Mon Oct 01 2001 08:08:
Crummy is back up (as usual, check out the backup site for many interesting entries) and I've reinstated Tonight's Episode. Modern Fiction week may continue this whole week or it may be truncated when I run out of modern fiction Tonight's Episode titles.
Mon Oct 01 2001 08:30:
Yesterday in FreeCiv I made it to Alpha Centauri in 1756; my best time yet.
Mon Oct 01 2001 19:49:
The IF Competition 2001 games are out! I can't help but notice one name in particular missing from the list of entrants; still, one can't be everywhere. I have a couple IF ideas right now but nothing to which I'm willing to devote 3 months of my life.
Mon Oct 01 2001 20:48:
I put up some pictures from our trip to West Coast Live, including Sumana getting her copy of Lake Wobegon Days autographed and then trying to break the Aquaphone she had taken home.
Tue Oct 02 2001 09:28:
Sumana related the news to me that today is Groucho Marx's birthday. "Get out the barn so I can have a hoedown," she says. Those two things are not related.
Wed Oct 03 2001 07:06:
I'm afraid that Ask Jeeves is not
very useful.
Thu Oct 04 2001 11:04:
D'jever notice how Linux decides that your hard drives have reached their maximum mount count and have to be fscked just when you most need to use your computer immediately? You've heard of the principle of least authority; well, this is the principle of least convenience.
Blessed:
Thu Oct 04 2001 21:46:
You've all seen The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation,
but how about the Powerpoint Presentation on the Mount?
...
Fri Oct 05 2001 06:59:
People are buzzing about a possible standards fork due to the W3C's counterrevolutionary harboring of patentmongers among their standards-makers. My question is, who cares about the W3C anymore? What standards have they come up with lately? As far as I know, for the past two years it's just been old standards farts arguing over XML namespaces.
Fri Oct 05 2001 11:24:
Chocolate-covered wasabi-covered peanuts: "Hey! You got your chocolate in my wasabi!" "You got your wasabi in my chocolate!"
Sun Oct 07 2001 12:05:
"If we wanted it to be overt, we would have discussed it." -- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
Mon Oct 08 2001 14:51:
My mother recieved the copy of Lake Wobegon, Summer 1956 which I purchased for her and had autographed a while back when I went to see Garrison Keillor on West Coast Live. I also sent a book to Jake but he hasn't gotten it yet since he's off on a tour of some sort.
Mon Oct 08 2001 16:50:
Word Replacement Headline Watch (thanks to Sumana): Bush Swears In Anti-Terror Chief would be more interesting if it were "Bush Swears At Anti-Terror Chief".
Tue Oct 09 2001 07:12:
My digital camera has finally shut its little LCD down forever. First
the battery case started falling out, but I taped it shut, first with Scotch tape
and then with duct tape. Then the zoom broke, so I started taking
pictures that had a lot more in them than I would have strictly
liked, but I stuck with it. Now it won't even turn on. So I now
think of buying a new one.
Tue Oct 09 2001 10:11:
Mike Pilato:
"This status mail is a touch late, but, following the lead of my
namesake, I wash my hands of this matter."
I'm not a big fan of biotech companies, mainly due to their love
of what amounts to software patents (in a realm, natch, in which
the relevant information actually does want to be free, or at least widely copied).
But when it comes to biotech as a concept, I am one of its biggest fans who doesn't
work for a biotech company or on a farm (which is a sort of applied biotech
company).
Which leaves me with a dilemma; I can find no real political way to express my
dissatisfaction with genome patents without signing onto a general
anti-biotech platform which, whether it leans politically left or right, regards
it as unethical to change a genome through means of genetic engineering (though
not through selective breeding, for the pragmatic reason that anything anyone eats is the end result of thousands of years of that). This is not
always the stated policy of such political groups, but it's always the subtext,
and I don't want to support that subtext. It's as though one could only mark one's opposition to software patents by joining a society that claimed that it was unethical to modify software.
I'm probably wrong and there's some like-minded group of technocrat hippies
like myself who have formed a pro-biotech anti-genome-patent coalition.
If so, I'll probably hear about it soon. I just hope it's not a front group for something.
