This is something I would have liked to do if 1) I had the time, and 2) had enough knowledge/experience to get it done quickly in order to minimize the importance of #1. Alas, I have neither, and these guys beat me to it: they put a mobile phone inside a rotary telephone to make a portable rotary phone. So nice.

Until recently, I hadn't really considered similarities/differences between democracy and communism. And more specifically, democracy as it exists in the United States. We probably talked about this stuff in high school government class, but like much of my public education, I have only retained the things I was interested in learning. Everything else was erased 4 minutes after the last exam. I think most people are like that, which is why I think public education is a waste of time.

But I read something a few months back claiming U.S. life is a lot closer to communism than we'd like to admit. So I dug up Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to find his 10 characteristics of a communist society.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Many of these describe exactly life in the U.S. Namely, free public education, a heavy progressive income tax (thanks IRS), a centralized bank run by the state, government run transportation, cultivation of waste lands, industrial armies, and gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by population distribution.

The older I get, the more cynical I am of our government and large corporations. Together, they exert far more power than most citizen bodies, and they're more or less at the helm of our country. That's not to say individuals don't make a difference: they do. But when they do, it's almost always a reactive step in response to something the government and/or corporations did. But it's rarely the other way aroound. We generally don't see individuals initiating something in a purely non-reactive manner.

Anyway, it puts things in a different perspective to realize that our country is so easily described by Marx's top 10.

When telemarketers call you, use the Anti-telemarketing counterscript to turn the tables.

Found this at NPR a while back, still haven't listened to it. Seems pretty interesting though. Malcom Gladwell talks about some of this stuff (and a whole lot else) in Blink, so I'm curious to learn more.

Psychologists have identified four key problems that lead to divorce: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. And the worst of these? Contempt for a partner. But identifying the root cause of a problem in a marriage is only half the battle.

'The Four Horsemen': Why Marriages Fail

This is easily one of the most entertaining product reviews I've ever seen. The guys at Ars Technica got an iPod Nano back in September, and put it through the harshest of conditions, including, but not limited to, driving over the Nano in a car and throwing it out the window while driving 50 mph. Eventually, they did manage to kill the Nano, but it took an enormous beating to get there. The final blow was throwing it 40 feet into the air, landing in a parking lot. This would be equivalent to dropping it from a 3rd or 4th story building. And that's after driving over it in a car and doing a bunch more horrible stuff.

Bottom line: the iPod Nano is nearly indestructible.

Ars Technica review: iPod nano

I keep meaning to post this. I've heard Rob Balon on 590 am several times, but always forget to check his site for new places to eat out. Dining Out with Rob Balon has reviews of restaurants all over the Austin area.

A website with nothing but pictures of cats in sinks.

the freshest, most mundane details from Starbucks at Far West and Hart Lane

at 3:12 pm, there are more employees than customers. right now, it's 4 to 2.

it's another rough, Texas winter day: clear, sunny skies, 74 degrees...

man, there's just nothing happening here today. totally dead in here. a lady came in and browsed the christmas sale stuff. then she bought some of it.

i said it was super dead in here, especially for a friday, and one of the girls said, "yeah, maybe it's because we smell". i told her about the libraries in Dallas banning smelly people. she said that was discrimination.

goddamn that's a hairy guy. and he's wearing super short running shorts to show off his hairiness. "see how much hair i have?", he seems to say.

4:06 pm: ok things are finally starting to pick up. a guy came in and asked for a phone book. he is now looking through the phone book. he looks serious. he's using his finger to point things out to himself in the phonebook.

it seems like the people who come to this starbucks are a lot older than the people who go to the Anderson/Rockwood location. much more gray hair coming and going.

As usual, when Pamela covers a story at Groklaw, it's extremely informative. She included specific details on the terms of the proposed settlement.

A Proposed Settlement in NY Class Action Sony Litigation

Starting in February, public libraries in Dallas can ban people who smell bad. They can also ban people for sleeping, eating, loud talking, fighting, bare feet, sex and washing. Is it a person's right to smell bad if they wish? Is it discriminatory to restrict public services (like libraries) due to excessive smell? Is this really such a big problem that they had to make a law about it?

Dallas bad smell ban sparks row

the freshest, most mundane details from Starbucks at Rockwood and Anderson Lane.

