March, 2002 full listing

• Think the Easter Bunny's cute and friendly? Perhaps not: Jack rabbits attack walkers in Sonoma County [daypop]
• Hollings Howls Will Have to Wait. Patrick Leahy chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and he's promised to block the CBDTPA. Cool.
• The Death Clock will tell you when you're gonna die. With a bit of random variation. [Reed]
• Of Nerds And Words: The etymology of technology terms we know and love. High-tech language, and its roots.
• How very strange. A Japanese Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. Sadly, no mp3s online so you can hear 'em. [fark!]
• The Worst Manual Contest 2002 Results. Horrible. [daypop]
• Yahoo Knows Best, Resets Users' Marketing Prefs so you'll be getting a lot of spam, and telemarketing, and paper mail. If you've got an account on yahoo, it's probably worth a few minutes to go make sure you turn those settings off. You can go to Yahoo Account Information to turn off the preferences. [cam]
• McBride supporters spammed by e-mail for Gov. Bush. The Bush campaign got ahold of one of McBride's mailing lists when a McBride staffer used cc: instead of bcc: to send out a mailing. [cam]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 31, 2002     March 31 in History

• Independent booksellers seek new owners. Apparently a good bookstore runs about $750k. And the kind of people who want to give it a shot don't have that kind of money laying around, and are unlikely to be able to get financing. [flutterby]
• They Be Jammin' in France - cell-phone jammers are legal in public spaces in France now. It'll probably be June before they start being deployed, but it'll be interesting to see how it works out. [fark!]
• Study: Mobile Phone Users Worse Than Drunk Drivers. And more annoying, too. [daypop]
• New Theory Explains the Physics of Foam. Millions of dollars spent to get good head. On beer. [fark!]
• U.S. prepares to invade your hard drive. More on the CBDTPA (Hollings Bill). It appears Hollings isn't completely clueless, which makes him even more dangerous. [instapundit]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 30, 2002     March 30 in History

• In my morning news-trolling this morning, I found exactly nothing worth linking to. Good thing I've usually got about a dozen links piled up and waiting for a theme to weave 'em into.
• Dan Gillmor has started a blog about Customer Service. Or the lack thereof. It'll be interesting to see him writing for himself, rather than the Murky News. [scripting]
• Dan Gillmor tells a pretty cool story in Journalistic Pivot Points. It's a shame the Murky News has such horrible presentation, though. If I don't use the "print me" layout, the text is an inch wide, one or two words per line. Knight Ridder. Blegh. And as others have pointed out, the correction probably would have happened during the Q & A, anyhow. If you're writing for publication and aren't sure about something, you're supposed to double-check, right? [evhead]
• Dave Winer's looking to put together a Weblog Directory. Which makes me wonder where Dave's Picks might fit. I don't think it does, unless he adds an "eclectica" category. [scripting]
• The St. Paul Pioneer Press ran an article in their "Your Tech" section on the Blog.craze. Complete with the horrible KR layout. And the fact that none of the URLs are actually links. [Jim]
• IE, Apache Clash on Web Standard. Digest authentication, in particular. Microsoft didn't implement the standard correctly, but they don't particularly care, since IE works just fine with IIS, so what's the problem? [cam]
• The 404 Research Lab collect good error messages. They also have information on how to make your 404 more useful.
• Modifying Dreamweaver to Produce Valid XHTML explains just what you think it would explain. [zeldman] So next on the want-list are Web Standards and Tools. Can you use the same sort of tricks to make Dreamweaver generate accesible web-pages? I don't know, but this article points to the tools you'll need to find out. [zeldman]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 29, 2002     March 29 in History

• Ugh. Power outage just after 1AM. The power came back about five minutes after my battery backup's battery had croaked. At least it wasn't out for the two to four hours that the power company said it would be, which would have been enough to croak the battery backups in all my clocks. Software's not much good without electricity. Come to think of it, neither are cordless phones, since the base-station needs the juice to transmit.
• Perl Golf. Fewest (key) strokes wins. [ntk]
• KR Bids for Hub Status, but their hideous design and lack of archives may cost them in the long run. When I criticize the San Jose Mercury News' new design (and I will), remember it's part of the KR family. [doc]
• The Anatomy of a Search Engine by Brin & Page. How google started. [daypop]
• Google versus Church, round 3. Scientology critics again claim Google censorship, this time through Adwords program. What disturbs me most about all this flap is the fact that while google's a darned fine serach engine, there's not much in the way of a fallback position if google starts to suck. Ecosystem diversity is good. [scripting]
• Law-enforcement DIRT Trojan released. Hmm. Runs on Windows. Rips off the government. Doesn't sound all bad.
• Speaking of Microsoft, how long do you think they (or any other software company, for that matter) would last if there were a lemon law for software? Think it would take a year for product liability lawsuits to drain 'em dry? [cam]
• Democrats vs. New Media. The Democratic Party seems to be blowing it in the high-tech world with things like the CBDTPA. [instapundit]
• CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs. Which is part of why the CBDTPA Is Immune to (Conventional) Criticism. Very good commentary, but long. Worth the time if you're interested in copying anything ever again. [daypop and librarian]
• I've updated my list of Webloggers named Dave (or David) with some more links. Very little software involved. I've also added a report on Tastybite to my consumer writings. Pretty good food.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 28, 2002     March 28 in History

