September 2002 Archives

There is a difference between illegal and unauthorized. Don't let anybody tell you different.

Update: So in the comments, Daniel asked for some more information on my cryptic post. I knew that I couldn't explain it as well as an IP lawyer. So I asked my buddy Fred to help me out.

Q. All illegal uses are unauthorized, but not all unauthorized uses are illegal?

A. I think so, altho I could probably come up with a wacky hypothetical where even an authorized use would violate the law (if the authorizing party didn't have all the rights for example).

Q. But then that begs the questions, what would be unauthorized, yet still legal?

A. Oh, lots and lots. All fair uses are unauthorized, but legal (like making mp3 copies of CDs you buy and putting them on your own iPod). Copies made by libraries for inter-library loan are unauthorized, yet legal. Transmissions of network TV signals on cable TV are often unauthorized, yet legal under a compulsory license. Etc.

So, there it is. In fact, posting these answers from Fred's email, which is a copyrighted work of his, is probably an unauthorized use. But again, I'm not a lawyer, I just hang out with them.

So for all those that are curious about Mike, my step-dad, he is doing just fine. I promised a few of you the funny story behind it all. So here goes...

About a week or so ago Mike had a little swelling in his right leg. He drives a truck, so he get's a lot of chair time. He didn't think too much of it, until is started to bother him a little more. He went into the hospital to get it checked out. They took a look at it and did some poking and prodding and asked him if any of it hurt. "Nope," he answered. They figured it wasn't a blood clot at that point and gave him some drugs to take care of the swelling and back to work he went.

For another week he was at work and it got better, then his leg started getting worse again. Back to the doctor he went. This time they figured they would do a MRI. OMFG! It's a blood clot in his leg! Stop moving! So now all of a sudden, he can't do anything for fear that the clot will break loose and lodge in his noggin (or heart or lungs or his left pinky) and cause a stroke.

Mike isn't the kind who likes to sit still for very long, unless there is a good hunting show on TV. So he's pretty cheesed off. Here he has been working for a week and now they say he can't move around.

Anyway, it's kinda funny...except for the part about the stroke. Ah... American health care. Can't live with it, can't live without it.

So I don't know if this is the first week that ESPN has used it, but they have this nifty new camera for football games. It's really small and it flies about 10-15 yards over the field. Then as the action moves the camera can follow right over the top of it. It give great coverage, much better than the usual sideline camera.

Mike, my step-dad, is in the hospital for a blood clot in his leg. He's fine, unless of course the clot breaks loose and get's lodged in his brain. Then he wouldn't be okay.

Well our winning streak was short lived. We were three points out of the money last night. A bright spot was running the table on the music questions, which almost never happens. It was a team effort with the music, with almost everyone helping out, but I take sole credit for getting the classical piece which was Mozart's Turkish March. It's one of my favorite classical pieces. I think "Josh" was almost offended at how easy the 80's song was (Wild Wild Life from Talking Heads).

At the table this week:

• Adam
• beej
• Champ
• Jerry
• "Josh"
• Pat
• Py

P2P foes defend hacking bill
Supporters angrily defend a proposed law that would permit copyright holders to assail peer-to-peer networks, saying it has been mischaracterized by opponents. [CNET News.com]

Berman and the RIAA are on the media war path trying to paint the opponents of H.R. 5211 as Chicken Little, running around making bogus claims. The EFF, while not mentioned in the above article, is certainly a vocal opponent of this bill. Fred von Lohmann wrote a very clear essay to state the EFF position.

What Berman and the RIAA fail to mention is that the EFF is not against protection of copyright. The EFF is against giving an industry the right to violate the law. I don't find that such an extreme position to take...do you?

Well, not to be outdone, EFF has been on the media war path as well. Catch Cory Doctorow on TechTV's Screensavers talking about the bill. Cory is a great communicator. I'm glad he's on our side.

Music preview: Ladytron
On "Light & Magic," U.K.-based Ladytron deliver '80s electro designed as much for nightclubs as fashion shows. Listen in. [Salon]

"Josh" has been mubling about Ladytron recently as well. I'm really falling behind on new music these days. I still haven't found any Aslan that "kat2" told me to listen to months ago.

The Fire Next Time Tony Fitzpatrick, an S.F.-based engineer and world-renowned authority on tall buildings, says the most reasonable response to the World Trade Center disaster is also one of the simplest: improved fire codes for skyscrapers.

