Top dog:
A hot dog blog? Sounds like a great idea. Stephen Worth definitely looks like the kind of guy I'd take hot dog advice from.
« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 30, 2005
Bat day:
TSA is at least thinking about using common sense guidelines for prohibiting items on airplanes. Maybe you will soon be able to travel with nail clippers, but leave that ice-pick at home.
Radical taxonomy:
Payzant did the right thing. This call for a day off from school to honor Rosa Parks was really an attempt to get some numbers into a march set up to promote everything but the civil rights icon. In fact, she gets sub-head position on the webpage for the event, under the header: Troops Out Now. And Turner's blackmail attempt is disgraceful.
To get an idea of just how right Payzant was, take a look at the names of some of the people or groups involved or sponsoring the "Rosa Parks" march. About the only group missing is the Judean People's Front! (For the complete list check the webpage link above.) Here's a sampling:
Ramsey Clark
Guyanese-American Workers United
Chuck Turner, Boston City Council
Mumia Abu Jamal, Death Row Political Prisoner
Coalition To Free The Angola 3
Code Pink, Bremerton, WA
DestroyIndustry, Raleigh, NC
FIST - Fight Imperialism! Stand Together!
Free People's Movement, New York, NY
Freedom Socialist Party
Of Radical Presence, Santa Fe, NM
Planetary Crisis Action Group(reforming), Taos, NM
This is obviously a political event that intended to hijack Rosa Park's legacy for its own ends.
My other brother daryl:
A Vermont man man decides to use an outhouse for target practice but doesn't realize there's someone inside. I'll bet there's a lesson here, but the hell if I know what it is.
Freedom from firewalls:
gHacks offers advice on tools to secure your Windows PC. He doesn't think you need a firewall, just common sense and reasonable precaution. Or as Dvorak says, you can just shut off your internet.
November 29, 2005
POIs:
Last weekend The Telegraph and today the CSM mentioned reports of a video of private security contractors in Iraq randomly shooting at civilians. I was skeptical until watching the video myself.
Veto power:
There's a trick for overriding Otis elevators to go express to your destination floor.
A new world:
New Orleans schools are reopening, albeit without many students.
For sale:
Gillette workers relocating to parent company Proctor & Gamble's Cincinnati will be getting the equivalent of a big pay raise. Home prices are half of what they are here.
Tenacity:
After receiving what were ultimately fatal gunshot wounds, a New York City Police officer continued to drive in pursuit of his attacker, who was later arrested.
The man arrested is a suspect in a previous shooting of a police officer.
Tangled web:
Another Novak is testifying and Rove isn't out of danger of being indicted. At least that's what I gather from this carefully evasive story in the Washington Post.
It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal...
Or not, as the case might be.
November 28, 2005
Shock humor:
She gives Gilbert Gottfried a pass, but Michele McPhee is outraged over Sara Silverman's jokes about 911. C'mon. Isn't that why people find it funny -because it's so outrageous?
I remember the week after 911 when the New Yorker magazine, famous for it's irreverent cartoons but still grieving after the attacks, decided to take the plunge back into humor. The cartoon they used is described here (and for sale here .)
Hidden dimension:
Lisa Randall is getting all sorts of publicity for her physics book, including a story in today's Herald. I haven't read the book yet (but I do expect a package from Amazon in the next few days.) When I do, I'll let you know what I think.
Future shock:
Gwen Ruta writes a reasoned Globe op-ed on environmental concerns over nanotechnology.
And Bruce Sterling writes in Wired that a recent breakthrough in the manufacture of buckytubes could revolutionize industry, but, he warns, we should already be thinking about how the almost indestructible material will accumulate in the environment.
Covering the earth:
To visit every Starbucks in the world? I can't think of a more pointless or ambitious quest: They are, it seems, everywhere. (Maybe 'Winter' can tell us in which city this Japanese Starbucks is located.)
It's easier to think of places where I've been that I didn't see a Starbucks. I didn't see one in the old city in Puerto Rico (but there is one in the old city in Shanghai and rumors of one in the Forbidden City.) I don't think there's one on Nantucket. Bristol, Virginia? I don't think there's one there, but I was only passing through.
Smile:
There are thousands of (work safe) webcams out there, some so people can watch their pets or pickup trucks while they work, others for scientists, corporations or tourism (nice Christmas Tree.)