• The semantics of file formats talks about how sending information in a word document might actually be something you want to do when dealing with a client. Sad. [flutterby]
• Cost of a stamp to rise to 37¢. Too few people are sending mail, so they've decided to jack the price up further (yeah, I know it's still cheap compared to the rest of the world, but it's even cheaper if you're sending out tens of thousands of ads, instead of mail someone might actually want to read). On the other hand, it is 37 cents that they're raising the price to. [strib]
• Web radio's last stand against the DMCA. It's an interview that splains how some web radio stations will be put out of business. [some guy]
• Bleak future looms if you don't take a stand. Dan Gillmor says that mergers among already-giant corporations, especially telecommunications and entertainment companies are leading us to a bleak future of corporate control. Similar to the sort of thing predicted in a lot of early cyberpunk novels. Dan says now's the time to take a stand. Write to Congress. Stop buying CDs. [instapundit]
• BookSense.com is a great alternative to online behemoths like amazon or Barnes and noble. First time you go there you type in your zipcode and they pick the store nearest you or you can select your favorite local bookseller from the list. The only minus is that Arise! Bookstore isn't listed. Personally, I use Glenn Fleishman's isbn.nu, mostly because I've suggested a feature, and Glenn added it, but alternatives are good. [Jim]
• AT&T adding $1.95 to residential phone bills. A good reason to drop your AT&T service. If all the long distance companies were to institute such a charge, I'd look seriously at just dropping my landline altogether. But then I use a grand total of about sixty cents in long distance a month, all due to fax the occasional invoice or contract around. [strib]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 27, 2002     March 27 in History

• Twins score a victory as House passes stadium-funding bill. The deal ain't done, but it's a lot closer to reality than it was just a short while ago. So now the infighting begins: St. Paul, Minneapolis, Hennepin County prepare for ballpark showdown. [strib]
• Baggage could be screened on ships, trains and buses, maritime and land security heads says, this in spite of the fact that guns and knives have gotten through airport checkpoints after Sept. 11. So the increased screening at airports isn't helping, but let's try the same thing for all other public modes of transportation just to make travelling even more of a hassle. [google news]
• Jesus watching your every move You've probably seen Mr. Christ as big jock elbowing little girls on the soccer field. Who'd have guessed He was into nerdly pursuits like playing the French Horn, drafting or selling insurance. More. [Reed, via blort.meepzorp.com]
• You might see this bicycle in an alternate universe where tires are outlawed One wonders if it could be entered into a (running) marathon? [reed, via denver mads]
• They Lived "Slap Shot". Who else? The Hanson Brothers. [fark!]
• There are notes online about redesigning the the millennium bridge so it wouldn't wobble. Cool. Now people can walk on it again.
• Finally, Davezilla wants to know What's in your pants? [davezilla]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 26, 2002     March 26 in History

• Mary Tyler Moore to unveil statue in Minneapolis on May 8. [strib]
• War budget could mark end of the line for Empire Builder, the only long-haul passenger train going through the Twin Cities. Sigh. I guess it doesn't matter all that much to me. I thought I might take my trike on the train for a trip, but they won't take it.
• EPA Will Ease Coal Plant Rules, which means that Xcel Energy's coal burning plant that's upwind from me will continue to belch pollutants at an amazing rate. [daypop]
• Tim Blair's email feedback about his attacks on George W. Bush and Michael Moore. It's an interesting comparison.
• Church v Google, round 2 - An Update on the latest Google and Scientology developments from Microcontent News. [instapundit]
• Marriage in Europe becomes passé because it doesn't offer that many benefits. A kid born to unmarried parents can still inherit, for example. [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 25, 2002     March 25 in History

It's a relatively nice day out, there's NASCAR on the TV if I don't feel like leaving the house, and I don't feel much like surfing the net. Seeya Monday.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 24, 2002     March 24 in History

• Yesterday, I mentioned the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act. It'll be interesting to see what happens to old computer prices if it passes. When the manufacture of semiautomatic pistol magazines that could hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition was banned, it almost tripled the price of those high-capacity magazines that had already been manufactured. Now wouldn't it be interesting if old computers got more valuable because you could rip and burn CDs on 'em?
• Sarah Brady skirted gun laws in buying son's rifle and Gun Rights Group Asks BATF to Investigate Gun Purchase by Sarah Brady. It's called a straw purchase and it's illegal under the Brady Law.[daypop and instapundit]
• Companies taking desperate steps against spam but the Spam Showdown at Battle Creek means that ORBZ Shuts Down to try to avoid getting tossed in jail, taking away one of the better tools for dealing with spam if you run a mail-server. [some guy and daypop]
• Lileks' screed: Michael Moore is a gasbag. The Arcata Eye interview seems to support that view. Also check out Tim Blair's Sometimes Moore Is Less article over at FoxNews. [instapundit]
• I bet Apple won't have Attendee-Centered Conference Design at WWDC again this year. Heck, I don't even know if I'm going to bother going to find out. They've scheduled it earlier in May than usual, which is going to cause a bind if I go. [daypop]
• Whew! Stealth asteroid nearly blindsided Earth back on March 8. [flutterby]
• Read the text at the top of MSN and Qwest Alliance FAQs. They lose a court case and they're pleased to provide additional time for people to choose to leave. Jim's finally decided to leave MSN. It doesn't sound much like fun. [jim]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 23, 2002     March 23 in History

