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Another day passed on - 6 March 2007
Mar. 7th, 2007 02:28 amPuttered about for a bit today - some things still got done, mind you, but there was definitely not a gigantic “zomg! Projects and papers all done, hahahahaha!” today. I’m still thinking about how I want to go about fliers and what to put on them, along with that Rails project that’s going to stare me in the face from here on out. Can I subcontract out to a dedicated staff at some point this month? Please? I’ll survive it, I’m sure, I just have to get motivated to keep doing things after other things are completed and worked on. And I’ll probably so what I normally do - panic unnecessarily until it’s all done in a flurry and go “I still had time to do this, didn’t I? So why did I panic again?” I think, though, over the years, that I’ve gotten a little bit better about not needlessly panicking. Maybe as the years go by, I’ll get even better about it. We can hope, anyway.
As many are reported across the blog and regular news - I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been convicted on four of the five federal charges he faced. Which are all things like obstruction of justice and perjury. The criminal parade in the Bush Administration continues.
Salon has a very interesting story about a parent who wants her biracial kids to learn their heritage, but doesn't want to force it on them, and the sort of thoughts and actions that result from that desire to have the kids know both sides of the coin, but naturally, rather than artificially. I think she’ll find a way.
Wal-Mary may soon be feeling some of the difficulties that arise from being the only shop in town. In Houston, the decision to close the fabric section has sparked a campaign of angry craftspeople. Sine that Wal-Mart is the only place some of the residents can get fabric without driving into San Antonio, closing that section makes it harder for them to do their crafting. And this is over what could be considered “trivial” (although it’s not - there’s a whole cabal of craftsters lurking about). I wonder what sort of ire will appear if they should close something the general populace around them would consider important. Still, if there were any small shops looking to start in the area, it might be a good time to open for business...
That weird Canadian band, Barenaked Ladies, is up to no good (by the RIAA’s standards) again - they’ve partnered up with Amie Street, a site offering a music service where the popularity of the music determines the price. So for a little bit, while still in obscurity, as it were, even BNL is available for free. Oh, and there’s no DRM attached, either. I wonder how this model will turn out - it’ll certainly be an interesting thing to watch. There may have been a small Slashdot effect to the place as all the BNL fans tried very hard to get free copies of the latest album, but the site is up and working when I looked at it. Amiestreet.com is the place to go looking. I wonder if other “big names” will join on to this site and market their downloadable music. Certainly won’t hurt to have it in many places. But perhaps their contracts stipulate that they can’t sell on a DRM-free zone, because of “zomg! piracy!” concerns. If this gets particularly good and populated, it could give iTunes a run for the money. Keep an eye on it. Or, if you’re obsessed with that particular Canadian outfit, maybe go buy something.
Good news for Canadians - the world thinks most positively of them, according to a survey done by the BBC World Service. Considering how much of a PR nightmare their neighbor to the south is, this is probably not a hard job to achieve. Canada may even be getting extra points because it has had the patience to deal with the Untied States without smacking the leader in the face with a cream pie.
Not so healthy news for the United States. WorldNetDaily reports in an interview with a biodefense analyst that if the United States attacks Iran, Syria could attack Israel or Europe with smallpox or a variant of it. Or give smallpox to terrorists to release on the world. This analyst also says the Syrian government and the North Korean government are cooperating on creating biological weaponry to be used. Considering source and what’s said, how likely is this to actually be both possible to do and likely to happen?
Further confirming that the United States Army is no friend to journalists, Afghan journalists covering a suicide bombing had their digital images deleted and were threatened not to publish. The only reason I can think of a desire to delete all images is if the investigators who are there either aren’t supposed to be there or are working under a cover of some sort. Without an explanation, though, this looks more like harassment of journalists and trying to control the press. Which, for soldiers a country where the freedom of the press to publish is enshrined in the founding document, is poor behavior, indeed. (On that note, American Samizdat suggests counter-recruitment as a viable war-ending tactic. If there aren’t soldiers to fight, wars fall away quickly. And possibly things like the mad spiral that happened when a soldier's wife got on meth while he was away could have been prevented.
