August 2005 Archives
So Ishbadiddle is, today, officially 3,000 posts old!
Our 17 authors (and our guests) have covered 1,889 topics. Along the way (and the following list is culled from the Featured Posts archive; no way am I going to sift through 2,999 posts today), we have:
Organized flood relief from Hurricane Katrina; helped ourselves get organized; written manifesto after manifesto after manifesto after manifesto; tried to turn blogs into semantic webs; considered renting our apartment to Old Dirty Bastard; drank with Robert Plant; interviewed DEVO's Gerald Casale; announced not one, but two weddings; rescued sparrows and accident victims; discovered who the really influential authors are; defended our right to protest; detailed why invading Iraq was a bad idea and how to bring about peace in the Middle East; uncovered the hidden Buffy - Necronomicon link and the cigarette - Palm Pilot link; named chickens after rap stars; proposed a method to keep pornography out of children's hands while protecting our First Amendment rights; wondered why the Second Amendment was more important than fighting terrorism; discussed our religion; got climbed on by monkeys; told New York stories; talked about history and molasses; wrote a great idea for a bad screenplay; mourned a Beatle; questioned the appeal of the Mafia; and tried to keep the conversation civil.
And then there was September 11th, which we all wrote about again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.... This was an important way for us, an important way for me, to deal with 9/11, and I cannot thank you all enough for helping each other through.
A huge thank you to all our contributors, our regular commenters, our linkers and blogrollers, our blog and RSS feed and LiveJournal readers. And of course to Trip without whom Ishbadiddle would not be possible.
On to the next 3,000 posts!
The news out of New Orleans is too awful to bear. This is the worst natural disaster to befall our country. We must do something to help, now.
We are making a donation to the Red Cross Hurricane 2005 Relief Fund. I am asking you to do the same. Give whatever you can.
Debbie and I are starting the Ishbadiddle Relief Fund at $300. Let me know, either by comments to this post or by email, how much you've given to the Red Cross, and we'll add it to the total on the sidebar. If you want to give through another charity, that's fine. The important thing is that we do something.
Do it now. New Orleans needs our help.
Update: The blogosphere is giving. Tthanks to Mark for pointing me to Instapundit's page, who also gets us to the NZ Bear's blog for relief page.
Update: Lynn also suggests helping animals through the humane society, and giving through the Union for Reform Judaism.
Update: Be prepared: If you're a New Yorker you can check out if you are in a potential Hurricane Evacuation Zone and where to go if you need shelter.
Well, the case is not really over, but the transcript is pretty great. My favorite passage is this one:
MS. SANTANGELO: I realized when I looked at this that the downloads, I guess they call it Exhibit B, the screen name that this Kazaa was under doesn't belong to anyone in my family. And that's most likely why I was never notified by AOL or any of my -- the companies that I have online service with that my children had downloaded anything. Apparently, it belongs to a friend of my son, who is now 14.THE COURT: I see.
MS. SANTANGELO: And I didn't know about it. And I really don't know where to go from here. And so I'm a little dumbfounded by the whole thing.
THE COURT: Yes, I know. I keep saying I live in -- although I've read the riot act to my own kids a hundred times --
MS. SANTANGELO: Oh, yeah, now I have.
THE COURT: -- I live in perpetual fear that something I don't know my kids are doing is going to come back and bite me in the butt. And the difference between you and me, Ms. Santangelo, if it happens to me, it will be in the headlines of the New York Post.
MS. SANTANGELO: That's true.
THE COURT: Right. So, anyway, you have my sympathy. I mean, I can look at this list and I can look at you and I can see that you weren't the person who downloaded these pieces.
MS. SANTANGELO: Right.
THE COURT: Right. So, okay.
The judge goes on to say "I think it would be a really good idea for you to get a lawyer, because I would love to see a mom fighting one of these." And then harangues the RIAA lawyer for trying to pressure her into a settlement. Go Judge Colleen McMahon!
Waxy » Q Daily News » Godwin's Law (hence headline; nothing to do with Nazis really.)
According to journalist Fouad Hussein:
The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."
The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.
The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.
The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.
The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.
The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.
The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.
The Spiegel article goes on to say that "the idea that al-Qaida could set up a caliphate in the entire Islamic world is absurd." But it wouldn't be the first time in history that people have been ready to die for a manifesto of the absurd.
