August 2002 Archives

l.m. orchard asks "Why does everyone seem to ignore LiveJournal"? I think there are a couple of reasons. The first is that, as said, most of it is pretty lite on actual content. Try clicking on the random journal a few times. The chances of finding something with a lot of content are pretty slim. Heck even my LiveJournal is just me posting about what I ate when I feel like it.

I mostly use LiveJournal to keep up with the friends of mine who use it. I've added a number of other random people just because I find reading their posts to be interesting. But the content in LJ seems to be different then your usual blog. It tends to be treated much more as a diary or a place to post your quiz answers. And anytime I've looked at any of their user groups I've been very disappointed by the lack of any real discussion.

LiveJournal does have some cool features though. The whole concept of friends over there is quite useful. It is kind of like its own built in RSS. But it also provides a level of security in that you can have posts that only your friends can read. Within the LiveJournal community as a whole there are many groupings of friends who use it.

My big issue with LiveJournal is that it seems to live in a vacuum. People there don't seem to explore off of LiveJournal that often. There's not any easy way to add a kind of blogrolling list to your journal (at least one that includes people not on LJ). Even their RSS support is pretty lacking IMHO (that could be a whole other rant on its own :)). So while people outside of LJ don't necessarily watch things there often, I don't think LiveJournal makes any great efforts to make itself accessable to the rest of the world. Heck, there are a number of people I've met from LJ who have never even heard the world 'blog'.

Konrad Lorenz. "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." [Quotes of the Day]

From over on a mailing list I'm on there was a link to this page of product reviews for the Harry Potter Nimbis 2000 Broom over on Amazon. Presented without much comment. But I found it quite funny, especially when you take all the reviews in context of one another.

Thanks to Pasiphae for sending me this link to a wonderful waterpik review over on Epinions.

Following in the footsteps of Smokey and Woodsy, the FTC gives us Dewie. He's "a savvy little turtle named "Dewie"� with a hardened shell that won't get crushed on the Information Superhighway."

Dewie's mission will be teaching kids to take precautions when they are on the computer, traveling the Internet's many avenues to information.

"The idea is to get (kids) thinking about it. just like we get them to look both ways before crossing the street" Swindle said.

Once again, Boing Boing provides much entertainment:

Anti-comet airbag plans. A scientist in Oklahoma is planning to build giant, anti-comet airbags that can be sent into space and inflated to deflect the course of world-threating lumps of celestial rock.

Far better to send up a space ship equipped with a massive airbag that could be inflated to several miles wide and used to gently buffet the invading solar body away from a collision course with earth.

"It seems a safe, simple and realistic idea," Burchard told the magazine's latest edition.

I can just see the space shuttle with a giant ballon in front of it ramming a comet.

Another NYTimes story. This one about a Means Found to Prosecute Decades-Old Abuse Cases. It features a comments from one priest that left me a bit speachless.

In an interview with The Detroit News that the newspaper published yesterday, Mr. Burkholder said his relationships with boys were "always a two-way thing."

"The boys work in the rectory with the priest and you just get friendly. You sit down in the rectory and have a Coke. It's a mutual deal," he said. "An affectionate thing and a friendly thing." He said he mostly fondled the boys, but sometimes had oral sex with them.

"It's a friendship between two people that has been made into something horrible, rotten. People are trying by hook or by crook to make me look bad. Some of the accusations are true, but so what? I was a priest, a good priest, who had a weakness."

Oh yes, that's always what I think about when sitting down and having a Coke. What planet is this guy from?

Testing out monthly archives to see if it posts to it automagicly

From the NYTimes:

The Even-More-Compact Disc. The new disc by DataPlay -- which is the size of a poker chip but holds 11 hours of music -- offers yet another way to play tunes on a palm-sized device. By Michel Marriott. [New York Times: Technology]

Interesting, but 11 hours of music? How much compression are they using on it? That seems like a huge amount of music for something that size. I also really wonder how easy it will be to knock CDs from where they are. CDs were sold offered acoustic value over vinyl. CDs also promised to be recordable. And currently CD players are everywhere. I have nine devices in my home that I can play them on.

Of course, DVD has displayed VHS in an amazingly short amount of time also. Though once again, it was a format that offered better video quality and improved sound.

There's no such thing as just 'one quick game' of Bejeweled.

Thanks to Graham Norton and Carrie Fisher for inspiring me to find this page on Mormon Masturbation Prevention. One of the funniest things I've read in a while.

John A. Wheeler. "If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day." [Quotes of the Day]

Alfred North Whitehead. "The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy." [Quotes of the Day]

Over in ScienceDaily Magazine they talk about a study showing that too many lungs are rejected for transplant. I hope to be able to read more about this in the future. I may actually ask about it when I go in for my regular appointment on Wednesday.

The NYTimes has an article on the rise of DVDs.