Here's a specialized Google search that pulls up cameras using a certain software, many of which can be panned or zoomed. Different locations are active at different hours. Be warned: it's a time killer. Don't get started unless you don't have a lot to do in the next few hours.
For example: Watch this Hong Kong gambling club in case someone tries to rob the place. Or this electronics store in Italy. Or people sipping tea outside of this Starbucks in Japan. Or the crowds on the plaza in Macau. Or this tennis court somewhere in Asia... see what I mean.
Walk and Don't Walk:
Crossing Washington Street in the South End is like running for a touchdown. It's a long way from one side to the other. No amount of pedestrian crossing signs is going to help.
Then there's Tremont, with a crosswalk, seemingly, every few feet. For drivers, it's an accomplishment to make it from Mass Ave to Berkeley without being rear-ended, having to slam on the breaks at every corner for someone jumping off the curb.
But, hey, that's life in the big city.
November 25, 2005
Dumb as a sack of rocks:
I'm with Johnny Bag O'Donuts in his assessment of local TV news.
Exopolitics:
I suppose we should be grateful that our Boston City Councillors limit themselves to pronouncements on international affairs. In Canada, the politicians are going intergalactic.
Nailed down:
They're sawing off utility poles in Baltimore. Apparently it's part of a crime wave.
Wiggle room:
There are lots of things that you can slide by on in the city, but don't play around with resident parking.
Samples:
This is fun to play with. Laurie Anderson has been replaced with a computer.
Bulls eye:
I don't know how many times I've seen someone on TV or in a a movie shoot a lock off a door. I've never seen anyone in real life do it, and here's why.
November 21, 2005
Rumble:
Guitarist Link Wray died yesterday. Wray is credited with inventing the power chord; before him, everything sounded like Hermin's Hermits. You can download one of his songs for free, here.
Google-Mart:
Google is starting to scare people. Cringley and We Hate Technology seem to think it will take over the world.
Blogging 101:
A few rules.
Like a rock:
An interesting article today, in the CSM, on public support for the war in Iraq, which apparently is dropping faster than it did for Vietnam.
Why? The post-911 dynamics are complex, sure. But my guess is that despite over a year of fighting, there simply hasn't been much progress. And there's nothing to indicate that things will improve with even more time and effort.
November 20, 2005
Fear and Loathing:
Slate took a poll of high-profile people, to see which books they were influenced by while they were in school. I was surprised that no one referenced Hunter Thompson.
November 19, 2005
Out there:
This post from Lifehacker will be helpful if you're looking for music out on the net, which of course you should be since CDs have become unsafe.
Yard sale:
There's not much up there yet, but if it catches on, this Bounty Network idea could take the eBay concept down to the neighborhood level.
The world is flat:
No, nothing to do with Tom Friedman. I just wanted to point to this cool little Flash app that interactively explores dimensionality, set to a catchy accordion soundtrack.
And although it isn't set to music, this primer on quantum entanglement (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance") is worth checking out. If you make it to the end you'll be treated to the Quantum Entanglement Tango, an unintended illustration of dissonant wave interference patterns.
Darkness into light:
The New Orleans recovery is in the news.
A story in the Times tracks the restoration, or lack thereof, of utilities. And in an op-ed, architect David Dixon sees the situation as an opportunity to build a great American city from scratch.
November 17, 2005
Think globally, act crazy:
For City Councillor Chuck Turner, all politics is global and conspiratorial. Adrian Walker sees these "odd delusions of grandeur" as often destructive in a local context.
Infected music:
BoingBoing has a full roundup of information, including some new stuff, on the Sony music CD debacle. I'm glad that this isn't going away.
Crack-up:
I apologize for the incursion onto Carpundit's beat, but this is a great story.
Searching planet:
Google has a real time world map showing Google search activity.
(I just noticed that it's a stored representation from last August 14th.)
Hunkered down:
First Judith Miller and now Bob Woodward.
His ability to keep secrets has served Woodward well in the past, but in the Plame case he's had to apologize for not letting his editor and readers know sooner, what he knew. The response has been harsh.
"It just looks really bad," said Eric Boehlert, a Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of a forthcoming book on the administration and the press. "It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he's become a stenographer for the Bush White House."
Ouch. And that's from a story in his own paper.
Just spell her name right:
Who's messing with Maria Lopez? The Track is on the case.
Someone should explain to the Demoulas contingent, that adage about any publicity being good publicity.
