March 2003 Archives
These (1,2) are truly American Idols.
Some Requisitioned LinksTM from Kottke.org: Rounded Corners in CSS and Usabilty Myths, Debunked.
While I am on the topic of links and Kottke.org I should commend him in always thinking of the little things that make his site so good to visit. By first creating his "Remaindered Links" list and then moving it over into its own permanent home, Jason has create a slick way to provide much more "content" without the need to comment on each and every link. There are plenty of things I would like to post about or point people to, but I either a) don't have time or b) cannot think of anything that is insightful/hasn't been said before on that topic. These little links and tidbits then tend to just get lost in a seas of draft posts destined to never see the light of page. Kudos Jason - you keep doing the thinking and we'll keep using it.
I am sure that highly sexualized images of teens scare the dickens out of many parents - and that is just the boy/girl stuff. Now that
Russian Electro-Pop artists t.A.T.u. are about to break onto the scene, U.S. parents (i.e. the most puritanical of western countries) will be faced with highly sexualized images of two teen girls who are into each other.
Despite my skepticism at first hearing about this duo (via Idle Words) I have found that their first single All the Things She Said is catchy.
A Washington Post article states the obvious today: For Broadcast Media, Patriotism Pays.
Of course, harkening back to a previous post I guess I am niave in certain circumstances - for one, I really think the place of the media is to report news - period. I know it has been to sell advertising but was it alsways that way?
[Source; Drudge Report]
In the latest Salon comic, Can you spot the double taxation? Ruben Bolling illustrates how many times the government actually does get a cut of our income - and there was not a mention of the sales tax either.
I am not sure why double taxation gets me so bent out of shape. Is it out of character? That depends what kind of box you want to put me in. Maybe its just that I feel bad for all those poor Bostonians dumping all that tea into the harbor for naught. Would they be rolling over in their graves now if they could see how we are taxed?
So what to do? How about the elimination on taxes for corporations, dividend taxes, and sales taxes (except on gas & "sin" taxes which can be described as usage fees and luxury taxes which cannot be described as anything but socialist) and then installing a highly progressive income tax schedule that taxes the poor little, if at all, and taxes the rich much, much more. And all those trickle-down Republicans were right with me up until the words luxury tax above. What were they thinking? Is this an unfair system? Why should success be "penalized"? We'll because typically when people are "successful" it is because they have capitalized on others efforts as well as their own and because when they are successful they typically use far more than their share of the earth's resources. Instead of complaining then, they should just chalk up the extra taxation as paying for the resources they are taking from others throughout the globe.
For self-proclaimed "realists", the line between idealism and naivety is often very blurry. I can usually recognize when my idealistic viewpoints may border on being naive - then again, sometimes I cannot - but I am hopeful that my view of the future of our world will eventually bear out – that we can someday all live in peace, united under common goals and like freedoms.
Am I wrong to think that the United Nations, in principal, is the closest step we have ever taken as a society towards moving towards that goal? Am I wrong to have a believe that when the U.S. and U.K. troops topple Saddam's regime that the Iraqi people will be better off? Do the ends justify the means? If so where do the ends end? I could probably convince myself that if only the U.S. could topple the regimes and dictatorships around the world - the ones who oppress their people and retard freedom, that maybe the world would be better - be closer to ideal. Expect a counterpoint tomorrow.
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America is obviously the most powerful nation on earth both in terms of its military might and it ability to spread its ideas around like so much sand on a beach. The U.S. is also, it cannot be questioned, one of the most generous nations having given hundreds of billions of dollars in non-loan aid to numerous nations around the globe.
[Source: USAID's Greenbook]
Probably not, but if benchmark tests such as the ones outlined in The Great Render Race at Adobe.com are any indication, then PCs could be the better machines for designers. (I know this is slightly old news) I am sure many people have noticed the way fast PCs perform better with Photoshop, et. al. but I still felt compelled to present this info in light of all the recent switching going on.
"How did Tyrannosaurus Rexes even reproduce? I mean, I can't picture them getting it on with out a little death or dismemberment."
--One teenage kid to another on the bus.
