That was tasty water, baby, tasty water!
Month: December 2001
My Micro-advertising experiment, part 2
Last month I experimented with Pyra Labs’ Pyrads text advertising service on Blogger.com; while the results weren’t overwhelming they were a kick in the pants (that is, I was amused). Other folks have reported good results with Matt Haughey’s MetaFilter text ads, so I decided to give them a try. These are a little cheaper, 5,000 impressions for $10 versus 3,333 for $10 (although Pyra is running a sale on their’s just now). I hope PHPWebHosting is up to the coming flood<LOL>. Here’s what it looks like:
Steven explains why America isn’t signing treaties
A curious European fellow named Maurice wrote Steven (has it been a month since I linked to him?) and asked why Americans think Europeans are against them in the current struggle while the Europeans seem to feel it is the Americans who aren’t team players when it comes to many recent international agreements. Steven’s answer is simple and direct. The treaties in question–Kyoto and the international court of justice–violate the US Constitution. The President can’t sign such treaties without violating his oath of office and the same goes for Senate ratification should a president be foolish enough to sign. Excellent analysis.
James Morrow, writing in Reason, looks at a similar question from another perspective.
Seeking the others
Astronomer, cosmologist, and author Carl Sagan famuously calculated how many other intelligent life forms ought to exist in our universe and when the number turned out to be reasonably large, wondered where they all were. Now NASA has announced the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Cosmos as part of the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field right here in Mountain View. The Sagan Center will initially consist of three labs: genomics and microbiology, biosensors, and nanotechnology. “No honor would have meant more to Carl than this,” said Ann Druyan, his wife and collaborator for 20 years. Sagan dreamed “that we, as a civilization, would turn our genius to the deep questions of life in the cosmos.” This is cool!
Joel on strings, XML, and Shlemiel the painter
Joel Spolsky goes deep into the byte manipulation to show why XML will get beat by relational database technology every time there is a non-trivial anount of data involved. And Joel’s company has released their new content management product and you can get the Starter Edition for the downloading. Shlemiel the painter is an old European joke about a painter.
Loving the Internet for the fun free things
The good folks at ACME Laboratories have been providing free software and fun tools for a long time. One of their latest is the License Plate Generator, so of course I made my own:
Not to mention the Religion and Sexual Ethics chart, which compares seven major religions on their level of acceptance of 13 sexual practices, and the ACME Chocolate Registry, which is just what it sounds like.
College Football: Everybody runs screaming from Miami
What the heck is going on in college football the last few months? Is everyone scared of Miami? The way number two’s have been losing that’s what you’d think. Except for Colorado but the Buffaloes got screwed by the BCS. Well, my predictions went out the window with all the losses (thanks Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and BYU). Oregon’s coach and QB are screaming that they got ripped by the BCS as well but their lack of quality wins (hello, they lost to Stanford’s backup QB) belittles the bellyaching. So my picks ended up being a little off. Undeterred, here are my bowl picks:
- Rose Bowl: Miami over Nebraska by at least two touchdowns. If Colorado can beat them by four TDs, Miami should have no trouble finishing undefeated and taking the Sears/AFCA National Champion Football Trophy.
- Orange Bowl: Maryland has to be this year’s positive surprise but I think Rex Grossman has too much going with weapons like Ernest Graham and Jabar Gaffney against Maryland’s no-name everything team. Grossman and Gaffney are sophomores and Graham a junior, they are likely to see this as setting the table for another national title run next year. Florida recovers from Tennessee in front of what is sure to be a partisan crowd and wins by at least 10.
- Sugar Bowl: Illinois over LSU. The Tigers are playing a home game here but Illinois wants respect, they’re the Big Ten champs and no one has them in the Who Plays Miami controversy, and LSU has gone much further than anyone expected. Illinois wins by less than a touchdown but both teams score between 26 and 39 points.
- Fiesta: Colorado over Oregon. Buffalo offense keeps Duck defense on the field all day. Colorado wins by a lot of points. ‘Nuff said.
BST Update: Stock page
With time on my hands, I added the Selected Stock Quotes page to BillSaysThis. Based on code from Christopher Heschong’s Pecos content management framework, the page shows several bits of information for an assortment of stocks as well as linking to the relevant Yahoo! Finance page. The exercise did give me a little bit more insight into PHP’s array handling mechanism as well. If there’s a stock you’d like to see added to the list, just let me know.
Happy Chanukah, everybody
Celebrate the Festival of Lights!
