Speed of a meme

This guy is attempting to measure the speed of a meme through The Tubes.

Since I'm sucker for such things, I am playing along. He would like you to do so as well.

Posting

Indeed, I've really been slacking on posting lately. I really can't blame anyone except for the failed policies of the Clinton Administration. Or maybe Denny Hastert's staff. Something like that.

To make up for it, here's Katie Melua's video for "Nine Million Bicycles."



She recently set a world record for performing the world's deepest underwater concert on a gas rig in the North Sea. (warning: annoying website that doesn't accomodate direct links)

**UPDATE Feb 27, 2007*** Youtube link updated

Carney and Biden @ Mid-Valley Rally

Curses!

I have not been checking the Chris Carney campaign website nearly often enough. Apparently, yesterday, I totally missed the "Mid-Valley Rally" @ Barrett's Pub in Archbald. He had Joe Biden along with him as well.

Well, whatever. I'm still waiting for the "Chili con Carney" Dinner/Rally.

Rendezvous + realtime (almost) google maps

Okay, so I know I haven't posted much lately, and whenever I do, it's been some link to a youtube video...but bear with me, okay?

If you haven't seen Rendezvous yet, it's a short film made in 1978 by French filmmaker Claude Lelouch, in which he mounted a camera to the bumper of a Ferrari and had an (unspecified) Formula-1 driver friend drive balls-out through the early morning streets of Paris. It's a mind-blowingly stupid exhibition of some severely badass driving.

This guy has made a googlemaps realtime (almost) mapping of the drive.

Enjoy.

Onthaal aan mijn lezers van de Lage Landen

For some reason that I have yet to figure out, I seem to be getting a lot of traffic from the Netherlands. Specifically, a lot of my Dutch Homies seem to be searching on images.google.nl for the searchword "tank" and wind up coming here. This site doesn't seem to be a significant search result on that word, as near as I can tell, and the word seems to mean the same thing in Dutch as it does in English. The search result situation seems to be in response to my posting about the Tiananmen Square tank guy a while back.

If there are any English-speaking Nederlanders out there who would care to clue me in on the significance of "tank" in the current Netherlands idiom, I'd appreciate it. The most likely result I can find seems to be a club in Australia.

roomba love

Okay, truly there has never been an invention more practical and geek-fun than the Roomba. I got mine last week, and the sumbitch is probably the most fun thing I've ever bought that actually does something useful.

Admittedly, the algorithm it uses is best utilized in a room which is open in the center and has a few small items of furniture at the periphery. And it's not the most efficient vacuum cleaner I can think of...it tends to clean the same cross-room path and vestibules over and over. But tarnation, people...a robot vacuum cleaner with a remote control...how much cooler can you get????

Their Own Reality

Even given the already surreal quality that politics have had for the last few years, the Republicans have managed to blow my mind further in the last few weeks.

Just to recap, it was only a few weeks ago that Sen. Ted Stevens, who chairs the committe responsible for regulating the Internet, delivered his "series of tubes" speech which revealed that the old boy ain't quite got a handle on this new-fangled Internet-doohickey, yet. Disturbing as this exhibition of cluelessness may have been, it spawned countless inspired works of art dedicated to making fun of him, so it was all good.

More recently, Karl Rove: told the Denver Post that “recent studies” show researchers “have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.” The Chicago Trib, perhaps confused by the fact that these studies must have slipped under the radar of every major news outlet, talked with some stem cell experts who all shot that idea down. So yet again, we've got a Presidential Advisor who is either intentionally lying about something, or has no idea what's going on in the actual world the rest of us live in.

And finally, in the last few days we've heard from Senator Inhofe. The Senator is the Chairman of the Committee on Environment & Public Works. Despite the seemingly weekly release of studies which state unequivocably that global warming is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is likely to fuck shit up on this little planet of ours, the good Senator believes that global warming is a "hoax." Recently, he proved Godwin's Law and made a comparison to the Third Reich. Intriguingly, he refers to climate scientists who are expressing the conclusion supported by overwhelming evidence in the absence of any substantial counter-arguments as being "on the other side of the debate." I never participated in the debate club in high school, but it sounds like that "other side" might more properly be termed the "winning side." This was a debate 15 years ago. The debate is over.

At this point it's hard for me to tell if they are intentionally attempting to lie about the facts, or if this bunch of smug know-it-alls have so completely surrounded themselves in their own bubble of Yes Men that they actually believe their own crap.

At family holidays when I was younger, I'd always get into arguments with my uncle's extremely republican father. At the end of any of these arguments, no matter what my argument was, he settled into his self-satisfied composure, secure in the knowledge that he had made his mind up about things in the 70s, and by gum, nothing was going to change that mind. We now only discuss the weather and the good old days. In the case of my uncle's father, he is mostly retired and his attitude is mostly harmless. He is not, however, responsible for running the goddamned most powerful nation in the world.

