Why I Try To Avoid The Place - LAX That Is: Another time sink from Metafilter (I'm going to have to stay away for a while ;-)) It's pretty busy, as is LAX, so this Great Visual may take some time to start, but it's worth the wait.

posted by dave at 2:11 PM

 
Listen To The Music - Damn, I must have spent too many years following The Doobie Brothers' advice, at too high a volume. The Wired.com article says this Music Is Subtle, so subtle in fact one can hardly hear it, and I really couldn't. Or perhaps I'm just a musical philistine: after all, I couldn't be forced to listen to (c)rap either, with or without that silent 'c' ;-)

posted by dave at 12:41 PM

 
Curse You, Metafilter ;-) - OK, as advertised when they posted it, GroveBlender can burn up quite a bit of time.

posted by dave at 10:20 AM

 
Know Thyself - What better resource could one wish for to follow that dictum than the old, and yet still often mentioned, Gray's Anatomy of The Human Body. The Bartleby site continues to make great contributions to online research.

posted by dave at 8:14 AM

 
Color Me Underwhelmed I Guess ;-) - It's very difficult to get enthusiastic about any of the grossly overpaid network newsreaders (they're certainly not newspeople by any rational definition), but I do believe that Brian Williams is clearly a cut above the rest - this has been too long coming IMHO.
posted by dave at 5:57 PM

 
Would Schumacher Be Impressed? - Well, the father of Small Is Beautiful might enjoy the spirit of this little applet, TinyURL, discussed today on BoingBoing, but aren't they really just using complexity to make a large URL appear to be small? What happens to your links when their site goes toes up? I don't think it's something to use for your permanent bookmarks ;-)
posted by dave at 5:22 PM

 
Wired.com presented this Story About "Lifters" back on May 11, but I just filed it away as likely another instance of science (fiction) similar to the reputed success with Cold Fusion. However, today Metafilter posted the link to American Antigravity so I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about it ;-)
posted by dave at 11:07 AM

 
DSL Hell - I knew there was a good reason why Dell never followed through and sent me my upgrade disc for XP ;-)
posted by dave at 10:28 AM

 
What Were You Thinking?! - Just kidding, this link, suggested by my brother, Kim, is an eclectic list of sites assembled to help us all in the Art of Critical Thinking. With the sole exception of item 1, which is just an ad, there are some pretty interesting things listed.
posted by dave at 10:16 AM

 
Yes, but does it get Channel 7? - an interesting picture from APOD showing the Very Large Array (VLA) of Radio Telescopes located in New Mexico. They are used to gather a wide range of astronomical information unavailable via optical telescopes. The background stories are well worth reading.
posted by dave at 7:50 AM

 

      Haiku For The Spring

      Spring leisure--

  wandering through the garden

      leaning on my cane

                     Shiki

posted by dave at 6:30 PM

 
Finally Someone Speaks Out - Michael Barone has never been bashful about his opinions, either in US News & World Report or on that news zoo, The McLaughlin Group. However, I was interested to see him mention the reasons we should Look Askance at the Saudis; would that someone in our government were equally forthright. Hell, we've been importing fully half as much oil from Iraq and we're not afraid to say what we think of them (refer: DOE Oil Imports Report).
Thanks to Metafilter for the story link.
posted by dave at 3:17 PM

 
Lest We Forget: - I was shortchanged by the local PBS affiliate (go ahead, KCET, send me another donation request ;-)), but the History Channel has come through with a nice feature on Memorial Day.
posted by dave at 11:41 AM

 
OK, I'll confess: I'm a Tom Clancy fan and I did enjoy The Sum of All Fears. However, I do have a few questions about The Movie Version:
1. Why now? - the timing seems unfortunate at best.
2. If they must, then why the switch from Denver to Baltimore? Does that mean Baltimore is expendable (or just too damn close to Hollywood)?
3. I saved the biggie for last - Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan?! - in which universe? ;-)
posted by dave at 11:20 AM

 
Ooops, This Doesn't Sound Good! - I was always under the delusion that the polar ice fields were floating on the ocean so that if they melted it would be just like the ice in your drink, it wouldn't raise the level. Sadly, that's not so - the Antarctic Ice Shelfs are land attached and melting! Of more concern is the much larger Ross Ice Shelf. Damn, perhaps those scuba lessons are in order after all.
posted by dave at 9:12 AM

 
PBS aired a nice program, appropriate for the Memorial Day weekend, last night; unfortunately it wasn't on our local schedule. You can capture the gist of War Letters here.
posted by dave at 8:46 AM

 
Is it true that the RIAA is actually an affiliate of the FBI? One would almost think so based upon their total mishandling of the MP3 download "issue". Well, they managed to pummel Napster (after they had been placed into a position of irrelevance by newer & better applications) and now they finally have turned their Sights On Audiogalaxy.
posted by dave at 8:24 PM

