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E-mail me at david_isbister@hotmail.com
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Off-Topic/Unrelated
Updates in the quest to use solar energy to produce hydrogen (not oxygen) using the principles of photosynthesis. 02:03 p.m., Wednesday, May 12, 2004 The WaPo says what we all expected: The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where a unit of U.S. soldiers abused prisoners, is just the largest and suddenly most notorious in a worldwide constellation of detention centers -- many of them secret and all off-limits to public scrutiny -- that the U.S. military and CIA have operated in the name of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 11:41 a.m., Wednesday, May 12, 2004 More power than an N64, with a touchscreen! Let the new handheld wars begin! 10:12 a.m., Tuesday, May 11, 2004 With goofy schemes like ATRAC, Memory Stick, and their new, lame music download service, Sony Electronics has become a slave to DRM. 10:02 a.m., Tuesday, May 11, 2004 Stanislaw Lem sounds off about everything that bugs the crap out of him, pausing to bite the hand that fed him. 01:34 p.m., Monday, May 10, 2004 Don Lancaster says the last thing you should do is patent it. 02:30 p.m., Friday, May 7, 2004 Chalabi really played these guys. It's pretty sad to see a con man pull one over on the US government. However, this administration has the right combination of faith and stupidity to make these kind of con jobs possible. 11:37 a.m., Tuesday, May 4, 2004 Take a look at this new spec for the Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier protocol. Pretty neat stuff. Among the highlights: 1. Uses standard ethernet cabling (including the best jack ever designed), PHYs (including Power-Over-Ethernet), and frames (IEE 802.2), but is not compatible with TCP/IP or other layer three protocols. 2. It is full-duplex, but directional - meaning devices can have an "In Port," an "Out Port" or both. In Ports must be connected to Out Ports. Out and In do not neccessarily dictate data flow direction, but they do dictate where the master clock comes from. 3. It has power. It is a bit unclear where the power comes from, but devices can draw up to 350 mA at ~40VDC from the cable. Obviously, non-linear regulators are suggested. 4. It has copy-protection, and devices must comply with copy-protection rules (Serial Copy Management System). 5. It supports sample rates up to 192KHz, and 32 bits/sample. 6. It specifies that no device can have an In Port to Out Port latency of more than 250 microseconds. They are serious about keeping this system real-time. A/D's and D/A's usually have about a 1000 microsecond latency, so unless you use "high-end" (well, not that high-end - just chips that are low-latency) chips, these should reserved for the ends of the network. This stuff is pretty cool. It's like Super-MIDI. The PoE seems like it could cause some confusion, as you cannot "daisy-chain" cable-powered devices. You may wonder why Firewire wasn't chosen for this. According to the Gibson guys, Firewire doesn't cut it for such a tightly-timed and synchronized system. 03:30 p.m., Monday, May 3, 2004 Maybe it's their tax cuts - which were targeted towards the middle class. 03:44 p.m., Friday, April 30, 2004 Supposedly if you have digital cable, as of April 1st (that's the fishy part), the government is requiring "all cable companies to provide a Firewire-enabled Cable box to any customer who asks" First I've heard of this... Very cool, if true. 02:17 p.m., Friday, April 30, 2004 Is Morrissey gay? 09:46 a.m., Friday, April 30, 2004 This is how to take a company public and maintain your integrity. 09:36 a.m., Friday, April 30, 2004 I want to quote portions of this, but it's NSFMB (not safe for my blog). 02:01 p.m., Thursday, April 29, 2004 This sounds awesome. I wonder if the indie labels have an advantage in a digital world, since they seem more open to new business models. 10:15 a.m., Thursday, April 29, 2004 Fact sheets and reports on the inequality of women in the workplace have disappeared from the Department of Labor's website, and have been replaced with articles like "Hot Jobs for the 21st Century" and "20 Leading Occupations for Women." I imagine GWB with his eyes closed, hands over his ears, chanting "la la la la la." 03:54 p.m., Wednesday, April 28, 2004 So if culture and art are useless, what are we living for, again? Oh yeah - this is Reason - we live for money, of course! 11:01 a.m., Wednesday, April 28, 2004 16-cylinder, 1000-horsepower Bugatti Veyron. Just FYI - my birthday is in June... 04:01 p.m., Tuesday, April 27, 2004 Sure, this is still tinkering with nature, but somehow it makes me a lot less scared. 04:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 27, 2004 Investigating a teenager's art piece depicting GWB as devil... 10:02 a.m., Monday, April 26, 2004 Fred Kaplan looks at a recent report which points out that "this year's spending on nuclear activities is equal to what Ronald Reagan spent at the height of the U.S.-Soviet standoff." 09:59 a.m., Monday, April 26, 2004 Completely sums up my feelings about November. 