Tue Oct 09 2001 20:39:
A couple weeks ago while I was watching Enterprise,
there was this horrible cheesy ad for some coalition of biotech
companies. It had children describing what biotech means to them, or
some such. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, but surely just before you
resort to patriotism, you put children in your ads and see if that works.
Huh? How would that make it easier?
Wed Oct 10 2001 13:41:
Confusing Hypothetical Watch:
To most of us the inner workings of a computer are a complete mystery, but imagine if they were smaller than a grain of sand?
Wed Oct 10 2001 15:36:
I got more spam (in English) from Jihad Baydoun, and just before that I got some Turkish spam. I wonder if there's any sort of futures market for spam from different regions.
I'm not saying that dinosaurs didn't do their share of fighting
when I was a kid. I just don't think it's a good idea to build it into
the toy at such a visceral level.
Wed Oct 10 2001 19:49:
When I was a kid there were little plastic dinosaurs which you bought
and with them you engaged in dinosaur play. Nowadays there are plastic
dinosaurs but now they're animatronic Jurassic Park III branded dinosaurs (they
have JP tattoos on them) and they come with flesh wounds. Their ribs are sticking out! Apparently if two
Jurassic Park III branded dinosaurs see each other they will immediately
start fighting, and the flesh wounds are to lend credence to the fighting.
Wed Oct 10 2001 19:52:
Oh, also there was a dinosaur (Spinosaurus or something; a species
I'd never heard of) which said on its box "Biting action!". But all
the text was also on the box in French and Spanish, so it also said,
"Il mord!". I found this very funny.
I've discovered a form like preposition-buzzword form, though it's not something I use myself. It's organism-artifact form and it's used in the titles of books and articles and the like. What better name than one which combines the organicness of an organism and the humanness of a (possibly cultural) artifact? eg.
The Quark and the Jaguar fits if you are also a fan of Constructing Quarks. The Alphabet and the Goddess (artifact and mythical organism) and The Professor and the Madman (two organisms described in terms of their cultural labels) are borderline cases.
So don't delay! Name your next work after an organism and an artifact today! Tue Oct 16 2001 07:43 argv:
Man, VA is being flaky with their hosting of the Crummy/Segfault machine. I'd look for somewhere else to host, but I'm afraid to even touch the Segfault code for fear it will collapse.
Tue Oct 16 2001 08:04 Anthrax meta-joke:
Oh, on Friday I went with Sumana to see the Fresh Robots, and one of the Robots (Mike) made an anthrax joke in his stand-up act, and then noted: "Comedy's a rule of three. If only three people die, it's funny."
Tue Oct 16 2001 11:51:
Woohoo, maybe this time we'll stay up. View the backup site for two entries on bioterrorism humor and Organism-Artifact form.
Tue Oct 16 2001 17:18:
I bought an "illustrated directory of dinosaurs" a while ago, and
last night I was looking at it. It seems to have been a book that you buy to give to someone else, but I bought it for myself. Ha! There are a lot more species of dinosaurs now than
I remember there being. The book has lots of great pictures of dinosaurs
sort of lumbering after their prey (lizards or dragonflies or mammals) with their
arms stretched out. It also has "more than 70,000 words of description and
evolutionary details." It was published in the UK, which is why they
can mention evolution on the back of the book.
Tue Oct 16 2001 17:32:
My FreeCiv Alpha Centauri record is now 1702.
Tue Oct 16 2001 22:04:
I'm taking Friday off and going down to Bakersfield to spend time with
my mother and sisters. It has been a long time since I took a vacation
of any sort.
Wed Oct 17 2001 04:34:
FHW: Bin Laden may be planning to run. He's sort of a one-issue candidate.
Wed Oct 17 2001 06:53:
I just came to the realization that one of my catchphrases is "I've tested this and it works." An ill-favored catchphrase, sir, but mine own.
Sat Oct 20 2001 07:47:
I'm having a good time in Bakersfield. I totally ripped up my old jeans digging ditches for my mother, so I need to go to Goodwill today and get some new old jeans.
Sat Oct 20 2001 08:07:
I think I'm just going to let the current Tonight's Episodes run out and then discontinue it. It will take about a month for the Strategic Tonight's Episode Reserves to run dry.
