Mars Rover: I can see you

The Domains of your gut

Analysis has revealed that the organisms in your GI tract span all three known domains of life (bacteria, eukarya (us) and archaea), which split over 570 million years ago.

The non-human cells in our guts have twice the number of genes as does the human genome.

That's pretty awesome.

I see you

Thanks.



Only works for iSight equipped visitors.

Advice: Vote Early & Vote Often

RFK, Jr on the stolen 2004 election in Rolling Stone.

heh

I just got carded.

3 cheers for disneyworld

I hates it.

No?

Would wearing this shirt be ironic for doctors?

During Rounds?

Wrong?

Purportedly Via Warrenellis.com:

Nor Do I Play One On Television: "

Another profoundly important t-shirt from TopatoCo.

"

Stanford's Stickybot wall-climbing robot lizard

I would like my Van der Waals interaction boots and gloves now please.

Stanford's Stickybot wall-climbing robot lizard: "

Filed under: Robots

We thought MIT's slime-climbing robo-snail was pretty, er, slick, but we have to admit that our new fave wall-climber has got to be Standord's Stickybot. The robot gecko has feet coated with a polymer designed to mimic the properties of setae, the tiny hairs on gecko feet that enable the lizards to climb walls. That allows the bot to clamber freely without the surface in question having to be doused with slime, as required by MIT's bot. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon is already interested in adapting the tech for military use in gloves and boots for soldiers. We can only hope this trickles down to civilian uses fast; we're so ready to connect with our inner Spidey as we climb the walls in our gecko gloves.

[Via I4U]

"

(Purportedly Via engadget.com.)

nonos

You should never have to wonder if that smell from the seat across from you on the subway is coming from an exotic breath mint or cheap vodka.

The Horror,The Horror

Teenagers on the subway singing "I love you, You love me" from their fondly recalled, Barney infested childhoods.

Fuckers

Read this blurb on the XM lawsuit by the RIAA.

You're Rich Biotch!

I was at a Citibank ATM near 45th and sixth avenue yesterday, and the machine told me it only had $50 bills, and helpfully offered me quantities of money in increments of $50.

I laughed my way to the ATM next to it.

Serial Communications from OS X

I can use screen instead of Zterm or minicom!

ls /dev/tty.*

gives me:

/dev/tty.Bluetooth-Modem /dev/tty.KeySerial1
/dev/tty.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync

I then run:

screen /dev/tty.KeySerial1 9600

And I get a serial console to whatever the serial port (in my case a Keyspan serial adapter) is connected to.

I use this to quit screen:

control-A, then control-
This is very very useful...

Thoughts on the Treo 700p

Cy asked me what I thought about the Treo 700p. Coming from the perspective of a GSM Treo 650 user, using the phone on a network (T-Mobile USA) that doesn't officially offer or support it, but does offer excellent voice and data tariffs, here are some of my thoughts:

Note that I haven't played with one yet.

Frankly, I'm a bit jaded with Palm right now. Having used the Treo 650 for the last year, the platform is showing its age.

The OS crashes a lot. The web browser is, to put it mildly, inferior to many browsers from Nokia and you can't run a decent version of Opera on it either.

Hotsyncing contacts and calendars is still a joke (compared to what is available with Blackberries and Windows Mobile based devices when tied to Exchange Server.)

Here's where my Treo has gotten me at this point in my phone expectations:

• 1. Reception Everywhere
  
• 2. QWERTY keyboard.
  
• 3. Long Battery life with continuous background network connectivity.
  
• 4. Always on email. (ChatterEmail does this well.)
  
• 5. Syncing contacts and calendar with computer and beyond (eg Google Calendar), automatically, and over the air, in the background. (You can do this with Palm Desktop or The Missing Sync, but it is SLOW, and a blocking foreground process.)
  
• 6. Camera that works well in low light.
  
• 7. Ability to add mp3 ringtones (works with 3rd party add-on on Treo) and 3rd party software at will to and from my phone, and not through the phone company's wireless network.
  
• 8. For the love of god not crash more than once a day.
  
• 9. Touch Screen Phone Interface(once you start using it... It just works really well.)
  
• 10. Have enough space on the device to not HAVE to have expansion cards to store data.
  
• 11. Run on a user expandable Operating System (linux)
  
• 12. Pre-emptive Multitasking.
  
• 13. External audio silencer button.
  

The GSM Treo 650 handles #1, #2, #4, #6, #7 (without supporting mp3 ringtones... come on), #9and #13.
The CDMA Treo 700p improves on the 650 by adding #10. I bet it will still have problems with #5, #8, and they don't plan on moving to #11 or #12 before next year, and there's still no GSM Treo 700p, so forget #1, as it won't work abroad.

The Blackberry handles #1, #2, #3 (I hear), #4, #5, no mp3 support so no #7, #8, #10.

I still think the 700p will be better than any other phone out there, but only barely, Blackberry is catching up.

And if Apple does come out with a phone someday...

Break of Reality

Break of Reality
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Playing at 59th St/Columbus circle on the uptown Central Park West platform at Rush Hour.

Call Me Crazy

But I've been thinking the same thing this weekend.

There's a certain poetic justice about Gore in 2008.

And given a choice between McCain and Gore, I would vote for Gore.

Frankly, healing the Republican Party just is neither my problem nor my project. And after what will be eight years of this nonsense, I just don't give a damn.

Fwd: [IP] real good SNL: If Al Gore were President

Do watch the clip. I caught it on my DVR earlier today.

Beyond the parody, there is something almost poignantly painful about Al Gore talking about so many of the issues that many of us thought were important back in the 2000 election, that have so ignominiously blown up in our faces during this Bush Administration.

I had almost forgotten how much I miss competent government.

