satmandu: 09/18/2005

Friday, September 23, 2005

Engineering is meant to be entertaining. This note is about the test of the robot climbing 1000 feet on a test ribbon (the idea being that a final version could climb a successor ribbon into orbit.) Note the humor in the markings being used on the ribbon to warn off pilots...

A Hidden Sense of Humor: "
I’ve been editing the video from the 1,000-foot robot test. Since I’ve been busy lately with grant writing etc., I wasn’t involved in activities like making the ribbon. So it wasn’t until I was watching the video that I noticed the sentence written in block letters on the 2-inch wide ribbon (which alternates color in 50-foot strips of bright yellow and fluorescent orange) near the top:

ATTENTION PILOT: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE TOTALLY SCREWED.

Our sense of humor (or at least Nyein’s) may not (or it may) be visible from far away, but it’s there.
"

(Via LiftPort Staff Blog.)

I think I saw this demonstrated on Babylon 5...

Animator envisions sub-dermal displays: "
Note to Hart and Huntington tattoo shop: you guys so need to hook up with Gina Miller, a designer and animator who
is looking to make your business totally obsolete. Obviously seeing a bright future in
implanted devices, Seattle-based Miller,
with help from nanotech author Robert A. Freitas Jr., has finished her concept-animation project that envisions a
dermal display system consisting of billions of nanobots that can self-assemble and emit photons to form text and
graphics directly on the skin. While user-changeable tattoos are the most obvious implementation of this technology,
Freitas proposes the more ‘practical’ deployment of using pixelbots to display info gathered from the army of
healthbots that will one day run amok in our bloodstreams. The futuristic system also promises to be touch sensitive,
allowing you to send a message back to your nano-friends telling them to get the hell out of your prostate.

[Via Medgadget]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
© 2005 Weblogs, Inc.

"
(Via engadget.com.)

Big Truba? AP: "Hospital...: "
Big Truba? AP: 'Hospital operator HCA (HCA) said Friday that federal prosecutors have issued a subpoena for documents the company believes may be related to the sale of its stock by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. A release from the company said the subpoena came from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.'
"

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

It IS a satphone...

Telefonia Satellitare Thuraya SG 2510 / 2520 satellite GSM phones: "
We all know sat phones are pretty much dead and gone by this point, but Telefonia Satellitare keeps on keepin’ on
with their dual-mode GSM satellite phones. We’re hesitant to call the GSM aspect worthy of the title ‘worldphone’
because it’s tri-band, but the devices do feature GPS, GPRS, USB connections, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel camera;
the smaller 2510 is the budget handset, but no word on what features it drops. Think your wireless bill is high right
now though? Just wait until you get those $5 per minute sat roaming charges. Buy it to call your mom from the top of
Everest, dude, but otherwise you might be better off with something unlocked and quad-band.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
© 2005 Weblogs, Inc.

"
(Via engadget.com.)

I ~~could~~wouldn't have put this better.

By the way, does anybody know the etymology of the word would?

London: London Vegan Fest: "
If only murder weren't so darn tasty. The London Vegan Festival makes an anemic appearance at Kensington Town Hall this Sunday (September 25) from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. All kinds of meatless goodies will be on offer, none of which had a face, children, or a soul. In addition to vegan food, all kinds of politically minded anti-vegetable groups and causes will attempt to convince attendees that plants are the real enemy. Admission is £1.

London Vegan Festival 25th September [Londonist]

London Vegan Festival [Official site]

Previously: Persian Art and Artifacts, London by Bus, Maze Restaurant, Chick Pics, London Cartoon Laffs
"

(Via Gridskipper.)

Countdown To Rita: "Written By:
Daniel Gifford

We just received word that the management company who we lease space from is closing all of their buildings and only allowing limited access. Basically, this means we are on our own now, much like the first crew was when Katrina rolled in.

There are rumors that the levees have already begun seeping water. I havent been able to confirm the report, but some of my sources are saying that the Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood that was completely destroyed from flooding 3 weeks ago, is slowly filling up with water again. I assume that this might be caused by the wind gusts blowing across the lake, but I have no idea...

The city is almost completely vacated now - much more so than before. I just heard on the news that they believe there are only a few thousand people left within the borders of Orleans Parish, most of those being military, police and FEMA. I wouldnt be surprised if we were the only 'civies' left in town. The current population of the city is probably less than that of when Iberville and Bienville founded it in the name of France. Its really depressing. It almost seems like the world has ended at times. The streets are dark, and no one is around. I was butt naked in the middle of the park today trying to take a shower. No one was even around to notice. Unfortunately, the rain stopped, and I had a head full of shampoo, a body covered in soap, and had to run into the office and rinse with a gallon of spring water. Yikes! It was a cold trek into the building! I must say, after 7 days without showering, I feel freakin great!!!