 
A Good Example of why I find Microsoft annoying: This seems like a pretty good idea, an alliance between Microsoft, Adobe and Intuit to Answer Our PC Questions. However, try the sample Reports link and then click on Detail View with anything other than IE. With NS 4.79 or Mozilla 5 it tells you that only IE is supported; with Opera 6 it displays the problem list, but they can't be expanded and with NS 6.2 and 7.0 it loads a blank screen. Nice try fellows, but I think I'll stick to Google Groups, they'll answer anyone's question ;-)
posted by dave at 9:08 AM

 

       Haiku For The Spring

      Through the morning

  I watched the cherry blossoms

      grow old

                     Socho

posted by dave at 7:45 PM

 
Data, Data, Data - There's so much information available at the Bureau of Labor Statistics I haven't even scratched the surface yet. One small item gave me pause: their inflation calculator and how much things have worsened since 1994 (and we've enjoyed several years of very low inflation.) The "At A Glance" links are neat and so is the little Regional Resources hot map.
posted by dave at 4:40 PM

 
Well, 2 Out Of 3 Isn't Bad: I imagine that this is also Pretty Good News for the lonely folks who make do with those blowup dolls - probably going to be rather pricey though and that "real smell" option isn't necessarily a winner ;-)
posted by dave at 1:59 PM

 
Psst, Buddy, Wanna Buy A Bridge? - The e-mail hoaxes are still swirling around the Internet, and gullible people are still buying in. I just received yet another variant of that old "Bill Gates will pay you to use..." joke from my sister-in-law ;-) You can read about it, as well as a number of other e-mail Hoaxes here.
posted by dave at 10:17 AM

 
6 Degrees of James Burke - If you've followed Connections, either the TV series or the column in Scientific American, then you know the technique Burke uses to weave together disparate dicoveries/events. His new project, Knowledge Web, sounds like more of the same, but even better - I'm really looking forward to it! Oh, that allusion to the Kevin Bacon game, made me wonder why it disappeared. Was it forced off the web by the later commercial version? Well, the arguably better Oracle of Bacon is still alive & well ;-)
posted by dave at 8:31 AM

 

    A Taste of Omar (The Good One)

     The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

                  VII

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

  The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly-- and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

posted by dave at 4:49 PM

 
Here's an ambitious little site that I saw mentioned on TechTV the other night, an Online Lego Set. If you go through their simple registration you can even save your creations there, but that isn't necessary to test drive it.
posted by dave at 2:51 PM

 
APOD posted an interesting composite picture of activity in The Sun's Corona almost 3 weeks ago. The scale of these flares is beyond my ability to imagine. Perhaps if I lived much further north where the Aurora Borealis is visible it would help bring it home to me.

posted by dave at 11:28 AM

 
Now here's an IQ Test Question for the current generation: Would you rather go ahead and get that piercing, ensuring that you're somewhat disfigured permanently, or would you attach some faux piercing ornament via powerful magnets and only run the Risk of Disfigurement? Who says we're not still evolving as a species? ;-)
My thanks for that link to the fine folks at BoingBoing.
posted by dave at 10:47 AM

 
This is mildly entertaining: you can determine the Popularity of Names by decade throughout the 20th Century (provided that they fall within the top 1000.) I stumbled across this at the blog of Jason Butler where you can also find a large collection of snapshots from China, Tanzania & New Zealand.
posted by dave at 10:32 AM

 
Klez Is Still Raging: Isn't it just so special to hear what a success that damn Klez Virus has been? Imagine the pride those morons must feel. The Symantec Virus Watch seems to validate the Wired.com story; the Klez threat level is still at 4, the next highest being W32.Mylife.J at 3.
posted by dave at 8:06 AM

 
Where At Least One Man Has Sat Before - Now tell the truth, wouldn't it be fun to actually own the Captain's Chair? Not just any old captain mind you, but James T. Kirk, the Captain of the Enterprise. Hey, you could prop it up in front of your big screen and boldly go right along with him and the gang ;-)
posted by dave at 7:40 AM

 

       Haiku For The Spring

      Each time the wind blows

  the butterfly finds a new home

      on the willow

                   Basho

posted by dave at 6:33 PM

 
A Cautionary Tale: This story about Rechargeable Batteries struck a little too close to home. The same thing happened to my poor sister-in-law last year when she bought a new video camera to record a special event. You guessed it - no batteries to capture it and the camera represented a huge dent in her fragile budget :-( Odd thing about the article though - one would think that the New York Times would at least proof read their story headings.
posted by dave at 2:47 PM

 
I must admit, it's been many years since I logged any time to speak of with the Bible. Still, if I had had recourse to this great Reference Tool I'm certain I would have looked things up from time to time. Also, if you simply want to read a chapter, or just a few verses, the full text is there with an amazing number of cross reference links.
posted by dave at 2:15 PM

 
I was amused to read that a handful of the clowns who have been perpetrating the Nigerian 419 Fraud were finally nailed. I suspect though that there was no lack of people ready to take their place. The really odd thing is that anyone ever fell for the scam - greed must do serious damage to the Synapses ;-)
posted by dave at 11:28 AM

 
Pssst - Big Brother May Be Watching: A word to the wise is hopefully sufficient, it might be prudent not to do too many things with your office PC that you'd rather that Your Boss didn't know about ;-)
posted by dave at 10:37 AM