Heard In Passing...
For those of you who are not living in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area you should know that Kevin Garnett is playing the best basketball of his career, and currently the best basketball in the league - it is really something to watch. However you calculate the MVP contenders, efficiency rating or the Bird Formula, Kevin ends up on top.
Based on the Bird formula, Minnesota's Kevin Garnett should be the runaway (MVP) winner. Garnett, ..., is averaging career highs in points (23.1), rebounds (13.4) and assists (5.9) ... When crunching the numbers, Garnett receives a score of 29.2.
The other MVP candidates' scores: Tracy McGrady, 26.9; Tim Duncan, 26.9; Shaquille O'Neal, 26.0; Kobe Bryant, 25.3; Dirk Nowitzki, 24.7; Chris Webber, 22.3; and Jason Kidd, 21.1.
[The Miami Herald via RealGM]
Ian McKellen agrees with me that Peter Jackson should direct/produce The Hobbit in live action (maybe after a couple of years off). What we don't agree on is that Ian McKellen wants a TV series and I would like to see it as a movie.
If fans can't get enough of the old wizard, neither can McKellen, who refuses to accept that the part ends with the trilogy's final installment. He has a grand idea for the prequel. "I want to play Gandalf again, in The Hobbit. I've asked Peter Jackson if he'll produce the prequel as a huge, yearlong television series. All those different strands to the story seem perfect for TV, and we'd do every scene of it. It could be marvelous."
What good is a TV series when you know the plot and ending?
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You can vote to tell Sony which, now defunct, sitcoms and TV shows to release on DVD. My votes are going to NewsRadio (so I can finally stop trying to tape them off of TiVO in order), Fantasy Island, The Tick, Diff'rent Strokes, T.J. Hooker. Runner-up: Silver Spoons.
From Jish before he disappeared: Reinvingorate is a neat stat tracking package that I too am trying out for a while. I think the real time tracking is a nice feature - it sounds when someone visits your site. I have my own stats program installed on the server of course, but these are nice and would be a great alternative for folks who’s ISP's stats are poor or non-existent.
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If I get any time tomorrow, I plan on working on some new features for the site. I plan on standardizing everything a bit more in terms of how it is presented and where it is stored, and then I plan to update and add content here and there, as well as, redesign the look. Any suggestions?
In today's Salon.com piece: See no evil Edward W. Lempinen makes a case for a War with Iraq that those of us to the left of center can live with.
Whether George Bush or his father or Al Gore or Bill Clinton is president -- in one basic sense, that is immaterial. Conditions in Iraq are what they are. With war now upon us, the deeper issue is about the relationship of American and European leftists to the people of Iraq, about our obligations to aid them in enormously difficult circumstances, and about the best means for doing so.
The article related how Saddam's regime is responsible for the deaths of what could be as many as a million people and points to this Amnesty International report on the methods and scope of torture, as used by Saddam. I fear however that the case made on Salon today may be a little too welcoming to those opposed to the war. It seems like a nice "out". In my case, perhaps I have let my disdain for the current Bush administration cloud my opinion on the matter - an as a result I have felt pretty conflicted. After all wouldn't life be better without Saddam in charge of his own country? It certainly would almost have to be for the 25 million Iraqi people. Where does it end then? Does it ever end? Can the U.S. systematically replace oppression and intolerance with hope and freedom? At least that would be a movement I could get behind.
If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.
This, and more advice can be found here.
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Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons (that's in the U.K. folks) resigned yesterday in protest of the impending war that no one but the U.K. and U.S. seem to think is necessary. It was apparently a very rousing speech as you can hear here. You may also read the transcript here.
[from PlasticBag]
"He should go away from the presidency and let the Americans lead an ordinary life with other nations, not a life of aggression, a policy of aggression against other nations,"..."This policy has brought about disasters to the U.S. So for the U.S. to live properly with the world and for the world nations to live in peace, this crazy man should go."
A quote about Bush, not Saddam from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
I am the coolest stud at the MIT univeristy. I hacked an old-school telephone handset on my cell phone. Now I walk around Cambridge MA, looking like a phat pimp!