We were able to get these cute, official-looking badges today with our pictures on them. We now have appropriate credentials - we are now part of the New Orleans Business Task Force! Exciting, eh? Not really. From the looks of it, anyone can get one with a local ID and business card. But they make us feel a little more official.

We are still in wait and see mode. We have prepped about as much as humanly possible. There have been some small leaks from floors above us that were dripping into the offices, but we were able to plug them without any problems. Keeping the ship afloat seems to take on more meaning now...

I just got word that we now have 6,000 Gallons of fuel. Should hold us over for quite some time. Apparently, the National Guard stopped by our building on their way out of town to fill up all of our empty drums because they knew we were riding the storm out (no REO Speedwagon comments please!). Those guys rock! I dont get why people say others are against the troops if they dont support the war....Not to bring politics up, but Im a flaming liberal, and I have seen nothing but respect and admiration for those guys. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are the ones holding this city together. They have been unbelievable, and I dont know if any of them are reading this, but thanks for what you have done abroad, as well as what you have done here in our crippled city and across the rest of the South. The American people, and our friends around the world, have given me new faith in humanity. I have received emails from across the globe showing support, and I know in the face of Lovely Rita you will keep standing your ground.

On a lighter note, I am going to try something different tonight, as I may be leaving for Tampa tomorrow morning...To provide some background, I was sitting here listening to the news earlier, and they were saying that our Governess was asking that those who stayed behind to write their Social Security Number on their arms - you know, in case they have to identify our bodies....Well, that got me to thinking about the whole solidarity site after the London bombings that had people send in photos of themselves holding up 'We are not afraid' signs. Sure, I thought it was a little cheesy when I saw it, but it is also a great way to get people to be interactive with their world and the events that take place within it. Plus, its a little fun.

So I would love it if people did something similiar to show support for those displaced by Katrina, and those who are about to be uprooted by Rita. When the stories start to fade on the evening news, it almost seems like the world is forgetting about us. I know this is not true, based upon the amount of support everyone who reads these blog entries has shown over the last week - but we still need to remember that there are millions of people who have lost their homes and their livelihood to this disaster. Grab a pen and paper (or pull up some skin) and write whatever you want to say, and then take a picture of it with your mugshot (or whatever youd like) and email it to theemptypage@gmail.com. Be as creative as you'd like. And ladies, I have a bunch of Mardi Gras beads at home just waiting to be passed out - but keep in mind that if we get a good response I may set up a gallery for everyones images. If you dont want your image displayed, please say so when sending. Have fun!

Daniel"

(Via The Interdictor.)

Here's your opportunity to meet TPM chicks.

Do you live in the...: "
Do you live in the New York City area?
Do you like TPM?
Next Wednesday night, September 28th, at 7:30 PM TPM is hosting a special advance screening of Serenity at the Union Square Stadium theater.
Serenity is the new film by Joss Whedon, the guy behind the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. This showing is only for TPM Readers. And it's free.
If you'd like to join us. Send in an email to movie@talkingpointsmemo.com with the subject line Serenity. Include your name and how many seats you'd like to reserve. (Two tickets per person; if you have other friends or family who want to attend too, have them email in as well).
Now, a bit of disclosure and transparency. Studios do advance screenings like this to generate buzz for a new movie. And that's what they're doing here. We're not getting paid anything for doing this. They get some publicity and some word of mouth buzz. We get to host a couple hundred readers at a movie in New York. And our readers get to meet fellow readers and see a free movie. I'll get to meet a bunch of you in person too; and that will be a treat for me.
So that's the score. And we were happy to give it a try on that basis.
And one last thing: If you don't live in the New York City area, don't fret. The studio has a bunch of preview screenings of Serenity around the country next week. And they've set aside seats for TPM Readers at each venue. Click here to find out how to request tickets.
"
(Via Talking Points Memo.)

coffee table at midnight

coffee table at midnight
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Yes that's right. There is Turkish pepper in that pepper shaker.

FUN WITH E-BAY'S LATEST ACQUISITION: Firstly, I d...: "
FUN WITH E-BAY'S LATEST ACQUISITION: Firstly, I downloaded Skype.

