November, 2002 full listing

• Last night I did some noodling with the design here. No major changes, but I made the things over on the right smaller so I could fit more over there. That lets me put the blogroll over there. Now a day with a little motivation and I'll put on times when those blogs were updated.
• Jamie Zawinski's Cheesegrater & Portalizer look like an easy way to RSS-ify sites that don't already do it. Heck, I might even be able to make an RSS feed here on Dave's Picks without too much work. [scripting]
• That Finder Thing is a critique of Mac OS X's Finder. It's kind of brutal, as it should be. Mac OS X's Finder is one of the things that keeps me using Mac OS 9 on a regular basis. Yeah, there are ways to work around the Finders shortcomings (bugs) on X, but I'd rather just use a Finder that works. [zeldman]
• GeekMaids.Com are downsized techies who'll come and clean your computers. And your house. Sadly, none here in the middle of the country. [boing boing]
• Freedom To Tinker is a blog that was pointed out to me recently. A good article I found there was The Slashdot Effect which talks about how slashdot's moderation doesn't always catch bad information. That's part of the reason I quit reading slashdot a long time ago. Turning the moderation up to 5 still doesn't fix the signal-to-noise ratio, and I don't have the time to sort the good from the bad myself. [some guy]
• Homeopathy tested -- US$1M at stake Are the highly-dilute solutions of homeopathy of any value in medicine? The BBC program Horizon (like PBS's NOVA) decided to conduct their own scientific experiment (their first) to determine if homeopathy lived up to its claims. The result? Read the article. Skeptic James Randi was there to observe and offers more details in his weekly commentary. [Reed, via Colby Cosh]
• Did I mention I was Giving away a camera? I know it's a holiday weekend, but the response-rate has been slower than I expected. I guess you're all spending a lot of time working on really good entries.

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

• Folk-blues legend Dave Ray dies at 59. Dave died at home yesterday. The cancer got him. Expect the Friday the 13th of December show at First Avenue to be a memorial show, though there's no official word yet. [strib]
• Steal This Book is now available online. It's about time. [boing boing]
• FDA OKs over-the-counter Claritin sales, which I figured was a good thing. But apparently it has a lot of people worried because it means antihistamines for folks will now be over the counter, so they won't be covered by health insurance. I don't see the problem if health-insurance rates drop accordingly, but they probably won't. [strib]
• Plumbing probe: 'People are curious', while Dean Zimmerman engages in some moral relativism, saying I'm not condoning what Biernat did, but in the greater scheme of things… it isn't like he took $10 million out of the public coffers. In the greater scheme of things, it was corruption of an elected official. It's a big deal. And it's sounding like there are going to be more crooks booted out of office before it's done. [strib]
• For all your cooking and shooting needs -- Pans.com. I [Steph] searched Pans.com for "replacement" -- looking for a frying pan replacement handle (yeah, Jenny, you know it was for you) and came up with a bunch of gun stuff. When I sent them a message saying whoa, you freaked me out they sent me a really nice email in return -- the kind of message that companies really interested in customer service send. So, if you need a pan, or, uh, a gun thingie, try Pans.com. (Or apparently Moosegear.com) [steph]
• Finally, I'd like to point out that Thanksgiving, being the gorge-fest that it is, is a shitty day to have what might politely be referred to as an upset stomach.

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

• Not much in the way of linky goodness today. Nothing's been catching my eye. I don't have a lot of other things for you today, but I at least updated my Daily Reading List.
• Fetishists Really Love Their Macs. Hrm. There's some people out there I'm kinda glad I don't hang out with. [some guy]
• ISP may implement download caps to slow file swapping. But heck, my ISP has a download cap. They're pretty big numbers usually, and you have to be a hard-core file-swapping-geek to get close to 'em, as far as I know. I guess I just don't see what the problem is. [scripting]
• GlennF's Eroding Personal Time talks about the perils of ubiquitous computing. But y'know, all these devices have an off switch.... [boing boing]
• Says here the Hi-tech workplace no better than factories. Well, except for the air-conditioning. Computers don't work so well in a sweatshop. Oh, and the getting your arm ripped off by heavy machinery part. And maybe the inhaling oil fumes from the lathes. And the molten steel. Okay, so maybe things are a little better. [some guy]