09:54 a.m., Friday, April 23, 2004 Ruy Teixeira investigates the latest poll numbers and finds a nugget of hope: Kerry is ahead of Bush by 4 points in the battleground states 07:20 p.m., Thursday, April 22, 2004 Leading miserabilist and former Smiths front-man Neil Morrissey has fallen foul of the Homeland Security dragnet, according to BBC radio reports. It is not yet clear whether or the US officials involved had listened to Meat is Murder, or whether they thought they had a match on notorious Manchester terror mastermind Anwar al-Morrissey. 10:13 a.m., Thursday, April 22, 2004 The levels to which Christians will go in this country to codify their own bigotry is sickening. Now (if this bill passes the state senate - the good ol' boys in the Michigan house already passed this garbage) religious hospitals in Michigan have the "right" to refuse care to people based on their sexual orientation. If they want that "right," they shouldn't be in the health care field. 09:47 a.m., Thursday, April 22, 2004 Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department CHEYENNE, WY—After attempting to contain a living-room blaze started by a cigarette, card-carrying Libertarian Trent Jacobs reluctantly called the Cheyenne Fire Department Monday. "Although the community would do better to rely on an efficient, free-market fire-fighting service, the fact is that expensive, unnecessary public fire departments do exist," Jacobs said. "Also, my house was burning down." Jacobs did not offer to pay firefighters for their service. 01:19 p.m., Wednesday, April 21, 2004 Billmon takes a long, hard look at where we're at, and comes to some pretty sad conclusions. It's gonna be hard to pick up the mess that the neocons have made. 11:41 a.m., Wednesday, April 21, 2004 A competitor for Windows Media. I guess everyone rolls their own DRM scheme? 11:08 a.m., Tuesday, April 20, 2004 Twenty years ago, an outbreak of tuberculosis "selectively killed off the biggest, nastiest and most despotic male" members of a baboon troop in Kenya. The new-fashioned Forest Troop is no United Nations, or even the average frat house. Its citizens remain highly aggressive and argumentative, and the males still obsess over hierarchy. "We're talking about baboons here," said Dr. Sapolsky. However, since the kill-off, the troop has become much mellower, with grooming and huddling replacing a lot of the usual fighting. As for the fighting, these baboons seem to have learned the lesson of "pick on someone your own size." What most distinguishes this congregation from others is that the males resist taking out their bad moods on females and underlings. When a dominant male wants to pick a fight, he finds someone his own size and rank. 04:33 p.m., Monday, April 19, 2004 Maybe that is just what THIS company is doing - scanning old Bond negatives at 4000 lines per frame. Should make for some beautiful HD DVDs. 09:57 a.m., Monday, April 19, 2004 While Pitas was down, I found the following links/stories: Capitalists for "Hillarycare" AC97 replacement for high definition audio specification finalized Average PC has 28 pieces of SpyWare 09:39 a.m., Monday, April 19, 2004 I call it "Stump AT&T." If you have even mildly indie taste in music, and you have AT&T Wireless, try this service. The first one is free, and so are all the calls until AT&T guesses the song. They didn't figure out the Wrens, so I doubt they'll recognize the When people shop for luxury items, they don't want some re-branded Sony crap. They want fancy, high-end brands. Or maybe not. We'll see. 04:17 p.m., Thursday, April 15, 2004 Set for release this winter? Whoo-hoo! 03:52 p.m., Thursday, April 15, 2004 Called "Sapphire," (real name = Novec 1230), this substance from Tyco has some pretty neat properties. Most importantly, it can put out fires without damaging electronics, paper, etc. here is some more semi-technical info. 04:48 p.m., Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Healthy Forests! 01:51 p.m., Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Turns out my previous optimism was unwarranted. after watching this turd, the only films that I can think of to compare it to favorably are things like OVER THE TOP, RED HEAT… no, I actually prefer RED HEAT, I meant to say RED SCORPION. This thing is laughably awful. If you want proof of how good Stallone and Schwarzenegger were in making mindless ultra-violent drivel in the eighties… if you think that there is no way on planet earth that you can think fondly about the old Cannon Films version… then go check this unflushable turd out. 01:39 p.m., Tuesday, April 13, 2004 Why do I get the feeling this is the first step towards an eventual insanity plea? 04:11 p.m., Friday, April 9, 2004 For bringing us "The Swan," which, as Heather Havrilesky informs us, "doesn't just make you depressed about plastic surgery and sad women and sleazy TV executives. It also makes you depressed about the war in Iraq, the frailty of the human ego, the undeniable soul-sucking lameness of our culture, and the impossibility for real beauty at a time when such confused animals roam the earth." And, in response to the "we're just giving America what it wants" argument, Heather writes: You could feed an infant grape Kool-Aid and he might reject the breast. Does that mean you should keep feeding him grape Kool-Aid until he crumbles in a diabetic heap? The force of evil that brought this bad, bad show into the world should take responsibility for itself and refuse to spread this level of cultural pollution. 10:25 a.m., Thursday, April 8, 2004 World's biggest subwoofer. 