Then, while perfunctorily filling out my profile, I briefly amused myself by entering 'Abkhazian' under my language, since it was first in the list, and then promptly forgot all about Abkhazia.

Then, this morning, to indicate to a friend that I wasn't going to ignore her any more, I changed my status to 'skype me'.

Then, out of nowhere, this undoubtedly quite nice Abkhazian lady began calling me, who didn't speak any English, but was happy to have another Abkhazian to talk to on Skype. I was very sorry to let her down.

I've heard the Georgian Riviera is quite nice; maybe I ought meet more Abkhazians until I have collected a sufficient quantity that some of them invite me to visit. You could drive there from here....

"

(Via OxBlog.)

We hit Malyasia Grill tonight.

Cheap, good atmosphere, terrible food. The waiter came by and asked us if we wanted our three fullish plates of noodles (one with the napkin already thrown on the food) packed for home when we asked for your check.

A meal deferred.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

FW: [IP] more on Where to go? Which way to go? No gas anyway!

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Sep 22, 2005 5:53 pm
Subject: [IP] more on Where to go? Which way to go? No gas anyway!

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw@gmail.com>
Date: September 22, 2005 5:46:21 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Where to go? Which way to go? No gas anyway! Reply-To: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw@gmail.com>

Dave,

The bicycle touring list has been having some discussion about bicycles as transportation in this sort of disaster, both as transportation for evacuation and as transportation within a disaster area.

For evacuation, a touring bicyclist can easily make 8-10 miles per hour with a load of 40-60 lbs, and many typically ride 75-100 miles a day. Even an average bicyclist can make 5-7 miles per hour, and 50-60 miles or so a day isn't a big stretch, especially with motivation. That's not enough to get you from Houston to Austin, but it's certainly enough to get you from Galveston to Houston, and a lot faster than the reports we're getting today.

For transportation within a disaster area, a bike is faster than walking and easier to maneuver over/around debris than a vehicle.

So a bike is not a solution in all cases, but it ought to be included in the space of possibilities.

By the way, are the back roads as jammed as the major highways? The map shows a spiderweb of farm roads between western Houston and Austin.

Mary

-------------------------------------
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

Fucking Brilliant.

Full text of the Grim Meathook Future thing: "
So a lot of people seem to be wanting to track this down. This was originally posted on a private message board as a response to a post by Matt ‘Blackbelt’ Jones. This is what I originally wrote:

‘What are the fictions of ‘the long now’ (what is the relationship of the long now and the long tail — does abundance and narrowcast-culture lead to the feeling of a thousand million divergent futures - the future got wide, again)’

I think the problem is that the future, maybe for the first time since WWII, lies on the far side of an event horizon for us, because there are so many futures possible. There’s the wetware future, the hardware future, the transhumanist future, the post-rationalist (aka fundamentalist) future.

And then there’s the future where everything just sort of keeps going on the way it has, with incremental changes, and technology is no longer the deciding factor in things. You don’t need high tech to change the world; you need Semtex and guns that were designed by a Russian soldier fifty-odd years ago.

Meanwhile, most of the people with any genuine opportunity or ability to effect global change are too busy patting each other on the back at conventions and blue-skying goofy social networking tools that are essentially useless to 95% of the world’s population, who live within fifteen feet of everyone they’ve ever known and have no need to track their fuck buddies with GPS systems. (This, by the way, includes most Americans, quite honestly.)

You can’t blame them for this, because it’s fun and it’s a great way to travel and get paid, but it doesn’t actually help solve any real problems, except the problem of media theory grad students, which the rest of the world isn’t really interested in solving.

Feeding poor people is useful tech, but it’s not very sexy and it won’t get you on the cover of Wired. Talk about it too much and you sound like an earnest hippie. So nobody wants to do that.

They want to make cell phones that can scan your personal measurements and send them real-time to potential sex partners. Because, you know, the fucking Japanese teenagers love it, and Japanese teenagers are clearly the smartest people on the planet.

The upshot of all of this is that the Future gets divided; the cute, insulated future that Joi Ito and Cory Doctorow and you and I inhabit, and the grim meathook future that most of the world is facing, in which they watch their squats and under-developed fields get turned into a giant game of Counterstrike between crazy faith-ridden jihadist motherfuckers and crazy faith-ridden American redneck motherfuckers, each doing their best to turn the entire world into one type of fascist nightmare or another.

Of course, nobody really wants to talk about that future, because it’s depressing and not fun and doesn’t have Fischerspooner doing the soundtrack. So everybody pretends they don’t know what the future holds, when the unfortunate fact is that — unless we start paying very serious attention — it holds what the past holds: a great deal of extreme boredom punctuated by occasional horror and the odd moment of grace.