The article goes from the Millenium Bridge in London to the World Trade Center collapse. In both cases getting to the solution first involved making sure you had the right question. It seems obvious, as most good ideas do after you hear them.

Finally the season premiere of The West Wing is here! I can now crawl back into my little fantasy world where the President has an IQ over 110, knows what the Constitution says and doesn't want to destroy the world.

Is it hyperbole? Yeah. Is it sad that I would rather live in a fictional world that has impossibly cool dialogue and way too much soft lighting? Possibly.

For all those that are NBC-impaired I will tape it and then when you watch it I will show off my new found copyright knowledge. Okay, I'm just kidding about that last part.

If you liked "0wnz0red" then go ahead and order Cory's new book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. But don't take my word for it, take Bruce Schneier's or Lawrence Lessig's.

Liberals are in my estimation just not bright people. They don't think deeply; they don't comprehend; they don't understand. ... They have a narrow educational base, as opposed to the hard scientists, Armey said. [abcnews.com via "Rafe"]

Yes folks, that's Dick Armey, our House Majority Leader. Why doesn't he just do things the easy way and instead of singling out every group he finds stupid or deplorable, just say that old, white guys rule? It would save him loads of time.

Enron auction hampers DoveBid site Auctioneer DoveBid has apparently been experiencing heavy Internet traffic, rendering its Web site inaccessible to some people as it begins to auction off the assets of Enron.

I was responsible for Dovebid's first HTML e-mail newsletter. No, I'm not proud of it, but at least it was opt-in only.

I don't know why I find it funny to read about companies that I worked on ads for. Maybe it's just because I'm not used to feeling connected to the news in any real way.

Washington Post: In President's Speeches, Iraq Dominates, Economy Fades...

As much as this sucks for the next two years...it may be our ticket out of this hellish administration. It worked for getting his dad out of office...luckily he doesn't seem to learn from the past.

"kat2" will be happy to know that she will be able to play computer games in Greece again. You still can't gamble online though. Is online gambling in Greece a big probblem. Can all my Greek readers chime in on this issue?

;-)

Now while the government may have a secret law or two, you can get a full listing of the laws the 107th Congress has passed. You can even read the full text of the PATRIOT Act.

Well, at least we can still read the text of our laws without letting the terrorists win.

So once again PWEI came up in random play today. It was a mix from the limited 2-CD remix album Two Fingers My Friends. Of course, it was limited, so you can't buy it anymore. The good news is that the non-limited 1-CD (but import only) version has one of the better remixes on it. The Concrete No Fee, No Fear mix of MENOFEARTHEREAPER is just amazing.

Ha! What a classic dig at "war bloggers" in the latest This Modern World the comic strip. You can find other good digs at This Modern World the weblog.

I have some other politico style rants, but they aren't anything amazing so if I get to them today they will go up, if not you aren't really missing anything.

That's right folks, tonight I hit my first home run. It's was an inside the park home run, but a four-bagger none the less! It was a pretty painful game in many ways. We were doing okay, but not great. When we had calls that were obviously wrong we groaned a little, and the other team would complain that it was "just for fun" and that we should lay off. That is until they were making a comeback in the last inning. Then it was all serious and they could yell at the ref as much as they wanted to. C'est la vie...

It was so much about "fun" that they sent their female players to the plate and told them not swing at anything. I was pitching and walked about 3 women and then I got one strike out and taunted her a little with a wave after the third strike. They didn't like that. But you know, it was all in good fun. Come on. It's co-ed softball. When you are up to bat, take some hacks at the ball. Run the bases. It's fun!

So we went through the regular season and are undefeated. We should be ranked pretty close to first in the playoffs, which may or may not start next week. I'm betting that they screw up the schedule again and that we will be playing all over the city, just like last season.

Anyway...HOME RUN! WOOO!

This weblog is for me. I have a very poor memory and I like to keep track of what I'm doing, what I'm reading, what I'm watching, what I'm listening to, and lots of other things. I do that here. If you are not interested in that I suggest you find something interesting to read. There is a wealth of interesting stuff on the web, so please don't feel like you are wasting your time here. I apologize for my numerous spelling and gramatical errors as well.

Yes, I understand that I could easily do this outside of the public view, but I know there are at least a few people who actually read what I write, so I am compelled to keep on going. Again, if you feel like you are wasting your time here, please move on and don't take offense that I can't offer you a refund on your time.