[link via What Do I Know?]
I have posted a slew of new images to the
gallery section of the site. Most of them are in the
exterior,
flooring, and
fixtures. By this Friday everything had better be ready, and then I will no longer subject you all to mundane posts about my house building extravaganza.
This is getting something like 3 signatures a minute. My only question? What is Brand America? Is it simply any American Brand? Is it even possible to live without buying anything from an American company? I mean, do we even have access to foreign toilet paper?
"Dude, did you just call your girlfriend a router? That's terrible."
"It's not like I said she was a hub in promiscuous mode or something!"
--A girl and a guy talking on Shattuck Ave
[In Passing...]
"It cost $400 to put the stitches in! I don't have health insurance, and I don't have another $400 to get them taken out."
"I'm just saying, man, your own face isn't exactly the best place to start dabbling in cosmetic surgery."
--Two guys at Triple Rock.
[In Passing... again]
I didn't notice that CraigsList had come to Minneapolis. I hope it catches on, right now it is a bit pathetic.
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I am not sure what the fascination is with Home Star Runner but I guess there are a couple of funny bits in there. Particularly in the Strong Bad Email section.
As it turns out Minnesota actually has 2 senators. Sure we have the one who is currently pondering whether or not to go back on his campaign promise to oppose any drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (other broken promises), but we also have one who is a little naive when it comes to the current state of politics on Capitol Hill. It seems that not all his Democratic collegues want to give up their week off to debate the upcoming war with Iraq.
At a closed meeting of Senate Democrats last month, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., suggested that his colleagues skip a weeklong recess so they could debate going to war with Iraq.
"Absolute silence. No one said a thing," Dayton recalled at his Capitol Hill office Tuesday. After about 10 seconds or so, he said, another senator changed the subject.
For Dayton, the incident was emblematic of what he sees as a failure of Congress to meet its constitutional responsibilities. "My view is the Constitution requires us to issue a declaration of war" if Iraq is to be attacked, he said.
Earlier in the week Dayton wrote this open letter in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. And while there may be some historical inaccuracies (like stating that we have never before considered the option of a preemptive strike) there is certainly evidence that his heart is in the right place.
If, however, preemption becomes the world's prevailing doctrine, that world will be more unstable and dangerous for us and everyone else. If our leaders condemn adversaries as an "axis of evil" and turn a cold shoulder to them, they will behave in more hostile and destructive ways. If our leaders deride our allies, repudiate our alliances and dismiss dissenters, they will severely damage our standing in the world.
Now if we could just get him to be a bit more of a vocal, visible, vigilant leader. Sort of like someone else we knew.
My friend turned me on to a new news channel called WorldLink TV where news is broadcast from various location around the world. Actually what WorldLink TV does is aggregate news, much like weblogs do (see previous post), to give a global perspective on world event and a local perspective to events at various locations around the globe. I am even more excited to get my TiVo/DirecTV system set back up after a year-long hiatus.
Finding this new news source is timely as it seems more and more Americans are seeking their news abroad. It certainly is one way to escape from the "clutches of a few major media conglomerates that dominate the U.S. media market; the usual suspects being Disney, Clear Channel, Sony Corporation, and AOL Time Warner.
Much of the feedback to European news web sites suggests people are no longer relying solely on the media in their own country for accurate and objective reporting. The internet has now become the home to a diversity of opinion as people choose to make up their own minds on how world situations are taking shape, no longer content with their own localized coverage.
Meg Hourihan posted this today: Weblog as journalism and I was excited to see commentary by one of the minds behind the Lafayette Project, about how weblogs could really serve a purpose in journalism. Instead she used her journalistic qualities to report on breaking news. While I was disappointed not to hear more I am excited about her project and how it could change the way people view both the media and weblogs.