 
Over the years I've been exposed to at least a dozen programming languages, most casually, but a few fairly intimately. However, Lisp was not one of them. This Thought Provoking article made me wish that I had spent some time with Lisp; it also made me think about the programming languages I have known in a slightly different fashion.
posted by dave at 10:32 AM

 
I hope that you didn't miss the viewing opportunity of recent weeks to see the inner planets aligned along the ecliptic. This beautiful picture, with the Eiffel Tower in the foreground, shows a taste of that display with only Jupiter and Venus arrayed beneath The Moon.
posted by dave at 7:43 AM

 
There's certainly been a lot of buzz about the 4 Google Labs Beta Offerings, but I only found one, Google Glossary, to be truly useful, and another, Google Sets, to be intriguing, but I'll be darned if I can really see a use for it. I'll leave it to you to assess the other two, I was totally indifferent to them. Incidentally, even though I like the Glossary, I think that Atomica does a much better job.
posted by dave at 4:55 PM

 
Well, death is death, and clearly the remains spelled the end for someone: with the worst possible outcome, The Search For Chandra is over. I can't imagine how her poor parents feel as surely they had kept a measure of hope alive in their hearts all this long while. Still, now they can put their daughter to rest and start the slow healing process.
posted by dave at 3:14 PM

 
This was a fascinating case of good timing: Nancy just returned from China on Sunday and was a little disappointed because she hadn't found a good video tape describing the Yangtze River Dam Project. Lo and behold, the very next day PBS had a terrific show and she was able to tape it. The interest being, she had done the Yangtze River cruise through the Three Gorges just the week before.
posted by dave at 2:59 PM

 
I've never been interested in Genealogy, but I have puzzled about the great antecedents conundrum. We each have 2 parents, and 4 grand*parents and 8 grand*grand*parents and... 2^n grand^(n-1)*parents [if you'll pardon my odd shorthand for great...greatgrand], but if we only go back 33 generations that's far more people than are alive today and far, far more than were alive 600 odd years ago (refer here) - about 25 times as many in fact. Clearly, there has to be quite a bit of duplication in that family tree ;-) An interesting consequence of that can be explored in this amazing site, Royal Descents of Famous People. More detail on Humphry's site, why that is so and how it applies to us can be found in this Brief Article from TheAtlantic online.
posted by dave at 11:31 AM

 
Caveat Emptor: My oh my, it sounds by this Recent Survey result that it's not just one big party over there in AOL Land. The potential of losing up to 60% of their customers, along with the other woes of the mega merger between AOL & Time Warner doesn't seem to add up to anything other than inverse synergy. If that wasn't warning enough, be advised that I recently bought a few shares of AOL myself - I'm rethinking that one ;-)
posted by dave at 7:55 AM

 

     Haiku For The Spring

      The retreating shapes

  of the passing spring--

      wisteria

                   Kana-jo

posted by dave at 6:58 PM

 
A book that I'm very much looking forward to reading is China Dawn by David Sheff. Its focus is the explosion of the Internet in China (currently estimated at 25,000,000 people online and a doubling time between 6 and 9 months!) and two of the extraordinary people involved in its development. Sheff wrote this short piece on one of them, Edward Tian, for the LA Times. I strongly suspect that if you read it, you too will want to read China Dawn.
posted by dave at 3:54 PM

 
I think that I'm suffering from information overload: there are so many features to explore at Virtual Sky that I haven't really made a dent in it yet, but wanted to share the link while I'm thinking about it. Clearly it's pretty busy because it currently isn't servicing the links in the Blog comment section.
posted by dave at 1:24 PM

 
I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for black & white photography anyway, but I find these Floral Radiographs to be spectacular! Thank you, Metafilter.
posted by dave at 10:22 AM

 
It's really not possible to argue with any of these "best of" lists, because by definition they're subjective. Heck, I wouldn't even take issue with the inclusion of most of them on a 20 Best SciFi Movies list, but when it comes to the ordering, Damn! ;-)
posted by dave at 7:43 AM

 
Requiescat In Pace - I was saddended today to learn of the passing of Stephen Jay Gould, a noted (but politically controversial) Biologist at Harvard, MacArthur Fellow and very gifted and successful author. To my mind, the only stain on his record was the viscious attack carried out by Gould and Richard Lewontin against their colleague at Harvard, the Father of Sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson.

posted by dave at 3:12 PM

 
Isn't Technology Wonderful? - The first attempt at copy protecting music CDs has started off rather poorly for Sony. First we heard about the great Mac Attack and now this rather low tech Security Breach - Damn, I know I'm impressed, how about you? ;-)
posted by dave at 11:02 AM

 
We Can't Even Duck & Cover! - Two quite similar stories in Wired.com talk about the application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, first as Bar Code Replacements in stores and markets and then as Security Devices in libraries. That's all well & good, and the technology sounds compelling, but we're already awash in Electromagnetic Radiation in virtually every segment of the Spectrum. I have the fear that literally bathing us in more may ultimately have serious genetic consequeces. Who knows, we may end up looking like characters from Seussville ;-)
posted by dave at 8:53 AM

