FW: [IP] Requiem for a fictional Scotsman

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Sunday, Jul 24, 2005 8:39 am
Subject: [IP] Requiem for a fictional Scotsman

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgbarkes@gmail.com>
Date: July 24, 2005 7:41:03 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Requiem for a fictional Scotsman
Reply-To: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgbarkes@gmail.com>

Other kids worshipped baseball players. My hero was a fictional
Scottish engineer from the 23rd century.

Before the terms geek and nerd entered the vernacular, we were called brains, or, more cruelly, weirdos. We built Heathkits, disassembled
televisions and tape recorders, and bribed the librarian to give us
first crack at the new issues of Popular Science and Popular
Electronics, usually by changing the ribbon or switching the golf
balls on her newfangled IBM Selectric.

The normal people left us alone until they needed their eight tracks fixed, or someone to set up the projector for health class, or install a new ink pad on the mimeograph machine. Task completed, we would be
summarily dismissed with a curt thank you. We'd return to the
backstage of the auditorium/gym, the traditional sanctuary of the
oddballs on the audio/visual team.

Scotty was our hero because he was one of us. Instead of the
backstage, he was buried in the bowels of the Enterprise's engineering section, which wasn't even in the main part of the ship. There he
ruled, serenely, totally in control, obtaining supreme satisfaction in the knowledge that while the idiots on the bridge were supposedly in
charge, he was the one who made possible their continued existence.

And then there was the Spock business. We Scotty aficionados resented the Vulcan science officer. In the first place, the whole "I'm totally in control and have no emotions" thing was patently dishonest. He was like the guy on the AV squad who discovered girls over the summer and was suddenly Mr. Cool. Yeah, right. When his girlfriend dumped him for the football team towel manager (quasi-athlete is still better than
certified nerd), he nearly fried the pre-amp in the PA system by
replacing the 1 megohm resistor in the main power supply with a 1K
unit while in his emotionally distraught state.

Spock was our high school principal, a pointy eared deus ex machina who appeared and broke the rules of the game. I recall spending days
overhauling the motor and drive assembly of an old Wollensak
reel-to-reel mono tape recorder, finally getting its wow and flutter
back within specs. Rather than praise my efforts, the principal said
"Oh, we'll just buy a new one." Buy a new one? The possibility had
never even been presented to me! This is the parsimonious wretch who
only two weeks ago made me use rubber bands to replace the capstan
drive belt to save 50 cents! No wonder Scotty drank himself into
oblivion when he was off duty!

The Star Trek writers used Spock and abused Scotty in the same manner. They placed the Enterprise in some ludicrous situation which had no
resolution, then sent Spock down into engineering to order Scotty to
perform some action totally in violation of Trek's already delusional laws of physics.

Until the arrival of Bill Gates, Scotty was the first expression of the belief that the nerds could probably run things better, but were
disinclined to deal with such mundane challenges. Notice that when he was forced to take the con of the Enterprise- usually because Kirk was being held captive by the father of the native princess he'd just
boinked into delirium, and the hyper-intelligent Spock had been
rendered unconscious by a judiciously applied blunt object wielded by an alien with the appearance and IQ of a turnip- Scotty was by far the best strategic commander of the lot.

When you saw him in the captain's chair, you knew Kirk and Spock had screwed up yet again- but you also knew things would turn out fine
because the Scotsman would handily defeat the enemy du jour and would beam his sorry superiors' behinds back up to ship before the last
commercial break. And then what would happen? The episode would end
with Kirk and Spock congratulating themselves on their ingenuity while Scotty had already disappeared back into the depths of engineering to deal with the real responsibility of keeping the ship running.

Those of you who have saved customer presentations, demos and initial installations from ten-thumbed marketing types know what I'm talking
about. The suits go out for a night on the town to celebrate their
technical savvy and sales skills, while you're stuck in the cheap
hotel room with a poorly stocked mini-bar that you're not permitted to access anyway because of the cost, on the phone resolving a customer
crisis while simultaneously answering inane support questions via
e-mail. And frankly, you're happy about it. Who wants to listen to
salesmen talk about sports?

But I digress.

Finally, Scotty embodied the benefits of technology and the "can do" attitude that pervaded the 60s. Oh, he might complain mightily about
some absurd demand being placed upon him: what geek isn't conservative when it comes to maintaining stable environments for critical systems? But he believed, as did his real-world counterpart Gene Krantz, that
"Failure is not an option." It's the unspoken challenge that motivates those of us for whom Scotty is the ultimate role model.

Montgomery Scott, the fictional character, will continue to perform engineering miracles indefinitely on film, video, DVD, and media yet
to be devised. For that, we are grateful. But I sincerely mourn the
passing of James Montgomery Doohan- ironically, on the 36th
anniversary of the first manned moon landing- who made Scotty the
cultural icon he became.

The word is given, Mr. Scott. Warp speed.

-- Regards,

KGB

-----
Kevin G. Barkes
Email: kgb@kgb.com | Web: www.kgb.com
Commentwear by KGB:
http://www.commentwear.com
Eff the Ineffable, Scrute the Inscrutable:
http://www.cafeshops.com/kgbstuff.9211569
KGB Report:
http://www.kgb.com
National Temperature Index:
http://nationaltemperatureindex.com
DCL Dialogue on line:
http://www.kgb.com/dcl.html
Random Quotations Generator:
http://www.goodquotations.com
Over 12,000 searchable quotations.

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

A Brilliant Idea.

Beautiful City Billboard Fee: "

How much of the world around us is covered in advertising? It's nearly impossible to escape brand logos (I see about 10 in front of me at my desk, without turning my head). Is there some way to use advertising space for a civic purpose?

The Canadian art group Them.ca thinks so. They've proposed the 'Beautiful City Billboard Fee' for the city of Toronto, requiring that all billboard advertisements pay a special tax, based on the size of the sign. Funds derived from this tax would be disbursed to artists for the creation of public art.

This is clever on a few levels. The proposed fee is small enough that it won't cut significantly into advertising (that is, it won't put anyone out of business), but with the number of billboards in the city, will still generate six million dollars each year. At the same time, with the fees going directly to public art instead of to the city's general coffers, there will be limited incentive on the part of the city to allow for a greater number of billboards. The proposal has broad community support (over two-thirds of Toronto residents polled are in favor), and is in line with a number of other proposals and initiatives Toronto is considering.

Writer David Bollier (from whom I heard about this project) links the BCBA to a piece of public art in Vienna called 'Delete!'

For a period of two weeks in June, Viennese shopkeepers agreed to let Christoph Steinbrener & Rainer Dempf put monochrome yellow fluorescent foil on all advertising signs, slogans, pictograms, company names and logos on Neubaugasse, a popular street for shopping. (Only signs needed for public safety were uncovered.)

