Ahh, has been too long since I blogged. Been damn too busy at work. You know, work putting a cramp in your fun?

So, I'm heading off to Kansas City to visit the Stoics and DrunkJeff and Vybex for New Years Eve. Should be lots o' fun. Here's the email I sent to the crew on Sunday.

At this very moment I am sitting [picture to follow] in the lobby of the Westin Hotel near SFO, since my flight leaves at 6:00am. Ack! But it's well worth it. More time with the Stoics. And besides, it's a very nice hotel.
o Right next the airport.
o Great restaurant. (Pricey but good, and good beer.)
o Room with a king size bed. The bed must encompass two area codes of its own. When you get lost they send in the search dogs. [picture to follow]
o The room even has its own safe.
o Long mezmorizing hallways, like many hotels. [picture to follow]
o And best of all? Wireless in the lobby! Yup, in #Ampedout right now, chattin' with me droogies.

Only downside? The wireless, in its usually freaky corporate way, requires that a browser remains open to a specific page. Okay, and the musak xmas music playing. (Headphones and streaming Ampedout goooooood.)

Kudos!

SCIENCE

• It's showtime for Leonid meteors

TECH

• Seven flights of fancy that fizzled
• PowerLabs Electro Magnetic Weapons!
• Bollywood Goes Digital: To boldly go where no Hollywood exec has gone before!
• Feds to launch $10 million investigation of cell phones, wireless technologies: Cancer from cellphones? Hasn't this one been around before? Never the less, something to keep an eye on.
• Microsoft to Open Music Store: Store will compete with iTunes: 500lb gorilla see, 500lb gorilla do.
• PalmSource Gets Connected, Company's new program could lead to smart phones, wireless devices.: Finally, more integration, predicted o' so long ago. Seems Palm is becoming more of a service company. Reports have it that Tivo is changing in the same way.
• Deskbar seeks in small space: Google without a browser? Doesn't MS' Longhorn tout something like this? Looks like Google beat them to the punch.
• London Wireless Map: Could have used this last September. Hey! The Starbucks where I used t-mobile is on here. Bummer that this map doesn't cover free wireless hot spots.
• Why Personal Websites Matter
• CDs 'could be history in five years': By Gibson! Shades of Cyberpunk! Could it be pie in the sky tech?
• Would you buy drugs from Bill Gates?: Cringley as usual takes things textremes, but you've got tlove the byline. Oh yes, the article is about Microsoft's use of earnings management.
• Are the Days of 32-Bit Chips Numbered? AMD says it will shift entirely to 64-bit chips by 2005.

LINUX

• Sun makes deal in China/Linux desktop software to be used on 200 million computers, McNealy says: Unhappiness in Gates Manse tonight! So you might want to stay out of Redmond.
• SCo to pay lawyers millions for more legal firepower: Ouch, the brawl is going to get bloody. No mention of SCO's venture capital infusion.
• Forbes Examines SCSubpoenas
• Real Desktop Linux, Part I
• Tpush desktop Linux, radical shift may be required
• The Linux Enterprise

POLITICS

• Mobile users told to 'chase Bush': Tech in action! "Chase Bush", sounds like a movie plot. (No Freudian remarks please!)
• Mass. Court Strikes Down Gay-Marriage Ban: With the current conservative bent of the US, amazing that this made it through. Congrats ladies and gents!
• The Story of Mouseland as told by Tommy Douglas, 1944. Enlightening parable.
• Uncensored Gore (Vidal): The take-no-prisoners social critic skewers Bush, Ashcroft and the whole damn lot of us for letting despots rule.
• Judge Needs Time For E-Voting Decision

GENERAL NEWS

• Flu Cases In State Up 300 Percent In One Week. Flu Season Still Not At Its Peak: Yikes! Though I'm not surprised. I had the flu a few weeks ago. Glad I got my flu shot too.
• Mickey Mouse, American icon, reaches 75: And he doesn't look a day over 39. Surprising that the article doesn't mention the Eldred case.

SCIFI

• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven, is online! Ahh, a SciFi classic.

MUSIC

• Get the wax out! Goodbye Turntables The New DJ Revolution: mp3j's (and iPods): It keeps on spreading. Nothing new though. This type of thing has been happening in New York. With IPod, WhNeeds a Turntable?

POETRY
[Bio-Death] let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor
[Bio-Death] let the oceans take and transmucate these leaden grudges into gold
* Bio-Death dances
[RayTracer] what's that from?
[Bio-Death] Tool
[Bynk] Which album?
[Bio-Death] Lateralus
[Bynk] Ahh, "The Grudge"
[Bynk] Funny, I like Tool now, more than when I got Undertow from the BMG club years ago
[Bynk] Lyrics remind me of some of the poetry I have written in the past.
[Bio-Death] ooo
[Bio-Death] bynk poetry
[Bio-Death] i wanna c

So, with a request like that, how could I resist? My fans are calling! Besides, I've been meaning to put up my poetry for a while now. Thanks Bio for giving me the impetus!

Ahh, yes, 1990, my early years.

TOPIC: writing

TECH, LINUX, & HUMOR

• The Grinch Who Stole Linux: Very funny. Technically is this filk? Or does the term filk only apply to music? Interesting how satire and parody can bring some light into a subject.
• Uf Researcher: “Reversible” Computers More Energy Efficient, Faster: The research comes at a time when computers are estimated to consume as much as 10 percent of electricity in the United States... (Almost sounds like a perpetual motion machine with Rube Goldberg influences. If it can be done, then WOW!)
• Report from the first Desktop Linux Conference by Andy Oram of O'Reilly & Associates.
• 2+2=5: Microsoft Prepares FUD Security Assault on Linux: Hmm, Microsoft could always strive for better software rather than spreading FUD. Ha!