Well, we finally have proof that Americans were being eavesdropped on by a warrantless wiretapping program. Because the organization who was being tapped got records of the tap happening. The government, realizing the error, quickly demanded them back, but by then the damage was done. The organization has also been branded a terrorist organization by the Treasury department not soon after the log was accidentally released to the organization. This lawsuit joins the other allegations of warrantless wiretapping, and has a shot at actually getting to the point where a judge or jury will rule on it. At the same time, the document is still considered so classified that the lawyers for the plaintiff have not been able to see it again and must make declarations, under seal, based on their memory. State Secrets really is a rather broad brush to paint with, isn’t it?
The Food and Drug Administration of the U.S. has been warning consumers about tainted food and disease outbreaks in products pretty regularly lately. Perhaps this is a consequence of having conducted half (by quantity) the food safety tests they did in 2003? Less inspection probably leads to more infection. The article also mentions that there’s less staff and a lot less safety tests for domestic food since 2003, too. The FDA could be another casualty, direct or indirect, of the funneling of money into fighting wars. Looks like the truth is all the FDA agencies are facing budget cuts, not just the ones that may have been a bit controversial. There’s still no excuse for cutting the budget of an administration that is arguably crucial to the health and safety of the American people, but logic is not the strong suit of political actions.
Driving that particular point home is the case of a young Canadian citizen imprisoned in Texas because his parents did not have proper papers when the plane bound for Canada made an emergency stop on American soil. The kid is a Canadian citizen, his parents are not, and the account of the place they are being held is certainly not a bright spot on the record of American immigration.
Three teenagers in Germany may face a fine if a judge determines the fireworks they set off near a farm caused an ostrich to become impotent. Apparently, the fireworks scared the libido right out of the ostrich, and the farmer is claiming damages for offspring he doesn’t have because of it. I suppose having a loud bang happen outside your door might kill your libido for a night or two... but six months?
In Japan, another butler cafe is in the works. I have to say, I like the trend. Maid cafes and butler cafes will certainly make it easier for anyone to feel like they’ve got a great staff. I’m surprised we don’t have more themed-style cafes in the United States. Or maybe I’m not looking in the right places. (After all, Ed Debevic’s probably doesn’t mean much to the people who haven’t been there...)
To further get the geek going, check out pictures of an RX-78 Gundam... lantern.. There’s no good scale references unless you look at the construction pictures (they’re hidden behind links - click to make them appear). This particular Gundam stands pretty tall, comparatively, and lights up quite nicely. If giant robots aren’t your thing, though, maybe taking a peek at a bus-to-living vehicle conversion project will get the creative spark working.
If wood is your medium of choice, though, you might want to check out some of the large projects made by Livio De Marchi - things like houses where all the bits and pieces are books in various states or classic and modern cars made out of wood that floats. Really neat to see. And then there’s the person who carves eggs. Those are pretty.
The Straight Dope answers a question most apocalyptic or zombie game designers need to keep in mind - if zombies take over, how long does the power last? Depending on the suddenness of the zombification, it could be hours. It could be days. But it’s not necessarily going to be long, and the more zombies there are out there, the more likely other networks are going to be interrupted, too. So get cracking with the shotgun and chainsaw and stop the zombies before they spread too far.
Some scientists in Germany are using MRI to predict which option of a binary pair a person will choose. It appears that different regions of the brain light up when the decision is made. Being able to read the pattern allows for prediction. My guess is that this works because in the binary choices mentioned in the article, there are brain and body parts being primed to execute the decided-on action, and that’s what’s being picked up by the MRI - the anticipation of using adding or subtracting faculties, or of choosing left over right. So, in a sense, it’s “reading your mind” because there’s a delay between the decision and the execution. I can see it being used in a polygraph environment, if there’s a detectable pattern for when there’s a conscious lie being told. I don’t know what other use it could be put to. Maybe if MRI technology becomes more portable, we should worry. Still, it’s good that ethicists are looking at it and trying to decide what to think about it. Maybe the MRI will read their minds later.
