July 2002 Archives

Pablo Picasso. "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." [Quotes of the Day]

It requires the ethernet adapter due out at the end of the month, but the BroadQ - QCast Tuner looks very slick. It will play mp3s and divx videos off of your computer over your PS2. I'm seriously considering picking this up so I can watch DiVX files on my TV. How very cool.

I hate writing resumes. I started writing mine tonight and realized that I don't think I've written one in almost ten years. I was basicly recruited into this last job by my old roommate from high school. So a few times tonight I found myself staring at a blank document and not even being sure where to start. Maybe it is time to go and start browsing online for some how-to guides for resume writing.

I just got done watching Sen to Chihiro. It was simply amazing. I really hope it gets shown in at least limited release in the US. I personally thought it was a better movie then Mononoke Hime. But then again, that was never one of the Miyazaki movies I liked the best (that would be either Kiki's Delivery Service or Nausicaa).

I highly recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

I ran across Dive into OS X and didn't notice until this morning that it is a wiki! I just may have to keep an eye on this and see if there is anything that I can contribute.

Dwight D. Eisenhower. "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." [Quotes of the Day]

I found this site this morning and I think I really want a Totoro hat and a Lain hat (and maybe a pero pero hat). But if I had my druthers I'd get one of almost all of them

I can think of at least one or two people who read here regularly who might enjoy these.

Things suck right about now. I just got laid off. I've moved my site to my home machine until I get my server back from work. Comments have been reset to use the userland comments, I hope it works okay.

I'm still kind of numb about the whole thing right now. It really blindsided me and I'm realizing I have a lot to try and think about and figure out in the next couple of days. Anyone out there in the Boston area hiring? (Yes, I'm not above using my web site to beg for work).

From The Desktop of Dane Carlson comes a link to an article about the 'reading gene':

Unlocking the recessive reading gene: "You can spot born readers easily. They have books in every room of the house, including the bathroom. They read fast and they read often. Born readers know what titles are on the Top 10 list. Kids of born readers are more likely to be born readers, too. These are the children that need mom to pick them up from school because they spent recess in the library and now have too many books to carry home. Kid readers ask for books as birthday gifts." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]

Though my gene isn't as active as it once was, it still gets a decent bit of a workout.

Antipixel posted a link to The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:

VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It's a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We're not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

NYTimes has a little article about DJing with MP3:

Hard Disk DJ's 'Spinning' MP3s. NEW YORK (AP) -- Friday nights at Brooklyn's BQE bar appear like most others. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Technology]

I have fairly mixed feelings on the whole mp3/digital mixing thing. On one hand I think it's pretty damn cool if it works. My friend Lukas has a DJ CD player that is actually fairly cool. But in the end for me there are things I just like about vinyl and using turntables.

The first is the tactile aspect. As I'm beatmatching I feel, as well as hear, how much I'm slowing down the turntable with my fingers. I feel much more connected to the record. Secondly, the visual aspect. By looking at a record, I can usually tell when there are going to be quiet parts just by looking at the grooves. I've found this invaluable when looking at when to start bringing in a new track.

Last but not least there's the issue that most of what I'm getting comes out on vinyl. Which would mean I'd have to transfer everything to digital as I got it. While not being that big a deal, it is a bit of a hassle. It would make it harder for me to pick up a new record and drop it that night someplace.

I don't think DJing by CD or mp3 is any less valid a form of DJing though.

I was first getting sucked into Utena. And it only took me 11 months to see the rest of the show!

Alan Perlis. "The computing field is always in need of new cliches." [Quotes of the Day]

Going through my News Aggregator last night I saw:

KVETCH IS DEAD [jenett.radio]

I was like 'huh'? Then I remembered kvetch.com. The site I used to bump into every six months or so. I'd love going by there and typing in a few things or having it set to display what people were entering. How sad that it's gone.

Among the things its creator learned:

People love to complain. Always have, always will. This site collected hundreds of thousands of posts in its lifetime. Football fields of complaint.

Wherever there are people, there's the potential for love. I know that Kvetch was responsible for at least one marriage. A union born of kvetching. Amazing.

'We've Been Waiting,' They Say After 3 Days Underground. Rescue workers broke through a coal-mine wall to nine trapped miners and found them all alive and well after three days of fighting for survival in a pocket of air. By Francis X. Clines. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Joe Martin. "The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little." [Quotes of the Day]

Radio Free Blogistan there's been some really great posts lately on blogging. This post jumped out at me because it talked about the various kinds of blogs out there. I like to think that my blog is a kind of mishmash of the various types of blogs out there. A bit of journal, a bit of links, a bit of snapshots of my life. It's as much for me to go back and read through at a later point as it is for people to see what is going on with my life.

And, once I go into the hospital, I see it as a way for people to be able to keep up with what is going on with me. Since if I were to try and email everyone I knew I'm sure I'd forget people. It will be much easier just to post things here and let folks read. (That is, if I'm even up to posting much. They tell me I'll probably be pretty exhausted from recovery and rehab).

Wow. I have been so sucked into this show for the last few days. I'd heard about it a while ago, but for some reason the title just didn't seem to pull me in at all (when will I learn). I'm not sure what I expected from something titled Full Metal Panic, but it wasn't quite this.

It's a very fun show. A nice balance of seriousness and humor. With some of the more serious parts really catching me by surprise.This is another show I'll be picking up on DVD when it comes out. Once I get done with this I can finally catch up on all the other stuff I have waiting, like the latest Kenshin disc.

“If you see only one movie about giant, radioactive, rubber nuns this summer, make it Sister vs. Mecha-Sister.” - Davezilla[Flash 1.1Mb] [davezilla.com]

I think I like that saying a lot.

No Medicine for Stupidity. There's a wonderful Japanese saying that states there is no medicine for stupidity.[Antipixel]

I've got this itch to do a site redesign. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet though. I've got a few things running through my head for options, I just need to figure out which I want to do. I've also got some other goals as far as CSS and web accessibility.

Friedrich Nietzsche. "The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoyes several times the same good things for the first time." [Quotes of the Day]

SpamAssassin Pro. "for MS Outlook 2000/XP is built on the most popular and successful anti-spam filtering software available: SpamAssassin." ($19.95) [evhead]

I find this a little annoying. Why is it that free software on unix has to become pay software for the PC world? Not only that, this is an open source project that anyone can work on. Does anyone who work on it get a cut of money that is made? How does this work exactly?

I even got it done on Friday this time around.

1. How long have you had a weblog? Since 3/8/2001. I even remarked on it here when it was a year.

2. What was your first post about? It was about starting a weblog.

3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one? I actually had tried to do one by hand prior to this current one, but it kept being a hassle to deal with. In the end I realized how much easier it was to use a tool like Blogger or Radio.

4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else? Currently I am a happy user of Radio. Before that I was using Blogger. I like both of them, but I really like Radio currently. It's certainly more powerful then I may need and is immensely configurable. I've also used MT a lot at work for stuff and think it's quite good.

5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place? I kind of equate weblogs and journals, since I know a lot of people other people who blur the lines between them also. I consider them all to be various kinds of weblogs.

The morning pre-shower playlist:

• London - The Smiths

• Flowers Bloom - Mandalay

• A Taste of Your Own Medicine - Elements of Trance

• Automation - Howard Jones

• Drama - Erasure

• Nowhere Girl - B-Movie

Oscar Wilde. "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." [Quotes of the Day]

Fox News has a great article titled Raving Lunacy today. It talks about the "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 2002," (aka The RAVE Act). It's nice to see people beyond ravers realizing how lame this is:

We're at war. The people in charge of running the war say that we have to trust them: trust their integrity, and trust their judgment.