If you ever wondered what films the opposite sex watched during sex education (in the 50's), then check out Archive.org's Prelinger Archives.

TOPIC: history, media

Huzzah! I found Viking Kittens - Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song from this URL.

Of course there is this replacement (Gay Bar) by the creator, since the one above probably breaks some copyrights.

TOPIC: Fun with flash

I just read Will the Last Computer Hobbyist Please Turn Out the Lights? by John C. Dvorak.

Hello, John! What about LAN gamers, Linux users, robot hobbyists, arcade game enthusiasts, and hobbyist programmers?

Admittedly the plumage and behavior of your North American Hobbyist has changed. Consider that programming bar is much higher, so such programmers end up being contributors to OpenSource projects. Also, the computer field is less concentrated and much bigger compared to the era that Dvorak references. User groups now flock around a technology instead of a specific computer.

Maybe it's that the average computer hobbyist is now obscured because computers are now everywhere, and thus we no longer consider them hobbyists. They now are programmers, admins, etc...

Though I wouldn't doubt that due to the variety of modern past times that there has been a decrease in the tried and true hobbyist, for all hobbyist fields. Just look at the increase of discretionary interests: PC gaming, platform gaming, home theatre. In some ways everybody is a hobbyist these days.

And me? Well, I think I will paraphrase my sister on this, "You make your hobbies into jobs and your jobs into hobbies".

She's right.

MOVIE REVIEW
Saw Matrix Revolutions last Saturday. If you are a fan, it's a Bargin Matinee. If not, Rent It, assuming decent sound and picture at home. [Find the scale here.]

IMHO, the Matrix went from inventive execution of a plot with special effects and wire-fu, to a plot with special effects and some wire-fu (more effect than fu), to a plot getting in the way of special effects (and a near lack of fu). I wonder if Matrix Revolutions will eventually go the way of "That Highlander Movie Which Goes Unmentioned". Okay, it's not that bad, but almost as forgettable.

Matt at Mac Hall had a good comment about it:

I caught a matinee of Matrix Revolutions the other day. Personally, I think it's a cinematic landmark, as this film is the first time someone has managed to construct a narrative entirely out of plot holes.

Here's Retina's Quick Review.

Apple will 'make RIAA beg for mercy' - readers: Okay, some things in this article I get. Others I don't. Is English English and American English the same? It seems to me the author is leaving out many details and specific references. Sure, the title caught my attention, and the title as a concept very well might happen, but the article content seems ambigious. It makes me feel like Picard in "Darmok". (Geek reference!)

Your 99c belong to the RIAA - Steve Jobs: A companion article.

MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• Disney Does Digital, Ditches Drawings: Yup, Disney is losing it. You don't need digital to make good movies. Just look at Hayao Miyazaki's films (Spirited Away, etc). Besides, I've heard John Lasseter say that story is the most important thing.
• Online Competition Hurts Adult Magazines: Is this the way music will go? The whole elimination of the "middle man", like iTunes, or eBooks?
• Media Blasters Acquires Invader Zim and Invader Zim on DVD Spring 2004: Huzzah! About time. Thanks for the heads up Retina.
• Help me with my online music chart: A good summary of options, good and bad, regarding the current state of music "downloads".

TECH

• Ban on Internet Access Tax Dies in Senate: Nuff said.
• How To Become A Hacker and Chapter 5. Hacker Writing Style: Interesting. In some way's O'Reilly's writing style is Hacker Writing Style. Oh, and while we are at it, please don't confuse "hacker" with "cracker" (aka black-hat hacker). But you knew that, right?
• What's Hot and What's Not by John C. Dvorak.
• Pop Sci Best of What's New 2003: One of each please. And can I Super Size that?
• Go-Video D2730 Networked DVD Player: Okay, this one at the very least.

LINUX & SCO

• Novell's SuSE Buy Strikes Blow to SCO: I didn't think of this angle until this article brought it up.
• IBM warms to desktop Linux: Ahh, good, considering Matthew Szulik estranged comment about Linux desktops. Yes, the Linux desktop is not perfect, but I would have expected a bit more from a Red Hat chief executive.
• What is The Fedora Project?: Okay, I admit it, I was confused by Red Hat's move to drop the Red Hat distro and did not understand what Fedora was. Chock it up to not reading between the lines and an unclear message from Red Hat's marketing.
• SCO to Take On Hollywood: No comment. No, really, no comment. I just don't know what to say. *sigh*

RIAA! FCC! YES YOU! CLUE! GET ONE!

• Boycott the RIAA and stay informed. (Thanks Retina!)
• Federal Communications Commission Adopts Hollywood Tech Mandate: The FCC has decided that the way to get Americans to adopt digital TV is to make it cost more and do less... Slashdot too.
• US downloads beat CD sales: Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June - compared with four million CD singles sold, Billboard magazine reported... digital sales had a "symbolic significance" because they marked the music industry's move to digital operations
  (Industry's move???? Yeah, right! A move that so far has required kicking and screaming and suing.)

LINUX: Cha-cha-changes!

• Red Hat: Stick with Windows at home: LOL, saw somebody call Fedora, "Fudora".
• Novell Announces Agreement to Acquire Leading Enterprise Linux Technology Company SUSE LINUX: Things only get stranger.
• IBM's patience runs out on SCO: And with SCO in the other camp, ACK!
• So what's left? Mandrake, Debian, Knoppix, Gnoppix, FreeBSD (yes, not Linux, but Free and *nix-ish)

TECH

• Things of the Past: Damn! Never saw those free computers. Hmmm, wonder what happened to the owners of them?

HISTORY

• Plot was Guy-normous: What if Guy Fawkes' plan succeeded. Sounds like an interesting alternate history story.