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

• I realize my rant yesterday might have sounded like I was whining. To make it up to y'all, I've decided to give away a digital camera. Go read the page for more information.
• Speaking of cameras: Lost America: Night Photography of Abandoned Places The photographer uses a fairly consistent technique: All my night shooting is done within 4 nights of the full moon. Colored lights and long exposures give it a distinct and creepy look. This picture of bank ruins in Rhyolite Nevada is a good example. [And no, the cheap digital camera I'm giving away won't let you do this sort of thing. via Reed]
• Says here in the Real-Time Testing of Internet Filtering in China, that Dave's Picks doesn't get filtered. Woo?
• Peter Gammons lists 25 things wrong with baseball [warning: popups]. It's a fairly good list.
• RIAA stages raid on US Navy. France Surrenders.
• And The RIAA fires back at the Register. [scripting]
• ImplosionWorld.com shows buildings being imploded.
• Problems with proposed site prompt Vikings to end talks with the U of M. Which means the stadium, is, at least for now, not going to get dropped into our neighborhood.
• Bush signs homeland security bill into law. And so it begins. [strib]

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

• I checked my to-do list yesterday (actually the to-done list) on my hiptop, and I realized it's actually been a pretty productive month. Did the monthly updates on the MHNA page, added a list of neighborhood churches, moved the scripts to index Dave's Picks to the new server so searches would work again, ditto for the scripts to ping weblogs.com, fix a small bug in my includefile macro, update the key combinations page, install spamassassin and tweak it about a half-dozen times, get CVS up and running, put a new zip drive into my computer, hook up a WiFi base station (I'd recommend another brand if you're looking), write a news thingie from scratch (all of the existing ones had a lot more cruft than I wanted) and get it working on Kari's site so she can talk about her yule show for this year (Kari and Jim still need to hook it up and put up some actual news, but my part is pretty much done), upgrade my TiVo and add a Turbonet to it, investigate, ponder, discuss and decide not to spin Better Nerds out as a separate company, and try to get started the Christmas shopping before the stores become intolerable (too late—the Christmas decorations went up the day after Halloween). There's the regular paying work and the daily updates to Dave's Picks, plus the daily "get through life" chores like laundry, cleaning the house (there was enough of that after I got back from my vacation that it made the to-do list) and keeping myself fed. I don't wonder quite as much why I've felt really busy all month anymore. I was busy all month.
  
  And now it's almost Thanksgiving, all the stores have their Christmas decorations up, and many have announced that they're going to be open Thanksgiving day (ugh! and double-ugh!), and I still need to shop for presents, put together the list of Christmas cards that I need to write and mail, write them and actually get 'em in the mail, plus a whole slew of other holiday-related things I probably haven't even thought of yet.
  
  I'd like it to please just be January now. Please?
  
  
• In local news, Hunter who shot Browns Valley, Minn., horse is charged. Apparently the guy couldn't tell the difference between a deer and a white horse with a 12-year-old girl riding it. I'm not saying anyone should take away his guns, but the 89-year-old guy might want to think about curtailing his hunting habit until he gets his eyes examined. The followup is: Case of horse shot by hunter closes. [strib]
• Police say they've found hunter who shot trooper. Another hunter who probably needs to go through a firearms safety course, since he's obviously forgotten rule four of the four rules of firearm safety . [strib]
• Think you could run a country? Play NationStates for a while and find out.
• Maybe Biernat thinks he deserved the free plumbing, and that's why he's acting so unrepentant. [strib]

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

• Bill Gates spots the next big thing, and it's a smarter alarm clock. But what about when the alarm clock gives me a blue screen of death instead of waking me up? [scripting]
• Microsoft flaw could let hackers control PCs. Yawn. Nothing new there. Except maybe the alarm clock could get hacked, so it'd wake me up at the wrong time.
• There's a Cone of silence over the alternative computer choice (the Macintosh).
• W3Schools CSS Tutorial looks like it might be a handy learning tool. Except that it starts with the fonts in "unreadably small", so I don't exactly trust their advice.
• Search Engine Showdown says they're the Users' Guide to Web Searching. There's some interesting news there.
• Efforts to stop music piracy 'pointless' say four researchers from Microsoft. See, you really need their DRM operating system, and the special hardware. [some guy]
• GetContentSize tells you what percentage of a web page is text, vs. HTML cruft. It says the front page of Dave's Picks is only 40% content. [boing boing]
• Recommended Reading if you like Dave's Picks (or put in some other URL). It's another of Mark Pilgrim's toys, and it's pretty cool. [flutterby]
• Make a fight with Googlefight. See who's really more popular on the web. [boing boing]
• The Penny SPAM Solution? Would you be willing to pay 1¢ to send an email if you could be confident it wouldn't be blocked by an over-zealous spam filter? As proposed, it would be completely optional where the fees would fund the servers and (cleverly enough) automatically provide a credit for the recipient. Nice idea, but there's a risk. Consider the amount direct marketers spend to load your real mailbox (that funny looking thing in your front yard full of utility bills). They get a return on that investment. If they send spam via these penny-servers with guaranteed delivery they might make enough to justify the cost of transmission. You might have to raise the cost to a nickle or a dime per email to deter them. [Reed]

