Monday, June 30, 2003
Conceptual Art
Daisy is all set for her Homeland Security test - even though she lives in GB. Perfect prior planning...Death in the Country
The Mister came in and told me that there was a buzzard hanging around the bushes near the Uncle's house. The Tenant told me yesterday she was missing her kitty... the one who is never supposed to go outside. "NO Outdoor Kitties in the Country. Coyotes. Raccoons. Rattlers. and so on... Not to mention that kitties kill all my lizards and eat all my quail." damit damit damit! (The Tenant who is not quite a Willa -- but, give her time...) As Himself is hip-deep in putting a new air conditioner for the Uncle and Auntie, I went to investigate hoping realllly hard that it was just a bunny. An elderly bunny. Nope. It was "the-little-one-that-looks-like-a-deer." (her Indian name...) Little Abysinian straw colored with black points. Sweet and lovey. Fast as lightening. Except this time. Can't tell what happened. Had to ...uh excavate her from deep under the old, old Juniper bushes -- makes me want a Martini. Found a nice, black boot box. Taped it shut. String is too much like ribbon and her B'day is too close. Next week. Her BF and I got her this kitty just about 7 years ago when she and I were closer -- just at this time of year. Now I've got to figger out how to relay the information. *Really* don't want to leave a message on her answer-fone, or call her at wherever-it-is that she goes on Mondays... Guess I'll just keep an ear out for the bell and catch her when she comes in. Shit.Sunday, June 29, 2003
New Blood
Found this via The World as a Blog: it is The Self Defense Quiz from I am always right. Has an answer for Liberals, Conservatives, and Texans. heh.Paramount joins Disney in making
This is a completely useless object, since it does not contain anything at all that a film critic can use. Most will simply trash it, as there is really nothing else that can be done with it and it's an annoyance. Some will doubtless display it as an object of kitsch or a visual aid in discussions of Hollywood witlessness (to both of which ends at least one was put it this past weekend). Since the critic who displayed his worked as a stringer for a small, local, weekly specialty press in San Francisco, these coconuts may have gone to tens of thousands of critics and the exercise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is one of the reasons theater tickets are $9.50.
Saturday, June 28, 2003
New toy!
The World as a Blog
It's all Kate's fault that I spent XX minutes playing with the code to place myself on the map!
Cheggidout. Even as you watch, blog postings pop up as little lights on the world map. Gives a sense of the "blogosphere" on the Sphere. Note the patterns...
Friday, June 27, 2003
It's not just a 'network' anymore...
Imagine sprinkling tiny sensors on road and fields for surveillance, putting them in buildings and bridges to monitor structural health, and installing them in industrial facilities to manage energy, inventory and manufacturing processes. That's the idea behind the emerging technology of wireless sensor networks. ...radio chips with embedded processors that can organize themselves into networks to manage real-world data from sensors
Imagine sprinkling tiny sensors on road and fields for surveillance, putting them in buildings and bridges to monitor structural health, and installing them in industrial facilities to manage energy, inventory and manufacturing processes. That's the idea behind the emerging technology of wireless sensor networks. ...radio chips with embedded processors that can organize themselves into networks to manage real-world data from sensors
This is an incredibly money and time saving device for industry and manufacturing. [Imagine a thermal duct tape with sensors imbedded which can tell not only the temperature of the contents of the duct/pipe around which the tape is wrapped; but can also discern their physical location and external influences occurring in their particular environment.] The real step forward here is the connectivity of the individual devices. The communication is two-way so that data can be relayed back to a central control center and commands can go out to the individual units to change parameters or conditions. The next step? How many microcontroller chips are there in the average house? TV, VCR, Microwave, all remote controls ... The newer the auto, the more microcontrollers there are in it. ["during [2001,] 7.5 billion embedded microcontrollers were sold. "] Add in light switches, heating/cooling systems, stereo, kitchen gadgets, and whatever else you can think of. If each one of those were to be connected to each other one in an ongoing conversation controllable by, say, me, I could easily set up my house to meet my every need. It would note what room I'm in, how many guests are here, and what we are doing and respond with the conditions I had pre-set. It's "Metcalfe’s Law—that is, a network's value increases with the number of things connected to it. " Very Kewl. As with everything, there are outfalls to be aware of. (See the Pencil Principle)
Silicon has gotten cheap, wiring has not. So if you build networks that make their connections via silicon radios rather than wire, they’re going to get cheaper, which means they can [and will] get more pervasive. You can’t do that if it’s a wired network.