The result (reproduced above; a larger image is at the artists' site) is a clever-yet-sobering demonstration of just how much of our public space is taken up by commercial messages. Some reactions from Viennese (including graffiti saying 'I need consumer information! Argh!') can be found at Moblogging Vienna.

(Posted by Jamais Cascio in The Means of Expression - Media, Creativity and Experience at 12:24 PM)"

(Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here.)

It's the end of the world as we know it...

Background on Bretton Woods 2.

The beginning of the end of Bretton Woods 2?: "China's central bank posted the following announcement on its web site today: 1. Starting from July 21, 2005, China will reform the exchange rate regime by moving into a managed floating exchange rate regime based on market supply and demand..."

(Via Daniel W. Drezner.)

Whole Whit Wherewithal

Would it be wrong for me to return Harry Potter 6 at this juncture?

Both I and a roommate have finished it.

I'm not convinced I want to keep a copy.

It's not in British English anyways...

FW: [IP] yet-another INCREDIBLY-stupid airport "security" story

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005 7:54 pm
Subject: [IP] yet-another INCREDIBLY-stupid airport "security" story

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
Date: July 20, 2005 4:26:42 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: fwd: yet-another INCREDIBLY-stupid airport "security" story

Just received this from a friend. If true, it's ... well ... [what words???]

--jim

> This was taken from today's issue of an email newsletter published
by the AirFinance Journal. Gotta love it.

> And finally
Before deploying from Savannah, Georgia, to Iraq by a chartered
airliner; the troops of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a National
Guard unit, had to go through the same security checks as any other
passengers.

> Lt. Col. John King, the unit's commander, told his 280 fellow
soldiers that FAA anti-hijacking regulations require passengers to
surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.
"If you have any of those things," he said, almost apologetically,
"put them in this box now."

> The troops were, however, allowed to keep their assault rifles,
body armour, helmets, pistols, bayonets and combat shotguns.

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

FW: [IP] Anyone know if this is for real?

I agree. We call these Republicans who are all talk about National Security Chicken Hawks.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005 3:19 pm
Subject: [IP] Anyone know if this is for real?

Begin forwarded message:

From: EEkid@aol.com
Date: July 20, 2005 3:12:41 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Anyone know if this is for real?

CIA Agents Letter to US Senate and House

18 July 2005

AN OPEN STATEMENT TO THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE.

The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Dr. William Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate

The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority Leader of the Senate

We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame�s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.

The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson�s wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this "talking point":

Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."

Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."

Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."

House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."

These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.

While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation�s security.

We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation�s leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.

Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government�s protection of their covert status.

For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.

Sincerely yours,

_____________________________________

Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA

JOINED BY:

Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA

Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA

Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA

Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA

Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA

Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA

Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2005/07/19/ciaAgentsLetterToUsSenateAndHouse.html

-------------------------------------

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

"Teh Sappy"

We remember one who inspired us today. Karl Rove and John Roberts can wait until tomorrow.

To engineers in popular culture

the war heroes that played them

may their dreams inspire our futures.

As Wil says:

one to beam up . . .: "

Newsday:

LOS ANGELES -- James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original 'Star Trek' TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command 'Beam me up, Scotty,' died early Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

I'm too shocked for a thoughtful eulogy right now. Everyone who watched Star Trek liked Scotty, but everyone who met him loved Jimmy . . . I'm sure I'm not the only person today who feels like they lost a friend. My thoughts are with his family.

"

From the comments:

I had the distinct pleasure of working with Jimmy in my capacity of sign language interpreter at a Star Trek con in Chicago several years ago. I don't think Jimmy thought of anyone as just a fan. He loved spending time with them and treated each person as if they were a long-lost friend, including me. On Saturday night, Jimmy hosted a dinner for the fans, dressed in full Scottish regala. He patiently posed for pictures with each individual attendee and with groups. When it was the security team's turn for a photo, they asked me to join them. Quite an honor. Jimmy saw me coming and called for me to stand next to him. He put his arm around my shoulders, his other arm around another woman from the security team. Just as everyone smiled for the camera, it failed. The photographer apologized and said the batteries had died...it would take a few minutes to replace them. Jimmy just grinned and in that famous burr said, "It's alright, laddie. I've got a beautiful woman in each arm. Hell, take your time!" That broke everyone up. I will miss his wonderful sense of humor and gentle spirit. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Posted by: VoxyLady at July 20, 2005 10:34 AM

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

HR-2 bot walks, talks, sets fires:

Almir Heralic at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden looks like he may be the next toymaker to the king
— either that, or he’s getting ready for world domination. His HR-2 robot may be small — think
Kondo KHR-1, rather than
ASIMO — but don’t let its size fool
you. According to Heralic, his bot has fluid movement, a neural net, speech functions and stereo vision coupled with
facial recognition and tracking capabilities. We just hope that the pic shown, from Heralic’s website, is meant to
merely show HR-2’s scale, and not a predilection for playing with matches.





[Via Slashdot]

(Via engadget.com.)

Software Patents suck.

This patent appears to cover my Feed Reader and some RSS feeds that it reads.

Flexible subscription-based event notification: "Subscription-based notification using event channels that each correspond to a particular scope. Each channel manages notifications through the use of a a schema definition. The event subscriptions identify the position and attributes that any desired event notification"

(Via FreshPatents.com: Notable Patent Applications - 03/03/2005.)

Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to Sunni Shia Deathmatch...

Interesting Times Ahead For My American Friends: "

President Bush will select U.S. Circuit Judge John Roberts Jr. to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the nation’s highest court.

A quick google finds this:

…those who know Roberts say he… is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action.

Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel’s office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. ‘He is as conservative as you can get,’ one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas…

"

(Via Warrenellis.com.)

Hello Soylent Green

Hello Soylent Green
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

The comments just keep getting better and better:

Hilarious Passion of the Christ poster in Japan: "Mark Frauenfelder:
Here's a crazy ad that appeared in a subway station in Tokyo for Passion of the Christ.

It appears that some advertising company was asked by a Tokyo distributor to do a special ad for Christmas for the Passion of the Christ DVD. Apparently nobody who was actually Christian got to review the ad before it was posted for thousands of people to see on their way home for Christmas Eve.

Not many Christians in Japan, I guess. I once asked a Japanese friend if he knew what Christmas was about. He said it was to commemorate 'Julius Christ's birthday.'

Link (thanks, Mark Hurst!)