 
They tend to slip off of our radar until something gets attention in the news, but the various Virus Threats are really growing on almost a daily basis, as the list shows. It might be a good idea to revisit the Symantec list weekly just to stay attuned to the problem potential.
posted by dave at 7:11 AM

 

     Haiku For The Spring

      With each falling petal

  they grow older--

      plum branches

                    Buson

posted by dave at 4:26 PM

 
Perhaps it's just me, but I thought this Internet Cemetary was rather humorous. It's a little odd to navigate, but check out some of the memorials that folks have left (yes, I know it's a hoax ;-))
posted by dave at 2:23 PM

 
A web site that may prove worth your time to visit is KarenWare.com. It was brought to my attention in an article about her Computer Profiler, but her site lists several other freeware programs she has developed that may be of interest.
posted by dave at 12:08 PM

 
We hear quite a bit about hoaxes on the Internet, but they far predate that medium of information exchange. The Museum of Hoaxes is a nice collection, arranged by both time periods and category, that goes all the way back to the year 750. Well worth a visit.
posted by dave at 10:01 AM

 
The detail is so fine it could almost be a shot of our own Moon, but this is a picture of Saturn's moon, Tethys. Even harder to believe is that this image was captured by one of the Voyager Missions more than 20 years ago.
posted by dave at 8:21 AM

 
A Heavyweight's View: Stephen Wolfram's new book (see post earlier today) is certain to start people thinking, and one of the country's brightest, Ray Kurzweil, has weighed in with a Lengthy Review. While at his web site, spend some time, it's nicely done. Speaking of Ray Kurzweil, he's written two excellent books himself: The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines. Both are rich reads more than worth the time it takes to consume them.
posted by dave at 8:36 PM

 

   Haiku For The Spring

      Nobody home--

  the warbler strolls

      through the garden

                   Shoha

posted by dave at 8:05 PM

 
Another piece on NPR this morning discussed the variety of ways the Sounds Animals Make are expressed in the different languages of the world. Now the animals sound the same the world over, but people seem conditioned in a sense by their native tongue to mimic those sounds in unique ways - aren't we peculiar? ;-)
posted by dave at 5:23 PM

 
Listening to NPR this morning I was intrigued by this story on the Read & Release program. Damn, I wish I'd heard about the BookCrossing folks years ago when I decided to simplify my moves and gave away about 1000 books.
posted by dave at 1:47 PM

 
If you have followed the field of Cellular Automata then you no doubt are familiar with Stephen Wolfram; perhaps in school or at your job you made use of Mathematica, Wolfram invented it. Soon you'll be reading about his latest creation, the somewhat ambitiously titled A New Kind of Science. However, at 1280 pages, and many of them replete with somewhat daunting mathematical formulae, it's probably not the casual reader's cup of tea ;-) Learn a bit about the book and the man who wrote it in this Background Piece by Steven Levy from Wired.com, it's an interesting and accessible read.
posted by dave at 9:23 AM

 
This is a beautiful picture of The Andromeda Galaxy, but don't miss clicking on this Details Link (which is labeled "Andromeda Galaxy" beneath the image.) APOD always has an interesting assortment of background data available beneath the daily image. I find it amazing though that they say it's visible to the unaided eye - heck, the clock on the wall isn't visible to my unaided eye ;-)
posted by dave at 2:49 AM

 
If you enjoy the mystery genre then I just finished a book that I'm very comfortable recommending: Black Water by T. Jefferson Parker. It's his third novel featuring Detective Merci Rayborn of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. However, they really should be read in sequence, so start with The Blue Hour and then work your way through Red Light before savoring the third. I'm fairly certain that if you make it that far, then like me, you'll be hoping for at least a fourth.

posted by dave at 8:40 PM

 

    A Taste of Omar (The Good One)

     The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

                  VI

And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine

High piping, Pélevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!

  Red Wine!"-- the Nightingale cries to the Rose

That yellow Cheek of hers to'incarnadine.

posted by dave at 2:06 PM

 
It seems that our "friends" in Redmond have Done It Again, but surprise, surprise, this time it's IE, not Outlook (or Look Out! as I prefer to call it. I don't go along with the various penalties being proposed by the states, but I would like to see a measure of responsible behavior on Microsoft's part. Perhaps allow them to continue vending their bloatware at current prices, but a modest rebate to every registered owner for each and every such flaw discovered.
posted by dave at 12:28 PM

 
By Golly, There Is Life After Death! - Sheesh, it seems like just the other day that we attended the funeral, and now who's that strutting down the street but our old friend Napster. It would seem that $8B is quite a bit to pay for a moribund product, another Mark Twain moment I guess ;-)
posted by dave at 12:06 PM

 
Let There Be Light - Nice views, possibly the death throes of a star, a SuperNova in process. Very much of interest to us, if that is indeed what it is, because that's where the heavier elements, essential for life as we know it, are created - alchemy on a cosmic scale. Perhaps that should have been: Let There Be Life.
posted by dave at 11:50 AM

 
Wired.com had an interesting article the other day on the challenges of Digital Animation. It explains why accurately depicting the face is so difficult and what strides have been made in the field.
posted by dave at 7:42 AM