Revolt in the Den: DVD Sends the VCR Packing to the Attic. Digital videodiscs and their players, which five years ago were not much more than the toys of gadget-lust sufferers, have now taken full wing as a true pop-culture phenomenon. By Rick Lyman. [New York Times: Technology]

The final nail in the coffin of the VCR will be when DVD recorders come down to a reasonable price. We've already got the TiVo, but it still hasn't gotten as much market penetration. And, if I want to archive something on the TiVo I still need my VCR. The question now is just how fast that will happen.

Adam writes about the Geek Squad. Maybe this could be my next job. I wonder if they have a Boston branch.

Darrin Weinberg. "It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose." [Quotes of the Day]

My parents moved to Hartford about 4 years ago. While the following article is accurate, it does leave out the parts of Hartford that are thriving (like around where my parents live):

Poverty in a Land of Plenty: Can Hartford Ever Recover?. Hartford's descent reflects the conundrum of Connecticut, which has a split economy of affluent suburbs and floundering cities. By Paul Zielbauer. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

There's been a number of posts to about Jaguar showing up. Here's a few I found (with comments).

• Quote of the moment. Charles Miller:  "A sign that Apple is catching up with Microsoft÷there's already a security patch for Jaguar." [jenett.radio] My Comment. This isn't really valid, since this is something that was also recently patched for 10.1.5 and the patches appeared after 10.2 went gold. Given that these are not code produced by Apple I don't think it says that much.

• Spam Filter. Adam Curry:  "I've installed Jaguar on my iBook. Love the new features, especially the mail application. I've been reading about the spam filter and must admit I'm duly impressed!" [jenett.radio] Me too! Though I don't get spam that much these days, so it is taking a little bit longer to train

• OS X Jaguar -- Early Impressions [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

• Macnn.com has a list of some Apple software updates tied to 10.2.

• MacSlash has first reactions to Jaguar.

Woke up. It's 63 out. A nice cool breeze coming in my apartment, the sun peeking out. I'm about to go grab a cup of coffee and a muffin and sit out on the doorstep with my laptop.

The NYSun says reports on an email going around suggesting that the first car of every subway train is the "singles car".

I am always complaining about not having places to meet new people. I could have just been hopping on the subway! Now we just need to get people in boston doing this.

[Read about at Over the Edge]

Edmund Burke. "It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact." [Quotes of the Day]

The 10th anniversary edition of Reservoir dogs is coming out and they are releasing it with four different covers. Or, if you really want to have them all, you can buy a fourpack with all four covers. That's right, you'd get four copies of the DVD with the only difference being the cover. And by buying them together you save a whole TWO cents.

It's bad enough that they are releasing different editions of movies every six to twelve months, but not giving people any new content sucks. Someone should scan in all the covers so people can download them and print them out. That way you could change the cover as often as you wanted.

The devil didn't make you do it. He's not smart enough. God could have made you do it if He wanted, but that would have interfered with your free will, which is against His principles. No, Scorpio, the credit for your broken trances and shattered taboos must rest with what we in the consciousness industry refer to as your "higher self" -- also known as your guardian angel, your still small voice, or the grown-up version of your imaginary friend from childhood. During the rest of your long life you will provoke many breakthroughs that will serve you for a while and then fade. But the beauty your higher self has recently cracked open will resurrect itself over and over again until the day you die.

(-- Courtesy of http://www.freewillastrology.com/ --)

Carl Sandburg. "I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." [Quotes of the Day]

Just now I was laying in bed and heard a fairly noisy bit of noise from under my bed. Wonderful. The mouse is back. It's been months since I hear or saw any sign at all of the little bugger. I actually thought he'd taken off or something.

I think I must have dropped a pretzel or two because there was one and a half pretzels by the side of my bed. The weird part about it was at one point I heard a slight clatter, then a mousey squeal, then another one, then it sounded like it ran off. I'm hoping there isn't another mouse under there and they are having turf wars or something. Or maybe it was a mouse squeal for joy at having scored a few pretzels. Anyways, now that I know he likes pretzels I'm going to pick up a trap and catch that bugger, and any friends he may have.

I'm now 23 episodes in and I am loving this show. I hope they do a good job releasing this on DVD.

Starbucks has teamed up with T-Mobile to provide wireless access in a number of it's shops. Looking at their coverage in my area shows that the one down the street from me and the ones in Harvard Square have access. T-Mobile actually looks like it has some pretty good service offerings. If I were a student near one of those places I'd definitely look into it. Of course there are other places to sit near some of those hotspots.

Of course, I'm not a fan of Starbucks. Why can't the cafes I like have wireless access.

Now, so that your loved ones can remember you, you too can give (be?) the very best. Have yourself made into a LifeGem after you've passed away.

A LifeGem is a certified, high quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique and wonderful life.

The LifeGem diamond is more than a memorial to visit on the weekends or place on a shelf‰¥Ï it is a way to embrace your loved one's memory day by day. The LifeGem is the most unique and timeless memorial available for creating a testimony to their unique life.