• Gun Owners of America -- Ridge and Mineta Thumb Their Noses at "Armed Pilots" Law, telling us they'd prefer to have unarmed victims flying planes than pilots who might stop a hijack.
• Google bows to Scientology's DMCA request, yanks critics' site. The interesting thing is that google said they would only put back the links if the material is removed. There's nothing in google's letter what happens if the material is deemed non-infringing. Guess the actual merits don't matter under the DMCA, eh? Shocking. But the very next day, Google Restores Web Page Critical of Scientology. Good. If google had started censoring links like that, they'd have quickly lost a lot of respect. I've already heard rumblings from folks who are looking for a better search engine. [librarian, google news and flutterby]
• Senate backs changes to campaign finance laws. It's just waiting for Bush's signature. Then the constitutionality challenges will begin. [google news]
• The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is Senator Hollings' (D - Disney) new attempt at outlawing today's computers. Interestingly enough, on top of contributions over over a quarter million dollars from the entertainment industry in the 2000 election cycle, this bill bought the democrats an unprecedented $12 million in two donations recently. Convenient, since the Incumbent Protection Act of 2002 will prohibit this sort of thing come November 6, 2002. [endwar and instapundit]
• Bars, convenience stores, and others are Finding Pay Dirt in Scannable Driver's Licenses. And while it's true that a bar could write down all the information they get by scanning a card, that would take time. I doubt any bar would write down (or Xerox) the 1.3 million customer records mentioned in the article. [cam]
• But A feel-good tale of greenbacks and spam gives me some hope. Harold Hickok of Portland, Oregon sued, and when the company tried to offer him a settlement on the cheap, he raised his asking price and got everything he'd initially asked for. It helped that he was a lawyer and Oregon allows discovery in small claims cases. I wonder how a similar suit would do here in Minnesota... [fark!]
• Speaking of spam, I was going to point to spamgourmet, but their site crashes IE 5.1 Mac (on MacOS 9).

Weather in Minneapolis for March 22, 2002     March 22 in History

• unlicensed wireless nets a threat to the satellite radio providers? You'd think that Sirius would have thought of this problem before they spent the 3 billion on their upcoming satellite radio service? Or perhaps they did and figured it would be cheaper to use the FCC to squash potential land-based competitors. [Reed, via Doc Searl's Skywave]
• The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica is online. Cool. [librarian]
• Jenny the Librarian has More on MPL (and my bad linking skills). I immediately wished for an edit function in her comments system. In any case, the discussion is somewhat alive again. It's probably just as well that the MPL hasn't called me back, though. Busy busy busy. [librarian]
• Random Blog Quotes picks the highlights out of various blogs. [daypop]
• Microcontent News is a new blog about blogs. Or perhaps a zine about blogs. [evhead]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 21, 2002     March 21 in History

• First, March 20th is Steak and blowjob day! I point it out for purely selfless reasons.
• U.S. Tells Andersen To Expect Charges, which would lead to the company being charged with (at least) a felony. If we're going to accept the fact that corporations are entities (which is a bigger issue), it should be possible to charge them with crimes. And in this case, it sure looks justified. Unless the corporate entity is already dead and I haven't noticed. [google news]
• The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. Sheesh. I'm a little disappointed in the list. There's far too much Enron on it. Even though Enron folding was a big deal, there's plenty of other stupidity in the business world out there. Just look at the companies I've worked for over the years. [daypop]
• Battle Intensifies Over Right to Copy. More erosion of fair-use rights is probably coming. [some guy]
• The Top Ten Conservative Idiots is updated every monday. [some guy]
• Bizarre vs. Bazaar -- what kind of Net do you want? Great article from Doc Searls: ...we need to build on the Commons concept; just being conscious about language will help. Look at it this way: We have the advantage if we talk about the Net as a place. They have the advantage if we talk about the Net as a plumbing system for shipping content.
• George Will's A Matter of Appearances takes the New York Times and Washington Post to task for the appearance of corruption in their support for the Incumbent Protection Act of 2002. [instapundit]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 20, 2002     March 20 in History