 
Take a look at this for an rather odd little bit of Fiscal Origami. One has to wonder, how in the world do people come up with these things?

posted by dave at 7:36 PM

 

   Haiku For The Spring

      The nurseryman

  left behind

      a butterfly

                  Ryota

posted by dave at 4:04 PM

 
Guess what? - it seems that those simple spoofs we snickered at in spy movies/TV shows that were used to foil Biometric locks and the like were not so far fetched after all. Two cases in point:
1. In this month's issue of Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram Newsletter (which is always an interesting read) skip down to the section headed: Fun With Fingerprint Readers.
2. This recent article in Wired.com about the Face Recognition systems people were so exercised about.
posted by dave at 11:49 AM

 
So far the big hit of the day at Blogdex, and deservedly so, is the amazing story about something else being done at MIT, the ability to create very realistic videos of People Speaking Words that they didn't actually say. It's complete with two RealAudio comparisons, can you tell the real from the fake? (I batted 0.500.) It seems that the old joke about being able to tell that a lawyer is lying because his lips are moving may take on a whole new meaning ;-)
posted by dave at 8:53 AM

 
Time.com has posted a great story on Iraq & Saddam, it's well worth looking at. A good example of presenting information on the web: it's complete with good articles, very nice graphics and images - highly recommended.
posted by dave at 8:35 AM

 

   Haiku For The Spring

      Until they bloom

  no one waits for them--

      azaleas

                    Haritsu

posted by dave at 3:53 PM

 
Well, we can't say that we haven't seen it coming, but sadly, for Napster, it appears that the fat lady has finally sung. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi :-(
posted by dave at 1:26 PM

 
I'll admit to a degree of bias on the issue since I post my share of "deep links" here. However, I can't see any way that the actions of Rodale Press, as reported in Wired.com, are anything short of Deeply Dumb. In the spirit of turnabout is fair play, here's a deep link to The Rebuttal posted in LetsRun.com ;-)
posted by dave at 10:59 AM

 
APOD has a terrific animated GIF of the Comet Ikeya-Zhang showing the effect that such things as the rotation of its nucleous and the solar wind have on the comet's tail.
posted by dave at 8:30 AM

 
I'm sorry, but I don't really see what the real agenda is here with this Relentless Attack on Napster. It's not as though shutting them down will have any tangible effect on the sharing of MP3 files over the Internet. Anyone involved in that knows full well that there have been far better techniques at play for quite some time. Could it be simply a childish attempt on the part of the record companies to "get even" with the folks that started the revolution?
posted by dave at 7:13 PM

 
Good Grief! - it sounds as though This Car truly requires a copilot to be driven safely unless/until one has all of the odd controls committed to memory ;-) It may seem posh to some, but to my mind it sounds a bit like technological overkill. For a car that retails in the neighborhood of $70K (it varies by state, you can check What It Costs in your area) I would expect safety, drivability & comfort to head the list of "features".
posted by dave at 4:49 PM

 
Ouch! - It's a shame that it's come to This, but given the church's utter failure to deal with the problem in any meaningful way, I'm afraid we may see more such tragedies. It seems to me that the real victim here is Dontee Stokes, yet again :-(
posted by dave at 12:53 PM

 
Now here's a site that's almost sure to keep you amused for some time: the 100 Greatest Online Games! I must admit, most of them I had never heard of, and I probably won't get around to trying even half, but there's bound to be a few there that you will enjoy. Heck, it's always fun to play Frogger ;-)
posted by dave at 10:22 AM

 
For some years now I've been using NISTIME32 to set my system clock to the time standard in Boulder Colorado, but the application is starting to show its age. A new clock that I like is Atomic Clock Sync 2.6 - but it shows more info than I really need. The NIST maintains a list of time & frequency software and so far I have tried Atom Time from their list. I think it's a keeper.
posted by dave at 8:44 AM

 
For those of us who love both opera and the magnificent voice of Luciano Pavarotti this is truly Sad News. If this signals the end of his on stage career, and it certainly sounds as though it does, how sad that it ends on such a low note, so to speak.
posted by dave at 3:11 PM

 
NBC has announced its New Schedule for the fall. Hmm, sounds like good news for Blockbuster to me ;-)
posted by dave at 12:57 PM

 
They call this article Skywalker: The Family Tree, but here is another instance when 1 picture, or tree, would be worth more than 1000 words. Diehard Star Wars fans likely know all of this anyway, the rest of us may or may not really care.
posted by dave at 10:58 AM

 
This site is entertaining, a directory of the various Museums that offer web tours. The link to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris also gave me a chance to test drive the Google Translate Bookmarklet that I referred to on May 10th - it worked ;-)
posted by dave at 10:39 AM

 
I guess we're so tuned in to consumerism that just about anything can find a group of willing buyers, but this little business of PC Noise Suppression seems a bit much. I have a fairly new, fast PC, but I didn't really notice any noise from it until reading the story. No, I don't think I'll be sending in my check ;-)
posted by dave at 8:22 AM

 