WagNews puts forward a bold statement, extending the reach of the government’s influence on our lives past control of the mainstream media out into alternative presses and web sites, all designed as a smokescreen to keep the country away from looking too hard into the truth of the 11 September attacks. The list of sites that are "CIA Internet Fakes" are with the explanation of what happened on 11 September. It’s that theory I was talking about - once exposed, suddenly several instances of a particular meme, trope, or object appear. Maybe were there all along, but I was oblivious to them until primed?
Want to know how much data the world generates, copies of copies included, in a year? According to IDC, it's 161 exabytes . That’s 161 billion gigabytes. That’s 161 multiplied by 1,152,921,504,606,846,976. Luckily, since not every bit of that information is stored, we don’t have a giant storage crisis. Unique information is about 40 exabytes this year, according to the same study. That’s still a lot of data. Now do you understand why I’m pretty confident that librarians will never become obsolete? It takes skill and talent to sift through the data to produce results that are actually helpful.
A good chuckle out of the Smoking Gun today. They have some excerpts from complaints to the commissioner of the NFL and to the FCC about the Snickers commercial and the Prince-sheet symbolism. All of which are printed verbatim, of course, with the spelling, grammar, and arguments intact for all the world to see. (Names of course, have been removed.) When the group I was with saw the Prince silhouette, all that got passed around were some phallic jokes. Of course, before hand, we had been observant enough to note the shape of the guitar (there were more phallic jokes then, as I recall) beforehand. And most of the objections to the Snickers commercial want to paint the two men accidentally kissing as an obscene act, rather than being outraged at the portrayal of how even “accidental” homosexual behavior is considered unacceptable. Can’t please everyone, I guess. There were probably complaints about the tongue from the Rolling Stones last year.
Speaking of computers, Daylight Savings Time kicks in this Sunday. Is your computer patched and ready? Here's a concise list of what to do if you're not ready yet.
Brian of Brave Humans wants thirty thousand bloggers to make a sound. In response to the Edwards campaign using Ann Coulter’s foul mouth to beg for money, and only money, Brian decided to show off just how much noise a blog group acting in concert can make. It may never make it to 30,000, but if it gets up in numbers in any sort of way, it might make a thump anyway. (To check the status, head to 30,000 weblogs. One Day. One Voice. At the time of this writing, there’s almost 100 already engaged to the task. Maybe some fraction of the MySpace millions will decide to sign on and make the list grow in leaps and bounds.
Also, as the parting shot, steampunk computer - typewriter keyboard and all. Somedays I wonder how the world might have been had we made our modern society on that aesthetic rather than our current one.
As many are reported across the blog and regular news - I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been convicted on four of the five federal charges he faced. Which are all things like obstruction of justice and perjury. The criminal parade in the Bush Administration continues.
Salon has a very interesting story about a parent who wants her biracial kids to learn their heritage, but doesn't want to force it on them, and the sort of thoughts and actions that result from that desire to have the kids know both sides of the coin, but naturally, rather than artificially. I think she’ll find a way.
Wal-Mary may soon be feeling some of the difficulties that arise from being the only shop in town. In Houston, the decision to close the fabric section has sparked a campaign of angry craftspeople. Sine that Wal-Mart is the only place some of the residents can get fabric without driving into San Antonio, closing that section makes it harder for them to do their crafting. And this is over what could be considered “trivial” (although it’s not - there’s a whole cabal of craftsters lurking about). I wonder what sort of ire will appear if they should close something the general populace around them would consider important. Still, if there were any small shops looking to start in the area, it might be a good time to open for business...
That weird Canadian band, Barenaked Ladies, is up to no good (by the RIAA’s standards) again - they’ve partnered up with Amie Street, a site offering a music service where the popularity of the music determines the price. So for a little bit, while still in obscurity, as it were, even BNL is available for free. Oh, and there’s no DRM attached, either. I wonder how this model will turn out - it’ll certainly be an interesting thing to watch. There may have been a small Slashdot effect to the place as all the BNL fans tried very hard to get free copies of the latest album, but the site is up and working when I looked at it. Amiestreet.com is the place to go looking. I wonder if other “big names” will join on to this site and market their downloadable music. Certainly won’t hurt to have it in many places. But perhaps their contracts stipulate that they can’t sell on a DRM-free zone, because of “zomg! piracy!” concerns. If this gets particularly good and populated, it could give iTunes a run for the money. Keep an eye on it. Or, if you’re obsessed with that particular Canadian outfit, maybe go buy something.