I get the sense that a lot of people are starting to come to the realization of exactly how incompetent this crew really is, and how dangerous they are to our national well-being. At any rate, I sincerely hope so, because otherwise Canada is going to get really crowded.

Furthering the Cause

Over at dailykos, bonddad provides some helpful economic talking points for the democrats. Hopefully, it will help frame the future discussions about the bush economy.

This Blog is Not a Truck

I am particularly taken by this techno homage to Senator Ted Stevens' now-classic speech about the Internets. Brought to you via your favorite series of tubes.

All we wanna do....

funniest. machinima. evar.

I can only describe it as a touching annoying office co-worker zombie stripped-down rock opera machinima video made using WoW.



bds, I'm talking to you, here. disgustedem and geo, you will still wet yourself.

(I believe I got this from pinko punko in a poorman comment, but I closed the tab and I'm too lazy to go back and verify.)

Axes of Evil to Grind

Too much newsworthy stuff happening today, and I'm too out of blogging lately to do any justice to these items.

For now, I'll just take this opportunity to address the low-hanging fruit. Probably the biggest news of the day was the fact that North Korea took the occaision of the 4th of July to test launch a number of missles into the Pacific. (As of the most recent news reports, the final number appears to be 7 missles.)

Of course, all of the news articles make a point of mentioning that these missles may be capable of reaching Alaska. As such, I feel obligated to comment on this in the way only my deep geopolitical insight can truly cover with any amount of gravitas:

Setup: Kim Jong-Il has a Taepodong that can reach Alaska.
Punchline: OH, SURE!! MAYBE IF HE'S STANDING THREE INCHES AWAY FROM THE BORDER!!! LOL!!!11!11!

A New Post

Apparently, I haven't blogged much since my vacation. I blame my readers for your lack of dedication.

So, I totally missed the one year anniversary of the blog. (breathless flashback to my stunning first post) My bad. Bon Anniversaire a cette blog.

It's 3:00 am right now, and I can't sleep. I realized just now that, without having any way to be sure, it's probable that I haven't seen doctor since Ronald Reagan was president. (This statement applies only to regular checkups. The emergency room visits for my college drinking incident and my recent broken bone do not apply. Your mileage may vary.) I probably should arrange a visit soon, but I'm guessing that, like most everything else (except computers), post-Reagan healthcare has likely only taken a turn for the worse. (Prognostication: I should quit smoking, cut back on my drinking, eat better and exercise more. I probably have some specific health issue for which someone has concocted a drug whose side-effects are worse than the problems they address. Even pointing my browser to WebMD seems like a waste of time.)

More likely, I'll schedule my car to be inspected long before this happens.

Anyhow, I'm going to grab a drink and a smoke and try to get my ass asleep.

Net Neutrality Fight Moves to the Senate

As you may know, the fight to preserve Net Neutrality was lost in the House. My own personal Representative voted for the interests of the Telcos, and I'm pissed.

Senators Snowe and Dorgan have introduced a bill (S. 2917) which sounds like it has bi-partisan support. Get on the phones, send some emails, and contact your Senators now!

Da Vinci code at Cannes

So, unsurprisingly, the pre-premier of "The Da Vinci Code" at Cannes was received with something less than overwhelming enthusiasm. Since I consider this book the most over-hyped B+ thriller since "The Hunt for Red October" I'm not surprised by the reaction at Cannes.

What I am surprised by, is the fact that I appear to be the first to come up with the obvious Variety-esque headline: "Cannes pans Dan's fans!"

(Yes, I know "Cannes" isn't pronounced that way, but d@mmit it screams out to me! Boffo!)

Monkeys, Typewriters and Shakespeare

Today, just before I left the office, I overheard a co-worker spouting the old saw about how if you put a million monkeys in a room with a million typewriters for long enough, they'd eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare. Since most of my thoughts at work lately have focused on process improvement, the first thing that crossed my mind when I heard this was: "Well that's an inelegant and inefficient way to do things. Perhaps if you selected two or three promising monkeys and put them through some creative writing classes, you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble."

However, it then occurred to me that for my policy proposal to be workable, I'd have to figure out how to deal with the resulting massive unemployment among monkey typists.

And that's when I realized that I'd pretty much lost it and decided to call it a day.

DOJ moves against EFF AT&T Class Action Suit

Via boingboing, we learn that yesterday, the DOJ filed a motion to dismiss the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T regarding their complicity in helping the U.S. Government spy on its own citizens.

Early Saturday morning, in the darkest hours of the night, the Department of Justice made good its threat to file a motion to dismiss our class-action lawsuit against AT&T, contending that AT&T's collaboration with the NSA's massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications (which violates the law and the privacy of its customers)--despite being front page news throughout the United States and the subject of government press conferences and Congressional hearings--is a state secret. The motion was accompanied by declarations by Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander, Director, National Security Agency and John D. Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence. We will vigorously oppose this motion. Donate to EFF and help stop the illegal spying!