(I actually wrote this on Tuesday, but didn't post it until today.)

lady nearby seems pretty hip, maybe early 40's?, using a fancy PowerBook, cool little flip phone, stylish eye glasses. in stark contrast to all this hipness: wearing a bright red sweater with "bashful" the reindeer on it. wow.

two high-school girls, hanging out in the high-back comfy chairs. both of them so slumped down in their chairs that they're resting almost entirely on their backs, not the typical behind area that most people use for sitting.

lady arrived on a bike, came inside, got a coffee, went back outside to sit with her bike. she won't take her helmet off. it's been on for more than 30 minutes. sitting, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, still wearing helmet. does she know it's okay to remove the helmet when not in motion?

1:44 pm - the old dancing man is here for his afternoon coffee. i've seen this guy pretty regularly, but never kept track of his arrival time. i call him the dancing man because he kinda bounces and jumps as he walks. he's gotta be 80 or older. i hope i have as much energy when i'm his age.

2:01 pm - the dancing man departs, crossing Rockwood first, then Anderson Lane to head south on Rockwood.

a blind lady just bumped into me a few times, feeling her way around to find an empty table. she was nice about it, eventually found an empty table and sat down. oh wow, she has a blind friend. he just bumped into me, too. they both have walking sticks. the blind leading the blind!

3:28 the blind just led the blind out of Starbucks.

perhaps the change in temperature was caused by a shift change. the cooler employees have been replaced by warmer ones who crank the freaking a/c.

Sony has reached a settlement in a New York class action lawsuit regarding their awful DRM blunder. As part of the settlement, Sony will compensate those who purchased infected CDs and fix their computers (that's gonna be fun). Also, Sony has made 200 albums downloadable as a possible compensation, and Sony must make the albums available on iTunes Music Store.

Sony 'rootkit' settlement clamps down on DRM

Here is my review of King Kong:

THIS MOVIE F***ING BLOWS

To say a little more...

This film is proof that Peter Jackson is extremely boring, because this piece of crap dragged on way past the point of entertainment. It could have ended at 1h30m and been somewhat alright (not great, but not bad either). But it was twice as long as it should have been. THREE HOURS LONG. (Plus time to drive to/from the theater. Plus standing in line to buy tickets. Plus arriving early to get a seat. The overall experience is easily 4 hours roundtrip.)

Do you have 4 hours sitting around, waiting to be flushed down the toilet for a crap film? Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

In all seriousness, I would have enjoyed watching anything else over this. It would have been more rewarding to watch Spanish soap operas, or Home Shopping Network, or even 4 hours of The Weather Channel. But not this.

Boring, boring, boring.

And for what? So we can sit through a bajillion dramatic close-ups of a computer-generated gorilla. Shit. There is easily 10 minutes of footage where we're looking straight up that damn gorilla's nose. Did I need to see any of that? Hell no. Did it add anything to the storyline? Hell no. Is Peter Jackson obsessed with being boring and dull? You bet he is.

I repeat, do NOT see this movie.

Bush Presidential Library Destroyed By Flood
Crawford, Texas - December 24, 2005

A tragic flood this morning destroyed the personal library of President
George W. Bush.

The flood began in the presidential bathroom where both books were kept.
Both books have been lost.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "The president
is devastated. He had almost finished coloring the second one."

The White House tried to call FEMA, but there was no answer.

Random observation about usage for the words rejected, dejected, and ejected.

• Something that has been rejected is called a "reject"
• Something that has been ejected is not called an "eject", but is described as "the thing that has been ejected"
• One who is dejected is not a deject, but is described as "one who is dejected"

Wouldn't it be simpler if we called dejected and ejected people and things "dejects" and "ejects", just as we call rejected things "rejects"? Much more concise and simple.

Yikes. This review (In Spielberg's 'Munich,' the thriller is gone) calls Munich a "thoroughly lifeless movie". I haven't seen it, but with that kind of description I can't say I'm excited about seeing it.

From this article: Wal-Mart is labelled 'bad for US'

Retail giant Wal-Mart is "bad for America", according to a poll carried out on behalf of a group campaigning against the store.

The poll, conducted by Zogby for a union-led group called WakeUpWalMart, asked 1,012 people across the US about their attitudes to Wal-Mart.