But how can we trust our government to spot terrorists when it thinks that glow sticks are items of "drug paraphernalia?"

Everyone seems to be posting their results from the palm reading site. Not one to miss a trend here's mine:

You have a good imagination, and often exhibit sensitivity to others.

There may be times in your life when you give in to feelings of sadness or depression.

There are inconsistencies in your energy level, possibly triggered by external factors or emotional changes.

Although you have ambition, you do not always exert the energy necessary to be successful.

You have a basically strong constitution, and should enjoy good health most of the time.

You were probably given a good start in life by your parents. This could be based on your general upbringing, or on physical characteristics you inherited.

One nice thing about the new Salon Blogs are that they give me a new page to browse for things to read. Here are a few interesting blogs I found just a few minutes ago:

• Pru's Psychic Spy Training Facility

• An Innocent Abroad

• Andrew Bayer Is Dreaming of China

More things to browse when I can't sleep at night.

The BlogRoots authors are publishing their book on the Web, in its entirety. Chapter 8, Using Blogs in Business, is online now. Excellent. [Scripting News]

I found this site a week or so ago and have been checking back every other day. It's a nice place to find out about stuff happening in the blogging world. I thought this chapter was a good one too since I've been running a group blog for my team at work for around 6 months and everyone loves it.

Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp. Some people are trying to reduce their electronic presence, and discovering that doing so is not as simple as it would seem. By Jennifer 8. Lee. [New York Times: Technology]

As far as stuff being on the net never going away this has long been a truth, even before things like Google. Google has just made it all the easier. I remember when they first announced having the usenet archives and went back and looked to see if I could figure out my first post. As far as I can tell it was something about a video game I was playing on my Sega Genesis. But that was over a decade ago.

I've been taking another attitude myself. I want to just about own my name on the net. Then I can control it ^_^.

Good stuff.. I think possibly the most interesting thing in the world is the intricate network of connections between people. Possibly, it's the only thing in the world. That, and colors. Colors are neat, too. [evhead]

I have to agree. I'm continually being surprised by the connections between my friends and acquaintences.

So I noticed that I can get simple stats on my blog. Basicly how many people have looked at it, the ratings they've given, and the average. One thing that jumped out is I got a lot of 1s and a fair number of 10s. This got me to thinking, what do people think makes a good blog? Personally I'd rate my site around a 7, so the 10s surprised me (I'm guessing it was friends of mine). But I don't think I'd rate it a 1. I can't even think of what kind of blog I'd give a 1 (maybe something using blink all over the place or some unreadable font and no content).

I was just looking through the suggestions in my TiVo and noticed that it had recorded 'The Donna Reed Show' for me. I was so psyched. When I was in college we used to have Nick at Night on almost every night and that and 'The Patty Duke Show' were our two favorites. I didn't even realize TVLand was showing it.

Jules Renard. "Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it." [Quotes of the Day]

Evan has been trying out Six Degrees.

Six Degrees.. I've been trying Creo's hotly anticipated (or at least written about here and, moreso, by Joel) Six Degrees "timefreeing technology" the last couple days. I have yet to see its revolutionary impact on how I work÷but these things sometimes take time. [evhead]

I beta tested this product and thought it worked well and was pretty cool, but I didn't find it immensely useful in how I did work. I also thought their price for it was pretty steep.

I'm trying to find the other cool email application I saw a few months ago. It was written in java I think and would pull down your mail and index it and make it available for reading through a web site that it ran on your local machine. I remember the site for it was originally at mac.com, but now I can't remember what it was called. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

The guestbar over on Boing Boing has a great little bit on emoji.

Since i-mode was first introduced in Japan, mobile phone users there have used text emoticons called emoji to send dense messages in fewer bytes. Top providers DoCoMo, J-Phone and AU/KDDI have begun offering proprietary sets of emoji characters enabling two users on the same service to send messages to one another on the go without conventional text.

(Unfortunately there's no way to link to the guestbar articles.)

Wired.com has an interesting article up about a slightly different use for blogs.

Seniors in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, with mild to moderate memory loss, are writing Web logs to help them make sense of their daily lives. And the activity, they say, is slowing the onset of their symptoms.

I really liked the article. It's cool seeing someone find interesting ways to apply technology. While a blog isn't required for this (a paper journal could do), it has the added bonus of being something a patient's family could read. Helping them understand what is going on better.

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Haruko is one of my favorite characters from FLCL. I was in Newberry Comics today looking for used CDs and I saw it on the wall and it just called to me.

MacosXrumors.com has some great previews information on 10.2. The more I read about it the more I can't wait for it. I'm really tempted to install the copy of the early build I got earlier this week.

Hee hee. Is my Blog HOT or NOT? I feel like such a geek!

Wow. A day for me! I hope I get lots of presents!

Here's the link to a web page on it.

This is the kind of thing I need to find in my news aggrevator in the morning. Nothing like some humor for the morning:

Size must matter to someone: "I don't know how to make your penis bigger. Don't keep asking me! "  [Phil Ackley's Radio Thingumabob]

hehe... [jenett.radio]

Frank Lloyd Wright. "Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." [Quotes of the Day]

Salon has just announced Salon Blogs. And it is powered by Radio! I'm still not sure why salon is doing this, but it may help get more traffic to their site. It's nice seeing them using Radio too, since I've been using it and enjoying it for a while now.

And here's a link to Scott Rosenberg's blog. He's the managing editor of Salon.

<%radio.macros.imageref ("images/digiblog/072302-tibook-th.jpg", "movers", vspace:5)%>
My new baby. I had another one before, but this is the sooper deluxe version. I had taken a picture of it a few days ago when fooling around with my camera so decided to post it.

<%radio.macros.imageref ("images/digiblog/072302-movers-th.jpg", "movers", vspace:5)%>
I keep seeing this truck around town and I always thought they had the best name for a business.

Production I.G. announced Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex the other day. Bandai will be distributing it in the States.

I guess this means I finally have to get around to watching the movie. It's been on my list to watch eventually, but I never seem to get around to it. There's actually a number of movies that were fairly popular in the US I haven't gotten around to checking out. I think a small bit of it is that things like GitS has been hyped to me so much that I'm afraid of being disappointed.

I need to get pictures off my camera and on here today. I took some cool ones recently. I've been thinking about taking a photography class just to get a feel for taking pictures more. I feel like I take a lot and most are crap. Is that normal?

I still want to try and document my day by camera sometime. I think it would end up either being kinda cool or incredibly lame.

I keep trying to get to sleep early lately, but things keep conspiring against me. I'll log off the computer, get ready for bed, see a book, start reading it and suddenly it's almost midnight again. I haven't been exhausted lately, but I have felt kind of run down. I wish the day was about 1 hour and 38 minutes longer. Then I'd be having that extra time to sleep that I want.

I had a nice surprise when I got into work yesterday. Some CDs I'd ordered a while ago finally arrived. It seems that most of OMD's releases are out of print in the US and the only way to get them is as imports. I've slowly been rebuilding my collection and Crush arrived yesterday. This was the second OMD album I ever got and one of my favorites. I can't remember if I got it on tape or vinyl, but I remember listening to it a lot. When I was putting it into iTunes I looked at the year it came out, 1985. I suddenly felt old. So much of the older stuff I've been picking up lately has been so good to listen to. It's almost timeless to me.

Now, off for coffee and work.

I'm a happy boy. My copy of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) arrived from CDJapan today. These guys rock. I'm so psyched the check this out later this week.