Time for another LINK ATTACK!

RPG:

• Are you an RPG junkie who uses a laptop? Then check out www.opengamingfoundation.com and Jamis Buck's RPG Generators. Need the latest in RPG news? Then take a look at Enworld. And while you are at it, need the latest errata or Sage Advice/FAQ?
  
• Make your own castles from molds.

FUN MP3s

• May Satan Claws bring you many things. Merry Christmas! (Big, 3.08mb)
  
• Dungeons and Dragons, Satan's Game (3.31mb).
  
• Happy B-Day! (2.65mb)

NATURE & SCIENCE

• Seafood Watch regional cards from the Monterey Aquarium.
  
• Milky Way's nearest neighbour revealed: Dwarf Galaxies! Nope, not Andromeda (as I thought) or the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy (discovered in 1994)."We found a large excess of these stars just below the plane of the Milky Way, spread into an elongated shape covering about 10 times the apparent size of the full Moon."
  
• U.S.S. Enterprise Tested at Mach5: Just watch out for that space junk with shields down.

ONLINE MOVIES & FLASH

• Endgame Chess made "interesting"
  
• This Guy is Falling: Neat student indie short film.
  
• Lap Dance: No, it's not exactly what you think. It's cat behavior distilled into Flash.

TECH & COMPUTERS

• G5's in Redmond?!?!
  
• Terahertz rays track down drugs: The scheme works by spectral fingerprinting -- illuminating a target envelope with tunable terahertz radiation and analyzing the absorption spectra of the resulting image. The results are cross-referenced with a database of spectra to check for the chemicals of interest. Can tricorders be far behind? How about Feinbergs?
  
• Interesting ideas about digital money
  
• Attack of the iPod Clones
  
• OldVersion.com: a great resource for old programs.

RIAA

• EMI to offer 140.000 songs online in Europe: Oh, the hypocrisy!

FUN: Plain & simple

• Wow! Bite My Shiny Metal Ass!
  
• Lego Castles: Made to scale by a professor from Britain.
  
• www.hawaiianshirtsonline.com: Great place to get Hawaiian shirts.
  
• WordSpy.com: Do you know what a glurge is? How about a duppie? "Brain on a stick"?
  
• The O'Reilly Cover Parodies: about time to update this page and add some new ones.
  
• Dorkstorm The Annihilation: The ten geekiest hobbies

INTERESTING & STRANGE NEWS

• Shades of Risky Business! Not just the contents of a house stolen, but also a whole house stolen. Same people? Who knows. Weird.
  
• Who needs radio anymore? Because radio rarely makes the music artist these days.

REFERENCE:

• Bynk's (old) Movie List

FUN: with Flash!

• Gonads and Strife
  
• The Cheese Family
  
• Badgers Badgers Badgers!
  
• I've seen things! aka Scampi, somewhat Badger-esque.
  
• Napster baaaad series
  
• Strong Bad, speaking of bad. Well he's actually very good (funny).
  
• Odd Todd, who likes to watch Sponge Bob.
  
• Radiskull & Devil Doll, who could forget THEM?
  
• Lenore: The Cute Little Dead Girl, very strange.
  
• Punk kittens
  
• Spoon menace

Here's a bit of catch up on various topics...

OPENSOURCE

• How Microsoft's Misunderstanding of Open Source Hurts Us All: Microsoft just doesn't get open source. Or maybe they get it all too well. But you knew that didn't you? Though it seems that Cringley left out something. Though I am not sure what it is.

RIAA/POLITICS

• MPAA School Propaganda Program Examined
  
• Copyright industry after another power grab

POLITICS

• Terror Profiles By Computers Are Ineffective By Bruce Schneier
  
• Swarthmore and Diebold team up to undermine integrity of elections

MUSIC

• 8-Bit Punk: Shades of cyberpunk!! The urge to breathe some genuine fire into moribund electronica has spurred the chip music underground to embrace vinyl.

TECH

• Toshiba Adds VoIP to Pocket PC Handhelds: Oh so much closer to digital convergence.
  
• The Ultimate Laser "Printer": Are 3D fabricators far behind? How about chemical assemblers? DNA assemblers?
  
• Submerging Technologies: Five That Are Sinking Fast: The best part of this article is the In/Out table at the bottom.
  
• Will U.S. software jobs head overseas?
  
• About Identity Theft: Good website.

FUN

• Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?

O'REILLY FOO CAMP

• Inside Foo Camp: One attendee described this month's foo camp as "two hundred people, all certain that everyone else there is smarter than they are."
  
• Derek's Rantings and Musings: Hmmm: You must be this high to enter? From the comments-- ...But didn't the price of BloggerCon make it exclusive? It wasn't meant for personal webloggers, but more geared toward the politios and academics than to the people who don't need that type of "exclusive" closed environment you provided.
  
• Foo Campfire/Foo: The UnConference: ...Foo Camp was a sign of unconferences to come. Its always been the case that conferences were more about people than content, and the best content comes from attendees. The free-for-all structure of Foo gave attendees equal opportunity to provide...
  
• Great pic of the O'Reilly green with tents, and others.

TOPIC: movies

Kill Bill: After a few years "out of the picture", Quentin Tarantino has finally come back with Kill Bill. And a good come back it is. A Stand In Line on the Retina Movie Scale.

And keep an eye out for the few minute uncut(?) shot in the Tea House/Nightclub going from Uma in the bathroom, out on to the dance floor, and back again following Sophie. And oh yes, for those critics crying "gore"-- GET A CLUE! The movie pays homage to 70's Hong Kong martial arts flicks. The gore is a STYLE, and intentionally unrealistic.