Of the respondents, 59% said they agreed with the statement that "Wal-Mart is bad for America".

Read the rest of the article

From any mobile phone in the United States or UK, you can use Google to do simple language translation, as well as currency conversion.

By sending a text message to 46645 in the US, or 64664 in the UK (GOOGL or 6GOOG, respectively), you can translate a word or simple phrase into French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish - to or from English.

Just enter 'translate' or 't' followed by a word or expression, and the languages to and from which you want it translated (e.g., 't gas station from english to german').

To convert from one currency to another, simply enter the conversion you'd like completed (e.g., '3.5 USD in GBP').

Doubts on Tamiflu as four patients die

Fresh doubts have been cast on the efficacy of Tamiflu as a bird flu treatment, as one of the world's most prestigious medical journals published new reports of resistance to the drug and deaths in patients in Vietnam.

Menno de Jong and colleagues at the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City have recorded in the New England Journal of Medicine that four of eight patients suffering from the H5N1 flu strain and treated with Tamiflu had died, including two who developed resistance.

From this slashdot post: Sony DRM Installed Even When EULA Declined

Imagine if you order a box of catfood to be delivered that's worth about $10. And then the next day a crowd of 15 attorneys in suits arrive at your door with a 20 page contract, and the box. They won't give you the catfood until you agree to their "license." You can either call your own attorneys, if you have any, and spend several weeks evaluating their contract at the cost of several thousand dollars of your own money, or, they say, you can simply agree to the contract by blinking your eyes.

It turns out that there were worms in the catfood and now your cat is incredibly sick. Amazingly, the attorneys did this on purpose. If you take her to the vet, it will cost you hundreds of dollars to cure her. You don't remember blinking, but they swear you did.

The government has sent an angry letter to the catfood guys, but no one looks like they have any intention of paying your vet bill - or even sending your cat a get well card.

In response to the government, the catfood people announce they've "solved" the problem, because they've agreed to temporarily stop shipping worms in catfood. However, they're still shipping spiders, ants, and leeches - and they have "big plans" to expand the practice.

You don't know exactly how long your cat has left to live, but after watching all this, you get the feeling its days are numbered one way or another.

I just discovered BubbleShare, an online photo album sharing service. It is unbelievably simple to use, yet it includes great features. For Mac users, they've got an iPhoto plug-in that lets you click to export an album to BubbleShare. I spent about 4 seconds getting the export to work. They're still in beta, but it's immediately usable and extremely cool. This app is gonna spread like wildfire.

Intelligent design supporters and opponents alike should be happy that intelligent design has been banned from classrooms as of today ('Intelligent design' teaching ban).

Here's why: even though ID proponents argue that they're not teaching creationism, they are in fact teaching a modified, updated, more current version of creationism. This is not an opinion, it is not subjective: if any topic is discussed in relation to God, it implies a certain amount of religious context. In biology, these discussions of intelligent design are about God helping out with evolution. The issue has nothing to do with whether you believe in God. Nobody has said "God doesn't exist", nothing of the sort. We merely have to recognize and accept that the topic has touched religious ground.

It should be a red flag as soon as any school topic discusses religion. Why? The United States Constitution says we should keep the church and state separate. That means religion should be taught in churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship. Not in a school. That's all.

This entire issue has been one of protecting and upholding our constitution, and has very little to do with religion at all (other than to say it should be kept separate from the state).

The ruling judge, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, said in his ruling:

"It is ironic," Jones said, "that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the I.D. Policy."

Broadband over power lines is coming to Texas, starting with about 2 million residents in north Texas.

Texas to get broadband over its power lines

Wow. This guy must really love working with Christmas lights. (And having no friends?) He posted full instructions here.

Watch the movie

Info from Snopes:

This display was the work of Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio, electrical engineer who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in his annual holiday lighting spectacular (from Christmas 2004). His 2005 display includes over 25,000 lights that he spent nearly two months hooking up. So that the Williams' neighbors aren't disturbed by constant noise, viewers driving by the house are informed by signs to tune in to a signal broadcast over a low-power FM radio station to hear the musical accompaniment.

I've been working at Starbucks most of the day, and something happened that's an absolute first for me.