If you came here via a google search, you probably didn't find the exact bit of information you came for. For this, I offer my humble apology. If you did find what you were looking for, you're welcome. It was my pleasure.

Caine: Why I Hate Personal Weblogs

It's a humorous and interesting read. It can be boiled down to this premise though, there are too many weblogs that suck so there should be no weblogs. Of course, at the end of the rant he mentions that there are a small number of legit uses for weblogs.

He has some silent partners in his rantings, one I know even reads this very weblog, even though it clearly falls into the category of lame weblog. At least "Josh" uses his to post his art and "Mark" uses his to test out new and cool things that can help a large number of people.

I'm sure a majority of people in the weblog community would take offense to this because they are, at least a little, vain. I mean, they are keeping a weblog after all! But as I have explained time and time again, so many times in fact that I should make it a link on the front page, that this weblog is mainly for me. It's my outlet and it happens to be public. So what. You're not forced to read. In fact, if you've made it this far I'm impressed!

I waste nobody's time but my own, but it's mine to waste so let it go.— Ned's Atomic Dustbin

If you really hate weblogs you should stop reading them and come to grips with their existence. I hate mayonaise, so I don't eat it, but I accept that it isn't going away. I don't spend an entire weekend coming up with an essay on all the ways I hate mayonaise and the few acceptable uses of mayonaise, you know, like in tuna fish. Although I admit it would be nice to not have to append no mayo to every food order I make. But still, you get my point.

But I do agree with the author that the word blog is pretty dumb, but no more dumb than PCMCIA.

So it looks like a large chunk of the staff caught some kind of bug/flu/cold at the staff retreat. No, it's not a tumor! It's probably just West Nile...

Well the EFF staff retreat is over. Nobody killed anybody. But it was fun to watch at least 8 people try to use one 56k dialup via an Airport base station.

The EFF staff retreat is happening this weekend. I will be getting pummeled with questions from the board about the new site. Wish me luck.

This is not meant to be a slam, but I didn't realize how cool DayPop really was, until it wasn't working anymore.

The EFF is running an Action Alert to try and get the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2002 repealed. Does this mean the EFF hates protecting children? No. It means the EFF feels that this law doesn't do what it is supposed to do and hinders children from being able to use the Internet as a learning resource.

beej: i love how people pushing the CIPA don't actually care enough about child protection to do one iota of research about filtering software.

Well, the EFF and OPG did do the research, and it wasn't pretty.

Further reading:

• Wired News: Hey Filters, Leave the Kids Alone

So Kat and I were watching TV with Py last night, and a commercial for Knockaround Guys comes on. No big deal really, except that as soon as the bass line started I knew it was MENOFEARTHEREAPER from Dos Dedos Mis Amigos. It's not every day you hear Pop Will Eat Itself on TV.

Seems as though "Josh" was up late again last night putting the finishing touches on a new Icon Based strip. It's only really new in that Josh hasn't drawn it before. Many moons ago bapper and I came up with 5 pages of ideas, hoping there were at least two that Josh would like enough to actually draw. He was a lot pickier in his youth, but over the last 4 or 5 years we have worn him down. So, bapper and I take full responsibility for any sucking sounds emminating from these strips that Josh is dubbing, "The Lost Episodes."

Well this is the first time I've really had to dust off my old job title of Damage Control. I knew it would happen eventually. It does everywhere I go. Sooner or later something happens where I'm the sucker person who steps up and ties things together at the last minute.

The one big problem with that is you set a very bad precedent. When people start thinking that doing damage control is the norm rather than the exception, you have a problem.

I should have given a few stern lectures about the importance of communication, but it's not over yet. Even when it is over, people will need a little cooling off period. But I need to make sure my damage control stays an exception to the norm.

Nothing really makes you appreciate your skin more than having it scrapped off a large section of your body. Yes, I did something stupid at my softball game last night. I slid into second base, with shorts on.

Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal. You see, we play in the Presidio and the field is all grass. But lately the area around the bases has been getting trampled quite a bit and it was mostly mud. Their solution was to dump lots of sand around all the bases. This solved the whole 'mud' problem, but made my mistake all the more painful. I basically sand-blasted my left shin. Yeah, ouch indeed.

But we won, so it's all good.

So I finally tried NetNewsWire. It's pretty cool. It is definately a news reader, and not a weblog helper application. It will import from Radio, which made it very easy to try out. It also comes with a nice, big list of sites you can subscribe to.

