Currently ensconced in Moving Hell - I'm taking a break while my dad, his wife, and the burly high school kids I hired to move stuff are getting a late lunch. Internet's up, obviously.
I happened to come across a fun website where you can see if any given website is accessible from behind the Great Firewall of China. I checked with this blog:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/test/go.asp?URL=http://www.dreamingofchina.com
And it is. I'm betting they'll eventually notice. =)
Finally getting a chance to write for the first time in 12+ hours...way too much packing/cleaning. Can't write much now either - I have a closet to pack up, general debris to gather off the floor, and surfaces to clean. But I feel...naked, or somehow wrong having not hit the news aggregator in 12+ hours. I have no idea what's happened in the world, other than that baseball didn't go on strike, to my dismay. I was really hoping the season would be over - put me out of my misery. But hey, basketball's back (nominally). Pierce looked great last night - admittedly, everyone looked good vs. Algeria. =)
Well - that's all for now. Gotta work.
Bring the revolution, brothers and sisters: http://www.blah3.com/money.html and http://www.blah3.com/money2.html.
The one nit I have to pick with the message - don't be afraid to vote left of Democrat as well. Compromise is not enough - we need more than just the not-so-evil status quo.
Just Trust Us [New York Times: Opinion]
Am I the only one who's a bit amused that those fiscally responsible Republicans have contributed almost all of the deficit spending of the last thirty years while the tax-and-spend Democrats actually got us in surplus? Just imagine how well the budget would do if we keep going left-wing and elected socialists...
Nerds Cereal: When candy takes over nreakfast, with terrible results [FARK]
Oh god - my teeth hurt just thinking about the idea of Nerds cereal.
Cyprus and the Clash of Civilizations [Washington Post: Editorial]
Cyprus is just messed up - I wish I could word it better than that, but I can't. A large amount of what I know about Cyprus comes from sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling, who wrote a great article about Cyprus for Wired a few years back, and then used it as a setting in his latest novel, Zeitgeist.
In case you're wondering, that error message is me trying to get a web service I wrote working. Still far off, it looks like.
On the rolling-ad backdrop at courtside at the US-Algeria game I'm watching right now:
"Turkey Welcomes You"
Really? Well, isn't that friendly?
posted by worldcup2002 to Soccer August 29 6:32 PM. Champions League: Where the best in Europe come to play.The groups have been drawn, and it looks like a fairly balanced distribution. The English teams (Man. U., Newcastle, Liverpool, Arsenal) fared pretty well; they were kept apart and out of "ghastly" Group G, which includes Bayern Munich and AC Milan. [SportsFilter]
...and as of this weekend, I get to watch Euro football...Arsenal! Bayern whatever! (what with the last name and all) Anyone but Man. U.! (they've got that deal with the Yankees. Boooo.)
As noted here on Sunday, the link to Chairman Coble's bio is still broken. [Scripting News]
I only link this because Dave's usage of "Chairman Coble", with implied Mao reference, amused me.
Rollin' Reich: Dem closes on Mitt. Boston Herald Aug 29 2002 1:11PM ET [Moreover - Boston news]
I find it interesting that the true liberals (Tolman, Reich) fare better against the conservative (by Mass. standards) Republican than the moderates (Birmingham, O'Brien). Gives me faith in my fellow Massachusettians, I guess...
Joe Conason's Journal. A worrisome barometer for Republicans. Plus: A hopeful forecast for baseball? [Salon Headlines]
Conason's journal is always worth reading, but his paragraph on baseball is particularly interesting - looking at the issue of owners vs. players as employer vs. unions. Great quote at the end:
"What I always find puzzling about this situation is that so many fans fail to understand how collective bargaining could improve their own wages and conditions, just as the MLBPA has done for their diamond heroes."
Best search query that referred to this page ever:
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=Boston+Sam+Adams+Beer+angry+sex&hc=0&hs=0
Yes - someone searching for "Boston Sam Adams Beer angry sex" got my blog. I feel so lucky.
Cyber-Attack Fears Stir Security Officers [SecurityFocus]
A message to all computer security experts/pundits and all reporters who write articles about computer security:
STOP SAYING CYBER.
Thank you.
States divided over Indian bandit talks [BBC World]
I heart Indian bandit stories.