Bubba Ho-tep: Sorry to say it, but Bubba Ho-tep is only worth a TV rating.

Yes, it's fricken groovy boomstick Bruce Campbell, but this is one film that would have been direct to video if it wasn't for Bruce's name. The film never gets off the ground. If you are craving some Bruce, go watch Army of Darkness, Evil Dead 2, or reruns of Brisco County Jr.


True Horror: Oh yes, want some true horror for All Hallow's Eve? Then go watch this film. Muahha, mwahahHA, HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Gallery of Geometric Origami

TOPIC: interesting

Kris wrote:

I'll be working at Lick Observatory that night [All Hallows Eve]! Come on up the spooky ol' mountain, if you dare. I'll be in the dome with the really powerful laser shooting out of it... adaptive optics they say it is, but maybe it's science gone awry.

Oh, oh, looks like I will be wearing my Thought Screen Helmet. And you thought all along that it was aliens causing the problem. Nay! It's rogue astronomers. And by the way, you might want to stay away from Sillycon Valley, which sits below Lick, on All Hallows Eve.

TOPIC: humor

Everyone needs a Log!

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack and fits on your back?
It's Log, Log, Log!

It's Log, Log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's Log, Log, it's better than bad, it's good!
Everyone wants a log! You're gonna love it, Log!
Come on and get your log! Everyone needs a Log!

The jingle would then be followed by plugs for various types of Logs

Now this would be a great opportunity for filk. You know, instead of "Log, Log, Log", it would be "Blog, Blog, Blog". Doesn't quite work though. In this case the idea of it is better than doing it. Just like a 10 year old with grand ideas of a super, secret underground complex with slides and computers and an ice cream parlor. (Yes, I was that kind of 10 year old, proto-geek.) Besides, it would seem weird creating filk from a parody.

TOPIC: humor

Finally, some DVD releases of Looney Tunes! (Now on my Wishlist.)

• Looney Tunes - The Golden Collection
  
• Looney Tunes - The Premiere Collection (1985)

And from the looks of it, stay away from:

• Looney Tunes - Stranger Than Fiction DVD
  
• Looney Tunes - Reality Check DVD

TOPIC: cartoons, DVD, media

Project Gutenberg Publishes 10,000th Free eBook
Woot! Congrats Project Gutenberg! Now all we need is ePaper.

This goes well with the BBC's plan to open up their archives and put them on the web.

Also, British Pathe's conversion of their archives.

TOPIC: tech, media

It was announced today that SCO received $50 million in private equity funding.
Why? What is in those venture capitalists' minds? Is somebody afraid of losing SCO?

TOPIC: SCO, tech

Kinko's keylogger captures 450 banking passwords
Ouch, it's a wild, wild, cyberpunk world we are living in. Though the cyberpunk isn't evenly distributed.

Interesting. Tim O'Reilly is far more quoted for quoting Gibson, than Gibson is quoted for making the quote himself. This is apparent in this Google search.

The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

TOPIC: security

Digging for Nuggets of Wisdom
A great article about the up and coming data mining or "text mining" tools.

TOPIC: tech

RIAA stuff:

RIAA Sequentially Repeating Edison's Mistakes

After watching the RIAA's public Dance of Death closely for only about a year, everything they do is so predictable that I'm beginning to wonder if they even have any control over their own destiny.

Download music, go to jail!

Tired of Being Treated Like a Criminal for Sharing Music Online? ... But even shotgun-style lawsuits won't solve the RIAA's problem

Technology vs. Legislation: Part Two - iTunes for Windows and the RIAA

So given the apparent disconnect between the RIAA and the consumer, why is it we still consider any compromise with them? They've had absolutely no vision when it comes to technology, and if it had been up to them, we would still be unable to burn music CD's, transfer music to MP3 players, or convert CD's to MP3's. In fact, if the mentality of the RIAA had been accepted years ago, there would not have been cassette tapes, reel to reel, or even CD's. If it had been up to the RIAA, our car stereos might have technical innovations like slot loading 45's.

LOL, slot loading 45's. Sounds like a weapon, not a media player. Can I say media player and 45 (as in 45 vinyl records) in the same sentence? Seems to clash. 50's (and earlier) technology vs a 90's/00's buzz word. Go figure.

Is the tide turning? We net-geeks are in the know. But what are newspapers and magazines that influence the non-geeks saying? Last time I looked, they had little on the anti-RIAA side of things.

TOPIC: RIAA

So, I was in #ampedout (on EFNet) the other day, minding my own business.
(Cut and paste the links. I'm not making them live, since some of these links are not for the young or feint of heart. Really! Turn back unless you want your reality shifted in a inane way.)
--------------------------
[Inox] but the *really* broken folks are these: http://www.rialian.com/elvsgath.htm
[Bynk] A gathering for my inner fey? Is it anywhere near the furry convention?
[Inox] I mean, hell, cosplay I can almost tolerate, due to my ongoing desire to see teenage asian girls in revealing outfits
--------------------------

Okay, me, being the innocent that I am (yeah, right), had never heard of OTHERKIN. So I did a net search.
--------------------------
[Bynk] What is an Otherkin? (aka Fairth, Metahuman, and sometimes Furries)
[Bynk] http://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaq.html#1_1
[Bynk] Trans-spirited otherkin usually feel they were born into (or are residing within) a body of the wrong species
* deadgrrrl blinks.
--------------------------