The one thing I don't like is that you can't delete items that you've read. You can mark them as read, but that's it. Then every time it gets new stories, they show up as unread. It's like having a mail inbox where you can't delete old messages.

That's one thing I will have in my online news aggreagator. There is a pay version coming out soon and I suspect it will have more weblog helper app type features, like being able to post to a MT weblog from NetNewsWire. But I'm just guessing about that.

The Bush administration guide to achieving consensus. Cartoons on Monday, just like always.

It looks like MT 2.5 will hit the streets this month. The list of features looks very cool. I've been meaning to install MT-Search, but now it will be baked-in. See, procrastination can be a good thing. ;-)

Epic Records Takes Steps to Seal Its Newest Music. The Epic Records Group, a unit of Sony Music, is approaching the sticky problem of prerelease music's being traded online with an even stickier solution. By Chris Nelson. [New York Times: Technology]

What a bunch of maroons! They think that they are going to stop pre-release mp3s by sending reviewers portable CD players that are glued shut and have the headphones glued in as well.

Predictably, one of the reviewers really hated it and cracked the player open to get at the disc.

Mr. Blasengame said he had no intention of making MP3's . "At the same time, if I want to give it a proper review, I'm going to listen to it how I want to listen to it — and in my stereo is where it sounds best," he said.

Are reviewers really the crowd you want to start pissing off? Regardless, there are a few very interesting things here. The first is that protable CD players are truely disposable. The next is that they aren't talking about how effective it is in preventing the music from showing up online. I'm guessing because it hasn't had any effect at all. It's all those damn radio DJs fault!

Another movie for the must see list is 24 Hour Party People. Of course it will have a good great soundtrack. It's about the start of Factory Records!

For those that live in the land of Quicktime, you can check out the trailer at Apple's Movie Trailer site.

But like so many other movies I wanted to see, it looks like I missed my window for seeing it in a movie theater. Oh well, that's what I have NetFlix for.

For a Sunday, there is entirely too much that could potentially happen today. Adam wants to play tennis, "kat2" wants to meet up at the Parkway Theatre for some movies and beer, and let's not forget football on TV all day.

I don't know if I can handle all this action on a Sunday...I'm not a church-going person, but that whole day of rest thing is starting to sound very appealing.

The Church of Pat sounds pretty good...

Okay. Going into San Francisco on a Saturday night, still sucks. The traffic is bad. The parking is worse.

The good news is that Kat got Jax and Daxter for her birthday. It's a Spyro like game, only harder. Why does everything on the PS2 have to be harder? I'm doing okay in the first few levels, but I can see where my skills are going to run out very quickly.

GPGMail is a complete hack, relying on Mail's private internal API. Use it at your own risks!

Heh. Translation: When the next big Mail update comes out, this will break. Regardless of its hackiness, it kicks ass over the AppleScript/GPG/Entourage setup.

Why use it all you ask? Well, I have it setup to answer eff.org mail. I don't typically encrypt the mail, but I do sign most webmaster email that I send out.

Seems as though The Transporter is only opening to a limited release today. I assume this means Los Angeles and New York. Wide release doesn't happen until October 11th. Damn it! Oh well, I guess I'll just kick back tonight with the 3rd disc from the Sopranos 2nd season set.

This will probably only appeal to "kat2", but I thought it was cool. There will be a DVD box set called The Young Ones - Every Stoopid Episode. A very appropriate title.

The Young Ones was probably my first introduction to British humor. For some reason MTV was playing a lot of brit humor. I only seemed to tune into The Young Ones and not Monty Python's Flying Circus. What can I say? I lead a sheltered childhood.

Team Gonzo was welcomed back into the ranks of trivia winners last night. Finally.

Playahs:

• beej
• Champ
• "Josh"
• Kat
• Pat
• Py

We racked up 51 points, and first place was right above us at 52. We missed a few that we probably should have got. But we are going to be happy with our 2nd place finish.

In other trivia news, Howard's book,Trivia Café: 2000 Questions For Parties, is out.

Man, somebody at Apple, or whoever is entering the data for the new iCal Library, typos as bad as I do.

Yeah, yeah. Let he who is without sin...

But this shot does remind you all that The Transporter is opening tomorrow! Kick ass!

The Get Up Kids is a band that I found through eMusic, when I was still a unlimited member. I didn't listen to them a whole lot at the time, and I really only downloaded them because when I was on the Millencolin page, it said I should download them too. Since I was a member I could download as much as I wanted every month for $10, so why not.