—-

I’m also working on a long essay expanding these ideas. Keep your eyes open for it.
"

(Via Zenarchery.com.)

Delta announced some aspects of its Bankruptcy plan today.

Of note is mention of salary cuts across the board, extending up to the CEO, who will now make $337,500.

I would like to point out that this is probably an order of magnitude less than that made by partners at the largest law firms, and a factor of three larger than the starting salary at large NY law firms.

I'm sure that I work on a daily basis with people that make more.

CEO salaries that are a smaller multiple of the salary of the lowest paid employees in the organization are hopefully a small step towards reaching the level of income inequality that existed in this country in the 1950s & 1960s.

Fwd: Lance Armstrong

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Antonia
> Date: September 22, 2005 5:11:28 PM EDT
>
> don't know if you guys have seen this. my dad just forwarded it to me.
> heh heh heh...
> ________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
> Lance Armstrong Scandal Continues
>
>
>
> Associated Press Tuesday, August 30, 2005; 11:00 PM
> PARIS, France --
>
> Lance Armstrong's record setting seventh Tour de
> France victory, along with his entire Tour de France
> legacy, may be tarnished by what could turn out to be
> one of the greatest sports scandals of all time.
> Armstrong is being quizzed by French police after
> three banned substances were found in his South France
> hotel room while on vacation after winning the 2005
> Tour de France.
>
> The three substances found were toothpaste, deodorant,
> and soap which have been banned by French authorities
> for over 75 years.
>
> Armstrong's girlfriend and American rocker Sheryl
> Crowe is quoted as saying "We use them every day in
> America, so we naturally thought they'd be ok in
> France.
>
> Along with these three banned substances, French
> authorities also physically searched Armstrong himself
> and found several other interesting items that they
> have never seen before, including a backbone.
>
> --
> Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question
> that you wish had been asked of you.
> -Robert McNamara
>

Inquiring Minds Want to Know if Presidential Minds Want a Drink: "

[Click to enlarge.]

The National Enquirer is just out with a bombshell. The tab reports on its website today -- for issues available in New York tomorrow and nationwide on Friday -- that George W. Bush is back on the sauce, caught by Laura downing a shot after he learned of the Katrina crisis.

His worried wife yelled at him: 'Stop, George.'

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against 'falling off the wagon' and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

'When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,' said one insider. 'He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: 'Stop George!'

'Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband.'

Actually, we sort of glad to hear the president is drinking again. 'Brownie, you're doing a hell of job,' makes a lot more sense coming from a drunk man.

Bush's Booze Crisis [National Enquirer]

Bush Boozing? [Wonkette]
"

(Via Gawker.)

The Perfect Sugar Dispenser

The Perfect Sugar Dispenser
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

As seen in Hungary, and found again at Janes' in the village, this dispenser needs only to be turned upside down to get one serving (or as I say quarter serving) of sugar poured out. I want one.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Rita: "
National Hurricane Center now says that Rita is currently the third most powerful hurricane on record. This is up from fifth most powerful earlier today.
The NHC has made an RSS feed for Rita available -- it will only include reports on this hurricane.
The latest report, as of posting time:
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 165 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA IS A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN INTENSITY ARE LIKELY DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
It's my understanding that, at this strength, Rita could maintain hurricane status as far inland as Austin, Texas. It undoubtedly does not need to be said, but if you live in the at-risk area (see map to the right), please start making plans now to evacuate.

(Posted by Jamais Cascio in To Know It for the First Time - Place, Environment and Ecology at 06:40 PM)"
(Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here.)

This looks very very interesting...

Track your life with Onlife: "
Filed under: Productivity, Freeware, Software
Remember that snazzy tool Active Timer? Onlife is like Active Timer on steroids. Let me tell you, it is totally freaky. Created by a former MIT Media Lab student, Onlife is currently in Beta and free as in beer. So what does it DO?

It records (almost) everything you do, say, create, or see in six default apps: Safari, iTunes, TextEdit, iChat, Mail, and Firefox. By 'record' I mean just that. It collects (and can tag) your conversations in iChat, your email in Mail, websites you visit, and puts the song info into a database, not unlike Spotlight. However, you also have this nifty graph to see everything, and what you did when. To top it all off, this works in 10.3, which means you holdouts sans Spotlight can get a taste of the power we Tigers take for granted...