10:12 a.m., Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Joli Jensen takes us through her thought process as she decides whether anti-depressants are right for her or her children. 04:13 p.m., Monday, April 5, 2004 The adventures of Seinfeld and Superman. 11:18 a.m., Monday, April 5, 2004 I'm not a big "tort-reformer," but these warnings (such as one found on a "five-inch fishing lure which sports three steel hooks and cautions users that it is, "Harmful if swallowed") make me think that judges need to be a little quicker to dismiss ridiculous cases. 11:04 a.m., Monday, April 5, 2004 There are some great ones here... thanks, Brent! 01:32 p.m., Thursday, April 1, 2004 Marc Cooper of the LA Weekly reminds us who the REAL enemy is - religious nutcase terrorists. I don't know if I agree with the whack-a-mole approach to fighting terrorism; but it is good to be reminded that compared to randomly blowing up innocent civilians, we DO have the moral high ground here, even if our leadership is odious. 03:51 p.m., Thursday, March 25, 2004 Supposedly these motors have 330% efficiency, due to the permanent magnets inside them. Is it that it takes a huge amount of energy to make the permanent magnets? It all sounds fishy... 11:32 a.m., Wednesday, March 24, 2004 This EP contains four tracks from the upcoming album "Weightlifting," and also includes eleven songs from a live set in Paris. Be sure to check out their live set on KCRW while you're there. 03:07 p.m., Tuesday, March 23, 2004 See - this blog isn't ALL about negativity. What a great, simple application of thermodynamics. This is one of those inventions that I can't believe nobody has thought of until now (or maybe they have, but I just haven't heard about it). 10:48 a.m., Monday, March 22, 2004 National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify under oath, insisting that presidential advisers need not answer to legislative bodies. She didn't seem to have any problem spouting talking points to the media after Clarke's 60 Minutes appearance. Perhaps she's afraid that the commission may actually ask a follow-up question. 10:31 a.m., Monday, March 22, 2004 This whole argument would be more convincing if the website wasn't so shoddy. Whatever. I'm not a big consumer of NutraSweet now, and I don't think I ever will be. 10:00 a.m., Monday, March 22, 2004 This is really damning stuff. The MoveOn ad calling for Bush's censure are starting to look less reasonable. Screw "censure" - this whole team should be run the hell out of Washington, if not jailed, for their crimes. 02:04 p.m., Saturday, March 20, 2004 You can thank sunshine laws for these gems. Direct link to quicktime file 08:10 a.m., Friday, March 19, 2004 Wurtman, director of the Program in Women's Health at the MIT Clinical Research Center, and colleagues have found that when you stop eating carbohydrates, your brain stops regulating serotonin, a chemical that elevates mood and suppresses appetite. And only carbohydrate consumption naturally stimulates production of serotonin. 08:08 a.m., Friday, March 19, 2004 Thom Hartmann dismantles the conservative equation that free markets=democracy. ...Conservatives say, government is the problem, not the solution. Of course, they can't explain how it was that the repeated series of huge tax cuts for the wealthy by the Herbert Hoover administration brought us the Great Depression, while raising taxes to provide for an active and interventionist government to protect the rights of labor to organize throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s led us to the Golden Age of the American Middle Class. (The top tax rate in 1930 under Hoover was 25 percent, and even that was only paid by about a fifth of wealthy Americans. Thirty years later, the top tax rate was 91 percent, and held at 70 percent until Reagan began dismantling the middle class. As the top rate dropped, so did the middle class it helped create.) 10:13 a.m., Monday, March 15, 2004 Instant houses extruded by a robot! 01:35 p.m., Thursday, March 11, 2004 Interesting interview. A bit of the "cake-and-eat-it-too" double-speak typical to the Middle East. The messages coming out of the different factions in the area all seem so targeted towards whichever audience they are speaking to at the time. Perhaps this is just standard politico-speak, but it seems strange to hear this sort of wishy-washy stuff coming out of the mouth of a leader of Hizbollah. 10:37 a.m., Thursday, March 11, 2004 This article has some fascinating bombshells, and a gut-twisting teaser for the next excerpt: Coming Friday -- "The Number": How much money has flowed from the House of Saud to individuals and entities closely tied to the House of Bush? At least $1,477,100,000. 09:56 a.m., Thursday, March 11, 2004 Ah, the wonders of modern technology. 12:39 p.m., Wednesday, March 10, 2004 Click and find out. 01:26 p.m., Tuesday, March 9, 2004 Make sure to read the "production notes," which have links to the original footage. 01:01 p.m., Tuesday, March 9, 2004 NEW YORK - The body of actor-writer Spalding Gray was pulled from the East River over the weekend, two months after he walked out of his Manhattan apartment and disappeared. He was 62. 01:24 p.m., Monday, March 8, 2004 I don't get it. The scandals of the Bushes are so out-of-control, and yet they get no real mainstream coverage. Maybe there is a conspiracy. 