A guy walked up to me, talking like he knew who I was. I had my headphones on, jamming to Any Given Thursday, so right off the bat I'm annoyed to have to pause it. I mean seriously, who wants to have their music interupted? Not me!

So this guy starts rambling about how I look like a guy who works at the auto parts store, and can I help him. I'm like, "dude, I do not work at an auto parts store, I don't know what to tell you." After a while he accepts that I'm not the auto parts guy, but then he asks me to help him call them on the phone. So he digs through his pockets looking for the phone number, empyting everything on the table in front of me. He puts three quarters on my notepad, asks me to call the auto parts store to see if they have his flange, but he couldn't find their phone number. Man, there was all kinds of random stuff in his pockets, including fistfuls of peppermint candies (literally, he must have emptied one of those baskets that sits at the cash register at a restaurant). So he's got peppermint candies everywhere, some other random stuff, and then he pulls out a freaking used hypodermic needle and says, "whoa, I should have thrown that away", but then puts it back in his pocket! He keeps talking to me about needing to call the auto parts store, but still can't find the phone number. Then he rambles about how unfair it is that they expect you to see a mile and half without glasses (?), and how they want you to run around everywhere (?). Then he abruptly stops talking, runs over to another guy, then a minute later he bolts out the door. Over the next 20 minutes, he comes and goes several times, then he starts talking to other people nearby. He was still talking to them when I packed up and left.

I swear, I am not making any of this up. I almost took a picture of him with my camera phone, but I thought he might freak out. I really wanted a photo of his hands full of peppermint candies.

Damian Kulash is not the first person to say that music copy protection software is a bad thing. The recent blow-up of Sony BMG's copy protection software (that exposes your personal computer to serious security threats and viruses) highlights this. But the record companies have tried to prevent CD copying for years. The argument is that digital file-sharing ruins the CD market, and everyone involved (artists, record company, music stores, etc.) all lose money.

It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.

So what's different about Damian? It's this: he's the lead singer for Ok Go, famous for the video A Million Ways. He's not an industry analyst, or music critic, or a random guy. He's a musician whose livelihood depends on the success of his band.

He understands that the first step is buying an album, then you listen to it a whole lot, then you like it so much that you share it with your pals, who may or may not buy their own copy. But if you throw copy protection software in there, it breaks the 2nd step: you might not be able to listen to it yourself, or maybe not in the manner you like (for instance, on your computer, or even on a regular CD player). So you miss out on getting traction with the first listener, and never even make it to the second listener.

Read Damian's entire article here: Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat

Polar bears normally swim across the open sea between ice floes in order to find food. With global temperatures on the rise and pack ice receding, more bears are being forced into long-distance swimming. While the bears are adapted to open ocean swimming, it appears the required distances are increasing faster than their distance capabilities. So a bunch of them are drowning before they make it onto solid ground, and the drowning rate is increasing. Sad news for polar bears.

From Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts:

Scientists have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.

The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.

Although polar bears are strong swimmers, they are adapted for swimming close to the shore. Their sea journeys leave them them vulnerable to exhaustion, hypothermia or being swamped by waves.

According to the new research, four bear carcases were found floating in one month in a single patch of sea off the north coast of Alaska, where average summer temperatures have increased by 2-3C degrees since 1950s.

The scientists believe such drownings are becoming widespread across the Arctic, an inevitable consequence of the doubling in the past 20 years of the proportion of polar bears having to swim in open seas.

....

Read the rest of the article here

This is a fun movie that I hadn't seen in a long time. After Saturday Night Live, Mike Myers got into movies with Wayne's World in 1992 and then Axe Murderer. You never know if it will still be entertaining 12 years after you first saw it, but I think So I Married An Axe Murderer held up pretty well. Alan Arkin was hilarious, even though his screen time wasn't more than a few minutes.

Good news for the city of Austin.

The mayor, city council members, a bunch of other elected officials, and people from various associations are all working together to ramp up downtown Austin. (City of Austin to begin downtown planning process)

And the economy for the Austin area is set to grow at a rate of 4.58% over the next 5 years. This data says the Austin metro area will be the fastest growing area in the entire state of Texas. (Austin economy forecast to be better in 2006)

1000 lines
collaborate artwork
weird drawings
swarmsketch.com

The Weekly Radio Address has an RSS feed for their podcasts. Funny stuff.