Wow. Something new from the net that I hadn't heard about. What depths can o' humanity stoop to? Well, I'll tell ya, a google image search later:
--------------------------
[Bynk] Gah! My brain breaks!
[Bynk] Oh my fuck: http://users.transfur.com/projectp/pics/furry/furry007_03.jpg
[kRUT] it looks like it's in pain.
[deadgrrrl] http://users.transfur.com/projectp/pics/furry/furry001.jpg
[deadgrrrl] i'm sorry i looked.
[deadgrrrl] now you allmust suffer as well.
[Inox] http://users.transfur.com/projectp/pics/furry/furry006.jpg
[kRUT] http://users.transfur.com/projectp/pics/furry/furry006.jpg
[kRUT] http://users.transfur.com/projectp/pics/furry/furry005.jpg jesus, that chick has front teeth like a RAT
--------------------------

Which led to the slippery (fuzzy?) slope of PLUSHIES:
--------------------------
[kRUT] http://www.plushiesex.com/t1/pps=tilde/index.html
[kRUT] first stuffed animal sex
[kRUT] now http://www.bdrak.com/art/2b/aug2400.htm BBB
[kRUT] big beautifull bears
--------------------------

My brain hurts. But that which does not destroy me, only makes me stronger.

In some ways this is more mind expanding than when I learned a few years ago that people collected firehouse sewn badges. Learning that people a) traded them, and b) put them up on the Interweb, made me c) understand the width of those who created communities. Just one more thing I never though I would see on the net. It was totally out of my scope. And in seeing it, made me understand the Interweb's power.

TOPIC: humor, strange

Ahhh, the canonical list of Are you pondering what I'm pondering?. Zonk!

I think so, Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking -- I mean, what would the children look like?

I wonder why WB hasn't released any episodes of "Pinky and the Brain" on DVD.

TOPIC: cartoons

Well, I was planning to say some sensible things about copyright enforcement in regards to this Forbes article, Linux's Hit Men. Though it looks like William Grosso beat me to it.

[T]he FSF is asking that Broadcom either live up to the license or stop using GPL'd software. Which seems perfectly ordinary to me... In this case, however, Forbes clearly sympathizes with the companies that are violating the GPL. Attempting to enforce a license is seen as an evil act, and open-source developers are viewed with scorn...

Is Daniel Lyons, the author of the article, a stock holder in SCO or in Cisco, and as a result raw about Open Source?

At the very least, I can see he's not happy about the SCO and Linux situation. He also likes to be inflammatory, as seen in this article. I wonder if he was mauled by a penguin as a child.

In other words, like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree.

TOPIC: tech

The Incredibles looks like a must see! Besides, it's Pixar. link1 link2

This character looks like William H Macy. Hmmm, but I don't see him on the voice acting list on IMDB.

TOPIC: movies

Executive Computer Training for the Techno-unsavvy?

Shaheen calls her approach “technology therapy,” and the logo for her small company, e-businesscreations, features a caricature of a computer resting on a therapist’s couch. For $750 a month, an executive gets two hours of training, two one-hour phone calls and e-mail support.

Yes, computer use is becoming ubiquitous in our society. I can't think of any other comparison for this. Not driving, since there are people who function well without cars, especially in big cities. There's a slight stigma to not driving, but usually there are good reasons. Though with computers, I see our society pointing to not knowing how to operate a computer as a stigma and hindrance.

Never before has our society faced such a need for everybody to know such a complex thing. Cars, aren't as complex. And while TVs are ubiquitous, they are hardly complex.

Which makes me think, there is little in our base primate brain to cope with this strange complex thing we call a computer. It's not a social thing, though we can proxy our social needs with it. Sight and sound are involved but there's no survival need to it. The closest thing I can think of is our use of environmental navigation and positive behavioral reinforcement.

I guess the closest thing you get is reading and writing. In fact, that's probably the best analogy. At a base primate level, there is no accounting for reading and writing, though such a technology has changed human survival. Computers require as much education, learning, comprehension, and understanding as learning a language. Thus the term "computer literacy" is very accurate. So saying "computers confuse me" and similar is the same thing as saying "writing and reading confuses me".

They say for a country to become a democracy (republic, pluralism, etc) requires a 50% or better literacy. More specific, one of the results of majority literacy is democracy. So what happens when there is a majority in computer literacy. Is that what is happening in reaction to various legislation in our goverment?

TOPIC: tech, society

Ahh! Retina also has a blog.

Good point Retina, about movie crap code.

Don't put up with it. If you go to see any of these movies embedded with the "crap code" then at the end of the film, demand your money back.

TOPIC: RIAA, movies, friends

Legislation vs. Innovation: Part One
Good summary of the RIAA, tech, and media situation:

Media companies are running scared these days. Their failure to embrace technology has put them in a delicate position. For the first time in history, the bread and butter of the media enterprises like music, film, and television are faced with the fact that they may no longer be in control of their business. They’ve been confronted with the terrifying fact that artists and consumers could actually perform direct transactions without their help. I’ve personally supported many independent artists without a label ever coming between us. When I buy an album online from Prince, I buy it directly from him, not Warner Brothers.

And although many technology firms have tried to work with the RIAA towards a positive solution, the RIAA feels they can legislate and prosecute technical innovation back 10 years. Stifling technology through legislation is a small price for them to pay, if it secures their profit margins.

TOPIC: RIAA, tech

Gah! Me brain has been to sedentary. So the current idea is to start a self learning program, a few hours a night. Not sure of the exact schedule. The subjects?

• History/biography: Current book, Benjamin Franklin : An American Life by Walter Isaacson. Looks like it will be a good book.
  
• Programming language: Perl. I just don't know enough. Start by reading through Programming Perl and running the scripts.
  
• Language: Latin using Wheelock's Latin, 6e by Frederic M. Wheelock.
  
• Music: Guitar or keyboard. I've got the keyboard. I would need to buy a guitar. Either way I really need to purge some things to make room for this endeavour.
  
• Writing: Just write, towards the Megaword mark.
  
