Category: Personal

Yay, SharpReader has ATOM support.

John Robb points to an interesting perspective from Jeff Jarvis on why Howard Stern was really removed from those Clear Channel radio stations: the Bushies (and Clear Channel’s leadership is clearly part of that team) wanted payback from Stern after he decided Bush isn’t fit for re-election this Fall. The shock jock has enough clout to swing some tens of thousands of votes, which is more than enough to matter if we end up anywhere close to a repeat of the 2000 voting results.

This is yet another prime example of the creeping, step by step effort by the Bushies to control government now and into the future. Looking at that sentence even I feel the paranoia rising like a bad stink but damn if the whole concept of paranoia didn’t come about because this shit actually does happen from time to time. I’m not saying that Karl Rove has a team of people working in a basement office at the EOB plotting every move but they are always looking for opportunity to advance their case, and Stern, via his call with Paris Hilton’s stud, gave them what looked like just enough rope.

This is bad.

I want you to feel okay

I want you to still have the love in your heart

That you told me was beating there

When we were holding hands back at the start.

Don’t listen to the words

Coming from the people and the air

Finding their way to you so fast and free

That hurts even though you know you care.

Love, love, love will come to you

Someday you’ll find the man to match

Your eyes will lock onto each other and

You’ll spend your lives together

You may feel that right now your feet are

Wandering through dank caverns aimlessly

One foot, two feet, dripping water behind you

Every drop rebounds so hard and fatefully.

We spent days and nights together liquidly

Surrounded by people trying to tear

A hole in the gathering but not alone nor

Only we two were finding some way to share.

You offered your heart freely and I wanted

Badly to agree but it just wasn’t within me

I couldn’t find the same sentimental pressure

Inside myself and now I must let you be.

“To put this in context: an attosecond is to a second what a second is to about 300 million years.”

The Daily Show take on gay marriage rights, hilarious. Maddox on a woman’s fart

I was the co-facilitator at a ProMatch class today, my first time, and although I had very positive feedback for the portion of the class where I pretended to teach, it was not as pleasant an experience as, say, sitting in the stands at an Earthquakes match. For those of you know me and my aversion to sitting in the same building as thousands of other humans should realize that I choose this comparison intentionally.

To a degree, I walked into this because originally the facilitator had no plans to turn over a segment of the class to me and was only going to use me as scribe. But during the break I gave him some ‘constructive feedback’ (which he did request from the class just before the recess) and possibly he was not 100% thrilled with this. At least, he immediately afterwards made the change in plans.

Stage fright is a terrible thing and some people get it so bad there’s no chance of them standing in front of a class but my level is much milder. Mainly I seem to speak to the class but inside am wondering what I’ll say next or who I should call on when I’ve finished the sentence; an odd sort of multi-tasking, with some internal anxiety-driven shaking thrown in. Next Tuesday I get the pleasure all over again though with a different class.

In the town where I was born there lived a man who sailed the seas. However, he did it in a large sailboat and not a submarine and it was mainly white with a touch of teak and brass, though the main sail featured many bright colors and drawings over the years.

The text of GWB’s remarks yesterday regarding marriage freedom shows a littering of strawman arguments and no underlying rationale for his position other than tradition. If the Republicans had to steal the last election, couldn’t they have at least put someone in office with enough brainpower to pull off the acting job?

My friend (and ex-boss) Jim has twin sons who just turned two earlier this month, while Jim himself just changed decades last week, and he stopped by this afternoon for a visit. Let’s just say his warning that Liam and Brendan are like little tornados was spot on, though they are both lovely and wonderful and better behaved than their dad gives them credit for. I snapped a few shots but here is the best of all three together:

Ooh, a new (to me) digital photography webzine!

In an (admittedly scientifically invalid) poll, Soccernet readers are voting 83% in favor of LFC manager Gerard Houllier’s dismissal. After recent events like the inability to score against bottom dweller in the FA Cup defeat Sunday and sitting 26 points behind EPL leaders Arsenal with the season 60% done, I’m going to agree with the majority. I also get the feeling that Chelsea headman Claudio Ranieri will face the same fate come the end of the season–I saw his team’s match against Arsenal Saturday and, regardless of a first minute score, the Blues were totally dominated.