One-a-Day Plus. I was surprised to read that Wired chastised Michael Rogers for only updating his Practical Futurist blog once a day. Isn't once a day plenty? I don't promise to even manage that. Sure, I've been posting four to seven times a day in this blog, but face it: I'm in the enthusiastic phase and I've got some pleasurable momentum going here, with referrers, commenters, email, and those other things that spur you on. But daily sounds good, and any rhythm would work, I believe, if managed consistently. Of course quality matters as much as quantity, right? [Radio Free Blogistan]
I wonder about this myself...I blog a lot, yeah, but I miss days here and there. I may end up missing most of Saturday - midmove and all - though I plan to set up my laptop at my new apartment once the cable modem's up, and blog updates from there and via IM from my current apartment while moving. I like to be blogging all the time, but I do feel guilty when I don't. =)
Shut out. Boston Globe Aug 29 2002 5:43AM ET [Moreover - Boston news]
Damn Red Sox...I'm actually rooting for a strike now.
My new apartment is right next to Kerouac Park in Lowell, MA, celebrating the life and work of Lowell's most famous son. I was walking by it yesterday to the bank in the late afternoon, when I smelled the tell-tale scent of pot wafting from a group of teenagers sitting at a bench. I wanted to walk over to them and compliment them on their choice of pot-smoking locations, and suggest that they all read "On The Road", but decided against it. =)
Warren Ellis, comic writer, web community lodestone, and multimedia junkie, has a blog - die puny humans. As he puts it - "It's all my brain shit". He's become fascinated with the Blogger bookmarklet - can't blame him, though I'm personally more addicted to Radio's news aggregator. He's also the driving force behind a sort of blog community at the OPI8 Forum, a collection of a number of weird-thinking people writing about whatever strangeness bounces through their head. Warren is very much a visionary, even if sometimes his vision is clouded - he's done a lot to drive worthwhile work being done in comics, and created the largest English-speaking comics community on the web with his soon-to-close Warren Ellis Forum at Delphi. Go buy Transmetropolitan: Back On The Street, the first collection of his brilliant (and ending next month) sci-fi journalism comic.
Canada-US troop deal 'close' [BBC World]
I support this. Then again, I support most Canada-US partnership issues. I'm an advocate of a monetary union, moving towards an actual union. I believe that a union between Canada and the US would strengthen the various regions that currently exist in the two countries. For example, the Pacific Northwest would be closely tied to Vancouver and British Columbia, while New England would have obvious connections to the Maritimes. I think you could preserve cultural autonomy in Quebec and the other areas of Canada that want it, while more or less saving the Canadian economy by using the American dollar everywhere, with Canadians getting a 33% to 40% share of the Federal Reserve Board.
Of course, I'm not an economist. I'm just a guy who wants to move to Montreal. =)
A memetics experiment — pass it along.
Life in the Aggregator. An Experiment: Life in the Aggregator. How far can it travel? Please play by passing it along, including all source links... [jenett.radio]
I'm willing to play [McGee's Musings]
There we go. [via Seb's Open Research]
(via both2and)
Tag - you're it.
Powell's Awkward Position [Washington Post: Editorial]
The editorial is mainly about human rights issues, but I found the opening quote to be an interesting look at our current administration...
"Secretary of State Colin Powell goes to South Africa next week to represent the president at a global warming parley, which is being heavily attended by world leaders. Powell's position is awkward because his leader does not believe in global warming."
Iran's President Trying to Limit Power of Clergy [New York Times: International News]
And it's really helped him in his goals that we called Iran a member of the 'Axis of Evil'.
Germans Issue First Indictment in the 9/11 Plot [New York Times: International News]
US charges six with plotting terror [BBC World]
I find it strange that, all of a sudden, there are criminal proceedings involving terrorism in the US and Germany...the German case is the strangest. I haven't read enough about it yet, but the fact that they're charging the guy with 3,000+ cases of accessory to murder just feels weird. I know that he's been accused of involvement with 9/11, but still - 3,000 cases of accessory to murder is just jarring.
NY Times: "The iMac, a graceful piece of art whose astonishingly thin screen floats in air on a gleaming chrome elbow, sells well enough. But whenever a Windows PC maker tries something similar, buyers stay away in droves." [Scripting News]
If I had the money, I'd buy the super-juiced-up version of Gateway's Profile 4, shown here. I love the idea of a powerful flat-screen all-in-one PC. I'd buy the iMac - but it won't run my games. =)
Christian Crumlish is looking for pointers to philosophy-oriented weblogs. [Scripting News]
Is it wrong that I feel a certain pride that a Salon blog like our very own wonderful Radio Free Blogistan got mentioned in Scripting News? =)
Tolmans quest. Boston Phoenix Aug 28 2002 3:21PM ET [Moreover - Boston news]
Interestingly, the writer of this article (which is a good read - Tolman's one of two candidates worth paying attention to for the Mass. governorship) quotes a blog...in print, he quotes a blog. Huh.