A short story of MMORPGs, grrrl power, and global unionization. Good stuff from Cory Doctorow.
She insists that "it’s far preferable to fight [terrorists] in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender)". (Previously blogged by Thudfactor.)
Now there's a great video of her getting called on it by Alan Colmes. You can sort of see her stop dead in her tracks, a racoon in the headlights, as she tries to figure out whether she should really call New Yorkers cowards in the face of terrorism, on national television. First she doesn't -- then she does. Obviously she hasn't seen Casablanca lately:
Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.
Heinz: Can you imagine us in London?
Rick: When you get there, ask me!
Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist!
Major Strasser: How about New York?
Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.
Or, as Alex put it, "yeahh, we have crime!"
In this Daily News article about the recent subway flasher caught on digital camera (is photography in the subway legal again?), a choice bit of New York History:
Among the perv victims in 1939 was a woman who wore a veil. The offender got the surprise of his life when she sent him sprawling with a left hook and uncovered her face to reveal herself as Frances Murphy, the bearded "Gorilla Lady" of "The World's Fair Strange As It Seems" show."I never thought it would happen to me," the Gorilla Lady was quoted saying afterward.
Mr. Freakonomics says don't worry -- as prices go up, we'll find alternatives, that's how economics works. MaxSpeak says in the long run we're all dead, and short-term oil price spikes could be, er, bad. Paul Roberts, in Harper's says that "simply pretending the oil will last forever is not a real solution."
There are all kinds of fake blogs that are lifting content from (and linking to) Ishbadiddle: see Technorati Search for Ishbadiddle for some examples. ( won't link to them, obviously.) What are they doing? Are they trying to get Google ranking, or AdSense revenues? I don't get it.
I love New Orleans. NOLA is where I proposed to Debbie, on our 5th Anniversary. We went there first on our 1991 cross-country roadtrip, and have returned twice since then. If you like to eat, or you like music, then New Orleans is the place. If you don't like to eat and hate music, well, what's your problem?
And now New Orleans is in the middle of a hurricane. I hope it survives.
Here's the latest NOAA shot of Katrina, right over Louisiana:
More links: Wikipedia on Katrina, Boing Boing rounds up more links, including a Popular Mechanics article from 2001 describing the effects of a Category 5 storm; also Tom Tomorrow notes that the vultures are already selling Katrina swag on eBay. Ugh. He suggests that you make a gift to the Red Cross to help.
On your Appropriate Non-Fiction To Read List: John McPhee's
Remember when we used to have all these debates about anti-war protests? (See, for instance, here.) And how every time some lefty rhetoric went "too far" it was used as Exhibit A in the Case Against The Protesters (and of course, their cause, and anyone who didn't support Dear Leader, etc.)
Well, I haven't been posting on Cindy Sheehan, but it's refreshing to see the pro-war demonstrators deal with this sort of thing as well:
CRAWFORD -– With five days left until the end of anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's vigil near President Bush's ranch, Crawford became protest central Saturday as supporters and opponents of the Iraq war rallied, marched and simmered in 101-degree heat.A handful also got themselves arrested, including a protester whose anti-Sheehan sign was deemed unnecessarily offensive by organizers of a large pro-Bush rally. The man carrying the sign became violent when he was asked to put it down.
Ken Robinson, of Richardson, Texas, who described himself as a Vietnam veteran, was carrying a sign at a “You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy!” rally. The sign read, “How to wreck your family in 30 days by ‘b**** in the ditch' Cindy Sheehan.”
Kristinn Taylor, an event organizer with FreeRepublic.com, heard about the sign and rushed up to Robinson.
“This is our rally and you can't do that here,” he said, only for Robinson to insist he was within his rights.
Camera crews rushed in and Taylor turned to face them.
“To all the media here, this sign is not representative of the crowd here today,” Taylor announced. Some of the crowd around Robinson came forward to shake his hand, while others chanted, “Idiot, go home.”
-- Arrests, rhetoric highlight protests (via Eschaton.)
Here's the lovely sign, via Crooks and Liars
Yes, the majority of the pro-war demonstrators disagreed with this one guy, but guess who makes the headlines? The one guy, and his arrest, and his sign. Shoe, meet other foot. Now they can have a "You Don't Speak For 'You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy!', Ken Robinson!" Rally. It's not just him, either -- there was the guy who ran over the crosses in his pickup, the guy who fired his shotgun, etc. Do you ask yourself, "Do I even belong on this end of the spectrum anymore? It is so polluted from within, I can no longer stay?"