Click to enlarge

Kraftwerk is one of my all-time favorite bands, and it's awesome that they're still going strong. They've got videos posted on their website: Numbers, The Robots, and The Model. More media options available here.

They recently released Minimum-Maximum, a 2-disc CD which is absolutely super. The entire album is great, but I tend to listen to the 2nd disc a lot more than the 1st. Definitely part of my regular rotation.

Tonight I looked on www.astralwerks.com and saw an update from December 6, 2005. Apparently there's a 2-disc DVD out, and while I couldn't find it on astralwerks' own site for purchase, Amazon has it for less than $20. This is the first official production of a live Kraftwerk show ever. Plus, it's probably the closest most of us will get to seeing Kraftwerk perform live. They still tour pretty regularly (and all over the world, too), but they only hit the biggest cities, and usually only for a few shows.

A hospital in Switzerland says it will allow assisted suicide on its premises for terminally ill patients. From the start of next year terminally ill patients in Lausanne's main hospital will be allowed to take their own lives on hospital premises, as long as they are of sound mind, are already too ill to return home, and have expressed a persistent wish to die.

Swiss hospital to allow suicide

Things appear to be progressing with the Lance Armstrong life story movie. The rumor mill says Lance will be portrayed by Matt Damon and the film will be directed by Frank Marshall. Surely there must be some people here in Austin who can share their stories of inspiration. I've got a few, but they're just fun or gossipy, certainly not the kind of thing anyone would want to include in a movie.

From http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/lancearmstrongproject/:

Columbia Pictures and Lance Armstrong are teaming up to bring Lance's life-story of perseverance, courage, and survival to the screen. Lance Armstrong has inspired millions to push beyond physical barriers, fight against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and face fear and suffering with determination and hard work.

Click here for full details.

Dell just announced a recall of laptop batteries for the following models:

• Latitude(tm) D410, D505, D510, D600, D610, D800, D810
• Inspiron(tm) 510M, 600M, 6000, 8600, 9200, 9300, XPS Gen 2
• Dell Precision(tm) M20 and M70 mobile workstations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2005
Release #06-056
Firm's Recall Hotline: (866) 342-0011
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908

CPSC, Dell Announce Recall of Notebook Computer Batteries

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Dell Notebook Computer Batteries

Units: About 22,000 in the U.S.

Manufacturer/Distributor: Dell Inc., of Round Rock, Texas

Hazard: These batteries can overheat, which could pose a fire risk.

Incidents/Injuries: Dell has received three reports of batteries overheating. The incidents involved damage to a tabletop, a desktop, and minor damage to personal effects. No injuries have been reported.

Description: The recalled batteries were sold with the following Dell notebook computers: Latitude(tm) D410, D505, D510, D600, D610, D800, D810; Inspiron(tm) 510M, 600M, 6000, 8600, 9200, 9300, XPS Gen 2; and Dell Precision(tm) M20 and M70 mobile workstations. The batteries were also sold separately, including as secondary batteries and in response to service calls. The batteries insert into the battery bay located on the underside of the notebook. "Dell" and "Made in Japan" or "Made in China" are stamped on the batteries. The identification number for each battery appears on a white sticker. Customers should have this number available when they contact Dell to determine if their battery is part of the recall.

Sold at: Dell sold these batteries with the notebook computers, as part of a service replacement, and as individual units on its Web site and catalogs from October 5, 2004 through October 13, 2005. The computers with these batteries sold for between $900 and $2,650, and individual batteries sold for between $99 and $179.

Manufactured in: Japan or China

Remedy: Customers should contact Dell to determine if their notebook computer battery is part of this recall. If it is, consumers should immediately stop using the battery as a power source for their notebook computer. Dell will provide a free replacement battery.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Dell toll-free at (866) 342-0011 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, go to the firm's Web site at www.dellbatteryprogram.com, or write to: Dell Inc., Attn: Battery Program, 9701 Metric Blvd., Suite 200 Austin, Texas 78758.

Firm's Media Contact: Tom Kehoe and Venancio Figueroa III, (512) 725-0281 and (512) 723-1726, tom_kehoe@dell.com and venancio_figueroa@dell.com

To view this release online, please visit our website at: https://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06056.html

My friend Thomaz posted this, reminding me of some of the not-so-smart things I did as a kid. We used to sneak up behind cars at traffic lights while crouched on a skateboard. Then wait for the green light... and hold on tight! Darwin really was kind to some of us.