Ernie athe Attorney writes about some articles in Newsweek:

Newweek articles on Apple, and TIVO -   Steven Levy's Newsweek article discusses Apple's new Rendezvous "software that instantly links people in wireless networks. For instance, when several people who have laptops equipped with iTunes music software gather together, a superlibrary instantly forms, combining all the songs on everybodyâs computer."  Cool.  Suddenly the idea of switching from PC to Macintosh is making even more sense to me (at least at home).

Newsweek also has a great article about TIVO, PVR's and the battle for our TV's.  [Ernie the Attorney]

I'd say that currently Apple and TiVo are two of my favorite companies. I certainly use their products as much as if not more then most others I own.

I have never felt the need to try one of these, now I'm glad I haven't:

A Very Scary Company.  One thing I wish the EFF should do.  Why don't they blow the trumpet on comScore?  This company has tricked millions of people into "download accelerators" and other trojan horse software that tracks their traffic, credit card usage (it actually captures numbers), and more -- all in the name of so-called research.  Most of the download accelerator software providers they use are front companies. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I'd always wondered what these so-called "accelerators" did, and how they actually did it.

Ever since I saw the Fishing with John with Dennis Hopper I chuckle every time I hear talk of giant squids. Well, it seems that one washed up on an australian beach!

A giant squid with tentacles measuring at least 15 metres (yards) has washed up on a southern Australian beach, exciting scientists who believe they may have stumbled across a new species.

The monster cephalopod washed up on Seven Mile Beach in the southern island state of Tasmania some time over the weekend. The squid, which weighs about 250 kg (550 pounds), was hauled by trailer to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery on Monday.

FIFTEEN METERS! Yow!

I finally started to dig into the second disc of Danny Teneglia's Back to Basics. While I thought the first disc was good, this disc is amazing so far. The first four songs blended together wonderfully and resonated with me amazingly! Now I want to go and listen to all of it while driving around in the sun.

So, I'm trying to figure out who this person who is putting my content into their page is. If it's just a personal page, or what. It's weird because I just started noticing the images loading on their page. It looks like they've been grabbing my rss feed, which is fine with me, but I am just curious as to who you are. If you're out there and reading this, what's up?

RightStuf has done it once again, they are taking preorders for the Cowboy Bebop CD set. It sounds amazing and the Bebop music CDs I have so far are really good. I'm just not ready to dump $130 on it. Bah.

I was just reminded that I had wanted to post this quote from Joss Whedon from his commentary on the Buffy season 2 DVDs:

"I think the two most important things in television are emotional resonance and rocket launchers. I mean, Party of Five has lots of emotional resonance, it makes me cry like a girl, but it's really lacking in... rocket launchers." -Joss Whedon

I ended up waking up obscenely early this morning. On the weekends it seems to be habit to wake up really early, then go to sleep late morning and sleep till mid-afternoon. Especially on these warmer mornings.

This morning I toddled over to Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square for a croissant and coffee while reading Expiration Date by Tim Powers. I'm almost 100 pages in and the book is great in that typical Powers way. I'll most likely be curling up to read more of it when I take my late morning/early afternoon nap.

The whole lung thing's been weighing on my brain since the other night. I'm trying not to stress about it, but I'm starting to get impatient!

So I've seen anime about people playing cards (Yu-Gi-Oh!), and playing Go (Hikaru-no-go). I was flipping around channels this morning and abc family is showing something called Beyblade. It's people playing with tops. Yeah, those spinning things. In this case they've got tops with blades on the side of them that they spin against each other. Um, okay.

Samuel Johnson. "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." [Quotes of the Day]

Here they are just a tad late:

1. Where were you born? Hartford, CT at Hartford Hospital

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? I grew up a few towns over in Glastonbury. I really only lived there full time until I was 15, then I went away to high school and college. I miss it some, but I don't think I'd move back. The town has changed a lot since I lived there.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest? At home probably. Either my apartment or my parent's place. Or possibly over at one friend's apartment where we've had a lot of parties.

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? Somewhat. I have been all over the place, but there are still many places I want to go both in the US and abroad.

5. Where is the most interesting place you've been? I think that would have to be the UK. I went out there twice for work and each time I basicly had the weekend to myself. It was also really the only two times I've traveled on my own to someplace far away. Both times I had fun discovering London on my own.

It's Four AM and the phone just rang. My heart started racing. Was this the call? No, it was just Exodus calling to say our site wasn't responding. Now I'm shaking because I got a huge adrenaline rush. Bah

  
One of the other new shows I mentioned I'm watching is Saikano. I'm not quite sure how to describe this show. I first decided to download it after reading about it over on Automated Alice. The show has a fairly sad, but sweet feel to it. It takes place during a war, and is somewhat of a love story.

A friend of mine also told me that it's also a manga and one of his favorites. He was quite happy with the translation to anime so far. he says that it caught the feeling of the manga perfectly. Here's the blurb about the show from AnimeNfo.com:

Shuuji and Chise are third year student at a high school in Hokkaido. The shy Chise is finally confessing to Shuuji, and finally two of them are starting to exchange diary awkwardly.

One day, Shuuji tried to escape from a sudden enemy air raid on Sapporo. While desperately escaping from the air raid, Shuuji saw a scene that he could not forget for his life. He saw Chise, with a huge weapons which looks is part of her hand, shot the enemy fighters one by one. Apparently, Chise is the ultimate weapon with destructive power which is important for the war.

How can Shuuji face the reality that his love is actually the ultimate weapon with destructive power?

Thomas Neill. "Of those who say nothing, few are silent." [Quotes of the Day]

British Inquiry Finds Doctor Killed 215 of His Patients. Dr. Harold Shipman, the suburban family doctor convicted two years ago of murdering 15 of his patients, actually killed at least 215 of them. By Warren Hoge. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I think the thing that creeps me out about this the most is the was killing almost 10 people a year for around 20 years. The one line from the article that really got me was:

Judith Page, a patient of his who worked as a household helper, told investigators that Dr. Shipman once asked her if she had had the experience of finding a client dead. When she said "yes," he asked if it did not give her a "buzz."

So it's not even like he was doing it to make someone's life easier, he was getting his kicks from it. Ick ick ick.

An addition to my blogrolling list Ernie the Attorney. I started reading his law blog a while back and have been getting it in my RSS Aggregator and decided to add him to the blogrolling list tonight. Also, HOLY HECK! Codergurl is back! Welcome back to the land of the blogging.

I also pulled a few more off. At least one of which has a new link that I need to track down.

What will they think of next. What I find most surprising is that I don't really find this surprising.

It'll Be Called 'The M.E.O.W. Show'..

Meow Mix cat food is apparently shopping around a TV program aimed at cats. Not cat lovers. Cats. CNN points out one of the flaws in the concept:

Lacking opposable thumbs, felines will have to rely on their owners to tune in to the half-hour show.

The other major flaw? It's a stupid idea.

 

[Over the Edge]

A few new shows have started up in Japan lately. So far the first two episodes Witch Hunter Robin have been digisubed. One thing in common with the two new shows I've started watching is that the animation looks very well done. The animation style in this was fairly striking to me. I'm trying to think of what else it reminds me of, but not coming up with much. It's a little like the one episode of Hellsing I saw, but not quite.

Unlike Hellsing, the first episode of this made me curious about the show. It doesn't feel as dark as Saikano (I'll post more about that one later), but it's definitely not a bouncy happy series. Hopefully more will be coming out soon. If you're looking for something new to view I recommend it based on the little I've seen.