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

• Welcome to the Police State, Now shut up and do as you're told. [endwar]
• Take a look at the Total Information Awareness Systems plan that's been put together. Notice that the last step is Preempt. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Washed away by John Poindexter's wet dream, it would appear. [some guy]
• War terminology provides cover for abuse of our rights. Like the War on Drugs, it assumes that everyone is guilty.
• The Homeland Security Act is Why we spent a decade plus building strong crypto.
• Corporate Interests Trump Public Domain for Science Info. Hey, guess what. Free science information that the government had on the web is gone now. Why? To save $200,000? Or perhaps because of a contribution from a book publisher who was losing sales. Since it's obvious that the government won't do the right thing, we're going to have to go around the government that no longer works for citizens. [boing boing]
• Speaking of government not working for the citizens, Biernat convicted of five felonies. He's decided to resign and the scramble for the seat has already begun. [strib]

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

• AccordionGuy says you can't be a grown-up unless you own at least one Suit. Well, call me a kid.
• University facility to harbor world's strongest magnet. 9.4 Tesla. Wow. I wonder if it'll be the same kind of draw that sticking your head inside the mass-spectrometer magnet was when I was at the U (you get some pretty drug-like effects).
• Need a new hobby? Kite Aerial Photography looks cool. And with winter coming here in MN, there's plenty of time for building stuff before the weather's nice enough for kite-flying again. [flutterby]
• A pill the French call Le Weekend is on its way to the UK. A faster-acting, longer lasting version of Viagra. Take it Friday night, and you're good to go until Sunday. [fark!]
• The most effective Birth Control known to man. [flash movie] [fark!]
• Woman Attempts All-'Man-Juice' Diet. And some banana smoothies. 800 guys have signed up to help provide her diet. [fark!]
• Home help nurses threaten to go to work naked if their employers don't cough up the dough for new uniforms. I think management should take a tough stance. [fark!]

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

• Today's the fifth anniversary of the first set of picks I have a record of. The site was internal at WAM!NET at that point, and I'd been publishing things for a while already then, but it's the first one that survived when I made Dave's Picks entirely personal, so I'm calling this my fifth anniversary. Part of the the look back involved checking on things I linked to in 1997 and seeing how many are still around. It ended up being just about half for the things I picked in 1997. What follows are things I thought were cool in 1997 that are still on the web in the same location (or at least with an automatic redirect). The original commentary remains, but I've added new comments [within brackets].
• Upside says JAVA is Shooting Blanks.
• The Internet Archive better have a lot of storage handy.... [good thing hard drives got a lot cheaper, eh?]
• You need to know about the Wacky Patent of the Month. [every month for the past five years. Nice work, guys.]
• Earthwalker details the story of the first verified walk around the Earth. [The walk was in 1970-1974. The counter says only sixty-thousand visitors since 1996.]
• Rocket and Water Rockets [dead link] were pointed out to me by a friend. Cool stuff, Maynard.
• The gratuitous useful link of the week is When Am I?.
• AfterLife keeps your website alive after you're dead. [Or so they said back in 1997. Five years later, they're still developing the idea.]
• Tim Leary could have used it, since his site seems to be down now. [It's there again, but you have to click on the black gif on the black page to get in.]
• Lastly, if you haven't checked out Red Meat yet, you probably should. [But the current strip location has changed.]
• Gorilla Art - Just what it sounds like. [It's gone, but Koko still owns the gorrila.org domain, and that's updated.]
• Need To Know - A weekly eZine put out by some guys in the UK. Interesting rants. [Still! After five years!]
• Rubik Online - The creator of the cube has a website.
• Bill Gates is Salieri - A brief article about Bill Boogie Gates.
• Open Secrets Interactive - Who's buying your congress-critter?
• The Jargon Lexicon - What does the banana problem have to do with computers? [It's moved, but it redirects.]
• The Compact Index of HTML Tags by the Willcam Group is Just Plain Useful. [Although there are much more current references available now.]
• The AFU & Urban Legends Archive chronicles urban legends.

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

• Last night, my friend Jim pointed out to me: You don't have to get up to work in the morning. Well, you usually do, but you could sleep until noon if you wanted. because I work for myself, and from home. So you know what? I did sleep almost until noon.