Who's responsible for the effects of Hacktivism?. Last month, international hacker group Hacktivismo released/announced two tools that aim to bring democratic principles (freedom of expression, access to information) into countries with repressive governments by subverting their internet firewalls. In this interview, group founder Oxblood Ruffin discusses the ethics and issues surrounding their work: What if someone is imprisoned, beaten or killed for using Hacktivismo's tools? On the other hand, how do the largest IT companies (Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle) in the world's most powerful democratic country justify selling their products to these regimes, when they know the technology will be used to curtail citizens' democratic rights? [kuro5hin.org]
The other k5 story that jumped out at me today. I did a research project on hacktivism a few years back, and still try to keep up with what's going on in the community. Of course, now I work for a company that provides censorship tools to China. The question of responsibility when a piece of software is used and then the user is persecuted for it has come up over and over again in regards to PGP. If I were to write a tool that allowed Chinese citizens to get access to the open Internet and a user was imprisoned/killed for using it, I'd feel horrible. I'd send letters to congressmen, I'd send letters to corporations doing business with China...but I wouldn't blame myself, the software, or the user. The responsibility lies purely in the hands of the Chinese government - they're the ones who choose to deny their citizens' human rights, not me.
The bigger issue to me is how to deal with the Ciscos, the Microsofts, the Oracles...I work for Cisco, as I've said in the past, and I'd far prefer that we did not do that kind of business with the Chinese government. I don't personally work on any software or hardware that is or could be used in a censorship role, but my salary is still partially paid for by China buying censorship firewalls. I try not to think about that - it makes me angry, sick, guilty. I am aiding and abetting an abomination, on some level. So what can I do, besides quit? Writing letters won't work. Sure, I'm a shareholder, but not enough to be listened to. This isn't apartheid South Africa we're talking about here - China is a far larger market for American companies, and the issue is far more murky...while I believe that the Chinese government is an unfree dictatorship, exploiting its people and denying them their rights, I can't find a strong enough moral reason to not do business with them at all. So how do we get corporations, as customers, shareholders, and/or employees, do stop doing certain kinds of business with the repressive governments of the world? Any ideas?
Lord of the Swastika: Political Backgrounds in SF and Fantasy. The cover art is pretty typical: a tall blond hero boldly faces a crowd of misshapen mutants. Only the swastika emblems on his sleeves are distinctive. The cover says "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad, but the flyleaf declares the book to be "Lord of the Swastika" by Adolf Hitler. A brief biography follows, describing Hitler's emigration to the US in 1919, followed by a career as SF author and illustrator. Before the novel itself, there's a list of other Hitler SF novels, including "Emperor of the Asteroids", "The Twilight of Terra" and "The Thousand Year Rule". This article discusses both this curious book, and what it tells us about SF and Fantasy in print and on screen. [An earlier version appeared on Radio Free Tomorrow.] [kuro5hin.org]
One of a couple interesting articles at k5 today. I've read Spinrad's "Iron Dream" - it's disturbing, especially put alongside something like "The Turner Diaries". Spinrad had a run in the '70s where he may have been the most important working sci-fi writer, at least within the scope of science fiction - his relevancy to the outside world has always been rather...limited. But "Bug Jack Barron", "The Iron Dream", "The Void Captain's Tale", "Child Of Fortune"...not always entertaining, rarely easy, but definitely important.
The article is worthy of notice beyond the Spinrad discussion. Science fiction has always been prone to disguising conservative or otherwise unpleasant political/social settings in swords and sorcery, ray guns and aliens. Thomas M. Disch discusses this at length in his great book on the cultural impact of science fiction, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of. Check it out.
by the way - picked up three of the new Rolling Stones SACDs yesterday - Aftermath, Beggars Banquet, and Let It Bleed. Wow, they sound excellent. The drums are the most obvious change...there's a lot more reverb to them, hints of echoes in the background... "Sympathy For The Devil" sounds fantastic, with the pseudo-tribal drums lurking in the background. Keith's guitar parts sound great as well...you can hear the guitar string jangle and distort just a little bit after each solo section on Sympathy. All told, definitely worth buying if you're a Stones fan and you've got an SACD player. I haven't given them a listen on a regular CD player yet, but I can't imagine it sounds crappy.