• Computer networking/OS: Time to get Linux on my home machines and create a server on my home network.
  
• Workout: already started by walk/jog a few times a week.

TOPIC: education, tech

De clunibus magnis amandis oratio (Baby's got back)

Heard about this briefly at O'Reilly's FoO Camp, and saw it mentioned on Boing Boing. Guess I need to get cracking on my Latin studies.

TOPIC: Humor

Started playing Temple of Elemental Evil. Verah nice. And found this walkthrough.

TOPIC: RPG, games

Monkey's brain signals control 'third arm'

"The properties of the robot were being assimilated as if they were a property of the animal's own body."

Interesting choice of words, "assimilated".

This might solve the age old battle of Monkey vs Robot.
(Suddenly I have this cyberpunkish idea of robotic cyborgs controlled by monkey brains.)

Could DNI (Direct Neural Interface) or other ways of controlling computers be that far behind?

TOPIC: tech, science, SciFi

On Sunday I ordered up the following reprints from Far Future Enterprises.

• JTAS 1-12
  
• JTAS 13-24
  
• JTAS 25-33
  
• The Adventures (1-13)
  
• The Aliens 1
  
• The Aliens 2
  
• The Games (1-6 )
  
• The Short Adventures (1-6 )
  
• The Supplements (1-13)

Within a few hours of the request, I got a response from Marc Miller (himself and no other) that it would ship on Monday. Which it no doubt did because I just got them all in the mail Wednesday. Very nice!

Marc threw in a very nice Traveller embroidered knit crew shirt, and a signed "TOM: The Origins Metagame" CCG type card with his pic on it.

Keep on Travelling!

TOPIC: RPG

Sleep Boosts Ability To Learn Language, University Of Chicago Researchers Find

TOPIC: science

Lightning Kills 20 Pregnant Cows
The bolt must have cream-ated them.
(Help, help! I'm a prisoner of my punconsciouness.)

TOPIC: humor

Tomorrow's super bar codes create today's nervous Nellies

RFID tags could stay alive, sending out their information wherever they are. Companies might then be able to track things far beyond store shelves — perhaps learning which clothes you wear to work, and which you wear to a nightclub. Scarier, companies could, possibly, match your pants to you, and at least know if your pants visited a certain hotel.

But O'Shea says that kind of capability is way in the future. Given that, there's no way to know if worrying about RFID now is prudent, or if it's like worrying about dangerous light bulbs in the 1880s.

First thought: "...[T]hat kind of capability is way in the future." Yes, but the future can sneak up and bite you in the ass. Ever see Minority Report with their individual customer branding from eye scans? We already have various stores giving out "discount cards" that track purchases.

Second thought: Okay, sure we can write this capability off. Though if it comes about, there will be need for strong change and legislation. But with our quickly changing society is it prudent to wait for this? Isn't it better to be pro-active than reactive?

TOPIC: tech, business

A great article about digital convergence in consumer electronics, Beware the Digital Hand

The music industry claims that CD sales are down as much as 16% year over year, and clearly digital technology, not the quality of the music, is the key culprit. Not only can users easily share digital content anonymously over the web, but every single PC that rolls out of Best Buy or Wal-Mart is equipped with all the technology you need to mass-produce copies of your favorite CDs.

TOPIC: tech

This article has a great definition of hack.

The books pay homage to the spirit that the word "hack," enjoyed before it was co-opted by malevolent idiots: a "hack" is what happens when sublime understanding of a concept allows you to do something wholly wonderful and unexpected with a technology.

Looking at the Jargon File, this definition of hack doesn't fall very well into any of the current definitions.

And here's a Jargon file variation of hack that I was not familar with:

9. [MIT] v. To explore the basements, roof ledges,
and steam tunnels of a large, institutional building, to the dismay
of Physical Plant workers and (since this is usually performed at
educational institutions) the Campus Police.

So, since the definition from the article doesn't fall into any of the current definitions, I decided to do something about it:

To: jargon@thyrsus.com

Howdy Jargon Filers,

Here is a new definition of "hack" that doesn't quite fall into any of the current definitions in The File, though remains true to the concept of hacks.
http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/H/hack.html

http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-andy07.html
[snip]
The books pay homage to the spirit that the word "hack," enjoyed before it was co-opted by malevolent idiots: a "hack" is what happens when sublime understanding of a concept allows you to do something wholly wonderful and unexpected with a technology.
[/snip]

Keep up the good work!

TOPIC: tech

Ahh, useful tools for a DM for D&D:

• An online dungeon generator (by Jamis Buck), with a link to an offline version.
  
• A good list of DM's Tools.

TOPIC: RPG

Ohhh! The Bunny hero just sent me this great article from Wired about the Dimensional Warp Generator email.

"It was just so weird, I had to respond. I sent him a message saying I could get him what he wanted," Hill said.

In so doing, Hill, like numerous Internet users since late 2001, was drawn into the strange world of a mysterious man some refer to as the time-travel spammer.

Interesting. This Robert "Robby" Todino reminds me of a local character, Steven Lightfoot, who believes that Stephen King, Nixon, and Reagan are linked in the death of John Lennon. No! I'm not making this up. He even has a website.

Sometimes I see his van parked on my street. When I worked in a downtown bookstore, he would come in and say that we needed more books about Lennon. At the start of the conversation, Steven seems normal-- when the conversation progresses, it just gets strange.

Hearsay says that Steven went on an acid trip in high school (a local high school) on a weekend in the late 70's (Lennon death era), and never really came back.

TOPIC: humor, spam

One of the few pieces of spam I have ever read in full.
(Shhh! Not including the viagra ones!!!!)