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

• Yesterday's final tally: Neighborhood website, updated; bills, paid; groceries, acquired; nap, taken; the weekend's email, dealt with. Even got a few hours of work done. Which made me late to bed, so I didn't make it out to look at the Leonids this morning. Woke up and the sky was already starting to get light. Bummage.
• Barkley could stall homeland security bill by taking out the provisions House Republicans tacked on last week, which would force the bill to a conference to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions. They're playing the usual monkeying-around games, attaching amendments which have noting to do with the purpose of the bill. But since the House has already called it a year, it would be a delay. I hope Dean decides to stop the tacked-on amendments. [strib]
• The Editorial: Security breach / More bad faith from the House talks about the stuff tacked on by the House. [strib]
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation [warning: javascript] doesn't think much of the Homeland Security Act either, since it brought along all the bad provisions of the Cyberspace Security Enhancement Act.
• Here's a reason why I don't think much of the Homeland Security Act: Undercover guards thwart hijack attempt. But in spite of some of the most inconvenient pre-boarding security in the world on El Al, the guy still managed to smuggle a knife onto the flight and ended up shutting down all flights for at least a day.
• Man opens strip club in 'sovereign nation' south of Twin Cities. See he's Native, and claims he's set up his own little reservation there in Elko.
• Ted Nugent to run for Governor of Michigan? Ted: I've got three years to think about it, but there is no doubt the status quo needs to be tipped on its bureaucratic ass. I'm definitely the guy for that job. He's got that part right. Jim asks: A gun nut for governor? Will Dave move there if he wins? Dave replies: Happy Birthday Trisha, I'm in the Michigan Militia. [Jim]

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

• Leonid meteor shower promises to be repeat performance of last year's spectacular. And it's tonight. I probably won't manage to get outside the city lights, but that worked out okay last year, I guess. Today's already shaping up to be a non-productive day to follow my non-productive weekend. Maybe I expect to get too much done, but as it turned out, the only thing I got done all weekend was to help my friend Scott scan in a bunch of photos and back up about 18G of old music. It's a good thing to have done, but there were a lot of other things on the list. So this morning will be spent doing the things I should have done yesterday (paying the bills, hauling out the recycling, updating the neighborhood website) and whining about it here. Paying work's going to wait until at least this afternoon.
• Add-on costs permeating consumer culture [warning: popups] A mandatory $10 airport fee? You've got to be kidding. These extra costs once were limited to the phone bill and bank statement. Now they can be found in most every other industry and in government. Some of this nickel-and-diming makes sense, such as those fees that offset actual use, such as highway tolls. However, most of these fees are nonsensical or just plain evil, such as a charge from the phone company to have an unlisted number. These 'add-ons' have become the latest means of shaking-down the poor consumer who doesn't have the time to shop around or temerity to challenge unreasonable and unasked-for fees. [Reed and fark!]
• Vote-by-mail trend reexamined in wake of Wellstone crash. It's convenient for a lot of people, but it also requires people to vote before election day, so last minute changes (like Wellstone's death) are tough to accomodate. [strib]
• 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete says Zeldman. Something about standards having moved on. But the browsers still haven't caught up completely, which is a drag, but it's no excuse for websites to be just plain wrong, which so many are. [some guy]
• Land of the toll-free road is set to pay way out of a jam. It'll be interesting to see how Seattle's experiment works out. But from what I saw out there in September I don't think their congestion problems are that severe. [strib]

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

• Thanks to Dave Winer for linking to my pictures of icicles yesterday. And welcome to the new readers.
• Late last night, or early this morning, depending on how you look at it (about quarter to 3am), I got a strange phone call on my cell-phone (hiptop). Some guy who seemed to think I was answering his girlfriend's phone, or so he said. Okay, I figure it's a wrong number and that'll be the end of it. But about a minute after hanging up the cell-phone, the same guy calls my home phone (same phone number on the caller-ID on both - I checked). Now the thing of it is, I've given that cell-phone number to a very small number of people since I got it a little over a month ago. Most are pretty close friends, and I don't think any of them made the call (and I'd probably have recognized the voice). I have called a few folks on the phone, but the calls that weren't to close friends were to businesses or City Hall, none of which would be calling just before three in the morning, and they wouldn't have my home number, anyhow. But there is a gal I went out with once who has both phone numbers, and while it wasn't quite a Blind Date (if nothing else, nobody warned me ahead of time), it didn't end well. So I find myself wondering...
• Twin Cities cyclists, watch out! The car door of Hell is about to swing open. The 35W access project is probably going to ban bikes from Lake Street and screw up the bikeway that parallels it while they put in more ramps for 35W at Lake St.
• Visa, Mastercard seen foiling rivals. Inconceivable! Screwing consumers and banks to make a buck off credit cards?
• Visa Suit: Dictionary Discredited. The credit card company too evisa.com from a company that helped people get those little permits to travel. Apparently that word is owned by the credit-card people now. No word on what the State Department thinks.
• Tony Stewart is the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Champion. Congratulations!