Sat Oct 20 2001 18:23:
Spent the day doing yardwork and reading. I'm reading a book on the dons of Oxford and Cambridge, called, rather unoriginally, The Dons. At the ice cream parlor I met Brian Leary, whom I hadn't seen since grade school and who now works at the ice cream parlor. He makes the ice cream.
Sun Oct 21 2001 07:30:
Today I'm meeting with Dave Griffith. He has a project involving unix Frotz which I may or may not take part in. I don't know why I capitalized "unix Frotz" the way I did.
Kevin has also been vigilant in sending me funny spam, but it's all in English, of a sort.
Mon Oct 22 2001 13:27:
Joe sent me Estonian spam. Thanks, Joe!
Tue Oct 23 2001 07:42:
Damn, this is funny. And I haven't even read the original. Maybe imagining what the original is like is part of what makes it so funny.
Tue Oct 23 2001 14:04:
I was going to complain that the Falwell-Robertson-bin Laden quiz is bogus, because it's impossible for the average person on the street (like me) to distinguish between Falwell's rantings and Robertson's, but my objection has been anticipated and the barrier removed.
Wed Oct 24 2001 09:48:
Last night I went with Sumana (but not Seth) to a comedy night in Berkeley. The headliner disturbingly resembled a cross between President Eisenhower and Premier Kruschev. He was both sides of the Cold War! I kept thinking, "Is he threatening to bury me? Where are the jokes about the military-industrial complex?"
Thu Oct 25 2001 07:08:
You would think that internationalization and localization would be opposed goals, but no, they're aligned.
Fri Oct 26 2001 06:03:
Here's my new joke: "Bush is doing such a good job handling the terrorism crisis that I think he stands a chance of actually being elected president."
Correction: it's MSN Explorer, which is presumably something else.
Fri Oct 26 2001 10:23:
Hotmail message footers still invite people to get their FREE download of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Doesn't everyone who is ever going to have a copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer already have a copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer?
As you can tell, the Tar Pit From Hell theory is one of those cockamamie theories which
survives only because its name is fun to say.
Sun Oct 28 2001 07:41:
Perusing some Linux Today talkbacks today, I was reminded of the "Tar Pit
From Hell" theory of discussion boards which I expounded to my co-workers
many months ago. It is basically the following: when you add a public
discussion forum to your site you are placing your site on a big
slab of plexiglass which floats around on the Tar Pit From Hell.
As long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe.
But the more people pile on to use the discussion forum, the deeper your
site sinks into the Tar Pit From Hell. There are various measures you
can take to slow your descent into the Tar Pit From Hell, but none of
them deal with the fundamental problem, which is the fact that your site is sinking into a damn tar pit.
I screwed up my computer so I had to go into work (where I am now) to get a Linux CD. I booted up a BBC but couldn't find any of my hard drives. They're probably there, though.
Sun Oct 28 2001 11:39:
Here is a great article defining the annoying thing people sometimes do when you're debating them to try and put their propositions beyond the terms of debate. The paper terms it "logical rudeness" and makes a convincing case that it's not possible to just issue a blanket prohibition on the tactic.
Sun Oct 28 2001 18:49:
I'm back, and hard at work, for suitable definitions of "hard" and "at work". My fancy-schmancy Intellimouse works now, and the scroller works! Woohoo! Unfortunately my camera does not work. I hope it's just because I haven't been able to compile USB support into gphoto.
Sun Oct 28 2001 18:53:
Earlier, I realized that the author of the logical rudeness paper did us all a great service; the phenomenon now has a name, which means that you can confront people with it (assuming they are rational, which does not generally have a high correlation with logical rudeness). You can say "Do you realize that you are engaging in logical rudeness? Do you really want to be that sort of person?" and sort of try to shame them into arguing the 'correct' way, or show that their rudeness is of a self-defeating type.
Tue Oct 30 2001 06:24:
Hey hey. Sumana has a
new Weblog up, running NewsBruiser no less! It's called Cogito, Ergo
Sumana. NewsBruiser (and a fast server) has made her much more prolific.
Wed Oct 31 2001 05:52:
Another day in the code mines, as Joe Barr used to say.
Wed Oct 31 2001 19:34:
"You're the golem who's also a Lotto ticket!" -- Sumana
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