Of course, it's not as good as the best anti-anti-war sign ever:
Hey folks -- I need to re-register the ImprovEdge domain. Any ideas on a good registrar? A couple tech-savvy folks have recommended GoDaddy but between their founder's pro-torture stance and privacy issues I don't think I'm going with them. Advice appreciated, thanks!
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, indeed. 4 stars
Libelous Claims About Large Corporations, illustrated with MS Paint. Via tmn.
I think I've just found my alter ego. Plus, we share a name:
"The setup of the strip is extremely simple, in that wonderful turn-of-the-(last)-century way. In the first panel, Everett is subjected to one of the many common annoyances, indignations, and outrages that are foisted upon each of us daily. In the second, he beats someone up."
Warning: contains at least one racist panel.
This closes on September 4th, so get tickets before it does. A must see; Bill Irwin and Kathleen Tuner are great, and it's one of the most powerful works of the American Theater.
Midway through the first act, Debbie and I locked eyes after this line:
George: Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?
"Is that why you call the bathroom the 'euphemism'?" she asked. Yes! I confess it, I've been cribbing that joke from Edward Albee for the past fifteen years. He can sue me for back royalties.
For no real reason, a few wedding-related links:
They swore to love, honor and arrest [via]
The gold-embossed invitations, sent out weeks ago, announced the nuptials of the would-be mobster and his girlfriend, both agents. They promised free hotel rooms and limo rides to the ceremony and festivities on a yacht named Royal Charm off Atlantic City.
The big day, Sunday, was memorable, but not for the normal reasons. Instead of carrying them to an oceangoing reception, the limos whisked the guests to holding cells and gave them only handcuffs as party favors.
Man, don't you just hate when that happens?
And, via robot filter, the best wedding vows ever: Till Derrida do us part:
Friends and relatives, we are gathered here today to witness the marriage of Allison and Cary. To do so, we must perform these vows in an act of ceremony.
But what are these things: to wed, to marry, to take a wedding vow? They are what the philosopher J. L. Austin, in his study How to Do Things With Words, calls “speech acts,” of which there are two different kinds: constative speech acts, whose primary attribute is that they say something; and performative speech acts (of which this ceremony is an example), whose primary attribute is that they do something. A performative speech act, as Austin puts it, doesn't describe a state of affairs; it possesses the crucial feature of accomplishing the very act to which it refers. The very act of saying it makes it so.
*Sniff.* That's so -- romantic, inn't it? Makes me want to get married all over again. Or perhaps it makes me want to take literary theory all over again. Actually, I never took literary theory, I just absorbed it through osmosis. I think they put it in the Mediterranean Tofu Melange at Yale. Speaking of which, the Comp Lit department used to be housed in Bingham Hall on the corner of Old Campus. I was fond of Bingham, not because I ever lived there, but because of its easy roof access (via some very creepy stairways and the freaky abandoned observatory). But at the entrance to Bingham was a doorbell / intercom with a sign (!) that read "PRESS BUTTON FOR COMPARATIVE LITERATURE". I always wondered if you'd press the button if a voice would come out of the intercom: "James Joyce and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are both examples of the (con)textual fabric that is (dis)covered through the process of signification..."
Short version: you bought it, you can't resell it, unless you can't sew anymore. Last Stand for First Sale
Inspired by the WWFSMD? sticker found on this blog, (seen at Boing Boing), I've created an 80 x 15 pixel "button" for those of you who want to help show your support for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please use and distribute! (But please upload to your own site.)
Update: Now, as seen on Boing Boing! And yes, your traffic does spike.
Neil Gaiman has posted a clip of Lenny Henry reading from the first chapter of his new book, Anansi Boys. It's quite good, although it keeps reminding me of the Hitchiker's radio serial. [via BoingBoing]
The Blog of Death now podcasts!
Really. I thought I'd heard everything...
Kerim posted about a couple of news mapping sites (Vanishing Point and the Newseum) over at Savage Minds. Meaning that I don't have to! Thanks Kerim.