• It's a day to follow-up on things I've yammered about recently.
• I got the car back from East Hennepin Auto Service yesterday afternoon. Turns out that it was the ignition module, but when that fails, it usually spikes a blast of voltage through the rotor in the distributor so that needed fixing, too. Still, it wasn't all that bad. I got out of there for under $300. I guess that's still cheaper than a monthly payment.
• Steph comes back at the complaints about bad tools with WYSIWYG Editors Don't Kill Web Sites, People Do. There's more for her to respond to at To Hell with Bad Editors. But my biggest gripe is that (as far as I know) none of the WYSIWYG editors make writing standards-compliant code the default. The newest ones definitely make it possible, but you have to have learned something to even know that you want that. [steph]
• The Bleat from March 19th covers the Minneapolis Public Library. It mirrors my experience trying to talk 'em into letting me volunteer to help get wireless access into a branch or two. I still haven't gotten a call back from anyone.
• There were some inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• The Village Voice: Features: Punks in the Hall by Bill Werde Gabba Gabba Hey! and a really big suit. The Ramones and The Talking Heads are going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [Jim]
• The the complete list of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees for 2002. It includes Gene Pitney who some friends of ours have played with a lot. [Jim]
• Billy Bragg and the Blokes (one of Jim's favorite bands) has a new record out. There's a web interview about it here (Real Media). Billy's currently on tour with Black 47 who are worth seeing in their own right. Or so says [Jim]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 19, 2002     March 19 in History

• Tables or CSS: Choosing a layout points back to my essay on avoiding tables for layout. I don't think I'm completely done with that essay, but I'm not sure if I'm going to update it anymore, especially since CSS: The Choice of a New Generaton. is a nice demo and explanation and does a lot better job than I did. [inflatable sheep]
• Dave Raggett's Introduction to CSS has some useful ideas.
• The Wrong Way to Use CSS in Page Layouts. DreamWeaver is stupid and broken. [daypop]
• There's a page trying to track CSS Bugs in IE5/5.1 Mac. I hope it's a useful reference.
• Building A Quick-And-Dirty PHP/MySQL Publishing System. Very quick. Not all that dirty. Yeah, the admin stuff is always harder than displaying the information. Security and what-not to worry about, donchaknow.
• I've finally gotten things cleaned up enough around here that I can switch from using a doctype of HTML 4 transitional to HTML 4 strict. If you see any pages that render funnier than usual, let me know.
• My dead car turns out to be a control module that failed within the distributor. No biggie, just a big pain in the butt. Should be back on the road before the day is done.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 18, 2002     March 18 in History

• Apple's Gigahertz System and the SPEC Benchmark. Interesting analysis of the real speed of the G4 (when running Mac OS X). Benchmarks demolish Apple speed boasts is the Register's take. Personally, I still don't run Mac OS X. Mac OS 9 seems faster for everything I do.
• Mac Cluster's Last Stand? Apparently the gloss has gone off the Apple lately.
• The Old Mac That Went to Pot talks about an iBong. And throws in a lot of references to possible dope-smoking by the original Mac development team. [daypop]
• Dynamism.com sells Next Generation Japanese Notebooks and Electronics in the US. Mostly notebooks. [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 17, 2002     March 17 in History

• So I'm trying to drive home from the after-bar this morning. And for the first time in 9 years, my car won't start. I'm s'posed to be giving a gal a ride home. I'm starting to wonder if God doesn't just hate me. It sure starts to feel that way after a while.
• STD Etiquette. How do you tell a new partner you've got a social disease? Or how does that new partner tell you?
• First date etiquette for men and for women
• A pro-masturbation poster (at least as I see it). [some guy]
• New, Legal Hallucinogen Comes To Market. There's a small but growing market for Salvia divinorum; it's also legal hallucinogen that packs a more powerful psychedelic punch than peyote, psyllocybin mushrooms or any other natural hallucinogen. Grows in the Oaxaca state in Mexico, and apparently they're being overrun by tourists looking for some leaves to nibble. [fark!]
• Ireland campaigns to change its time for the duration of the World Cup (being held in Japan). [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 16, 2002     March 16 in History

• Winter storm coming to Minnesota. They said it could be the biggest snowfall of the winter. That wouldn't be tough to do this year. That was a forecast they actually got right. The latest on the snow we've gotten since yesterday morning. There's a snow emergency taking effect 9pm tonight, so we get to spend the weekend moving cars around. [strib]
• Spying: The American Way of Life?.

  Save for a few battle-weary civil libertarians, not many people have been fretting about how cameras now monitor all downtown areas in Washington, or the unchecked spread of face-recognition cameras that spy on travelers in airports and sports fans in arenas.