It's an interesting concept, though not entirely perfect (hey, it's a beta). Dynamic pages requiring logins don't show up properly, at least in Firefox. In the site screenshots I see NetNewsWire, though there's no support in the app? Apparently the developer is crafting plug-ins, ala QuickSilver, so you may be able to hook in to more apps in the future. Keep an eye on this one...

Read Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

"

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

Rita is now Cat 5.

I suppose the next step is Cat 5e.

yuk yuk yuk.

Note inside is this screed, which is Bruce Sterling describing pretty effectively the work of Warren Ellis.

Hypercard stack Beyond Cyberpunk now in HTML: "
Filed under: Cult of Mac, Humor, Multimedia, Odds and ends
Anyone remember the 90's? Ah, the early days of the web, grunge, and the rise of Cyberpunk. In fact, the Cyberpunk movement predates the web (by over a decade). And for those of you on the scene back in the heady days of 1990, you might remember a cult hit known as 'Beyond Cyberpunk,' which was distributed as a Hypercard stack. Yeah, Hypercard, how we made hyperlinks before HTML... Remember that one? When I made stuff in Hypercard PC users would scratch their head and say, 'golly, how'd you do that?' I miss Hypercard.

Anyway, the classic 'Beyond Cyberpunk' is now available in its entirety online. Makes sense, since the navigational metaphor is the same. It's a fairly raw data dump, not a fully integrated experience. In other words, be prepared for a simplistic site, not an exact replica of the old disks (yeah, BC was distributed on floppies). It's a historical record though, of the days before cameraphones and iTunes, and required reading for those of us who were in college at the time *cough*... My sneakernet ran on Converse, how about yours?

[Via BoingBoing]
Read Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

"
(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

love

Only Hal Hartley can make a suicide with a grenade in a crooked factory look romantic.

Katrina: How The Sick And Elderly Were Abandoned: "

Is it time for the blame game yet?
The 827 people inside [one hospital] - 137 of them patients - stayed relatively calm until Wednesday, when food and water ran short and the heat reached 110 degrees.
'You get a feeling of, Does anybody know we're here?
' Ms. McCall said.

She was told by top officials at Universal Health Services, the company that runs the hospital, that they had rented two trucks with food, water and diesel fuel and sent them on, 'but they were confiscated by federal authorities,
' she said. The company also hired two helicopters, but officials refused to let them fly,
she said.

"

(Via AMERICAblog.)

POLITICS: Iraqis Steal, Waste Entire Defense Budget: "Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi has discovered that almost 100 percent of the US-taxpayer-bankrolled $1.27 billion Iraqi Defense Ministry budget has been embezzled or wasted. This effectively ends any current chance that the Iraqi military will ever be able to defend itself and ensuring that US troops won't return home anytime soon.

An official Iraqi audit said $1.27 billion allocated by the Defense Ministry for military procurement in 2005 was embezzled by officials and suppliers. In a report completed in May, the Board of Supreme Audit blamed the theft on U.S.-appointed senior Defense Ministry officials, including a former defense minister.

'Huge amounts of money have disappeared,' Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi said. 'In return we got nothing but scraps of metal. It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history.'

'There have been many violations of the bidding process that have led to huge losses of public funds,' Hadi Al Amiri, chairman of parliament's Integrity Committee, said. 'Many bids were improperly conducted and awarded by ministers without any input from committees established to assess the bids.'

'Our funds are under the control of ignorant people,' Al Amiri said.

Money was funneled to front companies, dishonest distributors, and utterly incompetent officials at every level. Ancient, nonfunctional equipment was purchased at sky-high prices.

US taxpayers just bankrolled $1.27 billion in corruption and bullshit. Are we supposed to consider this to be one of those little speed bumps on the long hard road to freedom and democracy?
(Written by: Shalome)
"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

POLITICS: NATO Rations Considered Unfit for Katrina Evacuees, Will Be Burned Instead: "In the midst of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the United States has seen a significant outpouring of sympathy and pledges of aid from foreign countries. Britain alone dispatched over 400,000 NATO meal rations to help feed the thousands of evacuees and rescue personnel in the hurricane's aftermath. Unfortunately, it's probably going to be incinerated.

Hundreds of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.

US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.

Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.

And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.

One British aid worker last night called the move 'sickening senselessness' and said furious colleagues were 'spitting blood'.

The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed.

The shipments of food were turned back and sent to an warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas. Officials blamed the Department of Agriculture, who confiscated the rations because of restrictions on imports of meat. This may signal a latent worry over BSE infections in British cattle, a stigma which haunted the British beef industry for years. However, there hasn't been a case of BSE in Britain in many years. And if the food is good enough for our troops, why is it considered by the FDA to be 'unfit for human consumption'?

