It is bad manners to expel any liquid from any orifice in public. -Debrett's
 
February 28th, 2003

Teen-Beef Magazine

Hey girls! Got to “keep it real” … “way cool” … “so cute” … a girl’s got to eat lots and lots (and lots) of beef! Cool To Be Real is a thinly “vealed” beef industry propaganda campaign aimed at teenage girls — too many of whom, apparently, are going vegetarian behind the backs of good wage-earning cattlemen. How can a vegetarian be true to herself and keep it real? Fortunately, I think (I hope) that even Teen-Beat readers are savvy enough to see through this. As Matthew put it, “It’s like life imitating the Simpsons.”

Music: LA Symphony :: San Diego

Posted in Out there | 6 Comments »

February 28th, 2003

Stone Age

In the process of switching connectivity to Speakeasy (needed faster upstream than my current provider could offer). They get nothing but rave reviews, but we didn’t get off to a great start – they gave the telco the go-ahead to drop my line before they had even shipped me a modem. Going from ADSL to RADSL so my current modem won’t work with their service. So tonight our line went dead and Amy and I get to go dial-up for the next 4-5 days. It feels kind of like driving Fred and Wilma’s stone-mobile with the hole in the floor so you can use your feet to push.

Ah well, it keeps things in perspective. Also a nice chance to test out OS X’s internet connection sharing feature, which is totally effortless and transparent. Turn it on in Sharing, set the client machines to DHCP, and tell the modem to dial when needed. “Just works.”

Music: Guru Guru :: Dagobert Duck’s 100th

Posted in Geek | No Comments »

February 26th, 2003

Hitler on the Nile

Excellent piece in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristof comparing Eisenhower’s containment of Nasser in Egypt with the situation Bush faces with Saddam in Iraq. Saddam today is not the threat today that Nasser was then, and yet Ike chose containment over invasion. And Nasser just faded away… just as Saddam has been — these have been the 10 best-behaved years of Saddam’s career and his military is at 1/3 strength. He’s fading away with no help from us.

But perhaps it would be best to bomb Iraq into Democracy.

Music: Marvin Gaye :: Got To Give It Up

Posted in Misc, Politics | No Comments »

February 24th, 2003

Miles Five Months

No photo album this month… our photo drawer runneth over. Notes instead. Well, maybe just one little picture ;)

miles_5mos_w_kitty_tb.jpg (Click)

Miles becomes more of a little person every day, his personality is emerging so quickly. He is the most joyous baby I’ve ever met, and I’m not just saying that as daddy. He never stops smiling and laughing, such a gas to be around him. This month he (read on):
(more…)

Posted in Family | 3 Comments »

February 24th, 2003

Bumball

This afternoon did a quick animation experiment using a small portion of Amy’s expansive gumball collection and iStopMotion. Soundtrack from the Minutemen’s “Toe Jam.” Around 220 individually snapped frames with no particular intent. n.b. Even very old pre-chewed gum gets a bit sticky under hot lights.

bumball (Click)

Music: Minutemen :: From An Old Notebook

Posted in Out there | 1 Comment »

February 23rd, 2003

Banyan

To Elbo Room w/Chris, Nada, Mike to see Banyan — Mike Watt (bass) and Nels Cline (guitar), Stephen Perkins (drums), and a small horn section. Each of these guys has a long and mixed history, but as Watt said to an interviewer, “working in our “song” bands is like sitting alone writing, while Banyan is like conversation.” An outrageously fluid stomping improvisatory conversation. Watt as always solid and rooted and inventive without being quirky and yet abstract but not flighty or airy or particularly difficult. The real deal. Wearing exactly the same plaid shirts, jeans, Converse high tops he wore when I watched him in the Minutemen 20 years ago.

Painter Norton Wisdom improvised paintings behind the band in real time – amazing what he could do with sponges and fingers and some basic red, black, blue ink washes so quickly. Perfect complement. Why are music and painting not more often married? Almost everything tonight mostly improvised, but right in the middle of it all they launch into The Stooges’ “TV Eye.” I can die contented.

Music: Gun Club :: Jack on Fire

Posted in Music | 3 Comments »

February 22nd, 2003

Ginger

Saw a Segway “in the wild” today in Rockridge (Oakland) on the way to breakfast with Amy. Dude balancing at a stoplight waiting for it to change, then leaned forward slightly and went zipping across the street and up College Ave. like floating, a personal hovercraft. Smooth, quiet, and utterly elegant. Just a few months ago it seemed everyone was wondering what the heck this Ginger thing was going to be that was supposed to “revolutionize” cities and the way people got around in them. Now here we are, the Segway not yet common but no more obtrusive than a bicycle and only noticeable for its new-ness. Seeing it like that, not as an oddity but as a plain old fact of life made it seem so sensible. I kind of want one.

Music: Suba :: Felicidade

Posted in Culture | 4 Comments »

February 21st, 2003

Keeping Dusty Music Alive

While the RIAA kvetches and whines about how the continuing rise of CD-R technology is supposedly hurting record sales, Smithsonian-Folkways — purveyors of all those crusty old albums by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie (not to mention mid-century field recordings of Mongolian throat singers) — has seen its sales rise 33% in the past year. How? By using on-demand CD-R burning to keep their massive back-catalog alive. Rather than let important but slow-to-sell music go quietly out of print, they burn CDs whenever customers order from the back catalog: one copy for the current order and four more for future orders. No inventory sitting around, no music forgotten to history, no customers turned away. This makes me smile.

