A Whole Lotta Nothing

G5 powerbooks?

The most obvious question after seeing the new iMacs is this: if they could get 1.8 Ghz G5 chips into a 2" thick box, does that mean that G5 powerbooks are just around the corner?

When Nerds Protest

(Protest Sign in NYC, originally uploaded by topgold)

There is nothing nerdier than this.

UnFriendster

1. Log into Friendster for the first time in a year

2. Go to http://www.friendster.com/cancelaccount.php

3. Tell them why:

4. Profit! Feel better knowing a clueless company isn't making more money off information about you and your friends.

RSS powered DIY news

Wow, randy took the feeds from my post and made it into this: republican national convention news.

Hire Joyce

Man, I knew Friendster was kind of lame, but I had no idea they were capable of really, really dumb things. PHP maven and former work acquaintance Joyce was fired from Friendster for blogging, even though she never dropped any company secrets and simply commented on the popular news around Friendster's switch from java to PHP.

A pinhole view of the world

Ever since I first picked up a camera, I've been aware of how vastly different a scene can look, depending on how you shoot it.

It's interesting to see this happen today in NYC at the RNC protests. Jason took some photos here and so did Donald Tetto. Many of the same buildings in the backgrounds, but Jason's look like a ghost town in many parts, while Donald's gallery is chock full of folks in every frame. Perhaps it was timing, perhaps it was framing, but it's interesting to see two very different views of the same events, same locations, and all on the same day.

(this is probably my favorite photo in Donald's gallery)

An arresting insanity

After watching the Bikes Against Bush guy getting arrested, I really can't believe they're confiscating all his equipment until after the RNC for vandalism which will be dismissed. Leonard pulled the diamonds out of the Slashdot thread about it. Honestly, it's a clever hack and even if the designer used it at the DNC, writing "KERRY LIES" and "BUSH RULES" I would still be impressed with the technology that allows someone to type something into a website that gets received by a bike that prints it out in chalk.

The original Indymedia thread mentions that Sunday morning he was released, and could get another bike running again, but needs funds. I just dropped him some money on the paypal button listed on the main Bikes Against Bush site so I hope him and Yury can get something rolling in the next day or so.

An actually useful wiki

Merlin showed me Instiki and it looks great, works intuitively (using various text plugins instead of just typical wiki stuff), and the desktop Mac OS X one is the easiest to install wiki I've used. You download the disk image, double-click, and it's running locally, accessible from the menu bar at all times.

Last week I got into the habit of launching it and using it instead of having a BBEdit todo.txt file on my desktop. As a private scratchpad, it's absolutely fantastic. Over the past few days I've built out my ToDos into a pile of organized, hyperlinked pages that are useful to have around.

Now I wish I could mark some stuff as non-private/local and have it upstream to a public web server to share with others (like a "hey friends, check out these ideas for an upcoming trip" list I might have sitting here).

DIY coverage

It's great to see technology letting people cover big events themselves. Check these out:

all Flickr photos tagged with rnc, rncwatch.typepad.com, Technorati search for New York City ("rnc" was too short to search), Buzznet's No RNC photostream, rnc convention bloggers, WeSeeRNC moblog, all del.icio.us links tagged with rnc, Indymedia's RNC coverage, and Google News search for rnc.

It's like rolling your own newspaper.

We're doing this for your own good

I love it when iChat blocks you from talking. You might have two coworkers going in separate windows, conducting actual work conversations, then you get blocked with this:

The AIM service could not send the message: You have sent too much data too quickly. Please wait a little while before sending more.

I call it the "Shut the fuck up for a second" feature. I know that real AIM clients used to have limits to keep you from crapflooding users, but iChat seems to invoke it under normal circumstances every few days for me (it helps if you're a fast typist).

I hate when software knows what is best for me, and I have no say in the matter.

USA! USA! USA!

My prediction: this shot of Misty May and Kerri Walsh celebrating their gold will be at the top of Yahoo News Photos for all of eternity.

Biodome

I heard Kerry mention alternate energy tonight on the Daily Show, so I googled around and found that biodiesel is in the Kerry energy plan. Kickass, as a TDI owner, that might mean a tax break come next year.

What do you mean they couldn't run?

NBC did a fantastic job telling the entire story of women in track and field today during marathon coverage. They showed lots of outrageous stuff like the NY Times running editorials after the 1928 games saying that women would lose their ability to have children if they continued to run such great distances (800 meter is two laps on a track, about a half mile). They also showed some great shots of the woman that crashed the 1968 Boston marathon being harrassed by race officials, and her boyfriend shoulder-checking the guy so she could keep running.

As long as I've been running for fun (since 7th grade cross country, in 1985), the image of women running was an everyday occurrence (even our 7th grade cross country had a female team, most of which beat me in races) and I can't imagine there was a time where it was considered odd for them to go for a long jog. For years women have been getting closer to winning ultra marathon events and it's only a matter of time before a woman beats all men in a 100 miler.