  Sigh.
• How we can save PGP by Phil Zimmermann
• Americans Need Not Trade Privacy For Security. Look at all the good it's done the British. [instapundit]
• Digital driver license photos used in criminal lineups Joan Vecchi, the [Colorado] state's operations manager for Driver Control, said use of license photos for criminal lineups has never been an issue. Those in other states may want to inquire into how their digital pics are being used. [Reed]
• Russian ban on US chicken in force. Apparently they don't think it's safe. Or maybe they're just mad about the tarriffs on steel. [daypop]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 15, 2002     March 15 in History

• Google Link Is Bush League is an example of google-bombing from over a year ago. The effect is even older than that. [doc]
• Google hit by link bombers. Christ. The BBC just doesn't seem to get the web, sometimes. The way google does its searching is good. The fact that people sometimes subvert the system is the same kind of thing that you can do by always referring to a politician by something other than his proper name. Think The Shrub and how it's so closely tied to George W. Bush. A verbal google-bomb. [scripting]
• Web Sites That Heal talks about dealing with linkrot. I've been working on jut this problem for my own sites, and it's a lot of work. One of the reasons I started using Frontier, lo those many years ago, wat that I could move things around, re-render my site, and everything would be taken care of. Except for links coming in from the outside world. I had to write a special template for a Moved page that took the new address as a parameter. I'd leave that behind whenever I moved pages around. It was a pain. I like my new redirects system better, but it still requires more manual work than I'd like. Maybe an added perl script that I can use with my search-engine and site-map will do the trick. Hmm. [scripting]
• Judge Rules on Amateur Reporters, saying they have the same rights as professionals. Shocking, isn't it? [doc]
• Spammers target IM accounts. Bleagh. Enough stupid people respond to spam that it's still worthwhile. And $100 buys you 300,000 messages. What's that, something like 299k pissed off people, and $1 per sucker? [daypop]
• I'm thinking I might Cut Off Asia to deal with spam.
• If you look on the bottom of the Contact the IWW page, you'll see an interesting bit of email-address-harvester baiting. The problem is that he's already made up dave@davesnothere.org as a phony email address. So even if I wanted it, I'd have a pre-burned email address. Oh well. No worries, someone else owns the domain, anyhow. Personally, I don't think it's a very effective technique. Sending a spam to a fake email address really doesn't add much cost to the spammer. [some guy]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 14, 2002     March 14 in History

• Ely couple carves a life out of northern wilderness by offering city folk some peace and quiet. [strib]
• Last Friday night I went to see the Auto Body Experience over at The Lab in St. Paul. Beyond the hassle of walking in the freezing rain, the thing that struck me is that all the buses into downtown St. Paul go into the business area of town. But in the evening, all the life is in LowerTown, which is poorly served by buses. So why doesn't the MTC have different routes day and evening?
• If you're interested in Minneapolis news, you might want to check out the Cursor Twin Cities Edition, too. More linkage to stories about the Twin Cities.
• Amtrak / Refocus on high-speed regional trains is a Strib editorial talking about what Amtrak (and the government) need to do to keep rail travel alive in the US. They say the long-haul lines need to go. Our rail service would probably just go to Chicago, where you'd have to transfer. Not a whole lot unlike today, except for the likely death of the Empire Builder that'll take you to Seattle. And Amtrak's got some pretty cheap fares. Sadly, none of the cheapies are from Minneapolis.[strib]
• Miller Park has lessons for Minneapolis. It was over budget, and the Brewers couldn't meet their commitment to put in about a quarter of the cost. The other lesson I got from reading the article is that Bud Selig is a weasel. [strib]
• Editorial: Stadium axiom / Location, location, location. It's important to the success of a new stadium. Strangely enough, the Strib seems to be making an argument that will likely result in a stadium in St. Paul. [strib]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 13, 2002     March 13 in History

• Boring sex 'becoming global problem'. Oh, to have such a problem. See also the Journal of Mundane Behavior: Mundane Sex [daypop]
• David Grenier's essay on Sluts and badasses, attraction, appearances and preconceptions. It's a good essay. And linking to it is part of the grand weblogger-named-Dave-conspiracy. Problem is, most of us guys aren’t too bright and get confused easily. Amen, brother!
• Study sees benefit in drinking among women. Drunk chicks are more fun to research! Gotta love SatireWire. [fark!]
• Unexpected images from a once-submerged Nikon Coolpix 990. Cool. I'm almost tempted to try sacrificing my cheap digital camera to the water gods to see what happens. [daypop]
• This Is a Real Quest for Maps talks about the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, which has thousands of maps. Incredibly cool. Add in a serious gazetteer, and there'd be no complaints at all. [librarian]
• The Belief-o-matic can help tell you what religion you fit best. It says I'm a 100% match with Theravada Buddhism, a 97% match with Unitarian Universalism, and a 21% match with Roman Catholicism. Huh.
• The Camaro drives away. 2002 (the 35th Anniversary) will be the last year for the Camaro. It was announced last year, but both of those links were into the Strib's website, so of course they're dead now. The pinheads in Detroit say the problem was declining sales. Well, yeah. In 1993, with the last major styling change in the Camaro, they made it look like just another rounded sports car. At the time, I thought it looked like a Japanese sports car and went out and bought a 1992. Sales have been sliding ever since. The Camaro SS still tempts me as a poor-man's Corvette (about the same performance, but $15000 cheaper).