03:19 p.m., Wednesday, March 3, 2004 Surprise! Somehow, US senators managed to outperform the rest of investors by approximately 12%. 11:37 a.m., Thursday, February 26, 2004 Scandals? Massive conflicts of interest? Nope - it took the only thing in the Bush administration that can trump wild right-wing ideology - the election campaign! 10:13 a.m., Thursday, February 26, 2004 Part 2 Part 3 09:53 a.m., Thursday, February 26, 2004 While a majority of Americans do not want to legalize gay marriage, a majority also do not want this bigotry added into the constitution. This is what passes for hope for America these days. 02:11 p.m., Tuesday, February 24, 2004 ... 04:41 p.m., Monday, February 23, 2004 These people are the most un-american, pathetic, pandering assholes of all time. Somebody needs to give Christians their own country so that these fuckers can move there and have their twisted version of the bible as law (hey - give 'em the West Bank so all the kooky religions can duke it out - Thunderdome-style!). It is sad that the two BIGGEST lessons of the bible are tolerance and helping the poor - these guys must have missed those portions - they seem only interested in the retarded (Creationism), dogmatic (Ten Commandments), and bigoted (Leviticus) chunks. 12:50 p.m., Monday, February 23, 2004 Great mini-bio of the nutcase-in-chief. 12:43 p.m., Monday, February 23, 2004 Now, I'd like to read the report myself, but this is frightening stuff... 05:18 p.m., Sunday, February 22, 2004 So if, as you argue, they knew there weren’t any of these WMD, then what exactly drove the neoconservatives to war? The neoconservatives pride themselves on having a global vision, a long-term strategic perspective. And there were three reasons why they felt the U.S. needed to topple Saddam, put in a friendly government and occupy Iraq. One of those reasons is that sanctions and containment were working and everybody pretty much knew it. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit. The second reason has to do with our military-basing posture in the region. We had been very dissatisfied with our relations with Saudi Arabia, particularly the restrictions on our basing. And also there was dissatisfaction from the people of Saudi Arabia. So we were looking for alternate strategic locations beyond Kuwait, beyond Qatar, to secure something we had been searching for since the days of Carter — to secure the energy lines of communication in the region. Bases in Iraq, then, were very important — that is, if you hold that is America’s role in the world. Saddam Hussein was not about to invite us in. The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 — selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program aren’t very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro. The U.S. dollar is in a sensitive period because we are a debtor nation now. Our currency is still popular, but it’s not backed up like it used to be. If oil, a very solid commodity, is traded on the euro, that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar. So one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May [2003] switched trading on Iraq’s oil back to the dollar. This all sounds a little black-helicoptery, but keep in mind who is saying it: U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a 20-year analyst for the DOD 12:18 p.m., Saturday, February 21, 2004 After seeing the poster for the new Punisher movie, it looked like it might REALLY suck. However, it looks like they have stayed pretty true to the comic (other than moving the locale to Tampa), and might have a nice, hard-boiled story on their hands. 04:09 p.m., Thursday, February 19, 2004 Other than the paragraph in the middle where Buchanan gets a bit hysterical, claiming "if death comes to the West it will be because we embraced a culture of death—birth control, abortion, sterilization, euthanasia," Buchanan takes Perle and Frum to task for their ridiculous assertions. 01:46 p.m., Thursday, February 19, 2004 This story is interesting. If Bush loses the "Willfully-ignorant" vote, what's left? 01:31 p.m., Thursday, February 19, 2004 Good for him. 10:15 a.m., Thursday, February 19, 2004 Fed up with political trash infesting their research, scientists have written an open letter to the Bush administraion. I've written about this before - rather than weigh scientific evidence while making policy decisions, the Bush team would rather the science would just agree with their foregone conclusions from the outset, so they don't have to admit that they don't give a shit about evidence of ANY kind - they already have their conclusions - they just want the scientists to agree. Sad. 09:57 a.m., Thursday, February 19, 2004 LA rejects a new Wal-Mart. Huzzah! 02:58 p.m., Wednesday, February 18, 2004 Universe's largest diamond (10 billion trillion trillion carats) found... 03:27 p.m., Friday, February 13, 2004 A leading Israeli rabbi has proposed hanging bags of pig fat in buses to deter Muslim suicide bombers who may want to avoid contact with an "unclean" animal. 10:12 a.m., Friday, February 13, 2004 Amazing story about the recently-reopened salt mines, one-quarter mile below Detroit. For more on salt, see here. 10:00 a.m., Friday, February 13, 2004 Here is a more serious story. 