[An] aid worker, who would not be named, said: 'This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve.

'The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq.

'Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madness.'
(Written by: aegies)
"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Monday, September 19, 2005

Arrrrrr, it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!: "
In honor of today being International Talk Like a Pirate
Day (who knew? well, besides the pirates.) we bring you the Corsair Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates. Arrr, thar be
plunderin’ ta be done!

[Thanks, nickl]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
© 2005 Weblogs, Inc.

"
(Via engadget.com.)

Old ~~World~~ Europe meet New ~~World~~ Europe.

Germany in Flames, Refugees Heading Towards Hungary: "

Just kidding, we hope. Anyway, as you may have heard, Germany had an election yesterday, and it didn't go exactly as planned. In fact, it's shaping up to be a foreign-language remake of the botched 2000 presidential election in America, but in the one country that matters most to Hungary's economy, and which, unlike America, has been known to invade Hungary when things are going really badly at home. (Okay, so America has also invaded us, and Germany asked before their last invasion, but so did the Americans, and they asked nicer, and in English.) So at least for the next few days we suggest stop your compulsive reading about how screwed up the US is, and instead read about how screwed up Germany is. Meanwhile, we'll be sure to give you a heads-up if things really go off the rails, though if the past is any indication, you won't need us to tell you.

"

(Via Pestiside.)

But Why LA?

New York: New York to L.A., $169 Round Trip: "
Airfare Watchdog reports that Continental is offering $169 round-trips between New York's La Guardia and Los Angeles, if you can travel on a Thursday or Tuesday and don't mind stopping in Houston. But even the peakish nonstop fares aren't much more expensive. As long as you book a couple weeks in advance for travel through January 2006, fares seem to stick around $200-$225 even for weekend nonstop flights. One-night minimum stay, so no flying across country twice in 24 hours, kay?

New York JFK / La Guardia / Newark Fares [Airfare Watchdog]
"

(Via Gridskipper.)

Fwd: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a Snail's Pace

In the US, petrol is cheap and internet access is expensive due to
firms charging very very high rates.

In France, internet access is cheap and petrol is expensive due to
government taxation.

Of course it isn't that simple because population density is higher
in europe, which means that rolling out internet over shorter
distances is easier than here, where the government mandates programs
for "rural access", and in a smaller country it may be a higher
priority policy goal to reduce fossil fuel pollution.

Nevertheless interesting.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
> Date: September 19, 2005 11:13:15 AM EDT
> To: Ip Ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
> Subject: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a
> Snail's Pace
> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Marc <marcaniballi@hotmail.com>
> Date: September 19, 2005 10:47:28 AM EDT
> To: dave@farber.net
> Subject: RE: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond
> a Snail's Pace
>
>
> Hi Dave;
>
> Just by way of comparison;
>
> Here in France only the national telco still offers DSL with
> different speed
> options - all the competitors offer only 1 speed, the fastest
> possible. As
> of this week, in most major population areas you get 25 MB/s DSL
> for $18.00
> per month (roughly converted from EUR). For the same price and
> depending on
> where you are, your connection speed will be somewhat less than
> that, with
> the slowest being in the 5 MB/s range. Also, many of these
> providers are now
> introducing free national calling and VOIP-level pricing for
> international
> calls over the same line. Now, if only they could do this with
> European gas
> prices!
>
> Marc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 7:11 AM
> To: Ip Ip
> Subject: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a
> Snail's
> Pace
>
>
> Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a Snail's Pace
>
> By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
> September 15, 2005
>
> High-speed Internet connections have finally gone mainstream in the
> U.S. But there's a problem: What passes for high speed in this
> country is pathetically slow compared with Internet service in some
> other countries.
>
> For instance, Verizon's entry-level DSL service, at 768 kilobits per
> second for downloads and 128 kilobits per second for uploads, is
> considered high-speed here. But in Japan and Korea, families can buy
> moderately priced Internet service measured in the tens of megabits
> per second. They get a race car, while Americans are stuck with a
> bicycle.
>
> A megabit per second (mbps) connection moves about 1,000 times as
> much data every second as a kilobit per second (kbps) connection. A
> service running at 10 megabits per second is more than 13 times as
> fast as Verizon's base DSL service. All such services have two modes:
> downstream, for downloading Web pages, email and files; and upstream,
> for uploading email or files. Generally, Internet providers offer
> much faster downstream speeds than upstream speeds.
>
> Even the faster common U.S. broadband offerings, like Comcast's
> $42.95 a month basic cable-modem service, which delivers 6 mbps
> downstream and 384 kbps upstream, are ridiculously slow compared with
> the Asian offerings.
>
> But now, Verizon is offering Americans in certain parts of the
> country a new, much faster Internet service for only a little more
> than Comcast charges for its basic service. This new product, called
> Fios, offers 15 mbps downstream and 2 mbps upstream for $50 a month,
> or $45 a month if you use Verizon for your telephone service.
>
> There are also two other Fios plans: 5 mbps downstream and 2 mbps
> upstream for $40 a month; and 30 mbps downstream and 5 mbps upstream
> for $200 a month. Both also are discounted if you also use Verizon
> phone service.
>
> I had Fios installed in my house in July, and I've been comparing it
> with Comcast's basic cable-modem service. I have been pleased with
> Fios's speed and reliability, which are true to Verizon's claims. On
> some tasks, it is markedly faster than Comcast. And on my laptops
> connected via a Wi-Fi wireless network, which tends to degrade
> Internet speeds, the speed increase has been especially noticeable.
>
> ..
>
> http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050915.html
>
>
>
>
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one beeleon dolla.