If the Democrats can just remind us of this, I think they have a hell of a chance in the next elections.


Begin forwarded message:

From: David Farber
Date: May 14, 2006 3:28:54 PM EDT
Subject: [IP] real good SNL: If Al Gore were President




Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks
Date: May 14, 2006 1:16:43 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] SNL: If Al Gore were President



Last night, "Saturday Night Live," <http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/> opened their show with Al Gore addressing the nation as if he was the President of the United States. Gore was focused and quite funny in this entertaining spoof of the current administration and their long range of failures. He also parodied himself and the media (when they falsely claimed he said he created the internets) by saying that he invented an Anti-Hurricane and Tornado Machine.

You can find a Windows Media version here: <http://movies.crooksandliars.com/SNL-Al-Gore-5-14-06.wmv>.
You can find a QT version here: <http://movies.crooksandliars.com/SNL-Al-Gore-5-14.mov>.

Well worth checking out!

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>

Harlem Lanes

Harlem Bowling Lanes
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

On the 3rd floor at the corner of 126th and Adam Clayton Powell, after being patted down for weapons.

Clubbing with Koalas

Purportedly Via Warrenellis.com:

NEXTWAVE #5 Sneak: "

NW005018

Pencilled art by Stuart Immonen, violence towards cuddly cuddly baaars by me.

"

If you liked Black Narcissus...

I finished watching Black Narcissus this afternoon.

IMDB notes that if you liked Black Narcissus, you might like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King...

FEMAil: Don't Get Shot!!!

With fans like these...

Purportedly Via Wonkette:

FEMAil: Don't Get Shot!!!: "

The fan mail is generally funnier than the hate mail. We wish this writer had gone on CNN to give those bitches (presumably a veiled Anderson Cooper reference) what-for.

'
"

Videos of the Day: TMBG Fan Flix

A video mashup of my favourite televideo series.

And by the way Season 3 comes out on DVD tomorrow.

Purportedly Via Gothamist:

Videos of the Day: TMBG Fan Flix: "

The fans of Brooklyn's supergroup They Might Be Giants love to make tribute videos. We're particularly partial to the Scrubs mashup we've linked here, but some of these are also pretty amusing/inexplicable/absurd/awesome:
"

Full bottles go here

Full bottles go here
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Our Cupboards, Refridgerator, and Pantry are out of space. All full bottles are now being lined up next to the baseboard heater. This will be a problem in winter. The two yellow capped Coke bottles are all we have left of the twenty bottles of Passover Coca Cola we had purchased.

userfriendly : 06 mei 2006 (9116)

HAHAHAHA.

Purportedly Via User Friendly the Comic Strip. by Illiad:

userfriendly : 06 mei 2006 (9116): ""

DARPA doing the right things again

If NASA was just run like DARPA, I'd be writing this from Mars.

DARPA Funds Bold Research on Limb Regeneration

Don't Be Evil

I'd like to believe that Microsoft is trying to tie up this patent so that it can sue people who try to violate this patent, all in the name of being a red blooded american company, but I'm not optimistic.

On the other hand, hey, a neat idea for a public interest IP firm. Patent all of the evil ideas, and keep people from using them. After all, there's no such thing as compulsory licensing,right?

Purportedly Via Slashdot:

Your Rights Online: Microsoft Seeking to Patent Automatic Censorship: "theodp writes 'Microsoft is back at the USPTO, this time seeking a patent for the automatic censorship of audio data for broadcast, a system and method for automatically altering audio to prevent undesired words and phrases from being understandable to a listener as originally uttered.'"

Palm's Blackberry Connect software for the Treo650 is worthless

Blackberry announced Blackberry Connect software for the Treo 650.

It uses the built in VersaMail mail client. How often do you hear people asking for a mail client on their phone or pda "just like Versamail?"

The answer is never. Snappermail and Chatteremail (my current fave) are what power users tend to use.

Futhermore, it seems that the Blackberry connect server does sync the mailbox and calendar with a blackberry enterprise server, but not the contacts, which means that you still need to sync your phone with your computer to do backups and sync your contacts.

Perhaps Blackberry doesn't want to cannibalize sales of their own devices.

This might be useful for those people who work at an organization that has a Blackberry Enterprise Server, and wants to look at using Treos, but doesn't want to consider using Goodlink's services, which sync contacts, calendar and mail.

I don't think that market exists.

On Line

On Line
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

For Colour Me Kubrick

Best Buy Invaded By Legion Of Blue-Shirted Pranksters

Gizmodo has the whole story... but I'd argue this ImprovEverywhere event is tons more fun than that last nopants event...

Purportedly Via Gizmodo:

Best Buy Invaded By Legion Of Blue-Shirted Pranksters: "

Photo by Chad Nicholson

Mission: Best Buy [Improv Everywhere, via The Morning News]

Improv Everywhere Best Buy [crnphoto on Flickr]

'"

Lessig in nyc

Lessig in nyc
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

@ free culture film screening.

flashback

I just heard a remix of a prodigy album in a footlocker that brought me back to chris danek playing quake freshman year.

Damn.

A friendly Cow

Sigh.

New York Apartments aren't made for cows.

Man vs Ape

I just found the most brilliant demarcation for separating humans from all other species.

Humans are the only species to use birth control.

Poly-Phasic Variations

I've been doing some research on poly-phasic sleep (again).

I did manage too find this link to nap music, which is nice because it is set for specific periods of time, after which the music tries to wake you up.

friendly juxtaposition

There's something that just works about playing Dr. Mario while audio from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome plays in the background.

"Two men enter, One man leaves!"

HDCP: Why So Weak?