I still like the idea of being made into a frisbee better. Though this does open up all kinds of thinking for what I could have my remains made into when I die. I'd want it to be something I'd be remembered for.

J.D. Salinger. "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." [Quotes of the Day]

BAH! On my way to get coffee this morning I got stuck behind FOUR different garbage trucks. The side streets in Cambridge are quite narrow, so it's usually impossible to get past them. Now I have this feeling that the world is out to get me today.

Over 400 teenagers (and older) were arrested for Criminal Tresspass in Houston. In this case the Police seem to have gone above and beyond the call of duty, going as far as arresting people eating at the Sonic next door.

This is where I'm baffled. Since when is even being in the parking lot of an open business criminal tresspassing? This has got to be just wonderful for K-Mart's business.

Update:Here's an update. The number was actually around 278. The cops went there to arrest people drag racing and when nobody was there, the Captain in charge said to just arrest everybody. Is it any surprise people don't like cops?

A nice article in the Boston Globe about Apple and OS X nudging it's way into more markets. In this case, the scientific computing market.

So about thirteen years ago at a school called Carnegie Mellon Jim Aspnes set up something called TinyMUD. While there had been MUDs around before (like AberMUD). This one had more a social atmosphere to it. There was no combat. People who connected to add onto the world. It had some simple building commands that let people build new rooms for people to explore as well as create puzzles for them to solve.

I discovered TinyMUD about 12 and a half years ago. A friend of mine had been playing around on it and told me I had to try it out. The rest, as they say, is history. I've been using MUDs ever since. I've watched people move away from TinyMUD to using other servers based on it. I've watched history be rewritten a few times. It's weird looking back and seeing how much I've changed in that time, along with everyone else. When I first started we were all in college. Now we're in our thirties (or on the verge of them) and half of us have families.

It's been an interesting time. I wonder if I'll still be hanging out on these things in another 13 years.

Since I can't sleep, here's what I've been watching lately:

• Inu Yasha - I'm about 15 episodes into this show. So far it's quite good. It's a nice mix of adventure, action, and romantic comedy, with a supernatural time travelling twist. This is a long one though. There are 82 episodes fansubbed already. Also, starting a week from Saturday, this show will be on "Cartoon Network" as part of "Adult Swim".

• Hikaru no go - I'm ten episodes into this show and finding it much more interesting then I would have thought. There's a lot of good drama and character interaction. Part of me wonders how long they can keep it up for though.

• Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai - This show remains insane. They've spoofed a number of movie and anime genres. From scifi (the 2001 bit is great) to Hong Kong Action movies to Film Noir. And then around episode 7 or 8 it took an odd little left turn and gained a bit of a plot. I'm up to episode 10 and anxiously awaiting the last few episodes of this show.

• Chobits - With what is most likely the last major story arc the plot is really starting to pick up. The last two episodes have really given me a bunch to think about. I'm wondering how they are going to tie it up, since I think the manga is still going on.

That's it for now. Right now I'm anxiously awaiting the next episodes of Ai Yori Aoshi and Saikano.

Ogden Nash. "People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it." [Quotes of the Day]

PopCap Games, those people responsible for such time wasters as Bejewelled and Alchemy that show up on MSN Gaming Zone and Yahoo Games, have released another one that I'm hooked on: Insaniquarium. From their page: Feed fish! Fight aliens! It's the craziest fish tank you've ever seen in this action/strategy hit. I gotta agree. It's addicting too!

Boing Boing has a story up about someone being mislabeled as a spammer. There are a number of posts up on the weblog about it, including one talking about how easy it is to report someone as a spammer.

This got me thinking a bit more about services like SpamCop. ISPs supposedly pay enough attention to them that if you are labeled a spammer they don't want you as a customer. But there's no form of control here. Even if everyone involved gets together to show them an error, SpamCop isn't listening. IMHO, this makes their service less effective.

On other spam fronts, I'm experimenting with the new spam filtering features in Jaguar. The latest version of the OS X Mail app lets you tag messages as spam and supposedly learns over time what is and isn't spam. Currently I've turned off spamassassin and am letting Mail do its thing. So far it is doing a pretty good job. It hasn't misreported any regular mail as spam and has caught most of the spam I've gotten. I'll report more in a month or so.

One other thing I discoved that OS X Mail can do is bounce messages back to the sender saying that the message couldn't be delivered. I'm thinking of tying this into the spam detection so that when I get spam it bounces the message back like I don't exist. The question is if most spammers are listening for message bounces.

The Mercury Men are the Masters of nothing, Practitioners of the Art of Not Doing.

Following in other's footsteps: Today I will manifest my dynamic being. From the Affirmation Bullsh*t Generator for Sensitive New Age Guys  [Doc Searls Weblog] [jenett.radio] [Just cheap dirt]

Boing Boing posts about my favorite soda company I discovered them when I was living in San Diego. They have the most original soda flavors. My personal favorite is their Green Apple soda. But they also have really interesting flavors like Blue Bubble Gum. Cory writes about one of my favorite features of their sodas though:

Jones Soda, the Canadian soda-pop "microbrewery," does teensy print runs for its soda labels, incorporating photos that soda fans have submitted to their site and voted on. Link Discuss

I always wanted to have a picture good enough to send into them.