But their songs have been coming up in random mode a lot and they are really starting to grow on me. Good pop/punk stuff.

Well, we made it. Lots of people went on "blogging" yesterday, like everything was normal. That's a good thing. I didn't, for a number of reasons. None of which y'all care about. What I did do was go back through the old junk I just imported and cleaned up the formatting a bit. Some still have titles that are a bit jacked up, but that will just have to stay that way. I left all the spelling and grammatical errors in. Just so you know that I'm improving, how ever so slightly it may seem. Go back and read some of the 2001 archives. Actually, don't do that. It was painful for me to see some of the mistakes I made.

"Josh" was quite suprised to see that I've had a weblog for that long. When I was working at Freestyle I didn't really advertise it. I used the weblog to help myself deal with the stress I was going through at the time. Even though I don't mention any companies or people by name, well...who knows. Luckily it never got me in trouble.

Josh has been going through the archives and he said that he got the general feeling from the posts because he knew the situation, and even worked on some of the projects with me. That's when I understood that if I want to be a good writer I will have to be able to convey that same information without the reader having all the same experiences as me or people around me.

Now all the people who already know how to write will roll their eyes and scream "D'uh!" But as a person who has never had any training as a writer, I was rather proud of myself for discovering it on my own. Of course, my next step has to be to actually get that information into my work. My first step will be to go back and re-read the stories that are still in Radio format and see where and how I could make them better.

"Kim" was always a big help as a mentor and an editor, but she is in LA now and I hate to bug her with junk like that. I really miss Kim. No matter how bad things were she always had a smile and tried her damndest to make you smile as well, even if she had to guilt you into it.

I'm starting to miss the Freestyle folks a lot. It's not that my new co-workers are not all cool, funny, dedicated and incredibly smart, because they are all that and more. It's just that I spent a good part of my "formative years" with the people at Freestyle. For almost three years nobody quit or was laid off. We were pretty tight and we all felt like we were looking out for each other. Now even though we have IM and email, it's just not the same as coming into the office and throwing things at one another, or saving the day for an account manager/producer. It does make it even more special for the few that I do still get to see on a regular basis though.

Enough rambling...

So today is Kat's birthday. We are going out to eat tonight. Hopefully tomorrow won't be too bad for her. Her birthday will always be September 10th. Ugh.

I went back and read my posts from September 11, 2001, now that I've got them in MT. I'm going to take a break from the weblog tomorrow. It's not a "day of silence" or my memorial. I just don't want to get caught up in all the crap. I've been slowing down recently anyways. I need to re-charge a little.

It's going to be tough enough to just deal with the gravity of the situation. Tomorrow will be a good day to not read the news or watch TV. Hopefully NetFlix will come through for me.

This Modern World. What the president has learned since 9/11. [Salon.com]

Well, not quite. But tonight they beat the Dodgers 6 to 5 and are now tied for the wild card playoff spot.

Honestly, around the time of the strike dead-line, I thought they were finished. It seemed like they had packed it in. But they are certainly pulling off quite a comeback.

Go Giants!

Man, talk about starting off on the wrong foot. In week 1 I picked a horrid 5 out of 15 games, so far. Luckily there is only one game left and I don't have many points riding on it. I'm already in second to last place in the family pool. Oh well...no where to go but up!

First week is always a killer since pre-season records mean absolutely nothing. Next week looks like it will have some tough picks as well.

That Cleveland/Kansas City game was BS though! But rules are rules and that guy should have kept his helmet on, even though the game was over. Too bad you can't review penalties.

Test Frogdart. Test of using enclosures to post new mp3 bits.. [ModWheel]

Good news Kuch, Kat said it sounded like "Sypro music, only slower." Hey, it's a video game! Just ask Py.

Powell Defends a First Strike as Iraq Option. The secretary of state said that the Bush administration has been unfairly characterized as unilateralist and opposed to treaties. By James Dao. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

It's not so much a characterization as a statement of fact. I'm sure Ari would spin it such that the Bush administration is for "good" treaties. But to ignore the fact that nobody else in the world is supporting an attack on Iraq is stupid. If Bush thinks that war time will help his chances of a re-election, he better look at what this "war" will do to the economy.

You may have noticed that the archive list suddenly got longer. I finally managed to sit down with python long enough to get my entries from pberry.weblogger.com into MT. Now it's officially all in one place, the Old Junk category. I now have proof that I'm not a total bandwagon weblogger.