Personally, I would recommend that any American citizens who believe that our Government ought not to circumvent the law to secretly spy on its own citizens, consider donating a few bucks.

Ionic Air purifiers create smog

Hey, disgustedem...don't you have one of these?

Maybe that throat irritation and shortness of breath wasn't from the smoking....

Radiohead - '06 North America Dates Announced

Un.
Be.
Freaking.
Lievable.

So, Radiohead has finally announced this year's NorthAm dates. You can probably scroll down this page and see the post in which I was bummed about having to miss Boston because of my trip to Seattle, but I took solace in the fact that they'd have some days in Philly.

Turns out the Philly dates are also happening during my trip to Seattle.

Is it just me or do the east coast gigs seem a bit sparse this year?

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10am. Info from ateaseweb:

June 1 - Upper Darby, PA @ Tower Theatre
June 2 - Upper Darby, PA @ Tower Theatre

June 4 - Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion
June 5 - Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion

June 7 - Toronto, ON @ Hummingbird Centre
June 8 - Toronto, ON @ Hummingbird Centre

June 10 - Montreal, QC @ Salle Wilfred-Pelletier at Place des Arts
June 11 - Montreal, QC @ Salle Wilfred-Pelletier at Place des Arts

June 13 - New York, NY @ The Theatre at Madison Square Garden
June 14 - New York, NY @ The Theatre at Madison Square Garden

June 17 - Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival

June 19 - Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre
June 20 - Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre

June 23 - Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theater
June 24 - Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theater

June 26 - San Diego, CA @ Bayside
June 27 - San Diego, CA @ Bayside

June 29 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theater
June 30 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theater

Barbeque Grills - Made in USA

We are currently looking to purchase a barbeque grill. I'm someone who can appreciate a nicely-grilled burger, but I'm by no means a hardcore grill chef. As such, we're basically looking for something that's moderately nicer than the nearly-disposabe things you can buy in a grocery store, but we certainly aren't looking for "The Bestest Grill Eva!!!

Whenever I'm buying a somewhat big-ticket item, I try to determine if any of my choices are made in the U.S. Even though it may be a weak gesture right now, I'd prefer to pay a premium for something made in the U.S. and keep my dollars going to domestic manufacturers.

Unfortunately, given our stated critieria for the barbeque grill, our optimal selection might just be a low-cost import in the $100-200 range. Searching on Sears' website for "grill made in the usa," it seems like our selections are limited to Weber grills and one Kenmore grill that is more than we're really looking to spend.

Curses. What is the ethical, domestic-manufacturing-conscious US consumer to do?

Picture of Weber Genesis Silver Grill appropriated from Sears.com

ING CD Rates

As you all know, I'm a big fan of ING Direct. Before I get into details, I'll point out to everyone that they just bumped their savings rate up from 4.00% to 4.15% today, so..."Yay!" My fandom notwithstanding, they sure have a way of cheesing me off with their CD rates.

Since it's been obvious for over a year now that the Fed was going to keep raising rates, it's been rather counter-productive to put money into any long-term CDs until one is reasonably certain that we've reached the peak of the rate-raising spree. And now, all of the signs seem to indicate that we're close to that end.

Back on April 14, ING bumped the rates on all CDs over 1 year duration up to 5.00%. However, yesterday, they apparently bumped everything over a 2 year down to 4.75%. (They did push the 12 month rate up to 5.25%, so I just dropped some money into one of those.) I get the impression that the CD-rate-setting department periodically goes out and gets loaded, and sets the rates at giddy highs, then realizes what they did a few days later and fixes things.

The conventional wisdom suggests that the Fed will raise rates another quarter point in May and then hold tight after that. Presumably, ING will bring the long-term CDs up to 5.00% at that point. I was hoping the end result would be an over 5% 5-year CD, which would be pretty freaking compelling. Hell, a guaranteed, FDIC-insured, "your account will NOT lose value" 5+% return is hard not to love.

And frankly, a straight 5% under those conditions ain't too bad, either. But still....grrr.

Search Results

I've waited for this day for so long. Today I just discovered that someone found this blog by searching for "herbal roofies."

Hurray, hurrah, oh great frabjabulous day! Since the day that post went up, I knew that someday, somebody would search for some bizarre thing and google would make me happy...and my patience was well rewarded.

I can't say for sure, but that might well be the best search string that returns exitramp, Evah! It's also heartening to know that kids nowadays are aware of the health risks that are associated with your garden variety, Big Pharma ketamine.

Party at my place tonight. Bathtub roofies and paint thinner will be provided.

Homestar Anniversary

So, as part of my never-ending quest for the truth, I intended that I would definitively, once and for all, identify which sbemail was the first to introduce the Bear holding the Shark. (Hint: It ain't theme park, it's date)

However, while doing my research, I realised that we are now approaching the N-X anniversary of 20X6. Truly, the 01:02:03-04-05-06 anniversary pales in comparison.