03:51 p.m., Wednesday, February 11, 2004 This is the kind of out-of-control trampling of civil rights that we feared the Patriot Act would bring. Well, it's happening. 11:17 a.m., Monday, February 9, 2004 Matthew posted this, and I've been cracking up for the last ten minutes, listening. 03:46 p.m., Friday, February 6, 2004 Looks like they've found two fall guys just far enough out of the spotlight to take a fall. According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said. Hopefully, the chance at some serious jail time will scare these guys into revealing the real culprits. 01:32 p.m., Thursday, February 5, 2004 Great primer on semiconductor manufacturing: "When a customer and a vendor love each other very much . . ." they make a commitment to produce new chips. It's a big commitment, too. New chips generally cost a few million dollars to design, but that's small beer compared to what it costs to build a new chip-making factory. Fabs or foundries, as they're called, cost upwards of $2 billion to build. You could buy a lot of cruise missiles for that kind of money or several small Caribbean republics (island not included). The amortization sucks, too. That $2 billion foundry will be obsolete in less than five years, so you're looking at more than $1 million of depreciation every single day. Very little of that cost goes into the silicon itself. You're mostly paying for the exotic equipment inside, including the neat-o air conditioners in the clean room. 04:10 p.m., Wednesday, February 4, 2004 It all sounds so 20 years ago - when the threat to economic prosperity and national sovereignty was not Indian coders but Japanese autoworkers. Back then, the predictions were equally alarmist - the "hollowing out" of America, people called it. And the prescriptions were equally blunt - trade sanctions and "Buy America" campaigns. So I toss a slur across her desk. I call her a protectionist. "Oh, and I'm proud of it," she responds. "I wear that badge with honor. I am a protectionist. I want to protect America. I want to protect jobs for Americans." "But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I counter. "We've done it before - going from farm to factory, from factory to knowledge work, and from knowledge work to whatever's next." She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge." 03:53 p.m., Wednesday, February 4, 2004 Available as a free download, Cory Doctorow's new book, Eastern Standard Tribe has been released. Two things about Cory: 1. He puts his livelihood where his mouth is. It's one thing to crow about intellectual property and then ask people to buy your book. Cory has put both of his novels online for free, on the day of their release. He can do this because... 2. His writing kicks ass. I had to close the pdf file after two paragraphs to keep from blowing my whole work day. Even with the free downloadable version online, he sold out all the physical copies of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, proving that people will pay for good "content," even when a free version is available. 10:20 a.m., Wednesday, February 4, 2004 "How," you ask? The Register and Professor William Fisher show us how it could work. 01:48 p.m., Tuesday, February 3, 2004 This is insane. Rather than HEAR the science, and decide on an issue, this administration only wants to hear its position parroted back at them. Of course, if global warming happens (or an Ice Age, perhaps), there will be an investigation into where scientists went wrong. 10:19 a.m., Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Yeah, it's a blog-meets-list site, but it's pretty damn funny. Example: Five fake Brian Wilson songs from the mid-70s 1. Envelopes are Good for Mailing Letters 2. (We're Having) Leftover Pot Roast for Lunch 3. 12:15, 12:15--It's Almost 12:16 4. Mike Keeps Hollering (at Me and My Imaginary Friend) 5. French Fries in My Beard (Make Me Happy, But Sometimes Very Sad) 02:42 p.m., Monday, February 2, 2004 This movie "by a nerd, for nerds," looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun. 02:02 p.m., Monday, February 2, 2004 The Jackson-Timberlake moment drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured. TiVo said viewership spiked up to 180 percent as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo's unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again. 01:48 p.m., Monday, February 2, 2004 The kind of glitch that siphoned votes away from Bustamante. 10:39 a.m., Monday, February 2, 2004 "Excellent work, Herbert Kornfeld," tha voice say. "Here is your payment in full, for services rendered. As you can see, it's guaranteed. Your fighting skills are superlative. You dispatched five of the toughest Blueshirts in the entire state. Hmm. Five. Isn't that the same age at which your sister disappeared? Your sister, Herbert? Or do the mists of time obscure her memory? It is a pity you couldn't use your Office-Fu then to save her." 04:20 p.m., Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Great article in Wired about the coming intellectual property wars. We can get as protectionist as we want with IP in the USA, but show me an American citizen willing to send their child to war over it. 09:54 a.m., Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Yamaha creates synthesized singing software. This seems to work pretty well, at least in Japanese. 