Thanks bIPlog.

Music: Brian Eno :: Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 7

Posted in Music | No Comments »

February 21st, 2003

Toothpaste

toothpaste.jpg

No theories.

Posted in Out there | 1 Comment »

February 21st, 2003

Frying Spam

WebMonkey has an interesting piece titled Frying Spam — a quick tour of back-end procedures for spam detection and elimination. Doubles as a nice tutorial for anyone wanting to set up procmail recipes or Bayesian filters such as Bogofilter.

Music: Gong :: The Invisible Temple

Tags:
Posted in Geek | No Comments »

February 21st, 2003

Christo Announces New Project

(Reuters) World famous artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have today announced a new project that is slated to be begin immediately. Responding to U.S. Homeland Defense Secretary Ridge’s call for artists to rally the cause through anti-terrorist art, Christo has received permission to wrap the White House in Washington D.C., using duct tape and plastic sheeting. Much like the artist’s 1995 project “Wrapped Reichstag” in Berlin, “Wrapped White House” will, according to the artists plan, seal the building and those inside. Of the project the artists said, “We are very excited to use our art making methods in the international fight against terrorists. By wrapping the White House we hope to help keep terrorism under wraps, so to speak.” Unlike “Wrapped Reichstag” which was a temporary project, “Wrapped White House” will be the artists’ first permanent work of public art.

100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of clear high-strength polypropylene plastic, and 15,600 meters (51,181 feet) of silver duct tape, 13.2 cm (4 inch) wide, will be used for the wrapping of the White House. The work will be completed in as little as one week. The artists have contacted other artists across the U.S. who are now in-route to Washington D.C. in order to finish this work in record time. Materials have been provided without charge by the German Government. Recalling the “Wrapped Reichstag,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated, “Wrapping the symbol of German Democracy was a defining moment for the new Germany. Wrapping the White House will likewise be a defining moment as democracy is restored in America.”

Thanks Roger.

Music: Iron Butterfly :: In A Gadda Da Vida

Posted in Out there, Politics | 1 Comment »

February 19th, 2003

The Great Firewall of China

Dinner at Great China after work with my boss, several workmates, Orville Schell, and a Chinese student involved in monitoring The Great Firewall of China — various mechanisms of internet censorship exercised by the government. An evening’s worth of conversations about Google and blogging, the slippery nature of the internet, encryption, proxies, obfuscation, and the immense scale of China’s censorship efforts.

The plan is to do something similar to what we did with bIPlog, but on the subject of Chinese internet clampdown techniques and mechanisms/stories of circumvention. We’ll be bringing in CS students to help us find ways to monitor whether and how our site is blocked from within China. We’ll also feed and seed the Western press with info gleaned anonymously from within the continent. Should be a fascinating project, though we likely won’t begin until this summer.

It’s all going to be published in Chinese, which means I’ll need to manage a site in a language I can’t read. Looks like Movable Type handles Unicode well ….

Music: Lennie Tristano/Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh :: Background Music

Posted in Blogging, Culture | 4 Comments »

February 19th, 2003

Extreme Ironing

Want to get into extreme sports but feel a bit too domesticated to jam? Extreme ironing might be the perfect sport for you. As Starch says, “Press when the iron is hot.”

Music: Devo :: Mongoloid

Posted in Out there | No Comments »

February 18th, 2003

Congestion Charge

So London has shown the cojones to do something about the worst traffic congestion problem in Britain: Levy a £5 fee on anyone who wants to drive within the 8-square-mile core of the city during business hours.

Harsh… but the problem isn’t going to clear itself up and medicine can taste pretty nasty. The rest of Great Britain is watching to see how the plan goes, planning to roll out similar plans elsewhere if it makes a difference. Early reports say that downtown London looks “like Christmas day” (i.e. deserted).

It’s such a simple solution, really, but so hard to utter without offending car-centric sensibilities: Car use must be disincentived. Not banned. Not punished. Just made less attractive. Cars have taken over the world and it’s going to be hard work to take it back. But it has to happen, one small step at a time. It’s almost impossible to imagine an American politician risking a plan like this — political suicide. But eventually, I think, similar plans will become a virtual inevitability all over the world.

Update: Ongoing reports on how the first days of the charge are actually going.

Music: Devo :: Secret Agent Man

Posted in Culture | 9 Comments »

February 17th, 2003

Miles Davis Documentary

Watched The Miles Davis Story with Amy yesterday, after the march, just because. He’s a complex cat. Really a bad man – so mean to so many, especially to women. Reminded me of Mingus in that respect. Tortured genius poet transformer locked in misogynistic mindset. Lots of conversation with wives and children and people close to him (unfortunately no interview with Betty Davis). But some of the musical footage, from the 50s through the 70s, so amazing and beautiful, especially the early 70s sessions — Bitches Brew, Agartha, On the Corner. Conversations with Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, John McLaughlin, Ron Carter… and on and on. Reminded that Carter had recorded on more than 1,000 records by the late 70s already. “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”

Music: Wire :: Madman’s Honey

Posted in Music | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries