Friday 12/21/01 §
This is the last post on this weblog until 2002. I'll be visiting with family and then taking some much-needed time off. Perhaps I'll start work on my oft-contemplated content management system for ASP, code-named THAT (or "Jar-Jar"). Meanwhile, feel free to post a cool link or two in this message's comment thread so I'll have something interesting to read when I get back.
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Thursday 12/20/01 §
About a year ago, Mother Jones wanted to know: Why the hell was President Clinton spending so much money on anti-terrorism when there's really hardly any terrorism at all anymore? Surely there's no chance at all of the kind of large-scale attack that Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies were then preparing for. "Even if terrorists could acquire strains of botulism, anthrax, or plague, turning such materials into a lethal device for mass casualties is a highly complex undertaking," writes Robert Dreyfuss in one of many sentences that seems eerily prescient in how completely wrongheaded it seems just a year later. This amazing article is a glimpse into another era. (Found by Oliver Willis)
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Efren Reyes may be the very best billiards player who has ever lived. Be sure to check out the Flash animation of an utterly impossible shot he made on an 8-ball. (Found in cheesedip)
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Wednesday 12/19/01 §
Find out about all the fictional musical groups that have appeared in television and movies at Rocklopedia Fakebandica. You might be surprised at how many they are. (Found at wood s lot)
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There's nothing like a little light social criticism for the holidays! Not only is this index a good starting point for exploration of current (mostly leftish) thinking on a variety of topics, it's also got a great Drew McDermott quote, about chess-playing computers, as garnish. You don't have to agree with all of this stuff (I sure don't) but there's a metric buttload of interesting reading pointed to on this single page. (Found at kottke.org)
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Peter Blegvad has made some records. He also has a comic strip and this fascinating literary Web site. Artsy but not fartsy (compared to, say, McSweeney's, which is both artsy and fartsy). (Found at Geegaw, which is back!)
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Tuesday 12/18/01 §
Please excuse my sporadic posting this week. I've got a lot to do before the holidays. Furthermore, there will most likely be no posts to this Weblog between December 21 and January 2.
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An online book about "face blindness" (prosopagnosia), a brain dysfunction which causes sufferers to be unable to tell one face from another -- or to be unable to recognize people they see every day, even their own mother -- makes for fascinating reading. Personally, I have to work at hooking up names to faces, but evidence shows I'm actually much better at it than I think I am. (Found at memepool, which has additional links on the topic)
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The Single Man's Guide to TV Dinners. If you're single, and a man, you will probably find this guide to frozen meals very useful. (Found at #!/usr/bin/girl, who is neither single nor a man)
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Sunday 12/16/01 §
To go with their excellent article on Asperger's Syndrome and autism among geeks, which appeared in print last month, Wired has posted an online AQ Test, which helps gauge your autistic tendencies. The average score in the control group was 16.4, and they have chosen 32 as the lower limit for deciding whether you have autistic tendencies. (Higher scores are more autistic.) I scored a 29. No big surprise there, really. (Found... pretty much everywhere, I don't recall exactly where I saw it first.)
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Yet another Seattle blogger gathering last night on the occasion of Julie's visit to Our City of Perpetual Precipitation. This was a significantly smaller gathering than the previous two I've been to, which meant better opportunities to get to know other bloggers. Besides Julie, I had also not met Sandra. Erin and Shawn and Bryan and Dan(elope) were also there, and it was good seeing them again.
The festivities began at the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville, which was nearly impossible to find in the dark and rain; I suspect SJ just gave up (as I almost did). There were no tables available (someone had tried to get a reservation over the phone, was told that they don't do that, and then found when they arrived that those empty tables were all reserved) so we sat uncomfortably in a kind of ski-lodge type lounge area on chairs that would have been the right height for third-graders, as long as they were midgets. After waiting a while to see if any of the tables would free up (the waitress took pity on us and brought a free pitcher of beer), we decided to head down the road to Wood'ys (the misplaced apostrophe is intentional), a local restaurant. The food was merely average, but it was much quieter, the tables were the right height for grown-ups, and we were able to sit around a table and actually look at each other. Looking forward to the next one, folks!
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A new nutritional supplement has, in trials, delivered incredible results for sufferers of bipolar depression. The Canadian inventor of the treatment noticed parallels between "ear-and-tail-biting syndrome" in pigs and the behavioral problems his friend's children were having, and basically adapted the pig supplements for human use. (Apparently, behavioral treatment through supplementation is common in veterinary medicine, but rare in "people medicine.") After finding it effective on the troubled children, the two men took their "miracle cure" to a university for small-scale clinical trials, where it was again proven effective. Later, a doctor at Harvard found that it worked so well that 11 of the 15 patients who were taking medication at the time were able to discontinue it entirely after starting the supplement. Best of all, the ingredients are simply vitamins and minerals which are already "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), so there are no barriers to selling it over-the-counter. Their Web site has more details.
I'd not be at all surprised to find that poor nutrition is at the root of many modern disorders. The food most of us eat these days simply is not very nutritious, and is certainly not what we were "designed" to eat. I'd be very interested to see this approach tried on ADHD and other learning disorders. (Found at Boing Boing)
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Saturday 12/15/01 §
I bought a box of Keebler® Holiday Almond Crescents cookies because, hey, I need some holiday cheer, okay? Also, they were on sale. On the back of the box are instructions on how to make an "Almond Crescents Holiday Gift." Construction of the gift consists of putting the cookies into a mason jar. I'm oversimplifying slightly; the box has a stencil on it to help you decorate the jar. You cut the stencil out of the box, then cut the stars out of the stencil and use it to draw stars on the jar with a glitter pen. It's a good thing, too, because stars are such geometrically complex figures that most people cannot reliably draw them freehand. (And of course, stars are obviously the way to go -- nothing says "non-denominational winter solstice holiday greetings" quite like 'em!)
Thank Keebler there are illustrations showing how to put this complex gift together, along with a materials list and instructions, without which I might forever remain ignorant of the proper way to put cookies into a jar. Unfortunately, Keebler failed to provide help for actually eating the cookies. If I figure that out I'll be sure to let you know.
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Thursday 12/13/01 §
If you write a computer program that analyzes text to figure out which letter combinations are most common in words, and then write another computer program to generate random "words" based on these combinations, you might be Chris Pound. Of particular interest here is the list of samples, which are updated each day at midnight. The English female names samples are cute; the program comes up with a huge number of actual names, a number of extreme oddities such as "Brothy," a fair amount of mediocre attempts, and the occasional gem like "Suzabet," which could actually be someone's name but is far from standard. (Male names here. "Fradlex" is probably my favorite of the crop available at this writing.) These are great resources for the aspiring science-fiction writer looking for character names. If you need chemical or medical names, or just something more interesting than "lorem epsum" for greeking up a layout, try the Latin sample. (Found at LarkFarm)
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Crazy Apple Rumors Site clearly believes in truth in advertising. (Found at Backup Brain)
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WatchThatPage is an interesting-looking service that not only monitors your favorite Web pages for changes, it provides you with just the new material from each site via e-mail or a Web page. Looks perfect for monitoring Weblogs. (Found at BitStream)
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The Lord of the Rings is terrifying, according to Stephen Pollard, who also waves his broad brush at Harry Potter in his commentary about the "infantilization" of Western culture. Apparently, when we reach a certain age, we are supposed to stop imagining, and if we fail to do so, we are infantile. It's nothing you haven't read before, really, and certainly I'd agree in general with his thesis that too many adults never really grow up, but Pollard is so thoroughly clueless about so many things that his article is almost a parody of itself. If this article had been posted on Usenet, I'd probably consider it a troll, except it's too obvious to be really effective.
A film that meets his standards for "adult" fare (the only one he mentions) is The Believer, which is about a Jewish anti-Semite. This is by all accounts a fine and powerful film, but it is one I have absolutely no interest in seeing, ever. Why pay good money to watch actors pretend to wallow in self-loathing and anger, when I can see the real thing any day of the week for free? Film is about taking you places you can't otherwise go, or showing you worlds that could and should be but aren't. Yes, film is also about holding up a mirror to the world, but film is not that to the exclusion of all else.
"I am 36," notes Pollard. "Why would I want to read ripping yarns about wizards and public schoolboys now?" No, Mr. Pollard, the correct question is: Why on Earth would you rule it out? A good story is a good story, whether you're fourteen or forty.