I honestly had no idea the history of women's running was so messed up, as it's been commonplace ever since I first put a pair of running shoes on.

Someday, Amazon will have an API for this

A guy (from metafilter which he thanks in the book! woot!) writes an amusing blog post, which gets picked up by an agent, which then becomes a book along with a fake promotional news story to get it up on the charts.

Blogs becoming books becoming news becoming fake news becoming hit books! What a crazy world we live in.

Flickr innovates again

The thing that amazed me about Google's gmail was that it acted like a desktop application, but was provided through a browser. Given the limits of client-side and server-side programming, there's only so much you can do and gmail pushed it into a very capable email client I could see using full time.

Flickr just launched a new feature of their photo management/sharing site called Organizr. Watch the demo videos to see it in action -- this is as close to a desktop app I've ever seen a web application. With a bit of Flash programming and photos I've already uploaded, Flickr approaches the features of iPhoto (the photo manager I currently use) and Photoshop Album (tried it, liked it too), but all within a browser. In some aspects (gallery control, keyword additions/searching) Flickr surpasses the functionality of iPhoto.

I can see this is just the tip of the iceberg with Flickr and can't wait until someday I'm storing all my photos there, editing them, posting them, and organizing them all in Flickr.

About the only things blocking this from happening seems to be slow uploading from most home broadband connections (especially with a 5+ megapixel camera) and the unlimited storage problem.

Wired concert in NYC, Sept 21st

I'll be in NYC next month for this benefit concert, presented by Wired. Here are the full details for the event. Come out and support the Creative Commons!

Brilliant!

I was at a Petco the other day buying some cat litter and before the cashier took my $20 bill, she said "your total is $17.86, would you like to donate the 14 cents change to the county humane society?" I not only said yes, but emphatically so. I hate carrying around change (especially pointless amounts like 14 cents), I like animals and donating to good causes, but I'm also incredibly lazy, so it was the best idea I've ever heard. It was as if a group was assembled to figure out how to make my day better while also helping out a charity that features cute puppies and kittens, and they came up with this.

I wouldn't be surprised if more specialty stores do it, and I wouldn't be surprised if I willingly give away more change in the future this way.

FunFunFun

I've been ocean kayaking a few times and a couple times on a calm river, but I've always wanted to shoot some rapids with one and learn how to do the roll. Except the whole "bonking your head on a rock and then you drown" part keeps me from trying it out.

After seeing some Olympic canoe and kayak events on TV today, I have to say the Olympic complex looks like the funnest waterpark in the world. A giant fake rushing river complete with foam boulders is a place I would feel much more comfortable learning the ropes of fast water kayaking. I wonder if any of these exist in the US?

API + glue = neat apps

I love Andre's new dropcash app, because it helps you coordinate a little fundraiser (like this test one) simply using paypal and typekey. It's cool that both systems allow for third party apps like this to spring up, as this provides functionality the amazon donations/payment program has, but paypal never had. Hopefully paypal rolls this into their system or gives Andre a job doing it for them.

Body types

Back when I used to compete in some bike events as a teen, I remember that the sport tended to favor shorter than average men, and even at the local level, the majority of top guys fell into a pretty small range of body size and type. At the state and national level, the distribution was even smaller, with almost every competitor being about 5' 6".

It's kind of fun to watch the olympics and notice that on a global stage, the distributions seem to fall the same way, with each sport favoring a certain body type and seemingly 90% or more of the contestants looking just about the same. The women's beach volleyball is where it seems most obvious. You see tall, thin, tan women that look as if they all just stepped off a beach in Southern California. Then you see that they're from China, or Japan, or Switzerland, as well as the US. Men's and Women's gymnastics, swimming, and diving all seem to favor a pretty narrow body type as well. Anyone that's ever watched college women's softball knows there's a body type for that sport as well, and it's also easy to see the teams around the world fall into it.

Every sport favors genetics to some extent, but I've always discounted them and held that anyone of any shape could rise towards the top if they trained hard enough. But at the absolute upper reaches of a sport, falling outside the norm becomes a liability and when the margin of error grows thin, you're going to fall behind the best.

I've always been an idealist that believed anyone could become president of the US, a pro baseball player, or the next Bill Gates, but when it comes to global competitve sports, it seems like winning the genetic lottery is almost always required if you really want to be the absolute best.

Favorite political site of the day

This pretty much sums up my feelings at this point: JohnKerrySucksLess.com

Globalism or Nationalism, which will it be?

I finally heard an mp3 of Obama's speech that everyone raved about at the Democratic National Convention and my coworker Mike points out the main problem I had with it as well. Actually, it's a problem I have with both political parties currently.

One party acknowledges and embraces the global community, understands we are but one part of this world and it is our responsibility to act appropriately as a global citizen, but on the other hand, they would like to keep all industry in this country, control what comes from outside markets, and fight the tide of global markets.