Professor Felten makes a very interesting point about the encryption used in next generation cables boxes, televisions, and high definition media formats (such as HDDVD and Blu-Ray). The encryption being added to these products is insufficient to stop hackers from breaking it, or to stop companies from releasing software or hardware to circumvent it.

Instead, this protection is only there to allow lawsuits under the DMCA (under the anti-circumvention provision) to keep products out of the marketplace (that haven't been authorized for interoperability by the HDCP cartel).

So just like with the DVD cartel, the law of technology is being bent (dare I say it is being used as intended) to control players in the HDCP affiliated industries.

Question: Is the weakest link here the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA?

Purportedly Via http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/:

HDCP: Why So Weak?: "

Today I want to wrap up (I think) the discussion on security weaknesses in HDCP, the encryption scheme used for sending very high-def video from a device like a next-gen DVD player to a TV monitor. I wrote previously (1, 2, 3) about how HDCP will inevitably fail — catastrophically — when somebody manages to recover the master secrets that are the source of all power in the system, and publishes those secrets on the Internet. I wrote, too, about how this problem could have been avoided by using standard cryptographic primitives rather than custom-designed ones.

It seems very likely that the people in charge of HDCP knew what they were doing, and made a deliberate choice to use the less-secure scheme rather than the more secure, standard one. (I don’t have definite proof that they knew about the security problems, but it’s pretty hard to believe that their engineers failed to notice it.) Why did they choose the weak system?

The academic paper on HDCP, by Crosby et al., says that HDCP’s designers were given a ‘budget’ of 10,000 gates. (Gates are one of the basic building blocks from which digital chips are designed.) Crosby estimates that a more secure design would have required about 30,000 gates, to fix the vulnerability I discussed earlier and some smaller vulnerabilities. How much does it cost to add gates to a design? That depends — the high end of the cost range is around $100 per 10,000 gates, but the low end might be much lower.

There are really two questions here. (1) Why did they think it was worth paying for 10,000 extra gates to have the weak system, rather than no encryption at all? (2) Why did they think it wasn’t worth 20,000 gates to have a stronger system, rather than the weak system? Let’s consider these questions in order.

First: Why is the weak system worth spending 10,000 gates for? The answer doesn’t lie in platitudes about speedbumps or raising the bar — any technical bumps or bars will be obliterated when the master secrets are published. It’s worth noting, too, that the data stream they are protecting — uncompressed super high-def (1080i) video — blasts so much data so fast that there’s no affordable way for a would-be pirate to capture it, at least today. About all that can be done with such data streams today, at reasonable cost, is to display them, or to run them through simple format converter boxes. In future years, capturing the video stream will become a viable piracy strategy, but by then the master secrets will almost certainly have been published. So temporary piracy prevention doesn’t seem like a good explanation.

A much more plausible answer is that HDCP encryption exists only as a hook on which to hang lawsuits. For example, if somebody makes unlicensed displays or format converters, copyright owners could try to sue them under the DMCA for circumventing the encryption. (Also, converter box vendors who accepted HDCP’s license terms might sue vendors who didn’t accept those terms.) The price of enabling these lawsuits is to add the cost of 10,000 gates to every high-def TV or video source, and to add another way in which high-def video devices can be incompatible.

The second question is why they weren’t willing to spend an extra 20,000 gates to use a more secure crypto scheme. Doing so would have reduced, in the long run, some types of P2P infringement. They apparently felt this would not be a good investment, presumably because other infringment scenarios were more troublesome. Why spend money strengthening one link in a chain, when other links are already weaker?

The bottom line is clear. In HDCP, ‘security’ technologies serve not to disable pirates but to enable lawsuits. When you buy an HDCP-enabled TV or player, you are paying for this — your device will cost more and do less.

"

Coca Cola with sucrose in lieu of HFCS

CocaCola with sucrose in lieu of HFCS
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

We bought 20 bottles.

Slurpee Fun

It's a magnificent day in New York City, and I've been walking from client to client all day.

There's nothing comparable to walking into an office, looking at people tired of working inside, and having them exclaim, "WHERE DID YOU GET A SLURPEE!!!"

The 7-11 at 6th & Lexington, and I'm going back outside now...

FW: [IP] CDMA Defined

Brilliant:

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006 7:24 pm
Subject: [IP] CDMA Defined

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Atkinson, Robert" <rca53@columbia.edu>
Date: April 12, 2006 6:36:56 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: CDMA Defined

A correction published in Tuesday�s Wall Street Journal:

�The wireless technology called CDMA stands for code division multiple access. An article Thursday about an investigation of Qualcomm Inc. incorrectly said the acronym stands for code division multiple complaints.�

Bob

------------------------------------- http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

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

I just saw a sticker on a newspaper stand that said "celebrate neurodiversity".

<seinfeld>What does that mean?</seinfeld>

I assume they're promoting proper embryonic differentiation, but I can't be sure.

One more reason not to need Exchange

Shared Calendaring from Google:

calendar.google.com

Argentina On Two Steaks A Day

Best Travel Article Ever.

Argentina On Two Steaks A Day: "

The classic begginer's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts of a marathon. That first steak has to get you through the afternoon and half the night, until the restaurants begin to open at ten; the first steak is what primes your system to digest large quantities of animal protein, and it's the first steak that buffers the sudden sugar rush of your afternoon ice cream cone. The midnight second steak might be more the glamorous one, standing as it does a good three inches off the plate, but all it has to do is get you up and out of the restaurant and into bed (for the love of God, don't forget to drink water).

(Purportedly Via Idle Words.)

mentionable unmentionables

Showtime had their preview weekend a week ago.

Is it just me, or does their ShowtimeN channel seem to cater to black people...

Intentional?

arbitraging gender

I just saw a poster for a gym with the line "I'd pay to see you sweat."

