushes to it. Am I the only one who thinks that those are far, far uglier than pigeon shit?
Even worse is when there is an overhead alcove with a statue in it... with chain-link fence closing the hole. Why not just use plywood! Turn the building into a cube, stucco for everyone! Gaaahh.
There's a church in North Beach that has some large statues on the building, halfassedly crowned with pigeon-thorns. There's an eagle that looks like it has an aluminum mohawk. It's kind of funny, but mostly just sad.
Skateboarders routinely conduct guerrilla missions to remove what they call 'Nazi knobs' from their favorite skate spots. They use saws and power tools, and sometimes cellular phones to connect the demolisher to the lookout.'One dude cuts and one dude's watching and one dude is ready to run with the generator,' said Rob Dyrdek, a professional skateboarder who admits to removing Skatestoppers. 'It's pretty ridiculous.'
Once, while Loarie was installing Skatestoppers at a school in Orange County, a young skateboarder walked up to say he'd be back to tear them out over the weekend. Later, Loarie said, the Skatestoppers had been hacked off and human feces smeared across the wall.
On a computer screen in his office, Loarie showed off a forthcoming Skatestopper he calls the 'future of skate deterrents.' The piece, made from aircraft-grade aluminum, looks like a mooring with deep anchors and can be installed directly into wet concrete, making it impossible to remove without destroying the bench or curb in which it is imbedded.
This all reminds me of one of my favorite visual gags in Transmetropolitan: all of the park benches had signs on them that said, 'WARNING: this bench becomes red hot between 2 AM and 6 AM.'
But you can tell that was science fiction, because the park had grass in it, unlike the concrete Soviet monstrosity of the reconstructed Union Square.
"
(Via jwz.)
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The funniest thing I've seen today.
English selected as the official language of the European Union over German: "The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in..."
(Via vowe dot net.)
FW: [IP] OT: The 2007 Beloit College Mindset List
Who is Greg Gumble?
-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Wednesday, Aug 24, 2005 4:43 pm
Subject: [IP] OT: The 2007 Beloit College Mindset List
Begin forwarded message:
From: Richard Forno <rforno@infowarrior.org>
Date: August 24, 2005 4:38:06 PM EDT
To: Infowarrior List <infowarrior@g2-forward.org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: OT: The 2007 Beloit College Mindset List
http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/
In the coming weeks, millions of students will be entering college for the
first time. On average, these members of the Class of 2009 will be 18 years
old, which means they were born in 1987. Starbucks, souped-up car stereos,
telephone voicemail systems, and Bill Gates have always been a part of their
lives.
Each August, as students start to arrive, Beloit College releases the Beloit
College Mindset List, which offers a world view of today's entering college
students. It is the creation of Beloit�s Keefer Professor of the Humanities
Tom McBride and Director of Public Affairs Ron Nief.
McBride, who directs Beloit�s First Year Initiatives (FYI) program for entering students, notes that "This year�s entering students have grown up
in a country where the main business has become business, and where
terrorism, from obscure beginnings, has built up slowly but surely to become
the threat it is today. Cable channels have become as mainstream as the 'Big
3' used to be, formality in dress has become more quaint than ever, and Aretha Franklin, Kermit the Frog and Jimmy Carter have become old-timers."
�Each year,� according to Nief, �When Beloit releases the Mindset List, it
is the birth year of the entering students that is the most disturbing fact
for most readers. This year will come as no exception and, once again, the
faculty will remain the same age as the students get younger.�
The list is distributed to faculty on campus during the New Students Days
orientation. According to McBride, �It is an important reminder, as faculty
start to show signs of �hardening of the references,� that we think about
the touchstones and benchmarks of a generation that has grown up with CNN,
home computers, AIDS awareness, digital cameras and the Bush political dynasty. We should also keep in mind that these students missed out on the
pleasures of being tossed in the back of a station wagon with a bunch of friends and told to keep the noise down, walking in the woods without fearing Lyme Disease, or setting out to try all of the 28 ice cream flavors
at Howard Johnson�s.�
According to Nief, �This is not serious in-depth research. It is meant to be
thought-provoking and fun, yet accurate. It is as relevant as possible, given the broad social and geographic diversity of our students, who are drawn from every state and 50 countries. It is always open to challenge, which has an additional benefit in that it reminds us of students� varied
backgrounds. It is still a good reflection of the attitudes and experiences
of the young people that we must be aware of from the first day of their college experience.�
BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST�
FOR THE CLASS OF 2009
Most students entering college this fall were born in 1987.
1. Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2. They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
3. Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4. Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5. Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.
6. With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a
tie.
7. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8. They never had the fun of being thrown into the back of a station wagon with six others.
9. Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.
10. They are more familiar with Greg Gumbel than with Bryant Gumbel.
11. Philip Morris has always owned Kraft Foods.
12. Al-Qaida has always existed with Osama bin Laden at its head.
13. They learned to count with Lotus 1-2-3.
14. Car stereos have always rivaled home component systems.
15. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker have never preached on television.
16. Voice mail has always been available.
17. "Whatever" is not part of a question but an expression of sullen rebuke.
18. The federal budget has always been more than a trillion dollars.
19. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
20. They may have fallen asleep playing with their Gameboys in the crib.
21. They have always had the right to burn the flag.
22. For daily caffeine emergencies, Starbucks has always been around the
corner.
23. Ferdinand Marcos has never been in charge of the Philippines.
24. Money put in their savings account the year they were born earned
almost 7% interest.
25. Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
26. Dirty dancing has always been acceptable.
27. Southern fried chicken, prepared with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, has always been available in China.
28. Michael Jackson has always been bad, and greed has always been good.
29. The Starship Enterprise has always looked dated.
30. Pixar has always existed.
31. There has never been a "fairness doctrine" at the FCC.
32. Judicial appointments routinely have been "Borked."
33. Aretha Franklin has always been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
34. There have always been zebra mussels in the Great Lakes.
35. Police have always been able to search garbage without a search warrant.
36. It has always been possible to walk from England to mainland Europe
on dry land.
37. They have grown up in a single superpower world.
38. They missed the oat bran diet craze.
39. American Motors has never existed.
40. Scientists have always been able to see supernovas.
41. Les Miserables has always been on stage.
42. Halogen lights have always been available at home, with a warning.
43. "Baby M" may be a classmate, and contracts with surrogate mothers
have always been legal.
44. RU486, the "morning after pill," has always been on the market.
45. There has always been a pyramid in front of the Louvre in Paris.
46. British Airways has always been privately owned.
47. Irradiated food has always been available but controversial.
48. Snowboarding has always been a popular winter pastime.
49. Libraries have always been the best centers for computer technology
and access to good software.
50. Biosphere 2 has always been trying to create a revolution in the life sciences.
51. The Hubble Telescope has always been focused on new frontiers.
52. Researchers have always been looking for stem cells.
53. They do not remember "a kinder and gentler nation."
54. They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.
55. The TV networks have always had cable partners.
56. Airports have always had upscale shops and restaurants.
57. Black Americans have always been known as African-Americans.
58. They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night
television show.
59. Matt Groening has always had a Life in Hell.
60. Salman Rushdie has always been watching over his shoulder.
61. Digital cameras have always existed.
62. Tom Landry never coached the Cowboys.
63. Time Life and Warner Communications have always been joined.
64. CNBC has always been on the air.
65. The Field of Dreams has always been drawing people to Iowa.
66. They never saw a Howard Johnson's with 28 ice cream flavors.
67. Reindeer at Christmas have always distinguished between secular and
religious decorations.
68. Entertainment Weekly has always been on the newsstand.
69. Lyme Disease has always been a ticking concern in the woods.
70. Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
71. Miss Piggy and Kermit have always dwelt in Disneyland.
72. America's Funniest Home Videos has always been on television.
73. Their nervous new parents heard C. Everett Koop proclaim nicotine as
addictive as heroin.
74. Lever has always been looking for 2000 parts to clean.
75. They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.
-------------------------------------http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
False or True...:
Is this true? (from http://www.houseoftomorrow.com/):April 30, 2005 > Work on Coraline Begins
Stephin Merritt has started work on a musical adaptation of the children's book Coraline by Neil Gaiman. The projected finish date for this is fall 2006. It will be presented at St. Ann's Warehouse, in Brooklyn, New York, as well as several other theaters around the country.Posted by CG
It's completely true. I'm a huge fan of Stephin Merritt's work, so I'm really excited. (And Stephin's Coraline play will be a completely different entity to the Henry Selick Coraline movie.)
...
"
(Via Neil Gaiman's Journal.)
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
algorithmic ring tones
The GTK2 rendering engine Cairo has the option to use algorithmic rendering for the pictures that are the backgrounds for buttons. The idea is that you rapidly get bored of the same background on all the buttons in an interface, thus leading to a paucity of button decoration.
With algorithmic rendering, each background is generated on the fly, thus creating different backgrounds for each button.