Jones also produces the best named energy drink: Whup-ass.

Simeon Strunsky. "Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly." [Quotes of the Day]

I have to say that the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training has one of the worst voice mail systems ever. I just sat through about five minutes of recordings only to be told at the end that they were too busy and I'd have to try again later. This was after they said earlier in the call that they were very busy and I could wait if i wanted to.

The part that was most annoying though is that I had to take the time to enter a bunch of personal information. Why the heck do you bother to take in that information if you aren't going to even connect me in the first place. I was already annoyed because I was going to go to one of the walk-in centers so I could get out of the house. But their damn web site is broken so I can't see where they are.

It's 6am and it is 78 degrees out already. There's something just wrong about that. The weather report says it will only get up to 87 degrees today, but I don't know if i want to believe them. Tomorrow looks to be better, but we'll see.

I have a ton of stuff to get done today, so don't know how much I'll be around. I really need to start writing lists of things to do. Or, at least start using my PilotiCal to show up.

I went up to NH to hang out with my cousins. Now that I have some time off I think I may go up there for a day or two later this week if I can get a hold of them. It would be good to get away from town for a little bit I think.

Karl Marx. "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form." [Quotes of the Day]

Macworld has a review of OS X 10.2 up. It gives a nice overview of what's included with it and how well it works. I think I agree with just about everything in the article. I'm loving 10.2 a lot.

Boing Boing has a great link to a guide to making summer sorbet in an interesting (and pretty easy looking) way. From the site

today i'm making my special sorbet in a sack. armed with just a couple of plastic bags and some rock salt i will transform this fruit juice into a refreshing sorbet in just minutes. its the perfect snack after a busy day of play, work or adventuring!

It must be seen to fully enjoyed though, as it's being prepared by a stuffed animal. Unfortunately for some folks, it's a Monkey.

Pablo Picasso. "There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." [Quotes of the Day]

I just haven't been sleeping well lately. I wish I was because I'm kind of sick of waking up in the middle of the night.

On the other hand this has let me exercise my p2p skills. I've been downloading a very impressive amount of digisubbed anime in a short amount of time. The anime fansub community is pretty interesting. There are two big things that are nonos. The first is charging for fansubs. Every interview I've read with a show creator has had the question "what do you think of fansubs and bootlegs showing up in the US?" In every single case they don't mind at all. In fact they think it's cool that people are taking the time to subtitle them and get the shows out to people. They insist that it be free though. The moment someone charges money for it they don't like it anymore

The second part is pretty cool too. Once a show has been licensed or is being distributed most fansubbers in the US will stop subtitling a show. The US distributers tend to not care about fansubs as long they aren't in direct competition. This one I have somewhat mixed feelings about. A lot of times a show is licensed then sits around being produced for a year or more. So my own rule of thumb is to continue downloading stuff till it is actually released.

Lately I've been making my way through Hikaru no Go. It's a show about Go. Yes, the game where people are placing little stones on a wooden board. Amazingly enough I'm finding myself very drawn into this show. It's one I doubt will ever be released over here, but you never know these days. So far I'm only about ten episodes in, and kind of curious where the story is going.

You Scorpios are the most strategic sign of the zodiac. Like chess masters, you're often thinking ten moves ahead. At the same time, your ability to concentrate on what's right in front of you is almost scarily potent; your piercing attention resembles a magnifying glass focusing the sun's rays on a bug on the sidewalk. This combination may make you difficult to read and impossible to outmaneuver: You can be intensely zeroed in on the present, yet furiously scanning the past and future for clues on how to take maximum advantage of all the possibilities. Everything I just described is currently at a peak of expression. May you use it to create abundant good works for all concerned.

(-- Horoscope from http://www.realastrology.com/ --)

Rene Descartes. "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." [Quotes of the Day]

For the Sanrio fan in your household, the Hello Kitty USB Hub. I think the thing that scares me most is that it 'talks' with you.

Now if they just had a Badtz Maru hub I'd get one.

(Shamelessly stolen from Boing Boing

RealNetworks mulling adult pay-per-view. It's not just a dirty rumor. One Real exec says the company is expanding its tiers of service, possibly including "even an adult tier." Will users be able to subscribe to smut? [CNET News.com]

I guess I'm surprised they aren't already offering adult content. Given that it's probably one of the biggest money-makers on the net. That whole market sector also tends to be early adopters of new technologies. Seems like a hookup just waiting to happen.

Andre Gide. "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." [Quotes of the Day]

Adam helped show me once again that everything is connected:

Jake nails it with his plea for a plugin that will enable basic writing from within a browser. ANYONE who delivers this widget will be an instant overnight success, by enabling millions to perform one of the simplest actions known to intellelctual homo-sapiens.