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

• GoodGuysWin.org is a searchable database of self defense events. Real news stories about people defending themselves with guns. [endwar]
• In another attempted power-grab, the F.B.I. Attacks A.T.F. in Draft Report. I'm feeling more secure already.
• I went out and took some pictures during lunch yesterday. The result Feels like winter (15. November, 2002).
• Dean Barkley's basking in the moment during his couple weeks in D.C. [strib]
• Small-town Minnesota bacon gets big-city newspaper boost. Thielen Meats of Pierz, MN got mentioned in the NY Times, and now they're shipping bacon all over the place. Well, except this week. This week they've been busy butchering deer for their regular customers. [strib]
• Here's a quick collection of links for the Hiptop: HIPTOP411 - your hiptop daily, Danger Info forums and Hiptop blogs

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

• House passes Homeland Security department, which means that You Are a Suspect. As a friend of mine said, Looks like I'm gonna have to open me up a whole new can of paranoid. Seriously, when you look at the type of data that they're planning to collect, there's not going to be a lot you'll be able to do to escape the eye of Big Brother. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison [some guy]
• Say Goodbye to Privacy was inspired by the Homeland Security Bill and William Safire's criticism of its privacy violations. [some gal]
• Legislature says joint stadium with Vikings is not a priority, which I think is a good thing. They're talking about building the stadium near my neighborhood, but we'd never seen any word of how all the fans were going to get to and from the stadium without turning the neighborhood streets into a complete mess. And the few studies that were done planned for only a dozen or so football games per season, without taking into account any other events that might happen in the stadium. Top that off with the Vikings not wanting to kick in any money, and there's not a lot of reason to be excited about the stadium.
• Television Without Pity is pretty good. Reviews and recaps of some shows, other bits of interest if you watch the things they do. And I do.
• San Diego wireless net installs 72-mile, 2.4-GHz link. That's a pretty long haul. I need to get off my butt and get a couple-thousand foot link working. [boing boing]
• FOUND magazine collects interesting trash. And then shows it to all of us. [boing boing]
• Finally, a Study finds city men’s sperm outperforms semi-rural men's. Woo! We're number 1!

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

• Hiptop Nation is wireless blogging for the Hiptop masses. Looks like it could be cool. And the Hiptop definitely is cool.
• In contrast, the Nokia's New Phone Straddles Two Worlds article from InfoWorld doesn't even admit the existence of the Hiptop (aka Sidekick). I commented in the discussion there, and shot off an early morning email expressing my disappointment in InfoWorld and PCWorld. But it's the web, where people can fact-check your ass, so hopefully the disinformation will be corrected in short order. [boing boing]
• Followup: I got an email from Ephraim Schwartz, the author of the article in response my early-morning email. It said (in part): I realize a cell phone is in the eye of the beholder but, the Hiptop is not "an ordinary cell phone". It is a converged device, more handheld than cell phone. My point is that the Nokia isn't an ordinary cell-phone either. But in everyday use, my Hoptop does work as a cellphone (with a lot of other cool features).
• In further emails, it appears the whole disagreement here is on form-factor. The hiptop doesn't look like a cell-phone to Ephraim Schwartz (I think it does, in sort of a tricorder-esque way). The new Nokia doesn't look like a cell-phone to me what with those wings that hold the keyboard on it that are shown in picture accompanying the article at PCWorld. And we both need either more or less caffeine.
• I wish more people would read Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text so I wouldn't have to wade through HTML mail.
• For Bulk E-Mailer, Pestering Millions Offers Path to Profit on as low as one in 100,000 people responding. Sigh. Good thing I've got SpamAssassin up and running now. It's doing a pretty good job of keeping me from ever seeing most spam.
• Send your name to Mars! NASA's going to burn a DVD with the names of everyone who signs up and then send it to Mars. [boing boing]
• The Beerometer is just too handy for words. Now if there was just one for Minneapolis.
• In another late update, I typed up a quick followup on what happened in court this morning. I was there because I was subpoenaed as a witness for the events from August 13th.

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

• Sorry the linky goodness isn't happening on quite the regular schedule. Rough week.
• Ladies Weapons. Sadly they're art, rather than functional. [some gal]
• FDA Approves Quick HIV Test [warning: popups] which will produce results in only 20 minutes. And it sounds about as simple to administer as home-pregnancy tests (except you need to draw a drop of blood). [flutterby]
• Police, Clash, Costello join Rock Hall. Official recognition that I'm [that's Jim speaking] old (as if there was any doubt). The class of '77 is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's very good, of course, but they must've also hired some Florida election judges because AC/DC got in too. [Jim]
• Want some Wi-Fi with that sandwich?. Schlotzsky's will soon be offering wireless service at some of their locations. [boing boing]
• International Center for Bathroom Etiquette. The Miss Manners of the John.
• Boy's research launches probe into water quality on airplanes [warning: popups]. Seems it's pretty full of life. Bacteria, insect eggs, etc. Eww. [fark!]

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

• Sorry, but I've got a busy morning. Dave's Picks will probably get done in the evening for most of the rest of the week.