Patrick writes:
I remember reading a year ago in the New York Press (a lefty free publication in New York City) that, according to scientists, the world's supply of oil was near it's end. OPEC nations had for various reasons overstated the supply in their deposits and the growing need of India and China was catching everyone by surprise. Within a generation all known oil deposits would be empty. I saw the same story, and a few rebuttals, over and over again after that, but always on environmental websites or lefty publications. Now the New York Times magazine is basically saying the same thing and Wall Street firms are starting to put this fact into their long term financial forcasts. Maybe it is true.
ISHBADIDDLE EXCLUSIVE MUST CREDIT ISHBADIDDLE
Recent comments by Pat Robertson about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have been denounced as calling for his "assassination." Nothing could be further from the truth! Proof: Ari has yet to remind us that one bullet is cheaper than a war. Further proof? This double-secret document found in Pat's locker shows that he meant something a bit different by "take him out":
Loyal Ish readers may remember our discussion about the legality of banning anti-war t-shirts from a mall. (Upshot: legal, but a very bad PR move.) We can probably say the same of this incident at a Barnes & Noble in Delaware:
A state police officer threatened two groups of teenagers with arrest before an appearance by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. . . . the teens had shown up for what was billed as a "book signing and discussion." Santorum's people interpreted their talking and joking beforehand as evidence that they were conspiring to disrupt the event, a charge the teens deny. On that evidence, a state cop threatened to arrest them for trespassing and told them not just to leave the Barnes & Noble store but the entire Concord Mall, which is across the parking lot.-- Ideological opposites are united in support of First Amendment rights
You can read a more in-depth version (from the teens' viewpoint, as no one else would comment), over at Common Dreams:
As Shaffer was talking with her friends, Rocek made a joke.
She held up a copy of a book by the gay writer Dan Savage called
0452281768:“The Kid,” which is about how he and his partner adopted a son. And Rocek said, “It would be funny if we got Santorum to sign this book.” (To discredit Santorum, Savage and his readers in 2003 came up with a nasty definition of “Santorum” that now often appears on Internet searches for Santorum’s name.) Not everyone enjoyed the joke.
“A woman nearby snapped: ‘He’s only here to sign his own book. He won’t sign that,’ ” recalls Galperin.
Shaffer says the woman also added, “You’re shameful and disgusting.”
For a minute, the young women thought that would be the end of it.
But no such luck.
A state trooper in full uniform, including hat and gun, was in the store, and, according to Shaffer and Galperin, he met with the person who didn’t care for the Dan Savage joke, along with a few others, including members of the store and Santorum’s people.
Galperin says she heard the trooper ask, “Do you want me to get rid of them?”
And then the trooper, Delaware State Police Sgt. Mark DiJiacomo, who was on detail as a private security guard, came over to the group of women.
Here is the conversation, as Galperin remembers it: “You guys have to leave.”
“Why?”
“Your business is not wanted here. They don’t want you here anymore. If you don’t leave, you’re going to be arrested. If you can’t post bail, you’ll go to prison. Those of you who are under 18 will go to Ferris [the juvenile detention center]. And those of you over 18 will go either to Gander Hill Prison or the woman’s correctional facility. Any questions?”
Shaffer remembers the conversation basically the same way.
“I said, ‘Sir, we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re sitting in a bookstore. On what grounds would we be arrested?’ ”
“He said, ‘This is private property. Are you going to leave on your own, or are you going to leave in cuffs?”
(Links added.)
Thanks to Santorum constituent pesky' for this story, who notes:
Barnes and Noble has the right to refuse service to anyone. They do. I also have the right to purchase my books wherever I like. I doubt I will go out of my way to frequent Barnes and Noble after an incident like this. No doubt they were worried about a violent outburst in their store, but the heavy-handed gestapo tactics were ill-advised and completely unnecessary. Sheltering poor Rick Santorum from dissenting opinions is also ill-advised. If he can’t successfully defend his views to a bunch of high school students, then he’s really kind of an idiot, no?
I kind of wish I were still registered in PA so I could vote against him.
For those of you who found it useful (and thanks for all the feedback!), I've updated the description of my hybrid of GTD and Ternouth's paper-based system.
I was sorting through papers yesterday when I realized that my "To Read" pile was really just another WIP (Work In Progress) holding tray. So I redid the flowchart to make it a proper triangle, and put an "out" arrow to indicate that I have to do something with the paper once I've read it (namely, trash, forward, file, or blog.)