     Haiku For The Spring

      White plum blossoms

  return to the withered tree--

      moonlit night

                      Buson

posted by dave at 7:03 PM

 
No doubt you've seen mention the past few days of the great TV IQ Test as profiled in New Scientist and elsewhere. Now it's our turn to test our mettle - the BBC has made the "Test The Nation" exam Available Here. They'll e-mail your result to you and you can compare it to various groups. Good luck ;-)
posted by dave at 2:37 PM

 
There was a great picture of Saturn on APOD the other day. Better yet, when I clicked on the background information links I ended up at this site: Hubble Heritage Project. Be certain to follow the link to their Image Gallery!
posted by dave at 11:41 AM

 
I find it interesting that so many theories coming out of mainstream scientific thought parallel quite closely ideas that were broached years ago in science fiction. The specific item that started that train of thought was this artcile out of PhysNews about the possibility of Alternate Universes, adjacent to our own. That happened literally and quite rudely in my life when Sputnik soared into the sky and science coopted my favorite science fiction fantasy: space flight.
posted by dave at 8:57 AM

 
Here's a neat little demo of Text-To-Speech technology that did a very nice job when I gave it a try. It seems there are still some interesting things being done at the AT&T Labs.
posted by dave at 5:40 PM

 
Chip Implants Redux: In his comment on my previous mention of this story, Fausto points out that the idea was Derek's and that indeed seems to be the case as detailed in This Story in Time.com. The real backstory seems to be embraced by the argument he made to his mother: "Mom, I want to be the first kid implanted with the chip."
posted by dave at 12:46 PM

 
This recent story about the Florida couple who, as well as themselves, had their child receive a Chip Implant is somewhat curious. Clearly the father has had ongoing bouts with life threatening medical problems, he needs all the help he can get. But where will it come from via the chip? Who would even be aware he has it? Who would have the scanning capability to access whatever data it may contain? It would seem that he would be far better served by a MedAlert Bracelet, but perhaps he has one that mentions the chip ;-) All of that aside, what is the point for the mother and their child? No intent was mentioned to use them for anything other than medical concerns, but all of those problems, at least those mentioned, were his.
posted by dave at 9:15 AM

 

    A Taste of Omar (The Good One)

     The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

                  V

Irám indeed is gone with all its Rose,

And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one

    knows;

  But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,

And still a Garden by the Water blows.

posted by dave at 1:34 AM

 
I remember years ago the furor over "Satanic Messages" that were supposedly hidden in LPs and that could only be heard by playing the record backwards, and other such silliness. Even if it wasn't true, it should have been because: a) it made for a good story and b) it likely sold a lot of records. Well, today it's gone a quantum step forward as detailed in this story about a CD by Aphex Twin. The "real" image was discovered by a lad named Jarmo Niinisalo and he describes the phenomenon on his Web Site. (There was precedence over Jarmo, but the artifact first discovered using Winamp apparently wasn't quite "correct".) Now, if only Jarmo would discuss how one gets a clean view of his web page ;-)
posted by dave at 5:03 PM

 
Google has done it again, a tool that will translate things for us, even web pages. Better yet, these people have created a Bookmarklet to make it even easier. Just follow half way down their page to where you see Google Translate! and drag it to your links toolbar as instructed. Henceforward a click on it will translate an open foreign language page (but sometimes with rather humerous results.)
posted by dave at 3:00 PM

 
I'm not too sure that this bodes well for the world of Blogging. Its very popularity like as not contains the seeds of its demise, or at minimum a shift in direction. Speaking of a shift in direction, how about the new uses of "back links" as pioneered at Disenchanted and now popping up elsewhere? At first blush it seems very kewl, but I wonder what this may evolve into?

posted by dave at 11:11 AM

 
Yet another interesting view of our Inner Planets. In this shot they were first captured in a still frame and then a few minutes later their path across the sky was traced in a time exposure on the same plate. Pass your mouse over the image and their names are displayed.
posted by dave at 8:26 AM

 

        Haiku For The Spring

      White camellias falling--

  the only sound in the

      moonlit evening

                      Ranko

posted by dave at 6:13 PM

 
My goodness - what a neat toy! If you have a weblog, or an interest in a particular blog, this Amazing Applet will allow you to see how it is interconnected in the blogosphere. No, my little toy isn't represented (yet ;->) - to see it in action do a query on a biggie such as Metafilter.
posted by dave at 11:33 AM

 
Despite President Kennedy's often quoted plea in his Inaugural Address, the truth is that most folks want to know what their country can do for them. That being the case, here's a spot where one just might find The Answer to that question.
posted by dave at 10:15 AM

 
Much mention has been made lately of the viewing opportunity of the inner planets aligned along the ecliptic - I believe I may have said a word or two myself ;-) Well, this recent picture, taken looking out over Stonehenge allows for an even more spectacular view; too bad I can't step into my backyard to see this one for myself.
posted by dave at 8:17 AM