New York's Salary Men and Women: "
It's New York magazine's 2005 Salary Survey, and the lesson is clearly: The city is full of rich people who are not you. In our highly unscientific early-morning survey of a few pages of the survey, it seems that well over half of the incomes are over $1 million. According to the U.S. Census, only 3% of New York City households have an income of over $250,000. Overlaying that with the number of households in the city, that's just over 90,000 households. Gothamist expects many people to be obsessing over this survey while at work today.

The survey does try to show the gamut of what one could make in NYC. In fact, there are a lot of people who probably make way less than you (like the Chinese food delivery man who makes just over $5,000, not including tips). Here's a sampling of incomes:
- Edward Lampert, Manager, ESL Investments hedge fund: $1.02 billion (yes, billion)

- David Neeleman, Chairman and CEO of Jetblue: $286,971

- Chris, panhandler on Bleecker and Broadway: $24,000

- Judge Judy: $30 million

- Chuck Scarborough, Anchor, WNBC News: $3 million

- Sue Simmons, Anchor, WNBC News: $2.5 million

-Edwin Young, NYPD anti-graffiti coordinator: $149,766

- Travis Toy, Line coordinator, Whole Foods Union Square: $20,800

- Jessica Coen, Blogger, Gawker.com: $30,000

- Uma Thurman, Actress, Be Cool: $3 million

- Sydney Davolos, General Manager of the Roundabout Theather: $100,000

- Glen O'Sullivan, subway conductor: $46,833

- John Sexton, President of NYU: $740,504

- Wol-san Liem, Teaching Assistant, NYU: $19,000

- Scott Newman, plastic surgeon: $500,000

- Twenty, Fire dog, Ladder Co. 20: Free walks, food, housing
New York magazine does admit that some of the numbers are guesses and says that when they asked some other sources, they got snark instead. '...Explaining Maggie Gyllenhaal’s per-movie price, one studio executive kindly offered, 'She’s a no-one.'' For the record, NY magazine says she's making $500,000 for the Oliver Stone movie about 9/11.

Is this survey motivating or enervating? Or is this too much about NYC's obsession with moolah?

"

(Via Gothamist.)

Is this a classic instance of IIED?

CULTURE: Ugly Woman Sues Makeover Show: "Self-professed 'ugly woman' Deleese Williams is suing the ABC reality TV show 'Extreme Makeover' for failing to make her pretty. Hold on a second, I know you're rolling your eyes... It's not as petty as it sounds.

Williams was chosen as a candidate for the show and filmed talking emotionally about growing up with a deformed jaw, bad teeth, droopy eyes, and a body she wasn't happy with. Her family members were filmed talking about how hideous she was, saying things they never would have dreamed of telling her if it wasn't for the fact that the show's producers had promised her extensive cosmetic surgery. Then, the night before her surgical procedures were scheduled to begin, the show allegedly dumped her.

The show announcing Williams' selection for a mega makeover had already aired on Jan. 7, 2004, when the producers abruptly dropped her because the dental surgeon told them her recovery time would be longer than expected, Cordova said.

Williams was alone in a Los Angeles hotel room reading her pre-op instructions when a producer showed up and dashed her dream of a new life with a 'pretty' face, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that the show encouraged the family to say hurtful, humiliating things to Williams, which has resulted in the breakdown of the family and even the suicide of Williams' sister.