Weather in Minneapolis for March 12, 2002     March 12 in History

• CNN.com - Unionist demands unification vote
• No purpose in Border poll, says Ahern adviser. It would be premature.
• Good day for politics, bad one for manners discusses why Trimble might have proposed the referendum.
• I think this article has the immediate reason for a call for a referendum now. Voter turnout. Trimble thinks they unionists haven't been doing well due to a low voter turnout and by holding a referendum on the same day as the next election they'll do much better. Re-elected Trimble calls for united Ireland poll
• The BBC does include a mention of the requirement for seven years between unification referendums: Calls for Trimble to 'reconsider' comments
• So it basically sounds to me as though Trimble is bringing this up to:
  • Get Unionists to the polls.
  • Call the referendum while there's a good chance of it being rejected.
  • Thereby postponing any new referendum for seven years.
  Any comments?

Weather in Minneapolis for March 11, 2002     March 11 in History

• First a bunch of updates on Dave's Picks. I updated Dave's Recommended Reading over the weekend, adding a Food & Cooking section to it, Dave's Writing now has a better index, which might make it marginally easier to find something you were looking for, and finally, I've started a list of Webloggers named Dave. I expect it'll end up taking a bunch of my available free-time for a while.
• U.S. Military to deploy laser cannon in the War on Terror. Talks about the Boeing Advanced Technical Laser (ATL). Q department's been busy.
• Anoto has a cool product, a digital pen and special paper. You just write, and it digitizes what you wrote. The bad news? They've got a pretty horrible website to tell you about it.
• Information Leakage from Optical Emanations (pdf). You can figure out what's going over a modem by watching the blinky lights from afar. You have to watch very closely, but they can read a 56k modem from across the street, and it looks possible to read the data off a Cisco 4xxx or 7xxx router from the backpanel (fast serial) lights. [some guy]
• I was thinking about buying the Polaroid Mio recently. It looks pretty cool, if perhaps a little bigger than I'd like. And the business-card-sized photos would be especially neat if Polaroid were to release a Mio Scanner that made it easy to get 'em into the computer. But then I thought again about the cost of film. A buck per business-card-sized photo. Oof. That's pretty steep. I guess I'll just keep using digital, but I'd still like some way to make paper while on the road. Maybe something like the Olympus P-200 is the answer, but that's $450 for the printer, and I'd bet it's nearly a buck a throw for prints. You save by only printing what you need, but still....
• The Shifted Librarian, talking about internet access, says We'd need a similar e-rate-like initiative for wireless to change this [the lack of wireless access in libraries], but the Bush administration would rather cut this type of funding. Or perhaps having a library that's welcoming enough that a geek could donate an airport base station, walk in on a saturday afternoon, and plug it in would do the trick. Check out the discussion. [librarian]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 10, 2002     March 10 in History

• So here it is the first half of March, and I'm watching thunderstorms out my window. With a couple inches of freezing rain. It's Minnesota, during the tournaments. We're supposed to be getting feet of snow, instead of many inches of water. I wonder if there's something to that global warming stuff after all.... Then again, about 2am, it did turn to snow. So there's a nice layer of ice laid down, and now we'll get the snow on top of it. I guess that doesn't seem too wrong.
• Y'know the other day, when I got the Russian e-Card that neither I nor the babelfish could completely figure out? Someone's been googling the translation of it. I wonder if it's my secret admirer, or just someone looking for another occurance of the card. I'm also the number one hit for Rose Fashion Optical on google. Maybe I can get some free glasses from them?
• Wal-Mart Trumps Moore's Law. Productivity in the US has been going up recently not because of computers, but because Wal-Mart's everyday low prices have spurred their suppliers and competitors to work harder to keep up. Today's economic reality is that high-tech decisions made in Arkansas play a larger role in boosting America's productivity than decisions made in Silicon Valley or Seattle. [some guy]
• How Osama bin Laden got away. A longish story from the Christian Science Monitor. It sure sounds like someone slacked off. [daypop]
• Cultlike Mac followers are touchy over criticism. The touchiness seems to hit harder when the criticism is true. Thankfully, most of my readers are pretty reasonable and understand that when I gripe about the Mac, it's because I like and use the damned thing every day. [some guy]
• Microsoft, Who Let the Bugs Out?, via Cryptogram
• Skip namby-pamby Enterprise and instead watch Alias Neat comparison of these two shows from the Samizdata. [Reed]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 9, 2002     March 9 in History

• I've been googled again, and I'm talking about it. I also finally built an index of one set of Miscellany
• Save Internet Radio! Royalty fees to kill Shoutcast and other independent webcasting. [Reed]

  For example, for a mid-sized independent webcaster (e.g., two or three people working out of a home office or dorm room) that has had, say, an average audience of 1,000 listeners for the past three years, the bill for retroactive royalties -- which will come due sometime early this summer if the CARP rate recommendation is approved -- would be $525,600!