I posted about this last year: a woman in Virginia continued smoking throughout her pregnancy, but was concerned that nearby jackhammer noises would harm her developing baby... My friend Lowell sent me an article by Joe Kennedy that should have accompanied my first post. More details and info about what happened, as well as some interesting commentary about stories like hers and how they're covered by radio and newspapers.

I found these pictures from Austin City Limits 2005 posted on myspace. I guess they're not as stlyish and creative (photography-wise) as the ones photos at johnpointer.com, but they're still cool. Especially with the Terminator sunglasses.

John, I figured you wouldn't mind my posting them... I mean, you didn't take them, but they are of you. If it's not cool to post these pics here, we'll have to discuss their removal while having a beer sometime in the near future... ;)

Click to enlarge	Click to enlarge	Click to enlarge

... that you could stumble across John Mayer's blog? I sure didn't expect to find something like it. I only came across it after seeing it mentioned on a friend's blog. So cool, a mega-crazy-superstar musician writes stuff online for you to read. If you're not a fan of his music (or his guitar craftiness, or his general musicianship, or...), it's probably not worth reading. But I'm a fan and found his blog posts interesting and funny.

Post on Austin Action: Walmart ditches Helotes plans. Nice.

An AppleScript on my system was periodically hanging because it launched a shell script that gets stuck if there are network problems. I don't mind if the shell script takes a while to execute, or hangs altogether (it will eventually time out). But the AppleScript shouldn't hang at all, because I just want it to trigger the shell script and continue doing something else. I found the answer on Technical Note TN2065: do shell script in AppleScript.

In your AppleScript, replace this:

do shell script "/path/to/script"

with something like this:

do shell script "/path/to/script &> /dev/null &"

Wikipedia content has been criticised many times over the years for allowing errors or hoaxes to slip through. I've argued about this before, saying that while Wikipedia content is generally excellent, it should not be relied upon as a sole information source. As a communally edited information source, it is an inevitability that some of the information might be incorrect, even if it's only for a brief period of time.

So what does this say about the accuracy of Wikipedia article content as a whole? Does the occassional existence of a factless article tell us anything about the accuracy of the other articles, of which there are almost 4 million? Experience using wikipedia tells us that the content is both accurate and informative, but an expert-led investigation by Nature did some real work to show that a sampling of Wikipedia articles contained approximately the same number of inaccuracies as equivalent articles in Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Does the Iranian president like Israel, the United States, or Europe? Not at all. So it shouldn't come as any suprise that he would say, "they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets." (Holocaust a myth, says Iranian president).

Excluding the world view of a few fundamentalist nutballs, the Holocaust did occur, leaving an indelible mark in history. Most people agree on this. But if you take a step back, one can see that extreme comments such as this are caused primarily by frustration and unhappiness over the existence of the Israeli state. It is on this topic that he makes an interesting point, "Give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [Jews], so that the Jews can establish their country."

I'm probably in a very small minority, but I really dig watching C-SPAN. It is for this reason that I am excited to have discovered 24-hour live internet feeds for C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2, and C-SPAN 3. So nice.

Google Earth for Mac is finally available.
Get it now.

Interesting article on how women carry on after having a miscarriage versus an abortion. Their findings show that women who miscarry are more distressed initially, but it clears up over the long-term. In women who have abortions, their initial distress is less, but it lasts up to 5 years. This makes sense: abortion is a chosen path, and a woman may be sad or upset with that decision for a long time. But a miscarriage is generally not controllable, so while it can be extremely upsetting in the short-term, it is possible to heal and move on.

From Anguish of abortion is worse than miscarriage:

A study in Norway compared a group of 40 women who had suffered a miscarriage with 80 women who had an abortion, questioning them 10 days, six months, two years and five years after the event. Although women who had a miscarriage suffered more mental distress up to six months after losing their baby, women who had an abortion experienced more mental distress at the two- and five-year intervals.

It's been a while since I posted anything about the pending addition to the family. So far, we're still heading toward the finish line, not much else to report. Frankly, I'm a bit bored and ready for the next step!