 
This New York Times Article on The Second Amendment seems rather curious. Now, if you don't recall, our Constitution's Second Amendment says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You can verify the wording Here. The reason I find it curious is that people became so dissatisfied with the concept of serving our country in the military, the draft was abandoned (although Jimmy Carter did reinstitute registration in 1980.) Hmmm, it seems there really isn't a need for citizen soldiers, we now rely upon a volunteer army. So, why the need to keep the guns? Attorney General Ashcroft and his ilk seem to see only the gun part of the Amendment as being operative. Well, we all know that regardless of what the Constitution really says, it de facto only says whatever the folks in power claim - sigh.

posted by dave at 8:05 PM

 
In response to my Hubble post of May 6 our friend Fausto commented that this Image of a Globular Cluster is well worth looking at - I agree. Now, although that picture may be worth a thousand words, for any of you who might wish for even a few hundred more words, here is a good Article on Globular Clusters.
posted by dave at 4:56 PM

 
I'm sorry, but I don't think I buy whatever point our friends in Redmond are trying to make as Described Here. It's the very weaknesses of the existing MS e-mail client OutLook (which I've long maintained should be renamed Look Out!) that many of the hacker exploits rely upon - how much worse could it be? A somewhat Related Story started me pondering the other day: has the MS bloatware gone well beyond the need for an actual re-write? Most would say yes I bet. Instead of form following function, at MS it seems to be: "do we need a few more $s, let's roll out another release of the same old crap" ;-)
posted by dave at 12:24 PM

 
Here's a view of Our Sun as you've likely never seen it before - it looks like a great spot for those virus spreaders ;-)
posted by dave at 10:42 AM

 
Odd, it's never even occurred to me to ask the clerks at Borders or Barnes & Noble to recommend a book. After reading This Story I guess I didn't miss out on too much ;-)
posted by dave at 8:37 AM

 
Klez Redux: If Dante were writing The Divine Comedy today I feel he would reserve a special circle in Hell for the fools who create computer viruses. This is really special, a Virus Squared. Again, be careful out there!
posted by dave at 5:58 PM

 
I'll admit it, I'm always happy to see winter slip away, even though the ones we experience here in CA are benign compared to most of the country. Still, the advent of spring does bring its problems too, most notably Allergies & Asthma. From what the site says, I'm likely suffering from a mild bout of asthma this year - I don't care for it! ;-) Try their quiz - I only missed one.
posted by dave at 5:38 PM

 
Here in CA we have a pretty good understanding of what Smog is, especially those of us in the Los Angeles basin. However, I'll have to admit I was a bit surprised to see This Picture of a blanket of the stuff fouling an otherwise nice shot of two of the Great Lakes and upstate New York.
posted by dave at 5:10 PM

 
Its status is uncertain due to budget cuts, but NASA is hoping to send a probe to Pluto & The Kuiper Belt, which are located at the nethermost reaches of our Solar System. There will be a bit of a wait though, even if it is re-funded. Launch isn't scheduled until some time in 2006 and the trip would take some 9 years! Exciting as all that may be, what I really would like to see is a manned mission to Mars.
posted by dave at 11:28 AM

 
Clearly the web isn't the friendly environment we all would wish it to be. Pop-up ads are bad enough, but here's a real Horror Story - be careful out there.
posted by dave at 11:14 AM

 
Lori McLeese is an expatriate from San Francisco, currently teaching English in Daegu, Korea. I now look forward to daily additions to Her Journal, one of the more interesting blogs I've come across.
posted by dave at 12:20 PM

 
For some time now believers in the real ETs have been able to participate in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by donating their excess computer cycles to SETI@home. That's been a huge success in terms of interest, but so far lacking in positive results. Not so with Comet Searching, which has been extremely fruitful. Better yet, it's active participation - well, as active as sitting at one's PC hours on end can be ;-)
posted by dave at 11:03 AM

 
The APOD collection now has all four of the recent Hubble photographs available to view, and what a view it is! Worth more than one look, I copied each to my HD for later use as backgrounds for my desktop. Highly recommended: Photo1, Photo2, Photo3 and Photo4.
posted by dave at 10:31 AM

 
The optimist of the year award probably won't go to Warren Buffett. One can only hope that this Prediction is not nearly as prescient as his stock picking has been!
posted by dave at 10:16 AM

 

     Haiku For The Spring

      Heatwaves in the air--

  nameless insects

      fly whitely

                  Buson

posted by dave at 1:07 PM

 
A friend reminded me the other day (thank you, Mike) of a fascinating little site I had stumbled across some time ago and mentioned to several people. Here for any who may drop by is the opportunity to view the little Signature Doodles &c etched by chip designers on their creations. Too small to be seen by the naked eye, these are photomicrographs.
posted by dave at 10:43 AM

 
An absolute Must See is the HistoryWired presentation of exhibits at the National Museum of American History! It may seem overly busy at first, with threads connecting each of the "exhibit spaces" to a brief definition and choices for follow-up, but it quickly started to make sense and I loved it. When you visit a particular space you can cast a vote on its interest and the consensus will grow/shrink its relative size.

ps - I'm having problems getting this site to load properly with IE 6.0, but it works perfectly under Netscape 4.79 or 6.2. Any ideas as to why that might be so would be appreciated.
posted by dave at 9:39 AM