UN findings

The UN finds that 75% of Syrian women won't admit to being beaten.

Darwin's meditations on marriage

Darwin's meditations on marriage
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

When deciding upon whether to marry, Darwin made two competing lists, pro-wife, and pro-bachelor.

On the Pro-Wife side of the page it is written, "Better than a dog anyhow".

@ the Darwin Exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

Boobies!

Boobies!
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

@ the Natural History Museum Darwin exhibit.

Why Mommy is a Democrat

At last!

Democratic Agitprop Comrades!

Purportedly Via Fraser Speirs:

Why Mommy is a Democrat: "I genuinely can't decide if this is a joke or for real:

How odd."

Why I love Antonia and wish she were living with me again

The "globalization" of Christianity undercut its diversity, standardizing religious practice much like McDonalds has standardized its sesame seed buns and beef patties.

For the record, she just compared Christianity to a McDonalds hamburger.

Now I'm hungry...

Arab Strap

Arab Strap
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

@ Southpaw.

Success

A cold rainy April day.

Clearly an excuse to tie the stereo to the Airport Express to Airfoil to QuickTime Player playing the WDBM live stream. (ok or the WCBN stream.)

Yah.

overheard in the village tonight

"Where is Ray's pizza where the heroin is?"

XLI

Deep words. Also, I have taken up buying and drinking half gallons of OJ again.

At least Vitamin C is water soluble...

XLI: "

Odysseus dropped by today.


He sheepishly asked me how I had been doing, and how my butt was feeling.


I assured him that my ass was fine and thanked him for the grapes.

"

(Purportedly Via under odysseus.)

Mozilla donates to OpenBSD

It is good to see the Open Source ecosystem taking care of its own.

Donations Update: "Frank Hecker
from the
Mozilla Foundation
contacted Theo to inform him that the foundation decided to donate $10,000 USD to the OpenSSH project. Frank mentioned this today in the Mozilla Foundation's
status report.

The OpenSSH project truly appreciates this gesture of solidarity from such a
respectable open source project.

Besides this sizeable donation we also received hundreds of smaller donations,
mostly from
individuals and small companies. Thanks everyone for stepping up
to keep OpenBSD/OpenSSH ticking."

(Purportedly Via OpenBSD Journal.)

The Death of the Bahamas Tourism Industry

Buh Bye!

"The [Bahamian government Plays and Films Control ] board chose to ban it [Brokeback Mountain] because it shows extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, and we feel that it has no value for the Bahamian public," Chavasse Turnquest-Liriano, liaison officer for the control board, said Wednesday.

a. The Bahamas has a Plays and Films Control board.

b. They are afraid of extreme homosexuality. I shudder to think what the heterosexual analogue to that would entail.

Another Apple II Lab Bites the Dust

Does it make me old to fondly remember using a logo program on the Apple II?

Holy shit, there's a version for OS X!

Purportedly Via Cult of Mac:

Another Apple II Lab Bites the Dust: "
Vance Carruth, a third grade teacher from Huntington Beach, California, is retiring -- and his clutch of twenty Apple IIe systems will be going with him, the Mac Mothership website reports.

Even though the technology is almost thirty (30) years old, Vance's third graders fight over the chance to get use of one of these puppies.

... the school system purchased Apple IIe's for each classroom back in the 80's. In the early 90's they were replaced by IBM compatibles and most recently by Dell's. Each of the teachers were told they could take their Apple IIe home or move them to a designated storage room. Most elected to not take them home. The storage room later became Mr. Vance's classroom and he inherited the equipment. Mr. Vance decided to setup and network the desktops and has been supporting this effort with other machines that he has salvaged parts from for the last fifteen (15) years.

Now the real bad news. Mr. Carruth, (AKA Mr. Vance - Student's nickname for him) will be retiring this coming June. This comes only after 39 years of service at the same school. Once Mr. Vance has gone, there will be no other teacher to take on this support effort and the Apple IIe legacy along with Mr. Vance will vanish from Smith School.

"

Falling Behind Nippon (Again)

And all this despite large content owners like Sony calling Japan home.

Purportedly Via Lessig Blog:

Lost in regulation: "

In the late 1990s, I travelled a bunch to South America to talk about cyberspace. In conference after conference, I listened to South Americans describe how they were waiting for the government to enact rules so they could begin to develop business in cyberspace. That reaction puzzled me, an American. As I explained to those who would listen, in America, business wasn't waiting for the government to 'clarify' rules. It was simply building business in cyberspace without any support from government.

Yet as I listened to the Japanese describe the stuff they were doing with content in cyberspace, I realized we (America) had become South America. One presentation in particular described an extraordinary database the NII had constructed to discover relevance in linked databases, and drive traffic across a database of texts. I was astonished by the demonstration, and thought to myself that we could never build something like this in the U.S., at least until cases like the Google Book Search case was resolved.

And bingo ‒ the moment of recognition. We are now, as the South Americans in the 1990s, waiting for the government to clarify the rules. Investment is too uncertain; the liability too unclear. We thus wait, and fall further behind nations such as Japan, where the IP (as in copyright) bar is not so keen to stifle IP (as in the goose that ...).

(Oh, and re broadband: NTT is now well on its way to rolling fiber to the home. Cost per home -- between $30-50/m, for 100 megabits/s).

"

LOTR & Army of Darkness

Has anybody else noticed the similarity between certain scenes?

Or is it a given that any scene involving the secret knowledge of gunpowder will have one person (say Ash) keeping the idiot with the flame away from the combustibles...

He Man Does 4 Non Blondes

Jon alerts me to this brilliance.

Watch the video...

Bringing it all together

This is why I love Wil Wheaton. He puts this snarky mirror to the last two decades in the same way that Neal Stephenson does for the future, while still capturing the essence of the spoken word poetry that we would occasionally gather for at the Half Ass.