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS: Myths and Realities
In a major essay, David Matas examines and refutes 21 anti-Israeli criticisms perpetuated by Palestinians and their supporters. Matas is a lawyer and senior legal counsel to B’nai Brith Canada and wrote this in advance of the recent (Aug. 31) UN conference against racism; the outome of that conference could have been much worse but fortunately the US and other countries were able to prevent the ridiculous wording. In brief, he discusses and demolishes the criticisms that Zionism is racism and that Palestinians have a right of return or entry to Israel, supported by international law and convention. Key quote:
“The solution to the problem of statelessness of Palestinian refugees is the grant of nationality by the states in whose territories Palestinians have been born. It is the failure of these Arab states to grant nationality to Palestinians, as well as the failure to reach a peace agreement that would establish a Palestinian state, which created the problem of statelessness for the Palestinians, and not the existence of the State of Israel.”
I’ve never understood why over 50 years later, the Arab ‘host’ countries force most of the Palestinians to live in refugee camps. I highly recommend you at least thoroughly scan this essay for yourself.
Update: After passing this on to a few family members and friends, I received an email with a few interesting questions and perhaps posting them here, with my answers, will be useful:
> Is Zionism just the belief in the need for a Jewish state?
More or less. Zionism was a movement that began in Europe in the late 19th century as some Jews gained a measure of freedom, both economic and political, in the then-more liberal climate.
> Were other places considered besides the area that is now Israel?
I believe there was some debate in the early days but the activists felt that Palestine, the historical land of the Jews, was most appropriate as the land promised to Jews by God thousands of years before. Not to mention the only place where there ever had been a Jewish state.
> After WWII, did Zionists consider taking a chunk of German as reparation?
Zionism, as mentioned, pre-dates WWII.
> Does Judaism include a belief that the Jews are God’s chosen people?
It says so in the Torah.
49ers: Good but not great yet
In the SJ Mercury News this morning, columnists Mark Purdy and Skip Bayless take opposing sides on whether or not the 49ers could beat the St. Louis Rams today (note that links will almost surely evaporate in seven days). With 2:52 left in the fourth quarter, San Francisco has the ball on the St. Louis side of the field but is losing 27-14 and seems headed for a loss. Looking back at the two columns, I feel they were both wrong; something was physically wrong with QB Jeff Garcia today, his throws were just a little off all game. And holding the Rams to 27 points should have been a good enough performance on defense, with the 49ers averaging 28 points a game this year (and scoring 26 against the Rams earlier this season). Will they meet again in the NFC championship game? With the Bears losing to the Packers today, seems like a possibility. Check back in January.
Economics of the future
Economics has historically been the study of allocation of scarce resources. But some scientists and philosphers have been arguing for the past few decades that technological and political developments have moved humanity passed scarcity and into an age of abundance; people are starving in Africa now because we can’t get food to them, not because the food can’t be produced. Back in 1983, G, Harry Stine (writing under the nom de plume of Lee Corry) published Manna, a novel which took this change as its inspiration. I wish the book was not out of print, I’d love to re-read it in light of the last 18 years.
In an interview in reason, economist Paul Romer, one of the most important thinkers of recent years, explains the New Growth Theory, one of the first attempts to transform eonomics to deal with the new reality. One question cuts to the heart of his proposition: why has such substantial economic growth occured in the past two centruies and not in, say, ancient Rome or Ming China? Romer says that the institutions (universities and corporations) and political systems (freedom and capitalism) of today give the economy the ability to operate on a different basis, especially freedom. A very interesting read, recommended
Goodbye: George Young
One of the great football executives died today after a short illness. George Young brought a semblance of peace to the feuding Mara family immediately after being named general manager of the Giants and then brought championships to a team that spent the ’60s and ’70s in the cellar by drafting Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor and hiring Bill Parcells as coach. I remember spending many Augusts and Septembers debating the personnel choices he and Parcells made but in the end they delivered playoff wins and two Super Bowls. He was quiet and never looked for the spotlight. leaving that to his coaches, but he knew the game and how to win. AP sportswriter Stephen Hawkins has a nice remembrance as well. Thanks for the memories George, I hope your lifting a brew with your dad in his new tavern in the hearafter.