02:38 p.m., Monday, January 26, 2004 This is pretty shocking, especially since I hadn't seen the Smoking Gun video of Bush, drunk off his ass at a wedding in 1992, 6 years after he supposedly stopped drinking for good. 12:13 p.m., Sunday, January 25, 2004 Well, isn't this the perfect slogan for a presidential campaign during an endless "war." If this is all he can come up with for November, he's in trouble. 03:40 p.m., Thursday, January 22, 2004 *head explodes* 10:01 a.m., Thursday, January 22, 2004 At a Gephardt event, U.S. Rep Jerry Costello apparently got a bit fired-up, calling for Cheney's impeachment over conflicts of interest. The choicest morsel comes later in the article: An audience member also asked Costello about a meeting between then-energy trading giant Enron officials and Cheney -- just as Cheney was forming energy policy. The General Accounting Agency sued Cheney after he refused to release documents about who and when he met with before formulating the country's energy policy. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to hear Cheney's appeal. The Los Angeles Times reported [here] Saturday that Cheney spent last week duck hunting in Louisiana with one of the Supreme Court Justices who may decide the case -- U.S. Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia. 03:42 p.m., Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Yikes. 02:30 p.m., Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Like that one with Dean getting primal? How about this one, with GWB calling our astronauts "spatial entrepreneurs." [added new links] 02:02 p.m., Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Since this "good, fair-minded man" had been rejected by the Senate for two years, Bush decided to Britney 'totally believes in sanctity of marriage' 04:45 p.m., Thursday, January 15, 2004 Well, it's a shame to see her go, but at least she's gotten behind the right guy. 03:32 p.m., Thursday, January 15, 2004 One more layer 'til we get to Kenny Boy, and there are still over 90 counts of fraud waiting for Andy-boy if he doesn't cough up the goods. 11:49 a.m., Thursday, January 15, 2004 This is in Pravda, so it must be "true." 11:33 a.m., Thursday, January 15, 2004 Ouch! Is this a foreign correspondant who hasn't gotten their talking points, or is the THREE-YEAR honeymoon with the press almost over for the Bush team? 11:39 a.m., Wednesday, January 14, 2004 I'm a sucker for this show, and this one seems to have all the best people on it. Rupert, Scheming Rob, Richard Hatch, and of course, Lex, from Santa Cruz. 11:16 a.m., Monday, January 12, 2004 Welcome to the No-Fact Zone! 11:00 a.m., Monday, January 12, 2004 Bob Herbert of the NY Times looks at the current trend of "outsourcing," and asks the obvious question: "What jobs will we have left?" 04:19 p.m., Monday, December 29, 2003 The LA Times does the numbers on unemployment, and finds the current "recovery" to be as phony as Enron's profits. No matter - they'll just put a big blue background with "Creating Jobs" written all over it behind Bush at his next speech. 03:53 p.m., Monday, December 29, 2003 From gross (snorting lines of brain tissue) to sexually risque (Gucci had a model shave her pubic hair into the Gucci logo for one print ad) - 10 ads you won't see in the USA. 03:01 p.m., Monday, December 29, 2003 This guy decided to wire up thirty-two 12-inch subwoofers to his home theater. Predictably, the responses on AVS Forum have ranged from trashing his decor choices to this: This ranks as something on the order of a High DB Car Competition installation. No one could possibly use or enjoy what that many low frequency drivers could produce, unless the drivers were extremely low excursion, set up for simultaneous operation, and the object is to move many cones as little as possible all at once to create the Wall Of Sound motif....., but on a floor. It's been done before, but I haven't seen it done in such a density, excepting a old Thrill Ride in Indy that had 12 15"ers set across a 30' curved wall. It was the Tilt-A-Wheel, I beleive. No. The Viking Boat Ride. It was too loud. 02:43 p.m., Monday, December 29, 2003 Interesting article about how you get to "every day low prices" - outsourcing, profit-squeezing, etc - at every level of the supply chain. thanks, Renzo! 09:08 p.m., Thursday, December 25, 2003 Tired of hearing about how it's all those pesky lawsuits that have driven up insurance premiums? Well, it turns out: In fact, malpractice premiums as a percentage of all health costs have declined from 0.95% in 1988 to 0.56% in 2000. On the other hand, prescription drugs costs make up about 11% of all health costs - the second largest portion after hospital spending - and are projected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reach 14% in 2010. Despite these facts, the president chooses to support a Medicare bill that would prevent the Medicare administrator from negotiating lower prescription drug costs. Maybe it's not the lawsuits. Maybe it's people spending hundreds of dollars per month on heartburn medicine and new, less-effective allergy medication. 02:03 p.m., Monday, December 22, 2003 The debates have been near-unwatchable, mostly because of this style of questioning - meta-questions about viability, endorsements, and money. If people want to hear that crap, there are PLENTY of toothless TV shows to watch where you can hear pundit after pundit spin poll results and talk about this nonsense. During the DEBATES, however, how about some actual discussion of POLICY? Sheesh! 