• In addition to the link Reed suggested about saving Internet Radio, he apparently got Doc Searls worked up enough about it to write It's time to show these fuckers what Democracy is all about. Nice work. [Reed]
• Mourning After - the Democratic Party realizes that campaign finance reform may not be a good thing for the minority party.

  No constituency to speak of actually likes this bill or pressed any Democrats to support it. It was passed on the strength of Democratic anxiety over being called to hypocrisy by the elite media.

  I got one of Martin Sabo's regular updates in the mail yesterday. He was pretty proud of voting for the bill. [fark!]
• The Shifted Librarian talks about a Salon article I can't read because I don't subscribe. But the gist is that libraries are getting requests under the USA PATRIOT Act for lists of what people have been reading. I guess buying books from bookstores using cash, and no frequent buyer's card isn't a bad idea. Failing that, sit in the library, and don't check out that book. Or just spend your life surfing the web. The article is a followup to the Big Brother is Watching you Read article I pointed to on President's Day.
• If you're looking to Dump MSN, this website has a list of alternative ISPs as well as a list of who to complain to about Qwest's lack of disclosure.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 8, 2002     March 8 in History

• As technology rolls on, batteries don't. If batteries had advanced at the same rate as CPUs, a double-A cell would contain more energy than a tactical nuke. [fark!]
• Batteries Fail to Keep Pace With Technology. [google news]
• Casio Adds Life to Mobile Devices by putting together a fuel-cell that could be a commercial product within a couple years. Cool. Maybe that's the solution to the power problem.
• Scientists may have created 'table-top' nuclear fusion. There's more information in Science Magazine and I'm hoping to hear from my friend Bob the Physicist, who worked on sono-luminescence, for a more expert opinion. It all sounds pretty cool, though. [strib]
• 'Tabletop' Fusion Report Elicits Mixed Reaction, which isn't too surprising. There hasn't been time for folks to try to duplicate the results yet. I doubt it'll be portable anytime soon, but it'd sure be cool to be able to strap a Mr. Fusion onto my trike and have lots of electricity available. [daypop]
• Or maybe the solution is a something as simple as a Solar Laptop.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 7, 2002     March 7 in History

• New drug stops liver damage from alcohol, but only in rats so far. Your liver will have to hang in there for a few more years before the drug's available for humans. [fark!]
• Operation Clambake - The Inner Secrets Of Scientology debunks the Church of Scientology. Take that, John Travolta.
• phpcheckbox lets you draw 1-bit fatbits art. It made me think about icon design again. [daypop]
• Boy Bands Are Making Our Kids Gay! says Rev. Harvey Polstom in an article in a recent Weekly World News, which you may be pleased or horrified to find at Yahoo! Entertainment News along with other WWN articles. [Reed, via bloggerheads.com]
• EU to ban bagpipes. Not explicitly, but that'll be the effect of new noise legislation. Should I expect to hear a lot of wailing over this? [fark!]
• Boys' state hockey tournament begins today and while one weather forecaster says we're only getting rain on Friday, others are saying 6-12 inches. Sounds like it might be time for that tournament blizzard. [strib]
• Searches have been coming in at a pretty fast and furious rate for chocolate bra. I noticed it via the referrers list. Cool. Sadly, I can't point you to a page on either Wonderbra's or Godiva's site telling more about it. The original link was last Friday.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 6, 2002     March 6 in History

• I added the Last 10 Referrers display in my Software Update 4. March, 2002. It's kind of hypnotic to have a terminal window sitting there doing a tail -f on the file that actually contains the data. I can watch people come in from all over. I bet the novelty wears off pretty quick.
• Bruce Sterling: Information Wants to Be Worthless. It's sort of a rant combined with a preview of SXSW Interactive. Sadly, my paying work prevents me from going to Austin and being a geek. [cam]
• Online Company-Flamers: Beware. Apparently the number of companies suing people for posting their opinions is on the rise. Many such lawsuits wouldn't stand up in court, but how many people are going to want to take on a big company in court? [daypop]
• the pepys project at aka cooties is interesting, sorting blogs by geography. See who your online neighbors are.
• the pepys project - Minnesota and Ian Whitney's list of MN bloggers provide pointers to blogging folks in MN. [The Shifted Librarian]
• Google Time Bomb Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine? Or is google-bombing a power for good? [scripting]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 5, 2002     March 5 in History

