June 2004 Archives
This stuff is too much...
Now imagine John Kerry there with Hitler. John Kerry with his dour, pessimist face and his dour, pessimist opinions. "Oh, Hitler's leading us into a quagmire," he'd say. "Oh, Hitler's killing innocent men, women and children by the millions," he'd go on. What a cosmic buzzkill! The Third Reich would never get anywhere if it was made of John Kerrys! Which only leads Giblets to conclude that on pessimism grounds, John Kerry is WORSE THAN HITLER!
I cannot read Fafblog with out breaking out in hysterical laughter, followed by tears.
In reaffirming the fundamental right to be free from involuntary confinement without due process of law, the Supreme Court has gravely endangered Freedom by allowing some of it in the hands of those who would destroy it.
Update: I should give credit to Mr DeLong as Nicomachus did.
I'm almost done watching the broadcast of Jobs' keynote. The one thing that struck me, and I'm sure this isn't new, is that the people in the audience get really excited about the polish. Anyone can do technology, but only a few know how to really put that polish on the technology to make it digestible to normal folk. Apple excels at this and it seems as if it's the only thing the crowd is looking for. I'm sure most of them understand that without the polish Apple doesn't have a huge advantage over other technology providers.
A number of friends have made the jump, or will soon be making the jump, to Apple. The general response that I heard was, "it was cool, it just worked." Coming from a system where you have to configure XFree86 and your sound card with kernel modules, I doubt that is really a high bar though. Some even appreciated the polish that Apple put on the packaging. Others thought it was a waste. But the one thing that it did reinforce for both groups was that this wasn't some hunk of junk that you aren't going to care about. This is your new piece of Apple Gear™ and it's going to rock and that is why we had to make our own twist ties for the power cords because regular twist ties weren't worthy of being wrapped around your new gear.
Now to the Dashboard v. Konfabulator dustup. I don't care. I think the outrage is quite faux though. Hopefully Hyatt will have more to say in the coming days, after he gets some sleep. Plus, it really only got a minute or two in the entire keynote. Chill. (Update: John Gruber weighs in.)
Automator. I can only hope this will finally let me utilize AppleScript to make my life easier. I hope it's like browser tabs, something that once I use it I will never go back to life without it because it simply makes my life a lot easier. I think that's a pretty big wish though. But it does have a really cool icon, so bonus polish points up front on that.
The nice legal gnomes at EFF have setup an action alert to let your senators know that you think the INDUCE Act is a bad idea. Why do you think it's a bad idea? Because it would be easy to sue Apple for making the iPod.
Apple's iPod music player seemed particularly vulnerable to attack. Any major record label could bring a strong lawsuit against Apple for "intentionally inducing" infringement under this new law with the iPod, both because it's plausible to argue that having an iPod enhances the lure of using P2P to download music (gotta fill all that space!) and because all the major record labels still believe that private sharing of songs from your CDs with friends is copyright infringement. We still disagree with the labels on these points, but the reality is that no court has yet convinced them that their legal theories are flawed. We also threw in Toshiba for making the iPod's hard drive and CNET for showing people how to move the iPod's music files.
That's just one example though. Do they even understand the laws they write?
"Are they too dishonest or too gullible? Take your pick."
Read the whole speech. It rocks.
Polling Report has an interesting poll on Clinton's job approval
"Thinking back to when Bill Clinton was in office, would you say you approve or disapprove of the way Clinton handled his job as president?"
He's up to 62% from 55% at the same time last year. It must be because Bush is doing some a great job...
Today Comcast shows up to install a cable modem. Next month my year of SBC DSL is up and I can give them the finger cancel my service.
Update: Well, it's a bit spotty right now. Hopefully it's just early rollout jitters...still, even when it sucks it's better than what I had with DSL.
What do you do with those nearly useless CF cards that came with your first digital camera? I'm talking about cards in the 4, 8, and 16MB range. I did a quick, cursory search of Ask Slashdot and didn't come up with anything.
The time has come to purge my aging laser disc collection in favor of CSS crippled DVDs. Boy, do I love lock-in! I'm sure glad the DVD-CCA is there to keep me honest. I'm giving first dibs to loyal readers and googlers, then it goes to eBay or the trash.
This is just a list with prices. If you want specifics about any disc(s) please drop me a note. Shipping will be extra and I will use whatever shipping you want. I can take PayPal payments.
Akira - The Criterion Collection$30- Erasure - Wild! $5
Evil Dead 2 - Dead By Dawn (limited edition blood red LD)$25- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade $7
- Love and Rockets - The Haunted Fish Tank $5
- Ministry - In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (Live) $7
- Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Nothing Is Cool - Japanse LD $25
Opus n' Bill in A Wish For Wings That Work$5- Pet Shop Boys - Discovery Live In Rio $25
Pet Shop Boys - Television - Japanese LD $20- Pet Shop Boys - Various $20
- Pet Shop Boys - Videography $7
- Pulp - F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.I.V.E. - Recorded Live at the Brixton Academy - Japanese LD $25
- R.E.M. - Parallel $7
- R.E.M. - Tourfilm $7
- Raiders of the Lost Arc $7
- Star Trek - First Contact $7
Star Trek TNG - The Borg Collective$30Star Wars - The Definative Collection (THX Box set)$95- Strange Brew $7
- They Might Be Giants - The Videos 1986-1989 $15
Tron - Exclusive Archive Collection box set$60
Wrong anywhere really. If you haven't already read Cory Doctorow's "OMFG I'm talking to MSFT about DRM" talk, you really should. There are enough "arrrr!" references to keep any pirate happy.