04:13 p.m., Thursday, December 18, 2003 I didn't design THESE products (well, maybe a little), but I'm working on the NEXT versions. If you are looking for a media adapter with very high (>100dB S/N) audio quality, or for a hard-disk mp3 player for your car, with WiFi, look no further. 03:07 p.m., Thursday, December 18, 2003 This is one of those things I've thought a lot about over the last couple years. It's a scary prospect, given the amount of highly-leveraged house-buying and re-financing that has happened in the last few years. 03:03 p.m., Thursday, December 18, 2003 Halo was originally going to be a Mac-only game. It was created by "Bungie," a Mac software company, who created the game "Marathon" a few years back. Then, Microsoft, when they started realizing that there would be NO decent software for the release of the X-Box, bought Bungie, and made Halo X-Box-only. 04:19 p.m., Friday, December 12, 2003 to get to an actual policy question? Turns out, it's nineteen. This is what is wrong with our media these days - not bias - it's the treating of politics as sport. The attitude seems to be - "if you want to talk about policy, buy an advertisement." This crap doesn't make politics more exciting, it just turns politics into this meta-discussion about positioning and polls. 09:46 a.m., Wednesday, December 10, 2003 This website lets you keep Dubya "on-message" - on YOUR message, that is. 11:53 a.m., Wednesday, December 3, 2003 A talking Ann Coulter barbie doll which spouts mindless conservative rhetoric. And, IT'S BEING SOLD ON A CONSERVATIVE WEBSITE! *head explodes* 02:16 p.m., Tuesday, December 2, 2003 but it is encouraging that over 30 million americans have rejected the waste of time that is organized religion. 01:10 p.m., Saturday, November 29, 2003 Have the conflicts of interest become too overwhelming for Perle, the "Prince of Darkenss" to overcome? This latest scandal may break the scandal camel's back. 09:07 p.m., Tuesday, November 25, 2003 This article casts a doubtful eye at Hollywood's wish for the "perfect DRM scheme" that will allow them to make money by passing the cost of these schemes onto the OEMs, customers and the federal government. 01:12 p.m., Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Everyone's heard about Everquest "money" being sold on eBay for actual US "money." However, the company described in this post has taken it to the next level: Imagine, therefore, my surprise upon learning that in addition to the half dozen executive types working out of IGE's Boca Raton headquarters, the company employs another 65 Chinese citizens at its Hong Kong base of operations, the majority engaged in 24/7 delivery of virtual goods. Imagine, furthermore, my wonder at learning that some of IGE's chief suppliers are mainland Chinese subcontractors running EverQuest-playing sweatshops in the hinterlands (at a level of production perhaps only hinted at in the famous but abortive Black Snow sweatshop in Tijuana). 04:00 p.m., Monday, November 24, 2003 Now that the war in Iraq is "over," read what the journalists have to say about their experiences. 02:49 p.m., Monday, November 24, 2003 Israeli scientists harnessed the construction capabilities of DNA and the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes to create the self-assembling nano-transistor. The work has been greeted as "outstanding" and "spectacular" by nanotechnology experts. 09:59 a.m., Friday, November 21, 2003 Triumph the insult comic dog is interviewed by Terry Gross, along with his "creator," Robert Smigel. Good stuff. FOR YOU TO POOP ON! 02:35 p.m., Thursday, November 20, 2003 Download these great DJ sets from the Space Cowboys' Halloween party if you like fun house and breaks, with a helping of mash-ups. 11:20 a.m., Wednesday, November 19, 2003 Wired profile on Philip K. Dick. 11:04 a.m., Wednesday, November 19, 2003 Ever wonder what the hell all these ridiculous ads on TV, touting IT ROI and "real-time adaptive IT strategies," etc are on about? Turns out they just want to take your money. 10:15 a.m., Wednesday, November 19, 2003 Irvine Welsh goes to the French Laundry. 03:29 p.m., Tuesday, November 18, 2003 UK field trials of different GMO crops has found these crops to be less hardy, and promote less biodiversity. So much for the "null hypothesis." 02:41 p.m., Thursday, November 13, 2003 Lego-style! What a great piece of flash. 03:10 p.m., Wednesday, November 12, 2003 This article claims that some of Davis' and Bustamante's votes were "redistributed" to fringe candidates by our favorite new conspiracy tool - touchscreen voting systems. If this is true, I'm surprised that we're not hearing more about this. More here. 10:28 a.m., Wednesday, November 12, 2003 Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University in Milton Keynes said the first communication would contain a call signal written by the rock band Blur. "The first signal will be a stream of data which will be housekeeping on the lander headed by the Blur signature tune," he told BBC News Online. 08:01 p.m., Tuesday, November 11, 2003 Where WAS this guy in 2000? Full speech here. 03:53 p.m., Monday, November 10, 2003 How did your pet theory for Matrix Revolutions pan out? This guy has the skinny. 