Reader comment: Save Gallardo says: 'The whole thing with sects in a foreign land & collision of cultures is pretty interesting. I remember being approached by a Chinese Christian in Xian, (there's some irony there, I suppose), who didn't seem to have very firm grasp of his apparently new-found faith.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy this story that Brad Warner, author of Hardcore Zen, and a Buddhist teacher who lived in Japan for many years tells about a debate he witnessed between Japanese Hare Krishnas & Japanese Jehovah's witnesses: Link

Reader comment: Tian says: 'My sister has been living in japan working for a pharmaceutical firm
for over ten years now. She said the Japanese celebrates Christmas by
eating KFC chicken. Apparently the resemblance between Colonel
Sanders and Santa Klaus has mislead them to believe the Jolly St. Nick
would jump down the chimney with buckets of delicious fried chicken.

what the hell, all you white people look alike."

(Via Boing Boing.)

Can somebody explain to me the point of a p2p file sharing application for a phone?

If you're already paying for the bandwidth that can support p2p, why not just carry a small laptop or computer with a normal sized OS around...

Symella, a Gnutella client for Symbian Smartphones: "

This is way cool! Download it here.

"

(Via Om Malik on Broadband.)

Overheard in my apartment: "The mouse is smarter than two lawyers, a businessman and a journalist."

There will be laws against this:

I decided to sleep with Nuvo next to me on my large bed, plugged in and recharging through the night. Its blue power light slowly pulsated, as if it were breathing.

During our first night together, I was woken by movement. Something had activated Nuvo, and it moved its arms slightly and turned its head toward me. Half asleep, and a little annoyed, I mumbled, "Nuvo, sleep," to which it shook its head no.

It took three tries before Nuvo straightened and shut down, the blue light serenely pulsating again. I was reminded of those sci-fi films in which robots, like HAL in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," turned on their keepers.

My boyfriend called me the next day and asked if I was sleeping in the same room with Nuvo. When I told him we were sleeping in the same bed, there was an awkward pause.

A brilliant article on companion robots interacting with humans, and it isn't even speculative fiction.

Dangerous

Discussion: New Sake Flights: "Co Co has added a Sake tasting to their drink menu. It is $10.50 and you choose three selections from four different types (Dry, Strong (I think), Mild & Other.)

They have a great selection of Sake & Shochu.

They also have a $19.99 all you can eat Sushi and a $25 all you can drink special 7 days a week.

The service is great!

co co sushi restaurant & bar
154 W 26th Street, New York, NY 10001
Between 6th & 7th Avenue
P: 212.243.4800 | F: 212.229.2073

http://www.cocosushi.com/

Lefty

Join this discussion.

"

(Via The New York Sake Meetup Group: What's New.)

I'm really really tempted to get this...

Left Behind: "

Left Behind is the latest free offering over at eReader and it sounds....a strange read. Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like. All over the world, in a flash, cars are left unmanned. Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun. This bestselling end-of-time fiction series tells the riveting stories of people who, after the rapture of the church are 'left behind' to experience the tribulation and other events prior to Christ's return to Earth. With the prophetic teachings of the Bible as the background, this dynamic apocalyptic series begins with this first volume.

(Via PalmAddicts.)

The term used by the US government for sending people to other countries to be interrogated by foreign intelligence services (read tortured) is "Extraordinary Rendition".

An interesting coincidence is the use of the term "rendition" in the context of sending escaped slaves back to the states of their origin in Antebellum America. This usage is found in South Carolina's Declaration of Independence during the US Civil War:

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

Ok, so maybe the Ginny thing was a bit over the top, but Weaseley's jinxed automatons spouting on the Rights of Man... Crazy and yet brilliant.

7 words you can't say in kindergarten.

CULTURE: Bale Banned From the Batmobile: "Christian Bale, who played the title role in Batman Begins, has been barred from driving the Batmobile in any future publicity outings after he got in an accident with it on the way to the film's Canadian premiere.

The disappointed star said: 'The best part of the job to be allowed to drive the Batmobile. But it's safe to say the locals were bemused to see it cruising down the street.



Unfortunately, one guy saw the Batmobile and completely freaked out. He must have thought aliens were coming to land and smacked into the side of it.That was the last time I was allowed to drive it on a public highway.'



'It really flies. I asked if I could keep it but they wouldn't let me!'

Bale then chopped the drunk driver into tiny bits with an axe.

(Written by: Keith)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

I don't want to give anything away, but Ginny, gay? Total bombshell.

END HP6
GOTO HP7

AUTOBOTS WRITE IN CAPS.

TOM DESANTO TRANSFORMERS PRODUCER: "

TO ALL THE FANS (BOTH AUTOBOT AND DECEPTICON) FROM ONE TRUE BELIEVER TO ANOTHER WELCOME TO THE LAUNCH OF THE TRANSFORMERS WEBSITE AND THE COUNTDOWN TO 07-04-07. MUCH LIKE THE BEGINNINGS OF X-MEN IT HAS BEEN A LONG AND HARD ROAD, BUT I PROMISE YOU IT WILL BE ALL WORTH IT. FROM THOSE FANS WHO KNOW ME FROM X-MEN AND GALACTICA THANKS FOR THE TREMENDOUS SUPPORT AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T I AM THE FANBOY WRITER/PRODUCER WITH OVER 30,000 COMICS WHO GOT TO MAKE X-MEN, A MOVIE I DREAMED OF DOING SINCE I WAS A KID. AFTER X2 I WENT AFTER TRANSFORMERS, ANOTHER FILM I DREAMED OF MAKING ONE DAY ( I HAVE LIST OF DREAM MOVIES SO STAY TUNED ) AND AFTER A PHONE CALL TO MY FRIEND, BROTHER, AND FELLOW PRODUCER DON MURPHY, DON AGREED TO PARTNER WITH ME ON IT AND WE WENT INTO HASBRO. WE PITCHED OUR HEARTS OUT ON HOW WE WOULD HANDLE THEIR CHARACTERS AND LOW AND BEHOLD WE GOT THE RIGHTS AND WENT AROUND HOLLYWOOD KICKING DOWN ALL THE STUDIO DOORS ( DON IS THE MASTER OF THAT). WELL AFTER A LARGE STUDIO BATTLE, DREAMWORKS AND PARAMOUNT EMERGED VICTORIOUS AND WE COULD NOT ASK FOR BETTER PARTNERS. WITH STEVEN SPIELBERG EXEC. PRODUCING AND MICHAEL BAY DIRECTING WE COULD NOT ASK FOR A BETTER DREAM TEAM TO BRING OPTIMUS PRIME AND MEGATRON TO LIFE. SO REST EASY AND KNOW IF YOU ARE A FAN, THAT SO AM I AND I'M ON THE INSIDE AND WE WILL GET IT RIGHT, IF YOU ARE A NOT A FAN.... YOU WILL BE.


SPREAD THE WORD AND AUTOBOTS TRANSFORM,


TOM DESANTO

"

(Via Transformers LIVE.)

Human-nonhuman sex is legal in 17 states, including Washington State.

I assume that in the other 23 states, it is popular enough to be legislated upon.