I also realized that I have another output for information, which is this blog. Blogging is a useful way to store and share information at the same time. In the GTD context, you're forwarding the information on to your readers, as well as saving it for future reference. Properly tagged, you can retrieve a useful link quite easily. (See "Turning a Blog Into a Semantic Web" for more details on making your blog into a useful index) If you're not up for full-scale blogging, I'd recommend using a bookmarking service like del.icio.us. So that's added to the flowchart as well. Finally, I added "RSS Feeds" to the long list of inputs on the left of the flowchart, since that's a source of a few hundred messages per day.
From North American Hallowe'en Prevention, Inc.: an alt-star-studded benefit song.
You didn't think you'd heard the last of the Flying Spaghetti Monster religion ("Pastafarianism"), did you? Boing Boing's $250,000 Intelligent Design challenge
We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
It all makes sense if you read the post. Really.
More from the wild frontier of MMORPGs:
A man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion carrying out a virtual mugging spree by using software "bots" to beat up and rob characters in the online computer game Lineage II. The stolen virtual possessions were then exchanged for real cash.
-- Computer characters mugged in virtual crime spree
Of course, crime in virtual space is nothing new -- even LambdaMOO had crime -- but now there's money to be made. It looks like the current exchange rate for World of Warcraft gold is about ten cents per gold piece. (Or, to put it another way, you could buy an ounce of physical gold for ~ 4,375 pieces of WoW gold.) And where there's money, there's crime. The article quotes Bruce Schneier as saying that "every form of theft and fraud in the real world will eventually be duplicated in cyberspace."
But it's not just economic crime that's happening. News of the Weird reports that "spouses of [Second Life] game players who have actually paid money to online-game detectives to learn whether their mates are committing 'virtual adultery' with other players' characters." You can read more on Second Life detectives, it's pretty fascinating stuff.
I don't even play MMORPGs and I find this stuff fascinating. It's as if everyone has been given the Ring of Gyges.
"Yoda and I go way back. We both auditioned for that role at the time it happened. I don't know why they chose him exactly; we're exactly the same size."
For all you frequent travelers: Hacking Hotel PPV
Gospel + Mime + Marketing = Best. Flash. Intro. EVAR.
"These identical twins silently interpret contemporary Gospel music with dramatic gestures and animated facial expressions, portraying man’s resistance of life’s evil temptations and His transformation from doubter to believer."
Yes, not just gospel mimes, but identical twin gospel mimes! They're the self-proclaimed "Fathers of Gospel Mime." Is there some sort of Gospel Mime movement I was unaware of?
Via robotfilter
I just like saying that: Worm Wars! Worm war cripples computers at US firms
"I wouldn't place a personal ad in the paper. To me it seems desperate." -- NY Farmer Pieter DeHond, who does not apparently view writing his own ad in 50-foot letters of corn to be "desperate":
Sponsored by Museum of the Moving Image. Show begins at 7:00. An amazing movie.
Poets die sooner than playwrights. Playwrights die sooner than novelists. And novelists die sooner than nonfiction writers.
A new 50 state survey puts Bush's net approval ratings positive in 8 states; negative in 34 states; and within the margin of error in the remaining 8. (Just as a check, the Pollkatz data dump confirms that most current polling puts the president in the disapproval zone.) Of the 34 states that currently disapprove of Bush, 15 voted for him in the last election: SC, WV, AZ, SD, CO, FL, TN, VA, KY, IA, NM, AR, NV, MO, and OH. A combined total of 148 electoral votes, for those of you keeping score.
Can anyone out there explain this sentence from the U.S. Northern Command's "Kids & Education" page:
Purple is our favorite color here at U.S. Northern Command.
Even in context it makes no sense to me whatsoever. Am I missing something here? Does every Unified Combatant Command get its own special color or something?
Update: Our DC correspondent confirms that this indeed makes sense:
Purple: English. Military. Purple is often used in the names of joint or inter-service exercises or task forces. A purple-suiter is someone who works on behalf a joint service operation or task force. English. Military. Purple is often used in the names of joint or inter-service exercises or task forces. A purple-suiter is someone who works on behalf a joint service operation or task force.