[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

This morning in my email a friend of mine had just emailed me about a company called Editize. They seem to make a browser plugin that lets you edit in HTML from within a web page. Looks pretty cool. Here's the problem though, it's pricey. I couldn't see spending $130 to use with a tool that costs $30 (like radio).

Adding to the topic of water frmo a few days ago:

Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill You: "A new review of three deaths of US military recruits highlights the dangers of drinking too much water." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]

Water toxicity is quite scary. I read an article recently that was talking about marathon runners who had the same problem. In one case the woman didn't have any issues until after she'd already gone home after the race.

This one made me both chuckle and cringe at the same time:

Recall Is Ordered at Large Supplier of Implant Tissue. The F.D.A. shut down a substantial part of the CryoLife Corporation, the nation's largest processor of donated human tissue, due to fears of infection in its products. By Sandra Blakeslee. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I just had this odd image of them asking for a lung back after giving it to me. It's not that kind of tissue though. It's more things like tendons and cartilage. On some level it still freaks me out though.

I finally got around to watching the last episode of Kanon. Wow. I was so not expecting it to end that way. It was a neat little series. I didn't love it, but I thought it was pretty cool.

It woud be interesting if the game was released over here.

The New York Times today has a nice little article about In-N-Out. Of course now I'm craving a double double animal style with no tomatoes. There are a few things I really miss from living in Southern Califnornia and this is one of them. It's a shame that they'll never open up one here.

Frisbee Pioneer Dies, Ashes to Be Made Into Discs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - "Steady" Ed Headrick, the California inventor who figured out a way to make the Frisbee fly fast and straight, has died at the age of 78. His family said his ashes will be made into Frisbees.

A limited number of Frisbees are being made with his ashes mixed in for family and to help fund a Frisbee/Disc Golf Museum. I should figure out what I want done with my ashes when I die.

My favorite online comic turns two today. Big thanks to Piro and Largo over at MegaTokyo for providing me with much entertainment in that time. I can't wait for the book.

Charles M. Schulz. "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." [Quotes of the Day]

A friend of mine sent me these two links

Hapless teens' trapdoor woes - It took 27 hours for four British 17-year-olds to discover they could open a door to the loft they were trapped in by pulling rather than pushing it, the Times reported.

Miami Has Steel Benches at Bus Stops - City officials are in the hot seat -- literally. Mayor Manny Diaz and others are working to fix new black steel benches at city bus stops, which have proven to be too hot to sit on in the summer sun.

Ahh, one must never underestimate the ability of people to be stupid.

A friend of mine posted about this in her livejournal and I've been addicted to it for the last half hour. It's Business Buzzword Hangman. It also gives you definitions of all the different buzzwords.

I like the guy jumping for joy when you save him.

Running out to get a cup of coffee and coming back to discover that there are NO parking spaces within blocks of my house so having to sit there in a hot car for a good 40 min waiting for someone to decide to use their so I could get a spot.

Why oh why doesn't Dunkin Donuts let you order online and then deliver.

David Harris reports on the World's smallest light-bulb:

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created light bulbs from groups of 2-8 silver atoms. Just pass an electric current through the clusters of atoms and they glow...

This is the first time researchers have seen electroluminescence from individual molecules.

More information and pictures

Toho (those folks who own the Godzilla name and image) have sent a letter to Davezilla.com telling him to stop using a little reptile-like icon on his page.

Please be advised that your use of the GODZILLA mark constitutes a trademark infringement and confuses consumers and the public into believing that your "GODZILLA" character originates from Toho, which it does not.

Oh yes. When I looked at Davezilla I was sure that it was a Toho site. Idiots. Since posted yesterday, this has gotten a number of mentions in the blogisphere.

Oscar Wilde. "There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up." [Quotes of the Day]

The past day or two I've been exhausted. I slept for around 5 hours yesterday afternoon. Then for another 6 hours last night and the only real reason I'm up is the street cleaner guy driving around.

I really hope I'm not fighting something. I've had just a touch of a sore throat for the last day and a half and I'm really not in the mood to be sick. bah.

Thomas A. Edison. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." [Quotes of the Day]

From a mailing list I'm on, I bring you Tales of the Plush Cthulhu. Be careful, for you might go insane just looking at it.

H. L. Mencken. "It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf." [Quotes of the Day]

I have no idea why I'm up already. I got in from my friend Ethan's party at around 3:30/4am and am already awake. Big decision of the moment: bed again? coffee? coffee then bed again? I think coffee and muffin then bed again since I'm starving.

De la Lastra's Corollary. "After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted." [Quotes of the Day]

David Harris' Science Blog has a link to a an interesting paper in the American Journal of Physiology that challenges the common belief that one should drink 8 eight-ounce glasses of water a day.

Link found over on Radio Free Blogistan.