• After reading about the settlement that says QWest has to allow more time for people to migrate their DSL service and do a better job of explaining that there are more choices than MSN, Jim went to their site and got their take on it. MSN and Qwest Alliance FAQs doesn't directly mention that anyone other than MSN provides DSL service. But as of this morning, you can punch in your phone number at their ISP Availability page and find out who besides MSN can handle your needs. I've got 62 ISPs available to me.
• The Strib encourages us to think again about attending precinct caucuses tomorrow. But the caucus for which party? The dominant DFL, or do I go see where the MN Independence Party is going? Perhaps the Republicans or Greens. Hmm. None of them fit my political views very well. [strib]
• Switzerland votes to join UN. Now the Vatican's the only holdout. [google news]
• NewsTrolls - News Under the Radar - scours the news so you don't have to. [some guy]
• Amtrak reaches end of the line. If you're looking to take a vacation by train in the US, you'd probably better do it this summer. [fark!]
• Ann Coulter's opinion (quoted in the first paragraph of this article) seems to rile almost everyone. More of her columns can be found at Her archive at Townhall.com. While I'm not sure which reader submitted this, I think they missed the fact that Ann Coulter is a John Dvorak of politics. Say something outrageous in order to get attention.
• UserLand is now Tracking hits and referers for everyone using Radio who adds a simple macro to their site. And it's slowed down every one of those sites. I wrote a rant about it: Web bugs, and why I hate 'em. [scripting]
• I added a section About Polaschek yesterday. It talks some about the family history and my last name.

Weather in Minneapolis for March 4, 2002     March 4 in History

• Interesting. I broke 20k hits last month. Before I went to daily entries, the best month was 7k hits, with the average around 5k. So I'm seeing more than three times as many requests for pages, but I'm also making entries about three times as often. So it seems that the traffic here is directly related to the amount of content. Go figure! I also made a list of the Most popular pages here at Dave's Picks.
• Qwest reaches settlement in DSL switchover case. People who have already switched to MSN will get a chance to switch away, and those who haven't decided get another couple months to make up their minds. And Qwest will be informing them about the forty or so local ISPs who offer DSL. [strib]
• House Republicans narrow amendments to broadband Internet bill. Basically they're gutting it so there will be less choice in DSL service. Bad Republicans. Bad. [google news]
• The discussion of the real expenses of broadband over at flutterby mirrors my experience. Most broadband providers just give you bandwidth. If you want a reliable server, you'll need to talk to someone else. Except for a few ISPs like Pro-NS who offer a full-service package. [flutterby]
• NASA successfully contacts Pioneer 10 spacecraft on the 30th anniversary of its launch. It's 11 light-hours away (22 hours round-trip), and the signal quality was good enough that they might be able to contact it again next year. They talk to it at 16 baud. There's some serious bandwidth for ya. [google news]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 3, 2002     March 3 in History

• I got a touching eCard this morning. Sadly, it was in Russian and babelfish translates it provocatively and badly.

  Regards! 
  
  I write you in order to say that 4 you greatly I love! 
  4 very strongly on you I am bored! Each day, when you
  I do not see, 4 I consider in the daytime squandered in vain! 
  
  But you so rarely now are! 
  
  Well nothing, soon we will be together!!! 
  
  In summer 4 I am gathered in you to arrive:) 
  
  In the beginning of summer, 4 only just accurately I
  do not know when, in me there will be the tempering
  and 4 compulsorily in you I will arrive!!!!! 
  
  Everything, forgive to me pore/time... 
  
  Whole and strongly/firmly I tenderly you embrace!!!! 
  
  To the encounter!!! 
  

  I'm not sure what it means, but I'm kinda turned on by it.
  
  And to this person, along with all the freedom-loving gun-nuts who sent me feedback, Thank You! I Kiss You!. I love you, man!
• Punk Rock is Capitalism. What most of the anti-capitalist protesters are protesting is really statism, not capitalism. [instapundit]
• In Moving Towards the Center, a punk explains why she's dropping her Michael Moore-ish view of the world. Punk Planet wouldn't run the article.

  Immediately after Sept. 11 I started reading outrageous statements from prominent leftists that shocked and saddened me. The Left does not speak for me on this issue. I find Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Katha Politt, Susan Sontag et al's attempts to blame the U.S. for this mass murder ideologically weak and morally absurd.

  [instapundit]
• Swiss Right fights UN threat to neutrality. The Swiss and the Vatican are the last two (UN recognized) countries in the world to not join the UN, and it's looking like it'll be down to just the Vatican come next Sunday. If we join the UN, we have to sign a binding charter whereby we have to do what the big powers want. Good luck to the Swiss who don't want to be part of the New World Order. I hope you can avoid the tide of globalization. [endwar]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 2, 2002     March 2 in History

• Pickle your own Cthulhu creature! You'll probably want to hide your little briny friend if you're inviting a date over for dinner. [Reed, via Denver Mad Scientists]
• feminism for everyone! The domain-name caught me. [davezilla]
• A woman's glossary to help us men figure out what they mean. [davezilla]
• Happy 50th Birthday, Mr. Potato Head! [fark!]
• The Perils of success in 'Laid Off Land'. I pointed to oddtodd a while ago. Now it seems he's in trouble with the unemployment folks. Laid off from unemployment? Bummer. [fark!]
• I think I'm going to have to try Cheese Racing soon. Who's in? [flutterby]
• Wonderbra Makes Chocolate Bra. Mmm. Yummy! But why didn't I hear about this in time for Valentine's Day? [fark!]
• Corporate Mofo Crashes a Nerve Party. [fark!]
• The USA Register. The vulture has landed. [daypop]

Weather in Minneapolis for March 1, 2002     March 1 in History