Update: I just finished watching the second episode and this show feels like it has lots of potential. Once again I'm struck at how a lot of the shows from Japan don't come right out and tell you what is going on, but slowly let the background get fleshed out over time.

I missed the first blog.meetup.com event, but I'm thinking about trying to get to the next one if I'm around.

Google Sets  [not quite random]

What a cool idea!  They must serve great coffee in the Google thinktank... [jenett.radio]

Wow... That is cool! I put in 'Cowboy Bebop', 'Escaflowne', 'Noir', and 'Cardcaptor Sakura'. I got back a nice list of anime shows.

Jenny is thinking about possibly switching to a Mac.

... Call me stupid if you want to, but I had a bad experience with Macs at my first job, and I've just gone along with Windows ever since (even though I have bad experiences with Windows, too).

However, I'm at a point where I don't want to upgrade to Windows XP, and I don't really want to re-format my hard drive to upgrade to Windows 2000, which will only take me so far anyway. So for the first time, I will actually consider a Mac the next time I buy a computer. Especially after this week's announcements. ...

I think this is Apple's advantage right now. M$ is doing a lot of things that people aren't happy with. People are nervous about the whole DRM thing and Apple is mostly staying away from that (we'll just ignore Roxio Toast for now). At the same time, I think Macs are finally worth looking at again. There was a looong time there between college and last year where I didn't think they were. Apple always seemed just a little behind the ball. Now they seem to be working on building a better one.

(I've gotta settle down on this whole pushing people to Apple thing :))

John Cage. "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." [Quotes of the Day]

These are great! True Porn Clerk Stories  [The smelly feet] [jenett.radio]

Sometimes new customers don't see the security cameras right away, and they sure as hell don't expect the Voice of God mike. When you're scrutinizing the charming cover art of White Trash Whore the last thing you want is to be chastized by a booming voice from above.

Update: I think they were reading from this on This American Life over the weekend. (And I was right! I just checked and there it was. Trippy.)

The Internet Archive is this neat site that archives web pages online. But I was poking around today and found they have a really neat online archive of old movies from the Prelinger Archives. Pretty neat. From the site:

This collection contains movies that the Prelinger Archives has digitized and donated to the Internet Archive. The films focus mainly on everyday life, culture, industry, and institutions in North America in the 20th century.

This is the first time that most of the films have been available to the public. They are "open source movies" -- available for viewing at no cost and with few restrictions. About 1254 films are now online.

MacPlay released two of my worst online game addictions in the past year or two. You can now get Bejeweled & Alchemy for OS X. Thank god they don't have a demo for download!

Ambrosia software has released a wonderfully addictive game for the mac called Pop-Pop. Ambrosia has released some of the best games for the mac and this one is just as fun as many of their earlier ones. This one also sports a very cool bouncy soundtrack. Now all they need to do is release an OS X version of Barrack!

Ken Venturi. "1. Never tell everything at once." [Quotes of the Day]

It's just about 6PM now and I was wondering where my UPS package was. Upon bringing up the shipment tracking page the last entry is:

 Jul 17, 2002   04:00:00 AM   SOMERVILLE MA US   OUT FOR DELIVERY  

Okay, does anyone else think FOURTEEN HOURS is a bit long for a package to be delivered?

The Keynote is starting up right now. Here's some notes (updating as it goes on) (last update: 10:06AM):

• The Will Ferrel (sp?) commercial rocked.

• The next Apple store is in NYC.

• New Photoshop Elements that integrates with iPhoto

• New RealPlayer for OS X

• Jaguar, OS X 10.2 is officially announced today.

• iTools has become .mac. Now costs $49/year for existing, $100/year for new. I have mixed feelings on this. I understand them needing to charge, but.

• iCal: Calendar app with online publishing and sharing (I think it should publish a version in opml). Question: Palm sync?

• iTunes: 14 million copies. iTunes 3. New Features: Ability to rate music. Playcounts. Audible.com support. Scriptable playlists (like you can say play the 25 songs I listen to the most that I've given a rating of at least 3). Downloadable Today.

• iPod: 5GB: $299, 10GB: $399 (it's THINNER, remote, case, firewire cover), 20GB: $499. Neat new features. Browse by composer (for classical music). Integrates with iCal (along with contacts), a clock, and the game.

• iSync: For syncronizing all your toys. Support for Palm and Phones, syncing between all of them. Very slick. Syncing over .mac between computers.

• iMac: 50% of iMac purchases are for the highest model. Price on the highest model dropped by $100. new 17inch *landscape* display, $1999

Jaguar Notes

• OS X is the #1 version of unix out there

• SMB Browsing, Active Directory Support, and PPTP for supporting windows

• Finder now Multi-Threaded, spring-loaded folders (neat!), integrated search

• More Universal Access stuff

• Quicktime 6: MPEG-4, AAC audio. Streaming is MUCH nicer. They played a video stream and were jumping around within the file, very cool.

• Sherlock 3: Internet Services. Sherlock looks much more useful to me now.

• Handwriting recognition (Inkwell)

• Rendezvous: Automaticly discover other network devices over IP networks w/out any other configuration. Demoed iTunes using it. They opened up a PowerBook and the demo computer detected it and made the playlists available on it. Open standard! Printers are going to support it (Epson, HP, and Lexmark planning to support). (Question, what about security?)

• Mail: Improvements. Learning Junk Mail filter.

• New Address Book. LDAP support. Showed bluetooth support with address book to call someone with his bluetooth enabled cell phone.

• iChat: some neat features! Find other ichat users around you w/rendezvous. Fully integrated with typical mac features.

• Cost: Full $129. Upgrades just pay media costs. Out August 24.

Final Thoughts: Apple is really working on the whole integration thing, and is working on making it easier for the casual user to use all the tools. It's going to be a fun couple of months with stuff coming out.

I heard about this one yesterday and had to post about it:

Yahoo Mail puts words in your mouth. Yahoo uses an automated filter to search e-mail and swap out a handful of words that pertain to Web code known as JavaScript. [CNET News.com]

This is just plain silly and wrong. If you are providing a service like they are you should find a better way.

John Kenneth Galbraith. "It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought." [Quotes of the Day]

I've got the Macworld Keynote streaming in MPEG-4. Pretty cool, reports later

This sums it up for me:

Ben Brown: "What I'd really like to see is a book about how to stop blogging. With twelve steps." [Scripting News]

Here's another quiz:

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

Mike Watkins is thinking about a spamfree comments section for Radio.  I guess the e-mail address (if you are using Radio) would be replaced with a link like:

http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/mailto?usernum=0001026

or John Robb [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I would love to see the first one (Though it wouldn't work for non-radio users). I've been very careful about where I put my new email address, and the Radio comments is the one place where it gives you no choice. I'm not sure the best solution. I think it should ask for it, but not display it. So that it is recorded in case of problems.

From Over the Edge comes this little gem: Man, 27, accused of stealing Old Dutch potato chip truck. My favorite line is

" Bridges told police he was at the Walleye Weekend festival during the weekend, and doesnât recall stealing a potato chip truck, but he did find a key in his pocket when he woke up the next morning."

Jeff sent me over to http://www.barefeats.com/ and I found a performance review of the TiBook I got yesterday. I knew it was good, but I didn't know it was this good. It even surpases the Mac towers in places. Color me quite happy.

The trailer for 24 Hour Party People is up over at the QuickTime Movie Trailers site. I really hope I get to see this in a theatre because I'm sure the soundtrack is going to kick ass.