It's only been a matter of weeks since General Motors announced they would cut 30,000 jobs and close 9 production plants in an effort to reach profitability. Today, Ford Motor Co. says they will make a similar move by cutting 30,000 jobs and close at least 10 plants (possibly more?) during the next five years.

Ford to slash up to 30,000 jobs, 10 plants

Click to enlarge

There is a new Segway available in Japan. It's much smaller than the U.S. version. In fact, it's nothing more than a little platform with wheels. So cool.

One of the best climbers in cycling history, Charly Gaul, died today. He won the Tour de France in 1958 as well as the Giro d'Italia in 1956 and 1959. After a fall at his home, he was taken to the hospital where he died from a pulmonary embolism. Cyclingnews wrote this about him.

Researchers recently found more wreckage from Titanic that shows it broke into 3 pieces, not 2, which shows that the ship sank much faster than previously thought. More info here: Titanic pieces located.

The discovery of two large pieces of the Titanic's hull on the ocean floor has changed the story of its final minutes, indicating the ocean liner's end was more quick and terrifying than previously thought, underwater researchers said yesterday. The hull pieces were a crucial part of the ship's structure and make up a bottom section that was missing when the wreck was first located in 1985, they said. After these key sections of the hull broke free, the bow and stern spilt, said Roger Long, a naval architect who analyzed the find. The stern, which was still buoyant and filled with survivors, likely plunged toward the ocean floor about five minutes later, giving passengers less time to escape than widely believed.

As of this week, the push for .xxx domain names is dead ("ICANN kills .xxx porn domain").

The creation of .xxx web domains would have provided an extremely valuable segregation of porn and non-porn sites. Just as .edu is for an educational institution, and .de is in Germany, .xxx would have been for porn sites.

Advocates hoped it would clarify website names, making it easy to block adult content from children by simply banning .xxx websites from a certain computer. Corporations could achieve the same results. But opponents feared it would make it too easy to find pornography, claiming it would create a "virtual red light district" on the internet. This argument is dumb, because anyone who has ever actually used the internet knows that it is already challening to avoid porn sites, much less difficult to deliberately look for them. Even legitimate web searches might return mountains of porn-related search results.

Should you decide to actually look for porn, you'll find that it's unbelievably easy. For example, Googling for "sex" returns 218 million results, and plenty of them are very obviously porn-related (page through the search results and you'll see, it's kinda hard to miss).

So how could it possibly get any easier to find porn sites if we had .xxx domain extensions? Isn't it obvious that there already exists an easy-to-find red light district without .xxx?

Microsoft has announced Windows Live, a new software service that does several different things. I haven't played with it much, but it looks like it's trying to compete with Google's numerous services and offer a little bit of security for Windows users. There's a news viewer (think news.google.com), an email client that's probably undoubtedly stole features/ideas from Google's excellent www.gmail.com, and there's some stuff aimed at improving Windows security. Given the existing options for web-based news and email, I believe the security features are what stand to make the biggest impact for Windows users. It claims to do "stuff like virus scanning, firewall settings, tune ups, and software backups".

For non-Windows specific stuff (news, mail), I cannot imagine leaving Google's excellent, proven applications for a new, unproven offering from Microsoft. Why should I? Microsoft has proven again and again that they cannot innovate; they simply steal good ideas from everyone else. Given this established fact, it leaves no reason for users to expect any new features in this "new" service. Instead, users should expect to see Microsoft's best attempts at ripping off old products from Google and Apple.

As a Mac user, it's amusing to read through the list of security-related "features" and "benefits" that are only just now available to Windows users (from Microsoft, not counting 3rd-party add-on software) - just about all of that security stuff has been present on Macs for years, and not a just-released, unproven beta offering like Windows Live. Apple left Microsoft in the dust a long time ago.

Microsoft will of course spend a great deal of time, money and energy trying to convince everyone how great Live is. And while there are other features beyond the security enhancements of Live, I think this post summed up Live very well:

"The company that invented software vulnerability has launched a new AntiVirus application. Microsoft executives say the new initiative, when combined with the relaxed security in such products as Office, Internet Explorer, IIS, and Outlook Express, allows the company's revenue streams to come full circle; making them both the cause-of and solution-to most of your computer's security problems."