Subject: Dimensional Warp Generator Needed

Greetings,

We need a vendor who can offer immediate supply.
I'm offering $5,000 US dollars just for referring a vender which is
(Actually RELIABLE in providing the below equipment) Contact details
of vendor required, including name and phone #. If they turn out to be
reliable in supplying the below equipment I'll immediately pay you
$5,000. We prefer to work with vendor in the Boston/New York area.

1. The mind warper generation 4 Dimensional Warp Generator # 52 4350a
series wrist watch with z80 or better memory adapter. If in stock the
AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction
motor, two I80200 warp stabilizers, 256GB of SRAM, and two Analog
Devices isolinear modules, This unit also has a menu driven GUI
accessible on the front panel XID display. All in 1 units would be
great if reliable models are available

2. The special 23200 or Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor
with built in temporal displacement. Needed with complete
jumper/auxiliary system

3. A reliable crystal Ionizor with unlimited memory backup.

4. I will also pay for Schematics, layouts, and designs directly
from the manufature which can be used to build this equipment
from readily available parts.

If your vendor turns out to be reliable, I owe you $5,000.

Email his details to me at: DELETED


Please do not reply directly back to this email as it will
only be bounced back to you.

TOPIC: humor, spam

Wow, Do Not Call has really hit a nerve. Just read this article by Dave Barry. Come to think of it, when people, such as my mother know about the Do Not Call list, well then it is definitely in the common know.

The Do Not Call Registry is wildly popular with the human public. More than 50 million households have signed up. This displeases the telemarketing industry, which believes it has a constitutional right to call people who do not want to be called. Several telemarketing groups have filed lawsuits to block the registry.

TOPICS: tech, society

Huzzah! Verislime "calls halt to .com detours"

"We will accede to the request while we explore all of our options."

Yeah, right. "Explore their options".

TOPICS: tech

First you had Bill Joy claiming that the sky is falling, Kurzweil and Joy on the 21st century. Now Bruce Sterling with Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die"?

Yes, technology, and humans by their very nature themselves and their technology, are a fractious and two-edged lot. In Bruce's case better things need to replace the old tech. Plain and simple. It's all a matter of time. There's a meta-rule out there that says we do not fully adopt a new technology unless it is 10 times better than the old. For short term change, I agree with this. Anything else is just improvement on the current tech. Though constant improvement over time will make something very different.

A good example is house building technologies. The houses built today are vastly different from those built in the 50's (safer, energy efficent, etc). Those changes are mainly from small leaps instead of drastic ones.

Overall, not sure if I agree with Bruce's evaulation. Yes, things will change, but there are always chicken littles claiming that the sky is falling. This ties in with an earlier blog post, "individuality and how technology affects us".

TOPICS: tech, society

Am I becoming cynical, or just becoming more aware of corporate skullduggery? Examples:

• Verislime and their breaking of the internet.
  
• RIAA's draconian methods in suing p2p music swappers.
  
• SCO and their claims on Linux.
  
• Enron and the California "Energy Crisis".
  

TOPICS: tech, business

Chasing the demons over gay marriage

Adam and Rodrick had invited us to celebrate their commitment. It is the word "celebrate" that graced their invitation. We were not invited to tolerate their commitment. We were not invited to accept it. We were invited to celebrate it... I realized again that what seems to me so rich about America -- this great, open, changing, diverse society -- is what frightens and sometimes angers others. They see an assault of family values. We see family. Our family. Our values.

I saw this column and it make me think. What is it about gays that "frightens and sometimes angers others"? Is it a learned cultural trait? Misunderstanding? Is it just xenophobia? How does different ways to live threaten our way of life? Are certain people insecure about their, well, security?

Funny how one side can say that choice and diversity is what makes this country great. And the other side will say nearly the opposite things make this country great.

Admittedly I've seen very smart people with bizare ideas about life in general. In one case I know somebody who had the idea that a woman can't have a career and children too. "What?!?! Look around?" In his defense, he came from a region and family where this didn't usually happen, and thus didn't have role models. Luckily, he has come around since then. So is it a just matter of bizare ideas (thought up or heard from others) and blind spots?

*sigh* And it often comes down to the fact that many religions and societies preach tolerance, but do not practice it.

Maybe it is the Tipping Point's concept that some people just adopt ideas earlier than others. (I'm an early adopter.) Each person has their own "adoption quotient", at which point they will accept something new and different. Usually this is applied to technology, but it seems that it can be applied to ideas too.

TOPICS: society

A right to make annoying calls?

Finally, in this fractious, cranky country, Americans have something they agree on. Fifty million fed-up citizens signed up for the do-not-call registry.

Don't talk to me about voter apathy. Don't tell me that we're apolitical. Maybe Congress can't fix Medicare or prescription drugs. But your tax dollars at work actually solved a problem that infested more households than carpenter ants.

Heh. Good point.

TOPIC: Tech, politics, society

An article in need of a point? In need of a solution?

bynk: Homogenizing America http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/opinion_columnists/article/0,1375,VCS_223_2314739,00.html
bynk: Just read this column in the paper. And it seems more of a statement than commentary. What was his point?
bunnyhero: it's 'vaguely troubling'
bynk: Hehe, why yes it is. And the answer to the problem?
bunnyhero: hmmm
bynk: How much of a problem is it really?
bunnyhero: and is it really as homogenized as it seems to be?
bynk: Maybe it's a problem of his focus. And if you ask me, he's probably traveled too much. So his POV is skewed.
bunnyhero: heh, i think he listens to too much radio.
bynk: He should get an MP3 player.
bynk: I don't listen to radio, now that I have an mp3 player. I get tired quickly of radio with commercials.
bunnyhero: i dunno, i think the differences across the US are quite tangible, even if radio on the highways sucks.
bynk: So he was bored?
Bio-Death: i think he just needs ampedout streaming in his car
bynk: Yup. Hehehe
Bio-Death: :)
Bio-Death: problem....SOLVED
bynk: So the problem is his mental problem. And lack of good music in his car.