Looking forward to Stinkoman within the next 90 years, Yours Truly, mergenow.

Net Neutrality - Take Action

Originally noted via boingboing...the fight for 'net neutrality? Oh, it's been broughten.

Interestingly, this is a topic which unites conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit), MoveOn.org, the ACLU and Gun Owners of America.

SaveTheInternet.com

Write your Congresspeople, educate yourself, spread the word.

War of the Beer Blogs

Um, hey...bds...this guy is muscling in on your beer review blogging territory. And he's got links to people melting cars via thermite reactions.

I'm not sure if this here blogosphere is big enough fer the two a' you.

Learning Foreign Languages

Over the last week or so, I've been trying to brush up on my French. I took four years of French in High School and have tried to maintain some minimal comprehension throughout the years.

In the past, I've purchased numerous different tapes and CD courses. Now I'm evaluating some of the "learn a foreign language" software, and reading Le Monde.

One of the thing that has stricken me lately, is that I'm amazed at how hard it is to hear a foreign language (That's "hear", as opposed to "read & write") if one doesn't have the opportunity to talk with a native speaker on a regular basis.

I never felt this way when I was younger, but by the same token, I was only hearing selected French speakers on "Learn to Speak French" CDs, and didn't have the ability to effortlessly watch a French-language program or newscast, whenever I felt like it.

But there definitely seems to be a certain malleability in the young mind which enables learning a new language. And I'm rather pissed that I didn't have the opportunity to learn other languages sooner than High School. While playing around with the software, I've noticed I can pick up languages that are similar to English, French or Spanish much more easily than those which are not. (Japanese seems easy; I can't even begin to retain basic vocabulary in Mandarin; Dutch=easy; German=ridiculously hard given how much of English is derived from Germanic tongues.)

Suddenly, I'm thinking about the deathless controversy over making English the One and Only Official Language of the USA. When I was younger, I was firmly in the camp that argued: "If you want to live here, you'd better learn the language." Now, I have to face the fact that it would have been nice to have grown up multilingual.

Damned smarty-pants Belgians. And Swiss. And...well, a pretty huge chunk of the rest of the world, I guess. grumble, grumble....

4-20 post

You know what to do.

Smoke 'em if you got em...

UPDATE Curses...actual post time was clearly a bit late.

Radiohead - Boston Dates Announced

Great. It turns out that Radiohead announced their first non-bonnaroo US tour dates, in Boston, and I will be in Seattle on those days.

Oh well. According to ateaseweb, they're planning multiple nights in Philly, and I assume I can count on a night or two at MSG.

Rumormillblogging - Net Neutrality

As the battle for 'Net neutrality heats up, the fark tagline summarizes it best: "Google, Ebay and Amazon to AT&T: Suck it. We'll build our own network"

Fat Amrericans - Someone Else's Fault

msnbc.com is reporting that most Americans agree that other Americans are fat. However, only 40% consider themselves fat.

Ninety percent of Americans know that most of their compatriots are overweight, but just 40 percent believe themselves to be too fat, according to a study published Tuesday

Given the numbers, and accepting that most of my friends seem to consider me skinny, I'm a bit surprised to find that I rank at the very top end of normal. Either the numbers are unreasonable, or we've all lowered the bar.

Time to skip the dessert tray, fatty.

PBS Frontline - The Tank Man

I was just watching Frontline on PBS, and caught the The Tank Man story some way in. They were talking about modern China, and definitely painted a picture that sounded like 19th century America or Britain, with an odd mix of the 21st Century West.

I don't think it's controversial to say that in the last few years, all of the above countries have spent much time fretting over immigrant labor. I'll take it a step further and posit that this is a direct result of the post Regan/Thatcher era of strike busting and privitization, just to take a gratuitous jab at the right-wingers.

The interesting thing about the report was the discussion about the treatment of migrant rural Chinese workers moving into the affluent coastal cities. The establishment needs the migrant workers for cheap manual labor, but they cities strictly regulate the residency of the workers in the city. I could hardly manage to hear a difference between the discussion of this dynamnic versus the discussions currently happening here about illegal Mexican aliens. Only in this case, they're all technically citizens of the same country.

Perhaps the most interesting bit, in light of the kerfluffle raised by Yahoo and Google conceding to the Chinese government demands of censorship, is the actual discussion of The Tank Man.

They pointed out the fact that the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989 were significantly fueled by the classic protester class, the college students. They then pointed out that a significant chunk of current Chinese college students are the children of the privileged elite.

Significantly, the four college students they interviewed were completely unfamiliar with the images of The Tank Man, and they explicitly asserted that "most people under the age of 20 have probably never seen the images." (I'm curious to see what the results would be if you showed the same picutres to American students of the same demographic. This was not addressed in the segment.) They then segued into a segment in which they pointed out that google image searches for "Tiananmen Square" in the West return copious quantities of results that most of us who are over 30 would recognize in a second, while the Google China results return none.