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

• Sorry. It's a light-linkage day, and I'm way late. I was up late last night reading just one more chapter in a book. Finished it about 4am.
• The Origins of Veterans Day are from the end of World War I, the War to end all Wars.
• Judge Rejects Forced DNA Testing, declaring unconstitutional the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 2000. The law required felons on federal probation to submit to DNA testing. Because the act authorizes suspicionless searches primarily for general law enforcement purposes, it is unconstitutional. But they can still take DNA from prisoners.
• Prolonged PC use saps energy, making you sore, tired and cranky. But then most offices have horrible ergonomics. And computers suck way too often. [boing boing]
• Why TiVo is less popular than outdoor plumbing, except among the people who've adopted it, who would have a hard choice between giving up their TiVo and giving up their indoor toilet.
• HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux (or any kind of programming). A female geek friend says this is good stuff. I guess I have to believe her.

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

• I added How to install SpamAssassin on OpenBSD with sendmail to the website. Another thing that I figured out that might be useful to someone.
• I also added Running around with Eric, Santa Cruz Mountains and Slack day in San Jose to my vacation writeup for this year. Nothing left but the conference now.
• US accused of executing six alleged al-Qaida members with a robotic plane in Yemen. Hrm. Guess they were a Clear and Present Danger . [boing boing]
• Yet another reason I have a beard [flutterby]
• Coping with CWD takes caution, common sense. For whatever reason, people seem to think CWD is even scarier, and that doesn't make any sense to me. Well, maybe the reason is that in the case of chronic wasting disease, it's our food that could kill us. But my friends who go hunting are out trying to nail bambi this weekend, regardless.
• More than 650,000 Minnesotans sign up for do-not-call list since Monday.
• Why some pollsters got it so wrong on election day. Cell-phones, caller-ID, minorities, shoddy methodology, and not taking into account the error-bars. Polling by phone misses people who only have cell-phones. Polling on the internet skews things a different way. And lots of people just don't want to talk to some stranger who intrudes on their dinner. [strib]
• Once strongly pro-DFL, Minnesota sliding to right says the Strib. I think it's more a matter of the DFL having slid away from the voters. The Democratic Party is just out of touch. And the Wellstone memorial that turned into a pep-rally turned off a lot of voters. [strib]
• One-party rule has its pitfalls for the Republicans, too. If When they screw us, there won't be the democrats to blame. [strib]
• Daschle: Don't blame the message. See, voters were just too stupid to understand what the Democrats' message was. Or the Dems' candidates couldn't articulate it. Yeah, that's the ticket. [fark!]

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

• Last Friday, I ordered a D-Link Systems Inc. DWL-900AP+. It arrived yesterday and is up and running now. It's nice having the wireless around the house, but last week, before it had even arrived, I got told about this problem with the box. Well, D-Link has updated firmware posted, but their docs aren't very clear about what the problem they're fixing is. And the guy I got in tech support there seemed to have real problems understanding my midwestern accent. Hrm. Oh well, the problem's supposed to go away if you've got WEP turned on, so the neighbors don't get to surf for free unless they ask me for the password.
• I also got a Zip 250MB ATAPI Internal Drive yesterday. I was planning on dropping it into my computer ASAP, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I was actually planning on getting the 750Mb model, but the fact that it wouldn't be able to write any of the 100Mb disks I still have laying around deterred me. Bleh.
• Tunisia Stifles Web Publications, jailing and torturing a blogger who was critical of the regime. Nothing they haven't been doing to print journalists for years. The website he publishes is TUNeZINE (which looks to be in French to me). [boing boing]
• If you want to feel dumb for a while, take some of the Penguin Classics Quizzes. You knew a lot of this stuff in high-school.
• Hmm. just need a TESOL certification, and I could have this swell job and make about $600/month.
• Boy, it'd be nice if Vincent's Glossblog were updated more frequently. At least there are still a lot of archives I haven't gotten through.
• The Best of British. British American Dictionary can offer hours of amusement. At least it did for me.