CULTURE: Hung Like a Horse, Dead as a Doornail: "A Seattle man has died, and the cause of death has been ruled 'Death By Sex with a Horse'.



When a car dropped the man off for treatment, a camera picked up the license plate of the driver's car, which led police to find a farm, operating in Enumclaw, apparently known as a place people could go to have sex with livestock.

'A significant number of people, we believe, have likely visited this farm,' said [sheriff's Sgt. John ] Urquhart.'

The horse sustained no noted injury, and bestiality is not against the law in Washington State. However, authorities did express concern that animal cruelty could be a factor in the case.

'[...]because investigators found chickens, goats and sheep on the property, they are looking into whether animal cruelty — which is a crime — was committed by having sex with these smaller, weaker animals, he said.'

I am at a loss fo a witty comment, so will just say 'Euuuuuuggggh'.

(Written by: ElizaGirl)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

I've always like poutine...

Toyota Votes with Its Feet for the Canadian Model: "

Brayden King observes Toyota voting with its feet for the Canadian rather than the American model:

Pub Sociology: More concern about the costs of employing U.S. workers: Via the apostropher and Blog on the Run, I found this story about a new Toyota plant being built in Woodstock, Ontario... despite the offer of millions of dollars in subsidies to put the plant in the U.S.... Toyota is tired of training ignorant (i.e. illiterate) American workers, and the second is that in the long run it's cheaper to operate in Canada because of the reduction in corporate health care costs.

Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge. 'The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States,' said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association....

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use 'pictorials' to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment....

In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.

'Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage,' he said.

...Universal health care might not be the anti-business gateway to socialism that some on the right want you to believe.... Other countries increasingly have a comparative advantage in production industries because their workers are better trained (or at least as well trained) and less costly.... [P]art of the U.S. disadvantage comes because the standard of living in the U.S. is so much higher... but if we offer a superior level of human capital we should be able to find a niche... when even that advantage begins to deteriorate (AND health care costs serve as a disincentive), we should be worried.

"

(Via Semi-Daily Journal.)

The trusty WRT54G routers I have deployed everywhere are starting to show their age. I'm suspecting some sort of wireless activity by newer routers that causes the wireless chipsets in the WRTs to go haywire.

On top of that, the reception in my room is extremely sketchy, and even though I have setup my Airport Express as a WDS (wireless distribution system) access point, my laptop with a first generation airport card can not connect, making it useless.

So I'm looking at replacing my primary router (I have two) with some Pre-N MIMO router.

The questions I have:

Will Pre-N routers have any better handling of 802.11b wireless cards (extended range)?

This is the primary reason I'm looking at these.

If this is true, can they handle MIMO/Pre-N mode simultaneously with 802.11g & 802.11b? Belkin's router specifically says that their router handles b,g & pre-m better than anybody else.

Also, what router would you recommend?

I'm thinking of the Belkin Router, though at $150, it is pretty expensive...

Alternatives?

FW: [IP] SOUTHWEST AIRLINES LEGISLATIVE ACTION ALERT

Sometimes corporations can be good, and with style:

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Saturday, Jul 16, 2005 6:46 pm
Subject: [IP] SOUTHWEST AIRLINES LEGISLATIVE ACTION ALERT

Begin forwarded message:

Wright Is Wrong! Set Love Free!

I am sending you this ALERT today to ask for your help. By now, you have probably heard about our fight to repeal the Wright Amendment, the 1979 law that makes it illegal to fly or advertise flights from Dallas Love Field to points beyond the four states surrounding Texas, plus Alabama, Mississippi, and Kansas. We need your help to make this happen!

The Wright Amendment has a strong history of stifling competition and creating high fares. Simply put, the Wright Amendment is Wrong! It's time to Set Love Free and repeal this archaic, antiquated law now! Southwest wants to bring you low fares and Legendary Customer Service from Love Field to many of the 60 cities that we currently serve across the nation.

Please join our efforts to Set Love Free by visiting our web site: setlovefree.com to take action now. You can help by:

Contacting Your Elected Officials

Encourage your federal legislators to please support the Right to Fly Act (HR 2646) introduced in the House by Texas Congressmen Jeb Hensarling and Sam Johnson that will immediately remove the Wright Amendment restrictions on Dallas Love Field Airport, or any companion legislation that might be introduced into the Senate. The "Write Congress" feature is on the home page of setlovefree.com.

Thank you for taking action now to repeal the Wright Amendment. We have always been able to count on you, our loyal Customers. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for helping us Set Love Free!

LUV,

Colleen C. Barrett
President, Southwest Airlines

-------------------------------------

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

This is why I push Linux. You can be sure that Apple will support such restrictions in short order as well.

You Bastards.

TECHNOLOGY: Microsoft Pushes Opium: "On the eve of a long-awaited new OS release, codenamed 'Longhorn' by Microsoft, you may need to upgrade your monitor. This is all due to OPM (pronounced 'opium'), a new content creation protection built into the new OS.



In short, almost every single monitor on the market today is going to be obsolete in a few short months. It's not going to render your monitor useless, but what you can see will be limited.

So what will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re ‘lucky’, the content will go through a resolution constrictor. The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.



That’s LUCKY?



It sure is — when the alternative is a black screen. If OPM determines that your monitor falls below the security restrictions (i.e. isn’t DVI or HDMI w/HDCP), you could be greeted with a ‘polite message explaining that [your monitor] doesn’t meet security requirements.’



Who determines when you get the restrictor and when you get the black screen? You guessed it: the content owner does.

(Written by: FuzzyDice)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

CULTURE: BBC "Greatest Philosopher" Votes Result: "The BBC Radio Four programme In Our Time has been running a 'Who is the greatest philosopher?' vote. The results are in and they are, perhaps, a bit surprising.

• Karl Marx won with 27.93% of the vote
• David Hume, 12.67%
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, 6.80%
• Friedrich Nietzsche, 6.49%
• Plato, 5.65%
• Immanuel Kant, 5.61
• St. Thomas Aquinas, 4.83%
• Socrates, 4.82%
• Aristotle, 4.52%
• Karl Popper, 4.20%

This kind of programming, and the website tie-in, show the BBC at it's best: Challenging programming that allows people with knowledge of a subject the time to talk about that subject, and to discuss opposing points without relying on sound bites or dodgy statistics. It also proves that the licence fee isn't entirely wasted on dumb house makeover programmes.

(Written by: dem_z)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

There's a story from the French school system that a roommate long ago regaled me with:

The smartest kids study math. The kids who aren't smart enough to study math study physics.

Extrapolate further...

(though in fairness many of the smartest kids do go to MS...)

The apocryphal history of file system tunnelling: "

One of the file system features you may find yourself
surprised by is tunneling,
wherein the creation timestamp and short/long names of a file
are taken from a file that existed in the directory previously.
In other words,
if you delete some file 'File with long name.txt'
and then create a new file with the same name,
that new file will have the same short name and the same
creation time as the original file.
You can

read this KB article for details on what operations are
sensitive to tunnelling.