(Note: I need to watch the segment again, however. Even though the Chinese-speaking students were alleged to not recognize the picture at all, I could have sworn they said that the male student said "1989?" early in the interview. It sure seems odd that 1989 would come up if he didn't have some idea of what he was looking at.)

The main point I'm trying to make here is that we certainly hear enough about the liberalisation of China in the last 15 years. And as much as I don't want to see American workers lose their jobs to globalization, I can certainly understand the argument that it's time for the rest of the world to share in the benefits of industrialization. But there's clearly still an argument that there's some chilling excesses of the Gilded Age-style excesses that benefit the wealthy few at the expense of the common man.

(/socialism) (I still haven't figured out how to make blogger ignore pointy-brackets)

War on Christmas Redux

So, back in the end of twenty-oh-five, we heard much discussion about the "War Against Christmas."

But what about Easter, that seminal holiday of Christianity? Much ink has been spilled about how the Easter Bunny is taking the holiday away from its argued Christian origins. (link)

But finally, we get to see the other side of the argument. The Easter Bunny is a seriously badass dude, and frankly...the Easter Bunny Hates You.

Tennessee Tornadoes

Honestly, I have not been able to follow the news much latley. Tonight I just now hit the msnbc homepage and was freaked out by the following picture.

Apparently, last week tornadoes killed 24, and today they're reporting between 10-12 dead. (Story headline and details in the actual arcticle don't match)

Um...even for those who are global warming doubters, I'd think it would be prudent to consider the possibility that it's real, and start pushing for policies that don't openly spit on the possibility.

Time for some more contributions to the Red Cross, methinks.

Vodkablogging

While shopping at the liquor store tonight, I noticed a new (to me) vodka. It's not clear if the english double entendre was totally responsible for the naming, but I'm sure it didn't hurt in the marketing decision.

For you see, the vodka gets its name from the Dutch word for "1. smooth, 2. even, 3. balanced," but that word happens to be "effen."

I can hardly wait to go to a bar and order "an effen martini."

Systemic Pedophilia in DHS

Okay, I have completely internalized the fact that when BushCo staffs an organization, they're going to do it with unqualified, questionably-competent cronies. That's pretty much a given.

But today, in this dailykos diary, jem6x notes the fact Brian Dole is not the only Homeland Security official to be arrested for pedophilia-related charges. In fact, there have recently been three DHS officials who have allegedly engaged in pedophilia.

What the hell is going on here? Have we gotten to the point where these people are so surrounded by sleaze and corruption that a 55-year-old DHS spokesman allegedly thinks he can attempt to mack on a 14-year-old girl? One of the other dudes, Frank Figueroa, was in charge of "a national program to target child sex predators". He exposed himself to a 16-year-old then proceeded to masturbate. He pleaded no contest to the charges.

Seriously, now...what's with these people?

Coffee Roasting Learnings - Colombia Narino

Back in February we got a coffee roaster along with some sampler packs of green coffee beans. We just finished the first pack and are moving on to the second pack, so I'm just putting this up as a historical document to keep track of our thoughts on the particular beans. Since we're learning the roasting trade, we want to keep a notebook on our thoughts as we go.

Columbia Narino Caracel del Abuelo

We picked this pack as the first one to try since...well...it's from Colombia. Juan Valdez, and all.

Our general take on this one, after making 4-5 batches: Pretty Weak Honestly, no matter what we did, this stuff was acceptable, but from a hardcore coffee freak perspective, I might as well be drinking tea.

We tried pre-heating the Fresh Roast 2...we progressively cranked it up to the maximum time....and after that, the shit is still weak. By no means unflavorable, but I'm far less interested in the subtle interplay of the aftertastes as I am with having a seriously dark brew of freakin' Joe.

We're now moving on to some beans from Costa Rica. Just roasted them up a few minutes ago, and the results look (and smell) more promising. More details to come.

Radiohead - EU Tour Dates Announced

Listen up children....according to ateaseweb, Radiohead's EU tour dates are confirmed (except Bonnaroo, of course) and it will be kicking off in May. No North American dates have been announced yet but the tour is supposed to kick off in June.

I'm all a-quiver, folks.

Wage Slavery

We are all wage slaves, biznotchez. Support the French youth movement.

Reject the bullshit. People were not meant to live this way.

V for Vendetta Movie - First Impression

We just got back from watching the V for Vendetta movie. Before I make any comments, let me just remind everyone that I'm an oldschool fan of the graphic novel, and that I've been pretty psyched about the movie for some time. Take that for what it's worth since I'm definitely the sort of person who consistently falls into the "The book was so much better than the movie" camp.