The big reason Apple probably released Quicktime 6 was that the MPEG-4 Licensing terms were finalized. They aren't too bad. I was expecting worse.

Licensing decision ends MPEG-4 tiff. The group of patent holders governing MPEG-4 finalizes licensing terms for the media delivery standard, bowing to market pressure for manageable royalty rates. [CNET News.com]

To compliment their QuickTime 6 Pro move, Apple actually did something pretty cool. They released QuickTime Broadcaster, which is an application for creating streams for broadcasting. The bonus here: it's FREE. Couple this with being able to use Darwin Streaming Server (Broadcaster can publish to it) and it means I can most probably set up a nice little mac driven setup for doing broadcasts.

The only down side is they haven't put up the release of Darwin Streaming Server for OS X. So I'd have to compile it by hand, no big deal really. Of course if I was running OS X Server I could run QuickTime Streaming Server, but I'll cope.

Voltaire. "Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." [Quotes of the Day]

Okay, Apple released Quicktime 6. I've had a copy of Quicktime 5 Pro for over a year. I was quite surprised when I went to install 6 that the license doesn't carry over. Heck, they don't even offer any kind of discount for upgrading (that I could see). Bad Apple. No Cookie.

So today I took the plunge and get a new TiBook. The cool thing is how the purchase went. I went to the Apple Store and wrote a check for it. As usual with large check purchases they have to call to confirm. Here's where it gets kinda freaky. They asked for my phone number and I gave them my cell phone number. The guy is on the phone waiting for the confirmation and my cell phone rings. I answer it "hello? Gregory speaking." The voice on the other end says, "Thank you, we are just doing a voice confirmation." and hangs up. A moment later the approval goes through. The sales clerk and I were amused, and both of us wondered what would have happened if I'd given them my home number.

It seems that The Shifted Librarian has also joined the cult of the blue dot. ;)

More Blue Dot Goodness.

I just realized that I never formally noted that I joined the jenett.radio.randomizer network. To find random Radio sites, just click on the little box with a blue dot in it in the right-hand column. Thanks for setting this up, Joe!

[The Shifted Librarian]

Once again, someone is coming out with PVR stuff for personal computers. This time for the mac. The first I read up on was EyeTV. This one looks interesting, but it's only for watching TV on your computer. Also, it suffers from not being able to control a cable box remotely. This is one of the biggest shortcomings of something like this. The second being how much it will effect machine performance. What I love about the TiVo is that I never have to worry about any other process slowing it down, or having to turn it off because it isn't letting me do something else on my computer. To me, this is the big benefit of things like TiVo and Replay.

Arlo Guthrie. "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." [Quotes of the Day]

Dave writes about books on blogging. I'm not sure why we have all these books on blogging coming out. It just feels like they're in response to the current trendiness of blogs. (Though I will admit to liking the Blogroots page)

Worried about your mind being controlled? Then maybe you should visit the AFDB Homepage.

This non-commercial site is dedicated to spreading the word about the Aluminum* Foil Deflector Beanie and how it can help the average human. Here you will find a description of AFDBs, how to make and use them, and general information about related subjects. I hope that you find the AFDB Homepage to be an important source of AFDB know-how and advocacy.

I also went to see the Power Girls movie today. I really enjoyed it. They did a good job with an origin story and gave a bit more history to the story of the girls. It had all the bits that make the TV series so much fun.

Next movie to watch: Minority Report

I finally got around to watching Memento. Probably one of the more original movies I've seen. The 'gimmick' of the movie was very well done. An amazing whodunnit turned inside out.

Now I just need to take some time and go through the extras on this DVD, because there are tons.

Sometimes I really wonder if shuffle play is tuned into my head.

• Never Leaving Eden Again - The Water Walk

• Sanctified - Nine Inch Nails

• Violin - They Might Be Giants

• Pipeline - Depeche Mode

• Egyptian Cream (demo) - Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

• Enola Gay - OMD

Back off to bed for me.

I've been using Proteus for the past month or so. I've been running the latest betas for 2.0 and really like it. I think it's definitely the better multi-protocol IM client for OS X. I highly recommend it, the latest version even has tabbed conversations. RC1 of version 2.0 was just released last night. It sounds like his next version will also be targetted for use with OS X 10.2.

This is pretty cool. I'd love to see a similar tool for iTunes.

Hook Me Up!. BlogAmp

" 'BlogAmp is a free Winamp plugin that allows the user to keep in his personal web page a list with the last songs played in his Winamp. This list is update by FTP in real time.'

Now I can begin streaming playlists again." [...useless miscellany]

[The Shifted Librarian]

Hmmm. Maybe I could write something to query my Audiotron and do the same.

Carrie Fisher. "Instant gratification takes too long." [Quotes of the Day]

I've been slowly working my way through the second season of Buffy. It makes me hate them for the crap they put out last season even more. Everything feels so well put together. I'm just watching "Innocence" and listening to Joss's commentary and realizing this really is one of the best episodes of the series.

One of my online aquaintences has a book coming out within the next few days. Kynn Bartlett's Sams Teach Yourself Cascading Style Sheets in 24 Hours looks like it will be pretty good (I've read a chapter of it already). It's already on my wish list to pick up.

He's also got a new page that's in alpha called Free User Style Sheets for You (aka FUSSY). It's a site dedicated to providing free user styles for use in Web browsers. User style sheets allow you to see (or experience) the Web as you'd like, not the whims of some Web developer. (I hope he doesn't mind me linking to it.) It's a pretty cool idea.

Tom Robbins. "Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business." [Quotes of the Day]

They are now in the process of implimenting RSS in LiveJournal. You can see mine at http://www.livejournal.com/users/gblake/rss if you'd like. Unfortunately, it currently only shows message headers. It looks like they are more interested in making LJ an aggregator though. Or at least that is what they are concentrating on right now.

I have kind of mixed feelings about this. While it's cool that they are finally supporting RSS, the way they are doing it feels kind of confusing. For instance, it looks like anyone can view your aggregator page, and even make comments on the posts there. So it would be like me republishing Scripting News with comment links.

It appears that USA Today was hacked last night. I wish I could have seen it while the hacks were in place.

If I was dating at all, I might find this guide to nicely breaking a date useful.

(-- Grabbed from Nari --)

From Epicurious, the Gourmet Magazine website, we have a recipe for: Salted Water for Boiling. The comments are great too.

(This one came out perfectly the first time I tried it).

"Meary can not live alone. She feels lonely everytime. ...She is the mirror which projects your feeling...Meary has a dream..in which she makes a friend all over the world. If someone points at your Meary and ask you what it is, please tell him that it is a name of 'Meary,' and divide a little of your Meary into the man."

Yet another link found from Boing Boing. This one is an Meary. I want some! Here's a link to some pictures of Meary.

This is one of the best things I've ever seen. Compact versions of classic films!

Cellphone Theater.

Slowhand sez: "This is an odd little art project, entirely unrelated to the war, by a warblogger: short little stick-figure animations which are digested versions of classic films (with gratuitous decapitations edited in as neccessary), made suitable for display on early-generation web-enabled cell phones, but now posted to the web in general."

Link

Discuss

(Thanks, Slowhand!) [Boing Boing Blog]

I'm not even sure that I can pick one I like more then the others.

I was cleaning out my RSS feeds and discovered that somehow Ernie the Attorney had dropped off. I think he's got one of the more interesting Law Blogs out there.

Yesterday my friend Hank paged me to say "Guess what! I got a TiBook!" I laughed because this was one of the people who laughed at me a year ago when I got mine. He loved it, he was able to go home and have it and the Airport he got up and running in minutes. He's also been enjoying OS X quite a bit (he's an old unix guy).