When I first heard the ideas behind the Lafayette Project described to me, my first inclination was to point to sites like BlogDex, Technorati, and DayPop and say "it's been done", however I think there could be bigger things in the work for this project. While I have no real inside information of this project I do hope it brings us down some of the following paths:
Provide an aggregate look at the "hottest" weblog topics in a variety of categories
Allows users to see data associated with all weblogs being "scraped" so that global viewpoints can be ascertained
Provide information in the form of reports of meaningful information back to the producers of weblogs included in the project
Hope it adds something unique and new to the weblog and media scenes, not just remixes of the top weblog lists we have all seen
This is a topic I am very interested in as it pertains to our industry, and thus my vocation, and one of my favorite avocations, weblogging. I hope to make weekly posts about this and related topics as I get more time to sort out my thoughts and ideas (i.e. after my house is done).
...are in order for Jason Kottke for his recent Lifetime Achievement Award (read his acceptance speech) and to Little Yellow Different as the runaway winner of 4 Bloggies including Weblog of the Year.
What is... the answer to the entertainment industries problems? I didn't forget to phase my answer in the form of a question. I have been clammoring for change in the entertainment and media industries for a while now. Are some companies starting to come around? [Also from MagnetBox]
What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else is an article (actually more of a declaration) by Doc Searls and David Weinberger at World of Ends. The idealist in me loves quotes like these:
...when every end is connected, each to each and each to all, the ends aren’t endpoints at all.... To connect to the Internet is to agree to grow value on its edges. And then something really interesting happens. We are all connected equally. Distance doesn’t matter. The obstacles fall away and for the first time the human need to connect can be realized without artificial barriers.
The government types who have confused the value of the Internet with the value of its contents could realize that in tinkering with the Internet's core, they're actually driving down its value. In fact, they maybe could see that having a system that transports all bits equally, without government or industry censorship, is the single most powerful force for democracy and open markets in history.
This is actually a pretty interesting read, I would recommend it. [via MagnetBox]
The man for whom I was named after died late last week. I didn't know him nearly as well as I should have. I am sorry for that.
Rubbelke, Benjamin P. - Of New Brighton Age 75 Passed away on March 6, 2003. He was preceded in death by 15 brothers and sisters. He is survived by his wife, Betty; son Frank and his wife Mary; good friends, Merle and Marge; and numerous nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Mass of Christian Burial 11 AM Monday March 10, 2003.
More photos are up, including
these of the slate floor and
countertops in the kitchen. It seems like most everything will be done by the end of the week. We could be ready to close next week even. I am not holding my breath however.
The archive page is now up. I am still going back through and classifying all the older posts, however.
crapulous\KRAP-yuh-luss\ (adjective)
1 : marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking
*2 : sick from excessive indulgence in liquor
Example sentence:
If you're feeling crapulous the morning after the big celebration, drinking lots of water and taking some aspirin will help.
And its Merriam Webster's word of the day for today.
Only one candidate for NBA MVP?
If you listen to writer Jerry Brewer, employed by the Orlando Sentinel to write day in and day out about Tracy McGrady and the Magic, there is only one clear MVP this season. And his nickname is not TMac.
'Unless Bryant can get the Lakers to 50 victories, unless McGrady can get the Magic to 45, unless Jason Kidd can hit five open jumpers in a row and unless Tim Duncan can provide a good quote, then Garnett should be MVP,' writes Brewer.
[Source: Real GM]
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These commercials by EPSN continue the tradition of excellent commercial making. And I know they are a bit old. My favorites are the Mark Cuban one in the upper right and the Wally one right below it and left.
Several t-shirts worn by middle/high school students have been banned in recent weeks, the latest coming with a 10-day suspension of the student wearing it.
School officials state that the suspension is justified to protect the student who opened himself up to attack from other students as well as to limit distraction and disturbance in the classroom. I don't think that summarily dismissing the first amendment rights of free speech is the right way to "protect him". I wonder what the consequence would have been if a student had been wearing a red, white, and blue t-shirt with a message like "Get Osama" on it? I doubt that scenario would have resulted in a suspension. It would seem that our right to express ourselves are limited by what popular opinion deems acceptable.
The Ready.gov site has some helpful hint for keeping us Americans safe. Here are a some hints for dealing with chemical threats, for example.
Idlewords has come up with their own version of the Ready site. I think they both have their merits.