I just read over on Toon Zone that Inu Yasha is coming to Adult Swim on August 31st. Wow. I'm kind of stunned. I like Yu Yu Hakusho, but have been getting annoyed with all the Gundam, and Bebop has now been repeated a few times. They've needed soemthing new to put in there and I think this is a great choice. I'll watch it, even if it is dubbed.

Songs playing as I do my morning posts:

• Beat my Guest - Adam Ant

• Flowers Bloom - Mandalay

• Blue Savannah (Der Deutsche Mix II) - Erasure

• ode to power - Noir OST 1

• Everyone Everywhere - New Order

• Don't Tell Me - Blancmange

Ernie the Attorney writes about a book that I now want to add to my wish list:

Insanely Great - I'm reading this Steven Levy book, which is the story of "the Life and Times of the Macintosh, The Computer That Changed Everything."  The Mac was introduced in 1984.  I was entering my third year of law school when I wandered into a computer store and saw the Mac.  I knew right then it was a revolutionary product, and I wanted one immediately.  I pooled all of my resources, and borrowed money from relatives, to buy one.  I still have that Mac in my garage, and I will keep that computer (which doesn't work anymore) until the day I die.  It was a sad day when I realized that I had to switch to the PC world (which is consistently behind the curve on things like Firewire, and Wi-Fi).  Steve Jobs was absolutely right when he said the Mac was "insanely great"    It truly did change computing, and open a special door to a world that we now all take for granted. [Ernie the Attorney]

Ernie, it is possible to switch back these days! (even if apple's commercials are silly)

John Lennon. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." [Quotes of the Day]

Apple finally got around to releasing the new iPod update. I need to do some fiddling around to figure out just how all of this works once they come out with iCal. My music lives on one machine, but all my calendar and address book stuff lives on another. I am assuming they let one sync up like this.

I like how they are making the iPod into a kind of read-only address book. There are a lot of times when I might forget my Palm, but have my iPod. So it would be kind of handy to always have access to that. I'll have to play a bit.

And the Friday Five:

1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it? Yup, I have a '95 Nissan 200sx se. She's a good car.

2. Do you drive very often? Yes. I'm addicted to my car. I love driving.

3. What's your dream car? Oh I have lots of them. I have to pick just one? I like ones that go VROOOM (tm zannah).

4. Have you ever received a ticket? Yeah, but in the past 10 years I've only gotten one (if you don't count parking tickets ^_^).

5. Have you ever been in an accident? A couple. Only one has been my fault and that one wasn't real bad, it just backed up traffic on a major highway in Philly for hours.

I've been slowly working my way through more anime, some notes:

• Ground Defense Force! Mao-Chan - This show is silly. The adventures of 8 year old Mao-Chan and her friends fighting against an invasion of 'cute aliens'. And they really are cute. The aliens almost look like they belong in Pokemon.

• Witch Hunter Robin - Episode five wasn't a real strong episode, but was still decent. The show has a very X-Files feel in how it presents stories, which I find quite nice. The character interactions are pretty cool too (even with my view of two of the characters being forever tainted by Lyn).

• hackSIGN - I'm still working my way very slowly through this. Still not a lot is happening, though as usual we get lots of hints.

• Chobits - Is every 9th episode going to be a recap episode? Sadly enough, episode 18 was a recap episode. I think it was a little better then the last one in that it kind of helped pull lots of stuff together, but it still annoyed me. Next episode looks interesting though.

Now I'm off to watch the latest Ai Yori Aoshi.

Good news for TiVo:

TiVo boosts revenue target. The company, which makes digital video recorders, doubles its previous revenue target for its second quarter, courtesy of a recent licensing pact. [CNET News.com]

I'm pretty psyched to hear they are doing well. I really like my TiVo a lot and would be kind of lost watching TV without it. I also find that a lot more people know what it is now then when I first got it. I'm having a much easier time explaining to people why it is so cool too.

Friedrich Nietzsche. "At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." [Quotes of the Day]

Okay. I'll admit that I don't like Microsoft much. They tend to annoy me a lot for some reason. This is one that affected me at work significantly before I left.

InfoWorld:  Frustrated Microsoft users explore options  [Rodent Regatta]

The new licensing terms from Microsoft are not making corporate users very happy, it seems... [jenett.radio]

We ran into this at work recently when we were looking to upgrade some of the copies of SQL Server we were running. We were told, 'oh, no, we don't do upgrades anymore, you have to buy all new versions.' Well, that just wasn't in the budget to do. Let's not forget the snail mails we were getting for months about their new licensing models. No wonder their revenues went up last quarter, they were scaring everyone into buying the latest version of their software so that they wouldn't get screwed later on.

I would have loved to have looked at other solutions, but people at work were quite Microsoft centric.

Steve Pilgrim:  "there seems to be an informal consensus around SpamAssassin as the right tool for frying spam..."