On that same subject, I stumbled on Mac OS X: The Search for OS Canaan. It's a blog by a few folks making the switch. It's pretty good. Forget Apple's hype-filled ads, this is much nicer IMHO and a heck of a lot less preachy.

I think Apple's biggest obstacle is overcoming the view that people have of them. People have this preconception about Apple based on old MacOS. I've seen people on mailing lists talk about why they don't like Macs and 3/5ths of their reasons don't even apply with OS X.

For some reason when I installed Spamassassin I couldn't get Razor to build. Now I did! Hopefully this will help me filter the spam I'm getting a little bit more.

Use your ibook or TiBook from your desk a lot? You should check out the iCurve laptop stand from Griffin Technology. I know a few people who would love this, heck, I wouldn't mind having one for work. It would show off my swanky TiBook much more ;).

Oscar Wilde. "The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read." [Quotes of the Day]

Just what is wrong with people these days?

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Dozens of students were told to undergo AIDS and hepatitis tests after their teacher had them share a needle to draw blood during science class, a school official said Thursday. [CNN]

This teacher should lose their job for such incompentence. I mean, how could this guy be so careless?

Update: Phil Ackley asked in the comments 'what about the students that actually did it?' I thought about commenting on this too. I didn't because I really have no idea what I'd expect a 7th graders to know. Looking back, I remember having 'drug education' back in 6th grade. So I guess I'd expect at least one or two of the students to have had a clue and said something.

The best science fiction show on TV is "Farscape." John Crichton stars as an astronaut from Earth who has been accidentally flung to the far reaches of the galaxy during a chance encounter with a wormhole. His predicament has a resemblance to yours, Scorpio, wouldn't you say? Like him, fortunately, you're making the most of your wayward adventure. There's another parallel. "I'm the reverse King Arthur," Crichton brags at one point, oozing self-deprecating humor. "I can put the sword back into the stone." I advise you Scorpios to do something similar: Return the magical you-know-what to where it came from. A few weeks from now, you can circle back and retrieve it. At that time, you'll be primed to take full advantage of the power you're not yet ready to use.

What a kickass horoscope. I Love "Farscape"! I think it's one of the best things on TV these days.

(-- Horoscope from http://www.freewillastrology.com/ (which is boasting a spankin new cool design!) --)

Viagra Spill: "A freighter containing 62,000 metric tons of popular impotence drug Viagra struck a reef and sank in Lake Michigan today. As a result, the once-frigid lake no longer dangles into Illinois and Indiana, but now spans majestically across northern Wisconsin." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]

I'm usually really good about my ATM card. I've gone years without losing one. Yet in the past two months I've lost mine twice. Am I going suddenly senile? What is going on here?

That and I don't have as much in my checking as I thought right now and am peeved because of it.

Britain to Relax Marijuana Laws. Britain said today that it would keep the use of marijuana theoretically illegal but no longer arrest people using it in discreet amounts in private. By Warren Hoge. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Cool. Now if the US would just relax its laws too. I do think that it's up to the individual to make the choice of weather or not to partake (even if I can't ever again).

Boing Boing Blog posts about an article in The World & I titled The Feminization of American Culture: How Modern Chemicals May Be Changing Human Biology. Supposedly, chemicals that are getting into the environment have estrogen-like effects.

Plastics--including a plasticizer called phthalate, used in making flexible plastic for bottles of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Evian water, and so forth--are known to have estrogenic effects.

Damn, and I've been living on bottled water lately.

Posted w/out comment:

You are TENJOU UTENA
You prize nobility above all else, striving to be reunited with your prince. Apart from this, you treasure your friendships most of all. Unwilling to compromise your values in search of your dreams, you often seem to create more trouble than solve it. However, your persistence is what sets you apart from all others.

Take the "What Magic Girl are you?" Quiz

Philip G. Hamerton. "Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?" [Quotes of the Day]

Thank god I'm a mac user:

Mac OS users to miss Big Brother 3 feeds [The Macintosh News Network]

Though I am still kind of pissed at Real and their lack of support for the mac. They really are quite suckful in that area these days.

I picked up Digweed's latest mix CD MMII about two weeks ago and have only now started to have time to listen to it. I really like it. It has the same kind of feel as his other stuff in some ways, but the overall tone is different. It's a bit mellower, a very different sound, but still feels like Digweed.

I've read a few reviews that didn't like it because it didn't sound enough like his other stuff. I think that is what I like most about it. I like when DJs show they have range, that they don't just fit into a cookiecutter definition of 'trance DJ' or 'house DJ'. That's one reason I'm always looking for new music, experimenting with new styles. I hate to be classified like that. Anyways, I give this CD a big thumbs up.

The Miami Herald has a story about how Scanners can mistake chocolate for bombs. It seems they have a hard time "telling the difference among peanut butter, chocolate and deadly explosives." So if you don't want to be stopped, be sure you aren't carrying any chocolate or peanut butter (recees peanut butter cups probably a big nono).

Apple's AppleCare rocks. I brought in my TiBook on Saturday and it arrived back at the store today. I'll be picking it up after work.

So now that I have it all happy again it's going on the market. I'm ready to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Here's the specs:

• 500Mhz

• 20GB Hard Drive

• 512MB Memory

• DVD drive (new!)

• Airport Card

• AppleCare

I'm asking $1500 for it. So feel free to drop me a line if you are interested.

What's With the Blue Dot? [jenett.radio]

I feel like I'm one of the last people to jump onto the bandwagon. I've been using Proteus 2.0 on my mac for the last few weeks and really liking it, so I haven't done much IMing from my PC. Last night after having an inane number of 'rate errors' (whatever the heck those are) when trying to log into AOL I decided to try Trillian. I have to say this is quite a slick program. I hope that Proteus takes some hints from it because it is really nice. And I'd like to see Trillian impliment tabbed conversations.

Poul Anderson. "I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated." [Quotes of the Day]

Remember when you couldn't browse the web without seeing a banner ad for NextCard? As of today cardholders will no longer be able to use their cards (though they will still be responsible for paying their balance). While the FDIC was able to sell off a small portion of the accounts, they estimate the closure will cost between 4300 and $400 million. Ouch.

Interestingly enough, their web site is still up and has a big button to sign up for a new card.

Two interesting things I bumped into this morning that seemed to compliment each other nicely. First was an article on c|net titled Sites bow to Microsoft's browser king. The article talks about people who are still designing sites that are made to work in IE and ignore other browsers. Then I run into this post by Adam over on his blog:

One of my heroes, Peter Ford writes on schoolblogs.com: "

"If a student leaves my class with the idea that Internet Explorer is the only internet browser then I have done him or her a disservice.  They should have experienced Opera, Mozilla or others in their time under my influence. Then I can honestly say that they are learning generic skills that will equip them to make increasingly important choices as they reach the 'real world' threshold." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

While I do admit to using IE as a semi-primary browser for a while, Mozilla easily went and toppled it from its place. And I love the features in Mozilla. I haven't seen a popup ad in ages (though they do still sneak through now and then).