So my initial thoughts after having just seen the movie can be summed up as: "Meh." The movie retained about 80% of the events from the graphic novel, without retaining the chronology or the basic story arc. As a result, the government comes across as a rather weak example of a corrupt, totalitarian regime. I didn't really get a strong sense of the pervasive Orwellian oppression of the people either. And frankly, I walked away without a good understanding of the motivations of V, himself.

I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it. I had the same final feelings that I did when I saw the movie interpretation of "Fear and Loathing." The movie managed to faithfully convey a bunch of the events of the story without retaining the key parts of the story that made it powerful, or even allowed the story to make sense.

On a scale from Sucked to Rocked, I'm going to have to give it a 3.5.

News Explosion

Uh-oh. On the same day that Dubai Ports World announces that they're going to give up it's management stake in the U.S. ports, we also get the news that the U.S. military is going to close Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Why do I have the disturbing feeling that there is some heinous, unspeakable evil being perpetuated by the assministration right now that they're hoping will slip under the radar due to all this "Big News"?

The Empire Keeps Striking Back

From the "Things that make you go hmm" Department...

Disgustedem directed my attention today to this article from the Poughkeepsie Journal, specifically the third item. The key interesting bit here is that the man who is going to jail for selling crack is named "Landocalrissan Butler." This dude was named after Lando freaking Calrissian, from Empire Strikes Back. In the annals of really awful things parents can do to their kids, I'd say this one ranks pretty high. Hell, I unequivocably blame his parents for the fact that he wound up selling drugs.

I'm trying to conceive the circumstances by which this happened. Note that he's 25, which would put him right into the sweet period of 9 months after the release of ESB. One has to assume he was conceived the night that his parents saw ESB for the first time. And clearly, they were completely blown away, not just by the movie, but particularly by Billy Dee Williams performance. Moreover, both parents were sufficiently wow-ed that neither of them bothered to object to this crime.

I wouldn't even be quite as surprised to see a Hansolo Smith, because Han was a key character, and he was just damned cool. Somehow, naming one's kid after the guy who sold the rebels out to the Empire just does not seem right.

Anyhow, I've got to wrap this one up. I told my friend Mofftarkin that I'd meet him for a beer and I'm already late.

Hunting Safety

I only have time for the following updated graphic. Thanks mspaint.

(previously)

***update: (15:14)*** Some guy has created a "hunting with cheney" flash game.

New Techie Blog

Via slashdot, an apparently new blog by a person responsible for web infrastructure. Not many posts up so far, but the author seems to know his or her stuff.

Virtualthreads

Hybrid Awareness

Taking the President's bold new initiative seriously, some enterprising individual has taken it upon themselves to make a t-shirt design available on cafepress to help further awareness of the human animal hybrid problem. (via boingboing)

WTF? Radiohead headlining Bonnaroo

Holy crap! In one of the strangest matches I've ever seen, yesterday it was announced that Radiohead will be headlining bonnaroo this year. Perhaps with this precedent, phish may get back together and finally headline the Inferno Festival.

Info purloined directly from the ateaseweb posting:

Tickets for the 2006 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival will go on sale
Saturday, February 11th at 10:00 AM Eastern Time through Bonnaroo.com.
Tickets for Bonnaroo 2006 are priced at two levels: The first tickets will be priced at a special rate of $169.50 each. There is a limited allotment of tickets at this price. When the initial allotment is sold out, ticket prices will increase without notice to $184.50.

Official bonnaroo site here.

Underwhelming SOTU

Since I was a small child, and long before I was ever interested in politics, I've hated Presidential State of the Union addresses. They invariably pre-empted my favorite show and forced me to find something else to occupy my time. Given my feelings towards the chimperor, it probably goes without saying that my attitudes towards them haven't changed much.

However, the presidential speechwriters and advisors totally phoned in last night's speech. In previous ones, even if one was watching them to pick Shrub apart, one always had some grand, overarching concept as a reward for watching. Whether it was the Iraq war, the dismemberment of Social Security or even plans to put a human on "Mars, B!tch3s!", there was always the visionary idea tossed in.

Last night, the best we got was a bold stance against hybrid human-animal cloning. Somewhere in the White House at this moment, there is a seriously hungover speechwriter holding his aching head but laughing his @$$ off over that one, still unable to believe they let him slip that bit in.

In what has now become commonplace, Chimpy railed against the excesses and failings of the government over which he has presided for the last 6 years. He reiterated his pledge to cut in half the massive deficit which he created. He spewed pleasant words about education, for which he cut funding. And he boldly suggested that we need to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil; the dependence which was strengthened by Dick Cheney's energy task force.

So, lacking the single visionary jewel, this was just another example of the Republicans who control the entire government railing against the fat cats in Washington.

Personally, while it was on, I was doing my usual "SOTU activity, and was thoroughly engaged in a cutthroat game of Hide and Seek. Glad I didn't miss anything.

Chewy blogs

(Might take a minute to load fully. Wait for it.)

Link

He's got a myspace link out there, too.