Also, and more to the point of the "kids" page, is Operation Purple Summer Camps, which "provide children from U.S. military families with fun and memorable opportunities to learn new skills for coping with deployment-related stress."
Mystery solved!
Hello, boing boing!
This boing boing post revealing that pornos rot slower than other magazines reminded me of this Ishbadiddle "radioactive Playboy post" of about a year ago, and BB has so noted.
Ish, previously on bb: Barbie gets a blog.
Congratulations to Ennis' other blog, Sepia Munity, for making the Feedster "Top 500" blogs list!
Malkin debates Malkin on Cindy Sheehan. Ah, sweet hypocrisy.
On Sunday, after seeing March of the Penguins, we went over to Lincoln Center where they were having a festival of invented instruments. A woman demonstrated how to play the balloon. A man had a special wired glove with a stylus on each finger, which enabled him to play four tracks from an LP at once. There was a robotic guitar. And then there were three Austrians with vegetables and power tools.
The Austrians were members of das erste wiener gemüseorchester, the First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, which plays exclusively on instrument made of vegetables. (You can listen to some sample cuts here.) They were giving a workshop on making instruments, and Ben and I got busy with some carrots and a drill. Although Ben wanted to make something like the gurkophon (pictured above), a sort of squash shawm, we stuck to the simpler karottensticks (percussion) and karottenflöten (wind). The carrot percussion instrument is amazingly simple -- take a ¾ inch bit to the thick end of the carrot. Stick your thumb in the hole, and it comes out with a satisfying "pop!" The carrot flute is a bit more complex, and ours ended up sounding something like a shofar blown by a dying cow. Still, you can eat your mistakes. Mmmmm.
An excellent roundup of the economic issues facing our country, as debated by Peter Peterson, Paul Krugman, and Glenn Hubbard.
From Eyebeam reBlog today comes a great site for we lovers of maps and language: Viewing Color Code: A Color Portrait of the English Language.
The artwork is an interactive map of more than 33,000 words. Each word has been assigned a color based on the average color of images found by a search engine. The words are then grouped by meaning. The resulting patterns form an atlas of our lexicon.
This is very fun to play with, especially as an exercise in synesthesia. What color is existenialism? Or honesty? Or humming? Some of the words' colors are due to homographs. For instance, "Amnesiac" is reddish because of the
What I want to know is, if you average the color all of these words, is it beige, like the rest of the universe?
A stunt, but an effective one. The sad thing is, even after seeing this and reading
Penguins! Penguins! Penguins! (And an amazing story to boot.)
In college, I spent a summer working at a university press. (This is when I thought publishing was my true calling, when obviously I was confusing myself with Emily.) At some point I ran across some correspondence from my boss, who was angrily returning her copy of The Anarchist Cookbook because -- get this -- it wasn't actually a cookbook. Oh, how I laughed.
Interestingly, the author has now
I want to state categorically that I am not in agreement with the contents of The Anarchist Cookbook and I would be very pleased (and relieved) to see its publication discontinued. I consider it to be a misguided and potentially dangerous publication which should be taken out of print.
(Story via Waxy.org)
This reminds me of a story about Harold Bloom, who once wrote a dreadful fantasy novel called
Supposedly Bloom is so mortified by the existence of this book he has written that he offers a bounty to his students for every copy they bring to him. Then he destroys the books.
It would make a great literary device, wouldn't it? An author travelling the world, breaking into libraries, stealing from bookstores, trying to track down every copy of his book so he can burn them.
Tell me this is for real, especially after our hopes for the Cusak campaign were so cruelly dashed. Walken 2008.
A couple of links from URLDJ (guys, you need to enable permalinks!):
- Open Media Network is a P2P application for public broadcast programming.
- Boomkat is a British music site.
I've updated the links section -- added some new sites to the Friends section (Chris Kalb's Hero Pulps!, Breakup Girl seems to have some new content these days,) took out the Pinchbeck Anthemion and SF Liberal as they seem to be on permanent hiatus (let me know if you want 'em back up, guys), there's some new blogs in the Blogrolling section (thanks to Champagne Shoulders, DNSI, Karmatown, and shatter for the links), and updated the Feeds section. As ususal, I'll ask: any blogs out there you'd recommend?
"I was crazy. I've been playing a lot of 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'NASCAR' on PlayStation," the 33-year-old suspect allegedly said. "I thought I could get away." Driver thought his video games skills would help him flee cops
All politics is gonadal?
Threaten a man's masculinity, and he's more likely to support the war in Iraq, want to ban gay marriage and buy an SUV. Makes you wonder what George Bush's homelife is like... [via Mindhacks]
In the pre-dawn hours of 8/12. NASA - The 2005 Perseid Meteor Shower
Digby points to some parenting advice from Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. Listen up dads! Here's how to prevent your son from turning out gay:
Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.
-- Can Homosexuality Be Treated and Prevented? Emphasis added.
OK, is everyone skeeved out now? Don't worry, Ben and Zach, I'm not taking his advice. You can paint your toenails as much as you want.
Speaking of which, we were at a community fair in Bucks County where my Mom lives. The boys were getting their faces painted -- Ben got a snake and a rainbow, Zach got a sun and a baseball. ("Baseball!" is one of his ~50 words.) While in line, I overheard a mom with her son (7?) and daughter (5?) behind me, looking at the sample pictures:
Mom: Don't you want a butterfly?
Daughter: I want a kitty.
Mom: The butterfly is pretty.
Daughter: I want a horse.
Mom: Isn't the butterfly pretty?
Son: I want a horse too.
Mom: That's gay, Cody.
(Reaching the front of the line.)
Mom: She'll have a butterfly.
I remember when we were kids we used to say stuff was "gay" all the time, without having the slightest clue what it meant. Thank goodness I was reprogrammed at Yale.
pesky' notes that shuttle commander Eileen Collins has come under fire for noting that she could see environmental changes on Earth while in space. You know, like who made her an expert, anyway? Stick to being a spacial entrepreneur, lady!
Oh, yeah, and for the global warming deniers:
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
-- Warming hits 'tipping point'
And, speaking of global warming, did everyone read the 3-part series in the New Yorker on climate change, "The Climate of Man"? A real eye-opener from Elizabeth Kolbert. Read Parts One, Two, and Three. This series may make me abandon anti-poverty programs and switch to environmentalism. Maybe.
It's all just a pale blue dot....
Your top 10 names for the tenth planet. Personally, I'm gunning for Nibiru . Although if named Planet X, perhaps we will find the rare element Illudium Phosdex, "the shaving cream atom."
From The Future! Wow. Via happy robot, which does not serve bacon.
Your Interface Gripe of the Day: That’s like having a hallway with a “Call the elevator” button right next to a “Shoot a flamethrower through my butt” button.
From Deborah Elizabeth Finn's blog, a link to Talk Digger, which will display recent links to any URL. The site includes results from Google and MSN Search, as well as Bloglines, Icerocket (?), Technorati, BlogPulse (?), PubSub, Blog Digger (?), and Feedster. For instance, you can check out recent links to Ishbadiddle.
Also on the meta-search front, Subject pages now include links (on the sidebar) to Google, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, and Dogpile results for that keyword / tag. (Dogpile combines results from Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves.) Here, for instance, is the Subject page for The Simpsons. Enjoy.
Fravia's web-searching lore. Via things magazine (where do they get such wonderful toys?)
Today's Crime-Fighting Cheerleaders story brought to you by pesky'
"Puhleez! The capital I without the crossbars top and bottom is either the laziest piece of design in history, or an elegant stroke of modernism. With the crossbars it’s just clunky, boring and awkward. The lowercase i is kind of cute with that little dot, I suppose, but I’m not really buying it. This one should have never made it out of the comp stage."
A jury of your peers? Not!
- Molly O'Poverty's guide to (mostly) free music
- Mp3 Finder
- Top 1000 of the last 30 years. According to whom? Who knows?
- The Hype Machine archives audio posted to blogs. Someday that statement will make no sense to anyone.
- And of course you will need the Download Them All! Firefox extension to get all these goodies.
Give it a logic board transplant, of course.
"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s."
Exhibit A in the battle between the Flying Spaghetti Monsterists and the Kansas School Board.
Following up on our post of a couple of days ago, in which we quoted a Slate piece that mocked the Administration for "rebranding" the War on Terror. According to Media Matters, Bush has frequently criticized the phrase "War on Terror":
We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.
I stand corrected.
A tale of a boy, a girl, a missed connection, and a cab -- or is it? Nothing's what it seems with Improv Everywhere!