Jon Udell has a great article over on O'Reilly Network. Here's a snippet of what it is about:

Control your identity, or Microsoft and Intel will. We can choose accountability, or we can let the unholy alliance of Hollywood, Microsoft, Intel, and the government choose for us. The alliance, cleverly, pretends to solve problems that really annoy us, like spam and email worms. But these violations of trust won't yield simply to trusted motherboards and operating systems. People have to assert (and prove) their claims of trustworthiness, and other people have to make judgments about those assertions. The PKI technologies haven't yet perfected the art of binding real identities to virtual ones, but that's just what will be needed on top of TCPA/Palladium in order to deliver the benefits that people actually want.  [full story at O'Reilly Network] ... [Jon's Radio]

I'm definitely going to look into following the steps he outlines. Btw, O'Reilly gets a big BOO HISS for their ad placement on the second page. It starts out: Once enrolled, you can create one or more digital IDs. That process goes like this: and then there's a bigass ad, THEN the steps listing the process. I'm sorry, I can understand needing to run ads to help support the site, but it really breaks the flow of the article the way it is.

It seems that you can now go to Ninja School. I wanna be a ninja!

Found via jenett.radio was Antipixel. I found a few interesting posts there within the last day or so. The first had to do with a thread on MacSlash on Apple and DRM. The second was about Ripley's Believe it or not having problems finding freaks. Both are pretty good reads.

Adam writes about a new version of word:

New Version of word you just gotta try out online! [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Dick Werthimer. "The purpose of life is to fight maturity." [Quotes of the Day]

Zannah mentioned how she loves KareKano and I have to agree on this. I watched the first DVD over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I wasn't quite sure what to think about it at first, but by the end of the third episode I was hooked. I really like how they are telling the story.

Hopefully the next one will be out soon.

Anime Expo 2002 happened this last weekend and a bunch of shows I like were licensed (I only posted the ones I'm interested in/curious about):

• Central Park Media got Alien 9 and DNA^2 along with the rest of Utena

• Pioneer announced Mahoromatic (S1), GateKeepers 21, Ai Yori Aoshi, Chobits, and Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar

• ADV announced Rahxephon and Pretear

• Bandai Announced Argent Soma as well as the rest of the Love Hina stuff out there (ep 25, specials, and again).

There was lots of other stuff announced, but it was stuff I didn't really know/care about. I'm psyched/bummed about Chobits and Ai Yori Aoshi, since this means they won't be fansubbed as quickly if at all.

This morning I stumbled onto The Collective Unconsciousness Project. It looks pretty cool. From the about page:

The Collective Unconsciousness Project (TCUP) is not designed to be a finished project, but an evolving framework that is both created and changed through interaction with it. It exists as both and online community and personal space. It's not as straight forward as an information driven website, but a nonlinear experience based on chance and the user's interactions. The purpose is to view connections between our dreams.

Users can contribute to the site by logging their dreams. This has a double effect, both helping to grow the database of dreams that the project can explore, and creating a personalized dream log for each user. The explore section of the site is the realization of TCUP. This is an environment that allows you to travel from dream to dream in a nonlinear yet interconnected way -- without being made fully aware of what those connections are, and without being in total control of the path you take.

Of course to use this I need to start remembering/recording my dreams.

I was going to post about the post referenced here last night, but fell asleep.

Yesterday I was thinking about moving my backup installation of Radio from my iPod to my G3. Unfortunately, Radio is very tied into the drive name it was installed on. There are some scripts out there to change it, but I was a little nervous about running those. In the end I decided to keep it on the iPod for the week.

Add this to my small wish list for Radio. Some kind of export option. In the future it is possible that I might have to move it to a machine with a different name and it would be nice if it wasn't a big job.

Even with going to sleep early last night I just can't seem to get motivated to get into work this morning. Four day weekends suck in that way. They're just long enough that you start to get relaxed, but they aren't long enough that you'd really consider it a vacation. On the plus side I did sleep pretty much all through the night last night.

From over on jennet.radio:

RAVE Act: RIP Live Electronic Music.  The RAVE Act, whose acronym stands for "Reducing Americans' Vunerability to Ecstacy", would fine people or companies that organize or host events "featuring loud, pounding dance music" up to $2,000,000, and allows promoters to be jailed for up to 20 years, without requiring officials to prove that any of the attendees actually possessed drugs...  [kuro5hin.org]

"without requiring officials to prove that any of the attendees actually possessed drugs" - you've got to be kidding! [jenett.radio]

The timing of this is great as I was at a house party last night with a lot of old raver types. Most of us don't get out to parties much anymore, you'll most likely find us at a club or house party these days. This has been making the rounds of the rave mailing lists I'm still on and we were talking about it some last night. I actually have not had a chance to read up on it too much, but I plan to later.

This is a post to make sure I didn't just screw everything up.

Pablo Picasso. "Everything you can imagine is real." [Quotes of the Day]

I just got done watching the latest DVD (#10) and the last episode on it was just amazing (Episode 39: Sakura's Dizzy Fever Day). It was the kind of episode where when it is done you want to see the next one. We're into the second season now, and I know the first arc finishes up in this season. At least I've got other things to watch to keep myself busy till the next one.

Next up: His & Her Circumstances

For all those aspiring evil villains out there. I give you VillainSupply.com: "your best online source for everything EVIL. If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you." This site has everything. From Secret Bases to Doomsday Weapons. Along with helpful hints like:

A Secret Lair isn't so secret with a couple of hundred ex-construction workers wandering the globe, telling bar patrons about the secret shark trap you built into your underwater grotto. That's why it's vital to mind Helpful Tip #12:

ALWAYS KILL OFF YOUR CONSTRUCTION CREW ONCE YOUR LAIR IS COMPLETE!

In my experience, the best way to do this is to offer them all a trip home on a luxury liner -- a luxury liner with a hull lined with C4, that is. BHA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha!

-- Lord Vilhelm Von Superschuft, Committee of Evil

I want the Subterranean Island Base with optional Volcano Upgrade.

(-- Found over on Electric Papyrus --)

Some people yak on cell phones or munch on burritos while they drive. I, on the other hand, often meditate on the weekly horoscopes I write for you. Just recently, I was pondering your astrological aspects while motoring around Santa Cruz, CA. "How can I convey the rebellious but expansive spirit of the time for Scorpios?" I thought to myself. "What metaphor might serve to portray the value of being playful yet precise while thinking outside the box? Is there any image that'll inspire them to be unpredictable for the liberating fun of it, not as a means of gaining power over others?" A perfect omen arrived as I came to a stop at a busy intersection. There up high, hanging from a wire connecting the traffic signal to a telephone pole, was a pair of sneakers, spray-painted gold and tied together.

(-- From http://www.freewillastrology.com/ --)

I brought my TiBook in for service today. It's DVD drive was a little flakey. It didn't always reliably mount CDs I put into it. I should have it back by late next week. I suddenly realize how much I rely on it. I do all my personal work on it.

The cool thing I did was back up Radio to my iPod and that is currently hooked up to my G3 and runninig Radio over there. I love firewire.

One of the best features of opera makes it to Mozilla:

Mouse gestures in Mozilla. If you're running Mozilla -- my new bestest friend -- you should immediately install the Mozilla Gestures add-on. Gesture support works like this: hold the mouse down and zoom right to go forward, left to go back, up to open a link in a new tab and down to open it in a new window. Booyah!

Link Discuss

(Thanks, Dan!) [Boing Boing Blog]

I'm off to check it out now.

Besides having one of the cooler names for a show, Boogiepop Phantom is one of the more complex shows I've seen. I really do need to do another viewing to get more of a feel for what is going on. Over on Anime On Dvd there is a wonderful Thematic Analysis of Boogiepop Phantom. For anyone who has seen the show it's a very interesting read (at least so far, I'm about halfway through it).

At the beach party last weekend I had the funniest thing happen. I was about halfway through my set and I pulled out a record to play. I started it up and noticed that the record looked warped. Cursing to myself, I grabbed another record and it looked like it was warped too!