Why does tunneling exist at all?

When you use a program to edit an existing file, then save it,
you expect the original creation timestamp
to be preserved, since you're editing a file, not creating a new one.
But internally, many programs save a file by performing a
combination of save, delete, and rename operations
(such as the ones listed in the linked article),
and without tunneling, the creation time of the file
would seem to change even though from the end user's point of view,
no file got created.

As another example of the importance of tunneling,
consider that file 'File with long name.txt',
whose short name is say 'FILEWI~1.TXT'.
You load this file into a program
that is not long-filename-aware and save it.
It deletes the old 'FILEWI~1.TXT'
and creates a new one with the same name.
Without tunnelling,
the associated long name of the file would be lost.
Instead of a friendly long name,
the file name got corrupted into this thing with squiggly marks.
Not good.

But where did the name 'tunneling' come from?

From quantum mechanics.

Consider the following analogy:
You have two holes in the ground, and a particle is in the
first hole (A) and doesn't have enough energy to get out.
It only has enough energy to get as high as the dotted line.

	A		B

You get distracted for a little while,
maybe watch
the Super Bowl
halftime show,
and when you come back, the particle somehow is now
in hole B.
This is impossible in classical mechanics, but
thanks to the wacky world of quantum mechanics,
it is not only possible, but actually happens.
The phenomenon is known as

tunneling,
because it's as if the particle 'dug a tunnel'
between the two holes, thereby allowing it to get from one hole
to another without ever going above the dotted line.

In the case of file system tunneling,
it is information that appears to violate the laws of classical
mechanics.
The information was destroyed (by deleting or renaming the file),
yet somehow managed to reconstruct
itself on the other side of a temporal barrier.

The developer who was responsible for implementing tunneling
on Windows 95 got kind of carried away with the quantum
mechanics analogy:
The fragments of information about recently-deleted or recently-renamed
files are kept in data structures called 'quarks'.
"

(Via The Old New Thing.)

Karma

From a slashdot thread on the premiere of BSG season 2 tonight:

vivid memory of childhood (Score:5, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, @01:46PM (#13075067)
That night in 1978 that Battlestar Glactica premired, they were
showing the movie King Kong on another network. It was a very big
night for tv when I was kid. But then disaster struck:

They interrupted both shows because Isreal and Egypt were signing a
peace agreement. And my mom sent me to bed.

Egypt and Isreal had been fighting for hundreds of years... couldn't
they have waited one more day? Think of the children.

Note that a President Bush has fired a Rove for leaking to Novak before...

Camo

I got confused for a new employee at the Management Consulting firm I was at this morning.

So much for No First Use.

Chinese general warns U.S. over Taiwan-newspaper: "LONDON (Reuters) - A senior Chinese general has warned that
China was ready to use nuclear weapons against the United
States if Washington attacked his country over Taiwan, the
Financial Times newspaper reported on Friday."

(Via Reuters: Top News.)

I'm eagerly awaiting Mr. Garrison's response to this...

CULTURE: Pope Knows Best, Harry Potter Is Evil: "The Pope has officially declared that he is against the Harry Potter books. I guess this means that we're all going to have to stop reading them. I know I will. I mean, he's the Pope for God's sake.

In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her 'instructive' book Harry Potter - gut oder böse (Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

It would seem that he believes reading Harry Potter will turn people away from God and towards the Devil,

It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.

(Written by: JeffD)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

I suppose Failing him could also have been a performance...

;)

CULTURE: Russian Roulette Artist Speaks: "On November 29, 2004, Joseph Deutch, a graduate student in art at UCLA, created a piece of performance art. He stood in front of a group of his student peers and his teacher, performance artist Ron Athey, held what appeared to be a .357 Magnum to his head, and pulled the trigger, producing a clicking noise but no bullet. Immediately thereafter, Deutch fled the room. The students in the classroom heard a loud bang from the room's adjoining hallway. Then, Deutch returned to the classroom. As it turned out, according to Deutch, who speaks for the first time to the LA Times, the gun was a fake, one he had carved from wood--but, the fallout from his artwork was real. Ultimately, two art professors, Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins, suddenly retired after the University refused to suspend Deutch, deeming Deutch's performance art 'domestic terrorism.'

'The thing I hadn't counted on was Chris and Nancy freaking out to the extent they did.'



Deutch said that he did not know Rubins and that he'd had only one substantial conversation with Burden, who oversaw instruction in new genres, the branch of the art department that includes performance art. Burden stopped doing performance art by the 1980s, having made a lasting mark with trailblazing work such as his 1971 piece 'Shoot,' in which an assistant, standing 15 feet away in a Santa Ana gallery, shot him in the upper arm with a .22-caliber rifle.



In 1972, Phyllis Lutjeans, a friend who hosted a cable TV show, invited Burden on the program. Without warning — in a performance he dubbed 'TV Hijack' — he held her at knifepoint for several minutes.



'When Chris put the knife at my throat, I was absolutely terrified,' Lutjeans recalled for The Times 20 years later. 'I thought, 'This guy's psychotic.' '



Deutch said that although he was familiar with the history of performance art and Burden's place in it, his untitled Russian roulette piece was not intended as a response or allusion to the professor's early work.

(Written by: susannah_breslin)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Craziness at Grand Central

So 42nd St between Madison and Vanderbilt is blocked because a suitcase was left out on the street.

The coppers are going through the bag.

Life goes on.

FW: [IP] "Human-Brained" Monkeys

The moment they start singing spirituals...

-----Original Message-----
From: "David Farber" <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Jul 14, 2005 10:32 am
Subject: [IP] "Human-Brained" Monkeys

-----Original Message-----
From: "Randall"<rvh40@insightbb.com>
Sent: 13/07/05 10:12:46 PM
To: "Dave"<dave@farber.net>
Cc: "JMG"<johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: "Human-Brained" Monkeys

http://tinyurl.com/8ajqt

SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into
self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.

An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be
predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal'
intelligence.

The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers,
philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.

These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the
combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any
effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.

Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes.

Advertisement:

This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could
cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.

The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the
monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.

"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral
challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics.

--
"We've got the hatemongers who literally hate this president, and that is so wrong. . . . The people who hate George Bush hate him because he's a follower of Jesus Christ, unashamedly says so and applies his faith in his day-to-day operations." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell, on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal"

------------------------------------

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

Aren't there federal laws about transporting pollutants across state lines?

Unborn babies carry pollutants, study finds: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a
stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and
pesticides, according to a report released on Thursday."

(Via Reuters: Top News.)

Hillary announced today that the Smut allegations in GTA should be looked into.

Humor is the antidote to wallowing in cynicism.

days of future past

Yesterday I went to the futur...: "

days of future past



Yesterday I went to the future an it was awesome! I took the moon train to a city on Mars an blew up an evil computer with the power of thinkin an helped Captain Space And His Spacekateers fight off an invasion from Neptunia Queen of the Planet Women an all for under three Quizlats!


Today I go back to the future an somebody's paved over all the bubble cities an the tube transports an the tractor beams an replaced em with a series of planned communities with tastefully homogeneous designs based on a pastiche of local cultures. I figure maybe somebody's sorta moved the future off to the side so I call up information an ask for Robotopolis but all I get is directions to the strip mall. I run into Nebulox the Living Thing That Lives but he's just baggin groceries at a Stop-U-Mart. I ask if he's gonna use his fearsome galactaray to conquer these tater tots but he just wraps em in recycled paper instead.


I start thinkin maybe space future's lookin better than normal future so I go to the rental guy an I go I'd like a moon rocket please an the rental guy goes don't got moon rockets an I go how bout a flyin car an he goes none a them either an I go what about a spaceplane or a blimpwich or a moosemobile an he goes nope nope nope an I go whattayougot an he goes a boat an I go what kinda boat, a space boat or a time boat or a mysterious negaboat or what an he says it's just a boat. So I end up walkin around the future with some moldy ol boat. This isn't the future. This is some fake plastic future. This is a soy-based future substitute.


I spend the rest a the day hangin out in the past. Winston Churchill just smokes up an eats doritos an Abraham Lincoln turns out to be a complex animatronic device operated by freemasons.

"

(Via Fafblog.)

a lovely animation: "

by daw_

(Via jwz.)

dutifully block quoted:

funny picture of cat

So pieds-à-terre means second home.

Why you can't just come out and say second home boggles the mind.

Pretentious wankers.

Is this true?

Women leaving tech jobs in droves: "

In Where have all the women gone? Roy Mark highlights evidence presented in various studies that women are leaving tech jobs en masse.

This is happening at a time when Bill Gates, Craig Barrett and John Chambers, et al., are trooping to Capitol Hill to decry the declining American IT talent pool. They want relaxed immigration rules. They want more tax dollars invested in science and technology. They want outsourcing.

Perhaps they should also call for an equal playing field among the sexes.

The IT industry prides itself as a working model for the new global economy, blind to everything but talent and hard work. Tech, though, is taking a big hike on walking the walk when it comes to women.

'Women don't feel valued by IT. They are forced into being a certain type of person, i.e. a white male model: linear, analytical, 24/7, in-your-face, your-job-is-your life,' says Barbara Annis, author of Same Words, Different Language. 'Women don't see a future for themselves [in IT] as they are.'

And as he points out, it's not about getting 'more women in the feeder pool' -- we're actually doing a pretty good job of educating girls in technology and getting them into their initial tech jobs. What's hard is keeping them there with the work environments being what they are."

(Via misbehaving.net.)

Vin Diesel on location...

Triple Sunset: Planet Discovered in 3-Star System: "The first known world of its kind in a gravitationally challenging setup."

(Via SPACE.com.)

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that the suicide bombers (what's the terminology these days?) were British Muslims of Pakistani origin.

Christopher Hitchens on the distance from Srebenica to Baghdad. As always, he's damn good.

Karl Rove: "

I've been told the same thing as Duncan Black has: Karl Rove did not call Matt Cooper and say, 'I really mean it when I say that you are free of any obligation to me not to testify.' Instead, the loudness of Karl Rove's and his lawyer's claims that he had freed reporters who talked to him of any obligation pushed Cooper beyond the limit:

Eschaton: [The] New York Times article on the Rove case is typically clear as mud, but after reading it several times and consulting with a handful of liberal intellectuals, I've gained new respect for Matt Cooper. Basically, he got fed up with Rove's lawyer lying to the press, and figured that combined with the waiver he'd previously received and the emphasis Luskin placed on it, was enough.

In other words, Rove's lawyer, acting as an agent of Rove, mounted a too extreme PR campaign on behalf of his client, and sufficient deceptive remarks led Cooper to say f*** it. Luskin thought Cooper wouldn't testify no matter what he said, and he was wrong.

Good for Cooper.

"

(Via Semi-Daily Journal.)

"Small, Hairless, Blind, and Dependent on a Larger Rodent for All His Information: "

Snark! Snark! Snark!

Scott McClellan Wanders Off Reservation, Is Shot and Killed:

We would like to apologize for our characterization yesterday of Scott McClellan as a puppy dog. Thanks to the New York Times, we were able to review all of his statements on the Rove-Plame matter and now we feel that a more accurate analogy would be that Scott McClellan is like a hapless baby rodent of some kind. Perhaps a gerbil or a weasel. Small, hairless, blind, and dependent on a larger rodent for all his information. So it's true, McClellan did, in extreme flustered mode, yelp out such regrettable declarations as 'I've made it very clear, [Rove] was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was,' and 'The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved,' and, more brazenly, 'There has been absolutely nothing brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement.'

These statements are all in sharp contrast to the more maturely weasely statements of the President and Rove himself, around which there is enough wiggle room for a fat, bald man to slither through and stay employed for at least three more years. All this proves is that no one tells Scotty anything. It's not really his job to know anything. His job is to say what he's told to say, or, in some extraordinary cases, what he intuits they might say with the power of his mind:

I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is, and he is someone that is committed to the highest standards of conduct.

Like we said, he doesn't know anything.

Past White House Briefings on C.I.A. Leak Case [NYT]

Earlier: The Rove Show, with Scott McLellan as Old Yeller [Wonkette]

"

(Via Semi-Daily Journal.)

There's a new beta of the Flash 8.0 plugin for the mac, which is supposed to address the serious performance issues with the mac version.

It doesn't play strongbad emails, making it in my mind

Useless.

The idea has come up of declaring the mice terrorists, and thus having a rationale to have the Department of Homeland Security come in for a "cleanup" operation.

1995 was a hell of a year. But calling diaries protoblogging?

Belgrade native Jasmina Tesanovic on 10 years since Srebenica massacre: "Xeni Jardin:

Jasmina Tesanovic is an author, translator, and filmmaker from Belgrade. Here's a link to one of her books, and here are a couple of urls with more about her work. Here was her proto-blog penned during the war, 'A Diary from Belgrade.'

Below, snip from a recent essay she wrote on the massacre in Srebenica, which took place exactly ten years ago today.

In June 1995, I was finishing off my book on refugees from former Yugoslavia, The Suitcase, interviewing women and men of different nationalities, wherever they came from and wherever they had been displaced.