Say you put a microcontroller node in every street light so it can tell Central Control when it's on or off, or when its bulb burns out. (or, depending on your neighborhood, when it's shot out...) Cheaper than paying some poor schlub to drivie all over town looking at street lights night and day. [Yawn] Now, say you put a node in every city bus. It passes a light post, communicates its position and Central Control signals the LED at the next bus stop that #39 will be along within 3 minutes. Way Kewl. Now let's slip a node into the bottom of Johnny's book bag. The system will know if he got on the right bus and got to school or if he got in a car with a scum-bucket and is in danger. This is where we have a decision to make. Balance keeping an electronic eye on little Johnny - or 15 year old Johnny - against the responsibility a person is forced to build in himself by an environment where he has the freedom to screw up. It is great if Johnny or Janey are kept from harm by this system. But we must be aware of, and articulate exactly what we will be giving up by implementing a wireless sensor system that involves keeping track of humans. _____________________________ I recommend the whole article. Robert Poor, former guitar tech for Garcia and current CTO of Ember, the first company building these wireless systems for commercial appplications, gives an interesting hint to the discussion of the potential creation of 'intelligence' by such networks as they evolve into multi-hundred thousand piece systems, and beyond. Super-kewl. Further reading: overview of the current field and a list of companies involved.
Resistance is Futile
You will be go to WizBang and be absorbed by the interview with Iron Monkey. [assimilation is optional with Blorg...]Thursday, June 26, 2003
Salam Pax
...has a PhotoBlog! Go see...The Rhetoric Channel
Salam Pax's friend G. in Baghdad is testing out the "rhetoric channel" against the "reality channel" in the streets and homes of Baghdad. Something we, in the West, don't know so much about is the mind-set that can occur under a totalitarian regime:
...every one of us here in Iraq has this small plug in police officer back in his mined which will monitor all our movements an talking even now almost 3 month after the American tanks roared into Baghdad.
...how to liberate our selves from the secret police mechanisms nesting in our brains, this liberation will not be achieve by American tanks, nor by a self-denial flagellation process
Its not that we r desperately waiting to indulge our selves in the global world of Starbucks and MacDonald's--which I think we are--but for most of the people they just want to live properly without fear, hunger, or secret police [June 25]
That is a hell of a lot of healing that the Iraqi people are doing. Think of the effects on hostages or kidnap victims. There are reams of literature and studies on the process of adjustment the human psyche goes through to cope with sudden or severe loss of control over one's own life. A goodly portion of the population has known no other way of being. Even those who remember how it was before have adjusted intolerably far just to be able to keep going every day; to eat and feed their family. Considering all that was, and all that must be done to recreate a whole country, a whole society, I think they're doing a damn good job not running in circles and barking at the moon. Sure there are conspiracy theories [you should hear some of my neighbors...] and the people from the Ministry of Information demonstrated last week demanding to return to their old jobs [a little vagueness on some concepts] but the antiquities are being returned to the Museums, there is an Art Exhibit open in Baghdad, and life is becoming more self-directed.
If we were in Beirut, grozny or Tehran with the same set of events we just had in Baghdad, We would have half of the politicians around us assassinated by rival factions, at least 10 suicide bombers, half of the American journalists here taken as hostages and sectarian /ethnic fighting's in the streets. Instead of that what we see around us, is a city going back to life some times grudgingly but othe times with fast speed. [June 11]
Civility defines a Citizen
Orson Scott Card has a hell of a point here. [He has several others which recommend reading the whole article - but, for the moment, I confine myself.]
He describes a casual encounter with someone where a disagreement between them is discovered.
Then she picked up a phone and made a call, rudely turning her back on me. I was, apparently, no longer worthy of serious attention.
Her rudeness, of course, was entirely understandable -- the politically correct are above the rules of ordinary civility, once they have identified you as an unbeliever in their religion.
That sentence describes perfectly the reason behind the decline -- hell, disappearance of **civil discourse in our society. It is my impression from reading history that the custom of calling one's opponent a "thundering buffoon" is an ancient and honored one. But at least it was occasionally prefaced by "My dear sir..." The form of manners and etiquette contained a great deal of vitriol and reminded participants of the need to return to the table and at least look like one was listening. That is what the form is for; to contain the icky bits and help us focus our attention on the task at hand. That is what a citizen does; participates in the formation of a society/culture/civilization. These words are related.
If the social mores have devolved to the point where one is, "of course, understandabl[y]" going to consider himself to be "above the rules of ordinary civility," -- we're sunk. As a democracy. As a society. As a civilized place in the history of Man.
** Civil [Middle English, from Latin cvlis, from cvis, citizen ; see civic.] has more than one meaning:
Of, relating to, or befitting a citizen or citizens: civil duties.
Sufficiently observing or befitting accepted social usages; not rude: a civil reply. See Synonyms at polite.
ThanQ! to Mr. Card, Kate, Kelley, and Ian (and so on back thru the mists of boggy linkage...)