And by the way Charlie, I'm not sure how I can ever thank you for introducing me to Battelstar Galactica.

climb so high and gain so low:

My Road is paved with d20s and TRON DVDs and Atari 2600 games. It's lit by the glow of TNG and BSG episodes and the soundtrack is by Vangelis. It's patrolled by Rover and they sell Soylent Green in the rest stop vending machines. The speed limit is 42, but if you flash your Bavarian Illuminati card, you can use the FTL drive to make it to Milliways in time for dinner.

(Purportedly Via WIL WHEATON DOT NET: Where is my mind?.)

Boys Who Like Macs Who Also Use PCs

Windows on Mac
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Yes, that is the installation of XP on a Mac. By a quirk of the installation process, that installation screen is at the native resolution of the MacBook Pro, as opposed to the windows standard 640x480. Which Means that Windows Works Better On a Mac.

This doesn't mean I'm switching to XP, it's just nice to have options to get my work done.

Pho

Allen was apalled at my attempt to hijack the symbolism of Boromir's death scene for my gluttony.

FreeiPods.com Sold Private Data -- Despite Promising Not To

Thus proving once again that "there is no such thing as a free ipod lunch."

FreeiPods.com Sold Private Data -- Despite Promising Not To: "

FreeiPods.com, the wildly popular marketing scheme that offers free iPods for trying out various subscription offers, sold the data it gathered on 7.2 million Americans to an email advertising firm, according to a story at Wired News by my colleague Ryan Singel.

(New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer) announced Monday that e-mail marketing giant Datran Media had agreed to a $1.1 million fine for knowingly buying marketing lists from companies with privacy policies that promised not to sell or transfer the lists to a third party.

... Datran's biggest purchase, according to the text of the settlement (.pdf), was a list of 7.2 million Americans' names, e-mail addresses, home phone numbers and street addresses from Gratis Internet, a company best known for promising free iPods, televisions and DVDs to users willing to sign up for promotions offered by partners such as Citibank, Blockbuster and BMG's music club.

The sites inspired dozens of 'Is there really such a thing as a free iPod?' stories in the press (including one by Wired News), and internet forums were packed with pleas for information on how to acquire a free version of Apple Computer's signature fetish item. The freebie required a registrant to sign up five others into the program, and eventually the legalized pyramid scheme reached its inevitable saturation point.

While many did indeed get a free iPod, all ended up with inboxes full of marketing pitches, which began showing up within hours of registering.

Gratis lied to me for the story I wrote originally about the company (also linked above), which did wonders for their early credibility, and then lied again for a follow-up story I wrote about it's privacy practices that was prompted by the avalanche of spam its customers mysteriously received.

In addition, Gratis Internet was a member of Truste, which provides a 'privacy seal' to companies it says have a trusted privacy policy.

When asked by Wired News in 2004 how third-party spammers got hold of Gratis members' e-mail addresses, Truste said it could not find a problem with Gratis' practices.

'The results of our investigation indicate that Gratis Internet did not violate their privacy policy,' Truste investigator Alexander Yap wrote in an October 2004 e-mail. 'Truste did, however, work with them to strengthen and clarify their privacy statement.'

Several months later, Truste revoked Gratis' seal of approval, then quickly reinstated it, then pulled it again, but declined to state publicly its reasons.

In the wake of this week's settlement, Truste's spokeswoman did not return repeated phone calls, and executive director Fran Maier did not respond to e-mailed questions about why Truste never discovered the alleged sale or informed the public that Gratis was not adhering to its privacy policy.

"

(Purportedly Via Cult of Mac.)

Windows XP on Intel iMac: confirmed

How to do it.

This is what I'm doing later tonight.

Windows XP on Intel iMac: confirmed: "One Mac user is over US$13,000 richer, as his solution for booting Windows XP on Intel Macs is verified. Are you ready to dual-boot Windows XP and Mac OS X natively on the same machine?

"

(Purportedly Via Ars Technica.)

pstdelta 060315 (Default branch)

I can't believe somebody didn't implement this before. Having a large number of Outlook users on your network backing up (or storing) PST files on the server makes differential backups a complete nightmare.

pstdelta 060315 (Default branch): "Pstdelta can be used to store the differences
between an old and new version of an Outlook .pst
file. It can then generate the new file using just
the old file and the output generated by pstdelta.
It was created in order to vastly reduce the size
of differential backups of .pst files.

---

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

---

Changes:

This release fixes a bug that caused verification failure in specific situations. It adds a nightly script to help facilitate the use of pstdelta in differential backups.

"

(Purportedly Via freshmeat.net.)

This Poor Excuse for a Winter

Coats and T-Shirts coexist on the street, cats and dogs lying together...

Friends, this doesn't look good..

XP booted From the internal drive of an Intel Mac

Dual Boot XP Any Day Now...

XP booted From the internal drive: "

narf2006 posted a photo:

The installed XP after booting from the internal drive. Still one more reboot to go before getting to the desktop.

"

(Purportedly Via narf2006's Photos.)

The Bronx Sudetenland

Marble Hill, the only part of the borough of Manhattan now connected to the bronx.

Trivia Subquestion: What is the northernmost subway stop in Manhattan?

Everybody Lies

What's more disturbing than dreaming about hanging out with television doctor Gregory House, and managing to find snarky situations to quote his lines back to him?




Finding out he's actually a pretty decent guy...

unsurprising surprises

You'd think I'd know by now that when a girl says "Guess what?" to you that "I'm getting hitched" is a likely candidate...

:-D

Laura, furrowed brow

hunter ski trip13.JPG
Originally uploaded by jeanabaena.