Cardboard or plastic:
How much of what's sold in supermarkets is contained in plastic? A lot it seems, when you think about it.
One way to find out is to see what happens when the price of plastic goes up.
November 16, 2005
400 words for Bird Feeder:
And speaking of animals, scientists have figured out the language of squirrels. I'm guessing there was a grant involved.
Which came first?
In the face of a pandemic in China authorities insist that there will be plenty of vaccine -for the 5.2 billion birds.
The project to inject the country's chickens and ducks will be the largest single vaccination effort for any species.
Dialing for dollars:
The mystery of who the DC cellphone bandit was talking to is solved.
Canapé crisis:
Forget the price of heating oil, caviar is going through the roof!
Post guilt:
Derrick Jackson wants to know, Where are voting rights for ex-felons? His points are well taken, but the rhetoric is way out there.
What I'd like to know is, what exactly is an ex-felon? Is it someone who committed a felony in a previous life or someone not actually, at this very minute, in the act of committing a felony?
We are a nation that claims you are innocent until proven guilty, but the high court lets states declare you guilty forever.
Now there's an interesting concept: no longer innocent, but ex-guilty.
Clean up:
Big news for baseball, the new strict drug policy is a good move.
November 15, 2005
Quintessence:
I never got around to The Physics of Star Trek, but I did just finish Lawrence Krauss' latest book, Hiding in the Mirror, which is, among other things, a healthily skeptical look at string theory. (Check out the Amazon review comments where at least one string theorist makes his own case.)
Krauss' view is that, despite some recent hubris about theories that seemed to solve all the mysteries of nature, it turns out that there are some pesky questions that the most current Theories of Everything don't even begin to answer.
This article on dark energy takes note of one of those pesky issues.
Wind-up:
There's been lots of fawning coverage (including by me) of the $100 laptop supposedly being built at MIT's Media Lab. But Doug Mohney thinks it's a pipedream.
Outright theft:
This may be a hoax: it was just posted yesterday and hasn't been net-vetted. That said, if true, it speaks volumes about the record company executives who -- when caught breaking into consumers computers -- whine that it's all about protecting artists.
Freshens breath too:
The Army spent millions to invent a the military version of Dentyne.
And, here's another example of harnessing technology for the betterment of mankind.
Wal-Mart Corner:
Mississippi and Wal-Mart; not two words most people associate with progressive ideas. But both are working to develop some interesting urban planning models.
Berry strange:
RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry PDA is suing a local company over a dissimilar product named CranBerry.
Brett Arends asks, Who's next to be sued by RIM, Halle Berry?
November 14, 2005
Petri dish:
Pigs can't fly, but they can get bird flu. Tests in China have shown that the virus has crossed to pigs. The reason this may be important?
[S]ince pig genes are similar to human genes, and that viruses of many animals can live and mutate in pigs, it becomes dangerous for humans once the virus has been found its way to pigs.
It may be nothing. There's no indication that it's spreading among pigs. But it's something to watch.
Murder Inc:
The hip-hop trial of the century starts this week in New York.
Chelsea morning:
Lots of things are green in Chelsea (like that fluid bubbling up from the ground.) And now: condo complexes.
Am I reading this wrong? The condo comes with a smart car? Not a bad deal.
Stuck:
It's official: he's an idiot.
Walking the plank:
Tourists come from all over to see the pirates at Disney World. But the pirate thing doesn't seem to be working out as well in Kenya.
For a limited time only:
Visa is offering a free laptop. Well, free might be slightly misleading. How does just above retail sound?
Washington sieve:
Does the 'greater good' argument excuse the person who leaked classified information about CIA secret prisons, in contrast to the political motivations of Judith Miller's leaker? Or is it all just politics?
In any case, the matter has been referred to the Justice Department. Let's see what Fitzgerald thinks.
November 13, 2005
Grav tractor:
If blowing up asteroids heading towards the earth is a 'cross your fingers and hope for the best' approach, this proposal may be slightly more practical. Check back in 2029 or so.
MediaMax
More Sony shenanigans.
Burger King crossing:
Like Jay, I like the new crosswalks, although I'm not so sure about their use for advertising.
I dug up this old photo of another crosswalk, where I was nearly hit by a lorry.
Kids these days:
Professors decry the lack of curiosity among young people and blame... globalization?!?
Tangled web:
In a botched effort to protect it's own intellectual property, it seem