One of them was a young man from Srebrenica: displaced in Vienna. He was a Muslim, very polite and kind to me, a Serb writing for the Americans; he invited me to his flat, offered me dinner and told me how he fled the troubled country through the Red Cross in Belgrade. He considered himself a Yugoslav and loathed the wars, according to him made by politicians, not people.

At the end, he said something I will never forget, a sentence that at the time sounded creepy and muddy: If something happens to my family back there in Srebrenica which is a Muslim enclave protected by UN troops, I swear to God that I will kill with my own hands the first Serb I come across here, my co-worker in Vienna, and I don't care that he is not guilty, I don't care if I go to prison forever...

Link to the complete textfile of 'Srebenica 2005.'

Ms. Tesanovic can be reached via e-mail: [politicalidiot] at [yahoo.com]."

(Via Boing Boing.)

Today is 7/11 - free slurpee day at the same.

Some of you wankers might even have a 7/11 around where you live or work.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory dark and sinister, says the Beeb.

monster paintings: "

Dylan Sisson

Monster Engine

"

(Via jwz.)

yawn

It is a violent femmes, tylenol, sake and mango juice sort of morning.

(morning defined as the four hours after I get up, which I'm still comfortably in.)

Rushdie writes on Islam in India & Pakistan.

Yes India does have two law systems, one for muslims, and one for everybody else. It is the cause of much tension. Segregation of law in the defense of a minority can be a very very bad thing.

Attemping the convergence life

One Treo 650, One 1 Gb Sandisk Ultra II Plus SD Card, one 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio cord convertor from treocentral, and both TCMP and Pocket Tunes loaded on the Treo, which is hooked up to my iPod headphones.

The iPods are sitting lonely at home.

The Pros: One Device to Rule them All.

Gapless playback. The iPod still doesn't have it.

Fade-in/Fade-out between tracks.

The Negatives:
Playing MP3s kill's the Treo's battery.

For the first time since I had the Rio500, I am using a non iPod MP3 player interface. None of the alternatives are better, yet.

I can't sync with iTunes. This isn't that much of a problem. I've been meaning to go back to gtkPod anyways, especially for when the 320Gb hard drive for the linux music server arrives Monday.

The programs I am using on the Treo don't normalize. Quiet music tracks followed by loud tracks suck without it.

Again Battery life. Who sells aftermarket Treo batteries with more oomph? Anybody?

Again, the interface. At the minimum, replicating the iPod's music database, with similar navigation is needed. Browsing by song and folder on the disk is so Winamp 2.x...

I've been talking about this eventuality for years, for those who have been listening.

For the morality based vegetarians: Is this engineered meat acceptable in a way that would finally let you enjoy meat with a clear conscience?

For those practicing Jews/Hindus/Muslims: Is Pork/Beef grown this way acceptable?

(No feet touching the ground. Ever.)

Ya want cloven hooves? We can splice in the genes for hooves. Do the Books say that hooves actually have to be expressed in the organism before the meat is kosher?

Watch out for that small loophole of opportunity before the relevant Rabbis outlaw this...

Fighting Global Warming With Lab-Grown Meat: "

(Author's note: I debated whether to post this today; it's not exactly keeping in tone with the earlier pieces. I decided, however, that at a time when reality is almost too much to bear, a bit of surreality is useful.)

'Faux' meat biologically identical to real tissue but grown in the lab is something of a staple in science fiction. In January, researchers at the University of Manchester, UK, came up with a method of using ink-jet printer technology to build animal tissue structures, including differentiated skin, bones and organs. I referred to them as 'meat-jet' printers, and argued that they could be the harbinger of the future emergence a new kind of cuisine: cruelty-free, waste-free, prion-free meats grown in the lab. Little did I know how rapidly this scenario might come about.

In the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, researchers describe methods of mass-producing 'cultured' meats: muscle tissues with the same taste, nutrients and texture of 'real' meat, grown under controlled conditions in the lab. This wouldn't be fake meat made from processed vegetables, it would be cellularly identical to the flesh from livestock -- but no animal would be killed for its production. (The article itself is under a subscription barrier The article is now available online, and a detailed summary is available here.)

The researchers -- from the US and the Netherlands -- aren't just talking about theory. They've started a non-profit company called New Harvest to develop cultured meat.

The production of such 'cultured meat' begins by taking a number of cells from a farm animal and proliferating them in a nutrient—rich medium. Cells are capable of multiplying so many times in culture that, in theory, a single cell could be used to produce enough meat to feed the global population for a year. After the cells are multiplied, they are attached to a sponge-like 'scaffold' and soaked with nutrients. They may also be mechanically stretched to increase their size and protein content. The resulting cells can then be harvested, seasoned, cooked, and consumed as a boneless, processed meat, such as sausage, hamburger, or chicken nuggets.

Setting aside the vaguely-discomfiting visuals of growing hamburger in vats, cultured meat actually has some distinct advantages.

'There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat,' [project leader University of Maryland doctoral student Jason] Matheny said in a statement. 'For one thing, you could control the nutrients.'

Meat is high in omega-6 fatty acid, which is desirable, but not in large amounts. Healthful omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in walnuts and fish oils, could be substituted.

'Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat,' Matheny said.

Raising livestock requires million of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land. Meat grown from tissue would bypass those requirements.

But perhaps most important would be the significant reduction in greenhouse gases that would result from moving away from livestock-based food production. In this month's Physics World, Dr. Alan Calverd argues that over 20% of human-caused CO2 comes from livestock farming. (This figure doesn't include the methane production from livestock, which also contributes to greenhouse gas buildup.) He suggests a global move to vegetarianism as a way to combat global warming. For those who can't give up their burgers and chicken, cultured meat would be a nearly-as-climate-concious alternative.

New Harvest is still studying cultured meat's nutritional and production issues. It may take a few years before they have something they can bring to market (or at least make available for testing), but in terms of the technology, there's every reason to think that tasty, indistinguishable-from-'real' cultured meat will be possible to make. The question is, will people buy it?

I think so. Many (most?) of us already experience meat only in the cleaned, sliced and packaged format, where it looks nothing like the animal from which it came. Cultured meats would (presumably) be no different in appearance than other processed meats, and would have distinct health and safety advantages. And, eventually, even a cost advantage: the factories to grow cultured meats would take up far less space and far fewer resources than livestock ranches, and traditional ranching is likely to come under increasing economic pressure due to the effects of climate disruption.

Cultured meat is one of those developments that seems almost too bizarre to be real, but could have significant worldchanging implications. Will we embrace its advantages? With New Harvest on the job, we may soon find out.

(Posted by Jamais Cascio in Plausibly Surreal - Scenarios and Anticipations at 04:37 PM)"

(Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here.)