I think this is my favorite Laura picture so far.

Mac Book Pro Day 3

I finally have 1.5Gb of RAM on the machine, up from the standard 512Mb, which just wasn't enough.

The stripped screw over the ram compartment that was keeping me from adding ram (due to a right shitful screwdriver from Radio Shack) has been fixed by the quite resourceful people at Digital Society this afternoon.

I'm now sitting at Starbucks on 8th St just west of University Pl, with Belle & Sebastian on the store speakers, and internet through T-Mobile's free weekend hotspot service for T-Mobile customers, and a large cup of Hot Chocolate at my side.

The machine flies.

Full Speed i386 virtualized performance is only days away, and I do look forward to running windows side by side with OS X.

The machine flies.

Also, I just saw a man walking down Broadway with a cat on his hat, speaking loudly (I assume) to his cat, which was sitting quite serenely and taking in the sights.

The season finale of Battlestar Galactica is next Friday, and Jon Stewart takes the stage tomorrow night.

This is a bad time to be a television hater.

On Apple's New Products today

As seen commented elsewhere:

"$350 for a speaker? Who the hell spends $350 on a speaker? Now if they threw in an iPod..."

Quote for the Day

A Gandhi he is not.

Quote for the Day: "

'Toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has ended his hunger strike on health grounds,' - the Scotsman.

"

(Purportedly Via Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish.)

Caitlin & Laura, the rematch

Caitlin & Laura, the rematch
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

There's always time for Dr. Mario when friends visit.

rolling keegan's stomach

rolling keegan's stomach
Originally uploaded by becksu614.

Note also the uncredited fifth Mich Haus member in that picture.

The Hobart industrial dishwasher to Molly's left.

Sigh.

I miss that dishwasher (as I look at my sink...)

Mike on 420 Maynard

A truly endearing piece on the renovations to the University of Michigan Student Publications Building.

Trust me I'm a Floridian

As Expected.

Vote Fraud sux.

Dilbert Comic for 19 Feb 2006

My New All-Time Favourite Dilbert.

Comic for 19 Feb 2006: ""

(Purportedly Via Dilbert.)

Colleen Wants Your Danish Goodies

That's adorable.

Colleen Wants Your Danish Goodies: "

If you’re going to be at the New York comics convention February 24 -26, Colleen Doran, illustrator of ORBITER and creator of A DISTANT SOIL says:

For every person that brings a Danish Flag, button, or any product of Denmark, including a book or newspaper, I will give you a free head sketch and donate $1 to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Don’t expect fancy sketches, it’s a short weekend.

You don’t have to give me your Danish trade goods, just show Denmark some love, and I’ll show you some love, by giving you a precious pearl of a doodle (no pictures of Mohammed, please - do not ask for the Legion of Superheroes, either), and I’ll put a tip in the CBLDF’s jar.

And yes, I know the difference between the Swedish flag and the Danish flag.

If you insist on giving me Danish chocolate, I won’t object.

"

(Purportedly Via Warrenellis.com.)

Grown men in peacoats shouldn't smell like baby powder.

Apple Seeks (Poetic) Justice

This is just so damned cute.

Apple Seeks (Poetic) Justice: "

Seems
Apple has href="http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119&Itemid=2">hidden a secret
message to OSX86 hackers to find in the 10.4.4 build of Mac OS X for Intel. And this time it's in verse!
/>Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind,
he'd
do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!/>Really, that's way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.

Sure, it's not the greatest poem, but how
funny is this! I've always loved easter eggs in software and this is the best kind. The people who run OSX86 Project
site have offered up their own poetic reply to Apple. You can read it at their site.

I humbly offer up my
own poetic reply in the style of William Carlos Williams after the jump...

This Is Just to Say

I have beaten
the DRM
that was in
the Intel box

and
which
you were probably
saving
for Leopard.

Forgive me
it was auspicious
so sweet/>and so fast./>'''''''''''''''''' - not
Maxxus

Feel free to add your own Ode to Apple in the comments.

Read'|'Permalink'|'Email this'|'Linking'Blogs'|'Comments

"

(Purportedly Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

This isn't PRC pscyhobabble.

Please make it stop.

Colonel Martin said the number of hunger strikers [ at Guantanamo ] peaked around Sept. 11 at 131, but added that he could not speculate about why other than to note that "hunger striking is an Al Qaeda tactic used to elicit media attention and also to bring pressure on the U.S. government."

Does Diet Have Any Effect on Health?

Studies continue to say No.

Now for some bacon, cheese, and wasabi mayo.

Yum.

Announce: OpenSSH 4.3 released

Note the BUILT IN VPN CLIENT.

This could get very very interesting...

Announce: OpenSSH 4.3 released: "OpenSSH 4.3 has just been released. It will be available from the

mirrors listed at http://www.openssh.com/ shortly.



OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol version 1.3, 1.5 and 2.0

implementation and includes sftp client and server support.



We have also recently completed another Internet SSH usage scan, the

results of which may be found at http://www.openssh.com/usage.html



Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their

continued support of the project, especially those who contributed

code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots and purchased

T-shirts or posters.


Read more..."

(Purportedly Via OpenBSD Journal.)

POLITICS: Alito Helps Stall Execution

HAHAHAHAHA. Ok, I'm done now.

POLITICS: Alito Helps Stall Execution: "As one of his first actions as a Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito has pissed off conservative members of the court. Alito sided against conservative justices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas by blocking the state of Missouri's request to execute an inmate despite the inmate's pending appeal.



Missouri inmate Michael Taylor, who was scheduled to be executed Wednesday, filed a last-minute appeal on the grounds that the drugs used in execution cause pain, thereby making lethal injection an unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. The state of Missouri filed a request to allow the execution.