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

• Says here that Slobs Make Better Lovers. Hmm. Apparently the sock drawer's the key. Mine's messy.
• In Norway, a New generation chooses breast implants [not entirely safe for work]. Women over 35 who've broken up with someone are now signing up for implants in large numbers. No word on what the Norwegian men think about the trend. [fark!]
• But Does breast-size really matter? Well, most men prefer larger breasts, but when push comes to shove, they'll take what they can get. What a surprise, eh? Wonder if those Norwegian gals have heard about the survey. [fark!]
• Meet the Anti-Sex in the City Superhero [warning: popups], Terrifica, who protects single gals in bars from being seduced. And she's been doing it for the past seven years. Terrifica says she will continue carrying on her mission as long as there are still women getting drunk in bars, going home with men they barely know and feeling badly in the morning, wondering whether the men will ever call. [boing boing]
• In the products I didn't need to know about category: Sphincterine Asstringent makes your ass kissin-sweet and minty-fresh all day long. Plus, it tingles, they say. I'm waiting for the customer testimonial that says It's ass-tastic! [boing boing]
• Speaking of butts, the Colossal Colon Tour will start next March, too. As part of March's National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month 2003, the Cancer Research Foundation of America will lead a nationwide, 20-city Colossal Colon Tour from March 2003 to October 2003. Get your tickets to crawl through the 40 foot long colon! [boing boing]
• Finally, I'll occassionally browse the personals, and I've got a few questions. When someone says height/weight proportionate, I wonder Proportionate to what? And when I see in shape, I can't help but thinking to myself round is a shape. Am I being too cynical?

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

• Yeah, I know I still haven't finished writing up my vacation yet. I'm sorry. Probably over the weekend, since today and tomorrow both look pretty darned busy. For that matter, so does the weekend, but I'll try and find time.
• You can sign up for the MN do not call list online now. [josh]
• Mei Wah, or How to read the menu in a Chinese restaurant. Useful! And you could spend your whole day studying it if you so choose. [flutterby]
• 'No more music CDs without copy protection,' claims BMG unit. Well, then they're not CDs and can't use the logo. Except that they claim they can. Y'know, it's been about a year since I last bought a CD. And action like this by BMG don't give me any reason to go out and even look at new stuff. Yeah, there are a few things I'd probably like to hear, but there's no way I want to deal with the hassle of buying a copy-protected CD and then having to return it. [boing boing]
• I wrote a brief recipe on Setting up a CVS server on OpenBSD this morning after setting one up last night. It's probably only of interest to a couple of hardcore geeks, but it's a useful reference for me.

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

• Coleman declared winner of Senate race about dawn today. It took so long because counting the supplemental ballots had to be done by hand.
• It's the biggest swing to the right for Minnesota in a while: Election results recall 'Minnesota Massacre' of 1978.
• Amid heavy turnout, some voters waited for an hour or more to vote. Me, since I vote at the church right next door to me (since the one a block away that I used to vote at fell down), it was a matter of looking out the window at 8am, and seeing that it didn't look too busy and walking next door.
• In local news, FBI joins search for Chris Jenkins; kidnapping possible. There's a candlelight vigil at the Northrop Plaza today at 4:30pm. More information is available at the The Official Chris Jenkins Search Web Site
• Maps of Ancient Warfare - Enjoying Bloggus Caesari but need a visual? The Department of History at West Point Military Academy have published a comprehensive military atlas online. [Reed, via vodkapundit]

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

• Coleman-Mondale debate: 11th-hour faceoff. Their debate showed me a few things (more about Mondale than about Coleman, mostly because Mondale hasn't been in the public eye much since 1984):
  • Mondale is clueless about technology. When asked about how to get technological advances to folks in rural Minnesota, Mondale didn't even mention the Internet.
  • I still don't like Coleman. I think he's a sleazy politician (yeah, I know I'm being redundant) and will be a mouthpiece for whoever's sending him money.
  • Mondale's also a mouthpiece for his paymasters.
  • Watching them both speak, I was impressed by how ugly they appeared during the debate.
  • Mondale's politics seem to be unchanged since the early 80s. At least he's consistent.
  • Watch out for anyone who tells you I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.
  If we had Instant Runoff Voting, my order of choices for this race would probably be Moore, Drago, Coleman, Tricomo, Mondale, but we don't, so I'm going to have to make an ugly decision.
• Barkley named interim senator by Jesse Ventura. I like Dean Barkley, and think Jesse did one more thing right before leaving office. Was it partly payback for Moore & Tricomo being excluded from the debate? Probably. That's our guv.
• On the lighter (and pretty offensive) side, here are two attack cartoons talking about the Senate Race here in MN. [endwar]
• Enough of politics. Need a Used-Book Store? Write an Essay Online. The deadline for the contest was supposed to be November 1, but it's been extended. Of course the NYTimes, being the clueless organ that it is, doesn't actually include the link to the contest. The book store is While Away Books and the contest information is there. [boing boing]
• Seth Dillingham takes exception with a Violent Wendy's Ad. For good reason. If the commercial showed a man slapping a woman's head like that, everyone would be screaming about it instead of just a few of us nuts on the net.
• Tom Petty Is Pissed and talking about it. This sort of thing is good to see. Maybe he should team up with Neil Young sometime. [fark!]