At this point I was getting a little worried. Did a bunch of my records get warped? I pull off the second record and grab another. As I go to put it down on the turntable what do I see? A MOTH. Somehow the damn thing had slipped in there under the first record (not that hard since there were TONS of them out at the beach). Of course at this point there was no chance of me mixing into this track. Luckily, it was one that worked well to just start after a brief silence. It worked well and I'm starting to wonder if it would work to every once in a while drop a track that way. Let the song in front of it run out and let there be just a moment of silence before the next one starts. For some songs the effect would be amazing.

The runner up for one of the best headlines ever:

Pubs angry at vomit tax   [sysrick.com < FARK] [jenett.radio]

Burning Man sues over Boobies-of-Burning-Man video. Burning Man's organizers are suing a girls-gone-wild video maker for releasing a "Boobies of Burning Man" video of the playa's topless residents.

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Discuss

(via New World Disorder) [Boing Boing Blog]

This is just so wrong. They aren't asking permission of the people they filmed. They certainly didn't get permission to film there. And making a profit off of it is just seems so anti-Burning Man. Ick.

Walt Kelly. "Now is the time for all good men to come to." [Quotes of the Day]

It's been a while since I was up in the middle of the night like this. Here's a taste of what the audiotron has been playing for me.

• Gotta Knock a Little Harder - Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's Door soundtrack

• Bass - Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians

• Blueski - Underworld

• It's Everything - China Crisis

• Sinequanon - Hybrid

• The Overload - Talking Heads

And on that note. I think I may try and get some sleep again.

I was looking again at what my TiVo's been watching when I'm not around. Here's a sampling of things it thought I might like (It's gotten pretty good I think):

• Mad About You

• Connections

• Power Girls

• NewsRadio

• House Invaders

• Bewitched

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Changing Rooms

• Changing Rooms

• Dragon ball Z

Not too bad, though I wish it would suggest to me some things that I don't already watch too.

Those damn Canadians are at it again. Someone's got to stop them!

The other day I finished Last Night a Dj Saved My Life : The History of the DJ. It was really good. Reading about the history of DJing was really cool. But more then that reading about all the various music scenes they have been a part of was just amazing. I was most struck by every generation having its own underground dance scene of some kind and the similarities between them.

I've got another book on the subject that I hope to read soon too, after I finish reading a few other things.

I think this is possibly one of the best headlines ever: Man robbed after sucking nipples smeared with knock-out drops. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Over on Dr. Bott, they have the Dr. Bott's iPod Connection Kit with FM Transmitter. It looks pretty cool. It includes a car charger and a little miniFM transmitter. Has anyone used any of these FM transmitter things? Are any of them good? This would be a neat way to play mp3s in my car from my iPod.

Searching for Gregory Blake in google I am once again the top result. And as an added bonus, I'm the 7th match down for just Gregory. Someday I will be #1.

I need a life.

Whee. I won once and lost once at Battleships. It's basicly the old game Battleship, but I think the rules are a tiny bit different.

From jenett.radio:

Mark Wieczorek:  "You Are Where You Live.  What does where you live say about you?"  [via kuro5hin]

Looking at my MicroVision segments, I'm part of 'Up and Coming', 'Successful Singles', 'Metro Singles', 'Struggling Metro Mix', and 'Movers and Shakers'. Well, I don't know how Up and Coming I am, but I guess I might be a Successful Single. I've been successfully single for a few years. It doesn't take that much effort.

Balloonist, No Quitter, Circles the World Solo. After failing five times, Steve Fossett became the first person to fly around the planet nonstop and alone without a motor. By Kenneth Chang. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Talk about dedication. It's cool that someone finally succeeded. So what does this leave us with as far as a 'undoable' things?

Douglas Adams. "Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of." [Quotes of the Day]

I joined the jennet.radio.randomizer. If you click on the button that looks like

title="jenett.radio.randomizer - click to visit a random Radio weblog - for

information, contact randomizer@coolstop.com">alt="jenett.radio.randomizer - click to visit a random Radio weblog - for

information, contact randomizer@coolstop.com"

src="http://coolstop.com/radio/images/randomizer.gif" border=0 width=16

vspace=3 />

over on the right it will bring you to a random page of someone else who is using it too.

Sometimes I wish I could tell who was downloading stuff from my machine. Someone (the same person) been grabbing the same mp3s frommy site again and again and again all morning. I don't know what the heck is up with it. I notice they are using an old version of Mozilla. I think it is actually trying to preload everything from the page it can or something. Whoever you are, upgrade your browser! Mozilla 1.0 (and 1.1) are much better then whatever you are using.

Had Chris finally watch some Chobits last night. I don't think she dug it that much (or at least she didn't like the protagonist that much).

Last night I went to see Lilo & Stitch with my friend Cheryl. It was quite enjoyable. I think Disney did a great job with this one. It was actually quite violent for a Disney movie I thought too (cartoon violence, but still violence ^_^). Stitch rules.

If Jenny (867-5309) came out today would it have to be called Jenny (555-5309)?

Took in a bit of anime over the weekend. Here's my thoughts on what I saw:

• Kimagure Orange Road - Even though there are issues with Animeigo not putting the opening in front of the episodes (they're fixing it though), this is so far an enjoyable series. I've made it through the first four discs and am starting to get into it. The animation is definitely a bit old, but the show is strong enough that it still works.

• Chobits - Episode 13 - Another lite episode with hints of bigger things going on in the background. I think the 'rpg episode' is becoming an anime standard.

• Ai Yori Aoshi - Episode 8 - I wish they came out with episodes of this faster. I'm really enjoying this show. This episode was quite cute, introducing the pet ferret.

• Dual - I rented this one from Netflix and now I have to see if they have the others. It was much more enjoyable then I thought it would be (based on the description).

• Galaxy Angel - This one is growing on me. It's a 15 min show. I saw the third episode last night and was finally starting to get into the zanyness of it.

I've been trying to read up on this a bit more lately. I have to admit that the stuff I read makes me a little nervous about MS these days. Add this to my 'reasons I'm glad I went Apple' list.

More on Palladium...
Is Microsoft's Palladium a Trojan Horse?
Palladium/TCPA fever
TCPA / Palladium Frequently Asked Questions (via Synergic Earth)  [jenett.radio]

Fox is doing an updated version of Rocky Horror. This one will be called Rocky Horror Birthday Show. Has anyone told them that part of what made RHPS so great was the audience? Or maybe they expect people to sit alone at home yelling at their TVs.

So I'm a little late this week. This week's starts with 'When was the last time you...'

1. ...sent a handwritten letter? A few months ago to a friend of mine on LJ. Actually it was half handwritten half typed.

2. ...baked something from scratch or made something by hand? Hmm. Not for a while. Though I've been getting the urge to make some brownies lately.

3. ...camped in a tent? I can't even remember. Sometime in my teen years.

4. ...volunteered your time to church, school, or community? Unfortunately, not any time recently.

5. ...helped a stranger? I gave someone directions the other day. Does that count? ^_^

I know someone (zannah?) was talking about places to find Personcom Ears. It looks like CDJapan has them.

Japanese Proverb. "The reverse side also has a reverse side." [Quotes of the Day]

Here's a post to one of the TiVo forums about the wireless hack due out later this month. The part I was most happy to read about is that it has WEP encryption. My big worry was someone being able to hack my TiVo wirelessly.

The first thing I said this morning was:

I'll have a french vanilla with two sugars and one cream.

Rats!

Remember, tomorrow is time to say 'Rabbit Rabbit'.