 
Good Grief !!! - this little Helicopter Game might become addictive if I weren't so abysmally bad at it. I refuse to say what my best score has been ;-)
posted by dave at 5:24 PM

 

  Haiku For The Spring

      The warbler

  sings his first note

      upside-down

               Kikaku

posted by dave at 2:59 PM

 
There has been such a high demand to see the stunning new Hubble Images the STScI servers can't currently support their zoom & pan feature - stay tuned to their site, it's worth the wait! In the interim, APOD has a beautiful view of the Earth & Two Moons.
posted by dave at 2:54 PM

 
An amazing example of well information can be presented on the web is this Art History Timeline being developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It currently has links spanning the time from 20,000 BC to 1400 AD, but more will be added.
posted by dave at 11:27 AM

 
This is a story about an interesting little Contest with a practical intent. There have been so many malicious attacks on networks and individual IP Addresses it seems good to encourage the skills it takes to unravel this stuff. The piece of code to be used was "captured" in a Honeypot. The rules and the binary to be examined can be found Here.
posted by dave at 11:06 AM

 

    A Taste of Omar (The Good One)

     The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

                  IV

Now the New Year reviving old Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,

  Where the White Hand of Moses on the

    Bough

Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

posted by dave at 5:02 PM

 
The quality of the available Flight Trackers seems to ebb and flow, but today this one did the trick. According to their info Nancy's flight left about an hour late, but should arrive in Tokyo on schedule.
Oops - I need to amend my praise: The listed tracker was unable to locate flight information for the second leg of the trip :-( I guess the best idea is to wade through the web site of the airline involved, arrival/departure should be in there somewhere.
posted by dave at 4:59 PM

 
Most of us don't require too much persuasion to agree that Hawaii would be a nice place to live, but here's a rather unusual fact: it's the only one of our states free of Rabid Bats. Well, considering what Ozzy Osbourne reportedly did to one of them (a bat that is) perhaps it's simply a case of turnabout is fair play ;-)
posted by dave at 1:33 PM

 
I don't know, is This Decision reasonable? Perhaps the "judge" should be force fed about 48 hours or so of non-stop TV commercials so we be be assured that he knows whereof he speaks ;-)
posted by dave at 1:14 PM

 
UH OH! - perhaps it's safer to use those Cell Phones in the confines of your own car after all. Well, on the train it might work as a way to keep your Coffee hot on that long commute to the office ;-)
posted by dave at 4:59 PM

 

    Haiku For The Spring

      Each plum blossom

  brings a single blossom's

      warmth

                      Basho

posted by dave at 2:37 PM

 
Do you know where your kid is tonight? Technology seems to have done a pretty good job of theft protection for our cars with Lojack, now you can opt to Track Your Children with this Orwellian usage of GPS Technology.
posted by dave at 10:20 AM

 
OK, please tell me what you think: is The World of Awe a waste of time and/or HD space, or it the Net's answer to Myst? It is rather neat looking, but quirky. I still haven't been able to get anything to work using IE 6.0, but finally the links lead somewhere using Netscape.
posted by dave at 8:47 AM

 
For once there's a new virus warning out that doesn't involve MS ;-) Interestingly enough, it concerns two things I really enjoy: Winamp & MP3s. Since I do use Winamp quite a bit, and do have more than my share of MP3 files, I went ahead and did the painless upgrade to Winamp 2.80.
posted by dave at 8:42 AM

 
Not exactly the Little Town of Bethlehem we used to sing about at Christmas time :-(
posted by dave at 5:10 PM

 

    Haiku For The Spring

      Plum tree blooming--

  but no other signs

      of spring

                       Rito

posted by dave at 1:33 PM

 
Ouch! - I don't think I care for this notion of protected Deep Links. Sounds a bit too much like yesterday's rant by the Turner (I believe) exec who claimed it was downright criminal to capture TV programs for offline viewing with TiVo and the like. Perhaps the news story itself is protected material, but the link to it doesn't seem to me to fall in the same category. Sure, it may bypass some unwanted advertising, but don't we all dodge that crap by any means possible? ;-)
posted by dave at 12:24 PM

 
Here's a view of the Hawaiian Islands that you haven't seen before, at least not from an airplane, and not too many of us will ever go up in the Space Shuttle ;-)
posted by dave at 12:07 PM

 
THERE SEEMS TO BE AN INCREASED NUMBER OF VIRUS ATTACKS MAKING THE ROUNDS VIA e-mail: Norton trapped one in my inbox last week and two very suspicious notes came in this morning. I'm checking the substance of notes on the mail server before downloading to my PC lately with EMail Remover. I thought the text in one was especially nasty:
"Klez.E is the most common world-wide spreading worm.It's very dangerous by corrupting your files. Because of its very smart stealth and anti-anti-virus technic,most common AV software can't detect or clean it. We developed this free immunity tool to defeat the malicious virus. You only need to run this tool once,and then Klez will never come into your PC. NOTE: Because this tool acts as a fake Klez to fool the real worm,some AV monitor maybe cry when you run it. If so,Ignore the warning and select 'continue'" (sic)
posted by dave at 11:23 AM