Tonight’s movie: Legally Blonde
Sporting an amazing 40 different hair styles, Reese Witherspoon takes a sweet, silly ride through an adventure in love in Legally Blonde. If you don’t look close enough, the film looks like another college-targeted romantic comedy but it really is a satire of those films. Director Robert Luketic (yea, who’s he? The only prior credit is having written and directed something in Australia called Titsiana Booberini) pushes way past the bounds of reality early and often, although that might be more attributed to writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith (they previously co-wrote 10 Things I Hate About You) or novelist Amanda Brown. One dissapointment was the relationship between Witherspoon and Luke Wilson; they never get a chance to go anywhere with it so the director needs to use those goofy end of flick where they go captions to wrap it up. Victor Garber, who’s popping up a lot these days, has a nice, decently developed role as her professor/mentor.
ATT not the only idiots @Home
Now that more information is coming to light on the recent death of Excite@Home, it turns out that ATT Broadband managers are not the only ones who fucked up. The creditors are looking like idiots too. They pushed ATT so hard during negotiations for the highspeed network that ATT walked away from the deal and the creditors were left with their dicks in their hands since no other company was interested in bidding. Now the network will shut down in a few months and the creditors are out the $400 million ATT was offering to pay. ATT still deserve to be smacked around for the way they handled the situaiton and left customers out in the cold but the creitors will have a hard time explaining this outcome to their investors. At least I’m (mostly) back online now.
LotR teaser: Liv Tyler, Christopher Tolkien
Tell me that Liv Tyler isn’t gorgeous in this shot as Arwen. On the other hand, JRR Tolien’s son Christopher
says dad would not have approved of the films. “My own position is that ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form,” he said. Screw that, I’ve seen the trailer and I can’t wait!
As the worm turns: HP/CPQ deal going down
In a new blow to Carly Fiorina and her absurd plan, the Packard Foundation today voted to oppose the merger between Hewlett Packard and Compaq just weeks after the sons of Hewlett and Packard announced their decision to vote no. This means that a block of 18% of HP stock is now against the plan and one has to think the opposition will strongly influence some big institutional holders. With any luck, even though the companies said they still expect the merger to go through, it will go down like a dog and Fiorina will run screaming into the night. This merger makes little sense from a revenue perspective and even less viewed through the HP Way.
Real temptation
Over coffee this morning we were discussing a friend’s Tivo-ized speed viewing of Temptation Island 2 when an idea occured to me: why don’t the producers try some real temptation on the next installment of this reality show? The first two installments have featured young and sexy couples tempted by young and sexy singles. The intensity, I expect, comes more from the fact that the couples are relatively immature and not from the contrast with the home cooking. Next time out, the producers should use somewhat older couples, say mid-30s to mid-40s, but retain the early- to mid-20s tempter age range. Maybe even pick a couple or two that are less than perfect physical specimens. That would be different and provide an entirely different kind of temptation.
Linking to copyright assholes: Don’t do it
What’s a copyright asshole, you ask? A person or group that runs a site that belives that copyright law allows them to republish, without paying any fee, material from another site. Sites like Common Dreams and Global Free Press, to which I won’t link because that only supports their assholeness. Secondary are sites like Paul Andrew’s Hypodermia and garret vreeland’s dangerousmeta which support these assholes by linking to them instead of taking a few moments to find the original, copyrighted posting. The asshole sites argue that they are providing an educational service by reposting the articles but I say they are just too lazy to do what I and many other people do: write short summaries commenting on some article and linking to it inside that commentary.
Update: garret has posted a response, saying that he would generally prefer to link to the original source but on occasion time or other circumstances cause him to not do this; he does agree with me that summaries with links would be better ways for those sites to educate their readers. I find garret’s answer to much towards the slippery slope to agree with though. (Note that due to the style of his weblog (which I love), garret does not provide permalinks for each entry but only for each day so you may need to scroll down a bit to see his answer.)
CNet: Just another hype-based news outlet
CNet reports on the announcement by AOL Time Warner that CEO Gerald Levin is retiring and will be replaced by co-COO Richard Parsons. Unfortunately, I see they are trying to make something significant out of this announcement where there really is none and it’s just sad. “Richard Parsons’ ascension to the chief executive throne of AOL Time Warner shows how fast and hard the fortunes of the new-media revolution have fallen.” Yeah and let’s look a little closer. First, three facts:
Second, I’ll bet real money that the AOL-Time Warner merger deal included a provision for this order of succession both to keep Parsons happy and onboard and also to reassure other TW managers that they had a future with the new company. Third, the CNet analysis completely ignores the fact that Steve Case is still chairman and Pittman has all the ops reporting to him. The article mentions that industry pundits expected AOL to “clean house” after the merger but they were too quick to forget that Pittman used to be an important Time Warner executive before joining AOL and has strong connections there. Conclusion: CNet, ease back on the hype!
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