Perhaps blackmail attempts will be the final straw that causes the right people to figure out how to implement meaningful web security. Then again, perhaps not.

Another blogger named Lazar found while searching Scoble’s latest blogroll.

“Common Good has begun what it plans to make an annual event by announcing the top five ridiculous lawsuits of 2003.” I cannot argue with the incredibly poor judgment shown by the courts in each suit nor with CG’s objective. [via jennett.radio]

Speaking of strange legal developments, Norma McCorvey (the Roe of Roe V. Wade) has filed suit to overturn the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision making abortion legal in this country. The federal trial court judge sensibly dismissed the case as not meeting the timeliness requirements for such pleadings but the apellate court is apparently not so sure and will hear an appeal in a couple of weeks. Making the situation really odd is that the Dallas District Attorney (the successor to the ‘Wade’ of the original case) has decided that, because the law on which the originating case was based is no longer on the books, he has no need or duty to respond and therefore has filed no papers with the Court of Appeals. McCorvey, by the way, no longer believes abortion is a good idea.

Happy Big 4-0 to the Whumpster

Wireless USB seems very cool and I hope it will show up in products very soon. Based on ultra-wideband radio, the first version will run at 480 MB/second at distances up to 10 meters. So not a one:one replacement for 802.11 but easily able to support home networks that span TVs and stereos in addition to PCs and printers. Yowsa!

[via Slashdot, where the commentary is not as excited…]

In the bad days, which in Australia meants before 1970, the Australian government dealt with the Aboriginal population in ways analagous to how Americans treated Native Americans. That is, they were not considered fully human nor really capable of caring for themselves and making proper choices in life. I’m sure the previous sentences are an extreme understatement but from my understanding, one cannot deny that both are shameful situations which fortunately have changed in both countries.

Rabbit-Proof Fence deals with one aspect of how Aboriginal folks were denied freedom. Another historical artifact of the post-World War I period Down Under was the construction of a huge fence in the Western part of the country that stretched coast to coast from north to south to keep some nasty, voracious rabbits out of ranching lands, hence the name of this movie, which is set in 1931.

Three young half Aboriginal/half white girls, ages 8, 10 and 14, two sisters and a cousin whose fathers were white men working on the fence, are unceremoniously removed from their mothers’ care and shipped over a thousand miles away to a school so they can be trained for a life of servitude to whites and married off to whites to, in two generations, eliminate any traces of Aboriginal blood. Or so thinks A.O. Neville (played well by Kenneth Branaugh), government minister and protector of the less-than-people. But the girls are not willing to accept this future and quickly escape; the bulk of the film is their travel, on foot, with no money and barely any concept of the route home.

Director Phillip Noyce, an Australian better known for such big Hollywood films as Clear and Present Danger, Sliver and The Bone Collector, took a big chance and used his clout to make an undoubtedly important film, based on a true story as put down by the oldest girl’s granddaughter. Now “based on a true story” is often the kiss of death for a movie but not in this instance. Noyce and screenwriter Christine Olsen did a superb job using striking visuals of the spare Aussie landscape, very little dialog (much in the girls’ language, with English subtitles) and amazing body language brought out from the girls.

Adding to the film is a spare, emotional score by Peter Gabriel, which employs native instruments and melodies. Christopher Doyle did an excellent job of cinematography.

definitely recommended

I quote exactly for your entertainment:

Hi William,

Don’t know if you ended up with any Google stock out of the deal where Pyra sold to Google. I am actively working to buy stock from current and former Google employees.

We have a legal contract authored by one of the lead legal firms in Palo Alto.

It allows us to pay you now for stock which would get transferred to us after a liquidity event occurs. In addition the agreement allows you to participate on the upside of the stocks appreciation after an IPO.

If you are interested in getting money now for your stock, please contact me.

To save the author embarrasment and me any potential harassment I will leave the writer’s name and info off this post. However, I cannot imagine anyone stupid enough to take a deal like this unless they are desparate for money (for which there are probably better solutions) or the offer is a lot higher than I can imagine it is.

Buddy Rich, drum god

RoboSapien, ’nuff said.