In a similar vein, I have noticed how tired I get of mobile phone ring tones. There are very few rings that I mind hearing over and over again. But what if something similar could be applied here?
The problem is that we won't notice our phones ringing unless we notice the pattern in the ring. But I wonder what kinds of patterns are needed for recognition.
Could the pitch and ring tone be varied every time the pohone rings? How far can we go?
I even wonder if a ring tone could just be a silence mask imposed on an arbitrary sound segment.
Would we recognize a pattern of pauses in arbitrary music?
I'm sure somebody has already researched this...
Here are the rankings.
As journalism grows ever more...: "
As journalism grows ever more fractured and shallow, The Washington Monthly remains one of the industry's truly noble institutions. Its sense of public service and the national welfare isn't often rewarded with the kind of 'buzz' that magazine editors obsessively pursue -- to the detriment of our collective IQs. Which is why it's great to see the Monthly's ingenious and inspiring take on the silly ritual of college rankings rewarded with a big Washington Post write-up. (You can thank the magazine's visionary founder, Charlie Peters, by checking out his well-received new book.)
"(Via Talking Points Memo.)
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Danger in Bangladesh: "On August 17, there were 459 bomb blasts all across Bangladesh, in 63 of the 64 districts, within a space of 30 minutes. In the leaflets, in Bangla and Arabic, found with the bomb devices, Jama'atul Mujahideen, Bangladesh, which was banned on February 23 this year, said: 'It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law.' (from the Daily Star)In the 64th district, Munshiganj, where there were no bomb blasts, 120 bombs were seized by the police on the next day ((source)
The bombs injured around 150 people and killed two; their intention seems to have been not to kill but a show of strength.
This map makes the point quite clear.
Meanwhile, Taliban-like forces terrorize the country-side. (e.g., this The young man's feet were tied to a tree, his head dangling inches above the ground. A microphone was held to his mouth while he was tortured so that the villagers who were not present to witness the 'trial' could hear his screams.
The first to hear them were the men in uniform who did not stir from the police station, not far from the tree. The screams rose and fell till the man was dead.
Their mission accomplished, the killers issued fresh warnings to villagers against straying from the Islamic way, swore their loyalty to Bangla Bhai and left the scene.
The incident is one of about 500 cases of killing and torture by Bangla Bhai's armed Islamic bands that were documented by Taskforce Against Torture, a human rights group founded in Bangladesh three years ago.
Indian retired police officer,now commentator KPS Gill writes:
Today, the Islamists, led by the Jamaat-e-Islami, who collaborated with Pakistan in the atrocities of 1971, as well as Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, are again firmly entrenched in the country's politics, its Government, and crucially in its institutions of education and mass culture.
The coordinated series of 459 explosions within a single hour across 63 of Bangladesh's 64 districts on August 18, 2005, was little more than the visible tip of the menacing iceberg that threatens this luckless country. All societies that foster terrorism have eventually themselves fallen prey to this scourge.
Bangladesh cannot be an exception, though the country's political leadership has sought to cover up the realities of state complicity with flat denials of state support to extremism and terror, even as they have sought to mask the steady spiral towards thuggish Islamist extremism, lawlessness and disorder.
Indeed, the falsification has gone well beyond the state. A wide range of international institutions and foreign Governments have contributed directly to the deception, speaking in glowing terms of Bangladesh's arguable 'successes' in development, in health sector reforms, in population control, and in non-governmental sector operations, all of which have been projected as examples for other developing countries to follow.
The truth of the comprehensive political mischief and administrative mismanagement in Bangladesh has systematically been brushed under the carpet.
This truth is now becoming increasingly difficult to conceal, even in the most prejudiced circles, and despite the state's relentless policy of suppression of the national Press and of denial of access to the international media.
It is significant in this context that an independent study carried out by Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, which drew up a listing of 60 of the world's failed and failing states on the basis of twelve specific 'indicators of instability', placed Bangladesh at the 17th position, among the 20 'critical' states that are most at risk.
There is, unfortunately, no evidence of any visible transformation in the trajectory of politics or of the orientation of the state in Bangladesh, despite the country's growing difficulties.
A vigorous American response is necessary to keep Bangladesh from becoming another jihad factory."
(Via TPMCafe - main.)
Writing in Legal Affairs, Douglas R. Burgess looks to the history of European piracy as a possible precedent for containing latter-day Islamist terrorists. Burgess admits that the analogy 'seems like a stretch' at first, but points out that England's Queen Elizbeth initially abetted the country's later pirate tormentors by recrtuiting them as adjunct forces to the Royal Navy--much as 'the United States is credited with manufacturing its own enemy by training, funding, and outfitting terrorist groups in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Central America during the cold war.' It's unclear how pirates came by the whole blowing-themselves-up-to-achieve-eternal-reward-in-Paradise M.O., but we at Wonkette HQ are admittedly derelict in our studies of Elizabethan naval law. Actually, Burgess's argument is a thoughtful and suggestive one, noting that international jurists managed to strip pirates of most political sponsors by declaring them 'scorners of the law of nations [who] hence . . . find no protection in that law.' He also notes that any such consensus is 'very far away' in the present war on terror.
Still, as we ponder such measures, Wonkette would like to take the opportunity to plead for much greater complements of parrots, rum, and buggery in the war on terror. Also more thigh-high boots, sashes, and eyepatches; never forget this is a clash of civilizations, people.
The Dread Pirate Bin Laden [Legal Affairs]
"(Via Wonkette.)
Notional list of Klingon fairy tales: "Cory Doctorow:
This McSweeney's list of Klingon fairy tale titles is fantastic:
Link
'Little Red Riding Hood Strays Into the Neutral Zone and Is Never Heard From Again, Although There Are Rumors ... Awful, Awful Rumors'
'Hansel and Gretel Offend Vlad the Impaler'
'The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates'
(via Kottke)
(Via Boing Boing.)
Monday, August 22, 2005
Crazed Otter Bites Stupid-Looking Dog To Death, Makes Warren’s Day: "
YOUR LITTLE DOG IS DEAD
Heather Davis thought the dark brown otter was just playing with her dog Mike.
Then the 4-foot-long otter seized Mike’s snout with its teeth and started to drag the fluffy, white dog into the lake.
Heather screamed for help. As the otter pulled the dog under, a family friend grabbed a pole, jumped into a small boat and tried to rescue Mike. But the dog already was limp and floating away. ‘The otter went under water,’ said Rick Wolf, 19. ‘Then it jumped on the back of the boat and started attacking my foot.’
‘The otter had his whole mouth around (Wolf’s) shoe,’ said Heather. Wolf, whose shoe was not penetrated by the otter’s teeth, kicked and jabbed it with the stick. The otter swam over to Mike, grabbed the dog and glided off.
The body of the dog, an American Eskimo, was found on the shore of the lake on Wednesday, a day after the attack…
(Via Warrenellis.com.)
More Fun with the Lattice of Coincidence: "
Two days ago I suggested that the Abramoff case might be the uber-scandal, rather like the BCCI case in the mid-1990s, tying together all the other threads of corruption and dishonesty of the last few years.
But here's another: Last night I saw that the former publisher of the Chicago Sun-times, F. David Radler, had been indicted on many counts of fraud in the Hollinger/Conrad Black case. Hollinger has owned the Sun-Times since 1994.
Who is the most prominent employee of the Chicago Sun-Times?
That would be Robert Novak.
Who were some people on the board of Hollinger Corp., suspected of abetting the fraud?
The best description of the board: 'the roster of independent directors reads like the politically plugged-in guest list at an American Enterprise Institute dinner' There was Henry Kissinger, former Illinois governor James Thompson, and most notably Richard Perle. Perle was a member of the executive committee, profited handsomely himself through a Hollinger investment fund he was put in charge of, and by his own admission exercised very little oversight.
What's the relationship between Robert Novak and Richard Perle?
It's not just that both have proudly worn the nickname, 'Prince of Darkness.' They are bound by their stock in trade: leaking and receiving leaks of classified information. In 1975, Perle leaked classified information to Novak with the purpose of scuttling the SALT II treaty.
Who is the prosecutor who indicted the former publisher of Novak's paper?
Patrick Fitzgerald.
"(Via The Decembrist.)
Robot News:
"
R Daneel: the robot that picks itself back up again: "
We’re pretty sure the last thing any robot-humanoid researcher wants to do fifteen times a day is pick up and
reorient a 150 pound machine every time it falls, but the R. Daneel Study 1 (whose name is not only an Asimov
reference, but means Responsive Dexterous Actions aNd Embodiment ELucidation) developed by the University of Tokyo is
officially in the running for our robot of the year award. Long gone are the days when you could disable a robot by
pushing it on its back like a turtle—looks like we’ll have to come up with a new weakness to exploit in the
future.
[Via New Scientist]
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"
(Via engadget.com.)
Sunday, August 21, 2005
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