'Kellie could not live with the fact that she had said horrible things that hurt her sister. She fell to pieces. Four months later, she ended her life with an overdose of pills, alcohol and cocaine,' said Wesley Cordova, a lawyer for Williams.

'This family is shredded. There is a human cost to this,' Cordova said.

'Deleese is so hurt and humiliated, she won't leave the house now. She grocery shops at midnight,' Cordova says.

To please the producers, Williams' mother-in-law also laid it on thick. 'She said things like 'I never believed my son would marry such an ugly woman.''

The first time I saw this show air, I was disgusted by what they put these poor people through in order to get the plastic surgery that would allow them to feel normal. To put someone through this kind of emotional abuse and then yank the reason for it away at the last minute is unconscionable.
(Written by: Shalome)
"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

This is an interesting take, best read with Yo La Tengo playing in the background. And if you have Yo La Tengo playing, you might as well dull the pain by...

Donna Brazile - Stockholm Syndrome Victim: "
My friend Nick called me this morning incredulous at this OP/ED in today's Washington Post:

On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush -- in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.
...
I know, maybe better than anyone, that there are times when it seems that our nation is too divided ever to heal. There are times when we feel so different from each other that we can hardly believe that we are all part of the same family. But we are one nation. We are a family. And this is what we do. When the president asked us to pitch in Thursday night, he wasn't really asking us to do anything spectacular. He was asking us to be Americans, and to do what Americans always do.
Read the whole thing, I'm not just pulling quotes out of context.

If ever did the psychology of Stockholm Syndrome come alive in American politics, it did for me reading this OP/ED.

Let me be plain. There isn't a SINGLE shred of evidence that George Bush and his corrupt crony government has the capability of rebuilding New Orleans. None. To argue that we should join with him now, and that somehow together this will cause the madness to stop is a sign of severe psychological disorder.

You know what Donna, I can't imagine what you're going through right now, your hometown utterly destroyed and your friends, family, and community scattered to the winds. I won't pretend to know how that feels. I can't. I've seen the overlay maps showing the amount of flooding in New Orleans relative to other large cities, like the entire city of Boston and surrounding communities completely submerged. I can't conceive of what that might mean.

But as devastated as you feel right now, as heartbroken as I can imagine you are, I have no idea what you are talking about. Did George Bush speak from the heart on Monday August 29th at the country club he was visiting as the levees broke? Did he speak from the heart on Tuesday August 30th from California talking about VJ day? Did his government speak from the heart on Thursday September 1st when they told the nation that they didn't know about the people in the convention center?

Did they speak from the heart when they granted no-bid contracts to Halliburton? Did they speak from the heart when they suspended the prevailing wage? Did they speak from the heart when they told us, once again, that even an epic disaster such as this doesn't warrant raising taxes even for a moment?

I would like to believe that this country is one big family. It isn't. Does a family bash their gay members like George Bush did to win an election? Does a family not even sit and listen to a grieving mother whose son was killed as a result of the President's actions? When choosing who will protect them, does a family pick the most incompetent member to lead the charge?

Until we stop letting Republicans abuse us and stand up for ourselves, the madness will never end. After reading what Ms. Brazile wrote today, it is clear to me that this won't happen in Washington anytime soon - it will have to be forced onto Washington in a vast intervention.

"

(Via AMERICAblog.)

Space Elevator news:

One Mile Test Ribbon Construction complete!!!: "
Today we finished constructing the ribbon for the up coming Balloon Test. As of this point we have our Waivers and Permissions, We have our Ribbon, We have our Anchor, We have or Lifter Robot and Our Ballon should be arriving in days. All super exciting.

The ribbon consuruction was an adventure in itself. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of tedious details but we got it done. 60 spools of ribbon, 24 cans of aviation orange paint, 3 completely ruined leather gloves, 9 feet of pvc pipe and about 20 hours of walking, cranking, paintig and gluing. But we did it. Fell behind on some days and really cranked it on others but we’re done. If we had it my way it would’ve been done by Wednesday but our ‘Engineer’ felt that we should slow down and finish on Thursday. Just kidding. That was a very good call by Alex, I like working with tha guy, he’s so safe and calculative and organized. Off course many times I wanted to yell out ‘Ariel, take the professor and plug him into the hyperdrive.’ That should teach him to ‘never give me the odds.’

"
(Via LiftPort Staff Blog.)