Category: Personal

Those darn scientists! “New memory device could offer smaller, simpler way to archive data.” Plastic, one gigabyte of information per cubic centimeter.

David Simon went from Baltimore beat writer to TV writer extraordinaire via his excellent 1991 book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. And yes, if that sounds like the name of one of the best TV shows ever, you’d be correct since the book was the source of the show. In fact, I had quite a few pleasant moments connecting stories in the book to specific episodes.

Simon got permission from the Baltimore PD brass to ride along with the city’s CID Homicide Division for the year of 1988 and did some wonderful things with that permission; his writing is fresh and insightful. The cops come across as real, flawed people, who make mistakes, drink too much and joke about happenings we’d find horrifying while the criminals mainly come across as foolish and/or stupid. Of course, Simon probably never got to meet the perps smart enough to evade the Murder Police so there is a bit of bias there.

One case, which Simon returns to throughout the course of the year, is that of a 12 year old girl who was raped and murdered, then left for dead in an alley behind some rowhouses in the worst part of the city. The case also formed the basis of a major story arc in the show’s first season though for dramatic purposes the show’s version had a more definitive resolution while in the book the young detective who’s primary on the case eventually realizes he won’t find the Answer. A very interesting comparison of fact to fiction, if you’ve seen it.

Absolutely recommended

“London police said on Wednesday there would be no special ‘exclusion zones’ for President Bush’s visit next week and he could easily come into contact with anti-war protesters.” So sad that GWB will have to leave his cushy cocoon of fantasy.

The flappers were dancing, the party was shaking, and my Dad was born. Seventy five years ago today, Richard Leon came into this life in Brooklyn, NY and his greatest achievement (me, sorry Jo) is happy to have had his love and guidance for a lifetime. Happy birthday, Dad, and I look forward to sharing many more with you!

Money does talk to some juries; the verdict is hard to explain otherwise.

Three years for eight minutes.

Vaxgen had hopes that, despite the failure of their American trials, AIDSVAX would be successful against the strain of AIDS prevalent in Thailand but today announced that the vaccine did not work there either. The stock is down substantially in response.

“KrView – the Kernrate Viewer – provides a visual representation of kernel/user mode CPU utilization based on Kernrate output.” Someone must find this useful but I really can’t imagine who…

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

Ooh, reversible computing, isn’t that cool?

Apparently, the corporation needs defending from those who might point out a certain lack of clothes. I agree with the author of the book review, rather than the authors of the book, and in fact I think that the 1880s Supreme Court decision giving corporations the legal status of persons is one of the worst decisions the court has ever made. Very few of the major ills afflicting our society today will be cured until that is changed in a substantive way.

Oh, it creeps closer every day, in little ways…

Someone should tell Quincy Carter that the Back Judge is not an eligible receiver.

Tempting to add this Cost of War counter to the site…

The CIA publicly confirms that North Korea now has The Bomb, Al Quaeda is strong enough to strike in the heart of Saudi Arabia, and Liverpool FC lost at home to Manchester United.

Windows XP “SP2 will include an update to IE that adds pop-up blocking,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews. Apparently will ship sometime in the first half of 2004.

So does sleep beckon to you

In the middle of an afternoon,

Waving arms, wriggling fingers?

Almost jumping up and down to

Get your attention when Sleep

Realizes that so much action

Would simply drive you away.

What it wants is your REM cycles,

Energy from your dreams powered

By all that tossing and turning.

When you do wake up, still

Tired and the aches embedded

Deeper in your shoulders, chalk

It up to the demands of Sleep.

Politics is a great spur to new words though I doubt many of these will end up in the OED.

What are DataKnobs?

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Though maybe if these Republicans would smoke a little pot, they’d relax enough to get the sticks out of their asses.