03:36 p.m., Monday, November 10, 2003 Ashcroft uses the Patriot Act to go after a strip club owner. 04:35 p.m., Wednesday, November 5, 2003 FCC adopts hairbrained "broadcast flag" scheme. IF they wanted to create a new marketplace for used electronics, they've done the right thing. This will make my job more annoying, and provide ZERO benefit to anyone. 03:42 p.m., Tuesday, November 4, 2003 Courtesy of good old Frank Luntz - Republican push-pollster. 02:30 p.m., Thursday, October 30, 2003 Not Josh Marshall's blog, but the memo Fox News sends out each morning, outlining the day's propaganda. 11:52 a.m., Thursday, October 30, 2003 My fried Peter has helped to start a website to counter the lopsided lobbying power of the NRA. Worth a look, even if only for the great background music... 10:00 a.m., Friday, October 24, 2003 Don't know if this is a good thing, but it looks like at least one restaurant critic has gotten a smackdown from the unwashed internet masses. 04:15 p.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003 Experiments show that perhaps our views on the intelligence of non-primates may be faulty. Thus we are trying to get him to sound out refrigerator letters, the same way one would train children on phonics. We were doing demos at the Media Lab for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, "Alex, what sound is blue?" He answers, "Ssss." It was an "s", so we say "Good birdie" and he replies, "Want a nut." Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, "What sound is green?" Alex answers, "Ssshh." He's right, it's "sh," and we go through the routine again: "Good parrot." "Want a nut." "Alex, wait. What sound is orange?" "ch." "Good bird!" "Want a nut." We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, "Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh." 04:07 p.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003 A tiny short story to brighten up your Thursday. 11:33 a.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003 A one-year-old boy has been bitten 30 times by a group of more than a dozen other babies at a nursery in Croatia. ... Police have launched an inquiry into the biting frenzy but admit they are clueless as to the babies' reasons for attacking. 11:25 a.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003 I don't usually post review links, but this one, with its talk of the great next album and forthcoming lineup splits, seemed almost psychic. 04:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 21, 2003 Toshiba has this new reactor design which looks EXTREMELY safety-oriented. I feel like it might be time to give nuclear power another chance, especially with this design and some of the other new designs. At this point, we can either continue to tear up every last chunk of the earth, looking for coal and oil, or we can try some new ideas. Of course, fusion power is the holy grail (well, SOLAR is the holy grail, but it is not reliable enough to use without gigantic batteries), but until fusion makes some progress, maybe these new nuclear reactors can bridge the gap. 01:59 p.m., Tuesday, October 21, 2003 Phelps really has a knack for being the biggest asshole in the country, not to mention missing the whole point of Christianity by a long shot. 09:58 a.m., Tuesday, October 7, 2003 To say that there's blood in the water and the sharks are circling around the Bush administration's Iraq policy would be understatement at this point. It's more like a blood bank that's been dropped into the water, the sharks have taken the first bites, and Amazonian piranhas are clamoring for visas on an expedited basis. 03:44 p.m., Monday, October 6, 2003 I actually heard this report, and was shocked to hear that the White House had asked the Justice Department if they could wait a day, earlier this week, before directing the White House staff to preserve all phone and email records, and [that], similarly, the Justice Department had agreed to let the White House wait that day. Now the official transcript of All Things Considered for that day omits this paragraph. What is going on? 02:57 p.m., Friday, October 3, 2003 04:43 p.m., Thursday, October 2, 2003 Of course, this is perfect fodder for conservatives looking for "outrageous" straw-men to poke, but goddamn it, someone had to put this all down in writing. 03:26 p.m., Tuesday, September 30, 2003 We looked at doing these at my last job, with Bluetooth. At the time, I thought it was one of the most ridiculous ideas I'd ever heard of. But then again, I don't understand why anyone would use text messaging when they had a PHONE. Looks like they ditched Bluetooth (too much space? Power? Cost?) in favor of good old IR. 10:25 p.m., Thursday, September 25, 2003 The latest corporate welfare project of the Bush administration. Someone needs to calculate how much of our $87 Billion is going to go into the pockets of BushCo associates. 10:14 p.m., Thursday, September 25, 2003 I had pretty much forgotten about them until I saw them mentioned on ILM (I Love Music). Their website is chock-full of free, hard-to-find versions of their songs, plus some new stuff. They have a new album out soon, as well as a double-DVD full of music and videos. 03:34 p.m., Monday, September 22, 2003 Wonder what all those references mean? Here you go! 10:28 a.m., Friday, September 19, 2003 Archives |
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