Word shapings ...
A *new* term: "metrosexual: (MET.roh.sek.shoo.ul) n. A dandyish narcissist in love with not only himself, but also his urban lifestyle."
Related words include: "himbo, lad mag, third wardrobe, and toxic bachelor."
Apparently I am behind the curve on this, being, as I am, just a simple tootsie from the country. It was coined by Mark Simpson on Salon.com in 7/2K2. It seems to be a marketing niche description but sounds like it is more of a warning to young, urban women. [In days of yore, we usta' call 'em "senso-males." Sounds like the same guy, but now he has a phat credit line.]
Update: In Wales, one can be "Metrosexual and Proud."
A STUDY from communications group Euro RSCG Worldwide has recently examined men's attitudes to women, life goals and gender roles.
[snip] [oooh, sorry...]
He is clearly in touch with his feminine side - as his dalliance with his wife's underwear graphically displays.
Fellow Travelers
Pedram Moallemian of The Eyeranian has a proposal to begin the process of getting the factions of the Iranian political spectrum together to build "bridges between various factions and start a constructive and plural environment of at least limited collaboration [without which] building a true united front against the tyranny of the regime is impossible." His plan is at the beginning stages and he has asked for thoughts from other Iranians. This discussion ought to prove interesting and informative.While you are there, read his post titled "Pepsi or Coke." Perspective on American democracy from an unusual source.
Harry Potter: Oracle of Mugwort
After referring to the recent reinvigoration of the economy, columnist and renowned nut-bucket (that's pronounced "boo-kay") Laurel Wellman gives us this worry:
On the other hand, a new Harry Potter book is a mildly worrisome indication.
After all, the July 2000 release of J.K. Rowling's previous effort, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," more or less coincided with the beginning of the most recent economic slump, and in my mind -- a cluttered place in which free association, of necessity, replaces logical organization -- the two events have remained stubbornly linked.
At least she's aware of it... Perhaps it is covered under the Persons With Disabilities Act.
...how do we know the real reason [for the dot-com "crash"] wasn't actually the cash spent on Harry Potter books? This time around, we may have even more to fear: "Order of the Phoenix" sold 5 million copies on the first day of its release; at a cover price of $29.99, that's $149,950,000 worth of capital that won't go to, say, housing starts.
Yup. she said it... "my mind -- a cluttered place in which free association, of necessity, replaces logical organization" Sure. Coincidence = Causality; a classic leftie ...uh 'free association.' [Is that what the Constitution means when it guarantees the "right of free association?"]
[In the last book we saw] ...the re-emergence of a terrorist faction led by Lord Voldemort, attacks on innocent Muggle civilians and a strong hint that the government's efforts to counteract the threat would be compromised by political expediency.
......must..... laugh.... .... not...laughing = screaming...... aaarrrghghg
[Seriously; I only get this one page from my neighbor for the Xword puzzle. I gotta stop reading the rest of the page...]
Newzzz from the Left Coast
A spy at the Howard Dean shindig in Mill Valley Thursday reports that $62,000 was raised and that the guest list included "a critical mass of 'cultural creatives,' " including Ram Dass, Esalen-founder Michael Murphy, Paul Hawken, Peter Coyote and David Harris. Dean's campaign, apparently stressing that such events aren't about money, refuses to confirm the amount, and isn't it fun to get together for a weenie (the other candidates) roast? [...is she missing an apostrophe there?]
Fundraising events are not about nasty old money! They're about "shindigging." Or "digging shins." Or something. Remember that. [and aren't there any women left on the Left? Oh, yeah: see below.]
And Dianne Feinstein's 70th birthday was celebrated at the Asian Art Museum Sunday [where] ...the husband of the guest of honor, Richard Blum, concluded his remarks by noting, "You didn't hear Dianne say she's not running for president."
at 70. against Hellary. She'd better start working out with Joey Buttafucco and O.J. Simpson who are rumored to be planning a PPV celebrity boxing match. Go ahead... get it out of your system. " We aren't gonna see how OJ will acquit himself in the ring cuz he won't be able to find gloves that fit." "Some teenage girl will show up in Joey's place and..." hmm, that's got possibilities.
Stanford historian Peter Stansky, ...commemorates George Orwell's 100th birthday [and was asked] ...what flavor cake Orwell would have liked. "I don't think Orwell was a cake kind of person," says Stansky. "I don't think he paid too much attention to food, although there was a famous time in, I think the White Tower, a very upmarket Greek restaurant in Soho, when he changed places because he couldn't bear to look at Kingsley Martin, the editor of the New Statesmen.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Nasty-Mean
This is the most vicious, venomous, vituperative, vile thing I have ever read. Except for this.They're great! Go see...
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{/if}