Shell Script - Appending a Timestamp to a Filename

This case is most useful for a somewhat simple script that will be invoked once at an arbitrary time and complete promptly. If the script will keep running (in the background, say) make sure the variable declaration is inside any loops.

Define the variable ${NOW}:

NOW=`date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`

If we invoke this as in this example:

netstat -an >> /logs/netstat.out.${NOW}

It will create a datestamp that looks like the following:

netstat.out.20051029-124116

IBM Releases free version of DB2

Via slashdot, we learn that today IBM has released DB Express-C, a free version of it's enterprise DB2 DBMS. It will have limitations on the hardware on which it can run, but for the enterprising IT person, this allows us to see what the DBA's can do all from the comfort of our own home network.

Pretty sweet.

(As always, whenever IBM releases some new thing, it's impossible to find the information on their website. Here's the best I can come up with:)

DB2 Express-C for Win x86 32-bit download - Link
DB2 Express-C for linux x86 32-bit download - link
DB2 Express-C for Linux x86 32-bit, 2.6 kernel - link

***UPDATE (1/31, 16:53)*** Thanks to Sumit in the comments for providing the DB2 Express homepage!

http://www.ibm.com/db2/express

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Um...I guess for the next week we'll be hearing about how you're either with us or you're for the hurricanes...?

The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.

I think I really need to crawl into a whole for the next few months, 'cuz shit's about to get really weird.

ING Direct "Winter Sale"

For all of you with ING Direct accounts, (or those who were considering opening one) note that ING will be paying 4.75% APY on new deposits between January 19 and April 15. Note that they've structured it in such a way that you can't game the system by withdrawing then re-depositing money, but still, it's a pretty sweet deal. Three months of FDIC-insured 4.75% APY interest ain't too shabby.

I love this freaking bank.



***Update*** Note, today they did decrease rates on CDs, which kind of sucks. On Dec 14, they were offering 4.85% on a 5-year, now they've lowered it to 4.70%. I guess demand made them think it was a bit too good of a deal.

The Battle Rages On

Michael Moore responds to Chris Matthews' having compared him to Osama.

Some believe Osama and Chris Matthews tried to sabotage Lance Armstrong's win in France last year.

As a bonus, I do believe it's safe to say MM has unleashed the nuclear option and is calling Matthews gay. If one wages a schoolyard battle, one must expect a schoolyard response.

Livedoor - Bu log Post Doing

So, after the scandal surrounding Livedoor sent the Japanese stock market tumbling yesterday, I felt compelled to check out good old Livedoor. Might as well see what all the fuss was about.

Apparently, it's yet another web portal/search engine, a la Yahoo. The more interesting bit, here, is that Google apparently has quite of bit of work to do on their Japanese-to-English translation engine...



As on this side of the Pacific, it's clear that everybody has their own Bu log site.

According to googletrans, new items of interest include:

Now in the midst of brain age check execution of attention!
and
The change of occupation technique which the change of occupation success person has known?

Slightly more comprehensively, under the heading of "The male be completed information", they offer what appears to be an auto price guide: "Your love car now how much? The free online assessment"

And of course, in their targeted ad spot, (that's a "Livedoor searching attention word" for you, google translation reader), we are tempted by an offer of:
Hot towel noodles Byakuya line Of Yoshikawa poults Circulation of rumor Amino collagen

Who could possibly turn that down? (More interestingly, after clicking on the link, I gather that "hot towel noodles" is actually a transliteration, because it returns a bunch of food sites. I found a site that includes a sort-of english recipie for them. "While on the present board, to do the dusting powder, you spread to the thickness about of 2 millimeters with the rolling pin.")

Nifty...

They Call Me: Muse

Since my buddy bds1313 is feeling unmotivated today, and as a result felt uninspired to write his daily beer review, I figured I'd try and help inspire him. To wit, here is my first installment of Pete's Drink Review of the Day:

Drink of the Day - Scranton Municipal Tap Water -(Pennsylvania-American Water Company)

This morning, after last night's wicked bender, I woke up feeling like complete dog cr@p...or as I perfer to call it: normal. As such, after an especially urgent trip to the bathroom to relieve my aching bladder, (or as I prefer to call it: Willy) the first thing I did was run downstairs and imbibe two-and-a-half glasses of today's featured drink: Scranton Municipal Tap Water. This fine liquid is brought to you by the fine folks at Pennsylvania-American Water, who have been delivering refreshment and hangover relief since 1886.

The drink was served in a straight-sided pint glass. (and yes, it's an authentic pint.) It originally had a robust lattice and head, until I realized that there was still some dishwashing detergent in the glass when I pulled it out of the sink. One thorough rinsing later, it was entirely lattice- and head-free. The color was disappointingly light...almost transparent. I couldn't really get a good sense of the aroma, because I still needed to blow my nose. (Priorities, dontcha know?) Since this is a domestic, it was served as cold as a jilted ex-girlfriend responding to a late night drunk dial.