So if you need a very poorly written python 2 script for converting manila-exported xml files into MovableType format import files, let me know.

ThinkGeek :: Mouse Bungee Enjoy relief from the constant interruptions caused by mouse cord drag and snags. Most importantly, improve your aim and gaming consistency.

Ummm, yeah...gotta love the animated gif on the page though.

eBay item 2139094055 (Ends Sep-13-02 17:23:45 PDT ) - Wil Wheaton's Barney-Beating Boxing Gloves That's right: we're auctioning Wil Wheaton's boxing gloves.

The money goes to the EFF. BID NOW!

Wow. So I checked mac.com for the first time in a while and there is a bunch of free stuff! You can get 100 4x6 prints using iPhoto. You can download Alchemy from Popcap Games. If this keeps up, $100 will seem rather cheap.

Centre Daily Times | 09/01/2002 | Editor's File | A letter to Coulter Dear Ann Coulter: You're fired. [via Rafe]

Did you know that Hooters has a magazine? [TheFlangyNews News]

Nope. I sometimes wonder how AdamV finds all of these links, but then I remember that this is the Internet and of all the silly urls that I get in email and irc...

WAGHOTD:

big red button

2nd page hit, but fun none the less.

So I never really followed the history of RSS much. But like most things that involve Dave Winer, there is always more than two sides to the stick.

Mark tried to give a brief summary of the fork in the road of RSS. It's a lot longer than a CHANGELOG though, so you've been warned.

Then Aaron Swartz, who has been working on a ton of projects , made what I can only describe as a good natured jab at Winer in his post about the simplicity of RSS 3.0.

Nothing like the Net to allow people to get together and argue. I mean, who needs family reunions anymore? ;-)

But anyway, I hope you all like the RSS 3.0 feed. Again with thanks to Mark Pilgraim for the MT template.

So this morning I was in Cupertino at an Apple UNIX seminar that focused on 10.2 Server and XServe hardware. They have a cool system. They covered mainly marketing points at first and then we took a break and the real hardware dissection began.

They did a survey of the hardware improvements Apple has made to the 1U server hardware. They showed the benchmarks where they trounced the "tier one" vendors. That was always a very important point. Apple doesn't compete against the corner shop that will sell you a 1U server, they go up against Dell, IBM, Sun, etc...

The software tools they had to manage/monitor the server were also very cool, and very Apple. Apple spends so much time dealing with tiny interface issues that you don't notice at first. In fact, sometimes you don't notice them until you go to a non-Apple computer and then you suddenly can't live without them. It's an important part of how Apple stays in business.

There were a lot of grump people there that had bought XServe hardware before 10.2 and didn't really feel like paying the full price for 10.2. There was an attempt to explain that a point-release is a really big release in the UNIX world. This isn't like going from IE 5.0 to IE 5.1. This is a huge jump. People were still pissed, and I heard a few stories of people who raised enough hell that they got special pricing. YMMV.

I really hated not having an Airport card in my TiBook. I don't have any wireless stuff at home, and I don't bring my laptop to work since I have the iMac now. But I see how it would have been handy to grab some of Apple's bandwidth. I have an Apple Airport card, but the TiBook is such a huge hassle to take apart it isn't worth it to me. The Apple cards will also not work in the PCMCIA slot. I found that out after 5 minutes of futzing around and finally checking with the knowledge base. I found Document 58500 and it explained that I was a moron for putting the Airport card in the PCMCIA slot.

So now I guess I'm in the market for a PCMCIA wireless card that will work in a TiBook...

ARGH! Are we the new way to determine where the cutoff for the money is? Money was at 50, we got 49. kat2 where are you?!?!

Roll call:

• Adam
• Champ
• Meredith (Py's sister)
• Pat
• Py

If only we knew the names of the two bozos left on American Idol...or even the wife of JFK Jr. What can I say...we're just dumb some weeks.

Burning Your Own DVD's. DVD players that can record are finally an affordable reality. Now, if only there were agreement on a format. By Wilson Rothman. [New York Times: Technology]

The answer is SuperDrive+iDVD of course! Burn a DVD that will play in your mom's DVD player. No hassle. No fuss. The author seemed to feel that iDVD was the only software he tested that let me do exactly what he wanted. Most of the article focuses on the pleathora of DVD recordable formats though. Yawn...