The court's split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays.



Reporters and witnesses had gathered at the state prison awaiting word from the high court on whether to go ahead with the execution.



An appeals court will now review Taylor's claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

I am interested to see where Alito's rulings go now that he has a lifetime appointment.

(Written by: Shalome)

"

(Purportedly Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Comics for {01,02} Feb 2006: Dilbert's got my back, comparative advantage, and so on...

Comic for 02 Feb 2006: ""

(Purportedly Via Dilbert.)

Comic for 01 Feb 2006: ""

(Purportedly Via Dilbert.)

Islam vs. the Enlightenment

I whole heartedly agree.

Islam vs. the Enlightenment: "My goodness! Has Europe suddenly discovered some backbone to stand against the Islamic assault against Enlightenment thinking?

[Update: Actually, forget it. France Soir just fired their editor. Shall I get April measured for a Hijab?]"

(Purportedly Via Fraser Speirs.)

Caitlin Doing the Bird

Caitlin Doing the Bird
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Caitlin, Yulia & I went to go see Morris Day & the Time at BAM on Saturday night.

Only Caitlin had the balls to go on stage to do the Bird.

POLITICS: Hamas Victory: It's a Good Thing

So apparently it is called "Crisis Hope Theory".

POLITICS: Hamas Victory: It's a Good Thing: "Emanuele Ottolenghi, professor of Israel studies at Oxford University, has an intriguing take on the Hamas victory in Palestinian Parliamentary elections.

Contrary to initial responses, Hamas’s projected victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is a positive development. Not, as its apologists claim, because the proximity of power will favor a process of cooptation into parliamentary politics, and therefore strengthen the pragmatic wing of Hamas. There is no pragmatic wing in Hamas, and all differences within the movement — the armed wing and the political wing, Palestine Hamas and Hamas in Syria — are arguably tactical differences. No, the reason is, as Vladimir Ilich Lenin would put it, 'worse is better.'

This notion is what Stanley Fish once derisively termed 'crisis hope theory.' It goes like this, if things get worse, this will bring about crisis and thus, they will get better. Ottolenghi rightly notes that the elections put Hamas in 'an impossible situation,' but it is ludicrous to assume this means the end result will be any better.



This lame argument reminds me of leftists comforted by Bush's election, as this would show the limits of the Democratic Party (it has) and thus would result in a turn to the left (it hasn't). He writes:

But unless Hamas reneges on its ideology and endorses a new course, then Israel’s claim that there is no Palestinian partner is vindicated. The resulting Israeli policy of unilateralism is vindicated. Israel’s argument that the Palestinians do not want peace is vindicated. Israel’s argument that Islamists’ nuances and differences of opinion are just tactical, not strategic, is also vindicated. And the prospects of a Palestinian state will become even more remote.

He forgets to mention that Hamas might feel a bit 'vindicated' right now. Israel and Palestine can retrench further into opposition. But hey, I guess that's a good thing because 'worse is better'?

(Written by: panopiticpants)

"

(Purportedly Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Waxing Off

The Karate Kid was on AMC last night.

Avigail put it best, "This means we're old."

userfriendly : 24 jan 2006 (8724)

Absofucking brilliant.

userfriendly : 24 jan 2006 (8724): ""

(Purportedly Via User Friendly the Comic Strip. by Illiad.)

Picard, Look Out!

Chaka...when the walls fell.

Picard, Look Out!: "

"

(Purportedly Via WTF? OMGZ!.)

Trader Joe's Joins Union Square Area Food Nexus

Come to meee Two Buck Chuck...

Trader Joe's Joins Union Square Area Food Nexus: "

So, Trader Joe's will make its NYC debut with a location on East 14th Street. The NY Times reported that a spokeswoman the store would open around three month, 'confirming a year's worth of reports that the national chain would join a growing list of food stores along 14th Street.' Which made Gothamist wonder about the food stores along 14th Street. The article noted Whole Foods, Garden of Eden, Balducci's and the Greenmarket, but didn't add Food Emporium, which we wouldn't really consider a food store. Is 14th Street now the center of where you can get all sorts of semi-upscale food? Or do other locations give it a run for the money, like the Upper West Side's Broadway Belles (Fairway, Citarella, Zabar's)? Or will developing areas, like Red Hook take over?

The great news is that Trader Joe's will also open a separate wine store. Let's hope for another grape surplus year! We created a Wayfaring Map of 14th Street Groceries - we did include departed Western Beef, plus the Citarella a bit south of 14th, and did not include the Food Emporium just because.

"

(Via Gothamist.)

Russian Zookeeping

Moscow is encountering near record cold.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Arctic temperatures blanketed Russia for a fourth day on Thursday, sending electricity use surging and pushing the death toll from the cold wave to at least 31 people as even hardy Russians struggled to cope with the big freeze.

Temperatures in Moscow plunged overnight to as low as minus 24, said Tatyana Pozdnyakova, a Moscow weather forecasting service official. The temperature was the lowest recorded on Jan. 19 since 1927, she said.

Seven people died of exposure in the Russian capital in the previous 24 hours, city emergency officials said, pushing the nationwide death toll from the Siberian cold wave that swept into Moscow late Monday to at least 31.

At a zoo in Lipetsk, south of Moscow, director Alexander Osipov said monkeys would be given wine three times day, ''to protect against colds,'' the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Electricity use surged to record levels and towns and cities struggled to keep indoor temperatures up. Children stayed home from school and drivers struggled to start cars.

But thousands of religious believers along with winter swimmers plunged into icy waters nationwide for an annual ritual marking the Russian Orthodox Christian holiday of Epiphany. Many dipped into holes cut into thick ice on rivers and ponds in the ritual that commemorates the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan.