Read it and then if you aren't an EFF member, join up so you can help Cory continue to do more talks like this.
"...standard interfaces that anyone can build for are what makes billionaires out of nerds."
"Compared to anti-trust people, copyright lawmakers are pantywaists."
"Because if you don't do it, someone else will."
So Lessig declared e-mail bankruptcy, not from too much spam but from too much legitimate e-mail. I know a lot of people who get way too much legit e-mail. Hell, everyone on the EFF staff probably gets too much e-mail. But the problem is double-sided.
I know that these people have e-mail problems. Not only do they have e-mail problems, but they have time problems as well. Look at Lessig and Cory Doctorow's schedules. They are everywhere talking to everyone about everything. But they are friends, coworkers or close acquaintances and I like communicating with them. But since they are friends, coworkers or close acquaintances I don't want to burden them any more than they already are. Any kind of communication with these people will suck up at least a tiny bit of their valuable time. What is a person to do?
In the case of Cory, I hardly ever send him anything. I know he somehow finds time to read stuff I post here, and it feels really good knowing that he is willing to spend his precious time reading what I write. (I promise you that I don't pimp my own posts to Cory to get them on boingboing, although it rocks when it happens!) But I feel bad that sometimes I steal his time. I have a theory, which I might expand on later, that Cory is a robot or perhaps a cyborg with a heart of gold. He consumes more information than anyone I know.
Now Lessig is a different beast, as he at least has assistants. A good friend of mine in Australia wanted to find a way to see if Larry could speak at an event in the Land Down Under™. He knew that I "knew" Larry, although I don't know if 'worked at EFF' really counts as knowing Larry. (I did have the privilege to sit across the table from him and right next to Jim Griffin at an EFF dinner, which was a real treat!) Anyways, my friend knew that trying to contact Lessig was very hard if you weren't in his 'web of trust,' and even then the chances of making contact weren't 100%.
Fred von Lohmann, also an EFF staffer, who is buried under e-mail, voicemail, and Home Theater magazines is somebody I love talking to. I used to be able to steal his time by walking to his office, stand in his doorway and asking him about music, copyright, and the joy of Macintosh ownership. I loved that. I felt bad about stealing his time, but if he was really pressed for time he would shut his door and that would be the sign that there was no time for music chat. You can't really shut your office door on your e-mail. The queue of e-mail would grow and grow and you would have the same problem once you opened your door again.
The problem I, and many other people, have is how do I maintain communication with people who are in different physical locations and are having their communication channels severely overloaded? How can my ability to communicate with them be protected from their bankruptcy? I don't think this is a selfish request as I feel I've made it clear that I respect the fact that these people have a finite amount of time and a seemingly infinite amount of communication to deal with.
"But the vast majority were kind enough to simply remain silent."
This modern world...
The 9-11 Commission site has a few bad links. They know about them and are working on getting them corrected. For now here are the correct links to the latest files:
Folks, if you don't like the Pixies you just don't like rock n' roll. iTunes Music Service has their first recording in thirteen years, Bam Thwok. I'm sure it's on the P2P nets if you morally object to buying stuff from iTMS.
What does it sound like? It's sounds like the Pixies. What's comforting to me is that is does not sound like The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes or any of the other bands that have supposedly "saved" rock n' roll. The Pixies could crush them all with their little toes.
That being said, Kim Deal does most of the vocals. So depending on how much you like Kim's vocals, your milage may vary. I personally think it rocks, but then I like Trompe Le Monde so my judgment may not be as sound as others. Also there is now a Pixies DVD with just a ton of stuff. There is a live show, all the videos, and more. Damn, how did I miss that?
I was showing my Hawai`i Best Of photos to my boss and we were talking about the story that goes along with each photo. So I decided to go ahead an put the story with the photo, as well as include some context photos that didn't make the best-of cut. I'll try and do at least one a day.
The photo above is taken on the south shore of Kauai at Port Allen Airport. We were there to take a powered hang glider flight. Think of a hang glider, but instead of a sling that only one person can fit in there is a frame that holds two seats and an engine with a prop. It's sounds sketchier than it is.
Anyway, after filling out forms that said no matter how we died it wasn't Birds in Paradise's fault and nobody could sue them over our death, wrongful or not, Kat got into the flight suit and prepared for take off. It's very simple, there are two seats in the rig. The passenger takes the back seat and the pilot takes the front seat. That's it. Until you get off the ground of course.