Good news for Canadians - the world thinks most positively of them, according to a survey done by the BBC World Service. Considering how much of a PR nightmare their neighbor to the south is, this is probably not a hard job to achieve. Canada may even be getting extra points because it has had the patience to deal with the Untied States without smacking the leader in the face with a cream pie.
Not so healthy news for the United States. WorldNetDaily reports in an interview with a biodefense analyst that if the United States attacks Iran, Syria could attack Israel or Europe with smallpox or a variant of it. Or give smallpox to terrorists to release on the world. This analyst also says the Syrian government and the North Korean government are cooperating on creating biological weaponry to be used. Considering source and what’s said, how likely is this to actually be both possible to do and likely to happen?
Further confirming that the United States Army is no friend to journalists, Afghan journalists covering a suicide bombing had their digital images deleted and were threatened not to publish. The only reason I can think of a desire to delete all images is if the investigators who are there either aren’t supposed to be there or are working under a cover of some sort. Without an explanation, though, this looks more like harassment of journalists and trying to control the press. Which, for soldiers a country where the freedom of the press to publish is enshrined in the founding document, is poor behavior, indeed. (On that note, American Samizdat suggests counter-recruitment as a viable war-ending tactic. If there aren’t soldiers to fight, wars fall away quickly. And possibly things like the mad spiral that happened when a soldier's wife got on meth while he was away could have been prevented.
Well, we finally have proof that Americans were being eavesdropped on by a warrantless wiretapping program. Because the organization who was being tapped got records of the tap happening. The government, realizing the error, quickly demanded them back, but by then the damage was done. The organization has also been branded a terrorist organization by the Treasury department not soon after the log was accidentally released to the organization. This lawsuit joins the other allegations of warrantless wiretapping, and has a shot at actually getting to the point where a judge or jury will rule on it. At the same time, the document is still considered so classified that the lawyers for the plaintiff have not been able to see it again and must make declarations, under seal, based on their memory. State Secrets really is a rather broad brush to paint with, isn’t it?
The Food and Drug Administration of the U.S. has been warning consumers about tainted food and disease outbreaks in products pretty regularly lately. Perhaps this is a consequence of having conducted half (by quantity) the food safety tests they did in 2003? Less inspection probably leads to more infection. The article also mentions that there’s less staff and a lot less safety tests for domestic food since 2003, too. The FDA could be another casualty, direct or indirect, of the funneling of money into fighting wars. Looks like the truth is all the FDA agencies are facing budget cuts, not just the ones that may have been a bit controversial. There’s still no excuse for cutting the budget of an administration that is arguably crucial to the health and safety of the American people, but logic is not the strong suit of political actions.
Driving that particular point home is the case of a young Canadian citizen imprisoned in Texas because his parents did not have proper papers when the plane bound for Canada made an emergency stop on American soil. The kid is a Canadian citizen, his parents are not, and the account of the place they are being held is certainly not a bright spot on the record of American immigration.
Three teenagers in Germany may face a fine if a judge determines the fireworks they set off near a farm caused an ostrich to become impotent. Apparently, the fireworks scared the libido right out of the ostrich, and the farmer is claiming damages for offspring he doesn’t have because of it. I suppose having a loud bang happen outside your door might kill your libido for a night or two... but six months?
In Japan, another butler cafe is in the works. I have to say, I like the trend. Maid cafes and butler cafes will certainly make it easier for anyone to feel like they’ve got a great staff. I’m surprised we don’t have more themed-style cafes in the United States. Or maybe I’m not looking in the right places. (After all, Ed Debevic’s probably doesn’t mean much to the people who haven’t been there...)
To further get the geek going, check out pictures of an RX-78 Gundam... lantern.. There’s no good scale references unless you look at the construction pictures (they’re hidden behind links - click to make them appear). This particular Gundam stands pretty tall, comparatively, and lights up quite nicely. If giant robots aren’t your thing, though, maybe taking a peek at a bus-to-living vehicle conversion project will get the creative spark working.