The first glass was intensely refreshing and was downed in a matter of seconds, in a desperate, gasping series of gulps. I decided a second glass was called for to truly deliver a meaningful review. The foretaste is subtle...I detected a tang of chlorine and could have sworn I caught a subtle hint of organic solids. The aftertaste was, unfortunately, much like morning breath with a hint of last night's Jameson's (but from my previous experience with this fine liquid, I don't think that's typical. Except, you know, during the first drink of the morning.)

Overall, the my experience with this fine drink was delicious! I think the lack of body and lattice are far outwieghed by the sheer refreshing, hydrating qualities this baby delivers. It gets a solid 9.5 out of 10 on Pete's Drink Scale.

Tune in tomorrow, when I'll be reviewing PAWC's specialty upmarket drink: Scranton Municipal Tap Water from a Brita Filter Pitcher!

Egads, a Monkey!*

* Yes, I know it's a gorilla.

Happy Trogday

Three years. Seriously.

Body Armor for Troops in Iraq & Afghanistan

Political biases notwithstanding, can we please agree that if we are going to put Americans in harm's way in Afghanistan and Iraq, that we should at least insure that they have the best possible weapons and armor available while they are there?

Wesley Clark has an online petition demanding that the military requisition the body armor that has been known to save lives, but has been neglected, for almost three years now. Please sign it...(here)

Camaro and Challenger

In the last week, Dodge and Chevy have rolled out concepts for a new Camaro and Challenger. Let me just say that as an oldschool musclecar gearhead, I think both of these cars are severely drool-worthy.



Lord knows, I thought the new Mustang was sweet, and this retro musclecar wave is a smart idea to rekindle some passion, even if it reeks of desperation. Personally, I haven't considered buying a domestic car in years. The Chevy Cobalt appeals to my current taste in cars, even if it comes up rather mediocre compared to the competition. The domestic automakers need to focus on building some serious world class sedans and coupes.

And hell...why is Subaru still the only car company that considers All-Wheel-Drive something worth putting on every car? How many other carbuyers besides me don't want to drive a goddamned truck, but want a car with competent performance that can get around in the snow? Surely there must be a few...

B.B. King at the Kirby Center

B.B. King will be performing at the F.M. Kirby Center on his 80th Birthday Celebration Tour on Sunday, March 19th. I saw him at the Kirby two years ago and goddamn, but that dude can still jam (even if he did spend a lot of time sitting on a stool.) Tix on sale to the public Sat (Jan 14th).



Kirby Center site here (no direct link, click on schedule, go to March)
Ticketmaster page here

Robertson's Greatest Hits

Returning to the timely topic of Ariel Sharon, we learn from the science-based medical community that he allegedly "suffered a massive brain hemorrhage."

Being that we here at exitramp are devout, god-fearing Christians, we can't help but be skeptical over this so-called "diagnosis."

Let's hear from our mouthpiece of God, Mr. Pat Robertson: God smote him.

Ah yes, the unsaved Mr. Sharon was attempting to divide God's land, and God doth lay the smacketh down on him, in the form of divine cranial swelling. I knew there had to be more to it than simple "cranial pressure" and "blood clots"...that story just doesn't wash. Thank you, Mr. Robertson for your unique theo-neurological insight.

Recalling that in the last year we've heard Pat call for the assasination of people he doesn't agree with and requests that God stack the Supreme Court with some appropriately right-leaning judges, I value his input and moral clarity in all issues of substance.

Odd-Looking Headlines

CNN.com right now is brimming with headlines which look strange on the first reading.

Turkey says dead boy had bird flu - My word, why isn't that the top story? This unique fowl can not only speak but also appears to have some advanced medical knowledge. Thank goodness nobody ate this bird for Thanksgiving.

Sharon suffers 'significant' stroke - That's highly unfortunate, but I can't see why it's the top story. However, I wish her the best, and send my love to Ozzy, Jack and Kelly.

Transfer ordered of 'enemy combatant' to criminal court - What the hell kind of grammar are they teaching headline writers these days? I almost sprained my shoulder trying to parse the meaning of that sentence, so tortuous and convoluted is it being. At least they simplified it on the actual story page.

Freaking Sweet! Portable Open Office

Holy Brilliant ideas, Batman!

Portableapps.com has released a portable version of Open Office that will fit on a USB drive (or most thumb drives), so that you can open up word docs and spreadsheets whereever you happen to be! (via slashdot)

They also have a bunch of other portable apps that would be nice to have. Might be time to start carrying around a utility drive.

Jack Abramoff

In honor of Mr. Abramoff's plea bargain yesterday, Gavin over at Sadly, No! has pointed out the missed humor opportunity given Jack's name.

Nobody, so far, has come up with a good one-liner that plays off the lobbyists name.

The obvious construction would be:

"You can ________, but you can't Jack Abramoff."