I've been having second thoughts about SpamNet this week.  It seems to be letting more messages in than it did previously.  Perhaps a database problem on their end or just due to spammers constantly creating new forged return addresses.  But, the price is right for an underemployed web designer like me and I don't play the "wishlist" game, so I'll stick with it a while longer and see if it improves.  All in all, it has made dealing with spam easier for me and up to a few days ago, it was catching almost every single spam message sent to me - this week, it's catching about 2/3 of them. [jenett.radio]

Well, I'm no longer running Outlook since I'm not at that job anymore, but as far as tools for outlook go, SpamNet is pretty damn cool. I was hoping to try out SpamAssassin Pro too, which is a pay version of spamassassin that works with Outlook. I think it might actually be a tad better then spamnet because spamassassin will query Razor (which is basicly what spamnet is querying if I understand things correctly).

If you're a mac user there's also a solution for you coming out in the next few weeks. The new version of the Mail application that comes with OS X has a learning spam filter. As mail comes in it seems to start with some basic rules for identifying spam. But then you can go through and start tagging messages as spam (or untagging ones that aren't spam). Once you feel it does a good job of marking spam you put it into 'automatic' mode and it will filter that spam into a folder. I kind of like the idea of an adaptive tool like this, since spam is always in flux. The next step is to merge something like this with Razor.

I predict you will soon win at least one of the following: a MacArthur "genius award," a Congressional medal of honor, a blue ribbon from a local fair, a Nobel Prize, a report card with all A's, an honorary degree from a major university, a plaque commemorating your service beyond the call of duty, or employee of the month. If for some reason my prediction doesn't come true, you have cosmic permission to forge homemade versions of any of the above. You may also go down to the trophy store and buy yourself the biggest, shiniest trophy. Make sure you get it engraved with a title like "Supreme Champion Love God/Goddess" or "Tricky Master of Lush Wisdom" or "Deepest Feeler of the Year."

Courtesy of http://www.freewillastrology.com/

My friend Erin is stopping by to join me for breakfast in a few and then we're gonna hang out for a bit. So I won't be posting much today (like I've been posting much anyways these last few days). Life is progressing slowly but surely. I still haven't finished my damn resume, but I am making progress. And I'm psyched to show off the PHP stuff I'm doing tomorrow.

I just wrote the framework for a simple content management system, completely with versioning using PHP and MySQL. It's nice to know I still can program when I'm in the mood for it.

Now I just need to work up a user management system to go with it.

You are 36% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

This is pretty cool:

Roll your own barcode. Encode any arbitrary string as a UPC with the barcode generator. Link Discuss (via Everything Isn't)

[Boing Boing Blog

The barcode for my site was quite long:

Fran Lebowitz. "Food is an important part of a balanced diet." [Quotes of the Day]

Software toys at least. Last night I finally got off my ass and sucked down mysql, the latest php, and phpMyAdmin. Now my laptop is all set up to do development work. This is nice because it means I can work on stuff no matter where I am, even if it in a cafe or something.

This was one of my reasons for getting laptop in the first place. I wanted to be able to work on web stuff on it. OS X has been so wonderful for this too. Everything has worked wonderfully, even MySQL.

Following links from Lyn's page I found a great post by someone about "Spirited Away" that mentioned it is being released in the states on September 30th. There were also a few links to articles and reviews of the movie posted.

I highly recommend you go check this out if you like animation at all. As I think I said before, I enjoyed this much more then Princess Mononoke and think it is probably within the top 3 or 4 of the Miyazaki films I've seen.

Lyn has a great post about Saikano:

Saikano (Saishuu Heiki Kanojo) is breaking my heart. I've only seen four episodes so far, and it's already one of my favorite anime. I can't tell you what it's about, exactly, but let's just say it lulls you into thinking that it's a sweet and realistic study of adolescent relationships, and then it punches you in the stomach. Hard.

I have to agree. I watched the fourth episode about 12 hours before she did and it really wiped me out. I wish they'd get episodes out a tiny bit faster. On another note. I also saw the second episode of Mao-Chan and it went to the other side of things and made me smile lots.

This morning I woke up early and went into work to pick up my old stuff and drop off my keys. Thankfully, my coworkers had packed everything up for me except my books, since they weren't sure which were mine.

So I now feel a little bit of a sense of closure with all this. I'm finally able to focus more on things that need to be done. I'll hopefully be doing a little consulting work while I look for a new job. Thanks those of you who have sent me words of support and event sent me news on possible jobs. It's helped my sanity quite a bit.

Radio Free Blogistan there's an entry about archive navigation:

One Movable Type feature I really like is the back and forward links built into the standard template. Since I generally have many posts per day, I'm only showing three days right now on my home page. I'd like it if at the bottom of the page there were always a link to the previous day/post. That shouldn't be so hard to do, right? [Radio Free Blogistan]

This is something I'd love to see, as well as a better handling of going back to a specific month. I'd love to see an index.html at each level of the archives. One for the year would list all the months that have posts (or maybe just redirect you to the first post of the year). And one for each month that would redirect you to the first post for that month. It would make things so much friendlier I think.