TOPIC: commentary, society

*** RANT = ON
I usually do not drive from work to home at 8:30 in the morning. (At 6am in the morning you are too groggy to figure out that you are sick, though I did have a suspicion.) Long ago I decided that post 7:30am driving is a drag and decided to get into work at 7am or earlier.

What does this mean? I don't experience the morning rush hour insanity. (A definitely oxymoron, "rush hour".) Everybody wants to go 5 miles an hour faster. This usually means more than 70mph. Today, being sick, I had no tolerance for such foolishness, and got into the slow lane. (Though the slow lane can be insane too; on ramps never ramp you up to 65mpg.)

Though the real insanity exibited itself at highway 12 and Farmers, a place where all traffic diverts through city streets. Occasionaly when I come home I will get the back-up here of 3 to 5 stop light cycles. And this morning was no exception. Though when you see somebody pull to an on ramp, and back down it, you know the insanity has set in.

What is it about highways, people, numerous cars, over a ton of rolling metal, and a rush to get to work that makes people lose their social behaviors? Is it the anonymity? (Eternal unanswered question.) That extra speed, attempt to bypass traffic illegally (off ramps, passing on the right), is never worth the real time or the tempting of a traffic ticket. If you are going 12 miles to work and you speed by 5mph, you only save a minute.

This is part of the reason why I have a dummy webcam in my back car window-- in hopes of beaning people in the head with some sense. It doesn't always do that, but there are a few instances in which it does.

*** RANT=OFF

TOPIC: rant, society

There seems to be an undercurrent regarding security and empowerment, in reaction to such things as the RIAA and the hijinx in our goverment. Heck, I ended up donating to the EFF and using their action center because of the RIAA's draconian ways. Right now this seems mostly at the alpha geek level (aka early adopters); it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

On a weird side note, it seems the EFF action center is using ASP.... somewhat befuddling.

How to Kill Spam Without the State from Slashdot.

How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data

SBC and Verizon are fighting the RIAA's attempts to monitor their customers. (Another from Slashdot)

EFF has just released our analysis of Trusted Computing. "We find that the technology could benefit computer security, but must be fixed to ensure that the computer owner is always in control. We also propose a specific way of fixing it."

Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Insecure Software

TOPICS: tech, politics, privacy

From a Slashdot review on the book "The Map of Innovation":

Business has changed fundamentally since the dot-com boom even if investing hasn't. To be successful in the business world today, you absolutely have to incorporate some sort of technology. If you don't, your competitors will and they will have a lower cost of doing business because of it.

TOPICS: tech, business

The Surprising Benefits of Being Unemployed

I actually thought – and this is really silly when you consider that I've been working in the FEH for nigh on to a thousand years and so should know better – that companies feel the same sense of obligation and duty toward their employees that they insist their employees should feel toward them. If you contribute to your company's success and help it to advance its interests and financial health, often making sacrifices of your own time to do so, then your company will reciprocate by making sacrifices in bad times to take care of you by not depriving you of your paycheck and benefits. That's the way I thought it worked.

Interesting point here. Is there a solution? Or is this just a rant of a guy bit by the current times?

Read the article beyond this part. There are some interesting, sad, and funny observations by David.
(Found this one by way of Slashdot.)

TOPICS: humor, business, politics

Here's an O'Reilly (Not Really) parody that I hadn't seen before, "Designing Perl 6".

TOPICS: Humor, books, tech

100 ways to freak out your roommate

TOPICS: Humor

Once good Nigerian SCO scam deserves another scam, such as the Nigerian Bush spam scam

TOPICS: humor, politics

There seems to be an interesting undercurrent going on about technology right now. Or at least, it has come closer to the current foreground. Interesting that I noticed this today, considering that I just finished watching The Prisoner, a series about individuality and how technology affects us. (Which shows that these concepts are nothing new.)

-------------------------------
Can computers help reverse falling employment?
Capitalism has succeeded in sowing a cornucopia of innovation up and down society. But capitalism is atrocious at distributing the fruits of innovation...

...Anyone who writes programs or plans system deployment should start thinking, "What can I do to bring average people back into the process of wealth creation?"


...There are precedents for this type of thinking. In the 1970s, a movement called participatory design started in Scandinavia to develop technologies that enhanced and strengthened workers' skilled contributions, instead of eviscerating them.

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

Accelerating Change Conference
The first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity.

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

Robotic Nation
Marshall Brain (the guy who started HowStuffWorks) has published an article claiming that robots will take half the jobs in the U.S. by 2050.

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

TOPICS: Robots, Future, Tech

Egad! It's Nigerian SCO Scam!

TOPICS: humor

A good article on Where Do The Recall Candidates Stand for California governor.

TOPICS: politics

Badger Badger Badger!

TOPICS: humor

The Taguchi method sounds interesting. Definitely requires some research into the subject.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030925.html

Taguchi Me This:
How Two Guys From the Gold Country Are Changing Advertising Forever

TOPICS: business, tech

In the process of looking for some JavaScript for a project, I found these great sites.
http://developer.irt.org/script/form.htm#4
http://javascript.internet.com/forms/

TOPICS: tech

http://www.stopabductions.com/

Yes, but if I make a Thought Screen Helmet, how will I live? I will no longer be able to think.

And how do we know the aliens didn't give us the technology to make that so they can control everybody?

Maybe they make us think we aren't being abducted, and THINK that our thoughts are our own.

And my thoughts know that they shouldn't take candy from strange aliens?

TOPICS: tech, humor, SciFi