Kat's ride was going to be about an hour. We both forgot our books to read while we waited for the other, so all I had to occupy my time was my camera. The airport itself was not much of an airport. It was more of an airfield, with only a runway and a few makeshift buildings for the helicopters to land next to. I started to wander around looking for shots. I took a number of shots back into the mountains which turned out horrible. The clouds were coming in but it was also sunny in patches which wreaked havoc with my poor Canon S110.
Right past the airfield is a nice little beach. On my walk down there I took the artsy fence shot above. I really wanted to contrast the deep red soil against the sky. It was pretty early in the morning so the sky at the horizon was still a pale blue and not the dark blue I wished it had been. I framed the fence in to try and give some perspective and depth to the shot. It's not perfect by any means, but I thought it was a good shot.
I was about halfway down the road to the beach when I noticed the rain clouds were coming in very fast. I headed back to the BiP HQ, which was just a tarp over a frame and a couple of plastic chairs. Right as I got back a short downpour hit. It's Hawai`i, you just have to expect this with the weather there.
Kat came back not too long after that and I hopped in for my hour long flight. It was full of amazing views. Luckily there was a wing mounted camera. Unluckily for us now, I haven't gotten the film developed yet. I'm sure some of those shots will make it into the Best Of section.
Anybody who maintains a weblog should check in with today's User Friendly. I'd say it's pretty spot on. I should point out that I detest the usage of the word 'blog' and use 'weblog' except in the case of proper names. But hey, clearly I'm in the jaded, cynical minority, as for better or worse 'blog' has entered the general technology lexicon. The market has spoken. (via Prometheus 6)
While I'm at it, I also detest the work 'wiki,' but at least it was short and dumb to begin with.
The first rule of upgrading Windows is don't talk about upgrading Windows. The second rule of upgrading Windows is don't talk about upgrading Windows. Yesterday I violated both of those rules.
For as long as Windows has existed, it has despised me as much, if not more, than I have despised it. The latest adventure really started last year when I tried to upgrade Windows 2000 Pro to Windows XP. I was foolish and bought an XP Home Upgrade package, which promptly gave a blue screen crash on boot. At least it was kind enough to crash before it had ravaged my current install.
815 pages in 63 days. A long, hard slog indeed. I'm starting to get used to this series though. It still doesn't beat out Cryptonomicon in my mind. Up next, The System of the World, due out October 1, 2004. Then I'll have to re-read Cryptonomicon again just to get a handle on Enoch Root again.
Atrios with the money shot: "If they can do it to Padilla, they can do it to you." Everyone should remember that. The reason why you should always be wary of taking away the freedoms of other people is that one day the other person could be you. So the next time you think about sticking up for holding people indefinitely without legal counsel, ask yourself if you would like to be held without access to a lawyer or our justice system. The next time you think it's okay to administer electric shocks to people, ask yourself if you would like to be picked up at random and have electric shocks administered to you.
I know it's a huge mind-stretch for most people to even think about putting themselves in the shoes of the "other person." But if we don't start soon, we may blow the whole thing.
Last year sometime I heard a story on NPR talking about the origin of the 8 glasses of water a day myth. They figured it was based on some calculations made from the average number of calories the body burns a day. I haven't bothered trying to find the story in their archive, but I did come across an interesting WebMD article that lays out the myths and the evidence.
- Myth No. 1: We need to drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day
- Myth No. 2: Caffeinated beverages make you dehydrated
- Myth No. 3: By the time you feel thirsty, you're already becoming dehydrated
- Myth No. 4: Drinking plenty of water can help you lose weight
Yes, water is good for you. You should drink water. That's why you get thirsty, to put it in the most simplistic terms possible of course. I just get really tired of people throwing the '8 glasses/2 liters a day' myth at me with nothing to back it up other than they 'heard it somewhere once.'
Water is just like everything else the body needs. It's best in moderation and in quantities that are right for your body. Too much water can harm you. Not enough water will obviously kill you. Obey your thirst™.
Greg "The Kuch" Kucharo was looking for the "boingboing of audio" and couldn't find it. So he's making it himself. If you are interested in music, visit Modwheel.
So our first Hawaiian vacation is now history. The weather was great, albeit a tad windy. I got some great photos. I picked up for print shirts and Kat got some sarongs. Most of the time we spent on the beach or in the rental car going to yet another fabulous photo-op.
I broke down and paid $7 for a day of Internet access. At least I think I'm only on the hook for one day. I should really make sure I'm not still getting charged.
We were on the island of Kauai, which is one of the oldest islands in the chain. It was pretty low key, even in the bigger cities. Which was nice, because even the low key tourism is still pretty touristy. The Blue Book that Greg insisted we buy was the best resource we had. If you go, I also recommend it.
'Time Is Right to Move On,' C.I.A. Director Tells Employees
Now, while the entire world wonders what those "personal" reasons were, I happen to have the inside scoop. Yes, it's true. Little ol' me got the goods from a little birdie in Kauai. ABC will soon announce that George Tenet will be the newest member of the Monday Night Football broadcast team. Shocking, but true. And by true I mean completely made up. It certainly sounds better than "personal reasons."