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Notes from the Road is an interesting travelogue site with good writing, excellent photographs, and a very personal touch. (Found at #!/usr/bin/girl)
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Wednesday 12/12/01 §
I'm sure everyone has heard this by now, it has been linked by virtually everyone except me, but the Google Groups (formerly Deja.com, formerly DejaNews) now have Usenet archives back to 1981. This is the earliest article of mine I can find in their archive. I killed an over an hour visiting with my past self last night.
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All about Dyson spheres. (Found at Black Belt Jones)
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Tuesday 12/11/01 §
The new iMac (rumored for a January intro) revealed. (Found at 120degrees)
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Also in the New York Times (or more precisely, its Magazine) is The Year in Ideas. (Found at brushstroke.tv)
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Until 1977, the people of Babuyan Claro were unconnected to the outside world. Then a missionary came to the island, with the goal of translating the New Testament into the local language -- which required him to first invent a written version of the language, since the primitive Ibatan had only spoken language. In the ensuing two and a half decades, the 1400 residents of Babuyan have been dragged into the modern world, and they haven't always been kicking and screaming about it, either. The New York Times has the five-part story penned by Pulitzer winner Ron Suskind. (Also found at abuddhas memes)
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Are you living in a computer simulation? Probably, says Dr. Nick Bostrom of Yale -- although he has two other propositions which may affect this conclusion. (Found at abuddhas memes)
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Monday 12/10/01 §
The making of a Motown classic, as told by Ben Edmonds. Two glorious parts. (Also found at Robot Wisdom)
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David Rees, the creator of virulent Internet memes (also known as Web comics) My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable and Get Your War On offers these words of wisdom about his upcoming print collection: "There aren't any page numbers. This book is ideally read in bursts, not start to finish. At some point the reader should have read enough of the book to recognize certain pages, but be unsure whether they are pages he or she has read before. The reader enters a mood of happy confusion and stasis, which is kind of like my professional life." Indeed. Discover the greatest single influence on MNFTIU and much more in this Bold Type essay. (Found at Robot Wisdom)
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Noah Grey takes some time out from taking his amazing digital photographs (he's posted over 500 now) to talk about the nature of digital photography and the potential for manipulation inherent in "being digital."
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Friday 12/7/01 §
The Economist on why Wal-Mart is unstoppable. My sister went to a Christian college in a small town in, yes, Arkansas. In that town, as is apparently the case in many small towns miles from anywhere interesting, Wal-Mart is not just a place you go to buy stuff, it's the community's de facto social center as well. That only sounds sad until you realize that in more populous areas, the community's social center is, instead, the mall. Wal-Mart is the nearest local equivalent in many places. (Found at dangerousmeta, and I swear it only seems like I steal a link from Garret every day because I do)
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Need some cool, free fonts? Keep an eye on Font Garden. Turn off JavaScript first though, that site is popup-happy, and I don't mean maybe. (Found at easily amused)
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Disenchanted has a great article discussing whether "independent" media is really inherently better or more trustworthy than sponsored "corporate" media, especially on the Web by reason of its lack of advertising. The capsule summary: the big media outlets have a better reputation built on their bigger budgets, paid for by advertising, which makes readers trust them more but also means they have more to lose if they screw up. On the other hand, smaller media outlets (which on the Web, of course, can have staffs as small as one) have less reputation, which means they have to try harder to earn the reader's trust, but they also have far less to lose. Chris Wenham's analysis makes it sound like it all comes out in the wash, which I suspect is indeed approximately the case. Good, thought-provoking read. Steven den Beste over at U.S.S. Clueless has some thoughts on the same topic, as does Kevin Whited of Reductio ad Absurdum (which also gets props for pointing me to Disenchanted). Wenham puts into words the vague thoughts that float up from the depths of my mind whenever I hear someone extolling the virtues of independents.
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FXScript is the native scripting language built into Apple's Final Cut Pro, used for creating and modifying filters and transitions. Unfortunately, it's very poorly documented. Nevertheless, Joe Maller created a package called Joe's Filters, a $55 shareware package of twelve filters for FCP, and in the process learned a lot about FXScript. Now he's sharing his knowledge with his free Web-based FXSCript Reference.