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

• Countdown to a historic Senate debate: the joint appearance by Norm Coleman and Walter Mondale at 10 a.m. today could be the biggest hour in the history of U.S. Senate campaign debates since Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in the Illinois Senate race of 1858. It could be illegal, too. Jim Moore is seeking to block the debate, pointing out that there are other candidates in the race.
• Lileks has some commentary on the debate, too. I agree with his assessment of why Jesse Ventura was fun to have around. So why is that the state's problem?
• The Worst Coders in Washington - making the analogy that law is East Coast Code, some geeks have assembled a list of the legislators who write the worst (most hostile to the 'net) code. [doc]
• I updated my Magical Macintosh Key Sequences page over the weekend. Thanks again to everyone who sent in suggestions, corrections, and donations.
• The vacation writeup continues: Arriving in San Francisco is up. I'm not sure why, but this one took a lot longer to write than the others, and for some reason I ended up editing it more.
• Signup for Minnesota's Do-not-call list starts today. It'll go into effect on the first of the year. [strib]
• I got an email yesterday evening from a gal who's volunteering at the zoo in New Orleans, where Casey's at. It's kinda neat that she found me and emailed me based on my photos taken at Como Zoo over the last couple years. And Casey seems to be settling in pretty well down there.
• Wanna buy a MIG? eBay Motors item 1871775187 is for sale for another week. Hurry up and put in your bid!

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

• Verbatim Digital Vinyl CD-Rs look like 45s. Cool! [boing boing]
• Mondale, Coleman in statistical tie, with some people deciding to vote for Coleman after seeing the Wellstone memorial service: Poll results show the backlash from the service, which was broadcast live on radio and TV, may make its mark on the election's outcome. Mondale and Coleman disagree on almost everything is a useful breakdown of their positions. [strib]
• I got the Seattle Art Museum - EMP - Don and on the train parts of my vacation writeup done. And all the pictures are now ready to go. Next up, San Francisco.
• I noticed the BlogTree.com Dave's Picks listing appearing in my referrer list recently. Still no child-blogs for me. I must be practicing safe blogging.
• The tragic and the utopian visions of human nature. Trying to figure out the seeming incongruities of conventional political categories? Check out this interview with evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker who speaks on the development of human nature and some ideas of Thomas Sowell. In the same blog entry, Cosh also has a link to an interview with a chess journalist that looks intriguing, if only for the realization that the game can support full time reporters. [Reed, via Colby Cosh]

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

• More refuse to yield to road rules. And why should we? There are fewer police enforcing the laws. Right?
• Rachel Lucas: That's it, I'm pissed has more response to the Paul Wellstone memorial. My take? Rick Kahn and the people who booed Jesse Ventura and Trent Lott may have cost the DFL most of the sympathy vote they would have gotten from Wellstone's death.
• A Fifth Circuit Judge read a blog comment at How Appealing which pointed out a trivial error in a ruling, and issued a correction. Cool.
• The voter info from MyBallot.net looks kinda handy. They don't do that good of a job of parsing your address, but it figured out which ward I vote in and gave me a sample ballot that was only a little out of date (they noticed that Walter Mondale had replaced Paul Wellstone, but not that the candidate running against Phyllis Kahn was yanked). [some guy]
• The Google gods talks about the search engine that rocks. And how some people are depending on a good ranking. [scripting]
• The Voodoo Machine - The World's First 'Digital Drug'. Hmm. Perfectly safe. Yeah, I guess being a wirehead is safe enough. [flutterby]
• I updated my Logitech Pocket Digital Camera page this morning, but what was supposed to be a five-minute update ended up taking an hour and a half. Small network failure at my ISP in the middle of the update complicated matters. Anyway, it turns out the Axia Eyeplate uses the SMaL electronics, and does support the Mac. There's a Fuji-labelled version that's supposed to be available in the US, but I haven't found it yet.
• I didn't get more of the vacation stuff posted yet. I've got to spend some time today sorting through the pictures and typing up more of the notes from paper, so there probably won't be more updates until tomorrow at the earliest. Sorry.

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

• Ever have one of those evenings where you think you know what happened, but aren't quite sure? That's how Halloween was for me. But I came home and finished up Leaving Vancouver - Drink, Drank, Clunk and Hungover in Seattle from the vacation.
• Things overheard at the STD clinic Complaints reported by clients of a public health clinic in St. Paul that treats people for sexually transmitted diseases. I think they hypnotized me and put implants and poltergeists in my brain and had sex with me. [Reed, via colbycosh.com]
• Sex gives men a headache, apparently because too much blood is rushing to their heads. And here I thought it was the other head that was getting all the blood. (As for me, the headaches I get from sex seem to be metaphorical, rather than literal. Further, deponent sayeth not.) [fark!]
• Early loss of virginity 'leads to less stress' in women. And some pretty happy teenage boys.
• Breasts bare a bird's true character says a Japanese scientist. So gals, when a guy's staring at your chest, he's just trying to figure you out. Yeah, that's the ticket. [fark!]

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