RSS 2.0. RSS 2.0 does not exist yet. It is the code name for a proposed merging of the RSS 0.9x and RSS 1.0 branches. It is basically RSS 0.9x + modules (imported via XML namespaces). RSS 2.0 is an attempt to maintain a core of simplicity (the greatest strength of RSS 0.9x) while allowing for the extensibility of decentralized module development (the greatest strength of RSS 1.0). [dive into mark]

Mark rocks. It's not because this was an incredibly hard thing to do, but because he did it and gave us all the MT template so we could do it with no effort at all.

Vertical Hold in RSS 2.0.

IMAGE OF THE DAY: ICON-BASED (09/04/02)The rule seems to be that Mtn. Dewd has to be shaking his fists in frustration by the 3rd or 4th panel. Hey, it's a winning formula! [Golabutron 3000]

Awesome. I know it's pretty vain to post art that's based on me, but I don't care. I love it when Josh gets into drawing comics. It's a lot of work, and he is always too hard on himself about the end result. Plus, it's not easy trying to come up with good ideas, or rather ideas that Josh thinks are worthy of his talents. ;-) But the world is a better place with more art, especially if it's based on me.

Two words: wookie style.

Read Comments It was a huge hassle to extract them, though, because they really went above and beyond the call of duty to try and make batch downloads impossible. But my kung fu is strong and defeated their javascript and cookie games. Har har har. Is not fair fight, you go back, get six more guys.

This is a post in Jaime's thread about getting album covers for his Gronk mp3 jukebox software.

From Here to Infinity: Obsessing With the Magic of Primes. Studying primes, those mathematical quarks from which all numbers are made, is a game anyone can play, and become obsessed with. By George Johnson. [New York Times: Science]

I've gotten lost in quite a few conversations once the subject got to primes. I mean, I understand why they are neat, and it was cute to see it at work in Cryptonomicon and all...but it's just way beyond me. Maybe I just suck at that part of math.

Nasa finds missing space probe. The US space agency says its missing Contour space probe is now orbiting the sun, but researchers have not yet made contact with it. [BBC News | SCI/TECH]

Voyager going strong 25 years on. Twenty five years after they were launched the twin Voyager spacecraft are trying to escape the Solar System. [BBC News | SCI/TECH]

They just don't make 'em like that anymore do they?

Hixie's Natural Log Having said that, I, like many others, have found my own way of sharing every experience, however mundane, to validate [my] actions. It's called a Web log.

Another interesting weblog pointed to by Mark.

You gotta love any entry that has Americans are fat.

Napster, you've come a long way baby.

Napster faces liquidation. A US court blocks the sale of Napster to German media group Bertelsmann¸ almost certainly killing the online music service. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]

It's a tie for WAGHOTD.

American Beauty explained

skee ball patent

RSS tutorial. Mark Nottingham: RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters. (39 words) [dive into mark]

This will come in handy since it sounds like I may be rolling my own CMS for the new EFF site.

Powell Cites 'Real' Divide Internally on Iraq Policy [Washington Post: Front Page]

What if Powell quits? Who would be, what I perceive to be the voice of reason? Who would continue the world-wide apology tour that Powell headlines everytime Bush decides that he likes being the 800lb gorilla?

Some would say that he has been ineffective and it wouldn't matter if he quit. I say that his job as a statesman is impossible with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld going around pissing in everybody's pond. Yet it is still important for other countries to think that there is somebody in the Bush administration who they feel they can reason with. I'm sure if he quit he would be replaced with somebody more in lock-step with Cheney/Bush.

One would think that somebody as smart as Powell would have known what he was getting into with this administration. I feel bad for the guy. I like his politics. I don't like his boss though.

Rumsfeld's Search for a Way to Fight a New Type of Foe. In a recent interview reflecting on events since Sept. 11, the defense secretary said he wants to change the U.S. military so it can better fight a "virtual enemy." By Thom Shanker. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Good thing the search for a good "Missile Defense Shield" still continues...maybe we can even get one that is 90% accurate.

Simon backs off on gay rights [San Francisco Chronicle]

Putting another nail in his own coffin. His strategy seems to be flawed a bit. He is losing at the polls, he knows the far right would rather eat horse turds than vote for Davis, and yet he chases away voters who might, or might not vote for him. Whatever...

tree hugging hippie crap

Gotta love being a top 10 hit for that. Eric Cartman would be proud.

If you do a lot of photography, could you help beej out by rating his folder of shots at photo.net?

Hopefully he will pass on any knowledge he gains to help me out as well.

P.S. My laptop has malfunctioning "i" and "k" keys. I'm not just a lousy speller. [She's Actual Size, Nationwide, Believe]

You're just a lousy speller...
I'm an exceptionally lousy speller!

With appolgies to Alan Rickman and his character, Hans Gruber, in Die Hard.

Logic Audio For MacOSX [MacSlash: A daily dose of Macintosh News and Discussion]

As will all 10 other people who know how to use this program. ;-)

Sweet!

Hit of the Day: sears 5 hp ted williams carburator

Yeah. Huh?

The runner-up is an oldie but a goodie: "goth porn". It's a page 5 link, so this person must have been pretty desperate.

Congrats to "kat2" for breaking into the top 10 on Salon Blog Rankings! It must be all the clicks from "Kuch", Dale, and "Josh".

So on Thursday I went to lunch with Josh and then we stopped by Rasputin's to get some tunes. Luckily with the drive to Chico I got a chance to listen to three of the four things I picked up.

First up is Paul Oakenfold: Bunkka. As far as I know, this is Oakenfold's first album of his own stuff. There are some great tracks on here and almost every track has a guest vocalist. Some of my favorites are with Perry Farrel and Ice Cube. I was blaring the Ice Cube song "Get em up" today when beej and "Josh" were riding with me by Steve's new place and beej was freaking out, thinking that three "white boys" driving around Oakland with Ice Cube bumpin' were going to get shot. I laughed at him, then skipped to the next track. Overall a great CD, pick it up if you "techo" with vocals.

Next up is Reel Big Fish: Cheer Up. If you've never heard anything from Reel Big Fish other than "Sell Out" you should really consider grabbing Why Do They Rock So Hard? because it's got some great rock/ska songs. It's like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, without the gravely voice.

Anyway, this new album picks up right where they left off, only this time there is less screaming. It's a good thing. Overall, a great rock/ska CD.

Finally we have Stereos MCs: Deep Down & Dirty. Yes, everyone thought they were one hit wonders, and they may have been right. But I like the smooth style they have on this album. Its got good tracks after you get past the really good title track. Overall a good brit-rap CD. Pick it up if you liked Connected from their album 10 years ago.

The one CD that I haven't gotten a good chance to listen to is Orbital: Back to Mine. It's not an album of original work, but a mix album. I picked it up because I'm a bit of a completist. Nothing to be that proud of, let me tell you. I also found out from Dave (Steele) that there is an Orbital best-of called Work 1989-2002 which has single edits of all their "hits" from that time period. Good thing I'm not that much of a completist or I would have to shell out for stuff I already have...plus Dave may score me a copy. ;-)

"But if we do get to summon up the big daddy with the horns and the tail, he gets to bring his own liquor, his own bird, and his own pot."

This is a sample from a remix of Pop Will Eat Itself's MENOFEARTHEREAPER off Two Fingers My Friend. I have no idea where it came from. Anybody got a clue?

Today I helped Steve and Kara move into their new digs. Luckily I wasn't the only one there to help. I got a great shot of beej during our lunch break:

What can you say but, "oh my." Speaking of beej, did you know he was King of the Movers?

I have a few more photos that need to get put up, but I'm dead tired. I can only imagine how Steve and Kara are faring right now. Moving sucks. But at least they are moving into a place that is their own.

Speaking of which, over the weekend Kat and I went to some open houses with the moms. We went back to one we had already been to. We would love to grab it, but it just isn't the right time. We need to put in a little more time in the bay area, then go visit some other countries. Then we can look for jobs up north. I would love to keep my current job and work remotely. I would even come down for a couple of days a week to put in some "face time" if they would let me do it.

I know, I swore I would never telecommute again. But with my job it really doesn't matter where I am, especially now that the web server isn't even in the office anymore. Hrm, the webserver gets to telecommute but I don't...how fair is that? ;-)

HOWNOTTO. Adam Guttentag: How not to get a job at Apple. (74 words) [dive into mark]

Mark links to this story about trying to obtain employment at Apple, in Cupertino no less. I certainly can empathize. One summer I lived in Sunnyvale and commuted to Palo Alto, to work at the HP mothership. I longed to work at Apple, but I also knew that I had nothing to offer them. Well, except my wonderful personality and my good looks of course.

This Modern World. The optimist's guide to war with Iraq. [Salon.com]

"look at my wing-span"

Gotta love that hit.

Dude where's my car enthusiasts is a close second though.