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Thursday 12/6/01 §
Need to support a position with a pithy quote from an authority? Authority Finder to the rescue. (Found at Follow Me Here)
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Enjoy the bizarre, even eerie, yet cheerfully goofy art of Mark Ryden. If his style looks familiar to you, perhaps you own this album. (Best picture I could find, sorry; maybe I'll scan mine later.) (Found at davezilla.com)
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Normally I hate online petitions because they are usually about trivial issues, whiny in tone, and a complete waste of time. But dammit, the Mac OS X Metadata petition is one I can actually get behind. The document itself is complete overkill; it contains far too much prescription about what Apple "should" do, when the exact details of future Mac metadata implementation are far less important than just getting Apple to turn the boat around so it's pointing in the right direction.
Metadata, for the uninitiated, is data about data: it's how your files know when they were created, what kind of data is in them, what icon they have, and things like that. The Macintosh has always stored a lot of metadata about files (for example, Macs actually know which application created each file); Windows and UNIX have stored much less. With Mac OS X, and Apple's new programming guidelines for their UNIX-derived OS, the Macintosh is becoming less metadata-aware, with predictable impact on usability. The Mac originally stored all that metadata because it helped users. With the metadata gone, all the usability problems the metadata solved become problems again, but Apple isn't offering any replacement technology to address these issues. Read more about it at Ars Technica.
I signed it. (Found at CamWorld)
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Everyone knows the scale: do re mi fa so la ti do. Right? Well, that's only one of the scales available on the twelve notes used in Western music (it's the major diatonic), and even the pitches of these notes are subject to change. The system we use today of assigning actual sound frequencies to notes (called "equal temperament") is only one of the systems that have been used historically. An excellent article in The New Republic gives a good overview of the issues involved, ostensibly in the process of discussing a new book on equal temperament, Stuart Isacoff's Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle. Long but well worth a read if you have any deep interest in listening to -- or making -- music. (Found at dangerousmeta)
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Did you know that the X-Files theme has lyrics? According to composer Mark Snow, they are: "The X-Files is a show / With music by Mark Snow." (I recall that Snow revealed this in an interview with Keyboard magazine, and other cast members have confirmed the horrible truth.)
At least they're not as bad as the Star Trek theme's lyrics (more skinny on which).
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Tuesday 12/4/01 §
Shift has a nice Year In Review feature. They don't expect anyone to forget what happens this month since it's happening right now. (Actually, they plan to update the site with the remainder of November as well as December. I was just being snarky.) (Found at Fimoculous)
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Aqua Massage: get massaged by water, without getting wet. In a shopping mall. I'm sure it's quite pleasant, but I don't understand the thought process that goes into an invention like this. How exactly does one decide one will invent a machine to do... this... out of the nigh-infinite "invention space"? (Found at rebecca's pocket)
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Kimchi doesn't just glow when you pass a current through it, like pickles do. It actually rectifies alternating current. In other words, it's an organic light-emitting diode. (Found at memepool)
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The New York Times has a great article on people who have been presumed dead in the World Trade Center attacks, but who are actually alive. Some have no idea they were thought to be dead. There's also a story in there about a woman from Morocco looking for her sister, who might be using a ficticious name because her visa expired. (Found at dangerousmeta)
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Monday 12/3/01 §
We found out what IT (a.k.a. "Ginger") is today; it's the Segway Human Transporter, a two-wheeled scooter that uses sophisticated software to keep you upright while taking its navigational cues from the way you shift your weight. Leaving aside the question of whether this gadget is truly revolutionary or just a $3,000 toy, did anyone but me notice that the video doesn't show users actually mounting or dismounting the device? They always show IT already in motion; a couple times in the video they even start with the riders out of frame or inside a door. My guess is that this means that you look really, really dorky getting on or off of the HT.
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Some good news for my game-show-addicted friends (you know who you are): Press Your Luck, the movie, is currently in production. It's the true story of Michael Larsen, an unemployed ice cream truck driver (let me repeat that amazing string of words: unemployed ice cream truck driver) from Lebanon, Ohio who figured out the pattern of the game board and won $110,000 on the show. Bill Murray is playing Larsen. (Found at The Flangy News)
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Dammit, Dave: Modern Humorist presents 2001: A Space Odyssey if David Mamet had written it. (Bonus fun: "Dammit Dave" is an anagram of "David Mamet.") (Found at BrainLog)
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