OK, I admit it! I'd never seen this movie! Although after hearing it quoted for 25 (!) years I feel as though I had. The verdict? Incredibly dated, lots of mugging, but funny. 3 stars.
Very cool map of popular links tracked by del.icio.us: vox delicii.
Donald Duck's Atomic Bomb. From adampsyche's del.icio.us memestream.
Various ephemera at Agence eureka. See, this is an occasional report on ephemeral things. Via things magazine.
In "God vs. Satan - Who's the better investor?", Daniel Gross (not the same one, I checked) compares the performance of the Catholic values-driven Ave Maria Fund and the Vice Fund, which invests in gambling, tobacco, alcohol, and defense.
Are you suprised that the Vice Fund does better?
As a check, I ran a comparison with the Calvert Social Index Fund, and vice indeed does better than virtue.
There's some kind of moral to this story, isn't there?
Elise of Learning Movable Type contacted me a while ago to ask if I'd write up my code recipe for creating the Subject / Tag / Keyword Index system here on Ishbadiddle. So far there are several folks using it, including Elise, Al-Muhajabah, and Hearing God's Voice. Hopefully the how-to on LMT will help spread the gospel! Thanks, Elise!
Read: Learning Movable Type: How to Make a Subject Index for Your Movable Type Blog. See earlier: Turning a Blog Into a Semantic Web.
Now that we've got a back yard, it's time for me to start thinking about buying a grill. When it comes to large consumer purchases like this, I like to check out Consumer Search. Their approach is simple: don't review products, and don't ask for consumer feedback. Instead, meta-review: find the most credible reviews of any given product category. Read and summarize those reviews, and find the products that come up highly rated most often. I used it to read up on strollers.
A couple of other nice features: a breakdown of which reviews they reviewed, a "Fast Answers" page for a list of the top products, and the "Full Story" for those of us who really dig the nitty-gritty. Plus, of course, links to stores where you can buy said products. It's not the prettiest site out there, but it's certainly useful.
As for grills, it looks like the Weber Genesis Silver takes the prize!
From James Randi. Also includes this handy guide to 44 end of the world prophecies that have, of course, failed to come true.
Monsanto is seeking to patent not just the breeding methods for a specific herd of pigs, but the herd itself and all its offspring. If you breed a pig with similar characteristics, you may owe royalties to Monsanto -- for characteristics they didn't invent, bred by techniques they didn't invent, simply because they've claimed the patent rights: the pigs are not genetically engineered, and their genetic makeup bears nothing original to Monsanto Corporation. Scary.
-- Boing Boing: Monsanto patents pigs
I'm even more glad that I divested from Monsanto years ago.
Thanks to Stepan Riha's aptly named Avoiding Duplicate Comments hack, duplicate comments will now be automagically rejected. Let me know if this is causing any problems.
...the war in Iraq didn't attract terrorists, it created them:
Interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.
A separate Israeli analysis [by Global Research in International Affairs] of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, 'the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq.'
-- Studies: Iraq war radicalized most foreign fighters
On the other hand, terrorism is losing support among Muslims:
Today, the voices of Mashad and activists in other Arab capitals are largely mute when it comes to Iraq.
They still fervently oppose the US presence. But they are increasingly put off by the brutal tactics used by the insurgency against civilians. Similarly, many Muslims are angry over the tactics used by terrorists in the name of Islam.
And did you know that the Global War On Terrorism is over? It's now been rebranded as the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism! With a new acronym and everything!
But the shallowness gets deeper still. The Times story doesn't notice what appears to be the driving force behind the new slogan—a desire for a happier acronym.Look at the first letters of Global War on Terrorism. GWOT. What does that mean; how is it pronounced? Gwot? Too frivolously rowdy, like a fight scene in a Marvel comic book (Bam! Pfooff! Gwot!). Gee-wot? Sounds like a garbled question (Gee what?).
Then look at Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Its acronym is GSAVE—i.e., gee-save. We're out to save the world, see, not wage war on it. Or, as national security adviser Stephen Hadley puts it in the Times piece, "We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative."
-- Say G-WOT?
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Footnotes v Sidenotes. Any interest in implementing this here, guys?
Flickr is gathering 50 interesting photos from the last 24 hours. Neat.