Also picked up Marianne Faithfull's newest, chock-full of collaborations (Beck, Blur, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp). The song she does with Jarvis Cocker (and most of the rest of Pulp, for that matter), "Sliding Through Life On Charm", is the best Pulp song I've heard since Different Class. I need to listen to the whole album a few more times, but I think I love it.
This is really disturbing.
augh. The same issues with our New York coders that made me want to kill everyone yesterday are rising up again in today's training class. I can't stand this any more...
and it turns out that html posts just fine through IM. I'm going to have to switch to a Jabber client, though...there's a 2k max per AIM message, which may not be long enough. Posting like this should give me a lot of new options - remote posting from frickin' anywhere without having to open my radio server to the world. Plus, there's just something cool about sending an instant message and having it end up on my blog. I love technology.
So I sign my lease today - which reminds me that I need to follow up with the guys who are, in theory, moving my stuff. I haven't heard back from them for a while...
Ignore this - just testing out to see how html works in im posting...
Birth of Nerdc0re -- My novella on Salon [bOing bOing]
Excellent story - read it this morning while waking up, really really liked it. I need to buy Cory Doctrow work now.
I'm With Dick! Let's Make War! [New York Times: Opinion]
OK, Maureen Dowd can go with the Guardian when it comes to headlines. Here she's advocating invading Saudi Arabia rather than Iraq, but really, the headline's the best part.
US war machine stalls at Iraq question. Washington dispatch: Donald Rumsfeld has indicated that Britain's support could be a deciding factor on whether to attack Iraq, writes Julian Borger. [Guardian Unlimited]
I love the Guardian's headlines. No newspaper in the world has headlines as intelligent and pointed. See the above...
posted by Ufez Jones to Baseball August 27 2:50 PM. At least Randall Cunningham's debatable. But Dubya in Cooperstown? Politics aside, is there any justification for this at all? [SportsFilter]
Dubya is one of 60 people on a list of potential non-player candidates for Hall of Fame inclusion. 15 of those 60 will be passed on to the new Veterans Committee, which will decide who, if any, get in to the Hall. And George W. freakin' Bush is a potential candidate. Jim Caple puts it best in his article:
"Baseball's all-time hits leader is not eligible for the Hall of Fame but the man who traded away Sammy Sosa is."
Live: Champions League [BBC World]
Aaah...only a few more days 'til I have hours of high-quality European and South American soccer from Fox Sports World...
New Patriotic Posters (from whitehouse.org)
Example: "Sgt Rummy sez... Hope Allah's wearing Kevlar!"
Coppola to film Kerouac's "On The Road" (via tenorman.net)
Eek - starring Billy Crudup and Brad Pitt? Directed by friggin' JOEL SCHUMACHER?!?!?
I'm moving to Lowell this weekend, and work there now - the hometown of Jack Kerouac. Kerouac Park, a nice little park by the canal, is right outside my new apartment window. If this movie comes out, I need to hold a protest there.
JOEL SCHUMACHER?!?!? Didn't Coppola SEE Batman Forever and Batman And Robin?
Primed for a Math Breakthrough. Professor Manindra Agrawal asks mathematicians of the world to unite to help him shrink his zero-error algorithm for identifying gigantic prime numbers. Manu Joseph reports from India. [Wired News]
To some extent, I desperately want to be a badass mathematician. Dad's a math whiz working in computers, and high-level math has always seemed really interesting to me. Alan Turing is my hero - I'm convinced that he's the most important scientific thinker of the last 75 years. But I'm not near smart enough to cut it...I get bored with trig and calculus, and failed linear algebra the first time I took the course. So my math mania is restricted to reading articles like this, ones that don't go into too much technical detail. Ah well.
Virus writers 'obsessed with sex and computer games'. Dr Evil need not apply [The Register]
Really? Never noticed.
India offers troops in bandit hunt [BBC World]
I love this story. I had a chat with a coworker of mine from Bangalore yesterday. He finds this whole bandit thing to be just as strange as I do - except he's used to it, since this guy's been wandering around stealing things and people for years.
Joe Conason's Journal. Bush envoy's speech shocker: Iraq war "unwise." [Salon Headlines]
The envoy in question is Anthony Zinni. In a speech in Tampa last Saturday, he said (among other things):
"[M]ore important than Iraq right now are 'the opportunities that exist for the United States to encourage a peaceful transition in Iran where young people are increasingly challenging the power of the Islamic theocracy.'"