If wood is your medium of choice, though, you might want to check out some of the large projects made by Livio De Marchi - things like houses where all the bits and pieces are books in various states or classic and modern cars made out of wood that floats. Really neat to see. And then there’s the person who carves eggs. Those are pretty.
The Straight Dope answers a question most apocalyptic or zombie game designers need to keep in mind - if zombies take over, how long does the power last? Depending on the suddenness of the zombification, it could be hours. It could be days. But it’s not necessarily going to be long, and the more zombies there are out there, the more likely other networks are going to be interrupted, too. So get cracking with the shotgun and chainsaw and stop the zombies before they spread too far.
Some scientists in Germany are using MRI to predict which option of a binary pair a person will choose. It appears that different regions of the brain light up when the decision is made. Being able to read the pattern allows for prediction. My guess is that this works because in the binary choices mentioned in the article, there are brain and body parts being primed to execute the decided-on action, and that’s what’s being picked up by the MRI - the anticipation of using adding or subtracting faculties, or of choosing left over right. So, in a sense, it’s “reading your mind” because there’s a delay between the decision and the execution. I can see it being used in a polygraph environment, if there’s a detectable pattern for when there’s a conscious lie being told. I don’t know what other use it could be put to. Maybe if MRI technology becomes more portable, we should worry. Still, it’s good that ethicists are looking at it and trying to decide what to think about it. Maybe the MRI will read their minds later.
WagNews puts forward a bold statement, extending the reach of the government’s influence on our lives past control of the mainstream media out into alternative presses and web sites, all designed as a smokescreen to keep the country away from looking too hard into the truth of the 11 September attacks. The list of sites that are "CIA Internet Fakes" are with the explanation of what happened on 11 September. It’s that theory I was talking about - once exposed, suddenly several instances of a particular meme, trope, or object appear. Maybe were there all along, but I was oblivious to them until primed?
Want to know how much data the world generates, copies of copies included, in a year? According to IDC, it's 161 exabytes . That’s 161 billion gigabytes. That’s 161 multiplied by 1,152,921,504,606,846,976. Luckily, since not every bit of that information is stored, we don’t have a giant storage crisis. Unique information is about 40 exabytes this year, according to the same study. That’s still a lot of data. Now do you understand why I’m pretty confident that librarians will never become obsolete? It takes skill and talent to sift through the data to produce results that are actually helpful.
A good chuckle out of the Smoking Gun today. They have some excerpts from complaints to the commissioner of the NFL and to the FCC about the Snickers commercial and the Prince-sheet symbolism. All of which are printed verbatim, of course, with the spelling, grammar, and arguments intact for all the world to see. (Names of course, have been removed.) When the group I was with saw the Prince silhouette, all that got passed around were some phallic jokes. Of course, before hand, we had been observant enough to note the shape of the guitar (there were more phallic jokes then, as I recall) beforehand. And most of the objections to the Snickers commercial want to paint the two men accidentally kissing as an obscene act, rather than being outraged at the portrayal of how even “accidental” homosexual behavior is considered unacceptable. Can’t please everyone, I guess. There were probably complaints about the tongue from the Rolling Stones last year.
Speaking of computers, Daylight Savings Time kicks in this Sunday. Is your computer patched and ready? Here's a concise list of what to do if you're not ready yet.
Brian of Brave Humans wants thirty thousand bloggers to make a sound. In response to the Edwards campaign using Ann Coulter’s foul mouth to beg for money, and only money, Brian decided to show off just how much noise a blog group acting in concert can make. It may never make it to 30,000, but if it gets up in numbers in any sort of way, it might make a thump anyway. (To check the status, head to 30,000 weblogs. One Day. One Voice. At the time of this writing, there’s almost 100 already engaged to the task. Maybe some fraction of the MySpace millions will decide to sign on and make the list grow in leaps and bounds.
Also, as the parting shot, steampunk computer - typewriter keyboard and all. Somedays I wonder how the world might have been had we made our modern society on that aesthetic rather than our current one.