Taking a dip at 24 below zero ''is the most intense feeling,'' one man in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg told Channel One television.

In northeast Moscow, Vladimir Grebyonkin, an avid 65-year-old winter swimmer and scientist, said the frigid temperatures gave the water special qualities.

''These waters have their own properties, their own benefits,'' he says. ''I'm not a believer (in God), but I'm believer in physics.''

Vendors at Moscow's outdoor food and clothing markets shut their booths, and exposed ATMs reportedly froze. Traffic was uncharacteristically light as drivers were reluctant to venture out or unable to start their cars.

Outside one apartment building, residents hefted car batteries back into their vehicles after taking them inside overnight to keep them warm. Others tried to jump-start their cars.

Heat was disrupted in at least two towns in the Moscow region by water main breaks, leaving dozens of homes and thousands of people shivering. A similar accident left thousands without heat in Siberia's Chita region, some 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Russian buildings frequently are heated by municipal hot water systems.

Electricity use reached a 15-year high earlier this week, power monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems said Wednesday. The company also said Russia might reduce electricity supplies to Finland in order to ensure deliveries to St. Petersburg and the surrounding region.

Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom tried to maintain exports -- a sensitive issue for Europe following a New Year's interruption in supplies stemming from a dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Slightly warmer temperatures were expected Friday, with a forecast weekend high in Moscow of about minus 4.

TECHNOLOGY: Okay, This Mac Thing has Gone Too Far

The question I want to ask is this: Are purchases of Apple Products now Tax-exempt?

TECHNOLOGY: Okay, This Mac Thing has Gone Too Far: "All right, Mac lovers. I understand. You love your precious, shiny, beautiful Apple products that work better than anything else out there (according to you). You adore Apple and everything they do. Seriously, though, this shit has got to stop. You're starting to look completely fucking insane.



When you're making 'pilgrimages' to Cupertino, home of Apple headquarters, and calling it a 'hajj to Macca,' 'touching the Mothership' and genuflecting in front of the company headquarters sign, it's time for an intervention.

'Muslims go to Mecca, we go to Macca,' said Shawn King, host of the Your Mac Life internet radio show. 'It's that touchstone thing. People want to go down and touch the mothership.'



As soon as they arrive at the campus at One Infinite Loop, everyone poses for pictures by the sign at the entrance. The grass around the sign is worn away from the hundreds of geeks who've dropped to their knees to genuflect in front of it.



'It's like a temple,' said [New York computer consultant Laurie] Duncan. 'Catholics go to the Vatican, we go there. It's an icon of our faith. It's the culture. It's the cult. It's part of who we are, and that's the church…. It's fun. There's a bit of a thrill. It's silly when you look at it.'



Duncan said it would be nice if the company had a small museum or offered a tour.



'You go to the Vatican, you get a tour,' she said. 'You don't just go to the gift shop. Steve Jobs should offer to bless your PowerBook. He could sprinkle water on your keyboard, and then you’d have to buy a new one.'

File this one under 'what the fuck?!?' You Mac people are starting to scare me.

(Written by: Shalome)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

schnauz n boots

Paco is on the left, and Molly is on the right.

schnauz n boots: "

lustforliberty posted a photo:

"

(Purportedly Via lustforliberty's Photos.)

Can You Hear Me Now?

I was watching VH1 Classic & FUSE this afternoon before breakfast, and the muffled lyrics of various rockers led me to wonder how badly years of blasted classical music & autechre have destroyed my hearing. I am sure there are several metrics that can be used, among which would be ability to distinguish between similar frequencies, and the ability to hear high frequencies.

Figuring that a good first step would be to see what my hearing range tops out at, I googled for "tone generator" and found Mac & Windows software here that let me generate frequencies within the human hearing range. My speakers should at least go up to 20kHz, so I think this is a reasonable test setup.

The Human Hearing Range is supposedly from 20Hz to 20000Hz. My hearing appeared to top out at about 17.3kHz. (That's good, right?) I could feel sounds slightly higher than that, but by 18kHz, I could not feel anything at all. I am tempted to blast my speakers at just above 18kHz just to see if anybody notices. (I've also been tempted to play rodent love songs loudly, but that's another story.)

I suppose that there's a question of the ability of my speakers to produce the high frequencies, but since I could feel the tones, I assume that at least to 18kHz, my speakers do work properly.

What's the highest tone you can hear?

And no cheating!

I've been expecting this to happen for a while now...

I've been expecting this to happen for a while now...
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Due to a derivative action no doubt...

dealing with hearing loss

If 16 actual auditory input channels in a cochlear implant can interpolate to 120 channels through software, surely 500 actual auditory input channels can interpolate to 3500 channels at some point (the number that actually exists in the ear.)

Hopefully, they'll have this hearing loss issue licked in 30 years, so I can continue listening to my iPod headphones.

Until then, I'm following the progress.

Also, best lines:

In his studio, Rettig plays me Ravel's String Quartet in F Major and Philip Glass' String Quartet no. 5. I listen carefully, switching between the old software and the new. Both compositions sound enormously better on 121 channels. But when Rettig plays music with vocals, I discover that having 121 channels hasn't solved all my problems. While the crescendos in Dulce Pontes' Canção do Mar sound louder and clearer, I hear only white noise when her voice comes in. Rettig figures that relatively simple instrumentals are my best bet - pieces where the instruments don't overlap too much - and that flutes and clarinets work well for me. Cavalcades of brass tend to overwhelm me and confuse my ear.

And some music just leaves me cold: I can't even get through Kraftwerk's Tour de France. I wave impatiently to Rettig to move on. (Later, a friend tells me it's not the software - Kraftwerk is just dull. It makes me think that for the first time in my life I might be developing a taste in music.)