FW: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Jul 7, 2005 9:15 pm
Subject: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Wong <rbw001@gmail.com>
Date: July 7, 2005 8:33:55 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Fwd: FW: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.
Reply-To: Brian Wong <rbw001@gmail.com>

Dave, having lived through 9/11 in Washington, DC, it seems to me that you have to consider how the workers of London's fast food restaurants would get to work, and then home again, without mass transit. I don't know London's neighborhoods, but my guess is that the wages paid to those workers does not allow them to live within walking distance. There may or may not be an "imminent threat" of danger - and on this day who can make that call other than the government, right or wrong? - but there are good reasons to limit traffic and congestion for the rest of the day.

- Brian -

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

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

FW: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Jul 7, 2005 8:17 pm
Subject: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Andy Duff <andy.duff@edengene.com>
Date: July 7, 2005 5:58:49 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: RE: [IP] more on RealID: How to become an unperson.

Dave

Little insight from London (publish only if you think appropriate)

After being close(ish) to today's events on the Tube, I rang a friend from the Middle East who happended to be in London to propose a night of beer, and crap (a.k.a. bad for you) food.

Beer was no problem, with 99% of Londoners treating today's attempts to disrupt our lives with the contempt we've given the IRA's similar attempts for over 30 years.

Crap food, though, proved more of a problem. First stop Burger King on Old Brompton Road closed, so we headed to BK on Gloucester Road - also closed. KFC next door? Also closed. So I questioned the guy putting out the rubbish (trash) - apparently, an HO edict had determined that they close in light of the "imminent threat".

Global brands? Start living up to the realities. This is not the time to be hiding.

Andy D

-------------------------------------

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

Speakeasy plays the Magnetic Fields as hold music.

Did I mention I'm looking for an excuse to switch from Time Warner NYC Cable internet and their horrendous service and customer service?

Mike leaves DCist. I suppose I'll have to change the link on the right soon.

Wikipedia has some excellent comprehensive coverage of the London situation.

More praise for the Brits:

He [a person in a subway car next to the one blown up] praised the ambulance, police and London Underground for the way in which they dealt with the situation.

He said: "They kept checking we were okay then they led us to the Methodist Church nearby and gave us a cup of tea."

There's something about bombings and their ilk that call for full scale immersion in the news.

BBC News on full blast. Reports say that the London Stock Market hasn't fallen beyond the normal range.

I'm trying to follow all relevant fark threads, which drop gems such as these:

2005-07-07 07:36:02 AM dukefluke [TotalFark]

Pubs in and around Liverpool Street are filled with people who are there for "news reports". Brilliant. I love being English.

2005-07-07 07:37:35 AM wildvigilante

early reports indicate that units of mi6 have been detached to work with scotland yard...



/not true, just wanted to use that picture

And these useful bits of information:

2005-07-07 07:57:13 AM RumMunkey

Posted this morning at the website of an AQ-affiliated terrorist organization:

amaat al-Tandheem Al-Sierri (secret organization group)
Organization of Qaeda't al-Jihad in Europe

In the name of God the most merciful...

Rejoice the nation of Islam, rejoice nation of Arabs, the time of revenge has come for the crusaders' Zionist British government.

As retaliation for the massacres which the British commit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mujahideen have successfully done it this time in London.

And this is Britain now burning from fear and panic from the north to the south, from the east to the west.

We have warned the brutish governments and British nation many times.

And here we are, we have done what we have promised. We have done a military operation after heavy work and planning, which the mujahideen have done, and it has taken a long time to ensure the success of this operation.

And we still warn the government of Denmark and Italy, all the crusader governments, that they will have the same punishment if they do not pull their forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

So beware.

Beware my ass.

9/11 I found out about from fark.

The London bombings I found out about from Drunkenblog, since I now look at NetNewsWire first in the morning.

The local PBS station WLIW is simulcasting BBC World into my living room.

Found in slashdot thread about the plans for the sequencing of the Neanderthal Genome:

Re:Shouldn't be too hard (Score:4, Funny)

by Rei (128717) Alter Relationship on Wednesday July 06, @04:33PM (#12997429)
(http://www.cursor.org/)

Back in their day, all they had were AMP and ADP; ATP hadn't been invented yet. In those times, glycolysis took two glucose for every one ADP produced, and they were proud of it! Back then, everything ate up that precious ADP - even the Calvin cycle. Oh, sure, it violated their ability to continue on as lifeforms indefinitely, but it was all they had to work with.

Back then, oxygen didn't end up making it into the bloodstream and then to the cells and mitochondria through diffusion from concentration differentials across membranes; they had to put it in manually. It got tiring after a while, all of the precision injection work, but it gave them exercise - a good muscle builder, it was. And, boy, did they need that muscle tone to hunt, what with only being able to synthesize two of their amino acids on their own.

We've come a long way, my friend. A long way.

a. More from the Voltron department.

b. from Another Bean.

TECHNOLOGY: Your Own Flame-Shooting Fighting Mech For Just $35K: "


Carlos Owens, the man behind the mech-producing endeavor known as Neogentronyx, has put the fearsome NMX04-1A prototype suit on eBay. Now, you can own your very own 18-foot tall robotic mechanical suit, listed for a mere $35,000. You'd better hurry, though, bidding closes at 12:08:57 PDT on July 8th.

Owens says that the mecha has a hydraulic system capable of 40 possible movements, that he's fixed a bug that would cause it to tip over (that's a relief), and that he's going to add nail-shooting guns to Neogentronyx's shoulders before shipping it to a buyer. Owens plans to use proceeds from the sale to build an amphibious version.

Owens claims that future mecha will be used for uses 'from fighting forest fires far too hot and unsafe for a human, riot control, construction, maintenance and handling of hazardous waste in hostile environments, modern day warfare, to the entertainment industry..' Riot control? Did he not see Robocop? Is an 18-foot tall human-piloted robotic creation really well suited to quell public disturbances? I'm not so sure. Let's just hope he doesn't plan on putting flame-throwers and nail guns on that version.

(Written by: bean)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

If it can not be New York, then let it be London.

[In regards to the Olympics, not the events of Thursday morning.]

Cooking for Engineers' second, long promised piece on cooking Bacon is now up.

Before I go to bed, this note of importance.

Also, there is a twenty second period on the subway between when someone starts talking to you and when you realize they are a crackhead. Sometimes this period is even shorter. Use it wisely.

The Next Open Thread: "

by DemFromCT

Lance Armstrong is doing fine. But does anyone know who won the Wife Carrying Championships? The Estonians had the edge. Winner gets his wife's weight in Nordic beer.

"

(Via The Next Hurrah.)

normalcy

A 4th of July Celebration in Boston should have the Star Spangled Banner playing.

And definitely the Boston cover (better than the Hendrix version.)

Playing the native

I just got asked where Fenway Park is.

I don't know.

My roommate and the bride

My roommate and the bride
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Tonight at the Sheva Brachot.