Right on.
Great escape for Sox. Boston Globe Aug 27 2002 6:24AM ET [Moreover - Boston news]
This Sox team is the definition of frustrating. Just when I feel like it's safe to give up (See my entry from last Thursday for an idea of what I mean), they proceed to win two in a row, looking like the luckiest team in the world while doing it. The next game, they just can't score runs, despite a great pitching performance. And Sunday...blowing the game in the 9th is never fun. So around the office on Monday, the general consensus was that the Sox were done, cooked, bring on the strike...
...so they win last night by scoring 4 in the 9th, two off the Angels' elite super-closer, Troy Percival, and then win it in the bottom of the 10th on a solo homer by Johnny Damon to near-right field, just past the Pesky Pole...basically, it was about three feet farther than the shortest possible home run in Major League Baseball. But it counts - and now there is Joy In Mudville again.
I'm trying to stay off the bandwagon this time. I'll watch when Pedro pitches - he is The Pitching Jesus (to paraphrase Bill Simmons' nickname for Larry Bird: the Basketball Jesus). I'll pay attention to Manny Ramirez - when healthy, he's the best hitter in baseball not named Barry Bonds, and even more fun to watch work at the plate. But I have no expectations for my Sox, and that's alright. If they win anything, fine. I'm just waiting for basketball season.
Analysis: Making the case for attack [BBC World]
Nothing all that new here, but this picture jumped out at me - that's exactly how I expect Cheney looks at all of us.
US 'mosque plotter' goes on trial [BBC World]
...why is that this is the first I've heard about this? Have there been stories in the Times/Post and I just missed them?
Japan court rejects germ warfare suit [BBC World]
Boooo. The court accepts the facts of the case, namely that the Japanese engaged in biological warfare in China during WWII. Nasty, nasty stuff they did. Now they're getting sued by a couple hundred of their victims. The case got thrown out because, according to the court, individuals don't have the right to seek compensation from a state under international law. That isn't right.
E-Mail Forwarding Patented, PTO Sued [Slashdot]
Yeah, they've been granted a patent for forwarding email. Admittedly, it's not quite as simple as putting another email address in your .forward file on Unix, which predates these guys by...well, a long time. From what I can gather from the patent document itself, there's some method of automatically determing who the final destination of the email should be...no, wait. As I read this, it IS just like using a .forward file, but with a 'forwarding address server' that does the same thing the .forward file does. Ow. My head hurts from the patent stupidity.
I got me an idea - I think I'm going to register a patent on programs opening files. It's not like there's prior art or anything.
Some in Argentina See Secession as the Answer to Economic Peril [New York Times: International News]
Patagonia, the southern half of Argentina that holds less than 5% of the population but a lion's share of the natural resources, is considering seceding from the rest of bankrupt, economically-wrecked Argentina. Can you blame them?
Woke up this morning to CNN in the background. I don't really like CNN at all these days, with the exception of Aaron Brown. The pre-7 anchor is annoying, and don't even make me think about Paula Zahn. What got me particularly irritated today was that they had a 'radio talk show host' on to give his opinions on Iraq and airport security. As he himself said at one point, he's 'no foreign affairs expert,' and it showed. One fun one from him - 'Why would Hussein be trying to get weapons of mass destruction? It's not for defense.' Yeah, because it's not like a major world power is threatening to invade Iraq or anything. Why is that I've heard barely anything about Scowcroft/Baker/Eagleburger/Schwarzkopf/etc dissenting from Cheney's party line on CNN? Why the hell does CNN feel like they have to veer towards Fox News? They're never going to steal that many of Fox's audience, so why not try something different like, y'know, NEWS?!?
A commercial for some new ABC series just flashed by, something about time travel...a guy goes back in time to high school and tries to redo his life for the better. Anyway, the reason I noticed at all - the music in the background was Social Distortion's 'Story of My Life'. I love love love that song - it's nice to hear it in a mass-media context, 'specially since Mike Ness has got to make a few bucks off it in royalties...
Which reminds me - time to go find my Mike Ness CD. I think it's reasonably near the top of the boxes.
Super Monkey Ball 2 Review [GameSpot]
This is why I need a GameCube - they have a game called Super Monkey Ball 2 in which you move the world around a monkey in a hamster ball. Seriously.
New Cheney warning on Iraq [BBC World]
I wonder how insecure Cheney's feeling now...after all, he's like the only remaining member of the Bush The Elder crowd who still advocates going after Iraq despite everything...