I wonder how often daypop crawls things, and if it crawls all the sites it knows at once. If so it could keep track of when it first sees a link, and then when it sees that link on other sites too and show some kind of chronological sequence to a link flowing from blog to blogs.

A friend of mine pointed me at GoBlogs - Tech Goddess. And it looks to be a feed from The Shifted Librarian. Pretty neat!

I just fired up Radio for the first time since this morning. One of the first things I saw was a blog entry over at Scriping News pointing to my friend Lukas's post about his TiVo. I thought that was pretty cool. Then I noticed that Dave found it from John Robb, who found it from Jenny , who found it from me.

It would be really neet if there was some kind of easy way to follow the history of posts like this. I think it would be really interesting to follow the flow of data from blog to blog.

Lukas recently put a network connection into his TiVo and now has it doing a bunch of cool stuff. Now of course I really want to get that wireless card for the TiVo.

I cracked open a new bottle of port tonight. I haven't been indulging that often, but tonight just felt like a good night for it. So I opened up a bottle of Warre's Otima 10 year tawny porto. I have to say that it's QUITE yummy. Luckily I stopped myself after half a bottle. Otherwise I might be hurting in the morning when my parents showed up.

MSNBC is supposedly going to be having blogs to replace their online discussion boards.

Blogâs the word at MSNBC.com. The Web news site will introduce a new Web logs section by the end of August, a move that will allow more editorial control over the opinionated ramblings of its former online chat boards. [CNET News.com]

Um, how does offering blogs give them more control over people's ramblings? I couldn't tell from this if the blogs are just for their commentators or for everyone, since they talked about using them to replace discussion boards.

When checking Automated Alice today I saw that someone is going to be publishing MegaTokyo. MegaTokyo has to be one of my favorite (if not my favorite) online comic. I'm so psyched for them.

A British teen has been jailed for 12 years for murdering his elderly neighbour and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual. Um? Only twelve years? That's like a slap on the wrist isn't it?

From over on Antipixel, a link to Kuro5hin:

Intro to Anime.

Lai Lai Boy has written a decent capsule introduction to anime over at Kuro5hin.org.

[Antipixel]

I'd agree that it's pretty decent. It's a hard topic to write about in a simple sense, since anime covers so many genres of things. I was showing a friend KareKano last night because I wanted to show her something that was a little different from what most people think of anime as. She enjoyed it so I'll make a point to show her some more of it soon.

You know how I'm always talking about remembering to say "Rabbit Rabbit" every 1st of the month? Well, over a harrumph! there's now a place where you can put in your email address to get reminded every month.

My problem is remembering to say it before I utter the words, "I'll have a french vanilla with one cream and one sugar".

Benjamin Franklin. "Never confuse motion with action." [Quotes of the Day]

I've been a bit behind on the news the last few days, but as I always like to follow DMCA stuff I thought this was pretty interesting:

Document: HP backs off DMCA threat.  Hewlett-Packard abandons legal threats it made against security analysts who publicized flaws in the company's software. Read the company's statement here.  [CNET News.com] [jenett.radio]

Sometimes I wonder if computers make people slightly insane. It would explain a lot.

I just spent a while catching up on Radio Free Blogistan. He's writing up a lot of the same things that I discovered as I was going about making my decision of what blogging tool to use. If you're looking to try out the whole blogging thing or are curious about the other software packages out there check it out.

So far he's looked at LiveJournal vs Radio and Blogger vs Radio. I believe he has plans to look at a number of the different blogging packages (like Movable Type). It's nice to see something that is being fairly unbiased as it is comparing these different packages.

The other day I had the pleasure of watching Ground Defense Force! Mao-Chan. It's the latest series by Ken Akamatsu (the creator of Love Hina). The show is insanely fun. It's a light parody on magical girl kinds of shows where they protect the world against cute aliens (yes, and they are cute).

I keep meaning to make some entries and I keep looking at this blank window. I've noticed I've been having a hard time focusing lately. I think this is a message to me that I still need to let myself get past this. All I can say is, this is one of the most annoying things I've ever gone through (and I'll try and not gripe about it too much here.

Emily's coming over tonight to hang out and probably watch a movie or some anime. Then Erin is flying in from Cali tonight and won't get in till after the trains stop running. I told her she could crash at my place.

Ahh, I finally got my hardware back and everything should be going okay now. The site should hopefully be up and find here for at least the next few weeks. I will probably be taking down some of my mp3s since they're pretty big and this site is running from my house at the moment.

I can't believe I woke up to Deus. What a way to start the day and month. Here's the songs that played this morning (did everyone say rabbit rabbit?):

• Deus - Electric Skychurch

• As the End Draws Near (Extended Remix) - Sarah Mclachlan

• Lovelife - Lush

• You and I have Seizures - His Name is Alive

• I Get Wild: Wild Gravity - Talking Heads