The other party has a problem with immigration, wants to tell the UN to fuck off, and do whatever they please to mold the world into their vision of utopia, despite what others may think -- but, on the other hand, they embrace global markets and aside from a steel tariff here and a canadian wood import tax there, they would like to expand, employ, and engage the economies of the entire global community.

I just wished there was a party that cut through the positions that seem at odds with one another. I'd much prefer a platform that could be a global citizen both politically and economically, and not a place with closed borders that doesn't listen to the world, and wants to keep their economy close within their borders, but both parties come up a bit short for me.

Give it up for Pam!

If you run a web site and you've ever been mentioned in the New York Times, you probably have Pamela LiCalzi O'Connell to thank. Her weekly "Online Diary" column in every Thursday's Circuits section was filled with many a reference to weblogs, webloggers, and the stuff weblogs link to. Today's column is her last and although she has mentioned me or my sites dozens of times, I still get a little thrill each time she does. It's time to say thanks (and double thanks for the double plug of MetaFilter and Ticketstubs in her last column), so thanks Pamela, for sharing the wonderful world of weblogs with a wider audience.

Olympics underway

Just watched the US Women's team defeat Greece 3-0. Five members of the 1991 world cup team are still playing for the US which is pretty impressive -- there aren't a lot of examples in international sports of people remaining competitive for over 13 years.

Tomorrow, Iraq rejoins the Olympics for the first time since 1988 to play soccer against Portugal, which is great to see. On the downside, I'm hearing about a lot of top American athletes ducking out of this year's games (in tennis, basketball, and cycling especially) citing injuries and personal reasons. It's a shame we won't seem them but I'm wondering if part of it is due to concerns about attacks or violence. I certainly hope the games go smoothly, it seemed a few months ago the only news coming out of Athens was bad news, but today's soccer match seemed to go just fine.

Job Numbers in an Election Year

I'll grant that often you can say anything you want with statistics, but in these letters to the NY Times editor (in response to this article), one statistic really stood out:

For the last 54 years, spanning 14 presidential terms and 11 different presidents, six of the top seven job-growth terms were presided over by Democrats, while Republican presidents were in office for all seven of the lowest job-growth terms.

Is there a lesson to be learned from this for the working men and women of America?

[via dangerousmeta]

Quick bits

- If there was an award category for stoner teen comedy, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle would deserve an Oscar. Aside from being an enjoyable movie, two things stuck out: 1) Most of the white characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, while characters of other ethnicities usually had depth. It's nice to see the shoe on the other foot, and I thought it was hilarious and illuminating. 2) Neil Patrick Harris doesn't take himself too seriously, allowing himself to be mocked in both this movie and in Undercover Brother. Most actors can't laugh at themselves, but NPH continues to let himself be the butt of jokes which is worthy of praise.

- The X games were pretty much a disaster. First they confined programming to just a few hours over the course of three nights on just ESPN instead of a week of programming on any of the ESPN channels (put the whole competition uncut on ESPN 8 ("The Ocho") at 2am!). Then they insisted on showing things live instead of editing them on tape. This created a couple big problems: worse than just being live, they actually delayed the athletes for TV time, sometimes for 30 minutes or more. That means muscles and minds cooled down during the dead time and people got hurt, badly in some cases. The other big problem was that open-ended events could go on forever. One night's two hour slot featured two guys on motorcycles trying to jump over a stick for 90 minutes, leaving the bike vert comp to wait, which barely got started at the end. Then the bikes had to delay for a slot within Sportscenter (which wouldn't have gotten recorded unless I was watching it happen live), and ESPN didn't show street skating at all, because there was no time that night. It appears that advertisers have left the event (much less top-flight sponsors than previous years), but it would have been nice if ESPN could have recouped their losses by showing more of it on TV -- if for nothing else than fans. I suspect at the rate things are going, there will be no X games next year.

- this is the best TiVo story I've heard.

Quake!

I just felt a quick, violent quake a couple minutes ago. There's a lot of talk about how a volcano or two is bulging in eastern Oregon, so another Mt. Saint Helens may have a remote chance of happening. Needless to say, every little jolt freaks me out, if indeed any eruptions are taking place.

Nothing shows up here yet, but in looking around for info I found some local area readouts of richter scale devices. I didn't know anyone had written richter scale-to-web interfaces, but this is the one near Mt. Hood, showing its output as it happens. I'm guessing someone bumped this one.

Anyway, it was probably a small 4 point something local shaker. No big whoop.

When advertising goes too far

This morning I got up and went downstairs to eat some cereal, but I couldn't find the box of my favorite stuff and assumed it was gone. Since I don't remember finishing the cereal, I looked again and eventually found it.

Turns out the side of the cereal box facing out was covered in advertising for some children's show, without any mention of the cereal name. Take a look for yourself: imagine it's 7:30am and you're blearly eyed, and tell me where the Life Cereal is in this photo of a pantry shelf: